Aetheran Child (9 page)

III

“Sorry Master,” Alexander said sleepily, “but I do not think I can take anymore today.”

Raki looked at the boy surprised and then his expression softened, “That’s quite alright; I know it’s a lot to learn.” He led Lexan into his room where Lexan had put his things.

“You can unpack after you wake up in the morning.” Raki mentioned as he walked out the door. The boy, despite being very tired, realized his luggage had been on his bed for six months, unpacked, untouched.

Lexan took off most of the metal harnesses on his body. First the bracelets slid off, a liquid escaped them and climbed up his arms into his helmet. The shoes fell to the ground last, right after the shoulder pads and a spine regulator.

After a few drowsy minutes, the boy dozed off into a comfortable and finally dreamless sleep. Another great day of learning awaited him; another great day in this mysterious new world in which he was going to spend the rest of his life. The sleep was bound to be refreshing

IV

The air stood still in the darkness. There was nothing around until Lexan opened his eyes to yet another day.

“Good morning, Alexander. I hope you slept well,” Bran said politely, releasing a set of chemicals into the boy's body that awoke him further.

Lexan stretched his arms and legs, thanked Bran, and left to the navigational room where Raki said cross-legged. The boy sat down on a nearby chair.

“How long have I been asleep?” He whispered.

“Eighty three minutes after twelve waking hours,” Bran answered informatively.

“I do not feel sleepy or tired, why is that?” He could not believe the information. He has been sleeping like this for days. Only a couple of hours for every half a day of waking and learning, it seemed ridiculous.

“One of the upgrades to your physiology during your hibernation was an exposure to a standard enzymic substance that was absorbed by the cell inside your body. The enzyme causes your body to become more efficient and use less energy. Your body therefore requires less sleep. Other alterations to your brain chemistry led to further improvement,” Bran explained.

“I have to sleep only for an hour a day?” The boy marveled at the advances in science. A minimum of eight hours of day was always wasted on sleep, now that waste was gone.

“At first; then you will be able to sleep for the traditional three restoration weeks at the end of every year.” She answered and Raki finally looked up.

“Good morning, Lexan. Let us enjoy a meal before we start another study session,” Raki looked toward the middle console which recalled many display screens inside, and leveled off to create a table.

Six yellow cubes materialized upon the table.

Lexan gazed at them while Raki explained, “The enormous population in the republic causes shortages on grown food. These cubes contain all of human nutritional requirements plus something extra.

“The yellow cubes are for breakfast. Red for lunch, and green for supper, and finally blue cubes are used as snacks. They contain no additional nutrients,” Raki stared abstent-mindedly at the cubes, ate one, and started the lesson, “The galactic standards have different measurements.”

“What do you mean?” The boy chewed on the cubes. They yielded a somewhat marshmallow-like taste.

“Your reality-filter adjust the time so that one Earth second is equal to the Standard Second, there are hundred seconds in a minute and a hundred minutes in an hour. There are thirty hours in a single day. You will be spending eighteen of those in school.”

“Eighteen hours?!” The boy exclaimed, he hated going to school for even those seven hours on Earth.

“That may seem a lot but the eighteen hours include long breaks and recesses. Schooling isn't as rigorous this way. Also remember, you will sleep only for three weeks every year.

Lexan nodded in thought, clearly still displeased as the news.

“There are thirty days in a single month, and ten months in a year.

“Luckily, your metric system somewhat compares to our system of measurements. That information is included in the nano structures inside your brain, and should be access easier than most other information since you are already used to a similar concept.”

Rakin went on to talk about several new measuring systems, involving the swift-space, the pseudo-matter, and other important concepts.

I

Weeks later, Raki continued with his lectures, diving deeper and deeper into the science of things. He discussed tedious details of various technologies including the pyramid-ball structures of modern buildings, symmetry “closets” that allowed instantaneous transport between planetary systems, and mapper scouts. It was then that the Master introduced an entirely new topic.

“Aetherals,” Lexan jumped at the word but then slipped into his bored mood again, expecting the term was used for some specific technical jargon. He frowned, thinking about the long nights of learning, and his meditations. The exciting new world, he found, was not as exciting as he thought. He no longer marveled at the floating display screens, nor the computer inside his head, nor Bran who aided him. He wondered about it though, Master Raki mentioned them before.

When he slept, he dreamed. He dreamed about shadow beings that defied physical laws, and whom had a deeper spiritual connection to something else. The boy wanted to call it magic because the way the beings presented their powers to him, in his dreams, it resembled nothing other than magic. They conjured fire in mid-air, and turned water into ice with a wave of hand. Some shadows glowed with a brilliant green, others with blue, and yet others with red and orange.

Lexan woke up one morning, after his short sleep wherein he encountered the shadows once again. They spoke to him about the wisdom of the universe, and about other things. The boy grabbed a nutritious blue cube and a few yellow ones. The blue cubes were the tastiest but least useful to the body.

Raki stood up from his usual meditating spot and grabbed a few cubes from a constantly-refilling bowl on top of the middle console.

“Let's talk about the Aetheri population,” he chewed down a few cubes, Lexan followed suit.

“What are they?” The boy asked, sitting down on a chair nearby.

“To understand who they are, we must first understand the rise of the human civilization, as well as the rise of other civilizations. Almost any large collaborative union of a specie was brought about and led by a race of overlords called the Toria or Elders.

“This race had a 'hobby' of cultivation of beings with higher consciousness and pushing life into a more progressive era. They are nearly immortal and thus can observe evolution throughout the galaxy. The race did not let us skip over important social processes, but they did nudge us in the right way when it was necessary.

