Premise:
As promised, this chapter will finally show Toq's POV. It will cover his description of the events spanning between his last days on Sixam and the moment he left Cassy a few chapters ago. I decided to drop it in here because it also spans the same events Cassy was able to see in his mind at the end of the last chapter, this way you readers can know exactly what she knows now.
This said, have a nice read!
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From Toq's diary
Antaan once told me that many earthlings have the habit to write down a report of their daily activities and of their thoughts in the form of a diary, and I was then suggested to try doing the same as an attempt to put order to my thoughts. I am used to write concise activity reports, not all the messy thoughts passing through my mind, I do not know clearly where to start from. Using the local language slows down the process but, on the other hand, it provides terms for phenomena which I would otherwise be unable to describe.
I am Toq, I was born in the standard year 10561, and I belong to the 839th explorative crew. Actually, I belonged to the 839th explorative crew, but some habits are hard to change.
I reached the Earth and this epoch 4 terrestrial years and a half ago, following a failure of our spaceship teleport engines and communication system. The local geopolitical asset, as well as the condition of our fellow Sixamians, differed largely from the information at our disposal at the time and, albeit my efforts during all these years, still cause me some confusion from time to time.
Then... Well, if the purpose of this exercise is to put order to my thoughts, I should probably try harder to organize them better. Thus, I guess that the best I could do is to start writing from the beginning.
Conventional year 10587, Sixam
Arizhel: T'ases, did you perform the last checks on the spaceship engines?
T'ases: Everything seems to be working as expected, ma'am.
Arizhel: Get ready to take off then, everyone!
Everyone: Yes, ma'am!
Antaan: You did a good job, Arizhel. You can rest, now.
Arizhel: Yes Sir!
Without any need for further orders, we reached our assigned slot in the spaceship and took off soon after.
We were waiting for the batteries to recharge in between two teleportation jumps, as we did thousands of times before. We were trying to recover our energies and get ready to sleep but, before we could notice, the computers recorded a failure in the activity of the teleport engine. 0.026 seconds later, they also notified a rupture of the communication system, calculated that we would not have been able to repair it in a reasonable amount of time, and that we were too far away from any base to look for assistance. Thus it opted for hibernating the whole crew, activating the propulsion engines and heading towards the closed base, on the satellite that Earthlings are used to call Moon.
Without further notice, we were thus dragged to the hibernation capsules and brought to a suspended living state. We realised what had happened just afterwards, when the capsules started to unfreeze us upon our arrival.
The process left us visibly confused for some time. For how long did we remain hibernated? Did the orders of the Elder's Council change, in the meanwhile?
Arizhel: We need to repair this spaceship and retrieve the information about what happened, as soon as possible!
Antaan: First of all, calm down. Then, return back to your tasks! T'ases, go check the teleportation system. Arizhel, Toq, find a way to communicate with the Headquarters. Gunnosh...
Without hesitation, we did the only thing we were good at: executing the orders of our Captain. Yet, everyone could clearly perceive chaotic thoughts overlapping in all our minds: that was the worst accident we were ever involved in, could we ever return back?
Arizhel: We have travelled purely by propulsion engines for more than 32 parsecs, for how long did we remain hibernated?
Toq: I am trying to connect to the Headquarters, but they are not answering at the usual radio frequency.
Arizhel: The fact that no one is around the observation base on this satellite is not normal either, at least four crews should always be presiding over this place.
Toq: It is of no use, all our communication channels are cut out. All we can do is intercept the local terrestrial signals.
And this is when we realised that the Elders' Council plan had advanced considerably during our hibernation. But we were also quite perplexed: why were sixamians living only in a very small portion of the planet Earth? And why were they mostly relying on primitive human technology?
Arizhel: Call Antaan, all we can still do is to probe them to gain the information we need.
Antaan: We need to probe them to collect more information!
I did not give importance to it back then, but Antaan and Arizhel really used to always agree on everything. That was probably why she was selected as his second.
Antaan: Are the engines able to take off?
T'ases: Yes sir!
Antaan: Then this is your order: take at least 15 sixamians among the ones living on the planet. We do not know if they will show hostility to us or not, so sedate them. Then bring them here.
