9. Holed Ends Again

On their way to the Linecave they met the wolf again. He seemed startled, although they could hardly read dog body language. The intruder was still confused and wounded.

He barked at them to hurry up with delivering lightbulbs. He growled at Jassia’s bear, who still clutched that special lightbulb to his chest. Then the wolf continued, a bag of food between his teeth, in the direction of their caves.

Tibre only explained himself when they reached the Linecave, out of breath.

“Look at it,” said Tibre. “Look at this patch of nothing!”

“Did we run all this way for that?” said Piponre. “An empty—”

“An advanced, huge spaceship crash landed here. And what do we see? Nothing. Such an impact destroys everything. It throws all the components in random directions and kills those inside.”

Tibre grabbed Jassia’s animal skin and spoke to her with intensity. “Those two pieces of wreckage you found were different, right? You thought that maybe multiple spaceships crashed here. But …”

“You’re not saying …”

“We landed on this planet,” yelled Tibre. “We crashed into these stones, in ignorance, fire, and confusion. All evidence of that has been scattered all over the planet. Most people inside our spaceship … our parents … died not long after. That impact pulled us all the way back to a very primitive society. But I believe our ancestors came from Holed.”

“And the lightbulbs?”

“Left behind by those bears as memories of all the space battles,” said Tibre. He pointed up. “As the wolf said. Everyone is fighting to reach us and steal our secret. The secret of traveling at the speed of light.”

“But,” said Jassia distracted. “That means someone is defending us. Otherwise we would’ve been conquered long ago.”

They studied the sky full of stars, hand in hand.

Somewhere out there was a guardian angle. Someone protected their planet, which they couldn’t do themselves. Someone fought war after war to keep out all the hungry vultures that wanted their secret. Only a lone wolf crash landed here, after all this time, and probably because everyone expected them to die on impact.

An entire army gave their lives to give this group of Dwellers a safe and free existence, on their new planet.

Tibre would feel endlessly guilty if he threw away his life now. He already felt guilty just thinking about it. How could he ever explain that to his defenders? Surely Tibre would became a story of shame and vice throughout the galaxy?

He grabbed the food that Piponre kept offering and ate all of it at once.

Then he entered the cave.

“You and me, Jassia, we both tripped on something heavy in this cave. It’s time we took a closer look.”

They counted the vertical lines again, and reached the number 728 again. A meaningless number. Piponre confirmed they weren’t insane, but also had no answers.

They could find their way easily now, thanks to the light provided by her bear. They dared take corner after corner, going deeper underground, hand in hand.

Until they found that object. Left behind in the middle of a corridor as if it was nothing. But everyone noticed its glow and how magical it felt.

Tibre was certain he and his ancestors had once known the name of this object. But he didn’t know it now. It contained text in a language he could apparently read.

In those days, many animals were made at me. Why did animals have to die? Why did I add fire to a world if it led to so much pain? Why did I, the God of Death, not do everyone a favor and die myself?

I wrestled with those questions myself, believe me. I didn’t know the answer at first. It was simply my power and it was simply need to keep the balance of nature. As my father, the real Chiefgod, always said: the meaning of life is simply to live. To wake up each day, work hard, and experience new things.

And yes, that is only possible if it has to end one day. That is only possible if you have the space to live, but also feel the pressure to make it count, because it could be over at any moment. After playing Chiefgod Ardex all those years, I dare summarize it in one sentence: no new beginnings without endings.

The bottom of the page held a paw print of a sabre-tooth tiger, like a signature. Just like the Dwellers often used their Echobelts to leave recognizable marks.

Their ancestors had fled from a horrible situation. Bombed endlessly, attacked by all, holes cut into their planet. Compared to that, crashing on a planet and living peacefully in nature seemed like a godly gift.

Now he knew where they came from. He also knew they weren’t going anywhere, at least not in his lifetime.

And it was freeing, instead of depressing.

It also meant that it didn’t matter much what you did, as long as you did something every day. Life had no goal or purpose, as long as it lived.

He hugged his son and give him a kiss, then did the same to Jassia. He couldn’t wait to see his children again and join them in whatever game they dreamed up this time. Before his next son “grew up” and found a kind wife somewhere to start a new family. He couldn’t wait to discover more interesting things, every day, such as crashing lightbulbs or alien creatures.

“Come on! We almost missed the entire party!”

Piponre sighed. “Did we come all this way just for that?”

Jassia playfully nudged him and hooked her arm into his.

“Oh don’t whine,” she whispered, “just gives us more time together.”

Tibre and the bear remained in the cave. They still studied the strange tallying that amounted to 728. He held Ardex’ statements under his armpit. The text said a lot more, but he couldn’t find anything else about Holed or their current planet Marmir.

