A few days went on like riding with silver-lined clouds. No worry in sight, no need for fright... Excluding that Buzz had the almost constant, irritating feeling of being scrutinized. The sensation vanished conversely periodically, allowing again the millstone of suspicion being lifted off from his shoulders.
It was the beginning of a new week. Buzz' noveau work would gradually start getting regular, as well as Yoka would enter her ever-first English lessons. The few previous days had been successful with learning the alphabet by heart. It still caused a bit difficulty to recognize all those cranky letters, but fast those had gotten cemented in her head. And... today evening, ultimately, she would step in to the evening classes. Enthusiastic like a deep-rooted swot waiting for the term to start, Yoka had been all day bouncing around the house, thinking about the sheer joy of learning. A few hours ago Buzz had gone to work, the woman was alone in the abode.
She was slouching up the stairs in her thoughts. "I will be going to school today!" Over and over again she spun the idea in her mind, chuckling at it, grinning at it, finding it so pleasing. With the aid of Proud Crescent she was going to gain knowledge of things even the greatest viisaat in Kaleva could not master! Provided that she would learn this Gibberish called English at first.
She had almost reached the third floor's stairhead, when she heard odd creaks coming from her left side. It could not be quite determined what it was, perhaps an open window clattered in the wind. The staircase ended up to a medium corridor that had a joint towards the left, most of its scenery being hidden behind a big bushy pot plant. She traipsed by the domestic weed, and saw a doorway slightly open in the rear end of the hallway. The noises emerged from there. But the sight got her somewhat thunderstruck, as she pushed the gateway more aside.
"Buzz?"
There was a man in the chamber, standing at an open clothes closet, whose drawers were all pulled open. The person swung himself around drastically as hearing her voice. He held a crimson pullover in his hands, whereas a huge amount of the closet's soft inners lay on the floor in a lump. In a picosecond, the surprise left him, and a wide grin responded to her.
"Buzz? How yu be in home I think yu... in work?" Yoka spread her arms. Well, the male in front of her looked just like her mate. The usual blue jeans and an orange short-sleeved shirt on. But why was he here? And how? She had seen him leaving a few hours ago, and not coming yet back.
The man did not respond, but put his hands on hips, evaluating her from toes to crown with an odd grimace drawing his black whiskers up. Yoka expressed sheer confusion. His eyes... they had an unknown, cold glint in them. Behind the shallow blueness hid something else she had not confronted before. Not even in Kaleva, the night when he had destroyed half of her property. Not even then his regard had appeared that way.
"I see yu no come how...?" she tried another question. The target remained furthermore quiet, just somehow sneering. And then... down there, the doorbell tinkled. She cast a last leer on him, and left. It was usually she who opened the door, so it was a reflex of some sort to rush downstairs.
It was the postman. He had some book packet with him that did not fit inside the mailbox. It consisted of those paperbacks that Buzz had ordered for Yoka, to aid her studies. In these modern times, aliens were keener on using holographic books, but Buzz was Buzz, he had thought that physical paper with big, clear letters stamped on it was more comfortable for his girl.
It took around two minutes to accomplish the things with the mail carrier. After the sliding door was neatly shut in its frames, Yoka decided to get back upstairs and see, what was going on there now. Buzz was acting really outlandishly today. She rewinded the morning's hullabaloo in her synapses. The result was a clear image of Lightyear getting in his car and shooting off. Yet, this time she was going to get the answer out of him, more determined as she was initially. The same door was pushed open again... but what! The cabin was empty. The closet was neatly made, as if no-one had ever even opened it.
She swayed on her spot, flapping her eyes, looking like an idiot. Where had he gone? The Kalevan opened the wardrobe... every garment was there, nicely folded to tidy little piles. Shrugging, she went through the third floor cabinets, then the middle floor's ones, then the halls downstairs... not the pettiest glimpse of the man. As the last corner was swept by her aghast gaze, she collapsed to sit on the living-room sofa. Holding her temples, she tried gathering her mixed thoughts up. What had she just seen? A phantom? No, there were no such things as ghosts even existing. But there it had been, sneering at her, rummaging the closet. Or... had she really imagined the whole thing?
Yoka set her lay on her back in the arms of the soft cushions. Perhaps it was better just to forget the whole thing, though it still brought slimy worms of fright wriggling down her spine. Maybe she was a bit burnout or something... had experienced this labyrinth of uncanny worlds in big lumps, had not yet used to almost anything. And there, she fell asleep, snoozing a prolonged afternoon nap, until she felt through the fog of dreams being shaken awake.
