remembered his youth, when he met Goya. It was the first and last time he suffered because of a woman. After the Zayonean left him for a well-to-do Tzulu merchant, his life turned into a disaster. Regrets and more regrets. Then the years he spent in the outpost, running a wild-goose chase. Somehow their fates were similar.…
Lerman took out a bottle of Zar he hadn’t touched since their departure and they started to drink. Suddenly, a strong breath of wind lifted the embers in the air.…
“What the hell was that?” Lerman shouted, sobering down. A humanoid, radiating light, appeared from behind the rocks. Tarek grabbed his knife. Lerman’s heart sank. A few moments later he relaxed, though.
“It’s OK,” he said pushing Tarek’s hand down, “I know who that is. The old man who appeared before me in the desert. The one who accompanied Mud. He’s gonna show us the way to the treasure.…”
“Come!” the old man said firmly. “Come! I’ve been expecting you.…”
The two stepped forward cautiously. They had never seen a creature surrounded by so much light. Was it because of the white clothes he was wearing? Who knows what kind of merchandise the Tzulu merchants have brought here again.…
“Come and you will get younger.…”
“But…what about the treasure?”
“What treasure? The treasure is what you are and you do not know. What you were and what you will be. Not the stones you have been looking all your life.…”
They climbed down tens of spiraling steps, then entered a tunnel full of torches that lit by themselves, one by one, while they were advancing. Tarek was thinking of the old man’s words.… Youth.… How long had he been waiting for this? Could the elixir be on the very planet where he’d wasted so many years of his life? Finally they entered a room in which Mud was tending some plants with shiny big leaves. Tarek stared at her admiring her blue skin, covered by scales. She looked exactly like Lerman had described her, only now she seemed even stranger.…
“Lerman, Tarek, you must be wondering why I have brought you here. Both of you have been looking for riches and youth but fate has brought you to the place you were meant to come to, here, to me.”
“What do you want from us?” Lerman asked. “And who are you?”
“Wait.… Be patient. The question is, what do you want? You know very well what you are looking for, only you like deceiving yourselves so much…your happiness does not depend on some stones or years added to your existence. Who are we? Well, that is a long story.…”
“You’d better tell it,” Tarek said. “Or.…”
“Or what? What are you going to do? Go back to your pitiful life, hoping fortune will smile on you?”
“Don’t,” Mud put in. “Maybe it’s not their way.… There are others, more keen on it than these two are.…”
“No, no,” Lerman said, “since we’re here, we’d like to know why we’re here. The other day I was in a coma, then I woke up without a wrinkle on my face…and it wasn’t because of the treatment, I’m sure about it.…”
“So you seem to want some answers.… All right then. Let us take it from the beginning.… You have heard of Eden, haven’t you, the third planet revolving round Uta’H, the red star. Eden has always been inhabited. All Edeneans lived in peace and harmony, enjoying great Democles’s gift: eternal life. After several cycles that lasted thousand of years, they turned into beings of light and traveled throughout the universe, embodying new forms of life. When Uta’H started its last stage, the Edeneans began to grow old and die. At first they did not know what was happening. In vain did they meditate and pray to Democles. After a while they realized their race was being threatened, therefore they decided to leave the system.”
“And where did they go?” Tarek asked.
“Since all of them had always traveled as beings of light, they built Arka and headed to Megara.”
“But Megara is unstable,” Tarek said. “Only the Tzulu merchants know how to travel through worm holes.”
“Indeed, they have always been endowed with a very good sense of observation. They can see details others cannot. They can see patterns. Under the influence of high doses of drugs they seem to be able to predict the future. And they use this ability to travel through worm holes. Thus they calculate exactly where they want to get.”
“How can they do that?”
“The laws of physics seem to act differently inside worm holes. The Tzulu merchants can know the position and speed of every particle of subspace and can predict exactly all the interactions between them at any time.”
“How come other races can’t do it?”
“Because of the stress. There is the risk of a single person not being able to gather enough data in order to establish a ship’s trajectory through a worm hole. The brain often collapses and the journey can thus be compromised. But the merchants have the ability to interconnect mentally so they can create a huge brain, able to stand the accidental ‘network’ breakdowns. An ability many races have not been able to acquire. That is why Arka could not get farther. More than that, their food and power supplies were limited. When they reached Megara the capsules were uncoupled, each of them carrying a male and a female. Thus they could reach various places of the Galaxy, systems that did or did not support life.… We were lucky to get to Nede.”
“You?!” Lerman said. “Are you from Eden?”
“Yes. She is Mud, my partner. And I am…Uezen!”
“Uezen?”
Tarek and Lerman remembered the horrors bearing that name.…
“I know what you are thinking…but it is not your fault. Everyone chooses their own way. And you have too.…”
“Wait a minute,” Lerman said. “If you have embodied new forms of life throughout the universe, it means…you’ve also got to Terra?”
“I knew you would ask that, Lerman. You are the creation of the beings of light. You are the continuity of our race. We are what you call…God. But we are all the creation of great Democles.”
Lerman was astounded, not believing his ears. Tarek looked suspicious. First Lerman’s strange story, then the stories of the two.…
“But why do you look so different?” he asked, somehow trying to find them out in a lie.
“Mud has passed through the same mutations I could have if I had exposed myself for a long time to Nagur, the sun. Our DNA code changes and our powers decrease. Sooner or later we will lose them all.… But not before teaching you what we know. Therefore, we decided one of us should get in touch with the people on Nede. It is only thus that you will really know your nature and powers.”
“What about youth?” Tarek asked eagerly.
“Youth too, and everything we have received from Democles.”
“Why us?” Lerman asked.
“Because you have always believed in love. Even if the darins have biased
