“I have found that old beliefs possess kernels of wisdom beyond that which we hold to be truths forged by the scientific method. Go there with my blessing. May you find inspiration in the oracle’s prognostications.” His gaze remained fixed and sober as he stared into Alienne’s eyes. “Long have you been in my thoughts, and I am glad you returned whole and well-healed. My spirit is buoyed knowing you have the strength to overcome the memories of your tribulations. But know this...I understand that you must return to the Milky Way. I would, however, caution you about staying there for any length of time, for I cannot be completely certain if there is some hidden threat on Mars or elsewhere.”
He took her hands in his and gently squeezed them. Then he whispered, “Life is short. Find your happiness. Edward is always welcome here. You have my permission to bring him home.”
The Magnificent One had changed so much, and Alienne felt disoriented despite herself. Her memories of the old war god threatened to overwhelm his new manifestation. She pondered this and all she’d experienced since her return. One question stood out in her mind – was this really home any longer?
She didn’t think so, but there was no real answer yet. It remained to be seen.
Chapter 5
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
Ed sat at the com-link and studied the Hubble image of Hoag’s Object. He skimmed the entry again.
Non-typical galaxy...discovered in 1950 by astronomer Arthur Allen Hoag... From the perspective of our solar system what appears to be an even more distant ring galaxy is plainly visible within the gap between the ring and central body at the one o’clock position... Both galaxies have a preponderance of old yellow stars in their central cores, with the outer rings consisting primarily of young blue stars... The galaxies are 600 million light years away, plus or minus 30 million l-yrs.
He read more. Another source stated the closest Hoag’s Object was 550 million light years away, the second one several million light years beyond that. Ed assumed the closest galaxy was Alienne’s, but he didn't really know for sure. What had she told him? Her galaxy was 577 million light years from Earth? Of course, she would know the actual distance. Whatever...both galaxies were a long way off, but in a universe stretching back almost 13.8 billion years, 577 million was not really all that far in space.
But, as for time...
He rubbed his face, pondering the complexities of space-time. He wasn’t an astrophysicist or cosmologist, but he knew enough to realize he was seeing the two ring galaxies as they appeared over five hundred fifty million years ago, because of how long it took light to travel from there to here. He wondered what the galaxies looked like now, if they’d changed. They were definitely strange objects. Even scientists couldn’t come up with workable theories as to their origins.
It seems obvious to me they’re engineered. But then I’m prejudiced regarding that conclusion, because Alienne told me it was so.
He pursed his lips. What kind of beings possessed the ability to engineer on that vast scale?
Doing such a thing to a solar system had been proposed by sci-fi writers and human scientists decades ago – the Dyson Sphere being one example, where a star could be enclosed in a gargantuan megastructure to capture its entire solar output. Yet, to engineer entire galaxies was beyond anything Ed ever imagined.
Then he considered what Alienne told him about wormholes. Hadn’t she mentioned something about time travel? He wished he’d been able to ask her more about that before she left.
Ed shook his head in frustration and looked at the Hubble image again, imagining her out there, somewhere...
“Hey, bud, whatcha doin’?” Gus Granberg took a seat next to Ed. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Ed replied.
No, he admitted to himself. Everything.
* * *
It had been eight days since Ed kissed Alienne goodbye. Too long.
To avoid utterly losing it, he kept his head down and busied himself on repairs to a spectrograph and one of the robot diggers, key mechanisms in their mission to mine the asteroid. The other astronauts also stayed busy in a myriad of ways, testing asteroid samples for minerals like iron, nickel, cobalt, and platinum, and exploring the massive cave.
Since they were the first crew here, their job was to get their station up and running, and the preliminary work was almost done. The rotation crew was set to arrive in two weeks. Ed was one of several going home after that. He did not mind this, because he needed time to think – the atmosphere around here was certainly not conducive to this. It seemed all any of his crewmates could speculate about was the Mars laser beacon and its implications. Everyone, that is, except Ed, who knew the truth, at least as much as Alienne figured out before she left. Despite a self-imposed and hellish work schedule, he couldn’t shake his fear for her safety, which bordered on obsession.
Damn it, where is she?
Ed glanced at his fellow crew members, everyone in various stages of finishing up with their suppers while watching TV. CNN was on, the top story the same old, same old: another special report about Mars, the newest wrinkle speculation as to why the laser flashes had stopped after three days. Would they resume? What would humans find on Mars once they got there? Who had been there? And where were they now?
Endless speculation, on and on, an unrelenting media storm. Everyone here seemed to hang on every word of every broadcast, his crewmates gung-ho to be chosen for the first manned Mars mission. Just yesterday, a consortium of government space agencies and private space businesses, chief among them NASA and the EU, announced a date for touchdown on the Martian surface. July of 2029 had been chosen, the twenty-first to be exact, on the sixtieth anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing.
Hours passed and everyone headed off to bed. Ed, on the other hand, continued to work until midnight, when he felt he could hardly keep his eyes open. But once he’d settled down in his bunk, his troubling thoughts trumped the need for sleep. Arms behind his head, he stared into the dark.
“Where are you, Alienne?” he asked the air. “What the hell is happening out there?”
