The Valleys — Jaak’s House
Jaak lay in his bed. He tossed and he turned. He stared at the ceiling. He stared at the wall. It was very late — long after midnight — yet no matter how hard he tried to fall asleep, he remained wide awake, his head full of thoughts, memories, and images.
Aoraki — Committee of Resource Allocation — just over one year ago…
Eliza pulled out from the underground car park beneath the Committee of Resource Allocation building, where she worked as personal assistant to the General Secretary of CoRA. She drove around the block to the back of Aoraki Junior High School, where she knew Jaak would be playing basketball with his friends while he waited for her to finish work. As she pulled up, she honked the horn a couple of times to attract Jaak’s attention. He gave her a wave and was soon gathering his bag and saying goodbye to his friends.
Jaak: See ya tomorrow, Diets!
Dieter: Laters, Jaak!
Jaak: Hiya, Mum! Whoo! These new basketball boots are awesome! I beat Dieter three games to two!
Jaak paused and laughed.
…But then he does have this habit of stopping to chase his tail every few minutes!
Eliza: Hey, Jaakie! Glad to hear you had a good time. We need to stop by the mall canal on the way home — I need to pick up a few things, and you can get a haircut; you’re starting to look like a mop head!
Jaak: Awww, Muuuum! I don’t need one yet — I can still see… mostly.
Mother and son continued to exchange banter regarding the pros and cons of needing haircuts as they drove on through the busy evening rush. As they approached the central mall canal intersection, the light was already beginning to fade, and the misty fog that had been hanging around all day was beginning to thicken. A bus began to make its turn in front of them.
Eliza: Well, it’s too long, and I say you need a haircut…
Jaak: MUM!!!!
What happened next became one of those blurred, mixed-up kinds of memories — it was hard to know exactly what had happened when. All Jaak could remember was the sound of screeching tyres — the car sliding across the wet road and a sickening thump as the driver’s side of the car slammed hard into the right-hand side of the bus.
Aoraki City Hospital — several days later
The last few days had been a blur. Initially, Jaak stayed with Dieter’s family until his dad arrived. The bad weather had closed in over the mountains, delaying all flights from the valleys for three days.
Altai walked wearily down the corridor from the ICU. Jaak had gone to one of the vending machines for a snack while his dad was in yet another meeting with the doctors. Altai met Jaak and motioned him over. They walked to the waiting area outside the ICU and sat on one of the plastic bench seats — the kind that public buildings seem to have an overabundance of.
Jaak: What’d they say, Dad? Is she gonna be okay?
Altai was faced with one of the hardest and worst things a person ever has to do — tell a family member that another member of their family has died.
Altai: Well… as you know, Mum has a really bad injury to her head.
The doctors have said that her brain has died. The ventilator is only keeping the rest of her body functioning, but there is nothing more they can do. It’s time for us to let her go.
Aoraki – Church of Saint Felix
The church. The service. The flowers — white lilies. The people with well-meaning words. The cemetery.
Feelings of loss, pain, and guilt.
Eliza: Well, it’s too long, and I say you need a haircut…
Guilt.
Tenzing: Still wearin’ those city foosball boots, eh? Hasn’t anyone told you? Snow leopard feet are natural snowshoes!
Link.
Dieter: Arrrwoooof!! Jaak! Where you been?
Jaak: Aww, Dieter! I’m so glad to see you — anyone actually — you would not believe how backward they are up here! Yup, we have to crap in a can, and I just had to climb a freaking mountain to get some phone service!
The image flickered.
Dieter vanished.
No Service.
Lost.
Layan: I am Layan — you can call me — Layan.
—Did you manage to get any Tet-Net signal?
How about you try that signal on your phone again?
This one stone releases enough energy to power this entire station—
—This my boy, is a cyan stone.
They are mined exclusively right here in the valleys — nowhere else. In fact, you know those Tets up there in orbit?
Layan motioned with his paw toward the sky…
That’s how they’re powered…
Thwack!
A well aimed spit wad hit the back of his head.
Thar: Thee three! Oot!
Ounce: YOU’RE ROAD-KILL LITTER-BOY!!
Layan: What brings you up here again on this fine snowy day?
Jaak suddenly found himself again stumble-tumbling all of his pent up words out to Layan — like the sudden torrent of water and debris released from a breached beaver dam in the spring thaw.
Mum’s accident. Moving to the valleys. Leaving his friends behind. The difficulty of adjusting to life in the valleys. Feeling cut off from the modern world. Finding it hard to make new friends in the valley. The school bus. Thar. The spit-wad boys.
His dad.
Jaak: Layan? Could you help me to make a stone powered generator?
I wonder if my Dad will be ok about that…?
Layan: Oh, I think you should be safe with the donkey engine, it is not exactly new technology is it?
Layan: OK! Now let’s give ‘er some steam!
