Unforgettable journey to other planets
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“Wait, Jean-Pierre. Stop,” Dr Capri said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Bhrigu, how is it possible? Is it you? Do you know anything about the signals from Voyager?”
Bhrigu raised his eyebrows in surprise as a sign that he did not know what the doctor was talking about. He thought for a moment and turned in the direction he had just pointed to the travelers.
“Boat is there,” Bhrigu said, pointing to the right.
Jean-Pierre went in the direction indicated.
“Yes, here it is!” he called out from the darkness.
“I don’t understand,” Yulia said to Dr Capri.
“I can’t understand it either,” David added. “I woke up near the entrance, and I could feel the cold air coming in from outside.”
“That’s right,” Dr Capri said without taking his eyes off the hermit.
“Bhrigu,” Debby said, unable to endure, into the hermit’s back. “Did you make this happen?”
“No, Debby,” answered Bhrigu quietly, “sometimes goddess of fortune come, but we think it’s bad.”
“You gave us something to drink yesterday. I remember!” Yulia cried out anxiously.
The doctor nodded and turned to Debby:
“I even gave you a few sips.”
“No,” David shook his head. “I didn’t drink. I saw everyone else was drinking, but I didn’t have the energy.”
“Tea,” Bhrigu nodded, “strong, maybe, but just tea.”
Jean-Pierre walked along the bank, pulling the boat up by the rope. He stepped closer to the hermit:
“You’re coming with us,” Jean-Pierre said in French. “And if there’s nothing there, you’d better be able to swim well.”
“Do you want to go there?” Dr Capri asked.
“Yes,” answered Jean-Pierre. “It’s not a hallucination. All of this. I’m sure of myself, and I’m sure of what I see. Believe me, he didn’t poison us. It’s all crazy, but that’s not what’s important.”
“So what is?” the doctor was surprised.
“If your military friends are still alive, they will have to search for us. Either they will choose the direction that seems most logical to them, or…” Jean-Pierre paused, “and I hope so, they will start searching every possible hiding place in a spiral. Starting from the crash area. But if there’s no way out, how will they find us?”
Jean-Pierre pointed to Bhrigu with a glance to get into the boat.
“We don’t have much time. We walked about 20 or 30 minutes yesterday. So we’re about one or two kilometers away from the crash point. We were going mostly toward the setting sun, so westward. And you and the pilots came from the north. How long did you walk from the helicopter before you saw me and Debby?”
“We ran, about fifteen minutes,” answered the doctor to Jean-Pierre.
“So,” Jean-Pierre wanted to make another assumption, but when he saw Bhrigu he froze. “Although now it is important that the exit is really on the other side of the lake.”
David ran to get his backpack and Yulia’s bag in the other room. He tapped the place where the passage had been yesterday and whispered, “How is that possible, isn’t a rock?” He threw the backpack into the boat and helped Yulia and Debby get in, then seated himself.
“Jean-Pierre,” Dr Capri said quietly. “I think Bhrigu is telling the truth. He had nothing to do with it. All this…”
“I don’t care,” Jean-Pierre replied. “Maybe Debby is better, but we still have to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
David, who was already inside the boat, caught the doctor and the Frenchman’s gaze:
“The boat is flimsy. Do you think we can all get across at once?”
“Fine, we can squeeze,” Jean-Pierre answered. “Only together.”
He went to the wall and picked up the torch which was attached to it. He gave it to Debby, who sat down next to Bhrigu. Yulia and David sat opposite.
The doctor and Jean-Pierre both pushed the boat away from the shore. The boat was very small and barely fit four people. There was one narrow thwart at the end of the boat and another thwart in the middle. Between the two pairs of people was David’s backpack.
“David, jump out,” Jean-Pierre said after looking around the inside of the boat. “We will swim behind the boat.”
David shoved his backpack under the thwart and jumped into the water. Dr Capri sat in his place and took up an oar. Yulia took the other oar. Jean-Pierre pushed the boat and asked David to take hold of it with his hands, while he swam behind.
The boat moved along the calm surface of the underground lake. The bottom immediately disappeared from under their feet and the light slapping of the oars against the water began to fill the vaults with even sounds
“Bhrigu,” Dr Capri asked in English, “and still, could you explain what is happening? How is it possible that the exit from the cave has disappeared?”
“Tulu-Manchi,” the hermit began quietly, “need you to understand question. How it happen? Or why it happen?”
“Both,” said David, pulling himself closer to the boat on his hands.