* * *
After a restless night, Ed awakened with his mind made up – he was going to retire from the space program. His heart wasn’t in it anymore, his mind imagining a place 577 million light years away, the pull of Alienne’s spirit too great.
He decided to notify his superiors as soon as his tour at the station ended. In the meantime, he would keep quiet and work hard, not giving a hint of his plans.
Which are what exactly, Ed ol’ boy?
He didn’t know. It all hinged on Alienne.
That evening, he stood by the window and stared at Earth. A few weeks more and he’d be home.
But was it his home any longer?
He saw a fragile blue world, glowing amid the black depths of space, and wondered about its fate. How could he turn his back on Earth and abandon everything he’d ever known? How could he not, given the promise of a remarkable future with Alienne? His emotions were a mangled mess, but his sense of duty prevailed. He thought of Mars. Was the thing Alienne called pa-Keer really a threat? If so, how could he help his fellow humans?
He trusted her and hoped she would have the answers.
Yet all of this worry might be pointless.
One thing stood paramount above all else. First and foremost, she had to come back.
Chapter 6
The moment you doubt whether you can fly,
You cease forever to be able to do it.
~ J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Alienne traveled to the Great Ring of the galaxy. After placing her ship in orbit, she stared through the window at a small, artificial moon called Dey-Swakan. Unimpressive, not much bigger than Edward’s asteroid. A moonlet constructed to look natural, with craters and rills of dust and rock. It was in orbit around a Mars-type planet, which revolved around a
brown dwarf star. All seeming quite ordinary, yet this was deceptive, for the moon’s lone occupant was the last Ancient One known to exist in this universe.
The Mighty Oracle, the Great Alset.
The Magnificent One had given Alienne leave to go to Dey-Swakan for a consultation with Alset. With trepidation, she agreed to do so.
In the days before her exile, Alienne heard whisperings about the oracle, frightening tales used to scare and intimidate children in the night. Now she hoped she had the fortitude for an audience with a being as old as the stars.
I was told of your coming, Drajulal-kishah. You may enter my realm.
The words came softly into Alienne’s mind. Instantly, she teleported to a place inside the moonlet, to a mirrored, hexagonal chamber. In the center, behind a force-field, stood a being of pure energy, a shimmering mass wreathed with flames of electric blue.
Alienne felt weak in the legs, her hearts drumming in fear. Even with the force-field barrier, the air around her crackled, and she felt tiny shocks to her body, jolts of electric terror.
Then she discerned a pattern of sound. Hiss, hiss, pop, hiss. Hiss, hiss, pop, hiss.
It suddenly grew louder, breaking apart at times, then coming together again, sizzling and snapping. Alienne realized she was hearing some kind of speech.
“No harm...sssshall...come to you.”
Alienne tried to calm her racing hearts by recalling a similar feeling: how upon meeting Edward she’d told him much the same thing to allay his fear. Her own motivations regarding Ed were good and true, but as for the oracle? Why would it care about anything in Alienne’s life?
It is easier for me to use a mind-link for communication. The Magnificent One told me of your coming. How may I help you? What do you wish to know?
Alienne pondered how to begin. Carefully, she decided.
She took a breath. With respect, O Sage, may I ask you a few questions about your abilities?
Yes, you may.
Alienne closed her eyes. Courage, she told herself. Then she sent her thoughts outward. You are called an oracle, but does that mean you foretell the future? How can that be? If the future already exists, does that negate free will? Many beings cherish free will. Is it an illusion?
Fountains of silver-blue sparks shot in great arcs from the oracle. Alienne felt the scales on her arms and legs lift slightly, the air even more charged than before. She trembled. Please, forgive...
Do not apologize. You do not offend that which is beyond offending. You are an interesting creature. Yes, quite interesting. I know you call yourself Alienne now. My old name was Alset. I too was once a carbon-based life form. As for your questions, suffice it to say the future exists in infinite paths in what has been called the multiverse. However, I can discern the seemingly inevitable path upon which this universe travels, as if its rightful future lies just beyond something dark and impenetrable, like young stars hidden by a great gas cloud. The living beings from the future are invisible to my sight, yet detectable through my other senses.
I have listened to their voices, trillions of voices of beings who have not yet been born, but will live one day. I have heard them. Yes, I have.
Alienne felt a nervous excitement. Could the oracle actually be able to tell her what the future held for Edward and his home world? “And, O Sage, what do you see about the human I have chosen...?” she asked aloud.
“Voicessss...gone...vanished...missssssing,” the oracle hissed back to her ears.
Alienne’s throat grew tight with fear. What? Whose voices are missing?
Humans from Earth, the oracle replied. When the Magnificent One told me everything about you, I searched for the voices of Earth and found them. For a brief time, I heard them as a strong chorus, billions strong, but now, there is nothing but whispering, almost as if I hear one or two voices where once there were many. It is as if another path has been set in motion to replace that which was meant to be.
Will Earth be invaded? Alienne wondered as she recalled the horrific silicon beasts.
