First to Dance

by Sonya Writes

  Etana stayed on Earth for six months and tried to make her point, but the most she was able to get were plentiful gifts from generous people. They filled up her spaceship as much as they could with clothes and books to give to those living on Zozeis and the other planets. Etana thanked everyone for their kindness and reluctantly set out for Zozeis again, but she wasn’t yet sure what she would do when she got there.

  When Etana landed on Zozeis at about 3 o’clock one morning, the door of the spaceship opened to reveal a smiling Timothy with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Etana burst into tears when she saw him. She went to the bedroom with him to get it over with, but all he did was tuck her into bed and kiss her on the cheek. He left the flowers for her on the night stand and went out of the room. When she woke up, he was gone. Etana went to the computer to catch up on everything that happened after she left.

  The people had only gotten worse. Everyone she knew was dead, but their children were all following in their footsteps. Aaron was a grandfather now, and his two grandchildren were living with him and his wife. Their mother, Aaron’s daughter-in-law, had started telling them stories about a planet called Earth, and Aaron declared that no one would teach such lies and nonsense to his grandchildren. They were still allowed to see their father, but not their mother, who spent her days alone in the house because no one would associate with her anymore. Etana sobbed as she read the story. She didn’t know how to help these people without turning back the clock.

  It took a long time, but Etana carried every package of clothing and books through the forest and left them in a pile among the trees about twenty feet from the park. When everything was there, she waited until nightfall, and then moved it all out into the town. She left one package by every house where children lived, not in front of the house where the adults would see it but on the side where playing children would be likely to find them. She also left packages scattered throughout the park and under the park benches. Then she returned to the space center and slept until morning.

  Etana watched the computer all the next day and read as the children discovered the hidden packages. Younger children excitedly told their parents about them, but several of the older children kept the packages a secret. They hid to read the books about Earth and then tried to hide the books. The adults were in a frenzy wondering how this could have happened and called a town meeting to discuss where the books and clothes might have come from. They agreed that it was okay to keep the clothes, but destroyed every book that they discovered. Only a few parents helped their children conceal the books and told them that they shared the belief.

  Etana smiled slightly and thought that maybe this was the answer. She could make trips to Earth and back and bring them books and other items from Earth. Maybe she could even leave handwritten letters for the people telling them more about their ancestry. She could bring a camera next time and take pictures to show the people on Earth how everyone was living on Zozeis. Perhaps photographs would produce more empathy for the humans living on other planets. Eventually, maybe, she could make an impact big enough to change the direction this society was headed.

  The spaceship Etana arrived in needed to charge, but the other one was fully charged, so Etana prepared it for Earth and left the next morning about 4am. She’d been in the spaceship for less than twenty minutes when a small screen popped up on the computer, alerting her that her course had changed. The spaceship was now traveling to a planet called Adonia.

  Timothy was waiting for her when she arrived, and she was mad at him.

  “Why did you bring me here?” she asked. “I was going to Earth. You told me I could go wherever I wanted to go, whenever I wanted to.”

  “You didn’t fulfill your end of the deal when we were on Zozeis.”

  “You didn’t ask me to. You passed it up; now let me go to Earth.”

  He stepped forward and touched her cheek. “You looked tired,” he said. “But I can see that you’re more rested now.” He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

  “No,” she said, “I won’t. I didn’t come here intentionally, so this doesn’t count. The agreement was that I would do it when we crossed paths, but this isn’t crossing paths—this is coercion.”

  In that moment he set his heart on conquering her--bringing her to worship him as he worshipped himself. He smiled at her and shrugged his shoulders. “Very well,” he said. “I should be back here in about six months. Let me know then if you’ve changed your mind.” He went to the bedroom to sleep, and Etana walked laps around the spaceships angrily. When he came out of the bedroom he winked at her, and then he prepared a half-charged spaceship for launch. As soon as he left, Etana went to the bedroom and tried to sleep, but it felt like there were bugs crawling on her to be lying in the same bed that Timothy had. There were no bugs of course, but her mind kept telling her that this bed was dirty and she shouldn’t sleep here. Instead, she curled up in a space on the floor, where she was able to fall asleep instantly.

  When she woke the next morning, it dawned on her that it wasn’t realistic to spend the next six months here in the space center. She had food and running water, but she needed human contact, too. She would have to go into the town and talk to people if she wanted to stay sane. The three month journey to Earth was maddening enough. Six months without human contact would be much worse. But then she shook her head at herself. It would be more than six months. She wasn’t letting Timothy touch her again. She might be here for the rest of her life. She wondered what the people would be like here. She wondered what to expect. But when she sat down at the computer, she found that she could not access anything. Her access was completely denied. She couldn’t read the history of the people here before meeting them. She had no idea what kind of people were on this planet.

