I crawled out of the tunnel into the bright light of the eternal Ecosian day. Malagor followed me.  Between the two of us we carried the artifacts found in the inner chamber, with the exception of the rusty cans. I had a feeling they contained foodstuffs that were far from fresh.  Besides, we didn’t have a can opener.  We set everything down, and Malagor skinned his small game animal, spitted it, and put it over our campfire.  I tossed a few more twigs on the fire and then sat down to examine the fascinating swords that I had found.

I hefted the long sword in my hand, and was surprised to find that though it had obviously been crafted as a two-handed sword, it was too light for that method of swordsmanship.  I then recalled that here on Ecos my strength was increased, roughly doubling what it had been on Earth.  If I had not had this additional strength, the sword would have been quite heavy and well balanced as a two-handed weapon.  The blade was bright silver in color but strangely, neither the blade, nor the many small runes and designs carved along its length, reflected the sun. The hilt was carved of a material that looked like wood, but was much harder and did not show the great age that it must have been.  It too, was carved with fantastic designs, and, set all along it, were fourteen beautiful gems.  I guessed that they were quite valuable, though I suppose that the value of gems, like so many other things, really depends upon one’s culture.  I was never much for mineralogy, so I don’t know if they were emeralds or sapphires or what, but they certainly were lovely. The short sword was almost identical to the long sword, with the exception of its length, and the fact that it had been designed to be used single-handedly.

I looked up from my examination of the sword to see my dog-faced friend.  He had finished getting dinner cooking, and now was devoting himself to an examination of the rifles.  He drew one to his shoulder and looked down the barrel. I was somewhat surprised, because I had assumed that Malagor was from a low technology society.  It had never occurred to me that he might be acquainted with firearms, or in this case an even more advanced weapon.

“Do you know this particular weapon?”  I asked.

“It is an Amatharian gun.  They call it a light rifle,” he said.  “I have used weapons similar to this, but never one this fine or this powerful.”

“Tell me something of these Amatharians,” I said.

“The Amatharians are a most interesting race.  They look much like you, and yet they are different.  They are a race of honor.  If you insult an Amatharian you must be ready to kill him or to die. They travel over a wide area, but live only in their great city of Amathar.  It is said to be the greatest city anywhere.  They are trained in war, but do not love war the way some other races do.”  He stopped for a moment as if trying to remember.

“An Amatharian warrior’s soul is in his sword.  If the sword sees the warrior turn from an enemy, the soul will be disgusted and will never be with the warrior again.  If the warrior dies bravely, the soul leaves the sword to live in the sun, shining brightly forever.  If a warrior gives his sword away, he gives away his soul.”

He stopped and looked at me.

“These Amatharians are funny people,” he said.

“Have you actually known any Amatharians?”

“When I was a little pup, a group of Amatharians came to our village. There were only six of them.  The leader of the group was an old trader. He wanted the pottery and leather crafts that our bitches made.  He traded us tools and interesting foods.  The others were his assistants, all that is except the Remiant.”

“Remiant?”

Malagor went to some length to explain to me what I suppose would be sort of a combined military rank and social status of the Amatharians.  Most young Amatharians, he explained, were militarily trained.  Even those that pursued other occupations within their society were also soldiers. After leaving military duty, the former soldiers became explorers, scientists, or merchants.  A beginning soldier was a warrior or remiantad. After glorifying himself in battle he became a swordsman or remiantar.  When a swordsman became somehow complete, a true living weapon, he became a Remiant, something like a knight.  To be a Remiant, was the ultimate goal of all Amatharians.  Though there were ranks beyond Remiant, a Remiantad or captain and a Horemiant or general, these were only ranks for use in large-scale warfare. In the context of social status, all remiants were equal.  Yes, a Remiant was a knight.  Malagor went on.

“The knight was tall, even for an Amatharian.  He stood, back straight and head held high.  On his tabard was the crest of his house.  His swords were strapped to his sides.  They were not as magnificent as the ones you have found, but it seemed to me that the long one shined with the light of the soul within.

