The Star Whorl (The Totality Cycles Book 1) (9 page)

     “I have to go,” she said,
almost apologetically.

     “Can you come to the line
again next turn?” he asked quietly.

     She bit her lip, looked
regretful. “I don’t think my parents will allow that. But I’ll see you at
Secondus.”

     He smiled and touched her
cheek. “At Secondus.”

     She returned a hopeful
smile, then disengaged her transport from his. He waited, watching as her
transport went up to the domicive, then dissolved, and she went inside. Then he
turned his own toward home, musing on all that had happened.

Whorl Twenty Six

     Still feeling warm and a
little heady from his kisses with Polista Zyledi’Kil, and wearing the faint
colors of her induction, he hailed his parents, accepted the platter of food
his father glyph-conjured for him, and went up to his suite.

     He sat at his study-station,
and saw that his new post had responses.     Again, with no small amount of
trepidation, Kreceno’Tiv opened his dataSphere and checked his discussion
thread.

     There were many more positive
responses this time, people asking the questions he had hoped they would ask,
and some even defending his position as a dabbler rather than a Burrower.

     Then a response came to the
fore that somehow caught his attention. The glyphs of it were subtle with
meaning and power. He felt a jangle along all his nerves as he navigated to it
and opened it. Someone with power and influence had posted this response,
someone highly placed somewhere, for the identity and alias of the responder
was completely shrouded, without even a trail to an individual’s dataSphere.

    
:High Dabbler

     :Alighter, you pose
interesting questions, and raise quite valid points – at heart, we
are
still entrenched in the old ways, the powerful taking ascendency and the not-so-powerful
grouping together in huddled-mass cliques, trying to garner power through
numbers.

     :Most relevant is your
question: where could vanished voices be in the Totality that they are unable
to raise a voice in the Spheres. But you are only able to see so much – you see
the voices of the lower who have vanished. But as below, so above – what of
voices who have never been heard, so high that they are perhaps above the
hearing of all, who never got the chance to make a presence on the Spheres to
vanish?

     :Here is the beginning of
the answer to your questions – when cajoling fails, coercion might have effect.
Where dissipation destroys some ways of learning of the doings of a few,
therein grows the opportunity to take and make decisions that might not be to
the best interests of all. And where solidarity fails, the unscrupulous
flourish, taking actions that cannot be known or contravened until it is too
late to act.

     :You have acted, perhaps
precipitating those counter-conducive actions. My question to you is: have you
acted in time?

     Kreceno’Tiv felt his
vuu’erio tennae roll tight and all the vital fluids seemed to leave his face
and throat. His elytra-pace clamped tight to his back, as if frightened on its
own and clinging to him for reassurance.

    
Someone in the Solidarim
wrote this,
he knew with every particle of his being. There were subtle
hints and deeper meanings that he knew he would have to dig out, more sinister
motivations behind the disappeared voices on the Spheres than ever he had
suspected. He read the response again, committing it to memory, then carefully
deleted it, though others had seen it and were questioning the responder to
make themselves clear.

    
As below, so above? The
responder is implying – that – that...
he was afraid to even speculate,
though he knew he would have to face the answer that would rise in his mind at
some time. He focused on the more obvious points of the post – the actions of a
few, coercive actions, were behind the disappearances? And a little deeper,
more subtle – those in high places had let the Spheres remain striated for a
reason, so that the one medium that could meld the populace together, in
essence, kept them fractious and fractured, so that the lack of solidarity
hindered group action to defend themselves? It sounded almost like the
pleadings of the Criers, but with more substance, and more implicit yet
concrete threat to feed his thoughts and worries.

     He found his fingers
trembling as he considered his next post. Someone highly placed knew the
answer, and was using him to try to rectify the situation, unwilling, or
perhaps unable, to act themselves. Posing the question, had he acted in time,
meant that he had, but just in time, and that he would have to do more than
pose questions to fight back against an enemy action that he had only
suspected, had only stumbled upon, but which was large and sweeping and well
underway.

