While Flash Meridian had lost all sense of time on his journey through space, his computer told him that it was mid November back on Earth. The thought of it conjured up memories of fall in the northern hemisphere, and Flash felt a wind blow autumn leaves across the wet pavement of his soul.

Flash Meridian remembered back to his childhood, sending cereal box tops off in the mail, to receive t-shirts or plastic toys. The day after dropping his envelope into the mailbox, he ran to greet the mailman on the front walk to see if his prize had arrived. Anxious days turned to tedious weeks, and eventually, when he’d nearly forgotten about it, a package would show up. This is how he felt now. The universe had changed for him. What had seemed a vast, impersonal sea of loneliness, had now become alive with hope and anticipation. Flash actually believed that his dream of companionship and love would come true, as unlikely as it seemed. There had already been times when he asked for, and received things that had seemed impossible. Peering with wonder into the screen before him, Flash saw his own reflection superimposed over the twinkling array of nearby stars and distant galaxies. His other-worldly friends were right. He was unlikely. Here was the stardust that made up his body, contemplating the stardust that surrounded his ship. The thought of it made him smile. The fact that he was here, and knew he was here, told him that nothing is impossible.

Flash Meridian was all alone, and yet, he never felt completely alone because of the memories he carried. Everyone he had ever loved had left their fingerprints on him, and he bore a piece of them on his very being. His ancestors were also present within his very cells, and in this way, they traveled with him among the stars. Still, he couldn’t help longing for another person, with all their ancestors and fingerprints to accompany him and enhance his experience.

Little did he know, someone else was gazing out on the universe asking for the same thing.

Flash had been adrift in space so long, it was a wonder that he had not gone crazy. He was aware of feelings of loneliness, but this was far overshadowed by a sense of awe and anticipation. In fact, he felt that a wonderful change was about to take place. Sometimes, he felt a presence with him in the cockpit of his ship. Sometimes, he thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, but when he glanced toward the apparition, there was nothing there. Peck and Lem seemed oblivious to the visitant, and Flash believed his mind was playing tricks on him. This was not surprising, and yet, what tricks! The phantom seemed almost palpable, and it was accompanied by something vaguely familiar, the musical murmur he had investigated earlier. Perhaps he was going crazy after all.

MEANWHILE:

Back on Olo, Buffy and Skip thrived in their renovated environment. They had taken up residence in the castle where they raised their family, and many others came to Olo to live in their beautiful world. Buffy and Skip ruled with kindness and compassion. Their domain was characterized by open-mindedness and fairness. Their royal scepters were topped with rubies that captured the light of nearby stars and bathed them in dancing light. These were the very crystals that Flash had shown them on the day they met.

From time to time, the whales returned, in greater and greater numbers. Olo was their breeding grounds, and their arrival was always met with celebration. The Ololians would gather on the crystal plain, retracing Flash’s first walk on Olo’s surface. The whales congregated in the air above them, rolling and dipping down, allowing the people to climb onto their backs. The older whales taught this behavior to their calves, and seemed to enjoy it as much as the people on the ground.

Flash Meridian was also remembered in festivals and feasts, and some residents believed he would someday return. They sent him messages. Some did this aloud in solitude, some gave speeches before any who gathered. Others sent their thoughts to Flash non-verbally.

Flash was aware of all this, because the events of Olo appeared in the book, which was the one progressive source of entertainment and news available to him.

Physically, he had moved on from Olo, and yet he felt a strong connection to it, as he did for all of the places he had visited on his journey.

The mer creature, the wooly mammoths the Shepherdess of the stars, as well as Peck and Lem, Ash and KD, were all woven into his daily thoughts. They were an integral part of his life.

He was at home in the universe, neither lonely, nor out-of-doors, nor afraid.

George MacDonald

The universe is folded up within thee.

BAHA’U’LLAH

77 Wait

Flash seemed to hover, as he often did, between the waking world and the realm of dreams. He looked out, from the vantage point of his comfortable chair, thinking about how light the universe was.

