by Emanuel, Ako
So they fretted over their exams before, and had minor celebrations after, but for Pa-Kreceno’Tiv it was a brittle-false celebration. He tried not to look longingly at Pavtala Ralili’Bax, or wish for more time to be her Geni’vhes. But she always seemed to know when he was feeling that desolation at their impending parting, and her chemi-scent became comforting.
She completed all of her exams before the rest of them, and she invited Pa-Kreceno’Tiv over to help her celebrate. When he got there, she rushed to his arms, and held him tight, seeming to need her own comforting. When she finally let him lift her face up, she was weeping.
“I leave – next turn,” she said, turning her huge, tear-filled eyes to him. He took her into his arms, and felt the sting of tears in his own eyes.
“I could go to the same Ministry as you, Rali,” he offered again, stroking her hair. “My parents will let me...”
“No!” she said, pulling away and gesturing a violent negative. “No, Krece, you have things to do, important things! The Ministry of Preservation – you would be wasted there! Don’t! Please! You always wanted to go to Tertius, don’t throw that away!”
“But that’s not as important as you,” he said. “I want us to be together.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I promised I would be honest with you, Krece. We knew this could not last. There are – reasons, important reasons that I can’t tell you about, now, that you mustn’t join the Ministry of Preservation. Please, promise me you won’t!”
He felt his vuu-brow lower. “Rali, what...?”
“Please!” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “It has to do with the OSI. You – you need to find the answers another way, my sweet Krece, but if you follow me to the Ministry, you never will. I’d stay with you, if I could, but it’s... it’s not possible.”
He felt stunned, as if he had been hit in the plexus. What answers was she talking about? But if she was being as honest as she could, and still could not talk about it... then he would do as she asked. And he would get to the answers that she was implying that he needed to find, and when he did, he would find her again.
“All right,” he agreed. “All right, Rali, I won’t.”
“Krece,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his sternum. He clasped her shoulders, not willing to let her go.
“Yes?” he tried to make her look up, but she would not.
“You could – you could reverse my Pavtalar-induction, if you – if you really wanted, couldn’t you?” She finally did look up at him. He felt his vuu’brows draw down. What was she asking?
“I – yes, I could,” he answered. Her hands stroked over his chest, making him shiver, and the deshik came open beneath her touch. He felt a World-Tree of emotions, all tangled, all raging, as she slid the quasi-living garment off his shoulders. He did not stop her, though. Then she slid her arms up around his neck.
“Would you still be mine?” she whispered. “Just – for a little while?”
The question hurt. He did not want a temporary love, a once-mating, but... but he wanted her, however he could have her, even if just for a little while.
“Yes,” he said. Mating was supposed to be for life. Only long separation from a woman could undo the Geni’vhor in a man, and it was tortuous, or so the lectures on Genus had taught. But he knew his own glyph, and was sure he could make the change back.
When she pulled him down toward her, he leaned down and gathered her up to him, covering her mouth with his. Her fingers ran up through the hair on his nape, making him shiver and he held her closer. She was sweet, as sweet as Anin’ma-blossom nectar, and her elytra-pace fluttered and opened, her wing-nets buzzing, fanning her chemi-scent to him. It had changed in some indefinable way, subtle, compelling, and he felt a quantum shift in himself – his shoulders broadened, and his elytra-pace got longer. He felt her colors flow over his frame, and they seemed to cut into him, marking him, making him Pavtalar-Kreceno’Tiv’Bax, her Geni’vhor, her perfect mate.
She was beyond sweet. He wanted to inhale her, wanted to devour her, wanted to join with her and never let her go. He swung her around and down onto the rest-pad beside them, sliding his mouth off of hers and down to her throat, her delectable neck, the honey-dipped curve of her clavicle. Her deshik parted like blossom-petals beneath his questing hands, Pavtalar-hands, that framed her body perfectly as he raised her to his mouth. As Pavtalar, he knew every deci-length of her perfectly, knew every sweet point to titillate, knew without thinking what would bring her the most pleasure. Her kwalli-skirt went the same way, as did his kwats, even as he roved down her body to taste her, to know her as only he could. When she tugged at his shoulders, he obliged, moving up to fill her, his vuu’erio tennae twining and tangling with hers. As he sank into her it was so right, so perfect, as if they had been made as one being and then delicately, precisely sliced into two, so that they always fit perfectly together. Her cries of pleasure beneath him brought him pleasure. Her embracing body was meant to hold him forever. And when she reached her peak, the glyph of it wrapped around him, making him spiral up to his own climax that crushed all rational thought within him.
