Betaen 6. Time. Places. Murder. Religious fervor. The cult of “he” and “she”. Princesses and Generals and madmen.
Betaen 6.
Betaen 6 is a science fiction novel about - well you’ll have to read on to find that out wont you?
It’s being presented piecemeal as a series of episodes matched to a photo.
I hope you enjoy it.
Prelude 1. What.
(Or perhaps a Preamble)
This is a story about love, about loss, about life. And in a way it is the quintessential story, and then in another way it isn't. I was lost for a long time, not sure of who I was, when I was, where I was: only that I had lost them both; the wife I had before the Ritluvian flu and the woman I was with afterwards. They mixed together in my mind and for a long time I didn't know which one was which, and who was who, and even if I was I.
That's what Betaen 6 will do to you. Why it is the most horrible planet in this universe. That's also what prison will do to you. That and fear and hope; desire and wishes, things that can never come true.
I spent a long time in prison for something I am certain I didn't do but the planet did. It took her from me like the flu, took her from me like life took them from me, and just left me here alone with only a story to tell. A jumbled one. A strange one, but perhaps one that touches someone - at least it helps me sort them in my mind.
My psychiatrist here on Mars wants me to write my thoughts as I have them.
„Let out the turmoil boiling in my mind“ she says.
She is a good shrink and maybe she can even help me. Help make sense of this. A lot of what I write isn’t very lucid, but she says she wants to see it all. The she is who here. The others, they say they are gone. Gone forever. But if they are why do they still both talk to me? I can‘t tell you their names, I just can‘t, not even one of them. My doctor says I won‘t but I can‘t. I really can‘t. Not yet. Not now. Not when the pain is still so fresh.
My name is… No, I cant write that either. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even feel as if I had a name. Just call me 487. That’s what they tattooed on my wrist the day I stepped off the Lander from Beaten 6. I cant remember much of the travel, just that the two of them kept talking to me all the time we were in space and even on the way down in the Lander. Which, my good doctor says, is part of my inability to accept my guilt. Perhaps I should explain – you see both of them are dead. The wife I had before the flu and the woman I loved afterwards. They say I killed the second one. Murdered her on Betaen 6. Used the problem to try and cover it up and even went further – disposed of her body so that, at least as far as I know now, it has never been found.
Prelude 2. Thought.
Main City Betaen 6. Office of the Comle. 2799 Earth timeline.
Comle Kiera looked out the window at the streets below her. They were, at first sight, like the streets of any city on any planet in the universe, still more women than men even now, hundreds of years after the flu, still clean or dirty depending upon the time of day and if the cleaning robots had been by, still somewhat melancholy to her. Yet these streets were different. They were the streets of Main City on Betaen 6. The very street she looked at had housed the interrogation cells where He had been interrogated. The city then had still been inconsequential and quite small, basically only a mining town, Betaen 6 was not the center of the universe at that time. He and She had probably walked those streets on one of their strolls. The Inspector certainly did. Emira had also once been here. Ministry Visit 105. That she could still remember that from history class. So long ago, so many lifetimes, such great change. She turned from the window and glanced at the photo of the woman that hung a bit alone on the wall, away from those of He, She and the Inspector. Emira. So important to the new humanity and so unknown. Even He had spottily written about her – “she was famous for being one of the 105 women that ever died of the Ritluvian flu, she just had to” – or something akin to that. That reminded her that she wanted not just to read the He chronicles but all of „Betaen 6“. She could easily just have have opened her mind to her timeline and seen but instead she walked to her desk and pushed the intercom button.
“Yes Comle?”
“Has the „Betaen 6“ book been proofed for me yet?” She still felt the anger at having to say that, felt the scar tissue in her hair.
Eric had recuperated. The quick thinking of the guard Captain had saved his life. He was still weak, but he was no longer on the machines in the intensive ward. Kiera smiled sardonically when she thought that; so much had changed yet so much had stayed the same, and she glanced at the photo of Emira again.
Had He really not known who she really was?
Prelude 3. Where, when and why?
Where, When and Why (Chronicles being read 2799 - written probably written 2460 to 2462 by “He” while incarcerated on Mars)
My psychiatrist wants me to write in chronological order. I’d love to. It would be greatest pleasure. But if she wants me to do that then she should help me to think straight. In lines. Not circles. Back and forth and come back to the place I started. Not back and get lost somewhere in the maze and when I go forward it’s nowhere I even knew or perhaps I do. I don’t know. I just know that there’s a lot fucked up up here and I can’t change it. At least not now. At least I can keep them apart. Some days, somethings help, Jeff helps. He was only there with the first her. My wife. Her. No, you pushy bitch I won’t write her name. Not again. I’ve done it once. That’s enough. More than enough.
My psychiatrist also wants me to accept that there are two of them. Two women. My wife and her. I said I know that. Then she said – then why do you think your wife had a tattoo with the number 12? I said because she did. My psychiatrist- Fehm, fuck you – scoffed at me. Said my wife, a woman of her position, would never have a tattoo. What position? Sure, she worked for the government and had to travel but lots of women had to do that after the flu. The flu that killed her remember? See. I know they are two women. One of them died of the flu. The one who made that decision. The one that got my nose broken. Not the first time and probably not the last. But I put that far away, really deep and really hidden. I won't think about it. I think that shows how sane I am – doesn’t it? Sane people just don’t think those things. She was just a little politician; I don’t give a fuck what any of you say. What do you know? The other one I lost on the planet. At least I think I did. See. Now you’ve confused me again. Why didn’t you die in the flu? Why weren’t you on Betaen 6 that night? I could have killed you. I really could have.
