by Eric Swanson
“That’s… a possibility, Princess.” Garreous stared at the top of Susa’s head until she felt his look and met his eyes. “But all science, especially great science... it carries risk.”
“What you’re talking about isn’t science. It’s suicide.” Susa’s voice lost its even tone with her final word and it came out with a choked sob.
The Queen placed her hand on Susa’s shoulder and gave a light squeeze. Many nights found mother and daughter discussing the merits of royally arranged marriage and love. Through those discussions, Hanani had swiftly divined her daughter’s feelings for Garreous, despite Susa’s attempts to hide them.
Now, with a threat to Garreous so clear and so present, most of Susa’s efforts to mask any feelings for him fell away.
“We must weigh the benefits of this mission against the risks, of course, Daughter.” The King craned his neck slightly around his Queen to address Susa. “I would not take lightly exposing Garreous to any danger, let alone sure threats millions of miles from our home. But the benefits of even a partially successful mission…”
The King trailed off and gestured toward Garreous as his voice ebbed.
“Consider, for a moment,” Garreous’s voice and body language edged toward “Professor Garreous” mode as he stepped nearer to the Thrones and Susa. “Our civilization truly taking to the stars… Our people putting down roots warmed by other stars, younger stars… Making faster than light travel possible and practical might have even broader impacts for our Hybrid cousins… We…” Garreous paused for a beat, unsure if he wanted to commit to a line of thought so obviously controversial. He turned toward Micah with a nearly apologetic look. “We may not even need the Hybrid genetic contributions if we took to the stars…” Garreous took a quick step back toward the Thrones and continued. “Faced with the possibility of such dramatic opportunities to better our society, to ensure the survival of that society for millennia to come… I cannot shirk that duty… I cannot ignore this calling.”
A buzzing flush of blood slammed into Micah’s face at Garreous’s use of the word ‘calling’, a word that seemed singular in its recent influence on his life. The Royals were focused enough on the monologuing scientist to miss Micah as he rocked on his heels for a moment, unsteady.
“I understand your concern, Susa.” Garreous almost choked on her spoken name, shocked and embarrassed that his tone had become so informal. “I’m sure once I have the opportunity to explain my presence and my objective, the humans will see the value in the mission. But I have to establish communications as soon as possible to make the time for that conversation… It isn’t like I have some flag I can wave that might at least buy me the time to convince them I mean no harm…”
Another uncertain silence fell over the Royal Family and their two-man audience.
“Yes, you do.” Micah spoke with icy conviction in his voice when he broke the silence. “You have me.” He said before anyone could interrupt him. Without even a flicker of doubt, Micah flipped his hood down.
As the hood dropped, Garreous’s jaw fell with it. He blinked hard for a few seconds and took in the pair of faces before him which matched so perfectly. Even their ear length black hair fell in the same way and the eyes of a King stared back at the Ceran genius from two places.
“Clearly,” The king began through tight lips. The monarch stared at Micah hard for a second then turned to Garreous with a more serious look than the young scientist had ever seen. “This is yet another piece of information our family, the Pillar and the Crown chooses to trust you with, Garreous.”
Painted into a corner by Micah’s revelation, The King made an equally quick choice.
“So, you two…” Artax said after an exasperated breath left him with force. “Who’s going with you on this expedition?”
Both Garreous and Micah were too stunned at the reversal of fortune each had experienced in the last few moments to speak. They looked at each other and both alternately gave the other permission to opine first.
“Fine.” The King accepted their silence with a firm nod then a beat of consideration. “The crew on this mission should be a meaningful cross section of Ceran and Hybrid combined society. Our interstellar ships capable of the highest speeds allow for crews of…”
The King’s paused turned his statement into a question and he gestured to Garreous when the latter’s face lit with an answer.
“12, My King.”
“12. Good.” The King nodded once more. “You have three days to assemble your joint list of recommendations. Bring me that list, I’ll approve it then send you out with my seal and declaration that complete support of and cooperation with your mission is expected at all outposts and waypoints. The priority of this mission is the gates and Garreous’s faster than light research. Any other objectives take a secondary place, is that clear?”
