by S. G. Basu
A murmur of low voices seeped through the entrance, and she turned around to look. Shadows moved in the corridor outside. There were voices of two men arguing, one of them Pomewege’s. They were whispering, but Maia could still hear most of what they said.
“There is no need for such agitation,” the principal said.
“How can you say that? You of all people should know what this means,” the other person replied.
“It does not mean much.”
“Not much? She is a Shimugien . . . a cursed one.”
Maia flinched. She did not understand what Shimugien meant, but she definitely knew the meaning of the word “cursed.”
“She is just a child, and a very frightened one at the moment.”
The other voice fell silent for a while.
“So you want to keep it a secret?” the voice now had a feigned softness to it.
“Of course . . . you know what it will be like if they know,” Pomewege replied.
“But they will know . . . they will detect the loss.”
“Of course they will, but not soon enough. Now please, do what I ask of you.”
The voices ceased. Footfalls outside the door meant that one of the two had walked away. Maia sat quietly, hugging her knees and worrying.
It was a long while before the door fell open, and Maia sat up to look at the people who walked in. It was Principal Pomewege, and with him was a very tall woman. They stopped at the threshold for a moment before the woman strolled over to Maia and smiled.
In the dimness of the room, Maia could discern the rumpled brown hair that flowed down her back. She wore a long gown in muted tones, and there was a grace in her walk that made her seem to float on air. Her luminous eyes cast a soothing spell as they gazed into Maia’s.
“Somehow, I had expected you to be older.” Her voice was as gentle as her eyes.
“I’ll be fourteen soon enough,” Maia blurted.
“Oh yes, of course,” she replied with a chuckle.
Maia tried to stop her displeasure from showing. Now was neither the time nor the place to be cheeky with people who were trying their best to help, but it was frustrating to be treated like a baby. And then she realized that one good thing came out of the overwhelming annoyance surging through her—she had suddenly stopped being afraid.
“So, I’m a Shimugien, right? And cursed as well?” Maia said in the most casual tone she could muster. She had to show them that she knew more than they thought she knew. The effect was immediate; the coddling smile on the woman’s face vanished. She looked up at the principal, who stood to Maia’s right, and his eyes wavered.
“I heard you,” Maia said to Pomewege.
“We were outside,” Pomewege said in haste, as if trying to justify his actions. At a curt nod from the woman, he bowed and walked out of the room.
“Yes, you are a Shimugien,” the woman said as the door closed behind them. “It is an ancient Xifarian word meaning ‘Possessor of the Light.’ But you are not cursed.
“Our nation, as you might already know, has evolved around the L’miere crystals. Without them, we would not have been and we will cease to exist if they die. So understandably, if we come across anyone who has the power to impair the normal functioning of these crystals, we feel threatened. And out of our fear, we call them ‘cursed.’”
“Did I harm the crystal?” Maia whispered.
“The crystal dissipated at your touch,” the woman replied, her gaze stern and distant.
Maia hung her head and scanned the floorboards, trying to assess the enormity of the situation. “But how?” she asked.
“We do not clearly understand how. Sometimes, if your body’s energy grows an affinity to these crystals, the energy fields collide, and the one that is more powerful assimilates or destroys the other. This phenomenon is extremely rare, but it happens. There is nothing you could have done to stop this, Maia. You certainly should not blame yourself for this.” The brown-haired woman placed a reassuring arm on Maia’s shoulder, her voice soft with compassion.
“There have been Shimugien before me, right?” Maia whispered. She had made these all-powerful Xifarians feel threatened in the gravest possible way. She shuddered to think what could happen to her now that they knew.
The woman hesitated, and then nodded.
“And what has happened to them? Were they imprisoned and killed?” She made herself ask the question that was drowning every other thought in her mind. “What will happen to me?”
“No one is going to imprison you or kill you, Maia. No one needs to know. We will keep it a secret, if you keep it a secret.”
The woman had not answered her questions, but simply evaded them, Maia realized. She did not feel like prodding in that direction anymore; the answer was easy to guess. All she wanted now was to be home with Dada and Herc and Emmy, safe and away from it all.
“And how do I have this—” she stopped mid-sentence, not knowing what to say.
“It’s just a matter of how our internal elements are arranged. That is how some of us have special abilities. Some of us are born with terraforming skills, while someone else becomes an expert in the arts of telekinetics.”
“So you mean I might be able to terraform? Or have TEK skills?” Even in the dismal condition she was in, Maia’s heart felt a tad lighter, only if for a moment.
The woman laughed softly. “Terraforming you might not, those require a very different alignment. But you very well might be TEK. Now, that is exciting, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t. Maia grimaced. It would be exciting if she could freely talk about it, but this came at a price—the price of keeping her friends in the dark, of being vigilant at every step, of worrying that anything could go wrong at any time. She wondered what other strange secrets were hidden inside her. The woman seemed to sense her fears as she gently patted Maia on the back.
“You will be fine, Maia. You just have to be careful to not touch the crystals ever again,” she said. “Principal Pomewege will arrange everything for you.”
As if on cue, the door opened and Pomewege strode in. In his hands, he held a brand-new growing pod, and a new crystal shimmered brilliantly inside it.
