Krikos: The Vertical Horizon

by Rishabh Dubey

  "Gart... get closer... as close as possible and reach an ideal spot for exit ducts to attach... and Steffy... Rush and Muster... get ready for zero gravity," Krawn gave his commands.

  All four of them, Krawn, Steffy, Rush, and Muster, formed the scouting crew and got into their space outfits for field assessment. The Exit duct extended and opened THROUGH the walls of the UISE. Krawn and crew got down from the Epilion and entered the space body. The overwhelming aura was drenched in bright darkness. The witness rebuked the very darkness of space. It was dark indeed. Not the usual dark. Interstellar nomads, like those humans, were acquainted with the usual dark of the space. Though, this seemed somewhat darker than isolated space itself. This darkness boasted of nothingness. The calmness and silence itself were noise. It aroused exuberance… One remained idiosyncratically ‘Still’.

  Krawn threw out the blue, red and UV chips, that were the excavation and analysis devices created by the Flex Class Scientists. The three lights somewhat coalesced to form a pure white light. Steffy moved closer to the walls and found that the edgings were not natural; an observation which could have been conjectured by anyone. History rather imparted through the charming teamwork of idealism and probability… that, if the earth could have been natural… then anything could have been natural. Thus, they had the Xenologist. Rush and Muster stood alerted while Krawn moved forward with the lights following his central locator. Krawn asked Rush to guard the main entrance, and Muster to accompany them with his semi-automatic light ray-cutter gun. Steffy followed them to an internal hall with an unfamiliar setting. She told them that it was a work of an intelligent organism, but not humans because it seemed strange and new to her. Suddenly, they heard a sound which was immediately followed by another tremor. They all held up their weapons. All except for Krawn, who had just grasped hold of the Gladius in his Scabbard. He also carried the Magnus Gladius Di'Xanethius, the most powerful sword known to man, on his back at all times. Then came another tremor, and this time a much bigger one. They all lost balance and somewhat fell. They then heard the sound of someone running across the inner area of the space-body. They rushed in, lead by Krawn. Their mouths wide-open, they stood drooling in their helmets with awestruck expressions. It seemed like a topless man at first; But on careful observation, one found that he was not a human for he had no nose, nipples, and even lips. Nose and nipples… well that they had seen. No lips… well, he was not a man by a long shot. He… ‘It’ had no facial hair, though had a hair lock on its head. Even its eyes seemed unfamiliar to the seemingly oblivious ones.

  As soon as Krawn saw ‘it’, he drew out his sword. Steffy and Muster also held their guns out. It ran with a limp as if injured and escaped behind the entrance door. They all followed it slowly and carefully. Suddenly, Muster was attacked from his blind peripheral spot, and he fell down unconscious. A raucous sound, similar to that of the proton ion gun, was heard. It was Rush's Gun. They all ran towards the main Epilion Entrance carrying Muster along. Rush almost shot them too, but stopped because of the light chips.

  "Did you see it? What was the damn thing? And what happened to the COOL guy back there?"

  Rush shouted in an anxious manner.

  "Steffy, I need you to go and prepare the Intel room... we are going to get a lab rat for you... and Rush... carry Muster to the Ship's Infirmary. And get Mira right away. She must be in her chamber." Krawn said while scanning his surroundings.

  "So much for ‘Coming in peace’. So, what about you Captain?" Rush asked while inputting the duct password.

  "About me... I …negotiate." Krawn said as he took out his Magnus Gladius.

  A very rare sight, the Magnus Gladius of the Xanethius. The gravity was amplified with the demand of seriousness. Krawn gave the voice command for the nuclear core of the Gladius to be activated. The asentrovenomenetrium (AVM) alloy of the Gladius was already the strongest and roughest substance known. The controlled antiproton field which formed around it, after the mini nuclear-core was activated, made it indestructible. And one and only one human had the capability to handle and channel such power, that was the Xanethius. White light formed around the sword. Everyone else departed while Krawn carried the weapon to the internal section of the UISE. He found the trails of the Possible Extra-Terrestrial on the floor surface. It resembled human footprints. He moved in and was swiftly attacked from behind, But he retorted and gave a blow himself. The E.T. escaped again. Not for long, though. Krawn moved his sword towards the floor and somewhat rotated the Hilt in the form of some peculiar code. He pointed it towards the direction where he suspected the E.T. to have escaped to. He moved it in a specific pattern, and an electromagnetic repulsion was produced, forming a heavy quake, followed by a loud creak from the inner hall. He ran towards the source of the sound and found the E.T. lying down unconscious near the corner, taking deep breaths as if in grave pain. Krawn came up to it and placed the Gladius back into his scabbard, and picked the E.T. up.