Prelude 4. Seeking
(A spaceship orbiting Betaen 6. 2799)
“Comle, we are in orbit around the planet” there was a pause “Do you have anything we need to perform before they prepare the Landers?”
Comle she thought. The common term for Command Leader.
Supreme leader of the triumvirate and therefore of the Senate. She was responsible for the lives and well being of over eleven quadrillion new humans spread across the universe and approximately one hundred million old humans who would not assimilate. It was their choice. Non-assimilation meant less possibilities in the governments and the committees that controlled a planet and made old human needs secondary to those of the new humans. But they had chosen it and she would not change it. There had been rumblings though of revolt on Earth. Earth was, from its position as the most forward and liberal of planets, slipping towards being one of the most backward and conservative. Lately the conservative had begun to develop into reactionary. A fraction of old humans from earth were proselytizing throughout the universe and more and more of them were joining their silly religion. A religion, that when warped as it was being done by many of the evangelists spreading through the universe, taught not love but hate – hate against the new human. They demonized them and with their words they created the fuels for atrocities. There had already been killings of new humans on some planets. Something that had not been seen for 300 years was rearing its ugly head again. She would have to tread carefully in the next few weeks. The Prime Committee, those governors who answered directly to the triumvirate, would meet in two weeks. Bepigdt 4 was requesting sequestration of earth. She knew from her spies and her timeline that Tara, the number two on the triumvirate, was in favor. What game was she playing? She had to know that Kiera knew she was meeting secretly with the fanatics on earth – stirring their hate. Creating the very situation Tara wanted to use to cement her power. Kiera still hadn’t made up her mind. Perhaps it would be good if she did reread the histories, especially the book „Betaen 6“, both the He and She Chronicles, and the recently released from redaction „Inspector Recalls“ He and She might have some answers for her, though they were long dead. It saddened her that the assimilation hadn’t worked for the very humans who had created the possibility. She turned her thoughts back to the problem at hand. If the terrorists on earth, there was no other words for them, did not stop soon she would have no choice. Kiera hoped she would not be forced to make the decision Emira had to make. She didn’t know if she could.
Prelude 5. Forgetting
Betaen 6. prelude 5.
Forgetting. (Betaen 6. Office of the Comle. 2799)
Kiera knew why she was thinking that. Until three days ago the staunchest supporter the old humans had had been her. The one who spoke for them and their rights in the council. And Kiera knew, as they all did, that it was – in the end – her word that carried the weight. She was thinking of the decision she had now to make. The same decision that Emira had made. Emira had been 32 when she made that decision. Interior Minister for only a few weeks. She was 38. She’d been Comle now for over two years. Unlike Lillian, the head of the triumvirate at the time of Emira’s decision, she had no Interior Minister to move the decision – and the blame – to. She would have to make it alone. She sat down at the desk. It had been the Inspectors. She knew many of her staff laughed and joked about her behind her back about her affinity for the old things, especially those that had belonged to the Inspector or He and She. She accepted it. She had been like that ever since her first year in the university. When she had been much younger, they hadn’t interested her at all, but her first class in He and She studies had opened a new world to her, one she thought she should have known. If Kiera could, she would have that famous photo hanging on her wall. But it was deep in the vaults of the museum, conserved and kept from harm. Even the Comle could not touch it. Once she arranged for a private visit, just after she had been elected Comle. Deep into the museum, basement after basement, through airlocks and time locks, in the penultimate room donning a white suit that would be incinerated after its use and covering her face with an air mask. Then it was there. She wanted to reach out to touch it, hold it like She had, but Kiera knew the alarms would immediately seal the room and pour sleeping gas into it. How many millions had been spent to find a gas that would not harm that photo? If she wanted to she could find out. But she didn’t want to, she wanted to enjoy this moment with the first step of the Zater. How wonderful it was. Simple. Stark. A slightly yellowed - once she had learned why, something about some chemical process used hundreds of years ago in the manufacture of photographs – black and white photo. So important to them and so inconsequential at the time.
Prelude 6. Realizing.
(From the He Chronicles - written 2462)
I swirled the beer in the glass until it foamed slightly. Didn’t drink it. Just watched the foam bubbles pop and join and disappear. Swirled the glass again.
“What are you thinking?” she asked me.
I smiled. Slowly. Only letting the right lip curl upwards. For me that was a large smile. Actually I can’t physically smile like most people do. It’s not a tic or something I do to be different. I can’t. I can smile with the left or the right side of my mouth but not with the entire thing. I also have problems eating a sandwich. Really. Someone once told me why. They had a nice Latin name for it. I was never good at Latin.
“Birthdays “ I said
She raised her eyebrow like Spock. She could do that.
“Should you celebrate the day you were born or the day you didn’t die?” I swirled the beer again “you know - the car crash you lived through? The bullet that missed you? That sort of thing. “
I looked up at her finally. She was laughing. Her eyes, her mouth, her entire face. Laughing.
I remember I swirled the beer again. I didn’t really want to drink it. If it was Swedish beer it wasn’t very good.
Prelude 7. Answering.
Betaen 6. Prelude 7.
Answering. (From the He Chronicles. Written while he was incarcerated on Mars. 2459-2467)
We had been sitting with our third coffee for probably half and hour. Mine was already cold and I just left it, a sad brown puddle in the white porcelain cup. I could never drink even lukewarm coffee. Didn’t have Jeffs pain threshold but it still had to be hot. Scalding she always said, said it was no different than Jeff. I begged to differ. She still sipped at hers.
