Planet Origins

by Lucia Ashta

  “Your Majesty…”

  “This isn’t a request, it’s an order. Do you understand?”

  I sighed softly, keeping most of what I wanted to release on the sigh inside, where tensions built within my already taxed body. “My Liege, my father doesn’t trust me. You said so yourself. You saw it in my memories. He won’t reveal anything to me. He doesn’t speak of his business in front of me. Much less does he mention any of his… plans. We cross paths when we must. But we don’t lead shared lives as many fathers and sons do. I’m not privy to any secrets that might help you.”

  “You snuck into his splicing lab.”

  Dread flared in my belly. This wouldn’t lead anywhere good. I knew it already. Reluctantly, I nodded. “Once, your Majesty.”

  “And you plan on doing it again to retrieve Ilara? If I choose to tell you where she is.”

  So we were back to ifs. “Yes. That was my idea.”

  “Then you can sneak into his lab to find information that you’ll bring directly to me.”

  “His lab is very well protected. You must know this. It’s as well protected as the palace. I could be found out. If I were caught, then I wouldn’t be able to go back to use the lab to return Ilara.”

  “It’s a worthwhile risk. For the good of the kingdom, of the people, as you’ve said.”

  I willed my emotions not to show on my face.

  “You’ll go to your father’s lab. If I decide that you’ve brought me worthwhile information, I’ll tell you where Ilara is.”

  “And what kind of information am I looking for?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  My father revealed next to nothing about the splicing process. He enchanted his customers with promises of a second (or a third, or a fourth, or more) chance at life. After that they cared little about how he accomplished it other than to ask if it would hurt. The procedure was painless. The customer was asleep during the entire operation. He’d be induced into sleep, and when he woke, he’d have the most expensive insurance policy there ever was, but also the one with the greatest guarantee.

  Not even I knew much about how my father managed to splice a piece of a person, so that he could replicate him exactly. A customer’s splice looked identical to him. And he behaved exactly like him as well once the splice was recalled and the customer’s brain and the splice’s were linked.

  My father didn’t tell me much, that was true. But I was curious. I always had been. Knowledge was power. Courtiers and the other influence wielders of O bartered sand and power to achieve their desires. But few went to the true source of power, and it extended far beyond idle gossip.

  Still, despite years of eavesdropping, snooping, and investigating, I didn’t understand the fundamental process of splicing. I didn’t know if I’d find the answers I’d looked for all this time—and now the King was forcing me to find—in my father’s laboratory. My father was careful to the point of paranoid. The only reason I’d found a trace of Ilara’s exit off planet was because he hadn’t been involved. He would have never left a trace of the voyage of any splice. I was certain of it.

  “I’ll do my best.” What else could I say? “Is that all, your Majesty?”

  “For now. Go home and get some rest. You look awful. You can’t even be thinking about bringing my daughter anywhere like this. You couldn’t defend a bee.”

  I liked it better when I’d gone all of my adult life without drawing the attention of the King. I nodded and bowed deferentially as was expected of me. I neither fell over nor vomited, and the clanging in my head receded as soon as I lifted my head back up. Progress.

  I approached the wall where I knew the door to be. It opened when I reached it. Dolpheus was waiting just outside it, next to the four guards who stood in the same positions as they had before I entered the King’s inner chamber.

  “Did you make any progress?” Dolpheus whispered as he joined me, offering me an arm to lean on.

  “That depends on what you mean by progress,” I growled and took his arm.

  The next door opened. Right away, the sickly sweet scent of the courtiers enveloped us. I held my head high, focused on no one person in particular, and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, as fast as my body could manage it.

  We got past the wasps before Dolpheus made me stop to rest.

  The way out for the final time that day seemed to take even longer than it had the first two times across the palace. By the time we made it to the same guard who’d already examined our palms several times that day, and did so one more time, for good measure, the Suxle Sun was setting.

  Ten

  The longest part of our journey was traversing the palace’s interior. Once we cleared the palace walls and the bulk of people bustling back and forth, transferring supplies in and out of the palace, we stepped off to the side.

  The laws which forbade transporting within the palace walls ended precisely a foot behind where we stood. Finally, I could get to a place where I could focus on my recovery with relative ease. The chills and sickness that came with transporting when one began learning the process were a concern of the past.

  I didn’t even have to confer with Dolpheus. He knew what I’d been yearning to do. He knew that, once we finally cleared the palace gates, I’d begun to count each step, knowing that each one brought us closer to transporting and the comforts of home.

  I closed my eyes to begin to push away the sounds everywhere around us. A constant chatter flowed along with the foot traffic that crossed the bridge, which stretched solidly across the chasm that plummeted below it. Friends and companion animals called out to each other across the way. This was where the people of O were their true selves, before they had to subdue themselves to abide by palace etiquette. Once inside the towering building that glittered in the light of the suns, with more glass than seemed possible, the King demanded order and respect, even when his subjects had no desire for either.

