by J. S. Fields
Chapter 16: Scarlet Lucidity
Somewhere beyond the heavens,
past our stars and the black of night,
lies Ardulum.
She sleeps unchained against her golden sun.
Free to wander, should she choose.
Free to stay, as she wishes.
She speaks to us only in ellipses and orbits,
gravitational pull, matter and radiation.
But look up, friend, between the stars.
See the lights that shine only in your mind.
For only with these lights, only with these thoughts,
will you lift the veil.
Only then will you find your home.
—Excerpt from The Book of the Departure, second edition
SHE COULDN’T BRING herself to make the call. Frustrated, Emn melted into the thick cushioning of the central cockpit chair and stared at the viewscreen. Aided by the brightness of the stars, the screen shimmered as billions of cellulose strands shot across it, weaving in and out of their metal scaffolding and carrying information across computer systems. One touch would allow her to interface with the system. One small query would bring up the translated communication from the Eld. One command would send a hail across some unknown amount of space to the Ardulans, requesting an open communication line.
She shifted her feet underneath the chair, the carpet contouring her heels. If they answered, who would be at the other end? Would it be an eld? A generic operator? Maybe someone in the military? Did Ardulum have a military? What language would they speak, or would they speak at all? If they didn’t speak, could a mental connection be made over such a distance?
Emn felt detached from what should have been a joyous, if not overwhelming, occasion. She’d sent everyone else back to the galley, thinking this moment would be one for just her and her mother—Emn’s memory of her, that is. Yet, the more the putput of the ship’s engine fell into rhythm with her heartbeat, the more trepid she became. This wasn’t how she’d originally envisioned these events. The scenario in her mind had the Lucidity—well, the Pledge, really—being welcomed with open arms for returning a lost child to her home and family, the crew honored for their service. The Ardulans would be good people, sentients who cared about the Neek and the Keft and everyone else they’d ever encountered. They’d explain the Mmnnuggl situation, help Neek understand her history. They’d give Emn a home.
Now, however…now she was making a call to a probable bureaucratic operator under potential wartime conditions. She would have to ask for help. They wouldn’t know her, so would the Eld even care about her? Or could her history with the Risalians pique their interest? Instead of returning as a long-lost daughter, she was a tourist trailing Mmnnuggls and Charted Systems baggage. Traveling to Ardulum could put everyone she cared about in danger, including the Ardulans.
She lifted her left hand and ran her fingertips over the console, sliding them into the small depressions still damp from Neek’s fingers. Instantly, cellulose strands stalled their movements and hovered, waiting for direction from Emn. She watched them, marveling at the ordered and chaotic regions, at how delicate they were, at how easy it was to bind cellulose and release energy directly into herself. How easy it was to snap the bonds in the disordered regions and disintegrate the entire structure into glucose monomers. Could the other Ardulans—the actual Ardulans—manipulate cellulose in this same manner, or was this ability the product of Risalian tinkering and not actually Ardulan at all?
Emn’s musings were interrupted by a tap on the cockpit door. She squirmed out of the recesses of the chair and swiveled around to face the entrance. “Who is it?” she asked, unnecessarily.
The door opened, and Neek stepped in. She’d changed, finally, out of the baggy, gray flight suit into a sharp, black one that hugged her hips and chest. Part of the overage supplies she’d negotiated during the ship trade, no doubt. No stuk trails were visible on the dark cotton fabric, but Neek’s hands were shoved into the hip pockets, which was more telling than the stuk would have been.
Neek let out a puff of air when Emn’s stare lingered. “This was in the other bag I got from the shipyard. The other one was too big, I guess. I don’t know. It looked silly when I saw it through your eyes.” She sat down in the chair to the right of Emn and kicked back into a full recline. “How is it going in here? Made the call yet?”
“No.” Emn stood and leaned back against the console. Neek was there at the corner of her mind, questioning, but Emn narrowed the connection. “I will. I just need a few more minutes.”
Neek put her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. “Want some company?”
