Here she was, many light-years away from Earth. Zoey was on another world. She tried to look out the nearest window to get a better look. She had to know what it was like. What sort of world did she live in now?
Bon’sinne chuckled her way and said, “Zoi’ne, we’ve arrived. Welcome to Elysium IX – the world that shines.”
[ 22]
Elysium IX was the third planet in its solar system. The Aelfs called every major place they’d made home an Elysium. The sun was little bigger than Earth’s, but it wasn’t the center of Zoey’s focus at the moment. Actually, her focus was scattered as she tried to take in the surroundings that would be her new home.
The sounds of distant water flows, birds chirping, and soft air currents came to her first. Zoey had closed her eyes upon touching the ground for the first time. There was a crisp aroma in the air that she could not define. She opened her eyes and saw pavement beneath her feet at first.
The landing strip was as solid as Zoey had expected, though it looked like flat pebbles were embedded in the concrete, all no larger than the eraser on a pencil and no closer together than if she’d set a shoe between the colorful pebbles. Her eyes trained upward to a series of wooden trellises coated in vines before a pair of walkways that led through a building without stepping indoors. Three booths there were manned with Aelfs waiting on the new arrivals.
As they walked through, her parents flashed sets each of cards and papers, and the Aelf in a new uniform that Zoey had not seen yet waved the whole group through. Dasos showed one more paper and offered one of of his cases, but the Aelf behind the counter declined and let Dasos through. Another one of the three people at the booths eyed Zoey for a second and turned away.
On the other side was a parking area with cars unlike any model Zoey had seen before, and yet their shapes were undeniable. The spaces were being patrolled by a pair of airborne drones flying overhead, though Zoey wondered how much they saw with the metallic covers and trees that were in place.
She looked out at the distant tree line and tall grass on the other side of the forked road. Many of the trees looked like the ones back on Earth, but a few seasoned her view with either leaves of sky blue or flowers of crimson.
“Oh, come on,” said Keft’aerak, who was looking on his cell-comm as he faced a stationary device sticking out of the planter by one row of cars. The rest of the family caught up to him while he continued to browse a page that Zoey couldn’t see.
“What’s wrong?” asked Bon’sinne.
“The prices went up on all three salir companies.”
Zoey said, “What’s a salir?”
“It’s a public car that we can ride, dear. The driver works for the company that owns it. Apparently the fares are higher now. I wasn’t aware the drivers needed higher pay, or if the fuel cells had become more expensive.”
“That sounds like a cab on Earth.”
“A cab? Zoi’ne dear, I’m envisioning you walking into the university campus and giving the language majors a meltdown with all of your Earth words, and little to no context given for any of them.”
“That would be amazing.”
“I have to admit that it would. Please don’t do that. Aerak, my love, perhaps you should pick one randomly already so we can get to our house. We can worry about the prices later. They aren’t too bad right now, are they?”
Tong-Chang stepped up with her own cell-comm out. She said, “Allow me. It’s the same address as before I left, right?”
“You don’t have to do that, Tonny.”
“Yes, I do. It’s the least that I can do for you guys for all the kindness you’ve shown me since I was little. I’ll just call it my own way of telling Father I’ve returned here. He may or may not appreciate that. Oh, here is the conversion for yingbi and burras, and done.”
Zoey’s parents folded their arms at Tong-Chang as they tried to read her. She beamed at them for a few short seconds before realization dawned on her.
Then Tong-Chang said, “Sorry if cutting in like that was rude. Oh, I have some explaining to do, don’t I?”
It was here that Tong-Chang told everyone that her father was royalty, and she’d come to Elysium IX with two of her mother’s servants, not with her legal guardians as she had claimed ten years ago. Her mother sympathized with her wish to renounce the throne and had helped Tong-Chang leave the estate to pursue her own life.
The salir—the cabin space behind the driver was long, able to fit five passengers and their luggage with ease—arrived and let everybody in while Tong-Chang told them about how she had access to her father’s finances, but took a mere paltry sum from him over time. No payments had ever been halted, and no one had ever come to stop her. She actually didn’t like using his yingbi as long as she could help it. She said it was less about the risk of anyone finally coming and more to do with being able to make her own purchases, which was why she was dirt poor when the Thalassas had met her. The currency she did have was for emergencies only.
“That actually explains a lot,” Keft’aerak said. “Thank you for being forthright about this. I guess we need to open up as well about what we did.”
Bon’sinne said, “Huh? No, we don’t?”
“She has to know. You see, Tonny, when we first heard about your guardians, I did a little digging because something was suspicious about them, and we were both concerned for you. I found nothing to indicate that either of you were a danger with the exception of a single yellow flag. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but one of them . . .”
“They were both spies,” Tong-Chang said. “I knew. One had retired from that line of work, and the other had trained but had never been given any missions to far-off lands. I knew, and I still sneaked out all of the time to meet Il’lyse or Das’ithrios at an arcade at night.”