  This had been the most difficult part for me at first. Transporting required complete focus of the mind. If you were distracted at the moment of transport, either it wouldn’t work, or worse—You could end up some place entirely different than you’d intended. On Planet O, landing in the wrong place could be fatal.

  I was a seasoned expert in transporting—as I should be. There were few that had done it as often as I, other than Dolpheus. Not many thought the effort worth the trouble unless they were using transporting to traverse long distances. But what most Oers didn’t realize was that transporting could become nearly effortless once you became skilled enough at it. Few were willing to endure the ill ease that accompanied early experiments to get any good at it.

  As a boy, the mysteries and bad reputation of transporting had been sufficient to lure me to it. Already, Dolpheus and I were training as soldiers. What could be better to a soldier than the ability to materialize nearly anywhere he wanted? And what could better fulfill the sense of mischief of a boy than the ability to disappear and reappear anywhere across the planet?

  Transporting could become painless for those who began to practice it early enough, before the body finished defining itself and its sense of limitations, before too many of the fears and superstitions of transporting could influence the mind. Because of how difficult it was for most, those who could do it successfully were whispered to be charmers, or sorcerers, or something more ominous than that, which no one wanted much to put a name to.

  I waited until the moment was precisely right. I’d done this so many times that I recognized the moment as soon as it arrived. It came when I no longer heard what was going on around me after I reined in my senses, and I contained myself within my body.

  All of a sudden, there would be a sort of click-into-place. There was a sense that things were right. Things felt right.

  They felt right now.

  I reached for thoughts of home—and no other ones—and held onto them tightly while I allowed any notion of my physical body to dissolve.

  M
ost people couldn’t fathom that they might not exist in a physical body. Yet for me, it was easy. Once you transported enough times, you realized how simple it was for your body to dissolve into particles of energy, the same ones that composed everything else that considered Planet O its home.

  My body didn’t define me. I didn’t feel defined by much. Perhaps the people of O were right. Maybe those capable of transporting were necessarily sorcerers.

  But if I was a sorcerer, then Dolpheus was one too. He would be right behind me, waiting to begin his transport only long enough to ensure that the particles of my body didn’t become entangled with his.

  I appeared in my rooms at the far end of my father’s estate, in a building entirely apart from the one he inhabited. As I transported, I imagined myself seated in my chair in the center of the inner lair of my suites, where no one but Dolpheus—and Ilara—ever came. When I materialized, I did so in bits and pieces, as if I were a light on a slow-paced dimmer switch that grew brighter and more defined with each moment.

  It was of utmost importance then that I hold the image of my body as I was accustomed to it. If I were to think of anything else, my body might complete its coalescing with a bit of someone or something else. At the very least, something would be out of place. As a boy, I once materialized with my horse’s legs, all four of them. I was quick to learn from my mistakes.

  Just as I knew what the right moment felt like to initiate transport, I’d also learned to distinguish that sense that I was whole once more. I relaxed into the chair and propped my feet up on the stool in front of it, careful not to disturb Dolpheus, who’d only just arrived. I could still see through him. The chair was accustomed to my weight and shape. It had been a long time since I’d thought the comfort of a good chair and stool to be blissful.

  As soon as Dolpheus was fully back, he stalked across the room to claim the seat next to me. He placed his forearms on his knees and leaned forward, not even a dark hair out of place. “Well? What happened? Did the King tell you where to find Ilara?”

  I groaned as loudly as I’d wanted to while in the King’s chambers.

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yeah. It’s that bad. He’s agreed to tell me of Ilara’s whereabouts. Well, potentially agreed. The mind merge was successful. He now knows he can trust me. He knows that you can be trusted, too. He knows that my love for Ilara, and hers for me, is true.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad…”

  “He knows what I look like when I’m riding his daughter. He knows what sounds she makes when I do that thing that gives her no choice but to burst.”

  “Oh. That is bad.”

  “That’s not even the bad part. Parts really. Bad parts. There are lots of bad parts.”

  My friend watched me, knowing that whatever parts were bad for me would likely be so for him as well. We’d been doing things together all of our lives. He had my back. I had his.

  “For the King to tell me where Ilara is, I have to come up with a plan that will convince him that I can keep her safe from attack, while I also reveal that she’s alive to encourage the people to rally behind the monarchy.”

  “But that’s not possible. The only way to keep her safe is to keep her identity concealed. We’ve discussed this a hundred times.”

  “I know.”

  “We have to keep her identity hidden. And that will be hard enough. She’s very easy to spot in a crowd.”

  “Yes she is.”

  “So why on O does the King want her identity revealed?”

  “Because I convinced him that bringing her here would encourage his subjects to believe in the monarchy. Knowing that she could inherit the throne will solidify the people’s support of the rule of the Andaron line.”

  “While that’s true, why the fuck did you tell him that?”

  “Because, after telling me that he’d give me Ilara’s location, he changed his mind. It was the only thing I could think of to convince him that it was necessary to bring her here, beyond the desires of her lover.”

  “Well, that stinks.”

  “Yeah. It does. I have no idea how we’ll pull it off.”

