“Ready?” said Jorh.
“Ready!” replied Serm.
With perfect timing, the two placed their hands over the plasma orb hovering between them. The gaseous ball, spinning faster and faster, while quickly changing from blue to purple, to fire red, to burning yellow, became so white and bright that it was almost unbearable to look at directly. Finally, it suddenly turned completely black and came to a rest. The two, commanding the final step of the procedure, watched eight more orbs fly out of the overhanging pipe, and move to the middle of the cave, where they started hovering in a circle, evenly spaced, just below the ceiling of the cavern. Jorh and Serm let their arms down, and the orbs started spewing a dark looking gas that engulfed most of the cave’s higher portion.
The atmosphere was now being slowly transformed in the cavern. The resulting effects of the chemical morphing would soon allow them to breathe without their suits. Now, they just had to wait another two hours or so for the cave to completely be conditioned. The temporary visitors would soon have the essential necessities to survive their staying on Kesra. They all hoped it wouldn’t be a long one.
François and his human companions, still watching with fascination events that had taken place so long ago, were momentarily distracted by a strange fog that began to engulf them. The surprised observers also noticed the surroundings wrapping around them. The three aliens knew immediately what was happening. Their human friends were beginning to feel the strain of the experience. Passing through each one like a sleeping spell cast by an invisible magic wand, a strong sensation of fatigue quickly enveloped them. They needed a break. So did Jorh and his two companions, still weak from their long hibernating sleep. Realizing the time had come for everyone to recharge their own batteries, so to speak, Jorh began to bring them all back to present reality.
A moment later, the group was waking up, the Zarfha sphere in front of them quietly coming to a rest on its platform. They were back in the big white cloud, on their Mars.
The odd viewing experience had been quite exhausting for all, but not so much to deter any of them from going back the very next day. And as the sessions succeeded one another, the humans had begun to learn how to interact telepathically with the three aliens and had a better understanding of the Kahnu world and its lost civilization.
The alien population had counted just over 49,700 individuals when the planet had been destroyed; a number that had seemed quite small to the colonists for such an advanced people. As Sabrina had pointed out, back when Earth’s human population had counted only that many, man still had a long way to go before he would venture out into space. The main reason for their small population, had explained Mahhzee, was that the birth of a Kahnu was a rare event. Unlike humans, Kahnus were not the direct result of intercourse between male and female individuals. Procreation was only possible during Kahalla, the birth ceremony, and required the council’s approval and guidance. Once every twenty-six Kahnu years, large groups gathered for the great circle of birth, where the council of Elders chose twenty-six lucky couples out of hundreds. During a long and elaborate ceremony that took several days, the chosen individuals were bathed in the “Pool of Life,” where they coupled for an entire day, while others, spread out across the plains of Kahalla, joined the celebration in their own way. The next day, the exhausted couples were pulled out of the birth pool and brought back to their home, where they usually spent the next few days recuperating.
The colonists had also learned that the infant’s gestation period was four Kahnu years, spent in a Sharfoo, a cocoon-like egg, and left in the Elders’ care. The child was then formed by the council until he turned twenty-six, when he was finally released to the care of his biological parents. By then, the young Kahnu was a full fledge adult. Kahnus did not change much physically during their adulthood. Unlike for humans, getting old was a foreign concept to the aliens. Signs that a Kahnu’s life was coming to an end were rarely witnessed. When an individual reached the age of knowledge, four hundred years old, he was expected to choose the time of his parting. Some individuals had been known to take as many as fifty years to make that final decision. But when he did, a Kahnu did so willingly and proudly. All Kahnus eventually walked the path of Nott to the cliffs of Garhnoj, where they released themselves from the physical bonds of their own body. and plunged into the depths of Mohgvar, the grand Kahnu ocean, never to be seen again. Once below the cold purple waters, it was said they journeyed to the Grand Hallis, the entrance to the first world, where all living things came from. Only the Elders of the council, who counted twelve members, did not. For them, time was on a different scale. In fact, no one truly knew how old they were. Some had said that Gihhez, the patriarch, was born before the time of Harzo, the great librarian. If that was true, he was at least 3000 years old; Kahnu years, that is.
Mahhzee had given Dedrick and his colleagues a few numbers regarding their own ages. In Kahnu time, Jorh was 149. Gahneo had just celebrated his ninety-eighth birth year, and Mahhzee was still a fairly young forty-two-year-old. Of course, that was only true if one didn’t consider the seventy million years they had just spent in hibernation, as François had been quick to point out. But when the colonists did the math, taking into consideration that a year on Kahnu was equivalent to almost four Earth years, they realized Mahhzee was in fact closer to 170, Gahneo was about 392, and Jorh was almost 600 years old. And if the oldest Elder was truly 3000 years old on their world, that would have made him 12,000 years old on Earth.
Rock the Casbah!
“Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear old man, happy birthday to yoooouuuu!” sang everyone, with François strumming wildly his guitar on the last chord of the song, a big smirk on his face. They all clapped cheerfully at the frowning Russian.
“Happy birthday, Dedrick!”
“Happy birthday, Dad.”
“Yes, happy forty-ninth, buddy!”
“Thanks guys, I could’ve done without the reminder.”
“Come on, love, you’re not that old,” teased him Vera.
It was true, Dedrick was the oldest of the group, but the years had been kind to him. He barely looked forty. François attributed it to his “cold Russian blood” as he had put it, which always frustrated Dedrick, the main reason François loved saying it. That night, everyone had agreed to put on a little show for him and the aliens. After their viewing that day, the Martian colonists had decorated the cargo area of the alien ship, and a few hours into the festivities, the conversation between Dedrick and Jorh had turned to the subject of the three aliens and their hibernating pods.
“There’s one question I’ve been meaning to ask. What happened to your friends, the ones that came with you to Mars? We only found the three of you in the hibernating chambers.”