Postword
Long Before The Beginning Of The Beginning
A bony, aged, finger pointed toward the clear morn-ing sky. “Look.” As the word passed the wrinkled lips, it carried an unexpectedly vibrant tone of confidence and power.
Two pairs of eyes followed the trajectory indicated by the finger.
A small speck appeared above the desert’s horizon and quickly grew larger as it rapidly and silently approached the three diverse friends, who stood unflinching as it passed directly overhead. It was close enough that the old seer could have easily hit the strange object with an arrow from his bow, had that been his desire.
The silence and welcome tranquility of the morning was supplanted by a thunderous shock, as the huge object collided with the sand a few miles away. A great cloud of dust erupted from the desert and lingered in the still air.
“Shall we fly to the point of impact and discover what manner of creature hath fallen from heaven?” inquired Draco. His powerful voice retained its characteristic absence of all apprehension as it reverberated softly from deep within his cavernous chest.
As the trio approached, Draco was the first to see the long shallow impact crater, since his eyes were much more powerful than those of his companions’.
The dust had fully dissipated by the time they arrived at the deep end of the crater; they gazed incredulously at the object.
The sand and rocks at the head of the crater buried two thirds of the object. The dust refused to cling to the portion that was still exposed; its dark surface glistened in the sunlight.
“I cannot comprehend how an object of such size could be hurled through the sky,” commented the seer thoughtfully. “It must have fallen from the stars.”
“Yes, it must be from another world,” observed the man who was dressed in a fine white linen shirt and woven cloth britches tucked into fine, black leather boots. He looked at Draco, “Perhaps even from your home world.”
The ancient seer, in his traditional deerskin and handmade beads, placed his hand on the object. It was cool to the touch and felt smoother than frozen water on a still pond. He leaned forward and gazed intently at the object as if he would peer into its depths. Suddenly, he fell slowly backward. Draco reached out and caught him gently before he reached the ground and carefully carried him out of the pit and into the welcome shade of a tall rock outcropping that had been pushed up by the tremendous force of the strange object.
The man in the white shirt was a wise man of many years experience, but obviously not as ancient as the seer. He quickly removed his long cloak from his shoulder and placed it upon the ground.
He knelt down as Draco gently placed the seer upon the cloak. “Are you well, my old friend,” he asked softly.
“I am well,” spoke the seer after a few moments. “I have returned from another place.”
“What place?” asked Draco.
The seer looked up at the stone. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “May I use your long knife?” he asked, as he stood up.
The well-dressed man quickly drew his dagger and handed it to the seer, who began to use it to etch the descent of the object from the sky into the rock outcropping.
The seer finished his carving and looked out over the crater. His companions noticed a faraway look in his eyes.
“What do you see?” asked Draco, who could obviously see much farther and with much greater clarity than the old seer. Draco saw in the distance a hawk souring through the sky. On the ground below the hawk he could see a jackrabbit resting in the shade of a small shrub. Farther in the distance, almost at the horizon, he saw a lone antelope; but he knew the seer could not see these things.
The seer looked into the distance and forward through time. He saw what he thought was a whirlwind in the distance. As the plume of dust drew nearer, he imagined it to be a small herd of bison stampeding across the desert, except that bison did not frequent the desert.
The unusual dust cloud approached the place where he stood. He was surprised to see, in the leading edge of the dust cloud, four persons. They were riding astride – no, they were within – a strange beast with round feet. The beast came to rest only a few steps from the rock outcropping. The sides of the beast sprang open and its occupants spewed forth and ran to the rock outcropping and stared at his freshly finished carvings; their mouths were moving and he could tell that they were speaking, but he could not hear their words.
The fair-haired woman pointed to some strange scratches at the bottom of his carving. Suddenly, he could hear her words, but she spoke in a strange tongue that he could not understand–it sounded much like the language of his two companions. Even though he could not understand the words, he somehow comprehended their meaning.
As the words faded, so too did the woman and her three companions—and the beast that they were traveling in.
The seer turned to his companions. “You once said that your people could draw words?”
“Yes, we have a written language.”
“Will you draw these words here at the bottom of my draw-ing?”
“Can you read the inscription, Mom?” inquired Sharianna.
“Yes, but it’s very strange–it is an ancient Gaelic form of Latin. How could an ancient language from Scotland end up on a rock in the middle of the West Desert?”
The inflection in Sophia’s voice and the expression on her face reflected the query carried by her words. She continued: “These words, Fatum Alastriona are interpreted: Defenders of mankind’s destiny. These other words are: Astro Laris, which mean star tool.”
“Astrolaris,” repeated Joseph thoughtfully. “That’s what we should call the baby dragon.”
Book Two, Chapter One
The Baby Alien
The alien made another soft, melodious, crooning sound; it reminded Joseph of the purring of a kitten combined with the gentle cooing of a dove.
