Dan’Zu paused for a long moment, then responded “yes, I guess you’re right” with that P’Ko stepped through the middle of the group, and passed over to the bullied kid that was watching it all. P’Ko said “let’s go” to the kid, putting his arm on the kid’s shoulder, and guided the kid away, once out of earshot P’Ko told the kid that these bullies shouldn’t bother nim again.
The new kid’s name was Tn’, still a nor, ne was still undecided about what gender ne is most comfortable with. Rather effeminate, not prissy, more tomboyish, not at all uncommon for a fifteen. Tn’ thanked P’Ko for the rescue, expressing amazement at how well P’Ko handled himself against five adversaries. P’Ko dismissed it as luck and by taking them by surprise, not wanting Tn’ to guess about his martial arts training.
P’Ko told Tn’ about how these bullies picked on him when he was younger and that he had run away, and eventually they got tired of chasing him, and that he had always wanted to stand up to them. Seeing Tn’ getting picked on gave him that chance. P’Ko said that it was he that should be thanking Tn’.
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P’Ko and Tn’ became friends, Tn’ was grateful and always looked for ways to repay P’Ko. Tn’ would hang around P’Ko whenever ne got the chance. P’Ko could rely on Tn’s company, and support. Tn’ was pleasant to be around and always anxious to spend time with P’Ko.
P’Ko treated Tn’ like a boy, an effeminate boy, but still a boy. One day after school, P’Ko and Tn’ were hanging out sitting up in one of the best viewing places of Nu’Tn, talking, and as friends sometimes do the subject came round to gender, and rather matter-of-factly, in a conversational tone, Tn’ asked P’Ko whether he liked boys or girls. P’Ko’s response was “Girls, of course”; “Oh” was Tn’s reply. P’Ko asked Tn’ “what about you?” Tn’ replied, “I haven’t decided yet” paused, then “I guess I’ve got time enough to decide.”
Chapter 17, Chn’Gi’s Reports to CA Council Two
Chn’Gi reviewed her notes for the report; she still felt beat down and depressed. Since the discovery of the O’Mi’s she’s felt as if she’s been sent to prison.
The eTaC-M fused to her skull seemed to produce a tiny ringing in her head. It was probably just her imagination, but it served as a constant reminder of how much things have changed. She longed for her little studio apartment, and wished that she’d never had the “privilege” to brief the Central Council on anything.
She’d gotten better with her reports, she learned at her original ‘O’Mi’ blunder not to try to decide for the Commander and the Council what was significant and what was not. But hasn’t been able to purge O’Mi from her vocabulary and every time she reports she spends too much brain power trying to avoid another ‘O’Mi’ slip. According to her boss, she came dangerously close to getting herself mind wiped or forcibly retired.
The assembled Central Council in this week’s virtual meeting were, as usual all focused on her, she could feel the pressure, but instead of nervous or excited, she felt deflated, like she was pancaked against the inside of the hull on zone four.
She began her report, as if starting a recording, “The transmissions have advanced to tighter frequencies, and we’ve been able to determine that the IL’s are probably using more than one language, still with no key it’s impossible to decipher. The IL’s have recently begun analog type signals that we are reasonably sure is audio, but we can’t be certain.”
The Vice interrupted her and asked if they could hear a sample. Chn’Gi responded “certainly” and with a few strokes on her desktop, what sounded like someone trying to speak, garbled, sometimes muffled sounds, with frequent choking and retching, filled the room. After a few long moments of garble with pauses that could be interpreted as sentence breaks.
The Commander interrupted “Enough, we don’t need to hear any more of that garbage.” getting nods of agreement from everyone. “Continue with your report.”
“We speculate that the IL is divided by language so there must be more than one set of populations separated by culture or geography. They must have a certain level of metal refining, manufacture, and technical capability in order to construct a radio. They most likely have manufacturing and a transportation system on a relatively large scale and be capable of supporting it. All of that would also necessitate population centers and the food production and infrastructure needed to support all of the above.”
