Chapter One

THE MARKS OF TIME

EFREKTA
VERASH

To look into the face of a child grown is to experience a disharmony as great as were the ground to shake. The face is an aberrance of one's countenance or of one's mate, and the overwhelming impression is mistrust.

I know this shaiemn is my son. The softness of childhood has been replaced by the suspicion inculcated at emtalfi. That is the lesson; the nealay is hostile, and few can be trusted, if any. Strength lies within.

When last I saw Refka, he was a pudgy shazi in a long shirt, spinning about my legs, giggling. I had caught him, lifted him above my head, then pressed him to my chest. He had wriggled from my grasp, sliding to the ground, running off.

He was too young to comprehend I was leaving. My daughters were aware when I appeared with rank deignations affixed, it connoted I en route to my ship, and away.

I wanted to tell the shazi I loved him, and if I were able, I would return. I wanted him to know that, but he was young, this was game, and he ran from me, on new legs which had just learned running, into the Fortress. And that was my last view of him.

I had watched him, knowing I would never see the shazi again. For when I returned, if I returned, he would be gone for emtalfi.

That last view of him, that last moment of my life. I recall every nuance; my mate had touched my arm, I put my hand on her's. I was bound for ZerShaz to be taught human language, to become an Observor on a Terran ship.

I thought, then, perhaps, I might glimpse my son afresh, ere he was taken for emtalfi, but it was a very thin perhaps drowned by a surety that, no, I would never see my son as a child again.

And now.

He stands before me in the pelts of a dangiz, not a dangerous animal, but large enough to fill the bellies of his emtalfi band, and afford him it's pelt. He had treated it, formed a jerkin, shorts and low boots. He has killed the animal which wore the pelt.

He gapes upon me...does he recall?

He has encountered his mother, his sisters, but I had lurked distant, allowing them to greet him in the standard fashion. Everything in a ZeSha's life is tal . Even in a returning of a son.

His mother and sisters would pretend not to know him. He would be tested with questions of his lineage. They would pretend surprise at his return. They would invite him in and give him meat and a gynthe, and he would eat as a man, with a knife, not as a child with his fingers.

When he had completed his meal, his mother would approach. He will put up his hands to thank her, and she would put her hands on his wrists, bring his hands together, bow her head upon his fingers.  And she would utter; "My son has returned to me." To which the answer was; " My mother, I have returned, but not to you."

His sisters would follow, and say, " My brother has returned," and the response; "My sisters, I am here a short duration, for I am ZeSha, and must to war."

They would step away from him, turn their backs, and he would say; "But I am here now, please do not shun me." At that, they would turn to face him, and his mother would say, "I can never shun my son," and his sisters would repeat, "I would never shun my brother."

And they would stand together, holding their palms up, not touching, but smile, and his mother would say, after five heartbeats, "Let me show you the room you occupied when but a shazi."

I know what would be said. It was said to me when I returned from emtalfi. It was said to my father, to his father from the beginning of time.

Everything in my society is 'tal', standard.

Which is why I wait outside until signalled the ritual complete so as to begin my part in the rite.

I stand in a bushy patch of ugly ground. Of ground that is jealous of it's produce, a ground which yields little, for this is where those who are at the very fringe of society reside.

How many teka after the Applewhyte lost, the report received, did my mate be impelled to leave the Fortress and return to her village?

We had lived in the Fortress as required of the Captains of the eKhain's ships, the Captains of those who are loyal to him. But when I was lost, I was no longer a Captain in the eKhain's service, and my mate, perhaps held to be widow.

How many teka had she been given ere she and my children must leave the Fortress, return to the village, reside in the habitation of her mother or my mother, then build her own rude dwelling?

A dwelling in a thorny segment of a minor village on a minor planet. A dry, uninviting portion of bush and soil, where I stand, where I meet my son.

We face each other. This son I have not seen for twelve years, who is not a child, not a man.

"I am your father, efRekta. I am gratified to see your return this day." I say.

He looks to me, to this great captain I am, for he can read rank by the designations on my uniform.

"omTay," he begins, "I am honoured you are my father," and he holds up his hands, bows his head for seven heartbeats.

And then, because my ritual is ended, and then because I have spent so many years from my people, I embrace him were he shazi.
He tries to wriggle from my grasp, as he did when a child, then stops, unsure, for he has not been prepared for a father who engages in 'hugs'. Nor a father who laughs loud and triumphant.

"Ref," I say, "there is so much I must tell you, and so much you will not believe. But I will take you aboard my ship as iTay, you and our family. And we will go to Zechia."

"Zechia?" he asks, as if the world unknown.

"Walk with me, my son, and I will tell you of adventures beyond your imagination."

My voice must frighten him, it frightens me, for yes, I have met those whose names are in

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 29.03.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-1044-7

Alle Rechte vorbehalten