Solitude

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

01/21/99:

The kitchen was a loud bustle that morning. Everyone in the
house had arrived almost at once, and there was barely even
standing room.

I was in the process of making myself a bag lunch for the
day, and Oria was feeding Beca at the table. Both Kalie and
Sora were gently fighting for counter room to make their
breakfasts. Jadith was already at the table, eating silently
and ignoring the people around her, her eyes focused on the
PADD she was holding in her hand.

Finishing up a second sandwich for myself, I moved to the
table. Kalie instantly took the spot I had abandoned at the
counter, using it to finish making her breakfast.

"How does she like the food?" I asked Oria. We were trying
different foods on Beca, to see what she liked. Currently
she was eating something like oatmeal, but thinner and more
of a pale blue color than the normal tan I was used to. Beca
also had a large amount of the food all over her face, it
stuck to get fur in large clumps.

"Almost done," she said to me with a slight grin before
returning all of her attention to Beca. I smiled to myself
as I watched my fiancee. She was keeping Beca's attention at
all times, talking to her as she was fed.

This quiet moment was interrupted by the phone ringing.
Still smiling, I grabbed the handset. The heavily accented
voice on the other end asked for Oriana, but in a tone of
voice that left no question it was an order.

Casually, I handed her the phone. She took it from me, and
cradled it on her shoulder while she continued to feed Beca.
She didn't say much, just a few affirmations to whatever the
person on the other end of the line was telling her, but her
ears were sinking into her hair.

After a few minutes, she said good-bye to whoever had been
talking to her, and handed me back the phone. There was a
look of anger and sadness on her face.

"Bad news?" I ventured as I took the phone back from her. I
was almost sure I already knew the answer.

"That was the government representative for Hr'raal," she
answered in a quiet voice, setting the spoon for Beca's food
down on the table.

I replaced the phone in its cradle, understanding the
implications of what she'd just said.

"They said 'no'," I stated, draping my arm over her
shoulder.

Her tail tip was slowly flicking back and forth. "They said,
if I wanted to get married, I will do it in my own country,"
she answered, then let out a soft sigh.

I kissed the base of her right ear. "We'll think of
something, I'm sure of it." My voice sounded more confident
than I was feeling at the moment.

She responded with a gentle laugh. "I'm sure we will. We're
just running out of time." She looked back at Beca, who was
starting to protest the early end of her feeding. "I have
other things to worry about right now." Oria said as she
lovingly nuzzled my neck.

I grinned as I returned the nuzzle, then moved back as Oria
went back to feeding Beca.

Smiling a bit more, I gathered up my lunch and a few other
things, to be put into my backpack. It was apparent I
wouldn't have enough room for all that I wanted to take, so
I sacrificed a few PADDs to make the room I needed for my
lunch.

"Where are you taking off to on such short notice?" Jadith
asked, looking up from her reading.

"Solitude," I answered as I stood up, then pulled the
backpack's straps onto my shoulders.

She wrinkled her nose as she thought about that, then nodded
slowly. "That's where Naomi is buried."

"Among other memories," I pointed out to her, "but that's
not why I'm going there today.

A curious look passed over Jadith's face, which showed
itself primarily in her eyes.

"Today would be Becky's twenty-third birthday," I explained,
before I bent down and kissed Oria. Behind me Jadith made a
slight sound of realization.

Oria said nothing to me as I stood, then left the kitchen. I
moved swiftly down the hallway, all too soon coming to the
room where the fold was located. This was a hard trip for me
to take. So many memories wrapped up into so little time and
one single place. But with my wondering if she was still
alive, I had to go there today. I just had to.

Slipping into the room, I closed the door behind me as
gently as I could. Turning to face the center of the room, I
reached out for the fold, feeling it just at the tip of my
fingers. Then with a single effort I ripped it open,
creating a portal to the small world.

I didn't hesitate as I stepped through the fold, my foot
landing slower on the other side. Once I was completely on
the other world, I snapped the fold close behind me. The
world was deathly quiet; not a soul present on it, save for
myself.

