The sky was especially blue and seemed to shine on its own with no need for a sun. Yet, still, there it was, golden orange in the sky. The Home Star. The leaves and grass on the shoreline and hillside beyond, were taking on that typical dark green color of the late morning. There were no clouds yet.
Hesper on his yacht.
He felt rested from a long leave with his family and inlaws, and satisfied after a rather steamy going-away party thrown by his lovely wife - that only two people were invited to - the night before. He was a little sore still, but in a good way.There was a chop in the waves, and small cool breezes batted him with love taps, while they slapped the pointy tips off of each wave, causing a tiny mountain range to become apparent. The surface of the Azure Sea was filled as far as the eye could see, with translucent water-mountains, each tipped with a whitecap, shifting, blending. Below those waves, looking over the side, brightly colored fish swam in and out of the small shadow of his vessel, as its bobbing was projected upon the white sand of the sea floor. The shadow was black, slightly tipped by the angle of the suns through the water.
Life was good for Hesper now. He'd had his issues but was dealing with them. And he was greatly cheered by the still vivid image he'd experienced, while sampling the Blue Dawn Flower seeds his friend had given him a couple weeks before.
He had seen a beautiful woman or girl (he could not tell which) appear in the his study, preceded, and then surrounded by, a wind that he could not feel, but saw and heard. She was golden orange, like the sun. He had noticed her eyes were shining and green and in the center of each, a yellow light seemed to strain out of her. She introduced herself as "Atled."
She was hard to look at because she shone so brightly. He thought at the time that he'd wished he could have controlled that aspect of the experience like he could with his computer images so he could see her better. He laughed to himself as he stood, then sat down on a deck chair, shaking his head for a moment. The sails luffed loudly in the increasing breeze above him. What a crazy thing to think about during a spirit encounter--adjusting the "image."
Atled, as she appeared to Hesper.
She had only said one thing before she shrank out of sight--speeding away, in a line that brought her directly backwards into the windy light from which she first emerged.
How he dearly wanted to have heard more. What he did hear intrigued him...
"You and your friend Okeanos will sail toward the distant shore of the Notgnivlas Region, but will end up blown off course. When this happens, fear not. I will be with you and guide you to another place that my sister has pre-arranged for you."
That was it!
He replayed her message over and over again in his mind looking for other hints about why this had happened to him. He had a difficult time believing that it actually HAD happened to him. Aside from this visitation, the Blue Dawn Flower experience was physically stimulating, but not the least bit hallucinogenic. It had lasted for about an hour, but she was with him only, apparently, a tenth as long. When he checked the clock though, it said the same time as it did before she arrived. It seemed nothing like what Okeanos had described, with his tale of sweeping vistas filled with all sizes of "walking plants" and "flying colors" and a god-like being of light. He could not understand how their experiences could have been so different after ingesting the same plant.
The yacht slowly rocked from side to side under him. He stood up quickly and secured the sheets. In no time, he was on his way. A small robot took the helm, while he stepped below to make himself a drink.
There could be no way that his friend would accompany him on this particular voyage. He was headed to Aitnede Region, well south of Notgnivlas. He could not think of any reason why he would EVER go to Notgnivlas. It was an World Park, left in its natural state, but for an "indigenous" tribe of original settlers, called the Setidon, who had volunteered to tend it as a garden, hundreds of years before.
They were a triple gender people. About one thrid were male, one third female, and one third hermaphrodite, but decidedly female. There were also women, with breats, but with male preproductive organs. All of this was not fostered in any way, by a human means, besides perhaps a subconscious "natural selection." It was a mutation in the genes, one that favored female appearance and behavior. There was no doubt that their island garden was the most beautiful and ornately appointed places on the planet. In a way, Naturia was very much a cultural pipeline to the utopian civilization of the home world of Azureon.
But it was not a place of business. And Hesper had much business to conduct. Since his introduction of high-powered, sound-projecting, holography, synced to music, there were other colony planets with representatives sent to Naturia to obtain his software. a large conference was taking place in the city of N'Uversa, the regional seat of Aitnede.
The Setidon might be a fascination for anthropologists, religionists and botanists, but he could care less about visiting them. He liked comforts. And sleeping in a cold, damp cloud forest was not his idea of comfortable. His uncomfortable days were in the past now. Besides, he'd heard nothing from Okeanos in over a month. Hesper had even tried to contact him after the visitation, but only got his answering service.