Before he ever broke free of Earth’s gravity, he had imagined space to be very dark… Pitch black. It was anything but that!

He was startled by a call coming in over his radio. At first, he thought he was dreaming. It had been so long since anyone had attempted to contact him.

He jumped up from his seat still feeling sleepy, and excitedly answered the transmission.

“Hello! Hello!” he nearly shouted into the microphone.

All he heard in reply sounded like panting, and so he said again, “Hello! Is anybody there?”

Now, garbled sounds came through, sounding like an alien language. The call had an air of desperation, so Flash Meridian did not give up.

“This is Flash Meridian,” he said, “do you read me?”

The sounds changed again and again, each time they responded to his voice, they were slightly more intelligible, as if someone was learning from his voice.

At last, he could understand the words. It was a cry for help.

“Can you understand my speech?” She asked.

“Yes, perfectly,” Flash replied.

“Good. I will now instruct my people so that they may also communicate in your tongue.”

After a moment of silence, Flash heard other voices, only this time they were not coming through the radio. They were coming from within the cockpit. He turned and saw that the two creatures who had joined him earlier could now speak to him aloud.

“Our queen has granted us the gift of your language,” said one of the creatures.

“My name is Peck, and this is Lem,” he said, motioning to the white creature with its migrating spots.

“Wonderful!” Flash exclaimed. It had been a long time since he had had a real conversation.

“We’ve lost our home,” they told him, “we’re not wanted anywhere.”

“I want you here,” he said, “You’re welcome to stay. I only wish there was more I could do for you.”

He wanted to erase their pain, to make up for all of the suffering of their people.

As time passed, Flash grew very fond of his new companions. He enjoyed their company, and they enjoyed his. Sometimes they talked, but most of the time they just enjoyed each other’s presence in silence. During these times, they seemed to communicate telepathically, or at least non verbally.

In spite of this, Flash longed for something more. “What you really need,” said Peck one day, “is another of your own kind. We can accompany you, and we are grateful that you took us in.”

Lem chimed in, “We will be loyal and love you in our own way, but we are so different that our relationship is limited.”

“There are none of my kind here,” Flash answered wistfully.

“How can you be sure?” Lem asked. “You are here. You are made of stardust. Who is to say that other stardust has not formed itself into something like you?”

“It’s so unlikely,” mused Flash.

“So are you,” came the creature’s reply.

This thought filled Flash Meridian with a new sense of hope. He had always believed in the power of visualizing potential… in asking the universe for what he wanted or needed. Perhaps if he wished hard enough, his dream of companionship would be realized, even out in the depths of space. Or maybe he simply needed to ask. What did he have to lose?

“Dear Universe,” he began, “if it’s not too much trouble, please bring me someone like me, to love, and to love me in return. Thank you very much for your cooperation in this matter.”

Flash glanced at Lem and Peck, who stared at him quizzically.

“It works,” he said, and shrugged.

He felt a little silly, asking for something so grand, so… unrealistic. Still, he was happy to have witnesses.

“I’m putting positive energy out there,” Flash explained, hoping he would get points for making himself accountable.

“Now what?” Peck asked.

“I guess we wait.”

The Budget Shop at the Recycling Center came through for me again! I got this box for 35 cents today. It reminds me of a scene from Episode 52: Kaliedoscope.

76 Happy Dream

In memory of T Boy, who spiraled (to the left) to the great goldfish bowl in the sky 8/20/15

Flash Meridian was thrilled to have company. He had sought in vain for others on the diminishing planet he had left behind. Now he wanted to know more about these two companions who had joined him. He tried to focus his thoughts into questions. This was difficult because of the stream of communication coming from them. Or rather from the one who arrived second, in the blue cloud.

He attempted to channel questions like “What is your name?”, but it was hard to concentrate. His head started to hurt a bit, and so he diverted his gaze from the pair. His eyes fell upon the Ololian book, and he grabbed it up in the hope that it held some insight.

