Branegate Read online

  “No. When we began studying his early ministry I knew it all, even before I opened the file. What’s happening to me, Petyr? Why did I know all that? And why is it that when I get a scrape, cut, or bruise, the thing is totally healed and faded away within a day? The other kids have noticed it. It’s no wonder they think I’m weird.”

  Petyr sighed. “Oh Trae, I’m sorry.”

  “For what? It’s those medical tests I’m always having, isn’t it? They never let me stay awake to see what’s going on. What’s wrong with me?” Trae’s voice rose in pitch.

  Petyr reached over and patted his shoulder, tried to smile. “Nothing at all. A little spoiled, maybe, but a good person a parent can be proud of, and easy to care about.”

  “I never see my parents. I spend more time with you in a day than I spend with them in a week. It’s like they’ve signed me over to you.”

  “They work very hard to give you the best.”

  “The best isn’t good enough. I want them!” Trae’s vision was blurred by tears. When Petyr touched his shoulder again Trae was embarrassed when a single tear rolled down his cheek. “I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said.

  There was a long pause, Petyr’s hand still on his shoulder, then, “We have to have a meeting. It’s overdue. We’ll do it this evening, but let me talk to your parents first. You get out of the house, spend the afternoon in the parks, wherever you can find a quiet place to think about what’s bothering you. We’ll talk this evening, and get it settled. Okay?”

  “Get what settled?” said Trae.

  “What’s troubling you. Eat your sandwich, now, before you mutilate it.”

  Trae’s nervous hands had twisted his uneaten sandwich into a doughy ball. He looked at it balefully. “I’ll eat later,” he said.

  Petyr smiled. “I don’t blame you; it’s a mess. Now get out of here. Come back at dinnertime. I promise we’ll get some things settled this evening.” Petyr grabbed a tear off Trae’s cheekbone with a finger, and Trae felt something coming from the man that made him feel suddenly safe.

  “Okay,” said Trae.

  “I’ll clean up here. Feed the birds, pet a butterfly, and try to feel good for a while.” Petyr dumped Trae’s mangled sandwich into the trash, the dishes in the sink, and left the kitchen. Trae remained behind for only a moment to think.

  It was Petyr who made him feel special with his stories about normals and Immortals, and his unexplained connection to a man who’d fled from the caverns to find a Lyraen paradise somewhere else. A myth, of course, but one believed by many. For some reason, Trae was important to The Church: the special treatment, tutor, the mysterious treatments he had to take. Every three months he would present himself to a Church appointed doctor who would give him an injection, and then he would lose an hour of consciousness while something was done to him.

  Trae put on a jacket and left his quarters when he ordinarily would have been studying. He took the broad escalator up to the shops on level two and had a sweet drink there, then went on up to Three and bought fruit from a vendor by the hydroponics farm. Strawberries, a rare treat, and he ate all of them, one at a time, dipping them out of a paper cone with his fingers.

  Trae could remember when the park on level four was new, but now the trunks of slender trees reached nearly to the grow lights on the ceiling, and vines covered the walls. The escalator ended at a small foyer and he entered the park through a screen door. Butterflies of every color fluttered in the air, and birds called to each other from high in the trees. Creatures scurried in the tangle of plants beneath the trees. One of them, a green Chameleon, regarded him with yellow eyes from a tree branch at eye level. The air was humid with mist from vents in the walls above, and there was a perfumy odor from the scattering of purple flowers in the undergrowth.

  A narrow trail of white pebbles wound its way through thick foliage for a hundred steps and came out on a green, artificial plane of rough carpet with picnic tables and benches in front of what looked like a window with a grand view of the outside world. A vast sea stretched to the horizon, whitecaps glistening, and gnarled fingers of brown rock rose from the surface.

  It was not a real window, but a screen on which was projected an image taken by a remote camera camouflaged carefully from an outside view. Usually there was a crowd there to watch it, everyone dreaming of someday living under open skies when the Emperor was gone. Trae had never been here so late in the day. Now only one person sat on a bench, a slender, dark-haired boy near Trae’s age. He recognized the boy from school, but didn’t know him. The boy’s head jerked around when Trae scuffed a pebble with his shoe.

