SAABAH
The remote planet
“Don’t! Don’t!”
Mor jumped, fearful. As he lifted his body, he knocked his head. Then, he lay down abruptly. He opened his eyes. “I am alive,” he thought. “I am alive, so…I’ve passed to the other side…?” He felt every inch of his body sore. He raised his eyes. A twig and behind it a cloudless, blue sky. He sat up with difficulty and very carefully, so as not to hit his head again.
Before him sprawled a vast, remote place. All around him were holm oaks and rocks, leafless trees with dark brown branches, like timeworn hands reaching out for help. The trunk he was leaning on was broad and had a strange conic shape, with some bare twigs gazing at the sky. A pair of eyes were looking at him from the small rock opposite him. A reptile, like a lizard, watched him suspiciously. It had a small body, huge round eyes, and a flat snout.
“It worked…,” he murmured. “It worked. I passed through to a parallel universe.”
His face lit up, despite the hardship he had been through. He had made it, at last. Yes, the experiment was successful. For him, that was a great sense of vindication after so many years of painstaking efforts. His theory had been borne out. Reality slots were a passage that recorded information, deconstructed and reconstructed matter, and led to parallel worlds. Although he was unlucky, he felt vindicated and proud of his work. He had made it!
“Is Taurus on the same planet, as well?” that idea flitted through his mind, all of a sudden. He felt his hands sting. Looking at them, he realised that his voyage had left indelible marks. As he went through the passageway, his molecular biostructure had been deconstructed and reconstructed again. His extremities were longer and swollen. So was his torso. He groped his head. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, a hairless head, a broad forehead, an engorged skull. No change. He no longer felt any pain in his nose. His skin along his swollen parts looked like burnt.
He stood up and started to walk round, all abroad. Right and left. He couldn’t calculate how long he had been walking for. Remote expanses, rocky hills, and sharp rocks in all shapes and sizes, with strange reptiles closely watching his every move. That place was desolate. All he heard when he shouted was his own echo. Away from civilisation, in an environment so different from planet Neuron. It was the first time he had seen a desert in his life. He had conducted all his experiments in labs, so he wasn’t prepared for something like that. A thought flashed through his mind that scared him. “Inhabitable.” He banished it as quickly as he could. “We’ll see,” he said to himself.
It was unbearably hot. Beads of sweat furrowed his face and body. On planet Neuron, weather conditions were ideal, with not too much sunlight or heat. They were protected, since they were particularly sensitive organisms, with atrophied limbs and no hair. They wore special uniforms whenever they had to go out in the sun. He was breathing with difficulty, and his eyes blurred with sweat.
His burnt skin stung. The uniform he wore was ripped apart wherever his skin was engorged. Thankfully, his boots weren’t destroyed. He examined his wounds. He would either stay there, or keep wandering around, looking for a sign of life. He went for the second.
His roving was exhausting as there was no variation in the landscape. He sat under a rock to get some rest. The suns began to set, so he had to find a shelter for the night. The caves he could see on the rocks were the best solution. He began picking his way up, and got into the first one he saw. Much to his surprise, there was light in the cave, just like the one from the stars, as if dozens of them had stuck on its ceiling. At first, he was scared. Then, he realised they were small insects with long shimmering tails. The cave wasn’t big, and the insects were its permanent inhabitants that would keep him company.
He weariedly sat on the ground. Until he pulled himself together, an abrupt humming sound was heard outside. He stood up and made for the exit. He felt a chilly gust of air. In the dark, he couldn’t see anything, only the light coming from the stars in the sky. The wind was howling. If he stepped out, he would be blown away. The rain didn’t take long to start. Thick drops like hail that whipped his face. Temperature had plunged, which was quite a relief to Mor as he couldn’t stand those suns beating down on him. Puzzled and exhausted, he went back to his corner. He had no strength to think. He shut his eyes, and plunged into a deep slumber.
