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CHAPTER ONE

RUTH DESERT

It was forty-two hours since he had been trying hard to fix the communication system. To no purpose, though, for the circuits were burnt out. To cap it all, he was running out of water.… What should he do? He wrote a message and left. Behind him the size of the topter got smaller and smaller until he found he was alone, with just his shadow for a companion.

“Bloody wreck. That could only happen to me. If only I had stayed in Zayon and fucked all those mutant cows.”

“Hey, stop worrying, everything’ll be fine.…”

“Well, what else can you say? Life’s a big mess. And I’m in hot shit up to the eyes.”

“The darins are surely gonna help us change things. Come! Keep going! We’re close.”

“Yes. Come.… Keep going, keep going and dream empty holograms. I must be raving.”

“Come on, Lerman. You know I trust you, don’t you?”

“Go to hell and leave me alone.”

“But Lerman.…”

“No buts.”

“Wait a minute. You do know God fixes everything. He knows everything and shows us the right way.”

“Forget God, OK? See where he’s brought me? See how well he’s shown me the right way? Where was He during the pandemic?”

“You’re still blaming Him after so many years.… You’re such a child.…”

“Stop hobnobbing with me. Go to hell and leave me alone.”

As a matter of fact he had had enough of living in a city full of androids and junkies. Deep inside he just wanted one thing: to get to Serenia. In order to make his dream come true he needed darins, as many darins as possible.

When he met Naej he was on the brink of despair. Though he had worked so many years in Eldena, his life hadn’t changed a bit. The same dull job, the same nauseating smell of plastic and oils, the same bars and virtual programs. He knew them all inside out. Naej, a crazy old man looking like a comedy character, kept shouting on the deaf streets of Zayon: “He who finds Uezen at the foot of the Anor Mountains, will be the richest man ever!”

Who was Uezen, no one knew for sure. They were just making wild, bizarre guesses: a creature from Ruth Desert, the guard of a huge treasure of Nedean emeralds, or a spirit that took the shape of the most terrible fears. And all this because they had found thousands of dead treasure hunters, their faces dehydrated and distorted.

Nede, the third planet from Nagur and the fourth in size after Ulma, Pteol, and Velora. Its average outer surface—29,000 miles, its sidereal spinning time—nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes. Heavily populated only in its southern hemisphere, where the Vigor River flows into the Kora Sea, where the city of Zayon had flourished, with over two million souls. Apart from that there were a few settlements in the northern hemisphere, around the Anor Mountains, from where rare metals were extracted, wolfram, molybdenum, and rhenium in particular. Next to the former springs of the Tanor River there was Karan, the only place in which they could find Nedean emeralds, famous throughout the system for their beauty and value.

When they found the first precious stones, the Zayonist Council had to take action and change the place into a real outpost. The news spread fast and the area was invaded by desperate treasure hunters, although the high taxes ruined most of them.

To Lerman, Karan was just the starting point, that is if he could rely on the information received from Naej in exchange for two hundred darins. Just before he left, he had got in touch with Tarek, an old treasure hunter who knew every inch of the Anor Mountains. But now he had to manage by himself. The only solution was to head North and come across a hunter or a patrol.…

Day 1

The relentless sun was burning his face. Streams of sweat were trickling down under his clothes and his footsteps were zigzagging on the sand.

“I wasn’t supposed to get here, of all the places!” he shouted and glanced at his watch.

“You’re heading North, Lerman.”

“Yeah, I know, North.… There you go again.”

“Come on, take a deep breath and keep going.”

“You mean if my lungs don’t burn up before I take the first step.”

“So you think it’s funny. You know too well I care.”

“Look, I’m really not in the mood.…”

“Come on…we could.…”

“Stop it!” He shielded his eyes trying to make out the outlines of the Anor Mountains. Nothing. Then he looked up for a second at the killing globe.

“Can you tell me where that bloody outpost is? Of course not.”

He took another sip of water and started to make some rough calculations: if I do two miles per hour, in seven days I’d do a hundred. Yes, yes! But that…if I don’t come across some sort of resort and take my time in a pool…but not with those sickening female androids from Zayon. No, no! Oh, God, if I manage to get to Serenia.… To find myself a wonderful woman, with a life’s guarantee.… A woman who’ll stay young and beautiful and won’t ask many questions.… But, since the whores’ revolution on Pteol, they all seem to have caught it. They all stick up their nose in the air, yes sir: tens of thousands of darins, freedom insurances, the right to have lovers. You ask your wife to massage you and the next day you find an android on your doorstep saying: “Madam has asked me to inform you that she is being busy this week. I will replace her and I hope you will be satisfied. I can offer you a whole range of services.” Damn it! The perfect surrogate. Imagine chewing a latex and silicon nipple, imagine the female android, programmed to moan, to lose her voice in the happiest moments and to start neighing like a Pteolean mare. And you, much too frightened, can see your dick only with a magnifying glass. Imagine her oily spittle trickling into your mouth avid for genuine saliva. Imagine the plastic pubic hair sticking to your teeth and the vaginal secretions making you throw up. But the Sereneans! That’s what I call real women! So much grace! So much sweetness!

