The Sigian Bracelet Read online

  Baila’s spikes shriveled at the sight, and Gill shared his stupefaction. Of course, everyone was amazed by what was happening, but Gill and Baila’s surprise had a different cause because only they—in the whole world—knew what the gray ships of the gods looked like. And the ones in front of Baila had nothing to do with them or the Sigians. They were a different design, the messengers of a world that had to be stranger than any imagination could have conceived.

  The vertical vessel landed in the square in deep silence. Everyone on the fields except Baila lay prostrate, waiting for the gods to appear. Also prostrate were the billions of Antyrans watching the events on the huge holotheaters installed near the pyramids, along with the ones still at home.

  A decompression noise prompted a few tarjis to raise their heads, but they quickly bowed them again, ashamed for the haughty curiosity that could have tempted them to see the gods before being addressed.

  A shiny crack appeared between two eggs, and a narrow ramp slid slowly to the ground, with all the grace expected from a godly device. After a brief moment, a floating, bone-white sphere, pulsing in reddish hues, hovered out of the door. Almost immediately, another two spheres jumped in a hurry to reach the sides of the first one.

  To be fair, they didn’t quite look like the image the Antyrans had of Zhan’s children, but let’s not forget that the gods could take any form they wished. And indeed, what appearance could be more frightening than a white ball, an unforgiving eye sent to judge their sins?

  However, before the crowd had a chance to glimpse them, a short silhouette appeared on the ramp, bearing some pretty obvious features of a biological creature. Then another one came, much larger this time. Father and son? Or rather, a wild dimorphism? thought Gill, intrigued by the difference. The third creature, larger than the second and double the first one, followed them closely. Their size had no logic.

  The “aliens” looked eerily similar—except their size, of course—and no age could be read on their faces. Well, maybe it was a bit of an overstretch to call the bony structure covered in green skin-looking scales that Mother Mature had endowed them with a “face.” Their protruding brows outlined two yellow eyes placed at the sides of the head; from time to time, the semitransparent eyelids moistened them. Their mouths resembled a calcified opening with rows of blades instead of teeth—as sharp as a sarpan, no doubt.

  They each had a large, stumpy trunk framed by two short, slender arms, and they were carried around in metallic vats with golden handlers that floated lazily about a foot above the ground. The strange transportation devices hid their feet—or any other lower extremities they possessed for locomotion.

  A pair of curved horns grew from their massive shoulders—the ones of the tallest creature were the longest and thickest. The alien also had a keratin collar on the back of his neck, which the others didn’t have.

  The gods didn’t seem to wear any clothes, unless the sticky goo shining on their skin was a sort of advanced protection and not a simple secretion of their godly glands meant to keep them moist.

  Their only piece of equipment was a transparent helmet, which started from the oversized goiter and ended on their backs along the massive spine crest but, strangely, left the eyes outside it.

  The floating vats moved silently in front of Baila’s platform, preceded by the three pulsating spheres. Once there, the three stopped and raised their eyes upward by tilting their backs to facilitate the motion, which was apparently complicated for their anatomy. The smallest god floated in front of his companions and broke the silence in an intelligible Antyran language, seemingly coming from the floating sphere in front of him. Whenever he spoke, the movement of his mandibles followed the sounds of another language, but the bony ball reddened in resonance with the Antyran intonation.

  “We are the Rigulian envoys. We salute you in peace.”

  The Antyrans from all the worlds raised their eyes at once, taking the god’s words as an invitation to look at him, and immediately had to restrain a scream of horror, seeing how hideous his shape was. The god resembled a grotesque mix-up between a giant warhok and a reptilian magoc. It was simply impossible for a god to look like this! Maybe they want to test our faith, many thought. The gods can take any shape they desire.

  No one dared to answer their greeting, and for a good reason: the only one pure enough to let his voice be heard by the godly ears was obviously the prophet. But His Greatness couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate moment to remain silent.

