Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence

by Daniel A. Liut

Clara remained pensive, her long blond hair falling over her eyes. She felt she had to stay by Duncan, but she realized that would not help him. “As Girl-Captain Veridiawan Warrior, I am assigning you new orders,” Clara said to Antares, invoking her new Veridiawan rank. “Jasiris, Jasindon: you two will carry Dahncion, but not Raylayhiagus. He is heavy and you are tired. You must get the boy-Dahncion to the caves at once without risking detection.”

  “We shall, girl-Captain,” they acknowledged together.

  “Daihyouleeby, go get some help from the village.”

  “Right away,” he said, and took off.

  “Anty—let’s help Shoshuar to carry Raylayhiagus to the caves.”

  “Wait a minute.” Shoshuar looked at Jasiris. “We don’t know how to find the cave where you’re taking the boy.”

  “Don’t worry, bear-Major,” said Jasiris. “Rayly knows the cave.”

  The whymeenidy lifted up his head. “Me?”

  Jasiris grinned. “The cave we played in as kids, dummy.”

  “Oh . . . the curvy cave.”

  Without delay, Jasiris and Jasindon departed with their human cargo. Using the branches of a nearby tree torn down by the storm, Shoshuar and Antares began to improvise the stretcher for Raylayhiagus.

  As they worked, Clara comforted the whymeenidy, but she began to notice he was ready to faint. That was something they could not afford, since he was the only one who knew the location of the cave. Taking a shot from her belt, Clara applied it to one of his legs. Raylayhiagus relaxed immediately, at the same time becoming very alert.

  With the stretcher finally ready, the team departed, sheltered by a rolling silent fog.

  17.

  “Some dream . . .” Extending one arm to reach his bedside lamp in the pitch darkness, Duncan found his fingers brushing through something that resembled long hair.

  “Everything is all right. We are safe in here.”

  Duncan sought a blanket he failed to find. “Who are you?”

  “Clara . . . Captain Clara,” she answered, not sure he could recognize her after the severe blow to his head.

  “So . . . Captain Clara . . .” Duncan said, as he struggled to sit up. “I must be dreaming,” he thought, and closed his eyes. But he was perfectly awake, somewhat scared, and had a nasty headache. “Where . . . what is this place?”

  “We’re inside a cave, not far from the village.” The cave was long and had the shape of an S.

  Duncan put his hand to his head. He felt dizzy. “What happened? The battle . . .”

  “It was an air strike. A stone hit your head. Raylayhiagus, Antares, and Shoshuar removed you from the battlefield. On our way to the village, Raylayhiagus broke a leg; we had to seek refuge inside this cave.”

  “Raylayhiagus, the whyny . . . whyneemidy?”

  “The whymeenidy, yes. He’s inside this cave, too.”

  “How is he?”

  “He suffered an exposed fracture, but Shoshuar managed to put the bones back together. It wasn’t easy.” She sighed. “I helped him splint the leg. He is sleeping now.”

  “What about Antares?”

  “He’s outside, doing his watch.”

  “Captain.” A voice came from the entrance to the cave.

  “Shoshuar?”

  “Yes, Captain. We have visitors, from the village.”

  “Coming.” Clara turned to Duncan. “I’ll be back.”

  “Hey, wait for me.” Duncan stood up, but a sudden surge of pain in his head pulled him back down.

  At the entrance, Clara found a Veridiawan villager waiting for her.

  “Girl-Captain, I am Inury.”

  Clara nodded gently.

  “I convey an important message from His Majesty, Coelious III.” As he talked, the small skyer moved his wings slightly. He was slim and had a sharp look. He was similar to a swallow, but the backs of his wings were bright blue. He had Veridiawan marks painted on his body, and a blue V mark on top of his head, as any messenger would wear.

  “May Waswillbe preserve the Patriarch,” Clara responded, following the native protocol.

