There was the desk, a light honey-coloured plastic with a comshape chair perversely set to keep the occupant's posture rigid, their attention fully forward on the short, silver man, his glass eyes dusty, his shirt achingly white. His words were a clatter of consonants, heavy things tumbling from a thin face with too many articulated points. The professor emeritus occasionally waved his hands at the catalog that flitted around him, projecting citations and references for the full oval lecture hall. There were no scrapings of pens, no rustle of paper, each of these students were hand-chosen impressionists of the college and absorbed his words with a linear nicety, would later compare and contrast tone recognition, share overtones of inflection to make sure each had obtained the most accurate memory of the event.
Betaine was oddly bored, did not slouch even while bored. His polished shoes made no sound as he slammed his heel against the floor and he realized he was lost in a dream, stared at his fellow students who wore, to a one, the withdrawn intensity of memory absorption. He looked down at his hands, the long, pale fingers, the shiny knuckles, the lack of freckles, moles, scars oddly worrying. They were the hands of blank moderation and so different from her hands.
"Saul, you're not listening."
Whose hands?
"I am listening, Professor Kmep," he replied, laying his hands flat against the desk, wishing he had something to fiddle with. He didn't have to focus to remember this; perfect recollection was easy for him, a natural gift. It was sorting the data afterwards that was difficult.
"You are not, or you would know this is not the recollection you believe it to be."
"It's a dream. Yes, I'm aware."
Had the professor possessed any hint of egotism or desire to chastise, Betaine wouldn't have resented him so much. Kmep was brilliance amplified through perfect awareness of his faults, obtained over several lifetimes of self-reflection and careful control, and knew, as Betaine knew, that they would have been close friends once the young man got over his obsession, his phase, with purpose. Betaine's desire to prove him, and not just him, all his sort, wrong about this "phase, this flight of fancy" was simply made stronger and more shameful by the knowledge that his teachers were right. As it was, invisible arguments cluttered the silence between them. It was as difficult for Kmep to speak to him as it was for Betaine to listen to the professor.
"You are not aware nor are you listening yet otherwise you wouldn't perpetually be stuck at the mercy of others."
"The girl?"
"What? Oh, no. She has you honestly. You should ask her to show you the suit she's wearing. She might say no, but ahhh, if she's going to get what she wants anyway, may as well get something you want in return."
The other students in the hall had vanished and Betaine couldn't pinpoint when they had disappeared. Kmep remained at his own wide, polished stone lab table, occasionally laying a silvered finger against it pointedly. There was too much going on! How did they expect him to focus?
"I'm not asking you to focus. I'm telling you to listen. That was always your problem: too talented in too many things. Your skills would crowd up clamoring for your attention any time the smallest thing needed doing. You've been drowning in brains again.
No, I'm talking about the whole Planet ordeal. I believe you have no idea what's at stake here."
Betaine opened his mouth, felt a bitter drip of panic at the back of his throat, bit his teeth together before speaking.
"No, I don't. What does it really matter if a ten thousand year old person goes missing for a few months, a year, maybe more? Perhaps when you've been living as long as her and Bala, you cling to the familiar, but no, they've spent decades not speaking to each other. I honestly believe she doesn't need finding and that I'm getting paid an obscene amount of money to soothe a stupid goddess' fears!"
He found himself standing, hands trembling in a shocking loss of control. Kmep's expression hadn't changed at all through their discussion, but now carried a trace of anger. The desks had vanished, leaving a plain, oval room.
"Perhaps it would have been better if you had merely recalled the lecture I was giving before you began imposing your inadequacies on an otherwise pristine memory. Can you remember what it was about, Saul?"
A heavy lock of hair poked his eyelid as Betaine shook his head sharply. Irritating, out of place, but his hand wouldn't move to push it away. His outburst had shocked himself.
"Motivation. You were, ehhh, discussing the individual's need for action."
"Wrong! I was talking about the individual's need to cause. There is an evolution of needs in a sentient being which is the heart of Feynermann's Theory of Purpose. Foresight only extends as far forward as experience does back, which is why the needs of youth revolve around immediate effect, immediate consequence. You suffer from this; everyone does. It's good and necessary. Immediate results from experimentation give undeniable feedback in order to rule out that which is unimportant to a sentient being's fulfillment."
"Purpose doesn't require noticeable results, you said."
Kmep nodded, his chin a guillotine edge.
"You insist upon thinking about purpose as a thing, a set of actions which produce immediate cellular fulfillment, such as when you initiate a mnemonic trance or even get up in the morning, that create self-sustained immortality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Purpose is that which needs no fulfillment, action that needs no consequence. Don't mistake it for 'what is natural' either. Billions still die across the great, glorious face of the Universe simply because their purpose may be an action alien to them."
"You just said it wasn't a set of actions and immediately contradicted yourself," said Betaine, not bothering to conceal the smugness from his voice. Even an imaginary victory meant something.
"I'm attempting to explain it to you in a way that won't take you another twenty years to process. To be honest, words will always fail when you attempt to discover what purpose is because we still don't know! Oh, we have hints, bits and pieces, but I would guess that even were Feynermann still alive today, he could not give you a solid answer himself. All we know is that it is."
Betaine shook his head again, this time tugging swiftly and savagely on the errant strand of hair, smoothing it back into place.
"You talk about something with no definition as if you want to confuse me further. What does purpose have to do with being controlled by others?"
"What it has to do with control is that you insist upon judging others by what they want to do and not what they need to do and you never, ever plan for an action that may have no foreseeable consequence."
Understanding came in a rush of blood, colouring Betaine's cheeks the shade of roses, his hand frozen still on the back of his head.
"What Planet would need..."
Kmep began walking sedately away from Betaine, his fingers clasped behind his back, nestled in the creases of his shirt, resembling pebbles in snow. His steps were small, but each one took him a dozen yards.
"No!" shouted Betaine, "if I'm so wise, what do I do about the girl?"
His ears didn't register the words even though his lips knew he had said them and Betaine felt foolish for yelling at a dream.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Day Sixteen
"You may sit if you'd like. Unfortunately, due to rectifying this minor mishap, the Captain is currently unavailable to attend you. Please accept my sincerest apology."
Her voice was clear, cutting in the dim air and Betaine shook his head. Was it just the lack of sleep making him fuzzy or were there chemicals in this room at work? He stood there dumbly, his shoulders rigid with the strain of staying upright, his neck curved forward like a whipped horse. Surely there was no reason for this. What had he seen that the Captain didn't want him to? Everything, Ober's presence, his familiarity with the Steeress, the Controller, made a clear pattern of smuggling. Weapons? Sentient beings? Noetic drugs? Obviously this Steeress, Bethany, Butterfly, whoever she was, was masquerading as an idiot to cover her involvement...
"Please take a seat, sir. We do not know yet if the engines have fully stabilized yet and the last thing we would wish is for you to risk further injury."
He'd certainly had enough of her.
"Letter of the law, then? What would it matter to your sort one way or the other?"
He watched her, the sleek, blonde hair, the soft, little hands. No. A ridge of calluses along the palm, down the side, across the fingertips. There was a scar on the ring finger of the left.
"Is there any refreshment I can bring you while you wait, sir?"
Not a scar. There was the faint glimmer of wire around the finger that threaded back up the sleeve. Betaine stared openly at it and the brittle smile Bethany wore faded slowly, leaving a heart-breaking sadness in its place.
"Can't you leave well enough alone?" she whispered, "you will cause so much trouble if you talk."
"It will cause a lot more if I don't make it back alive to my employer."
He was halfway through the sentence when he lunged towards the hand. She would think he was going for skin contact, recalling his internalist abilities, and pulled away with a fluid motion that left Betaine stumbling behind her. She stood poised for another attack, deadly purpose on her face, watched the young man right himself ever so slowly, wondered why he smiled that thin, exhausted smile.
"Do you fix all your mistakes by making more?" he asked, turning towards her, "had you left me to go back to my room, all I'd want to know is why the Controller suddenly decided I, and I'm sure there are more internals on board, had anything to do with him. Now I have to deal with your...your saccharine bullshit. Are you going to spit more lies at me about being just a Steeress, asking me politely if perhaps I'd like to choose the poison you'll kill me with? Some rejection training if you have to keep away from contact!"
Betaine pointed at her hand, trying to find the words that would get him out of here. He felt the anger rise but it was a dull thing concealed behind an increasingly cloudy haze and failed to supply any energy.
"If you think I'm going to stand here and stay a part of your idiotic smuggling scheme..."
"Accidents happen," Bethany said, "all I do is make the best of them."
"Failure isn't important," he replied, "it's how you react to failure that creates your situation!"
"Are you so determined to conceal your own mistakes that you'd keep flinging those stupid words at me?"
Betaine paused, profoundly disturbed. The pattern of her speech, the set of her slender shoulders - it was as if facing an entirely new foe, one that could read him with increasing accuracy. The Steeress spoke with an arrogance that illuminated an incredible intelligence. She'd dropped the act, but why? The second he had lunged for her, the recorders tucked discreetly around the small lounge would have all the evidence required for her to remove him. His curiosity had gotten him into a bigger mess than anything she had done and the knowledge stung, but the desire for why hammered in his chest and he slumped on to the divan.
There was a ragged silence in the room that swirled around them and Betaine looked up at Bethany, her mouth thin with the sadness he had seen before and something else, pity? in her sky-deep eyes.
"Whatever you're going to do, I don't need your pity," he said.
"I have no sympathy for those with guts, brains and freedom who waste all three."
She moved to within a meter of where he sat, looking down at the analyst who grimaced under the weight of her reprimand.
"Why are you here, Saul Betaine?"
His elbows on his thighs, through the fabric, it felt as if his bones were grating together. What gave her the right to ask these questions?
"I..."
"...don't care about who sent you or what for. Why are you here now, on my ship, in my lounge, such a brilliant young man but so goddamn dumb?"
"Lack of sleep, I think..."
