I was working on some paperwork for my grandmother's estate, and this
put itself together in my mind.
--------------------
Project A-Ko: Homecoming
By Jack Staik
--------------------
Jiru the Historian watched the strange blue world grew in the
viewscreen.
The planet was obscure; little more than a catalog number. Scans
indicated that there was no sign of civilization, not even the mildly
organized heat traces from nomadic stone-age hunter-gatherers. No ruins,
no artificial elements, nothing.
Yet this is where the Elder wanted to go.
Jiru had spent her life, as had her ancestors for twenty-two
generations, cataloging the Elder's memoirs. She had lived since before
even the Time of Legends, had seen civilizations rise and fall, had even
founded a few.
"We've entered orbit, Elder," the Ship-Master said, shaking the
Historian out of her reverie.
The Elder stirred in her flight-chair, awakening from a nap. "Thank
you," she responded.
The red-haired female stretched in a luxuriant, feline fashion before
standing up. It amazed the Ship-Master that this gorgeous female was the
Elder, the Ancient of Days, told about in the apocalyptic writings of
ancient civilizations.
She walked to an airlick, Jiru following in her wake. "Elder, if I may
be so bold, why have we come here?"
The Elder said nothing as she stepped into the airlock, where Jiru
couldn't follow. So she watched helplessly as the mechanism cycled,
opening into space. The Elder stepped out into the void and allowed
herself to fall towards the blue-green, nameless world.
By the time Jiru got to the shuttle bay, the crew had tracked the
Elder's descent, to her landing on a volcanic island near the main
continent. The Historian declind assistance, piloting the shuttle
herself.
* * * * * * * * * *
It didn't take long to locate the Elder; she sat by the shore in lotus
position, staring out to sea. Knowing that the Elder disliked being
interrupted during her meditations, Jiru sat down besides her and
remained silent.
Afeter a time, the Elder turned to her chronicler. "You don't know where
we are," the Elder commented.
The Historian nodded.
"Long ago, this place was called Graviton City. I grew up here. In fact,
my parent's house was on this very spot."
The Historian looked around at the virgin woods behind her, the gentle
slope to the sea before her. "Wasn't your old home in an impact crater?"
"Time and tide, Jiru-chan. The sea erased the crater long ago." The
Elder smiled sadly. "In my youth, environmentalists used to complain
that the hydrocarbon plastics we used, being non-biodegradable, would
choke the planet. Now the environmentalists are dead, the plastics have
biodegraded, even the Pyramids of Egypt are eroded to dust."
Jiru could only sit and listen; when the Elder was in her depressions,
all one could do was wait for it to pass.
"I went to school on top of that rise. I always overslept, and my friend
C-Ko would have to wake me you, and we'd have to race to get there on
time. We seldom made it."
She chuckled and sobbed. "C-Ko Kotobuki. Fifth Princess of the Fourth
Queen of the Lepton Kingdom. Later, she became the Sixth Queen. She was
so happy and exhuberant, so full of life. Her cooking could kill a
starswimmer, but she was sweet. I miss her."
Jiru filed this away in her mind. The earliest reference to a specific
individual in recorded history was an account of the
Two-Hundred-Twenty-Sixth Queen of the Lepton Kingdom; estimates of the
Elder's age had just been pushed back another thousand years.
"I hadn't thought about C-Ko in ... gods, I don't know how long."
"What made you think of her, Elder?" Jiru asked.
"Please, can't you call me A-Ko?"
"I've tried, but ..."
"I know - you're intimidated by me." A-Ko smiled briefly. "Do you know
why I allow your family to record my ramblings, Jiru-chan?"
"I've never been sure, Elder."
"Your ancestor, Kiran, asked me to let him record my biography. I told
him 'no'. He asked me every day for three years, and each time I said
'no'. Then, one day, he got sick of it, called me a selfish bitch, and
broke a chair over my head."
Jiru looked horrified as A-Ko laughed.
"That's the look he had when he realized what he did. But he didn't
apologize, and he didn't retract his words. He knew I could smear him
across the landscape without effort, but he didn't back down; I
respected that."
An uncomfortable silence followed.
"Do you know why I came here, Jiru-chan?"
"No, Elder."
"It's been said that children live in the present, and adults live in
the future. For centuries, I've lived in the past. I'm old, Jiru-chan."
"Nonsense!" Jiru protested. "Your body is in the prime of life! You
don't grow old!"
"My soul is old. I'm tired."
"Nonsense! You just need to rest."
"'Yes, rest, and forever sleep. That is the way of things'," A-Ko
quoted. Of all the trillions of beings in the Galaxy, only she could put
quotation marks around that and know why.
"Elder, you're being silly," Jiru protested.
But A-Ko couldn't hear her; she was listening to another voice ...
"A-KO!! HURRY UP, SLOWPOKE!! WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!!"
"Coming, C-Ko ... "
"Elder? Elder?? A-KO!!"
* * * * * * * * * *
A-Ko Magami was buried on her now-nameless homeworld. Jiru the Historian
reported her death, but did not reveal the location of the world that
was once Earth, lest the curious and morbid turn it into a tourist
attraction.
"Let her rest - she's earned it."
-FIN-