“The merchant and his apprentices went into the house of our alpha male to discuss the terms of trade.  The knight took his position outside the doorway.  There were several of us, all small pups.  We stood there watching him.  He smiled at us.  That is all that I remember.”

“Was that a long time ago?” I asked.

“A very, very long time ago.”  He looked at me with his head cocked to one side.  “It is a boring story.”

“No, it is not boring,” I countered, “but I wonder why the Amatharian left these swords here, and what happened to his soul?”

“It is possible that these swords have not seen use.  They certainly appear to be in fine condition,” said Malagor.

“You know a great deal about Amatharians and their swords considering you met one only when you were a small child.  You must have studied them.”

He just shrugged.

I don’t expect you to believe this story, but it is the truth.  My name is Alexander Ashton.  I was born in the heart of the American west.  I have often been known to say that I was born either a hundred years too late, or perhaps a hundred years too early.  It always seemed to me that I had the misfortune to live in the single most unexciting period of time the panorama of history had to offer.  I don’t say that I longed to be transported to another time or to another world, for never in my wildest dreams did I believe this to be possible.  I was destined to be surprised.

I was born in a small city.  I played as a child in a park that was once a dusty street where outlaws of the old west fought famous gunfights.  When I was seven, my parents were killed in a motor vehicle accident.  I really remember little of them.  I was put in a state-run children’s home where I lived until I was eighteen, passed by time after time by prospective adoptive parents, primarily because I was too old.  I hold no ill feelings about it now.  If there is one thing I learned while I was a ward of the state, it is that no matter how bad off one may be, there is always someone worse off than you are.

After graduating high school and being set on my own by the state, I entered college at the local university.  I became a voracious reader and excelled in athletics but did poorly in my required studies.  After two semesters of academic probation I was asked to leave.  I walked down the street to the Army Recruiter’s office and enlisted.  There wasn’t much to the army, since there was no war on at the time.  While I was there, I did learn to shoot, and fight with a saber, and to keep in good physical condition, but otherwise I left the service just as I had gone in.

After finding a new apartment in my old hometown, I happened to run into a fellow whom I knew from college.  He was running a small grocery store, and doing quite well, since no large grocery chain was interested in such a small market area.  He offered me a job, I took it, and we became pretty close friends.

My friend, the grocery store owner, was engaged to a nice girl, and they decided in time to get married.  I was chosen to be the best man.  The wedding was nice, and the reception was even better.  I have never been much of a drinking man, but that night I made a name for myself in that capacity.  I don’t know why I drank so much.  Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself and my lot in life, I don’t know.  I do know that in short order, I had worked myself into a staggering, slobbering, half-conscious stupor.  How, when, and where I became unconscious, I cannot say, but at some point, I did.  And this is where my story truly begins.

I awoke with a chill in my bones.  I was lying down in a small streambed with icy water running over my feet.  I tried to rise but couldn’t.  My body was stiff and weak, and its only response was to shiver uncontrollably.  Around me was a thick forest, and I could see dark shapes moving around in the trees. I sensed then, on some deeper level that I was in a place I had never been before.  Then I heard a deep growling as I passed once again into unconsciousness.

When next I awoke, I looked around to find myself in a small shack.  I was lying on a cot made of animal furs, and I was bathed in a cold sweat.  The walls of the small shelter were made from cut logs and a roughly fashioned wooden chair was the room’s only furnishing.  When the door of the shack opened, I truly believed for the first time in my life that there were lifeforms other than those I was familiar with on Earth.

The creature that stepped inside the door, and closed it after him, was most ugly.  That he was intelligent was demonstrated not only by the fact that he had opened and then closed the door, but also by the fact that he wore clothing— ugly clothing yes, but clothing, nonetheless.  He was about five feet tall and stood in a kind of perpetual crouch.  His body was covered with coarse brown hair, two to three inches long, from his head to his feet, which reminded me of the feet of a dog or a wolf, although larger.  He was somewhat wolf-like in every aspect, such as his protruding snout, but he also seemed somewhat baboon-like in his expressive eyes.  I am comparing him to earthly animals, but this is really inadequate, as the similarities were actually quite superficial, and he was totally unearthly in appearance.  I remember most looking at his hands.  He had four fingers not too different from my own, but his abbreviated thumb possessed a great, long, curving claw.