Betaine's voice, thick and low, trailed off and Bethany's face spun in front of him. He almost felt the microsuede of the divan beneath his head and after a moment, didn't at all feel the small, strong grip that kept him from falling off onto the floor.
This was the dark of the death of stars. There were no markers in this stellar graveyard, no light, no cosmic wind, even the low burn of the greatest of gas giants had faded long ago. Particles smaller than comprehension waited here, spinning themselves sick in the usual way. If there was an underlying fabric to space, it was this, the frenzied bang-bang on the subatomic level that permeated everything in greater or lesser amounts but science had long done away with theories of unity. The cause and effect of these miniscule motions were too far apart to mean anything on a noticeable scale and thus, what happened here happened only here. To any observers, could there have been observers, this was a true void.
Against the omnipresent black appeared an unimpressive hairball of lesser darkness, threads of whatever it was coruscating outward, slowly filling a space no more than three feet to a side. There it stayed, fixed against the blankness and despite what anyone with a basic grasp on the principles of a vacuum had to say about the matter, began to hiss.
Her voice was clear, cutting in the dim air and Betaine shook his head. Was it just the lack of sleep making him fuzzy or were there chemicals in this room at work? He stood there dumbly, his shoulders rigid with the strain of staying upright, his neck curved forward like a whipped horse. Surely there was no reason for this. What had he seen that the Captain didn't want him to? Everything, Ober's presence, his familiarity with the Steeress, the Controller, made a clear pattern of smuggling. Weapons? Sentient beings? Noetic drugs? Obviously this Steeress, Bethany, Butterfly, whoever she was, was masquerading as an idiot to cover her involvement...
"Please take a seat, sir. We do not know yet if the engines have fully stabilized yet and the last thing we would wish is for you to risk further injury."
He'd certainly had enough of her.
"Letter of the law, then? What would it matter to your sort one way or the other?"
He watched her, the sleek, blonde hair, the soft, little hands. No. A ridge of calluses along the palm, down the side, across the fingertips. There was a scar on the ring finger of the left.
"Is there any refreshment I can bring you while you wait, sir?"
Not a scar. There was the faint glimmer of wire around the finger that threaded back up the sleeve. Betaine stared openly at it and the brittle smile Bethany wore faded slowly, leaving a heart-breaking sadness in its place.
"Can't you leave well enough alone?" she whispered, "you will cause so much trouble if you talk."
"It will cause a lot more if I don't make it back alive to my employer."
He was halfway through the sentence when he lunged towards the hand. She would think he was going for skin contact, recalling his internalist abilities, and pulled away with a fluid motion that left Betaine stumbling behind her. She stood poised for another attack, deadly purpose on her face, watched the young man right himself ever so slowly, wondered why he smiled that thin, exhausted smile.
"Do you fix all your mistakes by making more?" he asked, turning towards her, "had you left me to go back to my room, all I'd want to know is why the Controller suddenly decided I, and I'm sure there are more internals on board, had anything to do with him. Now I have to deal with your...your saccharine bullshit. Are you going to spit more lies at me about being just a Steeress, asking me politely if perhaps I'd like to choose the poison you'll kill me with? Some rejection training if you have to keep away from contact!"
Betaine pointed at her hand, trying to find the words that would get him out of here. He felt the anger rise but it was a dull thing concealed behind an increasingly cloudy haze and failed to supply any energy.
"If you think I'm going to stand here and stay a part of your idiotic smuggling scheme..."
"Accidents happen," Bethany said, "all I do is make the best of them."
"Failure isn't important," he replied, "it's how you react to failure that creates your situation!"
"Are you so determined to conceal your own mistakes that you'd keep flinging those stupid words at me?"
Betaine paused, profoundly disturbed. The pattern of her speech, the set of her slender shoulders - it was as if facing an entirely new foe, one that could read him with increasing accuracy. The Steeress spoke with an arrogance that illuminated an incredible intelligence. She'd dropped the act, but why? The second he had lunged for her, the recorders tucked discreetly around the small lounge would have all the evidence required for her to remove him. His curiosity had gotten him into a bigger mess than anything she had done and the knowledge stung, but the desire for why hammered in his chest and he slumped on to the divan.
There was a ragged silence in the room that swirled around them and Betaine looked up at Bethany, her mouth thin with the sadness he had seen before and something else, pity? in her sky-deep eyes.
"Whatever you're going to do, I don't need your pity," he said.
"I have no sympathy for those with guts, brains and freedom who waste all three."
She moved to within a meter of where he sat, looking down at the analyst who grimaced under the weight of her reprimand.
"Why are you here, Saul Betaine?"
His elbows on his thighs, through the fabric, it felt as if his bones were grating together. What gave her the right to ask these questions?
"I..."
"...don't care about who sent you or what for. Why are you here now, on my ship, in my lounge, such a brilliant young man but so goddamn dumb?"
"Lack of sleep, I think..."
Betaine's voice, thick and low, trailed off and Bethany's face spun in front of him. He almost felt the microsuede of the divan beneath his head and after a moment, didn't at all feel the small, strong grip that kept him from falling off onto the floor.
This was the dark of the death of stars. There were no markers in this stellar graveyard, no light, no cosmic wind, even the low burn of the greatest of gas giants had faded long ago. Particles smaller than comprehension waited here, spinning themselves sick in the usual way. If there was an underlying fabric to space, it was this, the frenzied bang-bang on the subatomic level that permeated everything in greater or lesser amounts but science had long done away with theories of unity. The cause and effect of these miniscule motions were too far apart to mean anything on a noticeable scale and thus, what happened here happened only here. To any observers, could there have been observers, this was a true void.
Against the omnipresent black appeared an unimpressive hairball of lesser darkness, threads of whatever it was coruscating outward, slowly filling a space no more than three feet to a side. There it stayed, fixed against the blankness and despite what anyone with a basic grasp on the principles of a vacuum had to say about the matter, began to hiss.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Day Fifteen
"You....I almost can't believe what I'm hearing. Why the hell should I want to talk to you?"
The mercenary shifted upwards in his seat, discomfort rippling across his jaw.
"Off of this ship, you're out of protection..."
"Threats won't buy you much truth."
The laugh started low in Ober's guts and roared up and out. Tears squirted out the corners of his eyes, head to his knee, his shoulders heaving so much it looked as if his shirt would split.
Betaine felt the heat build up behind his eyes, burning a path across his cheeks, biting his lips hard enough to leave a bruise.
"Will you talk some goddamned sense?!"
His voice almost imperceptibly cracked as it rose and he cursed himself for the loss of control but did this idiot soldier think he was going to openly take the ridicule? All he wanted was to sleep...
Ober looked up, blond caterpillar eyebrows raised.
"Oh you don't want sense, you want logic." The older man leaned back again, swiftly wiped at his tear-bright eyes. "You're such a weird one. What's a boy like you doing on his way to Regulskek, that's what everyone wants to know. An obvious impressionist, you're so wrapped up in yourself, but you're not an Archivist. Definitely not one of Bala's boy toys, not guarded enough to be a financier, and not careful enough to be one of her murdering priest agents those, what are they, thurghatee?"
"Are you and your friends queuing up for when we land and I'm 'defenseless'?" Betaine hated himself even as he sneered the words. This man had no discretion whatsoever, despite just being shown how his memory could be reduced to slurry. He was so at ease with Betaine's anger and discomfort, the muscles loose and ready in their freckled skin, his face open and almost friendly. His attitude was wholly one of peaceful interest.
Betaine forced a quick breath, felt the slowing of time, the rush of focus. What the mercenary said was true; Betaine hadn't realized how odd his trip would appear to outsiders. He'd be damned if he mentioned precisely what he was doing to this...external. As far as Bala's people were concerned [the Archivists were bound by a professional code of silence in regards to his research], he'd been another handsome academian that had interested the goddess enough to become one of her boon companions. No one yet knew Planet was missing, barring perhaps the Council. A cover identity had to be constructed and more fool he for not taking the time to do a proper job before he had to interact with inquisitive folk who could snap his neck with one arm.
He settled back against the divan.
"What do you offer for this information?" he asked.
Ober snorted, something Betaine realized he did when he found something funny but wasn't worth the effort of laughing at.
"So you can be bought."
"I'm bound by the court [but which one, mercenary?] to keep the particulars close, but the gist of my journey is of no huge importance. Of course, worth is in the brain of the buyer."
The mercenary's odd eyes twinkled. There was a stuffy silence in the hallway for several moments, and on the edge of hearing, Betaine caught a muffled squeaking, as if an enormous un-oiled gear was spinning lopsided. A planet powered by the frantic fearful energies of one person, he thought, stuck forever in the only place he feels safe while everyone around him relaxes and feeds on his labour. He was hit with an unexpected twitch of jealousy for the winged and wild Controller. He at least knows where he runs...
"Well damn, you have me by curiosity at the very least," said Ober, "I offer as geas my countenance for a full Standard year in any regard that's not life threatening. The Red Dragon Cell name carries weight in over 600 quadrants. You'd be pressed to find a civilized planet we haven't been on."
It was, Betaine realized, an inordinately valuable offer. Certainly Ober didn't expect him to understand the severity of the promise or the potential for abuse. Many a misplaced geas had elevated the wielder to the surface of society while drowning the giver. A verbal geas held a strange power, bound a compulsion to obey into the one who uttered it and would hold up as evidence even in a Collegiate court. What was Ober being offered that made it worth his while to put himself in such a precarious position?
"I'm a trans messenger hired by Bala in regards to a civil matter," Betaine said. Trans messengers were impressionists often hired for their singular data storage capabilities, burying the sensitive communications in layers of half-dreams, odd memories, image sequences, then purging the actual message. The shape of the information was there, but only the impressionist could link it all together. Memory specialists such as Betaine were rare enough and those willing to accept the risks of a courier of sensitive information with powerful enemies commanded high, if hushed, salaries and respect.
"Does this have anything to do with the mess the Minister's making of that caul worship?"
Betaine smiled thinly.
Ober looked peeved, tapped his foot against the armrest.
