The Interstellar

by David Lund

  Suddenly a noise like the grinding of a dentist’s instrument against a tooth was heard, filling the surrounding area with the noise, making the humans cringe, and as Michael looked around, he spotted several Henfor blowing into some sort of horn. He realized that the screeching noise was music, and that it was being played in their honour. Several large screens were set up around the area, and their faces were clearly visible on them. He tried to change his cringing face to one of

  delight, although he wasn’t sure that he was being successful. Obviously their arrival was publicized.

  In front of them was a big red building. It was square and several stories high. Just above a marble arch on the front of the building, which appeared to lead to a set of doors, was a logo.

  Michael looked closely, it seemed to be some sort of animal, only the upper half of it’s body had feathers, and the lower part had fur. Strangely enough, apart from those details, it looked nothing like a bird or a mammal. It looked more like a large insect, but unlike any Michael had ever seen. It seemed to have at least ten legs and a sucker for a face. Covering parts of its fur and feathers, was a shiny armoured coating. The creature was leaning back, seemingly ready to pounce. It was an intriguing thing, but quite disgusting. Michael made a mental note to ask someone about it later.

  Underneath the creature was a series of odd symbols, that he believed must have been words.

  Standing in a small group beneath the marble arch and strange creature, were several Henfor.

  Among them was the fat, white robed president. He was much of a much more impressive height than Michael had thought when he’d seen him on the screen: at least eight feet tall. With his height and weight, he would have been a scary man had it not been for his friendly face. He had the biggest smile on his dark face, and a gleam in his eyes. He outstretched his arms in welcome as the humans approached.

  “Welcome,” he boomed, his voice magnified, yet Michael could see no trace of a microphone. One of his acolytes was holding a translation device. “Welcome, people of Earth. Welcome to Tch’ran.”

  The president walked forward, lowered one of his outstretched arms and reached out a hand towards Michael, who glanced at it for the briefest second before taking it in his own.

  “Thank you,” he said, and he was surprised to hear his own voice magnified as well. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” The crowd, who had been rather silent, suddenly erupted in cheers. Michael and his crew couldn’t help beaming. After the cheers died down, they followed the president inside.

  13

  They were led through the doors under the marble arch and into a great hall. This must have been where the richest elements of the planet were found. It was decorated so elegantly, with such beautiful things, that it took Michael’s breath away. The room was gold all around the walls and many trinkets – like in Gareen’s office back on the ship – hung everywhere. But whereas Gareen’s place had been slightly mismatched, every thing here seemed to have a purpose, and it was all put together perfectly. Not that the crew had idea what they were.

  They didn’t stop in the hall however, and were led on to the president’s office, three floors up.

  They stopped in front of the door where the president asked someone to escort the humans to a sleeping area.

  “You must all be very tired. Mr. Edwards, I would like to speak with you, if you are up to it?”

  Michael didn’t hesitate.

  “Yes,” he turned to his crew. “I will see you all later.”

  “But - “Caitlin started, but Michael interrupted.

  “Later. Get some rest Caitlin.” She looked as if she wanted to argue, but decided against it. She nodded and turned to follow the rest of the group.

  Michael followed the president into his office. The room was not as large as Michael expected and was devoid of any of the beautiful trinkets found in the hall. There was just a desk standing in the middle of the room on a heavily carpeted floor. Two chairs had been placed in front of the desk.

  Another chair, much bigger and more comfortable looking was behind it. The president invited him to sit, and let his fat body drop into the homely chair.

  “Allow me to formerly introduce myself,” The Henfor said. “I am President Barneen, head of the Henforan Southern continent, and many would say – and I apologize for my lack of modesty –leader of the whole planet. You see,” he added seeing Michael’s curious look. “The north also have a President, but he is much less liked than I am, and I am afraid, he is far from a self assured man, he often asks me for advice. But let’s not talk about politics. Tell me about you.” Barneen sat back and held his hands together.

  “I realize you want to know about us, we want to know about you too; and hopefully there will be time for that later, but I’m afraid I have more pressing issues,” Michael said. He thought it was best to get business out of the way first.

  “You want to find your missing friends,” Barneen said knowingly. “I understand. They have been taken by the Friiist and launched in an escape pod, if I am not mistaken.”

  “That’s right,” Michael was reminded of a university professor, Barneen gave off that feeling. He was open and friendly, and yet he radiated power, this was surely not a man to cross.

  “The problem we have,” the President continued. “Is that they were taken in Friiist territory. We have some sort of agreement you see; we are not supposed to cross this invisible line no more than they should. However, we crossed it to get to you. Of course, they intercepted you shortly after that, overpowering one of our ships. We knew they would torture or kill you, so we had to go back for you and crossed the line with two other ships. They are mad, and will want revenge.”

  “I’m sorry we put you in this position.” To Michael’s surprise, Barneen burst out laughing.

  “My dear man, it’s not your fault, the Friiist hate us and we hate them, it has been this way for so long, that any opportunity for one of our people to hurt the other is always a good one.”

