One Small Answer

Quietly, Moses wakes up Zipporah early. She pops awake immediately with a little gasp and her hand goes out to him. He places it in his.

"Morning."

She blinks the last wisp of bleariness out of her eyes. "You've got that look."

He nods. "Yeah, I've got that look."

She sits ups. Now that she's awake, she's sort of got that look too.

Its so strange to be whole. To be made whole. Again. Broken and put back together by Una's tears. Which...always, she's got more of them. Healing tears. There's something there. But, as she said, he has that look.

"I told you about the Fire. As much as I understood, at least. And now we're here. We came here...I thought we were all dead. But then we're floating in the Bay, with Geneva Minor on the horizon...it has to be. I have to be here because of what the Fire told me. What the...what the Name told me." She nods. "And that means I have to go back to the city. I have to go back...where so many people died, and where everyone is going to want to kill me. I...I abandoned them, and things...got worse for them. I know it. I can try to tell them that it had to happen, that...that so much has happened since, that if I hadn't left, I wouldn't be here now, with the tiniest bit of hope that I can free them...that they'd catch me eventually, that...that I wouldn't have met you." He looks at her, then looks down, trying not to get derailed.

"I can tell them that, but I'll understand if they don't listen. And I have to...somehow...convince them to go...where the stars will fall. I don't even know where that is! I'm just hoping that...that I'll know, somehow, that it'll hit me, or else, we'll just be wandering around. That is, if anyone comes with me. That is, if...if I survive...meeting Katashi Blade.

He pauses. "I've been thinking a lot about him. I don't know hardly anything about him, but he's the head of Goshi. So I think about the Hei Shi, and how they can teleport now, and how - how they've conquered everything, it seems like. How there were Hei Shi on the Wandering Star, so he knows it's there, probably knows more than we do about the whole thing.

"I think about...someone who would be able to do all of that. Someone with that kind of...will. Someone who isn't happy until he has everything. Behind all of the evil that Goshi has done. And now I have to walk into his tower, and tell him, let the Mechified go. Let my people go. He's going to -"

She places a single finger over his lips, and waits until he looks up at her.

"Moses, I've been listening this whole time. I've heard all that you've heard for months now. I've spoken to the Dusk Sages, watched them die, watched you bind them. I've been to the darkness outside Karia, I've seen...horrible things, and wonderful things - the Emerald Isle, the bottom of the ocean!

"Nothing - nothing! - in what I've heard has made me think that this Blade can stop you. Do you know why?" Moses shakes his head. Now she gets to talk about why she's got that look. "Because of the Question. I already know the answer. Don't you? The question is life, and the answer is yes. The answer is yes. It has to be yes. First, because -" she looks away "because if its no, then all we do is for nothing, and everything will come to nothing, and there will be no one to remember it, to even cry over it. No one even to mourn. If the answer is no, then we're free, because the end will come, and then nothing after. And..."

"The...the other reason?"

She looks back to him, is blushing furiously. "Well, um. I." She bites her lip and takes his hand from around hers and places it low on her belly. Then gives him that look.

She counts to three while Moses looks at her, at his hand, then his eyes go wide.

She nods a small nod. "Yes."

4 comments:

Paul Wise said...

If Rei were present, she would make a puzzled comment about the totaly impossibility of cross-species reproduction.

In lieu of that, I'll only fling up my arms like a referee and cry, "Goooooooaaaalll!!!"

Douglas Underhill said...

Well, I wouldn't trust a Biomade on that note, since they don't reproduce naturally at all :)

In fact, I'm not sure Rei has much expertise in reproduction, broadly speaking...

Paul Wise said...

I didn't say she would know what she was walking about, I just said she would make the comment.

Rei's "expertise" on the matter of reproduction is as follows:

Step 1: Select genetic template for blank cells A and B

Step 2: Take cell A, introduce onto petri dish containing cell B. Initiate chemical reaction to commence fusion such that they become cell C.

Step 3: Commence gene therapy of cell C. Salt to taste.

Step 4: Transfer cell C to appropriate growth-tank in the Human Resources processing facility. Bake for specified number of months.

Step 5: ???

Step 6: Profit!

Douglas Underhill said...

...nice.


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