7. Dreams and Reality

RageChild fitfully attempted to sleep, sometimes the lights appearing in the gel causing her to wake, other times the sound of . . . she hadn't wanted to say it, but light itself seemed to make sound here, in the Temple of Unity. The dream returned again, that first moment of recognition she had ever had, of that cold metal tube and the glaring lights. She wondered what babies must go through when they achieve a semblance of recognition just after birth.

The metal tube had felt slick against her skin, and she remembered feeling the interior trying to decipher what was happening. She had opened her eyes once, lights glared and she slammed her lids shut. Such pain. It was then, just as she opened her eyes that she felt recognition of herself as a person, understood that she was inside a metal tube, that someone had opened that tube and sought to awaken her. Beyond that, she had no memory, nothing to tell her the name she was born with, or why she knew about the general environment at all. At some point she had been put into thee tube. For what reason?

Who was the man standing over her, blocking the light?

She woke, and willed the gel to create an image of her rifter. She wondered what Gaelbhan and Airgoidh were doing. Probably sleeping the sleep of babies, if they were lucky.

The Temple continued to glow in the shape of the Yasodhara, having done nothing when the three women touched the image of the Temple on the NeoCom. Airgoidh seemed shocked, and told them about the voice activation element of the panel. She repeated the strange language to the NeoCom-Translator unit, which then activated the panel and returned the resulting double Yasodhara.

The gel was comfortable despite also causing her to be claustrophobic. She liked to twirl her fingers in the gel, seeing designs and images embraced by the gel before uniformity wiped the symbols away. She drew the Yasodhara, some of the symbols she had seen on the Sun Warden panel, and another icon - a symbol she did not recognize, but often saw in her dreams.

**

Zayard waited for the Ammatar to finish his glass of water, which the man seemed to want to take a very long time indeed. They sat at the table where the Amarri had just died, and Zayard felt like his old self again. The Ammatar, however, looked very green.

"It is unfortunate that the Lieutenant failed to recognize his situation," Zayard began.

"His unwillingness to accept Matari as equals has led to unpleasantness."

The Ammatar nodded.

"A few weeks ago, I met one of the Cast-off," Zayard said, leaning in close, whispering.

The Ammatar said nothing, nodding, but clearly listening. "Or rather, she walked in and left us the head of that ensign."

The bartender pushed back from the table a bit, eyeing the rather stocky Ammatar as the man finally drained the glass. "You are familiar with the Cast-off?"

"Yes," shaky as first, then bolder. "They are myths, but quite possibly based on truth. The Paratwa Ra are truth, and are well known. So must be their exiled."

Zayard's turn to nod. "Even more so their exiled. What must go through the mind of a Paratwa when banished from the Sect? Madness, I would think. But what of those who renounce the Sect?"

The Ammatar shrugged. His hands remained fixed around the glass, and although he wore a pistol he had not attempted to reach for it, Zayard noticed. The bartender actually was beginning to like this inspector, although he would by no means feel comfortable enough to turn his back. Nefantars were a treacherous bunch.

"Who knows?" Zayard said. "Either way, soon after that, another one of them dropped by the bar. Yes, yes, two of them. But then after all that fuss, and scores of Matari rumors about the re-emergence of the Rona from their sleep deep under the Twin Mounts, we had a space-fall. A probe ship."

"And the reason I am here, nothing more."

Defensive fellow. "Yes, the reason you are here. I want you to come with me out to the malinite outcropping. I have something to show you. It will help give you perspective about what people around here believe and why it is we don't tolerate interference with our right to be left alone."

"I'm quite sure I understand . . . ."

"Not yet you don't. You see, I can't trust that you will just leave and not report the Amarr's death. That will bring no end of trouble. I want you to understand the scope of our problem"

"Trouble for yourself and these Matari?"

Zayard shook his head. "To the Rona.” The Ammatar followed the bartender’s gaze out the open door of the bar, across the sand to the barely visible Mounts at the horizon. "To the Cast-off."

He stood, waving the inspector out the door. "If they are truly starting to wake, and trouble comes calling on them, they will rise up stronger than the fall sandstorms and scour everything into dust. That is an event that no one in Amamake can withstand, and will likely cause the Amarr no end of troubles as they sweep into the Home Worlds."

"The Amarr would not tolerate incursions into their space from Matari, ghosts or not."

Zayard offered the man a facemask and some water. "They would also come calling on the person who started the trouble - that's you. Come on, the sun will be setting in about three hours. I don't want to be caught in the dark"

The two trudged across the sands, some of it soft and unerring in its ability to impede their progress, other portions of the Greater Amamake Desert hard-panned and easily traversed. The malinite outcropping grew on the horizon, and then became a long wall of rock as they approached. The Twin Mounts of Amake'Son reached into the sky, thankfully casting mountainous shadow down across them as the sun settled loser between them.

Zayard waved the Ammatar over the last ridge, just before the great wall that was the malinite outcropping. The moment it took for the Ammatar to register the image was all it took for Zayard to place his knife in between the man's ribs and into his heart.

The Ammatar dropped, and Zayard stood at the crest of the dune. Behind him, the settlement looked like pebbles in the sand, barely a place worth living in, but a strategic spot at the backdoor of the Amarr. At his feet lay the Ammatar, another person dead on the sands of Amamake. He hadn't wanted to kill the man, but he could see the Ammatar would have not really understood what problems his report would release upon the universe.

In that moment when the inspector had taken in what lay in front of them, Zayarad had seen the fear and incredulity in his movement -- fear that would find reports of Peoples' Front members on the planet, of Amarri deaths caused by ronin, and all sorts of other troubles Zayard would not let get beyond the settlement. He could not allow it.

He stood at the crest of the dune, looking to the malinite wall. He did not feel himself to be religious, or fanatical about old myths, but even he whispered the words to the Faith of Matar. Between him and the wall, the people of the desert had begun to place shredders - hell, begun to place? There were at least five hundred sticking up out of the sand.

The shredders fluttered in the wind, really just long strips of cloth tied to the top of poles. Most of the poles were unadorned metal pipes, but a few were carved and cut with symbols of Matar. The combined forest of shredders fluttering created a sound that Zayard found soothing.

How could a shredder be anything but soothing? That was the reason for placing them -- the sound of the cloth beating in the breeze was supposed to scare away ghosts and serve as a way to slacken their thirst for vengeance on the living.

Just as the old Matari wives tale said. Do not tarry too long in the darkness. Only the Rona Paratwa live there. Fear for the souls of the children, so let the shredder feed the *ronin instead.*

cont...