Zyaina... chapter one
``````` “Time’s running out, Lieutenant!” Mishaa’s brusque order caught Zyaina off guard. She had begun to take his silent brooding for granted. “Roll it over. We'll need an update!”
```````Suppressing her agitation, she unceremoniously reached across the Acting Commander’s arm, her fingers settling into the shallow indentations beneath the locator hood. The keys warmed to her touch with a faint aural chime, allowing her to deftly manipulate the shimmering holo that floated in the indigo hemisphere above their work-station—the colony ship's Life-Sci theater.
```````Zyaina risked a sideways glance while she waited for the wire frame rendering of the single planet solar system to sequence. Was he wearing someone else’s clothing entirely?
```````The oversized pinstriped Flight Service trousers had been sloppily bloused over officer-issue gilded boots. From God knows where he had obtained what looked like a canvas hunting parka, unbuttoned to the waist to reveal an equally soiled sweatshirt beneath.
```````The stubble of red growth on his chin gave him the appearance of some homeless beggar beside a legendary Martian canal rather than the Orion's commanding officer though she had to admit that it somehow accented his stubbornly handsome features. Not wearing insignia pips was totally against regs; still who among the crew had had any sleep these past thirty hours? Undoubtedly she too looked a mess; bags under her eyes, anxiety driven sweat caking her hairline! She’d give her kingdom for a hot shower.
```````What was left of her kingdom...
```````The image display shifted perspective, the false color modeling engulfed by a sweeping rendition born of breathtaking reality. A crimson planet with pale violet rings materialized, a sparkling world framed by a wall of spiraling star clusters. The probe view portrayed a far distant sun, its sphere more resembling a darkened disk than a true source of heat and light. Gaseous plumes buffeted its charcoal body, curling rain shower wisps that emanated from some vanishing point of ominous nothingness. Even as Zyaina watched, these sinuous streamers took on a harsh silver edge, bursting into metallic flames—twin electric displays fanned by an invisible force that defied all imagination.
```````“Neutron star,” she declared, anxious to gauge his reaction.
```````“Brink of Hell you mean...” Mishaa's gaze never wavered from the probe display. His complexion looked waxy, unhealthy, his face far too thin. The elder Mishaa, his fatherthe “Old Man” as he'd been affectionately known to his flight crew had been a robust, outgoing, bear of a presence. His son shared only one physical characteristic—the red hair!
```````Still he looked to be about her age...
```````Twenty one, maybe twenty three at most?
```````Zyaina involuntarily glanced into the hood of her NAV display, ignoring the coral stream of updates that relentlessly winked across the crystalline screen within. She attempted to scrutinize her own reflection, the dim outline of her face lurking within the ever-shifting tri-dimensional plots and sub-texts. Only her blonde curly hair appeared with any detail, the remainder of her countenance a dark mask, featureless...
```````A mirror of her future?
```````“Neutron Star!” she repeated. “What we’re seeing is the first luminescence to escape a disintegrating black hole. They’re notoriously unstable as a ruleliable to flare up in a split second, lasting a minute or a millennium in duration. This one’s tearing itself apart into a kind of double helix. It’s spewing out everything trapped within; a celestial release of time as well as light...”
```````She was lecturing....
```````“You’re saying that the event horizon has broken down?”
```````She started at Mishaa’s question.
```````Was he finally coming alive?
```````“We usually think of the event horizon as the point where matter entering a black hole disappears. Here we’re obviously dealing with matter that’s flowing back out, matter that was formally trapped. Those streamers were probably stripped from a binary companion; quite possibly that honeycombed red hulk off to the planet’s righ—tthe biggest of the three moons?”
```````“This planet we’re looking at could be a candidate as well. Those rings are a dead giveaway.”
```````It was her turn to stare...
```````“It would have needed eons to cool off evolve a suitable atmosphere,” he added. Back in humankind’s home solar system, the largest of the gas planets had once been a binary companion to some long ago imploded neutron star. To take his logic a step further, this planet and its reddish moon might have been binary companions as well, miniature though they be. Perhaps both had fallen victim to this double helix star, striped of all solar plasma in literally one breath...
