The Prophecy, At the Citadel, Chapter Four

Kaleem  could not concentrate on the verb patterns of advanced Flemo-french. They weren’t really particularly difficult. It was just that Razjosh was taking so long. When would he let him know about the outcome of the Council meeting? Something was definitely brewing, coming to a head. Both Razjosh and Chief Makisson were so tense at the moment. Elders were supposed to be in charge, weren’t they? They were supposed to know what they were doing. They just didn’t seem to. And both of their faces looked grey and strained.

No, it was no good. He couldn’t concentrate to-day.  The screen just flickered meaninglessly.

‘Close down files,’ he commanded.

Gentle wind chime tones were now coming out of the sound system. The room was intelligent: its dataserves had worked out exactly what he needed - almost. The lights were beginning to dim.

Actually, thought Kaleem, this is not what I want. I just need some exercise now

He began to jog, out through his door and along the corridors towards the exercise centre. Already his head was beginning to clear.

I can’t help it, he thought, I can’t just sit there all the time. I’ll go nuts.

He bounded along the narrow corridor. Occasionally, when he was sure no-one was looking, jumping up at the walls on the sides of the corridors. He tried to jump higher each time. As he landed for the seventh time, he collided with someone.

‘Well, I’m glad to see that someone has some energy left,’ said a voice which Kaleem recognised straight away. It was Razjosh.

Kaleem scarcely recognised what he saw, though. He had seen the Elder look serious and worried before, but now he looked totally defeated. He seemed his age, and greyer than ever.

‘No good?’ asked Kaleem.

Razjosh shook his head.

Now what? thought Kaleem.  He had been scared and excited at the same time about leaving Terrestra. He ought to have been relieved. But he wasn’t.

There was no expression at all on the Elder’s face. Kaleem was so used to him being in charge, always knowing what to do.

‘Can we go back to your room and see what you have been doing?’ asked Razjosh.

Razjosh normally did not ask questions unless he wanted to know something. He usually told you what to do.

‘I’ve worked on all the verb patterns,’ said Kaleem a few minutes later when they were sitting in his room. ‘I’m scoring about 75% in the tests.’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ mumbled Razjosh. He seemed to be staring out beyond Kaleem.

‘I think I’ve got the cultural components buttoned down as well’, added Kaleem.

Razjosh just nodded his head.

‘I mean that is one of the languages they use on Zandra, isn’t it?’ asked Kaleem.

The Elder did not reply.

‘Do you think we’ll ever be able to get there?’ asked Kaleem.

Still the old man was silent.

‘What will happen then?’ continued Kaleem.

Razjosh just shook his head and pursed his lips.

Razjosh’s personal communicator buzzed suddenly. Kaleem could not make out what was being said to Razjosh.

‘I think it is better that we meet with Chief Makisson as well,’ said Razjosh. ‘Twenty minutes? And be careful. Don’t wear your official clothes.’ He ended the communication rather abruptly, without even bothering to say goodbye. ‘Come on,’ he said to Kaleem. ‘We have business to attend to. Someone important is coming to see us.’

Ten minutes later, they were with the Chief. Apparently the Head of Health was coming to see them.

‘Will she be safe?’ asked Makisson. ‘Will anyone have seen her?’

‘She’s usually really very careful,’ replied Razjosh. ‘I think I know what she is going to say. I thought it best that she came in person, rather than risk even the secure communication network.’

‘Yes,’ said Makisson. ‘It’s all very difficult right now, but we are bound for the moment to remain within the law. Even though we know that the Heads of Ministries have not chosen wisely.’

‘I think we may have to go against the rules,’ said Razjosh.

Kaleem noticed that Razjosh’s face was slightly flushed  and his eyes were suddenly very bright. His own stomach was beginning to churn again. Chief Makisson  said nothing. He just sat with his hand over his mouth, tapping the side of his cheek with his finger. He was frowning.

The door swished open. A tall young woman, dressed in a plain grey ripon tunic, swept into the room. Kaleem couldn’t help gasping loudly. She had the Terrestran, cave-induced pale skin all right. But her hair was all wrong. Kaleem had never seen anything like it. It was a bright, rusty red.

‘No-one saw you?’ asked Makisson.

The woman shook her head.

‘Your journey wasn’t too unpleasant?’ asked Razjosh.

She shook her head again and grinned.

‘Forgive me,’ said Razjosh. ‘How rude of me. I should introduce you.’ He beckoned Kaleem over to him. ‘Let me present Kaleem Malkendy, rising Peace Child. Sandi Depra, Head of Health.’

Sandi grinned at Kaleem.

‘Hey, I like it,’ she said. ‘So, I’m not the only one with funny hair. Well, I guess a Peace Child has to be special.’ She turned to face the two Elders. ‘I think the mission should go ahead. And I’m volunteering to go. It is just a little bit to do with my ministry, after all.’

The two Elders remained silent.

‘I’m sure there’s a good few others as well. I even voted against the mission. Ponty Davidson actually was telling people that he had managed to Spy-trap most of the dataserves. He’s been threatening all sorts of stuff to people who stood against him.’

‘Spy-trap?’ asked Makisson. ‘How is that still possible? The controls on our secure machines would never allow it.’

‘Ah, he’s a clever man,’ said Sandi. ‘He’s managed to build some very sophisticated programmes.’

The two Elders were still looking at each other as if they could not believe what they had just heard.

‘There must be others,’ said Sandi. ‘After all, some people even voted for you going.’

Still, there was no word from the two Elders.

‘Why is he so against it?’ asked Sandi.

Razjosh cleared his throat. ‘The usual Terrestran problem,’ he said.

Makisson turned towards Sandi.

‘You’d better stay in the Citadel for now,’ he said. ‘Show Miz Depra to one of the guest suites,’ he said to the room robot.

