by Lucia Ashta
But could I? Could I wait however long was necessary to unravel the mystery of my disappearance into a lake? I’d probably already made headlines on Earth: Irrational Storm Chaser Disappeared in Most Violent Electric Storm in Mountain’s Recent History.
How long would it be until the uncertainty of my life would make want to crawl out of my skin? How long could I live with having left behind everything I knew to trade it for the entirely unknown? I allowed myself to look out the window again. It was nighttime, and the moon was up. But unlike on Earth, where the moon cast a silver glow across the landscape, here the moon was purple. All that I could see was cast in purple shadow, making this feel much like the alien planet that it was.
I knew I didn’t have long before the desperation to understand consumed me.
ELEVEN
TANUS and I spent what turned out to be the entirety of what I considered nighttime telling the rest of them how I went into the lake on Earth (or Planet Sand, as they called it) and emerged on Planet Origins. No one had any more of an explanation than we did about how Tanus was able to pull me through the lake into another world. But I was the only one who didn’t understand how Tanus had been able to communicate with me in the first place. Although the others were amazed that he’d been able to reach me when I was on an entirely different planet, they were only surprised by the distance, not by the doing. Apparently, when I’d lived on Planet Origins, I’d been adept at communicating through brainwaves with anyone receptive to the process.
Kai was speaking, directing his sentiment to Tanus. “I still think it’s incredible. What you did.” He’d said something like it at least twice.
Tanus smiled again, like he had before, dismissing Kai’s admiration. “Well I don’t know what I did exactly, I’m just glad it worked.”
“To think that all of that planning we did, all those days spent talking through different scenarios, they did us no good,” Dolpheus said.
“Our plans rarely go as we expect them to anyway,” Tanus said.
“That’s true. But still… I didn’t see this coming.”
Lila said, “We have to be able to figure out how you did it. There must be something we’re missing. A set of circumstances that can be replicated to reproduce this eventuality.” She was much less annoying now that she was focused on my appearance in their world.
“Lila, we don’t need to be able to replicate what happened. It happened once. I only needed it to happen once. Now that Ilara’s back, she won’t need to leave Origins again,” Tanus said.
“We have lots to arrange to make sure she can stay on O safely,” Dolpheus said, attempting to move the conversation in a productive direction.
But Lila wasn’t interested in moving on. “You ‘only needed it to happen once?’ So this is all about you, is it, Tanus?” Lila said.
“What are you even talking about, Lila?” Tanus said.
“She’s exasperating,” Dolpheus added, under his breath. I heard him; it was likely Lila did too, even if she didn’t react.
“I’m a woman of science. Or have you forgotten where you found me, along with the little incident of my kidnapping? This is huge. An incredible advancement in science.”
“Since when does anyone really care about science around here?” Dolpheus asked. “The powerful of O only care about whatever makes them more powerful and more wealthy. The poor of O care only about their survival. Transporting from one planet to another is irrelevant to the everyday lives of Oers.” But even as he said it, I could tell he realized it wasn’t true.
“Do you even stop to use your brain before you speak?”
“Hey,” Tanus interjected. “That’s enough, Lila.”
“Do you know how big of a deal interstellar travel is? You could be on one planet one moment, and on an entirely different one the next. This will completely change the need for transporting machines. Forever. Maybe not for the sand industry, since they have to be able to bring back large quantities of the pure sand. But for every other situation, it would revolutionize the way people travel the universe.”
“It would also make it easier for Lord Brachius to send his splices off planet. Have you thought of that?” Tanus asked.
“I have,” Lila said.
“But you think the splicing industry is evil, or so you’ve said.”
“I do. Still, it may not help your father in the way you think it might. When you brought the Princess back, she was conscious and able to participate in whatever visualization you were creating. Splices are unconscious at the time they’re sent off planet.”
“They are? Really?” Tanus said. “Then how do they integrate into society, or into another world? How do they accept a new reality if they just wake up into it without any support?”
“I wish I knew. I’ve told you. Your father keeps far too many secrets for the enterprise to be legitimate. He handles all the hands-on creation and monitoring of the actual splices. He creates the splice bodies and sends them off planet, all by himself. Splice creation takes place in a part of the lab I don’t have access to. I don’t even know if Aletox is involved in this part of the splicing, and he’s involved in everything. Your father’s up to something, and it’s been my experience that when someone doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s doing, it’s because it’s no good. With the power your father controls on a daily basis, a power that includes a sort of immortality, any abuse of power can only be one thing, and that’s evil.”
Evil. I shuddered. Even if I didn’t know who this Lord Brachius was, and even if I had no idea what splicing was or how it might achieve immortality, I thought that evil was probably the same no matter what planet it was found on.
“You really have no idea how Lord Brachius moves splices off planet?” Dolpheus asked, an incredulous, challenging edge to his voice.
