The Gift - II
“You people think far too highly of yourselves if you believe you should live forever.”
Over the following days, Tyritha allowed the dentist to go forward with their plan for altering her smile. The facial surgery was another story, though. Tyritha voiced her formal objection to the procedure on her chin, beginning with Shaimi, whom she perceived to be her strongest advocate. Then she followed up with the doctor herself, who’d been ambivalent from the start on that marginally prominent chin of Tyritha’s.
Tyritha also started to wonder as information about the colony began to unfold in her mind, courtesy of the neural implant. She had no knowledge, though, about ships, contact with outposts nearby, their location in relation to the Lettered Systems or the Inner Battery, and even more, what colonies these people traded with. It seemed odd to her, but to ask about it would draw attention to the fact she was interested in such things, and then they would ask her why. Her job was to straighten her smile, look pretty, prepare herself for the ritual, learn the culture, and get to know Erron.
They’d had that one slightly honest conversation at the start of that first meal together, and it hadn’t been the same since. He was enamored of her enough to be patient as the days passed. That much was clear, but it was also clear to Tyritha that he was prodding her each time they spoke, and she still didn’t trust him enough to fully let down her guard.
The novelty of the setting was wearing off. Heinan was no fairy tale. There were no princes and princesses there, no palaces. They were hard-working folk out in Ceronka. Colonists. Tyritha’s people understood gear and labor, moisture recyclers, CO² scrubbers, algae tanks, generators, drone maintenance and bot repair. Wearing fancy gowns and pretending to be royalty for a few days while she plotted her escape was interesting, but it became frightening whenever she allowed her mind to drift to the possibility that she might not ever get home.
The one place that didn’t seem any less beautiful to Tyritha was the duck pond at the rear corner of the Arnur palace grounds. They didn’t have animals in her community in Ceronka, so apart from pictures and images in VR, Tyritha had never even seen an animal before that wasn’t a human. And she loved the ducks.
Naomi did her best to hide the fact she thought it was funny her mistress kept dragging them back to the duck pond. She and the toddlers in the palace had a similar innocent wonder in their eyes as they beheld the creatures and fed them bread crumbs. And so far, a walk to the water hadn’t failed to elicit a smile from her mistress yet.
Tyritha and Naomi were taking turns reading to each other from the works of Achistra, the famous chronicler of great figures of early Charran history. Tyritha found the tone of the narrative odd. She’d never read Achistra before but she wondered whether the work had been altered to suit the sensibilities of the noble immortals and their extended servant class. She didn’t say as much to Naomi, as she didn’t know for sure, but she found the book littered with “virtues” that weren’t virtues by her reckoning.
Dreima, Sirrah, and Erron approached them as they were seated on the grass. Dreima had become a regular visitor, but Sirrah, the quiet sister, was beginning to take more of an interest in Tyritha. The Dodonna siblings had been looking for Tyritha to invite her to an impromptu siblings’ dinner.
As they were speaking, Dreima casually remarked to Tyritha, “Then tonight, you’re going to just love your dinner, dear,” as Tyritha was explaining how she’d grown up in a colony without animals. It was supposed to be a joke, but Tyritha also understood there to be some truth in it as well.
“The ducks?” she asked. “You eat them?”
“She has a gentle heart, brother,” Sirrah said. “She doesn’t know.”
“Only on special occasions,” Dreima replied. “We were going to share them with you, as a welcome.”
“It’s a gesture from my sisters,” Erron explained.
Tyritha looked equal parts heartbroken and horrified.
“Oh, look at the sweet thing. I think she’s going to cry,” Sirrah added.
“I couldn’t eat those beautiful creatures,” Tyritha replied, genuinely on the verge of tears. “I don’t mean any offense of course. I’m touched by your generosity.”
“We’ll have to change the menu, brother. You wouldn’t object to eating their eggs, would you?” Sirrah asked.
Tyritha explained that she had no objection to eating duck eggs after a long conversation about how the duck population was carefully managed and that they only ate surplus eggs they didn’t intend to hatch.
After the Dodonna siblings left, Naomi did her best to assure Tyritha that she hadn’t given offense, but she hadn’t overheard the conversation, nor did she understand why Tyritha objected to eating the animals. She told Naomi that it was more a quirk of personality than culture. Her servant still didn’t know where her mysterious new mistress with her quirky ways had come from. She’d begun to think, privately, that Mistress Tyritha was just unique.
The dinner featured five courses, anchored by a delectable duck egg frittata and concluded with a chocolate soufflé that Tyritha found delicious but somehow strange-tasting. There was something about the moment as the dessert was presented—the way the siblings all looked at each other expectantly. In the moment, Tyritha thought it was an inside joke she wasn’t privy to. As one of the middle children in her family, being left out of her older siblings’ jokes was a familiar feeling for Tyritha. It wasn’t until the Dodonna siblings walked her to her room after the meal that she began to feel the effects of it. At first, she thought it was the wine, but she’d had wine with meals several times since her arrival. This felt different.
Erron took her arm as they walked. By the time they got to her door, Tyritha was barely capable of standing, but she wasn’t so loopy that she didn’t understand what was going on. She had a sense of it. She didn’t know what Erron had in mind for her, but she protested when he tried to take her inside. She could tell he had some objective.
“Under no circumstances will you be joining me in my room, Erron Aireum,” she managed to say without slurring too obviously. Still, Dreima and Sirrah laughed at her.
“She thinks the worst of you, little brother,” Sirrah stated. “It doesn’t bode well for your marriage.”
“He is not yet my husband,” Tyritha replied emphatically.
“How provincial,” Dreima laughed.
“You can mock me all you like, but I will not be moved on this. Where is Naomi? Only she may come in with me.”
Tyritha turned and extended her hand toward the retinue of servants who were trailing the siblings at the appropriate distance. Naomi scuttled over to the door and took Tyritha by the elbow. She didn’t manage to close the door before Erron had put his foot in it.
