by J. S. Fields
“We just have to wait now,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone will respond. If the planet moved…”
The connection established quickly. Too quickly. Emn had a brief desire to run from the cockpit, bury her face in Neek’s neck, and avoid everything that was about to happen. Instead, she capped her emotions, pushed them down with the ones from earlier, and routed the response to the main viewer.
Emn gaped. The Ardulan gaped. It seemed impossible that the being on the other end would be as surprised as they were, but Emn supposed they made for an interesting sight if one were expecting a Keft crew. No one said anything for nearly a minute.
“Hello,” Emn finally managed. The other being didn’t look anything like her, not in facial structure, skin pigment, or markings. Had she expected someone identical? Maybe? She certainly hadn’t expected this. “We’re, well, tourists from the Charted Systems.” Emn paused and was grateful for the reassurance Neek was sending. “Next to me is a Neek and Nicholas, a Terran Journey youth.”
The being on the other end continued to stare. Emn wasn’t sure how to address them, or even what gendered pronoun to use. Their appearance was ambiguous, with medium-length red hair, translucent gold skin, and deep-set green eyes. Lacking any better option, she nervously continued to fill the silence.
“We’d like to come visit Ardulum, request refuge from the Nugels, and get some help. We have some personal business, too. I came from the Risalians. They had me imprisoned and did experiments on my kind. There was a big war and all the Ardulans from the Charted Systems died except for us. I…I thought it would be nice to come home.”
“Common. Right. From the Charted Systems.” The being consulted something offscreen. “I’m Yarek, and this is way, way beyond my pay grade.” Yarek leaned closer to the screen and squinted their eyes. “What is wrong with you?”
“Huh?” Emn looked down at her wrinkled dress and bare arms and realized what they were getting at. The two might both be bipeds with reddish hair, but she was the one covered in markings. “I don’t know. I was like this when I left metamorphosis. The Risalians did strange things to us, I told you.”
“Andal help us, it’s hideous. You want to see a healer or something?”
Emn hadn’t considered that. “Yes, actually. That would be perfect. Could you let someone know we’re coming, so they don’t shoot us out of the sky? Our vessel is Keft, so perhaps not as well-known.”
“Yeah, okay,” Yarek said. They got out a long stick of wood with a silvery tip and began to write on something out of view. “So you’ve got a human, a Neek, and…whatever you are. Risalian construct or something. Right? Anyone else?”
“That’s all,” Emn replied. “I beg your pardon, but I don’t know how to address you. Is it sir? Madam?”
“Oh, sorry.” Yarek put down the writing tool and straightened the front of their shirt. “I’m Yarek, male, third-don Hearth, chief operator of inter-planet communications. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. I am second don. I don’t think I have a Talent specialization.”
“Uh-huh. Right, got it.” Yarek turned and disappeared offscreen for several seconds before popping back into view. “I just filed your ship registration with Patrol and your asylum request with the Charted Systems ambassador. They’ll watch for you. Be sure to leave your beacon on before you initiate your tesseract so that you’re broadcasting when you exit. It’ll help them find you faster.” Emn heard tapping, and a large packet of data appeared on one of the console screens. “The third month of Arath is a busy time for trade, and we’re preparing to relocate so commerce is heavier than usual. I just sent three routes to you, along with the names and codes of all the traders in the system at this time. Patrol will advise on which route to take to land once you arrive, based upon traffic.” He looked up. “Any questions?”
“No, thank you. We look forward to meeting you soon.” Emn smiled, hoping for one in return.
“Not likely,” Yarek replied. “I’m on one of our satellites. You’ll end up at our immigration compound. All foreigners head there first for decontamination. Don’t worry; it’s usually pretty quick. Delicate ecosystem. Standard procedures, you know?”
Emn was unsure how to respond.
Yarek continued, ignoring the silence. “Great. Have a fun trip, and hey, welcome to Ardulum!” He terminated the connection, and the screen was once again filled with stars. Emn closed her eyes and reached for Neek, pleased when she found the comforting presence so near and her body even closer.
