by Kasch, Andy
Mip7’s words had a profound effect on Brandon. Obviously, not all of these aliens were bad guys. You can’t blame an entire race for the actions of a few. Brandon took another sip and thought about his situation. Things began to become clearer in his mind. This big lizard-man who he was having a beer with was his ally. Mip7’s purpose and priorities were truly honorable, and if Brandon were to now have some kind of life that was actually worth living, he needed to align his own motivations with those of Mip7’s.
“Let me know what I can do to help,” Brandon said. “I’ve got nothing else to do, right? And the thought of my people lying in those tanks is unbearable.”
Mip7 looked at him and nodded. They finished their drinks and went back to their huts for an overdue nap.
Brandon woke up several hours later. It was beginning to get dark out, and cooler. He could see lights flickering outside and the familiar smell of campfires filled his hut. He got up.
Mip7 was sitting on the bench outside his hut using his tablet computer for something. Tiki-style torches were lit all around the huts. Quite a few Sheen were moving about, some of them with their hoods off and cloaks open, emitting brightness from their uncovered bodies. Those beings were their own lamps. Brandon noticed they were structurally built much like the natives, but had thinner-looking leather skin that was colored more like the Amulites than the Banorians, of a slightly-silver pigmentation. But their fingers were much longer, and their facial features were more human looking.
Brandon casually walked over to Mip7’s bench. He saw a fire pit glowing through a clearing, and then noticed Derek walking towards him from that direction. The sight of a monk in gravity shoes walking through a campsite of grassy huts looked appropriate somehow. Derek had some food in his hands, a loaf of bread maybe. When he got closer, Brandon could tell the loaf of bread had something inside it.
“Groovy campfires, man. There’s food over there. I made a sandwich. Want half?”
Brandon was hungry, so he nodded, and Derek broke him off a chunk. It was like a fish sandwich of some kind, and tasted good.
With his mouth full, Derek motioned at Mip7 and said to Brandon, “That thing he uses is a total trip, man. Freaks me out a little.” Mip7 was still sitting, engaged in whatever he was doing.
“We actually have devices similar that in my time,” Brandon said. “You finally hit on something they have here that I am used to seeing.”
“No way, man.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “They are called tablet computers. Portable personal computers with touch screens. Really thin and square like that—although, ours are solid, even when they are turned off. That one he’s using is pretty wild, I admit, with nothing in the middle until he turns it on. It freaks me out a little, too. See how he taps on it. Somehow, a solid screen appears where there was only empty space. They must have the ability to turn energy into matter, and they use it for everyday tasks like checking the weather and sending messages, I suppose.”
Mip7 stood up and spoke. “We do have energy/matter conversion technology, but the way this operates is more like a force-field, overlaid with a very sensitive light energy screen. It can’t accurately be labeled as matter. That’s why it’s called a lightpad.”
“Huh,” Brandon said.
Mip7 handed him the lightpad to inspect. “The power is activated on the side here.”
Brandon played with it a little before handing it back to him. It was cool, but of course the symbols which appeared on the screen were completely foreign to him. Still, if that was the next model iPad Apple rolled out, he wouldn’t be all that surprised.
A voice from behind them spoke.
“I see you got something to eat. Good.” Brandon and Derek spun around. It was Arkan9.
“Please follow me,” Arkan9 said. “I have something to share that you should find …refreshing.” This was the first time Brandon had seen Arkan9’s shiny, uncovered head.
“The halcyon arc?” Mip7 asked.
Arkan9 nodded and smiled in response. He then led them through the maze of huts and past several campfire rings, where Brandon noticed children, the first ones he had seen. They looked more like Sheen than native Torian children, except they had no glow.
“I thought kids were raised in separate colonies,” Brandon said to Mip7.
Arkan9 answered him. “The Sheen raise their own young.”
Brandon looked around the camp and said, “Then shouldn’t there also be female Sheen living here?”
