Читать книгу Worlds Apart - William L Frame - Страница 12

Chapter 6

Under the Stars

The warm air from the day’s hot sun slowly cooled with a slight breeze flowing over the mountain peaks and on down the valley, adding a touch of dampness to the air. Jennifer was sitting on some furs spread over the ground just outside the cave. She was gazing up at the distant twinkling starlight in the night sky while with a tender hand she stroked the soft fur of the little black puppy sleeping comfortably on her lap.

Taric came out of the cave, nibbling on some berries piled high in a small woven grass basket. He noticed the little lycur beast Jennifer called a puppy was sleeping in her lap and found the sight of the two together very unsettling. It was unnatural, almost magical, as he watched her interact with the lycur. He sat down next to Jennifer and placed the bowl he was carrying between them.

“I don’t know what you believe when you look up at the night sky,” Jennifer said to him quietly. “You asked me, what is it like living in the heavens and where are my people? I’m not sure you’d believe me. We’re so different, you and me. We’re the opposite of each other’s culture and worlds apart in our technology and way of thinking. I’m not sure where to begin.”

“Just talk and I will listen,” Taric suggested with a kind smile encouraging her to begin as he knew it would cause her some sadness in the telling. “Your beginning will happen.”

“Yes, the beginning, I’ll try, but first, tell me what you see in the night sky,” she asked curiously. “It might help me to explain things better and give me a starting point.”

“When I look up at the night sky. I see the firepits of all who have lived before me. Our people believe there is life after death. We believe another life begins when our spirit is taken from the land. If I live a good life and I am found worthy, my spirit will ascend into the dark sky to be reunited with my ancestors.

“Some spirits are doomed to forever wander within the shadows of darkness. Lives can be very short due to sickness, famine, or unexpected tragedy. Tragic events inflicted on or suffered through in a person’s life can attack a person’s spirit and bind it to the land after their death. When an unusual death occurs, our healers gather and perform a ceremony to break any bond with the land the spirit may have so it can rise into the night sky in peace and not be doomed to forever wander in the darkness,” he answered quietly revealing to her the simple faith of Taric’s people.

Taric’s truthful telling of his belief gave Jennifer a beginning she thought he could understand and possibly accept. “Taric, I need you to open your mind and really listen to what I’m going to say. Over countless generations, my people’s curiosity made us a very resourceful and intelligent species. Our weapons gradually became so much more advanced than a simple bow and arrow that we almost destroyed ourselves. Your land makes me feel as if I’ve traveled back in time. Way back to when Earth, my home, was as wild and bountiful with life as your home is now.”

“What do you mean by traveled back in time?” Taric asked, interrupting her with a question.

Jennifer realized she’d have to explain herself more simply. It wasn’t because Taric was a stupid savage; he was highly intelligent for his world and way of life. His people didn’t have the luxury of idle time to think about abstract thoughts. So she tried to answer him as simply as she could and hoped he’d understand.

“Traveling back in time is a human expression of speech. It’s a twist of words we sometimes use in our stories. Time travel is not possible, but the idea is like this.

“Imagine, you’re here on this spot at this time of day. Then a magical healer walks into your camp and offers you a way to witness the moment of your birth in exchange for shelter and food. You agree and then poof! You’re standing beside your mother as she’s giving birth to a baby and the baby is you. A child she names Taric. That’s the simplest way of explaining the idea. Do you understand?” Jennifer asked him, seeing dim shadows of the firelight play with the gorgeous features of his handsome face.

“I think I understand your idea,” Taric answered a little confused but smiled as her concern for him was the foremost expression revealed on her beautiful face. He placed his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I saw you fall from the sky. I will listen and try to understand and believe what you have to say. How can I not?” he answered, giving her hand a gentle squeeze for encouragement.

“Okay. Well, as the saying goes,” Jennifer replied with a grin. “A very, very, very long time ago, my people lived their lives much like you and your people do now. Generation upon countless generations of lives spent in the pursuit of a better life for our children, our numbers spread across the land, we tamed the wilds and made ourselves masters of our world.

“Our history began when our ancient ancestors drew pictures of different types of animals and the men hunting them on cave walls. The primitive drawings eventually led to writing—the beginning of conveying our ideas and questions beyond our death. Writing made it possible to record our spiritual beliefs, history, and science.

“Humans have always been a curious species. We have a desire to know the truth of our observations. We ask countless questions and then search for ways to answer them. Through observation and experimentation, we learned to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction. We recorded our discoveries, but for every discovery, there were always more questions to be answered. Our boundless imagination and insatiable curiosity within our souls fuels our mind’s quest for knowledge. It never stops. We ask questions we cannot answer in the hope that future generations will discover the answer and expand our knowledge even further.

“Throughout time, we continued asking hard questions because we had to know why things are as they are and how we came to be on our land. Those basic questions made it possible for us to overcome our fear of the unknown. Our accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next grew so vast that over time it made impossible ideas possible and opened up incredible opportunities, including the ability to change our life’s reality, which brings me to this point in my life.” Jennifer explained with a grin as she continued to stroke the little puppy.

“Now it’s time for some hard truth. Everyone living on the land right now is ignorant of what really exists in the sky above us, except me.

“The only commonality between your culture and mine is our awareness of our mortality, and for that, I’m thankful, because it’s a beginning. You live to survive each day, your past is only what you can remember, and your tomorrow is the scary unknown. The story of your species on this world is just beginning to unfold and the outcome of your history far into the future will forever be a mystery to you. Your people are a very young species in an eternal cosmic quest to extend life wherever it can.

