| Rayn: Episode Fifteen - New Day, New World
By L.C. Cruell
posted: 11:59 am ET
06 October 2000
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"Sounds like a good death."
"Yes, it was."
The next morning. . .
.
Young Lile smoothes and folds
down the sheets on the empty bed. She gathers the room’s few possessions:
an ancient laserbow and dagger; a small crystalline sphere with a galaxy
inside, created by Myles; a green crystal necklace from Rozar; and Mala’s
journal, the missing pages kept separately, specially in an envelope inside.
She places them all in a box. She says good-bye to the home of the old
woman she had known for so long as Rayn, then leaves the empty room behind.
On her way out Lile resigns
from her duties at the home. She walks out, taller, straighter. A new story
begins today. One of adventure. One that includes her.
She and the box jet back
on her sky-bike to her small cabin. Going in she hears crashes, thuds --
the place is being torn apart by a young woman with deep golden-brown skin,
black eyes, and long, braided, black hair.
"What have you done?!" Rayn
screams and glares at her.
The Vita did its job, just
in time. Rayn -- alive, rejuvenated, virtually immortal . . . and very
angry.
"I didn’t do it he did."
Lile points. Myles enters.
Rayn yells.
"What have you done!"
"What my heart said I had
to. Hate me if you must."
"How did you find me?"
"A message came with your
location and an injection of Vita with the rejuvenation chaser, all pre-designed
for your special DNA, no chip injector needed."
"From who?!"
"Don’t know. Someone else
who wasn’t ready to let you go."
"I’ll find them! I can think
of several possibilities. Once I know who, I’ll know why, then…"
Lile puts the box down. "What’s
so bad about it?"
"It was my choice! After
a lifetime of chasing and running, I had finally found peace here, peace
in old age and inability to run or fight anymore, to do anything but reflect
and breathe. Now I have to fight, run, and chase forever!"
Myles draws closer, "It doesn’t
have to be that way."
Rayn, eyes full, whispers
to him gently. "You never understood did you? It does for me! As long as
there’s something to be done, I have to do it."
Myles: "Your survivor’s psyche
again. Always having to justify your existence."
Lile: "What is there to do
anyway?"
Rayn sighs. "Help keep the
world from falling apart. Eternal life? Something like that can’t help
but completely destabilize what little society we have left."
Myles counters, "Probably
not eternal. Who knows how long the chemical system really lasts in people
before it just breaks down? We won’t know it’s forever until we get there.
And plus there’s still accidents, murder, warfare."
Rayn paces. "And they’ll
be a lot more of that believe me. It’s only just been refined. Now there’ll
be debating, arguing, fighting, making sure everyone gets it and until
they do, it will be their only obsession, everything else’ll be tossed
aside. Then they’ll probably be some hedonistic heyday, people celebrating
their release from their greatest fear. Then things will get worse. People
need fear, transience, keeps them motivated, honest . . . nice.
"People who don’t fear death
or judgment day are dangerous people, dangerous and restless. No more the
justice of nature taking its course or time healing all wounds, everyone’ll
take matters into their own hands. This new peaceful, agrarian society
won’t last. The quiet life won’t be a life it’ll be a fad or a lark. There’ll
be overpopulation problems and most importantly shortages -- food, energy,
space. We’ll tear each other apart. But this time it’ll seem like a diversion
instead of a disaster. And it might not stop."
Myles grins, "Of course you’re
just guessing."
Lile, shaken not amused,
"I guess that’s the scary thing. There’s no way to tell just what’s going
to happen."
A brrring at the door.
A messenger. A message for Rayn. She puts the communicator over her eye
and ear and plays it to herself.
When she takes it off, "Maybe
there is a way to tell."
Rayn and Myles part for now
but as friends, even though misunderstood ones. He takes the spaceliner
back to Ganyra. Rayn takes a planetliner short-hop to the source of the
message. The local Church of Freedom, headquarters of the cult of Ultim.
Music drifts up through its dim chambers lit through the floors with just
enough light to feel free to do anything. Its members drift by loud and
laughing in their robes of gauze. People think of these as dins of hedonism
but they are really places of dreams, where everyone can be what they always
wanted, free, safe, and at peace. She finds Noma, still large, still beautiful.
"Good to see ya, girl!" A
loud, laughing embrace.
Rayn asks Noma, the source
of the message, "How’d you know where to find me?"