```````“Jupiter had a similar history,” she offered. “Venus was considered a true planet right up until the twenty second century when stellar track tracing was made possible. It was proven to be a former comet.”
```````Mishaa shrugged...
```````“Immanuel Velikovsky’s old theory. Life might prove real interesting if we manage to get everyone safely down to the surface; prime real estate with a time warp view.”
```````It was said without a trace of humor but it was he who now stole a glance, looking for some sign of affirmation. “Our neutron star is a big cue stick as far as that planet is concerned. Most likely it will be pushed to the outer reaches of space as soon as those superluminals expand.”
```````His knowledge proved intriguing...
```````Superluminal gas jets were normally associated with accretion disks, rotating gaseous rings spiraling about a black hole, their plasma drawn from a nearby companion star. While accretion disk material would eventually be swallowed by an active black hole, superluminals shot outward, their apparent velocity exceeding the speed of light. Indeed this lone orbiting planet would be in grave danger should this neutron star accelerate its mass....
```````“We're talking about a planetary orbit of some thirty six point four eight astronomical unitsa bit further out than Neptune,” she rattled on, hating her compunction to tie up loose ends. “A year would equal; let’s see...” she quickly scanned the remaining data, “... about a hundred and forty five Old Terra years.
```````"Wonder if they have seasons?”
```````There were similar long orbit planets on record that maintained periodic variations in axis, changing seasons quite nicely throughout their track about the sun. Too bad the probe had inexplicably malfunctioned...
```````Stop it, she ordered herself.
```````Zyaina stabbed at the keys, the luminous image above them abruptly growing by a factor of ten; increasing to full six meters in diameter. Two massive continents dominated the planet's Northern Hemisphere, landmasses connected by an archipelago of brownish-green islands awash in a red ocean.
```````She let out her breath...
```````Somehow this magnified version seemed less threatening, even thankfully inviting. The desert and forest renderings could easily have been something out of the Virtual Geographics she had pored over as a child...
```````Zyaina renewed her concentration, again scanning the system-stats displays. Keep talking... “Backup for NAV's shot to Hell,” she went on. “Half the circuits are still out. It's a wonder the damned clock survived.”
```````Bioluminescent digits winked relentlessly over the theater entrance:
```````01:19:01 TO ORBIT
```````01:19:00...
```````He wasn’t listening; his mood once more suited to their shadowy
environment. The theater had been her beloved Life-Science observatory. Now it served as the Orion's emergency Bridge. Still it was his command now...
```````Her duty to keep him updated.
```````“I've added a four times neutral density factor to cut the brightness,” she explained briskly as she rubbed the back of her hand against her headband. The three metal stars designating her as an Orion Flight Service Officer felt icy to the touch.
```````Colony ships weren’t noted for warmth, faster than light vessels notoriously chilly during long stellar tacks. But now the Orion's outer passageways and compartments lay encrusted in glistening sheets of frost, an encroaching icy cocoon that imperiled the vaccu-lifts and ramp-ways leading to the evacuation shuttles. Climate control had been among the first systems to go down when the Flight Bridge disintegrated some thirty hours earlier. No one on watch had made it out alive!
```````Including the Old Man...
```````The pictorial began to break up, momentarily becoming a snowstorm of mica flakes, the swirling glints animating the overhead web of exposed plasma ducts and wry filaments into weaving tentacles of lights and darks...
```````Zyaina couldn't help but shudder...
``````
T'Nahla... chapter two
```````The Elder trailed his wooden paddle in the crimson waters, letting the sea breeze momentarily take the ocean canoe. The craft's slim mast had been unstepped while they lay offshore waiting for the change of tides. Now it was stowed beneath the seats, encased in the furled canvas sail.
```````Forward sat a young golden-eyed woman with close-cropped black hair who suspiciously surveyed the bluffs ahead. Dropping her gaze to the small gravel beach below, she scanned in a continuous motion, never dwelling on one particular spot, searching the sandstone with its hollows and crevices for any unusual shape or subtle movement.
