Unforgettable journey to other planets

The room cooled and faded. Audrey lay down on the sofa, feeling very tired. She wanted to sleep, even though she had woken up a couple of hours ago.

“Oh,” Audrey blew a stream of air through her pursed lips.

Thoughts wandered and couldn’t find themselves or Audrey in her and Jean-Pierre’s flat. They hung in the air like weightless dust and just like that, uselessly filling the void. Audrey remembered talking to her mother and Jean-Pierre’s mother.

His mother was crying. Not sobbing, but somehow quiet and sad. Audrey thought that Madame Julie was ready for those tears, they were kept in a safe place, somewhere very close. And then she realized that Jean-Pierre’s mother was not mourning her son, but pitying her. “I’ll call you back,” Audrey replied to this compassion.

Audrey’s mother didn’t cry, she was quiet for a while, said a few comforting words, and then shattered the fragile hope with a simple question, “What will you do next?” Audrey felt cold and hard at those words. There was a challenge in that question, but she wasn’t ready to face it. “What will I do next?” Audrey repeated to herself with tears in her eyes.

“Nothing next,” she blurted out aloud.

She cried, but after a minute the tears dissolved into a viscous and formless sadness.

The phone rang and Audrey wearily reached for it. “Bernard Bajolet” was written on the screen. Audrey imagined the conversation and pressed her lips together.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Audrey!” a joyful voice came through the speakerphone. “Audrey! He’s alive!”

Audrey froze. She felt the shivers run down her body again. She looked out the window, hopefully. The sky was covered in clouds, but somewhere out there the sun was shining.

Part 3 – Chapter 32

Van stopped shouting and landed beside the earthlings. He bowed again in front of the frozen wall of fire. The beam was blazing with energy, but stood still a few meters away from the terrified aliens. No heat could be felt, but a kind of radiation showered everyone from head to toe.

Doctor Capri was only now able to open his eyes, closed by fear. He looked up at the frozen column of fire and noticed something slowly descending towards them from the upper level. Dr Capri pointed an object:

“Look.”

Seconds later, the travelers saw the smooth bottom of the flying vehicle, which was slowly approaching the surface and reflecting the entire company in a mirror-golden belly.

The flying machine stopped beside the travelers, a few centimeters above the surface. In it stood a young man of the usual size, as the earthlings. He had curly blond hair and a light yellow tunic. He bowed to the earthlings and invited them up onto the flying machine with a gesture.

“Oh, Dandin,” Van sang happily, “how glad I am to see you.”

“Thank you, Van,” the young man replied, “I see,” he looked at the Valikhilya for a moment. “Are you feeling better?”

Van bowed in embarrassment.

A semblance of a small gangway extended from the ship. One of the sides thinned out, forming an entrance. The earthlings, still breathing heavily with fear, began to come to their senses and looked at the ship and the young man.

David walked over to Van:

“Were you not feeling well?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” the flying escort said and shook his head, “I was sad for the first time in a million years and I had to leave the castle.”

“You had to?” David clarified.

“I was told to,” replied Van.

“For being sad?” Yulia was horrified.

Van nodded.

“But why?”

“Because sadness is the beginning of madness,” Dandin answered for Van. “If you’re sad, you have forgotten your position. You can be angry, you can be happy, but you cannot be sad,” he smiled. “Come up to the chariot,” Dandin invited everyone.

“But this is the King’s chariot,” Van shuddered.

At that, everyone looked at each other.

“I’m not sure,” Jean-Pierre interjected. “What if we come with you and sneeze for example, and you throw us from the top, because it is not supposed to.”

“You are the Emperor’s guests,” Dandin laughed. “You are allowed anything. My lord has sent his chariot for you. Isn’t it an honor?”

“I guess so,” said Dr Capri. “But who are you?”

“My name is Dandin, and I’m a servant of Vivasvan the King of the Sun. He has found out that you have come to see him, so he is graciously willing to welcome you. Have you come to ask for something?”

“Ask for something?” Dr Capri repeated.

“Yes, travelers most often come to ask for something from the emperor,” Dandin said.

“Is there something he can give us?” David wondered.

“Do you often have visitors?” Jean-Pierre added softly.

“He gives what is asked for,” Dandin smiled and then looked at Jean-Pierre. “It happens, they drop by.”

