Day 2 - Spaceship Errand/Trias - 20th August 2449
Temporal Insights.
Rinca escorted me back to the medical alcove, she'd told the Errand's Operating System to ask Doctor Symms to meet us there.
"There was a World War Three?" I said.
"Yes," Rinca said.
"Was it about oil? They always said there'd be one over oil."
I wonder how many nations fought, seven nations would make a world war, yes, seven.
"It was a war of idealisms."
We had reached the medical alcove and the q & a session was ended. I want green skin, and I thought this because the man waiting for us, Dr Symms of course, had green skin, green skin and four ears. I didn't want four ears though. He had a mouth and since he did have four ears I assumed he could communicate the same way as me.
"I have an anxiety disorder, I need valium or something,” I said.
You're talking to an alien Troy. You're asking him for drugs. Well it isn't scarier than asking a normal doctor for drugs.
"I'll assume that's some kind of sedative you were given for your condition."
"Yes," I said.
"Well, I have something more specific," he said and then pushed a metal device against my neck again.
The world turned strange then. The crystals in my mind stopped refracting, somehow they became aligned and the light of thought flowed as a steady beam. My thoughts became the words I wanted to say, could say, the things I needed to be thinking. The dull beat of the chanting sevens was lost, gone, absolved. I looked up and frowned.
"My brain's not working," I said.
"It should be working fine," he said looking puzzled, "that enzyme should have an immediate effect on the neural path chemicals in your brain."
"Yes, but my brain worked fine before, I just didn't want to be so anxious."
"But it works better now?"
"In your opinion," I said, "I suppose the answer is yes."
He looked happy with that. I remember hoping it wasn't permanant, and that hope was a clear solid thought in the front of my mind, the only part I was aware of.
Rinca led me out of the medical alcove.
"You know when you are?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Do you know where you are though?"
"On a spaceship called Errand."
"Yes and we've arrived at an inhabited planet," she stopped and looked at me then, "Would you like to come down to the surface with us. The doctor says the shot will last that long."
Relief flooded in, I was worried I wouldn't get my multi-layered thoughts back. More thoughts means I'm smarterand I thought I would need to be smart on a spaceship in the 25th centuary.
"Sure," I said, "Who lives on the planet?" More aliens, like the doctor I had hoped. Aliens exist I realised, How exciting.
"The Luft," Rinca said.
We left the corridors and entered a small round room.
"Central," Rinca said and the room hummed and I think it moved but it didn't feel like it was moving, but it must have, because when the doors opened again it was not where we had entered. There was a big screen showing space and a big blue planet. Panels with lights, buttons and switches filled the room and there were seven of the people in purple uniform pushing them and reading their flashes. The Captain was there, he turned and waved.
"Troy," Captain Smith said, placing a small gold circle on my tshirt, "this is your communication device, use it to contact the ship or any other crew member when needed."
"Ok."
"We're about to board the planet shuttle to go greet the locals. You can relax as this isn't a first contact and the Luft are not hostile. I must ask though; do you agree to come of your own free will?"
I only had one thought not the usual many, the many possibilities were lost, suprressed so I just said yes. I followed Rinca, the Captain and two other crew through a hatch and into a small room. The hatch closed behind us and Rinca hit something on the control panel. The floor shook and vibrated; through the hatch window I saw the Errand grow smaller.
"Take a seat," The Captain said, pointing to one of the five metal chairs. The chair seemed to hold me without any belts or buckles or space-agey foam to glue me down. I think the chair had its own gravity.
With my new form of thought it all seemed so logical, so safe. We went through the atmosphere and pushed against the planet's gravity, but not so much that it didn't still draw us down to the green surface of the planet.
"Prepare for decontamination," said a sterile, computerised voice and seconds later white mist filled the cabin. I sneezed and as my head shook I could feel the extra throughts at the back of my mind. As the shuttle doors opened to a green sky the air flooded in and seemed to push against my mind, almost gaining access through Dr Symms' chemical blockage to the layers of thoughts that lay beyond. Or maybe I was just crazy, even without the extra noise in my mind.
"What now?" I asked the Captain.
He grinned in that brown, bouncy-haired, all American good guy kind of way and said, "We explore."
I realised I found the captain charming but also sickening, he was just so hetero.
He turned to his two crew members, "Collect the samples," and they picked up some bags and left the shuttle, then turing to Rinca and I he simply said "With me," and sauntered off.
Yay, I thought, follow the hetero, but I smiled, at least my cynicism wasn't misplaced by the drug; somehow, it seemed slightly sharper.
Soon we reached a clearing with a scattering of green wooden cabins, obviously made from the green trees reaching up around them. Out of one came a big, green monster, he smiled, and I smiled back, mainly because he looked like a fat grinch, fur and all.
"Welcome," he said, grabbing Captain Smith in a big furry embrace; the Captain's reply was lost somewhere within it.
