by John Coon
Alayna’s sudden declaration caught Calandra by surprise. Both of her cheeks grew warm. Calandra had no doubt they sported a new shade of crimson matching the leaves that adorned fraxa trees lining the streets outside her apartment.
Xttra cracked a grin at both women.
“I’m flattered.”
“You certainly live up to your portrait.”
He raised an eyebrow as soon as those words passed between Alayna’s lips.
“Portrait?”
Calandra waved her hand at her friend in a cut-it-out motion. She instantly dropped the same hand to her side when Xttra’s eyes darted over in her direction. His smile grew wider by the second.
“Did you create a portrait of me?”
Calandra looked down and away at the floor. She wished to find a hiding spot where he could not pursue the matter further. Calandra did not want Xttra to think she was obsessed with him. How embarrassing! And what if he did not like her painting? What if he did not think she made him look flattering?
“I painted … a painting of you.” Calandra hesitated to confirm Alayna’s revelation even as she forced herself to make eye contact again. “It’s in my studio … in the other room.”
“Cool. Can I see it?”
“I don’t know if it’s quite ready to show—”
“She’d love for you to see it,” Alayna said, impeding her final attempts to keep her artwork hidden. “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
Calandra gulped and answered with a nervous nod.
“Of course. I’ll show you right now.”
Xttra reached out and clasped Calandra’s hand as she started forward. Feeling his fingers intertwined with her own did not produce the calming effect he intended. Her heart pounded harder with each step toward the studio.
Calandra slid the door open and all three popped inside the small room. Xttra’s eyes at once darted to the exact spot where her portrait of him hung on the wall. Her own eyes stayed glued to his face, watching and waiting to see his reaction.
Xttra stood in silence for a couple of minutes, soaking in each detail captured on the kerval skin canvas as though examining his face in a mirror. When his eyes drifted back to Calandra, they beamed with happiness.
Xttra planted a tender kiss on her lips.
“I love it,” he said, pulling back again. “You made me look great. Captured me perfectly.”
Tears rolled down Calandra’s cheeks as she stared at the same portrait now. If it were possible to trade the painting in exchange for feeling Xttra’s touch and warmth again, she would do it in a heartbeat. She would trade every painting she owned if that single action would restore him to her life.
Days blended into weeks without any positive news on the search for Xttra. Bo’un contacted her with periodic updates and did his best to offer hope amid a lack of results. Still, he struggled to uncover solid evidence surrounding Xttra’s fate.
He is alive, she told herself. He’s still alive. I just need to be patient. He is alive. He’ll find his way back to me.
Xttra was out there somewhere among the stars. Ahm watched over him. She pleaded daily for him to work a miracle and bring Xttra home.
Calandra wiped her tears away with a small square cloth. She sealed the open paint jars again. Finishing this painting needed to wait. Troubled thoughts made concentrating difficult, and her art suffered. The panorama of rocky cliffs overlooking crashing ocean waves she sought to capture became difficult to hold in her mind. It felt a little like grasping a wriggling orange spinefish after a while.
Bella lay curled up on one end of the couch, nestled next to a cushioned arm. Neither eye opened as Calandra entered the living room. Her paws and whiskers twitched while she peacefully slumbered. Calandra slumped down a short distance from the diminutive cala and snatched up her arca vox from an end table.
Working an arca vox had grown difficult since getting an artificial limb. The neural stimulator in her hand refused to read and respond correctly to nerve impulses, making her left arm virtually useless. Simple tasks like contacting someone on her arca vox took on added complexity. Calandra had to uncurl each finger with her opposite hand and press them flat just so she could rest the arca vox on her palm. She was slowly adjusting but could not do it with the unthinking speed that she did before her injury.
She entered five digits into three clear crystal panels near the bottom of the circular pad. Each number popped up in the corresponding panel, backlit by a yellow-green light. A holoscreen popped up from a port on the top end of the arca vox. It cast a blue-white glow that tinged her fingertips. This day would be the day Bo’un finally shared some good news. Calandra told herself this same thing every time she contacted him over the past few weeks.
Bo’un did not appear on the holoscreen. Only three words. Three awful words flashed before her eyes, mocking Calandra’s pain, and crushing her hopes of receiving good news.
Out of Range.
Calandra pressed down on the lowest crystal panel and ended the transmission. The holoscreen vanished. Bo’un must be off world. She hoped this time it meant he found a promising clue at last. His efforts to track down Xttra only turned up one dead end after another. Every Thetian official he contacted denied knowledge of Xttra’s whereabouts. Officials from other Fengar colonies proved equally unhelpful. Judging by how Bo’un described these encounters, none acted particularly concerned or showed empathy toward the awful situation Xttra faced or her own tragic ignorance of his whereabouts.
Calandra punched in a new set of numbers on her arca vox. A holoscreen materialized a second time. The image of a woman around her age, with black curls falling to her shoulders, appeared a few seconds later.
“Hi Calandra! You caught me at just the right time.”
Alayna wore her usual energetic smile. Seeing that smile always sparked a twinge of joy inside Calandra as soon as she laid eyes on her friend.
“Can we talk? I’m having one of those days again.”
