Chapter 1: John Silver; the beginnings of his life and his first discoveries of Treasure Planet

John Silver was delivered steadfastly into life by his father, who, as greatly bereaved he had become by his wife's death, maintained, with little exertion, a constant affection for his infant son, and so John, for the beginning of his life, knew nothing of trouble or sorrow. Although John, through his puerile and inexperienced mind, like all other children his age, knew nothing of how life for him and his lonely father could have been, and certainly did not know of the impecunious life his father could only offer him, for all he knew was the derelict neighborhood was his home, and the home of his father, and, at the early stages in his life, his childish love of home helped him cherish it.

John unfortunately knew hunger very well indeed; this monstrous ache tortured his little insides far more than they were satisfied, and very often he would act with strength to effectuate its absence, but with the familiarity of the ache came the endurance against it, which served him well in his days of blissful infancy and youth. Thusly, John's seven and eighth birthdays both found him a small, rather diminutive child, and decidedly meager in the proportions of the circumference. He was still, however, stoutly-built, as all Ursurid infants are, and was implanted with a courageous and inexorable persistence, which may have been the singular continuation of his years.

To Jonas, there could have never been a more beautiful child born to him. By every shape, form, and pose John took, or in anything he attempted to articulate, Jonas found every day something flowing in his son's blood that was his mother's. John had an innate eloquence in movement and a grace in personality which matched none other but hers. Jonas could recognize that it was her smile that now curled on John's young face, and her brunet strands now sprang forth and glistened in the sun on John's head. The only thing that was his mark in the new child was the color of his eyes; an intense, but merciful and kind blue.

With such strange and unbelievable rapidity, how soon this small infant became capable of social correspondence! And what melodious a laugh the child could later produce, and what a charming voice did the child pour out whenever speaking! Jonas could hear his wife's precious and lyrical sound within his son's young voice and the harmonious music that threaded through his tongue. It was a joy to hear John's laugh rise from the streets among the throng of neighboring children, playing games and running through the stone streets that tied the homes of poverty together, and it was a joy to watch his creative magic creep into a thousand objects. The child had an innate sorcery to transform any materials into the instruments he needed to realize the day's drama—sticks, rocks, stones—and when no suitable possession could be sought, he could laughingly pull invisible resources from thin air, and how his playmates commended John for this proficiency.

John incessantly was at play, disregarding whether or not play was the proper thing to do in every situation. Jonas, therefore, giving incline to his child's character, tried several ways to bring John's imagination into his education at home. Writing, at first, was simply holding the pencil between thumb and index finger and swirling the ink around in whichever shapes John pleased, and then slowly Jonas taught him to bring the random swirls to form the letter "A", and thusly "B", and so forth. In this, John learned basic grammar and arithmetic skills, but advanced heavily and with great delight in reading books for young children, and became enthralled by the mysteries of fiction and legend. Many times Jonas was aggrieved to be reminded that he had no money with which to spend on new books for his son to read, since he was severely insolvent; but of the books he could not afford, he readily conjured up his own creative wits and brought John his stories orally.

These stories were mainly shared at Jonas's workplace, where John often was forced to accompany him. Jonas was a clerk in the navy pay office, where his wages suffered tremendously and were made ephemeral faster than Jonas could work for them. Very frequently, Jonas would not even hold his earnings in his hand, for they were swiftly sniffed out and seized by his creditors.

Despite these mirthless financial circumstances, however, Jonas found comfort in his little son's journeys with him to and from the office. John's eyes swept with wonder and bewilderment over the very large world the spaceport was as opposed to the quiet atmospheres of his simple home, and asked questions concerning everything he saw; ships, objects, buildings, animals, and space-faring creatures; some walking on two legs like himself and his father, others walking on four, now six, now even eight, and some that now walked not on legs but tentacles, or paws, and now some who even flew!

The stories told inside the little one-room pay office, however, continually impelled Jonas with a reinvigoration of his enchanting adoration for his little son. He found it strangely difficult to amalgamate subjects into a story at first, but, in a way to humor the child, he mastered the art of spinning his ideas and own wonders into magical spells and releasing them into John's ears; full of knights on horses, dragons, fairies, witches, enemies, royalty, rescues, suspense, which were all later reincorporated into John's fanciful, mystic creativity in his own play. John would later delve into the glowing worlds his father told him of on the streets of his indigent home.

Although, when John became older, about eight or nine, and at an age where he was not forced to go to his father's work anymore but wished to go because many of the children he had played with were now scrounging for employment, there was the quiet request of a story involving no dragons or fairies, but of the men who walked about the streets of their docks.

Jonas sat back against the desk, intrigued, at this entreaty. "What makes you want to hear such a story, John?"

"Because," John responded, twisting a piece of twine he had obtained on the streets near one of the ships in his fingers, "I like that they're real. I like to pretend that I might talk to them sometime... do you know any real stories about spacers and the Etherium?"

Jonas had only heard but one in the corresponding genre, which was a legend of pirates and their planet of treasure that was first told roughly one hundred years ago. Captain Nathaniel Flint and his syndicate of malevolent buccaneers, Jonas knew confidently, had indeed substantially existed as the historical figurehead of the Etherium's despoilers, pilfering across the seven galaxies; their story being one of fine captivation, for Flint was officially recorded several times in history as being seen in one galaxy and then in another in less than an hour's time, and how he was able to accomplish this still remained a mystery to even the most educated historian. What made the ancient tale a legend was the rumor that Flint, after collecting spoils from over a thousand worlds, hid the riches on an obscure celestial body known as Treasure Planet, where he brooded over it all until his death, after murdering his crew to keep them from stealing it from him. Jonas heard of some who pursued the lost treasure from the legend, but many times failed or discarded their search. Some ten years after the skies began to realize Flint's reign of terror had fallen away, superstitious people would begin to insinuate one of the crew survived and possessed a map to the planet, but no one knew who he was, and no one stepped forward with the identity, and so it was lost in among the strings of the legend, only to grow fainter as the story was passed down.

