Outsider

[Laowai]

Continued...........



They carried her body back to the caverns. Ernesto had merely stared when he found them, Laowai crouching over her. He grunted to the guards who were with him to assist in carrying her. The journey back to the settlement was silent until Ernesto broke it saying; "You will have to dispose of the other Hessian ship, so that it looks like this didnt happen on the planet, do you understand?"
Laowai simply nodded.

Once inside the caverns a group of people gathered around, a few gasped when they recognized her face, others stood, silent. Ernesto Crusellas took Ben by the arm and took him aside.
"You have her crystal, give it to me." Laowai didn't argue, and though his mind began to form questions he wasn't sure where to start. He was also slightly taken aback that this man, Zarita's father, seemed as centered as he was. He handed over the artifact and Ernesto dropped it into one of his belt pouches.
"Go" he said gesturing to the main entrance, "there is no time to waste, dispose of the Hessian ship and then you may return."

Ben retracted his steps back to the crash site. Seemingly on autopilot, passing the spot where he had found Zarita's body he buried his feelings, walked down the hill and located the transponder of the ship that she had crashed. He then retrieved the body of the Hessian he had killed and deposited it and the transponder into the remaining Hessian fighter which was parked a short distance away.
Arming its controls, he set its auto pilot to launch into a low orbit in a few minutes time. He crossed the distance back to his Titan, strapping himself in. He had just started its thrusters when the Hessian ship lifted off and ascended.
He closed his canopy and strapped his helmet on, lifting off he followed the Hessian vessel as it cleared the cloud layers, left the atmosphere and settled into a low orbit. His mind a blank, Laowai maneuvered his ship behind it, gripping his control stick he armed his weapons and fired into the back of the ship, holding fire until its shields dropped and then it erupted in front of him, its flash and fireball reflecting in his visor.
At this altitude, much of the wreckage would re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, so when any Hessian vessels came by to search they would be unable to correctly identify what had happened; minimal wreckage would remain in orbit, but just enough so that they would draw the right conclusion: The ships had been destroyed in space.

He lingered there for a moment, watching the fragments of ship hit the atmosphere and turn into many tiny asteroids. The planet stretched out vast in front of him. He thought of how just the night before, he had been hand in hand with Zarita, somehow, in those clouds which he now looked down upon.
He took the ship back down into the atmosphere, his navigation computer now working. He didn't know how the Tangier Corsairs had fixed it, given their lack of visible technology, but fixed it was.
There was no need to land so far away this time, so he put the Titan down close by the main entrance to the settlement, dismounted from the ship and made his way back into the cavern. His return was anticipated, a guard was waiting for him as he entered. "Come with me Senor Laowai" he said stonily.

He followed the guard down several levels of passages, the light here became progressively less and less, only small spots of the luminescent stones seemed to be along these walls. The guard however seemed to have no problem finding his way.
Suddenly at the end of the corridor they were in, Laowai could make out a feint bluish-purple glow, similar to the colour that Zarita's artifact had emitted. As they drew closer it grew brighter, until they stood at a cave mouth. A Cover had been constructed across it, curtains made of the thick fabric, but the glow from behind it shone from its edges.
The guard gestured with a nod, and Laowai entered.

The brightness hit him immediately and his hand shot up to protect his eyes. As they grew used to the light he began to see the chamber he was in:
This was unlike anything he had seen so far. The entire room was lit from its walls. Everything seemed to be made from the same material that the artifact was and it emitted a terrific glow. It was magnificent!
Ben started wide eyed, the chamber was huge, but almost perfectly ovoid in shape, its floor, perfectly flat, its walls, buttressed up to a single point in the ceiling, but all of it constructed from the same glowing crystal.
In the center of the room, some distance away, stood Ernesto Crusellas.


He stood by what appeared to be a pylon of some kind, raised from the ground and circular, he was shocked to see that above it, suspended somehow in the air, was the body of Zarita.
He approached quickly, but as he drew close Ernesto held up his hand to stifle anything he might say; he clearly wished to speak first. Laowai bit his tongue, he stared - Zarita's body was floating, literally a few feet above the circular pylon. Held by nothing, the only hint of anything being a feint shimmering in the air occasionally. The old man spoke:
"This is our most sacred place..." he said simply. "We corsairs have no, religion as such, as you well know, but if we were to have something that we on Tangier would afford such reverence this would be it."
He gestured around him, and Ben asked "What is this place?"

"This..?" Ernesto continued, "Is where we all come, and where we will all go eventually, this is where we come after we die." Ben turned his glare at him incredulously but Ernesto cut him off. " My Wife is here, my Brother is here, and I will be here one day", he looked down at Zarita's body; "and now, my daughter is here".

Ben didn't understand, but Ernesto gestured to the pylon. "Stand here" he said, "and place your hand on it."
He did so, not understanding what was going on, and the nearness of Zarita's body was almost too painful to bear.
As he laid his hands on the pylon he felt a sudden rush of warmth, he recognized it was similar to what he had shared through the crystal with Zarita, only a thousand times stronger. It hit him like a punch to the chest and he couldn't help but shout.

