Deep Blue

It hardly even looks like Zulat anymore.  The thought crept into Bondor’s mind surreptitiously as he stood at the corner, waiting for the tram to take him to the Zulian Space Center.  Zulat…the ‘Blue’ planet…some joke.   Bondor closed his eyes, clenched his jaw and tried to rid himself of such thoughts. 

But they kept creeping back, despite his best efforts to eradicate them. In desperation, he forced himself to think of Project Z, the work that had totally possessed him – heart, mind and soul – for the past year.  Maybe the exploration of Zortax would uncover another race, a new civilization.  A nice consolation after the disappointing discoveries on Vertal.

Bondor quickly rebuked himself for entertaining such a colorist thought.  What if I should slip and make the wrong kind of remark…and suppose someone should report it?

Standing by the curb, he cast his gaze down at his feet, muddily reflecting the blue orb of his face.  Bondor squinted, noticing the crows’ feet around his eyes, the deeply-etched lines crossing his forehead, even tiny rivulets of skin furrowed on either side of his aristocratic nose.

His face was framed on top by a thick mass of hair, its once-dark blue color now more than half white.  Bondor stared at his face for a long time; it was still a handsome face, particularly for one in his seventh decade.  But there was something more, something symbolic.

We’re all in our seventh decade here, even our youngsters, he couldn’t help thinking.  Out time is running out.  We have two, three more decades at the most.  Then they will have overrun us…those filthy, ugly, despicable little green bastards will have it all, then…

A stirring, galling wellspring of fury started rising, falling, then rising further within him as he tried to avoid examining his feelings about the Vertians.  Instinct battled social pressure within his soul as the tiny personage of Reason swam frantically within the maelstrom, desperately seeking something substantive to grasp onto.

He glanced up, out into the sky.  But that also was blue.  ‘Zulat for the Zulians.’  He’d seen that scrawled somewhere.  Well, why not?  What the hell was wrong with that?

But we’re all Zulians now, snapped the outer voice within.  Greens as well as Blues.  We are all one now, all the same.  HA!

The word ‘Zulian’ had once had racial, as well as nationalistic, meaning.  To be called a ‘Zulian’ meant that you were once a Blue citizen of Zulat.  But the government had changed that time-honored tradition.

Now, decreed the political ‘leaders’, all inhabitants of Zulat – be they Blue, Green or the mixed Yellow citizens – were to be referred to as ‘Zulians’.  It seemed a simple, even inconsequential thing at first.  But the psychological impact had taken its toll:  one group had been granted a new national identity; the other group had been stripped of its racial identity.