Everyone: Yes, sir!
The order I then received did not surprise me at all, it was obvious to everyone. Earthlings, modern sixamians included, struggle to understand it, but for us the best and fastest way to collect intel from others is to use telepathy, and that was my role in the crew.
What I saw strongly upset me, even if I could not really point out a reason why yet. The history and geopolitics arrangement I saw were very different from any hypothesis we could make, but what really was incomprehensible to me at the moment was the sensorial information I could perceive alongside their memories. At the moment I did not know what to do with that information, it took me a long time to realise they simply were their freely expressed emotions.
Antaan: When you terminate our analysis, share your findings with us all.
I gladly took that order, at least it was something I could understand easily. So I used telepathy again to share the information I collected with the rest of the crew.
They were able to quickly assimilate the notions I acquired about the local language, the basis of life on planet Earth and their history and geopolitical asset. However, all the rest was too confused in my head at the moment, and they just ignored it to focus on what we needed.
Arizhel: I cannot believe the Elders' Council surrendered that easily to such a foolish plan! That is impossible!
We were still trying to come up with a new plan to follow when the local exploration crew found us. Antaan ordered us not to oppose any resistance, so we did.
And this is how we reached New Sixam, and met the local inhabitants.
The local authorities decided to give us all a lodgement, and we were proposed to work at the space agency of their Country. No orders, just kind offers and suggestions. In simple words, we felt lost.
Antaan: The Elders' Council does not exist anymore, and even if the outcomes seem a bit different than what we expected, it appears that the contemporary Sixamians succeeded in moving on this planet and surviving. Thus, also my authority over the rest of you is terminated, I cannot give you orders any longer. It is up to you to decide what to do, now.
It was not easy, in particular at first. We were offered a job at the local space agency, working only 8 hours a day as the local regulations requested. Many, such as Arizhel, were unable to get used to the huge amount of free time we were suddenly provided and often expressed their frustration at the laziness of the locals. Others spent most of their off days laying in their assigned beds and staring at the ceiling, unable to find a purpose of their own. I have been uncertain about what to do for several weeks, and I often resorted to Antaan's advice to ease the processing of all that new information.
Antaan: I can sense your uneasiness, Toq, but I cannot understand where it comes from. Does this have anything to do with what you saw in the locals' minds, upon our arrival?
Toq: (Uncertain) I... I think so.
Antaan: Toq, I still remember when you were a young recruit, you were always looking out of the window waiting for something more interesting than the lecturer's orders.
Toq: ...
Admittedly, he was not wrong on this point. That was also the reason why I spent so much time in detention, back then.
Antaan: Your questions will not find an answer remaining in this apartment. Nothing is restraining you from leaving and exploring this place, it is up to you.
Toq: ... I see.
Back then my crew mates rarely left the lodgement we were assigned, if not to work or stock up on food, at most they would cautiously explore the surroundings. I ended up being the first one to move apart from the group, and to investigate the bizarre habits of the locals.
It was not easy, not at all. Even if I learnt the exact function of all the bizarre objects surrounding me in the minds of the locals I had examined a few weeks earlier, that place felt so alien to me. The blue sky, the intense brilliance of the local star, the unusual weather conditions, could I really get used to it? It was so different from the Sixam cities where we used to live before, and which had turned into ruins over all those years...
And then there were the locals. Were those creatures even Sixamians? They could barely use any telepathy, and they made their emotions guide their lives just like the humans described in our preliminary reports. And, above all, they were so suspicious of us... All I could perceive from them were bad thoughts about me, bad enough to almost convince me to give up and return back to my assigned lodgement.
But then I met her, Cassiopeia
She was the opposite of anyone else. Now I am able to give it a name, she was curious to learn everything about us and our lives before reaching this planet. She also seemed fascinated by all the differences between us, and instinctively always tried to explain to me all the oddities I found out day after day.
We had never felt the need to give a name to the way we felt before.
I and the other sixamians of my generation were the product of the genetic engineering studies conducted by the original sixamians. Their biology would have made it impossible for them to survive on the planet Earth, and thus they decided to mix human genome with their own to produce a hybrid species exhibiting human tenacity to the local environment, and able to bring on the original sixamian intellect and culture for the next millennia.
