by Jacen Aster
“Dye day?”
“Yes, it's their version of a coming of age ritual. When they reach the age of fifteen, they have their first dye day. All Arabuli are born an extremely pale purple color. Their color change isn't natural, but rather a symbol of personal achievement. Once they reach the age of fifteen, and then each time a Arabuli proves further mastery of their skills, mastery of new skills, or yet some other meritus event, they undergo a ritual that permanently dyes their skin a shade or two darker. These shades represent their position in the hierarchy. The darker the skin, the higher ranked they are and the more influence they wield. In this way, any Arabuli can conceivably work hard to achieve a very high ranking. Admittedly, the children of highly ranked parents do have a major advantage. Access to learning and resources is controlled by your hierarchical rank, but until their first dye day, each Arabuli child is considered to be of the same rank for such things as the mean average of their parents’ ranks. Thus, those born to high ranked parents are almost always several shades darker and higher ranked come their first dye day than children of those who are lower ranked. That leg up helps them achieve more and reach a higher overall rank in their lifetimes, as a general rule.”
When Jonas didn't say anything, Henry looked over at him. He was looking nervous and staring over Henry's own head. Henry swiveled and saw that Areina was right behind him. Henry tensed for a moment before he registered that she looked amused.
“That is a remarkably good understanding of our species’ hierarchy, Mr. Harper. I imagine most Arabuli would be shocked that an outsider knew so much about us.” She took a few nimble steps around the end of the couch Henry occupied and plopped down sideways in a chair across from him, her legs up and dangling over one side. “It's still a bit incomplete though.”
“How so? Er...if you don't mind me asking, that is?”
She gave a rather pleasant chuckle. “No, it's not truly as great a secret as so many suppose, Mr. Harper. It's just that so many races react poorly to what they think of as an unfair system that we generally don't talk about it. We aren't about to change a system that has worked, and kept us almost wholly at peace, for millennia. So we don't speak of it, so as not to stir up our allies and enemies alike.”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “That's interesting. Makes quite a bit of sense too, given that you deal with virtually all the races.” He paused then decided to ask properly. “If you don't mind then, what did I get wrong?”
She was staring at him closely enough to make Henry wonder if he had something on his face. Finally, she spoke again. “That's such a curious expression. I wish I could move just one eyebrow.”
“Pardon?” Henry asked, a bit startled at the non-sequitur.
She grinned. “Your eyebrows, they can move independently. So expressive!” She laughed when they both looked at her like she had lost it. “But you asked what you had wrong. You weren't really wrong per se. It’s really more like your explanation was incomplete. You said that all Arabuli are born the same pale-purple and that isn't quite true. Still, it's an understandable oversight. The noble houses are the only exception and almost no one from those ever leaves the homeworld.”
Both of Henry's eyebrows went up this time. “The noble houses? I admit, as far as I know, almost nothing is known about them. I've certainly not met any of them.”
She snickered, seemingly amused by something he'd said, though Henry couldn't for the life of him figure out what.
“Like I said, they almost never leave the homeworld.”
“So what's different about them? They all born pitch black or something?”
She smirked. “No, but they are born a few shades darker than anyone else. You see, there's a lot more to the dye ritual than you, or probably any outsider, knows. The dye isn't some simple skin pigment alteration. It effects us on a genetic level. Normally, the difference doesn't matter, but if you get several generations of a family that all reach a very deep shade of black, the dye semi-permanently marks their genetic line. From then on, every Arabuli born to that family will be born a few shades darker than normal.”
“And these families become your noble families?”
“Yep. They are made noble because it is recognized that their bloodline produces superior individuals on a regular basis. So any family can become a noble family, but if the blood is watered down by a generation or two of weaker individuals, they can lose it too. Because of that, there are rarely more than a few dozen such families in the entire population. Each of them command the respect of the populace, however. The longer they have been noble, the more this is true, with the oldest being the Aerablast family. Such families almost always hold high governmental positions and as such rarely leave the planet.”
