When the twilight began to fade, Ilika finally stood up and waved to Mati, still practicing on the other hill. She walked her new mount down toward the stream. The four watchers carefully picked their way down the grassy hillside in the half-light, and found Tera, with Mati still mounted, drinking at the stream. Mati looked worn out, but had a gleam in her eyes as she nudged her donkey toward the corral.
“Every person, every creature,” Ilika began, “has an environment in which they can live and be happy, and many, many other environments that would kill them . . . or at least make them unhappy.”
Miko finished a bite of his stew. “You mean, if someone grew up in the desert, and then you stuck him in the snowy mountains?”
“Good example. Even if a creature can adapt to a new environment, it takes time to grow more fur, make new clothes, whatever. The smarter the creature, the more environments it can adapt to.”
“Are people the smartest?” Kibi asked, nibbling on a slice of starchy root from her stew.
“In this kingdom, yes. But all of us, people and animals, learn most of our living skills when we’re young. That’s why it’s very difficult, often impossible, to change environments when we get older. That’s Tera’s situation. She grew up in corrals and barns, and has probably never run from a wolf or a mountain lion in her entire life. So if she meets one, she may just freeze with
fear.”
“The wolf or mountain lion won’t freeze,” Buna pointed out with wide eyes.
“Very true. Tera might also panic and run in the wrong direction, like into a ravine and get trapped. So if that happens, Mati, both your lives may depend on YOU keeping your wits, keeping Tera under control, and selecting the best course of action . . . which might be running . . . and might be calling for help . . . and might even be attacking the predator.”
Mati, with a bowl of stew in hand, looked very thoughtful.
“How do you think we are adapting to our new environment?” Neti asked.
“Very well. That was Kodi’s problem. He wasn’t ready for freedom. The rest of you figured out that your new environment of freedom and learning required complete trust and confidence among all of us, including when handling money. Kodi wasn’t able to see that. Luckily, he was able to go back to his old environment.”
“Slavery,” Miko said grimly.
Ilika nodded, received a bowl of stew, and started eating.
Mati checked on Tera several times during the evening, always talking sweetly and scratching her neck. Eventually all the students got comfortable in their beds and gazed up at the star-studded sky as the last flames of the fire died down.
“Are you ready to learn about the stars?” Ilika asked.
“You promised to teach us!” Buna reminded him.
“Even if some things you’ve heard are wrong?”
A moment of silence lingered before several voices found the courage to say, “Yes.”
“The universe is far bigger and far stranger than anyone in this kingdom knows. The little stories you’ve heard are attempts to make the universe seem small and simple. We will go into much more detail in daytime lessons, but right now I’ll just paint a picture with words so you can begin to glimpse the structure of the universe.
“We will start right here, where we are, and go outward. We are lying on the surface of a large ball of rock. You know about how far a mile is. This ball of rock, this world, is more than seven thousand miles across.”
“What about the sea?” Sata said. “Isn’t the sea made of water, not rock?”
“The oceans are just a few miles deep, like shallow puddles compared to the thickness of the rock.”
“Oh . . .”
“The highest mountains in this kingdom stick up about two miles, and the tallest in the world are more than five miles high. The air we can breathe without much trouble goes up about two miles, then gets thinner and thinner and is very hard to breathe on the highest mountains.”
“Do people live in the highest mountains?” Rini asked.
“No. There is nothing up there to eat, everything is constantly frozen, and the weather is terrible. No one, not even little animals, live higher than about three miles up.
“All the clouds and weather are in the bottom five miles of air. The blue color we call the sky is just what the air looks like when it is lit by the sun. The sky is not a solid shell, it’s just air.”
Toli squirmed in his bedroll, but said nothing.
“Above five miles, the air gets very, very thin, and slowly becomes nearly empty space. About ten miles up there is nothing to breathe, not even enough air to hold your body together.”
“Spooky,”
Miko
said
with a wavering tone.