  “And may Willbewas30 also give him wisdom and strength,” the Veridiawan acknowledged. “Girl-Captain, thus speaketh Coelious: Girl-Captain Clara, Iswillbe graciously granted victory to Veridiawa. The Creption army hath been defeated, and the Wise Veridiawan Elder hath finally been retrieved by Captain O’sihn’s warriors.” This was a reference to Doctor Oyhtter. “At night, the bright flying houses from the sky landed in Veridiawa. All the newones entered the flying houses but for Captain O’sihn and Lieutenant Saigtin. They will stay in Veridiawa until they find the new newone Dahncion, and all the others who are with him. And then, the flying houses went up into the sky, from where they had come. This is His Majesty’s message.”

  Messengers such as Inury had great powers of retention. They were capable of repeating what they were told, exactly as they had been told. “Captain O’sihn also has a message for you.”

  Clara waved a hand, inviting Inury to continue.

  “Wiri river has flooded the fields. That has momentarily kept us in the village. As soon as general weather conditions improve, we will head towards your current location. Your orders are to hold your position until we arrive. We will keep you posted on a daily basis. If after two days you cease receiving any communication from us, present instructions will expire and you will proceed according to your best judgment. This is Captain O’sihn’s message, girl-Captain.”

  “Thank you,” Clara said. “Would you stay here and have some rest?”

  “My orders are to find the girl-Captain, to give her the two messages, and to fly back to the village, right away.”

  Clara nodded. “I have a couple of messages I’d like you to carry back to the village.”

  “Copying.”

  Clara smiled. “Please tell His Majesty Coelious III: Thy Majesty, we are all well—including Raylayhiagus—and we are all much honored that thou hast sent a Veridiawan messenger to see to our safety.” Clara paused, looking into the fog.

  “Is that all?” asked Inury.

  “Please deliver this message to Captain O’sihn: Don’t worry about us, Captain. We are okay and reasonably safe inside these caves. Dahncion has recovered consciousness and he seems to be all right. Oh, tell him also not to take unnecessary risks. Let him wait until the river folds back.”

  “We are glad to see you well, girl-Captain,” said Inury, speaking in the name of Veridiawa.

  “May Waswillbe send you speedy winds.”

  “Willbewas may He.” Inury immediately took off. Clara watched him disappear in the thin morning haze. At the horizon, a shivering sun disk was starting to warm the surrounding rainforest.

  18.

  “Boy, this smells really good,” Duncan said enthusiastically. The smell from the firewood reminded him of the cookouts that he and his friends would occasionally have in the woods near his hometown. “You’re just really hungry.” Clara chuckled as she stirred up the contents of a huge pot they had received by Veridiawan “air” delivery. “That has nothing to do with it. And by the way, what is it?”

  “I’m trying to cook some reiba soup,” Clara said, pointing at the smoky pot. “And to barbecue a couple of wedias,” she added, gesturing her head at some embers.

  Not very enlightened by the clarification, Duncan smiled politely.

  Clara brushed aside the lock of hair that had just dropped in front of her eyes. “Reiba is the root of a litic that grows almost entirely under the ground. The only parts of it that come out are its fruits, the wedias.”

  “Litic?”

  “Uh-huh . . . animals that grow like plants?31 Have you ever heard

  of them?” Clara added.

  “I’m afraid you will have to lecture me on litology.”

  “Lotanics.” Clara grinned. “But only if you bring me those twigs, over there.”

  Duncan smiled. As he picked up some small branches, Clara rearranged her blond hair into a long tail, tying
it up with a blue ribbon.

  Duncan was soon back with enough firewood. “So, what about your lotanics class?” he asked, holding a dry curly stick by the reiba soup pot.

  “Well, litics—animalitics—are livoids32 that look like vegetables, though they belong to the animal kingdom. They are similar to tuber roots and typically grow around vegetal roots from which they feed.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yep, and some species of litics are even carnivorous.”

  “You mean they eat . . . animals?” Duncan asked, peering suspiciously at the surroundings.

  Clara giggled. “Only in old horror stories. They just feed on other litic roots.”33

  Duncan threw the stick he was holding into the fire. “And what about those . . . wedas?”

