The Power of Gnaris

by Les Bill Gates

“He chose life.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “After Barrow had completed the rites of sacrifice, and the other captains were all dead, he became very angry. He told my father that he had defied the gods and that he was no longer Karavec. He banished him from Hikon and every planet in the Karavec Empire. He sought refuge from the humans on Earth, and has been living there ever since. Much has changed during that time.”

  “Did you see him when you were on Earth?”

  “Yes, we spent a wonderful few days together.”

  “Now, if you’ll please excuse me,” said Forster. “I have to rest in preparation for our journey to Hikon.”

  Elena rose to leave.

  “Will you be accompanying us?”

  “Yes, Barrow has insisted that I assist you. Maybe he does not fully trust you. Besides, I am from Hikon. It is my home. I travel around the Karavec colonies with the Great Savant.”

  “I’m so glad you’re coming.” Forster felt his face turn a deeper shade of red. He glanced at the Karavec woman who stood before him. She is not unattractive, he thought. True, her eyes are a little large. But mostly in her favour, she is very intelligent. But these are human emotions. She is different. She does not think like a human.

  “Can I meet you tomorrow?” he asked. “Maybe we could dine together.”

  “Dine? We do not eat special meals like humans do. We eat only when there is a need. You will not find any restaurants like those on Earth here.”

  “I forgot. Well, maybe we could just talk some more.”

  “Meet me at the spaceport at noon. You can show me around your ship, and I will give you a tour of the town before we depart for Hikon. Oh, and bring a thick coat. It is still cold on the surface, though not as cold as you expected.”

  After Elena had departed, Forster continued to think about her, and about her father and the ship that had been destroyed. Then he remembered his earlier thoughts that the murderer might have travelled on the ferry ship. I must tell Barrow, and warn him that no passengers should be allowed to depart from Hikon.

  He opened the door once more and called for a servant to take a message requesting an audience with the Great Savant.

  Chapter 3 – Two are One, and One is Two

  “The separation of an embryo into two, without completely splitting, is very rare. Such twins, who share a single heart, are a blessing to the gods.”

   The Book of Karavec (49, 86)

  The following day at noon, Forster wrapped himself in a thermal coat, and donned a pair of thermal boots. He was not going to take any chances that the outside temperature would drop well below zero.

  He climbed the stairs leading up from his hotel room; not the same stairs he had descended with Barrow after he had first arrived on the planet two days earlier, but this flight led up to a point on the planet’s upper surface in the same vicinity. At the top of the stairs, he found a door. He passed through, and stepped outside into the darkness.

  He looked upwards and beheld the canopy of stars; the same stars that he had often seen at night on Earth. He recognised the familiar constellations that the ancestors of those on Earth had given names to; names of animals, and heroes from ancient human history. The only difference from the night sky he had been familiar with all his life was what appeared to be a larger than normal star at its zenith whose faint glow provided a dull, almost imperceptible light. Ogien, the sun of Arion, was so remote that it was barely visible even in the middle of the day.

  A voice in the darkness startled him. “Good morning Captain Forster.”

  He recognised the voice of Elena.

  “Aren’t you going to show me around your ship?” she reminded him.

  Forster retrieved the communication device from his pocket, flicked it open, lightly touched its screen, and then spoke to his first officer on duty on the bridge of the starship.

  “I instructed my deputy to dim the lights,” he said to Elena.

  Moments later, a hatch opened on the underbelly of the ship, and a staircase lowered to the ground. Forster led the way up the stairs, followed by the female Karavec.

  Elena scanned the lower deck. “It’s huge,” she said.

  “Yes, big enough to accommodate a crew of eight hundred. We won’t be able to do a complete tour; so we’ll restrict ourselves to the bridge, my private quarters and the crew’s recreation area.”

  Wherever they went, eyes turned in their direction and stared. Most of the members of the crew had travelled widely throughout the galaxy and had seen aliens of many different types, some much stranger looking than the Karavec, yet there was something striking about this Karavec woman that drew their attention; not least was the obvious attraction between her and Forster.

  “First, the bridge,” said Forster. They climbed another staircase, this one a spiral type, to a higher level. When Elena’s green hairless head appeared from below, there was a shocked silence from the members of the crew on duty. This female appeared stunningly different.

  Forster had already stepped onto the deck. He offered his hand to pull his guest up the last stair to stand beside him. He removed his coat, and invited Elena to do the same.

  There were just five crew members on duty. Each one stood and snapped to attention when the commander appeared. The ship was docked for a stay of several days on a friendly planet, so there was no need for the ship to be battle ready, or even prepared for its next journey, but a skeleton crew always remained on duty on the bridge.

  Forster looked around the room, and seemed satisfied that everything was in order.

  “At ease,” he said. “This is Elena. She has spent some time on Earth and has learned the English language. She is my assistant during my stay on the Karavec worlds. Elena, let me introduce you to my crew members. This is my first officer, Captain Jonas LeClerc, and this is helmsman Sergeant Silvano Rossi.” When each one was introduced, Elena shook their hand.

