Rebellion in the Shadows

“We can have the cafeteria staff cook up something extra special for tonight,” Notawa said over the headset. She was piloting us back to the Flying Force in a T550. Being a Privy Master sure had its benefits.

“Sounds fine. After we talk to the Privy Master, right?”

“Uh huh, sure. Cute burla! Doesn’t seem to like flying much.”

“Nope.” The thundering of the drone was making me sleepy, but Tomma wasn’t giving me an inch.

The farther we got from my home, the more uneasy I became. Calcumat calls always went through. The thing is on your wrist, and it still lights up even when it’s on silent. There was no way my father would ignore so many calls from me. By the time we arrived at the landing pad, my mind was racing with all the terrible possibilities.

“Why don’t we go grab an early breakfast?” Notawa asked after landing in the hangar bay. It had to be close to three in the morning.

“No. Straight to the Privy Master,” I said.

“I sent a comm, but I think they went home for the weekend. So food?” I was lagging far behind her with my unhappy pet.

“Notawa!” My shout sent Tomma into a fresh fit of wriggling and yowls.

“Yes?” She turned to me..

“What are we doing about my dad?” I asked.

“I told you, I sent a comm to my friend, but Talaya, its zero-three-zero-five. Why don’t we get a little something to eat, and sleep for a while? First thing tomorrow-”

“No. Either you help me or I am going to Master Guardian myself.” Her smile disappeared.

“Talaya, that’s not something you want to do.” She stayed away from me and my flailing burla. It was dark in the hangar bay, but her face paled at the thought.

“I want to make sure my father is OK. If that is how I have to do it, then so be it.” Tomma wrenched harder in my arms while we stared each other down.

“I might be able to do something,” she said finally, “I was an Admin Tech for two years before they let me switch.” That made sense, I had always thought she was more the Administration type.

“Please, I won’t be able to sleep thinking he is hurt somewhere.”

“Holy Tau! What do you think is going on here? First that crack about your mom and now this?” I had never heard her swear like that before.

“I don’t know, but something up.” She did her best to look indifferent but gave a shudder. It didn’t get cold here at 33 North. She was scared as much as I was.

“That’s ridiculous.” She said with no conviction in her voice.

“Maybe it is, but we won’t know for sure until we check.”

She was still shivering when she said, “I can try.”

Tomma wasn’t making it easy to carry him. I held my head far away from the spikes on the tips of his twitching forked tail. They did a lot more than sting; One hit would guarantee a trip to medical. His good eye was staring at me, the other having been torn to shreds by some other creature long ago. He had been nearly dead when my father found him. My shaky fingers pet him on the head, and his yellow eye closed. I found the act almost as comforting as he did.

The admin area was in a section of the building I wasn’t too familiar with. I only knew it was near Tesser’s lab. It was hardly a place I had any business being in, I was a pilot, not an inventor.

The server closet was two doors down from the lab. The small room was a dozen degrees warmer than the hallway and was lined wall to wall with processors. A single monitor and desk were near the front. She sat down and began typing on the holographic keyboard while I tried to hold the animal still and keep from panicking. The repetitive motion gave my nervous arms something to do.

“I don’t know how to do these searches with a calcumat,” she said.

“Where will you search?”

“The entire planet.” Her fingers silently tapped away on the keyboard. After a few seconds she started talking to herself while manipulating the computer. “Punch that into the global geographical positioning map, unrestrict parameters, and expand boundaries.” Then said, “There!”

“There what? Did you find him?”

“No, sorry. The search will take a few minutes. It has to hop from one receiver to the next and circle the globe.” Except the occasional yowling from the burla, we waited in silence.

“Why is it taking so long?” I asked just as something popped onto the screen.

Location cannot be determined at this time.

“What the hell is that?!” I had meant to point at the screen but had knocked my finger violently against the clear monitor in my panic.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that before. His calcumat must be malfunctioning or his chip went bad. I told you I don’t know much. I was just a Tech, and this was years ago.” She was typing on the keyboard to work around the problem.

“Fix it!”