They did not show any trace of what the earthlings call emotions, all they thrived from was knowledge and advancement. They often showed their dissatisfaction with the results obtained with us hybrid specimens, we never met the criteria they set in terms of telepathic abilities, shapeshifting potential, intelligence and rationality. Thus they guided us step after step, using telepathy to infuse in us their knowledge, ideals and way of thinking. Not hearing their voices in my head anymore was quite disorienting for me upon our arrival on Earth, to be honest.
Earthlings instead seemed to freely let their emotions be the leading force behind their choices, it was so important to them that their language contained a lot of terms to define them.
With Cassiopeia, I quickly learned how to recognize happiness, sadness, and anger. And I also realised that they were all familiar feelings to us too, I had just never felt the need to give them a name before.
And this was slowly changing my way of thinking. Day after day, I noticed to appreciate spending time in non-productive activities, such as playing games, watching paintings and learning about many other trivial things surrounding me, and I quickly managed to pinpoint that the reason why I was liking those activities was that they made me feel happy. Was this what the original sixamians were trying to keep us away from?
So I started leaving my assigned lodgement more and more often, raising many questions from my crew mates.
Arizhel: The locals are so primitive and lazy, why are you wasting your time lowering yourself to their level?
Toq: ...
Back then I was not able to find a suitable answer to such a question, so I just wanted to ignore them for as long as I needed to understand which was the answer. But Arizhel has never been the kind of person to give up so easily.
Arizhel: ... they do not even realize that the current climatic alterations they are causing, as well as the worrisome lack of natural resources of this country, could lead this society to collapse within a few hundred terrestrial years. After all the efforts sixamians have done to find a safe home on this planet, we should not let their lazy attitude turn this place into yet another inhospitable place for life! We have all the abilities and resources to do it, we should just organize again and use our training in space exploration for...
Many of my crew mates followed whatever she said, as she was the only one who made any attempt to take the lead and shout orders to everyone. I was unsure about what to do as well, and resorted to Antaan more and more often for advice.
Toq: I am unsure about what to do. Arizhel's talks are very rational, but thinking about returning to explore space for long periods of time, I...
I what? Felt bad? But since when did the way I felt mattered in the choices I took?
Antaan: This place is very different from how Sixam was, the Elders' Council cannot order you to do anything anymore. It is all up to you, there is no right or wrong.
Antaan answered me with a little smile, and I could perceive his intent to be encouraging. It was a bit unsettling, it was the first time he talked to me like that. Yet, that little talk helped me to push away Arizhel's words from my head, and to go out again that evening.
I kept meeting Cassiopeia very often, almost every day. Since when she told me she considered me as her friend, I could perceive her happiness every time she spotted me among the crowd, and I felt much more lighthearted when leaving my assigned lodgement to go meet her as well.
Yet, just when I was starting to grasp the complex thoughts and emotions coming from her, they started to shift towards an incomprehensible direction again.
I already knew the theory behind it, the one about the chemical reactions triggering attraction and desire among individuals of the same species among terrestrial animals. Yet, I naively never considered that such mechanisms could have occurred to her.
Even more so, I really did not expect at all was that those same sensations and instincts I could read in her mind immediately could ever resonate so strongly also within me.
On that very moment I just wanted to remain there, enjoying the moment without worrying about anything else. But, eventually, we had to separate and return back to our respective houses, and this is when I started to realize what I had just done.
"I am Toq, I am born in the standard year 10561, and I am the telepathic specialist in the 839th explorative crew." This is what I kept repeating to myself on the way back home, trying to keep in mind who I was. How could I really be the same person who was holding Cassiopeia just a few minutes earlier?
I was still wondering about what had just happened when I walked into the common kitchen leading to my assigned lodgement. My thoughts had to be quite loud and confusing at the moment, because everyone suddenly stopped eating and turned to me and resorted to words to clarify their perplexities:
???: What happened, Toq?
? ?: Why so confused?
Toq: I, ehm...
