Chapter 2

2069 a.d.

Béla Begins her Education

'How does one tell time when there is no darkening and everything is the same? I wake and it's morning. When I sleep it becomes night. How long is the day? Yesterday felt short. I was inside the Praetor for forty years. My cabin looks like it's been in ruins for longer than that. My club is gone. Jake ... is gone. And why is the sun so angry?

Béla's disassociated thoughts were interrupted when her father stepped into the lab.

"What are you thinking, my child?" Sibilius asked, both verbally and with his mind echoing into hers.

'Why does the sun hurt me?'

'Are you in pain?' her father asked, suddenly concerned. He picked up her crystal and gazed at it as though he could see her life energy permeating it.

'No. When I went home, back to Earth, the sun hurt inside my head. And I don't even have a head.'

She broadcast the image of her arrival at her ruined cabin.

'The Praetor has the data and the history required for you to understand the answer to that question, ' Sibilius informed her.

'The Praetor has been restored?' Béla asked anxiously. 'Is it all right? Is it angry with me?'

'The Praetor is a machine. It does not get 'angry', ' her father's thoughts replied. 'I have not brought it in here out of respect for your peace of mind. You had not inquired about the Praetor, so I assumed you were not ready to have it in your presence.'

'But, to answer your questions; yes, the Praetor is all right. There was a problem with its power supply, but that has been corrected and features have been added that will prevent that problem from recurring.'

'Bring it in!' Béla broadcast to him, cheerfully.

Sibilius set her back on the shelf and turned toward the door.

'Daaaddy... ' Béla called out to him, her mind's voice plaintive and as insistent as a small child.

Sibilius turned around and looked at her crystal, confused by the mixed annoyance and humor she was broadcasting at him.

'I'm upside down... ' she informed him, sending him an image of a smiley face.

Sibilius actually laughed, then turned her crystal over. Béla, although trapped in the crystal chamber, could have turned over by herself by simply deciding that the bottom of the crystal was now its new top, but she saw no reason why she should.

A few minutes later, she and the Praetor were mind-linked.

'Do you have a question?' the Praetor asked her.

'Several, ' Béla replied. She broadcast her first question: 'Please define your status as Praetor. Include purpose of your memory banks.'

She had noticed a vast amount of stored memory when she had been inside the Praetor's control center. She had been fascinated by the amount of data but had been unable to access it.

The Praetor began broadcasting back to her: 'I am lawgiver, judge, teacher. I maintain order. My memory banks include the history of our race. This history is useful as references that apply to my duties as stated. You could not access my memories due to the fact that they are stored in a separate facility.'

An hour later, by Béla's best guess-timate, the Praetor finished its reply to her first question. She'd learned a lot about Viragoan society (Viragoans were what the thin, blue beings called themselves). Their planet of origin was called Elyria, although the Viragoans were mostly a space-faring species. There were two sexes, male and female, just like humans, but there were no female Viragoans aboard, which Béla discovered when she asked excitedly if she could meet one.

"When you say 'aboard', do you mean we're on a ship of some kind?"

'No. But there is a ship. It travels between Diemos, Earth and a distant moon base.'

"Are there any females on Diemos?"

'No. We are on Diemos.'

"Oh. Are there females on the ship?"

'No. They died.'

"Oh." A lot of her queries were starting to end with a disappointed 'oh'. "Well, how do the men cope? I mean, without any females around for the last ... How long ago did the females die? Why did they die?"

The Praetor singularly answered each of her questions. The Viragoans in this solar system were all male, the last female died over four thousand years ago after prolonged exposure to lethal radiation emitted by a certain yellow dwarf star, and the Praetor takes care of the male survivors' sexual needs.

"Really? How?"

'Dreams.'

Dreams? She understood that!

So, the Viragoans had been here, in this solar system, for at least as long as she'd been alive. Of course, she already knew that, as her earliest memories were of Father and his shadow ship. But she didn't know what these alien beings were doing here, and the Praetor dodged the question every time it came up.

Deciding to change the subject to, hopefully, a more pleasant topic, Béla asked, "What is happening to my brother and sisters?"

The Praetor showed her an image of them as Martian Drones performing menial duties in exchange for tutoring by the Praetor in various studies in which they wished to become more proficient.

'The Regent is initiating a project to supply his children with more suitable bodies, now that he knows that your body is nothing special. They will be patterned after your original body, so it will take much less time to create them than it took to reconstitute yours.'