Seven Sides of Self

by Nancy Joie Wilkie

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” mocked the abbot. “You became aware of my situation. You feared my demise. And since you think we’re connected by this invisible bond, if I die, you die, too. That’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Tears silently started to roll down the woman’s shallow cheeks. “Is it so wrong to want to live out a full life? Think of it, Trallix. We’re only thirty-seven years old and already you’re a bitter old man ready to give up on life.”

  “And you want to keep on living. I knew there had to be some selfish motivation for your visit. No one else gives a damn about me.”

  “I care about you. Any peace and serenity I claim today has come at the expense of whatever pain you’ve been through and vice versa. Forgive me, Father, but you can’t die. I won’t let you. I came to offer you something, anything that would change your mind—something that would give you a reason to live.”

  “Then you do have a challenge, don’t you, my good lady?”

  “It’s more than just me, Father. You were quite correct when you surmised the Mothersoul Superior wouldn’t send me halfway across the sector just to engage in some sort of spiritual wild goose chase.”

  Trallix seemed even more pleased with himself. “So she’s got an interest in this, as well? What’s her angle?”

  “Ever since the loss of the settlement on Solus II, the Mothersoul Superior has been very despondent. She has lost faith in the Eternal Oversoul. When she heard my theories, she saw it as a chance to help herself somehow.”

  “Have you found her spiritual counterpart yet?”

  “No. It’s one thing for me to have found you. Part of my success is because I knew the intimate details of one of the two souls so well—my own. But with another person, it’s hard for me to determine the exact times of the Mothersoul Superior’s spiritual highs and lows, making it difficult to whittle down the list of possibilities. And if the theories are erroneous, why waste the time? Proving the theories with the only identifiable set of candidates seemed like a much higher priority.”

  “What a turn of events. The person responsible for sending me to this desolate piece of rock to contemplate the mysteries of the Eternal Oversoul is now at my mercy!” Trallix grinned. “I can only imagine the Good Mothersoul’s face when she realizes that I may have helped to save her life—”

  “But you will only get that opportunity if I’m right, mind you. If I’m wrong, whether you live or die, it doesn’t affect my life, the life of Mother Superior Aarthra, or her spiritual counterpart one way or the other. However, if I’m right, and I convince you to go on living, I save my own life and the Mothersoul Superior might get a big return on her investment. And if I’m right, and you die before your time, then I die. And you’ll never have a chance to gloat. Not a lot of great options, eh?”

  “What can you possibly do to bring us more into balance?”

  Vella stepped away from the window and returned to where Trallix sat. She stopped at her chair but did not sit down. She inserted her right hand underneath her habit and rummaged around. When she pulled her hand back out, it held a laze-gun.

  Trallix blurted out, “Now, wait a minute!”

  “You must understand this is the only way.”

  Trallix’s voice started to quiver. “Why did you come here and invade my solitude?” Then, more strongly, “And why are you armed?”

  Vella stood silently, her fingers nervously gripping the weapon. Trallix wondered where a nun would find a laze-gun and how she had learned to use it.

  The monk spoke again. “What do you really want?”

  Vella answered, “I want to help you.”

  “With a laze-gun in your hand? You have a very strange sense of humor. And your social obligations toward your host are sorely lacking.”

  “It’s not meant to be funny. And I don’t care about etiquette. I’m here to save your life—and mine.”

  “That would be a matter of opinion. It seems as though you entered this sanctuary under false pretenses.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I did say your life is in danger.”

  “That you did, my child. But I certainly didn’t think it’s because you came to kill me!”

  “I’m not interested in killing you—or even hurting you.” Vella circled around to corner Trallix. “It is not my time yet. Therefore, it is not yours. You cannot pass on without my accompaniment.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. I’m quite sane, I assure you. You don’t seem to understand. I can’t let you go on as you’re going. If I leave here without doing anything, you will dismiss my warning as pure flight of fancy. You will continue on your spiritual and emotional decline until one day you either die or you commit suicide. At the instant of your death, I, too, will die.

  “I need to do something. If I can’t stop your descent, then I’ll stop my own ascent. I’m going to do something that will upset my success. The Theorem of Spiritual Conservation demands that any harm coming to me be offset with your return to spiritual wholeness. Given a choice between dying a saint or living as a sinner, I’ll take the latter.”

  “And you think harming me will guarantee your survival? I hope you realize what will happen to you if you pull that trigger.”

  “I am not here to harm you,” insisted Sister Vella as she slowly raised her left hand before her and closed all of her fingers around her thumb—all except her small fifth finger. She stepped back and waited for a moment. And then, without expression, she raised the laze-gun and fired at the end of her exposed finger. A bright burst of orange fire shot across the room and the distal phalanx of her finger disappeared. A red stain dripped down her left hand. Vella dropped the laze-gun to the floor. She stared at her right hand in disgust as her face twisted in pain.

  The blast hit the wall to the right of Trallix. His effort to dodge the beam caused him to fall off his stool. He slumped against the wall, grabbed at his chest, and tried to catch his breath. He certainly had not expected this outcome.

