The Prophecy On the Planet Chapter Three

The office in the Executive suite was hot and stuffy. It reminded Kaleem so much of the health centre at home where Maria was presumably still almost imprisoned. He suddenly felt homesick for Terrestra. Razjosh had forbidden him all contact with his old life. He would be more able to integrate into the new one if he was cut off completely from his home planet. The Elder had, however promised Kaleem that the moment there was any deterioration in his mother, he would be informed at once. Kaleem had heard nothing, so he assumed all must be well.

The Executive of Language and Story was staring out of the window at a holoscene of natural sunflowers.

‘It’s so clever what they are doing with the holo technology,’ he said. ‘That’s what I now want to bring to the world of words. Create atmospheres taken from elsewhere.’

He turned to face Kaleem.

‘That is where I think you could be helpful. You know so much about other languages. Am I not right in saying that some concepts exist in one language, which do not in another? And you are able to translate them, retaining their meaning …and atmosphere?’

Kaleem swallowed hard. That was exactly what he always tried to do. He was not sure whether it was successful. There was something else though, which he couldn’t quite define. It was something to do with only being able to understand the complete meaning if you really understood the people who used those words. He’d taken short cuts on the Peace Child programme. Now that he was actually living on Zandra, he realised that the whole process was going to take months if not years.

‘Well, what do you think?’ continued Marek. ‘I can’t think of anyone better to lead this project.’

The Executive was staring at him. His eyebrows were slightly raised.

‘I don’t know … ,’ said Kaleem. He didn’t really know why he was hesitating. He didn’t have all that much work on at the moment. His students didn’t stay long. He had become quite adept at getting them to learn quickly.

‘We would assign you enough credits,’ said the Executive. ‘In fact, we’d rather you concentrated on this and didn’t take on so many students. With the number we had in mind, you would be able to live more comfortably than you do now.’

Well, that could be good. Taking on such a position would mean that he had gained some respect on Zandra. That was a step in the right direction. It sounded so easy, too. It would give him plenty of time for the other things he needed to do.

‘All right, then,’ he said.

‘Wonderful!’ said the Executive, holding out his hand with a gap between the middle and the ring finger. ‘Welcome to Project Communika! We’ll dispatch a contract for iris signature within the next two days. You really are the best person for the job. I’m surprised we have only just come across you. Have you only recently developed this method for equipping people with languages?’

Kaleem felt himself go cold in spite of the stuffiness of the Executive’s office. This was not a conversation he wanted to have.

‘I must go,’ he said. ‘I have another appointment.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Marek Ransen. ‘We must talk more another time.’

Kaleem hurried out of the Executive Office Suite. He had not exactly been untruthful. He had arranged to meet Alistare, Petro and Tulla. It would be the first time he would meet Tulla face to face after the Black Tulpen. He was quite nervous. The conversation with Ransen had actually been a welcome distraction.

It was a short walk from the Executive Office Suite to the Refreshment Park. They had decided to go there so that they could make the most of the Zandrian summer; it was just three hours every day, but it was very pleasant. It was warm and sunny enough to sit outdoors, but not so hot that you got frazzled. The Refreshment Park was outside, but the beautiful gardens and lake were not real. It was holo technology again. It was convincing, though.

Kaleem now walked slowly. He was trying to persuade himself that he was enjoying the sunshine and the huge displays of exotic flowers that lined the walkways. It was no good, though, - he was spotted.

Petro jumped out of his seat and started waving frantically.

‘Over here,’ he shouted. ‘Trust my old man to keep you forever!’

A robot waiter had just arrived at the table.

‘Four more chofas,’ Petro ordered.

Kaleem’s mouth had gone dry and his heart was racing. He would have preferred to run away. He had no choice but to make his way up to the table.

‘Detran Malthus, Tulla Watkins, Tu’ for short,’ he said, waving his arm vaguely over Tulla and Kaleem. ‘Hey, there’s somewhere I need to go. Back in a jiffy.’

‘Me too,’ said Alistare. ‘That chofa’s effective.’

