Dusk Read Free

Unicorn. Not that they would have
anyway, for they were angry and spiteful people, and resented
having such an unspectacular daughter they couldn’t brag about to
their friends. So she went to see the Beast before the execution,
and instead of a snarling, angry beast, she saw a sad, wounded
creature that was wounded to his very soul by treachery, by
ingratitude.
    — Maybe she saw a little bit of herself in the
Unicorn Beast.
    — Quite possibly. Either way, the next day, the
day of the execution, Cellius found the cage unlocked and empty.
Both Aryal and the Unicorn had disappeared, never to be heard from
again.
    — What happened? Where did they go?
    — Most think Aryal spoke the Creature’s name and
he took her away to the treasure and they lived there until the end
of time.
    — And how did she guess the Unicorn’s
name?
    — She didn’t guess. She just did what no one else
bothered to do. What no one thought to do.
    — She just asked.
    — Exactly.
    — So Dada, what do you think the treasure
was?
    — You tell me Dari.
    — I don’t know. Before I guessed gold, money,
candy but I’m pretty sure now it wasn’t any of that stuff. I’m
beginning to think there was no treasure. Maybe it was anyone who
actually could do what they needed to find it, actually had it
already.
    — You know I never thought of it like that. Maybe
you’re a wiser man than me.
    — No, Dada. Not me. You know everything.
    — Not everything Dari. The wisest man knows what
he knows, and what he doesn’t, and is comfortable with those things
he can’t. Sometimes, it seems like I don’t know what I should, and
I think I know what I can’t. Hopefully, when you’re my age, what
you do know will be clear, and what you can’t know will be even
clearer, so that what you don’t know can exist in an attainable
spot somewhere in between.
    — I’m not sure what that means, Dada.
    — Me neither, but I think, by the time you’re my
age, you will understand much better than I.
    • • • • •
    To Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain, everything seemed smaller.
He couldn’t tell if the launch station being so close to home was a
good thing or a bad one—if he had had to travel to Houston or
Florida, at least the entire process would have mirrored the weight
he now felt on his shoulders. The other scientists milled around
the inside of the large craft that levitated above the track
leading to the launch pad. The tension inside the massive cargo
barge, which had been converted into a mobile ballroom, was almost
tangible. The faces of everyone there, whether somber or excited,
were full of emotion. The hazy morning light that filtered in
through clear plastic windows that surrounded them gave everyone’s
face a morbid, orange glow. The pain of not seeing loved ones and
friends for another ten years, if ever, was visible. As clear as
the craft set on the horizon to take those loved ones away. There
were twenty scientists in all, each surrounded by several family
members and colleagues that had come to see them off. They moved
slowly over the metal-laced track toward the looming Unified
Nations Rosamond Land Dock in the distance, and the closer they
got, the more the ballroom felt like a mortuary. Some cried,
mourning those that still walked among them, at least for the next
hour or so. Cyrus stood with his wife Feralynn, his son Darius, and
his best friend, Dr. Alexander Kalem and watched the dust of
Antelope Valley float in lazy swirls as he felt the sting of his
choice—he was leaving this overpopulated rock forever. Cyrus, one
of the premier astrophysicists in the Unified Nations, had been
notified the moment they had discovered Asha. Ten years later, he
had been formally asked to join the team of scientist-pioneers that
would make up the first expedition to this planet they hoped would
become the sister-world to Earth. Only a few months later, the
Unified Nations Census had revealed the Earth now held in excess of
ten billion people—and that was