Survive

by Vera Nazarian

  The day stretches out, and I spend most of it with my family in their guest suite, observing Dad. I sit nearby, listening to him reminisce about the details of their last months on Earth, including his final, bittersweet classes at the university in Burlington where he taught (remarkably, there were still a few students who continued to attend class for the sake of normalcy, despite the inevitability of approaching death by asteroid). Meanwhile George makes occasional snark commentary, while scanning through the TV feeds on a hovering smart screen, swiping and zooming windows constantly, as though he’s trying to cram for a visual exam on all things Atlantis.

  Manala comes and goes multiple times throughout the afternoon, bringing curious items with her, which my father finds amusing.

  “The girl enjoys being here and spending time with us. After all, we’re her new extended family,” Dad says—after the third time Manala exits the room with a promise of returning a little later with some genuine antique scrolls she wants to show him and an astroctadra toy for me. “I can see how it might be natural for her to want to socialize, all things considered. Isolated, lonely upbringing will do it. She’s very intelligent and excellently educated, which makes it even more vital for her to be mentally stimulated.”

  “I hope you don’t mind all this, Dad?” I ask.

  “Goodness, no, I’m growing very fond of her.” Dad smiles. “Nice girl. Very pleasant conversationalist, so knowledgeable for someone her age. . . . Of course, I need to remember that in this society the young start taking on responsibilities much earlier. She is very encyclopedic, which is a delight.”

  “I can see how it would be, Dad.” I smile back. And then I turn to my brother. “What about you, Gee One?”

  “What about me?” George asks with a quick glance.

  “Manala being here so much is not bothering you?”

  “Not at all. She’s a good egg.” And George returns his attention to the screen.

  Much later, Aeson shows up for a niktos meal which he again takes with me and my family. His face looks drained and grim. Apparently, he has been in non-stop meetings with military veterans and IEC Members, and talked to several foreign heads of state. And yes, he received personal accusations about the courses of action taken under his command, and the deadly consequences.

  “In short, this is an ugly, chaotic time, at least until we come up with an effective working strategy to deal with the alien threat,” Aeson tells me quietly, keeping his mask of composure. “Right now, we’re in an existential crisis with no solution. . . . The fact that I get the brunt of the blame is not surprising. It comes with the territory of high command. Nor do I reproach them for targeting me with their anger. Everything—all of it—is justified. Lives were lost and I am responsible. So many innocent lives. . . . And the worst part is—it will likely happen again, before a solution is found.”

  “Oh, Aeson. . . .” I watch im amrevu speak the brave words, and feel my heart breaking for him.

  I can almost hear the unspoken part of his sentence.

  If a solution is found.

  We finish eating, and Aeson tells me he has to go back to work for a few more hours tonight, to deal with several video call appointments with ranking members of international military, including New Deshret—a call for which the Imperator will be present also.

  “But you promised to come to bed tonight,” I remind him with a meaningful look. “Right?”

  Aeson smiles. “Yes,” he says softly. “It might be late, but I will not miss it—not this time.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll walk back with you now, since I need to stop by my bedroom. . . .” And then I whisper to him discreetly about that certain important prescription I need to take tonight.

  “Aha,” he says, looking at me with so much meaning in his gaze, while his lips move up at the corners in his familiar shadow smile. “Let’s go, then.”

  We head back toward Aeson’s side of the Quarters, going through my bedroom suite, and I pull him by the hand after me. The evening has turned to full night, and the window curtains in my bedroom are open since afternoon, allowing the bright, star-filled sky in all its glory to fill the chamber with soft, violet-indigo ambiance.

  Aeson lingers, waiting for me as I go around the corner to the bathroom suite and retrieve my special drink. I drink the full amount necessary, then return, smiling at him with naughty promise.

  “Ah, I wish I could stay now, Gwen,” he says with a smile of regret. “But I have appointments—”

  “I know,” I interrupt pulling him by the hand, then place both my arms around his neck and draw him down to me for a deep kiss. He responds at once, his mouth covering mine hungrily, and we struggle sweetly for several seconds before coming apart.

