by Alex Douglas
***
A week later, all goodbyes were said and the crew of the Outcast II was finally ready to go back into space, this time with an extra member. Lan smiled to himself as he got into Deral's hover-vehicle for the trip back to the shuttle station. Research and Translation Coordinator. Prez had finally thought up a new job title for him and presented him with his new contract, an indefinite one this time, only for the purpose of fulfilling Andran bureaucratic requirements.
Prez had spoken little since the news from Akilia, but he seemed to be in a reasonable mood. The darkness was still there, but pushed away into a corner. Lan sat beside him in the vehicle as the wind whipped through their hair, leaving a thin film of yellow dust on their skin. The twin suns were setting behind the mountains, and the air was balmy and raucous with the shrieking of muk-muk insects in full mating glory. When Prez's hand crept into his, Lan felt like singing.
He was happy to be leaving, despite the copious tears of his mother that were still drying on the shoulder of his robes. His father had not yet calmed down, and Lan wondered if he ever would. The whole situation was especially embarrassing for his father, since people had often thought of Lan as just a small slice from the cake. He'd felt an intense disgust in his father's mind and was glad to get away from it.
The vehicle slowed to a halt, and there was a sigh as its charge died. They got out, and Deral and Falgon stood together and lifted their palms in the gesture of farewell. Lan chuckled at the confusion in Deral's mind when Glitch tackled him in a big squeeze around his middle and then did the same to Falgon.
When the crew had done all their hugging, Deral looked Lan in the eye.
I will be sad without you, brother.
I will be sad also.
I am pleased that you have found someone to love. I knew your mind before you did. You will never disgust me.
Lan felt a lump forming in his throat as he stared at his brother. "We wish you a safe onward trip," Deral said to the others. "The jump gate we have paid for will deliver you back to Andra. Where will you go from there?"
Prez looked to the west, toward the mountains, his skin glowing gold in the dying sunlight. "I have an idea where we'll go," he said. "But we're stopping somewhere on the way."
"Where?" The crew crowded around, interested.
There was a singsong tone from the station behind; the shuttle was boarding. Vaxel groaned and looked at the pile of boxes in the rear storage compartment of the vehicle. "Damn you and your shoes," he said to Glitch, and lifted a stack in his arms.
"Tell you when we board," Prez said and turned to Deral and Falgon. "Thank you for your hospitality. Your planet is wonderful."
"It was our pleasure," Falgon said, and took a handful of blue flowers from her pouch. She scattered them in Prez's hair and bowed. "Te miashque mina. We will not forget you."
Less than an hour later, they were back in space on the Outcast II, which smelled of berries and detergent. The cleaning android had been busy, and was still buffing the surfaces of the navigational consoles when -- after a quick, guided tour -- Prez showed Lan onto the bridge, followed by the others. "So here we are," he said. "Flack's seat, and mine." He smoothed his palm over the gentle curve of the seat and looked out into space.
"It is an impressive model," Lan said. "And the AutoNav is, I believe, version 4.5e, utilizing a four-dimensional coordination matrix, which, coupled with the AI interface and Logical Determinator technology, means that pilot input can be minimal. In effect, the ship almost flies itself."
"Great, isn't it?" Flack said. "More time to raid the entertainment database."
Lan looked at Prez. "What is it you wish me to do?"
Prez sat in his chair and programmed the exit procedure into the computer, followed by a set of coordinates. Then, as the ship began to separate itself from the dock, he turned and looked around the crew. "Everyone," he said. "Our shore leave has not quite finished. There's somewhere I've been meaning to visit for a long time, and I wondered if you'd like to come."
He tapped the RealView off and up came a picture of an unremarkable solar system, nine planets orbiting a single star. "These are recent pictures from the Belaari Falaariha Telescope," he explained, tapping the console again. The view zoomed in on the blue planet that traveled in the third orbit, a small planet with only one moon, and white clouds swirling over the continents. Almost half of it was one ocean.
