<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Portal
Chapter 47
XLVII
“My purpose is to provide a portal,” the fourth sphere said, as it floated above Liz’s hand, glowing with a pure white glow.
“A portal… to where,” asked Liz cautiously, her eyes wide with wonder.
“To any place you wish to go,” the sphere responded. Shaqor-Niseel gave me to MayaSabriena that she might always be able to join him wherever he was in the universe.”
“Did she?” Liz asked, curiosity replacing her former line of thought.
“Yes.”
“So MayaSabriena did use your powers at some point… or points… even though you were in the cave on the little moon?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my!” Liz said to herself more than to anyone else… “This is amazing!”
“Would you like me to provide a portal for you,” asked the sphere.
Liz gasped slightly then thought for several moments…
“How do I get back after I go through the portal?”
“You simply ask… and I will open the portal for you. My presence is not required. The portal will bring you back to where you were before you left unless you ask it to take you to another place.”
“Can you open a portal for me to… Xarius?” asked Liz.
A wave of light passed briefly through the room, and what appeared to be a large mirror with a bright aura around it appeared in front of Liz…
“You may pass through the portal,” said the voice of the sphere.
Varec reached out and touched the mirror… It was solid.
“The portal will allow the one to pass through who is permitted… no one else… unless the one who is permitted wishes someone else to pass through,” the sphere clarified.
Max started to stop Liz, but Liz shook her head. Max stepped back, and Liz stepped forward. As she reached out with her hand in front of her and touched the mirror, the glass in the mirror rippled like small waves on a smooth pond emanating from the spot where a pebble had been thrown in, then Liz stepped through. She found herself standing on a balcony overlooking a landscape with which she was totally unfamiliar. Behind her was what appeared to be a palace. In the sky, there were four moons, still faintly visible though it was daylight. “They must be beautiful at night,” Liz thought. In the distance, she could see mountains rising almost to the sky in one direction and an emerald sea in the other direction. Liz stood for a moment absorbed in the beauty of what she was seeing. Then she heard someone coming inside the room behind her.
“Portal,” she called. The portal appeared, and Liz stepped through, appearing back in the lab with Max, Michael, and Varec.
“Where were you,” asked Max. “Did you see Xarius?”
Liz nodded, momentarily at a loss for words, then she answered…
“I was on a balcony of a palace looking out at some big mountains, a clear, light emerald sea, and a sky with four moons… It was beautiful! I heard someone coming behind me, so I came back…”
“Do you wish another portal,” the sphere asked.
Liz looked at Max and Michael then at Varec. Then she looked back at the sphere, thinking…
“Can you produce a portal to… MayaSabriena,” Liz asked, wondering in her mind if the portal could send someone back to the past.
“Yes,” replied the sphere simply.
“Then… I would like a portal that will take me to MayaSabriena,” said Liz.
The wave of light again passed briefly through the room, and the mirror appeared. Liz stepped forward and touched the mirror, producing small waves in the glass that rippled outward from the point where her hand had touched it, then Liz stepped through.
“This must be a mistake,” Liz thought. “This is the same place where I just was.”
Suddenly the door to the balcony opened behind her. Liz started to call for the portal again, but she had already been seen… and the lady standing in front of her did not appear to be particularly dangerous… in fact, she was smiling. She had graying brownish hair and her clothes and the pendant around her neck suggested that she was someone special. She might have been in her late fifties, Liz surmised… her hair was still mostly shiny and brown, just beginning to get some noticeable gray in it. She looked quite fit and healthy for a lady of her age… heck, for any age, really, Liz thought.
“Come in, my Dear,” the lady said, motioning Liz to come inside the chamber from the balcony where she was standing. If Liz had any thoughts of turning and running or calling for the portal, she never acted on them. Instead she followed the regal looking lady into the chamber.
“What is your name, my Dear,” the lady asked.
“Liz,” Liz answered plainly… “Oh! I guess you want to know what I was doing on your balcony…”
The lady smiled… “It’s all right, Liz… I already know.”
Liz looked at her… “You know?”
“Yes. You found my spheres.”
Liz was again momentarily at a loss for words, which was unusual…
“Then you…”
The lady nodded, “I am MayaSabriena.”
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Liz realized that she had her mouth open and nothing was coming out…
“I… I didn’t realize, when I was here before, that I had gone back to the past,” Liz said.
“The past?” asked the lady.
“Yes, you see,” Liz said, “I’m from your future… You’re… my ancestor.”
The lady smiled again… “I already knew that you were my descendant; otherwise, the spheres would not have worked for you. But there is one thing you should know, my Dear…”
“What’s that?” asked Liz.
“You are not in the past.”
“But you…” Liz started… “You lived over 12,300 years ago.”
The lady nodded, “In your time, that is true… Time is not the same here on Xarius. In your time, I guess I am quite an old lady!” Maya laughed heartily.
“I… didn’t mean to imply…” Liz said.
Maya laughed even harder… “It’s all right, my Dear, it’s true… I am over twelve thousand years old… Don’t ask me to tell you the exact number of years! I stopped keeping track a very long time ago! I don’t know if I can explain it to you very well, but on this planet, time passes differently than on most other planets.”
Liz laughed. “Yeah, I know! As we get older, time seems to go faster and faster!”
“Well, here on Xarius it goes slower and slower… literally,” said Maya.
Maya motioned toward the door, and Liz looked up… Standing in the door smiling at them was, quite simply, the most handsome man Liz had ever seen. Well, except for Max, of course! But Max was special. He was hers!
Once again, Liz realized that her mouth was open but nothing was coming out.
“Liz, this is my husband, Shaqor-Niseel, king of Xarius.”
“Shag?” Liz said to herself involuntarily, more as a gasp than a statement.
Maya raised her eyebrows… “I see you found my diary, too.”
Liz turned red and bit down on her tongue.
“That’s all right,” Maya said laughing… “I still call him ‘Shag,’ and that diary was written a long, long time ago! I’m surprised that it still exists and is readable. I would love to read it again… so many years ago… Ah, well!”
“They seem only as a day to me, my Dear,” said ‘Shag,” putting his arm around Maya and kissing her as though they had been married only yesterday.
“So…” said ‘Shag’ to Liz, “You are our great, great, great, great… something… granddaughter.”
------------------------End of Chapter 47
Roswell Stories by Island Breeze (isndbreeze, Gerry Carr)
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Return of Shag and Maya
Chapter 48
XLVIII
As the portal reopened, Liz stepped back through and into a worried Max’s anxiously waiting arms…
Max kissed her… “Did you see Maya?”
“Yes, I did!”
“Did she look like you thought she would… like we saw her in the cave…?”
Liz shook her head.
“But, she must have looked familiar…" Max said. "You recognized her.”
“Actually… I didn’t,” said Liz. “She told me who she was.”
“You spoke with her?”
Liz nodded, “Come on, I’ve got some things to tell you… all of you, but I want Maria and Alex and the others to hear it, too.”
It was dinnertime on the new granolith, and Liz knew that everyone would be gathering in the dining room already, so she led Max, Michael, and Varec there. After everyone was present and the little droid had taken their requests for dinner, Liz asked for everyone’s attention and related the entire story of her experiences with the Sphere of Visions, the Sphere of Searches, and the Sphere of the Portal. Max and Michael filled in the story by telling what had happened with the first sphere, the Sphere of Protection, before they had brought Liz into the lab. For a few brief moments, there was complete silence in the dining room as everyone “digested” the things they had just heard, but then the room became quite animated as everyone began to have questions…
“So, Liz…” Diane Casey said, “Does this means that you are not only the Queen of your planet but also part of the royal family of Xarius? I mean, you’re the great, great… whatever… daughter of the King and Queen of Xarius, so are you, like, a princess on Xarius?”
Liz hadn’t actually thought about this. For a moment she thought about it now, “I guess that’s true… I really don’t know. I mean, I’m separated from them by over twelve thousand years…”
“May be…” said Alex, “but you’re separated from Maya on Antar by the same amount of time, and you’re the true Queen of Antar because of her. And you are, after all, their direct descendant… so I’d say you’re a princess of Xarius.”
There was a lot of agreement with Alex at the table, and Kyle decided to offer a toast to the Princess of Xarius, much to Liz’s embarrassment. It was in fun, but everyone had a feeling that there really was something to it.
“What do they call someone from Xarius,” Kyle asked… “a Xarius-sarian?”
There was a little good-natured laughter around the table.
“I really don’t know,” Liz said.
Zorel raised his hand cautiously to get attention. Liz looked at him…
“Can I borrow the Sphere of Searches to find the book I misplaced?”
There was more laughter at the table… and even if no one else said it, a lot of others suddenly thought to themselves of things they had lost, too…
“I don’t know, Zorel,” Liz said, smiling, “I’m not sure if we should use the spheres for unimportant things…”
“It’s important to me!” Zorel said.
Liz grinned… “I know! I’ll think about it… Right now, this is all pretty new.”
Isabel asked, “Did you think about the fact that MayaSabriena may want the spheres back?”
Liz stood there momentarily, not knowing what to say. Quite frankly, the thought had not occurred to her. The truth is, she realized, Maya might want all the items back; after all, they were rightfully hers. Shaqor-Niseel had given them to her…
Liz shook her head… “I didn’t think about it… it’s possible…”
“Do you know when you’ll see Maya and ‘Shag’ again,” asked Kathleen.
Liz smiled and looked more animated at this question…
“Actually, when I left, they told me that they would be seeing me soon… I’m not sure if that was like an invitation to come back or…”
As Liz spoke, a wave of light ran suddenly through the room. Everyone gasped and stared in awe, as the portal appeared near Liz. The glass barrier of the portal began to ripple then an extraordinarily handsome man stepped through it into the room holding the hand of a nice-looking lady with a regal demeanor. The lady turned around and held out her hand to another person who stepped through the portal behind her… then another. The two new ladies looked enough like Maya that the three of them could be triplets. Realizing that she was looking at JoLeesa and AnDasniya, Liz lifted her hand to her mouth, and tears came to her eyes. She and Max both stood and welcomed their new guests.
Smiling, Maya brushed the tears off Liz’s cheek and hugged her. Liz hugged Maya back tightly then hugged JoLeesa and AnDasniya.
“You can’t imagine,” Liz said, “when I was reading your diary, how many times I’ve wanted to hug the three of you and just tell you that everything was going to be all right… I… I feel like I needed to get that out of my system. I know it’s crazy, but it’s something I’ve felt for all these years…”
Maya nodded, smiling, “I quite understand… I often wanted to hug Leese and Andya and tell them we were going to be all right when we were on the little moon… and I did, but I never knew for sure that we would be until ‘Shag’ rescued us.”
Max seated his new guests at the table between himself and Liz then summoned the little droid to offer them drinks and anything they would like.
Liz whispered to Varec, and Varec nodded then left the room, returning quickly with several items in his hands…
Liz took the box with the spheres, the baby bracelet, and the new diary from Varec and offered them back to Maya, placing them on a small table near her. Maya picked up the baby bracelet and looked at it smiling. I’ll take this… It was Shag’s when he was a baby. The jewels in it are very special, brought from all the different corners of the universe. When a Xarian offers a girl this special bracelet, it is like offering her an engagement ring. If she accepts it, she is considered to have accepted his proposal…
You keep the spheres, Liz. I have called on them many times and will continue to even though they are in your possession… you may use them, too, whether or not they are in your possession, because the spheres recognize you as a rightful owner.
As for the diary… Ah, how I would love to read it again right now! But it is fragile and old, and it would be best if you would continue to preserve and copy it. Once that is done, I hope you will give me a formal copy.”
Liz nodded and smiled… “You can be sure of that!”
Maya reached over and opened the box with the spheres. She removed the Sphere of Searches and spoke to it…
“Where is the book that Zorel lost?”
Zorel’s mouth dropped open. The sphere floated from Maya’s hand and began to glow with an electric blue aura. Then it displayed an image of Zorel’s room, zeroing in on the area beside the head of his bed…
“It is there,” the sphere replied, “behind the head of the bed next to the wall.”
“Thank you,” Zorel managed to say. “How did you know I…”
“I used the spheres to locate Liz on this ship before we came, and I saw you ask,” Maya said with a smile.
“Thank you,” Zorel said again, smiling widely.
“You are quite welcome,” Maya said, replacing the sphere in its holder and closing the box again.
“This is a fine group of children, Liz… and I am delighted and most impressed to meet all of these wonderful people here. I see, too, that the women in our family have a talent… or the extreme fortune… of finding the most handsome men in the galaxies.” Maya looked at Max, who turned slightly red.
“We have heard of Zan, even on Xarius,” said Shaqor-Niseel. “I am afraid, however, that I am not very well informed about that planet… It is very far from us… but I have heard a few things…”
“Zan is a very fine king,” Varec replied… “He brought peace to our planet… twice, and he has given us prosperity and happiness. The people of Antar love Zan, and the scientists are indebted to him… and to his General of the Armies.” He indicated Michael. “I am afraid, though, that there is one group on Antar that has not been happy with Zan.”
Max and Michael both looked surprised at this “revelation,” as did all the others at the table.
Varec continued, “The Academia has been quite frustrated, and it is rumored that they plan to petition the Council to forbid him from ever traveling off of Antar again.”
“Why ever would that be?” asked Maya.
“It seems,” said Varec, “that every time Zan leaves Antar, when he returns, all the history books have to be rewritten.”
There was a lot of laughter at the table. Max shook his head and groaned. Michael grinned and nodded.
They had learned so much during this trip that parts of the current history books would already be deemed out of date and would have to be rewritten. The Diary of MayaSabriena would have to be revised to include the new diary that was found. And then there were the Vreenis Spheres… and the whole meeting with Maya, who after all, was herself, historically, a royal of Antar. Indeed, even as they spoke, they were making and rewriting history with this meeting of Antar’s past and present.
“The last time I was in this area,” said Shaqor-Niseel, “Antar was involved in a great war. The king and his family had been killed, and some vain strutting peacock named Kivar had set himself up as the king. I was saddened to see this, because Antar had been a peaceful planet, and the people of Antar loved their king. What happened to change that?”
“It’s a long story,” Max said, “but the short of it is that the scientists on Antar took DNA from the dead king and his family and combined it with Earth DNA and basically ‘programmed’ them to be reborn on Earth to hide them from Kivar until they were grown and could return to fight for their planet again.”
“That would be you…?” Shaqor-Niseel said more as a statement than actually a question.
Max nodded. “I was King Zan. Michael was my advisor, Rath, though he never uses that name now. Isabel was Vilandra…”
Shaqor-Niseel nodded… “What ever happened to the strutting peacock?”
“Kivar?” Michael laughed. “Let’s just say that the Battle for Antar, after Max and I returned, ended with him in the claws of a jah-ee.”
Maya jumped… “When I was a child on Antar, the jah-ee was believed to be a legend or a myth. I never knew that there really was such a bird.”
“Oh yes!” Michael replied. “Max and the jah-ee have this sort of relationship… they hear each other’s thoughts and understand each other… ever since the Battle for Antar. Max spent a month underground with the jah-ee under the secret island where the jah-ee live.”
“That is amazing!” said JoLeesa. “All the mythology that we were taught as children said that the jah-ee were huge killer birds that everyone was afraid of and no one had actually ever seen.”
“Well, no one alive anyway…” AnDasniya corrected.
“Well, there is a lot that Zan has done that was never done before,” said Varec. “And there is another here who has a similar, though slightly different, ability…”
Varec indicated Danyy, Jim and Kathleen’s boy.
“Danyy can speak to any animal. They understand him and he understands them. He doesn’t speak to them in the same way that Zan does with the jah-ee. Zan and the jah-ee communicate with mental images. Somehow, Danyy communicates with the animals mind to mind in complete thoughts like sentences.”
“Can I show them my pawgor,” Danyy asked.
JoLeesa’s eyes opened wide. AnDasniya and MayaSabriena looked shocked, too.
“You have a pawgor? …On this ship?” Maya asked him.
“Yes,” Danyy replied plainly.
“Uh, well,” Maya said laughing, “Maybe you should show it to us another time, Danyy… Give us a little time to get used to that idea.”
“What’s a pawgor,” Shaqor-Niseel asked.
Maya answered, “It’s a little like a Vix on Xarius.”
Shag’s eyes opened wide, “Oh! That would be some ‘pet!’ I would like to see that later, Danyy!”
Danyy smiled.
“JoLeesa’s husband, Des-Varis, has a pet Flox,” said ‘Shag.’
“What’s a Flox?” it was now Danyy’s turn to ask.
Shaqor smiled. “It’s about as long as this room and looks like a big fat rope. It has two thousand tiny feet but no legs. Its head is flat and its eyes are on two stalks that stick up about as high as your waist. It has a huge wide mouth and a huge tongue that can lick the paint off a wall… but it’s harmless. It’s a strange-looking beast.”
“It sure is,” Danyy agreed.
“So…” said Maria, joining in the conversation, “are both of you, JoLeesa and AnDasniya, married?”
They both nodded and said, “Yes.” JoLeesa added, “We went to Xarius with Maya and ‘Shag.’ They got married on the ship on the way there, and we were married about a year after that.”
Maria was thinking and calculating, “You must all have, like, an awful lot of children! I mean, you’ve been married over twelve thousand years, and obviously, you’re all still very young…”
Maya laughed. So did Leesa and Andya.
AnDasniya explained, “Actually, Maya had four children, I had four, and Leesa had five. You see, on Xarius, we live a very long time, but we can only have children for about forty of your years, until we are about sixty of your years old. After that, there are no more children. I guess we weren’t meant to populate the universe… at least not with one set of genes. Our children had children and their children had children… Eventually, they had spread throughout the universe. Some even went back to Eluymer to live.”
“It’s called ‘Earth’ now,” said Liz’s daughter, Maya.
“Urth? What a strange name!” said Maya.
“Did you know that I was named for you,” Maya asked MayaSabriena of Xarius.
“No! Is that right?”
“Yes! And my sisters are JoLeesa and AnDasniya. We’re triplets, and we were all named for you after my Daddy brought the first diary back from Michael’s Moon.”
“Triplets? …like us? And you were named for us? Oh my! How exciting!” said JoLeesa. “I’m very honored!”
MayaSabriena and AnDasniya agreed.
“Why do you call it ‘Michael’s Moon?’” asked AnDasniya.
Maya giggled, “Because Michael asked Maria to marry him there.”
MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya of Xarius smiled and looked at Michael who blushed slightly.
“So our little moon is special to someone besides just us!” Maya said. “That’s sweet!”
Michael smiled then took a swallow of his drink as he turned a little redder.
Dinner this evening was one that no one on the new granolith was likely to ever forget. There had been a lot of those on this trip, but this one was special even among the special dinners. An evening meal on the new granolith with MayaSabriena and her sisters… and ‘Shag’ …the one and only originals, was something none of them had ever expected. Everyone had the feeling that they had just been a part of history, and the history books on Antar would soon reflect that they had been.
----------------------End of Chapter 48
The Return of Shag and Maya
Chapter 48
XLVIII
As the portal reopened, Liz stepped back through and into a worried Max’s anxiously waiting arms…
Max kissed her… “Did you see Maya?”
“Yes, I did!”
“Did she look like you thought she would… like we saw her in the cave…?”
Liz shook her head.
“But, she must have looked familiar…" Max said. "You recognized her.”
“Actually… I didn’t,” said Liz. “She told me who she was.”
“You spoke with her?”
Liz nodded, “Come on, I’ve got some things to tell you… all of you, but I want Maria and Alex and the others to hear it, too.”
It was dinnertime on the new granolith, and Liz knew that everyone would be gathering in the dining room already, so she led Max, Michael, and Varec there. After everyone was present and the little droid had taken their requests for dinner, Liz asked for everyone’s attention and related the entire story of her experiences with the Sphere of Visions, the Sphere of Searches, and the Sphere of the Portal. Max and Michael filled in the story by telling what had happened with the first sphere, the Sphere of Protection, before they had brought Liz into the lab. For a few brief moments, there was complete silence in the dining room as everyone “digested” the things they had just heard, but then the room became quite animated as everyone began to have questions…
“So, Liz…” Diane Casey said, “Does this means that you are not only the Queen of your planet but also part of the royal family of Xarius? I mean, you’re the great, great… whatever… daughter of the King and Queen of Xarius, so are you, like, a princess on Xarius?”
Liz hadn’t actually thought about this. For a moment she thought about it now, “I guess that’s true… I really don’t know. I mean, I’m separated from them by over twelve thousand years…”
“May be…” said Alex, “but you’re separated from Maya on Antar by the same amount of time, and you’re the true Queen of Antar because of her. And you are, after all, their direct descendant… so I’d say you’re a princess of Xarius.”
There was a lot of agreement with Alex at the table, and Kyle decided to offer a toast to the Princess of Xarius, much to Liz’s embarrassment. It was in fun, but everyone had a feeling that there really was something to it.
“What do they call someone from Xarius,” Kyle asked… “a Xarius-sarian?”
There was a little good-natured laughter around the table.
“I really don’t know,” Liz said.
Zorel raised his hand cautiously to get attention. Liz looked at him…
“Can I borrow the Sphere of Searches to find the book I misplaced?”
There was more laughter at the table… and even if no one else said it, a lot of others suddenly thought to themselves of things they had lost, too…
“I don’t know, Zorel,” Liz said, smiling, “I’m not sure if we should use the spheres for unimportant things…”
“It’s important to me!” Zorel said.
Liz grinned… “I know! I’ll think about it… Right now, this is all pretty new.”
Isabel asked, “Did you think about the fact that MayaSabriena may want the spheres back?”
Liz stood there momentarily, not knowing what to say. Quite frankly, the thought had not occurred to her. The truth is, she realized, Maya might want all the items back; after all, they were rightfully hers. Shaqor-Niseel had given them to her…
Liz shook her head… “I didn’t think about it… it’s possible…”
“Do you know when you’ll see Maya and ‘Shag’ again,” asked Kathleen.
Liz smiled and looked more animated at this question…
“Actually, when I left, they told me that they would be seeing me soon… I’m not sure if that was like an invitation to come back or…”
As Liz spoke, a wave of light ran suddenly through the room. Everyone gasped and stared in awe, as the portal appeared near Liz. The glass barrier of the portal began to ripple then an extraordinarily handsome man stepped through it into the room holding the hand of a nice-looking lady with a regal demeanor. The lady turned around and held out her hand to another person who stepped through the portal behind her… then another. The two new ladies looked enough like Maya that the three of them could be triplets. Realizing that she was looking at JoLeesa and AnDasniya, Liz lifted her hand to her mouth, and tears came to her eyes. She and Max both stood and welcomed their new guests.
Smiling, Maya brushed the tears off Liz’s cheek and hugged her. Liz hugged Maya back tightly then hugged JoLeesa and AnDasniya.
“You can’t imagine,” Liz said, “when I was reading your diary, how many times I’ve wanted to hug the three of you and just tell you that everything was going to be all right… I… I feel like I needed to get that out of my system. I know it’s crazy, but it’s something I’ve felt for all these years…”
Maya nodded, smiling, “I quite understand… I often wanted to hug Leese and Andya and tell them we were going to be all right when we were on the little moon… and I did, but I never knew for sure that we would be until ‘Shag’ rescued us.”
Max seated his new guests at the table between himself and Liz then summoned the little droid to offer them drinks and anything they would like.
Liz whispered to Varec, and Varec nodded then left the room, returning quickly with several items in his hands…
Liz took the box with the spheres, the baby bracelet, and the new diary from Varec and offered them back to Maya, placing them on a small table near her. Maya picked up the baby bracelet and looked at it smiling. I’ll take this… It was Shag’s when he was a baby. The jewels in it are very special, brought from all the different corners of the universe. When a Xarian offers a girl this special bracelet, it is like offering her an engagement ring. If she accepts it, she is considered to have accepted his proposal…
You keep the spheres, Liz. I have called on them many times and will continue to even though they are in your possession… you may use them, too, whether or not they are in your possession, because the spheres recognize you as a rightful owner.
As for the diary… Ah, how I would love to read it again right now! But it is fragile and old, and it would be best if you would continue to preserve and copy it. Once that is done, I hope you will give me a formal copy.”
Liz nodded and smiled… “You can be sure of that!”
Maya reached over and opened the box with the spheres. She removed the Sphere of Searches and spoke to it…
“Where is the book that Zorel lost?”
Zorel’s mouth dropped open. The sphere floated from Maya’s hand and began to glow with an electric blue aura. Then it displayed an image of Zorel’s room, zeroing in on the area beside the head of his bed…
“It is there,” the sphere replied, “behind the head of the bed next to the wall.”
“Thank you,” Zorel managed to say. “How did you know I…”
“I used the spheres to locate Liz on this ship before we came, and I saw you ask,” Maya said with a smile.
“Thank you,” Zorel said again, smiling widely.
“You are quite welcome,” Maya said, replacing the sphere in its holder and closing the box again.
“This is a fine group of children, Liz… and I am delighted and most impressed to meet all of these wonderful people here. I see, too, that the women in our family have a talent… or the extreme fortune… of finding the most handsome men in the galaxies.” Maya looked at Max, who turned slightly red.
“We have heard of Zan, even on Xarius,” said Shaqor-Niseel. “I am afraid, however, that I am not very well informed about that planet… It is very far from us… but I have heard a few things…”
“Zan is a very fine king,” Varec replied… “He brought peace to our planet… twice, and he has given us prosperity and happiness. The people of Antar love Zan, and the scientists are indebted to him… and to his General of the Armies.” He indicated Michael. “I am afraid, though, that there is one group on Antar that has not been happy with Zan.”
Max and Michael both looked surprised at this “revelation,” as did all the others at the table.
Varec continued, “The Academia has been quite frustrated, and it is rumored that they plan to petition the Council to forbid him from ever traveling off of Antar again.”
“Why ever would that be?” asked Maya.
“It seems,” said Varec, “that every time Zan leaves Antar, when he returns, all the history books have to be rewritten.”
There was a lot of laughter at the table. Max shook his head and groaned. Michael grinned and nodded.
They had learned so much during this trip that parts of the current history books would already be deemed out of date and would have to be rewritten. The Diary of MayaSabriena would have to be revised to include the new diary that was found. And then there were the Vreenis Spheres… and the whole meeting with Maya, who after all, was herself, historically, a royal of Antar. Indeed, even as they spoke, they were making and rewriting history with this meeting of Antar’s past and present.
“The last time I was in this area,” said Shaqor-Niseel, “Antar was involved in a great war. The king and his family had been killed, and some vain strutting peacock named Kivar had set himself up as the king. I was saddened to see this, because Antar had been a peaceful planet, and the people of Antar loved their king. What happened to change that?”
“It’s a long story,” Max said, “but the short of it is that the scientists on Antar took DNA from the dead king and his family and combined it with Earth DNA and basically ‘programmed’ them to be reborn on Earth to hide them from Kivar until they were grown and could return to fight for their planet again.”
“That would be you…?” Shaqor-Niseel said more as a statement than actually a question.
Max nodded. “I was King Zan. Michael was my advisor, Rath, though he never uses that name now. Isabel was Vilandra…”
Shaqor-Niseel nodded… “What ever happened to the strutting peacock?”
“Kivar?” Michael laughed. “Let’s just say that the Battle for Antar, after Max and I returned, ended with him in the claws of a jah-ee.”
Maya jumped… “When I was a child on Antar, the jah-ee was believed to be a legend or a myth. I never knew that there really was such a bird.”
“Oh yes!” Michael replied. “Max and the jah-ee have this sort of relationship… they hear each other’s thoughts and understand each other… ever since the Battle for Antar. Max spent a month underground with the jah-ee under the secret island where the jah-ee live.”
“That is amazing!” said JoLeesa. “All the mythology that we were taught as children said that the jah-ee were huge killer birds that everyone was afraid of and no one had actually ever seen.”
“Well, no one alive anyway…” AnDasniya corrected.
“Well, there is a lot that Zan has done that was never done before,” said Varec. “And there is another here who has a similar, though slightly different, ability…”
Varec indicated Danyy, Jim and Kathleen’s boy.
