Chapter 6 Mu Star

　　—Myth may not be idle fancy, but a fragment of lost history.

　　Upon encountering an extraterrestrial upon this alien world, Wang Yue did not share the excitement of Zheng Ya and Su Ziqi. Instead she stood apart, quietly observing the stranger.

　　His attire closely resembled that of primitive tribal peoples of Earth’s Africa; clearly the inhabitants of this planet still lingered in an undeveloped stage of civilization.

　　Yet what puzzled her was that, upon witnessing the descent of a spacecraft far beyond the comprehension of his people, the stranger displayed neither panic nor unease. He regarded the event as ordinary and conducted himself with easy composure—behavior Wang Yue found profoundly contrary to reason.

　　At that moment the linguist Su Ziqi suddenly spoke, uttering words incomprehensible to the others. The stranger, however, registered both astonishment and delight; his eyes fixed intently upon Su Ziqi, making her distinctly uncomfortable.

　　She hastily brushed her face, thinking dust might have settled upon it.

　　The company pressed her for an explanation.

　　Startled from her thoughts, Su Ziqi answered somewhat stammeringly: “He… he speaks a very ancient tongue. Certain of its sounds resemble the language of the ancient Sumerian civilization, others the ancient Maya and Egyptian.

　　“Grammatically it is closer to Sumerian; I can grasp only the general sense. Just now he introduced himself. In phonetic rendering his name is Gongkong.”

　　Each of them wore an automatic translation device no larger than a soybean, fitted neatly into the ear canal.

　　Huamei instructed them to activate the devices, then wirelessly transmitted the data on ancient human languages stored in her system. Thereafter the native’s speech would be rendered automatically into Chinese.

　　Upon an unknown planet, to encounter an extraterrestrial speaking a language akin to Earth’s most ancient tongues left everyone astonished.

　　With Huamei’s assistance they could now roughly understand the stranger, yet only Su Ziqi and Huamei possessed the capacity for direct conversation, both being able to learn and adapt to a language with remarkable speed.

　　Su Ziqi cautiously addressed the native in his own tongue, carefully varying vocabulary drawn from Earth’s ancient languages while watching his reactions: “What place is this?”

　　“This is the continent of Mu; this planet is Mu Star,” the native answered promptly and clearly.

　　Astonishment swept the group. Legends of the continent of Mu had long existed, claiming that tens of thousands of years ago a mysterious land of that name had lain in Earth’s Pacific Ocean. Yet here an indigenous inhabitant of an unknown world called this very landmass the continent of Mu.

　　Suppressing her surprise, Su Ziqi noted that the native understood the concept of a planet and continued in his language: “We come from a planet called Earth. Do you know of Earth?”

　　“Earth? I have never heard of it,” he replied.

　　Seeing the puzzlement in their eyes, he pointed toward the sky and began to explain.

　　Though it was still daylight and no stars were visible, the native’s eyes, bright as shattered diamonds, seemed capable of perceiving them. He indicated a region of the heavens: “Beside our Mu Star lie two other habitable worlds. One is called Ice Star. At night it shines especially bright; almost entirely covered in ice and snow, yet a few uncovered regions remain livable.”

　　He pointed to another quarter: “There lies Fire Star. Nearly covered in desert, though certain oases permit habitation. From which of these stars have you come?”

　　Fire Star? The company fell into logical confusion and began discussing among themselves: “Can it be that we are still within the solar system? How could any planet besides Earth be habitable?”

　　“Impossible. The ‘Fire Star’ he mentions may share only the name, not identity with the Mars of our solar system.”

　　“This native is surely deceiving us. How can he see stars in broad daylight? His words cannot be trusted.”

　　Wang Yue remained the most clearheaded: “Quiet, everyone. Ziqi, show him a chart of our solar system.”

　　Su Ziqi summoned a threedimensional image of the solar system upon her wrist screen.

　　The native regarded it with open envy, studied it briefly, then shook his head: “This is not the chart of our system. Ours contains twelve celestial bodies.”

　　Fresh astonishment followed. First, despite his tribal appearance, his astronomical knowledge proved unexpectedly rich—a striking contrast. Second, the twelve bodies he mentioned matched exactly the number depicted upon the star chart on the Martian cave wall.

　　Su Ziqi therefore displayed the Martian mural’s star chart. After examining it he declared: “This is our system. Here is the Sun; next in order are Mercury, Venus, Mu Star, Ice Star, and Fire Star.”