Someone that had been off camera, apparently monitoring the meeting suddenly appeared and the virtual conference table flickered as a new person joined next to the Commander, the person that had been sitting there shifted over a position, the virtual table compensating instantly. The new person was now at the Commander’s right side while the Vice remained on the Commander’s left.
Without introduction, the newcomer asked, “What weapons are they capable of producing?”
After a pause to reflect, Chn’Gi juggled the possibilities in her mind and responded: “that isn’t my area of expertise, but with the metallurgy and manufacturing capabilities demonstrated, the ILs should be capable of producing explosives and projectile weapons.”
The conference room went silent, and the view froze and frosted over, someone in the conference must have muted the conference as one or more meeting members had a private discussion.
Chn’Gi sat in silence. After several long moments that could have been seconds or minutes, the conference came back online. Her boss was now the only one visible across from her. “Good work, from now continue to report every development, and feel free to provide speculation on their weapons capabilities. We will have “appropriate” experts review your data and provide us specific detailed analysis and options. In the meantime, we want to continue to hear your interpretation”.
The wall across from Chn’Gi’s desk returned to being a wall, and Chn’Gi laid her head down on her desk and took a deep breath and exhaled, almost sobbing. What must these ancient cold, stoic people be thinking or planning?
The Council and especially the Commander most certainly must be Touch of God Survivors. There mustn’t be any other way for them to attain such high positions. Dadr’Ba status and rank are based strictly on seniority; all the top people are Touch of God Survivors with perhaps only with minutes or seconds of travel time seniority separating them.
But more importantly, how does being a Touch of God Survivor change the way people think about things? These people have wealth beyond imagining, have lived for the greater part of a thousand years, what stories they could tell, and more importantly, they may have pre-Touch of God knowledge.
She wondered how it might affect one’s mind to be on-the-job for centuries without any significant break, the competition for the top slots must be enormous and taking any time off must run the risk of losing your position. The Central Council must not be as central and cohesive as the name implies, it’s clear to Chn’Gi it’s a dictatorship.
The Commander’s lieutenants, the Sector Commanders, and staff are free and ostensibly encouraged to give advice to the Commander, but the Commander has the final word. And although the Commander cannot force any of the staff to take time off, whereby ensuring his seniority advantage, he can influence their quality life by the tasks he assigns them and the freedom of action he allows.
It’s a balance; he desperately needs his staff, therefore, must try to maintain their cooperation and obedience, if not loyalty.
Uncooperative staff members and even sector commanders given cause can be placed into a kind of internal exile and denied a say in the running of Dadr’Ba. They’re allowed to live a life of quiet seclusion, given a mundane job inappropriate with their position, forever monitored by security. A recipe virtually guaranteed to turn all but the strongest person into a vegetable.
Chapter 18, Su’Zi Visits Mi’Ka
Su’Zi sat across from Mi’Ka and sipped the tea she had been offered. Su’Zi only lives one sector away in a Zone Two mining camp but this is the first time Su’Zi has vi
sited Mi’Ka at her shop in Ol’Tn’Ka, zone three.
The CA makes a big deal of letting the crew know that they monitor cross-sector movement, the reason given being safety and environmental control to ensure efficient heat dissipation from the core. But cross-sector monitoring doesn’t apply to Mi’Nr’s, whose operations are now in the lower regions of zone three. Mi’Nr’s know of sector crossings unknown or uncontrolled by the CA. Su’Zi used one of these uncontrolled cross points for this visit.
The CA prefers that people do all their recreational travel virtually. Virtual reality has gotten so good over the years that it matches the average person’s senses, and unless close attention is paid, it can be mistaken for reality. With the ability to go virtually, anywhere and visit anyone on Dadr’Ba without leaving your apartment. Most people don’t physically travel. Physical trips are viewed by most as unnecessary and time-consuming and are performed only for the novelty of the experience, most often for vacations.
