It begins to coalesce - somewhat in the shadows - but things begin to appear that are understandable.
Betaen 6. Part Six 1
Betaen 6.6 1
Typewritten story by an unknown author. Being read by She, somewhere in space.
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
He knew when he went there that she would be there again. The girl with the raven hair. She was standing on the side, on the path. He walked by her and knelt at the first of the three graves. Then he gently laid a tulip on each one. Someone had already taken the ones from the day before. Probably a cheaper way to put flowers on their graves.
“You are not drunk today” she said it calmly, but he could hear the timbre in her voice.
“I don’t have to be”
“What do you mean?”
He stood up and turned in her savagely.
“I don’t have to tell you everything. I don’t have to justify my life to some stupid black haired undergraduate!” He twirled away from her. “Go away and leave me alone. I am not a book”
He stood like that for five minutes, feeling his pain. He knew she was still there. He turned from the headstones and walked past her without speaking.
“Why?” she said it softly.
He kept on walking. Gravel crunched beneath his boots.
“Why???” She screamed it after him “Why???”
He stopped walking and slowly turned. He felt like he was talking to his daughter again, but this girl was much older. She was a woman. She should know better.
“You are making a fool of yourself” he took three steps back towards her “You learn about your aunt from me in a coffeehouse and suddenly you follow me about for over a week and you ask why?” He took another step towards her, and she could smell the sunlight again. “You are not my mother, not my God, and I’m certain you aren’t a whore” he looked past her “don’t act like any of them. Just leave me alone”
“But…” she sobbed, realizing tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“There are no buts” he said, his voice callous, ignoring her pain, too enveloped in his own to feel hers “this is my life. I don’t know who you are. I don’t want to know. I want my life for myself.” He shrugged. The callousness was gone “I don’t know what you see or what you want, but please just leave me alone”
When she looked up, blinking away the tears, he was gone.
What was it about the man that she followed him incessantly? Stalked him? Sat with him at his table, asked him questions in front of the graves of his family? What did she want from him?
She exhaled smoke and rudely stopped out the cigarette in the ashtray. She didn’t even like to smoke. She had affected it with the artistic crowd she used to be with at the university.
At first, she had found him attractive. She always found loners attractive, people with secrets. It had gotten her into trouble before. Then when she had learned he was a poet he became even more attractive. He would be another notch on her love board. She had writers and sculptors and painters. But never a poet. And he had been alone for almost two years. Before that married to a slut that slept with anything that wore pants. He had to be needing it. It shouldn’t be too hard.
But it had been. He was cold and nonchalant, and he didn’t care. She wondered if he even saw her. Saw the woman. Then, when he had said it was not her past, she realized she wanted something else from him. Something more. She didn’t know why. Why him. Why her. But she wanted it from him. Not sex. Love. Understanding. She wanted to know who he was and wanted him to know who she was. That had to be it. The conflicting emotions. The tears. The memories of sunlight slatting through her window. It had to be the explanation. She had felt that way for a professor once. When she had been much younger and much stupider. But that had been an infatuation. This infatuation was different. It smelled different. It tasted different. She was infatuated with a crazy man. That had to be it. That had to be all it was.
It was time she left the village where her aunt lived. Go somewhere else for the month left of her holidays. She had wasted enough time in this stupid little town. Sixteen weeks wasn’t that much if you wanted to see all of Europe. She never knew when it would come up again. She’d wasted almost three weeks here with her aunt. The only claim the small town had a was a pile of rocks that had once been a castle. And a pond. How silly she had been. How very silly.
Betaen 6. Part Six 2
Beaten 6.6 2
Typewritten story by an unknown author. Being read by She, somewhere in space.
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
He went back late at night. Huddled in his coat, chilled by the fog seeping across the fields. He had to have his time with them. His time alone. To talk. To feel again. The stupid girl had upset him. He didn’t know what to do. Not at all. Perhaps he had been too cruel to her. Maybe. What was she anyway? An inquisitive undergraduate out for some new kicks. He wasn’t going to be her kick. Not him. Enough people used him for their kicks already. Why hadn’t he left after it happened? Why had he stayed? A stranger in this land? Everything foreign to him. The manners, the houses, the people, their speech. Was it fear of being away from them? Of what might happen if he gave up his rituals? Couldn’t do what he had always done with them when they had been alive?
He didn’t want to think about that. He got up from his knees, feeling the dampness through his trousers, and left.
They met again in the street. It was crowded and they stepped into one another’s path. He looked first at his feet and then up at her. Dying flowers rotted with his gaze. He could do it. He could live without the rituals. He could still live with them.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked.
She looked at him incredulously. Slung the pack on her shoulders. It was blue and obviously very heavy.
“I was going to my train”
“Oh” he didn’t know what to say “I didn’t mean..”
It was her turn for the quick reply.
“What did you mean?”
He smiled crookedly. She liked it. In a different time he would have had a reply for that one too. Now he just stared at her.
“Coffee” he said “just what I said”
“Sure” she hoisted the pack onto both shoulders.
“You’ll miss your train”
“I might stay a few more days “
It was almost time. He felt it like a heavy pulse. He wouldn’t do it. He could still love them without it.
“Coffee today” he said “two please “
The waitress looked at him askance, turned on her heel and literally ran to the bar. She started talking before she was through the kitchen door.
“Coffee?” She asked “why not tea?”
“I’ll drink coffee today.” He said “With you. I drink tea with someone else”
“Your wife?”
“No” he smiled crookedly again “My daughter. We used to have tea together every Friday. She got out of school early. Before we picked up her brother, we had tea. It was our little special thing”
There was a long moment of silence, split by the sound of crockery in the kitchen breaking.
“You loved them didn’t you” she asked and shook her hair free. “It sounds stupid of me to say it like that but ..”
“Yes” he nodded at the waitress as she put the coffee in front of them. Ignored her imploring eyes. “As much as any of us really know what love is”
She poured cream into her cup and watched the black coffee swirl into brown.
“What do you mean?” She looked at him as she stirred her coffee „You are a poet. You know what love is”
“Not really” he sipped his coffee. “I wrote my wife a poem once. A love poem. I never mentioned love once. You can’t. No one feels it the same. No one can really describe what it is. I sure as hell can’t”
“Could I read it?”
“What did your aunt say? Free with his mind like his wife was with her body?”
“She didn’t”
He cut her off.
“Don’t say it. Don’t fall into those stupid traps they make for ordinary people. You aren’t that ordinary. Don’t act it for conventions sake”
“You’re a very cynical man.”
“I don’t have much else to be”
Betaen 6. Part Six 3
Betaen 6.6 3
Typewritten story by an unknown author. Being read by She, somewhere in space.
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
“Your wife..”
“Was not a slut. Regardless of what your aunt thinks.” He drank some more coffee “We had a special relationship. Very, very close - I didn’t own her and she didn’t own me. Once to see what it would be like, I cheated on her. I was sick for three days. She helped me through it. As far as I know, and I knew everything about her, she never cheated on me.”
“Then how can they…”
“Say that?” He finished the question for her. “Easy. She worked. Always with men. Until late at night. She travelled. Always with men. I wrote poems, painted pictures and was with my kids. Understand ?”
“Perhaps”
“What do people think of you?”
“I don’t really know”
“Of course you do” he looked into her eyes. She smelled sunlight again. “Don’t lie to yourself. They all think you are a slut. You do what you want. That makes you a slut”
“And you” she hadn’t flinched. She still smelt sunlight. “what do you think?”
