Firmament: In His Image

by J. Grace Pennington

  “Of course I know that.” Turning to Crash, he commanded, “From now on, blasters stay with us.” Flipping open his communicator, he said, “Mr. Ralston, this is Captain Trent. Do you have the reactor fixed yet?”

  “This is Lieutenant Howitz,” was the response. “Ralston is resting right now, but we’ve been working all morning on it. It is fixed, sir, but I’m afraid we still haven’t figured out what made the hole in the first place. Ralston says we can’t take it up until we know, or we’ll just come back down again.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Keep trying; we’ll let you know if we turn up anything here. Trent out.” Switching frequencies, he began speaking again. “Surveyor, this is Captain Trent. I would like to speak with Commander Guilders.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  Elasson stirred while we were waiting, and his eyes fluttered open. Looking around confusedly, he rubbed his head. “Ti gignetai?” he asked.

  “Rest, boy.” The Doctor spoke firmly, and pressed down on the young man’s chest to compel him to stay lying down.

  “This is Guilders,” came a voice from the communicator.

  “Mr. Guilders, I’d like the lab to scan and examine surrounding bodies for elements or properties that could cause enough excessive radiation to burn a hole in the shuttle reactor. Sun, moon, and anything close enough to affect the planet. Report any discoveries to Mr. Ralston aboard the Apogee.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That’s all, Guilders. We’ll get back as soon as we can, Trent out.” Closing the communicator slowly, he pocketed it and looked at us.

  “You’re right, Gerry,” he said, as if the Doctor had just spoken. “But you know me. If I could, I’d take all these people back to Earth with us.”

  “But you can’t,” the Doctor said, almost gently. “Trent, your first responsibility is to your own people.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Gerry, I know my duties.”

  “Eith’ hymon syneien ego,” Elasson sighed, looking at me. “Eith’ emou synieite.”

  I knelt next to him. “Thank you for what you did. I don’t understand it, but I know you suffered for it.”

  He was silent, and his other hand went to his cheek, where there was a large red mark.

  “It’s time we left,” the Captain said at last. He walked to the opening and looked out at the waves of people, toiling on. “We’re not doing any good here. Maybe someday…” He didn’t finish his sentence, and no one expected him to. “We just need to devote ourselves to figuring out the problem with the shuttle and fixing it.”

  Elasson sat up. “Nyn me dei apienai, eita d’ epanerchomai.” He stood and made an attempt at brushing the sand off his clothes and face. “Ariston gar en oligo poieteon.” Then he left, and blended into the crowd of inhabitants.

  I wasn’t ready to leave yet, and I knew the Doctor wasn’t either. We wanted to know where these people had come from, who they were, and how they fitted into God’s universe. But Crash was ready to leave, and he jumped at the opportunity.

  “I’ll go look for Whales,” he said, and hurried out of the tent.

  The Captain turned and spoke authoritatively. “I want you two to stay close and lay low. You’ll need to be the center of communications for me.”

  “I’ll want to check on the little girl,” the Doctor began, but the Captain cut him off.

  “No. You’ve done what you can, and I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger again.”

  “But I just…”

  “That’s an order, sir.” He was most commanding in times like this, when he had made a decision and was determined to do everything necessary to complete the task.

  The Doctor couldn’t argue, and he stood up. “Where are you going?”

  “I may head out to the shuttle and try to help out there. Don’t worry, I’ll take salt and water with me. Take care of your dad, Andi,” he said, with a bit of his familiar smile.

  “I will, sir.”

  After he left, I suddenly discovered that I was ravenously hungry. My wristcom showed the time to be late afternoon, but I knew that the days here were different than Earth, and my com was set to Earth’s time. It was probably more like nine or ten in the morning, judging by their sun.

  “Dad, can I go get something to eat?”

  He turned his communicator on. “No, you can stay here and eat. There’s still some food in your pack. I want you to eat that.”

