by Dan Haronian
Gradually I worked out everything that had happened in my head. The last thing I remembered was the sign on the tail of the shuttle. Glimpses of the toothless smile of the bearded man came up from time to time as well. So did his threat that escape would lead to nothing but a painful death. In encouraging moments, I thought of the irony that my escape had actually worked out, while he on the other hand had joined the space between his teeth.
I also stuttered now. Not that I spoke very much. Really, who could I speak to? Still, the short conversations I had with the nurses were terribly fragmented. I was barely able to speak. They all told me it was from the shock of what had happened to me, and that eventually my speech would come back.
Clearly I was in the hospital of the rebels. The fact that my cousin Naan had sold me to them so I could scramble information still amazed me. In my wildest dreams I’d never imagined him betraying Mampas. They’d been so good to him and to our planet after which he’d been named. My only theory was that he had a deal with the rebels that offered him great wealth. Maybe he couldn’t stand the temptation. Sometimes my imagination went wild and I thought that maybe the rebels had promised him some role in ruling Mampas, after they took over. This thought made me sick.
Since Base 33 was destroyed, had Naan’s scam failed? The attack on the base was immediately after my arrival there. Had his plot been exposed? Had he been caught? I wondered what I should do. They were still not asking me anything. Did they know who I was? Were they still expecting a return on their investment? The toothless man had said that they took care of their investments. Was that what they were doing now?
I had no doubt Naan's treason would eventually serve the Chosen well. He was the son of Daio and his actions would without a doubt affect Daio and Naan severely. I wondered where the Books were in all of this? Could this have been what my father had meant when he said it was all decoration? Maybe he’d been waiting for this failure. Maybe he would finally take his place on the stage of the history of Naan and Mampas. Whatever happened, I was comforted that Naan's conspiracy had failed and my despicable cousin would fall. No one could ever take that away from me.
"Death sharpens thoughts," was a common quote on Naan in the times when the plague was a constant presence in the streets. Su-Thor knew this quote addressed the thoughts of the man that was dying from the plague of the sins. Raban, her son, hadn't died from the plague, yet his death had sharpened her thoughts. A few days after she’d received the bitter news she’d told Sosi that the thing she most loved in him was his tenacity and rebelliousness. She told the Doctor her son was her Chosen regardless of what any stinking books said on the subject.
They didn't speak much about their son. Sosi often had pangs of conscience. He also felt that Su-Thor blamed him on some level for Raban's death. He thought that if he had introduced their son to the eighth book then maybe this idea of the shuttle wouldn't have matured, and Raban wouldn't have met his death under such questionable circumstances.
A month after she received the news about her son she invited the Doctor over for dinner. She knew that he didn’t eat like a normal person, but she’d said things to him during the last month that she regretted. She felt the need to apologize to him, and it didn't bother her if he preferred to oil his joints instead of eating the food put on the table. Besides, she knew he was suffering as well. His two hundred and sixty two year long mission had evaporated along with Raban.
Sosi was on his way into the dining room with a large bowl of vegetables when the Doctor arrived at their house. Sosi nodded for him to follow.
"Hello," said a Doctor and looked toward the kitchen. "Hello Su-Thor. Thank you very much for the invitation," he said when he saw her.
"You are welcome," she replied.
The Doctor sharp eye could easily detect slight changes in those around him, but he didn't need these skills to see how she had been aged by the loss of her son. She lifted a big pot off the stove and walked towards him. "Come," she said as she walked into the dining room.
"That smells good," said the Doctor. She smiled wondering if his sense of smell was even still active.
A tall chair was pulled up next to the table and the Doctor climbed onto it.
"I cannot leave your plate empty," said Su-Thor as she placed a bowl in front of him.
"Yes that's fine," said a Doctor. "I'm used to it."
"I always make too much, but I want to be prepared if someone suddenly comes," she said and sighed.
