Both as a civilian and as a Gatherer, Uka-yen had been a serious bird. His actions made waves. To the Ecumene, someone of Uka-yen’s caliber turning against them was a threat of the highest order, and hUen-dE had responded accordingly.
EUe, however, was not such a threat, not in hUen-dE’s eyes, at any rate. The low esteem with which she held him was the one big advantage EUe had whenever he had to deal with her. There was no doubt in his mind that, had hUen-dE thought more of him, she might very well have disintegrated him right then and there, no matter how he’d answered her question.
Thankfully, she hadn’t.
It also helped that EUe had been as numb as a bone all the way through their return trip to the Door. For that last quarter of an hour, he was little more than a twEfE-shaped machine. The perfunctory detachment with which he’d gone through the motions of fulfilling his duties as a Gatherer must have made it seem like he really wasn’t upset at all by the great inventor’s “betrayal”, nor by hUen-dE’s reaction to it.
After gathering the smaller dreamshards into the nylon satchels at their waists, the two twEfE got to work transporting the giant shard. hUen-dE took charge of maintaining the air bubble that kept them living and breathing while EUe did the drudgery of twisting his not-light into a grasping hand to pull the giant shard out of the sands and carry it back through the Door to a world that was now even further from his home than when he’d left it.
In total, their journey had taken a little less than an hour, during which time the rest of the world had advanced two decades into the future. EUe only recognized one of the clerics standing outside the Door to receive them. An hour before, he’d been the youngest bird there; now, he was in the ripeness of middle age. The others had either retired, or died.
Either way, they were at peace now, just like Uka-yen.
The clerics responded well to the giant shard, falling down to their knees and prostrating themselves, raising their arms up and down as they sang hymns of thanksgiving and glory to the Gods and the Ecumene, alongside words of consolation and valediction; hUen-dE had told them that the Gods had finally taken Uka-yen into their embrace.
“You have served the Ecumene well, Gatherers,” the high priest said. “Now, go enjoy your reward. Until your next calling, the future is yours.”
Of course, the cleric omitted the obvious caveat: the future was yours, as long as you experienced it from the confines of the Great Temple Skyholder. Some Gatherers, like Uka-yen, had struggled with that restriction, but not EUe—especially not now.
He was pretty sure he didn’t want to do anything ever again.
EUe shared a brief glance with hUen-dE before pushing off the grass and flying up to his nest on the Great Temple’s inner wall. Once inside, he clambered up the high-stepped stairs to the bathing area on the second floor, where he stripped off his ceremonial armor—chest-piece notwithstanding—and immersed himself in his pool, slowly flicking his wings as he soaked up the soothing heat.
Somewhere in the middle, over the sounds of the purification rites—blessing the water with webs of not-light, to banish the taint of death—EUe started sobbing. He wrapped himself in his wings—not that they could reach all the way around—running his claws through his feathers.
The part that hurt the most was that he couldn’t tell anyone about this. Telling anyone about what had really happened or how he really felt would, respectively, cause mass panic and get him incinerated until even the ash had burned away.
He had half a mind to kill himself, but then realized that doing so would mean no one would hold a memorial for Uka-yen’s passing, and for what he’d truly died for.
In anger, he lashed out at the water, raising it into scalding steam and then condensing it into snow, drowning himself in the shock of its cold and then thawing it back into liquid and starting the process all over again. He kept this up, screaming and screaming and screaming until he could barely breathe and the dreamshard beneath the armor on his chest burned like fire.
He felt numb after that—numb and tired—and was glad for it. He dried himself with another web, the water instantly evaporating into steam, and this time, for good. It left his feathers obscenely fluffed. For a moment, he could almost hear eUna laughing at him.
“You’re so cute when you’re fluffy!” she’d say, and eUna was the only person who could ever get away with it. She had a habit of licking his face-feathers smooth with a twinkle in her eye, but, of course, she was long since gone.
