Like cars in the past, ships exhumed a certain cocktail of harmful to the planet’s atmosphere gasses that needed to be avoided. Only one spaceship had the same environmental impact with a thousand cars of the past. So, to reduce the pollution to the bare minimum, the government came up with six central space stations fit to house a significant number of spaceships. The visitors could refuel their vehicles, trade, and even have fun if they wanted to, never having to enter into the planet’s atmosphere.
In the end, it was mandatory for class two and over spaceships to reserve a seat in one of the stations and use shuttles for their business on Yaerus. Well, unfortunately, my dad insisted on getting me a class three vehicle, which was way too big for a Chronicler.
Nevertheless, the home planet looked beautiful from up here, orbiting around the star Ecli. Unlike back on Primordial Earth, Yaerus was the fourth planet in distance away from the system’s sun, so every day was around thirty hours. We arrived in what would be midnight back on Earth.
I pushed the small, black button that opened the intercom of the spaceship and announced: “Everyone get ready. In half an hour we leave for Mosa. Get only things essential to you, and remember that we’re not here on a pleasure cruise. We’re going to meet with the Professor and by tomorrow evening, we’re going to meet back here to discuss our new plan. That’s all.”
I took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. The Institute was a big and crowded place. I had to focus and not let my insecurities get the best of me, not in front of Jay. I didn’t want him to see me like that, not when he was used to having a certain picture of me.
After all, who would remember what happened last time? I was sure no one would even recognize me now that my hair had gotten longer.
Silver got inside the bridge and headed straight to my side: “Are you okay? Do you want me to come with you?”
I turned and smiled at her, shaking my head. I wished I could nod, but pride was a I had inherited from my mom.
I had to do this alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Jay
The stars looked beautiful from here. I had to get ready to head to the hangar to visit this Institute they kept talking about, but I wasn’t really in the mood. If I could pass this, I would. But, what if this man had a clue about my people and was able to give me more details? I couldn’t rule out the possibility that he might actually know something.
Don’t get your hopes up Jasih, not like the last five times.
I stood up and moved out of the common room. I put my hands in my pockets and slowly walked towards the elevator. I couldn’t hear anything from the bridge.
They must have moved to the hangar by now. She also must be there. I don’t really get why she always runs up and down the spaceship, always dictating what everyone has to do and what not, but it’s probably a human characteristic. If all humans are like her, then it’s not a surprise that they survived total extinction.
From what I remembered, Esuh were always organized but never too hasty. We used to tackle things at our own pace, and since Esuh were the greatest species in the galaxy back then, the Esuh’s pace was everyone’s pace.
When I finally arrived at the shuttle, the engines were already burning. The deafening sound of the huge thrusters made me hurry inside, just to stop hearing that loud noise. However, a different kind of noise prevailed.
“You’re ten minutes late,” Eladia quickly sprouted.
I didn’t reply to her. Instead, I found my seat next to Zan. The young man was still a bit shaky, and his eyes glistened now and then, but he looked okay. Frankly, between the female human and the android, Zan seemed to be the most likable.
“Are you okay kid?” I asked.
“Yes. Thanks ask,” he said in a jovial tone, still trying to get used to speaking the language.
Zan used both of his hands to hold the crossed belts keeping him safe. I felt compassionate about him, but I didn’t say anything.
Praise is the quickest way to dulling your sword.
The Esuh used to say that to all young warriors. If an Esuh praised you, it meant that you either had just saved his life, or you just had achieved a great, military feat. Either way, a Prime Officer was never allowed to praise anyone, even his own kids.
Kids.
The word echoed in my head. It spread and hit the walls of my mind and called for me to remember.
What kids?
“Okay, get ready for lift off. This is going to be rough,” the android said.
I barely had time to consider what she was talking about, but as soon as we launched, I felt the sudden acceleration tossing me to the back of my seat. After many times of going through this process, I thought I would have gotten used to it by now.
I hit my head on the seat’s cushion and the impact traveled to the rest of my body. It was not painful but rather disturbing. The pump on the head, however, triggered something.
A puzzle of random pictures appeared in my mind. A woman with dark silver skin, two children with a bluish shade, and a man, tall as a mountain, standing behind them. Most of the images that rushed to the surface of my memory, included these four people, apparently fellow Esuh, and obviously close to me.
Even so, everything happened so fast that I barely remembered their faces after we had finally slowed down.
Entering into the planet’s atmosphere was successful, and as soon as Silver straightened the nose of the shuttle, the trip got back in being pleasant.
That was when I saw the first buildings of the city Mosa, the greatest human city in the galaxy.
