by Lucia Ashta
No, I thought Ilara hit her target on the mowab eye. That’s what my gut told me, my most trusted tool in soldiering.
It didn’t matter though. We weren’t going to Planet Sand, so we wouldn’t be taking him with us. At least now we knew Ilara’s theory had a great chance of being correct, a chilling prospect.
“So we have a deal then?” Ilara asked.
“Yes, we do,” Aletox said while I thought, No, we don’t.
“If we go to Planet Sand, we’ll take you, and you’ll sing like that birdie, Billius.”
Aletox nodded, not a trace of shame in those dark eyes.
Ilara half-turned toward us, not giving her back to Aletox. That’s my girl, I thought. She doesn’t trust the deadliest of Vikas vipers on O. She asked, “Do we have reason to go to Planet Sand?”
“Are you serious?” Kai asked. “It’s not like just taking a trip to the edges of the royal city, or the Koal Desert, or the most isolated of the Wilds even. It’s another planet.”
“I know, Kai.” Ilara smiled. “Trust me, I really get it.” She looked at me, then Dolpheus, then Lila. “So, should we go?”
Hell no, I thought, even as I landed on one good reason to do it. There was one relatively easy way to determine if there was any reason to go to Planet Sand. And all I needed was a quiet space and no distractions to do it.
It just so happened I was in a building filled with quiet spaces.
20
I didn’t want to leave Ilara—or any of them, really—enclosed in a room with Aletox without me there. But the idea of traveling to Planet Sand together was gaining momentum among my companions, and I had to determine what my stance was on the outlandish suggestion.
The prospect of interstellar travel wasn’t what made me hesitate, even if only a handful of Oers (those specialists trained for this specific mission in the sand industry) ever traveled to and from Planet Sand regularly. We’d be going into the widely unknown under suspect circumstances, with just our wits and strengths to get us through it. But Dolpheus and I did that all the time. The lives we’d chosen as soldiers were suspect, unknown, and unusual, riddled with surprises of all kinds, good and bad.
My reservations revolved around the fact that Aletox was the one to suggest the idea, even if he said we’d arrive there on our own eventually. He’d already caught us in one trap today. I wasn’t eager to follow him straight into another one.
If this Ilara was my Ilara, then there was no need to travel to Planet Sand. We could figure out whatever we could about these holographic dimensions and body snatching possibilities from here. What we couldn’t figure out while on O, oh well. No human being was meant to understand everything in life.
But if the princess Ilara was actually on Sand, then a trip to Sand might be worthwhile, but only if she couldn’t transport here on her own first. If this Ilara had been able to, with far less experience in transporting than the princess, then the princess should be able to do it too. All I had to do was mind speak with her across the universe and suggest the possibility to her. Once she knew it could be done, then she should be able to arrive on O and into my arms this very day.
I settled into a cross-legged position (my favorite when it was available to me) on the floor of a small vestibule, where clients were sent to disrobe before monitoring appointments with Lila. I prepared myself to ping away, reaching for the princess across space. I began to clear my mind, to reach for the necessary stillness required to project my brain waves across space. Now that I knew the princess was on Sand, assuming she was a different woman than the one in the room next door, reaching her should be simple. If not simple, at least my chances of reaching her were far greater than if I’d had to do so across a vast universe without idea of her physical location.
The princess was used to my energy and our mental communications. My prospects at communication with her were high, even though we’d never attempted it from different planets. But I was determined. If anyone could do it, I could.
But as I attempted to settle into the stillness I sought, there was a nagging feeling that made my mind resist my attempts.
It was the one traitorous truth I hadn’t yet admitted to myself. But now, here it was, staring me in the face, distracting me from my immediate mission: call out to Ilara to confirm whether or not the princess existed upon Sand.
But the raw, bloody, messy truth was that I didn’t know if I wanted to find out. While I wasn’t sure, I could love the woman in the other room. I could share all I’d dreamt of sharing with her for these long years. Because it wasn’t a betrayal to the woman I’d first fallen in love with if it was a real possibility that she and this woman were the same person. After all, it’d be a logical conclusion to arrive at. The woman in the other room looked like the Princes, she behaved like the princess—more or less—she just didn’t remember being one, but there was a plausible explanation for this memory loss.
I forced my eyes away from the blank walls, where they roamed, on a mission from my brain to avoid the path of the courageous man. I possessed courage, largely because I’d come to terms with my death long ago. If you didn’t fear death, your living necessarily became much freer. It was the coward’s way to cower from the proof of truth. Though even if I received no reply to my pinging, it wouldn’t be incontrovertible evidence that the princess wasn’t on Sand, but it would be a strong indication of it.
I was no coward. Unless… perhaps it was the lover’s way to cower from the proof of truth instead.
If there were two Ilaras I’d fallen in love with, I could arrive at no good way to reconcile how to love them both and not hurt either. The situation would be ugly, and as much I’d endured in life, I couldn’t deliver my heart to such a painful fate.
I loved the woman in the room next door. She’d already given me all I wanted, and I knew she’d give me more, delicacies I hadn’t allowed myself even to imagine. I saw the promise of it in her cosmic eyes.