Alayna’s smile dimmed as she discerned the sadness and pain afflicting Calandra. She nodded.
“I’m always here for you. You know that.”
“I do.”
“You need to get out of that apartment for a night. And I have the perfect idea for what we can do.”
Alayna snatched up an object offscreen. A second later, she held up a pair of large diamond-shaped tokens between her thumb and index finger. Calandra scrunched up her eyes and nose when she saw the tokens.
“Slotball? You told me you swore off slotball matches forever after what happened with Titus.”
“There’s no rule telling us we can’t go to the arena and cheer against him.”
Calandra finally cracked a small smile. Heckling that jerk until their voices fled offered a fun way to give her troubled mind a reprieve.
Titus started out looking like a good match for Alayna. They first met during a fan celebration hosted by Luma Central - one of three elite slotball teams based in the capital city. Calandra and Alayna attended the fan celebration together. Titus approached them after mistaking Alayna for another woman he knew from his home village on the Serranta Islands. Their encounter sparked an extended conversation and led to a date the following evening.
Titus and Alayna bonded through a ni’amo rite only a month later. This ancient Serrantan custom let two lovers symbolically join their souls into one soul in preparation for a future marriage rite. Both Titus and Alayna received a tattoo of a ni’amo symbol encircling their navels when the rite concluded.
Calandra suspected things were amiss a few weeks after the rite when Titus became elusive toward Alayna about his post-match activities in other Ra’ahm cities. She urged her friend to uncover what he was doing in her absence. Alayna did some snooping and uncovered a message on Titus’ arca vox while he excused himself during a date. The message came from a second girlfriend who lived
in Birshana.
Alayna shed countless tears over the ensuing days after kicking Titus Grogg out of her apartment and cutting him out of her life. Some outside observers would no doubt characterize it as petty to go and cheer against him at slotball matches three years later. Especially since Titus had passed his prime as an athlete. From Calandra’s perspective, however, it offered effective therapy for Alayna. She resolved to support her friend in anything designed to help her feel better after enduring such an awful, heartbreaking moment in her life.
Calandra met up with Alayna less than an hour after their conversation ended. She arrived outside her apartment in a custom aerorover. Her vehicle sported narrow retractable wings with a more prominent curve than the ones on Xttra’s aerorover. Its sleek cylindrical frame, splashed with a dark green hue, was also narrower on each end. Alayna’s aerorover also included an open stall with a protective mesh in the rear cargo space. She had it designed and installed specifically for transporting Bella during Calandra’s absence. Other features bore similarities to Xttra’s aerorover. Same half-circle windows on each door. Same dual bucket seats.
Alayna flew the aerorover toward the Nectura River. Calandra let her eyes drift downward when their vehicle neared the river. Sunlight gleamed off the surface of those lazy waters. A small fishing boat sailed upstream toward a harbor on the southern bank. Across the expansive river, a massive arena overlooked the northern bank. Calandra cast her eyes skyward. The sun already began to dip behind the peaks of the Aurora Mountains.
“This is the popular place to be tonight,” Alayna said.
Calandra gazed down again. The aerorover circled above the arena while Alayna searched for a suitable landing spot. Little available space remained on the senosa tree-lined landing platforms flanking all four sides of the arena. This meant one thing. A longer walk to the arena than she anticipated.
“Is Luma Central challenging one of the Sendala teams?” Calandra asked. “There’s a bigger crowd here than usual.”
Alayna nodded. “Of course.”
They joined a burgeoning crowd pressing toward the main arena entrance after finding a landing spot on a northside platform. Bronze statues of notable Luma Central slotball athletes formed a semicircle ahead of two giant doors serving as the front entrance. A polished stone path cut between two statues at the top of the semicircle. Calandra craned her neck upward and gazed at the nearest statue as she and Alayna walked past. The statue showed a slotball athlete in full uniform gripping a passing stick. A determined glare and scowl decorated the statue’s metallic face.
“Fate dictated we meet at this moment in this place.”
Calandra stopped in her tracks and snapped her head in the direction of the voice. It came from a white-haired woman wearing a long black skirt and a sleeveless blue top. Bracelets woven from senosa bark adorned both wrists. Small charms dangled on tiny hooks from each bracelet. Each charm featured an embedded gem surrounded by a shiny metal frame with an engraved symbol from the ancient Aracian alphabet.
“A diviner? Just what we need.”
The white-haired woman cast a scowl at Alayna when she caught the sarcastic tone infused into her words. She painted on a smile again and quickly refocused her attention on Calandra. Her eyes trailed down Calandra’s emerald long-sleeved lace shirt and finally settled on her gloved left arm hanging down at her side.
“I sense tragedy in your life,” the diviner said, glancing briefly up at her. “You search for meaning and your true purpose.”
Calandra stiffened. Her first instinct told her to check the glove. Did this diviner see the components of her artificial hand outlined in the fabric? Immediately, Calandra started wondering how many other random strangers headed into this slotball match were staring at the same limb. Her eyes darted around, trying to catch other sets of eyes gawking at her.
Alayna turned around and marched up to the diviner. She stopped once she had placed herself as a protective barrier in front of Calandra.
