Black Knight

by Svetlana Ivanova

  'Sister?'

  A soundless male voice came from the dark where a tall figure stood poised by the wall. The word was in another language, but it still made perfect sense in the dream.

  Allecra let out a soft sigh.

  "You know why I like to stare through this window?" she said, still observing the fish soaring passed the moonlit clouds. "It seems to remind me of someone. The window and strange things floating about somewhere. And I seemed to like the company of that person a lot."

  She turned herself around to look at the tall figure in the shadow.

  "Last night, I woke up with a lingering sensation," she said. "A very outlandish feeling, like a distant calling though I didn't hear anything. And I felt this intense need to answer it, but I couldn't. Then I sat up grasping at the air. My hands trembled with disappointment, and there was a sharp gripping ache in my chest. I have no idea what it is."

  'It's called 'sadness'.'

  "Sadness," Allecra repeated as if trying a new word in her mouth. She fell quiet for the longest moment before she spoke again. "Triton, how long have we been back?"

  'A month.'

  "That means a year has passed on the Blue Planet," she said and sighed to herself. "I tried to remember things from that world, but my memory feels like mist, foggy and shifting. Xenon...she erased something important in my mind, didn't she? But I still feel these vague jumbled feelings in my heart. It doesn't seem to go away, and now it dawned on me that I do not want to live with this—this sharp nagging pain in my chest. Do you know what kind of pain it is, brother?"

  She waited for a long moment until at last Triton spoke.

  'You miss an Earth girl.'

  "I miss an Earth girl? This gnawing feeling in every hollow of my bones is because I miss someone on Earth?" Allecra said, frowning to herself in contemplation. "Tell me, Triton, why do I miss her? What was she to me?"

  Her brother sighed and stepped into the light. His angular face bore a look of remorse as he stared at Allecra.

  'Because of your love for her.'

  "But now I can't remember anything about this love!" Allecra looked frustrated as she was trying to figure something in her mind. "Why did Xenon do this to me? Why!?"

  Triton didn't respond. They stood bathing in the moonlight for a while. Allecra put her slender hands and forehead against the glass and closed her eyes again. She was trying hard to remember the feeling she had lost.

  "Can you tell me what the girl was like?"

  'I already disobeyed the order by telling you this much. I'm sorry.'

  Allecra turned to her brother.

  "I want to go back to Earth," she said suddenly. "Something is calling me back to that planet. I feel like I have to go there, Triton."

  But the sliding sound of the triangular door stopped their conversation. Xenon strode into the room.

  "Our aerospace technicians said they will take at least four months to prepare for the transferring. They had used up the power bringing us back from Earth," she informed them. "Anyway, their satellite has sent a report that the new world's habitability is still active, and the environment is perfectly safe for us to stay. The Elders would like to send you there as soon as possible."

  Triton turned to Allecra, but she didn't look away from the window. Xenon looked at him. A short exchange of private dialogue seemed to issue from their meeting eyes. Then the dark-haired girl sighed before coming to stand beside Allecra.

  "You haven't said a word to me since we're back in Arzuria," she said. "I know you're angry at me, for reasons you can't even remember, but you have to understand that whatever I did, it was for the best. In the New World, you will find a more suitable potential—"

  "I think I have a child," Allecra spoke up all of a sudden. Her eyes gleamed like midnight dew under the moonshine. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, there was a long stretching pause among them.

  "What?" Xenon asked, looking perplexed.

  "I can't explain it to you, even I don't know it myself, but I just know that I have a baby now, Xenon," she said again, finally turning from the window to her sister. "They have to take me back to Earth. My child is waiting for me!"

  "Allecra, you know it is a very serious matter..."

  "I have to see the Elders." Allecra turned to walk out of the room, but Xenon grabbed her hand.

  "Allecra, no!" Xenon said her. "You can't jump into conclusion and let them know about it."

  "I do not jump into conclusion!" she yelled back. "You don't understand this feeling because you're not a parent!"

  "Of course I don’t! And I never will," she said. "But assuming what you said is true, I believe the child is better off on Earth."

  Allecra looked at her sister in disbelief and disgust.

  "Did you intend for it to happen all along?" she asked.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Xenon replied sternly through her clenched teeth. "Though I admit I had a slight suspicion that the girl was conceived by you, but a suspicion is just a suspicion. I could not rely on some vague hint like that."

  "Even if you could, you wouldn't!" Allecra growled. "Were you jealous of us? You separated me from my unborn baby and the human girl because I loved an Earthling and not you?"

  Xenon gave her a slap that sounded sharply in the too quiet room. Allecra's face turned to the side from the blow.

  "I only wanted to protect you!" Xenon cried. "It would be easier with someone you had no feeling for, but I knew you loved that girl so much that you couldn't think of the future consequence. I just don't want you to go through it. If the Elders know that you actually have an heir, they will claim the baby."

  "They can't do that!"

  "Yes, they can and they will," Xenon said. "This is what the whole operation is all about. Do you think they would let you live happily ever after with your human lover on Earth? Think again, Allecra, you know they would want your baby here in Arzuria. And what do you think they would do to the child? Look at Triton and me and you! What are we exactly? They only wanted you to use the female earthling as a host for our genetic reproductive purposes. They have no interest in your human love!"

