“Oh.” Zander looked down, feeling a little ashamed. “I didn’t know.”
Zander heard a clack of a fork, and a hesitant pat on his shoulder. He looked up to see Xenith awkwardly leaning across the table, patting his shoulder. “Don’t feel bad about feeling bad,” he said. “It will get better. Counselor Novak knows what she is doing. Mato is incredibly nice—you said he checks up on you, and I know for a fact that he cares about everyone here. You said everyone is nice to you, and you have friends.”
Zander drew his head back a little as Xenith settled back into his chair. “I do?”
“You haven’t forgotten me, right?” Xenith grinned, dramatically pointing to himself.
Zander laughed. “I’m your friend?”
“Of course you are; why wouldn’t you be? You’re a cool kid.”
Zander stared at Xenith for a moment. “Besides Celes, you’re my first friend.”
It was Xenith’s turn to look taken aback, and he suddenly found the ceiling to be very interesting, looking up and blinking rapidly before he looked back down to Zander. “Well, Mr. Zander Tadao Dušánek, I’ll make sure to be a good ambassador of friendship.” He gave Zander a jaunty smile and two thumbs up, like what human presidents did during news conferences. Zander giggled. “And I’ll help you make more friends, if you want. More the merrier, right?”
“I… guess?” Zander thought of Nentok and Qianii. “Is it cool to have alien friends?”
“It is, but they’re not too different from us as people would think.” Xenith paused. “Well, actually, it is a little different I guess. We are different species and have to know each other’s languages, body language, and culture well enough to make sure we don’t accidentally get them mad.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is. It took me years not to cross my arms in front of Tok—it means, ah, a very bad word and a death threat to Jareshi,” Xenith laughed nervously. “The first time I did it, I was eight, and Tok and I just became friends. Tok made a weird hissing sound, like this,” Xenith let out a guttural gurgling sound, his tongue flat to produce a hissing noise, “and it scared me. He wouldn’t talk to me for two weeks until one teacher told him humans cross our arms because we’re on guard or unsure of something. He felt sorry about it, and so did I, once he told me what it meant. Now we’re really good friends.”
“Do you still cross your arms on accident?” Zander asked, hoping he remembered to never cross his arms in front of a Jareshi.
“I do, yeah, but Tok just… 'huffs' is the best word I guess and goes, 'That’s the fourth death threat you’ve made this week. Hurry up, squishy rodent'. He doesn’t mean it; just talks shi—I mean, makes fun of me like I do to him, but we’re OK with it.”
“ ‘Squishy rodent’?” Zander furrowed his brow. “We don’t look like rats or mice; no tails,” he added, looking behind him as if expecting one to suddenly appear.
Xenith rolled his eyes. “We did a biology class together. When we went into human evolution, the teacher showed a picture of a creature we evolved from around the dinosaur extinction time, and it looked like a rat. Still, Tok gives me crap—oops, don’t use that word, it’s bad—but he shut up for a while when we found out the creature liked to eat insects.”
Zander giggled. “Because he looks like one?”
“Don’t tell him that because it is kind of insulting,” Xenith said, looking stern. Zander’s eyes grew wide, and he shook his head quickly as Xenith continued, “I would never call a Jareshi that, and he would never call other humans ‘rodents’. But his ancestors did come from a big insect that looks like a grasshopper, and he thinks grasshoppers are cute,” he shrugged. “Anyway, point is, having alien friends means you have to make sure you talk a lot with each other so you’re not accidentally mean or rude, but it isn’t better or worse than having a human friend. Just different.”
“Oh, OK,” Zander said. “How do I make friends?”
“Hmm.” Xenith propped his chin on his hand, thinking for a few moments. “Well… people are different. I’ve made friends by finding out that we like the same thing—that’s how I usually make friends, anyway. Talk to people to learn that, or you can be nice to someone and just ask them questions; people like talking about themselves. Most do, anyway.”
“So, I just go up to someone and talk to them?”
