Fugitive From Asteron Page 2

  Gone was the comfort in which I had previously lived. Even though everyone on Asteron was supposed to have the same living conditions, Feran favored certain groups—like the pilots essential to his government—and provided them with real beds, heating, hot water, and other luxuries unavailable to most other citizens.

  I adjusted to the squalor of my new living conditions, but the loss of flying was harder to accept. Instead of soaring across the sky, I now crept along the ground. I serviced Feran’s ship, delivered items around the city on errands for my superiors, appeared at meetings to discuss The Daily Word, and ate the dried morsels once used for animal feed but now given to us to stave off starvation.

  My dream of space travel refused to die. In fact, it was constantly stoked by the sleek feat of alien engineering that was Feran’s spacecraft. I learned everything I could about the spacecraft, a gateway to mysteries outside the tight perimeter of my life. I furtively observed the engineers testing the systems, and I memorized their access codes whenever I had the opportunity.

  My yearning to explore other worlds was especially aroused when Feran returned from one of his trips to planets unknown to us. On that journey he brought back two heavy crates. As I was about to remove one from the cargo bay, it talked to me—and in my own language.

  “Water, water,” the crate whispered in a weak male voice.

  I looked between the wooden slats of the box to see the silhouette of a male humanoid, his face hidden in the darkness. When I brought water in a paper cup, five shaking fingers emerged from the dark crate to accept my offering through one of the slits. I heard him gulp down the water, and then his hand reappeared, giving me—of all things!—a gold coin.

  “Thank you, son,” the faltering voice said.

  I hesitated.

  “Here, take it.” He moved his hand insistently until I accepted the coin. I quickly concealed it in my pocket before anyone noticed. I was still kneeling at the crate, trying to get a better look at the peculiar alien, when Feran entered.

  The calm, smiling countenance he liked to display in public had vanished. A sneer and wild eyes edged by jagged eyebrows revealed his inner fury. His shiny black hair looked like a military helmet above his gaunt face. He leaped toward me and grabbed my throat, then banged my head against the floor. “Get away from there!” he bellowed. “How dare you meddle in my affairs, animal!”

  Although it was against the law for us to talk to aliens, Feran’s anger over my contact with his boxed captive seemed excessive. He towered over me, punctuating his message with kicks to my ribs. “One day, I will send you for treatment with the calming probe!”

  I gasped in horror, for many rumors were whispered about the calming probe, but because I had delivered medical supplies to the Mental Health Caring Center and done my own probing, I knew what occurred beyond the creaking doors that rebellious citizens disappeared behind.

  The calming probe, I had discovered, was a surgical instrument that removed pieces from the front of a citizen’s brain, troublesome chunks of tissue that made the person defiant. When the doctors inserted the instrument at a specific angle and depth, they could avoid death by hemorrhage—usually. At best, the probe produced a tranquil citizen who followed orders and performed useful work. At worst, the probe produced an imbecile that officials had to dispose of quietly. In either case the patient was deemed cured because the disobedience, rage, and violence were no longer a menace to society.

  As I faced Feran and his unspeakable threat, my mouth hung open and my eyes widened in unveiled panic. I had never before displayed this abject terror when Feran had threatened me. Like an animal smelling a scent that pleased it, Feran smiled at my unguarded moment of horror. “Now I know how to make you obey,” he said, quite satisfied with his discovery. “You show no fear of beatings or dying, but now I know! One more misstep, and you will be brought to the health center for your curative treatment.”

  For that particular misstep, Feran summoned the guards to school me, so I supposed the beating I received was the only skill they had learned in school. After my lesson, I spent yet another night in the room for attitude adjustment. Lying on my face and shivering that night in the cell, my body swollen with wounds, I wondered about many things. What was a human doing in a crate? Why did he utter useless words like thank you? Elders on Asteron occasionally used that expression, but it must have become obsolete, because no one had ever thanked me for anything, nor had I thanked anyone.

  And why did the alien call me son? I knew of the old custom in which a couple lived separately from others and raised their children themselves. But that practice was outdated on Asteron. Because our leaders provided the children with nourishment, schooling, and other necessities, it seemed that raising them in the public compound they called Children’s World was a better way to ensure their proper upbringing, as well as to foster equality. Was the boxed alien from a primitive culture that had not yet advanced to our stage? Why did he speak our language? And why did he give me a coin?

  I knew that coins had once served as money and that primitive people used money to buy things that they called possessions. But I had no need to buy anything because everything on Asteron was free, and, besides, there was nothing to buy. Why was I so interested in keeping a coin that was of no use to me?

  And if money was a corruption, why did our leaders covet it and seek it from the aliens they despised? I wondered why aliens were allowed to come here to mine the gold on Asteron, which our leaders seemed unable to extract themselves. The money our rulers received from the aliens’ mining operations had built the space center and fed our people. But now the once-plentiful mines were on the brink of depletion—and Asteron was on the verge of starvation. Were our spirits on the brink of depletion too? I had many questions but no answers.

  As soon as I was able to sit up that night, I hid the coin underneath the inner sole of my shoe, where it formed a shiny circle nearly as large as my heel. I had been punished for my misdeed, but the coin was worth it! I now had a curious object from another world. What was this world like? Would I ever know?

