by AnonYMous
[Long, silent shot of a blue-green planet. Continents and oceans peek out from between bands of brilliant white cloud. Abruptly, all light from the planet’s star disappears. The next moment, a beacon of light pierces the atmosphere from within, penetrating deep into space. The camera shakes, loud with static.]
Narrator: This footage was captured by an unmanned orbiting surveillance station. Within days, a team led by the sector’s most experienced investigators arrived on the still uninhabited planet.
[A montage of shots: men and women in membrane-thin safety suits walking about; several deep-dive submersibles being unloaded from the landing craft; members of the expedition fiddling with communication devices, trying to establish contact.]
Narrator: It was determined that the source of the burst lay deep in the ocean.
[Footage from the submersible’s camera reveals a temple-like structure at the bottom of the sea.]
Male Crew Member: [Redacted for language] There is a voice in my head telling me we stop or we die. Is anyone else hearing it? Anyone?
Female Crew Member: [Redacted for language] I hear it too! Whoever they are, are they communicating telepathically?
Narrator: Here is testimony from Captain Neha Mohuan of the investigative unit.
Captain Mohuan: We told the Elders that there were people coming, millions and millions who had been granted residence on this planet. They were the war torn and the oppressed. Would they now have nowhere to go?
[Shot of an old woman identified as Captain Mohuan, dated fifty years after the testimony.]
Old Captain Mohuan: Of course I remember that day. The light from our submersible shone on this otherworldly structure. Everybody always says it’s temple-like. But temples are what people build for gods. What we saw that day was what gods built for themselves.
[Shot of the public testimony.]
Young Captain Mohuan: The Elders replied immediately, almost as if they knew the question we would pose. They said, “Your refugees have Our permission to occupy the land, but the oceans belong to Us. Furthermore, as a token of goodwill, We shall exact as sacrifice the best and brightest member of each generation.”
[A montage of shots: intense discussions; street protests; graffiti scrawled on walls: YOU PROMISED US A HOME, NOT A DEATH TRAP.]
Narrator: But an accord was eventually reached. The oppressed and war-torn set out for Pax Cara, knowing the cost they would bear.
[Close-up of a small girl, about five years of age.]
Girl: When my mama was little, my grandparents took her to the house of the boy who was the Chosen One. They didn’t go into the house, but they left chocolates and toys and a thank-you note. Mama cried on the way home, because that boy would die. My grandparents told her that she must be the best person she can be, for herself, and for him, so that he wouldn’t have sacrificed himself for nothing.
A man off-camera: Do you think you want to be chosen?
Girl (shaking her head): No.
Man: But what if you are?
Girl (hesitates): Then I want to be as brave as he was.
*
Eleian stopped The Quiet Girl.
It was the worst possible thing he could choose to watch, except he set it aside for something even less helpful: accessing the liner’s logs.
Her pod had been given permission to use one of the liner’s auxiliary accelerators, which catapulted the small vessel toward the nearest planetary accelerator. Apparently no one doubted the reason she’d given: an urgent need for a wedding present.
The pod was subsequently flung in the direction of Terra Antiqua’s primary moon, which, because it housed the largest interstellar hub this half of the sector, was also a shopper’s mecca.
The logs further showed that the pod was given a berth at the hub and that a launch slot in two hours had been requested—and granted, for her return trip.
For the pod’s return trip.
She would be long gone, halfway to the borders of the Sector.
He could still stop her: a quick word to the Pax Caran delegation; a message to the nexus to hold all transport headed out of the Sector. Five hundred million lives hung in the balance. Did he not have the moral obligation to intervene?
But if she were dragged back kicking and screaming and forced to sacrifice herself, then he—and all the other Pax Carans—would have blood on their hands.
He stared into the endless abyss outside. When he had climbed the steps of parliament on that long-ago day, it hadn’t been the most difficult decision to put his life on the line for his people—it had seemed the only right, indeed, the only possible thing to do.
But could he make that decision for her?
*
[A montage of photographs, of young men and women who had given their lives, so that their people could live on this pristine new world, safe from the chaos and strife they had fled.]
Narrator: The next Pax Caran event comes in ten years.
Voice off screen: Catch! Catch!
[Fade in: A group of young people, running across a stretch of sand. The light is warm and languid. In slow motion, the camera lovingly caresses the lithe musculatures of its scantily dressed subjects. They throw a heavy-looking ball among themselves—those who receive stagger a little, then lob it forward with visible effort—all the while maintaining a near-sprint pace.]
Trainer: That was half a second off your best pace. One more time.
[The group emit a collective groan.]
Trainer: But you can have a ten-minute break.
[The sea is only twenty feet away, but the young men and women do not go into the gentle waves. Instead they use water rifles on one another. The camera lingers on each laughing face. They look happy, and beautiful in the way that the young are all beautiful.]
Narrator: Is it him? Her? This one? Would you have known the Chosen One, just by looking?
[The camera scans all the faces again and at last settles on one, a young woman. Hers is not a face that immediately stands out, but it is difficult to look away from.]
