Master Schnoebelen led Maggie down the corridor to an airlock on the lower levels, off the beaten path. Everything she owned was in her pack, and as they arrived at the hatch, the older man turned to her. “Last chance to back out,” he smiled. “After this...our next stop is Earth.”
“I’m not backing out,” she promised him. “This is what I want.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he answered, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Ready to see your home for the next few months?”
Maggie grinned. “That’s a joke, right?”
They both shared a laugh as he activated the panel. “Then welcome aboard the Katabasis,” he chuckled, as the pair stepped across the threshold.
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They’d both slept in late, exhausted from the previous day’s celebration. It had taken forever to get clean; the colored powders used during the Holi always lodged in places you didn’t realize you had. They’d both had a wonderful time, and she could tell Diggs was eager to see what grand adventure was up next.
But the second day of Rendezvous was different, so once the morning rituals were out of the way she broke out the supplies needed for the Day of Remembrance.
There were some that went all out, even spending the entire year preparing for it, but all they needed was greasepaint and a brush. Once they dressed she got to work, and while she was no artist herself she had a steady hand and years of experience. And the subject was an easy one, a simple skull mask painted on each of their faces. A white base coat to start, black circles around the eyes, a pair of triangles on the nose, and a stitched line across the mouth, going from cheek to cheek.
She did her own makeup first, to give Diggs an idea what to expect. The last thing she wanted was to scare him, but this was another important tradition of Rendezvous, and she didn’t want him to feel left out. He sat and watched the process as she applied the face paint, curious as always, and when she finished, she turned to him and asked, “...what do you think?”
The boy took his time, scrutinizing her from several angles, before nodding his approval. Maggie sighed, setting down her brush. “I wish you’d talk to me,” she said gently, taking his hand. “I know it’s in there somewhere.”
Diggs turned away, shaking his head. He still wasn’t ready. “All right, I won’t push,” she promised, before taking up the brush once more. “Your turn. Now don’t move…”
Maggie went to work painting his face, and he did as she asked by sitting still. She spent extra time with his makeup, adding a few touches like black lips and cracks on his forehead. When she finished, she sent down the paint and brushes and handed him the mirror. His eyes widened in surprise over the transformation, again looking at himself from every angle, before reaching up to touch his cheek, checking to see if he had turned into a skeleton.
“Leave it alone, you’ll smudge it,” she told him, pulling his hand away. “It’s like the powder from yesterday, it washes right off. When we go out, you’ll see everyone’s wearing makeup.” Diggs thought about it for a moment and then shrugged...if it was the fashion it seemed he was fine with it. “So, what did you choose for the Remembrance?” she asked him, pulling up the file on her minicomp and handing it over….only for Diggs to clutch it to his chest and shake his head once more.
“You’re not gonna show me?” she said in bewilderment, prompting another head shake. “Why not?” Digg pointed at the door. “You want to leave? Go to the wall?” He nodded as Maggie snapped her fingers. “I get it...you want it to be a surprise,” she smiled. The boy nodded once again, smiling back at her, as she rose to her feet. “Well, okay...let’s go and you can show me,” she told him, leading him out into the corridors, already packed with other supplicants.
Most had done as they had, a simple face painting, while others had put much more effort into it. Elaborate makeup, skeleton and corpse costumes, effigies of skulls and the Grim Reaper, all mingling together to form a silent procession as they made their way to the Remembrance Wall. As a girl, she’d loved the makeup, the spooky quality of the procession, but now it felt haunting, the skeletal faces moving in silence like an army of the dead. There were dozens of them scattered throughout the ship; view screens repurposed for the occasion. No one spoke, the only sound the shuffling of feet and rustling of fabric as they filed towards the Wall, the screen already displaying hundreds of images. Most had honored someone special in their lives...a parent or other family member who’d passed on. Others memorialized Earth itself, picking something from the homeworld to celebrate.
As they drew nearer to the display, she could make out individual pictures...men and women of all ages, from wizened elders to infants. Animals also abounded...elephant, dolphin, robin, lion, squirrel...while others remembered a rose, a giant sequoia, or a prairie grassland. Others chose natural or man-made features of Earth...the Eiffel Tower, Mt. Everest, the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Amazon River, the Forbidden City, the Great Barrier Reef, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. As each individual touched their minicomp to the screen it would be added, flashing as a huge image on the screen before joining the others before it.
So much diversity it made you weep with its beauty...and all of it lost, consumed by the Yīqún.
