Betaen 6. Part Three. The next 21 chapters. The next explanations. The next hints.
A short explanation (finally) - I am deliberately using the cut up method of Gysin- not to confuse, but to elaborate. I know - it doesn’t help.
Betaen 6. Part Three 0
Betaen 6.3.0
Apartment of the Comle. 2799
Kiera had slept well. She knew she had needed it although a part of her, far too great a part her physician had said, thought it was a weakness unbecoming to her. The Colonel had brought her the evening report. They had rounded up a few more suspects based upon the timelines of the witnesses. Not all of them were from earth, some of them were from other planets where there were still old humans. What they all had in common was this violent offshoot of the religion and its labeling of the new human as some type of evil. The Colonel had told her it was dangerous years before, but she had felt that herself. She need only touch her own scalp or think of Eric in the hospital bed.
The Colonel had left the books Kiera had requested. She picked them up, looking at the scuffed covers. The Betaen 6 book had actually once been property of the very school she had attended as a girl. That made her choose it first. The Inspector would have to wait.
She laid the bookmark carefully beside the cup of tea that Ah-Geld-Rid had so kindly brought her with the report and the books. Then she opened the book, turned to the first page after the fly leaf and laughed. Someone had written in the margin “This guy is fucked up!!” But she didn’t want to read the “He Chronicles”, she was finished with them, at least for now. Kiera flipped quickly through the book to the beginning of the “She Chronicles”
The „She“ Chronicles.
I died twice.
I died the moment I dropped the packet of Catenol into his drink. Watched him drink it. Refilled it for him to make sure that he drank down every milligram. Talked with him about his youth. Long before the flu, when things had been simpler. I had to ensure that whatever last memory he had it was a beautiful one. That would be all he would have for a long, long time – if we had calculated the dose right. But dosages aren‘t calculated on humans. They are calculated on rats. He wasn‘t a rat. If we had fucked up the dose then the thoughts I tried to plant in his mind as we sat there and I watched him smile at me would be his thoughts until he died. I thought of the video the Inspector had shown me. Felt the fear, felt the bile rise in my throat. Yes. I was doing the right thing. However cruel He would later think I had been. I had to save him from that. I had to.
He’d laughed at something I said. I just wanted to get it over with. But I knew the timing had to be right. It had to be late enough that there could be no witnesses. The Inspector would blip me when I should make sure he left the house. I smiled at him but he must have noticed something in my eyes.
Betaen 6. Part Three 1
Betaen 6.3 1
Earth 3205. Victims Study. Earth timeline.
There is no honor in a simple death. I am certain the traveller actually wrote that many many centuries ago – when he was a very different man – when I loved him as only a young girl who has lost her father can love an unattainable hero. How was I to know he wasn’t unattainable? And that that simple misdemeanor of mine would cause so much trouble – and my own bloody murder – so many centuries in the future?
You see – I am not being facetious or anything like that – but I am the only one in the universe who knows what really is going on and why. Even the traveller doesn’t. Poor man. He will murder me – depending upon the timeline and the waves – don’t get me started or I will spend the next 100 pages explaining time waves to you -he will either kill me early next week or the week thereafter. I do not have long to live. Then again 1400 years has been long enough and its about time – I laugh that I use that word – that the universe gets by without my meddling. Even the N’Hai N’hai have not left me a respite. I now really have no fall back plan, no plan B or C. Theres only A - me. The girl who started it all.
What does he want? 55 percent of the theses being written or wrote say it was to correct history. Bullshit. He wants to get back at me. For the Austrian Captain. Fuck man! It was 1400 years ago! OK – we planned to kill you and it didn’t quite turn out as I expected – a lot of that result having to do with the unintentional meddling of Samuel Zeit -but really? 1400 years and you can’t forget? You can’t forget – or remember what we had between? The loves we had? Emira and you – both of you of course because you just had to show up fucking twice!? She and you? Can you only remember Kiera and Peter and W and A?
Then there are the 41% of doctoral theses who have the hypothesis that his murder of me was to stop the Ritluvian flu and stop assimilation. The idea is not bad – because I really believe that – on the surface of course, and only there – that’s what the traveller thought he was trying to do. But again its bullshit. It was his research that created the fucking flu! And my murder was a facsimile of the beginnings of assimilation. His trying to stop it is actually what brought it about. If that’s not worth a laugh what is? To give him credit he doesn’t know it – but does that give him the right to murder me to try to stop it? I know I cant do anything about it anymore – but still – I am allowed to lament a little aren’t I? (32% of doctoral theses allow me too – only a fucking 32% - I don’t even get a third of support? Please???)
To explain – at least a little - I think I have to take you to another time.
Betaen 6. Part Three 2
Betaen 6.3 2
Earth. Victims study. 3205
Actually, a lot of times. For you see although I have lived for 1400 years I haven’t really seen all of them. I have been on the run again, just like when I was a young girl - except that it has been a lot lonelier. A lot. At least as a girl I had my father with me, and once in a while he was sober and we would talk and reminisce and laugh. I think that might be why I fell for the Lt.General like I did. My father had died the year before and I had again been alone. Passed between families who grudgingly, because of my illustrious name, took me in, fed me and then gave me on to the next. He had been different. Already in the letters he penned to me telling me I could travel to the chateau and live there. Live there. Not visit. Not be a maidservant to some pompous bourgeois scullery maid. No. Live, like I had been born to.
I wanted him with me on this journey. I wanted him with me in my life. My copies have all had him. Either as their lover or their nemesis. All of them. Strange how we were somehow meant to be together but the two of us never have been. His stupid honor. It almost got him killed. But that’s not what you need to read - you need to understand how this strange duet has come to be and how it works.
It has lot to do with dne. The 5th dimension. The fourth dimension that traps our physical beings can not - since the assimilation - trap our spiritual beings. The N’Hai N’Hai within us and that which philosophy called our souls can only be trapped by the dne. I - and he - are the two who can be many the N’Hai N’Hai waited millions of years for. The assimilation has taken place because - oh thats too much for you right now. Let’s just put it this way - he and I can travel. Through time and what we call space. It’s a strange feeling the first time you do it but you get used to it. The only problem is - we leave copies.
And - we never need murder to communicate. That the big wigs would find out about that was a given. Thats why the Inspector set it all up. I wonder if I will meet him again in the dne?
Betaen 6. Part Three 3
Betaen 6.3 3
Earth 3205. Victims Study.
