As evening on Satamia Star Station approached once again, the main hall appeared far from ready for a party. Instead, four golden boxes sat alone in the middle of the hall, all about the size and shape of a wide coffin, and all glowing with an inner light.
Many creatures were at work, but not hanging decorations. The entire briefing team was present, under the firm leadership of the large white feline, Silmula Sorafax. They poured over checklists on knowledge pads, organized the visiting students into teams, and conferred with fuzzy, glowing orbs who came and went.
Eventually Kerloran whirled into the room and spun himself into a majestic green bird, larger even than a fanator. A moment later, Melorania appeared and became a wise old woman with sparkling youthful eyes. Silmula Sorafax approached them and the three spoke silently.
Mati, Sata, Boro, and Rini had not been back to the Manessa Kwi since the process began. They had occasionally, during the four days of lessons and briefings, been able to use a bathing room, but the crowded schedule had never allowed any leisure.
Kibi and Ilika had visited once or twice a day and shared their own process of learning to run the ship with a crew of only two. It was not easy, they emphasized, was never going to be easy, and they really looked forward to their friends returning to duty.
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Now the captain and his steward stood off to the side of the main hall, trying to stay out of the way. A few minutes after Melorania and Kerloran materialized, Mati and Rini entered hand in hand. Behind them, Sata and Boro appeared.
Kibi looked into their faces and hearts. Mati might have been going to her own funeral, although Rini seemed content. A moment later, Rini looked deeply worried, and Mati suddenly became calm and ready for anything. Sata had tears on her face, but was smiling. Boro looked around warily, as if expecting wild, hungry wolves to be lurking, then stumbled over the corner of a bench and laughed at himself.
Kerloran, Melorania, and Silmula Sorafax turned and looked at the four monkey mammals. Everyone else in the huge room fell silent.
Kibi noticed all four of their moods shift once again.
“Mati of Sonmatia Three,” Melorania began in a voice that everyone in the station, in every hall and room, could hear. “When you accepted Ilika Imni’s offer to become the pilot of a deep-space response ship of the Nebador Transport Service, you jumped ahead of the people of your world, in some ways, by thousands of years. In other ways, they can never experience the marvels you have seen, and will continue to see, in the many long years ahead of you.”
“But,” Mati squeaked, tears suddenly springing from her eyes, “I have to
. . .”
“. . . experience transformation, Mati, and gain the wisdom that can only come with transformation, while most of the people of your little planet cower in fear of such changes.”
Mati swallowed several times, wiped her tears on her sleeve, and nodded.
Sata stood crying silently. Boro looked steeled for some dire fate, and Rini was not quite smiling.
“Have you decided, truly decided?” Kerloran asked.
Mati sniffled. “You’ll take care of my . . . my body? I worked really hard to get two good knees.”
Chuckles of sympathy rippled through the room. Kerloran nodded and Melorania smiled.
“Okay . . . then I guess . . . I’d better . . . do it.”
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“Sata?” Silmula Sorafax inquired.
“Um . . . yes,” she said through tears. “I did a stupid thing, right along with my friend. It took me a long time to learn to stand on my own two feet, even though my knees were good, and I’m not going to stop now.”
Mati cracked a tiny smile.
“Boro?” the large cat continued.
He nodded. “I wouldn’t be worth my salt, as a man, if I didn’t go with Sata.”
“Rini?”
“I go where Mati goes, and some reptile is only going to mate with her over my dead body!”
More chuckles rippled through the crowd.
“As we have discussed, Rini,” Silmula Sorafax began, “more than one reptile may try to arrange that.”
“I know. They won’t find it easy.”
“Same here,” Boro assured everyone.
When nothing more remained to be said, the large white cat walked to the first golden box. “Mati, as you led the misguided effort to free the homeless reptiles, so you are now the leader, if anyone is, of this little team. Think of it as flight command.”
Mati shuddered for a moment, then approached the glowing box. Silmula Sorafax touched a symbol and the box opened. The blue female reptile curled up within, deeply-asleep if even alive, appeared to be perfect, as if newly-made.