As they stepped forward Maggie pulled up the image she’d chosen to honor, her old Master, gone these many years. She touched it to the screen, seeing his image flash...the gentle smile she could still picture so well. She handed the device over to Diggs, as he found the picture he’d chosen, doing as she’d done before him. It was a flower, white with bright yellow and magenta accents. It was…pure, clean and uncomplicated, in a way she had never imagined possible, but its very simplicity took your breath away. Its name appeared beneath it, like the others…Phalaenopsis philippinensis, or the Philippine Orchid. It almost felt like you could reach out and touch it...and then it was gone, replaced by the image of an old woman, as another added their own choice to the Wall.
They stood there in silence, gazing at the sheer immensity of all that had been stolen from them, the marvels of Life and Nature and Man...all under the motto “LEST WE FORGET”.
She wasn’t sure when the tears started...but she wasn’t alone in her sorrow.
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The meal that followed was a far more somber affair than the previous dinner. There would be no singing or dancing on this day, but there were still traditions to be upheld. Once again they met up with Blye, though Prash was still nowhere in sight. “He must have found a lively one,” the Knight smirked, drawing laughter from those nearby. It wasn’t unusual for the younger generation to spend the holiday wrapped up in carnal bliss, ignoring everything else; in fact, Maggie herself had been a product of just such a union.
Kai and Rúna soon appeared and sat down with them, and it was obvious from their body language something had happened since they’d last seen the pair. The sergeant looked like he was torn between running for cover and wanting to wrap a protective arm around her waist, while the redhead’s satisfied expression had the medic and Tinker swapping smirks. Diggs wormed his way between the Valkyrie pair, snuggling against the corporal while glaring daggers at Kai, but he was much more…relaxed, and did his best to make peace with the boy.
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Unlike the previous dinner, this meal consisted of the blandest food possible...survival rations. They looked like garbage and didn’t taste much better, but they’d keep you alive, if unsatisfied, and they were part of the night’s observance. As before, a Corsair rose to preside over the ritual, a woman in green robes, marking her as a priestess of Terra. Blye sat up straighter as if she were being scrutinized; while not the official Knight religion most were followers of the Terran sect. Spreading out her arms to embrace the crowd, she began to speak.
“My brothers and sisters, I welcome you all to this evening’s ceremony, as we cast our minds back to the beginning, and to the events that brought us here. That which was lost is never truly gone, not as long as we hold it close to our hearts.”
There were nods and acknowledgments all around as she continued. “On this night...this very special night...we honor our past and the world that gave us birth. We remember what we lost, as we pass on what we have learned to the next generation, so that someday they may do the same.”
Diggs looked up at that as Maggie regarded him. She didn’t know if he understood the priestess was referring to him and those like him, but he was paying closer attention as the compartment darkened.
“Long ago, before we ventured into the cosmos...Man was alone,” she proclaimed. “We gazed up into the heavens, safe on Mother Earth, and wondered...were there others like us, out amongst the stars? Were they too, at this very moment staring back at us, pondering the same question? Did they hunger to meet their brothers and sisters, just as we did?”
“For eons, we asked this of the Universe, and in return heard only silence. Perhaps we are alone, we decided at last. Perhaps it falls to us to be the elder race, to take the first steps among the galaxy, clearing a path for others to follow. But no matter how hard we tried, finding the key to unlock the secret of traveling beyond our own system eluded us, leaving us trapped, frustrated...and lonely.”
“And then, on the day the stars aligned...our prayers were answered. This, we remember.”
“We remember,” the crowd answered, as Diggs struggled to find the words, trying to follow the others.
A hush fell over them as she gazed skyward. “The benevolent Oivu appeared, beings unlike any we had ever imagined, their hands open in friendship. They offered us that which we had sought for so long, the means to escape the bounds of our system. Armed with this new knowledge we explored, seeking other races, hoping beyond hope that we Terrans might someday join them in friendship.”
“But Nature will never be as we imagine, and the elder races had little time for the upstarts from Earth. We possessed nothing which they desired, save our homeworld itself, and there were those tempted to take it for their own. But Man was strong and proud, fending off their efforts through cleverness, avoiding the battle we were almost certain to lose. In time the other races grew to accept our presence, though never as equals. To them, we were mere children, wolfling cubs too weak and ignorant to survive. But Man is also stubborn, and out of sheer spite, we proved them wrong.” A fierce smile graced her features as she looked out amongst them. “This too, we remember.”
“We remember,” the congregation chanted in reply.
The priestess bowed her head. “But in Nature, all things must end. From the moment we are birthed we begin to die, restoring to the Universe that which was lent to us during our brief time. From the stars we are born, and to the stars we return. All must obey this law, and the cosmos has many tools at its disposal with which to reclaim what it has given.”
“For Man...Nature chose the Yīqún.”
