by J. Naomi Ay
Senya
He was late, but then again, he was always running late these days. Tearing off his lab coat, he left it in the hamper along with his sterile booties. Then he practically ran down the stairwell willing his tablet to meet him in his office in the Engineering Centre.
He emerged from the stairwell into the busy hospital lobby. This was his hospital, the first of what would become thousands. Thad was doing a good job putting together the company’s infrastructure, the buildings were almost finished and the hospital was already flourishing. He knew he had an intelligent team of doctors and nurses from throughout the galaxy. Thad was a good choice and he liked his engineering team too. He could give them a concept, the seed of an idea and they could put the whole thing together. Sometimes they didn't do it as quickly or efficiently as he would like or as he could have done but they were good enough. He was pleased with what he was creating.
"Bye Doctor!" a nurse called as he exited the main doors of his hospital.
He didn't respond, choosing instead to light a cigarette which he pulled from the drawer of his desk upstairs. He inhaled deeply of the pungent smoke, glad that it was already afternoon and the planet was beginning to cool from the intense heat of the day.
Another woman greeted him, a doctor this time, as he passed her on the walkway. He didn't respond to her either though her scent followed her. It was pleasant, like roses and something else, verbena maybe? She had long smooth hair that made a slight swishing noise as she walked. Her hips swayed as did her heavy breasts. He could tell from the way the air moved around her. He felt a tightening in his groin, a prickling of desire, imagining how those breasts would feel in his hands, in his mouth. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and pushed the woman doctor and her sensations out of his mind.
"Hey Ron!" Thad and two others joined him, jogging to catch up with him. "Bill, Karl and I we're hoping you'd have a few minutes to discuss the plans for the device unit. Are you free now?"
"If you speak quickly," he said. His cell was vibrating in his back pocket but he ignored it.
"We'll talk as we walk," Thad said. "You just listen and nod."
Senya took another drag on his cig and then tossed it in the air where he willed it to disintegrate. He brought forth another one. He figured he'd be able to get in about three before he entered the Engineering Centre as long as he didn't have to speak.
"Karl, why don't you explain to Ron your idea," Thad said.
The one called Karl cleared his throat and began to speak about guide wires. His Rozarian vocabulary was very poor and he was nervous. He was making incomprehensible noises trying to speak and his scalp and palms became sweaty. Senya focused for a moment on Karl's thoughts. He had a good idea about encapsulating the wire in a biodegradable plastic derivative.
"That will do," Senya interrupted.
"What will do?" Thad repeated.
"The encapsulation of the guide wires." Senya waved his hand. "That is acceptable. Are you finished or have you got more to discuss?"
"Bill?" Thad nodded to the other fellow. "Would you like to tell Ron your idea about..."
"Infidel!" someone screamed. He was immediately followed by other voices. "Infidel! Infidel!"
Senya could hear the crowd moving toward him. He scanned them, his lenses washing over the assembly, estimating nearly one hundred bodies. This was more than before. These protesters were becoming more prevalent and more annoying. "Kari-fa," he said under his breath.
"Sorry Ron," Thad apologized quickly. "I'll ring security. We can't throw them off campus but at least we can get you an escort out of here."
"I do not need an escort," Senya said as the crowd circled him, shouting about the Saint and demanding that he leave Rozari.
Senya stopped walking. Bill and Karl stopped too. Thad, too busy looking up a number on his cell, didn't notice and bumped right into Karl nearly knocking the other flat.
"Son of Karukan, go back to Rehnor!" a Rozarian dressed in a long robe with a flowing beard declared. He held up an icon of the Saint. "Or prostrate yourself before the Blessed Saint and renounce your evil ways."
Senya felt his blood pressure rise. He was tired and now late for a meeting and annoyed with those who kept trespassing on his property even though the Rozarian government would not allow him to prohibit them from doing so.
"Repent! Repent!" the people screamed.
