The Choice (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 8) Page 2

  Leaving the window to cross the room, my mind grew frantic with worry, more so for myself than my nephew's disappearance.

  "Perhaps he has gone in back," I cried aloud, searching for any sort of explanation and so I ran to the suites and to the restrooms bursting into each one and finding them vacant. I pounded on the door to the cockpit calling for the pilots and the attendants. No one responded. No door opened. "Senya!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and was answered only by my own voice as it echoed off the empty walls.

  Finally, in a fit of panic, I grasped at the cockpit door, thrusting it open and bolting inside.

  Kari-fa! I was alone! There were no pilots at the helm. In fact, the entire bridge was empty as we drifted out here in space. They had all disappeared, or perhaps, had never been.

  Was this all an illusion or had I died and didn't realize?

  "You're not alone," a voice said, jolting me out of my panic. Abruptly, I turned to the voice, to the words spoken in my native tongue. "I am with you here as I have always been. Calm yourself, Tuman. You are safe."

  "Go away!" I screamed at the phantom for surely that was what he was.

  "Come," he said calmly and held out his hand. "Sit with me and let me tell you what might happen next. You have a decision to make. There are choices here before you."

  I hesitated a moment hoping that he might somehow disappear, that I might awaken from this nightmare and find my wife feeding me sheep and fish egg soup.

  "Sorry, brother," he said. "I am indeed here and for what it's worth, I wouldn't touch that soup either."

  He led me back into the passenger cabin, from which moments earlier Senya had disappeared, and I sat down in the seat I had occupied before.

  "Is it you?" I asked as he stood over my head.

  He smiled and raised his eyebrows in that familiar mocking way. His hair was thick and black not gray as mine had become and it still stood up in the back in that ridiculous cowlick. He wore a goatee as he had done in his youth with spectacles propped on his nose and it did occur to me just then how his face resembled my own son's. His leggings were untied, his vest torn, his shirt spoiled by what appeared to be spilt coffee down the front. He looked not a day older, though he was dead fifty years. When I ceased to be afraid, I nearly laughed.

  "You haven't changed at all."

  "I am as you wish to see me," my brother said patting at the cowlick with his hand. "There is no reason to be frightened. I shall be here with you all the time."

  "Where am I going, brother, all alone on this ship? Am I dead?"

  "Well," my brother scratched at his goatee, "that's actually a bit complicated though I can assure you, you're not alone. See here, I am at your side. I believe no one is ever truly alone no matter how lonely it may feel. Senya begs to differ, and we have spent much time in discussion, as it humors him to argue metaphysical matters with me."

  "It always did," I recalled, before I realized the truth. "I am dead!" My heart seized at the realization though come to think of it, it must have stopped already. "How did this happen? What did I do? I'm not that old. I'm not ready to go!"

  "Well," my brother, or rather his spirit said, as he knelt beside me close enough to touch though my hand met only air. "Your heart did stop. Right now, it is suspended. You can start it again and return or let it go and meet your fate. As the Wise One said, you have a choice now, Tuman. Don't be hasty in your decision. The lives of others will depend on you."

  "Why? What effect would I have on anyone beyond my wife, who frankly would take weeks to notice I am missing?"

  "You shall see," Pedah advised. "Now here is option one. I will tell you what will happen if you choose to return again. Are you ready?"

  I sat back in my seat and let my brother's words soak into me. I wasn't ready to die. I had plans for the upcoming years. I was breeding my mares and building a new boat. My daughter Lookah and I were going to visit Rozari in the spring. My son Rekah and I were planning a fishing trip next month.

  I wasn't old. I wasn't infirm. In fact, I was healthy and robust compared to most my age. I could easily last another twenty years. My brother Sorkan was still very much alive, and his body was a wreck, years of alcohol having taken their toll. For thirty years now, he did nothing but complain about his heart and his back, his knee and his tooth. For the last twenty years or so, he had been dying.

