WHISPERS OF DREAMTECH

A Dreamtech Story

ISAAC PETROV

Future Notion Press

Copyright © 2022 by Isaac Petrov

Published by Future Notion Press — press@isaacpetrov.com

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this

publication are fictional and any resemblance to real persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental.

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 ONE

Alien Whispers

“
W hich of them are your proposed human
candidates?”
“Those two females, Master Rew.”
Two young girls—they can’t be older than sixteen—
walk side by side down the sidewalk and talk animatedly
with their heads close to each other. A horse passes by
along this sleepy residential street—Miel Way—pulling a
cart loaded with wooden barrels. The driver shouts a
casual greeting at them, but the girls are too absorbed to
notice the world around them.
They certainly don’t notice the two aliens floating
nearby, inspecting them closely. The two strangers are
there and not there at the same time, invisible to human
eyes.
For now.
“Their halos are unusually strong. You did select well,
Walker Qoh.”
“Their halos are the brightest I have yet seen in a
human, Master Rew. And I did find two simultaneously.

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That can hardly be a coincidence. These two specimens

must be genetically related.”
“They are not. Their aspects vary significantly.”
One girl is black, her thick, curly hair barely covering
her ears. The other girl is white, her hair long and straight,
her eyes a honey-hinted brown. Both are youthful, pretty
and wear colorful winter tunics, radiant in the early-
afternoon sun.
“You are the Human Whisperer, Master Rew. All I see
are two identical humans.”
“I do celebrate you can at least identify both as female.
Sex is a crucial biological adaptation in the ecosystem of
this world, and it does affect most social interactions. It is
an essential skill you must gain. Thankfully, there are only
two sexes to distinguish from.”
“Alas, two is one too many. When humans wrap
themselves with fabrics too bulky or loose, I do fail to
classify them. But these two clearly display the distinctive
shape and size of females. In any case, the potency of their
halos makes them ideal candidates.”
“Halo potential is not enough for selection. Inner
motivation is just as crucial. Can these two humans change
their world?”
“I have not yet studied their driving psyche.”
“Do so, Walker Qoh. Without delay. If they cannot
change their world, they are as useless to us as they are to
their world.”
“Yes, Master Rew.”

“
A line, look!” The black girl points at a passing
electric bicycle buzzing along Miel Way towards

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 Whispers of Dreamtech

where the colony meets the Veluwa woods. “Isn’t that your
mom?”
The white girl scoffs and shakes her head. “She’s so
busy with her Joyousday preparations, she didn’t even
notice us!”
The black girl sniffs the warm fragrance left in the
bicycle’s wake and smiles. “Oh, I think you have freshly
baked bread waiting for lunch, lucky girl. Ouch!” She stops
and rubs the back of her right leg.
“Edda?” Aline puts a hand on her friend’s shoulder, a
crease of concern on her brow. “Are you alright?”
The black girl—Edda—bursts into a lighthearted
laugh. “Goah, sorry. It’s nothing. Just… my calves are still
burning from all the dancing. Aren’t you sore?”
“I don’t spend my days tiptoeing around in a classroom
like a delicate princess. I’ve got muscles in my legs, not
porcelain. You need a nap, sister. That will fix you.”
“Spoken like a true engineer.” Edda chuckles. “And I’m
sure as Dem hitting the pillow. After lunch. Your mum’s
load made me more hungry than tired!”
The walkway is almost empty at this time of the early
afternoon in the sleepy colony of Lunteren. Nap time,
indeed. Edda sees an old man walking a dog farther down
the street. Elder Ramaker, of course. With Tweeny, his
Golden Retriever. Must be one p.m. already—Elder
Ramaker is as predictable as the Quaestor’s call to service.
He is a long-time friend of her dad. Since childhood, being
a boy neighbor of the same age and all that. Not quite
unlike her own relationship with Aline. Edda smiles at the
thought.
Elder Ramaker bends a corner and disappears from
their view behind one of the red-bricked, double-story
residential houses that flank the street.

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 ISAAC PETROV

Edda sighs. Such a familiar sight, and yet not meant to

last. Elder Ramaker is a few months shy of twenty-seven
years old. His Joyousday must be around the corner, too.
With a tint of sadness, she wonders who will take Tweeny
out afterwards.
“Edda?” Aline is snapping her fingers in front of her
face.
“Oh!” She chuckles softly. “Sorry, I guess I really need
that nap. I’m exhausted! The De Ridders know how to
throw a party, huh? I swear by Goah,” Edda gestures with
her finger over her chest, “today’s was the best Joyousday
of the year!”
Aline laughs as they resume their sidewalk journey,
passing by tiny fences and even tinier front yards. “Are you
surprised?” she asks. “With all that karma and power, they
can pull roses out of their asses if they want to.”
Edda notices the change of tone in her friend’s voice.
“Oh, come on. What can you possibly have against the De
Ridders? They deal only with renewables. So what if
they’re rich? We owe them most of our electricity, yeah?”
“Don’t be so naive. They might not be as eager as the
Sievers to break aws Balance, but they sure as Dem aren’t
above dealing with coal when they smell a chance to earn
more karma.”
“Oh, horseshit, Aline. You don’t know that!” Edda
says, rolling her eyes. “Besides, even if they did, how
could we possibly stop them? Goah knows we tried!
Remember our little action on the coal barge? We risked
everything, Goah’s Mercy! Imagine if they had caught us.
And for what? The Sievers just hired another fucking
barge! Truth is, we’re powerless, sister. We can’t change
the world.”
“We must!” Aline is breathing more heavily, her voice a
notch too loud in the sleepy street. “We must keep trying! I
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 Whispers of Dreamtech

know we can make a difference. You’ll see, sister. Tonight is

going to be big. You’ll see.”
Edda sighs and purses her lips. “If you say so.”
“Edda!” Aline pulls her friend to the side almost
violently, her eyes widened in anger—or is it fear? “You are
coming to the harbor tonight! Tell me you are coming!”
“Whoa, chill, girl! Of course, I’m coming!”
“I need you, Edda. Please, I can’t do this alone. Don’t
you dare fail me!”
“I won’t, I swear.” Edda touches her chest lightly, and
waves with her hands soothingly. “I’m coming, sister. How
could you even think I wouldn’t? I know how important
this is for you!”
“And for you, right?!”
“Of course! There’s nothing more important than aws
Balance! Come on, Aline. Let’s move.” Edda gently pushes
her friend back in motion. “It’s getting late. And cheer up.
Think about… your mum!” Edda points a finger at the
end of the street, at Aline’s house. “Her Joyousday is next
Friday! Just a week, sister! Aren’t you excited? I sure as
Dem am!”
“Yeah.” A hint of a smile softens Aline’s expression. “I
guess. The entire family has been busy with the
preparations for months. I’m a bit nervous, but I think it’s
going to come out pretty decently, actually.”
“It’s going to be epic! And the best is, your mum’s
going to meet Goah’s Embrace, sister! Think about it!”
“Aws Embrace…” Aline’s smile widens. “Yeah. I’m so
happy for her. And for your dad, too. His is in a couple of
months, right?”
“Hmm…” Edda purses her lips. “Yeah…”
“What?”
“We… My dad…” Edda meets Aline’s gaze. “We
haven’t begun preparations yet.”
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 ISAAC PETROV

Aline frowns. “Really? Why? Oh, it doesn’t matter.