“Danyy can speak to any animal. They understand him and he understands them. He doesn’t speak to them in the same way that Zan does with the jah-ee. Zan and the jah-ee communicate with mental images. Somehow, Danyy communicates with the animals mind to mind in complete thoughts like sentences.”
“Can I show them my pawgor,” Danyy asked.
JoLeesa’s eyes opened wide. AnDasniya and MayaSabriena looked shocked, too.
“You have a pawgor? …On this ship?” Maya asked him.
“Yes,” Danyy replied plainly.
“Uh, well,” Maya said laughing, “Maybe you should show it to us another time, Danyy… Give us a little time to get used to that idea.”
“What’s a pawgor,” Shaqor-Niseel asked.
Maya answered, “It’s a little like a Vix on Xarius.”
Shag’s eyes opened wide, “Oh! That would be some ‘pet!’ I would like to see that later, Danyy!”
Danyy smiled.
“JoLeesa’s husband, Des-Varis, has a pet Flox,” said ‘Shag.’
“What’s a Flox?” it was now Danyy’s turn to ask.
Shaqor smiled. “It’s about as long as this room and looks like a big fat rope. It has two thousand tiny feet but no legs. Its head is flat and its eyes are on two stalks that stick up about as high as your waist. It has a huge wide mouth and a huge tongue that can lick the paint off a wall… but it’s harmless. It’s a strange-looking beast.”
“It sure is,” Danyy agreed.
“So…” said Maria, joining in the conversation, “are both of you, JoLeesa and AnDasniya, married?”
They both nodded and said, “Yes.” JoLeesa added, “We went to Xarius with Maya and ‘Shag.’ They got married on the ship on the way there, and we were married about a year after that.”
Maria was thinking and calculating, “You must all have, like, an awful lot of children! I mean, you’ve been married over twelve thousand years, and obviously, you’re all still very young…”
Maya laughed. So did Leesa and Andya.
AnDasniya explained, “Actually, Maya had four children, I had four, and Leesa had five. You see, on Xarius, we live a very long time, but we can only have children for about forty of your years, until we are about sixty of your years old. After that, there are no more children. I guess we weren’t meant to populate the universe… at least not with one set of genes. Our children had children and their children had children… Eventually, they had spread throughout the universe. Some even went back to Eluymer to live.”
“It’s called ‘Earth’ now,” said Liz’s daughter, Maya.
“Urth? What a strange name!” said Maya.
“Did you know that I was named for you,” Maya asked MayaSabriena of Xarius.
“No! Is that right?”
“Yes! And my sisters are JoLeesa and AnDasniya. We’re triplets, and we were all named for you after my Daddy brought the first diary back from Michael’s Moon.”
“Triplets? …like us? And you were named for us? Oh my! How exciting!” said JoLeesa. “I’m very honored!”
MayaSabriena and AnDasniya agreed.
“Why do you call it ‘Michael’s Moon?’” asked AnDasniya.
Maya giggled, “Because Michael asked Maria to marry him there.”
MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya of Xarius smiled and looked at Michael who blushed slightly.
“So our little moon is special to someone besides just us!” Maya said. “That’s sweet!”
Michael smiled then took a swallow of his drink as he turned a little redder.
Dinner this evening was one that no one on the new granolith was likely to ever forget. There had been a lot of those on this trip, but this one was special even among the special dinners. An evening meal on the new granolith with MayaSabriena and her sisters… and ‘Shag’ …the one and only originals, was something none of them had ever expected. Everyone had the feeling that they had just been a part of history, and the history books on Antar would soon reflect that they had been.
----------------------End of Chapter 48
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
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Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
And Xarian, Too
Chapter 49
XLIX
Before leaving, Shag, MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya, decided to see Danyy’s pawgor.
“Wow," Shag exclaimed, looking at the impressive pawgor, "That’s a really amazing animal, Danyy! Where did you ever find it… and how did you tame it,” he asked, stroking the pawgor’s head and back as it purred.
Danyy smiled… “My Dad found it in the Nan-torel when it was pretty young, only about half grown. A tree had fallen on it and its mama, and its mama was dead, so my Dad rescued this one and brought it home. It wanted to know why my Dad didn’t kill it, so I asked my Dad, and he said that it wasn’t our enemy just because it was big or people were afraid of it… It’s not really tame, though. We let it go again in the Nan-torel before we left. It’s just that it talks to me and understands me, so it knows we’re not its enemy.”
“Amazing! Your Dad is a very wise and great man! I guess the pawgor can see that!”
Danyy smiled… “Thank you! My Mom likes it, too… especially now that she knows it won’t hurt us. But when she found out that it could jump out of its pen any time it wanted to, she fainted.”
Shag smiled.
“I didn’t think anyone ever went into the Nan-torel,” said MayaSabriena.
“Nobody else much does,” Danyy replied. “Everyone’s afraid to go there.”
“I could tell you why!” MayaSabriena laughed… “Pawgors, for one thing!”
They all laughed.
Back in the dining area with the rest of the group, Shag, MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya said their good-byes.
“What is an ‘Antarian Too,’” asked JoLeesa, who had heard someone use the expression.
“We call them ‘Antarians Too,’ because they’re Antarians, too, even though they live on Earth,” said Maria. “Liz's little Maya contacted them telepathically from Antar, and they came to help us protect the children, so we know that they have some Antarian DNA.”
“Really,” said JoLeesa. “Antarian DNA? And they’re from Eluymer?” JoLeesa looked at Tracie, Nina, Lisa, Rachel, Krys, Sabrina, Trude, Denise, Roselle, April, Andrea, Lauren, and Andrew… and Diane Casey, who was both an Antarian Too and a New Antarian. “Then you are our descendants!”
Maria nodded. “They’re descended from you and AnDasniya… and Liz is descended from MayaSabriena… according to our scientists who studied the DNA.”
JoLeesa stepped forward and hugged Tracie then Krys. Then she and Maya and AnDasniya hugged Nina, Lisa and all the other ‘Antarians Too.’
“You are separated from us by the years, but you will never be separated from our hearts,” JoLeesa told them all. “You will forever be our children… our childrens’ children.”
Shag added, "You are also distant Xarians as well as Antarians! You are part of a noble and ancient people, and I am very proud to know that each one of you is one of us."
On that note, JoLeesa smiled and stepped through the portal with MayaSabriena and AnDasniya. Shaqor-Niseel turned, raised his hand in a wave, and smiled… then he, too, stepped through the portal. And as mysteriously as they had all come, they were gone.
“Did that really happen, Maria?” Liz asked as they walked from the dining room “…or was I hallucinating?”
Maria laughed… “Well, if you were, girlfriend, so was I, ‘cause I saw it, too!”
"I can't believe it," Diane said, ecstatic… I find out I'm part Antarian, now I find out I'm part Xarian, too… and related to either JoLeesa or AnDasniya and her husband!"
"Just don't ask for the family inheritance," Kyle injected in his usual dry style of humor.
Liz and Maria both whacked him on top of the head at the same time. Kyle managed to snicker slightly but didn't wait around for a second hit.
"I doubt any of us will live long enough for that, anyway, Kyle!" Maria exclaimed.
Liz agreed… "Not unless our lifespans increase considerably!"
As they left the dining room, Liz’s daughter Maya, together with Zorel and a couple of the other children approached Liz…
“Mom,” Maya said, “We want to ask you something.”
“What is it, Dear?”
“Well… uh… You tell her Zorel…”
Zorel looked slightly embarrassed…
“We, uh… We wondered if you would let Aunt Kathleen have classes for us again… you know, once in a while, so she can teach us more things about Earth.”
Liz and Maria looked at each other…
“You want to have classes,” asked Liz.
“Okay,” Maria said, “I take back what I said. We are hallucinating.”
Liz and Maria laughed…
“Well, Maya… Zorel… I think you should ask Aunt Kathleen. If she wants to do it, I don’t think your Dad or I will object. But it has to be her decision.”
“Thanks,” said Maya. She and Zorel and the others ran off to look for Kathleen.
“Okay, who were those kids, and what have they done with our real children?” Liz asked Maria. Both of them laughed.
-------------------------End of Chapter 49
And Xarian, Too
Chapter 49
XLIX
Before leaving, Shag, MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya, decided to see Danyy’s pawgor.
“Wow," Shag exclaimed, looking at the impressive pawgor, "That’s a really amazing animal, Danyy! Where did you ever find it… and how did you tame it,” he asked, stroking the pawgor’s head and back as it purred.
Danyy smiled… “My Dad found it in the Nan-torel when it was pretty young, only about half grown. A tree had fallen on it and its mama, and its mama was dead, so my Dad rescued this one and brought it home. It wanted to know why my Dad didn’t kill it, so I asked my Dad, and he said that it wasn’t our enemy just because it was big or people were afraid of it… It’s not really tame, though. We let it go again in the Nan-torel before we left. It’s just that it talks to me and understands me, so it knows we’re not its enemy.”
“Amazing! Your Dad is a very wise and great man! I guess the pawgor can see that!”
Danyy smiled… “Thank you! My Mom likes it, too… especially now that she knows it won’t hurt us. But when she found out that it could jump out of its pen any time it wanted to, she fainted.”
Shag smiled.
“I didn’t think anyone ever went into the Nan-torel,” said MayaSabriena.
“Nobody else much does,” Danyy replied. “Everyone’s afraid to go there.”
“I could tell you why!” MayaSabriena laughed… “Pawgors, for one thing!”
They all laughed.
Back in the dining area with the rest of the group, Shag, MayaSabriena, JoLeesa, and AnDasniya said their good-byes.
“What is an ‘Antarian Too,’” asked JoLeesa, who had heard someone use the expression.
“We call them ‘Antarians Too,’ because they’re Antarians, too, even though they live on Earth,” said Maria. “Liz's little Maya contacted them telepathically from Antar, and they came to help us protect the children, so we know that they have some Antarian DNA.”
“Really,” said JoLeesa. “Antarian DNA? And they’re from Eluymer?” JoLeesa looked at Tracie, Nina, Lisa, Rachel, Krys, Sabrina, Trude, Denise, Roselle, April, Andrea, Lauren, and Andrew… and Diane Casey, who was both an Antarian Too and a New Antarian. “Then you are our descendants!”
Maria nodded. “They’re descended from you and AnDasniya… and Liz is descended from MayaSabriena… according to our scientists who studied the DNA.”
JoLeesa stepped forward and hugged Tracie then Krys. Then she and Maya and AnDasniya hugged Nina, Lisa and all the other ‘Antarians Too.’
“You are separated from us by the years, but you will never be separated from our hearts,” JoLeesa told them all. “You will forever be our children… our childrens’ children.”
Shag added, "You are also distant Xarians as well as Antarians! You are part of a noble and ancient people, and I am very proud to know that each one of you is one of us."
On that note, JoLeesa smiled and stepped through the portal with MayaSabriena and AnDasniya. Shaqor-Niseel turned, raised his hand in a wave, and smiled… then he, too, stepped through the portal. And as mysteriously as they had all come, they were gone.
“Did that really happen, Maria?” Liz asked as they walked from the dining room “…or was I hallucinating?”
Maria laughed… “Well, if you were, girlfriend, so was I, ‘cause I saw it, too!”
"I can't believe it," Diane said, ecstatic… I find out I'm part Antarian, now I find out I'm part Xarian, too… and related to either JoLeesa or AnDasniya and her husband!"
"Just don't ask for the family inheritance," Kyle injected in his usual dry style of humor.
Liz and Maria both whacked him on top of the head at the same time. Kyle managed to snicker slightly but didn't wait around for a second hit.
"I doubt any of us will live long enough for that, anyway, Kyle!" Maria exclaimed.
Liz agreed… "Not unless our lifespans increase considerably!"
As they left the dining room, Liz’s daughter Maya, together with Zorel and a couple of the other children approached Liz…
“Mom,” Maya said, “We want to ask you something.”
“What is it, Dear?”
“Well… uh… You tell her Zorel…”
Zorel looked slightly embarrassed…
“We, uh… We wondered if you would let Aunt Kathleen have classes for us again… you know, once in a while, so she can teach us more things about Earth.”
Liz and Maria looked at each other…
“You want to have classes,” asked Liz.
“Okay,” Maria said, “I take back what I said. We are hallucinating.”
Liz and Maria laughed…
“Well, Maya… Zorel… I think you should ask Aunt Kathleen. If she wants to do it, I don’t think your Dad or I will object. But it has to be her decision.”
“Thanks,” said Maya. She and Zorel and the others ran off to look for Kathleen.
“Okay, who were those kids, and what have they done with our real children?” Liz asked Maria. Both of them laughed.
-------------------------End of Chapter 49
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
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Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Invaders
Chapter 50
L
It had been four days since Shag and Maya and her sisters had returned home through the portal, and onboard the new granolith, life continued as before. They were now only five days from Antar. Kathleen had agreed to teach the children more about Earth… in fact, she had been rather enthusiastic about the idea. The children were in class with Kathleen at this moment. Most of those onboard were going about everyday routines… well, as much as anything could be an ‘everyday routine' in space. Max, Michael, and Varec were in the control room watching the stars zip by, as the new granolith cruised smoothly through space. Then the ship began to slow inexplicably. Without warning, a larger ship dropped down in front of the new granolith. Opening two huge doors at the rear of the ship, the larger ship tractored the new granolith inside with a magnetic beam before anyone had time to react.
Max and Michael rushed to find out who or what was responsible. Their first thought was Shaqor-Niseel, but they both knew deep inside that it wasn't… Shag would have given them some kind of warning, they felt pretty sure.
Suddenly, four men with some kind of unknown weapons appeared on the control deck with Max and Michael. Well… calling them "men" might be a stretch, actually. They stood nine feet tall and had bony ridges running down their backs. Their faces were long and reminded Michael of pictures he had seen of what a yeti or bigfoot was supposed to look like, except that they weren't hairy. In fact, they were mostly hairless. Their skin color -if indeed it was skin- was silvery-grayish and splotchy reddish. It reminded Max of a bloody cadaver more than anything. They had long, pointed teeth that seemed to stick into their lower lips, and their upper lips were pulled back in a kind of permanent snarl. They spoke with a lisping sound, but apparently, they were able to make themselves understood in broken Antarian.
"You die," the first one said simply as he fired his weapon at Max. Max dived to one side. Rolling over quickly, he threw a power bolt of his own at the creature, and Michael blasted one of the others with a power bolt at the same time. Neither creature so much as twitched. They seemed impervious to these blasts. Max and Michael rushed the first creature, but a swing of the creature's massive hand sent them both sprawling.
At that moment, several other creatures appeared at the door of the control room, pushing some of the other passengers of the new granolith in front of them with their weapons. They had gone through the ship searching for everyone they could find.
One of the creatures shoved Tracie and April into the room, placing his massive hands over their faces. Tracie bit him on the hand between the thumb and first finger, which seemed to evoke a response from the creatures greater than the power bolts Max and Michael had thrown at them, so April bit him on the other hand.
"You better go back to ship to medroom. Have them look at that… Such creatures as these are sometimes venomous," cautioned one of the invaders to the one who was bitten. The affected invader frowned with a sort of snarl. Tracie smiled. The bitten invader grimaced slightly and left reluctantly.
"Is your species venomous?" the first creature asked. Tracie and April just smiled.
"Back home, I have 22 five-year-olds who might tell you I am," said Nina.
The creature looked at Nina then said to the creature standing beside him, "Make note. This species is very prolific… and probably venomous."
In the classroom, Kathleen had seen one of the creatures walking through the hall and had closed the door quietly to avoid getting its attention. For a while, she and the children seemed to be safe, but then one of the creatures opened the door. Kathleen rushed the invader and yelled for the children to run. They did, though Zorel paused for a few moments to throw several power bolts. The power bolts didn't seem to affect the creature, and reluctantly, Zorel ran to get help. He found Jim Valenti in the reading room and told him what was happening. Jim rushed down to the classroom to rescue Kathleen, but seeing what he was up against, he wisely decided to find something to give him an advantage before just rushing in. He saw his advantage coming down the hall. It was Danyy, who had gone to get his pawgor and was rushing back with the pawgor beside him. The pawgor wasn't waiting for Danyy or Jim. It rushed into the room, and there was a shrill scream.
Jim and Danyy rushed in to find the invader hanging from the ceiling by some kind of suction pods on his fingertips and knees. The pawgor had ripped his clothes mostly off and was taking swipes at his bare bottom. Eventually, the invader fell to the floor and the pawgor pounced on him, sinking its teeth into his grayish-reddish skin. Apparently, the creature's taste repelled the pawgor, which promptly spit out the chunk it had bitten off. The invader had, by now, turned from grayish-reddish to almost white, most of the color going out of his body, as the pawgor stood over him, threatening to take another bite. Jim and Kathleen left Danyy and the pawgor to watch this creature, which did not appear to be much of a threat any more, and they ran to see if they could help anywhere else. They did not make it very far. Three invaders caught them, and they were taken to the control room with the others.
Rushing into the control room to find out what was going on, Liz and Maria rushed right into the arms of danger. Both turned to run, but it was too late. As one of the invaders stepped in front of them, Liz dropped to the ground and slid under its legs, at the same time yelling, "Portal." The portal opened, and Liz literally slid through it. The creature ran after her, but the portal disappeared.
Except for their unfortunate companion in the classroom with the pawgor and the fact that the children mostly remained uncaught… and except for Liz, who had escaped through the portal, the invaders seemed to control the ship now.
-------------------------End of Chapter 50
The Invaders
Chapter 50
L
It had been four days since Shag and Maya and her sisters had returned home through the portal, and onboard the new granolith, life continued as before. They were now only five days from Antar. Kathleen had agreed to teach the children more about Earth… in fact, she had been rather enthusiastic about the idea. The children were in class with Kathleen at this moment. Most of those onboard were going about everyday routines… well, as much as anything could be an ‘everyday routine' in space. Max, Michael, and Varec were in the control room watching the stars zip by, as the new granolith cruised smoothly through space. Then the ship began to slow inexplicably. Without warning, a larger ship dropped down in front of the new granolith. Opening two huge doors at the rear of the ship, the larger ship tractored the new granolith inside with a magnetic beam before anyone had time to react.
Max and Michael rushed to find out who or what was responsible. Their first thought was Shaqor-Niseel, but they both knew deep inside that it wasn't… Shag would have given them some kind of warning, they felt pretty sure.
Suddenly, four men with some kind of unknown weapons appeared on the control deck with Max and Michael. Well… calling them "men" might be a stretch, actually. They stood nine feet tall and had bony ridges running down their backs. Their faces were long and reminded Michael of pictures he had seen of what a yeti or bigfoot was supposed to look like, except that they weren't hairy. In fact, they were mostly hairless. Their skin color -if indeed it was skin- was silvery-grayish and splotchy reddish. It reminded Max of a bloody cadaver more than anything. They had long, pointed teeth that seemed to stick into their lower lips, and their upper lips were pulled back in a kind of permanent snarl. They spoke with a lisping sound, but apparently, they were able to make themselves understood in broken Antarian.
"You die," the first one said simply as he fired his weapon at Max. Max dived to one side. Rolling over quickly, he threw a power bolt of his own at the creature, and Michael blasted one of the others with a power bolt at the same time. Neither creature so much as twitched. They seemed impervious to these blasts. Max and Michael rushed the first creature, but a swing of the creature's massive hand sent them both sprawling.
At that moment, several other creatures appeared at the door of the control room, pushing some of the other passengers of the new granolith in front of them with their weapons. They had gone through the ship searching for everyone they could find.
One of the creatures shoved Tracie and April into the room, placing his massive hands over their faces. Tracie bit him on the hand between the thumb and first finger, which seemed to evoke a response from the creatures greater than the power bolts Max and Michael had thrown at them, so April bit him on the other hand.
"You better go back to ship to medroom. Have them look at that… Such creatures as these are sometimes venomous," cautioned one of the invaders to the one who was bitten. The affected invader frowned with a sort of snarl. Tracie smiled. The bitten invader grimaced slightly and left reluctantly.
"Is your species venomous?" the first creature asked. Tracie and April just smiled.
"Back home, I have 22 five-year-olds who might tell you I am," said Nina.
The creature looked at Nina then said to the creature standing beside him, "Make note. This species is very prolific… and probably venomous."
In the classroom, Kathleen had seen one of the creatures walking through the hall and had closed the door quietly to avoid getting its attention. For a while, she and the children seemed to be safe, but then one of the creatures opened the door. Kathleen rushed the invader and yelled for the children to run. They did, though Zorel paused for a few moments to throw several power bolts. The power bolts didn't seem to affect the creature, and reluctantly, Zorel ran to get help. He found Jim Valenti in the reading room and told him what was happening. Jim rushed down to the classroom to rescue Kathleen, but seeing what he was up against, he wisely decided to find something to give him an advantage before just rushing in. He saw his advantage coming down the hall. It was Danyy, who had gone to get his pawgor and was rushing back with the pawgor beside him. The pawgor wasn't waiting for Danyy or Jim. It rushed into the room, and there was a shrill scream.
Jim and Danyy rushed in to find the invader hanging from the ceiling by some kind of suction pods on his fingertips and knees. The pawgor had ripped his clothes mostly off and was taking swipes at his bare bottom. Eventually, the invader fell to the floor and the pawgor pounced on him, sinking its teeth into his grayish-reddish skin. Apparently, the creature's taste repelled the pawgor, which promptly spit out the chunk it had bitten off. The invader had, by now, turned from grayish-reddish to almost white, most of the color going out of his body, as the pawgor stood over him, threatening to take another bite. Jim and Kathleen left Danyy and the pawgor to watch this creature, which did not appear to be much of a threat any more, and they ran to see if they could help anywhere else. They did not make it very far. Three invaders caught them, and they were taken to the control room with the others.
Rushing into the control room to find out what was going on, Liz and Maria rushed right into the arms of danger. Both turned to run, but it was too late. As one of the invaders stepped in front of them, Liz dropped to the ground and slid under its legs, at the same time yelling, "Portal." The portal opened, and Liz literally slid through it. The creature ran after her, but the portal disappeared.
Except for their unfortunate companion in the classroom with the pawgor and the fact that the children mostly remained uncaught… and except for Liz, who had escaped through the portal, the invaders seemed to control the ship now.
-------------------------End of Chapter 50
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
Slaves and Pets
Chapter 51
LI
Liz stood in front of Shag and Maya describing the invaders…
“Yes,” Shag said, nodding, “I know of them. They’re from Ghorbidfael, a planet only about twelve galaxies from Antar. The inhabitants of this planet travel the galaxies finding and collecting victims to make slaves of, or in some cases, pets.
“Pets,” Liz asked, ahgast.
“Well,” Shag said, “There are all kinds of beings in the universe. Many are like us, but some are grotesque like the Ghors, and some are small and cute…”
Liz stood with her mouth open.
“You mean a creature intelligent enough to build a space ship and travel through space might be kept as a… pet?”
“If it is small and cute… yes,” said Shag. “Or if it is merely smaller and cuter than the beings to which it is being sold. I dare say, there are those who would find you to be a delightful pet… but more often it is as slaves that they are sold.”
Liz was incredulous… “Pets?”
“Would slaves be better,” asked Shag.
“No… No, of course not,” Liz agreed. “But I’m not sure being kept as a ‘pet’ is much better… I mean for an intelligent, civilized being.”
“I quite agree,” said Shag. “The Ghors know not to mess with a Xarian ship. The only thing they understand is power… I guess that’s why they live by it.”
Shag looked into the air in front of him and said, “Sphere of Searches.”
From somewhere, Liz could not be sure where, a voice said, “Ask.”
“Where is my ship, the 'Xarius Voyager,' at this moment?”
“It is in the eighth galaxy,” said the voice.
“That is not far from Antar,” said Shag. “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask,” said a voice from the air.
“The control room of my ship.” He took Liz by the hand and the two of them and Maya stepped through the portal. They found themselves on the control deck of the “Xarius Voyager.” Shag spoke briefly with the Captain in charge, and the “Xarius Voyager” headed toward Antar.”
“Sphere of Searches,” Shag called again.
“Ask,” said the voice.
“Where is the new granolith of King Zan of Antar at this moment?”
“It is here,” said the voice, and in front of them appeared a map of the Antarian galaxy with a flashing red dot indicating the new granolith. Shag and his captain both looked at the map.
“Ten minutes,” said the captain. Shag nodded.
Ten minutes later, almost to the second, they spotted the Ghors' ship from the control room of the “Xarius Voyager.” Shag guided his ship above the Ghors’ ship and opened the bottom bay doors. Then the “Xarius Voyager” settled over the top of the Ghors’ ship like a mother hen settling on top of her eggs, and the bay doors closed back.
On the Ghor ship, the crew was running every which way, barking commands, yelling for information, generally lost in chaos. The crew of the Ghor ship tried to contact the invasion force onboard the new granolith but got no answer.
Onboard the new granolith, which sat inside the bay of the Ghor ship, which in turn floated inside the mammoth bay of the "Xarius Voyager," the invaders were unable to answer the calls from their ship. They were all in Kathleen’s classroom being terrorized by Danyy’s pawgor. Most of them were missing a few pieces. A couple of them still clung to the ceiling with their suction pads, but most lay on the ground, as the pawgor circled, every now and then taking another raking swipe at the already shredded rumps hanging from the ceiling… or snarling at the white figures lying on the floor.
Shag and Liz stepped through the portal into the control room of the new granolith. Max, Michael, and Varec were there, and they were smiling.
“Want to tell us about it,” asked Liz.
Max grinned… Danyy and the other children brought the pawgor up here… You can imagine the rest.”
Shag laughed, “I knew that beast was special! But, of course, I know it is because of its relationship with Danyy.”
“They’re all down in the classroom,” said Max.
Michael escorted them to the classroom. Outside the classroom, they found Jim, Kathleen, and the children keeping watch as the pawgor kept the Ghors in the room under control. Shag smiled broadly.
“Sphere of the Portal,” Shag called.
“Ask.”
“The control deck of the Ghors’ ship.”
Shag took Liz by the hand, and the two of them stepped through the portal onto the deck of the Ghors’ vessel. The Ghors were surprised by their appearance.
“Shaqor-Niseel!” the captain of the Ghor ship lisped. “You are with these creatures?”
“These ‘creatures,’ Hosk, are Antarians and Eluymerians. My wife is Antarian, and many of our descendants are Eluymerian or Antarian. I take it rather personally when you try to make slaves or pets out of my descendants.”
“Shaqor… Ni-Niseel… We have not forgotten the last time we crossed paths with you. You sent us to Galaxy 12H. It took us three years to get back.”
“And you will not forget this time, either,” said Shag… “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask.”
“I would like the Ghor ship and all the Ghors of this vessel that are on this ship or on the new granolith transported on the Ghors’ ship to Galaxy 41X.”
“But…” said the Ghor Captain, “It will take us twelve years to get back from that far away at our best speed.”
“Yes, that’s what I figured,” said Shag. “Our galaxies will be safe from your ‘enterprise’ for that long. The next time you cross paths with me or any of my descendants, I will send you to Galaxy 73Z.”
The Ghor Captain turned pale, then the Ghor ship and all the Ghors disappeared as the portal enlarged and swallowed them and their ship up. Liz and Shag found themselves back on the "Xarius Voyager."
Shag smiled… then he and Maya, who had been waiting there for their return, both hugged Liz.
“Thank you… Thank you so very much!” Liz said.
“Not at all,” Shag replied. “If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s cleaning up the galaxies of the Ghors and their sort. The pleasure was all mine, believe me!”
Liz kissed them both then said, “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask.”
“The control deck of the new granolith.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As the group enjoyed dinner the next day, they all talked about their experiences with the Ghors and the things they had learned. Liz told them about some beings buying smaller, cuter beings as pets. She still had not gotten over this.
"Well," said Max, "They can't have you… You're my pet."
Liz just scrunched up her nose then smiled at him.
"Can I have another glass of jubish," Tracie asked. "I still haven't got the taste of Ghor sweat out of my mouth… My teeth feel scummy, and I've almost brushed all the enamel off already!"
April laughed and nodded vigorously… "I know! I'll have some more jubish, too! Hey, even the pawgor spit the Ghors out!"
