Zara’s Quest
Grace Bridges
Emotions swirl
like the green-tinted clouds that our viewscreen shows. Will this be the place I find my brother? He left so long ago on his quest for the One and Only, and I believe he found it, even if it has brought me much ridicule in my young life. Darius came with me, as I knew he would, though he too thinks me more than a little crazy. But he’s been my boy-next-door for as long as I can remember. He wouldn’t abandon me now.
Back to my brother. I was fourteen when I was first allowed to accompany him in his wormhole ship. Jumping the wormhole isn’t the problem - it’s this planet that no one has ever returned from. So yes, I have seen it before, many years ago, on the day I lost my brother to the Spacetribe.
We have travelled against the wishes of our families, Darry and I—we should not be here at all, but we have taken these liberties with the colony scout ship so that I may satisfy my burning curiosity or bury it forever as Mother has done.
I raise my eyes to the stars, these ancient stars that looked down upon us exactly like this when I was here last. Astran manned the exploration pod and descended towards the surface, while I remained in orbit. We remained in video contact until he came within fifty klicks of the surface. All I saw was bursts of static across his face.
"What is it?" I scrambled to clear the channel.
"Atmospheric energy bursts," he said, frowning down at his console. "They’re coming from a localised position on the planet. I’m going in for a closer look."
"Be careful!"
He smiled at me. "If I don’t make it, you just tell Mother I found what I was looking for."
"You really think?"
We locked eyes for a moment, then the static took him away. And I never saw him since.
"Zara, quit dreaming. We’ve got a ship to land!" Darius swam into view as I focused my eyes. "Where’s that scan data?"
"In the computer, right where it’s been all along." I called up all the reports made by the onboard computers of Astran’s old ship, the one I’d flown home—alone, terrified of what people would say.
"This is pretty clear about where the energy came from." Darius flipped through a few screens. "I say stick with your plan to land some distance from there."
I nodded. "Are you ready?"
We switched on our landing sensors and put on the virtual-reality helmets. Wearing these, it was as if we were the ship, which moved according to the movements of our bodies. Green clouds began to swish past. I resisted the urge to wipe its tendrils off my face. Layer after layer cleared before us. I glanced over and smiled at Darius, but it was a mechanical gesture. I’d invested too much and risked too much to come here. I could not be at ease.
My brother had always believed in the Spacetribe, and sought out their portal at his first opportunity. I happened to be with him at the time, and his sending me back alone was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Ever since then, the Tribe had been much more than just a legend to me. I did not know if it was true, but I was determined to find out.
Brown earth showed through the green. Our landing site! I kicked at the braking thrusters, and they fired in small jets that radiated from our craft and swirled in artful patterns through the air of this world. Darry pressed his pedals too, and the ship leveled off just like it should. The flat dusty ground came up to meet us. We moved slowly and slower still, yet still too fast. "More!" I grunted, and we pulled up on the joysticks with our teeth while pushing the brakes with all four of our feet, for a total of eight.
Landing velocity attained. Phew. Not a second to spare. We bumped down into the dust, sending light showers of a sparkly reddish substance fountaining into the air.
Perfect. I leaned back and sighed.
Darius whooped and ripped off his helmet, his cat-eyes scanning the console. "Air is breathable. It’s time to go for that hike!"
Like clockwork, like our lives depended on it—and they did—we retrieved the gear from its compartment and strapped it to our backs. Standing by the door, we hesitated a moment.
"Thanks for coming with me, Darry."
His paw landed on the door control. "Thank me afterwards."
The hatch swung out above us and we smelled the air for the first time. Our noses confirmed the computer’s readings: it was breathable for us Anandi. So my brother was very possibly still alive here somewhere, barring famine and wild animals. The ramp hit the ground—more red sparkly dust—and we inched out onto it.
Across the plain stood low sandy-looking hills with a hint of shadowed mountain beyond. Or was it a cloud? I could never tell. We stepped carefully onto the terrain, ascertained that it would not harm our feet, then I closed the hatch with the control on my wristband.
"A hundred clicks to the northeast will bring us almost exactly to the place your brother disappeared."
"I know."
"Just saying."
"So let’s get going." I wriggled in my body-pack and set my face towards the hills.