Their voices grew louder in Senya's head as the blood rushed through his veins. His fingers started twitching. He debated for only a fraction of a second before deciding. It was worth it, if it rid his campus of these people once and for all. He pointed at the icon held up by the leader and willed it to burst into flame. Now they were all screaming including his engineers.
"Uh, dude?" Thad said dropping his cell and staring at the rubble of ash now at the Saintist leader's feet. "Maybe we should leave?"
"I am not quite finished, Thad," Senya replied taking off his glasses. He knew his eyes were exceptionally bright. They burned like fire on the inside when they got this way.
The crowd began to back away but not all of them. The leader, the man with flowing beard, cradled the icon’s ashes in his hands and shouted about evil and infidels named de Kudisha.
"Get off my land," Senya ordered him. The man refused and instead shouted for him to leave Rozari. Senya sighed. He did not like being disobeyed. He did not like being accused of things which he was not. “Leave.” Senya tried one more time but the Saintist was stubborn. “Kari-fa,” he swore and let the light shine upon the man and with the force of it, he willed the Saintist to be carried into the air, to hang suspended upon the currents ten meters above the ground. "You will vacate my land and not return," Senya declared. “I will have no more of this.” The man lost his bladder. His trousers soaked and the stream dripped to the ground, scattering his followers who stared in awe at him up in the sky.
"Let me down," the man sobbed. "Please let me down."
"No more of this," Senya repeated. When the man did not instantly respond, Senya turned his back. The crowd gasped. The man screamed. He went plummeting to the ground but stopped not a meter from it. Senya turned back and shone his eyes on the Saintist again. “Well?”
"Yes, I promise, I won't come back! Please let me down."
"Sir," Senya said using the Ancient Rozarian pronoun for a prince.
The man looked confused. "Sir," he repeated, swallowing hard. "I won't come back, Sir."
Senya nodded and put his dark glasses back on. The burning in his eyes had lessened but a migraine was starting. He pressed his thumbs upon his eyes from beneath his glasses willing the migraine to dissipate. The Saintist fell the last meter to the ground.
“Come on,” Senya ordered, as all the protestors ran from the property. "What else have you got to discuss, Thad?" He lit a fresh cigarette, his third, and resumed his trek to the Engineering Centre. Thad, Karl and Bill stood frozen in place. When Senya realized they were not following him, he stopped and turned around. The one called Karl was shaking. Senya grew annoyed. “You want to run away too?” he taunted. Not one of them moved. “Fuck you," Senya said in English and walked away.
Chapter 5
Shelly
“Shelly?” His hearing must have been getting worse because he was yelling over the vid. “Shelly? It's Dr. Kenak.”
“Hello Dr. Kenak,” I yelled back. “How are you?”
“Doing fine, doing fine,” he shouted. “Shelly, Donak and I would like to chat with you. Can you come to my office this afternoon?”
“Of course,” I shouted back and made a date for 4pm.
“Shelly!” Kenak hugged me as if it had been years since we had seen each other even though I saw him touring the SdK campus with Donak last week. “How are you, how are you?”
“Fine, fine,” I replied and gave Donak a hug as well. “So what's going on?”
“Rumor, rumors,” Kenak sighed and I nearly burst out laughing as I knew exactly which rumors were being spread.
“Which rumors?”
I asked, pretending I didn’t know. “There are so many of them.”
“Ah Shelly,” Donak answered. “The rumor mill at the hospital is declaring that our prince is married. Do you know anything about that?”
“Really?” I gasped and feigned surprise as I sat down on the sofa. “And how do all the nurses know that?”
“He has apparently become very chaste and is refusing the attention of all the ladies determined to get his attention.” Donak winked. “Your Nurse Kersey has announced that is because of a Spacewoman with whom he has either married or contracted a communicable disease.”
“That sounds like Janet,” I laughed. “I suspect she's right that it's because of the Spacewoman though. Do you want me to ask him?”
“She’s a Human?” Donak asked.
