Planet B-17: The Beginnings

Chapter 13 - The Crater: Part 7

He laughed. "Is that how you show appreciation, beloved Mé?" the governor asked. "You bow?"

Lights dancing in her eyes, Mé drew nearer. "I feel I owe you an apology. I do not know how to interact with someone from the fifth dimension."

Governor Mala's countenance turned, if possible, even kinder and more luminous, and he took her hands into his. "Come, dear Mé, recognize the clarity within yourself and know that you are well beyond the dimension you think you're in."

"Am I?" she asked.

"How else would you have reached the City of Depths Unseen?"

His eyes were soft, brown lights, his expression serene.

Mé smiled. "If I am more than I think I am, why haven't I known it all along?"

The governor's lips curved into a merry smile. "Live in the moment and accept your growth, one experience at a time."

She felt she wanted to embrace him, while part of her wanted to explore the Gardens and play in the streams; her planet Alteor returned to her mind, always sunny, always serene, with giant forests and grassy hills, with lakes so deep it seemed they had no bottom, only side-platforms visible through waters crystal-clear.

Placing his hand upon her shoulder, he invited her to hug him, which she did, and it reminded her of embracing her grandfather, Aathas, one of the most renown explorers on Alteor, whose stories of worlds afar, peculiar and wondrous all in their own ways, had made her enrol in the Alteorian University and from there she had been recommended into the Architect's Temple.

Alas! she thought. What's with all these memories? Then she spoke aloud, "I've been having these images ever since I saw this city."

"What images?" He let go of the embrace, but they were still holding hands.

"Pictures of my home," she answered, and drew a breath in – glanced at the sky –"of my planet Alteor."

He watched and waited.

"There seems to be a strong connection between this place and that." A tear at the corner of her eye. "I'm sorry. I'm a bit overwhelmed, I think."

"That is only natural," he replied, "for you see, all places are really one place. Linearly or on the whole, all that is, is – and fragmented only in appearance. What have you recalled?"

"Different episodes, mostly from before I left; and it seems that I've become connected, on a feeling level, to... a part of me that never actually left it." She was searching his eyes. "Does that make sense?"

Governor Mala smiled. "Of course it does. All places are one place. All connections are within the same fabric. The source within is the source in all. Planets are a part in a system, systems form galaxies, which form All-That-Is, multidimensionality included. And yet a universe is not separate from M'alala or from Alteor"–he paused for a moment; "Is it clear what I mean when I say that all places are one place?"

"All-That-Is," she murmured.

"Fragmented in appearance," he continued, "but in reality not so. One sees from one dimension what is available to the senses therein, yet now that you've moved into another, the rigidity of the fixed structures that have been known to you has become more malleable, is being moulded at the pace you're most comfortable with, and thus you are able to experience closeness to a world you're not currently physically in."

"My home planet."

He nodded. "And this closeness, you carry within."

"I've brought it with me."