5

Book Lessons

A week later, the twins were back up in their room, this time with a couple of stacks of books, the ones that were not so brittle that they couldn't be read without disintegrating. They'd gone back and brought the lot of them back. Wilykat still insisted that there was something familiar about the writing and printing, and wanted to check a few things out. They also had some old books from the ruins they had mentioned to Tygra about the languages of this world.

"I like this one," Wilykit said. She was holding an ancient language book from the ruins, and read aloud a few awkward phrases. "It kinda sound like our old language...Swa-hilly it says."

Wilykat blinked at her, and then grabbed one of the books from the Village of Mist, and paged through it again, his eyes wide with excitement. "Wilykit!" he exclaimed. "Oh, wow, check this out!" he shoved the book over to Wilykit and then got one of his lesson books down off its shelf. He paged through a few of the chapters beyond his bookmark, and then just stood and stared at one particular page. He sat down hard on the floor.

"What?" Wilykit said, frowning and taking the book form him. "That...Wilykat, that's our Thunderian book..." She stared at him for a moment. "You don't think..."

"It is! Oh man, it is, Wilykit! Look here..." Wilykit pointed out the new chapter that they had only started the week before. "It's in Thunderian! The old alphabet! That's why we didn't know it right away, we hadn't started the chapter yet!"

"Then how could you have recognized it?" Wilykit demanded.

"You know I always look ahead in our lessons...especially the languages and history and stuff." he looked at the assortment of books they had between them. "By Jaga, Wilykit, that means that this was a village of our kind! Maybe...maybe those wild cats we read about were what we evolved from!"

Wilykit looked floored. "May-maybe... but how old were those ruins? I mean Cheetara says that this planet isn't that old... I think Thundera is a lot older. How could we have evolved form them if they haven't been around as long?"

Wilykat shook his head. "I don't know. But Thunderian hasn't been used a lot on Thundera for like a hundred and fifty years...and it's been over 300 since it was the only language used! I remember reading that when the new king took reign, he changed the way they did things, they allowed trade with other systems; he wasn't so stuck up. He let people use the Basic language."

"Which we all use now because it's easier." Wilykit sat back. "Wow... But the thing is, did they come here first, or did our people come from here and go there? It'd have to be from a long time ago, though, since everything was in Thunderian."

"I dunno...maybe..." Wilykat laughed. "Maybe there's a history book here!"

"If we found something like that...I'd think it was put there on purpose by someone," Wilykit said. but her brother wasn't listening to her, he was looking excitedly back and forth between his lessonbook and the old books they'd brought from the village.

"Maybe not," he said with a grin, and held one of the old books up. "You know what this is, Wilykit? It's a journal! Someone's journal! Maybe it will give us some answers!"

Looking excited, Wilykit sat next to her brother to begin puzzling it out.

It took them days to translate it all, using their lessonbooks and what they'd learned. Wilykat had a grasp on the old language far better than Wilykit, else they may never have gotten it translated. As they went, they became more and more fascinated...and more and more horrified as they read.

Restrin, of the warm season.

"That's the old dating system, we don't even use that anymore!"

"Yeah."

Well, today is our first day in our new home. The elders have set up camp near what looks to be a steaming jungle, very well suited for our kind. We have found remnants of previous inhabitants here, that seem to have been wiped put by some kind of terrible devastation.

"So they did come here from Thundera!"

"You know, I think this date is like a thousand years ago, maybe even two thousand," Wilykit whispered. "Regular people had been able to own spaecraft for only like 500 years. Only the governemtn had them before then, and even at this date only the very rich had their own...and they weren't very good, either. That was when we were first at war with those Plundaarian jerks."

"You do pay attention to the history lessons!" Wilykat exclaimed ith exxaggerated wonder. His sister slugged him.

I wonder if anyone has been told yet of this project. There was a good amount of controversy, as people thought it too dangerous, and too risky. To send so many people out, maybe into death? Certainly into the unknown. But the king decided that he would allow it, and his people built their ship, the fastest that could be made.

It took three generations to arrive here. Many children grew up and died knowing nothing but the living ship that we used to travel. I myself was born on the ship, and this planet fascinates me. Only from books had I seen anything like it, and the images from the probes sent long ago. Although procreation was strictly monitored, the ship began to get overcrowded. Fortunately, we were close to our destination.

The creatures from our world were set free, once it was deemed that it was safe enough to do so. Those that survived. Amazingly, similar creatures were found here, although we had quite a few new ones. We had thought this planet, Second Earth, was similar to ours but we had no idea how similar. One big difference, though, the sun is so light! And the sky so blue. Never was there such color on Thundera, not in the books, or from my grandfather's stories. And to watch the children play in the grass and the trees, it is a wonderful sight.

"Well that's kinda creepy," Wilykat said.

"W-well.." Wilykat said. "They said that they'd camped near a steaming jungle, like the old rainforests. The Forest of Mists is anything but steamy-- hold on a second... 'Second' Earth?? how old is this village?"

"I think the date is a couple of thousand years, like I said. We've had space craft for thousands of years, and look how long they said it took them to get here! Generations! How long ago do you think it would have to be for it to take that long? I mean it only took us a few years, five or six or something like that."

"And they didn't have stasis."

They read on.

Most entries seemed to be about normal life, but some were amusing, and some exciting. They'd met all kinds of interesting creatures and some proved more dangerous than others. They'd met the Berbils, and made alliances with them, and towards the back of the book, mention was made of creatures that sounded a lot like the Wollos.

"No Bolkins or Warrior Maidens," Wilykit said.

"They live pretty far away," Wilykat said. "Maybe they never got that far in their exploring."

On the fourth day, they reached the end of the diary. They never figured out just who it was that had written the diary, but the last entry chilled them both.

Today something horrifying happened. The gods themselves came down on us from the skies to punish us for our sins. Giant creatures like this or any other known world has never seen before wreaked their havoc, giant beasts, with eyes of red, rampaging through the villages. A great figure in the sky, like a giant bat, who spewed electricity from his very fingertips. There are reports from all over the place of great magical cataclysms, and plagues that killed in seconds... I hide now in the basement of my home, waiting for the gods to strike me down too. I do not know that I will see tomorrow.

The twins looked at other in shock, and exclaimed in unison. "Mumm-Ra!"

Part 6: Battle and Revelations

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