It was just after sundown when his computer suddenly jumped to life. Hesper, who had been dosing, stood up half asleep and rubbed his eyes.
"Yes?" he asked to the empty air.
"There is an automated signal dead up ahead Captain Hesper, it is a small vessel with its emergency beacon flashing, shall we assist?"
"Yes, Brown. Change course to intercept along the injured craft's heading."
"Actually, Sir, the vessel is not moving." Brown had a little mocking tone to its voice.
"How far is the vessel from our current position, Brown." Hesper rolled his eyes.
"One step, Sir."
"What is our current velocity, Brown?"
"Zero metric lengths/hour."
"Thank you, Brown..." This robot was in a habit lately of making decisions on its own. He'd forgotten how annoying that was from his last voyage. He should have re-calibrated the decisional scale back to its default parameters and then rebooted Brown the night before... but he had been... "distracted." He was glad now that he had chosen to spend the night before with his wife instead of with Brown who was at least awake and now functioning properly, while he had fallen asleep for over four hours. He guessed that maybe he hadn't been so rested after all that morning. He smiled.
Throwing on a fleece coat, he rushed up on deck and was met by a terrible sight. It was a large skiff, about 30 steps long and 8 steps wide, but it's bow was half submerged. The smooth white finish of the hull was covered in something... He walked cautiously toward the craft barely floating about 20 steps off his port side.
"Brown, hit the torches!"
Immediately the entire area around the Schooner was flooded in a white light. It extended out in every direction, to a radius of 500 steps.
"Hello?! Is there anyone aboard. I'm Captain Hesper of the Schooner, Roses Fly, is there anyone ABOARD?"
He could see into the bilge of the boat, but not very well. It was filled with nets and small black boxes. "It looks like no one is aboard, Brown."
"Sensors show no human life signs, Sir. It does detect a small animal." Brown extended the lifting cranes from the port side of the 100 step Schooner and secured a fore and aft line to the smaller boat, then rolled out the side-bumpers.
"Be careful, she's heavy with water..." Hesper walked along the rail adjusting the bumpers. "What is the small animal you referred to?"
Brown hesitated in his retraction of the cranes for a moment. Then started pulling the smaller craft in again. "It is a spitfish, approximately three steps long and half a step wide, it's weight is..."
"Nevermind, Brown, I see it now."
The creature writhed and spit mucus, having completely lost the reserve of its sea water. It was obvious that it had been in the skiff for several hours already and it was not pleased. It groaned and slapped its tail against the pile of black boxes. Its sharp teeth gnashed away at the netting reshredding what it had already shred.
"OK!" said Hesper. "Calm down big guy! I'm gonna set you lose."
The spitfish was actually not a fish, but a kind of mammal-like amphibian, found only in this sea. It could breath air through internal lungs or take in oxygen through its smooth skin, when underwater. The entire body of the animal was like a giant gill, absorbing oxygen directly into its circulatory system, through a fine net of blood vessels located directly below and in the dermal layers. It was considered a nuisance by crustacean fisherman because of its obsessive desire for the giant, fat-filled shellfish that were a regional delicacy. the spitfish used extreme sucktion from its mouth to utterly crumble even the hardest shell.
But spitfish could also be highly intelligent, performing tasks for the civil engineering planners. The only thing they seemed incompatitble for was shellfishing--a food which they could not control themselves from eating. This had earned them the nickname, "Greedy Spitters."
When freely swimming in the sea, the spitfish always kept a gullet-full of seawater to be used as an emergency moisture source at times like this, being trapped outside of the water. The male also suspended itself vertically, face up, when advertising for a mate. With its mouth slightly above the surface, it could spit a stream of disgustingly fetid water up to 200 steps in the air. This served a dual purpose; females would be able to judge its fitness and size by the height of its rancid spit-spout AND then locate its position afterwards by the smell in the water. The more disgusting the smell, the closer to lovin' time.
The creature was desperate now and it seemed more willing to suffer Hesper's assistance. Its almost human-like eyes fixed themselves upon Hesper's as he carefully leaned over the rail with a large net. He saw that the Spitfish had a tightly tied rope around it's middle. The rope was SO tight that it pulled the flesh in significantly. The knot looked as if it was... intentionally tied.
He slipped the long razor sharp knife out of a tool box right next to him. Then he leaned over as far as he could and wrestled the spitfish into the net. With his other hand, he sliced the rope which had been tied a short distance from the creature to an open oarlock. The Spitfish fell freely to the bottom of the net, groaning and slobbering mucus.
