Chapter 6

Deilen Koru had awakened with his mind in fairer shape than the frenzied, self-questioning state he had left it in after finally falling asleep. The morning was bright as he stepped out of his apartment and climbed up the canyon-like entrance to his apartment and into the sunlight. The sun had circled almost all the way to the east on approach to its highest point in the sky, due north, before it would dip back down to the west and continue its slow spiral down to the southern mountains once again, kiss them gently, and begin again its ascent into the eastern sky as the days exchanged places on the calendar. The short walk to the phase train invigorated him, and something within him nudged him with the fact that he hadn't gone for a run in several weeks. He promised that something that he would indeed run, soon, when he had spare time enough.

The phase train was nearly empty, as usual. Mrs. Kim sat in her seat, that with the window two rows back from the middle doors. He nodded at her as he boarded and she returned a smile, but said nothing. A man he'd never before seen occupied the back corner, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low kept Deilen from saying anything, so he found his normal seat and enjoyed the feeling of being pressed into the seat back as the train accelerated. He noticed all the usual landmarks as he gazed out the window, but he found himself distracted by the many in-betweens. There was the central Imperial building, a ridiculous spiral shaped building designed by some architect on rush or some other narcotic which in practice only belittled the natives instead of inspiring the colonists, but while it loomed large above any other of the passing brick and plaster buildings, Deilen found himself mesmerized by the quick, flashing portraits he glimpsed as the phase train blitzed to it's next platform. A mother and young child curled against a shade-post on a street corner. A naked young boy wrestling a mangy alley dog under a large billboard advertising the latest shipment to Rena. A pair strolling across a bridge, hand in hand, both clothed in the purest white.

There were only two stops between Deilen's station, Billing's Grand, and Imperial Centre, for which he was grateful. The eastern half of the city wasn't nearly as developed as the western, but the apartments didn't cost nearly as much, and he didn't mind the greater native population so much as others. Some seemed to believe them non-human in their core, despite their appearances. Deilen had always held that they were but a generational remnant of a former non-authorized colonization attempt. After all, there weren't that many of them on the planet in the first place and a linguist friend of his had remarked on the similarity of their language to some form of Mongolian. And while he figured DNA testing could settle the argument once and for all, he didn't believe the government would ever be concerned enough for the well being of the natives to ever attempt a stunt that might entitle them to benefits given the colonists.

And so all this talk of dehumanization efforts among the colonists, of stricter enforcement of separation policies, of relocation programs had recently sprung up among many of his associates. He listened with an astonished conscience but never participated in the debate. Human or not, this fear of the native other was completely unwarranted, but far too prevalent to challenge. He knew the government was far from actually implementing any of the proposed or rumored native control policies and rather settled for less radical measures of keeping the natives separate but busy and semi-content. Sattelite labor camps dotted the plains around the cities and much larger, less-comfortable, and more crowded phase trains serviced these camps which provided the very basic elements of industry for the planet: mining among the top percent with agriculture, a few textile or plastics factories or the like found homes outside a few cities. While these places did provide a chance for basic employment for the natives, it could hardly be called an opportunity to better oneself. It was a control device, Deilen knew it, but had become such an institution in the framework of the society that to challenge its principle was ridiculous. And so he and a few others tolerated it, while the majority of the settlers lauded its success and hailed it as one of the greatest breakthroughs in native relations in any colonial history. Whether these praises ever made it back to planets like Telamar, he couldn't say, but whenever he heard a positive remark about the labor camps, he hoped it died on the very wind that carried it.

On the stop before his, he found it curious that several dozen people were lined up to join the phase train that morning. Deilen furrowed his eyebrows and scanned the approaching platform. Everyone seemed anxious, looking over their shoulders, scratching at their hair, rubbing their hands together. Not a one seemed to be engaged in conversation—they all just fidgeted in anticipation of the doors opening. Usually big John got on here, but Deilen couldn't find him in the crowd. Just as the doors slid open and the people began to pile in, the train shuddered and an echoing boom found Deilen's ears. He looked past the platform and saw a pillar of black smoke billowing into the atmosphere. A hushed gasp seemed to ripple through the crowd of boarding passengers who practically fell into the remaining seats on board. But no one seemed ready to say anything. Everyone found the floor or their hands suddenly far more interesting than anyone else on board. Deilen found he couldn't make eye contact with anyone if he tried—except for Mrs. Kim, who just smiled at him until he looked away. So he gazed back out the window at the smoke, wondering what in the world was happening down there.

And just as the train began to accelerate, he saw a young woman step onto the platform, without any sense of urgency, and watch the train leave. And just before he was too far away to notice, she looked up at the departing train with such bright blue eyes that he remembered at once his encounter the night before. Deilen put a hand to the window, but immediately lost sight of her behind another passing billboard. He took a measured breath. It couldn't have been. Could it? Could she have been the same woman who had begged his help before?

His mind wandered back to that place of turmoil, of the self-tormenting angst he had brought on himself by refusing to help her. What if he stopped back there on his way home? What if he could find the transportation officer and check to see if he or she recognized her, could supply him with an address; yes, for they had to keep a residential address for all natives who used the public transportation systems. Perhaps he could find her again!

Here he caught himself. And do what? How could he explain himself? How had he proved that he was anything other than those who promoted dehumanization centers? He sighed, told himself to let it go; he had any chance to redeem himself with Lo'ru. But he promised himself that next time, he would act differently. Next time he would prove himself different from the mass of the colonists. If there were a next time.

When he exited the phase train, he was alone; and alone he walked the busy streets to the medical research facility. Many eyes greeted him as he entered the complex, but only a single pair of blue eyes were on his mind. Whether they noticed his distracted state, he didn't care and found his office with routine force, settling with all of his weight into his chair and sighing his frustrations to his desk, just to get them out. Still those blue eyes found his mind's eye, that defeated, deflated gaze that had plummeted to the floor in the moment he had asked her to leave.

He rubbed his eyes in an effort to erase the vision. Why had he been so touched, so bothered. His conscience had been free that morning until the phase station where he had again seen her, the native girl Lo'ru, who he ought to report as a criminal to the authorities. But had he seen her? Or had he wanted to see her? It had seemed so vivid in that moment of epiphany. Yes, yes of course he had seen her. Those eyes were unmistakeable. But could he bring himself to stop at Ralma Stand on the way home? He must; he absolutely must, he told himself. There was no other way to ease his conscience than by action in response. There was even a decent pub down that way he could eat at if he needed to keep up his search all evening. Other details came to mind, other courses of action he might take in order to locate Lo'ru.

So when a hurried knock and opening of his door came, along with the frenzied breathing and pulsing presence of his coworker, Miles, Deilen's startled hands slapped the desk, and after his heartbeat slowed, he spun to confront his huffing companion.

“I know you knocked, but really, Miles...”

“Sorry D, but you really really really need to see this; it just came in from the HTO chamber.” A hasty hand slammed a small triple-d on the metallic desk surface in front of him.

The words that left Deilen's mouth, asked, “What is it?” but the ideas scrambling through his mind, brought a pace back to his heart. Was it some sort of breakthrough numbers on the disease? Something inside his chest went cold. What if the HTO had reevaluated the number values of the core string decay? What if it had changed the possibility of the life-expectancy of the virus? Could Lo'ru have been right in saying she had the disease? Question after question bombarded his conscious mind and a pit grew inside him. With heavy breaths and slow-responding fingers, he took the device from the desk; he searched it's screen with frantic eyes.

But the display didn't have numbers or graphs but a picture of five oddly dressed silhouettes with a green-glowing triangle transparently pulsing over it. The disconnect between his thoughts and the input his eyes gave him took more than a moment to hurdle before he engaged enough to lightly press the blinking triangle on the screen. Music and color flashed to life and Deilen's eyebrows furrowed.