While Henry was soaking this in, Jonas piped up, “Is that why Vairc is a darker shade for an engineer? That he's from such a family?”
Areina gave a tinkling laugh and shook her head. “Noooppee.” She drawled out teasingly.
“It's you, isn't it?”
Areina suddenly shot upright, staring at Henry.
“I thought so. You must be from one of those families. Maybe even one of the older ones. Vairc isn't darker than I'd expect for an engineer. He isn't an engineer at all, despite his gifts in that area. He's your bodyguard, isn't he? Or something similar.”
She stared at him for a long moment before she answered, obviously reluctant. “Yes, that's it exactly. As a matter of fact, I'm the youngest daughter of the Aerablast family. When my gifts with piloting were discovered, they knew I would almost certainly leave the planet on my life journey to improve myself. So they trained Vairc as an engineer as well as a bodyguard. He's been with me since I turned fifteen.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
The knowledge that Aerina was nobility seemed to have put a damper on Jonas's crush, or at least he was more circumspect. While there was a small altercation and a broken nose a month later, Henry's nose actually, when Aerina started spending a great deal of time learning more engineering from him, they all survived. It had been almost three months in the void when Doctor Hamilton, barely seen most days, broke into the lounge with an excited look on his face.
“I've got it! I've got it! Well, I think I've got it at any rate. Going to need your skills with power amplification, Henry, but if you can get me the power, I think I've got it!”
All four of the others were present at the time and jumped at his loud entrance. They stared at him in hope as the words processed.
Areina spoke first, as she often did. Spinning in her chair and leaning over its back to face him, she asked, half-hopefully, “A way out, Doctor?”
Brought up a bit short by the hopeful eyes turned to him, he uncharacteristically stuttered for a moment, “W-Well p-probably.” Shaking himself and firming his resolve, he continued, “I knew from the beginning that the only possible way back out was another explosion. The trouble was, this ship wasn't built to do the things that the Gate could. Besides, we don't have a rift either.” He placed a portable down on the table Henry occupied. “Thankfully, we don't have to actually point in a direction, which makes it possible, I think. I've poured over my own research, and added some new things we've learned from all this. If you and I can build these modifications to the fold space drive, Henry, and then build them to overload in a specific way, I think we can duplicate a smaller version of what got us here.”
Henry picked up the portable and scanned the designs. A few moments later, he whistled. “Wow, Doc, this is a tall order without proper fabrication facilities.”
Walter grimaced. “I know, Henry. Can you do it?”
Henry hesitated and continued to pour over the details. Pulling out his own portable, he began tapping on it, making notes. It was nearly fifteen minutes later that he finally nodded to himself. Looking up, he was startled to find the entire room avidly staring at him. Waving faintly, getting a laugh from Areina, he gave an answer once the tension was thus broken a bit. “With help from you and Vairc I can do it. I
t'll be slow going though. Maybe another six weeks.”
There was some obvious disappointment at that, but everyone still looked mostly optimistic. Areina cheered and they all ultimately devolved into a small impromptu party. It could wait until tomorrow.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
A thump was followed by Areina cursing in Linderi.
Henry leaned around his current console and stared at her lower half, the upper half being wedged thoroughly under the auxiliary shield power conduit. “I didn't know you knew Linderi.”
Her response was muffled, but still clearly smug. “I don't. But working with you has vastly increased my vocabulary of expletives. Bonus points, even the translators can't figure out half of them.”
Henry was grinning now and it came through clearly in his voice. “Yes, well, I've been a few places that the translators haven't, now haven't I?”
She didn't respond immediately. Instead wiggling out from the tight space. When she finally worked her way out, covered in dirt and grease smudges, she finally retorted, “The way you tell it, you've been to all the interesting places. Of course, that also means you've got to be older than dirt.”
