Sliding Into Antar
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The Ke'cjes
Chapter 39
XXXIX
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The young pilots maneuvered their sliders over the nearest dry land inside dome and set the vehicles down, then they opened their own doors and got out, letting the others out after them. Max and Michael got out quickly and found themselves face to face with the six Ke'cjes who had followed them into the dome…
"Who are you," one of the Ke'cjes, a surprisingly good-looking young man, asked.
"I am Zan… King of Antar," the Aquarian Max said, "We came here to meet you… and, we hope… to be your friends."
The Ke'cje appeared doubtful. "You are King Zan?"
"I am."
"He is," Maria agreed, vouching for him.
"We would like to see Ta'lan," Liz said.
The first Ke'cje looked at Liz suspiciously… "How do you know Ta'lan?"
"We… well, some of us… met her before. Actually, we met her double in another dimension, not your Ta'lan. But we became friends, and we wanted to meet her and have her meet our… uh, doubles here."
"We come in friendship," the Aquarian Max said, "Just as our doubles became friends with your people in another dimension."
"The Ke'cjes have no friends… outside of our valley," the second Ke'cje retorted, "We are feared; others are suspicious of us, because we are different."
Max nodded. "I know. Rath and I were once feared for the same reason… so were Vilandra and Ava."
"But you are like the others," the first Ke'cje said, "Why would they fear you?"
"We lived on another planet before we returned here to retake the throne from Kivar. The people on that planet had no powers of the sort that most Antarians consider routine and normal."
The Ke'cje nodded. "So they feared you… and you had to keep your lives and your identities closely guarded… and secret."
"Exactly," Michael said, realizing that the Ke'cje was also telling him why they, as a people, were secretive and guarded and kept to themselves in their own valley.
"I cannot change the nature of people… nor can I promise you that I can do that," Max said, "But I can promise you friendship and peace with the royal family and our friends… and a government that will not see you as its enemies but as friends and allies… if that is what you will be."
The Ke'cjes looked at each other and then nodded. "We will take you to Ta'lan. Come with us."
The six shapeshifters walked off down a trail, and their visitors followed. As they walked, the outsiders were surprised to see things they never expected to see here… trees … and flowers… beautiful flowers… on the ground and on the trees!
"These are real!" the Aquarian Liz whispered breathlessly, smelling and touching the garden flowers and staring at the trees. Omigod, they're real!"
"Where did you get these," the Aquarian Michael asked, surprised, "These things disappeared a hundred thousand years ago when the last land sank beneath the sea. I've only seen them in history books… and painted plaster replicas in museums."
The shapeshifters smiled, perhaps for the first time since the outsiders had arrived… "We have had them… always. Our people brought trees and flowers with them when the first dome was built, almost a hundred thousand years ago. We have protected them and propagated them through the centuries. They are our treasures."
"Fantastic!" Professor Arturo exclaimed, genuinely impressed.
Wade reached up to smell some of the fragrant flowers on a tree branch that was hanging down near the walk.
"Uh, I wouldn't do that… not those flowers," Liz from the New Granolith said, but Alex stopped her, shaking his head… "Don't tell her."
"Alex!"
"I have my reasons."
"Unh… I don't know Alex…"
"Trust me, Liz!"
Liz sighed. "Well, alright… maybe… I don't know…"
"You know you trust me…" Alex said confidently, flashing Liz a big grin. Liz gave him a friendly shove… "Don't get too cocky, Alex. I hope you know what you're doing."
"I do."
"These trees smell divine," Wade said, spinning around several times and doing a little pirouette. "I could live here and be happy forever!"
"Delightful indeed!" Professor Arturo said, as the scent of the trees' blossoms reached him, too. "I don't believe I've ever smelled anything like it! The fragrance is simply irresistible!"
"I like it," Remmy said, starting to look a little misty-eyed and dreamy.
Quinn smiled and just looked happy… a little too happy. Maggie was hanging onto him as though she was afraid he would go "poof" if she let go. The Aquarian Antarians also seemed to be getting a bit overly happy. The two young slider pilots were doing pirouettes under the trees with Wade now, and Maria was hanging onto Michael, with a dreamy look in her eyes. The Aquarian Liz even seemed to be doting on her Max more than usual, if that was possible, and he was smiling from ear to ear.