The creature, stepping slowly over to me, reached out a hand and gave me a piece of dried fruit.  I was quite hungry, and the fruit was quite good.  As I began to eat, the creature began to bark and growl at me.  At first, I thought he was angry, but then I realized that he was trying to communicate in his language.   I was too tired to respond and fruit still in hand, passed back into sleep.

The next time I woke, the creature was sitting in the chair looking at me with his head cocked to one side.  I pushed myself up on one elbow and he spoke to me again, this time in a more human sort of language.  It seemed almost like French but having learned a few phrases of that language in the army, I knew it was not.  This language was so much less nasal.  He pointed to his chest and said “Malagor” then he pointed to me.  I said “Alexander”.  He smiled wide exposing a magnificent row of long, sharp teeth.  My language lessons had begun.

It took a long time for me to recover from my illness.  It seemed to me that I was nursed by the creature for at least a month. I slept many times, but each time I awoke I found light streaming in the window.  Not once did I wake to find darkness, or even the pale light of the moon, outside the window.  During this long period of time, my host provided me with food and water, took care of my sanitary needs, and of course, taught me to speak his language.  One of the first things that I learned was that “Malagor” was not the name of my companion but was instead his race or species.  He told me his real name, which seemed to be a growl with a cough thrown in for good measure.  I decided that I would call him “Malagor”, and he didn’t seem to mind.

Astrid brought the Maxxim Starcraft 170 down on the runway at LAX. The 170 was a sharp, if unusual looking aircraft. Designed by Astrid’s father, the 47-foot plane featured a long pointy fuselage with a small canard wing just behind the nose. The main wing was at the back of the aircraft, and carried twin turboprop engines, with the propellers facing rearward. These were known as push-props. The cabin, which could accommodate up to nine passengers, now seated only Penelope and Sabrina Scacchi and their carryon luggage. Astrid was, of course, up front, along co-pilot Don Herron.

Herron stayed with the plane, while the three young women disembarked and made their way into the LAX Private Terminal. Astrid was surprised to see her friend from France waiting just inside. Océane Feuillée was about an inch taller than Astrid and quite thin. Her pleasant face was framed in short black hair, cut in a cute little wedge. She reached out and embraced Astrid in a tight hug.

“Hello, Océane,” said Astrid. “I thought we would have to search for you.”

“You’re Miss Scacchi told me where to come.”

“And here she is. Océane, Sabrina Scacchi. Sabrina, Océane. And you remember my Aunt Penelope.”

“Oui.” The three women shook hands.

“So what is the big secret?” asked Astrid.

“Let’s find a quiet place, and I will tell you all about it.”

“I’ve reserved one of the private rooms here,” said Miss Scacchi. “It’s just down the hall.”

The small private room, enclosed in glass, was quiet and featured comfortable chairs. Astrid sat down next to Océane, and the other two sat across from them.

“So what’s going on?”

“I’ve been working with my friend Adeline Petit. She is a graduate student with my father, and she has been working on a special project for the past three years. So I decided to help. She is studying dolphins and their communication. It would be wonderful if you could create a device to translate their language to ours.”

“Of course that would be great,” said Penelope. “It’s not possible though.”

“Maybe it is,” said Astrid. “I’ve read about some work along that line that an engineer from Google was doing. It’s simply a matter of finding out what sounds are associated with what actions and objects.”

“You make that sound easy,” continued Penelope. “There could be millions of nouns and verbs to sort through.”

“Adeline has thousands of sounds recorded and identified,” said Océane. “She just needs the program and the computer. And it would have to be portable… and waterproof.”

“Is that all?” said Penelope.

“I think it can be done,” said Astrid. “What’s more, I want to do it. Where is she working? Hawaii?”