“I was scrolling through internet shit yesterday” I said
“Ihm?” She made it into a question by raising her eyebrows.
“And below a quote from Carl Sagan – you know the guy they named the planet with all the universities after - about gullibility and belief was an article - in quotation marks mind you - about the pyramids.”
She waited. She had known me long enough to know I would eventually get to the point. Often, she even thought it was worth waiting for. Not always. But often. I am certain I annoyed her a lot. Especially after they fired me. Fucking idiots. I had done good work. I could have done more. OK, it wasn’t directly flu related, but I could learn. I could do that. I could. I really could. I know it. Shit. I’ve started it again. Thinking the same word over and over. At least I notice I now. I guess my psychiatrist does do some good for me.
“And in this so called article they wrote:
How could the Egyptians have made the pyramids face north if they hadn’t invented the wheel yet? What a bunch of bullshit.”
I waved to Jeff and made the sign of pulling a beer. Jeff nodded. “That’s mixing unrelated things. Basically, it’s a noun followed by a verb followed by another noun that has no contextual meaning with the first noun.”
Jeff brought the beer - he’d already started to pull it when he noticed the puddle of coffee. He knew his customers.
“Like I could say - How could I eat an apple when I didn’t have an orange?”
She laughed.
“Or better yet. How do I start my car without snow?”
Now I laughed.
“Or…” it had become a game.
We often played word games. It was our thing. I had to stop writing because I was getting the tablet screen wet and the cursor was jumping everywhere. I don’t know why I was crying. There was no reason.
Prelude 8. Wondering.
Betaen 6. Prelude 8.
Wondering
“When 1 and 1 are 2 aren’t they really 3? We have 1 and 1 and 2 - to me thats 3 and no longer 2, and it goes on indefinitely with no end. Does that mean there is no beginning and no end to time? - Mundus nihil est nisi fumus et umbrae. Tempis fugus velour umbra.”
Lt. General W. Private diary. 1813.
Planet Pesces 5. Bedroom Dr. Malaica. 3205
She let the hot water wash away the dull feeling the alcohol had left in her mind. What it couldn’t wash away was the throbbing in her temples - half from the excess of the night before and half from the questioning as to why she had been called.
Malaica. She had no surname. No one on Pesces 5 did. It had been founded by a sect of he and she followers who renounced surnames and marriage and many other things that were at that time commonplace in the universe. Now, except for their peculiarities about names, Pesces 5 was just another planet.
She washed her hair - again. It felt good and the drumming water helped her think. Why had they called her? She was a historian - not a cop. Ok. Her book on The Inspector had been a universal best seller, but that was academia. Not real life.
She shook lather from her long brown hair and washed the last vestibules away. Then she turned off the shower and stepped out into the cold bathroom.
She was still mulling over that two hours later as they strapped her into the seat of the Lander that would take her up to the Senate spaceplane that had been sent just for her. It did, in a strange way, make sense. She was the leading expert on the Inspector and he had investigated and solved more murders than she could count - and no cop alive for the last three hundred years had investigated a murder. She was probably the only choice they had.
She thought about the call that had awakened her from an alcohol induced slumber just a few hours before.
“Dr. Malaica?” The voice had seemed strained.
Somehow she had managed to form the word yes and speak it. She considered that an achievement.
“There has been a murder on earth”
Her mind heard the words but didn’t register them. Why should it? There hadn’t been a murder anywhere in the known universe for over 300 years. No one really understood why. They had just stopped. No one had really even noticed until it had been 22 years without one. Then the first academics began to wonder and study and postulate. Another 25 years and no one even read their papers anymore. Murder was just something that belonged to the past, something that neither new nor old human no longer needed. For over two hundred years it hadn’t even been studied academically - until her doctor mother burst onto the universal academic stage with her thesis forty years ago. Her work had been an historical sensation and brought her accolades from everywhere, allowing her to pick and choose the students she wanted to continue and refine it. Malaica had been one of them.
“Are you still there?”
She murmured something between her teeth. The last bottle of Ritluvian brandy she and Becolad had shared may have been a bit too much.
“I am calling on behalf of the Senate. We would like this matter investigated and wrapped up as soon as possible.”
“Just wait” she had managed to interdict “How are you sure it is a murder? There hasn’t been a murder anywhere in over 300 years” Malaica was quite proud that she had managed to form a coherent sentence out of the jumble of fragments floating in her mind. Was it the brandy? Or was it the pippers - they had been purple she could remember - she had dropped earlier in the evening? Anyway something more than lack of sleep was making her head swim. “Its probably an accident”
She heard the voice whisper to someone else.
“Dr. Malaica. Accidents don’t cut the hands off the corpse and take them”
She was suddenly awake. And her mind was clear.
“The hands are missing?”
She heard the nod before the word yes.
“Fuck”
For the first time the voice became less constrained “You can say that again”
She did. Then she asked the question.
“Is there a tattoo on the wrist?”
The voice whispered again with someone else.
“Should there be?”
She took that to be a no.
“If whoever did this took the hands they did it for a reason” she paused “And that is probably to get into an old vault.” She was getting interested.
“Check the wrists - either of them - for a tattoo. It might be covered up or only visible with some type of light or something.” She pulled her lower lip, something she always did when she was deep in thought “I’ll catch your space plane. Send all the information you have there - I might as well work while I’m traveling”
“Of course Dr. Malaica. Thank you. The Comle will be waiting for you when you arrive on earth.”
