The Comet Riders: Book Five of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  Chapter Seven

  Undina sat remembering her cousin, Nerai, as she looked out the observation window of the Seljir, a large passenger spaceship she and Ettrekh had booked passage on out of Noritek for their homeward journey.

  Five years after their arrival on Kayria, they had finally managed to procure a transport. Ettrekh had intended to leave long before, but there had been a small interior civil revolt and blockade between the planet Tulor and one of its space colonies, which had diverted most of the Seynorynaelian space vessels to Tulor and the surrounding area. The few remaining transport ships were booked solid and reserved for the social elite until the blockade ended.

  By the time they boarded Seljir, Undina was a grown woman. Had she wanted to leave Kayria? She was still asking herself that question. Gilwsa’s words of so long ago came back to haunt her—yes, leaving Kayria would be leaving family behind here forever, but to stay would be the same.

  She couldn’t leave her mother behind forever, so she chose to leave Kayria and go back to Seynorynael with her father.

  At the same time, she wished she could stay with Nerai! They had become like brother and sister in the last few years. She felt she could tell him anything, and he had never kept a secret from her.

  She knew all about her father’s elder brother who had died; she knew all about the spilt in the family over Ettrekh’s decision to leave—

  She understood at last her father’s anguish over leaving, then and now.

  But they were simple people, she and her father, simple in that they couldn’t afford to bring the entire family of either side from one world to another, and too many years were lost to time dilation in space travel to and fro.

  Nerai, her best friend, her schoolmate, her co-conspirator and companion, was lost to her forever.

  That was why she went looking on board Seljir—she wasn’t sure what she was looking for yet, but she would know what it was when she found it.

  She remembered passing by the advanced inculcation center on the Seljir when she heard voices discussing Tulorian politics in a wide, open forum under a shade of hydroponically grown Ku-mie trees; she was immediately drawn to the voices and lingered around the park until the debaters discovered her presence.

  Three young men sat on the gnarled roots of a keln tree, too far away for much of their words to be heard, until she dared to stroll by, whereupon they stood and moved away a little: one, a stout young Tulorian man with huge amber eyes and hair, the other a slim Seynorynaelian several years senior to her by the looks of it, and the last an attractive Kayrian youth with cloudy purple eyes and a countenance suggesting general displeasure with the world and all he surveyed.

  Their secrecy wounded her; she found all of a sudden that she wanted to be included upon whatever they discussed.

  They ignored her. She moved past them and pretended to sit under a shady ku-mie tree, halfway between them and a group of elderly Kayrian women discussing traditional herbal remedies for stomach pain; they began once more to talk, in a subdued, wary manner, until finally some time later they began their argument with renewed energy, forgetting in the heat of their argument that she was even there.

  They left a few hours later, unaware of her.

  She returned the next day, this time bringing a printvolume; the trio were there again, exuberantly discussing science and technology’s effect upon political evolution. The bombastic Tulorian, Irnda, seemed to be doing most of the arguing.

  After several days, the trio actively noticed her; at least, the Kayrian, Gynda, noticed her, arriving one afternoon expecting to find his friends, alighting instead upon the girl sitting alone under a ku-mie tree.

  “Who are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “Me?”

  “You’re here all the time. Don’t you have someplace else to be?”

  “I like it here.” She said, surprised to learn that he had noticed her all along, when she was reading; none of the trio had ever seemed to notice her at all.

  “Why? There’s nothing here but plants.”

  “Then why do you come here?”

  “Me? Oh, Irnda, Jondi, and I are old friends. We trained in Noritek together.”

  “That’s odd. You’re not from the same worlds.”

  “Not really. We come from political families.” He shrugged.

  “Oh, I see,” she said, realizing that he was a politician’s son, probably an elitist. His friends were probably the same, children of diplomats. She felt suddenly very humble.

  “Anyway, what do you do, besides hanging around here?”