“We knew nothing of this machine race, save for rumor. They whispered the name in dark corners lest they hear and awaken. Long ago, in the distant mists of time, they had been defeated and banished by the elder races, and they believed they would never return, though the machines haunted their nightmares. As they put their children to bed those other species would tell their offspring, ‘Be trustworthy and respectful...or the Yīqún will take you while you sleep’.”
Many of the younger folk shuddered at the image as she pressed on.
“Only the machines disregarded their prayers, boiling out of their sanctuary once more and intent on ending those who had defeated them. The galaxy itself trembled in fear as a call to arms went out amongst the races, declaring that unless all stood together, setting aside ancient hatreds...then they would fall, one by one. For the first time in memory, the elder races knew fear, as they joined forces under the Alliance banner.” She smiled, and said softly, “And the wolfling race of Man...scorned, unwanted...they too welded themselves to the great cause, eager to prove their worth. This, we remember.”
“We remember,” the gathered throng said with quiet dignity.
“And so we built the great fleet...Task Force Odin. Man’s first foray beyond his home space, his chance to show the elder races they also had value, that they too were willing to shed their blood. The entire system of Sol threw themselves into the task, creating the grandest ships ever imagined...like Freya herself,” she smiled, spreading her arms wide as if to reach out and touch every deck, every bulkhead of the ancient battleship. “We spared no expense as the children of Earth volunteered to serve, the best and brightest chosen to bear our colors in battle. We would stand with the elder races...and no one would accuse us of shirking our duty,”
She thrust out her chin in defiance, honoring those brave ancestors, before her features softened. “But Fate is a trickster god, eager to take and break. He is Murphy, and Entropy, and Coyote, and in the fullness of time all must fall to his ploys. Even as Man sent forth his mighty fleet to battle, the evil Yīqún attacked, striking at the very heart of the Tu’udh’hizh’ak Empire, perhaps the mightiest of the elder races. Without their strength...the Alliance would be in peril.”
“But the Empire was ready for the machines and activated their defenses. Even as the Alliance fleet raced to intervene, the Tu’udh’hizh’ak struck back hard, blunting and turning aside the Yīqún advance, diverting them beyond their borders. Those cold, calculating machines knew rage at last, rebuilding their forces as they sought an enemy with which to slake their blood lust.”
She bowed her head and whispered, “The trickster god Fate gave them one...Mother Terra herself. This, we remember.”
“We remember,” those assembled cried out, their souls filled with lament.
“Like a plague, they descended upon us, and there would be no stopping them. Earth and Luna and Mars fell like over-ripened fruit as the machines destroyed everything in their path. For every device our brave warriors destroyed, a hundred...a thousand...took their place. Everything we had we threw at the enemy...and it was not enough.”
As Maggie glanced about, she could see many in the audience weeping. They always did, if they weren’t sobbing already. She turned to Diggs, and even he was affected by the surrounding mood, though she wondered how much of the tale he understood. Even as she watched, he wiped a sleeve across his nose, sniffling.
“The Yīqún poisoned our air, defiled our oceans, corrupted the very crusts of Earth and her colonies, rendering one world after another forever uninhabitable...but they did not stop there. They dug deep into the soil, perverting Mother Terra’s gifts into the building blocks they needed to make even more copies until they filled our worlds with machines and the bones of the dead.”
The priestess herself had tears upon her face as she murmured, “This...we remember.”
“We remember,” the people wept.
She took a deep breath, filling herself with resolve as she moved onward. “In the distant reaches, Task Force Odin heard the pleas of Earth...but could do nothing. They listened in horror to the death of all they had known, all those left behind. In the space of a week...they were all that remained.”
She paused for a moment, letting that sink in...though all who knew the tale needed no encouragement.
“Through the genius of the Eleexx,” she continued, “they defeated the Yīqún at last, their weapon severing the connections between the drones of the machine horde and its masters. The Alliance rejoiced...but not Man.”
“Since the day of Ragnarök, the children of Earth have carried on as best we could. We searched for safe harbor, for a world to call our own, but again and again, we were denied. Frustrated, scattered, we fought amongst ourselves, splintering and fracturing into Factions and Clans...but we have not forgotten.” She gazed out over the crowd, taking strength from those gathered. “The Children of Earth remember who they are, and each year we rejoice in what we have, and we lament what was lost.”
She stepped forward, driving it home. “For Mother Terra’s offspring are survivors, who have withstood all a hostile Universe can throw at them, and still they stand!” She raised her fists in triumph, shouting to every man, woman, and child in attendance, “FOR WE REMEMBER!”
“WE REMEMBER!” they screamed back at her, jumping to their feet...as the wolfling children of Earth howled their rage and defiance.