Henry groaned. “Oh come on! Don't start that again.” He paused and his brow furrowed for a moment. “Though, perhaps I can use that as a good excuse for why I got cold cocked by a medic.”
Areina winced, sighed, and ran a hand through her hair, drawing loose strands of its shoulder length back into the messy ponytail they had escaped, seemingly unbothered by the streaks of lubricant and dust her fingers left behind. It only took a few moments for her to speak again, a little abrupt as she broke the silence. “I'm sorry about that.”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “About the cursing?”
She glared, though over the eyebrow or the comment Henry wasn't sure.
“No, you twit. The nose!”
Henry waved the apology off. “You didn't break it.”
“No. But I shouldn't have led Jonas on like I did. When he broke your nose, I realized I shouldn't have let it go so far.”
Henry sighed. “Areina, Jonas knew it wasn't serious. It's just that he's young, and you’re beautiful, and with us stuck here he let it get to him. He apologized later when he was fixing my nose.”
She grimaced. “I know, I overheard it. I followed to make sure nothing else happened.”
Henry rolled his eyes and picked his multi-tool up again, powering it on and returning to the careful splicing he had been working on. “Despite being blindsided by the supposedly mild-mannered prince charming, I can generally take care of myself. Not that I don't appreciate the thought.”
Finally standing, giving a lithe stretch that resulted in audible joint popping, she smirked. “I never said I was worried about you. I was worried you might stuff him in one of his medical lockers with every icepack on the ship and some cheesy line about him needing to cool off.”
Henry stared for a moment, his lips twitching. When she gave him a completely innocent look, expression far too perfectly earnest to be real, he cracked, breaking out in full body laughter. He managed to depower his multi-tool between increasingly wheezing breaths, before he could hurt himself or the ship with it.
When he finally managed to bring his laughter under control, he saw a much happier-looking Areina. Rather than the somewhat forlorn expression she had been bearing, she now wore a radiant, if somewhat mischievous, smile. Still chuckling slightly, he tried, and failed, to give her a stern look. Shaking his head, he gave in and simply stated, “Alright, Imp. Less levity, more fixing things.”
As she moved to comply she suddenly paused. Throwing a smirk over her shoulder, she cocked her hips and said, “So...you think I'm beautiful, huh? Maybe Jonas was right about you! Hmm…and you're always having me crawl into tight spaces. Staring at my ass and imagining what you'll grab hold of if I get stuck, Mr. Harper?”
She leapt a half meter in the air, nearly hitting an overhead pipe, when a jolt from Henry's multi-tool struck her on the ass.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Henry sighed as Jonas went into stasis, leaving only Walter and himself still awake.
Walter frowned. “Henry, are you sure there isn't another way?”
“You know there isn't, Doc. We lost most of the VIM support in all the damage. I'm going to have to go through most of the process by hand before I get into my own pod. I just couldn't program something complex enough to handle all the things that might go wrong.”
Walter made to say something, but Henry cut him off.
“And no, you aren't going to do it. No matter how much you feel this is your fault, you're simply not as experienced with fixing things under proverbial fire. Plus, I built most of these systems. We've got a much better chance with me doing this than you. Besides, unless something goes badly wrong, I will have plenty of time to make it to the stasis pods after I kick everything off properly.”
Walter slumped and moved towards his pod. Henry caught him eyeing an extinguisher and put himself between it and him.
“Oh no you don't. I don't need another concussion. And really, you need to stop hitting people with extinguishers.”
Doctor Hamilton laughed. “You know me entirely too well, Henry, though it was only a fleeting thought. I know you're right after all.” He climbed into the stasis pod. “Good fortune, Henry. May God grant you luck enough for all of us.”
Smiling at his friend, Henry said, “He will one way or another, Doc. One way or another.” And he sealed the chamber. Once it initiated, Henry, remembering his friend’s words, took a moment to throw out a prayer. Just in case. After all, he was the only one that knew just how marginal some of these systems were. Every little bit of help was needed on this one.
