Chapter 6

      Under the Stars

      The warm air from the day’s hot sun slowly cooled with a slight breeze flowing over the mountain peaks and on down the valley, adding a touch of dampness to the air. Jennifer was sitting on some furs spread over the ground just outside the cave. She was gazing up at the distant twinkling starlight in the night sky while with a tender hand she stroked the soft fur of the little black puppy sleeping comfortably on her lap.

      Taric came out of the cave, nibbling on some berries piled high in a small woven grass basket. He noticed the little lycur beast Jennifer called a puppy was sleeping in her lap and found the sight of the two together very unsettling. It was unnatural, almost magical, as he watched her interact with the lycur. He sat down next to Jennifer and placed the bowl he was carrying between them.

      “I don’t know what you believe when you look up at the night sky,” Jennifer said to him quietly. “You asked me, what is it like living in the heavens and where are my people? I’m not sure you’d believe me. We’re so different, you and me. We’re the opposite of each other’s culture and worlds apart in our technology and way of thinking. I’m not sure where to begin.”

      “Just talk and I will listen,” Taric suggested with a kind smile encouraging her to begin as he knew it would cause her some sadness in the telling. “Your beginning will happen.”

      “Yes, the beginning, I’ll try, but first, tell me what you see in the night sky,” she asked curiously. “It might help me to explain things better and give me a starting point.”

      “When I look up at the night sky. I see the firepits of all who have lived before me. Our people believe there is life after death. We believe another life begins when our spirit is taken from the land. If I live a good life and I am found worthy, my spirit will ascend into the dark sky to be reunited with my ancestors.

      “Some spirits are doomed to forever wander within the shadows of darkness. Lives can be very short due to sickness, famine, or unexpected tragedy. Tragic events inflicted on or suffered through in a person’s life can attack a person’s spirit and bind it to the land after their death. When an unusual death occurs, our healers gather and perform a ceremony to break any bond with the land the spirit may have so it can rise into the night sky in peace and not be doomed to forever wander in the darkness,” he answered quietly revealing to her the simple faith of Taric’s people.

      Taric’s truthful telling of his belief gave Jennifer a beginning she thought he could understand and possibly accept. “Taric, I need you to open your mind and really listen to what I’m going to say. Over countless generations, my people’s curiosity made us a very resourceful and intelligent species. Our weapons gradually became so much more advanced than a simple bow and arrow that we almost destroyed ourselves. Your land makes me feel as if I’ve traveled back in time. Way back to when Earth, my home, was as wild and bountiful with life as your home is now.”

      “What do you mean by traveled back in time?” Taric asked, interrupting her with a question.

      Jennifer realized she’d have to explain herself more simply. It wasn’t because Taric was a stupid savage; he was highly intelligent for his world and way of life. His people didn’t have the luxury of idle time to think about abstract thoughts. So she tried to answer him as simply as she could and hoped he’d understand.

      “Traveling back in time is a human expression of speech. It’s a twist of words we sometimes use in our stories. Time travel is not possible, but the idea is like this.

      “Imagine, you’re here on this spot at this time of day. Then a magical healer walks into your camp and offers you a way to witness the moment of your birth in exchange for shelter and food. You agree and then poof! You’re standing beside your mother as she’s giving birth to a baby and the baby is you. A child she names Taric. That’s the simplest way of explaining the idea. Do you understand?” Jennifer asked him, seeing dim shadows of the firelight play with the gorgeous features of his handsome face.

      “I think I understand your idea,” Taric answered a little confused but smiled as her concern for him was the foremost expression revealed on her beautiful face. He placed his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I saw you fall from the sky. I will listen and try to understand and believe what you have to say. How can I not?” he answered, giving her hand a gentle squeeze for encouragement.

      “Okay. Well, as the saying goes,” Jennifer replied with a grin. “A very, very, very long time ago, my people lived their lives much like you and your people do now. Generation upon countless generations of lives spent in the pursuit of a better life for our children, our numbers spread across the land, we tamed the wilds and made ourselves masters of our world.

      “Our history began when our ancient ancestors drew pictures of different types of animals and the men hunting them on cave walls. The primitive drawings eventually led to writing—the beginning of conveying our ideas and questions beyond our death. Writing made it possible to record our spiritual beliefs, history, and science.

      “Humans have always been a curious species. We have a desire to know the truth of our observations. We ask countless questions and then search for ways to answer them. Through observation and experimentation, we learned to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction. We recorded our discoveries, but for every discovery, there were always more questions to be answered. Our boundless imagination and insatiable curiosity within our souls fuels our mind’s quest for knowledge. It never stops. We ask questions we cannot answer in the hope that future generations will discover the answer and expand our knowledge even further.

      “Throughout time, we continued asking hard questions because we had to know why things are as they are and how we came to be on our land. Those basic questions made it possible for us to overcome our fear of the unknown. Our accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next grew so vast that over time it made impossible ideas possible and opened up incredible opportunities, including the ability to change our life’s reality, which brings me to this point in my life.” Jennifer explained with a grin as she continued to stroke the little puppy.

      “Now it’s time for some hard truth. Everyone living on the land right now is ignorant of what really exists in the sky above us, except me.

      “The only commonality between your culture and mine is our awareness of our mortality, and for that, I’m thankful, because it’s a beginning. You live to survive each day, your past is only what you can remember, and your tomorrow is the scary unknown. The story of your species on this world is just beginning to unfold and the outcome of your history far into the future will forever be a mystery to you. Your people are a very young species in an eternal cosmic quest to extend life wherever it can.

      “The lights you see in the sky are not the firepits of your ancestors as you’ve been told to believe. They are stars, massive globes of unimaginable power scattered throughout our galaxy we call the Milky Way. A galaxy is a vast collection of countless stars, and there are more galaxies in the universe than the stars you can see in the night sky.

      “Every star is just like the sun that rises in your sky each morning. Your star is the source of energy for all life on this world. Without its endless light and heat, nothing would live and this land would be a frozen barren rock.

      “The stars are so far away, it takes countless cycles of seasons for their light to travel here. Every sun has a varying number of worlds circling around them and some of those far away worlds are favorable to life. My people learned how to travel in starships from one world to another across the vast distances of space. We’ve discovered three-star systems with worlds suitable to support human life and ready to colonize.” Jennifer paused to gather her thoughts, wondering how much of her narrative Taric was understanding and asked him, “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

      “I