“Hmm,” Bhrigu smiled. “Good answer. I don’t know how it happen. It matters not much. But clear you have to go out a different way than you came.”
“Just to get out,” said Jean-Pierre, overtaking the boat. “How much longer?”
“Little,” answered Bhrigu. “Little further,” said Bhrigu. “Exit is close.”
“Debby, pull the torch forward,” Jean-Pierre asked.
Debby turned to the bow of the boat and held the torch forward over the water. The stalactites and stalagmites appeared out of the darkness. They were lumpy and yellowish and looked like huge dead snakes. Some protruded from the water in a frozen desire to reach the ceiling, others dangled from above.
“There,” Bhrigu pointed to the two o’clock.
The doctor took a second oar and turned the boat’s bow in the right direction.
In a few seconds, the cave’s arch appeared out of the blackness, and the light began to reflect off the wall directly in front of them. The boat sailed up to the solid stone barrier.
“Where now?” Jean-Pierre asked, taking hold of the boat.
“That way,” answered Bhrigu.
In the distance there was a sound like a waterfall, it was somewhere beyond the walls. The boat was moving slowly, parallel to the wall.
“Here is the exit to the bank,” said Jean-Pierre, feeling the bottom.
The boat came to a small bank, like two peas in a pod, similar to the one from which they had sailed. David and Jean-Pierre pulled the boat up.
“This is the same shore, isn’t it,” said David.
“No,” Jean-Pierre said uncertainly. “Debby, give me the torch.”
Debby handed over the torch, and Jean-Pierre walked forward with it. After a few seconds, he lit the torches mounted on the wall.
“No, David, there’s another passage, there’s no stretcher and the torches haven’t been lit for a long time,” Jean-Pierre shouted. “Get out of the boat.”
The doctor and David helped everyone onto dry land, and together they moved toward Jean-Pierre.
“What’s next?” Yulia asked.
“There is a passageway,” Jean-Pierre pointed forward.
Everyone went inside and found themselves in a large hall, almost perfectly round in shape. There were four passages in the hall: one from which they had just come and three at the opposite end of the hall. Faint sunlight streamed in from one. It was bright and dry in here.
“Old man didn’t lie,” said Jean-Pierre. “Let’s get out of here.”
Relief spread through the hall. For a moment everyone forgot the strange circumstances of the journey and the inexplicable, almost magical, but frightening mysteries left on the other side of the lake.
“Stay here I,” Bhrigu began.
“Oh, no. Don’t even think about it,” Jean-Pierre interrupted him grudgingly. “I didn’t let you go. Not until I’m sure we’re safe.”
“Belongs to this place I,” the hermit continued calmly.
“Jean-Pierre,” Debby said pleadingly. “That’s enough. There’s light in there. We’ll get outside.”
“But he…” said Jean-Pierre with incomprehension.
“No,” the hermit interrupted him himself. “Find the way forward is easy now.”
Jean-Pierre looked around at everyone, pondering. He stopped at Debby, who was begging him for mercy with her eyes. She was uncomfortable with the way Jean-Pierre was treating the old man. And though she felt a deep misunderstanding too, she believed that the hermit was not the cause of all of this.
The doctor and Yulia knew for sure that everything going on right now was somehow connected, but they couldn’t get their heads around how this hermit, who barely speaks English, the Voyager Gold Record signal they detected, yesterday’s unexpected storm, and, most importantly, the disappearing exit, could be connected.
David alone was simply amazed and happy at the adventures that were happening around him. He felt a kind of languor in his chest from everything that was going on and could not believe that he had decided to go here at this particular time by himself. He liked the hermit who had been so caring to them in a moment of need. He liked having the doctor and Yulia by his side, who seemed to him to be the only people who understood what was going on.
Everyone thought there was someone or something that was the cause of everything that was going on. How could it all be explained. David thought it was the doctor and Yulia, Debby thought it was her bad luck. Yulia thought it was aliens, and Dr Capri, though he was hiding it, thought it was some kind of Chinese experiment.
But in that very second, Jean-Pierre suddenly felt that there was no reason and that no one here now understood what was going on.
He began to nod, thinking that Bhrigu really didn’t look much like a terrorist or an evil genius in the service of some government.
“Okay,” Jean-Pierre agreed with Debby, “we have to go.”
Everyone turned at the same time to the hermit, who was looking directly at Jean-Pierre. He nodded.
“Come on!” the Frenchman shouted, urging everyone on. “Let’s not waste our time. We must go.”
