Aynsefian

I look up at Erishijea and Hon. They are still clearly enjoying watching us together. Their delight in watching us simply adds to my joy at having found love so unexpectedly.

“So, yeah,” Zarasena continues, speaking to our new friends. “I hated the way his innocence was misinterpreted as ill-discipline. He means no harm to anyone, ever. Anyone who hurts him, hurts me. I’m determined to get back at them for that reason, but only by surviving, and not letting them kill us. Therefore I could not possibly be more grateful to you and your people here for saving us.”

“Me too,” I say, leaning into Zarasena a bit. I can feel her tighten her grip on me for a moment, then relax.

“There’s another thing too,” adds Hon. “You would have appeared as equals when you first arrived, and this would have shocked them. You were the worst kind of heathen to have arrived in their midst, and those in control would have wanted you gone as soon as you were found.”

“That was how it felt,” responds Zarasena. “They made up any old reason, and justified it to their masses in a packed court room, and nobody seemed to care.”

“Except Tu’aan,” I add.

“Oh yeah,” says Zarasena. “There was this one woman who came to talk to us before we went into the court room. She seemed curious that Axin and I were equals. She wanted to know more, I thought, but she was too afraid to say so directly to us.”

“It won’t be long before they find out about that, and toss her out here too”, says Hon, matter-of-factly.

“Zarasena was saying, Axin, that you two time travelled here? From the future?” asks Erishijea.

“I don’t know how much she told you,” I reply. “But yes, that’s what we think happened. It’s a long story really. We came from… there’s a lot to tell. Actually, now that I think of it, how long did we… How long have we been here, recovering?”

“Just over three days,” says Erishijea.

I can feel Zarasena recoil quickly. She lets me go. I would have done the same. Our blissful feeling together is gone.

Three days. Plus another day or perhaps two for that surgery, plus another day exploring in Nikse. That’s possibly six days in total. Anathusa said we only had a week before the MGC brought their warship, or whatever she said it was, to Aynsefian. Our friends are shortly going to die without us, even if we can find a way back now. Right now.

“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.” Zarasena whispers ever so slightly behind me. This is serious.

“Look, I am so, so grateful…” I say. “…we are so grateful to you for saving us, but we have only a day at best to get back to our time, if that’s possible. We have been here too long and our friends back there where we came from are in serious danger.”

Hon and Erishijea’s expressions change to concern.

“Danger, in what way?” asks Hon, his brow creasing as he leans forward slightly.

“We are on the run from my employer,” says Zarasena quickly and with anguish in her voice. “They are about as ruthless as your Central are, perhaps even more. We need to get back to our time, if that’s possible, and escape back to Axin’s home planet within the next day or our friends will die. My employer will hunt them down and kill them. We will survive if we stay here, but we will always know that they have died because we couldn’t go back. Abandoning our friends, in that scenario, would slowly kill both of us, I think, over time. We have to get back. Is there a way, do you know?”

I don’t give Hon or Erishijea a chance to respond. I’m wanting to add my thoughts. “I don’t know if Zarasena told you about the strange eight metallic pieces that we found in our future time. They were imbued with some magical qualities and they transported us here. They were left behind in the main building in Central. If someone here made them, then maybe somewhere here has a similar device that can get us back to them. Please. If there is a way, you must help us go back.”

“I’m sorry if we’re appearing ungrateful. The situation is really serious.” Zarasena adds.

Disappointment is evident on Hon’s face. To me this means he was looking forward to us staying and to hearing more of our stories. Erishijea’s eyes are misty, her face is lowered towards us. She is all compassion. I may not have met a nicer, more caring person in my entire life.

“There is someone here who can help,” says Hon. “Her name is Ralieshen, and she created those metallic pieces. She doesn’t have them anymore. They were confiscated and she can’t recreate them. She doesn’t have the required materials here.”

“Are we able to meet her? Can she help us?” Zarasena is unable to keep the rising panic from her voice. I’ve also never heard this tone from her either. It strikes me at this moment how quickly we have moved from hate to love, without really getting to know each other.

Hon answers. “You can meet her. The problem is, I am not sure if she knows how to send you back from here. The original pieces would only work when they were used inside the main building in Central. The planetary energy is special there and it is of the necessary essence to allow time travel. It is somewhat diffuse, so it often also creates spatial dispersion as well. Did you end up in a different location than where you started?”

“Yeah,” says Zarasena. “We ended up in a clearing in a forest.”

“That’s to be expected. Ralieshen was working on fixing that when they banished her and her husband Syrell,” says Hon. “That was about three years go. She never got to finish the device, but it’s possible that she could find a way to send you back from where you started your time travel. As I understand it, the device projects outwards, which is the hard part, and once the initial projection is done, the loop is completed by having the return key. I am sure Ralieshen still has plenty of those left. Well, I hope she does. What I don’t know is whether we can use the key from here or not.”

