---ZO'OR: FINAL CONFLICT---
a story on several instalments
the usual disclaimers apply
all non-EFC characters (c)2001 IAO
this instalment is rated PG-13
THE HAND OF DISGRACE AND THE PERFECT'EYE
HAND OF DISGRACE I
There's always people who grow up to be addicts, like Da'an. His Taelon conscience, which extended all around his body cells, was constantly craving for hand and womb; his addiction was physical as well as psychological. A devoted admirer of his parent, Ma'el, from which his superb erudition directly came; a child well fed day after day, his hand always bright showing traces of his parent energy signature... and now a suffering Taelon: his golden fountain of knowledge gone forever; his hands still aching at the reality of his lost parent: Ma'el had been the one he certaintly loved, and he used to remember him while caressing the center of his open palm with nostalgia.
The Synod took Ma'el's decision to part away in search for more knowledge-- useful for the survival of his species--with great honour. Da'an hid his sadness behind a mask of perfect serenity, **I am so gratified Ma'el had chosen to try to resolute our growing situation so we can rectify our... mistakes.** he transmitted to the Commonality; yet, he started to appear around dressed.
Although his parent was a most respected member of his cast, Da'an didn't have any real interest in science; he had a tendency to contemplate rather than to put all his collected knowledge to use. His spirit was well known among his fellow Companions over the link, he was more an entertainer than a doctor: somehow he mesmerized his people with fantastic accounts which ended up to be fictional.
**Da'an,** the youth caught in the attention of some Synod member. **Why is that you always try to account for your lies?**
**I am not lying.**
**Is the chronicle about a lifeform which, attached to a selected limb and intertwined with the mind of its bearer, can work as a weapon... true?**
Young Da'an felt all minds attentive, waiting for his answer. **No. It is not.**
**Then, what is your purpose?**
**I... I have a dream...** Da'an only managed to transmit; feeling so deeply ashamed, he blushed.
The Synod Leader conscience departed as swift as it arrived, as well as the other Companions. Only a presence stood by Da'an, young, radiant, and waiting for audience.
**Yes.** Da'an acknowledged him.
**I am T'than. And I like your... dream. Please, tell me another...**
***
PERFECT EYE I
**The Synod had issued mandatory covering on all labs... Rules are Simple: do not handle anything while naked...** Young Zo'or thought while at the same time klutzly snatching a small glass container which dropped: a mess of cobalt glass and white mucus before him.
''Zo'or.'' Rho'ha came by him. He looked at Zo'or with his acostumed smug face, then looked at the floor. The substance had penetrated the bioslurry making the floor look bland. Zo'or lowered his head; Rho'ha departed from his side leaving him like this. (Scientists didn't talk very much, to talk was the specialty of the diplomats.) So he stood there head down waiting for Rhi'ha--who once used to be Da'an's mate; in essence, his parent--to arrive, in complete silence and shut to the Commonality.
While wandering around his blank mind, his eyes moved to stay fixed in the mess on the floor. The bland floor appeared somehow to solidify into a kind of organic crystaline matter. He abandoned his humble position quickly rising his head and looking around table tops for an energy light magnifying sphere... and got closer. His mind stayed shut as he observed the reaction over the bioslurry, he adjusted his energy on the sphere... It appeared the substance was accepted within the bioslurry as if the organic floor could identify it as... **...a kind of... nutrient? ...poison?...**
When Rhi'ha arrived, Zo'or was confidently leaning from a table beside the mess on the floor; he masked his face with energy pulses of pride and transmitted feelings of happiness to the Commonality, after all: **the Synod has given me the privilege to touch another Companion,** as this was the first occasion Zo'or had reunited himself with Da'an's mate after his first days of life... and he was allowed to touch him.
Rhi'ha took an easy look of the premises; he looked back at Zo'or showing a ghost of a smile. He reached his essense-child through the link and walled both their thoughts from the rest of the Companions. He patiently waited for Zo'or to begin an explanation and an apology...