The next morning, he had difficulty standing up. His body was sore as it was the first time he had slept on a cave floor. The day had nothing to do with the night preceding it. The biting cold had given way to the tropical heat, with the two suns reigning in the blue sky. He had to find something to quell his hunger. He didn’t know what as, back on his planet, food was administered in the form of capsules. Still, he wouldn’t give up so easily. He would continue to discover other forms of life, apart from those strange-looking, funny reptiles with the round heads, the huge, almond-shaped eyes, and the flat noses he could see roaming the desolate expanses.
He left the cave where he had found shelter, and continued to wander around the vast land. It was unbearably hot, and he made frequent pauses. He couldn’t find anything to eat or drink, though. He wondered if that planet was inhabited or not. What would he do if it turned out that it was a desert one? Would he use the device again to beam himself to another parallel universe? He had no country anymore, and couldn’t go back. Is that what he would keep doing for the rest of his life? He would be a voyager flitting between universes? With these dark thoughts, he sat behind a thick tree trunk to get some rest. His eyelids grew heavy.
He opened them, frightened. His face was glued to the window, his hands holding on to the walls. As the spaceship flew away, the planet got dwarfed, and the space cloud that had formed around it grew thicker. Still, holding his breath, he waited for the inevitable, which didn’t take long to come.
The quiet space scenery suddenly lit up. It was as if megatons of lava had gushed out of the planet’s bowels into space, filling the black background with thousands of yellow, orange, brown, and red shades that dazzled you. Its pieces spurted all around, smashing within seconds, to give way to a black hole, a reminder of a civilisation that had faded away.
The spaceship was a cramped two-seater. On the right wall, behind the pilot’s seat, flickered a quite big screen, that of the central computer. He sat down and keyed in the course, changing the coordinates: “Planet Aira.” When the indication on screen faded, he turned around to look out the window. That absolute void crushed him. He bent over and touched his eyes with his hand. He didn’t know how he would cope with that nonexistence and loss. He began to type on the keyboard. His own image turned up on the screen of the main computer.
“No!” he shouted desperately, banging his hand on the spaceship window. “No!” he said again, leaning his forehead on the reinforced crystal, his eyes welling up with tears. Blackness had devoured the remnants of the explosion, and the pieces had turned into space dust. Like it never happened or existed. The former planet had given way to void. He banged his fist on the wall again.
He shot to his feet. The two suns had met at their highest point next to each other, their light dazzling him. He wiped the sweat off his face and neck. His top was drenched. He bent over and held his head in his two hands. He felt his temples hammering. He’d had that dream the previous night. It had come as a nightmare to haunt his sleep. He couldn’t bear to see it every time he closed his eyes. Remorse, hard as Erinyes, hounded him, and there was no salvation.
He kept roaming the desert, not knowing where to go. The day dragged slowly and torturously. At dusk, he clambered up the rocks, and found shelter in a cave, where he curled up and slept.
The third day dawned. In the morning, the two suns were scorching. The climate on that planet was so strange. Temperatures soared during the day. The one of the two suns rose in the east, and the other in the west, following the opposite route. At noon, they met high in the sky, and the whole place was a scorcher for almost an hour. Then, they moved on to set in the opposite d
irection. At night, the weather was totally different. A strong wind, cold, and storms, at times, with hailstones. The caves were the safest refuge. They were big and warm as they retained and reflected the heat, perched on the rocks.
The same happened the next day. He didn’t know how much longer he would hold out for. He had gone without food for three days. His sleeves were gory. When his limbs and the upper part of his body were exposed to the sun, its radiation would cause these burnt spots to open up and bleed. The burns wouldn’t heal; they only stung with sweat and heat. That was the price he had to pay. As heavy and painful as his flight.
He would give his all just to turn back the time. Those last days on planet Neuron would haunt him forever. Simply because he hadn’t managed to do what he should. Because he saved himself, while all the rest was gone. He was trying to figure out how he would carry on with the rest of his life with such a thing on his conscience. Many times, he wished his life would be short, so that he would be spared that ordeal. Sometimes, he even thought of doing away with himself. He didn’t attempt it. Deep down, he believed he was a coward. A coward that had to live his nightmares. That had lodged in his mind, along with the picture of the planet’s explosion.