  ♦♦♦

  In the Intel room of the Epilion, Steffy sat close to the examination computer and the E.T. was tied to the X-RAY table. Mira had seen to the injuries of both the E.T. and Muster in the Intel Room and the Infirmary respectively. Krawn had been supporting Steffy while Rush had been on guard duty at the main ducts. Gart had been re-programming flight coordinates. Cantor and Ram had been examining the physical structure of the UISE while Castino had been off to a little nap. Krawn had been desperately waiting for the E.T. to wake up. Steffy had also been busy preparing and compiling data into a final report. She had just said given inference as of yet, "It is not a human." Suddenly, the feet of the E.T. started shaking, and its eyes opened up.

  Krawn immediately got up and went to it. Steffy had also told Krawn about the possibility of 'it' being a 'him'. Krawn turned to Steffy First "Get the secondary neuro scanner on me."

  "You want to talk to it... It can be dangerous you know. I still haven't figured his way of communication. For all, we know he can manipulate or hypnotise you or something." She replied.

  "Hypnotise me... Hypn... what am I three or something? Give me that," He said as he snatched the Wired Helmet from her hands. He wore it and said, "Whenever you are ready."

  "Here it goes," she said as she slid through various holo-screen interfaces. A loud shrill was heard from the main computer which stabilised after a few seconds. Krawn started speaking-

  "What are you?"

  The E.T. started shouting in a low-pitched, heavy yet loud voice. It kept on shouting through the course of the unsuccessful attempt at interrogation, But Krawn didn't pity and quit. He continued asking the questions.

  "Where are you from? Stop shouting and tell me what you are? What the hell are you?"

  Still, there was no reply; But then Krawn asked "Where are you from? Have a name or something", and the E.T. stopped screaming. It stared down Krawn's eyes for a minute or two, and then Krawn removed his helmet.

  "Put him to sleep... Put him back to sleep now... and call everyone to the common room," He said.

  Everyone soon assembled in the common room and inquiried about Krawn’s small meeting with the E.T.

  "He replied... he did ..." Krawn said.

  "He... You mean it is a he?" Rush asked.

  "Yes, he is," Krawn replied.

  "How do you know? What did the neurotransmitter show you?" asked Ram.

  " When I asked him where he is from… It seemed as if that question was not what he was expecting from me… As if he was expecting something else from me…” Krawn replied.

  "Expecting? He cannot expect anything from us… mean the poor animal, just like us, also discovered the existence of others in the Universe… We aren’t even half-way to Annaeax and we already found an Alien life-form from some planet,” Castino said.

  “What else did he say?” asked Rush.

  “He told me his name… Prabarus-Uz Witt…” Krawn said.

  “What else?” Steffy followed.

  “He was
afraid… but not afraid of an extra-terrestrial life form… His fear was not that of the unknown but apparently of the known…" Krawn said.

  “He cannot possibly have known our existence, can he? Where is he from anyway? Did he tell you that?” Ram asked.

  “Yes, he did…” Krawn spoke in a slow and thoughtful tone.

  “And what sir would you take to reveal that piece of info to us?” Rush said sarcastically.

  “He is… from Annaeax….” Krawn said.

  Diaries of Flex:

  Episode 3-

  Rainfall.