“I think you are a very beautiful young woman” he blushed as he said it and she realized how much it had taken from him to say it.
She looked at her watch.
“Isn’t it time you”
He nodded
“But”
“Today I’m not going to go” the words were forced between his teeth.
“Don’t do that for me”
‘It’s not”
He fidgeted on the chair. She motioned and paid.
“Come on” she said “You’ve broken enough taboos for one day”
He looked at her quizzically. She wasn’t as stupid as he had first thought. He carried her pack as they left. Walked across the street and down to the schoolyard. He stood against the fence, away from the mothers, and watched the children leave the school. Happy, laughing children, fighting children, playing, running children. Children of all sorts and sizes. When they had all left, he left too, and she followed him. He stopped and waited for her.
“I used to ask her what she had learned.”
He started to walk again. “She always said nothing much. But every day she could read more, add more, do more. Nothing much”
“Where do you go now?”
“I walk by the kindergarten. Sometimes I stop and look in the jewelers window but I can’t capture the rapture a gem brings to a child. It’s not the same”
“And then?”
He wanted to snap at her but he held himself in check.
“I am not a travel brochure.” he managed to speak it lightly.
“I don’t want a tour” she frowned into the harsh sunlight streaming down the street “I find you very interesting. I find your past interesting. I want to understand it”
He stopped and turned towards her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know” she shook her head and put a hand above her eyes to block the sun. “I really don’t know”
Before she knew it had happened, he had kissed her.
“That’s not why” she said and smiled “But it felt good.”
She kissed him back, his tongue finding hers.
Like two teenagers on the street they stood and kissed – and people walked by and shook their heads.
It was good, and it made me cry. I wonder who had written it. It had an interesting style that I liked. I’d like to read more. There were some plays on words in it that reminded me of my friend. But that was probably just because I wanted him so.
Betaen 6. Part Six 4
Betaen 6.6 4
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
Spaceplane orbiting Beaten 6. Probably 2465
We set orbit about 500 meters out from the ship. It was planet side. We kept getting our shadow passing over the ship. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. It didn’t matter though. It was a simple shadow, nothing important. The scientific crew were all busy. They were working triple shifts with every machine they had - and it didn’t matter which one they used - none of them showed life on the ship. Which meant the Inspector and I would be the first over. None of them would be allowed on board for their investigations until we had fucked up enough evidence that none of those brilliant minds could figure out what had been going on. We had a police constable that the Inspector had known from before the flu. She had a pilot's license and would ferry us over to the ship and put us on the docking bay. Everything the scientists had gleaned from their probes showed that life support was still up, and energy was still on the engines and the circuits. Just life was missing. So, we’d be in HazMat suits - where the fuck did that word come from - I thought as I packed it, but we wouldn’t have to wear those stupid space suits. Everyone looked like a dork in a space suit.
It took longer to get the Lander started than it did for the short flight to the docking bay of Larsens’ ship. The Inspector and I shared glances as we finished climbing into the bio-protection suits.
“Radio check” crackled in my headset.
I touched the patch on my throat.
“Hearing you. Radio check?”
“Hearing you” came back
“Then we are ready to go” I said, and he nodded. The door of the Lander opened, and we lumbered out. Landers have no artificial gravity. We had magnetic boots on. Made walking a task in itself. I’d be very glad when we could turn the damn things off. The seals on the docking bay door were all in order. We punched the code into the door mechanism, and we could hear the vacuum motors start. That was good. The sensors were all working correctly, and the ship knew we hadn’t a direct dock so it would have to evacuate the bay, open the door, close it and then re-introduce an atmosphere. That was a good sign. It meant that most of the engineering functions could still be functioning.
We waited impatiently until the door slid open. Stepped in. Hit the close switch and watched the door close behind us. Now we were on our own. I turned off the boots and didn’t float to the ceiling. Felt the atmosphere rush in around us. We didn’t need it, we were breathing tanked oxygen in case there was a biological agent on the ship the probes hadn’t noticed. After about a minute the inner door opened, and we could see that the corridor lights were on. The Inspector stepped out first. Nothing.
We walked down the corridor. It was a space plane, not a liner, so it was narrower and more tubular. I checked the plans etched onto the sleeve of my suit.
“The bridge is up three decks and straight ahead” I looked down again “Should be a lift and stairs right “ I walked four steps forward and pointed “There”
The Inspector chuckled. We both headed for the stairs. Neither of us wanted to confine ourselves to a lift until we understood more. On the stairs we found the first corpse. A man, his uniform hanging from emaciated limbs, propped against the steps. There was basically nothing to him. Just skin and bones as they used to say. We took out the camera the scientists had given us and photographed him from all sides. Then we swabbed his skin and clothes and put the swabs in a bag. Wrote Male. Stairwell - I looked up at the labeling above the steps - D. Stairwell D. Didn’t have to worry about recording the time. That’s built into the swab as soon as the seal is broken.
Betaen 6. Part Six 5 (Nr. 137)
It’s all numbers from here on in.
Betaen 6.6 5
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
Spaceplane orbiting Betaen 6. Probably 2465
We went up two levels and then found the next corpses. A woman and a girl child. Also emaciated. Clothes making them look like children’s toys. Did the same routine.
On the third level, just in front of the bridge doors it was different. There was dried blood everywhere but no corpses. We swabbed the blood and photographed it. I took out my pistol from the hip pocket I had stored it in, nodded to the Inspector and he punched in the code to open the doors. They slid open without a problem so they hadn’t capped the door security. But there was more blood on the other side of the door - and with it a corpse. I looked down at it and then up as the radio crackled in my ears.
“What the fuck happened here?” The Inspector swore.
The bridge crew were all there, or at least what we would have expected. All dead. All emaciated. But three of them with blood-stained shirts. I opened the shirts while the Inspector photographed. Knife wounds. All three. The rest of the crew, six women, were in the same state as the man we had found on the stairs.
We finished collecting the evidence we could and then got down to the real reason we were there. We’d swabbed enough corpses for the medical teams.
The Inspector pulled the code book out of his chest pocket. It had been left for us on our ship by the SP Colonel. Flipped it open to the page we had both looked at already so many times. We both knew the code sequence by heart, but we only had one chance, so he laid the book beside the input computer and started to type. The screens on the walls came on. Vision. Audio. Engineering controls. The bridge was alive again, even if the crew wasn’t.
The Inspector flipped through the book again. Then punched in some more letters and numbers. The center screen started with the automatic logs, running them backwards. We would pause the computer when we thought we saw or read something interesting. My helmet visor was recording all of it and sending it directly down to the SP headquarters on Betaen 6. The scientists weren’t getting any of it.
“There” the Inspector stopped the feed. Scrolled forward. And yes. There it was. The jump. Back to Betaen 6, its original destination. The video of the bridge showed it looking exactly like it did right now. 9 dead crew. Doors closed. Blood on the floor. Dried.
“They didn’t jump her back” he said
I nodded.
The radio crackled in my ear. It was the SP controller on the surface.
“Don’t move your head so much. Makes us sick down here”
I nodded again. They could fuck themselves.
I thumbed through the control books I was carrying.
“Pull up Zero-August-Wilhelm-8”
The screen flipped from the myriad of automatic logs to the jump log. There was the first jump from Earth. Then the second. Then the third. And according to the log everything had been correct. But it hadn’t. Whoever had done it knew their stuff. Maybe they hadn’t even been on board?