“It's Ntamba's newest release—just hit the GSS link five minutes ago!”

The triple-d clattered on the metal desk as Deilen's hand went to his forehead. He tried to take moderated breaths and closed his eyes to help calm a throbbing in the back of his head.

“Hey!” Miles shouted behind him.

But before the big man could do anything, Deilen reached back down to the device and picked it up again. Erratic camerawork dipped and dived from one fellow to the next; the music was severe in its rhythm but catchy in its melody. Bouncy seemed to Deilen the best word to describe it. And he rather liked it, or would have like it more, had he not been so distracted by his conscience.

When he turned, Miles waited with raised eyebrows. “So?” he asked simply. Deilen didn't answer immediately, which provoked the rest of the question from the husky fellow who took up the majority of whatever space he was in. “What do you think?”

“I don't know; its different from their earlier stuff,” he dodged at first, but rallied with, “but it seems like a decent progression: reminiscent of older works enough to please yet new enough to keep you on your toes. I like it.”

Miles, who had seemed to be holding his breath, exhaled and leaned against the wall. “I love it!” he burst forth.

“Let's hope that's not the only surprise of the day,” Deilen muttered.

“Hey, here's your second; I lost five pounds last week.”

Deilen furrowed his brow—chewed a bit on his lower lip. “Awesome.” A silence gathered; Deilen let it endure for a moment. “What do you owe that, too?”

“The running, I think. I never kept up with it so well as this past week. Felt like I was going to die.”

“I'm glad you stuck with it,” Deilen said, turning at last to face his coworker.

“I had to. Mel locked the door until I finished.”

Deilen smiled. “Even so, you still had to do the running. You could have walked out of sight and waited for fifteen minutes...” but he trailed off as Miles was shaking his head in vehement denial.

“I wouldn't dare; not after that, oh I forget what it's called, little button she stuck right in the middle of my back. Tracks what you do. Itches like crazy, too. She could call up at any moment where I am; she'd call the police if I wasn't running like crazy.”

“So you really owe it to Mel, then?” Deilen stated more than asked.

Miles shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I'll send her some priahls then,” Deilen said, crossing his arms behind his back.”

Miles' complexion plummeted. “No! Don't do that! She'll make ME eat them!”

Deilen laughed and nodded. “Exactly. You'll be five more pounds thinner next week. And then you can thank me back with brownies.”

“Right. I'm sure you'd LOVE...”

A buzz interrupted him from Deilen's desk. A flashing projection before them displayed a nurse with pretty eyes looking back at them. A few bars of information popped up on the side as she began to speak: “Deilen Koru?” He nodded. “We have an emergency case on our hands here; a native came in with your card and practically collapsed in the waiting room. I assume you know her?”

Chapter 5

Deilen Koru wouldn't have thought complete silence an appropriate response to this situation, but then again, he wouldn't have imagined this particular situation at all likely in the first place. How often, in all the histories of the world, has a man climbed into bed and found an unknown young woman in his room? One glance at the lady, even in the poor light and heavy shadows, told Deilen she was beautiful. Her deep blue eyes drew him in and he had a rather difficult time focusing his mind. The end result was that he said not a word and stared on in dumb fixation.

But what in common society on Telamar might have seemed downright rude, did not seem to phase the girl. She stood from her waiting place and returned Deilen's gaze with soft, pleasant, smiling eyes that disarmed him completely. She wore a simple white shirt and brown skirt just shorter than knee length, with a rough sort of waistcoat loosely tied around her chest and a longer, half cut robe which fell around her calves without restricting her steps in front. But denoting native dress, her waist was uncovered by either shirt or dress, her top rather more low cut than anything a shop in Telamar might sell, and she wore no shoes. Her hair however, in what seemed blatant defiance of native tradition, was let completely down, cascading past her shoulders in long, black, wave-like curls.

Deilen took it all in, as if he were in a dream. She of course noticed the pronounced effect she had on him, clasped her hands in front of her, and stood stock still, waiting kindly for a response. Through several long-in-passing seconds, she waited, while the capacity to think had yet to dawn on Deilen. But when the spark of consciousness leaped into his eyes, she dipped a knee (of rather fine proportions, color, and texture, as Deilen would relate later) and introduced herself in a broken English with the musical intonations the natives couldn't avoid adding to the language. When she finished, with another slight dip of the knee, Deilen had never been so pleased. In fact, his emotional state seemed to come with the price of a short-term memory wipe, so that several more seconds with rather more similarities to decades than to actual seconds themselves, passed in silence.

“You are Doctor Koru, aren't you?” she asked again, almost as if speaking to a shy child, reminding and reinforcing the fact he or she already knew the answer to the question and that the risks of speaking were few and the rewards far more bountiful.

Deilen opened and closed his mouth several times before actually saying anything, but when words did come, they came in the form of partial questions, not answers. “How did...? Why do...? Should I...? Are you...?” But speech, even in unreasonable form, seemed to jump-start his system and, after a brief reprieve from stuttered, rapid-fire questions, Deilen Koru collected himself and replied legitimately: “Yes, I am Deilen Koru, and I work at Triroads Medical Research Facility. But who are you? And why are you in my bedroom?”

“I apologize to surprise you, but what I hear on you from my others is that you knew how to help me. My name is Lo'ru and I am your humble servant, if you will take from me sickness and hurt. Will you? Please?”

Her brutal honetsy gripped Deilen right in the middle of his being; every detail of his circumstance that might have told him to escort her kindly to the door, tell her never to return, and report the event to local security forces faded away. Instead, he asked her, “You have been infected?”

A small smile crossed her lips. “Yes.”

“And why do you think that?”

“I know for long time I am broken; since I was little girl. Something is not right, in me. I know.”

“You mean you have been sick for years?” Deilen asked, intrigued, though a flare of skepticism flew into his mind.

“Yes, many years. But you can make me one again?”

“Listen, all of the cases I've seen have occurred only in the past few months. If you have been sick for much longer, I'm inclined to think you have a different illness from the current outbreak. This means you would need to see a regular licensed physician, and not me.”

“But you are one working, making broken ones better. No?” she asked with a twinge of desperation.

“I am. I do not believe that you are infected in the same way as the others...”

“Do you know nothing of this sickness? Shai'ri hil a nah? Do you see anything?” The small outburst sent a shiver through Deilen; a small splinter had been driven into his professional pride. He wasn't sure from what this woman was suffering, but it couldn't possibly be the CLP2 strain. The first case had been reported less than four months ago—it was a shining new suspect on the long and hunted list of human ailments. Even inspection of past cases that might have been precursors or predecessors of CLP2 seemed so distant from the nature of the disease that it took more faith than evidence to believe so. The whole reason the committee had been formed was because the IMAC had declared the new strain to be wholly unlike anything in the known medical world, and yet similar in many ways to an increasing amount of illnesses. That this native woman could have known about the disease for years, even been it's victim, before the first colonization attempts ten years ago, was simply ludicrous to Deilen.

“Lo'ru, it simply isn't possible for you to be infected with the disease I am researching; I do not doubt you have a sickness, it just isn't the one I know about. If you were to go to the clinic tomorrow, a normal physician will help identify what is wrong with you and will help fix you...”

“But it is! I prayed Ja'te twenty times; I climbed Lin Sha and added flag to shannah pole; I threw dust over my green sea and followed here. I suffer as my brothers, as my sisters, as my fathers and mothers—those you help! You must help me; what I have you can take away. Will you?” Her blue eyes pleaded directly with his soul—yet his mind still had control over his voice.