“No. I don’t. Trust me. I’ve tried to find out many different times, and in many different ways. My job is to copy the memories and life experiences of all splicing clients, and to monitor their physical bodies. That’s it. That’s all Lord Brachius allows me to do, even though I’m capable of assisting with all steps of the splicing process. He’s always alone when he transfers a splice off planet. He allows no one else in the room with him, although maybe Aletox is with him and I just don’t know it. After, once he’s finished, he erases all records of the transportation. There’s no record of any off-planet transfer, not even one, even though I’m sure he’s done hundreds by now.”
“Hundreds,” I repeated without meaning to, and everyone turned to look at me. I’d let Tanus do most of the explaining for us. I didn’t understand splicing, and I didn’t understand off-planet transfer. But hundreds of transfers to other planets seemed like a whole hell of a lot, especially when I hadn’t known it was possible until this morning. Wait, had it been morning?
As if on cue, a ray of sunshine crept across the horizon and glittered across the glass of the window to my right. The sun was coming up. As disorienting as it was to watch the sun begin to rise over a land so similar to Earth yet still so remarkably different, the first light captivated me. I neither spoke nor listened anymore as the sun climbed more quickly than a sun should, taking my eyes upward with it. Sunbeams tore across the sky in reds and oranges so vibrant that I’d only once before seen colors like them in the sky. It had been in a big city, its air thick with smog, and it had been the city’s singular redeeming feature.
“Ilara.”
I swiveled more quickly than I should have, startled to discover Tanus sitting next to me again. I hadn’t noticed his approach, riveted by my first sunrise on an alien planet.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes.” I thought that dawns were probably beautiful on every planet out there. It was a show of light, never the same as the one before or the one after it. Tanus put a tentative hand on my shoulder.
“So you were up all night while I slept?” I asked.
“No. You didn’t sleep long.”
“It
felt like I was asleep for a long time.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t. You fell asleep as the Auxle Sun was setting, and you woke when the Plune Moon was still up. So it couldn’t have been much more than an hour.” He offered me a reassuring smile. “And now the Suxle Sun is rising.”
“The Auxle Sun. The Plune Moon. The Suxle Sun,” I repeated without much purpose other than registering incongruous details.
Tanus was still smiling that reassuring smile. But I felt anything but reassured. “There’s more than one sun?”
“There are two.” Concern began to cloud his features again. More evidence that either I didn’t remember this world, or that I didn’t belong in it.
“And how many moons are there?”
“There are many moons that we know of. But orbiting our planet, there’s just the one.”
“How long’s nighttime?” Once I began, I feared I’d have an interminable amount of questions. “And how long’s daytime?”
“Most Oers sleep while the Auxle Sun’s up, as it’s the least bright of the two.” Tanus’ voice had become pedagogic, although the concern was still present.
“Why don’t they sleep when the moon’s out and it’s dark? Or, at least, purple?” I asked, uncertainly.
“Because that would be far too little sleep for most Oers. The moon’s only up for an hour or so.”
“That’s totally inaccurate,” Lila interjected. “The moon’s always up. It’s just that you can’t readily see it when the suns are out because their light’s stronger.”
“Right,” Tanus said and continued. “The Plune Moon’s visible for about an hour when the suns are switching over.”
“Switching over?”
Lila huffed. “‘Imprecision leads to indecision.’ Haven’t you ever heard that saying, Tanus? Your explanation is confusing.” She didn’t wait for Tanus to respond. She addressed me. “Each sun is visible for roughly half the day, although the Suxle Sun is visible for a greater time than the Auxle Sun. The Plune Moon is visible for about an hour when each sun sets and before the other one rises.”
“So,” I did some quick mental calculations and was frustrated to discover that my brain was still groggy, “the Suxle Sun is up for about eleven hours. It sets. Then the moon is visible for an hour. Then the Auxle Sun rises and is up for about eleven hours. It sets, and the moon can be seen again for about an hour, until the Suxle Sun rises again? And the people of this planet sleep when the Auxle Sun is up?”
“More or less,” Dolpheus said, followed by a dubious sound. Was it a chuckle? A smirk? Or concern even?
“It’s more like less than more,” Lila snapped. “A full cycle of one day is thirty-three hours. Is it not like that on Planet Sand?”
“No. It’s not like that at all.” I could feel myself beginning to withdraw again. Not even the fundamental framework of the life I’d always known was the same. I could maybe learn to move on when it was only details that were different. But if everything I’d ever known and accepted as true was different, how could I move on then?
Lila moved further forward in her seat, so that she was barely sitting in it at all. “Really? How long is your day then?”
“Twenty-four hours long. And we only have one sun and one moon.”
“Twenty-four? That number isn’t nearly as pleasant as thirty-three. Thirty-three is a much more universally harmonious number.”
Lila talked as if I could chose when the sun rose and set. Could they do that?
“How long is the moon visible?” she asked.
“It varies according to the time of year and which hemisphere of the planet you’re in. But you could say, very roughly, that about half.”
“Half of your day is spent in darkness?”
I nodded, warm emotion building behind my eyelids.
“How terribly fascinating. There are so many things to talk about. So many things to compare. Forget what I said before. We don’t have a duty to figure out how you transported here with your mind alone. We have a duty to figure all of it out. This will forever change humankind.”
