Ardulum

by J. S. Fields

  The captain grabbed for the gun, but Emn rolled right, jabbing a kick at hir knee. Ran yelped as hir knee buckled, and xe crashed back against the wall, denting it.

  Her mother’s execution filled Emn’s mind, and the image of Ran—of yellow-blue—fueled her rage. Behind it came a memory of Neek, her interference in the dreamscape, and a kneeling Risalian. Emn moved squarely behind Ran and leveled the gun right behind hir head. Before xe could react, Emn pulled the trigger. Laser light shot from the gun in a tight beam and entered Ran’s skull. Silently, Emn counted in her head—one, two, three—and on the last count watched the skull suddenly bulge and then shatter. Brain matter splattered onto every available surface, including Emn. Jagged skull fragments dropped at her feet, irregularly sized and deep violet. Emn kicked at one with her toe, and watched it skitter over the floor before careening off the wall.

  “Risalians don’t control me anymore,” she said to the bits of skull as she stuck the crook of the gun into the front bib of her dress and walked out the open door. “I can save everyone on my own.”

  Chapter 15: Neek

  Today’s top news story—debris from a Minoran ship of unknown class was found adrift just outside the Callis Wormhole. Investigators at the scene told our reporters that the ship was likely battered by a comet’s tail. Hull fragments showed characteristic large impact abrasions, and portions appear to be melted, possibly due to an internal fire on the ship. No survivors have been found. Our hearts go out to all the families affected by this tragic accident.

  —Broadcast from The Galactic News, October 22nd, 2060 CE

  She was still alive. Still alive and wearing all her original clothing. Pleased that at least she had those things going for her, Neek opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a smooth, white ceiling crisscrossed with andal saplings. She spread her fingers out in wide arcs at her sides and then pulled them into her palm, gathering the fabric underneath. It was soft, drawing the stuk from her fingertips and absorbing it so her body didn’t become sticky when she rolled.

  “I hate hospitals,” Neek muttered to herself. After sitting up, she swung her legs to the side and stood. Several loud beeps rang out from a monitor next to her bed, and then the room returned to silence.

  Neek peered at the monitor’s readings, tapping at the screen jutting from the top. The image on the screen contained her bio stats—heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity, and stuk production rate. She was healthy, judging by the numbers, and her stomach didn’t hurt anymore, which left the question of why she was in a hospital room to begin with.

  “Hello?” she called loudly. “Is anyone around?” Neek noted the three additional beds and the small lavatory off to the side, all untouched and clean. That didn’t bode well.

  “Hey! What do you do for food around here?” she called out again, raising her voice.

  “You wait until it is served.” Neek whirled around quickly as the president entered through a hidden opening in the far wall. Behind him trailed the Ardulan woman in a yellow dress, her hair braided down her back.

  Neek blinked several times, trying to make sense of the apparition. “You…” she stammered, attempting to make eye contact with the woman. “You look so much like Emn.” The dress, the hair, the way she stood just a little off balance, the way her hands didn’t fidget at her sides…Neek shivered.

  “She’s a cousin of some form, from what I understand, but that’s beside the point,” the president responded. “She is Emn, for all practical purposes. Freshly emerged into her second don and ready to return to her humble home.” The president tapped the woman on the shoulder, and she took several steps towards Neek. When she was an arm’s length away, she stopped and nodded her head once in apparent deference. Again, Neek tried to catch the woman’s gaze, but the Ardulan’s stare seemed to go through her instead of registering Neek’s presence. She’d seen those eyes before, on Emn in the dreamscape. Not dead eyes, but eyes that didn’t process sensory information in the same way as most. At least, that’s what she had assumed about Emn. Whether this Ardulan had similar mental capacities to the girl, Neek didn’t know.

  “You expect me to, what?” Neek asked, pulling her eyes from the woman. “Just forget the real Emn and go around introducing our planet to a substitute?” Neek took a step towards the president, her hands balling into dripping fists. “You can’t possibly expect that to happen. At no point in our delightful history together have I ever gone along with one of your ideas. I wouldn’t be quiet ten years ago, and I won’t now. The entire planet needs to hear about you—about the Risalians and the Ardulans. You have no right to keep it from them.”

  The president’s eyes grew cold as he clasped his hands behind his back. He took a step towards the Ardulan while considering Neek with detached scorn. “What I would prefer would be to dispose of you in a convenient accident, ship your Terran friends off-world with their shiny new ship, and personally guide our young Ardulan around Neek. However, as my cabinet pointed out, there is a certain poetry to including you in the equation.” The president cupped the backside of the Ardulan and gave it a hard squeeze. The woman did not respond.

  “You’re disgusting,” Neek spat, slapping his hand away. The president caught her by the wrist and held tightly, pressing until pain shot up Neek’s arm, and then released her. She pulled back, rubbing her wrist and letting colorful images of the president in uncomfortable positions dance in her mind.

  “You know Ardulum is a fairy tale, yet you insist on perpetuating a lie to keep our planet isolated.” Neek spat at the president’s feet and suppressed the desire to punch him.

