Dad, I’d like to come home for a while.
Home? Why, sure. Sure, son.
Even before I put down the money on the used Dearman Electric, I knew I was making a mistake going home. I felt the need of a home, but the one I had left at the age of eighteen wasn’t it. But I headed there because there was nowhere else to go.
I drove alone in the dark, using only the old roads, the quiet hum of the Dearman’s motor the only sound. The December midnight was clear, and I could see the stars through the car’s bubble canopy. Fyrine IV drifted into my thoughts, the raging ocean, the endless winds. I pulled off the road onto the shoulder and killed the lights. In a few minutes, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I stepped outside and shut the door.
Kansas has a big sky, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. Snow crunched under my feet as I looked up, trying to pick Fyrine out of the thousands of visible stars.
Fyrine is in the constellation Pegasus, but my eyes were not practiced enough to pick the winged horse out from the surrounding stars. I shrugged, felt a chill, and decided to get back in the car. As I put my hand on the doorlatch, I saw a constellation that I did recognize, north, hanging just above the horizon: Draco. The Dragon, its tail twisted around Ursa Minor, hung upside down in the sky. Eltanin, the Dragon’s nose, is the homestar of the Dracs. Its second planet, Draco, was Zammis’s home, if Zammis was there. We called the snake-like string of stars Draco for the Dragon. The Dracs call their planet Draco for an all-but-forgotten Ovjetah. Coincidence! Why not?
Zammis. Where was Zammis?
Commitment. That’s something the Dracs knew how to do. In the Koda Itheda, when Aydan was searching for the warmasters who would lead its armies and the world to peace, it wanted the warmasters to commit to peace. There was Niagat’s little "test."
"Aydan," spoke Niagat, "I would serve Heraak; I would see an end to war; I would be one of your warmasters."
"Would you kill to achieve this, Niagat?"
"I would kill"
"Would you kill Heraak to achieve this?"
"Kill Heraak, my master?" Niagat paused and considered the question. "If I cannot have both, I would see Heraak dead to see an end to war."
"That is not what I asked."
"And, Aydan, I would do the killing."
"And now, Niagat, would you die to achieve this?"
"I would risk death as does any warrior."
"Again, Niagat, that is not my question. If an end to war can only be purchased at the certain cost of your own life, would you die by your own hand to achieve peace!"
Niagat studied upon the thing that had been asked. "I am willing to take the gamble of battle. In this gamble there is the chance of seeing my goal. But my certain death, and by my own hand—there would be no chance of seeing my goal. No, I would not take my own life for this. That would be foolish. Have I passed your test?"
"You have failed, Niagat. Your goal is not peace; your goal is to live in peace. Return when your goal is peace alone and you hold a willing knife at your own throat to achieve it. That is the price of a warmaster’s blade."
Niagat never did get its warmaster’s blade, but Aydan did eventually fill its ranks with warmasters and warriors who placed peace before everything. Where in the universe to find such conviction, to find such commitment.
Commitment.
That was the thing that was crippling my life. I had made a promise to Jerry. It was a promise that sat on the other side of the bloody quadrant, but it was still waiting to be kept.
Headlights from an approaching car blinded me, and I turned toward the car as it pulled to a stop. The window on the driver’s side opened and someone spoke from the darkness. "You need some help?"
I shook my head. "No, thank you." I held up a hand. "I was just looking at the stars."
"Quite a night, isn’t it?"
"Sure is."
"Sure you don’t need any help?"
I shook my head. "Thanks… wait. Where is the nearest commercial spaceport?"
"About an hour ahead in Salina."
"Thanks." I saw a hand wave from the window, then the other car pulled away. I took another look at Eltanin, then got back in my car.
There was a rathole motel in Salina that had all I needed for a reasonable price. I went to a market and an office supply center, then posted my "do not disturb" notice on the room’s computer and got to work. What was strange was that I couldn’t write it. I needed to recite it. I switched the computer to voice input, did the calibration, and then began speaking in English, the translation moving automatically through my mind:
I, Mistaan, who created the marks-that-speak, set down before you the words of Shizumaat who recited before me the Myth of Aakva, the Story of Uhe and the First Truth.
Sindie was the world.
And the world was said to be made by Aakva, the God of the Day Light.
And Aakva was said to make on the world special creatures of yellow skin and hands and feet each of three fingers. And it was said to make the creatures of one kind, that each could bear its young, or the young of another. And it was said to make the creatures make thought and give voice that the creatures could worship the Parent of All…
I spoke and watched as the words appeared on the monitor: the Myth of Aakva and the formation of the law, the world without the law, and again, a law of peace that could only last if nothing in the universe ever changed.
…the clouds over the Madah were barren, and those lands west of the Akkujah saw no water, and the ground cracked and turned to fine powder. The noon sky burned with a blinding blue, while the morning and evening skies were the reds and yellows of cooling iron. The lakes and rivers became mud and dust, and the creatures that swam within them died. The Ocean of lce became a black sea of putrid oil. The wild creatures of the land fled from the Madah to the mountains, and from there to the lands of the Diruvedah and the Kuvedah.
The proud hunters of the Mavedah could not blood their spears, and so they watched their children cry and grow thin. The hunters clawed at the land, gathering roots, insects, and the skins of the few trees that still lived. But in time even these were gone. And the hunters watched their children scream and stare. The hunters clawed at the bottoms of streams and wellbeds, chasing the precious water as it left the ground below. But the water ran more swiftly than the hunters could dig. And the hunters watched their children die…
And then one of the hunters, as the tribe ate its only child, rose to proclaim a new vision, a new law of war. The great Uhe led the Mavedah out of the scorching desert of death and crossed the Akkujah Mountains into a war that saved its people and unified the Sindie.
As I recited, I felt the tears on my cheeks, because I was back in the cave, Jerry watching me as I recited, its eyes caught between the force of the stories and the sight of a human telling them in formal Dracon.
…a Sindie shaper of iron, in Butaan to perform its duty to Aakva through labor, gave birth to a child. The shaper of iron’s name was Caduah, and Caduah named its child Shizumaat.
…Caduah was a dutiful child of Aakva, and the parent instructed its child in the ways and truths of the God of the Day Light…
There was the ever faithful Namndas, whose story always made Jerry smile.
…I had entered the Aakva Kovah the year before Shizumaat, and was placed in charge of Shizumaat’s class. I drew this duty because the servants of the temple considered me the least worthy of my own class. While my companions sat at the feet of the servants and engaged in learned discourse, I would chase dirt.