Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [44]
Countless craters and stark mountain ranges leaped into focus as she gently slid the smaller tube out of the larger one, just a bit. The instrument was crude, but it was one Galileo himself would have been proud of.
"It is true, isn't it," Loteth said, "that the stars are suns, like our own sun? I have seen the other worlds in our sky, the ones that follow our world on its journey through the skies.
They have moons, just like those." He waved at the three bright satellites crossing the darkened skies overhead.
"Quite remarkable," Tuvok said.
"Yes," Janeway agreed, now considering the Drenarian with fresh amazement.
"So you actually believe we might have come from one of the other worlds in this solar system?" Kim asked, equally surprised.
"No, I do not think so," Nan Loteth said.
Tuvok and Kim looked suddenly bewildered. "Most curious," the Vulcan said. "I would have thought--" "No, Tuvok," Janeway said, watching Nan Loteth, "you don't understand. He doesn't think we're from his system, he believes we are from a world belonging to one of the other stars he sees."
"Yes," the Drenarian said, nodding, though his tone had grown more pensive. "Is... is it so?"
"I understand, Captain," Tuvok replied, now properly impressed.
"I do, too," Kim said.
For a long moment no one said another word, which apparently made Nan Loteth uncomfortable. "You must tell me," he said, almost pleading.
"Many will not speak of this with me. They keep their children away.
They say that beyond the sky there is only the realm of the gods. I have been told many times that, if I am fortunate, the Jun-Tath will one day heal my mind in a vision and I will cease to think such thoughts."
"That figures," Kim said, shaking his head.
Tuvok nodded. "I can well imagine how some of your contemporaries might feel that way."
"Then you think I sound like a fool, just as they do," the old man said, despondent now. He took the telescope back again, let it hang at his side, bowed his head. Then his eyes came up, peeking at Janeway puppylike from under that ridiculous brow.
She couldn't help but smile at him.
"Now you think I am a joke," he said. "I am sorry."
"No, Nan Loteth. You do not sound like a fool, or a joke." She placed one hand gently on the arm that held the instrument. "You sound like a scientist."
"A... scientist?" the old man repeated.
"Yes. And a good one." Janeway turned and tugged gently at the Drenarian's arm, directing his attention toward the sky again.
The heavens were half obscured by thick volcanic clouds, but where the winds had blown them clear the stars were multiplying as the darkness continued to deepen. "We are from a world much like yours, one that orbits a star, up there, just as yours does, but our star is much too far away for us to see from here. So far away, in fact, that we may never see it again. Though one day, perhaps, your people might find it."
Nan Loteth's breath had quickened. "How many stars are there?
How many worlds?"
"Far too many to count."
The old man's mouth hung slightly open. "And what are these other worlds like?"
"Many are very much like your own," Janeway said.
The ground shook once more, another aftershock that did little more than rattle nerves and spook the draft animals along the street.
Still, Janeway knew there would be more quakes like the one they had experienced at the shuttle, and if computer predictions held, they would grow in severity. Meanwhile, the wind might shift...
As the tremor subsided, Nan Loteth asked Janeway to follow him up the street. "You need food," he said. "We haven't much, but what we do have is yours." He set off walking, leaving no one any choice. The rest of the crowd, more than three dozen strong now, came quietly along behind them, speaking only in whispers.
"Tuvok," Janeway said as they went, "Could the Televek have something to do with what is happening