There’s still time.” Aline gives Edda a spontaneous kiss on
the cheek. “And I’m happy for you, too. Hey, you are going
to be an elder! Why the long face, sister?”
Edda’s lips tremble slightly when she says, “She wasn’t
happy…”
“What? Who?”
“My mom…” Edda blinks and clears her throat. “Her
Joyousday…”
“I remember it,” Aline says, her eyes lost in the wall of
the house they’re walking past. “Three years ago. Wow,
how time flies. It was an amazing Joyousday. And she was
so… Oh, Anika was so strong, so beautiful… A force of
nature.”
Edda bites her lower lip. “She wasn’t happy, Aline.”
“What do you mean? She was beaming! I
remember—”
“You weren’t there!” Edda shouts, visibly startling
Aline, and a dog behind a house that begins to bark
angrily. Edda raises a hand in an apologetic gesture.
“Sorry. I- You weren’t there, Aline. After the festivities,
when it was only us—the family—in the Joyousday House.
It was…” Edda sighs, her expression darkening at the
memory. “It was…”
“What?”
Edda presses her lips, and with eyes shut, begins to
slowly shake her head.
“What happened?” Aline asks.
Edda exhales loudly and meets Aline’s concerned eyes.
“What if the Joyousday is not what it seems?”
Aline frowns, her eyes narrowing. “What do you
mean?”
“What if—you know—there is no…”

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“No, what?”
“My mom didn’t believe that… that…”
“Oh, cut that horseshit this instant!” Aline says, her
voice raised in anger. She points a finger to Edda’s face.
“How dare you talk such rubbish a week before my mom’s
Joyousday?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Edda raises her hands in a
gesture of surrender. “Doesn’t matter.”
They walk in silence for an entire block until they reach
a house with half a dozen toddlers playing or napping on
the front yard under the watchful eye of a man.
“Redeemed van Dolah,” he says, nodding at Edda.
“Woman Speese.” He smiles at Aline and skillfully picks up
two sleeping toddlers, one on each arm, and hands them
over to the two young women.
Between hushed words of love, Edda and Aline
warmly wrap each child without waking them up, and with
the competent help of the man, attach them to their backs
with flexible leather bands. With a curt parting gesture,
both mothers resume their walk home. Edda’s is just one
block down. Aline’s two more.
“I’m sorry, Aline,” Edda says after a long while in a
muffled tone. “I didn’t mean any of that. I’m just… tired
after the Joyousday party.”
Aline sighs and shakes her head, but her lips slowly
begin to curve into a smile. “Somebody needs a nap more
than baby Hans.”
Edda chuckles. “You can say that out loud, sister.” She
gestures with her head at Aline’s sleeping daughter. “But
not too loud.”
“Say hi to the family,” Aline says when they finally
reach Edda’s front yard. “And don’t forget about tonight!”
Edda rolls her eyes. “Goah, like you’d let me… Harbor.

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Seven p.m. I’ll be there, yeah?” She walks towards her

front porch. “I won’t fail you.”
“I know you won’t, sister. Sleep tight!”
As Edda enters her home, and Aline walks on, a nearby
alien presence observes them in eerie silence.

“
Y our assessment, Walker Qoh. Can the two human
females change the world?”
“One of them can, Master Rew.” As Qoh speaks, a
mental image of Aline complements her words. “This
female is a tool-maker in her society, creative and
resourceful. She is driven by a deep need to recover the
human ecosystem from the devastations of their earlier
predations. Furthermore, she is willing to assume
considerable risk to further her agenda. Combined with
the potency of her halo, I do rate her as one of our
worthiest human candidates yet.”
“I do concur. Do add her to the roster of official
candidates. Can the other human change the world?”
“Alas, no.”
“Do elaborate.”
“Yes, Master Rew.” The mental image of Edda crosses
between them. “This female is an educator in her society
—a repository and supplier of human knowledge. She is
comfortable with the privileges of her position. Although
intellectually inclined, she does not appear to be driven by
an irresistible motivation to better her world. Maintaining
stable bonds with her fellow humans appears to be her
main priority.”
“A conformist.”
“Indeed, Master Rew. I do sense her disregard for
change. More than disregard: fear. Alas, she does not
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qualify.”
Rew remains silent for a few seconds. “Her halo is
strong,” the alien finally says.
“It is, indeed. Alas, her motivation is not.”
“I do fear you might be too hasty in your assessment,
Walker Qoh. There is something stirring inside that
human. Something that reverberates with promise.”
“I do sense it as well. Alas, it is impossible to discern. It
could be trauma, terror, depression, psychosis—even
fantasies. Whatever its nature, it lies locked too deep in her
psyche to be of use to us.”
“Indeed. And I shall attempt to unlock it.”
Qoh does not reply immediately. “I do fail to
understand, Master Rew. There are other promising
humans that would profit from your attention.”
“Not like this human.”
“Perhaps not with such a strong halo, but certainly with
more defined motivations to change their world.”
“The potential of this human justifies the effort. Do
alert me as soon as she leaves the wake, Walker Qoh.”
“The human is dreaming right now.”
“In the daytime?”
“Her body required resting from unusual physical
activity.”
“Very well. I shall intervene now, and then you shall
monitor the human for alterations in her inner drive.”
“Yes, Master Rew. May I inquire about the nature of
your intervention?”
“You did report that the human is an educator—a
repository of knowledge. I shall challenge her knowledge.”
“I do fail to understand how a shake of her
understanding can unlock her inner drive.”
“It may very well not. But I do feel that the pressure
inside the tight walls of her psyche may be higher than we
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suspect. So high, in fact, that the slightest piercing of the

shell of her beliefs might explosively unleash her true self.”
“I do fail to share your intuition, Master Rew. But you
are the Human Whisperer, after all. I shall pay close
attention to your intervention in this human’s dreams.”

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 TWO

The Bringer of Truth

“
D o educate, human.”
The commanding words echo in Edda’s
unconscious mind like a patch of oil on boiling water—
bringing order to the whirling chaos of her wandering
psyche. Patches of bright colors and suggestive shadows
begin to solidify around her, carving themselves out of the
wild imagery and loud, sensory tumult.
“Do educate, human.”
A tiny universe freezes in place around her awareness:
a school classroom. Her school classroom. Edda is standing
at the front, where she usually does, next to the scratched
blackboard. With a piece of chalk in her hand, she stares
with a patient look at her floating students.
They are slowly falling down like a feather in still air,
each seated behind their wooden desk. Even the empty
desks on the back fall in tempo. It takes two, three seconds,
until the last child is firmly on the ground, staring back at
her with large, curious eyes.
Her students love her. No, adore her. There’s nothing in
the world that makes her more proud than hearing her
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 ISAAC PETROV

teacher name, Juf Edda, called out with fondness on the

street. Even her evening-school adult students call her by
the only title that matters to her. Anybody can call her by
her family title, Redeemed van Dolah. Any stranger can.
But only her students—present and past—have the
privilege of calling her a Juf.
“Think about that for a second, mensas,” Edda says,
knocking the blackboard with her piece of chalk. There
are hand-written dates and facts there. “Their lives were so
long, they could learn to do things that would look like
magic to us!”
“How long, Juf Edda?” asks a six-year-old girl of
South-Asian descent.
“What magic?” a redheaded boy asks, waving his arms
in the air.
“Some as long as four of our lives.” Edda smiles at the
girl and then widens her eyes at the rest of the fascinated
gazes. “More than a hundred years, Margriet!”
As the children exchange colorful murmurs of
astonishment, Edda turns her attention to the redheaded
boy.
“Joren, imagine houses ten times as tall as aws Eye,
made of glass and glistening metal.” Her smile broadens,
and she begins to accompany her words with
demonstrative gestures. “Imagine a sky crisscrossed by
flying vehicles that could reach any point on Earth in
hours. Imagine intelligent machines and colonies on the
moon and Mars!”
Edda laughs at the dumbfounded gapes on the youthful
faces. “Mensas, ask your Elders to take you one weekend
down to Oosterbeek. There’s an amazing exposition in the
Elder Council Archive with pictures of the many marvels
of the golden age.”
“Why are human lives short now?”
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Edda blinks at the boy that has asked the question. He

