Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence

by Daniel A. Liut

  “Don’t touch it!”

  “Why not?” Agashu frowned as he retracted his fingers with apprehension.

  “I don’t know, it’s just that it looks like . . . it looks like the Star Carousel of the Prophecy,” said Maliri, with a sense of respect and fear.

  Agashu stepped back and took a walk around the object. “I don’t know,” he said, reappearing from the other side. “If it were the Star Carousel, it would have to have some door somewhere. But I don’t see any door, or window. How could the Ashuraii141 get in or out of it?”

  “Maybe there is a door and we can’t see it,” said Maliri. “It does look like the Star Carousel. And these wiggling rainbows in the sky . . .”

  Agashu looked up at the heavens. A splendid aurora borealis extended all over the firmament towards the horizon. It was impressive and remarkably beautiful, something nobody there had ever seen or heard of.

  “Perhaps they expect us to open the Carousel for them, like a yem,” he said. “Since they have no windows, they could be short of air.”

  Maliri nodded. “Why don’t we try to open a hole in it?”

  “Yeah.” Agashu took a knife and began to apply its blade to the hull in front of him. “Good Ess,142 this stuff is mighty hard.”

  “Let me try,” said Maliri, taking the knife from her brother’s hand. She pushed with all her strength against the surface without making a scratch.

  “Stop it.” Agashu grabbed the knife from his sister. “See what you’ve done to my knife.”

  Maliri stared at the chewed blade in her brother’s hand. “We couldn’t even make a scratch on it.” She gently touched the area she had been working on. Squatting down, she unearthed a medium-sized granite rock that was in front of her.

  “What are you doing now?”

  Using the stone, Maliri was now knocking on the silver-like shell. “If there are people inside, they could knock back at us and let us know they are in there.” She stopped for a moment, putting her forehead ear—her singular ear—against the hull, but she could not hear anything. Unperturbed, Maliri resumed her knocking.

  “Stop it! There is nobody inside. Stop it!” Agashu demanded, covering his ear against the racket.

  “At least I’m doing something to get it open,” Maliri snapped back.

  Agashu stared at her impatiently. “I know,” he added, softening his stance. “The whole mighty thing looks metallic. Why don’t we melt a hole in it?”

  “We’d have to go back to the Citadel for fire,” Maliri said.

  Agashu opened the purse he carried on one shoulder and took out two yellow stones.

  “Fire-stones!” said Maliri.

  “Yep, let’s find a big log so we can start a fire underneath.”

  “One log won’t be enough. We’ll have to make a big fire to melt a hole. Let’s gather lots of dry leaves and sticks and branches under the Carousel, right here, and then we’ll set fire to them.”

  “But we may start a wood-fire,” Agashu said with apprehension. “This is not the rain season.”

  “We’ll put stones around it, like in the campfire of last summer,” Maliri said. “There are lots of stones around.”

  “All right.”

  Soon, they had piled a heap of firewood on one side of the Carousel, carefully isolated from the grass by a circle of rocks. Kneeling down, Agashu started scraping his fire-stones against each other, until a small twig began to smoke. Agashu pulled back, and the whole pile was up in flames.

  75.

  A persistent noise finally made Duncan open his eyes. Foxso’l’s image, banging on the control panel in frustration, pricked his disoriented senses. Slowly lifting his head, Duncan turned around to see Erina in her seat, still groggy. He unstrapped himself and approached her. “Erina . . . Erina . . .”

  “What happened?” she muttered, her eyes still closed.

  “Foxso’l managed to land. Everything’s fine.”

  “Well, well, well, it was about time the kids woke up,” Foxso’l interjected, intensely focused on his work.

  “Where are we?” Erina asked.

  “Somewhere on the surface of the second planet of this system.” The instrument panel flickered on. “Yes!” Foxso’l blurted out.

  Duncan pointed at a small screen. “What are those readings?”

