The Comet Riders: Book Five of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  Chapter Thirteen

  Selerael was present at the child’s birth. She was there in the shadows, as she had been long before the child’s mother and father ever met each other.

  How fate had backfired upon her! she thought.

  She had never known who his mother would be, or his father. She had blindly followed all those born under the name Marankeil, haunted them almost to the point of their mental ruin, though she thought they had never known. What could she do to them? She hadn’t tried to interfere thus far, until Vaelan Marankeil. There was something about him—perhaps that he looked so much like the Emperor Marankeil in the memories she held of him, memories inherited by her mother, Alessia.

  Selerael tried to prevent his attachment, tried to dissuade him, but to no avail.

  That was when she discovered that she was powerless.

  She tried again.

  Marankeil and Iola Efaren were attached, and they had a child.

  She was there when the boy entered the world, took his first halted breath and cried with a melancholy of being forced into the world. She was there when his hair grew into a soft feathery down over his head, there when his tiny wondrous eyes first took notice of his surroundings. She was there a half-year later when he toddled forth on his first few staggered steps in utter wonderment. She watched him as one does in a trance, unable for the longest time to bear to recognize this lovely child for the monster she knew he would become.

  Then, one day, she struggled against the trance.

  She knew what she had to do! What she had waited to do! What she had sworn to do all those years ago among her own mother and son on the bridge of Sesylendae, and she would not hesitate—

  She moved towards the boy, swifter than a shadow. She was behind him. She needed no weapon to kill him. If she chose, she could but raise her hand, and direct the power of Hinev’s serum into a stream of blue-hot fire, an incineration beam that would terminate the life of the baby Ilikan Marankeil.

  Or she could merely crush him, smother him to death in her vice-like arms.

  She decided to kill him with the purest fire, yes, in order to save the lives of the countless trillions that would suffer and die by the hand of the Seynorynaelian Empire, on the order of the cruel and evil Emperor Marankeil.

  She tried to creep near, tried to raise her arm.

  Suddenly, she was the one who cried out, as Space began constricting around her, threatening to cut off breath, heedless of her power. The constricting space seized her arms and squeezed against the skin, threatening to implode her, but the power of her immortal body fought, held it at bay, kept her trapped there in a state of suspended time and animation. She was conscious of the arrhythmic beats of her pulse, beating rapidly—

  And then she heard the whispers, felt the animus of these baleful, chilling whispers, voices like the wind in her mind. This was a warning, a primeval warning and for the first time in all of her life, she felt a creeping fear—a fear of the nothingness—

  Space and Time themselves were stopping her—yes, they were forbidding her from destroying this child!

  The enormity of this, the unfairness of this, when she had been their creature, had waited these many long years for her own purpose to come to an end, overwhelmed her. She felt as though she would collapse in weeping, but she was too distraught, horrified, and wounded by this pain to even shed a tear.

  Her own mind began racing back across her memories, searching for a right answer, for a new tactic as to what she could do.

  She felt so unbearably helpless.

  Then—was the murder necessary? Could she not stop Marankeil some other way? Could she prevent his ever becoming mechanized, from turning into his monstrous self?

  No, she didn’t know him well enough. Not unless she tried to enter his mind and force him to stop—

  The powers told her she couldn’t do that. They would crush her back to oblivion if she tried. But wasn’t she the One? The One destined to restore balance? Perhaps even she was not exempt from following the laws of Nature, the principles of science.

  She could, though, learn about the child.

  Then she remembered Hinev. Knowing what had happened to Hinev, what would happen to Hinev, who would one day lose his own identity in the thousands of invading memories he had absorbed telepathically, she was abruptly afraid to read Marankeil’s mind too deeply and have his thoughts poison her beyond redemption; at the same time, she was then able to contact her own conscience, the conscience she had tried to put aside for what she had to do.

  She knew she could not judge what she did not know or understand.

  Knowing that, she made it her purpose to learn everything about him.

  And she was going to use that knowledge to change his fate.

