Conn's two handed sword ripped from its
sheath in his startlement. He looked about, but all of his companions had
simply vanished into the dusty ground of the alien planet surface. Then he, too
felt the ground disappear from beneath him and he fell through a cloud of dust
into a dark tube. He braced for an impact, but none was forthcoming. Conn felt
a powerful blast of air blowing up over his body, and he started to spin
uncontrollably, so he instinctively rearranged himself into a freefall
position. He knew that the wind was simply due to the fact that he was falling
down this alien tube, and if the tube ended suddenly, that would be that. But
no end of the tube was in sight. He bumped into the walls of the tube several
times, and learned that it wasn't rock, but rather a smooth, organic
material.
Zarn hated surprises. Plus he hated being controlled by any force outside of
himself, even the force of gravity. He wanted to act, not be acted on. So, his
natural hatred for the unexpected took over, and he stuck out his sword, still
held in his left hand, toward the wall of the tube. The slight friction of the
end of the sword with the wall started to throw off his balance in the free
fall, so he pulled the sword back. Then he stuck the sword out again, holding
on with both hands, and, slanting the blade downward a little, worked the point
into the wall a little bit. This action made the sword slice right through the
walls of the tube and slowed Conn's fall. Conn's powerful torso was jerked
downward and over against the smooth wall of the tube, but he managed to keep
the sword angled down so that it was still cutting through the walls of the
tube. He was leaving a long slash in the wall of the tube. Then, by angling the
sword downward at an even steeper angle, the handguard on the sword began to
rub against the walls of the tube, too, and that increased friction eventually
brought Conn's fall to a stop.
He hung there, panting, for a long moment. Then, he pulled himself up on his
sword and over into the hole that he had cut into the side of the tube. There
was space on the outside of the tube, and a strange luminescence lit up a
bizarre landscape. There were ten to fifteen other tubes visible in the dim
light, and large fibrous connections between the tubes. The main source of
light, however, appeared to be coming from below.
There was a thrumming sound in the air, and it all smelled like fresh cut
grestal weed back on Zarn. Conn looked around, tested the connecting fibers
between the tubes, and began venturing out on them. They were close enough
together that he could just stretch from fiber to fiber and make a climb of it.
He looked up, and then down, and then slowly started his climb. Downwards. He
had to find out the fate of his three companions.
It had seemed like a routine mission, if anything in the Dien Planet Belt could
be routine. They were out scouting for sentient beings. The vibratory
orderliness in the new sectors was often fluctuating, and new sentient beings
were always needed to assure the smooth functioning of natural laws. It's not
that society couldn't function just fine without the help, but that certain
things went smoother with the help of more cosmic tuners. That's what sentient
beings could become, with a little training.
The tuners were the foundation of intergalactic society. By their ability to
maintain their metabolisms at a very fine level, they brought the abstract
energy of the quantum level of existence into the physical world. No one
understood before the tuners existed how important this would be. It was as if
life was a dark place, and the quantum energy lightened everything up. As if
all that good ideas and worthy undertakings needed was more energy. And with
the powerful influence of the tuners, an abundance of energy was available
everywhere for every good thing, as if in the air. And, strangely, the negative
elements of society became more positive, because they found more energy to
fulfill their needs in a normal way, and the criminal methods seemed like so
much more work.
But there were still dark cultures out there, so a few warriors like Conn were
necessary. And the only weapon that still existed was the two handed sword. An
ancient tradition of using the sword lasted all the way through the Peace Eon,
but mainly as another way of attunement with the quantum level. Still, there
were those like Conn who actually used the sword to cut things now and then,
and in his Sworder duties, not a few low end sentient beings had become reduced
to food for one celled gleaners.
Yes, sometimes the sentient beings didn't want to become tuners. As a matter of
fact, the sentient beings often didn't want to see alien shapes walking across
their front yards at all. So, it was occasionally necessary to have a guy like
Conn at your side. Not that they ever forced anyone to tune. But if you made
even the slightest mistake in approaching a new group of sentients, you often
had to have self-defense.
But Conn was aware of having failed to protect this party of tuner trainers at
all. As he climbed farther and farther down on the springy fibers he began
wondering what he might find at the bottom of the tubes that his friends must
have fallen into. The luminescence got brighter, and a bright floor appeared a
hundred feet below him. He kept climbing down, and eventually reached the
surface, which was a rubbery substance crisscrossed with vein like structures.