　　The revelation left them stunned beyond measure—especially Dong Yifeng, for whom events had already far exceeded the bounds of comprehension. He could only curse under his breath: “What the hell is going on? Have we entered a parallel universe?”

　　“Ladies, how is this possible? Between Venus and Mars in our solar system lies only Earth, yet this native calls his system the solar system and claims two planets—Mu Star and Ice Star—lie between Venus and Mars. Preposterous! I refuse to believe a word of his nonsense.”

　　Zheng Ya, however, did not dismiss the native entirely: “Between Venus and Earth exists a belt of meteorites; some astronomers have long speculated that a planet may once have occupied that region.

　　“According to Mayan tradition the Maya came from the star of Tzolkin. Their Tzolkin calendar counts 260 days in a year. Calculations suggest that if such a Tzolkin star truly existed, its position would have lain between Venus and Earth.”

　　“Sister Ya, are you suggesting that the Mu Star of which this native speaks is the Tzolkin star of Mayan legend, and that his Ice Star is our Earth?”

　　“Ziqi, the Tzolkin star remains only legend. One fact, however, is certain: the world we now stand upon is not Earth.”

　　The native, unable to follow their discussion, continued: “The celestial gods we serve long ago foretold the arrival of the humanclan gods. We respectfully invite you humanclan gods to visit our tribal settlement as honored guests.”

　　“How far is your tribal settlement from here?” Su Ziqi asked.

　　“Not far. On foot it would require several days, yet we may ride camelhorses and arrive before the sun sets today,” he answered.

　　“Camelhorses?” Su Ziqi inquired in puzzlement.

　　The native whistled. From the forest edge a white animal that resembled a horse yet was not a horse came running. It possessed a camel’s head; the rest of its body was that of a horse, though taller and more imposing than any terrestrial mount.

　　“This is a camelhorse? Why only one?”

　　“This is my steed. This morning companions and I were patrolling the forest edge on camelhorses when we looked up and beheld the conveyance of you celestial gods—a great bird trailing smoke. We tracked it here.”

　　“And your companions?”

　　“They have returned to the clan to report the arrival of honored guests to the great chieftain.”

　　“How did you know we would certainly visit your clan? And there is only one camelhorse.”

　　“The celestial gods we serve once told us that in the age of the end of the Dharma the humanclan gods would descend from the heavens, come to our clan, and deliver us from calamity. I believe you are those humanclan gods.”

　　Seeing the continuing puzzlement upon their faces, the native added: “The matter of mounts is easily settled. The eastern pass of our clan is not far. We shall go there first to borrow several camelhorses, then proceed to the central city of the clan—Wangqiu City.”

　　Judging by the sun’s position, it was not yet noon; time remained ample.

　　After brief consultation the group decided that, since the ship’s engines were still unrepaired, a short visit by flying craft to the alien settlement could be completed within an afternoon. They therefore resolved to go.

　　“There is no need to borrow camelhorses; we have our own conveyance,” Su Ziqi told the native.

　　Huamei returned to the Kuafu, briefly apprising Yang Zhiyuan and the others of the situation.

　　Upon learning that they had encountered an extraterrestrial with whom communication was possible, Yang and Zhou leapt with excitement.

　　Professor Bao Mingkai, still lying in bed, grew equally agitated and insisted upon rising to join the expedition.

　　Huamei managed only with difficulty to restrain him, urging him to recover first and promising that video of the visit would be transmitted in real time to those remaining aboard.

　　Yang cautioned Huamei to exercise the utmost care upon the journey and to safeguard the scientific party.

　　After taking leave of Yang and the others, Huamei brought a small flying craft out of the ship and drew up before Su Ziqi and her companions.

　　The native watched with open envy as they boarded. He then retrieved his long spear from the grass, mounted his camelhorse, and set off toward the forest; Huamei followed in the flying craft.

　　Little did they know that, by pure chance, they had traversed time into an unknown planet of the ancient solar system. The butterfly effect thus set in motion was as a pebble cast into a still lake whose ripples swelled into a tsunami of the tenth magnitude—altering not only the course of each of their lives, but transforming the civilization of this planet and of the entire solar system.

　　This would become a magnificent chapter of prehistoric history. Upon this world the ancient human clans enacted countless stories of profound emotion, destined to be handed down by later generations as myth and legend.