A soft wind blew along the short grass that covered the land
as far as I could see. The grassland was broken up by
mountains just over the horizon, and the few tall trees that
were scattered over the land. One of which was just a
hundred feet away from me.

I moved towards it, bouncing slightly in the lower gravity.
The tree was massive, the base forty feet across as it rose
almost impossibly high in the air. The distant sun sending
it's shadow playing out over the grass.

On the trunk of the tree were two deep gashes, each one head
high and four feet long. They marked the passage of two
years since I had been forced away from Earth. At the tree's
base, set into the ground, was a small gold plaque. Written
on it were both Becky's full name, and Naomi's, who was
buried just a few feet away.

Sliding my backpack off, I sank down, my back resting
against the tree's trunk. I nestled down between two of its
roots as they splayed out around me. Reaching into my pack I
pulled out a recent picture of Beca, which I then placed on
top of Naomi's grave.

Next came a small black panther plush animal. It was
something I had once gotten for Becky but never was able to
give to her. She loved black panthers just as much as I love
foxes, which made her being one just that much more
believable.

I set it down next to me, petting it softly with the back of
my hand. Then I relaxed against the tree trunk, my hands
resting against the roots. I was unsure as to what I was
hoping to accomplish by coming here. Maybe, maybe if Becky
was still alive, she would come to me here. For a long time
this world was just for me and her. Somehow, if we were to
meet again, this felt like the right place for it to happen.
This also felt like the right day as well.

I just hoped I wasn't the only one who thought that.

The next hour passed at a crawl. I tried to read, or do
something with my attention, but every time I started to
really focus on something, I caught some imagined sound and
was instantly to my feet.

Out of frustration I started walking, heading what seemed to
be south, towards the distance mountain range. The horizon
was only a few miles away, but my mind thought it was
farther. Swiftly I crossed the distance, passing two more of
the large trees.

It only took an hour before I was at the base of the
mountains, although truth be told, hills would be a more
accurate name for them. I continued over their short rise,
climbing up through a low pass between two small peaks, and
down the other side.

That was when I noticed something was in the sky. I had only
gone six miles at the most, but it was enough to have passed
beyond where the horizon had been when I started. Now,
hanging in the sky, close to the ground, there was reflected
light of some kind. I had to squint hard to even tell that
it wasn't a trick of the light where the sky appeared to
meet the ground.

Spurred on by this, I started moving faster. I was now out
of the small mountains, and had started to descend into a
large valley that stretched out as far as I could see.
Taking longer, almost jumping strides in the lower gravity,
I raced across the grassland.

Pushing myself like this, each stride sending me into the
air, made me think of some of my dreams. I occasionally had
vivid dreams where I was jumping, each jump higher than the
last, until I was above the houses in my neighborhood back
home.

Laughing to myself I started doing the same thing here,
pushing myself into the air and pulling all the energy into
my legs as I landed. It was like when I was Rhea, getting
read to pounce, but much harder on my legs. After a few
minutes I found out I was limited in how far I could jump,
after a point I would crash rather than land.

Following one particularly long landing, where I ended up
skidding across the wet grass instead of staying on my feet,
I just lay down on my back, laughing hard into the sky. I
felt really good just then, I had covered maybe another four
miles in the last hour, and was enjoying every minute of it.

Pulling myself back to my feet, I glanced around again. I
was so deep into the valley that its edge was no longer
visible in any direction.

The light over the horizon had risen higher, though not by
much. Just enough so that I could make out that it seemed to
stretch beyond the horizon itself. Rings maybe? I wouldn't
thought that a world this small would have enough gravity to
hold any together.

I started towards the horizon again when a familiar voice
came from behind me.

"You'll never get a good view of that at this rate," she
said. I spun around on my foot before I realized who was
addressing me. As I came to a stop she must have seen the
look of disappointment on my face, because her own face fell
just slightly.

"Hello, Romana," I said to her, adjusting my balance.