He wiped his forehead and looked again at Nagur, full of hate.

“Why are you staring at me? One more hour and I won’t see your stupid face again.”

The heat was unbearable. He took out the canteen covered with Taugus adder leather and had two mouthfuls of water. Then he continued his infernal march for several hours. His eyes were focused on the North, always on the North.…

Night was descending on the desert of Nede. The cold was pinching his face. He made a hole in the sand and took out the thermo-insulating bag. The filter made sure the air he breathed was clean. He was like a silk worm in a cocoon, waiting for the morning so it could spread its wings.

Day 2

He woke up with a terrible headache and a stiff neck. Nagur rose above the dunes and the temperature grew fast. He swallowed a Xerun pill and started to fight with the sand again. The heat made walking more difficult, his steps seeming to strike roots in the desert that was opening its mouths thirsty for blood.… After a few hours he stumbled and fell on his knees. Exhausted, he put the canteen to his mouth and was surprised to find he had drunk more than half of it.

“Damn.”

“See what happens if you can’t stop talking?”

“Not you again.”

“Two mouthfuls three times a day! I told you. Where do you think you are, in Urluz, with ten bottles of Pteolean beer on the table?”

“Lay off me, will you? What else can I do?”

“Look at me. Not a drop of water!”

“And what do you suggest, waste the water on you?”

“No, but the least you can do is to think of me when.…”

“Ha. To think of you? What a strange sense of humor you’ve got.…”

He knew the outpost couldn’t be too far. Before the crash there was only about half an hour’s flight left. He stopped every time he climbed down a dune and looked around. The same distressing landscape spread before him.

Night was finally there, over the desert planet, enveloping it with its cold hideous body. He dreamed Naej who warned him sharply: “Lerman, beware of Mud’s temptation! Not so good to borrow, as to be able to lend.”

Day 3

The alarm ticked on for a muffled minute. He found it hard to open his eyes, unwilling to start it all over again. The same sentence, the same ordeal, the same abominable executioner: Nagur. His stamina and motivation had fallen off. He was left with only a couple of mouthfuls of water. That’s what separated him from the big question: to be or not to be?

He looked at the horizon and for a moment felt he was on the bottom of a sand glass in which time was sentenced to silence. The sky was caving in at his feet through the mouth of the green heavenly body. He was like a helpless ant struggling not to be buried alive. He fixed his eyes on an imaginary spot in the North and started to walk, stumbling, like a junkie. The backpack seemed heavier than before, his knees were getting weaker and weaker, and his soles were raw. His nostrils were burning inside like Eldena’s furnaces. He had to stay clear-headed, he had to stand that infernal torture.

“Come on, you’ve seen worse. This is nothing. You’ll get to the outpost soon and that will be that. You’re close.”

“Yeah, I know, what I’ve got to do is keep walking. North, always North.… Just my luck.”

“I’m your luck. Without me you’d have been dead by now.”

“Hear, hear, how much you care for me!… You can always find other fools to keep you company.”

“Where can I find them in this wilderness? You’re the only one I’ve got. So you’d better keep going.”

He tried to forget where he was. The ghosts of the past started to torment him. His remembrances of Suara surfaced one by one. He had spent the best part of his life with her. Eight wonderful years, eight years which now he could count in eight seconds. And that morning when the polluted air came in through the half-open window, turning his stomach. That morning when he placed the pillow under his head, unwilling to start it all over again. That morning when her voice did no longer wake him up.

Do stop your sandglass, time blinded by forgetfulness

Sand is my heart lost in wondering whispers

I weep

Memories are the path of pain

In the very womb of tranquility the dying love

Is born

I shed the shadow that keeps my soul alive

The footsteps lost in the nowhere

I break

Ice is my temple of dreams and thoughts

Pilgrim spirit in the desert winds

To be1

Exhausted, he collapsed on the hot sand. His blue eyes fixed the horizon. Somewhere, a few miles away, he made out an indistinct shape. But the dark was setting in fast, along with the cold. He struggled to get into the sleeping bag.…

…He was in a room full of people. He was wearing white clothes and was surrounded by bunches of flowers. A warm caress waved across his forehead. The wax of a candle was dripping on his hands. He tried to move them but they were too heavy.… A song of sorrow flooded the drums of his ears. He rose slowly, above everyone, and looked at Suara who was lying next to the body of a.…

“Nooo! Nooo! I’m here, my love!”