is bald, porcelain pale, and without iris and pupil, his eyes
are eerily white. He sits alone in the back row. Wasn’t it
empty a moment ago?
“Good question, uh…” Edda can’t recall the bald boy’s
name, but feels his presence with intimate intensity. It is
almost… uncomfortable. Like that weird feeling you get
before you turn to a piercing gaze. “Well, now we celebrate
our Joyousday when we turn twenty-seven.”
“But why?” the girl asks. “I want to live long, too!”
“Me, too!” the redheaded boy says. “Not fair!”
Edda takes a deep breath. “It’s… complicated. There
was this… illness that killed the old people.”
“Dem!” the girl shouts proudly.
“Yeah, Margriet. The Dem-Pandemic. It caused the
Second Collapse in the twenty-second century.” She
knocks again on a date on the blackboard. “The Joyousday
is Goah’s Gift answer to Dem.”
“What answer?” Margriet asks.
Edda exhales. This is going to be tricky to explain. “We
must Embrace Goah before we fall ill to Dem.” As
Margriet begins to open her mouth for the next question,
Edda raises a hand and says, “It’s complicated, mensas.
Next year we will look into this in more detail, yeah?”
“How do we humans die now?”
That bald boy again.
Edda exhales, about to dismiss his question, too, but
there is an urgent intensity in the boy’s empty eyes. She
feels like a… pull—an almost magnetic compulsion to
reply.
“Uh, in the Joyousday House. After the farewell party,
family members retreat into the House for prayers and the
evocation.”
“What’s the evocation?” the redheaded boy asks.
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Edda sighs. “We shouldn’t be getting into this. You are

still too young, yeah? But, fine. The evocation is the
intimate ritual where the family gathers to recall and
celebrate the entire life of the Embracer.”
Edda gasps as an image of her own mother in
Lunteren’s Evocation Room crosses her dream vision in a
sudden flash of pain. Anika’s eyes are wide open in… in…
Edda’s subconscious mind promptly waves the image into
oblivion.
The bald boy stands, his body seems to float over the
floor. “What happens in the Joyousday House?” he asks
with a slow and intentional voice. Edda meets his gaze and,
for a moment, cannot react; his expressionless eyes seem
filled with heightened attention—almost arousal. “How is
human life put to an end?”
The little girl blinks, unsure how to react.
The redheaded boy blinks, and stares at Edda with
expectant eyes.
Edda blinks. “I- I don’t know…” She wets her lips and
squints at the floating bald boy in the back row. “What was
your name again?”
“I am Rew-at-Deviss, the bringer of truth.”
There is no classroom anymore. The desks, the other
children—even the bald boy—all gone. Edda is alone, in a
void that begins to slowly tear as she wakes up. But
something holds her in the dreamscape for a few last
seconds.
“And you are?” the boy’s disembodied voice asks.
Edda feels a strange compulsion to present herself.
“Aws blessings to you. My name is Redeemed Edda van
Dolah. Charmed to make your acquaintance.”
“Can you change the world, Redeemed van Dolah?”
“What? Uh, I don’t—”
“There is life outside the Joyousday House, Redeemed
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van Dolah. There is death inside. Does that matter to

you?”
“My- my mom… Oh, Goah, my dad! His Joyousday is
in two months!”
“Indeed. And what can your elder expect to find inside
the Joyousday House?”
“Goah’s Embrace, of course. Oh, Goah’s Mercy!
They’re going to… They’re going to…! What the fuck are
they going to do to him?!”
“Indeed what, Redeemed van Dolah?”
Edda feels a sudden jolt, like she is being released, and
opens her eyes to the intimate familiarity of her bedroom.
Fully awake.
Fully alert.
The question still echoing vividly inside her mind.

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 THREE

She’s Always Been Good at That

“
D ad, Dad!” As Edda dashes into the living room,
two heads turn towards her. “Oh!”
“Aws Blessings to you, Edda.” A blushing, beautiful
white woman in her early twenties with long braids of
blonde hair stands and straightens her purple robes. “I
didn’t know you were here.”
“Aws Blessings to you, Quaestor Mathus,” Edda replies
politely, blinking at the woman and then at her dad, who
smiles awkwardly at her from the coach. “I thought you
two were not… uh…”
Quaestor Mathus purses her lips and diverts her blue
eyes. “We aren’t together, Edda.” She turns to Edda’s
father. “We aren’t. Are we, Will?”
“No,” he says, and a flash of pain crosses the
Quaestor’s face. Willem—that’s his name—pushes his
glasses up his nose and meets Edda’s gaze with his gentle
brown eyes. He is white and has a certain intellectual air
about him. Perhaps it is his thin glasses, or his advanced
age—almost twenty-seven—or the way he wears his tunic,
carelessly wrapped around his tall, thin frame like a second
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thought. “With my Joyousday around the corner, we

agreed it was best to stop our…” He pulls back his long,
brown hair and clears his throat.
“Relationship, Will,” the Quaestor says. “The word is
relationship. Is it so hard to say?”
“It looks more like a roller-coaster to me,” Edda says.
“Oh, sorry, Quaestor Mathus. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Then, don’t.”
An uncomfortable silence stretches for a few seconds.
With pressed lips, Quaestor Mathus slowly puts her hands
on her lap.
Edda looks at her father. “Where’s Hans?”
“Bram took him out for a stroll. What did you want?”
“What?”
“You came down the stairs calling me.”
“Ah, yes!” The dream—almost forgotten—returns with
a sudden flash of clarity. “I think it might be a good idea if
you would delay your Joyousday.”
Both Willem and Quaestor Mathus stare at her with
baffled frowns.
“I know how it sounds,” Edda says. “But I must clarify
some aspects of the Joyousday before letting you… uh…”
Quaestor Mathus smiles tensely. “Joyousdays are not
delayed on the whims of children.”
“I’m not a child!”
“You are not an elder.”
“I’m a Redeemed!”
Willem raises a hand. “Please.” Surprisingly, it works.
Both Edda and the Quaestor turn their attention to him.
He then raises his eyes at his daughter. “What would you
like to know about the Joyousday, Edda girl?”
“Uh… Well…” She glances nervously at the Quaestor.
She makes her uncomfortable. And she suspects the feeling
is very much mutual. “First, I need to- to understand what
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will really happen to your… to your body inside the

Joyousday House.”
“May I?” Quaestor Mathus asks Willem.
“Sure,” he says with a chuckle. “This sort of otherworldly
matter is right up your alley.”
“Actually,” Edda says, “I would prefer to discuss this
only with you, Dad. No disrespect meant, Quaestor
Mathus, but you are an official of aws Head. You are
hardly… objective.”
Quaestor Mathus frowns. “Facts are facts, Edda. There
is nothing to be objective or subjective about.”
“So you say, but—”
“And I am the most qualified person in Lunteren to
discuss the Joyousday. I service them every day!”
Edda takes a deep breath. This is not ideal, but… “Okay,
then. What will happen to my dad when he enters the
Joyousday House?”
“Yes, well. A member of my staff will guide the family
in the prayers that—”
“No, no. I know all that already. I mean, after the
evocation, after the family has left, when my dad is taken to
the House’s backroom, alone.”
“Ah, interesting question.” Quaestor Mathus raises her
chin and wets her lips. “But I’m afraid that’s part of the
Mystery of the Embrace. Nothing a colonist needs to worry
about.”
“You mean, you don’t know what happens?”
“Of course, I know! But aws Mysteries are only
reserved to the assigned servants of aws Head. Theological
matters are not for civilians to—”
The way the woman talks, her smooth speech, her
casual arrogance, is beginning to seriously annoy Edda.
“So it’s not really a mystery, yeah?” she says, her voice
laden with irritation. “It’s just a fucking secret.”
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“Edda!” Willem says. “Language!”