"The blue planet?" Flack said. "Are you crazy? That whole sector of space is barely charted. There's not one race there who've managed to unify under a planetary government, never mind pilot a vessel beyond their own system. And not to mention the fact that getting a permit to pass through Daliz space is virtually impossible."
Prez smiled, staring at the planet as it revolved on the screen. "You forget, we don't need to pass through Daliz space. This ship has jump capability. With the right coordinates, we'll just zip through it without them even knowing."
"Madness," Flack's eyes were bulging. "What if we pop up in the wrong place? They'll shoot us into pieces."
"Well, we could go around it. It's only an extra... hmm, three years onto the journey. Or, you can trust me. I know exactly how to program the jump so we won't pop up in the wrong place."
"How?" Flack scoffed.
"Because I knew someone who went there."
There was a silence as all eyes focused on Prez, then on the blue planet.
"But..." Flack started, then closed his mouth again.
"Look. It's perfectly simple. We go as close to Daliz space as possible, I program the jump, we arrive here..." he pointed to a spot beyond the last planet of the system, "and move forward until we're in orbit. Then we land a shuttle and... go on holiday!"
"Land a shuttle?" Flack was incredulous. "Go on holiday? They'll see us, blue brains!"
Prez sighed. "No, they won't. This ship and its shuttles have a SigScram feature, built in by the Andrans for when they have to pass by the non-interstellar Salora system. What it does is effectively cloak the ship from particle scans, radar and any other primitive technologies. The ship doesn't actually disappear, of course. If you're standing looking at it, you'll see it. But we can use the planet's moon to hide the Outcast II from their telescopes. As for the shuttle, there are massive areas of this planet that are uninhabited, or completely lacking in technology. And don't forget, the shuttle is equipped for marine landing. And what do you see? Half of the planet is an ocean!" His eyes were sparkling with excitement. "We can do it! Are you in? Or do you want to turn tail to Andra and pick up some other tedious diplomat? That's not why we got this ship, my friends."
"I'm in," Vaxel broke the silence and grinned.
"Me too!" Glitch and Kris said at the same time.
A smile tugged at the corner of Flack's mouth. "Okay, you crazy bastard," he said. "I'm in. But I get first refusal on all the ladies."
Prez turned to Lan. "I'd like you... as the new Research and Translation Coordinator on board the Outcast II... to pull up everything you can find about the blue planet and the inhabitants, their culture, images, the lot. If there's any reason at all that you can find, why we shouldn't be able to visit, you must tell me. Right? You can use Glitch's station here on the bridge, when she doesn't need it."
Lan smiled. "I will find out everything there is to know about the planet."
"We're not going straight away?" Glitch made a face. "I was getting excited."
"No," Prez said. "We're making a brief stop first. But it's on the way."
"Where?"
There was a silence.
"Akilia," Prez said eventually. "There's a personal matter I have to... take care of. You can remain in the ship while I'm gone; you don't have to come down to the surface. It won't take long."
Lan noticed the crew glancing at each other, strangely knowing looks that he couldn't understand, but there were no protests.
"If there are no other questions... then let's get ready for the jump gate to Andra. And..." Prez turned to Lan and smile
d. "Welcome aboard. I hope I don't have to say that to you again."
***
Akilia. Even looking at it made Prez feel a wrench in his stomach. It was the only planet orbiting a tiny star, not a day's travel from Belaar where everything was big and bright and developed, where races from far and wide congregated to do business, the hub of life in the sector. Akilia was outcast, largely by choice, even though it had maintained nominal diplomatic relations with its neighbors. Spurned for its ethically dubious approach to its problems, the Akilian government had told the IPF in no uncertain terms to butt out and had gone its own way.
Most people assumed that Prez had been the one to name the ship because of what he was, but the ship had always been the Outcast. Garlo had named it long before, when he was still young and healthy and full of dreams. The only place he'd ever been, beyond Akilia, was the blue planet on the last ever test subject acquisition mission, and the trip had given him an appetite for travel. He'd loved his bolshie little planet with a fierce pride that Prez had never really understood, and was prepared to do anything to save it. The ship was Akilia, and Garlo wanted to take it to the stars.
