by C B Williams
“We’re monitoring the ship,” Aiko told him. “It’s dead in the air. All engines have been cut. Genji and Spider are observing them. A second spike was activated, then deactivated. Our pulsar flare is armed. If that spike is reactivated, we’ll be ready.” She chuckled. “No worries, Eloch. We’re sitting pretty. We can monitor them, and they don’t even know we exist.”
“Well done, Aiko,” Eloch said. “When we make contact with them, we must bear in mind that they will be frightened and jumpy,” Eloch mused. “After Wren finishes her meal, we’ll join you on the Bridge to wait for Perin.” He broke the connection.
“I’m nearly finished, Eloch,” Wren said. “I gobbled like a starving person.”
He sat across from her. “We’ve got time. Our guest is sound asleep.”
Wren nodded, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “Best thing for him.”
“Perin will help him adjust.”
“Yeah, she will. That connection. What do you think it is? It seems so convenient, don’t you think? Our Seer and her dreams…Jon…” she shrugged.
“I have a theory about that,” Eloch replied. “Perin was a gift from The Lady, and Talamh is a planet of visions and dreams, yes?” At Wren’s nod, he continued. “Well then, doesn’t it make sense that The Lady who created Her people to be guided by dreams and visions is Herself guided by dreams and visions?”
“Hmm.” Wren cocked her head. “You think Talamh saw all this, and that’s why She gifted Perin?”
“In truth, I don’t know, Wren. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“This universe is a strange place.”
“It most certainly is,” Eloch agreed.
Jon woke slowly, and for the first time in a long while, he felt rested. For a moment, he felt disoriented and kept his eyes closed, listening to the strange hum of—
This isn’t my ship!
He shot up, bracing himself as the memories came flooding back. Eyes darting around, he found Perin, still sitting by his side as she had promised.
She smiled serenely, hands folded quietly in her lap.
“Oh. Hi,” he said.
“How do you feel, Jon?”
He took three deep breaths, calming himself. “Better. Hopefully, more able to cope.”
“It must be very strange to you.”
“It is and it isn’t,” he said. “I think the strangest part is that it isn’t. Strange, I mean.” He hesitated, then plunged in. “I’ve dreamed for several days about being kidnapped and brought here. So when it finally happened, it was almost a relief...” his voice trailed off. “You must think I’m crazy, me dreaming all this. I nearly thought so, too.”
She shook her head. “No. It answers many of my questions. You are a Seer, Jon. As am I.”
“A Seer?”
“Yes. Your dreaming. Was it the same dream over and over again? Did it seem so real that when you awoke you weren’t sure what was reality anymore?”
He straightened. “Yes. Exactly. How did you know?”
She smiled. “My people call that a True Dream. Those of us who dream True Dreams are called Seers. We see visions of what is to come so we can guide others.”
“But I’ve never dreamed like this before,” he said, rubbing his chin, noticing his beard stubble had grown.
She cocked her head at him. “Are you sure about that?”
He thought back over the years and remembered that he had, indeed, experienced occasional recurring dreams at pivotal times in his life. “I guess I have, now you mention it. But never anything as dramatic or as frightening as this one.”
She nodded. “They can be like that, especially if you are untrained. Even trained, you can still be frightened by a True Dream. I dreamed of the merging of our two ships before I had even set foot on a spaceship. I dreamed your ghost ship would shoot Eloch with the metal stake that bloomed like a flower. And because I didn’t know what I was Seeing, I was very frightened. Like you, I thought I was going mad.”
“The metal stake that bloomed like a flower,” he repeated. “Oh! You must be referring to the fission generator wand.” All at once he felt more animated and less frightened. “Yes! I saw it penetrate a man—the man—the one who kidnapped me. I was sure I was hallucinating. It was the only logical explanation.”
Perin laughed, a bell-like sound. “You were not hallucinating, Seer. It is the way of things.” She smiled at him. “I also Saw we would exchange names.”