“I think I expected them to be…I don’t know. Floatier. Maybe bearded and wearing robes.” Nicholas stretched his arms behind his back. “For gods, they are kind of a letdown.”
Emn nodded, Yarek’s appearance still fresh in her mind. “He just looked…normal. Just a biped. We could have seen hundreds of Ardulans at Xinar and never have known.”
“We’ll go chat in the galley, Nicholas and I,” Neek said. “Give you a few minutes.” Her fingers ran across Emn’s shoulder as she headed for the door, the hesitant tendril of images that accompanied the touch making Emn blush.
“Let us know when you’re ready to go, okay?”
Emn nodded, grateful for the time alone, and turned to watch them leave.
Nicholas and Neek stepped in tandem down the three short steps that connected the cockpit to the main galley, but stopped when Nicholas rounded on Neek. “Does this mean you’re going to stop being so awkward around her now?” he asked Neek. Emn smiled to herself. “No more flitting apologies when you’ve overstepped your imaginary boundaries? I mean, my timing wasn’t entirely unintentional, Neek.”
Neek laughed a little too loudly. “Of course it wasn’t. And you love my apologies. Admit it.”
Nicholas rolled his eyes and elbowed Neek in the ribs.
“Okay, okay. I can’t promise anything, but speaking of awkward, we should have a quick conversation about my name.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Nicholas asked. “Tired of modifiers?”
Nicholas and Neek moved out of Emn’s sight, but she heard the tail end of their conversation as they headed towards the galley. “No, it’s just…well. I appear to have outgrown it.”
Chapter 17: Research Station K47, Ardulum
We will wait no longer! The President is dead—the government overthrown. Rise up, children of Neek, and join us. The Ardulans returned, but we were not worthy. They chose from us our most reviled to bring us back to the right path, and we ignored her. Our government, our elected officials, brought this upon us. No more. The Priesthood will lead us into a new age—an age where we are worthy of Ardulum!
—Speech at a Neek religious rally, third lunar cycle, 230 AA
ARIK WAS BUZZING. No, he was glowing. No, he was buzzing and glowing as energy from the panel whipped into him. That he could somehow hold it, contain it around himself was even more surprising than the visualized cellulose. The shriek of the alarms didn’t seem so urgent now, the guards shooting at them just a minor inconvenience. No wonder they hadn’t been allowed cellulose. It was in everything, and he could manipulate it, break it apart, bring it together to release energy… He reverberated with limitless potential in a galaxy built and defined by one polymer. Was this what it felt like to be an eld? Was this what it felt like to be a god?
The flares were still in the same hall, having made little progress forward, but the number of people around them was steadily growing. How many guards were at the station? There had to be twenty or thirty already facing them, and more were pouring in from both ends of the hall.
Arik had formed a small circle with the other flares, with Ukie and Kallik facing the front, and Tik and Arik facing the rear. Kisak, finally, had joined them all, and now pulled back from the interface and moved next to Ukie. Arik counted another fifteen guards amassed at both ends of the hall. They weren’t going to get out of the facility without someone getting hurt. As if on cue, a rifle discharge flew at his head but splattered widely as Arik disassem
bled the cellulose before it could hit him. The momentum pushed him sideways into Tik as a shower of crystallites burst across his vision, but he remained unharmed.
Another shot, this one of pure energy, streaked from behind him and caught the guard directly in the chest. The guard dropped to the floor, her body spasming for several moments before lying still. Tendrils of smoke curled out from her ears and nose and then dissipated.
That was very satisfying, Kisak said smugly. You kids should try it, too.