  When she made that decision in her mind, she found that Time and Space had released her invisible bonds; when she made up her mind not to kill Marankeil in cold blood, she found she could step towards him, draw near—

  Near enough to change his destiny.

  The heavy white doors slowly swung inward on hinges the color of deep purple flowers, the color of Seynorynaelian blood. A boy with a mass of curls appeared under the wide, arching frame of a tall city dwelling and adjusted the bottom of a grass-stained shirt that had once been both white and clean. Behind him, the row of houses that had been sandwiched together seemed to be looking down on him with a disapproving eye, casting their tenebrous shadow before him and over the steep steps as far as possible, onto the small patch of flat, vivid green grass that separated the dwellings from the thoroughfare ahead.

  He turned on them and towards the road.

  “Ha hooo! What a lovely day!” Rilien Kilaen Ornenkai threw triumphant words to the wind as he jumped over the last step. With an emancipated air, he headed to the street, arrived at the corner, and sat before the transport entryway. No sooner had he sat down than his mind began meditating on enthusiastic possibilities of what lay in store for him that day.

  “What am I going to do today?” he wondered.

  He had no doubt that he was going to find adventure, or that it would find him. He had so many expectations. Some thrilling, some apprehensive, but expectations nonetheless and altogether positive. He had no idea what he would find, but he was eager to discover it. At the same time, the future seemed so far away to him, so bright and full of promise, and he liked it that way, far ahead of him, though he did not know it. He liked to keep the dreams safely ahead of him, so that he had something to inspire him to acts of heroism.

  Riliya Ornenkai was happy, young, and free that day.

  His imagination left no doubt in his young, certain mind that he was going to taste all life had to offer, and that he was going to achieve whatever he attempted; was he not a heroic soul? He couldn’t understand that the world was indifferently cruel, carelessly disorganized, uninspired, unmoved, and content with profitable mediocrity. He was indifferent to the real world and only knew the brightness of the dream of it. All he knew was that he had great hopes, and he hoped, the determination to see those hopes fulfilled.

  Riliya Ornenkai looked up at the dome and wondered if he could really see beyond the artificial light to the real sky above the dome.

  The entire city of Ariyalsynai and much of the surrounding landscape had been covered with a great dome that kept unregulated weather from interfering with the city's growth, though the clear blue sky high above showed no sign of it.

  Riliya waited a minute for a transport to arrive. Like the dome, the clear transport tunnels seemed invisible, and the transports appeared to ride suspended in mid-air. But the twisting, interconnecting tunnels were tightly packed in the city streets. Some arched over the lower buildings at the remote edges of Ariyalsynai, far away from the high white ornately decorated buildings of the city center that rose like spires into the sky, up to the peak of the dome that covered the city. Only special
air-cars were permitted to travel above the transport tunnels, the air-cars of the politicians and prominent families that lived in the city center.

  Riliya hopped onto the transport that had stopped to collect him. One of the prefects in charge winked at him, but Riliya wrinkled his brows in confusion; why did adults always condescend to children as though children had no minds of their own? He tried to smile back.

  He settled himself in a seat as the high-speed transport took off. A minute passed as the transport reached a multiple intersection. Riliya had sat in the seats marked "Gelyfaeon Park". At the intersection, the long chain of transport sections broke off, three continuing on in the same direction towards the heart of the city, another turning to a neighboring sector, but Riliya's section turned into yet another transport tunnel, a long clear tube that led to the local park for his sector of Ariyalsynai.

  The transport left Riliya at the edge of Gelyfaeon Park, a small alcove of lonely green trees and scattered flowers among the shining white and silver city. Riliya stopped to observe the great blooms of blue and violet miri flowers that filled the air with their fresh sweet scent. He couldn't help but admire them, poking stubbornly through the bare patches of grass. No one had planted them but the flowers had sprung up on their own in the dark black soil, perhaps from seeds that had lain dormant through the construction or from those that had drifted in when the dome archways opened to let in transports from the astroports and space stations.