Everybody laughed. They were becoming more than they had been. No longer did anyone there feel that he or she was merely an Earthling… or even merely Antarian… They realized that they were now all seasoned residents of the universe.
-------------------------End of Chapter 51
Slaves and Pets
Chapter 51
LI
Liz stood in front of Shag and Maya describing the invaders…
“Yes,” Shag said, nodding, “I know of them. They’re from Ghorbidfael, a planet only about twelve galaxies from Antar. The inhabitants of this planet travel the galaxies finding and collecting victims to make slaves of, or in some cases, pets.
“Pets,” Liz asked, ahgast.
“Well,” Shag said, “There are all kinds of beings in the universe. Many are like us, but some are grotesque like the Ghors, and some are small and cute…”
Liz stood with her mouth open.
“You mean a creature intelligent enough to build a space ship and travel through space might be kept as a… pet?”
“If it is small and cute… yes,” said Shag. “Or if it is merely smaller and cuter than the beings to which it is being sold. I dare say, there are those who would find you to be a delightful pet… but more often it is as slaves that they are sold.”
Liz was incredulous… “Pets?”
“Would slaves be better,” asked Shag.
“No… No, of course not,” Liz agreed. “But I’m not sure being kept as a ‘pet’ is much better… I mean for an intelligent, civilized being.”
“I quite agree,” said Shag. “The Ghors know not to mess with a Xarian ship. The only thing they understand is power… I guess that’s why they live by it.”
Shag looked into the air in front of him and said, “Sphere of Searches.”
From somewhere, Liz could not be sure where, a voice said, “Ask.”
“Where is my ship, the 'Xarius Voyager,' at this moment?”
“It is in the eighth galaxy,” said the voice.
“That is not far from Antar,” said Shag. “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask,” said a voice from the air.
“The control room of my ship.” He took Liz by the hand and the two of them and Maya stepped through the portal. They found themselves on the control deck of the “Xarius Voyager.” Shag spoke briefly with the Captain in charge, and the “Xarius Voyager” headed toward Antar.”
“Sphere of Searches,” Shag called again.
“Ask,” said the voice.
“Where is the new granolith of King Zan of Antar at this moment?”
“It is here,” said the voice, and in front of them appeared a map of the Antarian galaxy with a flashing red dot indicating the new granolith. Shag and his captain both looked at the map.
“Ten minutes,” said the captain. Shag nodded.
Ten minutes later, almost to the second, they spotted the Ghors' ship from the control room of the “Xarius Voyager.” Shag guided his ship above the Ghors’ ship and opened the bottom bay doors. Then the “Xarius Voyager” settled over the top of the Ghors’ ship like a mother hen settling on top of her eggs, and the bay doors closed back.
On the Ghor ship, the crew was running every which way, barking commands, yelling for information, generally lost in chaos. The crew of the Ghor ship tried to contact the invasion force onboard the new granolith but got no answer.
Onboard the new granolith, which sat inside the bay of the Ghor ship, which in turn floated inside the mammoth bay of the "Xarius Voyager," the invaders were unable to answer the calls from their ship. They were all in Kathleen’s classroom being terrorized by Danyy’s pawgor. Most of them were missing a few pieces. A couple of them still clung to the ceiling with their suction pads, but most lay on the ground, as the pawgor circled, every now and then taking another raking swipe at the already shredded rumps hanging from the ceiling… or snarling at the white figures lying on the floor.
Shag and Liz stepped through the portal into the control room of the new granolith. Max, Michael, and Varec were there, and they were smiling.
“Want to tell us about it,” asked Liz.
Max grinned… Danyy and the other children brought the pawgor up here… You can imagine the rest.”
Shag laughed, “I knew that beast was special! But, of course, I know it is because of its relationship with Danyy.”
“They’re all down in the classroom,” said Max.
Michael escorted them to the classroom. Outside the classroom, they found Jim, Kathleen, and the children keeping watch as the pawgor kept the Ghors in the room under control. Shag smiled broadly.
“Sphere of the Portal,” Shag called.
“Ask.”
“The control deck of the Ghors’ ship.”
Shag took Liz by the hand, and the two of them stepped through the portal onto the deck of the Ghors’ vessel. The Ghors were surprised by their appearance.
“Shaqor-Niseel!” the captain of the Ghor ship lisped. “You are with these creatures?”
“These ‘creatures,’ Hosk, are Antarians and Eluymerians. My wife is Antarian, and many of our descendants are Eluymerian or Antarian. I take it rather personally when you try to make slaves or pets out of my descendants.”
“Shaqor… Ni-Niseel… We have not forgotten the last time we crossed paths with you. You sent us to Galaxy 12H. It took us three years to get back.”
“And you will not forget this time, either,” said Shag… “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask.”
“I would like the Ghor ship and all the Ghors of this vessel that are on this ship or on the new granolith transported on the Ghors’ ship to Galaxy 41X.”
“But…” said the Ghor Captain, “It will take us twelve years to get back from that far away at our best speed.”
“Yes, that’s what I figured,” said Shag. “Our galaxies will be safe from your ‘enterprise’ for that long. The next time you cross paths with me or any of my descendants, I will send you to Galaxy 73Z.”
The Ghor Captain turned pale, then the Ghor ship and all the Ghors disappeared as the portal enlarged and swallowed them and their ship up. Liz and Shag found themselves back on the "Xarius Voyager."
Shag smiled… then he and Maya, who had been waiting there for their return, both hugged Liz.
“Thank you… Thank you so very much!” Liz said.
“Not at all,” Shag replied. “If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s cleaning up the galaxies of the Ghors and their sort. The pleasure was all mine, believe me!”
Liz kissed them both then said, “Sphere of the Portal.”
“Ask.”
“The control deck of the new granolith.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
As the group enjoyed dinner the next day, they all talked about their experiences with the Ghors and the things they had learned. Liz told them about some beings buying smaller, cuter beings as pets. She still had not gotten over this.
"Well," said Max, "They can't have you… You're my pet."
Liz just scrunched up her nose then smiled at him.
"Can I have another glass of jubish," Tracie asked. "I still haven't got the taste of Ghor sweat out of my mouth… My teeth feel scummy, and I've almost brushed all the enamel off already!"
April laughed and nodded vigorously… "I know! I'll have some more jubish, too! Hey, even the pawgor spit the Ghors out!"
Everybody laughed. They were becoming more than they had been. No longer did anyone there feel that he or she was merely an Earthling… or even merely Antarian… They realized that they were now all seasoned residents of the universe.
-------------------------End of Chapter 51
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Mysterious Disappearance
Chapter 52
LII
Kyle and Jeliya met Michael coming down the hall toward the galley. Jeliya smiled.
“Hi.”
Michael smiled back, “The Ghors didn’t get into that room did they?” Michael indicated a large storage room on the dining room level.
Kyle shook his head, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” Michael said… “I checked the cargo bay where the vehicles are. They didn’t get in there either…”
Jeliya looked at Kyle. Kyle shrugged… “I don’t know… Michael’s strange like that sometimes.”
“You would think he had something to hide in there,” Jeliya suggested. “…something he was protecting.”
Kyle stopped suddenly and grinned.
“What is it?” Jeliya asked, noticing Kyle’s look of mischief.
“This could get me killed,” Kyle said with a huge grin, “but it’s worth it… if it’s what I’m thinking. Come on!” Kyle took Jeliya by the hand, and they checked the door to the storeroom Michael had indicated. It was locked, but that was not a very big deterrent to a resourceful person. Kyle had it opened in a few moments.
As the light came on, Kyle and Jeliya looked around…
“Whoa,” Kyle muttered… “Incredible!”
Jeliya stood with her mouth open.
From wall to wall and floor to ceiling, there were crates and crates of Tabasco sauce and Snapples, along with a few odd crates of other Earth “delights” that Michael obviously had bought and squirreled away during their ‘vacation’ on Earth.
Kyle laughed and rubbed his hands together… “Where can I put these…”
Later that day, Michael checked in the storeroom when no one else was around to see. As the light came on, the sight that met his eyes was an empty storage room. In a panic, he ran down to the cargo bay and opened the back of the Snapples truck that they still carried in the new granolith. It was empty.
“How?” Michael yelled. “How did they do this?”
Michael ran toward the galley, passing Maria on the way.
“Maria! Did you see the Ghors go into the storeroom on the galley deck or into the cargo bay?”
Maria shook her head.
“Well nobody knew that I had…” Michael hesitated. He hadn’t told Maria yet either.
“What?” asked Maria.
“Nothing… but if you didn’t see the Ghors go in and Kyle didn’t…”
Michael’s eyes opened wide… “Kyle! I should have known!”
Michael rushed off. Maria followed but was left behind. Meeting Liz and Max along the way, she mentioned Michael’s strange reaction.
“What’s so strange,” Max asked laughing… “It’s Michael! I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The three of them walked in the direction Michael had gone. They found him in the dining room, his hands around Kyle’s neck. Kyle was laughing even as he gurgled and tried unsuccessfully to deny any knowledge of the disappearance.
Jeliya was pulling on Michael’s arms…
“Michael, don’t kill him! I love him!”
“Love grows fonder with absence, Jeliya?” Michael said. “You can still love him when he’s dead!”
Max walked over…
“Michael, what’s going on? Let him go.”
“Max, He hid all the Tabasco sauce and Snapples that we bought.”
Max paused momentarily.
“Well aren’t you going to help him,” Jeliya implored.
“I don’t think Michael needs any help,” Max said.
“She means Kyle, Max!” said Liz.
“Oh!”
“Well?” Liz asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
Liz huffed.
“Well…” Max said, thinking, “…if Michael breaks anything, I can fix it.”
“Max!!!!!”
“Oh alright! Let him go, Michael.
Kyle was still laughing, as Michael released his hold.
As Michael left the dining area, Jeliya kissed Kyle all over…
“How could Michael do that to you? You were his friend!”
Kyle laughed… “Michael’s still my friend. He had to do that. It's kinda like part of the game. His reaction is all proportional to how good he thinks I got him." Kyle rubbed his neck and croaked a little… "He figures I got him pretty good. Anyway, he wouldn’t have hurt me worse than what Max could fix… and it was worth it! That’s just how we show we care about each other.”
Kyle laughed again, choking slightly, as Jeliya kissed him on the cheeks and lips trying to make it better.
Liz shook her head.
Max grinned… “I think Michael and I can help you put everything back later when you feel like telling us where you hid it.”
Kyle laughed some more… “I just wish I could have seen his face when the lights came on and that room was empty!”
“I imagine it looked pretty much like when he was choking you, Kyle,” said Max. As Max walked out of the room, he smiled and gave Kyle a thumbs up.
In the entertainment area, Michael was already telling Jim and Kathleen about Kyle’s little prank.
“I’m glad to see you’re taking it so calmly,” said Kathleen.
Michael smiled, “Hey, Kyle’s my friend! He got me this time! I’ll get him back some time… That’s the way it goes.”
-------------------------End of Chapter 52
The Mysterious Disappearance
Chapter 52
LII
Kyle and Jeliya met Michael coming down the hall toward the galley. Jeliya smiled.
“Hi.”
Michael smiled back, “The Ghors didn’t get into that room did they?” Michael indicated a large storage room on the dining room level.
Kyle shook his head, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” Michael said… “I checked the cargo bay where the vehicles are. They didn’t get in there either…”
Jeliya looked at Kyle. Kyle shrugged… “I don’t know… Michael’s strange like that sometimes.”
“You would think he had something to hide in there,” Jeliya suggested. “…something he was protecting.”
Kyle stopped suddenly and grinned.
“What is it?” Jeliya asked, noticing Kyle’s look of mischief.
“This could get me killed,” Kyle said with a huge grin, “but it’s worth it… if it’s what I’m thinking. Come on!” Kyle took Jeliya by the hand, and they checked the door to the storeroom Michael had indicated. It was locked, but that was not a very big deterrent to a resourceful person. Kyle had it opened in a few moments.
As the light came on, Kyle and Jeliya looked around…
“Whoa,” Kyle muttered… “Incredible!”
Jeliya stood with her mouth open.
From wall to wall and floor to ceiling, there were crates and crates of Tabasco sauce and Snapples, along with a few odd crates of other Earth “delights” that Michael obviously had bought and squirreled away during their ‘vacation’ on Earth.
Kyle laughed and rubbed his hands together… “Where can I put these…”
Later that day, Michael checked in the storeroom when no one else was around to see. As the light came on, the sight that met his eyes was an empty storage room. In a panic, he ran down to the cargo bay and opened the back of the Snapples truck that they still carried in the new granolith. It was empty.
“How?” Michael yelled. “How did they do this?”
Michael ran toward the galley, passing Maria on the way.
“Maria! Did you see the Ghors go into the storeroom on the galley deck or into the cargo bay?”
Maria shook her head.
“Well nobody knew that I had…” Michael hesitated. He hadn’t told Maria yet either.
“What?” asked Maria.
“Nothing… but if you didn’t see the Ghors go in and Kyle didn’t…”
Michael’s eyes opened wide… “Kyle! I should have known!”
Michael rushed off. Maria followed but was left behind. Meeting Liz and Max along the way, she mentioned Michael’s strange reaction.
“What’s so strange,” Max asked laughing… “It’s Michael! I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The three of them walked in the direction Michael had gone. They found him in the dining room, his hands around Kyle’s neck. Kyle was laughing even as he gurgled and tried unsuccessfully to deny any knowledge of the disappearance.
Jeliya was pulling on Michael’s arms…
“Michael, don’t kill him! I love him!”
“Love grows fonder with absence, Jeliya?” Michael said. “You can still love him when he’s dead!”
Max walked over…
“Michael, what’s going on? Let him go.”
“Max, He hid all the Tabasco sauce and Snapples that we bought.”
Max paused momentarily.
“Well aren’t you going to help him,” Jeliya implored.
“I don’t think Michael needs any help,” Max said.
“She means Kyle, Max!” said Liz.
“Oh!”
“Well?” Liz asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
Liz huffed.
“Well…” Max said, thinking, “…if Michael breaks anything, I can fix it.”
“Max!!!!!”
“Oh alright! Let him go, Michael.
Kyle was still laughing, as Michael released his hold.
As Michael left the dining area, Jeliya kissed Kyle all over…
“How could Michael do that to you? You were his friend!”
Kyle laughed… “Michael’s still my friend. He had to do that. It's kinda like part of the game. His reaction is all proportional to how good he thinks I got him." Kyle rubbed his neck and croaked a little… "He figures I got him pretty good. Anyway, he wouldn’t have hurt me worse than what Max could fix… and it was worth it! That’s just how we show we care about each other.”
Kyle laughed again, choking slightly, as Jeliya kissed him on the cheeks and lips trying to make it better.
Liz shook her head.
Max grinned… “I think Michael and I can help you put everything back later when you feel like telling us where you hid it.”
Kyle laughed some more… “I just wish I could have seen his face when the lights came on and that room was empty!”
“I imagine it looked pretty much like when he was choking you, Kyle,” said Max. As Max walked out of the room, he smiled and gave Kyle a thumbs up.
In the entertainment area, Michael was already telling Jim and Kathleen about Kyle’s little prank.
“I’m glad to see you’re taking it so calmly,” said Kathleen.
Michael smiled, “Hey, Kyle’s my friend! He got me this time! I’ll get him back some time… That’s the way it goes.”
-------------------------End of Chapter 52
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
Return To The Golden Planet
Chapter 53
LIII
The Whitmans watched silently with smiles on their faces. Mrs. Whitman leaned on Alex's arm and wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye. Alex smiled and put an arm around each of his parents, as they stood hugging their newfound granddaughters, Mareeya and Ceelya, close to their sides.
Antar had finally appeared in the distance, a small dot of gold, at first no bigger than a star in the darkness of night. Everyone watched in awe from the observatory dome as the “Golden Planet” grew ever nearer.
“It looks like a little drop of shimmering gold floating in space,” Diane exclaimed, ecstatic.
Those who were returning to Antar felt as though they were seeing it all over again for the first time… Max had often said that for him every time he returned felt like the first time.
Within twenty minutes of the planet’s appearance, the new granolith dropped into the atmosphere and glided over the Golden Sea, the source of Antar’s golden color. As the ship dropped below 42,000 feet, three “slipstreams,” small sub-atmospheric “ jets,” took up escort. Shortly afterward, everyone began to applaud and cheer as an old friend, the jah-ee, which the “Earthlings” had met in the Smoky Mountains, suddenly appeared… and he was not alone. After circling the new granolith and the slipstreams a couple of times, two jah-ees assumed outside positions on each side next to the smaller “slipstreams,” and a fifth jah-ee flew ahead of the ship, giving the entire formation the “V” shape that the jah-ees seemed to be fond of.
"Awesome!" Denise and Trude exclaimed almost as one, to the agreement of everyone onboard.
The slipstream escorts and the jah-ees maintained a perfect formation, just as though the entire formation were one solid form gracefully floating through the atmosphere.
Soon the new granolith crossed over the shore and passed over CoruzAntar. The slipstream pilots pulled back on their yokes, sending their planes into a rolling climb toward the right, and the jah-ees looped off to the left, doing a couple of somersaults in the air, letting Max know they were happy that he had returned; then they headed back out over the Golden Sea toward their home. The new granolith circled CoruzAntar and came in over the hangar at the science lab where it was permanently berthed. As the huge roof rolled open on the science lab, the new granolith settled into the building and came to a rest, floating a few feet off the floor on its anti-grav system. Michael activated the ramp, and everyone walked down it to the soil of Antar. Some would call this planet home for the next ten days… some were returning to their home… and some were seeing their new home for the first time ever.
The scientists from the lab greeted each person as each one came off the ship. Then a palace hover car whisked them all away to the palace to a special welcoming dinner that the palace staff had prepared.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
<center>--------------------Two Days Later--------------------</center>
Nina looked up with one eye still closed to filter out the Antarian sun and tilted her new Antarian sun hat back to see who was there. Lisa kicked a little sand over Nina’s arm and smiled…
“You just gonna lie there on the beach?”
“Hey, this is Heaven! Nothing to worry about… just soaking up a few rays while getting an Antarian tan!”
Lisa laughed. “Yeah, I can relate! Can I join you?”
“Sure! Pull up some sand,” said Nina. “I think there’s some lying around! …What’ve you been doing?”
“Diving with Max and Liz and the dolphins…” Lisa flicked her fingers, flicking a little Golden Sea water from her hands onto Nina’s face.
Nina grinned… “That feels good! I may make you stand there and keep doing that!”
“No chance!” said Lisa. “Go get your own salt spray! The Golden Sea feels really good today!”
“Oh, I intend to,” Nina replied… “I’m just enjoying lying here too much right now to move.”
Lisa laughed and lay down on the warm sand… “Ahhhhh… I see what you mean!” She pulled her own sun hat down over her eyes… “Somebody put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on me.”
In the surf, Tracie had just picked up another gentle wave and was being pushed along on one of the Antarian skim boards, called a “Syysscha,” that she, Trude, April, and Lauren were playing with, while Krys and Denise backfloated nearby, letting the gentle waves lift them up and down.
“Heads up… Coming through,” Tracie yelled as the wave carried her Syysscha board between Krys and Denise and on to the beach.
Denise looked over… “I want to try that when you get tired of it, Tracie… You look like you’re having way too much fun!”
Tracie grinned. Just then Lauren, April, and Trude came gliding to the beach on their Syysscha boards.
The Antarian “Syysscha” is smaller and shorter than a surfboard… and much lighter. It can be ridden standing up, but generally it is meant to be ridden lying down or on one’s knees. It is made out of a material that is flexible and super buoyant, so it simply gets pushed along on top of even the smallest waves, even with a rider on it. Of course, there are also the Zoombor boards. Those are more like surfboards and are meant to be ridden standing up. The Zoombor board has an anti-grav feature. Though it’s anti-grav power is insufficient to lift a rider out of the water when standing still, when rushing down then back up to the top of a wave, the board can become airborne with rather spectacular results. Today was a calm day… There were no large waves to attract Zoombor board enthusiasts.
Sabrina, Rachel, and Andrea were having a ball trying to sail a small sailboat similar to a “sunfish.” It kept getting blown over, and they would right it again each time and climb back in. All three were laughing.
“Duck!” Sabrina yelled as the sail swung around to the other side suddenly. Andrea started to duck but didn’t have time, and she wound up in the water again. Rachel held the sail while Andrea climbed back in, spitting out a stream of water.
“I see why they call these things ‘Ji-Mojas,’ said Andrea… “You don’t get on one if you don’t expect to GET WET!” They were all laughing. Eventually, they seemed to get the hang of it, though, and soon they were gliding along offshore like Ji-Moja pros.
Andrew and Diane were off somewhere diving with Jim and Kathleen.
Michael and Maria were strolling along the beach holding hands and enjoying the salt sea spray in their faces.
Alex, Isabel, and their girls, Mareeya and Ceelya, were strolling the j’koozzeen -the beach- with the Whitmans, stopping to pick up unusual shells as they walked.
Kyle and Jeliya were showing Roselle the different kinds of sea life along the shore.
Around mid-afternoon, after spending the morning at the j’koozzeen, Nina and Lisa walked into the CrashDown across the street and found Max and Liz there with their children, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx, having sandwiches and drinks. Liz motioned for Lisa and Nina to come over and join them.
“Awesome!” Lisa exclaimed, “Who’d’ve thought a place like this would be here on Antar!”
Max and Liz smiled.
“Well, you can thank my Dad for this,” Liz said. “This was our place back in Roswell, and he brought it here.”
“It's a great place, too,” Max added. “He’s had more business here than he ever had in Roswell. The people here love it! There wasn’t any place on this stretch of the j’koozzeen before where one could get a sandwich or a hamburger or anything but a farj… That’s an Antarian drink that tastes kind of like weak, stale root beer. We have great food and drinks on Antar, but I think farj must have been imported… it tastes like Ghor sweat!”
Tracie and April had just walked into the CrashDown in time to hear that last statement…
“Nothing could possibly taste like Ghor sweat!” Tracie said… “Take it from one who knows! I mean, if a pawgor won’t eat it, how bad must it be?”
Max was laughing. “I guess you’re right! And by the way, I was talking about a drink called ‘farj,’ not the food and drink here at the CrashDown. Everything here is A-One Excellent!”
“That’s good to know,” April said, as she and Tracie took a seat next to the others at Liz’s bidding.
“He has to say that,” Jeff Parker said, as he came up behind them. “He’s married to my daughter!”
Everyone laughed.
“Welcome to the CrashDown Tracie, April, Nina, Lisa…”
“What about me?” Max said.
“I let you marry my daughter! What more do you want!”
Everyone laughed. Jeff hugged Liz and his grandchildren and shook Max’s hand. “Welcome to the CrashDown. It’s kind of good to be back where I belong myself!” Jeff smiled and returned to the kitchen, and a young Antarian girl in a CrashDown uniform, antennae and all, came rushing out to get their orders.
About that time, Alex and Isabel walked in with the Whitmans and Mareeya and Ceelya. Mrs. Whitman looked at the name over the door several times and the familiar environment…
Seeing the Whitmans walk in, Jeff Parker came back out to say hello…
“I can’t believe it!” Mrs. Whitman said to Jeff… “I thought I would never see this place again. After you and Nancy disappeared, the CrashDown closed up… someone bought it from the city for the taxes owed and turned it into a bookstore. Now I find it up here on another planet… How many galaxies…? Might as well be the moon! Oh! I am so thrilled that you brought it here! Now I really do feel at home!”
Mister Whitman nodded his agreement and shook Jeff’s hand warmly, and the CrashDown girl came over to take their orders.
Soon, everyone was there. For those new to Antar, it was the best of both worlds… a strange but pleasing blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar. For Max and Liz, Michael and Maria, Alex and Isabel, Jim and Kyle Valenti, and Amy, as well as for the Parker's and Evanses, the CrashDown was now a part of Antar… and it was home… right where it belonged.
-----------------------End of Chapter 53
Return To The Golden Planet
Chapter 53
LIII
The Whitmans watched silently with smiles on their faces. Mrs. Whitman leaned on Alex's arm and wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye. Alex smiled and put an arm around each of his parents, as they stood hugging their newfound granddaughters, Mareeya and Ceelya, close to their sides.
Antar had finally appeared in the distance, a small dot of gold, at first no bigger than a star in the darkness of night. Everyone watched in awe from the observatory dome as the “Golden Planet” grew ever nearer.
“It looks like a little drop of shimmering gold floating in space,” Diane exclaimed, ecstatic.
Those who were returning to Antar felt as though they were seeing it all over again for the first time… Max had often said that for him every time he returned felt like the first time.
Within twenty minutes of the planet’s appearance, the new granolith dropped into the atmosphere and glided over the Golden Sea, the source of Antar’s golden color. As the ship dropped below 42,000 feet, three “slipstreams,” small sub-atmospheric “ jets,” took up escort. Shortly afterward, everyone began to applaud and cheer as an old friend, the jah-ee, which the “Earthlings” had met in the Smoky Mountains, suddenly appeared… and he was not alone. After circling the new granolith and the slipstreams a couple of times, two jah-ees assumed outside positions on each side next to the smaller “slipstreams,” and a fifth jah-ee flew ahead of the ship, giving the entire formation the “V” shape that the jah-ees seemed to be fond of.
"Awesome!" Denise and Trude exclaimed almost as one, to the agreement of everyone onboard.
The slipstream escorts and the jah-ees maintained a perfect formation, just as though the entire formation were one solid form gracefully floating through the atmosphere.
Soon the new granolith crossed over the shore and passed over CoruzAntar. The slipstream pilots pulled back on their yokes, sending their planes into a rolling climb toward the right, and the jah-ees looped off to the left, doing a couple of somersaults in the air, letting Max know they were happy that he had returned; then they headed back out over the Golden Sea toward their home. The new granolith circled CoruzAntar and came in over the hangar at the science lab where it was permanently berthed. As the huge roof rolled open on the science lab, the new granolith settled into the building and came to a rest, floating a few feet off the floor on its anti-grav system. Michael activated the ramp, and everyone walked down it to the soil of Antar. Some would call this planet home for the next ten days… some were returning to their home… and some were seeing their new home for the first time ever.
The scientists from the lab greeted each person as each one came off the ship. Then a palace hover car whisked them all away to the palace to a special welcoming dinner that the palace staff had prepared.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
<center>--------------------Two Days Later--------------------</center>
Nina looked up with one eye still closed to filter out the Antarian sun and tilted her new Antarian sun hat back to see who was there. Lisa kicked a little sand over Nina’s arm and smiled…
“You just gonna lie there on the beach?”
“Hey, this is Heaven! Nothing to worry about… just soaking up a few rays while getting an Antarian tan!”
Lisa laughed. “Yeah, I can relate! Can I join you?”
“Sure! Pull up some sand,” said Nina. “I think there’s some lying around! …What’ve you been doing?”
“Diving with Max and Liz and the dolphins…” Lisa flicked her fingers, flicking a little Golden Sea water from her hands onto Nina’s face.
Nina grinned… “That feels good! I may make you stand there and keep doing that!”
“No chance!” said Lisa. “Go get your own salt spray! The Golden Sea feels really good today!”
“Oh, I intend to,” Nina replied… “I’m just enjoying lying here too much right now to move.”
Lisa laughed and lay down on the warm sand… “Ahhhhh… I see what you mean!” She pulled her own sun hat down over her eyes… “Somebody put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on me.”
In the surf, Tracie had just picked up another gentle wave and was being pushed along on one of the Antarian skim boards, called a “Syysscha,” that she, Trude, April, and Lauren were playing with, while Krys and Denise backfloated nearby, letting the gentle waves lift them up and down.
“Heads up… Coming through,” Tracie yelled as the wave carried her Syysscha board between Krys and Denise and on to the beach.
Denise looked over… “I want to try that when you get tired of it, Tracie… You look like you’re having way too much fun!”
Tracie grinned. Just then Lauren, April, and Trude came gliding to the beach on their Syysscha boards.
