Escape into the Unknown

Chapter 2

By NostalgieMalaak

Notes: a little AU but follows AC timeline. Takes place in AC 110. I kept thinking what it must have taken for a family, more specifically the Winner family, to give up living on the Earth and move into space when the colonies were first being constructed.

Summary: AC 110. The civil wars in the Middle East have left many searching for a new home including one family that will begin a dynasty of historic proportions.


The souk was almost empty at this time in the early afternoon. Most people had retreated to a shady porch or dimly lit bedroom for a nap after lunch. Even some of the vendors had excused themselves for the afternoon leaving behind sullen teenaged boys and sour faced old mothers to tend their stalls. As Abdullah passed through the spice market he let a rare smile peek out under his bushy mustache. The heady smell of cinnamon, spicy cloves, and summer mint reminded him of all the wonderful aromas and flavors of his childhood in his tata's kitchen. His grandmother was everything his own mother was not: kind and patient, gentle and wise. He wished he could remember some bit of wisdom from her, some deep knowledge she had passed on to him and him alone. But he supposed the memory of her generosity and wonderful cooking was enough.

Behind him Hala began to fret and whine. The five year old was getting tired and hungry, most likely. Her older brother Qadir let her climb onto his shoulders and for a while she was happy enough. Sani skipped ahead admiring the elaborately decorated abayasand shoes in the cloth market.

Usually Aya did the shopping for the family but Abdullah had wanted the opportunity to spend some time with his children. Jamilah and Sa'iid had chosen to stay home and watch the newest installment of their favorite television program, so he took Sa'iid's quiet twin Qadir and the two little girls. He relished the time he was able to spend with them. His teaching position at the university was at times all-consuming. There were classes to be taught and proposals to be written. He didn't mind the work. His job was all that he had hoped it would be: challenging and fulfilling. His life, in a word, was perfect.

Qadir paused suddenly and Hala wobbled on his shoulders.

"Hey! I almost fell! Don't drop me silly," Hala cried, clutching her brother's hair in her fists.

Qadir carefully leaned over to Hala could clamber off his back. He looked up at the sky.

"What is it son?" Abhulla asked carefully. He had seen that look on his son's face. The pensive almost pain. "Is something wrong?"

Barely had the words left his lips when the explosion rocked him to his knees. The deafening blast that followed ripped the cry from his mouth. Qadir pitched forward, his eyes rolling up into his head. Abdullah crawled to his two children, shielding them with his body as best as he could.

"Sani! Sani!" His cries swallowed up in the chaos. Baskets full of cloth and spices were flying through the air. Slendor poles holding shop awnings snapped and swung around dangerously in the wind. A moment later a small body threw itself at Abdullah and he grabbed hold of the back of Sani's dress, forcing her underneath him.

The air stilled until the only noise was of the girls underneath him quietly sobbing. Abdullah's body shuddered. The girls crawled out from under his arms. The man looked down and moaned with fear when he found Qadir's body unmoving. He pulled him into his arms and the boy's arms flopped boneless around his still body. Abdullah pressed his fingers to Qadir's neck and let out a sigh a relief on finding a pulse. He picked up his son and staggered to his feet. The little girls clung to his robes, their tear streaked faces red and dirty. In the distance Abdullah could hear the shrill wail of an ambulance. There was dark smoke rising from the direction of his home.

Something startled Abdullah and he woke with a gasp. The image of the market, the feel of the explosion clung to his memory. He swiped a hand across his face and was surprised to have it come back wet. From tears or sweat he couldn't tell.


"Papa?" A quiet voice came from beside him. The man nearly lurched out of bed before he realized that it was only Hala. She must have had another nightmare. Abdullah placed a hand over his chest, feeling his rapidly beating heart slowly return to normal. Lifting the blankets he scooted over on the bed so Hala could climb up. She lay down immediately, her mussed dark hair spreading wildly over his pillow. He gently brushed the hair away from her doll-like face before settling down himself.

"Papa?" She whispered after a minute.

"Hmmm?"

"I had bad dream."

"Was it the same one as before?" He whispered back.

She nodded and closed her eyes.

He had almost relaxed completely into sleep when he felt her little hand on his arm.

"Papa?"

"What, sweetheart?"

"Why won't Qadir talk to me anymore? Is he mad at me?"

