by S. T. Boston
* * *
On board, Adam laid Oriyanna gently onto the floor of the bridge, wiping her wet and tangled hair from her eyes with shaky hands. Blood from the wound on her head pooled out around her.
“I'll check her in a second,” Taulass said, closing the access door and rushing to get the Niribus into the air. “In under a minute, this whole place is going to explode!”
Adam registered the tugging sensation in his gut as the small interplanetary craft shot into the sky, cleared the clouds and entered Earth's orbit. Far below them, an insignificant bubble of fire lit up the darkened landscape and spread out across the desert much like a ripple in a pond. No one paid any attention, their focus on Adam who was still futilely clearing wet hair from Oriyanna's pallid face, his dripping wet fingers trembling.
Leaving the station, Taulass joined Adam and the others on the floor. He examined the wound on Oriyanna's head and placed his cheek close to her mouth. “She is still breathing,” he said with a good deal of relief. “It's very shallow, though. Another blow to the head and he would have killed her. It's going to take her a few days to heal fully, but I'm confident she will make a full recovery. To be on the safe side, I am going to transport us back to Arkkadia,” he said. “Our work here is done.”
“I'm not leaving her,” Adam announced, his voice a little lighter with relief, yet still wavering and shaky.
“Well, I'd suggest you get Oriyanna comfortable in the medical bay and get her dry. You will need to keep an eye on her for the next day or so. You can dress her wounds to help stem the blood flow, but they will begin to heal soon enough. I'll get us underway.”
“Are we going home?” Lucie asked, her wide eyes on Sam.
“Yeah, I guess we are,” he grinned. “In a manner of speaking, anyway. I don't think London is any place to raise a family now.”
“You know!” she blurted, her eyes filling with tears. “How?”
“That's not important right now. I love you.” Sam wrapped her in his arms and kissed her deeply as Taulass spun the craft around and activated the wormhole drive. In the blink of an eye, Earth was gone.
Epilogue Part 1
For three full days, Oriyanna remained unconscious. Her wounds healed gradually, but not at the normally speedy rate afforded by the Gift. Taulass wasn't surprised, nor was he worried. Adam refused to leave her side, and on the second day, after Taulass had checked her healing skull, he explained to Adam Oriyanna would likely need further treatment when they returned to Arkkadia. He suspected a large number of her tiny, nanobotic life preservers had been killed off due to the head injury. 'Thankfully she has maintained a large enough number to keep her alive,' he'd said. 'It was a closer call than I first imagined.'
On the third day she finally came around, and the only indication that anything had happened to her was a total loss of memory from the point when she'd escaped the room aboard Arkus 2, after slamming Asmodeous' face into the ship's computer screen.
On the fourth day, with Oriyanna out of the medical bay and fighting fit, Lucie had voiced her own concerns regarding what the anxiety and stress might have done to her unborn child. Oriyanna had rested a hand on Lucie's tummy, smiled and reassured both her and Sam that all was still well and the infant was fighting fit. She'd asked if Lucie wanted to know the sex of the child but both had refused. Oriyanna had smiled and promised to keep the news to herself. Still a tad on the sceptical side, Lucie had insisted on being checked in the ship's medical bay using some proper apparatus. Oriyanna obliged and placed a series of small wireless sensors on Lucie's abdomen, then using a holo-display she'd brought up an incredibly realistic 3D projection of the infant. 'I'd say you are about twelve weeks along,' Oriyanna had told her, watching the image. That night, and for the first time in days, Lucie slept soundly.
Sam's shoulder had also needed attention. The wound, although clean, seemed reluctant to heal and kept scabbing over, then bleeding again. Taulass carried out a procedure which was close to stitching, only it used a fine laser beam to knit the torn skin together. 'If you want it,' Taulass had suggested, 'they will reinstate the Gift when we get back.'
Sam had refused, arguing that no man should watch his wife and child grow old while he remained frozen in time. For him, the return to mortality was a welcome one. Sam had never seen the gift as an amelioration of life in the way many would. Certainly, it had its benefits, but to him it had far greater drawbacks.
* * *
Adapting to life on Arkkadia wasn't as hard as Lucie had envisaged it would be during the seven-day trip. There was much about the planet and way of life which was so similar to Earth it was almost frightening, yet on the flipside some of it was vastly different. Lucie thought it was the way Earth should be, devoid of all wars, suffering and famine. There were no political or geographical boundaries, no individual countries to speak of, just districts and territories. There were no borders and anyone was free to go anywhere they liked. The Arkkadian council, which governed the entire planet and had done so for thousands of years, saw to it that any Arkkadian had the right to live and work where they wished. The planet was theirs – a shared asset and not a thing to divide into geographical boundaries and then squabbled over. It was a Utopian ideal, the likes of which Lucie suspected could never exist on Earth.
Following their arrival, Lucie's life had reached what she'd class as celebrity status on Earth. Like Earth, Arkkadia had media and entertainment and she, along with Sam and Adam, found themselves at the centre of attention. For Adam and Sam it was the second time they'd found themselves in the limelight. The media interest lasted a full three months before it began to subside, thus permitting her to resume a more normal life.