The Antarian “Syysscha” is smaller and shorter than a surfboard… and much lighter. It can be ridden standing up, but generally it is meant to be ridden lying down or on one’s knees. It is made out of a material that is flexible and super buoyant, so it simply gets pushed along on top of even the smallest waves, even with a rider on it. Of course, there are also the Zoombor boards. Those are more like surfboards and are meant to be ridden standing up. The Zoombor board has an anti-grav feature. Though it’s anti-grav power is insufficient to lift a rider out of the water when standing still, when rushing down then back up to the top of a wave, the board can become airborne with rather spectacular results. Today was a calm day… There were no large waves to attract Zoombor board enthusiasts.
Sabrina, Rachel, and Andrea were having a ball trying to sail a small sailboat similar to a “sunfish.” It kept getting blown over, and they would right it again each time and climb back in. All three were laughing.
“Duck!” Sabrina yelled as the sail swung around to the other side suddenly. Andrea started to duck but didn’t have time, and she wound up in the water again. Rachel held the sail while Andrea climbed back in, spitting out a stream of water.
“I see why they call these things ‘Ji-Mojas,’ said Andrea… “You don’t get on one if you don’t expect to GET WET!” They were all laughing. Eventually, they seemed to get the hang of it, though, and soon they were gliding along offshore like Ji-Moja pros.
Andrew and Diane were off somewhere diving with Jim and Kathleen.
Michael and Maria were strolling along the beach holding hands and enjoying the salt sea spray in their faces.
Alex, Isabel, and their girls, Mareeya and Ceelya, were strolling the j’koozzeen -the beach- with the Whitmans, stopping to pick up unusual shells as they walked.
Kyle and Jeliya were showing Roselle the different kinds of sea life along the shore.
Around mid-afternoon, after spending the morning at the j’koozzeen, Nina and Lisa walked into the CrashDown across the street and found Max and Liz there with their children, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx, having sandwiches and drinks. Liz motioned for Lisa and Nina to come over and join them.
“Awesome!” Lisa exclaimed, “Who’d’ve thought a place like this would be here on Antar!”
Max and Liz smiled.
“Well, you can thank my Dad for this,” Liz said. “This was our place back in Roswell, and he brought it here.”
“It's a great place, too,” Max added. “He’s had more business here than he ever had in Roswell. The people here love it! There wasn’t any place on this stretch of the j’koozzeen before where one could get a sandwich or a hamburger or anything but a farj… That’s an Antarian drink that tastes kind of like weak, stale root beer. We have great food and drinks on Antar, but I think farj must have been imported… it tastes like Ghor sweat!”
Tracie and April had just walked into the CrashDown in time to hear that last statement…
“Nothing could possibly taste like Ghor sweat!” Tracie said… “Take it from one who knows! I mean, if a pawgor won’t eat it, how bad must it be?”
Max was laughing. “I guess you’re right! And by the way, I was talking about a drink called ‘farj,’ not the food and drink here at the CrashDown. Everything here is A-One Excellent!”
“That’s good to know,” April said, as she and Tracie took a seat next to the others at Liz’s bidding.
“He has to say that,” Jeff Parker said, as he came up behind them. “He’s married to my daughter!”
Everyone laughed.
“Welcome to the CrashDown Tracie, April, Nina, Lisa…”
“What about me?” Max said.
“I let you marry my daughter! What more do you want!”
Everyone laughed. Jeff hugged Liz and his grandchildren and shook Max’s hand. “Welcome to the CrashDown. It’s kind of good to be back where I belong myself!” Jeff smiled and returned to the kitchen, and a young Antarian girl in a CrashDown uniform, antennae and all, came rushing out to get their orders.
About that time, Alex and Isabel walked in with the Whitmans and Mareeya and Ceelya. Mrs. Whitman looked at the name over the door several times and the familiar environment…
Seeing the Whitmans walk in, Jeff Parker came back out to say hello…
“I can’t believe it!” Mrs. Whitman said to Jeff… “I thought I would never see this place again. After you and Nancy disappeared, the CrashDown closed up… someone bought it from the city for the taxes owed and turned it into a bookstore. Now I find it up here on another planet… How many galaxies…? Might as well be the moon! Oh! I am so thrilled that you brought it here! Now I really do feel at home!”
Mister Whitman nodded his agreement and shook Jeff’s hand warmly, and the CrashDown girl came over to take their orders.
Soon, everyone was there. For those new to Antar, it was the best of both worlds… a strange but pleasing blend of the familiar and the unfamiliar. For Max and Liz, Michael and Maria, Alex and Isabel, Jim and Kyle Valenti, and Amy, as well as for the Parker's and Evanses, the CrashDown was now a part of Antar… and it was home… right where it belonged.
-----------------------End of Chapter 53
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Affair at the Valenti Ranch
Chapter 54
LIV
On their sixth day on Antar, the “Antarians Too” had been invited to spend the day visiting with Jim and Kathleen at their ranch estate in the countryside. Everyone was enjoying the streams, the nearby river, the woods, and yorith riding in the Antarian open countryside near the ranch. Yoriths are horses for all intents and purposes, though they are not exactly like Earth horses. Most noticeably, they have bright green eyes. Some are solid colored, others have faint zebra-like stripes. They are beautiful animals, but in basic appearance and behavior, they are still essentially horses.
Danyy was playing with the pawgor. Jim, Kathleen, and Danyy had taken the pawgor back to the Nan-torel again after the new granolith returned from Earth, but every now and then the pawgor would pop up at the ranch and sit there waiting for Danyy to come out and play. It was almost full-grown now, but it was still young and still enjoyed playing. Danyy and the pawgor were running around the yard. The pawgor would pounce on Danyy, pinning him down with its huge paws. At first, this had made Kathleen very uneasy, but she had become used to it, and Danyy seemed to enjoy this unusual game of “tag” that they played. Danyy, in turn, would then chase the pawgor and pounce on it, rolling over with it in the grass. It seemed like the pawgor would surely crush Danyy or hurt him, but it never did. It always knew just how much Danyy could take, maybe because it was communicating with him.
Krys was talking with Tracie, April, Denise, Trude, and a couple of others in the front yard. Kathleen had served everyone drinks, and they were watching Danyy and the pawgor play when the pawgor suddenly decided to run straight through the middle of the group, as Danny ran around them. Several drinks were dropped, as everyone rushed to get out of the way. Krys did not see it coming in time. The next thing she knew, she and her drink were flying in the air… then she was lying on the pawgor’s back with her hands around its neck. Danyy stopped the huge cat and apologized…
“Sorry… He thinks that was funny. He’s laughing.”
Krys moved her head to the side carefully and looked the pawgor in the face, all the time holding on with her arms around its neck to keep from falling off… It did almost appear to be grinning. She shook her head and laid it back down on the pawgor’s back momentarily. Then she slid off onto the ground.
“Next time he does that, I’m putting a saddle on him,” Krys said to Danyy grinning!”
“I’m sorry,” Danyy repeated… “He says he won’t do it again.”
Krys ran her hand over Danyy’s head… “Oh, that’s alright, Danyy… What was I thinking trying to block a pawgor!” She smiled and winked at him then took another drink from Kathleen, who also apologized…
“Welcome to our crazy world,” Kathleen said. Jim was standing in the shade on the porch, leaning against a pillar, with a big smile on his face.
Kyle and Jeliya were out at the side preparing the barbecue grill. Jim joined them, and pretty soon, the air was filled with the smell of steaks, burgers and hotdogs on the grill, as well as a variety of Antarian vegetables… well, at least, it looked kind of like steaks, hamburgers, and hotdogs… The steaks were Yegg steaks. The “hamburger” was actually the inside meaty part of grelliats, which are a vegetable. Kyle liked them for that reason. Jim called them veggie-burgers, but they tasted like real meat. The hotdogs were something Kathleen and Jeliya had invented together from a combination of grelliat cores, yegg meat, Antarian blue hen eggs, pashita bread pulp, and detoxified guma fungi with just a touch of Tabasco, all blended into a purée and stuffed back into the green grelliat shells then roasted. The surprising thing is, they actually tasted like premium hotdogs… if you could get past their green color.
"Come and get it!" Jim called, as he, Kyle, and Jeliya began to place platters of food onto a long picnic table. Everyone sat down, and Jim passed the food around. Nina and Lisa watched as Jeliya made herself a “grelliat hotdog” and soaked it with lots of Tabasco sauce…
"Must be an Antarian thing," Lisa said to Nina… I thought it was only Michael and Max!"
Nina shrugged. “That’s gonna be one HOT hotdog. That’s all I can say.”
Jeliya took a bite and smiled, noticing she was being watched. “Mmmm! This is good! Can I pass anyone the Tabasco?”
Lisa and Nina shook their heads. Jeliya looked around. The others shook their heads, too. Jeliya shrugged. “You guys don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, smiling.
“How about ketchup or mustard?” asked Lisa.
Kathleen passed a couple of bowls over to Lisa. One had a yellowish purée in it, the other a purplish purée… “We’re working on it,” Jim said with a wide grin. “We’ll get the color right eventually. Tastes pretty good, though!”
“Too mild,” Jeliya commented. “I’ll stick with the Tabasco. Tabasco’s great!” She proceeded to take something that looked like an ear of corn and pour Tabasco sauce all over it.
“Okay,” Denise whispered to Lisa, “Now I know what happened to their taste buds!” Both of them smiled. “I just hope she doesn’t put it on ice cream.”
“Believe it or not…” said Kathleen, “I’ve seen Michael do that! He mixes it in Cherry Coke, too.”
This was a little more than anyone wanted to know. Lisa and Nina both went, “Ewwww” at the same time. Jeliya smiled.
“You don’t do that, do you, Jeliya,” asked Roselle.
“Do what?”
“…put Tabasco sauce in Cherry Coke.”
Jeliya shook her head.
“Well, that’s good to know,” said Roselle.
“I never tried Cherry Coke before,” said Jeliya, as she poured some Tabasco sauce into an empty glass, mixed in a couple of ounces of jubish, an Antarian wine, and took a drink.
Jim had not forgotten the pawgor. He had taken several yegg steaks and part of a yegg carcass that he had picked up from a rancher and placed them in the back yard for the pawgor out of sight of the guests. Yegg was a favorite of the pawgor, though the pawgor was not a very finicky eater. Jim had never seen it turn its nose up at anything except Ghor meat.
As the night arrived, Jim and Kyle built a bonfire, and everyone sat around the fire and talked about their adventures, sang songs, and enjoyed some jubish, iced tea, and Snapples along with Antarian cookies and an Antarian dessert called japo-mevanish, which is a sort of flaming flan. Krys and Tracie were using the pawgor as a backrest to lean against, as the pawgor lay stretched out enjoying the warmth of the fire and the companionship of its unusual friends.
“Krys is going to teach me how to ride a pawgor,” April laughed.
“What I want her to teach me is that cool mount she did,” Denise snickered.
Jim started laughing. “I’ve been riding horses for a long time, and that was the first time I ever saw that mount! I must say, it’s pretty spectacular!”
“Yeah, well, you guys laugh if you want,” said Krys. “You’re just jealous ‘cause he let me ride him, and we’re pals now.” She patted her grinning “pillow” and laid her head back against its side again.
After the fire was out, the guests all retired to the guesthouse Jim had built. It wasn’t the palace, but it was cozy. They were able to leave the windows open for the pleasant cool air that was coming in. The bedrooms were all upstairs on the second floor, and there was a wonderful view of Antar’s moons, which were all full this night, as well as of the nearby river and the Antarian countryside.
The next day, Kathleen took everyone shopping at Antar’s largest and oldest department store, Kyyk’s. They took Jayyd along to do color alterations, which absolutely delighted Jayyd, who loved nothing more than using her power and being praised for it. She also usually picked up some spare spending change from other customers who would ask her to change the color of a blouse or some pants or a hat for them and would offer her some change for her help…
Tracie noticed the signs on all the walls.
“What does that sign say, Kathleen? I’ve seen the same sign several times.”
Kathleen laughed. “Yeah, they pointed that out to us the last time I was here and they saw Jayyd change the color of something. It says,
“Molecular alterations and color changing of clothes not allowed unless the items are returned to exactly as they were before. Remember that your abilities and ours may not be the same and we may not be able to undo what you have done satisfactorily. So if you change it and don’t change it back, you buy it. We hope this will not inconvenience you too much. Thank you for shopping at Kyyk’s.”
Tracie laughed.
“At least they’re polite about it,” Nina said, laughing, too. Lisa and April nodded.
Everyone was enjoying the time spent on Antar… so much that they hardly realized that it would soon be time to go back to Earth. But they would all be going back with lots of new clothes and souvenirs, and the memories made during this trip would last forever. Unfortunately, there were probably few people they would ever be able to share them with… at least, who would actually believe them!
---------------------------End of Chapter 54
The Affair at the Valenti Ranch
Chapter 54
LIV
On their sixth day on Antar, the “Antarians Too” had been invited to spend the day visiting with Jim and Kathleen at their ranch estate in the countryside. Everyone was enjoying the streams, the nearby river, the woods, and yorith riding in the Antarian open countryside near the ranch. Yoriths are horses for all intents and purposes, though they are not exactly like Earth horses. Most noticeably, they have bright green eyes. Some are solid colored, others have faint zebra-like stripes. They are beautiful animals, but in basic appearance and behavior, they are still essentially horses.
Danyy was playing with the pawgor. Jim, Kathleen, and Danyy had taken the pawgor back to the Nan-torel again after the new granolith returned from Earth, but every now and then the pawgor would pop up at the ranch and sit there waiting for Danyy to come out and play. It was almost full-grown now, but it was still young and still enjoyed playing. Danyy and the pawgor were running around the yard. The pawgor would pounce on Danyy, pinning him down with its huge paws. At first, this had made Kathleen very uneasy, but she had become used to it, and Danyy seemed to enjoy this unusual game of “tag” that they played. Danyy, in turn, would then chase the pawgor and pounce on it, rolling over with it in the grass. It seemed like the pawgor would surely crush Danyy or hurt him, but it never did. It always knew just how much Danyy could take, maybe because it was communicating with him.
Krys was talking with Tracie, April, Denise, Trude, and a couple of others in the front yard. Kathleen had served everyone drinks, and they were watching Danyy and the pawgor play when the pawgor suddenly decided to run straight through the middle of the group, as Danny ran around them. Several drinks were dropped, as everyone rushed to get out of the way. Krys did not see it coming in time. The next thing she knew, she and her drink were flying in the air… then she was lying on the pawgor’s back with her hands around its neck. Danyy stopped the huge cat and apologized…
“Sorry… He thinks that was funny. He’s laughing.”
Krys moved her head to the side carefully and looked the pawgor in the face, all the time holding on with her arms around its neck to keep from falling off… It did almost appear to be grinning. She shook her head and laid it back down on the pawgor’s back momentarily. Then she slid off onto the ground.
“Next time he does that, I’m putting a saddle on him,” Krys said to Danyy grinning!”
“I’m sorry,” Danyy repeated… “He says he won’t do it again.”
Krys ran her hand over Danyy’s head… “Oh, that’s alright, Danyy… What was I thinking trying to block a pawgor!” She smiled and winked at him then took another drink from Kathleen, who also apologized…
“Welcome to our crazy world,” Kathleen said. Jim was standing in the shade on the porch, leaning against a pillar, with a big smile on his face.
Kyle and Jeliya were out at the side preparing the barbecue grill. Jim joined them, and pretty soon, the air was filled with the smell of steaks, burgers and hotdogs on the grill, as well as a variety of Antarian vegetables… well, at least, it looked kind of like steaks, hamburgers, and hotdogs… The steaks were Yegg steaks. The “hamburger” was actually the inside meaty part of grelliats, which are a vegetable. Kyle liked them for that reason. Jim called them veggie-burgers, but they tasted like real meat. The hotdogs were something Kathleen and Jeliya had invented together from a combination of grelliat cores, yegg meat, Antarian blue hen eggs, pashita bread pulp, and detoxified guma fungi with just a touch of Tabasco, all blended into a purée and stuffed back into the green grelliat shells then roasted. The surprising thing is, they actually tasted like premium hotdogs… if you could get past their green color.
"Come and get it!" Jim called, as he, Kyle, and Jeliya began to place platters of food onto a long picnic table. Everyone sat down, and Jim passed the food around. Nina and Lisa watched as Jeliya made herself a “grelliat hotdog” and soaked it with lots of Tabasco sauce…
"Must be an Antarian thing," Lisa said to Nina… I thought it was only Michael and Max!"
Nina shrugged. “That’s gonna be one HOT hotdog. That’s all I can say.”
Jeliya took a bite and smiled, noticing she was being watched. “Mmmm! This is good! Can I pass anyone the Tabasco?”
Lisa and Nina shook their heads. Jeliya looked around. The others shook their heads, too. Jeliya shrugged. “You guys don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, smiling.
“How about ketchup or mustard?” asked Lisa.
Kathleen passed a couple of bowls over to Lisa. One had a yellowish purée in it, the other a purplish purée… “We’re working on it,” Jim said with a wide grin. “We’ll get the color right eventually. Tastes pretty good, though!”
“Too mild,” Jeliya commented. “I’ll stick with the Tabasco. Tabasco’s great!” She proceeded to take something that looked like an ear of corn and pour Tabasco sauce all over it.
“Okay,” Denise whispered to Lisa, “Now I know what happened to their taste buds!” Both of them smiled. “I just hope she doesn’t put it on ice cream.”
“Believe it or not…” said Kathleen, “I’ve seen Michael do that! He mixes it in Cherry Coke, too.”
This was a little more than anyone wanted to know. Lisa and Nina both went, “Ewwww” at the same time. Jeliya smiled.
“You don’t do that, do you, Jeliya,” asked Roselle.
“Do what?”
“…put Tabasco sauce in Cherry Coke.”
Jeliya shook her head.
“Well, that’s good to know,” said Roselle.
“I never tried Cherry Coke before,” said Jeliya, as she poured some Tabasco sauce into an empty glass, mixed in a couple of ounces of jubish, an Antarian wine, and took a drink.
Jim had not forgotten the pawgor. He had taken several yegg steaks and part of a yegg carcass that he had picked up from a rancher and placed them in the back yard for the pawgor out of sight of the guests. Yegg was a favorite of the pawgor, though the pawgor was not a very finicky eater. Jim had never seen it turn its nose up at anything except Ghor meat.
As the night arrived, Jim and Kyle built a bonfire, and everyone sat around the fire and talked about their adventures, sang songs, and enjoyed some jubish, iced tea, and Snapples along with Antarian cookies and an Antarian dessert called japo-mevanish, which is a sort of flaming flan. Krys and Tracie were using the pawgor as a backrest to lean against, as the pawgor lay stretched out enjoying the warmth of the fire and the companionship of its unusual friends.
“Krys is going to teach me how to ride a pawgor,” April laughed.
“What I want her to teach me is that cool mount she did,” Denise snickered.
Jim started laughing. “I’ve been riding horses for a long time, and that was the first time I ever saw that mount! I must say, it’s pretty spectacular!”
“Yeah, well, you guys laugh if you want,” said Krys. “You’re just jealous ‘cause he let me ride him, and we’re pals now.” She patted her grinning “pillow” and laid her head back against its side again.
After the fire was out, the guests all retired to the guesthouse Jim had built. It wasn’t the palace, but it was cozy. They were able to leave the windows open for the pleasant cool air that was coming in. The bedrooms were all upstairs on the second floor, and there was a wonderful view of Antar’s moons, which were all full this night, as well as of the nearby river and the Antarian countryside.
The next day, Kathleen took everyone shopping at Antar’s largest and oldest department store, Kyyk’s. They took Jayyd along to do color alterations, which absolutely delighted Jayyd, who loved nothing more than using her power and being praised for it. She also usually picked up some spare spending change from other customers who would ask her to change the color of a blouse or some pants or a hat for them and would offer her some change for her help…
Tracie noticed the signs on all the walls.
“What does that sign say, Kathleen? I’ve seen the same sign several times.”
Kathleen laughed. “Yeah, they pointed that out to us the last time I was here and they saw Jayyd change the color of something. It says,
“Molecular alterations and color changing of clothes not allowed unless the items are returned to exactly as they were before. Remember that your abilities and ours may not be the same and we may not be able to undo what you have done satisfactorily. So if you change it and don’t change it back, you buy it. We hope this will not inconvenience you too much. Thank you for shopping at Kyyk’s.”
Tracie laughed.
“At least they’re polite about it,” Nina said, laughing, too. Lisa and April nodded.
Everyone was enjoying the time spent on Antar… so much that they hardly realized that it would soon be time to go back to Earth. But they would all be going back with lots of new clothes and souvenirs, and the memories made during this trip would last forever. Unfortunately, there were probably few people they would ever be able to share them with… at least, who would actually believe them!
---------------------------End of Chapter 54
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Life In the Stars <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Future Begins Today
Chapter 55
LV
It was early evening on Antar, and the “Antarians Too” had just returned to Earth after a special “thank you dinner” in their honor at the palace with Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Alex, Isabel, Kyle, Jeliya, Jim, Kathleen, and all the Antarians and New Antarians who had become their friends. The fortunate discovery of the Vreenis spheres on Michael’s Moon made it a simple matter for each one to return directly to her or his home through the portal, so a seventeen-day voyage on the new granolith to get back was no longer necessary.
Isabel and Alex were watching the evening news from Earth with Liz and Maria at the palace when Isabel suddenly gasped and looked closer at the Vision screen…
“Diane! Diane! Get in here!” Isabel screamed.
Diane Casey came running… “What’s the matter?”
“Look!” Isabel said excitedly, pointing at the Vision screen on the wall.
“It’s George Bush,” said Alex… “You’ve seen him before! What’s the big…”
“No, no… Look who’s there with him! Isn’t it…”
Diane looked, and her eyes lit up…
“Turn it up! Turn it up! I want to hear what they’re saying!”
“…so after careful consideration, following the unfortunate mismanagement problems and abuses of authority, misappropriations of funds, and other irregularities that have occurred in that department under Director Zebulon Sikorski, who has since disappeared along with Sub-Director Dumas Zwolinski, I have asked the Department of National Security to make certain changes. In particular, I have asked that changes be made in the so-called ‘special units’ in charge of developing protocols and policies that this nation would follow should we ever… or should I say, ‘when,’ we someday make contact with beings or persons from elsewhere in this vast universe in which we live. In keeping with the new policies and goals of that department and the goals of this Administration, I am proud to announce that I have appointed Daniel Christopher Klein to be the new director, replacing ex-Director Sikorski. I am going to turn the podium over now to Director Klein, who will answer your questions and give some further perspective on the changes.”
Bush motioned to Klein, who smiled slightly and walked up to the microphone. Bush shook Klein’s hand, as cameras flashed and video cameras rolled, then turned the podium over to him.
“Mister Klein! Mister Klein!” Reporters yelled out, waving to get his attention…
Klein pointed to Diane Sawyer.
“Mister Klein, the affairs of the office of which you are assuming control have always been clouded in secrecy and suspicion. Do you expect to do anything to bring your department more into the open?”
“That’s a very good question, Diane… and you are right. This department has been clouded in secrecy… and suspicion. And the results are largely what you have seen: mismanagement and other abuses… I am not going to stand here and tell you, though, that every secret of our nation will now be available for print or to be broadcast…”
There was some laughter and a few, “Aw darns” from the Press and other media.
“…but I can promise you that this Department henceforth will be more in tune with the policies of this Administration and the wishes of the people. This Department will not be a renegade department running amok and making its own policies according to the paranoid visions of one or two men.”
”Mister Klein! Mister Klein!”
“Yes, Geraldo?”
“Mister Klein, it has long been rumored that an area known as “Area 51,” which will now be under the authority of your department, is hiding a UFO that crashed in Roswell in the 1940’s. In keeping with your new goals of openess, I would like to throw open those doors and show the world what is in there?”
There was again some laughter from the media, but many looked to see how Klein would answer.
“No, Geraldo.” Klein smiled and shook his head. There was a little more laughter.
“As I said, our nation does have its security issues, and there are things that must remain that way in order to protect our nation and avoid spreading our secrets to hostile nations that would use them against us or to terrorist groups or others for ultimately evil purposes. We are committed to keeping our nation strong and free. That area is, for some valid reasons, a high security area, and I’m afraid we would have to shoot you if we found you in there.”
There was a lot of laughter from the media. Geraldo smiled slightly, not totally sure if he should be smiling or not.
“Mister Klein! Mister Klein!”
“Yes, Mister Koppel.”
“Mister Klein, regarding the mysterious disappearances of ex-Director Zeb Sikorski and Sub-Director, Dumas Zwolinski, isn’t it true that Zwolinski was thrown out of the Department and was taken back at the last moment in spite of numerous irregularities? And there are some conspiracy rumors out there that say that Sikorski and Zwolinski were themselves aliens and went back to their own planet. I even heard that Sikorski was really purple with pink polka dots… I mean, obviously these are the ramblings of a lunatic fringe, but, what started these rumors, and what is the real story here, Mister Klein?”
“You get a lot of question packaged into your one question, Mister Koppel! But yes, ex-Sub-Director Zwolinski was thrown out of the Department after numerous irregularities, and yes, Director Sikorski, for whatever reasons known only to him, did take him back and even promoted him to Sub-Director. We all know what the results of that were. Both are gone now. As to the conspiracy theories…”
There was a lot of laughter among the media.
“What can I say? Purple with pink polka dots? I will say this, though, Mister Koppel, neither Director Sikorski nor Sub-Director Zwolinski was an alien. We will have to accept responsibility for them and their actions here on our planet, I’m afraid.” More laughter was heard.
“Mister Rather!” said Klein, pointing to Dan Rather in the front of the media group.
“Thank you, Mister Klein! Mister Klein, there have been some rumors -I am not at liberty to reveal my sources- that you yourself have actually met with ‘aliens’ and spoken with them and may perhaps have even been onboard their ship.” There was again some laughter from the media. “I wondered how you would respond to these, uh, assertions from what had previously been an unimpeachable source.” There was a lot of snickering at Rather’s choice of wording of his last sentence.
Klein grinned. “Well, Mister Rather, I don’t remember ever claiming to have been abducted. I had some friends in college who may have smoked a little bit of strange weed and thought they saw me abducted.”
There was a lot of laughter from the media.
“But to answer your question, I guess if I had been in contact with someone from another planet or had been onboard their space ship, I would probably have to declare that a national security issue, wouldn’t I?”
Dan Rather smiled sheepishly and nodded… “But if you were to ever meet someone from another planet, Mister Klein, what would be the reaction of your Department?”
Klein stepped closer to the microphone. “This question, Mister Rather, goes right to the heart and soul of my being here and what the future of this new Department is all about. Gone are the times when this Department operated under a paranoid director and a few like-minded individuals who believed that any contact with the outside would be harmful and detrimental to Earth and should be repelled or destroyed at any cost. This Department, in cooperation with the current Administration, will lead our nation forward into a new day, starting today, that looks to the future and to the stars for the possibilities that they may hold, with hope and not with fear.
But if I were to meet any ‘aliens,’ Mister Rather, or if I had met any ‘aliens,’ I would say this to them now…”
The cameras moved in on Klein’s face as he spoke.
“Come and see me. My doors are always open to you. We want to learn from you and hope that we may have something to offer you in return. If you are our friend, you will be welcomed as a friend, not an enemy. That is my promise to you and to this nation… We as a nation, and this Department, intend to move ahead into the future bravely and boldly, welcoming opportunity, embracing that with which we have been unfamiliar, learning, and sharing. We shall henceforth put our efforts and our hearts into being at one with the universe, not at odds with it. So I say again, my doors are open. If you’re out there listening, come see me.”
There was applause from the media.
“Go, Klein!” Diane said, her eyes misting up. “This took place a little earlier, didn’t it, Liz? I mean, it’s being replayed on the news?”
Liz nodded and saw the look in Diane’s eyes…
“Oh, Diane! You don’t even have to ask! You know you can!”
Liz took the Sphere of the Portal from the box and held it out.
“Portal.”
“Ask.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Dan Klein was sitting at his desk shuffling papers when two hands covered his eyes from behind.
“Hi, Diane.”
“You… How do you know it’s me?”
“Who else could it be, Diane? Nobody opened the door. You’re the only person I would expect the unexpected from.”