“She’s . . . beautiful,” Mati muttered.
“She is completely yours, and has no life of her own,” the cat explained.
Mati knew what she had to do. It was one of the last lessons given by the briefing team, and they had made sure everyone was awake. She climbed into the box with the sleeping lizard, curled around it until she could feel its scales touching her body in many places, and tried to relax.
Silmula Sorafax touched another symbol and the box closed.
Sata climbed in with her green female, slightly larger than Mati’s blue.
Rini curled around his gray male lizard and closed his eyes.
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Boro’s orange male had large muscles and sharp claws, and Boro was glad.
Unseen by those in the boxes, four glowing purple entities descended from somewhere near the ceiling of the main hall. One came to rest over each golden box, and spread wings of light completely around each container and its precious cargo.
The room remained silent as the minutes passed, and Kibi at first thought she was going to explode with anxiety. Then she glanced around, and saw that everyone else in the room, from Ilika to the floating creatures from a distant star system, were all meditating. After laughing at herself silently for a moment, she closed her eyes and began to slow her breathing.
To Kibi, it seemed like hours later, but may have been mere minutes. The purple entities retracted their wings of light and drifted away into the upper balconies. Kerloran leapt into the air on giant wings, swept over the assembled Nebador citizens, and vanished into a corridor. Melorania began to swirl, became a blur, and disappeared. Only beings of flesh and blood remained in the huge room.
Silmula Sorafax stretched her long feline body, and stepped to Boro’s box.
When it opened to her touch, an orange reptile slowly lifted his head, then looked down at the sleeping monkey mammal beside him in the box. After blinking and considering the situation for a long minute, he looked up, climbed out, and said something in throaty sounds and hisses that only one bird could understand, and then only a little.
A lanky gray lizard emerged from Rini’s box, and scanned the room with a contented look.
Sata, in her new form, looked back and forth from the sleeping human in the box, to the large cat.
The blue female came out last, testing her legs to make sure all four knees worked.
“As you know,” Silmula Sorafax began, addressing the four reptiles, “we can understand very little of your speech. If you succeed in your mission and return to us, you can tell us all you learned. If you do not return to us, that knowledge will be lost, and we may never find those noble creatures a suitable home.”
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The four golden boxes, with their sleeping monkey mammals, were closed and floated into the medical center.
Ilika and Kibi spent a quarter hour with the four new reptiles, assuring them they would be missed, and promising that the Manessa Kwi would await their return. Drrrim-na, Glorm, Dakalio, and other friends came by. They could do little but wish their friends well. All those who visited looked at the four with great respect, and also a tinge of worry.
Finally, with preparations for the evening party going on all around them, Silmula Sorafax declared that it was time. The four reptiles took one last look around them at the decorations and musical instruments, shared clumsy embraces with Ilika and Kibi, and followed the white feline toward the simulated desert environment.
Deep Learning Notes
Mati, Sata, Rini, and Boro experienced many emotions, some quite conflicting, as they prepared for the Great Transformation. What emotions would you feel if you were in their place?
What is the greatest “transformation” that causes most people to cower in fear?
The “technology” to achieve a Great Transformation, or anything similar, does not exist in our human world. We often like to fantasize that such technology will someday exist, and many science fiction stories have been written with that theme. However, the belief that we can do anything appears to be a fixture of human nature, while the actual ability to do anything, is not. One example is getting useful power from nuclear fusion. We once set our sights on this goal, half a century ago, and it is still completely out of reach.
Advanced students may want to think about the “odor” given off by human dreams of god-like powers. Most notably today, this “odor” can be smelled when people predict unlimited economic growth in the future, even as our
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environment and resource base crumbles around us.
One-way communication is always difficult. Mati, Sata, Rini, and Boro, in their new reptilian forms, could still communicate will gestures and touches, and perhaps express some emotions with tone of voice. An even more difficult situation is when a person is in a coma, can hear but not respond in any way, and those who care must think of what to say, sometimes for weeks or months on end.