Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe

by Cynthia Joyce Clay

  We ordered some Forsythia wine, to celebrate my first experience of The Waves.

  Trying to impress me with his worldly knowledge, the young man said, "Forsythia wine is scarce because the bushes are hard to catch. I've heard stories that the bushes have even tried attacking people, but surely that is just a myth."

  His words gave me a flash recollection of those yellowbeast-bushes chasing and cornering me. I cringed inwardly at the memory. However, the supreme good looks of my companion successfully chased away all unpleasant memories.

  "Yes, I know they are hard to catch," I said, carefully restraining myself although the temptation to launch into the story of fleeing from the forsythia was strong. This restraint of mine and the good looks of Yartem, the young man, ensured our romantic involvement. Our affair was at its most idyllic during that Week of the Waves. As I nervously sipped my forsythia wine thinking we would all be drowned for sure, Yartem confidently drank his wine and explained that Gretern "The City of Waves," went on vacation once each pregnancy when The Waves came. Each building became automatically sealed. The apartment buildings had their own theaters, movie houses, bars, churches, gymnasiums, and Wave viewing rooms.

  During the remainder of the Week of Waves, Yartem came to fetch me each afternoon, and we went to the entertainments. Since there is a custom in Gretern that every door within each isolated building is open to all other of the building's residents for dinner during the Week of Waves, Yartem and I ate with a new set of people every night. Often we found ourselves visiting strangers. At every meal there was soup.

  Neighteeha, her boyfriend and I hosted a dinner in Yartem's studio apartment. Floods of people came. We stirred and ladled out pots of seafood stew. We laced the stew with forsythia wine, and the sweet smell of yellow blossoms steamed above the pots in great clouds. We sucked this steam, deprived of its inebriating effects, into our lungs and laughed and laughed. Our guests couldn't seem to get enough of the stew or of our silly jokes. They, like The Waves, came crowding again and again to rob our pots of contents. In the small sea of faces that buoyed up and down from the seats, bowl in hand for more soup; there was one man who for some reason reminded me of Raiboothnar.

  The last night of the Week of the Waves, the gargantuan walls of foam-crested water rushed crashing through the city time and time again. As is the tradition, the Wave room was crammed with people who intended to stay the night to celebrate and to watch the Waves. Time after time the stars and the moons were blocked from view by the glistening, crashing waters. At dawn, the sun shone through the Waves, transforming each one into a huge conglomeration of prisms. At the moment the Waves crashed against our building the large strong window looked like stained glass coming to turbulent life. Streams of light tumbled through the room, bathing each of us in magnificence. Gradually, The Waves grew smaller, and came farther apart. The sun climbed higher in the murky sky. At last the waters returned to the seabed, no longer pushing walls of water through the city. The sea became still and colorless. The sun hid its yellow behind clouds. Only a distant, faint rainbow remained of the colors that had been so glorious and full. The buildings were unsealed, and everyone went back to work.

  I got a part-time job in a Leekimbee bookstore to augment my tutoring income. I was able to do a lot of reading in the bookstore. At first reading, Leekimbee was difficult, but I kept forcing myself until I became proficient. I read of the interlinked solar systems called Imenkapur in a history text.