  Across the room, Vella steadied herself. She looked firmly into Trallix’s eyes. Her mouth was dry and she found it difficult to talk, but she felt compelled to convince Trallix one last time.

  “What I said is the truth. The church has ignored the theories for centuries. No one wants to acknowledge them because it goes against seven thousand years of doctrine.”

  Trallix reached for his personal communicator with his left hand and punched a series of numbers into it as best he could.

  “That’s good. Call for help. You’ll be fine, you know,” said Vella, trying to sound reassuring. Her forehead was damp and she could feel perspiration running down her back again. “I’ll take my leave now while I still can get out of this wretched place. I’m sure I will never see you again.”

  Trembling, she quickly turned away, hiding her eyes from Trallix’s stare until she was out of the chamber and heard the heavy door close behind her.

  Tears streamed down her face as she fled down the spiral stairway to the front entrance. She whispered to herself, “Please, Eternal Oversoul, forgive me.”

  “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is His delight.

  When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.

  The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.”

  PROVERBS 11:1

  OF THE GREEN AND OF THE GOLD

  (The Scholar)

  JARKA MOOSHA WAS AN exosociologist. There were not many experts in this rather eclectic field of study. In fact, there were not many exosociologists at all. There was no reason for there to be—that is, up until ten years ago, nearly a century after lightships were first designed, faster-than-light travel made possible, and the discovery of dozens of worlds resembling Earth in one way or another. What a shock to mankind when evidence of an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization was found on Aurillia, a small planet orbiting Lalande 21185, a Type M red dwa
rf star 8.3 light years from Earth. Once all of the excitement died down, all sorts of scientists clamored to be the first to study this or that about the new world and its very unique life forms.

  Jarka was one of the lucky ones chosen to be on this, the third, expedition to Aurillia. He would have many long months aboard a rather confining starship with no place to go and little else to do but prepare for this opportunity. Exosociology focused on how alien life forms behaved in their extraterrestrial society, and Jarka planned to make himself as familiar with Aurillia and its inhabitants as possible. How did they interact, cooperate, govern, fight, and view one another? What were their religious beliefs, their attitudes, their instincts, their emotions? And what were their different races, genders, and socio-economic classes?

  His initial findings fascinated him. According to the early reports submitted by the first two missions, all of the Aurillians were nearly identical in appearance. Sure, there was a degree of differentiation in size one would assume as a result of age. But aside from that, they were thought to be the same in all significant aspects. There were no obvious morphological differences. It was not yet known whether there were any major physiological differences. Very little work had been done on the biology of the Aurillian body. They all had the same bald head. All wore the same type of plain garment. In fact, the only difference immediately apparent to the first explorers from Earth was that roughly half of the Aurillians wore garments of a green color and the other half wore garments of a gold color. Those dressed in green had a small green triangle on their forehead and were referred to as “Of The Green.” Those dressed in gold had a small golden circle on their forehead and were referred to as “Of The Gold.”

  Jarka found all of this both incredibly interesting from an academic point of view and also very odd. That a society should have so few differences was contrary to everything anyone from Earth who studied the subject of sociology would have expected. Earth’s vast numbers of societies were layered with multiple differentiations—variations in gender, race, religion, education, social status, and economic background, to name only the most prominent. On Aurillia, things appeared amazingly simple. An individual’s place in the Aurillian society was determined through some unknown practice or custom. One would simply bare the distinction of being Of The Green or Of The Gold. This single characteristic, while perhaps insignificant by Earth standards, might just affect an Aurillian’s future life more than anything else.

  But as far as Jarka could tell, there were no ramifications from being born into one Aurillian “Color” or the other. Evidently, there were no functions associated with a certain Color and no jobs strictly performed by one Of The Green or Of The Gold. Specialization was apparently driven by some factor or factors Jarka did not understand.

  After traveling eight-plus light years, Aurillia now filled his visi-port. Parts of it looked like what the Earth had looked like from orbit when he left so many months ago. Jarka watched intensely as the disk grew larger by the hour. Both planets appeared similar from space, which would be expected if both worlds were habitable and comfortably suited to support intelligent life. There were cloud patterns, desert areas, hemispheres of day and night, and the same clusters of artificial lights sprinkled across the night hemisphere. Glimpses of Aurillia’s surface came and went through the clouds. Because he did not have sufficient knowledge of Aurillian geography, the coastlines were not familiar to him. He had the strong sense Aurillia was rotating quickly beneath him, but he realized it was the lightship spiraling downward. The ship must be in its final stages of approach, he thought.

  Jarka could hear the noises associated with preparations for landing occurring beneath him. He knew nothing of the latest model lightship, its size, its crew complement, or what made it work. He only knew he would be glad to have feet firmly planted on solid ground, even if it was on alien ground.

  His thoughts turned to the Sree Airia who would greet him and serve as his sponsor while on Aurillia. The scant knowledge on Aurillian social structure suggested that a sree was a pair of individuals, one Of The Green and one Of The Gold, who served together in some capacity of government, industry, or education. But what made the sree an interesting social unit was, once formed, the two individuals worked together in both the home and the workplace. They rarely left one another’s side. Jarka tried to imagine Earth marriages if man and wife didn’t receive a periodic break from one another’s company!