  The president brushed a hand down the side of the Ardulan’s dress, straightening a wrinkle. “Exile, what I do or do not know about Ardulum does not concern you. I’ll not have this planet further under Risalian control, and if the only way to keep our people on-world and to keep our technology unaltered is by working within the Neek belief structure, then that is what I will do.”

  He looked back at Neek, a small smile creeping up his cheeks, and ran a stuk-covered fingertip down the Ardulan’s spine, pausing at the base. Neek shivered. She could feel that finger, its slippery unwelcome touch a memory she had tried hard to forget.

  “Now you, Exile, have a choice to make. Option one: take Emn here back to the home we’ve assigned you. I’ve seen to it that the travel restriction is lifted from your area. You’ll be provided with a small planetwide transport ship that can take you anywhere on Neek. Take Emn around. Show her off. Talk to people about how she came to be with you.” The president paused, his tone dropping. “Rather, tell them about how you found the young Emn, and how suddenly she entered into metamorphosis upon reaching Neek. How you waited patiently these six days until she emerged as this lovely creature we have standing before us now. How you don’t know why her metamorphosis was so short, but how you always knew those old texts couldn’t be all right. Vindicate yourself a little. Show the world that charming smugness. Most importantly, tell everyone how you’re doing everything you can to teach her about Neek so she can begin teaching us again, just like her ancestors did.”

  Neek had been eighteen the last time she and the president had had a conversation like this. She’d hacked into government records and been caught. There had been an official investigation. A formal envoy had come to her house. Her uncle had been called, her parents talked to. The president had given her a choice. That time she’d been able to buy herself another year on Neek with lies and caution. At nineteen, the president had exiled her indefinitely. This time…

  She shuddered at the memories. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Deadly serious,” the president responded. “I won’t play around with banishment anymore. You will cooperate, or I will end your life here, now, in this medical bay.” He leaned in. “Now’s your chance to make up for past offenses and do something good for your planet. That is what you always worked towards, isn’t it? The best for our planet Neek? The best for your family? Here is your cha
nce. Be the guide to our new savior and remove the stain you placed on your family in the process.” The president’s smile broadened, dimples pocking his fleshy face. “I’ll even throw in a settee. Not crimson, of course, but close enough for you to feel comfortable.”

  The hook. She’d been waiting for it, knew it would be something she’d find nearly impossible to turn down, but this time the president had misjudged her. As much as Neek longed to step inside a settee—to place her fingers around a yoke built for Neek biology and skim through clouds as if she were born amongst them—that wasn’t why she had come back. She allowed herself a moment, however, to imagine herself finally inside a crimson ship…before the image of Emn superimposed on it. Behind that image stood her three parents, her brother, and her childhood home.

  “I will not lie to my people,” Neek breathed. Her eyes darted up and around, searching the room for exit points. “If you kill me, who guides this Ardulan around? Your presence wouldn’t have the same impact as mine.”

  “No,” the president conceded as he produced a small gun from his belt and pointed it at Neek’s midsection. “But your uncle’s might. The high priest carries a lot of weight, even in these modern times. The death of his niece is sure to cause him sadness. He can find solace in our young god.”

  Alarmed that the president would even have a gun, Neek raised her palms in front of her torso and took a step back. “No. You cannot have the highest religious leader on our planet give credence to this…this deception.” Neek pointed at the woman. “She is not an Ardulan! The Risalians made her in a lab. The planet will stagnate completely if my uncle gets ahold of her. He will shut down science on this world. We will revert to nothing.”

  “Then be her guide. Help moderate her influence on your people.” There was a pause. Then, in a lower tone, the president added, “Get your ship.”

  Neek exhaled through gritted teeth and considered. She looked at the Ardulan woman, noting the slight ruffling on the bottom hem of the dress, the gentle reliefs of andal leaves embroidered in yellow stitching. The forced air in the hospital room moved her own hair, tossed wisps of tangerine about the president’s head, but left the Ardulan woman untouched, her hair firmly in place. Her eyes remained unfocused, unmoving.

  Her uncle, as well-intentioned as he was, would destroy the Neek people with an Ardulan at his side. But the alternative—her leading around this new Emn, lying, pushing her people away from the progress they were trying so hard to make despite this ethereal shadow of a sentient… She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let the real Emn remain with the Risalians, either. The Neek would still be alive, even if not moving forward, if the Ardulan went with her uncle. Neek herself—she would die if she did what the president asked. She wouldn’t be able to live. She wouldn’t want to live. If she died now, by the president’s hand, she knew Yorden and Nicholas would pursue Emn and rescue her. There was only one choice to make.

  “I won’t participate in your games.” Neek tried to muster as much confidence as she could. “I choose death.”

  The president’s eyes widened, and he took a step forward. The gun moved higher, until the tip pointed right at Neek’s nose. “You’re sure about this? The thought of me parading around our Ardulan here with absolute control—that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Not as much as misleading my entire race.” She held the president’s gaze and tensed her muscles. Could she juke fast enough to avoid the laser? Did she have anything to lose by trying?

  Making a snap decision, Neek dropped into a crouch and rammed her head into the president’s midsection. As he fell backwards, the small gun fired with a soft pop and released a flurry of white powder. The shot, barely concentrated, sped towards Neek’s head and smelled like…sugar?