"I was hoping this wasn't going to be a legal matter. Dammit! He's an idiot if he thinks he's going to get away with destroying part of his own damn planet. Those blobs have no...no...foresight."
Even through his dazed senses, Betaine felt the wrongness before he heard it, the subtle shift of gravitational forces that sent the blood in his feet and hands tingling. Far off, a small bell sound rang twice and shouting was heard, then immediately suppressed. The orbs flickered into green, giving a sick glow to the cream-coloured corridor. Stillness, terrible stillness settled around the two men as both strained for a hint of what had occurred. Betaine, his breathing shallow and slow, glanced over at Ober, flinched to see flickers of dark brown glow weaving slowly over the embroidered lines of runes, his muscles solid, poised, unmoving.
The seconds of silence fell slowly and Betaine allowed himself a quick, deep breath when a rasping shriek dopplered towards them, followed by the light whisk of feet used to many miles of running. The Controller, straw spikes of his hair trembling, green light casting his face as a plague-ridden death's head, the wings on his arms humming and twitching sickly, tore past, running skinny gut forward as if pulled on a string. He slammed into one of the walls and stopped with a whimper then turned to stare at Betaine, a fierce anger in his eyes.
"I heard...I heard. There was something in the middle! I didn't want to go!"
Betaine pushed himself back against the divan. He was unprepared for violence, his head spinning from the random shifts in gravity, tasted bile.
Ober was standing, a dim, burnt orange glow to his fingernails.
"What're you doing out here?" the mercenary said. His voice was low, careful with suppressed fear. A ship without a Controller was an enormous disaster-in-waiting, inertia carrying it forward until it collided with whatever it had been aiming for. The force of impact had split planets, fracturing down to the core. A slow death as the world fell apart into lifeless chunks was considered nominally worse than the fate of those on the ship itself, necks snapped at terrible angles, spines broken from being thrown against what was the floor-ceiling-floor again. Some on the planet could be saved; for the passengers, nothing.
"I don't know," cried the Controller, staring desperately at Betaine, "I hit something that wasn't there and I heard...I heard. It was a hiss! There were words Butterfly told me. I don't remember." He crawled forward, grabbed Betaine's hand, gripping tightly enough the fingernails went purple. The wings stirred fitfully, gave off an odor of lilacs.
"You'd know...you'd know! You're like her, what's in your head!"
"Let go of the clerk, Charl." Ober closed a thick, ruddy hand around the Controller's upper arm, taking care not to break the brown iridescence of the wing carapace. Betaine's hand was released quickly and the lump in his throat made room for words.
"Who's Butterfly?"
The bone-skinny boy grinned up at him.
"Butterfly knows everything. But no...no," the smile contorted, slid off the pointed chin like a rock into a hole, "you're like the other one. Everything in your head...that's like where it comes from."
"Where what..."
"Charl!" The bright little voice was trimmed with anger. The blond Steeress appeared, ignored Betaine and Ober, stomped stiffly forward, slapped the Controller across his sharp cheekbone with a force Betaine could feel from his cringed position. The boy clutched his cheek, began wailing.
"But...but...Butterfly! The thing I hit..."
"Was nothing. It's not there. You will go back and run or you will get us all killed. You are not going to get me or my passengers killed."
Her voice softened as she helped him up; her arm steady as he grasped tightly to it, as if his weight were nothing. Fully upright, the Controller was a head taller than the Steeress, yet so gaunt in the green light he seemed some bizarre ghost.
"Scared is fine, Charl, but you cannot do that."
"I'm sorry, Butterfly. I thought...he looked like he could help me." The boy's liquid eyes flickered to Betaine. She pried his grip from her arm and shooed him off down the corridor.
"Go back and hurry. We're a day away but who knows what else is out there." The lack of questioning inflection made Betaine glance up curiously at the blonde girl. The glassy facial expression she usually wore was gone and her face was filled with a hard loneliness as she watched the Controller dash back towards the port to the center. The glimmer in her eyes swept across the odd tableau the three of them formed, calculating, absorbing. She met the analyst's inquisitive stare and the bright, stupid face was back.
"Bethany, I..." Ober stepped away from the Steeress, the runes dead and quiet, the crackling hum of his power gone.
"How many people are you going to get into trouble today, Master Ober?"
"We were discussing the caul crisis on Regulskek. He's protected, you know that!"
She blinked once, then smiled, tilting her head slightly.
"I can't believe you think I'd act on anything other than my Captain's explicit orders, Master Ober. We need to make sure he's all right after this...traumatic experience. Our hull readers show the disturbance hit the hardest in this node. Nothing untoward will happen to our esteemed guest."
Betaine felt a gurgling mix of panic/anger. He'd seen something he shouldn't have and all because of this stupid mercenary. He needed time to process; his every muscle and nerve cried out with fatigue.
"This 'guest' would prefer to return to his room and sleep. I am physically and mentally undisturbed and hold no ill will towards the ship or its Captain." He stood, attempting to stretch without seeming to do so, feeling his stomach settle as gravity returned to the proper alignment. The words should be precisely right, but Bethany merely smiled apologetically at him.
"The Captain wishes to make amends. There will be methods of refreshment while you wait," she said, her voice ripe with the chipper edge Betaine had come to hate. She bowed slightly towards the older man, who looked suddenly lost and bewildered.
"I wish you good night, Master Ober."
The Steeress clapped her hands twice and Betaine, despite knowing it was coming, gagged at the gut-wrenching lurch of the spell. His skin felt hot and crinkled as he appeared in a soft, pale blue waiting room, his neck hair on end, every nerve tingling.
The mercenary shifted upwards in his seat, discomfort rippling across his jaw.
"Off of this ship, you're out of protection..."
"Threats won't buy you much truth."
The laugh started low in Ober's guts and roared up and out. Tears squirted out the corners of his eyes, head to his knee, his shoulders heaving so much it looked as if his shirt would split.
Betaine felt the heat build up behind his eyes, burning a path across his cheeks, biting his lips hard enough to leave a bruise.
"Will you talk some goddamned sense?!"
His voice almost imperceptibly cracked as it rose and he cursed himself for the loss of control but did this idiot soldier think he was going to openly take the ridicule? All he wanted was to sleep...
Ober looked up, blond caterpillar eyebrows raised.
"Oh you don't want sense, you want logic." The older man leaned back again, swiftly wiped at his tear-bright eyes. "You're such a weird one. What's a boy like you doing on his way to Regulskek, that's what everyone wants to know. An obvious impressionist, you're so wrapped up in yourself, but you're not an Archivist. Definitely not one of Bala's boy toys, not guarded enough to be a financier, and not careful enough to be one of her murdering priest agents those, what are they, thurghatee?"
"Are you and your friends queuing up for when we land and I'm 'defenseless'?" Betaine hated himself even as he sneered the words. This man had no discretion whatsoever, despite just being shown how his memory could be reduced to slurry. He was so at ease with Betaine's anger and discomfort, the muscles loose and ready in their freckled skin, his face open and almost friendly. His attitude was wholly one of peaceful interest.
Betaine forced a quick breath, felt the slowing of time, the rush of focus. What the mercenary said was true; Betaine hadn't realized how odd his trip would appear to outsiders. He'd be damned if he mentioned precisely what he was doing to this...external. As far as Bala's people were concerned [the Archivists were bound by a professional code of silence in regards to his research], he'd been another handsome academian that had interested the goddess enough to become one of her boon companions. No one yet knew Planet was missing, barring perhaps the Council. A cover identity had to be constructed and more fool he for not taking the time to do a proper job before he had to interact with inquisitive folk who could snap his neck with one arm.
He settled back against the divan.
"What do you offer for this information?" he asked.
Ober snorted, something Betaine realized he did when he found something funny but wasn't worth the effort of laughing at.
"So you can be bought."
"I'm bound by the court [but which one, mercenary?] to keep the particulars close, but the gist of my journey is of no huge importance. Of course, worth is in the brain of the buyer."
The mercenary's odd eyes twinkled. There was a stuffy silence in the hallway for several moments, and on the edge of hearing, Betaine caught a muffled squeaking, as if an enormous un-oiled gear was spinning lopsided. A planet powered by the frantic fearful energies of one person, he thought, stuck forever in the only place he feels safe while everyone around him relaxes and feeds on his labour. He was hit with an unexpected twitch of jealousy for the winged and wild Controller. He at least knows where he runs...
"Well damn, you have me by curiosity at the very least," said Ober, "I offer as geas my countenance for a full Standard year in any regard that's not life threatening. The Red Dragon Cell name carries weight in over 600 quadrants. You'd be pressed to find a civilized planet we haven't been on."
It was, Betaine realized, an inordinately valuable offer. Certainly Ober didn't expect him to understand the severity of the promise or the potential for abuse. Many a misplaced geas had elevated the wielder to the surface of society while drowning the giver. A verbal geas held a strange power, bound a compulsion to obey into the one who uttered it and would hold up as evidence even in a Collegiate court. What was Ober being offered that made it worth his while to put himself in such a precarious position?
"I'm a trans messenger hired by Bala in regards to a civil matter," Betaine said. Trans messengers were impressionists often hired for their singular data storage capabilities, burying the sensitive communications in layers of half-dreams, odd memories, image sequences, then purging the actual message. The shape of the information was there, but only the impressionist could link it all together. Memory specialists such as Betaine were rare enough and those willing to accept the risks of a courier of sensitive information with powerful enemies commanded high, if hushed, salaries and respect.
"Does this have anything to do with the mess the Minister's making of that caul worship?"
Betaine smiled thinly.
Ober looked peeved, tapped his foot against the armrest.
"I was hoping this wasn't going to be a legal matter. Dammit! He's an idiot if he thinks he's going to get away with destroying part of his own damn planet. Those blobs have no...no...foresight."
