Survive

by Vera Nazarian

  “Gee Two, what the hell is going on?” my brother Gordie says with an uncustomary frown.

  Gracie just rushes at me and hangs around my neck.

  “Oh, I can’t even begin to explain,” I attempt to speak, after crushing Gracie with my arms. “And what are you all doing up? I mean, never mind—”

  “We went outside and saw it—the big light thing!” Gracie says with very wide eyes. “The one that’s all over the TV.”

  “And then it disappeared. Just like that!” Laronda snaps her fingers, throwing a quick glance behind her where Hasmik is waving at us from the living room sofa and pointing to the levitating TV panel before her. Blayne is seated in another chair nearby, eyes glued to the media feeds with a serious look on his face. His hoverboard stands upright behind him, leaning against the chair back. Occupying a chair next to Blayne is Erita, who looks up at us at once with a warm smile and waves, holding a tall glass.

  “Kass! Finally, you’re back. Come over and look!” Xelio’s low, insistent voice sounds from the back of the room where a glassed-in wall leads to a balcony outside.

  “Can it wait? It’s been a long, shebet-filled day. We really should get to bed,” Aeson says tiredly. “Gwen needs to rest before the Games Ceremony tomorrow. And to be honest I could use some rest myself.”

  They have no idea that we will have to wake up, possibly several times, in the middle of the night to perform the damn command sequence, I think. Aeson hasn’t told them the details yet. . . .

  “Gwen survived the Games, and she is going to be just fine tomorrow for a silly Ceremony that shouldn’t take longer than an hour.” Oalla pushes her way past the tall figure of Keruvat and taps me on the upper arm with a smile. “Right, Gwen?”

  “Of course,” I reply with a tiny smile of my own. “But—after dealing with his Imperial Father all day, Aeson really could use some rest.”

  In a moment of exhaustion-induced amusement I start wondering if anyone noticed how we both just used the other person as our excuse—is this the next level in our relationship?

  “All right, we’ll stay for a few minutes,” Aeson says to Ker with a meaningful look, and heads to the living room.

  “You guys want some food? Something to drink?” Gracie interrupts, gesturing at a side table with some leftovers from their own niktos meal.

  But I shake my head tiredly. Then I pause. “On second thought, some water or nikkari juice, maybe.”

  Gracie just nods and goes to get my drink.

  “So, are you going to fill us in on what’s up, Kass? All that SPC activity—don’t think I didn’t notice the reports pouring in all day?” Keruvat asks meanwhile, walking next to Aeson and me as we find seats on the sofa. Xelio is out on the balcony with the two aides, Gennio and Anu, and also Chiyoko. They are using some kind of spyglass or telescope devices to stare up at the sky.

  “In a moment.” Aeson checks his wrist comm, where a new stream of data appears on the band display.

  “Aeson,” I say. “You promised me my own wrist thingie unit. . . .”

  “Oh! Yes!” He looks up at once and then his gaze rests on Gennio. “Rukkat, over here, please.”

  Everyone on the balcony turns around briefly, except for Gennio himself who appears to be engrossed in the sky.

  “Gennio Rukkat!” Aeson repeats louder.

  On the balcony, Anu elbows Gennio hard in his side to get his attention and glances back at us with a crooked grin as soon as the other Aide almost jumps with alarm, finally getting the message.

  Next to me, Laronda shakes her head and whispers, “Jeez. . . . What an a-hole.”

  Gennio comes over, apologizing sheepishly to Aeson and me, and Aeson explains to him about my need for a personal wrist comm.

  “Oh, of course,” Gennio says in his mild tone, tightening his forehead slightly, then biting his lip, which apparently helps him think. “Let me go upstairs and find a blank unit. I’ll configure it right now; should only be a few minutes.”

  “Good,” Aeson says. “Speaking of minutes—make sure to include an easy minutes-to-daydreams conversion function. Gwen—all of us actually—will be using the daydreams precision scale in the coming days for some of our work.”

  Gennio nods politely and heads upstairs.

  Aeson’s wrist comm sounds a tone. More incoming data, or messages, or calls. Im amrevu checks it and this time looks up with a frown. I know that resigned look, and I know that ring tone.

