When we were walking along that deserted hallway it was obvious that there was another Tereskàdian aboard the ship. Kykherhenha told me she was trying to engage the other whistling dragon in conversation, but she was not having much success. Whistling dragons, if they want to, can close their minds to other whistling dragons, but that is done only rarely. If this other whistling dragons did not want to be detected she must have had a good reason.

The lights in this hallway were dim, as if this ship was trying to conserve energy. Jhorhea was holding my paw, and Rheža was staying close to Rhalhea. Jhalhemha was in my pouch and she was sleeping. I could sense a slight fear emanating from Jhorhea, and I couldn’t blame her, because it felt as if we were walking in some eerie twilight world that consisted of a rather narrow corridor winding its way to only the Supreme One knew where.

I smell water, Rhalhea said, and it’s really close. She stopped in front of a door which hissed open. I stood beside her, and we were looking at a huge room, and in that room the swimming pool that Captain Lhuâdel had told us about. Except that I couldn’t really call it a swimming pool; it was more like a lake. It reminded me of the lake near the village on ‘Hănharys where I lived. I was thinking of the cabin on the other side of the lake, and I almost expected to see one here.

My thoughts were not on swimming at the moment, because I sensed another presence here. Someone was watching us from a safe distance, and he was a Tereskàdian. Kykherhenha told me the whistling dragon she had been trying to contact had finally opened her mind to her. You will never guess who it is, she said. When she saw my ears back and my tail flicking, she quickly said, Sin’hărha. As soon as she said that name, I told Rhalhea. We looked at each other and wondered what Tharhedhal was doing here.

The first time I saw Tharhedhal, he and his whistling dragon, Sin’hărha were the only survivors in a hovercar crash in which his guardians were killed. That was when the entire city of Treskebhar was being sabotaged. Tharhedhal had been one of the more than one hundred cubs that had traveled with me and Rhalhea from Tereskàdhar to Alharhan, but it was after he lost his guardians that I really began to know him. He stayed at the Dhoren home for just a short time, because Lheana felt she could not handle another Tereskàdian and whistling dragon. After he was adopted by a young, childless couple I lost track of him.

How old was he now? He was seven when he was involved in that accident; that was almost ten years ago. If he wasn’t seventeen yet, he soon would be. Kykherhenha asked me why I was concerned with his age when I should be wondering what he was doing on this ship. He wants to go to Tereskàdhar, I thought. He doesn’t belong on this ship, she sent, and I had to agree with her. Somehow, he managed not only aboard this huge mothership, but also aboard the vessel that brought us here.

I called his name, but no one answered. I said I knew he was in here, and why didn’t he come out? I had a feeling that sooner or later he would come out. He would have to; if he wanted to eat, he would have to show himself because there was no way he was going to find anything to eat up here.

The Tereskàdian who showed himself startled me because he did not look like the way I would have pictured Tharhedhal. This Tereskàdian was rather small for a sixteen-year-old, and remarkably skinny, and his fur looked like it hadn’t seen any oil from the oil gland in years. It looked like his fur had been torn from his body, tossed about by some strong wind and pasted back on his body. His tail was not carried in the usual along-the-back position; it was dragging on the ground. In his paw he was holding a dead t’hŏphar which smelled like it had been dead for days. Rhalhea took a few steps back, held her paws in front of her snout, covering her nose. I didn’t blame her; the t’hŏphar smelled so bad that my stomach started churning, and it took all my willpower to stop from vomiting.

Tharhedhal, I said, but he just stood there. It’s me, Thekherham, I continued, but there was no reaction from him. I wanted to find out what had happened to him, why his appearance was so shocking, but I couldn’t learn anything if he refused to even acknowledge me. I looked at Rhalhea, and she just twitched her whiskers. I knew she wouldn’t be much help, and I realized it would be up to me to bring Tharhedhal into the real world.

Sin’hărha isn’t telling me anything, Kykherhenha said. She keeps closing her mind to me when I ask her something.

When we were walking down the hallway to find this swimming pool, I had my mind set on swimming, but now that I saw Tharhedhal and Sin’hărha that was the furthest thing from my mind.

Pešhophashanhashen 12.489/Day 411

Yesterday we reached the halfway mark of the journey so this will be the final time that I am writing down the Alharhanian date. Below that I have marked down the Tereskàdian date, and that is the one I will be using from now on, or at least until we return to Alharhan, and the Alharhanian date will be used when we reach the halfway point between Tereskàdhar and Alharhan.

