The Spires of Unmur
Right, I've bin reading lots of posts on the Sf mind meldy thing and other places about women in SF. I lack the knowledge to join in, so I dun writ a story, tonight, in a bit of a rush. So please forgive typos and bad grammar (my regular readers generally do, be happy, I haven't written anything in french) Comments more than welcome.
The Spires of Unmur.
Another can of Oxycrem bounced off the dash, this time almost hitting Nish in the face. Enough was enough, Nish swivelled, gave each of the kids the eye stalk of disapproval.
“The next thing that gets thrown, grounds all four of you, forever.”
Kest laughed and steered the tweeter into a dock on the landing strip, billowing skirts of crimson sand across the ferrocrete. “Ding,ding everybody out! Pek, take Shesh and Yens for a void.”
“Urgh, if I must. C’mere you little klugnuts.” Pek instantly grabbed Shesh. Before them’s twin could dive into the luggage rack, Pek had wrapped them’s other two arms around a squirming, giggling Yens and jumped out of the tweeter.
A low crete building stretched alongside the landing strip. There were only two other tweets on the ground, but it was the off season.
“Why are we here, parental?” Tac sing-songed while tugging on Nish’s right low hand. Nish ruffled Tac’s fleshy mane with them’s high right hand.
“Because Kest and I are on breed leave, and if we don’t do holidays now we’ll be too fat with your new siblings to go anywhere.”
Tac rolled two eyes, but the middle two stalks stayed focused on Nish. Them had to laugh, for all that Pek and Tac were growing up fast they were still too young to pull off the quad, - I am so totally bored with your lack of smarts parental’- stalk swivel. “No I mean why are we here, in Nothingsvile”
“Nothingsville”
“I know what I’m saying, parental dear.”
“Smartface. We’re here because this is the only intact Old Earther settlement site on the planet.”
Tac mane tugged dramatically with all four arms. Yup teenage years were a’coming. Before the tailchase conversation could continue, Kest had locked the tweet and was chin pointing towards the building where Pek, Shesh and Yens had just boiled through the glimmershade doors.
“Hey! Parentals….” Pek’s voice floated across on the twinkling red breeze. “Shesh has voided on them’s pants.”
The kids batted the argument between them until they got past the voiders and into the visitor’s center proper. Nish was really tired, Kest always coped better with pregnation, but then Kest was several cycles younger than Nish. This was the last time, Nish promised themself, no more kids after the next two.
Silence. Nish’s eyes stalks swivelled 360, looking for the threat that had stilled them’s offspring. No threat, but something pretty scary all the same; an Old Earther. Its face split, the kids went crests up, all looking very big and scary. The TransL loop kicked in, told them the face split was a smile. Kest laughed at them’s family. Kest had worked with Old Earthers over at the Nebula Archive.
“Don’t look so smug.” Nish sidemouthed to Kest. Kest snorked a giggle, Nish dropped them’s half raised crest.
“Welcome,” the loop said, it said. “I am Amar Radinski, I was born in Unmur and I’ll be your guide todays. If you need any stims or refreshments you will find the vends over by the souvenir stand.” It gestured with a gleaming biosynth arm to a sad selection of stims and other, overpriced refreshment vends.
Kest and Nish touched their abdomens at the same time.“No stims for us, we’re pregnated but we’re all on a 48 hour wake cycle anyway,” said Kest, beating Nish to it by a breath.
They smiled at each other, ‘mones flowing between them, the kids made puke faces. The human’s face split again, its eyes shrank into the thick layers of crinkly flesh. It smoothed its thin grey mane. This was an old one.
“Well if we’re ready, we’ll begin with the virtual tour before visiting the actual site.” Another face split and it neuro-winked the go on its hovpod and glided over to a door marked ‘cinema’.
Kest and Nish froze any complaints with eight, unblinking threateners of eternal grounding, if any of the kids made so much as a snork of complaint.
As expected the holo was dull, really dull. Nish had to pinch themself to stay awake. Them did learn something though, but it took a whole quarter day cycle. Old Earthers came, settled for five hundred years, too much bio engineering and wham, crazy virus wipes them out, very sad, everyone leaked for them. All settlements were destroyed except this one. The weird thing was that an attempt by the United Congress to bring the species back from the brink had been blocked…by the Old Earthers. The ones that were left, like this one here, were the last of a dying breed, it was all pretty strange but that was why the family were here, to see something strange; something different and educational, the last home of a dying species.