“It’s okay, Will,” Quaestor Mathus says, her voice as
soft and controlled as ever. “Immature words don’t offend
Goah. Edda, I realize you are a teacher, and sometimes
you book-people have an innate urge to know more than
you need. But you also—”
“I can’t follow. If you would just—”
“If you would do me the courtesy of letting me finish,
please, Edda. Thank you. As I was saying, a schoolteacher
might have needs, but far more important are her colonial
responsibilities. We put our most precious treasure—our
children—in your hands, and expect the most exquisite
care in their upbringing. When you overreach with your
thirst for knowledge, there is naturally concern about what
you might feed their young minds. And that, Edda, is a
problem.”
“What are you saying?” Edda takes a step forward and
points a finger at the Quaestor. “That if I ask too many
questions, you will remove me from my position in De
Bron?”
“Edda, please!” Willem says. “Of course Marjolein is
not implying any of that.” He turns his frown at his lover.
Ex-lover. Whatever. “You are not, are you?”
Marjolein purses her lips and clears her throat. “All I
am saying is that there are boundaries, Edda. And if you
stay on your side of the line, we will all get along just fine.”
Edda puts her hands on her hips and gapes at
Marjolein in silence. She then looks at her father and asks,
“Do you buy this horseshit, Dad?”
“Listen, girl. Just… drop it, alright? I will not delay my
Joyousday. And to be perfectly honest with you, I’m
disappointed that you even asked me to. In two months,
you and Bram will be the new Van Dolah Elders. It is high
time you start acting as such.”
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“I- I don’t—”
“Can you imagine the scandal?” Willem asks. “The hit
to our reputation? Nobody would want to dowry-bind with
us, Goah’s Mercy! You better start thinking like an Elder.
Think of Hans. He needs a sister!”
Marjolein wags her finger at Edda. “Delaying the
Joyousday is a very serious violation of aws Gift, Edda.
Aws Head would certainly cancel the Van Dolah’s annual
karma assignment without blinking.”
Edda remains silent, lips pressed.
“Are you even listening?” Willem asks, his voice a notch
louder.
She lowers her gaze and nods slowly.
Marjolein walks towards her, a warm smile on her face.
She takes Edda’s hand in hers and says, “You know we
mean well, Edda. Only Goah knows where any of us
would be without a timely, corrective hand. It is human
nature to go astray without the guidance of our betters.
You promise to think about all this?”
You are hiding something, Quaestor. And my dad knows it, too.
He’s not stupid. Edda suppresses her thoughts with a slash of
her will and composes her facial expression at once. She’s
always been good at that. “Yes, Quaestor,” she says,
without raising her eyes.
“Good. I am proud of you,” Marjolein says. “We both
are.”
Edda meets Marjolein’s blue eyes and gives her a very
convincing, grateful smile.
She’s always been good at that, too.

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 Whispers of Dreamtech

“
D o report, Walker Qoh. Can the human female
change the world?”
“I do fear she cannot, Master Rew. Her nature is to
yield to the will of others, even when there is doubt in her
mind.”
“A conformist.”
“A conformist, indeed. Utterly useless to us. She is
irremediably locked in place by human social constructs
too abstract for me to comprehend.”
“Reputation. Wealth. Status. Family.”
“If you do say so, Master Rew. The words are alien
to me.”
“And fear.”
“Indeed. Fear of change. Alas, that alone disqualifies
the human as a worthy candidate.”
“Regrettable. Her halo did promise considerable
potential.”
“Halo without inner drive is like a supernova too far
away to matter.”
“Alas, you are correct, Walker. And yet, after my dive in
her dream, I did sense a growing pressure in her psyche, an
unbearable urge to grow her knowledge. As Human
Whisperer, I do admit being surprised that none of it
resulted in substantial action.”
“Humans are weak, Master Rew.”
“Alas, they are. Do stop every surveillance on this
human and refocus your efforts on your next most
promising candidate.”
“Yes, Master Rew.”

21
 FOUR

The Joyousday House

A fter sunset, the Joyousday House—usually so full of

life—feels eerily dead. The vast surrounding lawn
where people rejoice and dance with barefooted bliss is
now drowned in darkness. The one-story structure—
usually so impactful with its lean, elegant architecture, its
roof made to mimic the life of the nearby woods, its
stained-glass windows so colorful and vibrant during the
celebration—is now virtually invisible.
Except for a faintly quivering light inside—a lone
candle, most likely. Giving depth to the shadows.
Edda wraps herself tighter in her winter tunic—it is
getting chilly, and it’s not just the falling temperature—as
she approaches along the central path.
What am I doing here? As Edda reaches the House, she
takes a deep breath and stares at the front door, or rather
at its hint of a shadow. What the fuck am I doing here? It feels
almost as if her feet had taken her on their own. And they
still want her to push forward. But she has no time for this
nonsense. She might get into trouble, Goah’s Mercy! In an

22
 Whispers of Dreamtech

hour she’s got to be at the harbor, yeah? Aline is counting

on her. Aline needs her.
Edda knocks on the door, almost hurriedly, as if afraid
of stopping herself if she were to hesitate for a second.
“Yes?” a man’s voice calls from the inside. “Gerrit?
You’re early, mensa.”
A shiver runs down Edda’s spine. Well, it’s done. Let’s do
this, sister. “Th- This is Redeemed van Dolah.”
“Redeemed…?”
Edda hears a chair scraping harshly against the floor,
followed by heavy footsteps. Edda tries to suppress another
chill. It’s done, sister. And since you are here, just do what you came
here to do, yeah?
A big man, tall and considerably wide too, opens the
door. He carries a candle in his hand.
“Aws greetings to you, Elder Aaij.”
“Aws greetings to you, Redeemed van Dolah,” the man
replies politely, a frown on his brow as he squints at the black
girl. Were it not for her colorful tunic, she would be very
hard to spot against the night. “What can I do for you?”
“May I come in?”
“Uh, I’m sorry. Nobody’s allowed to—”
“Oh, come on, Elder Aaij.” She rubs herself. “It’s
cold!”
Elder Aaij blinks in hesitation. “Uh…”
“Thank you,” Edda says, and with a swift motion,
sneaks past the man into the warm darkness.
“Hey!” He hurries behind her. Luckily, since he is
carrying the only source of light.
Edda stares at the walls with fascinated attention, her
wide-pupilled eyes absorbing every detail that the wobbling
flame exposes. She has been here before. Just once, three
years ago. At her mom’s… A familiar shake of her

23
 ISAAC PETROV

subconscious mind pulls her violently out of the looming

memory and back into this instant. Into the entrance hall
of the Joyousday House.
The space is mostly empty, except for a chair and a
desk with a half-opened book and a chessboard. On the
other side, a door painted with blooming flowers of every
season leads to the rest of the House. But what
immediately catches her attention are, of course, the two
glaring Eyes of Goah exquisitely depicted on opposite
walls, left and right, facing each other. It is impossible to
walk into the room without intercepting their fiery glance.
This is a place for the few, obviously; a place where Goah
awsself is watching your very soul.
“This is very irregular, Redeemed van Dolah. What do
you want?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to intrude. I have, uh, some
questions, if you don’t mind, Elder Aaij. For school. You
know how curious kids are.”
“Questions?” Elder Aaij raises his eyebrows. “For me?”
“You know the Joyousday House like it was your own,
yeah? You’ve been guarding it every night for… for how
long, already?”
“Uh… Six—no, seven years… But this is no time for
visits. I’m sorry, Redeemed van Dolah. You must leave.
The supply cart is due any minute now, and I still—”
“Just a couple of questions, please, Elder Aaij. For the
kids, yeah?”
“I’m sorry, but you must direct your questions to the
Quaestor’s office.” He waves a hand at the still-open door.
“And I suggest you do it during office hours.”
This was a mistake, Edda thinks, as she begins to walk
towards the night. What were you thinking about? You can’t afford
to get into trouble. Not after the Quaestor’s threats. What were you
expecting to find out? She turns her eyes towards the
24
 Whispers of Dreamtech

