The start of his “real” life, his “adult” life, his life as a “full-fledged” productive member of the crew depended on his bio-mods. This down time in which he was not progressing, not learning, not working, not earning distance credits, but being cargo made him feel lazy and guilty.
His parents were going off to work every day earning their way, supporting him. While this downtime was authorized, even directed by the CA, P’Ko couldn’t get it out of his mind that, were he a “Full Adult” he could be charged with failure to progress and fined or arrested for wasting resources. He wasn’t contributing to the ship’s progress while at the same time consuming the ship’s resources keeping himself alive.
P’Ko had avoided Ol’Tn since his graduation because of the fear he had of CA surveillance or being followed. But now enough time had passed, that his intuition or, so he told himself, his sleuthing determined that the Church, most likely, was beginning to lose interest in him. P’Ko psyched himself up to take a more clandestine than usual trip to Ol’Tn and while he was there he would pass a message to Su’Zi through, Mi’Ka, letting her know that he was okay and about his fear that he was being surveilled, and he’d contact her when he could.
P’Ko thinking through his visit to Mi’Ka decided that though she might sense it, he wouldn’t mention his suspicion that the Church had him under surveillance. P’Ko sensed that Mi’Ka had some “relationship” with the Church. Mi’Ka didn’t appear outwardly religious, she frequently offered, or seemed to offer, mystical rather than religious explanations for psychic events, the fact that they worked seemingly opposing sides of psychic phenomena to the same goal exhibited some cooperation, collusion, or at least mutual respect and restraint.
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P’Ko entered Mi’Ka’s shop as quietly as possible. Mi’Ka was in the back, as usual, tinkering with some brew or concoction in an attempt to discover, or create something new, an effect, capability or taste. Though she doesn’t brag about it, Mi’Ka has many recipes to her credit and a few drug patents.
P’Ko had visited the CA’s food and drug research labs while helping his Ba on maintenance and repair jobs, the contrast between those labs and Mi’Ka’s “kitchen” is momentous. But P’Ko felt Mi’Ka, has had as much or more success than the CA’s Labs.
Mi’Ka called out from the back. “P’Ko, when you are going to learn that to sneak up on anyone other than a D’En you are going to have to quiet your psyche! You barged in here like a soldier bot army wrecking crew!” P’Ko shouted back with his best psychic effort, “Sorry, I do better, next time!” To which Mi’Ka replied, this time physically, “You’d better!”
As soon as Mi’Ka broke the silence with her “You’d better!” shout towards the door where P’Ko was standing, Mi’Ka’s robo-pet came scurrying towards him on the ceiling suspended by its retractable clawed magnetic feet. He looked up to see Mi’Ka’s robo-pet “Ku’Ma.”
Ku’Ma crouched, just out of P’Ko’s reach and looked down at him, her one green eye and one yellow eye narrowed down to intense pin pricks.
Ku’Ma studied him, a low growling sound emanated from her. As the ancient robo-pet’s complex mechanism of gyros and dynamo’s spun up, building energy for action. Then, hissed as Ku’Ma, seemed to recognize him, and performed some kind of venting action, bleeding off energy she had built up for an attack.
Ku’Ma then moved down the side of the wall to eye level and stared at P’Ko, eye to eye, her lidless unblinking eyes returning to their normal soft wide glow, then seemed to flutter for an instant. Ku’Ma jumped down to the ground and rubbed up against P’Ko’s leg. He’d, at least, had got the drop on Ku’Ma.
Mi’Ka came walking out of her kitchen. Naturally a little strange looking, but now even stranger looking. She was wearing a heavy apron and a respirator, taking off the respirator, she said, “I know you’re in a hurry. A job waiting. You want to meet Su’Zi, same place, same time. I think she already knows. You’ll come back again when you have more time.”
Then, without pausing. “I’ve got some new tea I want to try out on you, I mean, ‘see how you like it.’” Wearing thick gloves that covered her arms up past her elbows, she pushed a steaming cup of a surprisingly fragrant brew into his hands and stepped back to watch.
