“We help people now, using the procedure that we have and the synthetic nectar in place of the original, and even then with limits since it now takes more nectar for the first time alone, and the synthetic nectar is an imperfect copy. If someone sought to do the procedure even once, they have to be damned sure. They have to be warned that once a dose has been administered to change the body in any way it will take more the next time, and the time after that, with every single use of the procedure carrying higher risks of death.”
Tong-Chang said, “Wait a minute, when did we acquire this sample? Ever since the week before we got to Earth I was given charge of all inventory on the ship, and I don’t remember us acquiring any— Oh. Oh, no way.”
“If you are guessing it had anything to do with that case you found in the Cargo Hold, then you would be right.”
“The Hulda’fi took it the night after we found it, I thought?”
“There were three packets of nectar in there. I’m grateful that Hulda’fi never returned for the one I took. I had a smaller container that I kept cool with frozen carbon dioxide. It was the perfect solution on short notice.”
“Dry ice?” Zoey said. “How cold does it need to be kept?”
“Plenty cold. It needs to be colder than plain ice as you may call it where you are from, or it will spoil in less than a day. The nectar can’t be allowed to freeze either, or, it will become useless. Now? We have an abundance left over to treat up to four patients who will never see half of the first-timer risks of the synthetic substance. We could treat them now and save their lives. We could try to analyze it more accurately to improve the synthetic version than what we have. It will probably be destroyed like the most evil thing incarnate.”
“When will it be cast into the magical volcano from whence it came?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Earth thing. Thank you for telling us all of this.”
“Of course, but don’t share it with anyone. I tell you this because you are part of this, somehow, and you are sworn to secrecy about the past month of the Marslou’s travels.”
“Can I really not tell anyone that I’m from Earth?”
“You could try, but only if it makes sense without giving away the rest. Now then, what are you three up to today?”
They shared with her the details of their trip into town. Dasos was up in his condo. The girls were relaxing for a bit before one had to go home, and then the other two would have to figure out what to do with Zoey’s education or employment. She had received a letter of recommendation from Captain Druvvin, but that only meant so much right now.
Laeknar Saludalta stood there for a time and actively thought about something unknown to the others. When she broke her silence she said, “Have you applied to the university yet, at least?”
“We have not,” Bon’sinne said. “I was going to ask Zoey during lunch if she wanted to do that today. If we get her in, then we would have to act fast, since Aerak’s active duty and my retirement won’t be enough to cover one semester.”
“If you do that and get in to do the assessment tests they have there, then you will at least have your foot in the door. I bring this up because the ranking officials of our governments and military are discussing what to do about everything. Seeing you in the university system, trying to get in, might win a few favors. Some of the aristocratic types enjoy being impressed. Do this sooner rather than later and you may even see an impressive financial record in your name since you’re basically a new person without much of a standing identity.”
Bon’sinne said, “I never took you for a political type.”
“No, I try not to be like my father and grandfather. Great laeknir, both of them, but better talkers. If my father was still alive, he would try to talk me into going into the annual masquerade that’s coming up, I think, tomorrow night. In fact, it would impress them if a mysterious young lady from Earth were to arrive. Now I wish I hadn’t deleted my invitation. I’d have loved to see that myself.”
“How would she get into such an event?”
“She could have been one of my ‘plus two.’ It’s a shame, too. I understand one of Ginserei’s delegates will also be unable to attend.”
Then Tong-Chang squeaked, one of her hands clenched over her mouth. Her other hand navigated its way through a contact list in her cell-comm. She brought it up to her ear. It twitched as she waited. Zoey wondered who her girlfriend was calling that made her so nervous.
“Hi, Mom?” she said. “It’s me, Tong-Chang. Can I ask you for a huge favor?”
[ 26]
“Next?” said a receptionist behind the counter.
Zoey approached with her mom beside her, and the document in hand that Captain Druvvin had given her. They were in the main building for the Elysium University in Trullwick.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m here to apply for attendance and take the assessment test.”
It was odd to Zoey to apply anywhere in person rather than online at a computer like she had assumed to be common. She wasn’t sure if this was an Elysium thing to be here now, doing this, or if it was simply convenient to go this route.
The receptionist said, “We appear to be out of applications at the moment. I’m sorry.”
“Nope, you’re not,” Zoey said.
“Excuse me?”
“I may not know about you personally, but I happen to know that where I come from, which is nowhere as beautiful nor as elegant in its organized efficiency, places always have copies of applications by law. It’s actually one of the big, dumb plays made where I’m from to say you have none, to maybe send people out to grab an application from somewhere else, and then go from there. Hello, my name is Zoi’ne; may I have an application please?”