“We’ve been looking for the source of the signal,” Dr Capri interjected, “it brought us here. It’s a signal from one of our spaceships. We picked it up by accident and went in search of the source.”

Dandin nodded to the doctor, letting him know that they couldn’t get any more answers here than they’d already been told. For the rest, they would have to go up to the soaring city that still stood in place directly above the travelers.

“We will find all the answers,” Dandin nodded. “The Emperor will find them.”

“Do you know about the signal?” the doctor hesitated. “We would like to know why you sent it to us.”

Dandin tilted his head, trying to understand the doctor’s words:

“You want to ask the Emperor why he turned on the recording you sent him?”

“What? No!” the doctor wondered.

Everyone looked at each other.

“Are you trying to tell us we sent you the message?” Jean-Pierre asked. “I’m completely confused.”

“You just can’t see everything,” Dandin smiled. “Come on up, and I will try to explain.”

Van was the first one to board the ship, but before he did so he bowed down to the ground again. The doctor and then everyone else climbed aboard. The chariot was not pulled by strange beasts, nor did it have an engine or any semblance of machinery. Just a smooth surface, like a platter with sides. Everyone fit freely, the ship was big enough.

As soon as the last passenger from Earth climbed into the chariot, the ladder pulled into the base of the ship, and it began to rise slowly.

The hum began to build again, and the soaring castle-island moved on. Everyone looked down at the huge beam of light penetrating the surface of the Sun all the way to the core, leaving not a scar on it. It pierced the surface of the star, and from it diverged circles of fiery power in different directions. Orange mixed with red and yellow. The surface absorbed this energy without a trace, it spread out in heat in all directions and shone with a calming light into the darkness of the impenetrable cosmos.

The ship rose above the edge of a floating island, the pillar of fire disappearing beneath the smooth surface of the city streets. The travelers had a view of the beautiful city. The higher they climbed, the more they realized that the island held thousands of houses and streets. Many yellow towers and domes densely clustered on the smooth surface of the floating block. The city shone with many amazing details and jewels. There were small and large multi-storey buildings, columns, arches and intricate aqueducts. The material that shone on all the buildings was, without exception, a bright yellow color. It resembled the surface of a planet, but it did not melt before one’s eyes, it was frozen and nobly soothed. Translucent stones of varying size and color were visible everywhere. Some were green, others red or blue, and all were shining with a pleasant light.

“Is your king expecting us?” Jean-Pierre inquired casually. “Did he say by any chance what for?”

“Yes, he wants to see you,” Dandin smiled, “but you should answer by yourself for what. It is you who have come to see us.”

“Bhrigu sent them here,” Van said timidly.

Dandin turned to Van with a raised eyebrow.

“Bhrigu the rishi?” Dandin hesitated.

“I have a feeling that everyone knows this Bhrigu,” Jean-Pierre added grudgingly.

“Everyone here knows him,” Dandin was still deep in thought, “he is a relative of our Emperor, and you come from the Earth,” Dandin seemed to have made a discovery.

“Of course, from where else?” Jean-Pierre held up his hands, he was completely confused.

“Maybe at least the relative of this Bhrigu can explain why he sent us here,” said David to himself, shaking his head.

“From the Earth,” Dandin repeated with a little excitement.

He looked around at the earthlings, stopped his gaze on Yulia and froze. His eyes suddenly darkened, and his face went limp. His breathing became labored, and he blinked rapidly. The flying ship rocked and hit one of the tall buildings. Everyone was thrown to the left side, the ship flew rapidly downward. Only Van remained suspended in midair. The earthlings and Dandin dived downwards. There was a general shout.

The ship fell just outside one of the walls of the main palace. A hole was left in the wall and several jewels fell out of the loopholes. Everyone lay at the bottom of the golden vessel and tried to recover from the unexpected incident.

Dr Capri groped himself and looked around at the others.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh,” David rolled onto his back. “I think I’m okay.”

Everyone started to rise to their feet. Yulia suddenly noticed a red translucent stone, almost the size of her fist, in front of her, and automatically reached out for it. It glowed from within, but was cool to the touch. She looked up and realized that it had fallen from the wall: every half meter along the top edge of the palace wall, similar crystals glittered.