“It can be as easy as that, or harder.” Xenith scratched his head. “Don’t feel bad if you don’t make friends right away. Qianii and I used to hate each other, but now it isn’t so bad; we still try to outdo each other, but other than that we get along. Oh, and if you’re ever bullied, tell your teachers or me.”
“I think people only made fun of me twice, and after the teacher talked to the other kid—his name is Efrik—he said he was sorry and stopped making fun of me. It’s a lot better than at home.”
“Where were you from? I don’t think I asked.”
“Endeavor.”
“Endeavor,” Xenith frowned as he repeated the name. “Man, I’m sorry. I haven’t been there, but I heard it wasn’t… nice.”
“Aorírdal is much cleaner,” Zander nodded, remembering his dirty and grimy homeworld. “And people weren’t nice on Endeavor, kids or adults.” He could still picture the disgusted looks adults gave him even when he did nothing.
Xenith looked around for a second, then mentally said, >>Did you guys get a lot of… attacks? From XIKs,<< he added when Zander said, “Huh?” aloud.
>>I think so. Mom died from one,<< Zander replied, scratching his head.
Xenith reeled back, his personal thoughts and mental projection merging for a moment. >>Oh crap—damn, wait—don’t use those words!<< “I’m so sorry,” Xenith said, abruptly cutting off the mental projection, his face red in embarrassment. “I didn’t know; shouldn’t have asked—"
“My sister was the one who told me, and I didn’t see it happen or see any XIKs… or at least I don’t remember. It happened when I was, like, three or something. Celes said if I talked about it, to tell people I’m ‘vaccinated’.”
“Well, yeah, you’re still you,” Xenith said awkwardly, gesturing to him. “What, do people think you’ll become a XIK any second?”
“Maybe?” Zander shrugged. Most people whispered about XIKs, but here on Aorírdal, people either didn’t care or were really scared of them.
“I believe that you won’t, no worries,” Xenith smiled, his eyes crinkling. “You’re a strong kid, you know that?”
“What?” Zander looked at Xenith, not sure if he meant it. “But… I’m a crybaby,” he muttered.
“Hey, with what happened to you earlier and now being taken away to a new and scary place? I’d be crying too—actually, I did. A lot,” Xenith admitted.
Zander gaped at him. “You cried?”
“Why not? I have emotions too, you know,” Xenith scowled. “I mean, a couple of emotions are bad when it’s felt too much or long, including crying, but there’s nothing wrong with it. Having friends helped me and talking with an adult I trust—that’s Mato for me—helped even more. It wasn’t overnight, but I don’t feel as sad as I used to. It’ll be the same for you.”
“Do you still cry?”
“Sometimes. But that is if I get really frustrated about my abilities not progressing—getting better, or if I bomb a test I studied really hard for, or for things that make me happy or feel special.” Xenith reached over the table, patting Zander on the shoulder, this time more confidently. “Hang in there, Zander. I got your back.”
Zander smiled, reaching up with his smaller hand and patting Xenith’s forearm. “Thank you. Can we play with toys after lunch?”
Xenith laughed. “Sure, we can do that. After lunch, I’ll race you to the playroom.” Both he and Zander quickly slurped their noodles, drinking the entire left-over broth.
They went to one playroom, a large space with lots of toys and AR devices, and Nentok and Qianii later joined them that afternoon. They all went to dinner together and
Zander felt special being with the big kids. Nentok showed him images of his home planet via emotive telepath and regaled him with stories. Though Qianii argued with Nentok and Xenith a lot, she was sweet to Zander and snuck him extra desserts.
Afterwards, they escorted him to the residence quarters, since the younger kids had to go to sleep sooner than the older kids. Zander hugged Xenith and Qianii good night and waved to Nentok, who had told him earlier Jareshi didn’t like to be touched. As they left, and he entered his room, he believed Xenith: maybe being here wasn’t so bad.