  Despite my distaste for the native food, I still had the somewhat unreasonable aversion to eating the food that we’d brought, even when Elasson wasn’t present. But he was my father and my doctor, so it was pretty difficult to disagree with him. I opened my pack and began unwrapping a “fruit salad.” After hydrating it in a small wooden bowl, I settled down to eat it.

  The Doctor was preoccupied with his own thoughts, so I picked up the history book and began looking through it. Apparently the Captain had been reading about the Classical Age of Ancient Greece, and I continued where he’d left off, absently skimming over each paragraph as I messily ate the fruit with one hand.

  I think I’d gone several paragraphs past it before it struck me. I was reading about the transition of Athenian government from democracy to a monarchy and then back to a democracy again, when I stopped. There had been a familiar word a couple of paragraphs ago. A word that had been running through my head much of that morning.

  Hurrying back a page or so, I looked in amazement. Yes, it was there. I held my breath.

  “Doctor?” I said after I had stared at it for a while.

  “What?” he asked, not really listening.

  “Dad,” I said, “I think this is important.”

  “Alright.” He turned to me. “What is it?”

  I kept my eyes on the word. “What’s the name of the man who wanted to kill you?”

  “Pere-something, I think. Why?”

  “No, no, not him. The ruler.”

  “Basily, isn’t it? Or no, Basilius. It’s Basilius. Why are you asking?”

  “Because—Dad, the word ‘basileus’ is in this book.”

  I had his attention now, for sure. “In that history book? Where? Is it somebody’s name?”

  I shook my head. “Not exactly. It’s not a name. It’s a title. For a king or a ruler.”

  “From what country?” he asked, looking just as amazed as I felt.

  “Greece.”

  XV

  Neither of us spoke for a minute. I, for one, was considering the implications of this. If the language of these people was Greek, then they had to be, had to be connected to the Greeks somehow. It was too fantastic to believe that there could be two languages that were the same. For an instant the wild theory of directed panspermia flitted through my mind, but I dismissed the thought as soon as it began to form. I didn’t, and wouldn’t believe that anything had placed life on Earth except God. It wasn’t a matter of stubbornness, the Doctor had taught me. It was a matter of faith.

  “We don’t even know for sure yet,” he cautioned, responding to the look in my eyes. “I don’t think we should say anything to the others until we do.”

  I agreed. “But this means—there might be a way to understand them. To speak with Elasson, and for him to speak back.”

  “How? We don’t speak Greek. Neither do any of the others. And we don’t even know for sure that they speak Greek.”

  “It won’t be hard to find out.” I held up the book. “You can switch these books to different languages, and they have built-in dictionaries for each language.”

  “Not all books have that capability—”

  “But this one does,” I continued quickly. “Elasson accidentally switched it to Spanish when he found it.”

  “So it has Spanish. Does it even have Greek?”

  “There’s an easy way to find out.” My fingers trembling slightly, I went to the language menu and began thumbing through the options. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Russian, Latin, Portuguese—and Chinese.

  I groan
ed with frustration. “What kind of book has Latin and Portuguese, but no Greek?”

  We were silent for a moment, and then I cried out. “Wait! What am I thinking? You can download other languages; I’ve done it for my electronic Bible before.”

  “You have an electronic Bible?” he asked in surprise as I selected the “download new” button from the menu.

  “I thought it would be nice to have an extra,” I said.

  “I like conventional books better.”

  “I usually read my conventional one.” A message popped up on the little screen and my shoulders slumped in disappointment. “’Cannot connect to language database. Out of range. Download not possible.’ The atmosphere must be—”

  Before I could even finish, he had taken out his communicator. “Mr. Guilders, this is Doctor Lloyd.”

  “I hear you, Doctor,” came the familiar voice over the small speaker.

  “I want you to download a Greek dictionary for a book that we have, and send it to us.”

  “What’s the book?”

  I navigated to the title page and held it up for him to see.

  “’The History of the World, by Jasper Golla. Third edition.’”

