Part two.
You may be beginning to get an inkling of what is going on. Just maybe. Maybe enough to wonder. To follow. To quote “He”: “Maybe it’s even true. I did kill her. Maybe I am mad”
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“Regardless of her shortcomings Princess A may be the most influential woman in the universe.” Reginald Dubois. Doctoral Thesis in Ancient Earth History – “The position of Princess A within the fabric and her association with its unravelling” – submitted to Committee June 21, 3567, Gargt University Two. Planet Gargt.
Earth. 3205 Victims study. Earth timeline.
If someone finds this I hope they can make sense of it. I hope they understand it. I hope many things. One of them being that I might live to see the day again. The traveler is close behind me and I am afraid this time he will end me. Then I will be the victim. Perhaps it is best if I just use that as my name. Probably less confusing than explaining the myriad that I am. Just call me the victim, or call me A., that was my first name and the one this version of me still carries.
I was born on this planet a very long time ago. Almost 1400 years ago. A long time to live. But I dont live linear. I dont live as this victim - not all the time. I have lived as a princess and as a pauper, as the most powerful and dangerous person in the universe and as a simple academic, all - for the purpose of simple understanding - at the same time and only I, the victim, know it. I have been cursed with the freedom to move physically through what most inhabitants of this universe call “time”. It may seem wonderful to any who have not had to live it, but its not. Mostly for that what I leave behind – a copy of myself – they have no idea that I even am, or that they never really were. Every time I travel I leave a copy of myself – and so does the traveler as he hunts me. I have seen my death and the end of me, and I have accepted it – I have watched the copies of me die a multitude of times. Once you have died once, twice, thrice – it gets easier. But never so easy that you want to accept it. I fear though that he will find me this in this time and we will finally annihilate each other. What then will come to pass has been written and discussed in a thousand doctoral theses on a thousand planets scattered across the universe – and none of them knew or know what really is going on.
Let’s get one thing straight before I go on at all. Time -as we paltry humans, trapped by it – does not really exist as we believe it does. Dne – as we paltry N’Hai N’Hai, trapped by it – does not really exist as we believe it does. Its more like a big ball of wool that someone let a kitten play with. Tangled. Torn. Ending – but not ending. Frayed but still useful. That’s the best I can do – and I live this shit daily. Maybe its right that he will kill me. At least 36.25 percent of the theses being and have been written propose to that idea. Personally, for reasons you may or may not fathom, I am against it.
You probably would like to know who I am? What my motivations are? What plans I had as a child? Why not start there. As I said before; I was born – this iteration of me that has been plaguing the universe for far too long (15.78 % of the doctoral theses) – the year Napoleon Bonaparte abidicated as Emperor of France. 1815 for any of you uncouth villains who have never read history. One day before the summer solticise. The longest day. I was born as a Russian princess who had already lost her lands and possessions months before her birth. I was born to be the lover of the man born exactly twenty four years before me – the man who I now call only the traveller – the man who will kill me. Through centuries we have loved and and hated and lost one another. In many forms – but not this final one. The traveler is still older than me, perhaps wiser (45% of doctoral theses) but he was not always my enemy. In fact I know he felt as I felt that warm summer day here on the steps of this very chateau.
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Earth. 2001. House of Margret Zeit. Earth timeline
“That’s it” Samuel said “Shit. “
He set the paper down beside himself. Margaret realized she had put a hand in her lap as she listened to Samuel read and quickly removed it.
“I do hope the rest is in here somewhere! Damn! “ he swore “is the old bugger going to fuck her or not?”
“Samuel!” Barked Margaret
Samuel just looked at her, perhaps like W had looked at A.
“That’s what they want isn’t it? Both of them?” He reached for his coke and drank from the bottle. Margaret always found that disgusting but it reminded her of David and that reminded her of sex and she felt that familiar heat between her thighs.
“I am assuming he’s a lot older than she is and he is probably this lieutenant general guy. And he’s probably married to this Madame. So we’ve got the picture but no sex. And it was looking so good”
Margaret looked at her wristwatch.
“Oh Samuel you only have 15 minutes before your cello lesson. You’ll have to put that away now. “
Earth 2019. Earth timeline.
Samuel looked at himself in the reflection from the darkened computer screen. He had been 15 when he first opened that red dispatch box from his great great great great grandfather. He had had so many plans and so many dreams. The box sat beside his left hand- as it always did - his computer open and the screen filled with different pages of the same notes and photos that were tacked or taped to the wall behind it. He was now 33, he had spent 18 years trying to solve the mystery of that box and now he thought he had.
Samuel slowly removed the golden pin holding the dried newspaper articles to the paper the General had written. In between the three articles there was an envelope. His hands shook slightly as he opened it. Too much Cola, he thought. Inside was a single sheet of absolutely white paper. He wondered how it had remained so white after so many years. He unfolded it.
New York Harbour.
June 12 1862
I am absolutely certain Sir
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Earth. 3205. Landing Platform Paris.
“Dr. Malaica?”
She turned. She had been hurrying towards the gates, ignoring the other passengers and the crowds waiting for them. Trying to get as far away from that Lander as quickly as possible. She had two reasons for that; one was that she hated Landers and the inevitable smell, and the second was that she wanted to get to the crime scene as quickly as possible. She should have thought they would have someone meet her.
It was a young girl, probably not much older than 20, her hair cut short and pulled back over her ears as was the fashion on earth at the moment. Malaica’s hair was a tangled mess and she didn’t even want to think about what she looked like.
“Yes?”
The girl blushed.
“Im here to get you and your luggage and bring you to the chateau. We will be using the Paris-Stuttgart tube, have you ever been in a tube before?”
Malaica nodded. “A small one we have on Pesces 4, not like the ones you have here on earth.”
“Will you need a sedative?”
“I shouldn’t” she said “I‘ve got my pippers. I’ll just pop one and that should be fine.”
The girl looked at her palm, reading the words that transcribed across it. The Senate definitely didn’t want Dr. Malaica using pippers. They wanted her in tip top intellectual shape all the time.
“I am afraid I can’t allow that Ma’am” the girl wasn’t blushing anymore and her manner had changed “The Senate requires you to be in perfect form and you yourself know what the let down of pippers is like”
Malaica nodded. The girl held out her hand – the same one the message had played across – and Malaica took the small black vial out of her pocket and gave it to her. There was no use resisting. If she had said she didn’t have them on her they would never have believed her and she wasn’t feeling quite up to a body search.
“Sedative?”
“I will try it without.” Malaica breathed the words out through her nose as she practiced bin ventra, the ancient Pesces meditation. It was working. Her mother may have had many shortcomings, but the teaching of bin ventra wasn’t one of them.
The girl nodded. If the Professor wanted to tube without a sedative then it was her prerogative. She herself wouldn’t risk it. The tube would only be 17.5 minutes from end to end – but tubing without sedatives was hell.
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Earth. 3205.
Malaica followed the girl as they went around the long lines waiting for the flu and identity checks. 800 years and a bit and they still checked. Just last year there had been a bad outbreak on Gatga. Over a million dead within weeks. Malaica had never liked the ear probes but they did work – it had been lax controls that had permitted the outbreak on Gatga. The other passengers scowled and some started to verbally complain but the phalanx of SP officers that swept in beside her stopped it.
