by Eric Swanson
“Major Mask took these cards with him on every mission, no matter the length. Usually, I wasn’t without them any longer than a few weeks… Unless he was going to Earth.” Boleen paused as a surprised clamor, whispered and respectful but still a clamor, rose from the gathered crowd. The mention of Earth usually brought disquiet in any crowd on Ceran.
Seated at the end of the pew occupied by the Royals, Micah was flanked by Rooman and Reeman at either shoulder. The twins were dressed in formal Koro-Koo uniforms, mostly black body suits with royal purple accent stripes on their lapels and sleeves. The Hybrid’s more formal dress hood had a satin sheen to it rather than the more understated look of his everyday cover. It jostled about atop his head for a moment as Micah’s head lolled at the mention of Earth.
“He made voyages across the stars to Earth on more occasions than we’re allowed to address or acknowledge publicly. Years spent in the silence of deep space made him introspective, thoughtful.” Boleen said with a smile drowned in a very specific memory. “After one of his first trips, he returned entirely obsessed with the concept of black holes, gravity wells and time dilation. He spent hours staring at himself in the mirror after one trip, looking for new wrinkles, all because Astro-metrics reported that their ship had passed within a lightyear or so of a minor black hole.”
Boleen mimed standing before a mirror then poked and pulled at different parts of his face briefly. The gathered crowd laughed quietly with the holy man.
“Ultimately, he was most concerned with lost time. He was worried about something that concerns us all, to varying degrees, at some point in our lives. A question.” Boleen stopped and his eyes fell upon Micah’s hood for a moment. The Mimic felt Boleen’s gaze and lifted his head slightly to meet it under his hood. “Is this life I’m living what was intended for me? Am I living my best possible life?”
Boleen broke eye contact with Micah and walked across the front of his congregation. He lifted a finger in the air with the hand unoccupied by cards. “We all have one answer to that question, and it isn’t “yes” or “no”. In the final analysis, each of us might have a number of things that we do, but only one of those things defines us and defines our life.”
“Who was this Hybrid?” Boleen gestured toward Eaton’s casket. “He was the last line of defense for some of our more revered members of society. He was the first in line to defend your-“ Boleen brought the hand which gestured to Eaton back around to point a sweeping finger at the crowd. “-way of life, your society.”
“He lived his best life helping to ensure that everyone in this sanctuary,” Boleen gestured to the crowd then pointed to the massive, 30 feet tall wooden doors behind them. “—and everyone out there, across Ceres, would have the same opportunity… To pursue their own answer to that question.”
A curt, sarcastic snort came from the rear of the sanctuary, followed quickly by a masking series of coughs. Tobiah, flushed red with shame, held a balled hand over his mouth as he feigned more coughs. Sanballat sat next to him stared forward, his body tense. The Courtier pulled every bit of himself taut to avoid looking at Tobiah while he faux-hacked.
“To the stars, Earth and back… Through countless battles during the Third Filan War… In service to the Pillar and its First Family.” Boleen listed some of Eaton’s more eventful periods in his life then paused. “Dedication in service of the Pillar and it’s First Family was the hallmark of his life. You never knew his face or his name… But you knew his work.”
Boleen bowed his head in contemplation for a beat. He whispered and the parabolic mics all around the worship area focused on his mouth. “Lord Ahma, author of our story and creator of all that is… I ask only that you value of the life of this Hybrid by one simple standard: the impact his actions had on life for the rest of the people of Ceres.”
He stood in silence. The rest of the gathering quieted entirely for his last words:
“We make what life we can in the circumstances we’re given. All Ahma asks us to do is hold our eyes on Pillar, serve the greater good of Ceres and make our time here matter. This Hybrid’s name was Eaton Zane, and his time here, among us… that time mattered.” Boleen bowed his head for a few moments in quiet prayer. After his final whispered words, Boleen lifted his head and held his middle three fingers up to the gathered crowd. “We are Created and We are Changed by Wisdom.” Boleen spoke the Sealing Words of the Triune Ceran God and Eaton’s funeral service ended.