‘Have you contacted the Medical Centre about your mother yet today?’ Razjosh asked Kaleem. ‘Perhaps you should do that now. Chief Makisson and I have a few things to discuss.’

‘Ah,’ said Sandi. ‘They want us out of the way. Big men’s talk.’

Kaleem felt a bit embarrassed to hear someone speak like that in front of the Elders.  But they didn’t seem to have noticed what she had said.

‘See you later, then, Funny Head Mark 2,’ she said as they left the Chief’s room.

Kaleem had hardly been back in his room two minutes, when the communicator buzzed. Well, he had been dreading contacting the medical centre anyway. He always preferred it when they contacted him, took him by surprise. So, he had come the long way back and dawdled all the way at that. He was quite glad to be distracted by a message.

‘Receive!’ he commanded. Sandi’s face was grinning at him from the main dataserve screen

‘Hey Funny Head,’ she said. ‘Can we meet? I’ll fade out with boredom if I have to stay in my room. I have to have people around me.’

Well, it would nicely stop him from having to find out - or not find out which was more likely - anything about his mother.

‘Sure,’ he said, and suggested they met in the Stella Bar - a small nectar bar which had a display of the night sky on the ceiling.

‘I thought it would be good to swap notes about what it feels like having this outrageous hair,’ she said tugging at a sleek red strand. ‘And theories about how it happened.’

Well, that would be good. No-one had ever given him any clue before - apart from that slightly clumsy attempt by Maggie Johnstone, which had ended up with her being suspended and him being called a throw-back.

In the end there was very little time. Sandi had hardly sat down when her personal communicator went. Kaleem could just make out that it was another young woman, a bit like Sandi.

‘Well, you’d better get your butt over here. And double fast ,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they really believe me, you know. We’re in the Stella Bar….,’ She paused and frowned.  ‘Oh, you’ll think of something. Go on, be bold.’

She snapped the communicator off.

‘Danielle Thomas. Head of Science.  She went with Razjosh to Zandra. By rights I should have gone. But they were afraid about people not trusting a freak. I ask you. It’s only here I’d look like a freak. They have blondies and red-heads still on Zandra. But come on, tell me, how much trouble has it been to you?’

Kaleem told her all about the incident with Maggie Johnstone, Stuart Davidson and Erik Svenson.

‘Well, throw-back, yes I suppose that’s one idea. But who knows? I think it was having to put up with this funny hair that made me so determined to make it. To show them all. That was what drove me to being Head of Medicine. Perhaps it’ll help you to become a good Peace Child.’

Being different was a qualification for being a Peace Child, was it? Maybe he’d rather not be a Peace Child then.

There was an awkward silence between them. Sandi stared at the entrance to the bar. After a few moments her face lit up.

‘Hey, here comes Danielle,’ she said. ‘Perhaps she’ll have some ideas.’

Kaleem liked Danielle. She seemed more responsible and quieter than Sandi. She smiled warmly at Kaleem.

‘Razjosh told me so much about you,’ she said. ‘He really thinks highly of you, you know. I’m so glad we can meet at last. I’m sure we’ll be able to work well together.’

Kaleem found himself blushing. It was obvious that the two young women had a lot to talk about, though. Soon, he was just listening to them and not taking part at all in the conversation. It seemed a bit awkward as well that Sandi had just asked Danielle to come here, without permission from the Elders. He ought not to be part of this.

And besides, he couldn’t put it off any longer. He must contact the medical centre. He mumbled his excuses and left.

Even before he was back in his own room, his personal communicator informed him that the medical centre was trying to communicate with him.

‘Refer to ’serve in room,’ he mumbled. That would delay the communication another few minutes. His stomach began churning again.

Oxton’s cheerful face was already filling the main screen when he walked into his room.

‘Hi there,’ he called after Kaleem had completed the connection. ‘She’s talking more today, and she has eaten a little extra. I think we are turning the corner.’

‘Won’t she come and speak to me?’ asked Kaleem. Was she after all getting back to normal?

‘I’m afraid we haven’t got quite that far,’ said Oxton. ‘She won’t face a dataserve camera. But she does still keep talking about that tower. Are you sure you don’t know something about it?’

Kaleem wished he could tell Oxton what he did know. But he just didn’t dare. He shrugged and shook his head.

‘So, just what has she been saying, then?’ he asked.

‘The mother has done her duty. And something about a tower. No-one can quite make out what she means. But it seems quite serious to her.’

Kaleem felt himself going hot. It seemed that his mother was making him out to be something really special. Surely it was just a part of her illness, though?

‘Hey, cheer up,’ said Oxton. ‘Don’t worry about it. At least now she’s watching less of those old movie clips. She’s seeing a mind specialist tomorrow.’

A mind specialist? This was serious. Oh, yes, a few people on Terrestra did need the help of the mind doctors. Physical health had been perfect, before the disease arrived, but there had been one or two people who could not cope with the perfection expected in every other aspect of life on Terrestra. And even though the mind doctors helped, if people knew you had been to one, you were no longer respected. It was a bit like being a throw back with funny-coloured hair.

‘Does she really have to?’ he asked.

‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ said Oxton. ‘No-one apart from you, and perhaps Razjosh and the folks here at the Health Centre will ever know. And we’ve done some more research - looked at some more archives about coma patients in the past and it seems this is common. There is often an imbalance in the mind after weeks of being in a coma. The mind has had time to get down to some real deep-seated stuff.’

The dataserve warned Kaleem that there was another urgent message waiting.

‘Okay,’ said Oxton. ‘I’d better get out of the way. Really, try not to worry.’

Razjosh was waiting to speak to him.

‘Come quickly to Chief Makisson’s room,’ he said. ‘There’s a transporter waiting outside for you.’

It must be urgent, thought Kaleem as he got into the small indoor transporter. I could have walked there in ten minutes.

