1 One & Only
We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them.
He could not recall where those very words were uttered or written. A travesty. Being part of the Ndinkuzi was no child's play, sages must have robust memories for easy tutoring… and for posturing as well.
An eagerness to flaunt knowledge and wisdom is a blessed flaw among pedagogues.
Ikechi, clad in black clothes trimmed with brightly coloured Ankara patterns along its necks and sleeves—leather trousers, wooly turtleneck and glossy shoes; a glass cup of palm-wine cradled in his right-hand, index finger and pinky adorned with gemmed-silver rings; gazed through the spaceship's vista window showing the multicoloured spark-filled darkness.
A marvelous sight, baring his weakly reflected features on the window-glass—pink lips and a generous nose adorned a hard face, eager ears on a bald head; eerie aquamarine eyes behind the clear lenses of black-framed digi-glasses.
Countless times he gazed at the void's starscape, yet the sage relished the golden space age's wonders.
The spaceship's vastly alloyed floor rumbled lightly, nucleonic-engines powered the spaceship through the stellar tides. The spaceship was well lit with halogen-bulbs, its manufacture a sophisticated mix of metal, plastics, stones, wood and eldritch alloys. Interior decoration was economical; paintings and symbols adorned walls and floors. The symbol of Ikechi's order among them—an eye within a triangle, within a blazing sun-disk surrounded by a snake swallowing its tail.
Despite the embellishments, it was functionality over aesthetics.
Wires, hazard signs, and vital machines; ports, computer-access ports, communicators, and public-address units lined the decks. Ikechi's gaze wandered with his mind, hand swirling the glass cup of "palmie". Ikechi left the private quarters to marvel at the galaxy immediately the Sethson came out of faster-than-light speed.
Ah! The Sethson.
Appropriately named for a space vessel belonging to the Ndinkuzi. Seth's legacy, the third son of Adam and Eve. Inheritor of Adam's knowledge, and proliferator of said ken. The Sethson was a space-barque; three hundred meters long, one-eighty meters wide. There was metallic tang in the air; Tachyon-engines did that. The mechanisms of said machine propelled the spaceship to great speeds, enabling it cover astronomical distances faster.
Man reaching out to the celestial plane, wandering the galaxy's many worlds like the first awestruck foreigners to set foot on Africa.
Oh Africa, Ikechi mused.
Long away was he from Earth, in time and space. Ikechi had never set foot on humanity's Home-world, vowing to visit that once-dark continent. Much had changed in the five hundred years since mankind took to the stars. New colonies on new worlds, new frontiers explored by the vast seething mass of humanity.
Some with glee, others trepidation, some in a bid to flee from life's woes on Earth; and so many other reasons individuals boarded those nuclear-powered, belly-bloated, varyingly alloyed, gleaming space-traversing vessels; tails burning as bright as their destinations.
Ikechi sipped his palm wine, savouring the taste as an index finger pushed up his black-framed digi-glasses. Mind swimming through the knowledge of then and now, of when and how, of boos and wows of the times.
Languages changed, cultures and peoples mutated, the ancient hands of entropy ever at work across the galaxy. Old things passed away, some lucky enough to have a tombstone in the memories of the populace. The discovered planets altered the intrinsic and extrinsic features of Earth's children. For many the foundation remained stalwart, some cutting off completely from the continent and planet that spawned them.
Wabeze Ikechi was no exception.
Somewhere in the Milky way, a young solar system of seven planets now known as the Chinua system, became the new abode for Ikechi's patriarchal ancestor. His name lost in the annals of time, remembered in deeds under the epithet Pariah.
Thought patterns once erratic straightened to that singular train of thought, providing the rails on which the wheels of memory rolled on. Ikechi remembered places lost in time. Brows creased with his contemplations, there was a missing puzzle piece.
Igbo, remembering the tribe that spawned him. Other valid bits and pieces but then… there was a country once, wasn't there? It seemed to have been erased from history.
A lull in Ikechi's reveries reasserted environmental awareness. He felt the spaceship vibrating as it plunged through the aether. Seeing the calming blue radiance of the sun, Chinua. Ikechi visualized the bustle and hustle of Achebe, the capital world of the Chinua star-system. Chinua's scholarly peoples' culture prided lore, erudition oozing from their very pores.
The sage picked-out other planets, especially his homeworld, Pariah's Respite; visible as a green orb with orange and purple streaks.
Home.
Shaking off his musings, motioning to sip palmie, Ikechi discovered the cup was empty. Simultaneous with his sigh of disappointment, an explosive wave of oven-hot air blew him away. The Shockwave spun him, slamming him against the wall.
There was smoke in the air…there's a fire somewhere.
Ikechi was dazed, little cuts on his face bled. Wincing and groaning as his body ached all over. More explosions shook the spaceship, it trembled with the fever of parasitic infestation. Shaking his head and blinking to rid the disorientation, Ikechi made sense of the deck's speakers' terrified screams.
Brigands! And so close to home!
Equilibrium regained, Ikechi made to his suite through fire and ruin. The door split down the middle, sliding away to the sides, revealing well-lit blue-white confines. The room filled with books and curios. Ikechi ignored all these, heading towards the drawer that held weapons.
Far down the corridor he heard shouts and gunshots; the battle was near. Quickly Ikechi donned the black armoured-vest, holsters, joint- and shin-guards; black gloves, magazines, blades, and tactical-explosives. Strapping a sub-machinegun to the small of his back last.
Cocking the pistol, Ikechi noticed the sparks at the door… someone's trying to cut their way in.
Crouching by the mahogany-framed purple bed, digi-glasses feeding him tactical information, Ikechi aimed. Two brigands in black entered the room, Ikechi opened fire…
The battle for the Sethson began!