She smiled at me, her staff held across her paws, her
clothing blowing out from a formerly non-existent wind,
which was quickly fading away. She looked relaxed, her tail
swishing slowly behind her, the tail tuft just barely above
the grass.

"Hi Dad," she answered, placing one end of her staff on the
ground as her now free paw brushed over the front of her
shirt. "Am I allowed to call you that in this time?" As she
asked her question, a small grin was creeping over her face.

I returned her surprisingly infectious smile. "Of course you
can. You're my daughter, even if you're not going to be born
for another couple of months."

She seemed to relax, but it was barely perceptible. Taking a
few steps over to me she said, "Thank you."

I laughed, reaching up to tweak her whiskers. "No trouble at
all, kiddo. So what brings you to this corner of the
multi-verse?"

"Other than 'You sent me'?" she asked, batting away my hand
with the tip of her staff. She was still smiling, so I
tweaked the other set of whiskers.

She tapped my palm with her staff again, just a touch
harder. So I dropped my hand, but still I smiled. "Well, I
suppose that's as good of an excuse as any."

With a laugh, she spun her staff slightly in the air before
she returned one end to the ground. "It also has the benefit
of being true."

I nodded. "Always a good thing," I responded, my smile
growing wider. "What to you mean by 'a good view'?" I then
asked, folding my hands behind my back and leaning forward
ever so slightly.

Flipping her staff around in her paw, she pointed it at the
line of light. "That up there. I assume you were going this
way to see it better."

"Yep," I answered, looking up at whatever it was. "It's
moving closer, but I'll need to get to the equator to see it
better."

"And to the right side of the planet," she suggested. "This
is the day-side, the most you can see is the arch. The view
from the night-side is far superior."

I raised my eyebrows at her comment, what exactly did she
mean by 'arch'? "What is up there then?"

She returned the butt of her staff to the ground, then
leaned forward. Raising one paw, she fanned out her fingers,
setting them against my lips. "You never told us when you
first brought us here, so I don't have to tell you now."

With an almost ear-to-ear grin, I pushed her paw away from
my mouth. "Then you'll just have to show me, now won't you?"

From the way her ears perked up, I could tell this was the
response she had been waiting for. "Should I teleport us
straight there, or would you rather walk for a bit first?"

I looked back up at the light hanging across the horizon,
tracing its length with my eyes; this would be interesting.
"I think I would like to see whatever it is straight away.
It's piqued my curiosity."

She raised her staff into the air and closed her eyes, then
began to hum to herself. I'm not sure if she was humming
words, or music, but it had an interesting rhythm to it,
almost natural somehow.

She spoke three words as she spun her staff around in her
fingers, a slight glow surrounding it. Then with one final
word, which she spoke with great force, she brought the end
of the staff to the ground. The instant it touched I felt a
great discharge of power, and then it was night.

"Whow," I whispered as I looked around. The landscape looked
no different from where I had started from-- a large grassy
plain with the occasional tree. Though in the far distance I
saw what could have been the start of a forest, I wasn't too
sure in this light.

"It's one of my favorite spells," Romana boasted, resting
herself up against her staff, treating it as if it was a
wall, or a door frame. The staff itself was hovering about a
foot off the ground, and was emanating a soft blue light.

I looked closer at her staff, noting that the wood itself
wasn't glowing, but a series of engravings along it's length
were. A third of them, evenly spaced over the wood, were
providing the light. The rest were dark, or glowing so
softly that I couldn't see the light.

"Dad," Romana said with a giggle, "You're suppose to be
looking up, not at my staff."

As I snapped out of my investigation, I gave her a small
smile. "Of course, but it's just fascinating," I told her,
waving my hand towards her staff. Then I looked into the sky
above.

At first I wasn't quite sure what I was seeing. A large band
of stars were blotted out, hidden from my sight by something
in the sky. It was black, yet not black. There were splashes
of color over the blackness, in fact it was more of a
pattern, pure black separating areas of color.

Rubbing my fingers over my eyes, I keep looking at the
object in the sky. Things were starting to come together as
I watched. The black wasn't really black, it was a gray
black. The same color you see when you shine a light onto
any black surface.

