The Kings of Eternity (19 page)

A thought occurred to me. “Perhaps it doesn’t mean the craft,” I said, “but the devices I took from it last night.”

I hurried across the room and knelt beside the ranked objects. I pointed to each one in turn, giving the manikin time to respond.

I indicated first the blue egg, to which the manikin said, “
Tah.”
Negative.

I pointed to the plinth-like object and received the same response.

Next I held up the obsidian medal on the silver thong. “
Vee!”
said the manikin, with emphasis. “
Vee, vee!
”

“It appears that our friend desires this, for some reason,” I said, returning to the chesterfield with the medallion.

I passed it to the manikin. With anticipation, we looked on as the being attempted to slip the medallion around its neck. It gave up, its feeble strength unequal to the task.

Charles leaned forward and took the medallion; he parted the silver thong and looped it over the manikin’s bulbous head, arranging the obsidian disc on the creature’s chest.

As we watched, wondering what might happen next, the manikin reached up and touched the disc.

The obsidian medallion glowed suddenly a deep, lustrous crimson hue, for all the world like a hot coal.

And then the manikin spoke, its sibilant words coming with obvious difficulty as it fought against the pain. “Hakan rahn, ochan kundra. Cahn tahgek.”

We looked at each other and shook our heads. Charles said, “I’m sorry, we cannot understand...”

He stopped, then, for a sound had issued from the glowing medallion around the manikin’s neck. We each of us stood back in amazement as a voice came from the direction of the disc.

“Feel... no... alarm. Peaceful... I.” The words came one by one, with much static in between, but perfectly comprehensible.

“A translation device!” Vaughan cried. “Good God, what next!”

More words came from the device. “Thank... you... I...” There was more static, and then, “Your... help... need.”

Vaughan looked at us. “I wonder if the device can translate our words?” He knelt beside the chesterfield and leaning forward spoke into the medallion. “Who are you? From where do you come?”

Seconds later the disc translated, “
Jhen-nu... mah... Yekan... Tak... Duhn... Kur... gur.
”

The manikin’s eyes closed briefly, the membranes falling and flickering, as if the effort of communication was causing him pain.

Slowly, he spoke. “
Jhekan tah kahr Kathan...
” he began, and continued for a minute, before exhaustion claimed him and he fell silent.

The medallion translated, and I will report the essence of his communiqué without the interruptions and static.

“I am Kathan, from the fourth quadrant of the spiral arm, a planet my people call Theera.”

I stared at Jasper, who was mopping his balding head and staring in wonder at our incapacitated guest. “The stars...” he murmured to himself. Charles was pacing back and forth before the fire, his fingers at his Adam’s apple.

Of course, the possibility that the manikin might have hailed from beyond the precincts of our solar system had always been one explanation, but to have corroboration of the possibility from the lips of the traveller himself - or rather from his fantastical translation device - set me to contemplating the astounding fact of teeming life across the galaxy.

A minute later Kathan opened his eyes again and regarded us. Vaughan nodded that we had understood. He said into the medallion, “You came from the stars to our planet, but for what reason?”

He stopped to allow the device to translate his question, and a minute later it spoke in Kathan’s language.

The manikin looked at us as he took in Vaughan’s question. His thin eye-lids fluttered, a sure sign that he was failing. Feebly he began, “
Kirnah, ongkar. Tak la dekken na...
”

We waited, impatiently, for the device to render the translation.

A minute later it came. “Short explanation: I was fleeing evil authorities. I had to escape. My people effected my jump from the fourth quadrant. I came here because it was distant, and in time I will move on again.”

My head whirled with a hundred questions. There was so much I wished to know about the universe beyond our planet, and about Kathan’s flight in particular. Why was he fleeing the evil authorities? What had he done to provoke their wrath? Who were his people?

Kathan tried to speak again, but the effort was beyond him. He attempted to raise his hand, to point towards his craft, but never completed the gesture. His hand fell and his eyes closed, and his breathing became even.