  “Hi,” said Trae.

  The boy nodded, then turned his head back towards the viewing screen. Trae sat down beside him.

  “Sun is real bright today. I bet it’s warm out there. It must be nice to be warm all the time.”

  “So put on a jacket,” said the boy, staring straight ahead. “It’s The Church that keeps us in here. They’re afraid if we go outside we’ll pick up new ideas and turn against them. We’re prisoners in here, except for people like you.”

  “Like me?” asked Trae.

  Now the boy looked at him, eyes glistening dark and brooding. “I’ve seen your bodyguard at school, the big priest. You belong to The Church.”

  “Petyr? Well yes, he sort of guards me, but mainly he’s my tutor. I get extra lessons at home.”

  “Rich kid.” The boy smirked at him.

  “No, we’re not. The Church pays for it.”

  “Why? You something special to them? We don’t even go to church anymore. We never will again, either.”

  “My folks still go. I finished my Catechism last year. Mostly boring, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. We’re all Lyraens.”

  “Not me,” said the boy. “I don’t believe in Universal Energy or Heaven, and I don’t believe in some savior who will come to take me there.”

  “Prime Zylak,” said Trae. “He has gone to prepare the way for us.”

  The boy snorted rudely. “More Church mythology. Leonid Zylak was a man who fled this planet fifty years ago when his little cultural revolution against Emperor Osman failed, and he had to save his own ass. He didn’t leave to find ancient gates to paradise. He went underground on another planet and died there unless the League of Emperors found and executed him first. And we’re still waiting for him inside this rock.”

  Trae’s face flushed. He’d never heard such heresy. “Wow, you do hate The Church. I get mad at them too, sometimes, when they try to control what I do, but I can always do something about it. Tonight I’m—”

  The boy stood up and leaned over to glare at him, his face twisted in fury. “Do something about it? For two years we’ve tried to leave here and live on the outside with the rest of the world. My folks have petitioned The Church over and over again. They won’t let us leave. They’ve called us subversives, and threatened us with prison, and this morning they did it. Three thugs like the guy who guards you came when we were eating breakfast, and they took my father away. My mother has been crying all day. She says he either won’t come back or will return without emotions and half a memory. I came here to get away from the crying, and now I’ve got you!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Trae, and meant it. “I didn’t know that could happen to anyone.”

  “It has happened to a lot of people. Don’t follow me, now, and don’t ever come near me at school. If you do, I’ll lay you out.” The boy turned, and began walking away.

  “What’s your name? We can talk. Maybe I can help.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said the boy, and disappeared into the heavy foliage.

  A moment later Trae heard the screen door to the park bang shut. He sat in stunned silence. The boy’s emotions had been so raw and real; if what he’d said had happened to his father was true, surely there was more to it. The man must be a criminal. The Church would not arrest a man just because he wanted to leave the safety of the caverns and risk his li
fe in the Emperor’s realm. Would they?

  Now he sat alone in front of the viewing screen, and for the first time in his life watched the red orb of the sun sink beneath the horizon, painting the sky in crimson and purple streaks.

  Trae had learned enough from his Catechism to know the Lyraen Code was that of an anarchist. It was not surprising they had been outlawed, and driven literally underground to escape imprisonment or worse. It was also not surprising that Lyraens were beginning to doubt the sense of their living conditions. Why not quietly infiltrate back into outside society? Who would know them there now, after three generations? Leonid Zylak had gone to find them a world where they could live with personal freedom, but he’d been gone a very long time. Trae had seen the man’s photographs so many times in his classes and elsewhere that Leonid’s face even appeared to him in his dreams of fire, like a savior.

  The lights in the ceiling flickered. The park was closing, and now Trae had to meet Petyr again.

  A light was burning above the sliding carbonyl door to his residence. The light was left on when visitors were expected, but perhaps it had been left on for his return. The rest of the passageway that was his neighborhood was now deep in gloom, with only maintenance lights glowing high up in the ceiling.