Perhaps that doesn’t help much. I will elaborate. When Samuel Zeit decided to follow the trail of betrayal of his whatever grandfather he created something that the N’Hai N’Hai, trapped on their planet but not in time, noticed immediately. A time change. A wave. A ripple. A tear. No one in the fucking universe can decide upon a word for it so I will call it what it is -an anomaly. That it happens to start with an A and that was the foremost letter of the name of who I was before this all began – fuck you. A time anomaly. That stupid machine his father created and he partially finished allowed him to travel through time and accidentally become two people – the traveller and me. At that time I was a young Russian princess upon my way to America, letters of introduction and specially forged passports already in my possession, all courtesy of the traveller and his connections. The bastard still has them. Every time he lands he manages to have connections. How the holy whatever does he do it? Never mind. Anyway. He was, at that time, the man I had fallen madly in love with, passionately. The man I would, and now finally will, give my life for. He was also the man my then present lover and I had plotted to kill. Kill him, dump his body overboard, take a lifeboat, meet a waiting yacht – and with those papers and the money his wife would leave me – live happily ever after.
Of course there are those of you (93% of written and to be written theses denote me parsimonious and rapacious) who may take objection at my choices – but please be to remember that this was 1835. A woman had few chances. The General would never have broken his honor so far as to marry me – even after Madame had died. The Austrian Captain, I will not sully his name here upon this page, sorry, I have forgotten at what time I now write, sometimes when I think of them and the past I begin to write as I would have then, so many many years ago. Anyway – he was enamored of me, would do anything for me, and with my bequeathment we both could have lived happily ever after. Samuel Zeit, that idiot, ruined everything. And now I will be murdered for it. Curse the day he was born. Or better yet the day his parents met. None of my manipulations have worked. They just created more copies and more problems. I stopped that endeavor rather quickly – although it took me a while to realize what was going on. At least I realized it – a lot earlier than he did. Why does he get all the good press in the theses? He is a murderer after all.
My friends the N’Hai N’Hai cooperated wonderfully. They didn’t want his machine ripping up the fabric of the house they lived in anymore than we would want a horde of Vandals camped on our front lawn. At the time (God how I hate the word!); in my defence, I didn’t even know of the N’Hai N’Hai, Betaen 6, or any of the rest of it you will learn in these pages. (35% - yes 35% of written and to be written theses dispute this! How in whatever name can they do that? It was 1835! Jules Verne hadn’t even written his Voyage to the Moon – and I am supposed to have known of the existence of transcendental life on another planet light years away?)
OK. I have complained enough. Complaining isn’t my big suit anyway. I prefer the bigger picture.
I have re-read what I have written lately. You, poor reader, are probably – even if assimilated and able to see forward and backwards in “time” as you call it – unable to grasp what time really is. How could you? I have had 1400 years and I swear it took me at least 700 to begin to figure the damn thing out – and as my copies will acclaim to – I am not a stupid woman. As an aside – did you know that more words will be written about Emira than any other woman in the universe? And he wrote her off as “having to die of the flu and that being all she did” or something stupid like that – and he still gets the good press. I write it off to latent misogyny – even though most of the men are dead.
But what is so strange still, to me, is that it all started in that wonderful chateau in the south of Germany where the General had retired. I still remember the first day I saw him.
Betaen 6. Part Three 4
Betaen 6.3 4
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”. Written on a spaceship somewhere in space on the return voyage to Earth. Scholars debate the exact time the “She Chronicles” were written but most accept that there are overlaps with the “He Chronicles” Being read by Comle Kiera. 2799.
I scrambled from sleep in a cold sweat. I had somehow managed to throw all the covers and the pillows to the floor. I was shaking. It took me a moment, far too long a moment, to realize where I was. Because in the dream I had been on earth, in an office, sitting across from his wife.
I had dreamt we plotted to kill him. The two of us together. We told ourselves it was to save him and thats what we wrote on the document we sealed but both of us knew what we really wanted. We wanted him gone. Out of our lives.
She escorted me to the door and as she gave me her hand to shake goodbye I pulled her to me and we kissed. Deeply. Passionately. Like He and I had kissed. Like He and her had kissed. And then I awoke, with my duvet and my pillows strewn across the floor, sweating and with my heart still pounding.
I flipped on the lights. No. She wasn’t there in the bed beside me. No one was. I thought for a moment. What was my name. The first name I mouthed was of the woman I had helped kill. It was only after I said it that I knew it was wrong. She was dead. His wife was dead. He was still alive. In prison, but still alive.
I said my name out loud and looked around the room. Green anti-snoopers on the walls. My folio on the earth replica desk. A half full cup of cold coffee beside the reports. My brain took it all in. I was on the way back to earth with the Inspector. After Bepgidt 4.
But why could I still taste her kiss?
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Betaen 6.3 5
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”. Written on a spaceship somewhere between Betaen 6 and Janus. 2459
The Inspector had taken the starboard suite at the front of the ship, on the Princess deck. Where the hell they got the stupid names for their decks I will never know. Starboard came from the sailing ships of yore but „Princess deck“? There was a living room, a study, a small observational room and three separate bedrooms. He’d already taken the one forward, so I took the one aft. That left a room between us. Not that I needed it, the Inspector had never been interested in women. We used it a bit as a command central. Every room, every corner, had an anti-snooper. The door lock had been replaced by a holographic triple lock. There was a slight noise, like a motor whirring, in every room – a field generator that let anyone listening in actually record a conversation made up of jumbled words we really said. After a day or two I got used to it and then I didn’t even notice it anymore. He had left out nothing this time. No one would be finding out anything about him or me. Not this time.
“You’ve given me a bad reputation” he said, looking at me over the fine white bone china of his coffee cup.
I pouted. It was the only movement of my mouth I could make in response to that statement. I had given him a bad reputation? What did he mean? I looked around the breakfast room. Dowagers, couples, a few single men. Tables of women laughing. He answered my question before I spoke.
“Look again” he said “Use your training”
I looked again. A finely laid out buffet with some of the finest fruits and vegetables planets had to offer. There were grapefruits from earth and Melor apples from Janus. Everything sparkled. Large urns of coffee and tea, juices, water, champagne. On the other wall baskets and baskets of different types of breads and rolls. Chefs – all women but we had kept the word - in their white starched uniforms standing patiently behind large frying pans. Cooled buffets with cold cuts and cheeses, two female butlers standing with cheese knives to portion the cheese for you.
And then the people. Groups of 2 to 6 mainly, a few single men, very few single women. All glancing at us furtively. Quickly. Trying to see without being seen. Trying not to bring any attention to themselves but too interested not to.
Then it clicked. No one had sat me with me after the first evening, after I had told the distinguished older gentleman that I was a sociologist on special assignment. I had always eaten alone. Been alone. Which was how I wanted it. They had all been scared of me. And now they were either scared of him or pitying him. I wondered who would be the first one to try and warn him about me.
“They are all trying to figure you out” I said and sipped my coffee. It had to be the best coffee I had ever had - better than Jeffs’ - but I would never tell the Inspector that. “Are you a poor sod who’s probably going to end up in prison? Are you the one I was sent on assignment to get? Or are you also a sociologist on special assignment?”
