Kaboom! Dust swirled as billows, little rocks clattered against the bird-transport. Sunlight suddenly blared eye-splittingly in front of the forwards-bolting couple. Buzz made a dive, accelerated, and the odd ancient car was out. A grained hole jutted in the rear.
"Haha! Great blazars, it worked!" he whooped, putting some more tempo on. The white mountain descend glimmered ahead like some slalom slope. "Hee!" a twist of the stick, and the willow tit went faster.
Something clicked in Yoka's brains. Was not that man just stuffed up with his ego again? He was so proud because he could steer this machine, was it not so? She always had the urge to tease, when noticing someone being very full of himself. Abruptly she rose up, not caring about the velocity. Jumping right on his spot, she pushed him aside, taking the controls herself. She had watched enough his bragging; now it was her turn.
"Yoka, what are you doing?" he screamed as he got his senses back. Laughing like a hyena, the crazy woman twisted and turned the pilot switches, getting fast the right touch. This did not feel after all any more complicated than riding with a runaway buffalo. The agitated man endeavored taking the command again, but she just pushed him back on the seat where she had sat at first. The speed had made her insane. It always took the last light of caution out of her. Stupid it was, disrespectful towards her own safety. But, craze gleaming in her eyes, she accelerated the vehicle.
"Stop! Stop it!" Buzz manically swung his arms in the air, trying to quit the headless show. Nonetheless, he lost his equilibrium as the budgie began swooshing down the mountainside, in a forty-five-degree angle.
"Yiiiihihiiiihihiiiiiiii! Ayayayayaaaaaaaah!" she squealed, pinching every horsepower out of the carriage. Buzz had ended up topsy-turvy, his head was in the legroom, and his legs swayed freely against the seat's backrest.
"Yoka! Stop, s-stoooop it!" his voice came muffled from under the console.
"Hiiihihiiiihihiiiii!" was her only answer. And so the speeder stopped short under her authority. So much slowing deceleration there was, though, that Buzz did not get squished. The hectic flight had approached the downhill's bottom. And her hyper-daft mood just went on. Buzz crept, shuffled and moaned, finally finding himself the right side up on the bench.
"Uhh… you seriously need some driving lessons!"
"I watched you drive. You drove like this. I only repeated what Proud Crescent taught me!" she whisked her head and put a pompous nose up.
"Why you little… well I'll teach you how to drive!" he half-jokingly tried lunging towards her, but Yoka's quick reflexes allowed her a nippy escape. Bouncing over the hull, she was already horse-laughing meters ahead.
"You come here and now!" The man hopped after her, but the sinking thaw snow made his traipses heavy.
"Hahaha! Proud Crescent is stuck! Rati riti ralla, tuli talvihalla…"
But his big feet were after all good as snowshoes. He took a quick run, and was to pin the girl in his hold, but Yoka-hanen had other plans.
"Ayyyaaaaah!" A cry, and her hands grabbed the firm tree branch above her. With one move, she swung herself up to sit on the high branch. There she squatted like a squirrel, guffawing.
"Now, be a good girl and come down!" he stood down there hands on hips, a half-smirk on his face. This was so absurd that he could not even be annoyed.
"Does Proud Crescent like snow?" a strange question was posed. The teasing woman gripped a tuft branch from upper there, and shook it. A big, wet pile of snow plodded down, straight onto Buzz' head and shoulders. In a nanosecond, he resembled a sputtering snowman. But, he was not mad at all. Although this was the purest Yoka-hanen, just the characteristic that had irritated him in the first place. The playful mocking, putting him underdog. However, the girl up there started feeling a bit afraid, not having the courage to come down. Maybe she had been a bit too rough…? This was after all her owner, who had according to the Kalevan laws full control over her.
Lightyear had survived from the snow invasion. "Now will you come down from there, you stubborn bugger? It's getting late, and time for a snack. And I bet you're hungry too."
"No, I will not come down."
