++Joan
Thurman wakes in dim light to the sounds of countless footsteps and an eerily
familiar chorus of crude manmade devices. She fixes her sight on a wavering
line of light cast upon the floor nearby, a clearway curtained with fabric.
Lying
down and elevated from the floor, Joan senses things lightly attached to her
body. Fearing activating a silent alarm, she resists moving. As her eyes
quickly adjust to the dim light she determines walls of roughly hewn stone
enclosing her.
Drawing
a slow controlled breath Joan feels the size of the space around her - bigger
than a coffin, smaller than a tomb. She senses another presence and moves her
eyes without turning her head. An elderly woman sits peacefully, watching her. Dissolving
Joan’s initial alarm, the woman smiles and lightly raises a hand.
To
the gentle rattling of metal parts, the curtain across the doorway is suddenly flung
aside and the small room is partially filled with light as a woman named
Lizitsky, sporting an untidy bundle of hair and wearing a small satchel on her
hip laden with assorted writing and measuring instruments, waltzes into the
room.
At
the sight of several wires and cables attached to the surface of her no’skin,
Joan hastily tears them off and flings them on the ground. Before Lizi has
taken another step, Joan is already standing; a whole head and shoulders taller
than Lizitsky.
‘I
was about to do that for you,’ said Lizi brusquely, disguising alarm at Joan’s
uncanny swiftness. Without taking her eyes off Joan, Lizitsky slowly leant down
to pick up the discarded cables.
‘Where
are the others? Take me to them,’ demanded Joan firmly, looking down at Lizi
without lowering her face.
The
women couldn’t understand Joan’s language.
The
elderly woman said, ‘You are in Orasan’s House of Healots.’
Lizitsky
examined Joan’s no’skin, saying to the elderly lady, ‘Guana Matahari, have you
seen cloth like this before? It’s like snake skin...but finer.’
Joan’s
no’skin proffered her translations the other women could not hear.
Surprising
the women, Joan now responded to them in their own tongue, ‘Take me to my men…now
please.’
Upon
realising Joan understood them, Lizi began firing questions at Joan. ‘What were
you doing in the solarforest? Are you a bon of Rinehart’s citadel? You certainly
have the manners of one. And what is this skin?’
Joan
and the old woman raised their hands together, Lizi fell quiet.
Looking
beyond Lizitsky, Joan notices people quietly shuffling past outside the room,
attentive to various devices, some handheld, that Joan has never seen before. A
light begins blinking on a wall inside the room.
Drawing
Joan’s attention away from the blinking light, Lizi dropped the wires and
cables from the floor onto the bed, huffed, and whipped a small vial from her
hip pocket followed by a needle. Within a second, Joan had knocked it from her
hand to the floor.
‘Take
me to my men now please,’ repeated
Joan sternly.
~
‘Stop
where you are!’
A
stranger’s voice broke through foliage somewhere behind them.
‘No
way,’ gasped young Prahla as she immediately hastened her bounding through the
leafy forest. Her young friend Jade followed swiftly, tumbling as Prahla did, down
a bank. Together, they clambered along an animal track beneath dense trees and
bushes. Dawn light was making it easier for them to hasten through the forest
away from the walls of Asher, slowly crumbling after earth tremors in the
night.
‘Stop
before you hurt yourselves!’ called another voice.
Jade
followed Prahla out of the scrub onto a stony creek bed, they began to run
along it through the shallow water when they realised they could hear a
collection of voices. Prahla halted at a bend to realise many people were
crossing the creek, old and young, children, women and men in various elaborate
dress the likes of which Jade and Prahla had never seen before. So taken aback
by the large convoy of colourfully adorned people quietly snaking through the
forest they almost forgot to hide themselves. They bobbed down in shrubs by the
side of the creek, wonderstruck.
‘Who
are they and why are they headed for the city?’ asked Jade.
‘Children,
peace! We are not Armin. Are you gebars?’ said a woman with short gold hair
tied back tightly as she appeared in the creek behind them followed shortly by
a bald man wearing a head wrap and hefty boots.
Jumping
to their feet, Jade was about to speak but Prahla motioned not to say anything.
‘We
are exiles and deserters of Asher,’ said the man. ‘My name is Mica, and this is
Edy.’
Seeing
Jade and Prahla both wore backpacks, the woman asked carefully, ‘Are you
deserters too?’
Prahla
eyed Edy and Mica fiercely for a long time without answering.
‘Share
with us, why are you running away?’ asked Edy gently.
Prahla
liked the single long feather earing Edy with short gold hair was wearing.
‘If
you’re deserters, why are you heading towards
the city,’ asked Prahla boldly.
~
Lizitsky
looked from the needle and vial on the floor to Joan.
‘Well
I never,’ began Lizitsky. ‘No vitamin D for you then.’
