Inalienable Right
The door shut behind Veneela as she departed Ayesha’s room and when it did, Ayesha’s smile faltered and then fell. Her hand that was resting on her fox’s blue fur was shaking. Ayesha looked at it, willing for it to stop, but it did not. Those hands, rock steady after countless delicate operations, did not want to stop moving. They wanted to be in motion as if trying to shake off the burden they had to carry.
Ayesha’s tremors did not stop at her hand. They moved up her arm, over her shoulders and down her body. Every cell felt the same; to shake away the guilt, and nothing Ayesha could do would force them to stop.
She stood quickly and Azure yelped loudly, his nap disturbed by her movement. He scowled at her and then jumped into his basket, curling back up to a ball. He wanted to sleep and the lady’s tribulations would not take him away from that.
Ayesha moved to the replicator. “Raktajino,” she said, her voice a weird staccato. The computer complied, and Ayesha picked up her drink, sipping it. As soon as it touched her lips, her appetite turned, and she suddenly hated it. It tasted bland and cold, in spite of the steam rising from the mug. She placed the drink back on the replicator and hit the button to tell the machine to reclaim it. The drink disappeared, and suddenly, Ayesha felt parched and thirsty.
She stepped back away from the replicator, screaming internally. This was killing her.
Taking a deep breath, she stood at her desk and looked out of the window, to the void beyond. “Okay, Ayesha,” she told herself. “Calm down. Calm down. Let’s walk through this, step by step,”. Her voice sounded so different, it may well have been someone else talking.
“I did it to save lives. I did save lives. I averted a conflict,”
“But you played God,”
Ayesha jumped, as her inner self took this time to fully berate her.
“I did not,” she heard herself say. Okay, so she was doing this.
“That civilisation has been altered because of you. They won’t experience development because of you,”
“Normal development was them coming into space armed with weapons and ready to kill anyone they saw,”
“You don’t know that,”
“It was a call I had to make,”
“Says who?”
Ayesha flexed her fingers. “My job is to save lives. I will always choose to save a life than take them,”
“You do not get to decide Ayesha. You do not give or take lives. God does that,”
“WELL I DON’T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT GOD OR THE PROPHETS OR WHATEVER DAMN ENTITY CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Azure yipped loudly and angrily.
Then silence descended in the room. Ayesha could feel her heart beat, could feel the blood circulate in her veins. She took several deep breaths and then raised her hand. It was rock steady, not a tremor in sight.
Ayesha closed her eyes briefly before walking to the door, grabbing a jacket from the hanger. “I’m going out,” she said to Azure, before leaving her quarters and going for a walk.
Azure simply turned around in his bed and went back to sleep.