I do not know, the oracle answered. Those beasts live one hundred thousand light years from Earth. With their technology, it would take them a billion years to reach the Sun and its solar system. No, I do not believe the change in what I heard is connected to them. I do not know the how or why of the change in what I perceive as the future path. I can only sense the turning point is near.
Edward! Alienne thought wildly. Panic fought rationality. The instinct to act without thinking rearing up, threatening to consume her thoughts.
No! she told herself. Think! Plan!
Yes, the oracle said. Go to your human’s side, but first gather your senses and as much information as possible. The turning point is near, but I believe you still have time. Yes, a little time. Perhaps several more Earth years. Please, do not doubt yourself. You possess great strength and the ability to see right from wrong. Your Chosen human does, too. Fly to his side. Fly, fly! Believe in the power of...
Suddenly, everything went pitch-dark. A vague scent hung in the air, the burning smell of plasma, the only hint of what had gone on before.
Alienne stood stock-still, waiting, hoping the oracle would reappear. What had happened just now? What had it been trying to tell her at the very last? Her eyes could discern nothing in the total darkness, the place having fallen as black and silent as outer space.
The oracle was gone.
Despite the emptiness, she gave thanks, bowed, and then teleported back to her ship.
With a last glance at the moonlet, she ordered her ship to head back to Da’ash. There was still so much to do. It would take several days to get everything in order, to outfit her ship with the Magnificent One’s new technology.
Then she would return to Earth. And Edward.
Chapter 7
We saw the last embers of daylight die.
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell,
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell.
~ William Butler Yeats, Adam’s Curse
Alienne left the slipstream and entered the far edge of the Sun’s solar system. She placed her ship in orbit around the ice giant, Neptune.
Despite her desire to rush back to Edward, she needed to hold back and listen to broadcasts from Earth to learn more about what was happening there and on Mars. Once she understood where things stood, she could figure out the safest way to contact Ed again, to tell him what she’d learned and to figure out a plan.
Before leaving her home world, she told the Magnificent One of her meeting with the oracle and then described its sudden disappearance. He’d listened with interest, but offered no explanation for the vanishing. It would be something he’d investigate in the future.
So, she shunted her thoughts aside, the mystery not hers to solve. Neptune loomed through her viewport. She admired its beauty, the hydrogen-helium atmosphere holding traces of methane at its uppermost reaches, coloring the planet a deep sapphrine blue. Her vision also showed aqua-green streaks and pink-orange whirls amid the blue, evidence of the fastest winds in this solar system, with speeds breaking the sound barrier. But she could not see Neptune’s biggest storms, which manifested as great, dark, Earth-sized cyclones. At present, they were located on the other side of the planet, and it would take some time before they rotated into view.
Yes, the storms are coming, she thought as her mind veered beyond Neptune to another blue world, a small terrestrial planet, the third from the Sun. She was filled with a resolve to do what she could to help Earth, even if it meant nothing more than taking Ed away from what she feared was inevitable.
That made her feel ashamed. She was being selfish, putting her own wishes before anything else.
But what more could she do? She did not have the ability to save all of humanity, if it came to that. She was but one lone creature, after all.
She glanced at her glass, half-full of amber ale, the last of her stores. Edward. She must
think of him. Teleportation of food and drink needed to be the first order of business, because she wished to greet him in the style to which he was accustomed, Sam Adams and all.
She could not help but smile at her thoughts. Despite the fact so many important things hung in the balance, with the future unclear and quite troubling, she began to make a list of everything she would need.
No, make that Edward and me. Everything the two of us will need.
Perhaps for a very long time.
* * *
Ed was back on Earth, his mission to the asteroid over and done, his career with NASA almost over, too. His resignation had already been accepted. A few more days and it would be official. After wrapping up final debriefings and paperwork, Ed left for Hawaii for some much needed down time.
His flight to Kauai was easy, his plane landing ahead of schedule. At the airport, he rented a Jeep and drove to Kauai’s southern shore, checked into his hotel, and headed to the beach. Not the close and crowded swimming coves near Poipu, but a more difficult spot to reach, a beach on the western side of the island called Barking Sands. The locals said the name came from sounds the sand made from the wind, but the air was still today, so Ed guessed he might not hear anything unusual this afternoon.
It was Monday, off-season and quiet for Kauai, no droves of tourists in Waimea or the other southern towns. In fact, he hadn’t seen more than a few trucks and cars on the final stretch of highway to Barking Sands. He passed a military base, drove on a few more miles, and then the pavement suddenly ended, with only a badly rutted dirt road before him. Good thing he had a Jeep. After navigating the rough road for a quarter of an hour, he reached a parking lot with restrooms, the sign reading Polihale State Park.
He must’ve somehow missed the exit to Barking Sands. No matter. The ocean here looked great, the beach wide. He walked across the golden sand, the sea before him flat calm and a creamy aqua-blue. He glanced around, seeing no one. Not a soul. This truly was the end of the road on Kauai, perhaps one of the most remote beaches in all of the Hawaiian islands. To the west was open ocean, to the north the start of the great cliffs of the Na Pali coast. No roads or towns north of here. He was probably the only human for miles. Fitting, actually. A lonely man on a lonely stretch of beach.
Alienne Mine: A Prequel to Dragon Dawn Page 4