We paced ourselves, not hitting full stride until we were ready for it. I sure didn’t want to suffer a case of space-cramps from running at full-cat speed before my muscles were stretched properly. Now and then I looked up at the green wisps of cloud and wondered what made them that way. There must be a chemical in the atmosphere. It was after this thought that I noticed the color of the sky from below: a deep purple-red, like a cassis liqueur, and like the ground, it glittered. And the clouds swirled their endless patterns, now here, now there, so that I barely noticed the passage of time or the tiredness that crept up my legs.
It would have been a funny sight if anyone had been there to see it—two lanky cats racing across the sands, straight as an arrow, raising a cloud of sparkly red dust under a sky of deepening maroon and pale green spirals.
Eventually we gained the slopes of the hills and ascended to the low summit. A haze came down as the sun set, so that there was nothing to see in any direction; but we kept our course.
Something touched me. I jumped. "What the flip!"
"Huh?" Darius peered at me, then he jumped too. My eyes went wide as I saw his hair stand on end all over his body. I looked down. I was no different.
"The energy rush that forced him to land!" Darius slowed and blinked hard.
I understood many things in that moment. It was an energy that affected not only the spaceships, but their occupants. And it was pulling us onwards. "Let’s go!"
We set off again at a dash, using our best pace this time. Something inside of me longed for the source of that energy, and now somehow, I knew without a word that Darius felt exactly the same. It pulled, it drew, and it almost yanked us forwards with a song inside of our breasts that also unified us in that quest. Suddenly I felt a great sadness that my brother had approached this place, whatever it contained, without any companion. But surely he would have felt something similar.
And we ran, and the desire grew stronger within us with every giant lope of our feline feet. What could this be, this new morning of the soul? This unknown thing that went beyond anything physical to the very internal parts of our beings?
I could not speak for running so fast, and I do not think anyone could. Yet there was no doubt in my mind, nor from Darius when I asked him later, that we were obsessed in that moment with continuing to wherever it was that we were headed. Tingles ran down from the tops of my ears to the tip of my tail, and they carried waves of pure exhilaration and joy and hints of a song I’d never heard but was as familiar to me as my own voice. Indeed, perhaps it was my own voice, singing on the inside and coming back to me in a faraway echo. Onwards! Onwards! And so we ran.
Then, ahead, I saw a bright light fall to the earth. And another! Falling stars...or more properly, asteroids. They fell at irregular intervals, but all at the same place, and that place was straight ahead of us: our goal. What was going on here?
The mad swirl of energy still wrapped me up in its embrace, but I forced my scientific mind to analyze their paths. They came in from different directions, but they did indeed land in the same location from what I could tell. And that location was not too far away at all. I wondered how far we had raced already. I had no idea how much time had passed in the first euphoria of encountering the energy; it felt like seconds, and it felt like days, but I knew it had to be only an hour or two.
A wall of roiling dust rose up and obscured the falling stars. It sparkled like the dust of the earth, but unlike a sandstorm its movements seemed coherent and even intelligent. Soon we came to it and stopped, for we did not know what was on the other side. We pulled on our breathing filters without a word and stepped into the spinning, glittering mass.
At first I felt firm ground and became more confident to walk on. Soon we would come out the other side and continue on our way. Then my front paws encountered only air, and my rear followed behind. I spun around and around, losing all sense of direction and which way was up. A puff of green cloud caught me up and I spun on and on until I came to rest on a sandy surface. Where was Darius? Was he here too, or had he stayed above?
But where was here? I blinked and tried to wipe the dust off my goggles. As soon as I was able to see that there was no more dust just here, I pulled off the mask and stared about me.
It had the appearance of a crater—a very large crater, but not very deep—ringed about with the clouds of dust and the green colored ones. I turned, and at a great distance I perceived the spot where the asteroids entered the land. Yet they made no great crash or thunder. Perhaps they were being fed into some kind of power plant beneath the surface? I turned further, and saw Darius struggling to his feet.
I looked back at the asteroid-catcher, and saw something like a wave of light emanating from that place at each hit. And it reached us, and we moved in the wave of the energy we’d felt before, and it reached all the way up into the sky and into space beyond. And even though I knew it was impossible, it seemed to reach out into the galaxy and make the universe expand with every burst, even as I felt my soul growing along with it.
