by Mark Kraver
“Me too, me too,” murmured the crowd spreading out and blocking her escape from the blind alleyway.
Maybe if she shouted loud enough someone would come to her rescue, she thought. Or maybe she could manipulate her own gravity with her suit’s control panel. She delighted everyone by slapping and twisting her right breast. Flashing through her suit colors and patterns diverted the crowd of human abominations long enough for her to fill her lungs with enough air to yell.
Before a sound escaped her lips, something jumped out of the shadows and took her around the waist. The being leaped high up into the air with a streak of light tracing in the darkness from Reeze’s fluttering hair, landing her on the ledge outside her own window sill.
“What the…” she said letting out her air with astonishment. She looked down at the rambunctious herd of human animals trying to crawl up the slippery sloping roof of solar panels, until they all tired of the effort and began dispersing back into the night’s sinful recesses.
Looking at who it was that saved her, she noticed red paint splashed across his modest attire and goat-shaped features. “Who are you?” she asked, but got no reply. “What do you want from me?” Still no reply. “Well, thank you for your help. I’m going inside now,” she said, pulling back on the curtains.
“My name iz Zziggy,” he said, baaing between his words. “Whatzz yourzz?”
She caught a better look at him through the light of the pulled-back curtains. She recognized him as the one who was eating out of the trash cans. She wanted to ask him why he was covered in red paint, but wondered if that was too personal for a first encounter.
“My name iz Reezze,” she said, mimicking his prolonged Z’s in her name, making him smile. “What were you doing?” She nodded to the trash receptacles.
“What did it look like?” he asked.
“Where do you live?”
“Outzide the zity. We are farmerz and other thingzz,” he said, picking the red paint out of his fur.
“If you are farmers, then why—”
“I wazn’t eating the garbage.”
“Yes, you were. I saw you.”
“Okay, maybe I was just tasting it? We use it for compozt.”
“Compost? We composted everything where I came from, too,” she said.
“Even your dead?” he asked.
“Well, no. You are different from the others.”
“My tribe’z called Baphometz. We have been living on thiz region of Nirvana for many countlezz antonz. Sinze before the lazt Elohim left to create new worldz of their own. Before they built thiz zity. Where are you from?”
“Oh, the moon—I’m a moony.”
“Whatz a moon?”
“That’s a silly question,” she laughed, looking up at the blank starless night. “The moon is a small planetesimal orbiting around a planet.”
“Whatz a planet?” he baaad.
“A planet? You know, like the one in the docking port.”
“Where’z a docking port?” he asked, smiling and looking around.
“No, on the outside of this sphere,” she laughed again, this time noticing no similar reciprocating emotion. “You do know you live inside a big ball, right? A sphere with a fusion reactor in the middle, and you’re living on the inner surface?” she said, walking her fingers on the underside of her palm.
He looked at her for a moment before smiling, “I get it, you’re joking. That’z funny. I like you. Tell me more about thiz moon of yourz.”
Reeze could hear someone talking in the hallway outside of her room.
“Gotta go. Maybe I can see you tomorrow,” she said, ducking her head inside the window and closing the curtains as the sound of Zenith talking with Numen moved past her closed door.
In the room next door, Yahweh was doing something he had missed ever since he left his home planet Omega Prime all those antons ago: eating a cooked meal. Or at least it tasted cooked, and very sweet, too. He knew the wastes produced by his alimentary canal would have to be purged before he hibernated again, but that was an easy enough process to perform. He hoped his gut flora wouldn't respond to the foreign intrusion of nutritive material with explosive consequences.
Sleeping on a bed was another activity he was also looking forward to doing. After all, without his hibernation pod, that was his only option.
Listening to Reeze’s thoughts in the other room speaking to her new-found friend, he wondered what it would have been like to watch his sister Nina grow up, date, and have her own family. Then he thought of Logan—about her and Conrad having a baby of their own. Zenith was also Logan’s child, but somehow that didn’t count. Or did it?
He relished every moment he spent with his human family. He wondered if Logan and Zenith had been close. Did Numen preoccupy too much of her time growing up with Elohim business, interfering with their mother-daughter bonding? He’d hoped not. He was pleased with how Zenith looked after Reeze like her own. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, he thought; she is after all Reeze’s great-grandaunt times ten, and her basic maternal DNA epigenetic coding was apparently activated.
Reeze sat in her room looking out the window into the black sky. She was both disappointed and relieved the goat-man was gone. It already felt like their stay on this sphere had been an eternity. She could not leave the building without causing a stir, nor could she stand the long boring conversations with her Elohim comrades. Someone knocked on her door. She froze.
“Reeze?” Zenith asked.
“Yes?”
Zenith opened the door and looked inside. Reeze gestured for her to enter.
“When are we getting out of here?” Reeze complained.
“Let’s see? We either spend half an anton onboard the station, ten times your normal lifespan as a time depleted two-dimensional hologram, or we stay here.”
“Ooh, all right. Maybe if we got out more often it wouldn’t be so boring.”
