-------------Two days later, Star Command HQ--------------
Yawning Buzz traipsed on the heels of a droning and snapping small crowd, along a white, wide corridor. Some Alliance's government members were visiting the Base. A whole pack of those self-confident dullards walking their noses pointing upwards, Lightyear thought. No wonder they kept every now and then stumbling with the hems of their long politician's robes, since having their eyes wryly leering at the patterns of the ceiling. The Ministry of the Intergalactic Security, the Department of Regulation and Misusage of Fossil Fuels had some dispute about the small oil tanks the Base had stored in its belly. Should they be removed or controlled or blahblahblah... jabberjabberblabber... the humdrum bicker turned to fuzz in the Captain's ears.
He did not even understand why he was called here in the middle of his normal workday. Perhaps the Commander wanted support or something, yet Lightyear had not uttered even half an alphabet during the sojourn here. Regularly by this time, he would be zipping back home, whistling freely in his speeder. But now, he had to gather mildew and get mummified here?
He yawned again, deeper. Buzz had not slept well since the happenings two days ago. The previous two nights had been a tumult of obscure nightmares. He was still horrified about the creepy piece of history Zurg had shed. Cries, darkness, laments, tied together with thistles and smoke... those were his somnus. The weirdest thing in his muddled nocturnal visions had been a very blurry image of a young woman that had lingered there the both nights, coming back over and over again. The Captain had no idea who she was, though there was something distantly familiar in her being. It did nothing else but the same little fidgeting movement, curled a lock of her hair around her finger, and wiped it behind the ear. After doing this, the illusion either replayed the whole thing or vanished. Then, another moment Buzz was back on Planet Z, his wounded father lying on the floor, him squeezing the loose Zurg helmet in his perspiring hands. Warp, Team Lightyear, and Zarah had vanished from around the Emperor, only there were the reflections of youth and aging. Then, Zora's face began slowly changing, until Buzz understood staring at his own self, taken the form of the evil Emperor. Usually at this spot, he had bounced awake, his body slimy with cold sweat.
Yoka had reacted very oddly to her Owner's nightmares. She did not dash to console him with kisses and hugs as she woke up to his shrieking startles. For the first time this had happened, Buzz had thought she had lost her mind. Namely, the woman had taken some distance from him, set herself on tailor's seat, closed her eyes and tuned up a tardy, vibrating rune song. Lightyear had long goggled at her, standing on his knees on the humid bed linen. The melody was oddly soothing, but he could not conceive what the heck she was up to, until scrambling at her and asking. The explanation was, that if a Kalevan man had private sorrow or relevant, his wife, or sister, or whoever close woman usually took part of the grief by bewailing and humming jeremiads. Why this had not happened before, was that the singer had to have a strong emotion binding herself to the broken-hearted. There her tale was disrupted because of a storm of shyness tumbling in her. Coy Yoka was still to tell about her feelings towards him, so unsure.
This took place a few times, but in the end, Lightyear actually found it comforting. As strange as it sounded. But... the Captain had a second kind of anxiety also. Deeply sorry he was for his father, whereas his conscious tormented him because of going so far with the abrasive questions. Buzz had not blurted a beep at him since the day before yesterday. Thus, every hour a new boulder was added on his mental burden. A millstone of guilt was even now hung around his neck. Just a bit of discipline and he could have had stifled the vile accusations.
He felt someone patting his shoulder. Nebula murmured there, sounding as fed-up as the employee. "Look, kid, you can go home. Blast, these bureaucrats'll nag until the sun turns pink and cows start flying. They won't get a solution for this today."
"Uhh yeah... thanks", Lightyear sighed. According to his wristcom timer, he was already very, very late from home. Thus he slouched to the launch bay and eventually blasted off with a flash-quick SC speeder. The ebon-black space awaited ahead, the Capital Planet's huge form curving initially below him. But... his hand shilly-shallied pushing the hyperflight activator. There, in the vast roundness of the core, was his father somewhere... perhaps still morosely sulking his past. Lightyear owed him an enormous apologize, and he wanted Zora to know that he was indeed sorry. Hence, the roaming hand on the console instead twisted a clutch and turned the ship's course towards the gleaming, sunbathing atmosphere beneath.