There are two calendars in our cabin, an Alharhanian one and a Tereskàdian one. I am looking at the Alharhanian calendar, and notice that it N’hŏŵrhachyzh 15th is the first day of autumn. I wonder what the weather is like right now. Autumn in Treskebhar can be as hot as the summer, or rather chilly, as if winter were trying to intrude a little too early.

Alharhan is beyond our reach now, so whatever I write about it is sheer speculation. We are looking forward to Tereskàdhar where the corresponding date is Sŵha’hănhashen 6th, in the year 489. When the ship arrives in the middle of next month, it will be summer, but summer on Tereskàdhar is a far cry from what the Alharhanians call summer on their planet. The summer on Tereskàdhar will merge into fall at the end of that month, which means that it will soon be cold enough for snow to fall. And I am certainly looking forward to spending a long time in a cold, snowy environment.

About an hour ago Jhorhea and I were standing on the bridge, out of the way of the crew, which was going about their daily routine, making sure that everything was running smoothly. When I watched them I didn’t think I would want to be in charge of a spaceship; I think there are too many responsibilities because you have to command an entire crew and you have to please the passengers.

Captain Lhuâdel was too busy to pay any attention to us. When Jhorhea requested a visit to the bridge, he said she could come here if she was accompanied by one of her parents, and she would have to stay out of the way. Two Tereskàdians and two whistling dragons were here, trying to make sense of all the personnel at their various stations, and all the flashing lights that seems to flash on and off for no apparent reason, at least no reason that a Tereskàdian could ascertain.

A short time later Jhorhea told me she had lost interest, that she wanted to go somewhere else. So I asked her if she wanted to look for a special swimming pool, and that made her open her eyes wide and prick up her ears. I didn’t think it was fair that only Jhorhea and I should search for it, so we went to our cabin to ask Rhalhea if she and Rheža and Jhalhemha wanted to come along.

The sheer size of the ship overwhelmed us. You would think that since we had Rhalhea and I had already journeyed on this ship when Jhorhea was in the pouches we would be used to it, but it felt as if we were walking from one end of Treskebhar to the other. Not only did we travel horizontally, but we also traveled vertically, as we entered one elevator or another, giving a number when that disembodied voice in the elevator requested which deck we wanted to go to.

When Captain Lhuâdel told us this swimming pool was seven decks up from the bridge, he wasn’t sure about it. As it turned out, it was nine decks up, a deck that we found strangely empty when the elevator door slid open. I sniffed the air, and there was no mistake about the water. It smelled natural, unlike the chemically treated water the Alharhanians like to call a swimming pool.

As we walked along the hallway I wondered where everyone was. Only Rhalhea and I, and the cubs, and our whistling dragons were in the hallway. But I had this feeling there was someone else here, someone familiar. I asked Kykherhenha if she had the same feeling, and she told me she was sensing a female whistling dragon not far ahead.

I stopped and looked at Rhalhea. There was no doubt that Keridhar had told her the same thing. This was rather puzzling, as I had thought we were the only Tereskàdians on this ship. But both of our whistling dragons could not be wrong. If there was another Tereskàdian here I certainly wanted to find out who it was and why he was on this ship.

N’hŏŵ. 15.99/Day 211
Tereskàdian Date: Pešhŏrhoŵhenhashen 24.489/Day 390

We are almost at the halfway mark of our journey. Sometimes I wish travel between Alharhan and Tereskàdhar didn’t take so long, but considering the distance involved, I guess we are lucky it doesn’t take a lot longer than three months. When Rhalhea and I went to school Sen Mharen told the students that many years ago it took months and months for ships just to cross the ocean.

We have a routine aboard the ship. The first one who seems to wake up is Jhalhemha. She spends her night in either my pouch or Rhalhea’s pouch, but very early in the morning she ventures out to take nourishment at one of our teats. When she is finished she goes back to sleep, curling up right where she is. My other two cubs tend to sleep in until well into the morning. Jhorhea says since she doesn’t have to go to school, there is no reason why she and Khedrhokhazh should get up early, and Rhalhea echoes her sister’s words.

