3. In a Vacuum

A bird, almost as large as Ardex, tried in vain to take off. Bella’s black-ringed tail wagged. She pulled her little paws to her chest, as if holding a warm cup of tea.

“Time for a bet! I think that bird is Cosmo.”

“No way. Just look how graceful. How … "

“Majestic? Exalted?”

Ardex frowned. “That’s not a word. You just made that up. Either way, that’s definitely one of the sisters.”

“You’re betting on two horses? That won’t help you I’m afraid.”

They approached carefully. The being suddenly accelerated to lightning speeds and smacked Ardex in the face.

“Pardon!” said a melodious voice. “Wanted to greet you, brother, but have no control yet. Oh, and I’m afraid you lost the bet.”

Bella stroked his colorful feathers. “A bird suits you, my Cosmo. And you’re lucky: fly away from here if you want.”

“Something’s missing here. Taking off is impossible.” He wiped sweat from his forehead and shook his feathers. “It might help to know what kind of bird I am.”

“You’re a great bustard.”

“Are you insulting me now?”

“No. That’s what these creatures are called. Be happy, they’re beautiful and powerful animals.”

Cosmo looked over their heads. If you ignored the explosions and lava streams for a moment —which Cosmo tried very hard to do—you were treated to a magnificent view. The other planets orbiting the same sun were visible. That red planet on one side and the even redder planet on the other. Mares, he thought. Why do I know that name?

His magical, enhanced eyes could even see the planets orbiting other stars in the distance.

But there was another reason he could see so far. That’s why I can’t fly, he thought, relieved.

“The planet is still missing an atmosphere!”

“A what? Are we all just making up words now?”

“A shield. Something around the planet that holds in all the right particles. All the life we know had this.”

Cosmo managed to gently place his wing on Ardex’ shoulder this time. “Let me guess brother, you can no longer make fire?”

Ardex growled in response.

“I can’t fly because there’s nothing for my wings to push against. You can’t make fire because there’s no air to help it burn.”

His beak dropped when the tip of his wing started to crumble, the same red shreds that already followed Ardex and Bella around like ghosts.

“If we don’t hurry,” Ardex said, “we will be the atmosphere soon!”

Cosmo stroked his beak, deep in thought. “We were flung apart, and the lighter you were, the further you went. The sun does the same. It constantly sends out storms of particles, and the lighter the particle, the further it goes.”

“Great. What do we do with this? You’re more useless than Darus.”

Cosmo ignored the insult, even though it was a major insult, because everyone knew how little Darus did.

“Oxygen is pretty heavy. This planet must have a lot of that. Hydrogen on the other hand … "

He tried to see the planets behind them: the ones even further from the sun. “We should get that from farther away.”

Cosmo scratched his beak with his feathers. “Can’t forget carbon. Sticks to everything and—”

“Do something! Try something!”

Father could have been so kind as to take away Ardex’ impatience, Cosmo thought. But even Bella paced back and forth nervously, so he didn’t dare say anything more about how awful he felt. The slow loss of powers and feathers was a mystery he couldn’t solve. He almost hoped it would just go away on its own.

“I can’t.”

Ardex looked like he was about to explode. All the lava streams around his paws shot upward.

“This is Darus’ power. I’m of the air, atmosphere, stars, and space. But he has to extract the right particles from the ground first.”

“Darus is lying around somewhere, snoring. Do you really think he’s going to do anything?”

“Uh—are you sure Darus is snoring?”

A wolf appeared in the distance. Every footstep grew a small hill or deep in the planet. He didn’t blink and ran faster than ever, dust clouds at his heels.

He shouted something. Bella and Ardex turned their ears forward and wanted to run over to him. Cosmo held them back. “He says great dangers are coming.”

Cosmo flapped his wings, but was still unable to fly, even a tiny bit. He locked eyes with Darus.

“What kind of danger?” he asked.

Darus pointed upward with his tail.

“Oh oh. I think I know why Father sent us here.”

Despite sunset not arriving for a while, the world grew dark. A shadow fell over the four godchildren and half the planet. The temperature rose even further.

A colossal chunk of rock roared through the air. It grew and grew. The darkness held them captive.

“How lovely! A real meteor!” Cosmo curled his wings around his eyes, like binoculars.

Darus had reached them. “Don’t care what it’s called, it’s going to crush us!”

With one and the same movement he grabbed Cosmo, flung him onto his back, and ran on. Bella jumped onto Ardex’ back, who barely held her weight.

They shot across the planet like frightened mice. Far ahead they could still see sunlight gracing the stone floor. That’s where they would be safe.

They ran; the shadow grew relentlessly; the patch of sunlight shrunk to a mere suggestion of safety.

Bella shouted over the din of stamping paws and panting animals. “Can’t you steer the meteor?”

“I’m too weak! And it’s too big!”

Cosmo did flap his wings, aimed at the meteor, but couldn’t slow it down.

It even sped up.