“Do you want me to lose you, too? Is that what you want, Zahn? Don’t you remember how your brother died? He died up there, Zahn. In space! What if the same happens to you? Then where would I be? I’d be here on Ashraya, alone. Is that what you want? I can’t believe you would even consider this.”
Zahn sighed. He had been down this road before.
“Of course not. Just—”
“Don’t leave, Zahn. Not until I can meet him, at the least.”
“This is my choice! I’ve been a free agent ever since I joined the observatory. I didn’t have to tell you all of this.” Zahn paused as Vivek shook his head. “Dad, this could be our one chance of finding out what happened to Mom.”
Outside, they heard a faint bird call echo across the valley.
“I’m tired Zahn. Wake me up when you’re ready to meet him, and we’ll see who this Oonak character really is.”
Zahn found it difficult to fall back asleep when the excitement of what had just happened was still in him. After setting his alarm, he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the faint sound of ocean waves below. As he drifted off to sleep, the thought of his late brother entered his mind. He tried to recall his brother’s face, but the memories were even more faded than the memory of his mother.
When the annoying sound of his whistling alarm filled the room a few hours later, he felt a sense of déjà vu. Didn’t he just wake up in his hammock not long ago?
He rushed over to his father’s door, knocked on it three times, ran back into his room, and changed into some more durable clothes. As he dressed, he wondered if this would be the last time he would see his home in a long while.
With that in mind, he grabbed a backpack and filled it with the few pieces of survival gear that he thought would be helpful: a water canteen, some food, a change of clothes, a photodisc for capturing images, a knife his grandfather had given him, his shielded jacket, a small towel, and various other items he felt would be useful if he was gone for more than a few days.
There was a knock on his door.
“Ready?” his father called out.
“I think so. Wait.”
Zahn walked over to the shelf and took the small, glass lens that his mother had given him years before.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
As Zahn and Vivek headed down to the beach, the faint bluish hue that came before the dawn was already beginning to cover everything in sight. As they got closer to the beach, they noticed Oonak was sitting down, drawing in the sand. Zahn also noticed that there was no longer a faint wavering pattern in the air, and he wondered if the ship was still on the beach.
“Good morning, Oon,” Zahn said.
Oonak stood up. “Good morning, Zahn. And who is this?”
“This is my father, Vivek,” Zahn said. “Dad, this is Oonak.”
Vivek noticed Oonak’s strange uniform and dark eyes.
“Are you really from another world?” Vivek said. “Or are you just wasting my son’s time? If you are, you will live to regret it.”
“I am not of this world,” Oonak said. “Your son found a fragment of my ship that was broken off during an attack, and now I request his help in a mission of great importance.”
“So he tells me.”
“His safety will be greater if you tell no one of the fragment or our meeting here. That applies to both of you. Please do not tell anyone of our meeting, otherwise discovering the truth behind this attack could become much more difficult. Do you both understand?”
“I understand,” Vivek said.
“Of course I understand,” Zahn said, “and I’ve decided to help you, Oon. I’ve brought some supplies, too.”
Oonak smiled.
“I am pleased to hear that our paths will join here. You will see many things that no Avanian has ever seen before. More importantly, your choice could save many lives.”
Vivek’s expression turned cold. As Zahn gave his father a huge hug, the reality of the situation was dawning on him.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Dad.”
Vivek was still speechless. He had trouble believing that his son was leaving him and the planet behind, even if it was only temporary. Oonak seemed to sense Vivek’s anxiety, walked up to him, and looked him directly in the eyes.
“Vivek, I sense that you are a discerning man and have taught your son valuable lessons in discernment and knowledge. For this I am grateful, for these lessons will be invaluable on our journey.”
As Vivek listened to these words, he noticed how peaceful and wise Oonak’s eyes were—so dark, yet still with a hint of blue. Somehow Vivek felt as though he knew this man, even though he had just met him a few minutes before.
“Realize,” Oonak continued, “that your son was the first Avanian to make contact with a member of the Confederation of Unity. Although I am not of this world, I believe you will grow to see that our similarities are more important than our differences. Have faith, Vivek. Your son will soon have the attention and assistance of many positive beings, and not all of them are visible to ordinary eyes.”
“Thank you for your encouraging words, Oonak. But this is all very incredible to me. I am honored to meet you, but it is still hard for me to have faith in the face of all that has happened.”
Zahn noticed that the clouds were beginning to turn orange. Soon, the sun would rise. Oonak noticed it, too.
“But faith is necessary for protecting your world now, Vivek. Trust me when I say that I will protect your son at all costs.”
Oonak placed his hand on Navika, causing a door to appear in midair over the beach. The door rolled open to reveal a bright interior, and Vivek gasped and took a few steps back.
“Goodbye, Dad. I will be back, and if she’s still alive, Mom will be with me.”
As Zahn disappeared into the intense white light of the ship, Oonak bowed slightly to Vivek in a farewell gesture.
“Oonak, perhaps you wouldn’t have so much faith if the one you loved most was taken from you.”
“She was.”