Looking about he noticed that the tubes were firmly anchored in the rubbery
floor, but that some of the tubes emitted a bright glow at the base. The floor,
of course, was bright all over. Following a hunch, he walked over to one of the
brightest tubes and began hacking through it. The tube, which was about eight
feet wide, quivered and shook up its entire visible length as he cut away at
it. Finally he cut an opening, and only needed a moment to pop his head in
through to see the crumpled uniform and body of one of his flight mates. The
body was slowly sinking into the ooze at the bottom of the tube, and the
luminescence glowed brightest where body met ooze.
Growing frantic, Conn hacked away at the other brightly glowing tube, only to
find the same glowing evidence of recent death. Frustrated, Conn sank to his
knees on the rubbery surface and rested his body and mind for a moment. He
began the emergency assessment procedure. Physical condition: Bruised, tired,
no punctures or breaks. Equipment: One sword. Two food pellets in belt.
Emotional Condition: surprised. Some shock. Remorse. Revulsion. Fear.
Alertness. Level of Happiness: Diminished.
He didn't know what else to do, so he sat and began tuning. He closed his eyes
and immediately noticed his increased breathing and the aches in his arms. Plus
a rising pain in his heart, which he credited to the loss of his teammates.
Suddenly he realized that there was one person missing. Only two glowing
bundles lay stuck at the bottom of the tubes. And then, before he could even
start the tuning procedure, he heard his name spoken.
"Conn," the voice said. But it wasn't a voice that you could hear through your
ears. It was a voice appearing in his own mind. "Conn," the voice said, in a
delicate whisper. Not knowing what else to do, Conn answered "Who's there?" But
he answered out loud and his own voice sounded like a braying kendor in
comparison to the inner voice. "Conn," said the voice, which then continued,
"cut me out." "Cut you out?," thought Conn, "where are you, inside my head?"
Conn waited for an answer. The answer came slowly, and softly, "Find my tube
and cut me out, I can only do this for a while."
Find my tube. That Conn could relate to. He opened his eyes and got to his
feet. One of these tubes contained another member of the party, and that person
was thinking messages to him. He had done think-sending a few times
successfully himself, at least he thought he had, when he was a kid in space
classes. But some of the Tuner Trainers were good at this stuff. And wherever
this trainer was, he was one of the good ones. But why was the voice so quiet?
Usually they could really pop a voice into your head, or at least that's what
he had heard. Maybe the tuner was injured.
In any case all of these thoughts raced through Conn's head as mere background
noise as he began hacking away at tubes right and left. It was hard work, but
he became efficient at cutting small holes, sticking his head through, and then
moving on to the next tube. On the fifth tube he stuck his head through and saw
what he was looking for, because there, floating not four feet above the
digestive floor of the tube, was the tuner. And it was Beata.
She floated in the tube like a tesor toy, serenely sitting cross legged, eyes
closed. She slowly opened one eye, then closed it, and said something that Conn
couldn't hear. "What?" said Conn. Beata opened one eye again, closed it, and
then said in a clearer tone, "Wider opening." Conn got it then, pulled his head
out of the tube and started hacking away at the walls of the tube until he had
cut a space large enough for Beata to fit through. He then reached in and took
her hand and pulled her through.
She floated in the space outside the tube for a moment, and then, smiling a
little, said thanks, and slowly extended her feet down to the rubbery floor,
and then her body followed her feet down to a place where she lay crumpled up.
Conn knew not to disturb her since she would need a while to come out of the
floatation ability mode. And sure enough, after only about ten kets, she
stretched, sat up, and said, "Thanks, Conn."
"You're welcome," he said. "The others..." he said. "Gone," she said, "I know.
Let us do silence." They sat for a long time and felt their own silence and
felt for the departed silences. Then they got up, turned around and praised all
directions, for leading to Completion.
Then he asked her, "How did you do The Float in such danger?" "It did not seem
that I had any choice," she said. "At first I was surprised and frightened,
then there was just the wind. So I used my only weapon, which is, of course, my
mind. I began The Float, and it didn't have full effect right away. You have to
have calmness for full effect. But The Float practice increases calmness, and
as my calm grew, my fall slowed, and full effect took place right on the level
where you found me. I put my foot down and my boot started glowing and
dissolving in the ooze. So I kept floating and started searching for you and
the others by name. You were the only one where the name went out and didn't
come echoed back empty. Sorry I couldn't call your name stronger. I needed to
stay calm to maintain The Float.
He explained his much more physical solution to the falling problem. She was as
awed by his strength and resourcefulness as he was by her mental abilities.
Then they began Alternate Planning Phase One.
© Paul Stokstad 1995