Das cleared his throat. If this was all true, then Zoey had a feeling she would have fit in with the three of them. She could almost picture it happening, and as a result she was close to socking her brother in the arm for never bringing her along for those excursions, knowing also how much trouble that she would have gotten into.
He looked at Zoey and said, “What?”
Bon’sinne said, “Fine, I’ll tell you what I did after we get home. I hope that’s OK with you, Tong-Chang.”
“How many brothers and sisters did you say you had, Tonny?” Dasos asked.
Tong-Chang said, “Eight brothers and three sisters, by the time I had left. I was the second daughter of four, and the fifth oldest of all of them.” She sighed heavily. “Or the first of three on the day that I was born. Stars beyond, I really didn’t want to picture carrying triplets.”
She leaned sideways and let her head fall against Zoey’s shoulder. Zoey brought up what she could of that same arm and stroked behind the Ginserei’s ear in the hope that it would comfort her.
The car drew closer to a towering city with noticeably clean air above it. Zoey had begun to make out some of the detail around the taller buildings when the vehicle turned left into a neighborhood or similar community. She wasn’t sure yet. There were red brick walls with lanterns on top of them at different intervals, but no gate barring anyone from getting in or out. The trees did not stop casting shade over the sidewalks and pristine streets. Behind, the tips of the few skyscrapers could barely be made out through the vegetation for a minute longer until all sign of the city had vanished.
Each plot of land contained a larger house and one or two smaller ones still fit to live in, if for one of two people alone. A moment passed before the salir pulled up over a level driveway of stone cobbled together. There was a large house with two smaller ones, the first small one being to the left and the second down the driveway past the larger residence.
As they got out of the car, Tonny finalized her payment for the ride from beside the driver’s window. Zoey stacked Tong-Chang’s small bag over her box and joined her in time to spot the number “3,760” with a symbol by it that Zoey still didn’t know, other than having see
n it at the hotel a week ago, but suspected to be the yingbi sign. Dasos owed her that explanation on currency, she remembered.
A black prompt popped up with a line at the bottom of the screen of the driver’s digital pad, which Tong-Chang signed. She placed her hand against the remaining black space, and it appeared like a black light passed though Tong-Chang’s hand. The prompt and previous screen both slipped away from view. At first there was nothing. Finally one last screen appeared before Tong-Chang handed the pad over to the driver.
The girls caught up with everyone at the front door to the larger house as the car drove away. “I like that you still use wheels with your space travel,” Zoey said.
Tong-Chang snorted and said, “Wheels work very well and efficiently. I’m sorry if you were expecting hover technology all over the place.”
“Suddenly I’m reminded of those little ice cream dots. Now I want those little dots. Please tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
Bon’sinne opened the door and said, “What is ice cream?” Her head turned slowly toward her, letting the idea sink into Zoey’s mind. Then she grinned at Zoey and stepped inside while an alarm sounded.
“This is the most dystopian future ever,” Zoey exclaimed.
Her mom laughed and laughed on her way to a control panel to turn off the alarm that was ringing through the house.
The interior was spacious and wonderful without looking like a blatant waste of resources was put into it. Every hallway or room within view of the entryway was sizeable. A family of four or five would be comfortable living here. Zoey noticed that the house was quite clean considering that no one had lived in it, presumably, for several weeks. She realized, also, that everyone else was taking off their shoes at the entrance, and she was standing in the middle of a hardwood floor with her own shoes still on.
Once their things were set down, and everyone else was finally comfortable, Bon’sinne walked into the living room with a note in her hand.
She said, “It looks like I need to head to the store to get more food, soon. Sut’hout bought out almost everything I had in the refrigerator except for a few fruits and vegetables that are now spoiled. I can do that tomorrow and order take-out for dinner.”
“Who’s Sut’hout?” Zoey asked.
“He is a graphic artist that lives in one of the bungalows outside. I asked him to help out with cleaning this house while everyone was away, as well as to look at the kitchen to see if there was anything he wanted to buy to keep it all from going to waste. I’m glad he did, though he chose to leave the burras on the counter instead of letting me deduct the cost from what I owe for his help.”
“A graphic artist, really?”
“Yes, really. He actually designed the cartons used by my ice cream brand of choice a few years ago. Sorry, I meant revolutions. Damn it, now I’m saying it.”
“His sister serves on my ship,” Keft’aerak said. “I almost called it a small world when I found that out. Sut’hout likes the quiet of living alone, though, not counting his skeelo companion.”
Zoey had opened her mouth to ask what a skeelo was when she heard some scratching and whining outside the front door of the house. Unless her ears and Earthen memories deceived her, she knew all too well what that sound was. She hopped up and opened the door as swift as she was able, albeit opening it by a crack. The snout and ears were different from the breeds back on Earth, if by a small amount, but it was exactly what she’d expected from the now welcome racket.