An hour later though, he grew doubtful of his newfound hope. In his small room with red and blue-colored walls that he chose for the day from the control panel, he sat on his very comfortable bed. Every night he had looked out the window, at the blackness with twinkling stars, and every night he remembered Celes when she gazed at the stars. She would usually be outside on the apartment walkway nearly to midnight, one hand against the streetlights below to block out the light.
“So I can see better,” she had explained when he had asked why she did that, giving him a quick smile. “If I strain my eyes enough, I can see other stars that I couldn’t before after a few minutes.”
“You can see more stars on the net,” Zander had said, looking up at the sky and not really getting why Celes did this every night. “Or look at a holo.”
“But it’s different in person… it’s better.” At Zander’s continued look of boredom, she had added, “It would be like seeing actual dinosaurs, walking and roaring around.”
That Zander could understand, and his eyes had lit up. “Whoa, really?”
She had nodded, and both of them started when they heard a bottle shatter against the wall in the apartment. Zander had frozen, having learned to not move an inch when their dad got angry, but Celes had merely glared towards the closed door, reaching out and putting an arm around Zander’s shoulder, pulling him next to her. “The real thing is pretty, really pretty, better than the holos,” she had continued as if their dad wasn’t raging behind the door. “Mom would point to all the stars she knew when we lived at the old house, and there were a lot. She would point in directions she had been to, all the nebulas she had seen, everything.” Celes had paused, both of them listening to their dad’s incoherent yells through the apartment door.
“One day Zander, we’re going up there.” She had shifted her gaze upward again, staring at the stars with some kind of sadness on her face.
Zander had stared up to where she looked. “Into a giant ball of gas?” he had asked, giggling at the word ‘gas’.
She had pouted at him. “No, silly; we’re getting off this planet.” She had squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t care what I have to do, but we’re getting out of here.”
His memory faded, back to the present in a dimmed room with toys strewn about the floor, a fluffy bed, and a window that showed a view of the stars that Celes would have loved. She was right, he thought, looking back to the window, the station slowly rotating to show the edge of the nebula they were next to. It is better than the holos. And here he was, in a cool space station with lots of aliens and awesome views of space, while she was stuck back at home.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he wiped at them impatiently. There had to be something he could do. He had asked everyone he could, even Mato, to bring her with them; she could float things—it’s ‘use telekinesis’, he reminded himself—better than he could, and even talk in people’s heads better. All he could do was barely make things move and see plants differently. Why was he here when she was better than him at psychic powers?
Frustrated, he grabbed a pillow and hugged it tightly, trying to not cry. He had cried for six months, and he didn’t want to anymore. All he wanted to do was see Celes, to make sure she was OK and that their dad wasn’t being mean to her…
He froze, remembering Xenith talking about scrying. It didn’t click during the lesson he had heard a month ago and it didn’t click when he talked to Xenith earlier, but it did now. He didn’t care if Xenith said that even he couldn’t do it; that didn’t mean Zander would not try.
Throwing the pillow aside and hopping off the bed, he dashed over to his sleek desk across the room, waving a hand at the motion sensor to brighten the lights. A holo keyboard flashed and hovered just over the desk, and a holo projector acting as a monitor clicked on, showing a backdrop of fighting T-Rexes. Pulling up the database with the archive of lessons, he spoke a keyword and found the lesson he looked for.
Frozen in mid-lecture, a holo of Krian Friya appeared from the chest up above the desk. The Rym seemed to stare directly at him. Waving his hand, Krian Friya unfroze, continuing her lecture.
“—is an act to see an object or a person in their immediate surroundings,” she said, her voice even and cool. “It is a little difficult to pull off, but easy if one practices. Most people will only be able to scry on the opposite side of a world after years of practice, and some people can see systems away. We have documented only a few thousand beings in the history of Aorírdal to scry across the galaxy.”
Background sounds of whistles, chuffs, and hisses made Krian Friya pause before she continued. “It is easier to scry people close to you, which can be anyone from blood relations to friends. That said,” she became stern as giggles went throughout the classroom, “it is forbidden to scry someone without their permission, and if anyone scries in an inappropriate manner such as the bathrooms, it will be punished severely.”
