Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 49 - A Lesser Kind

Episode 49

Vriishany looked like a human sacrifice.

Clad in simple white robes, she stood surrounded by the initiators, preparing her for the immortality ritual.

The poor girl had always been a play piece in someone else’s game, thought Linuka Omga. And now, when she trusts me, am I the one sacrificing her for my own plans? Why did doing something for the greater good feel like a crime against the individual?

“Wait,” said Linuka. She pushed through the lines of initiators and kneeled before her adoptive sister.

She gently cupped Vriishany’s face. The girl’s cheeks felt wet; unseen tears had rolled down and vanished into the thick cloth of the robes. Linuka hugged her.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered in Vriishany’s ear.

“But I want to,” said Vriishany. “I want to be your sister forever. And I really want to see the Assembly. You’re hurting me.”

Linuka released her hug. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Vriishany. “Did you know that in my palace they had machines that would shoot down ships and then they would fall onto someone’s house and nobody cared?”

Her own guards had kept the air defenses at the ancestral royal palace a secret from Linuka, even as an almost-adult, but the careless Assembly handlers saw fit to disclose the defenses to a young child?

“I know,” said Linuka. “But you care.”

“I want to change it—change many things. In the palace, nobody would let me.”

Nothing was as disarming as pure intentions. “And you shall change things, my lovely sister. They told you what’s going to happen, right?”

“Yes,” said Vriishaany. “I stand over there.” She pointed to a metallic frame in the center of the ritual chamber. “Then they will sing something that I won’t understand.”

Old Galactic chants. Her father had told her about this quasi-religious part of the Oosech Wesech, the most famous ritual in human-settled space, and the least understood.

“Then they ask me if I want to receive the gifts.”

“And?” asked Linuka. “There is an important part.”

Vriishany beamed. “Oh, yes, they ask if I am doing all this out of my free will.”

“And you do?”

“I do. That’s what I say next. But I say it in the strange language. Iir duvem.”

Linuka kissed her on the cheek. “Excellent Old Galactic, dear sister.”

Linuka rose. “She’s ready. Please proceed, initiators.”

Linuka took her place among the select onlookers, standing between Rige Khuksos and an older woman clad in robes similar to the initiators. Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa was strangely absent. He had spun a 10-orbits plan to put a cloned Vriishany Omga in the Assembly, and on the evening of his success he chose to be some place else.

The woman smiled, but her eyes could not hold contact with Linuka’s.

“Nervous?” asked Linuka.

The woman nodded. “Yes, even more than the first time.”

“You’ve seen this before?” asked Linuka.

“Yes, Lady Omga, this is my second Oosech Wesech. My first was many orbits ago. I initiated the 317th member of the Assembly: your father.”

“You met my father?” Two of the initiators turned to Linuka. She could control realities, but not her voice.

“The ceremony has begun, Lady Omga,” whispered Rige Khuksos. “Let us enjoy it.”

Linuka smiled at the woman, then folded her hands, conscious that everyone looked dignified. That included Vriishany. The little girl had a big heart, standing alone in the only illuminated part of the strange apparatus. She looked like a Shaajis, serious and will-strong.

The chanting began. Linuka had expected some boring, repetitive refrains, but the initiators’ performance sounded more like a back-and-forth conversation between the lead and the group.

Two initiators put a breathing mask over Vriishany’s nose and mouth. She looked concerned, but gave a nod to signal that she was prepared to proceed. Good girl.

Vibrations tickled Linuka’s feet through the soles of her shoes. The metal frame rattling mixed with the resumed chants and became uncomfortable; the tickle turning into heat. Her legs burned, rebellious guts pierced her belly from the inside, neck muscles tensed stiff. A familiar horror: her symbiont put her metabolism into overdrive—to take control.

Not now! Linuka tried to inhale sharply, but produced only a clumsy gasp.

“Are you feeling alright, Lady Omga?” asked the woman, laying her hand on Linuka’s back.

Linuka had only a light snack since their arrival on the moon, but she felt it clawing its way up her esophagus.

