Teeabu and Delah spilled out from the train terminal with the other passengers, into the bright sun.

“Aaaaeee, I’m over here!” Boon cried out, waving.

A hand shielding his eyes, Teeabu recognized the old classic nine-passenger hydro-lift hovering ten inches above the ground, pulled up behind other hydro-lifts and a hydro-bus. Beneath it, the steam that powered the engine escaped from long outdated slope-vents.

Boon grinned with a tooth missing and crazed look, sporting red shorts, a dirty white short-sleeved top, and boots up to his knees. He slapped his hand on the orange lift. “Ain’t she a beaut? Kept her shining. Hop in everyone, me canopy’s down today. Sun’s shining like a polished wheel and the wind’s slowed to a purr. Gotta take advantage of that, ain’t that right, Priest Tee?”

Teeabu nodded. “Can’t pass that up.” Freckled-faced and long-time friend Jerron, ordained into the priesthood alongside Teeabu, leaped over the side into the second row of seats. Teeabu took his cue and jumped in the same row without opening the car door to let the other passengers in.

Delah slapped her hands on her thighs. “That’s not right. You didn’t open the passenger door, guys.”

“Ohhh, they’re just boys, little Dee. Here.” Boon graciously bowed with door opened to let her in. Two other children pushed ahead of her and piled in the third row of seats. “No, no, no, kiddies not fair. Achh, never mind. Get on in, Dee.”

Eyes squinted, Teeabu noticed Delah didn’t budge. She leaned with hands on the lift. “I can’t. I got somewhere else to go. Teeabu, will you meet me at the shack?”

“Boon, will you wait a moment for us?” Teeabu asked. “This’ll just take a sec.” Teeabu heard protests from the passengers, kids from his neighborhood, including Jerron.

“Only a sec.” Boon waved him out of the lift.

Near the terminal’s entrance, Teeabu took Delah by the elbow and escorted her there, out of hearing distance. “You know you’ve got to come home with us, so what’s eating you?”

“I have a surprise at the shack. If I don’t go, something bad will happen.”

“Then you can’t go, if you feel something bad will happen. Come on.” Teeabu pulled her by the arm; she pulled him easily back.

“No. I’m going and you can’t stop me. Will you come. Remember, back at the ordination, you said you'd come?”

Teeabu exhaled, rolled his eyes, and finally gave in. “You'll get me in trouble. You know how Mother Yutva gets.”

“It'll just be about a half an hour. If you don't come by then, I'll come home. Don’t tell my mother about this, okay? It’ll only take five minutes for me to get there if I run at full speed.”

“I’ll be there like I promised.”

She darted away, almost fast as a speeding hydro-lift. Teeabu ran back to Boon’s hydro-lift and leaped back into the second row.

Jerron smacked him on the back. “Not keeping any secrets from us are you, big brother?”

Boon interrupted talking from the front as he put the lift in gear and took off. “Speaking of keeping secrets, did anyone notice the blackout? I’m wondering if it was just me.”

With the canopy down, Teeabu felt the breeze blowing through his hair. “Yeah, we noticed it.” He leaned against the headrest in front, “Delah thought it could have been the Centrex.”

“It sure enough had to be something like that. Cutting off everything you need. Then my lovely girl here,” Boon patted the upholstery, “she died on me, but I had a backup generator. It’s crazy. My question is, why in Hades is this happening? Just thinking about it, gives me the creeps. Maybe we should have kept little Dee with us.”

Teeabu remembered how she would push bullies down, bigger than her, with her fingertips. “She'll be okay,” he said.

They zipped down the roadway, passing red flowered green fields of Reedpods. Snaking around yellow and brown fields of wheat and corn, they soon reached houses that gracefully curved and tucked under or next to hillsides. Their homes, miles away from the city, were built with titanium skins of earth tones that matched the green trees and rolling hills. Reedpod resin, gave an attractive warm tone to the green color. What never ceased to amaze Teeabu was how precious Reedpod resin helped to protect them from fire and rain.

