asher553 | Entries tagged with fiction

Sestris turns the gleaming egg over in her hand, admiring its beauty. A jagged hole in the shell reveals the tiny creature inside, some kind of bird or winged reptile, its eyes closed, its wings folded ... peaceful. All preserved forever in shining metal. It looks as alive as the moment she found it.

She puts the egg back on the shelf among her many ornamental treasures. From her chamber high in the Palace Compound, she looks out on the capital city. So many people, still sleepwalking ... if they only knew. But they wouldn't understand, even if she told them. They are all still asleep, like the creature in the egg.

In the stars beyond, there lies a fragile, scattered band of inhabited worlds. And out there - though very few know it - hides a fissure in the bedrock of space. It has lain hidden like a sleeping dragon since the first moments of creation.

Sestris thinks of the others, the enlightened ones. She only knows the names of a few, but there are many more. She knows what she needs to know, and that is enough - more than enough, since very few are privileged to serve the group in such a high position. But that does not matter; it is the group, with its sacred mission, that matters. They are the ones who will wake the dragon when the time comes. Soon, all the worlds will see the universe as it truly is - as it must be. The beauty of emptiness. The beauty of infinity. The beauty of the great onenesss. The beauty of ...

Sestris waits.

I've previously linked this material posted on another site, but I think it makes sense to put it directly on my LJ as well. It's the background for "Gone Into Night". If you've already seen this, of course, or if it doesn't interest you, you're free to skip it.

Otherwise, you can ( continue reading ... )

[This entry begins Part 2 of "Gone Into Night", a story which I have been posting in serial form. To read Part 1 in its entirety, click here: Gone Into Night - Part 1.]

Six generations after its founding, Planet 138 still hasn't got a name of its own, as if its inhabitants aren't really planning to stay. But with a total population that has never risen above 50,000, no ecosphere, and an economy far too small to support an independent space program, they haven't got much choice. Most of the inhabitants live in a single complex, which is divided into three sections. Although the bulk of the colony is underground, three domes can be seen rising above the planet's rocky surface. One part is the city, the manufacturing and residential area; the second is the hydroponic zone, and those who tend it live there. The third part is the library, and where the dead are buried.

It's recess time.

The suns are out today - and they will be for another five standard days, thanks to the planet's slow rotation - but they are not bright enough to spoil the view of the sky. The girls in Miss Orizhend's third-level class are discussing the mysteries of life as they get suited up for recess.

"I heard they make babies in a big lab'ratory," says Casima, whose mothers both work in bioengineering.

"Uh-uh", retorts Svadhi. "Maybe they do it like that sometimes, but mostly people get pregenant. They grow their babies in their tummy."

"I heard about a lady who got pregnant all by herself. Her spaceship crashed somewheres an' she was stuck an' she decided to have babies." It's Urkni, who has heard lots of stories.

"No way," says Svadhi, dutifully checking the radiation tag just inside the collar of her suit, "a lady can't get pregnant by herself."

Jharid has joined the group. All eyes turn to Jharid, because Jharid is Mature, and she Knows Stuff.

"She can," Jharid says deliberately, "but she's not s'posed to, 'cuz then the babies could grow up all 'tarded and stuff. That's why she's gotta get married. 'Cuz she's sposta have somebody with her when she makes the baby, so's the genes don't come out all the same."

"Yeah," Casima jumps in, eager to prove she's known it all along. "It's like when you clone a bean plant or something, they always get defective later."

"And that," Jharid continues, taking no notice of Casima, "is why you gotta have a Mama and a Nana, a birth mommy and a bond mommy. 'Cuz your bond mommy's gotta be around when your birth mommy gets pregnant."

"Yeah," Casima explains, undeterred, "she's gotta hold her hand an' stuff."

Svadhi, overcome with horrified fascination, says, "An' do they, like, kiss an' stuff?" Grownups kissing is still gross for her.

"Oh yes," Jharid says mysteriously, "an' not just on the mouth."

Svadhi is certain she doesn't want any more details, but somehow she looks at Jharid, silently begging her to explain.

