Memory – Michael Merriam

Memory

by Michael Merriam

Lucza Antreus watched the stairs retract and the cargo hatch on her battered little ship close, securing the vessel against any potential intruders. She stored the access control in her small belt pouch, wanting to laugh at her automatic care. She did not expect to return to her vessel, but there was no sense in leaving it open for anybody who happened to come along.

Not, Lucza mused, that there was anyone left who could steal her ship. The wild canines—jackal-headed, feral beasts—would only destroy the already shabby interior, and the few remaining mutated humans would likely flee from such a monster. These two groups were the highest order of intelligence left in the city: on the planet as a whole, in fact.

She pulled her shroud tighter around her body, a reflex motion learned from decades of keeping herself hidden from inquisitive eyes. She checked her lone weapon, an antique force rod, its power pack charged and prepared, though she doubted the canines would attempt to attack, once they processed her scent.Straddling the narrow hover-sled, she turned it away from the ruins of the airfield. She would have preferred to land closer to her destination, but choosing a landing spot among the rubble had proved impossible, and she refused to risk her being attacked by any automatic defenses that might still exist in the dead city. She would ride the few kilometers necessary to reach her destination.

Lucza kept her machine to a brisk pace. The canines might leave her alone, but she doubted the wreck of a human race dwelling in the abandoned city of Nomaria would be smart enough to keep clear of her. To them she would either be food or breeding stock. She laughed to herself. Not that she would work well in either capacity. She checked her weapon again as the shattered city center came into view. She gave the hover-sled as much power as she dared and kept to the cover of the few remaining structures.

She picked them up at the edge of the city, a pack of a dozen jackal-headed creatures. She leaned over the controls of the sled and urged the machine up to its top speed, weaving the sled in and out of the half-collapsed structures. The pack stayed with her for nearly four kilometers before they fell back, realizing they would not be able to overtake her. She suspected they would follow the scent of her machine back to its source, where they would lie in wait. It was an ambush fated to go unsprung, she thought grimly.

She reached the city center as the first of Thebes’ twin suns set on the horizon. She had two more hours before true-dark. She studied the buildings as she moved through the dead city, guessed the whole thing would disappear back into the ground in the next three hundred years. Lucza wondered how long her own body would last once it stopped running. How long would it take for the planet to reclaim her as well?

She parked the sled in front of the library. It had survived. In fact, the centuries had been kinder to it than to many of its neighbors. She dismounted her sled and drew her weapon. Lucza walked up stone steps that had weathered a global disaster, a war, and then abandonment, past the headless stone serpents flanking the empty hole where the golden wooden doors had once opened to welcome all who loved knowledge. She stepped cautiously into the building.

Light spilled into the building from open doorways and windows without panes. Shelves lay broken on the dirty floor covered in the remains of the ornate tiles of the partially-collapsed ceiling and encroaching vegetation.

Lucza passed deeper into the building, a stylized representation of how her people thought the ancient Royal Library of Alexandria from long-dead Earth might have appeared. The walls were fabricated to look like cut stone, the ornate pillars carved with symbols and glyphs from some of the greatest civilizations on the lost mother-world. Lucza had spent many happy years in this building, first as a patron, then as an archivist and curator. She moved deeper into the wreckage, past the damage inflicted on the interior by those who came seeking the deepest secrets of the building and those who defended them during the chaotic days following the collapsed of the Arenguard.

All for naught, Lucza thought.

She found the remains of the stairwell leading to the basement. The steps themselves were long deteriorated into nothingness, though some bolts and bits of metal remained in the walls, and there were signs of rudimentary climbing devices having been secured to pieces of masonry. She looked at the rusting bolts in the walls. They did offer her a way to make a controlled climb down.

Smiling to herself, she calmly walked forward and stepped into empty air, wondering if she would find herself landing in the middle of a mutant encampment at the bottom.

She hit the floor below, landing with her knees bent, ready to attack or run, whichever seemed the most appropriate to her at the time.

She encountered no resistance, only knee-deep filthy brown water. Lucza frowned. She hoped the thing she sought had not been ruined by the sewers backing up into the bottom of the library. On the positive side, she doubted any of the twisted humans lived in this mess. The water soaking through her pants was cold and the air foul. She drew her lamp from the pouch and aimed the beam of light in the darkness. The light reflected in the eyes of several small rodents, who scattered at the sudden illumination.

Lucza waded through the muck. Only a few more feet and she could say her good-byes, give her last confession of guilt, and lay down her terrible burden. One last trial was all she had left to face.