```````Danger lurked first at the edge of one's vision...
```````T'Nahla glanced back at her T'samin—her beloved grandfather—shading her face against the brightening haze with one hand. Over his shoulder lay the boundless reaches of the Nameless Sea, their home island of Rowsegh somewhere below the horizonthree days distant.
```````His navigation had been faultless...
```````They had finally reached their destination, the Bay-Of-Three-Rivers, though its rocky inlets and shallow coves had been enshrouded all day in a curtain of mist. Yet she could feel its presence, this greatest of all northern estuaries, its broad expanse a mixing pool where salty crimson tides devoured crystal melt from the northernmost highlands. Famous in song were the bay's waving marshes, their slender orange grasses safe refuge for bountiful wildfowl, its dark tidal flats layered in eons of shellfish. As for mountains beyond...
```````Forbidden territory!
```````The Elder too examined the bluffs with golden eyes, his clean shaven chin jutting outward, the underlying bone carved as if from immovable ivory. A broad brimmed hunter's hat, trimmed with brindled gray flight feathers, concealed the three-starred headband denoting his standing as a majiska, the sorter-of dreams—one who worked the collective sensitivities known as T'astr.
```````How handsome he looked, she marveled...
```````He was of the Rowsegh Wai’min, of the sea folk who inhabited the most northern island in the archipelago known as the Five Briadies. The embroidered ovals along the sleeves of his zhiilskin jacket, the ancient interlocking pattern known as big fish/little fishproclaimed his status as royalty. And indeed he was treated as such for he had lived well into his one hundred and twenty seventh summer!
```````T'Nahla too wore her finest summer outfit, an open shouldered hunter's jacket with matching leather trousers bloused at the knees. While at sea she remained barefoot, her prized zhiilskin boots carefully stowed in her backpack along with her waterskin, a day’s dried rations and her most precious childhood treasure of all, a Sanoahan hand mirror.
```````Again she inspected their approach...
```````The beach was protected to either side by red stained ledges. The tide had just turned, was now on its way out as indicated by exposed layers of dripping seaweed. Ahead would be a perfect spot to land and make camp; but she would, of course, respect his decision.
```````Still no words were exchanged...
```````The Elder applied back-pressure to the paddle, allowing the bow to line up with the beach. Giving a series of powerful strokes, he propelled the canoe forward. Again he eyed the heights. She closely followed his gaze, making her own silent appraisal. The shreel colony at the summit remained calm as it nested on the narrow ledges abovea good sign. The Elder nodded affirmatively to his granddaughter as she turned to him.
```````“When the Twins Above rise on the morrow, the High Plateau of Karrah will be visible. You will be on your own, T'Nahla. I can take you no further. We will make our camp.”
```````Her name flowed from his lips with a gentle click of the tongue, resonate liquid syllables that distinguished the Rowsegh dialect from most others of the Briadies. She nodded in understanding. Her long black hair had been recently cropped to neck length in preparation for this quest.
```````T'Nahla...
```````This night she would turn sixteen summers!
```````She was his pride and joy, this eldest and tallest of his chamin—his
grandchildren. In the Elder's consideration there was none more clever nor more beautiful, with perhaps one exception—her mother. Like himself she was gradaa, a first-born as denoted by the tiny red jewels known as zeeprays affixed to her temples at birth. Her rounded eyes and flat bridged nose were said to be the very personification of Savan T’nia herself, she who with her consort, Ram’Hagan, had first shepherded the Wai’min across the sea of darkness, finding refuge on the shores of N’ayu, the watery world that they now called home.
```````T'Nahla went over the side as the Elder gave one final thrust with his paddle and yanked the canoe up onto the gravel beach, letting the bow ride a small wave. Though the craft was wood built, it would never do to let the hull grind away on some sharp piece of ledge. Still it felt good to wrestle the canoe ashore after a three-day upon the open ocean. She reached down for her backpack, tossing it well beyond the water's reach. One last thing—her ivory hunting bow. She lifted the oilskin wrap from its resting place below her seat and shook the waterproof covering away.