  The Sree Airia consisted of Matan—Of The Gold—and Palan—Of The Green. Their particular role was the Director—or more appropriately Directors—of the Institute of Sociological Studies for ExtraStellars. Unlike Earth, though, disciplines relating to extraterrestrial intelligence were well established on Aurillia. Jarka wondered why this was so.

  The Institute had granted Jarka’s request—or more accurately the request of Earth’s International Association of Exosociology—for access to material on Aurillian society and interviews with a cross section of Aurillians. Permission had been granted to interview twelve individuals during the three-week stay on the surface of Aurillia. The way Jarka figured it, he would be interviewing someone about every other day. That would leave him time to study the various media made available to him, as well as time for some mingling with Aurillians in their natural habitat.

  Once the starship touched down in the middle of a large paved area resembling an Earth airport, Jarka began to review in his mind everything he knew about the physical appearance of Aurillians. The first explorers described the adults as being somewhat shorter than humans, perhaps a bit more slender, and possessing pale tan skin. They had two arms and two legs, and their heads were slightly larger by Earth standards, likely the result of well-developed brains. A small nose was located midway between their eyes and their mouth. Not too terribly different from human beings, considering the odds against an extraterrestrial race having even the faintest resemblance to humans, thought Jarka.

  What might the Aurillians think about his physical form? To them, Jarka would most certainly appear tall, although his height of 1.8 meters was about average for the male crew members of the expedition. His broad shoulders and lean physique gave him an appearance of strength, though Jarka had no obvious muscles. He possessed a face framed with a short neatly trimmed beard. This served to give him an air of intelligence, especially in academic circles. His hair, as well as his beard, was dirty blond with a trace of gray at the temples. A long nose, both rugged and pleasant, served as the center of Jarka’s face—a perfect match for his warm and inviting personality. How the Aurillians would perceive these alien features, Jarka didn’t know.

  After several hours of what Jarka presumed to be necessary maintenance and systems checks, the hatch opened and a short stairway protruded from the belly of the lightship. A contingency of about fifty individuals ventured out. Representatives from all parts of the mission, as well as a collection of the principal investigators—including Jarka—were the fortunate ones chosen for this privilege.

  A delegation of several hundred Aurillians gathered shortly after touchdown, patiently waiting for the travelers from Earth to disembark. A mixture of green and gold forms sat half a kilometer or so from the port side of the ship. Quite a contrast to the contagious excitement sweeping over the crew from Earth.

  As Jarka stepped out of the sleek hull and onto the tarmac, he remembered having read reports of expeditions to some of the other planets mankind had touched in its quest to find another intelligent species. They said each world had its own unique odor. Aurillia was no exception. But rather than having a pungent or acidic aroma to it, the air had a very sweet scent, almost one of light perfume.

  And what his nose found pleasant, his eyes found soothing. From the washed-out blue sky—faint by Earth standards—to the scarlet leaves on the abundant vegetation, to the soft edges on all of the buildings, Aurillia’s appearance did little to offend Jarka’s senses. He found the whole experience entirely pleasing as he walked toward his first encounter with the
Aurillians.

  After an hour and a half of speeches and formal ceremonies, Jarka worked his way through the crowd of dignitaries and introduced himself to Matan and Palan. The reports had been right, thought Jarka. It was difficult to discern an Aurillian Of One Color from another Aurillian Of The Same Color. But the few Aurillians Jarka approached and mistakenly thought to be his contacts didn’t seem to mind the error and politely pointed the Earthman in the right direction.

  “I am very appreciative that your Institute has been so cooperative in giving me a free hand to study Aurillian society,” said Jarka as he bowed slightly to Matan and Palan in Aurillian custom. “If I am to understand our agreement correctly, you have granted me twelve interviews with individuals from all walks of Aurillian life, as well as access to the Institute’s library.”

  “That is correct,” replied Palan.

  “Tell me, Directors, if it is at all possible, might I be able to experience your society firsthand—you know, by taking walks and mingling with citizens on the street?”

  Jarka’s keen powers of observation did not miss the fact his question caused a distinct change on Matan’s face. In fact, the Aurillian’s entire head seemed to change shape momentarily. Whereas the features on a human face change with different emotions, the shape of an Aurillian’s head can change, shifting from its usual oval shape to a slightly more spherical appearance—presumably in response to different emotions. Had Jarka better understood the subtleties of their peculiar facial shapes, he might have been able to discern what emotion Matan was not sharing. But Jarka got the distinct impression his presence was not entirely welcome. Perhaps something was being hidden, thought Jarka—and he wanted to find out what.

  “Yes, of course—you may go out into our society and speak with those you encounter,” answered Matan finally. Jarka imagined Matan wished to add the phrase “—just don’t find anything.” Matan continued, “Please do not forget your obligation to our agreement, though. We wish to review your observations and your findings before you leave us.”