Chapter Nine
(The Eighth Day)
0545 Hours
Another near-sleepless night found Micah sitting on the edge of his bed. The sheets and blankets were a mess on the bed as they had been for the last two nights. There was a time when the mere act of making his bed, sheets neatly pulled tight and tucked into corners, gave Micah a level of comfort. He always made the bed the same way he was taught at Academy. As his world shifted and tilted beneath his feet, the serenity of a tightly dressed sleep space was a welcome distraction.
Usually.
“SAMI?” Micah asked, his eyes locked on the floor below him.
“Yes, Micah?” The soft, inhuman voice replied without delay.
“Are Roomen and Reeman on their way already?”
A soft series of quick tones later: “They are. At their current speed, they should reach your door in approximately seven minutes.” A lower series of three tones sounded. “Would you like me to connect you with them?”
Members of several Royal Orders were equipped with small communicators stitched into the sleeves of their shirts. A brief vibration alerted them to a message and the audio came from and was received by a device stitched into their shirt near the collarbone. Order members rarely found themselves alone or out of service long enough to require a “buzz”; when a member of the Carers or the Koro-Koo were “buzzed”, a safe assumption was that they would be running toward a dire situation soon afterward.
Micah thought better of alarming his imposing friends so early in the morning.
“No, thank you, SAMI.” Micah walked toward the bathroom briskly and stripped his clothes off on the way. “I’ll talk to them when they arrive.”
Micah stepped into the bathroom and the lights flashed on, set to some near-blinding level.
Micah gasped and squinted against the shine from the ceiling. Micah raised a hand instinctively to block some of the offending light. “SAMI, ca--” Micah spoke as the lighting in the sparse tile bathroom began to fade to a more normal level. Slowly, the Hybrid sighed. “Thank you, SAMI.”
“Of course, Micah.” SAMI replied.
In some less reasonable moments, usually those preceded by lengthy periods of isolation, Micah swore that SAMI’s vocal inflections, programmed though they might be, at least suggested emotion. He shook the thought away with a quick jostle of his head and stepped into the shower.
“Would you like to hear the news?” SAMI asked. A light “Awaiting Response” beep tone like a tiny heartbeat for a few moments, but Micah couldn’t hear it over the water falling in the shower.
“Sure.” He said. Soap fell from his hair into his eyes as Micah spoke. A quick groan ended with a frustrated growl while the soap began to sting his eyes. Micah opened his mouth to give SAMI additional instruction, but his words stopped when soap flowing down his face dropped into Micah’s mouth. His frustration came with a louder noise this time. “But no—” The beginnings of a sentence came out as the soap entered.
“—Minister Tobiah, how would you respond?” Sallast’s clear-toned voice relaxed Micah until he realized whose voice was about to replace it.
He groaned again, somehow louder than the first two times.
“Thank you, Sallast.” Tobiah spoke with a smug tone. Micah’s eyes were still squeezed shut against the water and soap as he hand-scrubbed soap away from his hair and body, but his mind’s eye saw the Ceran Barrister’s far-too-confident face perfectly.
“I think if one of these Hybrids wants to leave our planet, we should detain them forcibly.” T
obiah spoke as if he were discussing a household pest rather than an entire race of sentient people.
“What?!?!” Micah yelled at the image on his mirror from the shower. His head shook back and forth violently in anger. Soap still hanging on his hair for a beat flew off in all directions. “SAMI, give me SportsNet. Turn this off!”
Micah stepped out of the shower as Tobiah and Sallast were mercifully replaced with the blared noise of Antisar highlights and bombastic announcers. Micah finished dressing while the pair of former Antisar also-rans debated the likelihood of the underdog Block H squad advancing past the first round of the playoffs.
“Micah, Rooman and Reeman have arrived.” SAMI informed him as Micah left the bathroom. Almost ready to leave his apartment, Micah grabbed his hoodie and threw it into place over his head before the apartment door latched behind him.
The lights and TV in the bathroom stayed on all day in his absence.
