Dreamer

by Dave Gordon

  Their surveillance techniques were crude. They simply parked the glider and watched the house. Three days later they had a plan. At ten in the morning, one hour after the little girl had left for instruction, Siln walked to the door and raised her hand to knock. She saw all her possibilities fly before her. Everything she had done and been. Everything she could do or be. All distilled into a moment, this moment. She took a deep breath and knocked three times.

  The door opened. Before her stood a somewhat older and timeworn Christor. She couldn't find the words to speak. All her carefully rehearsed lines were forgotten. Christor waited for the woman before him to speak. A sudden flash of recognition went across his face. Then, stunned amazement.

  “Siln!” he cried as he grabbed her hands and pulled her in. “Siln. Oh my God, Siln.” He started to cry. He grabbed her up and spun her in circles.

  Siln was transported. Of all the possible outcomes, this was the one she had not dared to dream. Lifted from the horrid purgatory of the last tens years to fly before the gates of heaven. The center of the world lay at their feet. Her sins were cast from her as she spun around the tiny, perfect world. There were no words for it, the state of grace that enveloped her then. She knew that she would never live in darkness again. The light that shone through her would never die. She had won.

  Outside, Van wasn't sure what to make of the situation. He hadn't seen the man's face, only Siln getting jerked inside. Their planning hadn't accounted for her disappearance. He decided that if he deviated from the plan, she would kill him regardless of the outcome.

  Siln's blissful orbit came to a halt. She watched Christor intently to hear his next words.

  Christor released his bear hug and pulled her to the couch. “What are you doing here?” he asked desperately. “Why did you leave me?”

  She told him everything, all of it. She pulled no punches. She drug him through the sewers, riddled him with fear and desperation, detailed deprivations beyond his understanding. Atrocities and aberrations. Cruelties, petty and vast. Hearing it from her own mouth, she couldn't believe she had survived. It seemed old Sam was right. Her mother had given her what she needed in order to survive. She came at last to her association with Van and the restoration of her credentials. Finishing up, she added, “So I came back to you. I didn't know if you wanted to see me. I was afraid you didn't ever want to see me again.” She hung her head and awaited his judgment.

  Christor took some time. It was a lot to absorb in just a few minutes. Ten years of being a single parent. Ten years of hoping that the one you love will someday walk through the door takes its toll. “I never married,” he began. “I lived for the hope that you would come back, always knowing in my heart you never would. I told Silna that her mother loved her but had to leave. I told her that her mother would come back someday. I knew it was just a fairy tale I told myself to get through the days. Now the fairy tale has come true. Will it have a happy ending? Are you going to stay?”

  Siln's wildest dreams were coming true. All the pain and loneliness were worth it. It all led her back to him and her daughter. Sitting there looking into Christor's expectant face, it all seemed worthwhile. She would do it all over again just for this perfect moment. She saw the gates of heaven open. She was a placid lake, its surface undisturbed by the breeze. She was wholly at peace for the first time in her life. She said calmly, quietly, “Yes, Christor, I'm staying.”

  The next several days were dizzying. Silna was overjoyed that her mother had returned, but more than a little angry at the long absence. It took some careful explanations to tell all the reasons without telling too much. In the end, everyone just decided to accept the happiness of the situation. Van became an uncle. Silna loved Uncle Van, thinking him to be oddly old fashioned. Silna loved the stories about Alpha One in the old days. She laughed when he told her that people went to stores and bought food. Then they cooked it on a thing called a stove. “Eww", Silna said, “Did it smell?” Van said that it only smelled bad if it was cooked it wrong, otherwise it smelled very good. She was suspicious upon hearing that paper books and toilet paper were common. She decided that the past had been a dark and backward time. Van agreed.

  There was the matter of preserving Siln's credentials in spite of her past. Having a baby out of wedlock was a crime. Having the baby of a topsider was also a crime. In the end they settled on the ruse that Siln had a twin sister. Since Siln and her mother were undocumented to begin with, it was possible there had been a twin. Some rudimentary DNA tests indicated the story could not be disproved. They told how Siln's flight from the planet had been born of grief by the simultaneous death of both her mother and sister. Siln had returned to Alpha One to care for her niece as she had promised her dying sister she would, as the story went. The Forces chose to believe the story, implausible as it was. Everyone was greatly relieved. There was no real interest in persecuting them anyway. The Forces weren't in the business of performing lineage analysis and Human Management didn't have anything to gain by removing the little girl from her happy home. In the end, it all just went away.

  One sunny day many months later Van came to Siln and said, “Siln, I've been doing some work on my credential status. I have requested to be unlinked from you due to my improving prognosis and your bad attitude.”

  “What?” Siln cried.

  “No, just kidding. I told them I can be independent now that my health has returned. I also told them that I wanted the same for you since you have been such a good care provider. They said yes, Siln.”