Jaak: Whoohooo! It’s working!
Altai: One rule! Don’t blow yourself up! …and don’t let Layan blow himself or anyone else up either!
Altai: I think I know where to go. Gazza’s Gas and Grease.
Skinny boy: Hullo.
Even though they had only just met, something about Tag — and his shared interest in mechanical things — immediately clicked.
Jaak liked him.
Altai: …hmm, I wonder if we could hook you up to the alternator — we could use a giant hamster wheel!
Tag: Aww! I’m no rodent!
Everyone laughed — especially Jaak. He realised he was happier than he had been since coming to the valleys. He now had a friend in the valleys similar to his own age — albeit a very excitable and bouncy one.
Hanne: Wait — what — Jaak? Jaak — full name Pukajaak, formerly of Aoraki, but now the famous resident steampunk engineer of the snow leopard Valleys — and friend of Dieter?
Jaak: Wa… What? B-but how do you know who I am?
Hanne: I am Dieter’s older sister! He talks about you — all-the-time!
Jaak: Layan? …do you really think I could be a space engineer?
Layan: And why not?
Your dad was one —— as I still am.
Jaak: But… but that can’t be right — my Dad’s a mining engineer — he always has been!
…And how can you be a space engineer?
Layan: Yes — he was a space engineer. A very good one.
He worked with me on the original development team that designed and built the Tets.
I discovered how to harness the properties of the cyan stones. I designed the reactors that power each Tet.
I am the Chief Designer.
Your Dad’s story is longer—
Layan: Well? Do we have our numbers?
Altai: —potential anomaly—
I recommend that we re-run the program.
Layan: We run with the numbers we’ve got.
Altai: CHIEF! ENERGY SPIKE AT 75% – RECOMMEND EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN!
Layan: Your dad took it badly. He felt he was responsible.
The ultimate responsibility however was mine and mine alone. I made the decision to proceed.
I moved back to the valleys and set up the remote monitoring station—
It was not without controversy. There were heated debates at the gatherings — your dad among the most vocal opponents.
What I really think?
He just wanted to forget.
Altai: Some people say the beavers are a pest—
They have been here long before the snow leopards ever came to the valleys, and they have just as much right to be here as anyone.
They, PJ — are part of the valleys, part of the culture.
Jaak: Just like some people live in the city, and some live here in the valleys.
Layan told me you were a space engineer. He told me you worked for him at CaSA.
He told me about the explosion.
Altai: PJ, I’m sorry about your mum. I’m sorry we didn’t make it work.
And most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t make more effort to see you as you were growing up.
Dad-101?
I sucked at it.
Jaak rather forgot to mention to his dad that his friend was Dieter — and that his friend was a hunde.
Jaak: Come on Dieter — meet my dad.
Dieter leapt up and began enthusiastically sniffing Altai all over — finally giving him one long, lolling lick up the side of his face.
Managing to hold his composure—
—Altai simply stood, nodded, and gave his face a surreptitious wipe.
Tag: You promise he won’t eat me?
Dieter: Tag! You’re it!
Tag: Hey Dieter — I’m here. I’m sorry you got stuck.
Hanne: Aroohrumph! You boys are all the same — can’t keep your whiz-sticks zipped for longer than five minutes!
Layan: There was one tube in particular that I found as a boy and it led into a small cave deep underground. That is where I found my first cyan stone—
—only someone very small and skinny — well like you actually — could ever get in there.
Tag: If I found it — I bet I could get in there — I can get into places where no one else can!
Jaak: I wonder if we could get in there — it’s a pretty small opening…
Jaak shone his torch around the small cave and back toward the opening where they had come through — and there it was, scratched in white chalk on the rock wall:
LAYAN WAS HERE — AGE 12 ¾
Cyan stones. Not just one or two. Not even hundreds. All around the cavern there were thousands upon thousands of stones, smooth and round, big ones, small ones, along with sharp formations of blue crystals.
Jaak: Bugs. Big bugs.
Layan: Three? You found… …three!? …how…? …where? That’s… that is, unheard of —that’s incredible!
—if you find a stone outside of the established mines, then the rules state that you are allowed to keep it.
Dieter: Are they magic?
Layan: Magic? Hmm. Well, they certainly are mysterious.
Or were they created and left behind — and if so why and by whom?
Several moments passed. It was as if Ounce was internalising a really complicated situation in his head. He screwed up his face and his whiskers twitched. Part of him badly wanted to teach the squirt a lesson, but another stronger part wanted to recoil from him.
Tag: Did yours jump and get warm?
Jaak: Yup.
The stones in their pockets suddenly felt incredibly light, even to the point of being weightless. The weightlessness spread outward — first to Jaak and Tag, who rose slightly from their seats — and then to the bus itself.
Time seemed to slow. The trajectory of the bus through the air slowed.