“No. She’s at a very small, uncharted island, in French Polynesia. It’s fifty miles east of Tahiti. She calls it Mokupuni Nai’a.”

“Dolphin Island,” translated Penelope.

“I didn’t know you spoke Tahitian,” Astrid remarked.

“I do, but that’s actually Hawaiian.”

“All right,” said Astrid. “I want to help, but why the hush hush? Why couldn’t you tell me all of this over the phone?”

“There’s more to it,” replied Océane. “Something is hurting the dolphins. There have been mass strandings every year for at least the last three years.”

“That’s horrible,” said Miss Scacchi.

“It is,” agreed Astrid. “But it happens all around the world. Why the secrecy?”

“We think it may be caused by the United States navy and their sonar. Adeline is afraid they will try to stop us from reporting it.”

“Well, I don’t think we really need to worry about nefarious Navy agents stalking us, but let’s agree to keep this all between us until we can figure out what’s really going on.”

“My flight leaves for Papeete Fa’a’ā in two hours,” said Océane.

“I need a while to get the necessary computer equipment together,” said Astrid. “Then I can fly the Starcraft out and meet you.”

“You can’t Astrid,” said Miss Scacchi. “Your mother said you must have an adult with you and I have to be back in Maxxim City by Monday.”

“I’ll go with Astrid,” said Penelope. “We’ll get you a first class ticket back home.”

“You don’t mind?” Astrid asked her aunt. “This may take weeks.”

“What? You need weeks to create a device to talk to another species? You must be slipping.”

Astrid laughed. “All right then. Let’s get Océane to her flight, get a ticket for Miss Scacchi…”

“Call me Sabrina please, Astrid.”

“Okay, but if my mother get’s mad, it’s your fault. A ticket for Sabrina. Then you and I, Aunt Penny, need to go to the computer store.”

Just after dinner, Astrid called her cousin Gloria.

“Are you going to Detroit this week?”

“I have to,” said Gloria. “I wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta for Spring Break, but Mom says she misses me or something.”

“And you’re too young to go to Mexico for Spring Break.”

“She might have said something along that line too.”

“So, when are you going to Detroit?” asked Astrid.

“Tomorrow at 10:00 AM.”

“Do you mind if I catch a ride?”

“It’s a free country. I mean, I don’t mind.” Astrid could almost hear the strain of trying to be pleasant in her cousin’s voice.

“Great,” said Astrid. “See you then.”

“Plans?” asked Kate Maxxim.

“I’m shooting up to Detroit for a couple of days.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

Astrid arrived just before ten at the Maxxim airfield, with Priyanka Sharma in tow, and stepped up into the cabin of the Starcraft 170 commuter plane. Gloria was already seated about mid-plane, and standing in the aisle was Maxxim Industries pilot Carl Williams. Agent Sharma took a seat by the door.

“You’re flying us, Carl?” asked Astrid.

“No, you are.”

“I don’t know,” said Astrid. “I haven’t flown anything bigger than my hoverbike since my brain surgery.”

“And you crashed that,” added Gloria.

“Time to get back onto the horse,” said Williams. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right there next to you the whole way. I’ll make sure everything’s fine.”

“Please do,” said Gloria. “If we crash with her, your name probably won’t even make the papers, and mine will be at least a half column down.”

Feeling her stomach growl, the girl inventor looked up to see that it was almost 1:00 PM. She decided that rather than visit the cafeteria there in the R&D building, she would go on home. Chef Pierce could fix her something light that wouldn’t spoil her dinner that evening with Toby.

The weather was warm for late March, though it was a bit windier than one might have wished, flying fifty feet above the ground. Zipping down low, just over the tops of the saguaro cactuses and zooming back up and over the high red rocks, made Astrid smile. When a few strands of hair slipped from beneath her helmet and down onto her forehead, she broke into a laugh. She finally had hair long enough to get in the way!