The Earther’s hovpod airbrushed a trail in the soft, red dirt. Nish picked up Yens, Kest had Shesh, the other two ran ahead, making faces and giggling behind the Earther, it didn’t seem to notice, thank the One. Up ahead, the Spires of Unmur speared out of the scarlet plains, rose gold, marble fangs, sharp and bright against the violet sky. In the distance a fatbellied transport tweet droned low and slow right to left as they were facing, probably heading from Kuppananta over to Reykal. Nish hardly noticed it, even though them built the things for a living. The spires of Unmur captured most of them’s attention, a three eyed focus on the glittering spires.
“Beautiful.” Nish whispered, crest fluttering appreciatively. Kest did likewise, the kids were oblivious, too busy arguing over who should have the last suck of Oxycrem.
“I’m afraid refreshments aren’t allowed beyond here children.” The Earther said and pointed a shining digit at the disposal unit, discretely situated next to the crete gates locking off the site. Shesh snatched the can, sucked the dregs and binned it before the others could complain.
The tour wound round the empty streets. They passed the two other tours and exchanged polite nods, they were being led by Kandrians, theirs was the only group with an Earther. Nish felt a tiny bit smug, but kept them’s crest down, nobody likes a showoff.
The shop fronts were washed with dust, the windows were gone, peering into the stuffy gloom they could see faded paintings on the walls, shreds of old posters, funny shaped shoes half buried in the drifting sand.
“How long has it been like this?” Kest asked their guide. The Earther blink-stopped its pod.
“Lets see…I’m one hundred and fifty one…so that would be one hundred and forty six years.”
“Is that when the virus happened?” Kest asked, blunt as a hammer.
“That’s when…when, yes. That’s when they died.”
“Didn’t most people kill themselves?”
“Kest, love, Amar may have lost siblings and parentals.” Nish copied the split face smile and talked through it to Kest, and hoped the Earther wouldn’t notice. Kest had zero tact and the kids weren’t helping by pretending to choke and die writhing in the dirt. This was turning into one of those outings that they would laugh about one day.
The Earther didn’t split face, it screwed up, folded in on its self. It was hurt, it didn’t pulse ‘mones but any fool could see it had the sads.
“Nice one Kest, you lot behave! I’m sorry Amar, here…” Nish got out a cred stick, wrong move. The Earther turned all sharp angles, stiff, there was a hint of a ‘mone pulse, faint but definitely there, aggression. Without thinking Kest and Nish’s crests were up and forward.
“Oh please,” sighed the Earther. “Put the creds, and the crests away, I’m not offended, and neither am I any threat to you or your brood.”
Nish dropped them’s crest, feeling a little foolish.
“You pulsed some ‘mones,” said Kest, puffed up with indignation.
“Oh for One’s sake, it’s a hundred and fifty years old, Kest.” Nish two-arm mane tugged.
Kest dropped them’s crest. “Sorry Amar, very sorry, pregnation makes us jumpy.”
“Ah yes of course, I forgot, poor memory you know. Would you like to rest? The visitor’s lodge is nearby.”
Kest gave the two eyed look of contrition. “That would be lovely, thank you Amar.”
Nish relaxed, and prayed to the One that the tour would be over soon.
The lodge was comfortably done out in a mix of Kandrian, old Earther and Yulkan styles. The Old Earther furniture seemed so delicate, so fragile compared to the Kandrian, and positively doll-like next to the Yulkan Luxglobes dotted around the room, gently wobbling like giant jellies. Naturally the kids threw themselves into the Yulkan sofas and tried to smother each other.
Sharpe eyed as ever, Kest picked up an old reading tablet, it looked like an antique, if it was the real thing it would be worth a cred or two. Kest turned it in them’s hands, the dull grey had worn off the edges, the finger plate wiped clean of button marks. Kest must have found the on key because the screen woke up and bathed Kest’s face in a soft blue glow.
“Oh so that’s where I left it, do you mind.” The Earther held out its biometal hand.
“Oh sorry, it’s lovely,” said Kest and handed the tablet to the Earther.