“Listen: even if you were infected, we don't have a cure yet, I cannot help you get better yet. Not until we figure out how it works and how to counteract it. But you must go to the clinic tomorrow; here, take this,” Deilen said, fishing one of his cards from a pocket of his pants on the end of his bed. “Give this to the nurse and they'll know not to charge you for your visit. I can do that much for you.”

Although she took the thin metallic device, her eyes did not look to his. She seemed to want to say something more, but simply stood in the silence, fingering the triangular business card. “Now, if you please, I need to get to sleep,” Deilen prodded. After a few moments, she turned slowly about on a heel and slipped away into the shadows. Only a small, ringing click signified her departure, and Deilen, wearied by the encounter, sighed and crawled beneath his sheets to let sleep overtake his consciousness.

But every time he closed his eyes, he found he couldn't escape the gaze of those mysterious blue eyes—they denied everything he asserted: he had acted in his best power to help her, he had given her more than any other citizen of Telamar might have in the case of finding a trespassing native begging services, he hadn't reported the crime to the authorities. What more could he have done?

That, however, was just the question that those haunting eyes asked him. How much had he risked? He lost a few minutes of sleep to conversation and some unspent “family” reserve medical credit. She had such vision in him, and he had turned her upside down and dropped her to the gravity of fate, with nothing more than a fancy balloon to distract her from the fall. What would happen tomorrow? She would enter, have an examination, discover what exactly was wrong, and consign herself to “labor swap” for the medications prescribed. And for the cost of a semi-healthy continued bodily existence, she would forfeit everything to cover her debt.

Or, she might realize this and never enter the clinic on account of personal freedom. She might last another year with whatever ailment she had, but complications would undoubtedly arise. What final months might she spend bitterly cursing her fate, surrounded in the darkness of the Resorts, and become easy prey for a wild young native man, or any of the beasts that might wander in from the green sea of grass for a daring raid of the streets. What life was this?

But how she had taken the disappointment! The more he mused on her reaction, the more his gut churned and the more his mind praised her discipline. His bedroom was the final destination of a long and arduous sprint to life and hope she had made. How she had come to know of him, to have found a way into his apartment, to have waited patiently for him to notice her—all this to be denied, offered a cheap replacement for real assistance only to clear a guilty conscious, and then to walk away with but a few polite words of protest, words of a foreign language, even! How terrible he had been to her—but how nobly she took her fall; how gracefully she had grabbed his little balloon and stepped off the edge.

Deilen shook the sheets from himself and rubbed his face with his hands—the same hands that had shooed her from his presence, had driven her to darkness. Why was he the one with the access cards and citizen tags and protected rights and preferential treatment? Why did he have power over the life of a girl such as this? And why did he juggle it so freely, toss it aside so easily, as if it weren't worth the disturbance of a few minutes of sleep?

And what if she were infected? What if she had one of the earliest forms of the CLP2 strain—what if she had survived so long because her body had learned to fight it somehow? Perhaps there were a weakness in the disease she had managed to exploit for years, while the more recent versions of the disease obliterated their patients within the span of a couple months? Certainly all this was possible—why shouldn't it be? He had thrown perhaps his best clue to this disease right out his front door without any stitch of hope.

Those blue eyes peered back at him from the mirror, from the ceiling, from the folds of the comforter—Deilen shivered and stood. He paced short, unsure steps, as his mind raged against itself. Going after her was daft, he told himself. But to stay in this room was to embrace a torment as maddening as the gates of hell itself. He shook his head and muttered to himself as he found his slippers, walked from his bedroom to find his jacket. Upon patting the pocket for his keys and hearing their indicative jingle, Deilen Koru threw open his door, braced himself against the wind, and called out hoarsely the name, Lo'ru.

But the cold winds carried no answer.

Chapter 4

Deilen noticed as the economist backed out of the room before the doors slid shut, but before he could say anything, a figure sauntered around a corner at the far end of the room from himself. He paused a moment, seeming to study the group, before stepping from the shadows into the light of the centeral part of the circular room. When Deilen blinked to make sure he saw what he thought he saw, the man who was clearly the one called the General by the manner in which stood, by the raw confidence in his eyes, was however a far cry from being every inch the General they had imagined they'd meet.

An older man he certainly was, but not old enough to be a General—Deilen had pictured a balding man, with a furrowed brow and wrinkly jaws, who peered out of squinting eyes, who kept his uniform in pristine condition and perhaps a tobacco pipe in his pocket. While the pipe part may have certainly been true the rest of Deilen's imagination had fallen far short of the man who stood before them—or perhaps had exceeded them. His fierce eyes radiated an uncontrollable energy bursting from somewhere deep within him. Deilen wasn't sure whether to cower and beg for mercy or to burst into laughter and slap him on the shoulder. Mostly, they just assumed command—without a word or even a gesture, the General's eyes found the inadequacies of all in the room, and Deilen was at once keenly aware of just how indecisive he was compared to those eyes.

The General's shoulders were certainly military shoulders, not very wide, but powerful—hinting at former combat service—held proudly aloft. However, they were not the shoulders of a tank, nor was the rest of his body. He had once been muscular, that much was obvious, but the lean raw strength that seemed taut within his limbs endured. But more than his frame, it was the clothes fitted to it that struck Deilen and the rest of the committee with a gasping sort of silence. The General stood before them without a common uniform like the rest of the members of the Imperial Armada wore—most notable perhaps, were the strapped sandals on his feet.

He wore long, ragged, almost Capri-length shorts, and a muted orange, flower-print Hawaiian tee shirt, which Deilen noted was missing a button. It hardly seemed an outfit befitting of a general of such a high rank, but nothing in his eyes or posture conveyed this wardrobe as an irregularity. But among all these eccentricities, the General's hair was perhaps the most distinctive: a thick tangle of dreadlocks fell behind him, dark like a midnight forest up front, but graying like a winter beach in the back. His hair spoke of pure conventional defiance in a world where order and standards reigned above all else. Deilen immediately wondered how such a man ever became an Imperial General in the first place; he never would have worked through the ranks as he was, yet nothing about the man told him that this was a new look for him.

But before he had any time to ponder the seeming incongruities of the man standing before him, the General spoke to Deilen and the party. “Well, now that the demon-ear has left, we can get to business.” He glanced at the group with what Deilen only imagined was heavy sarcasm or sheer boredom. When no one responded, he continued. “Have you people never seen a Varnu before? Come on; snap out of it, there's actually very little magic in him compared to other beings. I hope for your sakes you never meet a Wailer face to face.”

After this he waited, content with staring at the members of the Committee, until some minutes or seconds later the tension of the silence was unbearable and Deilen nervously took a hold of it with both hands and shattered it: “Our report concerning the recent outbreaks in the colony, sir, did you want to hear it?”

The General's face lost emotion, and Deilen teetered from one foot to another. A sort of disappointment seemed to fill the General's eyes and after a few moments he seemed to set his jaw in resolution. “I appreciate your attempt to navigate the conversation to the purpose of your visit, of my travel to this world in the first place, but before I answer your question, I want you to think about what you just asked me. I should hope that the fact that a fleet of the Imperial Armada landing in your back yard is sufficient proof that yes, I want to hear what you have to divulge. Because, after all, space travel isn't exactly as cheap as a bus ticket to the opera. And as far as hearing goes, your report might have been easily relayed through busy secretaries, deep space phase lights, and interns who would lose a sheet of it in the copier, and might have mostly made it to me in form enough for me to make a decision.”

Here he stopped and breathed deeply. Deilen thought he looked rather wolf-like, the way he stretched upwards with his whole neck and chest, nose pointed to the ceiling.