"Fine, stay there, then! I'm going to put some food on."
An hour went, and Yoka was still sitting in the tree. Buzz had 'parked' the finding right beside the camp's teepee, and was pottering with his own chores. The dusk fell, and obviously no more explorations would be done today. It was getting a bit nasty on the branch. She was hungry like a herd of piranhas, and the weather cooled fast. But, as said, she regretted her idiocy. She would jump down and… what then? Assumingly receive a reprisal.
Some soft footsteps approached. The male popped abruptly under the tree, munching a piece of pemmican. In his other hand he had a plate.
"Be a good girl and come down! Of course you can sleep in the tree if you want, but I believe it's gonna get a bit chilly. Lookie-look what I got here!" he winked and raised the dish, "Nice, warm food! Here, kitty kitty kitty!"
Well, the Kalevan could not slumber inside the plant. She decided to take the risk and come down. Although it felt quite perilous. A somersault down, and something attacked her immediately. Although Buzz had been so easy to fool in the first place, the crafty space ranger inside him had disappeared nowhere. An old arresting trick worked perfectly, and the struggling girl was dragged under an umbrella-looking tree. He jerked one lithe twig down, and the whole snow cover of the firs splat over them. Although the captain was again a jack-the-frost look-alike, he was even. The original joker had at least five times more snow covering her.
Back in the camp, Yoka-hanen was after all very dumbfounded. The day's happenings had brought just more and more hidden features out of Buzz. He felt no antipathy towards her, although she had done a prank almost similar to the jauhajokottaja-ride? Moreover, he just seemed increasingly gentle towards her. After the snow bath, a warm blanket had been wrapped around her, and a platter of steaming hot nosh pressed in her hands. A cozy fire crackled in the teepee's front floor.
"Alright, you twit, I'm driving tomorrow. We're gonna show off and fly back to Kaleva with that speeder. Well… who'd have thought that Suur-Kaleva provided this kind of archeological findings?" he gnawed his pemmican and made plans for the following day.
"Are we going to leave tomorrow?"
"I think that would be the best, regarding to what we have found. Namely…" Lightyear picked up the voltage recharger from the floor, twisting and turning it. "This may be my way home."
She tilted her head. What was he talking about? Nonetheless, for him the meaning was clear as distilled water. About a week ago, the last report of XR had been given to him. According to Zarah, the robotic ranger might get the sparkle of life back with a forceful voltage pulse. The poor fellow had just remained out of electricity, while his circuits began being somehow amassed. A zap, and perhaps… perhaps he could get revived with the aid of this. The widget the Captain so keenly turned over. If it provided power even for a whole car, why not the android? It worked in a low electromagnetic frequency, so much ex-Zenith's minuscule brain cells recalled from the Gate case. Thus he also tried to give a lecture about his ideas to his mate, who just merely shook her head. Kalevans could galvanize, but there ended the knowledge about electric phenomena. Although Yoka comprehended almost nothing, for him this was a little whoop of victory. Eager to try the conception, he had decided that Suur-Kaleva would be left. Well, always they could return again, he reasoned.
---------------------
Golden candles did not warm the rooms on Capital Planet. Zurg, Warp, and the rest of the missing persons' relatives weltered in their silent sorrow. Time flied by, with no glimpse of hope. What had swallowed forty-two? Another galaxy? Or an evil timewarp that had thrown them to the first minutes of The Big Bang? Hopeless, hopeless…
One ex-majesty was a dejected shadow of his true, rather ludicrous self. A bitter impression he had clinging in his heart; that his son was ultimately gone. Dead, or at least dying. This obscure sensation had gradually captured his awareness. He believed paying now with a hard hand all the cruelties of his past. But why, why such a prize when he had with efforts attempted to reform?