  She wanted to say that she was a scientist, but she hadn’t ever received any official training apart from her training in rural Irek-ar; years of torturous independent study hadn’t made her officially qualified for anything.

  “My father brought us here to visit Kayria. He’s a weather circulation analytical technician on Seynorynael.” After she said it, she considered that perhaps her father wouldn’t be able to pick up his job where he had left off. “What do you do?”

  “Nothing much,” he shrugged. “I’m going to Seynorynael by invitation for some big celebration. I imagine I’ll take my father’s place as Kayrian ambassador to Seynorynael someday.”

  She tried not to act impressed.

  “What do you talk about?” she asked.

  “Politics, mostly. Also technology, scientific innovations, new theories. Sometimes ancient logic, if Jondi leads the discussion first.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “So, do you want to sit with us?”

  “Me?”

  “It’s obvious you’re eavesdropping anyway.” He said.

  “Would the others mind?”

  “Not for a while, they won’t.” He shrugged. “And it might be interesting to have you around.” The flat tone of his voice suggested otherwise. Yet she was excited; this was her chance at last to be a part of the predominantly male discussions, a part of their dynamic discussions dictated by logic, reasoning, science.

  “What’s she doing here, Gynda?” Irnda wondered when he arrived later.

  “She’s—what’s your name?”

  “Undina.”

  “Undina wants to listen to our discussions.” Gynda explained. “Is that okay with you?”

  “As long as she can stay awake.” Irnda laughed.

  After that afternoon it became a daily ritual for her to meet the group under the tall ku-mie tree, for she had nothing much to do, having finished her training years, and with her father working on one of the artificial weather circulators for the ships’ technicians; she hung around this secret fraternity in wonder, not realizing at first that it wasn’t formed for the glory of reason and logic to prevail; it was about maleness and comraderie, and they kept her an outsider, a spectator prevailed upon only to settle disputes. She was to be excluded from the discussions on the grounds that she was female; the premise of a society for superior logic was but a rationalization on their part to achieve her exclusion—what was she but an uneducated, simple girl in her plain Kayrian clothes?

  Gradually, she joined the discussions, anyway. At first they seemed completely taken aback by this, perhaps challenged; after several months had gone by, Irnda argued with her with as much forceful zeal as he had argued with his companions. They argued over philosophy, science, religion, interpretation of history; on the subject of politics alone, she acceded to their superiority, though she understood some of it intuitively from her experience living on Seynorynael.

  After a while, she became aware of a peculiar distraction in Gynda’s eyes; they seemed to follow her more often than necessity called for. Irnda in kind began to grow agitated. Undina began to deduce the truth as she saw it, that to some extent the three better enjoyed their own company, because to have her around made Gynda and Jondi less able to reason and prey to their male instinct which was distracted by her
, while she was better able to keep her senses intact. Did they resent her for this? she wondered. Did they resent their own desires and blame her as the cause of them?

  But they didn’t know her yet, despite the discussions, or what she felt her purpose in life was.

  Undina wanted to deny instinct and train it out of the human being. Perhaps, she thought, that was why she had sought out their company, not merely to fill the void left in her affections by the loss of her cousin Nerai. She reasoned that, with the triumph of science over prejudice and myth (and she assumed that science had already triumphed), the necessity of training a man to retain his animalistic nature had been rendered secondary to the increasing development of his logical side.

  The humanoid should subvert his animal nature in favor of logic and reasoning; if desire were a necessary leftover trait in evolutionary development, every man should at least learn to train his mind to ignore it when necessary, and learn to keep desire within its proper environmental bounds.

  Undina didn’t think that she had put herself between these proper bounds, subject to their desire. She felt that their intimate circle was exempt from all society’s rules and from the rituals of courtship as it congregated in the name of scientific appreciation.

  At the same time, she began to notice Gynda more and more, because he clearly noticed her. He was always so silent, so mysterious, so irritable, and his looks sharp and disdainful. In his confident negativity, he seemed to know an awful lot more than she—or at least, to have put his knowledge to good use through experience.

