Dream Planet. Book 1. Star Maze

Chapter 3. The Truth

"So you were sent to me with an assignment," he confirmed, putting a wrinkled hand around the girl.

"Yes," said Marcius, a little bewildered. He was taken off guard, not knowing whether to start with his orders from Indro or with his question about the world that the girl had seen, and there was a lot at stake.

"I didn't expect you to find me," admitted the old man.

"To be honest, we expected you to find us first," said Marcius.

"What for? So that you could lead the Ionians onto me?"

Marcius stood completely still, his fingers numbing with cold. The old man knew that they were in affinity with Iona and wanted him dead.

"I served Tulona faithfully for many years," started the old man.

"You also served Krama!" Karii retorted.

"Yes, everyone who paid well," he smiled.

Iza kept his g*n pointed at Marcius, who couldn't understand why he hesitated to shoot, especially since he knew the real purpose of their visit. The most reasonable course of action would be to shoot them, take their money and run. The old man answered this question himself, as if reading his mind:  

"I would have already shot you by now if not for your partner, who's standing behind you with all those explosives."

Marcius looked at him carefully. He even knew about the bomb in Karii's bag. It's true, a shot would have triggered an explosion that would've wiped them all out, along with half the theatre.

"Hold on," said Marcius, "I can see you understand. Yes, we were assigned to kill you or else to hand you over to the Ionians. But everything's changed now, and you're the last person in this universe whom I'd wish to harm."

The old man narrowed his eyes, not sure where he was going with this.

"I need to know where your girl saw the world that was recreated in the performance."

Iza raised his brows in surprise and quickly responded:

"I won't talk as long as your partner's still here. He must return to your capsule."

Marcius glanced at Karii. "Go", he said.

His friend was in shock. "What? You want to stay here by yourself? That's suicide!"

"I need you to leave right now! That's an order!" Marcius commanded.

Full of dread, Karii slowly started to go up the stairs. Iza called after him:

"No funny business, you hear? I have your partner and I can see everything!"

Marcius was left alone with the old man. He still had his magnetic beam tucked away in his belt, and Iza saw this.

"Take out your beam," he said, "Put it on the floor and roll it towards me."

Marcius slowly carried out his order. Iza caught the beam with his foot and picked it up. He looked at the screens, keeping track of Karii, making sure he's back at the capsule.

"Now we can start talking," he said calmly. "I suggest we go in order. First of all: Tulona needs to know the attacker, and I have a report ready." He took a file out of his pocket and showed it to Marcius, who reached for it, but the old man held it just out of reach.

"First the money!" he said.

Marcius took all four cubes out of his bag and gave them to him.

"A generous payment, your general won't regret it. The information I'm giving you will change everything!"

With these worlds the old man handed Marcius the file and continued:

"Second of all: as I understand, you have a personal question."

Marcius nodded and repeated himself:

"Where has your girl seen the world that was shown in the play?"

The old man paused, thinking, stepped from one foot to the other, his brow furled in concentration, and answered with a question of his own:

"In other words, you're asking me to provide you with more information, yes?"

"Yes!" Marcius exclaimed impatiently.

"In that case, you should know: Iza never gives anything out for free!"

Marcius nodded.

"Do you know what's the most valuable thing in the universe?"

"What?" he asked, taken aback.

"Information! And accurate information is twice as expensive! You want to know the truth about where my Lika saw this? Then you better pay up," said the old man with a cunning smile.

"I'm afraid I have nothing more to offer you," Marcius replied, disappointed.

"You have quite a nice ring sitting there on your finger," said Iza, squinting in a most unpleasant way.

Marcius winced. The ring was priceless to him, and parting with it wasn't an option. He found the ring in a secret drawer belonging to his father after his death, and before that the ring belonged to his grandfather, and his father before him. He'd seen it in ancient holographic photographs. The ring had been with the Lauons since time immemorial.

"This ring means too much to me!" he retorted.

"It's really up to you. If the ring is more valuable than the information, then leave, and if not, take it off and you will see everything with your own eyes."

Marcius was faced with an unpleasant decision. Parting with his father's ring meant losing the familial protection he felt upon himself while wearing it, and keeping it meant missing his chance to answer his most burning question. The price was enormous, but the immense power of curiosity drew him to the old man stronger than the gravity of even the largest of planets.

"I will never forgive myself if I leave right now without getting an answer," Marcius thought.