  “Over there is my communications officer, Lieutenant Avril Thom.” She waved. “And the two gentlemen by the door are on-duty soldiers offering the first line of defence should anything . . . er . . . untoward happen.”

  “Captain Forster, nothing is going to happen while I’m around . . .”

  “The truth is that there are always guards on duty, whether we’re docked on a friendly planet or under siege from an enemy craft. It is the policy of the human race that we should always be prepared for the unexpected.”

  “I see.”

  After a pause, she asked, “Why are you here?”

  “To investigate the murders.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean, what is your ship doing in this solar system?”

  “We are on a routine mission around the galaxy. Our schedule brought us to Ogien where we are on our way to investigate a strange phenomenon on another of its planets.”

  “Where, and what phenomenon?”

  “I’m afraid that’s classified. Now, follow me. I’ll show you around the deck where the officers have their quarters. A sliding door opened automatically, and they passed into a corridor that stretched in a slight curve into the distance, with doors on either side. Forster stopped outside the first door on the left. “This is my quarters,” he said.

  “May I take a look?”

  “Of course.”

  The captain swiped his ID card and tapped in some numbers on the keypad outside the door, and the door opened.

  “Please.” Forster indicated for Elena to precede him into the room.

  She looked around and whistled. “What a huge room!”

  “There’s more. This is my living space. Through there is my bedroom . . .” He pointed to a door that led off the main room. “. . . and that is my kitchen . . . I get to prepare my own food sometimes, when I feel like it, and through there is the bathroom, and . . . oh . . . I almost forgot, that door leads to my private gymnasium.”

  “Wow!” she said, plonking herself down in one of the plush green velvet armchairs. “I could warm to this
.”

  “The perks of being a star ship captain.”

  “What’s through there?” She pointed to the far side of the room where she noticed a large window with the blinds shut.

  “As you would expect, there’s not much of a view out there at the moment. When we’re travelling, however, it’s often a different story. I get the best views in the house.”

  “Are all the rooms like this?”

  “No. My officers have similar quarters, but rather smaller than mine. The rest of the crew have to share, usually four or five to a room. This is a large ship, but also accommodates a very large crew, so space is rather limited.”

  “Can I see the crew’s quarters?”

  “That would not be possible. It is bad protocol for the captain, or any of my officers for that matter, to encroach on the privacy of the crew members. But I will show you their recreation area. They have a large entertainment room, a gym, a swimming pool and a bar where they can let their hair down when they’re off duty. Come I’ll show you.”

  When they had completed the inspection of the crew’s facilities, they returned to the bridge where they retrieved their coats and climbed back down onto the planet’s surface.

  “Well, that’s my guided tour. Now for yours,” said Forster. “You promised to show me around the town.”

  “Follow me.”

  She led him back down the stairs to his hotel.

  “We’ll exit through the main entrance to the hotel,” she said. “This will take us into the central business district of Arion City.”

  They walked side by side, but Forster merely followed the course that Elena led him. When they passed through the lobby and then the main entrance, he stared in amazement at the scene that greeted him.

  The lack of light restricted the view in all directions. A dull grey aura was all that illuminated the town. It was impossible to see anything beyond a few buildings in any direction. The view vertically upwards was totally black. Yet the Karavec population of the town went about their business just like in any town on Earth.

  “The streets are very narrow,” he said.

  “Yes, they are constructed for pedestrian traffic only. There are no land vehicles within the confines of the town.”

  “So how do they travel from one part of the town to another when it is too far to walk?”

  “They use the trains.” She glanced upwards.

  Forster’s eyes followed hers. “I can’t see anything.”

  “It’s there alright. Just above the rooftops of the buildings there is a system of interconnecting railway loops with stations regularly spaced throughout the city. It’s perfectly silent since it’s electrically powered.”

  While Forster was craning his neck trying to see any sign of the railway above, something struck his face. He pushed the thing away with his right hand. It flew away, making a whirring noise as it did so.

  “What was that?”

  “It was just a whirlybird. It is an insect.”

  “It was as big as a bird from Earth.”

  “They can grow quite large, but they are completely harmless.”

  “Tell me more about the railway.”

  “You can travel anywhere you like on the trains, and it doesn’t cost a thing. It’s the only way of getting around on Arion. Shall we try it? It will be a good way for you to see the town from the air.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” said Forster, “but first of all can we walk a little. I’ve got so many questions I want to ask.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Firstly, explain to me how the people are able to walk about and perform their business without forever bumping into each other, or colliding with the buildings or even those rubbish bins over there.”

  “That’s easy. We use our gnaris. I thought I had explained this to you. We do not rely on our eyes to navigate our way around the place. Instead we use gnaris. While we walk around, we can sense the objects in our surroundings, and avoid any painful collisions. We can also sense who we might bump into if we do not adjust the direction in which we are walking.”

  “I forgot that you told me you use gnaris just like humans use their eyes.”