    
So I have gotten the
attention of some of those highly placed, and some support me, and others, who
are behind this, will be working against me.
He wondered if he should go to
his parents, ask them what to do next. But the post had implied that he needed
to continue as he had been, one small voice acting alone, trying to unite all
the other contentious voices in the Spheres.

     Then he saw a response that
froze his soul, for it was full of tears, and made his effort and the coming
effort he decided to expend all the more poignant and relevant.

    
:Tears In The Dark

     :Thank you for raising
your voice, Alighter. I feared to do so, feared words of derision and
dismissal, and worse yet, dehortation and punitive action. My brother is one of
those silenced, one of those vanished. In the real world, he is gone, and no
one can tell me where or why. They only cite a new initiative, the name of
which they would not even tell me, the glyph of it Veiled. Does it matter that
we live in a small place, low on the least of the World-Trees, farthest from
the crowds and influence of the Capital of An’Siija? I think so. And I was –
told not to raise a hue and cry, that he was serving the greater Totality by
his absence. How could that be so?

     :You spoke where I could
not. You questioned while I was silenced in a different way. You cared, and I
thank you for caring. If others had cared, as you had, then perhaps my
brother’s vanishing would have been remarked upon sooner, and more than questions,
actions would and could have been taken.

    
What have I stepped into?
he wanted to moan, holding his head in his hands. His head suddenly
throbbed, the weight of what had been placed upon him suddenly like having to
support the World-Trees alone. Then he looked up. Was this a test, of sorts?
Were there those watching, to see if he would hedge, balk, draw back from the
path he had chosen to tread?

     Fingers trembling, he
considered again what to say, then began to type, his glyphs not nearly so
tremulous as he.

     :Alighter In Action

     :A voice from the dark
cries out to me. Actions, veiled, have been taken, actions that run counter to
our mores and laws. A veil has been drawn, where there should be none. My
sistren and brethren Sphere-treaders, one cries out to us in fear from the
dark, speaking for one who can no longer speak for himself. Will we let our
differences stand? Will we remain divided in the Spheres, and dissipate in the
real world? I say this – those who are on high are only high because there are
those below to whom they are compared. And those below are only low because
they have not united to act as one. No action, high or low, should be veiled,
no sibling of the Spheres should go silent, but that we all cry out together,
“Where has he gone?” And in the real world, no citizen should stand alone, in
fear, because of the intimidation of others. I see many, every turn, without
purpose, without direction, frittering away the time-marks, looking for
something of interest to spark their minds and lend purpose to their lives. I
have been one of those dissipants. I have wallowed in the killing despair, though
I am not completely without drive or purpose. But that single cry in the dark –
that should be a rallying cry to all of us, strata be damned.

     :So I presume to give a
purpose to myself and any who would join me: let us suss-out this action that
leads to tears in the dark. Let us find the vanished ones, and bring their
voices back to the Spheres. Where one voice cries alone, now many should shout,
and in the real world, where one brother is vanished, we must seek out all who
have been taken, and find the reason why, and who is responsible. And where
veils shroud places where we have not even eyes or vuu’erio tennae to see or
sense, we must tear and claw away, for no glyph may be Veiled, that is law. And
if such cannot be enforced on high, then it must be put through by brute force
by all of the rest of us.

     :Join me.

     He shut down his study-station,
his stomach in knots, and sleep eluded him far into the dark-turn.

Whorl Twenty Seven

     “Krece,” a soft voice called
to him. He groaned and rolled over, opened his eyes to see Vespa Karaci’Tiv
standing in the entrance to his suite.

     “Kara?” he squinted, his
head pounding. He had had troubled dreams all dark-turn, and his wing-nets had
hummed all throughout, giving him a headache. His vuu’erio tennae had been
extended and waving, also, leaving his eyes hurting and light-sensitive.