He laughed. It was good to see him laugh. I had met Jeff before the flu but had never knowingly seen the Inspector there, that I had seen him was incontrovertible, if I think about it we probably even exchanged a few words. All of us regulars at the restaurant by the pond sort of knew each other. I knew Jeff had a male friend; I had seen the older gentleman more than once. It was intriguing that it had never clicked before that he was the Inspector. His losing Jeff was like my losing my father, and now losing him. It had scarred the Inspector in more ways than those flu scars beneath his eyes. It had given him a permanent sadness.
I laughed too. It felt good. There was a release of something I didn’t know had even been there. I felt better. Not one hundred percent but I knew I would never feel one hundred percent again; too large a part of me was now on its way to the Mars penal colony. But I felt better.
He got up from the table and went to the hot buffet. Had himself have an omelette made. Waited for it. Then he came back and sat down with it, asked me if I wanted any. I shook my head.
He ate. Slowly and deliberately. I had known him now long enough to know he had something to say.
He set down his fork and knife, wiped his lips with the starched napkin, and spoke.
“Did you know that in Austria of the 19th century the highest military order was called the Maria Theresia?”
I shook my head.
“It was given to officers who defied orders and through their defiance won.”
He was going somewhere with this that I didn’t quite understand but I waited.
“If they lost, they were killed by firing squad” he speared a bread roll with his knife and flipped it onto his plate. Cut it open and spread butter on it.
“My dear we may just yet win the Maria Theresia. Maybe.”
And he laughed again.
Betaen 6. Part Three 6
Betaen 6.3 6
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”. Earth. Probably 2468-9
„I don’t want a tour.” She frowned into the harsh sunlight streaming down the street “I find you interesting. I find your past interesting. I want to understand it”
Teabags and Streets. The black notebook of Pers Larsen. Pers Larsen.
I had convinced him to travel, at least on the planet. So, we used some of that money accumulated in his bank account and booked ourselves flights to New York. I wanted to take him to the MoMA. I hadn’t stopped thinking about that huge desolate photo of his hanging on the second floor just as you left the stairwell. The shock and awe it created in the visitors who saw it. I wanted him to see it too. Feel it. Know that it hadn’t all been a waste. That even while he was in prison he had been useful. Especially now. About two weeks before I started to plan the trip, he started to feel them. Hear them. Even though he didn’t know it yet consciously.
I noticed it in his eyes at the breakfast table. They were looking inwards, not at the coffee cup he held in his hand, not at the marmalade and toast on his plate.
“What are you seeing?” I asked, afraid of the answer although the Inspector had primed me for this moment.
“Betaen 6” He said and sipped his coffee although I know he wasn’t really there. “Betaen 6” steam rose from the cup and I wondered once again how he did that. Him and Jeff. The only two people I had ever known that drank their coffee so hot.
“And?” I waited.
“The landing platform by the Main City.”
I waited. There would be more.
“It’s got a cruel cross wind today. Hard to pick up. The Landers scheduled for today should be rerouted to South City. Too dangerous.”
Then he looked at me quizzically. His eyes were his again. They still had the pain and the loss and the betrayal of all those years, but they were his eyes again.
I breathed deeply. I felt so good.
“I have got to call the Inspector” I said and got up from the table.
“Why?” He asked
“You don’t know what you just said to me?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve got to call now.” I walked into the study, automatically checking the anti-snoopers on the walls. All green. Thumbed the quick number of the Inspector. He picked up the line but didn’t say anything.
“Two” I said. That was the number that said it was really me and that something was happening. Simple but effective.
“Hi” was the response.
“He’s had a communication. Like you said. While we were together. There are bad cross winds on the Main City landing dock on Betaen 6. Landers should be rerouted to the South City.”
“That was all of it?”
“Yes”
“Can He remember it?”
“No”
Although he was a thousand miles away, I could see how he reached for a cigarette. I had gotten to know him well.
Betaen 6. Part Three 7
Betaen 6.3 7
Earth 1835. Chateau in Southern Germany.
I was tired from the trip and a bit bruised on my backside from the rumblings over the badly paved roads that finally led to the chateau. As we pulled through the gates I managed to wipe some of the dust from my face and bodice but I am certain it was not all. I didn’t have a looking glass so I was unable to check. The horses slowed and whinnied to the other horses grazing or in the stables. We stopped right in front of the flagstone terrace – large steps with a gradual rise so as not to pain the Lt. General. I remembered what I had read of him and felt a chill.
He had led the cavalry charges of the Emperors’ own crack guard in every battle until his last. Led from the front where, my father had always said – when he wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t speak – a true officer led his men. During his last charge his knee had been shattered by a musket ball that killed his horse beneath him. Somehow he managed to free himself from the corpse – his horse had fallen and trapped him – and risen to his feet. Yes. The man stood upon a shattered leg and waved his sabre and called what remained alive of his men to him. And they came.
There’s a painting of it that hangs in the Louvre in Paris. A sergeant gave him aid so he could limp forward with his men – the General knew nought the word retreat – until another musket ball buried itself beside his spine. The sergeant and two other men carried him from the field. Paintings of that hang in Berlin in the palace.
I had seen the paintings. I had read all the papers had ever written about him – and I was afraid. Afraid I could not match his courage, nor be what he certainly expected me to be. I had the title of course – Princess – heir to lands that now longer existed, but I did not have the upbringing. We were always on the run when I was young and my mothers choice to meet an early death did not lessen my fathers penchant for drink.
I tried to remove more dust from my frock and hands but I was shaking too much for it to be of any circumstance. The footman opened the door. I stepped out into the sunshine, smelling horses, fresh cut hay, roses – peace – and he was there, waiting at the bottom step, leaning on his ebony cane, his jacket buttoned tightly.
I liked the look of him but I had heard so much. The battles, the scars, the agony of the hours where he had his men treated first by the surgeons upon pain of their own death – how could I live up to a man like that? He terrified me. He took a step towards me and I could see he suppressed a grimace. Was I so ugly? That it was the bullet beside his spine never entered my mind at that time.
“My dear Princess A “ he said “Welcome. Please treat this humble abode as if you were its mistress”.
I bowed and blushed. Then he offered me his hand and trembling, I took it. It was as if a bolt of lightning struck my heart. I felt at once warm and for the first time in many years I felt peace.
“My General”
I was afraid now he would take his hand away but he didn’t. He simply stood, holding my hand, staring at me. I felt heat in my loins and I knew what I wanted from this man. My breath came in short gasps and he called for my maidservant and for water. In my mind he was calling the troops to us and I could see myself in that famous painting – holding him up- carrying him away from the pain.
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Betaen 6.3 8
Earth 3205. Victims study.
You see I was a very silly girl. I knew of course what sex was and what it entailed- in that measure I was so much better off than many of my peers. What I didn’t know that day was that he had felt the same shock as I. I often wonder if those sneaky bastards the N’Hai N’Hai didn’t have something to do with it. I wouldn’t put it past them.
