Chapter 14

Tuesday, June 4, 3089, 11:55 a.m. Leaving her parka to block the balcony gate—and theoretically, any railing closure—Rebecca boarded the escalator and stood calmly with the bags at her feet. The small girl, whom Rebecca guessed to be 5 or 6 years old, shifted anxiously foot-to-foot at the bottom, twisting side to side, fitfully moving her lips. She seemed consumed equally by curiously and fear. As she slowly withdrew from the ramp, Rebecca cursed the gods for not revealing the girl sooner. Her antics on the escalator probably made her appear afflicted. “Don’t run,” she muttered quietly, not moving her smiling lips. It was the fakest smile she’d ever put on her face.

The girl was blonde, with short, tangled hair. She was filthy, including her bedraggled outfit, which put Rebecca in mind of animal skins. 30 steps from the bottom, the little girl’s nerve finally broke, and she fled for the trees. “Dammit,” Rebecca muttered. She didn’t call after the child.

Once at platform-level, the escalator obediently stopped. Rebecca wondered if taking a step back would trigger the stairs into upward motion. Not wishing to find out, she picked up the bags and moved, sitting a safe 10’ distance away. She hoped it was safe.

At ground-level, the platform comprised a half-circle, possibly even greater than 180 degrees, given the palace wall’s slight curvature. Rebecca guessed the edge of the platform extended 100’ out from the face of the palace in the middle; quite an intimidating structure, all told, with the ramp considered. Of course, the palace dwarfed the ramp like a house dwarfed the front stoop. At ground-level, Rebecca began to fully comprehend the structure’s immense size. Nothing comparable existed on the planet in her time, she was certain of that.

When was it built, she wondered? How long would it last? Though Leda never actually confirmed it in her presence, Rebecca had intuited that 2014 Earth wasn’t long for self-rule. The High Ones had subjugated, and ruled the planet for nearly a millennium, Leda said, vanishing 177 years ago. 2912 minus 2014 equaled 898 years; pretty near a millennium in Rebecca’s thinking. Construction of a structure this huge would take decades, if not centuries, she figured.

She continually scanned the tree line in all directions. She didn’t thrust that anyone the girl might summon would show up in the same location that she had disappeared at a run. To her surprise, however, that’s exactly what happened. Half an hour following the girl’s departure, a woman appeared from the trees, watching Rebecca closely. Rebecca sat with her hands clasped loosely between her thighs, watching the woman in return. Her back ached from tension, and she had to go pee. How fast could the stairs get her to the top in an emergency? That was something she should have considered earlier, she thought.

After a moment, Rebecca caught sight of the little girl’s blonde head poking around momma’s right hip. Momma wore the same tanned hides as her daughter: a rough vest and a skirt with an unevenly hemmed bottom. Unlike her daughter, the woman appeared clean, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was oddly attractive, Rebecca thought distractedly. Were those moccasins on her feet?

Rebecca rose but didn’t move. The woman trembled visibly and said something to her daughter, who backed a step away. Rebecca cocked her head questioningly; a gesture the woman seemed to understand. She hesitantly smiled, and then following a moment’s hesitation, made a forehead to lips to chest gesture with her right fingertips ... a sign of greeting, perhaps?

A powerful intuition cautioned Rebecca against answering in kind. Instead, she stepped forward, approaching the platform’s edge, motioning the woman forward. Did I just pull a Leda maneuver, she wondered caustically.

The woman slowly advanced, the child remaining behind her at first, but eventually defying mom’s efforts to keep her hidden. She first walked nervously beside her, and then defiantly walking ahead, fighting mom’s restraint. Only a sharp rebuke kept Frieda from running on ahead.

Frieda? Rebecca questioned, startled. She appeared the right approximate age to be the pretty maidservant from breakfast yesterday morning. Was it possible?

Mother and child halted a dozen yards from the platform’s edge, Mom’s restraining hands on Frieda’s shoulders. For the first time, Rebecca noted the verge of perfectly trimmed Kentucky Bluegrass bordering the platform. The sharp demarcation between plush lawn and wild grass paralleled the sweep of the platform the entire length. Rebecca would swear the soft green verge hadn’t been in evidence this morning. Frieda’s mom obviously found it taboo to step upon it, in fact gazed at the luscious grass fearfully, almost reverentially. The identical way she gazed at Rebecca.

She thinks I’m a High One, she marveled, returned all these years later to reclaim dominion over Earth, to subjugate the population once again. The concept made her snort, though she hid the reaction behind a hand. “I am Rebecca,” she announced in regal fashion, hand to her chest. “And you are?”

Backing from the verge, the woman dropped to her knees, forcing Frieda to a like position beside her. She dipped her face into her cupped hands as Arma had done yesterday morning. Sensing the woman’s humbling gesture, somehow, the platform’s center unexpectedly provided stairs down to the ground. They simply formed where solid platform had existed only a moment ago.

Accepting the invitation, Rebecca descended and crossed the verge, concealing her limp as well as able. She touched the woman on the forehead as Leda had instructed her to do with Arma.

The woman shuddered convulsively and emitted a low moan; she spoke a few words into her hands in the softly musical language Frieda and Arma had spoken on the balcony, and then placed her hands on her knees and arose. She bowed to Rebecca, her face alternately radiant, and fearful. Rebecca smiled, glancing down at Frieda. The same protective intuition warned her against touching the child. She returned to the stairs, silently muttering, “I ought to be shot.”

A chair sat atop the platform where she had stood before. The design was simple yet elegant; frame and arms a lustrous white, a simple white cushion on the seat. Could the chair be porcelain, she wondered? Ascending the stairs and sitting, she found the cushion and backrest delightfully comfortable. Jeepers, she thought; first the grass, and now this? Where had the chair come from?

“I don’t understand your language,” she said conversationally to Frieda’s mom. “Do you know mine?”

Her unwanted servant looked puzzled and cocked her head, answering in a melodious voice. Her unintelligible words were strangely liquid, sounding almost like a song.