138
138
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
Spaceplane orbiting Betaen 6. Probably 2465
I didn’t realize I had asked it out loud until the Inspector said “I was thinking just the same thing” he shook his head and stared down at the dead captain. Whoever had knifed her had cut off her left breast. It wasn’t pretty. “ If you are going to fuck up a jump you probably don’t want to kill yourself at the same time. At least we don’t have to do anything here” he tried to scratch his cheek but only hit his visor.
“Fuck” he said. “Let’s see how they came back.”
We both looked at the log for the fourth jump. They had been way out in the periphery. Whoever had sent them away had made sure they wouldn’t be getting back. Except for the fourth jump. But the crew had all been dead - for quite a while from the video monitor feed - before the jump.
“Computer glitch in the original fuck up?” The Inspector said, talking more to himself than me “Some type of time lapse built in?” He tried to scratch himself again. Swore again. “No. Couldn’t be. Then the SP wouldn’t want us in here.”
He suddenly stood up straight.
“No” he said, and then “Make sure the girls downstairs are getting this feed - focus on it” I swiveled slowly so the visor camera was focused on the jump screen. That’s when he grabbed my hand. Squeezed. I knew he’d figured it out but didn’t want them to know. And I knew what that meant. The problem. They’d brought the ship back.
But why?
“You girls are going to have to figure it out.” He said “If I know you you’re pulling the data right now anyway. Don’t need us anymore here on the bridge.”
It was the Colonels voice.
“That is exactly what we are doing. We just needed the input to be physically made” There was a pause as if she had turned off the mike to speak to someone else, would be typical for those sneaky bastards “Now get to his stateroom. He was in Suite 12. Right at the front of the plane. Top deck. Must have been beautiful.”
“Sure” I said “really beautiful” I didn’t mean it. I couldn’t get the picture of the dead captain, breast sliced off, out of my mind.
We left the bridge and went back to Stairwell D. It went all the way up. Only 5 more flights.
Just before we left the stairwell we found another batch of corpses. 10 of them. All emaciated. All sprawled on the steps. I flipped one over. There was a bullet hole right above her right eye.
“Shot” that was all I said.
The Inspector stooped, took a thin arm and turned the next corpse over. Two bullet holes in the chest.
I took the time to look at the walls. There were pockmarks and the remnants of soft metal casings. Regulation weapons - you wouldn’t want a shot going astray and through a bulkhead would you?
“Either someone got into the ships armory or the security were doing a job on starving people”
It was only after I said it that I realized what I had said.
“How many weeks of food did they have?” I asked
“Probably standard for a Betaen 6 run. Eight to twelve max” said the Inspector
He looked down. Whistled.
“I think you figured it out my dear” he said “And I think we will find Pers Larsen in his suite”
139
139
Apartment of the Comle/Office of the Comle. Main City. Beaten 6. 2799
Kiera lay like that for a long time and then the pull of the kiura wakened her out of the pit she had fallen into. The kiura was not yet over. The end had not yet been seen. She dressed hurriedly and left the apartment. Two guardswomen snapped to attention.
„Have a car brought” she said.
The one closest to her nodded. Whispered into her throat mike. Neither of them questioned. Although it was only 3 in the morning one didn’t question the Comle.
While they drove to the confederation building Kiera just stared out of the window, keeping her mind open. The kiura could be anywhere. Elf-gegu had sent it. From before she had passed. Elf-gegu. She felt it. Somethings are so secret. That was why it was so grey. So confuse. Why she had had to read the book. And now she knew why she had left the „Inspector Recalls“ to last. She wasn’t supposed to read that copy beside her bed. She was supposed to read the redacted copy in the safe behind her desk. The copy no one could enter without the passkey. A passkey no one knew.
She suddenly knew the passkey to open the redaction.
Elf-Gegu had left her this. She was a child of Emira and had never known it. The many lines. Elf-Gegu had been her aunt, in the way the old humans would see it. She shook her head to clear it.
The genealogy unfolded before her. Page after page. Scrolling along the paper in her hand. Ending at Emira – and the penultimate name was Fehm. Why hadn’t she seen it when she read the He Chronicles? Fehm – the first Comle after assimilation. There were so many clues, so many answers that went unseen. He hadn’t been insane; He did have children; He just didn’t know it anymore. She sensed the work of the N’Hai N’Hai. Kiera had never known. Nowhere was it recorded that Emira had children. Nowhere. And every Comle since the first Comle, since assimilation, had been a child of Emira. One after the other. Decades upon centuries. Children of Emira. A C and a backwards E.
Kiera returned to reading the letter.
You see, we called ourselves sisters. In a way we were. Sisters within and without.
I must leave now. I cannot tell you the password. That is forbidden in the kiura. You must access it yourself. But I am certain, my sister Kiera, that you already know it. I think you may already suspect what you will yet learn.
Kiera set the page aside and opened the notebook. The first pages hadn’t been redacted. She was intelligent enough to know to wait. She laid her tablet on top of what seconds before had been a letter and was now blank.
The Inspector Recalls
Submitted to Comle Elf-gegu 2796 for review and redaction. The Committee for Truth and Preservation of the Memories of He and She recommends careful redaction.
Kiera turned the page and began to read.
The Inspector leant back in his chair, relishing in the feel of the ancient red leather. Enjoying the smell of it, how it had taken on the feel of him through the years they had been together. Jeff had always said he should have married the chair - if he could arrange it he took it with him everywhere - on every space flight that he could. More than he taken Jeff on. It had been their joke. He ignored the feelings of bittersweet loss. He had work to do. He checked the holographic lock on the door and the anti-snoopers on the walls and in the corners. Everything was in order. Only then did he zip open the pocket on the sleeve of his discarded spacesuit and pull out the two black notebooks. He laid them beside the chair on the replica fake wood stand. He wanted to open them, but he knew he needed a cigarette first. He fumbled one out of his shirt pocket and lit it. Inhaled. Let the nicotine do its thing. Then he took the first book in his hands, cigarette still in his mouth.
He read what he had written. He liked it. The distance was something he needed. He didn’t want to be a first person. Probably never had. Though he had become famous for his skills very young and very early in his career he had never sought the limelight. Always tried to avoid it. I could have written „I“ he thought but then he ignored it. Writing about himself from an eagle's perspective was better.
He lent back in the chair and blew out a smoke ring. Smiled. Checked the anti snoopers yet again. He was becoming paranoid. All of them were still green. The Inspector smiled again. A sad smile. He was remembering Jeff. The one person he had loved. The one person he had wanted to share his life with. Gone. Taken by the fucking flu.
At least he still had cigarettes. And they hadn’t changed the coffee beans at the restaurant where Jeff had worked. The coffee wasn’t as good as when Jeff had made it but it was still better than that anywhere else and he had too many memories to stay away from there. He couldn’t if he had tried. It was as if he were a magnetic lode being pulled towards the north. He could fight it but he would lose. It was good that he was so far away from earth. Betaen 6 helped him forget. There was always so much to do there that it blocked out the memories.
He stubbed out the cigarette. Instinctively checked the snoopers. Green. But one was flashing quickly. It wouldn’t be long, and he would have to be careful. Get the notebook stashed away before it turned orange. But he still had time. He opened the notebook and read the first page. Nothing special. Just his name - Pers Larsen. Scrawled but legible. He hoped his handwriting was.
