Keshona Far Freedom Part 1

by Warren Merkey

deep breath, closed her eyes, and in a moment found the score for the aria to view in her ocular terminal, almost unsurprised that it was there. Then she felt some further connection to the aria: another fragment of hidden memory, incoherent except for the beautiful melody and a painful sadness.

  "Oh, Olivier, how did you know? I have actually sung that aria! Many times. Many."

  She tried to keep the bittersweet fragment of memory but it left her, making her sad, yet slightly hopeful. Perhaps, if she survived, one day she might learn why she had these forbidden memories, and then she might be able to keep them.

  Olivier jumped back up on the table, scattering plates and cups. "We've got a singer here! A Cio-Cio-San!" Then, looking down at Fidelity, he asked: "Can you sing soprano? Your voice sounds mezzo to me."

  "I can sing soprano." She was certain of her ability, yet not happy about the choice of music.

  "What's wrong?" Rafael asked, leaning close, pressing into Samson who sat between them.

  "This aria means something to me, Rafael! I remember singing it, over and over and over. But I can't remember what it means to me other than a kind of sweet sadness."

  "Ready?" Olivier asked. Fidelity nodded slowly. Music swelled from the speakers.

  Ruby Reed sang.

  = = =

  "It's been too long! You're sleeping their lives away! You're stealing my memories, all I have left of them! You've stolen my child! Why don't you let me have what little I can have, my child, my memories, and let me go, let me live out my years and die?"

  "Perhaps it has been too long! But we have to know! We have to look for them. You're our only hope now. You must live again and carry out the final contingency plan. They may have failed. They may be dead. Now it's our turn to do what we can. But you must lead the way. You're the vessel that contains all of our hopes. I'll awaken when you're ready."

  "What do you mean? You stand in front of me and you're not awake?"

  "This isn't me! I'm sleeping, remember? This is my duplicate. This is what an old woman with no courage does. This is what an old woman who has lost her husband to eternity does."

  "You're not the only one to lose a husband! How many times have I awakened from a life I didn't know wasn't mine, to discover I'd lost my husband? How many times did I realize once again how much I'd lost?"

  "He married you?"

  "Yes! How many times will I tell you? I've always loved him! I got my chance and I took it! And now I feel this horrible ache of loss again, and I remember the other times I've felt it, and it's just as fresh and horrible as it was those other times. Please, don't make me do this! I don't think I can endure yet another awakening!"

  "You must! This will be the last time."

  "Do you have pictures of them? I've forgotten what they look like."

  "You'll remember, when the time comes."

  "How long, this time?"

  "I don't know. Probably another lifetime. You have great obstacles to overcome. But I'm making you very strong. You must survive."

  "But it won't be me, just as it isn't you, because I won't remember. I won't even remember his name! And I'll never see him again!"

  = = =

  "It's beautiful," Rafael said, "both outside and inside, yet so terrible, so unhappy."

  "We have our moments!" Olivier declared. "We just had one! I still get goose bumps, remembering Ruby singing Un Bel Di. Never heard it sung that way, or sung so beautifully! Made me cry! Yeah, that's Oz, the Big Ball. The ocean is on the outside, a shell of water. Stops the radiation. What do you think, Ruby?"

  Fidelity thought the concert would never end and she would never get her glimpse at the stars. Her singing of the Puccini aria had further ignited the emotions of the broken ones. They had serenaded her with song after song: solos, duets, trios, quartets, and even choruses! They threw themselves into their music with complete seriousness and performed extremely well. Fidelity was astonished and mystified by their total commitment to the production of their music. It seemed that it was a special occasion for them, but Olivier wouldn't comment on the reason for it. They had begged her to sing for them again and again, and she had complied, all the time waiting for men in black uniforms to appear in the cafeteria.

  Now she stood at the promised window, carefully observing the night of space surrounding a globe shining with the reflections of stars. A long thin shaft gleamed between the Big Ball and the much smaller sphere in which they stood, where hundreds of Fleet ships were docked across its close horizon like dark bumps. The Big Ball did look much like the Great Museum. She could see millions of stars surrounding it, too many stars, so many bright stars that night would never come into this place also called Oz.

  "I think I'm lost," she whispered. Both in space and in time.

  1-28 Prisoner Exchange

  "You look different, Doctor."