And with those words, Oonak disappeared into the pure white light of the ship, leaving Vivek alone on the beach. Looking onward, Vivek saw the triangular door disappear. Now it was as if nothing had ever been there at all. The invisibility was perfect, and Vivek had no idea where the ship began or ended.
His eyes were then drawn to the sand beside him. Where Oonak had been sitting only moments before, the most exquisite geometric patterns he had ever seen were now drawn onto the sand. They looked sacred in the moonlight, and as Vivek studied them, he felt mesmerized.
CHAPTER 9
MEET NAVIKA
Once Zahn had triumphantly stepped into the ship, he was stunned at just how large it was now that he was inside. He was certain that this inner room must somehow be larger than the wavering shape he saw back on the beach. This ‘node’, as Oonak had called it, was quite spacious, and its ivory walls radiated a pure white light that nearly overwhelmed Zahn’s eyes and caused him to squint at first.
When his eyes adjusted, he looked all around him and tried to understand the space he was in. His previous guess was correct. The room had eight surfaces, each triangular.
The first object he noticed, indeed the only object he couldn’t help but notice, was a large, glowing sphere that was suspended high above his head by colorless, braided cables leading up to each of the three corners of the triangular ceiling.
Zahn walked under the sphere, now about a meter above his head, and heard a soft hum. It appeared to be filled with a liquid, yet it also reminded him of a perfectly polished piece of colorless quartz. Green, orange, and purple flecks of light spiraled inward toward and outward from the center, and when he tried to examine what was in the exact center of the sphere, he realized that it was too bright for his eyes. It was a stunning vision.
“What do you think of Navika’s core? Remarkable, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind him.
Zahn glanced back and saw Oonak smiling slightly.
&n
bsp; “It’s wonderful. What is it made of?”
Behind him, he heard the door quietly hiss as it closed.
“A detailed description would be difficult to relate to you because you lack the necessary background knowledge. In simplistic terms it could be described as a complex crystalline structure which forms the seat of Navika’s consciousness. However, I like to refer to it simply as his nucleus.”
“So, that’s like Navika’s brain?”
“And much more. Follow me. Your sun is about to appear in the sky, and we are still on the beach, after all.”
Oonak led Zahn to the far side of the room where there was an outline of a door in the triangular wall. He pressed his thumb to the wall, and the door split into three parts and pulled back, revealing what appeared to be a command bay or cockpit.
This room was a different shape than the first one and slightly smaller. Instead of a triangular ceiling, the two outer walls sloped inward until they met the door’s wall at a point high above the door, almost like a tepee. Indeed, they were now standing inside a three-sided pyramid.
Directly in front of him was a single seat that had a small, transparent dome above it, and placed farther ahead was a long, curved bench that could probably seat five people. Zahn guessed that the seat with the dome was for Oonak and wondered how he could see anything while driving the ship since he couldn’t see any windows anywhere.
“Welcome to the command bay. Please, have a seat.” Oonak gestured toward the larger bench farther down, beyond the command chair.
Zahn walked over, sat down, and was stunned when the walls of the ship became completely transparent. The effect was so complete, it was as though the chairs themselves were now floating just a few centimeters above the silvery beach.
With pristine silence, they rose up into the air and were soon moving rapidly over the crashing waves below. Zahn took this chance to look back, and in the distance he saw his father walking back up the beach. In fact, looking backward almost hypnotized him, for he had never seen the islands shrink into the distance so quickly before. All around him, he could hear the faint rushing of the wind, and ahead he could see the ocean extend forever.
“Oon, how can this ship be invisible? Are you using some kind of optics technology or is it something else?”
“It’s a secret,” he said and winked his right eye.
“Of course. Spacefarer Code, right?”
“Precisely. I can only tell you what you need to know, and unless it is absolutely necessary, I cannot tell you exactly how my technology works. However, when Avani joins the Confederation this will change, and there will be open communication between our people.”
“When will that happen?”
“When Avani is ready.” Oonak threw a small piece of food to him. “Please, consume this. It will help your body adapt to the ship and increase your vital energy in the unlikely event that we lose cohesion.”
Zahn caught it and discovered that it was a small indigo fruit. Upon popping it into his mouth, he was shocked at how sour it was and nearly spit it out from the overpowering taste. He also noticed that the ship was continuing to pick up speed as it flew over Avani’s vast ocean and heard what sounded like a distant crash of thunder.
“This is really sour.”
“It is necessary. The kavasa berry contains compounds which are exceptionally helpful to the immune function and overall health of spacefarers such as ourselves.”
Zahn chewed it.
“By the way, how long will it take to reach the South Pole?”
“Just a few hours.”
“At that rate, we must be breaking the sound barrier.”
“Indeed, we have.”
For some time after that, neither of them spoke. Zahn couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the view as they cruised over the ocean below. He had since crossed his legs so his feet were no longer touching the floor. Now that the floor was completely transparent, he was almost afraid to touch it. Even though he knew, at least intellectually, that the ship still had a floor, he preferred to keep his feet off of it, at least for now. With such perfect transparency, it was simply too easy to forget that the floor existed, and for a moment, he imagined that he was flying over the ocean on a magic chair in the sky.