  When I returned to work, I warned myself that I could not sway in the slightest from Feran’s commands for fear of the calming probe. But even before he made his vile threat, one magnetic presence was gripping my life, pulling me out of alignment.

  It was someone I had encountered: an exceedingly ugly, traitorous, and irreplaceable female named Reevah. Being different from others merited official disapproval on Asteron. In practice, though, we excused many for being different, such as those who lacked brains or sense. But Reevah’s manner of being different was inexcusable. Whereas most Asteronian females had brown hair, Reevah’s was the color of the newly minted gold from the alien mines, and it plunged down her back in a liquid flow of curls. Whereas the features of other females lacked symmetry, Reevah’s seemed designed by an engineer: Her full lips, straight nose, and giant piercing eyes were in perfect balance. And Reevah was taller and thinner than the others, with longer legs and fuller breasts than they had. By the standards of our world, Reevah was ugly.

  To make matters worse, she seemed to revel in her ugliness, resisting attempts to make her blend in. Reevah would forget the scarf she was supposed to wear on her head; she would forget to confine her hair with clips; she would become sick on hair-cutting days and miss her assigned time; and she always seemed to have problems locating the larger sizes of clothing that masked her exceedingly female form. Besides these flaws, Reevah had an odd manner of staring straight into people’s eyes. Such was not the way on Asteron, where we were taught to look down.

  I had seen Reevah at meetings we attended to discuss The Daily Word, but we had never spoken until the day I delivered cargo to the foreign agents’ quarters, which housed the elite group of spies who traveled to planets beyond our homeland. I knew nothing of the spies’ activities, only that Feran favored their group above all others.

  I had arrived during the janitors’ cleaning period, so some of the
doors were open. I peered into the rooms to find only one bed and—shockingly—a bath. After delivering my goods to a supply room, I was startled to find Reevah, in a janitor’s gray uniform, staring at me from the hallway.

  Although the spies’ work areas were cleaned by robots as a security measure, such a luxury was unaffordable in their living quarters. Their residences were cleaned by human janitors, and Reevah was one of those workers. Brushing past her in the hallway on my way out, I felt the whisper of her breath in my ear.

  “I saw a sight from an alien world,” she said.

  I stared at her, astonished.

  “I peeked inside an open door and saw a spy watching a most unusual movie on her monitor. I had never seen anything like it. When the spy noticed me staring, she ordered me back to work and closed the door.”

  I listened intently.

  “I must meet you to tell you what I saw.”

  “Why do you want to tell me?”

  “Because you are one of the ugly ones.”

  I had avoided Reevah because to look at her was to think thoughts that could be dangerous. But at that moment in the hallway, Reevah and I warmed the column of air between us until it rose above our heads, and we were pulled together in its place.

  I arranged to meet her at a window of her quarters during the nightly blackout, a time when we could avoid the security systems and slip away for a while unnoticed.

  That night I propped a bundle of straw under my blanket to make it look like my body was still lying on my pallet, and I secretly exited a window of my domicile. The task went smoothly, for it was not the first time I had performed it. I walked to the dark gray building with smudged windows that was the janitors’ quarters. In a little spot along the colorless wall, I saw a band of gold hair radiating around a gray kerchief. Reevah was waiting by a window for me.

  I did not want to involve her in my misdeeds, I told myself, but this was the only way we could talk. Seeing each other alone required permissions that were not granted to citizens like us who were troublesome to their superiors. As I walked toward Reevah, the thought of punishment haunted me. Every rustle of a leaf or movement of a ground animal filled me with fear. But that was before I pulled her slim body down from the window and brought her along a dirt path through the trees to a nearby lake. There we were alone.

  The spot I chose was a grassy clearing near the water, where a line of dense shrubbery blocked us from view of the town. On past occasions when I could get away from the eyes that constantly watched me, I had gone to this spot alone to gaze at the stars and wonder what secrets they held.

  On that warm night, the moons of Asteron bathed Reevah’s face in soft light. She eagerly explained that she had seen on the spy’s monitor two alien humanoids, a man and a woman, and they were dancing. A narrator was describing the movie as a study in primitive cultures. Reevah said she tried to ignore the narrator’s voice because under it she heard music playing in the movie.

  “Yes,” she insisted, “aliens who resembled us danced to music.”

  I was astonished.

  “There were no soldiers marching,” she continued. “Why do we play music only on military occasions? The aliens found another use for their music. It was soft and light, and it lifted their steps as the wind lifts the leaves.”

  In a sweet voice that seemed to enfold me, Reevah hummed the alien music and began to dance on the grass. Her soft voice and graceful movements strangely gripped me.

  “And the aliens not only resembled us but also spoke our language. Can you imagine that?” She gasped. “But they closed the space between their words. They said eim instead of I am, and weer instead of we are. Their words flowed so easily, like the notes of a song. They made our words seemed stilted, as if we speak the way we do to avoid talking to each other.”

  “Maybe the aliens talk more than we do, so they have to shorten their words to get them all in,” I suggested.

