“Fourteen, thirteen, twelve…”
Jorh, unaware of the eyes on him, couldn’t stop thinking about his sister in the arms of Gahneo, an unpleasant thought he was trying very hard to get rid of. Small bursts of multi-colored lights were now starting to emerge out of the sphere.
“Nine, eight, seven…”
Mahhzee, staring at the small window, kept thinking about the previous night, and Gahneo’s pulsing waves of passion flowing through her entire body. Serm seemed to be the only one actually paying close attention to the experiment, for once. The Zarfha sphere was now just below the ceiling of the sealed room, and bright flashes were reflecting all over the chamber.
“Five, four, three…”
“Get ready to drop the plasma sphere, Gahneo!” said Jorh.
“Two, one, zero,” finished Serm.
“Now!”
Gahneo immediately engaged the glowing blue ball of plasma in the tubular receiver of the pod, by a simple wave of the hand. The bright sphere dropped straight down inside the egg-shaped chamber. Its molecules mixing with the Zarfha rays, it progressively turned from blue to red, to purple and then blue again for another few seconds, before exploding all across the room in a bright display of blinding sparks, like thousands of mini fireworks. Quickly spinning a few meters above it, the Zarfha expanded, then retracted, and finally contracted back onto itself until it had become a small ball of fire, floating silently in the center of the containment field. A few more bursts of plasma continued to escape from its surface, before vanishing into a cloud of purple gas that quickly dissipated. After some adjustments by Gahneo and Jorh, the plasma flux was soon stabilized in the chamber.
For a moment, they all forgot what had transpired earlier. They were now completely absorbed by the object in front of them. Mahhzee, finally prying her eyes off the colorful scene, turned her attention back on the readings in front of her, and conveyed the new numbers back to Jorh. Gahneo was now checking the Mahkiar matrix. After double checking everything, he gave Jorh the anticipated confirmation.
“It’s sustaining itself. Amplitude at eighty-four percent, ray-loads engaged and stable.”
“We did it!” announced Jorh with a feeling of victory.” My friends, we have finally created a stable, self-sustainable, multi-level gravitation engine; the first Flexor Zarfha capable of displacing twenty-eight Kahs! This is fantastic. Now, all we have to do is get it inside the Ehoran.” That last part, he knew would be easy.
The rest of the evening had been spent running tests and checking lists of analysis, trying to account for every contingency. Like all gravitation flexors, the new Zarfha had to maintain a constant gravity aboard the ship, but also be able to compensate for the size, mass, and composition of Varih-Aru. This new success was a major breakthrough for the success of the mission. Equipped with it, the Ehoran, the grand ship the Elders had ordered to be built, would be able to divert Varih-Aru from its destructive path, using the ship’s enormous artificial gravity to pull the rogue planet off course. For the moment being, Jorh was only thinking about the success of the day. He felt proud of the team’s progress. Regardless of the situation they were all in, he had true respect and fondness for his team. He just wished they could have all worked under more comfortable circumstances. The utter destruction of their home planet looming above them was getting heavier every day and taking its toll on everyone’s morale. All they could do now was to stay focused on the work at hand. They were almost there.
After a few signs of congratulations between colleagues, Jorh wished them all goodnight and spent a few more minutes cataloging the experiment’s results. He would have to give a complete report to Garnak the next morning. He had already put his sister’s romantic outing with Gahneo behind him and didn’t appear the least concerned at the moment. The two could not have been more pleased, not having to explain themselves after all.
After shutting down the lab, Jorh resealed the entrance behind him with a hand gesture and began the trek back home up the tunnel. Serm was already half way up Klomag-Darh when Jorh reached the Main Hall. He watched Gahneo and his sister climb in their Vok and disappear. He was not really upset anymore. He was just glad the day had ended on such a good note and could not wait to get in his hovering bed. Truthfully, they were all exhausted and glad to go home. In particular, two of them, whose previous night had been all but restful.
Chapter X
Varih-Aru
Mahhzee was jolted back to reality, when Gahneo entered the room to see why she wasn’t answering him.
“Mahhzee?” He touched her shoulder when she still did not respond.
“Hmmm? Hey…” she said looking at him with melancholy in her eyes and a loving smile.
“Everything OK?” asked Gahneo, a bit at a loss.
“Yes, Gahneo, everything is fine.” The feeble smile stayed on her face for several more seconds. Most of the other passengers had already moved their belongings to the new living area in the big towering edifice, each one hurrying to pick a desirable location, preferably high above ground. The good news was there were more choices than there were travelers, so everyone was fairly satisfied with their living arrangements, when all was said and done.
The Kahnu were used to living thousands of meters above ground. Back on their home planet, they lived in well-designed dwellings of comfortably arranged coves and shell-shaped habitats, interconnected by a maze of tunnels and shafts carved in all directions, right into the giant Klomags. The corridors and hallways connecting the different dwellings could at times protrude on the outside of the gigantic structures and form outdoor towers that usually reconnected further up. Those outside also housed more luxurious private living quarters, with breathtaking views, while the ones inside Klomags were more common or reserved for public structures such as libraries, city halls, recreational areas, and other functional facilities. The lack of natural light in some of the indoor dwellings was in no way a problem for Kahnus, whose purple eyes were able to adjust to the dimmest of luminosity. Like major highways connecting cities on Earth, the branches of the giant looking trees allowed Kahnus to travel from Klomag to Klomag easily. A Klomag’s outer bark was covered entirely by a smooth layer of vertical vines, hanging straight down along the body of the structure. Several dozen meters in length, and colored in dark browns and deep reds, they swung like giant hair strands along a furry mammoth leg, slowly changing colors in giant waves of wind orchestrated dances. At its top, thousands of pockets, hanging under the massive flower-like head of the Klomag, released thin strings of bright lights that made their long journey straight down to the far ground below. When the time of day was right, light flakes slowly sprinkled the entire length of the structure, as they fell from above, offering a dazzling spectacle. From a great distance, even a small group of Klomags offered an impressive sight. Taller than anything on the planet, they could reach high into the upper atmosphere of Kahnu, where they collected more sunlight. Gigantic in circumference as well, Klomags grew close to waters of the planet’s single ocean and had enormous blue roots that allow them to move along coastal regions, just not very fast of course. A Klomag could take the best part of a year to move a few hundred meters, but through its life span of ten thousand years or so, it could travel substantial distances. As it did, the ice around the roots of the massive tree helped its progress, replenishing the ground below, keeping the integrity of the coast intact. Since Klomags usually lived in groups, they rarely ever traveled the entire perimeter of their single icy continent. Even as old as they could live, their slow zig-zagging progression meant they almost never came back to their original birth place.