Aldaris was lucky. It had been over a month since Kensley had been gone, and he still never returned to his lonely home in the countryside of California. That meant Aldaris had the place more or less to himself and Raasha, the human's dog. If he told the time to read the dog's collar, he might have discovered its real name, but Aldaris preferred the one he'd given it. Raasha was a mighty animal hero in Protoss legend, and though the creature wasn't an Earth dog, this particular canine almost resembled a picture Aldaris had seen in a book from his childhood. So Raasha it was.
From time to time, as Aldaris sat in the sunlight of Kensley's large backyard and basked in the rays of Earth's star, he thought about the human who lived there. Kensley had left the home because something bad had happened to his daughter, and if ishe was taking this long to recover, it must have been a devastating accident. That was unfortunate.
Still, Aldaris needed the sunlight. Staying on his ship exhausted him, even when he turned the sun panels inward and allowed the light to enter the lounge. Somehow this was just not the same as sitting under the sun on the human homeworld, not to the Judicator's weary nerves. Though he had been there only the day previous, Aldaris sat once again amongst the sparse trees, absorbing sunlight as he varied between meditation, drawing various trees on his easel, or simply playing with Raasha.
Aldaris looked upward. The noontime sun, wonderful as it felt, was starting to sink down. He knew he had to get out of there; the neighbor that fed Raasha generally showed up about one o'clock. Aldaris reluctantly touched the quorrian embelm on his shoulder. His ship summoned him, and when Aldaris re-opened his eyes (the recall process always made him a bit queasy), it was the controls of his ship he saw.
He shut down the teleporter with the touch of a key. For a few moments, he stood there in silence. Coming back to the sheltered corridors of the Juniadros was always a let down after basking in bright sunlight. Aldaris reviewed his impossible task list: on the Juniadros, the only things he really needed to do were beyond his capabilities.
Repairing the ship? The Juniadros worked as well as it ever had, as far as normal travel went. Aldaris had used the extent of his Judicator's training in machinery to keep it running, and if something out of that knowledge went wrong, he was out of luck. Securing fuel to maintain his orbit? Well, he could keep going for many years; the solar inclinators functioned perfectly, and this was more than enough power to correct a slowly declining orbit. That didn't count against whatever fuel he would use to get back home.
His last task was to run through his ship's trajectory records, and using that massively complex set of numbers, calculate a way to go home. And that was assuming he'd traveled to Earth on his ship's power alone. If something else had catapulted him to the past...
If Aldaris' mind dwelt too much on the possibility of being stuck on Earth, he would lose it. For now, he touched various control panels, and many of the lights on the eight viewscreens shut down. Low power mode would help conserve the Juniadros' fuel for the way back, whenever he got around to finishing the calculations. Theoretically, Aldaris had completed them. Over and over. But, as only an average talent at higher maths, Aldaris didn't trust his own numbers to keep him safe. Neither could he compensate for the strange power surge that sent him back almost five hundred years, as well as several millions of lightyears in a direction he didn't know.
"Hn'dara macjolineer," the alien muttered as he continued shutting down the recall unit's controls. "P'kashi na yulunterna. ...Eeyntu?"
There it was again. The recall unit power light was still on. Odd. The teleporter didn't usually take that long to power down. Aldaris extended his hand over a translucent control unit. With a slight movement over his fingers over the movement inputor, he accessed the system assessment. And was at once horrified. It was happening again.
His eyes narrowed. "Mac'ah."
Aldaris manipulated the controls as though his life depended on it. The last thing he needed was his computer to malfuction again and bring those annoying humans back to his ship. Hadn't he fixed it last time? Or had John done something to break the system when Aldaris had allowed him to help stabilize the ship? Then again, that would have left John with no way home.
Finally, his struggle ended in success: the console obeyed him. Aldaris shut down the computer into low power mode. It would be at least two hours until it would be ready to teleport anything again. That meant a lot of guarding of irritable, messy humans.
