“Good. It’s a plan,” my mother’s voice announced suddenly. “Sarosh, you work on some signs for our produce at the Glass City markets. Recruit as much help as you need. Show them who we are and all the reasons why our crops are better than our cheap, genetically modified competition.
“Ethem, keep giving a meal to anyone who comes to our doors hungry. Have them do some chores in exchange if you can. Myrihn’s right, we can’t afford to hire everyone, but make sure your team keeps an eye out for a few good workers to help us expand production soon.
“Alten, Myrihn, Thekla, and Layale, you four get to work on how we can expand the underground watering system to the new fields on the southeast side. I want a report on how much the supplies will cost and ideas of where the money might come from in two days. Don’t tell me 'can’t'.” The quiet warning was delivered with a hard edge. “I want us all to work on ideas for native crops to plant there along with the new seed next cycle. Maybe then we’ll be able to hire more hands.”
I heard murmurs and growling sounds of agreement from around the room.
When the door opened, I jumped up to stand on my chair with my back pressed to the wall to get as far away from those giant cats as possible. Each cat strolled side-by-side with one of the warriors, making throaty rasping sounds I’d never heard a cat make, when they saw me. It sounded remarkably like laughter.
Alten, my mother’s obviously pregnant second in command, the only one not wearing dusty fatigues, and last in the lineup, paused as she waddled her way past. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at me as if I’d officially lost it. “Just… go on in.” She shook her head and waved me into the office. As soon as I stepped through the door, I spotted Micha, sitting docilely next to my mother’s chair at a very old, wooden desk.
“Uh, hi,” I said as I stood next to the door, ready to bolt. Micha nodded at me regally and purred loudly.
Wait, what was I here for again?
My mother looked up from whatever she was doing on a device resembling my link, but bigger, like a tablet, and motioned me to a chair in front of the desk. I cautiously walked to the chair furthest from Micha and sat on the edge of the seat, hoping she wouldn’t knock me over and lick me again, or worse.
“How did she…” I stopped and turned reluctantly to Micha. “How did you do that yesterday?” I asked. “Speak into my head, I mean.”
She peered into my eyes, almost mesmerizingly, and seemed to shout her answer straight into my brain. Our symbiots allow Ahatu to communicate telepathically, but since Faarians aren’t telepathic yourselves, we have to speak very deliberately and loudly to be heard by anyone other than our warrior partners. She nodded at my mother.
I rubbed my throbbing head and nodded my understanding, not about to ask her anything more for risk of brain cell loss, and turned to my mother. There were so many things I wanted to say to her. I didn’t know where to start.
“Dad would never call you his ex,” I blurted. It tumbled out of my mouth without actually thinking about what I was saying.
Her lips thinned. “No, perhaps not. Your father and I had to accept a long time ago how things stood between us and move on. He deals with it in his way, and I deal with it in mine.” I didn’t want to tell her, but I didn’t think Dad had ever moved on.
“Well, why didn’t you ever write to me?”
“What?”
“I heard you say that you write to Dad, but he never showed me any emails.”
She sighed wearily. “Daniel and I never did see eye to eye about you coming here. I made some promises to him when I left that I was never able to keep, but I did what had to be done at the time and that’s just the way it was.” Her chin rose arrogantly. “We kept in touch about you, and how things were progressing here. It was his choice not to show you my emails. I’m sure he didn’t want to get your hopes up about meeting me.” Micha laid her head on my mother’s lap. The General started scratching the giant animal behind her ears and Micha closed her eyes and started to purr in a deep rumble. My mother’s shoulders seemed to relax and she continued.
“He agreed that you should learn about your heritage, but I don’t think he believed you would ever actually come here, especially when I had to cancel several times. He was also very concerned that we had the haratchi under control before you came and I had to concede to having you here only a few years, and after that you would get the choice of where you wanted to live. He’s pretty sure you’ll choose Earth.” Her lips turned up in the barest hint of a smirk, as if he had another thing coming. As if.
“And I get to go home to visit every year, right? I mean, that’s what Dad said.”
“Yes,” she said with an air of exasperation, “you may visit when we go for supplies.” Thank God. And I was running away as soon as I got there, until they gave up and left me.
“Well, so like, why didn’t you ever come visit us? I mean, if you sent for supplies every year, or whatever?”
She put down the link and looked up again, with something in her eyes that looked like… well, something like regret, maybe. “Because I know how difficult it would have been for all of us. And after it became clear that your dad and I would never be able to live in the same place again, he asked me not to.”
“What?” Dad asked her not to come?
“You would have seen me for one day and then I would have left again. It wasn’t enough time to get to know each other. It wouldn’t have been fair.”
And this was? I felt the flash go through my eyes and didn’t even care. Didn’t she mean it would have been too hard for her?
“So instead, you just decided to stay a complete stranger for fifteen years? And then, as if having no mother weren’t bad enough, I suddenly have to go live with a woman I’ve never even met? A bunch of people I’ve never heard of? And I’m supposed to be okay with that? That makes no sense!” By the end, I found I was shouting at her.
