The Forbidden Zone (24 page)

"I hope so," I said, standing up. "Well, time for that tour, Christine. I'll see you later."

"Ciao."

*~*~*

Saidan explored every nook and cranny of the ship over the rest of the day and the next week. Between his eager exploration of the ship and my body, I started to teach him English so that he could better communicate with the crew. He was a fast learner, and he was soon holding basic conversations with the quintet and me without needing my translation skills.

On the day we reached Earth, we were kissing in a small supply closet. Things were getting hot and heavy when Christine interrupted us with an audio message.

"Hey, I know you're not doing anything decent in that supply closet."

We pulled apart from each other like two students caught by their teacher doing something forbidden, and Christine burst into raucous laughter.

"I just wanted to tell you to come up to the bridge. I want Saidan to see Earth before we reach orbit. It looks spectacular from here. But, if you're busy with other exploration..."

"We'll be on the bridge in thirty seconds," Saidan said, a blue blush darkening his cheeks. I couldn't help but laugh myself. It was good to have familiar company. It was good to see Christine and deal with her forthright humor after coping with the stiff Valerians for so long. I'd forgotten how to laugh, and Saidan and I were learning together from a master.

We made our way to the bridge, hand in hand. We'd had a brief tour, but the view screen had been switched off while we navigated through the blank space of the wormhole. Now it was on, and Earth looked up at us as we stepped off the elevator, a bright blue-green sphere.

"Wow," Saidan said, his face a picture of awe and wonderment. His blue eyes had never seemed so wide, Earth reflected in his shimmering tears.

"Welcome to Earth," Christine said. "Don't worry, it'll soon disappoint you when you get down there."

"I don't think that's possible," Saidan said. "It's so... It's so beautiful."

I put my arm around Saidan's shoulders as we took in the view. I was completely lost for words. I had never thought I would see Earth again in those dark days of torture and isolation. When the Sisters took my ship, I thought I would never see home again. To see Earth in front of me now, so close I felt like I should be able to touch it, was overwhelming.

"I'm home," I whispered, disbelieving. "I'm home."

"No," Saidan said. "We're home."

The magazines and science journals lay untouched on my apartment's coffee table. They could stay there. I was spending the morning in bed with Saidan and nothing in the universe could stop me.

Re-adjusting to Earth's gravity had not been easy. Saidan was having even more trouble with the lower oxygen level, but he was okay as long as he breathed pure oxygen from a tank for one hour a day. The doctors had said he might be able to wean off it eventually, but for now, it was a requirement.

I looked over at Saidan as he took off his mask and looked over at me with loving eyes. A breeze blew the nets at the open window, letting sunlight shine across his face. I was still captivated by him, even here among all the wonders of my home world. Any small doubts I had harbored that my feelings might fade once I reached the safety of Earth were long gone. I loved him just as much, perhaps more than ever.

"I hate to get out of bed, but we do need to prepare for the funeral this afternoon," Saidan said, his eyes suddenly turning to pools of sadness. He knew Lankis had meant a lot to me, and had been incredibly supportive about his loss.

"You're right." The sun disappeared behind a cloud as I got out of bed and looked in my wardrobe. There was a small selection of civilian clothing, along with my day-to-day Foundation uniform and my dress uniform. I pulled out the dress uniform, contemplating the white jacket and pants with the Foundation symbol on the sleeve and black lines down the seams. I wasn't the biggest fan of uniforms after my experiences on Valeria, but this was a special occasion I was willing to make a sacrifice for.

"What shall I wear?" Saidan climbed out of bed and came to stand beside me. We'd gone shopping for him, but it was hard to find clothing that Saidan liked when the latest fashions were gaudy and glittering. He'd been given a layman's Foundation outfit, although he wasn't officially part of the Foundation, but I wasn't a huge fan of the way it represented how much the Foundation wanted to claim him as their own for political reasons. He wasn't an object; he was Saidan. I had been to hell and back for him, and I wasn't going to let him be used as a pawn in a political game with other nations and academies.

