A Lonely World Where the People Are Blue Read online

  Te’rnu and I assumed the “law enforcement and prisoner” formation - me walking in front, Te’rnu walking behind, phase rifle pointed in my direction.

  ‘Just make sure you leave the safety on, eh?’ I asked Te’rnu - and then realised that I would do well to actually explain the concept of a “safety” to him before he accidentally shot me.

  We approached the main entrance to see that it was being guarded by two armed Iyr. I could feel Te’rnu’s pace slow behind me, the reality of the danger he was putting himself in now being realised.

  As we reached the main door, Te’rnu prepared to tout his reason for bringing me in.

  ‘I am here to-’

  The Iyr guard waved us through.

  ‘Oh,’ Te’rnu whispered. ‘I see.’

  ‘Rifle on the rack there,’ the guard reminded him. Te’rnu responded with a curt nod, placed the phaser down by the Iyr, and turned to me.

  He paused for a moment before grabbing me by the wrists and twisting them behind my back.

  I played along - put up a little struggle, but essentially let him do it.

  ‘Sorry,’ Te’rnu whispered in my ear.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I replied, ‘At least, not so audibly.’

  Te’rnu pretended to force me up the stairs in the main atrium, which led to a series of long, narrow hallways. We proceeded onwards - Te’rnu acting as confidently as he could in the direction he was taking me - until I saw a small maintenance room coming off the corridor to our left. I signalled to Te’rnu, and we crept inside.

  ‘Alright, keep watch,’ I told my friend. He manned his post, peering through a small gap in the door.

  I looked around the room for the inevitable control panel. On one side, behind the cleaning equipment, I found one.

  ‘Easy peasy,’ I muttered, and then hoped I hadn’t just jinxed it.

  I plugged my console into the panel and ran a scan for accessible systems.

  There was only one: emergency exit procedures. A diagram of the building filled the screen, arrows suggesting the fastest way to exit Central Command.

  ‘Shit,’ I murmured, and then, realising that maybe I was getting a little carried away with this whole swearing thing, added, ‘Excuse my French.’

  ‘What is that?’ Te’rnu whispered. ‘This… “French”?’

  Alright, fair enough - that’s a Terran thing, after all.

  ‘It’s a dead language, back where I’m from. On Terra.’

  ‘So you were speaking French?’

  ‘Well… no, that’s just an expression. It means I said a rude word.’

  ‘Oh,’ Te’rnu replied in a hushed voice, ‘So the French were a rude people, then?’

  I thought about it for a moment; this conversation was going on far too long considering what we were doing, and so an easy answer was required. ‘Yes. Very rude.’

  I played about with my console some more, hoping I was going to suddenly find some advanced hacking abilities that I never knew I possessed. I had no such luck.

  ‘All I have is emergency exit systems,’ I told Te’rnu - and saying this out loud made me realise something. ‘But that means I do have the building’s schematics…’

  Te’rnu remained quiet, letting me continue with my train of thought in peace. I tapped frantically at the screen, looking for our destinations.

  ‘…Which means that I can figure out where the core mainframe servers are… And, look! I mean, no, don’t look, stay over there and keep watch. But, if you were to look, you’d see: there’s a room marked ‘cells’. Not far from here, either.’

  ‘OK. How far to the mainframe?’

  I furrowed my brow. ‘Mainframe? Don’t you think the prisoner is the first priority here?’

  Te’rnu whipped his head around to face me. ‘Yes. I am sorry. I apologise. I have been searching for the truth for so long… I forget what my priorities should be. We can find the truth later.’

  I touched Te’rnu’s arm. ‘We’ll find it. Soon. I promise.’

  We proceeded through the corridors and transmats of Central Command through the route I had memorised, me signalling directions to Te’rnu with the smallest of nods. Without running into trouble of any kind, we arrived at the entrance to the cells.

  As we walked into the room, a guard, who had been standing almost invisibly still, suddenly stood to attention and saluted Te’rnu.

  ‘Sir!’

  Te’rnu was taken aback. ‘“Sir”? Oh! Yes - the disguise!’

