First to Dance (33 page)

“It
seems to me that one of us has already forgotten,” he said.  He reached out to her and touched her cheek. Then he sighed, looked away from her and closed his eyes. “Even long after I’ve forgotten who you are, I will know that I love you, Ayita.”

They sat in silence together for a long time.
Dakarai started to toss pebbles into the stream. Finally, Ayita spoke. “Dakarai, I’m scared. I’m scared to trust my heart to you again.”

He turned to face her and gently placed his hand on her
arm.  “I’m here,” he told her.  “You said you couldn’t be with someone who would not remember you after you’re gone, but you were gone, and I remembered.  I forget almost everything, Ayita.  I can’t help that; I can’t change it.  But it makes the few things I do remember all the more meaningful, and when you left, I remembered
you
. I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

She looked into his eyes and saw that same trustworthiness she saw when she first met this man. She reached out and hugged him.
She cried into his shoulder and they held each other. “I love you Dakarai. I love you and I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “I never thought I would see you again.”

He hugged her a little more tightly. “I love you too, Ayita.”

Their moment was interrupted by a bright light coming down from the sky and landing at the space center. Ayita didn’t notice when Dakarai arrived because of the sun’s position in the sky, but the sun was setting now and the sight of the spaceship was far more visible.

“What was that?”
Dakarai asked.

“A spaceship,” she said. “Someone else is here.”

When they arrived at the space center, they were met by a very old man
who walked with a cane. It took Ayita only a moment to figure out who it was.

“Dr. Timothy
Azias, I presume?”

The man nodded and smiled. His smile was still quite charming, even in his old age. “And you are Ayita, and
Dakarai.”

“Why are you here?” Ayita asked.
Dakarai silently listened to the conversation; he didn’t understand what was going on yet. The man seemed to know him, but Dakarai didn’t have any idea at all of who this was they were talking to.

“I came to pass on my legacy,” he said. “I am getting too old for this, and it is time for me to join
Etana in sleep. As for now, I have seen the results of my experiment and have documented them thoroughly in my memoir, which will be published here on Earth and on Azias after I am gone. My life work is over, and there is only one goal which I have not reached.”

“Published
, here? So there are still people here?”

The man laughed. “Yes, yes.
Of course. There are plenty of people. Skillful as you are, you chose to come to the space center Etana visited most frequently when she came here to Earth, but much time has passed since then, and this area is no longer as populated as it once was. Earth has changed quite a bit. You’ll want to go to the space center in Alberta.  That used to be my most remote location, but you will have no trouble finding people there now. In fact, they will be expecting you. They are fully aware that you have arrived here, and I told them to expect you there, shortly. I have told the people in Alberta that you are my representative and ambassador, and they will treat you as an honored guest.”

Ayita
pondered this and wondered what he meant in calling her an ambassador. “You came to pass on your legacy,” she said. “What do you mean by that?”

He held out an object in his hand. It was a small and flat sort of computer without a keyboard. “I mean to say,”
he said, “that I am giving it all to you.”

She took the object from him and studied it.

“Everything is there,” he said. “Everything you will ever need to know, and there are more in my home on Azias if for any reason that one breaks.”

“So this…”

“Controls everything,” he said. “It controls every spaceship of mine from every planet, and holds the history log from each planet, going back hundreds of years to the time that everyone first settled there. It also contains a copy of my book, if you ever care to read it.” He said this last sentence with a smile; he knew Ayita wouldn’t hesitate to read anything.

She studied his face contemplatively.
“Then you’re the one who made me crash,” she said.

He laughed. “Yes, I am. It was not time for you to come here, Ayita. You needed to see that there were other worlds of mine out there, first. You needed to personally taste the lifestyle of people who were opposite of you. Only then could you truly know compassion.”

Ayita thought of all the things Etana had written and said about this man. “And what do you know of compassion?” she asked.

He smiled
knowingly and winked at her. “Nothing, personally, I suppose. But I’ve seen that for others it is a great motivator. I hope you are motivated, Ayita.”

She nodded. “I am.”

“Good. Then you will pick up where Etana left off. I am putting it all into your hands, Ayita. Everything. The only thing I am not giving you is control over the spaceships that I use personally. Everything else is yours. Do with it what you will. I shake my hands free of this and put it behind me. I know that whatever you choose to do, it would make Etana proud.”

“Thank you,” she said. She smiled and looked down at the carefully held tablet in her arms. She was trying to embrace the magnitude of what was taking place. “Where should I start?” she asked herself.

Timothy knew he wasn’t the one being asked, but he answered her question anyway. “I think the best place to start would be to read what your two friends Aira and Acton have been up to since you left. Your actions made quite an impact, and they’ve opened the door for much more change on Zozeis.”

She looked up at him, full of curiosity and an excitement to learn. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

He winked at her again. “Read it and find out. As for me, I’ll be on my way. I’ve left it all in your hands, Ayita, and I take no responsibility for anything you do or anything you don’t do.”

He started walking back toward the spaceship.

“Wait!” she said. “You mentioned a goal that you never reached. What goal was that?”