  “The Corbelian sphere learned your language from the holofluxes,” the creature said, pointing at the bony ball in front of him. “We want to know who you are, and why did you hide from us?”

  Again, deafening silence. The gods rotated their vats to look inquisitively at the tarjis bowed in the dirt, waiting for a response.

  No one rushed to return anything more than perplexed looks. Had the gods lost their memories, asking them, “why did you hide”? What about the ordeal of Zhan’s son, Beramis?

  “The Federation had left some probes in this sector one thousand two hundred and fifty of your years ago. Two of them relayed your apparition from a… one-dimensional space distortion, ten days ago. How long have you been hidden?” the god asked, trying in vain to start a dialogue.

  The situation had become weird, and the gods made no effort to hide their surprise. The tarjis began to whisper, their murmurs growing like the waves of a gray ocean before a frightful storm.

  “Who’s your leader?” the smaller god finally asked.

  The holotransmission focused on the prophet’s platform, and the reason why they got no answer became immediately apparent. The platform was empty!

  In the next instant, something unimaginable happened: all the holofluxes on the three worlds became silent. The only hologram streamed was a plasma game, which the Antyrans used, in better times, for relaxation.

  “The Rigulians are here!” exclaimed Gill, bursting into laughter, feeling that a huge rock was lifted from his chest. His death penalty had just been canceled! And if the idea of doing something to revive the Sigian world looked like a childish utopian dream a few hours ago, things had radically changed. Neither the wall of fire nor the sheer immensity of space separated him from the nearest Federal world. They came to his planet, not far from his hiding place, and he only needed to contact them to finish Deko’s mission!

  From what the Rigulian said, Gill understood the circumstances that made them return to Antyra 1,250 years after the meeting date with the Sigians. The Six Stars must have arrived at the meeting place, but the Sigians didn’t appear at the promised date. Kirk’an and his crew were probably trapped by their enemies inside the firewall, along with the whole Antyran world—or maybe they were already dead and buried in the sandy bank that, over centuries, became the city of Sigarion. The Federals had arrived at the coordinates and found nobody, not even the Antyran stellar system. But before going home, they took the elementary precaution of seeding the sector with spies, hoping that one day, the Sigians would come. Amazingly, their marvelous devices worked to this day and called them50 when Antyra was released from its fire prison!

  Gill would have loved to see Baila’s mug when the Rigulian ships appeared from the clouds—his moment of glory had turned into a nightmare! His Greatness was now in the unenviable position of handling the contact with another civilization that had nothing to do with Antyra’s gods. And to stick the tail in his eye even further, he began the mission admirably by running away from the meeting! The whole of Antyra saw the landing and could figure out that the aliens weren’t the gods prophesized by the temples!

  But most Antyrans were probably unable to understand what they saw. Their conditioning wouldn’t allow them to accept a reality other than the official one. It would deny them the conclusion that the stars in the sky hosted other worlds similar to Antyra and that the universe was much bigger than the fire sphere in which they had been locked for the last 1,250 years. With the Shindam thoroughly destroyed, no one co
uld take advantage of the temples’ confusion and change history.

  The joy of seeing the Rigulians didn’t last long, though. Gill felt anger growing inside his kyi with each unrealistic plan he had to abandon, realizing all too well it would be suicide to stumble into the middle of the tarjis on the western field. He didn’t even have a clue how to get his tail on some darned tarji robes to mingle among the pilgrims. The clothes were made only in corias and were regarded as more important than the tarjis’ own lives.

  Gill had just returned from the food store, having drank two juicy fruits of razog he had pierced with his fangs, when he saw a new hologram. Well, it was about time—but to his surprise, an intriguingly familiar face was frowning at him from the holotheater’s shell.

  Here we go again! he thought, startled by the apparition. Although at first Gill refused to accept the resemblance, he had no choice but to conclude that what he was seeing in the holotheater was indeed his sorry mug, grinning foolishly while his hands rubbed his tail with obscene gestures in Alala’s relaxation dome!