Even through his dazed senses, Betaine felt the wrongness before he heard it, the subtle shift of gravitational forces that sent the blood in his feet and hands tingling. Far off, a small bell sound rang twice and shouting was heard, then immediately suppressed. The orbs flickered into green, giving a sick glow to the cream-coloured corridor. Stillness, terrible stillness settled around the two men as both strained for a hint of what had occurred. Betaine, his breathing shallow and slow, glanced over at Ober, flinched to see flickers of dark brown glow weaving slowly over the embroidered lines of runes, his muscles solid, poised, unmoving.
The seconds of silence fell slowly and Betaine allowed himself a quick, deep breath when a rasping shriek dopplered towards them, followed by the light whisk of feet used to many miles of running. The Controller, straw spikes of his hair trembling, green light casting his face as a plague-ridden death's head, the wings on his arms humming and twitching sickly, tore past, running skinny gut forward as if pulled on a string. He slammed into one of the walls and stopped with a whimper then turned to stare at Betaine, a fierce anger in his eyes.
"I heard...I heard. There was something in the middle! I didn't want to go!"
Betaine pushed himself back against the divan. He was unprepared for violence, his head spinning from the random shifts in gravity, tasted bile.
Ober was standing, a dim, burnt orange glow to his fingernails.
"What're you doing out here?" the mercenary said. His voice was low, careful with suppressed fear. A ship without a Controller was an enormous disaster-in-waiting, inertia carrying it forward until it collided with whatever it had been aiming for. The force of impact had split planets, fracturing down to the core. A slow death as the world fell apart into lifeless chunks was considered nominally worse than the fate of those on the ship itself, necks snapped at terrible angles, spines broken from being thrown against what was the floor-ceiling-floor again. Some on the planet could be saved; for the passengers, nothing.
"I don't know," cried the Controller, staring desperately at Betaine, "I hit something that wasn't there and I heard...I heard. It was a hiss! There were words Butterfly told me. I don't remember." He crawled forward, grabbed Betaine's hand, gripping tightly enough the fingernails went purple. The wings stirred fitfully, gave off an odor of lilacs.
"You'd know...you'd know! You're like her, what's in your head!"
"Let go of the clerk, Charl." Ober closed a thick, ruddy hand around the Controller's upper arm, taking care not to break the brown iridescence of the wing carapace. Betaine's hand was released quickly and the lump in his throat made room for words.
"Who's Butterfly?"
The bone-skinny boy grinned up at him.
"Butterfly knows everything. But no...no," the smile contorted, slid off the pointed chin like a rock into a hole, "you're like the other one. Everything in your head...that's like where it comes from."
"Where what..."
"Charl!" The bright little voice was trimmed with anger. The blond Steeress appeared, ignored Betaine and Ober, stomped stiffly forward, slapped the Controller across his sharp cheekbone with a force Betaine could feel from his cringed position. The boy clutched his cheek, began wailing.
"But...but...Butterfly! The thing I hit..."
"Was nothing. It's not there. You will go back and run or you will get us all killed. You are not going to get me or my passengers killed."
Her voice softened as she helped him up; her arm steady as he grasped tightly to it, as if his weight were nothing. Fully upright, the Controller was a head taller than the Steeress, yet so gaunt in the green light he seemed some bizarre ghost.
"Scared is fine, Charl, but you cannot do that."
"I'm sorry, Butterfly. I thought...he looked like he could help me." The boy's liquid eyes flickered to Betaine. She pried his grip from her arm and shooed him off down the corridor.
"Go back and hurry. We're a day away but who knows what else is out there." The lack of questioning inflection made Betaine glance up curiously at the blonde girl. The glassy facial expression she usually wore was gone and her face was filled with a hard loneliness as she watched the Controller dash back towards the port to the center. The glimmer in her eyes swept across the odd tableau the three of them formed, calculating, absorbing. She met the analyst's inquisitive stare and the bright, stupid face was back.
"Bethany, I..." Ober stepped away from the Steeress, the runes dead and quiet, the crackling hum of his power gone.
"How many people are you going to get into trouble today, Master Ober?"
"We were discussing the caul crisis on Regulskek. He's protected, you know that!"
She blinked once, then smiled, tilting her head slightly.
"I can't believe you think I'd act on anything other than my Captain's explicit orders, Master Ober. We need to make sure he's all right after this...traumatic experience. Our hull readers show the disturbance hit the hardest in this node. Nothing untoward will happen to our esteemed guest."
Betaine felt a gurgling mix of panic/anger. He'd seen something he shouldn't have and all because of this stupid mercenary. He needed time to process; his every muscle and nerve cried out with fatigue.
"This 'guest' would prefer to return to his room and sleep. I am physically and mentally undisturbed and hold no ill will towards the ship or its Captain." He stood, attempting to stretch without seeming to do so, feeling his stomach settle as gravity returned to the proper alignment. The words should be precisely right, but Bethany merely smiled apologetically at him.
"The Captain wishes to make amends. There will be methods of refreshment while you wait," she said, her voice ripe with the chipper edge Betaine had come to hate. She bowed slightly towards the older man, who looked suddenly lost and bewildered.
"I wish you good night, Master Ober."
The Steeress clapped her hands twice and Betaine, despite knowing it was coming, gagged at the gut-wrenching lurch of the spell. His skin felt hot and crinkled as he appeared in a soft, pale blue waiting room, his neck hair on end, every nerve tingling.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Day Fourteen
"I suppose I have to deal with a formal apology. Did he mention where?"
"He requested the sitting area outside of his cabin in Hallway 4406-DA. Would you like a guide there?"
"DA? No, no thank you."
Betaine stood, accepted the warm, wet cloth from the Steeress, wiped his hands and then buttoned his jacket.
"He also wishes to inform you that his crew will be elsewhere and reassures you of no ill intentions."
"Does he? That's certain to make me suspicious."
The orbs were dimmed after dinner and the absence of other passengers in the commons area made the warm, still air feel like golden cotton. Betaine blinked slowly, felt the weariness settle in his fingertips, his bones vibrating with the effort of staying awake. He unconsciously brushed his hand against the coat pocket where the clear green plasticene vial of anti-fatigue pills were kept, hesitated, kept walking. Obert wasn't stupid and any hostility towards Betaine during the remainder of the voyage would immediately heap suspicions on him... but a twinge in his gut [certainly not the mushrooms still] told him his impressionist capabilities were currently far more important than his focus. Some abilities worked faster than any possible reaction time. The body would shield itself, respond on a molecular level and then the only determining factor of the struggle was the strength of the internalist's talents.
Obert was seated in a high back chair, obviously scooted back against the wall from its original position. Betaine noted the grizzled man had chosen the tallest seat and was casually slouched over the velvetty over-stuffed arms, facing away from the young analyst. Not perceived as a threat then. Mercenaries utilized an evolving body language where the motion of a finger, the position of a foot, the tension in a bicep, could express detailed concepts incomprehensible to an outsider while they chattered on about nothing. Betaine felt irritated. Not only was his companion a part of society that he had only briefly touched on in his studies, but was an external as well. He would certainly be reticent to share information.
A glimmer of light on Obert's hand caught Betaine's attention. The orange spark danced between the blood sausage fingers, weaving in and out, not touching the skin, moving faster and faster.
"Master Obert."
The spark touched a nail, disappeared and the hand flinched. It waved at him to sit and the mercenary, still slouched, every sinew and capillary relaxed and unapologetic, stared with odd pale yellow eyes, the whites an even soft gray. Betaine looked back as he sat, noted the heavy wrinkles around the eyes, mouth, forehead, the youthful smooth cheeks and jaw. Here was a man who smiled and laughed often. It was impossible to tell his age.
The contact shot across his chest this time, the muscles twitching in response to different orders. It itched its way down his inner arm and burnt out by the elbow. Betaine smiled viciously and struck, spaced rendered meaningless by the focal points, his self balanced between his own head and the exciting, unfamiliar pathways of Obert's nerves. Here the thoughts came slower, shades of burnt orange, they pulsed and wriggled in a way that seemed almost spastic until he realized these were fresh, untrained, had never been made aware of themselves.
The mercenary, for all his sleek musculature and careful mannerisms, understood himself not at all, knew nothing of the way his personality was connected to the sack of flesh it inhabited. Betaine laughed, and his slim shoulders moved in an eerie pantomime of Obert's own. Panic poured through Obert's awareness, thick and cold, as he felt Betaine slow the drum of his heart. The analyst had pushed through, projected himself to the older man's [was he truly 86?] metaphor for memory.
It was a roofless stone hall opening onto a deep, dirty sky, the clouds pregnant with dust and burnt umber lightning. A fog clustered around his feet, seemed to touch him and pull away, revealing fist-sized stones scattered along the floor as far as he could see until the hall curved away, presumably to meet itself on other other side of the brain. He bent down to examine the rocks, crude sigils hacked sloppily into their surfaces, some worn smooth from frequent remembrances. There a wedding, three children, one dead, one illegitimate, his homes, the songs he loathed, a life as infinitely deep as any other life.
Betaine was tense as he wandered, waiting for the mental kick that would remove him from this sacred place. Used to the Archivists and his fellow impressionist students, he realized with a start the mercenary had no idea how to hurt him. Obert's self would be watching, unable to protest, move a muscle, shout as surely as he wanted to shout. There was no reason to be excessively vindictive, but he certainly should be given an example of an internalist's abilities.
A small, potato-lumpy stone bumped against his heel and he picked it up. The memory danced along his arm, a little girl with blonde hair holding a dried lily, staring up solemnly. It tugged at him, how familiar she seemed, but that was simply its function. Shifting his fingers carefully, he slammed the rock into the wall. At the first crack, it turned to fog, slid over his hand and joined the miasma on the floor. The walls vibrated with Obert's fear and a dull whine tinged the timpani rumble of thunder.
He flexed his projected fingers, felt for the silver hum that distinguished his real self. The motion was soft and swift and Betaine listened for the dopplered thumping as Obert's heart skipped once, then pounded ever more swiftly. The internalist's eyes were clouded with white. He blinked slowly and the mercenary came into focus, his earth tones and ruddy skin shockingly present, almost glowing with...fear?
