The Comet Riders: Book Five of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  Chapter Eight

  "How do you put this thing in reverse?" Farakai shouted to the other explorer trainees in the room. He was a gaunt-faced man with a jocose disposition and long hair cut so low across his eyes that it moved when he blinked. He wasn’t exactly certain what had led him where he was, but he had made a profound discovery for his age.

  He was seriously afraid of going into outer space. An odd thing for a man training to be an explorer.

  Ten of the explorer trainees were gathered for the first time in an actual shuttle outside Ariyalsynai, on the uninhabited plains where their practice could do no damage.

  Yikes, be careful, Farakai cringed as they sped towards a large tree on the plain.

  "You don't reverse it," a young man interrupted, one of the youngest trainees selected when the group was formed only a tenday ago, drawing the attention of the ten explorer trainees and their silent shuttle officer. The man was quick-looking but built sturdily enough, with eyes that seemed disinterested no matter what he looked at. "You can't reverse a class kx-1000 shuttle. You have to make a wide circle to turn around."

  "Okay, I'll give it a try," Farakai said, and turned the shuttle a hard left, jostling the passengers as he veered around, avoiding the tree ahead.

  "Now ease up on the acceleration." The young man continued. Once Farakai had slowed the shuttle to a safe speed, he turned around slightly.

  That commanding officer sure is a silent one. What is he going to do—wait until we run into a mountain before he helps us? Farakai thought, annoyed.

  "How do you know so much about the shuttles?" Farakai asked the young trainee, relinquishing control to Chenka, their officer, a stout figure with a disposition like a skittish durveg.

  "They're actually very easy to understand compared to the explorer ships," the young man laughed easily. Farakai decided he liked him instinctively. "I used to study the shuttles and starships while I was at one of the education centers in Ariyalsynai, but I've never actually flown one."

  "Jerekkil Hinev—how about giving it a try," the officer Chenka interrupted with an impatient, overly authoritative air. "Farakai here wasn’t listening to the proper procedures earlier. Now let’s see if our youngest trainee can apply his printvolume learning to what he is doing now," he said, with an intent on mischief.

  Jerekkil headed to the pilot seat and sat down, casually glancing around at his instruments. He engaged the engines, turned the shuttle towards a long unobstructed bit of the field, and sped up to five hundred units per hour, lifting the shuttle into the air and off the ground. It was not the smoothest take-off Farakai had experienced, but Jerekkil had done it.

  "Well what do you know?" Farakai said, staring in wonder.

  An hour later, the trainees left the shuttle at the outside dome and boarded a transport to take them back into Ariyalsynai.

  "You did pretty well, Jerekkil," Farakai said after he had caught up to the young man. The group had been let off in the dormitory with the other trainees. The seventy explorer candidates selected just a tenday ago had been subdivided differently every day so far, but they would cross paths regularly over the next two years. Farakai recognized some of the others from yesterday's range weapons operation seminar.

  "Well, I had an advantage over the rest of you. But I admit, I wasn't as calm as I seemed," Jerekkil said.

  "Well, you had me fooled,” whistled Farakai.

  Jerekkil shrugged.

  “I couldn't believe you risked a take-off on the first day.” Farakai said. “I heard the ground controls are different from the air controls."

  "There are more than a hundred more air controls.” Jerekkil explained. “But I only used the basic ten—actually, it was just luck that I saw a wide enough place to land without running into anything. Say, Farakai—do you know what we have planned for tomorrow?"

  "They haven't told us. But we have two choices left, if experiences from past years can be trusted. It's either the drop from the air into the sea, or the two day survival course."

  "They like to weed out any reluctant trainees, don't they?" Jerekkil shook his head.

  "Well, they only train explorers every five years.” Farakai said. “I just missed the deadline last time. I was still at my education center, and I had to wait four years."

  "What have you been doing?" Jerekkil asked, genuinely curious. He himself had been lucky. His year had finished the education course less than two tendays ago, just in time for the training selections.

  "Well, I took a position as a council aide in order to improve my abilities in public relations, politics—the explorers are peace-makers, after all, aren't they? There hasn't been an expedition since the trip to Mirius. The last civilization to be discovered was Gildbatur. I figure the odds aren't that great for us to be involved in anything but keeping the peace between the Federation planets."

  "What about the great explorer mission they've been talking about all over the center?" Jerekkil wondered.

  "I hear that's still several years off. But who knows?"

 

  "Father, have you forgotten something?" Undina asked as Ettrekh returned from the communications room and joined his daughter on the shuttle's observation deck. The journey from Kayria was almost over, and the shuttle had passed within a radio range for short transmission communication from Seynorynael. In a few days, they would be home.