  Riliya left them alone and headed to his favorite spot, a tree root under a sprawling sher-inn tree where he liked to sit and invent stories of ancient heroes. He sometimes imagined he was a comet rider hero that had arrived on Seynorynael from the stars. He was a hero who had lived free in the open land before there had been cities, before the regulation codes had been devised. Like any hero, he could choose his own future and live anywhere he desired.

  Sometimes he imagined he was an ancient leader of a great mass of people. Sometimes he imagined his people were being attacked by evil aliens and that he was the hero who had saved them before and would again. He was the one who was going to fight the alien leader one on one and defeat him. He was going to win he wasn’t sure what as his reward and then fight the other alien leaders who would of course challenge him time after time, and he’d beat them all.

  Riliya seldom imagined winning a fair noblelady, but when he did, she would of course be proud of him and grateful that he had saved her life. She would try to kiss him, but he would wipe it off and humbly accept her gratitude. Sometimes he played games with stick figures and assembled armies in the dirt under the sher-inn tree; a twig sufficed for his noblelady, and he leaned her against the tree so she could watch, and so he could occasionally reassure her he would save her life and curse the villain for trying to kidnap her.

  He got caught up in his fantasies; he couldn’t wait to finish the battle he’d been waging yesterday.

  Someone else was sitting under the tree. His tree.

  "Who are you?" Riliya said loudly, startling the scrappy young boy with dirty knees and scratched-up legs who had begun to doze in the shade. The boy blinked and rubbed his eyes, turning to the side to get a look at the interloper that had disturbed him. Then Riliya noticed the purple flower the other boy held tightly in his hand.

  Riliya's eyes flared in anger. He had no reason to resent the boy's being in his favorite place, except that he cherished the spot as his own, but seeing the light purple flower gave him an excuse to get angry. Ornenkai’s mother hated it when people pulled up the flowers, and he took this action as a personal attack against her.

  "No one should take the flowers from the ground." Riliya hurled accusingly. "There won't be any left for others to enjoy."

  Instead of gratifying Riliya with an apology, the smaller boy suddenly broke a welcoming smile.

  "Is this your spot?" he asked, but Riliya remained silent. "I knew that someone had been here—the root has been worn down—it's very smooth. Really nice to sit on."

  Riliya kept his frown, but he was beginning to relent in his anger at the stranger's approval and keen eye. The strange, limber boy moved aside a little, inviting Riliya to sit beside him. Riliya didn't move—the boy had still taken the flower after all, even if he did appreciate Riliya's favorite spot in the park.

  "Sorry about the flower." As the boy turned to gaze down on the blossom in his hand, his earnest smile faded, his friendly voice now subdued. "I had to take it—my mother can't come here anymore—so I was going to bring it to her. But now I wish I hadn't. I think maybe the flower will have wilted by the time I give it to her, and it will remind her—"

  The boy stopped, as though stubbornly holding back tears, just staring at it.

  Riliya sat next to him, his hesitation forgotten.

  "What's wrong with her?" he asked curiously. The strange boy seemed subdued.

  "She got the old age radiation disease early."

  "The man who lives by us died of the old age mutation, too." Riliya said, scratching in the dirt with a twig. "Father said it was the radiation that made him old—he used to live to the south, where the radiation is worse—"

  "Mother has always lived in Ariyalsynai. And she doesn't even look old."

  "I'm sorry I shouted at you about the flower." Riliya said regretfully. "I suppose one flower won't hurt. But you'd better take it home to her before it dies."

  "It's already dead." The boy said stonily.

  "May I go with you to give it to her?" Riliya asked, trying to efface the sad expression on the boy's face.

  "All right." The boy said reluctantly and stood, wiping off his pants. He was a bit shorter than Ornenkai, unusually lissome and quick for a child. His eyes were a brilliant cobalt, and his hair was fair, but a shade that would one day likely turn dark.