Prelude 9. Joy
(Excerpt “He Chronicles” Written 2459-2467)
I opened the door to our bedroom. She had been back for three days. It had been a long trip. She had been away, I think it was almost, if not over, two years. It would be, if I’m right – and often you can bet good money that I am not – 2452 maybe 53. She died in 53, I know that. The fourth wave. But as the good doctor says - ramble less - concentrate. She’d - now that’s my wife just so I don’t get them all fucked up in my head again, when I get emotional things get blurred to put it simply - had a lot of planets to visit. Luckily, she had the famous Pers Larsen, the new senator – he had actually been voted in while he was still navigating the ship she was on – as the ship's navigator. He could navigate a ship in a fifth of the time it took any other navigator. He was a natural.
She was on the floor, beside the bed, sorting underwear. They were strewn everywhere. Different colors, different shapes, different sizes even. Small sexy ones, large grandma ones, black ones, cream ones, purple ones. A plethora of underwear and socks. Tens of mismatched socks thrown randomly across the room and the bedspread. Some of them had been paired but most hadn’t.
She looked up at me and laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. Good to have her back. She wore a greying white undershirt. Not mine. But a man’s. No panties. I could see the dark protrusion of hair between her legs.
It didn’t bother me. Why should it?
Neither that she were half-naked, nor that it was not my shirt she wore, nor that the bedroom was strewn with single socks and torn underwear. She was home. That was all that mattered.
My psychiatrist wants me to explain that memory. I told her to go fuck herself. I know very well what the memory meant and what it implicated. I didn’t care. She was home. My wife was home. Go fuck yourselves. Go fuck yourselves. Go .. I have to stop.
Prelude 10. Forlorn
Earth. Office of the Interior Minister. 2445.
Emira reached for the coffee cup on the edge of the desk and missed it. The cup crashed to the floor, bringing her aides running.
“Its just a cup” she said
They nodded. When had the boss last slept? How many days had she been at her desk and in meetings trying to find a way to stem the third wave? How much more could she take?
Her secretary brought her a new cup and a thermos full of coffee. No milk. No sugar.
“Have you eaten today?” She asked
Emira looked up at her through bleary eyes. The dark blue sleep rings beneath her eyes made her look like a prizefighter in the 10th round.
“Im not sure” Emira said “What day is it?”
Her secretary shook her head.
“Tuesday.” She paused “I know its not my place Ma’am, but you have to eat and get some sleep”
“I cant” she said it simply. It was not a complaint just an acknowledgment of the situation. “Im Interior Minister and if I don’t get something straightened out soon millions are going to die”
“Emira” her secretary laid her hand on her shoulder “They are going to die anyway. We cant stop the flu and you know it.”
Emira nodded and reached for the coffee cup. Her secretary held it while she grasped it.
“Look.” She’d said”You cant even hold a cup. That’s it. You have to sleep” she turned and took three steps towards the door, then turned back. “Do you want me to call your husband or Pers to pick you up”
Emira sipped at her coffee. Of course her secretary would know. She had been with her from her first days in the senate.
“Who else knows?” Emira asked wearily
Her secretary blushed. “No one Emira.”
“Keep it that way” she said “And call Pers”
She pulled another file towards her and began to read.
Prelude 11. Loss.
Excerpt. He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467
I rolled against the wall. Our bed had been larger. I swore. I was good at that. Fucking good. Kicked out. Bruised my toe. Swore again. Reached for the bottle beside the bed. What was it they always said. White wine should be served at 10 degrees? It was over 40 in the room. A sweltering heat of oppression. I swore again as wine dribbled from my chin onto the bed. I was supposed to only have problems eating a sandwich or smiling, not drinking from a bottle. Fuck, anyone can drink from a bottle. Even babies. Anyone but me. Maybe it was because, if I counted the empty wine bottles rolling on the floor, it was the fifth bottle of the day. I could vaguely remember uncorking the first one – it had been one of our special bottles we kept for special occasions – what better occasion than that she had fucking went and died on me? – for breakfast. I’d had cereal with wine. It’s not bad. You could even get used to it. It had taken me forever to get the damn bottle uncorked though. I only had her corkscrew. I couldn’t find mine. Mine was shaped like a whale, hers was just a normal corkscrew. She was right-handed. Made it tough for me to open. That and that I kept breaking down into tears as I tried to open it. Tears of frustration. Tears of loss. Just a lot of tears. Tears. Tears. Fuck. Stop. Stop. No. The memory.
How long would I drink myself into a stupor every night? How long? Didn’t they say Robert Capa had drank and whored for 6 months after Gerda died? Couldn’t I do the same? Why not? It had only been two months and she had meant more to me than Gerda. Much more. I had been with her for 25 years. That first bottle was for our anniversary. It might even have been our anniversary. I didn’t really give a fuck. I just didn’t want to feel.
I gave that thought to her – the psychiatrist her mind you – not the dead one – I don’t do that anymore – I know that they are dead - just yesterday. She had me brought to her office just after breakfast the next day. She handed it back to me and just smiled. I think I know that smile. My wife used to have it. The cop too. Maybe all women do? I don’t know. I don’t know all women.
Prelude 12. Memories
Excerpt She Chronicles. Written 2459-2467 by She.
To understand the situation now, post-flu, you have to understand that a lot of things we took for granted, or were certain were going to be, just didn’t turn out that way.
It wasn’t just the feminist authors that wrote that the world would be a more peaceful pace, a kinder place, if women ran it instead of men. Men wrote that too. And everyone believed it.
Until the flu. Until seven quadrillion men all died in the space of 18 months. Until the species was threatened with possible extinction. Until women really got the power they had never had.