Turned the page to the second page and blanched. He felt the pressure on his ears that always accompanied an unexpected shock.
She had given it him. The rumors had been true. It was almost the exact same inscription as she had written in the green one his assistants' friend had. He never forgot handwriting. Nor had he forgotten what Emira had written in his green notebook. The handwriting, the tone - they were an exact match in his mind.
“For a life of memories. Record them. Write your stories and your thoughts. Don’t miss the blossoms or the wind. Don’t forget the sunshine nor the storms. Record our time together my love.”
Betaen 6. 140
140
Victims Chateau. Earth. 3205
I wonder why he hasn’t stepped out of his car yet? Why is he sitting there, alone, when he could be here with me. I feel like that silly young princess I once was, and am at heart still. Is he remembering as I remember? Is he seeing the multitudes we have been? The things we have done? Or is he only remembering the Lady Grey? I was young, he was going to leave me. But I think I have written that before. The things we could have done. The air is still so sweet here.
Paris-Stuttgart Tube. Km 24.5. 3205
Malaica stepped out from the chateau and onto the terrace .
NO! She was Malaica. She was in a tube. In a kiura, deep in the bin hetra. Lost in time but she knew who she was. She was Malaica. Malaica. Suddenly the colors ripped apart and the smell of grass and the warmth on her face were replaced with the rich dark reek of tobacco.
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” Written 2459 - 2469
Spaceplane orbiting Betaen 6. Probably 2465.
Either it was an incredible forgery or the rumors about what had happened on Ministry Visits 104 to 108 were true. At the time they had been suppressed. But now things started to make more sense. Emira died in the fourth wave. Larsens ship went missing - or as the official reports deemed it (and he should know he had been the one to fake them all) - his murder on Betaen 6 not long before. Had she done away with a dangerous lover? Someone who could have challenged or destroyed her position? Or had the triumvirate cancelled them both, afraid of what they could be together? What was he going to find in those pages?
He put the book down and lit another cigarette. He was nervous now. He checked the anti-snoopers again. Still green. But the quick flashes had turned slow. He didn’t have more than 10 minutes. Whatever happened She couldn’t find out. It had been hard enough on her to find out that his wife had been Emira. If she found this out as well. No, he wouldn’t even start down that path.
He flipped the page over. There was nothing written on the back. Without hesitation he tore it out and held it to the tip of his cigarette. Put the flaming paper in the ashtray and watched it disappear. Stubbed out a perfectly good cigarette and used it to stir the ash. Then he looked at the next page. If Larsen had written anything that could point to Emira he would have to destroy everything. He couldn’t let her find that out. And he didn’t give a fuck if there was anything else important in the notebook.
One good thing. Now that he had destroyed the page, he could never test the handwriting. Perhaps if he thought enough about it, he could convince himself it was a forgery, never written by Emira.
He read the next page. It was as if Pers Larsen and her friend were the same man. The first thing he had written was that she had given him the notebook, and a pen. He smirked. When she gave gifts to her lovers, she obviously wasn’t very inventive. He called up the files from the interrogation on Betaen 6 on his tablet, perched it precariously on his knee. He knew he had a copy of each and every page of that green notebook. The anti-snooper started to blink faster. Damn. He swore. Flipped the tablet closed and put the two notebooks into his folio. Closed it. The anti-snooper blinked orange. He took a new cigarette out of the package and lit it, picked up the book lying beside his folio, dragged deeply on the cigarette. The anti-snooper went red. The other 7 followed.
Betaen 6. 141
141
Office of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Then the black strokes began. On this page not every word but enough of them that they made no sense. Kiera picked up her tablet and held it above the page. The password box lit up.
She breathed in deeply. If she was wrong she would never find the answer of the kiura.
She typed
Jeff.
The black disappeared and the words came to life. She read on greedily.
Excerpt from the “Inspector Recalls”
He waited the hour and a half and then added another half an hour. Then he flipped the anti-snoopers back on. They were all green. He smoked another cigarette and read another 10 pages in his novel. They were still green. Only then did he take the notebook out of his folio and read what was now the new third page. He balanced the tablet on his knee and opened it to the first page of the green notebook from her friend:
“She gifted me this today. A notebook. Leather bound. Beautiful. The touch of the paper. The smell. She says it is for me to write my poems, my thoughts, perhaps draw. That I can't draw is one of the many flaws of mine she overlooks.
She also gifted me a fountain pen. Historic. Ancient. But in perfect condition. With a bottle of ink. It feels so good in the hand. Nothing we make now can compare to it. It’s all so surreal. So twentieth century. I love it.”
He furrowed his brow. Fuck. The tablet fell to the floor as he jumped from the chair. It took him about six strides less than normal to get across the room and to the wall safe where he had put what else he had taken from Pers Larsens desk. He was so nervous he fucked up the combination the first time. Calm down he told himself. He only had two chances and then everything inside would incinerate. He walked back to the chair and picked up his packet of cigarettes. Shook one out and put it between his teeth. Lit it. Stood there and didn’t move while he smoked it. Let himself calm down. Stubbed it out a bit before he should have and walked slowly back to the wall safe.
This time it opened. He pulled out the fountain pen he had taken from Pers Larsens desk. Closed the safe. Checked the anti-snoopers. Walked slowly back to the red leather armchair and sank into it. This time it didn’t give him the comfort it usually did. He thought he knew why.
He picked up his tablet from the floor. Flipped it back on and opened the file on the murder of the young cop on Betaen 6. She looked a lot like his assistant. They could have been twin sisters. A younger version of Emira. Flipped through the photographic evidence until he came to the pen.
“Fuck” he said it slowly and deliberately as he felt the cold sweat run down his temples.
Betaen 6. 142
142
Office of the Comle. Main City. Beaten 6. 2799
Excerpt from the “Inspector Recalls” unredacted.
He turned the pen in his hands over again and again. They had 360-degree photos of the pen. They had been very thorough at the crime scene. After all, one of their own had been killed. The pen in the photos was silver colored, probably stainless steel if it really was a twentieth century antique - and he didn’t think a woman of Emira’s position would fake a gift - and the barrel or whatever they called it on a fountain pen was fletched like a basket might be. He felt the fletching on the stainless-steel pen in his hand. He magnified the photo and read the words “Spec Design” on the cap. Same words on the pen in his hand. He was sweating more now, and he needed a cigarette, but he stopped the urge. The cap of the pen in the photo had been scratched. If you could read the words, it was to the left of the clip used to hold the pen in a pocket. He put the tablet down on the fake wood stand before he looked closer at the pen in his hand. If they were the same there was no need for his tablet to fall twice.
He held it at first with his thumb over the spot where the scratch would be. Then he moved it. He was being childish. Hiding it wouldn’t make it go away.
It was the same pen.
He checked the anti-snoopers again. Not that they would think anything of him holding a pen, they’d probably seen it a thousand times before. They were green. He put the pen beside his folio and breathed deeply. Slowly removed a cigarette from the package, put it between his lips and lit it. Sat, staring at the anti-snoopers while he smoked two more cigarettes. They never changed color but he did. Some color came back into his face and he could feel his hands again. The pen. It bothered him more than it should. Why? He lit another cigarette but it didn’t help. There was just that feeling of wrongness deep in his mind and he didn’t know why.
Were Pers Larsen and her friend the same person? How could that be? Oh shit, he thought. It was the problem again. What the fuck was going on?