“It’s a pupper!” she announced, opening the door wider and crouching to meet the dog that was equally happy to see and smell her. “Hi. Are you a good boy or girl? I bet you are.”
“And we lost Zoey,” Dasos said behind her.
A darker skinned Aelf poked his head out of the door of one smaller houses in front of the Thalassas home. He looked about the yard until the man saw Zoey petting the dog. He stepped outside, closing his door.
“Now there’s a face I shouldn’t be seeing,” he said, coming closer to the house.
Bon’sinne stood by the door and said, “Good afternoon, Sut’hout. Thank you so much for taking care of our house while Aerak and I were both away.”
“I’m happy to help. Is that Il’lyse?”
“This is Zoi’ne, actually. It’s a long story.”
“My skeelo seems to like her. I guess she heard everyone coming while I was listening to some music. I thought my door was locked, but I guess not. So it’s Zoi’ne, right? Where’ve you been all this time?”
[ 23]
Zoey’s hand trembled where it rested. For once she wasn’t sure if this was such a good idea, or how to proceed with what she wanted to do tonight.
Her girlfriend pressed a hand on top of Zoey’s and said, “It’s alright. We can do this another time. You don’t have to push yourself.”
“No,” Zoey said, “I need this.”
In her hands was the file folder that her dad had handed her because she’d asked for it finally, more than a month after the incident had occurred. She knew what had happened from her perspective as Dylan, and she knew less than a few things about the rest. She opened it. There were hard-copied pages, pictures, and something resembling a small plug without a cord. She guessed that it was akin to the thumb drives on Earth.
Tong-Chang sifted through her things to find a digital pad and earphones. She handed them to Zoey and helped her navigate the folder options once the storage device had been tacked to the side of the computer.
“Let me know when this becomes too much for you to bear. I’ll be right here,” Tong-Chang said. “But say something.”
Zoey nodded. She grabbed the pages and photographs, took a deep breath with her eyes squeezed shut, and then pressed on the first icon that was listed on the screen.
* * *
“This is the Marslou Journal, signed Captain Ren’baek Druvvin, on date: Sixteenth of Trejemane, Allied Revolution 225. At the time of this recording, we are positioned at an anomaly believed to be a wormhole of greater proportion than any seen before, more than ten gigameters beyond the Hoshi-Lacartan Alliance limits. The wormhole remains open, fluctuating even, as though it calls to us, but we know not for how long, nor the destination.
“What we do know are the maximum size, for which we made adjustments by detaching our escape shuttles, and that a band of criminal insurgents belonging to the Hulda’fi has used this anomaly as a means of escape. Our shuttles will hang back as we enter at the next window, predicted to be any moment now, and rejoin us on the other side, assuming our success. The sooner we can bring these rebels back to face justice for their crimes the better.”
“Sir,” called a man in earshot, “it has dilated.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Let’s move in.”
A flurry of static and sounds of metal warping racked the next few seconds of the log. Suddenly, it stopped, and then new sounds broke through the recording.
“What the—?”
“Pull up, all of you!”
“On it, sir.”
“Directing systems, preparing matrices at your command.”
“Shield readings are reconfiguring. Rebooting may be required.”
“The Marslou is turning, rising . . . atmospheric skipping is a success.”
“Very good, now where are we? Could this be the Hulda’fi headquarters?”
“Checking now, sir.”
“It can’t be. Sir, we’re more than thirty-two light-spans and five hundred tetrameters away from Natt Grans.”
“Confirmed. The planet below us is sa-Gir-2-V-n-3: p-3-c-D. Do you wish us to complete the coordinate matrix and send someone down to investigate?”
“Negative. Put up cloaking at once. We do not know how advanced they have become, or how dangerous they may be, since the last expedition came within orbit. Perform a scan on the planet up to three kilometers below the surface for any signs of our Hulda’fi friends.”
“Sir, I have spotted a stiern-boat. It is fleeing for the anomaly.”
>
“Follow them.”
“The anomaly is drifting away from the planet now, sir, and it is shrinking. At its current speed, it could collapse in the next three hours.”
“I’m picking up a message, sir. It appears to be one of our radio frequencies from the surface, and it’s using an encryption recognized by the Hoshi-Lacartan Alliance.”
“Blast! Cancel my order to follow the craft. Open our channel at once.” Disdain dripped from Captain Druvvin’s voice. Static cracked, and he went on. “This is Captain Druvvin of the Marslou. Identify yourself.”
A new voice, weakened, said, “The Marslou? Great, this is Sergeant Mangchi of the Stellar Rogue Battalion. I have no time to talk or explain. Agh, dammit! I’m dying down here if you want to teleport me onto your ship.”
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