“I said no,” Tyritha insisted.
“We’re going to have a conversation, Tyritha. We haven’t had a proper conversation yet, not about anything that matters.”
Tyritha stopped walking. She’d only made it a few steps inside.
“Naomi may stay if you need a chaperone.”
“I cannot speak ...”
Tyritha didn’t finish the statement for fear of offending her servant. She tried to form several sentences that skated around the issue. She knew that she couldn’t speak truth in front of Naomi, but each time she tried to formulate a response that was even slightly untruthful, she found her tongue tied.
“You’ve done something to me somehow,” she declared.
Her arms and legs started to get extremely heavy. She found she lacked the vigor to resist what began to unfold.
Naomi prepared her mistress for bed while Erron waited in the antechamber. Before she knew it, Tyritha was lying in bed, almost paralyzed, and then, as Naomi drifted away from the bed, Erron pulled over a chair and sat across from her. She wasn’t tired enough to drift off to sleep but she couldn’t cry out. She couldn’t place Naomi but she wondered whether her servant would come if she did manage to shout. Erron must have read the look in her eyes.
“She’s just over here,” Erron stated, tugging on Tyritha’s wrist.
She was able to follow that gesture, her eyes tracking just over her own hand to make out the figure of her servant seated on the couch at the side wall.
“She has her earset on, so Naomi won’t hear a thing,” Erron explained. “But she will be with us the entire time. Nothing inappropriate will happen, if that’s your fear.”
“You’ve already drugged me,” Tyritha replied. “If that’s not inappropriate ...”
“If we’re going to be married, we need to have an honest discussion.”
“So you drugged me?”
“It was more of a group effort. Mostly it was Dreima and the doctor’s idea.”
“So you’re absolved then conveniently. Just as you were in my abduction. You have quite the knack for keeping your hands clean, Erron Aireum.”
“See. That tone of yours. I wouldn’t have known that was under there, the way you smile quietly and nod along. That certainly wasn’t there when we had dinner together. I need to know about you. Immortality is a long time to share with someone.”
“You’d like to know if I’m compatible? Is that what this is about?”
“That’s correct.”
“You could’ve asked. You didn’t need to drug me?”
“Didn’t I? You haven’t been honest with me since our first dinner together. Everything since then has been one barrier after another. I have no desire to spend the rest of my days with the façade you put up to hide your true self behind.”
“You wouldn’t like my true self.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide your true self on my account, Tyritha.”
“Believe me, I don’t do it on your account.”
“Then why are you hiding your true thoughts and intentions?”
“Because I’m plotting my escape from this ridiculous place you and your siblings have brought me to.” Tyritha gasped after she’d outed herself, looking over at Erron confused at how glibly she’d betrayed her own interests. “Why did I say that?”
“Because I asked.”
“Is that what you’ve drugged me with? Some sort of truth serum?”
“The doctor said it’s something along those lines. It was Dreima’s idea. She never intended for you to be religious, but the people she contracted apparently didn’t know there was a contingent of religious Purists on Heinan. They were just looking for someone who fit the profile from a place obscure enough not to attract too much attention. But now that you’re here, we have to know if you’ll be compatible in our culture. As I said, immortality is a long time.”
“We are not compatible, our cultures. This, for one, among my people would be a crime. Who do you think you are to drug me up like this and probe me with questions I have no choice but to answer?”
“So you were just pretending to like me? For what purpose?”
“I do like you, Erron. On that front, I don’t have to pretend.”
“Yet you plot your escape? Why?”
“I object to everything else but you. You take me from my family? Threaten to turn me immortal, as though that were some type of religious rite and not the deepest sin against God and the natural order of things? And everyone around here behaves as though I should be grateful for the privilege. You people think far too highly of yourselves if you believe you should live forever.”
“You’d prefer to die than to stay here with us?”
“You don’t understand at all. The entirety of your culture is an affront to everything I believe. It’s not about what I would prefer. The things you offer are not choices. They are sins against God. You ask if I would prefer life to death, the answer of course is yes, but what you don’t understand is that it’s not a choice for me to make. That is a choice for God and no one else, a choice that has already been made long before you and I were born, and it’s not for me to second-guess. Nor anyone else for that matter.”
“So you must not think much of us, do you Tyritha?”
“It’s a complicated answer. The truth is that I see some beauty in the society you’re ordering for yourselves, but I see tremendous arrogance and disregard for all the people who don’t make it inside your walls—your servants, your cooks, your gardeners. I think you could learn to be a decent person, Erron. But no one has shown you the way.”
“I see.”
“These were not the answers you were hoping to hear.”
Erron sighed, and as she looked over at his face, Tyritha could see the disappointment in it.
“It complicates matters.”
“That is why I’ve been quiet. I know the way your people have treated me will change once it becomes known I can’t be yours, Erron Aireum. I don’t know what you’ll do with me, but I’d like to go home. That would be best for me.”
“I’ll have to think on it, Tyritha. Now you understand why I had to know. At least now we can be honest with each other. I hope that you’ll choose to continue to be truthful with me when I see you again.”
“You’ve left me no choice now but to trust you to do right by me.”
“I’ll do whatever I can. As I said, though, this complicates matters. I’ll have to ask Dreima—”
“Don’t. Please don’t. I’m not sure you have a sense of the people your siblings are.”
“They wouldn’t ever hurt you, Tyritha.”
“I very much doubt that, Erron, but even if it were true, they wouldn’t help me either, not after they hear what I’ve told you tonight. If I’m to get home, I’ll need your help. You need to do it. And it will need to be our secret.”
