The Witches of Eden: Part 2 The Calling by Nic (stardestiny@bigfoot.com) 16 January 2000 EXPLANATORY NOTES: This is a sequel to "On Eden's Bluff" and part 2 of an experiment. For as the next few days, I will be posting another segment or snippet from this series which I have titled "The Witches of Eden". In this story I've stolen a character from another fandom. I make no explanations and no apologies for this. If you know the character, great, if not, hope you enjoy it anyway, 'cause Blair is so much fun to write. Thanks to Amanda for the insight. Disclaimer: G889 belongs to Universal/Amblin Entertainment. Blair belongs to Pet Fly productions (although I wish they'd let me take him home!) The interpretations of G889 belong to me, as do the witches in this story. ;) --- The Witches of Eden - Part 2 The Calling ----------- There were many unexplainable things in the galaxy. Such as the dispute over light speed: was it attainable or was it not, and how did Earth's great ships conquer the vast distances between her ever-expanding girth of colonised planets? Or how was it, that in such a hostile universe, life had managed to emerge in the most inhospitable of places? Questions such as this were best left to the physicists and the philosophers, those with enough wealth or connections to spend the time in experimentation or deep contemplation. Blair Sandburg had neither of these things, but then again, the question he was interested in answering hardly had universal consequences. Did witches truly exist? His mother had told him such stories as a child, stories which caused him to think that she might have been a witch. Naomi had believed in magic and love and destiny, her beliefs taking her on a quest beyond the explored edge of the galaxy. Blair hadn't seen her since he was seventeen. Her disappearance left him with a burning fascination with the unexplained. Growing up on the space stations which stretched across Earth's solar system hardly gave him the chance to investigate phenomena when every sighting of a ghost proved to be a dead end. There wasn't a lot of scope for the mystical when enclosed in walls of metal. There also wasn't a lot of scope for a research project. Blair was an anthropologist, a career his guidance counsellors had constantly warned him against. Most of humanity's history was recorded in excruciating detail in the stations' databases, freely accessible by all. Station society had become a microcosm, easily studied and easily reproducible. The only thing left to study were the human colonies on planets and as these were carefully controlled by Interplanetary Expeditions there was little fluctuation from one to the next. Besides, every other grad student with interests similar to Blair's was already on the waiting list to study these societies, and the list was growing exponentially. Blair reflected that it wasn't fair. Had he lived even one hundred years ago the opportunities for a research project would have been much less limited. Now, though, humanity had studied almost everything that could be studied expect for the areas of cutting edge technology, and Blair had no interest in this at all. He couldn't fight his instincts, the basic qualities that made up him as a person. If he wanted to be an anthropologist, then by God he was going to be one. Which brought him back to the witches. It was a footnote in a thesis written by a Dr. Kathryn Danziger two centuries ago. A sub- culture of paganism, in all probability something conjured up by bored citizens with nothing better to do during the first few decades of the colonisation of planet G889. G889 was an oddity in history, technically the first planet colonised by humans, but no one really knew about it until fifty years after the fact when the corrupt Council government was voted out and the new administration made the archives publicly available. By then, interest in the story had long since faded and many other planets already had thriving colonies. One reference wasn't a lot to go on. Yet the tale had intrigued Blair enough to want to at least visit the planet, referred to as Eden by its inhabitants. Study after study had been done on G889 as an example of an isolated tribe maintaining their station-bred way of life whilst adapting to a new environment. And what an adaptation it had been - almost a symbiosis with the native species. Blair knew that even if the witches theory failed to pan out, he'd certainly have an interesting holiday. G889 was a common tourist destination due to the uniqueness of the local population. Redirecting his attention to his data reader, Blair's eyes scanned the brochure he'd been browsing. "Eden, home of Humans and Terrians living in harmony. Come see people travel through the ground! Visit the glowing sunstone caves! Behold the Great Spring Volcano! See the ferocious Danzig in the picturesque oceans!" Idly, Blair wondered if a Danzig really was the horrifying sea monster pictured. Maybe it was just a really big fish shot from an interesting angle. The thing was, when he correlated Kathryn's report with the widely available information, there were gaps. Kathryn had mentioned transportation tunnels which had been closed because they were too dangerous to use. And of course, the witches. Pieces, fragments of G889's early history, either