Awaiting Departure

Awaiting Departure
By NicanorJourney

Our Mother gives/ She splits her Spark/ Our Mother provides/ Her Spark lives in Us.  

Crenami silently recited the Mother’s Song of Travel while her secondary hands anxiously wrung the water from the crimson banner.  She sat at the basin of the Holy Mother’s Eternal Fountain bathed in cool water.  A crystalline glow from the bio luminescent lights mixed with the fading sunset reflected of the insectoid’s absinthe green chitin as the tranquil cascade of the fountain’s water echoed around her.  She felt the hemolymph coursing through her erect wings and in her wisplike antennae which probed the air.  She could taste the honeysweet scent of the thousands of sisters who’d bowed before the fountain over the course of the day.    

The Departure; that day of the zenthropi academic calendar when thousands of zenthropi females left their Homeworld to service the intergalactic community.  After fifteen years of study Crenami would finally journey to the stars; her life’s pursuit.  Yet, in spite of it all, her joints were stiff.  She’d been preparing for this moment for so long convinced of her path, yet over the past twenty hours, watching peer after peer follow divergent paths, she wondered if she’d made the right decision.  Being the first zenthropi in a system was the sort of challenge she yearned for, yet wasn’t it against their nature to separate from the race?

An alien voice projected through the chamber, tearing her from her thoughts. The voice was unlike any zenthropi dialect, lacking any of the accentuating whistles and clicks.  This voice was packed with air and wetness.  

“Are you ready?” It asked in a throaty tongue.  

Crenami looked up.  The alien stood on two primary limbs, but only possessed two working arms.  Most of its body was covered in red fabric with a silver lining.  What portions of its body were exposed possessed a dark brown complexion.  Unlike her polished chitin, this flesh was pliable and moist; a being not accustomed to the Homeworld’s tropic temperature, his pores cried.  Even across the room she could sniff the alien’s harsh odor (although they’d made an attempt to conceal it beneath a Matriarch’s perfume).  The alien kept its black fur concentrated on its head, at the scalp, and protruding from the chin.  Amidst this facial hair its lips formed a pleasant crescent which Crenami determined, given the context, was an expression of encouragement; what the these humans called a smile.  

“One moment,” she spoke in the human language, using the flexible appendage at the back of her throat in substitute for a human tongue.  This man was no stranger to her. He was Captain Aasid Rahman; human representative of the United Sol Federation; ally to the zenthropi and, the first to initiate a zenthropi into the U.S.F.  

Crenami had developed her fixation with humans while she was still a nymph.  Most zenthrope were repulsed by their mammalian allies (“squishies” as they were often called amongst zenthrope communes).  When humans appeared on the holo her peers would cringe, wildly clashing mandibles in disgust at these hairy, soft bipeds who spoke in warbled barks and lacked the physical expression of the precisely elegant movements of the zenthropi.  Crenami, however, had found something irresistibly exotic about this species who, despite having only been in the Zenthropi Alliance species for two centuries, was already shaping itself into an intergalactic superpower.

In humans Crenami saw an inexpressible zeal, equal parts fascinating and frightening.  When it had come time to put her education to good use she’d immediately requested service aboard a human ally vessel (much to the chagrin of her supervising Matriarch).  Every Matriarch in the academy tried to change her course with stories about how one of her talent would better serve her native fleet; that dealing with humans was the game of elders.  When this had failed they finally gave in… On one condition.  Crenami would have to personally receive a commission from the U.S.F. and bring a commanding officer to the Homeworld to perform the ritual of departure.  

This task proved… difficult.  

If the zenthropi were wary of humans, the fear was double for the human fleet.  While the zenthropi had assisted humankind in becoming an intergalactic civilization there still existed a certain paranoia amongst their ruling class.  Humans feared the zenthropi student intended to spy or sabotage fleet operations.  How absurd!  

Eventually Crenami found a way in.  On the inactive Human-Arune interstellar border there existed a small fleet (task force was a more appropriate term) referred to as the Marshals.  Given the lack of tension between human and arune factions the Marshals were ill-maintained and consisted of seven ships, the youngest of which was 150 years old.  

That’s where Crenami discovered Capt. Aasid Rahman and the USF Resilient.  

She’d begun her correspondence with him seven cycles prior to the Departure.   During their communications the human starship captain had been most patient, even during the time the enthused zenthrope struggled to learn his language.  He’d arrived on the Homeworld in the weeks leading up to the Departure.  During all that time he’d shown a remarkable openness to zenthrope culture.  