“You will need to hand over your old pod to me,” Principal Pomewege explained. “And the night before your submissions, bring me your craft and pod and I will fit them together for you.”
Maia scrambled off the chair and took the pod. “Thank you, Principal Pomewege, and—”
“Call me Mahswa Tabrin.”
“Thank you, Mahswa Tabrin.”
As Maia walked away, she felt their sympathetic gaze follow her. In the stillness of the dark room she had left behind, nervousness lingered. And somewhere deep inside Maia’s mind, a small voice of concern stirred.
25: The Prototype Challenge
Master D was intent on driving them crazy. To be exact, it was the work he assigned the teams that did the job for him. The task in question was a mammoth analysis that Master D had been showing the contestants. It involved the entire span of Xifarian flight from its home to their stop next to Tansi. While it was definitely illuminating to hear about the wondrous paths the planet had coursed over three centuries, tracing it on the enormously complex cartographical screens was no trivial matter.
Days stretched into endless nights, and nights turned into tiring days with little or no sleep in between. And suddenly, Maia was happy that this was neither a real school, nor a real assignment. She and her teammates grew more respectful of the serious-faced trainees they saw around the building, ones with long and never-smiling faces, ones they frequently poked fun at among themselves.
Time passed, sometimes in a happy rhythm and sometimes in sad monotony. Maia carried the burden of her knowledge of being a Shimugien guardedly. No one had suspected that her pod had been switched, and no one seemed to pay much attention when her crystal had stopped dying.
“Guess what I found?” Nafi said with an air of mystery as they gathered for another exhaus
ting mapping session.
“What?” Ren asked in a distant voice.
“More about the R’armimon,” she replied, barely able to contain the excitement.
“And?” Dani looked up.
Nafi grinned. She took out a small scrap of paper from her pocket and started to read. “The R’armimon Empire included the Southern Arachnis Galaxy, which in turn included the system of Xif and Ara. They were efficient to the point of ruthlessness; their empire was rich to the point of decadence. They dominated the whole known universe with their culture, economy, and military might.”
She stopped, looked at the scarcely interested faces around her, and shrugged.
“Not much is written about them, which is surprising given their influence during the times when the nation of Xif came to be. Even this one book I found hardly says anything, which brings me to the conclusion that their history has been expunged from Xifarian records for some reason. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. No one will speak about it, least of all Lady Dae.”
“How did you find this book then?” Dani asked, all the time scribbling furiously as she tried to finish some calculations on Xif’s Ssoiffean orbits.
“While poking around Master D’s personal book collection,” Nafi said with a flourish. “He didn’t have a choice since I desperately needed reference material for his own project.”
“Nice,” Kusha said, whether to Nafi for having finagled the book from Master D, or to Dani whose calculations finally reached an accurate conclusion, Maia could not tell.
What could have been an interesting discussion quickly came to an end. Not only had the long study sessions tired them, but it had also robbed them of their natural curiosity and playfulness. Finding out about the R’armimon did not help them in their current drudgery, and it was promptly ignored, much to Nafi’s disappointment.
***
On yet another day that had stretched too long, Dani rushed into the study, grinning widely from ear to ear. Instead of the expected warm welcome, she received a few raised eyebrows and looks of concern. Maia was the only one to leave her desk and walk toward the visibly excited girl.
“It’s Hans,” Dani managed to say between spurts of excited squeals.
“And?”
“He’ll be visiting Xif for an official meeting, and he plans to stop by.”
“That’s great news, Dani.” Maia was happy for her friend and somewhat relieved to find an explanation for her unusual show of excitement.
“And he’s going to take us all out for dinner.”
Maia felt her face stretch into a wide smile.
“Really? When? I can’t wait to get outside,” Ren rushed to join the ecstatic duo.
“That’s the big problem. He’ll be here next week, so we hardly have time to get approvals from Miir,” Dani’s face clouded.
“Only if His Lordship chooses to bestow his kindness upon us,” Kusha said with a smirk.
A moment of gloomy silence fell before Nafi spoke up.
“He sure will,” she exuded infinite wisdom. “Let’s not worry about that now. We’ll ask him when we meet tomorrow. Or maybe invite him over as well.”
The last comment prompted unfriendly glares from the rest of the gang. Nafi simply shrugged, rolled her eyes, and turned back to attend to the pile of papers that was strewn over her table.
“And, Ren . . .” Nafi looked up again, “you’ve have been slipping out every other night since we got here. It’s kind of hard to believe that you haven’t been outside the academy.”
Ren stayed quiet for a moment. Then he replied steadily, as if he was expecting that precise comment. “I have business that needs to be conducted . . . need to meet friends and . . . associates. But I’m not very fond of discussing my personal affairs with anyone, so maybe you should keep your curiosity to yourself.”
Maia expected Nafi to retort and argue and lecture, but the girl simply stared.
“Hope you’ve been taking the required permits from Miir,” she said finally in a sniffy voice before diving back into the papers. Ren fell suspiciously quiet.