She let them carry her bags and followed the entourage onto the walk. It sped them off towards the tube terminal. She kept on practicing bin ventra and could feel her nervousness subside and the calm begin to take over her body. When it worked – which it often didn’t for her – it was a fantastic feeling. The old women on Pesces 5 swore that “she” herself had found bin ventra before her death. Malaica let them believe it but was certain it was a myth. If “she” had created as many things as she was supposed to have done there would have to be 75 hours in a day. Only uninhabitable planets had such low spin, and Pesces 5 wasn’t uninhabitable. In fact Malaica thought it might be the most comfortable planet in the universe. Knowing that pippers – red and purple – grew in the wild there might just have something to do with that contemplation. She was certain from the reaction of the girl who had picked her up – who was obviously part of the SP – that she wouldn’t be enjoying the blissfulness of a pipper while she was on earth. It was true that productivity – in all sectors – on Pesces 5 was only 70% of that in the rest of the universe – but happiness and contentment of the planets population was almost 95%. Malaica was certain that the 5% negative were from the few on the planet who didn’t enjoy pippers.
It took them longer on the walk, almost 20 minutes, then it would take in the tube. By the time they arrived Malaica was already in state two and had to be helped into the tube carriage. She let the attendants strap her in and then breathed the last deep breaths exactly as her mother had taught her. Consiousness as we know it left her. The feeling was almost as ecstatic as a purple pipper. She could feel everything around her, the straps holding her onto the fake leatherette of the tube couch. The soft moist air being blown onto her face as they closed the lid of the capsule. The walls of the tube. The very fabric of time itself. The N’Hai N’Hai within her, that so often slumbered, awoke in joy and she felt the oneness that so many sought. She could see what awaited her at the chateau already and she wondered again what time really was. Was that a fountain pen? An ancient, priceless fountain pen? Lying on the desk? She let the bin ventra take her deeper and she felt the walls of time dissolve. It was confusing. She could see forwards and backwards in jumbled shards, like looking through a bottle that was breaking, as it broke. She felt like she was multiples of people and that she had seen and lived multiple lives. It was better than pippers. Much better. It had to be the acceleration of the tube together with the bin ventra. She had never seen these types of things before. It fascinated her and she wondered if Kiera had been as remorseful as she felt her to be in her vision. Was she seeing reality or was she creating it?
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“When they made me Minister, they made me something more than human. I had more power than any woman before me, and perhaps after me, had or ever will have. In reality Lillian had made me even more powerful than she was. There are women who drool at the thought of that power. I was terrified of it.” Personal Diary Emira. Dated 2445. Released from containment 2758.
Senate Spaceliner. Approach to Betaen 6. 2799. 2 weeks before the explosion.
“What are you reading?”
”I’m reading the green notebook, the annotated version from Wellson and Riconta. It’s quite interesting. I like it. I can see what an academic fight was going on between them and Ezes’ group, actually kind of funny to read sometimes. Especially after the revelations in the „Inspector Recalls“ publication. Poor Wellson, he was so wrong. Strange that he never saw it on his timeline, then again an hundred years is a bit long.”he smirked „I‘m happy if I can see a good three days in the future“ He put it down on the table beside him, turned to look at her “Can you remember any of the stuff we learned about He and She and home? You know the school stuff?”
Kiera shook her head. “School was a long time ago. Never was interested in the old human - new human stuff until university. Then I spent every waking moment my first-year learning about the three. I was so glad I wasn’t an old human.”
“Me too” he said. “But the poems He wrote aren’t half bad.” He sipped at the water glass “Not as good as Wellson and Riconta would have you believe, but not half bad”
“When you are finished, let me read it.” she said “haven’t read a love poem for a long time.” Kiera walked behind his chair and tousled his hair as she did so “He was the one who wrote the numbered poems right?” She stopped by the viewport and looked out into the blackness “67, the one that starts with sienna hair?”
Eric flipped through the pages and started to read to her.
“Poem 67. My love has sienna hair. That smells so sweet” he read in as monotone a voice as he could manage.
Kiera threw a napkin from the breakfast table at him. They hadn’t let the orderlies in to clear the table.
“I prefer the erotic poems” he said
“You would” she said, laughing. Then she stopped.
“The jump”
He put down the book. Nodded. Stood up and walked beside her. Took her hand. They connected with the others on the ship. Checked their parameters. He could feel the agreement. On the bridge the navigator typed in the last equation and hit the button.
It was the same feeling as always. The adrenaline rush as space and time melted together and they moved. As quickly as the rush washed over them it left. Outside the window they could now see a planet.
There was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” She said
“Comle, we are in orbit around the planet” there was a pause “Do you have anything we need to perform before they prepare the Landers?”
Comle she thought. The common term for Command Leader.
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Space Liner. 2 weeks before the explosion. 2799
Eric looked at her and knew her thoughts without probing. Kiera was worried about Earth. About what would happen at the meetings about to take place. What she might have to choose to do. She kept him far away from the internal workings of the government, and even farther from some of the difficult decisions she had to make, but he knew enough about what was going on. He tightened his grip on her hand. She tightened back and turned and smiled at him. Kissed him on the cheek.
“I have to get ready now” Kiera said “I of course have to shuttle down in a special Lander.” Even as she said the word she knew she had capitalized it. But why? Why did they always write the word Lander with a capital L? It made no sense. One of those arcane carryovers from the before time.
He let her hand go and walked back to the reading chair. Sat down and picked up the book.
“Like honey in the sun. On summer morn…” the slipper caught him full on his right cheek.
“Hey!” He laughed at her, picked up the slipper and tossed it back. Softly. No one could ever throw a slipper at the Comle. Never. Not even her consort.
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Mars. 2459.
I hadn’t been off the prison Lander more than 15 minutes when the girls surrounded me. Hadn’t even been officially marked and numerated and all those things they do to prisoners. She had a lot of clout, the one who stopped me, waving the other prisoners to hurry by. I should have thought something was wrong but I was still handcuffed and a guard stood at each end of the tube from the platform to the administration room, so why should I worry? I was also lucid - which was kind of a first. This episode wouldn’t help me stay that way.
“You’re 487?” She spat at me. She was blonde. Quite pretty if she hadn’t had a deep look of loss etched onto the planes of her face. I wondered for a second what could have caused her so much pain? Had she killed someone she loved as well? I would find out thirty seconds and a broken nose later.
I nodded, 487 was the number they had given me.
Her elbow crashed into my nose, splintering the bone and causing a gush of blood. Her three henchwomen just watched and the two guards noticed nothing. Then she karate kicked me in the ribs, both sides. Making sure she broke a few. But not too many – I wouldn’t be a good plaything if I had too many broken bones.
“That’s for your fucking wife” she said and spat on me where I was lying on the floor, trying to wipe the blood from my face with my handcuffed hands. “I am so fucking glad she’s dead”
Something got into me then. Something I hadn’t thought I could do. I kicked out at her legs and caught her on the shin, knocking her over. Then I managed to get the handcuffs around her throat and twisted. A kick to my head from a guard put a stop to that. But – who the hell was I? I didn’t do things like that. Then again I also didn’t murder girlfriends on strange planets – but I was in this gangway being beaten for just that reason.
The guard pulled her up and I was happy to see I had bled all over her shirt.
“Why?” I managed to spit out.
“Hope 2.” She said and started to cry “Hope 2”
I had heard of Hope 2. Everyone had. It had finished the rebellion before it started. A horrible thing that should never have happened.
I staggered to my feet, unsure if it were the ribs on my left side or my nose that pained me more. I licked blood from my lips with my tongue and slurred
“What the fuck do I have to do with it?”
She stopped crying and started to laugh. Buckled over, slapping her knees laughing until she cried again. Her henchwomen just kept staring at me. I didn’t like the look they had but I would soon learn what it meant and it would take me over a year after they let me out of my padded cell and a few more broken bones to learn how to stop it. She turned to the guard who had helped her up.