Then all was silent. Footsteps echoed behind him and he turned.

It was Zarita.

She grinned at him; "Zarita?" he said, dumbfounded; he moved toward her and she jumped into his arms, embracing him. Laowai pulled back, his hands on her face; he could see her, touch her and feel her, but he couldn't believe his senses. "How? he said, incredulous, you're dead!?
"
She smiled again, that same knowing smile that had disarmed him when he met her the first day he was here. "Well, yes, technically I am, seeing as I dont have a physical body anymore..."
He blinked at her, "Come here", she said. "Sit down".
She gestured to a quite comfortable looking sofa that suddenly had just appeared beside them. Words now had escaped him, he just stared wide eyed, at her, at the sofa, and dropped himself down upon it. Zarita, for her part, sat down and took his hand.
"There was so much more I wanted to tell you, but we didn't have time, " she said. "I am dead, as you know it, but as we now know it, im not."

She looked around her. " What was me, as in, my energy, consciousness, my soul if you want to call it that, passed into my crystal when my body stopped functioning, and it came straight back here."

"What is this place?" Ben asked again. Zarita opened her hand, within it, was the crystal she had carried, he creased his brow, he had seen her father with it, how had she....?

She pre-empted him. "This isn't here either, my father has it, as you know."
The crystal rose from her hand and hovered in the air between them. "But here I can manifest things, shapes, and places even, should I want to..." The air around them shimmered and suddenly they were sitting in his cavern, as it had been the previous night.
"We found this place not long after we moved underground. At first we didn't understand it, but this was the final proof we needed it that this place was built by some form of intelligence."

"No one knew who, but we had all heard the stories, we found the crystals you have seen in this room, and we stumbled on what they were capable of by accident."

They were suddenly back in the crystal chamber again and Zarita walked him around, showing him the edges, where small recesses held hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of the artifact-like crystals, each resting in a niche that had been perfectly shaped for it.

"We dont fully understand how it works, we think it happens when you die and you're in contact with a crystal, linking with somebody, but the first of us found by accident that if that happens, you come here."

Ben looked around him, here seemed to be, no where and he asked: "where is here? are we still in the cave?"
Zarita raised her eyebrows. "Actually, no one is sure, we think so, I mean, if someone comes into the cave, touches the pylon as you have done, we can do this with them..." She paused and touched his hand; "At least, every so often".

"Every so often?" Ben asked.

"Yes, after the initial first few hours, we found that those who are well, alive, can only come into physical contact with us twice in this planets' year - if you come into the cave, with my crystal, I can talk to you, show myself to you, but physical interaction doesn't work outside those two times, and we dont know why that is either."

Ben shook his head... "this is unbelievable, no wonder you dont want to leave this place, have you not thought though of getting someone, people who know about this stuff to study it? It could help your understanding of..."

She smiled and he felt her talking to him again, but not with words, but sharing as she had the night before. He knew she was right, no one would understand, and who knows what this place could be used for - she had just destroyed a Hessian Ship by simple suggestion.

"My father is going to give you my crystal" she said, "Ive asked him to, Id like you to have it, to remember me by, and so we can talk or meet, should you ever decide to come back to Tangier"

He looked at her, seeing seriousness in her eyes; "Do you want me to come back?" he asked. She nodded, "but not because you feel you owe me, come because you wish to..."

He looked at her, and tried to project his feelings and thoughts as he had the night before.

She noticed it and smiled broadly..

*** I wish to*** he thought.

He moved closer and kissed her again, "***when are the times of the year we can do this? ***"

A little while later they lay once more in his bed, locked together and staring into each others eyes. Zarita giggled; "You know if you did this with a dead person on Crete they would call you sick and exile you?"
He laughed and shoved her - then looking around him he noticed their clothes, strewn around the room. "If I go back in the middle of the chamber right now somehow, am I going to be wearing anything?"

She laughed again, "So practical you are! but yes, you will be just as you left, and actually, it will only be moments since you left, time works differently here..."
He smiled and pulled her close to him, opening his mind once more he sent his thoughts to her, and she to him, in that state; he felt himself drifting off to sleep.

He awoke with a start, lying on the floor in the center of the crystal cabin. Ernesto Crusellas standing over him. He jumped up, disoriented and looked around him, but Crusellas opened his hand and held out Zarita's crystal.
"You spoke to her." he said, as a statement, not a question. Laowai nodded and took it, he held it in his hand and as he did so he heard her voice, distant but clear "***I can talk to you this way, but you have to be on Tangier for it to work, and it will be strongest here***"

Ernesto looked at him solemnly: "And what will you do now, Corsair Ben Laowai?"

He knew where he stood with this, but Ernesto was asking for reassurance, but more so, as a believer in the old code, he wanted to know if Laowai would honour his life debt to Zarita, as well as any personal promises he might have made.
"I will return for each cycle, and when I am able to, I give you"... and he paused, looking around him, "and her, my word."

He reached over and shook the older mans hand, "And I will keep your secret."

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