by Far Freedom
That’s all?
Indeed not.
What else?
First you pick the correct answer.
Okay, so, you’re implying the correct answer is not the correct answer. Implications can be obvious sometimes.
The light from distant stars is not very old. What do I do with relativity, dude?
Make it a special case?
Thanks for the help. What else do I get?
A lot of trouble. But you’ll never be lonely.
Fortune tellers do a better job than you, dude.
First you swear to believe the correct answer, dude.
I’m supposed to take you seriously?
Take off your glasses. Look out the window.
I see Venus. So?
Without your glasses.
Whoa, dude! You’re scaring me now. Damn! I can see my car down there! Time to get serious, dude.
I swear that light from distant stars is not very old! Now what?
Prove it.
Gonna be tough, dude.
Tougher than Rachmaninoff?
Now you’re getting mean.
Piano or astronomy. You made the correct choice. As long as you don’t quit. I’m not a quitter. You got any hints?
Talk with Milly. She might help.
That’s her nickname? Too familiar, dude.
You’re wasting time, dude. This is the first day of the rest of your life.
When do I get the girl?
Which one?
Excellent, dude! How many?
You’re well past adolescence, dude.
I’m getting a late start. You know. I’m not really a dude.
I know. Two. Plus offspring.
How do you know all of this? Talk about fantasy.
The future is not yet written but probabilities may be measured.
Show me the probabilities.
Get down on your knees and behold, Samuel Lee.
Is this going to hurt?
A lot. But you won’t remember.
Zakiya forbade killing but as I climbed over the tangle of furniture I saw several golden bodies that could be dead. Many were moving feebly. Zakiya, Alex, and Pan were obviously dead. I turned to see another Golden One gain its feet and bring a rifle to bear on me. It was short and wore black clothing. I waited for it to shoot me but when it took too long I walked past it. I heard the rifle fall to the floor. I heard it emit a high keening wail of despair. I stopped thinking about it. I walked toward the big door behind which Melvin said Milly still lived. It was doubtful I could open the door. Time had run out. Jessie would never be revived, nor any of the others. The Black Fleet was probably paying a visit to all of the Earth System space cities and countries. Perhaps even the Freedom hadfallen victim.
We tried to believe in our altruism but we failed the ideal. We shared the noble desire to save humanity from the probable cataclysm that would occur if we removed the Lady in the Mirror from power over the Black Fleet. We decided - too late - to leave her alone, so that we would not be responsible for so much death and destruction. Yet, if the Lady in the Mirror remained, and if all of the threat factors expanded in the future, and if the Lady in the Mirror did cease for whatever reason, even more people would suffer and die in that future time. Alex and Zakiya, Pan and Pete, and I - all of us had blood on our hands and were laden with guilt. We were already damned. We accepted our fate. We would continue the apocalypse.
Humanity was too widely spread to soon become extinct, regardless of what I thought it deserved. What were a few million or billion lives when many more would survive in the vast reaches of space?
I had lived seven hundred years and hadn’t outlived my human defects. I was still a barbarian. I was hurt and angry and vengeful. I loved and was loved but was now empty of love. My only good thought was that Sunny would surely survive, somewhere far away.
The big door opened. The room was large and circular and in its center was a glass tank filled with blue liquid. I was drawn to the color in the otherwise white room. All of the plumbing and all of the cabling converged on the blue tank. I could see nothing inside it, nor was I mentally able to even wonder about its purpose. I walked closer simply through momentum.
Then I saw it: pale, naked, suspended in the blue liquid, moving in little jerks or spasms. Its face was human and aged and filled with pain. Its eyes were open but sightless. Its movements subsided to death-like stillness. The liquid made it difficult to distinguish its features but I began to feel it was female. My broken mind slowly made the logical deduction and I knew it was Milly.
Then I saw it: bright, screaming its song of death, suspended in the blue liquid as a reflection, moving in and out of existence as it rotated. It was the Lady in the Mirror. She was behind me.
