| << Inheritance: The Discovery | Index | Inheritance: Forceblind >> |
| Errant Fate - Part 2 |
Errant Fate - Part 2
I hadn't been easy; and Cal had run a real risk. Cal, the friend in Personnel she
wasn't supposed to have- he was both male, and a civilian Technician.
The risk had been a double one: telling her of the next stopover for reprovisioning and arranging for her
a work assignment to go as one of the controllers of the incoming merchandise. It had been the act of a real friend, and
carried a prison term, at best, if discovered.
The huge stardestroyer swam into the orbit of the small planet that was the center of the System of Rantaar, the center of it's commerce. The Empire liked reprovisioining in systems that were at the crossroads of the Spacelanes. Systems like Rantaar were very far from being organized, civilized, controlled Imperial Bases- all to the contrary. But they were extremely convenient to the Empire for it's ships in the availability of merchandise, news, and the facility for darker activities such as the exchange of spies.
Ayo stepped from the shuttle onto the soil of Rantaar VII at the town of Skansic and, together
with five others, took a grav-platform over to the enormous warehouses whre a detachment of Lanias, one Wookiee and about
ten droids were expecting them. One full workday did she put it, logging manifests while the Lanias,the Wookiee and their droids
loaded the cases and bales into the transport shuttles.
Other Controllers went up and down with the shuttles. She refused, staying at her 'puter
and drawing admiring glances from her fellow controllers for her dedication.
The workday ended late at planetary night. A ring of moons came out, to light up the black sky. Ayo, walking with her colleagues to the Imperial Stopover Inn, for the first time conscioiusly breathed in the strange-smelling air. She shook her head to clear it of figures and items and stretched to rid her muscles of cramps, her blind purpose resurfacing in her mind.
,At the Inn, she checked in, told her companions to wake her early but not to
disturb her. She was very tired and wanted to get a full night's sleep. She then waitied a prudential while,
and went out by the back door.
Into the town of labyrinthine alleys. of gaudy lighting and twised pleasures, of strange colors
and strangers smells. Into the miserable, tawdry, fascinatingly exotic, deadly town.
At the crossroads of shipping, it catered to the million spacefolks that comprised
oxygen-breatherss. All the unsavory denizens of illegality were present too, which was precisely what
Ayo needed at the moment.
In the market, she soon found what she was looking for: a caftan-like garment that completely
covered her uniform. Much like the Tagaral of her own world, its colors were dark and harmonious with the woven pattern
of an unknown planet. It even had a cowl that went over her head, and a big pocket into which she folded her hat.
Her second and third purchases were a blaster and a false identity-disk. Her fourth, a passage
to Astovar.
The passage was on a space-ferry, scarcely large enough for the one hundred twenty passengers of all races and their belongings the captain crammed into her hold. Ayo sat on the floor, sunken into her caftan, leaning on the bale at her left and feeling lucky. Cal had also drawn out all the pay due her, and she had enough money left for almost all of her passage to her final destination. Hopefully the last leg- the hardest one- would be negotiable too.
Astovar was only one hour away by hyperdrive, hence the ferry. From it she took
the line transport "Alderaan Beauty" which, in spite of her name, was a rundown passenger ship that
must have been all of a hundred years old. It boasted sleeping quarterss with showers though, and she gratefully
took one while they were in hyperspace. She was hungry too, but food cost extra and she preferred to keep the
rest of her money for emergencies.
Lying on her bunk, she cleared her mind, trying to think; astonished at herself, someone
she didn't know at all. Someone elemental and cunning, ruled by emotion. No more a sane, disciplined officer-in-training.
No more so than Ensign Silesbadian had been the adventurous young Ayo, daughter of Councilwoman Axos.
She contemplated her life, and her fate, as if from the outside; found it jumbled, disordered and meaningless. Finally, she fell asleep; her body tired out.
When she woke they were coming in. They made good time. She was halfway to her final destination. Now, to wait for three planetary days, until the next ship left.
Cantrell, the present stopover, was as unlike Rantaar as Rantaar was unlike Bons. It was a mining colony; a world that looked as if made exclusively of rock, with large mud flats where other planets had seas and lakes.
The mining was of two main products: carsium, a natural plastic used in jewelry and electronics, that was mined from the mud, and obreks, a complex semi-metal, vital in the molecularization of compound alloys, wrested from the rock. The planet looked very modest and obscure; but it was on the Lanes, very much so, and downtown-at the spaceport city of Bentonis-t they advertised trips to all parts of the galaxy.
Distracted from her problems for a moment, Ayo stood entranced before a large holo ,in the
window of an eating-house, that showed a floating city of dreamlike beauty, surrounded by coral clouds, billed as the
" Gambling Capital of the Universe." She though that she'd probably never see it now. Her goals had undergone such
a radical, frightening change of direction. Ambition, adventure, even curiosity- it all seemed to belong to another person
now, another life.
All she wanted- needed- at the present was to find her way Home, her way to her poeple. To
help them.
" Excuse me, but you aren't going that way, are you?" A man stood behind her, pointing at
the holo. He looked like a typical miner, if miners did look like that. Dusty, somehow hard-bitten, tired. Ayo felt
no menace from him, not even curiousity. The man just wanted something.
" No, I'm not. I'm going somewhere else.".
" Bons?" He studied her obsidian face, her large eyes, admiringly. " If so, I'd like to ask for
a favor. Why don't you come in, I'll buy you a drink."
She looked at him for a moment, then smiled.
" Make it breakfast and you're on." She hadn't eaten anything for almost two days.
Breakfast on Cantrell consisted of a platter of unknow, but tasty, vegetable fried in what was clearly butter, a bowl of diminutive hard-boiled eggs and very hard biscuits. And, she though ruefully, the kind of slop that passed for brew almost everywhere in the galaxy, except for Bons. She thought nostalgically of her family's afternoon meals, then fell to with appetite.
" This is it." Said her benefactor, handing her a 'puter card. " I have this
message for someone on Bons; been carrying it on me now for over three years- only nobody goes in that direction.
It's from a very important man on that place you were looking at- Cloud City.
" It looks so beautiful. How come you left it for this?" For a moment, he curiousity was back.
" Trouble with the Union. I was their Monitor, and they didn't like me fraternizing with
Management; though I had more in common there than with the Labors, but...never mind all that. This card is for someone
called Orro Clarissian, in Tabaleantis.
" Tabaleantis is on North- the Northern Continent. I'm going South. I doubt very
much that I'll be able to deliver this-if I make it to Bons at all."