  She thought perhaps that, had he been raised under different circumstances, they might have been more alike, and she imaged a similarity in them and used this principle as a basis for her actions in her dealings with him.

  In time, Gynda began to arrive earlier than usual, and they would often discuss their own topics for hours before the others arrived; he seemed attentive to her words, and spoke but a little until she was obliged to fill the silence with words; but in manner and gesture, he conveyed a growing concern and appreciation of her. He asked where she lived on Seynorynael and seemed satisfied that Falyndae wasn’t far from Ariyalsynai; he asked about her family and told her that the Nelana-mi family had once been famous and that a branch of it was still known in Noritek.

  After several months of their private discussions, he began to make unconcealed, loving gestures towards her—first taking her hand when he could, then more boldly caressing her arms, which made her pale and get nervous; then finally, as they strolled around the trees, he gave her a kiss. He kissed her several more times, on several different occasions, and they began to arrange meetings on other parts of the ship: at the observation deck, in the lounge, inside the recreation center, where people swam, walked, and played games.

  In time, she was convinced that he loved her; that was what persuaded her to love him.

  Undina had always believed that if there were no understanding between a man and a woman, they could never be truly close; for some reason, she imagined that they understood one another. She craved and adored that understanding which they shared, as she adored him. His name was constantly in her mind, like a sacred word.

  Oh, she was sure they understood and loved each other, but was that only what he let her imagine? She didn’t wonder about that until later.

  He met her that day at the grove, told her that the others had been called away. He took her to the park, talked to her, confessed that he adored her, promised to show her all of his family holo-pictures and show her about himself. She followed him gladly. Then, in his quarters, all alone, he told her he needed and wanted her; he told her how valuable she was, how beautiful, how much he respected her.

  She was easy prey.

  It started out as a simple argument, she thought. She thought he was teasing her only. She never imagined that he meant what he said.

  They had met each other a few times in his quarters. That afternoon, Jondi and Irnda had noticed the change in attitude in Gynda and Undina, and Irnda had begun a heated argument, ending in an anathaema that Undina wasn’t to be a part of the group anymore. She had defended herself and her integrity; Irnda listened for a while before uttering a stream of profanity at her and stalking off.

  She couldn’t shake the injury he had done her; she supposed that was why she kept mentioning how much it hurt her that Irnda could say what he had, after knowing her so long.

  “I’m really beginning to wonder about Irnda. Maybe he’s jealous of me—”

  “Do all women like to wallow in their feelings?” Gynda asked suddenly, lying beside her. “He probably thought you were just being pushy or critical. Overly emotional.”

  She resisted the urge to argue otherwise. She—overly emotional?? He was just teasing her, as he always did; she was sure this was his way of showing that he cared.

  “So you think it’s better to be unfeeling than emotional?”

  “Yeah.” He said. “Just look at Jondi—he’s as unfeeling as you can get, and happier than all of us.”

  “Oh, so you think the hard, self-controlled, quiet man doesn’t feel? Well, I do.” She said.

  “Really?” He didn’t believe her.

  “He feels a satisfying sense of his own nobility because he knows his behavior is praise-worthy. Our expression of emotion may be different, but men and women are no different in their capacity of feeling emotion.”

  “Spoken like a woman.” He said. “Men and women are different for a reason. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You can’t change that.”

  “I didn’t say—” He put a finger over her lips to shush her, then reclaimed it.

  “Listen, don’t let Irnda bother you. He was just irritated that you were in the way for so long. He doesn’t understand how much you want to be there.”

  “I’m getting the feeling that men don’t like what they don’t understand.” She protested.

  “Because we don’t value you, unless we are considering our own pleasure?”

  “Hey!” She threw a pillow at him, not caring for his jest.