This is a nightmare, thought Kaleem. I should never have agreed to this meeting.

Tulla caught his eye, then blushed and looked away.

She’s gorgeous, thought Kaleem. Lucky old Petro. Why did I send those Tulpen back?

He couldn’t just sit and stare at her, though.

‘How long have you and Petro been attached, then?’ he asked. His voice came out in a squeak.

‘Er, since just after the Black Tulpen episode,’ Tulla managed to say. She went an even richer shade of pink. ‘But we’ve actually known each other since we were babies. Our mothers were best friends.’

‘Don’t be … ,’ Kaleem started.

‘About the Black Tulpen…,’ Tulla started saying at the same time.

They both laughed. Kaleem felt himself relax a little.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘I hope I didn’t embarrass you, but I thought … well, you know, we were getting along so well at the Ambassador’s. … I wasn’t with Petro then…’

‘Don’t you be embarrassed either,’ said Kaleem. ‘I …er ..was pleased…. Really …. it’s just that…’

‘Oh, you’re already attached?’ said Tulla.

‘No, nothing like that,’ said Kaleem. ‘I was just so busy at the time …and I thought we should….’

He was interrupted by Alistare and Petro coming back.

Tulla smiled at Kaleem and blushed again.

Oh give me Black Tulpen any time, thought Kaleem, and all that that means.

He wished that everything and everyone would go away and that he could just be with her.

Petro sat down beside Tulla. He ruffled her hair and kissed her on the cheek. She beamed at him. Her pupils were wide open, as if she couldn’t take in enough of him.

No more Black Tulpen for me then, thought Kaleem. Why did I let her go?

The hazelnut chofa arrived. He had tried it before, but the Refreshment Park was known for making a particularly good one. Kaleem took his first sip. It was hot and burnt his tongue a little, but he could still appreciate the creamy nut-flavoured liquid.

‘So what did my old man want with you?’ asked Petro.

Kaleem took another sip of the chofa before he answered. It was cooling rapidly. It was wonderfully smooth and it was making him feel wide-awake. It was much stronger than Terrestran coffee.

He told them about the Communika project.

‘Right up your street, I should think,’ said Alistare. ‘Only trouble is, you won’t be able to teach people like me anymore. That’s a pity.’

‘Yeah,’ said Petro, ‘you ought to have gone to Detran, didn’t you, Tu’? That first tutor you had was pretty hopeless.’

Tulla shrugged and shook her head. Kaleem wondered whether the other two had noticed how much she was blushing. Maybe they’d put it down to the warm sunshine.

‘And what about you, though?’ Petro said to Alistare. ‘I gather you’ve been selected for something special as well.’

Alistare grinned.

‘Yup,’ he said. ‘The Golden Segment Examination. The theory is that’s it’s in everything. We’re to prove it mathematically.’

‘Is that the two thirds / one-third thing?’ asked Tulla.

Alistare laughed. ‘Sort of,’ he said, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. The ancient Greeks seemed to know a thing or two, and then further research was done in the 21^st Century, but they didn’t between them get much further than artworks, growth patterns and architectural stability. Now we’re taking it up again.’

‘Hey!’ said Tulla. ‘Maybe we ought to call ourselves the Golden Gang. We got our places on the Deprived Zones project!’

‘Congratulations!’ said Alistare. ‘Perhaps we ought to order something a bit stronger than chofa….Oh! Perhaps not. We’ve all got work to do. I raise my glass to the Golden Gang,’ he said, standing up and holding the half full glass of chofa in the air.

Kaleem, Tulla and Petro got up on to their feet.

‘To the Golden Gang!’ they said as they touched glasses.

Kaleem suddenly felt warm inside. Here he was, on a strange planet, and nobody knew he wasn’t from there. He fitted in completely. He had even been asked to take on a major project, and now he had they been taken in by a group of friends. He was doing what he had been sent to do. Yet it was more than that. He was slowly but surely becoming Zandrian.

Kaleem saw Tulla and Petro exchange a glance.

‘Shall we tell them what else?’ he heard Tulla whisper to Petro.

