Their flesh became still, the life that was within their bodies faded to nothing. They found peace and tranquility, passing their lives to those that love them.
After his parent’s retirement Tu’Tan felt truly mature. All the while his parents were alive there was always “someone there” Ma and Ba, although being for all practical purposes beyond ever needing their help they were there and insisted that they would always be his parents, and he and his sister, their children. Now that they’re gone Tu’Tan was beyond their help, even when it became apparent that they had become more dependent on him than he on them, the parent-son relationship was always there. Now that had all changed.
There is no better end to life than to die with family and close friends present, to share the experience. Those witnessing can bid a fond farewell. The one’s passing, gives family and friends a final seed or the impression that will live on with them and through them all their lives and perhaps beyond, a kind of immortality.
Tu’Tan’s parents lived an average life span, two hundred fifty-three years and two hundred forty-seven years for A’To and Ba’Ni respectively. They married early, both of them in their early fifties and perhaps because they married early, they had more troubles with settling down than most couples. A’To changed jobs as often as the CA would let him until he was nearly one-hundred and seventy-five then finally seemed to settle down and stayed at the same job until the end.
Perhaps bouncing from job to job for one hundred twenty-five years, then to be stuck doing the same job for seventy-five years straight aged A’To early. It’s not uncommon for people to live to three or four hundred spending their entire working lives at the same job, yet for all their years they can’t claim to have done all the things or gone through half the rewards and hardships (although some self-inflicted) that was experienced by A’To and Ba’Ni.
By the end of three or four centuries, most of these people stuck in the same job are little more than robots satisfying their standards or quotas and going through motions that on the surface would appear rewarding activities but in the end make them empty shells with happy faces painted on them. A’To and Ba’Ni pursued life with a passion for most of their lives, had they not and become robots they may have survived for another hundred or more years. There’s no physical reason they couldn’t have, the crew of Dadr’Ba being genetically locked clones in a sterile environment means there’s no such thing as natural death or death due to age or disease.
Nobody ages, nobody gets sick, and all except for a few dangerous jobs (really dangerous jobs are done by robots and convicts) the CA ensures nobody gets hurt. The age record holders among the commoners seem to top out near five hundred, by that time their minds are gone, they begin to fail standards and quotas and the CA comes in and retires them, or convinces them to retire.
Once selected or approved for retirement, they only have a few weeks free from work to devote to getting their affairs in order before the prescribed termination date even then the time is charged against vacation time earned, deducted from their children’s inheritance and the families ranking based on mileage earned from work contributed towards O’M.
Retiree’s body parts are said to be donated to those few that have suffered injury, or they may get frozen for possible use later. A’To and Ba’Ni could probably have held out for another twenty-five or fifty years, but the cost they would have paid in mental and emotional ability would have been great. It’s better to retire voluntarily while your mental faculties are intact while you still care, while you still love, and while others love you. There is nothing so sad as to see living machines retired, who are not cognizant of what is happening; not knowing that they are leaving anything or anybody behind, incapable of leaving a thought, a wish, a desire, a little piece of themselves, anything, behind. A’To and Ba’Ni had plenty to give to Tu’Tan and Le’Ta.
____________________________
The birthing was going beautifully, Tu’Tan and Le’Ta were bonded and synced, they could feel the presence of A’To and Ba’Ni, and now together they found what was to become P’Ko[10] like a quiet, secluded pool of crystal blue water on an isolated island in the middle of a vast ocean. As they had practiced so many times before, they gathered their collective being, and like shimmering translucent specters each overlapping and joined. Not just synchronized, but unified, allowing the natural additive and subtractive focus to run their course without complaint, freely sacrificing and accepting self and losing all sense of being, replaced with a feeling of belonging and that belonging, with a common goal of seeking out the still pool of P’Ko.
P’Ko is laying on a cushion on a dais between Tu’Tan and Le’Ta in the Churches birthing chamber. His breath slow and regular, monitored by the med-tech, but dead or more accurately as are all preborn, without brain function, their bodies warmed, and their hearts started for the first time minutes ago, not ever alive.