He should read further. That might help. Read the page and compare it. Compare the handwriting. As always the nicotine had helped him think. It also made it much more difficult to see anything in the room. It was covered in blue grey smoke.
He forced himself to pick up his tablet, open it, open the files on the case and get the copies of the pages of his green notebook. He opened it to the page he had already read - the first page. Then he opened the black notebook from Pers Larsen and read the new third page.
Betaen 6. 143
143
Excerpt from the Inspector Recalls. A spaceship orbiting Beaten 6. Possibly 2465.
He opened to the small leather band he had stuck between the pages as a bookmark. Adjusted his glasses and began to read.
“The Book.
It was only a book after all. A simple book: paper and ink and fading yellowed photographs. But it held him, his eyes riveted on that photograph, the words searing through his conscious mind while the photograph ate his unconscious. There were furrows of anguish between the lines of growing pain. His heartbeat built to a crescendo in his ears, controlling him – the primal force of it grabbing his humanity and twisting it back upon himself. His hands were the hands of savages, soiled by his own blood, grasping at his own throat, and throttling until he could not breathe. He gasped for breath, horrid, ragged inhalations of his own spent breath and he knew what it was to drown.
The black and white photograph, so stark and lonely, drew him in and he floundered in it like a sailboat tossed upon a tumult. He lost feeling in his fingers and then his hands, the skin turning colder and colder as the photograph pulled him beneath its yellowing depths. Suddenly he was there. The ruins of the firestorm surrounding him, the heat that was air without oxygen searing at his eyes and frozen hands. It pushed through him as if he were gauze. The smell of death filled his waterlogged lungs and the sound of pain split his bleeding ears. He tried to move the hands he still saw in front of him, but they would not close the book.
The screams of the bombs falling tried to soften the whimpers of the children. The explosions followed upon one another until they ate the very air, and the fire became a living thing. It gorged itself upon the copper of the doors and the monuments, insatiable in its fury and its lust. It choked upon the wood and fibers as it swallowed buildings, parks, and lakes. A furious whale lashing at the planet. A demonic creature - for the first great whale had still left Jonah alive. The screams and whimpers grew until they tore his eardrums. The fire whale was a god, he knew that now. A god that would only stop when its pleasure was satiated. When screams and whimpers and pleas and ancient prayers had all been devoured in its lust for destruction and death. Fetid putrefying death. It tore the screams from the mothers’ throats and fed upon them, growing, growing, rising to heights no one had imagined. The more the terror the higher the flames rent the air.
Suddenly he was there. The heat searing the flesh from his bones. The fire blinding what sight he had left. Enough to see the soft tendrils creep into the basements where the mothers hid their children from the whale. The ash filling his ears so he could not hear the new screams of tepid terror that joined the cacophony that became a symphony of fire and death.
The heat of the fire dried his lungs, and his first new breath scorched them. The whale ate and ate. Insatiable. Unstoppable. The screams only feeding its gorged lust. He could see the blackening bones on his fingers. What heat was required to cremate a human?
He threw the book across the room. It shattered a window as it flew through the crisp cold air onto the snow. His breaths still came in gasps of pain, but he could see the room again, could feel his hands again. He felt tears on his cheeks. Tears the fire whale had not eaten away. His heart began to beat rhythmically once again.
Below him, upon the dirty snow, lay the book. “
It was Hope 2. It could only be Hope 2. Larsen shouldn’t have known so intimately about it. Not then. Which meant she had probably told him. Emira. The woman who oversaw it. Sadly, more proof for his thesis. Damn. Why couldn’t the universe be simple and straight forward?
He lit another cigarette. He had been so engrossed in reading and re-reading the page that he had almost missed the anti-snoopers turning orange. He glanced at his wristwatch. Another anachronism from a long-forgotten time. It was already early morning. It made no sense to try and sleep. He would have the ships apothecary give him a stimulant so he could work through the day. He knew She would be visiting him in the morning, and he had to have the first book cleansed before he let her see it. He calculated. He had two, maybe two- and one-half hours. The hour and half wait since the last red anti-snooper was almost over.
Betaen 6. 144
144
Excerpt from the Inspector Recalls. A spaceship orbiting Beaten 6. Possibly 2465.
He started to flip through the pages, skimming them. The twentieth page wasn’t a story. It was another diary entry. An explicit one. Even he got a bit red reading it. And it named her. He ripped out the page. He couldn’t give a fuck what was on the next page.
The page right after the one he ripped out was again a diary entry. First there was a quote from Seneca, if he remembered his earth history correctly, Seneca had been Nero’s tutor and had then been from the same Nero forced to commit suicide. He’d been a senator. And that was why the quote was important – that and what else Pers had written on the page.
He checked the anti-snoopers again. Still all green. If he hadn’t studied history while at the academy this would be so much easier for him. He would just destroy the entire book. Tell her there had only been mathematical equations in it, some navigation log, hadn’t been interesting so it was best destroyed. But he couldn’t. He knew how important that little book in his hands might later be. He could fuck it up so no one would later know that Emira had anything to do with it, but he couldn’t destroy it. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He read.
She gave me this quote today. From an ancient Roman called Seneca.
“What matters most is whether one is extending one's life or merely delaying one's death."
I know why she did. We talked about my candidature for the empty senate seat, and I told her I didn’t think I should. She shrugged and looked at me with that look she has – the one where you know you’ve disappointed her and often don’t know why. I knew why. She thinks I can do so much more, be so much more helpful to the confederation if I am in the senate. Start to cause change. I probably should have left our pillow talk at sex or the next days bottle of wine. I should never have started telling her my ideas for renewing the confederation. Changing the judicial system to level the playing field between planets. Altering the senate structure to better represent the needs of periphery planets. She had immediately become the politician again.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to get out of this now. That damn quote had got me thinking. Am I just delaying my death??”
The Inspector lit another cigarette. So that’s how it had started. He had already obviously had those radical ideas that he then espoused in the senate – but she had forced him into it. With a quote. The more he learned about her the more he wished he had met her.
He sat back in the chair. Carefully put the book in the folio in case he fell asleep. Finished the cigarette. Thinking. Should he destroy that page? Or, as 98 percent of the senate was female, would she not catch on to who had given Pers Larsen that last push?
Betaen 6. 145
145
Excerpt from the Inspector Recalls. A spaceship orbiting Beaten 6. Possibly 2465.
He’d skimmed through all the pages. She wasn’t named anymore. There was another racy entry but she wasn’t named so he was inclined to leave it. But then again, why? He ripped it out. Didn’t even look what was written on the back of the page. It was better that way, better that he didn’t know. Most of them were short stories. The one behind the page he tore out caught him. He felt his breath leave him. He read. Teabags and streets. He didn’t need to read any further. He knew it already by heart. He’d had it since Jeff had died. What was going on? What the fuck was going on? He flipped through the pages quickly to the last page. There were too many poems for it to be a coincidence. He had been a cop far too long to believe in coincidence. The handwriting. The poems. What the fuck was going on?
“Took up my office today. Took the oath to the confederation. Its strange being only one of four men among a hundred senators. But I know from her that our power in the senate is limited. The triumvirate, they have all the power. Who knows. Maybe we can change that. She has already put me on the committee for Interplanetary Trade and has put my name forward for the Policing Commission.
That’s where we can start some change. Slowly. Small baby steps. But baby steps become adult steps. And can change the universe.
At least we will be together more often. I missed her so. “
The Inspector felt that familiar pressure on his ears. Could hear Jeffs voice, remembered suddenly a conversation they had had before Larsen went to Betaen 6.
