Wishing On A Star

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

As soon as we had the chance, Weeko and I went to see Professor Narkoa I had classes to take, Weeko was requested to give a presentation. The professor told us that his attempts at organizing a field trip to earth were suddenly starting to meet with receptive ears. Right now things looked hopeful for a modest trip back home, I suggested my Uncles farm, as it was reasonably isolated from unwanted visitors, the object of the trip was light interaction with Kagorians (my Aunt and Uncle), I also suggested Colin's place in the Dakota Territory (different environment, weather, people etc.) There would be a total of eight students going, all had been studying the English language and were the most advanced at speaking as well as understanding it without the need for Transnano's. They were also being fitted for special lenses to disguise their eyes. When it looked like the trip was really going to happen, they started showing up at Drolugi's to learn all the mannerisms as well as the do's and don'ts for interacting in Kagorian society.

When I realized that the professor's trip was an actuality I started began to lobby for Andy and Emily to accompany us, even lining up a transport chamber for Emily's son. In the meantime, they had gone to Akdor for a couple una's staying at Sally and Drokai's place. I on the other hand, was spending a lot of time over at the university. Between classes and the occasional lecture, I was becoming more and more involved with planning the purposed field trip. Weeko as well as Sara (because of her parent's farm we guessed) were being quizzed on all sorts of questions dealing with landing site, what there would be to see. Weeko was even teaching an impromptu language class in sign language, as well as that of her native tongue. Sara and I were also being asked to "judge" potential candidates for the trip as to how convincing their command of the English language was. We ended up coaching them in syntax, the use of verbs and pronouns. We all felt that the increased tempo of things indicated that the word would come down very soon authorizing the trip. There was stiff competition as far as who would be going and who wouldn't, although a second trip was already being talked about.

Just when things looked like they couldn't get any stranger, Zarka announced that not only would she be going, but that she would be setting up a brothel. Hanna suddenly found herself dragged into the whole mess. Since she was a friend of Zarka's and an ex prostitute herself, Zarka as well as a woman named Acarra who turned out to be head of the Thenta Makur. From what Hanna told me, the Thenta Makur was a guild representing "Companions" legalized prostitutes, both male and female.

"Zarka tells me there's a sort of "convent" where companions are trained sometimes as young as eight. They redefine the term prostitute," added Hanna. "they are companions in the truest sense…For a price of course. They are confessors, trained to comfort those who have lost wives or husbands, Zarka's training and skills are so far above anything women like me did it's beyond comparison."

"So what's all this about setting up a brothel, I wasn't aware she could speak English all that well," I asked.

"She can speak English better than you think," replied Hanna. "Apparently the real purpose of the brothel is to draw in unsuspecting "Kagorians" allowing the "girls" to pick their brains, find out what we earth people are thinking, and quite honestly I think it's quite a unique idea."

"Is Zarka planning on using "local "talent in this venture," I asked.

Hanna started laughing, and shaking her head,

"Supposedly Zarka's taking four women with her, only one is a companion trainee, the other three are university students."

"What!" I gasped.

"It's true," chuckled Hanna, "These girls are so hell bent on making that trip to earth they're willing to w***e themselves out to go."

"Does professor Narkoa know about this," I replied.

"It wouldn't matter even if he did," said Hanna, "This is Zarka's operation, she's going as a fully enrolled student of the Kagorian studies program, but she's got the full backing of the Thenta Makur, there's "politics" running all through this, which by the way I'm staying completely out of, I sat down with Zarka told her everything I knew about how brothels operated at least in the states, how they were furnished, how they operated, the sort of things she could expect, oh yeah I didn't leave out the violence, which apparently something companions are not familiar with. She just sat there taking notes, so who am I to say."

A relfa later professor Narkoa called, the trip had been approved, for eight students, professor Narkoa, his assistant, Zarka and her four "prostitutes." Andy and his wife, Weeko, Sara, Hanna and I. Fifteen students and faculty, Andy and Emily would be considered "tag alongs," Weeko, Hanna, Sara and I were going as a pilot/crew arrangement. Our husbands were certainly not happy about this, and although we weren't exactly told we couldn't go they made it, quite clear to us they were not happy about it, especially Gitel. He even came to me and said,

"Keep an eye out for Weeko if you would, she tells me that wacko professor wants to land right on the reservation so he and his student's can observe her people. Weeko's dead set against it but there might come a time she could use a little back up. She's an adult; I'm not worried about her as much as I'll miss her."

I promised him we would all stick together and watch out for each other. The craft we would be flying was owned by the university, Morkai made me check its flight log making sure it had received regular maintenance, by trained techs.