Unfortunately, the book could not give him a glimpse into the future. It did, however, give details of the history of his new companions. They were refugees, and many of their kind had been killed.

As Flash read from the book, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Some of the sparks lingered, hovering in the dim light of the cockpit. They had begun to move. Not in the way a spark would normally move, shooting up, arching, and then dropping to the ground. The only way he could describe it was that they seemed to be swimming. Some moved together like fish in a school. A few darted about on their own. In time, they became less and less spark-like and more and more fish-like. He was fascinated by their antics, and felt calm watching them. One was white and made tight spirals to the left as it gradually came to rest on the floor. It would settle there for a time before spiraling up again, in tight circles to the left. Another one “swam” behind the ion beam rectifier, and then Flash’s heavy eyelids closed. He drifted off to sleep.

In sleep, he dreamed that he could speak to, and understand the other two creatures that had joined him. It was a happy dream full of love and fishes that swam through the air.

Space flight was fraught with challenges. On his journey, Flash Meridian had encountered mechanical failures, bitter cold, alien attacks, exploding planets, nightmares, and always the threat of the unknown. Crises had to be dealt with, of course. They made up the nuts and bolts of Flash’s reality, and in a way, gave him a purpose for being out here at all. More difficult, were the doldrums, in which he faced his own loneliness and at times even boredom. It could be tedious, looking out on the seemingly changeless enormity of his window on the universe. Or more suffocatingly limited, his view within his tiny cabin. It occurred to him that the problem was one of time. A human life was just too short to outlive the distance he hoped to travel. For this, he would be forever grateful to the Shepherdess of the Stars for pointing him toward the black hole. Without her, he would never have visited Olo.

When Flash felt the darkness growing inside of him, he retreated to the world of dreams. Here was a boundless realm of possibility, encompassing everything he had ever seen and heard, and always full of surprises.

Now, as he drifted off to unconscious adventures, he had companions, one at his side, and another curled in his lap, purring. Sparks were his nightlight, emulating the starry sky as they swam, orbiting the cockpit, and lulling him into restful sleep.

Flash’s eyelids closed, and his mind scampered off, leaving his body behind in the mothership.

He found himself walking through a field of tall, dry grass. Acres of waving gold danced in the wind around him, and it looked a bit like the surface of a yellow lake. As he walked, something stirred, and rose up from within the growth in front of him. A great grey owl rose silently before him, beating its huge wings against the crisp autumn air. He could see the details of its feathers clearly in the bright sunlight, flecks of black in a field of snowy white and soft gray. Up it flew, like a phoenix rising from the flames of the golden grass. Flash watched it as it circled the field, and then went off into the distance becoming a smaller and smaller speck against the cloudless sky, and vanishing from his sight.

He walked on, until he came to a weathered fence with rusted wire, and saw beyond that, the back of a barn. This was the farm where Flash had lived as a child. He wanted to run to it, and jump in the pile of hay that spilled out from the hayloft, but even as he felt this longing, the scene changed.

Flash now found himself straddling the side of an inflatable raft, which was being tossed upon the breakers. He was not alone, but he could not see who was with him. It took all of his concentration to keep from toppling off into the foaming waves. Salt water crashed all around him, thundering and drenching him. He heard the others shouting, some had paddles in their hands and tried to control the rubber boat as it was thrown over the rocky reef. The surf sparkled, and Flash was engulfed in the spray.

Suddenly, he was thrown from the raft into the sea. He pushed against a large rock to get to the surface, and his foot was filled with sea urchin spines.

Opening his eyes, Flash found himself gasping for breath, and was relieved to find that he was safe and dry, in his chair in the familiar cockpit of his spaceship. His feet were buried in the soft fur of the hide he had collected on the snowy planet, and the K. D. Head clicked. Friendly creatures slept next to him, and Flash Meridian felt content.