Mom anxiously, yet cautiously, went down the four steps to the tiny lower observation level of Robo-ship’s control room. She was worried that her movements might startle the baby alien that was encircled in the protective embrace of Sharianna’s arms.
Dad articulated Mom’s concern, his soft whisper seemed to reverberate in his ears because of the small spherical space of the control room as he cautioned, “Don’t make any sudden movements or loud noises.”
Sharianna turned around. “See, he’s not dangerous,” she said tenderly.
“It is a dragon,” gasped Mom, in an almost inaudible, incred-ulous whisper as the baby’s wings gently refolded inconspicuously onto its back. Her thoughts were in ultra-high-speed: What was a mythological creature’s egg doing in an incubation/stasis chamber on the moon? It must have been there a very long time before we dug it up. Maybe dragons weren’t myths. That’s quite obvious – I’m standing here looking at one. She looked at the sharp little claws, six on each hand and foot. The creature seemed to smile, revealing two rows of innumerable sharp gleaming teeth. It’s definitely designed to eat meat, she thought with fearful horror, as she saw how close it was to Sharianna’s tender throat. All these thoughts flashed through her mind in the moment it took for Sophia’s eyes to meet the big beautiful turquoise blue eyes of the infant dragon. Somehow, her heart seemed to connect with the dragon through those gentle orbs. Her anxiety miraculously and instantaneously morphed into a motherly manifestation of warmth and tenderness. “No, he’s not dangerous,” agreed Mom kindly, as she reached out her hand and gently caressed the cheek of the baby dragon. Its nearly scarlet skin felt surprisingly soft…
“I wonder if he is hungry?” wondered Sharianna, as she threaded her way through the ship’s living room and entered the hallway that led down to Robo-ship’s ankle door.
“That reminds me,” said Mom, “we bought a bucket of KFC while we were in town.”
They sat down at the kitchen table; Sharianna had the baby carefully cradled in her arms.
“Here you go little guy, do you want some chicke
n?” asked Joseph, as he handed a drumstick to the little dragon. It reached out and took the chicken with its mouth. To the family’s surprise it reached up with one of its front feet and held the chicken, just like a person would. This was the first opportunity the family had to get a close look at its feet.
“Those are more like hands, than feet,” exclaimed Joseph.
“You’re right. Look, it has six fingers, but two of them seem to be opposable thumbs, one on each side of the hand, instead of only one, like us,” observed Dad, as he held up his hand and wiggled his thumb.
Suddenly, they heard a crunching sound as the baby bit all the way through the bone of the drumstick. The dragon made a strange growling sound from deep within his chest. It was definitely different than the cooing sound they had heard before, and yet, it was not alarming. It was as if the infant were saying “mmm,” like a person when they really like something they are eating.
The baby finished off the chicken leg, bone and all, and then crawled out of Sharianna’s arms and onto the table. Reaching into the bucket of chicken with his hands, he pulled out another piece. He squatted on his hind legs and using his tail for balance he began to devour the chicken, he seemed to relish the bone and gristle just as much as the meat.
When he was done eating, he crawled back into Sharianna’s arms, closed his eyes and went to sleep.
DON’T MISS THE REST OF BOOK TW0!!
They name the baby alien Astrolaris; he becomes a member of the family and grows into a beautiful, incredibly intelligent dragon. Grandma joins the adventure in search of Astrolaris' origins. They return to the moon in search of more stasis chambers and discover that the obelisks were built by a strange bird-like race. They find irrefutable evidence for ancient life on Mars and are surprised to find that the thick layer of ice encapsulating Europa, Jupiter's large icy moon, conceals an ocean of liquid water warmed by volcanic activity. It is an incredibly beautiful world, full of colorfully vibrant biolumines-cent plants and creatures, including an octopus-like technologi-cally advanced sentient species on the brink of war with a fanatical anti-technology terrorist group. Sharianna and Joseph become bargaining pieces in the struggle. Can the family save them with the help of their new friends?
On the way home, Joseph experiments with Robo-ship’s controls and discovers that it has faster than the speed of light capabilities. How fast can it go? Where might they travel? On their approach to Earth they scan for stasis chambers and discover that there are hundreds of them scattered throughout Great Britain and Scandinavia, dating from the Middle Ages; only one is still viable, but it is at the bottom of Loch Ness...
Etherial hatches from the second chamber. A video of the young dragons during a night flight is viewed by a Tibetan monk on the internet; he shows it to Draco, the last surviving medieval dragon (see the book one POSTWORD and the prequel series.) Draco travels across the world in search of the young dragons. He tells them that their home world was destroyed long ago, but another solar system may have been successfully colonized…
Your Friend in reading and writing,
Brenton Barwick
Defenders of Destiny, book one, the Discovery of Astrolaris Page 33
