Deep Space Adventures - 2. DSA Chapter 2

When we finally arrived at Ganymede, there was a full guard of honour waiting for us, and at the end of the long row of guards stood our great Uncle, the current ruler of Sahndrol. “Your majesty, it is good to see you again,” my mother said to him, “It is good to see you too dear cousin, and my haven’t your boys grown a lot since I last saw them,” our ruler said when he turned to face us, after shaking hands with our father.

I immediately bowed to his majesty and after a short delay, Sam did the same. “Your majesty, thank you for your welcome,” I said to him. “Come now Quinn and Natalia and boys, you must be exhausted after such a long journey, go and freshen up and meet me in an hour in my private lounge,” his majesty said to us, as the crew brought out our luggage, and once our uncle had left, we headed for our usual family suites, that are always reserved for us.

“Mum, why is there this get up in my suite? Am I supposed to wear his when we go and see uncle?” I asked, “Yes dearest, it is part of why we are here,” our mother replied from the main family lounge suite. “Why what is wrong?” my brother asked when he poked his head around the corner.

“Oh, that looks very official, all I have to wear is a formal suit,” Sam added. “Yeah, I guess with me being the oldest may have some… oh no… Mum, please don’t tell me this has something to do with what happened with you some years back?” I said calling out to our mum for the last part of the conversation.

“I’m here son, and I am afraid yes, it is. I was regent for a while when your uncle was not able to runs things, and with him not having any children, you my dearest son are next in line…” Mum said to me, and I had to sit down on the bed as I started to feel faint.

Mum was soon at my side, instructing me to breathe deeply, which I did, until I was feeling better. “You could have warned me earlier mum, instead of springing it on me like this,” I said, just as dad walked into my room. "You should have realised surely, that there was a good possibility that you could be next in line, after your mother had to fill in with royal duties,” Dad said to me.

“I was still young when that happened, and I hadn’t really thought about it until now,” I replied. “Well son, now that you are 13 years old, today is the day that you are officially named Crown Prince of Sahndrol, next in line to the throne, now hurry up and get ready, you have a meeting with your uncle before the official ceremony begins,” Mum said to me, as they left my suite, closing the door behind them.

I felt trapped and couldn’t breathe, and I needed to have some time to think, and ignoring the official clothes, I removed my jacket, and anything that looked expensive, before I managed to sneak out of the suite window, along the top of a parapet, and I jumped over a gap to land on the roof of another building as part of the guest wing of the palace.

I headed for the back corner of the building, and tried to jump to another building, but I slipped and fell two levels to the ground, with my trousers and shirt catching on something sharp and ripping as I fell onto a few bags of stock feed to cushion the fall, but I over balanced and hit my head on a wall and everything went black.

When I finally woke up, I was in an unfamiliar place, my head was hurting, as I tried to touch the spot where it was sore, “Please leave it to heal, you have been unconscious for over a day,” a young kind voice said in the darkened room, “A day! I exclaimed as I tried to sit up, but my head began to spin so I laid down again, and I realised that I understood what the voice said, and I responded in the same language, which felt strange to me.

“What is your name? and why are you wearing funny clothes?” the voice said to me, and I opened my mouth to respond, when I realised, I could not remember, so I just frowned and shook my head gently. “Never mind, we will find out eventually, you have a very nasty contusion on your head, you are very lucky that my little brother found you in that laneway behind the palace.

Did you come to see the official ceremony, maybe that is why you wear strange clothes that are all torn. Maybe you are from another province of Sahndrol,” the voice said to me. “Isnyl, come away from there, let the boy rest and heal,” I heard a women’s voice say, “Coming mother”, the kind voice responded, before leaving the room.

I must have drifted to sleep again, as it was now daylight when I woke, and a woman was placing a cool cloth on my forehead. “Welcome back, you have had a fever for the past three days. Are you hungry?” the women said to me in the foreign language which I understood, and I nodded my head yes.

The women helped me to sit up higher in bed, before retrieving a bowl, and she began to feed me some soup of some kind, which was very delicious. As I accidentally spilt some soup on the shirt, I realised that it wasn’t the shirt that I was wearing before, at some time, I had been given fresh clothes.

“My son Isnyl helped look after you, he gave you a cloth wash down and changed you into some of his spare clothes, as you appear to be about the same age as him,” the women explained to me, and I just nodded my head of understanding.

“I… I remember falling, I was on a roof, looking…” I said trying to remember what exactly happened, “My youngest son said he found you in an alley behind the palace, we think you are from another province, and that you had come to see the ceremony, which never happened. The news is that the Crown Prince has been kidnapped by a faction of our city, who are wanting a better life. Apparently, His Majesty has made a reward for the safe return of his nephew,” the lady informed me.

This news seemed familiar to me, was I somehow part of this plot, or maybe I was in the way when the kidnapping happened? It was all just a blur, and I was getting frustrated that I could not remember anything.

“Now that your fever has broken and your wounds are healing, I guess you will be making your way back to your homeland?” the boy named Isnyl said to me, as he appeared from behind his mother. “There was something in his voice that sounded like… he was hurt… no, not that, he is disappointed that I am leaving,” which surprised me a little bit.

“If it is ok with you, I would like to stay for a few more days, maybe my memory will come back, and I will know who I am and where I am from,” I replied. “I would like to do that, but we are visitors to the capital city, we are farmers, and our farm is two days travel away,” the lady said.

“Then maybe you will allow me to travel with you, and I will repay you for your kindness with work on your farm,” I replied. “That is a nice thought, but look at your hands, they are the hands of a scholar, not a farmers hand, I doubt that you would be strong enough to do the kind of work that my son’s do each say when they are not learning books,” the lady replied.

“Please mother, let him come home with us, I will take care of him and show him what to do on the farm, please,” the boy Isnyl pleaded. “Very well, we need all the help we can if we are going to get these crops in on time, to get them to the markets,” the lady said.

Within a few hours, the family whose last name is Ottremyn, which sounded familiar in some way, but because of my memory loss, I could not remember why that was so, were packed and ready to leave. Their transport is a very old looking space vehicle, that has four seats, and very little storage space, so it was a tight fit for us with all of their luggage and some supplies included.

Once out of the city, the slow-moving craft made its way through the rocky and nearly bare landscape, which surprisingly had some small trees and shrubs growing in patches. “I thought vegetation would not be able to grow outside?” I asked to no one in particular.

“It has been a project of the Sahndrol government to establish vegetation on the surface, in hope that maybe one day, it will provide enough oxygen to allow us to roam the surface freely, instead of having to rely on contained oxygen all the time,” Mrs Ottremyn replied.

“You say you have a farm? What is it that you have on this farm?” I asked, “What the original settlers call, grains, nuts, fruit and vegetables, some of it is from our Sahndrol homeworld, and the rest is from Earth. We live just out of the settlement of Armenta, which is a small community that wanted to be well away from the capital, and be independent from them.

All the crops that we grow are by hydro-growth gardens, that are long narrow buildings that have a special way of growing, that does not require soil, just nutrients and water, which are both expensive to buy, but essential to growing our crops,” Isnyl said.

After what seemed like a whole day, we arrived at a place that were three small buildings interconnected. “This is our overnight stop, it is called Lhana Dsa, and they have a few rooms and hot meals from travellers,” Mrs Ottremyn explained to me, as the outer doors of the airlock closed, and we were able to open the doors of the vehicle.