by J. Naomi Ay
"Rehnor? That's where the Karupta escaped to. Then later some of the Sainted Rozarians followed them, right?"
“That's right," Tim said between bites. "They all crossed a star system just so they could start killing each other all over again."
"What a shame," I mused. “I wonder if more Rehnorians have come back. Oh, I hope he learns to speak Rozarian and starts to talk to us!”
“Now you're sounding like Kenak. Maybe you want to go sit in his office with him and wait until morning?”
“I just might,” I said and ran my hand across Tim’s grey crew cut. More than thirty years of marriage and I was still crazy about the guy. “I've got some fresh synthetic strawberries for dessert. Would you like some?” I planted a kiss on top of his head.
“Only if you put about four scoops of ice cream on top of them,” he replied. “And I don’t want synthetic ice cream. I want the real stuff.”
I made Tim his dessert while he flipped through the news on his tablet.
“Tim, why isn't Rehnor part of the Alliance?”
“They don't want to be,” he replied gruffly and got himself a beer from the fridge. The evening news always put him in a bad mood. “They were approached forty or fifty years ago but they seemed to prefer to destroy each other and they didn’t want us to mediate. It would have been good for them if they had let us. Bunch of barbarians.”
“Would it be a problem if Senya was Rehnorian? You wouldn't insist he be sent back would you?” I put down his dessert.
“Nah. Rehnor's not a threat. They're one back-assward, unaffiliated planet. Just make sure if he decides to stay here that you have him apply for asylum and get Rozarian citizenship. That way he'll get Allied benefits too. You know, welfare, subsidized housing, free education.”
“I will,” I said and made myself a synthetic strawberry sundae too.
I wasn’t as crazy as Kenak but I was in his office at 6AM the next morning. We drank coffee together and I told him what Tim had said.
“It would be so terribly interesting if Senya came from Rehnor,” Kenak agreed. “We do have limited knowledge of that planet but from what I have always come to understand, it is not the Karuptas that are the advanced society there. It is the Mishnese, the descendants of Mishka Kalila who have the spaceplanes and technologies.”
“Don't the Karuptas have them too?” I asked.
“No, they have devolved. When they arrived on the planet with their limited population, they were unable to replicate the microchips and even things like batteries once those they had on board their crafts expired. They were forced to live off the land, to become an indigenous people.”
“Perhaps they have re-evolved?” I suggested.
“If they have made peace with the Mishnese, perhaps so,” Kenak agreed. “But if they were at war with each other than perhaps not. The Mishnese being the more advanced society would periodically decimate the Karupta populations, not allowing them to advance further. Perhaps what we are missing here is that our young friend is not Karupta but is in fact Mishnese.”
“But he's marked,” I reminded him.
“Indeed, with a very specific Karupta marking, the one in fact that Karukan de Kudisha himself bore.”
At this point Donak joined us with a venti latte in his hand.
“Perhaps he was a slave of the Mishnese or some kind of criminal,” Donak suggested. “Perhaps they dropped him off here to get rid of him.”
“Why wouldn't they just kill him if they wanted to get rid of him, assuming he was some kind of criminal?” I asked.
“Because, as you have said Shelly, he has some kind of powers. Perhaps he is unkillable,” Kenak mused.
“They tried,” Donak reminded us. “I told you about the scars on him. And, he did arrive with vast amounts of drugs in him. The curious part is the need for sensory glasses. If he is truly blind as this suggests, how can he move about so unencumbered? How could he be such a criminal?”
Suddenly, I was frightened. What if Senya was some terrible blind criminal and I had just invited him here this morning to visit me and two old men?
“Maybe I should call Tim.” I got up and went to find my handbag with my cell.
“No, no, no,” Kenak cried. “We don't want to scare him off. We don't need any one from Spaceforce here.”
“But what if he is some kind of killer or something?” My voice trilled upward. “Or a rapist?”
At that moment, the door swished open and framed in it was Senya. I screamed, sort of.