“Thank you, My King.” Both Garreous and Micah spoke the same words in the same moment then shot each other small apologetic glances.
“Let’s end this gathering before our Kingdom loses any more valuable resources today.” The King spoke with finality but smiled again at both Garreous and Micah as he rose to his feet. “You have three days. 12 names, Ceran and Hybrid. Good luck.”
The other three Royals rose and turned to leave the Throne platform. Davin gave Micah a firm nod of approval and then the same to Garreous before he left. Susa stared at the granite floor below as she departed, unable to look at her closest friend. Hanani hooked an arm around the crooked elbow of her husband and left the Throne Room side-by-side with him.
Sanballat’s Request of Tobiah
1115 Hours
Seated before a mirror in a darkened bathroom, Sanballat was surrounded by slate gray tiles and slightly deeper gray concrete walls. The sole illumination in the room came from the mirror’s edges and softly tossed light onto the walls around him and the floor below. The Courtier leaned into the mirror with a quiet sigh and gently pulled at softly wrinkled skin near his right eye until the slight creases disappeared.
As a child, Sanballat idolized his father, Veelah The Builder. Born with his same gray eyes and sharp jawline, Sanballat grew up assuming he’d one day develop into a great engineer and leave his mark on Ceran. Afforded a place in the Royal Court after his schooling, Sanballat immediately took up the cause of Hybrid Isolation after his mother’s death. Cancer took her at a time when her husband spent most of his working on the Blocks and the circumstance of her passing galvanized an already burgeoning philosophy within Sanballat. Perhaps the Courtier’s resentment of his father and the Hybrid people would have eventually ebbed if the young child hadn’t been alone with his mother when she died.
His father’s marks on their home-world were towering wonders of creative genius and gifted engineering, from the Hybrid Blocks which circled the central core of the Capital (the Pillar at the center) to various bureaucratic houses peppered throughout the same. Sanballat admired the houses of government his father designed but could barely look at any of the Blocks.
As an adult, Sanballat found himself chasing his father’s legacy, desperate to make his mark on the same level as Veelah. As disappointment with himself and a deep fear of Hybrids and their role in Ceran society mixed, something changed in Sanballat. The death of his mother only accelerated a process that was sure to radicalize the Courtier at some point.
Somewhat unintentionally, Sanballat often found himself face-to-face with the specter of his father. The Blocks allowed the Hybrids a place in Ceran society Sanballat thought to be far too familiar, too close to things and people who truly mattered. His father’s creations were monuments to a people who had taken attention from his mother in her waning days and seemed to be interested in annexing as much of Ceran culture as possible.
Hybrid Antisar offended Sanballat a good deal more than the Blocks and the Hybrids themselves. The existence and popularity of Hybrid Antisar was a cultural encroachment Sanballat could scarcely abide, but few knew of his thoughts on this topic. Of
ten, the rhetoric which came from his cohorts (Tobiah chief among them) bordered on quite visceral hate. Sanballat recognized the need for the Hybrid too clearly to allow for hate. He thought of his position on them as far more rational, more compassionate.
With another sigh, Sanballat let his skin go and the slight wrinkles brought by the years spent in pursuit of greatness returned.
“Machine…” Sanballat woke his AI with a flat, bored tone. “Raise the lights thirty percent.”
“Yes, sir.” A far less organic version of SAMI’s voice replied. Several tones later, the lights in the small alcove rose. In the light, Sanballat looked younger for just a beat.
“Sir?” SAMI’s voice asked.
“Yes?” Sanballat replied.
Less than a day after his SAMI had been installed, Sanballat had instructed the machine to ask for his attention first before anything else was addressed. It added moments to their interactions, but Sanballat felt the system’s base settings were too conversational, too informal.
“Barrister Tobiah approaches, sir.” SAMI said. “Shall I—”
“Allow him in, Machine. Of course.” Frustration colored Sanballat’s response but it remained detached and cool. “Raise the lights another twenty percent.”