I turned.
The mirror stopped.
578 Far Freedom The Lady saw me.
We didn’t know each other.
I jumped.
I was abandoning Sunny and Sammy! Through her looking glass.
Section 021 Milly
Another day. Another day without memories. I was born into this world as an adult with legs that looked good but didn’t function very well. I was born with a brain that thought too much but had almost nothing to think about. I could speak a strange language they called Twenglish, which was a dead language that everyone nevertheless seemed to speak. A dead language for a dead person. Why was I taking up space in this village-in-space called Freedom? I was dead but they wouldn’t bury me. At least I was a walking dead.
Doctor Mnro (“Call me Aylis.”) came to walk with me. She tried to be upbeat and positive and largely succeeded, but she received no encouragement from me. I resented her much of the time, for she had the power of life or death and she would not give me either.
It was not a good day for her to visit me. Despite the pharmacy she applied to my body and mind, despair remained my constant state. Perhaps today Mnro had reduced my drug dosage. My thoughts raced out of control, repeating my mantra of hopelessness: I can’t remember and I don’t want to remember! If I could only stop thinking! Today was a very bad day.
She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then she said, “Quit limping, Milly! You can walk better than that.”
Aylis was cruel. Or she was impatient. I had to admit I was taking a long time to work the kinks out of my legs. How many exercises did she force me to do, to smooth out my torso, especially my stomach? What happened to me? It might have helped if Aylis told me something - anything - about myself. What was she hiding from me? Did I really want to know? No.
“I have a baby,” she said, out of the blue. Silence from me. Did she want to be congratulated? “Six months old. She makes me so happy. She gives me a reason to go on.” I listened with resistant interest but didn’t respond. “…reason to go on.” So, there was a possibility of some sadness in Merry Mnro’s life? “I brought her with me.”
It sounded like a threat. I was ready to go home. I didn’t want to go home. Her baby would be there. The baby would not be alone. The alien named Setek-Ren would be there with it. Alien. She loved him! Maybe in a few years I could get used to how different he was. God. I probably would. Did she think a baby could replace today’s dosage of happy juice?
“Why are you so sad all the time, Milly?”
“If you ask me often enough, you think I’ll finally tell you?”
“Good. You said something.” So I said nothing for awhile. Aylis said: “I’m sorry, Milly.”
I was beginning to believe Milly was my real name. I quit asking her how she knew that. It must be some deep dark secret that made her hurt like hell to even think about it. Good. Keep it deep and dark. I didn’t want to know. It’s just that I was always interested in how you solved the equation for “x.” If Milly was “x,” what was the equation? “deep”-squared plus “dark”-squared equals Milly-squared? I was the radius of a circle, spinning and spinning, going nowhere, deeply and darkly.
“We can get specialists who can do a be
tter job of treating your condition. I’m sorry if I’m prolonging your agony.” She was prolonging it just by keeping me alive. I was pretty sure I should be dead.
We came back to my little apartment by the lake. Mnro stopped before climbing the porch steps. She looked over at the vacant apartment next to mine, the one with the creepy android sitting dead in the corner of the patio. The way she pulled her gaze away told me something. She knew the former occupants and now they were gone. Forever.
I could hear the babies - more than one? - as we entered my apartment. If anything, I felt even more depressed. I knew they were trying very hard to help me but I couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t working. Setek-Ren was too alien. Mnro was too bossy. I was too catatonic. I couldn’t feel anything for anybody but myself.
I was a little surprised when Mnro introduced me to Zelda. Zelda? Zelda was too dark to have Mnro and Setek-Ren as parents. No poker face have I. “I am her mother, Milly. Her father is dead. I love her so much.”
She offered to let me hold the infant. I wanted to but I declined. This was all becoming unbearable. It was such an obvious obnoxious ploy. I didn’t think I had any maternal instincts. Then I saw the other baby. Mnro said nothing. She watched me react. What did I do? I looked. I looked away.