And Warp, an alike shady form he was. The food did not taste, the nocturnal dreams were all unsettled. This did not of course affect well the little Ay'noh. The more the father was depressed, the more the child also suffered. Weeps burst out every there and then, and daddy did his best to comfort… but usually it was futile. Mom was gone, nothing was there to draw a no-sign over that fact.
Commander Nebula writhed in his own troubles. A legend had just suddenly vanished; Star Command was not itself without Team Lightyear. Throughout the Alliance, lookups were made. Rangers delivered 'Have you seen this person?' –papers nearly everywhere. Trade World was of course the anthill's core of questioning. Among that mass of scum and cultures might always be someone who knew… nonetheless, that individual was not bailed until this day. The hope seemed to rain down by every means. King Nova had left a warning for the Alliance Senate of his planet's resignation from this Galactic union. Perhaps the old monarch had gained a bit sense into his blue head, since he had thrown away the ideas of starting a war. His over-noble reign had no arsenals against the Alliance; it would be his own doom. However, the possible separation was his protest against the low-browed space clubbers and their ineffective searching means.
Indeed, the time did not rush with the same wheels in Kaleva, as it did on Capital Planet. One day life in this unknown civilization was two diurnals in the Alliance Core. So, what might had felt rather short a period in those virgin forests, was double-anguish elsewhere. Then again, the lost were not aware of the 'normal time'. Their digital timers had been either charred, battered, or lost their accurate digits in the tumble of excess-space.
Tears…
Mira, Zarah, and Booster had had their own circles in Kaleva, while Buzz went through his emotional ameliorating elsewhere. Actually, the loss of the wrist communicator had not much affected. Everyone mastered a few expressions and words in Sivakka, although the language was light centuries more complex than plain English. Of course, none kind of joy it was to goggle at the faster moon phases going by, with no tidings of happiness from beyond the solar systems. Zarah's moods changed from hour to hour, mostly being calm but melancholic. Gradually she had been obliged to accept the presence of this sentimental prison. Warp wandered in her dreams, hand in hand with Ay'noh. Conversely, the nights were sedated. Her loved ones were safe, though thymogenicly walking along a black road. But how could she had seen the pain someone experienced because of her, somewhere immeasurable distances away? Mira remained perhaps the calmest of them all, finding ways to forget her own grief. Who knew, maybe the weeks here would eventually stretch to half a year… and through that, to a lifetime. Who knew…?
Don't say goodbye… don't say I didn't try…
Tears…
------------------
"Se lentaeae!"
"Se on lintu!"
"Ei vaan Teraesmies!"
"Pulun pyrstoestae tulee tulta!"
Shrieks. Yells. Yelps. Wide-flown eyes. Fingers pointing towards the settlement's edge. Something faster than wind approached the fear-struck village road. Some women dropped their brushwood, running scared away. Fire blazed, and a hysterically delighted squeal breezed along the dashing bolt.
"Yiiiihhhiiiiihiiiihihiiii!" There was something very familiar in that hyperactive whoop. Some elder men stopped, shaking their heads. That noise belonged to the chief's daughter. Some of her tricks?
Well, not exactly. It was Buzz, who drove this time. The traveling couple had just whirled back home, with their new shiny transport. It worked like a dream after its long sleep inside the lava capsule. In a few hours the forests were surpassed, whereas normally it would have taken days to hike back. Though, in the cold fighting wind, the couple had had to set all their furs and pelts over them. The great git had no covert whatsoever, so it was like driving an ultra-fast cabriolet in the deepest winter.
The fire ceased coming from under the birdie's flukes, and it steadily landed on the common square, in front of a big statue. A swarm of baffled natives, who had noticed the familiar figures, pattered to achieve them.
Mira was one of the rushers. She had just left suuremo Louhi's hut, and had literally been ran over. Collecting her heavy hems, she had scampered towards the UFO, initially ploughing through the nearly eight-foot-tall gogglers.
"B--Buzz? What's going on here? What's this thing?" she emerged from the crowd, colliding with the speeder.