  I had never abused anything. I ate healthy and exercised daily. I had done everything right. Why should I be the one to pass first?

  "Are you ready, Tuman?"

  "No," I snapped, "not at all. This isn't fair."

  "Sorry? Did someone say that life would be?" my brother smirked. "I must have been too busy and missed that announcement."

  Chapter 2

  June

  My tribe had only been on Xironia for a hundred years. Our ancestors had been enslaved on this planet not long after they had immigrated from Earth. They had come to Xironia because it was said to be prosperous. The streets were paved with gold. Hard work and honest living would make you wealthy and free.

  Earth was in the midst of a massive upheaval then, in which the countries were all realigned, and one government ruled all. The Alliance of Planets was formed, creating an even larger bureaucracy, led by those same rulers who now controlled Earth. Many applauded this, especially those who chose not to work. Some were happy to be sheep as long as they were fed. The people of my tribe did not value such ways. They were too independent, too self-reliant or free-thinking to conform.

  They packed up what little they could and ventured across the stars because someone heard from someone else that Xironia was the new frontier. Unfortunately, these things they were told were lies. Evil people waited for them, capturing them and making them slaves as soon as their feet stepped on the Xironian ground. After searching for freedom, our ancestors ended up in chains. Then, they were sold to Xironian slavers who auctioned them for the highest price.

  I lived the entire twenty-one years of my life in a dormitory of women and children. The men and the boys lived down the street. Between us was the factory where everyone worked, and all was owned by the Master who dictated our lives. He was said to be a good master as rarely was one beaten. Only once did I see a man shot and once a woman buried to her neck. On holidays, we were given extra portions of soup and once a week, we were allowed to rest for three extra hours. As children, we were taught tasks that would make us useful in this life. Reading was unnecessary as there was nothing more we needed to know. Love for another or even friendship was prohibited. Men were said to behave rashly to protect those for whom they cared. Preventing this caring meant that we would be safe, and so we grew to believe we had no heart.

  I never knew my mother. She might have been any of one hundred women who served the Master, or she could have been from another collective, as we were often bred with neighboring tribes.

  My father, I believed, was one of three men who some said had the same eyes as me and the same cleft as in my chin.

  My life was pleasant enough, or so I thought. I was content to be as I was. It was only the old women of our tribe that scorned the Master and spoke longingly of days when we had lived as free men.

  "This is not why we left Earth," one granny cried. "As bad as Earth had been, it was never as horrible as what we now face."

  I scoffed at this for it was what I was accustomed to. I had no memory of being free and could not miss that which I had never known. Others did, and some tried to escape.

  When I was small, some men banded together and formed a small army. They killed the Master's Man and ran into the forest on the other side of the fence. When the police came to collect them, the tribesmen fought back with rocks and sticks. We all watched as the forest was burned down to nothing, the terrified cries of my brothers ringing in our ears, the stench of burned flesh forever souring my nostrils and the back of my throat.

  When I was a little older, no longer a child but not quite a woman, some boys in our tribe tried to fight
the Master again. The police came to conscript them, to send them away to the frozen camps where they could be put to work and not be able to resist.

  All boys who were half grown and might have been a threat were herded like cattle into a large truck. Some refused to go. One punctured his ear drum and claimed as a deaf man he had heard nothing of the resistance. Another boy cut off his toes and declared himself an invalid who couldn't walk. How could such a cripple even contemplate a fight? Those two were allowed to stay though no one ever saw them again. No one ever saw those that had gone to the frozen place either, but as we were forbidden from caring, no one mourned their loss.

  When I became a woman, I was initiated by the Master's Man and afterward, allowed to share company with the men of our tribe. This was an activity we all enjoyed, though we were forbidden to devote ourselves to only one partner.

  "This is a terrible life," an old woman moaned in the middle of the night. "These Xironians have turned us into animals, and now our young people are happy to be caged."