Alien. Really alien. Just a glimpse of gold. Big blue-and-brown speckled eyes.
I looked away. That meant I looked again. Then I couldn’t look away. He smiled at me. He smiled at me! I found myself taking one step, then another, to get closer, to see better, to understand… something. Before I knew it, Mnro was placing him in my arms. I couldn’t resist.
“Why are you crying, Milly?”
Four fingers. No thumb. Alien. The most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. “It’s because I’m even sadder now.”
” You don’t look sad.”
“He - He? He makes me happy.” I made that sentence sound so self-pitying, so suggestive. I was shocked then ashamed when Mnro seemed to agree with my unsubtle plea for this miracle.
“Would you like to keep him?”
“I… I would!” I was forced to be honest. My heart was aching for this child. He felt so magical and precious, and he fit my arms so perfectly. “No, I… Are you serious?”
Mnro laughed. She choked it off, turned away from me. My tiny rise of hope fell through my tired legs down to where my toes used to be. I was devastated. “I didn’t think so.”
“His name is Sunny.” She tried to clear her throat, still facing away. “He’s an orphan. Do you think you can take care of him?”
The hope in my ghost toes shot upward, nearly gave me a heart attack. I didn’t believe her. I wanted to believe her. “I have no right…”
“You have no right to be happy?” Aylis turned back to me with a face full of emotions that changed forever my idea of who she was. I glimpsed Setek-Ren and knew he was not what I thought he was. He was very human.
” I don’t know if I can…”
“I’m right across the lake if you need help.”
Section 022 It Was Always About Memories
I’ll never forget the day I became Sunny’s mother. That was my first good memory, a memory to replay as much as I wanted, making me happy.
I needed that memory today. Sunny had run off and I spent most of the day chasing him down. The ship claimed not to know where he was. How was that possible? I saw places I never saw before, looking for the little brat. How I could worry for his safety on the Freedom, I don’t know. It was a mother thing. I finally found him all the way down where the barbarian killed the two boys. My anger disappeared when I entered the shrine. I could never stay angry with Sunny. He dodged me and I let him go.
I sat down. I wanted to swear but didn’t. The shrine worked its way into my thoughts and feelings. There were pictures of the boys. Ibrahim and Samson. I had met Ibrahim, a skinny Malay teenager. The picture of Samson always disturbed me for some reason. I avoided this place.
Sunny touched my shoulder. He came back to me. I held out my hand and waited for him to come around to face me. He took my hand and we shook. He had thumbs now. I pulled him into my lap and he relaxed within my arms. We looked at the images of the two boys.
“Love me or hate me? ” I asked.
“Loveyou,” he confessed, but only because he knew we were alone. He didn’t want it getting back to Zelda or Chumani or Alex that he said something slobbery to me.
“I love you.” I brushed his hair feathers, wondering again about the dark filaments beginning to appear among the gold.
“Ijust wish…”
“What?”
“They weren’t dead.”
“Who? You know Ibrahim is alive.”
“My mother and father.”
The subject of his biological parents was upsetting to me. I somehow managed to evade it most of the time but his curiosity was growing exponentially as he got older. I didn’t know anything about them, except that his mother was a rare alien called a Servant and his father was a human. I always promised to try to learn more but my half-hearted attempts to question Aylis and others only resulted in vague generalities. I was afraid to learn more, so afraid that I never dared to demand more information, and never asked myself why not.
“What was Zelda telling you?” I finally managed to ask.
“That you killed them.” Another area of frightening knowledge. I tried not to tremble as I held Sunny so close to me.
“Do you believe her? “
“Did you?”
“I don’t know, Sunny. I don’t remember anything before you came into my life.”
“Why don’t you remember?” He couldn’t know how much fear his questions made me feel. I was torn between that fear and the fear I would lose his love because I was so flawed.