Teeabu hopped out of the hydro-lift at Yutva's house and waved back at Boon and Jerron. The house was angled under a hill. Pillars eight inches in diameter left space for a portal. Yutva, the elected Mother of Irema, met him there as he rushed in.

He had been told she was once a slave to Araidia and had been one of the few to escape the shielded city. Today, she wore her hair slicked back in a bun. Her complexion was a little darker than his. A brass collar adorned her graceful neck. The purple sleeveless dress clung to her figure and stopped at her knees.

She seized his arm. “Where is Delah?”

“Why, what’s wrong?” Teeabu stiffened. Yutva's expression was hard as stone, her eyes narrowed. But he hadn’t done anything wrong today. Shiadung! He had just been ordained! She breathed hard. If a person of brown skin could pale, she just did. He had done something wrong. Did she know he left Delah to run to the shack?

“Why didn’t you bring her?” Yutva gave Teeabu’s arm a jerk.

“I… I just left….” He pointed toward the doorway. “She didn’t take the hydro-lift with me. When we got off the train, she said she’d be at the shack and that’s only about five minutes away from here. Then she took off and --”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Yutva pursed her lips. “Never mind, never mind. Is Boon still outside?”

“He left to drop everyone off.”

“We have to fetch her.” She loosened her grip on his forearm and rested a quaking hand on his shoulder.

She hadn’t even inquired how the ceremony went. Something was deadly wrong. His heart hiccuped within his chest, drummed in his ears. Why hadn’t he grabbed Delah and demanded that she come home? He’d never seen Yutva so anxious before. She was often demanding and authoritative, but never frightened.

Yutva rubbed her arms as if it were cold and turned to leave.

Delah's Araidian mother, Leptis, entered the room. Just when I thought trouble can’t get any worse, Teeabu thought. Now Delah’s mother would chime in. If he left now, he could find her without any fuss from either of them. Teeabu snatched the card-key from the lamp table and slipped away out of their sight to bring Delah back home safely.

●

“What happened?” Leptis asked.

“Something is wrong.” Yutva paced back and forth to calm her fears. She had prepared herself for this event. Yutva watched her friend's eyes begin to show gold flecks. Leptis with long brown hair and silver-like glitter shimmering on her creamy skin, froze as if she already knew the bad news. Yutva took a deep breath. “You'll need to sit down.” She waited for Leptis to sit. “The Watchman Ontomus has died. We have to gather the Council of Irema and the Elders now.”

Leptis voice tensed; she rubbed her forehead. “Oh no, it can't be.” Yutva put her arms around her. “This is not supposed to happen. What are we going to do?”

“The Elder just had the ordination ceremony. It might not be difficult to contact him.”

Letpis gaze searched the room. “Have you seen Delah?”

“She’s not here. Our little one is in danger out there. We have to find her. I’m afraid our treaty has been breached. I haven’t received an answer from Yal, yet. If we don’t act fast enough, there won’t be an Irema.” Yutva shuddered at how cold and calculative she sounded. She couldn’t leave and search for the child she had birthed and given up to keep her religious position.

“Teeabu!” Yutva turned to tell him to fetch Delah, but he was gone.

Leptis's eyes brightened. The golden sparkles within her iris coalesced faster nearly covering the white of her eyes which meant her blood pressure had risen. “Why didn't you tell me the Watchman had died sooner?” Leptis's voice rose to a high pitch. “You know what this means?”

Yutva shook her head, hoping to shake away the tragedy. “I didn't have time. It just happened. My sources tell me that Watchman Ontomus’ filthy, blasphemous son of the devil has taken the Chair.”

Leptis slammed her fist on the inn table by her side, cracking the glass. “There’s no way out. I have to go find them!” She sprung up to leave.

Yutva grabbed Leptis and hugged her. “We’re not doomed. And my words towards Eyetna weren't meant for you.” Yutva felt Leptis's body tense as if ready to break her embrace. She released the hug and reached for Leptis’ cold hand and held it. “I’m sorry to call him that. He’s still your brother.”