One last time, Buzz stroked his hair backwards, and brushed his beard with a pair of fingers. His knees clattered lightly together, the sentences felt tangling up on his palate like in a giant cobweb. But he had no choice, the shrieking consciousness did not give up its clucking. Besides, the Captain had promised himself never again to ignore its ditties, were they how unpleasant ever to hear then.
He stood at the front door of his father's cranky redoubt. There was no doorbell in the bizarre entrance, which resembled the grill of Zurg's old helmet. But there was a big knocker, which Buzz grabbed with a trembling hand. One more time he had scruples about to clank it... but no. Taking a long inhale of courage, he forced his fist to obey him. Clonng, blonng, doiinnnggg, the door boomed. Swapping his pose at least five times a second, Lightyear was left to wait. His walloping was taken into consideration very speedily.
It was the worst person he had expected to dive up in front of him. The stepmother. Obviously she had occurred to walk past the door and reached the handle before the butler grub, who vacantly crouched behind her. And, in a flash, the mementos from behind the days whooshed by Buzz' oculars. How he had been trying to reconcile his crying father; how Mariañ had pulled aside the chamber's sliding door... she had burst out to weep also, as seeing how ill and exhausted her Zurgypoo had looked like. The nice afternoon had died to this conflict. Buzz had helped his father to get to rest, that woman conducting the swaying emperor from his other arm... the ranger had shed apologies, the surgeon wailing and trying in vain to find out what was wrong with her Googly Bear. Buzz felt almost greater feelings of shame now, as opposing her face to face like this after the awkward skirmish. Indeed, a while, they just stared at each other, Buzz feeling his jugulars twitch. The woman had uttered a surprised 'hello', but the man's tongue was in an overhand knot. Yet, she did not look angry actually. Just somehow worriedly baffled.
"Uhh I..." he hacked, feeling his knees turning to liquid wax, "I ahh... came to apologize. The things of uhh... I caused uhh... uhm... Can I see my dad please?"
He was invited inside. Mariañ remained silent through the march along the endless corridors and staircases towards the room where Zurg lodged. He formed crumbs of sentences in his mind. How to confirm that he was sorry... and how to go on with the discussion that was finished so upsettingly. Abruptly his stepmother stopped her tiptoeing at an ajar triangular door.
She creaked the entrance open. The chamber behind it appeared to be some sort of domicile library, decorated with a dark-purple soft wall-to-wall carpet and matching wallpapers. Inside were stuffed several high bookshelves, their racks piled up with hundreds of holo-roms and real books. The old man sat at a study table, bent down, and was very absorbed in some huge, old-looking epos.
"Zetapoo, Hun, Buzz came to see you", Mariañ gave a knock on the door with her knuckles. Zora winced, casting his almost grim regard over his son. Lightyear felt terrible. Today he seemed to be over-sensitive concerning everything, and lastly wanted to cause someone bale.
"Dad, umh... I..." he rambled on the same series of apologies he had performed downstairs. The Emperor's hard, wrinkled face gradually melted softer, but still stagnated in the pond of agony.
"Son, come in. Sit down", he sighed, pulling a free chair forth.
They sat several minutes silent. Buzz had buried his head in his hands, staring at the battered, grooved desk surface. The yellow light crystal glared in the background. Those grooves were like the memories time stamps on human's mind, he thought. Others deeper, others curved, others sharp and grimacing. Some of them hid under the plane. Those latter furrows should perhaps not be examined... our hidden memories that are meant to be entombed.
"I hope you understand now why I had wished to forget it." The Emperor broke the stillness finally. "But... maybe it shall be impossible. Alike it is impossible just to push away the evil deeds I once did... twenty-six years of slavery, slaughtering, fighting against my own, only son..."
Buzz nodded biting his lip. How could he forget how it was like from day to day to attempt foiling Zurg's schemes, and save survivors from places he for his malicious amusement annihilated? The dark, dark years of past...