In the last few months before giving birth, when Lucie swelled like a balloon, she and Sam lived just outside planet's capital city, Unia. Lucie spent her days working in the educational system, teaching young Arkkadian children about Earth and the people of her home planet. The children were always fascinated by her, and her teaching times often overran due to the amount of questions which followed every lesson.
It was during one of these lessons when she went into labour, three weeks early. Five hours later, Sam and Lucie's son was born. They named him Xavier, after the Watcher who'd sacrificed himself in the bowels of the Great Pyramid, thus saving both planets.
Once again there was a bevy of media attention for Lucie and Sam to endure. The first Earth-Human child to be born on the planet was big news. It was around this time when Adam and Sam began their campaign, wanting the people of Earth to know the truth, and wanting the Arkkadian council to announce themselves. They believed it would help to unite Earth and bring an end to such an era of uncertainty. With the aid of Oriyanna, who was highly placed on the council, they gained an audience with the planet's governors and presented their case. The council members voted, and to Sam and Adam's disappointment their case was denied with a one hundred percent majority against going ahead. The matter was closed, for now. Thanks to their tenacity they'd managed to get the council to agree to reviewing the matter, once every ten Earth years. It was going to be a long road but as Adam had joked, 'I've got a bloody long time to live, and we'll get there in the end.'
Epilogue Part 2
The council chambers in Unia were vast, and set on the banks of the Unas; the main river whose deep blue waters snaked the length of the Thurerlusa district, before finally meeting with the ocean. The main chamber room was an amphitheatre affair, a cavernous half circle of twenty tiers. Each tier had fifty seats, and in those seats sat the governors for each of the one thousand districts and territories which made up Arkkadia. In the very centre of this amphitheatre, halfway up the twenty tiers Elohim, the head of the council and leader of all Arkkadia sat. To his left and right were the senior council members, Oriyanna being one of them. She caught Adam's eye, her hair shimmering like golden honey in the deep afternoon sun which streamed in through the cathedral-like windows. Holding her gaze for a few long seconds, he was pleased when s
he offered him a reassuring smile from across the room.
Adam took a deep breath and took a moment to study the one thousand expectant faces who all watched him with deep scrutiny. He turned to Sam, who as always, joined him in the speakers' box, just as he had done on eight other occasions over the past eighty years. Sam's sandy blonde hair was a mixture of deep and light greys now; his eyes though, still glinted with a boyish charm and seemed to belong to a man a quarter of his age.
“Today's the day,” Sam announced, his voice frail and thin. “I can feel it.”
“You said that last time, and the time before that,” Adam replied, not looking a day older than he had when the Gift had been bestowed on him. He looked at his friend for the briefest of moments and hoped that today was indeed going to be the day. In Earth years, Sam was one hundred and fourteen. The Gift, it seemed, during the two years he'd felt its effects, had left his body in peak condition. In conjunction with the unrivalled healthcare on Arkkadia it ensured Sam's longevity, but with nature left to run her course, even the fittest and healthiest bodies wither and eventually die. Adam knew that for Sam, this was his last chance. Sadly, there would be no prospect of him being by Adam's side in another ten years.
It had been five years since Lucie had passed on, and after such a long life together Adam had fully expected Sam to follow not long after, but he hadn't. It had been a tough time for everyone. Adam had begun to grasp just what the Gift meant, because Sam and Lucie's family were his family. He was a great, great uncle now, and Xavier, who had been born not long after their arrival on Arkkadia was an old man and in his autumn years. Adam was destined to remain frozen in time and watch generation after generation of his family come and go, like the passing of the seasons. Had it not been for Oriyanna and the love he held for her, which grew stronger year by year, he'd have gladly returned to mortality in an instant. They still had no children of their own; there was no real rush for them, and they had all the time in the world, so to speak. Adam wasn't sure he could cope with watching his own children grow old and die – it had been bad enough seeing it happen to Lucie and Sam's.
“We are here today to hear the case brought before us by Adam Fisher and Samuel Becker,” began Elohim, his voice booming through the chamber. He stood in his booth, his deep brown hair flowing down from his shoulders in waves, highlighted by the royal blue cape he wore over his white trousers and long-sleeved top. Both garments were decorated with a pattern of golden glyphs running down the arms and around the neckline, much like the one they'd found Oriyanna wearing all those years ago. Like Oriyanna, he was thousands of years old, but looked to be a man in his mid-fifties. His face sported a full beard, but his hazel eyes sparkled with knowledge and were soft and kind. He addressed the council in Arkkadian, but the small earpieces which Sam and Adam wore translated the language instantly into English. Both had learned the native tongue over the years, but for matters such as this, still preferred the language of their home world. “This is the eighth such meeting of this council, as Adam Fisher and Samuel Becker make application for legislation to be passed which would see the Earth-Humans learn the truth behind their existence. We all know this has been the hope of the council for many thousands of years, but we need to consider how this will affect the planet as a whole. The main point being – are they ready? All previous applications have been rejected, and as always, once you have listened to the evidence presented by the applicants, the council will need a majority vote of eighty percent for the legislation to pass. I will now hand the audience over to the applicants.” He glanced over at Adam and added, “Good luck.”