  “Do you want modern or ancient Greek?” was the next practical question.

  The Doctor looked questioningly at me. I shrugged. “Probably ancient, but—”

  “Just send both,” he said. “Let us know when they’ve been sent.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Thank you. Lloyd out.”

  After he’d put his communicator away, we stared at each other. I fingered the book in my hands, wondering, speculating. This one word had opened up a whole new range of possibilities, but did not provide any answers. Instead, it seemed to raise more questions.

  I determined at last that it was pointless to theorize until Guilders got the dictionaries to us so we could test our theory. So I asked an unrelated question.

  “Did you and Whales find out anything about what is making our eyes itch?” Mine were still itching during the day with the itching dying off at night, but I didn’t seem to notice it as much anymore. It was already becoming almost normal, like salivating, blinking, or even breathing. Like any regular bodily function.

  “We didn’t have that much time to talk about it. I had to get back to taking care of my patients.”

  “Now that you have your instruments with you…”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t bring the whole medical closet, Andi. Just what I thought I’d need. And I didn’t think I’d be doing ophthalmology.”

  “But do you have any theories?”

  He toyed with his bottle of salt, which had been refilled with clumps from a nearby salt deposit. “Eyes aren’t my specialty. But there is the fact that the itching seems to be—for me at least—under the surface of the eye. It’s not just a corneal problem. Could relate to the retina, or possibly the vitreous humor. That’s why the rubbing—though a natural reflex—doesn’t seem to help or worsen the itching.”

  Realizing that he was now thinking aloud, I went back to reading the book, this time with a bit more interest. I pored over everything about Greece, but found nothing else to indicate connections between it and the planet’s inhabitants.

  We didn’t see Elasson at all that afternoon, and I grew worried about him. I wanted to go looking for him and make sure he hadn’t been hurt by his brother, but the Doctor firmly refused. As much as he might want to help the young man, he wasn’t doing anything without asking the Captain.

  When Crash and Whales tramped in after several hours, they were tired and hot. Crash flopped down on his pallet, and Whales sat in one corner to log his findings.

  “Any luck?” the Doctor asked.

  Whales shook his head. “I’ve checked everything. Radiation, temperature, any elements in the atmosphere I might have missed…” Shaking his head again, he threw his hands up helplessly. “Later I’m going to have another look at the troposphere—try to figure out what determines the ratio of the different elements. If that doesn‘t help, I don‘t know what to do.”

  “The lab team up there haven’t discovered anything either,” Crash added, gesturing toward the tent ceiling as if the Surveyor floated just above it. “But I’m hot and hungry. All I want to do is get off this planet and get back in my speeder and go.”

  “We’re aware of what you want, Crash.” The Doctor frowned. “You’ve been in such a hurry to get off ever since we found these people; it never occurred to you that you could be here for a reason.”

  “Reason, reason,” Crash mumbled. “Everything’s about reasons to you. Don’t you ever think there could be such a thing as a glitch, a mistake? Like your friend Trent says, we haven’t done anybody any good by being here. We’ve just upset things and hurt ourselves.”

  “But we can’t always…”

  “You can say that again.” With an angry motion, Crash sat up and glared at the Doctor. “I can’t always. I can’t always pretend I understand when I don’t. I’m sick of it all. I’m sick and tired of your lectures, and I’m sick of Trent pulling everything I say to pieces, and watching people working day and night to scratch out a meager existence that ends just because it’s too hot! I’m sick of wondering why. There are no reasons here. None of it makes sense, Uncle, and I’m not doing this anymore.”

  I shrank back at his outburst. Why such a strong reaction?

  With a quick, terse motion he scrambled out of the tent again and was lost in the crowd. I started after him, but the Doctor put an arm out to stop me. “Leave him alone, Andi.”

  We didn’t say anything else. After eating a quick something, Whales left to do his remaining tests, and once again the Doctor and I were left alone in an awkward silence.

