For One Nen (32 page)

“I agree,” Lena said. “I’ll take my chances with all of you
, awake on the ship.”

“Well if I’m not going to ever see another planet,” Scout began, “I better finish exploring as much of this one as I can.”

“Can I help?” Irene asked. “I wonder if there are more clues in those first caves we explored? What was that – maybe twenty-five years ago?”

“We can do that
, but I’d really like to see if we can find any more caves. See if we can find more pictures and writings,” Scout said.

It was a simple verbal agreement; the cousins wanted to live among the general population on the Egress.

1 BE

On the planet REEN

After ten years of building the Egress
, the current city leaders were working in partnership with the Denizen. They heightened security around the shuttle landing pad. They patrolled the city to allow those of every tribe safe passage to the registration points. Still, there were rumors of possible attacks in the event the Hoth tried to register for passage on the Egress.

Some of the cousins were becoming grandparents and enjoying their final months on the planet before they boarded the Egress
, when a discovery was made.

“I think it’s a map,” Scout shouted as he arrived at Lena’s one night for a family gathering.

“I drew what I found on a wall by the valley basin. I drew it here just like it was on the wall of the cave.”

Scout handed the map to Chris as others gathered to look over his shoulder at the mysterious message.

“Are you sure about this symbol here?” Chris asked Scout.

“Yes. I drew it just like it was on the wall,” Scout repeated.

“This sign is for that grove of trees at the base of the hills beyond the valley.”

“Let’s go,” Scout said. He was always up for a hiking adventure.

His sister Stella was feeling her age and was always ready to stay with the younger children and young mothers while the other adults trekked off to find answers to their endless questions.

They only took six people, which was the shuttle’s capacity. Chris and Scout sat in the front as Chris piloted the little runabout. They landed as close to the base of the hills as they could and traveled the rest of the distance on foot.

Chris asked Scout if there were any other writings or paintings on the walls of the cave that he’d found.

“I saw the word, Tinnen,” Scout answered.

“I’m not surprised,” Chris said with a laugh. “I think you might be really on to something,” Chris said with approval.

“Have you seen that word before?” asked Scout.

“It’s a name,” Chris explained. “He was Atenilek’s friend. Remember the story of the giant Het that had a little friend who was a Nen? Well that little Nen was Tinnen.”

Scout’s heart leapt with the anticipation of a significant find on this planet they would soon leave. He hoped they could find the destination pictured on the map.

“This is it,” Shane called from up ahead of the crowd of investigators. Chris pulled out the paper once more and said, “Just over there between those three trees that connect at their trunks. Those huge ones.”

“I don’t see any trees,” Shane said.

“Well they aren’t trees anymore; they’re petrified after a thousand years or so. Do you see them?”

“Whoa! You’re right,” Scout said.

“It can’t be that easy,” Shane laughed.

“Well finding the trees was pretty easy,” Chris said. “Now let’s see if there’s a cave beyond it.”

They searched most all that day before giving up for the night. The next day Scout went out by himself and before nightfall he had found the cave.

He recognized the glow stones inside the mouth of the cave and used them to explore further. He found no writings on the cave walls but as he was looking upward he stumbled on a rock that jutted out beyond the other rocks around it. He nudged it with his toe and it moved enough to show a cache of hidden belongings. He bent down and pushed the bigger rock away. Inside were clay pots; untouched for over a thousand years.

He retrieved one pot and replaced the other rock over the cache. It took all his might to carry the one pot out of the cave. In the fading light of the second sunset he uncapped the lid of the pot. One whiff of the contents inside and he was almost five years old again; in his father’s shed surrounded by stacks of aircraft magazines. He smiled a moment while he reminisced. He plunged his hand into the cavity of his find.

“No! Ah! Crap! Why did I do that?” he shouted. “I knew better.”

He had put his hand completely through the first book at the top of the stack of writings. Something harder than paper stopped his hand from completely pushing through to the bottom. The pages were so brittle that it almost felt like confetti surrounding his immersed hand. He pulled out the harder thing very slowly. It was a book that had been wrapped in an animal’s hide. He took the pot to the little runabout and decided to go back for the other pots. It took him nearly three hours to retrieve his find from the cave. He wasn’t about to come back with only one pot of destroyed manuscripts. He stayed until the job was complete.

Scout took his load straight to Chris to examine. The cousins didn’t only look to Chris as a leader
, they knew he was the ‘word man’ of the group. His whole job for which he had been employed on the Eden was Communications, so any time they needed something translated he was their man.

This was no different. All of the cousins were anxious to know the stories these writing
s held and the reason why they had been hidden for so long.

Lastly, Scout brought out the pot he had destroyed. He was disappointed in himself and he didn’t want Chris to be disappointed in him as well.