Jharid, deeming her ready for the information, whispers something in Svadhi's ear. Svadhi shrieks and throws her hands to her face, her helmet bouncing noisily along the floor. "Jharid, that's the grossest thing I ever heard! You're lying! I hate you! I'm not ever going to talk to you again! You're a horrible person and I hope you die!"

In twenty years, Svadhi and Jharid will be married. But that is another story.

As Svadhi runs headlong into Miss Orizhend, the teacher is wondering for the billionth time why she does this. She'd been hoping to have a break from watching thirty-five girls (hers and Miss Hara's seventeen) and making sure they don't get lost, rip their suits, or overstay their recess and exceed their radiation exposure limit. Now she has to inspect Svadhi's helmet for damage, and just to be on the safe side, she should probably keep her indoors anyway.

"Svadhi," she says, "was Jharid being mean to you?" Svadhi nods petulantly. "Then I think you should stay inside this recess, so she doesn't bother you." Svadhi isn't sure whether this is intended as a privilege or a punishment, but whatever, she'll take it.

The class from the room across the hall are already waiting, and they file together along the corridor that runs the perimeter of the school level. Miss Hara is there, and it's her turn to hold recess duty. The two classes share the elevator ride to the surface, as they usually do.

Miss Orizhend reflects that, after all, they're not a bad lot. It's hard to say whether things have changed much since she was in school. She'd be tempted to say they have, but she can't put her finger on anything, exactly. They say the older girls, especially, are very well-behaved these days. Some of them have even formed some sort of social club - like a knitting group, she supposes, at any rate it's harmless enough, and those are the girls that seem to do best in their studies. That's what people are saying, anyway.

The elevator door slides open and the two teachers and their girls make their way down the walkway with their helmets on, except for Miss Orizhend and Svadhi. Miss Orizhend nods to Miss Hara, and realizes she's feeling a little relieved, because she's wanted to have some time to talk with Svadhi alone.

And that's when they find the dead girl's body in the airlock.

Gone Into Night

It's a word every schoolgirl knows from astrophysics. And long after she's forgotten all the equations and gotten on with the business of working and raising a family, she'll remember the word. It's just the kind of word you remember.

Atubis is thinking about the word now. It means something else in these times, though, and it has precious little to do with stars or the universe. It's closer to home than a black hole, and much uglier.

For some reason, Atubis finds herself thinking back on her other life, the one she had before she became a Priestess. The life none of her disciples know anything about.

***

Amira stares into the screen, trying to glean some information. There's more to the picture than Kathris has told her, but she can't see it. She doesn't know what to look for. All she sees is the tiny blips of an alien fleet advancing slowly, steadily, toward an even tinier blip. She squints to see the writing beside the blip, but it tells her nothing; it is simply a number: 138.

***

Kathris fingers the pages of the printed book. There's something reassuring about printbooks, and somehow she's glad that, no matter how far civilization advances, people never seem to lose the need for the simple permanence of the printed word. "Durable media", the technologists like to call it. She has a need of durable things these days; everything feels as if it's slipping away.

A search of General Information would be too dangerous, even with the highest levels of Imperial security. The encyclopedia before her tells her nothing, only rehearsing familiar truths about zero denominators and infinite quantities. It is, literally, a lot of nothing.

The comfort of her private study is all she has now. Surrounded by the old books, she wishes she could stay there. But there's work to do, and not much time. So little time. She stares around at the volumes of physics, poetry, astronomy, philosophy, history. Where to begin?

The scrap of paper is moist in her hand, tattered as she clutches it, unable to look at it, unable to erase its one word from her mind.

***

Dess descends to the lower section of the Hunger of Lilith, to get ready to go planetside. Her teacher is already there, seated in the reclining chair and facing the rear of the spacecraft in preparation for the twenty-minute deceleration and atmospheric entry. A deep-space craft would need much longer, but the Hunger of Lilith, coming through the hyperspace portal, has no spatial velocity except the orbital speed of the portal itself.