She grabbed the woman’s arm. “Get me out of here.”

***

A secluded balcony just under the roof level of the building. The former initiator had chosen a private spot for Linuka to wrestle with her Uurmi.

The woman had noticed streaks of blood in the puddle Linuka wretched into a corner. “We should get you medical attention, Lady Omga.”

“I’m fine.” Linuka sounded hoarse, but felt better indeed.

“Sometimes new immortals lose their last meal, but not family members. I assume you’re very close.”

Linuka nodded, but she knew it hadn’t been concern for Vriishany. It had been a different emotion, unfitting, surprising, inappropriate. Disgust. Baseless, unfiltered disgust for the spectacle. Why? Linuka was proud of how Vriishany handled herself, excited to meet a woman who initiated her father.

Her Uurmi. Why would it be repulsed by the immortality rite?

“The mask,” said Linuka, “the gas mixture contains the modified symbiont cells, doesn’t it?”

The woman’s body stiffened. “I would now know such things. My role had been preparing the future immortals, not the Oosech Wesech apparatus.”

The inhalation of the Uurmi cells. The only required step in the entire performance. Breathe in a few times, have them settle in your intestines, sleep, wake up an immortal.

“Did the mask not seal?” asked Linuka.

“I don’t understand your questions. Are you sure you’re feeling better?”

Even if the mask leaked cells, none of the other immortals in the room had a strong—or any—reaction. But the other immortals shared the modified cells. Genetically restricted. Domesticated. Her Uurmi was not a gut bacterium; it was as sentient as its species was ancient. It must have sensed the glimmer of consciousness when the domesticated cells attempted to form a network, only to be denied sentience by their design. Her Uurmi witnessed the birth of a lesser of its kind—a slave to the humans.

Her father had always said the ritual was a show. Pomp and performance. Humans could be made immortal here at any time with a few deep breaths, changed by an unconscious symbiont.

Linuka’s Uurmi reacted like any sentient life form should react to abuse, to slavery.

“Yes, I feel better,” said Linuka, and took the hand offered by the woman. She stood herself up, noticing her robe did not come away untarnished.

“I suppose Assembly Member Khuksos did not bring any extra robes from the archives?” asked Linuka.

The woman’s brow furrowed. “You mean the central archives?”

“Yes,” said Linuka, “where the equipment for the rite is stored.”

“Everything needed for the Oosech Wesech is stored here in this building and has been for at least 250 orbits. As far as I know, the archives never held our equipment.”

“Oh, said Linuka, “I must still be dizzier than I thought. My mistake.”

Why did Rige Khuksos make a detour to the archives then? When Linuka pushed the timeline to see if the wily Assemblywoman was bluffing, Rige had insisted on going there as a critical step.

“Maybe you confused Assembly Member Khuksos with Assembly Member Rrupteemaa.”

“What?” asked Linuka.

“He was called on urgent business to the archives tonight. This is why he couldn’t attend the rite.”

Rige’s detour was strange, but Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa?

Linuka inhaled. The realities phased out of alignment, but didn’t split. At all. Linuka had reached the tip of the cone of her existence. All the options, the variations, the countless legacies, were behind her. Before her was just the there and then. This is what reality must feel for single-awareness people. The clarity was almost absurd. One path forward. No surprise the ignorant were so certain. If one didn’t know about options, whatever course of action ahead seemed ideal, the only one.

Her father. The woman. The archives. Dots on a world line.

Whatever the Assembly tried to keep Linuka away from was at the line’s end. She knew—she had seen herself going there. Figuring it out. Its greatest secret, worth agreeing to all her demands, treating their mortal enemy like an honored state guest. Nothing was too valuable to put it into her path.

The archives. The most obvious place for the Assembly to seek information. Hiding its secrets in plain sight, not in a tucked away bunker, but in the most public hoard of knowledge in human-settled space.

“I’d like to see Assembly Member Rrupteemaa. Is there a transport loop nearby?”

Goddess of the Galacticide continues on this website with new episodes each Tuesday.

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