“They won’t let him get there alive” Jeff said “You know that. You’ve been in the dirty business long enough.” He gulped down a scalding coffee.
“It’s only Betaen 6.” He had replied “The problem planet. Why would they stop him from getting there?”
“Because there’s something fishy about that planet. That’s why” he checked the coffee urn and then poured another cup. Drank about half of it. “Why is his first off planet official trip to a planet that has a murderous history and not much else?”
“Lutetium” he’d said.
Jeff had nodded.
“Sure” he sipped coffee, it was still too hot for the Inspector “Space ship hulls. I know. But still. There’s what, maybe half a million people on the entire planet? Why not Pesces 4? They’ve got everything. Would fit better with his trade and judicial ideas wouldn’t it? Why Betaen 6?”
“I don’t know” he lied.
Betaen 6. 146
146
Excerpt from the Inspector Recalls. A spaceship orbiting Beaten 6. Possibly 2465.
Of course he had known. Betaen 6. Communication. Them. Larsen was supposed to communicate with them. She’d arranged it. He was informed not only of their movements but what was going to go down. He was the head of DEEP and they might need him to supply data points for someone before, during or after. What was before, during or after he had learnt not to ask. He was always informed of senators' movements - and those of the more important but never seen Ministers. And then he laughed. And laughed and laughed.
He was still laughing, tears streaming down his face, when She buzzed the door and entered.
For he had had it right in front of him all the time. Long before he had first opened the file on the dead Emira. Except for his last trip to Betaen 6 all her off planet trips were matched with those of Pers Larsen. All of them.
The fucking problem. He was going to have start calling them by their name. The N’Hai N’Hai. They’d brought the ship back just so he could find those damn books. Just so he could put another piece in that big empty puzzle he kept looking at in his mind. What game were they playing?
“Why are you laughing?” Her voice was concerned. She’d seen him smile, perhaps chuckle, but never laugh until he cried. Never. She glanced at the anti-snoopers. They were starting to blink green. He noticed and nodded. Motioned for her to sit at the small dining table he had in his suite. There was no way he was going to tell her why he really was laughing. But he had an explanation for her. A good one. A believable one.
“Data points” he said “But we will have to wait a bit for that.” The anti-snoopers blinked orange “Why don’t we just discuss what went down yesterday for our friends?”
She nodded and sat across from him.
Just as the anti-snoopers all went red he ordered room service. Breakfast for both of them. With three pots of coffee.
They discussed the changes that were happening to the ships log until the coffee and breakfast trays arrived. Then they ate and drank in silence. Had the staff come and clean away the plates and crumbs and bring another two pots of coffee. Talked a bit about what they had seen, whether or not there might have been cannibalism on the ship. The anti-snoopers all went green.
She poured coffee for them both. Checked her watch. Turned the subject to when he thought they’d be called down to the planet. After five minutes the Inspector nodded.
“Data points” he repeated what he had said when She came in.
“How many data points per year do you think a person has? Useful ones? The ones that would get used to create that identity again?”
She thought for a moment.
“Thousand, maybe two?”
He shook his head.
“A lot less. 4 to 5 hundred. That’s it. That’s all the useful data points you get from a person. If they are special or do certain things, then the count goes up but rarely is it over a thousand”
She nodded. She hadn’t thought of it before, even though she was a creation of data points.
“Do you know how many data points you had when you became you?”
She nodded. She knew exactly.
“14,721”
“How many since?”
Now it was her turn to shake her head.
“About 700 a year. Your special my dear” he smiled “But not so special you can’t pour more coffee.”
She laughed and reached for the coffee pot. Poured two cups.
“You remember that our friend the SP Colonel tried to scare us both with her data point remark?”
She nodded.
“How many data points per year do you think they are using for the new identities they are putting on all the dead from Larsens ship contingent?”
“5 or 6 hundred I would guess.”
He laughed.
“Nope” he reached for the package of cigarettes and shook one out as he went on “They are using an average of only 75 points per year for the new identities. Got me thinking. So I did a bit of snooping. The last identify they created they only used 60 points a year for the new one.”
“60?” She turned up her mouth in a grimace. That couldn’t be. She could break that.
He just nodded.
“Theres no security to it!” She said” I could break them!”
He nodded as well. “Yes, you could. But it shows us something. They’ve had agents running with new identities for five years that haven’t been blown yet on 60 points a year.”
“What does that show us?” She asked.
“You’re not that stupid.”
He smoked while She looked at him. He could see the light come into her eyes and the smile that crept across her entire face.
“They’ve no way to ever find out who I really am.”
He nodded and motioned for her to pour more coffee.
Betaen 6. 147
147
Excerpt from the “He Chronicles” Probably written 2468.
I stared at the photo. I didn’t want to see either of them for a moment. It was too much.
I was some kind of conduit for the problem? The problem wasn’t some bug or vapor - it was a sentient life form? All the murders and the deaths were because before She and I were together the only means of communication with this alien life form was through the energy release at death? Violent death?
What the fuck?
That was literally all I could think of at that moment.
What the fuck.
This couldn’t be true but somehow it had to be. What I thought were riddles and evasions was actually the truth. I both knew and didn’t know her father. She could use their whatever you wanted to call it to navigate, and somehow together we could do things no one had ever done before.
That’s why they had faked her death, so the scientists didn’t take her apart piece by piece.
And they fucked with my brain and put me in prison because it had to be believable that I couldn’t communicate anymore. Otherwise, it would have been worse than prison. Much worse.
I let it all go through my brain. As fucked up as it seemed it somehow made sense. Maybe that was the secret I knew when I was Jeff in the nightmare. Were we the two I dreamt of? Is that why I was staring at a blood spattered black and white photo I had both taken and not taken?
I wondered what they wanted to say with that?
I must have said it out loud because she answered me.
“Just that they could communicate with us. You and I together. Somehow it frees the energy we usually need” she stopped and swallowed “the deaths we need. We don’t need them anymore.”
I nodded. If it was true, then I had to believe it. Fuck I’d lived it. It was true. I tapped the photo. Looked up at her.
“What was he like?” I asked
She reached across the table and took my hand.
“A lot like you.”
The Inspector swiveled his gaze from her to me. He smiled. He looked younger when he smiled. I could even forgive him for my nose.
Betaen 6. 148
148
Earth. House of Margret Zeit. 2001
He put the white rose in her hair, letting his fingers linger among her locks for a moment longer than necessary. She smiled at him and tilted her head slightly so he could feel the weight of her on his fingertips. He left his hand where it was a second longer than necessary. They both knew what that meant. He looked into her eyes. She was as beautiful as the blossom he had put in her hair.
“He never finishes the damn thing!” Swore Samuel and hastily grabbed another scrap of paper.
Earth. Chateau in Southern Germany. 1835
She had been in the city for over a week. Finalizing the agonizing and heartbreaking loss of her fathers estate. The new government had cynically offered her a pittance for her signature to legalize their robbery. He wondered what she had done? Had she accepted or had she thrown their papers into the fire where they deserved to be? On the second day there she had had a portrait made with one of those new cameras and sent to him through her maid de chamber. He held it now and studied it as he savored the smoke from his English cigar.
He would have to burn it too. The small painted portrait in his locket- his secret - was enough for him. This photograph, her eyes, it was too much. He could savour it all day. He would have to burn it. Regardless what she might say or think.