This pot however was the only one Scout took the lid off of in front of Chris.

“I’m sorry cuz, but I mangled this one. I forgot how delicate stuff can get after so long. I just wasn’t thinking.”

Scout put his hand in and took out the single book that had the hard cover.

Chris touched the outside flat furry cover. As he opened it the whole cover broke off like flimsy bark of a tree.

“Well,” Chris chuckled, “it can happen to anyone.”

Chris knew what to do to help preserve the writings. He went to work restoring each page and translating as much as he could. Volumes and volumes he recorded until he finally began to put the information on hard drives.

Months went by as the time grew near to board the Egress. Fighting about the Hoth joining the Egress rose dramatically. Relations between all the tribes were very tense as people took sides over the Hoth issue.

Chris’ own son had married a Hoth and they had a young son named Uei. They lived in the small village where all of the cousins lived. It was a happy and colorful community with people of many tribes; even Hoth.

Only six weeks from boarding and Chris began translating something that could in fact, rewrite history.

“I always knew the Hoth were good people
, and now I know the truth,” Chris said aloud to no one but himself.

As he worked on one single page
, he began to read, with great difficulty, a story long before Tinnen’s time. They were stories from the time of Hrilla. They were stories from a boy named Higby and girl named Shahi, and also the stories of Tinnen. There were stories that made Chris glad that he worked alone in his office because many times his tears almost ruined an archaic pages of writings; stories of loss, of true friendship, of lovers, of sacrifice, of nobility and of suffering.

He couldn’t tear himself away to tell anyone because he was so captivated by the revelations that th
ese long hidden stories brought to light.

He heard a distant explosion and dashed to the window. There in the sky above the line of shuttles takin
g supplies to the Egress was a cloud of debris raining down.

He called Irene’s husband Roland who was part of security for the Goweli’s gathering room.

“Just saw an explosion in the sky. Know anything?”

“We shot down one of those Anti-Egress Extremists. He stole a shuttle and was headed to the Egress. He had enough explosives on board to strand us all here to endure the nova,” Roland said.

“Dad,” Nate called from outside Chris’ office door. “Dad, are you in there?”

“I have to go Roland. Stay safe, man.”

“Dad?” Nate called again.

No answer from inside the office.

“Mom said you haven’t been home in two days. Dad we’re all worried,” Nate said.

The door opened and Chris smiled to his son. “I’m sorry. I lost track of time with my work. But good news I’m retiring
, so your mom and I will have all the time in the ‘verse to be together.”

He shut off the light and closed the door. He threw his arm around his son and headed home.

He had decided not to tell a soul about his findings until they were safely on their way aboard the Egress. He knew these stories would only inflame the tense situation. He was determined to sneak his journals of the translated books and the rest of the writings that Scout had found onto the Egress. He had clearance with the Goweli to enter the gathering room that they had set aside for all the articles that were going onto the Egress.

He simply walked past the guards with a large crate as he showed his badge along the way. Once inside, he found a white crate wher
e he carefully stashed his most precious, life’s work. He covered these books with several of the least important paintings he could find in the room and placed the lid securely on top. He wrote the appropriate information on the side, listing only the paintings he had packed at the top of the crate. He signed the ship’s manifest for the crate. He took a deep breath and walked away. Now he could only hope this piece of history would get sent aboard the Egress without anyone inspecting it.

297 AE

Aboard the EGRESS

“But if Chris’ goal was to sneak his writings aboard and share them later when the Egress was on its way then why are we just now finding the crate. Didn’t he finish his work?” asked Deni, when Tala paused from her reading.

“Yes, I don’t understand either,” said Molly. “What happened to make Chris just leave his work?”

The room was silent a moment as they pondered the mystery.

“Well,” Molly said at last. “I guess I’ll go if that’s all of the writing. What a story. I think Darcy was amazing.”

“Maybe we should go see if the boys are showing video in the fallow field,” said Deni, standing for a long stretch.

“You go ahead, L
ove. I’m going to go check something. I still wonder what happened to Chris. Maybe there’s something about him on the central computer. I have to go back to the library for my personal terminal. I’ll catch up to you in a little while.”

When Deni and Molly arrived in the fallow field
, Teltel and some of the boys were hooking up a hard drive.

“It’s just not working, Mathis,” Teltel snipped.

“It was working before,” the little Hoth said in his tiny voice.

“Where have you been?” Beau asked Molly.

“With Tala and Deni. I had found a book of Darcy’s and Deni read it to us,” she explained as her eyes slowly grew with her excitement.

“Without us?” Beau said.

“I could tell you about it,” she said.

“If you want,” Beau feigned indifference.