**My mistake wouldn't become dangerous on me. Nor on you. However, the floor has reacted. I have come to find this discovery... interesting. I will rectify the conscequences of my actions if I am allowed to... investigate... this phenomenon.**
Rhi'ha smiled at his essence-child showing a hint of pride-blushing.
***
HAND OF DISGRACE II
Da'an and T'than's joining seemed succesful. Da'an got himself seated on the floor between T'than's legs, his back leaned towards the War Minister, as he caressed his womb focusing a great amount of his energy over the primal swirl that would become a new life. That gesture was odd, Taelon mating and nursing rituals were a lot simpler; yet, T'than carried within his essence a great deal of alien situation memories, memories Da'an enjoyed with satisfaction and abandon.
''This is truly an alien idea,'' Da'an said brushing his back to T'than's smooth pulsing chest.
''I am delighted at your strenght, Da'an,'' T'than responded, slowly circling his hand around his womb; ''you have experienced myself on such serenity.''
''A lot of what you are... intrigues me. All those memories from a true witness.''
''I got to fear your posible wish to embrace the Void...''
''No. All these you have experienced, all these interactions with other species, even the will you have to sacrifice yourself for the good of our efforts--spending long periods of time far away, planning inteligent schemes against our enemies, forcing the truth out of the ones who have chosen to ally themselves with our foes--is fascinating.''
''I am gratified, as I have complied to your wish to experience this... alien ritual.''
''This sharing of closeness is... aahhhhh...'' Da'an blushed at a sudden amount of pleasure felt within its physical form, ''...a moment of absolute perfection...''
''...Absolute'Perfection... Do I catch a child's name?''
''There will be other perfect moments within you I would like to experience... by your... hand.''
T'Than smiled.
***
PERFECT EYE II
**Da'an is rendering a most high service to our people. The time has come for him again to bear new life,** Zo'or thought clearly amusing some members of the Commonality. **New life: like me,** he continued over the link... Yet, his hands were busy doing another thing: he took great care over his study of the crystalized pieces of the organic floor. He found out the name of the accidented substance--Bi'jhi'shioohhhhh, a derivate of a compound used to dehydrate matter, used to create drugs Taelon can absorb. The main component of the floor was derived from depressed Lha'sho'shahhhhh- -a highly stable amoeba like organic bubble. It was simple to remove the damaged floor, and it started to regenerate itself back quick.
Zo'or had broken a piece of the damaged floor and noticed the strange kind of debris it was leaving: some long fiber filaments. What amused him the most was that they seemed to attract themselves by their ends. **And I have made a discovery: both different ends attract!** The Commonality burst into joy just listening to him over the link.
''Zo'or.'' The watchful eyes of Rho'ha, Rhi'ha's assistant, came over him. ''Show me.''
Zo'or waved his hands over his small mess of filaments over his working table, ''Ends attract.''
Rho'ha gave him the eye up and down... turned, and walked away. Now that he wasn't special anymore, that he wasn't the youngest survival Taelon no more... better get used to be succeed, better find something productive to do. Rho'ha had secret epic fantasies he was afraid to share. Fantasies powered by ancient myths and the past that ultimately became himself: How far was him from utopia? He had to work out his dreams and reach back, not turn them into useless stories, like Zo'or's parent used to do.
Yet, he knew first hand all about Zo'or, he was there the day of his conscious birth... he saw a flick of energy coming out of his hands... and then dropped. He was alive; faint, yet awake. His energy pathways were running steady, like he never had seen before. And he was conscious. **Zo'or could be 'Perfect' indeed.** he transmitted to the link as blurred irony while turning back to take a look of the young Taelon experimenting with... garbage...
