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Chapter 21

Zanzibar

Danzig-5012 Solar System

Lang’s Burg, Equatorial Region


Pale light from Danzig-5012 peeked in through the shutters as Zak opened his eyes. He stretched lazily, like a cat on a summer morning (a cat with creaky, cracking joints, anyway). While normally a night person, since coming to Zanzibar Zak had been a habitual early riser. He suspected it had something to do with the planet’s lack of a magnetosphere screwing with his sleep patterns, but that was only a guess. It would be a while before Anna got up, and even longer before Cecil crawled out of bed. He retrieved his handheld from the nightstand and took it out of standby.

Zanzibar didn’t have a functioning planetary network. There were a few satellites in orbit, but they were strictly pay-for-use, and Zak didn’t have access to them. Lang’s Burg had its own crude local network, but it was monitored and had nothing of interest on it. Little, if any, news from the rest of inhabited space ever made it as far as Zanzibar, and what news did arrive was months out of date. Fortunately, Zak had thousands of texts saved on his handheld: history books, novels, poetry, anthologies, fiction and nonfiction alike. He was a voracious reader in his free time, and found solace in the quiet solitude of a good book.

His current fascination was an ancient epic poem titled The Fall of Mankind and the Coming of the Long Night, written some eight hundred years before. It was a romantic, tragic, and sadly beautiful retelling of the First Interstellar War, the horrific atrocities committed as both sides struggled to exterminate each other, and the ultimate collapse of interstellar civilization. It was a woeful lament of humanity falling from its zenith, destroyed by its own hubris, returning to pre-Space Age barbarism and continual struggle.

The long-dead author of the poem had seen his civilization destroyed. He wrote the poem not knowing if or when the Long Night would ever end, and the sense of loss he felt was palpable with each verse. It made Zak think of the ancient Zanzibari; did they know their end was coming? Did they write epic works lamenting their impending doom, or did it happen suddenly? How many times, on how many worlds, had such a cycle of achievement and destruction been repeated, over billions of years? What great civilizations had lived, flourished, and died in the countless eons before humankind had taken its first step? The Milky Way Galaxy was but a grain of sand on a vast beach, stretching across the cosmos and through time. What difference did any of it make? What did it matter?

The author of The Coming of the Long Night pondered these possibilities as well, and felt insignificant because of it. Perhaps it was just the melancholy that comes with witnessing an apocalyptic war unfold, but Zak could feel the bleak hopelessness, the futility of man’s insignificant struggles, in the words. It was depressing, more depressing than merely waking up on a dead rock like Zanzibar.

After an hour or so of reading, Zak heard Anna quietly moving around downstairs. She, too, was an early riser, and typically started her days with yoga, then breakfast and tea. He pulled up a picture of her on his small screen. It had been taken right after their arrival on Zanzibar, before their ordeal of captivity began. She was actually smiling. Such a beautiful smile. She undoubtedly had her pick of suitors on her homeworld.

Yet, apparently, she had set her sights on Zak. Cecil had pulled him aside and told him, bluntly, that Anna was in love with him, but he didn’t believe it. At first he thought the Avalonian aristocrat was playing a joke on him. After all, Anna had always seemed all business to Zak. She never made any flirty gestures, seemed to dislike physical contact, and was almost standoffish at times.

Cecil had laughed at Zak when he said that. “You just described yourself there, my friend,” he’d said. “Did it ever occur to you that she’s just like you?”

As a matter of fact, that hadn’t occurred to Zak. But why hadn’t she said anything about how she felt? Anna was a strong woman from a powerful family, and never had any trouble speaking her mind.

Cecil had laughed at that, too. “It wouldn’t be proper,” he explained, “for a woman of her position to go chasing after a man. That’s not how they do things on New Constantinople. Supposedly sophisticated societies sneer at how backward it all is, but in some places a man is still expected to court a lady, to earn her favor. Women don’t necessarily give their affections away. You have to work for it. She’s not going to risk humiliation by expressing her interest in you. That’s your job, as the suitor, to read the signs and make the connection.”

The cultural differences between Zak’s home of Columbia and the colony of New Constantinople seemed greater than just the fluid accent Anna spoke Commerce English with. He’d made it a point to read everything he could find about the history and society of Anna’s home. Cecil had told him that he wasn’t going to find a better woman than Anna, and as condescending as it may have sounded it was probably true. The clichéd advice usually given to people in his situation was to “just be yourself”; Zak had been himself for his entire life, and had never won the affections of a woman like Anna before. He had to do it right if he hoped to . . . to what? What is it you think is going to happen? Focus, man. Get her off this rock alive, then worry about romance.

Driving the sentiment home, a message box popped up on the screen of his handheld. What? Zak hadn’t received a message since he’d been on Zanzibar. Without access to a network, his handheld was as isolated as he was, and there wasn’t anyone to send him a personal message anyway.

He tapped the screen to bring up the text message. His handheld didn’t recognize the sending address. Mr. Mesa, it said simply, your message has been sent. That was it. A ship willing to carry his message must have left Zanzibar, bound for Concordiat space. A feeling of relief washed over Zak; no matter what happened to him now, he’d done all he could do. He didn’t know if the plight of the Zanzibaran people, or the theft and sale of alien relics being used to fund a warlord’s army, would be enough to move anyone to act, but at least he had tried.