Why would anyone spy on anyone in the bathroom? Zander thought, sticking out his tongue. That’s so gross. He listened for a little longer as Krian Friya paired students together and made them go across the rooms and close their eyes. She walked them through picturing their partner’s face and aura, casting out their consciousness and widening it while keeping their partner in their mind, and an image of them should appear in their head.
Nodding in determination, Zander closed the lecture and pulled up one of the two pictures he had of Celes. It had been almost a year now since the picture was last taken, and it had been the two of them after school one day. They stood in front of a wall with some weird painting on it, and upon seeing it Celes had shrieked, “By the Three strikes again!”. Zander had bent in a T-Rex pose while Celes had made bunny ears behind his head. He had been mad at her for not taking his dinosaur stance seriously, but now it only hurt to see her again and realize how much of her face he had already forgotten.
He stared at Celes’ picture for several more seconds, memorizing her face before he closed his eyes and cast out his consciousness…. whatever that meant. He sat for a few minutes in silence, shifting impatiently, and nothing came. He opened his eyes, huffed, and tried again. And again. When that didn’t work, he impatiently stomped over to his pillows since his back hurt hunching over in his desk chair, sitting down on his bed and tried again several more times.
An hour went by, and not even a single image appeared at the back of his mind, and his mind kept wandering over to daydreaming. Gritting his teeth, he growled to himself, then waved his hand to dim the lights and threw himself forward on the bed, putting his face in the pillow.
This is stupid. Celes wasn’t even a quarter way across the galaxy, but he knew that it would be impossible to just scry her instantly. Few people could do that; why would he, a little boy who cried and couldn’t even float a pencil in the air for two minutes, be able to do that?
Zander lay there for what felt like hours, before his body relaxed and his mind stilled. He felt tired and sleepy, his brain aching. Flipping on his back, he lifted his legs to pull the covers over himself, not bothering to change into pjs. Settling in his bed, his mind continued to calm, and he wanted to give scrying one last shot before he drifted to sleep. He thought of his sister, with her round face with long black hair and big violet eyes, with a glow of teal around her—
People filled the large room. All of them human. Most sat in pews facing a low platform with two men. One had dark skin and yellow eyes, the other had pal
e skin and blond hair. The pale man spoke, but no sound came out of his mouth. In the very back row of pews, a man with sad eyes and slicked back brown hair sat next to a girl. A girl with a round face with long black hair and big violet eyes—
“Celes!” Zander cried out. The vision snapped shut to reveal his dark ceiling in Aorírdal. For a moment he thought he saw the image of a woman suddenly vanish.
He breathed heavily and felt like a hover car had slammed into him, his limbs shaking. Was that his imagination, or did he actually see his sister and his dad? He shut his eyes and tried to relax again to see if he could scry again, but every time he tried, it just felt like he stopped short against his will, as if he reached across a table for something and yet could not get to the other side. And what about that woman? His door had not announced visitors.
Huffing in frustration, he opened his eyes again, breathing deeply. Probably not his imagination, but he felt unsure if he actually scried his sister. Frowning, he wrestled with the decision to ask Xenith about it the next day, and rolled over onto his side. His last thoughts dwindled on the devastated expression that his sister wore just a few moments earlier, and wondered if he had imagined the woman who had disappeared from his room.
Five
The hotel room, small and cloistered, was at least clean. Ayzize stood by the door when it hissed shut and scanned the bed, the desk, the floor, and the walls with the Tristat. While he only stayed at the cleanest place Beir could offer, he always preferred to validate the claim himself.
After his previous stint on Endeavor, he had sent the medical chart of Elliot Benitz to the Chairman of Raxdrýn. From what Ayzize had seen, there was nothing remarkable about the boy beyond being in good health and slightly athletic. Ayzize then booked passage to one of the Chilao’s homeworlds to complete another bloody job, though this time the XIK struck an isolated camp; beyond several shook up Chilao, no one had died.
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