To the Earth and Back!!!

Here's a story I wrote for a school kid. Sci-Fi is not really my genre, but I tried it somehow! Read!!!

Jixil stared at the lights shimmering on the locked front doors of the city. He did this everyday. Day after day. And each time, he wished the same wish - to see the world beyond these locked doors. But he knew this wish was perhaps never to be fulfilled. Afterall, he was but a ten year old homothrop in the spectacular city of CosmoOrb. Jixil had been born with a deformity in his left foot. Although he had been fitted with a snazzy new pseudo-foot that almost never made him feel the deformity that he had been born with – it cost him other things. Things he dearly wanted to do.

CosmoOrb, which was located a hundred lightyears away from the planet that had once held the ancestors of Homothorps – Humans. Humans had lived and prospered well for many millennia on the beautiful planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. Then, something had happened to wipe the human race out. Homothorps had risen from the ruins that humans became. However, Jixil and his kind were far more advanced than their ancestors. Unlike humans, they needed no oxygen to survive on. Their planet had no gravity - a force, (as Jixil had been taught at “school”) was one of the reasons Earth had been the planet of glory. This was because gravity was what had kept the humans, their houses, and a lot many other things – green and brown things called trees, colourful things called flowers and a lot many other things rooted to the Earth. This, along with oxygen had been the reason Earth supported life! Gravity was something the homothorps had never experienced. Infact, the lack of gravity was the reason they wore special spiked shoes called Hover-Boots all the time – to keep themselves close to CosmoOrb. Not that they missed gravity. They just never knew what it was!

However, these small bits and pieces of information was all that was ever told to them at school. Jixil hated that. He wanted to know more – a lot more. He wanted to understand exactly what had happened that perished the entire human race, and made the once beautiful Earth a mere charred star in the universe. And the only way to know all this, as Jixil understood it, was to become a Velhut.

Velhuts were the guardians of the city. They were the equivalents of “Astronauts” – humans who had explored the universe. Out of the many men who walked CosmoOrb, the finest were chosen to be Velhuts. They were then taught use complex weapons, and trained in various combat arts. All this came in handy when they went on missions outside the city, to the Earth. These missions usually were to bring back relics from the land which had once belonged to their ancestors. Most of what the homothorps knew about the Earth, and their own existence was mainly due to the Velhuts, with a lot of help from the Shomiks.

Jixil ached to be a Velhut when he grew up. But he knew this was not possible. The first time he had expressed this wish to his mother, she had cried, and told him that his “special” foot would never allow him to be even considered as a probable Velhut. This broke Jixil’s heart, but not his determination. He was passionate about knowing more about the Earth, and tried to find out as much as he could about it. Unknown to anyone, he had a secret plan…

The Velhuts were about to leave for another mission. They travelled in special flying saucers called Nutos. Nutos were equipped with state of the art machinery. Jixil’s plan was to hitchhike a ride to the Earth on one of these! Gaining access to a Nutos was easy for him. After all, his dad was a Shomik. Shomiks were the learned men – or the “astronomers” as they were called, after learned men from the earth who studied the universe. Velhuts braved the murky cosmos, full of misleading foes. Shomiks studied these foes, and the universe, and designed weapons and thought out tactics for the Velhuts. Velhuts were the most coveted and loved men in the city, Shomiks the most respected.

Making sure no one saw him; Jixil stole his way across to the huge crater where the Nutos stood. He held his breath as he climbed aboard one and hid himself in one corner where the Velhut riding it would not notice him. The Nutos suddenly whirred to life. Jixil could hardly breathe for the excitement!

As the flying saucer rode out of the city gates into the world beyond, Jixil felt his feet suddenly start leaving the floor of the Nutos. He was weightless! In vaccum! Living with hover boots was such a habit with him, that he had never considered this little problem! There was no way he could remain hidden now. He did the only thing he could as the Velhut came floating his way, “Ummm…th…there is something you should probably know Sir…” he stammered, “I’m Jixil, and I’m here in the Nutos with you.” The Velhut blinked a few times, as if trying to blink Jixil out of existence. But Jixil remained floating in front of him. The Velhut, finally answered, “Welcome Aboard.”, He passed Jixil a shimmering space suit. “You will be needing this.” he said.

Jixil started to say something when he saw a huge boulder like thing coming straight towards the Nutos. Reading his expressions of fear, the Velhut turned, and hit a red button on the dashboard. A missile launched from the Nutos and hit the boulder and shattered it to a million pieces. “What was that?” Jixil asked the Velhut between heavy breaths that had no oxygen. “That was an asteroid.” the Velhut answered. “We get a lot of them along the way. Can be very dangerous due to their sheer size.”

Jixil changed into the space suit and watched the stellar world beyond from the shatterproof glass of the Nutos. He kept asking the Velhut questions and the Velhut answered. He told Jixil all about meteors, and how dangerous they were. All he could see was darkness, a little patch of it in illuminated by the light of the Nutos. Jixil was dazed. He was about to drift into a sleep, when suddenly, he felt something was wrong. He watched the Velhut steer the Nutos in a complex manner. Jixil could feel a force drawing them towards itself. The Nutos was fighting against it, and seeming to fail…

After a long struggle, the Nutos seemed to be back on track again. Jixil could hardly speak. He looked at the Velhut and the Velhut said, “That was a black hole kid. The nastiest beasts around. Had we been stuck into it, we won’t have lived to tell the story. Bless the Shomiks. Their radio wave signals outlining the correct path saved us today.” Jixil tried to hide how terrified he was.

Finally, the Velhut said, that they were nearing the Earth. Jixil felt his excitement growing. The Earth!! His heart leaped to be so close to his dream! They landed with a small bump on the Earth’s surface. They stepped onto the Earth’s surface, aliens on this land. Ruin could be seen everywhere. There were buildings with no one inside. A sea of burnt debris. The Velhut signaled him to take off his Hover-Boots. Jixil obeyed. It was a fantastic feeling. To be able to walk barefoot and still cling to the ground was something Jixil had never experienced. He enjoyed the feeling.

The other Velhuts gathered, and were surprised to see Jixil among them. However, they had a mission to accomplish. They went into a building. Jixil followed. This was a space exploration lab, the Velhuts explained at Jixil’s look of wonder. There were all sorts of antennae like structures in the building. Jixil also saw a huge tube like structure. When he asked the Velhuts what it was, they explained it was a telescope. It was an instrument used to study the other planets from the earth. The Velhuts even proceeded to show Jixil CosmoOrb using the telescope! It looked tiny in the the vast sea of black. Jixil was thrilled!

There was a sudden excitement among the Velhuts. One of them had found documents in “English”, an Earthly language the homothorps had learned. The documents contained pictures of the Earth just before it was ruined. They also explained the reasons why the Earth had failed to survive anymore. Jixil couldn’t believe his ears! This was something he always wanted to know! The Velhuts explained what was written in the document. Apparently, the humans had made something called “pollution”. They had cut trees and plants, which made oxygen, and slowly the environment that made Earth so beautiful had thinned away. The humans lost their protective environment, and thus perished. The Velhuts understood no more of the complex document, but the Shomiks would. They now had to take the documents baack to CosmoOrb safely.

Jixil climbed back into the Nutos, and thought of how his father would understand all that was written in the document. He thought of all the time his father spent in studying the universe, the Earth. This voyage today had taken away his blind fascination for the Velhuts. True, they did brave work, and brought back relics from the Earth. But it was the Shomiks they depended on to understand this knowledge. As the Velhut steered the Nutos back towards home, Jixil promised himself to study hard, and become one day, what his father was – a Shomik.

THE END