‘Calm
down, she’s worried you gunna hurt her,’ smiled Matahari the elderly woman.
Lizi
composed herself, awkwardly, as Joan now stood so close.
Strong
light was casting into the small room and upon Joan’s shoulder and face from
the doorway behind Lizitsky.
‘What
is this…Sigel?’ asked Lizi, squinting at Joan’s shoulder.
Joan
glanced the faint marking of rank bestowed by the late Poltauramy, an
impression in the fabric of her shoulder. It was hardly as conspicuous as the
colours of an Aleksi like Leed. It meant little to Joan, it was merely formal
decoration.
Joan
scowled, she was getting impatient with the situation but something about the
elderly woman in the room was influencing her to act unusually civil,
preventing her from bolting out the doorway.
Realising
Joan wasn’t about to proffer an answer about her suit, Lizi recomposed herself
to say, ‘I’m going to need for you to sit down for me okay?’
Joan
frowned at Lizi indignantly.
‘Just
here. Can you do that for me?’ pressed Lizi in a cheery manner, moving and
patting the end of the bed as she simultaneously grabbed a bulky device
attached to the bed via a cord and pressed a large button which made the bed
start lowering itself.
Joan
shot the elderly woman a look, the elderly woman nodded gently.
Joan
sat down on the lowered bed end, slowly, still frowning.
‘Excellent,’
clapped Lizi as she drew a pipette from her bulging hip satchel and retrieved a
glass of water from a shelf beside the bed head that Joan hadn’t noticed.
‘Now,
I’m just going to ask you a few questions.’
Joan
hesitantly took the glass of water and pipette before Lizi spun around and put
her hands into one of many hollow niches that were carved in a vertical row
within the stone wall beside the doorway. Lizi pulled out a square sheet of
metal before grabbing a small palm sized device from another niche.
Joan’s
bewilderment must have been plain to see.
‘After
each question, you drop three drops of water onto the sheet,’ explained the
elder woman who hadn’t moved from her chair in the corner.
‘What
ah…I’m sorry, and why are…why’s she here?’ Joan asked Lizitski.
‘She’s
your guanatari, your healot.’
‘Guana?’
‘Tari
– that’s a respectful term for an elder woman around here. And she’s the healot
who was designated to you when you arrived.’
‘Healot
as in healer? I don’t need any healing… I’m sorry, you do realise I was totally
knocked out and just woke up here. I don’t know where the hell I am, where my
men are, or what is going on…why should I do anything you ask of me? Why should
I trust you?!’ asks Joan waving the pipette and spilling water onto the floor
from the glass.
‘You’re
probably feeling over anxious from the medication wearing off,’ cooed Lizi as
she dragged a table on wheels noisily across the stone floor to hover over
Joan’s lap.
Lizi
made Joan place the water onto the table.
‘Now.
Three drops for each question okay,’ began Lizi. ‘First, I want you to remember
your life in Asher.’
‘I
never-’ Joan stopped short.
‘Three
drops,’ prompted Lizi.
Joan
obliged without speaking. They really
think I’m a bon from Asher?
Lizitsky
waved the palm sized device over the water droplets as it emitted flashes of
light. She presses some buttons and glances the screen. Something catches her
attention, she stares.
‘What?’
said Joan feeling like she was in the middle of a practical joke.
Lizitski
stared at Joan’s face as if for the first time seeing her. Taking the device
with her, Lizi turned and left the room saying to the guanatari, ‘mind her till
I get back.’
Joan
turned her attention from the corridor outside the room bustling with people
walking to and fro, to regard the guanatari who merely smiled peaceably at her.
‘Hi
there,’ said Joan carefully.
The
guanatari smiled, ‘How are you dear?’
‘Good,’
Joan replied politely. She grabbed the glass of water, sculled it as she drove
the table away and stood up. As she shifted her weight from one foot to the
other, Joan felt surprised and puzzled. She extended and flexed her leg, turning
it at the ankle; a persistent ache had vanished.
‘Do
you know where my companions are?’ asked Joan.
‘No.
But do you want to leave and find them now?’ asked the guanatari.
‘Yes,’
said Joan.
‘Well
then…’
‘Okay,’
said Joan slowly. ‘I’ll just…’ Joan started walking towards the doorway slowly,
the guanatari didn’t move. ‘Be leaving now then,’ finished Joan as she slipped
out of the room.
Entering
the brightly lit tunnel-corridor Joan sees bulky and awkward looking metal and
timber contraptions sitting on the ground and stacked into crevices hewn into
the stone walls.