With pain in his heart, he ripped off the ring and with a quickly handed it over to the old man.

Having received what he wanted, Iza carefully examined the metal under a microscope that suddenly appeared before his eye, then shook the ring in the air as if checking its weight, then bit down on it, and finally hid it away in his pocket with a satisfied smile. After which, with an ever-signifying expression on his face, he started to talk:

"Several years ago I discovered a signal. Due to the nature of my profession I daily come across thousands of signals from different corners of the universe, and this one in particular did not seem to me at first to be any more exceptional than the rest. A weak, barely audible impulse cycling in a loop, requiring a thorough deciphering. It was no simple task, as I had never before encountered such a method of transmission. It was surprisingly primitive, yet genius at the same time. Yet still I was able to get something out of it!  

With these words the old man climbed under his table and pulled a clear file out of a handmade box covered with children's drawings. It looked like a lit up glass cube.

"Lika likes it. She enjoys the pictures and the music. I put them on for her before bedtime," he said, suspending the cube in midair by one of its corners with a ray of light.

The girl smiled widely. She came up close to him, anticipating to see her favorite show yet another time.

A cloud started to from inside the cube. It thickened and grew, stretching like a fabric across all planes. The cube grew in size. Images started to flash across the sides, and were soon followed by music. Marcius had never heard a melody like this. The music was poignant, worrisome, reaching to the depth of his soul. The pictures raced by one after the other like a slide show.

 Marcius looked into each one, overtaken with wonder. He was seeing his visions manifesting in real life. Exotic landscapes gave way to incomprehensible diagrams and numbers; an image of a humble woman with a baby in her lap; a portrait of another woman, lonesome and dressed in black, with a mysterious smile; a graphic depiction of a n***d man inside a circle, with arms and legs stretched out in all directions; unheard of birds and animals, and again numbers and diagrams.  

In one of the diagrams Marcius recognized human DNA, another resembled the structure of an unknown molecule. Then the images started to repeat, cycling through a second time. Captivated by the powerful music and the clarity of the images, he felt a tear slide down his cheek. Indescribable ecstasy took his breath away.  

"Where did the signal come from?" he asked in a barely audible whisper.

The old man remained enigmatically silent.

"There are also people in that world, can't you see?" he asked, excited.

The old man nodded: "Apparently so."

"Have you tried to find them?"

Iza, surprised, asked in all seriousness:

"What for?"

Marcius didn't hear him, everything inside him was in turmoil.

"Where did the signal come from?" he kept on repeating, as if in a trance.

Iza was about to answer, but all of a sudden cut himself off and said reproachfully:

"We're surrounded by Ionians."

His monitors displayed the space around the ship. It was filled with Ionian robots. Marcius counted ten of them. He looked at the old man in alarm.

"Where did the signal come from?"

Iza smiled his cunning smile.

"If the robots get to me, you'll never know! Save me, and you'll receive your answer."

Marcius stood there, flabbergasted. Failing to give him up to the robots meant going against Indro's orders, but without him he had no idea how to find that world. He quickly weighed his pros and cons. If the old man manages to lead him to the world he so desperately seeks, Tulona would greatly benefit, which might absolve his disobedience of orders. Marcius decided:

"I'll get you out of here, trust me!"

Iza agreed.

"Give me the beam! Let me tie up your hands!"

The old man handed him his weapon.

"Now play along!"

Iza knew what Marius had in mind.

"Just one second!" he said, pushing a lever in the wall. All of a sudden, all the equipment in the room turned to metallic granules and scattered all around.

Marcius was shocked and at a loss, not knowing what to say.

The old man let himself be apprehended and led up the stairs.

"Lika, follow us!" he ordered the girl.

Marcius led him out of the theatre carefully,  holding the beam to his throat. He dragged him out to the open platform of the dock and let the robots line themselves up around them. Lika pressed herself close to the old man.

The robots aimed their flying discs at Iza. Even their cold, emotionless faces betrayed a sense of longing and impatience as they looked at him. Catching him was of highest importance to them.

Ionian robots looked just like humans, but their skin was much more light and sturdy, its texture reminiscent of frosted metal. They could be recognized by their unnatural slenderness and lack of hair. Contrary to appearance, they were very heavy, and wore identical tight-fitting hooded suits with cross-like bags hanging behind their backs.

  "The old man is unarmed and not dangerous. In the name of Tulona, lower your disks!" Marcius ordered.

