by Kurt Johnson
“Mffmff,” I said, looking left at one green orb, then right at the other, as I disengaged.
“Human,” the Elion said in a sing-song voice. “I am Alar. Urgent talk.”
I puffed a strand of his white fur from my mouth and flipped my tongue against my lips. Oddly, it had no taste. “I, hullo. I am Raystar?”
Claws extended from his so-soft fur, and he straightened me up, patting my hair and picking another strand of fur from my forehead. “Apologieth for thurprithing you, Raythtar-Human. We remember your peoplth kindneth, and time ith thort.”
His giant, luminous eyes blinked. He frowned and continued, “Well, technically, time ith not thort. It flowth quickly and directly. In contextht with thpeed and obthervathion, acthually.”
Alar placed one of his stick-like arms, one ending in a sharp talon, gently on my shoulder. “But temporal dithcution and contemplathion are not my purpoth. The Avenue will not open for you.”
“I don’t understand.” I said, turning my head from one of his giant ocean-green eyes to the other. The sea of kids surged around us, bumping and nudging us apart. “Alar, what are you talking about?”
“Come to uth, tho you may follow the Avenue.”
A troop of laughing Gleans and Lethians—older girls—pushed their way between us, and just like that, Alar’s soft, furry, fluffiness was gone.
The second gong chimed.
I blinked at the emptying schoolyard, startled at how quickly noises like wind and blowing leaves could fill the vacuum left by people. The school’s huge doors pivoted to close in a slow-motion finality, so I took off in a run toward them.
It would not do to be on the wrong side of those doors.
12
It seems like school should have evolved into something amazing over the millennia. RIGHT? I wanted knowledge pills, mind grafts, or just learning through osmosis. How ’bout direct-beaming knowledge? How about plugging in, or just standing near some beacon of learning and absorbing society’s knowledge? Upload flipping civilization, and LET ME GO PLAY! Now that would be science fiction!
Nope.
We still sit in desks, we still read stuff, and we still listen to linear, verbal diatribes by evangelical grownups (i.e., TEACHERS).
Nonetheless, I loved school. I asked questions, and I got answers. Teachers appreciated me. I wasn’t Human, I was a STUDENT. Do you understand?
Out of breath, lost in reverie, I reached my locker on the fourth floor. My mind gnawed on Alar’s cryptic statements. My people’s kindness? Follow the avenue? “Avenue” was an old way of talking. We used air cars, so the address system in Blue River—no, everywhere in the Convergence—always included all three dimensions. There was an X-axis (left–right), a Y-axis (forward–backward), and a Z-axis (how high–how low).
Avenues? Like streets? That was—Human? Was the Elion referring to a Human structure? And what door? I crammed my lunch and school bag into my locker. I didn’t know much about Elions. And by much, I mean ANYTHING. There were so many races in the Convergence, but I dimly remembered some connection between Elions and Humans during the War. Library time was needed.
The third gong sounded.
Nova and great gravity wells! If I didn’t sprint, I’d get my first detention in my first class! Mom would kill me.
Class was several levels down, but the real issue was dodging the floating, scuttling, and running students while sustaining any sort of speed. At one hallway intersection, my heart nearly exploded when I thought I caught sight of Jurisdictor Godwill. Meeting him…was not comprehensible. I spun around a corner and raced down the hallway that I knew would get me right to the classroom door.
Again, out of breath, I skidded into class and flopped down into a preassigned chair that glowed green as it recognized my presence. Green. I sucked in the faintly chemical air of the classroom, relieved that I wasn’t late.
The crescent-shaped classroom was terraced and resembled a small auditorium. Rows of desks descended to a large multipurpose podium, behind which was a projection imager. The walls of the room were Galactic metal blue, and the floors were made of some soft, short, dark-grey carpet. Silvery light bands crossed the length of the room’s ceilings.
If nothing else about school had changed, the desks sure had. They floated and morphed their force supports to accommodate various Galactic body shapes. There was a console interface that allowed us to query the GalNet, see our individual holo-screens, and watch whatever the teacher was showing us.