“I'll let you do the talking,” Sam whispered, his thin lips turning up a smile. “You always were better at this stuff. I'll just stand here and look pretty.”
“Members of the council,” Adam began, smothering a grin at Sam's comment. “We appear before you today to make the aforementioned application,” as he spoke his voice emanated through the room in Arkkadian. “In truth, I do not have anything further to present than I did last time I addressed you, so I respectfully won't take up too much of your valuable time. You all know why you're here, and I have no doubt that you knew how you wanted to vote before you even set foot in the room, because this hearing is just the end of another ten years' worth of work toward our cause. I would, however, ask you to consider the following. Compared to the Arkkadian race we are still young, and with that, comes foolishness. Over the years, you've watched over us, seen us make no end of mistakes, and on more than one occasion fight wars which have killed millions. In that are we not so dissimilar from yourselves. While you've had no domestic conflicts on this planet in thousands and thousands of years, you understand the necessity of war. It is my hope that now, after the Sheolian conflict more than eighty Earth years ago, war will now truly be a part of your history. Sadly, without aid and guidance, it will take Earth many, many more years to reach this same point and millions will die as a result. Nonetheless, all those wars and conflicts we've fought have helped to shape humanity into what it is today – just as it has with you.
I have kept appraised of my home world over the past eighty years and while I personally haven't returned, I believe I'm in a position to say that we're not the same people we were in the days leading up to the Nazca incident. The planet is still free of nuclear weapons, it has been this way for the past seventy-five years after the non-launch ready stockpiles were mothballed. Work on the Hundred Year Starship program is nearing breakthrough, and your scientists estimate in a further thirty years, Earth-Humans will have a prototype ship using the same technologies you developed. I know for a fact that this planet is known to Earth, but only as a speck of light seen from the Kepler Space Telescope many years ago, when I was a young man. We are where you were, many thousands of years ago, looking to the stars and wondering if we're truly alone. I can guarantee you that when they do launch that prototype, this will be one of the very first places they send a probe, just like your ancestors did with Earth. Arkkadia is the embodiment of everything I believe the people of Earth can be, and with your direct help and guidance I believe they can reach this same destiny. Oriyanna once told me that you view the people of Earth as a parent would view a child; if this is the case don't you believe that it's every child's right to know its parent?”
“What are your views now, on how this will affect the planet's religious dependence?” Elohim asked.
“It had widely been accepted that when the human race discovers it is not alone in this vast universe, it will have massive implications for religion. I am, perhaps, not the best person to advise you on this matter as I've never held any of the religions on Earth as a belief. I do know, though, that religion is a two-pronged sword. It has an overwhelming power for good, but it has also been responsible for some of the worst atrocities the human race has seen. There is no question it will be the biggest event in human history, there is no doubt that it will shake the planet to its core. However, in our very being we are adaptable to change and it's my belief that in the end, this change will be for the better. Although I have lived on this planet for the majority of my life, at heart I'm still a child of Earth. As such, I believe that myself and Samuel are best placed to know how this revelation will affect our home world. Elohim, members of the council, it is my belief that we've been ready for many years, and the time is right. Never more so than now. Pass this legislation and help us be all that we can be.”
“Do you have any further evidence to bring to the council's attention?” Elohim asked.
“No, sir, that's all.”
“Very well.” Elohim stood and addressed the room. “You have heard the statement as read by Adam Fisher, it is now your responsibility to vote and pass judgement.”
One thing Adam did like was the speed and finesse with which the Arkkadian political system worked, there would be no lengthy discussions and adjournments, and the matter would be decided then and there. If unsuccessful there were no appeals; it would be another ten years befor
e a further opportunity would come to pass.
With more than a little unease, Adam waited in the speakers' box with Sam as the vote was decided. After what seemed like an age, Elohim stood and addressed the room.
“As you may recall, last time the council met on this matter the legislation was denied by a vote of sixty percent no to forty percent yes.” He paused and looked directly at Adam, his eyes sparkling. “There is no question that you have both slaved over this campaign relentlessly over many years and today's hearing is merely a brief part of the work you've done to convince the council. Adam, Sam, it would seem your hard work has finally paid off.” He shifted his focus to address the room. “It is the finding of this council, by a majority of ninety percent to ten, that new legislation will be passed which will allow Earth-Humans to learn the truth about their origins.”
“You did it!” Sam said, slapping Adam on the back.
“No, we – we did it,” he corrected, still struggling to believe the result.
“Well done, both of you,” Elohim said. “You have changed the course of our futures with this decision. I just hope it is the right one.”
“I can assure you it is, sir,” Adam beamed.
“Which now brings us to the matter of when and how this will be accomplished. As leader of this council, I decree that in one Earth year from this day, a mission will be launched to Earth conveying the news. In the ensuing period, we will discuss just how this information should be passed on. You will both be heavily involved in this preparation.”