Joan
wonders how deep underground she is as she brushes a wall with her hand,
dragging her fingertips across its rough surface. There are people attached to
many devices, some carrying them as they walk. People bustle down the corridor
with notebooks and many have small satchels of devices like Lizitski. Passing
many doorways and seeing people caring for others, Joan quickly realises she is
inside some sort of antiquated hospital. A table-bed carrying a person with
white lesions on their skin is wheeled past her on the surprisingly smooth
floor as she walks down the corridor looking for signs.
Joan
regards the walls along the corridor covered with carvings and paintings of crystalline
formations, iceflakes?
She
pauses in the doorway of a room to watch a fantastically elaborate machine
slowly rotating around some body.
Where am I? Am I underground in the
Dana Pinnacles Region? Who are these people, how did they get here, how many of
them are here!?
In
her peripheral vision, Joan noticed a stationary figure in the flow of people
passing through the corridor. She turned to scan the corridor and check who was
watching her. She saw Lizitisky standing behind a familiar face.
‘Hey
you!’ exclaimed Joan as Lizi turned away and left. The lad named Fender, around
fourteen human years old in appearance, held himself fast as Joan strode easily
through the flow of people and up to him as if he were about to run away. Once
close, Joan shrank her voice to whisper quite loudly with disbelief, ‘you’re the
bloody Asher kid!’
Joan
grabbed Fender by the shoulder and forcibly steered him from the busy corridor into
the closest room. ‘What the hell are you doing here!? Where are we… am I in
Asher?’
‘Min
Thurman,’ said the young man calmly, ‘it was by order of Mar Poltauramy
Palamaedes that I accompany you.’
‘Polt? To where!?’ said Joan, straining
to keep her voice quiet.
‘To
what, more appropriately,’ said
Fender.
‘I’m
sorry but you can’t stand there while this is running,’ interrupted a voice
somewhere in the room. A short man with beady eyes popped his head around the
corner of another enormous machine rotating around a body and flipped his face
mask up.
‘Oh
sorry, I do apologise Mister Fender,’ said the attendant.
‘No
we are sorry, we were just leaving,’ replied Fender with an air of propriety
that made Joan regard him curiously. A tilt of his head had Joan stepping out
of the room and into the corridor again without another word. Joan allowed
herself to be led by Fender along the patient filled tunnels of the hospital.
‘Poltauramy
put you here…’ mumbled Joan, mostly to herself as the questions in her head began
mounting. To get me to do what?
‘Guana
Matahari,’ said Fender. Joan realised they had wandered back to the room from
which she’d come but they didn’t stop, the gaunatari followed Joan, following
Fender.
Joan
was lost in thought as they left the crowded hospital hall and entered an
enormous cavernous area with a stream running through it. The sound of lightly
running water echoed gently around them in the humid air. Joan marvelled at the
rock formations lit by glowing lights as they followed a wide path upstream.
‘Where
are my men?’ said Joan finally.
‘They
are returning to Netech with your body. You will be here for a long time. A few
years.’ Joan’s heart sank. Remy…I would
of said more if I knew we wouldn’t see each other again for so long.
‘This
is your new post from where you will have…well ah, very limited communications.’
‘Just
how limited?’ pressed Joan, still thinking about Remy.
A
woman with dark coiled hair appeared, it bounced as she jumped up from her seat
on a rock and put down the steaming watery soup she had been sipping.
She
dusted her hands and wiped them on the sides of her clothes as if they were
dirty but Joan could see she was quite clean. She looked at Joan and smiled
expectantly, glancing at Fender occasionally. ‘Is this…?’
‘Yes,’
said Fender.
‘I’m
Remi,’ smiled the woman even more broadly as she proffered her hand to Joan.
Feeling
a little dizzy, Joan shook Remi’s hand.
Remi
turned and began twisting different levers on a great doorway of warped metal
and timber looming before them. The sight of the door made the cavernous area
suddenly seem a little smaller.
‘I’m
thirsty,’ said Joan plainly.
‘Oh
you can have some of my soup,’ said Remi to Joan’s surprise as she struggled
momentarily to pull down a metal latch. ‘Help yourself,’ said Remi, pointing to
the soup with pouted lips as she pulled a small vial from a pocket in the folds
of her clothing and, returning to the door, sprayed something on the hinge.
Joan
glanced the bowl of water, noted ripples across its surface and swallowed
saying, ‘It’s okay.’
‘Before
I forget,’ said Fender reaching into his own coat pocket and pulling out a
small rectangle finger of ebony. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
Joan
regarded it suspiciously. ‘It’s a key,’ she said flatly.
‘There
we go,’ smiled Remi as the latch gave way. She stepped back and pulled on a
large handle to draw the door open. Fender stepped forward to help her by
grabbing the handle on the opposite side. Guana Matahari stood by surveying the
whole scene, looking up and down the cavernous walkway area, void of others.
As
Remi and Fender dragged the doors aside, scraping earth and dust from the stone
floor where it passed, Joan gazed into the appearing darkness.
