Port No Port, home to the Hasheeni, had long been the domain of the Hasan dynasty; a neo-religious warrior sect who, long ago, abandoned the fragile ways of civilization and struck out in search of a new frontier. They had made it to the very edge of known space before their movement lost its momentum. There, on the edge of civilization, the Hasheeni built Port No Port.
Over the centuries, though little known, the remote port developed a something of a reputation. The place tended to attract the very dregs of society. Smugglers, pirates, and criminals who had pushed too hard and found themselves exiled from even the remote areas of known space ended up here. A certain breed of “spacer” in particular, those extremists operating on the terminus, eventually came to call the place a regular port of call, as had a similar variety of criminals who, from time to time, needed a place to disappear entirely. The Hasheeni were only too happy to welcome them.
The Hasheeni themselves were a race of dark skinned humans who were once known to inhabit various desert planets closer to the Core. They had been known as religious fanatics who adhered to a strict code of moral behavior, which had been, by and large, impossible to reconcile alongside the ideals of an upstanding Republic. As time wore on the Hasheeni found them persecuted for their beliefs. Eventually the majority of their people would abandon their fanatical ways in favor of the new standard. A small few, however; refused to accept this new mentality.
Somewhere around a thousand years ago, just prior to the formation of the old Republic, a number of Hasheeni extremists set out on a voyage to discover their prophesied homeland. Five hundred years later, after a slow migration away from the Core, the movement had been reduced to some million or so devout followers. Much of their history, between that five hundred years and two hundred years later when Port No Port formally opened its doors, has been lost or deliberately destroyed.
For the past three hundred years the Hasheeni had been on a slow decline.
At this point they had digressed into a shadow of their former selves. This new breed of Hasheeni began calling itself a ‘secret society’ and proclaiming themselves the protectors of some forgotten or unknown truth. Their moral code changed during this period as well.
Today the Hasheeni number less then ten thousand with each one calling Port No Port home.
“Welcome to Port No Port,” said the Hasheeni escort sent to meet Lancia at her shuttle in heavily accented basic. He bowed at the waist, bobbing his turban wrapped head. “The High Sabah would greet you in the Garden of God.”
“This way,” he indicated her to follow.
Though ornamentally dressed in flowing silks of scarlet and azure Lancia was not inclined to challenge the man. Two similarly dressed individuals appeared at his sides each brandishing long, curved weapons that seemed to combine the deadlier aspects of both vibro-blade and blaster rifle.
“You follow me now,” he suggested in a good-natured, albeit hard to understand, tone of voice.
Lancia found herself immediately drawn to the man, which was odd in that she tended to go for the higher-up bread earners rather then their menial go-to men. His well-developed body, rippling with shaped musculature, was barely hidden beneath the long robes he wore. Unlike the two guards, however; who wore the perfunctory grimace typical of hired muscle, the man did not carry a weapon or wear any protective headgear.
He smelled of patchouli and sandalwood.
Lancia forced her leering stare away from his swaying behind.
Port No Port itself was unlike most remote star ports she had seen in her life. The Hasheeni had paid careful attention to botany, incorporating long, coiling vine plants and tall trees into the construction. Sand, odd for a contained facility, was everywhere; on the floors, piled in corners and, occasionally, seeped down from the higher levels.
Small starships were required to land under their own power in a vast assembly area that, in truth, had more in common with a small desert then a star port. As if this wasn’t tricky enough, star pilots then had to contend with the various livestock animals that seemed to have free run of the star port.
Residents lived, for the most part, in a sprawling shantytown that looked as though the builders had simply transplanted their previous ghetto neighborhoods here without any real consideration as to where, exactly, the people would live.
“Wow,” said Lancia honestly shoving to get past an obstinate bovine that refused to move.
Port No Port sustained a barely viable trade-based economy and it showed.
The star port itself was constructed on the spiraling remnants of what had once been a luscious, habitable world, which the Hasheeni believed to be the last piece of a heaven that was long ago torn asunder by their angry deities. The chuck of planetary debris had long ago shed the last of its incredible momentum and now sat between the stars somewhere on the extreme edge of the Ado Sector.
A small moon with no planet to orbit, Port No Port was, quite literally, in the middle of No Where.
“How big is it?” Lancia asked nonchalant. “I mean, how many people can live here?”
The Hasheeni beamed. He tugged at his moustaches.
“In the great days we have over one million,” he opened his arms wide. “Now less then ten thousand lives here, mostly Hasheeni.”
She nodded. “Mostly, you say?”
“Yes,” he explained. “Many are aliens who live here and have left the galaxy behind. Some come, some go, some do both. We are many businesses.”
Puzzling at his phrasing and shifting dialect Lancia pushed on curiously, “How big is the place size-wise? My scanners were unable to penetrate your sensor masks.”
“Is the idea, no?” He smiled again and added, with a wink, “We are moon sized.”
Information, all of it, was valuable to Lancia. Alongside her primary objective this was a fact-finding mission. Everything she learned here would be invaluable in the coming weeks.
“I am amazed at the scope of these caverns. It must have taken years to dig this deep into the rock.” Lancia turned her eyes towards the ceiling once they had entered a corridor that seemed to be zoned residential and commercial alike. “Decades even.”
“Longer still,” put the Hasheeni man. He offered Lancia a hand into the hover-car that pulled up alongside the quartet. “Come, this is faster.”