Exactly where preborn come from is one of the CA’s secrets. The prominent theory is all pre-burns had been on board since launch, stored with the passengers in suspended animation, frozen. The minority theory says that they’re created as needed in a three-dimensional printing process.
Being GLC’s (Gene-Locked Clones) they cannot be born in any normal biological way, their cells don’t divide so they cannot grow. They come into the world physically fully developed, but with minds that are, aside[11] from what their parents impart to them during the birthing process, initiating their cognitive functions, a blank slate.
Of course, the people whose work exposes them to harsh environments show signs of wear and tear, but not age. When the wear and tear affect’s performance, they can go in and have the worn parts replaced, even whole skin transplants, (the most common repair/replacement) since everyone is genetically the same transplants are easy to perform. Since a certain percentage of people are always retiring there is a ready supply of spare parts; nothing is wasted on a starship.
The MedTech, assisting with the birth had brought P’Ko’s body up to the proper temperature, started P’Ko’s heart and breathing but could do nothing for P’Ko’s brain. Starting P’Ko’s brainwave and cognitive functions would be up to Tu’Tan & Le’Ta, with the recent memory echoes of A’To and Ba’Ni providing subtle but recognizable undertones. A’To, Ba’Ni, Tu’Tan and Le’Ta need to as one, find and enter P’Ko’s pre-born mind and provide the seed of life, of self.
To join like this is exceedingly difficult because it’s dependent on the relinquishment of all individual will and acceptance of belonging. The problem is that without will, action is impossible. All participants must at the root of their self, want to perform the act, the act of finding the pre-born and starting its life. The process has to be automatic like a mental muscle memory process, shared by all participants. This process is so complicated that successful firstborns (the successful birth at the first attempt) are rare. It’s common for couples to have to make multiple tries and much joining practice to achieve a successful birth.
The composite Tu’Tan, Le’Ta, A’To, and Ba’Ni, is formed, a waveform unlike any of the individuals, yet carrying their most important and powerful traits, good and bad. It moves towards the still pool of P’Ko’s lifeless mind and settles upon it and slowly as wind upon water causes ripples and waves, to begin to appear. Slowly the processes of brainwave functions start to initiate, barely perceptible at first, with some intermittent pauses but then slowly grow in duration and magnitude until a clearly recognizable pattern begins to emerge based on the composite mental image of the parents and grandparents.
Initially, P’Ko felt Tu’Tan, Le’Ta, A’To, and Ba’Ni as a single painful stimulus, but gradually came to recognize it as something familiar. Like an excellent massage, he began to feel his body awaken, becoming at first awake, and then aware of body parts he hadn’t realized before that he possessed. But something was missing, P’Ko couldn’t define it, but the lack of something important made it feel strange. Finally, even without the missing piece, P’Ko
came to become comfortable with Tu’Tan and Le’Ta, forgetting there ever was something missing.
P’Ko remembered the peace and solitude from before, before these friendly invaders, little did they know or realize that they had corrupted the serene nothingness from before, before he was alive. This was the beginning of what P’Ko was and could have easily been the beginning of the universe; it was certainly the beginning of the universe for P’Ko. Even empty space before it can be called space existed as nothingness, a pure nothingness, not even corrupted by dimensions, let alone energy or matter.
Why do energy and matter seek to invade something as pure as nothing? First forcing nothingness, to become an empty space by stretching and ripping dimensions into existence, then tearing open a place to enter. Taken as a whole all the universe equals nothing, so why does the universe need to tear itself apart in order to exist? As much as the universe exists, in its totality, it must equal nothing. It’s a balance.
P’Ko realizes that being is as important as not being and slowly allows being to come into focus. Without knowing the words to express all that has happened begins to recognize the internal universe and opens the sensory organs that will be known later as eyes.