"Oh, hi, Mira!" he put a hand up, "Greetings from Suur-Kaleva! We found a lost empire and some of its wonders!"
"Wha-- But you were flying! How…?"
Buzz loosened the voltage charger from its slot, and waved it in front of Nova's nose. "You know, we found the ol' magician's wand! You can pull a couple of rabbits out of a hat with this!" He smugly made some reporting about the travel, putting everything to spin around the staff. "This might be our change, too. Didn't Mrs. Darkmatter say XR needed electricity?"
Right at the moment the hasty discussion was cut short. Five men with lances cleared their way towards the artificial fowl.
"Ylpeae Kuu! Vainamoisen puheille heti! Ja Sininen mukaan!"
"Suuri johtajamme tahtoo tietaeae mistae taeaellae on kyse!"
Mira had just the time to catch the sentences. She had carefully detached the wrist communicator from Yoka's arm after checking out it was without scratches. Nevertheless now there seemed to be a trouble of some kind. Also Lightyear's visage had darkened.
"They want us to go to see the chief!" The jumble out there had reached the leader, putting him to make certain assumptions. The short lord had returned from his secret journey. With his daughter. And she would be the one to make the first clarifications.
"Typerae, kuriton lapsi! Kuinka monta kertaa minae naeen sinun vielae loukkaavan herraasi?" a fierce yell echoed in the Council tent.
"Kunnioitettu isaeni, minae…" a pair of grey eyes pleaded.
"Tarpeeksi olen kuullut voivotusta, mankumista suustasi! Karkoittaako minun sinut taeytyy Kalevan kankahilta? Mutta koska olet toisen miehen oma, en voi sitae tehdae." The old Vainamoinen fizzled with bile. Yoka-hanen in front of his anger dolefully bowed her head. Ah, the dishonor, the dishonor. What had the naïve child done again? Had disturbed the rest of Suur-Kaleva, the place where no one was to step any longer. How obnoxious a deed this was in the old chief's eyes! Had he not warned his daughter already enough, warned not to show disrespect? And worse it was, that even Proud Crescent was mixed up with the scandal.
"You stupid, misbehaved child! Was it not enough that you came to dishonor me because of complaining about your new owner? I had enough in that already! I was not willing to hear anything like this any more!" the rasp was flaming, a wrinkled hand shaking a cane in front of the girl. "And now, like a rebellious condor, you have dishonored even your owner by tempting him to enter the Silent Lands? How dare you, you…"
However, never could he finish the damning, never that angered palm of his hit its target. Vainamoinen found Buzz standing right in front of Yoka-hanen, tapped there to hinder the fight. His crumbled brows told that it was his turn to hold forth.
"Honorable Vainamoinen, please don't shout at my property." Oddly archaic terms left his lips. "I have accepted your gift, and according to your laws I am the one who does the reprimand, if needed. And it was my idea to visit Suur-Kaleva."
The Head's eyes flew open. This was definitely something not expected. A surprise shocking enough to make his wizened being to search for support from the handrails of the throne.
"You did… what?"
"Please do not blame your daughter, honorable Vainamoinen. I know I have done a certain kind of mistake by breaking the Silence, but I wish you would listen to me."
Lightyear's sophisticated, but decisive oration put a gag over the chief's mouth. Again Yoka's inferior position as a Kalevan being shone through. She did not have power to make his father mute. Now, however, the scene had turned upsy-daisy. The Captain surely felt himself a little confused in the very middle of all the astonished ocular pairs. Vainamoinen's piercing stare in front of him, his scion's baffled goggle behind him. The viisaat had quit their rune singing, playing, letting the whole teepee fall into silence.
And so he spoke, pouring out every single notion and idea he had stapled together last night and before that. He told swiftly about the adventures, the 'revolutionizing' findings. And that the ancient metropolis was only partly destroyed. The presentation was expanded to a world-embracing lecture about freedom, sagacity, full of little –but efficient- clichés.