For the trillionth time, Dess wonders why her teacher has to be the most beautiful woman in the universe. It just isn't fair. But now it's worse than that: something is troubling Atubis. Dess wants to ask her what's weighing on her mind, but that would be inappropriate. Besides, what comfort could she, Dess - barely more than a girl herself - offer to the silver-haired woman? And deep down, there's the worst thing of all: If something is worrying Atubis, with all her wisdom, she's not sure she even wants to know what it is.

***

The Hunger of Lilith doesn't like the smell of the atmosphere.

There's not too much time to ponder it, with three organics in a hurry to get planetside for reasons of their own. (Well, Dess isn't just any organic, but she's trying to be professional about this.) The Hunger can't quite put her finger on it, either - figuratively speaking - because there's nothing specific: no biological pathogens, no radioisotopes, nothing to indicate something badly amiss with the life-forms on Shakti. And yet, something isn't quite right.

Well, time to think of that later. Two of the organics are already belowdecks, impatiently waiting for her to start decelerating. The third lingers.

***

Somehow, the thought of seeing Amira again fills Joli with both longing and dread. Dess and Atubis are down below, and Joli makes herself an excuse that Dess probably wants a few minutes to be alone with Atubis. She knows all about her friend's crush on the older woman, of course, and finds it charming - and refreshingly innocent.

If only her own life were so innocent.

Joli wonders how Dess manages to be unaware of the Hunger's feelings (yes, she's sure that's the right word) for her. Probably it's never occurred to her; but stranger things have happened. Joli's been around, and she knows full well that intelligences of very different species can sometimes bond in the most surprising ways. It amuses her to think of Dess as part of a love triangle.

Yeah, she tells herself, biting her lip, I guess I ought to know about those.

The Hunger's voice is gentle but firm; it seems to come from all around. "Atmospheric entry in ten minutes. You are advised to be seated in a G-seat belowdecks."

"Acknowledged," Joli says. And now that she's got the Hunger's undivided attention, she thinks of something she's been meaning to ask. Just a chance remark she heard Dess make once, and Dess herself probably thought nothing of it. But Joli never was very good at minding her own business.

"Hunger," she says, "informational question."

"Proceed."

"What is Singularity?"

and your desire shall be for your husband

The Shadow

With the first shafts of light piercing the land and the sky, even before she can make out the shape of the land, already there is a silent rushing, and a feel of something taking flight. And as the morning breeze begins to rustle its feathers in the treetops, she thinks that, for a moment, she can still see the Void, endless and pure, hiding behind the dome of the still-dark sky in the west. And now she can see the shadow of its wings, vanishing into the land beyond the sky. And the day comes.

From the hilltop, looking into the abyss above, she can see with her inner sight, and she can see past the veil that shrouds the world. In the form of a flower, she sees the rhythm of things: creation, emergence, communion, culmination, and rebirth. She sees all of the land, and the living things on it. She can see beyond the land to the great ocean far away, and she can see all the creatures in its depths: the fish, the whales, and the Great Serpent, Tahmatu, who has made her home in the sea-bed since the beginning of time. Looking at the moon, she sees its form reflected in the round shape of an apple hanging from a branch, and in an instant grasps the mystery that holds the apple and the moon in their places. She sees how the stars came to their places in the sky, and the secret codes they spell out in the night. As the lights in the sky travel in their courses, she counts their cycles, and their patterns grow into a glowing tree in her mind; and sometimes she can hear the tree singing to her. And beyond it all, outside and inside, wrapped in layer on layer of mystery, she sees the gateway to the Void and to the only feeling of peace she knows.

This is the story of how it all happened -- the woman and the man and the garden they left behind.( continue reading )

The Queen's Courtesan

She isn't sure she's heard correctly.

"Joli ... did you say you're meeting one of the Queens?"

"Uh huh." Joli has quit playing with her hair and is now biting her little finger instead. Dess has only seen her do this two or three times, and it's never a good thing.

"Well, that's ... that's great!" she says, hoping for some response from Joli. Nothing.