  Imenkapur consists of two solar systems, which form a colossal oscillating x, with a star at the center of each system. This was first discovered in the early Sans Forest Period. Three contemporary ivilizations on different worlds, the Bread Civilization, the Oceanic Civilization, and the Laser Civilization made the discovery independently of each other. This discovery led the imaginative in the three civilizations to speculate human life might exist elsewhere within Imenkapur: The Bread Civilization, being very philosophically advanced, discovered the structure of Imenkapur through mere visual observations. The philosophical implications of planets from another solar system regularly seen in the Bread Peoples' sky-lines was strongly for the existence of human life quite nearby. The Bread Civilization therefore filled unmanned spacecraft with bread formed into human shapes, and launched the spacecraft to the planets, which glowed red in their skylines. To the Bread Peoples red was a color of good fortune. The planets, which glowed blue in their skylines, they distrusted as malefic forces. The Oceanic Civilization, suffering from a dwindling source of dry land, used their great ship building technology to build a huge lightweight spaceship to bring metals and bedrock back to their planet. The Laser Civilization developed transporters to exile criminals to planets distant from themselves, and send families to homestead neighboring planets. Eventually these three Civilizations found hard evidence of the existence of each other. Records show a Laser family transported to a planet found one third of the planet carved away by an Oceanic spaceship, and near the excavation a small space capsule filled with bread from the Bread Civilization. The Laser and Bread Civilizations were part of the same solar system and so they established a vocal contact with each other long before they were able to communicate with the Oceanic Civilization. This communication was effected through the means of Lasers. The Bread and Laser Civilizations, half a light-pregnancy away from each other, pooled their knowledge. The result was the extensive and accurate mapping of the two solar systems, the charting of the best paths for interplanetary journeys, the blooming of cross cultural achievement, as well as advancements in medicine. The Oceanic Civilization, using only manned spacecraft, slowly mapped and charted Imenkapur autonomously, and with great accuracy. The Oceanic Civilization remained unaware for six generations of the existence of the other two civilizations. During those six generations, the Bread Civilization colonized planets their mystics recommended. Also during that time, the technologies of the Bread and Laser Civilizations advanced at an intense rate. The mystics of the Bread Civilization had deemed the periodically viewed Oceanic spacecraft `malefic presences', and the Laser people had directly encountered the ravages inflicted on planets by the Oceanic scavenging ships. Therefore, the Bread and Laser Peoples agreed to protect each other from Oceanic spacecraft. The Bread Civilization used hypnosis and hallucinatory techniques to keep the scavenging Oceanic ships away from the planets held by them and the Laser people. The Laser people used vast holograms to confuse and deter the Oceanic spaceships. The day came, however, when an Oceanic spaceship with a course set for the largest planet of the Bread Civilization came within transport range of a Laser planet. The Laser people transported themselves onto the ship, killed the Oceanics, and pirated the spacecraft with the intent to establish a direct physical commerce with their allies the Bread People. Unfortunately, the direct contact between the two civilizations resulted in the decimation of three quarters of the Bread population, due to a virus carried by the immune Laser people. The temptation to conquer the weakened Bread people proved too strong to the Laser, and the Laser people conquered the central ruling planet of the Bread people. The Bread people became enslaved to the Laser people. The Oceanic people received the distress call from their pirated spacecraft. Nationalistic pride demanded revenge on both Laser and Bread people. The blasters that were part of every Oceanic scavenging ship were used as weapons against the Laser and Bread people. This commenced The Interplanetary Wars. The few surviving Bread people were enslaved by the Laser and in danger of total annihilation by the Oceanic. Bread Mystics urged a new alliance, one with the Oceanic people, who like the Bread people, were innocent victims seeking a just revenge of the Laser people. The Oceanic people saw the political significance of freeing an enslaved people and agreed to the Alliance. The addition of the Bread Civilization's sophological techniques to the fray between the Oceanic and Laser people led to an escalation of the warfare. The age of Genocide began. I closed the book and looked up meditating on what I had just read.

  "A sad history of misery. Thank
Waves the Holy Forests of Ipernia took pity on us and agreed to teach us how to live peacefully." The voice startling me from my musing was Neighteeha. "Since you finish work very soon, I thought I'd drop by and walk you home," she continued. "Yartem wants us to stop in where he lives. He has a new cartoon he wants to show us."

  Yartem had a job illustrating books. In his spare time he painted and drew cartoons. He always showed me examples of his work. The cartoon he showed us that day was of a little planet which had no life-supporting planets anywhere near it. (A very funny idea to an Imenkapurn). A great whalelike creature swam in the vacuum just outside the little planet's atmosphere. The whale kept trying to yell loudly enough for the people to hear him, but to no avail. The atmosphere was too dense for him to swim into, so he finally gave up and swam away just before the people launched their first spaceship. The people on the planet think they arealone in the Universe. Yartem felt these people must be intrinsically lonely. He saw the cartoon made me sad.

