Daughter of Time 1: Reader (12 page)

A terrible laughter echoed around me. Long and cruel, it pieced my spirit like a poisoned sleet storm, echoing, echoing in the infinite darkness. And suddenly, I
knew
. I felt it like a knife in my gut. It was gone.
Earth was gone.

I felt myself scream in silence, my rush around the Moon increasing, spinning faster and faster, seeing remembered patterns of the surface, then back again to the unremembered, around and around, yet everywhere, only darkness.
Only the Moon
. Panic welled inside, I felt as if I were to strain and stretch until I snapped. Around and around until the surface became a blur.

The Earth was gone!

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T proves that if T proves that (P → Q) and T proves P then T proves Q. In other words, T proves that ProvA(#(P → Q)) and ProvA(#(P)) imply ProvA(#(Q)).

Only the shallow know themselves. 
—Oscar Wilde

I awoke in a soft bed, feeling stiff, as if I had slept for a time uncounted. At first, all was dark, as in my dream, and fear gripped me before I remembered:
I am blind.
Calming myself, I made an effort and scanned the immediate past. From the nothing of darkness, the dream of my past reading became visions of the recent Now, and my location was painted within my mind.

It seemed I was in a small room. A warm light like an early spring morning shone on my face from a kind of lamp overhead, casting earthlike tones to the objects around me. I lay on a small bed, blankets of some strange material draped over me. Next to my head was a blue and red artifact with a stretched and sewn strap in the back, a stained bill and top, stitched lettering across the front—Ricky’s hat. It looked like someone had even attempted to clean it. Two broad and strange chairs were in front of my bed. In each chair sat a monstrosity. As my mind cleared, my memory returned, and the months on the death-ship flooded back. At the last, when my strength had failed, I remembered the entrance of the strange aliens: the Xix,
our salvation
. Little glimpses, like half-recalled dreams told me I had awakened several times to lose consciousness, that I had been in several places, attended to by these creatures, but no details emerged.

Where am I?

Two tall Xixians, green robes covering their unusual bodies, sat in front of me, their snaking eyestalks and fingers squirming as the rest of their body remained still in their seats. The fear of them had begun to leave me. Somehow, I knew that these creatures had purposefully taken what was left of us off that ship, and that they had cared for me. Why, I did not know. Fear still remained for what they might want with me.

“Welcome back, Ambra Dawn,” said one of them before I could muster any courage for interaction. Its translator was strung about its strange head like a necklace, lights flashing across the surface as words were spoken. “Please, do not be afraid. We are medics of the Xix. We have tended you since our forces retrieved you from the smugglers.”

“Smugglers?” I managed to croak out. My throat was very sore.

“Barbarians,” spoke the other in an identical pitch, identical accent, although a different personality came through the cadenced inflection of the words.

“You were nearly beyond our aid. Many of your companions already were,” continued the first one.

“Where are they all?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“Those that survived are well cared for at a rehabilitation facility.”

“Rehabilitation?”

“Yes. We are a division of Xixian forces devoted to identifying groups that violate the laws in place ensuring the proper treatment of underdeveloped creatures. Too often more advanced species abuse their power and resort to treating humans in unconscionable ways, simply to maximize profit. Too many do not believe in your ability to suffer, or do not care. Our job is to police such abuses. Your shipmates will be healed as much as we are able to heal them, and then reassigned to more, shall we say, humane, employments.”

My mind attached a soft smile to the words. Of course, the Xix had no teeth or mouths that I ever saw. They never dined with us and it was always my theory that they absorbed their food through their rough skin. I’m clueless about how they interfaced with the translators.

“Why am I here?”

The eyestalks swiveled around and settled on me. “Because you are special, Ambra.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You have spoken much in your delirium. We have been careful to record and study everything about you once we understood your value. Shortly after we brought you to medical services, our scans of your body identified items of interest beyond the illnesses and damage to your body that we sought to repair.”

“My tumor.”

“Yes, Ambra. But I don’t think you fully appreciate your condition.”

“I hate it.”

“Yes, that is understandable. But we often hate things we do not understand.”

The second one spoke, its many eyes focusing on both me and the other Xix. “Ambra, who modified you? Was it Earthlings? Or others?”

“Modified me? Oh. You mean the surgeries.” I turned away from them. For some reason, I felt ashamed. “Humans did it. They wanted the tumor to grow. I think my Reader powers come from it.”

“Yes, Ambra, they do. Did you know that many humans have such tumors?”

I turned back around. “They do?”

“They are much smaller. All humans with Reader powers have this growth in the brain. It is a recent alteration of your neural physiology, within the last fifty thousand of your Earth years. In most it is no larger than the tip of your finger.”

“But in me?”

“Your genetics combined to create a benign tumor in this tissue, accelerated in growth by hormones at puberty. The surgeries modified your brain tissue, your skull, vasculature – all to allow the tumor to grow uninhibited. It gives you special abilities.”

“I don’t want to be special.”

“But you are, Ambra.” I turned away again. Several seconds passed in silence until the first one continued the conversation.

“We know you are blind.”

“Yes.”

“The scans revealed the damage from the growth to your brain tissues involved in processing visual information. And yet, Ambra, you see.”

I remained silent, turned away from them. I didn’t know what to say. Most of the conversation had been from the first one that had spoken. The second leaned forward.

“Ambra, I too am a Reader. Readers exist in many of the alien species in the Dram Hegemony. But our talents are weak compared to human Readers. And compared to you – there has never been a Reader like you, Ambra.”

“The man who did this to me said there was. He said there was one who predicted me.”

