Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile - 18b
Taking Leave of Elvend
By
Jay P Hailey
The morning crept in slowly and with great dignity. It filtered through the ornate windows into her bedroom. She woke and completed her usual ablutions. It was all part of a flow, long term, as inevitable as the tides.
She spent the morning tending to her garden, the soft life forms, so short lived
and beautiful each had it's own thing to say about life and the universe. She
could hear them after a fashion, she could intuit their state.
Her garden was happy and aggressively alive. She enjoyed the feel.
The Elauhir didn't have hospitals as such. They had networks of healers who'd
respond to calls. Her skills were just becoming adequate to her mind.
As with her gardens, the flow of a living being's life force was a sort of music
to her and she was beginning to be able to hear it.
It made her an excellent healer by the standards of the day. She quietly wondered
if her age was starting to tell for finding the standards of the day a bit low.
A boy came running by. Like bright flower, he was brimming over with life, and
need to live now and all the way. She smiled at him, enjoying the feel. The
young were shallow and simple but they were direct and honest as well.
"What errand speeds you so?" she asked, her voice conversational.
The Boy slid to a halt. One doesn't ignore the voice of the elders. Especially
if punishment is not to one's taste.
"Ma'am." He bowed, properly with good form. She was disappointed.
Boys didn't need to be so proper and polite. He explained his haste. "A
Starship has come! It's filled with humans from another planet!"
She blinked at him slowly. "Well that's certainly important, isn't it?
On your way."
Bowing again, but sloppier, he turned and sprinted away.
A Starship? Filled with humans? The consequences of this were too horrible to
contemplate. Obviously the boy was mistaken. The young were prone to exaggerate
to suit their own need for excitement. And that boy definitely needed some excitement
in his life.
She calmly walked back inside.
The frame of the communications screen was hand polished white pine, with carved
filigree in a pattern Earth eyes would label Celtic.
The panel was dark. She didn't program the device to show life forms or try
to match the surface of her living house. The self deception inherent in this
bothered her.
She tapped the thing and then tapping commands slowly, with grace and precision,
she placed a call to the council chambers.
She was long since done with her last stint n the council. But her age made
her an elder of the whole race, something she traded on ruthlessly when it suited
her.
A young functionary answered the call. He too bowed properly, but he needed
to, since he was an aspiring politician. Her face grew slightly haughty to avoid
the condescending smile that wanted to play on it. As if the council was the
end-all and be-all of Elauhir life.
"I have heard a rumor of a starship." She said. "Explain."
The young man paled a bit. "It is true M'Lady. A ship in orbit, filled
with ephemerals."
She considered for several minutes as the interconnections sparkled through
her brains. Certainly Elauhir life would never be the same again.
A small voice whispered in the back of her mind "It's about time, too!"
She ignored this voice. It was growing more insistent as time continued. "Now
is not the time." She sternly told herself.
"Who is in charge of managing this event?" She asked the Functionary
"Madam Leaethil, Sir Helientha, Madam Garelitha and Sir Maelisarth."
He answered.
She nodded. They were not stupid people, if anyone could manage this situation
effectively, they would do as well as anyone could. "I require information."
The functionary gulped again. He touched some controls. "They have downloaded
to us a considerable amount of data. You have access to it all now, Milady."
"Thank you." Her acknowledgment was little more than a glance at the
ground. The young man may well tell his grandchildren that he spoke with an
elder of her magnitude.
"You taught your grandchildren how to hunt, how to move in the woods and
how to pick locks," the voice in the back of head said.
"Now is not the time," she repeated with implacable calm.
-*-
The gathering of eminences was in a grove of trees which ate sound and offered a quite mood of reflection.
"We are doomed." Kealithar said quietly. "They are too many and
they have too much technology."
"Certainly this is a crisis, but as long as we retain control of the ephemeral
access to the surface of this world, we may yet prevail." Jejalithanar
said.
"And what of the day when one of their battlefleets arrives in orbit? When
will their pirates and bandits discover us? Will the fine mounted cavalry of
King James and chariots of Queen Ishara come to our aid, then?" Kealithar
said. His tone was unusually sharp.
"We must control them. We must manage them, or we shall surely fall before
them." Menlithinar added.
