Daughter of Time 1: Reader (23 page)

Waythrel rushed down the corridor to my room. It signaled outside the door, and I pressed a panel to allow entrance. The door slid open, and a very frazzled-looking Xix stepped inside—if you can ever really describe a disturbing alien life form with such a human term. I looked up from the overlarge chair I was sitting in and waited for it to tell me what I already knew.

“Ambra,” the Xix began hesitantly. “We have come upon the coordinates of Earth.”

The weight of the unspoken was heavy in the air. I simply nodded and waited. My emotions were both drained and repressed. I had cried inside one thousand times for the future that had become my present.

“There is something wrong. We need you on the bridge.”

Again, I nodded. I stood slowly, feeling no weakness or fatigue in my limbs. Only a terrible stillness deep inside.

I followed the alien through the ship and up to the bridge. The Xixian pilots and crew were silent, almost still before their instruments. I had chosen a black robe from the clothes provided to me. Xixian make, overly large and oddly proportioned for my human dimensions, it lay draped around me like an odd funeral garment. The robe was fashioned of some strange material never imagined on Earth, and it seemed to drink the light and then somehow subtly reflect it in hints of iridescence in the midst of darkness. On my head was Ricky’s Red Sox hat. Ricky, murdered in another age of my mind, cremated only hours ago.

Waythrel spoke. “Ambra, the coordinates are correct. There is a rocky satellite of a mass and distance as specified. The planet must be Earth. But…”

Tears streamed down my face as I finally spoke, the words unlocking something deep within me. “It burns before us still, my alien friends. My home world, where my roots would have found soil again to end the withering of my soul. Spirits like dust are riding on the solar wind, blowing over our ship’s shields. I hear their voices,
billions
of them crying out. I’ve heard them again and again. Can you feel the wind of their
souls
?”

I walked forward to the view screen and stared at the blackened sphere, rivers of magma a dull red like bloodshot eyes crisscrossing the surface. Across nearly the entire Northern Hemisphere, an enormous orange pool of lava, boiling like some eye of the Devil.

“The Dram have left by now; their work is finished.”

“Why?” Waythrel whispered. I felt a terrible shudder from it and the other Xix. Alien, all of them, and yet they all cared. More than so many humans I had known. If any creatures carried the torch of divine love in our galaxy, it was the Xix.

I looked across the control room. “They have my eggs and many human captives for sperm. They believe I can be recreated. They desire a monopoly on my power.” It was all so logical, so coldly calculated. “The gene pool of Earth, waiting to produce more Ambra Dawns, and who knows what else of Reader power, was a threat to their Hegemony. So they removed the threat. And so Earth has been put to death.”

“Ambra, I don’t have words for you,” Waythrel began and then paused. “You have known this?”

“Since my arrival at Dram.”

There was a stunned silence. “Ambra, why? Why didn’t you tell us? We could have stopped it!”

“No, Waythrel!” I cried out, the alien’s words cutting deep inside me. “I have seen all the threads. The possible futures, Waythrel, there are not infinitely many, not in the short term. There was only one path out of the Dram home world, one possible hope for me to survive.” My tears came heavily now, and it took all I could to stop myself from sobbing beyond the ability to speak.

I stared out at my blackened home, where my bare feet would never touch the soil again. Where so many innocent lives had been extinguished. “I chose the most horrible choice. That the lives of many should be sacrificed for the life of one. Because others had foretold and foreseen hope for many more worlds than Earth. A hope in me.”

Waythrel and the other Xix were silent and still as stones. I could feel their churning emotions at my words. I turned to Waythrel. “I chose to let my world die, so that we might save so many more, now, and for the years to come.” Wiping tears from my eyes I choked out words at all these monstrous forms around me. “I hope we will not make their sacrifice a vain one.”

And I turned away from them, my form the most monstrous of them all, the greatest mass murderer of all time fleeing in her dark robes like Death into the bowels of Hell.

35

The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao;

The name that is spoken is not the unchanging name.

That without name is the beginning of heaven and earth.

—Lao Tzu

We landed on the Moon three hours later.

The Resistance had established a base there years before, on the dark side, tunneled into the lunar rock several miles to shield it from Dram scans. It was, of course, one of many such secret bases throughout the inhabited worlds, but being close to Earth, the Earth that was, had a special significance. Earth had been the source of all Readers of importance, and the greatest supply of Readers in general. Now only the Dram in their human stockyards would breed more of us, as slaves, programmed to do their bidding.

We passed over the barren lunar landscape, pocket-marked with impact craters – the longtime evidence of celestial violence never erased on a body that had no wind, or rain, or tectonic plate movements of any kind. The Xixian ship descended into one of the larger craters, and a channel appeared in the rock. We entered this tunnel that dove straight toward the heart of the Moon, the light from above quickly dimming, and only the ship’s navigation beams eerily illuminating the sharp edges of the drilled rock.

