A deciduous tree loomed tall. Leaves curling and brown, a few lay scattered on the hard floor, gathering in the nooks formed from the tree’s roots, which wove through the cement like soft earth. Two unsupported ramps circled as a double helix, rising to connect the next two floors, which ringed the tower as mezzanines. Together, the entire structure framed the tree and made it a statement. It was difficult to look away. But, when Siraa managed it, she found the room she was standing in was decorated with low furniture and sculptures that left an uninterrupted view of the circumference and the valley beyond.
Stepping into the chamber, Siraa took a deep breath of the cool air and, savouring the quiet, took one last good look down over the hillside and up to the spires above, which dared to reach towards those stars bright enough to pierce the sheen of the Teop’s surface field.
“Siraa! You’re here!” A woman called out from above. “I missed you!”
Siraa turned to see a woman with a swollen abdomen waving her arms in excitement as she rushed down the ramp from the level above.
“I’m so, so glad you made it,” the stranger said. “You’ve no idea! We’re all just so excited to see you! It’s all anyone is talking about. Well, mostly...”
Trying not to gawk, Siraa was taken aback when she realised who this woman had to be. She was tall, with long dark hair and completely silverline flesh. Silverline was a state most base human types could enter in response to extreme situations, particularly heat and radiation exposure. Some even did it deliberately for the look, if you could believe resembling a metal statue was ever fashionable. Though given this woman’s loose white dress, her strappy sandals, and especially her awkward behaviour, she gave the impression of someone who heard it was glamorous once and was just trying to look the part.
Siraa narrowed her eyes in askance, straightening her back and entering a disciplined military posture as she asked, “Mother?”
“Oh!” Looking momentarily emotional, Teop’s avatar put one hand to her heart and used the other to fan her teary eyes. “You don’t have to do that. I was never in the service.”
The avatar fussed over Siraa, patting hands down Siraa’s bioceramic-plated arms and looking at her darkly augmented body. Faltering, the old soldier didn’t know what to say, especially given Teop’s eccentric demeanour and the sudden hands-on inspection.
“Oh, what did the Tanslot do to you?” Teop said quietly but then smiled. “You look so strong though!”
“It’s good to meet you, Mother,” Siraa managed to say. Averting her eyes, she tried not to let the upwelling of her confused feelings show. Her heart was in her throat.
“Hmmm?”
Teop huffed, stepping back and cradling her belly. She seemed uncomfortable after hurrying down from the higher floor. The avatar had what Siraa might call a motherly figure, something from the ancient past when humans bred themselves - pregnancy, Siraa thought was the word. It made her uncomfortable just to look at it.
“If we’re being all formal, then yes. It is so, so lovely to meet you! I am your creator, Teop TonDer Tol,” the silver-skinned woman said.
Taking a few steps into the centre of the room, Teop’s avatar continued.
“This is your Grandmother, Tol TonDer Nile.”
Siraa stepped to Teop’s side, looking as the avatar swept her arm out. She gestured to the tree that dominated the room.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Siraa said.
“Don’t be rude, Siraa, dear. Say hello.”
Taking a breath, Siraa looked over the tree, which stood at least twenty-five metres tall, its thick trunk towering over them, with countless branches reaching out in every direction.
“Hello Grandmother,” Siraa said, giving a pause. “It’s good to meet you too.”
The tree did not respond.
Teop caught Siraa off guard again when she hooked her arm through Siraa’s, leading her up the ramp. Physical contact was normally impossible in their system without flagged consent through a neural lace connection. Endoskeletal sub-controllers would intervene. Either the Teop had forgotten, or she just didn’t care. It probably didn’t even apply to her at all.
“The Tessaloi is waiting,” Teop explained as they stepped up one level and then another. Siraa walked in terse silence until they reached the third-floor balcony, consciously trying not to flex her arm, afraid it might injure the avatar with its augmented musculature and combat frame. Only once they got to the third floor, amidst the boughs of Tol’s branches, did Teop release Siraa’s arm.
“There we go,” Teop said before finding a seat overlooking the valley. Grunting as she sat, the avatar seemed to struggle to find a comfortable position because of her belly, leaning back into the cushions.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Grimacing, Siraa turned away from the Teop and looked around just in time to see a miniature galleon sail past her head. Swivelling on the spot to track the sailed ship, a scale replica of some ancient type of sea-faring vessel, Siraa blinked, unsure of what exactly she was looking at.
The galleon’s sails swelled as the wind gusted in from some source unseen. Buoyant upon a frothing surf suspended within a floating bowl of hardlight, the tiny vessel leaned and careened as if fighting to contain the momentum of many hundreds of tonnage. Upon its deck, dozens of crewwomen surged, working pulleys and primitive mechanisms to steer the ship. They were successful in slowly taming its course and bringing it around to meet Siraa again.
Bewildered, Siraa looked down onto the galleon as a captain with a tremendous feathered hat, far wider than her tiny shoulders, laughed. Then, stepping from the steering wheel on the ship’s stern deck, the woman marched to the rails at the edge of the miniature vessel and shouted up to her.
