by S. Hansen
The second popular building design involved a tall diagonally cut off cylinder stretching high into the sky, at lower levels the cylinder splayed out over a larger building. The smooth surface of the taller construct looked as though it were melting over the lower building and it created open space archways around them. As the Asteria smoothly pulled to the port side the most spectacular building standing taller than the others came into full view. It was another four sided skyscraper, but each side bulged to give it curved surfaces before meeting at the corners. And spreading up the entire height of the building was a beautifully crafted coil, it gently wove its way up without touching the sides. It made it look as though the towering building were being unwrapped. More extravagant still, the unravelling coil seemed to be made of grass. Strong, healthy blades of grass sprouted horizontally out of the corkscrew and once they noticed that, they were more aware of the greenery.
As they gently drifted through Kanarik they enjoyed the impressive amount of nature that had been incorporated into the design of the city. Vines hung effortlessly, flowers had bloomed incessantly and trees had sprung up everywhere. Polly most appreciated the trees with a bluish bark and translucent green leaves. It seemed that the inhabitants of the planet were attempting to walk the fine line between over tending the plants and nature reclaiming the land, and it seemed as though they were walking that line perfectly. In the distance they could see what must have been a park, there were thousands of trees surrounding an area with no visible buildings. Polly desperately wanted The Asteria to fly in that direction but sadly it swept around one of the towering buildings and towards the space port.
Huge mechanical arms clamped The Asteria in position and shook her passengers as they did so. When all motion had stopped outside the pair searched out the windows for any sign of life. More of Kanarik's buildings could be seen beyond an intricately decorated wall surrounding the ship but no movement. Over a tannoy type of mechanic they heard a deep voice.
'Maram denar trimanima.' The voice made them both jump back from the windows. Polly signalled to Stark to move closer and duck down below the window level before whispering
'What do we do?'
'Well first, we stand up. They know we are in here. And second we walk out with our hands up, you'd be surprised how often that has worked for me.'
'I do not think that's a good idea.'
'What’s the worst that could happen?' Stark stood up and began to head towards the air lock.
'Err... ’ She blinked slowly at him. 'We could DIE!' Polly shouted after him before getting up and begrudgingly following him out of the ship.
As the pair of them walked down the stairs with their hands in the air they could hear a faint flurry of tones, not voices or busy noises, just tones.
'Maram denar trimanima.' They looked around for someone to speak to and noticed a door open not far from where they stood. Through the door came two seemingly unarmed men, they were muscular with chiselled features but not particularly tall. The Dantans were wearing loose fitting colourful garments and very plain sandal like footwear. They approached the humans with caution but no fear.
'Maram denar trimanima.' As they got closer the tones got louder, it began to hurt the human's ears. The hands that had once been raised in the air were now covering their ears. Both Polly and Stark had an expression of pain on their faces. This puzzled the Dantans, why would these people be reacting so badly to them.
'Denar trimanima.' Polly sunk to her knees.
'Please, stop. I can't take the noise anymore!'
The Dantans tapped each other’s arms and one of the signals stopped, it was relief for Stark and Polly but not enough. After what Stark had decided was a conversation between the Dantans the other tone stopped. The humans cautiously removed their hands from their ears and straightened up. This made the Dantans look happy, Polly and Stark decided that was happy anyway.
One of the Dantans began to walk away, stumbling into objects as he went, when he reached the door one of the tones began again but faintly enough that it didn't hurt them. The Dantan shouted something to his friend with the humans and continued out of the hangar.
'Nad trim amenar um?' The humans looked at each other and discussed their options.
'I think he wants to know who we are.'
‘Adam... It’s literally an alien language… You don’t understand what he’s saying and there is no way I’ll believe that.'
‘Ok.’ He was able to say those two simple letters in such a way that Polly was instantly suspicious of him and what he might be about to do.
‘Ok? What do you mean ok?’
‘I mean ok. You don’t think I know what he’s saying and to be honest I don’t really but I’m just going to try gestures until we get somewhere.’
'Nad trim kinta Danta?'
Stark shook his head and shrugged. The remaining Dantan cocked his head and opened his mouth to speak, he was confused by Stark's answer.
'Nad trim amenar um?' This time Stark briefly puffed his chest and stepped between Polly and the Dantans.
'Adam you can't just guess your answers.' The Dantan was gladdened by Stark's answer and called back to his friend inside the building. The other Dantan appeared at the door way holding something up in the air
'Ud U nad vam vaas parta?'
'U daman vam.'
'Usk kamiir ritamina.' The Dantan in the doorway waved his upturned palm from side to side and stopped making his tone as he struggled to make it back to the humans unscathed.
'Attim trim dit.' The possibly bruised Dantan held out his hand, in the palm were two miniature devices that Stark thought looked like bugs he'd used for work. The Dantan retracted and pushed forward his hand for Stark who noticed that the little finger was possibly opposable as well as the thumb. Stark decided to take the bugs and gave one to Polly. The friendly guards pointed to their heads and made gestures that Stark took to mean he needed to place the bug on his head. When he did so he felt a pinching, a slight pain in the side of his head and then the bug wouldn't move.