“Your people are blessed to have such a magnificent ocean,” Oonak said. “How are you doing, Zahn?”
“Very well. I’ve flown before, but I’ve never felt as though I were truly flying.”
“I have never heard it described that way before. You frame your thoughts well.”
“I’m curious about something, though. I hope your code doesn’t prevent me from asking this, but why aren’t we closer to, you know, actual space? This is a spacecraft, right?”
“Oh yes, it most certainly is. But my ship is still recovering from the attack, and there are a few more tests that I’m running before we reenter the Ocean of Space. Do not worry. They are in progress now, so they will not pose any delay. You guess quite correctly, though. For a journey like this, I would normally save time by entering low orbit.”
Zahn was beginning to get sleepy. After all, his sleep during the previous night had been sporadic at best, and the quiet hum of the ship was soothing to his ears. Zahn yawned.
“What do you mean by the ‘Ocean of Space’? Is that just another name for space or is it something else?”
“That is a good question, and one that I am pleased to say I can answer. Referring to space as the Ocean of Space is a perspective on space travel that many spacefarers share. You see, when I call it the Ocean of Space it reminds me that, within this galaxy, it is truly difficult to find a place where life is not drifting and growing in some way, whether it be on planets or elsewhere. I have even heard reports of life forms for which the vacuum of space itself is their home.”
“But where did life in our galaxy come from if it also lives in the vacuum of space? What planet did it originate from?”
“Now, that is quite a question, and I do not think that even the wisest of the Confederation knows the entire answer to that. All I can say is what we have observed, and we have observed life manifesting wherever the raw materials and energy are present. There are even some who hypothesize that an intelligent energy radiating from the core of the galaxy itself causes this matter and energy to develop into living creatures.”
“So it didn’t start on just one planet? It happened on different places at once?”
“We do not know for certain. However, there is an ancient story of a world called Jyotis, said to be the birthplace of all life. Although, there are not many left who still adhere to that belief.”
Zahn’s eyes slowly closed as sleep overtook him.
“Whatever the truth may be, all of it is a miracle, Zahn. Sometimes when I look out into the Ocean of Space, my mind revels in how much is still unknown, even to the Confederation. Imagine, Zahn, creatures that spend millennia drifting from world to world. What would such a creature look like? How would it communicate? Indeed, it is humbling to consider what might be out there, still undiscovered. What possibilities may have been overlooked…”
Oonak looked back, sensing that Zahn may have fallen asleep. He had, and for a moment Oonak looked down to the ocean and smiled as a thought crossed his mind.
“…and what potentials may have never been considered.”
CHAPTER 10
A CAVERN UNDER THE SOUTH POLE
When Zahn opened his eyes again, he saw a jagged landmass buried in ice and snow. Waves crashed onto grey rock, and he could see no sign of life anywhere. Even the ocean itself seemed uninviting, appearing as a seething dark mass below the ship.
As they passed over a snowy cliff, Zahn felt better that they were once again over land, even if it was freezing.
Oonak waved him up to the command chair.
“You may find this vantage point more enjoyable for this part of the journey. We are about to enter an ancient cave system. When we crashed, the impact resonated within a cavern below whi
ch allowed Navika to sense the hollow space beneath. Discovering it was divine fortune, and I have instructed Navika to place a waypoint marker on the cavern entrance.”
After a few moments Zahn noticed faint coordinate markers had appeared on the ground below them.
“Oon, how did you do that? Is the computer doing that?”
“Yes, Navika is compositing a coordinate system over the light that is filtering through the hull.”
Soon, a red triangle appeared on the horizon, and as they grew nearer, Zahn realized it was the waypoint marker that Oonak had mentioned earlier.
“You know, I was thinking about what you said before, about how plentiful life is in our galaxy, and something bothers me. If life truly is everywhere, how significant does that make Avani?”
“Zahn, is a diamond worth any less if it is surrounded by other diamonds?”
“I guess not.”
After a few minutes, they were just above the waypoint which was beside a small crater in the snow. Yet, Zahn saw no cave or crevice anywhere.
“Curious,” Oonak said. “The fracture we made in the surface of the ice has disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Unknown. I shall cut a new one.”
A red grid appeared all around them, as if the entire ship were about to begin a fight to the death. Behind him, he heard a faint high pitched sound, and below him a single square of the red grid flickered furiously. A fraction of a second later, two painfully bright violet beams of plasma converged from two sides of the ship and cut through the ice below them.
As Navika effortlessly cut into a large section of the ice, a chunk of it broke free and fell into a hollow space below. Once the hole was large enough, they flew in and found themselves in a large underground cavern. It was quite dark, and Oonak must have mentally signaled Navika to illuminate the cavern because Zahn didn’t see him speak or move at all. Could this incredible ship actually read his mind?
Despite the radiance of Navika’s light, the system of caves seemed almost sinister to Zahn. Stalactites hung from the ceilings like ghostly apparitions, and the way they cast shadows onto the walls gave him the impression that they were not alone in these caves.
Epic of Aravinda 1: The Truth Beyond the Sky Page 5