“Indeed there are,” Arkan9 said. “You have doubtlessly seen some of them, but your eyes likely cannot tell them apart from the males—unless they were to remove their cloaks, something female Sheen never do in public.”
“Oh.”
They came to an opening near a grove of trees. A fire was burning in a pit in the middle of the clearing. Several Sheen were sitting around the fire.
Near the trees was a strange object. It was a large triangular frame, a little smaller than the size of a man. It appeared to be carved from rock, and the stand which held it upright also appeared to be of rock. It held energy. The frame glowed faintly from just inside the rim. Several Sheen were sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of it. When they saw Arkan9 and his guests, they stood up and left.
Arkan9 motioned for everyone to keep following him. He came up before the object and sat on the ground. Brandon noticed the glow inside the frame greatly intensified and spread deeper in towards its center as they approached. The three of them sat down behind Arkan9. Its light then dimmed some, but only by a little.
“This is the halcyon arc, a sacred Erobian artifact,” Arkan9 said. “It is, in fact, the only remaining object of Erob origin in all of Tora, save for one identical other.”
“Right on,” Derek said.
“Why do you say that?” Brandon asked Derek. “Are you suddenly a Torian history buff?”
“No man, don’t go ape. I just think it’s cool. There’s like a righteous energy flowing from this thing.” He turned to Arkan9. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” Arkan9 replied. “You are very intuitive, Derek. There is a strong spiritual sense about you. The energy from the halcyon arc is of Erob. It cleanses our beings, and replenishes whatever we have spent of ourselves from focusing too much on things in this physical dimension. See how brightly it glows, because we have become so imbalanced. As we are cleansed and become balanced again, its light will dim.”
Derek stretched his neck all around, closed his eyes, and held his hands out with palms upward.
“This is…so…totally…right…freaking…on…man.”
Brandon looked at Mip7 and asked, “Is this for real?”
Mip7 shrugged. “It’s what they believe. I believed it too, when I was here as a child. Maybe this is what I need.” He closed his eyes and assumed the same position as Derek.
Arkan9 just sat peacefully, making no strange poses. Brandon decided to just lean back on his hands and look at the night sky. The stars were thick here, just like camping back home.
After an hour or so, the glow of the halcyon arc did begin to dim a little, but was still nowhere near as dim as it had been when the other Sheen were sitting in front of it. Derek, Mip7, and Arkan9 were all still sitting peacefully and seemed to be content. Brandon had to admit he did feel calm and rested, especially while stargazing, but he was beginning to have uncomfortable fits. He noticed two Sheen children playing a game in the dirt behind them, on the other side of the fire pit, and decided to walk over and observe them. He would come back after stretching his legs a bit.
It was a simple game, played with rocks and a stick with one leaf on it. One child would arrange the rocks in some kind of a pattern, and then drop the stick in the middle. They would both snatch up some of the rocks as soon as the stick fell. One child would then remove the stick, and they would begin placing the rocks back in the dirt, in turn, one at a time, and sometimes then turn some of the other rocks over. That’s when Brandon realized the rocks were black on
ly on one side. He watched them play several games before one of the children got up to leave. The other one then looked up at Brandon and motioned for him to sit down. So he did.
The Sheen-child talked in a soft, even-toned manner much as Arkan9 spoke. He was very polite as he explained the game. Brandon came to understand it as a simplified form of Othello, except for the stone snatching at the beginning—which one did based on which way the leaf was facing, taking only stones that were black up or black down until no two stones of the same color were adjacent to each other. From there it played like Othello, the player with the most stones going first.
The child won the first two games while Brandon was getting the hang of it, but then Brandon won the next two games. The child insisted they play one more game to determine “the champion.” Brandon looked over and saw his friends all still sitting in front of the halcyon arc, so he complied, and won the final game easily.
The child abruptly stood and ran off upon losing the third game. Brandon looked up. Mip7 was now standing over him, apparently having witnessed the end of the game.