“Yes.” I nodded. “LCDR Katie Golden who came in with a head injury last month. He treated her and spent the next few days with her. I think he knew her from before though. I think she said something like knowing him for a long time already.”
“Blessed Saint, Blessed Saint!” Kenak wailed. “We must ring Captain Loman.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is he not allowed to get married?”
“No, no, definitely not,” Kenak cried and a moment later Loman's shaggy head appeared on the vid.
“Explain Shelly,” Kenak told me so very slowly so the Universal Translator could keep up, I told Captain Loman all about LCDR Golden.
“You think he plans to marry her?” Loman asked.
“I don't know,” I replied suddenly feeling terrible about this. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Never the less, I continued. “She's the first girl that he's spent more than five minutes with. But really she is a darling girl and he's been very happy this last month. In fact I've never seen him so happy. Other than the time when those damn Saintists, the ones who thought he was the Infidel reborn, were picketing the campus, he's been positively cheerful.”
“Pardon?” Loman interrupted. “Saintists picketing what?”
“Well,” Kenak answered for me. “Once he became famous and his name well known naturally there arose some opposition. After all it's been a thousand years since a de Kudisha lived on this Rozari and you know as well as I do what happened last time.”
“We may have to recall him,” Loman sighed and drummed his thumbs upon his desk. “I must speak to the King about this.”
“Don't recall him!” I cried. “The campus is just now getting staffed, the hospital is practically full already and equipment sales are going through the roof. SdK is going to be a huge company. We need Ron here!”
Loman looked at me across the vid and blinked his eyes several times waiting for the translator to catch up. He scratched his scraggy mane and then his chin.
“A huge company?” he repeated.
“Yes, yes,” Kenak responded. “Sehron has built an amazing company in a very short period of time. He plans to expand it to several other planets. Donak and I had a delightful tour of the grounds last week with Shelly’s son.”
Loman furrowed his brow. “Sehron is no longer a doctor?”
“No, he still is,” I replied. “He has surgery on Wednesday only though.”
“But he lost his privileges at the RSI Medical Centre so he had to build his own hospital,” Donak interjected.
“Well he was building the hospital before he lost his privileges,” I corrected.
“And why did he lose his privileges?” Loman rolled his eyes as if he already knew.
“Because of the Human woman,” we all said at the same time purely by coincidence.
“She was a patient at the time,” Donak added quietly and cleared his throat. “Hospital room, ahem.”
Loman sighed again. “Senya and trouble are synonymous. Alright, I'm drawing up summons. I'll ring you back as soon as I have His Majesty's signature. You can tell His Royal Highness to pack his bags.” The screen went dark.
“No!” I cried.
“Now Shelly,” Kenak said, but I could see he was disappointed too.
I felt horrible. I felt like I betrayed Ron. I felt like everything that SdK Corporation was going to become wouldn’t happen now because of me.
“What's the matter?” Janet asked. It was the next day and I was useless behind my desk.
“I think I screwed up,” I replied. “I think I got Ron in more trouble.”
Janet snorted. “Is that even possible?”
“Yeah.” I swiped at a tear trickling down my cheek.
“Whatever it is, it's not your fault, Shel.” Janet patted my shoulder. “Trouble has his name on it.” She picked up the chart she had come to get.
“Somebody else told me that exact same thing yesterday.” I sniffed as Dr. Ron came in. It was Wednesday and he was still in scrubs.
“Oh.” I winced and pointed at his tunic. “Do you mind leaving the dirty ones back at the hospital?”
“Is it dirty?” He frowned.
“Yeah, looks like you had a spurter or two,” Janet replied and held out her hand so he would take off the tunic and hand it to her. “You ruined that nice silk tie.”
“Now I have ruined all but one of them.”
“Yep, the little woman will be furious,” Janet smirked.
“Kari-fa!” Ron swore and put his hand on his head. “What day is this?”
“Wednesday?”