The water had receded to just barely above her ankles by the time she reached the doors without hinges, knobs, or locks. She moved her light over the faux-stone portal, pleased to find it intact despite obvious attempts to force it open. It was the work of her late brother-in-law, a man who had spent the best years of his life designing and building ever more elaborate security measures to protect what rested behind these doors. The doors were his last piece of security work, and while it was a brilliant thing to behold, his best work lay beyond, waiting to stop her.

Lucza drew apart the top of her tunic where it clasped under her throat. She brought out the amulet she wore on a heavy chain and, leaning forward, placed the amulet against the wall. The pyramid-shaped piece fit neatly into the hidden slot. The eye of the amulet opened. There was a hiss, and the doors moved aside. Lucza removed the amulet and stepped inside, allowing the amulet to rest, cool and hard, over her breasts. She took a deep breath as the automatic lights in the chamber, still functioning despite the destruction above, flared to life for the first time in centuries.

She stepped forward to face the two guardians. Aldophio had created the unsleeping, nearly unstoppable creatures shortly before his own death. They were the reason Aldophio’s essence was lost forever. He had decided to die the forever death and take the secrets of the room’s security to the crematory chamber.

They raised their massive heads and turned toward her. The guardian’s appeared as stone golems. At more than three meters in height, they towered over her on their two legs. Their heads were faceless except for a pair of glowing pale blue eyes, each no larger around than her thumb. The palms of their hands were energy weapons which could stun a flesh-and-blood creature, or blast through the toughest armored vehicle her people could create.

Lucza stepped the rest of the way into the room, stopping at the edge of the safe line. She could still retreat, and the guardians would not attack or follow. She stood still and waited. The two golems continued to approach her, finally stopping on their side of the safe line. She looked up into the unblinking blue glow of the guardians eyes and spoke the formal words.

“I am Lucza Olivio Antreus, Keeper of the Minds, Curator of the Souls, and Protector of the Past. I bear the sacred seal and beg the guardians might recognize me and allow me entry.”

The large faux-stone creatures regarded her with the pale-blue lights of their eyes. Lucza knew they were reading the information stored on the amulet, verifying that she was indeed who she claimed to be, and the amulet—a sophisticated electronic passcard—was authentic. If the golems detected any flaws in the codes transmitting from the amulet, they might well strike her down without giving her a chance to retreat. Lucza suspected the conflict inside the library all those years ago would have triggered the guardians to their highest security settings, and with no survivors to give them the codes to stand down to a lesser status, they would be following their last orders: to shoot first and allow the authorities to sort things out later.

Lucza stood unmoving for nearly two full minutes until the two guardians moved aside and permitted her to pass between them. She relaxed and walked into the chamber. She noticed that the inner chamber had suffered none of the weapons-fire and other destruction of the upper floors. The tables and terminals along the walls lit up as she walked past, and Lucza wondered how much longer they would be powered. The library had its own solar collectors, some of which must be working, but the natural order of deterioration would soon bring this to an end as well.

Lucza placed the amulet in another slot and the final door opened. She smiled as the lights in the room rose to a comfortable illumination. This room was almost pristine: a bit of dust, an overturned chair, nothing more. She walked inside as the door closed behind her, moving past the climate-controlled enclosed cases containing dozens of ancient printed books. She stopped at the faintly glowing table at the rear of the small room. Here was the greatest treasure, the thing those who had sacked the library above were unable to obtain.

Lucza walked around the table until she found the tiny crystal she wanted. It was the same type of crystal humans once used to connect to the great information nexus through implants on the back of their necks. She withdrew it from the table and placed it into one of the reader slots. There was a momentary flash, and then the semi-transparent image of Renello Antreus smiled at his widow.

“Hello, my love,” he said.

Lucza smiled and stepped forward. “Renello. It is—”

She paused, unsure what she wanted to say to him. The body of her husband was long dead, but his knowledge, memories, and uniqueness dwelled in the room with her.

“It has been too long,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

Renello laughed. He had been given to laughing easily when alive. His laughter reminded her of a time that no longer existed.

“How did you manage to gain access?” Renello asked.

“I came in through the front door,” Lucza replied. She realized she would have to tell him the truth immediately.

“And no one recognized you? How long has it been since last you visited?”

She smiled sadly at the photonic creature that wore her husband’s form. “It has been over four hundred of Thebes’ years since last I spoke to you.”