Suddenly the gentle humming, which was a constant companion to anyone flying a hoverbike, went silent. The flying scooter dropped toward the ground like a brick, and Astrid went with it. She tried to steer toward a spot of soft sand, but the vehicle was completely unresponsive. There was no time to do anything else. Pushing herself away from the no longer flying scooter, she landed in the soft desert sand, just as the hoverbike crashed on a slightly firmer patch of gravel.

It was a minute before Astrid could suck any air back into her lungs. Though her entire left side hurt, there were no pains that stood out from the others. Carefully checking her legs and arms, and then feeling over the rest of her, Astrid decided that she hadn’t broken anything, at least not too badly. She sat slowly up and looked at her hoverbike. It was sitting about ten feet away. Though its frame was intact, the hoverdisks on the bottom were smashed to pieces.

Astrid tapped her Maxxim Carpé watch computer with her finger. Then she looked down at the device. The screen was shattered and there was a dent. Retrieving her phone from her pocket, she pressed the speed dial to her father.

“Hi, Astrid.”

“Hi, Dad. I’ve had a bit of a hoverbike crash. I’m alright, but I’m stuck out in the desert.”

Getting to her feet, the girl inventor looked at the landmarks all around her. Ahead of her, she could see the low rise of hills between her and Maxxim City. To both the north and south were large sandstone hills. She was north of the Saguaro Cactus Park and miles northeast of Pearl Lake. If she walked downhill, she would run into one of the many dry riverbeds in the area. They all flowed toward Pearl Lake, and between it and her was the monorail line.

“I think I can walk to the monorail from here,” she said. “It may take me an hour or so.”

“Astrid, stay where you are. How’s you’re phone battery?”

“It’s fine… um, seventy-four percent.”

“Good,” he said. “As long as it’s on, we can track you by GPS. Wait where you are.”

Astrid flew her hoverbike to the Maxxim Industries infirmary the next morning just before noon. The small but ultramodern medical facility serviced the emergency needs of the airfield, the spaceport, and the rest of the 180,000-acre campus. Dr. Crawford was waiting for her. She was just as Astrid remembered her, thin with straight red hair. She guided Astrid through an x-ray and CAT scan before meeting with her in an office borrowed from the infirmary’s regular doctor, Dr. Martinez.

“So what’s going on?” asked the neurosurgeon.

“I think that is for you to tell me,” replied Astrid.

“I don’t see anything medically to be concerned about. How is your memory?”

“Pretty good, I guess,” said Astrid. “I have found a few things that I couldn’t remember.”

“That’s to be expected. Your mother says you’ve been a bit cranky.”

“Only when people are annoying me, or you know… being dumb.”

Dr. Crawford smiled.

“Next to you, I’m dumb, and I was at the top of my class at Johns Hopkins. I suspect your irritability has less to do with your injury and more to do with the everyday stress you put on yourself. I only know what I read in the papers, but you might be pushing yourself too hard. You have a lot going on between high school and running one of the largest corporations in the world.”

“I don’t really run it,” said Astrid.

“Plus, you’re a teenager and teenagers are notoriously moody. I imagine your mom has not had much experience with teenage rebellion. You don’t strike me as a particularly rebellious young lady.”

“That’s not true,” said Astrid. “Two months ago, I went into space without asking anybody. I got grounded too.”

It was only a few minutes by hoverbike to Austin’s home. He lived with his grandmother on the southeast side of Maxxim City, just two blocks away from Joyland, the local amusement park, now closed for the winter. The Tretower home was a stone block colonial that, like a number of houses in town, had been brought from back east. A good portion of the front was covered in ivy that stayed green even through the winter, thanks to its new surroundings.

“Good morning, girls,” said Mrs. Tretower. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

Austin’s grandmother had her silver hair cut almost as short as Astrid’s. She was trim and athletic and was the youngest-looking grandmother that any of them knew. She was wearing a red tracksuit.

“We were invited,” said Valerie.