To
Remi and Fender’s astonishment, as they were still opening the door Joan
automatically began walking into the pitch black cavern.
The
sound of the stream flowing outside began to dissolve into the sound of silence
as Joan pressed further into the darkness, her footsteps quickening.
As
Joan disappeared, Matahari calmly entered quickly followed by Remi and Fender.
Matahari
silently pushed her palms together before parting them and a blue orb of light
appeared between them. She motioned her hands upwards and the orb drifted
upwards. Remi and Fender could see that Joan had come to a standstill at a
stone edge.
Matahari’s
orb lit a great chandelier suspended high in the cavern’s ceiling. It lit up
with a million tiny moving lights as if a swarm of blue fireflies had been
awoken and cast a cool light throughout the silent humid cavern of few columns.
It was revealed that Joan was standing on the edge of a very small lake of
water, and in the middle of the lake was a small island with an oddly shaped,
dark monolith set upon it.
‘That’s
what Poltauramy wanted me to bring you to?’ said Fender quietly, making Joan
realise he had not been in here before.
Joan
looks down at the dark water.
Remi
is no longer smiling, she looks a little afraid and bewildered.
Joan
begins to lower herself towards the water.
‘Wait!’
said Remi.
‘No,
it’s okay,’ said Joan as she slipped her feet into the water, unable to feel
anything because of her protective no’skin.
As
the water stirred, it began to light up with little creatures, microscopic
organisms and tiny fish; the more she moved the brighter the water became. As
the fish themselves moved and darted about, they disturbed others, causing a
chain reaction wherein all the water in the small lake was beginning to slowly
light up. Colourful coral with brachial arms, wavy fans, spongy round orbs and the
gently undulating fine hair of grasses began to appear surrounded by varying
sizes of eyeless fish with black dots and stripes, glinting and sparkling sapphire,
ruby pink, emerald, gold and amethyst.
Joan
beamed with joy as she moved carefully in the shallow water up to her chest
with the fish, between the coral trees and towards the monolith. Soon she was
at the edge of the island and climbing its steps; the light in the water setting
the chamber aglow around her.
Joan
stepped up to the large monolith and touched its surface, it was soft. As its
surface moved under the weight of her palms with a gentle push, she realised
she was touching a blanket made of felt. She carefully began to drag the
blanket towards herself, across the surface of the object beneath, bundling its
folds onto the ground.
As
Remi, Fender and Matahari watched from the other side of the water, Joan
removed the blanket to reveal a piano, made of olivewood and inlaid with
turquoise.
Drawing
the seat out from underneath, Joan sits down and dares to lightly brush the
white keys.
‘What
is it?’ said Remi.
‘A
piano,’ wondered Fender.
‘Can
you play?’ asked Matahari.
Joan
slowly shook her head as she stared, no longer seeing the keys in front of her.
‘I
can’t do this,’ whispered Joan to herself, but they all heard.
‘I
don’t understand,’ said Fender. ‘How are you to communicate with Netech, with
the Aleksi or fammunity with this?’
‘What?’
said Joan, roused from thought.
‘Well,
as soon as you touch base with them they’ll know immediately. You only get one
shot to send a message through.’
‘No,
it can’t be,’ said Joan.
‘Yes,’
insisted Fender. ‘Contact from outside will be sensed, identified and traced
instantaneously. You won’t have an ongoing feed with anyone. Our position here
will be immediately compromised, I guess that’s why we’re here so early to set
up for that.’
Years,
thought Joan unhappily as Remy crossed her mind again.
‘How
can she possibly communicate anything…in an instant?’ said Remi.
‘Play,’
said Matahari.
‘Not
now,’ said Joan, retracting her fingers.
‘Min
Thurman,’ said Fender.
‘Boy,’ hissed Joan. ‘Not today.’
Joan
stood up abruptly, pushing the chair backwards; it nearly tumbled over the edge
behind her into the brilliant water which had begun to still and dim. She
caught the seat, and herself.
‘I’m
sorry,’ apologised Joan as she placed the seat back under the piano and began
to retrieve the felt blanket, appreciating being able to hug its weight against
her body momentarily.
Remi
and Fender looked at one another.
Guana
Matahari intently continued quietly focusing on Joan.
Joan
paused before the piano.
~
Prahla
glared fiercely at Edy and Mica as she reached for Jade’s hand and continued calculating
which way to run. With the crowd at their back along the path downstream and
Edy and Mica in front of them, there was little choice. They might be caught
trying to cut their way through rough forest, but they might also make it
through if they allowed themselves to be cut upon it.
‘Let
them pass,’ said Mica as he began to move slowly sideways, motioning to Edy to
copy.
Prahla
and Jade stood tensely as they moved aside.
~