A little further down the walk, Professor Arturo and Remmy started doing pirouettes with the girls, and Professor Arturo performed a beautiful saute followed by an Arabesque that no one would have thought him capable of. The six shapeshifters looked at each other and smiled, then they looked at the Aquarian Max, the king… "Did you really come in peace?"
"We're a peaceful people," Max said, a bit giddily, "We do not wish harm on anyone."
"Are you afraid of us?"
"Naw!" Max waved his hand dismissively and smiled, "I've seen things before… scarier things. We just want to get to know you and be friends."
The shapeshifters smiled.
"Well, I was afraid of those big honkin' things you guys turned into out there in the water," Remmy said. "I thought you were going to crush us."
"Are you afraid now?" one of the shapeshifters asked.
"Nooooo…" Remmy giggled, putting an arm around the guy as though they were best friends who had been drinking together all night in a bar. "I like you! You're COOL!"
"Cool is good," Max from the New Granolith said, smiling and at the same time breathing as shallowly as he could and keeping one hand over his nose. The other members of the New Granolith's crew were doing the same thing. This made the shapeshifters smile again…
"So some of you HAVE been to our valley before."
"Oh yeah! We have!" Max said through his fingers. Liz nodded and smiled, keeping one hand over her nose and taking short breaths.
"Quinn," Wade said, suddenly taking Quinn by his free arm, "Let's get married… right here… right now."
"He's mine!" Maggie objected, pulling him back by the other arm, "He loves me!" Maggie smiled at Quinn… a bit predatorily, it seemed to Wade.
"He loves me more," Wade said, pulling Quinn the other way again.
"Girls! Girls!" Quinn exclaimed, "Don't pull me apart. There's enough of me to go around."
Wade shook her head vehemently… "I want you all! I have to have you all!"
"Can't have him," Maggie said, pulling him back.
"Quinn," Wade pouted, looking at him with puppy dog eyes, which she would probably never live down if she remembered any of this after it was over.
Maggie reached around Quinn with both arms and pulled him against herself tightly.
Wade took Quinn's arm and tried to pull him away, but instead, slowly, she collapsed and crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Maggie smiled victoriously, staggered for a moment, then fell to the ground, too. Quinn looked back and forth at the two girls, deeply concerned but too dizzy to lean over for fear he would keep going and plow head first into the ground. Two shapeshifters picked the girls up, and another supported Quinn…
"They'll be fine," one of them said, smiling, "Once we're past the Qu'rosk trees."
"We know," Liz from the New Granolith said.
Just as the Ke'cje had promised, once they were past the fragrant, flowering Qu'rosk trees, both Wade and Maggie began to stir and reawaken, and Quinn regained his strength. The others, too, soon returned to normal. It was impossible to know exactly how much any of them remembered. If any of them did remember anything, they probably hoped that no one else did… or would… ever!
The shapeshifters led their visitors over a footbridge and a circular fishpond then along a small but quaint, neatly kept little lane for a distance of about six blocks, stopping in front of a nice-looking if surprisingly modest-sized house. It was only at this moment that Max and the others realized what they were seeing… Houses! Real, honest to goodness houses! Granted, they were under a huge dome… the whole valley was… but these were actual houses, just like the ones they had seen in the Ke'cje Valley on land in the other dimension. The house in front of them had an upstairs and a downstairs and looked like it might have two, maybe three bedrooms… assuming it was built similarly to an earth home for its size.
The shapeshifter touched a small module on the door, and a brief lilting melody played softly inside the house. A moment later, Ta'lan came to the door and opened it by touching her finger to something that looked like a lock. Then she led the group into a living room or parlor and motioned toward several comfortable-looking chairs and a sofa…
"Please! Sit down. Be comfortable. I heard that you were coming. Word travels fast here."
Everyone sat down, and Ta'lan dismissed herself momentarily. Jung-Jo stretched out on the floor beside Jim and yawned. The inside of the house seemed much larger than the outside would have suggested. On the far side of the spacious living room, there was a large convex window that reached all the way to the floor. It looked like a clear, solid membrane. To their left, there was a wide semicircular stairway with a banister that looked surprisingly earthlike. The chairs, too, were fairly normal, though their design was clearly alien. The sofa was long, perhaps fourteen feet, and had a large number of contours that really didn't seem to match any known body shape… well, any that they had ever seen, anyway, though the overall look was very interesting… even elegant in an alien sort of way. Each end of the sofa had a very ornate arm, partially wrapped in a plush, soft, velvety fabric. It was very much like the sofa in the other Ta'lan's house, in the other dimension… in fact, the whole house was very much like the other Ta'lan's house in the other dimension.
