Who Am I?

AND WHO AM I?

 

Marilyn Mistril
ABISINGH/BETA MAR

 

First there was pain, nothing else. Then confusion. A man, vaguely familiar. I sort of recognised him, but not his name or where I'd met him.

 

"Marilyn?" He says, staring into my face. "Are you in pain?"

 

I don't know who he is, who I'm supposed to be, and it's all danger. He gave me something and I went out. I had the feeling thist wasn't the first time I'd woken up, nor the first he called me Marilyn.

 

Some time after, the pain moved to a corner and the room doesn't change and it makes a one two three kind of sense I start to fret.  I'm in guy's house, in his bed and I don't appreciate him to that. Also I don't know where or who I am.

 

"Marilyn--" He says.

 

I know my name isn't really Marilyn but it's sort yeah, people call me that... but...my real name? It wasn't a good question for I didn't have the answer.  I shook my head, fighting for sense, reality, logic.

 

"You've had a head injury. You've been really confused. Your name is Marilyn Mistril. I'm Vende Marsden. Do you know me?"

 

Vende. The name isn't unfamilar but I can't place him.

 

"You don't prende how we met?"

 

"I know say I met you but nothing else--" I say, feeling crushed, "What happened to me?"

 

"The Venga crashed, prob you came to close to a kill field. You have a broken leg, arm, five ribs, a head injury and other bruises. I've got your arm and leg in repairers, they'll be tentatively functional in a day, as your ribs. But, this amnesia--it's probably temporary. What do you remember?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"Where did you go to school--"

 

"School--"

 

I started to envision school. First I could see kids in front of me waving their arms, a teacher at a blackboard--

 

A pain, as if there was a knife in my brain, then an overwhelming nausea; I vomited, fainted.

 

When I awoke the headache was so bad I felt my eyes were going to come out. I couldn't see, hear, think. Vende gave me something for the pain, something more until I went out.

 

The next time I woke he asked, "Are you hungry?"

 

"Yeah." I was starving.

 

He gave me a plate with two squares that looked like rat poison. I wanted to fling them out the window but was hungry so began to force it down. I knew I didn't eat this shit and I know there's a long story about it, but I can't remember. He was eating it like it was normal and I know it was for him, but not for me.

 

I could know wrong, but not right.  That was the pattern.

 

He'd say something, I'd know it wasn't right but I didn't know what replaced it. I know I don't live here or like this, but there's nothing to substitute.

 

When I tried to follow something, tried to check what I used to eat or wear or did, I'd start getting the big headache, so focused on the wall or my fingers, or anything to push the thoughts out of my head.

 

So to think, to remember, to get to what made sense was impossible. To go with the flow was the only way over.

 

I figured I'd get back to me soon if I didn't push. So, I didn't push.

On an Erssavi

 TONY JOHNSON

ABOARD THE ERSSAVI OF ISAZ UPAYCHEL
IN THE FIRST SECTOR

 

I can't believe I'd been plucked from that hole in the ground of Galteri and inserted into a ZerShaz ship. A ship taking me to I don't know for whatever reason I can't imagine.

 

I'm folded into the kalkitamp, the window seat...not really a seat as we Saps would call it, sort of a ledge, in front of distorted kind of concave window. I sat there glommed avid.

 

Couldn't see much but the ship, and viewing the crusty hull, it seemed junked. I knew it had to be prime, so puzzled, until my brain printed out that as it had to bust atmosphere it would be coated with dull uneven rock, which did match rust to deal with the heat and pressure and whatever else.

 

So I'm just sitting when without fanfare, the door opens, a Lord enters with three aides. I didn't scope his exact rank, but he had enough chains to be at or above Captain level.

 

"Toe-knee-John-son--" He utters; "Attend."

 

As I crawled out of the window seat he was down the hall. I had to hurry to match. We went into a circular room, through a door, into another. I knew we'd outted the first ship into the second but couldn't see the links.

 

This one was supposed to be their 'superior' vessel, struck by the dull light, the emptiness; it was exactly the same as the other to my eye. I was taken to a room, matching the one I'd outted, and could almost, but not quite swear it the same room.

 

"Do you need aliment or beverage?" I am asked.

 

"No, omTay ." I reply, for omTay, Lord, was an acceptable term for everyone at, or above omTay level.

 

"You desire to cleanse?" He asks.

 

"No, omTay."

 

"Is your reason harmonized to converse intelligently?"

 

"Yes, omTay."

 

And he was gone.

 

I did a few seconds of search. There was no blister to point this wasn't the exact cubbie I'd held on the other ship.

 

The access unseals, the same Lord beckons. I tailed, around, up, over, through, then entered a large chamber which had a narrow corridor made by metal screens. There were two distinct rooms, one behind another screen I assume for sleeping.

 

Before me was a large sampi with cushions, arranged matching a sofa. There was a low table upon which was food and drink. Behind that, at the top of the room, sitting in the kalki, overwhelming and affixing me with a study, the iSaz.

 

The residue were functionaries, as my food iTay or this omTay they were moons about this Zee who was the planet.

 

He was dressed in standard but with chains of pure platinum instead of leather thongs. Platinum dashing up the side his boots as laces, side seamed his slacks, bordered his belt, circled his neck, along his naked arms, down his arms to the gloves, seaming the gloves. Across his chest knives in two belts sample bandoleer. The weight alone of this must be twenty kilos, nothing to him.

 

His dark hair was long, waist length, clipped behind his head by a ring. A wide platinum ring.  He had kind of a milk mustaches meaning he must be about forty,young in their cosmology for such rank.

 

Just as I had sat in the kalkitamp, so did he, save he lounged, one booted platinum studded leg up, an arm across the knee, staring at me gawking at him.

 

He nodded to those behind me, whom I presume departed except the omTay, who announces: "Arrive," directing to the 'sofa', "sit. Eat and drink as you desire. Commemorate you are before the iSaz, respect is demanded."

 

"Zha, omTay." I obey.

 

The iSaz perpetuated his glom, I tried not to repay, which would be rude.

 

"What are you to be entitled?" The iSaz asks, pronunciation slightly accented, where the others had heavy accents.

 

"My name is Tony Johnson. I can be called Tony."

 

"Tony." He outputs in baritone, composing two words, sounding as 'toe knee.'

 

"Zha, iSaz."

 

"You were born in Jamaica, on Earth."

 

"Yes, iSaz." I reply, surprised he'd know.

 

"You are an exo-anthropologist who 'studied' my species."

 

"Zha, iSaz." My eyes are bulging.

 

"And you were of the clever, who perceiving we must triumph, ran to space, able to select your 'prison'."

 

How had he known this? The Arks were top secret. I hadn't known of them

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 07.12.2021
ISBN: 978-3-7554-0229-9

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