  “Maybe if we talk more to each other, we will sound like them,” she said hopefully.

  “We will try that and see.” I nodded.

  Reevah continued with her revelations. “And when the aliens danced, they closed the space between their bodies.” She smiled at my surprise. “Yes, most incredibly, the couple danced together. The female wore a remarkable red uniform with a long tear in it that exposed her entire leg, and the clothing was covered with a thousand tiny metal circles that shimmered in the light. And the uniform clung to her body like a second skin.”

  She pulled her loose gray trousers and shirt tightly against herself in demonstration. She continued to hum the alien music and swirl around me, her body rustling against the shrubs.

  “Did the female alien wear a kerchief?” I asked, pointing to the covering on Reevah’s head.

  “Oh, no!”

  She stopped dancing to face me. I untied the kerchief and let it fall to the ground.

  “Did the alien confine her hair?”

  “Oh, no! Her hair was loose and free. It swayed and rippled with every turn of her face. The shiny strands rose and fell like ocean waves in a flowing dance with the breeze.”

  I unfastened a clip, and hair that was hidden in a tight ball suddenly tumbled down Reevah’s back in a glowing tangle of curls.

  “The female wore a flower in her hair. Can you imagine? A flower! It was as red as the sunset. And there were flowers on all the tables that circled the shiny wooden dancing floor. Why do we plant flowers only in the neighborhoods of the rulers? Why do we have only dirt and weeds on our soil, except for a few wild flowers that have the courage to defy the rulers and open their petals to the sun?” she asked.

  I did not know why the common people of Asteron had no flowers and why we saw them displayed only at military marches. I just knew that I had a sudden urge to find some wild blossoms for Reevah. “Wait,” I told her.

  I searched on a nearby ridge of rich soil, where on past occasions I had seen wild flowers, and I soon came upon a cluster of new pink blossoms. I tore them at the stem, being careful not to disturb their roots so more would grow, and I brought the little patch of color to Reevah. She eagerly brushed the blooms against her cheek and inhaled their fragrance. She placed one flower in her hair, another in mine, and the rest in the buttonholes of our shirts.

  “The male alien in the movie was named Honey. Beneath the voice of the narrator, I could hear the woman call the man this name. Is that not curious? The aliens must have bees, the way our rulers do here in their secret fields. Surely you have been called to labor there on occasion.”

  I nodded, for I had glimpsed some of the animals and lush vegetation, including flowers, that were cultivated by the rulers for their use and not shared with the people.

  Reevah’s eyes widened with excitement. “Honey had dark hair and giant eyes the color of the lake, just like you. And he was tall and strong and amazingly ugly, just like you. I want to call you Honey.”

  “You mean the man was named after a sticky substance oozing from an insect?”

  “Yes, and he liked his name.”

  My mind warned me, but my arms rebelled. I slipped them around her thin waist and drew her closer, imitating the way the aliens danced, until the flowers on my shirt lightly touched their counterparts on hers. I began humming Reevah’s melody too. As we swayed to the rhythm, the flowers on our shirts slowly crushed together.

  While we danced, Reevah whispered more of her story: “The humans fed at an exceedingly small table that sat only two. And the table was covered with white linen so crisp and clean that I almost smelled the fresh scent and wanted to sneeze. The aliens drank from glasses with long, thin handles that held their drinks the way a stem holds a flower. They touched their glasses together before they drank. It was like a kiss. Then the man smiled at the woman, and he closed one eye.”

  “He closed one eye?”

  “Yes, he blinked with one eye.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She laughed, because the blink with one eye meant some
thing to them, like the kiss of the glasses.”

  I looked at Reevah’s glowing face and blinked with one eye. Then she threw her head back and did something we adults on Asteron did not do—she laughed, easily, freely, abundantly. Often people snickered bitterly, to be sure, but Reevah’s laughter sounded more like the call of a lively bird.

  Then my mouth landed on hers with an urgency that surprised the both of us. I tugged at her slim hips until her thighs pressed against me. I pulled her down on the cool grass. I set about the remarkable new task of discovering Reevah’s willing body. She answered my sudden need by pulling me close, tugging at my clothes, and opening her warm mouth to mine. I explored the exciting mystery of soft breasts and taut legs and tasted the sweetness of her skin. Then I tore myself away abruptly and sat up.

  “We have to go.”

  “Honey, we can stay a little longer.” She reached up to me.

  “No.”

  She knew what was bothering me. “Honey, listen to me. Nothing bad can happen. I took the tablet.”

  I urgently reminded myself of rules I must not ignore! Couples had to be approved by our superiors, and the disobedient did not receive permission, for fear they would produce more citizens of their own kind. Because the state expended great resources on children, the rulers thought they should intervene in the affairs that produced them.

  “Honey—”

  “No!”

  “Honey, I tell the truth. I stole a tablet from the room of a commander of female spies who had a supply of them for her fleet. I have taken the treatment and am most securely protected from any danger.”

  I looked at her suspiciously because no medicines were available to us outside of the supervisors’ dispensaries.

  “The female spies engage in relations with aliens. That must be how they gain secret information. They keep a stash of supplies for such purposes. I tell you, I found them and took what I needed.”