Once again, Flash Meridian sped into empty space alone. He didn’t look back at the blue planet, but gazed out at the infinite possibilities before him. He tried to overlook the sameness of his ship. He had no plan. No goal. Yet something inside him had changed. He held to the hope, the improbable hope, that there was something or somebody more. The infinite universe held infinite potential. Or so he told himself. What choice did he have? His other option was to give up and die alone in the void. His neck and shoulders stung from sunburn, and the view twinkled with the light of billions of stars. Naturally, Flash Meridian felt insignificant. Like a single celled organism navigating the petri dish of the cosmos. He was part of it all. Oh! but such a tiny part.

Flash didn’t yet realize that he was not alone.

Before long, his eyelids grew heavy and he fell into a restful sleep. How long he slept, he did not know. Nor did it matter. He had no sense of time out here.

He was awakened by a sound. A sound he could only describe as electrical. It buzzed and snapped and popped. Accompanying the sound was a green undulating light. It was a floating sphere of plasma that looked like contained lightning or fire. Its flames danced, and cast an eerie glow throughout the darkened cockpit of the mothership. Sparks appeared within the glow, coinciding with the popping. Flash Meridian just looked on. He did not panic, did not stir. As he watched the enigmatic orb, it began to change. The sparks broke free of the sphere and flew throughout the cabin. The flames condensed and settled to the floor. Flash now leaned forward, watching.

The light was condensing into a shape, but it was so bright he could not look directly at it.

When the popping had ceased, and the light faded, something… Or rather someone… stood in its place.

What it was, he could hardly say. Flash had never seen anything quite like it before.

It was mostly white, but over the white background, black patches moved, changing shape. Sometimes they merged together into a large black area, and at other times they split into small spots that migrated across the creature’s body.

It made no sound, but just sat staring back at Flash.

“Hello,” Flash said at last. Still, it just looked at him. They just sat there for quite a while, looking at each other. Flash began to have that familiar feeling of wondering if he was awake or asleep. Somehow, he knew he was awake. The creature slowly closed its eyes. Deliberately.

It turned its head in slow motion, and when it opened its eyes again, a laser beam shot out of them nearly blinding Flash.

The beam sizzled, creating an arc across the cabin, and Flash could feel the heat of it. When the light ceased, Flash detected a burnt smell in the air, but could see nothing for a few minutes as his eyes readjusted to the dim light of the room.

His first thought was of damage control, but when he scanned the wall for melted wires or charred surfaces, there were none.

His heart raced, but the strange creature just sat calmly as before, and glanced nonchalantly at him.

Even though it was silent, Flash was comforted by the very presence of the mysterious creature. Clearly it was powerful. It was also beautiful. Whether or not it was dangerous, Flash could not say, but it didn’t really matter to him. He felt he had nothing to lose, and already, he enjoyed its company.

Flash looked at the creature with mixed emotions. He wanted to communicate with it, but didn’t know exactly what to do next. As he sat, longing for a connection, something began to happen. A bluish haze appeared in the cockpit of the mothership. By the time he noticed it, he realized that it had been there for a while already, beginning so faintly that it went unnoticed. Now, it hung like a mist. At first, Flash thought it was smoke from the earlier bolt that had cut through the darkness like lightning. Now he could see that this was something else. Something distinct. As with the earlier orb of crackling light, this blue fog condensed into a defined sphere. As it formed, it began pulsing with a blue light. The silent being paid no attention to it, but sat, eyes half closed, next to the forming cloud.

This bubble of smoke congealed, like before, and another creature appeared.

Two creatures now stared at Flash, and Flash just stared back at them. He desperately wanted to communicate with them, but did not know how. Words he wanted to say formed in his mind but remained unspoken. He imagined responses to his questions. After a little while, it dawned on Flash that the answers were not coming from his own imagination, but from the beings themselves! They used some sort of telepathy to converse with him without spoken language. Once this realization hit him, Flash saw the countenances of the beings change. The eyes of the second creature, which had come in the blue cloud, widened and sparkled in eager anticipation, while the first, with its changing spots, remained aloof yet content.