“But why draw a Great Map of the galaxy?” he mumbled. “Why add marks to a cave in the last hours or days before you die?”

The bear tapped his knee. With tears in his eyes, and hesitation, he purposely turned off his special lightbulb.

A memory played, again and again.

A spaceship lifts off, a spaceship lands somewhere else, a hand scratched another line into the wall. And again.

No—it was not on repeat. Because the fourth time it repeated, the spaceship didn’t land neatly anymore, but crashed. The cycle continued. The same cycle of events, mostly identical, but slightly different each time.

Every time, another voice said they had found “the new location”, and that the “Dwellers of Holed had been tracked”. And then the next spaceship would flee again.

Tibre slowly realized. The bear grew uneasy and hurt, as if every second that the lightbulb was turned off hurt him immensely.

He embraced the bear and patted him on the head. A strange human habit. The bear seemed used to it; he saw it as a sign to stop the memory again.

They had not crashed here once.

They had, again, and again, and again, been chased away from their planet and forced to flee to another. Build another civilization. Recover again and stay alive. Be found again by CAJARA and others who want to steal their “secret”. One they didn’t even know themselves!

How often had this cycle repeated?

About 728 times, he estimated.

But Tibre fought the desire to fall on his knees and never get up again. That would have been shameful, he thought. If he gave up now, while his ancestors had tried to rebuild their society 728 times.

When Jassia came back and asked if he was coming, she found a Tibre with a straight back. He’d thrown the object with Ardex’ thoughts back into the cave, as the bear turned on the lightbulb again.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jassia.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I think that 728 is the number of caves on this planet, or something silly like that. Or the number of lightbulbs, yes, that seems right.”

“That sounds—”

“We have a party to attend! Come on!”

The entire return journey, Tibre entertained them with stories. Partly his mother’s inventions, partly his own. He talked about that world which would have carts that drove automatically. And how fun it would be to also hang those flat squares in their caves and send messages to each other that way. And—

Something wasn’t right.

They were nearly at their home cave, but the music was gone. The light inside was dim, as if half the lightbulbs had been depleted.

Tibre ran faster than ever.

“Borrick? Anyone?” he yelled.

The only response was a flash of light. Screaming. Stomping. Two Dwellers dove through the cave entrance, just before a flash of light swirled around them.

Tibre stumbled into the cave and found the wolf holding his Flashweapon. He threw away a battery and pulled a new one from a lightbulb.

Then he continued shooting.

“YOU ARE A VIRUS!” he screamed. “FILTHY HUMANS! MUST EXTERMINATE!”

Borrick jumped in front of his wife and children. The flash hit his shoulder and easily drilled through his body. He had no chance at survival.

The screams surged. Tibre’s ears rang and he almost threw up. His eyes darted left to right, left to right, but didn’t find what he wished for. Where were his children? Where were his children!?

Another shot. Part of the cave collapsed. Jassia ducked in time to save her legs from shattering.

He came for the wolf, who swapped batteries once more. That weapon, whatever it was, gobbled energy like nothing else.

“Mercy! Mercy!” yelled the Dwellers. Some raised their arms—but the wolf knew no mercy. One of them was shot in her legs. Everyone stopped begging for mercy and just ran away.

The wolf switched batteries again.

Tibre found his children: well-hidden in a dark alcove.

But if they did nothing, the wolf would exterminate them all anyway. Well-hidden or not, innocent or not.

Tibre now realized he had a weapon too. All of them did.

He pulled his Echobelt from his hips and searched the nearest lightbulb. On the ceiling. Too high to jump for.

Piponre appeared to his side and offered his strong shoulders. Tibre climbed on them; his fingers barely scraped the ceiling.

Another flash. Jassia wailed. Just a glancing blow, not a deep wound.

Faster!

Tibre’s fists hit the lightbulb until the battery came free. The black cube looked so innocent, so simple yet so heavy.

Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. He tried to put the caving cube in his Echobelt, one way or another. He couldn’t figure it out.

Instead, he studied the wolf. He loaded and shot his gun with great ease.

The wolf pointed at Jassia’s head.

Tibre jammed the battery into his Echobelt with all his power, heard a click and a clang, then took a piece of wood and hit the Echobelt on the side.

His own flashlight shot blinded himself and bounced off the stone walls.

For seconds that stretched to ages, he only saw white stars.

A dull thud. More screaming.

Then deadly silence.

Piponre groaned and complained about Tibre’s weight. His father jumped off his shoulders and waited until his vision returned.

The wolf lay on the floor, eyes closed. The flash shot had gone straight through his heart.

His children left their hiding place and dove on top of their father. By the time he could breath again, and didn’t receive seven kisses at once, all the Dwellers had told him he was a hero.

He didn’t feel that way.

But he did feel, for the first time in a while, that he lived.