"That's fine," said the Doctor. "I can eat something if you’d like? So that everything will look more real?"
"Doesn't it bother you that you have not been able to taste anything for so long?" asked Sosi.
The Doctor noticed his sardonic look. "They suppressed it so that I wouldn’t miss anything."
"That was very thoughtful of them," said Sosi. "If they only knew what a failure that was going to be-"
"Sosi please!" said Su-Thor and looked at him with anger.
Sosi grinned.
"That's fine, I'm not hurt," said the Doctor.
"They probably suppressed that too," said Sosi.
Su-Thor threw the ladle into the big pot furiously.
"Why are you taking this so hard?" said Sosi. "He is already used to my sarcasm."
"But I'm not, and I'm here too," she said. "If you can’t control your mouth you may lose control of other things as well."
"Leave him alone," said the Doctor. "You're only encouraging him."
Sosi shook his head and reconsidered his words.
They start to eat and the Doctor even made an effort to finish the vegetables that Su-Thor had placed in his bowl.
"They're bringing the remains of the shuttle back to Naan tomorrow," said the Doctor in a moment of quiet.
Sosi continued to eat as if he hadn’t heard.
"What for?" asked Su-Thor.
"I don't know," said the Doctor. "They said they want to investigate what caused the crash. From what I understand there wasn’t much left so I don't know what they can investigate."
Su-Thor’s body rose a bit and the Doctor thought she was trying to suppress a sigh.
"It has nothing to do with any investigation," said Sosi and looked at the Doctor. "They mean to put on a show. These are the remains of the traitor’s shuttle. They will probably tow it all over Naan so everyone will see."
"He's no traitor," said Su-Thor. Her eyes shone and she closed her mouth tight, strangling the cry that was about to burst from her.
"Of course he's not the traitor," said the Doctor, "and I don't think that is what people in Naan think either. You know how much Daio loved him."
"They still don't know what he was doing there," said Sosi. "Heneg keeps repeating the claim that he was collaborating with the rebels. There is nothing innocent in such a claim. He has repeated it again and again. With a little help from their investigation everyone will think that is exactly what happened."
"It was his destiny," said Su-Thor suddenly.
"It was not destiny and you know nothing," said Sosi. "If he had known he was the Chosen he wouldn't have wasted time dealing with such low-level matters. The whole idea of the shuttle would never enter his mind."
"We have already spoke about this," said Su-Thor. "He couldn't have been more protected if you had assigned an army to guard him. If everyone had known he was the Chosen he would have had an army of enemies as well. Instead of dying in a horrifying accident someone would've assassinated him and maybe others along with him. No one can tell what would've happened."
They fell silent. Their gaze’s met and clashed across the table several times. Finally the Doctor said, "With your permission I would like to bring the shuttle tail over here." He looked back and forth between. "The sign of the Chosen was stamped somehow on it by the heat and I would like to turn it into a monument in his memory. The shuttle was his vision and I don't want his vision to disappear."
Sosi shook his head.
"I think it's a good idea," said Su-Thor wit
h a trembling voice.
“Maybe they can put the tail next to his shuttle. Then they will have two monuments. One for the two hundred years that went down the drain when my son was killed and one for the next two centuries that we will have to suffer through now that he is gone.” He shook his head again and tried to clear his thoughts. "Instead of putting so much effort into stupid things I would rather try to find out what really happened to him. We all know the shuttle was not meant to take off that night. It definitely was not supposed to fly all the way to Mampas. You know he would not have taken off without telling someone."
"I heard someone reported there was a malfunction," said the Doctor. "Do you know anything about this?"
"A malfunction? The night before taking off?" wondered Su-Thor.
"Something happened to him and all we they are telling us is nonsense," summarized Sosi.
"There were no signs of kidnapping," said the Doctor. "The people in the field reported everything was done according to the proper procedures. If you really want to investigate this we probably need to go to Mampas. If we speak to the rebels maybe we can clarify what exactly the shuttle was doing there."