“More often? We haven’t even been here a full day yet. Anyway, didn’t you already covertly exit the building and return? Haven’t you found any friends yet?”
“Not covert enough,” she said. “You mean you wouldn’t blow a leg pouch if I walked out the front door and said, ‘don’t wait up for me’?”
“If you were so blatant, there may be an inquiry as to your itinerary, but yes, that would be acceptable. We have not been given any indications the inhabitants of this sphere are hostile. Were you treated badly?”
Reeze’s stomach turned a little as she thought about the crowd closing in on her in the alley outside her window, but quickly decided she didn’t want to give Zenith reason to worry. “No, not exactly,” she said. “It is much more fun sneaking out without getting caught.”
Zenith smiled, “Next time I’ll act ignorant of your exploits.”
“Thanks. Maybe if I could blend in a little more?” Reeze asked.
“I’m sure if you walked around with your bosoms exposed and butterfly wings sprouted out of your back, you would fit right in. I, myself, also had trouble fitting in at your age with my bald head,” Zenith laughed, rubbing her hand over her head.
“So, you’re okay with my bosoms showing?”
Zenith shrugged. “I have no problem with that,” she said and looked at Yahweh who had just appeared in the doorway. “And I’m sure he would get used to it. But what would your father say about your behavior?”
“Ooh, you’re right, again. I’ll never fit in.”
“I hope we will not have to wait much longer, either,” Yahweh said, walking into the room. “I received a message from Gouldian. He is meeting with us here within the hour of reflector penumbra.”
Reeze looked confused.
“Sunrise?” Yahweh offered.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so,” Reeze said, frowning.
Chapter 78
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, Earth
Library of Souls
Selling Earth
When they all woke the next morning, it was still relatively dark. The reflector shield looked nearly ready to rotate to sunrise, and Yahweh felt awful. Holding his stomach in pain, he dropped from the upper sleeping quarters through the ceiling on an elevator disk and found Numen standing looking at a wall of the triangular room. Numen had been working all night on a communications chip, downloading and analyzing service manuals about the sphere.
“Numen check my physiological signs. Something is wrong,” he complained as Zenith and Reeze dropped on magnetic-gravity plates through holes in the ceiling into the main ground level room with similar complaints after him.
“Master, I have monitored your vital signs six hundred and sixty-six times since you achieved phase one sleep last night,” Numen replied. “I find nothing out of the ordinary. All of your DNA strands are in perfect working order, and your mitochondria are performing optimally. Your sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels are elevated, which I assume is from the foods you consumed last night. This diet would become a problem for your general health if it were chronic.” He began another complete diagnostic of his master’s bodily functions.
“Oh murder, you need to check me out, too,” Reeze complained, holding her lower abdomen. “My stomach is killing me.”
Numen looked at Zenith standing by silently and asked, “Are you also experiencing abdominal discomfort?”
Zenith nodded.
“Interesting,” Numen said, running his hand up and down each of their bodies; he analyzed the physiology of their scans. “I see a similar pattern in each of you.”
“What is it?” Reeze complained, doubled over with pain.
“What did each of you consume last night?” he asked.
“I don’t know, something that tasted sweet,” Reeze answered, and the others nodded their heads in agreement.
“I correlate the sweet taste with carbohydrates. Your genus Homo was not evolved to eat carbohydrates, at least not in large quantities.”
“Get to the point,” Yahweh complained. “Can you fix it? They will be here soon.”
“Yes, master, I believe you have violated your body with a toxic dose of sugar. The microbes inside each of your small intestines have converted the food you ate last night into a sizable volume of methane and carbon dioxide gas. As it builds up inside the lumen of your intestines, it presses on your adjacent organs, causing pain and discomfort. Maybe you should have chosen a carnivore’s high protein diet instead of a sweet herbivore high carbohydrate one?”
“You mean it is gas?” Reeze asked.
“Precisely, and the treatment for this physiological problem is to vent the accumulated gas out through your anus, and then water fast for twenty-four hours.”
Reeze grimaced, feeling the need to pass gas at that very moment.
Yahweh looked up at the ceiling as if he was concentrating on something very important. With a shift in his pelvis, PPpurrPPrap! erupted and he seemed to relax a little.
“Oh murder,” Reeze laughed, as Yahweh began passing gas freely into his gravity suit. “I didn’t think Elohim farted.”
“We don’t,” Zenith said sternly, concentrating on her anal sphincter muscles before she released a Ffffttt puh! into her suit.
Reeze couldn’t stop giggling, and each time she laughed she expressed a little Parrrp, parrrp, parrrrrrp!
Yahweh’s face lightened as his discomfort lessened. He watched, amused, as Reeze laughed and farted.
“Here, here, pull my finger,” Reeze said, holding her hand out to Numen, who was standing still assessing his master’s health. “Numen pull my finger!”
He acquiesced, tugging on her extended finger as she let out a Brrrraapt! and then busted out laughing.
“My granddaddy used to say, ‘if you are to fart, make it an…’”
“Art,” Zenith said, smiling. “I knew your grandfather well. He was a funny man, indeed. He wanted me to pull his finger more than once, I can remember.”