  Both the guard and I turned to Te’rnu, a look of incredulity on my face (and presumably on the guard’s too).

  ‘…mate.’

  Te’rnu, realising what he had just said, fumbled his hand around a button by his visor.

  ‘Incapacitate,’ I could just about hear the suit’s in-built voice announce.

  A wave of electricity shot out of the helmet and into the guard, rendering him unconscious.

  ‘Sorry,’ Te’rnu mumbled.

  I said nothing, only shook my head in exasperation.

  ‘At least we know now what those sparks were doing coming out of the guard’s helmet. Back when I stopped you being killed.’

  I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help myself from smiling. ‘OK, yes, you saved me. Point well made. Let’s just not give the game away again, huh?’

  I thought that Te’rnu was going to question the phrase “give the game away”, but he let it slide this time.

  In front of us, next to where the Iyr guard had been standing was a translucent door, an electronic panel to one side. This could only be it - where the prisoner was being kept. I pounded on the glass-like material.

  ‘Hello? Anyone in there? Melonaitopila?’ I asked.

  Silence.

  ‘If there is… I’m not an Iyr! I’m here to save you! Your dad hired me!’ I pleaded.

  ‘…he did?’ a voice asked from behind the door. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Syl Raynor. I’m an investigator. We’re-’

  ‘Oh!’ Te’rnu said, suddenly, ‘Why don’t we just press this?’

  I had only just enough time to shout, ‘No!’ before Te’rnu selected the “Open Cell Door” option.

  ‘Oh,’ Te’rnu replied, ‘Why not?’

  His question was answered by the alarm springing into life.

  Both Te’rnu and I turned to face the door to the corridor, from which direction a stampede of footsteps fast approached.

  We glanced at one another, and Te’rnu’s hand once again returned to the buttons on his suit’s visor.

  ‘Activated: instant kill.’

  14

  The Diplomat’s Daughter

  Six Iyr guardsmen stormed the room, all armed with phase rifles - which they promptly pointed at me.

  I threw my hands up in the air. ‘Alright, don’t shoot, I surrender! We don’t want an intergalactic incident on our hands, do we?’

  The guards suddenly noticed Te’rnu - and all stood to attention. My friend, realising quickly that his cover was still - at the moment, at least - intact, pulled his hand back away from the buttons on his visor.

  Quite handy, this disguise.

  Te’rnu stood up straight, assuming the role of Iyr Head of Guard. ‘Thank you, soldiers, for the reinforcement. I was just in the process of arresting this… intruder.’

  He was putting on a lower, deeper tone, pretending as though he had a voice to match his high rank.

  ‘She-,’ he began - and then restarted his sentence. ‘They already knocked out one of the guards. You!’

  Te’rnu pointed at two of the Iyr.

  ‘Take this one to the medical bay.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ the pair responded, and then picked the unconscious Iyr up by their arms and legs.

  ‘That looks comfy,’ I murmured, not quite being able to help myself. The remaining guards, enraged by my throwaway comment, picked their phasers up and pointed them at me once again. I was really starting to get used to looking down the barrel of an Iyr phase rifle.

&n
bsp; One of the guards slowly moved their hands up to their visor.

  ‘Wait, what are you-’ I began to ask.

  With the press of a button, bolts of electricity shot out of the Iyr’s helmet and into my body, enflaming every nerve in my body, and putting me in excruciating pain.

  I screamed like a young child and fell to the floor, barely able to move. The guards approached and grabbed me in much the same way as they had their colleague.

  ‘That’s not much fun…,’ I mumbled.

  Before I knew it, I was thrown into the cell, and the door closed firmly behind me. In one corner of the white, agonizingly-bright room sat a young Itagurinatipilazutinafi woman - Melonaitopila. I forced a reassuring smile in her direction, but in my lingering pain, it came out instead as a distressed snarl.

  ‘Sir, what should we do with the prisoner?’ I heard one of the guards ask outside the room.

  ‘I…,’ Te’rnu began to reply, ‘I will deal with them later.’