My classmates were filing in; nearly all of the forty seats contained a student. Nonch, seated two rows behind me, was talking with his friends.
Jenna clapped her four hands as she made eye contact with one of her friends across the room. She bounced in her seat and mouthed, “Nova!” Keep the glucose away from that girl.
On my right was the Elion. I blinked. He looked hot, and he was beginning to pant. His blue tongue had a mind of its own; it perched on the side of his mouth like it was assessing where to find the next coolest place in the solar system. He seemed not to notice me.
My need to talk to Alar was suddenly stifled—as I realized Mieant was seated on my left. OF COURSE he was seated next to me. Feeling my gaze, he turned and smiled.
“Human,” he hissed at me.
“JERK,” I hissed back. Twisting back to my workstation, I grabbed for AI and grimaced as my fingers clutched in the space above my heart where he usually hung. Who was the jerk? I bet Mieant didn’t flush his friends. My stomach twisted with betrayal and guilt.
My workstation, an empty-hearted surrogate for AI, scanned me and projected my morning’s lessons in the direction I faced. I angrily swiped through them, not really looking at anything.
A gentle, bony weight on my right arm made me jump.
“Let uth talk at lunch, Raythtar.”
I looked to my right and found myself about to fall into the Elion’s two, huge, sea-green eyes. I had no idea what he was talking about, though—none.
“What avenue?” I whispered to him.
Alar tilted his body in a slow, wise nod. “Yeth. You underthtand. We remember your peoplth kindneth. We REMEMBER, Raythtar,” he said, shaking me gently for emphasis. I gritted my teeth, because 100% of nothing was all I understood.
“Ahhhh,” a voice intoned. It is how I imagined the Architect would sound—a voice from everywhere. The voice took on a directional perspective and the class turned toward its source.
The voice continued. “Alar. What an appropriate start to our first lesson in Galactic History. Humanity’s kindness. But were Humans indeed kind? A cynic would say that history belongs to the victors. What say you, Raystar?”
Our teacher had entered the classroom, unnoticed.
Except this wasn’t a teacher. She was the tallest Lethian I had ever seen. She wore her short-cropped black hair like a crown. Her hair highlighted her grey skin and black eyes. Her graceful arms folded across her midsection as she flowed toward the center of the room. Her white robes cascaded from her shoulders and billowed behind her, curling in the air centimeters above the ground. As she came to a stop, her robes flared like the wings of a mythical flying creature coming in for a landing.
Principal Entarch.
She pointed vaguely at me. My workspace lit up with a blue glow, as it projected sound to the room.
“I….” I was unprepared, is what I was. “Principal Entarch, that’s not tru….”
“Galactic history has been witnessed,” she interrupted, cutting the air with her hand. “With our Recorders, there is no interpretation of history. The Human Worlds, for instance, were destroyed because of their unlawful attack on the Convergence.”
“So history belongs to the Recorders!” Mieant cracked, and the class laughed with him. At least he was a universal jerk. I did like that about him.
“You, Asrigard, I can see why you aren’t on an offworld school. Please either contribute per your status, or be silent so as not to disgrace your parents further.” A nanosecond’s
silence washed over the room and was then replaced with an enormous shuffle, as we all turned toward Mieant. His eyes flashed, and he looked down.
Principal Entarch nodded, and floated her gaze across the room, daring us to say anything. Alar’s space lit up as he was recognized to speak.
“Humanth were drawn into a war. There ith no reathon the Terran Republic thould ever have been attacked. The Convergenthe…”
“Alar,” Entarch interrupted. “Did Elions have Galactic Recorders documenting your species’ involvement? There is no truth without witness, and without Recorders, there is no truth. The Convergence had the Recorders.” I turned toward Alar as he collected his response. He wasn’t going to give on this point.
“Know your enemy and know yourthelf, and you can fight a hundred battleth without…”
“SILENCE. YOUR PEOPLE….”
But Alar didn’t stop. “…Dithathter,” he finished.
Quiet echoed through the classroom. Super-huggy-green-eyed pillow vs. Lethian Principal.