“Again,” she whispered beneath him, and only that was needed for him to be able to oblige her. He made love to her far into the dark-time, as often as she asked, for nothing else mattered. And then they fell asleep in each other’s arms, their vuu’erio tennae still entwined.
Whorl Seventy Eight
Pavtalar-Kreceno’Tiv’Bax woke in the dark, in an unfamiliar place. He reached automatically for his Geni’vhor, but she was not there. All that was there was a glyph, ephemeral, a message, that he did not need to Nil-ize to know what it said. She was gone.
He lay looking up at the ceiling. Pavtala Ralili’Bax was gone, gone for good, off to the Ministry of Preservation to begin her apprenticeship. He would not see her again. He felt as if he were being slowly, relentlessly ripped in two. Not being around her – there was a stab of pain in his chest, and he sucked in a breath, moaning, for the pain did not stop there, it ascended and descended, until the two halves of his body wanted to fly apart to relieve it. The thought of her gone, of never touching her again, brought a fountain of tears to his eyes, and they streamed out, without end, but endless tears would not fill the space that she had left, nor quenched the pain. There was only one thing to do, but... he did not want to do it. He was perfect for her, as he was, perfect to fit her, perfect to mate with her. But he would never mate with her again.
I could join the same Ministry, he thought, on the tip of deciding to do just that. But that meant giving up what he needed to do, felt compelled to do. And she had not been given the option to go to Tertius. She had made him promise, promise, but what was a promise to being with her? But – she was his mate, and she did not want him to join the Ministry of Preservation.
I – I have to let her go. The thought was like a blade through his gut, and his wing-nets buzzed in agitation. He felt sick, at the thought. But to stay this way, and never be near her, was unbearable. The two compunctions battled, but only one could win.
He rolled off the rest-pad to his hands and knees. His glyph was changed, irrevocably. No, not irrevocably. Not permanently. With a silent scream he began to forcibly disentangle the Pavtalar change from his glyph, from his self. His wing-nets extruded and beat furiously, changing as the rest of him changed. It felt as if he were ripping off his own skin, as if he were slicing away part of his identity, as if he were – unmaking – himself.
The green and black of her Pavtalar-induction melted away. The red rings in his eyes faded back to grey. His wing-nets, newly pointed and Pavtalar shaped, became the blunt bluish-grey of his neutral state. Every part of him hurt, every limb, but nothing hurt more than his soul, his innermost self.
He collapsed, tears shamefully leaking from his eyes, though he swallowed the sob that came with them.
Never again, he lied to himself.
Whorl Seventy Nine
When he arrived back
at his parents’ domicive, his mother was in the salon-entranceway, as though she had been waiting for him as he tottered in. But her eyes actually widened when she saw him, and then she rushed to him and took him in her arms. He had to lean down to wrap his arms around her. He felt comforted, safe. And the pieces of his glyph seemed... seemed to be held together by some outside agent.
“Foolish boy, foolish boy, what have you done?!” she cried, sounding distressed, but distressed for him. Somehow being in her embrace, though he topped her by a deci-length and a half, made him break down into the tears that he had managed to stem.
“It hurts, Mother,” he heard himself sob, and her hands stroked his back and elytra-pace soothingly.
“I know, my heart, we’ll fix that,” she crooned.
“What is it?!” his father demanded, and he felt his arms around him, too. “What has he done to himself?!” The naked concern in his father’s voice, like the distress in his mother’s, distracted some distant part of himself, which wondered at the depth of feeling they were expressing.
“He – he unmated himself from her!” Her voice was also full of concern, of pathos, as he had not heard it in a long time, since he was little. Her chemi-scent, that he had not sensed in a long time, became comforting, as when he had been young and had hurt himself. “He mated with her, and then he tore up his glyph, unmating her!”
