It did not take long for the fate of the Sparrow XIV to be learned as well as the tragedy of the Spartan XV. There was a great deal of outrage from both the Earth people and Althorians at the Boulthorians for the unprovoked attack. In two days however, there was some relief as the first of the Sparrow XIV’s passengers was found. The Sparrow’s chambers soon landed all over the continent. The Sonderson family landed within a mile of the capital city. They were spaced out around the capital but within two days were united together, except Trance. His whereabouts were unknown.
In a couple days the Sondersons were brought to the palace and introduced to the king. The king had learned that Mr. Sonderson had been the person that had found their planet with his father and that was why the Earth people had flown across space. The reason for the Earth peoples’ exodus was also learned and they were honored and told how sorry the Althorians were that the Earth had been destroyed. The Sondersons were the most honored because of Mr. Sonderson’s dedication to finding a new home for his people and leading them here.
After their meeting with the king they were then helped to find a home. It only took them one day to find a house. It was in a small town just five miles from the capital and they were able to move in right away.
Mr. Sonderson found a position at an observatory that was just twenty miles away and with great excitement began work studying the stars and planets that could be seen from Althora. Mrs. Sonderson quickly found where to go shopping for groceries and clothing for the family.
It just happened that there were only two Althorian months left in the school year so the two Sonderson children, Heather, the fourteen-year-old girl, and Sammy, the eleven-year-old little boy, would be able to enjoy extra time off from school and the summer break. They would study some at home to try and get ready for the next school year. Trance still hadn’t been found. He was still seventeen and the oldest Sonderson child. They missed him and wondered where he was and what had happened to him. They held out hope that he had landed safely and was fine, yet it seemed that everyone else from the Sparrow XIV had been found.
The Sondersons were also soon reunited with their relatives. They had a good family reunion with Mr. Sonderson’s brothers and their families and with Mrs. Sonderson’s family, all except Trance. All of the families lived just a couple miles apart. As the reunion broke up all of the family heads promised that they would all stay close and keep in touch with everyone.
Heather and Sammy soon made friends in their neighborhood and were playing with the other kids, just as if they had all grown up together. The Sonderson kids were the center of attention. The Althorian children found them very interesting and curious. One of the most curious things was that they had to basically be given a new birthday. This was most intriguing as in a very real sense they were eons old. A small group of scientists came up with a very clever program to give all of the Earth people new birthdays.
As day followed day and there was no news of Trance, Evan and Eileen had to add Trance to the list of dead or missing from the tragedy. Eileen spent many nights of their first month on Althora weeping and praying. Even without Trance life started anew and the family was soon making friends and learning about their new and fascinating home.
Most fascinating to the Earth people was that the Althorians, as well as many of the other races in the galaxy, were human. There were other intelligent races, mainly the Griffins and Sphinx among some others.
The Earth people also learned that Althorian time was different. A day had twenty-eight hours. Each hour had eighty minutes with eighty seconds. There were ten days in a week, five weeks in a month, and thirty months in a year. Althora had six seasons in a year, summer, auburn, lest, winter, plenting, and spring. Each season was five months long. There was also something very interesting about the planet and the other inhabited worlds, something unknown. The aging process was slowed. The people in the area seemed to live roughly ten to eleven times longer, and some lived up to twenty-five times longer. It also seemed that the Earth people were picking up this quality. It was unknown why, whether it was in the air, water, or food. Regardless of the cause, the end result was that the people from Earth were feeling the effect and were happier and more vibrant.
Eileen still looked out occasionally to wonder where Trance was. She quietly prayed that he was safe and some place where he was welcomed and taken care of. A silent tear slid down her cheek as she worried about him. Unknown to her, some two hundred miles away west, Trance was in peril of never waking up. His sleep chamber had come down at a steep angle and was damaged when it crashed down in a wooded area four miles outside a rural village. The timing components were locked in a loop. To make the situation worse the power system was slowly draining and would completely shut down in two hundred days.
Chapter 5
A New Home
The morning was bright, warm, and sunny with only three clouds up above, puffy cumulous clouds that resembled small piles of cotton. The farmer stood outside his farmhouse looking at the sky and smiling at the wonderful day.
“It’s going to be a good day today,” he said.
Off he strode toward the large metal barn. He pushed a button on the left side of the door and waited as it slowly opened. The barn was divided somewhat into two sections. The shop half had several shelves that were loaded down with various hand and power tools. Standing on the floor of the shop were some full sized tools for all sorts of purposes. There were saws, a drill press, a lathe, and some rather strange looking tools, all of which had signs of minor wear and tear. Overall, they were well cared for.
He walked past all these tools toward the other half of the barn. Here were what looked like animal stalls, twenty of them in all, ten on each side. He approached the fifth one from the back on the left. Curiously the sign on the stall door read, “Plow horse.” Inside the stall was a rather stout and sturdy looking horse with a very shiny silvery coat. A closer look would show that it was covered with metal, and closer inspection revealed that it wasn’t a real horse at all. It was a robot horse with a plow attachment behind it.