  As it turned out, the boy's home wasn't very far from Riliya's, located in the same sector. The boys climbed to the fourth floor of the house and tiptoed into a darkened room, where a woman lay sleeping quietly. The boy signaled that they should leave, but the woman stirred.

  "Ilika—is that you?" she asked, breathing with difficulty.

  "Yes, mother.” He said, almost apologetically, as though he was sorry to have woken her, since to wake her forced her back into the reality of her pain. “I brought a friend I met in the park today."

  "I'm Riliya. Riliya Ornenkai." Riliya stuttered, trying not to be unsettled by the woman’s weak condition.

  "Ornenkai?" the woman repeated, a fine crease gathering between her eyes. "Oh, yes,” she sighed, remembering, as though simple answers brought some measure of relief to her in her present condition. “I met your father once in the building where I used to work—" her voice drifted off; she stared off into space.

  "Is your father a scientist, too?" Ilika turned to Riliya.

  "Yes," Riliya admitted, abashed. "He's the head of the biochemistry division in the Solaer Three Building."

  "Mother was a top research scientist in the genetics division—" Ilika began, but his voice abruptly stopped. Riliya saw the expression on his face and knew what had disturbed him. Although he regretted it, he had begun speaking of his mother's life and activities in the past tense.

  Sensing her son's anguish, Ilika's mother strained to move into an upright position, leaning her back against the wall, and reached an arm out to draw in her son. She pushed away the long light bangs that grazed his eyelashes and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

  "Don't worry about me, Ilika," she crooned in a stronger voice. "I'm feeling better. You and Riliya can go and play while I get something for our afternoon meal." She said, pushing aside the bed covering and dropping her feet carefully to the floor to hide her pain from her son. "What's that, Ilika?" She motioned to the flower still clutched tightly in Ilika's small, dirty hand.

  "Nothing." Ilika said, quickly hiding his hands behind his back.

  I hope Ilika isn'
t angry about yesterday, Riliya Ornenkai thought as he headed to Gelyfaeon Park, the boys' usual meeting place for more than a year. When he was preparing to leave the previous morning, his father had caught him and set him to his studies all afternoon.

  As Riliya approached the meeting place, he saw an older boy with a surly expression talking to Ilikan Marankeil and then push his friend against the tree, laughing as he walked away.

  "Who was he?" Riliya tried to look at Ilika's bleeding shoulder but Ilika shrugged off his attention and struggled to his feet, squinting where a fragment of tree bark had fallen into his left eye.

  "It's nobody."

  "What did that bully say to you?" Riliya asked, and Ilika sighed.

  "He said my father is an unfeeling deloch, that he knows my mother is going to die and never comes home, that he spends all of his time in his lab to stay away from us. He said my mother probably deserves to die and that I should go with her."

  "How does he know you?" Riliya asked, confused.

  "He lives on the same housing strip that we do. His father works for mine in the computer mechanics division."

  "He's probably jealous of your father. My father says yours is the most brilliant computer programming architect in Ariyalsynai."

  "No—it isn't jealousy." Ilika countered. "He spoke the truth. My father doesn't care if my mother lives or dies—he's a cold creature. He only cares about one thing and that is his own grand project—no one in the council would promote him to the central city division to work on real starships because they know he's the meanest deloch that ever came out of the Northern snows..."

  "You know that isn't true—"

  "What would you know about it? If he does care, he isn't around to show it. When he is at home, he never says anything to us."

  "Maybe he doesn't know what to say to you." Riliya suggested.

  "Look, I don't want to talk about him anymore. How about we try to make it to the border lands? We still have enough time to go today if we hurry and get on a transport."

  "I'm sorry about yesterday." Riliya remembered their plans. "My father was late leaving for the division and stopped me. He set me such a long list of assignments that I wasn't finished until after second moonrise."

  Ilika smiled. "It's okay. I made up a game while you were gone. I pretended I was a comet rider on the first ship that arrived on the planet, and that you were on the second ship that got lost. While I was waiting for you to get here, I ate my sher-inn fruit and planted the seeds to create a future food supply, in case the natural resources on the planet couldn't sustain me..."