Pictures and feelings danced through Flash’s mind in a jumble. Gradually, he was able to fine tune the signal and begin to understand.

We were lost until you took us in, said the second being, who seemed to speak for the pair.

No, you just arrived. I didn’t even know you were out there, Flash returned.

You were looking for us, you just didn’t know it. We saw that your heart was open, and we took that as an invitation.

I’m happy that you are here, said Flash, knowing that the bright eyed alien was right. He had been longing for companionship.

74 Enough

Flash felt comforted in the realization that these stories were true and relevant to his life. In some ways the book truly represented his life. The older historical chapters never changed. They were carved in stone… or rather indelible ink on the page. The current chapter unfolded and could be manipulated by a change in his actions. The future chapters, yet to be written were without bounds.

This planet felt so familiar that Flash thought of just staying here forever.

He could build a home and feed himself. The only problem was that he was alone.

What good was a tropical climate and plenty of food if there was no one to share it with? The K.D. head had been his only companion, and in this capacity, he had outgrown her. While she resembled a human face to some extent, her flashing sequence of expression had become predictable and unsatisfying. Her memory banks were filled with the accumulated library of human knowledge, yet contained no original thought or insight. No surprise. No reaction.

Here, outside the pod, was a living world of growth and transformation. The plants nourished themselves from the soil and competed with each other for light.

The plants provided oxygen, food and shade, but it dawned on Flash that he had seen no evidence of animal life. No bird or flying reptile patrolled the surf. Had there been shells? He returned to the water’s edge and scoured the beach for a crab or jellyfish… Any aquatic animal that may have washed ashore. He saw none. Suddenly, Flash Meridian was overcome with a feeling of loneliness greater than he had ever experienced.

Traveling through space, he did not expect to meet anyone, and so being alone was tolerable. Here, in a living world, the thought of solitude was suffocating.

Flash realized that what he wanted more than anything else was love.

Faced with the solitude of this seemingly uninhabited planet, Flash was faced with the reality of his own thoughts and his situation. What chance was there for him to find companionship, let alone love? Until this lonely beach, Flash had reveled in the solitude of his journey. The beauty of this earthlike planet made him long for someone to share it with. All the wondrous surprises he had observed fell a bit flat without a companion at his side.

Flash laid down on the warm, sun-soaked sand and closed his eyes. The light beat down on his skin, and he listened to the sound of the foaming surf.

In his mind, he traveled back to when he was a child, laying the beach near his parents’ home. The sand supported him and contoured to fit the curves of his back. The light glowed red through his eyelids. Mingling with the crashing of the surf and the gentle lapping of the tide, he could almost hear again the sounds of sea birds and the laughter of children. A dog barking in the distance. He embraced this memory of a time when he felt safe and happy. It was an innocent time when big dreams were mixed with a kind of irresponsibility. The world seemed so big, and his for the taking.

An hour passed, maybe two, and Flash didn’t budge. Even when the sea’s bubbly fingers touched his feet, he stayed still. The waves crept slowly closer, and eroded the sand beneath his heels. He felt the cool water dislodging the beach beneath his feet.

When, at last, Flash sat up and gazed over the water, the sun was almost ready to set, and he knew it was time to leave.

Rising from the sand, Flash Meridian took off his clothes and threw himself headlong into the sea. It had been so very long since he had been immersed in water, and the feel of it was intoxicating. The surf churned around him, massaging his body. He immediately felt refreshed as he dove and swam through the breaking waves. He swam out further, protected from the currents by the reef. Out here, he bobbed in the heaving saltwater, now in a valley, and then at the top of a wave. The “sun” beat down on him as he basked in the moment, forgetting everything else.