Two minutes later, he was once more sitting in the Chief Elder’s room. Sandi Depra and Danielle Thomas were there as well. Sandi was now looking serious and Kaleem thought that Danielle looked a little pale. The main screen of Chief Makisson’s dataserve was split into five. Four men and one woman, dressed in ministry tunics, were looking out at them.

‘It seems,’ said Razjosh, ‘that quite a few people, after all, think that we should go.’

‘It will have to be done in secret and against all democracy,’ said Makisson.

‘We really do need a Peace Child,’ said Sandi.

‘We are here to help,’ said one of the voices from the dataserve.

‘Well, are you ready to be a Peace Child for real?’ asked Razjosh.

Kaleem noticed him exchange a glance with Makisson. The Chief Elder nodded.

This is it, thought Kaleem. This is really it.

The Prophecy, At the Citadel, Chapter Two

Kaleem’s face ached.

‘There is a theory,’ Razjosh had explained ‘that once you are about twelve, your palate has set - that is your ability to change the shape of your mouth to produce certain sounds, so that any sound that does not appear in your own language cannot be produced easily. It takes a lot of training to get beyond that. It would be almost easier to rebuild your face  - but we don’t have time and though we might alter you to fit one language, you might not then be right for another  - including your own.’

He looked at Kaleem, who thought he saw something a bit like pity in the eyes of the old man.

‘No,’ sighed the Elder. ‘It just takes hours and hours of training, and, I’m afraid, pain for you.’

Kaleem felt as if he wanted to tear every tooth out of his mouth. Then, as well, the words and language structure he had been grappling with would spin round and round in his head, keeping him awake each night. When he did eventually sleep, though, he was thankful that it was without dreams and at least he was avoiding that nightmare.

‘You need to rest,’ said Razjosh one afternoon. ‘No more work for now. You have a big holoexercise coming up.’ Then he deactivated the learning programmes on Kaleem’s dataserve and left.

Kaleem’s room at the Citadel was far more luxurious that the one in the cave apartment. It was mainly furnished with the old materials - though not quite so luxurious as those in the Chief Elder’s apartment. Even so, for a few moments at least, Kaleem was enjoying the softness of the down-filled pillow against which he was sprawled. He watched the entertainment channels on the dataserve in his room, trying to forget all those foreign words for a short while. He couldn’t concentrate though. The strange structures and words form Zandrian kept popping into his head.

Every now and then, he looked out of the window. That was one thing he really liked - having a window. He could see out beyond the crystalline edge of the city to large stretches of untamed but still young woodland and beyond that to flatter, heath land. Just at the edge of that he could see a few cultivated fields. But it really gave him no clue as to where the Citadel actually was.

The communicator buzzed.

‘Receive,’ commanded Kaleem. Oxton grinned at him.

‘Good news to-day,’ said the young carer. ‘We have weighed her, and she is putting weight back on steadily. We can soon stop the extra high protein units. And she is not watching quite so many old movie clips.’

‘What is she doing?’ asked Kaleem.

Oxton’s face fell a little.

‘Not really a lot,’ he said. ‘Just sitting and staring into space. Day dreaming. And she’s still not responding all that much when we talk to her.’ He paused and frowned. ‘Mind you, she did start saying something the other day.’

‘What was that? asked Kaleem.

‘Something about …. The tower book….where was the tower book? Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Not an awful lot,’ replied Kaleem. That again, he thought.

So, she’d gained weight. That was good. But she was still behaving oddly and now the whole issue of the Babel story was back.

Oxton grinned again.

‘Hey, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She is getting better. And they’re doing some research about recovery of coma patients  - looking at the archive records from the last millennium. It seems the physical recovery always comes first.’

‘Thanks,’ said Kaleem. ‘Say hello from me, won’t you?’

‘Will do,’ said Oxton. ‘And we’re still trying to get her to come on to the movie phone.’

Oxton waved and then the screen went blank.

‘Resume movie clip?’ asked the dataserve.

‘No,’ sighed Kaleem. ‘Set relax mode.’

He stood by the window and watched the view as the blinds slowly lowered. The lights in the room dimmed and the strange wind-chime music started, with the sound of waves spilling gently on to a beach behind it.

As he lay on the bed, the pillow moulded itself to the back of his head.

I suppose they ought to call it a comfipillow, thought Kaleem. Or better still, a comfikissen, if they’re going to use the same mixture of old English and German as they did for comfisessel.

The room now smelt mildly of pine forest. The air felt like warm seaside air.

The relax mode was beginning to have its effect. As his eye lined up with the time-clock, a gentle dataserve voice informed him that it was two minutes past three in the afternoon of day 325, year 3516.

I suppose an hour’s better than nothing, he thought, as he drifted to sleep.

What seemed like only seconds later, he was wide awake again. The room had returned to daylight setting and the air had more oxygen in it.  Razjosh appeared in the communicator.

‘Time for the final batch of holoteachers,’ he said. ‘This is the last chance. The most important lesson of all. And then we’ll see!’

We’ll see what? thought Kaleem. What are they actually expecting?

‘Are you ready then?’ asked Razjosh.

‘I think so,’ said Kaleem. He was now really completely alert again. What was going to come now? He’d got used to meeting the unexpected. Yet every time they managed to produce something even more surprising.

‘Okay,’ said Razjosh. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

Fine, maybe, thought Kaleem. But not spectacular or even convincing.

The daylight of the room faded. If he listened very hard he could just about hear that faint hum of the dataserve. But even that small hint of what was really going on was soon muffled by the convincingly human sounds of the holoteachers

Kaleem was sitting in a room with several other people. He knew they weren’t actually people - they were just holograms generated by very clever dataserves. Yet it was easy to be taken in.

He and eleven others were sitting on comfisessels along one side of the room.  There were other people in front of them wearing contraptions on their heads that looked a bit like hair and a bit like curly woolly hats. But, intriguingly, blond hair like his own poked out from under the hats.

