Planet XEE

The next afternoon, Ziddan Zai, his wife, Shakerast, and his son, Paikhnam Zai, were present in the hall of the court of Doitoi, along with Samarjana. Paikhnam was still feeling unwell. He was sneezing frequently and his body’s temperature was increasing rapidly. They had gathered there to find creatures that faced the same problems at the same stage of life all around the universe so that they could find out how to treat Paikhnam.

A diamond mirror appeared in the centre of the hall. The mirror was blank and calm. Doitoi nodded his head as a signal for the search to begin and Ziddan came forward. He stepped closer to the mirror and waved his hand on the blank screen. The mirror turned into a multi-dimensional, super sharp screen. It started showing the vast universe at a glance. The screen was filled with a long range of large and small stars; some of them appeared as a dot of light, whilst others were full and bright, revolving in empty space. The mirror had the ability to detect the planets with as little as a ten percent chance of complex life. One by one, planets appeared on the screen, close and clear enough for their surfaces to be seen. The screen showed creatures moving on the surface of the planets, and in the description the details of the creatures were given in a strange language. The language could only be understood by Doitoi.

He explained to those present in the hall as a new planet appeared on the screen, ‘Frozen Land.’

This planet revealed that all of its creatures were frozen in ice. Doitoi smiled to the audience and began to explain. ‘This is Frozen Land. The hosting star of the planet comes close enough to the planet for only three days throughout the year. The creatures of this planet can enjoy their lives for only three days in a year. The star comes so close that their ice thaws and they come into active life. They have to complete their life tasks, their celebrations and other activities during these three days only. On the third day of their active lives, before the sun disappears, they go to their especially assigned places to be frozen and awaken again the following year. If they did not go to their special chambers, they would not be able to wake up again next year when the star appears close enough to melt the ice. They say, “Goodbye and see you next year,” to each other and return to their chambers before the star disappears.’

Paikhnam seemed to have a keen interest in all of this and was wide awake. He paid full attention to the words of Doitoi as he stared at the screen.

The mirror went blank once again before another planet appeared on the screen. Doitoi looked around, fixed his gaze into Paikhnam’s eyes, smiled at him, and then started to explain about the next planet, ‘The Flying World.’

A beam of vertical light appeared on the screen – hundreds of thousands of miles across. Black dots seemed to be flying around the pillar of light. Slowly, the black dots came closer and became clearer so that everyone in the hall could see them. They looked like bees flying around the vertical light pillar, but moments later, the bees appeared as strange creatures. The pillar of light was revolving around its star. According to Doitoi, this was a flying world in which the inhabitants had to perform all their activities in flight.

‘They cannot escape,’ he said. ‘They continue their lives while flying around the pillar. Sleep, wakefulness, reproduction and other essential activities of their lives are carried out in this way.’

The mirror continued its detecting process. A small red and black planet appeared on the screen. The dead body of a huge animal appeared next, but a strange thing was happening, another creature crept out from its torn abdomen. Everyone was surprised and anxious to know the truth about these creatures.

‘This is Planet Enimtui. Only two kinds of animal live on this planet.’ Doitoi explained the planetary life as images of the animals appeared on the screen from different angles. ‘These two animals on the surface of the planet eat each other to survive. There used to be hundreds of thousands of animals living on the planet, but there are only two left now. The dead animal is called a barburra and the animal emerging from its abdomen is a cithorai. The barburra swallows the cithorai to survive. The cithorai, when it reaches the abdomen of its predator, spreads its poison into the body of the barburra. The poison causes the death of the predator and the cithorai creeps out of the dead body. However, the death of the predator does not last forever – it wakes up again, and the cycle is repeated. This will continue up to four hundred times more, and then the last two animals will also disappear from the surface of the planet forever, as it has already occurred with other animals that have eventually died.’

Paikhnam was shocked. He was worried about the last two animals of the planet.

‘Is there a way out for the lives of these two animals?’ he asked anxiously.

Doitoi smiled him. ‘Yes, there is a way out for the survival of both of the the animals.’

He looked into the screen; a mountain appeared just next to the animals, where they were going to have new lives, probably for the last time.

‘Just through the mountain, on the other side, there is enough food and other essential elements for life to evolve. If both of the animals cross the mountain, they will have no need to kill each other for their diet; they will find plenty of food for themselves.’

‘But the mountain is too high to cross. How will they possibly be able to cross it?’ asked Paikhnam.