Suddenly, Zora's sharp goggle was over him. "But you did not just come here to apologize, did you? I can guess your ulterior motives, son. You still search for answers, do you not?"
The scion aroused. How did dad do that? Or was his face just so readable? Indeed, he had had some hope to hear more about Adi-Gaia. Although the stories had been so disturbing, he somehow yearned to learn more about the hidden bygones. "Uhh I... well..."
Nonetheless, his company had stood up and was initially stagnating beside one of those gigantic shelves. He pulled out an enormous, heavy album from the middle of dusty books. It was soon thrown onto the table with a loud thunk. Buzz stared at the large, box-looking bindings made of strong alloy. Several buckles held it together, hindering its bubbling inners from falling apart. Scraps of paper, corners of holodisks and all kinds of junk peeked from the middle of the strong sheets, even when the album was tightly closed.
"A piece of Lightyear history", Zurg grunted while sitting back down. "I thought I would never get this back in my hands again... unless Commander Nebula, that hobbling ouzel of Star Command, had not saved this from Planet Z." A dark scowl hit the son. "Quasars, was it then once so necessary to ruin my naughtily beautiful palace so squarely, that only a few of my private rooms stood intact? Otherwise that old coot could have saved a good amount of my other private belongings! Hmpff. Gryf. Even my cuddly-wuddly plushie collection of famous space furries went all mushed! I had then just added Stitch and an Ewok to garnish it. Grroff!"
In the meanwhile, Buzz had already opened the case and was gawping amazed at the inners. While on the most part the album seemed concentrating on the Lightyear family in overall, it was a very dangerous bit of evidence concerning Zurg. The first pages were stuffed full of both holographic and -grammic images of the Emperor, with his full Zurg costume on excluding the helmet. Though these shots were taken several years ago, the man looked somehow almost twenty years older in them than now. Perhaps it was the different, flatter hairdo, and that darkly mischievous, snarly face. Goodness, indeed, made the expressions shine different light.
"Ahh you found some very gorgeous photographic samples of the mighty me! Although I think I do look far much more handsome nowadays. That grandpa's haircut was a toot." Zora sleeked his thick, bushy-grown black tresses smugly with a tip of finger. "Yet, this time I shall not concentrate on me. I was thinking..." his voice grew severe, "...to let you see something... about Adi. I... have wanted to forget, but... perhaps I shall let you wrap open the bygones."
Buzz felt as if his heart had suddenly spurted up to his throat and collided against his palate. His mother? Was Zurg really going to show him something about his mother, or had he heard just some false hoots of wind? The man could not recall seeing any pictures of her, ever. Perhaps in the very early childhood, but those mementos had gathered moss and faltered into gray, blurry particles. And, he had been a mere infant when she had passed away.
Biting his lower lip, brows crumpled, the Emperor leafed through some pages of the album, then, during one sheet, extracted a small holo-disk from a plastic folder. Next it was carefully set it inside a holorom reader. He flipped through dozens of past-whizzing holos with a switcher, before he came across with the right segment of the disk. It caused him difficulty; hands shaking the old man tried preventing the sore emotions that effervesced deep from his subconscious. And as the final point, the Captain was left to stare straight at something creepily familiar-looking. An old, flickering holo of a woman, that looked exactly like the one from his nightmare. Only that the image was twice clearer now.
He let his fingers wander among the occasionally blinking, crackling statue of light. His mind... it must have dug something up from the very oldest and most profound nooks of his sensorium, when the emotional shock had occurred. There was no other explanation. The terrible tales had narcotized him in a way, mixing up associations and bringing forth memories he did not even understand having. In the three-dimensional picture could be seen a woman in her mid-twenties, smiling a bit wistfully. Her blue eyes were half-closed, and she held her hands resting on a table, while the lady herself sat on a high-backrest chair. Her dark-brown, wavy curls were open, scattered across her shoulders. Her features were soft, perhaps very slightly oriental-esque. There she would go on smiling, eternally, captured inside this artificial holo. So full of sentiments the lifeless light statue still seemed to be... yet, it all was just an illusion, a fragment of past brought forth from a dusty bookshelf.
