Almost Four Hundred Years

Almost Four Hundred Years

     Boriet grabs hold of a tree extension with one hand and Moranna’s arm with the other as the ground beneath them begins to shake violently. Moranna lets Boriet swing her around the tree to grab her own extension. Both hug that tree tight as the shaking continued.

     “It’s happening again,” shouts Moranna. “Only this time it’s a much bigger one.”

     Moranna loses her grip with Boriet. He quickly takes it back. “I was hoping that we would get back within Triguon before another one happened.”

     “So did I.” Boriet glances around him to see Yera and Polic struggling to stay on their feet. Just then Yera begins to fall.

     Boriet lets go of Moranna’s hand to trap it between him and the tree. Then he reaches out to grab Yera. Polic does the same thing. With some help from Boriet they are all hugging the tree now. “Does this happen a lot?” Polic asks.

     “It’s usually not this bad,” answers Moranna. “But it has been happening several times a week for almost four hundred years.” Still holding hands with Boriet, Moranna points through the trees at a huge structure. And just beyond it a large lifeless planet.

     About a thousand Triguons are standing in rows next to each other and beside a huge structure. Bumping and grinding into the Triguon next to them because they are so close together as they nervously wait for something to happen in front of them. they don’t have to wait too long.

     Boriet walks up the two steps to a square wooden flat surface with four thin metal poles in front of him. He clears his throat before he begins to speak. The echo of it soars over the thousands of Triguons looking at him. “In a few minutes we are going to be passing by this lifeless planet that orbits around the planet of Vaungh near it as we continue our travels through Space.”

     “This is the closest we have ever been to it. So, you should get a good view of it as we go past it.”

     Walking down the two steps on the other side of the flat surface Boriet goes to stand next to the Triguon at the end of the first row. He gets there just as Triguon suddenly stops. Sending all of them to their sides. Only their number per row stops them from falling toward the surface.

#

     Slowly Boriet walks down a long room. Boriet stops about halfway in the middle of it to stand on a large white circle that begins to glow. Just after he gets there, he starts spinning around so that he can see the thirty large image monitors with a Triguon face on them. He can also see twelve smaller monitors with images of Triguon surrounding the larger one. But some are black.

     “It looks very bad out there to me,” says Boriet. “How bad is it really?”

     All the Triguon faces start speaking at the same time. Boriet doesn’t appear to be having any problems hearing them. After a few minutes, they stop talking. That’s when Boriet starts talking again. “It has been almost three months since we suddenly stopped our traveling through Space. And we still don’t know why we have done this.”

     “All we do know is that thanks to us stopping almost all of Triguon has been destroyed. Mostly by quakes. But some of it has been because of other natural disasters too.”

     Looking down at his torn clothing and his bare feet, Boriet sighs. “We also know that we have lost well over five hundred billion Triguons because of it. And that we need to do something to save the rest of us.”

#

     Boriet is walking around a large group of Triguons. He stops and nods at a female who is grinding food in a small oval container that looks like half of the lifeless planet near them now. She looks up and nods back as a young male takes a sample of it from the container with a couple of fingers.

     The female Triguon slaps his hands as he takes his fingers out of his mouth. Boriet smiles and moves on. He only takes a few steps before he stops again to see two adult Triguons and three young ones who have already started eating what little they have there.

     After sighing, Boriet moves on. He steps onto a large rock to look at everyone else there. Everywhere he looks he sees the same thing. Small groups of one or two Triguons adults and one or more young ones are either eating or getting ready to eat.

     It has been just over six months since we moved everyone still alive within Triguon, thinks Boriet. And we’re not doing that much better than when we lived on the surface.

#

     Forcing all his fingers through a narrow slot in the entrance Boriet slides it open. After he enters that large cluttered room he suddenly stops. “I thought the disaster was on Triguon. It looks like it’s here too.”

     Four other Triguons look toward Boriet. But only one Triguon scraps and scratches his way toward Boriet. “This disaster as you call it only happened a few minutes ago.”

     “I don’t care when it happened. All I what to know is why it happened. When you contacted me, you said you had a solution to our food production problem.”

     “Yes, I did. But I was wrong. In fact, it’s about as wrong as it can get.”

     Boriet leans forward little. “What does that mean?”

     “The core of our planet is full of water. So, we don’t have to worry about that. But we do with our food. There isn’t too much left of it. If we don’t find a way to solve it, we will all be dead within about a hundred years.”