“The lights you see in the sky are not the firepits of your ancestors as you’ve been told to believe. They are stars, massive globes of unimaginable power scattered throughout our galaxy we call the Milky Way. A galaxy is a vast collection of countless stars, and there are more galaxies in the universe than the stars you can see in the night sky.

“Every star is just like the sun that rises in your sky each morning. Your star is the source of energy for all life on this world. Without its endless light and heat, nothing would live and this land would be a frozen barren rock.

“The stars are so far away, it takes countless cycles of seasons for their light to travel here. Every sun has a varying number of worlds circling around them and some of those far away worlds are favorable to life. My people learned how to travel in starships from one world to another across the vast distances of space. We’ve discovered three-star systems with worlds suitable to support human life and ready to colonize.” Jennifer paused to gather her thoughts, wondering how much of her narrative Taric was understanding and asked him, “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I am listening. What are starships?” Taric asked, thinking it was a made thing like the hollow stone she had used to fall to the land in.

“Starships are enormous machines able to sail across the vast distances of our galaxy. We discovered a way to put ourselves into a deep sleep for many cycles of seasons without waking or aging during the long journey. My starship, the Fulcrum, left Earth in the year 2554 and was traveling to another world, much like this one, but no one like us lives there. It’s called Opalla, a world full of natural resources and animal life we can use to create a new home. Our flight was to last one hundred thirty-seven of your seasonal cycles we call years. I don’t know how long I slept to get to this world. I must have been in hypersleep for at least seventy-five years.

“My parents were the senior flight engineers on the starship, it was their task to program the ship’s course and to certify the propulsion systems were ready for the long voyage. Our ship carried ten thousand souls and it seems I’m the only one left alive. I don’t know what happened, but something went horribly wrong. Whatever it was, it caused my parents to abandon their duties and awaken Peter and me. They stuffed us into spacesuits and pushed us into an escape pod before we were fully awake. As my father was closing the escape pod, he told me to watch over my brother, Peter. He promised me, he and mom would be following in another escape pod. It was the last words he spoke to me before launching the pod.

“The ship is dead, and I can’t expect a rescue. I’m what we’d say in my world, a castaway. A person marooned on a deserted isle with no way to get back home. For better or for worse, this world is my home for the rest of my life and all I know about it is what I can see from our cave. You saved my life, and now I’m afraid to face the life fate has given me,” Taric heard her say sadly as she leaned heavily against his side, still stroking the puppy’s soft fur with her fingers as it lay sleeping in her warm lap.

Then as he pondered what she had told him, a spark of hope entered into his thoughts. “You say the lights are stars and not firepits of my ancestors,” Taric repeated and then went on to reason within his mind to accept her words as truth instead of the legends of his people. Therefore, this incredibly amazing girl who fell out of the sky was not an ancestor of his people at all. She was just a lonely girl accustomed to a different way of life on a world forever out of her reach.

“When you fell from the sky, I believed you were an ancestor granted another life on the land. You and I are so alike yet so different. What you say about the sky above us, I believe. Your parents gave you a chance to live by sending you here and I was here to find you. Welcome to my land, Jennifer. I am Taric and I was on a journey seeking out my destiny. I believe my destiny found me when you fell from the sky. I have fallen under your spell and my heart tells me to love you,” he said softly, letting her see into the depths of his soul as he leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips.

Their lips parted slowly from their long, lingering kiss while staring deeply into the depths of the other’s eyes. Mesmerized by Jennifer’s piercing emerald-green eyes, Taric whispered very softly once again, “I love you.”

Jennifer’s heart swelled, feeling the rhythmic beating stop within her chest and sputter to a pulsating, pounding beat as Taric whispered those words. Did he really fall in love with her? she asked herself, unwilling to believe him. She’s been nothing but a burden and yet he did everything, everything for her. He could have run away from the crash in fear and left her to die, but he didn’t. Why? Would anyone else in this land have helped a stranger who fell from the sky? She didn’t know, but he had willingly taken on her care and never once complained.

“Why do you love me?” Jennifer asked, not daring to trust the sincerity in his voice. She knew without a doubt Taric had spoken from the depths of his soul because he was a kind, respectful, and honorable man, but she had to know. The time spent in such close proximity together as her leg healed, day after day, enabled her to accept this unexpected development of her life, but she didn’t expect to fall in love.

“Why is it such a mystery to you?” Taric asked with a full smile radiating from his handsome face as he reached out a hand to scratch the little beast behind the ears with a couple of his fingers, accepting it and her.

“I would never have tried to save the life of this little predator, but you did and made it seem as natural as if tossing a stone into water. You tell me this animal can be taught to help us hunt and become a friend. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but you act like you know this animal’s future and what it will grow into, whereas I still see a wild predator.

“You’re unpredictable, exciting, and beautiful. The things you say and do are beyond my understanding most times, but I believe you. Now that I know you, I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I feel you in my heart,” Taric said softly, tapping his chest with a finger.

She then responded to Taric’s loving decree by setting the sleeping puppy down onto the furs, rolled over on top of him, and began to kiss Taric lovingly and passionately, letting his hands explore her body as she melted within his strong embrace. As they gave in to their mutual pent-up desires under the starlight, Jennifer promised herself, while gasping for air between their kisses, to love Taric for the rest of her life.