“It isn’t easy to beat them at that,” Mip7 said. “Do you play this on Earth?”
“I played something like it when I was a kid,” Brandon said, “but not since.”
The child then returned, but was dragging an adult Sheen by the hand and pointing at Brandon. Brandon became alarmed. Maybe he should have minded his own business and stayed by the arc thing.
The adult Sheen came over, sat down, and introduced himself.
“My name is Nunon4. I am the child’s father. You are one of the Earthlings?”
“Yes. My name is Brandon. No number. I hope I was not being inappropriate, playing with your son? I found the game to be interesting.”
“Not at all. Shall we play?”
“Um…” Brandon looked up at Mip7, who nodded. “Okay, I guess.”
Nunon4’s shine was distracting to Brandon’s eyes and he lost the first game, but only by a count of two rocks.
“Very good,” Nunon4 said. “Again, please.” The child looked surprised. Arkan9 and Derek were now standing with Mip7, watching. They played three more games. Brandon won them all, the last by six rocks. Then they stood up. The child Sheen’s mouth was gaping as he looked up at his father, expectant of some kind of explanation.
“Tulros,” Nunon4 said, and bowed. “It was a pleasure playing with you.”
“Tul …ros,” Brandon said, and returned the bow. The Sheen looked very pleased and ushered his son away before him.
“You are both full of pleasant surprises tonight,” Arkan9 said. “Nunon4 is a certified master in theoretical strategy. No one has beaten him at any game since he was a child.”
“So, you’re like a genius or something?” Derek asked Brandon.
“No,” Brandon said. “I was a B-student, before I dropped out of college to become a salesman—which I’m not that good at, either.”
“It is probably your species,” Arkan9 said. “You have a great propensity for learning and adaptation.”
“Or maybe that holy arc thing just balanced you out, brother,” Derek said. “Don’t you feel totally pure now, man?”
Brandon didn’t reply.
“It certainly helps,” Arkan9 said, “but you have much replenishing to do. We all do. We will need to use the halcyon arc every day until its light upon us fully fades. It is most effective in early mornings and evenings. Now I have a meeting to attend, so please excuse me.”
Arkan9 left them. Brandon saw that Nunon4 and two other Sheen were standing and waiting for him a short ways off. When Arkan9 reached them, they exchanged greetings before disappearing into one of the larger wooden shacks.
Mip7 led Brandon and Derek to an unoccupied fire pit back near their huts. There was some wood stacked next to it. Mip7 kneeled and gathered a bunch of small stones that were in the pit into a mound and then arranged some wood over the rock pile. Brandon recognized the stones.
“Those are the same rocks we were using as game pieces.”
“Yes,” Mip7 said. “Cortzye stones. Curious things. They become black on the side closest to the fire, and draw all the color away from the cooler side. They are an excellent natural heat conductor. Watch.”
Mip7 picked up a small metallic object that was lying in the dirt and pointed it toward the fire pit. He pressed down on it and a thin beam of bright light emitted forth and struck the cortzye stone pile. He held it there for maybe twenty seconds until the stones were all glowing. Flames then jumped up and began licking the pieces of firewood. It now smelled like the hoverbus, briefly.
“Whoa man, a freaking laser gun! Wow!” Derek said.
“That was just lying in the dirt there?” Brandon exclaimed. “How careless and dangerous!”
Mip7 studied the laser he was holding, and then looked back up at Brandon.
“For Earthlings, perhaps it could be. We have leather skin, remember.” He dropped the laser back in the dirt and stood up. “Accidents do happen, so be careful. I remember getting zapped a couple times by one of those as a kid. For us, all we get is a skin discoloration for a few days, although they do sting a little. One doesn’t continue to hold it in place when they realize they have a misdirected beam, of course.”
Derek walked over and picked it up, which made Brandon a little nervous. After briefly examining it, though, he dropped it and sat on the ground next to the fire.