  “Atmospheric data and some other stuff,” Foxso’l said, as he adjusted the intensity of one of the luminous displays. “So . . . let’s see what we’ve got here: bioxyn twenty-seven percent, catalyon sixty-eight, chrysosterion about one percent . . .”

  “Chrysossetherion . . .” Duncan corrected under his breath.

  “And . . . well, a whole bunch of other gases we don’t need to worry about.”

  “It sounds breathable to me,” Erina said.

  “Yeah, as long as we can get used to being in a ten-atmosphere environment.”

  “Ten atmospheres?” Duncan strained his eyes.

  “I will pressurize the cabin gradually, so that our bodies can adapt to it.”

  “How long will that take?” Erina asked.

  “Not to make it tough on us . . . one standard day.”

  “Why don’t we just stay here until someone comes and rescues us?” Erina asked.

  “It’d take a great deal of luck for anybody to find us here,” Foxso’l said.

  “What about the natives?” Duncan asked.

  “We don’t know if there are any natives,” Foxso’l replied.

  “But if there are, they would not necessarily be friendly. Even the Establishment might already have some presence in this place.”

  As they talked, Foxso’l’s attention was growing ever more riveted on the control panel. There was a moment of silence.

  “What’s wrong?” Duncan finally asked.

  “Something funny is going on out there. The external sensors show a sudden temperature rise.” The external cameras were not working.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean a moment ago, the temperature gauge read sixty-five degrees, but now it shows two hundred and fifteen, and rising.”

  “There may be something wrong with it,” Duncan said.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Most systems on board weren’t working well,” Erina pointed out.

  Foxso’l kept looking at the luminous dial, which was already up to two hundred and twenty. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This is happening only on one side of the ship.” A second indicator was showing only sixty-five degrees. Foxso’l tapped on it, not that the display could be influenced by the action of his finger.

  “It’s out of order, all right,” Duncan said, pointing loosely at the instruments dashboard.

  “Which of the two?” Foxso’l replied.

  “Why don’t we start equalizing pressures?” Erina asked, looking at Foxso’l. “You said you’d do it slowly. If the external temperature turns out to be too high, we’ll soon find out, and then we would just dismiss our plans of leaving the vessel, at least for now.”

  “Officer’s thinking, Ensign,” Foxso’l declared with a satisfied expression.

  “Yeah, the question is, what are we gonna do if the temperature does rise?” asked Duncan.

  Foxso’l shook his head and moved to the rear of the cabin. There, he removed a panel and began opening the security valve, manually.

  “What if . . .” Duncan insisted, as Foxso’l kept working on the pressurization sequence.

  As a tenuous hiss began blowing inside the cabin, Foxso’l eased himself into the comfortably padded commanding seat. “We’ll think about what ifs when we have a real one.”

  76.

  “Gureezai!143 What do you think you’re doing?” said a soldier in silver armor. He had suddenly appeared from the woods, followed by two others, riding on some big animals.

  “We are trying to melt open a hole to let out the people inside, Captain,” Agashu said with child-like determination.

  “Put that fire out on the double. You’ll cook the people inside
alive.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t work,” Agashu protested, turning to his sister.

  “Tully, Maru, help the gureezai put this fire out,” the captain commanded.

  Leaving their saddles, the soldiers picked up some leafy branches and started raking dirt and dust on the fire. It took some effort, but eventually a smoky blotch of ashes was the only thing left.

  Captain Ziku rode his annay around the intriguing artifact. Its surface looked unscathed. “Why do you say there is anybody inside?” he asked, turning to the children. “Did you find any door or window?”

  “Don’t you see, Captain? This is the Star Carousel, the Star

  Carousel we’ve been waiting for.”

  The captain looked at Maliri gravely.

  “The gureeza is perceptive, with my captain’s permission,” Tully interjected. “It does look like the Star Carousel of the Prophecy. And the mighty signs in the sky . . .” He gazed upwards with apprehension.

