Michael A. Heald
MEMORANDUM
To: High Lord Myxdroma
From: Sub-arban Barona
Re: Expunged Testimony of Kalessa Sole
My Lord Myxdroma, in accordance with your standing orders, the following testimony from Kalessa Sole’s mind link has been expunged from the court records and the only copy is included below for your examination.
“The flow of my blood had slowed to spotting when my ship mates decided to send me to check the core of the flux drive. My link with the Eklesia died within me when I miscarried, replaced by a fog of self-loathing and a nameless accusation of personal guilt.
“Ostensibly, they sent me for my own grief, so that I would find solace in solitude and healing in silence, but I knew my mate would find another to complete him before I returned. The integrity of the Eklesia must be preserved. Amen.
“At the core, I slid into a maintenance shaft of the main drive. The energy field of my repulsion suit clung to my body like the still black water of a forgotten pond before freezing, and the bio-systems strained to mask the metallic taste of purging ozone. The eddies from the quark flux whipped through the shaft, shifted to the visual spectrum, and repeatedly flashed the smooth polymer walls with a shimmering strobe of turquoise that I hadn’t seen since I left the clouds of Earth long years before.
“In the zero gravity, I aligned myself with the axis of the shaft and pushed off, floating towards the dark end that led to the main flux. The sleek surface of the circular duct drifted by a shoulder’s breadth before my eyes, like a coffin made three sizes too big.
“The wattle drifted into view on my right side, stuck to the wall like a mound of pulsing red jelly the size of my hand. I would have missed it if I had been oriented differently in the shaft.
“I drew back in shock. None of us had ever seen a wattle before; they were legends of dead spacers. This one was a juvenile, from what little information I could retrieve from my data implant and link, but even so, the polymer around it was a blackened and pitted wound. How it had escaped the ship’s antibodies when it oozed out of the quark flux, I don’t know.
“I raised my hand. A gentle squeeze from the field of my repulsion suit would have broken confinement and the wattle would have exploded into a shower of quarks that would have been sucked back into the flux that gave it birth.
“But as I raised my hand, the wattle trembled, and I felt fear wash over me. Fear mingled with sadness--the fear of death and the sadness of being alone. I hesitated and that was my condemnation and salvation.
“This was no space virus attacking the flux drive.
“As I drew my hand back, an image clouded my vision, like pieces of a puzzle that came together to form water, earth, wind, and fire--though it was none of them and all of them at the same time. And a question followed--Home?
“Horrible loneliness gnawed at my gut with the fire of a dying sun, and I clenched my teeth until the nauseating waves faded away. I took a deep breath as the bio-systems licked away the tears that stained my face.
“Weakly, with trembling arms and legs, I pushed back out, and the wattle followed, though whether by my will or its, I don’t know. It rolled along the wall, deforming like a sticky ball of wet plastic. As we left the flux behind, it shrank, becoming shiny and black, like a child’s marble. The wattle drifted away from the wall of the shaft and followed me through the hatch.”
My Lord Myxdroma, at this point the recorded testimony resumes in the official transcript. In accordance with established doctrine, Kalessa Sole was allowed no visitors, no family, and no friends. No spectators were permitted at trial nor witnesses called--nothing was done that might give credence to blasphemy.
Her ending summation has also been expunged.
“Of all the stars in this galaxy we have surveyed and planets colonized, none harbor even a microbe of indigenous life. Not even our inter-galactic probes report life. There must be a reason that the wattles live in the fabric of space-time while we seek planets to inhabit! Could the wattles, and the One who sent them, be that completion to our terrible aloneness that we humans so passionately seek?”
At the end of the trial, Kalessa Sole’s sentence was carried out immediately and her quarks were returned to the flux after her containment field was collapsed. The wattle that was exposed when her physical essence dissolved survived but a moment longer before returning to the flux.
If I may be so bold, my Lord Myxdroma, given the increasing frequency of human-wattle symbiosis, may I suggest that the next pairing be spared from the ban for study under the strictest controls and secrecy? If the wattles are indeed the human complement, and have come outside the control of the Eklesia, then we are in mortal peril.
End Memorandum
Lord Myxdroma waved his hand once and his order appeared below the image of the memorandum that floated in the air before him.
“Heretical. The One would not manifest itself through a ship’s virus. Full erasure of all records. Sub-arban Barona’s quarks are to be returned to the flux. Forced memory wipe of all involved. The wattle ban will be maintained. The integrity of the Eklesia must be preserved. Amen.”
Lord Myxdroma wiped his memory and then turned to pursue the pleasures he had arranged for himself that day.
© Copyright 2008 Michael A. Heald