  O

  ur lives are guided more by our dislikes, disdains and phobias than the acute positivity. For example, as long as Flex was my friend, as long as I can remember him as my friend, I like him. But what drove me to him was my exquisite dislike for his reticent yet eternally evolving arrogance. There was always an urge to prove him wrong and to set his attitude straight. Well… that made us ‘best friends’… Though it’s pretty hard to remember each other as ‘friends’… We tried our ‘best’ to be ‘friends’, right? So ‘best friends’. Ha! A Bad Joke… We were mostly frienemies… Two professional megalomaniacs. He was always smarter than I was… in scientific terminology that is… not in the social aspects. I always won the ‘who is better?’ argument with my height and looks. That short ignorant creature, Flex, couldn’t get affected by those remarks though. Many a time, I had to remind him of the need for his own vanity, viz. his unprofessional stubble in even the most serious of meetings. Nevertheless, coming back to the intimidating subject of ‘fear’. Strangely for Flex, fear was never an intimidating factor. Fear, dislike or rather any of nature’s contemptuous presentations… for him, they were all merely worthless objectivities demanding such deep ignorance that seemingly it wasted his time even by thinking about ignoring them. There was always a limiting factor… always a ‘two too many’. That’s how nature works. And although there was no liquefied water on Jupiter yet there was rainfall. Rainfall, being one of the sensitivities of Flex’s Selective-Claustrophobia… on Earth… was merely a disturbance. Here… this rocky ‘RAIN’ fall… It became the historical Galvanization.

  391 E.E. - Day 12 of arrival on Jupiter. Day 7 of the month of Proximus.

  I heard a faint whistle. Not intentionally faint, but submerged deep below in the aggravating rattling of the thrust panels. Our crew had been looking forward to that day -it was the day we were supposed to start our true mission. The usual escaping (from mega-storms, volcanoes, methane bursts and what not!) crossing deserts, and establishing three 'safety' hover-camps in such conditions, and many more of such eccentricities were nothing compared to what this newly discovered nature had held back. So, there we were, programming the central command-chamber, and we heard a loud thunderbolt. It was followed by a strange noise which seemed moreover like an amplified Earth-rainfall. Even in the presence of these heavenly dins, I was capable of hearing the very sound which transposed my day from bad to worse ... if it was not already the worst one possible. It gave me a strange feeling and had me wondering -Not how was it raining on a waterless, baseless planet? (A planet which had such an unstable core that secondary liquefaction was a necessity before even entering its atmosphere) Not even why our marl-bots of package-delivery were, ironically, still not delivered to us, but it started making me think about that faint whistle. I was not sure what it meant as of then ...but then I heard it again ... this time silently highlighted away from the audible beasts prevalent on the planet. I was sure. It was Flex ... most probably not in a good mood. Those soft involuntary inhales and exhales, accompanied by a fluke precision of lip formation, lead to that very sound which meant that Flex was scared.

  "Is that you, Sir?”

  I shouted- even though every DNA strand and every cell in my body knew that it was him. The Universe got its curiosity quenched only when it saw Flex walking in through the rear entrance. "(Whistling vanished slowly) ... Contrary to all your traditional and satanically obsolete beliefs and holds… Flex is not afraid of the rain. You jump the part of counting the probability of him having the ability to enslave his fear,” barked Flex in a dialect suggestive of his fear-induced illiesm. He came down through the rough and amoeboid pathway.

  “I did not say so,” I replied.

  It was one of the few rare moments of our time together as colleagues, when I and he, both, wanted to socialise with one another. So, I replied in anticipation of a witty and arrogant remark. And there it came like a cannonball.

  Flex replied with all his nerves on fire, “You never said otherwise. And I know you thought so though you don't admit that it was this that you were thinking. And I know what you were thinking now … and…… and …”

  ” Wait... With all due respect... although you don’t think so, Sir, but you are a human being, and you need to take a breath... the AA plates are not just an astronaut make-up you know”, said I, trying to calm him down.

  You must be wondering -why am I writing all this? I do so because that was the day that Flex showed me something more majestic in its form than anything but the Krikos, And it was all unexpected. Rather a shock. I knew that he was an impeccable genius; But sometimes… In pursuit of Gods… We fail to regard the Angels amongst us.