The robots lowered their weapons reluctantly, but didn't dare disobey the Tulonian warrior. The deal was going according to instruction.

Marcius smiled, just about to push the old man in their direction, but instead stealthily activated his beam with a quick motion sent it all along the circle.   

The long shining beam, taking on the shape of a lasso, lashed out along the heads of all ten robots, putting them out of order with its strong electric discharge. The whole bunch fell down, dysfunctional.

"Run!" he yelled, pulling the old man behind him.

Iza grabbed Lika up in his arms and jumping over the lifeless bodies, took off after Marcius, who led them towards his capsule. It was already opened up by Karii.

"We need to get out of here, now!" Marcius yelled.

Karii couldn't understand what was going on, but he listened to his friend and readied the craft for takeoff. Marcius helped Iza and Lika get into the capsule and shut the doors behind them. Some of the robots had managed to recuperate, and disks started to fly their way. Two of the robots managed to jump onto the capsule, but got caught in the ferromagnetic liquid and slid back down. The capsule shot out of the station.  

"We're being followed!" yelled Karii, seeing two Ionian ships at their tail.

"I'll knock them down!" said Marcius, and started to aim.

He let out three shots simultaneously. One of the ships got blown to pieces. The second got hit by a fragment of the first, started to spin and lost momentum. Karii turned up the acceleration, approaching the speed of light. They vanished out view, leaving the Ionians behind, attaining freedom.

Karii gave Marcius a questioning look, then glanced over at the old man and the girl sitting in the back, then back at Marcius again.

"And now explain what all of this is supposed to mean!" he exclaimed.

Marcius quickly told him about the signal and what he saw, adding at the end:

"Iza is too important, I couldn't give him up. He knows the coordinates of the world that I see. This is important for Indro as well. We must take him to Tulona."

The old man overheard this conversation and jumped in:

"That wasn't part of the deal! We agreed that I will tell you the coordinates and you'll let me go!"

Marcius gave him a stern look.

"I never said I'd let you go. I said I won't hand you over to the Ionians."

"Taking me to Tulona is the same as handing me over! Your general has a deal with them! You're going against your word!" the old man pressed on.

Marcius remained silent.

"Then where should we take you?"

"To Sirius!" ordered the old man. "As soon as we're there you'll get your answer."

Karii could take no more and intervened.

"Marcius!" he retorted. "Come to your senses! Indro will never let us live this down!"

Marcius looked back at the old man.

"I can only take you to Tulona."

The old man smiled, arranging his face into an understanding expression. He nodded mysteriously, looked over at Lika, patted her on the head and said:

"Red little beam, a lengthy slumber!"   

The girl smiled in return. Marcius didn't know what this meant, looking at the girl. She was carefree, her eyes hypnotizing as she slowly unbraided her right braid, which concealed an ampule. She squeezed it with her fingers, letting out a red gas that immediately spread throughout the capsule.

Marcius reached his hand out towards her hair to stop her, but all of a sudden, he was overtaken by convulsions. He collapsed to the floor, and Karii followed his suit. Everything started to swim before their eyes. As if through a fog, Marcius saw the old man pull them back from the controls and position himself in front of them instead. The girl stood beside him, laughing and talking quietly. The two of them were immune to the gas, which meant they had taken an antidote beforehand. The old man lived up to his reputation.   

The following day

Marcius awoke still inside the capsule. Karii lay close by, his eyes closed. They were chaotically tumbling through open space. The old man and the girl were nowhere to be found.  

"Karii!" he shook his friend. "Wake up!"

Karii slowly came to.

"Where are they?" he asked in a raspy voice.

"I don't know," said Marcius.

"And where are we?"

"No idea."

Marcius crawled up to the monitor. He had a terrible headache, blood pulsing in his temples. The radars showed that they were close to Guinea. A hologram was left on the panel with the following text:

"The signal came from square number twelve of our galaxy. That's all I was able to establish. Don't try to find me. And don't try to find that world either."

Marcius read the text. The information was insufficient. There were millions of planets in the twelfth segment of their galaxy. Even if he could live a hundred lifetimes, he'd still be unable to search them all. But now at least he knew the general direction.

"It's in the other end of the galaxy," he told Karii.

"Our capsule??" asked his friend in shock, collapsing into a chair.

"No, that planet!" Marcius replied.