This was a rare quality amongst humans, the Matriarchs had told her.  Most, they’d say, are impatient shtukas whose wanton lack of safety precautions would one day be there undoing; insufficiently developed to preserve intergalactic harmony if left unchecked.  

Sounds like an adventure worth singing about, Crenami thought.    

Now Capt. Rahman stood in the holy fountain’s chamber awaiting her completion of the silent prayer.  Despite his species ineloquent use of expression, the human captain’s firm stance and glowing face had a way of calming her that transcended their biological differences.  As far as Crenami was concerned, she couldn’t be in better squishy hands.

Crenami dabbed the tip of the cloth once more into the Holy Mother’s Fountain.   Give me strength to carry your spark to the furthest stars.  She anointed her forehead with the damp cloth.  

With delicate precision Crenami spun the damp cloth around her secondary arms, leaving not the slightest wrinkle.  “Shija kik.”  I am ready.  

----

The Sanctum of the Holy Mother was the heart of Zenthropi Homeworld; a stadium that could seat a million zenthrope at maximum capacity.  At the center of the Sanctum, towering over a far end stood the shining, efflorescent statue of the Holy Mother herself, the Greatest of Matriarchs who’d united zenthropi kind and made it possible to conquer the stars.  Over 3,000 feet tall and just as many years old it marked the resting place of Her mortal body.  This guardian kept her clawed primary arms passively at her sides and directed gracefully folded secondaries toward the stars.  

At the base of the statue, the Mother’s Wall shimmered with silken tapestries hung from its silver surface; countless shades of green, yellow, and turquoise; emblem colors of the zenthropi fleet.  It was customary before their first off-world profession that zenthropi females weave a banner representing their assignments: green for colonization, yellow for fleet or military application, turquoise for trade representatives, and countless other variations of these three.  

Emerging from the Fountain of Eternal Giving, Crenami strode alongside her human representative.  She alone carried the scarlet banner.  Red.  The color of the human fleet. The color of the aliens’ essence; of their blood.  She carried the color as if it were her own.  

The Three High Matriarchs of the academy sat in their posh saddles at the feet of the Holy Mother.  Focusing in Crenami could detect an annoyed swish of the third matriarch’s antennae.  The cloudy blue chitined Matriarch Zeshii must still be dismayed by the acceptance of a human in the Holy Mother’s inner sanctum.  Such stubborn attitudes had earned her the nickname “Mother Stone.”  

“Crenami Vi’shesi Zenthrashii, where do the stars take you?”  High Mother Jhisena inquired with the cordiality befitting the head of the High Council of Mothers.  

Crenami flipped her antennae to the left and bowed, secondaries raising the red banner in offering towards the High Matriarchs.  “To the Earth Fleet I shall honor Her Song.”  

“Does your perspective host sanction this?” Mother Stone pressed, just managing to maintain some level of professional detachment before fussily passing an antenna through her elderly mouthparts.  

Crenami turned towards Rahman and knelt on her knees, offering the banner.  Rahman appraised the banner with a gentle stroke of his squishy fingers, scoring the smooth fabric with a jagged symbol.  He tilted his body in a sign of approval, similar to what his kind called a bow.  

Perfection.  Crenami and Rahman rose and together they turned towards the council.

“T’shek hic’eec.”  She is welcome, Rahman said, sprinkling his speech with a clacking of teeth and tongue that did a remarkable job of conveying the zenthropi language… for a human.  

Together the matriarchs bowed their heads.  

“Make your offering, and may the Mother bless your journey.”  Matriarch Jhisena

A gold hover plate glided towards the center.  Arms unfolded from its center and waited on the silken offering. Crenami bowed once more to the High Matriarchs before she began spinning her cloth around the arms.  

“We mark our daughter Crenami Vi’shesi Zenthrashii as a voice amongst the stars,” Jhisena declared as the hover plate floated away with the offering in tow.  

“Tjick.”  Jhisena declared when the automated drone hung Crenami’s banner from a vacant hold in the wall.  “Tjick!” The entire zenthrope coalition thundered in unison.  

Crenami’s antennae fluttered and her mandibles beamed in pride as she admired the wall; her sole banner a drop of blood amongst a wave of green.  

She turned her head toward Rahman, a wry expression on her upturned mandibles.  “Another small step for humankind.”

He chuckled and gave that dignified soldier’s smile.  

“Tjick, Cadet Zenthrashii.”