Paws and Planets

Candy Rae

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SMASHWORDS
EDITION

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Paws and
Planets

Copyright ©
2010 Candy Rae

All characters
in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead; is purely coincidental.

All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of the author.

Smashwords
Edition, License Notes

This ebook is
licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
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respecting the hard work of this author.

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Paws and
Planets
is dedicated to my illustrator Jen. She is the most
wonderful artist imaginable and her illustrations are absolutely
perfect in every way.

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Artwork
Copyright © 2010 Jennifer Johnson

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PAWS AND
PLANETS

PLANET WOLF -
THE PREQUELS

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THE LAI - THEIR
PREQUEL

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Haru, Taraya
and Niaill, a Lai, a Lind and a Human, are principal characters in
the fourth and fifth books of the Planet Wolf Series; ‘Dragons and
Destiny’, ‘Valour and Victory’.

It was a warm,
balmy summer day. Niaill stretched out his long legs on the
feathery turf and gazed up at the clear, blue sky with a sigh of
absolute contentment. It was good to be alive. The sun felt warm on
his old bones. His weather-beaten face was as brown as a
nut-cherry.

: This is
what retirement should be :
he telepathed to his Lind Taraya
who was drowsing under some thick allst trees some lindlengths
distant. She was also enjoying the summer, their first since they
had retired to the more westerly of the two northern continents,
the traditional home of the Lai.

: Haru comes
:
warned Taraya at that moment
: he walks :

Niaill grunted
but he was pleased to hear that Haru was joining them. Their
friend, Haru the Lai almost never flew these days. He was, like
Niaill and Taraya, getting on in years, his copper hide burnished
so much with age to be almost tree-brown, his wing muscles
stiffening, much like Niaill’s own joints when he came to think
about it, which was often during the cold, damp winter months but
almost never during the dry sunny, summer ones.

As Haru would
tell anylai, anylind or any person who would listen, he was of a
great age and one of the few who could still remember the arrival
of humankind on Rybak, or Dagan as some of the more elderly Lai
still called their planet.

Dagan was the
word for home in the ancient language of the Lai. Like man and
woman, the Lai were not native to the planet. As with Niaill and
his kind, they had originated from a planet many suns distant. The
planet had accepted them and it had become their home.

Niaill himself
was in his seventies, Taraya some years older and pure white with
age, the white mirroring Niaill’s own although his white head
hadn’t thinned as with many of his contemporaries.

Yesterday Haru
had told Niaill and Taraya stories about the days when he had been
a young Lai, when Niaill’s ancestors had landed and about the
events that followed. Much of it had been new to him and he had
listened fascinated as the old Lai had told him about what wasn’t
included in the history books.

Today Haru had
promised, he would go further back in time and tell Niaill the full
story about when the Lai had arrived. Niaill had listened to a
shorter version of the story before but this time Haru had agreed
to tell all, all that is that could be remembered.

Niaill heard
Haru’s limping approach along the wide path that led from the
undergrowth and rose to his feet with a smile of welcome. The
rustling grew louder and Haru appeared, his eyes blinking rapidly
as they adjusted to the bright sun, his little knobbly ears
twitching as he located Niaill and Taraya.

Taraya drew
herself a little closer to her life-mate and Niaill smothered a
mental grin. Although she wouldn’t admit it, Taraya was just as
interested in the stories as he was.

“I will join
you?” queried Haru.

“A thousand
welcomes my friend,” Niaill replied, “especially if you feel you’re
up to telling us about how your ancestors really came here. I’ve
always felt it most unfair that you know our story in consummate
detail but we know so little about yours. Taraya and I know little
more than that bare outline you gave us that day.”

“We had far
more important things to discuss that day,” replied Haru, chiding
him but with mirth in his eyes, “if you remember? The little matter
of the imminent arrival of and the war with the Dglai to be exact.
As you humans would say, a lot of water has passed under the
bridges since then.”

“Indeed,”
laughed Niaill but with a wince for some of the unpleasant memories
that always came to mind when Haru mentioned those dangerous days
when they had first met. Many of his and Taraya’s friends had been
killed in the battles that followed. Haru too had lost friends and
relations.

“So,” said
Haru, “where would you like me to start? It is a long story.”

“At the
beginning of course,” declared Niaill, “and don’t leave anything
out either.”

“I will try not
to,” replied Haru, settling down, “but it all happened so long ago,
more than many generations and so I cannot vouch for the absolute
accuracy of my tale. Some brave deeds may well have become
embellished through time and some not so brave forgotten.”

“Do your best,”
encouraged Niaill, squirming around trying to make himself
comfortable.

Haru sat gazing
into the distance, marshalling his thoughts and memories.

“I’ll begin
with my ancestor,” he began at last, “Maru his name was. He was one
of those who took to the stars all these generations ago to search
for a new home for our kind. I believe that the situation he and
those who set out with him faced was very similar to what your
ancestors faced my Niaill. Both of our home planets were becoming
untenable, though many thousands of years separated the events that
brought us both here. Yes, that is where I shall begin…”

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EPISODE 1 -
DAIGLON

Duntan – Echt –
Zan – Tak – Olf – Rak – San – Lok – Vad - Dun

10 – 9- 8 – 7 –
6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1.