“By the Ancient Hives! Well, if he is capable of doing that...”
“He has done it. He loved her that much, to do this to himself. My foolish boy, you’re dying! Don’t you know that there’s a reason that we mate for life?” Vespa Kareni’Tiv sounded as if she were on the verge of tears. “Even Gotra Pelani’Dun did not go so far as to consummate her proto-mating with Hytiro’Vel! That is the catalyst that makes Geni’vhal into Geni’vhor, makes it irretrievable!”
“There is only one thing to do,” Vespar-Drelano’Sev’Tiv said, grimly. “He might as well go. We were thinking of sending him, anyway. We’ll have to make him forget when we repair his glyph. He cannot do what he needs to, like this, Geni’vhor bereft. He won’t be able to do anything, but repine.”
“Go, get things ready,” Vespa Kareni’Tiv said, and the second pair of comforting arms left, but the first held him, rocked him. None of their words made sense, or the words did, but the meaning did not, not that he cared. He felt weak, and he was getting weaker.
“Come, my darling, loving boy,” she said gently, maneuvering him, and her chemi-scent became commanding, rather than comforting. He followed her directions, without having a physiological response, as she was his mother. She led him to a comfortable place to rest, and when she urged him to lie down, he did.
“Go to sleep,” she said. His eyes became heavy, and for a moment his vuu’erio connected to his secondary retinas. He saw his own glyph... and it was shredding away, the vitality part of it. He began to try to repair it, but felt a strong will and Nil’Gu’ua nudge his awareness away.
“Oh ha, it is good that you are aware of the damage you’ve done, and I know you can repair it, but we will do that. Just rest.”
The last thing he remembered was...
Whorl Eighty
Kreceno’Tiv woke up in the dark. He looked around, then Nil-ized on the lights, saw that he was in his own suite, on his own rest-pad. The last thing he remembered was... saying farewell to Pavtala Ralili’Bax, then coming home and trying not to shed tears. They had briefly considered mating, but had decided against it – it would have been too painful for both of them. He could not imagine mating and then parting, and trying to divest himself of her Pavtala-induction.
And... she would not ask me to do something so painful, he thought, the thick, blue sadness suffusing him again, no matter how much we wanted to be together. He sat up, and realized that he was hungry, despite the numbing depression. Then he became aware that some change had been effected within him, and when he connected his vuu’erio tennae to his secondary retinas, he saw that his glyph had been – changed, repaired.
What did I do? he wanted to scream, but held himself still, the pain of her loss shoved roughly aside for a terror-filled moment. Did I do something? Or did someone else do something to me? Mother – should I go to Mother, and ask? But he was home, in his own suite. If something had been wrong, his parents would have known it as soon as they saw him, and would have done something.
They did do something. They fixed me. He was sure of it, as sure as he could be of anything. And the fact that they were not with him, now, to tell him what happened...
They don’t want me to ask. Maybe, I’m not even supposed to know. If it had been something that they needed to talk to me about... they would have been here. So – I’m not supposed to ask, or know, or... remember.
But the last thing he remembered was... saying good-bye to Pavtala Ralili’Bax. Holding her, shedding tears with her, giving her a last kiss. Then watching her go away in her transport. And then coming home and being so depressed, that he sought solace in sleep. Nothing else.
Is there something else I should remember? he stared at the wall. I know my own glyph. It’s been changed...
He debated digging deeper, then, paradoxically, decided not to. There was a disinclination to do so, he could feel the glyph of it, worked expertly into the weft of his self. It could be overridden, he knew, he could find out the exact nature of what had been done to him, and why. But something told him that he did not want to know, that knowing might bring back some of the damage. So, he left it alone. Instead, he went to the food-prep area to find something to eat and to drown the depression that he allowed to take hold of him once more.
Whorl Eighty One
“Oh ha,” Ro-Becilo’Ran said, as they got on the Secondus transport to ride in. This was their last turn of examinations. Not everyone had the same tests on the same turns, for it was dependent entirely on their schedule of lectures. The transport was thinly populated when it came for them. Ropali Galici’Bel was there, having come to meet their transport to ride in with them.