  “Your Father?” I ask.

  “My Father.”

  I moan. “What does he want now?”

  Aeson does not answer immediately and continues to scan the incoming news on his wrist. And when he finally looks up, he appears almost surprised. “Strange—my Father says that if that certain alarm sounds again, for the moment we are to ignore it, until further notice.”

  “What?” My mouth opens in confusion. “So—he wants us to ignore the ancient—”

  Aeson puts his hand up, silencing me with a gesture. Ker and Oalla are staring at us curiously. And then he adds, “Ah, I see his reasoning—he needs the—that certain object to be fully active in order to keep the light manifestation present in the sky long enough for us to study it. Makes sense—it’s the only way our instruments and drones and pilots can try to approach and analyze it.”

  “Kass, no need for secrecy here—we all know it’s something to do with a certain Grail-that-is-a-ship,” Keruvat says with a snort. “So, spill it.”

  Aeson sighs. “All right, because it is too damn late and I am tired, and things are only going to get more complicated.”

  In a few quiet sentences, Aeson explains to everyone what we’ve been doing all day today.

  Keruvat lets out a held breath. “This is bad,” he says. “This is really bad.”

  Chapter 15

  “Bad does not even begin to cover it,” Aeson replies. “Now you see why Gwen and I need to get some sleep.”

  “Go!” Oalla says with a frown. “Get to bed right now, both of you! In the name of all that’s holy—”

  “What did I miss?” Xelio returns from the balcony, carrying a small hand-telescope, while Anu and Chiyoko trail after him, holding their own units and arguing quietly.

  Keruvat nods at him. “We’ll tell you in a moment, but Kass and Gwen need to get some sleep before they collapse.”

  “You mean, try to get some sleep,” Aeson says with bitter amusement, pointing at his tone-emitting wrist comm where the hologram band is going nuts with data and messages.

  “That’s it—I am going to take that bashtooh thing away from you, Aeson!” I exclaim, using the Atlantean swear word to really capture his attention. And then I grab his hand and pull my Bridegroom toward the door.

  We make it upstairs and quickly get ready for bed in our respective adjacent suites. And then of course we can’t stay away from each other.

  The promise that Aeson made to me this morning in the Imperator’s Red Office—to tell me everything about his death and the mysterious events of Ae-Leiterra as soon as we’re alone tonight—is entirely forgotten by both of us. It’s been such a difficult, event-filled day that I think both of us have willingly repressed it, for the time being.

  Having brushed my teeth and used the facilities, I’m wearing a relatively demure, long nightshirt, but I wander into Aeson’s open bedroom like a shameless hussy.

  Yes, I’m shameless hussy Gwen. . . .

  “Aeson?” I say shyly, peeking deeper into his room, then hear water running in the sink around the corner. Aeson must be in his bathroom, washing up. Or—doing whatever else you do in the bathroom.

  A sudden hot blush rises, and my neck and cheeks start burning.

  “Yes,” he says, coming into the bedroom, and oh my lord, he has no shirt on . . . and his middle is wrapped in a towel.

  My breath catches.

  His naked chest and muscular arms, toned abdomen, tapering waist, long powerful legs, richly bronzed skin, the mane of golden hair. It all hits me at once, and
I’m completely silent, mouth parted at the sight of him.

  Im amrevu is a perfect male specimen.

  He sees me looking at him, and for a moment I have a crazy feeling that he is about to drop the towel that’s wrapped around his middle.

  Instead, a slow, wicked smile curves his lips, while his gaze caresses me with sensual intensity. “Gwen,” he says in a thick voice, then comes toward me. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “That’s a bed,” I say, with unexpected boldness, nodding with my head toward his own.

  Shameless hussy Gwen Lark. . . .

  His smile deepens, and he slowly turns his head sideways, looking me over with a relentless gaze, then glances back at his bed. “You are welcome to get in bed with me, but my personal unit—the ‘wrist thingie,’ as you call it—is going to keep you awake with all the ring tones and incoming data. I can’t turn it off for tonight.”