" I know. It's been Occupied. But that's the reason you're going there, isn't it?"
" You're very perceptive. " She thought that, in spite of his appearance, this man spoke like an
educated sentient. Who knew were he had originally come from, what his fate had been?
A womsn came in then, and walked directly over to her companion. She wasn't tall, but very wiry;
straw-like hair, bleached by the sun, a million wrinkles in her tanned face.
" Mal- trouble." She said. " Some stormtroopers just landed. They're looking for..." She ran down
as she saw Ayo.
" For me." She rose rapidly. " Hide me and I'll make it worth your while."
" You don't even have enough money to buy yourself breakfast." Said the man named Mal, but not
unkindly.
" No, not here- I've just enough to try and reach Bons; but my family is wealthy, and my mother is
a Councilwoman. I can send you a thousand credits when I arrive."
" Two thousand." Said the woman,flatly. " And we'll only hide you until the next ship
leaves."
" The ship after the next, Bara. " Said Mal. " Hopefully, that's the one they won't
search."
" Come on." Bara and Mal were already halfway to the door before she ran after them- out into
the rocky wastes that lay so close, just behind the town.
IN a ravine they found a trapdoor in the rock and pushed her in, and down. The way they
made through the tunnels of the disused mine was very confusing;with twists and turns going even deeper down. Ayo thought,
pessimistically, that they were trapping her so thoroughly that she'd never find her way back up and out.
Mostly, she walked in complete darkness, guided by the firm footsteps of her
companions. Sometimes there was light, supplied by everglow lumas fixed in the rock, which had been cheaper
to leave than to remove when the mine was abandoned.
They finally stopped in a small, and very damp, cave which was lighted.
" There. They'll never find you here. I'll come back later to bring you some blankets and
food. The water is drinkable." The woman, Bara, gestured to the trickle that slowly dripped from the black rock into
a natural basin.
" When is the next ship due?" Ayo was beginning to feel an intense depression; maybe
caused by the awareness of the tone of rock over her head.
" In three days." Mal clapped her on the shoulder. " You will take the message,
won't you? Even if you never come near the North Continent, at least it'll have reached Bons and maybe someone else
will deliver it, eventually."
" And if I don't ever reach Bons?"
" Then we'll both have done the best we can." Mal shrugged. " I figure that, after four years, the
message might be obsolete anyway."
Ayo agreed. She took the small card,which fitted comfortably in her pocket together with her
few belongings. Orro Calrissian- a good Bons name. Maybe she
would meet it's bearer.
She was alone then. She thought that she'd never been so alone in her life; in that completely isolated cave, the slowly dripping water the only sound. But it was quite warm in there, much warmer than the planet's outdoors, more like a heated room.
She stripped and sat in the small basin, letting the cool water run over her skin. It was very restful, and she loosened cramped muscles-lay herself on her robe to dry. But she wasn't tired enough to sleep- or maybe was too tense. Her thoughts went round and round.
After that burst of horror, no more feelings had come to her from Bons. She fretted because she hadn't been Thinking of her mother, the Seeing of Erol, and couldn't know, really, what exactly had happened. To whom. Presumably to Ballis. Ballis might now be...She shut her mind firmly. The Empire. The Empire had done this, whatever it was. Dark, twisted feelings were trying to come up which she repressed firmly. Shut up- shut up. Shup up! Until you know for sure, until you are certain. Until you know- don't judge. Don't hate- don't think. Just go Home.
She was asleep when Bara came back with two blankets and a foodbox. The clothes she brought,
Ayo refused. She'd wear her uniform under the caftan. It might still come in useful. She felt Bara's disappointment under her shrug-
and she'd wanted the boots.
" Are they still searching?"
" Yeah, but it's part of a general search- of all points radiating from where you disappeared. They don't
have any special reason to think you're here. They'll soon be gone."
And they won't waste too much time on a female ensign anyway, thought Ayo. It's not
as if I were a male officer- but they have to go through the motions.
An ensign. She was an ensign in the Navy, now a deserter.
Not really- she was still officially AWOL only. After a tenday though, she would be a deserter,
and subject, if caught, not just to solitary confinement but to Court Martial and the risk of being shot on sight.
For a while, Ayo thought she'd never make it from Cantrell. Yet, Mal and Bara's smuggling her onto the ship, leaving on her fifth planetary day,had been successful. The ship was a tramp, and her captain too. He accepted Ayo's next-to-last credits without any questions.
As they went underway, she joined the other passengers in the hold. A Human miner from the other side of Cantrell, a Langyan who dealt in jewelry, and a Mon Calamari and his droid who lugged around marine pumps in two grav-boxes that never left his side. Ayo asked him, how come the pumps on a planet that had no oceans or laked." Cantrell was my only system of junction, dear lady." The Mon Calamari sopke a fair Galactic, and was extremely polite. " The pumps actually come from my system. I'm selling them to the Wartand on Sabstiine; but they need close adjustment, so I can't just send them over."
Too much of an explanation. Ayo felt something amiss. An uneasiness at having to lie. Apprehension. She understood. He was no salesman, and those were no pumps.
Well the trip would soon be over. She consoled herself with the though; and at that
moment they came out of hyperspace.
As once before, auddenly there were ships all around their battered craft. Fighters, and
one civilian-looking freighter.
Calmly, the Mon Calamari walked to the airlock. He was wearing his spacesuit now, and pointed
a blaster. His droid was behind him.
" Nobody interferes, please. I'm just leaving. I wish you all a safe and successful
trip. " He clapped his helmet shut, hefted his grav-boxes, and cycled the airlock. Ayo and the rest of the travellers glued
themselves to the bay, to see him space-walk to the freighter where another suited figure was expecting him outside the entry.
It happened then, with the same suddenness. TIE fighters, swarming around the ships,
shooting in deadly accuracy. The Mon Calamari, and his host, floated away, corpses in the gravitational current around the
freighter. One of the TIE's made a maneuver, and magnetic clamps grabbed the grav-boxes and the droid.
" Star Destroyer!" Yelled the Langyan, pointing; and, with a curse, the captain jumped
into hyperspace.
" You were endangering us all by stopping, you scum!" The Langyan was almost
inarticulate with rage.
" You haven't bought my ship, Mister." The captain wiped his bald brow. " He paid me
to stop."
" Poor guy, poor guy!" The miner wailed.
" He was a gun-runner, a Rebel!" The Langyan spat.
" He was an idealist, and I salute him!" The miner stared the Langyan down.
" You, sexless wonder, wouldn't understand."
