For people who spent a life with lanterns, the electric lights were fascinating. Red, blue, green, and mixtures of every color traveled upward until the sky was radiant with them.
They leaned forward in their plush seats to see it all. As they got closer, the lights grew brighter.
“What are those?” Aradella asked.
Against the skyline were buildings many stories high. But they weren’t just taller versions of the houses they were used to. These seemed to be separate boxes placed on top of each other.
As they flew closer, they could see them more clearly. The buildings were like a children’s game of stacked blocks. Some were long, some short, some tall. They jutted out or were recessed. Some were flat in front and some were three sided. Some of the cubes had dark glass in front, some had solid walls. Size greatly varied.
Besides size, they varied in luxury. A huge building that fairly sparkled with exquisite details would be next to four plain housesstacked on top of each other. Nowhere was actual poverty, but there seemed to be a great variation in wealth.
Especially striking was that each cube was a different color. The buildings were unusual and together, they were beautiful!
The Spacer slowly circled a building. Wide-eyed, they looked at it. The glass was such that they couldn’t see inside the cubes.
“They are houses stacked on top of each other, right?” Aradella asked.
“I guess so,” Mekos said.
When they reached the far side of the building, they saw a person standing on a balcony. They couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. The person strained so hard to see them inside the Spacer, that they ducked down to the seats.
“Time to put on the mask,” Mekos said.
She removed the mask from the bag, put it on and she changed to look like the person they’d seen on the balcony. Then she looked at Mekos and concentrated until he looked just like her.
“This is very strange,” she said.
Ian raised an eyebrow. “Now both of you are equally unappealing to men and women no matter what planet they may be from. Good choice.”
“Thank you,” she said.
When the Spacer circled another building, they saw three people on balconies.
“They look exactly alike,” Ian said. “I can’t tell one from another.”
Mekos and Aradella looked at each other. “And we look just like them,” she said.
“I’m beginning to understand why Qip had us do this,” Mekos said.
As the Spacer moved ahead, the buildings were closer together. They saw more people, and all of whom looked exactly alike.
“I think we’re headed into the center of town,” Mekos said.
The lights grew brighter, with more intense colors. On top of the buildings were huge round machines that sent colored lights into the sky.
“Look at that!” Ian said.
The lights showed shapes against the clouds. At first they were animals they recognized, but as the buildings grew more dense, the shapes changed to faces. They didn’t know any of the people that were projected.
When they flew around an enormous stack of cubes, what they saw so startled them that they fell back against their seats.
A screen the size of three houses came into view. There was an older man’s face on it, and he had a circle of leaves about his head. In brilliantly bright lettering, it said,Strategize a war with Julius Caesar.
“Those are laurel leaves but who is that person?” Aradella asked.
“And what does that mean?” Mekos asked. “Are they planning a war?”
“And asking for help to fight it?” Ian asked.