“Welcome to Mosa. Next stop, A.S.C.” the android said.
Before I even realized it, my nose was stuck to the side-window, while I was trying to get in everything at once. The enormous, oval buildings that didn’t touch the ground, the flying vehicles with people in them, the mountains of water moving up and down around the boundaries of the city, round in a never-ending sphere. Every kind of fish lived in those waters, from tiny, almost invisible ones to enormous and colorful.
“Wow!” Zan said behind me.
Wow indeed.
I wanted to say something, but again, I couldn’t.
I thought of Eladia right then, and in my head, her crazy personality kinda clicked.
Belonging to the same species that managed to construct this marvel of sentient technology surely heralds you with great knowledge.
“What is this?” Zan suddenly said.
He pointed at an entirely round building far away, which was totally transparent like it was a big bubble of air.
“Oh, that? That’s the Institute. But we’re not heading there yet. Me and Jay we’ll drop you in A.S.C. before heading there. But don’t worry. You can meet us later if you want. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to investigate it,” Eladia said.
“A.S.C.? What is that?” I asked.
“Android Support Center. It’s way past the time Silver had her checkup, so she must head there, first thing when she enters the planet. Having a malfunctioning artificial intelligence is illegal. If she doesn’t get there, we could get arrested for importing illegal technology.”
Humans and their stupid laws.
But, in the end, it didn’t quite matter. More time for me to admire this marvelous city. I couldn’t remember the place I was born or any details about my planet, but if it was half as beautiful as this aquatic paradise, then I hoped I could remember it fast.
Seeing people walking on the ground, and even more flying in the sky into their tiny, tin boxes, I couldn’t help but feel hope start to flicker inside my chest. There was no way that this city couldn’t help me find what I desired.
When I turned my head to watch straight ahead, I saw Eladia looking at me, smiling. I didn’t get why she was so happy just by looking at me, but I was glad she was. Once again, I wasn’t sure why this woman had made her life’s work to help me, or discover the truth about these Nusae toys, but for the first time in one hundred years, I felt glad she was h
ere.
I felt something hot in my pocket, and I figured I must have been holding the cube way too hard. I took it out and examined it. For a moment, I thought I saw something flashing on the upper side.
I blinked twice, and I decided that it must have been all in my head.
Chapter Eighteen
Eladia
The Institute used to be my home away from home in the past. I used to spend more time studying about the Four Planets, analyzing the Nusae schematics, searching for clues that would lead me to the next big artifact, anything to stay away from the never ending crowds that swarmed this place.
Humans had a small attention span and an even smaller life expectancy. Yeah, we lived up to one hundred and twenty, but after our golden year's end, usually around the age of eighty-five, we spent most of our time in life support systems and virtual reality entertainment pods. In short, we kinda got holed up in hospitals and waited to die while watching overly realistic soap opera shows.
It was not something to wait for, and everyone still had the choice to remain in their homes and keep on with their lives, but the downside of it was that they would probably die within five years or so. Yaerus was a thriving planet, and human species were Third-Ranked among the Five Great Species, but yeah, we kinda lived our lives fast.
The Institute was full of people from every major of the Chronicle Studies at all times. When we arrived, I almost turned and ran after seeing the sea of people running up and down the main floor. Black people, white people, red, people of every race and color, everyone and everything—most alien visitors of Mosa headed straight to the Institute—kinda spent their time here.
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one flustered before this sight. Jay spent a whole minute watching the masses pass before his eyes.
“Are there so many humans left?” he said, gawping while trying to once again rationalize the last one hundred years he had missed.
“I told you, humanity is booming more than ever. We’re way ahead than the other older species like the Yttor and the Bluabb. But we still have way to go before we climb to the next rank.”
The Third-Ranked Status was a great feat that humanity had achieved three years ago, but for the Allied Governments, it was not nearly good enough. They currently rushed things and pushed the boundaries of diplomatic agreements, trying to get their hands into more planets and expand even more.
But that had nothing to do with me.
Papa is the one politically involved, I’m just another Chronicler.
“So? Where is that Professor of yours?” he said, adding that usual wry twist to his sayings.
“Follow me,” I urged him and headed for the other side of the human wall.
I was not quite sure how many people I pushed, or stepped onto to get through the crowd. There was one that swore in Spanish and another one in French, but we kinda survived the passing. After spending all my time with Jay and Zan, it was now quite difficult to understand what they said to us.
When I did, my cheeks reddened, and I kinda wanted to run and hide from embarrassment. People from the European System were always so temperamental.
After some more squeezing and waiting in a short line, we finally got in front of one of the platforms. Tens of tubes were located at the other end of the room. The Institute provided visitors and personnel hovering platforms that worked as elevators to the upper floors. Jay hadn’t seen anything like that before.