Ta'lan returned to the parlor with a large tray that held numerous very tall, thin, flute-like glasses filled with a bluish-amber liquid. The New Granolith crew and the Aquarian Antarians… even those who had never been to the Ke'cje's Valley… knew what it was. They had seen it before. But the Sliders had no idea.
"Are you sure this is safe for humans," Remmy asked, holding the glass up and examining the sometimes bluish, sometimes amber liquid in the light.
Max from the New Granolith nodded and grinned. "It's da'nish. Try it."
Remmy took a deep breath and tilted the glass bottoms up, while Max watched and smiled at the look that came over his face. Then Remmy took another deep breath and slowly let it out again… "Wow! That was good!"
With that endorsement, the other Sliders tried it, too, most of them only sipping it.
Ta'lan picked up another tray and passed it around. It looked like large cookies.
"Qnist'as," Liz from the New Granolith said, remembering having had them in the other dimension… "They keep you from getting plastered on the da'nish."
Ta'lan nodded. "They keep you sober, yes… and they also go well with da'nish."
Each of them took a Qnist'a and ate it.
"Is everything in this valley intoxicating," Maggie asked.
Ta'lan smiled. "Only to outsiders. Long ago, we became accustomed to the Qu'rosk trees… and we always eat Qnist'as with our da'nish. We rarely get outsiders here in the valley… but when we do, the Qu'rosk trees always let us know their intentions. The fragrance of the Qu'rosk flowers makes people talkative… and amazingly honest."
"Cool! lie detector trees!" Remmy said, laughing, "I'd love to see them!"
Ta'lan smiled. "You did."
"I did? When?"
"On the way here," Liz from the New Granolith said.
"I don't remember that," Remmy said, looking puzzled. "What did I say?"
Liz smiled. "Don't worry, Remmy. We won't tell."
"What did I say?" Remmy asked again, looking more worried now than before. Everyone laughed, but the truth is, no one remembered what Remmy had said… or even if he had said anything at all. They didn't even remember what THEY had said or done on the way here… except the crew of the New Granolith, because they had visited the Ke'cje Valley in the other dimension and knew to take shallow breaths and keep one hand over their noses while near Qu'rosk trees.
"We met someone in the other dimension," Liz said cautiously… "A Ke'cje… His name was Rahn…"
Ta'lan smiled… "My son! Rahn is my son… my adopted son."
Liz smiled… "Rahn was with us for a long time in the first alternate dimension we went to. He helped our doubles there escape from enemies who wanted to kill them… or worse. He had been a prisoner there himself, but he escaped. We all love Rahn! He was amazing!"
Ta'lan's face lit up. "Rahn is like that. He never really liked being isolated in our valley. He wanted to get out and see things. There is much to see here in our valley… especially for a shape shifter… but Rahn wanted more. He wanted to see the universe. He went with the first group in search of a place to hide the royal four, but he was captured after his ship was damaged, and he spent years in a bad place. He has never told me about it… except that it was… unpleasant."
"He… he made it back then… right?" Liz asked hopefully.
Ta'lan nodded, much to everyone's relief. "Rahn escaped, using his shape shifting ability, and he was able to repair his damaged ship and return home. I fear that he is not cured of his desire to wander and discover the universe, however."
Liz smiled. "Rahn was pretty unique."
"That's one way to put it," Ta'lan agreed. "But I wouldn't change Rahn even if I could. He is who he is, and that is what I love about him… everything that he is… is who he is."
Liz looked at Maria, Isabel, and the others. They were all nodding.
"I really loved watching that little roadrunner come and go," Maria said with a grin.
"That's a kind of bird on Eluymer," Liz explained, noticing Ta'lan's puzzled look… "Rahn delivered messages sometimes to our doubles' parents and to the sheriff, who was their friend. Rahn would usually turn himself into a roadrunner to deliver the messages."
"Or a bat… in the caves…" Isabel said.
"That was cool!" Michael agreed. "Rahn was pretty cool."
"And that is good, right?" Ta'lan asked.
"Very good," Alex replied, "Cool is very good."
Ta'lan smiled.
"So is hot… sometimes," Isabel added.
Ta'lan smiled. "Yes, Rahn told me that it is a confusing planet."
The others laughed.