Noma motions, Meena enters.
Another embrace. Then Rayn pulls back.
"Are you the ones who--"
Meena, "Gave you the Vita?
No."
"Then who--?"
"That I can’t see. But there
is too much I can. Visions of and for you are consuming my mindsight. I
must pass them on."
Meena wheedles Rayn into
letting her put her into a state of Waking Sleep. Only that way can she
tell her all she has to and it would be there in her unconscious mind whenever
Rayn needs it without driving her conscious insane with specters of the
future.
"You know my visions are
hard to read. Sometimes just flashes, feelings, then I’m left to interpret
a meaning. So bear with me."
They sit. Noma chants softly.
Meena plays her shell’s most haunting melody until their minds touch and
the Waking Sleep takes. Meena begins.
"Times of beauty are coming,
of vast exploration and adventure, for us all. Times of darkness and pain
are coming, maybe for us all, maybe just for you. . . . And a star, or
stars, I always see stars. In them lies our survival."
Rayn talks through the Sleep,
"I was just telling the others earlier, soon this planet won’t be big enough
for us all."
"Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps
much more. I sense it from live minds not spirits, not the universe, but
from some one. A great secret, dark, urgent. . . . You need a purpose,
so help us through the darkness. You are the mother of eternity to many.
Your voice will always sound far and strong. You can do much of what must
be done."
"But where do I start?"
Noma whispers in, "Tons of
problems with all this salvaged mix of old and new off-world technologies.
They’re already having troubles with the ring. Start there, work your way
out. We’ll follow."
Meena focuses now on the
hardest part, beads of sweat on her forehead and lips, rolling down her
eye ridges, "Your battles will be fought, all won, all lost. Your greatest
betrayer will redeem herself, show herself to be your truest sister. You’ll
take a friend’s life, and watch the lives of all others you know leave
their bodies. But you’ll teach, you’ll save. Though to the end something
closest to you will try to stop you. And a death, unexpected, unstoppable!
So powerful it will effect us all, change us, divide us, destroy . . .
everything!"
Meena collapses.
Rayn wakes. "So are we gonna
do this thing or what?" she asks.
Lile walks into Rayn’s room
in the cabin the next morning to find Rayn putting on the rest of her leather
clothes, lashing on her weapons, and throwing on her long leather coat.
Her old outfit- still fits, smells a bit of preservative balls though.
"Where are you going?"
"Up. They’re having trouble
with the orbital laser ring. I was there when Dar Janél designed
it decades ago, saved him from being killed and the plans stolen by other
facilitators. I can help make sure all the satellites get up right and
safe."
"Safe? Is it dangerous?"
Lile puts on her own coat.
"There’s a serious sabotage
threat from the asteroid miners who’re afraid this new propulsion system’ll
drain their fuel market for both local travel and the new long-distance
Terraforma ships headed for the far end of the system. The rich may not
be the only ones who get the drug but the richer you are the faster you
do. So money still motivates."
"When are you going?"
"On the next launch. It’s
something to do. Got this whole new life to fill. Which is the quickest
way?"
"Slingshot. There’s a magnetic-levitation
rail two towns over."
"That’ll do."
Rayn is dressed, packed,
and ready. She runs her fingers one last time across The Chronicles
of Rayn in its honored place above the hearth. "Whatever I do now I
do as Rayn, no more assumed names. If anyone still wants me let ‘em come."
"You know quite a few cults
have sprung up around you. The mother of eternity, the giver of second
life, the holy gift. Most others think you’re dead, but they’ve been waiting
all along for your return. Vindication, they should be pretty thrilled."
Rayn notices for the first
time that Lile is dressed and packed too.
"What are you doing?"
"I’m coming with you."
"Oh no. This is very hazardous
work in what are becoming very perilous times. And I don’t know where I’m
going from there."
"I promised to follow your
example to help people. You promised to look out for me. This way--"
"No."
"You know you’ll need a good
pilot up there. And I want adventure."
"Adventure’s over-rated."
"Besides now I’ve got The
Further Chronicles of Rayn to write. And maybe I can help you find
Rozar again. You might even end up with him this time." Lile smiles. "I’ll
just follow you anyway."
Rayn sighs, turns, and walks
out. Lile follows.
Next Week - Episode 16:
To the Stars
There's still plenty of Rayn
adventures left. What else would you
like to see?
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