Streams - Book 1

Chapter 6

Dinner is served.

Staring down at her distorted reflection in the mirrored surface of the large dome lid, Jenni paused to wonder what kind of food the Gnomes ate. Was she going to find a pile of severed tentacles, dislodged eyeballs, or perhaps the barbecued remains of some creature who had been unlucky enough to find his way into the kitchen of the gnome version of Rachel Ray.

"Is there a problem dear?" Lilly asked, noticing Jenni's hesitation.

"It's just that I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat anything that has a central nervous system."

"Did you hear that Aakil? She shares our taste in food and compassion for all life. That's quite encouraging," Lilly said. Walking over she pulled the lid off of the tray, revealing a large pile of strange shaped fruits and vegetables.

Letting out a large sigh of relief, Jenni let her hunger take over as she eagerly grabbed the tray. She paused to look for utensils, but didn't find any and so scooped up the food with her hands.

"Good?" Lilly asked as she placed a large glass of water down on the table. "I hate to rush you, but I know the council is growing anxious to meet with you, do you think you can eat and read?"

Jenni gave an accepting nod, her mouth too full to talk, as she slid the book over and turned the page.

PG12

With the help of the Reticulan's new craft, the council began exploring a stream that had been discovered by Rognvaldr, a Dragon jumper. The inhabitants of which were like no other being discovered before.

"Well, I can't imagine this ending well." Jenni commented through a mouth full of half chewed fruit.

PG13

Their curiosity was equal to that of the gnomes and their ingenuity was beaten only by the Reticulan's. However, overpowering both these qualities was their desire to conquer and rule one another.

PG14

After a lengthy observational period from the safety of the Reticulan craft, and much debate, the council decided to permit contact. However, they took every precaution they could and permitted only the most experienced jumpers to make the first contact.

PG15

Individually, the humans greeted the jumpers with curiosity and wonder.

But in large groups they became hostile. They believed the jumpers were evil and the work of dark magic. They were not advanced enough to understand the science behind the gateways. And they couldn't see beyond the appearance of the jumpers to really grasp that they were thinking feeling beings.

"Why are Gnomes always depicted as being so tiny?" Jenni asked confused by the image in the book as well as by every statute she had ever seen in her own stream of a Gnome.

"Gravity!" Aakil replied. "Gravity controls everything in a stream; how it looks, how long or how short the days are, even how the beings of the stream develop. So naturally the change in gravity will have some effects on the jumpers."

He hunched his shoulders in an attempt to make himself look smaller. "In your stream we Gnomes shrink down to tiny versions of ourselves, and since your days pass faster then they do in our stream, we age quicker then the beings who remain here."

"So time travels faster in my stream?" Jenni asked as her thoughts turned to her parents and the hope that they might already be working on a way to come get her.

"Yes, two days in your stream equals one day here." Aakil replied.

"How long have I been here?" Jenni questioned.

"It was the night before last that we found you." Lilly replied, the amount of time shocking Jenni.

"So I will have been gone four days to anyone in my stream!" By now, her parents would have arrived at her school and been informed of her disappearance. So the only question was, how long would it take for them to figure out what had happened to her. And what, if any, clues could have been left behind that would start them thinking about an alternative reality.

"Unfortunately time is not on our side." Lilly said as she filled a line of vials with the thick green medication. "The faster we get you back to your stream the better. We don't want people in your stream to ask too many questions about where you have been. Nobody would benefit if the streams were brought to the attention of your governments new rulers. So the sooner we get you up to speed and figure out how you got here; the sooner we can hopefully get you home." Jenni nodded in agreement and turned her attention back to the book.

PG16

Magic, and the power it represented, was of great interest to the rulers of the human stream. Of course it wasn't really magic, but as one of the wise philosophers said, "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic." So the humans began to believe that if they could kill the magical being they could harness its power.

Jenni sat in stunned silence as the realization that not only did Dragons, Unicorns, Gnomes and who knows what else actually exist, but that humans had really hunted them down and killed them. The fairy tales of her youth were in fact based on factual accounts. And with stories of UFOS and alien abduction also seeming to be based on some sort of reality, Jenni began questioning everything she thought to be real.

PG17

For a few gold coins and a blessing from their King, the villagers who the jumpers had come to know and trust turned on them. They helped the knights to hunt the jumpers down and revealed the areas where they had witnessed the gateways open as the jumpers entered and left the stream.

"So this is why they are coming here, to kill me for what humanity did ages ago?" Jenni asked as the soft sound of steam escaping from Lilly's laboratory equipment, broke her concentration.

"Well, not entirely," Aakil replied.

"The death of the Jumpers drove a wedge between the humans and the beings of the other streams, as you can imagine." Lilly replied honestly. "But we still had hope."

"Then what did we do?" Jenni asked. She wasn't naïve enough to believe that humanity stopped with killing a few jumpers.

Lilly opened her mouth to reply, but an explosion of wood and glass from the window behind Jenni cut her off, and sent everyone diving for cover.