There was a stillness between them, a tense expectation of violence.
Slowly the amber light smoking off Obert's hands evaporated and his muscles relaxed, resembling a marionette with its strings severed one by one.
"He wasn't a threat to you anyway," Obert said, his voice slow, tinged with surprise, "neither was I."
He stared at Betaine, who didn't raise his head from the chaise lounge.
"You didn't have to remove that part; she didn't deserve it. Why do I still remember the memory being there?"
The analyst cleared his throat, sounding like a meringue with a coughing fit. He'd never had to actively destroy a memory before and felt rattled by the experience. His teeth ached, felt almost as if they'd come loose.
"Memories aren't chains of sequential events but exist in a three-dimensional lattice structure that has an infinite number of possible connections. It's as if they're twined together into knots and the removal of one of them leaves a hole. It will shift and repair itself in a day or two. As for that particular one, it..." he rubbed his eyes, the lashes heavy as iron bars, tugging the lids shut, "I'm quite tired and your stupidity annoys me."
Obert looked thoughtful, plucked at the wiry mess of his eyebrows.
"Suppose that's fair. But it's only stupid until you think that this is the friendliest my run-ins with internals have gotten."
"Friendly? Nerve pulse triggers are considered nice where you come from?"
"No harm was intended so you can settle down."
"Your intentions of ignorance can cause serious harm. Also, from everything you've said, I gather you understand very little about internals aside from some half-baked stories. What did you call me out here for?"
Ober pushed his lower lip out, sucked on his stained front teeth.
"Ignorance cost me a good man today. After you...I believe you could mind-burn the bunch of us, but you still should've been fried by that igniter. Why'd I ask you here really? I'm curious. You don't get where I am by insisting you know everything."
Sleep was sliding up Betaine's legs, eased the itch in his bones, dropping a gray haze over the edges of his vision.
"He requested the sitting area outside of his cabin in Hallway 4406-DA. Would you like a guide there?"
"DA? No, no thank you."
Betaine stood, accepted the warm, wet cloth from the Steeress, wiped his hands and then buttoned his jacket.
"He also wishes to inform you that his crew will be elsewhere and reassures you of no ill intentions."
"Does he? That's certain to make me suspicious."
The orbs were dimmed after dinner and the absence of other passengers in the commons area made the warm, still air feel like golden cotton. Betaine blinked slowly, felt the weariness settle in his fingertips, his bones vibrating with the effort of staying awake. He unconsciously brushed his hand against the coat pocket where the clear green plasticene vial of anti-fatigue pills were kept, hesitated, kept walking. Obert wasn't stupid and any hostility towards Betaine during the remainder of the voyage would immediately heap suspicions on him... but a twinge in his gut [certainly not the mushrooms still] told him his impressionist capabilities were currently far more important than his focus. Some abilities worked faster than any possible reaction time. The body would shield itself, respond on a molecular level and then the only determining factor of the struggle was the strength of the internalist's talents.
Obert was seated in a high back chair, obviously scooted back against the wall from its original position. Betaine noted the grizzled man had chosen the tallest seat and was casually slouched over the velvetty over-stuffed arms, facing away from the young analyst. Not perceived as a threat then. Mercenaries utilized an evolving body language where the motion of a finger, the position of a foot, the tension in a bicep, could express detailed concepts incomprehensible to an outsider while they chattered on about nothing. Betaine felt irritated. Not only was his companion a part of society that he had only briefly touched on in his studies, but was an external as well. He would certainly be reticent to share information.
A glimmer of light on Obert's hand caught Betaine's attention. The orange spark danced between the blood sausage fingers, weaving in and out, not touching the skin, moving faster and faster.
"Master Obert."
The spark touched a nail, disappeared and the hand flinched. It waved at him to sit and the mercenary, still slouched, every sinew and capillary relaxed and unapologetic, stared with odd pale yellow eyes, the whites an even soft gray. Betaine looked back as he sat, noted the heavy wrinkles around the eyes, mouth, forehead, the youthful smooth cheeks and jaw. Here was a man who smiled and laughed often. It was impossible to tell his age.
The contact shot across his chest this time, the muscles twitching in response to different orders. It itched its way down his inner arm and burnt out by the elbow. Betaine smiled viciously and struck, spaced rendered meaningless by the focal points, his self balanced between his own head and the exciting, unfamiliar pathways of Obert's nerves. Here the thoughts came slower, shades of burnt orange, they pulsed and wriggled in a way that seemed almost spastic until he realized these were fresh, untrained, had never been made aware of themselves.
The mercenary, for all his sleek musculature and careful mannerisms, understood himself not at all, knew nothing of the way his personality was connected to the sack of flesh it inhabited. Betaine laughed, and his slim shoulders moved in an eerie pantomime of Obert's own. Panic poured through Obert's awareness, thick and cold, as he felt Betaine slow the drum of his heart. The analyst had pushed through, projected himself to the older man's [was he truly 86?] metaphor for memory.
It was a roofless stone hall opening onto a deep, dirty sky, the clouds pregnant with dust and burnt umber lightning. A fog clustered around his feet, seemed to touch him and pull away, revealing fist-sized stones scattered along the floor as far as he could see until the hall curved away, presumably to meet itself on other other side of the brain. He bent down to examine the rocks, crude sigils hacked sloppily into their surfaces, some worn smooth from frequent remembrances. There a wedding, three children, one dead, one illegitimate, his homes, the songs he loathed, a life as infinitely deep as any other life.
Betaine was tense as he wandered, waiting for the mental kick that would remove him from this sacred place. Used to the Archivists and his fellow impressionist students, he realized with a start the mercenary had no idea how to hurt him. Obert's self would be watching, unable to protest, move a muscle, shout as surely as he wanted to shout. There was no reason to be excessively vindictive, but he certainly should be given an example of an internalist's abilities.
A small, potato-lumpy stone bumped against his heel and he picked it up. The memory danced along his arm, a little girl with blonde hair holding a dried lily, staring up solemnly. It tugged at him, how familiar she seemed, but that was simply its function. Shifting his fingers carefully, he slammed the rock into the wall. At the first crack, it turned to fog, slid over his hand and joined the miasma on the floor. The walls vibrated with Obert's fear and a dull whine tinged the timpani rumble of thunder.
He flexed his projected fingers, felt for the silver hum that distinguished his real self. The motion was soft and swift and Betaine listened for the dopplered thumping as Obert's heart skipped once, then pounded ever more swiftly. The internalist's eyes were clouded with white. He blinked slowly and the mercenary came into focus, his earth tones and ruddy skin shockingly present, almost glowing with...fear?
There was a stillness between them, a tense expectation of violence.
Slowly the amber light smoking off Obert's hands evaporated and his muscles relaxed, resembling a marionette with its strings severed one by one.
"He wasn't a threat to you anyway," Obert said, his voice slow, tinged with surprise, "neither was I."
He stared at Betaine, who didn't raise his head from the chaise lounge.
"You didn't have to remove that part; she didn't deserve it. Why do I still remember the memory being there?"
The analyst cleared his throat, sounding like a meringue with a coughing fit. He'd never had to actively destroy a memory before and felt rattled by the experience. His teeth ached, felt almost as if they'd come loose.
"Memories aren't chains of sequential events but exist in a three-dimensional lattice structure that has an infinite number of possible connections. It's as if they're twined together into knots and the removal of one of them leaves a hole. It will shift and repair itself in a day or two. As for that particular one, it..." he rubbed his eyes, the lashes heavy as iron bars, tugging the lids shut, "I'm quite tired and your stupidity annoys me."
Obert looked thoughtful, plucked at the wiry mess of his eyebrows.
"Suppose that's fair. But it's only stupid until you think that this is the friendliest my run-ins with internals have gotten."
"Friendly? Nerve pulse triggers are considered nice where you come from?"
"No harm was intended so you can settle down."
"Your intentions of ignorance can cause serious harm. Also, from everything you've said, I gather you understand very little about internals aside from some half-baked stories. What did you call me out here for?"
Ober pushed his lower lip out, sucked on his stained front teeth.
"Ignorance cost me a good man today. After you...I believe you could mind-burn the bunch of us, but you still should've been fried by that igniter. Why'd I ask you here really? I'm curious. You don't get where I am by insisting you know everything."
Sleep was sliding up Betaine's legs, eased the itch in his bones, dropping a gray haze over the edges of his vision.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Day Thirteen
The woman climbs a dusty hill, her skin caked and cracked, the healthy rosey glow now ashen. Breath ragged, a soft, rattling warning, her hair is gone and it took all her willpower to sever it before she was sent away to this strange place in the hopes she might remember where she left it and one day return, somehow knowing something momentous was occuring, that she was part of it. The knowledge drove her to this place, a planet she had never visited before, yet navigates as if born to it.
At the zenith, she pauses on one knee, sucking on her tongue in order to produce enough spit to speak. She doesn't taste the grit, doesn't hear the vultures, doesn't feel the heat. Looking up, she sees a narrow, deep cleft in the ground, layered stone upon stone all the way down into darkness. There is stillness except for the stupid birds who never fly above the hole. Her real self, a teacher of hyperbolic geometry, might wonder at this, might attempt to draw on old lessons of her own about the vacuum of the depths. The, could it be called a canyon? it's so narrow, was free from the grip of the sun but massive, human-like profiles could be seen even through the gloom. Her heart hammers in her chest, but what drove her must be done.
"There is a green water sea that bathes the feet of mountains. The black rock does not flinch from its chilly touch or the sliding caresses from the tails of the sea people, who cover their eyes with shells and grow coral along their spines. The war of flames is beneath the waves, and the icy silver stars fall, swim gracefully down to fight the great beasts with hearts of magma. They are endless, spawning with every breath of the earth. The glitter-skinned stars and the sea people, hair of anemone, barnacled hands, ride the great whales as chariots into the battle, leaving their dances behind in the hopes, one day, a door may be found deep within the mountain."