My own eyeballs rattled around behind closed lids, but I refused to open them again. I wouldn’t shy from this. I couldn’t. For myself, perhaps. But I couldn’t allow this Ilara to put herself in the danger interstellar travel necessarily implied if she was the true princess. And I’d gladly spare Dolpheus, Kai, and Lila as well. Aletox could go fuck himself, on this planet or another, I didn’t care. But I owed my care to the rest of them, even Lila and her she-dragon ways.
I had to do this. I was a soldier, I reminded myself. Doing what I didn’t feel like doing was an occupational requirement.
I would do this.
I forced awareness to the rhythm of my breath. I deepened and slowed it down until my eyeballs stopped fidgeting inside their sockets.
It took a long time, far longer than usual, but eventually I arrived at the stillness that allowed me to feel connected to everything and nothing in particular simultaneously. From that place, nothing seemed impossible. Sending a message across space was well within my capabilities.
Ilara, my love, are you there? I forced the part of me that felt traitorous, pinging another woman when the one I loved was here, a room away. Can you answer? Are you there?
Where Ilara was concerned, whichever one of them it might be, my patience was in greater supply than usual. I continued, pinging, repeatedly, until I was certain that a great amount of time had passed, even from that place of stillness where the measure of time hardly mattered.
There was no answer. None of Ilara’s sensual and teasing energy appeared in my mind, very distinct from my own.
The stillness of the splicing facility infiltrated my efforts. The silence was chilling even as I wasn’t sure what conclusion to draw from it.
Finally, I decided the attempt had been enough. I took my time returning from the place I’d gone. Gradual was always better whenever I did anything like this. Allowing the time for my consciousness to settle within my body again firmly always proved the wisest course. It wasn’t always possible.
Once I opened my eyes and uncrossed my legs to pr
epare to stand, I refused to experience guilt or shame at the predominant reaction that beat through me. Not frustration or disappointment, but relief. I could continue to love this Ilara. I didn’t have to reconcile anything but this present moment. For now.
I exited the room, out into the dead of silence, crossed the hallway, and pushed open the door to the splicing lab.
Everyone was much as I’d left them, except that Kai looked bored. The rest of them were too preoccupied to look bored.
The moment I closed the door behind me, four curious faces and one stern one turned my way.
“Well?” Ilara asked, her voice soft and doubtful.
I didn’t know where it came from, but I walked straight to her and kissed her with intensity and the promise of more to come. My lips were only upon hers for a few seconds, but it was longer than I’d ever done something like this with an audience.
I pulled back, my hand still at her lower back and smiled with the extent of the relief I dared to admit to myself. “Nothing.”
“No reply at all?” she asked.
“None.”
“So chances are high that I might actually be the princess?”
I stared into those cosmic eyes, trying to convey some of my thoughts. “Yes.”
Aletox stood from his seat. “No.”
“Ignore him,” I said.
“I fully intended to,” she said, and I was tempted to kiss her again.
“I’m confused,” Kai said. “Are we going to Planet Sand or not?”
Aletox said, “Yes,” Dolpheus said, “No,” and Lila said, “I hope.”
“Well that answer was as clear as mowab piss,” Kai said.
“Do you think you could find the true princess on Sand, if it’s another version of me?” Ilara asked.
“Probably,” I said. “At least it would be as clear of an answer as we’d ever get, unforeseen circumstances notwithstanding.”
“And if not, I mean, if the true princess is there, then you could leave me on Sand and bring her back?”
I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t give that possibility any energy.
Dolpheus took a few steps toward me and said, “Yes,” in a gentle tone. He hadn’t been in my mind in a while, but he undoubtedly knew what I was experiencing anyway.
I squeezed Ilara’s waist. “I don’t need proof. I have all the proof I need right here.”
Was I willing to ignore the real possibility that the woman I owed loyalty to on several levels was out there, waiting for me to rescue her? Apparently, I was.
“Well now, isn’t this adorable,” Aletox said. “We’re still going to Sand.”
“And why would we put all of us in danger if there’s no need to?” I asked, angry that he should refuse me my denial.
“Because your veins carry my blood. You won’t be able to live with the not knowing. Eventually, it will eat at you. And she,” he gestured to Ilara with his sharp chin, “won’t either. She’ll need to know whether she’s the legitimate princess or not, even if she can act like one.”
“Maybe,” I said, my nostrils flaring slightly.
“Well, while you take your time arriving at this inevitable conclusion, I’m going to get the transport machine ready to take us. I had the staff prep it last week. Lila, assist me.” Aletox moved toward the door. Surprisingly, Lila moved to follow him.
“Where’s the transport machine?” Dolpheus asked.
“At the other end of the building, in a bay with a retractable ceiling.” Aletox pulled open the door.
“Wait. Then I’m coming with you,” Dolpheus said and looked at me.
We couldn’t let Aletox have free rein of the facility. He was too dangerous. He could do a number of things I could think of, and I was sure a fair number that I couldn’t, that could cause trouble for us, worse than the trouble we were already in.
“We’ll all come with you,” I said.
And like that all five of us set off in the wake of Aletox, allowing ourselves to be swept by the forceful tide that he was.