  “That’s fine, I don’t care,” I say. And then I recall, “Oh! Gennio is supposed to give me my own, and I forgot. We left before he returned—”

  “Tomorrow,” Aeson says, taking my hand gently and leading me to his bed. “If anything happens, I will wake you up. Now, are you sure you don’t want to be in your own bed?” And then he grins. “It might get a little . . . difficult for us.”

  “You mean you won’t be able to keep your hands off me?” I grin back at him.

  His face reddens with a sudden blush, but he says in a controlled voice, “Precisely.”

  “In that case, mister—” And I plop down on his bed, then fall back on top of the soft covers, bouncing slightly. That is, the bed bounces, and various parts of me bounce—which he notices and stares, his lapis lazuli blue eyes stilling, taking in the sight of me with hunger. . . .

  “Get under the covers!” I tell him, to cover my own breathless intensity. “Hands off! No—hands at your sides! No touching! No smooching!”

  “Okay,” he replies in surprise, while a smile returns to his lips. And then he pulls back the coverings on the other side of the bed from me and leans in, starting to climb inside. As he does so, the towel around his middle starts to slip. . . .

  “No dropping the towel!” I say, squeezing my eyes shut, with a burst of wild breathlessness. “Not until you get under the covers!”

  “Like this?”

  I hear the bed creak and open my eyes, seeing him lie back against the pillow, watching me mockingly, sheet and covers drawn up to his chin. I notice his towel has fallen next to the bed on the floor.

  That’s when I pounce on him, wrapping my arms around him and his heap of bedcovers, and press myself with all my being against him—so that he makes a low grunt of pleased surprise.

  “Aa-a-ah . . .” I sigh in utter comfort, closing my eyes, lying against the great length of him, in my nightshirt. “Aeson, I never said I was going to keep my own hands off you.”

  I don’t remember much of the night, except soft darkness and yes, waking a few times because of ring tones, and then Aeson shifting pleasantly against me in the bed . . . and sometimes seeing the blue-green hologram light of the data band around his wrist casting a faint glow along the contours of his face as he peers at it, sitting up next to me in the otherwise darkened bedroom.

  “Huh? Anything wrong? The ship?” I mumble, half asleep. My semi-conscious brain is made aware that although I’m still lying on top of the covers that serve as a flimsy barrier between us, somehow there’s now a soft blanket covering me.

  “Nothing, sleep,” he replies every time, and his warm hand reaches for me, caressing my shoulder, my cheek, my hair . . . until I drift off again, mumbling, “No, you sleep . . . Aeson, please, you need sleep. . . .”

  The next time I wake up, it is full morning, judging by the sliver of fierce light coming from one crack of separation between the drawn curtains. The side of the bed next to me is empty, covers neatly pulled up, and Aeson is gone.

  I sigh and look around. He is not in the room, nor do I hear anything from his bathroom. I glance to the wide-open door that leads to my own darkened bedroom, and my gaze involuntarily falls on a chair in the interior of my suite, visible from Aeson’s room. Lying on the chair is a pristine-looking, clear-wrapped package that contains my White Vocalist uniform from the Games of the Atlantis Grail.

  At the sight of the dreaded uniform I feel a stab of anxiety in my gut. Today, at second hour of Khe, I have to attend the Final Ceremony. . . . Ugh.

  I sit up slightly, frowning, and turn away from the unpleasant sight. I notice an Atlantean time-keeping device on the nearest bedside table. Thankfully it has a large digital readout in glowing amber light. But the time is displayed in those weird cuneiform-like squiggles and lines which are Atlantean numerals—annoying complicated numbers which I have so much trouble deciphering.

  Squinting and staring, I finally figure out that it says either “Seventy-three-thousandth hour” or more likely “Seventh hour, thirty-one daydreams, and eleven heartbeats of Ra.”

  So—relatively early morning, but not too bad.

  Where is Aeson?

  I am in his bed. Oh wow . . . I spent the night here, in his bed.

  On impulse, I lie back down and wrap myself in his bedding, and just put my face into the sheets and pillows to inhale deeply. . . . Ah, his sweet scent is all over everything, musky, unique to him, pleasant to my senses. A warmth starts rising inside me.

  Finally, I get up and head over to my own bedroom and bathroom. I grab a quick shower, then choose a moderately casual pants-and-top outfit from my closet and put it on, ignoring the three slightly more formal outfits laid out for me overnight by a maidservant.