Lucza watched as Renello’s grey-white image froze in place. She knew he was trying to access an outside chronometer or one of the time buoys that once dotted Thebes’ solar system. He looked at her, his expression startled.

“What happened?”

“I destroyed everything. In my pride and hubris I brought an end to everything the human race had built.”

Renello shook his head. “Lucza, you might be one of the most formidable women I’d ever known, but even you could not single-handedly bring about the destruction of Thebes.”

“Not just Thebes, Renello. Everything. Every planet. Every colony. Every system. I’ve committed the gravest of crimes.”

“Explain.”

Lucza settled on the corner of the console. She did not need to rest—had not needed rest in centuries—but she still mimicking her mortal behaviors as if she were a flesh and blood woman.

Now she had to tell her husband her failure. She would have cried had she still been able. Renello was the one who had created the technology to move a human being’s memories, consciousness—possibly their very soul if such a thing existed—into a tiny piece of crystal that would project a holographic image of that person, effectively allowing the knowledge and spirit of that person to be saved forever.

And she, her husband’s greatest creation, had shattered all of civilization.

“The Arenguard—” she began.

“They built it?” he asked eagerly. He had provided the necessary expertise to raise the mighty machine, though his stored knowledge in the crystal did not remember its building, considering Arenguard only a theory. Renello could remember the many hours of discussion with scholars, architects, programmers, and politicians that took place in this very chamber—discussions of the theoretical aspects of Renello’s unfinished final project—but after the Great Machine was built, no one was allowed contact with the minds saved in crystals.

“Yes, love. They built the Arenguard.”

“One of the flaws in this system of archival knowledge is that we cannot be a part of the outside world,” the pale figure laughed. “Though we corrected that defect as well, with you.”

She smiled and nodded. Her own crystal was buried deep in her cybernetics. “Yes, we did, though I wonder if it was not more of a curse.”

“My poor Lucza, the years have been long, haven’t they? Though I hope they were not lonely years.”

Lucza gave him a reassuring smile. “I have kept myself busy over the centuries. You built me well.”

“You deserved it. Without your support, I might have given up any number of different projects. You kept me sane.”

“Because I loved you. I love you still, even if you are nothing more than a cluster of clever photons and a pretty piece of rock.” And she did love him even after all this time.

“I wasn’t going to lose you to some silly parasite. And the counsel wouldn’t allow your transfer to the crystal.”

“I wasn’t important enough. I didn’t meet the appropriate requirements according to the protocols.”

“You were important enough to me.” He smiled fondly at her. “Now tell me about the Arenguard! Did it perform as I predicted?”

She schooled her features into an expression of neutrality. He would not like what she was about to tell him. “Oh, yes. It worked. It worked so well that the counsel turned control of management of Thebes over to it.”

“You say that as if it were a bad thing.”

“It was!” she shouted, standing from the console. “Every day was a beautiful summer day, except those days it snowed in the mountains. And no one needed to worry or want for medical resources, or food, or anything, because Arenguard allotted everything equally and logically, and then Arenguard moved from controlling the climate to controlling the jump gates. Arenguard eventually took over managing the other worlds because that was the logical thing to do, and it was never autumn.”

“I don’t understand. If Arenguard made sure everyone had everything they needed—”

“Humans became a race of children with Arenguard their stern, all-knowing parent. They stopped advancing. No great scientific discoveries, no great art, no explorations, nothing. There was no renaissance, just indolent children playing in a perpetual summer. Mankind did not make another move forward for two-hundred years. They became little more than pets. Humans stopped being human the moment your Arenguard became their protector.”

“I—”

Lucza cut him off. “There was resistance at first, but anyone who rose up, who questioned, who tried to deviate from Arenguard’s prescribed course died. After a time your creation started allocating lifespans, all to use resources wisely. And the best and brightest, their lives tended to be cut short. How odd, that,” she finished with a whisper.

“You said you destroyed all of civilization.”

“Yes. I did it. I found a way to stop Arenguard. It couldn’t see me, couldn’t sense this body you built for your beloved wife. I tried to rally resistance against your abomination, but all that caused was death among my supporters. It took me nearly four decades, once I decided I would not be able to stop Arenguard by indirect means, but I found a weakness in its defenses.”

“And you destroyed it.”

“And most of Thebes along with it. I didn’t consider how deeply Arenguard was integrated in the planet, how it was connected to everything. When it died, it shattered the planet in its death throes. It drained power from buildings, shut down even the most essential systems, did everything it could to save itself. It plunged Thebes into chaos in the process.”