Mip7 pulled a nearby bench over, and Brandon sat with him on it.
“We should get you in the simulation hall,” Mip7 said to Brandon.
“What’s that?”
“Electronic games and flight simulators. You can fly spaceships, shoot monsters, and the like. You had to physically haul me out of there during the week I spent here as a kid.”
“Oh, a video arcade. They have one here? I spent a lot of time in those as a boy myself. That might be fun. As long as Arkan9 doesn’t have us doing yoga or something instead.”
“I get the feeling Arkan9 will be busy the next few days. Some of the other Sheen here seem to be very interested in him, and are demanding his attention.”
“Do you know why?”
“No. I don’t think it’s about us, though.”
Chapter Seven
Mip7 was right about Arkan9. They didn’t see him much in the following days. In the mornings and evenings, they would sit by the halcyon arc with him, to Derek’s great delight, but Arkan9 wasn’t all that talkative. During the daytime, they rarely saw him at all.
Mip7 took Brandon to the simulation hall, located in the first floor of the central building, the day after their first night at Uden. It took a little while to get used to the controls, but Brandon found great entertainment there. It was very much like a futuristic arcade. The kids back home would go nuts for it, especially since it didn’t require any money to play.
Derek checked out the simulation hall that first morning as well, but it failed to hold his attention. He mumbled something about “warmonger training” before leaving Brandon and Mip7 to their games. No one else at the Sheen colony appeared to have much interest in the arcade either, as Brandon found he was usually alone there. Mip7 would play with him for a while, but then wander off to the bar or somewhere. Brandon realized he should probably be spending more time outside himself, but he was helplessly captivated by some of the games—especially the military flight simulators. Before he realized it, a week had gone by and he had seen very little of the colony. The halcyon arc always brightened significantly whenever he approached it, causing Brandon to have about the same amount of love for it as he did for his bathroom scale on Earth.
How Derek was spending his days Brandon wasn’t exactly sure, but he did notice him talking to groups of shorter, dimmer Sheen in the early evenings at the clearings where meals were served. Mip7 explained to Brandon that those were young adult Sheen, the equivalent of teenagers. It figured that Derek would take to such a crowd. Perhaps he had more in common with them than he had with his fe
llow Earthling in this camp.
Brandon finally forced himself to spend a day away from the arcade and just hang out with Derek.
“Shouldn’t you be off to boot camp, man?” Derek asked shortly after breakfast.
“Taking a break from it today. I got most of the games wired now—the good ones, anyway. Sorry I haven’t been hanging out with you much. I get a little obsessive-compulsive about games, sometimes.”
“That’s why the Erob energy field surges when you come over to it. You need more balance, brother.”
“You sound like a Sheen now.”
“Well, why not? I like them. My kind of aliens.”
“Have you been learning much about them?”
“Some. Not wasting my days playing futuristic pinball, anyway. There’s a library in the central building—did you know that?”
“No,” Brandon said. “What good is a library to us? We have implants in our ear nerves, not our eyes. Unless they have some kind of special translation eyeglasses in there.”
“Funny you should mention that, brother…”
“You have got to be joking.” The possibility of being able to read books excited Brandon, however.
Derek laughed. “No, just kidding man. But there are some language training TV shows there, and they have good sound. I learned a few things.”
“Oh yeah? Give me an example.”
Derek pointed to an open hut that was cut away in the front and looked like a concession stand.
“The sign on that stand there says something about fishing pole rentals. It was the first thing I learned to recognize, after some lizard-kids took me fishing. You should come fishing with me today. I think you’ll dig it. The fishing poles are outta sight.”
The sign on the hut had unrecognizable symbols on it. To Brandon, the written Torian language looked like a cross between Greek and Chinese—but he cheerfully agreed to go. The fishing hut was attended by a Sheen child who gave Derek two small, triangular black boxes. They looked like the fire starter, but were bigger and anatomically designed for the grip of a hand, with buttons on the top side.