“It was my Mother’s.” Amar said, its fragile skin and bone hand reverently caressed the screen. “She wasn’t allowed to have it, but she hid it in her garden…”
The old creature drifted off, lost in ancient memories. It was probably too old to be working but then, what else would it do? Nish felt sorry for it, but there was no point pulsing any mone’s, it wouldn’t get them. Nish shuffled uncomfortably.
“We should be going?” Nish hinted.
“Yes, perhaps we should, time’s getting on…” Kest winked an eye at Nish.
“Here take it, the data’s been copied to the archive, not that it matters…here, please. I’ll only lose it and what does the book of One say about letting go? Please I’d like you to have it.” The Earther thrust the tablet insistently at Kest, its pale little eyes shining hopefully.
"Thanks!” said Kest brightly and took the tablet.
The kids were asleep before the tweet was off the ground. Kest picked it up slow, then gunned it up and took a shallow drifting turn, slightly off path to get a look at the Spires from above and grab a few snaps with the belly cam, if the cheap Yulkan crap decided to work. Nish had been put in charge of, not-losing-or-damaging-the-tablet, by Kest who estimated it was worth about a thousand creds but was going to get Gulcruntanga who worked over at the Neb to check it out, the Yulkan was something of an expert on old Earther antiques. Bored and restless, Nish jacked in some phones and thumbed the tablet on. Them waited for the voice spool to kick in and sync with the TransL. Anything was better than trying to listen to the scratchy signal coming off the Pike, out here it got all chewed up by the desert storms or mushed by the static laden crap, spilling off the mining platforms. One minute you’re zenning out to Magnetic Storm hardkore trance, the next, docking requests. Some old time Earther vibing might at least help Nish drop off for a day or two.
“I have never felt the suns on my skin,” said a small, rich sounding voice.
“Like all females, I’ve been engineered without photoprotection in my skin, pale is beautiful, it also ensures I stay inside. In the old days, females wore veils but back then, back on Old Earth females had to work. Here I only have to breed and please my husband. I have an easy life, so I’m told…”
Nish blinked the TransL to max, this was heavy going, too many terms them didn’t understand. “Kesh, how many prime senti-species came from OE?”
Kesh swivelled an eye round, gave Nish the, ‘you’re sooo stooped, but I love you’ blink. “Four, if you count Homo Sapients as two species. They had a close er, parasitic, symbiotic relationship. Fascinating, if weird, and ultimately doomed. Apparently there are a few breeding pairs but they’re really strange, Amar whatsisface, was what they call a male.”
“Is dear, it’s not dead yet.”
Kest laughed. “I’m not so sure about that, anyway shush, I’m listening to my notes for that lecture next ten day.
Nish on-ed the tablet, skipped forward a few pages.
“My garden is my sanctuary, its dome, my window on the World.”
“Our spire is tall, one of the fifty tallest in Unmur. My husband tells me I should be proud that my garden is in the clouds, and so I am…with my face and my voice, but not my heart, never that. I have four sons; the youngest, Amar is still with me but he’s five and will be taken down the spire soon, into the World I have never known, where he will become a man.”
“I have not been picked to carry a breeding female, I am not one of the Blessed Three Thousand, I am glad of this. I wouldn’t want to birth a female; too small hands, footless, heavy thighed, pendulous breasts, with eyes so large that the light, any light, hurts. No, at least Amar, Ulphas, Kai and Lanu are clean limbed, free to run, feel the sun on their skin, live in the World. I am glad I am not one of the Chosen, not that it matters now. Oh, gods of my Father, Father of my Father, I will miss my sons, my baby Amar, but this has to end.
It was the flowers. We are allowed to engineer our gardens, our pride is in their beauty, in making the most harmonious and restful place to entertain our husbands, after a hard day in the World. One of us, we call her the First, for there are no names for females, created the Pherose. Its perfume spoke to us, drifted across the spires, fell through the glimmerglass domes and whispered code into our finely tuned olfactory receptors. Code only we understood, the language of flowers and it spoke of rebellion.”
“Nish…?Nish!” Nish jacked out.
“Whaaat?”
“Don’t pulse angry at me. I’m just going onto auto while we’re on the Five Line. Do you want something to eat?”
“No I’m listening to this, laters maybe.”