To his left sat two women in grey tight-fitting suits. Between them was an ordinary looking man. He, too, had hair like Kaleem’s.

There was something very familiar about the whole scene. But Kaleem just couldn’t think where he had seen it before.

The person sitting next to him nudged him. Kaleem turned to look at her. He guessed she was about his age and she also had blond hair, but it was a much darker colour than his own.

‘You have to do everything the big man says,’ she said.

She was speaking English. But it wasn’t quite Terrestran thirty-fifth century English. He could understand her all right. It was just odd, very very odd. He listened to one or two other people speaking. He could hear words here and there from those sitting opposite them. They made sense, but they sounded strange.

‘I’m Kyli’, by the way, continued the young girl. ‘And you’re in a court of law on Super Kanasa. We have laws here that go right back to the twenty-fifth century and we speak the tongue that the Canadians used then - more or less.’

It was even more confusing than when he had been on other planets which spoke a completely different language from his own. It was just a word or two here and there that was different. He was more disturbed by that strange way of saying some of the familiar words and the way Kyli’s voice went up and down in slightly the wrong places.

Another man with one of the strange hats on, and a long black tunic over loose floppy leggings came in.

‘All rise,’ he said.

Everyone in the room stood up. A door which Kaleem had not noticed slightly above them and to their right side opened, and a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a longer hair-hat and an even more voluminous tunic than the other man walked in. He sat down on a comfisessel which immediately wrapped itself around him, but hovered so that he was always a little higher than the rest of the people in the room.

‘We’re part of the jury,’ whispered Kyli. ‘We have to listen to both sides of the casik-story, and then decide who’s the right - the blamed or the blamers.’

‘Bring forward the blamed one!’ said the big man.

‘He’s the judge,’ said Kyli.

‘Silence in the jury,’ boomed the judge.

The two women in grey brought the man into the middle of the room.

He turned to the man in the black tunic.

‘That’s the write-it-down,’ said Kyli.

‘What is it, the charge?’ asked the judge.

‘Not looking out for extra mile,’ said the write-it-down.

‘What is the show?’ asked the judge.

‘If I may, milord,’ said one of the men with hair-hats on. ‘May I call eye-baller Thomant, who says the blamed watched Old Mother Gossipen struggle up the penty-slope from the provisions centre. He did indeed carry her holdy-all, but only as far as their path followed the same direction aim. He should have gone the extra mile to her living-in.’

‘Thank you, that has clarity,’ said the judge. ‘What says Thomant?’

A man without a hair-hat stepped forward. He looked really very much like anyone from Terrestra, except that he wore a quite short, tight-fitting tunic and loose leggings. He went and stood behind a high counter.

‘Right, Mista Thomant, what say, you saw the blamed give back Old Mother Gossipen the holdy-all back afore she being at her living-in?’

‘That is so, your honour,’ said Thomant. ‘He left her at the angle of the walkway and the penty-slope. She had to fight her way with the ponderful holdy-all. The blamed did not seem to give it mind.’

Kaleem was astounded. This man was being tried for just not carrying a bag all the way home for an old lady.

‘What say you, blamed sir?’ said the judge. ‘Is this the really happening?’

‘It is the truth, your honour,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t give it to mind, the old female up the penty-slope to help.’

‘How be you called?’ asked the judge.

‘Arnold of Forest,’ said the man.

‘Who protects this man?’ asked the judge. ‘Is there an out-talk?’

One of the people wearing a hair-hat, who Kaleem had thought was a man, stood up. As soon as the person began to speak, Kaleem realised that it was a woman, a girl even, not much older than himself.

‘The blamed had a heap of troubles on his brain,’ she said. ‘He had to move rapidly to his living-in, because his childers and spouse ailing were. He had medicine for them merchanted. He wanted that they should as soon as doable it take in.’

‘Is this of the reality, Arnold of Forest?’ asked the judge.

‘It is so, your honour,’ said Arnold of Forest.

The judge seemed to be mumbling to himself and was looking down at a small hand-held dataserve.

‘Well,’ he said, turning to where Kaleem and Kyli and the other ten people were sitting, ‘jury partners, what you must now deliberate is this: not whether the blamed was wrong, that he has given to, but whether he had ground enough to do as he did. And if he didn’t have ground enough, whether he needs to be reinstructed in how to weigh up how to make conclusions.’

The judge stood up.

‘All rise,’ said the write-it-down.

Everyone in the room stood up as the judge walked out.

‘This will be a long session,’ whispered Kyli. ‘And we must all be of an understanding.’

They were shown into a room by the write-it-down.

They were given drinks and food that wasn’t all that different from things Kaleem knew from Terrestra. It was just the names that were so odd - a sandwich was called a between-the-breads and coffee was bean juice. It was easy enough to understand. Kaleem hardly dared say anything, though. At worst they would not be able to understand what he said, at best they would think he spoke very strangely.

The arguments seemed endless. They seemed to be going round in circles. Arnold of Forest should have taken the bag the whole way to the home of the old lady. But then he was worried about his family. Well, ten minutes wasn’t going to make all that much difference to them. Modern medicine was so effective that it would work straight away. So, was it a question of  retraining? And was retraining to be about better understanding of where the greatest need was, or was it to be about being less emotional?

Kaleem had to listen carefully. It was easy enough to understand the words, but the combinations were more difficult.

It’s even harder, he thought, hearing your own language with these funny differences than it is hearing a new one.

He realised that the arguments were also strange.

‘You’re a fraction silent,’ said one woman to him. ‘Don’t you opine?’

‘He’s an in-traveller,’ said Kyli quickly.

‘An in-traveller?’ said the woman. ‘How uplifting. Out of where have you travelled in?’

Kaleem was about to say from Terrestra, but then realised that that would not work. No-one ever moved from Terrestra.

‘He’s on a secret undertaking,’ said Kyli quickly.

This is ridiculous, thought Kaleem.  It’s just machines.  It doesn’t actually matter.

