The sound haunted me that night. I cried alone in our small kitchen, wondering why I cried then when I had not for my father. As I lay on the cold floor, I heard a soft scratching at my family's door. When I opened the door, I found a small haemanthus bud nestled in the red dirt, not a soul to be seen, only Eo's tiny footprints in the dirt. That is the second time she brought flowers after death. Since song and dance are in our blood, I suppose it is not surprising that it was in both that I first realized I loved Eo. Not Little Eo. Not as she was. But Eo as she is. She says she loved me before they hanged my father. But it was in a smoky tavern when her rusty hair swirled and her feet moved with the zither and her hips to the drums that my heart forgot a couple of beats. It was not her flips or cartwheels. None of the boastful foolery that so marks the dance of the young. Hers was a graceful, proud movement. Without me, she would not eat. Without her, I would not live. She may tease me for saying so, but she is the spirit of our people. Life's dealt us a hard hand. We're to sacrifice for the good of men and women we don't know. We're to dig to ready Mars for others. That makes some of us nastyminded folks. But Eo's kindness, her laughter, her fierce will, is the best that can come from a home such as ours. I look for her in my family's offshoot township, just a half mile's worth of tunnelroad away from the Common. The township is one of two dozen townships surrounding the Common. It is a hivelike cluster of homes carved into the rock walls of the old mines. Stone and earth are our ceilings, our floors, our home. The Clan is a giant family. Eo grew up not a stone's throw from my house. Her brothers are like my own. Her father like the one I lost. A mess of electrical wires tangle together along the cavern's ceiling like a jungle of black and red vines. Lights hang down from the jungle, swaying gently as air from the Common's central oxygen system circulates. At the center of the township dangles a massive holoCan. It's a square box with images on each side. Pixels are blacked out and the image is faded and fuzzy, but never has the thing faltered, never has it turned off. It bathes our cluster of homes in its own pale light. Videos from the Society.
My family's home is carved into the rock a hundred meters from the bottom floor of the township. A steep path leads from it to the ground, though pulleys and ropes can also bear one to the township's greatest heights. Only the old or infirm use those. And we have few of either. Our house has few rooms. Eo and I only recently were able to take a room for ourselves. Kieran and his family have two rooms, and my mother and sister share the other. All Lambdas in Lykos live in our township. Omega and Upsilon neighbor us just a minute's worth of wide tunnel over to either side. We're all connected. Except for Gamma. They live in the Common, above the taverns, repair booths, silk shops, and trade bazaars. The Tinpots live in a fortress above that, nearer the barren surface of our harsh world. That's where the ports lie that bring the foodstuffs from Earth to us marooned pioneers. The holoCan above me shows images of mankind's struggles, which are then followed by soaring music as the Society's triumphs flash past. The Society's sigil, a golden pyramid with three parallel bars attached to the pyramid's three faces, a circle surrounding all, burns into the screen. The voice of Octavia au Lune, the Society's aged Sovereign, narrates the struggle man faces in colonizing the planets and moons of the System. "Since the dawn of man, our saga as a species has been one of tribal warfare. It has been one of trial, one of sacrifice, one of daring to defy nature's natural limits. Now, through duty and obedience, we are united, but our struggle is no different. Sons and daughters of all Colors, we are asked to sacrifice yet again. Here in our finest hour, we cast our best seeds to the stars. Where first shall we flourish? Venus? Mercury? Mars? The Moons of Neptune, Jupiter?" Her voice grows solemn as her ageless face with its regal cast peers down from the HC. Her hands shimmer with the symbol of Gold emblazoned upon their backs—a dot in the center of a winged circle—gold wings mark the sides of her forearms. Only one imperfection mars her golden face—a long crescent scar running along her right cheekbone. Her beauty is like that of a cruel bird of prey.