Brown lit another pin spot of light that followed the netted animal as Hesper quickly flung it on to the deck of the Roses Fly. The Spitfish was exhausted and beginning to die. Its mouth opened and shut slowly over and over again, and it's eyes darted from side to side.
Speaking as if to a good buddy, Hesper calmly said, "Don't worry, I'm gonna cut this middle rope off of you and set you free. OK?"
The creature did not react, it just kept opening and shutting its mouth...slower and slower. Hesper fell to his knees and gingerly reached out his left hand, placing it on the side of this sea wanderer's warm body. With the knife in his right hand, he cut a small slit in the thick rope to weaken it on top. Then he gently slid his fingers under the tight part of the rope, between it and the spitfish skin. Still the spitfish did not react. In one fluid stroke, Hesper eased the knife under the rope and cut it outward, away from the animal.
When the rope broke and fell to either side, the Spitfish twitched at the opportunity of freedom. Hesper eased the creature back into the net and quickly walked to the edge of the deck. He grasped the net right under the spitfish and tipped it into the sea. With a large splash, its body twisted and vibrated alternately for a moment, as it filled itself with water. Then unceremoniously, it slipped beneath the surface and was lost to sight.
The skiff had been pumped out by Brown, and the robot was collecting the strange black boxes and dropping them into a bait box near the wheelhouse. A specialized crane was patching the large hole in the bow, unbidden. In the pin spot light, Hesper finally saw what was all over the outside of the hull: red, congealed, and splattered...blood. He reached out and wiped up a little with the edge of his knife. He didn't want to think that it was blood, but he knew already.
"Brown..."
"Yes, Captain?"
"Run a genetic analysis of this."
"It's human..."
"Brown, you haven't even tested it yet!" Hesper dabbed the ghoulish substance on Brown's extended sensor pad. Brown, dutifully retracted the pad into its side compartment.
"It's human. Estimated time of air exposure...six hour ago." The pin spot turned off and the rail lighting turned on. The overhead floodlight clapped off too, leaving an orange glow that faded as it cooled.
Hesper walked over to the cut rope. He picked it up and threw it into a bucket nestled along the rail. A "clank" rang out in the darkness as the rope settled. Stepping to his side and peering into the bucket, he saw a small rainbow shimmer out from inside it, reflecting and breaking apart the rays of the rail light that was just above it. "A nanodisc?"
"Pardon me, Captain?"
Human blood on the outside of the boat, with no apparent gore on the inside, and a poor, tied-up spitfish. What did it all mean? "Hey..Brown there's a nanodisc in this bucket. Is it one of yours?"
"My storage discs are all present and accounted for, Sir."
"Must have come from the skiff." Hesper grasped the nanodisc and slipped it into his pocket. "Can you finish up here, Brown? I'm headed below deck for the rest of the night."
"And I will secure the sheets again and continue on our regular course."
"Thanks for at least telling me ahead of time, Brown."
"You're welcome, Sir." Brown's many ship-wipe connections kicked into a flurry of activity.
Catching sight of the edge of the second moon as it began to break over the horizon, he opened the hatch door and slowly, deliberately, but distracted mentally by a sudden string of strange thoughts, stepped down into the warm light of his ship's office area. Fingering for the disc in his pocket, he felt a small rounded object beside it, no bigger than...a seed. Drawing the two objects out and dropping them on his desk, he dropped himself into his chair and sighed.
The nanodisc was covered in stinky spitfish spout-water, but otherwise unharmed. Wiping it with a cloth easily shined it up as clean as new. And the small, dark, crescent-shaped pebble looked an awful lot like a Blue Dawn Flower seed...but he wasn't sure.
He grasped the coin-sized disc between his thumb and forefinger and slid it into the disc port of his sleeping computer. Instantly the machine's 3D image lit up in mid-air...
"Processing..." said the computer.
"Thanks, Red."
"Type one digital message, seven words:" A sentence appeared across the air-image in front of him.
He drained the melted ice water from his drink into his mouth, while lowering the light level in the cabin with a foot switch under the desk. Rubbing his eyes, and staring at the image closely, he took a moment from swallowing his mouthful to read the words out loud...
"Thank you for setting the Monster free"
Then he swallowed...choked on the remnants of his drink, coughed loudy, and swiftly pushed himself back from the edge of his desk, as if a fire had just broken out. And...in a way...it had.
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