As if answering to them was not hard enough already, also Arizhel stepped in a few seconds later. She came from the study, most likely she was still calculating projections and working on her plan. I could already perceive she was mad for having been interrupted, and unceremoniously resorted to telepathy to understand quickly the events that caused my thoughts to be such a noise annoyance to her at that moment.
What she saw in my mind was probably quite upsetting also to her, because she took a few moments more than expected to recompose herself. She seemed confused at first, but then anger took over and she started shouting at me:
Arizhel: Toq, you are such an irresponsible person! How much more do you want that earthling to drag you down to such primitive instincts? This is inappropriate!
Toq: But...
Arizhel: There is a reason why the locals are so much more backward than we are, it is because of their emotions and instincts that make them take an irrational choice after the other, they are unreliable and selfish!
Toq: I...
I was about to answer back in the same tone, but I could not find the words. She was right, I was being irrational. But did that necessarily mean I was wrong, though?
So I just turned my back to her to go to my assigned lodgement, openly ignoring the rest of her ranting. She was always so mad at me because I was "wasting my time with earthlings' emotions" but, ironically, the most emotional person in that room was usually her.
For a few months, I spent all my free time with Cassiopeia. I was like addicted to her, I was not sure it was right for me yet I could not avoid looking for her.
But questions were re-emerging every time I was alone.
Which person was I turning into? I clearly was not like the Toq who step on this planet for the first time, but I am not like the locals either. Long story short, I knew clearly who I was not, but not who I became.
Cassiopeia was all the opposite instead, she always seemed so confident. I could perceive all the plans and projects emerging in her mind day after day, she seemed like a volcano of new ideas. But how could those future plans resonate with me, when I was not even sure about who I was on that given day?
Talking with her about it seemed so difficult, even back then I was aware that asking her to slow down would have made her suffer. Yet, the more time passed the more it seemed urgent to do so.
I had prepared a talk, to try to explain to her what was passing through my head as clearly as possible. Sometimes having to rely on words instead of telepathy can be so exhausting...
The very moment I saw her I realised there was something else upsetting her, yet I tried to initiate the discussion I had in mind.
Toq: Cassiopeia, I have so many thoughts in my head right now, I am struggling to make sense of them. I think I need more time to understand what they mean.
Cassy: ... That's understandable. But I don't think we can afford to waste time right now.
Toq: What are you referring t...
And that was the moment when the thought of what she wanted to tell me became clear in the whirl of thoughts she had in her mind, and so I knew.
I was already so close to be completely overwhelmed by all the changes that occurred in those months, but realising that she was pregnant of a baby, a baby she conceived with me, and that she was expecting me to live with them as a normal earthling family... It was just too much, too sudden.
I do not remember exactly what I did, I could just perceive her disbelief and delusion when she saw me leaving without saying a word. It hurt, but all the contradictions in my mind were hurting me even more at that time.
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§HermioneSims§ corner
And this is all for today, folks! The second part of this chapter will be dropped quite soon, stay tuned ;)
Also, in the related forum thread, I decided to answer to some perplexities by writing down some more details about Toq which didn't make it to the final version. I think it is fair to leave those same information in an easier to find position, so I'm copying what I wrote here:
- Toq had never interacted with a pregnant person in his whole life, the little he knows on the topic comes from notions he read from some archive about human biology when on Sixam. He wasn't born from a pregnancy, either, just like his peers. Reading this between lines, it also means that on Sixam the model of a nuclear family was not at all the norm, and that it saw it for the first time when moving on the Earth. More details on their attitude towards children will come in one of the next few chapters.
Now, so that I'm the kind of person who always focuses on the most pointless details, I wonder... Do they have a belly button or not?
-The second point instead it's about his telepathy: it is indeed a bit stronger than the one of modern sixamians', but it's not so strong to know everything in others' minds effortlessly. He can mostly sense the most shallow thoughts in others, which often are quite confusing and quickly pass from one thought to the other all the time. To really navigate other people's minds he has to focus putting the fingers to his temples just like modern sixamians do, and at that point he's actually quite skilled in navigating through the past memories of that person. Since when he moved to Earth he was never shown using telepathy seriously, though.
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