Kest climbed out of the pilot crib and took the babies to the voiders, they were still half asleep but it would save any messy accidents. Tac and Pek were snoring, flopped across each other in a tangle of limbs. Nish settled back with the tablet, dashboard lights glowing against the dark purple sky.
“The first suggestion of how to end the pain was to kill our sons, before they were born if possible. It took six weeks for that message to be relayed by perfume and decoded in our garden labs, this, after the four months it took to copy the Pherose and grow them to maturity, but females are bred to be patient.”
“Oh dear Holy One, no, is that what you did…?” Nish almost pulsed distress but didn’t want to wake Pek and Tac, or alarm Kest and the little ones. “Calm vibes and icebergs, calm vibes and icebergs.” Nish took a breath, held it, relaxed, on-ed the tablet.
“As much as we loved the First for bringing us together, and as much as we knew something had to be done, it wasn’t this. I looked at Amar, my little soldier, my little man. How could I hurt my baby? I was not alone in my thoughts and that in itself was a comfort. A year passed in sensual, agonizingly slow, debate, our gardens flourished. I had Amar steal this tablet for me, it is a sin against the Father for a female to even touch something like this, but nobody will miss my child’s toy and soon it won’t matter, tomorrow we wash all sins away.
Tonight I picked the Pheroses, we all did. They are sitting in a vase on the dinner table. I will watch my husband eat, while we drown in glorious perfume that whispers of freedom and farewells, tonight my sisters and I are saying goodbye to each other.”
It ended. Desperate, Nish searched forward, relieved when them found more, disappointed when the voice was different. It took a few, but the TransL did a hot good job of syncing up with the TransL records logged in the tweet. Amar’s voice came over the phones, a little less grainy than earlier.
“My father? I have pity for him, he didn’t understand. But my mother was my world. I would watch her, slowly, meticulously working in her tiny lab, her hands were so small, it took her an age to do anything, but that was deemed beautiful and proper in a female. She couldn’t walk, her feet were mere stumps, females didn’t need to walk and large feet were deemed ugly in a female. I would rub them for her when they ached.
She didn’t look beautiful the day she smashed the dome. Now, years later I understand that she looked free, then, to my five year old eyes, she looked terrifying. Her eyes were wide, streaming red dust tears, down her sun scorched cheeks, her hair whipped around her like serpents in the fierce wind.
All over Unmur the domes were breaking. She started to climb onto the ledge. I could hear my father coming, so could she. She cut her hands on the smashed glass, I wanted to help but she ordered me away with a voice of thunder, a voice I’d never heard her use before. I obeyed, I obeyed a female. Even at five I knew that made me a weakling.
They started to fall from the spires of Unmur, I could hear the females laughing, their voices dancing in the wind. I could hear my father bellowing. If he got in he would stop her, he had the master key. I didn’t want her to go, but I wanted her to be happy. There was an old fashioned bar that went across the door, there for when the power was down. I tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. She was struggling to get onto the ledge, her ridiculous legs didn’t work and the hovpod wouldn’t lift her that high. She was dragging herself up with her deformed hands, scrabbling through plants and broken glass with her tiny, mutated feet,fighting to gain purchase. I slotted my arm into where the bar should go.
She looked at me with fierce eyes, they were violet, impossibly huge.
She clawed her way onto the ledge, she was bleeding, and laughing like I'd never heard her laugh before. The air was heavy with the perfume of roses. My father commanded that I open the door. She looked at me, mouthed; ‘I love you’ then she was gone.
Some females didn’t die that day, but all of the Chosen did, all three thousand made sure to die. They slashed their throats, drank poison, set themselves on fire, got hold of bolters, the Chosen made sure they died. Only the strongest of the un Chosen jumped, and my mother was strong.
Some females survived in other settlements but they all died in Unmur, beautiful Unmur, the city of gardens. By the end of the year the men gave up, the women did not, they kept dying, it was a virus but not like people think. I lay in hospital waiting for my arm graft, listening to scans and the crying, then came the accusations. When they burned the Father’s temples and killed the priests, my father took me and my brothers off world. They never came back. I took part in the cloning debate, voted no for the re-gen program. Now, at the end of my life I’ve come home, to the Spires of Unmur, to be near her, to smell the roses one last time."