She could see in his silence that the task was no small thing. When she’d first arrived, Tyritha had hoped that there was an established port, ships coming and going, regular trade with neighboring colonies. But the longer she’d been there, the signs of isolation had appeared. It made sense as well, the rejection of the most important norms, the stratified society of royal immortals. These were not secrets easily kept. They were insular people. She could see in Erron’s expression the weight of the task. Returning Dreima’s gift to her rightful place would be no small undertaking. And as she observed him, she began to wonder if he even wanted to help her.
“We’ll talk further,” he said as he got up. “Tyritha, I’m sorry.”
The tone of the apology concerned her. She couldn’t tell what he was apologizing for, and she hoped as she lay there, her head both oddly clear and strangely corrupted by the drug, that the apology was for the sins already committed against her personal sovereignty. But as he left, she suddenly feared that Erron Aireum Dodonna might be apologizing for the sins to come. She realized suddenly that Erron may not have been the man she wanted him to be.
Tyritha’s day the following morning began with a sudden, loud intrusion. Shaimi entered her room, shocked to find the door unattended and Naomi asleep inside on the couch. And when Tyritha, half-awake and her head still groggy, defended Naomi staunchly, insisting the error was hers and not the girl’s, Shaimi scolded her nearly as harshly as Naomi, stating clearly, “That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble here, dear.” Tyritha nodded as she sat up properly. That was true, she decided. If she wasn’t careful, Erron wasn’t the one who would be her undoing here. Tyritha remembered the delicate game she was playing, pretending to be the consort of an immortal. The people who’d snatched her without a second thought probably wouldn’t take it lightly when she spurned the honors they sought to bestow on her, or at least that’s how she figured they’d see it.
Luckily, as Shaimi was there, Erron appeared at her door. His aunt refused to allow Erron to see his betrothed until she was ready, but Shaimi instructed him to return after breakfast. The morning Shaimi had planned for her young pupil would have to wait. There were duties and performances that went along with the rites, and Shaimi had been preparing Tyritha for her part in them. Shaimi left Tyritha with Naomi and promised to return in the afternoon.
Tyritha had a quiet breakfast alone with her thoughts. Everything depended on Erron. To the extent she could remember the conversation with her cloudy head, Tyritha went over it again and again. She didn’t sense that he’d taken it personally. It wasn’t about him. She thought she’d made that clear. She was nervous, though. Erron was either coming to save her or expose her that day, and what might happen after that Tyritha could only begin to guess.
When he arrived, Naomi resumed her position on the couch and was about to put on the earset so she couldn’t overhear their conversation.
“We’ll be out,” Erron told her. “We’re going to sit in the garden, so as soon as we depart, you’ll be excused, Naomi.”
Tyritha looked at him, trying to gauge the nature of his intentions.
“Will you speak honestly with me now?” he whispered to her.
“What do I have to lose at this point?” She whispered back.
“I’ll wait for you outside then,” Erron said as he got up, leaving Tyritha at the table.
When she emerged a few minutes later, they walked slowly toward the garden. Erron coaxed her to smile and behave as though nothing had changed. She took it as a sign he intended to help. He told her he knew a place where they could talk safely. Erron escorted her down a pathway toward a grove on the far side of the pond. They sat on a blanket Erron had in a satchel. He warned Tyritha to keep her voice low.
“Voices carry over the water,” he said, demonstrating the tone he was asking her to mimic. “But there is no surveillance. Here and the individual chambers in the archon’s palace are the only places in the cylinder that aren’t monitored somehow.”
“Were we overheard last night?” Tyritha asked him.
“No. Your room is in the guest wing of the archon’s house. I thought it would be less suspicious if we were seen together out here.”
“I guess that means you haven’t told anyone.”
“I told Dreima that everything’s fine, that you were just nervous about everything, adjusting. I wouldn’t know what to say if I told her the truth. I’m not sure she’d understand it. I’m not sure I understand it. But I’ve been thinking all night, Tyritha. I haven’t slept.”
“Okay. Good, actually.”
“Good? How do you mean that?”
“I suppose it means that at the very least you care enough for it to trouble you. I don’t get the sense that your siblings do. Shaimi cares, but I think that’s more for the formality of things than for me. She seems to be happy as long as I’m trying to learn.”
“First, Tyritha. I’m very sorry. I think this was all Dreima’s idea. She was worried I’d end up with Kira or someone like her if the process went through normally.”
“I heard. One of your cousins?”
“Distant cousin. That’s how most of these arranged pairings go. But I had no idea Dreima was going to do this, and I’m genuinely sorry for disrupting your life like that. I was up all night, trying to imagine what your life must have been like, and then to wake up here? I feel awful.”
Tyritha didn’t react how he’d expected. For Erron, he felt as though it was a major concession, even a baring of his innermost feelings to say as much. For her to stare back at him blankly was frustrating, if not an outright insult.
“You have nothing to say? Hiding behind that façade of yours again?”
“I have been trying to see it from your perspective, Erron, and even as much as I’ve learned living among your people these past few weeks, I can’t say I can imagine how self-centered you’d have to be to have to stretch your mind to imagine the damage you’ve caused me.”
“Well, then explain it to me,” he demanded. “Because from our perspective, we have offered you everything—the greatest opportunity our society can offer is here for you to take, and you reject it outright as though it is nothing. And it is not nothing. I can assure you Dreima and Krishna will hear about it for a thousand years if you reject me.”
“It’s not you, Erron. You’re the only part of this whole ordeal I’d miss. I can tell that you’re redeemable. You have a lot to learn, though. But I’ve witnessed a callousness in your family that I can’t characterize as anything but shocking, and I can tell you’re as blind to it as one born without eyes might be to color. But you have eyes. You could be made to see.”
“How then? What would you have me see that I haven’t seen and apologized for, Tyritha?”