Diane laughed and leaned over to kiss Klein on the cheek. “I got your invitation.”
Klein smiled. “Somehow I thought you might. I hoped you would!”
“Have you had dinner, Klein?”
“It’s Dan… And, no, I guess I haven’t had time. I forgot about it.”
“Well, if you’re not too much of a chauvinist to let a lady treat you, I know this nice little restaurant with low lights and a wonderful atmosphere on the other side of the universe. You can be back in a flash.”
Klein smiled and looked at Diane then nodded. “Alright. I’ll let you treat me… if you’ll return the favor later and let me treat you.”
“You got it, Kl… Dan!”
“Portal,” Diane said. She took Klein’s hand, and they stepped through the portal together and into a new future for the World.
--------------------------End of Chapter 55
The Future Begins Today
Chapter 55
LV
It was early evening on Antar, and the “Antarians Too” had just returned to Earth after a special “thank you dinner” in their honor at the palace with Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Alex, Isabel, Kyle, Jeliya, Jim, Kathleen, and all the Antarians and New Antarians who had become their friends. The fortunate discovery of the Vreenis spheres on Michael’s Moon made it a simple matter for each one to return directly to her or his home through the portal, so a seventeen-day voyage on the new granolith to get back was no longer necessary.
Isabel and Alex were watching the evening news from Earth with Liz and Maria at the palace when Isabel suddenly gasped and looked closer at the Vision screen…
“Diane! Diane! Get in here!” Isabel screamed.
Diane Casey came running… “What’s the matter?”
“Look!” Isabel said excitedly, pointing at the Vision screen on the wall.
“It’s George Bush,” said Alex… “You’ve seen him before! What’s the big…”
“No, no… Look who’s there with him! Isn’t it…”
Diane looked, and her eyes lit up…
“Turn it up! Turn it up! I want to hear what they’re saying!”
“…so after careful consideration, following the unfortunate mismanagement problems and abuses of authority, misappropriations of funds, and other irregularities that have occurred in that department under Director Zebulon Sikorski, who has since disappeared along with Sub-Director Dumas Zwolinski, I have asked the Department of National Security to make certain changes. In particular, I have asked that changes be made in the so-called ‘special units’ in charge of developing protocols and policies that this nation would follow should we ever… or should I say, ‘when,’ we someday make contact with beings or persons from elsewhere in this vast universe in which we live. In keeping with the new policies and goals of that department and the goals of this Administration, I am proud to announce that I have appointed Daniel Christopher Klein to be the new director, replacing ex-Director Sikorski. I am going to turn the podium over now to Director Klein, who will answer your questions and give some further perspective on the changes.”
Bush motioned to Klein, who smiled slightly and walked up to the microphone. Bush shook Klein’s hand, as cameras flashed and video cameras rolled, then turned the podium over to him.
“Mister Klein! Mister Klein!” Reporters yelled out, waving to get his attention…
Klein pointed to Diane Sawyer.
“Mister Klein, the affairs of the office of which you are assuming control have always been clouded in secrecy and suspicion. Do you expect to do anything to bring your department more into the open?”
“That’s a very good question, Diane… and you are right. This department has been clouded in secrecy… and suspicion. And the results are largely what you have seen: mismanagement and other abuses… I am not going to stand here and tell you, though, that every secret of our nation will now be available for print or to be broadcast…”
There was some laughter and a few, “Aw darns” from the Press and other media.
“…but I can promise you that this Department henceforth will be more in tune with the policies of this Administration and the wishes of the people. This Department will not be a renegade department running amok and making its own policies according to the paranoid visions of one or two men.”
”Mister Klein! Mister Klein!”
“Yes, Geraldo?”
“Mister Klein, it has long been rumored that an area known as “Area 51,” which will now be under the authority of your department, is hiding a UFO that crashed in Roswell in the 1940’s. In keeping with your new goals of openess, I would like to throw open those doors and show the world what is in there?”
There was again some laughter from the media, but many looked to see how Klein would answer.
“No, Geraldo.” Klein smiled and shook his head. There was a little more laughter.
“As I said, our nation does have its security issues, and there are things that must remain that way in order to protect our nation and avoid spreading our secrets to hostile nations that would use them against us or to terrorist groups or others for ultimately evil purposes. We are committed to keeping our nation strong and free. That area is, for some valid reasons, a high security area, and I’m afraid we would have to shoot you if we found you in there.”
There was a lot of laughter from the media. Geraldo smiled slightly, not totally sure if he should be smiling or not.
“Mister Klein! Mister Klein!”
“Yes, Mister Koppel.”
“Mister Klein, regarding the mysterious disappearances of ex-Director Zeb Sikorski and Sub-Director, Dumas Zwolinski, isn’t it true that Zwolinski was thrown out of the Department and was taken back at the last moment in spite of numerous irregularities? And there are some conspiracy rumors out there that say that Sikorski and Zwolinski were themselves aliens and went back to their own planet. I even heard that Sikorski was really purple with pink polka dots… I mean, obviously these are the ramblings of a lunatic fringe, but, what started these rumors, and what is the real story here, Mister Klein?”
“You get a lot of question packaged into your one question, Mister Koppel! But yes, ex-Sub-Director Zwolinski was thrown out of the Department after numerous irregularities, and yes, Director Sikorski, for whatever reasons known only to him, did take him back and even promoted him to Sub-Director. We all know what the results of that were. Both are gone now. As to the conspiracy theories…”
There was a lot of laughter among the media.
“What can I say? Purple with pink polka dots? I will say this, though, Mister Koppel, neither Director Sikorski nor Sub-Director Zwolinski was an alien. We will have to accept responsibility for them and their actions here on our planet, I’m afraid.” More laughter was heard.
“Mister Rather!” said Klein, pointing to Dan Rather in the front of the media group.
“Thank you, Mister Klein! Mister Klein, there have been some rumors -I am not at liberty to reveal my sources- that you yourself have actually met with ‘aliens’ and spoken with them and may perhaps have even been onboard their ship.” There was again some laughter from the media. “I wondered how you would respond to these, uh, assertions from what had previously been an unimpeachable source.” There was a lot of snickering at Rather’s choice of wording of his last sentence.
Klein grinned. “Well, Mister Rather, I don’t remember ever claiming to have been abducted. I had some friends in college who may have smoked a little bit of strange weed and thought they saw me abducted.”
There was a lot of laughter from the media.
“But to answer your question, I guess if I had been in contact with someone from another planet or had been onboard their space ship, I would probably have to declare that a national security issue, wouldn’t I?”
Dan Rather smiled sheepishly and nodded… “But if you were to ever meet someone from another planet, Mister Klein, what would be the reaction of your Department?”
Klein stepped closer to the microphone. “This question, Mister Rather, goes right to the heart and soul of my being here and what the future of this new Department is all about. Gone are the times when this Department operated under a paranoid director and a few like-minded individuals who believed that any contact with the outside would be harmful and detrimental to Earth and should be repelled or destroyed at any cost. This Department, in cooperation with the current Administration, will lead our nation forward into a new day, starting today, that looks to the future and to the stars for the possibilities that they may hold, with hope and not with fear.
But if I were to meet any ‘aliens,’ Mister Rather, or if I had met any ‘aliens,’ I would say this to them now…”
The cameras moved in on Klein’s face as he spoke.
“Come and see me. My doors are always open to you. We want to learn from you and hope that we may have something to offer you in return. If you are our friend, you will be welcomed as a friend, not an enemy. That is my promise to you and to this nation… We as a nation, and this Department, intend to move ahead into the future bravely and boldly, welcoming opportunity, embracing that with which we have been unfamiliar, learning, and sharing. We shall henceforth put our efforts and our hearts into being at one with the universe, not at odds with it. So I say again, my doors are open. If you’re out there listening, come see me.”
There was applause from the media.
“Go, Klein!” Diane said, her eyes misting up. “This took place a little earlier, didn’t it, Liz? I mean, it’s being replayed on the news?”
Liz nodded and saw the look in Diane’s eyes…
“Oh, Diane! You don’t even have to ask! You know you can!”
Liz took the Sphere of the Portal from the box and held it out.
“Portal.”
“Ask.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
Dan Klein was sitting at his desk shuffling papers when two hands covered his eyes from behind.
“Hi, Diane.”
“You… How do you know it’s me?”
“Who else could it be, Diane? Nobody opened the door. You’re the only person I would expect the unexpected from.”
Diane laughed and leaned over to kiss Klein on the cheek. “I got your invitation.”
Klein smiled. “Somehow I thought you might. I hoped you would!”
“Have you had dinner, Klein?”
“It’s Dan… And, no, I guess I haven’t had time. I forgot about it.”
“Well, if you’re not too much of a chauvinist to let a lady treat you, I know this nice little restaurant with low lights and a wonderful atmosphere on the other side of the universe. You can be back in a flash.”
Klein smiled and looked at Diane then nodded. “Alright. I’ll let you treat me… if you’ll return the favor later and let me treat you.”
“You got it, Kl… Dan!”
“Portal,” Diane said. She took Klein’s hand, and they stepped through the portal together and into a new future for the World.
--------------------------End of Chapter 55
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Life In The Stars
<<<>>> Epilogue <<<>>>
Ten days before, somewhere in New York:
Lisa, like the other “Antarians Too,” had returned home through the portal… with one difference. She had asked to be returned on the same day she had left so that she would not have been missing for the past ten days. So the portal had taken Lisa back ten days to the evening of the day she left. She would remember her time away, but for those who had been on Earth, she had only been gone for… well…Ten days before, somewhere in New York:
“Lisa! Is that you I hear coming in?”
“Yeah.”
“It's almost dinnertime!” said the voice from the living room.
“I guess I lost track of the time! I went to Disney World, went camping in the Smoky Mountains, went to the North Pole, and went to another planet, called Antar, where I swam in a Golden Sea and a lot of other cool stuff.”
“Well, you ought to be hungry then, so come on to the table… Dinner's ready.”
As her father walked into her room, he found her already sound asleep on her bed.
“Hunh! She’s worn out… You'd think she really had been running all over the universe!
He shook his head, pulled the covers over her, and smiled…
“What an imagination that girl’s got!”
Turning to leave the room, he reached for the light switch but noticed a sun hat and some shoes that he had not seen before. He picked them up and looked at the labels, but there were only some strange markings. If he could have read Antarian, he would have known the labels said simply, “Kyyks of Antar.”
<<<>>> The End <<<>>>
Postscript:
The mysterious stranger took out a pen and notebook and made some notes as Max walked up outside the CrashDown on Antar.
"So, did we get the job done to your satisfaction," asked Max.
The stranger looked up… “Yeah, I think so.”
Max smiled slightly. “You look kind of tired.”
“Well, you would be, too, Max! Look at me! Wading around in the Everglades, getting bit by mosquitoes… you know where all those mosquitoes went when the kids chased ‘em off the Hammock, don’t you? Look!” The stranger pulled up a pants leg showing Max all the bites.
“Then I almost get run over in the Smokies sending those FBI guys on that wild goose chase over to Knoxville so you guys could do what you needed to do. Oh! And don’t even ask me what tickets to Disney World cost nowadays! All those tickets I got for you!”
Max grinned. “Aw, I feel so bad for you,” he said sarcastically, smiling.
“Hey, where would you be without me,” the stranger said. “You should be thanking me!”
“Naw, that’s JK you’re thinking of…”
“Katims? …Yeah, well, sure, but where did Jason leave you, huh? …On the run, split up from your families… What kind of future is that? And what’d he do for Michael and Maria? He couldn’t even get them together except in the end… and even then he couldn’t get ‘em married. Heck, he killed Alex off and corrupted Tess! I had to bring Alex back by sending you to the past! Now look at you! You’re on Antar, you’re the king again, you got Liz, Michael’s got Maria, Isabel’s got Alex, everybody’s happy… You got kids!”
Max smiled, “Okay, okay… yeah, we all like it! I’m just joshing you, because you only had to use a stroke of a pen to keep the mosquitoes away from you…”
“Oh, yeah! And how would that have looked in the story! Blow my cover! Sure!”
Max snickered, and the mysterious stranger nodded and smiled.
“Yeah… Well… It’s been a trip, Max!”
“Same here.”
As the stranger and Max both turned to leave, Max yelled back...
“Hey... See you next time, huh? And thanks!”
The stranger waved and nodded then walked away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<<<<<<<>>>>>>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe (CC, TEEN)
Children of the Universe - TEEN
formerly titled: "Antarians Shed Tears Too"
Children of the Universe is the third book of the “Altered Time” series. It can be read and enjoyed as a separate story from the others, but to fully understand all the characters and how they got there, it is, of course, recommended that the first two stories be read first. For those of you who choose to read this one first, anyway, here is a brief summary to bring you up to this point quickly while hopefully not spoiling any of the secrets or excitement of the first two. In Altered Time-Destiny in the Stars, Max and Michael are living on Antar. Kivar destroyed the Earth several years before, and Liz, Maria, Isabel, and all the others are gone. This, of course, just won’t do, and Max and Michael set out on a mission to change the past. Some wind up living on Antar, and the CrashDown is rebuilt on Antar. A couple of new characters from Antar become regulars, marrying into the group. Oh yeah, look for Alex, too! He saves the world! Then there is the awesome jah-ee! You’ll have to read the story for that!
In the second story, Life in the Stars, a long-held bombshell secret concerning Tess and Liz is uncovered. Then Max and group return to Earth to show their kids, who range from 5 to 9 years old now and have their own unique "abilities," where they grew up. On Earth, they encounter an old enemy in a former alien task force agent who holds a very big grudge, and the children’s lives are seriously endangered. There is some angst, (okay, a lot of angst! But my stories never end sadly… and there is also a lot of fun!) Diane Casey and Dan Klein become characters in Life in the Stars. They were agents who joined the podsters and friends.
That brings us to this story, Children of the Universe. The story begins 10-11 years after Life in the Stars, and Max and friends are sad, depressed, and full of angst since a disaster of Antar-wide proportions 9 years before destroyed their lives, but don’t expect things to stay this way. Remember that the darkest hour is right before the dawn. There is lots of action, adventure, humor, romance, and sci-fi here, just as in the first two stories. And besides, have I ever let you down? Feedback is always appreciated!
Melinda Metz and the creators of Roswell, the TV series, Jason Katims, et al, deserve the credit for the characters from the TV show and for whatever mention, if any, there might be of any event that occurred on the TV show. For better or worse, all other characters and storylines are mine.
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Last edited by Island Breeze on Mon May 08, 2006 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe (CC, TEEN)
Children
Of The Universe
The “Darkness”
Chapter 1
I
Liz answered the door in the palace; she was expecting Michael and Maria.
“Hi, Maria… Hi, Michael… Come on in. Dinner will be ready soon. Glad you could make it.”
Maria smiled. She looked older. Her face was drawn and had a sadness to it… not the sadness of something gone wrong today, but the sadness of a long, enduring pain… “Hi, Liz.”
Michael gave Liz a hug.
“Have you seen Izzie lately?” Michael asked. Liz nodded.
“She and Alex doing okay? I haven’t seen them for quite some time… I think since the end of last year.”
“Yeah,” Liz answered. They’re doing okay.”
“Kyle and Jeliya?”
Liz nodded again. “Yeah, they’re makin’ it.”
“Jim?”
Liz didn’t answer for a moment. Then she nodded.
“He’s hanging on. I saw him at the ranch last week.”
There was silence for several minutes, as though no one quite knew what to say.
“I always thought she was the strongest one of all of us…” Michael continued after a few minutes.
“Kathleen?” Liz asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Liz said darkly, “I understand her perfectly. She was strong. But the strongest steel shatters if you hit it just right and hard enough. I’ve… I’ve felt like doing the same thing… You just don’t know… well… I guess you do.”
Maria hugged Liz, and both of them began to cry.
Michael sniffed, too, not meaning to. “The stoutest trees are the ones the wind blows over,” Michael said, “It’s the ones that nobody thought were strong… the ones that can bend… that somehow survive. How long has it been? Nine years?”
“Nine years, forty-four days, and…” Maria looked at her watch, “…what are we dwelling on it for! It’s not going to change anything!”
“Hey, all!” Max said, as he walked into the room. Max looked around and noticed that the mood had become somber, as it always tended to do when they got together anymore since the day of "The Darkness." Max, like the others, looked older, and like the others, his face showed far more sadness than it should. But he was determined to try to bring some happiness into this reunion.
“Come on, guys… Let’s watch some vision screen or something before dinner! Buffy’s starting her nineteenth season tonight!”
Michael grinned slightly. “Let’s see… She’s what? …knocking forty now?”
Even Liz smiled slightly. “Well, she still slays ‘em like she always did,” Liz said with a slight giggle. “She just complains about her back after she does it now.”
Maria smiled and giggled, too. “At least Angel doesn’t change. And he can give her back rubs!”
“I hear Steven Spielberg has chosen the cast for Star Wars, Episode 3,” Max said.
Everybody laughed. “That would be funny if it just weren’t true!” Michael said. “I don’t think he’ll live long enough to make another Star Wars movie after this one… not at the rate he’s putting them out!”
The four friends sat down on the oversized Antarian sofa and turned on the video screen. For a few minutes, no one said anything, as they watched the early evening news from Earth. Then Maria broke the silence…
“Why don’t we… you know, try going back to the past one more time?”
Michael hugged her. “Maria… you know we did that… Three times! It didn’t make any difference.”
“I know, I know,” Maria said softly. “I know… I just keep trying to think what we could do.”
“I think we tried everything that we know to try,” said Liz. “Maria, I’m hurting, too. So is Max, and so are the others. All of Antar is hurting. But some things apparently can’t be changed.”
“I know,” Maria said softly again. “But I just can’t help wanting to do something.”
“I know,” Liz said, hugging her. “I feel the same way. Sometimes I can’t stand it. But we have to remain strong… for each other. The scientists are still trying to find out what happened and how we can make sure it never happens again.”
“I don’t give a damn about ‘again’,” Maria almost yelled. “I care about…” Tears began to roll down her cheeks, as her voice broke up. “I care about what I lost… what we all lost.”
Liz hugged Maria, and Maria hugged Liz, as both cried quietly. It was hard on Max and Michael, just as much as it was on Liz and Maria… and every other Antarian. Max and Michael both longed to get back to some semblance of a normal life, but they hurt inside as deeply as Liz and Maria… in their own way. They didn’t get together often with the others or even with each other anymore, precisely because the visits always broke down into talk of how there should have been a way… they should have had some warning… they should never have come to Antar… maybe if they took the new granilith or used the Sphere of the Portal one more time to go back to the past… a hundred different things… it was all a lesson in futility and frustration.
Everything had been tried, most things several times. As to what had caused it -the “Day of Darkness,” as it was known on Antar- nine years later, the scientists were still “working on it” …the scientists in whom Michael had put so much confidence. Now he tended to get frustrated and short-tempered with them. He knew -they all did- that whatever the scientists found out, if they ever even did find out exactly what happened, it wasn’t going to change the past. It was too late for that.
<center>End of Chapter 1
tbc…</center>
Of The Universe
The “Darkness”
Chapter 1
I
Liz answered the door in the palace; she was expecting Michael and Maria.
“Hi, Maria… Hi, Michael… Come on in. Dinner will be ready soon. Glad you could make it.”
Maria smiled. She looked older. Her face was drawn and had a sadness to it… not the sadness of something gone wrong today, but the sadness of a long, enduring pain… “Hi, Liz.”
Michael gave Liz a hug.
“Have you seen Izzie lately?” Michael asked. Liz nodded.
“She and Alex doing okay? I haven’t seen them for quite some time… I think since the end of last year.”
“Yeah,” Liz answered. They’re doing okay.”
“Kyle and Jeliya?”
Liz nodded again. “Yeah, they’re makin’ it.”
“Jim?”
Liz didn’t answer for a moment. Then she nodded.
“He’s hanging on. I saw him at the ranch last week.”
There was silence for several minutes, as though no one quite knew what to say.
“I always thought she was the strongest one of all of us…” Michael continued after a few minutes.
“Kathleen?” Liz asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Liz said darkly, “I understand her perfectly. She was strong. But the strongest steel shatters if you hit it just right and hard enough. I’ve… I’ve felt like doing the same thing… You just don’t know… well… I guess you do.”
Maria hugged Liz, and both of them began to cry.
Michael sniffed, too, not meaning to. “The stoutest trees are the ones the wind blows over,” Michael said, “It’s the ones that nobody thought were strong… the ones that can bend… that somehow survive. How long has it been? Nine years?”
“Nine years, forty-four days, and…” Maria looked at her watch, “…what are we dwelling on it for! It’s not going to change anything!”
“Hey, all!” Max said, as he walked into the room. Max looked around and noticed that the mood had become somber, as it always tended to do when they got together anymore since the day of "The Darkness." Max, like the others, looked older, and like the others, his face showed far more sadness than it should. But he was determined to try to bring some happiness into this reunion.
“Come on, guys… Let’s watch some vision screen or something before dinner! Buffy’s starting her nineteenth season tonight!”
Michael grinned slightly. “Let’s see… She’s what? …knocking forty now?”
Even Liz smiled slightly. “Well, she still slays ‘em like she always did,” Liz said with a slight giggle. “She just complains about her back after she does it now.”
Maria smiled and giggled, too. “At least Angel doesn’t change. And he can give her back rubs!”
“I hear Steven Spielberg has chosen the cast for Star Wars, Episode 3,” Max said.
Everybody laughed. “That would be funny if it just weren’t true!” Michael said. “I don’t think he’ll live long enough to make another Star Wars movie after this one… not at the rate he’s putting them out!”
The four friends sat down on the oversized Antarian sofa and turned on the video screen. For a few minutes, no one said anything, as they watched the early evening news from Earth. Then Maria broke the silence…
“Why don’t we… you know, try going back to the past one more time?”
Michael hugged her. “Maria… you know we did that… Three times! It didn’t make any difference.”
“I know, I know,” Maria said softly. “I know… I just keep trying to think what we could do.”
“I think we tried everything that we know to try,” said Liz. “Maria, I’m hurting, too. So is Max, and so are the others. All of Antar is hurting. But some things apparently can’t be changed.”
“I know,” Maria said softly again. “But I just can’t help wanting to do something.”
“I know,” Liz said, hugging her. “I feel the same way. Sometimes I can’t stand it. But we have to remain strong… for each other. The scientists are still trying to find out what happened and how we can make sure it never happens again.”
“I don’t give a damn about ‘again’,” Maria almost yelled. “I care about…” Tears began to roll down her cheeks, as her voice broke up. “I care about what I lost… what we all lost.”
Liz hugged Maria, and Maria hugged Liz, as both cried quietly. It was hard on Max and Michael, just as much as it was on Liz and Maria… and every other Antarian. Max and Michael both longed to get back to some semblance of a normal life, but they hurt inside as deeply as Liz and Maria… in their own way. They didn’t get together often with the others or even with each other anymore, precisely because the visits always broke down into talk of how there should have been a way… they should have had some warning… they should never have come to Antar… maybe if they took the new granilith or used the Sphere of the Portal one more time to go back to the past… a hundred different things… it was all a lesson in futility and frustration.
Everything had been tried, most things several times. As to what had caused it -the “Day of Darkness,” as it was known on Antar- nine years later, the scientists were still “working on it” …the scientists in whom Michael had put so much confidence. Now he tended to get frustrated and short-tempered with them. He knew -they all did- that whatever the scientists found out, if they ever even did find out exactly what happened, it wasn’t going to change the past. It was too late for that.
<center>End of Chapter 1
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
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Children Of The Universe (CC, TEEN)
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Diane’s Story
Chapter 2
II
In Washington, D.C., former alien task force agents Diane Casey and Dan Klein were having dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant. Diane still lived on Antar and had become integrated into society there thoroughly and quickly. She already spoke fluent Antarian and was very well versed in Antarian history and lore.
Diane made frequent use of the sphere of the portal to see Daniel Christopher Klein who had only really come to know her when she left to go to Antar with Max and Michael and their group on the new granilith. Shortly after that, on Earth, Dan had been made Head of the National Security Department that is in charge of “alien” matters, replacing Zeb Sikorski, who had “disappeared,” along with his new Sub-Director, Dumas Zwolinski, after numerous irregularities and embarrassments to the Department. Liz offered Diane the use of the sphere of the portal so that she might go to see Dan right after President George W. Bush appointed him to the new position. Since then, Diane had used the sphere at least a couple of times a week, possibly becoming the most well-traveled intergalactic visitor ever.
“Diane, when are you going to give in and marry me?”
Diane smiled and gave Dan a kiss.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Dan.”
“A hurry? It’s been ten years since we met and over eight since I asked you to marry me! I don’t think of that as a ‘hurry.’”
“I know, Dan. I’m just… you know…”
“I know you’re afraid, Diane, but maybe it wouldn’t happen to us… I mean… now. That was nine years ago.”
Diane winced. “I was there, remember? I was there on Antar when the sky turned black in the middle of the day. I watched as all the Antarian children became ill. I watched Liz hold her children and try to save them as they died, one by one, each one of them, over a few hours after the sky turned black. I could never bear that. I’d rather never have children, Dan, than lose them like that…”
“I know, Diane… I know… but the darkness lasted less than six hours, and it’s never happened again. Antar has been okay since then.”
“No, Dan!” Diane shook her head. “Antar will never be the same… never again. Every child under fifteen died during “The Darkness” …about half of the fifteen-year-olds died, too. No Antarian has been able to have a child since then. Antar is a dead planet… a planet just waiting for its own extinction.”
Dan looked down for a moment and rubbed one eye with the knuckle of a finger. He nodded.
“I… I can’t imagine what it must be like for them… for you, too. I do understand, Diane. That’s why I’ve waited all these years. That, and because I love you.”
Diane wiped a few tears from her own eyes. “Geez, I love you, too, Dan! I do! I want to marry you! But I know I’m going to want to have children… and… I’m afraid… I don’t even know if I can have kids now… and if I can, I don’t want to lose them…”
Dan put his arm around her comfortingly and pulled her close to him.
“Your scientists up there still don’t know what caused it?”
Diane shook her head. “No. I don’t know if they ever will. God knows, they’ve given it their all! It’s just that no one has ever heard of anything like this before.”
“You said Max and Liz went back to the past to try to change what happened?”
“Yeah, three times. Michael and Maria went, too. I went once, too. The first and second times, they went through the portal. The third time, they programmed the new granilith to take them to the past the same way they saved Liz and Maria and everybody before on Earth.”
“But it didn’t work this time, you said.”
Diane shook her head again. “They weren’t there. When we went back to before ‘The Darkness,’ the children just weren’t there. It was like they never existed at all before ‘The Darkness.’ Dan… I never saw Liz so distressed before… or Maria either.”
“Max couldn’t heal them? I mean, he tried, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Oh yes! He tried and tried… It just didn’t have any effect at all. I felt so sorry for Max watching him try so hard and each one die in their arms. It was too much for me, Dan. You can understand, can’t you?”
Dan nodded and held Diane closer.
“After Max saw that he wasn’t going to be able to save Maya, they called Kryys in to try to save her as she was dying. He was awesome, turning into these streams of swirling lights and passing all through Maya. But he couldn’t save her. He said there was nothing to fix. Ten minutes later, she was dead. Thirty minutes after that, Kryys was dead. An hour after that, both of the other girls were dead.”
“Buried?”
“No. Antarians don’t get buried. Their bodies turn into a pile of dust after they’re dead… not always immediately, but very soon.”
“How about that guy that lived on the other planet that had the spheres before Liz? …that ‘Shag’ guy? Did Max and Liz ask him…?”
“…if he had ever seen anything like this or knew what could be done?” Diane finished Dan’s sentence for him. “Yeah! They contacted him immediately. He had never seen anything like it either… and Shag has been all over the universe.”
“Wow…” Dan said quietly. “Doesn’t leave much of any place to go does it?”
“No,” Diane shook her head. “It doesn’t.”
<center>End of Chapter 2
tbc…</center>
Diane’s Story
Chapter 2
II
In Washington, D.C., former alien task force agents Diane Casey and Dan Klein were having dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant. Diane still lived on Antar and had become integrated into society there thoroughly and quickly. She already spoke fluent Antarian and was very well versed in Antarian history and lore.