```````A hunter’s weapon, sturdy but lightweight, the slim bark quiver holding but eight ivory tipped arrows—to be used only in quest of food. With evening now upon them, they would make camp, begin the ritual of hosh-a-ma, the leave taking that was preparatory to T'sassk, the-final-walk-alone...
Jazon... chapter three
```````Jazon sat up, swinging his legs onto the deck. His hand automatically went to the base of his neck. The small ID plate that everyone received at birth was still there. He felt confused.
```````“Jazon, Sir, Jazon Lynn. I... it couldn't be erased!” He swayed at the effort, his thoughts leading him as he put one hand out to grasp the bulkhead. “I mean it’s a crime to erase your ID...”
```````Both Zyaina and Mally looked him up and down curiously. He was tall, blue eyed, muscular in an athletic sort of way. His long black hair was tied back with a silver clip as was the fashion among younger men of lower Castus.
```````Mally grinned...
```````Someone had mashed his nose in sometime back, though it nonetheless suited his looks—the benefits of a good bar fight. He was definitely a lady-killer—probably knew it.
```````“I'm Mally, Mally Kerry. And this here's Lieutenant Zyaina, no first name needed. She's our Life-Systems specialist but during our stay down here, she's also our self-appointed medical officer as well. How old did you say you were?”
```````Jazon barely heard her.
```````Where were they?
```````He remembered the shuttle plowing through trees. There was a river. He remembered floating through water... tied to something. And then it was night. Silent lightning had slashed continuously across the heavens... green moons crashing into a giant red one...
```````Or was it all just a hallucination?
```````“Sir, I'm eighteen... Muzhik Castus, Fourth Class!”
```````“Sweet Sancho’s ass! As useless as hind legs on a Scibachal Water Griffin!” exclaimed Zyaina. “Mally, those Fourth Class slots are make work! They change the sponge chamois in the heads...”
```````A hard look from Mally cut her off.
```````“Filing! I was in old man Bershjider's section,” Jazon exclaimed. “Records & Logs; historical data! But I'm also a Dallist Free Fighter with a secondary in swordsmanship. I was trained by General Kaodah's personal Master-at-Arms. We're facing the unknown out there. You'll need me!”
```````Zyaina looked to Mally with an ‘I told you so’ expression.
```````“Well, Son,” Mally managed to drawl, “that's a mighty convincing speech, though a moment ago I was hoping for you to be a might older. Still as you say, it would be damned handy to have some reinforcements around here.” With a sigh, she turned to leave, giving Zyaina's arm a light tap in passing. She paused once more in the doorway.
```````“Look, Mr. Lynn. This afternoon I plan to take the Onrust down river provided we can slap a few patches on her hull. My feeling is that if we hang around here much longer, we're all going to start feeling sorry for ourselves. We might as well get on with the full tour.”
```````“Can I go with you?”
```````Again she grinned.
```````“If you get a better offer, Son, you just let me know. Meanwhile I suggest if you're able to walk, that you come along over to the shuttle. We'll have a go at figuring out just where you'll fit in. I've got a few more questions for you, when I get the time... about those macro-bytes you're lugging around?” She drew back the entrance panel and departed into the rain.
```````Jazon rose to take a step after her, then staggered, barely catching himself. Zyaina sprang from her seat and threw an arm around him. She settled him back on the bunk.
```````"“Let me give you something first now that you're awake. I took care of that burn on your arm but with your ID erased, I couldn't risk anything internal; not while you were nodding in and out. You took a Hell of a crack on the head when you came aboard as well.”
```````“You don’t look like a doctor…” They were on a new world! No one would care what Castus he was anymore. “How long have I been unconscious? Where are we?”
```````“Shut up and take this. It's a 342! You're not allergic to any medications, right?” She dropped a sticky silver pellet into his hand. “Settle your balance. They work fast.”