  So different, he hardly dared speak to her!if pan

  She had arrived at the moon terminal by transmat. He couldn't remember her ever using a transmat before. She had always avoided them. Why were they now taking a shuttle, when their final destination could as easily be reached by transmat? She quietly sat down opposite him on the shuttle, briefly glanced at him, almost smiled, then uncharacteristically withdrew into thought. He waited for others to arrive, all of the assistants who normally traveled with her, but no one else came. The shuttle signaled the start of its short journey. He was alone with her and it was a rare moment!

  He was alone with a stranger! It wasn't the Panama straw hat she wore. It wasn't the baldness beneath the hat. She had lived through decades when managing her hair was too much bother to her. She always claimed to be too lazy to worry about how she looked and too private to hire people to maintain her appearance. It took him a while to understand what was wrong with his perceptions; it was that they were correct. This was not Aylis Mnro who had joined him on the shuttle!

  "I do?" She replied, only after seeming to wake from a trance, or from a daydream.

  He gathered momentum to try to solve her mystery. "You are different!"

  "I'm not the person you know," she said, still distracted.

  "Who are you?" He dared demand, disturbed by the cryptic response.

  She frowned briefly as she twisted her hands in her lap, saw what she was doing, and slapped them apart on her thighs. She moved her jaw to one side, deforming her mouth in a funny way while thinking: a startling mimicry of a famous habit of the real Aylis Mnro. She leaned forward in her seat to offer her hand. "I am the original Aylis Mnro, R.K. Pleased and privileged to meet you."

  He almost failed to respond to her offered hand. Even after a century of friendship, touching Doctor Mnro was to him a rare and desirable privilege. R. K. Ramadhal took the woman's hand and felt her tremble. Or perhaps it was his own doubt and indecision transferred to his hand. Was this Doctor Mnro? He looked into her blue eyes and saw - panic? The meaning of her words, and almost the words themselves, slipped away from his comprehension. "How can you be?" he nearly mumbled.

  "I've been asleep for two centuries but I'm awake now - and quite scared!" The woman gasped. "Oh, dear God! How could I say that to you?"

  She released his hand as though he had hurt her. He stared at his hand as he tried to retrieve what she first said to him.

  "Asleep for two centuries?" he questioned her. "I don't understand, Doctor Mnro!"

  "Aylis! Call me Aylis! How many times have I asked you to call me Aylis?"

  How many days in a century? She knew their history together! It was impossible to think of her as Aylis. But this was someone different, someone he didn't know - as if he ever really knew Doctor Mnro! Obviously, he never really knew her! He tried to study her without appearing too eager, too agitated. She seemed to recover from the panic, although she still looked tense. She was quite different! For one thing, in the space of the three days since he last saw her she had lost at least twenty years of age. "You look young, Doctor - Aylis. Too young. How did - ?"

  "Do I? Oh, I was afraid of t
hat! Is it too late to turn back? No, I must go on! R.K., I'm so sorry to have involved you in this! Stay on the shuttle! Don't go into the Eclipse with me!"

  Her words flew out of her almost faster than she could form them, shouting her anxiety to Ramadhal and making him more nervous. He never saw Doctor Mnro lose her composure for any reason. He never saw her be frightened. If this was she, he didn't want her to act this way! If this was she... It made no sense! His deep loyalty to Doctor Mnro remained intact. If this woman was in any way an approximation of the real Doctor Mnro, he would be loyal to her also. He knew something momentous had occurred in her life and he must assume this was part of that upheaval and that it was legitimate. Legitimate and impossible!

  He tried to argue. "You said you needed me."

  "I did and I do! But this is dangerous! It was wrong for me to ask you to accompany me."

  "Why would it be dangerous?" He knew ignorance and denial were making him braver than he ought to be. They would be guests of the Navy very shortly. The Navy!

  "Because of what I just said! It was a stupid, thoughtless error! And I didn't realize my appearance was so different. Why couldn't she have told me? Because she was, by definition, as stupid as I am!"

  There were two of her, Ramadhal finally made clear to himself. Perhaps an identical twin. Nothing impossible. Nothing so greatly mysterious. A wonderful secret that perhaps only he now shared with her. The sisters - not clones, he hoped! - perhaps took turns