Emn nodded. She settled back into her chair, shifting against the foam padding, and kept her eyes to the viewscreen. This veneer Neek wore was new—nonchalant and relaxed, poorly concealing the reason she had come by. If it cracked, if Emn pushed too fast, she’d be picking up pieces for weeks. So, Emn reclined and waited. She counted heartbeats, paint drips on the wall, the rise and fall of Neek’s chest…
Finally, Neek let out a long exhale and sat up, bringing the chair with her. She didn’t turn to Emn, but instead kept her eyes straight ahead, staring at the stars.
“Ardulum means a lot to my people. Whatever the motives, your ancestral planet brought civilization to mine. Maybe the Keft were more advanced when the Ardulans came to them, so their feelings are different. But for us, the Neek, Ardulum made us who we are.” She wiped her hands across the sides of her flight suit, finally marking the black fabric. “Maybe that does make Ardulum worthy of worship. Maybe it doesn’t. A philosopher could answer that question better than me. The problem still remains… I don’t know what to do about you. With you. Near you. Whatever.”
Emn smiled. The meandering conversation was the most Neek had spoken to her since her metamorphosis. She decided to take it as an invitation.
“It’s a strange time for both of us, I think. This body—” Again, Emn pulled at the front of her dress. “—takes some adjusting to, as does the mentality that comes along with it. My mother showed me images about what my metamorphosis would look like, and shared the emotions of her own, but she didn’t really… She didn’t have a chance to interact with other people or—” Emn paused and tried to gauge Neek’s mood. When the pilot offered no additional cues, she continued, warily. “She didn’t have a chance to really…bond with anyone.”
Neek exhaled as some of the tension slipped from her shoulders. Emn’s changes, apparently, were safer ground than her own troubles. “Yeah. Growth, puberty…it’s hard no matter what species you are. You got to skip a lot of the awkwardness I had.” Neek looked at the carpet and pursed her lips. “It’s, uh…it’s strange to think of your mind making the leap along with your body. That’s…it’s unusual, I think, at least by Charted Systems standards.”
Frustrated with where that line of thinking would lead, Emn took back the reins of the conversation. “Should gods really be constrained by norms? I thought the whole point was that we were supposed to be magical.”
Neek was taken aback. She blinked rapidly several times and then put her hands over her face and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Yeah, but…you…”
“Aren’t a god,” Emn finished for her. “But I am an adult, so why are you still so skittish around me?” Hoping to mitigate her words so Neek wouldn’t bolt, Emn knelt in front of the pilot and put her hands on top of Neek’s. The stuk was thin and slippery, but Emn wove her fingers around it, determined to get a strong grip. “If you’re going to avoid me, at least be honest about why you’re doing it.”
“I am being honest!” Neek sputtered. Emn felt her anger, but again, Neek didn’t leave. “You’re my history and my culture! Being in the same space with you it—it takes some getting used to.” Neek shook her head emphatically. “And you’re not exactly the same, you know, as the Ardulans who came to my world. You can do all these things that very well could be considered magic under the right circumstances.”
Neek pulled her hands away, ran them through her hair, and then smacked the arm of the chair. “And… and the way you look at me, and when we’re close… Argh! I’m not ready to have this conversation, Emn. We can deal with this after Ardulum. It’s too much all at once.” She leaned forward and closed her eyes. “Admiration, attraction, whatever this is—” Her voice fell. “—it deserves its own time, and I deserve whiskey.” She looked up at Emn then, her eyes hesitant. “Don’t you want time, too? To learn about yourself and your body and everything else that is out there in the world?”
Emn sat back against the console and considered that. Her body was continuously surprising her, in the new ways it moved and responded. Some things, though, hadn’t changed and had just…intensified. Metamorphosed, it seemed, along with the rest of her. “I want a lot of things,” she admitted. “I want a home. I want a family. I want to have friends, especially friends that are like me, but Neek…I don’t want any of that without you.”
Neek threw up her hands. Her mental defenses dropped, and a barrage of emotions hit Emn head-on.