Rhalhea and I went to the Game Room, and looked around. We turned down our hearing because it was really noisy in there. One of the staff came over and asked us if we were looking for a particular game, and I told him I wanted to play Pent’hăr. He took a quick look at the tables, and told me there were no seats available, but I knew he was lying. There were plenty of seats available. I could have complained to Captain Lhuâdel, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Instead, Rhalhea and I just walked over to one of the tables where two Alharhanian males were chatting. They looked up, saw me and Rhalhea standing behind the two empty chairs. We’d like to play, I said. They looked at each other, and then the big, burly one starts laughing so loud that I had to turn my hearing down even further. I can play, I said casually. The smaller one, who looked like he should eat a whole lot more, said Alharhanians didn’t play with Tereskàdians because of the whistling dragons. So that was it. The fear that our whistling dragons would tell us what kind of cards they have in their hands. What if we tell our whistling dragons to sit over there? I said, pointing to a far-off corner. They will sit away from you two so you won’t have to worry about them seeing your cards. I could see their mighty Alharhanian brains working as they pondered that one, and finally they agreed.

I should have guessed that when we sat down at the table that we would be in for a big loss. There was money involved which Rhalhea didn’t like too much. She agreed that we would not spend more than fifty L’hŏr, which the small Alharhanian didn’t like. He said we had to have at least five hundred L’hŏr on the table, but I told him we wouldn’t play with that much money. They thought about that, finally agreed to fifty L’hŏr; I think they agreed because there was no one else interested in their table, and playing with two Tereskàdians was better than playing with no one at all.

The game went our way very briefly; at one point, Rhalhea had accumulated one hundred and forty L’hŏr, and I had almost as much. But I think they were toying with us. I think they were professional players who let the opposition win at the beginning, making them think they had the upper hand, when in fact they were the ones controlling the game. It wasn’t long before Rhalhea’s and my winnings were dwindling quicker than summer days on Tereskàdhar. When I was about to put my last ten L’hŏr into the center Rhalhea placed her paw on mine and told me not to bother. Through our whistling dragons she said she had five really bad cards, and there was no chance of winning. I had a good hand, but even that wouldn’t be good enough against these Alharhanians. They had won the last dozen games, and I had a feeling they would have won every game had we remained at that table.

When Rhalhea and I left the table it was late. We found Jhorhea and Rheža back in our cabin, curled up in sleep. Jhalhemha was in Rhalhea’s pouch, but she was very much awake. The trouble with tweeners is that they tend to sleep at unusual hours. I have noticed that Jhalhemha has a tendency to be awake when Rhalhea and I want to sleep, and to sleep when we are awake.

Rhalhea drank from Keridhar and I drank from Kykherhenha, and we ate the raw meat that room service brought earlier in the evening. Rhalhea spent the rest of the evening reading, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I told her I was going to take a walk. The only problem was that I didn’t really know where I wanted to go. Are you bored? Kykherhenha asked, and she answered her own question when she said of course I was bored. She felt what I felt, of course, so if I was bored, she knew all about it.

You could walk the ship the entire three months it takes to travel to Tereskàdhar and you still won’t see everything. I was heading for the swimming pool, although I wasn’t really in the mood to go swimming. But it was a case of ‘since I am here’ so I decided that a little dip in the pool would not be such a bad idea. The only problem was the water. When Rhalhea and I and all the cubs traveled from Tereskàdhar to Alharhan I tried the pool but I didn’t like it all because of the stuff they put in the water. I hated it because the water wasn’t natural, and I vowed I would never come near water like that. But now…

Captain Lhuâdel said there was a pool on this ship so big that a dozen Tereskàdians and even their whistling dragons could use it at the same time, but I haven’t found it yet. Well, let’s just say I haven’t been looking for it yet. It’s supposed to be about seven decks up, which is quite a distance away. One of these days Rhalhea and I and the cubs will look for it, and when we find it, I will ask Captain Lhuâdel for a transfer to a cabin in that vicinity. I found out that passengers can do that. If there is another cabin available where they want to be relocated to, then the captain, or second in command, cannot refuse the request.

I am standing at the edge of the swimming pool, watching about a dozen Alharhanians enjoy a late night swim. I notice that they are all naked, which is understandable since it is rather warm in here. One of the Alharhanians gets out of the pool, wraps a towel around himself and asks me what I’m doing here. I told him I was thinking of swimming, but I didn’t like the way the water looked, and smelled. It doesn’t bother me, he said, and left. Well, of course it wouldn’t, I thought. You couldn’t smell a burning building if you were in the middle of it.