Suddenly, from nowhere and everywhere was felt an impact, a thump followed by a thump-thump-thump, each impact growing in magnitude, though it was a mental/psychic impact Tu’Tan and Le’Ta felt it as physical impact jarring them and the echoes of A’To, Ba’Ni. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta. They find themselves struggling in a psychic storm, barely hanging on, finally, after several painful, frustrating failed attempts; they find P’Ko in the middle of the tumult and start to draw him out.
Tu’Tan and Le’Ta were told that sometimes the preborns resists birth, but they felt that P’Ko was cooperating, that something had happened to interfere, something from outside.
P’Ko was in a lot of pain and discomfort; it was difficult to see and feel P’Ko in so much distress. They had been told that some preborns fight birth when they suddenly become aware of so many stimuli coming from places unknown, it takes time to sort out what is pain and what isn’t. Everything, at first, is pain. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta felt it at the same time as P’Ko; it was pain, and it came from outside, not from his awakening senses.
Tu’Tan and Li’ Ta’s concentration is so severely shaken that they wake from their concentration, fighting hard to maintain their link to P’Ko but unable to.
Consciousness and back in this universe Tu’Tan and Le’Ta sense and see the intrusions and the psychic impact’s effect on P’Ko. It altered P’Ko’s pattern with a sharp and distinctive rush, like a strong wind or more like an explosion or concussion on the waves that they built with their combined efforts. The last thoughts imparted on them by the impact before awakening back to the physical world was that of shock, and terror followed immediately with pain and anguish. They realized they couldn’t help but reflect this mental energy towards P’Ko, even as he experienced it himself.
Tu’Tan and Le’Ta’s greatest fear was that P’Ko was dead, or worse, in some catatonic vegetable state and that P’Ko would have to be forcibly retired. The disaster erased A’To and Ba’Ni’s echoes from Tu’Tan and Le’Ta’s completely. Another attempt at birthing would not include their presence or participation, a tragedy, and a mortal sin in the religion of Dadr’Ba because it represents a break in the parental lineage[12] and a break with the first Touch of God event[13].
P’Ko’s body lay in convulsions, twitching uncontrollably with occasional moments of seizures, his body so tense it would be easy to imagine muscles tearing loose from their anchors. P’Ko’s grown body belies the fact the he’s a newborn, conceived and brought to consciousness just moments ago. P’Ko is alive and breathing, but Tu’Tan and Le’Ta are terrified sensing that something terrible is happening, and incapable of doing anything about it. What could be going on in P’Ko’s mind? Was P’Ko alive or in some terrible process of dying?
The MedTech looks up from her monitors to Tu’Tan and Le’Ta, and as calmly and compassionately as she could muster, said that she has never seen or heard of anything like this, even the many failed first born attempts never ended like this. The MedTech softly asked if she should terminate P’Ko, suggesting that they could try again another day.
They looked at P’Ko, the expression on P’Ko’s face was one of fear and pain, at that moment his eye’s wide open, seeing some unknown terror with tears streaming down his cheeks. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta looked at P’Ko and in spite of the obvious trauma P’Ko was experiencing, felt an enormous bond to P’Ko. They psychically examined to the best of their ability and could sense through the dark cloud that enveloped him, that they had succeeded, they were able to recognize the important parts of themselves and A’To and Ba’Ni, that they had implanted on P’Ko. But there was something else, the source of the terror, but it was beginning to quiet down. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta both felt hope beyond hope that P’Ko would recover and be all right.
They empathically tell the MedTech, no! Don’t terminate! And take P’Ko up in their arms, comforting him. P’Ko’s seizures slowly subside, and he finally falls asleep.
P’Ko remains comatose and unresponsive for a very long time. Unable to eat the MedTech is forced to install a feeding tube to prevent P’Ko from starving to death. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta take turns juggling their work schedule and their saved up CA approved parental time off[14].
The MedTech that attended P’Ko’s birth comes to Tu’Tan and Le’Ta wanting to report the anomaly that occurred during the birth. Saying that she did some checking and that it qualifies as what the CA calls a “Touched Birth”[15] The MedTech fearing that P’Ko might have a latent memory from before the Touch of God, and that is what brought on the spasms of terror. If discovered the CA would come down on everyone involved with unbelievable vengeance and P’Ko could very likely be tested, analyzed, forcibly retired and dissected.