I saw the uniform from Christine's ship sitting on the side. "Why don't you wear that?" Christine was Lankis' student, too. I knew that Lankis must have been very proud of her achievements.

"Do you think it would be acceptable?" Saidan asked. Human protocols seemed to fly over his head. I was almost grateful they did. He remained Saidan, completely oblivious to the storm his arrival on Earth had created.

I smiled at Saidan. "It'll be fine. I promise."

I brushed out Saidan's hair and re-braided it before looking in the mirror at my own reflection. The first sprigs of hair were starting to reappear on my bald head. They looked ridiculous, but I wasn't vain enough to wear a wig. I was who I was. If people made comments about how I looked, they clearly didn't understand what I'd been through.

Not everything about me had changed. I still didn't care what other people thought. Saidan was one of the few people alive whose opinions carried weight with me. The petty squabbling of the Foundation and its members were something I took no interest in.

I had gone to Valeria because it suited me, not the other way around. It had been my decision. Lankis had never questioned it; he'd only sought to set me on the right path before he died. He had succeeded. I had come home a stronger, richer man with experience and knowledge, though it was not the kind the Foundation had hungered after. They scoffed at my account of events and the things I had done for love at my official debriefing. Six heartless, aged scientists—not unlike the man I used to be—had sat at a desk and wondered how millions of dollars could have been spent on a mission that taught me how to love.

I helped Saidan dress and stood him in front of the mirror, my hands on his shoulders. He looked handsome, a man ready to explore the universe.

We left my apartment and stepped out into the street to see it had started raining. We hurried to the anti-gravity taxi; the robot driver was already programmed with our destination and took us to the memorial site.

Dozens of black monoliths stood in perfect symmetry. Genetically-engineered white grass sprouted up from the ground. The graveyard was elegant, yet stark: a perfect place for many of the scientists of the Foundation to rest their earthly remains, and yet wrong for Lankis. I couldn't help but feel he might have preferred his ashes scattered in a field somewhere, to become one with the universe and nature. Most of the assembled mourners had no idea, though. They had not known Lankis as Christine and I had known him, and most of his immediate family had passed away. He'd left no biological children, either. He had been our mentor, a kind of father, and we were siblings united at his graveside.

Christine wore the same kind of jumpsuit that Saidan wore, her quintet behind her. A bright rainbow umbrella kept the rain from soaking her hair and I wanted to laugh at the brilliance of its colors, interrupting the sea of blacks, grays, and whites that made up Foundation formalwear. I couldn't help but think that Lankis would have approved of Christine's bright statement amongst all this drab ceremony. All the colors of the rainbow. All of the infinite possibilities of love in a fantastic universe. Lankis had understood, and so did Christine. His final lesson had been to teach me the power of emotions, to expand the possibilities of my reasoning with a new perspective.

The somber socializing came to an end and we found ourselves at the graveside, the rain beating at our spirits as the Foundation's pastor read a few passages from the Bible in monotone. I let my mind drift, thinking about the first day I met Lankis and silently thanking him. Without him, I would never have met Saidan, never opened my heart to the gentle being standing beside me. I knew I owed Lankis a great debt. I only wish he'd been around to see the results of his final experiment, because the results had been incredible. Anyone and everyone is capable of love as long as they open their hearts to it—even a robotic, unfeeling man of science like myself. Perhaps even Little Sister, in another world, another time. There's no rule that says inorganic beings cannot feel. They just haven't figured out how yet.

Took me a while to work it out, myself.

Saidan slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. As Lankis' casket was lowered into the ground, I looked over at Saidan to find his eyes were not following it, but were staring up into the cloudy sky.

It was an odd moment for me as I remembered the first time I met Lankis. His office lights were off as I ventured into the room. He was standing at the window, his eyes fixed on the starry sky. He didn't turn to me as I entered, yet he knew I was there.

"There's limitless potential out there, young man. More than we could ever hope to imagine. It makes me feel so small."