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  Chapter 14

  Eternal Sorrow

  It is an irony I cannot yet fathom. Of all outcomes, this was never imagined. I sit in our mountain home, a home we built together, staring out across the valley. Legions of elves abide in the valley below. They live in peaceful dreams among the towering trees. The water flows like music, soft and sweet. Song birds sing the praises of their treasured realm. In the valley below it is eternally spring. To live there is to know bliss. Such was not our fate.

  Time has been kind to me. Ty said the elves had granted me many long years in consideration of the many services I have performed in our mountains. There is work aplenty. There are fields of flowers to tend. The rocky ledges of the eagle aeries must be secured. The dens of the burrowing animals must be kept clear. I am endlessly employed. It is a blessing to fill my time with such labors.

  I had no way of knowing what our journey to the elf realm meant for Ty. Our meeting at the border of their lands was tense, uncomfortable. Not at all how I expected Ty to be greeted. The council pronounced Ty's exile to the high mountains and she cried. I came to realize that crying is not at all elf-like. Not at all in the extreme. The tearful collapse Ty suffered in the high meadow bore her across the divide that she had traversed for so many years. The divide between human and elf. Her link with the elf kingdom had been shattered. She began to age. Slowly at first, but then apace. As I became more elf-like, she became more human. She began to tire. The shunning she suffered had taken an essential part of her. She had given up eternity for me, and I had taken it from her.

  I sometimes hear the elves far below singing the tragic tale of our love. It is heart-wrenching. The sorrow of the elves is beyond the ken of humans. There is no end to it, it is eternal. It is a difficult thing to grasp, eternity. It is not just a very, very long time; it is all of time. The elves’ burden increases as the ages pass. They carry with them the memories of pains suffered countless centuries ago. Hurt upon hurt. That is why elves are a somber people. Perhaps they were a merry race when the world was young, but no more. I now share their grief with them. I too, it seems, shall bear eternal sorrow.

  That was why Ty was an outcast. It wasn't because of me. It didn't have anything to do with humans. They spurned her because her suffering was increased with the death of each human mate. There was no time to mourn the first when a second would pass, then another, then another. They couldn't endure
the constant pain. They didn't expel her because they disapproved. They did it because the pain was simply too great. The song of her fall is the tale of a damaged heart searching through time for a love that would sustain her, only to find bitterness and sorrow at every turn. There is no end to it.

  Our mountains are clear. The snow-capped peaks are radiant against the brilliant blue sky. The eagle I know as Kee soars high above. It would be beautiful and perfect were it not for the sorrow. I sit in our mountain home, a home we built together, staring out across the valley, alone.

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  Chapter 15

  Eulogy

  “By all accounts, High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen was four hundred eighty-five years old when he passed to another time and place. His remarkable longevity has been attributed to his protracted stay in a sleep unit early in his life. That, however, is not what the people of New America believe. They believe that he was given long life in order to achieve the miracles that he bestowed upon us all.

  High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen began his life's work in the year 2627. That was the year he entered the underground city of New Bedlam, as it was then called, and began transforming their society. High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen was a master chemical engineer, but not by training. He taught himself to build miracles from mud. He was a consummate medical systems engineer, but not by training. He taught himself how to build life saving medicines from the cold rock around him.

  In the year 2628, High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen brought to New America a glider full of equipment and a library of chemical definitions. That was all it took to reverse two hundred years of misfortune and misery, one small glider of equipment and a handful of library records. With these few tools, he began working to give the people of the underground the things that they had so sorely lacked for so long.

  High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen could have rested, but he was not satisfied to rest while others suffered. High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen led a diplomatic mission to all of the underground in the year 2629. This mission required the greatest of skills and the utmost bravery. The progress was slow and grueling, but in the end the underground was united. High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen spread his blessings among all people regardless of their status. The high and the low of all levels were his charge. He carried his miracles from the foul pits to the exalted heights.

  High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen never accepted a political position. He could have become emperor, but he chose to remain among the people. He could have lived in grand palaces but he instead kept a modest apartment on a side street in New Bedlam. He was revered by all the underground, but was most beloved by the common people he served. He was known to bring the sick and destitute into his own house. He would personally administer his blessings to those without means.

  Perhaps his greatest work was undertaken in the year 2712. In that year, he led a small delegation to the surface to parlay with the Credentialed Citizenry. High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen was a credentialed citizen himself. He could have stayed above ground and lived a life of ease, but he came to the underground instead. Therefore, he was uniquely qualified to undertake the Unity Mission because, even though it was death for a citizen of the underground to go above ground, there was no law against a credentialed citizen going below ground. It was inconceivable that any credentialed citizen would willingly go below ground, but that is exactly what High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen did.

  The initial negotiations were discouraging, but there was never a task High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen abandoned because it was difficult. High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen convinced the Credentialed Citizenry that the swelling power beneath their feet was a threat they would have to match with diplomacy rather than force. That led to the first ever Credentialed Citizenry envoy to the underground. The effect was stunning, to put it mildly. The officials from the Credentialed Citizenry were shocked to find the thriving civilization below ground. They were equally as shocked by the display of military power that was arranged for their benefit.

