Twin Suns of Arterra

8

I felt my body jerk sideways, and wondered if I would be pulled in two. Would I be torn apart? When would the pain hit me? Or would I be killed instantly? I heard splintering sounds and wondered which was the wood, and which my bones.

Was this how it had been for our parents?

For just an instant, my mind flashed back to that fateful night five years ago. Essa pulling me awake, her face a mask of misery that she was trying to hide from me, but even at eleven I knew her too well for that. There were other people there, in our home. I remembered the noise of them talking, the confusion of it, but it had all faded into background noise as I walked through the room. The imager flashed a scene of mangled debris that my mind wouldn't connect to what was happening until much later.

The transport had been unrecognizable.

Somehow, the image of it had matched the emotions churning and spinning through me as Essa led me from the room, down the hall and into Camille's bedroom. Snippets of conversation followed us.

"...this kind of accident shouldn't happen..."

"...can't have been an accident..."

"...he'll be taking over the council seat..."

"...too young..."

"...dead on impact..."

When Essa opened the door to Camille's room I'd looked up at her face, and seen something there that I'd never seen before – a silent tear tracked down her face.

Solid, dependable, stalwart Essa never cried. She was our rock of strength. She was our most reliable source of laughter and joy. Even Camille's sparkling eyes brightened when Essa was around.

Somehow, seeing the tear slide down her pale cheek was my undoing. She waited until we were together to tell us what had happened, but that was the moment that I knew.

All that was left were questions.

How had the malfunction happened? Had they lived long enough to say goodbye to each other, or like the words carried on the air said had they died on impact?

Later, when I remembered the twisted, broken image of the transport, I found my answers in trembling horror. No one could have lived through that, even for a fleeting second. They had been crushed. Brutally torn apart.

Obliterated.

Did it hurt when you died?

The question my child's brain had asked over and over for months, for years echoed through my head again now. Had my parents felt what I was about to feel as their lives were ripped away from them?

The cushion tugged and something brushed my arm.

Why wasn't I feeling the pain of impact?

I cracked open an eye. In front of me, dark and light pieces of wood swirled together in the water, battering the fence.

In front of me?

There was another tug, and my heels scraped against something solid.

"Pull him up!"

The voice came from behind me. The cushion moved and again I felt something on the skin of my arm. When I looked, I found it was a rope. A loop of it was around the top of the cushion that I held. Someone had thrown a rope and pulled me to safety.

I was alive!

A hand grasped the back of my shirt.

"Climb!" a voice growled in my ear, straining with effort.

I pushed with my heels, but my legs were like wet bread. I refused to let go of the cushion that had been my protector and salvation. The rope pulled tight, the hand on my shirt joined by more hands as I was heaved up the sloped side of the channel. Beneath me, the wood crashed against itself repeatedly, small pieces breaking away and slipping through the grate. Soon there would be nothing left of the branch or the boat.

It could have been me.

There was another surge of pulling and then I was being laid back, gravel and grass beneath me, my eyes turning up to the blue sky and blazing twin suns.

By some miracle, I was not dead.

I was still inside, but I was alive. I had not failed Camille. Not yet. Would Saka be proud of me? Or would he laugh at the battering I'd taken?

My left calf stung where I'd been cut open. My right leg throbbed where it met my hip. All over I could feel cuts and abrasions, bruises and bumps, but I was glad for it. That I could still feel anything at all was a good sign.

I wiggled my toes just to be sure, and felt them waggle tiredly inside my boots.

If I was alive, then my mission was not a failure.

Not yet.

A scowling face leaned over me, filling my field of vision. His black uniform with its gold stag emblem stood out in contrast to the gray uniforms of the constables, a mark of his elite status.

"You're under arrest."