"Mac'ah menadera."
Summoning his psionic powers into full force, Aldaris let his mental waves flow about the ship. It was not a large craft, and Aldaris was a psychic of many years. He could fully well detect any life aboard, and it had aggravated him for weeks to have that Earth rodent present and not be able to get at it. This time, however, it wasn't a rodent mind he came into contact with. It was a timid mind, shy of the unfamiliar and awkward. Aldaris concentrated a little harder. No, only Cheonha was on his ship this time. Due to the language difference, she was the easiest of the four to put up with. No backtalk, mistrust, or off the wall philosophies.
All the same, Aldaris kept up a hurried pace. He followed the pattern of her thoughts, hoping all the way that she wouldn't mess with anything. Surprisingly enough, he found her in the exact last place he'd kept the other humans their last time here: the lounge. Cheonha was in one of his chairs, on her knees so she could see what lay on his table. She'd remembered some of her manners, at least. Her little flowered shoes sat together under the chair, and did not dirty up the Protoss' furniture.
Aldaris stood there in the doorway. His shadow fell back into the hall, so Cheonha hadn't seen him yet. She still peered silently at the contents of his table: drawings. Cheonha paid attention to each of the massive sketches, but kept her hands together on the edge of the table. She didn't touch them. After a moment, she turned her head and startled. She immediately backed down from the table.
"Shillyehamneedah." Cheonha shrank into the chair, bobbing her head in a respectful half-bow. "Anyonghaseyho, Sansengneem."
The words meant nothing to Aldaris. Still, he tapped slightly into her emotions. Shyness, expectation of manners, and a little guilt for having pried into his things. Her meaning was clear enough, and he was only slightly offended. After all, humans were such short-lived beings that few of them outlived childhood. Aldaris expected such behavior from them. He didn't quite expect Cheonha, though. She seemed to shrink in the chair, especially juvenile for being too small for it. For the first time, Aldaris was curious about her background.
The Judicator said nothing. He stepped forward into the room and took the chair beside Cheonha. He gestured up at the table. Cheonha shyly reached back again for the edge and placed her elbows back on it for balance. Aldaris lifted one of the papers and drew it gently where Cheonha could see it. He pointed to the twisted spires of a blue and green building, and only had a few of the golden pillars and supports so typical of Protoss architecture.
"This is Eunjin Orailis Temple." Aldaris said. "It is close to my home."
"Eun-jin Oralisuh?"
"Eunjin Orailis," he corrected. "That is where the monks of the Shelak tribe honored our gods for generations of my people by speaking the works of our culture to the people. I think of it often. The temple no longer stands."
He wasn't sure if Cheonha liked it. At the very least, she liked the drawing. The color of it pleased her, and he could sense slight envy at his shading abilities. She pointed to another drawing, one that was half covered by the picture of the temple. Aldaris gently set the temple aside. Underneath lay a drawing of an Aiuran field. It was a little more of a typical landscape, where rolling fields of grass set with flowers led to high mountains. The focus of the drawing was a large, low cottage. The left and right sides of the cottage came forward and sloped downwards to the ground, creating a circular courtyard in the front. Flowers dotted the sides of this courtyard, and also where the sloped roof touched the ground. It seemed as though the flowers would, over time, grow right up over the roof.
"Ah..." Cheonha, in awe, reached out towards the picture. Her hand hovered over it without touching. "Chogi salgo ship'oyo."
"That is the home of a neighbor of mine in the Kydonian province," Aldaris said, more for his own sake than his guest's. "That is near the place where I stayed in the summer months."
Aldaris didn't pry into her mind. He sensed that she was imagining what she would do if she lived in such a place. The Judicator let his own thoughts wander to the times when he stayed near there himself. Telemnos had been a good neighbor, a polite though somewhat crusty Khalai of nearly nine hundred. It did no good to think of him, though. Telemnos had suffered in a accident in his youth that left him with a serious limp, and Aldaris did not wish to think of what could have happened to him during the Zerg's onslaught. He put this picture aside as well.