“Good morning, good morning,” Kenak cried, jumping up and holding out his hand.
Senya was wearing another pair of sunglasses like the ones in my purse. His long hair was tied back with a ribbon and he was clean shaven. He was still dressed in the same old lost and found clothes with nothing on his feet. I looked him over and my first thought was that someone ought to take that boy shopping for clothes that fit. He couldn’t be a killer or a rapist. He was big and formidable, especially towering over these tiny Rozarian men but there was also something very vulnerable about him too.
“Good morning, good morning,” he repeated after Kenak, echoing his inflection and enthusiasm.
I laughed nervously.
“Would you like some coffee?” Kenak held his hand out and indicated the coffee machine. “Shelly, would you kindly get our young friend a cup of coffee, please dear?”
“Of course,” I cried and raced to the machine. “Cream or sugar, Senya?”
Senya turned his face to me. “Coffee?” he said.
“Yes,” I smiled and pointed at the coffee dispenser. “Do you want cream?” I lifted up the creamer. “Or sugar too?” I held up a sugar packet.
“Coffee?” he repeated.
“Yes, Senya. Coffee.”
“Coffee?” he said for the third time.
“Ok.” I glanced at Kenak who only shrugged. I poured Senya a cup of black coffee and handed it to him.
“Very good, Shelly,” he said as he took it from me.
“If he cannot see,” Donak spoke as if the young man was not in the room. “Why did you show him the creamer and sugar?”
“I don't know.” I took my seat again. “Because he was looking at me?”
“But he can’t look at you,” Donak protested.
“Well he was faking it really good!”
“Please sit down, Senya.” Kenak indicated the sofa.
Senya sat down on the sofa and put his coffee cup on the table. He leaned back and crossed one long leg over his knee and then put a cigarette in his mouth.
“We don't smoke here,” Donak said abruptly.
Senya flicked the cigarette with his finger and it lit. Then, he turned toward Donak and defiantly took a long drag on it. He was no longer looking vulnerable, I decided. He was looking aloof and arrogant even in his ragged clothes.
I moved my chair closer to the Rozarian men.
“Where are you from, Senya?” Kenak began. “Are you from Rehnor?”
“Ay yah,” Senya replied, blowing a puff of smoke into the air.
“Are you Karupta?'
“Ay yah.”
We glanced at each other.
“Then how did you get here? Do Karuptas have spaceships now?”
“I need sensory lenses,” Senya said.
“Yes, we will get to that,” Donak interjected.
“Tell us about Rehnor please, Senya,” Kenak prompted.
“I need sensory lenses,” Senya said again as if it wasn’t clear from the first time.
“We understand that,” Donak replied. “And we wish to learn about you and about Rehnor.”
“You make for me.”
“Yes,” Kenak said. “But they are not free. You must help us too.”
“I help you.” Senya took a drink of his coffee.
“Very good,” Kenak nodded happily as if progress had been made here. “We want to learn about Rehnor. We want you to teach us about Rehnor.”
Senya smirked. “Ay yah.” This was fo
llowed by something in another language.
“Sorry?” Kenak asked and then looked at us. “Did anyone remember to bring a Universal Translator?”
Donak and I shook our heads. I didn’t have an iPhone either.
Senya put down his cup again and leaned forward as if he were going to tell us a great secret.
“Now you help me. I need learn Rozarian. I need learn English. I need learn all things. I need Shelly shopping.”
“What?” I gasped.
He pulled at his shirt and nodded to me.
Kenak and Donak turned to me with blank expressions on their faces.
“I was just thinking he needed someone to take him clothes shopping,” I explained as my face became flushed.
Senya was smiling smugly and smoking again. “Very good, Shelly.”
“Senya,” Kenak said calmly in the voice he used with our undergraduate students. “We can do all these things for you but you must be willing to speak with us about Rehnor and about the Karuptas. That is what we do here. We are Anthropologists. We study our history. We will trade your knowledge for ours. Is that a deal then?”