  “You know that has a lot to do with it.” He admitted, after a short pause. “That’s biology. Men are free to move around biologically—just look at the pajes. The females nurse the young—”

  “There are no more pajes in the wild.” She informed him; this was her area of expertise. “They became extinct. They’re grown ectogenetical—”

  “You’re missing the point, Undina!” he said angrily.

  “I don’t see that there is a great similarity between people and pajes.”

  “I’m talking about the overall principles.”

  “I don’t want to have children, though.”

  “A sensible decision. But you can’t deny the role that your gender has developed for over eons.”

  “Didn’t you have a mother as well as a father?” She asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She sighed.

  “Honestly, I’m beginning to think you’ll never be able to handle the mundanity of your destined life,” he laughed.

  “Why should I spend my time only doing mundane things?” she asked.

  “Everyone has to, in the end.”

  “That’s a defeatist statement.”

  “It’s a rational statement.”

  “It isn’t. Reason dictates that there may be more than one feasible solution to any problem.” She insisted. “It’s just your solution, your reason. You don’t want to try if you can’t win. You think nothing will get better, that we’ll never progress enough to eliminate the necessity of the mundane, so you don’t try. You say you suppose you’ll take over from your father, but you don’t even know. But look at what trying accomplishes—the Seynorynaelians have already made food distribution units, self-sanitizing chambers—”

  “You just don’t want to be stuck doing trivial thing
s your whole life.” He laughed. “It’s almost sweet, how much you want to make a difference to the world.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Undina, Undina, why do you have to have everyone love you?”

  “What?! I don’t—”

  “You do.”

  “I just want one man to love me.”

  He stared at her, stared hard at her, as though his life depended on it. Why?

  “So. Why don’t you tell me who this man is that you want?”

  She didn’t know to be afraid of the question.

  “I want to want him more than anything or anyone in the world,” she said. “I—think I have to love and need him, more than anything the world could offer me, or at least I’d have to feel that way.” She smiled at him, as radiant as a sunrise.

  “You value yourself too highly.” He declared.

  “That’s harsh!” She exclaimed.

  “You want a man to adore you.”

  “No,” She shook her head violently. “I guess—I don’t know, but that doesn’t seem so terrible if I adore him as well.”

  “Can’t you see what kind of pressure that is?” Gynda laughed. “To adore someone lasts only so long. Besides, love doesn’t last. Just enjoy the moment now of what we have as man and woman.”

  “Don’t you see though, that, there has to be something more?” She returned.

  “What are you going on about?”

  “It makes me angry that women are treated as second-class citizens, even in this advanced society, by some men. Some think it’s charming if we have a brain, or seem to, and even then you’re not quite sure we do.”

  “Not true, though since time began there have been men who look down on women, but that is the minority.”

  “You may have a point.” Undina admitted. “But how can there be any meaningful real love if you don’t like a person for what they’re about?”

  “You, my dear, are a loose woman. And who said I ever loved you?” He said suddenly and to hurt her.

  She was stunned.

  She sat up, stepped back a moment, and for the first time since she knew him, she began to see him clearly. She began to see that he was a man who lived for the moment, and the moment only, and that was all there was—and because he did this all the time, he had no understanding of ambition and purpose, and he couldn’t understand her; there was no blame in that. The greatest fault with their relationship had been in his willful deception; perhaps she had imagined too much of his character, but she saw this as the lesser crime, whereas he had known what she imagined of him, and yet he had let her believe it without ever correcting her.

  Then she realized something else. “I see. The first submission is the sweetest. You like to win and to enjoy. Understood.”

  “What?”

  “I said—”

  “What makes you think you’re special?” He hurled, his ice-edged smile penetrating her heart. “You’re just like a hundred other stupid women who think they know everything. You think you can keep me or any other man happy? Men don’t stay because we’re different from you biologically. We need our freedom. We only stay when we get tired of playing around.”

  She laughed hard. “Women love freedom, too.”