  Startled, Neek stopped in her tracks. Was the Ardulan woman protecting her, or was she protecting herself?

  The president recovered quickly. Jumping to his feet, he leveled the gun back at Neek’s head and fired again. This time, a small wisp of smoke curled out from the tip before the plume of powder shot out. “Stupid collectibles,” he muttered as he brought the gun back in and flipped open the protective outer case, inspecting the mechanisms inside.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Neek planted a hit on the president’s ankle with a booted heel. This time, the blow was enough to collapse the man, who shrieked in pain as he crumbled. Neek kicked the dropped gun under the far bed and grabbed the Ardulan woman by the arm. She paused momentarily, startled by the lack of connection at their touch.

  “Time to move!” she ordered, pulling the woman behind her as she exited the room. She could spend time figuring out mental connections later.

  Neek quickly scanned both left and right. The corridor was white and neither side bore any descriptive markings. Discounting the whimpers behind her, it was quiet, and although the passage stretched indefinitely in either direction, Neek couldn’t see any other living beings. What sort of moron doesn’t bring guards? she wondered as she picked left and pulled the woman down the deserted hallway. Several meters behind, she could hear the loud footsteps of the president running after them.

  “Stupid Neek architecture,” she cursed her voice irritated. “I never liked the whole hidden door concept. We have to find an exit or at least another corridor.” Without breaking stride, Neek looked at the Ardulan. Unseeing green eyes bored straight ahead. Her bare feet thumped rhythmically on the floor as she kept pace with Neek, and her breathing stayed calm even as Neek’s became ragged from the exertion.

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea how to get out of here?” Neek asked between breaths.

  The Ardulan gave no response.

  “Never hurts to ask,” Neek said, sighing.

  Ahead, the hallway began to curve gradually to the right. Before following the bend, Neek took the opportunity to glance back over her shoulder. She had just enough time to register the president and his gun before another bullet ripped from the shaft. Neek caught a quick jerk of the Ardulan’s head out of the corner of her eye. The man screamed, the sound echoing through Neek’s ears as the bullet entered her left eye socket and tore through her brain.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter 16: Risalian Cutter 77

  And in our final news story of the evening—parents will want to make sure their young ones are tucked in bed before listening—a new correctional institute has been approved for construction by the Oorin government, in the outskirts of the Callis System. Oorin President Gtwyn stated that the institute was completely unrelated to the sudden spike in petty crime within the Callis System. President Gtwyn could not be reached for comment.

  —Excerpt from a network broadcast within the Charted Systems, October 22nd, 2060 CE

  Emn’s bare feet smacked against the familiar porous metal as she ran down the deserted hallway. The bruise on her cheek stung, one of her eyes was swollen shut, and she kept stumbling, the gun threatening to spill from the front of her dress each time. Finally, she placed a protective hand across the weapon, enjoying the sudden sense of security.

  With her depth perception impaired, Emn failed to see the protruding column as she turned a tight corner. She hit it face-first and fell onto her back. As tears welled up in her eyes, she braced herself on the cold floor and put her free hand to her nose. Gingerly patting it, she noted that it hadn’t broken.

  Have to get off this ship, she muttered angrily in her mind. She took a deep breath and tried to go inside her mind to fix the damage, but she simply didn’t have the energy.

  Shakily, Emn pulled herself back onto her feet. I need a ship, she reasoned. If I can get a ship, I can leave and find Mercy’s Pledge. I can rescue Neek. She cocked her head to the side as she considered how she might accomplish that task.

  Cutters carried numerous smaller ships. Neek had taught her about big ships and small ships. The little ones would be easier to fly; hopefully, they were similar enough to the Pledge that the transition would be intuitive. She just needed to find one, pre
ferably without any Risalians around.

  Emn began to tiptoe down the hallway, concern growing that she had not yet encountered any Risalians. A fresh scent of cooking andal mixed with the sickly sweet smell of gray matter and blood on her dress, making the journey that much more unpleasant. Small parts of the Risalian’s shattered head had also adhered to her skin and hair, and when Emn reached out to steady herself against a bulkhead, the residue stuck lightly to the surface.

  Gross.

  Emn pulled her hand away and bent down, wiping the sticky remains on her dress. Once her hand was somewhat clean, she stood back up and stepped just to the left, placing her hand on a fresh area of the bulkhead.

  The gentle vibration of the ship ran along her arm, and Emn’s thoughts briefly jumped to her mother—to a memory of sleeping next to her with one side of her body pressed tight against the mesh, feeling the pulse of the ship lull her to sleep. Her body relaxed, but the smell of cooking andal persisted.

  If she could find food, she’d have a better chance of fending off Risalians. Did Risalians eat andal, too? It was possible, she supposed, since Yorden said they transported andal trees a lot. She could start by finding a mess hall, but that would require a map. A map was likely to be inside a room, which meant she had to open a door.

  She removed her hand from the bulkhead and scanned the hallway. It was still empty and quiet. The lighting was bright and harsh and focused over a doorway three meters ahead on her right. Rooms have Risalians, she reminded herself. But I have a gun.