  “Ah. . . .” Aeson breathes, calming himself. “Such a beautiful night.”

  I glance through the four-point star window at the colorful richness of celestial wonders outside, and notice a distant pale splotch of light staring directly at me from the lower corner of the window frame.

  It’s in an odd spot, exactly in the center of the window, but on the very bottom vertex point of the astroctadra shape. And somehow, I recognize its pale, familiar, ghostly presence.

  “The Ghost Moon,” I say with a familiar stab of anxious curiosity, staring at it. “Peeking at us from the bottom.”

  He follows the direction of my gaze and nods. “Yes, our fourth moon . . . there it is, right there. . . . Yet another unresolved situation that we must deal with. So strange to see it regularly outside the window these days, together with the usual others.”

  “And it’s centered exactly on the bottom corner, right at the point!” I persist. “Hey, did you know I learned today that this shape—the shape of the window, and so many other things around here on Atlantis—is called the astroctadra? Manala told us all about it, after all these months—and I had no idea.”

  Aeson chuckles. “The Atlantean star. . . . A very, very old symbol.”

  “Manala mentioned games you used to play. How does the rhyme go?” I muse. “Something about catching a moon or a star. Or finding a moon inside or outside the astroctadra, and you have to close your eyes and spin—”

  “Find the moon around a star, ride the Pegasus too far,” im amrevu recites, looking at me with warm eyes glittering with liquid in the starlight, and his pupils dark as night.

  “That’s right,” I whisper.

  “Find the star around a moon, meet your love by afternoon.”

  “Yes, so very romantic and I love it,” I say. And then I glance outside again.

  To get a better view, I take a step toward the window and lower my gaze to stare at the Ghost Moon from a slightly different angle. And in doing so, I immediately notice another bright source of light—this one streaming from above.

  In fact, it’s coming exactly from the top corner of the window star shape. Truly, a bizarre coincidence.

  “Oh, look! That’s Amrevet right up there,” I say, recognizing—by its very bright, very pale lavender hue—that the radiance must originate from the big, violet-grey moon that must’ve recently sailed overhead and disappeared just out of sight. . . .

  Aeson and I approach the window even closer and glance up, and now we can indeed see Amrevet from this better angle. From where we stand in the room, it’s also exactly in the center of the frame, but much higher in the sky than the Ghost Moon.

  The crazy thing is, in this moment, the two moons are aligned perfectly along the vertical. So much so, that if you took a ruler and drew a line from the Ghost Moon below to Amrevet directly above, it would be a perfect vertical line . . . and it would continue, passing through the exact vertex point of the top and bottom “rays” of the four-point star window frame.

  “How funny.” I point it out to Aeson. “The moons—they’re lined up, stacked exactly on top of each other. Seemingly, to a mathematical degree, assuming this window was built straight.”

  Aeson smiles, observing it. “Cosmic alignments can be fun.
I believe that window’s an antique.”

  “Okay, this is really weird,” I continue, this time looking at the other two vertices, the ones on the right and the left. “But what if Pegasus and Mar-Yan were lined up too? But horizontally! Does that ever happen?”

  Aeson raises his brows. “Not sure. It might require hours of looking outside this particular window. But you’re right, that would be both eerie and weird. Right now, Mar-Yan is low on the horizon and has a long way to go up before it reaches the level of the window vertex on the right. Meanwhile, Pegasus is still on the other side of the sky behind us, and might show up hours later, maybe as late as in the afternoon—”

  Suddenly Aeson freezes. His expression grows thoughtful, almost stunned.

  “Find the star around a moon,” he mutters, and his brows move in a frown. “Star around a moon . . . around a moon. . . . ‘Meet your love by afternoon.’”

  I watch him, and suddenly, my own thoughts go into a rapid cascade of connections. “Aeson, that window—that’s an actual, physical star object around a moon.”

