by Aer-ki Jyr
She let him guide her, clinging to his arm as a safety line as they passed several other people walking through the mostly empty paths until they came to a set of wide stairs. They climbed up them, too numerous for her to try and count, and arrived at a wide promenade with clumps of people here and there at tables or kiosks. Almost all of them were not Protovic, and those that were didn’t have any red patches on their faces.
“Over here,” he said, walking her to a railing that let them look down over the top of the park and see far more people below doing all manner of things.
Naisha grabbed the railing and held on tight, for fear of falling even though there was no way she was going to unless she climbed over, for it came all the way up to her chest. The vertigo aside the sight of so many people had her shivering with nerves for a reason she couldn’t peg, but her whole body was shaking uncontrollably.
“You’ve been by yourself for a long time. It’s understandable that there will be some shakes while you adjust.”
“Thank you, but I do not like this. I should have more control over myself.”
“You’re not the first to go through this,” he reassured her, “and won’t be the last.”
“I suppose not,” she said, still clinging to the rail and trying to steady her shaking arms.
“Just let it pass, don’t force it,” Gharris suggested. “We can wait here till it does. I don’t have anywhere else to be today. You’re my only assignment.”
“What do you normally do?”
“I work as a comm tech, servicing and building communications gear. Everything from personal equipment up to the planetary transmitters. I volunteered to be a transitional attendant, mostly because I wanted to see if you guys were really our peers.”
She looked over at him. “Are we?”
Gharris nodded. “Very much so. You’re home now, sister,” he said, putting his arm across her shoulders and giving her a soft hug on her exoskeletal plates. “And we’re very glad to have you here.”
“I really don’t feel like I deserve this.”
“Nonsense. Everyone deserves this. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.”
“What about all those in the prison?”
Gharris sighed. “We’d bring them here if we could, but we can’t bring the Veliquesh with them. It has to die there, so the only way you were able to get here was to separate yourself from it. If we don’t kill it that poison could spread and linger on. You’re free to do what you want here, and if you wanted to live the Veliquesh way you could, up to a point. That sickness could continue in you and others, but we know it won’t. Not after everything you’ve learned. If you bought into that nonsense you never would have been able to pass the requirements to get here.”
“I know.”
“So us keeping the others in isolation until or unless they earn their way out isn’t us punishing them, it’s one last act of corruption by the Veliquesh culture. It’s making them prisoners, and unless they can break themselves free of it…and we’re offering them all the help we can…then they’ll still be victims of it. But it will end with them. We’ll still offer them a way out, we’ll never give up on them until they day they die, but if they can’t bring themselves to think rather than believe, there’s nothing more we can do for them. Bringing them here and letting them see each other would only destroy what little chance they have of freeing their minds. Isolation is their best hope of that.”
“It works,” Naisha said.
“And hopefully in time the others there now will find their way through it. If not, there will be many more coming in fresh to the system. And with 3 trillion of you to process, I expect there will be many more red faces showing up in this city over the coming years, even if that number is only a fraction of the total rescued.”
“I’m not ungrateful, at all, but something about that still makes me sad…and excited, because I made it through. Is that wrong?”
“No. No it’s not. What’s happened to your people is sad, but you survived it and have a bright future ahead of you. Don’t waste it. Embrace it. Let the others make their way here on their own terms, or not at all. They aren’t your concern now. What you do going forward is.”
“Ok. Other than standing here with the shakes, what am I supposed to do today?”
Ghariss laughed. “Whatever we want. We’re exploring, remember? I’ll get you to your quarters eventually, but for now let’s be brave and head out, shakes or not. Pick a direction and we’ll start walking.”
“What?”
“Just point in some direction and I’ll take it from there.”
“Um…alright,” she said pointing to her left for no reason.
He offered her his arm again. “You can let go when the shakes leave you.”
“Do I have to?” she asked, looping both of hers around his and holding on tightly.
“You won’t get lost. I promise. But you can hold on to me if you wish until you feel comfortable. I don’t mind the close proximity to such a pretty face,” he said with a wink, which she didn’t interpret, for that was one Star Force facial expression that she’d have to learn along with a lot of others in the days to come.
“Come on,” he said, nudging her to start moving. “One foot in front of the other and let’s start walking you into your future.”
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