Chapter 2: The Gathering

          The people of Rasalas, or Rasalans, had been preparing for what might very nearly be considered a sacred celebration... if celebrating the gathering of one of Rasalas' most unique species of fauna each year could be called sacred. Every year, almost always on the day of Rasalas' summer solstice which took place on or about March 15th, ceffyls meandered out of the dense forests that covered absolutely every square inch of the planet that hadn't been bent to the will of the humans who had settled there so long ago. They gathered in exact groups of three, placing their hind ends against each other and forming a sort of three headed sculpture. There they stayed for a day, or two, or sometimes three before simply getting up off the ground and returning to the woods.

           A ceffyl's hind legs were paws, with fur starting at the knee and growing down to dangle just between each of the 7 toes, which were covered in skin much like the skin of a chicken's hard yellowish foot. Where claws might have been expected to be present, there were human-like toenails instead. They were kept worn down by constant walking over the stony foothills of massive mountain ranges, near which the Rasalans had colonized because of the shelter they provided from regular heavy wind. It's front legs were just like a horse's, hooves and all, except that two of those same “chicken” toes grew partway up the lower part of the legs facing back towards the hind legs. The body of a ceffyl was exactly like the body of any horse that was ever seen on Earth, and some of the Rasalan colonists had hypothesized that perhaps some ancient people of Earth had settled on the planet earlier, and somehow, a weak leak in the genetic code of the parent species had allowed genetic drift to allow viable in inter-species cross-breeding. 

           The first time the ceffyls had come out of the woods, they wandered about, eating leisurely through the fields of wheat, corn, and barley, very nearly devastating eight of the smaller colonies surrounding the capital city of Pyxis. When they appeared the second time, almost exactly one year later, the people knew that they were going to have to do something to preserve their crops while at the same time not doing harm to the native flora and fauna. The Deep Space Colonization Act of the International Congresses, which was a primitive form of the current Monarchy, had imposed a strict policy to ensure that no native species on the colonized worlds were genetically contaminated by direct intentional acts or by accidental drift.

          Regardless of how the ceffyls were created, or had evolved, or perhaps simply sprung forth from muddy holes in the mountains, they were what they were; majestic beasts with beautiful and well-defined features, and Rosalan's were bound by the law to preserve and protect them from any sort of harm, unless they were in imminent danger from them. So, as the next year's solstice approached, a group of animal behavior specialists from Pyxis were sent in pairs to each of the colonies to teach them conditioning techniques to steer the ceffyls from the fields and draw them into the city instead, where they could feed them and water them without causing irreparable damage to their fields. Over the years, the ceffyls changed their behaviors and began entering the cities directly, and on their own; forming their strange groups of three.

          There was always the same number of them each year, and they always sat in groups of three and always on their haunches. They never did anything other than eat the grains and drink the water that was brought to them until they returned to the woods. Each ceffyl had the capacity to consume nearly 500 pounds of food and 200 gallons of water in the short time they stayed in the city.

The Great Ceffyl was known among all the many planets colonized by earthlings. The Great Ceffyl was half again as large as the others, and always came to the square in Pyxis by itself. No other ceffyls came with it. It was a great beast, with graying hair, where others had only brown, and its massive shanks were wrapped in mottled gray and white skin, giving it an overall ancient look when compared to the others.

          Over the years, The Gathering had become such a ritualistic experience and took so long to prepare for, that even Vela Omicron, whose normal duties at work included monitoring the interstellar space sensors around Rosalas was called away to the fields every year for a few days, leaving the security post behind for a while. All Rosalans left their jobs and regular lives to prepare for The Gathering, and since security would be low during the celebration, The Monarchs graciously restricted star ships to approaches no nearer to Rosalas than five parsecs. This prevented visitors and wrongdoers from interfering with the Gathering. No one had violated that perimeter in over two hundred years, and the watchmen had eventually been comfortable enough with the situation to participate in the preparations at Pyxis.

          The preparation for the Gathering took weeks, and for the last three days leading up to the event itself, all males were called to the storage silos to collect and deliver the food to all the locations where the ceffyls were expected to gather. Water pumps and troughs were installed in each town square so that water was readily available. All this meant that no one on the planet was aware that Mendel had arrived in his Galleon-class star ship. Rosalans wouldn't even think about it, and probably wouldn't detect his arrival until Vela returned to work re-initiated interstellar security scans.

          Mendel knew that his arrival would appear much like that of any other ship dropping out of other faster-than-light speeds to approach a planet's orbit without simply blasting right through its core, even though theoretically, his ship hadn't “moved” so to speak. His mind was called back to another discovery; one that he hadn't revealed to the rest of his team, and one he knew must never be made available, because if the technology were to fall into the wrong hands, it would have been abused. Mendel had observed that the octet atom didn't actually “rotate” along the tesseract. The final position of the octect or collection of octets on the tesseract was set by stopping oscillation completely for a nanosecond when the peak of the wavelength had reached the desired end location before restoring it to its natural cycle. This was why he had left Earth so abruptly... to protect his discovery.

          “Sir, so far as I'm able to tell, our arrival has gone unnoticed, “ said the computer.

          “What, this old bucket of bolts hasn't announced our arrival? I myself have seen this ship come into orbit from the surface of a planet... It's absolutely huge! It looks like someone has placed a bowl over the earth, poked a bloody-great hole in it and shined a flashlight through it!” said Mendel with disdain. “Actually, it reminds me of Halley's Comet. I should know... I'm seen it over one hundred times over the years, and from different planets in the Solar System.”