As Sanballat made his way toward the entry of his apartment, the lights rose again. More illumination made the differences between Micah’s apartment and Sanballat’s clear. The Courtier’s walls outside the bathroom and more private corridor were colored a crème white. Inlaid shining gold designs covered the wall to Sanballat’s left, an ornate representation of the capital city as it appeared before the construction of the Hybrid Blocks.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Machine?”
“The Barrister has arrived.” A quick set of tones later, Sanballat’s front door clicked and slid open with a whooshing sound. As the slightly overweight Barrister stepped inside, the door shut behind him and moved forward to lock in place. If the Barrister hadn’t just walked through the entry, one might have difficulty finding the door again.
“Barrister Tobiah.” Sanballat took a step toward Tobiah and extended his right hand. The Barrister accepted and nodded once. The older Ceran’s gray eyes set upon Sanballat after their greeting. Sanballat turned away from the door and moved toward a small dry bar. He poured a pair of drinks of a light green liquor and handed a glass to his guest. Sanballat sipped the drink a bit then waited for Tobiah to do the same. “To what do I owe this visit?”
“I…” Tobiah’s grave look melted into one of confusion. “Have you… not heard?”
“I have been alone, here, for hours, Tobiah.” Sanballat said. Sanballat bristled at Tobiah’s suggestion that he was out of any loop, let alone one which seemed so critical. “What news do you bring, old friend?”
“The King…” Tobiah replied as the pair sat across from one another on small, matched couches. The beige upholstery made no sound as they settled in. Tobiah took a long drink from his glass and blinked away the burn in his throat. “He has authorized a mission to Earth.”
“That seems rather ordinary, Tobiah. The blowhard and his mute friend make trips to that backwater mudball quite often, as I understand things…” Sanballat drank again as he eyed Tobiah a bit mockingly over the glass.
“This…” Tobiah dumped the rest of the drink into his throat and stood. “Is different.” He walked to the bar and filled his glass again. A slight red flush came to his cheeks and Sanballat wondered if emotion or alcohol brought the color for a beat.
“How?” Sanballat’s patience had expired completely and he scoffed after the question. “You’ve said nothing but that a voyage which has happened many times has just been approved to happen aga—”
“The Hood is going. Leading the expedition and they plan to contact the humans.” Tobiah’s tongue nearly tripped over those words a few times, he spoke them so swiftly.
“That…” Sanballat spoke with a clear tone, thoughtful. He let silence hang in the room for a moment. “Sounds about right, actually.”
“Have you lost your mind, Sanballat?” Tobiah cried before he stood and paced behind the couch. “I…” He stuttered to a quick, quiet end to his rant when he saw Sanballat’s face.
Cool, simmering anger pulled at the Courtier’s expression. Tobiah had never seen an expression of such derision directed his way and couldn’t respond to it verbally.
“My mind, Tobiah, is in it’s proper place.” Sanballat stared at the liquid in his glass as it swished back and forth. He tipped the glass so that the liquor just barely touched the edge of the glass and held it there for a moment. The surface tension kept the liquid suspended at the glass’s edge and Sanballat stared at it while he addresses Tobiah. “You, on the other hand, seem to have allowed fear and anger to help you forget your place.” Sanballat drank the rest of the green substance and slowly brought his eyes to Tobiah. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I…” Tobiah stuttered, his usual bravado gone. The Barrister’s shoulders slacked a bit and he glanced around the floor of Sanballat’s dwelling. “You’re right.” Tobiah whispered an apology after that and quiet came to the room again.
“I usually am.” Sanballat said coolly. “Whatever frustration or anger you have over all of this, Hybrids, them going to Earth, contacting humans…” Sanballat stood and walked nearer to Tobiah. “Process it. Get rid of it. I need you, my friend,” Sanballat said as he clapped Tobiah on the shoulder. “Clear headed, in your right mind.”
“I’ll try.” Tobiah’s voice shook for a moment. He shook his head hard, a brief jostle then locked eyes with Sanballat, fully resolved. “I will.”