“He doesn’t know” she wiped the tears from her cheeks “Doesn’t know.” Then she wiped her lips with the back of her hand and hit me again. I went down. And then she had a small syringe in my upper arm and all of them, even the guards, raped me. One after the other. I know – how do you rape a man, especially one who has a broken nose and broken ribs? Fuperone. A couple of milliliters in an average size man and he keeps it up for at least three hours – regardless how the rest of him feels and regardless how often he ejaculates. The rape drug. Women can be really inventive when they need to have children to get out of prison – especially if they get a boy – and of course it scars and lives – then they are set up for life. Really inventive.
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Apartment of the Comle. Betaen 6. Main City. 2799
Kiura.
Kiera smiled slightly, she had heard that word lately, or read it. There were more pressing matters so she ignored it, like the Colonel. Work and duty came first.
“So everyone who was in contact with the terrorists had the same timestamp. And unconsciously some of them sent it on to me and to Eric”
The Colonel nodded. “I am ashamed to tell you Kiera. I mean Comle” she stammered “But I had the same timestamp” She looked away, she couldn’t look at her friend while she told her “But I thought it was just mischance.” She pulled herself together and turned her gaze back to the wound upon Kiera’s scalp. “I am sorry”
Kiera stood up from the bed. She took a step toward the Colonel and embraced her.
“Ah-Geld-Rid” she whispered in her ear “I have so few friends I cannot afford to lose one over a grey and confuse timestamp” Then she kissed her on the cheek and sat back on the side of the bed.
“I am sorry my friend, but I am still exhausted. I feel faint and Comle can not faint, not even in front of you”
The Colonel smiled.
“Of course.” She stood to attention and made to leave. “I will bring the evening report.”
Kiera nodded.
“And get some sleep. That’s an order”
The Colonel nodded and left the room.
Kiera opened the folio that Ah-Geld-Rid had left on the bedside table and scanned it quickly. Then she set about reading it methodically.
Report of the inquisition of two Earth humans, both unassimilated.
Earth date 562799
Inquisitioning officer: Capt. Irie Denge.
Witness: SP Officer in waiting Joanna Manert
Earth: Four weeks before.
Betaen 6: the day of the explosion. 2799
Ruth clutched at the small handbag she still carried. Her luggage was already aboard the liner. It would be the first time she was off planet. To the demon world. The center of evil. To kill the demon Kiera and her legions. To free humanity from their possession.
Even He, who they also recognized but did not worship like the possessed heathen, had said “Betaen 6 is evil. The most horrible planet in the universe”. If He had said that, what must it be like there? She felt fear grip at her. She began to recite the prayers.
“Hail Mary full of grace”
Gabriel elbowed her in the ribs.
“In your mind!” He hissed “We do not want them to know who we are”
She nodded. The demons could see the future. Peter had said that when they were in proximity with them they must keep their thoughts on anything but the mission. The demons could not see their future if they did not know it. But if they were by them, talked to them, and thought of the mission – then it would fail. The demoness Kiera would still live. Her abomination of a consort would still live. That could not be. There would only be freedom and peace if the demoness and her consort were dead.
Though it was forbidden by the scriptures and the holy words Marcus had seen the future and told them. He was pure, not possessed by the demons, but he could, after ritual cleansing and fasting, see into the murkiness of the waters of time and he had seen that they would be successful. The demoness would die.
“Ma’am?”
She snapped out of her reverie. A demon was asking her something. She shied away from him although he looked a lot like her younger brother. Red haired, freckles, a large smile and friendly eyes. But the scriptures had written of that too. Of how beautiful the demons could be. Of how they would seduce their prey and then possess them forever. Of how she would then suffer for eternity after her death, burning in hell.
“Your tickets M’am?” He asked again “Is it your first time on a liner?” he smiled shyly at her. Ruth knew she was beautiful and that men found her attractive. She had thought of it as a sin, thought that recognizing her beauty was the sin of pride, but Peter had told them that each had something to offer to the mixture that was humanity. Each brought something individual, something unique, something the demons did not have through their possession. They were all alike. Evil and possessive. Sinful. The women even had sexual relations with other women! The very thought disgusted her and strengthened her resolve.
“Yes” she stammered.
“No problem” he smiled again, his eyes traveling from her face to her bodice. “I just need to see your communicator for a short moment”
She handed it to him, careful not to touch him. He had already seen from her clothing that she was an old human and probably a believer as they called themselves. He was careful to keep his hand away from hers, he knew it would be painful for her should she touch him. Stupid silly beliefs he thought, but most of them are harmless. He was certain the girl in front of him could not harm a fly. If he had known that she had swallowed fourteen grams of Cepetedium explosive – enough to blow a hole in the liner six meters wide – he may have thought differently. If there had been delegates or high officials on board the liner to Betaen 6 he would have scanned her, regardless of her beliefs – and found the Cepetedium. But this was a routine run, there were only pilgrims to the shrine of He and She and holidayers traveling to Betaen 6 or Jules world. There was no need for a scan, no need to defile their religion.
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Earth. 2798.
Ruth thought only of her reflection in the mirror. Of how aroused Peter had become before he had taken her. There were those who thought that was wrong. Peter already had five wives. Many of the others called it adultery. But he was Peter. He was the leader. He was the one who had rediscovered the scripture. The proof that the others were demons and must die. Even the scriptures supported him – which was why she had lain with him. She could not go against the scriptures. The holy words. Solomon, the great King, had 700 wives and concubines. She would, Peter had promised her, also be a wife after the mission on Betaen 6 – no longer just a concubine. She thought of his grey skin and often flaccid penis and without realizing it compared him to the youthful young man across the table from her. What would it be like to lie with him? Would he too require so much use of her hands and mouth to become excited a second time? She had only ever lain with Peter, but she had heard the other girls talk, of how their young men could please them again and again during the night. She blushed at the thought. It was sinful to discuss such things. She barely stopped herself from beginning the recital again.
The young man handed her back her communicator.
“You have to follow the yellow line” he said and pointed at the wall. There were six lines – yellow, red, purple, black, blue and green. Yellow was the second from the top. “That will bring you to your gate. When you are there the steward will show you the way to your cabin”
She nodded her thanks.
“Have a safe trip” he said.
Gabriel took her by the arm, and they continued down the hall, following the yellow line on the wall.
“That was close” he said, “You almost touched him!” He tightened the grip on her arm, admonishing her “You know that could jeopardize the entire mission!”
“I know” she said “I did not touch him. Let go of my arm or I will tell Peter that you are cruel to me!” She thought of the scriptures and as her mind had always been one that remembered words she quoted Timothy “You must face the fact: the final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. They will be those who put pleasure in the place of God, those who preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of its reality. Keep clear of people like these.” She shook her arm free and looked up at him “Are you one of those, Gabriel? One I should keep clear of?”
Gabriel snatched her arm again and spun her towards him. “Do not think that because you fuck Peter you have special rights here!” He pushed her along the hallway, the anger evident in his face “Many women fuck him. He forgets many of them as quickly as he takes them. Do not forget that Ruth” he let go of her arm and stopped walking.
She stopped and turned to him.
“You did not have to be so vulgar” she said “I only follow the scriptures”
Gabriel looked at her. It had been clear from the first day her parents had brought her to the church that Peter would take her. She was perfect. Her face was angelic and inviting to the man at the same time and her body left nothing that a man could not desire. Even in the frumpy clothes the believers wore, the browns and grays and mottled patterns, he could still see the pulsing woman beneath them. The scriptures. He smiled sardonically. They told anyone anything they wanted. Everything could be found in them. Peter found the tale of Solomon and his 700 wives. His father had found the words of Jesus – more than once he had said one man, one woman. He should not think such things. If he continued, he would flush the plastic lozenge of Cepetedium when he shit it out and go the demons and say, let me become one of you. No, the scriptures were truth, he was just lost and afraid. They were going to the demon world. Where it had all began. The possession. He did not know what to expect there. Only that he had a job to do when he was there and until then he must stay clear of the possessed.