decorated door on the far end of the room. The truth, that’s
what.
“Redeemed van Dolah? Please, I insist.”
What truth, stupid girl? There’s only one truth in this place. She
throws a glimpse at the glowering Eyes on the wall—the
piercing gaze of a hungry god. She shudders. This is the end
of the path. That is the simple truth that we are born with. This
is… where the soul leaves the body.
“Redeemed van Dolah?” Elder Aaij places a gentle
hand on her shoulder. “Please.”
Where the soul leaves…. a healthy body. The dissonance
clashing in her mind twirls with growing pressure. Bodies
don’t just stop working on their own, Goah’s Mercy! What,
they enter this place—somewhere beyond that door—and
the heart miraculously stops? Only because they were born
twenty-seven years ago to the day? And what when there
are delays? Some people delay their Joyousday for a few
days. It’s not that unusual. There are always last-minute
urgencies, out-of-colony family members, or just bad
weather. No, it’s not age. It is this place. It’s got to fucking
be. You enter whole, you never leave.
The thoughts—the pressure—begin to escape Edda’s
control. She trembles slightly—her entire body does—
enough for Elder Aaij to notice on his hand.
“Redeemed van Dolah? Are you okay?”
But her mind is elsewhere, still grappling with the
implications. There are other layers of truth, obviously.
There are secrets here. So much is now obvious to her.
Secrets that matter. Secrets of life and death. Why in
Goah’s Name haven’t people ever questioned what
happened here? Why hasn’t she? Why, because of… faith?
Do our brains simply stop functioning when soothed by dogma?
A flash of realization makes her jolt in place.
“Redeemed van Dolah?”
25
 ISAAC PETROV

Mom! A barrage of hidden memories burst out of the

chaos of her mind. Edda can now remember her mother’s
attitude on her last days: the way she spoke, her expression,
so unnaturally tense, so… Yeah, now Edda can recognize it
for what it really was. She did have doubts, of course! She
knew there was more to the Joyousday than what we are all
fed daily by aws Head.
Edda gasps, and jolts again so violently that Elder Aaij
must keep her in place with both hands to stop her from
falling over the desk.
“Are you okay?!”
An image of her mom has shot up into the conscious
layers of her mind. A powerful memory, so far locked
somewhere deep in her psyche and now suddenly released
with explosive strength. It was the last time Edda laid her
eyes on her mother. The last time she met her gaze. It was
right there, in that room behind the flower-patterned door
—the Evocation Room—and two men were forcibly
dragging her through yet another door beyond! She was…
shouting, Goah’s Mercy! Edda can clearly see her face
now… her eyes… like it had happened seconds ago instead
of years. There was… terror in them! Oh, Goah, and Dad
was there, too. He was… He was crying. Crying! While
keeping Edda and Bram firmly in his arms. Her Dad
was… Oh, Goah, it’s a miracle all that didn’t break him.
He couldn’t afford to, for his two kids’ sake. Dad, you can’t
allow this to happen! Dad! What the fuck are they going to do to you
in two months?!
With a sudden gasp, Edda leaps forward, out of Elder
Aaij’s reach and towards the House’s inner door. As she
dashes past the desk, a sweep of her right arm topples it
brusquely, noisily dropping the book, the bulky chessboard
and a myriad of small wooden pieces spilling across the
floor.
26
 Whispers of Dreamtech

“Hey!”
She reaches the door, and with both hands, pulls it
open to a gaping darkness. It doesn’t matter to her. She
runs blindly into the Evocation room, the horrifying
memory still so vivid in the mind that she knows the exact
location of every piece of furniture.
“Stop!”
Elder Aaij’s heavy steps are approaching quickly from
behind, but Edda doesn’t turn to look. She moves hastily
sideways, hands tapping aimlessly, until she painfully hits
the right wall. Then, before even Elder Aaij has entered
the room, she throws herself into a run towards the pitch-
black depths of the House. Luckily, nothing has been
displaced in three years. No wonder. This is a holy place,
not a store front.
“What do you think you’re doing?! It’s forbidden in
there!”
As she reaches the other end of the room, Elder Aaij is
entering the room, his candle swaying furiously in his
hand. Edda’s starved eyes are grateful for the faint
illumination, her surroundings suddenly uncovered by a
rabid dance of lights and shadows.
And she sees it there. Next to her. So close.
The last door.
“Hold it!”
Elder Aaij’s cry is so loud, so unusually harsh, that it
freezes Edda in place. She turns her face and finds the
large man standing at the opposite side of the room, a
horrified expression on his face, gesturing furiously with his
free hand at her to stand away from the door.
“It’s forbidden, Redeemed van Dolah. Really
forbidden!”
Edda looks him in the eyes. He is afraid. He is
obviously afraid. Of what? “What’s behind this door?”
27
 ISAAC PETROV

“You don’t understand! Just being here, in the

Evocation Room, is a serious enough offense. But…
But…”
Edda notices that he is actively avoiding looking at the
door.
“What’s behind this door, Elder Aaij?”
“I cannot tell you, Redeemed van Dolah. Please, for
the love of Goah, come with me. You are getting us both
into very serious trouble.”
“Why can’t you tell me? I am a colonist of Lunteren!
I’ve got every right to know, goahdammit!”
“They- they would… You don’t have any right to be
here! Don’t go in there, I beg you. It’s a very serious crime!
They will fire me. And only Goah knows what they will do
to you!”
Edda exhales slowly, her eyes—her hands—
irremediably drawn to the door.
“Don’t! I’m dead serious!”
The door.
The last door.
The door where she saw her last.
The door to where she desperately clung before being
forced into the digesting guts of the Joyousday House.
The door beyond which secrets lie.
The door beyond which truth awaits.
It’s not really a choice, when there’s only one obvious course of
action left, yeah?
She pulls the door open.
“Don’t, Redeemed van Dolah!”
And crosses the threshold.

28
 FIVE

The Backroom

E nough moonlight enters the forbidden room through

the stained-glass windows to give Edda an immediate
sense of space.
It is considerably larger than the Evocation Room
behind her. There are long, silvery shelves along the walls
that gleam faintly in the darkness—made of metal, most
likely. A wide assortment of objects cover their surfaces,
little more than hints of shapes in the shadows. Those
bulks over there might be books, or boxes, and that
elongated thing might be a bottle, or a tool of some sort.
But what catches her attention as raptly as the sight of
blood on a toddler are the four large objects scattered
across the room.
Goah’s Mercy!
Not even the swiftly approaching footsteps behind
compel her eyes to move away from the baffling sight: four
bed-like platforms on wheels—like the stretchers used by
aws Medic—but made of… metal?
And there are corpses lying on two of them! Two
naked male corpses on their backs.
29
 ISAAC PETROV

Edda covers her mouth with a hand, her horrified eyes

locked on the closest of them.
Elder de Ridder!
Of course, stupid girl. What did you expect? The memory of
herself wishing him farewell this same morning in his
Joyousday celebration, out there on the grass field, is still
fresh in her mind. He looked so happy, so full of life… And
now… Now…
An unexplainable grief freezes her chest for a moment.
Look at you now, Elder de Ridder. So powerful in life—the entire
colony at your feet—and look at you now, Goah’s Mercy. Nobody
escapes the Joyousday, yeah? An image of her dad flashes across
her mind. He is looking at her, trying to compel her to do
something, as usual. He is trying to shape his expression in
one of his pathetic attempts to appear stern and
concerned, but his brown eyes are so warm and filled with
love that he utterly fails. As usual.
Nobody escapes the Joyousday…
Edda jolts as her light-starved eyes appear to detect the
slightest motion on the body. She leans in. What was that?
“Redeemed van Dolah!” Elder Aaij calls from behind.
He grabs her arm harshly and pulls.
But she doesn’t turn her head. Her gaze remains nailed
to the shadow-shrouded corpse. What the fuck was that?!
With a vigorous jerk, she escapes Elder Aaij’s grasp and
leaps forward, her gaze fiercely locked on Elder de
Ridder’s corpse.
Oh, Goah, he is… breathing! And his eyes…!
The whites of Elder de Ridder’s eyes almost shine in
the shadows. He is staring silently—placidly—at the
ceiling, ignoring the world around him like there was
nothing more of concern for him in the land of the living.
Elder Aaij’s arms close on Edda with gentle but

30
 Whispers of Dreamtech

irresistible force, and he promptly drags her out of the

backroom.