I’ve stopped running now. I’m sitting in my study, in the small southern German chateau I have now owned for years and I’m not more than fifty meters from where I first felt his touch. I had to come back here. It has to end here, where it started. 62 percent of theses on the subject- written and to be written- agree with me on this point. It had to end here. Now that it is approaching I wonder what it will be like. No one ever comes back so we never know. We know there is the kiura, but few take that way. I know I won’t.
I hear his car stop on the gravel off the driveway. If I close my eyes I can imagine it is early summer and the carriages are pulling in. I wonder what name he will call me as I die? A? Emira? She? Kiera? I hope he calls me A. I stroked the fading tattoo on my wrist. A C and a backwards E. Some of the conspiracy theorists even got it right. We did – in the end – control the universe. We really did.
Earth. Stuttgart-Paris Tube. Km 250. 3205
Who was this woman she had just seen? Who was the man? What was going on between them? What time had that been and what did it have to do with the Parsons paper? That it was a clue she was certain but what for? The paper? The dead woman? The killer? She breathed deeper to sink deeper, and her humanity and her N’Hai N’Hai symbiosis both knew that time would take her. Another flicker.
Earth. Stuttgart – Paris tube. Km 275. 3205
Malaica swam with the coils around her. That was the only word she could find to express what she was seeing and feeling. She felt she was these people though she had no idea who they were. Of course she knew Comle Kiera, every school child did – but who were the others and what was happening?? She felt as if she left herself go deeper, she might never find her way back to who she really was. She began to relax the bin ventra but the clicking coils so near her head frightened her and she deepened her breathing again. The flickers moved with her, changing, altering, being and not being. She grasped at what she knew with her mind. Kiera. She knew who Kiera was. She knew she wasn’t Kiera.
Betaen 6. Part Three 9
Betaen 6.3 9
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” written 2459 - 2467
I had met her at the restaurant. My wife and I had often gone there and after I managed to reduce my alcohol intake and not stagger everywhere I would go there to be with her. My wife. Not the cop.
When I was there, I could be with her. My wife of course. I could remember the things we did, silly little things. I could almost see her sitting across from me, thinking up some word game for us to play. You see they took the house. It wasn’t really ever ours. Belonged to the senate. I never even knew. But that was my problem. I’d never cared much for those things and when she finished her last doctorate and went into the senate, and we got the house I never asked a single question. It was close to campus, it was comfortable, maybe a bit too big just for the two of us. But we planned for more. See my dear doctor. We planned for a family. Why can't I have had one? A son. You. OK. That was too far. I apologize. No, you are not the daughter of a condemned man. No, you are not Fehm. Well not that Fehm but you are a Fehm right? That is your name? Isn’t it? Don’t tell me I am creating realities to hide in again. I’m not. No. I’m not. Not Nought Knot – did you know there were so many ways to spell that word. Not knot nought not not.. oh fuck now you’re mad at me again, right?
I had always thought it was ours, some perk she had got from becoming a senator. The house. Thought that about the house. Not about you. Not about my Fehm. I miss her. No. No. I’m not going to go there. I know you aren’t her. I do. I know. I do. I know. Stop. I can stop. I really can. It was a perk, just one attached to her being alive. It hadn’t bothered me to lose it. I didn’t want to be in it anymore anyway. Too many memories. Too much pain.
I was still drinking, and we were already together – the second her, the cop and I - and had moved into the little apartment across from the park. I don’t know what she saw in me. She was so beautiful and so young, vivacious and intelligent. She reminded me of her when she was young. She even flipped her hair the same way. Left hand, flick of the neck. I know, to be honest, that’s what I saw in her. I saw her in her. I remember the first day I saw her with a coffee across the room. She reminded me of her. The her I had lost. I didn’t know then that she would also become her and that I would lose her too. The memories are still all jumbled up, so I know it's out of place, but I don’t know where it is in place. I wouldn’t even be doing this if I wasn’t being forced to. Another thing you learn in prison. Don’t do anything you don’t have to. That and always know where someone is looking. I took a while to learn that. Helped me learn how to quickly set a broken nose though. But she pushes me, if not every day, then at least every week. The psychiatrist that is. She’s dead. Like my wife. I know that. The cop. Not my psychiatrist. I wish some days she were. Maybe then I’d be left alone. She didn’t like that. Didn’t think she would.
Betaen 6. Part Three 10
Betaen 6.3 10
“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along; but I am the river” Jorg Louis Borges.
Earth. Victims chateau. Southern Germany. 3205
I wonder how long it will take them to get an investigator here? First, they have to find someone who can investigate a murder at all, there hasn’t been one for about 300 years. Then they have to convince her to come. Why am I certain it will be a woman? You need to ask? Then she needs to jump here. She won't be from earth, that is certain. There is no one on earth who could do it. It will probably be the Pescian, the girl who wrote the bestseller about the inspector. Before the assimilation, even with Pers Larsen, travel from Pesces to Earth would take at least a year. Now it should be done in a couple of weeks, three maximum. What will they do with my corpse in that time? Freeze it? Probably. Or nitrogen storage. Anything to keep those little bugs from doing their nasty business.
Strange how your life turns out. On the Lady Grey I had expected to run away with the Austrian Captain. Spend the rest of my life living with him on some southern plantation where he knew people. Somewhere near present day Athens, Georgia. Die of old age after watching our children grow. It didn’t quite work out that way. Fucking Samuel Zeit. Doesn’t help to complain now. It was probably always meant to be this way. What the general doesn’t understand is that he really was the one I loved – not the young Austrian. No. I loved the General and if I am honest with myself, I still do. But he has, in that form, never forgiven me. But killing me? Now – after 1400 years? Is that really going to help anyone?
I know. I know. I seem pathetic. Probably am. But he is just as pathetic. If I hadn’t been so certain of his sense of honor, I would never have liasoned with the Captain. But as much as I loved him, I knew he would smuggle me into America and leave me. Leave me with money but without him. So, I planned to murder him. I was young and foolhardy and angry. He loved me too, I could sense it. So why not jump over his own fucking shadow? Would it have been that difficult? That fateful night. The one that not only changed the course of my life but the course of humanity. How was I supposed to know that then? Damned N’Hai N’Hai. They could have opened up to me about 500 years earlier than they did.
We were playing cards. In the card room on the upper deck near the first-class cabins. I had a cabin, the captain had one and so did the General. Because of his reputation we were treated very specially. Otherwise, we would not have had our own room to play cards. And that was essential to my plan.
Betaen 6. Part Three 11
Beaten 6.3 11
Betaen 6 before it was named. Time unknown.
The ones who will be many have come into existence.
There was a murmur of agreement.
What should we do?
We wait we watch as we have done for millions of what their species calls years, soon we will be free of all the traps, soon we may have physical form, join and be once again
This species, what do they call themselves?
Humans
Is it sentinent?
Yes. But not like us. They are alone, each one. Many but alone. They do not have the aparanava.
What would it be like to be part of them?