'Do you understand me?' After the initial panic of not being able to remove an unknown device from his head, Stark was surprised to understand the Dantans. Of course all Polly heard was 'Nad trim amenar um?', so she remained nervous and moved closer to Stark.
'I think it’s ok, I can understand them now.' Stark placed a hand on Polly's shoulder and urged her to do as they had been told. As she placed the bug to her head she also felt the slight pinching and panic of not being able to remove it.
'Please announce yourselves.' Stark outstretched his hand in an attempt at a handshake whilst the Dantans looked at his hand.
'Hello, my name is Adam Stark, this is Polly Webster-Hargreaves. We are from Earth.' The Dantans looked at each other and laughed. Stark took one of the Dantans hands and placed it in his before shaking.
'This is a handshake, we do it when we meet new humans.'
'What are humans?' Stark wasn't sure with what level of complexity he should answer the question, fortunately Polly stepped forward.
'We are.'
'Oh. I am Manim, he is Tilam.' They both stretched out their hands for their new friends. Polly and Stark smiled with relief.
'Does our vocal resounding harm you?' At first Stark wasn't clear on the question before he remembered the ear piercing noises.
'Yes, sorry. It hurts my ears.'
'That is interesting, we do not consciously hear the noise. It is to help us see. I hope our scientists can help you block the noise out as we need to make it for moving.' Polly was still worried about breaking the observer’s rules and despite the friendly nature of the Dantans she wanted to get back to the ship.
'That's very kind but we have to leave. We have to do something very important.'
'But it is founding week. You should not miss the celebration.'
'Adam we have to go.'
'But founding week sounds fun, can't we stay for a little bit? Meet the scientists and let them fix the whole blee
ding ear drum issue.' He used his eyes to sway her again.
'Fine, but only because they seem friendly.'
'Thankyou. We think you are friendly too.' One of the Dantans smiled at Polly whilst the other began to speak to Stark.
'We need to get the scientists to come here, if we take you away from the dock it will hurt you. During founding week everyone is in the city to celebrate. It will be too much for your ears.'
'We can wait here. Will it take long?'
'It may take some time to find them as they will be celebrating, but I know a scientist who is eager to see new species.'
As the Dantans left, Stark looked at Polly with such glee on his face that her worries melted away. They sat on the steps of The Asteria and waited.
☆★☆
Some hours later they could hear the tones approaching, there were many more this time. Stark couldn't decipher quite how many but at least five. As the door opened Manim and Tilam stopped the group of Dantans and warned them to stop using their signals. Stark tried his hardest to be polite and not laugh as the group of six Dantans stumbled towards them awkwardly but a few chuckles escaped quietly. Polly gave him a disapproving look as punishment. When the group arrived at the foot of the stairs they parted to present one Dantan in particular, he had short deep red hair that seemed to draw to the front in a flame shape and gently flicker as he moved his head. His dark, full eyebrows and an angular shape to his head made him look quite sinister to Polly. As Manim announced him with great pride Polly's gaze was drawn to his small but penetrating eyes, his irises were proportionately large by human standards and they were a striking golden yellow.
'Adam Stark and Polly Webster-Hargreaves this is Dantil, he heard of your presence and wished to meet you both. Dantil is a bloodline family member of Drium.' Dantil took a few paces forward and smelt the air before speaking.
'These are strange and intriguing scents, you must have travelled a great distance. It is my pleasure to meet you.'
Tilam whispered to Dantil before he offered his hand to the humans. Stark accepted the gesture with a friendly smile, not realising that the Dantans saw this only as a flash of white on a tanned background. After many introductions and awkward handshakes two of the new Dantans began examining a human each, calling out random words and numbers to the other scientists, who used what Stark could only describe as a computer of sorts. Polly studied Stark's reaction to everything, somehow she found it more fascinating than the entirely new species before her. Stark wanted to understand everything including his new found understanding of an alien language.
'How does this language thing work?' he queried as he tapped the microchip fastened to his head. Dantil was keen to share the knowledge of his people with his new friends.
'It's a clever device is it not? It was invented about ninety solar rotations ago. It signals the brain and transfers data between itself and the brain. Currently it only contains knowledge of the Dantan languages. The chip understands the words being spoken in Dantan and takes its understanding of your language from your brain. Sometimes this means there are errors, words you do not have or do not know will just have to be translated to the nearest word. But these language chips can communicate with each other so that the chips language databases are able to grow and learn from the varied speakers.’ Dantil paced from side to side, his loose white trousers and blood red top fluttering behind him and his face overflowing with pride as he spoke. Dantil's pride and friendly manner helped warm Polly to their new acquaintance, she began to study him more, and his angular face seemed to soften as he spoke. Polly began to notice that the angles of his face were subtly curved and that he was far less sinister than he had first appeared.