I spent a moment to explain him how these things worked, and he ended up looking at me more confused than before. He was way too cute, and I had to stop myself from laughing at him. The one time I did, he didn’t talk to me for a week. It was a nightmare.
“Wait, wait. So, we ride one of those things, and they get us straight to the Professor?”
“No, for the last time, no. We ride one of the platforms, and you follow me through the upper hallways to the place where the Professor is. Just get on and you’ll get the hang of it,” I said in an annoyed tone.
Frankly, I was indeed annoyed, and tired, and very, very uncomfortable. It had been more than a year since I had used a platform, so I was a bit afraid that I had forgotten how to ride them. I pulled my sleeves up, stretched my lower lip while trying to get up, and we finally set off for the upper floor. Jay, only perceptive when he wanted to be, he seemed like a technologically weak person. He ended up being dumber that Zan and Zan was just a kid from Primordial Earth.
Without further ado, he finally hopped on and followed me. Everywhere around us, many people flew upwards at great speed. The most experienced platform riders could get to their destination in merely minutes, but neither of us, neither Jay, nor I, we were experienced enough to reach great speeds.
We rose towards the upper hallways slowly and steadily. After five minutes of hovering above the main floor, we saw the first, and most popular department of the Institute, the Discovery of the New. Every piece of new tech, every experiment involving human enhancement, typically everything that helped humans get even better at bragging to the other species, all were developed here.
I explained that to Jay and he looked at me mesmerized. “So, this is your research facility. It’s huge. I think we had one just like that in our dreadnaught. Esuh were magnificent at developing new drugs and substances.”
“Really? I thought you were always at war with someone. Why that fixated with medicine?” I asked while we flew by a small lab that experimented with flies.
I think that some of those things I saw in there had the same size as a hamster.
“When soldiers got injured, usually we had to spend some time treating them. But, after we started developing medicine for everything, the treating time was reduced to a minimal. A particular pill could heal you from laser wounds, and another could enhance your sight. There was literary a pill about everything.”
He talked with such warmth about his people that kinda made me want to help him discover more about them. Also, that was the most time he had spoken to me since we met. Usually, he said one thing and then left to do something else.
Even so, after all this time, there was no progress with his amnesia. Bits of information surfaced every day, but important parts like if he had a family, or where his planet was, or what had happened to the rest of the Esuh, those parts he missed.
Quickly after we passed another lab that experimented in lucid dreaming and dream printers, I saw the dim lights of the noise-canceling technology of the next part of our journey up. The Department of the Known Galaxy Archives Research was a huge library located in the exact middle of the round building. It was the biggest department of them three, spreading for miles, with digital archives that stored the whole combined knowledge of the Known Galaxy Species.
In the past, this poorly lit place had strict regulations about noise and its visitors. The problem was that since it was located directly above the DND, short for Discovery of the New Department, it was always noisy and hard to focus. However, one day, the Chroniclers of the DND came up with a noise canceling that disintegrated every noise wave traveling in the air before it was even created.
As soon as we passed into the grid, holographic displays appeared in front of us, allowing us to communicate by typing whatever we wanted to say. I quickly typed the explanation to him.
He replied with a simple: “Amazing.”
I had to read that tiny word three times before actually realizing that Jay was indeed amazed by human tech. Esuh of the Two Faces most probably were a highly advanced species that ruled the galaxy in the past, according to Jay that is, but they had mysteriously vanished even before the Nusae appeared.
As a Chronicler of the Great Mystery, the last and less popular department of the Institute, my questions regarding his origins thickened by the day, but I never quite asked him anything. Jay could be a very offensive person, but now that I saw him so amazed by the Institute, I kinda liked him more than before. It meant he had a soft side inside him.
I froze.
Did I think I
like him? No, I don’t like him. Eladia, stay focused. Jay is just another piece to the Great Mystery.
The green lights at the end of the noise-canceling grid suddenly appeared. It was enough of a distraction to make me forget about my embarrassing realization. Honestly, it was never too soon to get out of this ghastly place. I hoped I didn’t have to visit it again soon. But, if the Professor didn’t have a clue, this department was my next shot.
At the end of our tour, we arrived at the top floor of the Institute, the smallest and poorest department, the Great Mystery. I led him to a platform port and by pressing a button, the engines stopped and anchored at the edge of the floor.
Alien Romance Box Set: Romantic Suspense: Alien Destiny: Scifi Alien Romance Adventure Romantic Suspence Trilogy (Complete Series Box Set Books 1-3) Page 78