deliberately suppressed or forgotten because they never existed. Blair was hoping for the former. It would make a great research project. --- End The Witches of Eden - Part 5 The Finding by Nicole Mayer (destiny@wwdg.com) 19 January 2000 THE FINDING ----------- "Take my hand, Blair," she whispered. "Trust me." Her red hair was flaming in the wind even in the moonlight; never before had Blair seen a visage which was so otherworldly. She smiled, reaching out with her pale arm and he grasped her fingers, breathing deeply. "Now close your eyes and jump." The power surged up through her, and through the tenuous connection between them, through him. He could feel it, the energy which surged from the planet, the deliberate power line stretching before him. It was *there*, it was tangible, it was so real and in that moment, Blair truly believed he could fly. The wind raked through him and he leapt. The sea far below him glittered with the light of two moons, each wavelet showing a sparkling phosphorescence and he could almost lose himself in the patterns. So beautiful, so close... ...the hand that held his was ripped away and he screamed her name even though he didn't know how he knew it. "Dureena!" He glanced back, terrified, but she wasn't watching him at all. Only a sorrowful shadow passed over her face while she maintained her gaze outwards, looking to the moons or to the stars or whatever she was seeing that he could no longer see. He'd lost it, lost the magic. He was falling. The glittering waves raced up to meet him and she soared overhead, too far away now to ever help him, and he realised that he was going to die. He'd fallen too far, a falling angel.... A dark shape erupted from the ocean and brought him home. Blair opened his eyes to see the bewildering sight of the hotel room, illuminated as eerily by the twinned moonlight as his dream had been. His dream. Running his hands through his hair, Blair left his bed and walked softly to the window. His research was getting to him - now he was dreaming about flying with witches. A week here now, and during the first moment he'd discovered why Eden was so popular even though it required a good two months cold sleep to reach it from Earth's solar system. There was something magical about Eden. Blair knew that perhaps he was enamoured with the planet because it was unfamiliar. Yet it seemed to hum with an energy he'd never felt anywhere else. He belonged here. It was tugging at his soul. He laughed into the darkness, softly, gently chiding himself for his romanticism. Blair could hardly stay on Eden forever. If it were to be the topic of his dissertation then he would get away with a few years at most before academia required his on-station presence. Conversely, if his search revealed no further information, he would be going home very soon. The thought caused Blair to pause. Home. Where was his home? He felt no particular attachment to the space stations. Like his mother, he was a wanderer. So why did he want to stay on Eden so badly? The dream came back to him, the dream, the red-haired witch. Blair wondered where that image had come from. He'd seen her so clearly, an image dreamed up in his own mind because there was no reference he could relate it to. The people of Eden he'd met so far were entirely consistent with station folk. He had yet to meet one of the hybrids, then again, it was said that you could not tell the difference between a hybrid and a non-hybrid unless you happened to catch one trilling or travelling. Blair's eyes were drawn to the ground, illuminated by soft moonlight. What would he do if a Terrian or hybrid surfaced right in that moment? It would be the most amazing thing to see. As if on cue, a muted rumbling reached his ears. Blair found himself half-hanging out of his window as instinct took over and he strained his eyes to see anything out there in the shadows. Another rumble, a gasp, and then suddenly Blair was wriggling out of the window, the rational side of his mind telling him that he could go to any circus to see hybrids exhibiting themselves, the rest of his mind arguing that it wasn't the same as seeing a natural planet traveller. His foot caught on the edge of the window and he tugged at it impatiently, realising too late that he needed that arm where it had been. Blair tumbled to the ground most ungracefully, the exact opposite of the falling angel he'd been in the dream. Silence reigned once again. "Probably scared it away," Blair muttered under his breath. Then he realised he was being, what was it called, racist? Species-ist? "Him. Her," he amended to himself and began walking towards the shadows of the trees, speculating that perhaps the ground had been disturbed. "Whatever." His quick search revealed nothing, but by now Blair was fully awake. The night air was invigorating. And after watching the old news report before he'd retired to bed, there was only one place he wanted to go. Eden's Bluff. The place where Bess Martin had jumped centuries ago and somehow managed to survive. It wasn't hard to find the beach, all of Olde New Pacifica was designed to lead in that direction anyway. Some fifty years ago the town's administrators had decided that it was time to stop expanding and return to the original, old-world charm of the place. After all, Olde