  “No...”

  "What's wrong?"

  "I don't understand it. I sent the communication yesterday. Even if it took five hours for them to receive the message, we ought to have received their reply by now," Ettrekh shook his head.

  "I thought you left to try short range communication. You can wait and talk to them every few minutes," Undina said.

  "None of the communicators were free. I guess everyone's anxious to talk to their families. But we'll hear from them soon, don't worry."

  "Maybe they've gone out—but then our robotic house unit would have sent the message to them on their personal frequencies—"

  "Tilen and Narenka—they won't be the same, Undina you know that."

  “Of course I know—”

  "Seeing and knowing things are two different things, Undina."

  "... message for Ettrekh Meilacu-ra. Tune into frequency 121..." a mechanized robotic unit moving around the room, poking its computer head into couples and families seated around the observation deck began to approach them.

  "I'm Ettrekh Meilacu-ra," her father said, and the robot sped towards them frenetically.

  "Tune into frequency 121—message from Ilina Nelana-mi from Firien province." It repeated, only pleased when Ettrekh nodded and tapped his wrist communication device.

  "Firien province?" Undina echoed as the robot sped away. Undina leaned over her father's arm to get a better look at the video communication that had appeared on her father's wrist imager.

  "Dear Ettrekh, I received your message at last this morning." Ilina began. "I’m sorry that you had to wait for a reply, but it took the robotic operators a while to reroute the signal to our new home from the Kerrai province where we once lived. Oh, Ettrekh, there is so much to tell you. Right now, mother and I are living with Viker and his family! Shortly after the Kayrian relocation was passed, we were told that our people could no longer remain within a thousand units of the capital. Mother wanted to move to Kilkor to be with her brother's family, until we heard news from Viker.

  "When my brother left home he wandered for several years before he came to live in Firien City. He met a half-Kayrian woman there, and they were attached around the time that you and I were attached. They had a son, Delac-ast Ertu Nelana-mi, born the year after Undina, though I suppose now he will be a man older than she.

  "Ettrekh, when you return you will have to take a shuttle west to Firien City's astroport. From there, Viker has promised that he will collect you. I am working in the medical center u
ntil the end of the next tenday and cannot get away to meet you when you arrive, but the minutes will pass as hours before I can see you.

  "I love you my dearest. Undina, I love you. And I can’t wait to see you both.”

  The starship shuttle arrived at Ariyalsynai in the early morning before dawn. Ettrekh and Undina joined the heavy traffic of the bustling astroport and a multitude of travelers from the five planets, all bound for different destinations, on life's journeys or a mere commuter transport to Mezera, the closest city to the south.

  The medium-altitude transport shuttle to Firien City was small but relatively empty. They were estimated to arrive within two hours after take-off, and Undina was glad they hadn't taken a low-altitude shuttle like the ones prevalent on Kayria. A trip over ground would have taken most of the day.

  "All passengers, prepare for landing. We are arriving in Firien City," a robotic voice sounded overhead, drawing Undina's attention from her printvolume to the observation window. The shuttle's observation room was only large enough for about a hundred passengers, not at all what she was used to. On board the starship shuttles, there had been several different observation decks, all large enough to accommodate a thousand passengers, with a clear domed canopy that allowed them a view of nothing but the distorted, elongated lights of stars rushing past.

  Undina would have cried, if her nature permitted her.

  What had happened to the Undina who belonged here? She had been lost somewhere on Kayria. Why couldn’t she regain herself? Why did her memory keep torturing her with images of the Neliyan, and of Gynda?

  The sight made her a child again. Memories stirred in the back of her mind; she hadn’t looked there, in to those memories, in years.

  How was it possible to feel such an ache and still live with it?

  She hadn't realized how much she hungered for the view of a planetary landscape. When she looked up, she caught her breath, as though she stood humble before a miracle. She saw a wide, rolling sea, a deep blue, and just below, the tall white buildings of the small city growing larger as the shuttle descended.

  The image was so beautiful, so perfect—

  Too perfect. This was a world that didn’t welcome her kind.

  But she had been born to this world. Even though her mind told her that she was not a part of it, she could at last accept that she had been born and belonged here.

 

  Jerekkil wasn’t sure how long he could stay at Lake Firien.

  Khustav and Malina didn’t ask questions. The fact that he was home was enough; but they didn’t try to keep him from his own business.

  Jerekkil had told no one that the explorers might be called away at any time, but he suspected his parents knew. Just two tendays had passed since he finished his explorer training. Jerekkil was excited to be home, and his friend Farakai had promised to visit before the end of the warm season.

