(Chapter Four: 570 Billion Miles)
It was daytime on both Moiromma and its moon, Ice-cap, so it appeared from the spaceship’s porthole, from outer space. Tangor was looking through his telescope, he could see houses, all their shapes and sizes in Ice-cap, the half-frozen moon, more like a planetoid. Like blocks stacked on blocks, one on top of the other, so the houses appeared; so they looked from 140,000 statute miles into outer space. He even noticed the streets and alleys, with their twists and turns in this frozen city that seemed like a maze. Almost everything was white, even the trees that had to gather all they could, all their nutrients, during the short, shallow summer months to withstand the long, ferocious winter months.
He was something of a Peeping Tom (lately), you could say, as he watched hundreds of people day in and day out on this planetoid going about their daily chores and business. Oh yeah! Yes, indeed, it gave him a little life, something to do, something to keep his mind going, while he waited for the big break and escape the ice caps in his ship. This was his fourth year in what he called his captivity. The walls of the nave were affecting him, for each day they seemed more like a tomb; he even commented that they looked (or were beginning to look) like a skull; maybe yours. Also, this isolation brought back memories of Poloda and the time he spent there.
Yes, the walls were closing in on him, and now he found a new sport, a game if you will, one that he played and only he could play, a solitary game called: look and seek, that was all; it was a close game as far as he knew.
Most of the beings, that is, the inhabitants of Ice-cap, were a small figure of race, species, very small, perhaps three feet tall at their maximum stretched height. But there was also a dominant force in Ice-cap, a demonic species, an evil life form: supernatural beings.
In a way, Tangor felt these small figures of inhabitants, who were there long before the demonic forces of the earth arrived, he felt that they were like fish caught on a hook, and like him, isolated in an aquarium: he in a tomb in outer space. , them on a rock in outer space. Although, he could see them, and the demonic forces had subdued them. Kind of sad to see, in particular, some of their deadly and cruel ways.
He had noted that the elite wore robes, but that they were subject to the demonic whims of alien creatures. I guess Tangor might have thought too: he would have liked to escape the clutches of these alien forces, just as much as he would like to escape Ice-cap’s gravitational hold on his ship.
Party
The Annual Festival of Worms was about to begin, one that Tangor had witnessed for three two years, this would be the third, if he wished to see carnal sacrifice again. I will explain to you, as Tangor explained it to me: they would take a young man, a boy or a girl (this year it was a girl), and the priests would sacrifice it to the great god Rue, of the planetoid, throwing the young man into a well, one that was dug and built in one of the temples that the inhabitants had built for this god. This huge demonic being would appear above the temple on the first day of Ice-cap’s tenth month, and see over a million worms devour the young man. It was his pleasure to see this sacrifice. And if they didn’t decide to go through with this, the Rue would wreak havoc across the planet, like a raging bull. It had happened before, when Ice-cap’s people challenged Rue, but only once, it was too costly.
And so the demon beast party, as it was also called, was preparing to take place. Three days the priest knelt and praised the god of the dark sky and the deep sea, our three hours sought the appearance of him. The High Priest stood by his pedestal with his arms stretched up, then down, not knowing where Rue was, and chanted incantations at her.
Tangor surveyed all the temple grounds, its deep underground, it was an ancient site indeed, and its foundations were weak. The complex had rounded edges, ancient pillars. The more Tangor looked through his telescope, and at the girl who was to be sacrificed, the more she was still him from Yamoda: a young woman he once knew and liked very much. And the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to save the girl, even if she was only for one more year.
At the moment, Tangor’s spacecraft was the closest his ship would get to the planetoid, 130,000 miles. He came up with an idea, a notion. He had seven torpedoes in his ammunition store, his arsenal, on his ship. If he could take good aim and shoot the complex – hit those pillars before the sacrifice happened, it would have to be rebuilt, the entire complex would fall in on itself and fill the wormhole completely.
Therefore, he finally came to the conclusion that he would give it a try, so he pointed his ship 15 degrees to the right and launched one of his several torpedoes, hitting an asteroid and smashing it into over a hundred pieces or more. , which fell like fast bullets through the atmosphere of the polar ice caps; a shower of iron and nickel debris glued together with solid stone, hitting the roof and pillars of the great temple, brought him to his knees, one might say. Tangor’s jaw dropped in amazement that it worked. Metal flew in all directions, sold rock caught between the metals: it was a happy day for the family of the girl to be sacrificed, and a horrible, howling day for Rue.
11/16/2005 written while in Lima, Peru