  "Shut up and go to sleep, Granny!" somebody called. "There is nothing to be done, so let us just live our lives."

  I wanted to live my life. Back then, my brain was small. I had not yet been taught the history of my tribe and did not understand why the grannies wept. It was distressing to hear them lament about that which I couldn't begin to imagine.

  "Why should one long for the life we had on Earth? It could not have been pleasant to pay just to have a place to sleep. Food and clothing had cost many coins. Now the Master provided everything to us.

  "The difference is Choice," an old woman replied, as if she had read the thoughts in my mind. "This is the most important freedom which we have lost."

  I thought about this freedom, Choice. What would I choose if I was I given the chance? Would I choose to work elsewhere? I enjoyed my task baking pastries to fill the Master's belly.

  Sometimes, his desired chocolates or puddings made by another so I was awarded my pastry to eat by myself. I took it to the dormitory and broke it into even pieces to share among the crying grannies so they would not bicker and fight.

  One evening, I was settling myself to my evening dish of food and looking forward to sleeping after working all day. Sleep was a pleasure that I cherished more than eating. If a slave was bad, the Master's Man might deny either one. Food I could manage without for a long time, but if I missed sleep, I quickly became weak and ill.

  "Don't eat the meat, girl," the old woman called to me as I passed. She was sitting on her bunk nursing a cup of brown tea. "A disease lies therein. If you must eat something, eat the cheese even though the smell turns your nose."

  "You are crazy, old woman," I scoffed, and made to take a bite from the bread. "Why would I eat something bad when there is something good right here next to it?"

  The old woman reached for my wrist, her gnarled fingers wrapping around it like claws.

  "You are confused," she hissed and glared with dark, pointy eyes. "You do not recognize that which is evil disguised as good. Listen to me girl. You must run away from here. You must leave this planet and go where you may be free."

  "Why?" I kept my voice low as I pulled my hand from her grasp. "I am content. I have no desire for anything more than I have."

  "This is exactly why you must go!" she snapped. "You are not a sheep, though you act as if you have a sheep's brain in your head. My father did not flee from Earth so that you would be a slave on Xironia. You are a human being, girl. You need to start thinking for yourself. Go to the Empire where every man is free. I will give you trinkets to trade for coins so you might pay for your passage there."

  "Why should I listen to you, and why would you care about me? Go flee yourself, Granny." I turned my back and walked away.

  "June, look at me. Am I young? How many years have I left? You are the future. You are all that remains of us."

  I looked at her, and what I saw was an old woman. Her hair was thin and white, her skin wrinkled and folded in places. Her eyes were dark like mine but filled with the sadness of a lost life. She meant nothing to me, as nobody did. Yet, something stirred in my soul, for she had the same cleft in the center of her chin and the same dimple on the side of her cheek.

  The next night, beneath my pillow, I found the trinkets of which she spoke. They were encased in a cloth bag with our tribe's symbol on the front. When only moonlight lit the long room, and only the noises of the sleeping remained, I opened the bag and put my fingers inside.

  "Sticks?" I gasped silently upon finding long pieces of wood.

  How would I trade for my freedom with only sticks of wood? I put them away in my own tiny space and did not think about these sticks again until one night, I closed my eyes, and an Angel appeared in my dream.

  "June," he said, and I woke, or so I thought, to discover him hovering high above my bed. "You must flee from here, June. Your destiny lies elsewhere. Take your gift and go beyond this world."

  He vanished in the night, and I saw only the darkness and heard only the snoring of the other women.

  Climbing from my bunk, I slipped into my dress and then escaped from the dormitory, my home. I hid by the back fence as I had seen others do, and when the sky was the darkest, I crawled beneath it and ran.

  I walked through the forest that night and slept inside a hollow log during the day. The next night, I continued my journey along the path. There were other escaped slaves who slipped through the shadows too, all of us heading in an unknown direction. In the morning, the police came and swept the forest with their lights as we hid like mice in every corner and crack. Some were caught, and some were shot dead, but I lived to walk until the morrow.

