Lona {#lona}

Everybody saw it. It came to the surface of Teraphim Lake, at 1700:35, 11/20/2044 Earth Time. Everybody said it was a gorgeous creature. Nobody could describe it. In fact, the attempts to describe it failed because there was no match between the descriptions. Electronics did not register anything. But it was real, and everybody in the crew saw it.

They named it Lona. They named HER Lona. She came out to the surface silently. Her translucent body hovered right above the dark purple surface of Teraphim Lake. A bluish glow was emanating around her. Lona came close to the shore and produced a sound that made everybody freeze in awe and admiration. To some it was the sound of a fairy, to others it reminded a lullaby sung by a mother. Others heard beautiful music.

She stayed on the surface for quite a while. They tried to establish communication. They presented various languages, images. They played classical music to her. They could tell she watched and listened. And occasionally she made her sound.

And then she was gone. She slowly disappeared under the dark purple surface and that was it.
They waited and waited. They sent underwater drones. But the lake waters cut out all signals and destroyed electronics. No drones came back. No video was transmitted. That's when they decided to send someone from the crew down there. There was a single person craft, mechanically controlled. The craft was equipped with pedals, a wheel and a number of manual controls for submerging under water. They rolled dice. Tim was chosen for the mission.

It was a usual gloomy morning on Borra. The two suns dimly showed on the horizon behind the brown dunes. Tim finished shaving in front of a small mirror attached to his headboard. He wiped his face, consumed a nutrition bar and came to the common room. Everybody was already there waiting for him. Tim listened to a few parting wishes and put on his space suit. The craft was already placed on the shore of the lake. Tim got inside the craft, secured the latches, made sure the oxygen was at an appropriate level and removed the space suit. "All good" he signed to the crew. The crew slowly pushed the craft off the shore until it floated in the thick purple waters of the Teraphim Lake. Tim pedaled the vehicle to the middle of the lake (it was hardly hundred meters in diameter) and started the descent.

The purple darkness filled the space around him. For a while it was still possible to see the dim light of the surface but soon purple became black. The headlamps working from the pedaling generator didn't help at all, so thick and dark were the waters of the Teraphim Lake.

Tim stopped pedaling. Silence. The silence was as thick and dark as the substance around him. Tim thought of turning the cabin lights off. This thought scared him. He was hovering there, in the blackness of an alien lake on an alien planet. Alone. But somewhere, not too far, there was this amazing creature, Lona. And Tim was set to establish a communication with her, to learn as much as he could about her.

Two hours passed. Nothing. Every minute brought more and more anxiety, loneliness and desperation. Tim tried talking to himself, singing, pedaling in various directions. Nothing helped. The bottomless pit of loneliness and fear inside didn’t leave him for a second.

Two more hours. 30% of oxygen left. Tim seriously considered aborting the mission and re-surfacing the vehicle. But then he heard the sound. Lona’s sound. At first Tim thought he was imagining it because the sound wasn’t coming from outside of the craft but from the inside! As the sound became clearer and louder, Tim noticed a bluish glow in front of him. He turned off the headlamps and the lights in the cabin. Everything was lit with the blue glow! The cabin, the craft and the waters surrounding the craft. Lona was there! She arrived!

Tim sat there, his heart pounding with excitement. Apparently the craft and even Tim himself wasn’t interfering with the creature from occupying the same space, it was like the creature lived in a parallel dimension.

“Hello!” Tim finally said, awkwardly. “I am here to establish communication with you, representing people from Earth”

He felt like an idiot saying meaningless words to somebody who was beyond words. But what else could he do? Tim stretched his hands in front of him, palms out. At first there was nothing. Then Tim felt a tingling sensation on the surface of his palms, like a small breeze touching the skin of his palms. He noticed how the bluish glow condensed around his palms, around him....

The beautiful sound stopped. Then Tim turned his palms toward his face, staring at them, studying them, moving fingers, one by one. These were Tim’s hands, Tim’s eyes looking at them, but it wasn’t Tim doing it! His hand rose and lay down on his face, exploring his lips, cheeks, nose. The hand covered his eye. Tim felt a sense of amusement. The other hand covered the other eye. Then both hands released the eyes. Then closed them again. Then his legs suddenly straightened, sending Tim upward into a low ceiling. Tim hit his head and moaned with pain. It was surprising, to experience pain. His hand put itself on the spot that was hurting.

“Ah”, “Oh”, “Blaaaaaah” Tim started making sounds. He was opening his mouth really wide, producing incomprehensible words, sometimes really loud, sometimes whispering. Then his mind started remembering. He remembered his crew sending him to today’s mission. The long months of living on Borra. The long months of flying in the spaceship. He remembered the Earth, NASA training, college, falling in love, playing soccer with the other kids, his mom holding him in her arms and looking at him, smiling, singing him a lullaby…

Tim looked around. Bluish glow. Beautiful sound in his ears. He raised his hand. He was back in control of his body, of his mind. Tim took a deep breath. A bluish cloud formed in front of his eyes. The cloud transformed into two palms facing Tim. Just palms. Tim raised his hands and connected them with the glowing palms.

First there was an increasing sense of lightness. Tim felt incredibly light, then weightless. And the glow. He was glowing! He was the glow! It was an incredible sensation, to be that glow. It was not the bluish glow that he saw as a human. Infinite variety of colors constantly merged with each other creating new colors. Tim realized that this colorful glow is the source of the beautiful sounds. And the sounds … oh these were not the sounds he heard as a human, even though he was so mesmerized by them. These were the sounds so rich in texture and variety, so colorful that it filled Tim with utmost joy.

Ecstatic, Tim rushed his translucent body up towards the surface. He was moving effortlessly through the dark purple waters and he knew that these waters are the infinite source of energy, these waters are what gives life and beauty to that creature that Tim now was.

He rose above the waters of the Teraphim Lake and saw his crew on the shore. Tim approached the shore. They stood there, looking at the beautiful creature, waiting in anticipation. Tim produced the sound. They stood there, smiling, listening in awe.

“He did it!” Betty said to Peter. “Tim did it!”
“You bet he did!” Peter agreed. “But I am worried, his oxygen is about to end. Where is he?”

Somehow Tim didn’t care about his human body anymore. He was in a state that couldn’t compare with having a human body. He was experiencing what no human can ever experience. He was the Glow Master, the Sound Magician. He was Lona herself!

“Oh! Here he is!” Betty exclaimed pointing towards the middle of the lake.

The top of the craft surfaced among the purple waters and started approaching the shore, passing by the glowing creature. It touched the ground and the crew pulled the craft to the shore. The latches opened and a man in a space suit got out of the craft.

“The communication was established successfully!” he reported with a big smile on his face. The crew members were coming up to him, hugging him, petting him on his shoulder.

“You did it, Tim!”
“Yes, I did it. We did!” the man replied and turned his head towards the glowing creature. Then he raised his hands, palms outwards.

The blue glow thickened and created a shape of two palms pointing towards the man in the space suit, an incredibly beautiful sound filled the space around the Teraphim Lake, echoing in the brown dunes of the planet Borra, echoing in the hearts of every crew member, filling them with love and happiness.