Arriving back in his home world region, Darryl had naturally assumed his Gayan name of Keeran again. Keeran loved the majesty of the skies in his galactic home district of the Pleiades. It sometimes made him think that planet Earth was isolated and lonely by comparison with its largely black skies at night specked dimly by stars so far off and with the billions of concentrated stars of the pinwheel of the Milky Way galaxy so far away that, edge on, they only formed a collective dim stripe in the sky. The vault of sky around Rama, however, was blessed like the dome of the most ornate cathedral limned by vast hosts of votive candles; that of the Sun was an impoverished rural church ceiling. It crossed Keeran’s mind that the proximity of so many stars and associated worlds to planet Gaya must have inspired his ancestors here to travel the stars to find their neighbours as they seemed to be so close and plentiful. Maybe that call was not so urgent to peoples on planet Earth where the stars seemed so much more distant and the cold darkness between so forbidding.
Rafaello and Umberto were busy managing the nav systems and doing re-entry checks. Round shaved heads, bent over instruments on their thick necks, reflected multicoloured displays tracing moving maps across the contours of their shiny faces as they piloted the Maria down to Gaya, clearly the bluest planet in the Rama system. The Cavallos of Dawn are proudly equal as a band of warrior brothers and work by consensus that often manifests in robust argument, as in rival but allied tribes highly skilled in the martial arts. In this manner Rafaello and Umberto barged each other with unnecessary elbows across the instrument panel, hectoring and cajoling each other in equal measure. Keeran knew better than to interfere. It was like the Maria knew instinctively how to progress despite the bickering Cavallos notionally in control. They descended slowly through Gaya’s upper atmosphere, the silvery black of outer space with myriad stars merging into the first hint of indigo then blending lighter until only the brightest stars of the Pleiades shone through the cerulean blue daytime skies of Gaya.
Rafaello switched the fuselage display to proudly pronounce the call sign for inbound Cavallo of Dawn craft so that he would be tracked as a returning home ship and also proudly declare to home dwellers that here were the Cavallos, defenders of Gayan peoples across all of space. Maria played anthems of Gaya, Rafaello and Umberto were so full up with pride they hardly dared speak. Keeran felt it too but hardly up there with the Cavallos. Rafaello enjoyed piloting the craft slowly enough that families on the ground would get the opportunity to see the Maria and know that the Cavallos were there protecting their interests even if they never actually came in to direct contact with them here on Gaya. Gaya is an ethnically mixed planet which prides itself on promoting beneficial diversity but this carried security risks also. For one thing there was a significant Spargar population useful for developing and maintaining the computer systems required to run Gaya, but also carrying the risk of extremist Zarnha incursion in their midst. For security reasons, only Gayan native craft like the Maria could overfly all Gayan territory equally, alien craft had to land and clear formalities at the spaceport at Corinth City, closest to Keeran’s home.
Corinth City towered into the sky as seen from afar in a loose organic tangle, generally at its highest near the centre and lower at the edge of the city. It was like a stand of redwood trees grown together from a burnt-out mother tree, each individual tree forming a part of a living whole community and sharing the space available between canopies of the individual trees. Corinth City had been cultivated from Ivory Vine augmented by composites to infill between the vines to form the walls. Ivory Vine is the strongest and largest living organism in the known universe. Capable of being cultured into myriad forms and needing no central trunk for support and water flow, Ivory Vine grows in a lattice of tubes forming a mesh enclosing a hollow space that can be used for accommodation in city developments. It has no height limit when fuelled by water and mineral tanks at regular intervals of fifty storeys. The spear roots of the vine descend vertically into the ground with barbs that fill the space found in the substrata to anchor the superstructure above. Lateral roots like ribs of a fish from the spear roots form a complex horizontal mat at least as wide as the vine is high, making the whole city flexible, strong and anchored massively into the ground.
