The Fall of the Infinite Empire

Chapter 10

By the time their long journey had come to an end, Tytus had once again grown unfamiliar with the sun and open sky. The many weeks spent in the bowels of the Rakatan ship had followed a day spent with his family, most of his family anyway, beneath the cloudless sky of Tatooine. Like many of his people Tytus had found his fair share of glimpses of sky. Openings in rock ceiling of their cave home had let shafts of sunlight in, though they did not usually linger long in spots so close to the surface. He knew from those experiences that unlike the light from the bioluminescent moss and fungus, the light of the sun was warm. So, he thought to himself, he should have been prepared for how hot it would get, waiting to be processed by the Rakatans. His own skin had been tender for days afterward, despite the clothes the Rakatans had given them, clothes so much sturdier and thicker than the clothes they had worn in the caves, the clothes woven from dead dried fungus. His poor little Corus has gotten so hot he eventually used his own body to make shade for her. She had curled up into a little ball and rested on his legs, and he had wrapped her in his arms. He didn't know whether the heat from the sun could hurt her, but he feared that it would. Brun and Sani had been force to make do for themselves, older as they were. Sani would not have fit on Tytus' lap the way her little sister did, and Brun would have pretended he was fine if his father had offered.

They had been roused early that morning, an unfortunate thing given that Corus and Sani had been crying all night about Myra being taken the day before. Brun had held back the tears, but Tytus was fairly sure that when the lights went out they flowed for him as well. Myra had told them she would leave without them, but that they would see her again. Tytus had wanted to believe that, and to the children he had pretended he did. But Myra was trusting the Rakatans when she said that they would be reunited, and Tytus would not trust them. Or maybe Myra was pretending too. The thought annoyed Tytus, the thought that Myra was managing his feelings the way he was managing the children's.

The guards had come in the early morning, directing them out of the room in which they had been confined since arrival, Myra having been the only member of the family to be permitted to leave. The master of the place had not seen fit to have any long talks with the rest of them. Food had been brought, along with water, by droids. So when the door opened that morning and guards entered instead, it had caught them by surprise, despite what Myra had told them. They had been pushed out of the door roughly, though not as roughly as the night they had been brought there. Through the maze of hallways they had been led at spear point until they had reached the building's exit. This was followed by the long march to the outskirts of the city, where lay, Myra had said, the vessels that would take them to the stars. Myra's explanation of what would happen had broken through, for a little while anyway, the sadness that had attended the news that she was not going to travel with them. Her description, minimal as it was, of flying through the sky until you left the sky behind had gotten Brun and Sani's attention. Corus, small as she was, had not stopped crying and Tytus was not sure she really understood. So all that long hot day, as they sat in place waiting to be loaded onto the correct ship Tytus had whispered to his daughter about the magic and wonder of what was about to happen. Corus had listened, but she whimpered and asked every once in a while for her mother.

Eventually the guards came and led them up a ramp. The ramp was large enough that a hundred people could have walked side by side up it, but there weren't hundreds of people to move. Tytus had noticed several other groups of people, but had not been able to speak to them. He was not even sure he would have been able to, for they all looked strange. Every person Tytus had ever met had the same deep brown skin as him. Some were a bit darker and some a bit lighter, but none so light skinned as some of the other groups he saw. There were those whose skin was a significantly lighter brown than his, but more strangely there were red and yellow skinned people. And it was clear they were people, not Rakatans, but Tytus had never heard that people could look like that.

One group of people stood out though, for Tytus had heard of their kind. A half dozen people huddled together, their skin white as the fish he had seen pulled from the cave lake of his youth, a sight not repeated since due to the fact that Tytus and his family never found a lake of such size in their cave system. Tytus had not seen these pale people any more than he had seen the others, but unlike the others there were stories of these people. They brought the fire down on Tatooine, for it was they who started the rebellion, they who had pushed the war beyond the point where it could be won, they who refused to give up, even as their people died in the billions. From the look of things they still hadn't given up. The guards around the other groups, including Tytus' family, were for the most part ignoring their captives. But the guards around the pale skinned people were intent upon them. Occasionally a Rakatan would push or prod one of the pale skinned ones with their spear, to make them sit down. They kept pulling themselves into a tight circle, facing inward, and apparently the guards did not like that. So the Rakatans kept pushing them back into a line, and the pale skinned people kept yelling and trying to reform their circle. Tytus would have admired their courage if it had not seemed such a foolhardy exercise. What did sitting in a circle accomplish that it was worth provoking the guards to do it? But of course this fit with the stories of the people who started a fight they could not win, and gotten everyone else killed in the process.