Ayo just sat there, her head in a whirl. So this was the War. Civil War, only whispered
at on planets. Very real out here in the Starlanes of commerce, where the Rebels used semi-illegal ships, like this one,
to transport equipment. Or had it been armament
Suddenly she thought of her uniform under the robe. Her boots could be glimpsed. She
went to the drawer she had been assigned, that passed for sleeping quarters, to lay low until they came in at
their next destination.
The planet Tatooine, in the Tatoo System.
Since, from Cantrell she had been obliged to take the ship after next, her travel plans- made when buying her first passages, had gone awry. She would never have planned on using Tatooine as a stopover, given a choice. The Tatoo system had only one assest to recommend it: the Empire, out of disdain, left it alone Otherwise, it was all liabilities.
On the outskirts of the spacelanes ,it was a binary star system with several
planets; but only one that was inhabited, or even inhabitable. Tatooine was a desert ball of rock, with sandstorms
blowing over immense plains and deep canyons of colored, naked strata of rock so baked by the two suns
that it looked leached out and crumbled. There was so little moisture the farmers had to condense even
drinking water out of the soil and the atmosphere by mechanical means.
For there were farmers. Ayo reflected that, given the least chance, sentients
would manage to cling to even the worst kind of soil to try and eke out a living. She was not surprised to be told
that almost all the farmers were Human. Among the sentients, it was the humans who were the most tenacious-and
foolhardy- in matters of settlement.
The criminal element was well represented too; with a gang-lord,not of the
human race, keeping his fortress on the other side of the planet.
Even so, Mos Eisley-the spaceport- was a good sized town. Presumably she'd be able to book
passage on another tramp which would, hopefully, bring her as close as possible to the Occupied Bons.
" You'd better come with me." Said Sol Warten, the bald human who captained the ship she was
leaving. " You'll need to sleep over, and to find passage out of here. I know this place. I bring in cargo regularly,
Probably smuggled goods, thought Ayo. She didn't mind. She'd stopped thinking in terms of
law and order quite a while back.
" I've got very little money- and I need to eat. Do you know a really cheap place?"
" Don't worry." Warten said gruffly. " We'll go to my regular inn- they'll stake us to a
meal there."
She was touched. She'd asked for nothing, volunteered nothing, yet here she was being
offered kindness. Basically, sentients were good...
If she thought that Skansic, on Rantaar, was labyrinthine in it's alleys, that was because
she hadn't been to Mos Eisley.
When she followed Warten through the narrow ways, it was all she could do to stay behind him and not lose
him in the crowd. Ten to fifteen sentients being the crowd at such close quarters! It was incredible how, on such
a bare and airy planet, the town's alleys were so closed in and claustrophobic; more like catacombs than streetss, saying
quite a bit about the inhabitants.
The inn was like the town itself. A mixture of technology and miserliness; automatic
doors and molecular cookers with worn stone floors and peeling adobe walls. The people in charge, a Human woman and a Lurrian, cooked
over the molecular cooker as if it were an open fire- in a pot! The pot's contents smelled so good, though, that not
only her mouth, but her eyes began to water.
" What ships are in? Oran here needs passage Out." Said Warten, jerking his thumb in Ayo's
direction. He helped himself to more stew and ladled a second helping onto her plate.
" Three or four- but they're not leaving this tenday. On the other hand, the Watashaw Courier,
on her way to Sonosken on Secondday, is expected tomorrow. " Said the woman, whose name was Aliku and who had sat down
companionably at their table. She was smoking an unfamiliar weed in a water pipe.
" Hmm, that's Captain Suaru Bandei. I got to talk to her." Warten wiped his mouth and
held out his mug to be refilled. " And you better send word to You-Know-Who that I'm in."
" Right. So he'll -see you before Bandei gets here."
" That's right." The captain sat back and loosened his belt. " That was great, Aliku; great cooking,
you're the best!"
Silently, Ayo agreed. She tried to ignore the cryptic talk of these two. More
mysteries. Possibly smuggling deals; yet this had a different feel. Well- it certainly wasn't any of her business.
" Want a pipe, Oran?" Aliku offered.
But Ayo shook her head- leery of unfamiliar narcotics. " Please, just show me where
to sleep, and I won't bother you anymore."
" No bother." The woman rose and gathered her dusty robes to herself. " Any friend of Sol is
welcome here."
The room she was shown into was so small there was nothing in it save the cot. The clothes-locker was a niche in the thick wall. There was another niche with a wall-fountain dispensing crystal-pure water from the spigot, condensation from the atmosphere; otherwise it was empty. But the ceiling was high and spacious, a painted dome. Her stomach really full for the first time since Cantrell, she was tired out and fell into a dreamless sleep.
At dawn, twin suns looked into her window; a window high over the city. She went to it. looked
out over the massed, round roofs of this outlandish town and further, over the trackless desert. At that hour, the air
was clean and cool, the shadows a clear blue, the sunlight a light yellow. She saw the beauty then, the beauty of the
desert, the freedom of it's expanses; filled her lungs with the clean oxygen.
For juat a moment, she wished she could walk out into the desert and keep on walking.
She felt extraordinarily rested and relaxed, full of energy. It was strange how this run-down
inn, this ancient slum building, gave her an extremely good feeling. Maybe because of the people in it.
Her glance fell on the inn's inner courtyard, directly under her window. It held a rusted moisture condenser
reaching for the sky, potted plants, and a round bench of ancient plastic. Suddenly, she felt she wanted very much to explore that
courtyard.
There was nobody in the kitchen, though brew and softbreads were in the making over the cooker. After
some false starts up and down the corridors of the inn, she found the courtyard, which now had people in it.
Three humans were sitting on the bench, with a Lurrian standing by. The Lurrian was Waba, she'd
met yesterday. The humans, the captain and Aliku-and a stranger.
They didn't notice her in the shadows of the entrances; and for some reason she didn't announce her presence. Ayo was not a snoop, eavesdropping would usually never have ocurred to her; but this time found her riveted in place because of that stranger,
He was a human male, an old man, who seemed tall even sitting down. He wore a cowled desert coat that looked older than he was, and under it some kind of robe and a sash. His face was nondescript, as was his white hair and wispy beard; but his personality-his presence- was quite extraordinary.
Ayo had the Sensing, and she was dazzled by this man; this pink, quite old, human
stranger. He radiated wisdom and a pervasive power. The feel of him was somehow remote, as if he spent most
of his time away from other people. Under it there was this layer of strength and enormous experience, ready to spring
back up at a signal, to dwarf everyone else in sight...
