“Men really think it’s okay to live like this.”

  Those words of ridicule cut deep. Presently they echoed in Sohrab’s brain, forcing him to relive his recent rejection over and over again.

  “You hate how little it takes to make us happy!” He shouted after her. By that point she was halfway down the hall, still cackling to herself over the lack of furniture in the ‘expensive apartment’ with the ‘best views’ to which the strange looking man from the night club had taken her. He was interesting enough and said all the right things, but under the veneer of hair and the exotic appearance he was still just a man. And men really thought it was okay to live like that. What good were those views if there was nowhere to sit comfortably and enjoy them?

  His last few weeks in Laronting had been profitable, more so than he could imagine. And though the returns had secured him elegant accommodations in the heart of Cinnfoara, he still had a ways to go before he was a fully formed member of any polite society. The woman’s dismissal had stung that much more for it. Her evaluation was a sort of litmus test, proving him yet unworthy of this world and reminding him that at his core he was still a part of the primitive one, the one too distant to bother with. He might as well be back in the pile of cousins, tripping over each other in those old ruins where the sun never set or rose.

  Anywhere was better than there, furniture notwithstanding. Sohrab pulled himself up from where he sat on the floor and stepped out onto the terrace. It was the first night of true darkness as Celhesru began its transit around Geponnta. No moon shone upon the planet, but the twinkling city lights served as vista enough for the lonesome soul. As he leaned on the railing he grimaced in pain, acutely aware of the new injuries sustained since his first encounter with Max. It was a violent line of work with some hot-headed individuals, but it was all worth it to not have to worry about a real job. In fact, not much worried him presently, angered to be sure, but little else weighed on his mind save for the dwindling bottle of vodka dangling in his right hand.

  “We could have shared this, but no…” he groaned. “You just had to be so selfish.” He took a long pull from the bottle and shuddered. It burned going down and he knew he would regret it when he woke up, but it was better to be drunk now than not. “Drunk cigs don’t count; I can quit tomorrow.” The thought bounced around in his brain as he lit his sixth cigarette of the evening. Down in the street there were people. Sohrab tried to read their minds from his balcony, but he was on the twenty-first floor, which to his dismay, was too great a distance for effective telepathy. “I have to get better at this.”

  The next day’s commute back to Laronting loomed over him. True night was the best time for his new sort of activities. At the end of these nine days of darkness would be Nash’s party, held four hours before the reappearance of the sun. He looked forward to it. All of this scheming and dreaming for the boys up north was a means to an end. Once Sohrab reintroduced himself to his real friends, the fun could begin at last. He knew exactly what waited for them, and the role he intended to play in it. In spite of everything that had happened tonight, and in the face of everything he still had yet to accomplish, he felt as though he were the master of his own destiny.

  Little did he know the sum of the true forces acting on him. Far below the bonds of chemical coping mechanisms and selfish ambition laid chains so heavy and so old no one remembered who’d forged them. Staring into the dark too long while accessing the full scope of his mental ability left the door open for other voices, voices that might drown out his own if he let them. But tonight was too soon, he thought unconsciously, too soon to give up what little scrap of agency he’d earned for himself. Those jealous things which drove him twice from the distant plane of his home world would have to hold on a little longer.

  Satisfied with the level of intoxication he’d attained, he tossed the remainder of his cigarette over the railing and slunk back inside to the one piece of furniture he did own, still cursing the woman from before under his breath.

