He picked up his book and came to his feet. “Nice meeting you Cherine. Goodbye.”
3391
What is this, are you teasing me - pretending you’re going to change our story? You trying to frighten us?
Hmm, I remember that, not even Petsas. You going to write more, I want to know what happened, did that Robert let her be his friend?
You’re a bit of a coward aren’t you? Afraid of responsibility? Don’t worry, if a way can be found we will. If not, well, a normal human lives about eighty years and I will have over two hundred and eighty and I will not die, just return to live all this love again.
You’re mean!
I asked Meli if she will carry on with your story, but she refused, laughing
at me. She insisted you gave it to me to write. Arthur, I can’t!!!!!!
Okay, if I tell you something you had not thought of, that perhaps affects
your life also, will you continue your story for me? I’ll wait for an answer,
I’m not going to write until you do.
(
No, that counts as me. Are you ready for my surprise? You do promise to write if I tell you?
3392
3393
3394
3395
Don’t you dare stop!
Hi, this is Cherine. Please write more for us, you can’t leave us hanging like this.
We all are. Arthur, don’t get cold feet, we are all enjoying it. We’ll talk to you about it afterwards, when you’ve finished the story. 
3396
3397
This is Cherine. Arthur, why didn’t you write it in the diary font. I would have loved for it to be real – as in an alternate reality, I did not mean it should take our place.
3398
Some of the girls pleaded with him to continue writing, but he refused. We asked a few questions, some of which he answered and then he stopped responding, deleting the last bits - I guess he didn’t dare delete Cherine.
I wonder what he meant about our cosmos being full of mysteries - is he planning to make something happen? If he cannot create a new alternate reality, is he really saying that he can only make things happen to us, or the reality we are in?
I’m adding the next realisation later, as it took some time for his meaning to percolate through my mind. Actually, now that I think of it, I can see that no reality can be our alternate if it is not one that broke off from ours, with some difference or differences. For him to create a new reality, as in his Boxee story, it would have to be a new prime reality…I think. So I wonder, if he did as Cherine asked and changed his chat font to our diary font and they become real, what would they be? Since they would then be subject to his ‘assuming’, does it mean he can assume they are our alternates and they would be?
I’ll carry on from where I’d stopped writing of our experiences.
Fe’jene recognised me immediately, so I knew she still has access to Baritte. This was a general welcoming visit, with the whole family present, so we did not really talk. She asked me to return soon and I promised. The young male, already looking more masculine, said he also wants to talk to me. I promised to go the next day.
We had not spent an evening on the boat for a long time, so Robbie arranged supper on board. When the boat docked and Shiyra saw the crew, her golden warmth faded and she looked upset. Cherine gave me her impish smile, guessing what the problem is.
We had all dressed up, which meant most of us appeared as adults. It is one of the benefits of being an adult that I enjoy. For the first time for a while, Lynda perked up and she had a few drinks, danced and sat at a blackjack table with a glass of whiskey at her side. It was very funny when she got into an argument with the dealer, forgetting who the dealer really is.
As time passed, we saw that Shiyra was genuinely upset, not just piqued. Robbie was obviously not going to explain and Cherine and I had a sort of competition going to see who can hold out the longest before enlightening her.
“Robert, may I speak to you, or are you too busy?” Robbie was concentrating on watching us, especially the ones on the dance floor. He’d noticed that Claudia did not touch any alcohol while Maria was tipsy and as she danced was lifting her skirt to show off her legs.
“I am always available for you Shiyra.” His eyes probed hers. “Or am I now speaking to Ii?”
“I understand that as leader of your people and being responsible for their safety, you cannot be expected to divulge everything to a stranger, but you know that part of me observes the whole world at all times? This vessel and the people on board, they were nowhere on your world just before they appeared. How can you bring them from your home planet if you are so distant in space, time and realities?”
“I believe space and time are different facets of the same thing? The scientists can be clearer on the facts than I can be. One moment please. Captain, you are free to join us for a moment?”
“With pleasure Robert.” He settled his bulky body on a chair that looked as if it should collapse under his weight.
“May I introduce you to Shiyra, a representative of a newly met species. She has a question to ask of you. I think she wants to know where your home planet is and how distant it is from here.”
“Home planet? This is my home planet Shiyra. By the way, if there is anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant while aboard our ship, please let me know.”
Shiyra’s eyes were stormy pools as she stood up, every line of her tense body speaking of a great anger. “It is one thing to keep your little secrets and another to ridicule me with obvious lies!”
“Oh Shiyra…”
3399
“Robert!” I cut in, to stop him from teasing her further. “Shiyra, the Captain did not lie, calm down, Robert was teasing you, but he has not lied to you.”
She did calm down. With a speculative look in her eyes she asked, “You have the vessel hidden within a force field?”
I grinned back at her. “Good idea. No Shiyra, all this, the ship and crew, only exist when Robert wants them to.”
“It is all an illusion!?”
“No, it is real and so are the people. Same as the couple who run the taverna, cook and serve us our meals. Robert creates them.”
“You can create new people!! But then you are a god!” She looked at our faces that broke out in huge grins at her words. She must have realised she was going about this the wrong way for she sat down again. “Please explain.”
“Can you wait for tomorrow? We’ll arrange a storytelling for you and Fe’jene and her mate.”
She smiled at me, a soft sweet smile, too obviously an effort to seduce me for it to work on me. “Thank you Sam, I will wait and I look forward to it.”