An invisible wave passed over her face and she sighed as the memories left her, the dream, the fugue state, gone as softly as a kiss. She looked around, saw a murky sparkle to the north and realized she was close to a city. A pressure on her hip, wrapped in stained layers of muslin, turned out to be a gurgling water bottle, anti-fatigue pills and a thick packet of dried meats and fruits.
"Was it a vacation? I know I've always wanted to visit the deserts," she asked and a fresh breeze grabbed her words and tugged them along to the north. Running a thin hand along the stubble on her head, she nodded once, twice, and quickly wrapped a length of the cloth around her head to prevent sunburn. Setting off with suddenly vigorous strides, she failed to hear the deep rumble of the canyon as beings of stone, veins of calcified water, stirred and stretched. Their words were the murmur of the breeze and all through the rock, the human's speech moved like quicksilver. They could not travel, could not seek the source, but deep within, they all knew, had listened and became restless.
The kitchen was a purgatory for the privileged. Comform mats surrounded low ashwood tables and slick oilskin curtains hung from the ceiling, reducing the clank of dishes and providing a sense of intimacy for the diners. There were tumbling trellises of purple flowers scattered around the room, each one anchored in a bubbling fountain that provided a place to wash before and after eating or simply a refreshing drink. Smaller passengers had occasionally attempted to bathe in them, only to have the incredibly powerful filter pointed out by a smiling Steeress. Most stayed out of the fountains and the stubborn few became amusing posthumous tales.
Betaine watched from a higher platform, the floor a graceful marble mosaic, the table carved with tittering nymphs chased by fat-bellied bears, honey on their muzzle, pregnant roasts in their paws. Vines curled around the legs, twirled together around the tabletop, sheltered the upper class passenger from the curious stares of those eating below. Despite the sound dampening, it didn't keep out all the whispering. He attempted to ignore the annoyance; it wasn't him they were interested in but who he worked for.
The meal was delightful, thick, steamed sweet rice mixed with slivers of a tender hotly-spiced meat and crumpled ugly lumps of a black mushroom that was said to grow only on the undersides of rocks overhanging the ocean. Betaine eyed it curiously at the end of his chopsticks, like a clump of brain, the sort of flower that blooms where Death walks. Sampling it produced a salty, chewy sensation and then the memory hit. He felt it explode behind his eyes, fought to gain control over the view of a sea that commanded his vision, its wild, chill churning casting clouds of spray into the clear, violet sky. Giant iridescent bags floated far over the horizon, kemket, they were called, trailed miles of tentacles to the water below. The feeling was a vast and fantastic freedom, lightly touched by loneliness.
His fingers drummed on the table in an automatic sequence, pinky twice, thumb twice, then ring, middle, index in three quick thumps and pulled him from the memory. There was a moment of silver dark waters and then the kitchen refocused around him. He sucked a morsel of the mushroom from his teeth and stared at the attendant Steeress, a dusky, curvaceous girl whose uniform barely constrained a figure that clashed with her smile, a slow seductive dance against an anxious, polished blankness. The right half of her face was covered with an elaborate tattoo that shifted as she moved. showing a familiar gold-clawed hand plucking the sun from a rose in a shower of petals. She was an obvious attempt to appease him, a subservient worshipper of his patron, similar to the ones that had tried to attend him for months.
"Do you always feed your passengers noetic hallucinogens?" he asked in between bites. The mushrooms were neutralized automatically as he ate, their memory demand denied.
"It's quite a celebrated dish and we've never had a complaint so far. Usually they enjoy the visions," the Steeress replied, "we can prepare you something else if it's causing interference with your abilities, but your teliphrase scan indicated no allergies or susceptibilities to this variety of morenel."
"No, but a warning would be appreciated next time."
"As you wish, sir. Oh, a Master Ober of the Red Dragon Cell respectfully inquires if he may join you after dinner."
At the zenith, she pauses on one knee, sucking on her tongue in order to produce enough spit to speak. She doesn't taste the grit, doesn't hear the vultures, doesn't feel the heat. Looking up, she sees a narrow, deep cleft in the ground, layered stone upon stone all the way down into darkness. There is stillness except for the stupid birds who never fly above the hole. Her real self, a teacher of hyperbolic geometry, might wonder at this, might attempt to draw on old lessons of her own about the vacuum of the depths. The, could it be called a canyon? it's so narrow, was free from the grip of the sun but massive, human-like profiles could be seen even through the gloom. Her heart hammers in her chest, but what drove her must be done.
"There is a green water sea that bathes the feet of mountains. The black rock does not flinch from its chilly touch or the sliding caresses from the tails of the sea people, who cover their eyes with shells and grow coral along their spines. The war of flames is beneath the waves, and the icy silver stars fall, swim gracefully down to fight the great beasts with hearts of magma. They are endless, spawning with every breath of the earth. The glitter-skinned stars and the sea people, hair of anemone, barnacled hands, ride the great whales as chariots into the battle, leaving their dances behind in the hopes, one day, a door may be found deep within the mountain."
An invisible wave passed over her face and she sighed as the memories left her, the dream, the fugue state, gone as softly as a kiss. She looked around, saw a murky sparkle to the north and realized she was close to a city. A pressure on her hip, wrapped in stained layers of muslin, turned out to be a gurgling water bottle, anti-fatigue pills and a thick packet of dried meats and fruits.
"Was it a vacation? I know I've always wanted to visit the deserts," she asked and a fresh breeze grabbed her words and tugged them along to the north. Running a thin hand along the stubble on her head, she nodded once, twice, and quickly wrapped a length of the cloth around her head to prevent sunburn. Setting off with suddenly vigorous strides, she failed to hear the deep rumble of the canyon as beings of stone, veins of calcified water, stirred and stretched. Their words were the murmur of the breeze and all through the rock, the human's speech moved like quicksilver. They could not travel, could not seek the source, but deep within, they all knew, had listened and became restless.
The kitchen was a purgatory for the privileged. Comform mats surrounded low ashwood tables and slick oilskin curtains hung from the ceiling, reducing the clank of dishes and providing a sense of intimacy for the diners. There were tumbling trellises of purple flowers scattered around the room, each one anchored in a bubbling fountain that provided a place to wash before and after eating or simply a refreshing drink. Smaller passengers had occasionally attempted to bathe in them, only to have the incredibly powerful filter pointed out by a smiling Steeress. Most stayed out of the fountains and the stubborn few became amusing posthumous tales.
Betaine watched from a higher platform, the floor a graceful marble mosaic, the table carved with tittering nymphs chased by fat-bellied bears, honey on their muzzle, pregnant roasts in their paws. Vines curled around the legs, twirled together around the tabletop, sheltered the upper class passenger from the curious stares of those eating below. Despite the sound dampening, it didn't keep out all the whispering. He attempted to ignore the annoyance; it wasn't him they were interested in but who he worked for.
The meal was delightful, thick, steamed sweet rice mixed with slivers of a tender hotly-spiced meat and crumpled ugly lumps of a black mushroom that was said to grow only on the undersides of rocks overhanging the ocean. Betaine eyed it curiously at the end of his chopsticks, like a clump of brain, the sort of flower that blooms where Death walks. Sampling it produced a salty, chewy sensation and then the memory hit. He felt it explode behind his eyes, fought to gain control over the view of a sea that commanded his vision, its wild, chill churning casting clouds of spray into the clear, violet sky. Giant iridescent bags floated far over the horizon, kemket, they were called, trailed miles of tentacles to the water below. The feeling was a vast and fantastic freedom, lightly touched by loneliness.
His fingers drummed on the table in an automatic sequence, pinky twice, thumb twice, then ring, middle, index in three quick thumps and pulled him from the memory. There was a moment of silver dark waters and then the kitchen refocused around him. He sucked a morsel of the mushroom from his teeth and stared at the attendant Steeress, a dusky, curvaceous girl whose uniform barely constrained a figure that clashed with her smile, a slow seductive dance against an anxious, polished blankness. The right half of her face was covered with an elaborate tattoo that shifted as she moved. showing a familiar gold-clawed hand plucking the sun from a rose in a shower of petals. She was an obvious attempt to appease him, a subservient worshipper of his patron, similar to the ones that had tried to attend him for months.
"Do you always feed your passengers noetic hallucinogens?" he asked in between bites. The mushrooms were neutralized automatically as he ate, their memory demand denied.
"It's quite a celebrated dish and we've never had a complaint so far. Usually they enjoy the visions," the Steeress replied, "we can prepare you something else if it's causing interference with your abilities, but your teliphrase scan indicated no allergies or susceptibilities to this variety of morenel."
"No, but a warning would be appreciated next time."
"As you wish, sir. Oh, a Master Ober of the Red Dragon Cell respectfully inquires if he may join you after dinner."
Monday, November 26, 2007
Day Twelve
The hall was gleamingly, achingly white, airy and brilliant with the gentle undulating carvings Bala loved. Pillars, each a unique, blissful statue of one of the goddess' early disciples, snaked their taut forms up, supported a lattice-style roof that let in tantalizing snippets of sky. It was a smooth darkness now, but gusts of perfumed breezes poured in, bringing the scents of her gardens, her orchards, the wide green fields. With the orbs that sparkled like stars, some milky and rippling with a wild nebulous rainbow, that hung in the air and wove graceful, carefully-timed paths that kept the vast expanse softly and evenly lit, the guests agreed their hostess' coastal celebration hall was tasteful, wonderful, a thousand congratulations to her.
It was the fourth day of the festival and some of the attendees were still moving slowly around the edges of the vast expanse, admiring silver-thread tapestries showing the purifying of the Bay of Isla, Bala, wearing a crown of fangs like a halo, breaking the necks of the sea serpents that coiled in nests of thousands just below the surface, their viscous black blood pouring down her arms, her legs; the same crown of fangs, glowing with a rusty aura, thrown into the deepest part of the bay, sealing a pact between the restless spirits that moaned with the creaking voices of dead ships, that they would watch over the waters, that none of her people would drown unless willfully and one of their kinds would be pulled into Bala's paradise every hundred years.