  “Gillabrian, the gods want to see you,” a voice could be heard in the background. “Surrender at the nearest temple, and we won’t hurt you!”

  Now it was his turn to try the bitter taste of despair, the feeling of helplessness against a much stronger and more creative enemy than he could have imagined. The space-time fabric was crumbling around him like a putrid shroud fastened with shoddy buttons over a dolmec-infested belly. Baila had abandoned all subtleties, knowing all too well that if Gill managed to reach the visitors, everything ended. How important the Sigian cargo had to be if the prophet was willing to abandon the meeting with another civilization just to “direct” his humiliating display on holofluxes and block his chances of contacting the visitors!

  “Antyrans! This is the enemy; watch him closely! He took part in the conspiracy to bring Arghail to Alixxor, and he has the seed of evil,” continued the voice. “The great prophet orders you: Get out of your domes! Leave everything you’re doing! Everyone—I repeat, everyone—has to hunt him. Sniff the mountains, drink the rivers, and crush the stones; don’t leave the smallest speck of dust unchecked! Tell the temples when you find his trail, and don’t kill him under any circumstances—otherwise, our fight is doomed. You’ll get your reward from Zhan’s hand, forever glory to His Sacred Scent. Good smell in your searches!”

  Great, Gill thought. Baila had thrown into battle everything he had—namely, several billion Antyrans, who now had no greater purpose in life than smelling his tail! Repulsive. He joined the ranks of the repulsives, right in the top position.

  After the Kids’ War, the temples had abandoned the practice of repulsiveness, even avoiding the word. But before that, and especially right after Raman’s fall, the Antyrans discovered worshipping the ice gods of Zagrada’s shrines were branded with the Seal of Arghail on their left cheeks. The only way out of the shame was suicide, which most of them chose after the first days. The impurity brought by the seal caused the Antyrans to become hysterical at the sight of the repulsives and chase them away with stones because any object touched by them became tainted. Moreover, they breathed the same air, and that was not good; everyone feared they would become repulsive if they didn’t drive them away or stop them from breathing altogether.

  In the last centuries, the impurity madness took subtler forms; under the expert guidance of the initiates, the tarjis began to practice a maze of rituals and complicated methods to preserve purity when preparing seeds, dressing, drinking, eating, or even having sex. They couldn’t use, for example, the same bowls for cooking siclides and razog flour, no matter how well they were heated.

  The purity rituals always amused Gill, but this time, he had to skip the fun part. Even though the repulsivity seals were no longer made with a hot serbak, he had just been branded over the holofluxes, and all the Antyrans had the dubious pleasure of watching him scratch his tail. It was far worse than a dark seal burned on his cheek.

  Terrified by the prospect of an angry crowd crashing into his guest dome at any moment, he rushed to take the bracelet and activate it. Slowly, he opened the door and stepped out on the magneto-boulevard.

  The street was empty. The sight somewhat calmed him; it would take some time before the tarjis could start a thorough search, and in the meantime, he had to find a way to reach the aliens. Gill knew he had to move fast, convinced that the temples would set aside their principles and activate the spy eyes at the main crossroads. Most likely, they’d use the orbital platforms, too, if they hadn’t done so already. Yes, they loathed the Shindam’s technology, but without it, they would have a hard time finding him.

  Do the Shindam’s soldiers work for the temples now? The unsettling thought pinched him by the tail. Maybe even the artificial intelligences? No, the AIs would be too much. Surely the initiates had erased all they could stick their tails on—that is, if the Shindam’s soldiers didn’t do it first, to hide any proof of corruption that could have sentenced them to death. It wasn’t a good time to panic. Without AIs, the eyes wouldn’t recognize him if they saw his face, so in principle, he had a slight chance of sneaking by, unnoticed, on the streets.

  Gill returned to his dome to browse the holofluxes, hoping to learn more about the Federals, but all of them were broadcasting desperate calls for his capture. He slumped in the fluffy nest, too shocked by what he was seeing to be able to think of anything useful for reaching the aliens.