Molly jumped right in with her story. “Darcy was awesome,” she said excitedly. “She got to see all of her cousins again and she got married and she and Lena were the best of friends just like when they were kids back on Earth.”

Benai joined Beau but stayed quiet as they listened to Molly tell the story of Darcy.

“The Denizen controlled all travel to and from the Egress, only allowing shuttles to take off and land from a specific shuttle port.”

“The tribes couldn’t decide about taking the Hoth
aboard and there was almost a war over it.”

Teltel looked down at the little Hoth that was working beside him. Teltel then glanced at Molly. She gave him an understanding look
, and nothing else was said about the historical Hoth struggle.

“Why didn’t the people of the Eden and the Arcadia just leave?” asked Bug.

“The Denizen cared about the people on the planet and wanted to save them too. They refused to leave without them,” Molly said.

“Amazing when you think about it,” Bug added.

Bug and Mathis left the computer work to listen to the story as well.

“Hey, isn’t anybody going to help get this thing running again?” Teltel complained.

The little group turned round to face Teltel as they saw the screen spring to life. Then just as quickly it looked like a crackling blackness. Eventually they heard footsteps as if they were walking on an uneven surface.

“See Chris,” a voice said from the darkness.

“Is that Scout?” asked Beau from the crowd.

“Shh…” Teltel instructed.

On the screen came a faint glow that grew in brightness.

The glow was being held by a hand that became more pronounced as the glow grew brighter and brighter.

Holding the glowing hand up to his face Scout said, “See it glows down here.”

“It was Scout, I was right,” Beau said as he held his head high.

“Shh,” came several rebukers.

“I’ll stop it for now,” said Teltel.

“Molly, call the others so they can meet us here,” Beau said.

She pulled her transmitter from her pocket and called the other students and also the most Holy Maven. “Shall I call Tala?” she asked Deni.

“No, she knows we’re here. She’ll come soon,” Deni said. But after twenty minutes Tala hadn’t arrived and Deni began to worry. “Didn’t she say she was just going to the library to get her terminal?” she asked Molly.

“Yes. Shouldn’t she be here by now?” asked Molly.

The other students arrived as well as the Maven with some of her friends.

Bug called his grandfather. Aiden brought his sister, Arla.

“I wonder what’s keeping her,” Deni said as the door swung open.

Tala raced to the little crowd with a laugh that hinted of excitement and surprise.

“You’ll never guess what I found,” she said. She went straight to the computer where the videos were being shown. “Teltel can you access the central computer from this computer?” she asked.

“No.”

She laid her personal terminal beside the computer and said, “Then let me get you in.”

She punched in a code on her terminal and Teltel said, “There it is. You got me in; amazing.”

Teltel began pressing buttons on the computer while Tala turned to the crowd to explain her excitement.

“While reading some of the story of Darcy we learned that Chris had discovered some big secret. He buried this secret in a white crate. I think it’s the same white crate sitting right there.” She pointed to the tall white crate by the wall.

“He wasn’t finished with his work when they boarded so he hid it in the crate. He planned to finish his work after they were underway aboard the Egress. I think it’s why he retired. This made me wonder why he had never finished this work; why his writings were still hidden in the crate, which then made me wonder what ever happened to Chris.”

“Let’s try to skip ahead, L
ove,” Deni prodded.

Tala looked at Deni and simply answered, “He died.”

The room gave a simultaneous gasp.

“What?” Molly asked pushing her black bangs completely back with both hands.

“Ahh!” said Trina, the little Nen. “But I liked that guy,” she said.

“Trina, honey, I hate to break it to you but they’re all dead,” Bug said with a
faint smirk.

“Well I know that. But I did like the guy,” she added with a curl of her lip.

“But wasn’t there anyone else to finished his work?” asked the Maven.

“He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing,” Tala explained. “But I found his eulogy and memorial on the ship’s log entry that recorded his death.”

She turned to Teltel who was still punching buttons on the computer, which they used for the videos. She gave him a giggle and asked, “Are you quite finished with what you’re doing?”

Teltel pressed one last button and gave a pleased grin. He looked up to Tala but didn’t say a word. He simply held out his hand as if inviting her to use the computer. Teltel shot a glance to Mathis and smiled. The tiny teenager looked wide-eyed for a moment then all at once he dropped his chin and looked up with a mischievous glance. He knew exactly what Teltel had done.

Tala pulled up the memorial service entry and began to read.

Teltel jumped to his gia
nt feet, grabbed a chair, and set it near Tala.

“Thank you, young man,” Tala said to Teltel.

The giant teenager blushed and returned to his place on the floor with the rest of the crowd.

Facing the computer screen
, Tala began to read with her smooth clear voice.

