The First Ones

The Journey

 The trip up the tether was, for Luci, unbearably long. She wasn't bored. That wasn't the problem. She knew she was leaving her home, and wanted to get it over with lest she became irreversibly homesick. She immersed herself in the Armui culture as much as she could, replaying her favorite music, watching viewings of traditional dances and ceremonies and the like. By the end of the ascent she was brimful with the traits of her home, and shed a tear to see Seerin beneath the pod. She had never been in space before; it was an utterly alien sight to her. That made her feel strange, thinking of her own homeworld as being alien. She was an Armui. She had lived out every day of her life on Seerin. It made her feel like an outsider.

The orbital end of the space elevator was secured by a counterweight, an asteroid ferried in from the belt beyond Seerin's orbit. Its mass provided the centrifugal force required to counteract the effects of the planet's gravity along the tether's lower end, and kept the whole structure balanced and taut. The asteroid was large enough that there were several docking ports on its outer surface and, as Tra'nath explained it, the inside was hollowed out and equipped to support life. Several thousand First Ones from all three sects lived in a conglomerate community in that artificial environment.

The group waited two days on the counterweight before they boarded the liner. It was a sleek Redani sunsurfer, a luxury cosmic cruiser meant either for the ultrawealthy or the incredibly-innovative. Luci fell in love with the design when she saw it berthed at the end of the docking arm, colored a glimmering black. Tra'nath led them aboard, among a throng of First Ones heading to Earth. Surprisingly, there were extremely few of them. There was another family of Armui traveling with them and one Redani, and that was it. Quite a small number for a liner that could accomodate more than fifty people. What a waste of space! And Tra'nath already said this was one of the smallest passenger vessels. Maybe the Redan enjoyed extravagance.

Luci thought the same again when she settled in the liner's grand hall. It was more luxury-laden than anything she'd ever seen before, resembling the usual Redani designs she'd read about in her storybooks. It was two days into their interstellar voyage, and Brennor, Dovera and Seerin had been left behind long ago along with the familiar warm light of their star. There was nothing to see in the realm of translight space, so the First Ones aboard spent their time in different ways. Luci and Random played various board games from time to time, and often Tra'nath would teach the youngers the dialect of the Redan. It was similar enough that Luci picked it up without any major difficulty. The grammar and sentence structures were the same- she just had to replace the words with those of Dovera.

She also spent time with the other First Ones traveling with them. With the other two families' daughters, who had at least one each, along with Luci herself and Random, there were certainly a lot of girls aboard. But the families had one son each, and Luci got to know them during the voyage. The Armui boy was Emador, and the Redani was Jonatel. Emador was charming, and Jonatel was smart. That was how Luci surmised the both of them. The children discussed endlessly about the new lives they would lead once they reached the Confederacy. Emador told her that his family would find a place among the farming communities of the humans' colonies on the moons of their planets. Jonatel believed that his family would spend their time on Earth, learning all they could about the advancement of human technology.

In the "mornings," Tra'nath would personally prepare breakfast for the rest of the First Ones. The children would play and sing songs from home, and in the afternoons the parents would tell tales from Dovera and Brennor. These Luci listened intently to; she had a difficult time getting used to the fact that her family was far away across the galaxy and she would have to handle herself well on her own. Evenings were jolly too; Tra'nath would regale her charges with stories from the human worlds, as she was the only one who had seen both cultures. 

Soon Luci didn't bother keeping track of how long they were in space. But she woke up one morning and when she looked out her window she saw something she had never seen before.

It was a fabulous sight and, just like the view of Seerin from orbit, completely alien. There were stars outside again, for one. There was a celestial body floating there in space, bright and shining, blotched with patches of darker gray. That is, only those areas that were still barren. A majority of it was covered in green and blue, and it seemed as if the gray splotches were symptoms of a parasitical infection. Two colossal Bishop rings encircled the body, running perpendicularly to each other, one within and one without. Luci's eyes widened. "By all the sunlight on Seerin.....!"

"Oh good, you're awake." Tra'nath stepped up to the window beside the Armui girl. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

"Whenever did we arrive?" Luci asked. "And where have we arrived at?"

"We pulled out of translight four hours ago, when most of us were still aslumber." Tra'nath lifted a hand and checked her datapad. "Makes sense, but we've arrived sooner than usual. We are now in the Sol star system in orbit above Earth, homeworld of the humans and interstellar capital of their Confederacy."

Luci looked at the gray, blue and green celestial body encircled by the rings. "Is that Earth? It's different from the pictures I've seen."

Tra'nath laughed, apparently knowing that Luci would make that assumption. "No, child. That is Luna, Earth's only natural satellite." The First Ones crossed the ship to its other side. "That is Earth, Luci."

There was a grand and incredible world if Luci ever saw one. This was far larger, and was colored with lovely blues, greens, browns and whites. This world was blotched with glittering silver all over, like a coat of jewels, and its low orbit swam with ships, vessels, and spaceborne superstructures.

"Oh," Luci said, studying the host of activity going on. "They have space elevators too. And what are those?"

"Space habitats," Tra'nath answered, looking at what Luci was pointing at. "Artificial environments in space capable of infinitely sustaining life. Much like the ones constructed by the Redan back home."

"Home means something different here," Luci said. "Look at it! It's such a beautiful world."

"Wait till you meet the people," Tra'nath said. "Breakfast has been prepared, Luci. Make it an enjoyable one. We disembark tomorrow."