“What was that?” Jean-Pierre shouted.

Dandin shamefully shrunk his eyes and said quietly:

“There are no women here. I am sorry.”

“How old are you?” Jean-Pierre wondered. “Didn’t a woman give birth to you?”

Dandin looked at him with tears in his eyes, and Jean-Pierre immediately fell silent. He was surprised and backed away, not expecting such a demonstration of emotion. “All right, all right,” Jean-Pierre repeated, waving back and checking on how the others were feeling.

“The important thing is that everyone is alive,” Debby said, defusing the situation.

A worried Van came down from above:

“Are you all right?”

“Help us to get to the Emperor’s quarters,” Dandin asked, still lowering his gaze. “We will have to walk from here.”

“Oh yes,” Van said, “let’s go. Come with me.”

Jean-Pierre hummed, clapped Dandin on the shoulder and followed Van. The doctor looked at Dandin with compassion. David signaled for everyone to go forward and walked over to Dandin himself. Yulia and Debby joined Van and Jean-Pierre. The Sun dweller’s face was still flaming with shame.

“Don’t worry,” said David, “in our world women do the same to us. You know how many times I’ve blushed in my life,” David laughed.

Dandin looked up with a smile.

“Thank you,” he accepted David’s words.

The doctor turned to him. He decided to distract the young man with questions about the world they were now in. They followed the others.

“What effect do women have on you?”

“They…” Dandin searched for the right words, “I don’t know, it’s like I’ve lost air. Like I was melting.”

“I thought you were all made out of fire,” David said.

“Not as you thought,” Dandin said, even more cheerfully. “Higher the world – finer the bodies.”

“Is the Sun higher than the Earth?” David asked in surprise.

“Yes and no,” Dandin smiled. “The Sun is thinner. We can see you, even if it is difficult, you cannot see us. Your eyesight is different.”

“What do you mean by different?” Dr Capri clarified.

“You see mainly reflected light, we see what is the source of light.”

Dr Capri thought for a moment as he looked at the palace beyond the wall. The travelers, led by the soaring Van, walked parallel to the high fence, behind which was the king’s dwelling. On the other side of the road, the buildings were piled on top of each other. Narrow streets spread out from the main street in small streams. The doctor noticed that the color of the material used to make the roads and buildings changed: waves of energy spread out from the palace, making the color of everything around it brighter. It was as if the city was breathing with energy emanating from the center. The city looked alive, but there was no one in the streets or in the windows of the houses.

“If everything is so beautiful here,” David asked in a more serious tone, “why did you kick Van out when he became sad?”

“It is not like that. Life here lasts for millions of your earthly years: no one has to work, no reason to be sad – but the soul also sounds in its own way here and strives for something,” Dandin raised his hands and started pointing at the city around him. “Imagine you have no reason to suffer. There is all the food you can eat, all the time you have to rest, what would you want?”

David and Dr Capri pondered. David looked at the doctor and shrugged:

“Maybe you’ll want what you don’t have?” David suggested.

“Everything is here,” Dandin said, making a sign for David to keep thinking.

“Maybe You will start to feel sad?”

“Yes,” Dandin laughed, “unless you decide to devote your life to something bigger than you are.”

Dandin stopped and looked up at the roof of the palace with a deep sense of respect. There he could see an enormous weather vane that was clearly not used to determine the direction of the wind, but to demonstrate the supremacy of this building over all others. The weather vane was in the shape of a huge wheel with many spokes. Dandin turned to the earthlings with a sad expression of pride on his face.

“What does it mean to dedicate yourself to something bigger?” David asked.

“Service,” answered Dandin.

“You seem to have decided that for them,” said Jean-Pierre, pointing a glance at Van, who had approached the group when Dandin stopped. “These can only serve the higher-ups?”

Dandin shifted his eyebrows and shook his head in genuine incomprehension.

“Service is nature, not punishment. Serving the greater justifies the lesser.”

The earthlings moved on.

“So, is Vivasvan a kind of God?” David asked, raising his eyebrows.

“What? No,” Dandin shook his head. “Although…” he smiled and proudly added, addressing the Frenchman in particular. “He only wants to make the world a better place. He serves by giving energy to this planet, and it shines to every corner of the Universe. He is simply giving out. Looks into everyone’s eyes and cleanses everything he touches. He wants those with material sight to be able to see.”