Diane made frequent use of the sphere of the portal to see Daniel Christopher Klein who had only really come to know her when she left to go to Antar with Max and Michael and their group on the new granilith. Shortly after that, on Earth, Dan had been made Head of the National Security Department that is in charge of “alien” matters, replacing Zeb Sikorski, who had “disappeared,” along with his new Sub-Director, Dumas Zwolinski, after numerous irregularities and embarrassments to the Department. Liz offered Diane the use of the sphere of the portal so that she might go to see Dan right after President George W. Bush appointed him to the new position. Since then, Diane had used the sphere at least a couple of times a week, possibly becoming the most well-traveled intergalactic visitor ever.
“Diane, when are you going to give in and marry me?”
Diane smiled and gave Dan a kiss.
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Dan.”
“A hurry? It’s been ten years since we met and over eight since I asked you to marry me! I don’t think of that as a ‘hurry.’”
“I know, Dan. I’m just… you know…”
“I know you’re afraid, Diane, but maybe it wouldn’t happen to us… I mean… now. That was nine years ago.”
Diane winced. “I was there, remember? I was there on Antar when the sky turned black in the middle of the day. I watched as all the Antarian children became ill. I watched Liz hold her children and try to save them as they died, one by one, each one of them, over a few hours after the sky turned black. I could never bear that. I’d rather never have children, Dan, than lose them like that…”
“I know, Diane… I know… but the darkness lasted less than six hours, and it’s never happened again. Antar has been okay since then.”
“No, Dan!” Diane shook her head. “Antar will never be the same… never again. Every child under fifteen died during “The Darkness” …about half of the fifteen-year-olds died, too. No Antarian has been able to have a child since then. Antar is a dead planet… a planet just waiting for its own extinction.”
Dan looked down for a moment and rubbed one eye with the knuckle of a finger. He nodded.
“I… I can’t imagine what it must be like for them… for you, too. I do understand, Diane. That’s why I’ve waited all these years. That, and because I love you.”
Diane wiped a few tears from her own eyes. “Geez, I love you, too, Dan! I do! I want to marry you! But I know I’m going to want to have children… and… I’m afraid… I don’t even know if I can have kids now… and if I can, I don’t want to lose them…”
Dan put his arm around her comfortingly and pulled her close to him.
“Your scientists up there still don’t know what caused it?”
Diane shook her head. “No. I don’t know if they ever will. God knows, they’ve given it their all! It’s just that no one has ever heard of anything like this before.”
“You said Max and Liz went back to the past to try to change what happened?”
“Yeah, three times. Michael and Maria went, too. I went once, too. The first and second times, they went through the portal. The third time, they programmed the new granilith to take them to the past the same way they saved Liz and Maria and everybody before on Earth.”
“But it didn’t work this time, you said.”
Diane shook her head again. “They weren’t there. When we went back to before ‘The Darkness,’ the children just weren’t there. It was like they never existed at all before ‘The Darkness.’ Dan… I never saw Liz so distressed before… or Maria either.”
“Max couldn’t heal them? I mean, he tried, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Oh yes! He tried and tried… It just didn’t have any effect at all. I felt so sorry for Max watching him try so hard and each one die in their arms. It was too much for me, Dan. You can understand, can’t you?”
Dan nodded and held Diane closer.
“After Max saw that he wasn’t going to be able to save Maya, they called Kryys in to try to save her as she was dying. He was awesome, turning into these streams of swirling lights and passing all through Maya. But he couldn’t save her. He said there was nothing to fix. Ten minutes later, she was dead. Thirty minutes after that, Kryys was dead. An hour after that, both of the other girls were dead.”
“Buried?”
“No. Antarians don’t get buried. Their bodies turn into a pile of dust after they’re dead… not always immediately, but very soon.”
“How about that guy that lived on the other planet that had the spheres before Liz? …that ‘Shag’ guy? Did Max and Liz ask him…?”
“…if he had ever seen anything like this or knew what could be done?” Diane finished Dan’s sentence for him. “Yeah! They contacted him immediately. He had never seen anything like it either… and Shag has been all over the universe.”
“Wow…” Dan said quietly. “Doesn’t leave much of any place to go does it?”
“No,” Diane shook her head. “It doesn’t.”
<center>End of Chapter 2
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
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Children Of The Universe (CC, TEEN)
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A Bright Anniversary
Chapter 3
III
Every year, on the anniversary of the “Day of Darkness,” Antarians would begin crowding into the huge main square at the center of CoruzAntar at sundown carrying candles, symbolically chasing away the darkness that nine years before had robbed them of their happiness, their futures, and their lives. They were honoring the memory of the lost children. If light could have brought them back, the children would long ago have been back. As millions upon millions of Antarians squeezed into literally every square inch of CoruzAntar, the city was lit up like daytime by several million bright candles. It was a day of grief and sorrow, but no one could stay away. On Antar, there are no cemeteries… there are no bodies to bury. There is no place to go to share one’s grief and remember. But in a way, this was better. For here, each year, they could all come to light up the night and cry together… and remember… most of all, to remember.
Later, as the crowds were beginning to thin out somewhat, Liz made her way to the linked science lab where she often interned or simply assisted the Antarian scientists. She enjoyed learning about physics and the sciences. It was one of her great passions. She thought that she might rest her mind a bit by throwing herself into a little work and research during the night. As she opened the door and walked in, she found Varec still working.
“Varec, what are you doing here so late?”
“I should ask you the same question, your majesty.”
Liz looked at Varec with that particular look that she had.
“Okay… I mean, Liz,” Varec corrected.
Although Liz was indeed the queen, and a very beloved queen, she had always insisted that her friends, in particular, call her “Liz;” and she had always counted Varec as a friend… a very good friend. It actually embarrassed Liz to be called, “your majesty,” even after all this time. She accepted it from most people, because it was their way… and because it would have caused them embarrassment for her to ask them to refer to her so intimately or informally.
Liz looked around the room. There were several thousand small vials of dust on the walls. Each had a name and a number on it. Each corresponded to a child. These vials contained only a small sample of the dust left behind by the bodies of a few thousand children. The scientists had examined and studied the particles for years. To Liz, it almost seemed like a mausoleum, but she knew that the studies were important.
Varec fumbled with the dust particles from one of the vials and funneled them back into the vial, which he recapped and returned to its place on the wall.
“What is it, Varec?” Liz asked.
“It’s… it may be nothing, Liz. I don’t know…”
“What may be nothing, Varec?”
Varec knew that he was going to have to say it. Liz was very perceptive. She could see it in his face when he was hiding anything, and she certainly knew when he was being evasive.
“Well… I didn’t think much about it at first. It’s just that each of these samples is 99.99% what I would expect from an Antarian…”
“And the other .01%?” Liz pushed.
“Missing,” Varec said. “One small, almost unimportant element is missing. It wouldn’t mean much if it were one or two samples. It’s easy to understand how an element -even several elements- can be missing from such samples… not to mention that they can pick up additional elements and become contaminated. But what confounds me is that it isn’t just one sample that is missing this particular element. It is every single sample. Not one of the samples has HC020f in it.”
“That’s a trace element in Antarian bodies, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Liz. We don’t even know if it’s important. No one would worry about not seeing it in a sample. We can live without it. We’ve never been concerned about the HC020f in our bodies. We normally don’t even check for it. We just know it’s there… in very tiny amounts.”
“And none of these samples has HC020f? Not even one?”
“Not even one.”
“Do you have any idea at all why this could have happened?”
“Well, maybe the darkness that caused their deaths somehow leeched this element out of all the bodies. Or…”
“Or what, Varec?”
“Well, there’s one other thing. I’m not sure about it. But I’ve been over these samples so many times that I already know what I’m going to see in each one without even looking at it. The strange thing is, the samples all seem normal… superficially.”
“Go on!”
“…but I would swear that the 99.99% of the elements that are right were synthesized, not natural.”
Liz gasped. “Is there any way to be sure?”
Varec shook his head. “I’ve done every kind of test. Normally, if the elements were not natural, it would be no problem for me to tell it and prove it. But… these samples are almost perfect.”
“But not perfect… you said ‘almost.’ That means not 100%…”
“That is my belief… but I can’t verify it. None of our tests are sophisticated enough to verify it. Call it just the experience of someone who has looked at a lot of samples. To me, there is something about these samples that makes my mind think ‘synthesized,’ and I don’t even know what it is!”
Varec pounded his fist down on the table in an uncharacteristic display of frustration, momentarily losing his usual carefully maintained self-control.
Liz thought for a moment. “Varec, I would put your experience and talent up against any test that exists in the universe. If you think these samples look synthesized, then I believe they are. But what does it mean?”
Varec was silent for a few moments. “It… it may mean nothing, Liz…”
“But you think it does!” Liz said with conviction.
Varec looked down at the floor then up toward the sky.
“Well, Liz, I don’t want to give anyone additional pain or any false… ideas. But it could mean…”
He paused again.
“What?” Liz asked, not allowing him the time to regret his decision to speak.
“It could mean that our children…”
A lump caught in his throat as he tried to say it…
“I think it might mean that our children may still be alive.”
<center>End of Chapter 3
tbc…</center>
A Bright Anniversary
Chapter 3
III
Every year, on the anniversary of the “Day of Darkness,” Antarians would begin crowding into the huge main square at the center of CoruzAntar at sundown carrying candles, symbolically chasing away the darkness that nine years before had robbed them of their happiness, their futures, and their lives. They were honoring the memory of the lost children. If light could have brought them back, the children would long ago have been back. As millions upon millions of Antarians squeezed into literally every square inch of CoruzAntar, the city was lit up like daytime by several million bright candles. It was a day of grief and sorrow, but no one could stay away. On Antar, there are no cemeteries… there are no bodies to bury. There is no place to go to share one’s grief and remember. But in a way, this was better. For here, each year, they could all come to light up the night and cry together… and remember… most of all, to remember.
Later, as the crowds were beginning to thin out somewhat, Liz made her way to the linked science lab where she often interned or simply assisted the Antarian scientists. She enjoyed learning about physics and the sciences. It was one of her great passions. She thought that she might rest her mind a bit by throwing herself into a little work and research during the night. As she opened the door and walked in, she found Varec still working.
“Varec, what are you doing here so late?”
“I should ask you the same question, your majesty.”
Liz looked at Varec with that particular look that she had.
“Okay… I mean, Liz,” Varec corrected.
Although Liz was indeed the queen, and a very beloved queen, she had always insisted that her friends, in particular, call her “Liz;” and she had always counted Varec as a friend… a very good friend. It actually embarrassed Liz to be called, “your majesty,” even after all this time. She accepted it from most people, because it was their way… and because it would have caused them embarrassment for her to ask them to refer to her so intimately or informally.
Liz looked around the room. There were several thousand small vials of dust on the walls. Each had a name and a number on it. Each corresponded to a child. These vials contained only a small sample of the dust left behind by the bodies of a few thousand children. The scientists had examined and studied the particles for years. To Liz, it almost seemed like a mausoleum, but she knew that the studies were important.
Varec fumbled with the dust particles from one of the vials and funneled them back into the vial, which he recapped and returned to its place on the wall.
“What is it, Varec?” Liz asked.
“It’s… it may be nothing, Liz. I don’t know…”
“What may be nothing, Varec?”
Varec knew that he was going to have to say it. Liz was very perceptive. She could see it in his face when he was hiding anything, and she certainly knew when he was being evasive.
“Well… I didn’t think much about it at first. It’s just that each of these samples is 99.99% what I would expect from an Antarian…”
“And the other .01%?” Liz pushed.
“Missing,” Varec said. “One small, almost unimportant element is missing. It wouldn’t mean much if it were one or two samples. It’s easy to understand how an element -even several elements- can be missing from such samples… not to mention that they can pick up additional elements and become contaminated. But what confounds me is that it isn’t just one sample that is missing this particular element. It is every single sample. Not one of the samples has HC020f in it.”
“That’s a trace element in Antarian bodies, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Liz. We don’t even know if it’s important. No one would worry about not seeing it in a sample. We can live without it. We’ve never been concerned about the HC020f in our bodies. We normally don’t even check for it. We just know it’s there… in very tiny amounts.”
“And none of these samples has HC020f? Not even one?”
“Not even one.”
“Do you have any idea at all why this could have happened?”
“Well, maybe the darkness that caused their deaths somehow leeched this element out of all the bodies. Or…”
“Or what, Varec?”
“Well, there’s one other thing. I’m not sure about it. But I’ve been over these samples so many times that I already know what I’m going to see in each one without even looking at it. The strange thing is, the samples all seem normal… superficially.”
“Go on!”
“…but I would swear that the 99.99% of the elements that are right were synthesized, not natural.”
Liz gasped. “Is there any way to be sure?”
Varec shook his head. “I’ve done every kind of test. Normally, if the elements were not natural, it would be no problem for me to tell it and prove it. But… these samples are almost perfect.”
“But not perfect… you said ‘almost.’ That means not 100%…”
“That is my belief… but I can’t verify it. None of our tests are sophisticated enough to verify it. Call it just the experience of someone who has looked at a lot of samples. To me, there is something about these samples that makes my mind think ‘synthesized,’ and I don’t even know what it is!”
Varec pounded his fist down on the table in an uncharacteristic display of frustration, momentarily losing his usual carefully maintained self-control.
Liz thought for a moment. “Varec, I would put your experience and talent up against any test that exists in the universe. If you think these samples look synthesized, then I believe they are. But what does it mean?”
Varec was silent for a few moments. “It… it may mean nothing, Liz…”
“But you think it does!” Liz said with conviction.
Varec looked down at the floor then up toward the sky.
“Well, Liz, I don’t want to give anyone additional pain or any false… ideas. But it could mean…”
He paused again.
“What?” Liz asked, not allowing him the time to regret his decision to speak.
“It could mean that our children…”
A lump caught in his throat as he tried to say it…
“I think it might mean that our children may still be alive.”
<center>End of Chapter 3
tbc…</center>
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Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
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Children Of The Universe (CC, TEEN)
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
Escape On Gadyslar
Chapter 4
IV
Sirens were screaming, piercing the nighttime darkness of Gadyslar. Then the sirens were joined by the cacophony of the yarols clamoring in their high-pitched, screechy voices as they tracked the fugitives’ scents through the forest toward the river. The young couple ran fast and agilely through the forest holding hands to avoid getting separated. Soon they were at the river.
“We’ll swim upstream,” said the young man as he pulled the girl into the stream with him. “The yarols will follow our scents downstream with the current.”
For most, this would have been an impossible task. Although the river was not a “rapids,” it was swift enough that the average individual would have been swept downstream. But this young man and woman, who appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, were in the peak of condition. Their bodies were toned and muscled from hard, constant work in extreme conditions.
Forty minutes later, the young man and his companion emerged from the river three miles upstream, breathing heavily but not exhausted. The young man pointed toward a far away line of trees and took the girl’s hand again. They ran together for the next hour till they had reached the distant woods.
“How far do you think we made it, Alyyx?”
“I’d say at least twenty nauts… I think we’ll be okay for a little while. The yarols went downstream following the water scent. You want to sit down, Jayyd?”
The young girl sat down and leaned her head on Alyyx Evans’ chest. She smiled and looked up into his eyes. Alyyx returned the smile and kissed her gently on the lips. “As long as we’re together, Jayyd… That’s what matters to me.”
“I couldn’t have gone on if you hadn’t got me out tonight, Alyyx. I don’t think I could live without you.”
Alyyx smiled and kissed her again. “I couldn’t let the Ghors turn you over to that freak creep from Derstuk that bought you.”
Jayyd hugged Alyyx and laid her head back on his chest again.
“Alyyx? How are we going to get off of this moon? The Ghors have it guarded. They watch from their planet down there all the time. They know everything that comes and goes…”
“I don’t know, Jayyd. I haven’t figured that out yet. But I will! Nobody’s selling you, Jayyd Guerin! Nobody!”
Jayyd smiled. She waved her hand over Alyyx then over herself, changing their colors to match the surrounding darkness and the trees.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In the complex from which they had escaped, the Ghor commander was furious.
“I want those two Antarians back in this complex before morning! I don’t need to tell you the trouble it could bring us if they were to get off of this moon and escape.”
“You mean from the Derstukki that bought the female?” the guard asked.
“Him, too!” the Ghor commander said, “But he’s not the one I had in mind.”
“Who…”
“Never mind Rawgus! You don’t want to know! You just make sure those two are back here before daylight… or you will be punished most severely for this unfortunate occurrence. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Hosk!”
“Commander,” said another guard, seeking Hosk’s attention.
“What is it Pussox? I’m busy!”
“Commander, you have not forgotten the Garg’s visit tomorrow, have you?”
Hosk’s skin, or whatever passed for skin on a Ghor, turned several shades of the splotchy grayish pallor his species was known for. Clearly, he had, in the confusion of the night’s events, forgotten that the supreme military leader of the Ghors’ planet was to make a visit in the morning to Gadyslar, the moon where the Ghors’ kept their captured victims to await their sale to other creatures in the universe as slaves, pets, or occasionally, as exotic foods.
“Just get those Antarians back!” Hosk screamed, as he turned to leave. “And I do mean tonight!”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On the planet Ghorbidfael below, the Garg was preparing for his visit to Gadyslar in the morning. The facility on Gadyslar had been very profitable to the Ghors, and Garg Jerkov planned to see the facility for himself.
“I’ve heard of this newer system that Hosk is using to collect specimens now. The “Midnight Cloud,” he calls it. I don’t think I quite understand how it works. Where did he find this again?”
“He found it on Krolus, my Garg.”
“Krolus? Yes… that’s right. Stole it, you mean! That was the planet where he stole the ionic speed technology that got him back home in three months instead of fifteen years or whatever it would have taken after that Xarian king, what’s his name… Shaqor, sent him to that part of the galaxy.” The Garg smiled, allowing the pointed teeth that normally remained set into the Ghors’ lower lip to rise above the lip where their sharpness could be seen.
“I wonder what the Krolians would pay to get their technology back…”
“My Garg… you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t be an imbecile. Of course I wouldn’t give it back! But I might let them have Hosk… if the price was right. Then I’d kill them of course.”
“Of course, my Garg.”
“How does this ‘Midnight Cloud’ work, Grisnot?”
“Well, sir… when it is used from an area anywhere within forty parnaps of a planet, a dark ionizing cloud envelops the planet. The cloud causes systemic dysfunction in immature creatures… those creatures that are still maturing. This dysfunction makes them temporarily cease to function. The creatures are recovered by a transporter device once they have ceased to function. The device scans the creatures’ bodies as it transports them and leaves a synthesized material behind similar to what would have remained of the creatures if they had actually ceased to function… ceased to function permanently, I mean.”
“Of course! …Grisnot?”
“Yes?”
“Why would the Krolians develop such a device?”
“Well, sir, I understand that many generations ago the Krolians were involved in a war with another planet, and many young Krolians were captured and imprisoned on the other planet. The Krolians devised this technology not as a weapon but as a means of rescuing their children who were being held as prisoners.”
“Interesting… very interesting! Well, it has served Hosk very well indeed! Our planet has increased its profits seven hundred percent since he returned with the device. And since we don’t have to stop ships in space to find specimens, that annoying king from Xarius won’t know anything is going on and will leave us alone.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In the woods, twenty nauts away from the Ghors’ slave facility on the moon of Gadyslar, Jayyd slept peacefully under the stars with her head on Alyyx’s chest. For the first time in nine years, they slept free.
<center>End of Chapter 4
tbc…</center>
Escape On Gadyslar
Chapter 4
IV
Sirens were screaming, piercing the nighttime darkness of Gadyslar. Then the sirens were joined by the cacophony of the yarols clamoring in their high-pitched, screechy voices as they tracked the fugitives’ scents through the forest toward the river. The young couple ran fast and agilely through the forest holding hands to avoid getting separated. Soon they were at the river.
“We’ll swim upstream,” said the young man as he pulled the girl into the stream with him. “The yarols will follow our scents downstream with the current.”
For most, this would have been an impossible task. Although the river was not a “rapids,” it was swift enough that the average individual would have been swept downstream. But this young man and woman, who appeared to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, were in the peak of condition. Their bodies were toned and muscled from hard, constant work in extreme conditions.
Forty minutes later, the young man and his companion emerged from the river three miles upstream, breathing heavily but not exhausted. The young man pointed toward a far away line of trees and took the girl’s hand again. They ran together for the next hour till they had reached the distant woods.
“How far do you think we made it, Alyyx?”
“I’d say at least twenty nauts… I think we’ll be okay for a little while. The yarols went downstream following the water scent. You want to sit down, Jayyd?”
The young girl sat down and leaned her head on Alyyx Evans’ chest. She smiled and looked up into his eyes. Alyyx returned the smile and kissed her gently on the lips. “As long as we’re together, Jayyd… That’s what matters to me.”
“I couldn’t have gone on if you hadn’t got me out tonight, Alyyx. I don’t think I could live without you.”
Alyyx smiled and kissed her again. “I couldn’t let the Ghors turn you over to that freak creep from Derstuk that bought you.”
Jayyd hugged Alyyx and laid her head back on his chest again.
“Alyyx? How are we going to get off of this moon? The Ghors have it guarded. They watch from their planet down there all the time. They know everything that comes and goes…”
“I don’t know, Jayyd. I haven’t figured that out yet. But I will! Nobody’s selling you, Jayyd Guerin! Nobody!”
Jayyd smiled. She waved her hand over Alyyx then over herself, changing their colors to match the surrounding darkness and the trees.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In the complex from which they had escaped, the Ghor commander was furious.
“I want those two Antarians back in this complex before morning! I don’t need to tell you the trouble it could bring us if they were to get off of this moon and escape.”
“You mean from the Derstukki that bought the female?” the guard asked.
“Him, too!” the Ghor commander said, “But he’s not the one I had in mind.”
“Who…”
“Never mind Rawgus! You don’t want to know! You just make sure those two are back here before daylight… or you will be punished most severely for this unfortunate occurrence. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Hosk!”
“Commander,” said another guard, seeking Hosk’s attention.
“What is it Pussox? I’m busy!”
“Commander, you have not forgotten the Garg’s visit tomorrow, have you?”
Hosk’s skin, or whatever passed for skin on a Ghor, turned several shades of the splotchy grayish pallor his species was known for. Clearly, he had, in the confusion of the night’s events, forgotten that the supreme military leader of the Ghors’ planet was to make a visit in the morning to Gadyslar, the moon where the Ghors’ kept their captured victims to await their sale to other creatures in the universe as slaves, pets, or occasionally, as exotic foods.
“Just get those Antarians back!” Hosk screamed, as he turned to leave. “And I do mean tonight!”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On the planet Ghorbidfael below, the Garg was preparing for his visit to Gadyslar in the morning. The facility on Gadyslar had been very profitable to the Ghors, and Garg Jerkov planned to see the facility for himself.
“I’ve heard of this newer system that Hosk is using to collect specimens now. The “Midnight Cloud,” he calls it. I don’t think I quite understand how it works. Where did he find this again?”
“He found it on Krolus, my Garg.”
“Krolus? Yes… that’s right. Stole it, you mean! That was the planet where he stole the ionic speed technology that got him back home in three months instead of fifteen years or whatever it would have taken after that Xarian king, what’s his name… Shaqor, sent him to that part of the galaxy.” The Garg smiled, allowing the pointed teeth that normally remained set into the Ghors’ lower lip to rise above the lip where their sharpness could be seen.
“I wonder what the Krolians would pay to get their technology back…”
“My Garg… you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t be an imbecile. Of course I wouldn’t give it back! But I might let them have Hosk… if the price was right. Then I’d kill them of course.”
“Of course, my Garg.”
“How does this ‘Midnight Cloud’ work, Grisnot?”
“Well, sir… when it is used from an area anywhere within forty parnaps of a planet, a dark ionizing cloud envelops the planet. The cloud causes systemic dysfunction in immature creatures… those creatures that are still maturing. This dysfunction makes them temporarily cease to function. The creatures are recovered by a transporter device once they have ceased to function. The device scans the creatures’ bodies as it transports them and leaves a synthesized material behind similar to what would have remained of the creatures if they had actually ceased to function… ceased to function permanently, I mean.”
“Of course! …Grisnot?”
“Yes?”
“Why would the Krolians develop such a device?”
“Well, sir, I understand that many generations ago the Krolians were involved in a war with another planet, and many young Krolians were captured and imprisoned on the other planet. The Krolians devised this technology not as a weapon but as a means of rescuing their children who were being held as prisoners.”
“Interesting… very interesting! Well, it has served Hosk very well indeed! Our planet has increased its profits seven hundred percent since he returned with the device. And since we don’t have to stop ships in space to find specimens, that annoying king from Xarius won’t know anything is going on and will leave us alone.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In the woods, twenty nauts away from the Ghors’ slave facility on the moon of Gadyslar, Jayyd slept peacefully under the stars with her head on Alyyx’s chest. For the first time in nine years, they slept free.
<center>End of Chapter 4
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Council of Xarius
Chapter 5
V
King Shaqor and Queen MayaSabriena sat at one end of the table. Around the table sat King Zan and Queen Liz of Antar, Zan’s number one General, Michael Guerin, still known to some as Rath, his wife, Maria, Antar’s chief and preeminent scientist, Varec, and several of the best scientists and medical practitioners of Xarius.
“Honorable citizens of Antar… Honorable citizens of Xarius,” Shaqor said, opening the dialog, “We are here to examine new ideas that have recently come to light and to discuss our findings and opinions on the matter of the remains purported to be of children who perished on Antar during the great tragedy known as the ‘Day of Darkness.’ I would ask the honorable Varec, Antar’s preeminent scientist, to begin by telling this Council his theories regarding the remains that have been brought here today.”
“Thank you,” said Varec, “Nine years ago, when the great tragedy that we call the “Day of Darkness” occurred, the legitimacy of the remains seemed unquestionable. After all, we saw our children die before our eyes. We watched as they breathed their last breaths. Then we watched as they turned into dust. That is as it is with our people. Furthermore, examination of the remains of some of the children by medical personnel as well as by myself revealed nothing surprising or extraordinary. There was a lack of one element, HC020f, but this in itself seemed irrelevant. This element is merely a very tiny trace element in Antarian bodies, and its lack would not have led to the children’s deaths. What seemed strange was the fact that not merely some of the remains studied, but all of them, lacked this element. Still, as I said before, it is an element of no consequence and only found in the tiniest trace amounts in any Antarian.
It was several months after the Day of Darkness when I first began to notice that the remains seemed somehow different than I thought they should. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was looking at a synthetic -that is, a man made or machine produced as opposed to natural- set of elements. But this seemed ridiculous, so in the beginning I put it out of mind. There simply did not appear to be any reason that such a thing might be true. Still, after reexamining the remains many times, I decided to do a number of tests that should have determined with one hundred percent assurance and accuracy whether or not the remains were or were not natural. Every test gave the same result. The remains were natural in origin. Given this evidence, I forced myself to suppress any feelings to the contrary. It seemed that I had simply been wrong. The tests had proved it. But I never stopped thinking that something seemed not right.
Now, nine years after the Day of Darkness, I have brought this matter here at the urging of Queen Liz of Antar, who believes in me more strongly than in our ‘infallible’ tests.”
There were some smiles at the table, and some of those present quietly applauded.
“Thank you. I am honored by your praise and by the confidence that Her Majesty, Queen Liz of Antar has placed in me. I am not sure that it is well placed, however. You will understand that if I announce these suspicions and they turn out to be untrue, it will be a tragedy for Antar once again, opening wounds that should never be reopened. This is why I have requested this Council. It is my hope that the experience and eminence of those present in this room today will finally be able to either give credence to my suspicions or disprove them once and for all. Thank you.”
Shaqor stood and thanked Varec. “I open this Council to all debate and issues.” He sat down again.
Michael spoke first. “Sometimes, in military matters, when a trail seems to grow cold as we try to follow it one way, it makes sense to try to follow it backwards. What I’m saying is that it makes no sense for the remains to be anything but natural, on the surface of it. We don’t have a clue how it could have happened if it is true that they are synthetic. So perhaps we should ask the unthinkable questions. Who would have a reason to replace the remains with synthetic remains? Who would have the capability to do it? Who would want to do it? How would they do it? Because the obvious conclusion, if the remains are not natural, is that somebody, somewhere, somehow replaced them.”