  "I thought we were both supposed to be on the same ship."

  "I had to think of some reason to explain why you weren't here." Ilika insisted.

  "Well I'm here now. You only thought I had been delayed, but really I was going to check on our water supply." Riliya held out two flasks of sher-inn juice he had brought in his satchel with the noon meal provisions.

  "Why do we live inside the dome?" Ilika pondered as the two boys wandered through the border lands forest just outside the dome encasing Ariyalsynai and its outlying territories. The two of them had stopped at the northern edge of the wooded area to eat their provisions, a few nirii rolls and some dried fruit.

  The high snow-capped mountains to the north obscured the northern territories and the regions beyond, outside the weather-safe ring. Ilika's gaze had fallen on the white peaks shrouded in pale blue-grey mist, a light sheath of moisture that reflected brilliant blue and violet hues of broken light.

  "I would live out here if I could," Riliya mused. "In the wild lands. I've never left Ariyalsynai before, but I think I would like to see the Eastern Plateau, the Great Sea and the Kir Islands, the Kilkoran territories, the southern cities... I would live free in the world, but I'd have to see it all before I decided where I would want to live."

  Ilika said nothing for a long time, his brows crinkled in troublesome thoughts. Riliya had noticed that he often had that expression when he thought of his own home, and of his mother's weakening condition.

  "Riliya, what do you think happens when a person dies?" Ilika asked. It was the first time he had openly spoken of his mother's death. Riliya swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable, but he could not let Ilika see his reaction. He had to be there to cheer him up. But Riliya himself didn't like to think about it. He had never been faced with the death of anyone he knew, and Ilika's mother had gotten him to think about his own mortality for the first time. She was too young to have been afflicted with the old age mutation disease.

  "I don't think anyone knows for certain, Ilika—but I don't like to think about it. We don't have to worry about it now—we're only children."

  "But children grow up. And what makes you think anyone is safe? Even children die—we could be killed in a transport tunnel accident here in Ariyalsynai. And you always hear about children in the northern territories who freeze to death, caught outside unaware when the first yearly snowfall hits."

  "You may be right, Ilika, but what can we do about it?" Riliya asked impatiently, wanting to change the subject.

  Ilika quietly nodded understanding. Riliya was as afraid as he was about dying, but chose to ignore the subject. Still, he decided it was best to leave his friend alone. Then he remembered their game before the noon meal. They had been pretending to be explorers on the most recent mission, beyond the Federation's five worlds.

  "Scout—have you any news to report?" Picking up on Ilika's game, Riliya shook his head.

  "No advanced life form readings. Suggest we take a few samples of vegetation and head back to the ship, captain." He pulled a few wild flowers from the base near the ground to preserve their roots. "I'm going to take these back to the park." Riliya added in his own voice.

  "There are plenty of them out here," Ilika agreed.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if we were one of Kudenka’s crew?” Riliya asked, misty-eyed. “I’d love to be like them, meet them, even—”

  “Idiot.” Ilika said roughly. “It'll take thousands of years for them to return, remember?”

  “I know that,” Riliya said defensively.

  “So, you won’t be around to see it.” Ilika shrugged.

  Riliya was struck by the fact that he hadn't really understood that he'd be dead by the time they got back and would never know what had happened to them. He didn’t want to face that.

  Meanwhile, Ilika stood very still, saying nothing. Riliya caught the frozen expression on Ilika’s face—half-afraid, half-alert. He put a hand on Ilika’s arm; Ilika reacted with a gasp, exhaling the breath he had been holding and jumped, still standing in his place, still looking over at the dark light under the trees.

  They heard a soft, scratching sound in the undergrowth beyond.

  “What was that?” Ilika said tensely.

  “You heard something out there?” Riliya drew beside him and scrutinized the area ahead. “Hey, Ilika—what is it? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” Ilika said, relaxing a bit.