It was Buzz, who stood beside the sofa. Briefcase in his hand, a work uniform on, obviously had just dashed home from the job office. And not a sight left from the weird mock she had seen in her too-realistic mirage -or whatever it was then. The familiar mild smile was back, together with an amused notion that she should get ready for Professor Lunula's classes.
She decided not to mention anything about the happenings to him. And besides, what would she say, since not being even sure if it had been real or not...
---------
The next day dawned, being again a free diurnal. No work, no toiling. In addition, Yoka had mostly forgotten the issue of yesterday. She had enjoyed the English classes so much last night, that already that had wiped all the comfortless sentiments away. Zurg had earlier the same week invited Buzz to visit him today on Capital Planet and encouraged to bring Yoka along. Warp's family would be also there, and thus they all could change news and have some fun along with a good lunch. Team Nova, however, would not appear, since having a hard-scheduled patrol day. That was of course a pity, but Commander Nebula had become stricter with all the work orders.
Thus, in the morning twilight, the Lightyears switched on to space gear, and slinked inside the Captain's vacuum-resistant speeder. The Kalevan would get her first glimpse of the teeming Alliance Core from the bird's eye view. Nonetheless the purpose of the trip was not at all to be any sightseeing of the planet, just to go and zoom towards Zora's premises.
Around the midday UGT, Buzz' speeder reached the snob-district of Capital Planet. Yoka had still her nose glued onto the vehicle window, and did not much care about what the man was explaining about the curiosity called Zurg. And she did not even understand what 'weird' there was in the emperor's house, since all these buildings appeared extremely bizarre for her anyway. So what, if there was a pair of large horns on the roof, that a little grub dressed in a purple z-patterned tuxedo came politely to open the front door... or that the huge hall (having a quasi-Gothic crimson touch of decoration) was full of paintings of Zora Lightyear, at least one of them being those modern holo-ones that also winked and waved when someone walked by. As the couple walked along the high, lustrous arcade leaded by the enthusiastic beetle, the girl just kept marveling everything her trap wide open. Buzz beside her, scowled and muttered something about Warp possibly being responsible of this new fashion wave of decorating everything with one's own face on it.
Through what seemed like miles of galleries, all cramped very poorly-organized inside this labyrinthine house, the mates finally arrived to a dimly lit sumptuous dining room. There was a high table full of silver plates, supercharged with dozens of deliciously aromatic dishes. Well, there the bird of ill omen was too with his shortie beloved, his slightly maverick kid having her own adventures in the background. While Ay'noh was with good speed nipping petals off from purple tulips stuffed in a horned vase, Mariañ explained something overzealously to Zarah about Victorian era's crinolines and bonnets. The redhead yawned deep during Mrs. Lightyear's every other sentence and was obviously nearly dying to boredom. One more minute, and she would have snored standing.
Gradually everyone set themselves around the table. Half an hour was proceeded with all kinds of formalities, and scolded Ay'noh circa gazillion times not to ruin the host's houseplants. This was also the first occasion when Zarah and Yoka actually shook hands. The Kalevan had for a long time had the false impression that she was Sininen's -id est Mira's- handmaid. Progressively the bias had vanished as seeing Choi more frequently, the company of the blue redhead replaced by that other blue oddity who always managed to look like a pinstripe gangster equipped with a huge lump of futile junk metal.
The discussion rose and fell, going through lands and ditches. Everything was rather calm, until the topic started handling Ay'noh, and by that, children in overall.
Zurg picked up a boiled plum with his fork, scrutinizing it in the mid-air. "Yes, indeed... we have been thinking of getting you a little tiny wee sister or brother, Buzzy Boy..."
The Captain tinkled with his cutlery, as if not comprehending what he had heard. Then, zap. What? His eyes flew wide, and the food spurted out from his mouth.
"E...Excuse m--me...? WHAT?" he stared at the goofy emperor.
Casually his father repeated the sentence, causing the young surgeon to giggle a girlish 'tee-hee-hee'.
Lightyear was flabbergasted. He had heard it right. No... this was getting too crazy. "But father... you... you... I mean... you can't, it's absurd!" he spread his arm in the air, so that Warp beside him had to duck in order to hinder Buzz' knuckles not knocking him out. "Look, dad, I'm getting towards my forties here. Now what would people think..."
"They shall think what they think. Some birk-pathetic color-senseless pigeonbrains think that purple is an ugly color, and so on and so forth." Zurg en passant whisked his fingers, totally ignoring his son's sharp comment about the ages. "In case we get a boy, I have already a dandy name for the wee one." He rubbed his hands together complacent. "Zoxezarzjah Zeemann Lightyear... ahh, what a gloo-oorious combination of izzards! Mohaha!"
