The Star Whorl (The Totality Cycles Book 1) (16 page)

     “Don’t do too much of that,
or we may have to go beyond pre-mating,” she leaned close and breathed into his
aur’erio. He gave a small chuckle, but she sounded semi-serious. Other girls
had noticed his new sign of maturity, and one actually sighed as she gazed at
him. Feeling abashed with embarrassment, he looked down. Pavtala Ralili’Bax
laughed at his expression and pressed close to his side.

     “Is it so hard to admit that
you are attractive?” she asked quietly, her voice serious though her eyes were
bright.

     He moved his shoulders. “All
right, so I’m attractive. That’s not what I want to be most admired for,
though,” he said, sounding more bitter than he meant to let on.
Can no one
appreciate me for anything other than the external attributes I have,
attractiveness, status from my famiya? Isn’t there more to appreciate beneath
all that?

     Pavtala Ralili’Bax’s eyes
became sympathetic, backed by understanding. “They are just silly Secondus
girls,” she soothed. “Or – I should say
we
. I am silly, too. The
difference is, I kind of know it, and I can – counter it, somewhat. You’re a
little silly, too, emergent wing-nets and all, but less so than most of the
rest of us.”

     “Thanks,” he said, sarcastically.
“You are so comforting.”

     “What I mean is, you have
depths that it will take most of us many orbises to attain. You may have
bloomed a little late in body, but you bloomed very early in mind. It is one of
the reasons I like you. You help me be – not-so-silly. I appreciate what you
have inside.”

     “In truth?” he looked down
into her eyes, and saw that she was now totally serious. There was a little bit
of – something – in her face, that he could not place. And the transport
reached the Secondus sub-Hives before he could puzzle it out.

Whorl Forty Eight

     His split ‘pace seemed to cause
something of a sensation in the sub’Hives of Secondus, though why it should be
so, he could not guess. Girls whispered and glomed thickly when he walked by,
and their eyes followed him enough that he actually noticed. Ro-Becilo’Ran,
walking beside him, gestured irritable envy and grumpiness, backed by laughter.
He also encountered more than one almost angry look from other males, which
puzzled him more sorely than the attention of the girls. Gotra Pelani’Dun had
stopped in her footsteps when she saw him, and her eyes had opened in that
funny way again. Then her face had twisted, and she had turned in her heel and
stalked away almost angrily.

     “I don’t understand,” he
said, when they got to their second lecture. “It’s not that unusual that people
at our age enter adulthood, why are all of them acting that way? People burst
their elytra-paces all the time in Secondus, but you’d think they’d never seen
such an occurrence before!” His wing-nets slipped out of his ‘pace for a moment
as they buzzed in his puzzlement.

     Ro-Becilo’Ran sighed,
gestured exasperation. “I tried to explain before, but you didn’t believe me.
I’ll wait for you to put those things away, so those around us can
concentrate.”

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv guiltily
clamped his elytra-pace shut, looked around. Many eyes were on him, but they
turned away when he looked.

    
This is ridiculous,
he thought, as the Proctor came in, and all attention turned forward. He
absorbed the lesson, then walked with his friend to the lecture he shared with
Pavtala Ralili’Bax.

     “I’m the envy of every girl
in our term,” she said laughingly, her eyes glinting. “I’ve got the most
attractive young man in Secondus in my glome-cloud! Aren’t you overflowing with
jealousy?” Her tone invited him to join in the not-so-funny joke, not funny
because it appeared to be true.

     He laughed sourly, gesturing
a negative. “Who’s the lucky male?” he asked, facetiously.

     “Some tall, handsome,
brooding male, you wouldn’t know him,” she teased, laughing. “Totally unattainable
by any other girl. I’ll point him out to you, sometime.”

     “All right, good, and when
you do, I’ll be able to kick him off the edge of Algna Suprum,” he shot back.

     Her eyes sparkled with
mirth, softening the whole sickening affair. “Oh ha, I’d take a Reform-reward
employment to see that!”

     That made him smile as the
next Proctor came in.

Whorl Forty Nine

     The fervor over
Pa-Kreceno’Tiv’s entrance into adulthood died off by the end of the five-turn,
for which he was grateful. He was looking forward to spending another dark-time
with his circle of friends, including Pavtala Ralili’Bax, and he barely noticed
the distance that the transport crept along to reach the via-Way translation terminus.
He also wanted to get back to his campaign against the OSI in the Spheres, get
back to his discussion forums.

    
Perhaps if I read some of
what’s going on, I’ll come up with an idea to battle the OSI,
he thought
guiltily. Having fun with Pavtala Ralili’Bax was no excuse for neglecting his
interlink community.

