The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 10: Night Sky Jungle

"I did good, huh?"

After we had escaped from Nepton and made our way to the faraway "Night Sky Jungle", the place where we had discovered that Aries was being held captive, Zantas had regained control of the situation and grabbed my hand again. We did not talk again until we had left the city of CURE behind us - far too many worries already occupied our minds. The things the robot had told us were much worse than expected. As soon as the landscape around us turned into a vast plain with flocks of sheep grazing idly, I told myself that we had to look at the other side of the coin. After saying these words, I gave a cough and tried to rephrase.

"We were both great, we found out what we wanted to know and got away without a scratch. It's true that Aries was kidnapped, but we know where she is and we're already on our way to get her back! You'll see we get there in time. You heard, didn't you? They don't want to hurt her, the Administrator wants her as a witness for... whatever he wants to do. I mean, it could have been a lot worse. And-"

°Gaia, that's enough,° he replied impassively. His attitude disappointed me a bit.

"I tried to look on the bright side. Just so I don't get down on myself like you."

Zantas, who had just been thundering through the sky at full speed, suddenly came to a halt. I almost lost my footing from the jerk I made forward before coming to a stop myself.

"Hey," I said, "you could have warned me!" He slowly turned around and looked me straight in the eye. An icy gust of wind hit my legs, as if he had called it himself.

°There are times when a wise person knows that his actions will carry weight; that if he is not careful, things will fall into place and he will have missed a precious opportunity. In such cases, there are only two things to do: either seek the advice of a trusted person, or reflect in silence. I chose the second option.° I lowered my eyes in shame as I tried to figure out if I had reacted that way because I realized I had been a little out of line, or because he had just told me that I was not yet worthy of his trust. After speaking, he turned again and we resumed our race against time, the night disappearing to make way for the day.

We spent the whole day in the air. The rosy, cloudless sky made the tension less, but still palpable. I had realized that we'd been stuck in someone's plan ever since we'd arrived in Deep Reality and met Aries on that airborne planet. A project kept secret for who knows how many years, aimed at... doing what? I hoped with all my heart that whatever challenges lay ahead, we would be strong enough to overcome them. 

Below us, everything passed by with great speed: the fields, the small houses with the red peasant roofs, the villages, the metropolises. Nothing interested us anymore; everything we saw was just another step before we reached our destination. When we arrived at noon, the land disappeared and gave way to a vast expanse of salt water, with occasional red patches of coral and schools of blood-colored fish splashing about. I was tempted to dive down, so fascinated was I: it was the first time I had ever seen the sea. Although we did not reach dry land for the entire afternoon and evening, the landscape was constantly in motion, with islands and patches of land appearing like shadows in the distance. 

Neither Zantas nor I needed to eat or sleep, so we were able to keep going smoothly. Now and then we would pass a ship, and I would wave ecstatically to its crew. I pretended not to notice, but my friend always hinted at a smile.

After fifteen hours of travel, we reached the jungle. It was on a continent that overlooked the water with cliffs of reddish, crumbly rock, different from the gray rock I was used to. The sound of waves crashing on the shore woke me from a kind of trance I had fallen into after so many hours in the sky. The vegetation was much thicker than in the forest, the leaves larger and brighter, and the birds that flew by made sounds I had never heard before; rivers of all kinds flowed through the jungle, opening glimpses between the trees, the water flowing swiftly and reflecting the last rays of the sun that was slowly disappearing below the horizon. As my gaze wandered, I noticed a spot where the ground dropped into a hollow, beside which two pointed hills seemed to lie side by side. I recognized them at once.