Arik hesitated. He hadn’t planned on killing anyone. There had to be a way to simply knock the guards unconscious—
Shots, cellulose-laced and otherwise, arced throughout the hall. The air grew choked with acrid fumes. Arik stumbled forward, trying to find the wall, but ran instead into a male guard. The guard brandished a knife—a long, thin piece of metal slightly curved at the tip. Arik reacted. He pushed at the energy around him, focused on the man’s face. The blast hit. The guard fell to the floor, jerking and smoking. Still clasped in his hand was the Dulan knife. Arik shuddered and kicked the weapon away. He’d not seen a ceremonial knife outside a museum, but he knew exactly what they were used for. That the guards here were carrying them…
There was no hesitation this time when three more guards rushed at him, grabbing Arik and forcing him to the ground. There was another glint of metal in the hand of the shorter female as they rolled Arik onto his stomach and pulled up the back of his shirt to expose the base of his spine. Arik waited until he felt coolness of the metal on his skin before releasing his remaining energy. It dispersed into his body and then radiated outwards and into the guards. Hands jerked away. The knife fell onto his back. Arik kicked himself over and sprang to his feet. On the ground around him lay three blackened corpses, curled and blistered and unrecognizable. Arik tried to think about their families, the first dons he had just robbed of a parent, but he couldn’t take his eyes from the knife. Sacrificial Dulan knives hadn’t been used in almost six thousand years. They had no place in modern society, not among civilized sentients. The guards had no right to use them against fellow Ardulans.
Stillness descended as Arik looked around. Crumpled, smoking bodies lay in clumps across the floor, some charred black, others simply frozen in wide-eyed shock.
That’s all from this group, Ukie said. There was a smugness in her voice that Arik found disquieting. He’d culled sickly titha on his family’s farm before, burned lesser trees to heat their home, but this smell, what he saw before him, was garish. Ardulans killing Ardulans was…it wasn’t right. His parents would be horrified. He should have been horrified.
We should keep going, Arik suggested, stepping around bodies he didn’t want to look at. If we’re lucky, we can find a way out before they call in more guards.
Do you think we should go back for the others? Ukie asked as the group started walking. If everyone can do this, we’d have no problems escaping.
Kisak shot a scientist as she exited a room. Her body fell to floor in a heap, white lab coat billowing out from her waist. The time it would take us to convince them to come along could mean the difference between a hasty, successful escape and a bloody, unsuccessful one, Kisak said wryly. Three more scientists turned the corner and stood, wide-eyed, in front of the group before Kisak shot them as well. We need to keep moving. We either need to find a ship or the central communications hub.
What they needed was to stop killing people. Getting out of the hall was probably the fastest way to achieve that. The hub sounds like a good idea, Arik said as he stopped at a forked hallway. Any of you want to make a guess? Left or right?
Both, Tik suggested. I’ll go with Ukie and Kallik to the left, you and Kisak go to the right. If either group finds something worth mentioning, we’ll call.
Perhaps Arik could talk Kisak down from increasing the body count if they were together. He nodded, and the two resumed their quick pace down another identical hall. White and gray plastic buffered them as they wound through arced corridors devoid of any other beings. A final right turn brought them face-first to a closed door made of solid andal.
This looks promising, Kisak said. Zie grabbed the handle, turned it to the right, and then slammed into the door, throwing it open. Inside, a woman with short, black hair and a glass beaker in one hand stumbled from her chair and backed up against the wall. Kisak raised zir hand, but Arik stilled zir.
Wait! That one is a healer. He pointed to her exposed wrist—at the arcs of three circles peeking out just above the sleeve cuff—and then at the single circle embroidered on her lab coat lapel. Let’s get some information.
Kisak rolled zir eyes but dropped zir hand, gesturing for Arik to move ahead.
Arik put both his hands out, palms up, and tried to smile reassuringly. We just want to talk, he sent to her, hoping she wouldn’t mind communicating telepathically.
The woman continued to press up against the wall. The beaker fell from her hand and shattered against the floor, glass spilling over her feet. Her hands began to flutter, reaching for objects well outside her grasp as if holding something would bring solace.
“About…about what?” she replied. “I don’t have anything of value. I can’t cure you. Please, just leave me alone.”
Arik reached to the left of the woman, righted her stool, and then patted the seat. Sit down. We just want information. You’re a healer, right?