Underneath was still another picture, not finished. Other than it definitely being a Protoss building, its nature wasn't obvious.
"I am attempting to recreate the Conclave tou Diafotis." Aldaris reached forward to a small (for Protoss) and well-worn wooden box. He opened it and pulled out a black sketchpen. "It is here my father served our people for two hundred of our years."
Cheonha nodded as though she understood. From beside her she picked up her own sketchbook, which apparently had been with her when she teleported. She patted her pockets a moment, and smiled when she found her mechanical pencil. She pulled open her far smaller pages and began sketching for herself. Aldaris peered over her shoulder, but she immediately covered it with her arms.
"Oh, so you may see my work, and will not share your own?" Aldaris expressed through emotions rather than words his amusement. "Be at peace. I do not expect someone so young to have comparable talent."
Cheonha shook her head.
"Very well." Aldaris returned to his own work. "I shall not ask."
They sat together, the sound of their drawing the only noise above the gentle humming of the engines. After a moment, Aldaris let one eye stray to her sketchpad. She was drawing a the face of a human female, older in appearance. Aldaris didn't recognise the face, but whoever it it was, this person looked more like Cheonha than the other humans the Protoss had seen so far. Clearly this person meant something to her. He put his eyes on his own paper again before Cheonha noticed. For now, putting his memories to paper was more important to him than prying.
It was nice to have a companion around, even if she was a human and had no idea what he was talking about. She was quiet and untroublesome, and he could still work on his projects with her there. As long as she didn't have to go to the bathroom, everything would be fine.
For just a moment, Aldaris' hand stopped. Was he forgetting something? Yes, the power the recall unit had used was more than enough to take Cheonha to the Juniadros. There was wasted power somewhere. Aldaris darkened a little. He wasn't sure how to correct a power leak. For now, the power to the recall unit was shut off and could leak no more. There was nothing to worry about. He went back to his drawing.
I hadn't been napping this time. This time I had been sitting on the hotel bed, waiting for the hot water pot to finish its job so I could cook some ramen. Mmm...ramen. It was beef flavor, of course. I don't like the other ones. Wait, nevermind, I do kind of like the shrimp flavor. Which is weird, because I don't like shrimp for real.
Oh wait, we're talking about adventure, not food. Well, that's how this adventure started out: I was sitting in a hotel room, wondering what I wanted to stuff in the microwave. The creepy, creepy hotel microwave. Actually, this place isn't so bad. It's way better than that really sketchy hotel I had to stay at in China, with the windows and lace curtains so that anyone in the room could see what was happening in the bathroom. Don't ask.
In any case, this hotel didn't have that. What it also didn't have were all the possessions I didn't have with me when I was at school. That's right, my house caught fire. I don't know what it was, but since it was up in the roof, the firemen think it could be something electrical. It's not like I ever go up there.
The thing that pisses me off the most is that it was my fantasy house. I don't care that the back deck was warped from the rain or that the outer walls were the putrid color of spoiled mustard yellow. I like spoiled mustard yellow. It was my little writer's home, a place where I was hidden away from the world without being far from it.
The damage wasn't bad...from the fire. Water damage is the main problem from all the fire hoses that took care of the fire. Well, it could have been worse. Now all there is to do is sit here and wait for them to let me in my house to see what stuff was wet and what was not. And I'd just bought a nice dress, too.
I was attempting to amuse myself with an Anne McCaffery novel when all of a sudden a blue cloud formed around me. Great, another random transport. Seriously, if Aldaris wants to stay hidden he's going to have to do something about that recall thing. I was so mad when it happened. I was starving, and it's not all that probable that Cheonha would bring food both times she got accidentally zapped up to the alien starship. So for the few seconds it took to reappear, I cherished the hope that one of the guys would accidentally have a bag of chips or something in his hands when he gets recalled.
