Chapter 7 – Through the Looking Glass
The mended figurines stand upon my stone table. I remind myself that I see the scars of their fall because I know exactly where to look. I try to convince myself that the untrained eye will fail to see the slight seams suffered by the carvings. Yet it is difficult for an archivist to convince himself that his treasures might be repaired after suffering even the slightest of injuries.
The latest statistics culled from Seh'Ulk's data rest beneath the figurines on my stone table. There too, I did my best to convince myself that the numbers screaming of the fluctuations in the strangers' rising temperatures are not worthy of so much of my worry, that my anxiety is due to my archivist's nature to hold all my artifacts sacred and close. I scold myself for thinking that the strangers can be anything like the artifacts contained in my museum.
Yet they are so fragile.
I have built my museum around the strangers, and I cannot help but worry about their health.
I hear a familiar tap of a tail as one of the brood hurries towards my chamber. As I expect, it is Ah'Wren who bustles to my table, her scales alive in the deepest shades of purple.
I hold up a hand to give her a moment to catch her breath and to calm.
“They're ready, Un'Yhe.” Ah'Wren does not waste a moment to speak.
All of us in the museum have been so anxious.
“They've found all that they need?”
Ah'Wren's eyes shine. “They found enough. I cannot describe what they have built. It looks so strange, Un'Yhe.”
I feel the color flushing my scales. “I do not doubt it, Ah'Wren.”
“They ask for you,” Ah'Wren states. “They want you to be the first of the brood to use the device. They say you deserve the honor. They want Un'Yhe, builder of the museum and master of all tongues, to translate the splendor they claim you will see.”
Ah'Wren's tail flutters.
“They want you, Un'Yhe, to be the first to see the stars.”
I want to run from my table, but I calm myself and walk next to Ah'Wren as we progress through the museum's halls. Little has altered in the museum since I first gathered the relics and placed them upon their shelves to surround the strangers with the wonders of our world. As an archivist, I can still name all the pieces lost to accident. I have noted the pieces that the strangers have claimed for their strange, new mechanism. I hold closely all my artifacts, and I ask the prophet Terleck that their loss not be in vain as I try to imagine what awaits Ah'Wren and I beyond the double doors leading to the strangers' inmost chambers. My thoughts ramble, but Ah'Wren has mastered the halls quickly, and I am proud to notice how she politely corrects me as I meander through wrong turns.
The lights of the inner halls have been dimmed as we draw closer to the strangers' chambers. The Sands of the White Shore shimmer in the low light as we pass them, and I slow my pace to control the excitement swelling in me by remembering the reverence all of the broods hold for those glowing, twinkling motes of sand.
I remain anxious as we stride through the open, double doors leading to the strangers. All of the cylinders are gathered to greet us. The forms of each stranger hover and shift in their fluids, and I am happy to see that much strength has returned to the light that circulates through their bodies. The lights are bright, but they still move slowly. I wonder if the speed of those shifting lights is the result of reverence, or of a sickness both Seh'Ulk and I fear.
Lisa's voice greets us. “We hope to present our greatest treasures to the broods, Un'Yhe. It is our wish to give our greatest gift to all the broods through you.”
My eyes widen as they better adjust to the inner chamber's dimness. From the darkness behind the cylinders emerges the strangers' creation, a teeming web of tubes and cylinders that snakes through the shadows. Small knobs and gauges dot the surface along the tubing, and I see the green glow of the monitor screens the strangers have scavenged from their ark to meld into their latest contraption. A wide, central tube descends into an elevated platform, beneath which a multitude of gears, wheels and belts whirl and hum. The central tube disappears into shadow when I try to find its high end. The mechanism does not look at all mobile. I think it looks too cumbersome to hold much practical purpose for the broods. But I remind myself, that to the strangers, many of our museum's artifacts hold little practicality for them, and that the strangers still admire what the museum contains.
Lisa's voice again pulses through the speakers. “Open the dome, Marcus.”
“I hope all our tracking holds,” Marcus' voice answers.