“For a start, you could stop apologizing to me. Dreima has caused the damage. It’s for her to atone, and she won’t, so you can’t account for a debt that’s not yours. But you’re looking for the wound to fix, as though if you made me content with the situation here it would somehow be all right. What you don’t understand—and I find it absolutely baffling—is that not a single one of you has even thought to mention my family. I have no idea what Dreima’s people communicated to them, if anything. And frankly, there’s nothing they could say. I know in the deepest part of me that my mother and father have been sick for weeks now, Erron. The thought of their not knowing where I am all this time—whether I’m dead, lost, in danger, abducted by some sicko—that wounds my heart. What they know for sure is that I’d never do that to them. So all they know is that I’ve been taken from them. That is the deepest wound in my heart. And for me, yes, I miss them, and I miss my brothers and sisters and all my friends on Heinan. You people may not think much of our lives there, but I had one. So you can give me all the servants and palaces and fine meals and fancy dresses in the universe, and that’s what I’ll be thinking about. The only thing that can fix it is to return me to where I belong. That’s what I pray for each waking moment.”
Tyritha looked over at Erron, and it did seem as though he’d taken in the enormity of the crime he and his siblings had committed against Tyritha and her family. But she could sense there was something deeper troubling him.
“I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I vow to you, Tyritha I will set this right. I’m not going to lie to you, though. I think we should resolve to be honest with each other from now on—completely honest.”
“You already know everything I was trying to hide from you, Erron.”
“It’s worse than you think,” Erron said, placing his clasped hands against his lips as he contemplated how he could explain. “This place may be strange for you, but it’s more different than you think, and we’re very far from your home. It won’t be easy to send you back.”
“I would like to know everything, Erron. I have been observing as much as I can from the limited view I have in the house.”
He shook his head. “What you’ve told me breaks my heart, Tyritha. When I told you I’d been up all night, it was true. But all I could think about was how to make things right, because I wanted to win your heart. All I’ve been thinking about for the past week was that first dinner, those first few minutes when you gave me a glance at you—the real you. And I wanted more than anything to get to know that person. But now I see I can never be with her. I’m going to do everything now to make certain I’m not the one who ruins her life.”
Tyritha reached over and took his hand, squeezing it.
“I’m grateful it’s you, Erron Aireum, and not one of your callous siblings. My hope was that I could trust you to help me, and I’m grateful I can. It’s not that I couldn’t love you. I feel that I can. I just can’t be here, and I can’t be immortal. I will not be in defiance of God. Not for you or anyone else.”
“You need to know,” he replied, looking Tyritha in the eyes.
“What do I need to know?”
“The reason you don’t remember getting here is that it was a long voyage. We are far from the Battery. So when you were taken, you were put into stasis. You’ve been gone for almost fourteen months now, Tyritha. I have no idea whether Dreima’s people had any interaction with your family, but I suspect they didn’t leave any trace of you nor any indication you were safe. We have very little contact with outside civilizations. Almost no one knows we exist. I imagine you can guess why. Athos, Hellenia, your Protectorate—none of them have much tolerance for genetic manipulation or the type of longevity that is critical to the culture our archons have built here. It won’t be as simple as asking for you to be let go. Very few ships bridge that distance, and they do so infrequently. That’s why Dreima was so proud of herself for bringing you here. She thought it would be a perfect gift for my apotheosis to find me a unique consort, that it might one day make me an archon. She didn’t consider the consequences for you. But I’m going to do everything I can. We’re going to figure out how to get you back home.”
“I’ll do everything to help you, Erron. I hope you’re beginning to understand that this is not a rejection of you. I’ve never met anyone like you before. If the situation were different ...”
There was the faintest hint of a muted smile on his face. But he seemed sad and troubled, both emotions she’d never witnessed in any of these Dodonna siblings.
“I’m going to begin today,” he replied. “I’m not sure how to start, but I think we should plan on meeting regularly. I’ll tell you what I know now, and then I need to take a trip to Arionidis. I think I’ll be able to find out more when I get there.”
They sat for nearly an hour longer at the far end of the pond, quietly engaged in private conversation. From the path on the palace side of the water, to the onlookers who happened by, Erron and his betrothed appeared to be deeply engaged in conversation—the type of serious conversations two people should have in the weeks leading up to a union of such consequence. They seemed serious and comfortable together, though hardly warm, but they looked excellently matched, her light beauty and steely eyes, his outward strength and pleasing complexion, the easy smile. They seemed a natural match.
The observers couldn’t have imagined the nature of the conversation. Erron told her everything he knew about his own culture. ΘeoTechnus, as far as he knew, was nearly eight hundred years old. That was the story they’d been told. He’d come from Athos originally but had made his fortune in space, and somewhere along the way, he’d discovered that the Purism at the root of all the societies in the Battery wasn’t simply a rejection of the pursuit of certain technologies, it was a spurning of technologies that not only had existed in the past, but still existed and were in limited use in places that were known to the governments of the major societies.
ΘeoTechnus took issue with such a secret being kept from the people. Rejecting genetech that could improve his own longevity a thousand-fold was not a decision for anyone else to make with his life. But he also realized, as he vowed to get his hands on it, that such powerful societies wouldn’t tolerate such unstable forces being introduced to places such as Athos, well-ordered as they were. He suspected, correctly, that they wouldn’t even tolerate the existence of an alternative within their field of vision. So he resolved to build elsewhere—far enough away that his society’s existence wouldn’t be evident to Athos for centuries. Once he’d recruited a loyal group of like-minded followers, he used his resources to quietly form a colony-group from several of the known remaining Charran colony ships, and they disappeared. ΘeoTechnus, though, continuously maintained a contact group that quietly kept an eye on his distant neighbors in the Battery Systems, including the Protectorate.