Flash Meridian swam back to the shore, and emerged from the water feeling renewed. His swim had been like a baptism in that he rose from the water feeling like a new man. His head was clear. He dressed, and climbed the winding sandy pathway to the rock crest where the TNI2 awaited his return.

Part of him longed for Earth. There were many things he missed about terrestrial life. But this planet could not offer the thing he longed for the most… Those he had left behind.

Living here would be living out a prison sentence, in solitary confinement. And so he boarded the pod and sealed the hatch.

His visit to this planet was like a vacation, but Flash had always felt that the best part of any trip was the return home. That is how the TNI2 felt to him now. Like coming home.

Up, up the craft ascended, and Flash looked down on the lonely planet. As he sped above the landscape, the forest canopy gave way to grassy plains and then to rugged mountains. Beyond the mountains, there stretched a sand desert. As he soared above the varied terrain, he flew gradually higher and higher until, at last, the blue sky gave way to black, and the stars shone brightly.

Even before Flash Meridian departed Pangaea, the TNI2 had relayed a signal to the mothership causing it to wake up and welcome him home.

It glowed and blinked as it fell in orbit around the swirling blue and green planet. The TNI 2 fell into the ship’s orbital path and chased it through low space while the landscape sped by below him. From Flash’s perspective, it seemed that the pod was very slowly approaching an object that was standing still. It felt like a slow-motion homecoming, and this allowed to Flash to savor it. He was especially relieved to return to the ship after considering staying on the planet below. He shuddered to think of it now, and viewed the planet below him as a trap.

The beautiful vistas and favorable conditions had been the bait. It was not nearly enough.

73 Transmutation

Flash was tired. As he breathed deeply of the heavy, churning air, he realized that he was exhausted. Sleep had long ago ceased to fall within neat little compartments of night and day. Aboard the mother ship, he simply slept whenever he slept. His view of the universe, while awesome, took on a sameness, and Flash had to constantly remind himself how unprecedented it was that he was able to view it at all. Unique as it was, the ship had become a floating prison which insulated him from the dangers of space, but held little to keep his interest. The whole scenario had lulled him into a sort of hibernation. He’d become dormant.

Now, looking out over the expanse of rolling waves and billowing clouds, and feeling the breeze against his skin, he could barely remain conscious. His eyelids grew heavy. His hands hung like weights at the end of his arms, and he fought the urge to crumple into a heap on the hot sand. He trudged back to the safety of the TNI2, and sealed himself against any dangers that might lurk in this alien world. Here, he could safely give in, and drift away into sleep.

For Flash, sleep was simply a doorway to another world. His dreams were so vivid, they were just another aspect of his daily life. In dreams, he entered a hypnagogic realm where anything was possible, nothing was probable and what was common was implausible. In his waking hours, Flash had already accomplished things that seemed, at the outset, to be impossible, and so he took his dreams as challenges. They spurred him along to creative solutions to anything life offered up.

Flash Meridian often questioned whether he was dreaming or awake, and came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter. The states were one and the same. They were his life.

Just as a seed, buried in soil, awakens after a long winter freeze, Flash’s spirit began to change.

This is how Flash saw himself. As his eyes closed in sleep, he found himself sitting… or laying… (which was it?) on a bed of rich black soil. To one side, he saw the sea, but closer on the other side, there rose tall trees.

Looking up, he could see the mother ship (in spite of the bright light from this planet’s “sun”). He saw it in great detail, though it appeared tiny, being so very far away. Turning his eyes again toward the beach, he could see the TNI2 high up on the edge of the rocky cliff. His body quivered, then shook. His legs merged together, grew longer, and plunged (slowly) into the dirt. At the same time, his arms grew, and stretched on their own, up into the air. They divided into branches, sprouting transparent green leaves that continued to rise into the sky. His roots dove and swam through the soil, causing the landscape and the rocks to shake. The TNI2 teetered and then fell, striking the rocky wall as it dropped to the beach below. Soon the wreckage was swept into the sea by foaming waves that swallowed it up.