The bus began to spin very slowly in the air. It did not dive directly downwards, but continued to spin slowly in a graceful arc out over the gully below. The bus then gradually lost height and gently flumped into a deep drift of snow coming to rest almost at the bottom of the hill.
Jaak: The thing is…
…that when the bus left the road, both Tag and I agree that our stones definitely did something. They felt lighter — that made us feel lighter — and we think it made the bus lighter too, just long enough for it to spin around and land again without anything bad happening.
Tag: I dunno why I stuck my elbow out — I just did it. It was like, at that moment, I just felt really strong — but without needing to actually do anything more.
Just like Layan a few weeks earlier, Grandpa did not simply reach out and pick up the stones without asking. Jaak and Tag nodded. He carefully took the two stones, one in each paw, weighing them thoughtfully. Then, with a slight movement of his wrists, the stones began to rise and fall in graceful circular arcs, as if he were juggling them — but now without actually touching them. He kept this up for a minute or so, moving his paws in different ways and in a range of patterns.
Grandpa Snow: The valley snow leopards have known about the stones found and mined here in the valleys for many generations—
Your stones are indeed very interesting. Stones often behave differently for each person holding them.
Those truly versed in stone-lore are few and far between, and much of the old knowledge has been lost. I do not profess to be an expert. There are, however, stories that have been passed down through the generations—
There was one story in particular—
Whispers and rumours swirled for years that they had found a large cavern, one that was full of glowing cyan stones and surrounded by bright blue crystals.
So where exactly did you find these stones?
Tag: The blue cavern. It’s real. We’ve been there. That’s where we found the stones.
Grandpa Snow: Shells you say? Bug shells?
Holy excretumus! The stories must be true!
Corpus bugaarium.
The old legend tells the story that many generations ago, an ancient race of nomadic intergalactic bug-like creatures once colonised and roamed the valleys here on Cyanos.
They came out at night, swarming from every crack and fissure, devouring all the living vegetation they could find — trees, plants, crops, everything. Eventually, they had eaten so much that the surrounding forests and land were stripped bare. Having exhausted all the available vegetative resources on this planet, they were forced to leave and find another suitable planet to continue feeding their voracious appetites.
Jaak: Eggs. They might be fossilised bug eggs.
Altai: It is possible that once the Bugaari left and their last clutch of eggs were left untended, they were changed over a long period of time by the planet’s core energy. Over time, the eggs may have absorbed enough of this energy to become petrified into stones, also retaining that concentrated energy within them.
My advice is to keep the stones secret—
CRACK!
Deep within Big John’s Mine, and without any warning, an overhead timber support beam in one of the mine’s tunnels gave an almighty crack and started to bow under the weight of the rock ceiling.
Tag: Um… Altai? I can get in. I know how to get into the back of the mine.
Altai: So this cave and entrance you found on the old lava field next to the river — do you think you could find it again?
As before, just like the first time, there was nothing for Jaak to do but wait.
And again look at the huge exoskeleton corpus bugaarium shells — and wonder, and gaze at the soft blue glow of the myriad cyan stones.
Jaak had been waiting patiently for Tag to return for the second time after sending him back with the food and water. He had drifted off into a pleasant daydream, mesmerised by the soft blue glow of the cyan stones surrounding him. Words began to form in his mind.
Surrounded by the light of cyan,
Three tri-harmonic rhythms combine.
A pulse that beats — power drawn from deep,
the ordinary transformed,
into something new.
It drives away darkness,
danger and fear,
and floats lighter than air,
through space — through time.
All three together are strong;
apart, they are weak.
Unite all, and rest.
Stand firm,
against those who oppose.
For therein lies victory.
Both the stone in Jaak’s pocket and all those around him pulsed and glowed brightly.
Much, much later…
The sun was just beginning to peep over the valley ridges when, finally, Jaak drifted off to sleep.
The sun would soon find the chink in the curtains.
End of Part Two
Previous: Episode 29: The Rescue
Next: Episode 31: Barf Bags and Barks
Screw Pile Developments 
Wow! What a story – full of despair, recollection, remorse, discovery, hope and destiny – along with the journey of discovering new friends and adventures 🙂
Well done 🙂
The sun is always shining, even if it has gone behind a cloud. Thanks for stopping by! More adventures await!
Can’t help but wonder right now… I mean, I’m assuming the secret of the cyan stone cave is out now. That news must be kicking up quite a fuss.
Nope. Not yet. The only people that know about it right now are Jaak, Tag, Dieter, Layan and Grandpa Snow. The boys didn’t mention going through the cavern when they were re-supplying the miners until they were rescued. At present Jaak and Tag are the only ones small enough to get through the tight squeezes to get in.
Oh! Well, that must have taken quite a bit of whispering to keep all that on the down-low.
Seems our boys are pretty good secret keepers.