Not questioning the safety of the mixture for an instant, he sipped. Instantly, P’Ko felt as if Lu’Gs had just kicked him in the forehead; snapping his head back, P’Ko was just barely able to keep his footing. Mi’Ka stepped forward to grab the cup, keeping P’Ko from dropping it. Then continued, “I guess I made it a little too strong, how’s the flavor?”
P’Ko, speechless, had to wait for the initial shock to wear off, then blinked a couple of times and smacked his lips. He felt wide awake, and the back of his neck tingled. “It tastes like burnt dielectric cooling fluid, but surprisingly good.”
Mi’Ka nodded, as if in agreement, pausing before speaking as if making a mental note or calculation. Then said smiling “you’ll get your bio-mods soon, I want to see them, all of them,” then “look for this, but don’t open it.” And she sent him a mental image of some strange handheld device and some cartridges, and then said aloud, “I mean it, don’t open it” “And one more thing, don’t worry about the Church.” Then she turned and headed back into the kitchen. P’Ko left wondering how many real words she had spoken.
P’Ko made it over to the D’Po and got his work assignment from Lu’Gs, who was happy to see him and congratulated him on his graduation. Then described the strange D’En and her more unusual, and dangerous, request.
P’Ko was up for the challenge and happy to be doing something productive. He went out into the seemingly random maze of modules, vans, cargo units, shipping and storage containers, racks, shelves. He passed piles, and heaps of used, broken, discarded, and outdated equipment parts and pieces tracking down an ancient handheld data reader and prehistoric data cartridges.
P’Ko had relatively little trouble finding what he was looking for. He had grown up poking around this yard and knew it well. As large as it was, covering almost half of Ol’Tn’s zone, P’Ko had a mental map of its contents. The treasure was in a relatively uniformly organized section of the yard there were racks and racks of computer equipment and among them, cabinets containing cartridges like those Mi’Ka showed him.
Off to one side of the organized area of old storage cabinets, and racks were an actual pile of racks and cabinets, some partially buried. P’Ko had to use a portable mechanical hoist to uncover the semi-buried racks and cabinets but found what he was looking for.
Many of the data cartridges in the cabinets appeared to be wiped or had so been marked. But he knew that “sometimes” a tech tasked with the boring job of wiping a huge lot of data cartridges will sometimes “save resources” and just mark them wiped and put them in the reuse or recycle pile. The data recording process automatically wipes and overwrites the data on any cartridge it’s using anyway, so why wipe them?
These older racks and cabinets appeared to have been just dumped haphazardly. P’Ko’s excitement grew, as he noticed a lot of the equipment in the racks seemed scorched and P’Ko wondered if it was damaged from the ToG and the survivors chose to discard entire racks of equipment rather than attempt repairs.
The CA must have thought the ToG had done data wiping for them, which would have undoubtedly been true for all volatile data storage and probably true even for all on-line non-volatile storage, but offline data backups properly stored would be much harder to eradicate, and that was what he was looking for.
Knowing he was in the right spot and having decided what he wanted, it didn’t take P’Ko much longer to find it. In a sealed and locked storage cabinet. P’Ko easily jimmied opened the lock, it was intended to prevent accidental or inadvertent access only. Inside, he found a well-organized and labeled container stacked and filled with data cartridges and along one side a now dead, power charging rack with a row of portable readers installed in a neat row.
>
P’Ko sorted through the cartridges from several of the containers until he found to his amazement data cartridges appeared to be backups of the school servers that predated the ToG by many years.
Realizing the incredible value, and danger associated with this stuff, P’Ko, took a few of the readers to work with, figuring he may have to use parts from several to get even one to work. Then, went through the data cartridges until he found some that looked like would contain Or’Gn history, and hopefully wasn’t encrypted.
P’Ko closed the data storage cabinet and used the portable hoist to rebury it. He gathered the readers and the data cartridges and headed back home to his room and his desk/workbench to try to get these things working. The shoulder bag he carried felt hefty, he knew, that he was taking an enormous amount of data, perhaps the whole history of Or’Gn and along with a large part of its technical development and literature.
What he carried could be the entire history of their civilization like an entire civilization was draped over his shoulder. His civilization, his history, his ancestor’s and ancestor’s ancestor’s history.