Finally she tries the direct approach. "Um ... you don't look excited. Which one is it? Kathris, the scary one? Don't worry, whatever it is, it must be important." She pauses. "Of course, if it's something you can't talk about ..."

Atubis sees it's a good time to be elsewhere, so she says, "I'll be downstairs getting ready for the surface if you need me." Dess hears her climb down the ladder into the quarters below the skydeck.

"Amira," Joli says, almost inaubibly.

There've been times lately when Dess feels she doesn't know Joli anymore, and maybe never did. This isn't one of those times, though, and suddenly Joli looks like the girl she grew up with, out on a minor planet in the middle of nowhere. Something is wrong - badly wrong - but she knows she can get through to Joli somehow. She's got to.

"Hey," she says, and touches Joli gently on the forearm with just the tip of a finger. "You remember that stupid game we used to play back there on Planet 138? The one with the chairs?"

Joli cracks a smile, she can't help it. "Hmmf. We were really bored! They'd put a bunch of chairs in a circle, and someone would play recorded music for a few minutes while we marched around the chairs. When the music stopped, everyone had to try to find a seat, but we were always one chair short - "

Joli is laughing now. " - And there was that one time you and I both tried to sit in the same chair. I got there first, but you tried to sit in my lap. And I said, 'Does this mean we hafta get married now?' "

" ... And that was the closest we ever came to being lovers!" Dess adds. And, she thinks, this is why. She wants to know what's going on with Joli, but she doesn't want to read her mind, doesn't want to make love to her. She just wants Joli to tell her.

Now they're embracing, and Joli's body is shaking; she's not laughing anymore, she's sobbing. "Dess. Dess. Dess," she says softly, forcing the words out of her mouth. "I'm having an affair with Queen Amira."

Dess steels herself and takes a deep breath. So that's it, she thinks. Well, now I know the truth. At least things can't possibly get any worse.

The Queen's Courtesan

Starlight through the tall windows casts a gentle, shadowless light over everything, like a light snow on a sleeping town. To human eyes, the inside of the Imperial Palace would appear dark, like the interior of a dimly-lit restaurant. For the nocturnal Gilkesh, it is aglow with the rich and subtle colors they favor: the lavish cushions of the furniture, midnight blue with silver trim, and the polished quartz tiles of the floor, a deep violet that seems to glow from within.

Kathris is looking at the map display on the wall of the great bedroom, its ornate circular frame decorated with carved dragons. Inside the display, stars and galaxies shift, rotate, zoom in and out. The holographic picture seems artificially deep. Kathris stares at the display intently while moving the controls. Amira watches her from under the warm blankets. She stirs audbily but Kathris does not notice her.

"I'd love to know what the Fao are up to," she says aloud without warning; Amira is genuinely uncertain whether the remark is addressed to her or to the map. She waits patiently for clarification.

"Look at this," Kathris says at last, from which Amira infers that she is not speaking to the map. A cloud of small dots appears around a nearly invisible star; at a motion from Kathris, the dots are labeled with the crest of the Fao Empire. "These images are twenty-seven standard years old - that's how far away this system is - but look how fast they covered this distance." She toggles the control to show the alien ships making a preternaturally fast journey.

Now Amira is getting interested. "Hmmm. That's easy enough to do if you use hyperspace ... but the Fao don't like to do that. They hate the idea of leaving their old universe for a new one."

"Exactly. So whatever it is, must be important enough to persuade them to break with tradition and use hyperspace like the rest of us."

Amira is standing behind Kathris now, still in her nightgown. Kathris is fully dressed in a long black skirt and a silk blouse with a geometric pattern in green and gold pastels. The tassels on the sleeves are an unusually frivolous touch for Kathris, Amira thinks, and they make her look vulnerable and irresistible. She slips her hand under the front of the blouse and strokes Kathris' tummy. Kathris starts to protest, but the night is still young.

Amira knows Kathris' mind as well as she knows the halls and windows of the Imperial Palace, better even, for she's never cared overmuch for the duties of office. If she had to do it over, she might almost ahve stayed a mid-level estate manager - but for Kathris. Amira spends most of her free time wandering the grounds of the capital compound, though there's precious little time for even that anymore. But it doesn't matter.