Some of those at the table nodded.
Danar-Sol, the preeminent medical researcher and biologist of Xarius spoke next. “I have examined the remains brought here today, and I, too, have come up with only one result from every test available on Xarius. The remains are entirely natural, not synthetic…”
Varec’s face fell. He looked down at the floor and closed his eyes.
“But…” Danar-Sol continued, “I also came to the conclusion that something is not quite right… despite all the tests and the evidence. Because of this, I devised several new tests, four of them to be exact. Three of the new tests gave the expected results: ‘natural.’ However, the fourth test gave a different result: ‘biologically grown substitute.’”
Varec nearly jumped out of his seat.
Danar-Sol continued, “What this would mean, if it is true, is that the remains are indeed ‘natural,’ but not the natural remains of the children. In this respect, they are synthetic, but not man made or machine produced, so they would produce a ‘natural’ signature on any test that was not made to search specifically for a biologically produced substitute. I am still testing the other remains to form a more positive position on this matter.”
Maria looked at the ceiling and wiped tears from her eyes. Liz seemed momentarily unable to say anything. She rubbed her hand over Maria’s back.
Max spoke next. “I, for one, am prepared to accept this conclusion. I have always trusted Varec with my life, and he has never let me down. And Danar-Sol is known throughout the galaxies as the preeminent biologist. Even I heard of his name long before I ever knew of the planet Xarius. We must continue to do the testing in order to have all the evidence and information that we need and can get, but I am inclined to ask King Shaqor and all the honorable citizens at this table to consider the questions posed by General Michael Guerin. Number one, who would want to and who would be able to do this?”
“In my travels throughout the universe,” said Shaqor, “I know of only one culture that had that ability. That would be the Krolians. The Krolians fought a war millenia ago in which many of their young people were captured and imprisoned on a planet with which they were at war. I think it was Byagus. The children of Krolus were held as hostages on Byagus to force the surrender of the Krolians. But the Krolians developed a technology that would get their children back. Basically, it involved placing an ionic cloud around the planet that would disrupt the natural functions of the children in some way so as to make them appear dead. Then the device activated a sophisticated transporter system that scanned the body of each child and replaced it with a biological substance exactly like the child’s own at the same time as it transported the child to the Krolian ship stationed some ways away. The Byagians believed that the Krolian children had all died, and without hostages, they quickly surrendered.
But the Krolians, you must understand, are and always have been, a peaceful people. They would no more harm your children than I would. I can vouch for that. There is no possibility that the Krolians did this. The Krolians would not even develop weapons to fight the Byagians with. They chose instead to use trickery and illusion, of which the Krolians are masters.”
“Then,” said Michael, “the question that comes to my mind is, who could have got their hands on this technology and used it against Antar? And in order to answer this question, we must ask who would have a motive and what would that motive be?”
“I would say Hosk, the Ghor Captain who deals in slaves,” said Shaqor. But that would be unlikely. Where I sent him the last time we met, he would only be getting back about two years from now.”
“Where is Krolus?” asked Michael.
Shaqor answered, “It’s in Galaxy 41X.”
“Isn’t that where you sent Hosk?” asked Michael.
“Yes, but Krolus would be a three months trip in the opposite direction from the Ghors’ home planet. He would be going even further away from Ghorbidfael.”
“Maybe he knew Krolus was there,” Michael said. “Hosk is a creature of violence and war. It figures that he might be aware of a planet that had ever used such a technology.”
Shaqor nodded. “Quite possible. The Krolians have an ionic propulsion drive system in their ships that is many times more efficient and faster than any the Ghors have. With their propulsion drive, a Ghor ship could return to our galaxies in a matter of months instead of years…”
“I think we need to pay a visit to Ghorbidfael,” said Michael.
<center>End of Chapter 5
tbc…</center>
The Council of Xarius
Chapter 5
V
King Shaqor and Queen MayaSabriena sat at one end of the table. Around the table sat King Zan and Queen Liz of Antar, Zan’s number one General, Michael Guerin, still known to some as Rath, his wife, Maria, Antar’s chief and preeminent scientist, Varec, and several of the best scientists and medical practitioners of Xarius.
“Honorable citizens of Antar… Honorable citizens of Xarius,” Shaqor said, opening the dialog, “We are here to examine new ideas that have recently come to light and to discuss our findings and opinions on the matter of the remains purported to be of children who perished on Antar during the great tragedy known as the ‘Day of Darkness.’ I would ask the honorable Varec, Antar’s preeminent scientist, to begin by telling this Council his theories regarding the remains that have been brought here today.”
“Thank you,” said Varec, “Nine years ago, when the great tragedy that we call the “Day of Darkness” occurred, the legitimacy of the remains seemed unquestionable. After all, we saw our children die before our eyes. We watched as they breathed their last breaths. Then we watched as they turned into dust. That is as it is with our people. Furthermore, examination of the remains of some of the children by medical personnel as well as by myself revealed nothing surprising or extraordinary. There was a lack of one element, HC020f, but this in itself seemed irrelevant. This element is merely a very tiny trace element in Antarian bodies, and its lack would not have led to the children’s deaths. What seemed strange was the fact that not merely some of the remains studied, but all of them, lacked this element. Still, as I said before, it is an element of no consequence and only found in the tiniest trace amounts in any Antarian.
It was several months after the Day of Darkness when I first began to notice that the remains seemed somehow different than I thought they should. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was looking at a synthetic -that is, a man made or machine produced as opposed to natural- set of elements. But this seemed ridiculous, so in the beginning I put it out of mind. There simply did not appear to be any reason that such a thing might be true. Still, after reexamining the remains many times, I decided to do a number of tests that should have determined with one hundred percent assurance and accuracy whether or not the remains were or were not natural. Every test gave the same result. The remains were natural in origin. Given this evidence, I forced myself to suppress any feelings to the contrary. It seemed that I had simply been wrong. The tests had proved it. But I never stopped thinking that something seemed not right.
Now, nine years after the Day of Darkness, I have brought this matter here at the urging of Queen Liz of Antar, who believes in me more strongly than in our ‘infallible’ tests.”
There were some smiles at the table, and some of those present quietly applauded.
“Thank you. I am honored by your praise and by the confidence that Her Majesty, Queen Liz of Antar has placed in me. I am not sure that it is well placed, however. You will understand that if I announce these suspicions and they turn out to be untrue, it will be a tragedy for Antar once again, opening wounds that should never be reopened. This is why I have requested this Council. It is my hope that the experience and eminence of those present in this room today will finally be able to either give credence to my suspicions or disprove them once and for all. Thank you.”
Shaqor stood and thanked Varec. “I open this Council to all debate and issues.” He sat down again.
Michael spoke first. “Sometimes, in military matters, when a trail seems to grow cold as we try to follow it one way, it makes sense to try to follow it backwards. What I’m saying is that it makes no sense for the remains to be anything but natural, on the surface of it. We don’t have a clue how it could have happened if it is true that they are synthetic. So perhaps we should ask the unthinkable questions. Who would have a reason to replace the remains with synthetic remains? Who would have the capability to do it? Who would want to do it? How would they do it? Because the obvious conclusion, if the remains are not natural, is that somebody, somewhere, somehow replaced them.”
Some of those at the table nodded.
Danar-Sol, the preeminent medical researcher and biologist of Xarius spoke next. “I have examined the remains brought here today, and I, too, have come up with only one result from every test available on Xarius. The remains are entirely natural, not synthetic…”
Varec’s face fell. He looked down at the floor and closed his eyes.
“But…” Danar-Sol continued, “I also came to the conclusion that something is not quite right… despite all the tests and the evidence. Because of this, I devised several new tests, four of them to be exact. Three of the new tests gave the expected results: ‘natural.’ However, the fourth test gave a different result: ‘biologically grown substitute.’”
Varec nearly jumped out of his seat.
Danar-Sol continued, “What this would mean, if it is true, is that the remains are indeed ‘natural,’ but not the natural remains of the children. In this respect, they are synthetic, but not man made or machine produced, so they would produce a ‘natural’ signature on any test that was not made to search specifically for a biologically produced substitute. I am still testing the other remains to form a more positive position on this matter.”
Maria looked at the ceiling and wiped tears from her eyes. Liz seemed momentarily unable to say anything. She rubbed her hand over Maria’s back.
Max spoke next. “I, for one, am prepared to accept this conclusion. I have always trusted Varec with my life, and he has never let me down. And Danar-Sol is known throughout the galaxies as the preeminent biologist. Even I heard of his name long before I ever knew of the planet Xarius. We must continue to do the testing in order to have all the evidence and information that we need and can get, but I am inclined to ask King Shaqor and all the honorable citizens at this table to consider the questions posed by General Michael Guerin. Number one, who would want to and who would be able to do this?”
“In my travels throughout the universe,” said Shaqor, “I know of only one culture that had that ability. That would be the Krolians. The Krolians fought a war millenia ago in which many of their young people were captured and imprisoned on a planet with which they were at war. I think it was Byagus. The children of Krolus were held as hostages on Byagus to force the surrender of the Krolians. But the Krolians developed a technology that would get their children back. Basically, it involved placing an ionic cloud around the planet that would disrupt the natural functions of the children in some way so as to make them appear dead. Then the device activated a sophisticated transporter system that scanned the body of each child and replaced it with a biological substance exactly like the child’s own at the same time as it transported the child to the Krolian ship stationed some ways away. The Byagians believed that the Krolian children had all died, and without hostages, they quickly surrendered.
But the Krolians, you must understand, are and always have been, a peaceful people. They would no more harm your children than I would. I can vouch for that. There is no possibility that the Krolians did this. The Krolians would not even develop weapons to fight the Byagians with. They chose instead to use trickery and illusion, of which the Krolians are masters.”
“Then,” said Michael, “the question that comes to my mind is, who could have got their hands on this technology and used it against Antar? And in order to answer this question, we must ask who would have a motive and what would that motive be?”
“I would say Hosk, the Ghor Captain who deals in slaves,” said Shaqor. But that would be unlikely. Where I sent him the last time we met, he would only be getting back about two years from now.”
“Where is Krolus?” asked Michael.
Shaqor answered, “It’s in Galaxy 41X.”
“Isn’t that where you sent Hosk?” asked Michael.
“Yes, but Krolus would be a three months trip in the opposite direction from the Ghors’ home planet. He would be going even further away from Ghorbidfael.”
“Maybe he knew Krolus was there,” Michael said. “Hosk is a creature of violence and war. It figures that he might be aware of a planet that had ever used such a technology.”
Shaqor nodded. “Quite possible. The Krolians have an ionic propulsion drive system in their ships that is many times more efficient and faster than any the Ghors have. With their propulsion drive, a Ghor ship could return to our galaxies in a matter of months instead of years…”
“I think we need to pay a visit to Ghorbidfael,” said Michael.
<center>End of Chapter 5
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
Ghorbidfael
Chapter 6
VI
Three men stepped out of the portal and into the nighttime darkness of a back street on Ghorbidfael, home planet of the Ghors. Max and Michael had used their powers to increase the height of each of them to about nine feet and to give them something that looked like the clothes the Ghors had been wearing the only time they had seen them before.
“Max! …Hey, Max!”
“Yeah? What is it, Michael?”
“Maybe you ought to change our smell, too. The Ghors have an animal-like sense of smell. They might recognize us.”
“I won’t be able to stand being around you if you smell like a Ghor, Michael!”
Shaqor snickered.
“Yeah, well, you better do something with our smell,” Michael insisted.
“Alright, alright…” Max passed his hand over each of them.
Michael lifted his hand and sniffed his underarm. “Holy…! Yeah, I think that’ll do it!”
‘Shag’ suppressed a laugh as he lifted his shirt and smelled it. “I may not look like I’m ten thousand years old,” Shag said with a grin, “but now I damn well smell like it!”
Max grinned. “Glad you guys approve. Now let’s get going. Liz is never gonna sleep with me again!”
The three new “Ghors” walked down the street, sticking to the shadows. A few blocks down the road and around a corner, they came to a local drinking establishment. Shaqor motioned them in. Fortunately, it was dark inside, the way the Ghors liked it. Many of them carried out business in this type of place, and they liked to keep their identities private. The three friends sat in a corner and hid their faces. The secretiveness actually worked in their favor; they were acting exactly like most of the Ghors in the room.
“Ja-Grrr ah sli toh!”
“Huh?”
Max glanced up. Fortunately, his face was in the dark.
“Ja-grrr ah sli toh!” the Ghor intoned more insistently.
“Kor lis na glon jat,” Shag said without raising his head. “Fut nar tov grrr… Jya!”
The Ghor walked away.
“What was that all about?” Max whispered to Shag. “You guys get in a growling match?”
“He just said, ‘Order or get out!’” Shag snickered. “I told him to bring us the cheapest thing.”
“What… you hurtin’ for money, Shag? I didn’t know,” Max said with some friendly sarcasm in his voice.
“We don’t know what they drink, so I’m afraid that’s the best I could do,” Shag explained.
“You did fine!” Max grinned.
Two and a half hours later, the three left the “bar” and walked down the street into the shadows.
“Portal,” Shag said quietly. The portal appeared and the three stepped through it and back into the palace conference room.
“Alright, Shag,” said Max, “I know you were listening to the conversations around us back there, and you know I didn’t understand a word -or should I say, a ‘growl’- of it! So spill it! What’d you hear? Anything useful?”
“Maybe,” Shag said. “I know that Hosk is back and has been for at least five years.”
“That means he had to have used the Krolians’ ion drive in his ship,” Michael said. “That pretty much confirms that he was there.”
“I’d say so,” Shag agreed. “I also learned that the supreme Ghor commander, Garg Jerkov…”
Max and Michael both broke out laughing.
“What?” Shag asked. “Did I say something funny?”
“I really don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Go ahead, Shag… Finish,” Max said.
“The Ghor Commander, Garg Jerkov, is going to visit their main slave facility tomorrow.”
Max and Michael became sober again.
“Where is it?”
“They didn’t say,” Shag said. “They just said that Hosk runs the facility.”
“Figures,” Michael groaned. “He would!”
At that moment, Liz and Maria walked into the conference room with MayaSabriena. Liz let out an involuntary yelp, and Maria immediately assumed a defensive posture. Maya laughed,
“Don’t you girls recognize your husbands?”
Liz looked carefully at Max then sniffed,
“Oh, good Lord! Max, what have you done!”
Maria looked at Michael as though he had fallen into a sewer and just climbed out… which, to tell the truth, might actually have smelled better.
Max passed his hand over the three of them and removed the smell. Then he changed their clothes back. Michael reduced their size back down to around six feet instead of nine.
“I am soooo not going to be able to forget that,” Maria lamented! She sniffed Michael’s breath… “What did you have in your mouth?”
“Oh…” Michael snickered, “just some cheap Ghor beer or something.”
“I thought you guys couldn’t drink alcohol.”
“I told you it was cheap!” Michael laughed. Max began to laugh, too. “Probably Ghor tap water!”
“Mmmm… no, I think it had a little something in it,” Maria said. Liz nodded. “…the way you guys are acting. Not as bad as that time on Earth… The Ghors probably watered it down.”
Maya sniffed the air and sprayed a couple of puffs of air freshener into the room from a small bottle.
“You get used to it,” she said. “When your guys have traveled the universe as much as my Shag has, you’ll recognize them no matter how they look…”
"…Or smell, for that matter," she added with a giggle.
“What’s our next plan?” Michael asked.
Max looked at Shag.
“Well,” Shag said, “I think it’s time to go see Hosk again… as ourselves this time.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On Gadyslar, the screeching howls of the yarols could be heard in the night, as the Ghors searched for the two escaped Antarians. But for the moment, they were safe, twenty nauts away, in a small wood. The coming morning would be the first time in many years that they hadn't felt the sting of the Ghors' prod waking them up before the sun had even risen to begin their labors… and to wait… to wait to be sold to some perverse being or creature from another galaxy somewhere far, far away… a being or creature that would buy them perhaps as a pet… but more likely as a slave… or an exotic food.
<center>End of Chapter 6
tbc…</center>
Ghorbidfael
Chapter 6
VI
Three men stepped out of the portal and into the nighttime darkness of a back street on Ghorbidfael, home planet of the Ghors. Max and Michael had used their powers to increase the height of each of them to about nine feet and to give them something that looked like the clothes the Ghors had been wearing the only time they had seen them before.
“Max! …Hey, Max!”
“Yeah? What is it, Michael?”
“Maybe you ought to change our smell, too. The Ghors have an animal-like sense of smell. They might recognize us.”
“I won’t be able to stand being around you if you smell like a Ghor, Michael!”
Shaqor snickered.
“Yeah, well, you better do something with our smell,” Michael insisted.
“Alright, alright…” Max passed his hand over each of them.
Michael lifted his hand and sniffed his underarm. “Holy…! Yeah, I think that’ll do it!”
‘Shag’ suppressed a laugh as he lifted his shirt and smelled it. “I may not look like I’m ten thousand years old,” Shag said with a grin, “but now I damn well smell like it!”
Max grinned. “Glad you guys approve. Now let’s get going. Liz is never gonna sleep with me again!”
The three new “Ghors” walked down the street, sticking to the shadows. A few blocks down the road and around a corner, they came to a local drinking establishment. Shaqor motioned them in. Fortunately, it was dark inside, the way the Ghors liked it. Many of them carried out business in this type of place, and they liked to keep their identities private. The three friends sat in a corner and hid their faces. The secretiveness actually worked in their favor; they were acting exactly like most of the Ghors in the room.
“Ja-Grrr ah sli toh!”
“Huh?”
Max glanced up. Fortunately, his face was in the dark.
“Ja-grrr ah sli toh!” the Ghor intoned more insistently.
“Kor lis na glon jat,” Shag said without raising his head. “Fut nar tov grrr… Jya!”
The Ghor walked away.
“What was that all about?” Max whispered to Shag. “You guys get in a growling match?”
“He just said, ‘Order or get out!’” Shag snickered. “I told him to bring us the cheapest thing.”
“What… you hurtin’ for money, Shag? I didn’t know,” Max said with some friendly sarcasm in his voice.
“We don’t know what they drink, so I’m afraid that’s the best I could do,” Shag explained.
“You did fine!” Max grinned.
Two and a half hours later, the three left the “bar” and walked down the street into the shadows.
“Portal,” Shag said quietly. The portal appeared and the three stepped through it and back into the palace conference room.
“Alright, Shag,” said Max, “I know you were listening to the conversations around us back there, and you know I didn’t understand a word -or should I say, a ‘growl’- of it! So spill it! What’d you hear? Anything useful?”
“Maybe,” Shag said. “I know that Hosk is back and has been for at least five years.”
“That means he had to have used the Krolians’ ion drive in his ship,” Michael said. “That pretty much confirms that he was there.”
“I’d say so,” Shag agreed. “I also learned that the supreme Ghor commander, Garg Jerkov…”
Max and Michael both broke out laughing.
“What?” Shag asked. “Did I say something funny?”
“I really don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Go ahead, Shag… Finish,” Max said.
“The Ghor Commander, Garg Jerkov, is going to visit their main slave facility tomorrow.”
Max and Michael became sober again.
“Where is it?”
“They didn’t say,” Shag said. “They just said that Hosk runs the facility.”
“Figures,” Michael groaned. “He would!”
At that moment, Liz and Maria walked into the conference room with MayaSabriena. Liz let out an involuntary yelp, and Maria immediately assumed a defensive posture. Maya laughed,
“Don’t you girls recognize your husbands?”
Liz looked carefully at Max then sniffed,
“Oh, good Lord! Max, what have you done!”
Maria looked at Michael as though he had fallen into a sewer and just climbed out… which, to tell the truth, might actually have smelled better.
Max passed his hand over the three of them and removed the smell. Then he changed their clothes back. Michael reduced their size back down to around six feet instead of nine.
“I am soooo not going to be able to forget that,” Maria lamented! She sniffed Michael’s breath… “What did you have in your mouth?”
“Oh…” Michael snickered, “just some cheap Ghor beer or something.”
“I thought you guys couldn’t drink alcohol.”
“I told you it was cheap!” Michael laughed. Max began to laugh, too. “Probably Ghor tap water!”
“Mmmm… no, I think it had a little something in it,” Maria said. Liz nodded. “…the way you guys are acting. Not as bad as that time on Earth… The Ghors probably watered it down.”
Maya sniffed the air and sprayed a couple of puffs of air freshener into the room from a small bottle.
“You get used to it,” she said. “When your guys have traveled the universe as much as my Shag has, you’ll recognize them no matter how they look…”
"…Or smell, for that matter," she added with a giggle.
“What’s our next plan?” Michael asked.
Max looked at Shag.
“Well,” Shag said, “I think it’s time to go see Hosk again… as ourselves this time.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On Gadyslar, the screeching howls of the yarols could be heard in the night, as the Ghors searched for the two escaped Antarians. But for the moment, they were safe, twenty nauts away, in a small wood. The coming morning would be the first time in many years that they hadn't felt the sting of the Ghors' prod waking them up before the sun had even risen to begin their labors… and to wait… to wait to be sold to some perverse being or creature from another galaxy somewhere far, far away… a being or creature that would buy them perhaps as a pet… but more likely as a slave… or an exotic food.
<center>End of Chapter 6
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Dragon Feast of Vyatu-Xi
Chapter 7
VII
On the far side of Galaxy 56Y, as the Xarian map of the known universe showed it, the planet Drago was preparing for the yearly celebration of Vyatu-Xi. It was no small occasion for the inhabitants of Drago. The fact is it took their planet the equivalent of sixteen Earth years to revolve around their sun, so a “yearly” event on Drago only occurred once every sixteen Earth years.
The inhabitants of Drago celebrated the beginning of each New Year with a huge feast. Everyone turned out in the streets to celebrate… and to enjoy treats and exotic foods brought from all over the galaxies by the Dragon ship captains. It was an event that all Drago residents awaited eagerly each year.
The planet Drago was about 11 years from Antar if one had traveled there in the new granilith. The “Xarius Voyager” could have made it in a few weeks. The Ghors’ fastest ships would have taken about 63 years. But that did not include Hosk’s ship with the stolen Krolian ion drive in it. Hosk’s ship could have made it in about 8 months.
The inhabitants of Drago were fairly large. The average height of the males was about 6 feet 8 inches. The average height of females was slightly larger, about 7 feet… still fairly small compared to their distant relatives, the Ghors, which could top out at 9 feet, but larger than the average Antarian or Earthling. Their skin tended to be pallid gray, like that of the Ghors, when they were at rest or not excited, but when they were excited or active, their skin turned a classic “alien green.” That was probably the only thing about them that met the alien stereotype, though. The Dragons had teeth that would be envied by a piranha. In fact, Dragons had not one row of teeth but two distinct rows of teeth. The teeth in the forward row, the ones that showed, were long and pointed, and what one might call “snaggle-toothed.” The closest thing to the forward teeth of a Dragon would be the teeth of a mako shark or a sand tiger shark. The rear teeth, which sat just behind the forward row, were broad, triangular, and serrated, much like the upper row of teeth in a great white shark. The arrangement gave the Dragon a superior ability to eat even the toughest food items easily. The long, pointed front teeth were for grasping and holding struggling prey. The rear teeth were for sawing and tearing flesh.
The Dragons preferred their food live; and during the feast of Vyatu-Xi, numerous prey would be turned loose and chased down by all the Dragons then ripped apart and eaten while alive, sometimes by several Dragons at once if more than one caught the same one at the same time and there was any discrepancy… which there always was.
Near the center of the city, the Dragons had a large court that somewhat resembled a baseball field. It was the central point of their celebration. And it was the place where all the prey would be turned loose on the day of Vyatu-Xi. Normally, the prey would run toward the nearby forest to escape. The Dragons, however, were not in the habit of releasing prey that had any real chance of escape. The long legs of the Dragons gave them speed and surprising agility for creatures that were cold-blooded. Few, if indeed any, prey ever actually made it to the forest.
At the edge of the field, on one end, was a large building that looked like a storehouse. This is where the prey were being kept until the celebration. Inside the storehouse, already, there were 23 creatures or beings gathered from different parts of the universe… from several different galaxies. Nine had been bought from Hosk. Three were Antarian.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
A mere forty-three light years from Drago, in Galaxy 39A, was a planet called Yargish. The residents of Yargish were anything but like the Dragons or the Ghors in appearance. Both male and female Yargishis were reed thin and tall as a tree. To be more precise, they measured about 18-21 feet in height, on average, and had a girth of 17-19 inches, small enough that a large man might be able to put his hands completely around one. Their coloration was generally light purple. Their legs comprised about half of their total body height, and their arms were equally long. The light purplish skin of a Yargishi was more like rubber than anything else. They had no hair anywhere on their bodies. Unlike the Ghors or the Dragons, too, the Yargishis were meticulously clean and strictly vegetarian.
In the small country village of Duvarny on Yargish, a retired but still very active interplanetary ship captain lived with his small family. About eight years before, right after he had retired, he had returned from a trip, bringing with him a creature unlike any he had ever seen before. It had pained him greatly to take only the one, because it was one of three identical ones. It especially pained him to see the Dragons buy one of the other two. Narwha knew what the Dragons did with the creatures they bought. But Narwha was not a rich man, and Hosk demanded a large sum for his “pets.” Four years later, Narwha had actually gone back to Hosk to try to buy the third identical creature, but it had been sold. He ended up taking a male of the same species.
Narwha had hoped that they might mate and produce offspring, but that had not happened. He didn’t understand why. They seemed to like each other very much. But he had never been able to get them to mate. He had provided a wonderful habitat for them, a habitat like Hosk had said was the natural habitat of their own world, and he fed them well. But they still would not mate… Narwha knew this for a fact… he watched them day and night through the glass. Still, mating or not, Narwha loved his pets. They were different… unlike any creatures he had ever seen before, not rough and ugly and smelly like the Ghors, not vicious like the Dragons. These creatures could subsist on a properly balanced vegetarian diet, though Hosk had told him that they did eat meat, too.
Narwha smiled as he watched his pets through the glass. Sometimes he would reach over the glass partition, easy for a being of his height, and take one of the pets out. He would let it walk around the house or set it on his lap and stroke its hair. He never worried about his pets running away. As long as one of them was inside the habitat, the other always stayed nearby. Narwha loved his pets.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On the Ghor moon of Gadyslar, Hosk looked up from his desk to see Max, Michael, and Shaqor step out of thin air into his office. It unnerved Hosk to see them do that. He had no idea how Shaqor was able to step out of thin air and find him wherever he was. But he pretended to welcome him.
“Shaqor! My old friend! What are you doing here in my office? How can I make you welcome?
“You cannot, Hosk!” Shag said. “I will never be ‘welcome’ in your presence nor you in mine, and we both know it. What you can do for me is tell me what you know about the children who disappeared from Antar nine years ago.”
“Shaqor! I wouldn’t… I mean… what would possibly make you think that I would know anything about that?” asked Hosk, trying to look sincere.
“Then you might tell me about another ‘acquisition’ that you made, Hosk… an ionic drive for your ship… a Krolian ionic drive.”
Hosk’s ‘skin’ fluctuated between grayish and splotchy red and grayish red, looking almost like a neon sign… a neon sign that plainly said “GUILTY” in capital letters. But he continued to insist he had nothing to do with any disappearance of Antarian children and knew nothing at all.
“Shaqor! The ion drive… I bought it from a traveler. I don’t know anything about Krolians.”
“Then tell me about the ‘Midnight Cloud’ Hosk.
Now Hosk’s skin was literally rippling with colors. He was a liar, but the biology of his species betrayed him. Shaqor knew it. So did Max and Michael. Somehow, Hosk didn’t seem to realize it, though, as he continued to play the innocent.
“I’ve never heard of anything called a ‘Midnight Cloud’ Shaqor. Why would I?”
“Because we both know that you deal in slaves and steal whenever you get the chance. And we both know what the ‘Midnight Cloud’ will do. And we both know that you were on Krolus.”