[Cut to the interior of Vitalis’s home.]
Vitalis: I know. I’m surprised too—all the time—that it’s me. But mainly because I don’t feel any different from anyone else. [laughs] In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been the best at anything. Not in any of my classes, or in my physical training. There’s always someone better than me.
Voice off screen: Do you ever think that they made an incorrect choice in choosing you?
Vitalis: [sighs softly] Can I tell you a secret that really isn’t much of a secret? We have no prophecy engines on Pax Cara, no oracles or seers. We have a selection committee made up of citizens. They agonize, argue, weep—and make their best guess.
Voice off screen: That’s it?
Vitalis: That’s it. And then it’s up to the one they choose to rise to the occasion and prove them correct.
*
He was in her house. He recognized it from the documentary, an open, airy dwelling with a view of a turquoise sea. A breeze meandered through the rooms. Outside, slow waves murmured and lapped a long arc of white sand.
The Vitalis who bounded in and kissed him was younger, the age she had been during the making of The Quiet Girl. She tossed aside her training gears. Let’s get into the water. I’m hot and dirty, the way you like me.
He leaped up. Together they ran—ran!—shedding clothes as they raced across the warm sand. He looked down and was astonished to see that he was as fit as her training mates, a potently muscular demigod, his skin gleaming with youth and vigor.
They splashed each other, laughing.
I’m so happy, he told her.
Aren’t you glad you found a way to travel back in time? We still have years. Years! she cried giddily, her arms outstretched, as if to embrace all that bountiful time.
But even as she leaned in to kiss him, her expression changed. He turned and followed her line of sight. At the edge of the horizon, the fabric of space-time itself tore apart.
I was supposed to stop it, she whispered, her face blank with horror. I was supposed to stop it.
*
Eleian bolted awake, his heart pounding.
His chamberlain’s voice immediately rang out. “Your Highness—”
“I’m all right.”
He took himself to the recovery tank, just in case. Once inside, he was bathed in a gentle light. A symphony of chirping birds and distant waves unfurled upon his eardrums, the sounds of home, of his remote refuge awaking to a new day.
The recovery tank was an apparatus meant to bolster not only his failing health, but his flagging spirits.
And he could barely breathe.
The dream. The horror on her face. The catastrophe that awaited Pax Cara was beyond his capacity to imagine, but it would be all too real for her. Her family. Her friends. Her neighbors. All the children who had looked upon her in awe. Everyone who had ever trusted in her steady nerves and stalwart heart.
The recovery tank tilted up. Its door opened. Eleian stepped out to a robe held out by his chamberlain.
“Breakfast is served in the garden, sire,” said Alchiba.
His suite came with a large private garden, a surprisingly low-key and peaceful space, considering the number of exotic species it featured. Eleian’s first instinct was to decline: he wasn’t hungry—and he’d never cared for the suspension gel that delivered his nutrients.
“Thank you,” he said.
No point in underscoring his distress by childishly refusing meals.
He dressed, noticing as he pulled a fresh tunic over his head that her glass of honeymoon ambrosia was gone—helpfully cleared away by his staff, no doubt. Who were also no doubt shaking their heads this morning.
But they’d forgotten to check the nightstand drawer. His first-day gift to her still sat in its diamond-and-titanium lattice, sparkling with yesterday’s hopes.
He closed the drawer and trudged out to the garden, stopping twice to catch his breath. In her presence last night, he had felt unusually energetic and purposeful. But this was far closer to normalcy, this plodding yet inexorable procession of hours, weary from the moment he awakened, with little to lighten the shadow of death that always stalked nearby.
He stopped two steps into the garden. He recognized the aromas, of course—he had been to state dinners and banquets. He had also been to the kitchens of his own retreat, where his chef prepared mouthwatering meals for the staff. He simply wasn’t accustomed to such heavenly smells when he dined alone.
Had his staff taken pity on him and decided to serve him real food this morning? Had they cleared the matter with his physicians? And had the physicians actually given their consent, they who had emphasized from the beginning that he must not tax his digestive system with just about anything he found delicious?
Halfway to the table that had been laid out, he stopped again. Someone sat with her back to him, already busy eating.
Vitalis.
No, it had to be someone else. Besili of Terra Viridis. Or one of his own physicians who decided that he ought not be completely alone this morning.
The woman turned around. “I thought you were never coming out of the recovery tank, Your Highness. I was too hungry to wait any longer.”
Vitalis.
Did he gape? Did he say anything in greeting? He had no idea. Somehow he found himself sitting across the small table from her, still staring.
She had on a fitted silver tunic, its high-collared severity relieved by a V-shaped décolletage that was enticing without being too revealing. A beautiful garment, one fit for a princess.
She noticed the direction of his gaze. “I bought this on Luna Majoli. Do you like it?”
Luna Majoli was Terra Antiqua’s larger moon, exactly where she had gone, according to the liner’s logs. Except he hadn’t believed for a moment that she’d had shopping on her mind.
Had he been completely wrong?