His voice was sonorous, like that of a man half his age.
" What of Atakanas?" He was saying.
" He's dead." Warten answered him bitterly. " And so is Indar. The Imperials knew exactly
where to be to hijack the two distorterss. There's got to be a spy in our Circle."
" I agree. You had better not return to Tatooine in the forseeable future; and
neither should Suaru Bandei after her present voyage. I need at least two more years of undisturbed peace here."
" Don't worry, I'm not planning to- and I'll talk to her." Said Warten broodingly.
" But, Ben, whay is it so important that they leave you alone?" Asked Aliku.
" Let's just say that I love the desert. I'm a hermit, as you know." There was amusement in his voice.
He raised his head then, and Ayo knew that he'd sensed her all along-and didn't fear her discovering their secrets." Hello, there.
Come out, child, don't be shy."
She went to him, held by his eyes. Extraordinary blue eyes, young looking and piercing; they
totally matched his personality.
Aliku and Waba brought the breakfast table, adn they all sat together around it while she poured her
delicious, hot brew.
Ayo was not to forget that dawn breakfast on Tatooine. On the hard bench, under the faded awning, amid the potted plants, she felt at home. At home in the Universe. The dry air, the suns heating up, the peacefulness radiated by the old man called Ben, sitting opposite, erased her anxiety -even her bitterness. This was a time out, a putting all problems on hold. Breakfast at World's dawn...
At last there was the sound of a turbo speeder before the house, and Ben rose.
"There's my transportation. I must go. Here's the message sent last month for your terminal. Remember,
don't talk where anyone of your Circle can overhear." A small 'puter card changed hands. " Farewell, my friends.
May the Force be with you." He was gone.
" Who's he? He's...remarkable." Ayo blurted out before she could stop herself.
" Ben lives all alone in the desert, few people know him. You better not have seen him either! Hear me?"
Aliku frowned menacingly at her.
" I hear you." Ayo understood the situation perfectly; but she had no intention of letting
anyone know. She felt only gratitude for having met him; for having been in his presence. She knew that she'd never
forget him.
Him, and the strange thing he'd said: May the Force be with you. The Force.
Passage on the Watashaw Courier had been easy to procure, with Warten putting in
a good word with Captain Bandei who took the last of her money with no haggling.
This being the last, there had better be no further detours, thought Ayo. Sonosken, where the
Watashaw Courier was going, was in her Quadrant and Sector: Fairview. This time, astronomical nearness and navigational
convenience were meeting, and she could alomst feel her Home, but-being in Fairview- Sonosken System was, if not
Occupied, at least under heavy traffic by the Empire.
Which was going to be of help in stealing back to Bons- a System she could not
enter openly anyway,
Sonosken II was urban centers and tens of millions of oxygen-breathing sentients, and other-breaters who wore life- support systems. THe bustle betwen the mile-high, antigrav- assisted, buildings and on the hanging bridges was incredible. Ayo had never been on a fully industrialized planet before,and she was overwhelmed. She tried hard not to gape, even though she wanted to stop and gawk; a hard thing to do anyway when wedged in the streaming crowds. A greater contrast to Tatooine was not to be imagined!
There was so much equipment and armament aroung it was not even warehoused, just stacked
ready for shipping.
With the rest of the population, Ayo walked past; just starting to formulate a plan. She was wearing
her uniform openly. There were so many Imperial forces around she was completely anonymous. She certainly
wouldn't have been had she been wearing her robe, which was kept in a small, inconspicuous grav-bag( courtesy of Aliku)
with the rest of her few belongings. Naval Officers' uniforms being all the same, except for the insignias, the best
disguise for her now was her greens.
Another good thing was that, to the pink Humans, she didn't look like a woman. Tall as the average
man, very thin, her deep voice, brisk walk and short, curled hair made her seem male to the casual eye..
It was on Sonosken that she felt it for the first time ever: Alien-ness. This enormous
place, with it's incredible crowds, was completely different from everywhere else she had ever been- or even
viewed. There was an alien feel, hugeness, multitude, numbness. The people weren't happy, not even
interested. Still, there was a lot of hustle and bustle, rapacity and greed; the wish to profit from others.
It was not that the people were mostly from the dregs of society, as in the alleys of
Skansic; no, they were very businesslike, and even law-abiding, but their feel was very bad. Their sheer
numbers, to an empath, made for almost overwhelming, blanketing, depression.
With no money to spend, she roamed the streets and, that night slept on
grass, hidden in some bushes, on one of the patches of greenery that broke up the concrete every so often
In the morning, she decided to put her half-formulated plan into operation- to use her
knowledge of Imperial procedure to board one of the transports heading for Bons. For she knew that there had to be. Bons
was the most recently Occupied system in the sector. She found her way back to the neighborhood where she'd seen
the containers ready for the transport.
Walking down whle streets stacked with containers, she soon spotted the markings 13-VNXXA29,
which meant the 'Star of Heaven' on the Empire's charts.
There was no question of loitering; she went briskly past, as if on an errand. How to make
contact? The answer stared her in the face: a group of ten, unsupervised, droids who were loading smaller containers into a
space-barge. She well knew how to speak to Imperial droids.
Ten minuts later, she was inside the barge with another droid who-on her orders- opened the door of one of the containers for her inspection. While she was inside, the barge took off; also under droid piloting. Too easy. Anxiety rose. So little supervision? Everything on Sonosken was automatic, everything was different.
They reached orbit ,and the transport for Bons, while she was till inside the
container with the droid- the pilot and the other one having forgotten all about her. She had known how to manage
that alright. She'd been programming and repairing droids since childhood. She was working on the
last droid when she felt the jump into hyperspace.
Before she could even think of what to do next, they were in the System of the Star
of Heaven; and then she understood why there had been no supervision. Nobody was going anywhere.
The containers, which held bulk chemicals, were rolled out into space. She was lucky
they were vacuum proof. There they stayed, in orbit, for three planetary days and nights during which she was
veryhungry. Even so, now that she was practically Home, her obsession left her.
She was here, she'd made it back to her family and friends. Back to Erol. Two years
and a half without the man in her life, without her companion since childhood, her mate since adolescence. Two years
and one half she'd abandoned him, left him behind. If I get out of this, she swore to him in her mind, I'll make
it up to you!"
When they opened her container, it was on Corclami; the small artificial moon in her System dedicated to the namufacture of special alloys. Her luck held; the openers were her own people, not even conscripts, but technical laborers on contract from the ground. She showed herself to them, and they endangered themselves by hiding her and feeding her and stowing her away on a shuttle leaving for South on the Planet.
