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The soldier, who had attacked King Crough and his crew joined Xandros and Ashley and I was glad for it. They had been causing too much disturbance.
On the second day, we reached Astrionis and shuttles flew us to the palace since the spaceship was too large to land planet side.
Just like in the images I had studied, the area surrounding Garth's palace was breathtaking. Seeing the rocky roots for the first time was very different from the pictures. They were much larger than I had expected.
What I had thought to be flowers could have been trees on Earth, they were that big, which made the root rocks even larger.
The biggest, of course, turned out to house Garth's and now my palace.
The root rock, from one end to the other, was easily the length of four footballfields—if not more—and as tall as a mountain. Another arched over it, and from the sky it looked like a giant, unevenX.
Only when we came closer, I noticed smaller root-rock formations underneath and that the ground around it had been paved.
A large moat with a bubbling lava-like substance surrounded the entire structure.
"We share the planet with some very nasty predators," Garth explained. The kunyps I had already learned were an indigenous species, humanoid in appearance—like the Pandraxians—and nasty like animal predators, only smarter.
I had seen pictures and they had given me nightmares for days. Their heads reminded me of Venus flytraps, sightless but with an expert sense of smell as Garth assured me, with needlelike, sharp teeth that could sever an arm or leg with one bite.
"Any harsh light, like the sun, hurts their eyes, so they only come out at night, " Garth filled the human group and me in. "Which means that each one of you will need to adhere to a strict curfew from dusk till dawn."
"But what if we are going to live on another planet?" Susan asked, avoiding looking at me. Since our little spat she avoided me studiously and stopped her campaign of flirting withGarth.
"Unfortunately, the kunyps are on every one of our planets. They multiply by producing spores that cling to our shuttles no matter how thoroughly we clean them. Once the shuttle makes landfall on another planet, they begin their evolution there."
I shuddered, because it meant eventually they would find their way to Earth too.
"We send out regular hunting parties, but they multiply too fast for us to be successful. They also live in caves in the mountains, as well as burrow into the ground. We have found entire cities underneath the surface and exterminated them. Unfortunately, as soon as we kill off one, more emerge. It's a never-ending war."
He must have noticed the stricken faces, in stark contrast to his excitement of fighting the kunyps on a daily basis. "We will teach you how to fight them, fortunately they are not advanced enough to create weapons. But make no mistake, their claws and teeth are deadly."
"Will you give us… blasters?" a man, named Bert, asked.
"Blasters are only to be used in the most dire of circumstances, but we will teach you how to use spears, swords, bows, and arrows."
Bert mumbled something aboutmedieval crapand Garth zeroed in on him. "Our species made the mistake once of becoming slaves to modern technology. If youcannot live without blasters, tablets and the likes, you are free to join the Imperial Forces where technology is revered above anything."
He stared hard at Bert. "But if you want to make a living on any of the planets, you will need to be prepared to live by what you callmedieval crap."
Bert mumbled something unintelligible, and Garth elucidated, "You will still have access to the best medicine and medical care. You will have showers and bathrooms, but wherever we can—like heat through fireplaces for example or light through oil lamps—we will use the old ways."
Just then the shuttle set down outside the moat. It was time to leave and meet our new planet.
The wide door to the shuttle opened to extend into a ramp and Garth took my hand.
The moment we stepped outside I felt like I was home. A soft breeze carried a sweet scent reminding me of almonds in the air, and in awe I watched the flower-like trees sway.
"Beggamond," Garth said when he noticed my nostrils flare to take in the tantalizing aroma and pointed at the flower-trees. "They are our main source of food and other products. We make clothes from the stems"—he pointed at his leather pants, which I had assumed to have been made of some poor animal'shide—"and the flowers can be used for all kinds of dishes."
What I had assumed to be small critters running through them in the holopictures I had seen, turned out to be koloch—cattle. Much larger than our cows and faster too. Once in motion they were incredibly fast.
There were, however, small critters too, which I assumed were the so-called darts. Living off the kolochs' refuse.
Walking over the sturdy bridge spanning the moat was somewhat unnerving. The moat was filled with a thick, swampy, lava-like substance that bubbled in many places—presumably from gasses.
Over it, unperturbed, hopped small creatures reminding me of frogs.
"They are too light to sink, but anything heavier gets pulled down within ticks and there is no coming back," Garth explained, making me shudder.