"How long can you stay with us," Ta'lan asked, "I am sure that Rahn would like to meet you and hear about your adventures with his double in the other dimension. He loves that kind of thing."
"We can't stay very long, I'm afraid," the Aquarian Max said, "There is the kingdom to attend to."
"Can you stay one night?"
Max looked at Liz, and Liz grinned. He shrugged then nodded… "It looks like it."
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Dinner with the Ke'cje shapeshifters had been a lavish affair. It stands to reason that beings who are capable of altering their shapes to almost unimaginable forms would also be able, for that very reason, to locate and capture some of the most reclusive… and succulent… sea creatures. There had been a great many items on the table that the non-shapeshifting Aquarian Antarians did not recognize, and Max and Michael made a pact to find several of them later for their own table, but there is a good chance that they never would find most of them. They weren't capable of turning into giant boring augur worms and finding and extracting the cores of gigantic coral oysters, which lay deeply buried in the hard rocky substrata beneath a hundred feet of sand under the Golden Sea… or of shapeshifting into a creature capable of diving to the deepest depths and chasing down the elusive… and dangerous… Antarian Black-Fanged Lobster. So dinner with the shapeshifters was likely to forever remain a unique event.
After dinner, they had spent some time talking with their guests as a group and then had gravitated into smaller groups, each group according to its separate interests. No one had said, "Okay, let's break up into groups," it had just happened, as different individuals, talking with different Ke'cjes, followed their own discussions.
The Aquarian Max and Liz walked into the parlor with Ta'lan and found most of the New Granolith's crew sitting around in a circle on the floor with an odd-looking bird in the center of the circle. Jung-Jo watched curiously from the side.
"I think the tail should be a little longer," Maria, of the New Granolith's crew, said. The bird complied, and the tail increased in length.
"Oh! And the wings of roadrunners are a little shorter," Tess said.
The bird reduced the size of its wings.
"But Rahn used to make his wings longer," Isabel pointed out… "In order to fly long distances. Roadrunners can't fly very far."
"Unless they're Rahn," Alex said with a grin. The others smiled and nodded.
"Okay," Maria said, "You can make the wings longer again."
"That looks like Rahn to me," Isabel exclaimed, "That looks just like him!"
The bird immediately began to twist and rise then took on the shape of a man.
Liz nodded. "That was what your double looked like in the other dimension… when he delivered messages to Jeff Parker or to Sheriff Jim Valenti for our doubles in that dimension."
"Interesting," Rahn said, "It would seem that I… he… had quite an adventure in that dimension. I was fascinated by the bat."
"You did that one perfectly!" Alex said.
"Too perfectly… ewww," Maria agreed.
The others laughed.
"And the red-tailed hawk… Did he become that one often," Rahn asked.
"A few times," Maria said, nodding, "And once he turned into a big snake and wrapped himself around that horrible low-life Judge… uh… Judge Lewis. We were wishing he would have eaten him, but he didn't.
"Even shapeshifters can get indigestion," Rahn said seriously. The others all looked at each other then started laughing. Liz nodded. "You're right, Rahn! That would have been a rotten meal!"
"Rahn has a sense of humor!" Alex said with a grin, "I love it!"
"Of course he has a sense of humor!" Liz said, "Remember in the other dimension?"
Alex nodded. "Yeah, Rahn had a sort of dry, subdued sense of humor. He would seem totally serious, and then it just hit you and you had to laugh. Rahn never ha-ha'd it. He just had this natural, low-key humor about him… I mean, it was a good humor, you know. He was funny, he just did it so that… that… you didn't realize he was doing it… and that made it even funnier."
"He knew he was doing it, though," Liz said, "It was intentional."
"I know," Alex agreed, "It was just Rahn's sense of humor."
"It would appear that this Rahn has that same sense of humor," the Aquarian Liz said, joining in the conversation with the group from the New Granolith.
"He does," Ta'lan agreed. "Rahn can be very serious and very funny at the same time. I love that about him."
Rahn smiled.
"I still can't believe how good that meal was," Tess said to Ta'lan. "I never heard of half of the things I ate, but I loved them all!"
Wade nodded. "At least you've heard of half of them. We never heard of any of them… And they WERE great! I wish we had them all on earth!"
"Do you know how Rahn makes his living," one of the other shapeshifter men asked.
"How," several of the outsiders asked at the same time.
"He supplies the Xor aspic for the entire valley."
"You mean that stuff that you put on all the food to season it with?" Liz asked.