  “Exactly. Humans also use their sense of hearing, or even their sense of smell to give them warning of any potential dangers. We also use these senses, but gnaris is our most valuable sense.”

  “Okay, here’s my next question. Why is the sky totally black? I can’t see any stars. When we were on the surface earlier, I saw stars, including many familiar constellations. But here I can’t see even one star.”

  “It’s because of the roof.”

  “Roof?”

  “Yes, didn’t you realise? We have covered the entire surface of Arion with a roof. It’s made from an opaque plastic.”

  “But, why is it necessary? Arion is a sunless planet. You would not be bothered by the small amount of light coming from Ogien. Does it have something to do with the atmosphere? Does Arion not have the right quantities of oxygen and nitrogen for the Karavec lungs?”

  “You are right about Arion being sunless, but the atmosphere is perfectly acceptable for our lungs. Earlier, before we entered your ship, we were able to breathe normally on the surface. No, it is not because of this. There are two reasons why we need the roof. The first is that we are sensitive to other forms of electromagnet radiation as well as light. The roof filters out all those harmful rays. The second reason is that the roof helps to maintain an ambient temperature for us to live. As I explained to you yesterday, we have learned how to enhance the heat from the planet’s core. It is, however, necessary that we do not waste that heat by allowing it to dissipate into the atmosphere.”

  Forster nodded. “That explains a lot. But it does pose another question. How did you manage to survive the harmful electromagnetic rays, such as ultra violet, when you lived on Earth?”

  “I knew you would ask that. When I first arrived, I had to wear a special protective suit; but after a while, just as my eyes became more tolerant to the light, so the rest of my body became more tolerant towards the other rays. But I still had to be very careful.”

  While they talked, they passed by a number of shops selling a variety of goods, just like the shops Forster was familiar with on Earth. Some sold Karavec clothes, others electronic equipment, and yet other specialised in weapons. He saw information shops, where the latest works of fiction and fact were available for upload to tablets, and shops selling sports equipment, none of which he recognised. The only real difference that he noticed was the conspicuous absence of restaurants and delicatessens; but Forster recalled that Karavec only ate at all for necessity, and never as a social event.

  They passed through squares with fountains, past museums and art galleries, and the Embrycultural Centre that they had visited two days earlier. This stood next to a huge palatial structure enclosed by a high iron fence and closed gates. In the dim light Forster could just make out a contingent of about twenty men guarding the periphery of the palace.

  “That’s the Great Savant’s residence,” said Elena. “We were inside there yesterday. When you arrived on Arion, you entered the palace from the upper surface, but it’s not so easy to get inside from the town. The building is well fortified, as you can see, and the Great Savant has a guard of dozens of warriors. And, adjacent to the palace, is the Embrycultural Centre.”

  “Yes, I noticed that. I assume there must be a direct link between the centre and the Great Savant’s palace.”

  “Naturally, that’s how we accessed the centre.”

  After walking for a few minutes longer, they stood outside a building.

  “A prison?” Forster asked.

  Elena nodded.

  The main doors, constructed from steel or some other very strong metal, were closed.

  “Those brick walls look very solid,” said Forster. “They appear impossible to scale.”

  “Nevertheless the tops of the walls are protected by a strong force that is impenetrable to the
gnaris of even the strongest Karavec minds. Even the Great Savant himself couldn’t escape from that prison.”

  Just after they reached the main prison entrance, a door set inside one of the gates opened with a flurry of activity. A line of Karavec prisoners in double file emerged from the open doorway. They wore orange robes tied at the waist, and nothing on their feet. They bowed their heads and processed slowly while they stepped over the doorstep, and then turned left marching towards the Great Savant’s palace.

  “What’s happening,” he whispered.

  “They are to be sacrificed to the gods.”

  “Sacrificed? Does this abominable practice persist even now in the Karavec worlds?”

  “It is not for you to ask or to question, captain.” Her face turned a bright shade of green.

  He had not heard Elena speak a word in anger before, so he carefully weighed up his response.

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean any offence. I . . . I was just a little surprised, that’s all.”

  “When the gods require sacrifice, no one, not even the Great Savant, can question their will . . . except you, so it seems. They do not ask for sacrifice often; but, when they do, it is for a good reason.”

  “What is the reason on this occasion?”

  “Sixty Karavec embryos were slaughtered a few days ago, together with their nurses. The gods are demanding the sacrifice of an equal number of warriors to appease their anger. Former warriors, who have committed a crime and are now prisoners, are often chosen for this honour.”

  “Honour? I don’t understand how it can be an ‘honour’, but I must accept your explanation. As a guest on Arion, it is not up to me to question this practice. Please accept my apologies.”

  Elena smiled “Apology accepted,” she said.

  That smile is very alluring, Forster thought.

  Then something caught his eye, something unexpected.

  “Look,” he said, “two of those men appear to be joined together. Yes, they are definitely joined at the abdomen. They are having difficulty walking.”

  “They are twins.”

  “Twins?” Forster’s voice rose in pitch in his excitement.