     “I know all that. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

     The Triguon in some old torn clothing that goes down to his bare feet opens his mouth to speak. But he doesn’t. He does it three more times before he does. “Not only have we been trying to get our food supply to grow in the amount of it, but we have also been trying to make it grow in size.”

     Boriet looks confused. “What does that mean?”

     “It means we did have almost three times as much food as we used to have. But most of it is gone because we tried to make it bigger. We only have enough food to last us for about fifty years now.”

#

     “As you can see, we have suffered a lot in the last three hundred and forty-seven years,” says Moranna. Moranna and Boriet stand between Polic and Yera on a piece of the surface overlooking about a billion Triguons below them.

     “It was bad for almost the first fifty years,” says Boriet. “But it got even worse after most of our food supply ran out.”

     Moranna looks at Yera standing next to her. Then she looks at Polic. “It has gotten a lot better once we were able to start producing food again. But it hasn’t changed that much.”

     “After we stopped here and the destruction of Triguon ended only thirty structures like the one above are left,” continues Boriet. “Why, we don’t know. But they are there. So, we decided to use them to get to start living within Triguon.”

     “We can show you the other twenty-nine living areas if you want us to do it,” says Moranna. “But they are all about the same as this one.”

     Polic and Yera lean forward a little to look at each other. “I don’t think we will need to do that,” says Polic.

     Yera and Polic return looking at the Triguons below along with Boriet and Moranna. “We would like to look at the rest of this living area, though. Especially, your food production and your scientific areas,” continues Yera.

     “I’m not sure what you mean by scientific,” responds Boriet. “I have only been the leader of Triguon for about a hundred years. In fact, my leadership is almost over. But if I understand you correctly you want to see where we have been trying to start our traveling through Space again.”

     “We haven’t been trying to do that for the last three hundred years,” continues Moranna. “We’ve been too busy just trying to stay alive to do that.”

     Boriet is still staring at the other Triguons below them. “Besides, we haven’t had any scientific type Triguons for longer than that. That part of our lives died out long before the food supplies did.”

     Moranna looks at Polic then Yera. “We were going to show you those two areas too. The food production areas aren’t too bad. But the scientific ones are.”

#

     Polic and Yera stop just after they enter a small room cluttered with broken overturned equipment and large clear containers. Some of the containers are only partially broken. But most of them are almost completely gone. Boriet and Moranna step around Polic and Yera as they enter that room too.

     It’s Boriet who speaks first. “This is our sixth and last scientific area. And as you can see it’s just as bad as all the other ones.”

     “There is still a lot more for you to see,” continues Moranna. “You have seen only two food production area so far. We have five more of them to show you.”

     “One of them isn’t too far from here. Do you want to see that one next?” Boriet asks.

     Polic and Yera look at each other before they return to slowly glancing around that room. They are still looking around as Polic answers Boriet’s question. “I think that we have seen enough.”

     “I do have one question, though. And I think that Polic has a similar one. Why are you showing us all of this?”

     “We have done it to show you that we are no threat to you,” answers Boriet. “We’re just barely surviving on our own. There’s nothing here that you might want. There is no reason why you might want to conquer us or destroy us because we have already destroyed ourselves.”

#

     Yera is walking quickly slightly ahead of Polic. He speeds up to catch up to her. “Wait for me. I don’t want to be left behind on this terrible planet either.”

     “I’m not leaving you behind,” responds Yera. “But I do want to get off this planet before another quake happens.”

     “Do you believe that we were just passing by when we landed to see if we could help them?” Polic asks.

     Yera looks over at Polic as she continues speed walking. “I don’t think that they know we are from the planet below them.”

     Polic doesn’t stop his walking as he glances over his shoulder to barely see their lifeless planet behind them. as they continue their walking it’s revealed that they are on a large monitor with Boriet and Moranna standing in front of it.

     “Do you think they believe that we really live like this?” Moranna asks.

     “I think that we are safe,” answers Boriet. “Still can’t believe they think we don’t know that they weren’t just passing by us.”

     Moranna smiles. “It was stupid of them to go around their lifeless planet to come here. That only gave us the time we needed to show them what we wanted them to see.”

     Polic and Yera can barely be seen on the monitor now. “Do you want me to catch up to them and continue watching them?” Moranna asks.

     “No, I think it’s safe to contact everyone and get this place back to normal. So that we can start trying to find a way to continue our traveling through Space.”

Word Count = 1,958