This is all still very uncertain. A lot has to go right, by the sounds of it.

“Oh my god, thank you!” says Zarasena effusively. “Where can we meet this Ralieshen?”

“She is right here in our settlement,” replies Erishijea warmly. “We can take you to meet her, if you’re feeling up to it?”

I turn around to Zarasena. She nods at me. We both get up, as do Erishijea and Hon.

I feel I must say something.

“Hon… and Erishijea,” I begin. “Thank you so much again for saving our lives. We may never be able to repay you. I know you want to hear more of the future and what we have seen. We will tell you all that we know, and all that we have learned about your society in the future, and about our own, before we go. We promise. We would love to stay with you, but our friends will die if we do.”

“Of course, Axin, of course.” Hon looks up and smiles at me. “I would hate to do anything other than help you save your friends. I’ll admit to some disappointment, but this is clearly an emergency. Let’s walk out into our town and we’ll talk more on the way.”

I love it how Hon just believed us absolutely, and he’s just met us. It will hurt to leave him and Erishijea and their settlement behind.

We step out of the cabin. The light is bright here. It is stemming from a number of crystals placed around the buildings in this town. The trees are even prettier out here and are plentiful. It is a much more closed-in feeling than the Central city was but it feels homely and welcoming.

As we walk, we are greeted by other townsfolk, who smile warmly at us. I do a double take at one stage as two Purlinians walk past, in that same white Aynsefian clothing. They look different enough facially, but they had me fooled for a moment.

Zarasena and I describe the extinct Aynsefian that we saw, including the isolated village at the Cliff, the still-operating mini sun, and the missing crystal from every single building. Hon tells us that he thinks the future Aynsefian population would have blamed the cave life eventually for their societal disharmony and vanished for that reason. He knows enough about off-planet mining to know that crystal is not easy to obtain, so he thinks they took it with them for that reason, to whatever planet they were heading to.

He and Erishijea tell us that they think Aynsefian has less, much less, than a thousand years before everyone leaves. They believe that, when the main society leaves, their own settlement here will be crushed and destroyed, and that the main society will wipe the planet clean before they go.

It is difficult to hear this. Hon and Erishijea will probably not live to see this happen, but their descendants will. We ask if there is anything we can do. They don’t think there is, but they will ask Ralieshen when we see her. We spend the last few minutes of our walk telling them about our travels, and why Zarasena is wanting to leave the MGC. They are sympathetic to her situation, having faced much the same treatment themselves. I tell them about my mostly unremarkable past, and my government’s mission to find a new home planet.

After about five minutes’ walk, going almost beyond the bounds of the settlement, we reach a cabin that is somewhat larger than most of the other ones in the town. Erishijea knocks on the wooden door.

It opens, and I am a little more than mildly shocked. The woman who answers it looks like a female version of Lanemu.

I turn immediately to Zarasena. She is almost taking a step backwards. Her eyebrows are raised. I want to know what she thinks, but I feel like speaking my mind would be rude at this point.

“Ralishen, hi…” begins Erishijea.

“This one,” interrupts Ralieshen, point at Zarasena. Her voice is faraway and sounds amazingly wise and ancient. I’m awed by it.

So she can speak. Out loud. There is silence amongst all of us. Zarasena and Ralieshen are clearly in internal conversation.

“This one know me,” says Ralieshen. She’s speaking Aynsefian, but it’s broken. Its broken in a way that implies vocal chords that rarely get used. It seems Ralieshen doesn’t talk much either. I’m not sure I’ve heard Lanemu utter a single word since I’ve known him. To be honest, I’ve largely avoided him, because I can’t work him out at all.

In any case, he’s Zarasena’s friend. Or crew member. More likely he’s much more than that. If a member of his species can design a sophisticated time travel device, then Lanemu could be capable of something equally impressive. Zarasena has said almost nothing to me about him so far. It just hasn’t been a topic of conversation yet.

As for why she is singling out Zarasena, I really have no idea. Our eyes meet and she’s as bewildered as I am. Ralieshen doesn’t elaborate and instead studies me for a moment. I find it a little disconcerting. Her gaze is quite intense.

There’s another aspect to this situation. It’s Zarasena’s old world crashing headlong into my awareness, out of nowhere. Lanemu belongs to her past, to her MGC captain past. He doesn’t fit in with the new Zarasena, the one who kisses and hugs me and stares into my eyes. The one who is delighted to see me after I wake up.

Reconciling those two worlds in my mind is a bit daunting. Nonetheless, both her and I have a past that we will want to share with each other. Eventually. However, Zarasena’s past has hit me square in the face when I least expected it. I intend to embrace it, however.

I turn to her, giving her a lingering, questioning look. She looks away from Ralieshen for a moment. Happily, she reads it right away.

“I know, I know,” she says to me. “Moment please.” She turns away from me and back to the little humanoid in front of her.

I wish I could speak to her. I stare at the ground, feeling inadequate.