Chapter Twelve
After the first year of explorer training, more than two-thirds of the original successful candidates asked to quit or were forced to leave. The circle of six—along with Reneja—helped each other train to pass the cuts and stayed on to the second and third year.
After that first year, Kudenka, Niflan, and Hinev acknowledged that each harbored feelings for Reneja; but they were determined that whomever Reneja chose among them, it shouldn’t sunder their friendship. Even Niflan agreed to their self-imposed ruling, while all along he knew that Reneja didn’t care for him in any amorous way; his congenial disposition allowed him to overlook his own disappointment, even though it cut him to the core that he had known and loved Reneja for years without her reciprocation.
It became clear in no short time that Reneja was hopelessly enamored with Hinev, and the two other contenders for her affections stepped back, with few hard feelings; Hinev sensed that each was willing to concede defeat but involuntarily maintained their own regard for Reneja, which time did little to cure.
Reneja and Hinev began to spend so much time together that the original group of five was temporarily sundered. Kudenka launched himself into additional study as a means of distraction and ended up somewhat of an authority on the mission guideline; Niflan and Cernik fell into their own discussions, sometimes with Mindier, who made new friends among the other candidates and drifted a while away from the old alliance.
Then, in the third and final year, the final cut from their candidate crew was made to augment the last candidate group. All of them—Kudenka, Hinev, Niflan, Mindier, Reneja, and Cernik—had passed.
They were now officially explorers.
In the celebration that followed, the circle of six rekindled their strong affection for each other; they congratulated each other and prepared for the coming voyage.
The greatest surprise came within the following tenday: Kudenka had been selected as the mission leader, rather than any of the experienced regulators or space shuttle pilots of previous missions; the present mission called for a person of scientific training and leadership ability by its very nature, and Kudenka was an astrophysicist.
Their mission was to make the first attempt at centipede gate travel, widening micro-tears in the fabric of space-time and using them to “warp” across space.
The six explorers were afraid, one and all, but they were going. They would learn what secrets lay beyond the closest stars, secrets kept for all eternity by the universe.
The Sesylendae, the new explorer ship, had been completed, and had been loaded some two seasons prior to the last cut.
The circle of six visited the new ship together; Sesylendae’s new captain, this leader of the explorers thereafter to be called “Kudenka’s explorers” looked upon the ship with a sober eye; since his appointment, Kudenka seemed to have aged considerably.
Hinev knew, knew instinctively that Kudenka would never let them down. Kudenka was a man more worthy to lead the others than any, a man that had nothing else to distract him, who would let nothing but the welfare of them all distract him upon their mission. Reneja and Hinev danced on the boarding deck, making promises to the wind about their future; Mindier cut in, and Reneja ended up dizzy after a few minutes, collapsing with gusto onto the railing. Everything seemed so bright and promising.
Hinev should have remembered that reality can change in a moment.
“I never wanted children before I began to contemplate having them with you.” Hinev said, lying next to Reneja that evening, his heart full of an undefined feeling he wouldn’t name.
“Oh really? And how many do you want?”
“How many? That’s entirely up to you.”
“Oh, so you want natural children—not grown by ectogenesis.”
“As long as they’re your children, then I do.” He said, turning towards her and playing with a strand of her hair. “But again, it’s your choice.”
“What if I don’t want any?”
“You do.” He laughed.
“How do you know that?”
“You’re far too creative not to want children. And I suspect you’d like to be involved in that creation as much as possible.”
“You’re right. I was grown by ectogenesis, you know.” She said; he stared at her. She hadn’t mentioned this before, not that it was important to him either way. Most people had been born by ectogenesis. “And I know exactly what that feels like.” She went on. “Call it irrational, but I feel as though my mother couldn’t love me because I wasn’t born of her body.”
“What about your father?”
“He thinks I’m sexless because of it.” She shrugged. “That I’m not a man or woman, that I haven’t got any irrational tendencies because I was born free of a human female body. It’s as though I am mechanical, in a figurative sense.”
“And he raised you that way, as well. Not like a man or woman, merely a member of the species.”
“Yes. I think the only way I’d ever really feel like a woman, really understand what it means, is to have my own child. At the same time, I don’t feel like other women should have to feel the same way. I hate being critical of others. But,” she smiled at him, “if you hadn’t given me a choice, then I would have sworn high and low never to do it, even though I love you.”
He laughed at her. “That’s what I love about you.”
“What?”
“The fact that I can respect you without even trying.”
He held her close that night, thinking that any world which held Reneja would be enough for him; at the same time, he had been wondering again—what about Undina?
How could he leave her forever?
The rest of them had already made their good-byes; Reneja seemed unconcerned that she was to be parted from her family forever, that in the years of their journey near light-speed, a thousand or more years could pass on Seynorynael.
And there was a possibility that they would never be able to come home.
It wasn’t until that moment that the full horror of this thought hit him.
If they ever returned from their mission, the world they returned to wouldn’t be the one they knew.
And that meant that they wouldn’t ever really come back.
"Where's mother?" Hinev asked before Ettrekh had even patched in the visual. He had received Ettrekh’s message earlier that day while on tour of Sesylendae, a message that said he was to contact Ettrekh in Firien as soon as he returned.
