Faces

By Talmid, beginning 06-10-2015

**Faces**

1

In the year 1988 of the reader's calender, four explorers forged in secret The One Ring, otherwise named simply as Ring in their clan.  A small sport utility warpship, Ring could take eight passengers and no stuff to the reaches of space of time.  For the purpose of these four explorers, they had four additional measurements of volume to store their extensive supplies.  Where exactly the explorers were going, nobody really knew, and they didn't plan on coming back.

Only a day into their odyssey, the four explorers became restless.

"Get your head out of there and help me with brunch," Adara Evirglad said, a tinge of impatience in her voice.  She appeared in front of Val Blansherd, fingers poised and ready to strike.  Blond haired, blond eyed thirty-two year old Val, the oldest occupant in the ship and the chief research officer, looked up from his important work to stare at his crewmate for a second, then reverted his gaze.

"Get Abe to help," Val said.  "I'm doing important work."

Adara grabbed Val's book and thumped it down on one of the cabin's foldout tables.  "Reading is less important that feeding." she said.  "And Abe's sleeping."

"Then recruit Haze," Val made a grab for his book, but taller, leaner Adara grabbed it swiftly and held it out of reach.

"What was that?" a voice called from the front of the cabin.  Haze Tanwaed's red hair appeared, hanging down through the hole in the ceiling leading to the gravity-less navigation bubble, followed by her face.  "I'm not doing anything down there.  Someone has to keep us away from black holes and supernovas."

"I'll do it then." the man grumbled, and he stood up for a triumphant looking Adara, and she let him snatch his book back.  "Be aware, my work is still important." Val said.  "Someone has to know a bit about where we're going.  This book has all the secrets, like how to get there and approximately where 'there' is.  Of course, it's written in an old languge which only I know.  Only I can read Cruxian."

2

Val's book in question was titled Zeke's Arwrgerdd: C*yfaint* Tri, Hwybren o Gwagle.  Val had since translated the words to mean "Zeke's Epic Poem, Volume Three, Void of the Sky."  It was an old work, written centuries well before the Classic Space Revolution, detailing the third part of a certain "Zeke"'s travels; into space.

How did this concern the crew of The One Ring?  According to much historic discussion and contemplation, both Zeke and his books were not merely a fiction concocted by LU's version of an ancient Greek philosopher.  No, Zeke had been real, and so had his travels and all the locations contained therein, including the most controversial location to be spoken of in the modern age: The Planet Crux.

While translated and distributed by major publishing companies many times, Val had taken the original Zeke's Arwrgerdd: Cyfaint Tri upon himself to translate, as the big publishers had taken out plenty for their own editions.  The public wouldn't buy controversial reading, and the existence of Crux had been a centerpoint of imaginative controversy for generations.

It made sense to Val that the companies had cut out and filtered all the parts about Crux from their translated versions, which made them useless.  Only the original work, written by Zeke himself, would be untouched.  Only by reading the original and taking notes on all of Zeke's stops and waypoints in between his starting point, Crux, and the end of his journey, did Val and the rest of the crew think they could accomplish their own goal: Finding Crux.

Stage 1 of Val, Adara, Haze, and Abe's journey involved procuring a Warpship, The One Ring.  They had that, and Val's translation and notes on the original Zeke's Epic Poem: Volume Three.  Now they were en route to the end of Zeke's journey, the location where his book was first found in the reader's year of -814.

From there they would backtrack through the locations of Zeke's journey all the way back to where he started from.  The Planet Crux awaited.