I do not know we can only see that which we see in this tangle in which we are trapped.
It will be wonderful to touch and feel again
Yes, when we gave up physicality we gave up something precious, something we have waited so long for
Will they want to be one with us?
Each must be given the choice. It cannot be forced. It will take what they call time.
We have waited so long. We can wait longer.
Can we help?
Yes. We must end these excursions the one young human has begun.
How.
We simply change his natra. Then he will not know what he had done.
There were more murmurs, some of them dissenting.
We had planned only peace. The Zater can only be in peace. Only then can the Zater fulfill itself.
We will not harm him. Only alter his natra. Only ever so slightly. He will have a good life, that is what we all will have.
The murmurs were of assent.
Betaen 6. Part Three 12
Betaen 6.3 12
Earth. Home of Samuel Zeit. 2001. Chateau in Southern Germany 1835
Samuel had taken all the torn pieces of paper out of the box. He randomly took one and read it aloud.
Her fingertips were on his cheek.
“Can you say nothing else ?”
It was if she were branding him, a cheek brand like the horses in the cavalry. They burned , not only his skin, but also his soul.
He knew it now. He had lied to himself the past months. Try what he could he was trapped by her. As if his bad leg had not been shot away but caught in a bear trap.
Here’s another one, he laughed , with him burning when he touches her. God was the guy straight or what?? He laughed again. Just listen Mom. He put on his glasses and took the torn slip of paper in his hand.
His hand brushed against hers as they passed through the double doors into the parlour. He felt it again. Pain. Literal physical pain - as if her skin branded him, as if her hot young blood would boil his. He wiped his brow and hoped she would not touch him ag…
“It stops there” said Samuel. “It’s like he tore up things but then decided to keep some of them. I can’t find a piece that would fit to that one.”
Samuel thought for a moment.
“Do you know what’s interesting?”He asked. “The torn papers always have something to do with when he touched her or she him. Maybe I’ll find them fucking in one finally!”
He rummaged in the box and pulled forth another.
He’d had her painted. A small painting, fitting in the locket he had attached to his watch chain. Beautifully done although the painter had painted her from memory. She must have had the same effect on that painter as on me he thought. He saw her approach from the garden and slowly closed the locket. She need not know.
He felt the cold metal in his mouth. He tasted it. He had smelt that taste before but never before had it been on his tongue. In his flesh, on his clothes, in his nostrils - a stench he could not wash from his hair - but never had he tasted it. The barrel was round and smooth. There was no ungodly and ungainly sight at the end of it to perturb the lines or his tongue. All he need do was pull the trigger and the stain of dishonor would be washed from him as his blood sped out onto the floor. He knew no other approach. There was dishonor or there was death. She was so deep into his heart, his thoughts, his very being that he could not live without her. But he could not live with her and retain his honor. Honor had been his life. He had not been a decorated cavalry office for lack of honor. He could not leave his family so. He could not leave himself so. But what about her? Could he leave her - young and frail as the first blossoms from the cherry tree? Could he leave her? He yanked the pistol from his mouth and threw it onto the leather blotter on his desk. Only then did he notice that the blotter was the color of dried blood.
Samuel shook his young head and smiled. Pulled another scrap from the dispatch box.
Betaen 6. Part Three. 13
Betaen 6.3 13
Earth. Emiras office. 2445.
Lillian twirled the fine, ancient, hand blown glass tumbler in her hands. It annoyed Emira when she did that but she wasn’t going to complain, she had when she had first joined her staff as a lowly assistant so many years ago, even before she ran for senate – and it hadn’t changed anything. So it would make no sense to complain now. Instead she waited. Lillian had something important to say, something important for her to do.
“The triumvirate met this morning”
Emira waited.
“We’ve decided to send the fleet to the Hope planets. The Vice Admiral will take a diplomatic delegation into orbit around Hope 2 and the rest of the fleet will orbit the fifth planet. A quick jump away.”
“Plan?” Asked Emira
Lillian twirled the glass again and she really wished she wouldn’t do that. She felt tired enough already and the dancing reflections were close to causing her a migraine. The flu, the inflation it was causing, the unrest on Hope 2. She was living on coffee and nerves.
“Diplomacy” then Lillian laughed and emptied the tumbler down her throat. Finally set it down. “But you know as well as I that it wont have any effect on the radicals on Hope. Its always been a problematic planet. We shouldn’t have let them set up that fucking cult.”
“It was just a few counties the last time I was there” Emira replied.
Lillian shook her head. “Now it is the entire damned planet. Who doesn’t follow them gets incarcerated or worse. Rule of law has been thrown out the window. They really believe they can stop the flu through prayer. If they stuck with the base message of their cult it wouldn’t be too bad but instead they follow some 21st century despot who managed to take the greatest country earth had at that time and destroy it. All they have to do is fucking read and they would see how insane their plans are!”
She stopped. It made no sense for her to continue. Emira knew as well as she did, if not better, the workings of that stupid cult. She looked at her Interior Minister. The lines around her eyes and mouth hadn’t been there when she had joined her staff in 2432. She’d been 21 then, just had her birthday. So open, so joyful, so full of hope for the universe. Now the lines of worry and pain had eaten deep into her face and probably, if anyone had one, her soul. Lillian felt a slight tang of remorse. No, that was probably just the hit from the whisky she had so hastily swallowed. She had no remorse. She was Lillian, head of the triumvirate and therefore nominal head of the universe. She had no time for remorse.
“Plan?” Emira asked again. She knew she would be asked to cull it, to perfect it, to sell it to whoever needed to carry it out. That’s why she was Interior Minister. That’s why she had this job.
“We’ve armed the fleet with all our nuclear arsenal.” Lillian stood up and poured herself more whisky into the glass, spoke only after she had savored a first sip. “Hope will be informed by the Vice Admiral that they are to relinquish planetary control back to the confederation or face planetary extinction”
“Is the Vice Admirals ship armed?”
“No” said Lillian. “Only a platoon of soldiers on board.”
Emira knew that meant there would be at least 4 times as many secret police officers. They were much deadlier than the soldiers although they didn’t look at first as frightening. That wouldn’t stop the radicals on Hope 2 though. They were all being sent to their deaths. At least the planet wouldn’t get nuclear weapons when they took the ship.
“You know what that means” said Emira. She didn’t mean it as a question.
Lillian nodded.
Betaen 6. Part Three 14
Betaen 6.3 14
Starboard meeting room. 1st deck. Specter of Renewal spaceplane. In orbit around the planet Hope 5. 5 months later. 2445
Emira snapped out of her reverie quickly. It had been decided. Hope 2 would be eliminated. She ran the calculations through the computer again, linking through time-space to the large quantum computers on Sagan 1.
“How long?” Hissed Lillian.
Emira calculated quickly in her head.