Rho'ha's train of thought interrupted as he listened to the sound of a fallen energy magnifier to the floor; he walked back to Zo'or. ...he clearly saw Zo'or kneeling and take back the instrument to observe the floor with gusto... Now this was odd: the way Zo'or held the magnifying sphere, he was holding it applying preasure from his fingers and not from his hand palms. Attraction energy from Taelon's open palms could fasten a variety of material substances; ''Zo'or, grhhhh'ahhhh it up,'' he suggested, but Zo'or ignored him; ''Zo'or...''
**I do not recall myself asking for help, Rho'ha.** the scientist assistant sensed Zo'or inside his mind...
***
PERFECT EYE III
**I see...** Zo'or transmited over the link... yet nobody seemed to pay him any attention.
Da'an was being taken again to the birthing table. This time he was totally in control of his labor pain. T'than was at his side, solid as always, smiling his teeth out--although a weird gesture among Taelons, Da'an loved it so much--; he was proud to have been chosen to join with Da'an, his long time friend, who all of a sudden became a very important Companion--the last Taelon ever to give birth to a healty living baby--. His hand comforted Da'an over his chest, providing him with soothing waves of cool energy to warm down the pulsing heat in his womb.
T'than gave Mit'gai an almost threatening fierce look, news about Mit'gai's clumsiness while handling Zo'or's birth ran swift. The healer closed himself to T'than's disturbing imagery, and got ready to collect Da'an's offspring, dead or faintly alive, and put it to stasis.
Labor pangs increased as Da'an tried to break the energy tendrils which attatched the child to himself. But, suddenly, Mit'gai's look changed from cold supervision to concerned worry. ''Da'an, wait... don't...'' he only got time to say.
''What?'' T'than inquired. ''Explain,'' he demanded.
But it was too late, as Da'an didn't give birth to a Taelon baby, but to a long string of small energy lights which invaded the chamber with the sight of death. Da'an cried in pain as he saw his newborn--the fruit of his 'true love' for his friend--fading into the Void.
Frustrated, T'than struck away the mechanic needle coming towards Da'an with a blow; he himself engage in tranquilizing Da'an focussing his energy over his agonizing mate who asked the Synod for forgiveness and another chance.
**...always, Da'an... always...** Zo'or catched T'than secretly say over the link.
HAND OF DISGRACE III
Rho'ha came in to find Zo'or closely standing in front of a wall blushing fiersely, 'zo'orishy' holding his magnifying sphere between his eye and an undetermined spot; he was all still. ''Zo'or...''
''OFF!'' he surprisingly said while Rho'ha's mind sensed his young spirit transmit **I am working.**
But another presence came by, one that made Zo'or turn back to meet with its bearer, his essence-parent: **The Synod has declared you will be returned back to your parent.**
**I am pleased with that decision.** Zo'or's face showed the energy pulses of aceptance, even though he didn't receive such a message directly from any Synod Member. **However, I must continue my study. I will require this...** he raised the magnifier in his hand... for Rhi'ha to see what Rho'ha had been telling him about Zo'or's hands--they didn't grhhhh'ahhh the sphere. **I also require to transport the crystalized floor and its debris with me.**
''Very... well...'' Rhi'ha said, lowering his eyes to his hands, not wanting to think he was witnessing the beginning of his race disgrace... his own disgrace.
EPILOGUE
Zo'or arrived home to find Da'an 'deeply disturbed': Da'an appeared to him dressed in a jumpsuit garment just as T'than's, and solid. Da'an also found disturbing Zo'or's dressed arrival... though he was working on a self impulsed 'science project'.
Dressed as they were, neither of them found it desirable to enjoy a much welcomed energy transfer, yet Zo'or approached his parent to put his hand over his womb pretending to caress its entrance.
''My home...'' Zo'or 'whimpered' to Da'an pouting his lip, ''...taken.''
Da'an welcomed his child in his embrace. ...he thought he loved him, for the Commonality to acknowledge...
*********
Good? Bad? Fair?
...look, I assure you: this is not the end.