The night before we were to depart, Morkai and I cuddled in bed, due to my pregnancy he was reluctant to make love, however we made up for it in other ways. As we lay in bed together, he said to me.

"Gonna miss you,"

"I'm going to miss you as well dear.

As he played with my hair, Morkai continued,

"I'm mighty proud of you Holly."

"I thought you didn't want me to go?"

"Umm, I don't, but you know I won't ever stand in the way of your career, oh I won't say I'm not going to worry, but you're a damn good pilot, you and Weeko can handle things, Hanna should be able to handle any medical problem that might come up Nargra's not happy about her going, but he's like me, you ladies will be on your own for the first time, I'm not supposed to say anything, and for Gods sake don go around repeating this but Nargra and I were talking to a man from the government today."

"This didn't sound good" I thought

"So…is there a problem?"

Morkai snickered, "No, there's no problem he was just checking up on you ladies that are going to be making this trip, I don't know if you realize this or not but you're going to be making history."

"Umm, why is that," I murmured

"This will be the first time a non Nuelian crew will be traveling to another world aboard a Falthian spacecraft, but more importantly it's the return trip."

"Call me dense, but I'm still not following you."

Morkai breathed a small sigh, "You're all Falthian citizens' right?"

"Yes."

"However you're all humans' right?"

"Yes."

"This will be the first time in history a completely non-Nuelian crew has had complete control of a spacecraft, admittedly there's a fine line here but apparently this is causing quite a stir in certain government circles some are bothered by the fact that there will be no Falthian supervisory personnel aboard."

I sat up at this news, something wasn't right here.

"That's crazy; I'm a Falthian citizen, that fact is stated right on my ID card."

Morkai grinned, "Doesn't matter your not Nuelian neither is Hanna, Weeko or Sara."

"But there will be plenty of Nuelians on board."

Morkai shrugged, "Still doesn't matter it's the crew that counts."

"So someone thinks we're going to kidnap the passengers and hijack the ship?"

Chuckling, Morkai replied,

"Oh I've no doubt there's those that think that, but I think it's because there's always been undercurrents of racism within certain factions, I've heard talk, in fact all of us who are married to you Kagorians have heard "things." It's certainly nothing overt but it's there, and I wouldn't let it bother you forget about it. No, the issue everyone seems to be focusing on here is the fact that Kagorians will tear-assing around the universe in a spacecraft period."

"And this bothers people?" I asked.

"Think about it Holly, how many dorns do you think it will be before an event like this happens again, I mean seriously, How many arkons is it going to be before your race shows up at our door and says "Hello, we're from earth, look what we've done."

Now it dawned on me what Morkai was talking about, I started chuckling,

"I'd love to be there when they get told "Sorry you're not the first, we've been waiting for you, what took so long?" Morkai laughed,

"After that meeting we had with the government I would think it very apparent by now that there's a lot of people rooting for you Kagorians you're quite the celebrities, you're smart, ambitious…Dangerous."

"Without putting too fine a point on it the general consensus is that we as Falthians think that we could work with you Kagorians, you're so much like us in many respects, why do you think you've all been allowed to remain on Falth and become citizens? If Andy and his wife wanted to come here permanently and live all he would have to do was say the word, that's why your cousin Sally had no trouble."

"So what's the problem?" I asked.

"Andy's wife was spot on with her comments, she basically told the government what they wanted to hear and what many felt and that's this; "We don't mind your race coming here on an individual basis, and eventually assimilating but as a race of people you Kagorians are still children your not yet ready to take your place in our galactic "family," hopefully by the time your race shows up on our "doorstep" however long that takes they will have matured enough to act responsibly. Now if that offends you I'm sorry, but there it is."

I sighed, "No it doesn't offend me, sadly your right, there are many civilizations on earth we have a hard time getting along with each other let alone anybody from another planet especially someone more technically advanced than we are, oh I see your point."

"Bammo," grinned Morkai, 'That brings us right back to the purpose of the prime directive; time will be the great "leveler."

"Well," I replied, "I hope that when that una comes decedents of all of us who came before will be there."

"I've no doubt Holly," said Morkai I'm certain that's what this Kagorian studies program aims to ensure."

The next morning found our little group riding the monorail over to the university's private landing field. Hanna, Sara, Weeko and I shouldering our flight bags, Andy and Emily carrying little Albert James in a basket. As is always the case, we drew a lot of attention from fellow passengers many striking up conversations, all curious about these "off worlder" traveling about Falth.

Morkai and I parted with a passionate kiss of goodbye.

"You take care, sweet; I'm going to miss you."