"Oh craters..." Buzz smeared his face against his palm. That should have been expected. "Of course it would be something like Zoxezoinks Zeta-Izzard Lightyear... Sweet mother of Venus my father's sometimes so crazy!" he grated his teeth, cursing to himself under the shelter of his hand so that no one else heard. However, now he wanted to direct the discussion to somewhere else. A little question mark had popped along the way in his mind. What was the thing with these weird names anyway? Zora's father's forename was Zoxekov, and again there was this Zoxe-blahblahblah appearing.
"Ahh umm... may I ask..." Buzz cleared his throat trying to get the hot shimmer off his cheeks, "What's this thing to put the names to begin with Zoxe? Does it have a meaning?"
"Oo yes..." the host grinned, tapping his long fingers together, "It is a tradition. And a marvelous, glorious way to cherish the charming, graceful shape and form of zeta. From the abysses of ancient years, the Lightyear family has given the prefix 'Zoxe' to the names of the firstborn sons. Though..." Zurg stopped to mumble something to himself, and the space ranger saw a dark shade of pain flickering a passing moment in the old man's eyes. "Your mother wanted... you to have a simple name. So we..." He coughed again, suffocating the evident sudden trembling of his voice, "...we decided to name you Buzz. But otherwise you would have become Zoxezarethan Zereth-Shahar Zaccur Lightyear."
Lightyear produced something that sounder like a combination between 'oink' and 'cock-a-doodle-doo'. His visage flew redder than Warp's burgundy shirt, and he soon found himself slamming his palm again against his face. Chuckling and giggling was heard around him, Mariañ giving a small 'tirsk' beside her husband.
The host rambled on however like nothing had occurred. "But here we can again revive the dinky splendor of this heritage. Since it shall be my Smoopsiepoo's first tot, we can add the 'Zoxe' in the name, if it shall happen to be a tiny teensy weensy boy. But these are just plans for now, it possibly still shall take years before Buzzy Boy gets a dandy diminutive sibling."
Buzz sat quiet, ashamed, gradually getting absorbed in his own thoughts. He heard the others drone around them, like some distant beehive. His father was silly. Who would even consider of getting more children at that age? A few years and Zora would be in his sixties. Though... humans lived longer these days, he pondered. Had he not just heard about some of the LGM lab's new biological age-prolonging medics? His father might well reach the age of two hundred years, if living healthily and taking advantage of those modern inventions. But still... still Buzz found the issue rather stupid. And that name he was supposed to be given to... Lightyear discovered himself shaking his head and rolling his eyes at the same time.
Through all kinds of association-chains, his tiny brains had cooked up also other kinds of conceptions during this brooding. Abruptly Rhodium Hadron's weird tales about his family had popped up from his subconscious. Why not to ask his father about them, here and now? Eagerness unexpectedly rose up to his nose, as he recalled this relative called Mizar. Zoxedaszeĉ must have known something about him, since this unknown kindred had lived in Kaon around the times of the emperor's youth. So Buzz spruced himself up, and slammed,
"Dad, ahemm... I heard previously about this person called... aa... Mizar Lightyear", he started a bit haltingly. "You know anything about him?"
Zurg stopped his munching, as if been shot with a thunderbolt. He waned livid, and was to swallow his fork. "Agagaga--- agghh--- whh--- Want more d--dessert, Buzz?" he stammered something, grabbing a huge bowl of boysenberries and dumped it on the ranger's plate, so that half of the berries got dropped onto the floor and started rolling around.
The Captain leered at his brimful plate and his gulping father in turn. What the blazes was this? Zurg had also rapidly changed the theme of speech, now nervously twaddling something on about fine-odor aftershave lotions with Warp.
"Dad, I didn't want dessert, thanks, I had it already here. I just wanted to ask if you know anything about Mizar Lightyear? I think you do, dad. Who was he?" he repeated the query, sounding firmer.
"We... we shall discuss it some other time, Buzz", came the jumpy response. The old man's cheeks had not regained their healthy color back.
Nevertheless, Buzz' stubbornness had grown to its limits. Again this hiding of things! He had had enough of it during the last few tens of years. Again, again people refused to tell. He had asked just a simple question, what was the trouble of telling him at least a fragment of knowledge? He sensed that Zurg was treating him like a five-year-old who could not bear to hear any secrets. What was there so shocking about Mizar or in overall about the Lightyears that he was not allowed to learn it?
