Aynsefian

“I’d never seen my brother so excited. He clearly wanted me to come with him. This was a paradise, he said, but it wouldn’t be one without me. He was so nice. He was going to study more and learn how to create the key. Then, when he had mastered it, he’d send for me and we’d leave Melcheisa together. That was all he’d wanted to tell me. We spent some more time together, had a few meals after my training sessions and played some board games, and then I had to go. My pretend training was over. I gave him a hug before I left, and that was the last time I saw him alive.”

Zarasena’s brown eyes mist over at this. I stay silent.

“The MGC must have picked up on something. I always feared one of us would slip at some stage. I can’t believe it was him. I must have done something or said something stupid. He was too bloody smart. It had to be me.”

“You don’t know that!” I cry.

“We’ve tried to say the same thing, many times,” says Anathusa. “She’s not going to believe anything different, no matter what anyone says.”

I study Anathusa and Jinekali for a moment. They have clearly been her friends for some time. I don’t know how long and under what circumstances they came together.

I glance back at Zarasena. Her beautiful brown eyes are lowered, staring at the floor. She is in a world of her own. I feel like it’s best to leave her that way for now. A part of me wonders if Sunzirani did find that key he described, and disappeared into that alternate reality, with no way back. I know enough already not to ask this question of Zarasena. I am fully sure that she has already faced it herself.

I decide to try another angle. “Anathusa, or Jinekali…” – it feels wrong to use his first name now – “…can you tell me how you guys met? If that’s okay?”

“Sure, Mr. Fernea, it is. I was the engineer on board her first ship, before she made captain. I kept getting randomly assigned to her crew. In the end, she decided that resistance was useless and she may as well marry me. It’s as simple as that. No major dramas or anything.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was far more interesting than that! You must have some great stories or adventures to tell?”

Anathusa responds. “No, it really was that simple. We are very much alike. Among a lot of personal things we share the same hatred of the MGC, as many others do. We simply play the game, or else. Zarasena joined my crew a few years ago and I was responsible for training her. That’s how we met. I think she hates the MGC more than we do, and that’s saying something.”

“And you can’t leave it, or you’ll be put away. You’re stuck within it for the rest of your life,” I say. For a moment I think maybe I’ve assessed things incorrectly but Anathusa just nods slowly.

I can tell that both of them have glossed over their relationship. I think I know why. Zarasena’s story is tragic, and they are cognisant of letting her have her space.

I don’t blame any of them anymore. It’s all on the Melcheisa Galactic Council. I can sympathise with them all now. “I guess when we achieve our escape and get back to Inconflencia, maybe we can talk more about how bad this MGC is. I think I know enough already to know that it’s to be feared and to be treated with respect.”

“Indeed,” says Jinekali.

We all fall silent. Zarasena appears to be miles away. I wish I could do something. My foolishness in being attracted to her and thinking maybe she'd respond is nothing on what she feels for her brother. I will stop my childish thoughts of attraction to her and just try to be her friend, as best I can. I want to make her life better and ease her pain, if possible. Perhaps something within Aynsefian will stir her curiosity. Maybe my stumbling onto it will lead her to a better and happier place. I hope so.

Suddenly there it is again. Aynsefian. This magical place, or so it seems, barges straight back into the forefront of my thinking. I can’t wait to discover it. I can feel butterflies in my stomach. This is the day when we’ll get to see it. The anticipation is strong. I’ve slept in a real bed and had two meals of recognisable food. I’m feeling refreshed and excited. I want to see what this place looks like. I feel as if it will live up to and perhaps exceed the visions that Arlyss and Cindlyss sent me. Even if it’s no longer active.

This little village we’ve found, this is just an outpost. It’s not necessarily indicative of what the main city will look like.

Our wakeup meal is over, and we are now all back on the bridge. Nikse lifts off. It occurs to me that I’ve hardly spoken to her this morning, other than a perfunctory good morning chat. It’s somewhat sad, but I’m pleased that we’ve both moved on. Meeting Zarasena has helped a great deal, although at this stage I am still standing somewhere in the back of her life, although I’m trying to step forward a bit.

We start cruising again, following the river that flows from the base of the pool next to the village. The light is getting brighter, although the mostly obscured mini sun doesn’t seem to be getting any less obscured. After about two hours, though, it finally does. We traverse over yet another cliff, with further significant widening of the cave in all directions and then a most curious thing occurs.

