Karl in Space: Part 2

Karl’s eyes were burning, no matter how hard he shut them, the bright light was everywhere. He thought he heard himself screaming, but he couldn’t be sure - it may have been Trevor. Then there were the alarm bells. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell something had went wrong. It seemed to go on forever, but it could have been minutes, then everything began to shake. Trevor definitely was screaming now, Karl thought before everything went black and he faded into unconciousness.

When he woke up, everything seemed blurry. The window in front of him was dark, but the faint emergency lights had clicked on and he could see Trevor was hitting the console furiously.

“You’re awake,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Karl said. “What happened?”

“Bad stuff.” He pointed to the instruments, charred and almost unrecognizable. Karl hit the communicator but heard only a static hiss.

“That won’t work even if it did work,” Trevor said. “Look.”

The guage in front of him had burned out, but the numbers were still visable.

“We went 400 million miles,” Trevor said. “That’s out of radio range.”

Karl sucked his breath in. It couldn’t be.

“That’s gotta be wrong,” Karl said. He fumbled with the harness and let himself free, but he didn’t float. They were somewhere, but where? The cabin was at an angle, and he climbed up the inclined floor to the hatch. He could see light peeking through the edges, which may be a good thing or a bad thing, he thought. On one hand, it meant the cabin wasn’t airtight anymore, worse case scenario in space travel. Then again, if there wasn’t any air out there, they would have been dead already. He told Trevor, who merely shrugged at the suggestion of opening the hatch.

“What the hell,” Karl said. He grabbed the handle and pushed hard. It flew open and Karl tumbled out, caught in his momentum. He yelled as he fell several feet and landed on ground. Whatever he was face down in looked a lot like grass, he thought.

“I don’t know where we are, but it’s not going to kill us,” he yelled back into Trevor. He brushed himself and turned to look around. Standing twenty feet away was a group of people, oddly dressed but definitely human. An old man stepped forward.

“Welcome, space traveller. Our people have been expecting you.”

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The old man was named Garland and when he spoke Karl somehow understood him. Trevor poked his head out and also had no trouble communicating. Millions of miles from Earth and they had found intelligent life that spoke English. Incredible, Karl thought. It was much better than finding a planet of apes.

After introductions, Karl pried as much information as he could from the old man.

“We come from a planet called Earth,” Karl said.

Garland nodded his head wisely.

“We, too, came from Earth. In the Before Time,” the old man said, stroking his long, grey beard.
Karl was confused once again.

“How is that possible? No human ship has ever been this far before.”

Garland’s eyes lit up. “Precisely, my son. No human ship. We were taken here by a kind and benevolent species known as the Turgeen. They told us to colonize this planet, spread the goodess of humanity. We have not seen them since.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Karl said. If he could travel millions of light years anything made sense.

“Here, come to our village and we will give you food and shelter, travelors,” Garland said. “My daughters will see to your needs.”

Two women stepped forward, young and wearing long, rust colored frocks. Their hair was tied back in braids and one of the girls took Karl’s hand.

“Let me help you,” she said, smiling. “I feel honored by your physical presence, brave one.”

Karl, flustered, timidly pulled his hand away.

“Please, that’s ok. What’s your name?”

“My name is Kaila, space knight.” She held the edges of her garmet and courtsed. “I will offer you my bed to rest.”