  Good thinking, Te’rnu. Use your disguise while you still have it.

  ‘Of course - your meeting,’ another guard responded. ‘It started a few moments ago but I am sure they will understand your delay… given the circumstances.’

  ‘I… err…,’ Te’rnu started, stumbling over his response. ‘Yes! You: keep guard here. You three, please escort me to the meeting.’

  ‘I do not mean to question your orders, sir, but should we not keep more than one guard on this post, given the security breach?’

  ‘It is all resolved, is it not?’ Te’rnu replied. ‘The damage has been contained.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  I heard the whoosh of a door opening and closing, and Te’rnu was gone.

  I didn’t like that he was out there alone; his cover could get blown at any moment, and I had a feeling I knew what the Iyr would do to him when they found out…

  And if he got caught, what hope did I have of escaping?

  I turned to the cell’s other occupant and flashed another smile at her - which I felt went much more successfully this time.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked Melonaitopila.

  She looked at me with incredulity, put her hands up in the air as if to say “what the hell do you think?”

  ‘Sorry, stupid question,’ I followed up.

  Melonaitopila shook her head. ‘No. It’s not. I’m sorry. It’s not been a good few days. Or weeks. Hard to tell, from in here.’

  ‘Week and a half, yeah,’ I clarified. ‘You’ve been in here all this time?’

  She shrugged. ‘Pretty much. Since the evening after I saw it.’

  ‘Since you saw the face of an Iyr, you mean?’ I asked.

  Melonaitopila nodded, her eyebrows twisted. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I told you - I’ve been investigating,’ I replied, and, then, filling the silence that followed, I tried to ask, ‘What did you see, Melona- Melonat-,’

  ‘“Mel” is fine,’ she offered. ‘Any name would be fine, now, to be honest.’

  I flashed her a smile. ‘Thanks. Oh! I’m Syl. Guess I should have said that earlier. Getting into bad habits what with never introducing myself properly.’

  ‘Thanks for trying to rescue me, Syl. I’m sorry you got caught.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I replied. ‘I have a friend. He’s… out there, somewhere.’

  ‘Your friend? You think he’ll be able to come back for us?’

  ‘I fucking hope so!’ I replied - the stigma of swearing be damned.

  Fuck! Shit! Crap!

  Mel’s face twisted into the smallest of smiles. ‘You’re not like any other Terran I’ve met.’

  ‘What? Why? Cos I swear?’

  ‘That… and I heard you and your friend assault that guard out there.’

  I nodded and pulled an expression that said: “I guess you’re right about that.”

  ‘Seeing as we might be here a while before Te’rnu comes back…’

  ‘You’re sure he will?’ Mel repeated.

  Why did she keep asking that?

  ‘I’m keeping positive,’ I answered. Mel raised an eyebrow again; she was less convinced, it seemed. ‘As we might be here a while… now might be a good time to tell me what got you into this mess.’

  Mel took a breath and a moment to collect her thoughts. ‘I guess there’s no harm in it. Not most of it, at least. I tried not telling anyone and they still locked me up for what I’d seen.’

  I held my tongue, resisting the urge to make any facetious comments that might put Mel off confiding in me.

  Mel, now beginning to loosen up, began to ramble. ‘It started when my father invited me along on his business trip…’

  He never invites me to come along with him, you see. But recently, I’ve noticed he’s started trying to be more involved in my life. I think it’s because he’s spent most of my life working, and we never really got to be that close. Now he’s realised he missed out on my whole childhood, and he’s trying to make up for it. I like that he’s making an effort, at least.

  So, he invites me to come along to Z’h’ar with him. He’s got a lot of meetings to go to - because obviously he’s so involved with the GMU council and all.

  Oh.

  Maybe I should have started with that bit. For context.

  Yeah, let’s rewind.

  So, my dad, he wasn’t involved much during my childhood because his work at the Galactic Monetary Union Council took up all his time. I don’t blame him, really, it’s not like it isn’t important work. My other dad always called it the “G-MUC” growing up, I remember. Well, no, he called it “that bloody G-MUC”, but that’s a whole other thing.