By the time Dantil had finished explaining all the inner workings of the chip, little of which Stark and Polly really understood, the scientists had gathered around the computer and chattered amongst themselves until one stood up in triumph and announced that he would be back shortly. After hearing him leave awkwardly Dantil thought about the impracticality of not using echoes to gather a perception of depth.
'How do your people move without stumbling if not with the use of noise?' Polly could see Stark struggling to think of a way to explain human sight to an alien and thought maybe she could give it a try.
'In a similar way to these devices.' She pointed to her head and then remembered their apparent poor vision. 'The language translators, our eyes connect with our brains to gather information. Our eyes can see objects in three dimensions, our brain turns that into an image with depth so we can see how close objects are.'
'Incredible, you can see everything perfectly, no need for noise. You are lucky indeed, it would be a fine thing to see everything as it feels.'
'We don't see everything perfectly but it does sometimes take your breath away to see so much.' She smiled at the thought of some of the places she had been on Earth and what places she could see on other planets. It was the first time Polly had thought about doing more with The Asteria than exactly what she was told. She felt a strange flutter in her stomach.
'I must admit I am eager to understand what you both look like, I have often wondered about life from other planets.'
Just as Dantil was about to ask of the human planet the missing scientist came bounding back towards them holding the answer to the interspecies problem. He held four small plugs in his hand straight out in front of him. Stark stopped him from going too far and carefully took the plugs. He guessed that they needed two each and that they were to go in each ear. He handed Polly her share and placed his in his ears.
'What will these do?' He said.
'They will block out the tones created by our vocal resounding, you should still be able to hear most other noises but any others that it also blocks out should be so similar to our tones that they would also cause you the same harm.' The scientist spoke with pride and in a matter of fact manner that reminded Polly of Nashana.
'We would like to test them now.'
'Ok I'm ready, Polly?'
'Yep ready.'
There was silence, followed by more silence. Polly and Stark looked at each other and then to the Dantans who seemed very pleased with themselves. The three scientists were jumping with their arms flat against their sides, Polly gathered that it must have been a kind of celebration. Dantil seemed deep in thought as at last he had the opportunity to truly study the human forms. Stark's chiselled jawline and timidly floppy hair. He could at last see Polly's slender figure, soft features and sun bleached hair flowing to her shoulders. Whilst Polly appreciated that not one of them had jumped back in horror she was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable so she turned to Tilam and Manim.
'You mentioned a "founding week" before, what is that exactly?' She asked. Dantil took Polly's hand and began leading her along.
'You have to see it to understand it, you cannot explain it with words,' He said.
☆★☆
As soon as they left the port they were hit by an intoxicating combination of euphoric music, flickering lights and exquisite scents. The streets were flooded with Dantans, they seemed to be dancing but their movements were more fluid than most humans. When Dantil approached, the crowds would split to allow passage and Stark noticed that whilst many of the Dantans were already elated they seemed ecstatic just to have seen Dantil. He tried to ask why but struggled to be heard over the noise, so he continued to follow whilst unexpectedly mellowing in the environment.
Now that they were on the ground the humans could see that the coloured banners that had been hung across many of the buildings created a canopy of varying hues, back lit by not only the sun but by lights placed strategically around the city, to create maximum impact. The towering buildings were just as sleek and impressive from the ground, causing Stark to spend much of the first few minutes in Kanarik with his head tilted back. Both food and drink seemed to be flowing naturally from somewhere but no one seemed to be working. Polly was immediately taken with the Dantan culture, she felt that s
uch a joyful race had to be doing something right. Stark integrated almost seamlessly with his new surroundings but his height made it difficult to blend in perfectly.
He slicked back his hair, stretched and cracked his fingers together before beginning to mimic the Dantans movements and weaving between the fluid bodies, becoming an object of fascination. He found the music made it easy for his movements to flow and the aromas left him feeling intoxicated and blissful. He began to introduce perfectly timed claps into his movements, the Dantans were amazed by the concept and began to copy him before Stark also acquainted them with the concept of a high five. The process spread through the colourfully lit masses as if waves in an ocean. Stark was awed by the spectacle and his height gave him a perfect view of his environment. He could see Polly gently swaying to the entrancing music, she seemed more beautiful than he had ever noticed before. His eyes honed in on the stars on her collar bone as he moved through an ever more affectionate crowd.
With his eyes fixated on Polly's tattoo he took a deep breath and grabbed her hand, when she tilted her head back down from the canopy her smile beamed with excitement. He pulled her closer as they began to move in unison, each movement flowed to the next seamlessly. Polly could not disguise her lust for Stark as he moved ever closer, his muscles flexing under her gaze and his chiselled jaw catching the flickering lights. Stark however didn't notice, with his eyes still fixed on her tattoo. His mind was swimming with indescribably divine music, exhilarating scents, stimulating colours and calming touches from complete strangers. He could only focus on the stars, it was keeping him grounded.