We walked on, dazed and bedraggled, and came very close to the place where the asteroids came down. Here the energy waves were so strong that they would knock us off our feet every time, yet they still carried that joyful expectation and longing that forced us to move on—and it was not against our will.
At the rim of a great cavern there fell a wall of water all around, and I could not see where it came from; no doubt a subterranean river that was exposed here. Into this ring of water fell the asteroids, sending up great plumes of water and steam like a curtain.
Then on this curtain we began to see images, like on a view screen. We peered around us, for we did not know where the images came from, but then they seized our attention. Our home planet Anandi grew large, recognizable by its continents, but its lands had different colors; instead of deserts there were forests, and instead of industrial cities there were valleys filled with flowers. The view came closer and closer until it seemed that we were flying across the bay of our own city, except that there was no city—only the cliff and the island and the beach, without a speck of civilization to be seen.
It must be a picture from many moons ago, I thought, and like a flash as soon as I thought it, the image changed. Other planets began to flash by, all in a pre-industrial state of existence. There were exotic plants and animals, everything was lusher than I had ever known, and the cats we saw were content and unafraid, not stirring any dissent or wanting for things they did not have.
The images changed then, and I sensed they were moving forwards in time. As the worlds grew villages and then towns and cities I felt myself age along with them, and a loss for the greenness that had been before. I blinked, trying to remember who I was and what I was here for, but all that had loosened along the journey from the ship, and I saw it only as a shadow of what I could one day become. Time slowed, yet raced; place and existence ceased to exist, but became stronger than ever in another way. I heard a voice singing and realized it was Darius; I heard another, and realized it was my own. Was it the song of Time? It had no words, but it cut straight to the heart.
The water showed us more and more places, more cats—I thought I saw my brother—and many other beings, with great technologies and enormous space cities and vast accomplishments. I sensed these were things yet to come, and I stood in awe of what the races of the universe would one day be able to do. More and more things poured into my open mind and suddenly I realized I was standing inside the rushing water that poured from an unknown source into the great gap that swallowed the space rocks. Yet I could breathe! I looked around for Darius, but as soon as I did, I felt his presence though I could not see him. And I felt other presences, strangers, but filled with gladness so that I felt no danger from them.
At that moment I felt that it was not just my body that the water was washing, though the dust storm had rendered me in great need of a clean. No, it was as if it went right through my inner parts to the soul and spirit of the she-cat, to that part of me that existed without all the trappings of belongings or what I had become over my sorry lifetime. The life that went before now appeared meaningless, even though I recognized with some bewilderment that I had held it in great importance prior to entering these experiences on this planet.
The waters nudged me from behind and I lurched forward, gasping. Before me stretched a green valley filled with cats and apes and all kinds of intelligent life, and they all stared at me. Some wore robes and other clothing, some were singing, and some were occupied with a crowd of young ones who hollered and shrieked as they splashed about in a shallow river.
I spun around. Darius appeared out of a mist, spat water and advanced to my side. "What is this?"
A voice on my other side made me leap around. "This is the tribe of those who have crossed over." A catlike creature standing on its hind feet regarded me calmly.
"But what about the asteroids? They were coming in right here!" I stared upwards. There was nothing but a blue sky above—the wrong color for this planet, surely!—and no sign of any place for the rocks to go, nor any sign of damage.
The cat towered over me. "Excuse me, did you say asteroids?"
Darius nodded, and I did likewise. "We just saw them landing here a few seconds ago!"
A whispered hush fell over the crowd. "Asteroids! They have come from the place of asteroids! Send for Astran!"
Astran?
Curious murmurs continued, then the beings filling the valley began to ripple as if a boat had passed, leaving wake.
But it was not a boat. It was a cat.
It was my brother. And we had found the Spacetribe portal.
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Grace Bridges is a sci-fi author (Faith Awakened, 2007, and Legendary Space Pilgrims, coming soon) and owner of Splashdown Books, an independent publisher of inspirational sci-fi and fantasy at www.splashdownbooks.com. She's a Kiwi of Irish descent living in beautiful New Zealand, and a chocaholic cat-lovin' Trekkie, Jesus freak, repeat globetrotter, hack web designer, and all-round DIY gal who also takes care of the Lost Genre Guild blog. Visit www.gracebridges.com for more.