  Allecra was stunned to hear what Xenon said. She ran both hands through her hair at the sickening realization.

  "Then what am I going to do?!" Allecra cried and started pacing in hysteria. "I can't stay here. I want to go back. I have to go back! They need me!"

  "Even if you could return to Earth, years would have passed between the two planets. Time goes backward or forward when navigating through space. And if you could find the human girl and her baby again, eventually the Elders would find you and take the child back with them, then what will become of the earthling mother? How would she feel having her child ripped from her arms and being left behind to grieve once again?"

  Allecra growled and turned to the window, repeatedly pounding the wall of thick glass with both hands.

  "It has to be a way out of this! It has to be!" Allecra cried with more blows. She was now like an imprisoned bird trying to break free from the cage.

  Her sister looked at her with conflicted eyes. After a while, she gestured to Triton.

  "Stop her."

  "No, leave me! Get out! Get out!"

  Then Allecra slid down onto her knees and began weeping.

  Xenon couldn't look at her anymore and simply nodded to Triton. The two Arzurians turned and left through the door, leaving Allecra alone with her grief.

  I woke up from the dream and heard my daughter's siren wailing in her crib. I quickly leaped out of bed and went to her. Her whole face blushed red from crying.

  I checked her temperature and peeked in her diaper, but everything seemed fine. I picked my baby up and cradled her in my arms. I thought she might be thirsty and tried to feed her, but she tilted her head away.

  Fearing that the noise would wake the whole house, I brought her to the balcony, humming a soft lullaby to soothe her. Elvira wouldn't stop crying. She had never been like this. I didn't know what to do.
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  The dream had bothered me but at the moment my daughter was all I cared about. She seemed to be so upset with something, and her crying just broke my heart. Before I knew it, my own tears spilled onto her soft blanket. I was silently crying, too.

  ~*~

  Allecra strode along the corridor with Xenon and Triton escorted by a number of soldiers in white uniform.

  They came to a large burnished silver room. In a vast pool of moonlight coming through the crystal ceiling, men and women sat at a long stone table around the hall. In the large chamber illuminated by light from the transparent pillars, everyone regarded the three young Arzurians with scrutinizing stares.

  The Elders looked at them with their eyes glowing. There were dark purplish shadows under their cheekbones. Despite their impressive violet cloaks, they were old and withering with age. Allecra stepped forward and bowed to them.

  "Are you prepared for the journey to the new home?" one of the Elders with bald egg-shaped head and silvery eyes asked.

  "No, sir," Allecra said. "I have come here to talk with you about Earth."

  The older Arzurians frowned and looked at each other.

  "The hybridization program on that planet has failed. What is there to discuss about?"

  "What if I tell you, I have found the cure to our barren world?"

  A chorus of gasps and murmurs echoed around the chamber. A female blue-eyed Elder leaned forward and spoke up.

  "What did you just say, young one?"

  "I want you to listen first to what I've learned from the human race," Allecra answered.

  "There's nothing they know that we haven't already known in our world."

  "That's not true," Allecra said. "They might not be intelligent and advanced like us, but we lack what the humans have. It has been programmed in their brain since birth by the evolution. They inherently and spontaneously know what it means to their survival and reproduction. Since the first moment they are born, their kind possesses an unwavering force within them. It's what makes life possible."

  "And what is it?"

  "Love."

  The murmuring of the word erupted among the Arzurians again, as if they'd only heard of it for the first time.

  "Love?"

  "Yes, the force that's driven life," Allecra said with a solemn nod. "Our civilization has grown too advanced, we're like thinking machines. We were not born, but harvested, taken from our mother's womb early and placed into tubes, artificially nurturing until an appropriate time, because everyone preferred it over the nine months." She paused and looked at everyone's attentive faces directed at her. "We went to school at three, finished at twelve and were trained to become perfect citizens with desired professions in our society. We'd never been shown love to or taught how to love because we hardly saw our family or friends or even spouses face-to-face except their holographs. Life was too busy we stopped eating real foods but energy pills. We were interested in a fast and open relationship more than a committed one. We stopped showing real feelings for fear of being called 'weak', no sadness nor joy, let alone true love. Needless to say, our minds are full but our hearts are empty. That's how the evolution made us evolve into a barren species because nature knows we're incapable of sustaining life."

  A wave of shock washed over the room. An Elder raised her bony hand to silence the noises.

  "So what do you suggest we solve this inherited problem?"

  "Learn to feel like humans," Allecra said. "On Earth, there's a man who jumped into a frozen river to save a drowning deer. There's a woman who took the place of a friend in a car accident. If we learn to form such emotions like that, our race can gain the ability to love and create life again."

  The Elders listened. Some nodded, but some did not.

  "If you said we've never been shown love to or taught how to love since we were young, how did you come to learn about love yourself?"

  "While I was on Earth, someone taught me how to feel this special thing. I don't remember who she was or what she did, but I never forget how she made me feel. Now I know I have found the answer. If there is love, there is life. It's just that simple."