“To protect the ones they watch from other overlord races, the Toria imprinted their genetic material unto them. The imprints became guardians now known as Aetherals who traveled across vast lands on planets, encountering numerous specie groups. There, they mingled with the people.

“The Aetherals represented a good portion of the population after only a few generations. The only planet that is not aware of the Aetheri-phenomena is planet Earth and it is kept this way for a reason.

“Through millenia of hereditary processes, all of the human beings have attained the Aetheri genetic material. Unfortunately, there is a certain border-line percentage of the genome that gives only a few selected individuals the power to transcend their regular forms. The major distinguishing feature is the transformation.”

“Transformation?” Lexan urged the Master along, hungry for more information.

“Training, introspection, and reliance on the ability to control one's body can trigger a chemical reaction during which a certain hormone is released into the bloodstream. This hormone takes over and changes the physiology down to the last cell. It is a temporary change but a radical one. You will learn the science of the metamorphosis in school, but let me give you a short demonstration as to what it looks like,” The Master stepped back and his body started to glow white. Where red had been, where the pinkish hue of blood saturated the skin, the skin turned completely white. The light started to bend around the man, and gradually his body became see-through. Only some of Raki's features were visible, the light above him on the ceiling outlined some but dispelled others. Master Raki, Lexan also noticed, was floating slightly above the floor.

Lexan watched him in awe and could not believe his eyes. He reached out to touch the man, and he did touch him. He was real, it was not a hologram, as far as the boy could see. He moved his head left and right to see different angles of light penetrating Master Raki's near invisible body.

The man smiled and continued, “The transformation takes several minutes the first time and it is quite painful but every subsequent transformation can be done in the blink of an eye, and it is painless. I slowed the metamorphosis down deliberately for you.”

And in the blink of an eye, Raki was back to his original self as if nothing happened.

“There are several stages in the transformation. The meso-stage between the material and Aetheri stages will be explained to you at school. An aetheri body transcends and twists into several dimensions which gives the individual unimaginable abilities. The more one's body merges itself into higher dimensional planes, the stranger those abilities become.

“One of the abilities you will learn to master first will be creating and extending your body through these dimensions. There you will create your own reality with physical laws according to your tastes. The importance of this will be another ability which will allow you to summon certain objects into this reality,” The master put his hands together to grip a golden sword that suddenly appeared. He swung the sword around a few times and then it disappeared in a flash.

Lexan marveled and smiled with excitement. He could not imagine making random objects appear from nowhere, “When will I be able to use that power?”

“It will be a while. You will, at first, be required to use a 'closet', which is a technology that will help you sustain the artificial reality.”

The boy frowned slightly but could not hide a smile.

Raki stared at him as if contemplating something, “Since you already know everything an average student has to know before entering the school, I think we can spend the rest of our time by learning something extra.”

The master beckoned his student and they sat down on meditation mats floating nearby.

“Let us meditate,” Raki started, “Remember, breathe in for five seconds, hold for another five, and exhale for five seconds. Create a rhythm in your body.

“Sit up straight, cross your legs,” He paused, “Now imagine ocean waves. Rising, flowing, and breaking over the shore,” The soothing sound of a beach reverberated through the ship, relaxing all its occupants. A soft voice sung words into the music. Her voice, it was a woman, penetrated deep into Lexan's conscious and subconscious of his mind:

The bird song hums above the waters,

The waves rise, flow, and break.

The soft ocean breeze, so cool,

The sunset brings the reds and oranges,

Inner peace, outside.

II

Fifteen hours had past, Lexan sat still on the floor, listening intently. He breathed to the rhythm of the poem, and the music. During those hours, he explored the inner depths of his consciousness. It was not an easy task, but he managed to stay focused somehow.

“It's amazing!” The boy heard Master Raki exclaim from the cockpit which, to the boy's disappointment, was not used for actual navigation. It was used a viewing room and an entertainment room.

Lexan beckoned his floating mat to move him closer to the doorway where he saw Raki conversing with several others. They appeared to be really there, but all they were was just a holographic projection. He had seen them before, in one of his dreams, before he left, before his parents had died.

“Not even a trace, you say?” A creature asked, a purple Shun.

“There is no Aetheri genetic material.. He is completely cleaned of any Toria influence. I checked and re-checked his blood numerous times.

An Opider came into view. He did not utter a word but the translator kicked in anyways, “How can he then possibly possess any Aetheric abilities?” His tentacles swung around.

Another Shun spoke out, her body was completely black with silver tattoos, “Check the Book of Prophecies.”

“Is he related to the others?” A Ritiel asked. His lizard-like body folded its long arms. The habit he wore was thinner than those of others.

“No, he has no relations to the siblings,” Raki answered.

“There were supposed to be two,” A Shun with a red face and two short horns stated, he held a rebreather mask to his mouth as he spoke, “And now there are three.”

All the creatures nodded in agreement.

“I will contact you later.” Raki bowed slightly.

The others bowed down as well, “We will check the Book of Prophecies then. Until later.”

The holograms disappeared and Master Raki started to leave. Lexan hurried back to his original position.

“Alexander?” The man called out and the boy opened his eyes, “I think you got a hold of it.”
 

They continued their mediation as if nothing happened.

III

“I am very satisfied with your advancement, Lexan,” Master Raki watched the boy wake up from a deep meditation once again, “You have definitely gone beyond the 'in training' stage.”

Bran had already explained to the boy the ranking system, ranging from In Training, through Student, Basic, and beyond that to higher ranks such as Trainer and Master.

The two discussed some recurrent thoughts that Lexan encountered in his meditation and moved onto other subjects of interest.

Raki paced around the room, talking, “We have four weeks left until you have to enter the Academy as a Student. I think it is about time for you to try the Aetheral transformation.”