  Trae used his cardkey and let himself in. His father was sitting in a chair, his book of meditation closed in his lap. “Ah, right on time,” said Karl Nowok. “Dinner is nearly ready.” He smiled.

  “I went to the park, I’ve been gone all afternoon,” said Trae.

  “So I hear. Tina! Trae is home.”

  Mother was in the kitchen. “I hear, dear. Why don’t you both sit down at the table now. I’ll bring things right out.”

  Trae and his father sat down at the wooden dining table beneath a glowing crystal globe. Mother brought out a tourine filled with a vegan stew of vegetables and soy. Father served.

  They held hands. “Source of all energy,” intoned Father, “bless this food for our nourishment so we may serve all your creation. Amen.”

  They ate silently for a few minutes, then Father spoke. “Petyr called to tell us where you were, but we were getting worried when you finally came home.”

  “Sorry,” said Trae. “Where’s Petyr?”

  “He’ll be here soon,” said Mother.

  Trae felt anxiety welling. “We have some things to talk about.”

  Father still didn’t look at him. “I know, Trae. Try to finish your meal.”

  Trae ground his teeth together, put down his utensils and waited nervously for his parents to finish eating. Mother only glanced at him once. Finally they were finished. Trae hadn’t eaten a bite. Mother gathered up the plates and took them into the kitchen. Father rubbed his face with his hand, and looked saddened. He looked at the clock on the wall as Mother came back to the table. “Any minute,” he said.

  There were tears in Mother’s eyes as she took away Trae’s plate filled with food.

  A single chime announced a visitor at the front door.

  Father went to the door. Mother came back from the kitchen, wiping her hands vigorously on a towel. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

  Petyr Vlasok came into the room, and with him was an older man in the orange flowing robe of a Lyraen priest in meditation. He held up a hand in benediction. “Blessings of The Source are on this house,” he said, and looked at Trae with cold blue eyes.

  Trae experienced an involuntary shiver. The priest held out his arms, and Mother rushed to him. He embraced her, and she sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “There is no evil in a good heart filled with love,” said the priest, and stroked her head in comfort. “Now, let’s see this young man.” He looked at Trae again.

  What was going on? This was supposed to be a meeting with Petyr. Trae bit his lip and glared at the man.

  Petyr smiled back at him. “This visit’s all about you, Trae. We can sit at the table, or you can come in here and get comfortable.”

  “This isn’t what I was expecting,” said Trae.

  “I know,” said Petyr, He gestured at the priest standing beside him. “This is Proctor Riven, Trae. He’s a member of the Lyraen Council of Elders, and also an historian for The Church. He has some things to tell you about yourself.”

  The old priest smiled, and motioned for Trae to sit by him on a cushion.

  “Please, Trae,” said Mother. The sadness in her voice prompted him to move. He sat down by the priest, Petyr and his parents sitting close on cushioned chairs. His hands were sweaty, and there was a tightness in his throat that wouldn’t go away.

  “Well, here we are,” said Proctor Riven kindly. “The Council felt it best to keep this as private as possible. The specialized treatment we’ve been giving to Trae has already drawn unwanted attention to him.” He turned to Trae. “I hope you realize you’ve been receiving much education and watchful guidance that other young people never get.”

  “Extra classes and a bodyguard, if that’s what you mean,” Trae said. “Why am I so special?”

  Riven smiled. “Some are blessed more than others, but your blessings are truly unique, Trae. There is no one else like you here.”

  “You mean the Immortality thing,” asked Trae. “From the time I was little I’ve been told I’m supposed to live a lot longer than other people. Well, I don’t see it yet. I’m growing up as fast as anyone else I know.”

  The old priest laughed. “By all appearances you’ll grow old like anyone else, Trae. The difference is that while others die, you will not. We really don’t know your lifespan. Our experience is limited because there have only been a few like you on planet Gan, and as far as we know you’re the only one left here. And very soon, it will be time for you to leave us.”

  Mother let out a little sob. Trae was totally confused, and the statement about his leaving hit him like a hammer.