‘I will make it easy for them,’ replied Doitoi, and he stared directly at the mountain for a while. A ray of green light appeared from his eyes and through the mirror, he cut the mountain straight through the centre, providing a crossing for the animals. Paikhnam smiled and praised Doitoi. He sent another ray of light through the bodies of the animals, this time implanting the thought in their minds to cross the mountain to start a new and mutual life as friends rather than enemies.

The next planet then appeared on the mirror. A huge number of animals were scratching the rocky surface – a thick wall of rock and iron – trying to make their way through. The animals were clearly visible in the mirror. They had eight legs and four eyes: two at the front and two on their back. They walked on six legs and used their first two legs as hands, equipped with long, strong nails. It seemed that, despite their best efforts, they hadn’t yet completed their task, for although they were more than halfway through the rock and iron wall, they were still unable to make their way out.

Everybody in the hall was curious to know about the planetary creatures. They wanted to listen to the story of the struggle of the animals, but Doitoi, enjoying the anticipation of his audience, remained silent.

‘Will you please tell us something about these animals, Doitoi?’ Paikhnam finally asked.

Doitoi smiled again, looked around the hall and pointed to the surface of the mirror. ‘These are the animals exiled from their land as a punishment by their invaders. They have been cut off from their land by this huge, rocky wall. For thousands of years, they have been trying to make their way through the wall so that they can return to their homeland, but just as they are about to cut through the wall, they find that their nails have almost disappeared. The closer they are to the edge of the wall, the shorter their nails become. They go back for a certain period of time to re-grow their nails, come back and start struggling again, but by the time they return the wall has re-built itself. This happens over and over again – the animals keep going back in a hopeless attempt to get to their homelands.’

‘It’s very sad indeed,’ said Paikhnam. ‘Will they ever be able to go back to their land again?’

‘We can help them; there is of course a way out,’ Doitoi replied. ‘Whenever the animals are actually close to breaking through the wall, they lose their nails. They believe that there is a lot of wall still out there to be cut, but in fact, there is only a thin layer left to get through. If some of them stay and continue to cut the wall with their small nails, whilst other animals retreat and then come back after a few days with re-grown nails, they will soon be able to cut through and regain their land from the invaders.’

On the screen, as all of the animals were about to leave disappointed once more, Doitoi sent some rays into the minds of one of the animals. One of the animals stopped, looked towards the wall, and shouted in a strange voice. Many of his companions did not even bother to stop to listen to him, whilst some paid attention but did not stop. However, a few animals stopped and listened to him, although none of them was ready to follow. He alone continued his struggle to cut the wall, all the while calling to his mates. Three more joined him and a few minutes later all of the animals came back with eagerness and strength, and began cutting the wall with their nails, teeth and feet. A moment later, they found a small hole in the rocky wall. It was too small for any of them to get through, but they started shouting for joy and began digging the wall with renewed strength. After a short time, they finally achieved their lifetime goal. There was their land, waiting for them on the other side of the wall. It had been waiting for them for a long time.

Back in Doitoi’s hall, Paikhnam started cheering and praising his godfather, Doitoi.

Another pair of planets then appeared in the mirror. The two planets were connected by their own forces of gravity, but at either end they were being pulled by the external gravitational forces of their two host stars, forming the shape of a number eight. ‘The creatures of both these planets,’ said Doitoi, ‘go between the two planets just like we do from one place to another on our own planet.’

The search continued. Next, a huge black dot appeared on the screen, almost the same size as their Planet Xee. It was completely dark – there was not a single ray of light to be seen on the planet. Far away, its host, a red and black star, appeared on the screen, a thousand times larger than the planet. But there was no life out there.

Ziddan and Shakerast were disappointed. Still they had not found a creature in the universe who appeared to be the same size and shape as their son, and who shared the symptoms of his sickness. Although downhearted, they struggled on, searching relentlessly.

Another planet appeared on the screen, shining in the starry sky, reflecting its light like a diamond.

‘The whole of this planet is made of diamond,’ declared Doitoi.

‘A planet of diamond? A whole planet?’ Paikhnam was surprised.

‘Yes, this is the Diamond Planet,’ said Doitoi, ‘and I will send you to visit it one day and bring back some diamonds. We have to build up diamond palaces for our ancestors and their guards who are buried on Planet Degrean.’

‘Planet Degrean?’ queried Paikhnam.

‘Our ancestors!’ Ziddan Zai was surprised as well.

Doitoi just smiled at them and shook his head.

The search continued. A giant blue planet appeared on the screen. Red-green liquid flowed across its surface. Doitoi explained that the planet was made entirely of water.

