MIRATHATON The Last Colony Chapter VIII

Warning: strlen() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /users/leonmarch/www/wordpress/wp-includes/functions.php on line 262
(Last Updated On: )

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X VIII | Back To The Stars   It was the day after, when they were all set to meet in the belly of the ship, the great hall they called the Atrium. It was composed by the room left between the impulse and the navigation section that was framed by six high arches through which it would have been just one step into open space. Its ceiling stretched like an enormous marquee across the smooth floor, that reflected the stars on the other side of the arches like a lake under a cloudless sky at night.   Mirathaton, like a chunk of haematite, was using this reflective characteristic of its hull as a basic camouflage. Without any artificial light it was hardly visibly as a solid object but would appear as visual interference, a hot spot in space. They were as noticeable as they liked to be by a mere switch of illumination and rearrangement of the prismatic surface texture. Force fields sealed the atmosphere of the hall from the deadly nothingness beyond the gates. From inside the Atrium they were presented with an almost unrestricted view of the stars.   Everyone came here to stare into the depth of the cosmos, everyone did it for a different reason. Some were looking towards a special place in their memory, others were looking away. They would search for a spark of comfort when their mind was preoccupied with those they left behind, or they would let their thoughts run free from system to system, bouncing off planets and diving into nebulas. They dreamt of worlds they had once visited and those they might find in the future.   Ethaï came to listen. Every celestial body, whether it was a sun or many suns, the planets that danced around them, every single moon in orbit, asteroids and supernovas, they all had a melody. This cosmic concerto was playing for her alone, for to everyone else space was mute. Asári had often asked her, what she was 84

hearing. She was hearing blue and yellow and green, she said. She could hear red too, but she did not like it much. He believed her even though he did not understand. She would have liked to find better words to explain this phenomenon to satisfy his inquisitive nature. But she would never get the chance now.   Here she was again, standing in the great hall with the stars glimmering outside the gates and around her feet. She wore a simple white dress with her hair unleashed in soft dark waves, falling just about on her shoulders. Without her suit, the belt and tunic to hold on to, and her hair not being forced into shape, she felt like water, fluid to feebleness, as if she could simply drain away into the ground.   Tawani was cowering at her side, his rough, warm hand lying in hers, as she stood there facing the universe. On this particular day she could not hear anything.   She had come early, feeling ashamed like only a sick person can, while others were more worried about her well-being than she deemed necessary. She had asked Tawani for his company, because he was not going to ask her how she was feeling. He had absorbed her sorrow with an open heart and no strings attached. The transformational power of his being did not seem to cause him any harm. She wondered whether he felt his own sorrow like they did theirs.   Nevehet had appeared early as well, wearing a sleek black suit with only a hint of elegance in it. She folded her hands before her and chose to be quiet. Canon entered, wearing simple attire and a hat, which he pushed back as he approached the middle starboard gate.   He exchanged a few words with Ark and then came to stand next to the two women and the ‘Ani. Between them and the gate a black marble plate appeared and grew to a waist-high block in mere seconds. The program then continued to chisel an indentation into the surface of the marble structure that would allow for a safe placement of the charge that was soon to arrive.   No one uttered a word for several minutes. Ethaï prayed for the 85

silence to linger until this event was concluded.   When the time for the ceremony had commenced, the door on the rear of the hall opened once again. Iniu appeared first, Da’ud walked behind. Each one of them wore inconspicuous dark vestments and a stole of costly fabrics with elaborate patterns over their shoulders. On those they balanced the carrying poles of a bier without using their hands to steady it. On the bier lay a body wrapped in white linen. When Ethaï saw it eventually, she felt her feet grow numb and she held on to Tawani lest she might fall. She had feared this moment for years and yet she had been unable to imagine what it would be like to live through it. This was true now, this had become real.   The procession moved forward slowly and in a synchronised pace, the carriers had their heads down and their shoulders stretched to avoid a tilting of their burden. Their gait seemed dignified because they were about the same height, an amenity not every Wegaian funeral included.   Iniu had clipped his dark hair nearly to the skin and held the yield to his chest inside a white linen cloth. On Edu this gesture was a parting gift exclusively reserved for close family members.   Da’ud impressed in his bearing like the ancient statue of a priest. In his arm he held a heavy looking book with gold adornments on its case and spine, which Ethaï recognized from Asári’s library. The sight soothed and sobered her at the same time. The man on the bier, who now dressed in his final garment was unrecognizable, would have liked no one better by his side than this impressive bodyguard. For a short moment she felt a pang in her heart because she had refused the opportunity to look him in the face one last time. She had not thought that she could bear it after the sight he had forced on her, but time had slipped away and made her wonder whether it might have eased the shock.   The two men manoeuvred their load to the marble table and took a knee as to lower the bier until it was placed safely in the designated position, with his head pointing outwards into the 86