Erron explained that he didn’t know why Dreima had chosen Tyritha. He believed it wasn’t specific to her world or culture, and further, he suspected that if her people’s religious beliefs had been known to her abductors, Tyritha wouldn’t have been taken at all. Likely, the contact group had other business in Heinan and one of Dreima’s people had spotted her somehow, likely through a filter on some database that had decent enough facial metrics to run probability on acceptable facial symmetry and body type. He suspected that if she thought about it hard enough Tyritha could probably remember an odd encounter in which she’d interacted with her abductors—something that seemed innocuous at the time—a random interaction that wasn’t random at all. They’d probably wanted a close look to confirm what the databases told them. And once confirmed, they’d followed, picked a time and a means of extraction, and plucked her from her life. Then she’d spent the months through the long transit in stasis.
It never even occurred to Dreima or the others that Tyritha would be anything other than grateful to be rescued from her mortality or her drab provincial life on such a mundane outpost. In fact, the very same thing had been done before. Erron could name several consorts of archons who’d arrived in the same manner. He suspected Dreima and Krishna would have a lot to answer for, likely harming any small chance either of them ever had to be archons themselves. But he suspected they figured they had little to lose if Erron himself was named. Then, if the pairing went well, they would have the eternal gratitude of a new archon and a high place in his home, as well as a pathway for their children eventually. Such were the power games played over decades and centuries.
What Erron didn’t know was how to get anyone aboard ΘeoTechnus’s contact ships. He knew it was unlikely there’d be any ships returning to the Battery Systems for several months at least, and if they did, the likelihood of them returning to Heinan was assuredly small. Many questions would need to be answered before they could make any plans.
When he was done, Tyritha took him by the hand and began to speak. He didn’t know what to do. It seemed so strange to him, almost paralyzing him while he listened.
“God, our Father, protect Erron Aireum from all of the dangers to his soul, especially arrogance and vanity. Help him to be humble as he learns to walk the path of a servant. We ask this in your name. Let your will be done, oh Lord. Amen.”
Tyritha didn’t see Erron again for several days. She spent much of it with Shaimi, peppering her putative aunt-to-be with questions about the society. She claimed that better understanding the culture would help her to assimilate and serve as a better consort for Erron. This seemed to please Shaimi, who was most concerned with the order and protocol of the house and its place in the larger society. Officially, they called the string of cylinders “Alysida,” and there was a longer name in an old forgotten language Tyritha had never heard before. In their tongue, they simply called their nation “The Chain,” which ΘeoTechnus had originally called “The Broken Chain,” for the pieces of his society that had broken away from the Battery worlds.
As the weeks passed, Tyritha herself was seeing things more clearly—why Erron couldn’t see her real pain, nor the harm he’d caused her family. Neither Shaimi nor any of the other Dodonna women had carried their own children. Nor had they fully raised them in their own homes. By Shaimi’s telling, it was an effect of the genetic transformation. Thus, one of the procedures scheduled before Tyritha’s own apotheosis would be the harvesting of her ova. The downstream effect was that all offspring of this quasi-royal family were orchestrations, procedures, selections. There wasn’t any particular closeness in maternal or paternal relations here. They didn’t suffer through the pains of growing together. They didn’t feel the blessings of life as viscerally as all other humans do; thus, the loss of a child in the way Tyritha knew her parents were suffering hadn’t occurred to them. They expected to have hundreds of children over thousands of years, many of whom would migrate to other cylinders in Alysida, rarely to be seen or heard from again. The special ones, like Dreima, Krishna, Sirrah, or Erron would be with them always unless they rose to glory, becoming an archon in a new cylinder as the chain grew.
More, as Tyritha continued to observe the behavior of the Dodonnas and their servants, she saw that the rigid structure of their hierarchy was inured in them from an early age, with special status conferred upon the children of the Dodonnas from birth, the immortals’ children bearing an elite status even amongst those special few. The Archon’s children, of course, were the veritable royals of the house, who’d been taught from the earliest days of their cultural education that servants and ordinary mortals were beneath them. So as appalling as it was to Tyritha that Dreima would have ordered her abduction without a second thought for her or her family, in a way, Tyritha grew to understand that not only was there no malice in the act, she realized that Dreima perceived it closer to an act of charity than a crime. It would have been an empathic stretch of monumental proportions for her to see it any other way, likely even if Tyritha explained it to her. She considered it to his great credit that Erron was capable of understanding even that much. That he’d altered his behavior because of it and was now taking risks on her behalf was borderline miraculous, she thought. She wondered how the years might change that. Would he still have that generosity of spirit and openness to other perspectives after living out decades of perpetual youth here in this palace among his ageless siblings and immortal parents, waited on hand-and-foot by this dutiful, obedient caste of servants? As it stood, Erron could still be reached at twenty years old, still mortal, still with an uncertain future ahead of him, still growing. Tyritha had it in her heart and mind to reach him. She began to quietly pray for as much in moments when she found herself alone and unobserved. And she prayed for guidance, for she understood how little of their world she knew, and how little of her own world she knew, and she ended each prayer with the same refrain: “Let your will be done, oh Lord. Amen.”
There would be risk.
Each time she looked at Naomi, Tyritha thought about the deaths and lives of the prophets. She saw an innocent. She saw a bystander. Tyritha didn’t know her, but each time she saw Naomi, she knew that she loved her. To reveal herself to this innocent exposed her to dangers Naomi couldn’t know. Yet she wasn’t the one to place herself into Naomi’s path. No part of Tyritha’s will brought her into this girl’s life. The choice she had before her was whether to shield her from or expose her to the truth. She could remain in ignorance, sheltered in the safety of her culture; or she could see beyond Alysida, beyond the chain, beyond her station, beyond stations. As she saw it like that, Tyritha knew that to shield Naomi from the truth of her reality was no favor to the girl. It was a moral duty to reveal the truth, not to use Naomi for her own purposes but to free the girl’s mind for her sake, so that she might see her life for what it was.
That afternoon, as Tyritha was seated in the quiet comfort of her private room, reading, she felt in her heart that the time was right. She rang a bell.
Naomi appeared at the doorway. Tyritha stood as she entered.
“Oh, sit please, miss,” Naomi said.