There was a knock on the door. Before anyone could answer, the write-it-down had come into the room.

‘Remember, you must all arrive at a common meaning?’ he asked. ‘Have you chosen a before-sitter? Remember you must all understand together.’

A man who had more or less organised them all the time stood up.

‘Should I be the before-sitter?’ he said.

The others in the room nodded and mumbled agreement.

‘So,’ he said, sitting down again, ‘shall we go round all that are here and see if there’s concord?’

‘Needs he retraining?’

‘That is so,’ said everyone in turn.

When they came to Kaleem, he managed to say the words quickly and with his voice going up at the at the end just like the others had.

‘Good do!’ whispered Kyli.

‘Retraining in measuring up the for and again?’ he then asked.

‘Not so,’ was the answer that everyone gave. There was an emphasis on the first word. This time Kaleem found it harder to get the sound right. He went red as everyone stared and there was a slight pause.

This is madness, he thought. They’re just machines. Why am I blushing?

The round continued.

Then came the final question.

‘So, it’s to be the not so feeling much training?’ said the before-sitter.

‘Good so,’ said everyone in turn, nodding their head vigorously.

Kaleem got away with mumbling the ‘good so’ and nodding his head.

‘So,’ said the before-sitter, ‘we can go back to the deciding congress.’

The write-it-down came into the room straight away.

Kaleem smiled to himself. He must have been listening to everything, he thought.

They were taken back into the court room.

The write-it-down had just said ‘All rise’ and the judge had just started to walk back into the room when everything froze and the soft whirring of the dataserves began.

Kaleem was back in his room. The screen was on and both Razjosh and Chief Makisson were looking at him.

‘There’s a transporter outside your room,’ said Razjosh. ‘You’re to come straight up to Chief Makisson’s quarters. Urgently.’

The Chief Elder nodded. The screen went blank. The door of his room slid open. The transporter pod - a small one-seater was hovering outside. Kaleem stepped into it. It hurtled along the corridors and over other pods. Minutes later he was standing outside Makisson’s office. He had hardly pointed his iris at the scanner when the door slid open.

Chief Makisson indicated that he should sit down. The comfisessel  just had time to mould itself to him when the Elder spoke.

‘Well, what did you make of the court room on Super Kanasa?’ asked the old man.

‘It was a bit strange,’ said Kaleem. That was an understatement. ‘Why were they making so much about so little?’

The Chief Elder raised his eyebrows and looked towards Razjosh.

Oh, come on, thought Kaleem. That was all produced by machines. That wasn’t for real.

‘The people on Super Kanasa are really strong Christians,’ said Razjosh. ‘Christ, the prophet, taught that if someone slapped you on the face, you should turn your cheek so that they could slap the other one. If someone asked you to walk a long way, you should volunteer to walk an extra mile. The other point is - just as there is no disease  - or, rather, there  wasn’t - on Terrestra - there is no crime on Super Kanasa. Courts don’t need to deal with crime. They just deal with people who are a little short of perfection.’

‘You do understand, don’t you, said Chief Makisson, ‘that place travellers - and above all the Peace Child  - have to respect the beliefs and habits of others?’

Kaleem nodded. What did they think? Of course he respected the lives of others. That lesson had been hammered home even more strongly than even the complicated language lessons. Besides, he was not exactly the same as everybody else himself, was he?

‘It will be different physically from here,’ continued Makisson, ‘and that is more important than you might think.’

‘I know, sir,’ replied Kaleem.

‘You will have to think differently,’ said the chief Elder.

‘I think I can do it, sir,’ said Kaleem. Hadn’t that been the point of the hololessons?

‘But the most important thing is that they have different values form us,’ said the Elder, with a sigh. He stared at Kaleem.

Kaleem blushed and looked at the floor.

‘I’m sure he’s ready, sir,’ said Razjosh quietly.

The Chief Elder was looking at Kaleem thoughtfully.

‘Hmm,’ he said after a few seconds’ silence. ‘We really do need the Peace Child now. That should at least be clear.’

There was another short silence.

‘We are sending you as our ambassador,’ said Chief Makisson.

Kaleem felt the blood rush to his head. This was still too soon.

‘Why not Razjosh?’ he asked.

‘We tried that, remember?’ said Razjosh. ‘Anyway, I’m too much an Elder. I’ve been doing it for too long.’ The old man stopped, as if he were about to say something else.

‘We want someone who will really blend in, who  will be able to understand the people there and become like them,’ said Chief Makisson.

‘You’ve shown us that you can,’ said Razjosh.

But that was just with machines, thought Kaleem. ‘It was easy with the holoteachers,’ he said.

Razjosh laughed. ‘You made a much better job of your assignments than I did when I worked with the holoteachers,’ he said. ‘My goodness, I got angry with them. And I argued with my tutor. But I got there in the end, I guess.’

Kaleem shrugged. He knew how much it hurt when others made decisions about you just because you were a bit different. He’d actually found that part of his training quite easy.

‘Well, we think you’re ready anyway,’ said Makisson. ‘You’re right about it being easier with holoteachers. In case of any problems we’ll hide you behind the Babel Prophecy.’

‘Hide me behind a prophecy?’ said Kaleem. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘We make use of prophecies when we need to,’ explained Razjosh. ‘We’ll make  your story fit the Babel story if anything goes wrong and you run into trouble with the Zandrians.’

‘But how will you know?’ protested Kaleem. What were they going to do? Abandon him on a planet which was already beginning to fall out with Terrestra? At least he didn’t look completely like a Terrestran. That was something.

‘You won’t be exactly on your own, anyway,’ said Razjosh. ‘I shall be coming with you as well.’

‘How can you do that?’ asked Kaleem. ‘They’ll know who you are. And you’ve already said you can’t go and become one of them.’