Prez set the Outcast II in orbit and signaled the Space Flight Controllers of his intention to land a shuttle. There was no immediate response. He checked the date. The Closure was not far off. He thought of the baby he'd seen on the news and felt a lump form in his throat as he remembered the words the proud father had said. The time for hate and retribution is over. Chet, on the space station at Andra. This traitor has slept with the enemy: words that had made him shrivel inside. He didn't know how to feel about the whole situation, but he hoped there would be other couples like that, other babies born. Despite his ambivalence toward Akilia, he didn't want to imagine that little girl growing up alone.
"Are you okay?" Flack's voice shook him out of his thoughts.
"Sure."
They looked at the planet, each lost in their own memories.
Then a signal bleeped on the console; the Akilians had given permission to land.
"Okay," Prez said, and stood up. "I won't be long. Are you sure you don't want to come?"
Flack pulled a bag of Skits from the storage unit under the console. "Nah. I'm gonna watch some porn and think what beach wear I'm gonna get for our holiday. Thinking of a pair of Ballhancer shorts, what do you think?"
With a glance at Flack's fat belly, Prez smiled. "You'll be the hottest thing since Slush Packs."
"Hilarious."
Prez grinned and looked over at Lan, who was flicking though two different sources on the blue planet, one eye on the Tablet and another on the ship's computer archives. He didn't seem to mind being left out of the conversation when Prez and Flack switched to their compound language -- it had the best vocabulary they knew for swearing -- and he'd worked hard to compile the information Prez had asked for. There was so much now that Prez wondered if he'd ever live long enough to read it.
Lan's hair had grown quite long, falling down his back in thick curls, with some thin braids knotted at the bottom with colored beads. With the near constant eating he'd been doing since his brush with death, he'd quickly filled out more than ever, and his once-scrawny arms were now muscular and firm.
"Well?" Prez said, gesturing to the planet. "Are you coming?"
"Me?" Lan looked at him with both eyes.
"Yes, you."
"Do you not have... personal business?"
"I do. But... maybe you'd like to see Akilia before it closes. And I wouldn't mind some company."
"I will come."
"Okay."
"Get a move on then," Flack said, crumpling up his empty Skits packet and tossing it on the floor. "There's a movie here I want to watch. Balor does Belaar. Should be interesting."
"The guy who bleaches his cock?"
"Exactly."
Prez laughed and went to the door. "I can live without that one," he said as Lan went past him into the elevator. "After what Kai did to my balls, I don't even want to imagine Belaari in the nude."
"They're fake Belaari anyway," Flack shouted after him as the elevator doors swished shut, but Prez didn't stick around to hear any more.
***
The shuttle trip to the surface was fast and smooth. Akilia had few clouds, just an atmospheric haze that filtered out a lot of the little light the star sent its way. Prez's eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness on the RealView as the shuttle descended toward the coordinates. After the twin suns of Aldor, Akilia seemed even darker than he'd remembered.
He landed the shuttle in the middle of what had once been a field and opened the door. Immediately his head was filled with the pollen from the waist-high grasses that grew outside, the pungent but sweet smell of the riverside orchids that pulled at his senses, making gentle tugs into the reaches of his memory. Lan stepped down behind him, squinting as if he was having trouble seeing. Around them in the grass scuttled the small creatures that had once fed on the rows of cereals the Akilian farmer used to grow there. He knew the farmhouse was behind the hill, and wondered if small curls of smoke still puffed from the tip of its conical roof, or if the farmer was dead like most of the others.
"Are any of these creatures poisonous?" Lan said, taking a dubious step away from the shuttle.
"No."
"I do not understand. We are in the countryside. How will you do business?"
Prez was looking toward the hill, at the thick tree that clawed the sky, standing alone on its top. "There," he said. "Someone I have to say goodbye to." The pollen was already tickling his nose and he sneezed a couple of times before striding off toward the hill. The grass whipped against his thighs and left little seeds clinging to his trousers.
