by Abhishek Roy
“How come you are speaking English?’
“Well, I can speak all your languages through the use of a real time translator,” Baldr touched the solitary large button near the throat of his coat. “This lets us communicate with anyone. We have developed a reasonably large database of your words, and can therefore seem to speak in any language.” He fiddled with it and said, “Como funciona este sonido?”
“That sounds like Spanish or Portuguese,” I was fascinated. “How does your own language sound like?“
“Well, our language is something that got passed on through our people who visited your distant past and their tongue got mellowed into what you guys called Old Norse or Viking language.” He appeared to have switched off the button with a swipe as it stopped glowing. ”Vinar, Litil Vdpnum er her!” He brandished a small tube which looked menacing with a trigger button and laughed, switching on the button again.
Baldr asked another odd question. “We know everything that goes on here. But you do not. Have you heard of the legend of the mountain beast in the Himalayas?”
“Of course,” both of us cried in unison. “The Yeti!”
“Well, a group of my fellow Jargantaans, who were abnormally hirsute, had been seen by the locals while the various Mountain Secret bases like this were being built. These people are accustomed to live in very cold climates and are very comfortable here. In your mythology they have also been called ‘Frost Giants’. The entire myth started from there. They have been careful ever since not to be seen.”
The Yeti! The Abominable Snowman, the Sasquatch, Bigfoot, and known by many other names, was from another dimension! The thought made a shiver go through my spine. The legend of many hundred years has finally been revealed. Now I understood how the tall giant like men were so familiar with the Himalayan region.
“I understand but why do you want me to go back? I have lived my entire life here.”
“Patience my dear, patience. Now do you know why you have such an excellent brain?”
“Genetic luck?”
“Luck? The answer is far from luck. You see, after you were conceived, my brother and his wife decided to use you as the subject of a newly developed technology. Instead of growing inside the mother’s womb, you grew inside a controlled pod. The scientists were searching for willing candidates but who would want to give up their beautiful fetus as a subject to a newly developed technology. I don’t know why they gave you up, but it didn’t seem proper for a parent to do so. Me, as your uncle felt bad for you but what could I have done.” He radiated remorse which I felt was unusually artificial.
“Why would you create these pods?
“Let us not digress! There are some things that need not be answered now. So set that question aside for now. You will know the answer soon enough. So where was I...yes, so your parents submitted you as an ideal candidate.” He began again and we decided not to poke him further. “Why do you think that you are such a precocious young lad? You grew in that pod as an embryo. Finally, when you came out, you were diagnosed with increased brain size and thicker nervous connections and thus heightened intelligence. Not only did the pod allow your brain to grow bigger and more intelligent than any other Asurian but also weakened you physically. Odin has this contraption that makes the connections between the right and left hemisphere of his brain better. He has paid dearly though for this. So, he is extremely intelligent too. Yet, you are fitter than most Mandaa lads of your age and far, far more intelligent.
“Now your father and mother knew that you wouldn’t get accepted into the Asurian community easily. Therefore, the two of the most powerful people of Asr-Gawa decided to abandon you and keep you secretly on Earth, never to visit you again. Fortunately, they at least let you live.”
Whatever Baldr told me seemed to be real and made sense. Yet, a thought continuously poked me from the back of my mind. He had said that my dreams about my parents were actual memories and if they were, then they did not seem like the people who would abandon their child without feeling regret. In my dreams, they seemed to be pretty sad and unwilling to leave me.
My gaze turned to my amulet given to me by them as a memento. I knew it was odd but I could still feel their warmth in that locket. However, the warmth reminded me of the heat generated by the amulet in Meerut, when the pale men were nearby. Instinctively, my eyes searched the shadows behind the pillars of the shrine. In all, I was having a hard time believing him.
“As shocking as this may be for you.. “ Baldr shook me from my thoughts, “this is actual fact. I can imagine how hard it must be for you to come around this fact. After all, all a child yearns for is his parents’s love and affection.” Whatever he told me about my parents was stinging me. I knew that his stories were manipulative but at the same time, I did not have any proof to contradict him.
“Cut to the chase, sir. I want to know what do you want from me.”
“Fine then. You should understand that I do not agree with the strong arm tactics of Odin and other Council of Elders. It is a known fact and in the Council my disagreement has made me a very unpopular person. I have not been given the command of the military force of Asr-Gawa which I deserved. That is why I have teamed up with the Jargantaans. You see, you and I are not so disparate after all. Both of us have been wronged by our homeland. Both of us possess efficient computing skills and.both of us have pretty good minds, though yours is much better than mine. Hence, by joining my team, by standing by my side, you can pay back the injustice done to you by them. Your siblings are born soldiers and hence are strong. Therefore, they live lavishly in Asr-Gawa but you are gifted with the power of the brain which is mightier than muscle.”
“I have siblings?” I asked Baldr, my eyes big and mouth gaping open.