But before he burned he he would savour it, he would smell it - she had touched it it and it kept her young blossom scent. His sun. He held the photograph to his nose, smelling the acrid chemicals but also smelling her soft scent. He had no fear that Madame would come and see - Madame never came into the cigar room.
“And again” murmured Samuel, pulling yet another yellowed scrap of paper from the vaults of the red dispatch box.
He hadn’t realized how much he had missed her until he heard her step upon the footpath. There had been a sadness in him, a deep melancholy that he had ignored. The horses and the dogs had noticed though and his favorite bitch noticed his change immediately and came to him to have her ears fondled.
He opened the blinds and then the doors to the patio. Madame had had them closed earlier in the day to keep out the oppressive heat but as evening had neared the air had cooled and there was a soft breeze. He breathed in deeply, smelling the freshly mown hay. A moment ago it had been grass, waving in the wind, till the mowers scythe cut it down and it became hay. Just as the many men who he had known - one minute riding beside him - alive - men in their prime - and the next instant they were corpses, torn into bite sized pieces for the vultures by enemy shrapnel. He was thinking too often of the wars. It was her. She brought not only her beauty and her youth, she brought her pain and her loss as well.
He stepped out into the terrace and felt the warm breeze on his cheeks. Tomorrow he would have to make the rounds of the farmers, buying hay for the winter. He would take her with him. It would be good for her - a ride in the country - especially after the stuffiness of the lawyers offices in the city. And perhaps he could move her thoughts from himself to others - there would be many virile young men stacking the hay. Men such as he had so often commanded, so often sent to their far too early deaths. There he was at it again. Damn himself.
His back pained him and he grimaced. The surgeon had told him it would be like this. He had laughed at the man. His pain, his physical pain, had nothing to do with his thoughts he had said. No, it has to do with that Austrian bullet beside my spine. The surgeon had just shook his head. Believe what you may General. But someday you too will notice that when your thoughts are black and the mood less than merry that then the fire from your wound is much greater than when your thoughts are upon beautiful things.
What an irony he thought. His thoughts were only upon one beautiful thing. Bewitching him. And that beautiful thing brought back all the other thoughts - and the pain he must bear - cost him what it will.
Betaen 6. 149
149
Earth. Paris-Stuttgart tube. Km 503.5 3205
Malaica knew she had just observed something important to her investigation. Something she was supposed to see. Something she was supposed to remember. She knew Emira had ordered Hope 2. Overseen it herself. She knew Emira was having an affair with Pers Larsen, the last known solely human natural navigator and rebel senator. She had not known that the woman who had gifted Pers Larsen the black notebook had been Emira. Scholars and conspiracy theorists had debated about that for centuries. Now she was certain. Se was uncertain what it meant for her investigation but she knew it meant something or she wouldn’t have seen it.
Then the kaliedoscope of broken colors began again and she felt herself drifting with the whisps of breeze, seeing multitudes and moments.
Earth. Aboard the Lady Grey. Card Room, First class cabins. 1839
Samual felt as if he had been torn apart and somehow he was. He could see as if he were two people. See the ships Captain leap from the table, scattering his cards, from two angles. Watch as he hurriedly left the room – he looked from the first perspective, happy that he could. He could see the Austrian Captain and a distinguished middle-aged man. His great great great great grandfather. He knew it instinctively. He was seeing him from the eyes of the Princess. He had always called himself old and crippled. He didn’t look at all what Samuel had imagined he would – he was virile and attractive and had an aura of command. No wonder the Princess had fallen for him.
He blinked and then he was seeing her. My God. She was even more alluring than the General had written! She was a classical beauty, a woman to turn any mans head. Now he knew why the General had such difficulty with his feelings about her.
He was both of them! What had gone wrong. He should only be there, observing. Like a camera lens on the wall. Now he was within the two actors whom he most wanted to observe. He felt heavy and incredibly light – almost like the first time he had smoked strong weed. But this was different. He really was these people and time was only crawling forward.
The Austrian Captain had stood and was pulling a double-barreled pistol from beneath his jacket. He/General leapt, raising his silver headed stick. He/Princess sat, staring, unable to fathom that which she had put in motion. The Austrian fired. Both barrels. Samuel could see the slow motion explosion, the ejection of the musket balls, the flame from the tightly packed powder – and he knew he was about to die. But the bullets passed through him and splintered the wood panels on the wall. He swung the stick, once on the hand and then against the Austrians skull. From somewhere the Austrian had pulled a knife and he fell upon his own blade, his blood coursing over the table and the floor.
Time began to move normally again and the strange feeling of heaviness and lightness left him. His sight began to fade as if someone were closing a curtain. Now he could see only blackness and hear nothing. Then he saw a kaleidoscope of faces and bodies and moments and births and deaths implode upon his brain. He came to still strapped into the chair, but he couldn’t remember why he was there or what it was.
“Mom?” He called
“Someone?” He screamed ”Anyone??” He began to sob “Can someone help me???”
Betaen 6. 150
150
Earth. Stuttgart-Paris Tube. Km 20.
Malaica was her again. Kiera, the famous Comle. The book she held in her hands was the textbook version of the He and She Chronicles. Betaen 6. Named after the planet. But the words that were forming on the pages she had never seen before. Never.
Apartment of the Comle. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera wondered again. Just as the He chronicles had ended long before assimilation so did these. It was strange. But it had always been that way. She could vaguely remember the same feeling when she had first read the book, years ago.
She turned the page. She had always found the ending dissatisfying. She could remember the disappointment as a little girl. She had expected the moment of the assimilation to be apocalyptic. Instead, if she still remembered correctly, they had just held hands in a field. The only thing sad or emotional about it had been that the two who brought about assimilation couldn’t assimilate themselves. Kiera turned the page. The words looked strange to her. As if they were flowing. She shook her head and blinked. Watched as the words jumbled, formed into new words, new sentences. New paragraphs. And she felt the truth. Kiura.
It wasn’t a myth. It was true. This is what she had read for.
It was a Kiura.
The words had formed anew. Kiera read eagerly. A Kiura - the ancient myth that was not a myth.
He stood apart. Away from them but close enough that he could still feel them. He hadn’t brought them together originally - but this iteration he had. He’d helped frame him for her murder and put him away. Hide him from the triumvirate. Murdered her and hidden her away in a new identity. Her too, hidden from the triumvirate. The triumvirate that wanted only partial assimilation, a super race of the new human to control even better the poor old humans left behind. The N’Hai N’Hai simply wanted physical reality. But they too preferred total assimilation, if the host wanted it. The creation of what he had started to call in his mind the “new human”. A physical human symbiotic with the N’Hai N’Hai. A human who would be a natural navigator at birth. A human who would see space and time as they really are. A human who would cherish life but know that death was only a new beginning. A human of peace. He had seen so many horrors inflicted by human upon human that he couldn’t remember them all. He was glad he couldn’t.
But there were tears streaming down his face. Not tears of joy but tears of loss. He hadn’t cried like that since he had lost Jeff. At least he knew now that Jeff wasn’t lost forever. It helped but it didn’t lessen the pain. The two he had saved would now have to die. For only with their deaths could there be total assimilation. He wondered what assimilation would feel like. The probing, the question? Would he say yes? Or would he remain as he was now, as he always had been. The Inspector. He wiped the tears from his cheeks. Rubbed his eyes. He owed it to them to see their final moments.