New Pacifica was one of Eden's primary landmarks and the most popular tourist destination. One could even visit Devon Adair's newly-restored house and see the plaque dedicated to her and her followers. The sight of moonlight on the water caused Blair to pause, feeling the eerie tingle of deja-vu. He resolutely ignored it and tried to push the memory of falling from his mind as he walked up the well- worn path to the top of Eden's Bluff. And there he paused. For there was a figure already up there, standing imposingly on the edge, staring into the distance. Blair felt his heart jump. Was it possible that witches still flew? He crept minutely closer, not wanting to make any loud noises which might startle the potential jumper. Not knowing why, Blair fully expected to see the woman from his dream, so it took him a while to reconcile the expectation with the image he was actually seeing. This was no traditional witch. It was a man, impossibly tall, with broad shoulders and a well-muscled physique. Blair found himself feeling slightly disappointed, it was probably only another midnight wanderer. Yet the longer Blair watched, the more intrigued he became. He crouched, an attempt to hide himself because he did not want to intrude on the man's privacy and he felt quite the voyeur. The man did not move. Not the slightest motion. From his vantage point, Blair couldn't even tell if the man was breathing or not. Time passed, an hour, perhaps two, Blair had no way of marking the time and now he was becoming worried. He couldn't be watching a statue, could he? But no, his human instincts told him that it was a person standing on the edge of the cliff. A person who'd been frozen there for hours. It wasn't right. So Blair began to move again. Slowly at first, then with increased confidence as it became apparent that the man had no clue he was there. Blair reached his side and stared again. "Um...hi," he said. No reaction. Blair waved one hand in front of the man's face. Still nothing. "Are you okay?" Blair tried. "I don't want to be rude or anything, man, but you've been standing here for a few hours now and you've gotta believe me, that just isn't normal." Blair reached out one hand to touch the man's shoulder. "Maybe-" He broke off as the man suddenly came alive with a sharp intake of breath and a stumble backwards. "The lines...." the man breathed, sounding dazed. "Incredible..." Then he shook his head and suddenly focussed on Blair who still had a hand on his shoulder. "Hi," Blair tried again. "You were standing a little close to the edge there and I thought I'd pull you back." He stared at the man for a moment, drawn to eyes which held an undefinable quantity, something that made Blair think of magic. The gaze was broken as the man mumbled, "Thanks," and suddenly turned, striding away. "What did you see?" Blair asked desperately, not wanting to have wasted his entire night for a two-second conversation with no answers. Yet that was all he was going to get. When the man had reached a patch of ground where the soil looked quite disturbed, he threw his head back and sank into the earth. Blair had just seen a real live Human-Terrian hybrid. "Cool!" --- End. The Witches of Eden - Part 8 The Arrangement --------------- "Hey!" Blair cried out, catching sight of a familiar figure. When there was no response he repeated his call and began to sprint in the direction of the person he'd been searching for the past few days, ever since his research really took off. Blair rounded the man and skidded to a stop, directly blocking the man's path. "Hi, I'm Blair Sandburg," he offered, holding out his hand. The man just stared at him in disbelief. "We met the other night, up on Eden's Bluff...?" That got a reaction. "Right. Thanks again. Now if you don't mind...." Blair didn't give him a chance to finish the excuse. "Actually, I do. You see, I'm here on Eden doing a very important study and it's imperative that I get some information from actual Hybrids." He paused, his eyes anxiously darting across the man's face. "You don't mind if I call you that, do you?" There was an almost imperceptible shake of the head before the man grunted, "Why don't you try the library? Or the circus?" "Already done that," Blair lied. "The circus is full of people flaunting what is, in my opinion, a fascinating natural ability. I need to speak to the people who really use their gift, if I don't get some real data soon then my project's gonna be cut off and I'll be destitute!" He gave the man his best puppy-dog stare, the gaze that usually got him anything from anyone. Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if it would work in this case. "Find someone else," the man said. "I don't have time for this." "But there is no one else!" Blair protested, getting a little desperate. "Do you know how hard it is to even figure out who's a Hybrid? It's not like people advertise it and I can't exactly go up to someone and ask them, that's like total rudeness." Again, that calculating gaze. "You think this isn't rude?" But the words weren't as harsh as they sounded and Blair gave the man another grin mixed with the *look*. He was finally getting somewhere - and again Blair was glad of his gift to be able to talk almost anyone into anything. "Well," Blair said lightly, "it's not exactly rude, it's more of...okay, you're right. It is rude," he conceded. "So will you help me?" The man laughed, then glanced at his watch. "I need to get back to the station, but if you're that desperate for an interview, I guess I can fit you in over lunch." Blair's smile was huge. "That's great, man! Thank you so much for doing this, you don't know how much it means...." "Woah, hold it a second, kid," protested the man, lifting his hands in protest. "I can't promise that I'll be that much help. I don't know that much about Terrian culture." Effortlessly brushing aside the concerns, Blair said, "So where should I meet you?" The man gave him the name of a small cafe down by the beach, a place Blair was already familiar with. "Get a table on the terrace," he suggested. "Sure." "I'll see you then." With that, the man finally strode past Blair on his way back to work. "Hey wait!" Blair called, just remembering something. "What's your name?" The man paused and looked over his shoulder. "Jim Ellison." ~~~ "No man, I think you're a witch." Jim stared at him. And then burst out laughing. "Yeah right, I'm a witch. Like they really exist." Feeling slightly hurt, Blair protested, "They do! Well, they did, it's there in the records of this planet if you know where to look. Bess Martin, she was the leader of a whole coven of witches." He grabbed the file he'd brought with him, hastily leafing through it. "There, look." Jim looked. It was a photograph of several women of varying ages, all wearing long dresses and smiles. Every single one of them looked exceedingly happy. "These are the witches?" "Yeah," Blair confirmed. "I'm still trying to figure out who they all are, but this one," he pointed to the woman in the centre of the photo, the one with masses of curly hair similar to his own, "is Bess Martin, the first one who figured out to fly." Sighing, Jim rubbed his temples. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, kid, but every single person in that picture is female. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly the right type to be even called a witch." Momentarily, Blair frowned before his boundless enthusiasm caught up with him again. "That doesn't matter," he said, waving aside Jim's protest. "It wasn't about who they were, it was what they could *do*. "They could see things no one else could see," Blair finished triumphantly. And Jim flinched. "I'm right, aren't I," said Blair, softly now. He was making headway here. "You see things, things that you can't make sense of but you know they're out there and they're calling to you." "How in the hell do you know that?" Jim burst out, jumping to his feet to aggressively stare into Blair's eyes. "What are you, some kind of voodoo freak who can read minds?" "No," Blair whispered, his heart pounding. "I saw it. In my dream. Jim, you're part Terrian, you *know* what dreams mean on this planet." "You're not even from this planet," grunted Jim. He moved back a little and Blair felt minutely safer. "Why would they pick you to communicate with?" Blair had no answer to give him, but as usual, his mouth kept running. "I haven't quite figured that out yet, maybe because I came here to find out about the witches and maybe the planet needs to have people who can see and use these things to maintain the balance and you could be the only person who can do it and I could be the only person who understands this so maybe," he was working up for a big finish, "I came here because I was *meant* to help you." Staring blankly at him, Jim said the only thing he could. "What?" And suddenly they were both laughing. The tension was gone and Blair relaxed into his chair, glad to see Jim doing the same thing. Maybe this could work after all. "Seriously, man," resumed Blair when they'd calmed down somewhat, "you see things and I'm the only one who has the vaguest idea what it is. So what if I help you out for a while? Together we can figure this thing...." "Sounds good," Jim mused, nodding. Then he focussed his eyes on Blair. "But what's in it for you?" "Um..." Blair hedged, not wanting to destroy the tentative rapport between them but knowing at the same time that if he lied now he'd never get anywhere, "...research notes for my dissertation?" "You want to study me?" "Yeah, I guess that just about sums it up." Jim sighed, and it was a long one. He appeared to be weighing up the options in his mind and Blair fervently hoped that he'd pick the right one. "I'd keep your name out of it," Blair promised. "No one ever has to know it was you." Suddenly, Jim looked at him directly and Blair wanted to shiver under the intensity of that ice-blue gaze. "I need help," he admitted, slowly. "That night you found me on the cliff, well, it's not the first time it's happened. Or even the second." "I'll help you deal," Blair promised. "You gotta trust me on this, I'd never leave you in a situation where you'd get hurt." The scrutiny continued and Blair bravely met the stare, knowing that he wanted this. And finally, Jim smiled. "I think we have a deal, Sandburg." They shook hands and Blair fought the impulse to whoop. He figured it would take Jim a while to get used to the more exuberant side of his personality. "That's great, man!" Jim groaned, and muttered under his breath, "What have I gotton myself into...." --- End.