The two guards bowed but remained dutifully behind.
Once alone the man looked over to Lancia from the seat of their conveyance and, offering her a hand, said, “You may call me Hassih. I am of the Sabah circle.”
Unsure if that was supposed to explain anything, Lancia simply nodded.
Their hover-car shot down the corridor at speeds an outsider would think unsafe. Despite the speed of their vehicle a crowd of onlookers followed behind. For the most part they would chase for a few dozen meters then, seeing it was hopeless, give up only to be replaced by two more curious Hasheeni citizens. Lancia could not help but note that they did not purport themselves as paupers, however; but rather more like children with an intense curiosity.
When the speeder passed over a seemingly useless but amazingly well manicured series of gardens which appeared between every different district they seemed to pass through Lancia turned to Hassih and asked how it was that, this far from a sun and natural resources, they managed to maintain such elaborate decorations.
“It is of faith,” supplied Hassih by way of an answer. “And it is of devotion. We people waste nothing, not even the light.”
Lancia shrugged. It seemed like she would be doing that a lot more in the days to come.
It was more likely that the Hasheeni had merchant contracts with the various smugglers that operated out of Port No Port. This would explain their supply of sand and water but not how they managed to pay for such necessities.
According to the information she had been supplied with prior to departure Port No Port represented a considerable portion of the areas breadbasket industry, which implied that, somehow, the Hasheeni had managed to develop a profitable form of agriculture.
“Is there anything to eat?”
Hassih nodded, “Soon. We make much of what you see here. There will be feasting in your honor.”
At this Lancia looked surprised.
“My honor?” she asked.
“Of course. Are you not the herald of Pike?”
Lancia blinked.
“Yeah. Yeah I guess I am.”
What have you gotten yourself into?
Lancia struggled against the ropes bound about her wrists and ankles. The water was rising too quickly. She would soon be out of room and out of time.
The thing below reached up and closed its wet claws around her chest.
Lancia tried to scream but nothing came out. In stead, her mouth open to shout, she ended up swallowing more of the salty liquid swelling up around her nose.
Will you try to kill me?
The voice echoed from somewhere inside her own skull, pounding against the walls of her cerebrum like buckshot. Caught between realities, the words repeated inside her head.
She was going to die; she was as good as dead.
And then the world opened up below her. A rush of luminescence and warm air reached up to embrace her and race across her flesh.
Falling, she breathed out and found herself getting lighter before remembering that her eyes had been pressed shut. Lancia struggled to force her eyes open.
A green meadow greeted her. No, not a meadow, she realized; a garden.
In the center of the garden, surrounded by a swarm of birds and butterflies, sat a man. He smiled at her knowingly and all of her fear went away.
In this place, he said, you are without burden.
Lancia fell to her knees and wept though she knew not why. The man, his radiant eyes watching her with all the love of a parent, reached across the garden to carry her into his arms. His skin, dusty brown like the others, was warm to her touch.
Held in his arms, her head pressed against his breast, she realized his size. Somehow, and she cared not how, he held her in his hands like an infant.
Had she always been this small, she wondered?
Or had the world always been that big?
Quiet now, the man suggested in a voice that sounded like the slow ocean waves of her home world. The sound of birds and insects, the sound of life without sentience, filled her perceptions. Her breathing fell into time with his and his in turn fell into time with life itself.
You have found it; the man bowed his head over her and kissed her forehead. His lips burned like the surface of a million suns.
Lancia opened her third eye and beheld him again, this time with understanding.
You will find it again; he brushed his fingers across her face. It felt to her as though the heart of beauty had touched her.
When? She asked.
You already know, he answered in her own voice, with her own lips. His answer told her that, insider her own self, she knew the answer.
How? She asked.
Through faith, he responded though now his voice was different but somehow familiar. You must trust it.
And now you must go.
The man kissed her again, once on each eyelid.
Open your eyes.
The drug, its effects fading, began to abate.
Lancia sat up, confused, and looked around.
She found herself naked, sitting in a small bedchamber furnished in throw pillows and lengths of crimson silk. The soft folds of a blanket under her bottom told Lancia that she was in someone’s bed but she could form no recollection as to whose.
The last thing she recalled with any clarity was being offered a beverage by Hassih.
No, there had been something before that, something she simply could not put her finger on. She vaguely recalled someone having mentioned a feast to precede her introduction to the Sabah himself.
And then…
Something cold brushed against her leg, or rather, in stretching her limbs, Lancia brushed up against something clammy and cool. She threw back the covers.
Lying on his stomach, a knife buried to the hilt in his back, was a dark skinned Hasheeni man. Lancia pushed him on his side, the head lolling unhealthily to the side indicative of a broken neck.
An image flashed in front of her eyes.
The Sabah! She had killed the Sabah…
… But something about that did not seem entirely wrong. In fact, looking upon his cold, dead corpse she felt a certain sense of accomplishment that she remained unable to place.
Whatever drug they had fed her was doing a serious number on her memories. She struggled, like a blind woman in the fog, to make sense of it all.
“Sabah,” asked the voice of Hassih from beyond the bedchamber. “Is all well? I am coming in.”
Oh shit, thought Lancia. Nothing like getting caught with your pants around your ankles in a dead mans bed.