“Talaya, I don’t know how. This is the extent of my limited knowledge. You yelling at me won’t make a difference.” She pushed away from the desk and looked up at me and my squirming burla. His flat nose sniffed the air between us.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Relax, get some sleep and we will figure it out tomorrow.” She stood up. How was I supposed to relax? None of this was right. When I didn’t object, she added, “First thing in the morning OK?” I gave one sniff before a reluctant nod.

***

I didn’t sleep at all. Instead, I paced the room, my burla at my feet, howling and grumbling as he wound in between my feet. Innumerable twisted scenarios ran through my mind. Combinations of attacks and torture, growing more disturbing in my mind as the night wore on. When the alarm went off at zero-five, I was sitting at my desk, wide awake.

“Leave the scherlot alone,” I warned Tomma when I left the room five minutes later.

Notawa’s room was halfway around the building. Lack of sleep had me walking like a delirious zombie., I made it to her room and let myself in. She had told me the combo for emergencies long ago.

We had never studied in her room. Now it was clear why. The room was a disaster, littered with in a mix of dirty and clean objects as if she had never cleaned it in all the months she had been living there. I shuffled through the clothes, wrappers, and books to get to her bed. One leg hung off, and she was snoring.

“Get up.” I shook her hand hard.

“What? Oh Talaya!” She shook her head, her dark hair in knots near her ear, “Gimme five minutes,” she said.

“Now, you promised.”

“Hmm? Let me throw on some pants and we can go find him,” she said.

“Him who?”

“Arwago.” She was typing out a comm on her wrist. Every few seconds her hand wandered to her face to rub the sleep from her eyes.

“Arwago isn’t an Admin,” I said curtly.

“No but Tesser is, and if you want to talk to Tesser, you go through Arwago.” I tossed pants at her, she finished her message and started to get dressed.

When we were on our way, she said, “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should wait in your room? I can bring the coffee and some snacks? Maybe we could even get in some study time?” My eyes shot wide open. “It was just a suggestion, I will be back in five.” She bounded away towards the cafeteria before I could yell at her, so I went back to my room. Tomma greeted me at my door, his instant howls making me want to tape his mouth shut.

Twenty minutes later, she still wasn’t back.

“Forget this,” I said starting towards the door.

It didn’t budge. I yanked on the emergency handle, the one that was supposed to override the auto feature. Nothing happened. My fist slammed onto the glass with a thud.

“Damn you Notawa!” It was her. She thought I was sleep-deprived so, she somehow managed to lock me in my room. I had a few more choice words for her before I was bored with my fit. I sent her ten comms before I gave that up too. My body fell into the desk chair. One lone black book on the desktop caught my attention. Journey From Earth, The book that Arwago had given me.

The first page had a note on it.

’Wago, thought you might like to read the true story of how we got here.

It’s been handed down for generations in my family. Enjoy it you little Earth nerd.

Love L’

The handwriting was painfully neat. The giant “W” in “’Wago” was ornate, as if the writer had used decorating it as a way of wasting time. It was something I would do during a lecture about artificial gravity. I gently flipped to the second page. The pages were yellow and frail, the paper felt like tissue.

Every page contained handwritten notes on it. It was different from the handwriting in the front. This was more of a series of scratches that formed misspelled words. I skimmed through the chapters. The book dived into the treaties first: why the Earth countries came together to develop the Star Jumper ships, and how it ended the Great War. I flipped through the first few hundred pages and came to the middle when the SS Star Jumper 7471 lost contact with Earth. I scanned the pages of theories as to why. The most readily-believed was that The Great War picked up again once the Star Jumpers left and the countries destroyed each other in the chaos. Arwago had said I would enjoy the end most of all, so I flipped to the last page.

There was no end. The last chunk of the book had been ripped out— as much as a two hundred pages gone. I went to the last page that was in the book, a chapter called, “Arriving at Tau Ceti.” I flipped back to the beginning to look at the notes in the margins.

“Ask T to date it,” read one of the scribbles. I read through more and more of the tiny messages in the book. Questions and answers that had been added over many different reads by the same person.

The door slid open with a swoosh, I slammed the book shut and jumped up. A quick glance at my wrist showed it had already been three hours.

