Transient Echoes by JN Chaney

Author:JN Chaney [Chaney, JN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2016-03-27T23:00:00+00:00

End Audio File

Unknown

October 21, 2350

Terry raised his head from the river, taking a deep breath of the fresh Variant air. The suns drifted high above him, and the midday heat blazed against the cool, rapid water as it collided gently with his cheeks. He took a deep breath and sighed, not to indicate his frustration or boredom but rather his content. He could not imagine himself in any better place. Not on this planet anyway.

It had been six months since Terry found the farm and the family who lived there. Since then, he’d moved into the cliffs beyond the valley and made a home for himself near the place where the river met the sea. With Ludo’s help, he’d built a small house into the side of the rock-face, using the flattened stones as the back wall and crafting the rest from the bark of over a dozen trees. As it turned out, Ludo was a man of many talents, including farming, hunting, cooking, and carpentry. He offered these skills freely to Terry, asking nothing in return. The man was the kindest person Terry had ever met, with John perhaps being the rare exception. Someone who gave his devotion freely without reservation. A true friend.

In their eagerness, both Terry and Ludo had made learning the other’s language a priority. Much to his disappointment, Terry quickly discovered he had no talent for linguistics, so his progress was slow and clumsy. He’d managed to learn a great deal, however, fumbling through sentences and conversations, determined to improve. By contrast, Ludo went from knowing nothing of English to speaking with some impressive adequacy. Terry only had to tell him a word once or twice for Ludo to memorize it. Within the first week, he had already mastered basic phrases and most of the common nouns. By the second month, he spoke with the fluency of a small child, knowing many of the words while struggling with proper grammar. After six months, he’d mastered the bulk of the language in the time it took Terry to ask where the bathroom was.

Still, Terry had looked forward to learning how to speak to Ludo and his family in their native language, so he forced himself to work on it and adapt. He’d need the skill if he were to ever encounter more people like this quaint little family, and he imagined he would, given what Ludo had told him. “The world is big,” Ludo explained, motioning to the space around him. “Many people live here. You’ll see soon. I’ll show you.”

It was through these conversations that Terry learned a great many things. For starters, the name of the planet was Kant, while the region—or country, depending on how Ludo chose to talk about it—was called Greenwater. Kant rarely came up in conversation, except when Ludo needed to compare Greenwater to something bigger. “Not many live in Greenwater, but it borders Xel and Everlasting.”

“Xel and Everlasting?” asked Terry.

“Other countries. Xel is smaller. Everlasting is much bigger.” Ludo scratched his ear.

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