Even though the Gatherer’s armor was the most comfortable thing he’d ever worn—after all, it had been custom made for him, tailored to fit him like a glove—EUe preferred to wear his Utal-a whenever he was off duty. The high-necked, wide-sleeved coat was a simple off white. He’d paired it with pale, slightly yellowed breeches. His faux gU-lUte leather glove-boots were flesh-toned, matching his feet scales. The garments were not unlike what he’d worn in his life as a civilian, and helped him feel less removed from the rest of twEfE society. Even then, like the Gatherer armor on his chest, EUe’s Utal-a also marked him as being apart from the rest of society. Prayers to Ela-tU and Uehea were woven along his Utal-a’s hems in stylized text. It was just one of the many inconveniences he had to weather as a Gatherer, but as with the others, EUe tried not to let it deter him too much. After all, it had been his choice to sever himself from his old life, and at the time, it was one of the easiest decisions EUe had ever made. Stupid decisions always felt easy in the spur of the moment.
Too tired and miserable to bother going down to the refrigerator to get some nectar to make sure he didn’t die of starvation while he slept, he pulled out some emergency phials from his armor and downed them before staggering over to his hammock and wrapping himself up in it and his flimsy, silky green sheet, woven from the finest scalebug fur.
Like Uka-yen, eUna would have wanted him to live.
By the time EUe remembered he’d forgotten to turn off the lights, he was already asleep. He woke up hours later, in the middle of a night far brighter than it had any right to be. Waking up to the lights on left him disoriented and out of sorts, as if some part of him had gotten last in transit out of the Great Dream. He went down to the kitchen to get something more substantial to eat—a bottle of nectar filled with zUzU Fresh. It helped, but only a little. The same was true of the other creature comforts he had in his nest. From the comfort of the old-fashioned hammock he had set up in the living room, he could wander the world through the wonders of the Philharmonium: play games, watch movies, read from the wealth of the Ecumene’s knowledge, and even interact with people on the other side of the planet. At the moment, though, he felt like shit, so he settled for finding some good porn to ease his mind, only to give up a couple minutes later, disgusted with himself. He wandered through random Philharmonium videos—scenes of people, living life, and all the neat things they found along the way—until the bottle of zUzU Fresh was two-thirds empty. For some reason, that made him pause. After a moment’s thought, he stepped outside. The night breeze ruffled his feathers as he looked down at the GTS’ vast interior from over the edge of the walkway.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Holding the bottle at the edge, he was about to tip it over and pour a libation for Uka-yen all on his own, but then decided against it.
Uka-yen deserved better than a half-assed memorial from a washed-up husk of an engineer.
He went back to bed, intent on giving the old bird a proper send-off come morning.
— — —
EUe made sure to bring extra nectar for the libation—pure, raw elU-flower nectar.
Stepping out of his nest, onto the platform on which it and other nests stood, high above the GTS’ floor, EUe took a sip of his morning drink before leaping off the edge and taking flight, up and out, through the Temple’s aerial doors. One of the guards waved a claw at him as he flew by.
EUe did not reciprocate.
It would have been better to commemorate the old bird out in the wilds. Uka-yen often spoke of how he missed flying through elU groves. But it just wasn’t meant to be, so EUe had to make do with the skyholder’s gardens.
On the upside, it would still be a far better memorial than most.
The prohibition on leaving the GTS was quite specific: Gatherers were not allowed to travel beyond the edge of any of the platforms that extended from the skyholder’s outermost wall. So, it was with full compliance with the law that EUe settled down at the side of a reflecting pool on one of those. Vigorous flowerbeds wafted tantalizing scents into the wind. Flowering vines dangled over the platform’s edge, blossoming over the city below.
In the many months since joining the Gatherers’ corps, EUe had spent entire afternoons wandering through the gardens, nearly always while talking to Uka-yen or one of the more impressionable young clerics. The younger members of the clergy tended to be far more eager to talk to the Gatherers and hear their stories of bygone days. As the clerics gained age and experience, however, they’d discover that the expectations they had about Gatherers were often far above what most Gatherers were. The kind of people Gathererhood tended to attract weren’t known for having the richest inner lives. By their standards, not only had Uka-yen been exceptionally talkative, he’d also been exceptionally well-worth talking to.