Virtual reality mostly lacks the harder to quantify aspects of reality. There’s something special about being physically in a place experiencing the visceral parts, the unique combination of sensations, smell, gravity, air pressure, vibrations, and especially, and the reason for Su’Zi’s visit, the psychic environment.
For those with psychic ability, the feeling, and awareness created by interaction with an individual and the surrounding psychic community creates a unique experience. Feeling the psychic atmosphere of a spot can’t be duplicated. Although psychic energy is dimensionless, the relative strengths and directions of the psychic matrix make every place unique.
To visit Mi’Ka for help with a personal problem required an actual visit to Mi’Ka’s Curio Shop. To some Mi’Ka was a soothsayer to others, an oracle, to some a psychic medicine woman and to a few others a witch, whose concoctions can heal wounds of the soul.
One thing Mi’Ka steadfastly refuses to do or even attempt is to communicate with the dead. Su’Zi would like to have Mi’Ka help her get in touch with her father, but she knew Mi’Ka would refuse.
The dead are lost.
Most often in Dadr’Ba society the passed on or retired, live on through their contributions to their children and their grandchildren. They are not gone but are part of who we are and will always be with us. The lost ones, the dead, such as Ba, are thought to be in purgatory, a place full of emptiness and despair.
It’s said that those who make contact with the lost go insane, and eventually become lost themselves because their insanity prevents them from retiring correctly.
Su’Zi was desperate for Mi’Ka to interpret her dreams and confident that if anyone could do it, Mi’Ka could.
If it weren’t for Mi’Ka’s absolute prohibition against contacting the dead, Su’Zi would have asked Mi’Ka about the nightmares Su’Zi had in the days and weeks following Ba’s death.
Those recurring nightmares, reliving what she thought Ba must have gone through, being blasted out into space away from Dadr’Ba, the fear of being lost in interstellar space, only to be drawn into the engine intake. To be bashed, crushed, squeezed, ionized and obliterated in nuclear fire. Only to find herself lost in the black void, feeling panic similar to the Touch of God Ceremony. But in her nightmare never finding God or a star friend or a way out, or a way home, as a creeping hopelessness engulfs her.
Fortunately, that’s when she wakes up and even more fortunate the nightmares subsided in frequency and intensity and over time stopped altogether.
Su’Zi told her mother who admitted similar dreams, but not as vivid; together they concluded that it was just the result of the trauma of the event. Su’Zi’s brother never admitted to sharing these nightmares, but she sensed he did, and never questioned him about it.
These new dreams Su’Zi couldn’t explain or attribute to anything she knew or experienced. She dreamt that she was on O’M, she knew it, felt it and wanted it to be O’M. The O’M in her dream felt good and more real than any virtual place or environment she’s ever visited. It looked better than any of the artist conceptions of what O’M would be like.
She found herself on a beach on the shore of an ocean. The feeling was incredible, seeing the sky above adorned with a random pattern of rounded white puffy clouds that she’d seen tiny fragments of while going through airlocks, only gigantic scattered across the whole sky and taking various forms. Some seeming solid and slowly rolling and changing from shape to shape, some forming solid bodied creatures and inventions. These clouds could be the flesh covering the static points of light that form the skeletonous creatures that make up the constellations. But these creatures always move, now soft and cuddly then ever so slowly changing into a roaring monster, this living menagerie stretched from one horizon to the other, and the whole thing is slowly moving in mass across a blue sky.
The dream O’M was overwhelming, there was so much openness, it was like looking out through the secret observation port with her father that Su’Zi seen so much openness. But space was somehow fundamentally different, vast, open and awe-inspiring in its expanse, mostly black but with millions of bright points of light, some brighter than others, some a little hazy.
The mind arranging them in patterns that make outlines of familiar things and when one lets their imagination go, unfamiliar patterns can be created into new creatures or inventions.