There were strangers there. Ayo reconnoitered from up a tree and saw no one she knew, either under the weather-bells or in the domes. She slipped through the branches like a shadow, to fetch up over the Kalosian Estate, that of her neighbors.
Kika Kalosian , she'd known all of her life, she caught as she was leaving her dome. A bit of bark, thrown onto the crown of her head, and Kika looked up- stark horror in her eyes at the sight of the uniform. Terror disappeared when she recognized Ayo, who put out a hand. Kika jumped up into the tree, half astonished, half outraged.
" Are you crazy to come back now?"
" When I learned of the Occupation, I had to. What's going on? Where's everybody?"
" Your family was evicted. Your parents are in Dome Panat, on West Continent, for medical treatment. Your uncle and aunt went to Saskya." Kika looked very scared.
" Evicted! " Ayo gripped Kika's shoulder, making her wince. " Why do my parents need medical treatment? What about Ballis? Is he alright? Tell me everything!"
Kika's eyes filled with tears. She didn't speak, but her emotions did; and Ayo had the first inkling of the catastrophe that had befallen her.
" They say that Lomn and Ballis tried to fight the stormtroopers with their bare hands. Now Ballis needs a new foot, Lomn a graft of vocal chords- but they'll be alright. You know that Dome Panat has the very best medical facilities in the System."
That was terrible, and incredible. Incredibly foolish. Ballis, yes- but her father? What had really happened? And she needed to talk to Erol. Now they were so close, and somehow she still couldn't believe she was going to see him so shortly. " I must go to Saskya."
" Don't, Ayo." Kika grabbed her sleeve. " It's too late..."
" What?" Ice was seeping through her blood.
" The one you're looking for, he's not..." Kika took her hand, drew her down the tree and into Erol's experimental garden on the border between both their estates. " Come, Ayo. You have to know sometime."
She stood, speechless, before the gravel. For an eternal moment there was no understanding,
and no world. Just chaos, and blackness, and infinite thunder echoing inside her head.
Then she screamed. Heedless of discovery, oblivious of reason; like a wounded
animal, crazed by pain. Kika held her and tried to stop her mouth with her hands, but she shook her off and
ran; stumbling down the path between the trees, gaggin and gasping for breath. She found herself fording the
small stream and fetching up at her estate's boundaries.
Enough reason returned to prompt her to once again climb the trees, up and higher up.
To burrow into the fronds, to hide, and let the terrible truth sink in and become a fact.
All day, and most of the night, she stayed there. At times there were tears, mostly she just rocked
back and forth. Once, she slept.
In the darkest hour, before the dawn, she climbed down and put on her robe; making
her way on the ground to Saskya.
The town was asleep at that hour, the domes darkened, but Ayo still had her comlink. Like every Proud, everywhere, she had kept her Home comlink- the size of a powercell- with her at all times, even off-system. SHe didn't doubt that Uncle Ward and Aunt Beta kept theirs; even after having been driven from their home. She punched the buttons.
Fifteen minutes later, she was in their small dome; having taken a route partly
overhead, partly underground, once she had the coordinates. Her relatives surrounded her,and hugged her, and
took her unto the sub-basement.
" What a foolhardy thing to do- to return illegally!" Ward looked her uniform up and down.
" Your're a deserter, aren't you?" Tamar said tremulously.
She studied the three of them- the imcomplete three, there in the cellar, in the
unshielded light. There were lines in Ward's tired face she'd never seen before. Tamar looked a stranger, but Beta
was now an old woman.
Ayo looked at them with a far detachment. There was no grief for them, in spite of their
fate. At the moment, there was only her selfish pain, a hole at the very core of her soul, a part of life itself, missing.
She couldn't think of how she was going to on with life. She couldn't think, period.
" Tell me." She said, and Tamar held on to her and wept and choked in the telling. Ward
sat, his face frozen in stone; but her aunt left the cellar, her steps becoming a run on the metal
passageway over their heads.
" It's my fault- it's all my fault. " Ayo could see the scene of slaughter so vividly
behind her eyes; maybe she was reading Tamar and Ward's thoughts as well as their emotions." If I hadn't left it
would never have happened."
" It's my fault- it's all my fault." Ayo could see the scene of slaughter so vividly behind her
eyes, maybe she was reading Tamar and Ward's thoughts as well as their emotions. " If I hadn't left it would never have
have happened."
" That is nonsense, Niece." Ward put his hand on her shoulder. " Had you been here, you might now
be dead."
Which might be a relief.
" Actually, it was mine. " Tamar stood straight, not touching her now." I attacked the
troopers holding Ballia. I wasn't crazy, Ayo. I just couldn't bear it."
After you loved me- you loved Ballis. Even after he married someone else. Oh, I know, thought
Ayo.
But Ballis wasn't dead. He'd spend the rest of his life with a mechanical left foot- that was no tragedy, just an inconvenience. Ballis was alive-it was Erol who was dead.
Erol, her companion since early childhood, her lover since adolescence. Tall Erol of the
smooth black skin, the deep voice. Of the sharp intellect and the poetic mind. Of the infinitely tender hands.
One of his songs passed through her mind: " These hands were made to hold you, these lungs
to breathe your name..." They had been like two sides of one being, almost. Ayo and Erol, Erol and Ayo.
She'd always been so sure that ,when she got her rank, she would come back and fetch Erol, marry him.
Two years or three...four! Erol would always be waiting, Erol would always be there. That was the one dependable datum in
an uncertain Universe, the one sure fact, his presence. It was inconceivable that Erol should be gone.
Her Erol. Gone. Gone from her future. No children for her now, no Household for her, no
Family of her own. No wish for any other love, for anyone else. No need for even her mother and father.
I left you behind Erol, she thought, and now you've left me.
Overwhelmed, she turned as if she could melt into the wall.
I've got to get out, to go away. I've got to leave the planet- the system. I"m finished
with Bons-or maybe Bons is finished with me. Out, one way or another-maybe I should die.
After the first days of darkness and chaos in her head, she realized she could only go on
living with her guilt if she embraced her hatred. Her hatred of the Empire.
Her eyes had been opened. It wasn't Ballis' fault any more than Tamar's. She'd been looking
at the whole thing upside-down. Terribly upside-down to look on what Imperial Officers and troopers had
done, were doing, all over the system, as the thing to meekly accept under an occupation. Accept
the Imperials as a force not to be antagonized.