***
Nafi’s prediction regarding Miir came true the next evening. Maia was relieved that they did not need to extend the invitation to Miir¬— their mentor seemed quite happy to send out the permits as soon as Dani voiced her request. After that, it was just an eager wait until the day of the outing, which unfortunately was also the day the Kinetics Master was scheduled to evaluate their crafts for the Prototype Challenge. To be allowed into the prototype driving grounds, everyone had to dress in special regulation outfits—oversized white overalls and thick-soled brown boots—sorry-looking garb that made Nafi grimace and moan.
“These are ugly.” She sounded heartbroken when they were handed the gear.
“We have to discard all personal accessories,” Kusha added, reading through the checklist.
“I have to take my rings off?” Ren seemed as hurt as Nafi.
“Guess my headband goes as well,” Kusha said with a sigh.
Nafi forgot her grievances all of a sudden and chuckled heartily.
***
The day of the evaluations started early. Maia and Dani were among the first ones slotted to visit the evaluation chambers, Nafi and Ren were scheduled for mid-day, and Kusha was in one of the last groups.
The evaluation chamber was at the northern end of the XDA, housed in a single-story rectangular building that stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of the domed structures of the institute. In hopes of finishing early so they could have more time to spend with Hans, Dani dragged Maia to the chambers long before the tests were slated to start. Even Master Kehorkjin arrived after them and Maia thought she saw a flicker of approval in his eyes as he walked past, nodding curtly. Soon after, an assistant escorted the duo and thirteen other anxious contestants that had gathered inside.
Into a waiting area they went—a dull beige room with three uninviting rows of metal chairs. On the wall directly opposite from where they had entered stood another door marked “Terrain Chamber.” It was behind this door that the assistant disappeared after seating them; the door at which fifteen pairs of nervous eyes stared until it fell open once again and Master Kehorkjin emerged.
“Maia,” he bellowed.
Maia rose, feet leaden and throat parched, as she followed Master Kehorkjin through the door. The Terrain Chamber was rectangular; one entire side was a glass window, behind which lay an expanse of miniature rolling hills. The greenness of the vista could easily compare to the lush valley of Appian, Maia thought, reeling from a sudden wave of homesickness.
“You need to take a seat in here,” the master’s voice snapped Maia out of her gloom.
He stood patting a large, egg-shaped contraption at the center of the room. Maia had no idea how she could take a seat in that. She did not have to wonder too long. The master pressed an imperceptible switch somewhere on the egg’s tapered top. The front of the apparatus fell open, revealing a contoured seat inside.
“This is an Interfacer Pod,” Master Kehorkjin said in a gruff, impatient tone. He pointed at two tubes that stood out on the open hinged top of the pod. “Slide your arms inside these casts after you sit. Their tips hold the control keys; it has the same layout as the control pads you used during the testing of your crafts, only this one is more sophisticated.”
Maia frowned. Sophistication she could appreciate, but did that mean all the hard work and practice to master precise control of her craft was in vain?
Maia decided to at least try and bring up her point. “But I have never trained in this before—”
“That is why you will be given some time to get acquainted,” the master snapped. “And that is also the reason why you should hasten, since we have to give that precious time to each one of you. I do not want to hold anyone up until midnight.”
As soon as his words sunk into Maia’s restless brain, she scrambled. Kusha was in one of the last groups of the day and she definitely did not want him t
o be late for their dinner with Hans. The pod was confining but the seat was supple, enveloping Maia in a cocoon of comfort that eased her anxiety somewhat.
“Put this on.” Master Kehorkjin held out a silver helmet. “You will hear my instructions through this, as well as see and hear your craft. By the way, your craft is already in the terrain. Take a look.” He stepped aside, giving Maia a clear view of the area beyond the glass window.
Sure enough, her Piro sat at the center of the field, its angel wings gleaming. Maia felt her heart swell with pride. It did not matter how she fared in these tests; what mattered was creating a beautiful craft that she could never have imagined doing a few months ago. She had never been trained in such things and now she was catching up, and quite ably too, with the Jjord and the Xifarians. Maia put the helmet on, still smiling, and slipped her hand into the casts when the master sealed the front of the pod.
“All set?” Master Kehorkjin’s voice drifted in. “I am turning the visual on, now.”
A flash and a few flickers later, Maia saw through Piro’s eyes. An endless expanse of grass lay ahead; the gentle roll of the terrain held her in its cradle. Questions surged into her dazed mind, and she wondered how this was possible. Did they telepathically project the field into my mind or had the Interfacer connected to Piro’s sensory matrix?
“Try out the control keys at your fingertips.” The master’s instruction made Maia focus on more urgent matters. “If your command is interpreted correctly, you will see a flash of green.”
Maia pressed with her right index—ignition! A green light flashed at the top-right corner of her view. Immediately, she felt the gentlest vibration as Piro’s wheels treaded the verdant carpet, the grass in front of her eyes swaying as the craft advanced with a rustle. She pressed harder to accelerate. Another green flash and a gentle growl later, the rising slope ahead rushed to meet her; Piro had sprinted forward. Maia brought her craft to a stop with a nudge of her left index, and made it turn around with a swirl of her middle fingers. She tested the engagement and decoupling of the gear system with taps of her thumbs and tried out a few other maneuvers.