  I had finished programming the central chambers and was going to get Jatter and Hues, the two mechanical engineers of our crew, to get the chamber up and ready. Just before pushing the open notch to the exit door, I caught sight of something outside through the glass. It was Flex, with his diary. He was sitting under the artificial canopy and scribbling something, even though the weather outside was adverse. Adverse not only for Flex but even for a normal human being. So, I rushed outside and warned him. He ignored me, just like always, and kept on writing. I went closer and saw the words ‘Burn, for I am water’ written at the top of the page. The weather turned furious, but my attention was caught by a rather more amusing happening. It was raining, although planet-specific. Nevertheless, Flex seemed stable. He was not using his common third-person dialect anymore.

  “It is done”, he muttered slowly.

  “What is?” I asked with tremendous curiosity, considering the person who was saying those words.

  Then I saw some white charts with certain diagrammatic prints, peeping through his diary. I went and clutched it out. It was written in blocks ‘Planetary Stabilization Prototype.' Then I observed properly. In it were the possible designs to a perfect artificial gravitation, axis translation, rotational enhancement and orbital stabilisation of a planet.

  Overall, it meant that a planet could be possibly made even more habitable than Eutopia itself. In more simple and perhaps Flexian words, ‘NO MORE ROCK-RAIN’. I wondered why he chose that planet, that place, and that weirdest form of rainfall to combat. I had seen him fear rainfall for a long time. Just when I was starting to recover from my amazement, Flex got up and said to me-

  ” It is better to be afraid than waste your time on small enemies.”

  Into The Dimension:

  Episode 3-

  Kridious.

  T

  he D1Z1 was the most advanced and the safest district inside the Krikos. Figuratively, it had many magnetic properties like the All Life Exhibition park and the Central Council Military Headquarter. One its most ignored speciality was the Master Library. The old conception of a library was phased out even before the creation of the Krikos. There was just so much space inside the Krikos that the Eutopium wanted to inculcate every possible significant piece of history in its physical being. Oceans, larger than the Earth, Theme Parks which had all possible species of flora and fauna, Museums the size of countries (ones which contained miniature city-size emulations of old Solar System Countries and Colonies), and many more exquisite and extravagant creations of God existed inside the Krikos. Nevertheless, even the brightest of humanity has an inherent limit to it. Same reason that the Eutopium never cared for the commercialization of such archaic entities like libr
aries. It turned into the good fortune of Verdo Hoko since nobody ever came to the Library of his. Nobody political as such. As such, there were just so few people that he knew. Mrew, the old rusted robot of old Hoko, was one of the few friends of his. The Hoko family had always been a great boon to the Eutopium, supporting it in even the strangest extravaganzas. The elevation of the Eutopium to its godly stature after the advent of the Krikos made the Hoko family lose its significance for them. Insulated from a gregarious territory and outsourced to a quarantined library with a head-eating garrulous cyborg like Mrew- Just the life an old diligent pariah desired. Mrew, though, was not his only friend. There was also someone else. Someone born in the holy city of Sayofringium. Kridious had always been the one to induce scepticism in the mind of Verdo Hoko. Along with being a good friend to Hoko, he had always been like a younger brother to Krawn Xanethius. Both Kridious and Xanethius were the prime combats-men of the disbanded Sentinels. The best thirteen warriors, extensively trained for the worst. The programme had come to a closure after the Eutopium declared it obsolete, and also because of the upcoming explorer missions. Verdo Hoko had always been an ignorant self-centred fellow. Kridious always tried to bring him closer to the general masses by forcing curiosity down his head. This forced Verdo to question the authenticity of each and every political statement, event, myth, legend and rumour. Verdo, though old and brittle, was not disabled; Therefore he had undertaken the job of excavating the truth within the depths of Information. Why was he doing so? Because Kridious had mentally gratified him to. The district training academia of the D1Z1 zone was the largest combat training ground inside the Krikos. Specifically designed for advanced combat training, it was like a home to the sentinels and others who were warriors by birth, passion or hobby. Kridious usually spent twenty hours a day training inside the ludus of the academia. Verdo Hoko stood outside the academia visitor-reception, waiting for his young friend to arrive. Losing his rusted patience, he requested the attendant to escort him to the Central Ludus.