  In his position, he’s involved in negotiating trade deals between planets in the GMU and those outside it. It’s a careful balance, he said: you want the trading to be mutually beneficial for all involved, but not so much that these external trade deals are actually better than between GMU members.

  He was on your planet, actually, recently. What’s it called? Terra? Yeah, when your lot came out of the GMU there was all this stuff to sort out. I didn’t see him for a few months during that whole thing. But he did a good job, according to his superiors, and - as is always the case when you do a good job on something - he was given an even more difficult task: Z’h’ar.

  Z’h’ar have been talking about leaving the GMU for a few cycles now, especially since Terra came out… OK-ish. So there’s been a lot of renegotiations going on, the GMU trying to propose new things to keep the Iyr on board. But it wasn’t going well, so, lo and behold, Dad gets roped in.

  So we travel over, halfway across the galaxy to come here, and Dad is hoping we will get a little downtime. You know - see the sights, spend some time together.

  But… no. It’s the same old story as it always was: work needs him, he hopes he’ll see me later. I know that that means he will not see me later. So I have to go out and make my own fun.

  I don’t know about for you, but for me, a good night out involves plenty of alcohol and some partying. Oh, right, good, I can see you smiling at that so I know you’re the same. You know how it is, then. You get to a new place, you try the local bars, you try the local spirits, you try the… locals.

  I was at this bar, and I’m thinking: this isn’t quite the scene I was looking for. It’s cold, it’s awkward, and it’s a little bit hostile, even. But I make conversation with this local anyway - he’s drinking by himself, so I figure he might want some company. This Iyr, they tell me that these bars are where the Central Command drink, so it’s always gonna be not much fun. I ask them to take me somewhere that would be fun, and they do just that.

  My date takes me to this underground place, no Central Command, just locals having a good time. I’ll tell you what, them having a good time is still quite a quiet night back on Itagurinatipilazutinafi, but at this point, I’m thinking: I’ll take what I can get.

  I keep drinking, try some of the local Oy’ta - did you try that at all, by the way? No? You haven’t misse
d much. Fairly average. Gave me a nosebleed.

  Anyway, all in all, I’m having an OK time, so I invite the Iyr to invite me back to their place. More trouble than it was worth, if I’m honest. We get back there, they take me to bed. I still have no idea what I’m dealing with in the groin area, cos of the mechsuits, you know? But I’m not fussy, I’m happy with anything, so I’m going with the flow.

  And I expect my date to actually take the suit off… but they don’t. Or, at least, they don’t take most of it off. Just the crotch area.

  I’m a bit… miffed, but don’t want to spoil the mood, so… you know, I guess I go with it.

  But then immediately after, the Iyr gets up and heads into their bathroom. I call after them, like, hey, wait, are we gonna, like, cuddle, or what? But they just shake their head and say they need to get my fluids off of them.

  Bit rude, I think, but maybe that’s just a cultural thing, so I try not to take it to heart.

  Anyway, I hear them in the shower and I think: this was all kind of underwhelming, maybe I can get them going again in the shower? Always sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it, doing it in the shower, but then you get there and you’re doing it, and you’re slipping, and…

  Doesn’t matter, I’m getting distracted.

  So I sneak in. And I’m kinda drunk so I’d forgotten the whole “no foreigner has ever seen a naked Iyr” thing. And then, with the door now open, the steam in the bathroom slowly clears… and I see them.

  …And that’s where this story gets hard to talk about.

  What if they’re listening?

  What if they’re just waiting for me to slip up and tell someone the truth?

  What if they’ll punish me for it?

  And all these same questions ran through my mind at the time. When I saw the truth, so much I knew about Z’h’ar suddenly made so much sense… It changed everything. I could see why they’d kept it a secret.

  I ran. I was scared what the Iyr would do to me - if it meant they could maintain their rule on this planet. If I told anyone, you see, it could all come crashing down…

  I couldn’t stay in the stronghold, not any more, so I ran off into the wastelands, to see the only people I thought might understand: the Arellians.