Dr Capri smirked, throwing his hands behind his head:

“So this whole ancient system about demigods and demons, about planetary systems, about the soul is true?” Dr Capri asked excitedly.

Dandin smiled softly and spread his hands in surprise, pointing at himself and everything around him: the golden city, the starry sky and the travelers themselves, letting him know that it was clear as it was.

“This is reality,” he nodded.

“Why did you say that your master wants those who have material sight to see? What does it mean?” the doctor asked, running his hand over the rough and warm surface of the wall.

“Our great Surya wants all to return to their natural and present form. For everyone to open their eyes, do you understand.”

“No,” Jean-Pierre shook his head as he walked ahead. “We don’t understand.”

“We are all wandering in the dark and he who has the light should…” Dandin didn’t finish.

“Everyone has their motives,” Jean-Pierre said earnestly, wanting to remind everyone that they are not here to philosophize. “Most of the time they are rather mercenary.”

Dandin looked around at the earthlings:

“The Master is not looking for profit.”

“Of course,” Jean-Pierre brushed him off sarcastically.

“All right,” Dandin shifted his gaze to him. “What do you want?”

Jean-Pierre stopped and turned to Dandin.

“We just want to understand what’s going on and get back to the Earth,” Jean-Pierre said, looking at Debby.

“Ha-ha,” Dandin laughed. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The fact that you want what you don’t have proves that you can’t see.”

“Are you suggesting we stay with the lilliputians and the volcano man?” shaking his head, Jean-Pierre said.

Dandin looked up, trying to understand what Jean-Pierre meant, but he could not.

“But you wanted something before you came here, didn’t you? A true desire cannot depend on circumstances. To hear yourself is to see the world. What do you hear?”

The question remained unanswered. The eyes of the earthlings went up to the castle gate, which was about 30 meters high. The gate was decorated with amazingly delicate and beautiful carvings: a semicircle at the bottom, from which a glow emanated, and circles of planets of different sizes above. Debby, Yulia and Van stood next to the gate and looked at the design.

“The foundation of everything is light,” Van said, explaining the drawing, “it serves everyone around them.”

“It’s really beautiful,” Debby said.

“Is that the solar system?” circling the drawing with his hand and looking closely, Dr Capri asked Dandin.

Dandin wondered:

“Are you naming our world after the Sun?”

Yulia chuckled. Dandin looked at her reaction and quickly lowered his eyes.

“This is a map of the world where our planet occupies its corresponding position. At the very bottom, serving those above.”

“And where is the Earth?” David asked.

“In the center,” Dandin pointed out, “where else would it be.”

Dandin touched the door, and it slowly opened with such ease, as if it weighed nothing. The inside of the palace was as bright as the outside, but no windows were visible anywhere. Everyone walked slowly along the yellow floor, looking around the interior. Here and there, small creatures peeked out from around corners and immediately hid. Van swam proudly ahead, showing his kindred that he was leading the procession.

Debby and Yulia stopped near a huge sculpture of a beautiful woman. The sculpture was about four meters high, made of the same metal as everything else on this planet. The statue represented a female sovereign seated on a throne. Her face was beautiful, and her body was covered by a light cloth flowing like silk. The rest of the travelers walked forward, Jean-Pierre turned around when he realized that the girls had fallen behind the group.

“What happened?” he asked. “Let’s go!”

“Look,” Debby said, “there are women here after all,” she pointed at the sculpture.

“What?” said Jean-Pierre in surprise.

“Yes, that’s right,” David said, turning to Dandin. “You said there are no women here.”

“That’s correct,” Dandin answered, lowering his eyes so as not to see the sculpture. “There are no women here for a long time now, but there used to be one, an amazing woman – our lord’s wife.

“And what happened?” Debby wondered.

“She left the Master.”

“Are there divorces in paradise?” Jean-Pierre grinned.

Dandin left his comment unanswered and turned to move on.

“Let’s move on,” Jean-Pierre shouted to Debby and Yulia, “no time to wait.”

Part 3 – Chapter 33

The screen in the conference room presented information on the Sun’s activity: figures and graphs showed the situation in real time. The room was buzzing with activity. It was now the command center for all nations at once. Presidents and generals, ministers and heads of intelligence agencies came here. In the next room, a space was set up for press conferences, where representatives of various departments reported to the major news agencies.