Everyone walked toward the light that entered the hall through the left aisle.
Jean-Pierre looked everyone out and watched intently the reactions of the hermit. The old man shifted his eyebrows and began to rub his beard, thinking hard about something.
“What?” asked Jean-Pierre incredulously.
“Chosen you all for important things,” smiled Bhrigu. “Journey will lead you. God help you.”
Jean-Pierre tried to understand the elder’s words, but the light from the passage beckoned and hurried him forward. So he followed everyone else. His eyes were blind from the bright light after the gloom of the cave.
“Here will be,” said Bhrigu quietly, raising his right hand in blessing.
Part 3 – Chapter 28
David covered up his eyes by his hand, they were teary from the bright light. The heat that had enveloped him made his body go limp. The air was heavy and dry, as if mixed with sand. He couldn’t breathe in.
“Hey!” a woman’s voice sounded nearby. “There’s a storm, let’s go back,” Yulia shouted.
“Yes,” David answered, trying to catch air through his mouth. “Doctor, Debby, where are you?”
“I’m here,” Debby shouted, coughing from somewhere on the right.
“No, it’s not a storm,” came Dr Capri’s loud voice.
Tears poured from David’s eyes, and he knelt down and tried to shield himself from the light that shone from everywhere. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them sharply; for a second he saw someone’s figure nearby, he took a few steps and clung to a half-blurred shadow. It was Debby.
“Are you okay?” David asked. “Can you breathe?”
Debby nodded.
“Debby, David!” the doctor called out.
“We’re here,” David held up his hand.
The rumbling, crackling, and rumbling filled the entire space and drowned out the voices. The storm was clearly perceptible to all senses except one: the skin could not feel the gusts of wind or the drops of rain. The ground itself was humming and vibrating, eyes were blinding from the bright rays of the sun, and breath was spiraling from the lack of air. Debby, David, Yulia, and the doctor crawled toward each other like two pairs of moles at noon, groping the surface around them.
Dr Capri touched David’s arm.
“We’re here,” the doctor said, dropping to the ground beside David and Debby.
He led Yulia beside him, who also collapsed to the ground. The hum began to diminish. It became easier to breathe. David looked up and got dizzy. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. Above him there were clusters of twinkling stars. The sky was as dark and deep as the heart of the ocean, and the stars were as bright as pearls that joined together in beautiful necklaces. David could only softly stretch out an ‘oh!’ sound.
The doctor, Debby, and Yulia began to look around, too, they felt cold inside. They couldn’t say anything and didn’t understand what they were seeing. Yulia stared into the sky with her mouth open. The doctor gingerly touched the ground near his feet, fearing getting burned. Debby squeezed David’s hand with horror and incomprehension.
“Hey. What is it?” Jean-Pierre’s voice was heard.
“I don’t understand,” David said to himself.
“How is it possible?” Dr Capri said in amazement.
He stroked the ground beside him as if it were ice, under which strange fish were swimming.
Jean-Pierre appeared from behind a high rock. He moved on the ground, but the ground moved with him. It was bright yellow, even orange, as if lava flowed beneath his feet, but it didn’t burn. The earth glowed, and though everything was visible as if it were daytime, there was no sun in the sky. Above was the darkness of night.
“What is it?” stomping his foot on the ground, the doctor asked himself. “It looks like stone, but it feels like it’s flowing.”
The ground was solid, and the doctor couldn’t figure out what it was made of. To the touch it was hot and smooth, but looking at it, one could see that it was like a river flowing slowly.
“I feel sick,” Yulia said and closed her eyes.
“Look up,” David told her.
Jean-Pierre walked over to the doctor and looked at the ground beside him, and then at his face, stretched out in surprise. He looked around. The landscape was monotonous and resembled the desert with small hills behind them from whence they had just come.
A desolate, fiery yellow valley spread out in every direction. On the horizon, the redness was abruptly interrupted by the blackness of the sky. Not a hint of mountains, plants, or clouds.
“We should go back to the cave,” Jean-Pierre suggested.
“What?” said first Debby and then the doctor almost simultaneously.
“To the cave?” Tulu-Manchi interrogated. “Are you kidding? We have to figure out what’s going on here,” the doctor paused for a second. “We have to figure out where we are at all. This isn’t Nepal or India,” he spread his hands and looked questioningly at Jean-Pierre.
The doctor took the stone in his hands, which resembled amber, weighed it, and smiled:
“Strange, not heavy, and not light.”
