Unholy Star, Beyond Faith

Megalithic

Sen and Bast stood nervously outside of the door behind the stage of twelve life-like holograms. The Mawlas, Xe'ed and Sedek stood behind with a hand on the shoulder of each of their charges. The door was out of sight from guests to the audience chamber and was small and simple in contrast to its grand surroundings; an old fashioned brass knob stuck out of its left side.

Xe'ed reached down for Sen's hand and gave it a squeeze; she warned both children, "The next room will be full of excited people, and it might seem a little overwhelming, but just stick with us, and everything will be okay."

Sedek reached out and turned the door handle pushing it forward. They heard a shout from a child the other side, "He's here!" Followed by a rush of footsteps.

As the newcomers stepped into the large open room, they were crowded by a group of children. Sen didn't know how to react so she clung tightly to Xe'ed's artificial arm and took a step back to hide behind her body as best she could.

Sen watched with relief as the children seemed exclusively interested in Bast. They gathered around the young auger who had boldly stepped forward and was fielding questions with boyhood pride.

Once the initial surprise had passed Sen started to wonder why none had even so much as glanced in her direction. Sen looked up to Xe'ed, who also picked up on the reaction of the Ethnaa Aashar to Bast, and said reassuringly, "Don't worry, they're excited because he is the first child auger and the first auger to become part of the Ethnaa Aashar."

Looking beyond the children, Sen was surprised to see an ordinary looking room scattered with seemingly ordinary furniture that she would expect to see in any common room of any platform that she had seen. Besides the group of children, the room contained another thirty or so strangers. For the most part, the people looked ordinary too except for the fact that she had never seen so many of the aged in one place before. A few of them, she noted, were really, really old and reminded her of her grandfather, Tiger who had refused to go to the aged colony until he was unbearably ancient. The older crowd seemed to have gathered in a group of chairs in the far left corner of the room beside a large window from where the white light from Quara Amara's rogue star filtered through. Oddly enough, the old people seemed to be talking amongst themselves and occasionally glancing directly at her.

A few in the room didn't seem interested in either of the new arrivals and were seated on a bench in the opposite far corner to the elders. A round man of middle-aged appearance with balding hair like an Anglish clown sat, moving his head as if following invisible moths that were flying around him. He sat apart from a young woman with a white ink tattooed on the smooth brown skin of her left cheek; her ears were pierced with large silver rings chained to a bar that ran through both of the nostrils of her nose. To Sen, she seemed downright pissed off at being there and wasn't hiding the fact, sitting slumped against the wall, sulking with frown and pout. Sen thought she was pretty, and out of all of the people in the room, this was the one that Sen would like to know. Xe'ed saw Sen's interest.

"That's Hetasha. She's one of the Learned and, well let's just say, one of a kind -- just like you."

Sen smiled up in return.

"See that one?", pointed out Xe'ed to another of the not-old people in the room, he was dressed in the latest fashion, of a sort Sen had seen in some of the pax that her big sister, Wattle collected. "His name is Shou-wey-wing, we call him Shoo-ee for short, he's a remarkable young man; I was his Mawla only nine years ago. I bet that soon we'll all get a group stream request from him. It's a kind of recent tradition for these type of gatherings; I suggest you accept." Shoo-ee looked over to Xe'ed and then gave Sen a wink.

Sure to Xe'ed's hunch, Sen received an open stream request via her comtex. She could see by the pool of invitees that it must have been sent to everyone in the room, she watched the display as the others joined and waited for Bast to join before she did too, throwing the ACCESS_GRANTED opcode, giving the stranger immutable permissions to interface with her autex and veetex implants.

An overlay appeared in Sen's field of vision. It was an official message from the Amaran processor:

Stand by. Performance of an original number titled Megalithic by Shoo-wey-wing to commence in ten, nine, eight ...

Sen watched the countdown clenching all of her face muscles in anticipation of the unknown

... three, two, one, ZERO!!

Suddenly, Sen's world transformed. Her feet seemed to fall away from of the ground as a strange energetic music; the smell of earth and rain; and muted shades of greeny-grey filled her senses. She could see the people around her, but other things too had materialised, strange monochromatic, alien-looking creatures, some with barely-human features and big round eyes. The creatures started dancing. The people in the stream, children and adults alike started dancing too, moving their arms and bodies about enthusiastically in time with the heavy beat of the music that, without warning, increased in tempo just as Shoo-ee began to chant. His words seemed angry but also like the poetry that her mother read to her when she was younger, it had a rhythm that was perfect for the music's beat and the waves of colour moving all around her like a swirling, fantasy cosmos. Sen didn't understand the meaning of his words, but they were amazing and made her tingle; she could feel the hair on her arms stand on end. She let go of Xe'ed's arm. Xe'ed was dancing on the spot with Sedek and some other person, a lady. Amidst the energy of Shoo-ee's magic, an old woman had gotten out of her chair in the corner and was moving in a strange way that Sen was sure was only for grown ups and she found it very funny. The sad woman, Hetasha wasn't dancing, but she did have her eyes closed and was swaying as if transfixed by the music; Sen did the same.

As suddenly and as unexpectedly as the as the performance had come, it went. The weird creatures floated down into the vanishing point of a spiral that faded with the music like a lingering echo.

After a moment, Sen blinked, dazed from the show. She couldn't help but whisper "Wow."

"Wonderful wasn't it?" agreed Xe'ed. That's what happens when the most talented accountant in the Galaxy gets hold of a surround system and an Apollo processor. It's a treat he reserves for special occasions, like this.

Shoo-ee swaggered over to Sen; he walked as if he was floating and she noticed, as he moved closer, that he was incredibly handsome. He gave her a wink as he held out his hand in invitation for Sen to shake it. I'm Shoo-ee he said, and you must be Sen. Xe'ed has told me a lot about you and your friend over there." He pointed to Bast with his thumb.

Sen said shyly, "Thank you for the show, it was incredible."

"My pleasure", he said with a bow before stepping back leaving Sen in awe.

"He truly is a treasure." affirmed Xe'ed, all of these people are have brilliant intellects, he, on the other hand, is just brilliant!

The party continued and Sen met many new people. The grown-ups she decided were, for the most part, seemed nice but by the end of the night she had only met a few of the other twelve who where to be her brothers and sisters for the next twelve years of her life. And there was no sign of the elder who they called Zoro, Sen was looking forward to meeting him as he was a friend of her grandfather who would tell her stories of Pachy as he used to call the Learned. In a way Zoro was her only tie to the life she had left behind.