smiled and the bio-forming team applauded.
With a sigh, she leaned back in Unrik’s arms and spoke to Treani. “All right. Let’s get going. I want to sleep in my own bed, eventually.”
The return to the Citadel Morganti was done with a barrage of questions coming from both of her companions. Reyan sat in Unrik’s arms and answered everything she could before she nodded off.
She had no idea if she had stopped breathing, but Ka-8 would be the last time she would ever wake up on a slab under a tarp. Across the years, she would wake up in a rolled carpet, a helium balloon and once inside a large fish, but never again would it be a slab and a tarp.
Epilogue
The city of Nekahar on Jarko was celebrating its five hundredth birthday of renewal. Three travellers arrived with their heads hooded and moving with the crowd to the first dome.
The first weather machine was being celebrated on Rain Day and only those lucky enough to gain one of the precious tickets to this event would hear the Reyan Ikali Mar symphony.
Silence was the watchword for all of the observers, and the three standing off to one side watched closely.
The music started subtly and rose in volume as it played the celebrated song that had yet to be replicated by any man, woman, child or machine.
Reyan took Unrik’s hand and squeezed tight. With her other hand, she clutched Ainari’s hand. Their daughter watched and listened to her sibling sing as she had done once every ten years since she had been born, ninety years earlier.
They remained in place long after the song had faded. The crowd slowly returned to the city where the great Rain Day celebration was kicking into high gear now that the song had announced the day.
Reyan flicked back her hood and touched the housing slowly, “Hello, baby. How have you been?”
The machine chirped, clicked and chuckled for a moment.
Reyan smiled as the words translated into her mind.
Unrik and Ainari stepped up, and together, they communed with the weather machine.
* * * *
One of the guards looked back and saw the figures swarming their precious weather machine. He steeled his features and started to walk toward them.
His partner grabbed his arm. “Don’t do that. They are having a family moment.”
“What? It is a machine.”
“Is this your first year?”
“No, I have been here for six.”
“If you had been here ten years ago, the same three people came, they spoke to the machine and it spoke back. See that woman in the middle? Whom does she look like?”
He looked carefully at the figure. “She has the same hair colour as the Rain, but so does half the population.”
“But, the population does not come every ten years for the last five hundred to speak to the machine.”
He was confused, but he mumbled, “How can a machine have family?”
He stood there as his partner explained how the machine came to be where it was and how the Rain had helped them rebuild the city.
* * * *
Unrik smiled. “New guard this year.”
Ainari chuckled. “He is getting the lecture. I can tell by his face.”
Reyan smiled at her family, all three of them. “They always get the lecture, and in another ten years, there will be another new one and another lecture. Cycles are cycles.”
Ainari stroked the housing of her mechanical sibling. “We all start somewhere and end somewhere.”
Unrik finished their family mantra, “And if you are very lucky, you do it with the ones you love.”
Reyan brushed the tear from her cheek, and she smeared it onto the weather station’s metal plates. “And it all goes around again.”
After another hour, they walked back to join the party that was underway. As they paced, Ainari whistled the symphony softly from start to finish without missing a note.
Reyan grinned up at Unrik as he paused to pull her hood up as he did every time. “And it comes around again.”
Author’s Note
Rain of Tears
With a sigh, she leaned back in Unrik’s arms and spoke to Treani. “All right. Let’s get going. I want to sleep in my own bed, eventually.”
The return to the Citadel Morganti was done with a barrage of questions coming from both of her companions. Reyan sat in Unrik’s arms and answered everything she could before she nodded off.
She had no idea if she had stopped breathing, but Ka-8 would be the last time she would ever wake up on a slab under a tarp. Across the years, she would wake up in a rolled carpet, a helium balloon and once inside a large fish, but never again would it be a slab and a tarp.
Epilogue
The city of Nekahar on Jarko was celebrating its five hundredth birthday of renewal. Three travellers arrived with their heads hooded and moving with the crowd to the first dome.
The first weather machine was being celebrated on Rain Day and only those lucky enough to gain one of the precious tickets to this event would hear the Reyan Ikali Mar symphony.
Silence was the watchword for all of the observers, and the three standing off to one side watched closely.
The music started subtly and rose in volume as it played the celebrated song that had yet to be replicated by any man, woman, child or machine.
Reyan took Unrik’s hand and squeezed tight. With her other hand, she clutched Ainari’s hand. Their daughter watched and listened to her sibling sing as she had done once every ten years since she had been born, ninety years earlier.
They remained in place long after the song had faded. The crowd slowly returned to the city where the great Rain Day celebration was kicking into high gear now that the song had announced the day.
Reyan flicked back her hood and touched the housing slowly, “Hello, baby. How have you been?”
The machine chirped, clicked and chuckled for a moment.
Reyan smiled as the words translated into her mind.
Unrik and Ainari stepped up, and together, they communed with the weather machine.
* * * *
One of the guards looked back and saw the figures swarming their precious weather machine. He steeled his features and started to walk toward them.
His partner grabbed his arm. “Don’t do that. They are having a family moment.”
“What? It is a machine.”
“Is this your first year?”
“No, I have been here for six.”
“If you had been here ten years ago, the same three people came, they spoke to the machine and it spoke back. See that woman in the middle? Whom does she look like?”
He looked carefully at the figure. “She has the same hair colour as the Rain, but so does half the population.”
“But, the population does not come every ten years for the last five hundred to speak to the machine.”
He was confused, but he mumbled, “How can a machine have family?”
He stood there as his partner explained how the machine came to be where it was and how the Rain had helped them rebuild the city.
* * * *
Unrik smiled. “New guard this year.”
Ainari chuckled. “He is getting the lecture. I can tell by his face.”
Reyan smiled at her family, all three of them. “They always get the lecture, and in another ten years, there will be another new one and another lecture. Cycles are cycles.”
Ainari stroked the housing of her mechanical sibling. “We all start somewhere and end somewhere.”
Unrik finished their family mantra, “And if you are very lucky, you do it with the ones you love.”
Reyan brushed the tear from her cheek, and she smeared it onto the weather station’s metal plates. “And it all goes around again.”
After another hour, they walked back to join the party that was underway. As they paced, Ainari whistled the symphony softly from start to finish without missing a note.
Reyan grinned up at Unrik as he paused to pull her hood up as he did every time. “And it comes around again.”
Author’s Note
Rain of Tears
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