  Negotiations were begun in earnest after that. The Citizenry asked High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen what his demands were. In his typical fashion, he replied that he had no demands. He said that he did have some suggestions that might improve things. That set the tone for the next several years of talks. The end, you all know. The penal system was reformed. Small crimes are no longer subject to expulsion but rather to a credential suspension. Those exiled to New America found a system that is stern but not harsh. Those who can be productive are accepted into their society. It is still not unusual for a person sentenced to a term below ground to remain there at the end of their term. Those who cannot accept a sentence in New America are faced with a temporary expulsion to Black Water. Still, they are cared for even in a place of terrible cold and darkness.

  The management of the underground has become a cooperative undertaking. The underground has become a rehabilitation facility from whence people might return to the surface. Word of the changes taking place underground made their way to the surface. The spirit of cooperation and compassion spread through the population. The prejudice and discrimination that had plagued the underground for so many years began to subside.

  High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen negotiated an arms accord and a non-aggression pact between the Forces and the underground army. The Disruptors, as they were once called, were brought into the Forces hierarchy and charged with maintaining order below ground.

  It is hard to imagine that once upon a time, before High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen came to the underground, chaos ruled, violence was common place, misery and deprivation were the order of the day, and people were sentenced to lives that we not now put upon a dog.

  There is no honor we could possibly bestow upon High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen that is equal to his deeds. He probably would not accept them anyway. All we can do is thank God for the unlikely series of events that sent him to us, and pray that he rests in peace.”

  As the uniformed man stepped away from the dais, a monstrous crowd roared. The funeral of High Lord and Prophet Van Ellen would be followed by days of mourning. A national holiday commemorating his birth would be announced. Scores of hospitals, libraries, government buildings, and parks would be named after him.

  Meanwhile, in a quiet suburb on a quiet street in a cozy house, two small children watched the proceedings on the holoview. They didn't have a choice; it was the only thing on every feed. They lay on their stomachs, chins propped up by hands, feet swinging lazily back and forth.

  “Isn't that the man Great-Grandmother Silna told us about?” said a perfectly beautiful little blond girl.

  “I don't know,” said the cherub-like boy.

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  * * *

  Epilogue

  “Mars Base, Rescue One.”

  “Rescue one, Mars Base”

  “Pioneer ten-seventeen has been located.”

  “Good news, Rescue One. Is there a survivor?”

  “Yes sir. Pioneer Van Ellen was found in a state of altered suspended animation in the hibernation unit. The ship experienced a micro-puncture approximately two years into the mission. Automated systems sealed the breach but the hibernation unit was damaged. The hull breach protocol processor initiated the reanimation sequence, but sequence did not complete because of the damage. His synaptic functions became altered. His resulting condition has never been observed before and we are at a loss as to how to proceed. There is a great deal of brain activity, but we do not believe he knows where he is. The best description we can come up with is a semi-conscious, dream-like state characterized by extreme awareness of sensory functions. We think he is dreaming. Mr. Ellen went into convulsions when we attempted to execute the reanimation sequence. The Medical Officer thinks we should tow the ship back to Mars Base with Pioneer Ellen maintained in his present state. Other than that, his health is fairly good.”

  “Does the Medical Officer have an opinion regarding Pio
neer Ellen's potential for a full recovery?”

  “Attempts to phase Pioneer Ellen out of suspended animation did not alter his brain functions at all. The medical Officer believes restoring Pioneer Ellen to full consciousness will require years of research and may not be possible at all. In addition to that, he may remain in that state for a protracted amount of time because his bodily functions are still in hibernation.”

  “Roger, Rescue One. Not the best news, but at least he survived. I will propose that the ship be taken to Earth and the hibernation unit installed in a medical research facility. Maybe they can figure it out. When will you start the return trip?”

  “Pioneer Ten-Seventeen is ship-shape and space-worthy. It is as clean as the day it lifted off. The logs are completely uneventful except for the puncture. We will start back as soon as the tow unit is installed. I'll contact you before we enter suspended animation. I hope we don't get what Pioneer Ellen got. God only knows what he is dreaming about.”

  “Roger that, Rescue one!”

  * * * *

  There is nothing in the universe more appealing to male humans than the sight of an Aolian woman. Their form is exquisite, every one is the perfect ideal woman incarnate. Their beautiful blue skin glistens and changes hue in subtle ways. Slanted eyes flirt and beckon. They are open and inviting in every way. There is something about human men that entices them. Thankfully, their reproductive methods are similar enough to be compatible with humans, but in a uniquely sensuous way.

  I turn from my labors over my deficient thrusters to be graced by a vision of desire. I am stunned and speechless. She leads me to her den. The walls are made of native soil that has been somehow polished. The smell is earthy and intoxicating. Warm yellow light emanates from fluorescent crystals in the ceiling. We go to her bed in the rear of the cave. Her bed is made of thick, soft moss and is covered with silky blankets woven of lavender Aolian hair.