He felt himself get a little dizzy after he realized that he saw a name that on the cartridges. It must have been the true name of Or’Gn, a name he knew if repeated aloud and overheard by the CASS could result in a death sentence.
P’Ko resolved to deliver the goods to Lu’Gs and not mention that he had any knowledge of what they contained and put it out of his mind until he could discuss it with Mi’Ka, he wouldn’t be able to hide it from her. Mi’Ka told him not to open them, but how else would he be able to tell which cartridge contained data and which didn’t?
Mi’Ka should be able to help decide what to do, if anything, with his newfound knowledge. He shook his head to himself as he realized psychic ability didn’t equivocate with technical expertise, this job was becoming incredibly deep, complicated, and dangerous.
Chapter 31, P’Ko and Su’Zi at the Beach
P’Ko spotted Su’Zi near the spot on the beach where they first met; she was as happy to see him as he was of her. She smiled, saying nothing but motioned to him to remain silent, and beckoned for him to follow her.
P’Ko followed Su’Zi down a path through the dry grass that sprouted through the sand along the beach. She pointed out to P’Ko an oddly shaped rock along the trail as they passed, then took two steps pivoted to the right and stepped off the path and disappeared.
At first, it appeared that Su’Zi dropped out of the virtual environment P’Ko hesitated, then followed, two steps passed the rock he pivoted right and stepped.
The room was plain, the walls a light gray, a smart table with a couple of chairs sat in the middle of the chamber. The room seemed to be lit from nowhere and everywhere, with no apparent entry or exit. The spot they entered from was not at the wall, but a meter or so from it and showed no visible sign of it still existing at all.
Su’Zi gave P’Ko a warm embrace, holding it for a moment as she whispered to him how much she missed him, he squeezed her tight telling her that he has missed her too, then they both settled next to each other into the chairs.
P’Ko sat next to Su’Zi, feeling good. Perhaps the good feeling was due to P’Ko’s becoming more comfortable with the virtual environment or due to his growing his psychic abilities, or it could be the result of the bond they were creating together. But whatever the reason he didn’t feel as awkward as the first times they met in Vr’Chm, the physical distance between them didn’t seem as great now, and he could feel her next to him.
P’Ko and Su’Zi had grown closer than P’Ko could have imagined. Ever since they first became aware of each other, in the dream and even before the dream it seemed now thinking of the time before, like they hungered for the other but didn’t know what they hungered for.
P’Ko couldn’t understand why he felt the way he did, he didn’t have his bio-mods yet, bio-mods brought biological and associated psychological baggage that might explain the way he felt, but he had none. He still couldn’t understand that without bio-mods, what could Su’Zi be attracted to? His psyche? He didn’t think his psyche was anything special. If anything he felt his mind was flawed; he possessed all kinds of doubts, thought himself damaged and couldn’t even trust or use his weak psychic abilities very well.
Yet P’Ko felt the desire to be close to Su’Zi to hold and caress her, to be one with her and he sensed or hoped that she wanted the same with him, despite his lack of equipment. As much as he tried, he couldn’t think through this conundrum and felt frustrated. P’Ko didn’t have the experience, knowledge or equipment to process how becoming physical would impact their relationship and didn’t want to risk altering or losing what they had together by introducing the physical element too soon or the wrong way.
There was no rush; they seemed to have a trust, a non-communicated, non-spoken, mutual understanding that they will eventually move to the next level of an intimate relationship, and there was no need to rush.
P’Ko soon found himself describing to Su’Zi the ToG Ceremony he experienced sharing it in as much detail as he could remember. It’s rare to talk about the ToG Ceremony because it’s such a personal experience, too personal to be shared and because it’s a secret from the uninitiated, punishable by death many people avoid talking about it altogether or only speak of it in analogy or allegory.
Now so excited was P’Ko, sitting side-by-side with Su’Zi that they eagerly shared every intimate detail of their ToG experience. Su’Zi was surprised about the quickness of his ToG recovery, remarking that she too recovered quickly, but had no explanation for it. She wasn’t surprised that he helped the one he did; she was tempted to help the others too, but the elder stopped her. Based on the elder needing warn off or stop people from helping each other it must not be that unusual. Su’Zi didn’t think P’Ko needed to be as worried as he was.