  “And love? In this case, love is not love but a name,” he says, sounding almost incoherent. “It’s Amrevet, the moon, literally. I’m willing to bet that in the afternoon, its location in relation to this specific vantage point—this permanently fixed astroctadra window—might align in a very interesting way with Pegasus and Mar-Yan!”

  “Which means . . . this old children’s rhyme is not just a game,” I whisper, thoughts spinning. “It’s a description of an astronomical alignment.”

  “Yes!” he continues. “And ‘Find the moon around a star, ride the Pegasus too far’—okay, this could mean that when any given moon is not inside the bounds of the astroctadra window, the positioning of the moons Mar-Yan, which is the Rider, and Pegasus, ‘is too far.’ Meaning, it’s literally too far outside the alignment.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But what is this moon alignment supposed to indicate? Where did this whole thing come from? How old is it that you even have children’s rhymes based on it? And what about this strange window? Who built it, what is its true purpose? Manala has one exactly like it in her bedroom downstairs—”

  In that moment, Aeson’s wrist comm chimes with an incoming message. He glances at the glow flaring along the data band with exasperation. “Bashtooh, I’m running late,” he says. “But this is very important, whatever it is that we’ve discovered here, with this old window and the moons, Gwen. It might contain the answer to the Ghost Moon phenomenon. I’ll look into it as soon as I handle the appointments. My Father will need to be informed too, but after I get more information.”

  And saying this, Aeson hurries away.

  I stare in his wake with a strange, prickling rise of excitement. Then I turn around and resume looking through the newly mysterious window and the moons outside.

  I watch the sky for a long time, alone in my bedroom, driven by some inexplicable, urgent sense of importance mixed with curiosity. I observe and, just for fun, make silly calculations and visualizations in my mind using basic Euclidean geometry on a flat, two-dimensional plane with zero curvature. And then I decide that’s completely inadequate because, while the astroctadra itself is an abstraction of a simple view along a flat plane, these moons are floating along curving orbits in 3D space. So, I switch to three-dimensional visualizations along an Elliptic plane with positive curvature and Hyperbolic for negative curvature. . . . I space out so hard that time loses all meaning.

  In those hours that I’m there, the Ghost Moon slowly traverses its vertical path, sailing slowly up in a straight line toward zenith.

  Confirming my guess about its mathematical accuracy, it passes right through the top vertex of the astroctadra window before sailing out of sight.

  Chapter 73

  Aeson returns as promised, but very late, after Midnight Ghost Time. By then, I’ve migrated to our master bedroom and gone to sleep. However, I feel him get in bed next to me, carefully trying not to wake me, so naturally I wake up and ask him how everything went.

  Despite his exhaustion, Aeson appears alert, with a fierce new level of energy in his eyes. “Interesting developments, will tell you all about it tomorrow,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Good or bad?” I persist in a sleepy voice.

  “Hopeful,” he replies, lowering himself over me and pulling me to him with a long exhalation of breath. As soon as he wraps his powerful arms around me, at once I forget everything in the hot surge of desire that washes over me at his touch.

  The next morning, Red Amrevet 13, both of us wake up together around seventh hour, and Aeson tells me we have a full day planned. The Imperator has called for a new investigation of the ark-ship, the Ghost Moon phenomenon, and now this new development of the astroctadra moon alignment and how it all might tie together and offer clues to the current alien crisis—and he wants to include me in it, along with my family—namely, Charles Lark, my father—and even his own daughter Manala.

  “My Imperial Father believes we have no more time left and everything comes down to this,” Aeson says as we walk to see my Dad and George for eos bread before going to meet with the Imperator and his usual secret circle of people who have the clearance to know.

  “What about the alien light grid?” I ask, almost afraid to hear what he has to say.

  Aeson glances at me. “Nothing new since the attack on Septu. The only difference is, we now have three grid formations to track and worry about instead of two. And, based on our calculations, we expect another grid will form at Tammuz in a matter of days.”