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Earth. Stuttgart-Paris tube. Km 200. 3205
Malaica watched the lives flicker before her eyes, trying to pick single pieces from the fragments that flew around her. She concentrated on the future. On that note lying on the desk, the fountain pen beside it, the dead woman on the floor with her hands removed. The note. She tried to read it but just as she began the flickers changed. She knew what it was though. It was Parsons paper. Created by the Deep team, led by the famous inspector. Parsons paper. You wrote what you wanted to write and it was automatically encoded into something else. Something that made sense, that was essential to the moment, but encoded unless the reader knew the password – which had to be written into the paper with the same pen the message had been written. Why choose a thousand year old pen to write a Parsons message? Why write one at all? Time flickered within her vision again.
Earth. 1835. Chateau in Southern Germany
She was washing Dishes, her fine white hands, unused to manual labor chafing in the lukewarm, soap filled water.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked “we have maids! You don’t have to do this work “
She turned her head to look at him but left her hands in the water, as if it were an act of defiance.
“I saw how that farmers wife talked with you. How she laughed, how she looked. Do not think me so naive that you think I do not know” she shook her head “perhaps if my hands too are chapped and torn you will bed me too?”
He looked at her startled.
“Does this insensibility, this vulgarity , have to do with yesterday’s evening?” he asked, his voice low.
She stamped a foot and her hands moved in the water, splashing some to the stone floor and wetting her apron.
“What would you assume my Lord ?”
“I do not have that title” he said, ignoring her question.
She shook her head sadly.
“Now you ignore my question as you ignored me. “ she looked at him and he could see the tears welling up in her eyes and knew he was close to breaking. He had been so close to breaking for so long now that it would take but a tear from her eye and he would. “Do you not care for me?” she turned back to the water. Oh please God, he thought, let her maintain composure. If she breaks I will break, he thought.
“Of course I do my dear. “ he took a step closer to her, unaware he had moved „I told you a few days ago - you are like a daughter for me”
There was anger in her eyes, not tears, as she turned on him, splashing suds onto his frock coat and vest.
“I do not want to be your daughter General. “ Oh God he thought, how sweet the sound when she says my name “I want you to give me what you have given Madame, and what you certainly have given that farmers wife” she blushed finally and looked down at her wet apron “One doesn’t give that to daughters”
“We ..”
She cut him off.
“Can not do this” she shook her head and a tassel of her beautiful brown hair fell over her left eye. “You have been saying that for quite a while now” she smiled at him, looking up into his eyes and moving a step closer “Can you say nothing else? Think of nothing else?”
He felt his manhood harden. He couldn’t do this. She wasn’t a farmers wife seeking solace after her husbands death. She wasn’t a jaded hussy who needed the warmth of a man between her legs. She was a princess. An orphan. Alone. He could not take advantage of her. He couldn’t.
But the whisper tore from him before he could stop it. Torn from his throat even as he was whirling to pace away.
“I can only think of you”
As quickly as he could - he had again forgotten his stick - he took himself away from her.
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On board the Wing of Merkur. Spaceship to Betaen 6. 2798.
When they met on the demon planet there would be 33 of them. The Jesus God had performed 33 miracles, he was 33 when he died and rose again. So Peter and the elders had decided they would be 33. Half of them carried Cepetedium in plastic vials in their stomachs or intestines, the other half carried disparate electronic equipment that Ezekiel would use to make the detonator. He and Ruth would carry the explosive to the demons lair. And then the demoness would die and all the possessed would be freed. The elders said it was in the scriptures, the freedom that would come. That when the she devil – Comle – was dead, the possessed would be freed. Gabriel was not a believer in myths. If that was so then when the last Comle had died, they should all have been freed. It had not been. But he would strike a blow against the demons. Hurt them. That the possessed had never been anything but kind to him was circumstance and did not pertain to the mission. He would not think of the kind neighbor, like a grandmother to him, who had taken care of him after school while his father worked, and his mother evangelized. She was one of the possessed. They had all learned about the possession, they had to learn about it in school. The assimilation the demons called it. His father had been furious that he had to learn such filth in school. Public school. Paid for by his taxes. It was bad enough that they taught the heathen science evolution. What lies. What deceptions. God and Jesus and Mary had made the earth in 6 days. All of their science were lies.
See. He was surviving. He was one of them. A disciple of Christ, he would recite the beliefs and he would be safe again. He could do this, he could keep himself from the possessed and make them pay for their demonic acts. He would not think of Nana. He wouldn’t.
They had been on the liner for six days. Outside the viewports – if they turned them on – there was only blackness with the occasional flirting star.
There was so much blackness. So little light. Gabriel turned from the viewport to Yhomad, the keeper of the Sigil. Although opposites it had been decided that they share a cabin. Both wondered why. What was to gain from living purgatory? Was it some type of test? Gabriel detested the smugness of Yhomad, his so often voiced belief in the detailed truth of the scriptures. Was he really so stupid that he could not see that they contradicted themselves – often on the same page? There were moments – one had just been, and that was the reason why he paced the hallways in a rage – where he wanted to take the Cepetedium and use it on him. What had they said when they told them to be careful with the capsules – that a mere ten or twenty milligrams of the explosive would be fatal to them should the capsule burst. To be careful not to bite it as they swallowed it, to use laxatives from the third day on until they had passed the capsule. All of them had, all of them were still alive. It would be so easy to sprinkle some in Yhomads’ tea. Pompous bastard. He was pacing when the lights went yellow, and a deep tone sounded through the ship. He knew it meant something but, in his anger, he could no longer place it. The ship jumped. He felt adrenaline surge through his body, felt as if he could do anything, be anything, be anyone – and just as suddenly it was gone. He stopped at the next viewport and looked out. Still the dark blackness of space but the stars were different now. He had just had his first jump. He felt elated, alive, felt the anger leave him. If they could do such things, then the universe was a wonderful place.
Betaen 6. Part Two. 12
Betaen 6.2 12
Apartment of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera took up the leather bookmark Eric had given her the first year they had been together. It was thick and had some ancient earth emblem stamped into it. She had to take it to the central library to figure out what it was. The librarian had looked at it and immediately pulled up the correct files. That it then took two hours before they found it wasn’t because she wasn’t any good at her job – it was because there were literally hundreds of the bloody things. It was a Scottish family emblem – Clan ain Abrach – one that had been lost to history already in 18th century earth. But it was their motto that she read beneath the emblem on the screen that made her smile. That was so much like Eric. He had known she would want to know the origin of the emblem, would look it up, and would find this – Nec tempore Nec Fato – Neither time nor fate. She had thanked him that night. She was still certain he had not forgotten it.
She put the bookmark between the pages and set the book by her bedside. She needed sleep, her eyes had begun to be heavy a few pages before. If she wanted answers, she needed to understand what she read. She turned off the already dim light and drifted off.
She dreamt. Followed the paths that were always freed upon sleep, let her mind wander through time and space. Watched the novas and the black holes, the whirling galaxies, the planets blue and green and dusty. Felt the flow of time, its water running not in one direction but everywhere – like a drop of rain upon oil. Felt the pull and the push and knew that everything had its place and it’s time and its proper method.
Kiera awoke at the time she always did, early, when the first grey tendrils of dawn were creeping into the sky. She felt refreshed. She hadn’t expected it. She had expected anguish and pain. The pain was still there, her head throbbed, but there was no anguish. Eric was alive. He would live. The physicality that was him would still be with her for many years. That had made her happy. It was not the coffee the guardswoman brought to her bedside, nor the berries and oat flakes that made her grimace. It was the memory of what she still had to do – and of what she had already done.