```````“Where are we?” he repeated. She leaned back against the ration locker, regarding him with a frown.
```````“Camped out on a river bank for the moment. We came down yesterday afternoon. It's early morning now. Just where, on what planet, we're not sure.”
```````“No, where are we? In here! This isn't the shuttle...”
```````She smiled faintly. “This is what we refer to as an escape pod. It was designed for zero-gravity crew ejection. We’re lucky we didn’t lose it to the current. It popped off during the landing. We managed to float it in to shore.”
```````He digested her information for a moment as he glanced around the cramped compartment. There were three bunks on either side fitted into the curved bulkhead and several banks of what looked like communication equipment. Somehow it resembled his own quarters back on the Orion; the colors were the same dull greens and beige.
He was beginning to feel ill... the medication. His stomach heaved momentarily. Damned if he'd throw up in front of her. He had to keep talking.
```````“There was a rumor that someone, some group tried to seize the Bridge,” he began, forcing himself to speak, “that the Military were battling among themselves.”
```````“Where did you hear that?”
```````“Bershjider requested some help from Devereaux himself but Kaodah's men intercepted us first. I think the Military are divided against one another.”
```````That's what Mishaa had implied, she thought.
```````Certainly the story that had been leaked to the Colony after the Military's clamp down was ludicrous by any standards. That the Orion had collided with an asteroid was about as likely as three week's shore leave!
```````“Your version is just as believable as anyone's, Lynn; not that it makes any Goddamn difference now.”
```````“Where did you say we were?” After that fire aboard the shuttle, he was determined not to get into an argument. What was the matter with her anyway?
```````At least she appeared thankful for the question.
```````“Our last checkpoint was what's charted as Henson's Clustera small seventy five star system about a quarter of the way into the Great Wall. That's about as much as we could ascertain before the order came through to punch out.” Still Zyaina could feel herself warming by the second. She cursed her compulsion to lecture. “I can tell you what we know about this world however,” she offered.
```````He waited expectantly.
```````“We're on a Terran sized planet orbiting a collapsed neutron star. We’ve mostly a water world here with the exception of a northern and southern landmass, both occupying an area maybe a quarter bigger than North America. The days run a bit under twenty six hours. And there are twin rings, violet in color, at least from outer space.”
```````“We saw a red ocean coming in, didn't we?”
```````“Right and we've got two small moons, both green in color as well as a sizable red one. But it's really the neutron star we’re orbiting that’s curious... what's left of it anyway. It may have already sucked in its binary companion. Be interesting to see what it looks like when this weather decides to clear."
```````“I...” he started to say something more but decided against it. Neutron stars were beyond his knowledge to say the least. Yet somehow he had to convince her, convince Captain Mally, that he was making a recovery, that he would be a valuable asset. This was going to be the chance of a lifetime; his chance to break free of the idiotic Castus system that marked him a dolt in everyone's eyes. He was aware of Zyaina watching him, her expression unreadable, waiting for him to continue.
```````“Henson's Cluster,” he mused aloud, “and a river... to where? I mean what a fantastic adventure this is going to be.”
```````She wanted to shake him, shake some sense into him, some reality!
```````“Don't you get it, Lynn? We are L O S T! There are five of us left. The Orion is gone, G O N E! Everyone's dead and no one back on Terra knows!”
```````“Well, we're on our own then! You're a medical officer. We have a ship's captain... Who else is here?”
```````“Goddamn unbelievable!”
```````She became totally exasperated.
```````“Do you think this is some kind of damned game,” she exploded. “Some drugged vid-quest? The Gig was the Old Man's personal shuttle but in emergencies, we were supposed to take the whole Twenty Five Section aboard. They were forty people with geology and civil engineering specialties. They never got into the tubes before the seals locked.”
```````And Ken's missing, the best Third, Life-Systems ever had. Ken had waited outside... It hadn't been Ken's job to rescue people. Again she felt the tears threatening. No way this guy would ever understand... He was just a child.
```````He didn't want to understand!
```````
