Rian

Part 22

A gentle knock on the door caused Satomi and Will to turn from their seat at the window. Agnes enjoyed the sight of the youths staring out into the courtyard, the light from Rian's sun beaming in, as well as her warmth. Already it seemed a better day.

"Long time, no see." Will's tone dropped, a little vexed at the thought this was Agnes' first time showing up to check on him.

 "Agnes was here last night while you were being vaccinated." Satomi tried to mitigate the situation, but Will was far from bowing his head in shame, he remained stubborn. Behind Agnes, Cassia's tall form appeared and stifling a smile at the sight of Satomi she nodded her head in greeting.

"I know both of you have been through a lot, but if you're ready and willing I'd like you to join me for a tour." A soft question, one that could easily be ignored by either of them. Satomi and Will looked to each other. Satomi smirked, as if there was a hidden joke to being a human on an alien planet. "Yeah. Okay." Will agreed.

"You're in Rian's largest hospital. It's designed for the intake of off worlders and not just meant for your health care, but introduction into Rian. Both of you have been cleared and can freely explore about Rian if you choose."A soft colored hallway with width enough to fit a house embraced Will and Satomi. Both Satomi and Will changed their clothing into shirts and pants provided by Cassia. They fit perfectly and added a layer of insulation to chase off the cold of the hospital.

Cassia also offered Will a new wheelchair, this one made of what appeared to be wood, but what Agnes said was a timber-metal hybrid. Like having an entire nervous system the wheelchair was delicately rendered with acutely sensitive synapses beneath the mahogany surface that felt Will's every intention. Not just movement, but temperature (if Will were too hot the chair cooled, if too cold it warmed), emotional state, discomfort, the chair molded to whatever Will needed at that time.

Will sniffed the air.

"Why does it smell like roses?" He asked and was surprised when Cassia answered in English. "The timber used often shares a symbiotic relationship with roses, the oils left behind stay with the chair." Cassia's voice strained into a monotone answer as she tried to recall how to speak the human's tongue. There were other secrets as well, but Agnes left them for Will to discover. "Instead of a smart phone I get a smart chair." Will grinned at the idea. From his chair Will looked around the hallway at the impressive wing of the hospital and more notably its lack of traffic. Sure there were nurses and their understudies who busied themselves from one place to the next, but for a hospital of this size Will expected more.

"Is this place always so bare?" He asked, just as the answer dawned on him.

"We don't get as many visitors as we used to." Cassia answered. Glancing down at the hallway again Will tried to imagine what it would look like if Rian weren't facing certain destruction.

"We do want your time on Rian to be..."

"Fun?" Satomi offered to Agnes. "We'll say engaging and to do that we encourage you to explore." Turning into an open room Satomi found her head tilting back until she could no more, until she became dizzy. A curved ceiling exactly like a dome in an IMAX theater, except this place could seat thousands of people and it involved two floors with the one Satomi stood on being the main floor. Above her a surrounding balcony empty of anyone but plush seats and before her a long table stretching from close to the entrance to a pull down screen at the opposite end.

"I have a little presentation for you both." Agnes said when they reached the end of the table where a projector waited, its lightbulb off and cooled.

"It that..." Satomi began and then let out a laugh at the sight of a light box with it squiggly metal arm reaching up to capture whatever image was laid on the box.

"I haven't seen on of those since first grade." Exclaimed Will, who reached out to switch on and off the button his elementary school teacher once showed him how to do. Still giggling Satomi uncovered her mouth only to decide she wasn't done laughing.

"What's so funny?" Cassia asked.

"These devices are obsolete on Earth...by several decades." Agnes answered. Cassia thought about this and let out a 'haha' of her own.

"Right now you're at Rian's largest hospital."

Agnes began, her teacher instincts taking over and showing her students it's time to move on. Placing an image on the projector an enlarged map of Rian with names of countries and continents, capitols and land masses in English showed on the screen.

"You're currently in Lisso. That's Rian's shared capitol on the continent of Aki'mo, in the country of Atrox. We have nine continents with over four hundred countries." The land forms surrounded by blue waters each held their own individual shape. Aki'mo's west coast connected with Dutmir and below it Krom with its Southern Mega Jungles. Far into the Callithrix Ocean was the equally verdant continent of Ashta held together by its own rainforest complete with nearly over one billion species of mammal, reptile, bird, fish, and insect. Often referred to as the 'Jewel of Rian' Ashta rested in the expansive Bay of Indri with Dutmir and Krom as its long lost neighbors. Dipping under Krom's southern coast gave way to the immaculate Southern Vokinne Ocean which birthed thousands of islands and an equal amount of watery pathways only natives truly knew how to voyage.

Entering the often green Graella Ocean were two more landmasses, Omot who held the famed Dule Desert where long ago Cassia's people held off an alien invasion for over ten years with nothing but a hundred or so Hirotians and finally the continent of Vinla. Once the old continent of Rian, what was their Pangea known as Bombus, separated Omot and Vinla were born making the Dule Desert part and form its brother the Hirot Desert of Vinla. Hirot expanded from Vinla into Loor where the Blue Harvest Mountains were found as well as the Annex Jungle. One of the many Wonders of Rian the Annex Jungle existed where something lush shouldn't. According to mythology when the land was more human than not Omot and Loor held a torrid past filled to the peaks with equal amounts of warfare and passion. The relationship, which greatly disturbed the rest of Rian, ended when the Graella flooded the land and permanently broke the contention. For Omot and Loor they would become 'The Kissing Continents' as their northern coastlines are close, but not touching. However, thousands of miles below Graella the seafloor gives way to a still smooth connection between Omot and Loor and as for the Annex Jungle, the mystery jungle, it's widely regarded as the child of Omot and Loor and now protected by Loor's Blue Harvest Mountains and the Hirot Desert. A sanctuary locked deep in the home of nothingness.

Above Loor's jagged northern tip is the Paco Ocean and on the other side the ninth and final continent of Rian, Yaiml, which stretches to cover most of what would be Rian's North Pole. Unlike Earth's North Pole, Yaiml carried little snow and more forest and hills with a small patch of jungle along its southern coast.

For Will he was close to asking about Loor and its jigsaw northern coast and perhaps Agnes sensing the question turned to other matters.

 "While each country may differ slightly, overall we are a meritocracy. Our leadership and the ones elected to govern them are all selected based on merit. Their education, ability to lead, humility, acts to better humanity these are all taken into consideration." Removing the image Agnes placed another one down, this one showing the evolution of man, that is a man of Earth from Australopithecus robustus to Homo sapiens, but after Homo sapiens another near identical figure took its place; Homo unitatis.

"We evolved from you." Agnes smiled to Satomi and Will.

"Both of you are my ancestors. Humans have existed on Earth for some two hundred thousand years, while we've been on Rian for about five thousand years. Our history is short, but just as dramatic." The image was removed and replaced with one after another while Agnes narrated.

"War, famine, genocide." The images were in color and all too familiar to anyone who'd studied World War II, Mao Zedong, or King Leopold II. Lifeless bodies everywhere, motherless children, and barren lands for miles.

"We've done the unspeakable to each other, but the key difference is we evolved beyond it."