In the Empty World

Location: Baiconal

The youngling flew through the Etherless realm as long as his energy allowed. His goal was the very faint signal, which he perceived ahead.

It was his chance to survive in this world, entirely empty of all sentient and animal life. Only plants and forests grew here, filling the new world with oxygen and preparing it for new life to come.

The signal was the work of the humans. He knew that human researchers from a nearby civilization friendly to the Guardians were studying these worlds and their development. To keep an eye on the changes, they often left observing and recording devices.

The youngling knew very little of the humans or their devices. But he had no strength left to return to the ethsar streams. His only chance to get home now was to reach that device and somehow attract human attention.

Forced to transform not quite reaching his goal, he took on the only slowed form he knew - the form his caretaker gave him when they stopped by the human research station in Baiconal on the way here. His caretaker knew those humans and decided to introduce the youngling to them. To clearly show his age, he gave him the form of a human child.

It was the first time that the little Guardian ever met humans face to face.

His form was not well suited to travelling across the great distance that yet remained to reach the signal. The youngling had to travel for many days before he finally arrived to a long, tubular shaped device embedded into the ground of a clearance.

Upon careful study, he determined it to be a transmitter of local temperature and condensation. It was simple and did not allow for much modification. He was also not certain whether the information it transmitted was sent somewhere for immediate review, or merely stored in yet another automated device for later review. If the second was true, he could be trapped in this world for a long time.

There was a limit to how long he could survive here, without sufficient ethersar energy to sustain him. Even dormant, his core still needed energy, and in his short life-span he had not stored enough to last him long. He really did not have a choice, however.

The youngling looked around himself. As far as he could see there were the undisturbed woods, a homogeneous terrain, where not even animals had yet begun to multiply.

He did not waste more time. He reached toward the device and began to change the frequencies, to create a pattern that he hoped someone somewhere would recognize as an artificial construct and then come to investigate.

Every half hour, the youngling turned his attention to the device and began the pattern of sequences again. He almost did not notice when the venomous spiders caught up with him and attacked him.

There were too many. The youngling was forced to flee from them toward a cliff close by. He climbed as far as he could and then with the last effort commanded the reef below the rock to move.

The rock below the protrusion crumbled and fell away, burying a few of the creatures in rubble. A glass like surface separated him from the vicious creatures, who crawled on top of each other trying to get to him.

The youngling observed the creatures. They did not possess much intelligence, because they continued to crawl on top of each other directly beneath him, trying to get to him, instead of crawling around the break. That observation did not offer much relief, however. His slowed form had been severely wounded and his consciousness began to falter. By the time the humans came to check on their device, if they came at all, he was likely to be dead. And this far away, they might not even find him. His elder had sacrificed himself for nothing.

Silently, the youngling watched the spiders, trying to stay awake as long as he could.