‘I shall not be visible,’ said Razjosh. ‘I have a hiding place on Zandra. I shall not tell you where it is – then you will not be able to tell any-one else.’

‘Where?’ asked Kaleem. This was getting more confusing by the minute.

‘I was sent there on a Peace Child mission just before you were born,’ said Razjosh. ‘Something which was, as it turned out, far less important than what is happening now, though it seemed quite a big thing at the time. I have people I can go to, who will keep me hidden. ‘

‘But …?’ began Kaleem.

‘Most planets have the equivalent of a Peace Child,’ said Razjosh. ‘I’ve met a few of them, including the one on Zandra.’

Nothing is ever what is seems to be, then, thought Kaleem. There’s all sorts of stuff going on that we don’t get to hear about. So people have been leaving this planet all the time, after all.

‘The Babel Prophecy states that a Peace Child will overcome the effect of the Tower of Babel,’ said Makisson. ‘If the Zandrians find out who you are, we will say we have sent you because we really thought you were the Peace Child of the Prophecy and that you were there to make the peace.’

‘I get it,’ said Kaleem. ‘That’s what they were talking about then, wasn’t it?’

‘That was what who was talking about?’ asked Razjosh.

‘The people in the movie clip,’ Kaleem replied.

Razjosh and Chief Makisson looked at each other.

‘Which movie clip?’ asked Razjosh.

‘The one you sent after the attack on the Zandrian Supercraft?’

‘We sent you no movie clips,’ said Razjosh. ‘Even we weren’t allowed to interfere with the information channels that day.’

‘What was it about?’ asked Makisson.

The two Elders frowned as Kaleem described as best he could the discussion he had seen about the Babel story.

‘So, you think they were saying more or less the same as we were?’ asked Razjosh. ‘That prophecies are used to symbolise and explain what is actually happening?’

‘Yes,’ said Kaleem, ‘except that there was also all this stuff about the Mother.’

‘Aha, that bit of the story,’  said Razjosh. ‘No-one has ever found a rational explanation for that. Odd as well that your mother will not tell us who your father might be.’

A lump formed in Kaleem’s throat. He found it difficult to swallow.

‘But what’s even more worrying, is where the movie clip came from. Why was it sent? Who sent it? How did they even manage to on a day when all channels had to be filled with information?’ said Makisson.

‘It is very strange,’ said Razjosh. ‘But I actually think now, we need to worry a bit more about my meeting with the Council of Heads.’

‘You see,’ said the Chief Makisson, turning to Kaleem. ‘Even we Elders have to rely on the good-will of more ordinary folk. We’ll never get you two off the planet and on to Zandra without the help of the Head of Transport and he cannot agree to it without permission from the whole of the Council of Heads.’

The Prophecy, At the Citadel, Chapter One

He was not sitting waiting for Kaleem in his room, as he had done on other similar occasions. He was standing in the lounge.

‘He will only need clothes for the first few days,’ he heard Razjosh say to the house robot. ‘But we will need to make the apartment secure. Go round and shut down all units - apart from the dataserve in Kaleem’s room - on secure standby, yourself last of all.’

‘The dataserve is to remain open?’ asked the machine, almost defiantly.

‘Until all files created by Kaleem Malkendy for the Peace Child project have been uploaded. We can set it to secure shut-down from the Citadel.’

The machine seemed to hesitate for a split second. It moved slightly towards him. Kaleem thought it was looking at him. But then it whirred and clunked.

‘Sir,’ it said and rumbled out of the room.

‘If there is anything particular you want, tell it,’ said Razjosh. ‘But don’t worry about anything too practical. We can sort that out once we’re at the Citadel.’

The Citadel? Only Elders were allowed in the Citadel, weren’t they?

‘I know, I know,’ said Razjosh. ‘I’m surprising you again. I do apologise. But you can see how urgent it’s all got, can’t you?’

Kaleem’s mouth had gone dry and he was feeling slightly dizzy. He licked his lips to moisten them. He had the odd feeling that he was floating. This could not be real.

‘Well, is there anything personal you want to take with you?’ asked Razjosh. His voice was rather sharp.

Kaleem said nothing.

‘We really must hurry,’ said Razjosh. ‘Go and take a look in your room.’

The house robot was coming out of his bedroom when he arrived at the door. It was carrying three of  Kaleem’s tunics - a worn grey one, an immaculate blue satin one he had not yet worn and a black formal one - and some other items of clothing.

‘Are these suitable, sir?’ it asked.

‘I guess,’ mumbled Kaleem.

‘Command unknown,’ said the machine.

‘Affirm,’ said Kaleem. What did he care about what he would wear? He’d really rather like to know where exactly he was going. He had no idea where the Citadel was and neither did anyone else as far as he could tell. And he would really like to have had some idea of why he was going there.

The machine trundled on its way. Kaleem looked around his room. How could he decide what he wanted to take, when he didn’t know where he was going or what was going to happen there?

The blue and gold book was lying on his bed. He picked it up and looked at the pictures. He remembered the movie he had seen. He turned the pages slowly, taking in the story again through the pictures and the Wordtext captions. In his head, he could hear all the languages he now knew competing with each other for meaning. But he wasn’t confused like the people in the pictures. He could understand what each of them was saying. He was so absorbed in what was happening on the tower that he did not hear Razjosh come and stand in the doorway.

‘Ah yes,’ said the Elder, less aggressively now. His voice had become calm again. ‘The Babel book. Yes that must come. Hurry now, though, we mustn’t delay any longer.’

Kaleem wondered for a second whether this was the moment to tell Razjosh about the movie. But the old man did not give him time to speak.

‘We shall go and see your mother before we leave,’ he said, ‘and I also think it would be a good idea for you to visit your friend. You need to remind yourself who you are before the real intensity begins. We have clearance.’

Razjosh was striding towards the entrance to the apartment. Kaleem knew his only choice was to follow.