     Something flashed in his
peripheral vision. Blinking, he looked back to where he thought he saw –
whatever it was, an anomaly, something that did not belong. He engaged his
vuu’erio to his secondary retinas and looked again, his eyes going
semi-compound. The slow pace of the transport allowed him plenty of time to
examine the area. His eyes were pulled upward – there, partway up an abandoned Industry
sub-Hive that no longer housed administrative workers, was – something. The
opposite of presence, the wish to not be seen, so strong that he could not see
or sense the individual projecting it, but he
could
sense the desire of
it, see the shape of the glyph. Strange, that in wanting to not be seen, the
person had drawn attention to herself or himself with the wish for that
anonymity. Even more intriguing, was that there
was
such an individual
in all of Gu’Anin, where most everyone was searching for something outside of
the usual to see.

    
Suppression of glyphs is
illegal, ever since the Unveiling,
he thought, marking the place, and then
sitting back before anyone noted his scrutiny.
So I’ll have to think of a
better way to get up there and investigate.

     “You see something, Krece?” Ro-Becilo’Ran
asked, looking past him to see what he had been staring at.

     “Pretty girl,” he said
shortly, leaning back and closing his eyes.

     “In truth,” his friend asked
sardonically, and he could feel Ro-Becilo’Ran eying him. “I’m certain
Ralili’Bax will be pleased to hear
that
. They’re
all
pretty,
Krece, what were you really looking at?”

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv raised one
lid.

     “Annoying friend,” he
shrugged, and did not respond to anymore of Ro-Becilo’Ran’s prodding.

Whorl Fifty

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv de-Nil-ized
his transport and sauntered down the packed boulevard, wending his way toward
his goal. He had gone home, done half of his assignments, then returned to the
place he had marked in his mind, but he still had not thought up a way to sneak
into the sub-Hive structure with the multitudes surrounding it. He slouched up
to it, looked up casually, then began to work his way to the entrance. He had
contacted Pavtala Ralili’Bax and told her that he had to check on something,
and that he would tell her about it when he was done. Ro-Becilo’Ran he had
fobbed off, telling his friend that he would contact him later, after he had
made significant progress with his backlog assignments, and then they could go
and meet up with their other friends.

     “Oh ha, why’re you going in
there?” a voice called to him, and many gazes turned in his direction.

     He made a noncommittal
gesture, but did not stop trying to get to the entrance. “Something to do,” he
answered, not turning to the speaker.

     Looks were passed, and those
around the entrance pushed inside before him, looking for what might have
piqued his interest. There was a general inflow of people, all scouting around,
and glyphs of light appeared, making the place bright. He went into a room and
sat on a derelict piece of furniture, leaned back and relaxed. The lounge was
dusty from disuse, and not a little noisome, but he forced himself to stay there,
until the others’ curiosity waned again.

     “See anything?” many voices
called, and there were many negatives. Some went up to the next level,
overturning things and making a mess among the mess, and causing a minor ruckus.
When nothing was found, a few of the curious came back to look at him, waiting,
but he closed his eyes and tried not to react to the dust and smell of
abandonment of the place, working out one of his assignments in his head.

     “What you come in here
looking for?” an insistent voice demanded, sounding irked.

     “You might as well desist,
he won’t say before he’s ready, and he’d stay like that all dark-turn if he has
to,” Ro-Becilo’Ran’s familiar, irritated voice said. “Go away, all of you,
you’ll see if we find anything when we come out.”

     There was grumbling and the
shuffle of feet. Feeling vexed, himself, Pa-Kreceno’Tiv held his posture of
repose until his friend came and plopped down next to him, raising a cloud of
dust. He coughed and waved it away.

     “Thanks a whole hive,
Becil,” he said irritably, clacking his elytra-pace in annoyance.

     “No thanks needed,” his
friend said, jovially.

     “Why are you here?” he
groused, standing and dusting himself off.

     “Same as you and all those
other people, except you’re going to tell me what we’re here to find,” Ro-Becilo’Ran
grinned, standing also.

     “
We
aren’t going to
find anything, now, thanks to you,” he said, gesturing a negative. “Now a few
of them are going to stay, follow us, even, and we can’t do a thing without being
observed. I’m going back home.”

     “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ro-Becilo’Ran
said, hefting his carry-pack. “There was no way you were going to get in or out
unobserved, anyway. So let’s go and figure out a way to get back and look at
what you were going to try and sneak off to see without me.” He opened it, took
out his view-glyphographic and held it up, briefly, turning around. Then he put
it away.