  The Elders were silent for a long while.

  "You want us to feel like the Earth people," A violet-eyed Elder said. "That's like telling adults to act like toddlers again. Our civilization has gone this far, battling countless disasters and wars and failed governments to build a peaceful and orderly world. Now you tell us, we should follow the inferior race?

  "If you said love is the cure to the Arzurians, and you have been taught to love, why did you not succeed in the end? Who knows whether your theory works or not? If everything turns out fruitless as it's been before, it would be a waste of our time. By then you would have lost your potent fertility for breeding, and we can't risk that. You all know time is crucial to our mission."

  Allecra was tongue-tied between keeping the secret and telling the truth about the baby. Her hands balled into fists. She knew she had been cornered. Xenon and Triton glanced at each other.

  "I have given you the cure to saving our dying world. Whether you believe it or not, it's not my concern anymore. I won't go anywhere. I want to go back to Earth."

  "Nonsense!" another Elder said. "You shall be sent to the new planet with no further delay. You're the last one of us. You're born to ensure that our future generation can continue our bloodline. We are not the humans!"

  Allecra's body trembled in suppressed rage. She wanted to say something back, but Xenon gripped her arm.

  "Allecra, don't," she whispered. "We have tried."

  Hopelessness had settled over her once again. She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. The sight of her vulnerability seemed to cause a stir of surprise among the Arzurians.

  "Our civilization is collapsing because of you," Allecra said quietly at last, "You don't know what love is. Maybe we're better off going extinct!"

  The Elders's glowing eyes widened in shock.

  "Allecra, please," Xenon whispered again and tugged at her hand. The gesture stopped her with immediate calm. Then the dark-haired girl turned back the Elders. "We will proceed as planned, respected Elders."

  The old men and women nodded curtly, but some of them still looked unsettled by Allecra's bitter words.

  The floor split apart and a large machine emerged, looking much like the Spindle except it was much grander and with a spaceship in the middle. Then the ceiling above them opened like lotus petals, revealing the starlit dome of the multi-colored sky. Everything was prepared and ready to launch at a moment's notice.

  The technicians' fingers flew over transparent keyboards. Their voices murmured codes and directives in a continuous stream. Symbols scrolled, and vanished, and flickered, jumping from screen to screen. The light power surged from the bottom of the great equipment.

  Allecra and her siblings were escorted to the enormous machine and ordered to get into the spaceship.

  Communication between the Arzurian scientists rang around the room.

  "The location command codes have been entered. We will send them directly to the New Planet in sixty seconds."

  The brightness of the light intensified.

  "Wait, there seems to be a problem!" someone cried. "The message has been intercepted by an unknown source, repeat the message has been intercepted...!"

  "What's happened?" The Elder said.

  "Sir, someone altered the location. They are not going to Planet Tarael," a technician answered. "They're going to Earth!"

  "Stop the machine!"

  Sparks burst from every screen like bright rain. All equipment began to melt into sand.

  "We can't stop it, sir! They're destroying the main circuit!"

  "Get them!"

  A troop of uniform soldiers sprinted towards the Spindle. Xenon turned to Allecra and grabbed her face before she kissed her on the lips.

  "She's waiting for you," she said. "Go find her."

  And before Allecra could respond, her sister jumped out of
the spaceship again. Triton's hands moved over buttons and switches.

  The giant ring began to spin.

  'Keep the machine going, sister. They're trying to pull us back.' Triton reminded Allecra.

  The whole place was trembling as the Spindle spun faster. Winds blew and a great column of light burst into the sky. The last time Allecra looked at Xenon, she was standing among the piles of fallen soldiers on the floor. Her sister turned around to her before giving her a farewell smile. Then everything went blinding and silent.

  ~*~

  I made a turn at the corner of the street and came to a stop by the sidewalk. I saw other people went through the gate. The chatters and laughter filled the air as I entered the playground where they set up a stage.

  There was the sound of applause each time the name was called. I was a bit late. I had to finish an urgent article that needed to be sent to my editor. But my daughter's graduation was always on the forefront of my mind the whole time.

  I came to sit next to a couple of parents at the back row and scanned eagerly for her. The teacher continued to call out names and each pupil came up to receive a certificate in their adorable white gown and cap. I didn't have to look for long. Elvira's unruly blonde hair stood out from the crowd.

  As if she could feel my eyes on her, my daughter looked up and glanced over to my direction. The angelic face that wasn't smiling a moment ago now resembled a bright sunshine with her toothy grin. It made my heart melt with pure joy. She waved animatedly at me, and I waved back with a soft giggle to myself.

  "A lovely young lady, isn't she?" the woman sitting beside me said cordially while we watched my daughter moved onto the stage.

  "She is," I replied, beaming back.

  "Are you her aunt or her sister?" She asked innocently. I turned to the woman and shook my head with a smile.

  "No, she's my daughter," I said.

  "Oh," she breathed and tried to hide her surprise. "Well, now I can see the resemblance, but I think she must take after her father more, eh?"

  "I guess so." I nodded back. I had gotten used to this kind of questions by now.