Rian

Part 18

It's night on Rian, the starlust sky has been pulled and already I can see Casique on the horizon. I'm thankful for the hospital room, its giant window, the silent machinery, and the possibility I will sleep well tonight. What a strange thing it is for me to want to sleep, but somehow I think tomorrow will not find me ill with coughing and choking lungs. I still wait for madness to grasp me, to shake me as it did Will, but it hasn't yet. Agnes says it's unlikely to happen to me if not within the first day, so I sleep with that thought tucked under my pillow.

Journal, if it is fine I would like to write to you as I would a parent. Maybe for the time being I'm just some kid at camp and this is my first letter home.

By the time we'd reached Rian I'd gotten used to the lurching in my stomach. Unlike the vile spin caused by antibiotics I was often prescribed, this was a flipping of my insides. The same feeling I'd expect to encounter while riding a rollercoaster, something I'd never done. Closer to Rian, our approach was met by beeping and a kind voice emitting from somewhere. The voice sounded welcoming, similar to the same tone of a stewardess on a plane once a flight was completed, but nonetheless I didn't understand a word of it.

Agnes said we'd learn the languages on our own. I don't see how that's possible. Passing over a purple sea I let myself glance one more time at the giant canyon below the water. While the water was perfectly clear with a violet shade, the rugged rocks beneath the sea were unmistakably created by some explosion. I'd spent so much of my life next to the sea and it's constant hand on the shore. I knew what was made by salt water and what wasn't. I didn't mean to stare, but I wanted some kind of explanation.

Agnes had remained silent, her gaze locked on the sea. I could be mistaking, but I'm sure I saw tears. Entry into Rian was met with the same intense pressure, a stomach promising vomit, and the ringing, almost a whistle, what Agnes told us was the Cassium. When our ship began heading straight for open ocean a panic hit my chest, but again Agnes was the calming voice. She told us our ship yard was in the ocean, that Rian utilized dead parts of the sea as their ports. Beneath the water the ship didn't slow, the bubbles kept with the sinking ship, not clearing, until we were much deeper. There wasn't much darkness below the surface. Even after we'd been sinking for well over ten minutes the water never gave to abysmal darkness. If there had been anything to see I would have been able.

From several meters away I witnessed a formation, a tower stretching from far below with what must have been docking points for ships. I remember Will asking about the depth and Agnes said something along the lines of it being deeper than Mariana Trench. I don't know how deep that is, but I know it's a place unfathomable to me.

 Agnes was the first to unbuckle herself when the ship docked that cat of hers stuck to her like glue. I suppose for her there was no avoiding what was to happen next. When we'd first arrived on the B. musculus Agnes hadn't told us how it was possible to suddenly appear aboard her ship and she certainly wasn't up for explaining it now, only mentioning to get off the ship was a matter of 'mindfulness'. I had no idea what she meant.

Agnes had said on more than one occasion that this ship was a rental. I doubted it. This ship appeared too worn to be anything other than her own or belonging to someone close to her, but then again what do I know about aliens? The same levers she used before to visit that dust bowl of a moon were pulled again and the urgency of an upset stomach overtook me. The next thing I knew I was standing in a mostly empty hallway. Thick windows revealed the sea outside and below my feet a worn metal like floor, the kind with small holes that teased more floors below me.

I was proud of myself, I didn't pass out and landed on my feet this time.

In silence we were regarded by three human like beings. I say human like because not one of them appeared completely as anyone I'd seen before. They wore black scrubs with written words I couldn't read over the breast pocket and all three stood on two feet. One had a wide face with a nose that spread out to twice the size of a normal human's nose. That same being had brilliant bronze skin and what had to be a third white eyelid, similar to what a shark or crocodile would have, rhythmically covering and uncovering a pair of hazel eyes.

The second was as tall as me, but with longer limbs and golden skin, like a light tan, something I'd expect of someone who spent their life in the sun with light eyes, almost a pearly white. The third was everything human except when it came to stature, she was at least two and half meters tall. Chestnut hair held back in a spinning braid on top of her head, eyes just as brilliant as her locks, and the most welcoming smile. The more I took them in the more I came to understand that all three could pass as humans on Earth, that what distinguished them wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibilities for any human. Even the nictitating membrane, while an oddity, could be written off as a one in a trillion anomaly.

 Whatever the three said to Agnes was a mystery, spoken too quickly and with a rhythm it took several minutes to pick up on. I did keep my eyes on Will, on the blooming dread picking at his eyes. From his chair he'd begun a slow kind of rock. One minute bending back and the next bending forward. Everything seem to move so fast with Agnes speaking, but me not hearing a word. I knew she explained where we were, I knew we were led through tunnels until we finally made it to an elevator large enough for an entire crowd of people, but it was only the three, Agnes, a bewildered Will, and myself.

The elevator ride took forever with its slow dredge upward, but when the doors opened there was a breeze and it was fresh air. All the trappings of a base revealed themselves with machinery and ships larger than that of Agnes' rental. This I could understand. My body processed what I saw with a hesitation, but beneath what must have been my subconscious an eruption simmered. As molten surfaces and touches the flesh of the Earth a fire brimmed from somewhere deep in me to my lungs.

With a sobbing hitch I caught my breath and then realized I didn't need to. When I stepped from the elevator, when the sunlight and its embracing warmth captured my skin an exchange happened. For whatever reason Rian saw my illness as profitable and paid in full for it. Even when I had been healthy I had never felt air plummet so deep into my lungs. Despite my growing confusion I held that first noticed breath willing it to leave me if only I could have another. A second breath came and my feet could not be controlled.

I ran with each inhale speeding me along.

'Let her go.' I'd heard Agnes say and I'm sure she'd done it with a smile.

Beyond the base and its unforgiving ground was an open field of tall grass and so I ran to it only stopping when my legs gave and I collapsed to Rian. Behind me the taller greeter had followed me. She looked at me the same way a mother might look at a child for breaking from her company. Extending a hand four times the size of mine she helped me to my feet and in a slow canter guided me back to the others.

At the open elevator Will's shacking intensified. He rocked uncontrollably and his...his eyes held the tears of an elder man only capable of coming from someone who'd lived a very long time and held a great many burdens. I'd wondered when the same would happen to me. I did what only thing a stranger could and took his hand and told him it would be okay.