The first laws were still passed by men. Men trying to save their own skins. Before we knew that there would be survivors. Before we learned about the scars. The laws were draconian. Space travel was forbidden except for medical and humanitarian necessities. That was supposed to limit it to food and medical deliveries. It didn’t. Somehow entire spaceplanes filled with whores and champagne were flitting between pleasure planets. If you assume that didn’t help stop the spread of the flu you would be correct. It didn’t.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The virus travelled with the aid and the ships that had to move. And wiped us out.
With less than 10 percent of us men still alive and the entire known universe in grieving women took over. Powerful women. Women who knew what they wanted and how to get it. Women who, like the men before them, wouldn’t stop at murdering a few million more to ensure that they were in power.
And so it went. First the association laws. Then the procreation laws. Then the health laws. And always the SP. The secret police.
Once, on earth, about 400 years ago, there was a country called the German Democratic Republic. A country ruled by fear. A country of oppression. With a well-functioning secret police and informers everywhere. They were nothing compared to what arose just after the flu. Children playing games. And Betaen 6 had a lot to do with that.
You see Betaen 6 is a curious planet in many ways. And the only planet on which we have found an alien sentient life form. The problem. You see, the problem is not a gas or some strange bedbug, or all the other ideas you have heard - it is a sentient life form.
Just a lot different than what we know and damned difficult to understand. Even more difficult to communicate with.
But the ones in power found a method. They always do. That it involved the massacre of innocents didn’t really interest them. Hell - almost 50% of humanity had just died. What were a few more if we could communicate with a sentient species?
That Betaen 6 also just happens to have those nice minerals we need so desperately just was the icing on the cake.
That was the first page, slightly yellowed, hand written, that had been paper clipped to the rest. The rest were computer printed.
She put the dossier down and looked across the desk at him. At least the Inspector was still alive. He hadn’t taken his life like he said he would.
Prelude 13. Fondness.
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
I think, if my addled mind still thinks, that it was probably a year or two after we had married. We were walking along a beach, I can’t remember where. It was Earth though. Before my travel with her to Betaen 6 I had only been off planet once, with my wife when she was on business. Usually she went alone or with her boss but it had been some sort of anniversary, or a birthday, I don’t know, but I do know it was Pesces 4. You see how fucked up I still am. One minute it’s earth the next it’s Pesces 4. Don’t ask me really where it was. I can only say it wasn’t fucking Betaen 6. We were never there together. Yes, the planet famous for its tra. Pesces 4. Betaen 6 is only famous for murder. In case you don’t know what tra is it’s a certain type of dried fish. A delicacy. Very very expensive. Almost as expensive as Ritluvian brandy. Yes, they still make brandy on Ritluvia. Some connoisseurs say its not the same now it is not distilled by men but that’s a bunch of crap I think. Not that I’m a connoisseur or anything, I prefer coffee and a beer. But I’m wandering again. My mind still does that a lot. The psychiatrist says it is good for me to write. That it straightens out my thoughts. She wants to see what I have written once a week, more often if she wants to torture me more. It’s part of my possible early release. I am a model prisoner you know. At least she doesn’t rape me. That wasn’t fun. Not at all. Again. I’m back. I’m on track. Tra. Dried fish. Pesces 4. Beach. Beach. Something about that damn beach. Oh yes - we had been walking on the beach. Talking about my research. Talking about the sand, about where she next had to go, about all types of things. Laughing I think. We did do that a lot. It was nice to laugh. I haven’t laughed for years. Not since I killed her. The other one. Not my wife. At least now I know that there are two of them. For a long time they weren’t. We left the beach for a path in the forest. It was a sparse forest, the kind you get close to the seashore. The trees were pine trees. So it wasn’t the tropics. Maybe it was Sweden? I don’t know if it matters. Does it matter? Is Sweden even still Sweden? Didn’t we abolish all the countries? Yes. There were no countries but they still used the name. That’s why I thought Sweden. Silly of me. But Sweden is on Earth isn’t it? Not Pesces 4.
There was one tree in particular. It had grown with such a structure that as we walked towards it I thought it had been pasted into the landscape. It was two dimensional - not three. Flat. Not round. Until I was beside it. Then it was a tree again and not a picture. I wonder if that was the first episode in my madness? Seeing a living tree as a photograph? I was taking photos then, not yet professionally, but I was taking them. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see in my maddened mind?
The two-dimensional tree reminded me of something, something in my past. But it was gray, and hidden, was still only a feeling, one of those memories that you know you have, but can’t reach. I have a word for it but it’s just a jumble of letters, certainly something I made up, kiura. That’s a word isnt it? Kiura. I like it. Kiura. Kiura. Stop it. Was it because I couldn’t remember, or that I didn’t want to? I remember asking my wife that. She just looked at me with that look she sometimes had, and we went on.
Prelude 14. Confessions.
Betaen 6. Office of the Comle. 2799
Kiera shut her office door behind her. Loudly. It annoyed her that she needed guards. It annoyed her that the delegates from earth, from the religion, would not discuss directly with them, it annoyed her that she had wasted hours of her life in endless pointless discussion. She threw herself into her chair and didn’t even look at the folios. She would read. She needed to read. She opened the book to the bookmark. Began to read.
„Even alcoholics deserve a chance“ I said „although technically - as I can stop for a few days or a few weeks -I am not an alcoholic. But even I deserve a chance“
„Why?“ she asked, dark bags beneath her green eyes, sparkling in the sun.