"They number in the trillions. They seem quite chaotic and disorganized
to me. And yet they equal our science and technical acumen. This will make management
of them quite the task indeed." Zalanthiran said.
She turned and left the gathering with all possible decorum. For once the inner
voice of madness and her true self were in agreement. The fear that gripped
the Elauhir was disgusting.
-*-
She read for weeks in the information handed to the Elauhir by their visitors.
They had a conglomeration of worlds and nations, a Federation. It was an intensely
human arrangement, with all members as equal partners marked by fractious debate
and many votes.
The Elauhir had carefully disassembled many such conglomerations on Askene.
The problem was that such disassembling often resulted in wars of dynasty. And
Askene was not as insulated from the wars of these space people as the city
Elvend was from the wars of knights and footmen, cavalry and sailing ship from
surrounding kingdoms.
But as she read further she read of the Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites.
The different peoples fascinated her. It was their short life spans of course,
this made them vulnerable to that subconscious, mass human tendency to try and
make sure everyone was friends before their throats got cut.
There were people so strange as to surprise and delight her. The Horta, the
Medusans, the Cetaceans.
As she read she felt herself bubbling more and more. Yet curiosity drove her
on.
-*-
There was a gentle knock on the door.
"Hello?" She called Cheerfully.
Kealithar came in. "M'Lady the council would... oh, dear."
Sunshine stood looking at her old traveling clothing. Green tights, a leather
jerkin, belts with compartments and pouches, Her sword, sharp and ready, her
cloak was artistically mottled for hiding in the forest. Her bow, polished and
newly tuned was ready to go.
She looked at the disconcertment on Kealithar's face and laughed. "Silly.
Silly man, aren't you even slightly curious!?"
-*-
Sunshine marched into the Elauhir council, her boots clicking on the marble floor. "I'm here. What?"
The elders of the race of the Elauhir turned and looked at her with shock and
dsappointment.
Menlithinar intoned "Ael'thot Belara Donmiago, your timing could not be
worse."
Sunshine greeted the disadain with a cheery smile. "You've just discovered
that we're a small patch on the greater universe. You've just discovered that
this council chamber isn't the center of creation and it's got you about ready
to wet your robes!"
The council members looked away with dignified disappointment. "She's mad
again." Zalanthiran said.
"Maybe, but I know that fear has an antidote and that's knowledge. I'm
going to go get me some." Sunshine challenged. "I'm not the only one.
Even the Dark Ones mays well contact this Federation."
The reaction to her mention of their ancient offshoot and ancient foes shook
those elders in the chamber.
"As the oldest among you and the least tolerant of your sad, self important,
snotty attitude, I'm going to make a recommendation." Sunshine continued.
The elders of the Elauhir turned away, with visible discomfort.
"HEAR ME! Damn you!" Sunshine yelled.
They turned back some even wincing.
"Stay here and cry all you want. But don't break anything until I get back.
If you're much cleverer than I think you are, you might learn a thing or two!"
With that, Sunshine turned and marched out of the Elauhir council chambers.
Jejalithanar started laughing. "I really enjoy it when she does that to
us."
The rest of the council wondered if it was his time for madness as well.
-*-
All the arrangements were made. Another Federation Starship was due soon. Sunshine would go to their diplomatic mission and request permission to accompany that ship and see the galaxy.
As she passed her home for the last time for the foreseeable future, she noted
the carefully arranged and tended rows of plants, making a very firm pattern
in the manner of an Elauhir Garden.
Sunshine was struck by the fact that while gardening she loved the plants but
she never seemed to notice that they were battling her, seeking their own pattern,
not hers.
The boy was standing near her home. He'd seen her and was afraid. She stopped
next to him. "Boy, what have you heard?"
"The rumor says you're mad." He quailed. "They say you're going
to try and go see the galaxy with the space-humans.
Sunshine thought about it. "Come here, boy."
She led him into her home. She took off her pack and her weapons while saying
"Make yourself comfortable."
He perched on the edge of a seat and watched wide eyed as she started some tea.
The sunshine sat down across the table from him and said "Boy, pay attention
now. I will impart some ancient wisdom to you."
He looked frightened but intrigued. It was a good sign.
"Have they told you of the Second war of the Raven God Darlu?" Sunshine
asked.
He nodded "Yes Um!"