“Kest!” Nish shouted, Nish pulsed, they all came. Pek, Tac, Kest, the little ones, they all piled onto Nish. Nish held them, held them all, pulsed them’s love.
The Spires of Unmur.
Another can of Oxycrem bounced off the dash, this time almost hitting Nish in the face. Enough was enough, Nish swivelled, gave each of the kids the eye stalk of disapproval.
“The next thing that gets thrown, grounds all four of you, forever.”
Kest laughed and steered the tweeter into a dock on the landing strip, billowing skirts of crimson sand across the ferrocrete. “Ding,ding everybody out! Pek, take Shesh and Yens for a void.”
“Urgh, if I must. C’mere you little klugnuts.” Pek instantly grabbed Shesh. Before them’s twin could dive into the luggage rack, Pek had wrapped them’s other two arms around a squirming, giggling Yens and jumped out of the tweeter.
A low crete building stretched alongside the landing strip. There were only two other tweets on the ground, but it was the off season.
“Why are we here, parental?” Tac sing-songed while tugging on Nish’s right low hand. Nish ruffled Tac’s fleshy mane with them’s high right hand.
“Because Kest and I are on breed leave, and if we don’t do holidays now we’ll be too fat with your new siblings to go anywhere.”
Tac rolled two eyes, but the middle two stalks stayed focused on Nish. Them had to laugh, for all that Pek and Tac were growing up fast they were still too young to pull off the quad, - I am so totally bored with your lack of smarts parental’- stalk swivel. “No I mean why are we here, in Nothingsvile”
“Nothingsville”
“I know what I’m saying, parental dear.”
“Smartface. We’re here because this is the only intact Old Earther settlement site on the planet.”
Tac mane tugged dramatically with all four arms. Yup teenage years were a’coming. Before the tailchase conversation could continue, Kest had locked the tweet and was chin pointing towards the building where Pek, Shesh and Yens had just boiled through the glimmershade doors.
“Hey! Parentals….” Pek’s voice floated across on the twinkling red breeze. “Shesh has voided on them’s pants.”
The kids batted the argument between them until they got past the voiders and into the visitor’s center proper. Nish was really tired, Kest always coped better with pregnation, but then Kest was several cycles younger than Nish. This was the last time, Nish promised themself, no more kids after the next two.
Silence. Nish’s eyes stalks swivelled 360, looking for the threat that had stilled them’s offspring. No threat, but something pretty scary all the same; an Old Earther. Its face split, the kids went crests up, all looking very big and scary. The TransL loop kicked in, told them the face split was a smile. Kest laughed at them’s family. Kest had worked with Old Earthers over at the Nebula Archive.
“Don’t look so smug.” Nish sidemouthed to Kest. Kest snorked a giggle, Nish dropped them’s half raised crest.
“Welcome,” the loop said, it said. “I am Amar Radinski, I was born in Unmur and I’ll be your guide todays. If you need any stims or refreshments you will find the vends over by the souvenir stand.” It gestured with a gleaming biosynth arm to a sad selection of stims and other, overpriced refreshment vends.
Kest and Nish touched their abdomens at the same time.“No stims for us, we’re pregnated but we’re all on a 48 hour wake cycle anyway,” said Kest, beating Nish to it by a breath.
They smiled at each other, ‘mones flowing between them, the kids made puke faces. The human’s face split again, its eyes shrank into the thick layers of crinkly flesh. It smoothed its thin grey mane. This was an old one.
“Well if we’re ready, we’ll begin with the virtual tour before visiting the actual site.” Another face split and it neuro-winked the go on its hovpod and glided over to a door marked ‘cinema’.
Kest and Nish froze any complaints with eight, unblinking threateners of eternal grounding, if any of the kids made so much as a snork of complaint.
As expected the holo was dull, really dull. Nish had to pinch themself to stay awake. Them did learn something though, but it took a whole quarter day cycle. Old Earthers came, settled for five hundred years, too much bio engineering and wham, crazy virus wipes them out, very sad, everyone leaked for them. All settlements were destroyed except this one. The weird thing was that an attempt by the United Congress to bring the species back from the brink had been blocked…by the Old Earthers. The ones that were left, like this one here, were the last of a dying breed, it was all pretty strange but that was why the family were here, to see something strange; something different and educational, the last home of a dying species.