“I take it . . . that isn’t an environment we could adapt to . . .” Boro said.
“Not with any amount of cloaks and gloves. Empty, airless space is most of what’s out there, and all kinds of energy can zoom right through it without stopping.
“This ball of rock we’re on, along with it’s oceans and air, is called a planet.
If we go out into space, the first thing we come to is another ball of rock called the moon. It’s smaller, and has no oceans or air. You’ve probably all heard that our world is the center of the universe.”
“No doubt that’s bullshit too?” Boro proposed.
“Almost. We are the center of the universe to the moon, because it goes around us, but that’s it. Everything else, including our planet itself, has a center somewhere else.
“There are between eight and twelve planets that go around the sun, depending on what you count as a planet. The ones closest to the sun are all
balls of rock, about like this planet. Then there are some farther away from the sun that have grown huge with thick atmospheres. We call them gas giants.”
Toli snickered. “Is that like a troll who ate too many beans?”
Everyone chuckled, and Mati startled awake. When the laughter died down and Mati was again still and silent, Ilika went on. “Tomorrow you can all tell Mati what she missed. Now we come to the stars. They are actually something much simpler than holes in the sky. You have all seen the sun during the day many times. The sun is just a nearby star. The stars are just far-away suns.”
He paused to let them think about the concept.
“That
is simple!” Rini said. “When I see a house a mile away, it looks just like a speck. When I see a huge eagle high in the air, it looks like a tiny fly.”
“So . . . there’s more than one sun?” Neti asked with disbelief.
“There are millions and millions and millions of them,” Ilika said. “Almost every speck of light you see in the night sky is a sun.”
After a moment of silence, Kibi frowned. “Almost?”
“A few of them are the other planets, much closer than the stars. But some are huge clusters of stars that are even farther away than the stars.”
“Wow . . .” Rini breathed.
“Here’s a final thought for tonight. Most of those suns up there also have planets around them, just like our sun. And some of those planets have life on them, just like our planet.”
“And . . .” Kibi boldly continued the thought, “people could be up there, cozy under their blankets, looking at the sky, seeing our sun, and wondering what we are like . . .”
Ilika smiled. “Now you’re beginning to glimpse what the universe is really like.”
Ilika’s students pelted him with questions about the mysterious universe he had just described, until one by one they drifted off to sleep.
Rini stayed awake the longest. “If the asteroids were once a planet that broke up, are there still buildings and trees on them?”
He never got an answer. Ilika was fast asleep.
They stayed at the ruined cottage and corral for two more days. Mati worked with her donkey each day, and Ilika used those days to improve their understanding of basic arithmetic. He also taught them more logic and continued their first chemistry lesson.
Of course, they wouldn’t let him forget about their precious book. Godi and Tima were now grown and beginning their own adventures, but had not yet met each other. Several of the students noticed the parallel with their own lives.
Each night after crawling into their beds, they gazed up at the stars and asked Ilika questions about what they saw. He answered when he could, but when they tried to see animal shapes in the stars, he would just smile and join in the fun.
Finally, on the evening of their fourth day at the shack, Ilika announced he wanted to head out the following morning to replenish their supplies.
Everyone was happy with the idea, and Mati had a sparkle of excitement in her eyes that had never been there before.
Deep Learning Notes
If we read between the lines of Ilika’s discussion about adapting to new environments, we can spot something very interesting. Adapting to captivity may be unpleasant, but it is fairly simple; a person or animal in captivity has a small number of things they can do, and the list is easy to remember.
Adapting to freedom is much more complicated, requiring self-discipline and problem-solving skills.
Of the three options Ilika asked Mati to remember if she and Tera ever faced a dangerous animal, which one do you think Mati would most easily forget?
The information Ilika shared about the structure of the planet, solar system, and universe, is all available in most educational settings today. Kibi stumbled upon what Ilika most wanted to teach. How would you describe Kibi’s realization?
NEBADOR BookTwo: Journey 30