  “But how did this war start?”

  Barneen took a breath.

  “Years before I was born, astronomers would look up at the sky and see this great blue white world before them and obviously wonder if anybody lived there. One day, telescopes were built and we could suddenly see cities, and with it, a whole new civilization. It was a glorious day, or so I learned in school,” he chuckled at the memory. “We sent messages, many of them, but we never got a response. So, space travel was the next logical step, and after several years, a dozen dead astronauts and two weeks of travel, we sent Henfor to the Friiist world.

  “They were not welcomed as we expected. The Friiist also knew about us, they had similar technology, but unlike our people, they did not want to find out anything about us. They asked the men who landed to leave immediately or they would be shot. One of the astronauts, Hanreen, tried to talk to them, but he was killed on the spot.” Barneen bowed his head. “It was a sad day for us, we had many hopes of talking to this new species, but if this was how we were to be treated, we wanted nothing to do with them. The war didn’t star then however. The other astronauts ran for their shuttle after Hanreen was shot and took off as soon as they could. The Friiist wouldn’t even allow them to bring back his body. They had completed a month’s trip for ten minutes on the Friiist home world.

  “Needless to say, we didn’t attempt to contact the Friiist after the incident. We turned instead, to the other planets in the solar system. We believed that if life had evolved on two planets, then surely, the other planets held life as well. And so, the search went on, of course, we discovered that the other planets nearest us were void of life, we sent several probes, as it was too far for us to travel at that time, and we found nothing of interest.”

  “They weren’t in the Goldilocks zone,” Michael said.

  “The Goldilocks zone?” Barneen asked, intrigued.

  “It’s a children’s story, and another name for the habitable zone.”

  “Ah yes, well no the
y weren’t. But still, we thought they might have been of some interest. We decided to explore and began to build a ship capable of taking us to the nearest planet: Tch’freen.

  “So, about a hundred years ago, not long after we had begun the construction of our ship, we

  received a message from the Friiist. They said to stop sending probes into space and to abandon the construction of our ship, or we would be fired upon.”

  “How did they know?” Michael asked. The story was interesting, he was captivated.

  “They were monitoring us. What was more important was their threat. We knew what they were capable of with what had happened the last time we’d come face to face with them. We sent back a message asking why they were doing this, but alas, we got no answer.

  “And so we continued to build the ship, if they weren’t going to do us the courtesy of explaining, we were not going to stop our exploring. Then about eighty years ago, a great beam of light cut through our land, killing five million people, destroying our cities, everything we had built, our families.” His face saddened at these words. “This time, we were going to fight.

  “We built bigger and faster ships, war ships, more weaponry, and we defended ourselves. We too sent a laser and wiped out many of their larger cities. But we were losing the fight, they had planned this much longer than we had, and our troops were losing hope. We were on the brink of surrendering when, out of nowhere, forty years ago, the Friiist home world exploded in a huge mushroom shaped fireball. It was no longer visible from our planet. It took years for it to clear completely. We had no idea what happened. Finally we sent a ship to their world and discovered that they had been hit by a nuclear bomb, sent from your world.

  “It destroyed part of the planet, but the radiation quickly spread world wide, and the Friiist evacuated into space, where they live to this day. We offered to help them, even after everything we had been through, we couldn’t watch our enemies suffer this way.” Barneen held up a hand in laughter. “I know it is ironic, but it’s true, we had never used nuclear power in our battles, both worlds knew what would happen if we did.”

  “Did they accept your offer?”

  “No, not directly, but they did propose a truce, of sorts. That is when the line was created, we were not to cross the line and neither were they. Soon after that, the Friiist built the energy barrier that you ran into. They hoped it would protect them from the mighty humans who could send a bomb across thirty light years.” He laughed again. “I apologize, I don’t mean to mock your inferior technology, but they had pictured a people a lot more advanced than you actually are.” He fell silent. Michael was thinking back over everything Barneen had said, and some things Kaywal had said too.

  “The Friiist told me that they were the ones who visited you, and that you refused to speak with them, because you were xenophobic.” Barneen laughed again.

  “They are cunning, I’ll give you that. But as you have seen since arriving on our world, we are far from xenophobic, we welcome your arrival, it is a great pleasure for us.”

  “It could all be an elaborate deception though,” Michael said slowly. Barneen’s face fell and when

  he spoke next, his voice sounded hurt.

  “I thought we working on trust Mr Edwards? Do you believe that I am deceiving you?”

  “No I don’t,” Michael replied confidently. It was true, he believed Barneen, but he had believed Kaywal too. Although, with Kaywal, there had been doubt at the back of his mind. He felt quite serene talking to Barneen. “I believe you. I’m sorry, I’m just cautious.” Barneen nodded.

  “Understandable,” he said.

  “So what happened next?” Michael asked.

  “We kept to ourselves after that. The bombardments had stopped, and we were no longer in danger.