‘Just water?’ Paikhnam asked.

‘Yes, its entire surface is water and water is everywhere on the planet.’

The next planet appeared on the diamond screen of the mirror. Being so close to its star, more than half of the planet was just vapour. The heat of the star slowly melted everything on the planet. Doitoi told his audience that the planet would remain nothing but vapour in the atmosphere in a few million years’ time.

There was plenty of matter out there in space – large and small objects, stars, planets, huge clouds of dust and sand, shining and dark. But nothing was there for their purpose. They had still not found life similar to theirs, and no children appeared on the screen resembling their son.

When the next planet appeared on the screen, everyone looked at it with joy and surprise. It was a planet with three suns: three sunsets, three sun rises, three shades all took place at about the same time.

Doitoi explained that the planet revolved around three host stars at the same time, which was why there were always three shades and three sunlit areas on its surface.

Their search was not yet fruitful, and their own sun was about to set. Paikhnam was getting worse. If they continued to search for planets or creatures like this, it would take days to find what they were looking for, but they didn’t have that much time.

Ziddan looked into the eyes of Doitoi and transferred his thoughts to Doitoi’s mind. Doitoi seemed relaxed and satisfied. He ordered Samarjana to take the image of his son and search like for like. She came forward and took an image of Paikhnam who was slumped in his seat, sneezing and coughing badly. At the same time, Doitoi sent a message to the mind of Shakerast, telling her to take her son to his room for a rest.

Shakerast nodded her head and Paikhnam’s seat turned into a bed, rose up to a certain height and started moving towards his room.

Paikhnam’s parents worried and anxious about their son’s health, but Doitoi was still hopeful that they would find a solution. Once again he ordered Samarjana to use the boy’s picture to find a being similar to him.

The diamond mirror began to rotate on its edge, spinning faster and faster. A minute later it began to slow and coming back to its still position, it suddenly stopped. Hundreds of thousands of images of boys just like their son, Paikhnam, appeared on the screen. The boys in the images, appeared on the screen were sneezing, coughing and suffering from a fever just as their own boy was.

Everyone was excited, although they felt sad about the boys from the strange planet who appeared to be sick. It was so silent in the hall that one could have heard a pin drop. But moments later, Doitoi ordered Samarjana to zoom in and speak to someone on the other planet to get information about it.

They saw a man looking for something on the ground. His image appeared closer and clearer on the mirror’s screen. Doitoi spoke to the man and asked him what that place was.

‘It’s Birmingham,’ replied the man quickly and bowed his head, looking down to the ground again.

‘Find someone else, somewhere else,’ Doitoi told Samarjana.

Another group of people appeared on the screen. She zoomed in on one of them and asked about the planet.

‘We are in Multan now. But we came from France.’

‘Multan? France? How many planets are out there?’ asked Doitoi.

‘They may be talking about their local areas, cities or countries,’ said Samarjana. ‘We can scan the whole of the planet to get the information.’

The planet moved on the screen of the diamond mirror and Samarjana focused on the data centre. A burst of rays suddenly exploded from the screen and all the data was copied over that was stored on a large disc. All of the information about the planet and its inhabitants was transferred to Planet Xee. They hurriedly started scanning the data.

‘This is Planet Earth,’ said Samarjana.

‘I am pretty sure I know this planet,’ said Doitoi in surprise. He asked Samarjana to zoom out slowly.

A marble blue stone appeared on the screen and moments later, a small, shining, rocky planet came into view.

‘They call it the moon,’ said Samarjana.

A red, barren surface appeared next. ‘Mars,’ she said.

Doitoi was silent, yet surprised. He ordered Samarjana to show him Mars from different angles and then he shouted out in great joy and surprise.

‘It’s Planet Degrean, the homeland we lost! Our ancestors are still buried under the surface of the planet. I will soon send our son to rescue them and to punish the guilty ones.’

Everyone in the hall was surprised and wanted to know the whole story of the life of Doitoi, their godfather, and the story of his ancestors.

How long had it been since they lived there? What forced them to migrate here? These questions were running through the minds of the audience in the hall.

Doitoi was keen to share the story, but the evening was fast approaching. The sun was about to vanish, and then night would fall. He nodded his head to Ziddan. A time control device appeared next to Ziddan, who calculated, made some changes and applied them. The sun began to revolve backwards and then stopped. The day had been turned back by four hours so that they would have more time to enjoy the story of their godfather’s ancestors and of Planet Degrean, which was once Doitoi’s homeland.