  “Wedias. They are the fruit of the reiba. They have very tender meat, and their flidias are cute.” Clara took some spicy dry leaves and sprinkled them in the soup, rubbing them to powder with her fingers. “Flidias are the flowers of the litics. They are beautiful—most of them—though they have no scent. But you seldom use flidias as ornaments; they decay very fast—and with a nasty smell.” Clara wrinkled her nose and shook her head with a very feminine gesture.

  “The meaty turnips that I ate in the village and in Realitas . . . I guess this is what it was,” Duncan said. “I wonder what the white creamy stuff was that they served at the palace, in Royal City.”

  “That might’ve been wada cream,” Clara nodded. “It’s prepared from the fruit of the brental. Would you keep stirring the soup while I keep an eye on the wedias?”

  “Sure.”

  Clara took out a knife and started slicing the litics finely. “Are there many humans on your planet?”

  “No. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were the only one,” Clara said.

  “I thought you had been born there.”

  Clara shook her head. “I most likely came from a very different place, perhaps a planet called Kriggis, in the Kalept system. The people of Kriggis are mostly humans—tori humans—whereas the people of Veritas are ossians.”34

  “Tori?”

  “Uh-huh. My ancestors clearly had tori traits.”

  Clara looked noticeably different from any woman Duncan had seen on Earth. To him, the texture of her skin was reminiscent of a drawing or a cartoon. The same distinctive traits were present in O’sihn’s wife, Laida, even if she was an ossian and not a human, like Clara. Actually, Laida had been born in Veritas, although she had lived most of her life in Realitas, O’sihn’s home planet.

  On the other hand, Duncan himself did not look like any human being from Earth. After the transrealization procedure, his body had acquired a rilitian morphology. His appearance was now like that of the people of Realitas who had brought him to their universe. The texture of his skin had changed; it was more defined, more resilient, and it had a distinctive brilliance, like that of a smooth plastic, with traces of a metallic gleam.

  “The people from Veridiawa, like the Creptions, are rilitian,” Clara continued. “But other peoples live in other parts of this planet—even humans like us—who are tori.”

  “So people in this universe are either tori or rilitian,” Duncan added.

  “Oh, no, there are many other strains.”

  “Have you been to Kriggis lately?” Duncan asked.

  “No, and I don’t actually know whether I’m from Kriggis or not.” It was during the Klymbom Wars,”35 Clara continued. “Veritas and Kriggis were allies, as they had always been. One day there was a full-scale attack on Veritas. Many people died. Veritian soldiers found me close to a Kriggian wreck. I was unconscious, badly wounded. I was dying. They took me to Veritatis Verius, a close-by city—or rather, what was left of it. There, they healed my wounds and took care of me.

  “The war went on for one more year. A young couple—Maercus and Mirtiam—adopted me as their daughter. They were scientists—they are—like most people of their world.” Veritas was literally a scientists’ planet, with an ancestral high regard for wisdom.

  “I learned to love them like my own parents, whom I can’t remember.” Clara paused for a moment. Her eyes were peaceful, with a subtle trace of sadness. “The people of Veritas managed to heal my body, but they could not restore my memory—my past memory. I only have fuzzy images, like flashes of old recollections.

  “When the war was over, Maercus and Mirtiam helped me to try to locate my relatives, but to no avail. Most likely, my family died, either in the wreckage where I was found, or on Kriggis itself. Ninety-five percent of the Kriggian population was obliterated in a direct attack shortly after I was rescued.”

  Duncan was staring at Clara in silence. “I . . . I am very sorry to hear all this.”

  Clara looked at him with a tenuous smile.

  “How long ago did all that happen?”

  “About eight years.”

  “So it took you only eight years to become a Marine Corps Lieutenant Commander?” Duncan said, seeking to change the topic of the conversation.

  “I’m a sub36 commander because of the war. I joined Veritas Naval Academy about six years ago, shortly after the war started. The huge mobilization led to a shortage of officers, which pushed me up the ranks very fast.”

  Duncan smiled, “This war may have helped a little, but I’ve seen plenty of other reasons for you to have become a Marine Lieutenant Commander.”

  Clara laughed unassumingly. “And what about you? What about your Earth, your universe?”

