Don't Call Me Kitten! (2 page)

Helena was
sure she didn’t like the sound of that but she had to get home to
Anya. The accounting would come later.

100,000 years
ago...

Small
wide-eyed children watched with glee and amazement as Zex deftly
manouvered the colourful balls in the air. To the children’s eyes
the balls appeared to swirl and dance as if pulled inexorably on
invisible strings, making patterns in the dry desert air. They’d
never seen anyone juggle before.

“Can we have a
try mister?” the most outgoing of the kids asked.

“Sure.” He
reached into his well-worn bag of goodies for his stash of spare
balls. This was what he’d been hoping for, to give some much needed
fun and play to these war ravaged kids. “Everyone take two balls.
Now watch. Throw one in the air like so and as it starts to fall
from it’s high point throw the other like this. Count as you do it,
one, two, one two.” He did a few more cascades to demonstrate.
“Make sure you learn to do it in both directions, like so. When
you’ve mastered that then you add the third ball in like this. Just
add one more to your count. One, two, three, one two three. The
hardest bit is getting the two ball cascade right, after that
there’s no limit to what you can do.” He finished off with a few
trick shots that had them all oo-ing and ah-ing. “Now you try.”

The happy
horde of children descended on the balls with glee, chaos breaking
out. Zex stood back for a moment, content. For just a little bit
these kids would forget what they’d gone through. This was without
a doubt the best part of coming to these conflict ridden places.
Sure his diplomacy and negotiation skills were what won peace deals
between warring races and species but it was putting smiles back on
the faces of kids, in his time off, that really did it for him.
Moment over, he did the rounds helping each child to gain the
mastery of the balls. The kids were naturals and never ceased to
astonish him with their skills. With his back turned he didn’t see
the small delegation coming over the hill.

“Is this how
you negotiate treaties Zex?”

Zex groaned,
he knew that authoritative voice. He turned to face its owner and
was surprised to see not one but three Malakim standing there.
“Commander Alexios Thex, to what do I owe the honour.”

“Cut the
formality Zex, Thex’ll do. If you’re finished here we need
you.”

Zex looked
around the kids who continued their play ignoring the strange
adults. Apparantly if Zex wasn’t worried by the men they weren’t
either. “I can’t leave Thex. I haven’t found homes for these
orphans yet.”

“Crystal and
Sky here will help to relocate them and look after them in the
meantime. They’re my second in command’s sisters. I trust them to
do what’s needed”

“I know who
they are.” He’d met Arion and Lukos’s sisters before. Mischievous
brats but with hearts of gold. The kids would get on well with them
while homes were found. Didn’t make leaving the kids any easier
though. He’d quickly grown fond of them. “Why me Thex?”

Thex shrugged.
“Honestly, haven’t got a clue. The council says you’re the best
diplomat we’ve got plus you’re used to working in this dimension.
We’re going up against some new menace that’s surfaced down on this
plane of existence. If it was left to me I’d just blast them back
to wherever shit hole they came from but the council thinks we
should try and talk to them first, if we get that chance. That’s
where you come in. That and the fact the boy seer Shimon said you
had to be on the team.”

Zex looked
back to the kids who were already deferring to Crystal and Sky for
help.

The twin
sisters grinned back at him. Crystal used her telepathy to reassure
him.
It’s alright Zex, we’ve got this covered.

“Well I
guess...” He couldn’t leave some unknown species at the not so
tender mercies of the commander, not if there was any hope he could
reason with them. He let out a deep sigh and resigned himself to
leaving the kids. But first he did the rounds of each of them,
giving them hugs, encouraging them with their juggling, saying his
farewells and asking them to trust in the twins as they had trusted
him.

Zex knocked on
the surround of the open doorway where Ma and her son Shimon lived.
“Can I come in?”

A small boy
came to the door holding out his child’s hand in greeting. He
couldn’t have been more than eight of nine years of age but had
soul piercing grey eyes that belonged on someone much older. “Come
in Zex, Mum’s out at present but you and I need to talk.” He
gestured to the pile of cushions where he’d just been
meditating.

Zex looked at
the boy with concern, wondering if the child ever had the fun and
carefree life of other children.