  #

  Elsewhere in the night, the intermediate architects of destiny laid bare the foundations of space itself. In the quiet conference room of a nondescript building tucked away in Cinnfoara’s technology district, a three-dimensional display of the entire galaxy floated above a circular table. The holographic clusters of stars served as the only light in the room save for the glow from the lamps in the garden outside the large windows. Only two figures occupied the space. Under its cavernous ceilings and shining nebulae, they were but shadows, whispering to one other and pointing here and there as different points in the spatial display illuminated.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  One was Rahenzo, a square-jawed Iolite man in his middle forties. His faded fuchsia hair must have been a vibrant magenta in his youth. The other was Perezele, a woman of similar age who possessed the same warm-toned skin, wavy black hair, and lightless eyes as her daughters. Besides them, she was the only Toravai woman on this planet, or anywhere else worth being. The circumstances of her meeting Nash’s uncle had been a whole ordeal, and so painfully long ago it did her little good to dust off the memory now. Some twenty approximate years had passed since that first encounter.

  “What if we just went ahead and did it instead of sitting here worrying about it?” Asked Perry, pointing at the magnified image of a star system, highlighted in a bold shade of red. It bore the name, ‘Target-12.’

  “It’s impulsive…” Enzo started, his gaze affixed to the same crimson point. “…but by now the board knows just enough to give me some more room to work…took them long enough.”

  “Longer than you’d care to admit,” she taunted flatly. None but she shared the foundational knowledge of his reckless past.

  “We’ve wasted time that we don’t have trying to expand the old way, and at this point we can’t afford to pay anything but lip service to tradition.” He furrowed his brow and swallowed the lump in his throat. Whatever anxieties he laid upon his niece he bore himself a hundredfold.

  “Rest easy,” she said, laying a warm hand on his shoulder. “There are dozens of doors we haven’t opened. And the young ones are nearly ready. Even now they gather more to the cause.”

  “More might not necessarily be a good thing. They speak highly of that Earthling’s generosity, but will he be so amiable when they reach the next objective?” He pointed at another dot illuminated in pale green. It laid between Celhesru and the home of the Toravai. Beside it floated a label that read: New Galveston. This small, isolated world barely qualified as a planet, but on it lay a strategically located refinery built and operated by a Human-owned energy enterprise. There was a greater-than-zero chance Greg knew these people. He may have even grown up with them.

  “He’s been sniffing around my younger daughter lately. Kory doesn’t worry me as much because she’s so obstinate, but Mia can be manipulated with purses and shoes, and he seems to have figured that out.” Perezele clearly didn’t trust the Earthling’s ‘generosity’ for another litany of reasons.

  “Purses and shoes?” Rahenzo looked at her exasperatedly. “You’re not more concerned about the Humans using that refining station as a jumping-off-point to go chip away at the Vercoden under the surface of your planet?”

  “He knows about the crystal caves because he was there when they discovered them!” She retorted. “I’ll be the first to admit, their little expedition wasn’t supervised well, but if he hasn’t told anybody back on Earth by now maybe he never will.”

  “Or maybe he has, and his people are biding their time, planning their artifice, just waiting to make a move on our supply.” He paced the room angrily before finally settling in front of the windows lining the conference room wall. The golden glow of the lamps outside lent an eerie quality to his violet eyes. “For so long we’ve let the Earthlings have a paltry fraction of our industry as a pittance to keep their greed at bay. But they grow more ambitious, ingratiating themselves to us with their mega-watt smiles and mountains of stuff. Their whole culture’s marketing strategy is the reason the galaxy is on the brink of an energy shortage to begin with! And the worst thing is, they don’t even realize they’re doing it!”

  Perry approached him at the window and offered little consolation. “They wouldn’t sell it if nobody bought it.”

  “Well, they can’t buy and sell this one,” he said through gritted teeth. “Your planet is the priceless jewel that will save us, and it’s not theirs to take.” Outside in the garden the rain began to fall, bathing the glass in a multitude of droplets that raced each other to the bottom. Without a further word, the two left the room in single file. There were still many preparations yet to make. If Nash was intended to lead this effort, she wouldn’t need every detail, but she would need a nicer and newer ship, and her uncle intended to spare no expense. It would be the timeliest birthday present ever. On the threshold of the door, Rahenzo took one last look at the displayed image of the stars, then followed his companion into the dim hallway beyond.