Rahmayel of Andromeda Part I

There! I’ve captured it. Now I can return home.

Shaisha picked me for a compassionate mission to this godforsaken planet, even though she knows how I feel about humans. Maybe because she knows how I feel.

“They brought it upon themselves. They deserve what they’re getting now.” We’d had this discussion many times over the past earth-century. “I predicted this when they started their ridiculous Industrial Revolution.”

“They’re like children, Rahm. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“They’ve been warned, and they still haven’t stopped.”

“They need our help.” As Dominion Ruler, Shaisha always had the last word, even though it was usually gently spoken.

I muttered angrily, but took the clear orb she was holding out to me.

“Fill it,” she said.

Now I’m holding a fragment of earth sky and ocean water in the little glass sphere, just like she ordered. It’s a lab specimen, something for our best scientists to work with to find a cure. I’m an artist myself, don’t know much about healing environmental illnesses. I live solely for beauty.

I pause before returning to my ship, and turn my little vial this way and that. I had been careful not to include any of the garbage floating just out of sight, or the trash flung carelessly on the beach. The reflection of sunset creates a path of light stretching across the ocean like a prayer. The beauty leaves me breathless.

With all those shades of gold, pink, apricot and umber surrounding me, I almost miss the young human sitting cross-legged in the sand, weeping. Except for her golden-pink skin, she reminds me of Penwyk, my dear mother.

“I keep cleaning up this little patch of beach,” she cries softly, “but every day more garbage rolls in. I can’t do it alone. If only there were wiser beings somewhere who cared about this poor fragile planet.”

I’ve never seen a human up close before, and I’m strangely moved.

“Shaisha cares,” I whisper, then add reluctantly, “And I care.” I feel a kinship to this woman.

“Hello,” I introduce myself. “I am Rahmayel of Andromeda.”