    
What in the name of the
First Hive is he doing?
he wondered, as he moved to the entrance. Ro-Becilo’Ran
followed him, and they both exited the building, to the scrutiny of the crowds.

     “What’d you find, boy?” an
oldster accosted him, blocking his path. He curled his lip, let his annoyance
project clear, with a bit of a feeling of loss, insinuating that the insatiable
curiosity of the masses had ruined whatever he might have found. He let the man
make his own inferences from that as he pushed past, ignoring all other
inquiries as he gained the boulevard proper and activated his transport glyph.
Ro-Becilo’Ran was right behind him in his own transport.

     The crowds tried to impede
him, but he made the construct push them aside, gently, and finally got it
moving along toward home.

Whorl Fifty One

     “So what did you really
sense back there?”   Ro-Becilo’Ran said behind him. He whirled, glaring. He had
not realized that Ro-Becilo’Ran had followed him all the way to his domicive. “When
are you going to try to translate there?” his friend continued, unperturbed.

     “What are you doing here?”
he said, angrily. “And what are you talking about? I can’t ‘translate’
anywhere, numb-pace! And it’s probably gone, now, because of all those people
crowding in there!”

     Ro-Becilo’Ran waved away his
ire with a negligent gesture. “Don’t try to fool me, Krece, I know you too
well. You’ve been getting top marks in your Long-Travel class. I know you’re
going to try to short-travel back to that building. This, I want to see – and I
want to go with you.”

     “You have rocks in your
‘pace,” he growled. “Go
home,
Ro-Becilo’Ran, I’ll contact you in a
little while!”

     Ro-Becilo’Ran shrugged,
gestured reluctant compliance. “You want me to go home? Well, then, I’ll just
have to inform someone with authority that something unusual was in that
sub-Hive... I’m sure it will cause quite a sensation, even if whatever it was
is gone. Unless...?” he smiled at the coercive nature of his own words.

     “That’s really low, Becil,”
he said, dropping the pretense at anger. It had always been hard to fool
Ro-Becilo’Ran.

     “Good, I was wondering when
you’d realize I could vuu right through that phony anger,” his friend laughed.

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv sighed and
gestured for him to follow, went in to his domicive.

     “I’m home, Mother,” he
called, “and Ro-Becilo’Ran is here, too!”

     “Doesn’t surprise me, he
practically lives here!” came the rejoinder. “There is food in the cooking
area, or you can glyph-conjure your own!”

     He grabbed the food, and led
the way up to his suite, closed the entrance behind his friend. “So, how
did
you know that was my plan?” he asked, clearing a place on his floor to sit
down.

     “In truth, you think I don’t
know how you think after all the trouble we’ve gotten into, together?” Ro-Becilo’Ran
chided, sitting opposite him. “There was no possibility of getting all the
curious numb-paces out so you could go looking for whatever you saw earlier. So
you were either going to risk them seeing whatever it was, or you were going to
attempt to use what you had learned in your Long-Travel course, and you needed
to see the inside of the place to have a target destination. So, here, I took
some images for you.” He pulled his view-glyphographic out and began
transferring the images to Pa-Kreceno’Tiv’s dataSphere.

     Pa-Kreceno’Tiv called up the
images, a little disturbed that Ro-Becilo’Ran had thought up the idea that he
would try before he had. It had occurred to him once he had left the building,
but Ro-Becilo’Ran had taken the images before that.

     He laid the graphic down,
projecting the image, and he engaged his vuu’erio tennae to his secondary
retinas, to study the projection. There, faintly within it, was the partial
glyph that represented the place-notion of it. The glyph kept shifting
slightly, as he thought about it in different ways, so he firmed the idea of it
in his mind – an abandoned place where people once worked, on the first level
of the dark building. The glyph stabilized, only blurring occasionally. He
called up a separate view, to project the truncated Long-Travel glyph. He hoped
that he would be able to see how to modify the glyph to make it into a short-travel
glyph. He made a duplicate of the Long-Travel glyph, stored the original away,
and went back to studying the parts of the copy.

     “So... was what you saw
still there?” Ro-Becilo’Ran asked quietly.

     “Yes,” he said shortly,
beginning to modify the travel glyph, incorporating parts of the location
glyph, and adding a few aspects of the glyph of hiding that he had sensed. The
travel glyph resisted his manipulation at first, but he gently kept trying to
add the modifications, adding new whorls and lines to make it into what he
wanted. Suddenly it snapped into the configuration he was trying to form, and
he realized that he was exhausted, just from that tiny feat. He began to eat,
voraciously, only to find that more than half of the food was already gone.