  "You understand the concept of Loneliness I am trying to depict," he observed.

  I couldn't tell Yartem he was drawing his version of my home. To tell anyone would mean capture and being sold as a Zitam.

  As Neighteeha and I strolled home she remarked, "Yartem sure is a dedicated artist."

  I glanced at Neighteeha, struck by her comment. "Yes, he is, isn't he? You are too, dedicated that is; you are as dedicated to opposing the Toelakhan as Yartem is to creating art."

  Somewhat embarrassed Neighteeha answered, "Maybe I get carried away sometimes."

  I hastened to say, " No, no. I think it is good to be consumed by an ideal. It seems to give you a direction to your life, like Yartem's art gives him a clear direction in life."

  Neighteeha asked, "Don't you think everyone has a direction in life? I've always felt my life has had a purpose, and I do feel it is to thwart the cancerous growth of the Toelakhan."

  I smiled at the political language Neighteeha always fell into when she spoke of the Toelakhan. "I don't know Neighteeha. Does everyone have a purpose in life? You have found one, and Yartem has found one, but isn't that because you wanted a purpose and selected one, rather than this sort of mystical concept of a special Purpose given you by divine guidance?"

  She lifted her eyebrows and waved her head back and forth as she considered the thought, "I think the two work together. I think everyone is born with a need to find a purpose and talents that define what realm that purpose will fall under, and even then, we choose the articulars.

  "I don't know Neighteeha," I said with some frustration, "I don't have any purpose."

  "Neighteeha said, "I think you have one, you just haven't found it yet."

  The whole subject made me very tense and anxious. Surely if my life had a purpose, it would be to help revive the dying planet that was my home. But I had left Earth. I could never go back, and so what could I possibly do? Was my family slowly asphyxiating on a world that had stupidly burnt down all its trees and poisoned its air? Purposes were for those who could hope, who had the luxury of hope. If I had any purpose now, it could only be to enjoy my escape. I changed the ubject to more banal topics.

  About three weeks after the Week of the Waves, I walked into Yartem's apartment and was met by an icy stare. He was working on a painting so I figured he didn't want to be bothered. I left, expecting to hear from him later that day. I didn't hear from him for five days. I went back to his apartment to find out what was happening.

  "Yartem, its been ages since I've seen you."

  "I don't wish to be made a fool further."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You have fooled me; you have fooled everyone. You

  pretend to be a human. You are nothing but a zitam. Ever since I have discovered this I have wondered what I should do. Waves, you are nothing but an animal. I can't tell the zitam gatherers and watch them sell my former girlfriend, but I don't want to see you again. Animal. Zitam."

  I ran back to my apartment and into my room. I was quaking. Neighteeha came for her lesson. She was very concerned.

  "Oh, no! Did Yartem discover you?"

  I froze. "Yes," she said, "I know you are Listed as a zitam. I have known for some time. One morning, when it was time to wake you I saw the scroll floor-sitting. I guess it had fallen out from where it was hidden in the mattress and so I re-hid it. Then I woke you. Don't worry, I haven't told anyone, not even Mother. It's been an exciting secret. I've wished and wished there was something I could do to protect Ipernia and thwart the Toelakhan. When you came I was elated. Then I began to think you were a member of the Toelakhan force, but when I found the Letter of List I knew you really were hiding. I realized my part was a very serious one. Kidnapping people, and then selling and calling them pets! Waves!"

  I remembered the morning I had made a panicked search for the scroll, only to find it had simply roiled under the bed. I had convinced myself that Neighteeha hadn't seen it.

  "How did Yartem find out?"

  Neighteeha answered, "Oh, you can be sure the Toelakhan have been looking for you. They must get a citizen of Gretern to declare you. The Toelakhan, of course, never directly expose themselves. Apparently they have been trying to get Yartem to do it."