“I… I’m afraid to remember.” I realized it was the truth.
“Alex and Pat say the same thing.” The witnesses for my prosecution were children, and they were very possibly correct.
“You talk to their parents and hear what they say.” I hoped he could do what I could not.
“Were you the Lady in the Mirror, Mom?” It was a question that paralyzed me. Fortunately, I was rescued.
“There you are!” We turned to see Aylis standing in the doorway. The doorway had been left in its ruined state, its sharp edges covered to protect people passing through it. I smiled. Aylis smiled. Our smiles collided and died. “Aren’tyou happy to see me?”
“Of course we are, Aylis. I thought I saw something wrong in your expression.”
“It’s the shrine. It always hurts to come here.” She lied, not in quality but in quantity. I could tell. Time eventually heals almost every wound. Aylis had enough time for this room to lose its impact. She probably heard Sunny’s last question to me and saw the dismay on my face. She made a show of surveying the room.
“What a pretty dress,” I commented. I wanted to keep the dialog moving. Aylis usually talked a lot. I didn’t like it when she fell silent. That meant trouble.
“A very famous dress.” Aylis modeled it for me. “It was Zakiya’s, given to her by a wonderful artist. I never wore it before. I thought it would make me feel strange. It does.”
“I like it on you. It’s perfect.”
“Thank you, Milly. Setek would only comment on how well the fabric is holding up - like it needs to be in a museum.”
“I keep trying to teach him proper male subservience,” I said, weakly attempting humor, “but I think there’s a language barrier.”
“He speaks Male and we speak Female. The words are the same but I think there are only a couple of verbs that mean the same thing in each dialect. Or else we would have a population collapse.” I smiled my appreciation for Aylis’s better attempt at levity.
“What a beautiful necklace.” She wore a dark band that contrasted against the white skin below her neck. It sparkled and had a single red gem. “What is it?”
“It’s a tiny person, an AMI. It wanted to ride with me. I heard you were playin
g hide and seek. May I join you? Who’s ‘it?’”
“I think we’re finished. We’re tired.”
“Are you tired, Sunny?” Aylis tried not to sound like a physician. Sunny nodded his golden head and let it lay back on my chest. “Did you see your secret friend today?”
Sunny sighed. He had invented an invisible playmate. When I questioned him he avoided describing the person. One more thing to fear.
“Samson had an invisible friend.” Aylis pointed to the picture of the Eurasian child in the shrine. “Her name was Milly, same as yours. As it turned out, Milly was a real person. Is your invisible friend real, Sunny?”
Sunny just shrugged. I hadn’t heard this about the dead boy. I never inquired about him, assuming there was nothing beyond the simple tragedy of his death at the hands of a barbarian. I almost wanted to pursue this dangerously interesting statement. Aylis didn’t give me a chance to ask the question she raised.
“What did he say to you today?” Aylis’s question cut me off.
“He said I was dying.”
I was terribly shocked to hear these words from Sunny! No wonder he ran away! He was upset. I could see that Aylis regretted having asked the question. “No, no, no!” I was panicked. “That isn’t true, Sunny!” Was it true? I held him tighter and rocked back and forth. I froze. What was I doing? Why was I overwhelmed with fear? On a hunch I glanced up. “Aylis?” My voice broke.
She remained silent. Aylis shook her head and seemed angry. I trembled and was horrified at what that might transfer to Sunny. I struggled to calm myself and had to settle for standing up. I took Sunny’s hand and led him out of the shrine. Aylis followed.
“It’s true,” Aylis said behind us. I wanted to scream at her to shut up! “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Milly. I’ve worked on Sunny’s problem since before he was born. His father exhibited a similar condition.”
“Did you know my father?” Sunny asked.
“Yes, I did!” Aylis replied. “He was a wonderful man.”
“Mom didn’t kill him, did she?”
“Absolutely not! Did Zelly tell you that? “