When the fourth day dawned, he had no strength to move. He had sat behind a rock, his mind filled with memories of his former life. Suddenly, he heard a noise. It was a vehicle closing in on him at breakneck speed. He thought of standing in the middle of the road, and shouting for help. At the last minute, though, he made up his mind. He hid behind a rock, and waited. The vehicle stopped at the caves, very close to him. Two beings came out of it. “There is life,” Mor thought, filled with hope. Those two beings didn’t differ much from the other reptiles. Slim, with long limbs and neck, and round faces. They let out some incomprehensible sounds, which must have been a code. Each of them was carrying an empty sack and a metal bucket. Around their waist, they had a gun with a flat handle and a slot in the middle, three barrels jutting out of it.
He gave them a puzzled look. On the one hand, he thought of speaking to them, on the other he was afraid how they might react. All of a sudden, he felt a pang in his neck. He let out a short scream of pain, and spontaneously hit it with his hand. He had crushed with his palm a small reptile with big claws. “Damn it!” he thought. The two unknown beings heard the noise. They unsheathed their guns, and moved towards the rock. Mor was seated right behind it. They let out even louder screams. He heard them and decided to stand before them. He did so in slow motion. He stood up, slightly raising his hands.
The two strangers came closer, and looked at him, fearful. Mor was much taller and more robust. After a moment of awkwardness, they wielded their guns in his direction more aggressively. Mor was trying to explain that he didn’t want to hurt them, but in vain. After several attempts at communicating, the two strangers pointed with their weapons to a cave, and forced him to lead the way. They walked uphill.
The cave was big and of various shades and colours. The beings wouldn’t stop letting out some incomprehensible sounds. “They’re talking agitatedly,” he thought. They stood in different parts of the cave. It was clear they were having an argument. The one with the green belt took out of the bucket a small metal rod. He pressed a button on one side, and the rod grew bigger. Its front part opened up at the same time. It looked like a metal hand. He threw it at Mor’s feet and, at gunpoint, urged him to pick it up. It wasn’t difficult to understand. He began to dig where the being pointed, while his friend was going up and down in the cave, examining the walls with a small device that looked like a whistle.
The ground was hard. He had to make quite an effort to break the rocks. As he hit them, he noticed the underground gradually began to change colour. Dark brown turned to metal grey. One of the two strangers let out a sound. The other strode closer, and they took to examining the rocks. Judging by the way they wielded their guns over his head, Mor realised he had to move fast. He dug and broke the grey rocks. The smaller the pieces, the more orange shades at their edges. One of them grabbed a stone and, walking out of the cave, he examined it in the sunlight. Then, he put it in the bucket. They collected the rest of the stones, putting them in the sacks.
When these filled up, and Mor let go of his metal rake, he felt ill at ease. The two beings looked at each other. He was no longer of any use to them. It was a matter of time to shoot him, and Mor had to be quick. He had to take action. As he was kneeling down on the ground, his hands hovering, he instantly grabbed as many small stones as he could hold, and hurled them at them. They were taken by storm. They began firing in the air. He crawled before them. He grabbed their heads, and banged them, knocking them unconscious. He then snatched the sacks, the buckets, and the guns, and ran out of the cave, heading towards their vehicle.
That looked so strange, like a huge wheel. On top of it perched the driver’s seat. He pulled an external lever, and the door opened up. He reached the seat with difficulty. The place was cramped. He let go of the two sacks. Next to his seat, there was a small cloth bag with tiny round balls. He tried one, in case they were edible, but unfortunately they were too hard to chew.
He had never driven such a vehicle, but it wasn’t too difficult. A red button was the ignition, and the lever on the side was the accelerator. On top of the wheel, wandering around was a piece of cake. The desolate expanses were a never-ending uniformity, with rocks, sandy lands, and caves. He had been driving for quite some time. He was beginning to despair as he hadn’t seen anything so far. At some point, he saw some shadows in the sky, far afield.
“I’m reaching a town?” he wondered.