Eventually the time came when Tytus, his family, and all the rest of his people were herded up a large ramp and onto a ship. The part of the ship into which they were pushed was massive, significantly larger than the largest cavern Tytus had ever seen. All along the walls of the hall were cells, one row on top of the other, the rows only ending at the point where they met the ceiling. Tytus and the rest of his people were forced towards the cells on either side of the hangar, to make room for the vehicles and pallets of equipment that would occupy most of the space in the hangar bay for the duration of their trip. As they were being loaded Rakatan guards began separating people from each other, and at this point Tytus gathered his children closer to him. He tried to stay near his parents and near Myra's sister and her mate, but his priority was the children. Having only the two hands he gave Corus to Sani to hold, and grabbed his two oldest children as tightly as he could. He did not think he had any chance of stopping the Rakatans from separating them if they decided to do so, but he figured that if it seemed like it would take some work and struggle to separate him from his children, they might decide it was not worth the trouble.

It was at this point that Tytus saw the brightly dressed Rakatan, the one from their first night in the city. He was clearly directing these guards in their efforts, and that gave Tytus some hope that there would be no repeat of the violence that had been visited upon Brun. Myra had told Tytus her theory that the guard who had nearly disemboweled their son had been killed, but when he asked her how she knew she could not say. But there was no arguing with the fact that it was after the brightly colored Rakatan had arrived that their treatment had improved, and that steps had been taken to save Brun's life.

And so it was not with shock, though with a fair amount of relief that Tytus found himself in a single cell with all three of his children. The cells, which were larger than they had appeared when Tytus first saw them, had bunks on each side, giving each of them a place to sleep, and a small washroom at the back of the cell. The washroom had a door that closed, an allowance for their desire for privacy that surprised Tytus, and the same facilities for depositing their waste that Tytus and his family had found in the room back in the city. By now the children had already acclimated to it. While realizing that this method of dealing with the problem was much better than having to make your way to the foul smelling cavern, far away from their water source, that they had grown up using, Tytus had expressed some concern that the children would grow spoiled and have trouble re-adjusting to life in the caves. Myra had stared at him in astonishment at the fact that he believed they were ever going back. They were going to another world she told him, and even if they ever came back to this one there was no reason to think the Rakatans would ever just let them go.

Tytus had not argued. It did no good arguing with Myra. She always thought she knew more, and usually she actually did, he admitted to himself. But Tytus was bothered by how quickly Myra seemed to have adjusted to the idea that they would all spend the rest of their days in bondage. He refused to believe that escape was not possible, and he preferred to think that somehow escape would mean going home. He had kept this hope even as he felt the ship taking off, even as he felt the queer sensation of it jumping into hyperspace. He was helped in his hopefulness by the fact that he didn't really understand what was happening. He knew they were supposed to be going to another world, but unlike Myra, who had seen the Star Map, he had no conception of how far away other worlds were. And just like Myra, at least before they had been separated, he had no idea how long it would take them to get to this new world.

What followed was week after week of monotony. There were no windows out of which Tytus could look but he could tell from the queer feeling when they jumped in and out of hyperspace. Their trips through hyperspace would last for a few hours, followed by more hours, and sometimes days of waiting at some world, for supplies Tytus supposed. The droids brought food and water at regular intervals, leaving Tytus only the job of comforting his children. Corus cried every night for her mother, while Sani and Brun simply spoke and did less and less. The cell they were in quickly proved to be too small for comfort. There was barely enough room for them all to be standing and active at once. Tytus felt it was important for the children to keep moving so he arranged their time so that at most two of them would be up and about at once. Brun and Sani exercised willingly at first, then only at Tytus' insistence, and finally not even then, while Corus was too small to really stay focused on such things. To help her along Tytus had turned to singing so as to encourage her to dance. This worked at first, but like her older siblings Corus lost interest in it as the days went on. For the last half of the journey she spent most of her time sleeping. The door to their cell had a window, and out of boredom the children would spend hours looking out of it. They could see the droids moving to and fro. Occasionally the could see the guards walk their patrol route around the hangar bay, weaving through the vehicles and the supplies that were stored in the center of the bay. At night Tytus would look out of the window at the other cells. He could see nothing of those on his side, but could see those across the bay and he thought he could see faces in their windows. But they were too far away for him to make out their expressions, and the glass was too thick to hear anything.