“Good.” Sanballat said. “Because that decision is the easiest choice before you which leads to an incredibly difficult one later.”
“What…” Tobiah replied in halted whisper. “Choice?”
“We’re getting on that ship, Tobiah.” Sanballat stepped past him and stared at the space that was briefly a doorway. “We’re going to make sure that the Copy doesn’t do anything to compromise our people. That planet and the technology Garreous is traveling so far to study… We will have an opportunity most rare, Tobiah: We will be the first Ceran settlors of Earth. We will remake the planet and whatever scraps of humanity,” Sanballat said the word with a mocking tone. “…remained after the Gathering will serve our needs.”
“How…” Tobiah asked uncertainly. “Do you propose to have them serve us? I’m more concerned they’ll simply kill us.”
“It’ll be simple, Tobiah. We need only give the humans something they’ll hate more than us…” Sanballat poured himself another drink and took his chair again. “An enemy they’ll think we share. Once they are neutralized and the Copy is dead, the technology Garreous can master will be ours along with that swamp planet’s young yellow sun. Both will benefit Ceran society fully. You and I will ensure that, together.”
The lanky Courtier stood and clapped his free hand upon Tobiah’s shoulder. Something cold, something calculating in Sanballat’s eyes made the barrister shrink from his cohort a bit. He straightened almost immediately, but Sanballat made note of the moment anyway.
“Tobiah…We’re going to Earth.”
Lahm and Po on the Path
1215 Hours
“No?” Ziu Chan Po looked up from a briefing on a data pad before him, an eyebrow cocked. His short black hair and dark skin made his shining hazel eyes even more notable.
“You heard me, Po.” Kristian Lahm replied from across the table.
“You think you should go?”
“Of course.” Lahm said with a nod. “I’ll be the first of our people to leave this prison with the intention of never returning.”
“Alright,” Po lifted his eyes from the pad on the table and met Lahm’s bright green eyes. The first Hybrid elected to the Ceran Senate barely stifled a smile. Po’s dark eyes sparkled with light from above the table as he laughed a bit. “I’ll bite, Lahm… To what end?”
Po and Lahm were
raised in the same Block and both moved in shortly after the complex’s completion. “They turned on the lights after Po and I walked in, everything we owned on our backs.” Lahm used to joke. From an early age, they bonded over a love of Antisar and equally fiery competitive spirits. Po and Lahm’s parents developed close connections as the boys spent more and more of their free time together, played on Antisar squads together, even helped each other with essays and assignments later in their academic careers. Like their matched strong will, they were also intellectual equals. While certainly not exceptionally gifted, both were pragmatic and strategic thinkers of a high order.
Over time, as the Hybrid people became a question the Ceran population asked itself, Po and Lahm drifted to opposing sides of the answer to that question. Ziu Chin Po developed a passion for political science and the power of the electorate to effect change for oppressed peoples. That passion led him to join the Hybrid Legislative Action group. The Hybrid Legislative Action made efforts to improve the lot of the Hybrid people through peaceful, legal action. Their primary goal was further integration into Ceran society for their people.
“You know the end, Po.” Lahm said with a sharp tongue.
While Po was growing in his role as a young contributor to the Hybrid Legislative Action’s mission, Lahm found his place among a group with a far different objective: The Hybrid Secession Federation. Their aim was simple and clearly defined by the moniker selected by the group. Nothing short of the full withdrawal of the Hybrid people from Ceran society would satisfy them. The Hybrid Secession Federation worked publicly to achieve their goal, advocating separation and the embrace of the Hybrid Ideal. The Ideal was a concept rooted in the thought that while the Hybrid was neither fully Ceran nor fully Human, the combination of the two races, while forced and improper, yielded something stronger, something better.
As Lahm moved up in the ranks of the Hybrid Secession Federation, he and Po spent even more time together than they had in childhood. Lahm always assumed that was Po’s way of nudging him back toward the “right” side of the argument. Really, Po knew he had no chance to sway Phillip away from the Secessionist cause.
