“A teacher must teach the truth, Quaestor.”
“Oh Goah, you’ll flog a dead horse until…” Marjolein shakes her head. “Can’t you see what you’ve done already?”
Edda folds her arms and holds her gaze in silence.
“Your excursion to the Joyousday House—that was desecration, Goah’s Mercy. Of place, of art, and—much worse—of soul.”
Edda’s eyes narrow. Ximena feels the fire of her rage, but Edda keeps her expression cool.
Marjolein sighs heavily. “The Meermans are asking for maximum reparations. And removal of your office.”
“Removal…?!” Edda’s eyes widen. “No, you can’t… My students—!”
“I know what you mean to them, I just spoke with a few outside. But I also have a responsibility to them, and to everybody in Lunteren. To be honest with you, Edda, I’m not sure you deserve the public pulpit, and by allowing you to keep it I might be harming not only your students, but also yourself.”
Edda blinks in silence. Ximena feels her anger dissolving in fear, paralyzing her.
Marjolein continues, “And it’s not just your students that you’re harming. Aline is in the cell next door. Why?”
“A- Aline didn’t—”
“Because she’s your friend, that’s why. She follows you everywhere, like a puppy, same as your students. Where are you taking them, Edda? Do you even care?”
“I, uh…” Edda’s voice is unnaturally weak. But her thoughts and feelings flow strongly through the psych-link. She’s a Juf, and teaching is her life—the life of every Van Dolah. Their calling. What would Dad say if—
“With the trust of followers comes the responsibility of leadership. And it’s a heavy burden, believe me. Please tell me you understand what I’m saying.”
Edda nods in silence and sinks her head.
Marjolein takes a deep breath. “I want to believe you. I don’t know if I do, but I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. For your students. And for your father. He doesn’t deserve this—not in his last weeks.” She lifts her chin and watches Edda in expectant silence, as if waiting for a word of gratitude.
Edda doesn’t move.
Hold your temper, Edda, Ximena thinks.
“Very well,” Marjolein continues in a formal voice. “This year’s karma increase to the Van Dolahs is hereby reassigned to the Meermans in concept of reparation. You shall spend one more night in this cell. Upon release, you shall go straight to their home and offer a sincere apology. A sincere apology, you hear me? And above all, you shall keep your outlandish theories to yourself.”
Edda doesn’t move a muscle and keeps her eyes locked on her sandals. But her outrage burns deep into Ximena’s guts.
Four
The Ices of Austerlitz
“So what have we got?” Miyagi paces the stage, hands still placed on his back. It remains dark in the amphitheater, but Ank has conjured a full moon and dashing Milky Way across the starry sky, enough to bathe the professor and Ximena’s fellow students in a creamy gleam. “A rebellious teenager, a worried father about to be ritually dispatched, a pissed-off Quaestor. There’s still something… missing, isn’t there? Something with more, hmm, historical weight.”
Mark turns to Ximena and whispers with an ominous voice, “Aliens.”
Ximena chuckles, and Mark, clearly pleased with himself, returns his gaze to the floating dreamsenso scene over Miyagi’s head, where Edda, still in the cell, sleeps soundly on her side, head over hands.
“Same date,” Miyagi continues, pointing at Edda, “6th of December 2399, close to midnight. Edda van Dolah enjoys her last hours of penitence in Lunteren’s arrest cells. But,” he pauses for effect, “she’s not alone.”
Ximena’s eyes scan the cell methodically. It is dark, but it’s a small empty space. “She’s alone,” she mutters.
“Aliens,” Mark says, smiling radiantly at her.
“Where?” Ximena doesn’t stop her scrutiny of the scene.
“In the Second Wake.”
Ximena turns to him. “How do you know?” Mark’s oh-so-blue eyes seem to glimmer in the moonlight.
Before he can reply, Miyagi says, “Ank, please alter phase to the Second Wake.”
The static scene with Edda in the cell changes abruptly, and yet nothing has changed: Edda still sleeps, the door, the toilet, all in place. But the light… Ximena’s jaw drops at the sudden sharpness of her visual senses, like she was blind before without knowing. As a simple user of the dreamnet, Ximena has never seen the Second Wake—the Traverse, as it is colloquially known—with her own eyes, but she is of course familiar with its traits, and recognizes it instantly.
Everything—every object—radiates its essence vividly. Ximena intellectually knows there are no shadows in the Traverse, but now, in full immersion, she can finally grasp in awe what a true shadowless world really means, even something as unspectacular as an arrest cell. Every surface glimmers its intricate secrets in gray-like radiance. Every wrinkle, every imperfection. No spot remains invisible.
And Edda, oh how her body radiates life, a dazzling blue aura glows over her skin and scintillates intensely, in high contrast with the gray vividness around her. Ximena knows that Edda’s blue sparkling reflects her inner world—she is dreaming intensely, and it shows.
And, as Miyagi promised, she is not alone.
And, as Mark promised, it’s aliens.
A tall, elongated figure, vaguely humanoid, is standing next to Edda. Its skin—white and hairless, almost of silky quality—emanates an intense red glow that glints even more wildly than Edda’s blue halo. Ximena cannot see the front of the head as it is leaning over Edda—obviously inspecting her closely—but the back is as featureless as the rest of the body: no clothes nor ornaments, no hair, just the thin trunk and four, long, boneless limbs resembling two arms and two legs, none of which touch the floor.
“That’s Rew,” Mark whispers. “Finally.” He is smiling, eyes locked on the alien.
Ximena frowns at him. “You mean Yog, right?”
Mark gives her a strange side glance. “Where do you get your history from?”
“First Contact is near,” Miyagi says before Ximena can reply, “but it is not happening tonight. You’ll have to be patient. These are just the preliminaries. People,” he waves a hand