  “I don’t believe you. Hey—what are you looking at now?” He turned to look at where Ilika’s gaze had wandered, this time off to the left. “I don’t get it. There’s nothing there,” he said, looking at a dark glade far off. “Hey, Ilika—you’re really scared.”

  “No, I’m not.” Ilika said slowly.

  “What are you looking at then?”

  “There.”

  “The glade?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why??”

  Ilika kept staring at it. “Because of the shadow that was there. It moved behind the trees suddenly when we turned to head back. It thought I didn’t see, but I know it’s there, watching me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I feel this shadow has been following me my whole life,” Ilika explained.

  “A shadow?”

  �
��You think I’m crazy,”

  “I never said that.”

  “But you were thinking it.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I just don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “What kind of a shadow?” Riliya persisted. Ilika stopped.

  “I don’t know, Riliya. I really don’t know. But—for some reason, I feel it following me sometimes wherever I go, and I can’t help but think—I mean, I feel it harboring ill will towards me. It’s as though I’ve done something to offend it, even though I can’t imagine what that might be. You probably think this sounds crazy—”

  “No, just weird. But if you want me to go see what it is—”

  “No, Riliya, that’s okay. There’s nothing you can do to drive it away. Let’s just go back home. It’ll be a while before it follows me again.”

  “So why are they tearing everything down?” Iera Uffyeld-Ornenkai asked.

  "Why?” her husband, Elkan Ornenkai repeated. “Because the government needs the room, that’s why. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

  “What then?”

  “Well, you know I was trying to switch departments when we move house.”

  “Yes?”

  Elkan took a deep breath. “I’m happy to say that the Science Cuncil has offered me a top position in the new regional Science Building.”

  “Well, that’s excellent. How long before you can transfer?”

  Elkan shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. But that isn't the best news. With my new position, I get to spend every Vahden of the tenday in the Central Federation Science Building near the Council Headquarters. They have group seminars to monitor the progress of their top divisions—I'll be given clearance to examine Kayrian and Tulorian creatures in the preservation parks. For some reason, the geneticists haven't produced a successful ectogenic clone yet."

  "I thought cloning was banned by the Council." Iera Uffyeld-Ornenkai raised an eyebrow as she served herself some utasha from the large blue container on the table.

  Riliya hadn't been listening to the conversation until his father mentioned that he had been moved to another location. Without seeming to pay much attention, he began listening carefully to their discussion, feeling somehow as though an important decision with regard to his future had already been made.

  Ornenkai’s little sister, Aia, began listening too, her eyes wide, but she seldom made a sound throughout dinner and chewed her food laboriously slowly; she was a reed-thin, sickly child about a year younger than Riliya, but with an angelic face and delicate, graceful arms. Their older brother, also Elkan Ornenkai, was several years older than them and had moved away for training before Riliya was born; the family seldom spoke of him, and Riliya often wondered if it were because his brother had done something wrong. Riliya couldn’t help but wonder now if they were going to move his brother’s things or leave them here.

  "It is for humans," Elkan Ornenkai passed the blue container to Aia. "But there aren't many Kayrian or Tulorian specimens. Anyway, if you want it, the council has offered you a position in the Botanical division. Oh, I meant to tell you that I ran into your father on the tour of the Council Headquarters yesterday."

  "Don't tell me, he's still angry that you took his beloved child away to the outer sectors."

  Elkan laughed. "No, I think he's forgiven me for that. He says he's glad we have the sense to move back where we belong and give up that crazy dream of living the simple life—"

  "We aren't exactly living in the Celestian provinces."

  "I know—but he still doesn't realize we just wanted to make it on our own."

  "The poor old dear. He wouldn't say it, but when I saw him at mother's memorial, he seemed so alone, as though he really needed us back in his life."

  "Well, your leave of absence is almost over. He's got to understand that you'll be going back to research, that you won't have time to play nursemaid to him. Speaking of your mother, I can't understand why she gave it all up—why she left Astro-engineering for the life of a diplomat's partner."