  "I've got to take a look at this place you've always bragged about. From the stories you tell, no place can be half as amazing as that Lake Firien of yours." Farakai had said on the final day of training. "But my wife may not like the idea—she wants to go to Kilkor to see the springs of elan-anai."

  Jerekkil laughed and said he’d be expecting Farakai and his wife to show up at the door any time.

  The first tenday back at home Jerekkil had spent relaxing after the years of constant training. He went swimming in the lake, took walks by the shore, went fishing, and wandered deep in the lyra forest.

  The truth was, he had begun to have agitated feelings of late, a deep yearning in his heart to find a stable feminine companion; even Farakai was attached! At the same time, he desperately wanted to see the many places in the Federation to which he had never seen. And there was always Firien, this place that kept him coming back no matter how far he would go.

  Jerekkil decided to go to Firien City early that morning, perhaps in part to escape the quiet of the family dwelling in the remote village on the north shore, but he left on the pretense of collecting some fresh provisions for the evening meal.

  “I’m just going out for a bit,” he told his mother in the doorway.

  Jerekkil headed down one of the pedestrian streets in the open market when a young woman stepped into his view from around the corner of a building, her face and features in profile as she spoke to an obscured person on her left. She and her friend completed the turn around the corner and nearly bumped into a frozen Jerekkil.

  Her long, straight, shining dark hair moved around her as she stopped, concern drawing little worry lines on her face, but he had not heard her words. Jerekkil looked around him and realized that he had collided with her friend, a tall Kayrian man of medium build. The girl looked down, from him to Jerekkil, and asked if they had been harmed. Jerekkil shook his head, still confused as the other man started to come to his feet. The fall hadn't paralyzed Jerekkil. It was the pair of amethyst eyes before him, the heart-shaped face of the Kayrian woman that held his arm and helped him to stand.

  Her eyes were concerned, but not soft.

  It had taken Jerekkil a moment to register that she was Kayrian despite the obvious fact that her midnight black hair shone with silver glints in the Seynorynaelian sunshine.

  “You okay?” She asked, peering at him. What was that look? He wondered briefly.

  He stepped back, but as usual maintained composure.

  It was defiance. He saw it clearly, saw it as clearly as if her emotions were written there, which to him, they were. He felt no guilt in having read her feelings; he was an empath.

  Why the defiance? Ah, yes—she was Kayrian, and she had no way of knowing that he wasn’t going to kick her and her companion or blame them for his own carelessness in falling.

  He wished she would stop looking at him that way. She was far too beautiful for such an expression to be borne. He stared at her soft feathery eyebrows to avoid the glare; once he noticed them, he was ever after aware of them. Her eyebrows were beautiful, so beautiful. He wanted to touch them.

  “Sorry I knocked into you,” Jerekkil extended a generous hand to see if the Kayrian man needed anything; he was brushing the dust from his uniform.

  Undina eyed him skeptically.

  “You’re not hurt?” she asked, just to be sure.

  “No, no,” Jerekkil said. “But what about your friend? I hit him pretty hard. Do you need me to call a medical android?”

  “No,” the Kayrian said, now eyeing Jerekkil; a crease of confusion and latent hostility appeared between his brows.

  Jerekkil decided to be blunt.

  "I'm Jerekkil Hinev," he said, extending a hand to them in greeting.

  "Undina Meilacu-ra," Undina replied, confused. "This is my cousin, Delac-ast," she added, slightly flustered.

  “Your—cousin?” Jerekkil echoed, certain that he hadn’t been able to hide his positive assessment of that.

  Delac-ast cast him a mild expression of warning.

  "Do you live in Firien City?" Jerekkil asked, putting aside his own errand to the provisions center.

  "No, that is yes, my family is now living here. But we came from Falyndae—and I guess you could tell that we came from Kayria before that—" Undina stuttered. Why was this man talking to them?

  "I've been to Kerrai," Jerekkil nodded, analyzing the odd accent of Undina. Some of her words sounded so Kayrian, others as Seynorynaelian as he pronounced them. The combination didn't add up—new immigrants couldn’t imitate Seynorynaelian speech and the complexities of the three small voice-boxes, but only native Kayrians spoke with so strong an accent.

  “Really?” Delac-ast said.

  Jerekkil nodded. "I passed through Kerrai each year while I was in training in Ariyalsynai. But since I became an explorer last year, they've put me on leave until I am called."

  "You’re—an explorer?" Undina’s face seemed to pale, if that were possible.

/>   Delac-ast betrayed a tight smile.