There was a long pause. The Xixian Reader then continued. “We will not speak of this right now. But what you say is true. But you have the potential to surpass everything that he has done.”

My head was swimming. Already fatigue was catching up to me again.
What did they want with me?

The first one spoke again. “Ambra, how is it that you are blind and yet you see?”

I shook my head. How was I going to explain all this? I couldn’t really even explain it to myself. My trips to the past – where they real? Was I mad? Did I really
see
or did I imagine? After everything that had happened to me – kidnapped, my parents killed, the surgeries, the aliens, being sold, nearly driven to death, and now this – how did I know I wasn’t mad? And if I wasn’t, did I even have words to make sense of it all?

“I…I look at things that were…
before
. I can look and see things, many things, that have happened. It’s like a web or weaving dancing in my mind…no, I don’t know, I don’t know how to explain it. Things far and close. If I look close, and at those things near me, I can see what was moments before, which is like seeing what is now. Almost. That’s what it is for me.”

The two were silent, and their eyestalks darted back and forth between each other. I guess it’s what I would call a “knowing look” for these creatures. Something passed between them. The Reader spoke.

“Ambra, you may call me Thel. I have been assigned to you. There are many things we would like to know. We need to know what you can see.”

Finally, it was enough for me. The fatigue, the questions, the strangeness of everything around me. I nearly shouted. “Why?! What do you want with me? I just want to be left alone. I don’t want this anymore.
Please
…please. Can’t you just take me home?”

Thel spoke softly. “No, Ambra. We can’t.”

I began to cry.

“For your pain, we would. But there is so much you do not understand.”

“What? What don’t I understand?” I sobbed out between breaths.

“Earth is not safe for you, Ambra. Earth is not what you think it is. You seem to have explored the past, but not thoroughly, or you would have seen that several hundred years ago, Earth was infiltrated by agents of the Dram. In humans, they found a gold mine, herds of humans with powerful Reader potential. They quickly subverted your cultures, your nations, and guided the development of your civilization with the sole goal of breeding, identifying, and selecting humans of the greatest Reader powers. There is no place on Earth where their influence does not extend. Should you return to Earth, very soon you would be back in their hands.”

“Like I’m in
your
hands?”

“We believe we are different, Ambra.”

“Prove it. Let me go. Take me back!”

“Ambra, we do not wish to use you as the Dram would use you, only for selfish gain. But we need you. Not only the Xix, but many alien species need you. And your own race needs you, too. Quite desperately.”

“What can you need me for?”

“The Hegemony of the Dram has ruled our galaxy for too long. There are those underneath their rule that seek what you would call liberation. This Resistance needs you. Only when the Dram are defeated can they be removed from Earth, and your own planet be freed. Nothing on Earth is as it seems. You are not in control of your destiny. You are puppets on strings. Cattle that are bred, raised, and taken for one purpose: slavery.”

I was still for several moments. Have you ever had a sudden sense of truth, of something that was hanging over you, but until that moment, you couldn’t see it? Right then, hearing those words, a thousand things came together – the searches in the past, my life experience, their words. And like some landscape becoming clear in a fog, I
knew
. I knew it was true. I had felt it all my life, this
wrongness
of our life on Earth. The sense that things were not making sense, were not as they seemed, and that something – something darker – lay behind it, blotting out the real sun.

“Revolution?” The word sounded electric in my ears.

“This is not the time to speak of it, but yes. There is so much for you to learn. But your powers offer a key to unlocking the shackles the Dram have placed on so many.”

“Why don’t
you
fight them?”

“As Xix, we are poorly suited to this task.”

“Why?”

“It is an irony for many in the Resistance. The Xix have surpassed all others in knowledge and technology, yet we are unable to seek the destruction of others, even for the greater good. We of Xix excel in the making of things, in the healing of hurts, in the explaining of what little of the universal mysteries that we can. Violence, the infliction of pain – these are things we recoil from. It is beyond mere morality. It is wired into our tissues.”

“You had weapons when you came. I saw them. And there were explosions.”

Thel answered. “The explosions were attacks from the smugglers on our forces. Many Xix perished. The objects our forces held that you call weapons can stun attackers, but they cannot kill them. That is as violent as we can be. And only some of us are able to undertake such training.”

The other Xixian followed up on those words. “We know this weakness in ourselves yet we cannot alter it. So, we seek other means or the means to empower others to resist. Ambra, we suspect that you may be that means, what our Resistance has been seeking for a long time. Something to turn the tide. The Dram are ruthless, powered by terrible weapons and technology we of Xix shudder to even imagine. They were the first to probe the Orbs to manipulate them, because they wanted the power. All of the Orbs connect, Ambra, and they are all found near the planets of intelligent life. This led the Dram to many worlds, worlds that mostly were not prepared to resist such an aggressive and merciless foe. Galactic wars followed, but soon the Dram overpowered all. Now, the galaxy rots under the tyranny of the Dram. It must end.”

The Xixians did that thing again with their eyestalks and then spoke once more to me.

“We see that you are tired. We have said as much or more than we should have. We will let you rest. You have the means to examine the truth of our words. Use it. Come to see that we do not deceive you. Soon, we will return to speak more, and, if you will consent, to begin to try to understand your real potential. For now, we travel toward the next step in your journey.”

“Where will we go?”

“Someplace safe. A secret place where you will learn the depth of what awaits you.” The two Xixians stood, legs moving at impossible angles, yet the motion was fluid. They strode to the door at the far wall.

“Rest now, Ambra Dawn,
Reader
. There is much yet that you must do.”

The door opened and within seconds closed, leaving me alone in the room. Alone with too many thoughts for my exhausted mind to hope to consider.

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