The scenes blended into one another, the spread of the goddess' power across the planet through the depths of the seas that covered most of the surface, into the heated rock until every cell of every plant and beast bore an awareness of her...it wound like a ribbon around pillars, slid across carefully placed screens. One end was laid across a simple ivory loom, threads tattered and unfinished and while certain historians and one or two Narrators recognized the machine, most were puzzled and bemused by the notion that this clumsy, delicate device had produced this continuous expression of splendor. Jokes were hushed when a suspended projector informed them that the loom was the goddess' own and this, not the library, not the vast reservoirs of Archivist memory, was the true history as made, thread over thread, by Bala's hand.
When asked about it, she would dismissively wave her fingers at the inquirer, laughing low and saying only that it was "good to keep a hobby going."
The mistress herself was floating out on the promenade where one end of the hall had been removed and converted to a wide, sweeping balcony overlooking the murmuring waters. Her gowns were black but so heavily beaded with fire opals and pearls that they rippled with the colours of a seductive, carnivorous plant, fluttered rather stiffly in the soft winds. Feathers of a long-extinct bird bloomed from her collar and framed her perfectly painted face. Small bells were hidden in the glossy sheet of her hair and the tiny sparkling tones chased each other around the goddess' company, a suspended, angelic-faced head that radiated serenity and was said to be amongst the leading linguists of the times, able to create a language precisely suited to any person it spoke to, a deeply personal construction of sounds that echoed all the truth a person held within them; the bartender from Planet's favourite place, who bore the strained nonchalance of someone bursting at the seams with recent thrills, the songs of Bala's skin on his lips, in his brain; and the pouting Brigadier General Electorus Majour of a small, agricultural planet far from anything of note. He boasted he was all the soldier the world needed and was quite correct in that regard. It was a sleepy place of perpetual dawn, dense, smooth-trunked trees and low, worn-out foothills. The native humans had a bad habit of whispering wherever they went and wore flowing skirts and robes in a dozen layers, of golds and tawny hues, the tans of wood smoke, looking like clusters of dreaming flowers.
The head, who insisted upon being called nothing more than Thee, which annoyed the Brigadier, who placed status with name, claimed to be a construct that projected the sweetly beaming face into the current set of dimensions to facilitate its favourite hobby and anyone who wandered behind it through a space of several yards felt a strange vibration in their bones, moved quickly from the spot no matter how crowded it became elsewhere. There was so much empty space in the celebration hall that people flowed together in erratic clumps, occasionally foraying across the smooth floor to another cluster. Perhaps long ago, molecules bonded together in such a way to avoid the frightening, inviting voids around them.
"Your ability doesn't solve the problem of mutual communication, I'm afraid. While the notion is lovely, I can't see the collective sentience agreeing to a Babel state," said Bala.
Thee's teeth were small, wonderfully even with a pale bluish sheen. An aura like the dreams of butter floated around the construct.
"You operate under the conviction that communication is egalitarian, that it is to be shared between everyone. Standard or any language not built by the speaker, it is my observation, pleases none and creates deep-seated frustrations that are further compounded when those frustrations cannot be adequately expressed. Perhaps we should restrict those we talk to by restricting those we are capable of talking to."
"How does that work precisely? Won't it be rather lonely?" The bartender, despite his fugue state, attempted to impress by joining in.
"Loneliness is not a condition soothed by speaking but by receiving," said Thee, "also, psychological and emotional resonance between two beings will allow for translation of said resonance. The truths you hold, whether love or fear or hatred, will be conveyed more simply and perfectly than any current possible assembly of words. We all know you cannot lie to others from your subconscious. To yourself, you can, but others would remain free of duplicity."
"Sounds like the garbage back home."
Thee arched its head slowly towards the Brigadier General but said nothing. Bala purred in the back of her throat and smiled brilliantly.
"Master Rotham, this is surprising to hear. Your home's language is regarded as one of the last truly evolving varieties of Old Arkeen. I had arranged for some singers later in the week to attend us."
The Brigadier General rubbed his shiny forehead, curdles of steam almost rising off his meaty skull under Bala's glittering gaze. His cheeks looked packed with suet and shook slightly as he spoke.
"No....no offense meant, mistress. If they were speaking Old Arkeen, I'd have no damned problem with them. They speak..." a hand rough and red, like a slab of ribs, waved jerkily in the air, "Standard gibberish. Stuff about deserts and bones and holes in the earth. It puts a man off his course to see his own staff with nothing to say besides this crap, and then boom...back to normal. Why, my wife..."
"A compulsion plague?"
The jowls shook harder.
"We've had them all tested, every one! I thought maybe it was this wave of tourists, the trees are a popular place this time of year, but there was nothing, everything clean. We even brought in a clear-skilled impressionist fellow."
"They just say these things and then are fully functional again? Do they retain memories?" Thee asked, craning eagerly towards Rotham, who wrinkled his fat red blob of a nose.
"My wife, Etylline, she fair remembers enough for both of us, would lose my head without the girl, came home one day talking about the eyes of hope opening and listening or something like that, and when she was done, just clammed up, sat down on the table and then looked up at me. 'Rotham, how was the market projection conference?' as if nothing had happened. Couldn't for the life of her remember anything she'd said. I got the clear in, then, and he found nothing. Headache for a week and he found nothing."
He bit the edge of his fluted glass savagely before gulping the rest of his honey-smooth drink.
"That is fascinating," murmured Bala, "if it is specialists you would like to study this strange thing, I can make arrangements with my priests."
"I'll find whatever did that to my Etylline, mistress, and I'll end it faster than it can blink."
Thee sighed, a tremulous low note that pricked at Bala's ears. The feeling touched at the base of her spine, rolled upward to areas of higher functions. It felt oddly intimate and she realized this was his own language resonating within her and smiled inwardly at the sentiment.
[That is what we are afraid of.]
"If you are available sometime tomorrow, Brigadier General, I would appreciate it immensely if you made a quick stop over at one of the memory halls. I don't doubt the capabilities of your clear, but a fast scan would take no time at all. I would like to make sure my other guests remain safe."
"Security procedures, I understand," said Rotham, then nodded at the gathered company, "I'm not feeling as good as I was earlier. I think I'll call it a night."
He stumped off, leaving the trio momentarily thoughtful.
"You'll be sending someone anyway," said the bartender, looking up at the goddess. Even perfectly still, her breathing deep and calm, the air seemed to shiver around her, excited like a puppy, eager to be filled with her action.
"I may go myself if this dry spell continues. This is the first interesting thing I've heard, aside from your sweet words, in months. With Planet gone and no upstart gods to smite, I've had next to nothing to do. If something doesn't happen soon, I may die of boredom."
She rolled smoothly onto her back and locked eyes with the bartender, who trembled as she grazed his high cheekbone with a gilded nail.
"But you can keep me busy in the meantime."
It was the fourth day of the festival and some of the attendees were still moving slowly around the edges of the vast expanse, admiring silver-thread tapestries showing the purifying of the Bay of Isla, Bala, wearing a crown of fangs like a halo, breaking the necks of the sea serpents that coiled in nests of thousands just below the surface, their viscous black blood pouring down her arms, her legs; the same crown of fangs, glowing with a rusty aura, thrown into the deepest part of the bay, sealing a pact between the restless spirits that moaned with the creaking voices of dead ships, that they would watch over the waters, that none of her people would drown unless willfully and one of their kinds would be pulled into Bala's paradise every hundred years.
The scenes blended into one another, the spread of the goddess' power across the planet through the depths of the seas that covered most of the surface, into the heated rock until every cell of every plant and beast bore an awareness of her...it wound like a ribbon around pillars, slid across carefully placed screens. One end was laid across a simple ivory loom, threads tattered and unfinished and while certain historians and one or two Narrators recognized the machine, most were puzzled and bemused by the notion that this clumsy, delicate device had produced this continuous expression of splendor. Jokes were hushed when a suspended projector informed them that the loom was the goddess' own and this, not the library, not the vast reservoirs of Archivist memory, was the true history as made, thread over thread, by Bala's hand.
When asked about it, she would dismissively wave her fingers at the inquirer, laughing low and saying only that it was "good to keep a hobby going."
The mistress herself was floating out on the promenade where one end of the hall had been removed and converted to a wide, sweeping balcony overlooking the murmuring waters. Her gowns were black but so heavily beaded with fire opals and pearls that they rippled with the colours of a seductive, carnivorous plant, fluttered rather stiffly in the soft winds. Feathers of a long-extinct bird bloomed from her collar and framed her perfectly painted face. Small bells were hidden in the glossy sheet of her hair and the tiny sparkling tones chased each other around the goddess' company, a suspended, angelic-faced head that radiated serenity and was said to be amongst the leading linguists of the times, able to create a language precisely suited to any person it spoke to, a deeply personal construction of sounds that echoed all the truth a person held within them; the bartender from Planet's favourite place, who bore the strained nonchalance of someone bursting at the seams with recent thrills, the songs of Bala's skin on his lips, in his brain; and the pouting Brigadier General Electorus Majour of a small, agricultural planet far from anything of note. He boasted he was all the soldier the world needed and was quite correct in that regard. It was a sleepy place of perpetual dawn, dense, smooth-trunked trees and low, worn-out foothills. The native humans had a bad habit of whispering wherever they went and wore flowing skirts and robes in a dozen layers, of golds and tawny hues, the tans of wood smoke, looking like clusters of dreaming flowers.
The head, who insisted upon being called nothing more than Thee, which annoyed the Brigadier, who placed status with name, claimed to be a construct that projected the sweetly beaming face into the current set of dimensions to facilitate its favourite hobby and anyone who wandered behind it through a space of several yards felt a strange vibration in their bones, moved quickly from the spot no matter how crowded it became elsewhere. There was so much empty space in the celebration hall that people flowed together in erratic clumps, occasionally foraying across the smooth floor to another cluster. Perhaps long ago, molecules bonded together in such a way to avoid the frightening, inviting voids around them.