“You must be Siraa!”
“The Tessaloi, I assume,” Siraa said, eyes narrowing as the galleon’s deck surged with nearly a hundred women, busying themselves with the maintenance and control of the craft. “Good to see you.”
“The one and only, though you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Tessaloi answered. Then, when Siraa hesitated, she asked, “Enjoying the view?”
“Sorry. This is incredibly distracting,” Siraa said, looking over the intricate detail of the galleon and the women working on board.
“Well,” Tessaloi’s captain drew a gleaming sabre from a scabbard on her belt, brandishing it. “I need to keep myself occupied somehow!”
“What do you mean?”
The tiny captain turned, striding across the deck to shout over to the seats.
“You didn’t go over the ground rules yet, Teop?”
“Oh no, not yet darling!” Teop called over, waving.
“Well, let’s get on with it,” the Tessaloi said.
Siraa stepped around the flying model ship and folded her arms, saying, “Clearly you didn’t bring me here just to make some introductions.”
Looking momentarily chastised, the Teop nodded before inviting Siraa to sit. She did so, perching lightly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Even then, the cushioned seat creaked from the weight of her dark armour and the enhanced physique beneath it.
“First thing’s first, dear,” Teop began. “I want you to know you’re here because you are very important to me.”
Siraa’s eyes narrowed again as the Teop continued.
“Everything said on this subject will be human-level communications. That’s because we want you involved, too. So we have invested our attention into these avatars to speak to each other using words.”
“Come on, hurry this up!” The Tessaloi said as its galleon sailed in circles around their seats.
Siraa refocused on Teop, frowning and leaning a little closer.
“I want you to be a part of the decision-making process,” Teop said, a hand on her heart. “Not very long ago-”
An existential-level warning alert flashed across Siraa’s senses as her inertial references fell out of sync. She bounced to her feet and turned to see a mirror sphere expanding in the air behind the Teop. Siraa had almost had enough time to engage in an altered-state survival protocol when the light caught in the spatial distortion’s orbit flashed away and left behind an unexceptional-looking drone.
Siraa was still combat-ready, but the drone flashed a service handshake, which her lace met and accepted. Part of her wanted to reprimand the drone, but something told her that it was a very bad idea. So then, given pause, the old soldier continued to watch the drone as it zipped around at head level, shoving the miniature galleon and its bowl out of the way - to the shouts and jeers of its crew - and hovered over a third seat.
Teop, for her part, had made no attempt to stand and sat there sulking at the drone.
“Please don’t displace matter into my volume,” she huffed.
“I decided to accept your invitation after all,” the drone said in a clipped tone, field colourless, hiding its mood. “I also accept your terms. I was already listening from ring-side. Continue.”
Teop rolled her eyes and sighed. She took a moment to brush her long hair back over her shoulders before turning to Siraa again, who retook her seat, eyes on the drone.
“You know the Tanslot,” Teop offered as an introduction.
Knowing was an understatement. The Tanslot had been Siraa’s assigned service vessel for over 10⁹s on her tour of the Nile Stem. However, it had never used an avatar to engage with them directly. Siraa tried not to acknowledge a feeling of resentment, seeing it avatar a drone now. She sat a little straighter, again reminded of their inordinate separation in standing.
They were not colleagues or peers in the service. The Tanslot was a billion tons of, well, you couldn’t call it a warship. Conceptual filters in the neural laces of basic human types outside the service prevented them from even considering E&E Service vessels as warships. Pan-Humanity in the Nile Stem Systems didn’t engage in war, but they did acknowledge bad actors and hostile encounters. The Tanslot’s official role was escort and interference. Siraa knew well that it was a billion tons of raw fucking murder.
“An honour,” Siraa managed to say. She was hardly an innocent party, herself.
The drone seemed to stare at her without eyes before it said, “I had to see what all the fuss is about.”
“Anyway,” Teop put her hand on Siraa’s shoulder, which dragged her attention back. “Two 10⁶s ago, our darling Tessaloi here intercepted a tightcast from a dark system.”
“She was close enough for that?” Tanslot asked.
“Problem?” The galleon had resumed its circular voyage.
“The signal included the mindstate of a woman called Orette Tol,” Teop continued quietly and made a gentle gesture towards the tree that stood tall over them, even up on the second balcony. “She was Tol’s firstborn human like you are mine, and like you, she gave her life to the service.”
“I see.” Siraa said, giving the tree a furtive look.
“And, well, you’re a veteran of the service yourself,” Teop reasoned. “You represent humanity pretty well, all things considered. So we would like to review the memories of her last mission with you. She was somewhere that she really shouldn’t have been. We want to understand why, and what went wrong.”
“Alright.” Siraa looked back to her mother. “I’m on board.”
“Wonderful.” Teop smiled.
“Finally!” The captain of the Tessaloi shouted out. “Can we get to the good stuff?!”