‘All systems on secure shut down,’ said the house robot as it looked at them through the movie window to the outside. Its voice was even more impersonal than ever. It was not using its programmed accent any more. ‘Going on to secure stand-by.’ The movie link faded.

A private transporter was waiting outside the entrance to the cave apartment.

Seconds later, the vehicle was making its way silently towards the Medical Centre. Kaleem’s stomach was churning. He thought he might be about to vomit again. He remembered his illness and shivered.

The transporter smelt of newness. The comfisessels were so advanced that the wearer could almost not feel them at all. There was absolutely no sense of movement, except when you looked through the veriglass windows and saw buildings and other vehicles passing by.

Kaleem looked at the Elder.

‘Grip the sides of the comfisessel,’ said Razjosh. ‘That will stop the nausea.’

Kaleem did as Razjosh had said. It seemed to work. But how did Razjosh know about nausea? When there had been no illness in his lifetime until now?

But this wasn’t illness. This was … Kaleem didn’t know what it was. It didn’t just come from the strange way the transporter was moving. It was all those other things that were going on as well. So how come other people hadn’t felt like this even when they weren’t ill?

Maybe life was just too easy, he thought.

The nausea subsided gradually, but as the transporter pulled up outside the Medical Centre, Kaleem’s stomach turned over again. His mouth went dry and he was trembling slightly.

Oxton Mesrip was there to meet them.

‘Your mother is physically fine,’ he said, as they walked along the white-walled corridors.  ‘And she is sleeping and waking normally. We have noticed rapid eye movements, so we assume that she is also dreaming.’

At least Oxton sounded optimistic. He was a tall man, and actually quite young. Kaleem guessed he was only a few years older than him. There was something about the way that he walked purposefully along the corridors that made you think he knew what he was doing.

‘She’s eating and drinking regularly,’ said Oxton. ‘But she still won’t speak, and hardly responds when she’s spoken to. She does seem to enjoy watching old movie clips and makes some response to those.’

He stopped walking.

‘This is her room,’ he said. The door remained closed. ‘Don’t expect too much,’ he said. He lined his eye up to the scanner and the door slid open.

The blinds were down at the windows and the room was almost in complete darkness, lit only by the images moving across the dataserve screen. Maria had her back to them.

‘You’ve got visitors, Maria’ said Oxton quietly. He touched her back lightly.

‘Close file, lights on,’ he said in a more normal voice, speaking towards the dataserve console.

The room flooded with light. Kaleem could see that it had become a much more comfortable room. There were comfisessels and pastel-coloured rugs and cushions. A pale blue throw covered the bed. There were pictures of mountains and forests on the wall.

Maria sat stiffly with her back to them. Her back was hunched.

‘Don’t you want to say hello to your visitors, Maria?’ asked Oxton.

Slowly she turned towards them. Kaleem’s heart was racing. The nausea returned.

He could not believe that this old woman, who now stared at him, was his mother. She seemed to have aged at least twenty years. Her hair had obviously been brushed and was neatly tied back. It seemed dull and life-less, though. Her skin looked tired. It didn’t seem to fit her anymore and hung loosely. She may be eating and drinking all right now, but the weeks in the coma had done their damage. There were dark circles around her eyes. For a few seconds, though, there was a flicker of recognition. She was staring at Kaleem. There was almost a question in her gaze.

‘Mum,’ whispered Kaleem. He put his hand out to touch her.

She shrieked and pulled away. She shut her eyes, folded her arms in front of her chest, hugged her shoulders, and started rocking herself backwards and forwards.

Kaleem swallowed hard to try and get rid of the lump in his throat.

‘She was like that with all of us when she first came out of the coma,’ he heard Oxton say quietly to Razjosh. ‘But she’s generally all right now with those of us she knows.’

Maria turned back to the dataserve screen. She started whimpering and pointing to it.

‘Okay, okay, Maria, easy now, easy now,’ said Oxton. ‘Resume file, low volume,’ he said to the dataserve.

The movie continued. It was a story set on the day the poison cloud lifted.

‘That’s one of her favourites,’ said Oxton.

‘What else does she like?’ asked Razjosh.

‘Actually,’ replied Oxton, ‘anything set in that time. Even the old news files.’

The lump in Kaleem’s throat would not let him ask the questions he was desperate to ask. He felt Oxton’s hand suddenly on his shoulder.

‘She is improving every day, you know,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll have another major break-through soon.’

Oxton was right, he knew. She was at least awake now. But soon wasn’t soon enough. He was going away. He had to go away, he knew that. He just wished he could tell her why.

Razjosh and Oxton continued to talk. Kaleem could understand little of what they were saying. Razjosh seemed to be describing what they had found out about the disease and then all sorts of complicated medical details about how Maria was at the moment.

Kaleem tried to make sense of the movie that Maria was watching. It was some sort of romance. But it was difficult to follow what the characters were saying because the volume was so low. Every so often, though, there was the hint of a smile on her lips.

‘We’d better go,’ said Razjosh. ‘You’ll continue to send daily reports to the Citadel?’

‘Of course,’ said Oxton. ‘Are you going to say good-bye to your visitors, Maria?’

Maria just pulled herself into a tighter ball and whimpered. The dataserve obviously understood what she meant. The volume went up.

Kaleem did not want to look at the two men, but Razjosh came over to him and turned him round so that he had to look at the Elder.

‘You can see why you have to go, can’t you?’ he asked.

Kaleem could only nod. The knot in his throat seemed to be getting tighter, was almost stopping him from being able to breathe. Suddenly he wanted to punch or kick something or someone. He couldn’t move, though.

The Prophecy Out of Bounds Chapter Eleven

Kaleem replayed Razjosh’s message several times. It was really very scary. If the Terrestrans couldn’t accept the Zandrians’ terms, there would be no hope of getting the vaccine back to Terrestra. And without the vaccine, more people were going to die.

He called up a news channel.