“Probably a couple of hours” she pushed her hair back from her forehead “Theres too much interference on the bandwidths to get the results back any faster”
“We need those calculations”
Emira nodded. She already knew what the results of the calculations would be. It was as if she could suddenly see into the future. It was murky and grey, like seeing the bedroom when you first woke up early in the morning, but it was there. The calculations would confirm that if Hope were not destroyed the confederation would erupt in war. They would confirm that destroying Hope would break all the other planets resolve and they would come back to the fold. She also knew the admirals were too scared to push the final button, they didn’t want the deaths of millions on their hands. She saw who would push it and she didn’t flinch. She should have realized it years ago, when the first rumblings of rebellion began. The Interior Minister would give the final order to destroy Hope 2. She would punch in the final code while the Admirals hovered and cried behind her. She would watch a planet and millions die – to save the one thing she believed in.
She didn’t even wonder how she could have seeen that, instead she wondered how she didn’t already know it.
“I will transfer to the command ship of the fleet” she said.
Lillian looked at her. She knew why as well, although she had not seen the vision Emira had. She had known it from the day she cajoled Emira into running for Senate. She was her attack dog. Her companion. Her guardian. Lillian wondered what the historians would write about poor Emira – the woman who destroyed Hope 2. She nodded and stood up. They hugged and Lillian kissed her cheek.
“I know” said Emira and left the room.
Betaen 6. Part Three. 15
Betaen 6.3 15
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” written 2459-2467.
I later found that the ringleader had been one of the terrorists that had taken over the Vice-Admirals ship above Hope 2. When they had taken back control of the ship they did it the old way – they tubed it. What’s tubing you ask? The attacking ship takes up position planet side from you and then fires two tubes through the hull of the other ship. They don’t let the atmosphere escape but they do withdraw it though the first tube and pump in carbon dioxide through the second tube. Supposedly takes about 5 minutes before everyone is down and gives everyone who starts to recuperate – after control has been regained – a headache they feel for weeks. That’s what happened to her. Better than what happened to everyone down on the planet that’s for sure. Hope 2 is uninhabitable for at least a thousand years. It set an example no one wanted to see repeated. Whoever had to make that decision had lost a lot I think. I wouldn’t think of who it was. I couldn’t.
After that episode I had a relapse. When they finally picked me up from the floor of the gangway I started seeing the trees again. Trees and blue light. Blood. Her. Both hers. Then they all got mixed up and they told me I screamed. Put me in the special ward. At least it kept the women away from me. There is also no blue on mars. Black, but no blue – ther color blue under the red orange light of Mars is always black. That red light makes Mars sort of monochromatic and blue isnt one of the colors. It became a way for me to know if I was going to relapse again – I would start to see blue and I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the next few days or weeks. Not enjoy them at all.
Betaen 6. Part Three 16
Betaen 6.3 16
Office of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Enough. Either she read the book, or she put it aside and did the work she needed to do. Kiera turned the page, enjoying the tactile feel of the paper on her fingers. That too was one of the reasons for assimilation. How could the old humans not feel that??
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles”
A memory. What is a memory? I would sure as fuck like to know. Because I don’t. I have a lot of them. Some of them are even real. I know. I can feel that they are. The problem is that some days even the unreal ones feel real.
We had landed about 6 hours before. Enough time to find the small house on a side street of the Main City that had been requisitioned for us. We were walking along the street pulling one of those stupid luggage things with wheels. I can remember that one wheel kept getting blocked. We had tried to repair it back on Earth, but it hadn’t worked. So, we just let it be. Right then I could have kicked myself for not doing it. The damn thing was more than annoying. We argued about something. Numbers. Why planets were named with numbers.
All I could think of was the big neon warning signs as we had disembarked - “Never leave your door open on Betaen 6” then the next “Always lock your door”. The next “The problem never sleeps - but you will sleep forever if you aren’t vigilant”
What the fuck were we doing on this planet? Whose idea had it been?
When those two dead women weren’t talking to me, trying to explain time to me – why the hell they would try to do that I have no idea – I could only think of the same things I did during my trial – blue light, trees, moss, cold granite and boots. Sometimes I remembered gunshots but not always. Mostly it was just lights and trees and moss and cold. You hopefully get the idea. The first weeks I was here on Mars, when my psychiatrist first asked me to write, I could only write those words. Over and over and over. I still sometimes have problems that I catch on a word and write it again and again. Didn’t help what happened as I disembarked. No. Not at all.
Betaen 6. Part Three 17
Betaen 6.3 17
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” Written 2459-2467
Lute or lyre
Her voice
So much like wind in the grass
Soft warm summer wind
Washing over his skin
Melodies
Echo through his mind
Warming
Poem 17. The green notebook. Poems of He.
I was the old man again. Sitting in a red leather armchair, a very comfortable one, smoking and thinking. Trying to find a way out of a difficult and dangerous problem.
When did I get old? I think it was when I lost him. I’m not sure but the day I lost him was the day I started to age. Of course I was aging before that. I’m not non-biological. But if you know what I mean, I wasn’t aging at all , I was enjoying every single day and every single moment.
And then the flu came and took him from me and left me alone and left me aging. All I have left now is my work and finding a means to save her and her friend. I can’t let them get ahold of them. I have to do everything that I can, use everything that I know, to make sure the triumvirate does not get their hands on them. How could they come together?
I looked up and around the room. On every wall, in every corner there were anti-snoopers. They were all green. That made me happy, I could feel it. But the thought still nagged at me, still kept boring into me. How could they come together? A communicator and a navigator? What were they to the problem? For that matter what was I? I‘d broken every rule, every way of being, to let the problem finish me but they never did. I even left the door open, not just unlocked. But they wouldn’t take me. A hundred murders in that time. 27 communications. But they left me, although all I wanted was for them to take me.
I lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one and inhaled deeply. Blew out a smoke ring and smiled that I could still do it.
I miss Jeff so much, he was always the steady pole, the one looking at what was really happening while I was dreaming of my career and what I would become. Everyone always used to look down on him – Jeff the waiter, Jeff the barista - what do you see in him? How can you, an up and coming Inspector, spend so much time and so much effort on him? That’s what they asked me almost every day. That’s what they’ll never understand - and that’s why I have to save her. And save her friend. Jeff would have wanted me too.
I woke up then. I knew Jeff. He’d been our waiter for years at the restaurant by the pond. Where I met the second her. The one they say I killed. I didn’t dream of her this time, just that old man again. Maybe Fehm will write something good about me in her tablet.
I had hoped she would just write a little note - he’s improving or something like that – but no, she had to ask me about the dream, about what it meant to me.
What the fuck. That’s what I thought to be honest, but I thought maybe this was going the right way and it might not be the time to say it so I didn’t. Instead I said I thought it meant home.
„Home?“ she asked
„Yes“ I was being very lucid, I hadn’t even called her Fehm yet once that day „Jeff is there. He was our waiter for many years when we were regulars at the restaurant.“
„Who were regulars?“
„Me and my wife“ I managed to say it without a pause or any hesitation.