“…Were primitives 1,800 years ago,” she finished over him, drawing a gasp from the class.
“But we thaw what happ….” Alar was flustered. His tongue was hanging out further than before as he panted. Kids tittered and giggled. His eyes darted toward each laugh and comment.
“They are vermin,” Entarch said quietly. Notes that were about to change hands were dropped mid-aisle. Jokes froze on kids’ tongues. Sleepy heads jerked up and riveted on our principal. Then, as one, the class turned to me. As far as I knew, I was the only one of my kind on this ’natch-riddled rock. There was no “they”—just me. My cheeks grew hot and I looked down.
“Elions may be the Galaxy’s traders today,” Entarch continued. “But eighteen hundred years ago, your civilization had barely reached your planet’s moon. Recorded fact. And these facts about where we came from, our civilization’s march to progress, and the friends and foes….”
She turned her space-empty gaze at me. “It is to these facts that we will now turn our attention. I will be your history teacher this season. Please follow now as we move to Section One of our curriculum.”
“Ppppplllllthhhh!” Alar shouted, or slurped, or panted. His claws stretched out, grasping at anything close for stability and caught my desk. He was strong and tilted my desk beyond its anti-gravity compensators’ stabilization capacity. I hopped out before I became the first Galactic kid to be squashed by a desk. The kids closest to Alar scrambled away, shrieking. Alar was seriously upset.
No, he wasn’t.
He was wide eyed. His tongue was sticking out, like it was tasting life, and his claws extended at all angles from his body to keep him sliding him to darkness. This was not the innocent, curious creature from this morning. It was a plea.
For life.
“Contain yourself, podling!” Principal Entarch said sternly, pointing at him.
The class was laughing. What I had taken initially for anger, I knew was fear. Alar’s emerald gaze searched for help. We made eye contact; realization hit my gut like a meteor.
“He’s overheating—Nonch! Jenna! Let’s get him outside!” I shouted. Nonch flowed toward the quivering Elion and grabbed him with his six powerful manipulator arms as I moved around him, grasping for whatever I could catch on to. I narrowed my eyes. Jenna looked nervously away, rubbing her palms against her clothes.
I grunted. Alar was too heavy for Nonch and me, and the rest of the class was useless. We weren’t going to save him! I strained to lift Alar from his crumpled space, when suddenly his weight disappeared. I lost my grip and fell back into a desk.
Mieant lifted my end of my friend, and he and Nonch were carrying Alar. I pushed myself up and ran in front of them to open door after door after stupid door until we reached the playground. The doors flung open and cool, fresh air swished around us, like Mom’s hugs, like water after a long run, like…just the best coolness after the thing that’s totally stressed you out.
“Nonch! Water! Wet towels!” I yelled, waving a hand in the general direction of the school. Nonch melted away as only a Crynit can do.
“Mieant, we need to cool him off!” I took my sweater off and put it under him. Which was useless.
I caught Mieant looking at me, a mix of thoughts in his glance. I crossed my legs, and after some grunting, managed to position most of Alar’s head and upper body on my lap. Alar’s huge eyes focused on me with a strange intensity, but he was still unable to talk.
Nonch flowed back to us holding a drinking container with water and soaked towels. Mieant poured the water into Alar’s mouth, and he gulped it down. On a hunch, I placed the towels on his tongue to reduce his temperature. Some animals don’t sweat, and instead, pant. I figured with all that fur, THAT was how Elions regulated themselves.
Principal Entarch strode through the doors, standing at the top of the stairs that led down to the play ground.
“I said…,” she boomed, and was then interrupted.
A hologram containing a mountain-sized, purply-scarred Elion flashed into existence above where I sat with Alar. I froze, my mouth open, and tilted my head back to take in the giant form. Great gravity well. Just how big do Elions get?
“SCHOOLMASTER,” its voice thundered throughout the courtyard, “YOU HAVE IGNORED ELION BIOLOGY. YOU HAVE HINDERED AID IN A TIME OF NEED. MY REPORT TO YOUR SUPERIORS AND THIS GOVERNMENT REGARDING YOUR IRRESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN FILED. KNOW THAT DIPLOMATIC EXPULSION AS A THREAT DOES NOT WORRY THE ELION. WE WILL NOT BE COWED BY SUCH AS YOU.”