  “But you’d smother a man to death.”

  “Would I? “ She stopped. “Why would I do to another exactly what I most fear happening to myself?”

  “I can’t abide a woman who thinks she knows everything.”

  “I can’t abide a man who casts me crumbs of love and then waits for me to come begging for more; and yet they say women are a tease.”

  “You fight too hard for a feeling that isn’t worth your effort. Why are you so stubborn, Undina? Or—are you stupid?”

  “I guess—it looks like you’ve won. I will not be called names by you, however.”

  “Apology given. You value yourself too highly.”

  “Actually, I am content enough with my faults that I don’t chide myself daily for them, and what I can achieve I try, but I’m under no false delusions that my existence matters to the world at large.”

  “You probably thought it did.”

  She wouldn’t show how his words stung her.

  He moved away abruptly, coldly, glared at her.

  “You’re useless to me now.” He said.

  “What?” The word fell from her mouth.

  “I feel sorry for you, Undina.” He said. “You’re not the girl I thought you were. You may be young, but somehow you’ve already become a hardened husk of a woman that is too bitter.”

  He didn’t know how that comment would haunt her to the end of her days.

  She got up quickly and grabbed her things, and left for the last time, looking for a peace she couldn’t find, and would never know again, not even in the utter solitude of her quarters.

  But long afterward, as she lay there with her heart, like annealed glass, fragmented into shards that continued to do damage, she wished she had never known this feeling, or found that the world was no longer the beloved place she had known, that it perhaps never had been.

  In that moment, she wished she could be a child again. And she knew she would go to her death yearning for the beauty of those days.

  In the next few tendays, Undina tried very hard to mend her spirits for her father’s sake and raised them with effort, while underneath she allowed herself time to fill in the void. The Seljir was large, and she saw no more of Irnda, Jondi, and Gynda. Instead, she kept company with her father, his friend Limalda, and Limalda’s son Sochon whenever her father wasn’t working.

  After a month, it became clear that Sochon was in love with her, and had spoken to his father and Ettrekh about it. Ettrekh treated the affair as though Sochon and Undina were already meant to be attached and would gratify all universal expectations in no time at all.

  “I don’t love him.” Undina told Ettrekh, when he started going into the particulars of Sochon’s appeal.

  “You’ll change your mind.” Ettrekh said, mistaking her objection for groundless fear.

  “How often do I do that?” She said, “I don’t want any part of Sochon. Or any man, Kayrian or otherwise.”

  “Oh, Undina, I thought you’d finally grown up,” Ettrekh said, shaking his head. She wished he hadn’t looked so disappointed.

  “What?”

  “I mean—you’re awfully unnatural, Undina.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you aren’t interested in men.”

  “I like them. I am interested in them, I just am not looking for a man right now.”

  “Undina, you don’t have forever. Sochon really seems to care for you—”

  “I don’t care. Or—actually, he’s the one who doesn’t really care. He has this idea that I’d be happy raising children in Kerrai and whistle joyously every time he comes through the door.”

  “You are being awful, my child. Sochon is a worthy man with a kind heart. What has put you in this foul temperament?

  Undina looked down. Didn’t her father see Sochon was the type of man who would never understand her? He was a sweet enough person, but it would be wasting his time and hers if she didn’t return his feelings of love.

  “Why don’t you just give it a chance?”

  “Because I will never love him. I am wasting both of our time if I even try.”

  “Undina—”

  “Think what you want, father. I’ll never get attached. I’ll never let any man keep me from being free.”

  “Undina don’t be ridiculous—”

  “That’s the way I see it. Don’t tell me I haven’t got a right—”

  “Don’t take that tone of voice with me,” he warned. “I’m not the enemy, but I am your father, and you’d better remember that.”

  She sighed; he didn’t know that to her, a
ll men had become the enemy except him.

  “Undina,” her father said, “most women who think as you do live lonely lives.”

  “Then let it be that way.”