“This will to take some time for me to process,” Jon said after a while.
She nodded, her sightless eyes studying his face. “For someone who has not been properly trained, I imagine it is very stressful.”
Jon snorted. “Terrifying is more like it. But I’m relieved.” He chuckled. “I’m not going crazy after all. How about that?”
“I will help you, Jon. I have been trained, and I can train you.”
He examined her earnest expression and wondered why he trusted this alien woman who had helped kidnap him. There should have been all kinds of internal alarms sounding.
But when he looked at her, at her lovely, open face, what he felt was…kinship. It surprised him and also reassured him. He wasn’t the only one with crazy dreams. “Thank you,” he told her. “It will help immensely.”
She nodded. “Are you ready to speak with the others? I can have them bring you food and water.”
He took a deep breath. “That would be good. Nourishment and answers.”
Jon watched Perin rise and cross over to a small panel on the wall, marveling at how easily she moved without normal sight. She touched the panel. It made a small ping and was answered. She spoke into it. It pinged once more and she turned away.
“Eloch and Wren will be here soon,” Perin said, returning to her seat at his side.
“You move like you can see,” Jon said.
“I know this ship,” she replied. “And I am not totally blind. I see people’s energy patterns and can tell where they are and who they are. And I wasn’t always blind. It was when I began to Dream True that I lost my normal sight.”
“Then I will go blind as well?” he asked.
She shook her head. “If you were going to go blind, it would have happened already. Perhaps it is the way of my people and not your own.”
The door panel slid open, bringing the scent of food, along with two people Jon immediately recognized. They were the petite woman with the auburn coils and the giant man who kidnapped him. He stiffened.
“You look better. Rested,” the woman with the coils said, a tray in her hands. She moved like a fighter, Jon noticed, graceful and smooth despite the slick black prosthetic replacing one leg.
“Hungry?” she asked. “I sure was.”
Suddenly, Jon was ravenous. “Very,” he replied.
“My name is Wren,” she said as she placed a tray on his lap. “Enjoy your meal.”
The man handed a second tray to Perin, who smiled delightedly and immediately began to eat.
Jon swallowed and looked at his food warily. It smelled delicious. But hadn’t he just been abducted?
Wren laughed, watching him. “We didn’t bring you here to poison you,” she said. “Look,” she plucked a bit of fruit off his plate and popped it into her mouth. “Go ahead and enjoy. We’ll wait.”
“I’ll trade my meal with you, Jon, if it will make you more comfortable,” Perin offered.
Jon looked at the plate in his hands and shook his head. “Not necessary. Thank you, though.” He looked at the woman named Wren. “I…well, it’s all damn strange, and I’m on guard.”
Wren nodded sagely. “Caution First is this crew’s motto. But go ahead now. Eat.”
Deciding to trust them, he took a bite. The meal was delicious, and he focused on that while the three sat quietly and waited. When he was finished, Jon handed Wren the empty tray and sat back with a sigh. “Thank you,” he said.
“Not at all. I was ravenous after that crossover, and I assumed you and Perin would be as well.”
“Crossover?”
Wren nodded toward large man sitting beside her, who was studying Jon. “This is my mate, Eloch,” she said by way of introduction. “He’s the one who brought you to our ship, and I think he’s the one who should explain things. We have a lot of questions, and we’ve traveled hundreds of light-years to get them answered.”
She rose. “Why don’t we all go to another room and have a conversation? Perin, just leave your tray there and come. We can collect them later.”
Chapter 19
Comparing Notes
Jon considered Eloch. He was a big man, several inches over six feet tall, Jon guessed, and well made, fit, strong, with dark good looks. His face conveyed a keen intelligence.
But his clothing. Jon had no idea what the man Eloch was wearing. His tunic was a sturdy dark green cloth belted around the middle. His legs were encased in what Jon thought could be animal skins, but he wasn’t sure. But regardless of his strange clothing, the man made Jon wary. Even standing quietly, he radiated a dangerous power and the kind of authority that proclaimed him a leader.