“Sorry Talaya, I knew you needed sleep and that was the only way I could get you to do it,” Notawa said. Her arms were stacked full of supplies: food, coffee, and study material.

“I haven’t slept,” I told her, looking at the coffee as if it would solve all my problems.

“Maybe after some food you will want to? I still haven’t heard anything from Arwago,” she said. She dropped everything onto the desk top. I grabbed the coffee and picked up the book again.

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.” I opened to another note in the margin that said, “Taller?”

“While we wait for him, want to read a few sections? I swear I will comm him every five minutes until he answers,” she said.

“Mm,” I hadn’t looked up from the book.

“Earth to Talaya, you understanding what I am saying?” The mention of Earth made my head snap up.

“Yes, that’s fine.” I closed the book again, but my thoughts didn’t stray from the contents. Notawa pulled out a book on flight codes and I sat at my desk. Tomma jumped into my lap as soon as I was settled and I I was asleep the minute I pet him.

***

“Talaya, wake up.” My face was flat on the desk in a puddle of drool.

I wiped it off and sat up, trying to blink the sleep out of my eyes.

“He message back?” I asked right away.

“No, but your burla just tried to kill your scherlot.”

“Where the hell is this guy?” I walked over to the bedroom and shut the door. Only my main door was automatic. I looked at the time Twenty-eight thirty. Late. The whole day had been wasted sleeping.

“I’m going to my room. Just didn’t want you to wake up to a dead animal,” she said. I sat back down, then stood right back up. “No, you know what? I’m not waiting anymore, I am going to go find Arwago.”

“That’s a horrible idea. It’s late and you aren’t thinking clearly.”

“Notawa, you don’t get it. I don’t care at all. You can go to bed, but I am going to find this guy and get some damn answers.”

“I want to find him too. You are going about it the wrong way. Sneaking around won’t get you anywhere. Just wait for Arwago,” she said.

“No.” She stared at me, there was no anger or stubbornness, just tired eyes. I could see in those eyes that I wasn’t always the easiest person to deal with.

“You gonna come with me?” I asked, trying to keep the attitude out of my voice.

“I can’t, Talaya.”

“Then could you watch my scherlot?”

“I really need to get back to my room,” she said.

“Can you please just take him?”

When she left a few minutes later, my scherlot was happily snuggling her in a wet towel. Promises of a new home with her husband and child kept the creature calm.

“Be careful,” she said as she left down the dark hall. As soon as she was gone, I turned to Tomma.

“Let’s go find Arwago,” I said. Tomma titled his head, but the tips of his tails shook in excitement when I moved to the door. If anyone stopped me in the hall, I could say that Tomma needed to go outside.

The general area of the Privy Master’s quarters was easy to find. The name of each resident was written on a name tape outside the door. There were a ton of Privy Masters in the program, and it took over twenty minutes before I found Arwago’s room. The tape next to his door read ‘Privy Master Arwago Jutach (Reconist).’ I bit at the inside of my mouth, a nervous habit my father hated. A pressure was growing in my chest, threatening to explode at the slightest provocation.

My knock on his door was much harder than it needed to be. The loud thud echoed down the hall and the glass panel hurt my knuckles. When nothing happened, I knocked again harder, louder, and faster.

“Yeah hold on! Holy Tau, what the hell do you want? It’s almost zero-zero.” he said from inside. The lock beeped green and the door slid away.

His hair was a mess. It stuck up every direction except flat. A large chunk of food hung out of hihe corner of his mouth. Maybe I hadn’t woken him up after all. He wasn’t in his pajamas.

“Talaya?” he shoved the food farther into his mouth and stepped back into his room, “So I take it you read the book?”

“Yes, and it was interesting, but that’s not why I am here Privy Master,” I said, I was trying to butter him up. “Notawa told me that you may be able to help me,” He was looking at me, studying me from top to bottom, trying to figure out what I was doing at his door by just my appearance. He took another bite.

I stood in the doorway unsure of what to do. “She did? What could you need help with? Certainly not with getting promoted.”

“No, it’s not that, my— Well can we maybe talk in private?” I didn’t want to scare him away, but if someone saw us talking out here, it wouldn’t be good for either of us. He was a high-ranking member of the World Flying Force, even if he never acted like it.