  "Neighteeha, how did this zitam business come about?" Well, the Toelakhan, an interplanetary network of spies, were among the first to learn of the discovery of totally different universes. They organized businesses to seek life in these other universes, and sell the life as pets, household creatures. The revenue the Toelakhan receive in the zitam business is enormous, because only wild animals and wild plant-fife from other universes may be sold. The Forests do not allow us to trade in lpernia's wild animals. Only the domesticated life that people had used before the Forest's rule can be bought and sold. That is because those animals and plants can not be made wild again; they need human companionship."

  Even though I knew that Neighteeha used very slanted language against the Toelakhan and in favor of the Forests, her statement that the Forests ruled seemed to stretch the truth just a little too far.

  "Neighteeha, surely the Forest World does not rule the solar systems Imenkapur."

  "In a manner of speaking they do. They do so indirectly when they suggest political policies and ideals that the different cultures are free to work into their own body of laws or not as the cultures wish. In the case of their Law about not trading in Ipernian creatures they do enforce that rule. Any creature that is captured from Ipernia without the individual Forest's consent develops the viruses any creature always has infesting it into a virulent form. The virus kills the creature and spreads into the society of humans and their domesticated creatures. Since no one wants to court a plague, this Law of the Forests is obeyed."

  "But Neighteeha, you tell me Forsythia wine is made everywhere in Imenkapur. Forsythia is surely a Forest creature."

  "Yes it is, but the Forest Kiappia allows people on Ipernia to forage for her forsythia on occasion. Any Forest creature that humans are allowed to forage for, we are also allowed to transplant to our own worlds' Forests. Forsythia lives wild in every world and, as in Kiappia, we are allowed to forage for it. The same with mirnie berries. But these creatures are wild. We will never be allowed to domesticate them."

  "Oh," I said.

  "Anyway," Neighteeha said, "to finish what I was saying about he Toelakhan and the zitam trade; when the Toelakhan found people in these other universes, they convinced businesses to sell the people from other universes as zitam, before the legal definition of a zitam could be changed. There have only been six humans from other universes known to be found---human, I guess you are the seventh---and you ring an incredible price."

  "Neighteeha," I said, "this doesn't make any sense. Why not go to the other galaxies in your universe, why to other universes?"

  “We are at the extreme end of our universe. We know of another galaxy with life but it is farther from Imenkapur than the life-supporting planets in the adjacent universes. But wait a minute! What d
ay was it, do you think, that Yartem discovered you are Listed as a Zitam?"

  "It was five days ago that he started to ignore me."

  "If he has known that long you are in trouble. You must leave this planet. I have a cousin who can help us. He has a private spaceship. Oh, you need to be alone. I'll talk to you later. I'll tell will my mother you aren't feeling well."

  I fell asleep, leaving my unhappiness to speak in dreams. Neighteeha came back in the evening. We made plans into the early hours. Nighteeha knew of a city on another planet where I could probably live indefinitely without the Toelakhan finding me.

  "Ichloz is where you have to be," she said.

  "Ichloz?"

  "Ichloz is an almost completely decadent city; the ruling government is utterly corrupt and very traditionalist."

  “Taditionalist?"

  "Ichlozians want to preserve their culture as it was before the Forests agreed to save humanity from genocide. They agree humanity made mistakes, but they don't believe all of the ways of that ancient time were bad. They believe very much in commerce and material gain, so Ichloz is a very wealthy city. They have a class of nobility, which has been rich forgenerations upon generations."

  "What makes them noble, divine right?"

  "I don't know what you mean by divine right, unless you mean right of wealth. Money held in a family over three hundred generations establishes nobility. Some families die out; new families become noble. Their money never dies out though."

  "Is there a lot of poverty?"

  "No, there isn't, because Ichloz trades and provides interplanetary shipping to everybody. They rival the Toelakhan because some of the innocent zones are willing to trade with them and not the Toelakhan. They don't do the types of trade the Toelakhan do, but they do what they call "high class" trade: spices, fine fabrics, luxury items. Every man woman and child in Ichloz has lots of money. They are immune to bribes, and they take pride in being the only rival to the Toelakhan."