It was decided that the focus should be on information about the Sun and the anomaly on it. About Voyager, they were silent for the time being because no one could link the information about the signal to what was going on with the Sun. In half an hour, the head of the European Space Agency had a big press conference. The world needed information.

Numbers flickered on the screen. In the background, people were discussing that weather services had begun to report changes in the weather in all regions of the globe. Jean-Jacques Dordain covered his face with his hands and repeated the same question to himself, “What is going on? Just one sensible thought.”

When he opened his eyes, a dazed assistant stood in front of him.

“What is it?” rubbing his forehead, Jean-Jacques Dordain asked.

“Monsieur,” said the assistant, “we have discovered something interesting,” he pointed to the laptop screen.

Monsieur Dordain picked up his glasses from the table and put them to his eyes, he gazed into the image.

“A new spot?” he suggested.

“Compared to this,” the assistant zoomed out of the image, “everything else on the Sun is a spot. It looks like the beginning of a plasma ejection or something. The temperature at that spot has almost doubled in a matter of minutes.”

“What a nonsense,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, closing his eyes. “How many degrees is it now?”

The assistant swallowed.

“Twenty million Kelvin,” his eyes darted around. “But we’re checking the data, there might be an error somewhere.”

“No,” Monsieur Dordain said with a shake of his head, “it’s not an error.”

He had already turned his gaze to the big screen and made sure that the information was up to date. The indicators on the screen were growing before his eyes. The last time Monsieur Dordain had looked at the monitor it had a figure of ‘-20%’ next to the phrase “solar activity, changes”, now it had another even more frightening figure, ‘+24%’. There was chaos in the room, everyone was talking and ringing loudly. Jean-Jacques Dordain turned on his microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. As you can see, the Sun’s activity has changed dramatically.”

Someone shouted from his seat:

“South America and the USA are now seeing a northern lights: does anyone in this room have an explanation for this?”

Mr Dordain was approached by the ESA’s chief analyst. He shook hands with Jean-Jacques, sat down next to him and switched on the microphone.

“Good afternoon, my name is Claudio Sianti. I have an answer for you.”

The room froze.

“Right now, we are observing an area on the surface of the Sun with a surface temperature of about 20 million Kelvin,” he saw that there was no reaction. “That’s a lot. We are now witnessing the largest coronal mass ejection in history. So what are the consequences of that?” he thought for a moment. “Northern lights? Yes. And also disruption of electrical appliances, navigation equipment, radio signals.”

“That’s clear. What’s next? What should we prepare for?” shouted out one of the military men grudgingly. “Can the planet withstand this pressure?”

Dr Sianti nodded, understanding the question.

“Yes, I see your point. What does this mean in the long run, that is the question? Well,” he pondered his answer, “it threatens termination.”

The whole room let out a questioning exclamation, “Huh?” Some recoiled back, and some started pointing at the screen with their hands. Monsieur Dordain and Dr Sianti turned to the screen. The graph showing the signal activity from Voyager froze.

Jean-Jacques Dordain was whispering to a running assistant.

“Are you sure this is accurate?” he switched on the microphone and clarified. “Gentlemen, the signal has stopped broadcasting. No one can register it even close to the quadrant.”

“So, is it over?” someone from the audience asked.

“No,” answered Dr Scianti and pointed at the number of the absolute luminosity which had jumped up two points.

Part 3 – Chapter 34

Dandin walked ahead. He was pensive and sad, occasionally glancing at the travelers.

“What is with him?” Debby asked David in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” David shrugged, “maybe he’s still upset about the fall?”

Debby wanted to go up to the light-haired boy and ask him what was wrong, but she held herself back. She looked around at all the travelers for support. Dr Capri caught her gaze. Debby shifted her eyes to Dandin and turned back to the doctor. Dr Capri nodded.

They walked down a long corridor that seemed to have no end. Sometimes they turned and there were golden walls again. There were no pictures or objects on the walls, only a fine geometric pattern that mottled them from floor to ceiling, making them look like a honeycomb. Dr Capri approached Dandin. He signalled to the travelers to slow down and leave them alone.