“What do you want from me?!” The rawness of the words bit through Emn’s mind. “You think I could just walk away from you? You think I haven’t been bound to you since you walked into that hangar bay and toasted the Nugels, since you took command of your life and got this…presence?” She rubbed her temples and stared back down at the floor. Emn felt her trying to gather her emotions, but memories kept spilling out. “This whole thing is stupid. It’s stupid, because you’ve been an adult for only a few months and you deserve time to figure out what that means. And yeah, I promised to help you, but the thing is, no matter what is best for the Neek people, I don’t give a fuck about Ardulum itself. I don’t care about the planet Neek either, for that matter.” Neek looked up at Emn, her eyes challenging. “Is that enough?”
It felt…warm. Enveloping. The harsh tone cloaked feelings they’d been batting around for far too long. A smile crept across Emn’s face, but she was careful to keep the little jumps in her stomach to herself. Neek put her hands on the armrests in preparation to stand. Emn stood but did not back away, hoping Neek wouldn’t get up. Wouldn’t run.
Neek set her mouth, her lips pursed. She made no attempt to move, locked in some internal battle that Emn couldn’t see and would not intrude upon.
“I need you to hear me,” Emn said after the silence hung for too long. “I want us to be something more than captain and pilot. Friends, definitely, but preferably something more. Please, Atalant.”
“That isn’t my name anymore!” Neek yelled and shot to her feet. “You know that. Why do you insist on using it?”
“You didn’t seem to mind the last time, right after the war ended, when we were in your quarters.”
Neek flushed and balled her hands into fists.
“You left your world. You rejected their way of life and their religion. Why should you bear the common name of your people?”
Neek moved behind the chair, placing a physical barrier between herself and Emn. “I didn’t come here to argue, and I certainly didn’t come here to have this conversation. I don’t want to debate cultural assimilation practices. I just wanted to see if you were all right. You clearly are. I’ll let you be.” She turned sharply and stepped from the cockpit.
Before Neek could close the door, Emn called after her in one final effort to clarify what she was trying to say. “That’s a shame. Stupid or not, I care about Atalant, not Neek. Even through all her religious indoctrination, she’s seen me as an individual being. She protected me when I needed it most. I’d like to think that even in the face of mounting evidence for Ardulan deities, she would never stop seeing me as a person—that she would see me as her equal, not a child that needs protecting, not something to be worshipped. That I would be someone worthy of her, not she of me.”
The door didn’t close. Standing just outside, Neek turned and leaned against a bulkhead. She smashed a fist into the smooth, papered wall next to her thigh. “Fuck,” she muttered.
“That’s the hope.” Emn felt warmth creep into her cheeks as she walked to the door and turned sideways, leaving enough room for Neek to pass if she wanted. She probably shouldn’t have said that, but then again, maybe Neek needed a little nudge. “In the meantime, maybe we could talk? I know that’s why you came to the cockpit. Your body language broadcasted it as much as your mind.” Emn took a step back inside the room. “I would very much love to talk to you, Atalant. I’ll close the door to give you space, but you’re welcome in here, anytime.”
Neek sagged against the bulkhead, folding until her head was on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. Emn’s chest felt tight as she turned from Neek to the door controls. Her fingers hovered over the panel. It hurt to watch Neek battling against her past, but Emn couldn’t fight those demons for her. All this stupid power, and she had to leave Neek curled in the hall.
She closed the door. Emn walked with heavy footsteps to the rightmost chair and sat, letting the cushion billow around her head. She had to resist the urge to touch Neek’s mind and was surprised when, a moment later, a familiar voice muttered into her head.
A Neek can’t date an Ardulan. It just sounds profane.
Emn hesitated before speaking, choosing her words carefully. If Neek still wanted to talk, there was a chance they might be able to clear the air before the Lucidity landed on Ardulum and everyone’s lives became entrenched in dogma.
A Neek and Ardulan can be friends though, can’t they? Emn asked.