“I can’t believe this. Why would Eyetna endanger Araidians, Shatarians, and who knows whatever else in between? He's lost his sanity and any respect I had for him. I'm going after Delah and Teeabu.” Leptis wiped her tears off her cheeks and squeezed Yutva's hand. Her dear friend's pale face glittered when she moved into the sun ray from the window. There was a finality to Leptis's expression, a goodbye.

“There’s no time to analyze the problem. Hopefully, Yal is still an ally and hasn’t forgotten goodness.”

The Araidian woman reached for Yutva’s arm. “I am so sorry. If only I'd known about this beforehand, I could’ve helped. Maybe there is a chance. I'll need to make contact. Don't worry I'll find both of them. I just want you to be safe. Hide.” Leptis kept shaking her head and apologizing for Betha and Eyetna’s deeds.

Yutva's heart broke as she saw her friend suffering. Yutva had also suffered affliction at the hand of those infamous two. That devilish son loved games. He had played a treacherous one on her. Somehow he'd found out days ahead of her plans to union with Yal. It remained a mystery how Eyetna found out their close kept secret. Treated as any slave, Eyetna had Betha-busa bring Yutva to his night chamber and made Betha watch him bed Yutva. For a slave, it was death to refuse the advances of royalty. Betha's eyes had reflected the betrayal. All along Yutva had known Betha desired Eyetna's position and craved for Yal's affection. Yutva had never told her friend Leptis, and she would never tell her now.

It had been enough injustice when the Watchman’s guards had arrested Leptis. Yutva and Yal had been yanked from their marriage bed and arrested, as well. Union between an Araidian of the royal court and a Shatarian slave was unheard of, punishable by death. Yutva had been grateful for Leptis’s defense before the Watchman Ontomus. But that, too, was futile. This Watchman had been too weak to defend the lovers.

Banishment into the poisonous desert was Yutva and Leptis’ sentence, a sure death for anyone with no food and water. And any Araidian would instantly die from inhaling poisonous pollens from the Reedpods.

But Yutva and Leptis had not died.

Yal, her beloved and husband no more, had been forced into mindling with the Centrex, the Araidian’s central computer, to forget her. Awaiting her own punishment, Yutva had witnessed the grueling replacement of memory, the pain in Yal’s beautiful light-brown eyes.

Yutva embraced Leptis to calm her and yearned for what could have been. “We could do nothing but survive.”

“Thank you for immunizing Yal and me. I wish he was banished with us, too.”

For many years, Yutva had distanced herself from feeling the pain, alienating herself as a mother to her children and not having Yal’s arms around her. His gentle face and strong body had haunted her nights. Now she shivered, nearly screamed, wanting to burst into tears and let her sanity go. But she wouldn’t break. Not now, when her people needed her more now than ever.

“No, he surely would’ve been killed. It’s good he’s still alive. Maybe, one day he’ll remember us.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “We mustn’t loiter. Leptis, I trust you will bring them back! I'll gather the council right away. ”

After Leptis left, Yutva hastened downstairs to a large console room with terminals, intercoms, and a communication network with detection systems. Leptis had knowledge of these systems and the Centrex in Araidia. Yutva remembered the days and nights when her friend had drilled this knowledge into her and taught her every aspect of the equipment.

Today, she would prove her training had not been in vain.

A strange hum came from one of the terminals. She couldn’t quite see the image at first. She diverted her attention to call other council members. The hum grew into a loud alarm. Dark shadows appeared on the blue-lit screen, they danced closer, small ebony pinpoints that appeared to be ships. It can’t be! Eyetna didn’t wait for the negotiations, that evil….

“Delah!” Yutva cried out as if they were in the room with her. “Teeabu, Leptis! They’re here.”

Yutva turned to run up the ramp, too late. As her ceiling caved in from the explosion, she dove under the console for cover.