That night in bed, Robbie said to us, his voice showing he was pleased with himself. “Do you now see I was right to put a roof over our bedroom? So it sees everything eh? We invite it and it repays us by spying on us.”
The others looked suitably impressed by his words. “You’ve got to be kidding Robert! You are stooping to the rhetoric of politicians, trying to score cheap points? This is not what you brought me up to believe in.” I glared at him, really upset.
“I wasn’t….”
“You only have to use your brains to understand it has no choice but to see everything from where it is placed. Shiyra never hid from us her curiosity about Freddie and us and we actually brought her here to let her see - and because she accepts our invitation you now try to make her sound sinister. You owe her an apology.”
“No Sam, the apology I owe is to my family. My loves, Sam is right. I did not speak that way for political reasons as she says, I was using you to convince myself that I was right. That is despicable. I’m sorry.”
Cherine opened her mouth and shut it again, allowing Jodine to speak for them. “You may be wrong sometimes Robbie, but you are never despicable.”
Sententiously Rosie said, “Actually, you are wrong quite often, but it just makes it easier for us to understand and love you.” I had to grin, that is one sharp little she-cat, using his own words against him. Soon everybody was taking part and Cherine sat back, relieved and amused. It is not often the girls feel her love for them over-riding what she is feeling for Robbie and they gloried in it. Robbie leant over and whispered, “You are one big troublemaker.” I nodded, agreeing, and his lips twitched. “I had a feeling about you from the day you were born.”
“And I’ve had one from long before.”
“You are not a good leader Sam, you always insist on having the last word.”
“Only with you my love, only with you.” I replied between my laughter. He lunged at me, lifting me in the air and put me over his knees, pretending he was about to spank me. I could not resist adding, “Getting kinky in your old age?”
The next morning, Robbie left for the void with the protector. When he returned, his face warned us that he has put up a privacy sign, so we did not even try to look in his mind. It worried me, because I recalled the message from Arthur and wondered whether Robbie had decided to do as he said. His face cleared within a few minutes, but when we entered his mind, though it was like being back home again, he did have a part of it blocked from us.
3400
“Do you girls need to practice for tonight? Sam have you invited Fe’jene and Iniquion?” The answer was no to both. With a blatant mimicking of Cherine I walked away, throwing back a cheeky smile and a wiggle of fingers behind my back. I heard her giggle and grinned to myself.
*Dommi, I’m sorry, I should have thought of it before, can you come with?* I waited for her and then we both jumped, hand in hand.
Fe’jene sat on a rock some distance away with her back to us. Iniquion stood waiting.
“You came. You are the mother, Dominique?”
Gently she smiled. “Mother only reflects a gift I am told I have. I have a few daughters, but am not mother to them all.”
“Still, Samantha did well to bring you. As mother of your Cherinians, surely your soul must be purer than any other and I need to apologise. I find great shame in what I did and cannot face the intended victim. Has she forgiven us?”
“Cherine? You are not the one who tried to kill her.”
“I designed and created the cord used to explode and kill her. It was a weapon we’d thought to never see again and when we did, it was not to defend nor with justice.”
“Sam knows what I’m thinking, she can express it better.”
“What Dominique wants to say is that what you did was because of a belief you had. If the belief system is wrong, and any belief system that needs to resort to killing even one other sentient being has to be wrong, then as a moral sentient being it is your responsibility to first re-examine your beliefs. You need not look to Cherine or us for forgiveness, we are forced by our empathy to understand and where there is understanding there seldom is blame or anger. It is for you to examine why you allowed yourself to act against your morals and learn from your mistake.”
“Empathy without mercy, that is what you meant!”
I cringed. “Please forget I said that.”
“But you were right. You give understanding, but demand I judge myself.”
“Is that not the duty of any moral being?” Dommi asked.
Fe’jene turned to Dommi with a tiny smile. “My loved one looked for the comfort of forgiveness. Since you find no need to forgive, not having blamed, then it is up to him, with my help, to find the correct balance. Iniquion, their road is hard, no comfort but learning and growing.”
I bowed to her. “Baritte will understand and approve of your words.”
“They are his words.”
Iniquion left us alone and the three of us sat to chat. The subject that puzzled Fe’jene was why we are willing to share Robert between us. The concept of a male or female sharing a mate with others was totally alien to her. She told us Baritte had also been troubled by it, but did not feel he can ask me and Robert was not exactly friendly. She admitted that infidelity does exist, but is severely frowned on by their society. Laughingly we admitted it is the same for our origin species, theoretically at least, and then tried to explain why it works for our family. When told we are to do a storytelling and what that entails, she said there is no point then in asking further questions. It makes more sense, she said, to ask after she had learnt all we are willing to divulge about ourselves. We told her we have the bad habit of not keeping anything secret - that we tell the full story.
“Meli started the tradition and though Robert had his doubts in the beginning, he did not interfere. He still gets embarrassed, but is happy to let us tell the story as we wish to. After all, it was he who insisted that enemies can become friends once they understand each other. You can only understand us if we are open and allow you to know us.”
The four of us jumped to the taverna. Shyly Fe’jene asked, “Can you teach us how to do that?”
“It depends on you Fe’jene. It is not something we can ‘teach’ as such; it comes as part of being a Cherinian.”
I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου
(Alexander Zenon Eustace)2nd December, 2019
- posted: 2nd December, 2019
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