But this was a complete reversal of the truth. Occupation was an abomination, not a
sad natural disaster. The enslaving, killing, and maiming of a civil population was an obscenity, that could be
justified neither by war nor by reasons of State, and the Imperial were murderers. Ballis had been right all along.
And it was horrible that she should have changed her viewpoint only after she and hers had been
affected. Horrible that she should have been such a blind, selfish, ambitious fool- an evil fool. For she had
accepted them She had wanted, tried, to become one of them. Not a soldier, not a pilot, an Officer.
One of the murderers who were enslaving the galaxy.
Ballis, you were right, and I was wrong. The Empire must be opposed, must be
destroyed if liberty is to be restored.
But not on Bons, where she estimated the chance to win at about one in ten
million.
If she decided to live, she had to get out. Not into the controlled spacelanes
where the Empire ruled with it's Stardestroyers; nor on the systems, occupied or not, where resistance was a lost
cause; but into
the Rebellion itself.
They were somewhere. They could be found. She had seen them, their ships, X and Y wings, piloted by daredevils attacking even the Mile-Long ships. She had seen civilians transporting equipment, perhaps armament, in civilian lanes. She had seen civilians ( old civilians!) in the population of a marginal planet, workig for them undercover.
A marginal planet like Tatooine- where she could have joined the Rebellion but gone with
Sol Warten; but she'd wanted only to reach home. Maybe she could still find Warten, now that she knew that there was
nothing more for her on Bons.
She could play her part. She could atone for her past. She thought she didn't want revenge,
just atonement. But that included her hatred. She was sure the Rebels hated the Empire no less, and that she
owed it to them as much as to herself. To hate.
Thus did she deceive herself,
The top of the waves was very beautiful. Not for nothing was it called the Cobalt Sea. So much
blue. Ayo recalled her first visit to the West. At age sixteen she'd made a field trip to the Domes, and stayed for
four tendays at Panat; to study for a paramedic, a requisite for the Academy.
At that time she couldn't get enough of the surface, of the waves and the wind. Others
in her study-course, natives of North as well as of South, had been fascinated by deepsea diving; by the marine fauna
and underwater living. She had stayed topside every free minute; swimming with the Gagos, skimming the waves on the water-
boats and hover-skis, floating in the sun,
Today she sat on the point of the cannery's pier with her sister-in-law, Neri. Botu, her little nephew, splashed in the water close to the pier; pushed around by a pair of friendly Gagos who were teaching him to swim.
Neri felt guilty. It was her Ballis who had started the whole thing- and so Erol was dead. She even thought she could imagine what Ayo was feeling. She was wrong.
Yet Lomn was finally better. The medical droids had told Ayo, at first, that the results of
the latest graft on Lomn's vocal chords had been uncertain. It had been the fourth graft, the others had not gone as well as
expected. The droids had told her that her father was difficult to treat, having lost his will for a cure.
But now, the fourth graft had taken and he was recovering. In a few days time he'd be able to talk;
first in a whisper, then aloud. Then, Axos and Lomn, Ballis and Neri with Botu would return to Saskya. To the small place
that was not their HOme, and figure out what they were going to do with the rest of their lives.
They had been stripped of everything for rebelling against the Empire. Their estate confiscated, their assets transfered to Empire coffers. Even Axo's post on the Council had been revoked from above. Axos Silesbadian was now a private person. She and her family were now destitute, even though they could survive and would never starve on Bons where they enjoyed the Five Unalienable Rights of the Proud that even the Empire could not take away. The right to sustenance, to shelter,to clothing, to medicine and to transportation.
None of which could not help Ayo with her debt. She reflected that now Mal and Bara would have to wait for a long time to see the two thousand promised for saving her life. She alone owed that debt now; and it might take a lifetime to pay it.
SHe'd reached Panat Dome, helped by practically everyone she met. The Proud saw to their own. Now that a crisis had come, they stood together even in peril of their lives, their fortunes and their liberty. Her trup to the Cobalt Sea had been underground- if such a word could be applied to an illegal night-flight, over the treetops, in a barge filled with broadnuts. Illegal flights to all parts of the planet were going on all the time, Imperial supervision being perfunctory for what went on on the planet's surface. Not so for the rest of the system; going into orbit was quite out of the question.
Her aunt and uncle had remained behind in the small half-underground dome, the refuge
left to the Silesbadian family under their Rights; waiting for the rest of the family to return.
Tamar had not remaine. Tamar, like Ayo, would not be coming back. There had been some heavy hearts
at the small dome the night they left. Under the tarpaulin, among the large nuts, Tamar had been on her way out too.
Fearing conscription, she knew she had to leave before she got her novie- otherwise her parents faced terrible
punishment. She hadn't styed in Panat, she'd just seen her relatives then gone on to the Northern Continent. It was on
NOrth that the way out began.
It went through the pockets of a corrupt Imperial, Captain Blockarn, who controlled
outgoing merchandise transports. In less than two tendays since the occupation, he had already organized a cozy income
for himself, with a timetable of departures and a price list for services. Passage out was five thousands Bons credits.
While none of the family had the ten thousand for both the women, they were on their way. They had
learned that it was in West that a resistance movement against the Empire had already started, and that there was
a warchest for emergencies; drawn from the still-wealthy families from all over the system.
In spite of her deep depression, elation sparked for a moment at the though of Proud's resourcefulness
and solidarity. She felt sure that no other human people existed that were as loyal as her own.
It was on the cannery pier that Ayo met them, the two young men identified only as Pit and Pat, who
worked at grandfish processing, in the sun, not a hundred meters from her porch.
She had been told that there were only apparently citizens of Panat, undercover from somewhere else; on
their way out, like herself. Apparently the money for their bribe to Blockarn would come from their own families, somewhere
on North. Her own passage , and Tamar's, came from Dome Panat itself. Another debt she now had to repay someday.
" Ho, I'm Pat, and this is Pit." The two boys were very attractive, the one who had spoken had an
engaging smile. " Seems we're going the same way."
" Ayo Silesbadian." She answered wryly, disdaining to give her own false name. " If you're going North."
" We are,alright." The one calling himself Pat looked into her eyes and, evidently, liked what
he saw. She felt amused at this boy's admirations, from the altitude of her almose twenty-one years' worldliness.
" We leave tonight at twenty-three hundred, standard." Said the other one, Pit. " That's when the fish-barge
leaves for North. We'll be waiting, be on this pier. If you go with us, we can protect you." He swaggered slightly.
Once she'd have laughed in the face of male insolence; but times had changed and, most of all, shehad.