‘Seventeen more deaths,’ said the news robot. ‘All in the X sector. Concern is growing that an antidote will not be found quickly enough.’

That’s not really true, thought Kaleem. There could be thousands dying and they wouldn’t actually say.

‘They’re letting out enough facts to keep people on their toes,’ Razjosh had said. ‘But not enough to cause panic. If people really knew how bad it’s become, then there would be even more riots.’

Kaleem flicked back to Razjosh’s message. The hologram was really very convincing. It looked even more real than the ones from the Elders’ Citadel. That Supercraft must really be something.

Razjosh looked serious and tired.

‘We have to step up the programme even further,’ said the old man. ‘It won’t be easy, I know. You’re working pretty well flat out now. And there’ll be more visits to holographed planets. We have to move on even more quickly.’

It was that hesitation again. Kaleem could not help but think that Razjosh actually wanted to tell him something extra, but didn’t dare to. At least not from so many light years away and in holographic form. And he couldn’t begin to guess what that may be. New Hidden Information then?

The dataserve’s communicator sounded.

‘Receive,’ commanded Kaleem.

Kaleem felt his stomach turn as he recognised Oxton Mesrip, one of three medical workers assigned to look after Maria. It was all piling in now. Had Maria got worse?

But the man was smiling. ‘We have some good news,’ said Oxton. ‘Your mother has woken up. She is not yet speaking and she is still very weak, but she has come out of the coma. She has no fever, and it seems that she is fighting the disease and is winning.’

‘I should be there,’ said Kaleem.

‘Er, no you can’t can you?’ said Oxton. ‘Remember there is still a movement ban on. We want to keep a very close eye on her and conduct further tests. And we don’t want too much excitement for her at the moment. But we’ll keep you informed.’

The screen went blank. Kaleem felt almost relieved that he hadn’t got to go out again. But what was it going to be like now? Was it going to perhaps be even worse now that Maria was awake? Would she go back to being how she had been before? Or would she need him to look after her? Would she improve enough to leave the medical centre? Or would she be forever in this strange state? This disease was so unknown. Perhaps Razjosh would be able to tell him more when he got back.

A news flash message came on the screen. This time it was one of the more familiar human newsreaders who spoke.

‘A Supercraft Excelsior has been spotted making its way towards Terrestra,’ said the man. For once he did not speak in the normal even tones of the news presenters. His voice seemed agitated and his face was clearly strained. ‘It entered the exclusion zone at Universal Time 15.23 this afternoon. A broadcast from another Supercraft of unknown origin, has assured the authorities that this means no harm to Terrestra. However, it has been considered that this could be a hoax. In the next few hours, a decision will be made about whether to consider this a hostile approach and therefore what action if any should be taken. Keep your news channels open to stay informed.’

This was ridiculous. The Supercraft had been sent with the Elders’ approval. So why didn’t the news channels know? Was the Supercraft going to Zandra Hidden Information? Or Golden Knowledge?  They must know about it. Maybe they did. Maybe somebody was giving away information they should have kept secret. Or maybe the news creators had just kept their eyes and ears open.

Kaleem’s stomach turned again. There was definitely going to be trouble. No way would the Terrestran authorities let that Zandrian Supercraft get anywhere near Terrestra. Even if it was on an aid mission. They wouldn’t stop to ask.

It’s going to be a complete disaster, he thought. This definitely took the edge away from the good news about his mother.

He opened a data file from Razjosh. It was in Wordtext. Kaleem could read that quite easily now. It was almost a relief now to be doing some ordinary work. Normally, this would have seemed tedious. But today he was glad to have something to get on with that took his mind off these other matters.

‘There is a universal grammar,’ he read. ‘Every language needs to express past, present and future tenses, active and passive voices, indicative and subjunctive moods.’  Kaleem scratched around at the back of his mind. Yes, he could just about remember what that meant.

He read on.

‘Always there will be a default word order. In some languages parts of speech are indicated by word order. In others, inflections are used. But every language must indicate who is doing what in each sentence.’

Kaleem though he could just about grasp what this meant. And inflections - wasn’t that like the endings on words in languages like German?

‘Each language uses its prepositions differently. But each prepositional idea you have in your own language must be expressed somehow in the language you are studying, as will all notions of time.’

Now that did sound familiar. In English you went by car but in German you went with it.

‘There will in any case be idiomatic uses of words and expressions in all languages. They must be learnt as separate entities. And finally, each language will have a system of gender and plurals, some languages being more complex than others in these matters.’

Yes, he knew that! That was such a lot to learn sometimes.

‘These then are the five fundamental points of any grammar system. Look for them in any language. Knowledge of this will actually accelerate structural competence.’

Ah! thought Kaleem, and then there’s all the rest. All those words, and all the different bits and pieces you need to know to do those things.

‘And as if all that is not enough, plus the whole word system which underlies all of this, you have to get used to all those cultural differences. So, we’ll soon need to work more with the holograms.’

Ha! Ha! Ha! thought Kaleem. Well, I’ve got my work cut out, then, haven’t I?

He was just about to open one of his other data files. He did not have chance to, though, because the news channel cut in again. This time it was an override news flash. It was the same newscaster as before. This time he looked even more strained.

‘We regret to announce,’ he said in that voice that the newscasters reserved for the most serious bits of news, ‘that the arrival of the Supercraft Excelsior has indeed been deemed to be an act of aggression. A verbal warning was given. This was ignored, and the protection authorities had no alternative than to fire warning shots. One of them damaged the right wing of the Supercraft. The damage was only superficial and in no way has harmed its functioning. It has now turned away from the planet. A tracker has been attached to find out its origin.’

So stupid, thought Kaleem. The Supercraft Excelsior had come in peace. It had brought a source of help in the fight against this terrible disease. And the Terrestrans had attacked it. Why didn’t they know that?  So what is a Peace Child supposed to do about that?

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