When Gouldian arrived, Kleem and Klack were at his side. After the obligatory hand gestures to the sides of their horny heads, Gouldian began the conversation with, “I believe we have an answer to our little conundrum.”
Yahweh felt a surge of annoyance rush through him at the sight of their tongue thrusting. “And what conundrum are you referencing?” Yahweh asked. PPPprapP.
Gouldian blinked his artificial eyes and flicked his tongue in Yahweh’s direction to ascertain what that sound was before continuing. “Why, the problem with what to do with you and your planet, of course,” Gouldian said, like it was all a big burden.
“I wasn’t aware this was an inconvenience. Grant us permission to leave, and we will gladly slip through the nearest Halo and depart.” Toot.
Distracted, the horned devil said, “It seems that some here do have a need for your planet’s resources, after all. They are willing to outfit you with any technology, any craft, and a sizable territory on this sphere for allowing them to consume your planet.”
“Consume our planet?” Reeze said, with disgust. Bzzzzzzt.
“I am becoming concerned with our mission’s success,” Yahweh said.
“Yes, yes, the transplantation of your planet to the star Heaven? There is no such system in our records. If you don’t want to sell your planet, then what are you doing with it? How do we know this planet is yours to sell?”
“That’s crater crap. Brrrraapt. I hope you trip over your tongue,” Reeze snarled.
“I believe if you have scanned our ship and planet you will find that we are telling you the truth,” Numen interrupted. “If your technology is insufficient to determine the facts, then we are prepared to present a Deed Crystal to prove our ownership.”
“So says the primitive seraph,” Klack sneered.
“Our technology has not discovered this Deed Crystal anywhere on the ship or the planet’s surface,” Gouldian said, paying little attention to Klack’s comment. “Maybe you have it here on your personage?”
Yahweh shot a quick look at Numen who shrugged.
“I thought not. The offer will be given for one circadian. After that, the planet will be confiscated as illegal contraband,” Gouldian said, before he about-faced in unison with his entourage and walked out of the triangular front doors.
“Illegal contraband? What does that mean?” Reeze asked, feeling uneasy about what she had just heard.
“What do you make of this?” Yahweh asked telepathically, so not to alarm Reeze anymore than necessary.
“Primitive seraph? I am one of the most advanced models to date.”
“Interesting they have not heard of Helios or Heaven,” Yahweh said, trying to keep his insulted seraph on the task of finding a way out of this mess.
“Yes, even more interesting is that we have not heard of this sphere either,” Numen said, touching an iridium based micro-communications chip embedded in the nearby wall.
Yahweh looked out one of the triangular windows. It was fully light now and the sidewalks were slowly filling with animal-people getting their day underway. “The last thing I want is to fall prey to that conman,” he silently responded.
“What will we do?” Zenith said out loud, breaking the telepathic discussion, so not to leave Reeze out of the conversation any longer.
“I don’t see any way out of this dilemma,” Numen said. “We’ll be damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. If we don’t sell the planet, we lose it through the lack of proof of ownership and are marooned without benefits. If we sell the planet, it will be consumed as raw materials for this sphere, and we will still be marooned, but with benefits. Those benefits could be used to return us Helios.”
“Empty handed. The choices do not sound good, I’ll grant you that,” Yahweh said.
“Why don’t we go back to the station, and find the crystal for ourselves?” Reeze asked.
Each of the three far more superior minds in the room looked at each other. They had been contemplating that very
plan, but hadn’t yet verbalized why it wasn’t a straightforward solution. Yahweh was touched by Reeze’s optimism and turned to her with a wink, smile and tug on his earlobe. “Reeze, what would we do without you? Numen, where is the crystal?”
“I left it with Ba, in Ra and El’s purgatory chamber.”
“Do you think he has hidden it?” asked Zenith.
“I suppose,” Numen answered.
“Since when do you suppose anything?” Yahweh asked.
“I suppose since I was programmed with your father’s humor and your neural engrams?” he answered.
Yahweh looked at Zenith and she shrugged.
“How do we get to the station? We don’t even know where our planet is or the exits to this place,” Reeze said.
After a long moment of contemplation, Yahweh said, “We need to lie down with the lions.”
Reeze looked at Zenith, and she at Numen.
“Come on. Really? Swim with the sharks?”
Still, blank faces.
“Ride a zeebraknocker?”
“Master, no one but you and I know what a zeebraknocker is.”
“Okay,” Yahweh said, looking at Zenith’s and Reeze’s confused faces. “It's time to sell the planet.”
Concern spread throughout the connectome:
“Sell the planet? The whole mission ends in another hostile universe? Inconceivable,” Nadira said, frightened over what she had seen and heard.
“There must have been something wrong with your logic,” Lanochee agreed, embracing her fears in his arms.
“Strangers in a strange land need to think strangely,” Yahweh said.
“Pull my finger?” Nadira asked, but Yahweh only smiled and tugged on his earlobe.
Chapter 79
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.
Carl Jung, 1875-1961, Earth
Library of Souls
Sphere-wide War