“Oh, I have no doubt you were. I’m sure Austin just forgot to tell me about it. That boy would lose his head if it wasn’t screwed on…” She stopped and looked at Robot Valerie, no doubt wondering if comments about parts being screwed on were appropriate when talking to a robot. “He’s in the back room with his video games. Go right on in. I’m off on my run.”

The girls went in the front door and then Mrs. Tretower went out, leaving them at the entrance to a cozy living room. They could hear loud explosions and gunfire coming from beyond. Following the sounds, they found Austin in the family room, sitting in a recliner and attempting to defeat a string of zombies in Cannibal Apocalypse.

“No!” he shouted as digital blood splattered across the screen, indicating that he had lost.

“You know,” said Astrid, “eventually the zombies always win. There’s really no point in even playing.”

“I could say the same thing about Ms. Pacman,” said the boy, looking over his shoulder. “Eventually the ghosts get you.”

“Yes, but Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Sue are a lot less horrifying that your game’s monsters.”

“If you say so,” said Austin, flipping the game control first to the main menu, and then selecting Ms. Pacman. “Grab a controller off the coffee table and have a seat.”

They played Ms. Pacman, followed by Tetris, Mappy, and Burger Time. Ms. Pacman was Astrid’s favorite game, and she set a new high score on Austin’s system, though it wasn’t her highest of all time. Robot Valerie excelled at Tetris. By the time they worked their way to the other two games though, they weren’t really paying attention to who won. They simply enjoyed playing, and laughed as the cat and mice chased each other around the screen in the former game and the chef raced to build burgers in the latter.

“I wish you guys would play some of my new games with me,” said Austin. “I just got Psycho Bloodbath and Deathknight: The Gruesome. I bet you’d really enjoy Ninja Deathwish Armageddon. The main character’s a girl.”

“Hmph,” said Regular Valerie. “I’ll bet she goes around slaughtering people, half naked.”

“No,” he said. “She’s half naked, but the people she kills mostly have their clothes on.”

“I’m fine!” Astrid shouted without really meaning to. “I’m going for a walk.”

Grabbing her jacket, she was out the door and halfway down the block, before she slowed and put it on. It was chilly, and the unusually moist air made her breath form little clouds. Pulling her hood over her head and yanking the strings down, she tightened it around her face.

Why had she yelled at her mother? She only wanted to make sure that Astrid was healthy. Maybe there was something wrong with her brain. Maybe she had some kind of brain damage. What if her IQ really had dropped to 184? What a nightmare!

Suddenly Astrid heard a sound behind her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, but didn’t see anything. She began walking a little quicker. She heard another sound behind her. Somebody was following her. Even as she wondered who it could be, she wondered whether she had noticed the noises because the humidity in the air. She knew that dry air absorbed acoustical energy more than moist air, since air was more dense than water vapor. She was sure she heard a footfall.

Speeding up her stride, Astrid passed the large evergreen shrub on the corner of the Trent family yard. Then she dived behind their hedge and ran around behind the corner of their old-fashioned front porch, peeking out at the sidewalk. Seconds later, a tall figure in a black trench coat walked by, looking left and right, no doubt trying to figure out where the girl had gone. The growing darkness left him little more than a silhouette even near the glowing streetlights.

There was something very familiar about the straight back and the tightly-wound energy of his stride. Astrid smiled. Retracing her steps beside the hedge, she jumped up behind the dark figure.

“Are you on Astrid-watch again?” she asked.

“Well, it seems that someone has to be,” said a cultured English accent.

The figure turned, revealing the handsome features of Mr. Charles Edward Toulson, Interpol agent. Mr. Toulson had watched over Astrid in the past, most recently the previous May, when he had foiled a group of terrorists attempting to kidnap the girl inventor.

“Do you want to walk me home and tell me why you’re here, or would you rather stand out here in the cold?” she asked.

“I think it’s quite nice out, actually,” he said, looking around. Then he touched his earpiece. “Alice is returning to Wonderland. We’ll meet there.”

Astrid’s face turned dark.

“Don’t like your codename?” asked Mr. Toulson.

“Alice was mentally deranged, you know,” she replied in a low voice.