The superstructure above ground was formed of ivory-coloured trunks trained by skilled Ivory-Vine architects to enclose the walls and support the buildings. The composite infill that made accommodation walls between the vines was similar in ivory colour to the vine and could be enhanced with the sheen of subtle metallic glazes for aesthetic effect. The Ivory Vine strengthens and supports itself, naturally growing extra trunks and laterals to provide appropriate strength when needed. The horticultural architects defined the broad shape and created the espalier nodes to provide the floors and rooms of the cultivated buildings. The interior spaces of the buildings were largely enclosed by the composite but the ramifications of the vine could be seen everywhere and there was no uniformity of internal rooms’ shape and size that were organically defined by the idiosyncratic growth of the vine.
The Maria swept over the tall spired buildings of central Corinth City that crowded the coast and reflected the sky and sea with mirrored facades that disguised their height and quantity, blending in with the cerulean skies. As they approached, magnificent hanging gardens from all the buildings came into clear view, appearing like Monet’s paintings of Giverny. Ivory Vine can be encouraged locally by hormones and nutrients to produce flowers on a spectrum from deep rose through creamy whites to gentian blue depending on pH, and luscious green to red fruits festooned the varied tropical foliage forms. Individual apartment owners could design and shape their own hanging gardens and large enterprises employed vine horticulturalists to compete to produce the most pleasing vertical gardens over larger spreads of building areas. The total effect was of a harmonious vertical park providing the most beautiful of city developments, which engendered a sense of civic pride absent in cities of manmade materials. Local craft, hovering and crossing between the grown structures, appeared for all the world like bees attending flowers in a busy summer garden.
Curving away from Corinth City and off to the left as they came in from the sea was the primary route giving access to the city that ran along the coastal ridge in a great curve of tramway and road systems feeding the suburbs and coastal resorts on either side like ribs off a backbone. Technically these were separate Ivory-Vine developments but they tied into each other underground for strength and utilities resource sharing. Travelling past the city and inland, Maria descended towards the great orange-red basin that fell a thousand feet lower than the City, desert areas where no people lived and that spread for hundreds of miles inland and up to the coastal ridge in a huge flat bowl. They turned left and dropped to skim a few hundred feet over the desert with the foothills of the inhabited ridge rising from below them and then up and above them on the port side.
They slowed as they approached Keeran’s home two hundred miles north and east from Corinth City, where space was plentiful and large houses nestled in the folds of the slopes. Houses were a few hundred yards apart with garden areas petering into open land used for travelling between houses. They slowed to a stop alongside Keeran’s house and performed a normal vertical landing on an open space adjacent to the red-brick building. Like many homes in this area it had tiled roofs and the walls were surrounded by large wooden orangeries and glasshouses that doubled the size of the house and provided housing for plants, fruits and vegetables for fresh consumption.
Maria settled to land on low struts so that the Cavallos and Keeran could step straight out on to the ground. Both Cavallos beamed nervously at Keeran to try to lighten his fearful mood. Rafaello’s broad smile seemed to have curious dimples immediately adjacent to the corners of his mouth, Umberto radiated such a good humoured smile that it also narrowed and wrinkled his eyes.
“What could go wrong here with Umberto and my own self to aid you, my friend?” a
sked Rafaello.
‘‘Don’t you intrude on his thoughts, Rafaello, you person of lesser intuit,” admonished Umberto with a small push at his friend.
“And what do you mean by my small intuit? My intuition is as large as yours, which is as plain as the very plain nose on your face!” replied Rafaello.