But then one day, after a worrisome bout of rough flying, the cell doors began to open. They did not open all at once, but row by row, starting at the top. The cells on the other side of the hangar began to open and people walked hesitantly out, the Rakatan guards with their spears behind them, pushing them down into the bay. Tytus and the children saw people coming down from above them and making their own way into the bay. Then the large hanger door opened and people and supplies and vehicles began walking out. Tytus had once more grabbed his children, placing Corus in Sani's arms and grabbing hold of Brun and Sani tightly as they began to walk out of the ship and into the light.

The light was the first shock. Tytus and the children had become used to the dim light of the ship, and it was hard at first to keep their eyes open as the light streamed into the hangar bay. By the time they were at the ramp they could see a bit better, but by then the second shock hit. The air felt to them thick. Taking a deep breath felt more difficult. It took Tytus a while to recognize that it was moisture. He remembered the difference between the air on the surface of Tatooine and the air in the caves, where open water could still be found. The air on this world held far more water than even the dampest cave on Tatooine however. As they walked down the ramp Tytus and children could see the literal fruits of that moisture. While the ship itself had landed on a massive slab of stone, in the distance Tytus could see the hills covered in green. As he looked out onto tales from his childhood made real, he wondered how Myra had reacted upon seeing this. For some reason seeing the trees and grass in the distance had made the difference for him. Myra had said they would take a journey through space and end up on the home world of the Rakatans, where their family would be reunited. She had said it would be a world unlike their own, with water and lush vegetation. This she had been told by the old Rakatan, and here it was, real.

"We will see Momma soon," he tried to reassure little Corus, whose head rested on her sister's shoulder while she looked at him. In response she smiled weakly and Brun nodded, seemingly not realizing that the reassurance was meant for his younger sister and not him. Tytus smiled. For all his attempts to act the man, his son was still young enough to take joy in the thought of returning to his mother.

A few hundred feet from the ship's ramp were a collection of ground transports much like those in which they had been transported to the city on Tatooine the day they were captured. The night Brun almost died. Along with the other captives from Tatooine, Tytus and his children were loaded into the back of one of these transports. Where Tytus' parents were he did not know. He had lost track of them and Myra's sister and her mate when they had been placed in the cells on the ship, and they were not in his transport. He hoped that these transports were all headed to the same place. If not, he supposed he had lost them forever. He had spent his whole life with them. Even before Myra had chosen him they had all been like family. That is why they decided to make the journey together. There had been more of them then. Some had died in those first days before Myra had found the water deep in the caves. Some had died since, from falls, from injuries, from sickness. There were so few of them left that they had known that one way or another they would need to move again. It was that or condemn their children to a life with no children of their own. No one was going to send their children to live with such a small group, perilously close to having too few people to be self-sufficient. Myra's sister and her mate seemed unable to have children, and that was too close a relation anyway. Their group had been so small to start with, and the losses were too great for them to stand as a clan apart. Now they were no clan at all. Just prisoners.

There was nothing to do in the transport but watch the landscape go by them. The sights were magnificent. In a different situation Tytus would have been able to appreciate their beauty. This world was green, except where it was a brilliant blue. The water that he could see out the windows spread from below the cliff on which they rode out to beyond where he could see. The fear that kept Tytus from reveling in the majesty of it all did not hold back his children. Little Corus had to stand on her tiptoes to see out of even the lowest window, while Brun and Sani were tall enough that they couldn't stand up. But look they all did, silently. What was there to say? Theirs had been a world of darkness, and now they knew what the light was. Was that a trade worth making, Tytus wondered? Freedom in the dark for slavery in the light? Looking at his children's excited faces he could not decide, nor could he convince himself that was the trade his family was presented. What use did the Rakatans have for slaves like them? The story Myra had brought him would have made more sense if he could understand what purpose was being served by taking them, but there was nothing they could do that the Rakatans could not do better. Even their mechanical servants seemed stronger and tougher than did the people of Tatooine. They would make weak slaves, so why would the Rakatans take them as slaves? They wouldn't. There was no reason, and Tytus could not see how a race could grow so mighty by doing wasteful things.

But what, a voice in his own mind asked him, was their purpose in coming to Tatooine at all then? There must have been one he told himself, though it was hard to see. Perhaps their purpose in making them slaves was similarly hard to see, came the reply. The voice of hope in his head was Myra's voice of course, as it always was. The same voice that told him years ago that they would make it across the glass and find a new life where they didn't have to beg for their place. The same voice that woke him to tell him not to worry, because she was going to find the water that day. The voice that screamed its way through three childbirths, the agony seemingly never mixed with fear. The voice that said, only weeks before, that they needed to go deeper into the caves to find more water, not higher up. He had found it impossible to believe her that last time, and look what came of it. When he trusted Myra things worked. He needed to trust her again. Not that it mattered whether he trusted or not, he thought ruefully to himself. Their destination had been selected and they were headed that way, no matter what he thought.