Abdullah's heart ached in his chest. "No, sweetie. He's not angry with you. He's very sad. Just like you and Sani."

"Just like you too, huh, papa?"

"Yes. Just like me too."


The application process for space immigration was nothing but a headache. Six weeks. It had taken him six weeks of walking the half hour to and from the emigration bureau every day to fill out paperwork and he still wasn't finished. Hopefully the bureaucracy in space will be a little less complex, he though sourly. For every form he filled out it seemed like two took its place. Then he had to get the form signed and approved. He sometimes had to wait an entire week before he could get in to see the right official. From eight in the morning until eight in the evening Abdullah sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench in the reception area and waited. After six weeks he was finally completing the process.

As he left the bureau for the day he said goodbye to the guard at the gated entrance. The red and white striped gate lifted and he walked underneath and into the street, the final forms for immigration clutched tightly in his hand. He shifted them into his other arm and pressed them to his chest as a slight wind threatened to scatter them. All that was left was the final set of information sessions. He shook his head in wonder. In as little as two weeks they could be on their way to space.

Abdullah looked up at the sky. The sun was just beginning to set but the crescent moon was clear and bright already. Soon it would be dark enough to see the colonies of L1 and L2. His own destination, the predominantly Arabic speaking colony of L4, was too far to be seen clearly without a telescope. He juggled the papers in his hands and glanced down again at the square labeled "Occupation." Inside that innocuous little box was the word "Laborer." Once again he felt a small amount of trepidation nag at him. He was an educated man. A professor at a highly respected university. He had been fortunate enough to have never worked a day of hard labor in his life. Was this really worth it? Was it truly the best option to move away from his country, his well-loved job, and his parents?

The sight of his ruined house filled his vision for a split second. He would make it worth it. The safety and peace of his children would make it worth it

Dinner with his parents was a quiet affair. His mother had stopped trying to convince him of his foolishness some weeks ago and settled for glaring at him from across the table. His father simply sat and puffed away on his cigarettes.

"Sani, don't!" Hala whined.

"I'm not doing anything!" Sani shot back rolling her eyes.

"Yes you were! You kicked me!" Hala said rubbing her shin under the table.

"I did not! You are such a little liar!! That's all you are, isn't it? A stupid little liar! No wonder none of the kids at school like you!" Sani screamed jumping up from the table.

"Saniyya Fayiz, that's enough!" Abdullah growled.

"Well, it's true! She is stupid! All the kids at school say so, even her teachers. They say she's too dumb to learn anything but how to tell her filthy lies!"

Abdullah stared in shock at the seven year old. Since losing her mother and siblings Sani had become more and more confrontational. It wasn't unusual for her to have an outburst at least once a day at home. Abdullah felt his anger and helplessness coalesce inside him like a molten river. His little Sani had always been so cheerful and outgoing. Now he was lucky to get through a whole day without her fighting with Hala.

"Sani, I said that is enough! You will apologize to Hala and then go straight to your room!"

"I will not apologize to her. She's just a stupid little baby. I hate her and I hate you!" With that she turned and fled the room. Abdullah winced as the door to the girls' room was slammed shut with enough force to rattle the walls. Hala was crying, her tears slipping down her cheeks into her food.

"That was well done," his mother said archly.

Just two weeks. The change would be good for them all. Abdullah clung to that thought.


The small windowless room was packed and stuffy. Men lounged in cramped wooden desks that looked like they had belonged to a grammar school fifty years ago. Abdullah searched for an empty seat and was surprised when a young man at the rear of the classroom caught his eye and beckoned with over with an enthusiastic wave of his arm.

As he approached the younger man he took in his neatly combed hair and well tailored slacks and dress shirt. The young man grinned at him and gave his hand a firm shake as Abdullah came within reach.

"Professor! It's been awhile! I have to say I'm a little bit surprised to see you here," the man said, ducking his head a little in what may have been shyness or respect.

It took a moment before the name came to Abdullah: Joseph. Joseph al-Karim. He had been a good student. Not as flashy or gifted as some, but a hard worker.

Abdullah smiled and gave the man's hand a squeeze. "Joseph, it has been quite a while. What have you been doing with yourself, you must have graduated…five years ago?"