"That picture..." he heard his father's half-choked voice explaining in the background, "...was the last one ever taken. A week or two... before she left."
Buzz sighed, deep. Somehow it felt relieving to meet faint keepsakes this way, but on the other hand, a cold string of woe strangled his throat. Nothing would bring Adi-Gaia back. Never. Then... an other kind of association. There was something rather intimate in the appearance of this holographic woman. Not the in the genetic resemblance, but... elsewhere. As if Buzz had seen something recently... The riddle was unexpectedly solved. Zurg's wife had appeared on the doorway with a tray, two large tea mugs steaming on it, along with a huge bowl of bunzel muffins. She. It was she.
There was a resemblance between Adi and Mariañ. She was taller, more angular and had edgier face, yet still... the smile, the look in the eyes, the color of the hair, even the coiffure. And even, she was about the same age as the person portrayed there. Did this mean what? Just a coincidence, most likely. Or... did his father try to relive the things he had lost, this way? By marrying someone who was like a half-copy of the missing one? Lightyear massaged his temples, attempting to harp on himself that he was blaming now his father too hard. It was Zurg's own thing how he built up his life, as far as it was directed back towards goodness. Still... Buzz could not get rid of certain prejudices. The girl was utterly too young for Zora. Even appeared somehow naïve and teen-esque. That constant sillyish giggling and tittering... On the other hand, they got along brilliantly together, or so it at least looked like. The man felt his awareness accusing him of being biased. Yes, he should try... try to get rid of his minor intolerance towards his stepmother. Weren't they just the same things, intolerance and prejudice, which had put the space ranger to treat Yoka like a filthy dog in the first place? Traps of the dark side those emotions were, indeed.
-----Meanwhile, back in Kaon-----
Yoka stood at a kitchen worktable, piling up some clean dishes back to the cupboard's top shelf. She was proud to know how to use a MIC-type dry-clean dishwashing machine nowadays. Oh, so much futile work had to be done back in the days of Kaleva... water at first heaved up from the river, then carried home in heavy buckets, then boiled in a huge cauldron... just then the pots and plates could be rubbed somehow clean. Her indistinct thoughts roamed around that name. What were her village's residents possibly doing now? Blacksmith Ilmarinen probably tinkled in his forge shop... the viisaat perhaps wrote new runes... How about... her father? She seized her work, falling in reflections. This was one of the rare occasions after the depart she had come rather wistfully to sigh due to the old man's memory. Still, though Vainamoinen being so distant, she missed him in some cranny of her heart.
She winced as noticing that the house's walking trash compacter had appeared beside her. It was ready to swallow the possibly falling cup she was loosely dragging between two fingers. Grunting, she gave it a pooh-pooh. That thing was just so irritating! It kept following her always when she was wandering around the first floor. Even now it was giving merry beeps and whirrs, as if encouraging her to actually drop the dish so that it could have a snack. It repeatedly opened its top lid like some mouth, keeping that cajoling purr. As if this was not enough, the stupid robot started almost nuzzling her shank.
Suddenly Yoka felt something else. There had been a knock on her shoulder.
She swirled around, in a startle, and was made shiftlessly to stare at the empty space in front of her. Only the walking trash bin kept noise in the room. Shrugging a bit frightened, she decided to go back to the work. Weird. Perhaps it had been a false neural sense or something.
But then there was another one. A clear touch of someone's fingers tapping her shoulder.
This time, she produced a small scream, twirling about again. Her hackles up, she gawped at the lifeless kitchen anteriorly. Nothing. Plainly nothing. The mecha had stopped the buzzing, there was a complete stillness hovering dankly around.
"Who--- who ees there?" she snapped in broken accent, slowly taking treads forwards. "Ees there who?" Still, silence. Yoka had advanced the hall with her course. But then, right at her ear she heard a whisper.
"Guess it."