The engines
fired.

The great
thrusters that would lift the huge ship out of its cradle began to
shudder and roar.

Maru braced
himself as the ship began to shake and his ears filled with the
sounds of take-off.

This was not
the first time his people had departed thus from their planet to
explore space, but it was the first time he, Maru himself had. He
was not enjoying the experience overmuch and if he was quite honest
with himself; he was absolutely terrified.

During the
previous two centuries and a bit more, once it had been realised
that their planet, Daiglon was dying, many ships had gone; the
first to circumnavigate Daiglon, the next venturing that little bit
further, the next reaching the edge of their solar system. Some had
not returned.

The process of
space travel was a dangerous one. Maru’s grandfather had died
during an implosion on the launch pad.

It was a risk
that had to be taken, to further their knowledge and expertise, to
enable a chosen few to venture out far beyond the edges of their
solar system, to the stars; to find a planet where the Daiglon
could relocate to, a planet alive, a planet that was not dying, its
resources used up, its atmosphere polluted beyond repair.

Maru was one of
those ‘chosen few’; one of a crew of five times five times five who
were well strapped in to the personnel launch receptacles of the
Limokko
. From the other four land-masses on the planet
Daiglon four similar spaceships were blasting off, each crewed by
another five times five times five crewmembers; the hope of the
Daiglon.

As soon as the
five spaceships had exited the atmosphere Maru’s fellow Daiglon
would begin to build another five ships but time was running
out.

On the landmass
where lived the Sbnai, deaths were already being reported, caused
by malnutrition. Many of those who had died were mothers who
starved themselves so their young would have enough to eat. The
ecological collapse was imminent, the fauna and flora withering
away to dust due to the lack of clean water. The unclean was
poisoning the land. Some xanus before, as the vegetative edibles
had grown less, rationing had been introduced but it had not been
enough to stem the reduction in herbivore, the staple diet of the
Daiglon, numbers.

Soon, Maru
knew, starvation would rear its ugly head amongst the population on
the Lai landmass, his landmass and his home.

Even this trek
into outer space to find another planet might not stop the
extinction of those forced to remain on Daiglon and there was a
chance they would find a planet soon enough and close enough that
some might be transported there. That was Maru’s hope and the hope
of the other one hundred and twenty-four on the
Limokko
and
of those on the other four ships.

Planet Daiglon
was split into five landmasses, or continents, set fairly close
together but with sea in between. Each landmass was occupied by a
different variant of the Daiglon genotype.

Five of
them.

On each
landmass lived an individual rtath; in the north lived the blue
skins, the Rai, in the west, the black skins, the Brai, in the
south the red skins, the Sbnei, in the east the golden skins, the
Lai. In the centre lived the green skins, the argumentative and
warlike Dglai.

The number five
was considered important and lucky by the Daiglon. As there were
these five landmasses and five Lai variants, so were there five
Gtrathlins, or Leaders, five times five Angtrathlins or Sub-leaders
and five times five Rtaths, or Clans, within each landmass. A
family group of five was considered lucky and the Daiglon reached
adulthood at five times five times five xanus.

Of the one
hundred and twenty-five young Daiglon crew aboard the
Limokko
, half were female and the other half male. All were
adult, strong, healthy and of breeding age. None were
blood-related, by a distance of four generations so as to spread
the gene pool as much as possible. Every one of them had left
grandparents, parents and siblings behind.

The Susa, or
Commander of the
Limokko
was called Zanua. She was a highly
intelligent female, at three hundred and two the oldest on board
and who had already completed two spaceflights, the first to the
limits of the solar system and the second almost reaching the outer
limits of the next. No Daiglon ship had been further out into space
than this. The
Limokko
and her sisters were five times the
size of this previous class of spaceship, designed to keep going
beyond where the previous ships’ supplies and power had run out.
This time there was to be no return when the warning symbols
flashed informing them that the viable return point had been
reached.

On the top deck
was situated the living quarters, on the bottom two decks lived the
engines and the enormous water cisterns that both cooled the said
engines and provided the water for other needs, to grow the food
supplies and for drinking water.

The engines ran
on power crystals, crystals mined from deep within the landmasses
of Daiglon and containing energy that would last, with careful
handling, for hundreds of xanus.

This was a
comparatively new technology, the means to harness this power and
more importantly, to store it once it had been harnessed. The
Daiglon had discovered how to convert this kinetic energy into
potential energy, which could then be stored in a series of
separate devices they called space elevators. It was very advanced
technologically speaking and without it’s discovery the Daiglon
would have been doomed. If the Daiglon had known about this
technology earlier on in their long history their future as a race
would have been so so different. The energy from the crystals did
not pollute, but this was after the fact, even the crystal powered
oxygen purifiers now on the planet were doing little more than to
keep the air breathable and even they were beginning to lose the
battle.