  Jerekkil looked further, winced.

  This Undina would have done anything but trade her soul to be an explorer. This conclusion kept Jerekkil studiously silent a moment, as he regarded her.

  Undina seemed to bristle in agitation under his scrutiny, as though she weren’t sure why he had undertaken it, and she felt certain his conclusion was going to be negative. She seemed suddenly conscious of her simple clothing, while he was wearing the liquid black uniform of the scientific force also shared by the explorer candidates.

  "We should be going.” She pronounced, half-way directed towards Delac-ast, half-way in defiance of Jerekkil. “My father wanted us to be home before late afternoon—my cousin's family is leaving for a trip to the South tomorrow.” She added.

  “The South?” Jerekkil hoped she would elaborate.

  She didn’t. “It was nice meeting, you, Jerekkil," she added, politely. Her ability to maintain her dignity and also remain polite struck him with a strange sensation of wonder. Meanwhile, Undina had turned and was leaving.

  Suddenly, she stopped at the sudden weight of his hand on her forearm and turned back around.

  "We’ll meet again, Undina Meilacu-ra." He told her.

  "Locate: Meilacu-ra," Jerekkil spoke into the robotic terminal near the communications center in Firien City. He had continued down the pedestrian center until he reached the communications building. From there, he planned to get on a shuttle to the shuttle change outside the city. From the shuttle crossroads he could take a shuttle to his home north of the city, in the ancient rural community of Firien.

  "Processing... " the terminal responded. "Location: eighty-third precinct, third by fifth transport lane, the Naya building, apartment 917. Ettrekh Meilacu-ra presently at dwelling. Undina Meilacu-ra—moving on transport shuttle route 23, passing the central fountains..." the robot threatened to continue updating Undina's progress, so Jerekkil cut it off with a thank you and walked away, clutching a printsheet, an involuntary smile lighting up his face.

  Jerekkil thought about Undina as he walked towards her dwelling the next morning, where he planned to wait outside the door and coordinate a “chance” meeting. He had thought of her throughout the previous afternoon, and had woken early.

  Jerekkil couldn’t say why, but he felt a power connecting them; he had felt it from the moment he saw her turn her head; then she looked at him as though she didn’t want to let him into her reality of the world. He wanted her to welcome him into her reality more than anything. Yet he was terrified of her rejection, more than he cared to admit.

  He liked her—the way she thought. He liked her face, but more than that, her attitude and way of looking at the world. He thought of all the times he had held back from women for a while, held back out of regard for them; he knew he had to hold himself back this time and was afraid to drive her off, but—he couldn’t stop the fantasies that had already begun to possess his thoughts, fantasies of her.

  She was Kayrian, but they were similar to his race.

  And Jerekkil was an empath. He could “see” the rudimentary feelings of others. He could sense emotions, thoughts—he tried never to let anyone know about it; people always thought he was immensely fortunate to avoid two-faced friendships, and his friends envied his ability to converse so freely and knowledgeably with women, yet it had seemed he was incapable of registering any real feeling for any one of them. Mostly because he had never met anyone who shared his views or hopes in life.

  He waited outside the building, until at last Undina appeared.

  "Undina, could you see if your mother needs some help at the medical center after you go to the market?" Ettrekh's message played in the holo-monitor.

  Undina’s father had gone with her cousin's family early that morning to the south. The Nelana-mi family of her Uncle Viker had been thinking of relocating to one of the larger cities inside the weather-safe ring ever since the virus epidemic broke out in Firien City the year before. But Ettrekh had accompanied them to try to get his wife a portable medical unit from the research center in Hilari.

  The virus had swept the planet two years after Ettrekh and Undina left for their long journey to Kayria. The Kayrian population on Seynorynael had been affected more than any other. Though several communities near Ariyalsynai no longer welcomed other races, the Seynornyaelians had never appealed to the council to remove the ancient settlers from Kayria until the virus hit. Shortly after the virus began to spread, the council affected what was known as “The Kayrian Relocation”, asking all pure Kayrians to leave the cities near Ariyalsynai to protect the great city from the ravages of the epidemic.

  Gilwsa had fallen prey to the virus shortly after the family moved to Firien City, and Ilina had taken the position in the medical center to keep an eye on her mother. Gilwsa had been slowly recovering, but the precious portable medical units were in short supply, and Ilina had felt it best to leave her in the hospital's care, rather than to try to bring her mother home.

  In the end, the virus had been less severe than expected. Fewer than ten percent of its sufferers had perished so far, and Ariyalsynai had recently rescinded “The Kayrian Relocation” decree, promising not to pass it again. But most of those who had moved to other cities decided not to return to their original homes.