When they'd reached the top of the hill, Prez looked up at the shards of slate-colored sky through the black branches of the thick tree. The glowing amberflies were starting to gather around the buds to feast on the microscopic fungi that grew there. He rubbed his palm over the rough bark and walked around until he found what he was looking for.
"Here," he said to Lan. "This is where he brought me." Kneeling down, he traced his finger over two crudely carved names and remembered the first time he'd really looked at the dim haze of the sun in the streaks of thin cloud, felt the warm breeze in his hair. And the silence. He'd never heard it before, and he listened again now... the soft rush of air, the faint creak of the branches, the trickle of the nearby river. After the constant noise of the compound, then the lab and the wearying pain of the tests... This quiet place had seemed like heaven.
He sat down on the earth and looked down the dusty hill at the river. It was a quiet, undramatic landscape dominated by grays -- the grass, the air, the sky -- but there were faint hints of color in the yellow leaves, the almost luminous blue insects, and the glowing green eyes of the little furry sar-sals that sprung between the branches and chattered in their own frenetic language. With so little color to attract the insects, the flowers released strong and heady scents. It was all still beautiful, because it was the first beauty he had ever experienced.
Lan sat down beside him. "It is difficult to see in this darkness," he said, and they looked out at the river beyond.
"I'll tell you a history," Prez said eventually. "You won't find it in any books, and there are only two alive who remember it: me and Flack, and even he doesn't know all of it. It's about a doctor called Garlo who thought he could save the world. But he couldn't even save himself. All he saved, in the end, was me."
Chapter Fifteen
It was summer, and the tree was spotting with yellow leaves. Garlo spread out a rug on the dry grass beside the tree and sat down. He patted the space beside him and smiled. "You can't run," he said. "So you might as well sit."
Prez did what he was told. The silence was like a soft blanket, and he closed his eyes, listening. He could feel the heat of Garlo's body shifting beside him and bit his lip. "You didn't bring me here to admire the view," he said, feeling his heart start to thump in his chest, the same way it
did when he was brought into the lab and saw the needles. Fear and anticipation, but this time it was more than that.
Garlo opened the basket and pulled out a packet of Skits. He tore open the bag and offered it to Prez. It was the first food he'd ever seen that wasn't compound slop or rotten leftovers from the Wardens' dinners. He hadn't eaten a lot since he'd been taken to the labs; the doctors preferred intravenous feeding, to keep the test conditions as identical as possible. Dubious, Prez took a crumbly chunk out of the bag and put it in his mouth. The taste of the sea spread across his tongue and tingled underneath and he sighed with a beat of pure delight.
Garlo smiled beside him. "You're so beautiful right now," he said, snaking an arm around Prez's shoulders and shifting closer. "Your face shows everything you feel. That's why you're such a good subject. I can tell..." He stretched out a finger and traced the slight hollow the base of Prez's throat. "...exactly what you're feeling."
Prez slapped the hand away, sick at the sudden arousal that flooded his body. This man was a doctor; they were rarely seen around the compounds except to choose the next batch of lab rats. It was Garlo who'd chosen him, and he forced himself to remember the sickness, the injections, the draining of his blood and the constant tests... because all those memories were starting to fade next to this... whatever it was. He gazed into Garlo's amber eyes and said in a shaky voice, "Take me back to the lab. I'd rather be there than... here, with you."
Garlo sighed. "You are happy to be here with me. Do you know how I know that?"
"No," Prez whispered as Garlo's fingers brushed over his collarbone, so close to that spot that he almost strained toward the touch instead of away because this was madness, if anyone else found out...
"Because I have read your DNA, examined your blood, and now I can see it in your eyes." He stroked Prez's cheek and smiled again. "There's no one in this whole universe who knows your body better than I do. You want to hate me, so much. But you don't." The fingers slipped down to Prez's ear and traced around its outline. The touch sent goose bumps down the right side of Prez's body.