T he entrance hall of the Joyousday House is a mess,

with the desk on its side and chess pieces scattered
across the floor.
“Let me go!” Edda shouts, writhing pointlessly in his
iron grasp.
“I’m sorry,” Elder Aaij says, releasing her so suddenly
that she almost falls over. “But you have overstepped,
Redeemed van Dolah.”
“What in Goah’s Name was that?” she asks, pointing at
the still-open door into the Evocation Room. “The bodies,
Elder Aaij! The bodies!”
He shrugs and pulls out a large iron key from a breast
pocket in his tunic. “That’s aws Head’s business. Not
mine.”
“But you work here! You have for years, yeah?”
He noisily locks the flowery door into the Evocation
Room and turns to her with an unfriendly look. “And
despite my failure today, I hope to keep it that way for
many more.”
“But… Elder de Ridder back there! He’s alive!”
“I wouldn’t quite call that alive.”
“What happened to him?”
He shrugs again and takes a smaller key from his
pocket. “Dem, I guess.”
“But that’s not how diseases work! Not even Dem!
What, you expect me to believe that Elder de Ridder
walked through that backdoor and, just like that,” she
snaps her fingers, “fell ill and turned into… into that?!”

31
 ISAAC PETROV

“None of my business. None of yours.” He paces

towards the exit door.
“This is everyone’s business, Elder Aaij! That will be
you one day on one of those stretchers, yeah?”
“Wait here. I’ll return with Quaestor Mathus in twenty
or thirty minutes,” he says, and Edda realizes that he is
about to lock her here.
“Hey! What are you doing?” The rush of adrenalin
makes her mind refocus on the moment. It must be well
after six already! If she doesn’t hurry, Aline is going to…
Goah, better not think about it. “I need to go!”
Elder Aaij turns around, his frown turned into an
angry scowl. “You need?” His voice is so unnaturally harsh
that Edda takes a step back. “This is no game, Redeemed
van Dolah!” He points at the now-shut door that leads into
the guts of the House. “What you have done is…
desecration! Do you realize it? Worse! It is sacrilege!”
Sacrilege? No way! That could lead to… cleansing! “You- You
are exaggerating…”
“You think? Well, for your sake and the sake of the Van
Dolah’s reputation, I truly hope I am exaggerating. What
do I know? I’m just a colonist that happens to work here.
Let’s wait and see what Quaestor Mathus has to say
about it.”
What have I done? Oh, when Dad finds out… Perhaps the
Quaestor won’t be too harsh, considering the nature of their… thing.
But what if precisely for that reason—to prove her goahdamn virtue
to aws Head—she makes an example of me? Oh, Goah, what the
fuck have I done?!
Elder Aaij steps out of the House and meets Edda’s
aghast gaze. “Make yourself comfortable, Redeemed van
Dolah. It won’t take long.”
“Wait!” she shouts. “I- I apologize, Elder Aaij. I was
very much out of line, and I will freely admit it to the
32
 Whispers of Dreamtech

Quaestor. Or whomever else you must bring to discipline

me. But, please, don’t go. I’m worried about you.”
He snorts. “What are you worried about?”
“Your job, of course! Imagine the Quaestor begins
questioning your ability to keep the Joyousday House safe
from—I’m sorry, Elder Aaij!—prying eyes.”
He remains silent, eyes fixed on hers.
Touché! Let’s keep working this angle.
“I couldn’t live with it, Elder Aaij. Knowing that it is
because of my selfish, sinful actions that your family must
sink into… Goah, I don’t even know into what. And I don’t
want to find out. Please, don’t do this to me! Please, forgive
me, Elder Aaij!”
He squints at her. “How dare you question my
integrity?”
“No, you misunderstand!” Oh, Goah, I messed up!
“What I—!”
“I take my duty,” he casually gestures at the Eyes on
the walls, “—my job, as you call it—very seriously. I would
never dream of betraying Quaestor Mathus’ trust!”
“You are protecting her from unnecessary trouble! I’m
sure she’s got better things to do than go about chastising
stupid girls, yeah?”
The souring expression on his face tells her she is not
winning him over. Far from it. Oh, Goah, he is going to
cause such a mess… And just when her dad is preparing
for his Joyousday! If worse comes to worst, she might even
lose her teaching position in De Bron, and the Van Dolahs
their annual karma assignment for Goah knows how long.
And if Mathus really pushes that sacrilege angle… She
shivers at the thought.
Time to bring out the big guns, I guess.
“Please… I beg you…” Edda begins to sob. As tears
well up in her eyes, she keeps them firmly locked on Elder
33
 ISAAC PETROV

Aaij’s increasingly distressed expression. “I beg your mercy,

Elder Aaij!” With ever louder gasps, she finally breaks into
a full-blown crying display. “Please… Please… I beg you!”
she says in an utterly broken voice, her desperation
stressing every word.
Elder Aaij purses his lips, eyes beginning to blink.
It’s working!
Edda throws herself to the ground, face down, her
head at Elder Aaij’s feet. She slowly extends both arms to
the side, forming a cross with her body. “Please!” she
repeats over and over again between heavy sobs and
pathetic whimpers.
When Elder Aaij helps her gently to her feet, she knows
she has won. “Okay, calm down, please. I can see that you
truly regret what you have done. I accept your apologies,
Redeemed van Dolah. This time.”
“Thank you! Oh, thank you!” She throws herself into
his arms and hugs the large man until he politely
accompanies her to the door.
“I don’t want to see you again in a long while,” he says.
“Promise me I won’t.”
“I swear to Goah!” She makes the holy ritual gesture
with her finger on her chest.
“Then off you go. And hurry, before Elder Holten sees
you. His supply wagon will arrive any moment now.”
As Edda—with a lowered head and a convincing
expression of contrition on her face—finally leaves the
House, the observing alien slides forward to follow her
steps.

34
 SIX

Answers in the Dark

T he late-autumn night engulfing the Joyousday

grounds is dark and cold, and Edda shivers in
discomfort. But her thoughts are too far away to care.
Flash images of that backroom keep intruding in her
mind, impossible to ignore: the breathing body, the open
eyes, so soullessly empty. What did they do to you, Elder de
Ridder? She tries to suppress another shiver, this one not
caused by the cold.
As she walks almost blindly in the dark, her thoughts
are a swirl of chaos. She is trying—and utterly failing—to
make sense of what she has seen. One thing is clear,
though. Dad must cancel his Joyousday. At least until she
finds out what they are really up to in that backroom,
because—
Edda stops in her tracks at the approaching sound.
A horse cart. Elder Holten!
She hastily hides behind one of the flower beds
decorating the path. It’s better to avoid questions that can
only be answered with lies.
The horse trots slowly.
35
 ISAAC PETROV

Oh, so slowly.
And time keeps relentlessly ticking away. Pure sin, Aline
is going to kill me! I’ll have to run the whole fucking way to the
harbor. And I left my flashlight at home. Just perfect.
The wagon takes forever to pass by—a large, shapeless
shadow in the night, slowly screeching along. And as
anxious as she is to leap and run to Aline, she forces herself
into tactical caution and lets more time pass before she
finally dares a peek.
Yeah, the cart is a safe way up the path, almost by the
Joyousday House.
Edda gets on her feet, and as she begins a trot down in
the opposite direction, a sudden light from behind freezes
her in place. She turns slowly towards the source, eyes wide
open, heart quickened.
Ah! she breathes out with relief. It’s just the door to the
Joyousday House. It has opened and Elder Aaij is out to
greet the supply wagon with an electric lamp in his hand.
The driver dismounts—his shape vaguely visible against
the faint illumination—and replies something back. From
the distance, Edda cannot make out the individual words,
but judging by the curt, casual exchange, they seem to
know each other well.
Edda squints at the wagon. Almost invisible in the
night, it is calling her attention with increasing subliminal
urgency. There is something about it… Something…
What, Goah’s Mercy? She cannot quite put her finger on it,
but that goahdamn cart is trying to… to tell her something.
Like it’s screaming at her and she’s deaf. Goah, there’s no time
for this. Aline is counting on me. I cannot—
Edda gasps as the thought explodes in her
consciousness with sudden clarity. Supplies! To the Joyousday
House! She gapes at the bulky contours of the cart with

