“Goodbye? Garnak, you’re coming with us, aren’t you? You have to. We can’t leave without you,” said a frightened Mahhzee. They all joined her in protests of disapproval.
“That is kind of you my friends, but my place is here, among those who will need me most in these last hours. I am too old now to worry about saving myself. You don’t need me. I know you will make it. I can sense it. That is what is most important. And it gives me great joy to know that all will not be lost. Oh, one more thing before I go. Your ship contains the grand library of knowledge. Whatever happens, make sure it is preserved and kept with you, no matter where you go. It will be of great use to you and your descendants in the third world. This will also insure Kahnu and its great history will not be forgotten.”
His fingers interlocked, he gave them a quick goodbye, and his hovering throne disappeared down a passage behind him. Before any of them could say or do anything else, Donjeh, followed by a large number of individuals, appeared through another tunnel and approached the small Kahnu group in a hurry. The disproportionate size of their legs gave the strange illusion they were running in slow motion.
“Jorh! Gahneo, Serm, Mahhzee! Good to see you all here. I have brought everyone with me. We’re ready. We need to go now!” he added, and without waiting for a reply, Donjeh waved his hand over the side of the white Aruk, and a large corridor opened in front of him, its purple hue lighting the way inside. He rushed in, his followers right behind him, Serm included.
Jorh and Mahhzee’s mother rushed to them. “I can’t believe what is happening. It’s so terrible…” Gahneo and the three of them watched the last of the passengers float away and disappear down the ship’s entrance. The four were silent for a moment. The young Mahhzee looking up at the ceiling above, imagining the thousands playing, loving and living their last moments on the beautiful world she called home, unaware of the fate awaiting them. Knowing there was no turning back, Gahneo grabbed her arm and pulled her with him into the vessel, Jorh and his mother in tow.
A few minutes later, the ship was departing. Jorh was now in telepathic communication with Silargh, the other ship’s leader.
“We just took off. How much longer do you need?”
“Most of us are here. We’re just waiting on one more group. Garnak said they should be here any moment,” replied Silargh.
“Best of luck on your journey to Kahjuna. I hope Garnak knows what he’s doing.”
“Me too, Jorh. Have a safe trip to Kesra. See you when we get there.”
Rushing back out of Kahnu’s atmosphere, the observers and their hovering chairs suddenly found themselves racing through space once again, and soon reached the zooming Aruk. In an instant, they were all inside. It was the very same control room they were physically in now, but in a very distant past, and occupied by a dozen aliens. The younger Mahhzee was seated in the center of the group, flying the ship. She looked exhausted. The observers collectively realized some time had passed since the departure from Kahnu. Her purple eyes were so dark from fatigue they almost looked colorless. Yet, seemingly unaffected by her drained body, her twelve fingers, six on each hand, were working busily, weaving shapes in the air at the translucent Zarfha in front of her. A few minutes ago, a cloud of space debris bombarding the ship, had forced the small crew of twenty-six to manually change course and maneuver around the bulkier of the objects, sending the spaceship off track. She was now working on putting it back on course. Like her brother Jorh, she was a scientist, a rational being who rarely lost her temper or her calm, no matter what the situation might be. But after what they had all been through, staying focused and alert was becoming a challenge, even for her. She could feel her long thin arms trembling. Her thick legs were restless and her troubled head heavy, heavy not only from the lack of sleep, but also from doubt and worry as to their true chance of survival in the days to come. She was having a hard time concentrating, constantly thinking about the fate of their doomed planet, the absurdity of their efforts in trying to save a handful of people, when thousands were about to perish. And what if they couldn’t reclaim Kahalla? What if they couldn’t catch up to the Ehoran? A wave of fear suddenly ran through her body. Sadness started filling her heart again, as it had so many times in the last few days, and for a short moment, her fingers stopped moving. Trembling uncontrollably like a naked child in the cold snow, Mahhzee clinched her fists and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she made a conscious effort to release the unwelcome thoughts.
They were here now, in this vessel, flying through space at more than 400,000 kilometers an hour, on their way to Kesra, the closest planet to theirs. They were among those who had been lucky enough to escape the destruction of their home world. Nothing more could be done but move on. The survival of her species depended on the next few days.
Although quite familiar with the navigation system, having designed most of it himself, Jorh was not the one navigating them out of danger. That task had been given to Mahhzee, his sister, who had managed to steer them clear of the rogue boulders earlier, but not without great effort. Of course, she was the most qualified to pilot a ship this size, the only Guild Elected in fact. Garnak had appointed her as the official pilot. Every member of the crew was capable of flying a Vok, a compact sky vehicle. Those were as common on Kahnu as cars were on Earth in the twenty-first century, but flying this ship in the vacuum of space was as foreign to any of them as it would have been to fly a commercial airliner on Earth for the average person. Mahhzee, having flown several Vakkehs, commercial Kahnu ships, across the vast lakes of Darkuj in her early years as a cargo pilot, had unanimously inherited the position of senior navigator when the assigned pilot had ended his life a few days earlier.
Frantically entering a series of instructions for the ship’s artificial brain to follow, using a new landing course she had recalculated four times, “just to make sure,” Mahhzee finished the command and switched her attention to the view on her left, showing the distance that separated them from their destination. The image of a small reddish planet in the background was easily recognizable. She was more than ever determined to get everyone safely to Kesra, the planet humans would later call Mars. She would also need to land the ship once they reached Kesra. They all had great hopes their destination would bring them some comfort. They needed to re-establish some sort of sense and cohesion in everyone’s recently shattered spirit. Being confined to this ship was taking its toll on all of them. She could feel a great deal of telepathic distress and confusion on board. None of them would ever see their home planet again, and the vessel was one of only two that had managed to leave Kahnu in time. Of the thousands that populated their planet, only fifty-two Kahnus had escaped. Twenty-six on each ship. Of course, there were also the elders and those they had taken with them on the Ehoran, but once Kahalla was back in their possession, Jorh and his people had no intension of following the Elders anymore. They would regroup and rebuild their lost world on their own terms. For now, Kesra was their first destination.
Their vessel was about one hundred meters in length at its longest point, and about half that distance at its widest. More or less oval in shape, it resembled a giant egg, with several protuberances of similar rounded shapes all around its hull. Most of them a few meters in diameter or smaller, they appeared in random places on the outside shell of the ship, making for a deformed and odd-looking potato-like vessel. There were no antennas or other attachments, no markings of any kind on the outside, and nothing comparable to wings or jets. Its only distinguishable feature was a solid plasma ring that intercepted the ship at a horizontal plane. Piercing through its hull in four places, two at the front and two at the back, it formed a semi-circle on each side, centered a third of the way down the back of the ship. The glowing halo, no more than ten meters in breadth and less than half that in height, formed a stretched ellipse about a hundred meters in diameter. Inside the ring itself, glowing and pulsing in waves of purple and blue lights, the flowing plasma, running along the length of the loop, was casting random shadows on the hull, accentuating the messy randomness of its curves.