  “We must go back to the Citadel at once and inform the Wise Elders about this,” said Ziku, moving his annay away from the large flattened circular object.

  “Yeah!” said Maliri. “Agashu and I will stay here guarding the Carousel.”

  “You gureezai are coming back to the Citadel with us.”

  “Oh, no, no, we don’t wanna go back. The sun is still high,” said Maliri, pouting her lips.

  “You’ll do as I say, gureezai. Gureez . . .” The captain pointed at Agashu. “You’ll mount with Sergeant Maru, and the gureeza, with Private Tully.”

  77.

  “Maybe it’s too soon to say,” Erina said, a few minutes after the pressurization of the cabin had begun. “But I don’t feel any temperature increase.” She was sitting close to the main air inlet, where she could feel a gentle stream of fresh air coming in from the outside.

  “Hey, Foxso’l,” Duncan called out. He was sitting by the control panel board. “Take a look at this.”

  The skipper stepped closer and gazed at the two temperature displays, now showing nearly the same readings, in the middle sixties. Foxso’l scratched his head. “Well, that’s more like it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Why don’t we have some dinner?” Erina held out three food rations. “Afterwards we could try getting some sleep. I guess tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  Foxso’l sat down on the deck and leaned back on his hands in a relaxed manner, grinning at Duncan. “I’ll never regret rescuing her from space.”

  “Want some juice?” Erina offered Foxso’l an already hydrated sachet.

  “Sure do. Say,” Foxso’l glanced at Duncan. “Are all earthly females as nixy144 as your girlfriend?”

  78.

  The bodies of annays, more specifically their torsos, are shaped like those of rhinos’. Their legs, four in all, are as long as horses’ legs. Annays have flat large tails with long, skinny scales protruding from them, which resemble feathers. Wide necks emerge from their torsos. On top of them, large heads complete their bodies. The backs of their heads are similar to deer, with small horns on top with no spikes. These protrusions are slender and simple, with openings on their ends that function as nostrils. The faces of these animals end in a flat, horizontal snout, with a relatively small mouth beneath. A yellow ring that encircles three-quarters of their necks connects their multiple eardrums with the external world. [ . . . ]

  Annays are not rational creatures, but they are smart beasts. Their heads and necks are covered with a short feathery hide of different colors. Their torsos and legs are protected by shiny scales, which produce a wide variety of hues, as if they had been smeared with a thin film of oil. They are relatively light animals, by Realitas’ standards. This fact, along with the low gravity of the planet, which is about one third of that on Realitas, allows annays to move with a graceful agility.

  From Lieutenant Dahncion’s tactical log.

  Today: May it be them.

  “Is everybody ready?”

  Erina rubbed her head. “Except for this headache.”

  “You’ll get used to these ten atmospheres,” said Foxso’l, as he typed some instructions on his panel.

  The main hatchway suddenly opened, and a fan of sunbeams darted inside the cabin. As the heavy gate slowly moved upwards, the scene ahead was gradually revealed. First they saw a green mantle with long and narrow shallow leaves, sprinkled with a morning dew. Behind it, they spotted bushes, also sprinkled with dew, and with winged tiny insects on their leaves, sipping the water droplets. Finally, an unexpected gathering appeared behind it all, backed by a forest, with soldiers riding on large animals, evocative of battle-ready knights.

  “Interesting crowd,” Erina muttered.

  “Quite,” Duncan added tensely. The pitches of their voices sounded different under the new environmental conditions.

  “I sure hope these guys have nothing to do with the Establishment,” Foxso’l said.

  About five hundred individuals were gathered around the shuttle. The assembly looked more like an army than a welcome committee. Ahead of the ranks, here and there, some were mounted on large animals, which had metallic plates covering most of their bodies and embellished helmets topping their heads. Two riders, holding military standards, were very close to the ship’s gate.

  “Look at the sky,” Duncan said as the hatch was still opening.