Soon: Quotidian around the Mothership.
a story on several instalments
the usual disclaimers apply
all non-EFC characters (c)2001 IAO
this instalment is rated PG-13
THE HAND OF DISGRACE AND THE PERFECT'EYE
HAND OF DISGRACE I
There's always people who grow up to be addicts, like Da'an. His Taelon conscience, which extended all around his body cells, was constantly craving for hand and womb; his addiction was physical as well as psychological. A devoted admirer of his parent, Ma'el, from which his superb erudition directly came; a child well fed day after day, his hand always bright showing traces of his parent energy signature... and now a suffering Taelon: his golden fountain of knowledge gone forever; his hands still aching at the reality of his lost parent: Ma'el had been the one he certaintly loved, and he used to remember him while caressing the center of his open palm with nostalgia.
The Synod took Ma'el's decision to part away in search for more knowledge-- useful for the survival of his species--with great honour. Da'an hid his sadness behind a mask of perfect serenity, **I am so gratified Ma'el had chosen to try to resolute our growing situation so we can rectify our... mistakes.** he transmitted to the Commonality; yet, he started to appear around dressed.
Although his parent was a most respected member of his cast, Da'an didn't have any real interest in science; he had a tendency to contemplate rather than to put all his collected knowledge to use. His spirit was well known among his fellow Companions over the link, he was more an entertainer than a doctor: somehow he mesmerized his people with fantastic accounts which ended up to be fictional.
**Da'an,** the youth caught in the attention of some Synod member. **Why is that you always try to account for your lies?**
**I am not lying.**
**Is the chronicle about a lifeform which, attached to a selected limb and intertwined with the mind of its bearer, can work as a weapon... true?**
Young Da'an felt all minds attentive, waiting for his answer. **No. It is not.**
**Then, what is your purpose?**
**I... I have a dream...** Da'an only managed to transmit; feeling so deeply ashamed, he blushed.
The Synod Leader conscience departed as swift as it arrived, as well as the other Companions. Only a presence stood by Da'an, young, radiant, and waiting for audience.
**Yes.** Da'an acknowledged him.
**I am T'than. And I like your... dream. Please, tell me another...**
***
PERFECT EYE I
**The Synod had issued mandatory covering on all labs... Rules are Simple: do not handle anything while naked...** Young Zo'or thought while at the same time klutzly snatching a small glass container which dropped: a mess of cobalt glass and white mucus before him.
''Zo'or.'' Rho'ha came by him. He looked at Zo'or with his acostumed smug face, then looked at the floor. The substance had penetrated the bioslurry making the floor look bland. Zo'or lowered his head; Rho'ha departed from his side leaving him like this. (Scientists didn't talk very much, to talk was the specialty of the diplomats.) So he stood there head down waiting for Rhi'ha--who once used to be Da'an's mate; in essence, his parent--to arrive, in complete silence and shut to the Commonality.
While wandering around his blank mind, his eyes moved to stay fixed in the mess on the floor. The bland floor appeared somehow to solidify into a kind of organic crystaline matter. He abandoned his humble position quickly rising his head and looking around table tops for an energy light magnifying sphere... and got closer. His mind stayed shut as he observed the reaction over the bioslurry, he adjusted his energy on the sphere... It appeared the substance was accepted within the bioslurry as if the organic floor could identify it as... **...a kind of... nutrient? ...poison?...**
When Rhi'ha arrived, Zo'or was confidently leaning from a table beside the mess on the floor; he masked his face with energy pulses of pride and transmitted feelings of happiness to the Commonality, after all: **the Synod has given me the privilege to touch another Companion,** as this was the first occasion Zo'or had reunited himself with Da'an's mate after his first days of life... and he was allowed to touch him.
Rhi'ha took an easy look of the premises; he looked back at Zo'or showing a ghost of a smile. He reached his essense-child through the link and walled both their thoughts from the rest of the Companions. He patiently waited for Zo'or to begin an explanation and an apology...