Charles examined his alien charge. “We’ve tired him out,” he said. “The fact that he was even conscious while in such a condition...” He shook his head. “Oh, the wonders that are out there!”

“We have so much to ask Kathan when he is able to respond,” Vaughan said. “I would like to know more of the political situation of the galaxy out there... And, my God, consider all the technological innovations of which we know nothing!”

“Think of all the wondrous worlds out there!” Jasper cried, and I saw tears filming his eyes as he contemplated the thought.

“The main thing we need to know,” Charles said, “just as soon as Kathan is fit enough to speak again, and not before, is what are his intentions. He said he wished to move on again from here, but will this entail another trip through... what did he call it?... the jump gate?”

I shook my head. “Perhaps his carriage will take him the rest of the way through space?” I surmised.

Vaughan was chuckling quietly to himself. “The fourth quadrant of the galaxy!” he said. “And we thought that he might have hailed from Mars! How parochial can you get!”

For the rest of the afternoon we sat while Kathan slipped in and out of consciousness. Jasper stoked the fire and opened a bottle of claret. Outside, a new fall of snow was obliterating the tracks we had scored down the hillside while transporting Kathan to safety.

After having my head filled with visions of galactic intrigue, great civilisations on far-flung planets, I considered my life in London, Carla and my father. How would I be able to go about my everyday life now, in light of what I had learned today? Would the knowledge help me overcome the petty concerns that make so much of life a trial, the mundane cares and worries that we all allow to get us down? Would I be better able to ignore Carla’s maddening exhibitionism, and my petty jealousy, by considering the fact that humankind was but one intelligence spread about the vast galaxy? Would I be able to come to some acceptance of my father’s imminent death when placed in the context of the many billions of similar deaths across the broad face of the universe?

The idea was fine, but the practicality hard to foresee. I was human, after all, and affected by the trivial concerns of my psyche. I would go on as I always had and, who knows, in time I might come to wonder if the events of the winter of ‘35 had been nothing more than a particularly vivid waking dream.

“A penny for them, Jonathon?” Vaughan said.

“Oh... I was just day-dreaming, considering what we’ve discovered here. I wondered if life would ever be the same again-” I smiled “-then I realised that of course life would go on just as before.”

Vaughan considered my words. “It will be different,” he said. “Oh, we’ll still be slaves to the same old routines of habit and thought - but from time to time we will reflect on the singular fact of our discovery, and that surely will subtly change us as people, perhaps make us more reflective, less impulsive - less enamoured of the materialistic designs of modern life. Or am I being hopelessly romantic?”

I smiled. “Of course, if our discovery was made known to the world at large, and we were one day allowed into the fraternity of the star-faring races out there, then what a wondrous day that would be!”

Jasper said, “That would certainly change things, for sure! Shake up a few stuffed shirts in parliament for a start!”

“But do you think that the star-faring races would welcome the human race?” Vaughan asked. “We’re hardly civilised at present. Hardly a year goes by without a war somewhere on the planet. And technologically we’re a backwards species, compared to what we’ve seen of the other races... And another question: we’re talking of being allowed to join the fraternity of the galaxy, but have you wondered why we haven’t been asked already? These star-creatures know of us, of course. Perhaps they consider us but infants, who have yet to grow and mature before being admitted as equals to any co-fraternity of star-dwellers?”

We contemplated his words for a time, and then I said, “You’ve been writing about just such futures for years.” I looked at my friend. He stood before the blazing fire with his hands deep in the pockets of his tweed jacket, his burning pipe clenched at right angles in his determined jaw.

I felt a sudden and abiding respect for the novelist then, the visionary who had shunned the medium of popular realism for the more daring and neglected form of the scientific romance. I went on, “Now that reality has caught up with your fictional visions, do you feel vindicated? Do you feel that you have vanquished the mundane critics who call your work far-fetched?”

