I don't own Exosquad and its associated universe; I do not make money off the writing/posting of this story.

"Sleep Well" by Abraxas 2000-04-15

The capital of Venus teemed with the vibrant activity of the early evening. Lamps flickered as the city's buildings, tall and wide, cast ever-lengthening shadows across its busy, crowded streets. Summer air suddenly - suddenly but passively - emitted the gentlest, coolest breeze as the sun, colossal and misshapen, loomed uneasily over the cloudy, hazy line of the horizon.

Marsala leaned - the skeletal, metal chair groaned. He scanned the table upon which were a cup of water and a dense tome. The manuscript was colored with red marks and decorated with rough edits. Within the nook between the pages and the spine were uncapped pens set to keep place. The thin, opaque leaves quivered - he, too, shivered for the effect of the night's encroaching currents was so bitter, so cold, different and unexpected yet quite distinctly familiar. It was the temperament of death that he had come to know well, too well indeed.

He sighed and shut the book - scribbled across its cover in darkened ink was the title: "Histeria: Neosapien History from 2069 to the Present."

A waiter appeared and asked: "Will that be all tonight, sir?"

"Yes, yes, Jacob. May I have the bill?"

The terran presented a slip of paper and said: "You know, sir, you don't..."

"But I do, my old friend, I do."

He smiled and nodded - stepping aside he asked: "If I'm not too forward to asked, I wondered when your net book will be published?"

"Soon," the neosapien replied, readying his payment. "Soon enough."

Marsala tugged the unfinished history under his arm as he trekked from the café, through the streets, to the outskirts of the metropolis. From the urbane to the rustic. From the jungle of skylines to the wilderness of farmhouses. Rough bushes and brittle shrubs. Sparse, dilute forests whose trembling trees were echoing choruses of minute sounds.

On the opposite side of the road - that had faded from asphalt to gravel - was a single couple. In the mid-teens, the man was neosapien and the woman was terran. Their eyes met, their bodies leaned into one another. They embraced, they kissed and he fled the scene as fast as could without drawing attention.

He wanted not to see, not to remember what he had had and had given up. Yet despite his singular determination, he could not escape her. He could feel her, her arms draping his shoulders; he could sense her, her face warming his breast with the softest most intimate of kisses. They had wanted each other so much for so long that they had succumbed to the weakness of their strongest desires. They had been intimate once only after the war: she so fragile, he so gentle, they submitted entirely to their pleasures.

But he left - he had to. It was the hardest thing he ever did that he had to do. It was a new world, untamed and unformed, that demanded his undivided attention to fashion into wholeness out of the ruins of the old world from start to finish. Perhaps he could have found a better way, a kinder way - but he was ruthless and determined. Perhaps he could have been more sensitive, more considerate of their mutual needs - but it was the past, fixed and immovable, and it was pointless folly to second guess their actions. And at the end of that long, arduous path, he had the fruit of his labors to point to the correctness of his actions: the terrans and neosapiens had been integrated into one culture, thoroughly, seamlessly.

It was the ultimate consummation.

The unsettled sun was crawling, inching toward its inescapable and unstoppable ritualistic death. The distorted skies were dimming, thinning to reveal the emerging vast and ancient cosmos resolving from the unintelligible mishmash of stars to the recognizable forms of constellations.

The road he traveled straightened and the farmhouse he sought was at last aview.

He was met at the gate by a small boy as tall as his knee. He dropped the tome amid tufts of rocky, flowery grass. He raised the youth up to his shoulders, holding him tightly, binding him safely with his arms.

"I was wondering when you'd return," the boy said.

"I'm sorry I was late, JT. I promise tomorrow we'll have the whole afternoon to ourselves."

"Will you ever show me Mars, Uncle?"

He kissed the child's brow and said: "When your school's up."

The adult was silent, the boy was silent and for the shortest longest time neither said nor did anything to disturb the serene tranquility of the autumnal scene.

Marsala knelt and let JT stand astride the solid ground.

"I love you," he said, giving the youth the manuscript - it was almost too much to bear. "Put it in my room with the others."

"I love you, too, Uncle."

The same eyes, he thought, whispering just under his breath. The child looked at him suddenly - a slight breeze spread his hair across his face - he pushed back the yellow strands and said: "You better head home. Your mother will worry."

"Are you coming to dinner?"

"I'll sit with you."

From behind, from the open doorway of the homestead a female figure emerged.

"Good night, Uncle."

The boy turned around and walked from the gate to the entrance. Treading quickly and uneasily, he passed through the oblong door with the slender woman of long, blond hair. The two vanished into the mist and fog of shadow - the darkness of the structure. Watching all the while was the blue-skinned humanoid smiling.

Marsala strolled not to the farmhouse but to a less-traveled and uncared-for portion of the homestead. The trail of sorts - that existed more in his mind than in reality - cut across from the gate to the edge of a cliff where the mighty corpse of a tree stood, dead and alone. He recalled a time when it had not been so, when it had been green and fertile. He approached the rotted arbor slowly, cautiously, until the object - the polished, rounded granite - was visible amid the gnarled and withered roots. He fell to his knees over it, tearing, sobbing, his hands, his fingers, roamed its withered surface and explored its eroded words that he himself had carved: "Sleep Well Nara Burns 2156."

END