Beyond This White Horizon

SENATOR BOLFERE

| VI |

The coloured stared as their procession moved past the mid-docks. Kaimana thought the streets would be deserted since the festivities still wore on well into the night, but she was wrong. Lines of people, those who trusted her, those who wore the masks she made, those who knew her by name, they all stood watching her surrounded by Borgs and cuffed like a criminal.

The two hour trek from the lower to the upper-docks had Kaimana's ankles aching to sit down. By the time their boots hit the polished and pristine wood decks, her feet dragged and the escort slowed to a pace resembling her sputtering generator.

Murder.

The word banged against her skull over and over again like the clapper of a bell swinging back and forth. What had actually happened in that factory and why couldn't she figure out why her mind still screamed to keep quiet?

Even with her apparatus, her lungs began to squeeze too tight. The wrist , the one supposedly formerly healed by Hypashia, started to twitch and ache.

She could see the back of Tin's head ahead of her, a dark outline against the center ring of the Senate Docks. No matter how loud her yells of denial had been, he never turned around to look at her again. After slapping on the cuffs and throwing the accusation at her, he kept walking as if her struggle to make her case didn't mean a damn thing.

After a moment of struggling, their procession began to walk, and she realized her bug enthusiast had vanished. Now she stood subdued with a tight hold around her forearms from the Borgs on either side of her. The little girl reminded her of her small pets, always blending into the background and keeping watch. She hoped she would make it home.

Kaimana blinked back tears thinking about that. Home. That's were she wanted to be.

She wished she could look at her colour and not revolt at the sight of it. The bright golden hues of the riches surrounding them matched her strange, pulsing colour. It made her sick.

Buildings made of brick and stone instead of metal sheets and rotting wood. Air clear enough to see the tips of the Senate towers before them. The sound of generators built into the pristine decks what sucked the pollution from the air.

If Kaimana thought she could stand the sickening feeling of sharing the same air as those who thought they could hide in this place, she might have considered taking off her apparatus. As it was, she couldn't stomach the thought.

The gentle halcyon hues of the grand Senate buildings were a false comfort. She'd traveled to this portion of the docks many times to help repair generator failures and maintain bots under Senate care. The Bolfere family themselves often requested her expertise in fixing their own personal machines. This wasn't the calling they hoped to receive from her.

Within the great halls of these massive structures, all walks of life from the planet's surface convened on matters of state and the separation from the lands over the White Horizon. Senators from every dock and the occasional leader of gypsy migrators walked these halls during the conventions. Now Kaimana walked them.

Opulent staircases ascended on either side of them when they walked through the massive doors. Tin instead led them down the center hall that rose into a ceiling painted like the charts of the night sky before the smog. Her eyes drew up to see the constellations she used to study with Roule and her father.

Kaimana used to lay on the floor of her father's wagon and kick at the air while staring in awe at the maps and charts spread out before her.

"How many stars are there, papa?" she would ask.