direction he was to travel. The bier vanished and the two carriers rose. Iniu deposited the bundle he had brought next to his friend’s head on the altar, then stepped back and came to stand beside Ethaï and Tawani. She instantly put her free hand into his and held it tight.   Da’ud pulled up the marker on the book and it fell open in his hands. It was a beautiful artefact in an ancient language Ethaï had never cared to learn, though she vaguely remembered what the ceremonial text was about. Da’ud added a unique song-like intonation to his speech that dripped like a soothing balm into her soul.   When she was a child she had little to no notion that many people considered their religion as much of a necessity as food, water and a warm place to sleep. Later she had learned about the variety of faiths in the human communities but she had never attached more of a meaning to any of them than to those strange words she was hearing now. They sounded beautiful, they were designed to strengthen the listener’s belief, that there was more to their existence than what the cold claims of science offered. They promised a lot, but they proved nothing. Ethaï did not believe in an almighty judge, whose happiness depended on the obedience of lower lifeforms, or in gods, who fought each other to their death over and over again and would only really perish when mortals stopped visiting their temples.   Asári had never pressured her with religious aspirations. During his lifetime he dismissed his beliefs as unimportant, yet now he made good of it with splendour and commitment as much as their small group could muster. Had he died in his home city, hundreds or thousands of people might have come to see him move on. They would have talked about their participating in the rites for years and decades or even longer.   Ethaï had chosen to witness the ceremony because he would have wanted it, not because she thought that a good man could be immortal through memory. Billions and billions of good and decent people had died and been forgotten. 87

For a brief moment she dared to presume that her friend preferred this humble display for his friends because he believed himself a humble man, but she had to admit to their true motive. They sent him off in humble ways because he had chosen to die like a fugitive from a world he hated. The thought almost cracked her mask.   In questions of faith, she tried to keep it simple. She believed in energy which could never be destroyed, which would spread and merge over and over and she believed that humans would one day be able to control this energy. They had hardly begun to understand it and they probably would not unlock its secrets in Ethaï’s lifetime.   She looked across the hall at the dead man they had come to salute one last time. His body was about to melt in the fires of the protostar, his atoms would be split apart and fuse with others in new original combinations. The forge of elements would spout the building blocks of what had once been Asári into space, where they would seek connections with those of his ancestors and all of those who would come after him. The perpetual powerhouse of the sun would weld them into new formations until their time had come to wake, to live again.   For the first time she understood why the Eduans, though unassuming in their spiritual ways, gave such personal gift to those who moved on. For there was hope in them that when their time had come, they would be remembered not in the past but recognized in the future as already being part of the congregation of atoms in the stars.   But even without the potent power of the star Asári’s body was falling apart, because the energy that kept it together had already begun to fade away. It was not dead, not destroyed, just gone. Humans, that was what they were because of a specific sequence in their DNS, which was subject to energetic bonds. What they would be without their double helix neither scientists nor priests were able to explain. Asári was not human anymore, he had stopped dragging that heap of failing cells with his life force. He 88

had been transformed and that thought lightened her heart a little.   Da’ud had reached the end of the liturgy and turned towards the gate. It was not the custom in Wegaios to have friends or family give personal speeches to make sure no angry words or unchallenged accusations would taint this serious final moment. Ethaï thought it a pretty gesture, no more. She would not have known what to say without straining the restrictions of this culture’s law. No one spoke.   The forcefield under the arch clicked softly and began to move inwards until it had encompassed the marble block. A few kilometres off starboard a small blue ball of energy had appeared. It grew in width and then opened up in its centre. This was the moment, when in a sudden rush of panic, any loved one left behind felt the urge to call out, to make it stop. Ethaï squeezed Iniu’s hand so hard that it must have hurt him. He carefully withdrew his fingers from her grip and put his arm around her shoulders.   A dazzling bright light erupted behind the arch and irradiated the entire hall with its flash. Ethaï held her breath in anticipation and blinked her eyes as the tunnel collapsed. There was a click from the forcefield as it retreated. Where Asári’s body had lain only seconds before, there remained only an empty marble block.   They stood there for another minute or two. Ethaï was listening to the fading sound that the flash of light had produced, it was a note of comfortable pitch, high but soft, like a violin string, singing under the gentle ongoing caress of a steady bow. Da’ud was the first to move and to conclude the meeting. He turned towards them, looked them over with searching eyes and then left without a word.   Canon wandered off like a boy kicking pebbles, hat in hand. Nevehet finally thought it appropriate to reactivate her communication stream and make a business call while she left into the direction of the living area.   Tawani tugged on Iniu’s arm, who put his hands around the 89