The Earther’s hovpod airbrushed a trail in the soft, red dirt. Nish picked up Yens, Kest had Shesh, the other two ran ahead, making faces and giggling behind the Earther, it didn’t seem to notice, thank the One. Up ahead, the Spires of Unmur speared out of the scarlet plains, rose gold, marble fangs, sharp and bright against the violet sky. In the distance a fatbellied transport tweet droned low and slow right to left as they were facing, probably heading from Kuppananta over to Reykal. Nish hardly noticed it, even though them built the things for a living. The spires of Unmur captured most of them’s attention, a three eyed focus on the glittering spires.
“Beautiful.” Nish whispered, crest fluttering appreciatively. Kest did likewise, the kids were oblivious, too busy arguing over who should have the last suck of Oxycrem.
“I’m afraid refreshments aren’t allowed beyond here children.” The Earther said and pointed a shining digit at the disposal unit, discretely situated next to the crete gates locking off the site. Shesh snatched the can, sucked the dregs and binned it before the others could complain.
The tour wound round the empty streets. They passed the two other tours and exchanged polite nods, they were being led by Kandrians, theirs was the only group with an Earther. Nish felt a tiny bit smug, but kept them’s crest down, nobody likes a showoff.
The shop fronts were washed with dust, the windows were gone, peering into the stuffy gloom they could see faded paintings on the walls, shreds of old posters, funny shaped shoes half buried in the drifting sand.
“How long has it been like this?” Kest asked their guide. The Earther blink-stopped its pod.
“Lets see…I’m one hundred and fifty one…so that would be one hundred and forty six years.”
“Is that when the virus happened?” Kest asked, blunt as a hammer.
“That’s when…when, yes. That’s when they died.”
“Didn’t most people kill themselves?”
“Kest, love, Amar may have lost siblings and parentals.” Nish copied the split face smile and talked through it to Kest, and hoped the Earther wouldn’t notice. Kest had zero tact and the kids weren’t helping by pretending to choke and die writhing in the dirt. This was turning into one of those outings that they would laugh about one day.
The Earther didn’t split face, it screwed up, folded in on its self. It was hurt, it didn’t pulse ‘mones but any fool could see it had the sads.
“Nice one Kest, you lot behave! I’m sorry Amar, here…” Nish got out a cred stick, wrong move. The Earther turned all sharp angles, stiff, there was a hint of a ‘mone pulse, faint but definitely there, aggression. Without thinking Kest and Nish’s crests were up and forward.
“Oh please,” sighed the Earther. “Put the creds, and the crests away, I’m not offended, and neither am I any threat to you or your brood.”
Nish dropped them’s crest, feeling a little foolish.
“You pulsed some ‘mones,” said Kest, puffed up with indignation.
“Oh for One’s sake, it’s a hundred and fifty years old, Kest.” Nish two-arm mane tugged.
Kest dropped them’s crest. “Sorry Amar, very sorry, pregnation makes us jumpy.”
“Ah yes of course, I forgot, poor memory you know. Would you like to rest? The visitor’s lodge is nearby.”
Kest gave the two eyed look of contrition. “That would be lovely, thank you Amar.”
Nish relaxed, and prayed to the One that the tour would be over soon.
The lodge was comfortably done out in a mix of Kandrian, old Earther and Yulkan styles. The Old Earther furniture seemed so delicate, so fragile compared to the Kandrian, and positively doll-like next to the Yulkan Luxglobes dotted around the room, gently wobbling like giant jellies. Naturally the kids threw themselves into the Yulkan sofas and tried to smother each other.
Sharpe eyed as ever, Kest picked up an old reading tablet, it looked like an antique, if it was the real thing it would be worth a cred or two. Kest turned it in them’s hands, the dull grey had worn off the edges, the finger plate wiped clean of button marks. Kest must have found the on key because the screen woke up and bathed Kest’s face in a soft blue glow.
“Oh so that’s where I left it, do you mind.” The Earther held out its biometal hand.
“Oh sorry, it’s lovely,” said Kest and handed the tablet to the Earther.
