Mekos nodded and Davro leaned forward, the disk in his hand.
“Ow!” Mekos put his hands over his ears. “That sound! It hurts my ears.”
“I apologize.” Davro adjusted the disk with his thumb. “I forgot your heightened senses.” He swept his arm down the length of his nephew, not touching him. “You have an injured ankle.”
“He fell off a roof,” Aradella said.
Davro smiled, showing white and even teeth. “As the Reaver. All of Empyrea enjoyed those episodes.” When he held the disk over Mekos’s left ankle, he winced in pain, then Davro drew back. “There! It is repaired. You are easy. It takes us years to repair those Earth humans we pick up. When we got Kaley’s grandfather, he had only weeks to live. Although, as you saw on the playboards, we can bring Earth people back to life after they’ve died.”
When they looked blank, Davro said, “Many of the people on the boards died long ago on Earth, but we revived them. We love talent and creativity and we don’t want it to die out.” He looked at Ian. “May I?”
Ian shrugged as though to say,Whynot?
Davro moved his hand before the little man. “Except for the missing half of a leg, you are perfect. If you had the leg here, I could reattach it.” His eyes twinkled. “But that lizard is still searching for the rest of you.” He turned to Aradella. “Do you mind?”
The drink had relaxed her, but she was impatiently waiting for things to be explained. She opened her arms to give him permission to inspect her body.
Davro held out the little disk before her face. “Good! That mask has caused no damage.” He moved downward and when he got to her stomach, he gasped. “I have never heard this sound before,” he said softly, then closed his eyes as though in ecstasy. “Our bodies can no longer do this. We...” When he looked at Aradella, his eyes were so soft they were like a rain puddle. “You are ovulating.”
Aradella pulled back. That was too intimate and way too embarrassing!
Davro put his disk away. “You are in perfect health. No flaws at all. But you...” He smiled at Aradella. “Tonight would give you a son. Wait until tomorrow and you’ll carry a girl. Males are faster and die quickly. Girls are there for the long wait.”
Surreptitiously, Mekos and Aradella touched hands.
Davro stood up. “My sister would chastise me for dawdling. Would you like food? Rest? Bathing?”
“We would like to know why about everything,” Aradella said.
“What we have seen is not what we expected,” Mekos said. “You people have done terrible things to us. You divided men and women.” He held up his left arm. “You put chips inside us. Why?”
Davro walked to the far side of the room, then turned back. “How do I explain that we destroyed ourselves?”
“Does that signNOOhave anything to do with this?” Aradella asked.
Davro sat down as though energy had left his body. “It has everything to do with it. It meansNoOne Offended.”
“Offendis the word that upset Qip,” Ian said. “Darr had to give him a drink to calm him down.”
“I need to check the medicals on dear Qip. I miss him very much! Did he finish his mechanical man?”
“Darr is my friend,” Ian said.
“Friend,” Davro said. “Only Qip can put a soul into a machine.Wecannot do that.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Yuzan is the home planet of the people here on the island of Empyrea,” he said. “We are intelligent people and our technology is advanced. We can travel through space and visit other planets. We can do remarkable things.”
“And you used all that knowledge againstus!” Thanks to the drink Davro had given her, Aradella was calmer than her words sounded.
“Not at first,” Davro said. “Long before we found your planet, we destroyed ourselves. The truth is that our many successes hurt us. We became jealous, competitive, and angry. Technology became overshadowed by what we werefeeling, and those injured senses began to manifest themselves in violence. Murders were committed, corruption, thievery, burned buildings. We didn’t even know we were capable of violence—certainly not against each other.”
He paused, obviously not wanting to dredge up the bad history. “Someone came up with the idea of making everyoneequal. The theory was that if all people were the same, there would be no more hatred and anger. The process of equalizing started generations ago. Babies were created in tubes so the division of the sexes could be eradicated. If the cells were male, they were injected with female hormones and the other way around. Equal. People were neither one nor the other. They—”
“But what about my grandmother?” Mekos asked.
“Ah yes, my sister, Vian. While her cells were developing in the tube, it was seen that she had a special ability. No one wassure what it was, but they knew her brain was different. As I said, we like creativity, so she wasn’t changed. After she was born, it was found that she could foresee the future. It’s why she was made one of the Seven. And because her body was not changed, she could give birth.” He gave a fond look at his nephew, then sighed. “Besides our physical bodies, there were great changes made in the society. People who owned more than others caused hurt, so it was decided that all people would be paid the same. I am a doctor and I earn the same as a street cleaner. Today on Yuzan, we look alike, dress alike, our living areas are the same. There is—”
Aradella interrupted. “And if you aren’t the same, you’re sent to Abicis.”
Davro grimaced. “As hard as it was tried to make everyone alike, there were differences and they offended people. When a person was as pretty as a model or as ugly as a toad, it hurt the feelings of others. Different people tend to get more attention and that caused great anguish.”