Tu’Tan and Le’Ta convince the MedTech that even if they had reported it immediately, the CA would have come down hard on them. Now since she waited, punishments would certainly result. They bribe the MedTech to remain silent about P’Ko. Tu’Tan and Le’Ta, in their desperation pay more of their hard-earned credits to have P’Ko evaluated by a Doctor, who performed an illegal Bio-Mod (all Bio-Mods before the age of twenty-five are outlawed) in an attempt to help cure P’Ko’s affliction, with no apparent effect.
After several weeks, P’Ko regains consciousness and is taken off the feeding tube and begins progressing, although more slowly than his peers.
Despite physical/genetic equality, the personality traits and cognitive capacities, including IQs vary widely. Personality, temperament, and cognitive ability differences are the core of the birthing system, the passing of mental/personality imprints from generation to generation, and is believed to be a product of the Touch of God Event.
The Touch of God Event is credited too with a crucial element of the birthing process, and that is psychic abilities, which varies from individual to individual, like people’s cognitive capabilities and personalities. It’s said that this ability is what enabled the crew to survive and to recover from what should have been the death of all on board Dadr’Ba and the failure of their mission.
P’Ko survives his rough childbirth and eventually begins school and begins what seems to be a normal childhood.
Chapter 3, A Families Loss
Su’Zi, Kr’T’s daughter, burst through the doorway to the converted cargo container turned camp trailer home, having run the short distance from the community school with her brother as soon as they sensed something wrong.
Hysterical and crying, Su’Zi exclaimed, “Somethings happened to Ba[16] I think…” and couldn’t finish the rest.
Ln’Da[17], Su’Zi’s mother, already knew, Ln’Da felt something wrong before the psychic impact hit alerting Su’Zi, and had already started searching for her husband.
As soon as Su’Zi saw her mother and felt her mother’s search, Su’Zi realized that she n
eeded to find her brother, Sa’To[18], he’d been right behind her a moment ago.
Su’Zi didn’t have to look far; Sa’To was outside not far down the alley leading to their camp trailer home. He was sitting, staring out into space with a pained expression on his face. Sa’To being Yng’Gr[19] sensed Ba’s trouble even before Su’Zi.
Sa’To was already looking for his Ba but based on his psychic aura, the expression on his face and his trembling hands; he was unsuccessful. Su’Zi got Sa’To’s attention and together went to be near and join Ln’Da in her search.
They have no idea what exactly happened, only that Ba suffered a violent end, they don’t know where to look for his psychic remains, and there’s little time before they fade or become lost.
Ln’Da, Sa’To and Su’Zi searched, like individuals with candles wondering caverns looking for the last ash glow of a candle that had just gotten blown out. Their job was to find the smoldering remains of a husband and father before he’s lost forever.
With joined forces they’re able to cover more ground faster and detect greater detail. They try using their combined forces to do the psychic equivalent of a shout, hoping, that for a brief instant, it may brighten the output of what remains of Ba’s candle, but to no avail.
As they search, they sense others, unfamiliar to them, and avoid them. Even though they desperately want to find Ba they couldn’t afford to compromise themselves and be discovered by the CA. Though doubtful that a casual observer could perceive an individual’s psychic exploring, a novice would be able to discern a group search, shouting into the ether.
Psychic searching is by necessity an opening and revealing process. It is voluntarily exposing one’s psyche, which is the only way to leave one’s physical existence. It is an accommodating process which allows you to get close enough to recognize someone psychically. It also makes it impossible to hide or disguise oneself, or avoid being interrogated. Stealth and deception are impossible; any deception would require extraordinary abilities and even then a good psychic interrogator should find it easy to detect a deception or charade. The extraordinarily difficult effort to deceive would shout out to those present, when engaged telepathically a person is psychically naked.
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