Keeran said nothing but enjoyed their comradeship and his spirits were buoyed by the support of the Cavallos as they approached his home. It had been over two Earth decades since he had last spent time here but then it had been a lively period with his wife Kyra living there and his children that were on planet visiting regularly. Pointers of Dawn spent entire lifetimes away from home so they tended to work and travel together spending extended periods at their homes as events permitted. Now all seemed quiet and as they entered the house it bloomed with the dusty feel of neglect like a torn and punctured fungus puffing out spores. Keeran moved through the hall looking out through vines clinging on the glasshouses running wild with fruits still preserved by the automatic irrigation. The end of the hall opened out on to a larger living area that was double height due to steps leading down to the square sunken area with a central fireplace and several comfortable chairs. Rafaello and Umberto settled down there to allow Keeran to wander through the house playing out his memories overlaid now by mounting fears as to how it came to be so completely deserted.
Eventually he returned and by now the bonhomie of the Cavallos had seeped away and they were sitting quietly in the hushed atmosphere looking for direction from Keeran. Pointers of Dawn were the management in Dawn’s off-world missions, Cavallos were action men directed by Pointers and above them, the Worders.
Umberto waited for Keeran to take a seat. “We feel for you and with you, our friend,” he offered sympathetically. Rafaello nodded with muted enthusiasm. “We should perhaps turn on the house systems now and let it explain what came to pass here.”
Keeran knew his friends were right. His house could replay by hologram events that had taken place in his absence. He had wanted to soak up the atmosphere of the neglected place in the first instance. Indeed he was afraid at some level to start his search and he needed to process his thoughts first. His fear was that something terrible had happened and there was the guilt that he had not been there to prevent it. The dull quietude of the house now added to an overhang of foreboding that slowed his command to the house to power up and show him what had occurred. The Cavallos once again slumped into fidgeting silence, mobile faces expressing to each other first to do or say something, then not to do or say something as it was Keeran’s choice, not theirs. They could wait. But not without fidgeting. They were men of action by profession and waiting on someone else came hard to them.
Keeran paused awhile and then made the decision to act. He commanded the house to replay events when it had last been inhabited.
“What time of last habitation?” his house inquired.
“Last one hour time period of inhabitation,” Keeran replied softly.
“Joining you now.”
An image of the house in miniature appeared in narrow form 3D in front of the far wall of the living area. Keeran felt his spirit move from his brain somewhere central to his skull out and away, streaming from his body into the recorded hologram of his house. When he was fully inside he first of all moved round his home room by room. The hologram was darker than reality, not fully resolved so that it was like moving around a dream state copy of his real home where nothing was quite solid. It appeared larger too, he was as a child in proportion, the rooms all taller, broader than normality. This all added to the sense of foreboding.
It was night-time and he observed Kyra preparing a drink in the kitchen area prior to retiring to bed. She was wearing a shift of cool silky material in the warmth of the darkness of early summer. Soft lights bathed the countertops around the cupboards, small lamps gave warm light on the table and window ledges. Keeran’s feelings reached out to Kyra and his fingers actually stretched towards her unbidden and tentative but he was looking at history and was only an observer. Kyra looked so vulnerable, long dark hair loose to her shoulders, slim figure sheathed in the single film of thin fabric ready for bed on the warm evening. The image was clear but at the same time insubstantial and ethereal in projection; Keeran felt he could almost see through the substantial objects in the room that gave the projection a ghostly aspect.
Keeran was aware of dark shapes milling outside the house. Kyra was unaware of their presence and she continued working in the kitchen. The projection darkened further as Keeran’s spirit felt the additional influence of Mal from the Zarnha agents outside dimly affecting the warmth of the domestic scene of Kyra moving around the kitchen. Keeran traced the intruders as they roamed the perimeter of the house, wanting to take action, powerless to interfere.
Kyra suddenly came to attention and looked around the room as if an external noise had caught her attention. She moved to the window and peered through into the night for a moment then turned her head sharply to the left as if the noise had occurred again. Keeran found himself also turning to look in that direction as if he could somehow come to her aid. Kyra walked round the kitchen area towards where she had clearly heard something. She was walking slowly but did not seem afraid, merely cautious, intrigued. She was moving around the house peering through the orangeries to the outside night. It was bright starlight outside as always on a clear night sky on Gaya. It was only truly dark on the rare stormy nights that provided some rain at least for the semi-desert that relied on irrigation to be habitable.
