Keltor’s throat ached with the harsh alien sounds, but he wanted this incredibly foolish human to understand what had just happened—and what could have happened. What should have happened. Praise the One they still breathed!
“The Daydark—every three years comes. Your people not see yet. But we tell you, climb not mountain. Why you climb?”
“I—I wanted to get away from home.”
Keltor didn’t understand. Surely this whole planet was away from home, for the humans! He wanted to ask why they had left Earth to trouble his home, but couldn’t frame the words. Instead he said roughly, “Almost you go far, far from home—we die, almost.”
“Yeah, close call, wasn’t it?” The human wiped rain from his eyes. “But I still don’t understand. What was that beam of light? And what happened to the storm? The…D