David and Yulia approached to look at it. The doctor handed the stone to Yulia, and she began to spin it in her hands. She crouched down and slammed it against another large stone. The muffled sound reminded her of a hammer hitting a tree. Yulia looked at the stone in her hand – it poured red at the point of impact and got hotter.
“There’s some kind of reaction in it,” Yulia remarked.
Jean-Pierre watched the scientists and David; when he saw the stone turn red, he shook his head:
“We have to go back!”
“Where?” said Debby, looking around frightenedly.
“To the cave,” Jean-Pierre wanted to give the obvious answer, but realized his own mistake.
There were large stones scattered on the ground all around, but nowhere to see the entrance to the cave. He rushed back, but realized that this would not help.
“Where were we moving from?” Jean-Pierre began to calculate the direction.
“From those boulders, I think,” David doubted.
Jean-Pierre took several steps in that direction – nothing. He was thrashing around, looking for the entrance to the cave. The others looked at him.
“Jean-Pierre!” shouted the doctor.
“What?”
“This is not Earth, do you understand?” the doctor shook his head, looking into the Frenchman’s eyes from twenty meters away.
“What are you doing here?” a high, unfamiliar voice sounded.
Jean-Pierre perked up and began to look around, ready to protect everyone. Everyone jumped to their feet and piled back to back.
“Who are you?” the squeaky voice repeated.
“Who are you?” Jean-Pierre shouted very loudly.
“Me?” someone squeaked.
“Yes!” shouted Jean-Pierre again. “Where are you? Show yourself.”
“Why are you yelling like that?” said the voice. “I’m right in front of you.”
Jean-Pierre slowly lowered his eyes and saw someone very small standing right in front of him. The creature was the size of his thumb and looked up at everyone with undisguised contempt. Jean-Pierre knelt down and tilted his head even lower.
“Who are you?” Jean-Pierre rounded his eyes.
“Humans,” the creature said in a disappointed voice. “I am Van. Valikhilya.”
“What?”
“Aaah,” Van said, shaking his head in displeasure. “You are humans, and I am Valikkhilya. My name is Van, and you are…” he paused.
“What the hell is that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s not a name,” Van muttered.
Jean-Pierre shook his head and put his palms to the top of his head, trying to get rid of the obsession. He looked back at the others; they were squinting their eyes at the creature, expressing complete incomprehension.
“You are in the kingdom of His Grace the great Vivasvan, King of Light,” the little man squeaked.
“Vivasvan?” Dr Capri said, coming out of his stupor. “I know who Vivasvan is.”
“Then you must bow down before him right now,” the little man said proudly.
Jean-Pierre stepped back from Van and looked at Dr Capri with an expression of bewilderment. Even more bewildered than he had been a second ago.
“Do you know him?”
“It’s the name of god from Indian philosophy, like Ra in Egypt or Apollo in Greece. He rules over the Sun.”
“God?” David clarified, confused.
“Yes and no,” answered the doctor, trying to explain. “He is a demigod, a powerful living being who controls the most important star in the universe.”
“Yes and no?” Van squeaked grudgingly. “Vivasvan’s greatness is equal to God’s greatness.”
No one was listening to him. He kept muttering something, slowly approaching the group of people.
“Hold on!” entered Yulia. “Are we truly on the Sun?”
She began to breathe heavily, panting in a panic attack.
“The Sun?” Van snarled maliciously, mocking Yulia. “Oh, I think we’re on the Sun,” he rolled his eyes in a look of surprise. “No, no, we just accidentally, really, honestly.”
At this point, he walked over to Jean-Pierre’s foot and kicked his boot. Jean-Pierre heard the kick and put his head down:
“Hey!”
“Was I being polite?” Van began. “Did I say my name? I asked yours.” he paused. “Who-are-you?”
“Excuse me,” Dr Capri stepped in, “my name is Tulu-Manchi.”
Van smiled:
“A strong man?”
“Yes,” the doctor nodded embarrassedly. “This is Yulia, David, and Debby,” the doctor said, pointing to each of them. “And this young man’s name is…” he didn’t have time to finish.
“Women?” Van was surprised.
There was surprise and fright in his squeaky voice. He looked around and said in a loud whisper:
“You shouldn’t be here. You must leave.”
Jean-Pierre got down on his knee again and asked the little creature quietly:
“Okay. We’ll leave if you help us,” he thought and added. “What scares you so much?”
“There are no women here. No women here for a very long time,” Van continued to whisper.