Shimon looked
at him quizzically. Damn, he hadn’t blocked his thoughts well
enough from the child. Either that or the child was a particularly
strong mind reader.

“Child, adult?
Are these two separate species in your mind Zex? Can’t a child be
serious? Can’t an adult play? Should an adult be treated with any
less care and compassion than a child?”

“No, but I
guess its a matter of degree?”

“Why? Should a
child be less responsible for his actions, as much as he
understands them? Can an adult not put her trust in someone wiser
to guide her when faced with something outside of her
knowledge?”

“So its not
about age but about awareness and knowledge? Knowing when you know
enough to know better and knowing when to defer to others?”

“Yes, that is
what I’m saying. Even when you know a lot. Even when you are
millennia old. Even then you can still play. And where is wisdom if
not in the newborn who seeks the shelter of his mother and knows
that he his safe.”

Hard to argue
with the child’s logic. “Still Shimon, I know that you have the ear
of the all-spirit and see visions of what might be but I hope,
through it all, that one day you may be able to play.”

Shimon gave
Zex his most mischievous smile and his eyes gleamed with laughter.
“Oh I will Zex, have no fear of that. Now ask away. You have
questions for me.”

Zex let out a
sigh. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding a weight of
tension inside himself since Thex had requested his presence on his
team. No doubt Shimon already knew what his questions were but it
was good to be able to ask them anyway. Shimon might be a child but
as he had just simply and eloquently argued that didn’t mean he
wasn’t a source of much wisdom. He trusted the man who was in the
child. Someone who, many of his kind suspected, was a much more
highly evolved dimensional being than his present existence might
suggest. He could trust him to give him the answers he was seeking.
“Why did you tell the council that I need to be on Thex’s team for
this mission? He’s limited in the crew he can take. If I go he’ll
have one less warrior with him. I follow the middle path of love
and compassion, not their right hand path of order and
justice.”

“Even so.”
Shimon paused and wandered over to get a his sand slate. It was a
simple tray with shallow sides that held just enough sand so that
he could draw patterns, pictures he saw in his mind or practice his
writing. The Malakim were averse to using paper for anything
impermanent. He placed the sand slate between him and Zex and drew
are series of dots with interconnecting lines.

Zex took a
moment to study the picture and mused. “A network. The way you’ve
drawn it with a mix of shallow and deeper lines crossing over and
under each other hints at something that’s also three
dimensional.”

“Exactly. As
you know the dots represent connection points, nodes I think you
call them. Those points are important not just because of what they
are but by the very fact of what connects with them. And a network
like this doesn’t have to be limited by space and time. You are one
of these points Zex. You need to be positioned in an exact point in
space and time. You also need certain experiences, events and
beings to connect with you.”

The sage child
seemed to be quite excited by this but Zex wasn’t getting where
this was all heading. “So I’m part of some grand plan and have a
role to play?”

Shimon
saddened as he thought of what Zex must face if this was to work.
“Yes, but it won’t be easy.”

“Details?”

Shimon shook
his head. “It would take too long. I can show you though.”

Zex understood
what the boy wanted to do. A direct transmission from mind to mind.
He bent his forehead to touch Shimon’s and suddenly their minds
were one. The vastness of the other’s near drove him into a white
out but Shimon seemed to take control and steered him to what he
needed to know. As it decompressed within his own mind he sucked
his breath in at the implications of it all. Just as quickly the
connection was gone. He sat stunned for a moment staring at Shimon
then bowed his head in the dust.

Shimon gently
raised his head and mentally pleaded with him to sit back up. “No
Zex, you don’t understand. We are all part of what you just
connected with. Yes I am special but so are you. We are all unique
expressions of that.”

Zex sat up but
still stared in awe at the boy. “But you are more connected with it
than any of us here. Maybe even more than Meta.”

Shimon just
shook his head. “It’s not a competition Zex, I am just as I am.
That’s the best any of us can be. But back to matters at hand. You
have an important role to play in this. Do you understand that
while you will be captured by the enemy and imprisoned for some
time your soul can never be imprisoned unless your mind makes it
so?”