A hum fills the room and I feel the floor vibrate through my feet. Shadows swirl overhead. In an instant, a vermillion sliver of light stabs through the high darkness, bringing water to my eyes as they adjust to the brilliance. A large panel slides upon a new set of tracking installed on the high dome to expose Frelurn's bright, purple sky. I still marvel at the strangers' ability to build such powerful machines though they remain confined in their cylinders' fluids.
The dome opens and floods the chamber with the purple light of our world. I wonder how long it has been since the strangers have been exposed to the open sky. Does their glass protect them from such light? Are they so fragile that the light burns them?
The strangers show no signs of discomfort. They flutter and pulsate within their fluids.
The humming ceases and is replaced with the whirl of gears as the long tube snaking through the shadows rotates upon the turning pedestal. Knobs and dials rotate. Numbers and letters flash green on the monitors fastened to the device.
Happiness fills Marcus’ voice. “It moves more smoothly than we hoped.”
“What is it?” I stammer.
Lisa's voice purrs. “A telescope, Un'Yhe. A wonderful telescope.”
“It's extraordinary,” Isaiah continues. “It was hard to find all the glass we needed for the lenses. It took us a long time to find all the reflective surfaces. We needed very precise parts in order to filter the spectrum of your planet's atmosphere.”
My tail pounds the floor. “I don't understand.”
Lisa's cylinder glows no matter that the light of Frelurn's sky fills the chamber.
“That is why we built it, Un'Yhe. We so badly want to share with you the pull the stars have on us. Our languages fail to convey such a thought. That's why we want you, Un'Yhe, master of language, to look first. We want you to see the twinkling that took us to the stars so that you can tell your broods about the wonder that elevated us into the heavens.”
“Just step up and peek,” Marcus' form twirls in his cylinder.
My scales shine in a shade of crimson seldom seen by my brood. The mechanism is massive. I do not know how to approach.
“Follow me, Un'Yhe.”
Marcus now speaks through the rolling mechanism that comes to my side. I know it is only a thing of cameras and wheels, that the true Marcus remains suspended in his cylinder of fluids, but the mechanism's presence next to me still soothes me. I follow the device atop the pedestal to the base of the tall, winding tube, and I sit upon the chair waiting for me. I hear another whirl of gears as another branching tube extends toward me, capped with a surface of glass so polished that it glows in Frelurn's light.
“Just look into that glass, Un'Yhe,” Marcus' mechanism encourages me. “Just put your eye to it and give the telescope a little time to focus.”
Slowly, I bring my eye to the lens. The scales circling my eye feel no shock.
Marcus chuckles. “You do not have to press your eye against the glass. Draw it back a little and give some time for the purple sky to fade.”
At first, I see only the bright purple sky of Frelurn. The base beneath me turns slightly as the device again whirls and hums. The purple fades, and my eyes widen. My scales shine red as Frelurn's sky seeps away and is replaced by deep black. Instinctively, I peek away from the lens, and I sigh in relief to see that Frelurn's purple sky still shines upon me through the domed ceiling's opening. The color has not vanis
hed.
I first see them when I return my eye to the glass. The dots of light come into focus in bunches. My tail pounds the floor. Pinpoints of bright, white light shimmer everywhere in the lens, sparkling against a backdrop of pure black. The mechanism continues to whirl and hum as the scene pans, bringing more and more white jewels into my sight. They teem in the deep black. Time and again, I have listened to the strangers' stories of traveling amid them, of the infinite distances between each of them, of the eons the strangers have spent floating in the black to bridge that yawning space. Only now, as I stare through the glass of the thing the strangers call a telescope, do I start to understand. The stars twinkle in my sight, and I cannot pull my eye away. I know so many languages and words, and yet I fear I have no tongue with which to describe the wonder.
“What do you see, Un'Yhe?”
Ah'Wren has drifted behind me. Surely, she has recognized the wonder exhibited in the color of my scales.
“Sands, Ah'Wren,” I answer. “The night beyond our purple sky is brimming with the White Sands. They’re everywhere. No wonder our first ancestors stepped out of the water and onto that glistening shore. The stars are everywhere, and they are wonderful.”
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