EUe had enjoyed the many vigorous technical discussions he’d had with Uka-yen out on a perch, or among the fountains and the flowers. Sometimes, a couple clerics would join them and they’d pass the time sharing their musings about the past and present.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Even when EUe was at his lowest, the view of the Capital never failed to take his breath away. The landscape spread out beneath him in every direction, dotted with skyholders and the clusters of nests built into their walls and the extending platforms. Smaller structures were scattered between the skyholders, usually shops or homes clustered together in gnurls of architecture, like scrunched hands, along with parks and open air markets. Giant, evergreen elU stalks reached skyward everywhere he looked. Sweet nectar dripped down their spadixes, filling their massive, bright red spathe-cups with the precious fluids.
The air, of course, was forever abuzz with the hum of twEfE wings. Further up, flying transports zipped to and from the city for long-distance travel, though the vehicles made sure never to fly into the region reserved for the flying public, nearest to the ground. High overhead, airships rose up and up, bound for the upper atmosphere, and from there, to its extensions out in orbit around the planet and to the islands therein. Some, no doubt, were bound for the moon.
The Capital looked more or less the same as it had back in EUe’s day. The main difference was the sheer number of airships that now ferried passengers back and forth between the planet’s surface and the atmospheric isles. Squinting his eyes, though, EUe noticed another, far more recent change: a great spire that rose up from the skyline like a thorn stuck into the heavens’ eyes. If the scaffolding and metal frame and struts were any indication, it was most likely still under construction.
A couple of days ago—or decades, depending on your reference frame—Uka-yen had said he’d been willing to bet that the government would begin construction on a space elevator for launching freight into orbit.
As usual, the old bird had been right on the nectar.
After the darkness of the Great Dream—both figurative and not—the midmorning sunlight warming EUe’s wings was a welcome comfort. He enjoyed the feeling for a minute or two before walked up to the fountain at the far end of the reflecting pool with his wings closed in respect, eventually coming to a stop in the shadow of the memorial wall, his talons clacking on the stone pavement.
The Wall—or at least one piece of it—was a monument to Gatherers, liberally spread across the GTS’ exterior gardens. When you were accepted as a Gatherer, your name was carved into the wall, inlaid with gold.
It didn’t take long for EUe to find Uka-yen’s name. The old bird had shown it to him himself.
After giving the investor’s spirit a high-minded tongue salute, EUe lowered his head and poured a nectar libation onto the pavement, muttering a prayer under his breath.
Once he finished, all that was left was to stand in respectful silence, but EUe simply couldn’t manage that.
He pressed his hand on the wall, over Uka-yen’s golden name.
“Why’d you do it, old bird? I don’t understand. Why throw it all away? You had a few more harvests left in you! You could have lived to set foot on UlU-twE-E! You…”
But EUe lowered his head in shame.
Since his earliest days, EUe had always been told how noble it was to forsake your life and offer your body for dreamshard implantation. If you survived, you would join the ranks of the Gatherers. Long ago, that meant serving as the Rubies’ shock troops and enforcers, but now that the Ecumene was at peace, that meant living in the Great Temple till the end of your days, so that your powers would not be used for ill. But there were exceptions to that rule, and Uka-yen was one of them.
EUe muttered below his breath. “You could have done so many things that, even now, I can only wish to do.”
As long as an excursion was necessary for the sake of the people and the peace, a Gatherer could be called to serve beyond the Temple, for a brief time. Uka-yen had been lucky enough to get the call, though it was hardly luck at all. The great inventor had been more than just a Gatherer. He was a hero. Thanks to the progress Uka-yen’s creations brought to the people, his name would live on, long after the rest of them had crumbled to dust. It was no surprise that UlhlU-gE’E IV had summoned Uka-yen almost immediately after his appointment to the Nectar-King’s throne. Yes, Uka-yen’s assistance had been needed during the installation of the first lunar habitats, but there were plenty of other highly competent engineers that could have done that. But to have Uka-yen himself be the one to do it? That was a story for the ages, and would go down as another brick in the foundation of the Ecumene’s lasting peace.
EUe looked up at the sky. “Was that just not good enough for you, Uka-yen? After all that, the adoring masses fêting you from here to the moon, you still had the tail feathers to betray the Ecumene and—”
“—EUe!”
Hearing someone shout his name, EUe staggered back, yelping in shock.
If anyone had heard what he’d been saying about Uka-yen, it might just have caused the end of the world.