„You and..?“ she let it trail off.
„My wife.“
„You and..?“ she said again.
I don’t know why it is so important to her that I name them. Isn’t enough to call them my wife and the cop? Doesn’t that show her that I think they’re two people? Well somedays I even do.
I wanted her to write something good about me in that damn tablet. Finally write something good so I pulled together all the strength I had and I said her name. Out loud. I think that might have been the first time I did that since I landed on the planet.
„Emira“ I said and for good measure I repeated myself. Fuck if I was in this far I could say her name twice. „Emira“
Fehm nodded and gave me another one of those woman looks. Wrote something in her tablet and told me that was enough for the day. Is that good or bad? You tell me.
Betaen 6. Part Three 18
Betaen 6.3 18
Excerpt from the “he Chronicles” Written 2459-2467
Why do I keep dreaming I am this old man? This guy who was together with Jeff. I know Jeff had a partner. I think I even saw him at the restaurant a couple of times. The strange thing is I think he’s the guy who interrogated me. The one who put me away for her murder. Why would I dream that I am him? It makes no sense – but then again a lot of things in my mind don’t. I‘ll have my psychiatrist tell me. That’s what she is here for isn’t it? See I didn’t even call you Fehm - so tell me please what the fuck is going on.
I was looking at myself in a bathroom mirror. The colors were all off, all too blue, my face even had an orange tint to it. I knew what that was . Old film photography. Tungsten light on daylight film. And I knew why I would think about anything except the face I saw. Because it was his face. The face of the inspector who put me away. The one I had known I saw at the restaurant, the one who had snarled at me during the interrogation - I was him. I had just finished shaving and the scum from the soap was still in the basin.
I looked at the mirror, at the me that wasn’t me, and started to recite a children’s rhyme. I do not think I got it right.
„Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
I wish I may, I wish I might
Live this life I live tonight „
Then I noticed that I had a pistol in my right hand. I couldn’t. I‘m left handed. If I was going to use a pistol I would have it in my left hand wouldn’t I? I looked at the reflection that wasn’t me and the me that wasn’t me began to talk to it.
„The fucking flu took everything from me. It left me nothing. No love. No hope. This isn‘t a life I live right now, its bullshit.“
I put down the pistol on the side of the basin and rubbed the scars beneath my eyes with both hands. Then I rubbed my eyes until I saw the lights flash purple and orange. I had loved doing that a a kid – both I‘s that were there at that moment. I shook my head and then picked up the pistol.
„I‘m finally coming to meet you Jeff.“ I said „The fucking problem wouldn’t take me so I will do it myself“
I put the pistol in my mouth and closed my lips around the cold blue barrel. I actually liked the feeling of it. Cold. Metallic. Heartless. I wanted to be heartless right then. But then I thought of her. I thought how I couldn’t leave her and her friend alone with everything I knew. That it would be wrong. No. I had already written her the letter. She’d already think I was dead. Better to finish it now than stretch it out. Walking wasn’t life. Neither was breathing if there was nothing to breathe for.
I pushed the barrel deeper into my mouth and then I gagged and I threw the pistol into their basin. I had to help her. I don’t know why but I had to. I couldn’t leave her alone in that hell.
When I looked down I noticed that the porcelain of the basin had cracked.
Betaen 6. Part Three 19
Betaen 6.3 19
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” Written 2459-2467
„What do you think this dream means?“ Fehm asked after she read what I had written.
I was prepared. I hadn’t expected her to just read it and write something good about me. I knew she would want me to interpret it, although she’s the one getting paid to interpret isn’t she?
I looked down at my fingernails. I had bitten them to the quick. Never used to do that. Maybe I did kill them both. I mean one of them. I don’t know. Right now all I wanted was to sound lucid and sane. One woman. That was the aim. One woman.
„He’s the guy that put me away“ I said „I can remember him snarling at me over the interrogation table, saying something about doors.“
„Yes?“
It was a question not an answer. I hadn’t expected an answer from her. One thing I have lately learned about psychiatrists is that they never give you answers. Only more questions.
„I don’t know why I am him in these dreams but I guess it has to do with me blaming him for being here.“ I looked at her to see if that was what she wanted to hear but she just kept looking at me without changing her expression. Shit, it had taken me almost all morning to get that down. „I blame him. That’s why he’s trying to save her.“
„Who is he trying to save?“
She would ask me that wouldn’t she. Just when I had them sorted out and put into little cubicles. One for her and one for Emira.
„Her.“ I whispered. „The cop“
„Why is there a gun in your dream?“
I knew where this was going. There was a gun because I had shot her. But I hadn’t. I didn’t kill her. I still swear I didn’t kill her. Now they were all jumbled up in my mind again. I saw those lights, beech trees, moss, felt cold granite…
I woke up again in my cell. I guess I fainted or something. I don’t know. I just know I cant stand those memories. They pull me somewhere I don’t want to be – and they triggered the next dream I just know it. Fucking Fehm. Isn’t she supposed to help me?
I was confused again. But at least I was me in the dream. I knew I was me. Confusion - that happens a lot to me since that night, wind on my hair, lights, sound of boots, acrid stench of blood. Blood all over me. Blood everywhere, both of them dead, at least I could bury the first one. Grieve. Her I couldn’t even grieve. How could I? I had killed her, left the door open on Betaen 6, everyone knew you never left the door open on Betaen 6 - even little children. So it was me. But which one had I killed - her that I buried. No. I had held her cold hand, it must have been the young cop. How could I kill a trained cop? Or were they one person? I think they were the same person. Both only died that night, not in the flu. Only men died in the flu. Women had died yes, but no; I just didn’t know anymore just that light blue bright burning cold marble hard beech tree moss wind boots light light blood everything all jumbled together.
Who was I?
Where was I?
Someone was reading something to me. Something important something about her them us loss blood death murder penitentiary life regret
They stopped reading. Someone - a woman beside me - poked me in the side. I looked at her. Who was she? I didn’t know her. I don’t think I’d ever seen her before. She poked me again.
„What do you want“ I asked
„Answer the judge“ she said
I turned to the woman who had read the things to me, things making no sense whatsoever. I told her that and she smiled at me turned to another woman, said „Yes he is not sane. It’s a pity“ she said „Reduce the sentence?“
„Why not“ the second woman said „he will never function again. Seen it before, happens sometimes here on Betaen 6“
„But he disposed of the body we never found it. Its premeditation for sure.“
„He couldn’t pre meditate a coffee“ she laughed
I think they were talking about me.
But maybe it was someone else
Someone who had killed someone, I hadn’t killed anyone, I had lost two women two at once in that night, blue light burning cold marble hard beech tree moss wind boots blood blood everywhere.
I think I screamed and then I woke up. This dream was different. I was me – and I think it really happened. At my trial, just before they sentenced me.