Only it didn't work out that way. When the blue fog cleared, I wasn't on Aldaris' ship. I was standing next to a two lane dirt road on the middle of a steep hill. The upwards slope was dotted with trees, and went far up above my head. The downward side allowed for a view of another forest below, as well as a farm down and to the left. I backed away from the edge.
"So you're here too?"
I found myself joined by John and Toby, both as confused as I am - and thankfully both in proper clothes and not their underwear. Statkus was only missing his shoes. Unfortunately, all four of their hands were empty. No snacks. Great.
"So where are we this time?" Statkus sighed. "Why aren't we on Aldaris' ship?"
"I don't know about you," Toby gazed on our surroundings in delight. "But this is an improvement to me. Now I really feel like the Doctor! We're here exploring a new place, totally foreign and strange, and we have no clue what will happen next!"
I sniffed the air. "It smells like China."
"What?" John frowned. "You can tell where we are just by smelling the air?"
"No. It just means that wherever we are, it smells like China."
"China has a smell?" Toby drew in a breath. "It just smells...okay, well not quite just like a normal countryside. There's definitely something in the air."
"Can we stop talking about the smell and actually figure out what we're doing?" Statkus looked at our surroundings like he's gathering intell. His head bobbed like he was calculating coordinates in his cyborg brain. "Wherever we are, we're going to need to find food and try to get in touch with Aldaris."
"And how do you suppose we do that?" Toby said. "He didn't exactly give us a cell phone number - if our cell phones actually work here."
"I don't have a cell phone..." I scooted a toe on the ground.
"Why are you such a troglodyte?" Statkus snapped. "Look, if this is like last time, Aldaris is going to need to charge his teleporter again before he picks us up. That means we have to wait here until he picks us up again."
"Right here on the road?" Toby asked.
"No, not here. He'll probably see us better up there...probably." Statkus pointed up the hill. "It's not steep, and hopefully I can get there without shoes."
"As far as where we are goes," I said. "It was night when I was teleported out, prolly for you too, John, right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, so we must be on the side of the planet where it's daytime. Around ten or so hours forward or back as a time zone."
John nodded. "We're definitely somewhere far off. I sure hope Aldaris finds us soon, because if he doesn't, things are going to be interesting. Let's finish this conversation up the hill, alright?"
We trudged up that hill. It wouldn't have been so bad, if only John wasn't barefoot. The hill sloped steep, but not that steep, and the long grass provided great traction, as well as a cushion for poor John's blisters. It also served as a hiding spot for little rocks, the ones just right to dig into the arch of the foot and send a barefoot guy into a fit of pain.
Toby offered to go to the top and then throw his shoes down to Statkus, but John just scowled at him. In the end me and Toby just went up ahead of him and kicked rocks aside so John would have a clear path to walk. He didn't want our help, but we ignored his whiny little pleas to be allowed to hurt himself like a man.
We finally made it up, and John sat ever so carefully on the grass, trying as hard as he could to make it look as though his feet didn't hurt. Let him have his pride, I guess. I don't care all that much.
"So he'll see us here?" Toby sat under a small tree, one of four or five on the top of the hill. "If he has an advanced computer, I don't see how being higher up is going to make a difference at all."
"Maybe he'll see us sooner," John peered into the sky. "But the point was more to just get off that road without going too far."
I didn't sit. There was too much to see. The hill, a lengthwise stretch of elevation not particularly wide, sloped downwards after only ten or so yards in either direction. On the side I was looking there was a little more in terms of civilization. And by civilization, I mean three fields with scattered workers plowing and doing other things I was too far away to see. These fields went up across the next hill over, a smaller one compared to the one us foreigners perched on. Directly below us, and still on the slope of our hill, was another road. An Asian man on a tractor drove by. He didn't see me beyond the brim of his straw hat, but I returned to the others anyway. There's no need to attract too much attention. Thought the highly visible person standing on a high hill.