"You should think instead of how we'll get home," Karii grumbled.

That's the last thing Marcius wanted to think about. He failed the mission, lost the money, broke his deal with Indro and let the old man get away.

"We might end up in jail," said Karii darkly, guessing what his friend was thinking about.

"I, not we," Marcius replied.

"You need to tell Indro everything that's happened. Tell him that you found a signal that came from another world of humans! Explain to him that these were extraordinary circumstances and you couldn't give the old man up to the Ionians."

"I have no proof, they'll never believe me. But that's not the point - I had no right to disobey my instructions."

"If only the old man hadn't escaped, we would have somehow managed," said Karii with disdain."

"If he hadn't, then yes. But now it's all over for me," Marcius sighed.

"We also shot down the Ionian patrol ship," Karii reminded him.

"I, not we," Marcius corrected him again.

Karii was silent.   

"Karii," Marcius started, "Listen to me. You have a flawless reputation and you still have a future on Tulona. You can still make a career for yourself. You have your parents and you have Gayla. But me - everyone already thinks I'm crazy. Let me take full responsibility for what happened."

"What do you have in mind?" Karii asked cautiously.

Marcius stretched out his hands.

"Tie me up, take me to Tulona as a prisoner. Tell them you disagreed with my decision and you drove the capsule from Girius because I threatened you."

"No!" Karii exclaimed.

"Indro's like family to me, I'll manage somehow!" begged Marcius.

Karii wasn't buying it. "He won't let you off so easy this time!"

"Yes he will!" Marcius insisted.

Karii turned the capsule in the direction of Tulona. It took its course, and they spent three days in transit, anxiously awaiting what came next.

Everyone at home was already waiting for them, ready for their arrest. The Ionians had evidence against them - everything that happened on Girius was recorded and sent to headquarters.

The capsule was stopped at the gateway and they were ordered to get out. Karii led Marcius out, holding the beam to his throat, just like they agreed. Marcius' hands were bound.

"I am Karii Ougas, I have delivered to Tulona my partner, who violated the charter."

Marcius stood by, slouched over.

The guards arrested them both. Neither one resisted. For several days they were held in separate cells, being questioned one by one. Their testimonies matched, since they'd rehearsed everything ahead of time. Everything pointed to Karii's innocence, and he was let go after three days, but Marcius was a different story. He was faced with three charges: sabotage, theft of government property and damage to interplanetary technology. Marcius passed along Iza's file for Indro, asked several times for a personal meeting with him, but was declined.

His case didn't even make it to court - the evidence was so overwhelming that he was found guilty right away. Even though Marcius described everything in detail in his report - how the old man captured the otherworldly signal, and how the images it contained match the ones he saw in his visions, no one payed him any attention. His actions were seen as a violation of instructions and were punishable by exile.

His week of confinement dragged on forever. He was like a wild animal in a cage, pacing from one side to the next. Just when he'd finally found a lead in his search of the mysterious world, he'd lost his freedom.

Even in the presence of guards Marcius could not gather his thoughts and could only think of his meeting with the old man. The images never left his mind, and the piercing music kept ceaselessly playing somewhere in the distance. He never thought himself crazy, but now, with his visions confirmed by real solid facts, he was exceptionally certain of his sanity. It was frightening, almost making him wish to go back to the way things were.  

"I truly am seeing a faraway world, full of life, people, feeling and intellect. It exists! But why does it call me? Why can't it let me be? Maybe it needs me? Or maybe I need it? How disappointing that the old man could not say for sure where to find it! My wish to find it does indeed border on insanity. My life seems illusory and meaningless, its only purpose lying somewhere far across the galaxy!"

On the eighth day they came to get him. The warden read his sentence out to him in private:

"Marcius Appa Laun, you have been found guilty of crimes against Tulona. You have undermined our authority in the eyes of Iona and enabled a dangerous criminal to escape. You've displayed aggression towards your partner and put your personal interests above those of your leaders. You are sentenced to ten years of confinement. You will be transported to the satellite Aiax. You will have regular sessions with a prison psychiatrist."

Everything he said was completely true, except perhaps for the part about Marcius having more concern for his own interests than those of Tulona.

Immediately after his conviction, he was led out of the cell, given a change of clothing and a number and sent on his way to the aerodrome to be taken to Aiax. He walked as if through a haze. Ten years was a number he could barely comprehend - it seemed that all of this was happening to someone else. There was a discernible ringing in his ears.  