Kissing him again, I replied,

"Going to miss you too dear, I'll be thinking about you."

As the city zipped past us I thought of what Morkai had told me about being the first, a lot of eyes would be on us, as head pilot I couldn't afford to let anybody down. Hanna would be my co-pilot while Weeko and Sara would be trading off with us. This would be Week's last flight before she was ready to take her pilot's exam. As Morkai was my overseer so I would be hers, Gitel told me he had the utmost confidence in me,

"This has been a long time in coming, but Weeko's ready, she's good she just needs more confidence building, you've always been there for her, she likes you two will do just fine."

Hanna's primary duty would be as medic, but she knew her flight basics for acting co-pilot. Sara was still learning about halfway through her pilot's training Karuk taking a slower approach.

The vessel we would be flying was an Omelos XB7 class transport. Slightly larger than the Na'Vas and the other ships the other contractors were flying the space normally devoted to cargo was now all living quarters. The galley and "necessary" were naturally larger but the fridge and flight deck were almost the same. Going through the ships maintenance records and flight log I noted that she was two dorns older than the Na'Vas. Everything appeared to be in order, the last overhaul was four alyts ago, performed by Andara, all work was properly signed off by the techs. Zarka and her girls were already waiting for us, professor Narkoa along with his assistant and students began to arrive shortly afterward.

Everybody greeted each other; I also noted that nobody seemed to hold anything against the three female students who were going with Zarka as prostitutes. While Weeko and I were going through pre-flight, Hanna and Sara were seeing to it that everybody was getting their luggage properly stowed.

Hanna and I found ourselves sharing a small cabin with bunk beds. Since both of us were well along in our pregnancies neither one of us wanted the top bunk. We soon learned that Weeko and Sara had the same problem, however professor Narkoa contacted the university flight department and had two inflatable mattresses brought over for Hanna and Sara, although in our case, Hanna and I traded off on sleeping on the mattress. Once everyone was situated, and strapped in . I let Weeko take off observing her in the process. She appeared to be a little nervous at first, but did everything right, and soon we were orbiting Falth. All systems checked ready, so I continued to let her fly, on through the jump gate and on into hyperspace. It soon became apparent things would be a whole lot different on this voyage. Every time one of us (including Andy and Emily) would sit down in the galley or sometimes just walking to our cabin would be confronted by an eager student or the professor, asking questions of us. We always took it in good humor, after all these students were eager to learn about our home world.

One time I was sitting in the galley with Andy and Emily chatting about the special chamber Albert James was riding in. Both parents were concerned for not only his safety, but his comfort. However, it was temperature controlled. "A.J." as we started calling him seemed to be taking it all in stride spending a lot of time sleeping. Four of the students came in and sat down. Two mal and two female, all were wearing 19th century clothing expertly tailored. This was something new, Emily and I admired their attire asking them where they purchased the clothing.

"Oh we had it made for us," replied one girl, "We found a company that fabricates special clothing, custom designs, things like that, we showed them pictures you gave us of people wearing these garments they simply copied them in a 3D generator."

I knew what they were having seen one over at Andara, Andy and Emily had trouble dealing with the concept of creating something from practically nothing, but I gave them a quick description of what they were, but it still didn't do much good. The clothing looked remarkably durable, and well tailored, the colors were bright considering everything was either brown grey white or black. The students all spoke to us in practically perfect English however; they were still having trouble with some of their pronunciations. Andy suggested that if asked to simply tell people they were from Germany or something like that.

When she wasn't in the co-pilot's seat Hanna was fielding questions from Zarka's girls about what Kagorian men were like in bed. This really rubbed her the wrong way, finally she said to the whole group,

"Listen, that part of my life is over, done, gone, I refuse to answer anymore questions you girls are on your own, good luck." Hanna was in a grumpy mood for the rest of the day, so I left her alone. I was still interested in why three of the girls were willing to prostitute themselves just to travel to Kagor and study we Kagorians. I realized social and s****l mores were a whole lot different on Falth than they were on earth, in fact I shocked them all when I mentioned the fact that Kagorian women who got into prostitution were shunned as social pariahs, and that was one of the reasons Hanna was so touchy on the subject .

"I know you're all eager to learn all about life on Kagor and all, but please leave Hanna alone, she views coming to Falth as a second chance, her past is a private thing just leave her alone."

Later, after things had quieted down and Hanna and I were working our shift, she looked over at me and said,

"I didn't mean to be short with those girls, but they were driving me crazy, they're in for a rude surprise, but live and learn, I just hope no one gets stabbed or shot, a hazard of the trade I guess."