     “Father is calling us to eat
together,” she said, and her slightly flat voice made him sit up fast. He only
needed to pull on a deshik, having fallen asleep in his kwats from the
dark-turn before, and he stood and followed her down to the meal room,
wrestling the quasi-living garment on.

     Both Vespa Kareni’Tiv and
Vespar-Drelano’Sev’Tiv were waiting for them, already seated, and the table was
heaped with food. But Kreceno’Tiv found that he had no appetite.

     “Certain developments in the
dataSpheres interlinks have – forced certain things to come to light,”
Vespar-Drelano’Sev’Tiv said, looking somber. “There is a new initiative that
has been given preliminary approval, though final approval has yet to come from
the Solidarim or the Gu’Anin Magistrate Council. It is called the Occupation
and Service Initiative.”

     Kreceno’Tiv felt the fluids
drain from his face. Many things were coming together, unpleasant things, hints
that his parents had let drop, combined with the veiled clues in the response
to his discussion thread, adding up to a very ugly whole.

     “Does this have to do with
the new Long-Travel terminuses?” Vespa Karaci’Tiv asked, her voice subdued.

     “It does,”
Vespar-Drelano’Sev’Tiv said, giving her a look of approval. “The full details
are on your view-glyphographics. This will be voted into law, soon, so I
suggest that you study it carefully.”

     Kreceno’Tiv swallowed. Was
it a coincidence that the turn after he had posted his call for action that his
father was telling them about this referendum?

     His mother looked at him
significantly, and he reached for the nearest platter, taking a small portion
and nibbling at it. His stomach took over, and though he felt almost nauseous,
he began to eat, reaching for other platters and passing the ones he had
already taken food from. They all ate in silence, and then his parents smiled
at them and excused themselves. Vespa Karaci’Tiv gave him a look, then stood
and left.

     Taking a last bite without
really knowing how much he had eaten, he got up and went back to his suite, and
linked to his dataSphere. His alias thread was gone, and there in the relative
middle of the interlinked dataSpheres was a post from the Solidarim and the
Gu’Anin Magistrate Council, announcing a new reform that would be made
completely public when a definite unanimity had been reached. But the post did
not say exactly what the reform was.

     His stomach turned sour, and
he lay back down, covering his eyes. His Nil’Gu’ua itself felt strained, as if
he had been trying to glyph-conjure in his dreams, to no avail. So he did not
even have the volition to glyph-conjure an analgesic for his headache. He
closed his eyes, intending only to rest his head for a moment...

     His view-glyphographic
chimed, and Ro-Becilo’Ran’s voice came through, wondering loudly if he planned
to sleep the light-turn away.

     Groaning again, he got up to
answer the graphic, to see what misadventure his friend had for them to get
into this turn.

Whorl Twenty Eight

     Kreceno’Tiv did not get up
the courage to look at the data-package that his father had sent to him until
much later in the turn, after he had gone to see Ro-Becilo’Ran.

     Swallowing his misgivings,
he opened the sealed glyph-record, and began to read.

     As the words unfolded on his
consciousness, he felt all the food that he had recently eaten turn to stones
in his stomach.

     The Occupation and Service
Initiative was nothing less than authority-condoned segregation, dressed up as
another beneficial and benign reform. Except this one was not optional – there
would be no refusal, when it came right down to choices for the populace.
People could voluntarily submit to the reform, but if they did not go
willingly, then they would be taken, unwillingly, without the option to appeal.
And when he finally got to the heart of the reform, his wing-nets buzzed fit to
burst through his elytra-pace before their time.

    
They are – planning to deport
almost everyone!
he wanted to scream, but just sat frozen, his fingers
hovering over the graphic to advance the document.
They are automatically sending
all the people of Nil’Gu’ua lower than Nnen’Nil’Gu to the second Star Whorl,
using the new Long-Travel terminals! And – and people with ability above
Nnen’Nil’Gu will be exiled too, if they don’t get into Tertius! By the Ancient
Hives, what gives them the right to mandate such a thing?