Chapter 9.
Nahm was still in awe of what he had experienced in the last few hours. It seemed that only minutes had passed from the time he last spoke to Leona via the transceiver until her arrival inside the huge glowing sphere.
Liam (Nahm’s youngest son) stood a dozen yards away beside the clan’s long-house, sheltered from the icy sub-Arctic wind. In his arms he cradled the transceiver which his father had entrusted him with. Its dull blue glow had faded to black as soon as the sphere touched down.
With a gesture from Leona, Nahm stepped up onto the platform. The last he saw of his son, he was turning away, not once glancing back.
Their parting had been difficult. Liam wanted desperately to go with his father. But Nahm had reminded him of the many conversations they had had prior to this moment.
“He’s a good son. Much more reliable than his three older brothers,” Nahm thought as he took his seat inside the spacecraft. “Our people will need his courage and skills when they begin the crossing.”
The crossing Nahm referred to was a narrow land bridge joining northeastern Russia to the North American continent. The two continents were already joined farther north at the Arctic Circle. But the weather was too extreme there, according to returning scouting parties.
The route they would be travelling would eventually slip below the sea centuries later, leaving only a long, curving chain of islands known as the Aleutian’s.
Leona directed Nahm to a seat, and then punched in some commands on her control tablet. The walls of the sphere seemed to dissolve, affording a clear 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape. Blowing snow swirled around the craft, but Nahm felt no sensation of cold.
Though he could feel no movement, he knew the craft had begun to rise. He could see the landscape shrinking below him, at first slowly, but then more quickly as the sphere gathered speed. In only a matter of moments the long-house had shrunk to a barely discernible speck, surrounded by snow-covered hills. They too became quickly indiscernible.
Seemingly in a blur, the earth fell away before his eyes. The continental coastline came into view, shrinking all the while. Then the narrow Aleutian land bridge, then the western edge of the American continent.
Within a few more moments he could see the curvature of his home planet, with the crescent moon rising out of the east. A bright flash came from over his left shoulder. He turned to see the intense yellow ball of the sun, at first overpoweringly huge, then shrinking, shrinking. He turned back, but the earth was gone, replaced by a tiny blue ball which shrank to but a pinpoint of light. Very quickly the sun too shrank to a mere pinpoint, one of hundreds and then thousands more, twinkling against a black background.
He felt the slightest sense of movement, as though he was slowly turning. The star field moved from left to right, then stabilized. In the center of his view he could barely make out a bright dot, larger than the pinpoints of light which surrounded it. It gradually became larger, and then more quickly began to fill his field of view.
The object was circular, with hundreds of thin spikes protruding from it’s perimeter. It’s center wavered, shimmered, looking like sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake.
Within moments the object filled his view. The shimmering surface seemed to rush toward him. Soon the perimeter was out of his field of view.
He felt that he was falling, plunging downward toward that shimmering surface. The thought of falling into a lake filled him with dread. He started in near panic when he felt a mild tingling pass over his body. Leona was saying something. Her voice was soft and gentle, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He was awestruck, overwhelmed by the visual and physical sensation that surrounded him.
As quickly as it had begun, the falling sensation stopped. The shimmering surface dissolved, replaced by a black background filled with more specks of light. In the center another speck was growing, taking on a shape different from what he had just seen. This object was long and slender. As it grew closer he began to make out shapes on it’s surface. They were angular, multifaceted, much like the crystals he had seen inside caves where his family had frequently taken shelter.
Just as had happened before, the object continued to grow until it filled his entire field of view, except it didn’t seem to grow as rapidly.
Again he felt a slight sensation of movement as the object grew ever closer. Four blinking lights on the surface of the object came into view, this time from the right. The lights were in a diamond pattern.
Again the sensation of movement, as the diamond pattern rotated until it was a square. The top two lights were light blue in color. The bottom two were yellow. The lights came closer and closer, until suddenly a narrow line of white light appeared between the two flashing yellow lights. The line began to expand, growing wider from bottom to top, until it reached the level of the two blue lights. Just as it did so, the pulsing yellow lights turned a continuous green.
As the shuttle moved closer, Nahm could now see that the white light was actually an opening in the side of the huge object. The opening grew larger as the sphere moved slowly forward. Beyond the opening was an enclosure, like a well-lit cave, except the walls, ceiling and floor were flat, smooth.
A narrow yellow line appeared on the floor. The sphere was following the line, Nahm could tell, because all along the places where the walls met the floor, other objects were parked. Some of them were spheres like his. Others had strange, unfamiliar shapes. A few of them reminded him of birds in flight. His sphere was passing close by them as it followed the yellow line.
Nahm saw the line begin to flash, changing from yellow to green, then back again as the sphere continued moving forward. Ahead he could see the line ended. The sphere approached that end, then stopped. He felt the slightest jolt as the sphere settled in position. The light stopped flashing, this time staying green.
Directly in front of him he saw an opening appear in the wall. There were two people standing just beyond the opening. They took a few steps forward as a flat platform extended from the wall outward toward the sphere. One was male and the other female, he could see. They wore strange clothing, similar to what Leona wore.
Leona again tapped on her tablet. The walls of the sphere once again appeared, blocking Nahm’s view. Immediately an opening appeared in the side of the sphere directly in line with the extended platform.
The taller person, the male, began walking forward, hands clasped behind his back. The female remained where she was. Nahm saw that she was smiling.
Nahm rose and moved closer to the opening, but stopped short, reluctant to step onto the platform. The tall man stopped at the end of the platform and extended a hand toward Nahm.
“Hello, my new friend,” the man said. “My name is Evander. Be welcome on board the Brighid. There are two of your friends here who will be very pleased to see you.”