Fehm likes that dream. Acceptance she called it. She says it shows that part of me is accepting the situation. She wanted me to write her name. The second her. I couldn’t. I still can't. Not her name. Then she’s gone forever. I don’t want to lose her like I lost the first one.
She, the one I know is alive and here on Mars, she thought for a while and then she said its alright if I don’t write her name. I can call her the cop, I don’t have to write her name. Nice of her. She even left me alone. That at least I have them as two people in my mind, that I accept they aren’t the same person. Do I? I don’t know, but she’s the psychiatrist and she supposedly knows.
Betaen 6. Part Three 20
Betaen 6.3 20
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” Written 2459-2467
I just keep on dreaming. Every night. I am afraid to fall asleep, afraid to become someone else, afraid to live someone else’s life – mine is trying enough. I sit outside, like I’m looking through a window and I know Emira is with me. I can feel her but I can’t see her and I watch the other her, the one they say I killed and I wonder what Emira thinks. Would she like her? Did she maybe know the old guy like I think I did? Was he a colleague of hers that once came for dinner with Petra? And I just imagine I saw him at the restaurant? Why are there so many questions? Why can‘t Fehm give me any answers? I just want an answer. An answer. An … I can stop.
I was him again. The old man – the inspector. The one who lost Jeff. She was there too. Not my wife, no it was the cop. I know it was her. I was angry with her though. Very angry. She wasn’t doing what I wanted her to, what I needed her to. I hadn’t not killed myself to have her fuck everything up, that’s what I was feeling right then.
„His mental state has to be realistic!“ I slammed my hand down on the table and the anti-snooper jumped. But it was still green. She didn’t even flinch, just stared at me, her voice cold.
„If we give him that much he will be fucked up for almost two years if not longer!“ she spat it out vehemently „Do you even know if he will be normal again??“
„Would you rather have him tied to a fucking gurney 24 hours a day with a drip in his arm and them in his mind?“ I stubbed out the half smoked cigarette I had in my mouth before I realized it. It was exasperation. Damn her. Why couldn’t she understand? I quickly lit another „Do you have any idea what happens to them? What they become??“
She had to understand. It was important. I – the real me - didn’t know why – but the me in the dream did.
„No.“ she hissed „How the fuck would I know about something so fucking secret only a handful of people know?“
I nodded. Breathed deeply, enjoying the nicotine rush, the smoke deep in my lungs. It was the vice I used to keep my fingers from shaking. I had seen so much. So many things I wished I could forget.
„OK.“ I pulled a small tablet out of my inner jacket pocket. I knew it would come to this and I had it ready. I gave her the tablet and told her to hit play.
„Turn off the sound.“ I said „you don’t want to hear it“
She blanched as she watched. Then she turned from the table and scrambled for the trash can, vomited until it was only bile.
She sat for a moment on the side of her chair, sweating profusely.
„I will give it to him“ she said.
I could see the tears welling up in her eyes.
Suddenly I was me. The real me and all I wanted to do was grab her and hold her and wipe away her tears. Whenever she cried it opened up something in me. I started to reach for her, but she was gone. Only the tablet was there but there was nothing on it. What could have scared her so badly?
I really, really didn’t want to show that one to Fehm. Sorry. My psychiatrist who isn‘t Fehm. Is that better? Will you give me some good points in your tablet? I knew before I walked into her office and sat in that chair that she would ask me to explain it. I had spent the better part of the morning and most of the afternoon trying to figure it out. Had even drank some lukewarm coffee I forgot. You only get two cups in the morning so even though it was disgusting I drank it. I was never one to waste a coffee – unless it was cold.
„And?“ that was the first word Fehm said.
I wanted to go sit on the ledge but I thought better of it and stayed.
„Ok. There is the guy I hate for putting me in jail. I don’t understand why, but I am always him in my dreams. And she is there. My girlfriend. I don’t know what they are talking about. I have no idea, but whatever it is scares the shit out of her.“
„Was she really scared or was she emotional?“
That sidelined me. Of course she was scared - and emotional. Can’t you be both? Something scared her. That’s what I said. I insisted. I had no other explanation. Fehm let it be. She had that woman look again but she let it be.
„Could this really have happened?“ questioned Fehm „Or is it just your imagination creating things? Could this be something she once told you?“
I didn’t know. I said so and then I said trees, moss, lights, boots, blood…. And I woke up in my cell again. She probably didn’t write something good about me. Fuck it. Why do I even try?
Betaen 6. Part Three 21
Betaen 6.3 21
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” Written 2468 upon his release from the prison planet Mars.
“How can a child recognize that which a man cannot? And how does the man exorcize the memories of the child?” Childhood Revisited. The black notebook of Pers Larsen. First Edition. Pers Larsen.
New beginnings.
I like that title. If I ever write a book about my life, I think I’ll call it that. But she’s dead and so is my wife and they would be the only people who would read it so it would be a waste to write it.
A space liner itself can be utilitarian - like the prison transfer ship I had just left - I think it was the same one that took me from Betaen 6 to Mars - or incredibly designed: as comfortable as humanly possible; with all the creature comforts supplied for those who can afford it. But the democracy in it all is a Lander. We don’t have 20th century science-fiction beaming. Just Landers. An engineer once smacked me on the head because I wrote it with a small „l“. No. Its capitalized. L. We wouldn’t want to forget how fucking important a Lander is would we? We have to take Landers from space liners, or the space planes, down to the planet surface. A Lander just has to be efficient and has to keep you alive. Has to keep out the heat, has to stand turbulence, and the damn thing has to be both maneuverable in a vacuum and fly in an atmosphere.
To keep you safe they strap you in your seat. That and they never put artificial gravity on Landers. Wouldn’t want all those important people floating around and slamming into one another when we hit the stratosphere would we? There‘s no „I need to go to the bathroom“. Hold it. They turn the air thing so it blows cold air onto your face - because they’ve strapped your arms next to your body to minimize damage if there is an impact (and often there is) - but by the time you are into the first levels of the stratosphere of whatever planet you are ferrying down to it’s pretty damn hot - whatever air it is that’s coming at you. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for that silk booth with champagne and oysters and Ritluvian brandy up on the liner, you sit next to whoever and they are strapped in just like you and they’re getting the same air you get, the same turbulence, and you get the same feeling every single time you go down to a planet - and it's what the fuck am I doing here? - that’s what I was thinking, as I rode the shuttle down to earth after spending my sentence for her murder on the penal planet Mars. Nothing was different to the ride we had taken down from the liner to Betaen 6 or the one I took later with her and my wife all jumbled up in my head somewhere on that Lander on the way down to Mars. The air was hot and dry and smelled. It stank like it always did on the way down, but I was coming home. Without them but I was coming home.
Actually, I can’t say without them because both of them or one of them , I’m not even sure some days if there were two of them - they have become a part of me - now they’re always in my mind. In prison I saw them both, although I know they’re both dead, then I saw them as one although I know there are two, but some days I’m still very confused.