by Aaron Hubble
The connection between the members of the group was strong, like soldiers who’d gone through a war together. Circumstances had thrust them together as a collection of strangers and individuals, but they’d emerged as a family. Calier was thankful for the bond he shared with these people. For him, like most of the group, he was unsure what remained of his true family. These people filled that void.
Berit’s mother, Issae, had joined them this evening. It seemed appropriate that she was included in the group. To Calier it felt like she was holding her daughter’s place until the time Berit could take it herself. As a refugee in Alam, Issae belonged in this group and Calier enjoyed her company.
Issae had lost much, like everyone else. Her husband Ganjge had died soon after the invasion had started, trying to protect her from the soldiers. Calier and Issae had met by fortuitous accident in the hospital as Calier was packing his belongings. They’d begun spending time together because it gave them each a connection to Berit. For Calier, having Issae to talk with had been healing. She allowed him the opportunity to let his guard down and just be himself.
The group had recovered from Maltoki’s story and each of them was settling into conversation with those they were seated close to. Calier leaned toward Oyeb, who was sitting on his left.
“How’s Emura doing with her studies?” he asked.
“Very well,” said the young widow. Oyeb and Emura had clung to each other after the loss of their families. When seeing them together it was easy to forget they weren’t a mother and a daughter. “She picks up math and science easily. She isn’t as excited about literature, which I find interesting because she writes faithfully in the notebook you gave her.”
“Not a big reader?”
“No, a reader she is not. Our little Emura is a doer, not a sitter. On numerous occasions I’ve threatened to tie her to the chair in order to keep her focused on what I’m trying to teach her.”
Calier laughed and his eyes found the whirling dervish of energy that was Emura. True to her personality, she had finished her meal and was up and out of her seat moving about the table, ducking in and out of conversations and then disappearing around the hedges to, no doubt, explore the pond that lay in the middle of the courtyard.
“In that respect she reminds me of Nasia. There were times I just wanted to sit down and read and he was pulling me out of the house to go for a walk or help him dig something up in our yard,” Oyeb said, her eyes taking on the faraway look of someone walking through the past. “That man…”
“Having her to teach has helped you, hasn’t it?” asked Calier.
Oyeb nodded. “It has,” she said as she twisted the napkin in her hands. “But it can’t take away the void in my life when everything is quiet and I’m alone.”
Of all the atrocities Calier had seen, the broken body of Nasia, killed while defending his wife from a wild beast of the forest, had been one of the most tragic. To have survived the invasion only to be killed when they’d been so close to being taken in by the Ma’Ha’Nae seemed grossly unfair.
It was unfair, Calier reminded himself, but that was the world in which they now lived. He placed his hand on hers, stopping her nervous napkin twisting, and squeezed. They shared an understanding look, one that only those who had suffered tremendous loss could understand.
Looking into the courtyard, he watched with amusement as Emura pulled herself up onto a fence and walked along the narrow beam of the top rail. He heard Oyeb gasp beside him.
“That girl will not be satisfied until she breaks my last nerve.” Oyeb turned to Calier. “Please excuse me, Professor. I need to go rescue a little girl from herself.” Oyeb’s chair slid across the cobblestones, and she dashed off into the courtyard.
Calier smiled easily. It was something that had been happening more and more as time passed. He wanted to hold onto these moments, because he understood how fleeting they could be. He’d watched his city reduced to rubble in a matter of hours by an enemy that had claimed his land as its own. Deep inside him he knew times like this‒this comfortable, easy pace of life‒wouldn’t last long.
A fork tapping the side of a glass brought Calier’s attention over to Ibris. Even though Ibris had returned to his true trade of building, he still assumed the role of leader when they were together. “Tonight, I wanted us to take just a moment to remember those who started this journey with us, but didn’t make it to the end. Some of them we didn’t know for a long time, but they made a great impact on our lives. To Tehome, Nasia, Bormar, Sulhan, Mina, Kan, Kohena, Amer and Onan. May their memories always live on in our hearts as their souls rejoice with their King in Paradise.”
Glasses were raised and words of agreement flowed around the table. Calier watched Maltoki drape his good arm around the shoulder of Anoki, the teenage boy whose parents, Bormar and Sulhan, had died during the human attack in the forest. As he took another sip of wine, Calier realized that Ibris had left one name off his list of those they’d lost.
Berit.
****
“Thank you for inviting me to dinner. It was a lot better than eating alone in my apartment,” Issae said.
As always the dinner had been fantastic. Even with rationed supplies, Rohab and Ibris had put together a feast. Calier put his hands in his pocket as he and Issae walked down the narrow street. The mechanical sun had slid to the far side of the dome and the intensity of its light had been dimmed to mimic sunset. Outside the walls of the domed city, the water was black, indicating night had also fallen in the world above the waters. Every so often Calier would catch flickers of movement as fish and other aquatic life swam close to the dome.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. You’re always welcome. We land dwellers need to stick together, right?”
