Chapter Four (Jake and Kimiko)

[Akirapryde]

She smiled as the image of New Earth started to change because the dropship started to rotate. It was clear that the ship was starting its breaking thrust maneuvers. "Hot" she said turning to face him once more. "But we arrived just outside of Riyadh during their summer months" she explained. "We took ground transport to Mecca. I remember the air was so dry and it was so hot. We stopped for the night in a small town called Dhalm. A family took us in for the night. They treated us like we were part of their family."

She glanced around as memories flooded her mind, "I thought it was so strange that these people who had next to nothing took us in, feed us and treated us so well. I set there while my father and brothers spent much of the night with the family speaking about Islam. Even my mother took part in the conversation."

"Later that night, I climbed up on the roof of their barn and looked out in to the night sky. I could see the blinking lights of a Comstar ship somewhere in the distance. I wondered what it had been like right there in that moment long before space travel. Was there a girl on a barn looking up in to the night sky like I was."

She turned back towards Jake, "the next morning we continued our travel. I noticed my father leaving the family an envelop. I asked him what was in it. He smiled to me and said, 'Kimiko, we are a religion of kindness and respect. We return that kindness in turn. This is who we are.' Those words really had meaning for me."

She continued softly, "some day, I have to go back. I have to fulfill my own hajj, or pilgrimage. It is required for all adult Muslims to take fulfill their own hajj once in their life time. My father showed me the way, one day I have to complete my own."

She leaned against the large glass window, "tell me about your parents. What are the like?"