„Why?“ she asked again - staring pointedly at the almost empty bottle of expensive Cuban rum that had been full and casting shadows in the evening light a mere two days before.
„We had friends here“ I murmured. I could not look her in the eye.
„Yes“ she said
She laughed.
„Why do you laugh at me?“ I spat back at her.
„Our friends in the last two days were Angela and Zoe both of whom are pregnant and do not touch a drop“
„And??“
„Look in the fucking mirror and see what you can see - if you can see at all“ she grabbed both of my hands in hers and looked at me with a look I am certain only women can have “If you don’t stop this and sober up, I won’t be here. I won't.”
She slammed the door - deliberately - behind her as she left.
My psychiatrist told me that it was very open of me to write that last thought I wrote for her. I spoke of my problems. The problems with the second her. They say I killed her. Killed her on that fucking planet. Betaen 6. My doctor was impressed that I wrote a memory of something I did that was wrong. It is a first step she says. I know where she is going with this. I do. First step to admitting I killed her. You see, I am not as stupid as they think. She thinks if I admit I did something wrong then, that now I will admit I killed her. Tell them where I dumped her body. Its not that simple lady. It really isn’t. It isn’t simple. Simple. Simple. Simple Simon had a … Fuck I’ve started it again. She doesn’t like it when I do that. It’s regressive she says. Maybe it is. Fuck you.
Honestly. Why does she always ask fucking why? How the fuck am I supposed to know? I am not a god. I am a fucking human who has lost two women. She should just leave me alone.
But she won't. You know I just realized, sitting up here on my ledge, that she looks a bit like her mother.
Prelude 15. Her.
Betaen 6. Prelude 15
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
I had seen her about ten or twelve times. She mostly sat alone, sometimes with women. Sometimes they held hands or kissed and fondled. That was normal. On a good day I would be the second of two men, and I think I was the better looking one. Most days it was just me and women. I missed Jeff. His coffee had been better. The waitress swore to all types of Gods that the beans and the machine were the same, but I didn’t believe her. It couldn’t just have been Jeff’s magic hands. Once in a while I’d see the old guy who had been Jeffs partner. He couldn’t stay away from the memories either. It took my messed-up brain a long time to realize that he was the guy that had sat across from me at the interrogation table. So Jeff had also had a cop as his partner. My cop died. His cop died. How messed up is that? Maybe as messed up as me. At least that’s what the two of them told me last week. The dead ones. Not Fehm. She’s alive although she swears she isn’t Fehm.
“I can’t live through that again” I said.
My hand was shaking and I put it on the table to make it stop.
It was the third time we had sat together. She had come to me. One day just stood up and sauntered across the restaurant, leaving her cup on the table. Stopped at my table and asked me if she could sit with me. I didn’t answer, just motioned for her to sit. The night before we had slept together. Not that night, no, after the second time we had met. At her apartment. I can’t really remember it so I mustn’t have been any good. But good enough that she invited me for coffee again the next day.
I woke up alone. I had went home alone after we had finished. I think she had wanted me to stay but I couldn’t. It’s not that I, or maybe I did. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Just leave me the fuck alone. I made myself a whisky and soda and drank it for breakfast.
I couldn’t stop shaking.
She put her hand, smaller than mine, on top and pressed slightly against my skin.
“You don’t have to” she said “You’ve lived through this. That will never happen again.”
I must have told her about my wife. About her dying in the flu. The flu! How the fuck could a woman die in the flu!!!???
I sat for a moment looking at her, seeing her the way I used to see the other her. I could still feel the pressure of her hand on mine the night I held it. That night. The perspiration from her palm already a bit fainter but it was still there. I remembered other touches and other pain. Maybe she was right. I didn’t have to.
I smiled at her and took my hand away. At least I wasn’t shaking anymore. I don’t know if it was that early whisky and soda or if it were her hand. I don’t think it matters anymore. Neither of them are here. Just me.
Prelude 16. Renewal.
Betaen 6. Prelude 16
Renewal. Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467
We were walking. It was early fall, but it had been warm, and the fields had ripened more than usual. I’m not sure but I think we had taken the little apartment across from the park about a week before. I had met her in the spring. It had been cold and sharp weather the first night I slept with her; I remember clearly that it snowed. Snow. White pure snow. Virgin snow. What other words did they use to use for it? I could be wrong. I am wrong about so many things. It was still warm. We didn’t need jackets. I had bought her a scarf though. Bright yellow, but a darker shade than normal. It brought out something in her eyes. Something I liked to see. Something I didn’t want to remember but Fehm won't leave me alone. I know that pisses her off. Fehm! Fehm! Fehm! See how you like it! Yellow splashes of sunlight in her green eyes.I loved those sparks of colors. Now go and fuck off Fehm. Leave me alone. But I digress. Like I said we were walking. Maybe we were holding hands. We were still at the hand hold stage then. I liked to hold her hand, to feel its warmth, feel the life there. In swear I didn’t kill her. The planet did. The problem did. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I loved the sunlight in her eyes. Why would I blot that out?
We were walking. I know. I already said that. Let me say it again. We were walking. We were walking. Walking. Walking. Walking. Stop. I can stop. See. I did it.
Between fields of wheat. Golden ears of wheat and green grass at our feet. She pulled me into the field and took off the scarf, told me she wanted to blindfold me and play a game. It was still that silly stage where you feel but you don’t know what you feel. At least it was for me. It was a strange time. I had stopped drowning myself in alcohol and decided to drown myself in her. Maybe she had been my life preserver – so how the fuck could I kill her? If she was keeping me above water, how could I throw her away? Was I insane? I know they all think I am. But I’m not. It's that fucking planet I tell you. That fucking planet.