“Yes, you do and as I told you, they are living a better life than you are. Now tell me, do you agree to join my side and make those Asurians pay for the stupid rules they live by? Do you want to join my side to show your parents and siblings what you are capable of? Do you want to join me and show them that you should not have been left on Earth only because you were not as strong as they were albeit more intelligent? You deserve better, you do. We need you. Asr-Gawa needs you after the... “ he stopped abruptly, as if he had said something he shouldn’t have. Baldr now spoke with the eloquence of a great orator, his tempo rising with each question
I contemplated the question for a while. He seemed to be extremely convincing and had thrown me into tenterhooks. Finally, after a long time of keeping quiet, Ram spoke.
“You really killed my father?” He was much quieter.
“I already told you and I will say it again. I am sorry but we had to do that! Do you even understand what will happen if someone here got to know that people from another dimension are settled in a secret base here?”
“So the radio message was fake, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. How else was I to get you to come to India?”
Ram did not say anything more. I could sense the torment his mind was going through. Baldr had tricked Ram into coming to India, using his gullible nature for his own cause and then said that he had got Ram’s father killed! Poor Ram. My heart went out to him. He was helpless to avenge the murder also as all that was in front of us was a hologram.
Everything he had explained to me about my family seemed farfetched but plausible. Yet, there appeared to be a lack of some concrete evidence, though the holographic projector looked real. Since the time we received that distress call everything had been haywire. Nothing seemed to be right. We had leaped from our normal life into an adventure of revelations. I was torn between my curiosity about my parents and the need to be with my friend Ram. The choice was really very simple.
“Come, Ram.” I said with firm resolve to Ram who had a tear rolling down his cheek. I couldn’t just submit to this strange man after what he had done. I did not feel like trusting him so easily when the incident in Meerut was still clear in my mind. “We are going.“
“After wha
t I told you, you still refuse to believe?” there was an intensity in Baldr’s voice which did not seem right. “I told you everything about your family, I gave you proofs and revealed everything that has been hidden from you for so many years? Yet you turn your face away?“
“Alright, I may have been wronged by my parents and my motherland. I may have been betrayed, but except my brains, I may not be of any use to you. I do not possess the strength and the resilience of you Asurians, right? So why are you after me?
“No! It’s because you are an Asurian and you deserve to be treated like other Asurians. You deserve better Thorson. Leave that Mandaa boy and come with me and I’ll show things you cannot imagine. You will have an experience you could never think of.”
This time I decided.
“I am sorry sir. You may be from Asr-Gawa but I cannot abandon my friend and give myself to you like this. Goodbye.” I grabbed Ram’s arm and walked off with him.
“You are not doing the right thing Thorson. You have to join me and be part of my militia, or you shall perish!” he cried out from behind me.
I continued towards the outside track.
“Mathias,” his voice had changed. It forced me to stop in my tracks once again. “Do you want to know why we call you Thorson and not Thompson? You have not asked me the name of your father. That is because...” he paused. “That is because your name, as per the traditions of my land which was adopted by the early Norwegians, speaks of your father. Your name is not Mathias Christopher Thompson. Your full name is Mateus Kristoffer Thorson. Your last name speaks of your father.
“You are the youngest son of my brother, Commandant of the Asurian Military Forces, Thor Nu and his wife, Sif. In your realm he is known as Thor, God of the Hammer.”
Kapittel 22
Mathias’s story
NANDA DEVI BIOSPHERE RESERVE, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
March 10, 2017, Friday, 1535 hours IST
I was dumbfounded. It was like I had been hit by a sledgehammer myself. It was one thing to be called an alien, and an Asr-Gawan, whatever that might be. But it was quite another thing to be told that you are the son of a character, which has been known as a God, a most powerful God, and has been worshipped by countless people over millenia. I did not know what to say, and finally said the most obvious thing which came to my mind.
“Then why do they look like normal earthlings in my dream?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious? I have told you earlier, we are all normal mortal humans like you, living on a habitable planet almost identical to Earth, but in another dimension! They can’t seem normal in your crowd in their traditional attire, can they? They will seem literally, otherworldly,” he grinned snidely.
Feeling numb, I decided to pay no heed to his words and simply walked off to the hole in the stone floor from where we had entered the Norwegian Shrine. I did not know what we had to do after this. Probably return to London. This trip turned out to be nothing we had expected. After the fateful night of March 6th, we came to India with high hopes but acquired nothing but bruises and pain. And then there was this holographic man, telling me that I am the son of a God like person who abandoned me, and also what had really happened to me when I was small. Though I felt like accepting what he had said, my wiser side kept nagging me, telling me not to.
I thought over it for a moment or two but my mind was made up. I could not think of being apart from Ram, my only family other than the late Mrs. Dawson, and go after a mirage of a Norse God, however advanced a civilisation they claimed to come from. I signalled to Ram and both of us broke into a run towards the hole.
When we were a few metres away from the hole, he erupted, “Catch Thorson and get rid of his friend!”
Immediately someone fired a round of bullets. Fortunately, they missed us by a planck-length, hitting the stone and the lower part of the wooden wall. In an instant, the projectiles diffused into a layer of frost. However, they were not traditional bullets. They were the same white, icy Jargantaan projectiles which I had used in Meerut to break through the brick wall.
