by Per Holbo
***
The next few days Tjalfe and Roeskva spent the waiting time exploring the ship and playing wherever they could without getting in the way of the crew. Their knowledge of the ships interior grew vastly and soon the two children knew every corner of the Alfheim better than anyone else. After all, they had actually been in every corner of the ship.
At the very back of the ship there was a huge hangar containing 12 Skarfi fighters with all the equipment and man power needed to keep them in good order and capable of flying.
From the hangar a 500 yards long hallway went through the middle of the ship connecting front and back. Protruding from the center hallway there were a series of smaller hallways on both sides giving access to all the ship´s rooms and functions.
Right beside the hangar in the starboard side the engine room was placed. Next to that the engine control room, where Frey resided like a king. He was a Vane like only a handful of the crew. The Vanes were allies of the Aseir and they were usually intelligent and had great interest in technology and science, mostly the nonviolent kind. Frey´s responsibility was to make sure the engine was always running at full strength and that the energy flow was in order so that the ship functioned effectively.
It was Frey who explained the relationship between the Aseir and the Vanes to Tjalfe. The children had been playing hide and seek and as he found the engine control room, he entered it in the hope of finding a place to hide. Frey had been repairing the console and lay on his back under it, so when Tjalfe entered, Frey wasn´t visible except for his feet sticking out. It was only when Frey´d heard a locker being shut and decided to investigate, they´d met face to face. Frey had opened the locker and almost scared the life out of Tjalfe, who hadn´t expected the locker to be opened so soon after he´d gone hiding inside it.
But after establishing there was no immediate danger from any of the two, Tjalfe began asking questions and Frey´d been more than willing to answer his questions as best he could.
A long time ago, the Aseir had saved the Vane home world from being completely destroyed by the Yetten and following that they became allies. The Alfheim was one of the ships built as part of a joint effort to keep the galaxy safe from the Yetten. It was named after the Vane home world that had many names of which one was “Alfheim.”
Frey was the first Vane Tjalfe had ever seen - or at least that was what he thought. As it turned out, Sif was also a Vane, but it had never occurred to him. He had thought that Sif was smaller and slimmer than the others simply because she was a woman and he had never given it any thought before. But seeing Frey he was quite surprised. Frey looked exactly like a human and when he asked about it, Frey couldn´t help laughing at Tjalfe´s ignorance on the subject.
“Vanes and Humans look alike simply because we are of the same race,” Frey finally explained when he´d managed to stop laughing. Tjalfe was astonished.
“What do you mean?”
“Look, Tjalfe,” Frey explained, “The Aseir aren´t all that special. Yes, they are strong and their technology is quite advanced, but the special ones... are you and me... well, not you and me as such, but Vanes and Humans in general. It is quite remarkable that two peoples having the same ancestors live so far away from each other in the galaxy.”
“But why are we so alike,” Tjalfe had asked. Frey shrugged. “No one knows exactly,” he said with a puzzled smile, “all we know is that the ancestors of Humans come from Vanaheim...” He paused for a second and looked as if he had just realized something he´d never thought of before, then he continued:
“Or maybe... maybe our ancestors originally come from Earth... Who knows? Whatever the truth really is we have common ancestors. Maybe that´s why the Aseir have taken such a liking to you. In some strange way they are still haunted by the fact that Vanes and Aseir were once at war with each other without any of the sides coming even close to winning and now they see this as a sort of second chance for repentance?”
Tjalfe listened to Frey as he told him all of this. He had the strangest notion. There was something rather disturbing about the facts of that war. If neither the Aseir nor the Vanes had even come close to winning, did that mean that his own people, the human race, were in any way as powerful as the gods? The thought was quite unsettling and Tjalfe felt he had to shove the thought away... He had wanted to ask Frey some more questions, but as Roeskva entered the engine room at that very moment, he didn´t get the chance and soon after, they´d left Frey and continued playing in other parts of the ship.