Renowned Lira Crass

The attendant could not give her a satisfying answer. -You are not on the list, miss- he insisted. Lira Crass was not enthusiastic that the attendant kept regurgitating the same response to her cries of confusion. -I ought to be on the list, I paid for the damn ticket. Two hundred koopons, nothing more, nothing less-. The attendant did not seem to budge, and after much complaining, Lira only managed to get a free meal at Spaceport Aweland from the whole affair. 

It had been an exhausting day for renowned Lira Crass. Pluri-planetary and multi-solar diplomat Lira Crass. More accurately, publicly humiliated and currently out-of-a-job Lira Crass. 

Lira had been going up and down the desert wasteland that was the planet Hume, where days are 50 hours long and the star threatens to erode the thinly terraformed atmosphere apart. Thank the gods for the hovercraft and public space-transports, possibly humanity's greatest innovation- Lira thought -if they ever came on time. But in Hume, nothing came on time. Heat had the humorous tendency of melting hardware and making software implode. Technology felt backward in Hume, specially compared to the techno-metropolises of Geoda and Al-Raum, but it was out of necessity. Wood and sandstone settlements were not uncommon in the desert. The commonly deserted towns dot the wasteland like perfectly preserved relics. Barely any microbes could decompose the bark of trees, much less the genetically modified ones grown on the poles of the planet. In fact, Hume seemed to be, in many ways, frozen in time. Why humans decided to colonize such a place? Lira could not even imagine.

In the spaceport cafeteria Lira stood, eating her free farmbugs meal with a cheap, greasy topping made from al-ramian palm oil. Her contacts in the desert had all but disappeared, in her greatest moment of need no less. Sometimes she felt like her previous life in government had been for nothing. -Once you fall everyone goes round your dying corpse like a pack of rabinous fligtwigs- Lira said to herself as she stuffed her face with another oily farmbug. -They should feed their employees to the fligtwigs at this rate if Narcissus or whomever it may be, or concern, doesn't even acknowledge my existence-. It had all been for nothing, Lira thought, for nothing but an antiquated book.

It was a paper book, calling it old would be an understatement. Most paperbacks had disappeared centuries ago, replaced by handy pocket-drives and biosynthetic implants. What a waste, Lira could not deny it any longer, this trip to Hume, to the closest spot to nowhere, had been a bust. Perhaps she could sell off the book to some rich collector in a discreet auction, but not much else. It's not like a museum would offer much for it either. What language was it written in, anyway? Lira kept on ogling and skimming the sandy and elderly book, trying to decipher the words with her eyes alone.

Hours passed and boredom got the better of her. She decided to walk around the spaceport for a little sight-seeing tour. The jog became longer and longer as Lira looked at the displays facing the spaceport windows. There was a collection of rocks from the Jakurian bombings, a full set of armour from the days when half of Hume used to be covered in glaciers, and a flute from a famous local fortune teller that predicted the fall of a great king. It was all somewhat predictable, Lira had seen all sorts of local legends. In her line of work it was much more of a nuisance. Culture and tradition always seemed to be in the way of rational policy-making. Culture is what keeps everything together, yet it makes everything fall apart. It's filled with contradictions and balkanizes everything it touches. For Lira it was all rather silly.

Eventually Lira got tired of looking at rocks too, and she fell fast asleep on one of the many empty seats at the spaceport -it's not as if the common folk of Hume could afford a ride out of world-. She quickly fell into the world of dreams, but this time, her dreams were different, they felt twisted, deformed. There is an odd logic to dreams, they stem from the memories and experiences of the dreamer. These dreams, Lira came to realise, were not hers. She could hear the scream of soldiers and the blowing of sand by hovering steel vehicles glowing in the night. She could feel the blood moving fast through her body, leaking through her wounds. She felt like she could faint into another dream, and another dream, and she would never get out. How could she feel like she was dying yet not wake up? Something held her down, a figure with sharp teeth and an armour plate, and then she raised her head and saw none other than renowned Lira Cross. She could not help but cry as the figure took her weapon and slammed it on her skull.

She woke up sweating, her throat inflammed from overheating. She looked down onto the old book, and then she heard a voice.

-I believe that's for me, Lira.

Her teary eyes moved to her left to see a man in traditional humian clothing staring at her with a nefarious smile. -Narcissus- Lira said, softly, almost crying. Narcissus replied-In the flesh... I see you have my book?-.

Lira looked down again, holding the paperback more firmly, -What is this? What is this really?-.

-I'm sorry to say, Lira, but that is something only the higher ups get to know or care about. But I'll make it worth it, as promised.

Narcissus raises his hand to Lira's face and his wrist starts glowing. Lira feels a vibration across her body, she's gotten a transfer of 10 million koopons.

-This... Is not what we agreed.

-Sure it was! We just could not make it crystal clear Lira. There's always someone watching, even now.

Narcissus stared at Lira, unsure about opening his mouth.

-I know you like being known... But there's bliss in being forgotten. In a place like this things never die, not even memories. I suggest you leave as soon as you can. Understood?

Lira, still in shock, shook her head and watched Narcissus walk away. A few hours later she took a different transport, free of charge, to a heavenly tropical world to live out her retirement. Maybe then she would be happy with what she'd done, all the things she'd buried under the rug. Hume was a wasteland, but so was her heart.


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