At first the receptionist was aghast by this display, but then they opened the drawer next to them and dug through some papers until the receptionist placed an application on the counter before Zoey and directed her to the next person for when it was filled out.
“Thank you,” Zoey said, walking away.
She and Bon’sinne sat down so that Zoey could fill out the information, at which point her mom asked if that was true what Zoey said about places on Earth lying about applications like that. Some did. They claimed it was to test people before they turned anything in, but the level of truth behind that claim was an unknown.
Zoi’ne Thalassas signed her name, careful still to use the letters used by Aelfs and Ginserei instead of the Earth ones. She wanted to tell herself that it was becoming habitual now. Bon’sinne handed her the necessary information such as their home address once Zoey got to that point.
While writing down the information that she had, Zoey came upon the question regarding previous education. “Mom,” she then whispered, “what do I tell them?”
“Say anything,” her mom said. “Nobody checks with public schools anyway; only that you filled that section.”
Right. So Zoey entered her old high school information and hoped for the best. In her mind she was seeing the university’s administrators making a long distance call to Earth to see if she ever attended. Considering her previous name, she knew such a thing would have been too much trouble.
She stood in line for the next window, which took twice as long to reach as the previous line did even though it was shorter in size. It was about this time that she noticed a few people from the staff glancing at her as long as Zoey was not looking directly at them.
It’s like there’s something on my face. Oh, right, some of them might have known her.
This held true, more than likely, for the receptionist at the second window. The Ginserei sitting there went pale and stuttered for a moment while trying to speak.
“I’m not her,” Zoey said.
“Sorry?” the receptionist said.
“Here is my application for attendance and a letter from the Marslou’s Captain Druvvin recommending me. You’ll find that I am not my sister, I hope.”
“Oh, stars beyond, what a reli
ef. You look so much like Il’lyse. It’s uncanny.”
“Believe me, I know. I can’t seem to get out of her shadow no matter where I go. So how long will I need to wait to be allowed to take the assessment test?”
“Well, the application fee is five hundred burras. Once you pay that we can process this on a preliminary level and let you into the testing room within ten to fifteen minutes of receiving payment.”
“Oh wow, five hundred burras? Hi, Mom, good timing.”
Bon’sinne joined her then and pulled out a card that Zoey had seen a few times by now. “I got this much, dear. It’s five hundred, you said, right?”
Thanks to Das talking to her this morning Zoey now knew that the burra was a singular currency, without any divided parts, that Aelfs used. It was named for tree knots because small ones used to be carved and gilded for trade in some villages and cities of early Elysium Prime history. Here, millennia later on their current planet of Elysium IX, the value was adjusted every fifteen revolutions to account for inflation, unlike the Ginserei yingbi; hence the latter seeming four times higher in prices.
More time passed until Zoi’ne was called in. Without fail, she walked into the room and immediately saw computers that looked to be from more than a decade ago, or at least this was what she imagined it would be when compared to the digital pads that so many people walked around with. The desktop computers, screens included, were the size of her chest and more advanced than anything on earth, but the color had faded or otherwise changed from years of use.
For the sake of sating her curiosity, Zoey whispered to the university staffer that led her in. She said, “By the way, how old are these computers?”
The staffer led her to a table and said, “I think we had this model here for the last ninety-three revolutions. They still work perfectly fine, and we haven’t had to replace any parts in a good while. So here is your application number. The assessments will test your general knowledge on language, mathematics, and other subjects for up to forty-five minutes in total. Please budget your time well so we can measure your aptitude in these areas. We will have more questions for you when you are done. Good luck.”
They left Zoey to her testing. Each subject started simple and worked its way up, as was expected, but she allowed five minutes per subject at the beginning. Each section had an option to hold progress and swap to another one, making this easy to do.
Only six areas were tested, so she spent the remainder of her time on literary comprehension since she felt the one was in the most need of time to think about her answers. Unlike testing that she’d received as a child, however, the blurbs and related questions seemed to be written well so that their intended meaning was clear, which she appreciated as opposed to those exams on Earth. About here was also when Zoey saw an option to flag a question or paragraph in case she needed help.
Her timer reached zero finally. A message popped up on her screen saying that results were being calculated. It prompted Zoey to add any opinion on the tests if she had one, but she declined and waited.
And waited.