36
 Whispers of Dreamtech

renewed fascination. Too far away to discern any details,

yet so tantalizingly close…
What are you carrying? What are your secrets?
Forget it, girl. Aline needs you!
What the fuck does the Joyousday House need supplies for?
What do I know? Who cares?
They are for that backroom, yeah?
Forget it! You promised Aline that—
But there are answers there! On that cart!
Do yourself a favor and get those answers another day. You either
start running now, or you won’t make it in time!
But the opportunity is… unique! Dad’s Joyousday is in two
months! And Aline’s mom’s… Goah’s Mercy, it’s next Friday! There’s
no fucking time for ‘another day’!
Aline was counting on you! You swore you wouldn’t fail her, and
she believed you!
Aline is going to thank me. You wait and see.
You better bring her something tangible, girl. Because if you
don’t…
Yeah, I know… Edda wets her lips. I know…
And don’t get caught, yeah? I doubt Elder Aaij will fall so easily
for your charms next time. Think of your family. Think of Dad.
That’s all I do. Edda hurries behind the flowerbed and
begins to take off her clothes. He is exactly why I need to risk
this.

E lder Aaij and—what was his name again? Doesn’t

matter—are both carrying boxes into the House. And
Edda better hurry. They are already halfway through. Her
window of opportunity is closing quicker than she expected.
It has taken her too long to get so close. She has

37
 ISAAC PETROV

probably been too cautious. As it turned out, her bare feet

were virtually silent on the icy grass, but she couldn’t risk a
slip.
Edda is now kneeling a mere ten yards behind the back
of the cart, right at the limit of the shadow of the lamp
that Elder Aaij has left on the ground.
She shudders. Again. Oh, Goah, the cold is going to kill me!
She’s been exposed too long, and the freezing air is
seriously gnawing into her naked skin. She must be quick.
But it’s almost impossible to approach the cart unseen.
Elder Aaij and the wagon driver seem so perfectly
synchronized that as one of them picks up a box and
enters the building, the other one is already coming out to
grab the next one. They obviously have danced to this tune
before. Many times.
And there are only four more boxes on the cart.
Three left.
And the two men keep exchanging places like
clockwork, never leaving a gap for her to exploit.
What have you done, stupid girl? What the fuck are you doing
here, freezing your naked butt in the middle of nowhere? You fucked
it up with Aline, and for what? There’s no way in hell you’re
pulling this one out. All you’re going to catch tonight is a cold—or
worse.
Two boxes left.
Focus, girl. There’s much more at stake here than a cold, or a
lifelong friendship. Dad’s Joyousday is in two months, and he sure as
Dem isn’t going to listen to your childish pleas to cancel his Joyousday,
unless you bring him something concrete, yeah? You need proof. Proof
of… Yeah, of what?
One box.
This is it. You either move your ass now, or it’s over. You must
think of this like… like a military operation! This is just a tactical
problem, right? Come on, girl, react! You know a thing or two about
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 Whispers of Dreamtech

tactics, don’t you? Or have all those nights of wargaming with Dad
been for nothing?
Elder Aaij emerges from the House and approaches
with a casual gait to take the last box.
A distraction! I need a diversion!
Edda taps frantically on the ground at the edge of the
path. It’s pitch black, so she can only see with her fingertips,
but she thinks it was decorated with… with…
Thank Goah! Pebbles!
She hastily grabs one, takes aim and throws it through
the door into the Joyousday House. It collides with a
satisfactory clash against an inner wall. Bullseye!
A baffled curse from the driver in that same room stops
Elder Aaij in his tracks. A second curse makes him rush
back into the House.
Finally! The cart—the last box—has been left
momentarily exposed. The two men are probably
wondering what’s going on. A bird, perhaps, attracted by
the light? A bat? In a few moments, they will find the
pebble, and then…
Well, what are you waiting for, girl? Either you move your ass
right now, or that’s it.
But I fabricated a gap of just a few seconds. Ten tops. The
risk—
Shut up this instant and ask yourself how much you are willing
to pay for an answer. How much are you willing to risk to bring Dad
proof?
With a curt gasp, Edda leaps forward and approaches
the wagon with more emphasis on speed than on stealth.
The time window is too short to waste it tiptoeing about.
She briskly lays her half-frozen hands on the wooden
box and tries to lift it. But it doesn’t budge. It’s too heavy.
What do you have inside?
The men obviously have enough strength to carry
39
 ISAAC PETROV

them, so if she flexes her legs and pulls with her entire
body, perhaps… Yes! The box trembles in her hands as she
begins to scrape it off the surface of the cart.
Now what? Pure sin! You haven’t thought this through. You can’t
just run off with something so massive!
With a heavy exhalation, she drops the box back on the
cart, and to her horror, something inside makes a loud,
clinking sound, like a dozen glasses clashing against each
other, recklessly shattering the icy silence of the night. The
horse pulling the cart steps in place with nervous hooves.
“There’s somebody there!” The shout arrives an
instant later from within the building. “Thieves!”
Pure sin! It’s only seconds now. She throws her hands on
the wooden box—her eyes useless in the wagon’s shadow—
and taps around its cover with increasingly anxious fingers,
trying to find a lid, a dent, an irregularity. Something to
open it.
Edda hears the hasty footsteps exiting the House.
She scratches the cover—is there even a cover?—and
then slides her nails urgently down the side until—yes!—
she feels the thinnest of lines carved on the surface.
Without hesitation, she drives the tip of her nails into the
gap and—at the risk of tearing them open—pulls them up
with all her strength in a forceful jerk.
The thin, nailed wooden plank unhinges and falls
noisily to the ground. She leans in, hungrily staring into
the depths of the last box, but here, in the shadow of the
main body of the wagon, there is just not enough light to
pierce the blackness.
“Who are you?!” the voice—so close now—asks. It’s
the driver, running down the path towards her.
In her final second of anonymity, Edda stops thinking,
and lets her instincts take over. She throws her right hand
into the box and pulls out a… flask? It is small, the size of a
40
 Whispers of Dreamtech

finger. And there is something inside. She can feel it as she

moves her hand. Like a… a liquid. What in Goah’s
Name is—?
“You! Stop!”
The scream makes her body jolt in place. As her
hand contracts into an involuntary fist, she drops the
flask…
… which shatters against the ground in an explosion of
glass and, indeed, some sort of viscous substance that
splutters against her bare feet.
“Don’t move!” the driver says, pointing a finger at her.
He has stopped running, and is approaching with a careful
gait, like he doesn’t really know what he is facing.
Edda shuts her eyelids at once, hiding the whites of her
eyes, and slowly begins to move sideways into the grass
field, away from the path, holding her breath to avoid
revealing her position in the icy air. Buck-ass naked, she
knows that her dark skin makes her virtually invisible
against the black of night.
“You got him?” Elder Aaij asks from behind. “Who
is it?”
“I dunno. I saw a… a shadow, I think.”
Edda keeps tiptoeing away, achingly slowly, a step at a
time.
“There’s somebody here, sure as Dem!” Elder Aaij
says. “Look there, he opened a crate! Quick, get your
flashlight and let’s comb the surroundings. Don’t let the
bastard escape!”
Pure sin! The adrenalin pumping through Edda’s veins
is screaming at her to break into a run, but her rational
mind—her tactical mind—knows how important it is to
reduce her profile and maintain stealth. She drops to her
knees and begins a silent crawl. Yes, it will take a lot longer
this way, and the air is agonizingly cold, but in the thick of
41
 ISAAC PETROV

darkness, she would dare even an owl to spot her receding

ass.
Goah, she is going to be half-frozen by the time she
reaches the bushes where she hid her clothes! Hopefully, by
then, they’ll have given up looking for her. But she can’t
take any risks. She’ll have to stay put in the fucking cold
until late at night, when everybody is long asleep. Because
whatever happens—whatever Elder Aaij and that cart
driver tell people—nobody must entertain the slightest
suspicion that it was her here tonight.
Nobody.
Because what she has found out is much bigger—and
more dangerous!—than she ever thought possible.
Oh, Goah, Aline is going to freak out when I tell her we must
destroy the Joyousday to save our parents!