Eloch smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile, to Jon’s mind. “Would you like to take a tour of our home?” he asked. He turned to Wren and Perin. “Why don’t we take Jon up to our Bridge and introduce him to the rest of our crew?”
“I shot you,” Jon said.
“Yes, you did.”
“With a fission generator wand.”
He lifted one brow. “Is that what it’s called? Genji and Spider will be overjoyed to finally know its name.”
Jon shook his head. “It’s just not possible for a man to survive being shot with a fission generator wand. So how are you still living?”
“Eloch is more than he seems, Jon,” Wren said quietly. “I think if you tour the ship with us, you’ll begin to understand.”
He barked out a laugh. “I’m glad you have faith in my mental capacity. I feel more confused than ever.”
“Jon is a Seer,” Perin said. “He Dreams True.”
“Ah,” Eloch said. He glanced at Wren.
“More puzzle pieces fitting together?” she asked him.
“It makes sense, don’t you think? Their connection.”
Jon looked at the two, resenting their private conversation.
Perin covered Jon’s hand with her own. “They do that a lot. You’ll get used to it. Sometimes they don’t even use words.”
He felt his eyes widening. “You two telecommunicate? Mind to mind?”
Wren nodded and grinned. “I think it’s best, Jon, if you suspend your disbelief and just hear us out.”
Perin squeezed his hand. “You will come to understand us, and you will help us. I have Seen it.” She gently tugged at his hand. “Come tour our home. Trust me.”
“I do,” Jon told Perin. “I don’t know why, but I do. You, Perin, I trust. These two? I’m not sure.”
Perin’s smile dazzled. All she needed was wings. And if she unfurled a pair he wouldn’t be surprised. “Come,” she said.
“The Valiant is a modular ship,” Wren said as they walked down a wide, well-lit corridor. “Are you familiar with modular starships, Jon?”
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
She nodded. “A modular ship is comprised of different modules configured together to meet a particular expedition’s requirements.”
“Okaaaay,” said Jon. “Still not understanding.”
Wren smiled. “I didn’t understand it either at first. Let me explain it the way Aiko, one of our pilots, explained it to me.” Wren paused. “Imagine a flying box, Jon, made up of several different boxes fitted together inside the larger box. The larger box is the ship’s hull, its outer skin. Each of the smaller boxes is a room that provides a specific function. The med lab we just left is an example. Our galley would be another box, individual sleeping quarters are other boxes, and so on. With me so far?”
At Jon’s nod, she continued. “For the Valiant, all the individual boxes were fitted around a middle box. The middle box was originally a three-story rectangle housing our Solar Farm and large enough for flying.”
“Flying?”
“We’ll get to that. Before the Valiant became ours, it was a colonizer vessel, equipped to house nearly ten thousand people, who would use the modules as their homes when they reached their destination planet. It was huge, much larger than what we needed, so we sold off many of those modules to pay for what we needed for this journey.” Wren waved her hand, “Probably more information than you needed. Anyway, when we left our solar system, that’s what the Valiant looked like, a bunch of boxes surrounding a larger box, all contained within an even larger box—the hull.”
The group came to a stop at a wide door panel.
“And now?” Jon prompted.
“Over the years, Eloch here has been making some modifications.” Wren tapped the door panel and it whooshed open. She walked in.
Jon froze in the doorway. Beyond the doorway was a world, a paradise of trees, fields of flowers, blue sky above, a river flowing freely from a large lake. The warm breeze on his face smelled slightly of salt, as if there was an ocean not far away. “How can this be?” he gasped.
“Like I said,” Wren responded, “Eloch is more than he seems.”
Jon glanced at Eloch as he strode into the world and joined Wren. They turned and waited for him, but he was still frozen in the doorway.
Perin took Jon’s hand and gently led him through. The door panel behind him slid shut, and Jon could swear he was standing dirtside.