She nodded, but did not sit. Instead, she leaned over and grabbed a long glass pipette and began to turn it over and over in her hands. Arik pulled another stool from underneath her lab bench and sat down, facing her. Do you work on us? Do research?
“Yes.” The bulb fell off the pipette, and the woman trembled.
Good. Can you tell me why we can’t talk?
The woman placed the pipette gingerly back onto the bench and then brought her hands together over her nose and mouth. She kept her eyes on Arik, wariness replacing fear, as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The mechanism isn’t entirely understood yet. Please understand that. We think that it is a side effect of flaring”.
Arik looked at Kisak, who shrugged zir shoulders. Sorry, the what now?
“Flaring. It’s the term used to describe manifesting another Talent at one’s third don. It isn’t common knowledge because it generally only happens once in a while, when we need a new eld.”
Arik nodded in understanding. Right. The Eld have two Talents each.
The woman brought her hands down. Her head tilted slightly to the left as her eyes narrowed. She was getting irritated, which was a particularly reckless move considering Arik and Kisak were the ones with all the power.
“Yes. They get one when they emerge from first don, and a second when they become third don. But in some people, in flares…something goes wrong. A chain reaction starts, caused by your second don manifest. You get one Talent. Then you flare into a second Talent. Then the reactions keep happening all over your body, until every vein is emblazoned. The barrage of Talents…flares like you cannot process it at the rate they appear. We believe that it causes damage. Things rip—things break. You lose your ability to speak.”
Arik put his hands on the woman’s face, squaring it and forcing her to look at him. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. If she was lying, he could see no trace of it, even under the growing disdain.
Can it be repaired? Kisak interjected. It’s just torn tissue and ligaments, right?
The woman pulled herself from Arik’s grasp. “Yes, I am sure it could be. Perhaps in five minutes, by a skilled healer.”
Arik slapped the side of his stool. Five minutes? That’s all it would take? Were their lives worth so little? Was his life on par with a subspecies, a Keft, a Yishin, a Neek? He spat. Surely not a Neek.
Why do you people keep us mute? Kisak asked her, zir tone too calm. Zie pulled the woman forward and slapped her across the face. She reeled back, cupping her cheek, eyes blazing. She balled her fists but held her arms at her sides, tense.
“We don’t waste reso
urces on superfluous tasks.”
My speech isn’t superfluous! Arik stood and kicked his stool. It fell to the floor and landed on a large piece of the beaker, crushing the glass further. The woman jumped back. He’d thought to reprimand Kisak for slapping the healer, but damn it, Arik was ready to do it himself. Did you ever consider that treating us like people might have had this whole situation, Arik said, gesturing widely, end differently?
The woman glared, silent and defiant.
Arik refused to rein in his anger. Are Ardulan scientists just incompetent? How long has this been going on? Why don’t you have a cure for flaring yet? Why are we sequestered like this? Are we contagious? If we are, does it matter? Wouldn’t society be better with everyone having all the Talents?
The woman took a step forward, fists balled, as if she were going to physically attack Arik. He laughed and shook his head. He was the one who had been locked up. He was the one who couldn’t see his family, care for his plantations. It was his saplings that were dying now, because of all this. The problem wasn’t them. It wasn’t the flares. It was all the other Ardulans—all the petulant little single Talents too afraid to leave their comfort zone, to change the status quo. There was inferiority here, but it wasn’t his. There was reason to be angry, but it wasn’t hers.
Kisak reached out and put a hand on Arik’s shoulder. I really don’t think you’re going to get much else out of this one, zie said. If you want information, just query the computer. I’m sure the scientists keep data on all the experiments. We can take a look when we find the central communication hub.
The warmth from Kisak’s hand was soothing. Arik’s anger refined, took on a more stable form. He punched the woman in the nose, chasing the hit with energy stolen from a nearby panel. The healer’s head hit the wall and rebounded back before her entire body fell onto the floor amidst tiny pieces of glass.
Come on, Kisak chuckled, steering Arik out the door. We’ll retrace our steps and follow the others. We’re done here.