She could now compromise with her pride; could stop herself from telling them she was a better fighter than either of them. She had
no idea where to go next; these boys had.
She even accepted their invitation to drinks in the cannery's workers lounge, after their
shift. Sitting in the lounge, looking over the darkening waves, she remembered something.
" Do any of you know people in Tabaleantis?"
They looked at each other, nodded together,
" Because I don't know where on North I'm going,and I've been carrying a message
for Tabaleantis for some time now. I'd like for it to reach it's destination." It was the least she could do for Mal.
" Don't worry, we're going to be quite close to Tabaleantis, our hometown. I may even know the
addressee." Pat looked very interested.
" It's for one Orro Calrissian. It's from Bespin."
" Bespin! You mean the gas planet with the floating city?"
" Right. It's from someone high up in the hierarchy, I was told. It's over three years old."
" But I don't know anyone on Cloud City!" Pat furrowed his brow.
" Why should you know who sent it?" Ayo was nonplussed.
" Because I'm Orro Calrissian! Only, it's a secret. What the hell, you might as well
know, you're going with us!"
It took a while to convince Ayo to show it to him, but at last she believed him enough to play the
small card on the holo of the deserted lounge's comm center.
The image of a tall, suave Proud man appeared in the middle of the room; dashing, sporty, a broad
mustache on his good-looking face, he wore clothes that looked simple but expensive.
" Hello, Orro, kid. I hope you remember your favorite Uncle Lando after all this time.
As you can see, I've arrived. Why don't you join me, all expenses paid? You and I were always pals, remember? By
now you're almost a man.( " Almost?" said Pat, nettled) and I could do with your help, on Cloud City. There'd be
plenty for you to do. You'll have a great time, I promise. You and I know that the boredom of Estate living is not for
the likes of us. So, what do you say? The address is: The Administrator, Cloud City, Bespin IV, Bespin System. Coordinates
F2OLL, 243iii/975/ii7729, in your 'puter. See you!" The image winked, and winked out.
" TheAdministrator- is that title what it sounds like?" Nar asked Orro.
" I think so. Lando always thought big. He seems to have arrived, all right. And this gives us
a good jumpin-off place."
" We could even stay." Nar was obviously enthused.
" Nah, we don't want to make trouble for Lando. When he issued that invitation three years ago,
I was no fugitive from the Empire. But he'll help us- we're lucky."
" We've always been lucky-until now, weith me and Andra. Said Nar, gloomily. He'd renewed his
romance with her but now, not only was he leaving, she'd been conscripted to a system on the other side of the galaxy. His
prospects of seeing her again now approached zero.
" Cheer up, you may see her sooner than you think! Life's full of surprised!" They joked back and
forth, and Ayo felt the deep depression of an emptath, sensing their youthful spirits -even through their problems- contrasted
with her pain.
That night she saw her parents and her brother's family for the last time. There were tears then, so many
more than at the time she'd left for the Academy.
AS she walked into the turbolift and out under the stars, she felt the whirlwind swirl around her,
carrying her off into the unknown. Whirlwind in her mind only. The night was clear, the skies brilliant with moons and stars.
The sea was crossed by three paths of light, three moons, three paths.
The wind played magic music in her ears; music that resolved into a song of Erol's. " Go with the spirit,
my sister, my love, into the peace of beginning..." Oh, Erol, she thought, I'll never say good-bye to you!
On the slow fish-barge, behind the containers, she slept. There was nothing else to do for the next few hours. She didn't feel like joining the game of sabacc with Pit and Pat- or Nar and Orro, as they were really called. The gently swaying of the water-barge parting the waves rocked her to sleep.
There was a dream. Erol was in the dream, as he'd been in every dream since her arrival on
Bons. This time it was his voice. She knew he was dead, but he told her that he would be all right- and that it was her
future that was important.
" Never give in, never give up. You can do it. My love, you must now do alone what
we can't ever to together again. Life goes on. Life and people."
" Oh, Erol. I can't live without you!" She cried in the dream- tears of
molten metal. " I don't want anyone else, ever!"
" But you must. There's a task in your future. A task for the rest of your life." His
voice was a whisper, it dimmed and went out like a light.
And there was someone else there. One she'd seen once before. The blue-eyed one, with the
presence of light. A presence from the future.
" You must survive, because you have a task." The stranger's voice was unfamiliar, but his
words echoed Erol's. And she woke, disoriented, looking at the swaying moons.
The plain of Taiboe was immense. The grasses swayed gently in the summer wind; moons rose
and set, from one horizon to another. The flames of the bonfires rose straight up, summer straingt up; the people kept adding
branches.
The fires were really quite widely separated. Only from above was a pattern apparent. Once central pyre and several smaller ones,
circling it at a distance of about two hundred meters. The whole repeated hundreds of times, onthat gigantic expanse. The
bit fires were communal fires-the smaller,individual. The big fires were tended by men- the small fires by the women.
The big fires were surrounded by everybody and anybody. The small fires were each built carefully by just
one woman- one woman who wanted to do the Binding.
Not all women succeeded- not all women made it. The great majority were just playing the Game. Men
and boys came to the fires to have their fortune told and meet the unattached, eligible woman. But some had the power in
earnest. The Senses. The Doing. Even they did not succeed every time.
Some had more of the Senses than others, some had more of the Doing. The doing could be made without
the Sensing, some of the time.
Men and women have the same senses, the same abilitites. Both are equally strong or weak,
equally seeing or blind. Most cannot see the Spirit, cannot bend to it's use. Some are gifted, and do. A very few
are strong with the Spirit.
But it is the women who dare. Dare to come out, before all the Proud People, and weave their fires:
for the Seeing, for the Sensing,-for the Doing. For it is the woman who will be Family Head.
The occasion: the Summer Gatheringss for animal herding and marking.
All summer, the people catch the aggers, the rounces and the k'gids during the day. They
mark them by implanting a diminuitive transmitter, with their Estate's frequency, in the animal's shoulder. On Bons,
animals,too, carry their own comlink.
But, when night falls, the fires are lit. Young people, and others unattached, then mix and \match. Food and
drink is shared, and love is kindled. It is an occasion for revelry or- in the idiom of those young- One
Monster Party.
There is also serious business. Business proper; contacts made, intentions laid out and
contracts sealed. Many a life-long partnership has been sealed at Summer Gathering.