“Sit,” Perin said and drew him down on a bench beside her. She started to slip her hand out of his grasp, but he clung to it like a lifeline.
The other two sat in the grass in front of him, Eloch cross-legged, Wren leaning against him, her legs outstretched.
“Long ago I was the Champion of Entean,” Eloch said, leaning over to pluck a long blade of grass.
“What does that mean? Who is Entean?” Jon asked.
“Entean is my home planet,” Eloch said, twirling the grass as he spoke. “As Her Champion, I would travel around Her surface, solving issues and resolving disputes. It was my responsibility to maintain Her balance. So when a ship from Spur arrived, Entean sent me to investigate.”
“Spur is my home planet,” Wren said, picking up the narration. “The ship was on a scouting mission. The people of Spur were too numerous and had targeted Entean as a candidate for colonization.”
Eloch continued the narrative. “Entean asked me, as her Champion, to travel to Spur to find out why Spur’s people were leaving. Spur had fallen silent. In order for me to communicate with Spur, Entean gave me a part of Herself...a seed...which grew into a plant that coexists with me within my body.”
“When Eloch woke Spur,” Wren said, “Spur needed a Champion to put things right on Her surface. Eloch was Her Champion until she found one from Spur.”
“As a reward, Spur gifted me some of her Power and sent Wren and me on a mission,” Eloch said.
“To Longwei,” Wren said. “To make amends to the planet Longwei and to re-gather Her people—those colonizers now living on Longwei—and bring them back to Spur where they belonged.”
“But while we were on Longwei,” Eloch continued. “Entean notified me that Something Was Coming. The Something That Was Coming was attacking planets and sucking away their life force. As the life force was drained from the planet, the life on that planet could not be sustained, and eventually all that remained was a lifeless planet. Entean tasked me with finding the Something That Was Coming and stopping it before it reached our galaxy.”
“Because Eloch was now Champion not just of Entean, but also of Spur and Longwei,” Wren said, “Longwei remade Eloch so his body could contain the power of a planet so he could defend all the Sisters against the Something That Was Coming.”
Wren paused. “The power of a planet is its creative life force. And so,” Wren swept her arm in an arc, “Eloch is creating, the same way a planet
creates. This ship, the Valiant, is now a part of Eloch and Eloch is a part of the ship. This ship is our ship...and it’s our planet.”
“Like a planet, I am aware of everything within and outside my self,” Eloch said. “Like a planet, I could sense the Something That Was Coming. So we have been on a course to intercept and stop the Something That Was Coming.”
Eloch focused all his attention on Jon. “That Something is you, Jon. You and your ship.”
Jon swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Which brings us to the reason you are here on this ship,” Eloch said. “To explain to us why you and your ship would destroy planets.”
“Come,” Wren said, getting to her feet. “Let’s meet the others.”
Chapter 20
Answers
Jon didn’t know if his knees buckled voluntarily or not, but he found himself back on the bench. Perin, who had been holding his hand, landed beside him with an “oof.”
“I’m so sorry,” he exclaimed and helped her straighten, then looked across at Wren and Eloch, who were squatting in front of him.
Jon shook his head, thinking that might clear it. “I got lost in the narration,” he said. “Forgive me, but it sounds like fiction. I need to get something straight.” He squinted at the pair. “I know there is life on other planets, but are you telling me planets themselves are actually alive? As in conscious and aware?”
The pair nodded and waited.
“They’re alive. And they talk to you.” He smirked.
“In their different ways, yes, they do,” Perin said quietly.
He turned to look at her. “You talk to your planet. Which one? Entean?”
She shook her head. “No, I am from Talamh, and I speak with The Lady Talamh, yes.”
“Are you that planet’s Champion?”
“No, I’m the people’s Seer. The Lady also has a Champion, the High Priest.”
He looked at all three of them. “Either I am a raving lunatic,” he said slowly, “or the three of you are.”