‘Go on then,’ said Petro. He laughed. ‘They’ll have to know sooner or later. As will the whole of Zandra.’

‘Well, as it means relocating to Planus 2,’ she said. She paused. ‘We’re going to get permanently attached,’ she burst out, bright pink again. ‘They’re going to give us our own apartment.’

‘It’s actually a wooden hut,’ said Petro.

Tulla hit his arm

‘They are made of wood, but that’s all you need in that climate. And anyway, we have to fit in with what the locals do if they’re to trust us. The apartments are really quite beautiful. They’re very spacious, simply but comfortably furnished, no holo technology, but plenty of communication hardware. It’s going to be great!’

‘Now that does call for something more than chofa,’ said Alistare. He waved to one of the waiter robots. ‘Half fregas all round?’

The other three nodded.

Definitely the end of the Black Tulpen then, thought Kaleem.

‘It’s a great project, actually,’ said Petro. ‘We’ll be studying their immune systems. There’s been absolutely no disease there for about the same amount of time as on Terrestra.’

Kaleem felt his whole body stiffen at the mention of Terrestra. He tried to act as normally as possible, but he was sure that they would notice something.

‘Now that’s somewhere I would like to go,’ said Tulla, serious now. ‘More to find out why they want to stay so isolated all of the time.’

‘It’s because they were disease-free, isn’t it?’ said Alistare. ‘Anyway, that’s precisely why you can’t go. They won’t have anyone, especially Zandrians at the moment.’

‘Yes, but how come the Planatian 2s have managed and stayed in communication?’ asked Tulla.

‘That’s what we’ll find out, isn’t it?’ said Petro. ‘Hopefully.’

‘I still think there’s more to why Terrestra’s kept itself to itself,’ said Tulla. ‘And it didn’t work for them, did it?’

No, it didn’t, thought Kaleem. We got it wrong.

‘Perhaps they’re just shy,’ said Alistare. ‘Not everybody has to be all bubbly and friendly like us Zandrians. Mind you, old Detran here is being a bit quiet.’

‘Oh, I’m just thinking about this project I’ve been landed with,’ said Kaleem. He needed to stop them thinking like that straight away. ‘Anyway, surely there’s a mixture of types of people on any planet, isn’t there?’

‘Who knows?’ said Alistare, shrugging. Then he giggled. ‘Terrestrans certainly don’t.’

This one does, thought Kaleem and the realised that in the space of a few seconds, he had twice thought of himself as Terrestran, - just after he had begun to feel as if he was becoming a real Zandrian.

The information screen in the Refreshment Park jumped into life. A presenter robot appeared on the screen.

‘We bring news of a further war-like act from Terrestra. The starlight disease, now prevalent on the planet, has become more sinister and has also become more rampant. They are now reporting one thousand deaths a day. A cargo of the antidote developed here on Zandra, along with twenty of our health experts, as well as a crew of fifteen, was sent on an unconditional mercy mission. The Zandrian Executive Corps has dropped all clauses in the agreement, which was drawn up earlier. As soon as the Supercraft was ten kilometres from the Terrestran exclusion zone, the Terrestrans opened fire on the craft. It is believed that all Zandrians onboard have been killed. We await the information from the ship’s automatic recording systems.’

The screen went black.

Tulla had gone white.

‘My parents could well be on that ship,’ she said. ‘They were going somewhere, only they couldn’t say where.’

Petro put his arm around Tulla’s shoulder.

‘Sweetheart, we don’t know,’ he said.

How could they? Why do we do it? thought Kaleem.

Tulla and Petro got up without saying a word.

‘Party’s over, I guess,’ said Alistare.

Kaleem felt sick at the thought of Petro’s and Tulla’s colleagues - perhaps even Tulla’s parents -  killed like that when they were only trying to help. Then he thought of Terrestra, and the diseased and the dying.

What if it’s somebody I know? he thought.

There was no way he was allowed to find out.

Alistare was already on his feet and walking towards the gate. Kaleem followed him. He kept his eyes on the ground.