That year, 8020 Galactic, had come Imperial Occupation; right in the middle of summer. For almost two tendays everyone had flocked back to their homes and businesses; for the rearranging of one's ecomony, the protection of one's home, and the facing of conscription. Tragedies and inconveniences, and some sighs of relief at being spared, and the people of Tabaleantis- as the rest of the Northern towns- realised that the marking of the animals could wait. Summer was too short a season. So, they rode down to the plains again; and Imperial Occupation made no visible difference to Summer Gathering.
Visible to the Imperials who watched from orbit; their surveillance satellites seeing targets the size of a man. The Imperial Command did not care what people did on the surface, as long as they didn't go anywhere else. As long as they stayed on the planet and, already, there were things the Imperials did not know.
Such as that Summer Gathering was becoming an extremely good cover for the meeting of those who were organizing a resistance, or had decided they wanted to leave the System. Around a bonfire, drinking firewater, foamer or brew; they were able to contact the ones who could pass around false 'puter cards, coordinates and money. And that, the satellites couldn't spot.
Ayo Silesbadian had never before been at Summer Gathering, a festival exclusively Norther.
It was not that outsiders weren't welcome just that, before the Occupation, few had made trip for such a reason unless they
had friends or relatives in North.
Now, there was a great number of strangers; but, in the final analysis they were all
brothers; so they were welcomed and accepted and invited to share.
Sponsored by her two travel companions, Orro and Nar, Ayo found herself standing before
a smaller fire- facing an older woman.
This one did not weave a Game for the Mating.This woman was in earnes, and in strength. Shee was
engaged in the mystic business called " Over the Horizon": divination, future seeing. Going into the Spirit.
The flames filled her eyes with stars as, black-on-black, they looked into Ayo's.
The hour was very late; the wind was rising now, the fires twisting. The flames were torn into
little pieces. Smoke swirled, and the smell of aromatic wood hit them as it was blown away in gusts.
" This is Ayo, Aunt Arkara." Nar introduced her. " She's going away, for good, tomorrow. Tell her
her fate."
Arkara, head of the Baldarian Family, had looked into the eyes of the tall young woman
and seen enough. So much despair- so much numbness. Such a young woman, too. She sighed to herself, shook her head.
" Are you sure you want me to look?"
The flames leapt up, sparks flying into the night. Ayo looked after them, wishing that, like them,
she could merge into the blackness. She didn't really believe in fortune-telling, but she was polite.
" Yes, please do."
" Then sit with me." Arkara made room next to herself on the pile of stones amassed before the fire.
Nar and Orro let themselves down on the sandy ground opposite, behind the bonfire.
Ayo's robe blew out in the wind; like a sail taking her into infinity, she thought, exposing
her uniform, her boots. In that trance-like moment, her companions did not seem to notice- or care.
Then she sat, cross-legged, on the ground; her hands sifting the sand between her fingers. There
was a long silence, the wind sighing, the flames talking. The people it was who were speechless now; and time seemed to
have stopped in it's course. Yet, night goes on, thought Ayo. The longest night of nothingness.
From afar, music reached them; happy, syncopated music, intermixed with slower, sultrier, love music. And the swell of voices like that of the surf. Only good ears could hear the voices-everything was far away.
Nar and Orro had their instruments too. Nar, a ten-string , and Orro a small electronic wind-horn; but they felt no need to play them, bemused by the moment, the fire and the spell.
" In the Spirit is Everything." Akara Baldarian recited at last; so quietly they had
to strain to hear her in the wind. " Even the dead." She was silent again. " Even the dead, who can speak, at time, to help
the living."
Ayo was freezing over. How did this woman know? The dead. The helping dead...
" He says to you; Don't grieve, you were all I had. For bodies come and go, but Spirit lives forever."
Oh no, Not platitudes out of school. Please, let this moment pass...
" We two can never meet again, for our times shall from now on be parted. Your youth and mine are now forever
split, and even should we meet, a new reality would mean a different world."
The rhythm of the words was now familiar. The poetry in prose that was Erol's hallmark. There was
no way this strange woman could have known. Slowly, Ayo bent in upon herself, into herself; slowly, her tears squeezed
out of closed lids.
" But do not grieve-for me, for you. For life goes on, my life, your life. You shall be needed in
the galaxy. There is a task. It's what you never wished and always needed-and what you never sought-that you shall find.
Your errors and your sins shall fade like smoke. Like sparks in the night, in bravery and potent light. You'll find the
Way si few can fully walk."
The woman's words had become music. The melody was not like anything Ayo'd ever heard. Certainly not like one of Erol's songs, and yet...If Erol had come back for one,last, messge, such might have been his words.
When she surfaced, Arkara was holding her up, and the fire was going out. Orro and Nar were lying on the
sand, frozen in place; two men alseep.
The night was really deep now, the wind a roar. Blowing, unhindered over the infinite grass, right to the
Sea. Fall was coming.
" You did have him, for awhile. Now he's gone back into the Stream. Forward in time,
and you shall never meet again-not for your age. But that is not for despair, just sorrow. Yet sorrow not too hard,or
for too long. Your future has a Destiny. And Destiny, child, cannot be played with. There is more to you than this life-span,more
to the Spirit than one Ayo. More to the galaxy than one Bons. More to the War than Rebellion and Empire."
In the distance,other fires, too, were dying, embers smoldering. People gone into their
tents, or rolled into their bedding, were asleep. Ayo drew Arkara's thermic blanket about herself, over herself, eyes open
to the night.
So I must say goodbye, must I? Or have I done so already? Goodbye to Father and to Mother, to Ballis and
Botu. Goodbye to Tamar-forever. Goodbye to Family. Goodbye to Silesbadian Estate, the Family Hall, the enormous fireplace,
the orchards in flower, the twisted treess, the lush growths and the glassy Bells. The garden on the boundary, the garden with
the grave.
Goodbye to sun and sand, to torrential rain. Goodbye to Dome Panat, to Taiboe Plains, to bluest sea, to
greenest leaves, to infinite wind. Goodbye to Summer Gathering.
Goodbye to South, to West and to North. Goodbye to the Prouds, everywhere; us Prouds who are
so few, thinned out in the galaxy almost to invisibility.
Goodbye to myself, goodbye to Ayo. Gone into the sparks, gone into the night. Gone with you, Erol.
And to you- I'll never say goodbye. And, if your face fades from behind my eyes with time, and if my
life is to become a Fate, this I won't do. I'll never say goodbye to you, Erol,
She was at peace, then; the only way she could be- asleep.
And in the morning, woke to a new name - another fate.
| << Inheritance: The Discovery | Index | Inheritance: Forceblind >> |