  I sat on the ground and made a rather futile attempt to brush all of the sand off my clothes. A prolonged beep sounded from the book, which was on the stool next to me.

  Picking it up, I read aloud excitedly, “Download complete.”

  No sooner had the last syllable left my lips, than the Doctor’s communicator beeped. “This is Doctor Lloyd,” he responded, picking it up.

  “This is Lieutenant Yanendale. Mr. Guilders says to tell you that we sent the applications you requested—”

  “We received them, Lieutenant, thank you. Lloyd out.”

  I was already at the dictionary menu again, and tapped on the “Ancient Greek—Attica” tab. “Of course it will only include the words in this book,” I reminded him as it loaded.

  He smiled. “This is the history of the entire world; I doubt that there are many words that aren’t in there.”

  When the search engine box opened I stared at it with a strange feeling of apprehension. “What should I look up?” I asked.

  The Doctor rubbed his chin. “I need to shave,” he said absently. Then, “Look up the word Elasson.”

  Licking my lips, I typed in E-L-A, and then looked up at the Doctor. “How do you think I should spell it?”

  “Aren’t those things supposed to read phonetically?”

  “I think so.” Quickly I typed Z-O-N-E and hit enter. I found myself holding my breath again as it searched. A list of similar words came on the screen, the top result being “E-L-A-S-S-O-N.” I selected it.

  “Did you get a definition?” the Doctor asked.

  “Yes.” I almost couldn’t believe it. It was too perfect. And yet at the same time it saddened me. “It means lesser, or younger.”

  “Now there’s a flattering name for you. What were his parents thinking, anyway?”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” I frowned. “I think it would be horrible to go through life with a name like ‘lesser.’ But knowing his relationship to Basilius, it does make sense,” I sighed.

  “What’s that man’s name who came at me with a knife?”

  I shivered, but typed in “Perekhon.” The top result was “Perechon,” which I selected. “Closest match is the word for ‘supplier.’” On a sudden impulse, I typed in
“Nama.” It came up without hesitation, and was shown to mean “spring” or “running water.”

  I looked at the Doctor, who was running his fingers through his gray hair and frowning. “Dad, it has to be.”

  “Yes.” I could almost see his mind working, struggling to come up with an explanation.

  “We should get Elasson in here and see if we can communicate with him using the dictionary. It can transcribe audio and translate it.”

  “But this clearly isn’t exactly the same,” he observed. “It’s evolved more, or differently.”

  “Evolution, Doctor?” I said, with mock amazement. I couldn’t help teasing him.

  “Adaptation, if you like, you silly girl.”

  “But maybe it will be close enough. It’s worth a try. The Captain didn’t say we had to stay here, he just said to stay close. And it’s not interfering just to go find Elasson and ask him to come. Please, Doctor?”

  Shaking his head with a sigh, he stood up. “You’re determined, aren’t you?”

  “I learned from the best,” I smiled.

  “Alright. We’ll go, but we need to hurry back. I’m in no hurry to be knifed, if it’s all the same to you.”

  I clutched his arm. “Dad, please, that’s not funny. I don’t want to think about that.”

  Changing his demeanor, he stroked my hair for an instant. “I know it’s not. Let’s just be careful. Come on.”

  XVI

  We found Elasson in the dining room with several of his people, eating silently. When he saw us, fear leapt into his eyes, but he didn’t move at first. Looking around carefully, he got up unobtrusively and strode towards us.

  “Kallion poieite me anamimneskontes ton emon adelphon hoti eti pareste,” he insisted, pushing us gently out. “Nyn d’ hymin to lathra menein paraino.”

  I grabbed his sleeve. “Elasson, come with us please.”

  He continued pushing. “All’ it’, ego d’ autika pareimi.”

  “Come on, Andi. He knows more about the situation than we do.”

  Reluctantly, I let go of him and followed the Doctor back to our tent. “Maybe he’ll come when he’s finished.”