“Oh ha,” he replied.
“So, you broke things off with Ralili’Bax?” Ro-Becilo’Ran commented. Ropali Galici’Bel looked away.
“We – wanted to be together, but I don’t think I could be happy in the Ministry of Preservation,” Kreceno’Tiv said. “And she didn’t have a choice. I – thought of going with her, but...” Was it enough to give up on love, just for ambition? But she had told him that she did not want him to go into a Ministry position that he would not be happy in. He had offered, more than once, but she had been adamant. And truthfully, with the OSI already draining away the population, and the strictures of it already in place, the Ministry of Preservation was almost superfluous, a nowhere vocation, for the world of Gu’Anin was already reverting back to its mostly natural state.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Ro-Becilo’Ran said, and there was real contrition in his voice. Kreceno’Tiv looked away. He was still not sure he had made the right choice, letting her go. They all stayed silent, the rest of the way to Secondus. Something bright and beautiful had been removed from their lives.
Whorl Eighty Two
The OSI came to the center of Segela Miridum and Algna Suprum, swallowing all of the places that Kreceno’Tiv knew in its spined tentacles. Where despair had reigned, like a Malkia, it was now deposed by something even worse, something implacable, overwhelming, like the deluges of the storm-level.
It started innocently enough, with recruitment kiosks that many flocked to, just because they were new, different, a novelty in the endless, undemanding turns of their too-easy lives. So millions of people lined up at the booths, and thousands actually took the offer. For Kreceno’Tiv and his friends, it required that they and all their term-mates continue to go to Secondus sub-Hives, even though their lectures and examinations were complete. The other, lower terms were still having lectures and examinations, and as long as they were required to go, so were Kreceno’Tiv and all those in his term.
And the results of
the OSI could be seen and felt almost immediately. The way into Secondus the turn after its implementation was quieter than it had been ever. The Occupation and Service Initiative had swept up a significant portion of the indolent citizens of An’Siija and translated them off to the under-developed worlds of the second Star Whorl. But even as Kreceno’Tiv watched, the lines broke up as the rest of the people quickly lost interest, because no matter how bored they were with non-activity, it was still preferable to having to work, or face the perils of wild worlds, it seemed.
So the city still teemed with people, people with nothing to do, and nowhere urgent to be. Some few did walk with purpose, he could now see, moving about in the still vitalized sub-Hives of administration, having given into the employment-reward structure, or having Nil’Gu’ua high enough to be associated with the Solidarim. Otherwise they were one of the shrinking class of unfortunates, perforce having to work for their keep. But most of the population still just sat or stood around, watching others, the ennui of complete independence upon many of them, possibly robbing their lives of drive or motivation. Or freeing them of responsibility. Did it matter which it was, if the results were the same?
Possibly – I guess it depends on how each individual sees her or himself, he thought, listening to the conversations of his friends as they went to lecture rooms but had no lectures or lessons to occupy them. Do they see themselves as being completely free, or do they see themselves as being without meaning?
The booths had not been enough. Eventually people had stopped going to them, once more frittering away their lives in non-pursuit of anything. Then, as the discussion forums had intimated, when the voluntary recruitment no longer worked, the Magistrars came.
And when the Magistrars fail, what will be next? he wondered, looking up as the chime sounded. Will the Peace Forcers come and take people away by force? Will the Magistrars use them to exert the same dominance as the Malkia had done, to get their way? In the times of the Malkia-mothers, the Hive had been all, an all-consuming purpose, and the Malkia was the Hive, its life and its breath, and the males had all Genus-morphed to suit whichever Queen they served. And the Peace Forcers, equivalents of the warrior-males from the times of the Malkia, had been their enforcers, completely submissive to their will and merciless in executing their commands. Will they resort to those coercive tactics, and with the coercion, will there be rebellion and rioting in the boulevards? he wondered, shivering. Not that I wish a return to the times of the Malkia-mothers, but, in all honesty, is this aimless, almost-anarchy any better than the near-total enslavement of those turns? Do the people need to something to rebel against? Was the Initiative a good thing, if only to awaken a sense of purpose and drive in his sister and brother citizens of Gu’Anin?