Their eyes meet, and Kathris seems to be asking a question. Amira ignores it, because it comforts her to know that Kathris usually has the answers. Even during amira's turn as Primary, she usually defers to the tall, commanding woman.

Undeserving. That is how Amira has always felt in Kathris' presence - Kathris, who brought the Seventeen Factions together under a single rule and a single law; Kathris, who had opened up a new golden age of learning and exploration; Kathris, who had made the planet Shakti a united world for the first time in its history.

Amira has always felt intimidated by Kathris' beauty - felt herself so small, so frivolous. What could Kathris possibly want with her anyway? What could she, Amira, ever give her?

Only this, she thinks, only this. Pleasure, joy, ecstasy; and for herself, when Kathris reaches bân and her psychic defenses fall away, a fleeting glimpse into that beautiful mind. She runs a forefinger playfully down the front of Kathris' blouse, where an invisible seam splits under her touch. The blouse falls to the floor like a flower melting.

... yes, it's a new story ... first two installments already posted here, much more to come ... finally got a pretty clear idea of all the characters, their universe, and how i want the plot to go ... but still a lot to discover ... that discovery only happens in the process of writing ...

... one person commented that they saw death as being a common theme in my writing, which seems strange to me ... if my fiction is "about" anything, i think it's the repudiation of death and the conscious decision to embrace life ... but of course each person will see it in their own way ...

The glare of the sunlight is deliciously obscene. Amira's unbuttoned clothing lies on the rock around her. High overhead, the three suns beat down on her naked breasts, her thighs, her ... no, not there. Another girl is gently kissing the lower part of her body ... it must be Terimi, Amira's first lover. It is all coming back now: their mothers are asleep and they have stolen away together in the daylight. Amira moans softly and looks down, as the other girl looks up. Amira gasps, realizing that it's not Terimi. It's ...

No. She must never say that name aloud, not even think it, not even in her dreams. Not here, not now.

Gradually Amira becomes aware of another figure some distance away. Sudden taste of fear in her mouth, the dread of discovery. First she thinks it is her bondmother ... no, it's her birthmother ... she gasps, struggling for air as the dream-girl vanishes and the sunlight fades. She wakes in bed, alone.

She steals a glance at Kathris, who is standing by the window, taking no notice of her. Kathris, tall and confident, strong and dignified, loving order and reason ... Kathris, who is all the things Amira knows she can never be. Kathris, dearer to Amira than any being in the universe, except ...

Except.

The suns are setting, the night is unfolding, and Amira sobs quietly into her pillow. It is like every night.

The faint glow of the suns is still in the sky, but she's awake already. As always, looking for the stars. Amira still sleeping ... no doubt dreaming of the future of Shakti, the world they rule together.

Amira's dreams? The one realm of the universe closed to Kathris. Amira, wonder-filled, passionate - yet unable to surrender to ecstasy under Kathris' caress. What Kathris craves, what every Gilkeshni craves: the opening of the soul that comes with pleasure.

Looking out the palace window, Kathris watches the nightships rising majestically into the sky, bound for other worlds in this sunsystem, or for portals to take them through hyperspace to other ages. How ironic: here, at the heart of the Gilkesh federation, a deep emptiness.

But all will be well. Their wedding years ago set the course for the future of Shakti and the Gilkesh race: to be the focal point binding world to world, galaxy to galaxy. The tribes loyal to Amira, the factions loyal to Kathris, now allied and working together.

The lights come on in the city below, as millions of Gilkeshne wake to the starry sky: each with dreams, hopes, and fears, each with plans and memories, each one in her own world. The suns are down, and the ships keep risinig upward into the world without wind, into the great abyss ... into the big night.

[To be continued.]

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Book of Days: asher553

The unlived life is not worth examining.

Entries tagged with fiction

The Egg

The Gilkesh Chronicles

Planet 138

The Question

The Rose of Paradise

Dess

The Imperial Palace

New Fiction

Amira

Kathris