“Deal?”
“Yes, deal,” Kenak replied. “Do you agree to work with us so we may work with you?”
Senya’s brow furrowed thoughtfully as he breathed out a cloud of grey smoke. Then he said something in his language. My head went fuzzy. Suddenly, I was not in this chair anymore. I was outside somewhere sitting by a lake on a park bench. There was grass at my feet and birds were chirping in the trees. A woman was sitting next to me. I recognized her as the nurse from the hospital, Janet.
“Look at that duck,” she said, pointing at one of the ducks paddling along the lake. “She looks like she's about to bite off the head of that mallard there. I bet he was screwing around on her again.”
I knew Janet's boyfriend just dumped her again. I looked at my watch. I didn’t really want to get into a discussion about her boyfriend right now. I needed to get back to the office.
“Let's go back in,” I suggested, gathering up my lunch bag and tossing it in the bin next to the bench.
I started walking down the gravel path back to the building. It was a perfect eighty degrees and a cool breeze blew in off the lake and along the walkway. Our path was lined with foliage and trees made a shady canopy over our heads. There was a rose garden with a fountain and a gazebo just off the path on my left. In front of us was a large building surrounded by three other buildings and all of them were gleaming in the coppery reflection of the sun. Atop one of the buildings was a huge sign, the name of the company I worked for, SdK Corporation. The building I was walking towards said, Medical Centre, and there were many people, patients, doctors and nurses streaming in and out towards the parking lot where thousands of speeders were parked.
I thought about my oldest son, Thad. I wondered if he and the kids were coming over for dinner tonight and if so I should defrost a chicken and boil up some pasta.
Janet caught up with me. She had a bouquet of roses in her hands. “I just stopped to pick some for the office from Captain Perfect's garden,” she said in a snippy voice. “I love these yellow ones but these pink ones are really fragrant too. Smell them Shelly. Aren’t these nice?”
I leaned down and took a whiff of a pink rose when suddenly, I was back in this hard folding chair in Kenak's office on this dry dusty planet at seven in the morning.
“Are you alright, Shelly?” Kenak asked. Donak was standing over me looking deeply into my eyes. I looked past him at Senya on the couch. He was smoking and drinking his coffee, a smirk on his face.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You started to sway and nearly toppled over,” Donak said. “Do you feel alright now?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I guess I need more coffee.”
With my back to them, I stood at the coffee machine and pondered what I had just seen. It felt completely real, like a memory, yet none of that had happened. Thad lived on Earth and I had met Janet only once a few weeks ago. I had no clue if she even had a boyfriend. I had never seen trees or a lake or even a duck here on Rozari. I had never heard of a company called SdK Corporation.
“What's the matter, Shelly?” Kenak called.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Nothing at all.” I turned back to them and stared at Senya. He smiled at me.
“Was that a future memory, Senya?” I asked.
“What?” Donak said.
"A future memory?" Kenak pondered.
“Very good, Shelly,” Senya replied with a nod. “Smart Shelly.”
“Please stop saying very good to me!” I stomped my foot like a child and then looked helplessly at Kenak and Donak.
“What happened, Shelly dear?” Kenak asked innocently.
“I...I…He…” How could I explain what I just experienced? Where could I get a future memory? Was this really my future, Thad, my grandchildren, Janet, roses and ducks all here on Rozari?
“Shelly?” Donak asked.
I shook my head and sat down in my chair. Senya raised his eyebrows at me over his dark glasses.
“Let’s just help him,” I sighed, “just help him.”
Donak and Kenak stared at me dumbfounded.
“Very good, Shelly,” Senya said again.
Kenak gave me some money out of the department's budget to go buy some clothing for Senya. I bought him a few shirts and some jeans, as well as some running shoes and socks, figuring I could always return whatever didn't fit.
In the meantime, Donak took Senya back to the Medical Centre and together they went to a retina specialist who was familiar with the sensory lens technology. In a matter of days, Senya's sunglasses were fitted with microchips.