I sat next to the guys - by now John had relocated near Toby under the tree and it's leaves, despite the fact we were up there for quote unquote visibility. I scooted in near the tree's roots.
"There's the people over there to think about." I pointed back to the other side of the hill. "There's some farmers over there. If we stay near this side of the hill, I don't think they can see us from this angle, but we better not wander much. Also, I think they're Asians."
"Wow, so you really can smell China," Toby chuckled. "That's not a very useful superpower."
"We don't know it's China for sure," John said. "In any case, we have to be prepared for what we have to do in case we get caught."
"If we are in China," I said. "We could be in serious trouble. Legally they can hold a foreigner without charging them for eleven months. Granted, I'm not sure that they will, but given that we just randomly appeared in their country without explanation, we could be in for a tough time."
Toby glanced at me. "How do you know so much about Chinese law?"
"I'm a criminal." I winked back. "Clearly."
"We're not here without explanation." John broke in like a sledgehammer. "We have to tell them what happened to us. We have to tell them about Aldaris."
"Uh..." I winced. "The Chinese are far less likely to believe us than most. Especially not since we're two Americans and a Brit."
"It doesn't matter. If we get trapped here, we don't have a choice." John stopped rubbing his feet. "I know for some reason you feel like you have to protect him, but Aldaris got us here, and if he can't get us out, we don't have a choice. It doesn't matter if no one believes us, because even if they don't, someone possibly will in America. NASA has to have seem some sign of him at this point."
"The Chinese government can't be trusted," I tried again. "It may be better to say nothing-"
"Bethany!" John hissed. "Stop it already. If we have to tell someone, then we have to tell. I'm not going to sit in an interrogation room while people think we're spies or refugees. Besides, think about it. How much time does it take to even get from where we live to the other side of the world?"
I winced. John really had a point. And his hazel eyes demanded an answer.
"Well, it takes about 15ish hours to cross the Pacific ocean. Assuming you started out in San Francisco."
"Exactly." John nodded. "And we are now in some foreign country in less than half an hour. I was on the phone with my girlfriend right before the recall happened, so there's literally a phone record confirming how quick I got to this place. How do we explain that?"
Well, that's that. I stared into the landscape, hoping to see some indication of where we were. Specifically, a giant grey wall. There's the Great Wall of China, and then the wall of shame - the concrete wall they erected specifically for the Olympics so that foreign visitors wouldn't see all the ghetto-looking farmlands to the right and the left of the road that leads to Beijing from the airport. Finding this wall means it's possible to head to either location, and it's fairly common to see foreigners in Beijing or the airport. Plus the airport has all of these well-painted propaganda in the halls, and it's hilarious as all get out. Either way, if Toby had money (I'm sure John didn't, and I didn't either), then we can get food.
I see no wall, and my little fantasy ends with a sigh. "Okay. Just remember that if they try to get us to sign a statement, write 'I don't speak Chinese' on the bottom before you sign your name. Just in case they try to trick you."
"Then it's settled." John stretched out his legs in front of himself, relaxing in his victory over me in the argument. "If we have to tell, we tell."
There was silence for a moment, and we just sat there and listened to the ambient noises of wherever we are: faint engine sounds, the occasional voice calling out, and the wind rushing through the hills. Toby fidgeted a little. He's not the type of guy that sits around in silence.
"Y'know," Toby said. "I wonder how many laws we've broken."
"What do you mean?" John asked.
"Well, we're in another country without a visa, for one thing. And we're consorting with an alien being."
"That's not technically illegal," I mentioned. "No laws on aliens yet."
"Okay." Toby nodded. "But this is still three counts of traveling without a visa. Plus that time I came to America by accident. Four counts."
"We might not have any alien laws," Statkus said. "But I'm sure we're guilty of conspiracy by not telling our governments."