As she expected they let her finish her breakfast and shower and dress before they let the Colonel in. She looked harried and haggard and Kiera told her so. It spoke much of her trust that the Colonel was allowed to wear a weapon in her presence.
“It was a long night, Kiera.”
“How long have they kept you waiting?” She asked both with her voice and with her mind.
“Not long” came the lie
“How long?” Kiera stressed the last word she didn’t expect an answer, but she knew it had been longer than it should have been. They were being too careful with her.
“May I sit?”
“Of course” Kiera motioned for her to sit on the bed. The Colonel shook her head.
“Ah-Geld-Rid” she said “My friend. My sister. Sit with me” and she motioned again to the bed beside her.
The Colonel felt a pang go through her. Kiera had called her by name. She still remembered it.
“Kiera”
“Yes my friend?”
“It was horrible.”
Kiera took the shaking hand and held it in hers. She could feel the pain emanating from it. The loss. The terror.
“I am sorry I asked you to do it” she looked at her friend and the lines of pain beside her eyes „I knew it might come to violence.“
There was a long pause. The Colonel swallowed more than once before she choked out the words.
“It is so against us. It is so horrible!” She shook her head “And I was so strong with the doctor. Told him they deserved it”
Kiera stroked her hand. There was nothing else she could do. Ah-Geld-Rid would have to settle this within herself. She could only offer warmth and understanding.
Betaen 6. Part Two. 13
Betaen 6.2 13
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles”. Written 2459-2467
She, not the she that was there or the other one, no the one that’s here on Mars, she asked me. Asked me what I felt about that photo. It was a photo OK. Weird situation, stupid photo. Maybe they are all here on Mars. All three shes. You never know. There are days I see all three of them. But never all three together. Only two at once. That’s strange isn’t it? Really strange. Strange. Strange. Shit. I have to stop this. I’m back. She, the psychiatrist she, she says it’s PTSD. Whatever the fuck that is. I could look it up myself but I don’t want to.
She says that this memory is a crucial memory. Maybe the most important one of them all. How the fuck she got that idea I’ll never know. It was just a weird photo. And someone’s sick joke. How they did it? I don’t know? Noticed me take the picture. Thought it looked a bit like the one on the wall. Broke into her cabin and removed the tape, signed it with a perfect forgery of my signature and then put the same tape back on the frame so it was just as old and frail. Simple. They had maybe 10 minutes. That’d be enough. Right? Makes as much sense as me having taken the fucking thing don’t you think? A photo she had since she was 12? That number again. She said it – when I asked her later – I don’t know when it was but I did - that’s it was because she was 12 when she lost her father. I don’t know why Emira had the same tattoo. I know I massaged it with my thumb before she died. Fucking flu. Like I said it’s probably a woman thing. Next time I‘m with the psychiatrist I‘ll look her over. She probably has it somewhere too. 12. Why 12? Look my dear doctor. I wrote her name. I wrote my wife’s name. Be proud of me. Write something nice in that fucking tablet.
She was displeased. I mentioned my wife’s death in the flu again. I’m supposed to accept it and not write about it. Accept there were two of them. Don’t I do that by writing that she died in the flu? Can’t she accept that? She died in the flu. 105 women. I think there were only like 6 or 7 women that died in the fourth wave. Only. I thought it was great of me that I didn’t use the word fuck once. Not until now. Not once. I kept it unemotional. I really did. I have no idea why she gets so angry with me. They used to get angry with me. Both of them. Especially when I rambled. I think they would be angry with me now. In fact, they told me they are. Both of them and Fehm too. Fehm my psychiatrist. Maybe she is just jealous of the other two?
She told me I am creating this. She is a professional. She isn’t angry or jealous. She isn’t one of them. But somedays she is. She should know that. She’s as much one of them as they are two turned into one. Maybe that is why I can never see all three of them at once, only two.
So I’m going to please her this time. Keep writing chronology. Isn’t that some type of wristwatch? I had a wristwatch before they put me in prison. I think they took it away from me during the trial. It was an antique. White face. Black leather band. I liked it. My wife gave it to me. I think it was at about the time she gave me my green notebook and the fountain pen. Stainless steel it was. Fletched. Beautiful craftsmanship. I enjoyed writing with it. Even though I used to get ink on my hand. Fountain pens weren’t really made for left handers. Maybe they are, how the hell am I supposed to know? At least cameras aren’t. I know that. I always had to use my right forefinger. Never the left one, the one I should have used. See I didn’t write it. Be happy. Write something nice about me on your damn tablet.
Betaen 6. Part Two. 14
Betaen 6.2 14
Office of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera shook her head and laughed at herself, she had been quite open with her memories and she could feel her adjutant smirking. How could she not know that they whispered about her perchance for the ancient when she was not there? If it touched her timeline she would see it. They knew that too. They knew there was no danger in it. A new human did not feel the way an old human had, that was for the better. Yet now, as a new human, she – Comle Kiera - would be the one that history would label, regardless of the decision she made.
“Comle?”
The intercom crackled to life.
“Yes?”
“The book will be here within the hour”
“Thank you” she said and thumbed the intercom off. She would have them bring it back to the apartment. She was much weaker than her staff were allowed to notice, the explosion had taken much more from her than she would let be seen.
She had finished the “He Chronicles” while recuperating from the blast, started them earlier just that day – before it happened, before she almost lost Eric- leaving her work lie unfinished, dropping into the world of He, his view – if his ramblings could be called that - on the entire thing. The thing. She almost laughed out loud that she had called the assimilation “thing”. In school she would have been reprimanded. Now, no one reprimanded the Comle. Even Eric wouldn’t even throw a slipper at her. The memory made Kiera smile sadly.
Kiera straightened. Now it was time to work. There had been enough thought about the past. When the book arrived, she would read it. Not as enjoyment but as hope. Perhaps it would show her another way. Again, she could have simply opened her mind to her timeline, and she would know - at least so thought the old humans who were demonizing them now. If only it was so easy she thought and laughed to herself. Anything more than a few days in the future was so muddied by the multitudes that it was basically indecipherable. Her mother had always said – if we could see far enough, we would all be rich and there would be no stock market on Pesces 4. She smiled remembering her mother, but now she had work to do.
Betaen 6. Part Two 14.5
Betaen 6.2 14.5
The She Chronicles. Being read by Comle Kiera 2799
Five minutes later the team were there. The Inspector, another man – very big - and three women. The women had that look that you saw in trained security officers' eyes. An untrustworthy look. They trusted nothing and no one. Except the Inspector. He hadn’t needed to lie to them. They didn’t ask any questions - just got right to work.
„Can you sit here at the table please?“ the tallest one asked me.
I sat.
„Roll up your sleeve and ball your fist“ she showed me her hand tightening into a ball as if I wouldn‘t know how to do it. As if no one had ever taken blood from me before. „This might hurt a bit. We’ve got to take a lot more than usual for a medical procedure.“
She stared for a moment at the tattoo that stretched from my elbow to my fingers. Multi-colored, intricate, faces, places, names – all my dead – only my father wasn’t there. I carried his photo instead. The one he had taken although he couldn’t have. He’d never known my father.
I nodded. I could take it. If I could put Catenol in his drink I could take it. It was as the needle slid into my vein that I realized I wasn‘t the woman who had put the Catenol in his drink. I was someone new. That woman was already dead. Now this new one was also about to die.
They took a lot of blood. I felt a bit faint. But she said they’d need it. One woman asked me to tilt my head, said this might hurt, and then tore out a bundle of hair – with the roots. She was right. It hurt. Then she nodded at the Inspector, and he nodded to me.
I stood up from the chair and followed him.