“I swear, Shaqor, I have never heard of this ‘Midnight Cloud’ that you speak of.”
“Then perhaps you would not mind if I examined your records, Hosk?”
“No! I mean… yes… I mean… you can’t just do that, Shaqor. You are a man who lives by laws and rules.”
“I could make an exception in your case, Hosk.”
Hosk touched a switch on the floor under his desk with his foot as he continued to protest his innocence. Outside in the halls of the facility, red lights were lighting up everywhere, the signal that Hosk had had put in to advise his guards that he was in danger. Within moments, six nine-foot tall Ghor guards burst into Hosk’s office. Hosk jumped up from his desk screaming,
“Kill him! Kill him! Don’t let him get away!”
Almost as a whisper, Shag said, “Portal.”
The three men stepped back into thin air. Trying to follow, the Ghors ran into the wall. Shaqor had escaped… so had Max and Michael. But they would be back. Of this, Hosk had no doubts at all. And he would be ready.
<center>End of Chapter 7
tbc…</center>
The Dragon Feast of Vyatu-Xi
Chapter 7
VII
On the far side of Galaxy 56Y, as the Xarian map of the known universe showed it, the planet Drago was preparing for the yearly celebration of Vyatu-Xi. It was no small occasion for the inhabitants of Drago. The fact is it took their planet the equivalent of sixteen Earth years to revolve around their sun, so a “yearly” event on Drago only occurred once every sixteen Earth years.
The inhabitants of Drago celebrated the beginning of each New Year with a huge feast. Everyone turned out in the streets to celebrate… and to enjoy treats and exotic foods brought from all over the galaxies by the Dragon ship captains. It was an event that all Drago residents awaited eagerly each year.
The planet Drago was about 11 years from Antar if one had traveled there in the new granilith. The “Xarius Voyager” could have made it in a few weeks. The Ghors’ fastest ships would have taken about 63 years. But that did not include Hosk’s ship with the stolen Krolian ion drive in it. Hosk’s ship could have made it in about 8 months.
The inhabitants of Drago were fairly large. The average height of the males was about 6 feet 8 inches. The average height of females was slightly larger, about 7 feet… still fairly small compared to their distant relatives, the Ghors, which could top out at 9 feet, but larger than the average Antarian or Earthling. Their skin tended to be pallid gray, like that of the Ghors, when they were at rest or not excited, but when they were excited or active, their skin turned a classic “alien green.” That was probably the only thing about them that met the alien stereotype, though. The Dragons had teeth that would be envied by a piranha. In fact, Dragons had not one row of teeth but two distinct rows of teeth. The teeth in the forward row, the ones that showed, were long and pointed, and what one might call “snaggle-toothed.” The closest thing to the forward teeth of a Dragon would be the teeth of a mako shark or a sand tiger shark. The rear teeth, which sat just behind the forward row, were broad, triangular, and serrated, much like the upper row of teeth in a great white shark. The arrangement gave the Dragon a superior ability to eat even the toughest food items easily. The long, pointed front teeth were for grasping and holding struggling prey. The rear teeth were for sawing and tearing flesh.
The Dragons preferred their food live; and during the feast of Vyatu-Xi, numerous prey would be turned loose and chased down by all the Dragons then ripped apart and eaten while alive, sometimes by several Dragons at once if more than one caught the same one at the same time and there was any discrepancy… which there always was.
Near the center of the city, the Dragons had a large court that somewhat resembled a baseball field. It was the central point of their celebration. And it was the place where all the prey would be turned loose on the day of Vyatu-Xi. Normally, the prey would run toward the nearby forest to escape. The Dragons, however, were not in the habit of releasing prey that had any real chance of escape. The long legs of the Dragons gave them speed and surprising agility for creatures that were cold-blooded. Few, if indeed any, prey ever actually made it to the forest.
At the edge of the field, on one end, was a large building that looked like a storehouse. This is where the prey were being kept until the celebration. Inside the storehouse, already, there were 23 creatures or beings gathered from different parts of the universe… from several different galaxies. Nine had been bought from Hosk. Three were Antarian.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
A mere forty-three light years from Drago, in Galaxy 39A, was a planet called Yargish. The residents of Yargish were anything but like the Dragons or the Ghors in appearance. Both male and female Yargishis were reed thin and tall as a tree. To be more precise, they measured about 18-21 feet in height, on average, and had a girth of 17-19 inches, small enough that a large man might be able to put his hands completely around one. Their coloration was generally light purple. Their legs comprised about half of their total body height, and their arms were equally long. The light purplish skin of a Yargishi was more like rubber than anything else. They had no hair anywhere on their bodies. Unlike the Ghors or the Dragons, too, the Yargishis were meticulously clean and strictly vegetarian.
In the small country village of Duvarny on Yargish, a retired but still very active interplanetary ship captain lived with his small family. About eight years before, right after he had retired, he had returned from a trip, bringing with him a creature unlike any he had ever seen before. It had pained him greatly to take only the one, because it was one of three identical ones. It especially pained him to see the Dragons buy one of the other two. Narwha knew what the Dragons did with the creatures they bought. But Narwha was not a rich man, and Hosk demanded a large sum for his “pets.” Four years later, Narwha had actually gone back to Hosk to try to buy the third identical creature, but it had been sold. He ended up taking a male of the same species.
Narwha had hoped that they might mate and produce offspring, but that had not happened. He didn’t understand why. They seemed to like each other very much. But he had never been able to get them to mate. He had provided a wonderful habitat for them, a habitat like Hosk had said was the natural habitat of their own world, and he fed them well. But they still would not mate… Narwha knew this for a fact… he watched them day and night through the glass. Still, mating or not, Narwha loved his pets. They were different… unlike any creatures he had ever seen before, not rough and ugly and smelly like the Ghors, not vicious like the Dragons. These creatures could subsist on a properly balanced vegetarian diet, though Hosk had told him that they did eat meat, too.
Narwha smiled as he watched his pets through the glass. Sometimes he would reach over the glass partition, easy for a being of his height, and take one of the pets out. He would let it walk around the house or set it on his lap and stroke its hair. He never worried about his pets running away. As long as one of them was inside the habitat, the other always stayed nearby. Narwha loved his pets.
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
On the Ghor moon of Gadyslar, Hosk looked up from his desk to see Max, Michael, and Shaqor step out of thin air into his office. It unnerved Hosk to see them do that. He had no idea how Shaqor was able to step out of thin air and find him wherever he was. But he pretended to welcome him.
“Shaqor! My old friend! What are you doing here in my office? How can I make you welcome?
“You cannot, Hosk!” Shag said. “I will never be ‘welcome’ in your presence nor you in mine, and we both know it. What you can do for me is tell me what you know about the children who disappeared from Antar nine years ago.”
“Shaqor! I wouldn’t… I mean… what would possibly make you think that I would know anything about that?” asked Hosk, trying to look sincere.
“Then you might tell me about another ‘acquisition’ that you made, Hosk… an ionic drive for your ship… a Krolian ionic drive.”
Hosk’s ‘skin’ fluctuated between grayish and splotchy red and grayish red, looking almost like a neon sign… a neon sign that plainly said “GUILTY” in capital letters. But he continued to insist he had nothing to do with any disappearance of Antarian children and knew nothing at all.
“Shaqor! The ion drive… I bought it from a traveler. I don’t know anything about Krolians.”
“Then tell me about the ‘Midnight Cloud’ Hosk.
Now Hosk’s skin was literally rippling with colors. He was a liar, but the biology of his species betrayed him. Shaqor knew it. So did Max and Michael. Somehow, Hosk didn’t seem to realize it, though, as he continued to play the innocent.
“I’ve never heard of anything called a ‘Midnight Cloud’ Shaqor. Why would I?”
“Because we both know that you deal in slaves and steal whenever you get the chance. And we both know what the ‘Midnight Cloud’ will do. And we both know that you were on Krolus.”
“I swear, Shaqor, I have never heard of this ‘Midnight Cloud’ that you speak of.”
“Then perhaps you would not mind if I examined your records, Hosk?”
“No! I mean… yes… I mean… you can’t just do that, Shaqor. You are a man who lives by laws and rules.”
“I could make an exception in your case, Hosk.”
Hosk touched a switch on the floor under his desk with his foot as he continued to protest his innocence. Outside in the halls of the facility, red lights were lighting up everywhere, the signal that Hosk had had put in to advise his guards that he was in danger. Within moments, six nine-foot tall Ghor guards burst into Hosk’s office. Hosk jumped up from his desk screaming,
“Kill him! Kill him! Don’t let him get away!”
Almost as a whisper, Shag said, “Portal.”
The three men stepped back into thin air. Trying to follow, the Ghors ran into the wall. Shaqor had escaped… so had Max and Michael. But they would be back. Of this, Hosk had no doubts at all. And he would be ready.
<center>End of Chapter 7
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
- Location: South Florida
Children Of The Universe
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Ghors - Creators of the Universe
(and Other Fairy Tales)
Chapter 8
VIII
Alyyx Evans awoke and began to stretch. Then he noticed rays of sunlight starting to show over the horizon.
“Jayyd! Get up! Get up! The sun’s coming up!”
He looked around. Jayyd was already awake. She was sitting by a tree with her face in her hands. In the Ghor facility, they would have been stuck with the prods if they had slept this late. In fact, they would have been awakened with the prods long before the sun began to rise.
“What’s the matter, Jayyd?”
“You know… the same thing.”
“The visions?”
Jayyd nodded. “Alyyx, I don’t know what to feel… I… I always see that lady. She used to be crying most of the time.”
“And now?”
“Not crying… just sad, I think.”
“Who do you think she is?”
“I don’t know, Alyyx… I feel like…”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s crazy. You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do! Tell me!”
“Well, it’s just that every time I see her in a vision, I feel like saying, ‘Mom, don’t cry.’”
“Huh…” Alyyx muttered, “Yeah, that’s strange. We never had a real Mom. The only Mom we had was with us here until the Ghors sold her when we were young. Does she look like Mom?”
“No… not at all. The lady I keep seeing has blonde hair like Mom, but she looks different.”
“Well, I can remember all the way back to the day the Ghors made us.”
“Oh, Alyyx, you cannot!”
“Yes, I can! I remember! We were in a spaceship. When we woke up, the Ghors told us that we had just been made. Hosk showed us the machine that made us. Me… and you… and a lot of others that look like us… Then they brought us here.”
Jayyd thought hard. “I think I remember, too, Alyyx… I’m just not sure…
Alyyx?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think the Ghors made all the beings in the universe?”
“Hosk says they did.”
“But you don’t believe it, do you?”
“I… don’t know. I have doubts, Jayyd.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think the Ghors made all the beings in the universe.”
“Why?”
“Because… look how the Ghors treat them! And Hosk sells us to others. I don’t know, Jayyd… I just think that that doesn’t seem… normal.”
Jayyd smiled. “Since when have the Ghors been normal?”
“Alyyx grinned. “Yeah. You’re right. But that’s another thing. Would a being that creates other beings create other beings that are… you know… better… smarter… nicer than they are?”
“Well, they created us,” Jayyd said.
Alyyx thought for a long while. “Did they? I wonder.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In Galaxy 01B, on the planet Aklat, Ee-l'wee sat on a large round sofa that seemed to swallow her up. Ee-l'wee was an Aklatian; and like all Aklatians, she was small. Ee-l'wee measured a mere 15 inches in height. Also, like all Aklatians, Ee-l'wee had two pairs of wings, like a dragonfly. And like all Aklatians, Ee-l'wee was female.
It might seem to anyone who had never met an Aklatian that the Aklatians would be at a severe disadvantage in the universe, especially in dealing with nine-foot-tall, murdering, slaving giants like the Ghors. But the Aklatians had not survived by being the “butterflies” of the universe. Though small and pleasant to look at, Aklatians were anything but helpless. Hosk had found that out the hard way the first time he had met one. His first thought had been that she would bring him a lot of money as an exotic pet for some rich traveler. It had taken Hosk nearly two months in what passed for a Ghor hospital to recover from the burns he had suffered from the electrical charge he received when he touched one of the little “fairies.” Two of his four hearts had actually stopped and had to be restarted. It was not a mistake he wished to repeat. To Hosk, an Aklatian “fairy” was as formidable a trading “partner” as any Dragon from Drago. And besides, Aklatians had money. Lots of it. Hosk had never met one that didn’t.
Ee-l'wee had expanded her house in order to accommodate the two large creatures she had purchased from Hosk seven years before. She had only intended to buy one, the one that could talk to unintelligent creatures, but the other one had hovered over it so protectively that she had agreed to take them both, much to Hosk’s delight.
Ee-l'wee owned and ran what might be described as an interplanetary zoo on Aklat. She normally avoided purchasing “intelligent” creatures, as these two appeared to be, but she had not purchased them as “exhibits” for her zoo. She had purchased the boy specifically because he was able to communicate with and control all kinds of animals and lower beings. And Ee-l'wee had over three hundred different species of animals from all over the universe in her menagerie. Visitors came from all over the galaxy, sometimes even from other galaxies, to see the rare animals in her menagerie, and they paid well to see them. The boy would be a very big asset to her. As for the female creature that she bought with the boy, she would have a function, too. It was quite obvious to Ee-l'wee that the older creature was protecting the younger one. The younger one treated the older one as its mother. Ee-l'wee was quite sure that splitting them up would be a major mistake.
Ee-l'wee treated the two creatures well, gave them their own special rooms in her own house, and allowed them to roam freely for the most part. She treated them more as professional, live-in employees than as slaves; but in the end, both Ee-l'wee and the creatures she had bought from Hosk knew that "slaves" is what they were.
<center>End of Chapter 8
tbc…</center>
The Ghors - Creators of the Universe
(and Other Fairy Tales)
Chapter 8
VIII
Alyyx Evans awoke and began to stretch. Then he noticed rays of sunlight starting to show over the horizon.
“Jayyd! Get up! Get up! The sun’s coming up!”
He looked around. Jayyd was already awake. She was sitting by a tree with her face in her hands. In the Ghor facility, they would have been stuck with the prods if they had slept this late. In fact, they would have been awakened with the prods long before the sun began to rise.
“What’s the matter, Jayyd?”
“You know… the same thing.”
“The visions?”
Jayyd nodded. “Alyyx, I don’t know what to feel… I… I always see that lady. She used to be crying most of the time.”
“And now?”
“Not crying… just sad, I think.”
“Who do you think she is?”
“I don’t know, Alyyx… I feel like…”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s crazy. You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do! Tell me!”
“Well, it’s just that every time I see her in a vision, I feel like saying, ‘Mom, don’t cry.’”
“Huh…” Alyyx muttered, “Yeah, that’s strange. We never had a real Mom. The only Mom we had was with us here until the Ghors sold her when we were young. Does she look like Mom?”
“No… not at all. The lady I keep seeing has blonde hair like Mom, but she looks different.”
“Well, I can remember all the way back to the day the Ghors made us.”
“Oh, Alyyx, you cannot!”
“Yes, I can! I remember! We were in a spaceship. When we woke up, the Ghors told us that we had just been made. Hosk showed us the machine that made us. Me… and you… and a lot of others that look like us… Then they brought us here.”
Jayyd thought hard. “I think I remember, too, Alyyx… I’m just not sure…
Alyyx?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think the Ghors made all the beings in the universe?”
“Hosk says they did.”
“But you don’t believe it, do you?”
“I… don’t know. I have doubts, Jayyd.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think the Ghors made all the beings in the universe.”
“Why?”
“Because… look how the Ghors treat them! And Hosk sells us to others. I don’t know, Jayyd… I just think that that doesn’t seem… normal.”
Jayyd smiled. “Since when have the Ghors been normal?”
“Alyyx grinned. “Yeah. You’re right. But that’s another thing. Would a being that creates other beings create other beings that are… you know… better… smarter… nicer than they are?”
“Well, they created us,” Jayyd said.
Alyyx thought for a long while. “Did they? I wonder.”
<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>
In Galaxy 01B, on the planet Aklat, Ee-l'wee sat on a large round sofa that seemed to swallow her up. Ee-l'wee was an Aklatian; and like all Aklatians, she was small. Ee-l'wee measured a mere 15 inches in height. Also, like all Aklatians, Ee-l'wee had two pairs of wings, like a dragonfly. And like all Aklatians, Ee-l'wee was female.
It might seem to anyone who had never met an Aklatian that the Aklatians would be at a severe disadvantage in the universe, especially in dealing with nine-foot-tall, murdering, slaving giants like the Ghors. But the Aklatians had not survived by being the “butterflies” of the universe. Though small and pleasant to look at, Aklatians were anything but helpless. Hosk had found that out the hard way the first time he had met one. His first thought had been that she would bring him a lot of money as an exotic pet for some rich traveler. It had taken Hosk nearly two months in what passed for a Ghor hospital to recover from the burns he had suffered from the electrical charge he received when he touched one of the little “fairies.” Two of his four hearts had actually stopped and had to be restarted. It was not a mistake he wished to repeat. To Hosk, an Aklatian “fairy” was as formidable a trading “partner” as any Dragon from Drago. And besides, Aklatians had money. Lots of it. Hosk had never met one that didn’t.
Ee-l'wee had expanded her house in order to accommodate the two large creatures she had purchased from Hosk seven years before. She had only intended to buy one, the one that could talk to unintelligent creatures, but the other one had hovered over it so protectively that she had agreed to take them both, much to Hosk’s delight.
Ee-l'wee owned and ran what might be described as an interplanetary zoo on Aklat. She normally avoided purchasing “intelligent” creatures, as these two appeared to be, but she had not purchased them as “exhibits” for her zoo. She had purchased the boy specifically because he was able to communicate with and control all kinds of animals and lower beings. And Ee-l'wee had over three hundred different species of animals from all over the universe in her menagerie. Visitors came from all over the galaxy, sometimes even from other galaxies, to see the rare animals in her menagerie, and they paid well to see them. The boy would be a very big asset to her. As for the female creature that she bought with the boy, she would have a function, too. It was quite obvious to Ee-l'wee that the older creature was protecting the younger one. The younger one treated the older one as its mother. Ee-l'wee was quite sure that splitting them up would be a major mistake.
Ee-l'wee treated the two creatures well, gave them their own special rooms in her own house, and allowed them to roam freely for the most part. She treated them more as professional, live-in employees than as slaves; but in the end, both Ee-l'wee and the creatures she had bought from Hosk knew that "slaves" is what they were.
<center>End of Chapter 8
tbc…</center>
-
Island Breeze
- Feedbacking Sci Fi King
- Posts: 1791
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2005 11:11 pm
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Children Of The Universe
<center> <<<<<>>>>> Children Of The Universe <<<<<>>>>> </center>
The Pursuit
Chapter 9
IX
On Xarius, Max, Michael, and Shag met back in the palace with Liz, Maria, Maya, and Varec and set about to decide what their next course of action should be. Though they hadn’t seen any proof yet, there seemed little doubt in any of their minds that the Ghors were hiding something, and it had to do with the missing children.
“Max…” Liz said cautiously, “If there really is a chance that any of the children are still alive, we could use the Sphere of Searches to find them…”
Max was dumb-struck… “I must be an idiot! Why didn’t I think of that already?”
“Well, maybe,” Michael said, “because we all thought they were dead. Why would anyone ask where a dead person is?”
Shag nodded.
“But maybe some of them are not dead…” Maria continued, “and the sphere could locate them. I think we should try it!”
“Absolutely!” Max agreed, “Just remember, though, that when we went back to the past, the children weren’t there. We met our past “selves,” and our past “selves” told us that they had no children. Let’s hope that whatever is blocking us from finding any of the children in the past doesn’t block the spheres from finding them in the present… if any of them are alive. Liz?”
Liz nodded… “Sphere of Searches!”
“Ask.”
“Where is my daughter, Maya?”
There was a pause. Liz became pale and her skin clammy. Her stomach was tied up in knots. But she needed to know… She had to know, even though she feared more than death itself the possibility that the sphere would confirm that Maya was dead or that it would say that she could not be located.
“Your daughter, Maya, is on the planet Beshune in the city of Grazida in the house of Lorvo the Traveler.”
“Is she… okay?” Liz asked.
“I regret that it is not within my power to know that information.”
Liz nodded. “Sphere of Visions!”
“Ask.”
“I want to see my daughter, Maya.”
A mist appeared in the room, and inside the mist appeared a vision, which became clearer and clearer. Nineteen-year-old Maya was standing over a cradle, which she was rocking as she sang softly.
Liz gasped… “Does she have… Is she… Is that…”
“I don’t think so,” said Michael. Look close. That baby is not even part Antarian or Earthling.”
Liz let her breath go out in an audible sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding it and had stopped breathing.
“She’s okay,” said Max, excitedly. “She’s alive, and she’s okay!”
Maria could bear no more…
“Liz?”
Liz looked at Maria. If ever she had seen a pleading look, she was looking at it.
“Maria! Oh, Maria! Of course… You know it!”
“Jayyd. Ask about Jayyd… then the others…” said Maria.
“Sphere of Searches!”
“Ask.”
“Where is Jayyd Guerin?”
Maria had her hand over her mouth. She was biting on her lip without realizing it. The pause in getting an answer from the sphere was probably no more than five seconds, but it might as well have been a lifetime!
“Jayyd Guerin is on Gadyslar, a moon of Ghorbidfael.”
“I’ll kill Hosk!” Michael said with conviction. “I’ll kill that lizard-breathed S.O.B. with my bare hands! We were just there! We were right there in his office, and he denied…” Michael’s voice broke.
“Sphere of Visions,” Liz said.
“Ask.”
“I want to see Jayyd Guerin.”
The mist appeared, and in the mist there was a vision of a young girl, about sixteen years old, and a young man about the same age or just slightly older. The two youths were running through the woods… being chased by something… something that made screeching baying sounds like a bloodhound with something heavy standing on its tail. Quickly, the pursuers -Ghor guards with some kind of scent-tracing animals- came into sight. The two young people were outrunning their Ghor pursuers handily, in spite of the Ghors’ considerably longer legs… but they would not escape. What they could not see or know was that other Ghors were lying in wait ahead. Inevitably, within minutes, Jayyd and the young man would run right into the nets being prepared for their capture.
“Portal!” Liz exclaimed. “Take us to Jayyd Guerin on Gadyslar.”
Liz, Maria, Michael, and Max stepped through the portal onto the Moon of Gadyslar. Suddenly, the young couple was in front of them. The young man took Jayyd by the hand and started to run a different way, but Michael cried out to them…
“Jayyd!”
The young man had little time to think, but it didn’t require much thought to know that these new people were not Ghors. Who they might be could be determined later. He stopped.
“Jayyd…” said Maria, edging toward her daughter with her hands outstretched.
Jayyd looked at the blonde-haired lady approaching her with tear-filled eyes…
“You! Who are you?” Jayyd asked. “You’re the one in my visions!”
The young man looked at Jayyd and at the newcomers. Somehow, he knew… somehow his doubts disappeared. He needed to trust these people.
“The Ghors are coming,” the young man said. “How did you get here?”
“Portal!” Liz said.
“Come!” Maria said to Jayyd and to the young man, holding out her hands. “Please! Quickly!”
At that moment, the Ghor pursuers charged through the trees toward the young couple and the newcomers. The young man took Jayyd‘s hand, and the two of them took Maria and Michael’s hands. Together, they all stepped through the portal.
<center>End of Chapter 9
tbc…</center>
The Pursuit
Chapter 9
IX
On Xarius, Max, Michael, and Shag met back in the palace with Liz, Maria, Maya, and Varec and set about to decide what their next course of action should be. Though they hadn’t seen any proof yet, there seemed little doubt in any of their minds that the Ghors were hiding something, and it had to do with the missing children.
“Max…” Liz said cautiously, “If there really is a chance that any of the children are still alive, we could use the Sphere of Searches to find them…”
Max was dumb-struck… “I must be an idiot! Why didn’t I think of that already?”
“Well, maybe,” Michael said, “because we all thought they were dead. Why would anyone ask where a dead person is?”
Shag nodded.
“But maybe some of them are not dead…” Maria continued, “and the sphere could locate them. I think we should try it!”
“Absolutely!” Max agreed, “Just remember, though, that when we went back to the past, the children weren’t there. We met our past “selves,” and our past “selves” told us that they had no children. Let’s hope that whatever is blocking us from finding any of the children in the past doesn’t block the spheres from finding them in the present… if any of them are alive. Liz?”
Liz nodded… “Sphere of Searches!”
“Ask.”
“Where is my daughter, Maya?”
There was a pause. Liz became pale and her skin clammy. Her stomach was tied up in knots. But she needed to know… She had to know, even though she feared more than death itself the possibility that the sphere would confirm that Maya was dead or that it would say that she could not be located.
“Your daughter, Maya, is on the planet Beshune in the city of Grazida in the house of Lorvo the Traveler.”
“Is she… okay?” Liz asked.
“I regret that it is not within my power to know that information.”
Liz nodded. “Sphere of Visions!”
“Ask.”
“I want to see my daughter, Maya.”
A mist appeared in the room, and inside the mist appeared a vision, which became clearer and clearer. Nineteen-year-old Maya was standing over a cradle, which she was rocking as she sang softly.
Liz gasped… “Does she have… Is she… Is that…”
“I don’t think so,” said Michael. Look close. That baby is not even part Antarian or Earthling.”
Liz let her breath go out in an audible sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding it and had stopped breathing.
“She’s okay,” said Max, excitedly. “She’s alive, and she’s okay!”
Maria could bear no more…
“Liz?”
Liz looked at Maria. If ever she had seen a pleading look, she was looking at it.
“Maria! Oh, Maria! Of course… You know it!”
“Jayyd. Ask about Jayyd… then the others…” said Maria.
“Sphere of Searches!”
“Ask.”
“Where is Jayyd Guerin?”
Maria had her hand over her mouth. She was biting on her lip without realizing it. The pause in getting an answer from the sphere was probably no more than five seconds, but it might as well have been a lifetime!
“Jayyd Guerin is on Gadyslar, a moon of Ghorbidfael.”
“I’ll kill Hosk!” Michael said with conviction. “I’ll kill that lizard-breathed S.O.B. with my bare hands! We were just there! We were right there in his office, and he denied…” Michael’s voice broke.
“Sphere of Visions,” Liz said.
“Ask.”
“I want to see Jayyd Guerin.”
The mist appeared, and in the mist there was a vision of a young girl, about sixteen years old, and a young man about the same age or just slightly older. The two youths were running through the woods… being chased by something… something that made screeching baying sounds like a bloodhound with something heavy standing on its tail. Quickly, the pursuers -Ghor guards with some kind of scent-tracing animals- came into sight. The two young people were outrunning their Ghor pursuers handily, in spite of the Ghors’ considerably longer legs… but they would not escape. What they could not see or know was that other Ghors were lying in wait ahead. Inevitably, within minutes, Jayyd and the young man would run right into the nets being prepared for their capture.
“Portal!” Liz exclaimed. “Take us to Jayyd Guerin on Gadyslar.”
Liz, Maria, Michael, and Max stepped through the portal onto the Moon of Gadyslar. Suddenly, the young couple was in front of them. The young man took Jayyd by the hand and started to run a different way, but Michael cried out to them…
“Jayyd!”
The young man had little time to think, but it didn’t require much thought to know that these new people were not Ghors. Who they might be could be determined later. He stopped.
“Jayyd…” said Maria, edging toward her daughter with her hands outstretched.
Jayyd looked at the blonde-haired lady approaching her with tear-filled eyes…
“You! Who are you?” Jayyd asked. “You’re the one in my visions!”
The young man looked at Jayyd and at the newcomers. Somehow, he knew… somehow his doubts disappeared. He needed to trust these people.
“The Ghors are coming,” the young man said. “How did you get here?”
“Portal!” Liz said.
“Come!” Maria said to Jayyd and to the young man, holding out her hands. “Please! Quickly!”
At that moment, the Ghor pursuers charged through the trees toward the young couple and the newcomers. The young man took Jayyd‘s hand, and the two of them took Maria and Michael’s hands. Together, they all stepped through the portal.
<center>End of Chapter 9
tbc…</center>