42
 SEVEN

Alien Instinct

A s hours later Edda quietly enters her bedroom, she is

still shivering from the cold, despite the run she
finally dared on the last stretch of Miel Way. She needs to
rest. Get warm. Then she will go tell—
Edda jumps in place. There is somebody in her bed!
Aline?
Yeah, it’s Aline! Sleeping with her clothes on. She must
have first come to scold her, then got increasingly worried
with every passing minute of absence, and finally just fell
asleep in wait.
Edda quickly but silently puts on her nightgown and
climbs into her bed with Aline. Ah, so warm… Just what the
doctor ordered.
“Huh?” Aline wakes up at the hungry—and still cold—
contact. “Oh, it’s you.”
Yeah, the tone… The unasked questions… She’s most
definitely mad. “Hey, sorry for missing your party at the
harbor, sister. But I was detained in the Joyousday House.
First, I met the breathing corpse of Elder de Ridder. Then,

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 ISAAC PETROV

I discovered that the Joyousday is nothing more than a

convoluted murder fest.”
Aline doesn’t immediately reply. In the cozy darkness
of the bedroom, Edda cannot see her expression. But she
can hear her breathing quickening.
“Can you repeat that?” Aline finally asks. “And this
time, please add a detail or two?”
Edda exhales a long breath of relief. It wasn’t conscious
until now, but deep inside, she was terrified that Aline
wouldn’t believe her. But of course she does. It’s Aline,
yeah? All these years sharing every aspect of their young
lives… Aline just knows when Edda is lying. It’s uncanny.
But now, Aline has heard the certitude in Edda’s voice.
“It began this afternoon, after my nap. Quaestor
Mathus was here.”
“With your dad? Again?”
“I don’t know. I doubt they even know themselves. But
forget that. The point is that when I asked her about the
Joyousday, she…”

“
P oison?!” Aline asks.
“What else?”
“You- you sure?”
“It’s the only explanation! Think, sister. A happy man
comes into the Joyousday House. They take him to the
backroom, and a few hours later he is… catatonic.”
“But not dead.”
“Well, nobody gets out of there alive, yeah?”
“So you’re saying that the Embrace of Goah is a lie?
How can…? Oh, wait! Perhaps what you’ve seen is the
empty body after the soul departed?”
Edda scoffs. “You really think that? Then what do they
44
 Whispers of Dreamtech

need those… bottles of chemicals for, huh? Come on,

Aline. Since when are you so naive?”
“Well, excuse me if it’s hard for me to accept that aws
Head is systematically murdering every single one of us!
Why would they do such a thing?”
“Does it matter?”
“I- I want to understand!”
“I don’t know why! Faith, control, tradition, aws
Balance… Only Goah knows.”
Aline exhales slowly. “You think they kill us to keep the
world in ecological balance?”
“I said I don’t know! Maybe they don’t even know
themselves. Maybe they’ve been doing this since the time
of the Dem-Pandemic, and they just kept the rituals
running. But that doesn’t matter, sister. What matters is
that your mum is going to be killed in a week.”
Aline exhales again, slower and deeper this time.
“Goah’s Mercy…” she finally says.
“We can save her, Aline.”
“You- You think?”
“I know it! We can save your mum, my dad—the entire
goahdamn world!—if we go back to the Joyousday House
and steal the proof.”
“The poison?”
“Yeah. This time I won’t drop it. We must reveal the
truth to the world. I swear to Goah, sister, we’re going to
destroy the Joyousday! Our parents will live. We will live.
And age! Imagine what humanity can achieve if every
person on the planet could keep learning for… for
decades, Goah’s Mercy! For goahdamn decades!”
Aline takes a long, deep breath.
“So, how do we do it?” she asks.

45
 ISAAC PETROV

T he two aliens observe in stretched silence the two

girls chattering with increasing excitement under
Edda’s sheets.
“You did keep surveillance on the human female
against my explicit instructions, Walker Qoh,” one of them
finally says.
“I did, indeed, Master Rew. I wouldn’t be worthy of
your guidance were I to ignore your instincts. You are the
Human Whisperer, after all.”
“And yet, I did fail to pay heed to my own instincts.
You did not make the same mistake.”
“I do understand the deeper nature of instinct, Master
Rew: a level of expertise so ingrained that the mind pushes
it below the threshold of consciousness. It was my own
instinct not to dismiss the instincts of my master.
Furthermore, the halo of this human is of such remarkable
strength and complexity that I deemed a prolonged
observation worthy of my time.”
“There is wisdom in you, Walker Qoh.”
“Indeed, there is.”
“Were you able to discern the motivations of this
human?”
“Yes, Master Rew.”
“Can she change the world?”
“Yes, Master Rew.”
“Do add her to the roster of official candidates for First
Contact.”
“Yes, Master Rew.”

END OF WHISPERS OF DREAMTECH

46
 Whispers of Dreamtech

T hank you for reading Whispers of Dreamtech. I mean it.

Thank you!
Now, do you want more?
Much, much more?
Because that was only the beginning, mensa. Literally!
An entire world is about to be massively disrupted by alien
interference. Where do they come from? What do they really
seek? How in Goah’s Name can Edda and Aline hope to
pull off a goahdamn world-shattering revolution?
Click to start reading now the award-winning
Dreamtech trilogy and experience Edda’s epic first-contact
journey in your own skin. Delve into a world of dystopian
decadence and shared-dreaming alien wonders. Discover
how some teenage attitude—pumped up by the power of
Dreamtech—blows human history out of the water.

https://isaacpetrov.com/getdt1

https://isaacpetrov.com/getdt1

47
 About the Author — Isaac Petrov

People, you know how it is when you pick up a book, and

it's a meh, or even an ew? Well, I am one of those poor
bastards to whom that happens. A LOT!
But, oh, when that rarest of gems, the enthralling, no-
bullshit story makes its rare appearance and sucks you
whole? Oh, yes! That is what I live for, people: a good
science fiction book.
Solid, no-bullshit science fiction is all about the playful
engagement of the intellect; that mix of escapism and raw
realism; that exploration of the human soul under the
duress of the most tantalizing of realities. Oh, no other
genre comes even close, people. Yeah, I know how
arrogant it sounds. Sorry. Doesn’t make it any less true.
But hey, this is the page where I get to tell you about
my not-so-humble self, and if there is one thing, only one,
that I want my readers to know is that I do love science
fiction. Always have. A true nerd, since way before it was
cool (yeah, I’m that old). And my promise to you is that I
make the books that I want to read. Nothing less.
If you insist on knowing more, all right. Hmm, let’s see.
Born in Spain, I’m currently settled in Amsterdam with my
wife and young son. Law and economics academic
background. Software engineering career. A few start-up
failures. Gamer when time allows. And a passion for
science since… well, forever—I told you I’m a true nerd!

https://isaacpetrov.com
facebook.com/NoBullSciFi