"Your ability doesn't solve the problem of mutual communication, I'm afraid. While the notion is lovely, I can't see the collective sentience agreeing to a Babel state," said Bala.
Thee's teeth were small, wonderfully even with a pale bluish sheen. An aura like the dreams of butter floated around the construct.
"You operate under the conviction that communication is egalitarian, that it is to be shared between everyone. Standard or any language not built by the speaker, it is my observation, pleases none and creates deep-seated frustrations that are further compounded when those frustrations cannot be adequately expressed. Perhaps we should restrict those we talk to by restricting those we are capable of talking to."
"How does that work precisely? Won't it be rather lonely?" The bartender, despite his fugue state, attempted to impress by joining in.
"Loneliness is not a condition soothed by speaking but by receiving," said Thee, "also, psychological and emotional resonance between two beings will allow for translation of said resonance. The truths you hold, whether love or fear or hatred, will be conveyed more simply and perfectly than any current possible assembly of words. We all know you cannot lie to others from your subconscious. To yourself, you can, but others would remain free of duplicity."
"Sounds like the garbage back home."
Thee arched its head slowly towards the Brigadier General but said nothing. Bala purred in the back of her throat and smiled brilliantly.
"Master Rotham, this is surprising to hear. Your home's language is regarded as one of the last truly evolving varieties of Old Arkeen. I had arranged for some singers later in the week to attend us."
The Brigadier General rubbed his shiny forehead, curdles of steam almost rising off his meaty skull under Bala's glittering gaze. His cheeks looked packed with suet and shook slightly as he spoke.
"No....no offense meant, mistress. If they were speaking Old Arkeen, I'd have no damned problem with them. They speak..." a hand rough and red, like a slab of ribs, waved jerkily in the air, "Standard gibberish. Stuff about deserts and bones and holes in the earth. It puts a man off his course to see his own staff with nothing to say besides this crap, and then boom...back to normal. Why, my wife..."
"A compulsion plague?"
The jowls shook harder.
"We've had them all tested, every one! I thought maybe it was this wave of tourists, the trees are a popular place this time of year, but there was nothing, everything clean. We even brought in a clear-skilled impressionist fellow."
"They just say these things and then are fully functional again? Do they retain memories?" Thee asked, craning eagerly towards Rotham, who wrinkled his fat red blob of a nose.
"My wife, Etylline, she fair remembers enough for both of us, would lose my head without the girl, came home one day talking about the eyes of hope opening and listening or something like that, and when she was done, just clammed up, sat down on the table and then looked up at me. 'Rotham, how was the market projection conference?' as if nothing had happened. Couldn't for the life of her remember anything she'd said. I got the clear in, then, and he found nothing. Headache for a week and he found nothing."
He bit the edge of his fluted glass savagely before gulping the rest of his honey-smooth drink.
"That is fascinating," murmured Bala, "if it is specialists you would like to study this strange thing, I can make arrangements with my priests."
"I'll find whatever did that to my Etylline, mistress, and I'll end it faster than it can blink."
Thee sighed, a tremulous low note that pricked at Bala's ears. The feeling touched at the base of her spine, rolled upward to areas of higher functions. It felt oddly intimate and she realized this was his own language resonating within her and smiled inwardly at the sentiment.
[That is what we are afraid of.]
"If you are available sometime tomorrow, Brigadier General, I would appreciate it immensely if you made a quick stop over at one of the memory halls. I don't doubt the capabilities of your clear, but a fast scan would take no time at all. I would like to make sure my other guests remain safe."
"Security procedures, I understand," said Rotham, then nodded at the gathered company, "I'm not feeling as good as I was earlier. I think I'll call it a night."
He stumped off, leaving the trio momentarily thoughtful.
"You'll be sending someone anyway," said the bartender, looking up at the goddess. Even perfectly still, her breathing deep and calm, the air seemed to shiver around her, excited like a puppy, eager to be filled with her action.
"I may go myself if this dry spell continues. This is the first interesting thing I've heard, aside from your sweet words, in months. With Planet gone and no upstart gods to smite, I've had next to nothing to do. If something doesn't happen soon, I may die of boredom."
She rolled smoothly onto her back and locked eyes with the bartender, who trembled as she grazed his high cheekbone with a gilded nail.
"But you can keep me busy in the meantime."
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Day Eleven
A brawl was brewing amongst the mercenaries, their curses thick molasses in the heavy atmosphere. Small blue-green sparks began to flicker across the ceiling tiles, causing the orbs to shiver. The one who had attempted to set Betaine's coat on fire was almost screeching, dashing back and forth in a half-circle, his shouts rippling the air. Books were flung about, fluttering like crows to the floor and hands used to a dozen different weapons twitched impotently or clenched in concentration.
"You sick, rotten son of a slut! I'll wrap your intestines around your heart until it pops..."
The words fell, clunky, stone-like, on sudden silence. Glasses had been gathered and a peaceful tableau resumed in the group, save for the screamer. The anger on his face spasmed with nervousness and uncertainty as he stood alone, still bouncing from foot to foot. Betaine opened his eyes and saw the same bubbly Steeress from before, smiling the same brittle smile.
"Bethany, I can explain," said the smaller mercenary, "he's young and stupid. I'll thrash him well when we get to Regulskek."
The girl took one, two steps forward, was less than a meter from Betaine, ignored his presence completely.
"Yes you will, Ober, but his disruption of the lights has disturbed the Controller, not to mention the teeny infraction he's committed against the esteemed guest of the goddess, Bala. The captain wishes to see him."
Ober paled under his leathery tan, glared half in pity and disgust at his now scared piss-less companion.
"You dumb sack of waste, I hope you enjoyed that potshot at the uptight little fucker (no offense meant). I'm canceling your contract when we get home."
"But sir..."
"Don't sir me anymore, you get stupid enough to hit a VIP, I'm not having you at my back. He's all yours, Bethany."
She clapped her thin, pale hands together twice, softly and the man simply wasn't there anymore.
"He'll be back within the hour."
Ober snorted softly, nervously fingered his rolled collar.
"You can kick him off and charge me the fees. He was out of my jurisdiction the moment he used that igniter and I apologize for the problem."
Bethany tilted her shiny blond head to the side.
"Was this before or after you tried to get him yourself, Ober? We would not like to disturb his mistress. She owns the only landing field large enough for the wheels in this system."
She watched him squirm for a moment, then folded her hands behind her back and widened her smile before pivoting on the heel of her thick-heeled boot. Even when her eyes met Betaine's, there was no acknowledgment there.
"I do hope you will not take offense, please, at the actions against you by the ah, former member of the Red Dragon Cell. If you require medical assistance, please let me know. All expenses will be covered by Master Ober."
The mercenary's gaze flickered between Betaine and Bethany as if expecting the air between them to crack and freeze.
Betaine felt the glossy wall of her personality, the obsidian shiny core that blacked out the frenzied noise of the other passengers and spoke of heavy rejection training. Of course she would have it. There was no better protection against the abilities of the passengers, even at the cost of being sealed away from the cycles of ambient energy that fed sentient existence in the Universe. A shortened life span, the indescribable aloneness of being a null point in your own racial memory...
"There will be meals served shortly, please, in the main kitchen for general passengers who so desire. You, sir, may dine when you please."
The words bounced like a soap bubble through the lounge and Bethany turned sharply, left the commons area down a lemon yellow corridor.
"You sick, rotten son of a slut! I'll wrap your intestines around your heart until it pops..."
The words fell, clunky, stone-like, on sudden silence. Glasses had been gathered and a peaceful tableau resumed in the group, save for the screamer. The anger on his face spasmed with nervousness and uncertainty as he stood alone, still bouncing from foot to foot. Betaine opened his eyes and saw the same bubbly Steeress from before, smiling the same brittle smile.
"Bethany, I can explain," said the smaller mercenary, "he's young and stupid. I'll thrash him well when we get to Regulskek."
The girl took one, two steps forward, was less than a meter from Betaine, ignored his presence completely.
"Yes you will, Ober, but his disruption of the lights has disturbed the Controller, not to mention the teeny infraction he's committed against the esteemed guest of the goddess, Bala. The captain wishes to see him."
Ober paled under his leathery tan, glared half in pity and disgust at his now scared piss-less companion.
"You dumb sack of waste, I hope you enjoyed that potshot at the uptight little fucker (no offense meant). I'm canceling your contract when we get home."
"But sir..."
"Don't sir me anymore, you get stupid enough to hit a VIP, I'm not having you at my back. He's all yours, Bethany."
She clapped her thin, pale hands together twice, softly and the man simply wasn't there anymore.
"He'll be back within the hour."
Ober snorted softly, nervously fingered his rolled collar.
"You can kick him off and charge me the fees. He was out of my jurisdiction the moment he used that igniter and I apologize for the problem."
Bethany tilted her shiny blond head to the side.
"Was this before or after you tried to get him yourself, Ober? We would not like to disturb his mistress. She owns the only landing field large enough for the wheels in this system."
She watched him squirm for a moment, then folded her hands behind her back and widened her smile before pivoting on the heel of her thick-heeled boot. Even when her eyes met Betaine's, there was no acknowledgment there.
"I do hope you will not take offense, please, at the actions against you by the ah, former member of the Red Dragon Cell. If you require medical assistance, please let me know. All expenses will be covered by Master Ober."
The mercenary's gaze flickered between Betaine and Bethany as if expecting the air between them to crack and freeze.
Betaine felt the glossy wall of her personality, the obsidian shiny core that blacked out the frenzied noise of the other passengers and spoke of heavy rejection training. Of course she would have it. There was no better protection against the abilities of the passengers, even at the cost of being sealed away from the cycles of ambient energy that fed sentient existence in the Universe. A shortened life span, the indescribable aloneness of being a null point in your own racial memory...
"There will be meals served shortly, please, in the main kitchen for general passengers who so desire. You, sir, may dine when you please."
The words bounced like a soap bubble through the lounge and Bethany turned sharply, left the commons area down a lemon yellow corridor.
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