Kenak acquired all the forms for requesting asylum and citizenship from the Rozarian government.
“It should be no problem,” he informed me. “A Rehnorian is just a descendant of Rozari anyway. They should automatically grant him citizenship.”
“That's great,” I said as Senya and Donak came back into the office.
“Senya,” Kenak greeted them heartily. “How do you see now?”
“Very good,” he replied.
Did we expect another answer?
“I'm sure going to be glad when you learn enough Rozarian to have a normal conversation,” I remarked while admiring the clothing I bought. It looked good on him but then anything would. “Where are your socks? You need to wear socks with your shoes.”
He looked at his feet as if they were the culprits for having removed their socks.
“Senya,” Kenak interrupted us. “You can worry about your socks later. I have your citizenship forms to fill out, as well as your admission papers for the Science Institute. You will need to take some assessment tests before we can determine where to place you academically and what your subjects of interest are. Come sit down with me and let's go over this together.”
Kenak sat down at the student desk across from mine and Senya took the chair in front. He was smoking again.
“You couldn't convince him to stop smoking?” I asked Donak while Kenak began to type on his screen.
“About as successfully as you convinced him to wear socks,” Donak replied.
“Now Senya what is your full name?” Kenak asked.
Senya smoked.
“You do have a last name, do you not?” Kenak inquired. “A patronymic or surname?”
Senya continued to smoke. He played with the laces of his shoes, pulling them out.
“Come on lad,” Donak prompted. “You can't apply for any of these things unless you give them the proper information. Do you have a surname?”
Senya held a shoe lace in his hand and studied it with his new glasses. It moved.
"Eek!" I screamed.
The shoe lace had turned into a small snake, an asp, and it was wrapping itself around Senya’s hand while he stroked it as if it were a kitten or something. Kenak and Donak stared in amazement, their mouths wide open. The asp rose up out of Senya's
hand and stuck out its long forked tongue at them. I shrieked again.
"How did you do that, Senya?" Donak recovered his voice.
"I don't care how," I cried. "Get rid of it!"
Senya turned toward me and cocked his head slightly. A wave of heat washed over my brain. "Ach, Shelly," he said and pointed the snake at me.
I blinked and it was no longer a snake. It was a pink rose bud like the one the nurse, Janet picked in my future memory. Senya tossed it at me. I let it drop to the floor and watched it for a moment.
"It won't turn back into a snake, will it?"
He smiled as if I had said something funny. "Need water."
Cautiously, I picked it up and put it in the water bottle on my desk. Instantly, it sprouted roots on the stem.
"Well, look at that! Do you think I could plant it outside, Senya? Tim has wanted to start a rose garden for years but was always afraid they’d all burn up in the heat."
"Ay yah, Shelly," Senya shrugged, "need water.” He pulled out, then tossed to me his second shoe lace. This turned into a twig with a couple of leaves.
"What is it? Some type of tree?"
"Apple?"
"An apple tree? Thank you, sweetheart!" I put the apple twig in with the rose and it too sprouted roots. Tim would sure get a kick out of this!
"You will have your own little garden of Eden, Shelly," Kenak remarked drily. "Complete with a snake. Senya, shall we resume your application?"
"That can wait," Donak interrupted. “Blessed Saint, Kenak, did you not see what he just did? He just transformed the molecular structure of inanimate objects to animate. He created life where there was none. It was amazing, miraculous, if that is, in fact, what he has done."
“Indeed,” Kenak replied. “Yet we still have all these forms to fill out.”
“I want to know how you did that, Senya,” Donak prodded. “Explain it to me please. Is this something that all Karupta can do?”
Senya finished his cigarette and flicked it into the air. It disappeared. He either didn’t understand Donak or was pointedly ignoring him as now he was playing with his shoes, taking them off and putting them back on again.
Donak watched Senya do this with an expression of disbelief. “Senya,” he said sternly. “Answer my question.”