“However, you have been summoned here and here you are. It would be a shame if you all left without getting to the point and making my trip fruitless. Nevermind the bad press and frustrated taxpayer letters all those interns would have to read and respond vaguely to. And besides, if the enemy knows all the details of that report already, I had better get briefed before he gets too far ahead of me. So yes, I do want to hear it—but give your questions more thought in the future, Mr. Koru, and spare us the painfully obvious.”

Deilen got the feeling he was trying to be considerate, but his encouragement hit Deilen as blatantly insulting instead. As a flush of color spread across his cheeks, the artilleryman stepped forward and saluted. The General recognized the military in the man, saluted, and gave him permission to speak. When he began, Deilen clung to the first few phrases expectantly, but that was about all he gathered in the next few minutes. He knew that tone before, where he lapsed into military idiom and half of the words he used were acronyms for something. The General didn't seem to have much issue understanding him, apparently enjoying the coded language better than the “painfully obvious.”

But while feigning a listening ear and musing on the Varnu which had spoken with them earlier, Deilen heard his name mentioned along with the CLP2 strain. This startled him back into focus. Everyone seemed to be looking to him for an answer. He figured this was his part of the research to present so he found the General's hawklike eyes and tried to gaze confidently back.

“It's quite unique, the CLP2 we've managed to isolate and identify in the first few victims; have you heard of leprosy? It's rather akin to that in function and in its value as a contagin, but it mostly certainly doesn't target the skin. Or at least, hasn't. In fact that seems to be the mystery behind it. All of the patients who have tested positive for CLP2 haven't all had the same symptoms—which you expect a little variation. I mean, the common cold for instance: runny nose, cough, sore throat, you're as likely to have all the symptoms as only one of them. But the wonders of this disease—it's remarkable, really, unless you come down with it—should give the medical community great hope for the future.”

At this last statement every eye turned to him, some in shock, others in bewilderment, a few in anger. Here he was treading new water; he had been careful to keep this opinion to himself for several weeks now. But now that he was upon it, his nervousness fled him and a deep calm filled the very center of his soul.

“Listen, we know this disease attacks all sorts of facets of the human being. Not just physical, but psychological and emotional levels. There is something very multi-leveled about this disease. However, if the basic operating principle of this disease can be discovered and mastered, we can develop new cures that attempt to heal several infections or problems or what have you, all at once! This is the great wonder of medicine: we've come across a new evil in the medical world, but with that comes the opportunity to put that evil to a better use.”

A couple of his colleagues mulled this over, some shaking their heads and frowning, others considering the idea with a sort of surprised admiration. Someone from the far side of the group interrupted, “It's a disease, something to be eradicated, not a toy to be played with.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the General bellowing, forcing a hush over the group, “you are not here to discuss the scientific merit of the disease, nor to advise the actions that will be taken against it. I have received the brief and your full report, so the details are neither important to be repeated. What I want is for each of you to describe for me the specific impact this disease has made on your respective departments. Once I have heard your report, you will be free to go. Now Mrs. Sloar, if you please, how has this outbreak affected the education offered in the colonies?”

A rather timid-looking woman in her mid forties shuffled to the front, head bowed. “Well, sir, none of the teaching staff seem to have taken ill yet, but a number of the children have been kept home,” she answered.

“And what of the education about the disease? Have we any rumors to quell or have you noticed any particular points about the disease that ought to determine how we talk about it?” the General asked, in a much softer tone.

“I have heard some uses of the CLP2 strain as a pun, calling the infirm 'klepto's.' One can see the problems which could arise, a sort of identity reinforcement within the patient and a bias of those using the term. I'm not sure how crime-rates have or will respond if such a slang term becomes commonplace.”

“Very good; thank you, Mrs. Sloar, for enlightening me. Quite perceptive.” The General nodded to the public securities adviser, and asked, “Have you noticed any such trends? And what can you do to deter any drifts towards a mindset of thievery—of physical property or of anything else?”

Deilen wondered if indeed he had already given his opinion and were, in the General's words, “free to go.” After a quick risk-reward evaluation, he figured he'd rather stick around, since disease was centered squarely in his area of expertise: medicine.

And so he watched the General navigate from one committee member to another, linking the conversation from one person's knowledge base to another. He was rather impressed with the General's questions; each seemed fashioned for a direct purpose, with very little flare or room for misinterpretation. But an eloquence danced in his words that struck Deilen, that hinted at a sharp intellect beneath the ragged exterior. So one by one the committee members answered his questions, on perhaps a level he had never before seen. It was almost as if the General alone were capable of pulling such precise answers from them—perhaps his questions were easy to answer. Deilen found himself entranced with a man who could make conversation seem at once disarmingly simple and yet plumb the depths of it's complexities; he wondered whether the outward appearance of the man were more or less purposeful.

If it were more, he could see why a man of such intelligence would aim to conceal such a fact in dressing like a semi-homeless beach wanderer—such humility of choice, of deference to those who would claim their station or class by dress and social convention was such an admirable trait to Deilen—he hoped it was true of the General. He wanted the man to be one who knew his qualities and abilities and operated within their bounds without concern or thought of outside opinion, not brashly but with a quiet confidence.

If it were less purposeful, however, Deilen didn't know what to make of the man. If he had no reason for dressing like he did, perhaps only because it suited his taste, if he were simply a wild arrow flying for no more reason than to complete his flight, then the General would be a complete enigma, an unsolvable riddle. If a man of such intellect had decided his life whimsical and purposeless, each move he made, he question he asked was a jab at humanity, a perpetual joke at which he and no other laughed, if that. The General's sense of sarcasm hadn't been lost on Deilen, and he figured that if the General were such a man, he would avoid another meeting with him at all costs.

But were he a man of keen decision, Deilen felt the General's time on the planet would be all too quick for his tastes, and he found himself wishing the General would invite him to dinner, or request a private interview later. His curiosity began to burn as the third to last person, a marketing researcher, had just suggested an advertisement campaign encouraging the infected to visit the apothecary stations around the colonies so that a cure could be developed, the outbreak culled, and peace of mind restored.

Then the General asked the other man next to him, an architect, if he remembered correctly, about drawing up plans for a new, central hospital, about anticipated costs, location, contractors, and suppliers. The architect answered each question knowledgeably, citing specific sources and other similar projects, rates, and completion times. The General thanked him and dismissed him, turning once again to Deilen, but his eyes suddenly lacked the fire which had been there, burning with intrigue as he listened to each person of the committee.

“Why are you still here?” he asked Deilen. He opened his mouth to respond, but found the question difficult. For the first time in nearly an hour the General looked away. He took a breathy sigh and tapped his sandaled foot on the floor while pursing his lips—he waited for Deilen. Panic was about all Deilen did, but dropped all the responses floating around in his head for an easy exit.

“I don't know; I'm sorry,” he managed and turned to exit.

“Yes. Yes, you do know. And I'm sorry you can't tell me. But if you have to leave...” Here the General paused and glanced upwards. “I suppose you ought to. My time is quite valuable, you know. But if you'll tell me, I'd like to listen.”

Deilen's eyebrows were as surprised at this as he was—unfortunately he noticed this fact too late to adjust to a poker face. The General had caught him like a mouse, and was trying to figure out what to do with him. Deilen figured his chances couldn't be hurt by honesty, so as he swung by his tail in the General's fingertips, he replied, “I was wondering why you dress like you do, General.”

His question met only a blank stare—the first hesitation he had experienced from the General. And intrigue lit within Deilen; he lost all caution and pressed his question. “Why do you so blatantly break convention?” He could tell the General was struggling on a fence, trying to decide to which side he would jump. He feared he had already pushed to hard and that the General would close up again and remain a forever unsolvable mystery. After a healthy silence, the General found Deilen's eyes with his own and the softness had gone, a very matter-of-fact chivalry remained, and Deilen knew he was not going to receive the answer he wanted.