Screaming, she backed up several meters. She had heard a prompt, a clear pair of words being articulated. But there was absolutely nothing on the spot where there should have been a person. Or at least something living. Panting, hackles up, she pressed herself against the wall behind. Now, her sensitive ears picked up other noises too. Something, like a gush of fine canvas, swept across the hall. She sensed a small airflow reaching her face.
There was something, invisible, moving in front of her.
"Who ees there I know there someone is to be!" Yoka yelped again.
"Hehehehe... curious, eh? Perhaps you know me... hahahaha." Came an answer out of nowhere.
This made her pupils reduce even more. She indeed knew that voice. That was Proud Crescent's voice, was it not? What was going on? The intermezzo of the wardrobe raced back from her memory. Either this was another apparition, or then... Buzz was playing some nasty game at the cost of her. Was this his idea of a good joke? Yoka-hanen at least found this far from amusing. Still... she had not seen him coming back from his work today, in addition of him being already considerably late. So it could not be him, could it? Furthermore trembling with fear, she queried the invisible something.
"Buzz? Do yu do this thing, yu think it ees funny?"
"Hehehe. Yes, I think it's very funny to see you trembling with fear", the slightly drawling tone had a very cold nuance in it. "I enjoy it. I enjoy so much seeing you fail...seeing you so helpless, hehehe."
She crumpled her brows, suspicion in her mind. This did not quite sound like her husband who his both thumbs up had encouraged her and helped already so much to understand the incongruity reigning here.
"Yu no Buzz."
A small sweep wafted nearer her. Then, the voice was right at her ear again. "I didn't deny it, did I? I'll let you decide who or what I am..." With the hushed end, a petty, coldish stroke touched her bare arm. This was the last drop. Shrieking she ran out of the house and jammed the door shut behind her.
Gasping breath Yoka slumped down to lean against a tree on the foreyard. The white, round-arched house rising in front of her looked suddenly so forbidding. What was in there? Why was someone or something frightening her this way? If it was Proud Crescent, then why, why? What had she done to him that she would deserve treatment like this? Or... was Buzz possibly transforming undercover back in the fiend he had been originally? Yoka understood now that the man she had seen upstairs a few days ago, was not the creation of her imagination. Only now it had turned invisible. Perhaps it had disappeared that way also then. Yet... how was it possible? She held her beating temples, pondering in vain. This world was so bizarre, was it thus presumable that people could turn themselves into phantoms by pushing some button, just like that...? No, no, no, it was all so confusing.
"Boo." The voice was back. A bantering whisper had been hissed right above her. One more time, Yoka sprang up, shrieking. It had come after her into the garden? The light of sensation was extinguished in her mind, and the desperate girl ran back in the house. Stairs up as fast as possible, and slam, the bedroom door got locked after her. The Kalevan plunged under the bed, spending the rest of the evening there, shaking all over and biting her nails broken.
Back at Zurg's house, the discussion between the father and the son had relented for a moment. Buzz was captivated to study the shabby album the Emperor had picked up from the shelf. Slowly leafing through it, he had gradually dived inside an unknown history. Lightyears, all sorts of Lightyears walked tardily past. Some pictures did a small fidgeting movement, some spurted out petite holostatues, some just jutted still and grumpy, depending on the photo's technical composition. Decades of Lightyears, centuries of Lightyears. Eagerly, his oculars scrutinized the pictures, swallowing every crumb of information he could get out of them.
There perched all kinds of women, men, and kids. Though, the Captain could almost immediately point out the blood relatives. Most of them had the familiar cleft imprinted on their chins, whereas the men were usually very tall and dark-haired. He must have inherited his shortness from Adi, since his own father was over seven feet tall. Occasionally a few blonde-haired or brunettes peered him back from the age-old images. Several had also the same kind of habit to scowl threateningly equally to Zurg. Also, that long upper lip appeared to be a dominating genome. Though, Zora's one seemed to have somehow even overstretched by the age. In his youth pictures he looked almost normal, and there was not half a meter distance between his nose and mouth.