  When she stepped outside the space center she saw that to her left there was a forest and to the right a very long stretch of flat land. It was just like on Zozeis except the hill seemed smaller here. Etana started walking up the hill and through the trees, hoping that this was the right direction to go in so she could find the people. She wasn’t sure what she would say when she found them, but hopefully the people here still knew about Earth, and maybe they wouldn’t find it too shocking to think that someone was visiting from another planet.

  What she found was that the people here were exactly the opposite of the people on Zozeis. They were very welcoming, very friendly, and they seemed to be living together in peace, though they weren’t without their problems. They were not particularly deep thinkers for the most part, and they also were not very goal-oriented or responsible. They had ambitions but quickly became distracted away from them, and so things did not get done here the way they did on Zozeis. The people came up with great ideas, but they didn’t stick with them long enough to make anything happen. The houses were not being maintained very well, and while they managed to grow and gather food, they neglected the more tedious chore of growing, picking, spinning and weaving cotton to produce more clothes and blankets for their growing population. For this reason, several of the couches inside the homes had actually been torn apart and the upholstery used to make clothing.

  Once they noticed Etana, they treated her as a sort of novelty and found it exciting that she would come to visit. She did not tell them the details of how she came to be here, or where the space center was, but she did tell them about her trip to Earth once she discovered that they were not at all shy about the topic. None of the original immigrants to Adonia were still alive, but their grand-children and great-grandchildren all seemed to know the story of how they came to be here. It was a culture shock after having spent so much time on Zozeis with people of the opposite mindset.

  Etana moved into a one bedroom house that no one was using, and it wasn’t long before she started to feel at home on this planet. Everyone was everyone’s friend, here, and she felt like she was a part of a large family. But the irresponsibility bothered her greatly, and she wondered how long the society could g
o on like this. She tried to do her part by planting cotton and encouraging others to help with the task of producing more clothing. She couldn’t believe they would neglect this, but even when they did grow and pick the cotton, they wouldn’t do the work to spin it into yarn and knit it into clothes. It took too long and they found it quite boring. They didn’t seem to think ahead enough to realize that, boring or not, this wasn’t something they could keep putting off.

  So Etana lived for six months on Adonia. She involved herself in the community, made friends, and indulged in watching babies for new mothers, which helped ease the sadness of having lost her own son. She also took on far more than her share of the responsibility in the town, and frequently found herself washing clothes that weren’t hers or weeding the gardens because no one else would.

  The houses were all the same here as they were on Zozeis, including the fact that none of them had locks on the doors. On Zozeis people always knocked before entering, but here people seemed to come and go as they pleased. At first it was stressful for Etana, but over time she became used to it, so when her door opened one night and someone entered her house, it didn’t seem too unusual to her. The only thing strange about it was the time of night that they were entering. Because of the time, she worried that something was wrong, that someone was hurt and needed help. She jumped out of bed and went into her living room, where she found Timothy.

  His face brightened when he saw her, and he held out a neatly wrapped gift in his hand. “I brought you a present,” he said.

  She didn’t know what to say to him. She’d tried to forget about him and didn’t really expect to see him again. She was making her life here and not planning to leave. Didn’t he know she was through with their agreement?

  She silently took the package from him and opened the box to find a digital camera. She knew she’d thought about wanting one, but she didn’t remember speaking about it. Did she say something about this to one of the people while she was here? It was unnerving that he could know so much about her without spending any time with her.

  “You know these people won’t last more than a few generations without some help,” he said. “On Zozeis they are organized enough to produce what they need, but here, well, I find it amazing that they can keep their gardens growing. It would be a shame if no one ever took the time to go to Earth and bring back clothes for them to wear. They let their cotton plants die, so how will they make clothing when the ones they have are all worn out? What will happen a hundred years from now when it is winter and they are all running around naked?” He stroked her arm and smiled at her. She turned away to avoid seeing his smile. He was playing on her pity to get what he wanted, and she knew it.

  “Why do you want me?” she asked. “Why don’t you find someone who wants you?”

  “That wouldn’t be half as fun,” he said. Then he laughed. “Really Etana, you should be glad that I want you. If I didn’t, I would have no reason at all to let you interfere with my research.”

  “What makes you think I want to interfere anymore? I’m happy here. I have no intention to leave.”

  “You might think you’re happy, but you haven’t forgotten about the people on Zozeis. Those books you left might make an impression on their few readers, but you know it isn’t enough. And you can distract yourself with helping the people here, but when you stop to really think about your efforts, you know that your work won’t live any longer than you do. As soon as you’re gone, everything you’ve done to help them will end. They’ll slowly die out because they can’t keep their minds focused on one task long enough to see it through.” He let out a short laugh. “You might think you’re fooling yourself, Etana, but you’re not fooling me. Of course you still want to interfere.”