„We are going to drug you now“ he said „You’ll wake up in first class on a space plane doing intergovernmental business. The crew has been told that until you feel well enough they are to leave you alone in your cabin. Quarantine. Only bring you food and drink and to leave it outside the door.“
I looked at him quizzically.
„In about a quarter of an hour, maybe half an hour you will be murdered by your friend. In your cabin is your entire life up to now. You die in about 15 minutes. She lives. But first she has to know who she is, and I know you can do it.“ He started to light a cigarette and I knew he was nervous. He stopped before he lit it. Shook his head. „The crew knows the first two jumps have to be slow. You’ll be three weeks before you hit Janus 2. I‘ll come on board there. Then we can talk. If you feel up to it and safe enough you can leave your cabin before that. The quarantine is individual control. Just make sure you are that new person. OK?“
„The information about this woman is all in the cabin?“
He nodded.
„Password?“
He smiled
Betaen 6. Part Two. 15
Betaen 6.2 15
Office of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
“Comle?” The intercom on her desk spat the word at her. Like so many of the things she surrounded herself with it was ancient. It had once sat on the desk of the Inspector, just across the street.
She put a scrap of paper between the pages and closed the book. Noisily.
“Did I not ask to not be disturbed?”
“Apologies. But we sensed you were open”
She had to admit that the last pages she had read had left her wondering. That would have let the others have the feeling she was open to communicating.
“Then what is it?”
“Your consort has sent you a basket of food.”
She smiled. Eric always thought of her. It made her feel female. Loved not hated. Regardless of what the old humans on earth thought of new humans they too needed love. It made her forget she was Comle. There were moments when she needed that. She wondered if Emira had needed those moments too. Surely. There was too much weight, and she had loved He. She had hidden him, and it had probably caused her death. Even she, Comle, could not open the files on Emiras’ death. They were closed for eternity. That told her volumes.
She ran the ingredients through her mind.
There would be wine from Earth, a Monticello, pa fruits from Bepgidt 4, dried fish from Pesces and cheese from Armand’s world. Perhaps a dried sausage from Hatr or a broghi from Mars. And a rose. There was always a rose.
“Tell me what there is please”
The secretary turned to the adjutant. Whispered.
“How did you know??”
The adjutant laughed.
“She always asks”. She turned on her microphone “Ritluvian brandy. Pa fruit from Bepgidt. Pesces tra. Armand’s old cheese. A broghi from the Mars penal colony.” She paused “and a red rose from your garden Comle.”
“I didn’t guess the brandy” came the response.
Kiera thought to herself how observant Eric was. He had somehow known she would need the brandy. He was more closely attuned to her than she had thought. That could be dangerous for him, with the fanatics from earth being more disruptive and callous week by week. Two weeks ago, they had assassinated the governor of the southern hemisphere on earth. A month before that it had been a bomb on Bepgidt 4. She would have to see about assigning him a protective detail. She smiled; she was behaving exactly as both her heroines had done.
“Bring it in” she said “But take three quarters of everything first for yourselves. Eric always sends too much.”
Her adjutant laughed outside her door. She had already stripped the basket down to portions for a single woman, leaving than enough for her, the secretary and the guard. She knocked and then entered. Kiera looked up at her and smiled.
Her adjutant thought how good it was to see her smile, for lately the Comle had been so morose and inward. All of them that touched her timeline could feel it and they knew why. Earth. Why did the old humans have to start this nonsense so many years after the assimilation? Hundreds of years they had lived side by side.
“I don’t know” Kiera said
Her adjutant blushed and bowed her head, realized she must have been very open with her thoughts.
“It is kind of you to care so much” Kiera said “Care has never been something to be ashamed of”
Her adjutant blushed anew and nodded as she backed out the door. Comle was incredible. So understanding, so loving – and yet she could be steel when needed.
Kiera took the brandy from the basket first and poured a good shot into the ancient crystal glass that always stood beside the fountain pen and the blotter. Kiera liked to think that perhaps She had drunk from it – it was after all a glass from the Rising Motion, the ship She and the Inspector had returned from Bepgidt 4 upon.
Kiera sipped and opened the book to the marked page.
Betaen 6. Part Two 15.5
Betaen 6.2 15.5
The She Chronicles. being read by Comle Kiera. 2799.
„Your name. The one that dies in“ he looked at his watch and then at the big guy at the door. He mouthed 12 minutes „12 minutes“ Two of the women were checking their pistols and the Inspector returned to setting up an EM pulse – to activate the Catenol.
I realized he must have someone following my friend. If they could time it like that then the Inspector had hopefully thought of everything. I nodded at him. What else could I do? Rolled up my sleeve again as I saw the third woman come towards me with a full syringe.
My thoughts were jumbled. I looked down where she was setting the syringe and saw the number I had tattooed there. Right above the C and backwards E, almost obscured now by all the tattoos I had added over the years.
My life somehow works in dozens. The number 12. I don’t know why. I was 12 when the flu started. 12 when my brother died. My older brother, who’d always been there for me. 12 when my father died. 12 when I became me.
12 years later I met him. A broken, lonely man, but with something inside him that attracted me. Kept me coming back. Kept me interested. Even when I should have left. Left to save myself. Left to save him. But I couldn’t. He threw off the pain and began to live again, perhaps that was what attracted me to him. I still carried my pain. I still had that enigmatic photo of my father, the one I took everywhere with me. He substituted me for his pain. And it made me feel wonderful. And made me blind.
4 years we were together, almost to the day, a third of 12. Then he murdered me. And I died the second time. Was reborn as her. A sociologist on special assignment. Everyone knew that meant I was a special cop. Everyone knew it was better not to ask too many questions. 8 years I waited for him. Until again it was 12. And then I couldn’t wait any longer. The Inspector said I should. To let him be. But I couldn’t.
12 years again. What is it with that number and my life??
Betaen 6. Part Two 16
Betaen 6.2 16.
Earth. Stuttgart-Paris tube. Km 327 3205
Malaica brought herself out of the depths. The lights were flickering less, the motion in her mind was becoming waves instead of fragments. What had she just lived? Had she began to read the “He Chronicles”? The version she had just read in her mind was subtly different than the one she had read in school, and even different from the version she had read while preparing her doctoral thesis. Eric. She had never known the name of the consort of the famous Kiera. It was a good name. She liked it. She wondered why “he” was never named? No. She was wandering and that would get her lost, she was certain of it. She needed to grasp who she was and why she was in this tube. She was Malaica. Professor of history. Speciality – murder. Sub-speciality – the inspector. Parsons paper. Yes. Parsons paper. She had seen it among the fragments of the future and she knew she would find both the pen and the paper on the desk in the chateau. She concentrated upon that time. Concentrated. Breathed. And then it was before her eyes. There were the words kitten and wool. She concentrated, breathed deeper – and time took her.
Earth 1812. A battlefield somewhere in Germany near Augsburg
“We ride to our deaths!” he screamed “we ride to their deaths!”
He spun his Sabre in his hand and let it fall as he spurred the big brown mare into a leap of motion.
He knew he was in a dream. That was the day. The day so many died. So many - like him - were crippled. The day they broke the Austrian yoke.
He was on the ground. His leg trapped beneath the still body of the mare. His Sabre lay on the grass too far to reach. His right leg pained him - the musket ball that had killed his steed had first passed through his leg. Suddenly above him there was an Austrian. Sword. Then only the thunder of hooves and the gurgle as that man died. He was covered in blood. His, the mares, the Austrians? He did not know. He felt the pressure release as they pulled the mare from him. He could move. Through the pain and the whirling men and the smoke of the muskets he motioned that they help him to his feet. The sergeant shook his head but he swore an oath at him and he took him under his shoulders and pulled him to his feet. He put a little weight upon his shattered leg and felt the scream in his throat. He stopped it. Not before his men. Someone had found his Sabre and he raised it above his head and called them to him. When they died they should die as one – they had been through so much together. He would not let them die alone.