The colored areas, rectangles, actually, were awash in blues
and greens. With yellows and browns, and every other color I
could see. They covered every non-black area. They had
patterns to them though. Some had more blue than others,
some deep greens, and others dark browns, spread out as far
as I could see above my head.

Slowly I started to find familiar patterns in the colors.
They looked like large maps, with mountains, and rivers and
islands. Each one separated by the other by a large black
rectangle. Rectangles which seemed to be moving, if my eyes
were not deceiving me.

In a sudden flash of insight, I suddenly understood the
scale of what I was seeing. It wasn't just maps, it was
land. A long unbroken strip of land. The black rectangles
were providing the night cycle for the massive world above
my head.

I was looking down onto a ringworld.

Taking a step back, I stumbled, and fell onto my rear, still
looking at the massive artifact in the sky. That would
explain what Romana had meant by 'arch'. On the planet's day
side, the ring would appear to be a massive arch overhanging
the sun.

Just one thought flowed through my mind as I sat there,
watching the shadow squares move along in their orbit. "That
is fucking big," I muttered, half to myself, and half to the
world around me.

"When you said that this shocked you," Romana commented, "I
didn't think it was to the extent of swearing out loud."

I pulled my eyes away from the sky, turning to look at her.
She was smiling at me, still leaning on her staff, her tail
tip flicking back and forth with her amusement.

"I just never thought that something like that," I waved my
hand at the ringworld, "would be so big." I paused for
thought right then, pondering the view I had. "Where exactly
are we though?"

Her voice became quiet as she answered, "Luna."

I blinked in confusion. "Luna? Is that a mistranslation, or
is this my moon?"

"This was the Sol system," she answered, leaving her staff
floating in the air as she walked over to where I was. "But
many billions of years older than Earth."

I shook my head in disbelieve. "That can't be. The sun is
the wrong color to be that old."

"I can't pretend to understand, Dad," she told me, offering
a paw to help me up.

I took it, pulling myself to my feet. "How old is this
place?"

"Older than everything else," she answered. "At least that's
what you told us. This world, this universe, is the oldest
ever."

"That can't be," I protested. "This can not be Luna, and
this can not be the Sol system. The time is just too wrong.
If this universe is as old as you say, it is not possible."

She huffed, grabbing her staff and pulling it close to
herself. "I'm just telling you what you once told me. I
don't know if it's true or not, I'm just telling it to you."

I sighed, brushing some dirt from my pants. She was right
though; if she was just telling me what I would eventually
tell her I could not challenge the validity of her
statements. But I couldn't believe that one day I would lie
to my daughter, just so she would tell me these things.
Unless, of course, it was the truth, but that left too many
questions unanswered... like 'how?' to start.

"I'm sorry," I said, walking over to her and placing my
hands on her shoulders. "You're just telling me what you
know, it's my fault if I don't believe it."

She responded with a sweet smile, but I could tell by the
way she held her ears, she didn't fully accept it.

Gently, I squeezed her shoulders, "thank you for showing me
this. I would never had managed to find it on my own."

Her ears raised higher as I told her that. "You're very
welcome. I've always wanted to return that gift of utter
amazement."

I smiled, reaching up as I did so to run my hand down over
her hair and right ear. "Can you take me back to where the
fold is? I think I'm ready to go home now."

Her staff was suddenly in the air again, spinning through
her fingers with practiced ease. She was also humming once
more, but I didn't notice it as much as I had previously.
Then speaking the same four words, she struck her staff to
the ground with the last one, and in an instant I was back
to where I had started.

When I looked around though, she was nowhere to be seen.
Back to her own time, or maybe someplace else on this little
world to wait for me to leave. For now, it didn't matter. I
was happy to have seen what I had, and was ready to go home.

Picking up my backpack, I started for the fold, leaving both
the picture and the plush where I had put them. I didn't
mind at all; this was the place where they both belonged.

Then I left to where I belonged.

-----

This story is (c) 1999 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.