“Please, do not speak, Naomi. Listen. I am afraid. I need to ask you something, but I’m afraid that what I ask you will only lead you where I want you to go, and I would like you to come willingly.”
“I don’t understand,” Naomi replied. “It is my duty to do as you ask, miss. To serve you as you please.”
“Tyritha. My name is Tyritha Sian Ilanova.”
“I’ve heard as much, miss.”
Tyritha approached the girl. She took her hand, and she could see the confusion in Naomi’s reaction that she’d anticipated, a shock that bordered on terror. It was almost enough to deter her from her duty. It was neither her intention nor desire to upset one of the few truly earnest people she’d met in this place. Tyritha quietly reminded herself that it was her obligation to Naomi to liberate her mind and awaken her soul. She drew the girl over to the sofa by her hand and gestured for her to sit.
“You know that I’m different?” Tyritha asked her. “That much you’ve seen.”
Naomi shook her head. “I don’t know how to answer, miss. Is this a test? I don’t wish to give offense.”
“If it is a test, Naomi, it is for me, not you. I must reveal the truth to you, even though it may be difficult for you to understand. I want you to know that you can’t possibly offend me as I’ve offended you.”
“You’ve given me no such offense, miss. I feel blessed to be in your service, for you have such a kind heart.”
Tyritha shook her head. “Not nearly so kind as you might think.” Tyritha knelt on the floor at the foot of the couch. Naomi gasped at the gesture, pulling her hand back in shock.
“I haven’t been honest about myself, Naomi. I am not who I’ve pretended to be. And just as you believe you have a duty to serve me, I believe I have a duty to serve you.”
“You’re scaring me, miss. You cannot serve me. It’s not the proper order of things.”
“I know you’re afraid, Naomi. I need you to hold that fear in your heart. And I need you to master it. I need you to understand that I am no archon, and I am no mistress. I will only ever be a servant in my heart. I cannot continue to lie to you, not about myself or about this place.”
Naomi’s hand began to shake in Tyritha’s. “I don’t know miss.”
“I’m not from this place, Naomi. I’m not from Alysida. I’m not of this place. I was brought here against my will.”
“Oh, miss. You don’t need to say.”
“I believe I do, Naomi. I don’t say it to upset you, but I need you to know. I’m from Heinan. I was brought here all the way from a part of the Battery Systems called the Trasp Protectorate. Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know this place existed.”
“Miss, that’s fine. You don’t need to say any more. I’ve known that you were different. All I want to do is serve you all the same.”
“I understand that, Naomi. But I need you to know that I cannot allow you to serve me, not in this way. Where I’m from, there are no archons or nobles or immortals or royal families. I need to apologize to you for allowing you to believe I was part of this world. I was afraid, and I didn’t know this place or its rules. And, I can’t lie, it felt good to have you helping me to feel safe and feel important.”
“I’m glad to hear that, miss.”
“Please. Call me Tyritha.”
“I can’t do that, miss. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Tyritha kissed the back of Naomi’s hand. “I beg you for your forgiveness, Naomi. I only ask that you not betray my trust to the others—Mistress Shaimi or Dreima.”
“Oh, Miss. Please. Please. Get off your knees. You don’t need to ask that of me. You don’t understand.”
Naomi pulled on Tyritha’s hand, tugging her up until she got up from her knees and was sitting beside her on the sofa. Naomi enveloped Tyritha’s hand in hers.
“I take an oath, miss, to serve you. Not Shaimi, not the house, not even the archons above this house. I serve you. I keep your confidence above all else. It is my highest duty. It is sacred to me. You never need ask for my secrecy. It has been yours from the moment I set eyes on you.”
“I was afraid to tell you,” Tyritha said, shaking her head as she exhaled. She felt tears welling up in her eyes.
Naomi reached out and embraced her. She began to whisper in Tyritha’s ear. “I’m grateful you did tell me. It wasn’t that difficult to see you weren’t who they said you were. My secret is that I see far more than I let on, Mistress Tyritha. The role is the armor I wear in this royal house. If you stick around long enough, you may yet come to witness how I wield my sword and my shield in your service.”
Tyritha squeezed her servant’s hand and in her heart vowed to serve her just as well.
By the time Erron returned to Arnur, three full days had passed. Tyritha had been visited twice by Dione, the doctor she’d been treated by from the very beginning. She was pressuring Tyritha to schedule the surgery for her chin. The sooner she had it fixed the sooner she could recover and begin the lesser rites that preceded her apotheosis. Tyritha told Dione that she felt uncomfortable scheduling anything without first consulting Erron. She was busy, this doctor. Tyritha could see it on her face. It was the case, according to Shaimi, that Dione was an immortal, but it struck Tyritha that she worked more like the people in the servant class. She’d seen the doctor more than a handful of times in the weeks since she’d arrived in Arnur, and Tyritha noted that she always seemed to be carrying some low-level exasperation in her bearing. And each time Tyritha rebuffed her attempts to schedule a procedure or appointment, it seemed to rankle the doctor personally.
Naomi, meanwhile, had become a quiet confidante. Tyritha didn’t lean heavily on that new relationship in those few days, but when she asked the type of outsider questions she’d wanted to from the beginning, Naomi gave her quick, sharp answers that a visitor to their culture could understand.
When Erron returned, he dropped by Tyritha’s room to ask her back to the garden. He didn’t state as much explicitly, but when she asked about his trip, he told her it was extremely informative, casting a glance behind Tyritha at Naomi. She smiled and told him she would see him in the garden.
That was the first thing Tyritha told Erron when she arrived, that Naomi was sharper than they’d all realized. Tyritha declared that Naomi could be trusted, at least as far as her own interests were concerned. She told Erron that he may need to earn Naomi’s trust, but she also suspected that once Naomi understood Erron was truly working to get Tyritha home, she would quickly become a confidante of his as well.