He looked around him, blood, perhaps his, perhaps from someone else, dripping into his left eye. The men were rallying to him although, like he did, they knew that they were already dead. Smoke from the muskets obscured the distance, blood and death were all he saw and smelt. The sergeant held him beneath his shoulders and he limped forward, his men beside and behind him. He loved them. At that moment he knew he loved them. Then the second ball split his flesh and crashed into the bones of his spine. He fell backwards.
And he awoke. He always awoke before he screamed.
Betaen 6. Part Two 16.5
Betaen 6.2 16.5
The She Chronicles. Being read by Comle Kiera. 2799
I was there when He stepped out of the Lander. Always remember to write that with a capital L he had said to me. I smiled at that memory and at the sight of him. His shoulders were stooped now, just as broad, but pulled in, like he was carrying a heavy weight – and I guess in some ways he was. He was certain, in the addled soup we had made of his mind, that he had killed me. In a way he had. That woman stopped living the moment they hit him with the EM pulse - after that I was who I am now. But this woman, she was still in love with him. 8 years I had waited to see his face again. Those flu scars beneath his eyes. That strange half smile he had where he would only curl up the left side of his mouth. I imagined he hadn’t smiled much in the last 8 years. He looked drawn but there was still a spark of life in him, you could sense, even through the binoculars, that prison hadn’t broken him anymore than he already had been broken. I wondered if they had tried to communicate with him while he was on Mars, or if they had forgotten about us. The Inspector was certain they hadn’t – a non-violent conduit was important even to them, after they had come to understand our abhorrence of murder and our fear of death.
He walked in the strides I remembered so well – his left leg always striding a bit shorter than the right – the remnant of some childhood injury – so that he limped but so that it was almost imperceptible. He had lost some weight on Mars but he still looked good. I felt a familiar stirring, one I hadn’t felt for 8 years. There had been no one since that night on Betaen 6. The last kiss I had was from his lips. I wanted another one. But the Inspector was adamant that we just watch him, see if he was being tailed or if they really had set him free. With all the means the Inspector had at his disposal – and the things he knew that literally no one else knew – I think he was just being over cautious.
I followed him with the binoculars until He was just a speck. I already knew where he was headed. He’d had to register with a known address while he was still in space. I‘d known for almost a week where he’d be after he landed. Two women were following him. I knew what they wanted and I smiled. It felt good to smile. I’d read all the reports on him that came monthly from the prison. He’d only been “used”, as they said on Mars, for the first year after they let him out of the mental ward. Then He had learned to keep the women away. I felt a pang of jealousy and tried to suppress it, but I couldn’t. Neither of the women following him weren’t attractive. What if he paired up with one of them? Glad to be with someone who wanted him as a man, as a human, not as a sperm donor? Fuck. What was I thinking? This wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
Betaen 6. Part Two 17
Betaen 6.2 17
“Lillian asked me to abandon my husband today. More than asked. I refused. She reminded me of Pers – and of my duty to the confederation. I reminded her of what I had already paid for that duty, of how Pers had paid. She begged me. I wrote her one word. No.”
Personal Diary Emira. Entry dated 2453. Released from containment 2758.
Office of the Comle. Betaen 6. 2799.
Kiera reluctantly set the brandy to the side and stood. It was time for the meeting of the Prime Committee. She already knew what would be said, what would be commented, what she would have to do. Sometimes she wished for the blankness of the old human, not knowing what was going to happen. The things that happened unexpectedly were always surprises, always somewhat welcome.
Her guards fanned out in front and behind her as she left the offices. She watched them. She had never needed a guard detail before and shouldn’t now. Something had to be done. But not what the Committee had suggested. No. She would not go down that path. Emira was her heroine, but she would not follow her path. Not unless she had no other choice that she could make – and she would do all in her power to have every option.
There was still time. The future beyond the next meetings was grey and nebulous. It could be changed – in any way. That was the crux of it. Anything was still possible.
The meeting had been as most meetings always were – a waste of time. The Prime Committee had debated and screamed and whined and discussed and nothing had come to be. She had finally broken it off after she felt it had gone on long enough that all would have the feeling they had done something in their day. It must be so, she thought as she followed her guards back through the labyrinth of passages to her office. The freedom to choose also meant the freedom to be bored. At least that made her smile. There had been little to smile about the past days. She longed for the feel of the paper from the book upon her fingers. To read. Even his ramblings brought her peace - and peace is what she most needed right then.
Betaen 6. Part Two 18
Betaen 6.2 18
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles”. Written 2459-2467
When she pushes me too much I just leave. Well, not physically of course, I am the prisoner after all and can‘t really do everything I want to, but I leave and sit up on my ledge and watch myself and her. Sometimes she has this look in her eyes that my wife had. I almost wrote her name. It was there. I almost could have. Maybe Fehm would written something nice about me in her tablet, she could do that for her father couldn’t she?
She got on me again about that one. She isn’t Fehm. She isn’t my daughter. Why am I creating a family I never had? I’m not woman, I swear. I had a family. OK, I can’t remember them but that happens to a lot of people, right? Not being able to remember? Maybe their deaths were so traumatic I have blocked it away? That can happen. It can. I know it can. Tell me it can. Please. Please tell me I’m not alone.
„Why do you morph me into a daughter you never had?“ she asked.
„Why don’t you go fuck yourself“ I said.
She just smiled that psychiatrist smile at me. Although when I think about it, I think both my wife and the cop had that smile too. Maybe it’s a woman thing. Like tattoos. They all get them. All get the same ones. Why not? After the flu anything could be.
She wants me to write her a memory – an early memory not a late one – she stressed that, must have told me three times, not that she had to, well maybe she did, I was sitting up on the ledge again watching and when I do that the me down there isn‘t really that attentive. My wife was with me. I was telling her that I thought Fehm looked like our daughter. But she was shaking her head. Usually, she talks to me. I don’t know what was wrong with her. I wanted to ask her, but the she who is here just kept at me until I had to come down from the ledge. Then I couldn’t ask her anymore.
So, I wrote my first memory of her. The new her. I can't write her name. I can't. I don’t have the strength to do that. She, the one who I know is really here even if I don’t know who she really is – I still swear she is Fehm, but she says there isn’t a Fehm - and I am creating false realities to hide in again - she said I don’t have to. Yet.
Yet.
I hate that word. It means she is going to make me remember it. I don’t want to. It took me about ten days to find a memory of the second her that was early in that jumble of my mind. Have you ever seen a box of matchsticks – you know what they are right? It's not just the Luddites like me that know what a matchstick is I hope – thrown across a table? Now find one certain matchstick when they all look the same. Yes. You’re getting the idea. That was my memories and my mind. A table strewn with matchsticks that all looked the same, but each one lit a different flame.
“I can’t live through that again” I said.
My hand was shaking, and I put it on the table to make it stop.
Betaen 6. Part Two 19
Betaen 6.2 19
Office of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera put the book aside. It was time to work. But something nagged at her, deep within her consciousness. A grey blob, expanding and contracting. She felt back through her time sphere, then forward. No. There was nothing untoward or unexpected there. It was a question. A simple thought, but what was it? She ignored the memory pull and broke open the first folio. Began to read, scribble notations on the margin. Her secretary would transcribe it properly later.
Then it hit her. Why did they always call He and She simply He and She? She could open their folios and read their names, there for anyone to read - but no one ever used them. They were only He and She. The Inspector as well. He was only ever the Inspector, although his name was still famous at every police academy in the universe. Why? Why were those three nameless? Emira was named, Jeff was named, but what were the names of the three who had brought about assimilation? The creation of the new human?