**My mistake wouldn't become dangerous on me. Nor on you. However, the floor has reacted. I have come to find this discovery... interesting. I will rectify the conscequences of my actions if I am allowed to... investigate... this phenomenon.**
Rhi'ha smiled at his essence-child showing a hint of pride-blushing.
***
HAND OF DISGRACE II
Da'an and T'than's joining seemed succesful. Da'an got himself seated on the floor between T'than's legs, his back leaned towards the War Minister, as he caressed his womb focusing a great amount of his energy over the primal swirl that would become a new life. That gesture was odd, Taelon mating and nursing rituals were a lot simpler; yet, T'than carried within his essence a great deal of alien situation memories, memories Da'an enjoyed with satisfaction and abandon.
''This is truly an alien idea,'' Da'an said brushing his back to T'than's smooth pulsing chest.
''I am delighted at your strenght, Da'an,'' T'than responded, slowly circling his hand around his womb; ''you have experienced myself on such serenity.''
''A lot of what you are... intrigues me. All those memories from a true witness.''
''I got to fear your posible wish to embrace the Void...''
''No. All these you have experienced, all these interactions with other species, even the will you have to sacrifice yourself for the good of our efforts--spending long periods of time far away, planning inteligent schemes against our enemies, forcing the truth out of the ones who have chosen to ally themselves with our foes--is fascinating.''
''I am gratified, as I have complied to your wish to experience this... alien ritual.''
''This sharing of closeness is... aahhhhh...'' Da'an blushed at a sudden amount of pleasure felt within its physical form, ''...a moment of absolute perfection...''
''...Absolute'Perfection... Do I catch a child's name?''
''There will be other perfect moments within you I would like to experience... by your... hand.''
T'Than smiled.
***
PERFECT EYE II
**Da'an is rendering a most high service to our people. The time has come for him again to bear new life,** Zo'or thought clearly amusing some members of the Commonality. **New life: like me,** he continued over the link... Yet, his hands were busy doing another thing: he took great care over his study of the crystalized pieces of the organic floor. He found out the name of the accidented substance--Bi'jhi'shioohhhhh, a derivate of a compound used to dehydrate matter, used to create drugs Taelon can absorb. The main component of the floor was derived from depressed Lha'sho'shahhhhh- -a highly stable amoeba like organic bubble. It was simple to remove the damaged floor, and it started to regenerate itself back quick.
Zo'or had broken a piece of the damaged floor and noticed the strange kind of debris it was leaving: some long fiber filaments. What amused him the most was that they seemed to attract themselves by their ends. **And I have made a discovery: both different ends attract!** The Commonality burst into joy just listening to him over the link.
''Zo'or.'' The watchful eyes of Rho'ha, Rhi'ha's assistant, came over him. ''Show me.''
Zo'or waved his hands over his small mess of filaments over his working table, ''Ends attract.''
Rho'ha gave him the eye up and down... turned, and walked away. Now that he wasn't special anymore, that he wasn't the youngest survival Taelon no more... better get used to be succeed, better find something productive to do. Rho'ha had secret epic fantasies he was afraid to share. Fantasies powered by ancient myths and the past that ultimately became himself: How far was him from utopia? He had to work out his dreams and reach back, not turn them into useless stories, like Zo'or's parent used to do.
Yet, he knew first hand all about Zo'or, he was there the day of his conscious birth... he saw a flick of energy coming out of his hands... and then dropped. He was alive; faint, yet awake. His energy pathways were running steady, like he never had seen before. And he was conscious. **Zo'or could be 'Perfect' indeed.** he transmitted to the link as blurred irony while turning back to take a look of the young Taelon experimenting with... garbage...