  He held her chin and turned her face toward him. His grip was gentle but firm, and once he locked eyes with her, he smiled and his eyes smiled and Etana could feel herself falling for the charm on his face. It was almost hypnotic, and the only way to break the spell was to look away and think logically about his words and actions. Think, Etana. Think. He can play with your emotions but he can’t control your thoughts. She closed her eyes to block out his smile, and he kissed her. Her hand came up to push him away, but he wrapped his arms around her in a close embrace and he gently held her head toward his. His touch was deceiving like his smile, and her body melted into it. It was so hard to keep her thoughts steady around this man. There was something alluring about him, even as he violated every moral boundary that existed before him. This was the kind of man that could get away with things other men could not. He brought out the lust that was in her, and for that she hated him.

  Etana’s heart raced as he held her. She wasn’t strong enough to push him away, and part of her didn’t want to. Her conscience was confused as well as her body. It would be wrong to let him touch her in ways that only a husband should, but she felt that it would be equally wrong to sit back and do nothing while he allowed so many lives to be destroyed. She’d seen the damage done now on two planets: one where personal freedoms were quickly disappearing and one where a lack of follow-through would eventually lead the people to extinction. What was happening on the others? These personality types needed each other to balance them out. Someone had to help, and it seemed that she was the only one willing and in a position to do so.

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, but when he set her down on the bed, she told him, “No.” She half-expected him to push forward against her wishes, but he didn’t. She was sitting on the bed facing him, and he kneeled in front of her and put his arms around her waist. Then he set his head in her lap and stayed there for several minutes. Etana started to wonder if he had fallen asleep, when finally he spoke.

  “You’re wondering why I didn’t go ahead and have my way with you. I certainly could have, and you couldn’t stop me.” He got up and sat beside her on the bed, with one arm still around her and the other at his side. He whispered in her ear. “Nor would it be against my moral compass to do that to you.”

  Like you have a moral compass, she thought.

  “But if I’m to have you in the way that I want to have you, you have to say yes to being with me.”

  And in what way do you want to have me?

  “I will be right here if you change your mind.” He lay down on the bed and faced away from her. “In the morning I will leave, and I’m not sure exactly when I’ll come back,” he said.

  Etana breathed deeply and didn’t move from her seated position on the bed. She felt that saying yes would be selling her soul to the devil. At the same time, she wondered how much good she could do that would never be done if she lived out her days on this planet instead of bringing what help she could from Earth. If she spent most of her time traveling through space, she might be able to help dozens of generations survive instead of only two or three. In the meantime, she could hopefully come up with a more permanent solution.

  Timothy was silent and his breathing was steady, but when she put her hand on his shoulder she found he was not asleep. He turned over to face her and on his face was that dazzling smile that looked so genuine but she knew was not. It was the look of a lover, but Etana knew that the only person he’d ever loved was himself. She closed her eyes again to block it out, and he picked up her hand and kissed it.

  “I knew you would make the right choice,” he said.

  And all the time, she wondered whether she really did.

  15

  Etana spent all of her time traveling back and forth between planets. It was a lonely life, but her purpose kept her going. She would take photographs to Earth and return with clothes, books, and other items. She took the clothes to Adonia and left them in the school building, and she placed books all over on Zozeis where she knew the children would find them. She learned the needs of people on the other planets and tried to help them, as well, but she always had a special fondness for the people on Adonia and a sense of personal duty to the people on Zozeis. She allowed
herself to be used by Dr. Azias, and he was regularly waiting for her whenever she landed on one of his planets. She never saw him on Earth, and as far as she knew, he hadn’t returned there in a very long time.

  Over time she watched the planets get worse. On Zozeis they were building more and more houses for the growing population, but they also built a second school building away from the rest of the town, where it couldn’t be seen, and they used it as a sort of prison for anyone who found her books and didn’t promptly destroy them. She started to lose heart, wondering if she was doing more damage than good by leaving them bits of truth to study, but she told herself that someday, somehow, the truth would prevail. The kids were raised as if they were robots, but it seemed that any time a child found one of her books, that child started to act human again.

  On Adonia the people gradually left the city and moved out into the wilderness, where they discovered and started living under flat trees all summer. They planted gardens along the rivers so they wouldn’t have to water them, and they returned to the houses only in the winter. Because they didn’t maintain the buildings or the electrical lines, the electricity eventually stopped working, and the houses were slowly falling apart. Etana studied so she could provide maintenance to the solar panels on the school building, and she took time to do this whenever she landed on Adonia. The town was too small for all the people, and they never did build any other houses, but they managed to cope rather well with how crowded it was in the winter. Over time their lack of follow-through became a lack of memory, and they were a group of people that lived care-free lives, only bothering to do what was necessary for survival. Etana wondered whether things could turn around if they learned to read and write. Then they could write down their memories and perhaps gain something from that, so she spent several months putting together reading lessons for them, and installed it in the school building. From then on, every time she visited Adonia, she brought blank journals and pencils for them, in addition to clothing and books for them to read.