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CHAPTER THREE

UEZEN

They looked at each other, not knowing what to do. At last Tarek decided to take out the pick and his famous precious stone detector.

“Do you really think that bloody gadget’s of any help?” Lerman asked ironically.

“It should. If no one else has been here before, that is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, young man, it did show me the place once. But when I got there, the soldiers had already surrounded a guy who’d found a stone as big as my fist.…”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Not at all.”

“When was that?”

“Well,” Tarek said scratching his head, “I think about twelve years ago.… Hold on! I’ve got something!”

Tarek was holding in his right hand the vertical axis of the detector and the mobile plate was pointing its tip right to the rocks in front of them.

“Well, at least we know where to start from,” Lerman said with the same dose of irony.

“Do you have a better solution?”

“As night is falling, how about lighting a fire? I’ve seen some thistles somewhere around here.…”

“As you wish, young man, you’re paying for the extra time.…”

“Relax. A hundred darins more or less is the same bloody thing.…”

Lerman started to tell Tarek about his life on Zayon and his work on Eldena. Then he remembered his great love, Suara.…

…When he first saw her getting off the Tzulu merchants’ shuttle, he was stunned. All his dreams and hopes had finally taken shape. Many thought he was crazy to pay 300,000 darins for a sixty-year-old woman. The older the Sereneans grew, the more beautiful and more attractive they became. But, after Sedartha, the first part of their lives, which lasted forty years, most of them could no longer have children. When they approached Seruma, the end of life, they grew old very fast, in just a couple of weeks. The government of Serena eventually understood that love, even for a short time, could be profitable for a resourceless planet. The seas and oceans were more and more polluted and the food was more and more scarce. Therefore, the government decided, according to the ancient religious manuscripts, which were apocryphal in fact, that starting with Hanirom, the stage following Sedartha, the female Sereneans should offer love to the inhabitants of the whole universe, in the name of their god, Seren. And since the Tzulu merchants seized each and every opportunity, they immediately became the most lucrative pimps in the Alpha quadrant, just because they could easily reach any planet in the neighboring systems.…

Eight years he spent with Suara, eight terrific years until the first sign of old age appeared and she wanted to go back to Serenia.…

Tarek was touched by the Terran’s story. He also remembered his youth, when he met Goya. It was the first and last time he suffered because of a woman. After the Zayonean left him for a well-to-do Tzulu merchant, his life turned into a disaster. Regrets and more regrets. Then the years he spent in the outpost, running a wild-goose chase. Somehow their fates were similar.…

Lerman took out a bottle of Zar he hadn’t touched since their departure and they started to drink. Suddenly, a strong breath of wind lifted the embers in the air.…

“What the hell was that?” Lerman shouted, sobering down. A humanoid, radiating light, appeared from behind the rocks. Tarek grabbed his knife. Lerman’s heart sank. A few moments later he relaxed, though.

“It’s OK,” he said pushing Tarek’s hand down, “I know who that is. The old man who appeared before me in the desert. The one who accompanied Mud. He’s gonna show us the way to the treasure.…”

“Come!” the old man said firmly. “Come! I’ve been expecting you.…”

The two stepped forward cautiously. They had never seen a creature surrounded by so much light. Was it because of the white clothes he was wearing? Who knows what kind of merchandise the Tzulu merchants have brought here again.…

“Come and you will get younger.…”

“But…what about the treasure?”

“What treasure? The treasure is what you are and you do not know. What you were and what you will be. Not the stones you have been looking all your life.…”

They climbed down tens of spiraling steps, then entered a tunnel full of torches that lit by themselves, one by one, while they were advancing. Tarek was thinking of the old man’s words.… Youth.… How long had he been waiting for this? Could the elixir be on the very planet where he’d wasted so many years of his life? Finally they entered a room in which Mud was tending some plants with shiny big leaves. Tarek stared at her admiring her blue skin, covered by scales. She looked exactly like Lerman had described her, only now she seemed even stranger.…

“Lerman, Tarek, you must be wondering why I have brought you here. Both of you have been looking for riches and youth but fate has brought you to the place you were meant to come to, here, to me.”

“What do you want from us?” Lerman asked. “And who are you?”

“Wait.… Be patient. The question is, what do you want? You know very well what you are looking for, only you like deceiving yourselves so much…your happiness does not depend on some stones or years added to your existence. Who are we? Well, that is a long story.…”

“You’d better tell it,” Tarek said. “Or.…”

“Or what? What are you going to do? Go back to your pitiful life, hoping fortune will smile on you?”

“Don’t,” Mud put in. “Maybe it’s not their way.… There are others, more keen on it than these two are.…”

“No, no,” Lerman said, “since we’re here, we’d like to know why we’re here. The other day I was in a coma, then I woke up without a wrinkle on my face…and it wasn’t because of the treatment, I’m sure about it.…”

“So you seem to want some answers.… All right then. Let us take it from the beginning.… You have heard of Eden, haven’t you, the third planet revolving round Uta’H, the red star. Eden has always been inhabited. All Edeneans lived in peace and harmony, enjoying great Democles’s gift: eternal life. After several cycles that lasted thousand of years, they turned into beings of light and traveled throughout the universe, embodying new forms of life. When Uta’H started its last stage, the Edeneans began to grow old and die. At first they did not know what was happening. In vain did they meditate and pray to Democles. After a while they realized their race was being threatened, therefore they decided to leave the system.”

