by Z. M. Wilmot
~Kalkkis, Ayakk Seer, in his Musings
It was a human. Or at least, it looked like a human. He wore a snappy, dark teal uniform, looking much like what officers on earth would wear. He had short brown hair and beautiful blue eyes.
We were all speechless, and said nothing for several minutes. He raised an eyebrow. “Has the snarx got your voiceboxes?”
Michaela cleared her throat. “How… did you find us? We sent no transmissions back to Earth.”
“Earth?” The man looked puzzled. “What is Earth?”
We all stared at him. “The homeworld of the human race? The place that we all came from?”
“Human race?” He tilted his head. “Am I to assume then that you are… humans?”
“Are you not?” Michaela sounded confused.
The man shook his head. “I am sorry, but I cannot say that I am. I am a Shortel.” He peered closely at us. “You are… humans, you say?”
We all nodded.
He walked closer to us, and his eyes carefully inspected each of us. After a few awkward moments, he smiled. “You all appear to be Ayudari!” His face broke out in a grin. “Maybe a lost race! So there are really five of us!”
We stared at him blankly. He laughed. “My apologies. You appear to be members of a race that we had not yet discovered. We followed strong psychic signals here – we are tracking a being called Psy, as part of a project to monitor him. Perhaps you have encountered him?”
We all looked at him. I shivered. He must have noticed something in our eyes, for he frowned. “I see that you have. I am sorry that your encounter with him seems to have been so… unpleasant.” He looked around. “Where is your ship? Or do you live here?”
Adam finally spoke. “Our ship was… destroyed. We have no means of returning home.”
“My deepest apologies.” He hesitated. “Do you wish to return? If you can give us coordinates or a general area, we could find your home world and bring you back.”
We all looked at each other. We had no better options.
Michaela shrugged. “If it’s not too much trouble… then we’ll accept your offer.”
The man nodded. “Follow me.” He turned and walked back into the ship. We hesitated an instant, then filed in after him.
We were in a brightly lit corridor. I didn’t know where the light was coming from – it seemed to come from all around us. We walked in silence, until we reached a room that resembled the bridge of our ship. There were four other “Shortel” in the room. They all turned to look at us, and smiled.
Our guide bowed. “Captain Hygarth, these people are the origins of the life signals we picked up – other than the Tigyrhuns and the Gorrixyt plants.” Gorrixyt plants? I assumed that those were the trees. Or, I supposed, the fungus. I had no idea about what Tigyrhuns were, but the name reminded me of tigers.
The captain nodded. “Greetings. What race are you?” He had a strange accent.
Michaela spoke. “We are humans, sir.” She sounded just as bewildered at this turn of events as I was – did we encounter some lost colony of humans? Or were these just aliens who happened to look exactly like humans and speak English?
The captain’s eyes widened. “Humans?” He said the word in an odd way – I can’t really describe it, but it was odd. “Not Elfviyat? Dassens? Ayakk? Or Shortel, like us?”
Michaela shook her head. The captain broke out into a grin. “Then it seems as if we have stumbled across one of our lost races! And a fellow race of Ayudari!” There was that word again – Ayudari. I had no clue as to what it meant.
My curiosity got the better of me. “Sir, what are Ayudari?” Michaela and Adam both looked at me, surprised that I had spoken. I chose to ignore their astonished stares.
“Ayudari is a term used to describe four – no, now five – races that all appear to be exactly the same, with only minor genetic differences. Made by Ayudarin, in her precise image.”
“Ayudarin?” Adam asked.
The captain sighed. “It seems as if you have a lot to learn. You have encountered, it seems, your first members of Juxtani civilization – the largest conglomerate of races, peoples, and civilizations in all of known Juxtani Space. It will all become clear soon.”
The man – or should I call him “the Shortel?” – who had led us here spoke then. “Captain, they wish to be returned to their home.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. I didn’t think this was your home – it is a rather inhospitable planet. It’s a miracle that you survived down there. Unless…” he scrutinized us. “Did food and drink start mysteriously appearing from nowhere?”
We all nodded.
“Ah. I see. Well, I hate to tell you this, but none of it was really completely real. There was some substance of some kind, that Psy altered your perception of, to make it more… palatable. Whatever he made you eat probably was not very nutritious.
“As such, you will need to eat something real soon. After we’re done here, you should report to our dietician and see what foods can be made for you.”
We all nodded. Michaela pursed her lips. “May I ask a question?”
The captain nodded. “Of course.”
“If… we aren’t the same race, and are from different cultures… how did you learn to speak English?”
The captain frowned. “English? We are not speaking… English. Is that what you call this language?”
She nodded.
“Interesting. We call it Kordic, after the Korrikan race. It is the language of all of Juxtani space, as decreed by the unifier Chivak Warbringer so many dateyns ago.”
We stared at him blankly again. “A what?”
“A dateyn? It is the unit of time we use to measure the passage of long periods.”
“You mean… like a year?” Adam sounded curious now, and not at all nervous. These Shortel obviously meant us no harm.
“Sort of, but dateyns are not dependent on orbital periods. Tell me, do you have any memory of Juxtani Space anywhere within your race?”
“Not that we know of,” Michaela said.
“So after the Rise of K’Shatryan – the time when Juxtani Space was broken and civilizations were lost – you must have degenerated and then re-evolved into what you were before! And re-evolved to have Kordic – a slightly different form of it, perhaps, but at its heart still Kordic – develop! Fantastic!” We were all too tired to share his joy and enthusiasm. He noticed this and smiled. “It looks like you need rest. Thyrak!”
The man who had guided us here stood up straight.
“Show our guests to the dietician, then give them a place in the spare rooms to rest.” He paused. “We’re going to have to make a stop on the way, you should know. We had an unfortunate encounter with Psy in the space above this planet, and one of our crewmembers was struck down with madness before we drove him off. We have to return to Port Ryfe to drop him off, and report our findings. Our observational shift is almost over anyway.” He took a breath. “Unfortunately, we are also obligated by duty to report you to authorities. It might be a bit before you can return home, but we’ll do our best to speed up the process.”
Michaela nodded. “I understand. We can manage.” She smiled wryly. “We weren’t expecting to get home at all – a longer wait won’t do us any harm.”
The captain smiled. “Very well then. Do know that your presence will likely cause a stir throughout all of Juxtani Space – and will almost certainly result in us opening relations with your race.”
Michaela nodded again. “Perfectly understandable.”
“So we appear to be on the same page – good. Now, may we have the coordinates of your planet, assuming that your coordinates are somewhat similar to ours?”
Michaela shook her head. “Sorry, captain. That information will only be revealed when it needs to be.” I was surprised that she even had the coordinates.
The captain nodded his head and smiled. “Very well. I can’t argue with that.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve detained you long eno
ugh. Thyrak – take them to the dietician.”
Thyrak saluted, and gestured for us to follow him. He led us down a few curving corridors, until we reached a small room at what I thought was the back of the ship. The dietician was a very nice female Shortel. She took a sample of each of our skin cells, put them in a machine of some kind, and then spent a minute or so looking at the results. She then hurriedly prepared some kind of sludge – she apologized, and said that she would come up with something more appetizing once she had a better understanding of our metabolisms. The sludge actually tasted rather good. When we were done eating, Thyrak then led us all to separate rooms. I fell asleep almost instantly.
