Chapter 14 Galaxies In Love

I dream of Ari. Usually in these dreams I am Ari, and it feels very natural. I’m almost a thousand years old by human measure, but I look not more than forty. I have long blond hair and blue eyes. These are the traits inherent specifically for a special kind of humans Leot breeds – an Estelian strain.

My father was an Estelian, but my mother is of Karistal strain – less expensive, but still very attractive to sians. It makes me not as valuable as if I was a purebread, but Leot does not care. He loves me more than his life, and it is very hard on him, as our lifespans are so incompatible.

I’m on my spaceship, getting ready to land on a planet under Leot’s care, to teach the locals about medicine. I descend quickly, anticipating spending quality time with friendly humanoids of a fantastic planet with many surprises, when I see Leot’s face on one of the screens. I feel his concern, even panic, then the image suddenly disappears.

I wonder about this, while flying through an atmosphere with a lot of hydrogen in it. I will be reading a lecture on surgeries. I’m a scientist, but I’m also a doctor specializing in over fifty most common intelligent species of Andromeda galaxy. I love helping creatures, bringing education and enlightenment anywhere Leot sends me.

A message on the screen flashes urgent yellow: “I can’t get through to you. Abort your mission. I need you here as soon as possible.” The coordinates on the screen get picked up by the ship and it asks me to confirm a new destination.

I have already landed in a decrepit, but working space port of Elina. The small figures of funny elinians in wrinkly layers of furry brown skin look at my ship, anxiously awaiting my arrival. They look like a piece of cloth on a wooden stick.

The flaps of skin appear useless and superfluous, but only to someone who does not know these intelligent, gentle and non-violent cliff dwellers. The skin acts much like the one of an Earth gliding squirrel. It is breathtaking to see them jump off of a cliff right into the precipice only to glide onto another cliff in a most graceful way.

“Destination confirmed. Take off immediately.” I tell the ship with painful regret and my little friends are in utmost disbelief, watching me disappear into the sky instead of coming to them. I’ll have to let them know later. Now, what system Leot is in, and why? What was so important, that I had to cancel my lecture?

My ship is very fast. It works on psychic energy, requiring no other fuel. It will get me anywhere in the galaxy within seconds. However somehow today I can’t get the ship to move fast enough. It struggles through the space and I can feel the tension it is up against. What s strange situation.

“Ari, where are you? I need you here on CV16, now!” Leot’s face appears on the screen again.

Actually he has no face. It is just one intensely psychic brain, covered with a thin layer of light-bluish skin and two dark vortexes of power where the eyes might be. Directly from there are twelve long tentacles, and that’s it.

Leot is an aquatic sian. He is uneasy about being an invertebrate. The only way he can move is on a back of a human. Humans are his one and only love, a symbiosis of brain and brawn that brought much peace to the galaxies, controlled by sians. And now he is in danger. I know it, I sense it.

“I’m barely going due to a strong force of an unknown origin.” I answer, mesmerized by his eyes, saturated with vast, unbelievable knowledge of a creature that dwelt in the Universe for over thirty million uninterrupted years.

“A stellar explosion is going to take place in the Blue System within the next ten minutes. I am on CV16. Please apply more effort.”

Oh, my. CV16 is the only inhabited planet in the Blue System. The humanoid species there were warned of the imminent reignition of the nuclear fuel in their degenerate star, Ira. The Intergalactic United Nations offered the evacuation, but the population took a fatalistic approach, brainwashed by their religious leaders, and refused to be saved.

Now their sun is going supernova in less than ten minutes, and courageous Leot obviously decided to interfere. But he can’t do it without me, and I’m stuck.

The force that prevents me from moving has something to do with the upcoming supernova. I guess it’s like a receding water right before tsunami. Who knows. I do not have any time to think about it. The screens are dark, but for distant stars.

My ship listens to my thoughts. This is what drives it. We are one, fused on my subconscious level. It is slowed down by the force, but it wants to move. If I could only have more strength to share with it.

We are moving, but at this speed I will reach CV16 hours after it had been blasted into smithereens by the radiation from the explosion. I have to do something. Five minutes pass, as the ship and I struggle against the force.

I love Leot. I love him so much. If he dies, I’ll never forgive myself. He created me. He gave me the whole world of opportunities. He is everything I ever knew. I imagine my love for him flowing without any obstacles, free and soft to the touch…

I get lost in the vision of this bright-pink ribbon reaching out for a small squid-looking creature sitting on a rock, looking at the sky - either to see the explosion destroying everything at once, or my ship.

Next thing I know I land at the edge of a rocky shore with the sea splashing down below. There are dwellings of locals, involved in their daily routines, either oblivious to what about to happen, or accepting of their fate for unknown reasons.

It worked! The ship could follow my thoughts when I imagined that there are no obstacles between me and my goal! I run to the lonely figure gazing at the sea.

Leot turns around and we look in each other’s eyes.

“We have less than a minute. Quickly now.”

There is a source of power in my mind greater than anything. Leot created that, and put it in my head. But it is not something that can be stolen, or forcefully taken away. It’s only there if you know it’s there. It only works if you believe in it.

I imagine a square room, and enter it. In the middle of the room there is a brightly shining star with multiple spike rays. But there is a wall between me and that star. The wall is a safeguar that can only be overcome by two, so no one creature can use the power of the Faith Star.

Another thing is the two creatures must be in love with each other for the wall to let them in. Leot and I embrace each other, I walk up to the wall in my mind, and, guided by love, go right through it, and take the star.

“Now let’s create a shield.” Whispers sian, wrapping his tentacles around my neck.

We’re out of time. The horizon flashes blinding white and unrelenting wind almost blows us off the cliff.

A second later a supernova in the throes of its death blasts the interstellar space with radiation and fire. The ground below us shudders with the shock waves, going one after another, but we’re not incinerated in the explosion. No one on this planet will die today.

It was saved by Leot’s Faith Star, powered by his knowledge and my love.

A lanky timid creature with big eyes and a snakelike tail, dressed in rags approaches us.

“The God is angry with us!” Exclaims the creature, clearly frightened.

“Evil and unbalanced rulers force you to see God as angry. Don’t believe them. Open your eyes, see him for yourself!” Answers Leot, obviously still upset with the leaders of the planet, who refused to allow evacuation.

The morning is bright, and the fears of the night are just about gone both from the house and from our hearts. I get up and look out of the window, that was broken last night. Iris and Sada are getting their horses ready. The prophet is anxious to cross as many forests as possible during the day to get to the capital.

She is also leading us to a certain place. Is there someone we need to meet, or is it where she believes the ship is? In the second case – if the ship is so far from Deikeren, then how and why Ari ended up there to mate with an unknown female to produce my mother while waiting for Leot to come pick him up?