His grandfather’s image appeared; Ettrekh’s hair had gone grey, and there were crow’s-feet etched by his eyes.
"Hinev, I... don't know how to tell you this." Ettrekh's face was crestfallen. And immediately Hinev knew something was wrong.
I should have come home during the last break, he thought. "What is it?" He asked evenly.
"Hinev, since you last came home, the viral epidemic has returned to our area. Undina is in the medical center—"
"Viral epidemic?" Hinev echoed, the words hitting him in the gut.
"You haven't heard? They don't know how it started, and they haven't been able to find a cure yet. I'm afraid she won't survive, Hinev."
“She?” Hinev repeated weakly.
“Your mother. Our Undina.” Hinev digested these words, and was silent for a long time.
"I'll be home in a few tendays," he insisted suddenly, refusing to believe that Undina could die before he could get there to remedy the situation. He had been away almost nine years. Before the explorer mission was launched, he would be given clearance for a visit for three tendays; he had planned, thought, dreamed somehow of convincing her to come on board Sesylendae in secret, then struggled with his conscience about these thoughts.
Ettrekh shook his head firmly, as if to say that Hinev would be too late.
"I'll get one of the stasis capsules for her." Hinev thought suddenly, his despe
rate thoughts shifting. The stasis capsules, a new experiment in suspended animation chambers thus far only rumored to exist, had supposedly been developed for the upcoming explorer mission; Ettrekh and Hinev were both aware that Hinev’s words had been a statement of desperation; only Hinev suspected that the rumors regarding the capsules were true.
"It will keep her alive until I can find a cure for her illness—and I will." Hinev said, thinking desperately that if there was a way to save Undina, he would travel to the ends of Seynorynael to find that cure. He just hoped he wasn’t called away on his mission before he could find it.
Ettrekh nodded, absently, but he regarded his grandson with a sense of wonder, mostly because there was nothing Hinev hadn’t achieved thus far that he had set his mind to and because Hinev’s name was famous throughout the world. If anyone could get the stasis capsule—if it existed—Hinev would be the one to do it.
Ettrekh was already so proud of him; Hinev was to be the first great explorer mission's biological and genetics expert, and its second medical technician.
"Can you get one, can you really?" Ettrekh asked again. The new stasis capsules were rumored to be imperfect, but if they existed, they were more valuable than anything on the planet. Only a council representative could have access to them, or anything else as valuable—a council representative or one of the new explorer scientists.
The capsule alone could buy Undina more time. Ettrekh knew that he wouldn’t be alive when Hinev returned, that it would be many years before Hinev could revive his beloved mother and that the chances of her survival diminished across the years.
But hope was something.
Hinev tore away from the room, lost in a haze. He ceased to pay attention to his surroundings; he was wandering alone in the city, aimlessly. Firien, where was Firien? Where was his mother? Undina couldn’t die! She would go unwillingly, unless he was there! He felt as though he’d been dropped onto a dreary, dark field, a poor mad thing with no sense of direction and no sense to figure out where he should be.
He wanted to know—to believe—that Undina was alive, that she would remain alive. He loved her so, and would miss her too much. How could he return to the security of their dwelling in Firien, his home no matter where in the universe he went, without knowing Undina would be there?
She was only a humble Kayrian woman, but he loved her so much, he couldn’t bear the thought of her death
In that moment, Hinev came face to face with himself, and he knew that he was angry at the necessity of human frailty. He knew that time was precious, but why must men die so young?
And where did time go, once it was passed? Where had the golden moments gone, the ones he had spent with Undina? Why did he have memory of things that were no more? If Undina never woke up into the world again, yes, even if her body still lived, if her thoughts were never there with him again, he knew she would be lost to him.
Hinev supposed others had felt this way, since life began.
For a moment, Hinev wanted to be with Undina, to share her fate. He wanted to will the life back into her. Most of all, he felt very afraid.
Then, nothingness. What was this nothingness? Despite what he had said, he felt he couldn’t do anything anymore; the energy driving him had simply left his body.
He wandered a long time, perhaps days, alone in the city, lost to all. He felt no purpose anymore, felt nothing but the nothingness sweeping around him and closing him in? he wondered. So that wherever he went, the nothingness still followed…
What was the point to life, to it all?
Did he believe in anything anymore? he asked himself. Did he want? Feel? No, not anything but the nothingness.
Then, as he sat on a dark street, lying exposed to the wind, a voice inside him told him that if he gave in to this hope of disappearing, he would rot, alive or dead. He would rot here, and the nothingness would win.
But why go on? he asked. Why?
It was his own voice that answered.
Because of love, there was a reason to live. To keep Undina alive in him, in his memory.
“Creator above, I was beginning to worry about you! We thought you had disappeared! Hinev? What is it?" Reneja asked, spying Hinev sitting alone in the dining hall, but Hinev's mind was far away. She continued to stand, glancing down at him.
"I'm sorry, Reneja," he said, looking up a moment later. "I wanted to be alone for a while."