  Even though Firien City was only just inside the weather-safe ring, Ilina had found her brother Viker again, and had grown to love the city and its surroundings. When Viker talked of moving south, Ilina began to feel distraught and plunged into her work at the medical center. She didn’t want to leave, but Viker was all she had left. That was—until nine days ago, when her husband and daughter suddenly returned from Kayria, in answer to her prayers.

  If things worked out, Ettrekh's surprise gift to his Ilina on her last day at the medical center would allow her to bring Gilwsa home.

  Undina tried to think about what she was going to get at the market. She was still agitated from yesterday, from the brashness of the Seynorynaelian man who presumed that after five minutes, he could talk to her so intimately. She had a feeling she knew what he had meant—but she tried not to think about it.

  Undina took the transport shuttle to the market and began to wander among the stalls, looking for something special to buy for the evening meal, but found herself thinking about taking a trip to the Lake instead. In all of the days since the arrival in Firien City, she hadn't yet gone to get a closer look at the water she had seen from high above the astroport.

  "Where do people go to enjoy the Lake?" She asked one of the street vendors, a robotic device that appeared startled and perplexed by her question. Before it could answer, she heard a man's confidently direct, musical voice and felt someone standing behind her.

  "The south shore is the most crowded.” He said.

  She turned.

  “Not you again!” she sighed.

  “Hello to you, too,” he rejoined.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You wanted to know where to go to enjoy the lake, didn’t you?”

  “I presume you know something about it?”

  He smiled. “I do indeed. You see I’m from this area originally.”

  “All right, then. So, you were saying something about the south shore?”

  “That’s right. It’s too crowded. Your best bet is to go north.”

  “North?” she repeated, skeptical.

  “The south in general extends from the far southern curve of Lake Firien to the area north of Firien City. People know about the area, and it’s renowned for its tourism and fantastic beaches, so it’s always crowded. And of course, the south is within the weather-safe ring. But you don’t need to worry about that in the warm season, so you should go north. Not many people can be bothered to travel north, but it’s worth it.”

  “It is?” she still sounded unconvinced.

 
; He nodded. “A few miles north of here the white sands end and the rocky shores of the north begin. They call that place the ‘changewinds’ because the winds are in opposition there. The east wind brings the sand from the other side of Firien, and the territory of the west, south, and northern winds begins just north of it. Often the winds collide, bringing great storms to the area. Firien City is usually safe because no one lives near the changewinds, and no one usually bothers to go north of it. There, if you go, you’ll find the prettiest bit of land you ever found anywhere on this world."

  Undina stared at him, her eyes working over the information.

  "The white sands are the most popular,” Jerekkil repeated, “but some of us prefer the north shores—rocky in some places, sandy in others. There’s an infinite variety of little beaches, and the lyra forest! Prettier than any of the mixed acreage around here. The forest is even more ancient, too, so it’s a lot more open, not so dense and murky as you’d imagine from what they have down here. Of course, there isn’t any of the tourism and there are no trader’s posts there, and no sweet cakes being sold on the street, no trash, no noise, no overpriced accommodations, either—"

  "All right, all right—I’m sold on it, Jerekkil." Undina laughed.

  They looked at each other and said nothing; she had remembered his name and used it without any regard to propriety.

  "If you’d like, I could take you to the white sands and we could catch a transport north.” He offered after a moment. “Since the warm season began, the transport shuttles will be running there every minute."

  Undina looked at the fruit stall. Her expression was cold.

  “Undina, don’t look at me like that,” he said. She turned to him, her expression subtly hostile.

  “And you’re so sure you know what it means?”

  “I can’t convince you I’m not trying to seduce you, can I?”

  She whirled on him. “How—how could you just say that?” She looked around as though someone might have heard him. Did he have to talk so loudly?! Goodness, how embarrassing.

  She may have felt he should be contrite, but he laughed.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “You annoying—”

  “Do you want to go?”

  "Not if you don’t let me finish my sentences! Anyway, I have to visit the medical center later," she said, shaking her head. “My mother works at the medical center, and I said I would meet her today.”

  "It won't take us long to get there.” He shrugged. “We’ll just go to the white sands, and I’ll show you the floating docks where the ilaias lounge in the afternoon. You can be back in the hour, if you want."

  “Who are you?” she stared at him, aghast. None of this made any rational, logical sense!

  "Come on, we'll have some fun." He took her hand and ushered her towards the transport, taking supreme amusement in all of her defensive protests.

  "All right," Undina acceded, pulling her arm free from his grasp.