She turned back to him. She had been staring at the wheat. Golden wheat, blowing in the wind. It might even have been the same field where she wrapped the scarf around his eyes, where she had fallen in love with him.
“I know” He said and stroked her cheek.
“We have to do it. I would so have liked to have assimilated. To be a truly new her.”
He smiled his lopsided smile. She could see the tears begin to well up in his eyes.
“You’re crying and smiling?” She said ”Are you insane?”
“Hey.” He laughed “You know very well I am. Spent over 7 years on Mars because of it”
She smiled slightly. Although He had turned it into one of his personal jokes, and She knew He meant no harm, it still pained her that she had framed him for her murder.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. The knife was clutched tightly and She could see that his knuckles were as white as hers.
“You’ve listened to them. You’ve seen the future together with me. Peace. Finally, what both all of us and all of them have wished for since we crawled out of the primordial soup. Peace “
“There is no other way?”
He shook his head. She was usually the one with all the answers. Perhaps it was because they could only show her through a shroud, not the full cinema film He got.
“I can feel her.” He said “She is just on the other side”
She nodded and started to cry as well. But also smile. She could feel her father there too. He was there. Just on the other side.
They nodded. Three, two
The Inspector turned away from their crumpled bodies. A scream burst from his lips and the tears coursed over his stubbled cheeks. Then suddenly there was a light, a clarity, a question in his mind. A beauty he had felt only for a few seconds before - but where and when? He nodded through his tears and the world was wonderful.
Kiera literally threw the book to the end of the bed. No. It couldn’t have … but she knew she had finally read the truth. Why had it been hidden from them for so long? She felt the tears come in ragged gasps as the water of life coursed over her cheeks. She felt she could not breathe. They had sacrificed themselves. She wept from a place so deep that the pain wept with her.
Betaen 6. 151
151
Office of the Comle. Later the same morning. Main City. Beaten 6. 2799
Inspector Recalls. The redacted made visible through Elf-Gugu. Read by Kiera. 2799
Data points. He realized he should write about that and what it had started out as. What it became.
He had the idea at a murder scene on Pesces 4. Someone had bludgeoned a young woman to death. There were no witnesses. No motives. No clues. So, he had started measuring. Creating data points. The first ones were simple but still began to piece the perpetrator together. Angle of the blow. The killer had been right-handed and taller than the victim, but not much taller. Depth. The weapon had to have been heavy, at least 4 to 5 kilograms. That meant a certain arm strength. He could extrapolate a possible biceps circumference. Underneath the fingernails of her left hand were skin particles. Dead skin. Only stratum corneum. No DNA. But olive colored.
They ran the computer over all the men in a 200 km radius. Came up with only 5 suspects. The third one they visited broke and ran.
The big bosses asked him to develop the data point science further. Look into what type of data was needed to determine identity. What types of data people left everywhere. It took him two and three quarter years. Besides the normal case load. He did most of it while waiting for jumps on spaceships.
When he presented it, they praised him, promoted him, put him in charge of the DEEP project and forbade him to speak to anyone about it. Not even Jeff. He did anyway. He had no secrets from Jeff.
And that’s when the team he created started to form identities. Identities like hers.
Kiera had wondered about those data points she had read about. Now she understood it better. It was interesting to finally learn how important to the assimilation all three had been.
She shook her head slightly. The words “Identities like hers” had just disappeared beneath the black destructor once again, probably forever, unless she, Kiera, also left a kiura. She didn’t think she would. But it was the words that followed that interested her. I. He had written he would only write of himself in the third person, but this was I. The first person. This must de damned important.
Betaen 6. 152
152
Inspector Recalls. The redacted made visible through Elf-Gugu. Read by Kiera. 2799
I hadn’t been sleeping well. The triple murder just around the corner – well six thousand kilometers away, but still on the same planet – had me tossing and turning. It was tricky. There was something more to it than first met the eye. It looked just like a murder on Betaen 6. A communication murder. Basically, all of them on Betaen 6 were. There were always the copycats, the humans who wanted to murder someone and get away with it, and it was always a bit difficult to prove it, even more difficult if they were intelligent. Luckily few murderers are intelligent, at least none of the ones I had put away.
Even some of those murders – the unplanned ones - resulted in communications. If I hadn’t been the leader of DEEP even I wouldn’t know about the communications. But they had trusted me with the data and asked me to make some sense out of it. Since the flu, communications – and therefore murders – were going up. They’d had a lot to say lately. One word kept coming up all the time. One of their words. One which I hadn’t been able to find a meaning for. Zater. The time for Zater. It would be so much easier if even half of what they said made sense.
Jeff rolled beside me and suddenly sat bolt upright, still asleep.
“Zater is the assimilation.” He said “That for which we have waited millions of years”
I blanched. I had just thought the word and Jeff explained it to me? In his sleep? This couldn’t be. Jeff couldn’t be. No. I wouldn’t let that happen to him. I had seen it. I knew what communicators turned into.
I pushed his shoulder. He had to wake up. He did. Smiled at me. I felt so much better until he spoke.
“We have to go to Betaen 6” he said. “Now”
I felt ill. Physically ill. I had no idea what to do. I had no one but him to talk to. He was my life. I wouldn’t let anyone take him from me.
Betaen 6. 153
153
Chateau in Southern Germany. 3205
I sat in the car, let the air conditioning and filters keep me cool. Even the windows were tinted to keep out the heat. I was finally home. I just let my eyes take it all in. She had restored the old chateau to all its glory. Perhaps, if I were to be honest, even bettered it. The stables were definitely in better shape than I had left them the day I climbed into that carriage with her to take her to America.
So long ago. So many lives. So many deaths. And I thought I had seen death on the battlefields of 19th century Europe. It was just closer then. The bullet next to my spine pained me. It always did when I got lost in thought - or thought of her. Once, in one of these times a lot more medically advanced than the one I was born into, I tried to have it removed. Even then it was too close for them to remove it without damage. So I left it. A memento.
She’d figured it out long before I did. That every time we moved - how I hate the word time - whoever thought up such a stupid word!? - we left a copy. Someone who was born, lived and died in what for us two were mere instants in that flow - but for them were lives with loves and loss and joy and pain.
Once I made the mistake of moving exactly when the idiots jumped their ship. I made two copies and kind of fucked things up for a while. The joke was that she was in love with both copies. Serves her right.
The poor Inspector, her saviour and friend - who put my one copy in jail for 8 years the fucking bastard - spent all his life trying to find out why copy number two was killed. Was certain that the triumvirate had done it but could never find enough proof - not that it would have helped him had it been true. No, it wasn’t them. It was me. That move and jump timed exactly wrong. It created him and killed him all at the same instant in time - and he lived for 50 years. Try to get your head around that. It’s because time is like wool being played with by a kitten. It unravels, it tangles, it rolls back up again. It’s enough to drive a man insane - and the most famous version of me was for quite a while. How people can read his drivel I do not know - but even now 800 years later they just gobble it up.
I know she’s inside. I wonder why she hasn’t come out to see me? Probably too certain of what I now will finally end. Then I will cut off her hands and go to that stupid vault and destroy the photo. And it all should reset itself. No flu. No assimilation. No losing her. Why did she have to have the Austrian try to kill me? Did it have to be an Austrian?
I thought I had better get it over with. It’s been too long and it has to end, so I opened the car door and got out into the heat. It had never been that hot before. But then we hadn’t fucked up the climate yet the last time I stepped out of a carriage onto this gravel.