The shapeshifter smiled. "Yes. Do you want to know how Rahn gets the Xor aspic… and why no one else can?"
The others all nodded.
The shapeshifter grinned, and Rahn looked a little uncomfortable. "He turns himself into a froyylic. The Xor aspic is only found at a depth of precisely 4,378 rys… no more, no less. It is produced by a communal creature called a sharv shrimp, which is somewhat dangerous. Sharv shrimps are not large, but they have a long, pointed piece of shell on their head and they will ram it into you and poison you. Sharv shrimps attack as a group and can incapacitate almost any creature… including a shapeshifter… quickly. The only creature that can get past the sharv shrimps is a froyylic. The froyylic is not very large, either, or even very fierce, but it gives off an odor that the sharv shrimps find intolerable. They abandon their Xor to the froyylic, and the froyylic would eat it… except for one thing…"
"What is that," Michael asked.
"The froyylic is the favorite food of the tyar'ma'zot, a very large, fierce creature that is not the least bit offended by the froyylic's bad smell. The sharv shrimps always make their Xor in a cave where there is a tyar'ma'zot… or perhaps the tyar'ma'zot moves in with the sharv shrimps. Either way, they have a mutually beneficial relationship. The sharv shrimps' Xor attracts froyylics; and the tyar'ma'zot happily eats the froyylics. Then the sharv shrimps return and go about their business of making Xor until the next stupid froyylic shows up. I would guess that one froyylic gets a taste of Xor for every thousand that wind up in the tyar'ma'zot's belly.
"I am not stupid," Rahn said insistently, "I have a way to get the Xor… AND keep my life. I have not yet wound up in the tyar'ma'zot's belly."
"He has a way," the other shapeshifter agreed. "He's not telling anyone else what it is, though."
Rahn smiled. "It is my secret."
"A valuable secret," the other shapeshifter agreed, "Xor sells for 3,400 Coruns… for a very small flask."
Michael whistled… "Seven thousand dollars! That's more expensive than Corvian brandy!"
"One does not have to get past a hungry tyar'ma'zot and ten thousand poisonous sharv shrimps to have Corvian brandy," Rahn pointed out, logically. "Nor do they have to find the Corvian brandy at a depth of precisely 4,378 rys."
"Wow," Wade said softly, "If I'd known the food I was eating was seasoned with seven-thousand-dollar seasoning…"
"Well, I don't make my mother pay for it," Rahn said… "Just these guys over here… and everyone else."
"The Xor has a market on several other planets, as well as in our valley," the other shapeshifter pointed out. Rahn does pretty well for himself. Some day we're going to find out how he does it… if he doesn't get eaten by a tyar'ma'zot first.
Rahn smiled. "Just be careful that you do not get eaten by the tyar'ma'zot while trying to find out how I do it."
"Is this one of those Don't try this at home… we're the professionals kind of things," Alex asked with a grin.
Rahn smiled. "I am the only one who can get the Xor aspic and not get eaten by the tyar'ma'zot. Others have tried it. They are not here to tell what mistakes they made."
"Where are they," Rayylar asked.
Tess elbowed him gently in the ribs.
"Oh… Oh!"
The other shapeshifters laughed. "None of us have tried it. We value our lives more than our greed. The shapeshifters who were eaten by the tyar'ma'zots were from two other planets… and they were not Ke'cjes. Actually, they're not shapeshifters either… anymore."
"Ewww," Maria groaned, "Do all men get a kick out of talking about gory stuff?"
"I thought it was interesting!" Michael said.
Max nodded. "Me, too. It's not like he went into details about how the tyar'ma'zot bit them in two and chewed them up or ripped their heads off or anything."
Liz whacked Max on the arm. "Max!"
Max smiled at Michael, and Michael grinned.
"Men are the same wherever you go," Tess said, "It's a fact of life. Get used to it!"
In fact, what was true was that everyone there was feeling comfortable with each other. New friends… and lifelong friendships… were being made. Before the night was over, Ta'lan and Max had signed a hand written agreement confirming their status as allies and encouraging understanding and friendship between their peoples. Max agreed that the Ke'cjes were entitled to their own local government, and the Ke'cjes confirmed that they were still, first and foremost, Antarians, and loyal to the king… as long as someone like Kivar did not come back and take over again. All in all, it had been a very successful, and historic, trip.
End of Chapter 39
tbc…
Coming Next: The Last Shopping Trip