Other dreams ran through Flash’s sleeping mind like cartoon reels and were forgotten upon waking. But this one remained, and he contemplated it. He had learned to recognize the important dreams. The ones that held a meaning lingered.

Should he stay here? Put down roots? The TNI2 was his means of escape. If it were destroyed, he would have no way to leave this world. If he were alone here, though, why should he stay?

Flash brought few items along when he ventured to the surface of a planet in the TNI2. There just wasn’t a lot of room. One item he did carry with him, however, was the Ololian book. It was lightweight, could fit almost anywhere, and offered information and entertainment.

The book was so specific in chronicling Flash’s own life, that he couldn’t help but wonder about the other stories it contained. Might they be there with him in mind as well?

He had awakened in the soft light of evening, too comfortable to get up, yet too rested to sleep. Flash picked up the book and paged back to stories of space pirates, robotic beauty queens, intergalactic cowboys, and chose one at random.

In the story, a shady character named P. J. Raygun turned a profit by selling stolen goods. On his way to amass wealth at the expense of an unsuspecting population, a powerful being intervenes.

In the end, it was a story of redemption and transformation. Flash wondered what this could possibly have to do with him.

Flipping back through previous pages, a familiar name jumped out at Flash… Ash Lander! He read with a new interest, and discovered that Ash had encountered someone who had a connection to P.J. Raygun. He remembered that conversation, just before he left Earth the last time, when he and Ash shared their stories of unexpected relationships on their journeys. Here in the Ololian book, was the rest of the story.

72 The Queen of Olo

Her Royal Majesty Debolorah Olostema, Queen of Olo.

While orbiting the blue planet, Flash happened to pick up the Ololian book. Thumbing through the last (or most recent) section of the book, an image caught his eye. He paged back to look more closely, and there was an update on the colorful little planet. Buffy and Skip had taken up residence in the crystal castle, and had chosen royal names. They ruled the planet with a sense of playfulness, reveling in the joy, not only of their enchanting world, but also in the liberation of their hearts and minds.

Flash only smiled. A part of him had been liberated as well.

The book continued to write itself while in Flash’s possession. Pages appeared, where He read tales of those who inhabited the glass towers, the creatures that lived in the silver lakes, in the caverns and on the rainbow plains.

The white whales hadn’t been the only subterranean inhabitants of Olo. Many more were awakened during Olo’s renewal, and so every living thing on the planet was freed.

Flash longed to be back there. He longed for such a home. Yet, he felt that his permanent presence there could jeopardize the health of that paradise. Man had done so much harm to the earth in such a short time, he decided to love Olo from afar.

The whales would eventually return on their migration. The atmosphere of Olo was their breeding grounds. The new calves would play just at the edge of space until they were mature enough to break free of that bubble and follow the pod into the unknown reaches of space. Here, they also learned the ancient song their ancestors knew, a song Flash would never forget. It came to him in his own recurring dream of being swallowed up into his grandfather’s painting. At times a hint of that song came to him in his waking hours… through the vibration of his ship… through his own heartbeat… but he always shook himself back to the tiny, sterile confines of his ship.

He looked down again on the living planet below him and it filled him with a longing for home.

The more Flash looked down at the surface of the planet below him, the more familiar it seemed. The land masses to the north and south of the equator were nothing like the continents of earth, and yet it seemed he had seen them before. How could that be possible? It couldn’t. Unless he had seen them in a dream. He was perplexed, and all the more determined to go down for a visit.

The ship’s computer had been compiling a satellite map of the the entire planet, and Flash called up the image onto his screen.

Flash “parked” the mother ship in orbit and made preparations to enter the pod. He ran through his checklist, making sure everything was in working order, and that all seals were secure. As he was pressurizing the pod, an alarm chirped. He turned to face the computer screen. A match had been found for this planet in the database.

There, superimposed on his own satellite maps, were the names of the north and south land masses.

To the north was Laurasia, and Gondwana lay to the south. The heading over the map read Pangea.