The dark shapes moving around the outside walls of the house that had been previously scouting around were now focussing their attention on finding the ideal point of entry. The exterior surfaces and angles that connected the walls to the glasshouses afforded some cover for the half dozen or so slim black figures skulking in the shadows so that Kyra had to stretch to catch a glimpse of a moving shape. She caught her breath as she became sure that skulking figures were indeed out there and most likely trying to gain entry. Keeran furiously recognised the Zarnha agents as a typical abduction team. Abduction was a mass industry for Spargar but unheard of on the Gayan home world, banned as it was by the terms of the Epsilon treaties. Moving urgently now, Kyra grabbed her phone for assistance. She tapped as if it wasn’t working properly and she became more distressed, unable to call for help. The dark figures came into focus closer up. They were wearing their hazmat suits that protected them from local toxins and microbes when landing on alien worlds. The suit was a body of one piece, dark material rising to a swollen head-shaped helm, broad at the crown as if containing a large brain, it actually contained sensory and comms devices. The face of the helm had a pair of large pear-shaped eye coverings and small grilles for nose and mouth. This appearance was infamously feared by indigenous races on whichever star systems Zarnha of Spargar foraged for abductees and is widely described in alien abduction tales well established on planet Earth.
The Zarnha gang were working urgently on an exterior door seal with tools. In the background some fifty yards away Keeran caught a shape standing under the cover of an old olive tree. The projection seemed to slow as he paused to take a closer look into the darkness of the yard. Was it a tall stooped shape or a trick of the shadows? He could see the shape of the cloaked figure against the foliage of the shrubs and trees and behind two more shapes looking on, confirming the lead cloak was controlling events.
Keeran called out soul to soul to the Cavallos, still exterior to the projected image, “See here, Rafaello, what do you make of this?” he asked.
The two Cavallos scrutinised the image carefully. “If this were not on Gaya itself I would say this gang was led by an Omeyn herself,” mused Rafaello in quiet surprise.
“They would never risk an Omeyn being caught on Gaya itself,” asserted Umberto.
“But what if they discovered our friend Keeran here was a critical risk in their plans for Earth and s
ought some means to control him?” replied Rafaello.
Umberto and Keeran let Rafaello’s words hang in the air. The inference that the Spargar were so aware of Keeran’s missions on Earth and that they would take such swingeing action could only confirm the vitality of the endgame playing out back on Earth.
The Zarnha kidnappers soon managed to open a doorway and filtered into Keeran’s house single file then spread out to look for the inhabitants. They did look inhuman loping around in a crouch with their long spindly limbs. Keeran moved as if to close with them in silent combat, furiously striking out at them but he was only attacking a holographic record. Kyra was running to try to secure herself in her bedroom when they caught up with her and swarmed over her prone figure. Keeran’s blows passed through the projection of the Zarnha agents; they were mere historical records and he a future viewer. The recording showed Kyra’s one visible arm, reaching upwards through their bodies, go suddenly limp as the piled Zarnha figures held her down and subdued her with drugs. Then they were standing and four Zarnha bore her away through the house and out the open doorway into the night.
Keeran’s fists were tightly clenched. His face was unmoving. It was remarkably bold of Zarnha to carry out kidnap operations here on Gaya. The mutual peace treaties naturally excluded hostile actions on opponents’ home worlds in addition to protecting individuals travelling to other worlds. Beyond the pacts there was the obvious difficulty of operating on the opposing homeworld with its preponderant security and hostile local population making it close to impossible to operate effectively. Keeran’s outrage was heightened by them coming here to his house on his home planet to take his wife.
Keeran took his spirit out of the hologram re-enactment and reanimated his physical form with the Cavallos. Rafaello and Umberto were at once animated and eager for action. This at least was what they were good for.
Star Matters Page 6