Making his way to the cockpit, Henry tied its systems together with the machines in Lab 1 and started the three hour process of initiating this insanity. Every step had to be perfect. No margin for error to speak of.
At two hours and forty-seven minutes everything went wrong.
A shrill alarm broke Henry's concentration and he cursed. He checked the reentry systems. They looked fine, so what? Broadening his scope, he found the problem quickly. When he did, all he could do for a moment was stare in horror. Power was back feeding at dangerous levels into the stasis pods. Cursing, Henry cut them out of the loop, sending them into stand-alone mode. He'd have to hope that someone found the ship or none of them would ever come out of stasis at all. Not until stand-alone power failed in a century or two.
Swiveling back to his work on the reentry system, he blinked in shock. Wait what? Why was it activating? He stared in disbelief for a full fifteen seconds before becoming a flurry of activity. Cutting the stasis pods had boosted system power? Shit! The fold drive was racing towards critical and the rest of the system wasn't ready. Frantically tapping commands, he launched accusations about the parentage of this equipment in its general direction. Then the system locked up. Oh f—
Throwing himself out of the chair, he shouted, “I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I don't really believe your mother was a drunken children's VIM! I swear!” Frantically pulling levers and flipping switches, Henry finally kicked the console and raced out of the cockpit. If he could slow the fold drive down everything else would catch up. Racing to engineering, he arrived just in time for a loud klaxon warning of imminent breach to go off. Lovely. Diving the last few feet, he pulled the lever injecting inert liquid into the fold drive. It couldn't stop it at this point, but it would slow it down, which is exactly what he wanted. The klaxons went silent and Henry pulled himself up. Tapping frantically and running between three separate consoles, he somehow guided the matrix to within tolerance.
Having no idea how much time remained, he charged for the door.
He made it five steps into the hallway when the drive went off. Three more and reentry started. One more and Henry's world exploded into all the sights and sounds that had ever existed, overloading his mind and sending him into the arms of oblivion.
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I survived, obviously, with my mind intact. I did not escape unscathed, however, as I spent the next three months in a deep coma. As such, I have only the second-hand accounts of Walter, Jonas, Vairc and Areina as to what happened afterwards. The ship suffered only minimal additional damage from the transition, and was picked up by rescue and salvage parties responding to the Gate explosion. Apparently, we had been gone, in linear time, for only a bit over three days, instead of the nearly five months we spent in the Nowhere Void.
Doctor Walter Hamilton swore off such a grand project, instead focusing on smaller applications of his work, some of which have borne fruit and have since begun to breathe life back into the fading use of the Ring System. Areina has since proven herself to the very highest of standards and is the current reigning monarch of the Arabuli. She sends delightful fruit baskets twice a year. Vairc is, to this day, her guard and close adviser, enjoying a position of authority that unsettles the Arabuli hierarchy system, truth be told. Namely because the system has no real name or proper ranking for his position. Jonas went back to his colony but got restless quickly. Last I heard, he was traveling the galaxy, learning about the various species and offering his expertise on exotic energies.
As for me, I was lucky enough to be cared for by some of the galaxies finest, all on the credits of the Royal House of Aerablast. It seems that not just any noble rates a bodyguard, even off planet, which makes sense given the philosophy of the Arabuli that all must prove themselves. The princess of the entire planet on the other hand? Apparently, there was much confusion as to what to do with her when she left the homeworld. She was a prodigy among prodigies and thus almost dead certain to be the heir to their equivalent of a throne. (Really the head of the hierarchy, but I won't quibble details, plus they might lynch me if I gave it all away so readily.) Under much controversy, she was given a bodyguard, and there was even more controversy when the royal house treated me on her behalf. Though, given what we had accomplished, the controversy was not so great as it might have been. They actually gave me an honorary position in the hierarchy so that they knew what to do with me, though for the life of me, I don't remember what it was.