creatures doglike face, inspecting it carefully. Then Iniu held out his hand and Tawani quickly climb on the young man’s back like a rider mounting a pony.   Ethaï stepped away from them and approached the marble altar. She put her hand on the smooth surface of the cold rock and traced the imprint with her fingers. She could hear Iniu stomping around the hall, pretending to be a wild stallion, shaking Tawani thoroughly through until he began cackling.   She thought it was weird how the living felt suddenly like laughing and dancing and fooling around as soon as the corpse had been disposed of. She watched over her shoulder how Iniu and Tawani galloped across the hall towards her. Tawani threw his long arms around her neck as they reached her, still clinging to Iniu with his legs. Iniu wheezed audibly.   »He’s getting fat.« he said with mock annoyance in his voice. »If he gets any fatter, he will break my back.«   She smiled fondly, because she knew that it was not true. Tawani whinnied, then dropped to the ground and started running in large circles around the Atrium.   Iniu pressed his hand to the surface of the block like Ethaï had done. It had an inviting look to it but it felt like it came right from the freezer.   »We will stay here a little longer, I assume?« Iniu asked. She shrug her shoulders and looked out into space.   »The sweep will take us a few days to finish.« Iniu continued, his voice becoming almost dreamy. »We could go to Kalipsu afterwards and just waste away for a while…«   She knew what he was trying to do. They shared wonderful memories of their time in Kent Kalipsu. Asári had been a part of these memories too. Despite being of Wegaian origin and not at all disloyal to his culture, Asári had enjoyed his time in Kalipsu much more than when they visited the High City of Wegaios. His home world had something rigid and dour despite all the pomp. Their culture focused on science like it was a religion and on law like it was science. That made the life of the Wegaians impressive, 90

important and influential but they were not known for their joviality. Kent Kalipsu, the capital of the Vetelas, was not like Wegaios, it was everything else. Here the artists met, the comedians, the musicians, cooks, acrobats and actors. They had the best food and the best shows, they had beautiful parks and long white beaches. They followed the least abstract laws and very few of them too. Asári liked spending his birthdays there whenever possible. They had visited the city probably a dozen times in the past 20 years. Strangely, the thought that they would go there to celebrate not his birthday but his death, made sense to her.   »If you like.« she said with less enthusiasm than she had intended.   »You are aware that we are all waiting for you to tell us where to go next, right?« Iniu said slightly irritated.   She looked away like she developed a sudden a stomach ache.   »You don’t have to decide right away.« he said.   She thought that he must be running away from the pain and envied him for his energy. It had been less than two days since their lives had changed yet again and he rushed into it as if he could not wait to start anew.   »I may not be the right person for this job.« she said. Iniu crossed his arms in front of him and leaned against the marble block.   »Stop kidding yourself.« he said. »You have been calling the shots since the day I meet you.«   She shook her head, even though that observation tickled her amusement.   »You must mistake me for someone else.« She did not only try to be humble, she firmly believed that she had not made as much of an impact as everyone else seemed to think.   »Come on.« Iniu complained. »He’d tell you what the job was and from there on out you ordered us around. You know it’s true.«   »I was only doing what he told me.« she lied. 91

»Whatever.« Iniu said, tired of this game.   »We need a Mechentis and you have nothing else to do.«   »Excuse me?« she goggled. He smirked at her only long enough to see her raise her fingers to the marble block and tap it twice. The structure dissolved, but Iniu reacted fast enough not to fall on his backside. He knew how to push her buttons and she only forgave him for that because he never made a secret of it.   »I know you don’t want us to stay put for the rest of our life.« he said. »It’s boring out here.«   »Let’s make a deal.« she said. »I will keep telling you what to do until the sweep is finished and in return you and the others will sit down and have an honest discussion.«   »I can tell you what they think right now.« he deflected.   »I’m serious.« she said. »Do I have to appoint the challenger myself?«   He looked annoyed with her.   »Don’t make me step down before you vote me in.« she warned. »Because that is what I am prepared to do.«   »And then do what instead?« he asked, but she had no answer to this question. 92