"Father, what's the point?" he tapped the table with a finger, shooting a stern look at his parent. "I mean you can go on telling about what was supposed to be my name and... ahh... all sorts of things like that. Dad, I just asked who this Mizar guy was, nothing more."
"Buzz. Not now." Zurg's bushy brows had crumpled deep. Also, a nasty silence had fallen above the room. All the guests sat timid, peering at each other. The atmosphere had turned tense. So could the host's son also sense it, blushing lightly.
"Ahh ok then, I'll... okay, okay." An exhale fled his throat. What a disappointment. But he would not leave it to this, but wait for a suitable occasion to ask the thing again.
"Very well then", Zora's accent remained formal. "Shall we turn to the coffee, then? Grubs!" A click of fingers, and a cheerful pack of beetles dashed to clean the table.
An hour fluttered by, the climate being jovial furthermore. The party had tapped inside a lounge salon. It had soft hovering sofas, small tables to set the coffee-cups on them, and a large holoscreen on one wall for watching movies or relevant entertainment. The guests conversed without much noise. Buzz, however, was sulky, buried in his own illusions. His father was treating him like some brat. Oh, if only he could get an opportunity once to ask what he wanted. And also get decent replies. Yet out of the blue, there seemed to be a chance, as his lazy eyes wandered across the spacey chamber, making some remarks. Zurg had stood up, and was entering a side room on the opposite of him. The nosy man put his cup down, and traipsed towards the target. The emperor's sleeve was soon yanked by him.
"Father. I'm not going to stand this silence any longer. Why won't you tell me? I'm a grown-up man, not a kid any more, you don't need to protect me from anything if that's what you're trying to do", the ranger's voice blurted out irritated.
Zora stopped, casting a piercing brown look down at his much shorter scion. "You do not want to hear, Buzz." His tone was severe and hushed.
"So, you know! At first I thought you didn't know about Mizar, but at least now I see that you do!" the younger male got only more excited about his grumpy comment. "And I'm going to find out. I want to hear. Too long I've been kept in some sort of diabolic dark barrel of evil and ignored that I, I exist too and I have a right to know!" the Captain's angry words began pouring excessively over. He wanted information, and he would get it with any means possible. "You're so stubborn, you never tell me anything! You..."
But he never finished his bellow. Zurg's pupils flamed, and a loud bass roar left deep from his lungs. "Do NOT shout at your father, you misbehaved child!" He drew a long, noisy inhale through his nostrils, and was left to stare at Buzz with a furious mien, his whole huge being shaking and hairy fists clenched. That bluster would have won even an alpenhorn in effect. Or so at least the ranger looked like, quivering all over with fright, cheeks crimson.
"S---sorry, f--fathhher...!" he left high-pitched girlish pipe. Behind him, in the open doorway, the salon's population stood tomb-silent as well, just glaring at the scenery. The background however made the beetle-browed khan somewhat calm down.
"Erm... Excuse me." He shook some imaginary dust off his glossy purple sleeve. "My son is acting very childish. I shall discuss some serious matters of behaving with my son now. I shall be back in a moment, enjoy more plum tea and sugared violets."
The zeta-admirer pulled the heavy sliding door shut that separated the two bowers. The men were left now face to face. Zurg's wrinkly regard was icy, almost merciless, yet very mixed. As if feelings of extreme sorrow, hatred, and fear were waging wars inside his heart and none of them seemed to win. He still took heavy breaths but was gradually chilling out.
Buzz, though afraid of a second tantrum, stood determined. This time he would not give up, how much difficulty it would ever cause then. Crossing his arms across his chest, he sat down onto a chair, remaining in a straight pose. "Father, I won't leave until you tell me."
"Very well... if you still pathetically refuse to understand that I do not want to dig this up from the deepest abysses of my mind... Young fool. If I were you, I would not fight against someone far more experienced..." Zora snarled, clenching and opening his fists repeatedly. He seemed gaining a good amount of more nervousness as the nanoseconds passed. Swerving around the chamber's small floor, he looked as though not knowing where to start, or what to groan next. "You should see that this is extremely painful for me, a-and I would wish to forget."
Buzz blinked. Painful? He had made just a simple, blameless question. What so much painful could be related to Mizar that dad forcibly wanted to push it in nothingness? Who was that dude anyways? Mr. Hadron had announced that he had been a fine young man, and gone to work to Trade World. Though... Zoxedaszeĉ had waned then just like that, so suddenly... but still the descendant could not behold what was coming. And... after half an hour he truly wished he had never asked.