  “It seems that the solar storm that brought us here is still pretty active,” Erina commented.

  Duncan took the initiative and stepped down from the vessel, immediately followed by Foxso’l and Erina. They were armed, but they kept their guns on their belts.

  One of the riders approached them. His armor looked different from the others’: it had a copper shine, unlike the silvery plates the rest were wearing. He stopped in front of the three visitors and took off his helmet, holding it under one arm. “Are ye from the stars?”

  “We are,” answered Duncan.

  “Our humble welcome to the Ashuraii,” the rider said with a respectful reverence.

  Duncan did not understand the meaning of the last word. “We’re most honored to be received by this mighty army,” he stated confidently. “My name is Dahncion, and these,” Duncan moved aside, “are Erina and Foxso’l.”

  “We are most honored to learn the names of the Ashuraii,” said the same soldier.

  “And, what’s the name of he who welcomes us?” Duncan asked.

  “I’m General Xanada. We’ve been assigned by the High Council to escort ye to the Citadel, if this pleaseth thee—and ye,” he added, addressing Foxso’l and Erina.

  “It pleases us, greatly,” Duncan asserted.

  General Xanada made a very respectful bow. “Three annays will take ye to the village along with us.”

  Duncan looked at his two companions.

  “That’s fine with us,” Foxso’l said, nervously tensing his jaw as he nodded.

  Xanada bowed again and ordered the three annays to be brought forward. Leather-like ladders hung from their saddles halfway to the ground. Duncan was the first to mount; Foxso’l and Erina followed.

  Crossing amidst the ranks, General Xanada moved back. The three annays carrying the Ashuraii followed the general mechanically. It seemed that the Realitian guests would not have much to worry about during the ride. The animals knew what they had to do.

  The general raised an arm, and one soldier sounded a horn. All annays lifted their forelegs, standing on their rear legs. From the sides of all their saddles, long wide sails were deployed.145 The dense morning breeze filled the sails swiftly.

  An unexpected gathering appeared behind it all, with soldiers riding on large animals, evocative of battle-ready knights.

  Putting their forelegs back on the ground, the annays started to ride, carried by the wind across the steep northern grasslands. None of the animals was truly flying, although each gallop was about one hundred feet long. Xanada’s cavalry quickly achieved a considerable speed. The surrounding vegetation was a bright—nearly meta
llic—light blue and green; it was very different from any flora of Earth or any other planet Duncan had already visited. Duncan’s initial tension was relaxing with the beauty of the forest, and with the way they had been treated so far. But he did not have much time to think; after a five-minute ride, a colossal stone fortification, crowned by three needle-like towers, appeared behind a hill.

  79.

  Today: Faith.

  “It’s happening again.” Duncan sunk his elbows in the muggy grass and rested his eyes on the mountains behind the lake. Only their peaks were snowy; their bases shone blue with the midday sun of an early autumn. Beyond the lake, the walls of the fortified city loomed over the foliage, following the wavy terrain of the surrounding hills.

  “What do you mean?” asked Erina.

  “First Dahncion, now the Ashuraii . . .” Duncan tossed a flat pebble, which skipped three times along the surface before sinking into the lake.

  “Our arrival in a shuttle from space is something they don’t quite see every day,” Erina said.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But once more, I’m about to get involved in a local conflict—that is, all of us. What gives us the right to meddle in such matters? Once more, people could get hurt, some may even die . . .”

  “Well.” Erina sighed. “You didn’t promise we would accompany them on their expedition. You told them that perhaps we were not the Ashuraii they were waiting for. ‘We are people of good will who have come to watch your progress.’ That was a wise statement—they seemed to have taken it pretty well. And it gives us enough leeway to do whatever we consider best.”

  Duncan slid his hands on the blue grass behind his back.

  “The barbecue is almost ready!”

  Erina and Duncan turned around. Juicy litics were roasting over a few stones surrounded by red embers, all under the master supervision of Captain Foxso’l.