“No need to look so paralyzed. If you don’t like it you can say it—we are married, after all,” she teased, as she lifted the glass to the right of her plate.
The glass that contained the honeymoon ambrosia she had taken care not to touch the night before. Now she downed it at a determined pace. The glass was half empty. Three-quarters empty. And then, completely drained.
She had sealed their marriage.
Setting the empty glass aside, she peered at him. “What happened? Did you turn into a pumpkin overnight? Is that a common occurrence when princes get married?”
He realized that he still hadn’t said a thing. “I—I do like the dress. It’s beautiful.”
She grinned, her eyes bright. “See, that wasn’t so hard. By the way, ‘it’s beautiful’ should be what you say no matter what I wear.”
“I—I see.”
“If I want an honest opinion, I’ll ask your chamberlain. Which I already did, by the way. He declared it a perfectly suitable outfit in which to farewell the assembly.”
Right, of course. Now that they were married, there was no more reason for them to remain at the Courtship Summit.
“I also bought you a first-day gift. I’m beginning to believe marriage is something invented by merchants—so many milestones that mandate presents.” Her gift to him was a lightweight titanium cane. “Most men need one after they spend a night with me. I assume you’re no exception.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Not at all. I also have a gift for you, but I—”
Alchiba appeared at his elbow. “I believe you asked for this, Your Highness.”
“Yes, thank you.”
His gift was a traditional one of seeds. “When you grow them in special nutrient pods, they germinate immediately and flower in less than twenty-four hours.”
The implication of that haste was obviously not lost on her—the light in her eyes dimmed. But then she beamed, half-rose, and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you. And by the way, I hope it isn’t too inconsiderate to eat normal food? I had a taste of your gel and it’s—”
“Boring, I know. When I was younger, my head physician used to always eat the gel with me, to make me feel better. But later she confessed that as soon as she was out of my sight, she’d devour some spicy pickles.” He sighed. “I’ve never had spicy pickles.”
How strange to speak of himself this way—as if they were but two ordinary lovers getting to know each other.
She gazed at him a moment before putting a piece of tiny, delicious-looking pastry into her mouth. “I, on the other hand, have eaten everything that’s edible and some things that aren’t. Remind me to tell you about the time I came in second place in a clay-eating contest.”
He laughed—it was so unexpected.
But then again, he could very well imagine her participating in such a contest. The Quiet Girl had captured its share of lighthearted moments as it followed her about, including a trip to a festival that celebrated the innumerable beverages beloved in their locales of origin and considered gag-worthy everywhere else.
She had tried a sip of everything, no matter how dubious the description. Until finally something so vile had crossed her tongue that she’d spat the whole thing out, an expression of absolute disgust on her face.
Watching her, he had laughed aloud.
A silence fell in the garden. Time, as precious and oppressive as ever, slipped away second by second.
She picked up a crumb from her plate, and handed it to him. “Try this. It probably won’t kill you.”
Small as the crumb was, its richness stunned. He was living dangerously. Every moment with her.
“When did you change your mind?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “When you left, you had not meant to return.”
She selected a small cake, which looked like a flower, except covered in a mirror-bright glaze so blue it was almost purple, and asked, as if she hadn’t heard his question, “What’s this?”
He
searched her face and saw only a smooth mask. “It’s a Mundi Luminare wedding specialty. Meant to look like a wildflower called summer eternity, which sprouts only two blossoms apiece. They open at the same time, bloom the entire summer, and fade together at the onset of autumn.”
She nibbled at a petal of the cake. “I like the obvious symbolism—and the taste isn’t so bad either.”
She didn’t offer him a crumb to try and he didn’t ask. Instead he took a few spoonfuls of his nutrient gel and drank half a glass of water.
“I was buying an out-of-Sector passage,” she said into the silence, half-startling him. “The machine was a chatty one. It told me that there had been problems with the stability of the Bridge, leading to delays. A passenger who couldn’t wait anymore requested a refund and left. But just then the Bridge became open and stable.
“Had I come before the machine an hour earlier there would have been no passage for sale, because it had looked as if the entire flight would be cancelled. Had I arrived any later, someone else would surely have snatched up that empty berth.
“So I showed up at the exact right moment. The passage was mine; I had but to brandish the passport you gave me, finish the transaction, and head to the prep rooms. And . . . I couldn’t do it. Maybe if someone had got there a step ahead of me, maybe if the flight had been cancelled and I had to scramble for an alternative, it would have kept my mind focused on the mechanics of my escape. As it was, all this luck, and I was left with no more obstacles—and nothing to do except think of the consequences.”
The consequences—he remembered his nightmare.
She took another bite of the summer eternity cake. “So I did some shopping instead. And came back.”
He could not begin to guess her state of mind—all these momentous decisions, one after another. Believing for one minute that she had her entire life ahead of her, only to again face certain death, now only fifteen days away.
“Are you all right?”
“There’s ever been only one path for me,” she answered, her voice flat, her words mechanical. “It’s not the path I wanted, but at least now there is nothing left to do but walk the rest of it. That’s simple. Time itself will take care of it.”