"Alright, three counts of that on top." Toby nodded. "That makes seven. Oh, and one for Cheonha too. Eight. Plus, it's technically stealing that Aldaris' ship accidentally took up all those things the first day. We're all accessories, so that's five counts."
"Oh, and Aldaris kidnapped us all. That makes four more." Statkus groaned and lowered his face into his hand. "Oh great, I've been kidnapped by an alien."
"An illegal alien!" I said. "He went down to America to have a break from the ship, so he's an an illegal alien!"
"Hahahaa!" Toby guffawed. "That's the best! And that makes...eighteen! We're totally criminals!"
"Don't remind me." Statkus rolled his eyes. "I sure hope Aldaris gets back where he belongs soon, or else-"
A sudden voice barked at us, and all three of us jumped up in shock - John nearly fell over again from stepping on a twig. By the time we turned around, the man, an Asian whose hateful expression far surpassed his stature, had me by the arm. I tugged out of his grip, but not out of the power of his annoyance. He shoved a tanned finger in my face, saying words I didn't know.
"Chalmot arasoyo..." I tried, knowing that's not the right way to say you don't understand, but not able to recall the proper words. The language the guy was speaking wasn't korean, but I had to take the chance he was bilingual. "Yongungmal arasehyo?"
That made him even madder. I don't know how. All I knew was that a bunch of Asian guys were coming up the hill toward us. I was too stunned to move so I stood there like an idiot, but Toby and John ran for their lives. Toby ran off somewhere, I don't know where. They caught Statkus, though. John ran downhill, but those same rocks that got to him earlier found their way right under his feet, and he fell out, rolling headfirst down the hill. We all followed. I tried my best to get the strangers to leave him alone, as you're not supposed to move someone who could have spinal damage, but they hauled Statkus to his feet immediately. He was still conscious, but blood smeared down his head.
Yeah, at that point it was pretty clear we weren't getting away.
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Author's Notes:
- Yes, there was a fire at home. However, this is only .5% a biography, so the house in question, my dream house, did not burn (it was turned into a real estate office). But the apartment I really did live in has. I'm sad now, because according to the rules by which I write this, I have to let the house burn. Not fair.
- When Aldaris says mac'ah and mac'ah menadera, he's using really vile Protoss swears. In private, Aldaris is quite foul-mouthed, and amongst his class equals on Aiur he was known for his ribald jokes. Or so goes my personal canon. As far as the rest of his foreign words, he was more or less talking to himself. It's a bad habit he picked up from being stuck on a spaceship so long, as he wants to be able to talk to somebody, especially since he's the only one present that speaks his native language.
Author's Notes New:
- I've since learned that it's not always illegal to travel in a nation without a visa. For example, at the time of writing this chapter originally, an American could go to Korea for I think 90 days without a visa. However, as of September 2021, something called a K-ETA is now required for those 90 days of visa-free travel. It's a reaction to COVID, I think.
- Back when my apartment caught fire, it was actually only a few months, maybe 2 or 3, since another apartment in the same neighborhood caught fire. That person wasn't smart - they had attempted to put out the fire themselves, despite two different fire departments being one and two minutes away respectively in drive time. Four apartments were lost and had to be rebuilt. As opposed to our apartment, where apparently the lady where it happened called quickly. My dad didn't even know that the building was on fire until the firemen knocked on the door. That fire wasn't the lady's fault. That building always had weird electric issues, including one time when the microwave was on for no reason, and also shut off when I approached it for no particular reason. So if something like that happens to you, you may want to call the landlord.
- China wasn't a huge deal when I first wrote this. Granted, they were still being oppressive to their own citizens (forced abortions, no buying Bibles for native citizens, arresting Christians, everything going on with the Uyghurs, etc), but visiting there as a tourist wasn't all that bad. I would not go there now unless I had to. Granted, I don't fear for my life at the concept, but given how much more tracking devices have advanced since then, I have no eagerness to go back. Chinese people are still cool, but their government is just shameful.