Soon they were discussing bio-mods, Su’Zi’s existing bio-mods and P’Ko’s scheduled bio-mods. Then Su’Zi said what had been on her mind, something that had even crossed her mind when they first met on the beach but she was hesitant until now. “You know,” she said, “I could be your mentor.” “I know you’ve got that other person lined up, but she must be very busy.” “She’d probably welcome the chance to free up her schedule, and her mentoring would probably be rushed, and not as good as it could be or should be.” P’Ko immediately became uneasy, and Su’Zi, sensing it talked faster and more urgently “I could be your mentor, it would be easy to schedule and arrange.” “Pri’Api and Ti’Reso were my mentors they’re well known as excellent mentors, and they taught me very well. I know all the latest techniques” Su’Zi could sense turmoil in P’Ko, this was going very badly. Finally, she trailed off very softly “you won’t be sorry.” The psychic connection between Su’Zi and P’Ko was gone; P’Ko had withdrawn into himself, then still in turmoil, he tried to reach back out to Su’Zi, but she kept her distance.
P’Ko paused a long time before answering. He rolled over the options, and possible impacts. He was taking too long, feeling a stab of guilt, because he’s analyzing the question that had come not from Su’Zi’s intellect, but from her heart. Now his answer was coming from an analysis only slightly modified by his heart.
He truly cares for Su’Zi and is attracted to her. He gave his word to Z’Shi, made a commitment. Z’Shi didn’t have to take him on as his mentor, she’s totally out of his league. He thinks Z’Shi is very attractive and deep down the thought of being Z’Shi’s Lr’Lng excited him. But his feelings for each is different, the feelings for Z’Shi, awe, and respect, for Su’Zi, inexplicably stronger and deeper along with a burning desire to impress her. How could he do that as a Lr’Lng?
Su’Zi is offering something very special and beyond all doubt, it would be. But if he took Su’Zi up on her offer, it would also shape their relationship forever.
P’Ko paused and swallowed. Even through the virtual interface he could see the pain in Su’Zi’s eyes and felt her psychic anguish mix
ed with his own. He tried to choose his words carefully, but they came out feeling awkward and disingenuous.
P’Ko sought to explain that Z’Shi had already set aside the time for the mentoring and had helped with this bio-mod selections. If he were to cancel, it would be an affront to her. He just couldn’t do that, if word got out, it could impact her reputation, and he didn’t know how she would take it.
Z’Shi is a very wealthy and influential person; all these explanations felt empty, and P’Ko felt like the blood was draining out of his heart, and felt weak. He expressed how much he appreciated Su’Zi’s offer, but he can’t change his pick for a mentor, adding that it in no way changed his feelings about Su’Zi. All the while, trying his best to send psychic messages reinforcing his words.
Finally, he said what he should have said at first, and what was in his heart, “I want us to be equals.”
Their psychic connection restored, P’Ko could feel the hurt in Su’Zi but also sensed her understanding and hope. He cursed the virtual interface; he wanted to embrace Su’Zi and feel her in his arms despite the conflicting messages it would send. He felt trapped, his mind felt heavy, and fog obscured his reasoning. He felt torn, like his insides were being drained and ripped from within him. Could this also be what Su’Zi was feeling? And he was responsible, why did she have to ask?
Su’Zi quietly, sadly, and very softly said, “it’s okay, I understand, it was wrong of me to ask,” then “when will I get to see you again?” And not mentioning that the mentoring immediately followed the bio-mods, “As soon as my bio-mods are complete. I want you to be the first to see me.”
Chapter 32, P’Ko’s Mentoring
As previously arranged, P’Ko woke from his bio-mods on a soft matt near the same practice platform where they had performed his interview. Soft music was playing in the background. It took P’Ko a moment to realize that he wasn’t dreaming, he was at Z’Shi’s apartment. He looked around to see the display panel ceiling of Z’Shi’s apartment now a pale blue with random lighter colored shapes floating across it. It reminded him of the sky above the beach in Vr’Chm. Realizing that the ceiling too, not just the walls of her apartment could display virtually anything.
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