  “My life on Earth hasn’t been as exciting as yours, I’m afraid.”

  Clara rested her eyes on the steaming pot. “What about your folks?”

  “Nice. I had many friends where I grew up, and I was starting to make new ones at college. But I sort of miss my old friends. My hometown is relatively small, and most of us knew each other since we were kids. We grew up together, all attending the same school. When I was younger, my family and I—”

  Clara made a brisk signal, bidding Duncan to be silent. Very quietly, she laid down the branch she was holding, and crouched down. Her attention was focused on the dense foliage in front of them. With silent dexterity, Clara began to unsheathe her Veridiawan sword.

  “So, that’s the way you meet your rescuers . . .” said a voice coming from the forest.

  Clara put down her sword, relieved.

  “I’m very glad to see you well,” O’sihn added, stepping out from behind a long, dark green leaf. Lieutenant Saigtin emerged simultaneously from a different angle.

  “How is Raylayhiagus?” the captain asked.

  “He’s fine.” Clara nodded and looked to her left. “He’s inside a cave, behind those trees.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” O’sihn said, patting Duncan’s right shoulder. “Some people from Veridiawa are on their way. Once they reach us—later, this afternoon, if everything goes well—we will start making preparations to carry Raylayhiagus back to the village.” As he talked, O’sihn glanced at the bubbling pot of soup. “You guys could even find time for a picnic, huh?”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Clara, raising an eyebrow.

  “Hey, take it easy, girl. Saigtin and I would like to join you.”

  “In that case, you’re just in time for grilled wedias and reiba soup.”

  “They certainly helped us locate your position.” Saigtin chuckled.

  “Your cooking does smell good,” O’sihn said, “though I’m not too fond of litics.”

  “With the captain’s permission,” Saigtin added. “Is it too long before dinner?”

  “It’s almost ready. You just wait here while I go get Antares and Shoshuar.”

  “We won’t move from this spot,” O’sihn remarked, gazing at the humid green leaves behind which Clara disappeared. “Wonderful girl, isn’t she?”

  “Sure she is,” Duncan agreed with a subtle excess of emphasis. In his eyes, a furtive impression became palpable, perceptible. It conveyed a lack of interest, a veiled disappointment, an unfulf
illed desire flowing from a lacking, or perhaps, oversimplified reality. As the thought materialized in his mind, Duncan shook his head in silence: “Only, she’s just a drawing.”

  _______________

  17 Many of the inhabitants of Veridiawa have some resemblance to Earth’s animal species. Wuols, in particular, are flying, intelligent individuals with owl-looking traits.

  18 Keiros are massive individuals, with rhino-like features.

  19 Graspies are small, venomous animals native to Althea 8. They make their habitats in wet dark places.

  20 Transparent from the inside but silver-looking from the outside, the hulls had a variable, outwards translucency, which was adequately opaque when exposed to highly intense sources of light, like that from a nearby star.

  21 Technical note AGH120709, SERI’s Stratospheric Laboratory: “[such] vibration takes place when the surrounding air reaches a specific value of density which, combined with the shape of the capsule, its drag distribution, and the peculiar crystallization that spectro-energized metals typically exhibit, meets the conditions for a pulsating turbulence, such that the frequency of shed vorticity coincides with the dominant natural frequency of the structure.” For a moment, the entire capsule resonates with a pure tone.

  22 Ellipsoid of revolution design: the surface that results from revolving an ellipsoidal line around a straight line.

  23 Military capsules were versatile vehicles configured for the mission they were assigned. For Operation Shooting Star, discretion being the top priority, phase-parachutes alone were used for landing. These parachutes were designed to open in several stages, progressively reducing the speed of a capsule. Appropriate settings were selected for the unfolding process according to the atmospheric characteristics and the gravitational pull along the trajectory to the target. Many other features could also be adjusted, such as skin-friction properties consistent with altitude and the variable viscosity of the planet’s atmosphere, which was a function of many variables.

  24 This type of vehicle opened along an elliptical line coplanar with the capsule’s main symmetry axis.

  25 Disintegration process: a structural dissociation process known as energy despectralization.