The cave roof above our heads turns blue. There are clouds now visible that weren’t there before. The clouds must be some sort of illusion. I can’t figure it out.

Jinekali says that the bluish roof and the clouds can be explained by the sheer height involved. The roof is too far away now to be properly visible, so that what we are seeing is a refraction of light from the mini sun. Nikse reports that the cave to roof height is twenty-three kilometres at this location. Nowhere near the sixty-one kilometres that she described yesterday, but still an astonishing height.

Now, with the blue sky, clouds and wide expanses, it actually looks like we’re outside on the surface of a planet, not inside one. It’s extraordinary. Still, we continue on. Nikse reports that we are now one hundred and twenty kilometres from the cave entrance.

Nikse makes us our midday meal as we cruise. Hills begin to appear. In the distance, initially, and then closer to the river, which is now wide and vast, almost like a small lake. The hills get gradually higher and are constantly covered in thick vegetation. The plant life is so extensive that I think there are probably more trees in this cave than on my entire home planet. Not really, but it sure feels like it.

Eventually we pass by some mountains. On the peaks are snow. This means that there is precipitation here, inside this cave. Of course there is. There has to be. How, I don’t know. The clouds are not an illusion. Jinekali thinks that it might be because of the sheer volume of water in the river and the constant heating of the mini sun. It must be creating its own atmosphere, he says.

After a few more hours travelling at a gentle cruising speed, the mountains lessen, and the river flows into a vast plain of lush green grass, intermingled with think ground cover. In the distance is a sight I’ve been waiting all day to see.

It is one of the cities of Aynsefian.

Excited conversation ensues amongst us. I wish I could talk to the Purlinians. I think of asking them to put more visions into my mind, so that they can talk to me. I feel inadequate for not learning their method of communication before now. It doesn’t matter anyway: their gazes are transfixed on the sight of the approaching Aynsefian city. I’m not even on their radar.

I glance over at Zarasena. She has noticed my consternation at not being able to talk to Arlyss and Cindlyss. She gets up out of her seat and comes over to the vacant one next to me.

“What’s up, Fernea?” she whispers.

Knowing they can probably hear and understand me regardless, I nonetheless whisper back. “I wish I could talk with them. They understand me, but I can’t understand what they want or what they’re thinking, most of the time. I never learned.” I bite my lower lip.

Zarasena leans forward slightly. Her beautiful wavy red hair falls past her shoulders, distracting me. “It takes time,” she says. “It’s not something you can learn overnight.”

So she does know how to talk to them. She’s probably been doing it from the start.

“How much can you speak? Or is it not speaking?”

“No. More like tuning in to their level. They send you thought waves and you have to learn how to convert them in your mind.”

“So… like telepathy?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” she says. “You have to get intuitive sentences and go with them. It takes time to separate them from the endless chatter in your mind, but it can be done with proper training. Then when you want to talk to them, there’s a specific mindset you have to adopt for sending them your words. Lanemu and I communicate in a similar way. I’m well practised in it.”

That explains a lot. It really does. “Can I learn? I mean, can you teach me, some day?”

“Yeah, but not today. Or this week. Later, I can.”

A thrill goes through me at these words. This woman is going to be around me after all this is over.

“Okay. Thank you… I will look forward… thank you.” She has me at a loss for words again. I’m a bit of a fool around her.

“But now you’d like me to talk with them for you about what we’re seeing.” She’s figured me out again. I think I’m actually older than her but I feel like a vastly younger brother. I wonder when or even if those feelings will stop. Then again, I’m being harsh on myself. It was a logical assessment that she made. At the moment, I’m nervous around her and still trying to fully understand why. Maybe it’s a combination of my initial shock at the way she treated us and my almost instant attraction to her after a lifetime thinking I was asexual. I don’t even know who to talk to about that. It can’t be Nikse anymore. I’ll have to wait indefinitely, it seems, to get answers on this. I bring my thoughts back to the possibility that the Purlinians can be conversed with.

“Yes, please. Ask them what they know about this city if you can?” There’s some shakiness in my voice. She continues to grow on me and each waking moment I learn more about her that makes me feel insignificant.

“We’ll need to swap seats then,” she says. We do just that.