“It was my Mother’s.” Amar said, its fragile skin and bone hand reverently caressed the screen. “She wasn’t allowed to have it, but she hid it in her garden…”
The old creature drifted off, lost in ancient memories. It was probably too old to be working but then, what else would it do? Nish felt sorry for it, but there was no point pulsing any mone’s, it wouldn’t get them. Nish shuffled uncomfortably.
“We should be going?” Nish hinted.
“Yes, perhaps we should, time’s getting on…” Kest winked an eye at Nish.
“Here take it, the data’s been copied to the archive, not that it matters…here, please. I’ll only lose it and what does the book of One say about letting go? Please I’d like you to have it.” The Earther thrust the tablet insistently at Kest, its pale little eyes shining hopefully.
"Thanks!” said Kest brightly and took the tablet.
The kids were asleep before the tweet was off the ground. Kest picked it up slow, then gunned it up and took a shallow drifting turn, slightly off path to get a look at the Spires from above and grab a few snaps with the belly cam, if the cheap Yulkan crap decided to work. Nish had been put in charge of, not-losing-or-damaging-the-tablet, by Kest who estimated it was worth about a thousand creds but was going to get Gulcruntanga who worked over at the Neb to check it out, the Yulkan was something of an expert on old Earther antiques. Bored and restless, Nish jacked in some phones and thumbed the tablet on. Them waited for the voice spool to kick in and sync with the TransL. Anything was better than trying to listen to the scratchy signal coming off the Pike, out here it got all chewed up by the desert storms or mushed by the static laden crap, spilling off the mining platforms. One minute you’re zenning out to Magnetic Storm hardkore trance, the next, docking requests. Some old time Earther vibing might at least help Nish drop off for a day or two.
“I have never felt the suns on my skin,” said a small, rich sounding voice.
“Like all females, I’ve been engineered without photoprotection in my skin, pale is beautiful, it also ensures I stay inside. In the old days, females wore veils but back then, back on Old Earth females had to work. Here I only have to breed and please my husband. I have an easy life, so I’m told…”
Nish blinked the TransL to max, this was heavy going, too many terms them didn’t understand. “Kesh, how many prime senti-species came from OE?”
Kesh swivelled an eye round, gave Nish the, ‘you’re sooo stooped, but I love you’ blink. “Four, if you count Homo Sapients as two species. They had a close er, parasitic, symbiotic relationship. Fascinating, if weird, and ultimately doomed. Apparently there are a few breeding pairs but they’re really strange, Amar whatsisface, was what they call a male.”
“Is dear, it’s not dead yet.”
Kest laughed. “I’m not so sure about that, anyway shush, I’m listening to my notes for that lecture next ten day.
Nish on-ed the tablet, skipped forward a few pages.
“My garden is my sanctuary, its dome, my window on the World.”
“Our spire is tall, one of the fifty tallest in Unmur. My husband tells me I should be proud that my garden is in the clouds, and so I am…with my face and my voice, but not my heart, never that. I have four sons; the youngest, Amar is still with me but he’s five and will be taken down the spire soon, into the World I have never known, where he will become a man.”
“I have not been picked to carry a breeding female, I am not one of the Blessed Three Thousand, I am glad of this. I wouldn’t want to birth a female; too small hands, footless, heavy thighed, pendulous breasts, with eyes so large that the light, any light, hurts. No, at least Amar, Ulphas, Kai and Lanu are clean limbed, free to run, feel the sun on their skin, live in the World. I am glad I am not one of the Chosen, not that it matters now. Oh, gods of my Father, Father of my Father, I will miss my sons, my baby Amar, but this has to end.
It was the flowers. We are allowed to engineer our gardens, our pride is in their beauty, in making the most harmonious and restful place to entertain our husbands, after a hard day in the World. One of us, we call her the First, for there are no names for females, created the Pherose. Its perfume spoke to us, drifted across the spires, fell through the glimmerglass domes and whispered code into our finely tuned olfactory receptors. Code only we understood, the language of flowers and it spoke of rebellion.”
“Nish…?Nish!” Nish jacked out.
“Whaaat?”
“Don’t pulse angry at me. I’m just going onto auto while we’re on the Five Line. Do you want something to eat?”
“No I’m listening to this, laters maybe.”
Kest climbed out of the pilot crib and took the babies to the voiders, they were still half asleep but it would save any messy accidents. Tac and Pek were snoring, flopped across each other in a tangle of limbs. Nish settled back with the tablet, dashboard lights glowing against the dark purple sky.