“No, when? What day? What month?”
“You don't know?” Janet sneered. “What's wrong with you? Did you miss a date or something?”
“I’ve just been too busy.” Ron shook his head. “Shelly, I need a spaceplane. Actually, tell Thad. He shall come too.”
I brought up the schedule for the two private SdK spaceplanes that had recently been built for the company. Both were booked by directors but since Ron trumped everybody, I reserved one for him.
“You're taking Thad on your date?” Janet asked.
“Janet,” Ron said, taking off his glasses and pressing his eyes. “You are beginning to irritate me.”
“Sorry.” She held up her hands and backed away with the dirty tunic. “I don't want to end up flying around the parking lot.” She turned on heel and then went into her office, slamming the door.
“Actually, honey, I need to talk to you about something,” I said quietly.
He looked down at me with his shining eyes and my head went fuzzy for a moment.
“It is not your fault,” he concluded. “I need to go there anyway. When Loman rings back, you can tell him I am coming now.”
“Are you coming back?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“But Loman said you were going to be recalled?”
He shrugged. “They do not want me there anymore than I want to be there. We shall return in a few days.”
“Can I go?” I followed him into his office. He sat down at his desk and started flipping through his emails.
“I think Tim would not be very supportive of that.”
“About as supportive as LCDR Golden,” I remarked. “Furthermore, Tim's at a meeting on Earth. He won't be home until late next week.”
Ron considered this for a moment. “Not this time. Thad will be too busy and I shall probably end up getting flogged or killing someone or both.”
I laughed. He didn’t.
“You're not serious.”
“Not this time, Shelly.” He reached for a stack of documents on his desk.
“You haven't told her yet, have you?”
He flipped through the papers. “This is not important yet.”
“Actually it is,” I replied. “You want to stay married longer than five minutes, you'll need to be upfront about things and this is a pretty big one. From what Tim's told me about LCDR Golden, she's one sharp cookie. She's not going to like being blindsided by this.”
“I am not blindsiding her as you say. I have hinted a bit.” He started typing on his vid.
I raised my eyebrows.
“I sent her chess pieces, a king and queen.”
I nearly choked. “Honey, you may be the smartest man alive but you are still a man and you have no clue. Being the brilliant brain surgeon that you are, you might have realized by now that women's brains are wired differently than men's.”
“Well technically…”
“Ron, Senya,” I rolled my eyes. “Just don't hide things from your wife. I'm going to the mall. Do you want me to pick you up some new ties?”
“Do I need some?”
“Yes and probably some shirts too. Do you need anything else?”
“Lunch?”
“Okay.” I walked around the desk and kissed him on the top of his head. “I'll pick you up a sandwich too.”
He looked up from his vid with a surprised expression. “Thanks Mum.”
“No problem, Sweetheart.” I shut the door behind me as I left his office.
Chapter 6
Berkan
The vid chirped. I ignored it. It chirped again. Luci pushed me off.
“Answer that,” she said.
I wanted to break it, not answer it. “If it's your mother, I am going to break it,” I said and rooted around the floor for my pajama bottoms. It chirped a third time.
“Hello?”
The screen was black.
“I'm so sorry,” a voice said. “My timing is impeccable.”
“Who is that?” Luci called.
I wasn’t sure. “Who is this?”
A chuckle. “Come on Berkie, surely you know my voice?”
My blood froze. There was only one person who ever spoke the Noble Mishnese with a Street Mishnese accent.
“You're dead,” I said. “I went to your funeral. I even sat in the second row.”
“Ach, Berkie. Didn't I tell you never to believe a word Akan said?”
“But the King?”
“He's gone dotty.”
“Then, you're not dead?”
Laughter. “Do I sound dead? Right, I'm ringing you from Hell otherwise known as Rozari. Listen Berk, I've only got a minute or two here. I need you to ring Loman and tell him I want an audience with both Yokaa and Merakoma. I should be there by tomorrow, late.”