The farmer opened the second barn door and went back to the stall. On entering the stall he walked behind the horse, checked the plow and made sure that it was set up properly to cultivate his fields. He then sat himself on the seat on the horse, grabbed its control handles and got ready to start his day. He reached down and pressed a small green square button that started up the horse, backed out of the stall, and then turned the horse and rode it out of the barn heading toward the fields.
Two hours later, as he finished another row near the edge of his field and closest to the forest that bordered his farm, he was turning the horse around for the next row; he spotted a strange gleam in the distance. He stopped the horse and shaded his eyes to try to get a better look at what had caught his eye. Whatever it was, it was far enough in among the trees and bramble that he could not make it out. For a moment he thought about starting the horse up and continuing to plow, but his curiosity nagged at him. He wiped his brow and checked his wrist chron; some might call it a watch. His wife would be up and starting to fix breakfast by now. He would ordinarily try to plow one more row before heading back to get something to eat at this time. However, the thing in the woods seemed to call to him to check it out. Okay, he thought, it’ll only be a few minutes to find out what it is and I can head back to the house from here.
He decided he didn’t need the plow to go explore the woods, so he took a moment to disconnect the plow from the horse. Now he started off and entered the forest to head toward what lay there gleaming at him. Here under the trees it became harder to see ahead and the gleam disappeared several times before he sighted it again. He had been looking for six minutes, which had felt much longer, and he had decided that if he didn’t find whatever it was in the next three minutes he would just head back to the house on the horse, eat breakfast, and then come back for the plow and continue. A large evergree
n was in his path so he turned the horse to go around the great trunk and there it was.
It resembled a mini space ship that had smashed down among a thick bramble, almost embedding in the ground at a lopsided angle. The armor shell had small wings and was designed to protect the chamber from the extreme conditions of entering a planet’s atmosphere. The farmer slowly climbed off the horse and approached the mini-craft. When he neared it he noticed the small rocket pack that was now cool and drained of fuel. He also took notice of some of the blinking lights of the monitoring devices shining through a transparent window on top. He stepped closer and looked inside and to his amazement saw a boy.
The boy appeared to be about seventeen years old with brown hair, parted on the left, of average build. His eyes were closed in sleep and he was wearing a form-fitting white suit. For a moment the farmer stood and wondered where he had come from. Then he remembered the news reports from almost four months ago, exactly one hundred and ninety days. There had been nothing on the news but stories about the humans from another world that had suddenly appeared. He listened to the news about the humans from Earth, but they had all arrived in much bigger ships. Then he remembered that two Earth ships had been destroyed and that at least one of them had expelled the passengers to save them. At the moment he could not remember the names of the ships, one had sounded like, “Spare Arrow xiv.” Or was that a number after the name? Maybe this boy was from one of those tragic ships and his escape craft had landed him here. Why hadn’t he seen the craft before?
While he stood there the farmer somehow pushed a hidden control and the outer lid of the small craft opened up to completely reveal the sleep chamber inside. He gaped at the many control systems that were monitoring the boy. As he studied the readouts trying to figure out what they were saying, his eye caught sight of a slight movement. The boy turned his head and seemed to be breathing more deeply in sleep. The boy moved again as more of the systems began activating the wake mode. Monitors showed that the boy’s breathing and heart rate was moving to normal. One monitor showed that some outside air was now being let in the chamber. The monitor also showed the contents of the air. Althora’s atmosphere was exactly like the Earth’s.
Suddenly there was a clicking noise as the chamber’s timing system counted down to zero. Somehow when the farmer had hit the switch the timer went straight to zero and activated the resuscitation system. With that system engaged other systems kicked in to ensure that the surrounding area was safe. After detecting no dangers the chamber fully opened. The inner lid raised and the boy moved again. Slowly, but surely the boy’s senses came more and more around. For the last couple of days the chamber’s systems had been in a cascade due to the power drain and by a lucky fluke it started to slowly bring the boy around. Now he was almost back to normal and out of his suspended state. Unknown to him, he was about to wake up to a new world.
The boy rolled over and groaned very slowly, becoming aware that it must be morning. He rolled the other way and stretched his mind trying to remember his dream. Memories blazed through his mind and seemed to finally fall into place. His family, his name and age, his home world, and the destruction of Earth and where he was all flooded in his mind. With a surge of straining muscles he stretched, yawned greatly and finally opened his eyes. Immediately his bright hazel eyes took in the trees and then the farmer, the first human he had seen since he had been placed and enclosed in the deep sleep chamber.
Both sets of eyes looked at each other in surprise. The boy was shocked. He remembered the reason he was in the chamber, but where was the rocket ship? Worst of all, where was his family? Maybe this person, whoever he is, might be able to speak and know the answers to his questions. So slowly he sat up and tentatively stretched further because his muscles hadn’t been used for the longest time. He wasn’t sure how they would work. They were slightly sore to start with, but the more he moved the more relaxed they became and the easier he moved. He felt his chest expand and he took a very deep breath. Ah, he was alive. Thank God I’m alive.
“Here, let me help you out of there,” said the farmer in perfect English.