Imprisoned for
some time. That was an understatement. But yes he had understood
and there was no arguing with the wisdom of what he had seen. He
nodded his assent. “What of the others.”

“They cannot
know. If this is to work out as it must they cannot be made aware
of any of this. Kiana is the only other one who knows what you all
face. You must both hide your thoughts. Thex will be furious that
we have hidden it all from him but his need to protect his team is
too strong.”

“We?”

“Mum and Meta
know too”.

“Shit, that
must be tough on Meta, knowing what his son goes to.”

The
seriousness written on the boy’s face gave no doubt that it was.
“We all have sacrifices to make for this to work Zex. If we win it
won’t be just the world or even the dimension you seek to save that
will benefit. This will be a tipping point for the whole of
creation Zex. We just have to tip things in the right
direction.”

on the outer
arm of a remote spiral galaxy...

Zex sat beside
Orea, their communications officer. The appearance of an object on
his screen had him suddenly alert with alarm. “Sirs, something just
popped up on our screens and its right beside us.”

Arion was also
getting a sensor alarm on his console. “Commander, a movement
sensor has picked up something in the cargo hold.”

Thex’s brow
wrinkled in concern, there shouldn’t have been anything moving down
there. “Check it out but take the crew with you and take plenty of
weapons. I’ll hold the fort here.”

Zex followed
as Arion sent Officer Kiana to scout ahead.

Kiana returned
hurriedly, reporting to Arion “Sir there are Din in there, several.
They were still materializing into the hold when I saw them.”

“Hell.” He
split his team into two units, to come at the enemy from two sides.
He took a moment to yell into his communicator. “Sir, we’ve been
breached, requesting backup.”

Thex replied
through the comms system. “Shit...hold them off a bit longer, I’m
coming.”

Zex thought it
would take more than the commander’s presence to sway things in
their favor. They were walking into a firefight. The Din were
fearsome lizard like beings with brutish lion-like heads and almost
impenetrable scales. The way they were tearing into them with tooth
and claw they didn’t stand a chance. Zex grimaced as Arion, who was
reaching for his comms to warn Thex, was grabbed by a six foot
lizard and swung to the ground, knocking him out. Zex fired at the
lizard as it bound Arion’s wrists in some kind of weird metal
constraint. Their damned weapons were having no effect on these
beasts but he kept firing anyway. Didn’t do him much good though.
The indifferent beast just matter of factly walked straight up to
him and banged some of the same wrist constraints on him too. He
tried to teleport away, via the non-local, as he knew the others
would be trying to do when they realized their situation was
hopeless but for some inexplicable reason he couldn’t.

They’d caught
Thex and forced him to his knees before the leader of the Din.

Zex took stock
of the others who were still conscious. Orea, Kiana, Zex, Trian and
Kaleem. That was all. The others all seemed to be dead which
shouldn’t be possible, nothing could hurt a Malakim. Their grisly
remains had been turned to stone. Zex knew of no weapon in any of
the dimensions that could do that. What would happen to the souls
of those killed. In theory the Malakim were those two legged beings
who had transcended mortality. Their evolution once they were born
into their immortal forms, was largely through their own efforts to
better understand the universe and their place in it. Each followed
his own unique spiritual path to that end. Some moved on to become
guardians of planets or other species of life while others, with an
even better grasp of the nature of things, became Meta beings,
freed from the illusory trappings of the lower dimensions and the
physical laws of the universe. No-one at their level knew for sure
but it was theorized that the final stage of development culminated
in union with something they called the all-spirit. That
inexpressible, boundless quality that was far more than any god. It
was beyond the gods, being everything that was and wasn’t,
everything that had been and might be. Infinite potential. Zex
wasn’t sure that even their wisest knew its true purpose for
bringing the dimensions into existence. Maybe it was just having
fun. Maybe the entity was bored or dreaming or maybe it couldn’t
make up its mind between being and not being and had opted to
explore all possibilities. Whatever, Zex was no philosopher or
sage, he was happy in his role as a diplomat and peace negotiator.
He could usually do more good with that. Although looking at their
current situation he didn’t think there would be much negotiating
today.