"Something happened," she stated the question. She had known Hinev almost three years, long enough for her to understand when something was bothering him, even though he seemed undisturbed by most calamities.
From what she knew of his life, however, she had never before been surprised by his ability to deal with difficult situations, though life had offered him little to depend upon. And that fact alarmed her. She knew this was something he couldn’t shake off.
"I heard some news—about my mother," he offered. "It seems she's fallen prey to the viral epidemic that is sweeping the provinces."
Reneja reached an arm around him in an attempt to be some comfort. Reneja knew that the disease he was talking about was fatal.
"I've decided to put her in a stasis capsule. I don't care how I have to get it—but I can't let my mother die," Hinev said. Reneja knew he was demanding a solution that was next to impossible, demanding it of himself, as though he expected nothing less and would torment himself for any failure. Her heart wrenched.
Then, she had an idea. A terrifying idea, something that she knew she could do for him, even if it meant breaking all of the rules to do it.
"Hinev, I can get one," she whispered.
Hinev turned to her with an expression of shock, the first time she had ever seen him wearing it.
She smiled.
“My father created them.” She shrugged, laughing at his expression.
“But I should have known—”
“What?” She laughed. “How could you, when I only found out last tenday?!”
For the first time since he had heard the news about his mother, Hinev remembered where he had put his smile.
Sesylendae pulled up from the runway outside Ariyalsynai and shot skyward, breaking through the clouds at an amazing speed, the jarring forces balanced by stabilizers. But until they reached open space, Hinev felt the hum under his feet as he stood in his laboratory.
Undina was safe, he thought. Safe in the stasis capsule. She would be there when he returned, and until that time he was going to scour the galaxy to find a cure for her.
His search would take many years.
Hinev had been checking all of the creatures on board, taking care of them, which had been his allotted duty for the moments of the launch.
Once the tachiyon engine engaged, the ship would speed up very slowly for the lifeforms aboard to adjust to the speed, and finally be vaulted away at a speed that made the take-off look like an evening stroll. And as soon as the ship cleared Tulorian airspace, it would be heading on a course to take it near several hundred systems in The Great Cluster.
After they had reached the first unexplored planet, the ship's crew had orders to test the centipede gate engine. If successful, the centipede gate they enlarged would be a permanent link to the one that had been positioned just outside Kai-rek, an ancient black hole near the Seynorynaelian system.
A few hours after the take-off Hinev left his experiment to search for Reneja at the Observation Window. He laughed as he headed to the Observation Deck, remembering how she had talked of watching the outside world throughout take-off so as not to miss a moment of Seynorynael's glory. She had never before been on a space voyage—nor had he—and she was going to record it for posterity on one of Niflan’s favorite holo-stilling devices. Their posterity, he thought. They had already planned a long life together.
The launch of Sesylendae had been horrific. Something had gone wrong in the engine; even Hi
nev had felt it in his secure position in the interior. One of the spaceship technicians had cleared it up after a few minutes, but the horrific sound like the sky cracking open had sent the animals all over the containment room bleating and cawing; Hinev hardly had any time to panic, trying to keep them calm. He was glad, though, that he wasn’t with the others.
Anyone who showed signs of flight disorder—of which there were various symptoms—would be sent back to the ground by shuttle. But of course, they had all been prepared for the take-off, Hinev thought; yet the take-off had been far rougher than all anticipation, and for a moment when they reached orbit, all power had gone out for half a minute.
Hinev was glad they were past the worst of it as he wandered around the Observation Area, searching the crowd that lounged on the deck, enjoying their first glimpse of the nearby Sumar cluster. Several hours had passed since the launch; Reneja was nowhere to be found, and Hinev assumed she had gone to her quarters. He decided to wait for her on the deck. She would come looking for him sooner or later, he knew.
Hinev was sitting alone by the window when Niflan found him. Niflan’s face was very pale as he headed towards Hinev; Hinev’s senses drew back in horror.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Niflan found he couldn’t look his friend in the eye, but he knew that someone had to break the news to Hinev.
"Hinev.”
Hinev was silent as though he hadn’t heard.
“Hinev. I’m afraid I have to tell you, Hinev. You see, Reneja and Cernik—" Niflan stopped, swallowing a lump in his throat; his throat was scratchy and raw, but he kept his composure out here for the world.
Hinev’s face held a look of profound horror, Niflan thought, looking at him now. It was in the eyes, Hinev’s eyes. Niflan had the feeling that Hinev already knew what he was going to say. "They couldn't handle take-off. They were restrained, but—"
Hinev's eyes glazed over. "They had to be sent back." He said evenly, breaking the news to himself before Niflan could.
"Yes.” Niflan nodded, the beloved faces of Reneja and Cernik in his mind, but he heard the sound of their voices most clearly. He would never forget the sound of those voices.
“We put them into one of the shuttles to rendezvous with the Nanshe outpost.” Niflan said. “They will await transferal back to Seynorynael there. I'm sorry, Hinev," Niflan added solemnly. "I—know how much you loved her."
It was as if Reneja had died, because Hinev knew he would never see her alive again.
The Comet Riders: Book Five of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 18