  “So, you think they will definitely attack Tammuz this time?”

  “Yes,” Aeson says with a grim expression. “Our earlier miscalculation was based on a logical assumption that they were trying to make their way specifically toward us—toward Atlantis. Had that been the case, they would have attacked Tammuz as we originally anticipated, since it would’ve been directly in their path to this planet. Instead, it’s beginning to look like the alien enemy is moving their forces generally outward from Hel regardless of direction or what kind of planetary object is in their way—whether it’s occupied by sentient beings or not.”

  “So—what does that mean?”

  “We don’t know. It makes no sense. Their motivation has become even less clear than before. We cannot establish communication with them on any known channels or frequencies—or they choose not to respond. All we can guess is that they are doing an ordered sweep and purge of everything in this solar system that’s in their way along an expanding diameter. Eventually, at this rate, their sweep will reach Atlantis.”

  “That’s terrifying,” I say.

  “It is.”

  We arrive in the guest suite and Aeson explains in careful words to my Dad over our meal that he is invited to participate in a meeting with key people.

  “You’re aware of what’s happening, Amre-ter Charles,” Aeson says, gulping his lvikao. “But you cannot imagine the level of complexity. I believe your expertise in ancient Earth history might help, even if in a small way. And my Imperial Father agrees.”

  “Dad, before you say anything, how do you feel?” I ask. “Are you up to attending a stressful brainstorming meeting or would the effort of getting up, going somewhere, make you ill?”

  “Well, I managed to attend your Wedding without collapsing,” Dad says calmly. “And if there is anything I can do to help in this awful crisis, I am more than willing.”

  “Excellent, thank you.” Aeson nods. And then he uses his wrist device to send a message to the Imperator to let him know we are all coming.

  The Red Office in the Imperial Quarters is full of familiar individuals and quite a few strangers when we get there. As expected, the First Priest Shirahtet Kuruam is here—the last time I saw him was at the Wedding when he ceremonially “surrendered” the Kassiopeion in a temporary manner to the priests of Amrevet-Ra. Also present are ACA Director Hijep Tiofon, STA Director Rovat Bennu, and at least four other people I don’t know
but suspect to be IEC Members, seated in a loose circle of chairs before the large Imperial desk. One additional person whose presence surprises me somewhat is Consul Suval Denu, who gives us a friendly nod.

  Since when is Consul Denu made privy to these ultra-secret matters? I start to wonder.

  Yes, in his diplomat capacity he’s already aware of most things going on politically, and he’s been working closely with the ACA since the Earth Mission. But Consul Denu was never quite the Imperial inner circle crony. The ACA Director Tiofon and the Imperator must’ve recently decided that his skill set could be used in this area and chose to bring him in all the way on this most classified situation centered around the ancient ark-ship.

  The Imperator himself sits at his desk in the high-backed chair and stares at us as we enter, with his typical blank expression. “Good, you are here, we can begin,” he says curtly, speaking English for our sake, but without introducing anyone present. His fingers drum lightly along the desktop, betraying his less-than-restful inner state.

  “My Imperial Father, I have a very interesting report for you, before we begin,” Aeson says, conducting Charles Lark, my father, to the last empty seat, while the rest of us remain standing. This includes a very nervous Manala—who eagerly joined our group at the summons of her Imperial Father as we were in the elevator—and George, who came along with us because no one said he couldn’t.

  “Yes, what have you found?” Romhutat Kassiopei asks without preamble, focusing his dark gaze upon his son.

  “Last night, thanks to my Wife’s observations of the moons and the night sky through that antique astroctadra window in her bedroom, I believe we have a sudden new variable added to the Ghost Moon puzzle, and a promising lead to explore.”

  And Aeson tells him the details, with a quick glance at me, while the others in the room listen. “So, I had my staff run some correlations—to test the real-life possibility of this moon alignment derived from an old rhyme. They took orbital data for all four moons, added in these fixed location coordinates—based on the specific structural details of the window—accounted for the time of day—”