Debby and Yulia looked at each other. Debby shrugged.
“Why is that?” Jean-Pierre continued, looking at the girls.
“Why?” unsatisfied with the question, Van looked at him. “Because they’re not here.”
“Okay,” Jean-Pierre said, raising both palms up. “We are leaving.”
“Wait, Jean-Pierre,” David said, holding the Frenchman back. “Are we on the Sun? On a burning ball that… I don’t understand.”
Van looked around at them all:
“You have come from the human world. What is it called now? Earth?” he asked.
“Um… Yes,” David grinned, “it’s always been called that.”
“Always?” Van snorted. “Just because you call your home by that name, it doesn’t mean that everyone else does. All right, Earth. Then the answer is this,” he paused for greater effect. “You’re on the Sun.”
Dr Capri, Yulia, and David began to ask other questions in rapid succession.
“How is it possible?”
“How can we be here if we have to burn?”
Van looked up at them with annoyance and shook his little head negatively.
“You said you would leave!” he said grudgingly and sharply.
“Wait,” Dr Capri tried to exhale. “We received a signal on Earth from our spacecraft. That’s why we’re here. Do you know anything about it?”
Van took small steps closer to the doctor.
“What kind of signal?” he looked at him questioningly.
“The signal from the Voyager,” the doctor was confused, unable to find the words in front of the unusual creature.
“It records the sounds of our planet, music and…” Yulia didn’t finish.
“Music?” Van smiled.
“Yes!” cried Dr Capri. “Did you send it? Did you want us to come here?”
“What?” said Van in surprise. “No. I mean, I’m not sure, but…” he hesitated again. “No, that can’t be right.”
Van turned away from the group of people who were grasping at the thin straw of understanding in this unusual and strange situation. He took a few steps and rubbed his forehead thoughtfully with a small hand.
“Okay,” Van concluded, “we’ll go to the palace and see if you should be here. But…” he turned sharply to the group, “you won’t ask any more questions, or…” the little Sun-dweller pondered.
“Or what?” Yulia asked.
“Ah!” shouted Van irritably. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’d better not say anything. Don’t say anything, or,” he thought up, “I won’t take you anywhere.”
Debby pointed with her finger that she was silent.
“Don’t do that,” Van said, mocking Debby. “Let’s go to the palace.”
“Wait a minute!” Jean-Pierre stopped him. “We have many questions, and we would like to understand how we got here and how it is possible that we are still alive.”
Little Van stopped for a second and turned to Jean-Pierre in surprise.
“How should I know exactly how you got here? You tell me.”
“We crashed in a plane and ended up in a cave somewhere in the Himalayas. And an old man, his name was Bhrigu, he…” Jean-Pierre saw Van’s little face change.
The little creature’s eyes rounded, and for the first time a sincere rather than sarcastic smile shone on his face, then he closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“Ha-ha-ha,” Van laughed in his squeaky voice. “The old man?! He is a great rishi. A sage who can travel from one planet to another. The keeper of the path between the worlds.”
“Oh crap,” Jean-Pierre whispered.
“Do you think he sent us here on purpose?” David asked Jean-Pierre quietly.
“How should I know? If he is so great, he might have.”
“Yes,” Yulia shook her head. “He probably didn’t like it very much when you grabbed him by his clothes and shook him.”
“Is he a great sage?” Dr Capri clarified. “Could he have sent us here?”
“Apparently, yes,” Van said uncertainly. “We should ask Dandin. He is the king’s assistant. And the sage Bhrigu is a great soul. Come, we can’t stand still for long.”
Little Van walked in small steps ahead.
“We have to find out everything,” Dr Capri said, warning Jean-Pierre’s words. “We must follow him.”
“Em, doctor, I wouldn’t be so sure,” replied the Frenchman. “Look, Tulu-Manchi…” Jean-Pierre began to speak.
“Yes, look, we’re on the Sun,” smiled the doctor, “we have to find out what all this means.”
Everyone smiled and got up to follow Van.
“Van,” Debby called out, “why can’t we stand for a long time?”
Van answered without turning around:
“Drown.”
“Well,” Jean-Pierre grudgingly agreed and started walking with the others, “then at least we won’t have to drag,” and he tried to lift Van into his arms.
It turned out that the little creature was very heavy. Van slapped Jean-Pierre on the fingers and jumped away from him.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” Van squeaked.
“I just wanted to speed up our walk,” Jean-Pierre said, continuing to be surprised by Van’s weight.