  “Your father will try to kill her the second he learns that she’s alive.”

  “He will.”

  A few beats passed. I had no brilliant ideas about how to reveal Ilara’s escape from death while simultaneously keeping death from honing in on her.

  “You were right,” Dolpheus said. “This is bad.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “How could it get any worse than coming up with a plan to do the impossible?”

  “The mighty King Oderon has ordered me to spy on my father.”

  “What?”

  “He wants me to break into the lab again and bring him information. If he deems the information I procure for him of sufficient worth, then he’ll tell me where Ilara is, assuming that I have some-fucking-how come up with a miracle plan to put her in the public eye while keeping her alive.”

  “Wow. That’s unbelievably bad.”

  “That it is.”

  “So the King is making espionage a condition of his daughter’s return? So much for appearing to be an ideal father.”

  “Neither one of us ever thought he was one. I believe he truly loves Ilara. But he is, first and foremost, the king of an entire planet. You know the rumors that surround his rule as well as I. He didn’t get to where he is now by being gentle and understanding.”

  “But you could be killed breaking into your father’s lab! Where will that get him as far as Ilara goes?”

  “Well, as far as he’s concerned, Ilara’s safe where she is. Or so he says.”

  “So he says.”

  There were plenty of planets out there that were far more dangerous than our own. I couldn’t be certain that the King had sent her to a safe one. If he thought a less popular planet a better place to hide her, he might have chosen it. She’d be more removed from probing searches there.

  “I doubt the King would care if I died breaking into my father’s lab. He behaved as if he accepted my relationship with Ilara. But it could have been an act he put on to manipulate me. In fact, it’s likely.”

  Dolpheus rubbed a hand across his face. “Your father’s lab is more secure than the palace for fuck’s sake. No one’s broken into it—other than you.”

  “Perhaps. The King didn’t tell me how he managed to get Ilara off planet to begin with. The most secure way of doing so was through my father’s lab. But maybe he has another way. I don’t know. You’d think that if he had another way to travel off planet, he’d have mentioned it to me, since I might be able to use it to return Ilara. He made an obscure comment about him being the only one left that knew where Ilara was, implying that there had been at least one other person.”

  “If there was another person that knew where she is, it was probably the person the King commissioned to move her off planet. Transporting only works on planet. She couldn’t have done it on her own. And the King doesn’t do his own dirty work. He must have had help. Then he probably killed whoever helped him, to keep the secret of the Princess safe. Just as your father will kill you if he finds you meddling at his lab. He won’t care that you’re his son. The King has given us impossible odds to beat.”

  “Nearly impossible odds. Since when is anything impossible to the two of us?”

  “Since right now.”

  “Come on. You don’t believe that.”

  My friend rubbed his hand across his handsome face some more. “No, I guess I don’t. But I have no idea how we’re going to do this.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. Fuck.”

  At least we were in agreement.

  Eleven

  Under ordinary circumstances, I wasn’t the most patient of men. Now that my instincts had been confirmed, and I knew that Ilara was indeed alive, the previous three years
of searching I’d had to endure festered inside me until I was ready to explode. I didn’t want to wait a single moment longer to bring her back to Origins.

  Yet, once again, I was forced to wait. And I hated every minute of the waiting.

  It was the time when most Oers, except for those that got stuck with the undesirable shift, slept. The Suxle sun had set hours ago. But I left the blackout drapes wide open, allowing in the light of the Auxle sun. There would be no sleep for us tonight. At least, it wasn’t likely. Not at this rate.

  “We’ve been over it so many times, Tan.” Even Dolpheus looked disheveled. We’d been at it for half the sleep period already. “There’s no way to do it. Even if you disable the royal recognition programs so that Ilara’s presence doesn’t trigger the system, someone, somewhere, will recognize her. It would only be a matter of time. Her eyes are too recognizable. She’s the only person alive right now whose eyes reflect the shifts in the cosmos, and you know that.”

  I loved her eyes. When I stared into them, I felt the whole universe pull me into them, as if they were a portal and I the traveler. Making love with her was cosmic. She’d spoiled the thought of sex with anyone else. If I couldn’t join with her, there seemed little point to it. Not once I knew what it could be like. Not once I knew what it was like to stare into those eyes and experience the all of everything, while my dick pulsed inside the definite point of her, a single person, a speck in the galaxy. Making love with her spanned from the infinitely vast to the finite that can only be experienced in a precise moment of time that, once passed, never returned.

  Inside her, I experienced a never-ending existence that my mind couldn’t fully grasp, even as I tasted the full range of pleasures of the body. With her, life was ecstatic. And it all began with those eyes. Those eyes that anyone who saw would recognize.

  “I could hide her away here.”

  “Forever? For the thousand plus years she might live?”

  It sounded like a nice plan. But no, obviously I couldn’t.

  “And that doesn’t take into account how you’d tell Oers she’s alive. If they know she’s alive, they’ll want to see her. They’ll want to see her to believe it. You know Oers. They’ve never been big on faith, even if they say they are.”