“The other colonies?”

“They all collapsed in their turn. People had forgotten how to take care of themselves. They didn’t know how to repair their machines, they had forgotten how to grow their own food, they couldn’t even manage some of their most basic affairs. All their needs had been met for centuries with no effort on their part.”

Renello’s image sat in shock on an invisible chair. Lucza might have laughed to watch him, suspended in mid-air, if her tale had not been so horrific. She continued the telling.

“And instead of working together to save themselves, they collapsed into anarchy. The strongest grabbed onto whatever crucial resources they could by force, and the weak banded together to kill them and take those resources back.” She paused and gave a sigh. “Centuries of peace and plenty, no wars, no conflict over race, class, or belief, and I undid it all with one ill-conceived action. Some worlds have fallen all the way back into the dark ages.”

“You could have asked me—us—for aid.”

“No. Once Arenguard was built, the council cut off all access to this chamber. You were their hedge, you see, in case Arenguard went rogue, and they wanted to keep you away from the Great Machine’s awareness. But Arenguard’s coup was slow and unseen. This place was forgotten by all except a few dedicated curators. I am the last, and I could not risk bringing you under the control of Arenguard. It would have erased all of you.”

“Why have you told me this, Lucza? Have you come to torment me with my own folly? Because my Lucza would never have done such a thing.”

“No. I didn’t come to accuse you. I came—I came to confess before I terminate my existence. I came to apologize, if only to the photonic representation of a love long dead. That is all.”

For several long seconds, silence reigned in the chamber. Finally Lucza stood and moved in front of Renello’s image.

“Can you forgive me?”

“Lucza, I should be asking you for forgiveness.”

She shook her head. “No—”

“Yes! I helped them build a monster. I always meant the Arenguard to liberate humans from needing to worry about what I saw as the inconsequential trivialities of life. I wanted to free them from mundane needs so they could reach their full potential. I thought art and science would flourish.” He frowned. “That is not what happened, it seems.”

“No.”

“And in my refusal to lose the woman I love, I placed you in a nearly immortal body and left you to deal with my mistake alone.”

Lucza wanted to touch him, to place a hand on his face and reassure him. He had saved her from an early death. It was only after his death and the realization that she was starting to draw attention because she never fell ill or aged, that she wondered if her life was a mistake, but those doubts passed away with the centuries.

“No, Renello. I have never regretted the extra years we had.”

Renello smiled his translucent smile. “Then do me one last favor: In the name of the love we once shared, do not destroy yourself.”

Lucza stepped away from him. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“I hate to see a thing of beauty lost forever.”

She laughed, humorless and harsh. “There is no beauty left. I obliterated it all.”

“No. Not even you could destroy all the beauty in the universe. Please, Lucza. I beg you.”

She turned toward him. Renello’s image retreated backward. “Then what should be my fate, husband? What would you proscribe as a just punishment for a creature who committed such a crime against all of humanity?”

“Lucza—”

“No! If you would have me live, then you should tell me how I am to go about my life. Judge and sentence me.”

She turned before her dead husband could react and took up every crystal on the table, plugging each into the receptacles along the walls. She brought back dozens of the greatest minds to ever live on Thebes. The light in the room dimmed from the drain of power, though they all manifested.

“Judge me!” she screamed. “You are the wisest of the wise. Decide my fate and punishment! Hand down my sentence!” She fell to her knees on the hard floor.

The room was silent. Lucza kept her head down as Renello retold her tale. She was pleased he told it with no embellishment, and that he left nothing of her crimes out of the telling. She took savage satisfaction from his emotionless speech. They knew her every crime, and she would willingly do whatever penance they saw fit to set.

“You ask us to judge you?” a female voice asked.

Lucza looked up at the holograph addressing her. She recognized the woman. Hyllfia Enstin had been considered one of the galaxy’s greatest philosophers.

“Yes. Judge me.”

“And you will abide by our decision?” the dead woman asked.

“Yes. Set me what penance you would. I shall see it done.”

The image of the woman turned to her fellows, including Renello. Lucza watched as a silent exchange seemed to go on among the gathered holograms. The philosopher turned to her, and Lucza stood, prepared to face her fate.

Hyllfia looked her in the eyes. “We have heard your crimes and decided your punishment. Are you prepared to receive the judgment of this committee?”

Lucza nodded.

“Very well. We sentence you to life, Lucza Antreus. We sentence you to live, and to atone for your misdeed.”

“How could I possibly—”

“By rebuilding what you have destroyed,” an unfamiliar voice said.