Ultimately Zurg sat down, as the Captain had responded that he wanted to hear. Hear everything from the beginning on. Oh, the curious mind... Not several minutes passed, and Lightyear's jaw hung open in the mid-air. In the shaded cabin, the royal's raving had turned to choked hushes, as he went on with a little nauseous story about this vanished relative. Mizar, indeed, had lived and worked on Trade World his time... until one day had been tempted to join a powerful mafia. Easy money, little crimes, and once, a very well-paying assignment. A sack of uni-bucks would wait the young man and a few of his fellows, if they would just finish off some unimportant persons... persons related to one talebearer ambassador, who had escorted many of the same mafia's most influential headmembers into PC-7. A blue-eyed hero's prize, indeed. So, just go and snap some lives off, go and kill Adi-Gaia Lightyear and her son.
At this point, the first tears appeared in Zora's misty-turned eyes.
"They... together with Mizar, gave your mother no mercy. All was my fault, I never should have left her unguarded like that... Sh-she lived on Morph, in Kaon, with you, while I worked on Capital Planet. Then, one night... the murderers sneaked inside... and... p-p-put h...her... in...p-p-pieces..." he buried his face in his hands, trying to wipe the abrupt, fast-rolling tears away. Somehow succeeding, he continued. "Of course you cannot remember it. You were safe in your cradle, sleeping... and that was your only luck. Only one pathetic whimper, and you would have gone too. They never found you since you stayed quiet." The Emperor scowled at his son opposite to him, who was white like a ghost.
"In any case..." he went on, "Mizar was one of those who escaped when my Master, Emperor Zidár, attacked that mafia's hideout years later. I was the pawn of the dark side, then... had become the Evil Emperor's apprentice, as I have told you. Zidár had promised me he would take the revenge in his hands... he assured me that no one of those damned that had killed or had planned to kill Adi and you, would get away. And I, stupid naïve lack-wit, listened to him... rubbed my hands together in satisfaction to see them all die... those, who had taken Adi away from me... But later on it appeared, that Zidár had not caught them all. There had been more... and I plotted fiercely revenge against them."
Buzz, perching on his small chair, had been thrown to a mental Tartarus. His whole being had frozen to listen to this shocking history that was in most parts unknown for him. His mother... he had known she was murdered. But that this way... cold flames of pain gushed his heart. And through the veil of haze, he heard his father continuing.
"...Zidár died, I took the throne. Pathetic me, the slave of the dark side... A year passed, and my spies at Trade World had finally napped the very last members of the mafia. Mizar was among them. In time, they were brought to Planet Z. In the dark dungeons... they... were kept... tormented..." Emotional exhaustion started taking over the old man. But stammering he still went on, although feeling his heart jamming in his throat, and a great pain scorching his lungs with every inhale.
"I... k-killed... Mi...zar... with my... own... hands... I heard his last, pitiful cry echoing long in my ears..." Zurg stared at one spot in the wall, eyes glazed, face cadaverous. Obviously everything was repeated in front of his vision, the deadly scene crawling into view from the blackest caverns of his mind... forcing him to experience it all over again.
Bang, bang, bang, the syllables hit hard Buzz on the head. He could not listen to this any more. Zora's mutter had turned to violent sobbing and yelling. Hands over his face, the whole man trembled as if he was to explode. "I killed him... He begged for mercy, and I did not listen! I only laughed at his misery! And then... the last cry, the last cry... I still can hear it, in my ears... even now... What did I do to him, what did I do to them? What did they do to HER? WHY..." his voice had risen up to falsetto. The Emperor had removed the hands from his face, which looked just hideous. Paler than a scull it had turned, his brown eyes having an ill, almost insane gleam in them.
Lightyear hardly ever had met his father looking like that. He had bounced already off his chair, rushing now towards the panting and crying male. "D-Dad! Stop it! Stop it now!" he shrieked, grabbed his hands in his owns, ceasing the monologue. "Please stop it! Please, father! I never should have asked, I'm so sorry I caused you this... I didn't understand..." Still squeezing Zurg's chapped hands, he stared deep in his terrified pupils. Oh why had he asked? That usually half-ludicrous appearance of his parent hid ghastly secrets inside itself. Zora could not stop his weeping, but went on sobbing about how much he regretted his crimes.
The son's gawk gradually turned dull, as perching there furthermore uncountable amount of minutes, holding his father's hands. His terrified mind could not process this all in one moment. Lightyears killing other Lightyears... his mother, murdered... By his own kindred? And during the following night, these chaotic images and tales would turn into an excruciating nightmare, putting him to bathe in cold sweat.
...to be continued...