“Matters of military dress code are no concern of a civilian medical researcher. Now, if you'll kindly excuse me, I have another appointment to attend. Again, thank you, Doctor Koru for your insights. They have been most helpful to the Imperial Armada. I trust we shall together be able to cleanse this outbreak and set the colony again on the path to success and healthy production. You will hear from me soon,” he finished and turned to exit, but paused and turned back. “You can find your way out?”

“Yes, sir,” Deilen nodded, taking a bowed step backward.

“Good. Take care.”

“Likewise,” Deilen called after the figure who vanish into the shadows of a hallway. As he himself turned back towards the exit, he wondered about his own reaction to the General. He couldn't figure out why the man had left such an impression on him. The man's self-confidence was astounding, but not overpowering—his manner friendly but not inviting. He seemed a perfect balance of opposites, as if he himself were cables holding wildly running ideals. For instance his pride pulled in perfect unity against his humility—he was neither fully one nor the other, but the susbstance between them, tying them together. He was both artist and critic, both pessimist and optimist. He found the possibilities of the world exciting, and made them exciting to another, but also knew exactly what it would take to accomplish such ends, and also what would not at all work in favor of it. He was a man who should be wildly conflicted by trying to hold such opposing forces in check within himself, but rather spun like a dancer, letting each force fly at it's will in beautiful blazing arcs. Instead of madness, his idealistic motion seemed to settle him into a balanced peace that was palpable and breathtaking and completely captivating.

When he stepped outside of The Breath of Dawn, he wondered when he'd next see the General and if he'd at all get some time to chat with him. He had so many questions he wanted to ask him—but even if he could simply sit and listen, that would be enough. In fact, he was so engrossed with the idea of the General that he didn't notice how high up he was when he stepped onto the elevator. He forgot the time and therefore didn't worry about how long it took him to remember where he had parked.

By the time he walked into the left door of an underground duplex unit, the sun was dipping quickly towards the southern mountains—it wouldn't be long before it would skim their peaks, casting long evening shadows for a few hours, and then begin to rise again. And so he hustled into his apartment to get some sleep before he reported to the Triroads in the morning for another exciting day with data and blood samples.

He set some water to the stove for some tea and cleaned up the dishes he had used that morning for breakfast. When the tea was steeping, he check his flashes for any news updates—he wondered if the arrival of the Armada had made the evening flashcast or not. He guessed it had; usually the media ate up military coverage like a dessert buffet. But in the few minutes he spent searching, he couldn't find anything about it. Apparently some political sex scandal took priority.

And so he finished off his tea, washed his cup, and flipped the lights on in his bedroom. He shuffled to the bathroom, rinsed his hands and face, brushed his teeth; he ambled to the closet, changed into his pajamas—blue checkered flannel bottoms—ditched his socks and his shirt, and sauntered to his bed. But before he could climb into his sheets, a light female voice called out, “Excuse me; are you Doctor Koru?”

Chapter 3

When Deilen Koru first saw the armada enter the atmosphere, he had shuddered. What had seemed a swarm of tiny glowing specks covering a patch of the sky as big as his outstretched hand had suddenly grew into a blackened sky of metal, thrusters, landing lights, and an artificial dust storm. But now that he waited on the key landing pad with the rest of the committee to report to the general, a more poignant shudder found his spine. The sheer immensity of the flagship, Breath of Dawn, made him feel his insignificance desperately; he weighted one foot and then the other in an attempt to vent himself of this restless energy. The thing could well topple right over and crush him easily; far more easily than he could a fly with a swatter. And he knew his reaction time wasn't half that of the fly, and the space vessel more than several times larger than the swatter, proportionally speaking. If that near landing leg's hydraulics failed, there would be no escape.

And so Deilen fidgeted beside his comrades, who whispered together of the splendor of the prime ship in the Imperial Amrada. He intentionally sighed and unintentionally clasped his hands together. He supposed if he were the bearer of better news, this trip wouldn't be so uncomfortable. But again, had he good news, he wouldn't have been summoned. In fact, if there were only good news to report from the colony, he wouldn't have been on the “Committee for Inter-Communal Biochemical Affairs” in the first place.

“You nervous to meet him?” a big gruff voice came from the man next to Deilen. He wasn't an especially tall man, but barrel chested and stocky, bald with a short-trimmed beard. The man always spoke genuinely however, with no taste for pomp or circumstance. He had served with Deilen on the CICBA for the past year as the military representative—an artillery man on every day but Thursday afternoons.

“No. No, not really; just hate feeling so small,” Deilen answered, sniffling a bit and licking his lips.

“Amazing bird, though, isn't it?”

“As long as it doesn't fall on me.”

“I'm sure an engineer somewhere would scoff at that. Besides I'm not sure that it wouldn't be kinder of it to crush us anyway. Not when we're bringing....that,” he nodded with a suddenly serious frown at the manilla folder held by a rigid woman in a sleek, gray suit, “to the general. It's not going to be pretty, you know.”

“I know; but the facts are present and demand attention. The disease must be stopped.”

“Agreed, but someone is going to take a fall for this; for that I'm glad I'm on the committee who filed the report and not a subject of the report. It's one thing to witness the wrath of a general, quite another to take the brunt of it.”

“It's all rubbish; no one should take blame for an unforeseen outbreak. That is an inherent risk in transplantation of any species. Adaptation to an environment, as in our case, comes slowly; adaptation of the environment to us comes almost as slowly, as in the case of Belagare, but has other risks, too,” Deilen stated, looking at his feet to avoid vertigo as the elevator platform began to rise up the side of the ship.
“So you said. Many times. But if anything costs someone more money, they're going to want to know why and who is to blame. That's why this committee was formed; someone lost money. Now someone less important is going to pay for it. That's politics.”

“Which is why I came out here in the first place,” Deilen sighed.

“Oh I'm not saying I like it; it's all screwed up. That's the nice thing about working artillery—you just put the machine together, load the BAC's, and haul off and launch the damn thing wherever they tell you to point it. It's kinda like making your own thunderstorm. Hey, you should come down for a range test sometime, I'll show you around, introduce you to the boys. Can't let you fire the thing yourself, but you could certainly observe.”

Deilen's eyes and lips seemed to weigh the offer, decide against it without deliberation, and he answered, “I think I'll pass, thanks. I'd rather not rupture my eardrums. Or induce a heart attack.”

The husky man laughed well. “Fair enough. But if you change your mind, the offer is still open.”

With that Deilen looked back to his feet, clasped his hands, and tried not to think about how high up he presently was. He had never been incredibly comfortable with heights, but he seemed to notice just how much he didn't like in life after transferring to the colony. After all, if the Imperial Armada could afford to send drip plantations this many light years away, couldn't their engineers at least be able to produce enough hot water for a decent shower? Of course such a question was an absurdity next to calculating tempo-verse stress variables to these people; they were probably the sort raised on cold showers and oatmeal breakfasts and store-bought cookies.

But in the past few months of his new position on the planet, the strains of life on a colony planet seemed to squash his comfort zone uncomfortably closer to nothing, store-bought cookies hung in his imagination as a delightful reminder of life at home, on Earth. Fresh-baked seemed but a wisp of imagination floating just now before him, and if he tried too hard to think of it, it might vanish and never be caught again. But regardless, he coped. He hadn't complained about the cold floors in the compound, the yellow-brown of the walls, or the acrid smell that seemed to persist in the corridor between the heavy equipment repair shed and the psychiatric ward.