"So although you regard it as a silent place, you value wisdom, don't you?" he went on arms flying expressively in the air. "You could perhaps recover at least partly your ancient wisdom, if you entered the city, would explore it, find out what it hides inside itself. Craters, we did discover, and I don't regret it at all. I don't know yet, but perhaps I've found a way to aid myself, but think about your chances! In the best case, your whole developed civilization might rise up gradually again, maybe into levels the ancestors never achieved! Of course, it's you who is there to decide, honorable Vainamoinen, but also I know you're a wise leader. So, after all it would be the best of your people if you would let the bygones be bygones, and try to revive what is left. The… Silence is not needed any more."
His tongue ceased. The spit in his gums seemed to have utterly dried. Buzz was not a master of rhetoric, but a master of action. Thus, as the deadly silence fell upon the candle-lit teepee, he felt a bit lost. His wife beside him could not either utter a syllable. Sheer confusion had again struck her, pulled the carped away from under her feet. That weird man had just defended her in front of the most esteemed person of the village? Dared to oppose her father because of… her?
So was also the verbal dominance taken away from Vainamoinen. Initially steadily staring at the skyfallen, he perched on his throne.
"Very well, Proud Crescent." He nodded, surprisingly approving. "Proud Crescent has not spoken with a viper's tongue. His speech was guided by the wise owl and the sharp-eyed hawk. Wisdom is our first virtue."
Lightyear was nervous. This planet was truly strange. First Yoka had started to talk about just the same issue in her own language, and she was made voiceless. Not very at par. He needed to work as her megaphone before no one would listen? However, at this point he could not start keeping another world-embracing speech about equality. And besides she seemed to accept this since not knowing a difference. In addition, the chief rasped on.
"Suur-Kaleva has been the resting place of the suurihmot. I did not create the barrier around the Silent Lands; those were the viisaat before me. However, wisdom will go over the silence…" the male stood up, mumbling something. The council sat doggo.
"You have given us so much already, Proud Crescent. I do not yet know, but perhaps this is another gift from you. Another well of sapience… thus… I should not be there opposing it, if you have seen it as the bliss of my brave people."
"Yes, honorable Vainamoinen, it will be for the best of Kaleva, if you could revive what your ancestors lost. I mean…" Lightyear tangled up somewhat again.
"Hmm, yes… I can draw the lines of your mind. We must break the barriers and go there ourselves. To see what is left."
"Exactly, honorable Vainamoinen."
The leader's mouth cracked into a wan smile. "Proud Crescent, if you had not assured me with your wise talk, I would have punished my disobedient daughter for this, perhaps even you. But now… I am drawing back my anger. You and your fellows from the clouds have been the bless of Kaleva again."
The Morphean grinned uneasily. Another slight head-off case. But somehow it irritated him, that Yoka was blamed nearly about everything. Directly it seemed to be her fault if something was wrong. He could feel the tension between the two family members, but not coherently. She never mentioned about her emotions with an utterance. Yes, it was a sacred issue for her, something that would never slip out of her heart. The mixed, sore sensations towards her respected parent. The woman stagnated beside Buzz, half-closed eyes wandering along the floor. He wanted to leave the tent. The atmosphere felt bitter.
"Honorable chief of Kaleva, I thank you for your kindness. I wish I could go now. I have to discuss serious matters with Mira… uh… Sininen."
He was let to leave. As his shadow slid out through the flap, the veteran sat back down. "And thank you for finally accepting my gift." A whiz so silent escaped from his wrinkled lips, so feeble that no one heard it.
Yoka-hanen's regard was dark. More complaints. When did she do the right thing? Where was her father's love, if it even existed? Vainamoinen felt so distant to her. The odd short man massaged her fingers with his big, pale hand, saying something. The last meters away from the Council tent she had walked in fog. Something needed to be done in Sininen's hut. Relating to the lightning staff. She pursued, a bad-tasting dollop in her throat.