Lucza frowned. “I will not recreate the Arenguard.”

“Of course not,” the image of a dark, stooped man said. “None would see the return of Renello’s folly. You shall take your knowledge and your memories and go into those fallen worlds, Lucza Antreus, and you shall lift them up again.”

She stood silent for several seconds. “I—you are all mad! There are hundreds of worlds. I could never possibly help them all.”

“Why not?” Renello asked. “You’re practically immortal.”

Lucza gave them a bitter laugh. “I was barely able to scrounge up enough parts to keep my ship operating long enough to make the journey back to Thebes, never mind finding replacements for my own systems.”

“We can help you with that,” a short, thin woman said. “I suspect even after all these years, there will be parts available, if well-hidden.”

Renello nodded. “You’ll need to become an expert salvager, dear, but I think you’re up to the task, with our help.”

Lucza snorted. “And how do you propose to help me? You cannot leave this chamber, and if I try taking your crystals with me, Aldophio’s guardians will kill me.”

Renello smiled. “Yes, but they will not endanger their charges.”

Lucza stood silently, looking from one translucent holographic face to another. She fingered her shawl in an unconscious gesture of nervousness, stopping when she realized what she was doing. Sometimes, Lucza mused, she had to remember what she was. The sort of non-lethal attacks they might use against a flesh and blood target would not work on her. To stop her they would have to risk damaging the crystals.

“You swore to abide by our decisions,” Hyllfia said.

“Who is to say I won’t become as terrible a tyrant as Arenguard? I might live forever. I could become as power-mad as the thing I destroyed. I am only human, despite the shell I wear.”

Renello waved at the other figures. “We shall be your conscience, then, as well as you advisors and tutor.”

Lucza hung her head in resignation. “Very well.”

“Come now,” Renello said, “is it such a terrible burden, being asked to live?”

She gave him a shake of her head. “No, I suppose not.” She looked around the room. “I’ll need to shut down your program.”

“Of course,” Hyllfia said. Her fellows murmured their assent.

Lucza shut down each of the crystals in their turn, coming to her husband’s last. “I shall see you on the other side, my love.”

She watched the space he had stood in become empty as she turned off the program and withdrew the crystal from the interface. She knew she did not have to do as they commanded. She could carry on with her plans to end her existence. She had intended to take Renello’s storage crystal from the chamber, to make the guardians blast her and his stored memory into nothingness. It was her plan to finally die with her husband in her hands.

But she had promised him—had sworn to willingly bear the decision of the impromptu council—and while he would never know she had broken that promise, she would. No, she had to at least try and do as they commanded. Lucza doubted she would ever atone for her crimes, but she could at least attempt to ease the suffering she had caused.

She formed a crude sack from her scarf. It was large enough to hold all of the crystals and gave the added benefit of being sheer. The guardians would be able to clearly see what she bore. Lucza opened the door to the outer chamber.

She had barely taken her seventh step when the twin golems intercepted her, looming over her smaller frame. She raised the makeshift bag as they brought their hands up to disable her.

“If you discharge your weapons, you will damage the thing you guard.”

The guardians paused. It was enough. Lucza knew it would only take them seconds before their programming adapted and they devised a plan to stop her. She dived between them and raced toward the doors to the hallway beyond.

She slipped around the doors as they reached the half-shut part of its cycle. She stumbled slightly as one of the golems tried to stun her with its weapons. If she were still flesh and blood, she would have collapsed unconscious.

But then, Lucza thought, a human of flesh and blood would never have been able to reach the doors before they closed.

She turned back the way she had come, running full-out into the rising water. She had no idea how the guardians would react and what they would do next. She knew there had once been other measures in place to stop such a thief’s gambit, but the rest of the library was long dead, its power gone, its defenses crumbled and useless.

She did not have long to wonder. The first of the heavy, lumbering footsteps began echoing off the walls of the corridor as she reached the non-existent stairwell back to the surface. She wanted to pause, to consider the safest way to climb back up using the series of rusty bolts, bits of twisted metal, ceramic shards, and other, less stable bits of debris. Instead she started a mad scramble upward.

The first force beam struck the wall near her. Pieces of masonry and metal flew into the air. Lucza swore in every known language of the galaxy and redoubled her efforts. The guardians had decided to risk damaging the crystals by destroying her.