“H…h…how did you learn English?” the boy asked, it was the first question to reach his lips. It seemed incredible that the people on such a distant planet should develop the same language. “Are you from Earth too?”
The farmer was surprised himself. The boy had understood him and spoke in the same language. He had the same thought as the boy about this. He thought very carefully before answering the boy’s questions. “No, I’m not from Earth. This is the planet Althora. It seems that our languages are very similar to yours.”
“That explains it. Where am I exactly? I don’t understand, what happened to the ship? Where is my family?” the boy looked around curiously at the trees, still trying to figure out how he’d gotten there.
“You’re on the second planet in a system of twelve planets. As I said, this planet is called Althora. In particular this is the continent Falora and the kingdom of Cator. The kingdom is ruled by King Maximus and Queen Kayna,” responded the farmer rather proudly and knowledgably. Then he thought and asked, “What’s your name, and where are you from?”
“My name is Trance Sonderson, well actually Terrance, but everybody calls me Trance. I’m from the planet Earth.” Trance then explained about his planet’s demise and how he and his family took part in the exodus. To his surprise the farmer already knew a lot about it. Then Trance thought and asked, “Uh, by the way, what’s your name?”
“My name is Chorus Markem, and this is my farm,” answered Chorus smiling now that they were getting to know each other.
Trance struggled to get up and out of the sleep chamber with Chorus’s help. He stood very shakily on the ground and looked around at the lush fields and the rather ugly gash in the ground that the chamber had made as it came down to land. He took more deep breaths of fresh air, feeling more and more awake and energized with every breath. Gradually he steadied himself and stood at his full height of five foot, eleven inches.
Finally the questions that he really wanted to know came out again. “What happened to the ship? Where is my family?”
“It seems that a Boulthorian ship, they’re from a rather nasty planet just a few light-years from here, attacked a couple of your Earth ships. The ship you were on was probably one of them. The news said that they destroyed both of them. There were some survivors from one of the ships. They must have landed in these small escape craft like that one,” he said indicating the chamber Trance had just climbed out of. He looked at Trance and continued, “I think that there is some kind of register of people that are missing from the ships, just in case there are any more survivors. If I remember right there haven’t been any more. I guess you’d be the first since they all landed.”
Trance took a moment to process what he had just heard. Fear grabbed his heart as he thought about his family. Obviously his family had been on one of the ships that had been attacked. Questions buzzed in his head. What had happened to cause the attack? Surely the ships couldn’t be seen as a threat of any kind. How many survivors were there? Is it possible that his family had survived? If so, where were they? Would they be looking for him? What if they had not survived? What would he do then? The questions zapped energy from him and he looked to sit down a moment.
“Here let me help you,” said Chorus kindly as he saw Trance sway and look for a place to sit. Chorus guided him to a nearby stump and helped him sit. Then inspiration hit him. “How about you come with me to my house? You can stay there until we find out if your family made it and where they are. It’s been all over our news about those Earth ships. Some of your leaders have been assisting the king, and many of your people have been blending in.” Chorus glanced at his chron and suddenly remembered breakfast. Maxine would be waiting for him by now. Then it hit him as he looked at Trance bent over as he sat on the stump. You fool, he thought, that boy is probably starving just
sitting here talking to you. Look at him he’s so weak, he can’t stand for very long. “You’re probably hungry,” Chorus offered cordially. “Why don’t you come with me back to the house? You can stay with my family until we find yours.”
“Alright,” said Trance glancing up. Up to this moment he was just lost in thought thinking about his family. Now that it had been brought up, yes he did feel hungry, very hungry. Without thinking he reached down and touched his stomach as it started to rumble. Suddenly he looked and gasped. He had just noticed the robot horse standing a few feet away. “Wow! You have robot animals?”
“Oh, we’ve had robot horses and other robot animals for work and transportation for centuries. Maybe our technology is a bit different from yours,” responded Chorus as he walked up to the robot horse and patted it. “Our transportation is mainly by robot horses or oxen. There are even some good robot mules. You can either ride them or hook them up to pull a carriage, chariot, wagon or coach. This is my plow horse, that’s what I was doin’ before I caught sight of that thing,” he said, pointing at the chamber again.
He continued, “Our military has some really sleek horses and some that are winged for flight. Well, enough of that, I’m hungry and you’re right starved. Come on, we’ll ride to the house and we can continue talking,” Chorus helped Trance stand again and brought him to the horse. Chorus mounted first and then helped Trance climb on behind him. He took the controls and started the horse. In moments the two were on their way to the house.
Chorus continued to discuss the various robot animals, most for civilian use, and some that he knew the military used. Trance’s mind whirred as he heard of robot unicorns, various types of riding horses, and some that he imagined were like Clydesdales that worked together in teams to pull the largest wagons and coaches. “Not to mention,” Chorus added, “they even make oxen and mule teams. Off over there you can see the tracks for the mule train. It comes past about four times a week,” he said pointing to the south. “Oh, I don’t think we use them, but there have been rumors that the Boulthorians have robot dragons. I hope I never see one of them.”
Space Knights: The Arrival Page 6