An Aelf man walked to her desk. He appeared a little older than Keft’aerak, and he seemed to need more exercise than whatever he was getting with his job. The man said, “Zoi’ne Thalassas? Please come with me.”
He led her to the rear office of the testing room where there was a single table with a chair on either of two sides. In the far corners were fake trees made from what appeared to be crystal or glass. The office, otherwise, was clean and basic.
Zoey took a seat without prompting, and the man joined opposite to her.
“Before we get started,” he said, “why Elysium University? Why this particular campus?”
“My brother and sister went here,” Zoey said. “My brother still does. I’m figuring my life out, and so many people have been suggesting this place for me.”
“You’re not related to Das’ithrios, are you?”
“I am. Why?”
“No reason. Now, let’s see. It says here that you went to a school in a place called Nevada? I’m not familiar with this country.”
Country? Zoey burst out laughing so hard.
She said, “It’s not a country. It’s a state; a whole region on the west side of the United States.”
“United, uhh . . . ?”
“That’s a country on the planet I grew up on called Earth. Lovely place; I don’t recommend it.”
“So you are aware, we are a prestigious university that doesn’t take kindly to falsified data.”
“Cool. Oh, but you probably know Earth by another name. What was it again? I think it was sa-Gir-2-V-n-3: p-3-c-D.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Cute, but no one lives there but a bunch of primitive buffoons who couldn’t do more than shoot their own garbage into space.”
“Satellites, actually, and many of the humans there aren’t so bad. Go ahead and read Captain Druvvin’s letter recommending me to come here. He mentions the planet at least once in the whole three pages.”
Her new adversary in this discussion narrowed his eyes at Zoey. It was clear he didn’t believe a single thing that she said about Earth, but at least he wasn’t explicitly asking how she came to be on Elysium IX.
Another man ran into the room and said, “You have to see this. Whoa, it’s so huge.” Zoey didn’t look right at the new man that entered, but she was already tempted to ask him about the waves he liked to surf.
“Not right now,” said the interviewer.
“Like, that planet off in the frontier? The one surrounded by deposits of metal that they’ve been firing from their own surface? It has a name now – it’s Earth. Whoa, right?”
“I’m in the middle of something here. Would you please leave us alone for a moment?”
Zoey said, “He can stay. This is hilarious.”
“How did you know this name, Miss Thalassas?”
“I grew up there. I can’t really tell you more than that as far as how I got here, but here I am, and there’s your name for it.”
“Fine, moving on. Your application also indicates that you have interest in the academic field of History. What do you like about this subject?”
“It’s great for seeing patterns of where a people have come from, and what they are bound to repeat as long as nobody with power to change things is knowledgeable about such lessons. Take, for instance, Emperor Nero.”
She spent a few minutes talking all about that she’d learned about the Roman emperor on Earth, who’d lived thousands of years ago—and then interjecting that years was what people on Earth called revolutions—and committed several despicable acts in the name of his own ego, with his endgame being that Nero wanted a monument even at the cost of Rome burning. He saw himself as an artist until the moment he died. Fast forward to today and another man shadowed Nero, but people were too busy laughing at him or comparing him to the wrong man to prevent his rise to power.
“And learning from examples like this,” she said, “as well as the signs leading to it, can help us prevent the same kind of mistakes from repeating. We need more people who care enough about these things to advise our leaders or teach our youth. Especially advise the leaders; my goodness.”
Her interviewer stared at her like Zoey had set fire to all of his belongings and kidnapped his dog while he was looking. The man slid the paperwork across the table and looked up at the other man in the room.
The interviewer said, “Make sure this is fully processed. I’m going to need a moment.”
“Can do. You should see this Earth thing, though. It’s so awesome.”
“Zoi’ne, you can go now. I think that you’ll do fine here, assuming you can pay for it and keep up your studies.”
She stood up and walked out. On her way back to the main lobby, Zoey passed an office where news about sa-Gir-2-V-n-3: p-3-c-D, or Earth, was playing on the wall monitor. She noted that there was, in fact, television or something like it here, but she kept going to the large room until she found he
r mom.
“How did it go?” Bon’sinne asked her.
“I think I made a good impression,” Zoey said. “Now what?”
“We have a while to go before tomorrow night. I need to pick out a dress for the occasion, as do you. Before that, let’s grab some lunch, and then some ice cream. I know a good place.”
* * *
Soror Valide swung the maroon cloak over her new suit. Her fingers outlined a few contours of her body to tug and adjust the tailored suit jacket as needed. The Lord and Lady of the manor wouldn’t mind her borrowing this cloak, would they?
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