“There are others,” Erron declared confidently. “For all my life, people have warmed to me. I know of many people who would do me favors and ask no questions. It will simply be a matter of knowing what to ask for and when.”
That moment in the garden was the point when Tyritha felt that the conspiracy had truly begun. She stopped Erron then and there. She felt compelled that what they were doing was right and that they had the advantage, as no one expected her to reject immortality, and as unlikely as that outcome was, it was even more outlandish an idea that Erron would conspire in the escape of his own betrothed. Tyritha insisted on saying a quick prayer for them and for Naomi and anyone who may help them along the way in their plot. Again, his facial expression, inasmuch as she could read him correctly, seemed a bit bemused by the practice, but Erron played along sportingly and did not disparage Tyritha’s deeply-held belief that those prayers had some practical effect.
When she was finished, Erron began to reveal what he’d learned in Arionidis. He’d enlisted the help of a trusted distant relative—a great aunt, long ago of Arnur, who resided in the capitol. Erron had explained to her that Dreima had abducted an outsider to be his consort and expressed that the transition had been difficult. The ruse Erron employed was to tell her that he wished to get his bride-to-be a memento from her homeworld to help soothe her homesickness as she adjusted. The great aunt’s sister had been joined with a consort who’d been taken from his homeworld in a similar manner in the distant past, so the great aunt understood. She reassured Erron that Tyritha would adjust in time but helped him figure out exactly how the contact missions worked and who he needed to speak with to procure such a gift.
From the beginning of Alysida, when the first link in the chain, Arionidis, was first coming together, there had been four colony ships—reclamations of the ancient Charran colonial vessels. By the time of ΘeoTechnus there were only a fraction of the hundreds of behemoth Charran colony ships that had brought the thousands of ancestor emigrants from that original seed world to planets throughout the Battery Systems. Most of those ships that were preserved were kept as museums. Many, though, were simply set adrift either in high orbits of planets near target outposts or placed into interstellar space for the sake of preservation, unlikely to ever be used again. For most of the colonies, for sentimental value alone, there was no desire to scrap or repurpose the ships, even if they had no further use. ΘeoTechnus had purchased many of the colony ships that could be refurbished. According to their histories, a limited number of these repurposed colony ships were how their ancestors had made the transit from the Battery worlds, mostly from the outer systems of the Etteran Guild, the Trasp Protectorate, the outer Indies, or the Lettered Systems. And, in order to keep a close watch on the more traditional colonies of his ancestors, the high archon himself insisted that the Battery be regularly visited to collect news, certain technologies, and, on occasion, people.
These four remaining colony ships had been refitted to be as stealthy as a giant colony ship could be, and each carried at least one smaller starcraft-syle vessel, allowing them to jump close to the Battery without the colonial vessels actually appearing in proximity to any outpost that would notice them. From there, the contact groups would board the smaller ships and jump into the Battery using vessels that were registered in Hellenia, Dreeson’s System, or Port Cullen. Each member of the contact group was a registered citizen of the Battery worlds, purporting to live the lives of deep-space traders or traveling tradesmen who were gone for years at a stretch before reappearing again at another outpost. Thus, Alysida’s visiting groups didn’t seem any more suspicious to the people in the Battery than any other random ships coming and going from far-flung systems. It was doubtless one of these groups that had arranged for Tyritha’s abduction.
That was an obstacle to Tyritha’s return, according to Erron. By his logic, it was unlikely that anyone who’d participated in bringing her to Alysida could be relied upon to help return her. So he would need to figure out which contact group had taken her and then enlist the help of the next outgoing group. That was one obvious challenge, but the real difficulty, according to Erron was that the contact groups were drawn from the most loyal servants of Arionidis’s inner circle. Their commander would be an immortal in the service of one of the high archons in the direct service of ΘeoTechnus himself. It would be one thing for Erron to convince Dione, the Dodonna family’s doctor in Arnur, to place Tyritha back into stasis for the journey. That might be plausible. But for him, an unknown sepp from Arnur, to convince the most loyal of the loyalists in the capitol to betray their oaths was an entirely different matter.
Tyritha asked the two most relevant questions she could think on that front: what incentive could Erron offer them; and what their punishment would be if they were caught?
“I don’t know what I can offer them yet,” he replied. “I suppose I’ll have to find one first to see who they are and what they want. In terms of punishment, there is only one thing that matters to the mortals in Alysida: immortality. I would imagine the contact teams are well rewarded for a life of such service. They are the ones who ensure our existence remains a secret from the peoples of the Battery.”
“We’ll need to figure out something fast,” Tyritha told him. “Dione wishes to cut open my chin and place me in one of those masks. I’m running out of excuses.”
“Maybe I’ll tell her I like your chin the way it is,” Erron said.
“Will that work?”
He shrugged. “It could delay the process if it doesn’t.”
“Do you like my chin, Erron? Or will you have to lie about it?”
He smiled, looking Tyritha in the eyes and lifting her chin ever so slightly with his forefinger. “I like everything about you, Tyritha Sian.”
He leaned in toward her. She felt her heart jump. The glorious depth of his eyes suddenly so close.
“We shouldn’t,” she said. “It’ll only make it harder to say goodbye.”
He kissed her lips ever so gently. The slightest contact.
“It should be hard to say goodbye,” Erron replied.
Tyritha turned her head away, exhaled, and then took up his hand, kissing the back of it before resting her cheek against it for the slightest moment. Then she sat up straight and brought herself to her feet.
There was enough to think about without temptation. And she would think, Tyritha told herself, the second she caught her breath again.
There wasn’t an ex-contact crew member in the Arnur cylinder. But in the Hamini archive, Erron came across a former ship hand who’d been retired there under uncertain circumstances. To say the man was surprised to be visited by a rising member of the House of Arnur was an understatement. The Dodonnas weren’t particularly friendly with the Kamans, who sat in the House of Hamini, so Erron hadn’t sought an intermediary. He simply appeared in the city dressed in common clothing and attempted to blend in. That attempt was a limited success, for the eyes usually didn’t lie when it came to the immortals, and the eyes of ordinary people told them that a man so beautiful couldn’t be anything but an immortal walking amongst them.