As browsing through the plastopaper sheets, Buzz descended deeper in the history. As leering one page though, he was left to goggle at one photo where was portrayed two elder men. This picture had to be several hundreds of years old, at least regarding its material. Of course it shone with bright colors furthermore, but that type of hard, plated photopaper was used nowhere these days. The men in it were pure Lightyears, which could be seen from their facial eccentricities. The shorter one in the left had white, rather greasy-looking long hair, an angry grunt on framed with black pointed brows, his cleft-stamped chin clean-shaven. The one in the right was younger, and looked very much like Zurg. His thick, black hair was combed backwards, a monocle shielded his left eye, and on the whole, the appearance was very snobby. To make him more Zurgish, he had even a black chin beard, and high stiff collars in his peculiar outfit. All in all, they both were garmented somewhat baroque-like, with oddish details in their costumes. Ruffles in cuffs, large engraved buckles sticking out of everywhere, both of them in addition wearing heavy, black capes.
"Dad? You know who these are?" Lightyear blurted. There was usually a name or equal appearing either inside the photo, or written beside it. This time there was no such information.
Zurg tapped his chin with a long thin finger. "Huuhuhoom... grohh... ahh I have the names right niftily on the top of my overglorious mind, but their form is not slithering out... hymm... something with Z they were..."
Buzz rolled his eyes. Every single Lightyear seemed to have a Z in their name, so what surprise would that be? Yet, the Emperor removed the picture from its plastic holders, turning it carefully over, glancing at some text written on the background.
"Ahh, indeed. Zoxewa and Jardaz Lightyear. Brothers, I would recall. They had some peculiar story relating to them..." he scratched his hair, a pout on, as if being mad at himself for not recollecting things so brilliantly.
His son however perked. Could they be... those brothers? About whom Mr. Hadron had told? Answers scooted forth in a bolt. They were the same persons, yet unfortunately Zurg could not add much more to the shoe seller's tale. Lightyear was a bit disappointed, but that history was not so important, was it? It had been forgotten anyways a long time ago, so maybe it was not even that essential to be acquainted with it.
Time had whizzed by with giant leaps. Buzz would ultimately need to head back to Morph, now. Yoka was possibly furious because of him being so late. He tried giving her a comlink call, but none answered. Possibly there was a small ion storm above Kaon, or something, if the extraplanetary connections did not work. However, he did not regret at all that he had come to visit Zurg this day. He and the Emperor had their friendship back in frames, a peace reigning again between them.
---------
Finally Buzz parked his speeder in the garage. Ahh, it was so good to be at home at last. The only thing he now wanted to do, was to close Yoka in his arms. Half of the day he had missed her warm softness against him, at least while semi-snoring listening to the quack of the ministers. So, with an affectionate smile on, he tapped out of the vehicle and headed in.
Back inside, when the Kalevan had heard his vehicle's engines roaring on the yard, she had gathered a little bit courage in herself. A tiptoe downstairs had been done, and initially she peered at the front door from behind a hall corner. So, Proud Crescent had come back? Should she ask... no, she could not. During the hours, it had once again started doubting her that had the weird noises been real at all. Namely, they had not returned afterwards. But what if they were real...? Was Buzz really playing at the cost of her? Lastly Yoka concluded that she actually dared not to open her mouth about today's occurrences. She would stay as quiet as a grey stone.
Lightyear caught her immediately as the sliding door had opened. He wondered a bit why the lights were not on downstairs though it was almost pitch-black already outside. Traipsing to her with a parsec-wide grin on his face, he drew her against his chest, ready to give her a good kiss, if not tens of them. But what? She pushed him away, retreating and staring oddly at him. Like the woman had been afraid of something in him.
"Yoka? What's wrong? Look I'm really sorry that I'm late, but I tried calling you..." he stepped onwards, explaining, arms stretched out. "I was visiting my dad because..."
But she was gone, sneaking back the stairs up, holding her aching head. She did not want to hear his weird explanations right now. Or what would she explain herself, as not being even secure of her own sanity? She needed rest, rest, sleep...
The Captain remained standing perplexedly in the dark hall.
...to be continued...