  "My aunt's partner gave up his medical career to accompany her to Kayria when she became representative." Iera shrugged.

  "Yes, but your mother played a pivotal role in launching our last exploratory mission. What a waste of talent. Didn't you say that she helped design the Sesylendae?"

  "Yes, she did." Iera's voice held a tinge of regret. "As a child, I did feel sorry that she had given up her career for father's. I don't remember much of the early years, except the day she took me to watch the explorers' launch. But I knew she had been involved in some kind of monumental undertaking. I guess that was part of the reason I was so determined to follow her path and not live up to Father's expectations that I would take his seat on the Council."

  Riliya almost fell off of his seat. His mother had seen the explorers' launch? It was too much for him to believe. Why hadn't she said anything about it before? He had heard of the Sesylendae, Kudenka’s explorers' ship, and had often imagined its voyage to the stars with a romantic's vision. The news that his own grandmother had helped design the starship shocked him. Why did his parents always keep the most interesting details of their lives from him? Riliya had only met his grandfather once, when he was too young to remember. He had no idea that his grandfather had a seat on the Council.

  "I guess most of the sector will be temporarily relocated to the inner sectors until the reconstruction is finished." Elkan continued.

  "What's going on, father?" Riliya interrupted. Elkan faced him with an impatient smile that didn’t appreciate interruptions.

  "The council has decided to rebuild the outer sectors, Riliya." His father glanced at him. "They're going to tear down the lower level housing and build up to the dome. They've been worrying about overcrowding and housing shortages, and to prevent future difficulties, they're going to move all of us in the shorter, older buildings in the outer sectors towards the city interior. We've been transferred to a community living center in one of the outermost city towers."

  "One of the city towers?" Riliya had an image of the shining white buildings of the elite hierarchy, near the city center.

  "Yes. We'll have a lot more space, and as I told your mother, she and I are going to be promoted to the regional Science Building."

  "What about all of the people living out here?" What about the parks? Riliya thought.

  "Most of them will be transferred to temporary housing in the towers, until the lower towers are finished. They'll be tearing out all of the transport tunnels and replacing them with the interconnections. The entire city will be linked, and transportation traffic will decrease. The council is planning to raise the standard of living for everyone in the city."

  "But I like the city the way it is. Our house may not be big, but it's beautiful. The towers are nice, but I like the lower buildings. The carvings and murals in them are so interesting! And the lower buildings don't block out the view of the mountains." Riliya said, upset by this news.

  "Don't worry, Riliya. You'll be able to see the mountains from the new quarters. But the lower buildings are old—they've been here for thousands of years. They were built strong and to last, but they've outgrown their efficiency. And once we've settled into our new home, you'll be able to focus more on your studies and less on boyish outings and stories. Maybe I'll take you in to the labs so you can learn what the life of a scientist is all about."

  "They aren't stories father, they're legends." Riliya ignored him. "The comet riders were real people."

  "Son, those are stories—childish fantasy."

  "Not everyone thinks so." Riliya lifted his chin defiantly. "Some people believe in the ancient lore. They say they are the stories of our origins passed down before our ancestors wrote down their own history."

  "He's right, Elkan.” Iera interrupted. “Some of the
scientists believe the ancient legends. They say life couldn't have evolved here the way it did without some alien pregenitor."

  "Perhaps,” Elkan conceded, “but I can’t help but object to their terminology. 'Comet Riders' indeed. If our ancestors came here came on a ship, where is it?"

  "Some say the ruins at Lake Firien are the remains of their ship." Iera commented.

  "Yes, I know." Elkan said, irritated. "But how could so many people have arrived here on a single ship? It's ridiculous. Anything technologically advanced enough to hold so many people—and to have landed safely enough that they actually survived—should still be around.”

  “I suppose,” Iera said, to ease the tension.

  "Anyway,” Elkan said, “we’ll never solve the issue of where our ancestors came from, but who knows everything about the past but the people who lived it? We have to think of who we are and where we are going. And this family is going to move in less than two tendays, so I suggest one little boy stop dreaming nonsense and start thinking about packing up his things."