As the platform, which had, he noticed, only a rather short handrail around it, rose past what he imagined were ten stories in height, Deilen closed his eyes and imagined himself waiting for the ten o'clock phase train under the cool Birmingham skies in a short queue for a small trip for a half-hour tea. He had enjoyed this small perk of working for the Interior Ministry of Medicine; it was just enough of a break to catch his breath and a bit of the daily news at the Queen's Cafe, just one stop south along the Birmingham Metropolitan Phase Train. But the breeze was blowing the wrong way, and the image he held of the low-hanging red cover over Platform 12 dissolved into rows and rows of passing, almost mirror-like tiles. Every now and again, a porthole would interrupt the cascading stream of tiles, but fall quickly out of view.

Deilen wondered which crewman had the misfortune of rooming right under the captain's entrance, wondered if that unlucky person might have been looking out at him, if he might have been wondered who was riding the platform to meet the General and the Captain. Or if that crewman might not have noticed at all his ascension. In fact, it struck Deilen that he might be nearly invisible. Who, in all his trips on the 10 o'clock phase would have even blinked twice at his entrance? Who at the Queen's Cafe had ever remembered his order? Who, even now, would wake tomorrow morning and wonder who that man was, standing with several others, making the General frown?

The number had to be few, Deilen concluded. After all what was remarkable about him? He was merely a 5'10” slim-waisted, bony-shouldered, thirty year-old man. He kept himself clean shaven only because he couldn't grow a full beard and didn't look good in a mustache, and wore dress shirts inside and outside of the work place if only because he thought tee shirts made him look too young—mostly because they hung on him more than fit him. The only difference between the relaxing and working Deilen Krou was a tie and top button buttoned.

But perhaps obscurity fit him better than any shirt had; he didn't mind the corner seats at the Queen's, and his hazel eyes kept quietly to himself. He neither regularly started conversations with strangers in the shopping queue nor felt obliged to meet another's eyes when walking down the street. Even at the pub, he sipped his pint of bitter and watched with interest the unfolding football match or the evening newscast, feet crossed at the ankles and always moving.

This fact Deilen hated to be known, and in the three times it had been mentioned in his professional career, he found himself most embarrassed, and had not taken it well, not once. The first had been in an interview for his former position, and the man who sat across the desk had noticed his whiskey glass shaking and had asked Deilen if he was the one doing that. He of course answered negatively, mentally kept his leg shaking, and quit some twenty seconds later. He nonetheless got the job, as the interviewer remarked that it must have been some machinery outside, and continued on, impressed by Deilen's high performance and solid recommendations from previous centers of employment.

The second time, an attractive HR girl had commented on his restlessness in jest, but it dealt such a blow to Deilen's pride that it never recovered.

The third occurrence came via Deilen's former nemesis, a fellow who claimed they were basically the same people, only that Deilen was introverted. Deilen disagreed vehemently, and when the man pointed out that he too, had a foot gone loony, the flush of color that rose to Deilen's face superbly matched the fire-extinguisher hanging on the wall.

Fortunately for Deilen, he had long ago learned to tame his jittery leg into simple foot exercises which he consciously performed every five minutes to keep his muscles moving and occupied. Of course, those only helped when sitting. But here he stood, however far too many stories above the ground and still rising. And times like these made it difficult for Deilen to stand still. And so he shifted his weight from one foot to the other; he balanced on one foot for a while, then switched. Not that one could tell, looking at him, that he might have rivaled a flamingo for balance. He just only lifted a foot from the floor—he might have simply had a leg longer than the other, or a slight misalignment in the hips, nothing visible to the casual eye—that largely missed the whole of Deilen anyway—could be seen on such a day as this.

However, when the rising platform came to a sudden halt, Deilen, lost in deliberation on the past and present, nearly toppled over, as he had been standing solely on his left foot at the time. He glanced at his companions discreetly, and it seemed that their sense of balance had been somewhat skewed as well and the quick stop had evicted the same, semi-embarrassed reaction: a sudden straightening of the spine and jacket, quick glances left and right, a nervous pull of the hand at the collar, or a scratch of the nose. Indeed, it seemed as if his colleagues were too far caught up in preserving their own little worlds, that no one noticed his slight tilt and arm wave to catch his balance.

When the hatch in front of them slid open, darkness first greeted them—and then music. But an odd sort of tune it was, like a mix between jazz and something with a bit of folk to it, but almost like a remix performed in one of London's premier rave clubs. Almost. But what all seven of them didn't expect was that it seemed to grow louder, and then to subside, as if it were moving away to their left. As their eyes adjusted, they found the inside was actually lit quite well; Deilen thought it reminded him of one of the many botanical gardens back in England. He had pictured ducking through hatches and squeezing through narrow corridors like a submarine. But what greeted him were large, fanning ferns, giant, prismatic columns, translucent walkways and offices above the main level, and everywhere light rebounded off mirrors and through the ship—he wasn't sure he could find a man-made light in the place. Giant skylights through floors above him allowed the light to cascade through this receptive and reflective maze of the ship.

But he caught his assumptions and held them tight; he looked at his feet. The walkway he stood on was as opaque as obsidian—warm, but solid. All around him, only everything above him allowed the light to penetrate. But what about those many stories of the ship below him; perhaps those were the common man's stations; perhaps those were more like the submarine quarters he imagined. Perhaps only the men of high rank were allowed in this arboretum of a command deck.

While Deilen took all of this in, a uniformed man strode towards them; it seemed as though he either walked briskly to get to something or away from something. He stopped suddenly several yards from their meandering party, greeted them, and asked that they follow him to the General's conference room. Deilen missed all this of course and the artilleryman grabbed at his sleeve and nodded his head towards the uniformed man now walking as though a devil were following him at a distance, but might pounce at any moment.

After wandering through a veritable jungle, with waterfalls of light and liquid, trees of bark and leaves and crystal columns, the small party came to a set of sliding glass doors surrounded by flowing greenery. The uniformed escort pressed his palm to a glistening pad on the doors, stepped back, and bid them farewell and good luck. When the doors slid apart, the light from within the room was nearly blinding; each squinted a bit or put their hand to their eyes.

A voice like a song welcomed Deilen personally, by name—but somehow seemed to neglect the others—until Deilen glanced and found each compatriot equally entralled with the being of light glowing in the center of the perfectly round room. Then he discovered he heard the voice, but wasn't actually listening to it. The song seemed to linger behind the small trickle of water that came from a fountain that formed the circumference of the room, underneath the nervous shufflings of feet, above their own breathing lungs and beating hearts. And yet there before them, something moved, addressing them, soothing them. And yet, Deilen could remember no particular phrase, no sentence structure to the language. The words, more poetry than speech, more song than poetry, more etheral notes than song, more like the ideas themselves in their purest most beautiful form pressed themselves to Deilen's mind, and he understood. He had been welcomed to the flagship, thanked for his time and efforts, and encouraged in his tasks ahead. Then Deilen understood that the presence in the room could not stay for the full report, but that his General would act accordingly and inform him of the situation. But not in such vulgar terms. And then, he had been wished the fondest farewell he had ever remembered, as if the world itself would hardly bear their separation.

But before anyone could respond, the light in the room vanished and the presence had gone, lingering only in the vault of their memory, burning within them. Each turned to each in wonder, trying to ask the questions that each new had already been answered. Only one of their number had a decidedly different reaction; a rather average-sized middle aged man who represented the economics division on the committee. His face, which some might have called pudgy, was ashen and completely hollow, as if he'd seen the devil himself.

Chapter 2

The man on the lower bunk jolted awake with an apparent self-reproach for sleeping too long. He glanced across the room to make sure nothing had changed from last he remembered it. But difference pried at his eyes until epiphany lit them. He blinked twice, probably to be sure what he saw was indeed what was there before him, and set his jaws firmly together to keep from shouting. There, in the center of the room, the child slept alone, curled in the sand. Above her, hanging from a steel beam by a rope around its hind legs and swinging ever so slightly side-to-side, was the blue deer whose dark, wide eyes gazed lifelessly beyond the walls of the dugout.