She smiled and nodded. “I suppose we do.”
They walked along the tree-lined path leading out of Rohab and Ibris’s complex and began meandering toward Issae’s home. Calier was happy Issae fit into the group. She was a quiet woman who tended to isolate herself, but he wasn’t sure if that was her natural personality or a result of the grief she had experienced and was currently working through.
“Oyeb told me how Berit helped her after her husband died. Berit was always a very sensitive and caring person. She seemed to sense when someone was hurting and knew just what to do or say, or not say, for that matter,” Issae said.
“Berit’s special, that’s for sure.”
The streetlights began to flare to life around them. It amused Calier that they would dim the overhead lights, the sun, in order to turn on the streetlight. Just another curiosity of this place. While choosing to exile themselves in order to maintain a culture they felt was slipping away, the residents of the city tried hard to hold on to some things which made life what it was above the water. One of those little things was an evening walk down a lighted street with an attractive woman.
Calier’s head snapped up. The thought shocked him. Had he really just thought of Issae as an attractive woman? There was no denying she was pretty; most men would have agreed to the statement, but the fact he had the thought accompanied by a twinge of feeling…that unnerved him.
It’s just the wine and the mood of the evening. Nothing else.
He tried to push the thought from his head and divert his mind. He remembered the notebook.
“Could I buy you a cup of midbar? I have something to show you.”
A strange look flashed across Issae’s face, something vaguely familiar, but that he couldn’t place.
Does she have feelings for me? No, she just lost her husband and this is probably strange for her, talking to another man. Walking alone with another man.
I like it when she leaves her hair down.
Stop it. Get your head right, Calier.
They stopped at a small street vendor and each ordered a cup of midbar. They sat at a small wooden table under the spreading boughs of a large tree. Calier marveled at it all. An economy of its own, agriculture, art; it was all here under
the water. He closed his eyes for a moment. If his people weren’t dying, if Berit wasn’t up there, it would be easy to forget about his life in Gadol City and just stay here. He opened his eyes and watched the metal sun slide to its evening resting place, the light fading from its bulb, a yellow afterglow remaining. He pulled the sketchpad out of the pocket of his jacket and pushed it across the table toward Issae.
“What is this?”
“Open it. I think you’ll find the work of the artist familiar,” Calier said.
The pages of the sketchpad rustled as Issae opened the cover and began to turn the pages. Her hand went to her mouth as her eyes drank in the work of her lost daughter.
“How…where did you get this?”
Calier took the steaming mug from the server and thanked him. Issae was so wrapped up in the drawings that she didn’t even notice the cup that now sat before her, its vapors trailing into the night air.
“I encouraged her to take some drawing supplies with her before we left your farm. From the way she talked about painting and art, I knew it was something very important to her. My hope was she might be able to work out some of her pain by doing something familiar and cathartic,” Calier said.
“She recorded the journey.” Issae breathed out the words as her finger traced the lines her daughter had expertly laid down on the page. “This is the bridge leading into Gadol City, isn’t it?”
“It is. Our journey almost ended there.”
The picture showed a broken and battered bridge with a fiery aircraft crashing to the decking as a man raced toward two waiting companions on the other side. There was also a picture of the burned and bombed village, her parents’ farm, and the approach to the forest. Interspersed among the big events of their journey were small snippets of everyday life that could have taken place before the invasion: Emura riding on Chanti; Rohab, Amer, and Oyeb sitting around the campfire tending a pot, laughter etched across their features; Denar holding his crossbow and staring off into the distance, one leg perched higher than the other on a rock. The last picture was of Calier from the shoulders up. His hair was a mess and dirt streaked his face. There was a weariness that shone from the page, a weariness that Calier remembered all too well.
“That is one homely fellow,” Calier smirked self-deprecatingly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He has kind eyes and strong features. I would say he was a man of character.” He watched her face redden, and she quickly looked down at the pictures. Flipping to some of the other drawings, she studied them more intently.
“I always marveled at her talent. Her art could always speak to me and evoke such emotion. This…” she said, her eyes scanning the pages. “This is some of her best work.”
“I found it tucked in the pocket of my pack the other day. I was looking for something else, but when I found that, I forgot what I was looking for and just started soaking up her art. I must have been carrying it for her. It’s hard to remember why. All those days are a blur. Except for the days when we lost people, those days I’ll remember for the rest of my life. He shifted in his chair and then looked back to Issae. “It makes sense for you to hold on to it for her until she gets back. We need her to fill up the rest of the pages.”
Issae wiped tears from her eyes. “Yes, yes, we do need her to fill up these pages. Thank you for this gift. It makes me feel closer to her.” The woman looked up and gave him a smile despite her tears. “I will hold this close to my heart until I can hold Berit again.”
They sat for another hour, talking of Berit and her art and about their lives before the invasion. Issae excused herself after her second mug of midbar. Gripping the sketchpad tightly, she said goodnight and disappeared into the darkness.