Then, to my horror, the giant Elion turned to me. “Thank you, Raystar Ceridian.”
And the mountain bowed.
A hush, like the one that comes after a bad, bad, BAD, inappropriate joke, when no one knows what the flip to do, fell over the playground. I closed my mouth and gulped as I looked up at Alar’s, uh, parent. Several classmates took an unconscious step back from the image, or me, or both. Alar’s parent was neither cute, nor cuddly.
“Are you threatening me? In my school? I will…” Principal Entarch started. But the image had flickered away. Not used to being casually dismissed, Entarch clenched her fists, breathed in, and lowered her head for a pause. Then she raised her head, slowly, and stared at me. Pretty much every kid stared at me.
“Your kindneth will be remembered, Raythtar,” Alar whispered, jarring me out of the terror of the principal’s glare as he backhandedly tapped me with a claw. I blinked. Whispering had been no small feat, given the towels on Alar’s tongue. I looked up reflexively and met Mieant’s equally surprised eyes. He stood and backed away from us, uncertain.
“Mieant,” Principal Entarch said, turning to him and ignoring me. “I commend you on your quick thinking. You have saved the Elion’s life!”
I didn’t need any credit for this, but wasn’t I the one who had initiated saving Alar? Wasn’t that obvious? I played back the recent events, trying to see what I might have done to anger her—or anger anyone, for that matter. I bent over and gave Alar a small hug, hiding the surge of expressions that would reveal too much of what I was feeling.
Four security guards arrived and gently lifted Alar. Behind them, a dark figure floated in to stand at the side of the doorway. Jurisdictor Godwill. His black eyes reflected daylight from the shadows and bulged from his skeletal head, as, hands behind his back, he took in the playground scene. As his gaze landed on me, a corner of his slightly open mouth turned upward in a smile, exposing bone-white teeth.
Security took Alar away, presumably to the nurse’s office. Entarch glanced at Godwill for a microsecond and then turned to the rest of us. “Back to your classrooms with you.”
Did I mention that roaches also still existed? We made like them and scattered under her burning gaze.
I kept my gaze on the ground as I passed through the doorway by Godwill.
13
“You didn’t have to help,” I whispered.
Principal Entarch’s topic today was the Human–Lethian Wars’ final decades and the
collapse of the Human defenses. Star systems rotated slowly above her as she explained how the defeat of Nem’ was key to the Lethian victory, and how Humanity was CRUSHED.
He blinked.
“You didn’t have to help!” I yell-whispered.
Mieant turned toward me, eyes wide in annoyance, “You know NOTHING,” he hissed.
I regarded him and shrugged. “It was still cool of you. You don’t suck....“ I blinked and considered my next words. “So bad.”
Our desks both lit up in blue. “Does either the Human or the Lethian have a question?” Entarch asked. Like ’natch rippling in a gust, the class rustled and turned its attention toward us.
“Raystar continuously talks to me,” Mieant mumbled, looking down. JERK. I kept my gaze on my terminal but clenched my hands into fists. My workstation’s blue turned yellow. I shook my head in disgust. I had been “bubbled.” When the blue field that allowed us to talk flickered to yellow, we were essentially cut off from communicating with the class.
Principal Entarch closed the distance between us in several flowing strides, coming to stand at the first row of students, regarding first Mieant and then me like distasteful art at a museum.
“You, Asrigard, should know better.” Mieant met her gaze. Whatever he’d been thinking flared his nostrils and drew his eyebrows into a frown. He didn’t look contrite. The two stared at each other a moment longer before he looked away.
Entarch’s pupil-less gaze shifted minutely as she turned her attention to me. I shifted nervously. Talking in class has never merited this level of attention. “You, Raystar Ceridian, will serve solitary detention over lunch.” Kids sniggered. Why shouldn’t they? The first class of the whole flipping year wasn’t even over.