When I got back to the cabin Rhalhea was asleep. She was curled up on the bed, tail covering her face. Keridhar was on the floor at the foot of the bed, but he opened his eyes when Kykherhenha and I came in. I went over to the bed, and licked the top of Rhalhea’s head. I yawned, but I didn’t want to go to sleep. Every day since we boarded this ship we had been going to sleep much too early, and I kept thinking we were missing whatever nightlife these Alharhanians enjoyed. So I started today by staying up longer. I hoped Rhalhea would stay up with me, but apparently she wasn’t ready for it.

Tomorrow we are going to find that pool. And if there are cabins available nearby, we are moving there for the remainder of the journey.

N’hŏŵ. 11.99/Day 207

The voyage to Tereskàdhar continues. I am still using Alharhanian dates, so I guess we are not at the halfway point of the journey. I had thought the cubs would be asking if we are going to be there soon, but so far I have not heard anything. With so many activities available on this spaceship they have been kept busy so far.

I am looking at the date on the calendar in our cabin, and I realize that I have been keeping this journal for one year now. I could talk about time flying, but I won't. Let's just say that I hope to keep this journal going for a few more years.

I have collected the first fifty entries of my journal, and I have put them in book form, and the book is now available from the University of Treskebhar Press. I asked Sen Tyler to edit it for me, and he was happy to oblige. He told me that it was an easy job because he was impressed with my writing. I could see that he wasn't lying, but still… I was just putting my thoughts down, and recording the events that were happening to me and my family and the Alharhanians and Tereskàdians around me.

I have my autobiography with me, but I haven't done anything with it. I know it needs a lot of editing, but Rhalhea told me there was no hurry to get it done. Right now, I am glancing at the part where I kill Jhar Morněl, and Kykherhenha knows that the narrative is bothering me. She asks me why I keep coming back to that section, and I tell her I'm thinking of a way to rewrite it.

I wonder what it would be like for someone to be born on a ship like this. Someone like Jackson Markham Tyler? Kykherhenha asked. Of course she knew I was thinking of him. Sen Tyler had never been on a planet until the scoutcraft he was on had crashlanded on Tereskàdhar.

We have had dinner with Captain Lhuâdel last night. That brought back memories of the journey from Tereskàdhar to Alharhan that Rhalhea and I and over one hundred cubs took. I'm not going to write too much about this, because it would bring back memories of my mother's rape.

As I look at what I have written so far I realize I have written little bits and pieces. Kykherhenha says I'm bored, and I don't argue with her, because she is right. I am sitting in my cabin, and the only one here, besides Kykherhenha is Jhalhemha and Beshalhen. My youngest daughter is lying beside me, so I have positioned myself in such a way that my pouch is readily available to her. She is over a year old now, but she is still so small. The one thing that distinguishes her from a cub which is less than one year old is the fur. She is fully covered with auburn fur now, and the long, bushy tail has its black tip. She does not talk yet, but she sure purrs a lot.

Rhalhea and my other two cubs have gone to the theater on the twelfth deck. I think an acting troupe is presenting a play, but I told Rhalhea that I wasn't interested. I told her I had to get back to my journal, because I had not done anything with it since we started this journal. I know she wanted to persuade me to come, so I quickly said that I would go another time. She made me promise, so now I have no choice.

Jhalhemha has crawled up to my chest, and is now nursing from my left teat. Instinctively, I begin to purr. I close my eyes and try to clear my thoughts, but that is so hard to do, especially when you are linked with your whistling dragon. How much longer? How many more days… weeks… are we going to be on this spaceship before we reach Alharhan?

I stand up, walk to the door. It slides open automatically, and I look out into the corridor. A porter comes by and asks me if there was anything he can do for me. No, he can't.
He looks at Jhalhemha and tells me she is cute. I decided he said that about all Tereskàdian cubs.

One thing that keeps bothering me was that since we had boarded the ship, Alharhanians have been avoiding us, or at least it seems that way. We are now in the second month of the voyage, and the Alharhanians who have talked with us can be counted on the digits of one paw. I don't know if I should make a big deal out of that, but you would think that someone on this ship would not be afraid to have a conversation with us.

They can't a conversation with you, Kykherhenha said, if you stay in your cabin. Go out there and mingle. