Dark Matter

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Dark Matter Page 49

by S. W. Ahmed


  “No, it certainly won’t be easy. But look at how all four civilizations came together to fight the Starguzzlers. In the face of a deadly external threat, you all shunned your differences and fought together against a common enemy. In other words, given the right motivation, you were able to unite. Given the right motivation, you can unite.”

  “Yes, we will certainly take advantage of this opportunity to extend hands of friendship to the Volona and Phyrax,” the Imgoerin said. “I can only hope they will reciprocate.”

  “I will see to it that my people do,” Zorina said. “And Jinser-Shosa already promised me this morning before it left for the Federation that it would talk to other Phyraxes about this as well.”

  “I am glad to hear it, Zorina. Mr. Zemin, I would also like to extend an invitation to you to stay here with us on Lind as an advisor to our administration. We could surely use your insight on many an occasion.”

  Marc’s jaw dropped in surprise. He had not at all been expecting this, and it took him a moment to grasp its full implications. Nevertheless, he had no doubt about how to answer. “That is truly an astounding honor, respected Imgoerin, and one I am not at all worthy of. I would like to wholeheartedly thank you for the offer. But I think it’s time now for me to go home. Given all I’ve learned out here, I feel I can put my skills to better use by helping my people reach the maturity they need to eventually face the truth of what lies in the cosmos beyond their doorstep.”

  “A worthy cause, no doubt. I am certain you will excel in it. The only thing I ask, then, is that you never reveal any of what exists outside your silupsal filter to your fellow humans. At least not until you think they are ready.”

  “That you can be sure of. I do have one final favor to ask of you, respected Imgoerin. I would like to visit Meenjaza before I head home. Would you be able to provide me with a ship?”

  “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” the Imgoerin said. “It is amusing to hear that, Mr. Zemin. It just so happens that this was the final reason I called you here this morning. I received a request from Dumyan yesterday, asking for you to join him on Meenjaza before you head home.”

  Marc was startled again. “Why?”

  “All he said was that there is someone there who really wants to meet you.”

  Chapter 43

  It was an emotional farewell, at least for Marc and Zorina. Sibular seemed indifferent as usual, although Marc could have sworn he saw a hint of sadness in the Mendoken’s single eye. The three of them were standing on a platform on one of the space stations around Lind, getting ready to board their respective ships. Zorina was about to head directly into a Euma-9 vessel docked nearby. The vessel’s destination was the Volonan border, in a narrow section of the galaxy where the Republic and the Empire actually had a common border. There, a Volonan ship would pick Zorina up and transport her home to the Volo-Maree system. Sibular was about to get on a small shuttle that would take him to a far closer destination – the nearby moon Ailen, where the Space Travel Research Center was located. And Marc was going to board a small scout ship that would take him straight to Meenjaza in the Aftaran Dominion.

  Consar travel, it turned out, would once again be banned across the galaxy. Regardless of the significant timesaving benefits of consar travel, the Aftarans had specifically asked for the ban to be re-enforced by all four civilizations as a part of any upcoming peace treaty. This wasn’t just because traveling into other dimensions was forbidden in their religion, but because they insisted that consar travel posed the risk of disturbing the domains of unknown civilizations in other dimensions. How those civilizations would react was anyone’s guess, but it was unlikely to be particularly friendly. And if they turned out to be far more advanced than the civilizations of the Glaessan, then the whole Starguzzler invasion might pale in comparison to what the Glaessan would face next. Everyone could only hope that with all the consar travel that had recently occurred, the damage hadn’t already been done.

  The small scout ship Marc was about to travel on would be the last ship in the galaxy to undertake a consar journey – once to Meenjaza and back. Marc was to be given this honor, because of his unique role in helping the Mendoken attain consar technology and all that had happened since then. Then he would head home to Earth on board a Euma-9 vessel, traveling at standard speeds through regular dimensions.

  As he got ready to say goodbye to Sibular and Zorina, Marc realized he had never had such close, loyal friends in his whole life. Even though the three of them were from such divergent backgrounds and had only known each other for just over a month, they had stuck with each other through thick and thin, trusting each other unconditionally and supporting each other every step of the way on their quest. If that wasn’t true friendship, he didn’t know what was.

  He knew it would be impossible to stay in touch with either of them, for he wouldn’t be allowed to keep any communication equipment or any other form of evidence of where he had been once he passed through the silupsal filter to return to Earth. But he certainly hoped that somehow, somewhere he would see them again one day.

  “Remember to lighten up once in a while, my man!” Zorina said to Sibular, and hugged him.

  “And you remember to occasionally face the real world, Zorina,” Sibular replied. A short “Brrrrrrrr” followed.

  “Marc, my friend, take care of yourself,” Zorina said, hugging him for a long moment. “Remember to follow your heart too, not just your mind. Especially for the things that matter to you the most.” With that, she waved and got on a vehicle that whisked her away towards the gate of the waiting ship.

  The two remaining friends were silent for a while. Marc wasn’t sure what an appropriate way to say goodbye to Sibular would be.

  “I would like you to have something, Marc,” Sibular finally said.