“The first suggestion of how to end the pain was to kill our sons, before they were born if possible. It took six weeks for that message to be relayed by perfume and decoded in our garden labs, this, after the four months it took to copy the Pherose and grow them to maturity, but females are bred to be patient.”
“Oh dear Holy One, no, is that what you did…?” Nish almost pulsed distress but didn’t want to wake Pek and Tac, or alarm Kest and the little ones. “Calm vibes and icebergs, calm vibes and icebergs.” Nish took a breath, held it, relaxed, on-ed the tablet.
“As much as we loved the First for bringing us together, and as much as we knew something had to be done, it wasn’t this. I looked at Amar, my little soldier, my little man. How could I hurt my baby? I was not alone in my thoughts and that in itself was a comfort. A year passed in sensual, agonizingly slow, debate, our gardens flourished. I had Amar steal this tablet for me, it is a sin against the Father for a female to even touch something like this, but nobody will miss my child’s toy and soon it won’t matter, tomorrow we wash all sins away.
Tonight I picked the Pheroses, we all did. They are sitting in a vase on the dinner table. I will watch my husband eat, while we drown in glorious perfume that whispers of freedom and farewells, tonight my sisters and I are saying goodbye to each other.”
It ended. Desperate, Nish searched forward, relieved when them found more, disappointed when the voice was different. It took a few, but the TransL did a hot good job of syncing up with the TransL records logged in the tweet. Amar’s voice came over the phones, a little less grainy than earlier.
“My father? I have pity for him, he didn’t understand. But my mother was my world. I would watch her, slowly, meticulously working in her tiny lab, her hands were so small, it took her an age to do anything, but that was deemed beautiful and proper in a female. She couldn’t walk, her feet were mere stumps, females didn’t need to walk and large feet were deemed ugly in a female. I would rub them for her when they ached.
She didn’t look beautiful the day she smashed the dome. Now, years later I understand that she looked free, then, to my five year old eyes, she looked terrifying. Her eyes were wide, streaming red dust tears, down her sun scorched cheeks, her hair whipped around her like serpents in the fierce wind.
All over Unmur the domes were breaking. She started to climb onto the ledge. I could hear my father coming, so could she. She cut her hands on the smashed glass, I wanted to help but she ordered me away with a voice of thunder, a voice I’d never heard her use before. I obeyed, I obeyed a female. Even at five I knew that made me a weakling.
They started to fall from the spires of Unmur, I could hear the females laughing, their voices dancing in the wind. I could hear my father bellowing. If he got in he would stop her, he had the master key. I didn’t want her to go, but I wanted her to be happy. There was an old fashioned bar that went across the door, there for when the power was down. I tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. She was struggling to get onto the ledge, her ridiculous legs didn’t work and the hovpod wouldn’t lift her that high. She was dragging herself up with her deformed hands, scrabbling through plants and broken glass with her tiny, mutated feet,fighting to gain purchase. I slotted my arm into where the bar should go.
She looked at me with fierce eyes, they were violet, impossibly huge.
She clawed her way onto the ledge, she was bleeding, and laughing like I'd never heard her laugh before. The air was heavy with the perfume of roses. My father commanded that I open the door. She looked at me, mouthed; ‘I love you’ then she was gone.
Some females didn’t die that day, but all of the Chosen did, all three thousand made sure to die. They slashed their throats, drank poison, set themselves on fire, got hold of bolters, the Chosen made sure they died. Only the strongest of the un Chosen jumped, and my mother was strong.
Some females survived in other settlements but they all died in Unmur, beautiful Unmur, the city of gardens. By the end of the year the men gave up, the women did not, they kept dying, it was a virus but not like people think. I lay in hospital waiting for my arm graft, listening to scans and the crying, then came the accusations. When they burned the Father’s temples and killed the priests, my father took me and my brothers off world. They never came back. I took part in the cloning debate, voted no for the re-gen program. Now, at the end of my life I’ve come home, to the Spires of Unmur, to be near her, to smell the roses one last time."
“Kest!” Nish shouted, Nish pulsed, they all came. Pek, Tac, Kest, the little ones, they all piled onto Nish. Nish held them, held them all, pulsed them’s love.