Frustration filtered across the link. Yeah, I suppose. Probably not. I don’t know. But friendship…I was friends with Yorden. I am friends with Nicholas, sort of. I’d…want more than that, with you. Maybe just not now. Or maybe now. I don’t know.
Emn heard the sound of something hitting metal and a loud curse.
Neek? Emn laced the question with concern. Neek had a bad habit of punching walls and ending up bleeding.
I’m fine, came the terse reply. Would…would it be all right if I came back in?
Emn’s heart skipped, and she swiveled her chair to face the door. She tamped down the emotion, terrified of scaring Neek away. Of course.
The door opened, and Neek stepped in. Her eyes were intent on Emn, searching the younger woman’s face as if she expected to find answers there. Emn tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t follow directions.
“The problem is being a Neek.” Neek walked stiffly to the captain’s chair and sat on the seat’s edge, her body taut. “Sort of a perpetual problem for me.”
Emn nodded, unsure if Neek was seeking comfort or just working through her past. Playing it safe, Emn refrained from commenting.
Neek looked down at her hands. Stuk strung from fingertip to fingertip, the consistency changing with Neek’s varying emotional upheavals. She wiped her hands on the pants of her flight suit and then looked up at the ceiling. “If I let it go, who would I be? Just Atalant?”
“You’d still be an amazing pilot,” Emn offered in a near whisper. “A great mentor and friend as well.”
Neek’s eyes met Emn’s, finally, and stayed there. “You’d want more than that?”
Emn nodded.
“With Atalant?”
Emn nodded again.
Neek took a deep breath and exhaled loudly through her nose. She pushed herself from her chair and, without breaking eye contact, slowly extended a hand, palm out, to Emn.
Emn caught no trail of emotion from Neek. She was keeping her thoughts to herself, which surprised Emn. Unsure what Neek wanted, Emn took her hand and stood.
Neek took a step towards Emn and then stepped back. Her face flushed as her lips pressed into a tight line. She steadied her breathing and tried again, first stepping into Emn and then reaching a tentative hand up and onto the younger woman’s shoulder.
Silence and starlight hung between the women for…minutes? Hours? Emn didn’t know how long they stood a handspan apart, sta
ring at each other. Neek’s hand shook slightly on Emn’s shoulder, but Emn made no move to still it. An image flashed across Emn’s mind, of the two of them pressed against one another, lips together. Emn tried to control the smile that threatened.
Emn canted her head and raised an eyebrow.
A small nod accompanied a quiet yes in the back of Emn’s head. Unable to contain the smile any longer, Emn placed her hands on either side of Neek’s waist, tilted her head down slightly to match Neek’s height, and leaned forward.
Before she could get much farther, a loud cough came from behind them. Startled, Neek backed away, and both turned towards the noise.
Nicholas stood in the doorway, looking sheepish and apologetic. “I, well, wasn’t sure how much longer you were going, to, uh, be at it and wanted an update.” He held his hands up in a defensive posture. “I swear I just got here.”
“It’s all right, Nicholas,” Neek said, although Emn caught a tinge of frustration across their mental link. She smiled at Emn, who grinned back and tried to ignore the desire to push Neek up against a wall and continue what they were doing, regardless of whether Nicholas was there or not. If they let the moment go now, would they ever find time to get it back?
“Still going to call Ardulum?” Nicholas asked. He hesitantly moved one foot into the cockpit. “Can I watch? The call, obviously. Not anything else. I’m not gross.”
That boy is adorable, Neek sent.
He’s the same age as me, Atalant.
Point taken. Neek gestured for Nicholas to enter. “Ready then, Emn?”
Emn nodded and walked back to the console. When she placed her hand on the panel, it seemed less daunting now. Less still when she felt Neek’s hand land on her shoulder, the familiar presence in her mind now tinged with a hue of anticipation that had nothing to do with Ardulum.
“Time to call home,” Neek said softly. “We’re right here, if you need us.”
Emn sank into the computer. She followed a small cluster of cellulose into the communications system and checked the origin stamp of the Ardulan message. She fed the coordinates back into the computer and initiated the call.