"That's not very scientific," I replied.

Lankis laughed, turning to me. "Son, science is about more than numbers and studies. Understanding the way things work requires imagination and hope as much as research. Yet we have barely scraped the surface of understanding how the universe works."

I didn't understand why this man was considered one of the greatest scientists on Earth. It seemed to me like he would have been better suited to a life writing poetry.

"I don't understand," I said. "What does this have to do with learning?"

Lankis turned around. I could see the scars on his face, a telltale sign of KEVAC Syndrome. He was dying, even then. For twenty years, the disease had wracked his body, but he had never given up. Perhaps looking death in the face had awakened his romantic spirit. He'd done most of his greatest work not in his youth, but in the last few years of his life. That was why I had wanted to study under him—to learn what made him tick, as if he was a robot that could be analyzed, his pattern recorded and recreated.

Lankis paused, a smile forming on the edges of his lips. "I see they've sent me another robot. A good Foundation 'bot. They just don't get what makes a man work, do they? What truly makes a man live instead of simply existing. Faith. Love. Hope. All of those must temper logic and reason if we are to make discoveries that are relevant to the human experience."

I felt insulted. "I am not a robot."

"Yes. Yes, you are. If I have anything to teach you, son, it's not science. The Foundation has the greatest science courses on the planet, and my records indicate you already hold four degrees and two doctorates. Why, then, did you come to me? What was it you hoped to learn?"

"I'm stuck," I admitted. "My research has come to a halt. I lack—"

"—Inspiration." Lankis smiled. "That's what you lack, son. Inspiration. Feeling. Love." He turned back to the window. "Computer, play Riva Melodia, song Sarina."

"I didn't come here to listen to music." My tone was derisive.

"Ah, but you did. If you want to be my student, fine. I will teach you everything I know. But first, you need to sit in that chair and listen to the whole album. Let me know what you think." He strode out of the room, the robes that he liked to wear as an eccentric man flowing behind him.

I was angry, at first. A great scientist like myself reduced to listening to popular music? Lankis had to be mocking me. But once the music started to flow around my veins and get under my skin, my ego evaporated. I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. I was moved. The story felt like a warm shower in a desert, filling the cracks in the dry mud that represented my soul. I felt inspired.

That night, I woke from a sudden dream. I grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled down an equation. I slapped it down on his desk in the morning. He looked it over with a warm smile.

"That's just the beginning," Lankis said, a twinkle in his wise, blue eyes.

From then on, I was a believer, but there were still parts of my soul that were simply not open. I had never engaged in a lasting romantic relationship. I had never known what it meant to feel that way about another being. Until Valeria. Until Saidan.

As I looked into Saidan's eyes and saw the clouds reflected in his large, glassy eyes, I realized I had completed Lankis' final lesson. He had nothing more to teach me. I had graduated from his class. I knew love: giving it and receiving it in return. I had sacrificed myself for it. I had considered Saidan's life to have greater value than my own. I had experienced a feeling that could not be described with equations and numbers. The greatest force in the universe. Love.

As I came back to the present and heard the mourners shuffling away, I took one last look at the glass coffin, at Lankis' scarred face resting peacefully in the earth.

"I get it now," I whispered. My eyes were brimming with tears. "I finally get it. Thank you." I felt Saidan's warm arm slip around my shoulder as I broke down and savored it. His life was finite as well. Any day, any year could be his last and we both knew it, but were determined not to dwell on it as the rain washed over us. Geneticists wanted to study him, but we hadn't decided if it was a good idea to know his destiny or not. Perhaps some things—like the length of one's life—are best left unknown.

We have each other for as long as we both live. For all I know, I could find myself in an accident tomorrow.  The radiation I absorbed may give me cancer in the future. Such is the nature of things. I cannot dwell on the number of years that Saidan might live and breathe. I have to grasp every moment with both hands and let nothing slip through my fingers. Every day is a new opportunity to explore and discover this amazing universe with Saidan at my side. I plan to savor each and every one.