Jonas, complying, sat down on his stool and repeated what he had learned of the legend to John.

"What happened to the planet?" John asked, after a moment's thought.

Jonas chuckled to himself. "I don't know... perhaps it still exists somewhere out there? All full of treasure and riches..."

"And Captain Flint?"

"And," Jonas allowed, wrinkling his nose for the entertainment of his son, "perhaps Captain Flint's bones."

John smiled. "Do we have that much money?"

"Oh, no; we have very little money."

To this, John proceeded in vain to furrow his brow and pucker his lips in order to wrinkle his own nose. Jonas laughed shortly at this, and then put the whole of his palm on top of his son's little head and pressed the little brown nose with his thumb. "What's that face for?"

"Is it funny?"

"Yes."

"Then it was to make you laugh!" John cried with a melody and an exult that sounded so like his mother's that it sent a twinge of sadness inside Jonas's stomach. Jonas smiled at the boy, who freed himself and began to dance like a little sprite around the room with his piece of twine over his head. Jonas leaned back again on his stool, and inquired playfully, "Who are you the child of?"

"I am the son of my father, Jonas Silver!" His son sang excitedly as he danced, recognizing this game frequently shared between him and his father. "I am John Silver!"

"How could you be the son of him? You look nothing like Jonas Silver."

"That is because, my father tells me, I am mostly my mother's child, but I was given as a gift by her to him!"

"And tell me of your mother, John Silver."

John stopped abruptly in his caper, and fell close to his father's knees. He recited this part of their game the most intently, slowly, and the most engrossed. "She had the eyes of the stars, hair the color of the earth, the lips of the rose, and the skin of the moon!"

Jonas took John up in his arms and sat him on his lap, the game ending, as it always did, "And as do you, John Silver?"

John placed his left cheek on his father's shoulder, and recited the last words with his grin, "I have all but her eyes of stars, for I have my father's eyes, whose eyes are but of the blue sky."

Jonas put his hand on the back of John's head, and sat with his son breathing quietly against the rise and fall of his own chest.

Presently, John spoke again. "Father?"

"John?"

"I can hear your heart beating."

A light smile crossed Jonas's face. "It beats for you only."

John giggled and resituated his head a little on Jonas's shoulder. "And for you, too."

"And for me, too."

"Father?"

"Yes?"

"Will we ever have as much money as what's on Treasure Planet?"

Jonas's smile faded. He leaned his cheek against his son's, in thought of how he could answer, and finally replied, deciding that he would answer as if the treasure were worth a plausible sum, since his inexperienced youth was decidedly not calculating the same great amount as he himself was, "Nothing is impossible, I suppose... but it would take a large, large amount of work, and a long time, too, especially if we earned it and not stole it, like how Flint stole his. We'd both have to work hard..."

"Does that mean I'd have to get a job, like my friends are now?"

Jonas frowned with a slight dissatisfaction against his son's head. "No," he answered, "No. We're fine the way we are, John. I hope at some point to have enough money to send you to a real school so—"

John's head shot up from his father's shoulder, serious and with his little eyes wide. "If I don't work, like my friends are, or you are, we won't have enough."

Jonas regarded his son's shrewd observation with mild astonishment. Half of Jonas knew with a searing pain that it was true; he barely had enough money to afford to provide his son's house and food to him, much less that of education by public schooling. Jonas, however, even though an old and familiar fright suddenly seized him, had no intention of bringing such an onerous trial as that concerning money upon such a young child, so he forced a smile at the stern little face of his son, cupping his hands around John's cheeks to keep his eyes.

"John," Jonas assured him, "the treasure that's supposed to be on Treasure Planet—"

Jonas was once again interrupted by the protestation of his son. "That is on Treasure Planet."

The father found himself shocked at this. He swallowed, chasing his thoughts, "Now, no one ever said—"

"I asked for a real story, and you told me the one of Treasure Planet. Isn't it a real story, then?"

A faint realization passed over Jonas—what John said was true—which swelled a sense of agitation inside his chest, and then was shrunk enormously down by the following thought that John's mind was young now, and impressionable, but such nonsense as Treasure Planet would be abandoned in due time with maturity and understanding of the world. Jonas nodded at his son's last conclusion, and returned to the previous issue.

"Fine," he said, "but the treasure is a lot of money. Money like that is... well, too much for just two people who get along fine without much money already. Believe me; I won't have to make you work unless we really start to suffer... okay?"

For a moment, Jonas was startled by how deep his son's eyes had become, and how big they now appeared with his face half hidden by his hands, which still cupped his ears to hold his attention. But for now, John's eyes were diverted to the piece of twine in his fingers.

"...Okay."

"Now," Jonas resumed, removing his hands and placing the child back on his feet, "why don't you go down to the pier and play? I have to get back to work."

John was then ushered out without a word spoken, and grimly walked along the streets, working the twine in between his fingers. Soon, though, he began to play again, and, as Jonas glanced up every now and again, he seemed to be enjoying himself as the captain of an invisible galleon and the plunderer of all arbitrary stones on the street worth robbing.