Soon a dim glow arose from underneath us, and grew in intensity until it seemed bright after the relative darkness of the tunnel shaft. Suddenly, the passageway opened into a large chamber in which numerous ships were docked. We taxied to a free space, and the large vessel came to a stop on a landing pad hewn out of the lunar rock. Once we had Earth and gazed to the lifeless Moon. Now life only stirred only on the moon, as Earth smoldered a quarter-million miles away.

A small group was there to greet us, both Xix and humans somber, the members of my species pale and burdened. A young man with a blond beard led them forward and stopped before Waythrel.

“We received your transmission, and your codes match those smuggled to us yesterday,” he said gravely. His eyes darted towards me. “
She
is with you?”

Waythrel gestured in my direction. “Michael, let me introduce to you Ambra Dawn. She led us through the Orbs and defeated the Dram Emperor herself. She is our great hope.”

This Michael eyed me cautiously. “Hope,” he muttered. “There is not much of that left. We are left in darkness after yesterday.” He glanced at me again, looking over my dark and loose-fitting robes, baseball hat, my absurd skull. “She will be brought before Richard. He will continue to guide us, and tell us what value this girl may have now.”

“Then, he still lives?” Waythrel asked.

Michael bristled at the question, a fire in his eyes hidden only poorly by his attempts to control his anger. “Yes, although the medics cannot say for how much longer. The cursed Dram poisons continue to degrade his tissues, but he has lost none of his powers!”

Waythrel spoke softly. “Of course, Michael, we expected nothing less. Please forgive me if my question seemed insensitive. You know we of Xix are doing all we can to preserve his life.”

The man lowered his gaze. “Yes, and we are thankful. You know as well as I that his Visions have made the Resistance possible.” At his last words, he glanced once more in my direction and then turned to the rest of the party that had accompanied him.

“See that they are housed and attended to. Afterward,” he added, turning to Waythrel, “we may arrange a meeting between these two Readers. Richard has waited long for this day.”

With that, he turned and strode out of the docking chamber, leaving us alone with the remainder of our hosts. I questioned Waythrel with my mind.

“A complicated politics, Ambra. Michael is loyal and attached to his leader, who lies dying after his torture at the hands of the Dram. You come here with the rumor of greatness, beyond even Richard’s powers. Michael resents this, and you will need to walk carefully in the beginning. Don’t worry for now, there is much to learn. With your powers, I have no doubt you will know all there is to know soon.”

We exited the docking chamber and entered an elevator that sped us even deeper into the Moon. The last stage of my journey had begun.

        Point
ɣ

First the Cosmos, then the gods.

So, who can say from where the creation arose?

Perhaps, it created itself.

Perhaps, it did not.

The Being, the first Origin of Creation

Who looks down on it:

Only He knows.

Or perhaps, He does not.

—Rig Veda, Creation Hymn

36

The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous. 
—Rabindranath Tagore

We were quickly led to our quarters within the hidden Moon base. Waythrel and I insisted that we be housed together. There was too much of great importance happening, and we both wished to have the time to discuss matters when needed. It was strange to be in chambers designed by humans, even if the Xix had aided their efforts. The personality of a species can be felt even in its architecture, and just that small piece of humanity comforted me.

The base was still not completely made for humans, however, and many concessions had been made for the Xix that also lived there. The humans probably outnumbered the Xix twenty to one, a ratio only to be found in the Resistance base so close to Earth. Waythrel spent half an hour in an ultrasound Xixian chamber in the room, a strange device that bombards the occupant with high-frequency sound waves. The Xix find this soothing in a way humans cannot understand and certainly cannot experience. I took the human equivalent, a long, hot shower, hoping the steam and temperature would somehow burn away all the horror of my life. Of course, I stepped out merely numbed for the moment and had hardly finished dressing when we were pinged by a messenger outside our door.

It turned out to be an aide of the leader they called Michael, and he asked us to accompany him to meet with Michael and be taken to their great Reader. Waythrel insisted on accompanying me, even though the aide was firm that the initial meeting with Richard would be private, only with me. With that understood, we marched through the tunnel-like corridors of the Moon base, descending several more levels in the process on elevators, which opened into a large medical ward.

Waiting for us there was Michael. With my mind somewhat recovered from the shock of seeing the dead Earth of my nightmares, I was able to study him more closely. Of average height and stocky build, he looked like he could have played football for some Midwest college team. Yet there was a crispness to his blue eyes, a trimness to his beard and hair that spoke of great discipline and scholarship. Whoever he was, he appeared formidable as a leader.