FALAHA'S JOURNEY: A Spacegirl's Account in Three Movements

Episode #77

This time the interiors of the Enclave looked completely different to my eyes. Instead of the gloomy blackness, the walls, floors, and ceilings of the living quarters turned out to be heavily decorated. I calibrated Bradoh's filters to show the actual sight to others.

I hadn't been able to see things like this before the tabiru, yet this ability was my own—my other form had slowly begun to unfold long before I even knew I had one.

Father's bloodlight shone in a regal, blood-red color, functioning similarly to the camouflage Eyuran and Orewen had—except that it worked for both us and the Baali. I could finally see it in full once he unfolded his true form. That's how he'd been able to hide people in Klia and had not needed the Eaters' protection. The prototype to Bradoh's technology, he carried one within him as well, and that was definitely Mom's early, completely secret work. He was also hiding me from the enemy until I ran into an Observer. He couldn't bring himself to say that my existence was the reason they located us on Dannan. And until the unfolding of my Baali form, nearing its peak at a rapid pace, I was safe with the Eaters.

The one who sped up this process was my father. The nosebleed during our escape from Tagai's prison cell marked that new beginning; it was the first sign of the approaching Great Moment that every Baali child had to experience.

Yet Father and I, we were not like anyone else in this Universe.

Were we fitting in, or would we have to rebuild the world to fit us in?

There was a similar issue with the Hunters.

People with soma could not be replicated by any means except natural reproduction—even growing a person artificially required a mother and a father, and it was a lengthy process. Cloning was out of the question. But we, the Commonwealth, didn't have that many people to provide for creation of all of the Hunters: some portion was bred artificially from forced donor cells. What were we going to do with all these children? What were they?

Like the Baali and the Maok females, Danna women ovulated only when we decided to do so. Shaamta, as a Sangu, had access to these functions, so he could use every mature soma-bearing female, except for a female Sangu, as an egg cell donor. The way he had been collecting these egg cells—I did not want to think about it. Some of our captured males probably hadn't had it better either. Though, strangely enough, he never made our women bear these children. Perhaps, it was not efficient enough for him—the plant was designed to take care of all these issues. And somaless ones, like Leru, and Tarrenat's spouse, Neve, were discarded. So were somaless males.

Since Aunt Rifa was to be turned into a Hunter, it appeared that his plant project was nearing its end, or maybe he already had enough Hunters.

The enemy was prepared to finish things and Mom served as a timer.

Father and me, Shaamta was waiting for one or both of us, and he seemed to have different plans from Dorgu. It was weird. Yet Wen wanted to kill him and not the Yajur of this Enclave, though the Baali said to beware Dorgu more than Shaamta. I was definitely still missing some vital pieces of information.

Maybe it was due to the fact that in my head a hole appeared some time ago. It didn't bother me much, I just had to move like it always been there. I looked at my hands, covered with black ornament—so was my whole body: this shanra pattern was really nice.

Oh well, this was going to be interesting.

Orewen, if still alive, would probably be there somewhere, though we had not been able to locate him so far. But we may have been looking for the wrong being, and Shaamta could have masked his bloodlight from us. Falaighnn dug out that strange thought of the Eater father and son fighting each other from my own mind somewhere—was it my own fear or was it precognition in the works? Regardless, I had to prepare for this too. So with everyone's support a complex update was assembled for Eyuran.