The transports – which seemed to be staying together, or at least Tytus could see several behind them – made their way along the top of the cliff and then eventually descended along a smooth road until they reached a large white sand beach. They traveled along the water line, and the children were gifted the sight of the sun turning to burning gold as it approached the horizon, until at last they stopped. The doors opened and Tytus saw a familiar face. It was the only Rakatan face he could recognize, for it was the only one without both of the grotesque eye stalks. He had killed Myra's cousin, and his punishment had been an eye. That boy would never see again, would never do anything, but this killer walked around with his mockery of a punishment.

The one-eyed Rakatan motioned for Tytus and his children to stand before him, then called out to his fellows. After a few moments of waiting Tytus saw his parents and Myra's sister, Garon and her mate Vellam being pulled from another group of captives and brought towards them. He squeezed his mother's hand both to express his own relief and to hopefully calm her down. He watched as the Rakatan guards separated more people from the groups they were in. By the time the work was done there were three distinct groups, each with several dozen people in them. Tytus' group, which contained his whole family, were led towards the treeline, while the other two were marched farther along the beach towards a destination Tytus could not see.

There was a wide path through the trees. Two Rakatans, including the guard with one eye, took the lead, while two more took the rear. The prisoners were clumped together into what Tytus figured were family groups like his own, and they moved together in those clumps. The journey through the trees, short as it was, was wondrous for all the prisoners. Vegetation like this had not been present on Tatooine for generations, and Tytus' guess was that for many of the prisoners they had never seen plants like this before. He himself had only caught glimpses in the garden back in the building on Tatooine. The 'Old Man's garden' Myra had called it. But that small plot had nothing to compare to the tall and majestic trees that lined the path. They grew so thick that you couldn't see very far into the forest. It was dark as the caves in there Tytus thought to himself.

After a few minutes they came into a clearing in the forest, at the center of which Tytus could see a low circular building, with a massive dome of glass rising out of its center. The walls themselves were made of a black material Tytus did not recognize. He and his fellow prisoners were walked up to an open door, and, passing through it, found themselves in a long curved hallway. They turned to the right and walked along, passing Rakatans standing guard at various doors until they finally came to the one they were meant to pass through. It opened, as if by magic, upon their approach, revealing a room into which only about half of them could fit. Two of the guards who had accompanied them from the beach entered the room and beckoned the prisoners to join them. Realizing that not all would fit Tytus' chief concern was to make sure that his family stayed together. When he saw the push of people bring his father with them he quickly checked to make sure all the rest of his family were holding hands and moved towards the room as well.

The prisoners in the room tried their best to hug the walls and stay away from the guards. Tytus was able to get everyone in his family in before the doors closed behind them. Shortly thereafter the room began to fall. It was Tytus' first experience with an elevator, and it took him quite by surprise. The trip down was not long, perhaps only half a minute. The door to the elevator opened and more walking through hallways until they reached another door. When that last door opened, she was there.

The weeks on that ship had been the longest period Tytus had ever spent away from Myra. They had grown up together in the caves. He could not remember a time without her. He barely had any memories that did not involve her. He had spent the weeks of imprisonment aboard the ship focused on seeing his children through the experience. He had missed her, of course, but he had tried to push that from his mind. His sadness would do his children no good, and he was all they had.

But there she was. Her brown skin seemed to shine, even in the fading sunlight streaming through the glass dome above them. Her black hair fell in thick, tight coils. Its length surprised him. Back in the caves she had kept it short, reaching down no further than her shoulders, but now the ends of her locks lay gently on the tops of her breasts. Her rich brown eyes were opened wide when she saw them, and she exhaled as though she had been holding the breath in for a very long time. Tytus noticed that her tunic was new, the homespun cloth robe he had last seen her in, that he had seen her in for years before that long gone. It looked like something the aliens had provided for her. It showed the supple skin along the whole length of her arms, was belted along her lithe waist, and stopped above her knees. Tytus was not used to seeing so much of his mate, and he was quite sure no one else in their family had. He felt a surge of desire for her that halted suddenly as he heard his children cry out for their mother. She rushed towards them, gathering the girls in her arms and inclining her head towards Brun, whose arms went around her neck. Tytus walked towards Myra, and stood over her as she cried with the children.

After a few moments she rose, pulled him towards her, and gave him a long, strong kiss. Left briefly breathless, Tytus was surprised when, after breaking the kiss she hugged him close, moved her mouth to his ear and whispered, "We aren't safe here."