  “I thought I’m not supposed to take anything from here back to Earth?”

  “This is not something anybody else on Earth will ever see. It is for your eyes only, it will always remain with you and it will die with you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just a small token to always remind you of your time here with us. Close your eyes for a moment.”

  Marc closed his eyes, wondering what Sibular could possibly give him that nobody else would be able to see. He thought he felt a slight puff of air over his face, but he wasn’t sure. Then all was still. He opened his eyes, looked at his hands and his body, and also felt his face. There didn’t seem to be anything different or peculiar anywhere. In the distance, he could see Sibular floating away.

  Marc thought of calling out to Sibular and asking him what he had done, but decided against it. Perhaps what had just happened was simply Sibular’s way of avoiding an emotional goodbye, something he clearly wasn’t accustomed to.

  With a sigh, Marc headed towards his scout ship, wishing that the farewell with his Mendoken friend had been a nicer one.

  A couple of hours later, Marc’s scout ship exited a consar and landed on Meenjaza outside a group of Dominion administration buildings. The Mendoken pilot promised to wait for him on the landing strip while he went about his business, however long it took.

  He stepped out into the gathering dusk. The sky on this desert planet was crystal clear as usual, with the setting sun sending out streaks of crimson from one horizon to the other. It was truly a beautiful sight.

  Dumyan was the only Aftaran standing on the landing strip. “Glad you could make it!” he said, smiling and putting a hand on Marc’s shoulder.

  Marc smiled back. “It’s good to see you again, Dumyan! How are things going here?”

  “Celebrations abound! Aftarans across the Dominion are spending their time praying in large gatherings and thanking the Creator for granting them victory.”

  Marc chuckled silently at the solemnity of the Aftaran celebrations. “And how are you holding up, my friend?” he asked.

  “It’s been tough, I can tell you. Even more for my father than for me. I think of Sharjam all the time, and I still
can’t believe he’s gone. But there’s so much happening here right now that needs our attention that we’re not even getting the time to mourn. The one consolation we have is that all the things happening are things that Sharjam would have been happy about and very proud of.”

  “And how is Raiha?”

  “She has been very sad, but with the help of the Creator, she’ll be alright in time. In memory of Sharjam, our family will watch out for and support her for the rest of her life, as if she were a member of our clan.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Marc said.

  The two took off on a floating platform, away from the administration buildings and into the wide streets. Sure enough, there were gatherings of Aftarans everywhere out in the open, all sitting quietly and praying.

  Along the way, Dumyan informed Marc that the Ungha as a species were not quite extinct. A number of Unghans had been found in the Dominion and had been arrested. Some Unghans had apparently also been found in hiding in the MendokenRepublic, Volonan Empire and Phyrax Federation. They had been acting as spies for Jaegor, providing him with vital information for his grand scheme and carrying out his orders in every section of the galaxy. The surviving Unghans were now to be given a small corner of the galaxy where they could live by themselves and get a new chance to build a society. They would, of course, be closely monitored by all four major civilizations to make sure they never posed a threat to anyone again.

  Marc felt the cool nighttime desert air hit his face, as the floating platform raced past more buildings and crowds of praying Aftarans. “I know why I wanted to come back one more time,” he said to Dumyan. “But why did you want me to come back? I hear there’s someone here who wants to meet me?”

  “Yes. But how about you tell me first why you wanted to come back.”

  “To find out more about my role as the Sign. I want to know why I was chosen, who was behind my visions, and how my existence could possibly have been foretold in any Scripture.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. The whole experience must have been quite eye-opening for you.”

  Marc smiled. “I could think of a lot more descriptive words than that.”

  “Well, let me just say that this individual, or group of individuals, rather, should be able to answer your questions.”

  The building they eventually entered only had one large dome as a roof, instead of several smaller ones as most of the other nearby buildings did. It also had six tall towers, one on each corner of its six sides.

  Dumyan led the floating platform through a corridor and brought it to a stop in front of a tall door. “I’ll wait for you here. What you see and hear inside is for your eyes and ears alone.”

  Marc nodded and stepped off the platform. The door instantly swung open by itself. Glancing briefly back at Dumyan, he walked in.

  “Please step forward, Marc Zemin,” a female voice said. The voice sounded old, very old.

  The room was dimly lit, but Marc’s eyes soon grew accustomed to the darkness. He could see five figures sitting on the floor in a semi-circle, all dressed in white robes.

  “Do you know who we are?” the voice asked. It came from the figure sitting in the middle. She looked as old as she sounded, with white and gray feathers and faded eyes. She was undoubtedly much older than Autamrin. So too, it seemed, were most of the others in the room. They all had their heads covered but faces unveiled.

  “I think I have a fairly good idea,” Marc replied. “You must be the High Clerics of the Dominion.”

  “Indeed. My name is Ouria. We were imprisoned by Wazilban, or Jaegor as we now hear his real name was, during his reign. We were freed by Raiha after the Unghans fled the Dominion. That is why we didn’t meet you earlier, as much as we wanted to. Please sit.”

  Marc sat down on the floor, facing the semi-circle. He felt a sense of humility to be in the presence of such devout figures.

  “It’s an honor to finally meet you,” Ouria said. “You were given a tremendous burden to carry on your shoulders. With the Creator’s help, you led all of us to victory.” She paused. “We called you here because you have fulfilled your destiny, and now it’s time to release you of your burden.”

  “Why was it my destiny? Who assigned me this destiny? Was it the Creator?”

  Ouria smiled. “The Creator’s ways are truly strange, and as much as we strive to understand them, we mortals never really do. The Creator knows what the destiny of every individual is, even before the individual is born. We all have the choice to pursue our lives the way we want to, but whatever way we choose to live is ultimately our destiny as already known by the Creator.”

  Marc wasn’t sure what to make of this answer. “So are you basically saying that I’m nothing special?”

  Ouria smiled again. “Not at all. What I’m saying is that your destiny was known by the Creator in the same way that everyone else’s destiny is. Your destiny just happened to be as unique and special as it was.”

  Marc was still confused. “Sharjam told me that I was the Sign, as foretold in your Holy Scriptures.”

  “And indeed you are. That was why you were given the power to see that which nobody else could see.”

  “Did the Creator pick me to be the Sign, then, or not?”

  “The Creator knew your destiny at birth, that you would one day become the Sign. But none of us mortals could ever have known that until we actually picked you to be the Sign.”

  Marc jumped in surprise. “You picked me to be the Sign? How? When?”

  One of the other High Clerics got up and walked towards Marc. “I am Rayim, of the 349th generation of the Hayriah clan,” he said, and sat down in front of Marc. “It’s good to see you again. You’ve aged since we last met.”

  “We’ve met before?” Marc couldn’t recall when. Rayim looked quite different from any of the other Aftarans he had met. His feathers were a dirty red in color and his beak unusually long. His eyes weren’t quite as faded as those of Ouria.

  “You won’t recognize me. It was years ago, and I didn’t permit you to see me.”

  Marc shook his head in disbelief. “Years ago? But I was on Earth!”

  “Yes, the third planet in the Mendo-Biesel system. It still feels like yesterday when I was there on my quest, a secret mission known only to us High Clerics. Even the Mendoken had no knowledge of it, nor did Autamrin or any of his followers. It was quite a journey, I can tell you, and passing unnoticed through the silupsal filter was a real challenge, one that required the use of many a powerful enchantment. I always knew I was taking a big risk by picking your planet, with all the ghastly things mentioned about your people in the Mendoken databases. But after all my searches from one end of the Glaessan to the other, it just felt right. In spite of all the faults you humans have, you are actually quite unique in the galaxy. You have an interesting balance of qualities and characteristics of all four advanced civilizations – the scientific, logical thought processes of the Mendoken, the ability to have faith and believe in the unseen like our people, the desire to seek pleasure and amuse yourselves like the Volona, and the drive for freedom, independence and adventure of the Phyrax. If there was anyone who could understand all four civilizations and bring them together to unite against a common enemy, it was someone from your society.”

  “It also had to be a society under a silupsal filter in the Mendoken Republic, one that the Aftaran chronicles would have no mention of because it wasn’t in the Dominion and not yet a part of the galactic community,” Ouria added. “This was so as to ensure that Jaegor would never suspect the Sign was in hiding there. If we had picked an Aftaran to be the Sign, Jaegor might have found out who it was and had that individual killed right away before the mission had even begun.”

  “So you came to Earth to pick the Sign?” Marc asked Rayim. “Why did you end up picking me?”

  “I needed to find someone who had the highest probability of making a specific scientific discovery, a discovery the Mendoken would take notice of because they d
esperately needed that technology to fight the Volona. After secretly sifting through the Mendoken database that tracks all the people on your world, I eventually found you. You were working on building a time machine, but time travel is impossible. Your research was inevitably going to lead to the discovery of consar travel instead, something the Mendoken clearly would take notice of when you successfully opened your first consar. It also helped that you were unattached and had no family. You would have the fewest qualms of leaving your planet when the Mendoken came for you.”

  Marc smiled. “So you took a big gamble.”

  “The largest in my life and possibly in the history of the Aftar. I prayed many a night before I finally approached you, asking the Creator to make sure I was making the right choice. And with the Creator’s help, I did.”

  “How did you actually ‘pick’ me? What did you do?”

  “I had to give you something. Something that gave you the power to see all the things you’ve been able to see in your visions and dreams ever since, the power to guide you to make the right decisions so that you could fulfill your destiny as the Sign. And I had to make sure that the thing I gave you would never leave your possession, no matter where you went or what you did.”

  “When was this?”

  “Less than 3 Earth years ago, well after your mother had passed away and you had already begun working on your time machine research. It was just before our imprisonment by Wazilban. I watched you for several days, totally invisible to you and all others on your world, of course. It didn’t take me long to notice there was one thing you never let go of.”

  Marc searched through his mind to figure out what Rayim was referring to. As soon as he realized what it was, he felt his mouth dry up with excitement. He reached inside his pocket, and slowly pulled it out.

 

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