Call my name she said as she pulled the blindfold down over my eyes. Count to twenty and then call my name. She let her fingers trail down my arm as she moved away. I tried to touch her, but she had already pranced away. So, I counted and then removed the blindfold.
The wheat was brighter than it had been. More golden. The sky bluer. The trees more green. I could see the life around me and I realized I hadn’t ever noticed it before. I called her name. Again and again as I pirouetted, breathing in the air, tasting its freshness and its life. I realized, in that moment of strange ecstasy two things: one was that I was in love with her; and two was that I didn’t care if she answered me. Not at all.
Prelude 17. Beginnings.
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
I’m sorry if I am confusing you. That was never my intention. I intended to write my story so none of you who read it would ever fall into the same traps. But that’s easy. Just stay away from Betaen 6. Lock your doors. Not have your wife die from a flu that only kills men. She just had to do that didn’t she? Die on me. My psychiatrist, she is still upset I called her Fehm again, I really can’t understand that – she is Fehm. I know she says she’s isn’t but thats women for you. Where is the problem? Anyway, she is upset. So now I have to find a confusing memory. As if I don’t have confusing memories. Just ask me about yesterday. I might get it right, if I am having a good day. If not it is goo goo land as the girls here like to say. Why in the name of anything sacred to anyone she would ask me to do that I do not know. But at the time the situation confused me so perhaps it is a confusing memory. I’ll let Fehm tell me that. (I did that on purpose)
“Nureyev was an incredibly sexual man. He just oozed it.”
Those were the first words she said after we had done the kiss kiss thing and I had sat.
“Excuse me?” I managed to splutter it out, wondering what had brought this on and where it was going to go.
“Nureyev was probably the best looking man there has ever been.”
I don’t think she was being realistic. Nureyev died sometime in the twentieth century. I knew at least that much about classical ballet. Not anything else but at least that. It was now probably 400 years later. I’m pretty certain there was someone better looking in all that time.
She sipped her coffee and looked at me from beneath her lashes.
“What brought this on?” I asked and signaled to the waitress, pointed at the coffee in front of her. She nodded.
“Why don’t you look like him?” She pouted
I laughed.
“Perhaps because I can’t dance?” I questioned. Now at least I knew where it was coming from. She wanted me to go to dance class with her. Bring her man. Perhaps show me off although I’m not certain if I was worth being shown off. But it was better than dancing with other women.
She laughed and reached across the table to grasp my hand.
“You’re damned right.” She said and looked me straight in the eye. At least I think that’s how they used to write in the Westerns from the twentieth century. I sure hope so. I don’t want to appear stupider than I already do.
She squeezed my hand and only let go when the waitress came with my coffee.
Prelude 18. Random
Betaen 6. Prelude 18
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
I cut myself shaving. Swore. Dabbed at the blood dribbling down my neck with his finger. I wrote that on purpose to piss off Fehm. Calling her that was also purposeful. maybe stupid, but I enjoyed it. On purpose. I know what I’m doing. His finger. His finger. His finger. His .. fuck I have to stop.
Swore again. Turned to find the alum stick. Why did I always put the damned thing away?
When I had it in my hand I knew why. It looked like a crumpled mutilated penis that dried blood had leaked from. I swore again.
For some reason thought of William S Burroughs. The Beats. Why?
Of course. I dabbed the wound, wincing. The Wild Boys. Of course I would think
Smell
Taste
The light flickered.
Burroughs.
I wrote that just to piss off my psychiatrist. I didn’t use your name so be nice to me OK?I don’t have to do everything she wants me to do. Probably, if I look at it correctly, I actually do have to do everything she wants me to do. After all I am the prisoner. I tend to forget that here on Mars, most of us do. Most of the time we don’t really feel like prisoners. It is only that it’s either the prison or the wastelands that keeps us in check at all. I like being in the wastelands. They let me take a camera, I almost wrote my camera, but its long gone, probably sold in a police auction on Betaen 6 to the highest bidder. I can see it now. Camera used by the murderer of the young cop! This is one you’ve got to have! Not that it didn’t also take a photo it could never have taken. I still wondered about that some days. But only some days. I did cut myself shaving. I did use an ancient straight razor and use the alum stick. I am pretty sure it did look like a mutilated penis. Look psychiatrist dear I wrote it again. She was angry with me over that as well. She is so damned touchy. Neither my wife nor the cop were ever touchy. Never. I want to write about her, about the cop they say I killed, as if she were here. As if she were alive. As if we were still in our little apartment on earth. Why did we ever get on that fucking ship to fucking Betaen 6?
Prelude 19. Cavorting
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
Jeff sat down with us at the table. Took a large gulp of scalding coffee. Without asking flipped the green notebook around.
“New poem?”
I nodded.
“Can I read it?”
I nodded. Why shouldn’t he? We had known him for years. My wife shook her head.
Jeff smiled. Took another large gulp of coffee. The gullet of any normal person would scream in pain.
“Who wins?” he laughed as he asked
“Me” she said and flipped the notebook back around to her.
She began to read aloud. Softly. Slowly. As a poem should be spoken.
„
I send you one black rose
For my blood is black
My heart pure ash
And when I touched
It’s blood red petals
They turned to black
Deep night black
So deep there is no light
No escape.
“
She looked across the table at me. She saw something in me she hadn’t seen before. At least that’s what she told me later when we were walking by the pond. Something about the poem. Something about how it touched her.