The Path to Pollai
0605 Hours
As most twins, Rooman and Reeman communicated non-verbally quite often. Small facial expressions, eye movements and truncated sentences created entire conversations. In the days since Eaton’s death, Rooman and Reeman had arrived upon one of their many unspoken arrangements: They would allow Micah to process his grief in silence as the three of the them walked the steel paths out of the Blocks toward the Pillar each day.
For three dark mornings, they walked without speaking.
On the fourth morning, Micah stepped out of his apartment, gave the Twins a respectful slow nod and settled in between them for the walk. After twenty feet of steely-ping footfalls, Micah spoke.
“What do you guys know about Earth?” Micah asked.
At the mention of the other planet, the twins nearly stopped walking. When they slowed, Micah’s strides took him a couple feet ahead. After a quick glanced exchange and a nod from Reeman, Rooman replied.
“Only what we’ve heard in stories…” Rooman began as the massive twins rejoined Micah with a single stride. Rooman looked Micah’s direction for a beat but turned away after he saw nothing but the hood. Eyes forward again, Rooman continued. “Mostly that the humans of Earth live a backward lifestyle, surrounded by crumbling cities filled with technology fit for a child… Most Cerans pity humans more than anything else.”
“My son is actually convinced humans have spent the last 400 years preparing to invade Ceran and take their people back…” Reeman said with a slightly whimsical tone. Like a fear of the dark, Reeman’s son would be scared of the specter of humanity’s arrival until he understood just how robust Ceres’s planetary defense apparatus had become.
“Who are their people?” Rooman asked. “Micah?” He turned to the Hybrid Mimic. After a beat, Rooman asked a very heavy question. “You consider yourself human, Micah?”
“I…” Micah stumbled a bit over this nuanced topic. “I don’t know, really. We’re identified so often by what we’re not—” Micah paused when Rooman flashed a confused look. “Fully Ceran.” He said with a quick shrug. He continued: “We’re just always told… You’re not all Ceran. You don’t really belong… even in really subtle ways. I mean, I get it… we’re not. But I think given the role that we’ve played in helping your people survive…”
Micah paused and gave another plaintive shrug. He’d never really talked about anything like this with the twins. Most of their conversations stuck to typical small talk paths: weather, sports and traffic. A warm wave of fear washed over Micah’s face as he considered for a moment that their conversations were, in all likelihood, nowhere near private.
“How have these stories made their way to Ceres?” Micah asked. He knew the answer was likely to be “Pollai and Kaymar” in some fashion but asked anyway. “Expeditions to Earth aren’t typical and I don’t even think they come all that near the planet, do they?”
“No,” Rooman said as he shook his head. “I guess the shuttles settle into a high orbit and listen in on communications.”
Micah imagined Eaton, younger and more vibrant, as he floated around a powered-down shuttle stuck in the pull of Earth’s gravity. Absently and only for a moment, Micah wondered what the communications from Earth’s people sounded like.
“What they hear…” Reeman spoke with an air of quiet thought. “I’ve always wondered what those guys hear, you know?” Reeman looked at his brother with a quick shrug. “Military communications are probably encrypted. I guess they don’t hear much of that.”
“That’s assuming humans have figured out encryption keys complex enough for us to fail in breaking.” Rooman said.
“They’re not complete idiots, Room.” Reeman broke in.
“They might be, we really don’t know, Reem.” Rooman responded. Rooman quickly straightened and shot Micah’s hood an apologetic glance. “Sorry, Micah.”
“No problem, Rooman.” Micah said as he flashed a smile just beyond the bottom of his hanging hood. “I’m only half offended.”
The trio shared a quick, hard laugh at the expense of Micah’s split genes.
“So, what else is there to hear floating around out there?” Reeman asked. “Entertainment? Advertisements…”
Reeman’s voice trailed off for a moment and Micah stepped in.