As he closed in, he realised he was right. At long last! he thought. That was a form of civilisation. The city looked quite big. Lots of life forms had left their marks on the desolate expanse in the same pattern. Caves and rocks had been exploited, turned into houses and shops, connected through dirt roads or wooden bridges from one cave to the other. On several buildings, there was some sand, which made them look even taller.
The small roads and alleys looked like a maze. Pedestrians turned around and gave him irritated looks. The people of this city seemed to come from different tribes. Some of them were dehydrated and stick thin, pretty much like the reptiles of the desert, with short or long tails that jutted out and moved nervously. Others were of small build, with oblong skulls, and hairy. These walked on either two or four legs. Quite a few were lanky, with almost bony faces, and high cheekbones. It was the first time Mor had seen so many tribes.
There was quite a commotion along a specific road. He got off the vehicle, stuck some of the small pieces and the pouch of seeds into his pockets, and mingled with the crowd. He followed the torrent of flesh to reach a clearing in a big square. There, he could see street vendors behind stands with all sorts of merchandise, like a big flea market. As he walked, he could feel everyone watching him. He was so different; the tallest and stockiest of all. He wasn’t used to being the centre of attention, and that was quite a nuisance. After all, it was the first time he had been sighted in the city.
The stands were full of goods, anything from stones and clothes to switchblades and knives, even some strange little animals. Mor was hungry but, above all, he was dying for a little water. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for four days, and the heat had dazed him. He wanted to taste some things, but he didn’t have any money. He had to think of something, for he wouldn’t hold out much longer. Around the small square, there were houses perched on the rocks. Music came from one of them that looked the biggest. He would check it out. With a few strides, he climbed up the rock, pushed the door made of leaves, and walked in, drenched in sweat, and thirsty.
It was teeming with beings. He only took a few steps, and looked around. Everyone’s eyes fell on him. The place wasn’t too big, with lots of tables and chairs. Some were eating, others were drinking, playing cards or board games. In the back, on an elevated platform, two musicians and a woman sang in loud voices. Actually, the woman’
s voice was high-pitched and rather dissonant. The singer was smiling at everyone. Tall and plump, with a huge forehead and two deep-set nostrils over her enormous lips, she actually hid the two skinny musicians with the long cylinder-shaped necks. Just the two of them, with their four hands and legs, made for an entire orchestra as each played quite a few instruments.
Within seconds, a stubby gentleman, with what looked like a reptile’s head, ran on all fours in Mor’s direction. He sat up, feigned a polite smile, and showed him the only empty table in the back, close to the stage. “He must be the owner,” he thought. He sat down and left the pouch of seeds on the table to empty one of his pockets.
As he watched the people eat and drink, he grew even thirstier. The runty polite owner pointed to a chair. He was talking to him, but Mor couldn’t understand. He showed him one of the things the others were drinking at the surrounding tables.
“Bring me something to drink, please…”
The owner immediately raised his hand.
A girl put a bottle on a tray, held it in one hand, leant on her other hand and two legs, and strode to Mor’s table. She stood up and left the bottle on the table with a smile. She looked like the owner, so Mor assumed she was his daughter. He picked it up and brought it to his nose. It smelled strange. Still, he was so thirsty, he didn’t think twice. He gulped it down voraciously.
“At last!” he murmured and thanked the owner. As soon as he finished his drink, the four beings sitting at the opposite table stood up and approached him. They looked really tall and robust, with no neck, their thick heads perched on their square bodies. They had double limbs, and their heads were flat, with big ears, like those of a bat.
“The city’s tough guys,” mumbled Mor, “coping with the stranger’s threat.” They stood over him. He didn’t pay any attention. He didn’t want to agitate them or get involved in a brawl. He kept swallowing his drink, until there was no more left in the bottle. The one standing closer to him, the chief, whispered something to the rest, and they burst out laughing. Those sitting at the other tables stood up and kept their distances, while the owner and his daughter hid behind the bar. Mor, undaunted, wiped the beads of sweat off his neck.
Supernova Page 2