George Brown and the Protector (21 page)

With a rush they dove into the black hole as
if into a pond of black water. As they did so, all the stars and
their gentle singing instantly disappeared. Everything was now
black and cold, with an iciness more frozen and penetrating than
anything George had ever felt. Consciousness was fading. The end
was here …

… the sacrifice had been made …

… the price had been paid …

… and then suddenly, unexpectedly, there was
light again. And singing. And unspeakable joy. For the first time
on his journey George opened his eyes. The black hole still
stretched in front of him, filling a vast expanse of space. Yet it
was rapidly growing smaller, as if it were shrinking. Stars still
spun around him as if on a whirling, black carousel, singing their
songs of hope and joy. He looked at his hand. It was open and the
Uth stone was glowing.

“I do not know what is happening,” the voice
said in his mind again, once more with incredible calmness. “Our
bodies have somehow joined us here, and the energy link on earth
with the Grak ship has been broken. Some other power is pulling us.
It pulled us out of the black hole, and is taking us
somewhere.”

“It doesn’t matter,” replied George happily.
“All that matters is that the link is broken. We did what we had to
do. We made our decision, and made it in time. The earth is
safe.”

The music and the light of the stars flowed
over and through George as if he were a fish swimming in a clear,
bright stream. The peace and joy he felt was indescribable. It
washed over and through George in wave after wave. “I never knew
space was like this,” he said. “It’s so beautiful.”

“It is,” agreed the stone. Then it suddenly
seemed to glow, as if expanding in light. With a burst of sudden
joy, its voice broke into George’s mind. “Now I know who is pulling
us! I know where we are going! We are going home!”

“Home?” asked George curiously. “But we just
left there.”

“Not your home,” came the voice again,
brimming with happiness. “We are going to mine! Turn and look.”

With a little effort, George turned and saw
to his surprise what looked like a glowing, large star seeming to
zoom toward them, brighter and more clear than all the others
around it. Although its brilliance was dazzling, it did not hurt
his eyes. He continued to stare at it in wonder, as if hungrily
eating the pure light that was radiating from within it.

The star loomed rapidly larger. As it did,
George was startled to see that it was not burning like the other
stars. Rather, it was clear and glowing.

“This is my home,” said the voice again,
happily. “A home I left millions of your earth years ago, when I
was in my infancy. It is drawing us to it. It is taking me back. It
has forgiven me for leaving.”

As they drew closer, George could see that
what he was approaching was a round ball of glass, billions of
times larger than the earth. With wonder he saw that he could look
right through it, through billions and billions of miles of its
clear interior, and see stars glowing on the other side without the
slightest distortion.

The glowing planet loomed larger and larger.
It filled George’s whole vision. And as they rapidly approached its
surface, George could hear the singing of countless voices, united
in a song of joy and gladness that far exceeded any music George
had ever heard, even the song of the stars. The singing surrounded
him, generated by the voices of untold numbers of stones like the
one he was holding, who collectively made up this wondrous
world.

Gently, they touched down on the planet’s
surface. To George’s surprise, it felt soft like a pillow, even
though it looked like solid, hard glass.

“Thank you,” said the voice in George’s mind
again. “Thank you for joining my sacrifice. By giving up life, it
was given back to us again. And it made it possible for me to come
home at last.”

George looked at the glowing Uth stone in his
hand. He smiled. “Thank you, for answering my cry for help, and for
saving me and my world.” Slowly he lowered his hand and let the
stone fall from his fingers, toward the ones it loved. With
startling clarity, George understood now that his stone and every
bit of the planet where he now stood--which was made up of billions
upon billions of similar stones--was alive and vibrant, singing and
joyous.

The stone fell gently from George’s hand, as
if in slow motion. He heard a distant fading echo in his mind. “I’m
home!” It said simply. “Home at last.”

Looking up, George saw to his surprise that
Jiu Na and Donna Tereza were standing across from him. Each of them
held in their hands their stone like his. They were both smiling.
He did not need to ask what had happened. He knew that they had
shared an experience just like his.