“Sports.” He said as the trio walked into view of the Antisar stadium just outside the Hybrid Blocks, named for King Trey’s wife, Ameena. Ameena was a thoughtful, beautiful woman whose passion for helping the Hybrids to improve their place in Ceran society was only matched by her zeal for the occasional fights which broke out during tense Antisar games. While she carried herself with composure which befit a queen in nearly all circumstances, her “Warrior Queen” cries and chants during high-points of Antisar games were things of legend.
In the distance, the stadium towered over them through light morning mist.
“I wonder what kind of games they play on Earth…”
After a few moments of quiet, their conversation drifted back to Antisar, the playoffs and the likelihood of Jor Mikan really retiring at the end of this season, championship or not.
Micah was grateful for the topic shift, even if he started things down the path toward Earth. The weight of what he was about to ask King Artax weighed on him and seemed to make each step just a bit harder to pick up.
Fifteen minutes of destiny-laden footfalls later, Rooman, Reeman and Micah arrived at the workshop of Pollai. The entrance to his workshop stood at the end of a walkway quite old, bordering on ancient. Impossibly tall structures to either side of the rough cobblestone path, clearly built over and around the road which had been laid hundreds of years prior to the buildings. Over the massive 15 feet tall wooden double doors, pink neon hologram letters hovered. They danced slightly to an unheard beat and read: Within lies the birthplace of wonder, without the wonder made action.
Micah made note of the inscription and resolved to ask Pollai about it later. After a moment of hesitation, Micah held a balled hand before the door, ready to knock. Another pause came and Rooman and Reeman shot each other looks that mixed doubt with concern. Silently, the twins nodded forcefully to each other in turn. Each noiselessly insisted that the other dissuade Micah from knocking.
“Micah, we don’t ha—” Rooman began.
A SAMI-like voice cut him off.
“Master, a guest has arrived to seek an audience with the Greatest Explorer to Ever Take to the Stars! Three wish to confer with the Master of Deep Space! They wish to discuss matters of grave importance with He Who Saw the Godhead and Lived!”
The digital voice stopped speaking and the doors creaked open. The wood protested its movement with a dry, low groan at the dark iron hinges. A spotlight shone on the doorway opposite the entrance, across a nearly empty room with black granite floors. The dark stone flickered and flashed in bits as the flood of light from the opposite ceiling passed over.
“Come!” Pollai’s voice boomed over the address system in the dwelling. He stepped through the brightly lit doorway, arms wide and palms
out in a characteristic greeting which dripped with bombast. Oh!” Pollai nearly squeaked with excitement when he saw Micah’s hood. “To what do I owe this honor, Mr… um…” Pollai hesitated, a formal address for Micah being somewhat unclear. “What should I call you? Mr. Hood? The Hood? Just Hood?”
“Micah is fine.” Micah said from behind the hood. The twins stepped back a few feet as Micah came further into the room and closer to Pollai. Slowly, deliberately enough for the hood to move very little, Micah surveyed the room. Photos hung all over the walls, Pollai and superstar athletes, powerful political figures and religious and cultural figures locked arms over shoulders, all smiles.
Slowly, so his hood remained in place, Micah brought his eyes from Pollai’s photographed face all over the room’s walls to the real thing. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Of course,” Pollai gestured widely with arms stretched again and it briefly appeared he wanted to embrace Micah. “Your request comes with the weight of the Crown. I am unlikely to ever deny the Pillar anything…”
Micah’s head dropped very slightly. Disappointed that he needed the word of the King to open some doors, Micah couldn’t hide his reaction, even with his face concealed.
“But, of course, I wou-“ Pollai backtracked verbally as he took a half-step back from Micah.
“It’s fine.” Micah whispered, head still slightly down. A few quiet beats passed between the pair, which surprised Micah. Pollai was almost never quiet and certainly not long enough to actually be remarked upon as silent. Beneath his hood, Micah’s eyes stayed on the floor. “Tell me about Earth, Pollai…”
“Earth?” Pollai asked. Curiosity lifted his tone and an excited, wide smile curled his lips. “I’m sure there are others who know more about the subject than I…” The pompous traveler feigned modesty, poorly. “Why come to me when others in the Crown’s service may possess the same information?”