But behind the clouds of stardust and the scattered diamond constellation creatures, space is cold and hostile. Appearing to be static it’s full of high-speed particles and bursts of radiation that could kill you in an instant, or expose you to a death that takes weeks to zenith.
Space, cold and heartless, seems to Su’Zi’s senses possess a soul, a very old soul, a very dark tired soul. A soul that pervades space, like the ether that provides the framework for the dimensions and whose existence lies between the infinitesimally small boundary between positiveness, negativeness, matter and antimatter. A boundary whose existence provides the foundation for the universe, and from what all matter and energies are formed.
All this, the soul of space, the vacuum, the ether, the energy, the matter, is hated by nothing. Nothing is the acid that seeks to torment and destroy the soul of space, it’s no wonder space is so tired and feeble in places yet temperamental and violent in others.
Contrasting Space, in Su’Zi’s dream she felt O’M, reaching as far as Su’Zi could perceive, reaching with her consciousness, her senses, her psyche, her very soul, and at that moment, Su’Zi felt the life, the soul of O’M, warm, friendly and inviting. She felt that if there is a heaven, then this must be it. She felt the warmth of the sun’s rays as it penetrated her skin. She closed her eyes, stretched out her arms, and breathing deep, tasted the salt in the air. Then, using all of her senses, physical, psychic, and spiritual, soaked it all in letting her soul mingle with O’M.
Then, eyes still closed, feeling and sensing the world around her she felt a pain, a pain that, instead of originating from a particular location radiating out, it radiated in, from the outside, in waves, slowly growing, centering high in her chest and at the base of her neck between her shoulders, and penetrating deep down inside her.
She opens her eyes and to her astonishment finds herself still on the beach, still in pain. Then she returns, loosening her grip on her psychic senses and getting the feeling back in her bodies physical senses, and the pain recedes.
Su’Zi knows this has to be a dream, but like no dream she has ever had or heard of anyone ever having. She didn’t know how long she’s been here, hours it must be, the sun seems to be setting. Off in the distance very low on the horizon an immense display of gold’s yellows and reds growing until it fills over half the sky. So much so that looking at it fills her entire field of view. It’s beautiful, spectacular, but Su’Zi senses that this has something to do with the pain she was feeling, that there’s something wrong, something she’s missing.
Su’Zi gazes, taking in the scene, looking back and forth from side to side and high up, losing her balance, stumbl
ed, but instead of falling seemed to float backward, preventing herself from falling.
Strange flying creatures soar past Su’Zi towards the trees behind her, and small alien creatures creep past in the sand and shallow dunes around her. The waves lap the water’s edge in slow rhythmic patterns, receding slowly exposing even more strange alien creatures, none like she’d ever seen before, not even in artist conceptions.
Then just as she was looking closer at one of the tiny alien creatures, she became aware of a wailing like some gigantic creature dying. The sound is very loud, and Su’Zi can’t tell where it’s coming from. She tried focusing on the creature she was just looking at, thinking that the animal might be calling to her psychically. But even psychically, this tiny creature is far too small to make such a significant noise.
Then Su’Zi searches for the source of the wail psychically and feels the pain return. Then Su’Zi senses something and quickly looks down the beach, and some distance away, she sees someone standing, looking, at her. The person is too far away to recognize and seems to be also looking around trying to figure out where the painful wail is coming from, the intensity of the wail and the pain suddenly increases to a fever pitch and terrified she wakes up. She’s had this dream every night for five nights straight.
After two nights Su’Zi told her mother, who had no explanation for it. The morning after the third night, they talked to a Church Elder; the Church Elder was at a loss for an explanation and hesitantly suggested she seek out Mi’Ka.
After hearing Su’Zi’s story Mi’Ka sat back slowly. Ku’Ma, her pet folded up neatly on her lap and vibrated softly in a slow rhythm. Mi’Ka’s blind eyes closed down to slits, everything in the little room in the back of Mi’Ka’s shop became absolutely still, nothing moved, the air still, all sound disappeared.
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