Constellations Characters + Glossary

Yanyu: Words, speach or spoken language in Mandarin 言语

Aeh/aer pronoun note: In this time period, 400 years earlier, the pronoun aeh/aer is used as a general singular pronoun i.e. "When a student breaks a rule, aeh must go to aer scheduled detention sessions."

Flash Back in Time Part 3

It turned out that when Echo said she would forward Amandla's complaint about the animae crisis, she meant that she would contact Julia Mars, the director of Constellations herself.

An airweave note was written and passed through a link the size of a bathroom mirror hanging in the air in front of Echo's wall to wall, corner to corner view of Soliara's skyline. In her own office, Julia Mars read the airweave memo, presumably. Moments passed before the small communications link expanded into a portal tall enough to pass through and low enough to step over, which Julia Mars did now in patent black Oxfords magically animated on the sides with gnomon wands that gleamed as if reflecting a passing strobe light.

Julia Mars, a woman with a military background, stepped over the bottom of the portal with a commanding mix of military leader and catwalk model. She had the height to look not unlike a goddess even in a pantsuit. Hers was night sky blue, bare whispers of cloud cover moving across the fabric almost too slow for the eye to catch. Without the hair growth and nourishment spells her company developed, one could imagine it taking decades, perhaps a century, to grow out the healthy amber waves that reached to her hamstrings. One could imagine a thousand years of regular trims, two steps forward, one step back.

A thousand years ago, Julia Mars had been Justin Marius, before gender transitioning. Surely spells helped with that too.

The first thing the director did was tell Yue to leave. "100k a year, the salary of an intern magician in the airweave mail department. If you tell anyone, you will be cut off. That's the only incentive you need, right, Yue Nimbus?"

"I don't plan on talking," said Yue, and she gathered her animated starfire skirts around her as she stood. "I won't tell anyone. I want the cash flow, not to save the world." She left behind an accusatory gaze for Amandla, and the office doors felt the mood in the room and opened without being asked to let her go.

"Now," said Julia Mars, "Echo's call was right." Amandla would have expected the boss of the company that invented magic to kick Echo out of her seat if she wanted to sit, or conjure up a throne, but, amazingly, the director sat on the corner of Echo's desk, one leg crossed over the other, feet dangling. It put the toes of her gleaming shoes inches from Amandla's knees.

And finally, finally, words came back to her.

"Listen. I am with child." Amandla's hands were already cupping her bump. "And don't call me foolish or blame me for getting pregnant. My partner and I always wanted a child. Why should I choose to live or for the baby to? How will I support her if I can't get a magician's degree?"

Mars stopped her voice with a mute spell.

That had been a rhetorical question — to be followed by ever so much more that Amandla had to say to this woman — but as her tongue and mouth flapped, they made not so much as a hint of sound.

President Mars went on as if she couldn't see Amandla's jaw working up and down. "We don't allow lawbreakers to attend our school. When a student uncovers a problem, aeh is expected to discuss it with aer professors, academic advisors, or Constellation's liaison.

"We're past that now. I'm about to offer you a deal, just like I did Yue Nimbus. It isn't because Constellation is admitting fault, or capitulating to blackmail. Which reminds me. Before you try to record this as if it's some kind of confession: your gnomon, please. No more recording, no more imposing your narrative on this company's decisions, and no more op-eds."

No one and nothing moved, except Amandla's glass gnomon, which flew to Mars and stopped before her in midair. Slowly, taking her time, Mars reached up and took the wand, closing five fingers around it one by one.

"If you must share what you think you learned, you won't do it with the aid of magical smoke, mirrors, illusions, or sound bites."

If Amandla could have spoken, she wouldn't have anyway. It was so clear, becoming so clear, that Julia Mars would use practiced bureaucracy to squash dissent. So clear that Mars did not care about the people her company hurt. And that she was skilled at hiding behind her own precedents, her own pre-established rules, as her excuse to silence dissidence.

Amandla had to wonder, how long had the president of Constellation been practicing this form of manipulation?

A hundred years? A thousand?

As Mars continued, she changed the crossing of her legs, as if she were getting more comfortable, and Amandla could do nothing except try to project feelings of disgust and disappointment in her face.