The aging shiphand, who wanted nothing more than the quiet peace of obscurity in his final years, initially was not pleased to see a Dodonna at his door. There would be talk about it certainly. And the longer Erron stood there trying to persuade the man to let him inside so they might talk, the more Erron became aware of the misstep the visit might have been. Over either shoulder, a set of eyes was on both men, and the more that fact became apparent, the more suspiciously they both felt themselves acting, quite subconsciously of course, yet the feeling was unmistakable.
“What more do you have to lose in talking to me?” Erron finally asked the man.
At that, something in the old man’s eyes shifted. But Erron noted he didn’t quite like the look of him as the old man invited him inside his flat. And immediately, the man’s tone struck him as bitter and jaded. His name was Petr Onager, and shortly into the conversation, Erron realized that it was a conversation unlike any other he’d ever had. Erron was not in control of the situation. This was a man of the servant class who no longer saw any value in serving any interests but his own, and for this young Dodonna, aspirant of the immortal caste, digging around in the long-forgotten dodgy business of old contact missions exposed Erron in a way he realized he’d have difficulty explaining if Petr Onager ever had cause to put him in a predicament.
“Why do you care to know about the contact crews?” Petr asked him several questions into their conversation.
“Perhaps I am hoping to one day be trusted amongst those most dedicated few who take up that occupation as a service to Alysida,” Erron told him. “I will have to perform valuable work if I’m ever to become an archon.”
“Oh, perhaps. Dedication. Service. Right.”
Erron noted that the man had shown no signs of the kind of hospitality one of his class might show a guest of even the same status, much less a rising immortal.
“I was examining the records as part of my research and came across your name,” Erron told him.
“Were you?”
“I had questions that weren’t answered in the official record. I was hoping you might answer them for me directly.”
“I suppose you’d like to know how I ended up here? Aging? No family? Meagre reward for my dedication. My service. Those sorts of questions perhaps?”
“I’m not sure I’d have been so direct, but it did strike me as odd that you’re here, while others with a similar record of service to the archons are rewarded commensurate with the duties they’ve rendered.”
“That’s a fancy way of asking how I destroyed my life, no?” Onager replied with a dark laugh. “Pardon me, young sir, if I misunderstand you. Pretty words from a pretty man, such as yourself, sometimes fall hard on common ears.”
“I think you’ve caught my meaning just fine,” Erron replied.
Onager grinned. “The contact crew values anonymity. We are not supposed to be noticed while we are ... out there. It puts the entirety of Alysida in a tenuous position when people in the Battery have cause to notice us in any way.”
“How so?”
“In my case? Do you know the details?”
“I do not,” Erron answered earnestly.
“Right,” Onager replied, nodding. “You’d never have come to speak to a man like me if you’d heard the accusations.”
“Perhaps. But I didn’t have access to the details.”
“I was detained by the authorities in Carhall for taking liberties with a young woman while we were both intoxicated. That was the most generous way I heard it put before the magistrate there in the Protectorate.”
“Were you guilty of the charges?”
“Certainly of intoxication. Of the other charge I have no memory beyond the doorway of the bar. I do remember enjoying her company inside the bar—mutually, I’d add. I didn’t feel that I was any more guilty of anything at the time than the girl. We both enjoyed ourselves that night. But I was certainly not discreet in the way the contact crew was supposed to be.”
“I see.”
“That was a problem. People in desperate positions sometimes make poor judgements.”
“How do you mean, Mr. Onager? In relation to your choices back then?”
“You have to see it from the commander’s position—the archon on the contact team; I’m sure the record can tell you who it was. One of their people is remanded by foreign authorities, and he is desperate to escape incarceration. What would that man say to escape that fate? It puts one of the archon’s people in the position of being interrogated by local authorities about all manner of things. Loyalties can be tested, you see?”
“I understand.”
“Not well enough, young Dodonna. I was told that the archon was investigating the possibility of having me killed while in Trasp custody. Do you believe that?”
“I certainly believe that such a rumor could easily have started and made it back to you. Whether there was truth to it? I could see it being true either way with the secrecy of the entire colony at stake.”
“Yes. Fortunately for me, the charges weren’t forwarded beyond the preliminary stages, and I never left the ship again for the duration of that contact mission. I was terminated from the contact crew immediately on our return. Maybe people don’t remember the incident now, but the lords certainly all knew about it back then in this city. And the commoners, even if they didn’t know why, they knew there was shame on me. One stupid night, one stupid mistake. You pay a lifetime for it, don’t you? I can’t speculate about what an immortal pays. But you don’t want to be out there in the Battery, incriminated. That’s a dangerous way to live, and your peers, young Dodonna, they have long memories. Take care if you go that way.”
“That’s certainly an aspect of the contact crew I wasn’t aware of, Mr. Onager. I thank you for your frankness in sharing it.”
“I’m beyond the point of thinking I’ll ever find redemption in this place. I’m also decades beyond shame. I am not beyond business, though. It is hard to do business with a future archon on my doorstep. If you’re interested in more information, though, I’ll give you the means to be more discreet. I can tell you everything you’d like to know about the contact missions for an archon’s price. All the things they don’t want anyone to know.”
“I may very well be interested,” Erron replied, taking Onager’s contact information and giving strict instructions never to reach out himself. “The communication must obviously be one way.”
“These are not problems so long as payment flows one way as well,” Petr Onager concluded.
Erron accounted him a genuine miscreant as he left the ex-contact man’s humble flat. He’d never realized such men lived in Alysida. He was learning that there were layers between the well-ordered layers of the immortals’ highly structured society.
To be continued …
Great story as usual. Thank you.