Zak felt good, for the first time in a long time. He had to tell Anna the news! Jumping out of bed, Zak ran downstairs and entered the kitchen, where his partner was making herself a modest breakfast out of the food supplies provided by their captors. She looked up at him quizzically when he entered the kitchen, waving his handheld around like a madman. “Well, ah, good morning,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Zak held his screen for Anna to read. “It’s done. We did it.”

Anna looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. “Good. Very good. It doesn’t change our situation, but at least we did something. We may just get through this yet, Zachary. Our ride home is on its way, and Lang has been happy enough with our work of late.”

Zak’s expression darkened. “I hate that man,” he said quietly. “I hate what he’s doing. I hate being so powerless. Anna I . . .” he trailed off, taking a deep breath. “Anna, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m sorry . . . for everything.”

Anna smiled. “Stop apologizing. You and I, and Mr. Blackwood as well, we are all of us victims of circumstance. I don’t blame you for what’s happened to us, and neither should you. I knew the risks when I signed the contract. Do you know what my life was like before we became partners?”

Zak simply shook his head. He’d met Anna at a historical symposium on Columbia, where he presented his paper on the history of Zanzibar.

“New Constantinople has been a center of trade, commerce, and culture for a thousand years. My world was burned in the fires of the First Interstellar War, but instead of backsliding into chaos and barbarism, my ancestors held fast and rebuilt our civilization. My family can trace its lineage back to the colony’s founding during the Diaspora. I . . . there’s something I have to tell you.”

Zak’s heart quickened. “Yeah, sure, go ahead. You know you can always talk to me.”

Anna looked down. “I’m afraid I’ve not been entirely forthcoming with you about things . . . about myself. My name isn’t Anna Kay.”

Wait, what? “Okay,” Zak said. “What is your name?”

“My name is Anna Komnene. When I said my family can trace its lineage back to the founding of the colony . . .” She trailed off.

Zak’s mind raced. “Holy hell. You weren’t joking. You’re a member of the royal family? Anna . . . why didn’t you tell me? Why are you even here? Why . . . ?”

Anna hushed her partner so she could speak. “I’m not an important member of the royal family. I’m not going to be empress or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.” New Constantinople was a constitutional monarchy. The royal family rarely involved itself in day-to-day governance in the modern era, though their leadership had been key in pulling the colony through the Interregnum. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to treat me like a partner, not nobility. Before I met you, I lived a life of leisure and luxury. I was free to pursue whatever interest or activity I desired, or not. Anything I wanted, I could have. If I wanted to marry, there was no shortage of men, men I’d never met mind you, willing to propose. Growing up, I was always treated differently, deferred to even, out of respect for my family.”

“That . . . I mean, I’m not trying to be mean, but that doesn’t sound that bad to me.”

Anna laughed. “I know. Rich girl problems, right? But that’s just it: it wasn’t hard. I’ve never known struggle, or want, or danger, or adventure in my entire life. They were abstract concepts that I read about, not things that happened to me. I was free to do whatever I wanted, but nothing I did mattered. Most people who knew me didn’t actually know me, they knew Anna Komnene, of the Komnene Family, descendants of Alistair Komnene, one of the founding fathers of New Constantinople. People assumed I was vapid, spoiled, and out of touch with the world. You know what? I was. The superficial charity work I did, the ceremonies I attended, it was all a chore for me, just doing what was expected of me. None of it mattered.”

Zak shook his head. “What were you doing on Columbia then?”

“I ran away,” Anna said, smiling. “Not that it was any great sacrifice. I had quite a bit of money put away, after all. After I was awarded my doctorate in archaeology, I told my family I was moving off-world, gathered my things, and left. Columbia was the closest major colony. I wanted to see how the rest of the galaxy lived, and your world was as good a place to start as any.”

“Why tell me this now, Anna? Do you want me to try send a message home for you? Will your world send a rescue mission?”

“My world doesn’t have much of a military, Zak. No punitive expeditions are going to be sent on my behalf. My title, my position, they were mostly ceremonial, and I walked away from them of my own accord. I didn’t tell you before because I thought . . . well, I thought you’d be mad that I’ve been dishonest with you. I was worried that if Lang found out who I was, he’d hold me for ransom the way he’s been holding poor Cecil. But I want you to know the truth now, because I want you to stop blaming yourself for my situation. You and I are both in over our heads, but we’re in it together. I have you to thank for a great deal. You treated me like a regular person. You gave me the dignity of a meaningful task. You let me do things on my own, instead of treating me like a precious artifact. I want you to know that no matter how this ends, even if . . . even if we both die here, I’m grateful. I truly am.”

A tear trickled down Anna’s cheek. Zak had never once seen her cry before, and his first impulse was to try to comfort her. He wasn’t the hugging type, but she looked like she needed a hug.

Anna stepped back slightly. “Hold on now.”

“I’m sorry!” Zak sputtered. “I just thought . . .”

Wiping the tear away, Anna raised an eyebrow, flashed him a smile, and looked him up and down. “I know we’re laying it all on the table, as it were, but perhaps you should get dressed? I’m a lady, Zachary, and that is no way to present yourself to a lady.”

Zak’s eyes went wide as he realized that for the entire conversation with his partner, he’d been standing in the kitchen in his underwear. In his haste to tell her the news, he had forgotten to dress. His face turned a deep shade of red, and he slowly backed around the corner. “Probably not a good day to wear my lucky rocketship underpants,” he said meekly.

“I disagree,” Anna said with a devilish smile. “I find them adorable. Run along now, get dressed. We’ll talk when you’re wearing pants.”

Smooth, Zak. Cecil is never going to let you live this one down.




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