  One by one, as the fluxes reached the abodes of the three inhabited worlds, the Antyrans became aware of the new public enemy. Some looked at him with pity, others with repulsion, but many followed the prophet’s orders and ran out in the streets to hunt him.

  Even in Ropolis, the underground city hidden in the Blue Crevice, the entranced bixanids watched the bizarre call, amazed. They didn’t try to hunt him because they had already joined the ranks of the repulsives—first as addicts, then as loyal subjects of the architects. Hovewer, that didn’t deter them from being curious about the ruckus. They knew they were next on Baila’s list and that Gill’s fate would be shared by them, too. But unlike the archivist with an itchy tail, they had nowhere to run…

  Lying under a licant-eating tree—one of her father’s many inventions—a young bixanid female gazed at the impressive stack of displays floating in front of her. An avid historian might have recognized the tattoo on her left shoulder as belonging to a grah—another kind of repulsive, by birth, although her charm could have convinced plenty of males to ignore this little flaw.

  All kinds of frantic skirmishes, heroic wars, and crazy races were running on the floating displays, all taking place in hallucinatory backgrounds forged by the wild imagination of the architects. From time to time, an image froze by itself, and the female inspected it closely. If she didn’t like something, if she had the feeling that a bixanid cheated the rules of the game, she touched the picture and saved the details.

  “Sandara, have you seen the holofluxes?” a female shouted from the forest trail, startling her.

  “Leave me alone; the malasses championship has begun!”

  “You should watch them—it’s quite interesting. Just leave the work for a moment. Who cares if you miss a few cheaters?”

  “Tut-tut, no one escapes my smell. The male to pull my tail wasn’t born yet!”

  “That’s not what you told me about Nundo just a few days ago,” the other female said with a chuckle, teasing her.

  “Come on, Walika, can’t you see I’m busy?” Sandara pretended to be angry, hoping to end the subject, which threatened to roll down a slippery slope.

  “All right, I can see for myself when my presence is not welcome,” Walika exclaimed, throwing an affected mug before turning back to the forest path.

  “Walika, don’t pull that face on me,” exclaimed Sandara. “Please, let me see it, if it’s so important.”

  “You sure want to see it?” she asked flatly, pretending to be hurt by the previous refusal.

  “Oh, come on a
lready!”

  With an elegant movement of her right hand, Walika materialized a holotheater in the meadow—a small demonstration of her talent and training as a budding architect, which always managed to impress Sandara, even though she was the daughter of one of the greatest architects of the city.

  “I wish I could do that,” whispered Sandara.

  “I can teach you! If you just tell me what happened with Nundo…” Walika went back to her favorite subject, laughing.

  She dodged the piece of wood Sandara threw in her direction and turned on the holoflux. Immediately, the prophet’s ubiquitous call for Gillabrian’s capture appeared in the holotheater, along with Gill’s hologram, shamelessly wobbling his tail.

  “Well, what do you say?” asked Walika when the holoflux ended.

  “Handsome Antyran,” Sandara said, laughing at his clumsy gestures. “He has such a long tail!”

  “Disgusting!” exclaimed Walika, pretending to be horrified. “Did you see how he moved his protuberance?”

  “I feel sorry for him,” she said, suddenly serious. “Do you understand what this means?”

  “He’s as good as dead,” concluded Walika. “They’re going to torture him for a while… and we’re next,” she whispered.

  “Maybe he’s from Ropolis?”

  “Ha-ha, our little Sandara is anxious to capture the prophet’s enemy. Do you want to befriend Baila to save your spikes when they land in the city?”

  “Don’t say stupid things,” Sandara admonished her.

  “Or maybe you lust for a little tumbling in the grass with the ‘handsome’ Antyran?” she said, teasing her again with the shamelessness that only a close friend could dare to show—all while curling her supple body in a suggestive manner.

  “I’m not talking to you again!” Sandara said. “Now I really have to work!”