  "You need shoes," a young man told me, as he caught up to my side on the trail. "I am Dov." He spoke in the language of my tribe and offered me a crust of bread.

  "Shoes?" I gasped, stuffing the bread in my mouth, for I was hungrier than ever before. "Only masters wear shoes. Slaves aren't fit for such things."

  "You are no longer a slave." He knelt down and wrapped my feet with torn cloth, while I drank water from a bottle he had carried.

  We walked for seven days until we came to the Dark City which actually wasn't a city at all. It was a cluster of empty buildings that had once been factories but now had broken windows and no doors. They were protected by chained fences that had rusted away and locks that hadn't sealed in a century. During the day, the buildings were vacant, populated only by shadows, but at night they came alive with a city of ghosts. Anything could be sold and more could be bought in the darkness that was inhabited by former slaves.

  "We'll get papers," Dov said. "Then we will be free, and no one will ever know we were slaves. We'll join the resistance, and we'll fight for our brothers until everyone on Xironia has a choice."

  I wanted to fight and to help the people of my tribe. Was this what the Angel had meant when he spoke of my destiny?

  "I can help." I showed Dov my small bag filled with thin sticks. "I have this, but I'm not certain what they can do."

  "These are very valuable," Dov laughed holding a stick up to the light. "This pencil is mightier than a sword and stronger than a shield when it is the truth that needs to be defended."

  I didn't understand what he meant, for Dov was an odd man who spoke of strange things that made no sense to my simple mind.

  "I am educating you, June." He twirled a pencil between his fingers. "I will teach you to exercise your brain."

  That night, we took my pencils to market and sold every one of them for a coin, and in the morning, Dov and I returned to the forest.

  "Come meet my friends, the Brothers of the Resistance," he insisted and instead of falling to sleep, I went with him to the deepest vale by a lake.

  There were many people there, even some who spoke the language of my tribe. We sat in a tight circle and listened to an old man. I wanted so badly to sleep for I had been awake since the previous day, but I had to listen to what this granddad said.

  "T
he General will go to the Empire. He has been granted a meeting with a very powerful Duke."

  "But what about the Emperor?" someone cried. "Will the General be able to speak to him, or will the Duke convey the importance of his message?"

  "What are they speaking of?" I whispered to Dov.

  "The war to free Xironia," Dov explained. "They will help us fight."

  "We're going to ask him to help us free the slaves," said the man who was sitting next to Dov. "If the Emperor helps us, then surely we will win."

  I shook my head for I could not believe what I had heard. "What great king would spare a thought for slaves such as us?"

  My question went unanswered as just then, the old man spoke again.

  "Who can accompany the General to meet this Duke?"

  A few raised their hands and volunteered.

  "I would like to go," Dov declared. "It would be my dream, but I haven't enough coins to pay for the passage, even with all the pencils which we have sold."

  "I would like to go too," I said for I recalled how the granny had spoken to me of this Empire. That was why she had given them to me after all. "Perhaps we can raise more coins, and we both may go."

  The next night, we traded coins for a sack of wheat and a bag of sugar, a basket of apples and two dozen eggs. During the day, I baked apple tarts in a clay forest oven and at night Dov sold them in the Dark City. We did this for several weeks until we bought our papers. With this, we could rent a flat in which to live. We found a building near the Dark City with a table, chairs and a bed. Now, I baked my tarts in a gas oven. A short time later, we had earned more than enough.

  "We can board a freighter," Dov said counting the coins upon our tiny table. "We will travel to Cascadia to meet the General. We'll be ready as soon as he declares the war begun." Dov raised his arms and stabbed at the couch with an invisible sword. He shot at the window with a pretend gun. "I am ready to fight the war. Just you wait, June. We'll make everyone free. All the evil masters won't know what has hit them when Rehnor joins with us."