He stared at the map in wonder. He had learned that the most unlikely things often turned out to be true, and in this case, he did not doubt the information.

He looked closely at the map in front of him, and tried to make out what would become the familiar continents of earth.

So it seemed Flash had found his way home. Sort of. It wasn’t a question of where, it was a question of when.

Flash passed through the hatch into the TNI2, and sealed the door that separated the smaller ship from his living quarters in the mother ship. He looked up from the cockpit and gazed at the view below him. The two supercontinents were connected by a land bridge near the equator, and to the east lay the Tethys Sea. If this was indeed Earth, Flash estimated this to be the Triassic period, a world in which he would not be born for at least 200 million years.

Surely this could not be the Earth! For one thing, the living moon was only about 100,000 miles away. And oh yes… It was living!

Flash just sat for a while, not only taking in the view below him, but also happy to be aboard the TNI2. He loved this little ship, and it offered a much needed change from the mother ship. The mother ship provided safety, and all that he needed to survive in space. The pod offered the promise of adventure, and possibly passage to the outdoors.

From his stationary vantage point, he could not see the moon. Still, he planned to study it. But now to the task at hand.

He released the moorings and initiated separation. He fell away from his home, rolled the ship, and was soon skimming the thin upper atmosphere. Brilliant stars faded as the black sky brightened. Shadows became less harsh within the envelope of air as he dropped into it. The landscape rose toward him as Flash sped through clouds. Light from the star, or the sun, as Flash had come to think of it, reflected off the shimmering sea, and Flash could see his chosen landing site… The isthmus that bridged the continents. He decelerated and flew above the rain forest canopy until the trees dissipated, opening to a rocky plateau bordered by sand beach.

Flash Meridian’s ship came to rest on a flat rock which gave him a clear view in every direction. White capped waves crashed on the open sea, and were broken by a rock reef. By the time they reached the beach, they lapped gently against the sand leaving a line of seaweed and foam to dry in the sun.

Flash longed to run along the water’s edge, to bury his toes in the wet sand and to feel the sun on his skin. Before any of this could happen, however, he sent probes out from the TNI2 to test the safety of the atmosphere. As the onboard computers did their work, he stared out the windows, lost in the beauty of this dreamlike place.

The rock on which the ship was perched dropped off on one side in a sheer cliff to the beach. On the other side, a gentle slope stretched out, becoming dunes in the distance, and hugging the rock to form a gentle path down to the water. Pure white clouds hung in the blue sky.

71 The Blue Planet

The blue planet and its blue moon grew as Flash approached them. He tracked the cloud patterns and mapped the surface. He also gathered data on surface temperatures, in deciding where to touch down.

For so long, he had been floating through space in the biosphere of the tiny mother ship. The thought of a planet like Earth filled him with joy. He looked at the blue dot on his screen and superimposed on it all of his memories and dreams. The very thought of filling his lungs with free atmosphere filled him with nostalgia. Of sitting in the shade of a tree, stepping out into a rainstorm or viewing the heavens from under the canopy of air. Things he had once, in another world, taken for granted, he now craved.

He wanted a new beginning, or at least another attempt to appreciate those things that used to be so familiar as to be overlooked. He dreamed of landing on this planet and finding there the things he once dismissed. His parents. The way the ground naturally gave way to vegetation. How clouds could blot out stars and even galaxies. How gravity held him down.

Of course he expected this world to contain things unlike any he had seen before. Perhaps they would be things that were once on earth… before man… before any of the major events that resulted in mass extinctions. But he also hoped to find something familiar.

Even ancient man left messages of things that once were. Including images depicting beings coming from space… From other worlds… Just as he was doing now.

He pulled the Ololian book down from its place on the shelf and opened the last pages. There, he saw not only an image of his chosen planet and its vibrant moon, but also a picture of himself looking at the image in the book. If only the book could tell him the next chapter now! But that was not the way it worked.