"Well, they lied. Here's how it really happened." Sunshine began "I
was a young woman, and I made myself outcast from Elauhir society. I made my
living by sleeping with powerful human nobles and weedling their secrets out
of them. Then I sold these secrets to rival nobles."
The boy's face went pale with shock.
"I was on the run. My mark, that's what we called them, marks, had discovered
I was a spy. If caught I could expect torture and hanging - If I were lucky.
I was in a scummy bar, laying low when a band of scruffy, criminal bandits and
adventurers came into the bar. I seduced one of them and joined their party.
I escaped the wrath of the noble. He was looking for an Elauhir woman, (they
saw us differently then) with fine clothing, and a taste for the high life."
"As just another scruffy opportunist I escaped that city, and the angry
King who pursued me."
"We went into the desert to complete a religious ritual on behalf of another
Elauhir woman, named Ivy. There we met a psionic who told us of the rise of
the Raven God Darlu and his followers, the Orsa. The Orsa were much more numerous
then. Their hordes could cover a plain to the horizon and they wanted to kill
and eat all of us Elauhir."
"We thought he'd cast a magic spell on us forcing us to find and defeat
the return of the Raven God to our world. I blamed the rest of the party for
this and let them know it at length."
Sunshine got up and finished preparing the tea.
"The Volcano Korsala blew up that year. We waded through knee deep ash,
and past endless refugee trains of starving humans. We were tracked by Orsa
war parties and agents of Scheming human Nobles who thought they could ride
the Orsa uprising to power. We ran and we fought and we killed like animals,
like bandits. Not because we were good and true, but because out there in the
dark it was us or them!"
Sunshine handed the stunned boy tea. "Honey?"
He eventually shook his head and Sunshine continued her story.
"We fought at the Castle Rokenheim, not because we were making a stand
but because the Orsa and their pet monsters boxed us in! If we could have fled
like cowards and let them have that castle, we would have, but there was just
no where to go.
-*-
"We were in the Castle of Queen Daria. We walked in like idiots and made ourselves at home, only to discover that evening she was working with the enemy and planned to capture us and find out what the resistance was doing."
"We had no idea, but that wouldn't have stopped them." Sunshine rose
"Can I get you something to eat?"
The Boy looked at her for a long time and then managed to shake his head.
"Cor and I, (that was the one I'd seduced for my place in the party) Killed
Daria's exchequer in his office in the bowels of the castle and made off with
piles of gold. Cor insisted on going back for his magic sword, so I kissed him
good bye and smuggled myself and my loot out of the castle by posing as a drudge.
Autocratic humans almost never see the lower classes."
"It was a complete surprise to me when I discovered they'd managed to fight
their way free of the castle and escape."
-*-
"So we managed to sneak through Orsa territory mainly by exterminating every Orsa we ran across, and the alchemist demolished the main temple of the Raven God Darlu, with every Orsa, Human and Dark One Priest inside it, to our minds, ending the threat of the emergence of the Raven God Darlu, then we only had to sneak out and join up with the human and Elauhir Armies as hordes of Orsa attacked us, Darlu or no."
Sunshine leaned back and took a deep breath. "It's been a long time since
I remembered those days that clearly."
The Boy just looked at her.
"My Grandfather told me similar stories of the First War of the Raven God
Darlu." Sunshine said. "Now, what does my account tell you?"
"Umm, that you really hate the Orsa?"
"Besides that."
"That war isn't anything like my teachers told me it was."
"What else?"
The boy struggled to catch up with Sunshine's point. "Ummm."
"That a lot of the glorious and noble history of the Elauhir isn't so much.
They call people like me mad, but without us, the Elauhir would have been gone
a long time ago." Sunshine said. "Don't take the exaggerated dignity
and self importance of the Elauhir elders so seriously. The Universe doesn't."
The boy blinked slowly a new point of view opening in his head.
Sunshine stood. The honored caretakers of her home would clean up. It would
be considered a horrible breach of dignity and etiquette, but they'd over look
it because she was mad. "I'm going now." She started to put her weapons
and traveling gear on.
The boy followed her out of the house. "Might I go exploring space and the human galaxy?"
Sunshine smiled at him. "Learn things of value to space explorers, boy,
and I'll see you out there in a few years."
He grinned merrily.
Sunshine walked away from the city of Elvend with a light heart and her eyes
on the road ahead.