"Six, actually. It's been an interesting last few years. Most of them spent trying to find work," Joseph shook his head with a discouraged sigh, "There's just nothing here anymore. The population has increased on earth and the amount of jobs hasn't. That's why I'm going to space!"

Abdullah looked around and noticed that most of the men in the room were below the age of thirty. Some looked barely old enough to be adults. It was true that jobs had been scarce for the young people. Long lives prevented new jobs from opening up as the older generations worked past the age of retirement. Some stayed in their positions past their nineties.

"Surely, a hard worker such as yourself could have made a life for yourself outside of the Middle East? Perhaps Britain?" Abdullah asked.

"I applied for four straight years, but the overpopulation has affected all the nations. They can't employ their own people, much less the youth of other nations. But there's plenty of work to be done in space. I was even hoping that…well…maybe after I work my term as a laborer I could go into teaching," Joseph said quietly.

Abdullah smiled at him. Teaching would suit Joseph well. "Are there many schools on L4?"

"Some, but having children in space is so difficult most people don't even try. The only way to have a child is to petition the government to be allowed to have a test tube child. Naturally, these children have been enhanced, so they would be an interesting bunch to teach," Joseph replied.

"Enhanced?" Abdullah was startled to realize just how little he actually knew about his future home.

"Their intelligence has been enhanced. It started out as just making sure they would be healthy but more and more people wanted their child to be the best. To have the best possible chance. It makes sense, really. If I had a child, I'd want them to be top of their class!"

A sharp rapping sound brought everyone's attention to the front of the room. The session's instructor greeted the class and Abdullah slipped into a desk beside his former student.

"Today is the first of eight sessions you will all be required to attend. At the end of the eight sessions you will receive a certificate of completion and a shuttle date. That is the date you will be leaving for space, no exceptions. If you miss your shuttle date you will have to reapply, and I know how none of you want to have to do that."

The class chuckled appreciatively and Abdullah settled in to take notes.

"Joseph-Louis Lagrange perhaps never imagined that his discovery of Lagrangian Points would be the deciding factor in allowing human beings to colonize space. At one point, it was thought that the moon, Mars, and possibly several satellites of the gas giants would be the only logical destinations for human expansion. The Lagrangian Points, as many of you know, are located roughly along Earth's orbit. They however, not nearly as random and have a fixed position relative to that of the Earth and the sun.

"Several temporary colonies were the first to be formed around Earth's orbit, but it was the heavily funded Chinese space program that succeeded in establishing the first colony at a Lagrange point. Since then the colonies of L5 have been predominantly Asian. Japan however had its own agenda and so the cluster at the L1 point was developed next. L2, L3, and L4 have all been established within your lucky lifetimes."

A student at the front of the class raised his hand and the instructor nodded at him.

"How far along is L3? I heard that the European nations were having trouble funding it."

"Yes, that's true," the instructor replied, "And it doesn't help that it's one of the more unstable Lagrangian Points. By contrast L4 and L5 are far more stable. Even if they happened to be nudged out of position, they would eventually drift back into their rightful place."

Another student raised his hand, an impatient scowl on his face.

"That's all well and good, but now that the history lesson is over, I think what we all want to know is…look…I'm moving there with my wife. I want to start a family and I've heard-"

"Yes, I can imagine what that might be. You want to know if your wife will be able to conceive and bear children."

Many of the men began nodding and mumbling their affirmative.

The instructor continued, "Your fears are well placed, but fortunately you are planning your move to space at a good time. Although women in space have not been able to bear children themselves, and thus requiring all children to be born from test tubes-

Several derisive comments were ignored-

"We have now isolated the cause of the problem. Your wives and daughters and your descendants will be able to give birth naturally."

"But what about these test tube kids? I mean, will my kids have to compete against some genetic mutants, or what?" The man who began the line of questioning asked. His face was an unsightly purple and his receded hairline made his face look round and bloated.

"The purpose of moving to space was so that we could put our differences behind us and live in harmony with one another. Your children will have all the advantages of any other child in space. My guess is that you won't even be able to tell which child was born naturally and which was not. Now, if you please, I have had enough prejudice for one afternoon. To continue, the L4 colony cluster to quite stable…"

Joseph turned to Abdullah with wide eyes.

"Do you think it's really going to be that much of an issue? Test tube babies and naturally born babies?" He whispered.

"I hope not," Abdullah murmured, "I pray to Allah it is not."


tbc