Jeff took another gulp of coffee.
“You’re a depressing bastard aren’t you?” he said.
Kiera’s office. Main City. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera closed the book. Her adjutant had brought her a real bookmark, the special one Eric had given her was on her beside table in the apartment, but it was better than the scrap of paper she had first used. She felt the tears behind her eyes. No wonder it had been called the time of trial for so long. He had suffered and she could feel his pain. She knew what pain she would have if she lost Erics’ physical form.
She shook her head to clear it. Yes, she was reading the old histories looking for an answer, but she couldn’t dwell in the past. She had to prepare a rebuttal to the governor of Bepgidt 4. Earth had not yet gone so far that it would require sequestration. That Bepgidt 4 would even bring forth such a thing! They were the only planet ever to have been sequestered in confederation history.
Prelude 20. Sadness.
Betaen 6. prelude 20
Sadness.
Excerpt from the He Chronicles. Written 2459-2467.
Here is another one my psychiatrist is proud of, that shows how far I have advanced, how I can touch my emotions. I don’t want to touch my emotions, I want someone to cut them off so I never feel again. But she keeps on harping that this is the way. That this will heal me. I don’t believe her but I do the shit she tells me because I have to. I am in prison remember.
But isn’t it supposed to be the other way around – children do what their parents ask? Maybe she isn’t my daughter. Maybe I never had a daughter. Is that progress I ask? Or regress? What is real my dear doctor?
„I’ve watched a lot of people die“ I said „and at the same time no one.“
I let a cube of brown sugar - more yellow than brown I always thought, and I wondered why it had ever been called brown sugar - slide carefully from my spoon to sink beneath the black shining surface.
She waited. Stirred her coffee slowly. She knew I would continue without her response
„Because“
„Because“ I said again „everyone dies alone. Everyone. You are born alone and you die alone. Three days my sisters and I sat with my father while the flu took him. Every minute. Then after three days we tired and went to the kitchen for a coffee. He died then. In the minute where he was alone. As if he had waited for it. It was no different with my brothers a few weeks later. One after the other. Never when we were in the room with them. And it is not a male thing, my mother died a year after the flu took everyone, natural causes or grief it was hard to tell, but she too waited until we left the room - I think it was the postman - I can’t remember. But when we returned she was dead“ I breathed out sharply through my nose. That had been difficult to say. Even more difficult to live.
„And my wife. The same. Just us. I held her hand. How can it be that I survived the flu?“ I rubbed the scars beneath my eyes, just to remind me that they were there „But she didn’t? A woman! Fuck it. A woman. I held her hand, but I fell asleep and when I awoke it was cold and she was gone. Always alone.“
I stopped talking. Kept stirring my coffee - slowly. I really didn’t know what else to do at that moment.
„Are you crying?“ she asked
I looked up at her, my eyes glistening.
„Yes.„I said “Yes I am”
Prelude 21. Melancholy.
(This ends the preludes)
Betaen 6. Apartment of the Comle. 2799
The smoke had cleared. There were still glass shards everywhere. The inspection team was already at work.
Kiera was crying. She couldn’t let anyone see her cry. She was Comle. Comle didn’t cry. The SP captain still barred the door. Let no one though but her personal physician. He washed the wound on her scalp and bound the cuts on her arms. Proficient. He kept looking at her eyes. She kept trying to keep the tears back.
“He will live Comle” he said “Eric is strong. The Captain there” he motioned to the door “she staunched his wound. He has lost a lot of blood. But he will live”
Kiera grasped his hand and tightened her grip. He knew she meant to thank him and nodded. She was Comle. She couldn’t appear weak.
“Comle?”
“Yes?”
“Did either of you see this in your timelines?”
“I didn’t.” She looked down at the bandages on her arms “Eric said nothing, so I don’t think he did either.”
The doctor nodded.
“That is strange Comle” he shook his head slowly “You should have sensed the movement in your timeline”
“ I know” she said “Captain!”
The SP captain at the door turned
“Yes Ma’am!?”
“Get the chief Inspector here.”
She nodded. Touched her throat Mike.
“And a team from the university. How can it be that no one involved saw this in their timeline?” She thought for a moment. “And your Colonel. I want this episode taken care of quickly “
The Captain nodded. She knew what those words meant.
“She is sedated.” Her physician spoke softly. “It will help her with the pain” he paused “and the anxiety. She worries about her consort.”
The Colonel nodded.
“Can I speak with her? Is she able to make decisions? Or must I call the triumvirate together?”
“She can decide.” He looked into the Colonels eyes. Made a small gesture with his hand. She looked into his and repeated it.
“I am afraid she will decide too hard” The physician looked down at his feet. He had always thought his feet were too big for his frame.
“Serves the bastards right” spat the Colonel “we should have finished all the old humans long ago. We knew it would be a problem. 300 years they live side by side with us and then they restart their stupid religion and call us devils. When they label you it is the first step to killing you. I label them.”
He nodded. He was a physician. Had given an oath to life. But that which he had seen this night, it was barbarian. Eric had barely survived, Comle was injured and two guardswomen had been torn to pieces. No new human would do such a thing. The Colonel might be right.
“You can go in” he said. “Do you want me as a witness?”
The Colonel patted him on the shoulder.
“My dear doctor. You are one of us. I know you will say what needs to be”
He looked down at his feet. His loyalty was first most to Comle Kiera, the person, not the office. He stroked the C and backwards E tattoo on his wrist. She had a difficult decision to make.
“Tell her Eric is well. He will be able to see her in a few days”