  Riliya slung his mother's holoframe which held an image of the sea coast across his back to carry it from the hauler by the elevation device to their new apartment.

  "Riliya, go down and collect the last of the load carriers from the transport," he heard his father call from the adjoining room, where Elkan and Iera Ornenkai were unloading their personal effects.

  The Ornenkai family had few things to move in the end, since their new accommodations had built in sleep panels, a food dispenser unit, videocoms in every room, chronometers, self-cleaning features, a table and bench unit that slid out from the wall for meals.

  They had packed their own raised seat panels for the lounge area, a large, open, unfurnished space in the center of the apartment. But other than the few heavy pieces, they had only brought their decorations and personal belongings from their former dwelling.

  For the past tenday that Riliya had been confined to the dwelling to prepare for the move, he had spent much of his time daydreaming of the day when Kudenka’s explorers would return, wondering how the planet would have changed by then. Riliya knew that with the time dilation effects of near light-speed travel, they would return many years into the future, a future he himself would never live to see. He thought jealously of the generations that would follow his, that might not be as interested as he was in the return of an ancient group of explorers.

  Ilika would feel the same way. He had wanted to tell Ilika that his very own mother had been present at the launch of the first major galactic explorer mission, but he had not seen Ilika in several tendays. The older boy had stopped coming to their meeting place, and after a few days, Riliya had stopped expecting him.

  Riliya didn't believe Ilika had forgotten him. Something else must have come up to keep Ilika from coming. And now it was Riliya who would not be able to make it to their meeting place, if Ilika ever returned to it.

  Riliya called to the moving hauler to follow him, and the mechanized load carrier unit began to trail him to the elevation device when Riliya heard a familiar voice coming from the transport shuttle tube disembarkation panel. He stopped and turned around to look. The hauler suddenly collided into his heels, drawing out a reflexive shout from the young boy, but Riliya was too preoccupied to be distracted by the pain.

  His own family had traveled ten minutes on the underground tube transport to the tower, since the upper level transport tubes had been temporarily shut down to reconnect them with the new proposed lower towers. The lowermost unloading area, illuminated only by the artificial glare of fluorescent lighting, had been closed off from the world above, but Riliya was pleased to discover the panoramic view from his room's observation panel. The clear transport tunnels and tubes didn’t obstruct the sight of the mountains, but Riliya was soon disappointed to discover that a new construction would soon put a lower tower between him and the view he now enjoyed.

  Riliya peered down the transport tunnel where dozens of families were unloading their belongings. Then near the end of the tube he spied his friend Ilika, towing a satchel on the ground behind him. Riliya told his own hauler to stay and rushed through the crowds towards his friend. Ilika looked up at the sound of an approaching stranger, but only half-smiled when he saw Riliya.

  "I didn't know you were moving here!" Riliya exclaimed. "When I tried to find out where you were, even the public position locators couldn't find you!”

  “Why didn’t you send a message then?” Ilika said in a surly tone.

  Riliya shrugged. “I was afraid my father would check my frequency channel to see what I'd been doing, so I was waiting until I had an opportunity to contact you on the public channels.”

  “Public channels?”

  “They provide them for nothing here in the towers, you know," he explained.

  "Father had grandfather arrange our accommodations." Ilika whispered cautiously, but his father was already out of earshot. "We had to move because they're tearing down our sector housing. Grandfather has a seat on the Council—and father wanted to live closer to his new position. He's been transferred to the regional Science building."

  "What about your mother?" Riliya asked without thinking. Ilika looked away as though he had been slapped, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed shut to contain his emotion.

  "She isn't coming with us," Ilika finally managed. Riliya blinked uncomprehending, and then realized what his friend had meant. Suddenly he knew why Ilika had not come to their meeting place in the last few tendays.

  “She’s dead,” Ilika said; his bright cobalt eyes were in tears.