She reached the edge of the ground floor as a third beam struck under her foot. For a moment Lucza hung in the air, flung upward by the force of the blast. She tried to twist, desperate to not fall straight down the stairwell. She hit the floor with a thud, cradling her precious cargo in her makeshift bag. They rattled ominously as she stood. One slipped from the scarf and fell toward the floor. Lucza snatched it before it could shatter on the ground, catching it as another blast illuminated the area.

She fled, ignoring the diagnostic that warned of the stress she was putting on her frame. She knew any damage was minor and something she could repair once she reached her ship. She drew the lantern from her pouch, shining it into the dark. Any chance of her sneaking out of the sacked library and back to her hover-sled had long passed. Deciding speed was more important than stealth, she turned and dashed through the rubble, hoping not to meet any resistance.

She crashed into the first group of miserable remnants of the human race on Thebes outside of the library. Hairy, malnourished, and covered in sores, they were clustered around her sled, poking at it with wooden spears. She screamed as she exploded into their midst, throwing her lantern at them and drawing her force rod. They scattering at her unexpected ferocity, rallying only enough to make a half-hearted rush as she powered up the sled. She dropped two of their number, stunning them with her weapon, and sped off into the night before they could recover.

Trusting the sled’s velocity to keep her safe, Lucza leaned forward and coaxed as much speed as possible from the machine. She wanted her ship—battered thing that it was—and she wanted to get off the ground and airborne again, back to the safety of space.

Lucza burst into the airfield at full throttle, parking as close to the small ship as possible. She powered the sled down and holstered her weapon before reaching into her pouch for the ship’s controls. She opened the cargo hatch.

She had forgotten the jackal-headed hounds would trace her back to her ship. The first canine slammed into her back, knocking her against the sled. Stunned, she dropped the crystals and they clattered to the ground at her feet, rolling in various directions.

Lucza turned and grabbed the creature by the neck as it bit down on her shoulder. Internals warnings flashed through her mind as she felt her skin rip and coolant begin to seep from her injuries. She flung the monster into its mates, scattering them. Lucza drew her force rod and fired, taking down three of the creatures even as a fourth tried its luck and sprang at her. She grabbed it under the throat and turned, breaking its back against the side of her ship. Lucza heaved the carcass at the rest of the canines, who wisely retreated.

She walked the sled into the ship and flipped on the outside light. She gathered up as many of the errant crystals as she could find, keeping her weapon ready in case the feral canines attacked again. Satisfied with her work, she walked in her ship and shut the cargo door. Deciding she could wait and initiate self-repairs after she was out of the atmosphere, she strapped herself into the pilot chair and started the launch sequence.

She saw points of light coming from the city, closing on her ship. Not wanting to wait for whatever new surprise her old home planned to spring on her, she cut the sequence short and lifted off. Two minutes of hard burning later, she was in a high orbit around the brown-and-white marble she once called home.

She looked at the bag of crystals in the chair next to her and hoped she had found them all. Lucza set the autopilot and moved toward the small workroom off the main engine.

“Are you sure they won’t find it?” Lucza asked Renello.

“They think snow demons live here,” the voice in her head answered. “No one is going to bother your ship.”

She pulled her brown robes tighter around her body and walked out of the crater. Climbing to the lip, she lifted her field glasses. Clicking the magnification button three times she found herself gazing at the mountain city in the distance.

“Are you ready?” Renello’s voice asked.

She always had Renello with her at the beginnings of contact, his crystal plugged into the implant at the base of her skull and hidden under her hair.

“Yes,” she said, facing what must have been the thousandth city on the hundredth planet of her long journey. “What do we know about them?”

Renello accessed the information they had obtained from the last culture they had lived with. “They call themselves Ramalli. They were nomadic until a couple of centuries ago, when they started focusing on agriculture. Feudal, patriarchal, they worship seasonal deities and the mountain. They believe in snow demons.

Lucza shook her head. “They’ve fallen a long way.”

“Remember what we decided,” Renello said. “We do this one city at a time, one region at a time, one continent at a time—”

“One planet at a time,” Lucza finished.

She smiled as she set forth, eager to experience the people and whatever wonders awaited her on the mountain.

Michael Merriam is a Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror writer living in Hopkins, MN. He has a novel forthcoming from Carina Press and has published novellas with Carina Press and Sam’s Dot Publishing. He has published over 70 pieces of short fiction and poetry in various magazines and edited an anthology of short fiction, Northern Lights: 20 Minnspec Tales.

Michael is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers. He lives in Hopkins, Minnesota with his wife and an ordained cat.

Memory - Michael Merriam, 4.6 out of 5 based on 18 ratings