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean, I’m leaving?” He looked at his parents, but their heads were bowed. Even Petyr looked away from him.

  “Not right away, but within a year or two, depending on how fast your studies progress,” said Proctor Riven, and leaned over to pat Trae reassuringly on the shoulder. “We thought you’d be reclaimed when you were born, and fifteen years later it still hasn’t happened. We can’t remain in these caverns much longer. Spies and informers have infiltrated our ranks, and we know who only a few of them are. We have to leave this planet soon, but we have no defined place to go to, and nobody to lead us there.” The old priest’s tone of voice was rising with emotion.

  Trae shook his head slowly in confusion, and the man sighed. “I don’t know how to tell this without hurting someone,” he said.

  “Then I’ll say it,” said Mother suddenly, and startled everyone. She stood up, came over to Trae and kneeled in front of him, taking his hands in hers. Tears ran down her cheeks, and her hands were like ice. “Trae, I know we haven’t been the best parents. We haven’t been home as much as we should be for you, but your father and I love you with all our hearts. Do you believe that?”

  Trae looked around, embarrassed. “Yeah, I suppose,” he mumbled, and Mother squeezed his hands hard.

  “There’s something we should have told you a long time ago, but we couldn’t because you might have told someone and then you wouldn’t be safe. I wanted to, I really did, but sometimes I didn’t want to admit it to myself—when I first held you—knowing how brief it could be—”

  “Tina,” said Father softly.

  Mother swallowed hard, head bowed. Trae’s fingers were beginning to go numb.

  “You’re not our son, Trae,” said Mother. “We weren’t able to have children of our own, and when you were born the Lyraen Council honored us with an appointment as your guardians and foster parents. I’ve been selfish. Maybe I’ve spoiled you—maybe I don’t want him to come back and claim you again—but it looks like I’m losing you anyway—oh, Trae!”

  Mother pressed her forehead against Trae’s numbed hand
s, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed. Trae shuddered. It was as if a hot flame had passed near his face.

  “You used to tell me about your dreams,” said Petyr. “You still have them. The dreams of fire.”

  “Not as often,” said Trae.

  “And in your dreams you see the face of Leonid Zylak.”

  “Not when I was little, but more recently. Sometimes a woman is with him when the fire is gone and I’m close to awakening. It isn’t Mother, but the woman is beautiful. She has red hair and skin like porcelain. She smiles at me and talks, but I know it’s a dream.”

  “The woman is Tatjana Zylak, Trae. She’s your true mother, and Leonid is your father. You were taken from them by an act of terrible treachery and deceit, and now you’ve returned,” said Petyr.

  It was getting silly. “You’re the one who taught me the history of the Zylaks, Petyr. Leonid Zylak left here over fifty years ago, and he had no children.”

  “Leonid disappeared shortly after the Emperor’s secret police set his house on fire. His wife and child were trapped in the house and were presumed dead; their bones were found the morning after the fire. The child was only four. His name was Anton. The dreams you have are dreams from a childhood, Trae. You were murdered by the secret police of Emperor Osman over fifty years ago. You are the reincarnation of Anton Zylak, and sole heir to a fortune that is likely spread over several planets.”

  Mother looked up at him pleadingly, and finally released his hands. Trae’s fingers tingled.

  “Reincarnation? I don’t believe any of this,” he said.

  “You’ll have to, young man, or all of us are doomed, not just on this planet, but in all the systems scattered light years from here,” said Proctor Riven. “There’s more to this than reclaiming a vast fortune. You might be the last remnant of a line of Immortals brought to us by the Zylaks, but we believe there are others, scattered—well, elsewhere. We don’t know where the Immortal ones have come from, but it’s far beyond our systems. Zylak is quoted as saying their technology is vast, and beyond our limited imagination. Even so, his race believes in peace, freedom and self-determination. They have spread their ideas wherever they go. They were attracted to our planet by the tyranny of the Emperors’ League. Your father was left here to achieve a democratic revolution. He failed, and fled, leaving loyal followers in great danger. We thought he would return soon with the power to save us, or lead us to a better place. He hasn’t come back, and we don’t know why.”