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“A gift for good behavior,” Arcoro stated dryly, but with a wistful expression that was telling of how fond he was of the youngling. Growing more questions in me than I had answers for so far.
The inside of the cave wasn’t much to look at. Two beds occupied two sides, a table and two chairs stood in the center. Trunks had been moved against the third side, filled with bowls of food and pitchers.
“Are you hungry, thirsty?” Arcoro moved to the trunks holding the refreshments.
“Some water if you have it,” I said. Even though the breathing through the new masks was easier than through the mouthpiece, the rich oxygen still dried my throat.
Arcoro filled two cups, handing one to me, “I imagine you have questions.”
“I imagine so do you,” I countered.
He indicated the chairs by the table, and we took a seat, glancing uneasily at each other across the surface. I wondered if he felt threatened by my presence, by the looks of it he was the leader of this group, with me as a vissigroth, he must have felt his position was at risk.
“I have no intentions of taking your leadership or of staying,” I assured him.
At that he broke out in laughter. Not the amused kind, but a loud, heartfelt laughter, that brought tears to his eyes.
“I don’t feel threatened, son,” he uttered when he finally got a hold of his emotions. I blistered slightly at him calling me son. He was older than me though, so I let it go.
“You can be the leader here if you want to. But unfortunately, there is no escaping this place, trust me, we’ve lived here for thousands of generations. If there was a way out, we would have found it by now.”
I blinked at him in astonishment, “Thousands of generations?”
He nodded, having completely sobered from his laughter. “Zyn, and we only have ourselves to blame for it.”
I leaned back in my chair and waved my hand, to motion that I was all ears for his story.
He took a deep inhale and began, “My people, the Zuten, were very advanced in biochemistry. Sorintos was our home, but we ventured out into our galaxy to bend other planets to our will. Sorintos was a paradise, a dream to live on for any species, where swamp made a region inhabitable, we drained it, rocky areas we turned into luscious fields by turning the rock into the most fertile ground anybody could imagine.
“Deserts we turned into gardens.
“But we weren’t satisfied with that. Oh, ney. We set our minds to controlling the weather as well. My ancestors created a gas that tenfolded every water molecule in the air, or so they believed. In reality it was much worse. It began to rain and it never stopped. It rained for years, all over Sorintos, no matter what the scientists did, they couldn’t stop it.
“When it became clear that the entire planet would soon be flooded, people fled to surrounding planets. But we didn’t have enough starships for all of them, compared to our other advancements, spaceflight wasn’t that evolved and many of our people had to stay behind.
“Some, like my ancestors, chose to stay behind, they fled to Mount Gorgolum, the highest mountain on Sorintos. It was unique as others called it hollow mountain, because of its vast cave system. The bowl shaped peak was ideal to grow crops, and my ancestors created openings through which they could enter and leave.”
Arcoro stopped to take a sip of his water, giving me a moment to digest his words. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that Sorintos was the name the Zuten called Oceanus and Mount Gorgolum was now part of Fall Mountain Island.
“The rain however,” Arcoro continued, “didn’t stop for many more years. Some feared it would flood the entire mountain, as many caves had already become inaccessibly with water.
“That’s when they had another one of their brilliant ideas,” he rolled his eyes. “If nature had made us in a way that didn’t allow us to breathe underwater, we would rectify that error. The scientists knew that they wouldn’t survive, but at least they thought they could create a new race of Zuten that could live in the water.”
He paused and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I sensed what they had done.
Oblivious to my discomfort, Arcoro continued, “You see, they already had successes with breeding new kinds of livestock. So they began crossing amphibians with aquatic animals, before they moved on to crossing that with their own DNA. Creating—”
“Sirens,” I finished his sentence.
He inclined his head. “You’re sharp.”
Sweat drenched the nape of my neck, not because it was hot in here, but because of what I was learning.
“So some of your ancestors took to the stars, and created my race, Leanders over many generations,” I concluded. “And then, thousands of years later, my ancestors returned to what you call Sorintos and we Oceanus.”
“You have resettled Sorintos? Did the waters recede?” He furrowed his brows, “Ney, the water would have retreated in the caves.”
“Ninety nine percent of the planet is still encompassed in water, but we have learned to build cities.” I filled him in.