  We managed to rebuild our cities, and continue exploring the solar system. We sent ships to the outer reaches, it was magnificent. We were free of the Friiist at last, but they had been regaining strength. Indeed, they had built big survival stations in orbit of their world, capable of sustaining life for thousands of people. They built many of these ‘arks’.

  “We kept tabs on them of course, as I’m sure they did us, but they didn’t contact us or warn us off. Then of course, a few months ago, we detected your ship in orbit of Tch’noun, the giant planet.

  The gravity of the planet is very strong, and it set off a reverberation through the solar system when you pulled away from it, hitting the energy barrier.”

  “It almost destroyed the ship,” Michael nodded, remembering the gas giant all too well.

  “Yes it is an interesting planet, we have studied it closely.”

  “So if you detected us, I’m guessing the Friiist did too?”

  “They did indeed. We detected you but we didn’t know you were from Earth, we were about to send a ship out to rendez-vous with yours; to welcome you to our world; but it was then that the Friiist contacted us, and told us that your energy displacement matched that of the probe that destroyed their world. They warned us not to interfere, but we knew what would happen if they got a hold of you. We had already decided to intercept you, question you on your motives, perhaps torture you.

  We thought you were dangerous.

  “When we caught up with you and saw how small, damaged and technologically inferior your ship was, we knew that there had been a mistake. We examined your vessel, it is mentioned in the data banks that the probe was launched in your year 2025 and was meant as a welcome message.

  We knew that you were no threat. We tried telling the Friiist but they were outraged that we had interfered. So since you have come, the war has flared up again.” Barneen stood and walked to the window, he stared out at the bright suns gleaming in the sky.

  “So we were responsible for ending, and starting up your war,” Michael said quietly. The President did not answer, but continued to stare out of the window. “But all this -” he stopped. He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? He realized something else though, and voiced his thoughts.

  “It can’t be a coincidence can it, that our probe and our ship ended up in the same solar system. We

  must have been pulled through the same singularity.” Barneen turned around quickly.

  “A singularity?” he asked surprised. “What are you talking about?”

  “How did you think we got to your solar system? We were in our own system and got pulled in by some spatial anomaly. The next thing we knew, we were out near your eighth planet. Didn’t you detect it?”

  “No,” Barneen sat down again. “We believed that you had travelled through space for forty years.”

  Michael laughed.

  “Even if we had, we wouldn’t have travelled thirty light years. We left our planet only a few months ago. I told you, we were travelling to a neighbouring planet and were pulled through a black hole of sorts.”

  “Why didn’t you travel back through it? To get home?”

  “It disappeared, as soon as we went through it.”

  Barneen sighed.

  “This is most unusual, we have never seen anything like that.” Michael was disappointed, he was hoping that they would know something about it. A thought occurred to him. Kaywal had hinted that the Friiist were ready to attack Earth. Were they using the wormhole to travel to their solar system? It was at the same time, a scary and uplifting thought. If the Friiist knew how to work it, Earth would be an easy target, but it also meant that the crew might be able to use it to get back home without waiting for it to randomly show up again. They had to find out exactly what was happening. They had to figure what the Friiist’s plan was.

  “What if the Friiist are building this wormhole?” he asked, voicing his thoughts.

  “For what purpose?” The President asked, turning away from the window and striding back to his seat.

  “To destroy us. Humans.”

  “But that does not explain how your probe reached our solar system. Why build a gateway, only to be destroyed? And I�
�m afraid they simply don’t have the technology to do such a thing.”

  “How can you be sure?” Michael asked. “I imagine you have some kind of secret military base you use for building and testing weapons?” Barneen nodded. “Well,” Michael continued. “They probably have too. Isn’t it possible they developed this technology without you knowing about it?”

  Barneen sat silently for a bit, staring at Michael but not really seeing him.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he replied finally. “But why? Why would they build such a device?” It was Michael’s turn to pause. Why indeed? To steal technology from somewhere else in the galaxy? To discover new species? Somehow the last option seemed highly unlikely given his own experience and what Barneen had told him about the Friiist. Something did not add up. They were missing some facts. Alien and Human sat in silence for a while, thinking. It was Barneen who broke the

  silence.

  “Right, well we don’t know the reasons at the moment but one thing we do know is that they have your men. Now, if I know their tactics, it is likely that they will ask for us to surrender you or suffer the consequences.” He waved a hand through the air as if this was nothing. “Don’t worry, we won’t surrender you that easily. They will say that unless you come over to them, your friends will die.

  Now make no mistake, they will kill them, and not think twice about it. As you can imagine, they hate your species. But we can outwit them.”

  “How?”

  Barneen leaned back, linked his hands and smiled.

  “By being smarter than them,” he answered, a twinkle in his eye.

  14

  Michael was finally allowed to sleep. After talking with Barneen for hours, he was led to a room with a bed, and that was all he saw that night. He lay down on the soft material, closed his and eyes was immediately asleep. He dreamed of stars, of war and of peace. It was all very foggy and nothing would come into a focus. He awoke every now and then, sweating heavily, before drifting back into an uneasy sleep.