Slowly they too dropped their stones, which
floated like feathers toward the surface. George grinned at Jiu Na
and Donna Tereza, who smiled back in return. Joy and happiness
seemed to leap between them like a living creature. It was an
inexpressible joy, the likes of which none of them had ever felt
before.

And then, without knowing why, George slowly
closed his eyes. He felt himself gently falling … falling … like a
feather on a pillow.

And then he remembered no more.

CHAPTER 28: California Sunshine

George woke up
suddenly. Sunlight was streaming in his window. He was lying at
home in bed. It felt soft and light and wonderfully warm and cozy.
He yawned and stretched. He felt light and happy. He must have had
a wonderful dream.

His door opened suddenly. “George?” said his
mother in a whisper, poking her head in his room. “Oh, good, you’re
awake!” she said with a smile, pushing the door open wide. “I don’t
know how you could have slept through an earthquake like we had
last night, but somehow you did. You are one sound sleeper.”

“Earthquake?” asked George stupidly.

His mother laughed. “It was a doozy. There
were shocks that kept getting stronger and stronger. The last one
got up to 5.5 on the Richter scale. Then they suddenly stopped.
It’s all over the news.”

“Wow,” said George getting out of bed, and
rubbing his head. A dim memory was stirring in his mind, as if he
should know what she was talking about. “That’s weird. That was
last night, huh? Why didn’t you—“

He stopped in mid sentence. There were two
people standing quietly behind his mother. They looked like kids
his age. Seeing his look, his mother smiled. “Proteus is here to
see you,” she said warmly. “And his sister Emberly. He says you two
just met and have been playing together. Why didn’t you tell me
about them?”

“Well…” said George slowly, his mind trying
to grasp what was going on. He didn’t know either of those kids.
Yet the same nagging feeling was flopping around in his mind, as if
he should know them, or know something about them. But for some
reason, he couldn’t seem to remember. “I forgot, I guess,” he said
at last.

“Well,” she said, turning to go, “come on out
for breakfast in a minute. Then you can go out and play.” She
disappeared down the hall.

The boy and girl stepped into George’s room.
“Hello,” the boy said pleasantly. “It’s good to see you looking so
well. Especially after what happened last night.”

George stared at them blankly. “It’s not
polite to stare, you know,” said the girl after a moment.

“Do I know you?” asked George curiously. The
nagging feeling of familiarity in his mind was growing stronger.
But, like a shadow, it still eluded him.

The boy laughed. “Of course you know me,” he
said. “I’m the protector.”

“The protector?” repeated George slowly. The
name sounded vaguely familiar, yet George couldn’t quite place it
for some reason.

The boy pulled a pen from his pocket and
stepped over to George. He held the pen up to George’s eye and
looked through it. George pulled back in alarm, but could see that
it was not really a pen at all, but some type of hollow tube.

“Hmm,” said the boy. “I think I understand.”
He put the pen back in his pocket, then pulled out three pieces of
candy.

“Oh, good!” exclaimed the girl, reaching out
for one. “I’m glad to see you came prepared.”

“Here,” said the boy, holding out the candy
to George. He took it slowly, still looking curiously at the boy.
Slowly he put it in his mouth. It tasted like butterscotch and
fresh rainwater, mixed with chocolate. “Hey,” said George. “This is
pretty good!”

And then he remembered everything in a
rush.

“The fallen star!” he yelled. “And the Uth
stone! My father had one too! The Grak tricked us, and nearly won!
And then the Uth stone took me away!”

The protector laughed, holding up his hand.
“Take it easy. One thing at a time. Whatever you went through last
night made you experience temporary memory loss. The ‘remember all’
candy I just gave you restored your memory. I must say, I was
hesitant to give it to you. You seemed so happy without it.”

“I’m so glad you did!” said George without
hesitation. “I would never want to forget where I went, or what I
felt. It was so beautiful!”