Micha’s purr stopped during my outburst, her blue eyes open now and a displeased grumble rolling up in her chest. My mother rubbed Micha’s head soothingly, her eyes shuttered against revealing whatever she might have been feeling.
“I don’t need to explain my actions to you, Veridian. And I’m not going to fight with you. I made the best choices at the time for all concerned and that’s all you need to know. Now, what did you come here to ask me? I have a lot of work to get through still tonight.”
I stared at her angrily. That was it? She couldn’t even bother to work up enough emotion to argue with me? I sat back in my chair, deflated. I’d completely forgotten needing to ask her how to email Earth, and I didn’t want to ask her for anything now.
I looked away and glared blankly at the large electronic map hanging on the wall nearest me, grinding my teeth. Multi-colored lights marked spots here and there on the terrain, some of them blinking.
“They’re haratchi emergence zones we’re monitoring,” she explained while I glowered at the map. “I brought sonar equipment with me when I returned from Earth. Excavation proved useless, the vibrations from digging to their burrows just caused them to move underground, and we ended up digging up the countryside following them around. But sonar worked to map them and estimate when and where the next outbreak would occur, so we could be on top of them when they emerged, before they lay their eggs. It’s been the most effective strategy to date, allowing us to protect a much larger area than before.”
She folded her hands on the desk and stared at me expectantly after her explanation, waiting for me to say something. “Veridian,” she finally sighed in exasperation, “you got your stubbornness from me.”
Screw that. I did not get anything from her.
“Just ask what you came to ask already.”
“Do those books you sent me tell how to email Dad?” I ground out. “I promised I’d email when I got here. I should’ve done it yesterday.”
“I already let him know you got here safely, but sit down. I’ll teach you now so you don’t have to come back later.�
�
In other words, don’t come back later.
She turned her device toward me and I was stunned to see pictures of me scrolling by in the background. It was the first un-businesslike thing I’d seen from her. Me as a toddler on my first pair of skis; me as a tiny blur doing back flips; me, Andi, and the neighborhood girls at my tenth birthday party; me and Sensei with our scys; me grinning and holding flowers atop the podium after I’d finally become a nationally ranked gymnast two years ago.
She cleared her throat. “Your father has always been good about sending photos,” she said quietly. Oh. Huh. I didn’t know what to think about her keeping pictures of me either. It didn’t fit with what I knew of her. I shook my head and tried to concentrate on learning how to email Earth.
After five awkward minutes of Link 101, I realized that the little device could do practically anything; way better than an iPhone.
“Wow,” I said. “I mean, how does it do that?” I pulled one corner of my screen like taffy, to expand it to notebook size like she’d shown me, and then shrank it back down simply by pushing it back.
She shrugged. “The polymer stretches.”
After another few minutes I felt like quitting in frustration. The government had put restrictions on all communications to Earth.
“You’re kidding,” I said in disbelief at her explanation. She shook her head. “Geez it’s like we’re in prison!”
“It’s just inter-world security, Veridian. The less that Earth governments know about us, the better. You’ll get used to it.”
“Get used to it! The government is going to read every word I send out just to make sure I don’t say something wrong? And if they don’t like it, my family won’t even get the message?”
“Yes, that’s the idea. Mostly though, if they don’t like something, they’ll delete that part and send it on. You’ll get a copy of the final message.” She laid out the rules:
1)No mentioning Macawi by name.
2)Nothing about spaceships or interplanetary travel.
3)Especially nothing about the wormhole or its location.
4)No pictures of species or phenomena that do not occur on Earth.
“In short, nothing that would tell someone on Earth that the email was from another planet. Simple, really.”
“Yeah, simple,” I grumbled. “So this is why I can’t IM or Skype or even text anyone on Earth, because they have to have time to screen everything?”
“Yes, that’s why,” she said. “I’ve had your Dad, Judith, and Andi’s addresses pre-approved, per your father’s request. If you want to email anyone else, you’ll have to get them registered with the Inter-World Trade Office.
“There’s no way around it. Believe me, I’ve tried. Oh, and they charge a fee for the privilege of someone reading your mail, too.” Her lips twisted in annoyance. “So, I’ve set up an account for you with a volume of one email per day to Earth. If you go over, you’ll run out of funds and have to wait until the next month.”
What? That was impossible! Andi and I usually texted each other constantly. How was I supposed to stick to only one email per day?
“And the Inter-World Trade Office isn’t open on weekends. So if you send something late in the day on Friday, it won’t go out until Monday morning at the earliest.”
What? Three whole days that I couldn’t even email Andi? What a cartful of crap!
She saw the look on my face and made her own face of disgusted agreement. “Yeah, we’ve been trying to get that changed for years. Some of us actually do work on weekends. Anyway, the fewer questionable things you put in your message, the quicker it will get sent on.”
“Well, uh, thanks,” I said. She kept glancing at her link on the desk and I realized our session was over. I got up to leave.
“You can stay here for a while, if you’d like,” she said awkwardly, glancing up from the link that had already caught her attention. “Write your email and do your reading. That way you can ask questions if you need to.”