He hugged Rinca and turned to me- I realised that normally I'd hate even the thought of being touched, but Dr Symms' needle had pushed those anxieties away, hidden wherever my extra layers of thoughts now lived.
"Thankyou," I said as the grinch let me go, it seemed polite to say something. The grinch thing was obviously a Luft, and I made a mental note to amend that thought in my mind, Luft, NOT grinch. The Luft stepped back from us, still grinning.
"I'm Luska. Welcome to the village, explore, meet the others. We hide nothing here."
"We appreciate your hospitality," said Captain Smith, "but we were hoping to see Restero?"
Luska stopped grinning at this, "We hide nothing but Restero is not part of the village, he lives out to the west, you may go look for him, but I guarantee no hospitality from him."
"Thankyou for the information Luska. We'll take a chance and visit Restero and come back for a beverage," the Captain said with the biggest grin he could muster.
Luska smiled once more and said he'd go prepare for our return. Rinca nodded and turned westward. We followed and headed back into the green upon green of the monotoned trees.
"Rinca?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Someone forgot to inform me what this planet is called."
"It's called many things, but on a map it is labelled as Trias."
Trias to me sounded like a dingy gay bar for bears, and so, I suppose it fit. The planet's greeness was kind of like grime and the Luft were definitly like bears, minus the leather and the safe words instead of introductions.
We walked for about 45 minutes, Rinca checking some bleeping dots on a metal pad she carried periodically.
"It's 20 meters ahead," she said and we passed through some trees and were confronted with a large green hut. It was as big as two double decker buses parked next to each other. There seemed to be one semi-elliptical opening and a large Luft stood in front of it, his furry lips stilled, not frowning, not smiling.
"Nice to see you again Captain Smith," he said.
"Nice to see you too," said the Captain. Neither shook hands or hugged, "This is Rinca my first in command and this is Troy."
"Troy is the reason you've come?"
"Yes, but you knew that."
"Come in," he said, gesturing for us to follow him in.
Inside, the space was bare except for a small work table with clay on it. The surrounding circular wall was covered in shelves and most of the shelves were filled with small clay figures of Luft.
"I walked up to one and stared and the detail of the furr, it even had a dab of dye to produced the green coloured eyes of the Luft. Restero stood behind me watching.
"Are you an artist?" I asked.
"No, Troy, I'm a historian of sorts. These are the forgotten, I just try and give them back some tiny speck of their existance. I don't know what your captain has told you, but I'll assume you know you've been ripped through time. Your people still think it wise to do such things, to try and find the perfect future for such a chaotic universe, to attempt to fix their mistakes. My people tried that once. We use to be millions, now we are but thousands. None of the others remember."
He paused then. I hadn't really thought about time travel yet, I just tried to think about where I was now. It was easier. My layers of thought had gone through the ways of comprehending the occurance of my day and I had been left with acceptance, a way to just adjust, move on, exist here and now. Maybe think more later.
Restero continued, "We call it The Last Temporal Event, we know it happenned because some of us were cursed with Temporal Sight, the ability to see the lost things, the lost ones. They walk through the forests, where towns use to be, they shop at market stalls that no longer exist. They never come to injury, they never die, they just pass their time in the daily rituals they used to have until they finally become less than ghosts of time, when the temporal shift evaporates and they are gone. Many of the people these statues are of have left, a few I still see."
"Maybe you're being a bit too forthcoming Restero," the Captain said.
"Maybe," said Restero, "but he has the temporal sight, something is blocking it, his layers of thought have been silenced, but soon they'll be back, and do you want him to be scared when he sees the people, the buildings, the actions that happen again and again in ghost-like form? Let him be informed." The large, furry alien sighed, “But you didn't come here for me to explain these things to him, you want me to explain him to you."
"Yes," the Captain said, "he was a sudden arrival with no explanation by Earth Alliance, we thought maybe your sight could see."
"Yes, and no," said Restero, "the boy is important in his past, "but things haven't changed by bringing him here, so he is destined to go back. However..."
"Yes?" asked the captain.
"I see a possability in him. He has something to do with your world Third War. What, I am not sure, but I see divergance if he makes it back. If he dies here in the future, I see a temporal shift for the worse, and if he makes it back I see alternative possibilities."
Rinca was dotting on her metal pad; I was trying to understand. My thought was a stream and logic didn't serve much purpose in understanding this. All I could think to do was record it to memory and analyse it later when Dr Symms medicine had worn off.
"Now leave, all three of you, I have little time and too many Luft in my mind to make before their ghosts die off." With that Restero went to his small work table and began bashing clay. The Captain motioned me to follow him outside, Rinca follwed behind me. Looking around I wondered if there were ghosts amoungst the trees, and was at least thankful that right now I couldn't see the mess others’ time meddling had made.
Do ghosts of time go to heaven, I wondered.