Calier looked into his mug and swirled what was left of his midbar. He allowed his mind to drift to possibilities he hadn’t thought about in years. What would it be like to have someone again? Looking in the direction Issae had gone, he sat back in his chair and sighed. Of all the times to have a schoolboy crush, the end of the world seemed pretty terrible. He shook his head, finished off the midbar, and got up from the table.
He didn’t have time for a romance. Aereas needed him. There was a job to do.
Still…
It would be nice to do it with someone by his side.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aereas - Human base in Homa former Am’Segid great city
The door slid open, revealing a dimly lit room. Cullen stepped across the threshold and into the room’s quiet harmony of stasis units completing their job with efficiency. The route to the unit he wanted to get to was well known to him because he’d been here often, but today he decided he should take a less direct path.
“Mr. McPhall,” Dr. Mitchell said, looking up from his e-charts. “What brings you to the extraction lab for the third time this week?”
Cullen felt his face redden and quickly stared at his shoes. His mind swirled with words, but none of them seemed to make sense. Coherent sentences were hard to put together when he was put on the spot. He hated that about himself. A genius with numbers, an idiot when it came to words.
“I…uh…” Cullen stammered. It would have made so much more sense if he’d come up with a good excuse for being here before stepping through the door. As it was, he was trying to make one up with flimsy facts. His mind landed on the software update he’d installed last week. Cullen chased the excuse like a small child running after a butterfly with a net. The excuse darted and drifted on the breezes of his mind, just out of reach. Finally, he had it in his hand.
“The update. The one I did last week.” He stopped and stared at the doctor.
“Yes, what about it?” the doctor asked, looking perplexed and a bit amused at the same time.
“It…it needs to be checked. To make sure it’s running good…I mean better…I mean correctly.”
Dr. Mitchell studied him for a moment. Cullen imagined him trying to punch holes through his story. The doctor had no reason to believe it. Eventually, he’d find out the truth and would ban Cullen from the lab and then he wouldn’t be able to see her again.
Cullen took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.
“Well, check whatever you need,” Dr. Mitchell said and turned back to his charts.
Cullen let out the breath he’d been holding.
The doctor looked back up at him. “I thought you did all of this remotely? At least that’s what you used to do.”
“Sometimes I just need to see things in person to make sure everything is…lining up.”
“Alright then. Well, have fun. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
Cullen sighed. “Thank you.” He looked at the floor as he passed by the doctor and hurried to the first stasis unit. He made a show of activating the holographic interface and scrolling through information and formulas. Glancing over his shoulder, Cullen saw the doctor move back to his desk. He was busy taking notes and inputting information into the computer. Cullen moved quickly to the next stasis unit and went through the same routine while keeping an eye on the unit he’d come here to see.
Her unit.
The raven-haired woman, the one who’d opened her eyes the first time he’d looked inside her unit. Those golden eyes haunted him, and he’d been coming back here anytime he could make up a good excuse just to be near her.
It was the first relationship he’d ever had with a woman. His awkwardness had always prevented him from talking with the opposite sex and he’d used the excuse of his work to keep a buffer between himself and any woman he might have been interested in getting to know. It was just too hard, too complicated. Relationships seemed so messy, and had a way of distracting people from the efficiency they normally could attain if their minds weren’t preoccupied with thoughts of the opposite sex. Women and words seemed to have the ability to make him sound like an unintelligent simpleton. They weren’t like numbers, precise, predictable and always where you needed them to be.
So why, out of all the women in
the universe, was he attracted to a woman he had no possibility of ever being involved with?
Swiping through the images of another unit, he took one more glance at the doctor, who was still immersed in his work, and then closed the holo-display in front of him by forming a fist. The amber numbers blinked out of existence. Cullen then purposely made his way to unit Beta three four one. Behind the small window Cullen saw her. The black hair with golden streaks just visible around her temples. the scar on the side of her face had healed significantly since the first time he’d seen her. It was pink…and lovely.
Lovely?
What was wrong with him? How could a scar be…lovely? Maybe it was because it was on her face. She was stunning, and Cullen yearned to hear her voice. He tried to will her eyelids to open so he could see those golden eyes just one more time, but the woman remained still in her neural inhibitor-induced-sleep. Reaching up, he touched the small window with his fingertips and then quickly removed his hand, conscious of where he was. Quickly he wiped away the fingerprint smudges he’d left behind on the window with his shirtsleeve.
“Find what you needed?”
Cullen spun around, dropping the small tool case he’d carried into the room with him. Dr. Mitchell was standing in front of him, his arms crossed.
“Is everything alright with this unit?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.” Cullen bent down and picked up his tool case. “Yes. Everything seems to be in working order.”
“Good. You were spending a lot of time at this unit and it was worrying me. We’ve had problems with this one not taking the neural inhibitor well. If there are any more problems, we may need to terminate this subject. She just isn’t producing like she should be at this stage of the pregnancy.”