On the far side of the deer stood the woman in leather. She pressed herself up against the dead beast in such a sensuous manner that the man had to look away for a moment, to find the nothing of the sand floor, and use that as a canvas on which he would paint his thoughts. When he looked back, she rubbed her cheek against the blue fur, which didn't quite have the same shimmer he remembered as it had dashed into the room. She caressed the skin and, when she noticed him watching her, brought a thin, glimmering knife up before her eyes and began to skin the beast.

The man acted, but by the time he had roused himself from the bed and made it to her side, she had separated a fair portion of the hide from the left flank. She let him take her hand with the knife, but leaned into the creature—and with a devious glance at him, turned her head, opened her mouth, and licked the raw muscle of the dead deer. He managed to pull the knife from her hand and flung it to a far corner and wrestled her from the hanging creature. She resisted, somewhat, but only as much as a drunk only half protesting being taken to a bed to sleep off the inebriation.

When he had sat her back down on the couch, he stood back up, over her, whispering, “No!” fiercely serveral times. When she retreated from him a bit and had curled up back near the wall, he returned his attention to the the fortunately still-sleeping child. How she hadn't awakened while the deer had been slaughtered and hung, he didn't know; but then again, he himself had slept through it. His eyes only spoke volumes about his future vigilance. Nothing like this would happen in the future; he would not allow it. But motion above her caught his eye; the steady argument of gravity had been coaxing a small drip of blood from the animal's flank down its belly, past its shoulder, and onto the neck of the animal hanging over the girl. It raced down the jawbone, over the chin, and came to a point on the tip of the nose. The man's muscles froze as he watched as the drop gathered its weight and then released to the final persuasion. It fell singularly, alone from nose to forehead—a final communion between beast and child. Her eyelids twitched for a moment, her hand reached idly to her face and smeared the drop into a streak, but didn't wake. The man was freed from his spell and he rushed to her side.

He picked up the girl softly and carried her back to the lower bunk. After he had set her down and again placed the blanket over her, he tried to wipe the blood from her forehead. But the smudge wouldn't disappear. But she was sleeping, still, and he rejoiced in this fact.

Looking back to his left, he found the young woman, huddled in the corner of the bed in the corner of the room, where she sat with her head between her knees, arms wrapped around her legs. A sigh of compassion fell from his lips and he scooted himself back to join her. With gentle hands he pulled her shoulder to him, lifted her chin until he found those shifting blue eyes with his own. A moment escaped between their glances, and then he leaned in to kiss her. But she turned her head; she found the texture of the wall suddenly more fascinating.

Without hesitation, the man stretched his arm around her shoulders and held her close. She shivered in his embrace and her breaths came with short and shallow intakes. He began to sway with her, ever so gently, whispering small encouragements and soothing statements. When tears finally broke from the comfort of her eyelids and streamed down her cheeks, he wiped them with a careful finger and held her just a little more tightly than before. Then her breaths gained volume and turned into stuttered moans, filled with agony and pure defeat. “There, there,” his lips said, “You're okay; you're okay. I've got you.” Still she seemed to resist his embrace; she kept her cheek turned as far away from his as she could; but as her energy dwindled, his persistence began to win out. Her elbow no longer pushed against his chest as hard as it had; she didn't hug her knees as strictly as she had when he had first approached her. And evermore her sobs gained volume. Each had a marked effect on the man: his eyebrows betrayed him most, dropping in empathy with every ache-marked sigh. But he held her; he held her with every muscle he had and willed life and love into the deepest parts of her heart.

As he brushed a strand of hair from her face, at last she turned her eyes to his. They were filled with despair, bleak and deep. He gazed in them, much further than anyone had ever tried to penetrate. And like an unfathomed cavern devouring a light on a rope, she began to consume every ounce of life he had to offer. Just as he emptied the last of himself to her, just as a flashing, wicked smile came to her lips, he struck the bottom.

Chapter 1

“What's out there?” whispered a small voice in the dark.

“Nothing; nothing, of course. It's just the wind,” the exhausted voice of a man tried to soothe. “A sandstorm. Nothing more.”

“I'm cold.”

“Wiggle yourself over here a bit. There. That better?” he asked, wrapping an arm around the blanketed girl. A pair of wide eyes glanced his way, then shifted back to her knees. “Yeah, there you go. Nothing to worry about.” He shifted his attention from his right to his left, whispering something to the young woman beside him. She looked away to the lone burning candle beside the creaking bunkbed. “I've told you, we have to stay here.”

“Why?” the woman snapped, pulling away from him and pushing herself against the plaster wall.

The man's eyes searched the room for argumentative aid, but came up lacking. Instead, he held the little girl a little tighter and sighed. “The storm is too bad,” he said at length.

“Why?” she asked again, this time without any tinge of emotion. Her deep blue eyes, obvious even in the dark, stared somewhere beyond him. The man ran his fingers over his scalp; his hair was short, light brown, but receding on the edges of his forehead. He turned again his hazel eyes to the little girl curled up tightly next to him and rested his hands on his jaw. One couldn't have picked him out in a crowd; he was neither very muscular nor incredibly tall. He might have been the one who sat alone in a cafeteria or the last one picked for dodgeball in school. But his shoulders never slumped, those he carried well, like a sodlier. His face was lean and peppered with a few days growth; his eyebrows rather thin and inexpressive. But his eyes were remarkable. Not in size, shape, or color, but looking into them, one might have felt invigorated, lightened, lifted.

But his eyes couldn't pry the woman from the wall. Her question hung with the darkness in the room, sustained by the winds wrestling with the doors. “The sand would hurt you. We can't have you in pain, now can we?” he tried to soothe.

“Sand is soft!” the little voice next to him exclaimed.

He nodded. “When you let it fall through your fingers, yes it is; but when the wind throws it at you, it hurts. It's like being shot with a thousand tiny guns. Do you like being shot by guns?” He watched his query ping around in the small mind for a bit and hoped it would find its mark.

“No, I guess not,” she answered after a long pause.

“Why not?” the woman asked again, but this time from the far side of the room. Startled, the man thought at once to go after her, but as he began to move, a faint tug on his shirt from the little one at his side convinced him otherwise. And so he watched her pace, interjecting every now and again a plea for her to return. She didn't seem to hear a word he said. She strode around the room, almost like a cat in a cage, on long slim legs and bare feet. Her clothing hung on her body like morning dew on a blade of grass; he guessed it hand-cured leather of native design: rather more revealing than anything he might have seen on the streets of upper Talamer, but it certainly seemed well suited to the climate here. She was most definitely a beautiful woman, by any physical standards of which he knew. Her face looked extraordinarily symmetrical, with a short, pointed nose, narrow cheeks, dark eyebrows, large ruby lips, and of course, those incapacitating blue eyes. Long curling dark hair fell across her shoulders as she paced the room—she almost seemed to flip it around every time she turned. The man on the lower bunk began to watch the marks she set in the sandy floor; the little girl only pulled closer to him and shivered.

A sound from above the man drew his attention upward. “Still alive up there?” he called.

“Yes, still alive,” another male voice remarked, but trailed off into whispers. A female giggle found its way down to the lower bunk. The man on the lower bunk just shook his head and watched the woman in hand-stitched leather pace back and forth. When she suddenly stopped, he sat up a bit and squinted at her. She seemed to be listening intently, staring at the door.