"I would think that after a month this information should already have been available," said Sosi. "Isn't that what Naan is supposed to be doing as Naan's ambassador? Couldn't he verify the facts?"
The next day many from the chosen drove to Naan out of respect for Raban. They wanted to see the wreckage of the shuttle. They needed to watch it being unloaded from a cargo shuttle so they could begin to put the tragedy behind them. There was a small ceremony in memory of Raban as well. Sosi stayed home, saying that it would be too difficult for him. The truth was he didn't want to deal with his brothers, or even see them.
After all of the wreckage was removed from the shuttle, Daio said a few words but Su-Thor didn't remember any of them. When Sosi asked about the ceremony she only remembered Naan's gloomy face when he rose to speak. His promise to discover how exactly the shuttle ended up in the Mampas desert, and his assertion that they owed it to Mampas as much as to themselves sounded odd to her. She didn't exactly understand what he meant by that.
After the ceremony the shuttle’s tail was loaded onto a cargo hovercraft and flown to the City of the Chosen. Several other hovercrafts accompanied it as if it was a funeral procession. The tail was lowered into the clearing that had been prepared for it in front of the packaging facility. As the last stop for the chosen's product before shipping, the development of the packaging facility was like a mirror of the chosen. Raban was considered by everyone to be the person who’d led the final stage of this development. There was no more appropriate place in the chosen for such a monument to honor him.
A conveyor pushed the tail out of the hovercraft and a crane lifted it up and placed it in the clearing. Sosi watched the workers match the tail up to concrete plate in the clearing as others welded it to a lug protruding from the concrete.
He didn't go down to the clearing, not that day, nor in the days that followed. Su-Thor urged him several times to visit the monument. To her, without a grave, visiting the monument was a way of saying goodbye. He finally visited the monument two weeks later. It was not because of her insistence however. He simply missed Raban. The clearing was tended, and a narrow trail was paved to the monument. The shuttle’s tail was cleaned and polished. Only the dents and scratches on it, cutting across the stripes of the logo, testified the inferno it had endured in the desert.
Sosi stood close to the tail and gazed up towards the dark logo. The original color was green to symbolize the green fields. The dark color now was in place. He remembered how he’d envisioned it. It was intended to reflect optimism and solidarity. Now it only symbolized the loss of a well-loved son and the end of his grand dream.
I was up and out of bed only a month later. My body ached with every step. Even the simplest of movements now required a great effort. Several more days passed before I was able to leave the room and walk around the hospital. There were only six other survivors from Base 33. Their wounds were all lighter than mine and they were already dismissed from the hospital. I found out later that they had been outside, on my shuttle, and were able to escape when that attack started.
The first doctor I spoke to about my stuttering said I was suffering from physical and mental trauma, and that the stuttering would probably pass in a few weeks. Those weeks passed but the stuttering remained and I spoke less and less. This became an advantage considering the fact that I didn't know what my status there was. I spoke only when asked or felt I must.
The hospital had a terminal room that was disconnected from the network. A wide window beside the entrance allowed the crew to monitor their use. When I was finally able to sit in front of a terminal, the news about the attack was so old I had to surf to the news archives to piece together the story. The reports spoke about the blow the rebels had suffered. They explained that the motivation for that attack was a flagrant violation of the agreements the rebels had signed. One report mentioned that a unit of scramblers had been operating out of Base 33.
At first I thought that these stories were proof that Naan's scam had failed. Then I realized I was wrong. If he had failed where, in the name of all plagues, was the news of his capture? Where was the news of the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Mampas and the planet Naan? And where was the apology of Daio for the horrible activities of his son?
I stayed in the communication room for hours searching for more information. The nurses thought it was some kind of obsession that resulted from the trauma I had sustained.