“And where did they go?” Tarek asked.

“Since all of them had always traveled as beings of light, they built Arka and headed to Megara.”

“But Megara is unstable,” Tarek said. “Only the Tzulu merchants know how to travel through worm holes.”

“Indeed, they have always been endowed with a very good sense of observation. They can see details others cannot. They can see patterns. Under the influence of high doses of drugs they seem to be able to predict the future. And they use this ability to travel through worm holes. Thus they calculate exactly where they want to get.”

“How can they do that?”

“The laws of physics seem to act differently inside worm holes. The Tzulu merchants can know the position and speed of every particle of subspace and can predict exactly all the interactions between them at any time.”

“How come other races can’t do it?”

“Because of the stress. There is the risk of a single person not being able to gather enough data in order to establish a ship’s trajectory through a worm hole. The brain often collapses and the journey can thus be compromised. But the merchants have the ability to interconnect mentally so they can create a huge brain, able to stand the accidental ‘network’ breakdowns. An ability many races have not been able to acquire. That is why Arka could not get farther. More than that, their food and power supplies were limited. When they reached Megara the capsules were uncoupled, each of them carrying a male and a female. Thus they could reach various places of the Galaxy, systems that did or did not support life.… We were lucky to get to Nede.”

“You?!” Lerman said. “Are you from Eden?”

“Yes. She is Mud, my partner. And I am…Uezen!”

“Uezen?”

Tarek and Lerman remembered the horrors bearing that name.…

“I know what you are thinking…but it is not your fault. Everyone chooses their own way. And you have too.…”

“Wait a minute,” Lerman said. “If you have embodied new forms of life throughout the universe, it means…you’ve also got to Terra?”

“I knew you would ask that, Lerman. You are the creation of the beings of light. You are the continuity of our race. We are what you call…God. But we are all the creation of great Democles.”

Lerman was astounded, not believing his ears. Tarek looked suspicious. First Lerman’s strange story, then the stories of the two.…

“But why do you look so different?” he asked, somehow trying to find them out in a lie.

“Mud has passed through the same mutations I could have if I had exposed myself for a long time to Nagur, the sun. Our DNA code changes and our powers decrease. Sooner or later we will lose them all.… But not before teaching you what we know. Therefore, we decided one of us should get in touch with the people on Nede. It is only thus that you will really know your nature and powers.”

“What about youth?” Tarek asked eagerly.

“Youth too, and everything we have received from Democles.”

“Why us?” Lerman asked.

“Because you have always believed in love. Even if the darins have biased your judgment, even if alcohol and women have pushed you away from the right path, deep inside you were still able to love. And we felt that. Like we can feel all the thoughts of those who live on Nede.”

“How about the ones that died? Didn’t they believe in love?” Tarek asked sharply.

“Not all of them died. Only the ones that were too greedy and chose the Nedean stones. Blinded by the urge to get rich they perished in the middle of the desert. They could choose. It is not everyone that can receive our teachings, it is not everyone that can follow this path. Tarek, if you had not loved Goya, you would not have ended up in the outpost and I had not tempted you, for so many years, with Nedean stones. Lerman, if you had not loved Suara, you would not have met Naej and Mud and come here. Or do you really think these are pure coincidences?”

“I know that everything has a price,” Tarek said. “Love in particular.…”

“Tarek, Tarek.… Indeed, there is a price for everything. But not the way you imagine.… You see, inside a capsule that reached Nayur was only one survivor. His name is Anuk. Unfortunately the woman could not make it. The Edenean, revengeful, took advantage of his powers and created the Vorex, or the elixir of youth as some call it, an extremely dangerous drug by means of which he has managed to control Serenia, Nayur, and Neteria. And I have just learned that the Tzulu merchants and Anuk have made a pact and before long they will start an invasion.…”

“So what do you want from us?” Tarek asked.

“What I want? I want you to help me stop them.”

“We? How could we stop an invasion?”

“We are trying to put together an army with the help of the Edeneans from the other systems. But it is not easy at all, not with us living so isolated.… We are fewer and fewer. That is why we need disciples.… That is why we need you.…”

“Oh yeah? And what’s in it for us? If what we were looking for was just a drug, how am I gonna get my youth back?”

“Relax, Tarek. There is another way by which you can get what you want.…”

“OK, OK, I get your point,” Lerman said. “It’s a nice story. Drugs, armies, beings of light.… But what if we say no?”

“It is your choice, of course. But think.… Tarek will never be young again.… And you…you will never be with Suara again.…”

“Suara? What are you talking about? Isn’t she gonna.…”

“No, Lerman, you are wrong.”

All of a sudden, at a sign of Uezen, Suara made her appearance in the room. As beautiful and young as when she had got off the Tzulu merchants’ shuttle.

“It can’t be!!!… It can’t.… It can’t!!”

“Yes, it can, my love,” Suara said approaching.

She hugged and kissed him the way only she knew how to.

“I missed you so much, Lerr!”

“Suara, my love!” Lerman said and broke into tears.

Then Uezen told them how Naej had managed to persuade her to give up the idea of leaving for Serenia and follow the Zettic path instead.…

“Naej, I knew it.…”

“Hey, what about me?” Tarek asked.

Uezen came up to him and patted his shoulders.

“As I said…be patient, Tarek. All in good time.…”