He laughed at this. “Jonathon, I think that the answer is no - because, you see, I always knew in my heart that what I was writing about contained the truth: that, one day, visions more or less fantastical than mine would come to pass, that when the hide-bound critics were dead and gone to dust, humankind would embark upon an age little dreamed of by the majority. Now that I know the future is already out there, and waiting for us...” He shook his head, “...I find that exciting beyond words.”

A little later we gathered around the chesterfield while Charles removed the dressing from Kathan’s wound.

He shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never quite seen the like,” he murmured.

The burn was almost wholly scabbed over now, and the flesh on the perimeter of the wound seemed almost like new.

Charles applied new dressings, and we were about to begin dinner when Kathan’s membranous eye-lids fluttered open and his jet eyes regarded us.

We gathered around again, and Vaughan knelt before the recumbent alien. “If you are up to it, we have more questions.”

He waited for the medallion to translate his inquiry, then Kathan spoke. A minute later the medallion relayed his words.

“I am much improved. I will do my best to answer your questions.”

Vaughan looked at us. I murmured, “We need to know if we are safe, or if the reptiles might come through the jump gate in search of him.”

He bent and relayed the question. A minute later the obsidian medallion translated Kathan’s reply, “I think we are safe. My people are doing all they can to scramble my trail.”

“Did you destroy the portal when you fired upon it?” I asked.

Presently the reply came, “With luck, yes. But I cannot be sure.”

Jasper leaned forward. “The portal opened on two previous occasions, to my knowledge. Were you attempting to reach here then?”

“Affirmative. The engineers were sympathetic to our cause - but our enemies moved to halt my transit.”

Vaughan said, “Your enemies? The reptiles creatures, I take it? Why are you fleeing them?”

We waited, watching Kathan’s expressionless face as he replied. The medallion spoke, “The reptiles, as you call them, are known as the Vark. They are the dominant species in the galaxy. They are an evil, rapacious race, and rule without mercy. We oppose their regime, and will fight to the death to bring about its downfall. Rest assured, we are fighting for the freedom of the oppressed.”

“How many races are abroad in the galaxy?” Vaughan asked. “And how many planets are habitable?”

The reply came. “There are more than fifty star-faring races,” Kathan told us, “and over two hundred known planet-bound civilisations that have yet to join the council.”

I stared at my friends. “More than two hundred and fifty different species of intelligent being,” I said. I imagined the galaxy teeming with all manner of life, all types of bizarre and quixotic civilisations.

Vaughan said to the glowing medallion, “And we humans, I take it, are one of the two hundred races you call planet-bound?”

Kathan, having heard the question, gestured with his right hand - a quick flutter that conveyed no meaning to us. A minute later the medallion spoke. “That is so. You will be listed as Sentient-Technological Grade III.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” Vaughan asked.

“It means,” the translator said after a while, “that you are not sufficiently developed, culturally, to be allowed on the council, although it is but a matter of time before you are... advanced enough for contact to be established.”

Kathan’s eye-lids fluttered and his breathing grew ragged. “He is tiring,” Charles said. “Perhaps he has answered enough.”

“One more question,” Vaughan said, and turned to the alien being. “Would it be advisable for our authorities, our governments, to know of the galactic situation?”

Kathan heard the question and attempted to sit up; he appeared distressed. His words came in gasps, and in due course the medallion relayed his reply.

“It would be ill-advised for your leaders to know! Such knowledge would only cause unrest, which would start hostilities among your people and set back the course of your progress. The council will contact you in the fullness of time, when you are deemed sufficiently ready. Until then, it must be your secret.”

Charles knelt beside the alien. “Would you like water, a little food?”

The medallion duly replied. “Water only...”

Charles fetched a glass of water and held it to Kathan’s hyphen-like mouth. The alien drank thirstily, and Charles fetched a second glass. After finishing this one, Kathan lay back on the cushions, as if the effort had exhausted him, and his eye-lids fluttered shut.

We took the opportunity to consume the stew that Jasper and Vaughan had made, a simple but satisfying broth of beef and vegetables.

We had almost finished the meal when a cry from the chesterfield brought us to our feet.