“Sure but leave the animal out here.” I didn’t bother asking why, people tended to avoid burla’s that didn’t have their spurs removed. The hives from a sting could last for weeks.

“Sorry Tomma,” I said. He looked up at me like he couldn’t care any less and lay down in the hall.

Arwago sat at his desk as I came in. His room was very bright compared to the dark hallway and much larger than mine. A big window let in a breeze that was refreshing even in the middle of the night. I took a deep breath to explain the situation, but, before I could launch into my story, he held out a piece of what he was eating.

“Donut?” It looked disgusting, but I took it to be polite. He noticed my face. “Just try it, trust me, so what’s this about?”

“It’s my dad. He’s gone missing,” It didn’t sound as dramatic as it felt, but screaming, “Master Guardian hates me and took my dad,” was probably a little much.

“Hmm, I’m sorry but I’m not sure why Notawa thought I would be able to help you.” He leaned back in his desk chair and started to scroll through his calcumat.

“Please Privy Master, I just know something is wrong.” I tried to put my most pathetic look forward. He sat still and studied my face. He frowned, then pursed his lips, but let out a sigh that said, he would help me.

“I can check a few things here. First, I can double check the geographic location service, look at the last location, then I can try to bounce a signal back. Even if his comms are down it would come back with a location, but if that doesn’t work, we will have to move on to something more… creative.” He started typing on the holographic keyboard floating a few inches above the metal desk. It was the same thing that Notawa had done, but I didn’t want to be rude. It was surprising that he even knew how to do any of it.

“Thank you, Privy Master” I said.

“Stop with the Privy Master crap. It’s Arwago.” He didn’t look up from typing, but he did grab another bite of a donut.

It was impressive how he could eat while typing so fast. His enthusiasm for the food made me brave enough to try it. It was sweet. So sweet that it fell into my stomach with a sickening gulp. Swallowing it had taken all my will power.

“Where did you even get this?” I asked. It was a good thing he wasn’t looking at me, my face would have given away my disgust.

“It’s an old Earth recipe. I asked the cafeteria to make some,” he said, “No luck with the comms.” He kept typing. “I sent a location signal to the body monitoring chip, and it will take a minute for it to come back.” We both focused on the screen. He leaned back in his chair again, stretching out his arms behind his head and ruffling his hair. Staring over his shoulder was probably annoying, so I took a few steps back and gazed out the window. There was nowhere else to look that didn’t feel like an invasion of his privacy. His room was littered with photos and personal items. The same four people smiled at me from almost every wall. They must have been his family. A moment later, the monitor came alive.

Signal not found.

Arwago huffed and stared off at a blank wall with a frown.

“This is where is gets tricky. See, I have other ways of finding a person, but maybe you should tell me what you think happened.” He put both hands in his lap and waited for my explanation. He would probably think I was as crazy as Notawa thought I was, but it was worth the risk.

“I think Master Guardian did it,” I said. His expression didn’t change, he didn’t move at all. His face remained placid.

“And why would he take your father?”

“To punish me? To make me study harder? To mess with me? I don’t know, have you met the guy? He’s a little unhinged.”

“Yes, I have met him, but he wouldn’t do something like this just because you’re an ass.” The look on my face told him what I thought about that. “Well you are! You broke that guys nose! You cheated in that race, and complain constantly—”

“OK! The gods, I don’t need a damn list. Can you help me or not?” It was sobering to hear what people really thought about me. Arwago didn’t pull any punch there.

He turned off his desktop and got up to leave, grabbing a uniform jacket off the back of his chair. He kept those brown eyes trained on me while he put it on.

“Possibly, but it isn’t up to me,” he said. Tomma jumped up as soon as we walked out and was third in our procession down the curved hall.

It took several lengths of hallway for the courage to come through and I asked, “Where are we going?”

“I think the better questions are; ‘Who are we going to see?’ and ‘Will she trust you?’” he said almost to himself. Right before we arrived at our destination, he turned to me.

“If I catch any flack for this, I won’t hesitate to blame you,” he said.

“Fair enough.”

He held his face up to the scanner outside the oversized doors. It beeped and we both walked into the lab.