“On this, the second day of the seventeenth week of year zero, we sadly announce the death of Christopher. His original home was Earth. He traveled on the starship Eden to the planet Reen where he lived for thirty-one years. He rose to the rank of Communications First Officer and held this title until his retirement shortly before boarding the Egress. He joined the path of Laney the Anthro and had one son, Nate, and one grandson, Uei. He had many cousins who accompanied him on the Eden and he was a leader and support to them. He loved his family. He loved his work; and he was kind.”

“YES!” Molly yelled with her fist raised.

The others in the crowd looked at her and wondered what she was doing.

Tala, on the other hand, knew exactly what she was doing. Molly had connected with another Denizen; an ancient Denizen, in one simple word. Tala turned round and acknowledged the moment.

She looked at Molly and said, “It is a noble thing to be remembered as kind.”

With another silent fist pump in the air Molly again sat quiet and still with the crowd.

Tala smiled again to Molly and then to Deni before
she turned back to finish her reading.

“There’s a eulogy by his son Nate
, that tells what happened,” Tala said.

“Chris was my Dad. Many people have said lists of wonderful things about my Dad. He was great at translating most any language, he was a great leader, the rock of our family, he was a good friend, he was a loving husband, he was kind to all tribes, and extended his heart to all, he worked hard; he was fiercely loyal, and always honest. He indeed was all these things but to me he, was just my Dad. He taught me the game of baseball with the very same baseball he brought with him from Earth. He helped me with my homework. He laughed at my lame jokes and listened to my dreams. He was a great dad. And when I became a dad he was always there when I needed advice. He was even there for me when I lost my wife. For me he was more than just my Dad, he was my friend. Because he was my friend, we were sitting in the officer’s lounge talking and drinking as friends do. I guess we drank too much because when I went searching for him later I found him on the floor of the library’s back storage room lying beside a crate. It looked as if he had been trying to climb up to open the top when he fell. The lid was ajar. He hit his head. A senseless accident is all it was. And now we have to say goodbye. Let us all rise for the presenting of the body to the heavens. I Nate, son of Chris, do send my loving father, into the black.”

“Damn,” Beau said.

Others nodded in silent tearful agreement.

Tala turned to the crowd. “This is why no one came for these writings. He was the only one that really knew about them. I mean, I think some of his family knew he had translated some of the findings that Scout discovered in the cave, but Chris didn’t tell anyone that he hid all of this in the crate.” Tala stopped and wrinkled her porcelain brow.

“If he was so close to his family
, then why did he not tell someone?” The Most Holy Maven asked.

The question lingered in the room like a cloud.

Tall husky Teltel rose and walked to the computer where Tala still sat. He didn’t say a word but Tala politely surrendered the computer to him and walked away. She took her place between Deni and Molly to watch more video of history.

31 BE

On the planet Reen

“It’ll glow as long as we stay down here,” Scout said. “I think we should explore these caves more. Or at least have our meetings down here. That way no one will suspect what we’ve found.”

“Yeah there’s some nasty stuff down here,” Irene said as the camera showed her face in the glow that wasn’t quite yellow and wasn’t quite green.

“So what have you guys found so far?” Chris asked.

“Let’s take him to the tub room and all that stuff along the way,” Irene said.

“Follow me,” Scout said.

The stone got bright enough to see the interior of a large cave. As they moved further into the giant room it branched off into several directions.

“You sure you know where you’re going,” Chris asked.

“Sure, we’ve done this several times,” Scout said as he turned his face around to the camera.

“I was a little freaked out the first time we came down here,” Irene said. “With all the stories I’ve heard it was a little creepy to think about people going crazy down here. I mean what little I’ve heard of it sounds pretty bad.”

“You would think, me being
communications officer, I could find out about all this superstition but I just seem to get shut down when I ask anyone from any tribe about it. Just seems really weird. You know?” Chris said as they kept walking further into the branching tunnels.

“There’s some disturbing stuff right up here,” Irene said as she pointed ahead of her.

“Yes, there are paintings on the walls that…” Scout began, “Well you should just see it.”

As they reached another huge room the camera focused on the sides of the wall where the painting depicted a scene of war and killing.

“Sparse no more,” Chris’ voice said clearly off camera.

“What do you mean?” asked Scout.

“These signs up here,” Chris said as the camera focused on symbols above the drawings. “It says ‘sparse no more’,” he explained.

“What does that mean? And what is sparse?” Irene asked.

“I haven’t been told out-right, but what I gather from some of the people I’ve talked to ‘sparse’ probably means to kill,” Chris said.

The camera followed a scene on the wall of a crowd that
encircled two lines of people. In the next scene, the two lines of people were killing each other.