“Um, no. No thanks,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’ll, um, just work on this later.” I nodded at the link in my hand. I needed some time alone after all that. Information overload. And I wanted some privacy to email home.
Chapter 19: Foul Play
Back in the apartment I held my link in front of me and took a deep breath. Okay, here goes. The device had no keyboard and the thought converter everyone else seemed to use was almost impossible, so I told it to start a new voice document.
***Andi, hi! Could you forward this first part for Dad and Judith? The rest is for your eyes only.***
Dear Dad, Andi, and Judith,
OMG! Talk about the longest first day ever! The people here are mega-weird and I miss you guys so, so much already! And Judith’s cooking, definitely.
I’m only allowed to send one email per day. Can you believe that? Totally lame. There are a bunch of rules about what I can and can’t say for like, national security. So, if parts seem missing, that’s what’s going on.
It’s like I’m stuck in the middle of desert nowhere. There are almost no animals or trees outside. The only birds around at all seem to be this giant pest they’re trying to get rid of because they eat pretty much everything – including towns and people! Think: swarms of fluffy ostrich chicks that want to eat you. Today my “team” left me alone on my first patrol and one bit me. Eight stitches - my entire hand is swollen! (See picture.)
Dad, I have to tell you, I don’t know why I’m here. No one likes me – including my mother. She’s like, this military General - for real. See the attached picture that Ethem took of us? That’s how she looks ALL THE TIME. You said my mother wanted to get to know me, but how could she when she doesn’t spend any time with me? She was too busy to pick me up at the port, or show me around, or have dinner with me tonight. I had to track her down just to get her to teach me how to email you, and then we had a huge argument! She ordered me to fight someone on my first night here, calls you her “ex” – she’s horrible!
These two mean girls have been doing nothing but pick on me. And, this has to be the worst out of everything: they don’t have a gym here - of any kind! How am I supposed to practice with no equipment? I have to at least have mats so I don’t kill myself on all the stone floors!
Dad, I know when you read all this, you’ll understand. I’ve gotta get out of here! Please Dad, I need to come home! I’ll wait for your response.
Love,
Sunny
***For Andi only***
Help!! See the picture of the big twin girls trying to look tough? Well, they’re my cousins (yes, I am related to everyone here). Anyway, they seem to like playing mean practical jokes, especially on me! What do I do? Help!
Also, and Andi, you cannot tell anyone this – promise you won’t! Pinky swear on it, okay? Okay. Women here. Don’t. Shave. Or wax. Or use makeup, like at all. They’re a bunch of big military hippies! When I was wearing shorts, my cousin Thal asked me if I had some sort of leg disease that made me not grow hair. So, it’s either keep waxing and not fit in, or – ewww! – be hairy. I’m going to be all hairy and gross! The next time you see me, you’ll have to pretend you don’t know me. Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.
Your BFF,
Sunny
It took me a few tries to get the photos attached in the right format, and then I told it to send to Andi’s email. Okay, next project: sewing Meowman’s mangled remains back together and getting caught up on what I needed to know about this planet.
“I want to look up information,” I spoke clearly into my link, holding it close like a walkie-talkie. I didn’t know how to get to whatever the equivalent of the Internet was here, and didn’t really expect anything on my first try. Sure, I could do what my mother had told me to do and read, but I wanted something easier and faster than reading some boring old history textbook. I needed the good parts version.
A colorful little man popped out of the link to stand a few inches high. I je
rked it away from my face and dropped it onto the table with a surprised grunt.
“Hello, Veridian,” he greeted me, righting himself automatically. “I am BLIN, your personal research assistant. What would you like to know today?”
“Er, hey,” I said, trying not to grimace. “Hey, I uh, I didn’t know anyone was in there. I swear, no one told me to activate you,” I hurried to explain before he berated me for having left him off all day.
He cocked his head to the side, eyes strangely blank. “I did not understand. Please restate your request.”
“Uh,” I poked two fingers into his side experimentally, expecting a rebuke. The Robot hated it when I did anything that pointed out he wasn’t real. My fingers passed right though and the little man didn’t react. “Are you alive?” I asked, curious. The Robot had always insisted he was living, not just a computer-programmed hologram.
He cocked his head to the side again and stated dispassionately, “I do not require air, water, or sustenance in any form. My programming does not allow for sentient thought, nor can I reproduce. In other words, I do not possess any of the things that, by most standards, define life.”
“Oh.” I paused for a few moments, considering him.
“I am BLIN, your personal research assistant. What would you like to know today?” he repeated, exactly the same as before. It sounded like a company’s catch-phrase. Okay, maybe he wasn’t like the Robot.
“I want to know…” I blew out a breath of frustration, “everything a newcomer to Macawi should know about this planet.” That seemed like a tall request, but I didn’t know how else to say it.
“Your request has resulted in one full match and 4,751 million partial matches,” BLIN said. “Would you like me to start with your best match?” I nodded. “It will begin momentarily.”
BLIN faded out while a voice-over announced, “Welcome Veridian! This planetary tutorial is brought to you with limited commercial interruptions by The Macawan Foundation. Moving forward today, for a better tomorrow.”
The Faarian Chronicles: Exile Page 15