I wasn’t interested in forever changing humankind. I wasn’t even interested in forever changing one human, unless it was to change me back into who I was, on the planet I belonged on. Because now I was certain there must be some mistake. I wasn’t supposed to be here. This world was nothing like my own.
TWELVE
I REMAINED silent while the four individuals I’d newly met erupted into an opinionated discussion about what we should do next. They assumed I’d go with them to do whatever they could manage to agree on, just as they assumed I was the Princess of an entire planet, one so disturbingly unfamiliar to me. But no one got hung up on the detail of my lack of memory. They assumed that I’d remember my life among them. Even Tanus did, even if the worry hadn’t left his face.
Until now, I’d stayed on the settee and allowed this incongruous surreality to whirl around me, waiting to see if it would eventually spin me into its web. If it could make me feel a part of this existence upon Planet Sand, I’d probably have been okay with it, as long as it felt right. But I didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel at home, just as Earth had never felt like home either. I was floating within myself, with nothing to grip onto to cement me to this world—or to any other.
But even with no net to catch me as I continued to fumble, I’d be damned if I was just going to sit there like a slumped, apathetic lump of something—they probably had some kind of alien blob on this planet that would do as a comparison—while I let someone else decide my fate. I might not know top from bottom, but I’d do my best to figure it out. It was time to shake off the cobwebs of bewilderment and reawaken the strength within.
I stood. Tanus immediately jutted out a hand to steady me. “Whoa,” he said. “Take it easy. You’ve been through a lot.” Oh really? I thought. I hadn’t fucking noticed. But I kept the thought to myself. It wasn’t his fault I was in this predicament—not exactly. Maybe a little. Still, could I blame him for loving me and doing what he thought I’d want him to do, even if I didn’t? I could, but it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
“Ilara.” The way he said my name was confirmation that we’d loved each other. My irritation vanished. “Be careful. It might take some time for you to adjust to all of this.”
I looked down at him, unsure of how I felt or what I wanted say. I met green sparkling eyes that contained joy at my return, even if they also held concern.
I couldn’t explain what happened next to myself, and I’d never attempt to explain it to anyone else. Suddenly, I felt the stirrings of love, something I’d never felt for a man before. My mouth curved into a smile.
Before I could say anything, he registered the shift in me. He detected love. He didn’t speak it either, but I could tell. Excitement, relief, and exhilaration, barely contained, flared across his face. He looked as if he wanted nothing more than to be alone with me so that we could have at each other. Blatantly, I slid my eyes up and down his body and decided it was a nice idea. He noticed this too, and the smile he offered me next contained a promise of eroticism to come. A tingle of excitement coursed through me, and I was certain my eyes had revealed that as well.
My eyes reflected more than the cosmos. They exposed everything about me. It was one of the reasons I’d long ago become comfortable with the idea of embracing my true self no matter what anyone else thought of it. My only other alternative was to resist who I was, and resisting never works well for long. What we resist persists.
I tried to turn to face everyone else, but Tanus tugged me back toward him. I met his eyes again, but quickly whisked mine away. I wasn’t good at resisting my desires, mostly because I didn’t like doing it. Life was meant to be lived, and deprivation brought unnecessary suffering. Desire for me burned in him, and I wanted to indulge in that fire. Even if I was on an alien planet, I was still a hot-blooded woman. I knew how good the sex between us would be.
I faced the others, but left my hand in his. If he k
new me as well as he thought he did, then he’d understand why I turned away from him. I still didn’t say anything, but my stance and demeanor said what I didn’t. If I’d landed in the midst of this group, then I was going to be part of the decision-making process. I wouldn’t be strung along. I’d be the needle guiding the string. Or at any rate, I’d be one of the guiding needles. Every decision we made would affect my fate.
Dolpheus looked at me, appraisingly, then said, “The Ilara I remember is back. Now we can get down to business.”
“Welcome back, Princess Ilara,” Kai said, and I resisted a squirm of discomfort. I forced myself not to shy away. The title of princess was a surprise each time I heard it, but I’d get used to it, I supposed. There were far worse things than being called a princess, and I’d been called many of them. I kept my head high, my gaze willing to take on anyone that challenged it. If they thought me a princess, I wasn’t going to argue with them any longer. If they put me in a place of power, then I was going to step into that power and do the best I could to wield it.
“What do you want to do now, Princess?” Lila asked, according me more respect and cordiality than I’d witnessed her do with anyone else.
I struggled mightily not to reveal hesitation. How the fuck should I know what I want to do now? I thought but said, “What are our options? Put simply, please.”
“We can go to Tanus’ father’s splicing facility to figure out what’s going on there,” Lila said.
“Or we could go to the royal palace and try to find a safe way for you to make a public appearance to appease your subjects,” Dolpheus said.
“Or we could remain here to let you rest and recover, as well as try to figure out more of what happened to you,” Tanus said, his eyes dancing with the additional possibilities he hadn’t mentioned.
I looked to Kai, the only one who hadn’t spoken, but he didn’t offer a fourth alternative. “Do you have another idea?” I asked of him.