I don’t get shore leave, as a junior officer, I get assigned reading.

“Ensign Zoral,” Lt. Cdr T’Lenar said crisply while sat behind her desk. “Fact finding on Caelari Prime, observe the locals, do not interfere in their ways. Return with something the Captain will be happy to read without regretting it.”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied to her. I grew up on Bolia and we learn early that you don’t argue with someone who can raise one eyebrow higher than the other, especially when they’re the first officer of a Federation Starship.

They sent me down alone in runabout with a cargo hold full of field kits. As the shuttle glided over the top of Varanesh the Miraline, the living terraces, unfolded below. Through the shuttles viewscreen the waterways made clear lines through the city.

As I stepped off the shuttlecraft an acolyte met me, a woman in a saffron sash with silvery white hair. She introduced herself as Karin and looked at me like she wasn’t sure what to expect from me.

“Ensign Zoral, Stafleet,” I said. “Command Division,” not that she would’ve had any idea of what that meant.

“Command?” she repeated back to me. “Good, you can learn to count with us.”

Counting, I would discover is at the core of all of their rituals. They count hands, breaths and lanterns.

“I’ve been sent to observe your customs, with permission of course.” I told her, trying to hide the curiosity and excitement I felt of studying a new culture.

Karin gestured toward the water in the Miraline. “Permission is what we’re practicing, if you can do as you’re told, you can help us.” She replied.

I followed her lead, she took me through the terraces and down sets of old stone stairways. We arrived in an open area. There was a square of linin at the centre with lanterns dotted throughout. A few Caelari in similar robes to Karin we’re already there. Karin knelt and I followed suit.

She dipped her cloth into a bowl with a liquid and then wiped the glass shell of a lantern in a precise clockwise circle, then counter-clockwise. The liquid ran over her hands softly and the lanterns were left shining.

“Why both directions?” I asked her, my Bolian inquisitiveness getting the better of me.

“Balance,” she replied. “We do lot ask anything within the city to carry a crooked load.”

I picked up a lantern and imitated her, the canals waters removing the dust. We continued this through the afternoon, quietly and methodically working the lanterns that had been gathered.

As the Caelari sun got low in the sky she led me through the terraces. I noted that most Caelari moved in twos and threes across the terraces. Karin explained that they would only ever go anywhere signally if there was no other choice.

“They will gather at the second bell,” she said. “In the meantime, do you eat?”

“I’ve been known to,” I replied and tried to not look to desperate for something after an afternoon of cleaning lanterns.

She took me to a small stall and we purchased oat-cakes. Having no currency, I was worried that I’d have nothing to trade but the vendor refused payment from me. They explained that I was the first outsider to have visited them and it was an honour to provide while handing me my cake on a plate which was broken once down the middle.

“You break it yourself,” he said.

Karin watched as I ate, “you ask many questions,” she said smiling. “I like it, please ask another,”

I swallowed a mouthful of oak cake. “What do you call what you do here?”

She nodded toward a lantern hanging close by, “Keeping Breath,” She replied.

“But who’s breath are you keeping,”

“Everyone’s” she said without explaining further.

—–

At the Second Bell the square nearby filled with Caelari. Children sat together, elders leant on canes and the people gathered.

Karin tightened the knot on her sash and handed me a spare.

“Me?” I said.

“You are tall, and your face tells the truth,” she replied, “now stand there.” She guided me to a space and adjusted the sash around my waist.

“Single pulse” she said while pointing at the closest lantern to me. “hold.”

A bell tolled and the sound ripped across all through gathered.

“Count breath,” she said “two in, two out. The people who are ready will follow.”

I lifted my lantern. The Caelari closest to me watched the lantern rather than me. A woman in the robes of the workers of Orran lifted a hand in the cadence of the breathing. A small child copied her and giggled as she did so.

All around the square, Acolytes did the same. Hands up, hands down and lanterns always steady. As it continued the officiant, raised above those gathered lifted both hands.

“Consent is present,” she said. “We will be amplified.”

The lanterns began to give off a double pulse, two soft beats that I could feel in my chest as much as saw. The bells of Varanesh gave their base note and the air hummed.

I could see the officiant now, it was the High Luminary herself, Serad. She lifted her hands again and silence, the lanterns returned to a single pulse. In the stillness the city I felt as though I could hear the breathing of everyone.

The High Luminary gave a sermon but also spoke of local happenings. She mention the food deliveries, the happiness of the people and the togetherness of the Caelari System since the arrival of the outsiders. With that a small boy in front of me turned and stared intently and didn’t turn back around until something across the square grabbed his attention.

It was a minor incident. A cluster of devotees of the Children of the Frist Light, a hardline religious group, began to chant. Their words did not carry today, the people refused to listen to their message.

Afterwards Karin sat on the steps and patted the space beside her. “you’re taking all this in.”

“I was told to return with something my Captain wanted to read,” I replied. “so I’m trying to be thorough.”

“We weren’t always so careful” she said. “There are stories of before, when the spires listened to those who were loudest, no matter their intentions.”

“and now?”

“now, we think of each other, what we can do and achieve together, our breathing helps that,” she replied.

I thought back to my Starfleet Academy days. The seminars that ended with applause but  nobody would speak with those they disagreed with. I ate the rest of my oat cake slowly.

I untied my ask and tried to fold it in a way that would make an acolyte proud.

“Ensign,” Karin said, “do you know the worsed part about rituals?”

I shook my head

“They have to be done again the next day,” she said. “Tomorrow and the day after. We forget quickly but I suppose, this way it helps us remember.”

We walked the canal together toward the landing area where my runabout waited. She paused at the steps.

“Do you have rituals on your ship?” She asked.

“We have the duty roster,” I said “and we pretend we don’t enjoy it.”

“And,” she replied “when you actually don’t?”

“We do it anyway” I said with a smile.

She grinned back at me, the light of the lanterns reflecting from her skin “then we are cousins.”

I left Karin there and headed back to the shuttle. On the way a woman handed me a papercup of some sort of team, “for the road” as if I would be sharing it with the road. I stood in the hatch of the shuttle for a moment with the warm cup in my hands. I could hear the gentle running water of the Miraline close by and the occasional burp of the wildlife.

In the report I wrote later I tried to be clinical but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t have the feel of the Caelari and their rituals. I added “The lantern glass is always a little dusty when you start, you clean it, you breath and you count. You then remember your people and the way it feels to come together as one.”

I’m an ensign, my life is full of checklists and reports. The Caelari made me a better one.