He glanced away and smiled slightly. “I failed to win
Etana’s heart,” he said. “Over time, she gave me everything of herself, except for her heart.  I’ve come to realize over the years that having her heart was more important to me than any of my other pursuits.” He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then entered the spaceship and took off.

19

            
 
Acton paced about his house angrily. How could Ayita do this to him? For once in his life he’d found a glimmer of hope, only to have it snatched away. He sunk down into the couch and put his head in his hands. “How selfish of me,” he whispered. “Here Ayita’s the one who will lose everything; all I’m losing is a girl I never even had, and I’m upset with
her
for it.” He closed his eyes and thought. His parents had already gone to bed and he could hear his father snoring. Acton quietly slipped outside and sat on the porch.

“Earth, Ayita. Earth, really? You really believe those lies?” His grandmother had once mentioned Earth to him, and he laughed at her for it. She never mentioned it to him again. He looked up at the stars twinkling in the sky. “But what if you’re right?” He thought about the pile of books they
’d burned in front of her house. Where could all those books have come from? What if they weren’t lies?

He breathed deeply and stared up at
the clear night sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight this evening. Acton studied the stars and wondered: what if they really are surrounded by other worlds? Then he felt angry again, so he closed his eyes and looked away. He wasn’t going to let Ayita’s problem become his problem, too.

After much contemplation he looked back up to the
stars. He wanted to yell, but he didn’t want anyone to hear him, so instead he spoke softly toward the sky. “I’m mad at you, Ayita. I’m mad at you, whether you deserve it or not. Maybe I wasn’t content with life before, but I’m definitely not content now, and all because you showed me so briefly that I might not be as alone as I thought.” He looked down at the ground for a moment. “And now you’re gone.”

He closed his eyes and held his head for a few minutes, but when he looked up
again, he saw something. Far off in the sky, a blue light was rising up from the horizon. Acton stood and started walking toward it. It went up and up until it disappeared from sight. Acton walked faster in that direction, moving between houses and through yards so he wouldn’t lose sight of where in the sky it had originated. Finally, he came to the edge of the forest surrounding their town, and he trudged on through the trees. It was dark and he couldn’t see well, but this didn’t stop him for even a second. He had to find out where that light came from. Too many questions had been asked today, and this was one that maybe, just maybe, he could actually find the answer to.

Acton was beginning to wonder exactly how long he would be walking
, or if he was even going in the right direction anymore, when finally he emerged out of the forest and onto the side of a large hill. In front of him was a long stretch of flat, empty land, and when he walked around toward the front of the hill he could see a building not far off.

Upon hearing a sound, Acton froze in place and listened intently. There was someone else walking around here, too. He cautiously turned his head up toward the top of the hill, and there he saw a young woman: Aira.

As soon as she saw him, she stopped moving also, and it looked for a moment like she was going to dart back into the forest and hide among the trees.

“Wait!” Acton called. He stepped closer to her, until he was sure of
who she was. “You’re Ayita’s friend, aren’t you?”

The girl nodded back at him. She looked scared to be here.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

“I won’t tell either,” she whispered. “I came because I saw something strange in the sky.”

“The blue light. Yeah, I saw it too.”

Aira took a deep breath. “Well,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Acton smiled. “My thought exactly.”

They walked together to the building and cautiously entered. They explored the building together, taking in every detail of the place, and eventually the two of them sat down at the computer in the control room. Acton quickly discovered the history log and looked up Ayita’s most recent actions. His jaw dropped.

“She left for Earth. She actually left for Earth!”

“Wait, what?” Aira looked at the screen to read it. “Wow….” She paused for a moment. “Should we go, too?”

Acton looked at her briefly and considered it. There was one spaceship left. They certainly could, if they wanted to.

“No,” he said. “I think we should stay. We need to prepare this planet for when she comes back. Now that we know what we know, we can do what Ayita thought was too big a job.” He
scrolled down a few pages and started reading more about Ayita’s life. The more he read, the more he thought he loved her.

Aira nodded, but she was scared to stay. She didn’t think she could keep a secret this big, and she didn’t want to be the one to let it out. Now that she knew this was here, the choice Ayita made felt like the safer one.

Acton saw the reluctance on her face. “Aira, it looks like Ayita spent weeks, maybe even months, reading about and gaining excitement for this planet called Earth. That’s why she left—she’s dreamed of visiting Earth for a really long time. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t dreamed about leaving this planet at all; my dreams were more along the line that the people on this planet would change. If I left for Earth, I would have nothing to do there and no dream to fulfill, but if I stay here, maybe I can have an impact.” In his head he thought,
maybe I can accomplish something that would be meaningful to Ayita.

Aira looked at him and considered what he was saying. “So, what are you planning to do?”

Acton stared at the computer screen for a long time while he thought about it. “I’m going to tear down the secondary school,” he said.

“You’re going to
what?”
Aira almost shouted.

He smiled wide. “I’m going to tear it down. It’s the only way.”

Aira looked unconvinced.

Acton
rolled his eyes and sighed. “You can go home and pretend you never saw any of this, Aira. Or you can join me. I’ll try not to pressure you either way, but if you’re going to head home you should probably do that now before they notice you’re missing. As for me, I’m not going back.”