"So back to your deal. Constellation doesn't capitulate to blackmail, nor do we admit fault. However, we prefer to avoid conflict, and you have nothing to gain by talking, so let's come to an agreement. First, consider what you have done. Did you just try to blackmail the company that provides your eternal life, your education, and would have provided you with everlasting employment? And for what? We don't need you to keep quiet. If you were to tell the world what you think you know, what would our customers do in protest? Refuse to pay for animae, stop paying immortality fees, just give up and die? No one is going to give up their immortal lives.

"Yet I will meet your demands. You and yours will never pay for animae or immortality fees ever again. Though you have been expelled, Constellation will pay the tuition of the first in your family to pursue magical education.

"And even still, I'm wondering how much you get out of the deal, ultimately. Because no one can ever know about our deal. No one can suspect you once thought you had reason to take it upon yourself to blackmail the company. You will not be able to tell your daughter. Ever. You won't be able to tell anyone. People would ask questions. Which means, when people ask about your income, you will need to be able to answer them. You will still need to work for the rest of your life; you will need to look as if you're paying your own fees.

"It needs to look as if there is no deal, so I have added a stipulation. Should your daughter apply for college, you will, like many families, give up your color subscription. The whole family will go without color spells for her final year of primary. That is the cost of Constellation providing an animus you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, and paying tuition for an education you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford. Now consider your daughter's immortal life, and yours, and that of any other offspring your descendents may have, taken care of.

"Remember, you would die if not for this gift."

Yes, Amandla had once gone to magicians college. And yes, Inyanga's immortal life and magicians college education would be paid for by Julia Mars herself. But the girl could never, ever, know.

Mars didn't say it out loud, but their immortal lives depended on it.

#

Inyanga got sick of the shame fast.

"How many women, working how many years, does it take to send one girl to magicians college?" she asked.

"Two of us, for hundreds of years," said Grandmama Amandla. Her plump lips broke into a childish smile that spread to her eyes, creating the only creases in her fresh, eternally young face.

"And still we have to give up our color spells?"

"Immortality leaches the color from the skin. Would you rather give immortality up? Your umama and I will age immediately, and pass from this world, but think of the savings, ndodagazi yami! You will be able to afford your color back, and all the magicians degrees you want."

Inyanga had another idea. Kyuma was teaching her and her friend Yanyu to drive. The girls could both get part-time jobs making deliveries.

There was only one problem. The age old one.

Fear.

"What if it crashes?"

"It can't crash. It's magic."

Inyanga sat in the driver's seat of the levitating moto. To save up for tuition, she will make short order deliveries. All she has to do is tell Kyuma.

And learn how to drive a flying vehicle.

As a warm-up, Inyanga liked to idle the moto just six feet in the air above the city street (which was mostly pedestrian only by these days). She floated only a little higher than her head height. Once she asked Yanyu, who got into the delivery gig first, "Can't I just do deliveries on the ground?"

"Not when half the places you're delivering to are in the sky, starfire brains."

Right. That's why the motos were in the sky. Because the businesses were in the sky, and many wealthy folks had penthouses in the sky. They would hover up above the rest of the condo building. Say a wealthy magician wanted catered dulces from The Cloud — pan dulce, cakes, croissants — and were too busy party planning to drive themselves. That's where Accieo Moto came in. That's where Inyanga and Yanyu came in.

Before taking off, Inyanga dared herself to tell her parens she was taking a job. Maybe the adrenaline would help her fly?

"Umama, I want to get my color subscription back, and I will pay for it myself. I want to work part time. I'm going to get a job like Yanyu, making deliveries in a moto. I won't let it take way from my studies, and I will learn to drive safely. Can I?"

She took her eyes off the road, which she wasn't even traveling down anyway, to look at Kyuma and read her.

Kyuma's face was flat, thoughtful, unmoving. After a few moments she nodded.

"I will let you drive part time if you make a deal with me. Let's not tell your grandmama."

"Not tell Grandmama?"

"No. I don't think Amandla will understand. We'll tell her you got bursaries. And my salary went up a little. And the cost of the magic color subscriptions went down a little, a welcome back promotion. I don't think Amandla will understand if you take a job, because she has worked her whole life to send you to school. She worked her whole life to send me, and I didn't go. She will want you to focus on your studies, and not let anything distract you. But I understand how being different will distract you, and how it will hurt to not feel like yourself. I'll cover for you. We all have secrets, let's keep this deal between the two of us."

Thank you for reading Inyanga's star in Constellations, please give a star if you enjoyed reading it.