She shook her head. It was senseless to think about such things. It was the book, or perhaps the poems. No. She knew there was more to it. It was a time stamp. Definitely. It was a notice of something important to her. There were times when she wished for the murderous old days. When the N’Hai N’Hai had been separate and communication was not like flotsam on a wave but definite words. What had the first communication with He been after his release from Mars? If she remembered her history correctly it had been something about winds and Landers. That was simple and easy to understand. Now, whoever it was that had seen something in their time sphere was in communication with her. But not words. No. Emotions. Shards. Like the photo. And the ignorant bastards on earth thought a new human could see the future! The things and people that touched her future were grey ghosts in the mist. One of those ghosts was trying to tell her something now.
Earth. Stuttgart-Paris Tube. Km 413. 3205
The book again. A book she hadn’t even liked as a child and had only forcibly read for references in her thesis. Malaica, although she was born on Pesces 5, a planet founded by a sect of He and She followers, had never really liked He. She had always felt some type of deep distrust and animosity towards him. She could remember telling a fellow student she thought he was a whining pussy and he should just pull himself together. To her credit, she thought, that was before she had seen what Catenol can do to a person. It didn’t really change her thoughts about him but it did make his wandering whining understandable.
The book and Kiera. She felt as if she were Kiera in those moments, as if she were feeling the paper on her hands, the slight dusty library smell of a book that has sat on the shelf too long. She knew what Kiera was experiencing – a kiura. That would come later in the book. And with that acknowledgement she knew she too was experiencing a kiura. This entire flip flop between times and places was a kiura. It was happening to tell her something, to prepare her for something. She felt less fear now. It wa a kiura. She, Malaica, was experiencing a kiura! No one had written or spoken of a kiura since the famous one in that book. That was 500 years ago. Why had she been chosen? What part had she to play in the universe? She was just a historian. No one special. She felt the wave come and rode with it. She did not fight it this time. This time she let it take her and she felt herself begin to disintegrate into many women.
Betaen 6. Part Two 20
Betaen 6.2 20
Betaen 6. Commute from Comles office to her apartment. 2799
Kiera followed the guards down the stairs. Every day they changed the pattern. One day stairs, the next the lift, the third two flights of stairs and then the lift and so on. It was monotonous and she felt dirty that she had to do it. Four guards fanned out into the garage, their eyes taking in everything. The assigned guards stood by the car, as they had for most of the day. There would be no bomb placed beneath the Comles car as had been by the vice governor on the southern hemisphere of earth. Kiera followed them, weary from the day and the useless meetings and the report she had just read from her spies.
Unknown to Tara, the number two on the triumvirate and covertly a traitor, Kiera had infiltrated her staff with a spy. In fact Taras newest lover was reporting directly to Kiera. What she had just read angered her. It would have frightened many women but Kiera was not one to be easily frightened, not even when she read the elaborate plans being made for her death. Soon Tara would slip and she would have hard evidence of her traitorous intentions. But for now she had to live with guards and bomb checks and all the other intrusions on her life.
She let the guards open the door for her and slid into the seat. She took a moment to explore the near future. Nothing interesting would happen on the way to her apartment. She smirked. Moments with nothing happening were few and far between for the Comle and she intended to enjoy these few. Kiera closed her eyes and let the solitude overtake her. Her guards in the front seat and waiting for the chase cars smiled amongst one another. It was not often they saw the Comle relax. It was good that she take the time, Comle was not an easy task and was not one even the bravest of them would face.
Betaen 6. Comles apartment. 2799
Kiera let herself into the apartment, leaving most of the guards at the door. Two entered with her both sweeping the room electronically before they let her in. When the nearest nodded she entered. That such a simple thing as coming home could be so complicated. No. She wouldn’t let herself get angry. She would sit in the corner on her favorite chair and wait for Eric to arrive. He was probably still working. It wasn’t often that she was home before he was and she actually found herself relishing the time she would have alone. She shook her head – most people would not consider a room with two guards in it alone. And then there were still the cooks preparing the evening meal.
She curled her feet beneath her in the chair and leaned back against the faux leather. She opened the book to the page she had bookmarked with a scrap of paper. The bookmark Eric had gifted her was lying in their bedroom but she didn’t have the energy to get up and get it. At least here, for these few moments, she could let herself be and not have to be Comle for everyone.
Betaen 6. Part Two. 21
Betaen 6.2 21
Starboard meeting room. 1st deck. Specter of Renewal spaceplane. In orbit around the planet Hope 5. 2445
“They can't let it be can they?” Emira asked.
No one would look at her. No one wanted to have to say what had to be said at that table. Even Lillian simply shuffled papers.
“Its not as if we don’t have enough to deal with.” She threw her papers to the table and strode up and down beside the lectern. “The damn flu is killing enough of our men, do they have to try to take all the rest?”
Finally, Lillian spoke. She set the papers down and her deep sonorous voice filled the room.
“I have called an emergency meeting of the triumvirate tonight.” She looked at the ministers huddled around the table, grasping drinking glasses, biting their nails, trying to hide from that which they knew they were going to have to do. She looked back to the holo-board and Emiras predictions and calculations. Thank God or whoever she thought. Emira was the only one competent enough to be there. She also knew she was the only one who could do it.
“Tell us again Emira” she said.
Emira stopped pacing and moved back to the lectern where she could control the holo board. Drank from the glass of water there and let the cool water cleanse her. It didn’t work. She brushed back her hair from her forehead with the back of her left hand. The tattoos on her wrist flashed in the overhead light. She wished her husband was there and not back on Earth. He had stayed with the children. The third wave of the Ritluvian flu had reached earth and she didn’t only have daughters. Somedays, like this one, she wished she didn’t know all the things she did. She also wished Pers were there. He was not far away, standing on the bridge, ready to calculate the short jump to Hope 2 if it were needed but she would rather have him holding her. One of the two of them, she didn’t care which one, she just didn’t want to have to do this alone.
She brushed her hair back again and remembered she would have to get it cut. Pushed the button to start the projection and turned to the board.
“As you can see since Hope 2 has rebelled against the senate and the confederation 15 other systems have begun to have similar organizational structures arise – also calling themselves Beacons of Freedom. We calculate that at this rate it will cause a collapse of the confederation within two years. Then we have anarchy – not freedom” she pushed the next button “The first red bar is the predicted deaths in the universe within the next two years from the Ritluvian flu.”
It was in the hundreds of millions and she heard them gasp. She refused to look at them, she concentrated on her tables and her calculations. She kept telling herself it was only numbers, but she kept seeing the faces of her children, her husband, Pers. She pushed again and a blue bar, ten times higher than the red one grew beside the first bar.
“These are the calculated deaths from the wars that will engulf the planetary systems if Hope 2 continues on its path”
This time there were no gasps. Just stunned silence.
“It will mean the end of interplanetary trade, and the end of the confederation. It will take us at least a thousand years to return to the state we are at now”
“You’ve checked these numbers?” It was the voice of the Minister for Justice. She was biting her nails.
“We’ve had every university in the universe worth its name recalculate. At best we get a ten percent reduction”
“Fuck”.
Emira didn’t know who had said it but it was what she felt. It made her feel a bit better actually.
She pushed the button to move to the next calculation but an aide burst in and hurried to Lillian.
“They’ve assassinated the Vice Admiral of the fleet!” She cried “They’ve declared Hope 2 independent and have taken control of the Vice Admirals ship”
Lillian looked at Emira and she nodded, began punching equations into the computer.
“Get the triumvirate in here.” She said “Now!”
The aide backed out of the room quickly.