Yves LF Giraud
KAHNU
This book is for my grandparents
Yvonne Legoff, Auguste Giraud and Marthe Giraud.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While this book is a pure work of fiction on my part, I would like to thank several individuals who have made this journey possible, either by landing their ears and knowledge on the various ideas and subjects this first novel covers, or by giving me the moral and encouraging support I needed to see this work to completion.
Of those, I’d like to thank my parents, Pierre and Monique Giraud, as well as my brother, Christian Giraud, for their love and continued support throughout my chaotic life as a writer and musician.
My friend Robert Cayol, my best and worst critic.
My ex-wife and best friend, Carol Via for believing in me, even when I did not.
Most importantly, I want to thank my wonderful friend, agent and manager, Misty Huffman, for all her support, dealing with my artistic personality, and without whom this book would have never seen the light of day.
PROLOGUE
Kahjuna, the blue planet
A gigantic flash of light suddenly lit the entire sky. Bright as the mid-day sun and piercing through the cloud cover at over 30,000 kilometers an hour, a giant blazing ball cut through the thin atmosphere, igniting the blue sky behind its path in a long straight blaze of fire. As the object streaked from one end of the sky to the other, the shadows of trees, rocky outcrops, and other tall features below seemed to run across the alien landscape in the opposite direction. A few seconds later, the thundering sound of the tremendous pandemonium caused by the spaceship shook the ground below.
Inside the cockpit, bathed in a hazy purple hue, several beings were seated around a circular platform. Flashing lights and alarms were going off everywhere. The ship’s occupants, fighting the effects of the vessel’s speed and the planet’s gravity, were in obvious discomfort.
Sitting in the center of the group, Silargh, the largest of them, his heart pounding furiously in his chest, slowly raised his arm with great effort due to the extreme pressure the rogue ship was putting on him, and finally able to get his hand high enough, made a waving gesture in the direction of the circular platform in front of him. A perfect sphere, about two meters in diameter, appeared in the center of the pad. The shiny object, hovering just above the platform, slowly started spinning. As colorful rays of light, appearing and disappearing at random, began creating beautiful waveforms above its off-white surface, the sphere also began to glow from within.
“Silargh, forty-nine seconds left before impact!” said Tehe, one of the female passengers, without making a sound. She was sitting to his right, hands clutching her armrests, struggling to bear the enormous pressure that was pinning her to her seat. Her head turned toward him, she was waiting for a telepathic response. But, although he had “heard her,” Silargh didn’t reply. He was concentrating all his efforts on re-initializing the ship’s gravitational generator. He knew doing so while in flight was a dangerous maneuver. At their current speed, the shock would be tremendous, but he also knew it was their only chance to stop their ship before it crashed on the fast approaching ground below. The task was taking all his concentration. Regaining some strength after the previous effort, he slowly managed to raise his arm once more, and with another elaborate move of his hand in the air, made the hovering sphere rotate on itself to expose a small hole beneath. Inside, a bright light flashed an instant, responding to his telepathic command, and everything went completely dark.
Almost in the same instant, an enormous change in velocity sucked the air out of everyone’s lungs on board the spaceship. In less than three seconds, the vessel’s speed had dropped down to 1000 kilometers an hour. Any human would have been killed instantly by the sudden deceleration. The passengers, used to a strong gravity on their home planet and physically much stronger than any life form on Earth, were capable of withstanding much greater forces. Even so, not all the occupants made it through the maneuver unharmed.
“Tehe, Berhis is hurt!” said a voice in Tehe’s head as the lights in the room came back on.
Without hesitation, Tehe unfastened her invisible restraint with a wave of the hand and rushed out of the room. Running through the corridors as fast as she could on her massive legs, her heart pounding with fear, she reached the cargo bay in seconds where she knew Berhis was stationed. She saw him as soon as she entered the room. He was awkwardly seated on the floor, his large elongated head resting uncomfortably against the back wall. To his left, a few containers were strewn about on the floor. Three other passengers were leaning over him. She could see he was having difficulties breathing. Her heart jumped in her chest when she looked at Lishieru’s face. She was the most qualified doctor onboard, and from her deeply concerned expression, Tehe knew it was bad.
“Berhis!” she called out mentally as she ran toward him. Lishieru stopped her before she was in reaching distance.
“Don’t touch him, he’s in pain and is having difficulties breathing. I’m afraid he may have serious internal injuries.”
Looking at Berhis with distress, Tehe said telepathically, “I’m here, Berhis, I’m here. You’re gonna be OK.”
She was struggling not to grab his hand or touch him in anyway. Most of all, she was desperately trying not to cry or show him the fear and despair she felt inside her, seeing him in such a state. A difficult challenge since her people could read minds. He looked up at her and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he was in excruciating pain.
Lishieru opened the box sitting in front of her on the floor and pulled out a handful of round objects called Rodas that resembled hockey pucks. With a slow movement, she tilted her hand and all the small disks started gliding out and approached Berhis’ injured body, slowly hovering in place under his arms, legs, back and attaching themselves to him. Lishieru then stood up and with a slow hand motion over Berhis, made the small hovering devices slowly raise his body, ever so gently.
A few moans and grunts came out of Berhis’ mouth, a part of the body he very rarely used, but within seconds he was asleep. The Rodas, now supporting his body above the ground, were designed to induce the injured patient into a deep state of trance that completely numbed the person’s sensory system, eliminating pain, and allowing the caretaker to perform any surgery without additional anesthesia.
“How is he?” asked Tehe with desperation in her eyes.
“I don’t know yet, we need to get him on the scanning platform,” answered Lishieru hastily. Every second counted and she was already rushing to the medical quarters, Berhis’ body floating in front of her through the ship’s corridors.
“Attention, everyone! We are about to attempt a landing. This is going to be rough. Secure yourselves! Impact in less than two minutes,” announced Silargh telepathically from the cockpit.
Lishieru, still controlling the hovering “package” in front of her, entered the medical lab in a fury, Tehe and two other occupants right on her tail. The lights came on automatically as they entered, and a hovering medical bed approached them to receive Berhis’ body. With one more hand gesture from the doctor, a white cocoon like pod quickly materialized all around him, enclosing his entire body.
Tehe was about to rush again to Berhis’ side when Lishieru called her, “No time Tehe! He’ll be OK for now. We need to secure ourselves down. We’re about to land… TEHE!”