He tried to embrace her, to make her heart beat like his but he passed through her as if she were made of smoke.

“Nooo! Nooo!”

He woke up soaking in sweat, half an hour before the sunrise. He tossed about in the sleeping bag as if he were in a strait jacket. Eventually he set himself free and tamed his heart beats by taking deep breaths.

Day 4

About three miles separated him now from the shape he had seen the previous day. Instinctively he thrust his knife under the belt. He’d have taken a blaster instead but the outpost had very strict rules.

Fear seized him unawares. Before him lay a corpse half buried in the sand. The arms were torn apart, tatters of dry flesh and brown skin were swaying in the hot wind. The flayed fingers looked like paws trying to cling to invisible steps climbing up to the sky. The hollowed eye sockets of the exfoliated head hypnotized him.

“Don’t stop. Don’t look, keep going!”

“But.…”

“Did you forget what we’d agreed upon? Go North, always North. The outpost is near.”

“What about that corpse? What if.…”

“Stop thinking about it. It could be someone who was sentenced to death.…”

“But if they left it here it means that.…”

“It means nothing, do you hear me? They leave them here without water and they don’t last long. Unlike them you’ve got water and, besides, you’ve got me.”

“Yeah, you, always you. How come I forget it so often?”

“See? Come, keep going!”

He skirted the corpse and stumbled on towards the original landmark. Bleak thoughts invaded him. He remembered his parents’ death and his suffering on a planet that used to be a paradise. His childhood was a mixture of horrors and faith. When everyone had died because of the pandemic he swore he’d never get back to Terra. It was then that he denied God. Then came the long journey to Nede and the fifteen years’ ordeal on Zayon. There he had had all sorts of humiliating jobs. He thought marriage would bring him happiness and, for a short time, he had been married to Kath’ryn, a Pteolean who only squandered his money.…

He was terribly thirsty, trying to desperately cling to the last drop of life. After about two hours, he came across another corpse. And another and another!.… The carcasses lay around a humanoid creature with blue skin covered by thousands of scales. He wanted to turn but the shadow didn’t let him. His ears were tingling and his breathing was more and more abrupt…

Surprisingly, a woman’s voice, gentle, shook him up from that morbid vision.

“Don’t be afraid. Come here.”

“What…what, who…who are you, what do you want from me?”

“I’m Mud. Come, I’ve got something for you.…”

“Mud?” he said and immediately remembered the dream.…

In her left hand the creature was holding a Nedean stone the size of a Kiwa egg and in her right a cup full of green liquid that was bubbling softly.

“Which will you choose? Riches or knowledge?”

He started. He couldn’t forget the corpses or Naej’s words. The stone was driving him mad, though. And Mud was staring at him with her unfathomable black eyes. Knowledge? He was sick of so many utopian concepts. Riches? Wasn’t that what he had come to Nede for? He could have whatever he wanted: darins, fame, a harem of Sereneans.… But what was behind his dream of Naej? Hm.… Nonsense. He had to take advantage of the situation.

“Riches.”

“It’s your choice.”

Mud handed him the emerald in which at once he saw Suara’s face, clearly. He felt he couldn’t move his arm.

“So you’ve chosen riches. What are you waiting for?”

“Suara? No, noo! I can’t do that. I can’t.… I’ve got to know where she’s going.…”

“As you wish then,” Mud said and handed him the cup.

All his lost love, all his suffering, all his remembrances, everything was draining down the throat of a body that was abandoning itself to the unknown. He saw in quick succession what had mattered most in his life: his mother’s tender words, her fingers playing with his curly blond hair; his father’s support, his strong arms balancing him on his shoulders; his grandparents’ joy, the enchanted realm of the stories; Suara’s voice, her hot lips melting him in the silence of the night.…

Suara, beloved,

You carry me on the kiss of a thousand lips,

Upon my wish, you change into the most beautiful face,

Long forgotten voices vibrate in me,

Embrace me,

I thought you would never come,

You were but a mere whisper lost in a thunder of echoes…

Suara…the milk of each starry night

Flourished your bosom

While I recited my bone flute psalm,

Remember what I felt…

Remember my thought, the most beautiful moment of sincerity…

A child exiled in a cage of erotic dreams

Forever sentenced to endless desire.

Do I still exist?2

The liquid was burning his guts. The veins swelled and all his senses grew ten times, a hundred times more powerful. The transparent vision of an old man reading a book appeared before him. On the yellowed pages there was a map. At once he recognized the outpost, the Tanor, and near it the former springs.…

1. Snowdon King—Giving In, translated by Vanda Florea.

2. Snowdon King—Suara, translated by Vanda Florea.