21
The splicing facility was much larger than apparent from the outside. It took us a while to traverse its entirety, along winding hallways and sharp turns, Lila scurrying to keep up with Aletox’s long strides. The rest of us, including Ilara, had longer, leaner bodies and we matched Aletox’s determined pace easily.
Still, we arrived at the transport bay long before I was ready for it. I hadn’t determined the best course of action yet. Normally, I came to decisions quickly. I needed only to understand the factors that played a part, and then I determined the better course of action, even if it wasn’t the best.
But not today. Not now. My instincts warred with each other within my thoughts, converting my brain into a hazy, foggy mess, just when I needed every one of my faculties at its sharpest. Even amid my conflicting thoughts, I hadn’t forgotten for a second that Aletox was one of the most dangerous men on the entire planet. He wasn’t to be trusted. Never.
Would I allow us to follow him to another planet? It seemed ludicrous that I might even consider it, when I hadn’t even considered this course of action until he suggested it and barreled us toward this outcome.
It was safer for Ilara on O, even if it was home to verifiable dangers to her, at least they were dangers I was familiar with and could ostensibly protect her from. Interstellar travel would certainly bring about results I wasn’t predicting, and that was before we even landed on a foreign planet, the operation of which we had no understanding of.
This Ilara does though. Even as I thought it, I refused to accept that I’d have to endanger one Ilara to figure out whether another one was out there that needed my rescuing. I could end up losing this Ilara only to discover later that she was my one and only Ilara.
Aletox was the only one that claimed direct knowledge of these parallel worlds and their holographic humans. And he was a conniving, scheming individual.
I’d be risking the person of greatest value to me to follow Aletox’s directives. My stomach churned at the realization. It was a risk I had no right to take either. Ilara wasn’t just a woman, she was a princess. Whether she’d been born that way or not, she could fulfill this role for her people. And Oers needed her right now, perhaps as much as I needed her.
“This is it?” Dolpheus asked when Aletox led us into a large, mostly empty bay with one conical contraption at its center.
“It is. Does it not suit your standards of grandeur, Arms Master?” Aletox said. I assumed he was making a backhanded criticism of my friend, who lived a life more abundant than he would have otherwise without my friendship. Aletox didn’t seem bothered of the hypocrisy of his jibe, as his situation in life was largely due to his association with Brachius. At least that’s how it appeared on the surface.
“It just seems… underwhelming, considering what it’s capable of doing,” Dolpheus replied, ignoring the jab.
“Lila, come with me. The rest of you, wait here,” Aletox said, continuing toward a dark, straight line painted on the floor, to one side of the bay.
He walked to it and then stood behind it, waiting for Lila, who moved with less certainty, to catch up. Then he waved his hands in the air and an operations panel flared to life. It flickered a couple of times, but then held, and right away, Aletox’s hands began to fly across the controls. With quick, wide arcing motions of his arms, images and lights flashed in and out of existence. Immediately, it became obvious that Aletox was well versed in the science of this feat of mechanical engineering.
The underwhelming-looking transport machine whirred to life.
“Whoa! Aletox!” I called out across the sterile, open bay. “We never said we were going.”
He ignored me. His motions across the panel continued.
“Well he can fucking go by himself then,” I muttered. “We’re not going.”
Ilara took my hand and held it in hers. “Couldn’t we, though?” she asked, tilting her face toward the bright ochre light of the Suxle Sun that streamed in
through large resin panels that dotted the sides of the ceiling, around the mechanism that retracted its center.
“You want to go?” I asked her, the words catching in my throat.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I want answers as much as you do.”
She clearly didn’t realize that I was working hard not to seek them.
She continued, “Because the desire for adventure runs in my blood, and interstellar travel sounds like a fucking amazing one.”
“Even if its risks are great?”
“Even so. Living is risky. A person could never have truly lived and get hit by a bus crossing the street, if you have buses here, that is. Avoiding risk never succeeded in making life any less risky. We live and we die, and we don’t know when our end will come.”
“That doesn’t mean we should hasten to bring about the end.”
“It doesn’t, but I don’t get the feeling you live your life as if it were an egg in danger of cracking at any moment.”
No, I didn’t.
She went on, “Life is a fucking wild ride. I want to take this ride to the next stop and see where it leads me.”
“And you really don’t care how much risk it puts you in?”
She looked away from the sun and beamed a smile at me, the same smile I’d seen so many times in Ilara. It was the smile that promised that she’d live the shit out of life.
“Not really,” she said.
“Even if its result is that you abandon your subjects when they need you? Because you know a rule under Lord Drakos won’t be a good one for them.”
Her smile faded and I instantly wanted it back.
“We won’t be gone that long, I’m sure, and during that time we might actually come up with a plan of how to introduce me into the rule of O without getting me killed and making me abandon my subjects even more. Because we, you, have no plan for me right now, do you?”
“No, we don’t,” I admitted.
“And how long will we be gone?”
She was talking like we were going already, and I didn’t like it. Ilara got what she wanted. Nearly without exception. The more she talked like this, the more likely it became that we were going to be traveling to Sand, whether I liked it or not.
