ABLE (Jim Able: Offworld Book 1) by Ed Charlton (the first e reader .TXT) 📕

had arrived.

He looked again at the message. He thought “regde99” was perhaps the outermost layer of the Regdenir world. “Audnir” was more interesting from a linguistic point of view. The suffix “nir” looked like it had to do with a group or membership. “Aud,” he remembered, was a word for the out-of-doors, the countryside, or a remote region. Perhaps it also indicated non-Regde.

He decided the location audnir must be the interface for all external interaction. Had Edward been asking for any help from audnirs like Madhar Nect? There was only one way to find out.

Jim slowly began his journey into the world of the Regdenir.

***

All things are related.

***

If you find a hierarchy, such as Negge, who is father to Haro and Johe, who is father to Bet and Megga, be sure of this: there are relationships that exist only between Negge and Bet, between Haro and Bet, between Megga and Negge; different relationships exist between Haro and Johe other than kinship, and between Megga and Bet, the same. You can never see the hierarchy but in its incompleteness.

***

In a world interwoven and fluid, something must be absolute. There must be one fundamental root of all. As the arra worm is rooted to the rock so that the b’arra fish can eat its extrusions, so we need to feed on that which is absolute. This fundamental root we know as Beauty.

***

Jim learned these things from his first few trips into the Regde message areas. His head hurt. His back hurt. His stomach still ached from breakfasting on blancar. What he really wanted was to go home.

He found lists of names, but “Edward” was not in them. He found lists of documents, but none had any bearing on his business as far as he could tell. He found lists of further places to look, but was there a point? The Regde were loquacious. It seemed they wrote down everything. Jim felt like an ant crawling over the crumbs at the bottom of the first pile, at the edge of the first mound, at the bottom of the first foothill of a range of mountains.

He switched off his link and lowered the seatback and the lights. Sleep, however, was not so easy to arrange.

In his troubled state, Jim remembered how straightforward this was going to be: a simple job to bring him back into active service. His mind wandered to his suspension. From there, it was a short step back into the pit.

***

The craft took off. He knew the pilot. He knew all about him.

The craft turned, weapons firing.

The police flier erupted in flames.

The craft turned again. People began to move away from the windows of the terminal.

Useless panic.

The glass whispered open, and the rockets coughed into the marble floor.

Then the nightmare began.

The smoke and rubble.

The bodies.

The unrecognizable pieces.

The groans.

The hopeless last breaths.

And then the guilt.

***

Jim woke up with his tears soaking the headrest.

He showered and returned to the pilot’s seat. He looked out the windows down onto Turcanis Major V and its two moons, both visible beyond. He looked out farther into the darkness.

Someone, he had read, once asked Albert Einstein what he thought was the greatest unsolved mystery. “Is the universe friendly?” was the great man’s reply.

That was before humanity had made contact with other worlds, before it had learned the techniques of long-distance travel and taken its place in the galaxy-wide trading culture.

Right now, Jim thought in his loneliness, we still don’t know.

He linked into the Regdenir system again. This time he looked again at the helpful hints for newcomers. He wanted to find something like the children’s TV shows that had been so useful before.

Within ten minutes he had found it. There was a message board. Anyone could write to it; anyone could answer. It was a place for children to ask questions about scripture and have the best teachers reply. Jim spent an hour browsing messages and answers. Several replies came from Regde1 IDs.

Some message lines were hot debates with many writers quoting from what Jim guessed was their scripture. The scriptural language was challenging, quite different from the modern speech used in the television programs and from the dialect of Madhar Nect. Other lines were tedious arguments over the nuanced definitions of individual words or phrases. One, he was amused to see, was over whether it was proper to pause for breath before or after a particular word when reciting one part of scripture.

Jim composed his question with care.

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings.

I wish to correspond with any who have knowledge of other worlds or technology that might come from other worlds.

Has anyone such knowledge?

aaaaVjiirVregde99Vapp

#

A reply came quickly.

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings, guest of Jiir.

We do not seek the ways of audnir.

The ways of Regdenir are our strength.

If such knowledge comes to us, we may use it.

To seek it is not our way.

Rest in Beauty.

mardrewVlartuVregde1Vapp

#

A reply to the reply came soon after.

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings, guest of Jiir.

If the way of Beauty is served by such knowledge, it is not forbidden.

The generation of electricity from the tides was not our knowledge at first. We took it and transformed it into the service of Beauty.

Maybe we can do so also to the knowledge of aud-audnir.

angaraVmyournVregde1Vapp

#

Then came another.

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings, guest of Jiir.

There is only audnir. To differentiate between the origins of audnir is to disguise the necessary truth.

That which is not born of Beauty cannot be looked to, to find Beauty.

clostuVbarnezVregde2Vmib

#

Jim watched in wonder as the messages added to each other.

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings, guest of Jiir.

Perhaps Clostu Barnez is correct.

Then when we saw the Beauty in the tides, we should have been content.

Did we not look to the audnir for the technology for generators?

It was not from the Beauty we had, but it is part of the Beauty we have now.

Is this not wondrous? That Beauty can come to us, even from unlikely places?

angaraVmyournVregde1Vapp

#

misquuerVappquuerVregde99Vapp

Greetings, guest of Jiir.

Perhaps Angara Myourn is correct.

Then Beauty is to be found in all the people of all the worlds.

Then there is no audnir; there is no Regdenir. Only Beauty spread so thinly on the dust of space none