“Beautiful?” said the protector curiously.
“When I started fighting the Grak last night and saw you tied to
the fallen star, it sure didn’t look beautiful. And then suddenly
you disappeared. Where did you go? And how did you escape?”

George opened his mouth to reply, then closed
it again. How could he possibly describe what he had experienced?
It was so overpowering, so fantastic and wonderful, that it seemed
more like a dream than something that had really happened. Could he
even put it into words?

Emberly was still happily smacking on her
candy. The protector sat down on the edge of the bed, not waiting
for George to answer. “After I called you on the communicator ring
and you couldn’t talk, I knew you were in trouble,” he said. “So I
came rushing here and found you gone and the window open. I quickly
transformed a cricket into a temporary likeness of you that would
last a few hours so your mother wouldn’t panic when she found you
gone. Then I headed straight for the fallen star. I found two Grak
there, and could see you tied to the fallen star in the background,
with a beam of light shooting up into space. I was fighting the
Grak when you suddenly disappeared. Then the Grak I was fighting
ran to a nearby spaceship and rushed off as well.” He looked up at
George expectantly, obviously wanting him to fill in what had
happened next.

“Well,” said George slowly, “I guess it’s
sort of hard to explain. The Uth stone took me away.”

“Really?” said the protector, fascinated. “I
always thought it had strange powers, but I never thought it would
be the key to your escape. I assumed it was just used to transport
the fallen stars to earth.”

“Actually, the Uth stone was the key to
everything,” said George. “It was the energy source used by the
Grak to stop the earth’s rotation. They did it by some type of
connection between the Uth stone I held in my hand on earth, and
one my father had on the Grak ship in space.”

“Fantastic!” exclaimed the protector,
standing up in excitement. “So, that’s why the intergalactic police
never found any large energy turbines, or any other power source on
the Grak’s ship! You were carrying it around in your pocket the
whole time! And your father had one too!”

The protector began to pace the room rapidly,
smacking his right hand into the palm of his left one. “How silly
of me not to see it!” he exclaimed. “It all makes sense now! That’s
why they kidnapped your father and Jiu Na’s father and Donna
Tereza’s husband, and the Grak made sure only the three of you
found Uth stones. The Grak probably threatened your father and the
other men, saying they would hurt you if they didn’t cooperate.
They undoubtedly used the men to carry the stones. Those stones
were the key to it all! I should have realized!”

“And I guess that’s why I had all those
dreams where my father came and wrote in my hand,” said George.
“Only, I'm thinking now that they weren’t really dreams. Maybe he
really did come.”

“Probably so,” said the protector. “It must
have been all part of how to make the Uth stones work, how to make
the energy connection between the stone in your father's hand on
the Grak ship, and the stone in your hand at the fallen star. It
would seem they had to do that for about a year before the
connection between the Uth stones could be fully and completely
made.” The protector turned to stare intensely at George. “But you
still haven’t told me how you escaped, and where the Uth stone took
you.”

“Well,” said George slowly, sitting up in bed
and looking out the window at the bright California sunshine. “It
just kind of … did.” George felt a medley of confused emotions
coursing through his mind. Part of him wanted to tell the protector
everything, but another part held the experience he had had with
the Uth stone as being so sacred, that it almost seemed like it
would be cheapened by being put it into words.

And then there was the whole issue of the
sacrifice he and the Uth stone had been willing to make. How could
he ever talk about that? Pulling the bed sheet up to his neck,
George suddenly felt very self conscious.

“It must have been quite something, for it to
be so hard to tell” said the protector quietly. “Just fill me in on
the general details. There’s no need to tell me all the
specifics.”

“Sure,” said George simply. Although he felt
a bit uncomfortable talking about what had happened, he was still
greatly relieved to be able to trust the protector again, to know
that he was not in league with the Grak as George had suspected.
Silently, George vowed to never tell the protector of his
suspicions.

And so, George slowly told his story,
starting with the Ziphon’s warning, the glowing Uth stone he had
seen through the window, his capture, being carried to the fallen
star and then being tied to it, and finally the gentle voice that
came into his mind.