We looked back and saw the pale man behind the gun. He was standing on the upper tier and looked frighteningly similar to our pursuers in Meerut. He gave us a cold grin and fired another round. We ducked and the shots hit the wall again, turning them whitish.
“To the corridor! Now!” we could not risk going to the hole and climbing down the ladder. It would not only slow us down but also lead us to our death a hundred feet below.
Ram obeyed and we hurried to our nearest corridor, running low. As we ran, ‘Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!’ five projectiles dissipated on the wall. The arched corridor turned into a blur of brown. I did not want to put Ram into danger and so ran behind him when I heard a series of highly audible cracks.
I glanced backwards. A dozen of those pale and weighty men jumped from the mezzanine above and caused the wood to crack beneath their feet. Without wasting a moment, they were running behind us.
“Mathias! A dead end is coming soon!” Ram pointed towards the other end of the corridor. Sure enough, the corridor ended at a solid stone wall 50 metres away.
“Keep looking for a doorway! We cannot turn back!” I yelled back.
Ram and I ran towards the wall while frantically looking for a portal or opening. However, the corridor was made out of solid wood and led us straight towards the stone wall.
Both of came to a halt at the wall. “Mathias! There is no way to get out of here. We are trapped!” cried Ram. I looked back to see an evil grin on the face of our pursuers. They were now jogging casually, completely aware of our helplessness.
Turning back to the wall, I could see a faint marking on the wall. It was the same rune, which meant an exit. We had only one hope left, and that was to have faith in the architectural greatness of whoever built this ancient structure.
“Search the wall for a lever or a button around this stone. There has to be a way out!” I pointed out and together, the two of us started feeling the wall with our palms. The pale men weren’t very far away but seemed to be confused by our actions.
All of a sudden, Ram found a loose block of stone and pushed it into the wall. Simultaneously, I found another loose block and pushed it into the wall.
“I think I found a trigger stone,” whispered Ram.
“I think I found one too.” I replied and an instant later, two things happened.
The ground shook violently and cracked the old wood of the shrine at various places. All of us, including the pale men, fell on the ground. At the same time, the solid stone wall slid to the left, revealing a narrow path between it and the adjacent wall.
“Mathias! Come on! We have found our way out!” Ram shouted and we quickly ran into the narrow pathway while the earthquake continued to shake the ground beneath us.
As we ran through the dark and narrow corridor the quake seemed to continue. There was no way for us to look back and see what had happened to the pale men, but they were not to be seen.
“I think this is some kind of safety mechanism designed by whoever made this shrine. Let’s see where this takes us,” said Ram.
“Do you think one of the trigger stones was responsible for this earthquake?”
“Looks like that. It happened just after we pressed the stones inside, no?”
I nodded. Once we rounded a small corner, daylight cut through the darkness of the musty corridor. We followed it and burst into a wooden deck extending outwards from the cliff. The entire place was shaking now, alarmingly so. It looked like the entire structure may collapse.
“I think this is the deck we saw from below.” Said Ram and scratched his head.
I kept glancing back to see if the Jargantaans were to be seen. Sure enough, though most of them would have been trapped by the quake, a couple of them had found their way close to us, and were gaining. Just then an alarming thought crossed my mind. If it was the deck we were on, then we would be cornered by the men unless...
We kept running towar
ds the stone railing encircling the deck and when we were but a few strides away I spoke to Ram. “We cannot be cornered by those blokes. If you want to be out of trouble and if you trust me... then jump from the deck into the lake below.”
Even while running he looked at me with worried eyes and I simply gave him an assuring nod. Probably it was the fire of dejection or anger for Baldr but he had fortunately agreed. He turned away his face and ran towards the edge purposefully.
We ran towards the railing. Neither Ram nor I looked back. We simply braced ourselves for the fall. Finally, the warm sunlight sent a wave of heat through our veins and the cool wind caressed our cheeks. Just as we were a few steps away, Ram increased his speed. I moved more to his right and increased my velocity too. Both of us planted our feet on the railing and launched ourselves into the air.
***
I have jumped from my dorm window but I must say, this was nothing like it. Not only was the height ten times greater but also the thrill. The cool air sent shivers down my body. For the first few seconds, what I felt was far from fear. After that I missed the absence of solid ground beneath my feet. At that point, I glanced at Ram who too was falling beside me, only to find that he too was facing the same problem of having nothing to hold onto, no handholds, no footholds, nothing. Just air and air.
My gaze then turned to the lake below which looked really placid now. The surface shimmered in the sun light and the small waves gently lapped against the shore but the difference was, the lake surface was zooming towards me at a phenomenal speed. This reminded me of the power station’s roof rushing towards my feet and I instinctively braced for impact and perform a roll but the reality kicked in and I struggled to keep my body straight. If one would hit the surface of the water...from such a great height... with the body flat...then God save our souls.
Nested in the shade of the opposite hill sat our tent. I could see Vivek standing near the shore. Even from such a height, I could discern the trepidation from his body language.