I surfed the news channels on Naan. The stories of my death were received there with great sorrow. I even saw a short video from the ceremony they held for the return of the shuttle wreckage. There was a shot of Daio speaking about the incident. I was startled when Naan stepped up after him to speak. I couldn't believe this murderer was getting away with what he had done. The reports that came a few days after the attacks included many speculations about what had happened to the shuttle. Some spoke of an odd coincidence that included a malfunction in the navigation system and a deviation from the approved course that carried the shuttle into the desert. They spoke of the bad luck of the shuttle entering a war zone just as the battle began. A few reports said that the shuttle was there before the attack and that I had been recruited to scramble information for the rebels.
No one asked what a loaded cargo shuttle was doing in the middle of the desert of Mampas a full day before its historical lift off. No one also asked why I would fly into the desert to help the rebels in a giant shuttle. It was ridiculous. It was like a thief entering a bank with a big sign on his back explaining when and where he could be found outside of his questionable working hours.
When I saw a fresh report explaining, with a high percentage of reliability, about a series of meetings between Mampas and Naan meant to examine a possible military alliance between the two I began to understand. The report detailed the need for such an alliance. The partnership would include Mampasian war hovercrafts stationed on Naan and Naanite soldiers training on Mampas. At the end of the reports it said that the initiator of this alliance was none other than my cousin, the ambassador of Naan in Mampas.
Sometimes you remember something significant that completely changes the way you think about everything. The mind does the rest. Suddenly a small detail that long ago faded into insignificance at the back of your memory becomes the missing piece that ties together a long chain of logic. It happened to me that day as I read about Naan’s military alliance. I remembered the sentence that Naan had whispered in my ear. I couldn’t remember the exact words, but I remembered the general idea: “…going to be short.” At the time I thought it was some kind of a casual warning, that he simply assumed wouldn’t last long there. In light of what I had been reading however, I suddenly saw that his sentence was far from casual. Had he whispered it in my ear just to humiliate me? Was only interested in abusing me? Or did he simply not want
the others to hear? This small detail now exploded back into my mind. Now I could see that it had all been part of his plan. He had never intended for me to scramble information for the rebels. His whole purpose was to entrap the rebels and me as well.
This thought startled me so much that I couldn’t push it from my head the whole rest of the day. I went back to the terminal room and reread the reports. I scoured them for something that could disprove my theory. I searched for hours, but I couldn't find anything. Maybe I needed more time, I thought. Maybe the same way these scary ideas simply popped into my head, a new thought that would contradict it would spontaneously form -- if not tomorrow, then maybe the day after.
I saw one of the nurses passing by the window. She gave me a long look. I guess she noticed the wonder on my face. She walked away and I returned to thinking about Naan.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped from the chair in a panic. It felt as if I’d gotten an electrical shock. It was the nurse and she was looking at me as if she too was electrified. I mumbled pieces of words and suddenly felt I as if I was suffocating. She jerked back and looked at me in terror. I saw her run to the wall and press a red button mounted there. Seconds later two people ran into the room and laid me on the floor. They placed a gas mask on my face and I faded into unconsciousness.
I woke up an hour later in my bed under the watchful eyes of one of the doctors. He told me I was fine. He explained that I was experiencing something like the aftershocks of a seismic event. My body was experiencing a delayed reaction to the quake it had been subject to.
Maybe that was what happened, but I thought it was simple panic from losing control over my life. Naan had failed in his mission to kill me, but I knew that if he ever decided to finish the job there was nothing I could do to stop him. He’d no problem kidnapping me, along with my shuttle, and bringing me to the desert of Mampas. He had easily made it look as if I were the rebels’ ally and organized a massive attack by the Mampasian Army. He hadn’t hesitated to eliminate a base with the hundreds of people in it. He had manipulated Naan, Mampas, and the rebels themselves to achieve his purpose. He slid easily into any group and drafted them, knowingly and unknowingly, into his plots. I would never be a strong as him. As soon as he found out I was alive he would simply eliminate me.