“Who are you?”
“I am Ominade. I reveal secrets of the eternal world.”
Alayna flashed a rare frown.
“Well, Ominade, why are you bothering my friend?”
The diviner widened her eyes and gasped. Ominade pressed her hand to her chest and backed up a couple of steps, exaggerating each step for dramatic effect.
“You wound me, child. What I discern must never be tossed aside as worthless.” She cast her eyes over Alayna’s shoulder and stared right at Calandra a second time. “Holy voices from the eternal world compel me to share their message with you.”
“I think you’re a no-good—”
Alayna stopped in mid-sentence when Calandra clasped the back of her arm and shook her head. She turned and faced the diviner. Calandra’s green eyes turned cold and grew more piercing than usual.
“I don’t want your message. Your kind preys on desperate people to gain riches. You neither serve Ahm nor speak for the divine creator.”
Ominade folded her arms and tilted her head. She tried to match Calandra’s own unblinking stare but let a wry smile creep on her lips. Seeing it only made Calandra shudder inside. This diviner knew exactly what she was all about and did not care one bit.
“I sense what you treasure most was taken from you.” Ominade cast another glance down at the gloved arm and then met Calandra’s eyes again. “My message holds the key to restoring what is now lost.”
Calandra’s throat tightened. A tremor charged up her spine. One word popped into her mind.
Xttra.
Was this self-styled diviner connected to whoever abducted Xttra from Fengar? Did she know where they had taken him? Calandra needed answers. If this woman knew those answers, she needed to stop being cryptic and help her find her husband.
“What have you done with him?”
“Who?”
Anger flashed through Calandra’s eyes.
“You know who I’m talking about. You say you’re a diviner. Go ahead and divine.”
Ominade pressed her lips tight. Her eyes darted around. Other slotball fans stopped and started gathering near the statue where Calandra, Alayna, and the diviner stood. Whatever boldness Ominade possessed earlier, it fled from her now.
“Not here. What I reveal must be for your ears alone.”
“Tell me now.” Calandra seethed. “Tell me what you know. I deserve to know too.”
Ominade pulled a charm from one of her bracelets and cast it at her feet. Calandra bent down to snatch it off the ground. When she looked up again, the diviner had already turned away and now walked briskly in the opposite direction from the statues.
Alayna clasped Calandra’s shoulder.
“Should I alert some city guards to pursue her?”
Calandra stared hard at Ominade’s long white hair cascading and bouncing down her neck as she blended into the crowd. She bit down on her lower lip and shook her head.
“No. I … I just want to watch the slotball match.”
Alayna draped her arm around Calandra as she stuffed the charm into her pocket. Her friend did her best to lift their mood once they entered the arena and found their seats. Calandra cracked a broad smile when Alayna started sharing chants she created to hurl at Titus during the match. The chants were equal parts funny and clever.
A boisterous long horn reverberated through the arena, signaling the start of the match. At once, a multi-colored ball launched from a starting circular slot and spit out into an open chute at a blistering speed. The ball was only the size of Calandra’s fist. Helmeted attackers from Luma Central and Sendala Coast launched down parallel outer tracks alongside the chute. They swung down passing sticks designed to scoop up the slotball from a laser-guided inner track. Each passing stick had small black netting woven on one end to prevent the slotball from hitting the ground.
The Sendala Coast attacker scooped the slot
ball off the inner track and charged out into the open field on his skates toward the Luma Central end slot. Titus skated in front of the attacker to barricade his path and intercept a pass. The attacker dished it off to a waiting teammate and lowered his shoulder. He plowed straight into Titus and knocked him flat on his back. A chorus of boos exploded from the crowd.
Calandra and Alayna unveiled one of their chants.
“Titus Grogg chopped like a log!”
They both laughed with as much enthusiasm as they showed while chanting. Calandra could practically feel glares from surrounding slotball fans focusing on her, but she did not care. She needed this diversion.
Calandra’s eyes trailed from Titus as he scrambled to his feet and back into the action. She gazed over at the crowd of fans gathered on the other side of the synthetic scarlet grass field. At once, her muscles stiffened, and her breathing quickened.
Ominade stood among the crowd.
Staring back at Calandra and Alayna.
“That diviner followed us inside the arena.” Calandra frantically tapped Alayna on the shoulder with her right hand. “I see her directly across from us.”
She pointed in the same direction. Both women turned to look at Ominade. By this time, the diviner recognized she had drawn unwanted attention. She abruptly turned and marched toward the exit.
Calandra pulled out the diviner’s charm from her pocket and stared at the Aracian symbol. One thing had become certain. She needed to investigate this symbol and the diviner, so she could learn if Ominade played a role in Xttra’s disappearance.
12
Cliff had no intention of letting this drop. Sam guessed this exact scenario would unfold from the moment he informed him of everything that happened earlier. Emotion overrode reason and protocol once Cliff learned of Norah’s condition. He watched the video chat request signal linger on the screen for a second longer before clicking on the button to allow Cliff to vent again.
Sam tried again, with a firm tone, to dissuade the colonist from undertaking what he knew occupied his mind when Cliff popped up on the video screen.