“Whatcha doing?” he called after her, but to no avail. She reminded him so much of a cat it was almost frightening. He couldn't have imagined such feral behavior from any woman in Talamer, nor even from his days at Stratis. But again, he couldn't have imagined himself stranded in a deserted military base with only four other people alive and an uncountable number still outside, more likely dead than alive. Or worse. He shuddered and kept his eye on the woman, who now crouched and approached the door.

When she reached for the latch, he yelled out, “Don't touch that! Don't do it!” She shot him a maddening glare and pressed her lips together in defiance. “We'll never get it shut again,” he tried to reason. Another sound, completely inaudible to him, snagged her attention and she again put her fingers on the door. This drew the man from the lower bunk. He took four quick steps towards her, said, “No!” as emphatically as he could. She ignored him and flung open the door. A burst of sand and wind and a blur of blue filled the room. The man shielded his face with his arms, but when the gust died almost as suddenly as it had started, he looked up to find the woman with her back to the again-closed door and a large blue deer standing nervously in the middle of the room, panting and eying its new roommates.

The little girl with short dark hair, in a tee shirt far too big for her, stood, wrapped her blanket more tightly around her shoulders, and walked past the man towards the deer. She stretched out her hand and took slow, deliberate steps towards the animal, which fidgeted uncomfortably, watching the little one's every move. It seemed to gasp and hold its breath as a shiver passed down its body just before the small fingers touched the coarse, blue fur. But then its eyes closed and it snorted, stamped its hooves a bit, but allowed the girl to take a longer, firmer stroke on its side. She smiled and stepped towards the animal's shoulder, petting the fur lightly. At last she reached as high as she could and brushed down its neck. A final quiver rippled under the skin and it turned its nose to the girl, nuzzled her cheek, and set itself down to sleep for the rest of the night in the relative safety of the dugout. The little girl wrapped her arms around its neck and sung soft notes to it and the man, astonished at the fact that a wild deer was bedding down right in front of him, retreated back to the lower bunk and put his head in his hands.

The woman in leather, who had been lingering still at the threshold, looking in a cool feline manner at the spectacle before her, warmed simply and sauntered to the other side of the deer and ran her fingers down it's neck with fluid motions. Several things happened before settling into regularity: the little girl sighed and set her head against the blue shoulder, the deer shivered and set its head on the sandy floor, the woman stretched her lithe form next to the animal and curled an arm around its front leg. After that, the rhythmic breathing of the deer, the circular strokes of the woman, and the fluttering eyelids of a tired girl falling asleep all fell under the gaze of the man on the bed.

The manner in which he beheld the small girl curled up next to the sleeping animal oozed a love of adoption. Pity and compassion combined in him a genuine kindness, but one driven by the purpose of protection. He sat, yes, but with alert eyes, as if ready to spring forth to confront any who would threaten her safety. His gaze most often returned to the little one, only six or seven years of age, but he regarded the newest refugee second-most, but with far less empathy. His lips worked while looking it over—at once pursed, then bitten, then screwed to a corner of his mouth. He didn't seem quite sure what to do with it; it deserved the same shelter from the storm as they did, didn't it? It had brought a peace to the room, that much was certain; but it had also brought something foreign, something strange with it. He couldn't pinpoint it, but a tension of sorts held the peace—and while he sat back and did nothing, one could easily see his mind was at work on the issue.

But something altogether different came into his eyes when he looked at the woman. His cheeks rose in perplexion every time. He would blink more often, and his hands never felt comfortable at rest in any position. They rubbed his neck, ran themselves through his hair, scratched at his stubbly jaw, or tucked themselves away in his armpits. But the look he gave the woman, despite his nervous symptoms, could not be denied: it was pure desire—and not simply the fantastic glimmer of physical attraction, but the steady, radiant yearning for her shone from his eyes.

That she did not notice nor even understand this fact didn't elude the man; that she lay next to a beast, stroking it lovingly, holding it tightly, did not escape him. But still he gazed, probably wondering when in the future an epitome might dawn; when she might realize his affections and return them. However beaten he might have been by a mere animal, he gazed on with absolute certainty in the future, as the storm raged outside.

The upper bunk, however, was far from quiet; in fact, its inhabitants' whispers grew in the relative silence from the sleeping forms on the floor below. A man, far more solidly built than his counterpart on the lower bunk, with a ragged, torn sand-camouflage shirt and pants held a girl tightly in his embrace. She rested her head on his chest, gazing ever upward into his eyes. He played with her long blonde hair with his left hand, held onto her arm with his right. She seemed to be awaiting an answer to a question; an answer struggled to break from his smiling lips.

“Do you?” she whispered again.

“No, I don't recall that particular incident. Enlighten me,” he replied, trying desperately to smother a laugh, to get the right emotion to follow his words. It didn't work and she called him out on it.

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. He only smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Alright; you win. But I tried hard to forget that memory altogther, you know.”

She feigned shock. “Why ever so?”

He mimicked her. “Oh, I haven't the foggiest clue; I honestly love open, plain, no-holds-barred embarrassment, I really do.” She giggled as he continued. “It's those moments we discover who we truly are, how we handle exposure, you know. Why should I remember that when I can make people believe whatever I say about me? I'm far more clever than life allows me to be, you know.”

“Uh huh; well you can be sure that I will be telling everyone the true story behind it all.”

“And they'd believe you, you say?”

She smiled. “Uh huh!”

“What about this?” he said tugging on her pony-tailed hair. “You know it isn't much helping your cause.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Yes, but I am a woman, which means all the respectable people whose opinions actually matter will naturally defer to me, over any man, any day.”

“You have a point. If only they were real people, too,” he said with shrugged eyebrows. She gasped and he grinned. “Like that old friend of your father's? What's his name? The one always wearing the striped suits.”

“Mr. Rentz?” she volunteered.

“Yes, that's the one. Absolutely made of money, isn't he? Has he ever smiled? Or laughed?”

“I'm sure he has.”

“I'm not convinced,” he said with raised eyebrows, as if the fate of the planet, or perhaps an election, depended on it. “He's only always frowned at me, except this one time, when I think I actually got a sneer. I know! Blew me away, my fortune was so good...well, not nearly so good as his, but still...”

“Now, now you married one of “those people” you know. You're only poking at yourself now.”

“Are you kidding me? I didn't join them; I set you free from that prison. You see, that was the only way you could escape. I mean imagine if you married some snobbish law student, you wouldn't be living on the edge in this daring adventure of life, scrapping for your very breath in a small dugout deep in the heart of a blistering sandstorm with me, now would you? You'd be holed up in some townhouse in western Chicago, hosting tea parties and gossiping about the latest political scandal with all the other doomed ladies. You wouldn't want that now would you?”

She laughed. “Of course not.”

“We have it damned good, here. Good, decent company, food enough for a couple months, a nice little outhouse only a few yards away, unrelenting winds, and a three fuzzy stations on a radio. What more could you ask for?” he asked her with a silly grin on his face, but truth lingering in his eyes.

More soberly than perhaps she meant to, she answered, “Nothing.”

“And that, my love, is why we're real people.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head into his chest. He pulled her close with his left and and leaned his cheek on her head. “We've never had it so good, huh?”

Introduction

Don't be fooled by the title!

This will be a serious book about a serious topic. Well, perhaps the most serious topic in the known universe: Love. But it will be far greater than a simple love story, far more attuned to the nuances and subtleties and not-so-subtle demands of the world.

But of course, I daren't be as drab and as boring as the Victorian novelists. Oh no! While the book is about Love, it will have Space Ships, Ghouls, and People Named Jose. Among any number of things made possible by yours truly, Warren Spicks.

Also note that the whole book doesn't yet exist; at least, it won't until the end of November. Ideally then it will be a complete work. We shall see.

And so with that, let us begin the tale.