  Then I go downstairs.

  I wander around our most commonly used living rooms, running into only a few servants, who give me courteous bows and greetings, while no one else seems to be about. I eventually find Aeson in one of the small eos nooks with the gorgeous hillside panorama-view of Poseidon, sitting with Ker and Xelio around a little table crowded with plates of eos bread victuals. They are staring at a compact panel display levitating like a centerpiece over the middle of the table, just above the food dishes. The panel shows four windows split into both video feeds and computer data. And they are all constantly referring to their wrist comms.

  “Nefero eos,” I say, and cannot help noticing how well my Bridegroom looks this morning despite so little sleep—perfectly groomed, in a silken grey-white shirt and slate grey jacket and pants suited for court, with his fine metallic hair brushed to a sheen and falling neatly down his back. “There you are! I didn’t hear you get up, Aeson!”

  Aeson looks up at me, and his eyes immediately light up. “Gwen! How did you sleep?”

  “Fine! But how about you? You were still working in the middle of the night!” I shake my head with mock reproach. “And now you’re back at it! Anything horrible happen overnight?”

  Ker and Xel glance at Aeson, then at each other. “Define ‘horrible,’” Xelio says with a sarcastic smile. He is also finely dressed in a crisp black shirt and jacket with a deep red collar trim, and his raven mane is pulled back and contained in a segmented tail, giving his lean face a controlled fierce elegance. “And nefero eos to you, Imperial Lady Gwen.”

  “Sit down and eat, Gwen,” Keruvat says with a wink, but I see his amusement is covering up many layers of worry. Ker is sharp-dressed to match his fellow daimon, in a dark blue jacket with a golden-cream shirt that contrasts beautifully with his near-black skin and the gilded short curls of his hair.

  “Where are the others?” I ask, taking a plate, and heading to the side table with the steaming dishes laid out, and a servant busy preparing something else savory and fragrant in a tureen over a heating plate.

  “Oalla’s still sleeping, and so is your sister,” Ker says.

  “I believe your friend Hasmik was here earlier, very briefly,” Xel adds. “As for the others—not sure.”

  I fill my plate with food and pick up a mug of lvikao, then return to their table. “All right. N
ow, tell me, what have I missed? Is the ark-ship—active?”

  “Yes,” Aeson says. “The alarm sounded as it reactivated at around fourth hour of Ra. And it has been active since.”

  “And?”

  Aeson sighs.

  Ker and Xel look gravely at me and Aeson.

  “Several things,” Aeson says. “If you remember, we sent various resources to study the light phenomenon in the sky which reappeared as soon as the ship turned back on. Our probe findings were—unexpected. First, the object is not a mere mag-heitar above the surface of the planet, nor is it a flock of pegasei plasma energy. Both of those assumptions were incorrect guesses, completely underestimating size and distance. Instead, it is large—very large. And it is very far away.”

  “Oh? How far?” I say.

  “It’s not inside the atmosphere,” Ker adds. “Atmospheric probes from Atlantida and other nations, working together and sharing data, found nothing.”

  Aeson nods. “Yes. It is far beyond orbit. The next step was to send SPC Pilots. I dispatched several research shuttle teams outward, past the orbit of Amrevet, which is the outermost moon, and only there did they start to get close to the object. That’s when they discovered that it’s not stationary, but in motion.”

  “Oh my—that’s—” I mumble. “So, what is it?”

  Aeson lets out another deep breath. “Well, the good news is, it’s not some kind of impossible white hole emission. Nor is it a blob of the kind of plasma energy that’s found circling along the innermost stable circular orbit just before the reality horizon of a black hole.”

  “In other words,” Xel puts in, “a new black hole didn’t just suddenly appear in space right outside our outermost lunar orbit. You can praise all the deities for that—not to mention, it generally requires a collapsing star for a black hole to even form.”

  My mouth opens in wonder.

  “The bad news is,” Aeson continues, “there might still be some kind of dimensional rift or anomaly located near that spot. Information is still coming in and being processed, and the shuttle crews are sending some conflicting data.” He points to one of the four view screens on the panel before him with 3D schematic images, text, and numbers.