Rho'ha's train of thought interrupted as he listened to the sound of a fallen energy magnifier to the floor; he walked back to Zo'or. ...he clearly saw Zo'or kneeling and take back the instrument to observe the floor with gusto... Now this was odd: the way Zo'or held the magnifying sphere, he was holding it applying preasure from his fingers and not from his hand palms. Attraction energy from Taelon's open palms could fasten a variety of material substances; ''Zo'or, grhhhh'ahhhh it up,'' he suggested, but Zo'or ignored him; ''Zo'or...''
**I do not recall myself asking for help, Rho'ha.** the scientist assistant sensed Zo'or inside his mind...
***
PERFECT EYE III
**I see...** Zo'or transmited over the link... yet nobody seemed to pay him any attention.
Da'an was being taken again to the birthing table. This time he was totally in control of his labor pain. T'than was at his side, solid as always, smiling his teeth out--although a weird gesture among Taelons, Da'an loved it so much--; he was proud to have been chosen to join with Da'an, his long time friend, who all of a sudden became a very important Companion--the last Taelon ever to give birth to a healty living baby--. His hand comforted Da'an over his chest, providing him with soothing waves of cool energy to warm down the pulsing heat in his womb.
T'than gave Mit'gai an almost threatening fierce look, news about Mit'gai's clumsiness while handling Zo'or's birth ran swift. The healer closed himself to T'than's disturbing imagery, and got ready to collect Da'an's offspring, dead or faintly alive, and put it to stasis.
Labor pangs increased as Da'an tried to break the energy tendrils which attatched the child to himself. But, suddenly, Mit'gai's look changed from cold supervision to concerned worry. ''Da'an, wait... don't...'' he only got time to say.
''What?'' T'than inquired. ''Explain,'' he demanded.
But it was too late, as Da'an didn't give birth to a Taelon baby, but to a long string of small energy lights which invaded the chamber with the sight of death. Da'an cried in pain as he saw his newborn--the fruit of his 'true love' for his friend--fading into the Void.
Frustrated, T'than struck away the mechanic needle coming towards Da'an with a blow; he himself engage in tranquilizing Da'an focussing his energy over his agonizing mate who asked the Synod for forgiveness and another chance.
**...always, Da'an... always...** Zo'or catched T'than secretly say over the link.
HAND OF DISGRACE III
Rho'ha came in to find Zo'or closely standing in front of a wall blushing fiersely, 'zo'orishy' holding his magnifying sphere between his eye and an undetermined spot; he was all still. ''Zo'or...''
''OFF!'' he surprisingly said while Rho'ha's mind sensed his young spirit transmit **I am working.**
But another presence came by, one that made Zo'or turn back to meet with its bearer, his essence-parent: **The Synod has declared you will be returned back to your parent.**
**I am pleased with that decision.** Zo'or's face showed the energy pulses of aceptance, even though he didn't receive such a message directly from any Synod Member. **However, I must continue my study. I will require this...** he raised the magnifier in his hand... for Rhi'ha to see what Rho'ha had been telling him about Zo'or's hands--they didn't grhhhh'ahhh the sphere. **I also require to transport the crystalized floor and its debris with me.**
''Very... well...'' Rhi'ha said, lowering his eyes to his hands, not wanting to think he was witnessing the beginning of his race disgrace... his own disgrace.
EPILOGUE
Zo'or arrived home to find Da'an 'deeply disturbed': Da'an appeared to him dressed in a jumpsuit garment just as T'than's, and solid. Da'an also found disturbing Zo'or's dressed arrival... though he was working on a self impulsed 'science project'.
Dressed as they were, neither of them found it desirable to enjoy a much welcomed energy transfer, yet Zo'or approached his parent to put his hand over his womb pretending to caress its entrance.
''My home...'' Zo'or 'whimpered' to Da'an pouting his lip, ''...taken.''
Da'an welcomed his child in his embrace. ...he thought he loved him, for the Commonality to acknowledge...
*********
Good? Bad? Fair?
...look, I assure you: this is not the end.
Soon: Quotidian around the Mothership.