          Mendel was almost disappointed that there would be no confrontation with Rosalan security personnel, no surprise discovery of an unannounced visitor to Rosalas.

          “Yes, Mendel, I remember you describing my return after our first successful attempt at tesserotation. It was actually the same year that Halley's Comet was visible from earth. You were quite excited about it. You were excited about a great many things back then, not tired and worn think like you are now,” said the computer.

          “ 'Mendel', huh? So after all these years you finally decide to use my name. I'm not sure how I feel about that right now. It's kind of weird.”

          “I'm sorry, Sir. Would you like me to stop using your name? I should not have taken the liberty.”

          After a few moments of thought on Mendel's part, he replied, “No... I think I can get used to it. It's been so long since I've heard someone else speak my name. I'd almost forgotten it. Please; Keep using it.”

          “Sure thing, Mendel,” said the computer.

          Vela Omicron stopped unloading his rover loader in the main square of Pyxis for a moment, stretched out, and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. Went it felt sufficiently loose, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes relax his heavy eyelids. He rubbed his eyes with his head still back, and opened them. He saw Mendel's “comet” ship, and thought the light from it was beautiful. The ship reflected the blue light of the Rosalan sun and the yellowish light of its moon, giving it a soft green glow, something like the flesh of a kiwi fruit. Vela reminded himself to look for the comet again later, when his shift was over.

          That night, the solstice began, and no one was prepared for what happened next. Or rather, what didn't happen that night. The Great Ceffyl galloped down from the hills; didn't walk or trot like the ceffyls were known to do. When it reached the square of Pyxis, it raised itself on its great hind quarters, and howled, no, screamed at the green comet in the sky. It was a blood curdling howl. No one had ever heard a ceffyl make a noise other than the clop of its two front hooves when walking over the paved roads in their cities. Vela was on hand to see the event. He froze in place, which was within feet of where the Great Ceffyl had stopped and screamed. It took him several minutes to regain his senses, and then he heard the voice calling to him over his hand-held radio.
          “Vela! Vela! Are you there? What's happening? We just heard a horrendous scream or something. Are you guys alright?” said the voice over the radio. It was Lepus Tau on the other end of the radio.

          “Lepus! Yes, I'm here. I'm standing, I kid you not, just a few feet from the Great Ceffyl, and it just bellowed, screamed... I'm not sure what that was. What's going on with the others?” asked Vela frantically and with much excitement.

          “The Great Ceffyl is there?

          “Yes, it's here. I came barreling down from the hills and screamed at the sky!” said Vela. “What are the other ceffyls doing?”

           “What do you mean, 'what are the others doing,' Vela, there aren't any. They haven't even come yet!” replied Lepus, frantically.

          “That can't be right. Have you sent scouts to the edge of the woods to spot them as they come out?” Vela asked.

          “Vela, you know just as well as I do that we always have scouts placed about as far into the woods as we dare go along the ceffyl pathways to watch for their coming and tell us of their progress. We've lost contact with them,” Lepus spoke into his radio, frantically. “We didn't notice until we heard the scream, and started calling out to them.”

          “What do you mean you've lost contact with them? That's not possible! There's hundreds of them on all the paths of the ceffyls. How can you just lose contact with them... All of them?”

          “I don't know!” Lepus said in a quieter, shakier voice than before. “We can't reach a single scout, and we've sent a few of our nearby feed haulers to check the two nearest paths for scouts. We sent them out as soon as we realized the something was wrong.”

          “Well, any word back?” Vela asked again.

          “No. It's too early to tell. The paths start a few miles from the square, and beyond that, it's a couple-of hundred yards to the nearest scout positions on those paths. It's going to take some time to get word, since during the Gathering, we don't allow vehicle travel other than to haul the feed. It's too dangerous for the ceffyls.”

          “Keep me posted. I want to hear something from you the very second that you have any news to share. I'm going to stay here with the Great Ceffyl for another 15 minutes or so, and see if anything else happens.”

          “Okay, Vela. I'll let you know if something develops or we have some more information back from our runners.”

          Vela slowly backed away from the Great Ceffyl so as not to startle it, or disturb it. When he got far enough away, he turned, and ran for the security tower to start up the heat-seeking surface scanners. He knew that he might gain some sort of insight from the positions of the ceffyls in the woods around the the cities of Rosalas, or at least the nearest handful of cities. And he hoped find some of the scouts with the scanner as well.

          Mendel was tired again. Or still; it was hard to tell the difference anymore, since his mind felt so old, so stretched, despite the messages his healthy young body was sending to the synapses of his brain. How had Earth's scientists managed to jump the gap from senility in the early 100s to join with the genetic enhancements that virtually enable the body to regenerate indefinitely? Sometimes he longed for the peace of death, but there was still something there in the back of his mind, nagging at him, nipping at him to keep on going; keep on searching. And so he kept on searching. He knew of a man on the key Monarch home world who had the information he needed.

          Mendel was not above getting violent to obtain the information he wanted; however, he did not want to, and quite often used methods of persuasion other than physical harm to extract important data from his subjects. Unfortunately, Mendel knew of no techniques that didn't leave the recipient with some sort of long-term damage, be it mental or physical.

          It was time to formulate his strategy, study the computer reports, and get down to the surface of the planet and find the man who didn't know he was Mendel's twin brother; Vela Omicron.