Yet there was still one last glimmer of hope. Karii was assigned as pilot to take him to Aiax, which meant he could still have one last word with him. Seeing his friend was like a breath of fresh air after so many days in solitude. He caught his eye and gave him a wink, but Karii met his gaze with indifference, which was surprisingly painful, although the real surprise was Karii being allowed to be here in the first place. Marcius sensed that Indro had something to do with it.

Giving him a rough shove from behind, the guards loaded Marcius into the capsule, tightly fastening him to the seat, isolating him from the pilot's quarters. They carried this out with stark indifference and disrespect, which Marcius quietly tried to ignore. He felt the capsule take off the ground and soar into the sky. The path to Aiax was only a few minutes long, and very soon he would come face to face with the hostile world of prison, which was to be his home for the next ten years.

The conditions on Aiax were particularly toxic. It was out in open space, so escape was virtually impossible, and it was hard to last there for ten years. Marcius knew that he was doomed, although not yet able to fully grasp the true horror of his situation.

The trip should have long been over, but the capsule continued to soar through open space. One hour passed, then another, but still they did not stop, and Marcius started to understand that he's being taken someplace else entirely. He started to yell:

"Karii! Can you hear me? Where are we?"

But his friend didn't respond.

A whole day passed, and they were still going. Marcius was disoriented, and his ignorance drove him mad. What sort of game was this? Where could they be taking him? His friend gave him no hints.  

Finally, they came to a stop. Marcius felt the artificial gravity of the spacecraft shut off and a natural external gravitational field come into play. Judging from the weakness of the pull, the object wasn't too large - the size of maybe a satellite, but definitely not a planet. Marcius started to rack his brain for all locations within a days' travel of Tulona with such a gravity. There weren't too many options - it had to be a satellite of one of the neighboring planets. But what in the world were they doing here?

Karii opened the cabin and handed him a spacesuit. "Put it on," he said.

Marcius looked at him, bewildered. The magnets holding him to the chair got deactivated and slowly he pulled on the suit.

"Let's go!" Karii commanded.

"Where are we?" asked Marcius.

  Karii didn't reply, taking care to hide his eyes and avoid Marcius' gaze. He heaved a deep sigh, stretched a silver cord out to him and said:

"We are on the satellite Glo, descending to the bottom of a volcano."

"Whatever for?" Marcius asked in surprise.

Glo was Krama's satellite. They were on enemy territory. Their capsule floated above the mouth of a dead volcano, and Marcius had not the slightest clue what this could mean.

"I'll explain everything when we get down," said Karii. "It's important, trust me!"

Marcius didn't know what to do, but he trusted his friend. If Karii told him to do this, he must have his reasons. Maybe this was an assignment, maybe something else, but he didn't doubt his friend for a second and did as he was told. He fastened himself to the cable and started to slowly make his way down, expecting Karii to follow. Only a few meters remained off the ground when Marcius looked up and saw that Karii was still standing at the top.

Noticing that Marcius stopped and was looking up at him, Karii took his beam and cut the chord.

As Marcius fell, he saw the capsule door snap shut, swallowing up his friend. Leaving him behind, the craft spiraled up and flew off into the unknown. Then his back painfully collided with the exposed rock below. He groaned. The weakness of gravity was the only thing that saved him from imminent death. The ferromagnetic liquid of the severed cord splattered him with cold.   

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement to his left. Turning his head, he saw light shining through a c***k in the rocks, illuminating the dark silhouettes of Krameans. They were watching him. They did not appear too friendly - narrow suits billowing out bell-shaped at the bottom, headpieces with ominous spikes sticking out in all directions, black lenses obstructing their faces, blinding with a sharp reflective gleam. Squinting, Marcius turned away with a grimace. He hated the Krameans with his whole heart. They were the ones that killed his parents. Why did Karii leave him here with them??  

Still woozy from the fall, Marcius felt strong vibrations accompanied by a frantic screeching. An unpleasant shudder ran through his body. Two hollow pyramids approached him from both sides, closing up upon him upon him like jaws, trapping him in a crystal rhombus. Through the fusing seam, he caught a last glimpse of the night sky, which still harbored a silver trace of his friend's capsule, receding into the distance at the speed of light.

The last thought that crossed Marcius' mind before he lost consciousness was that this was sooner a terrible nightmare than real life.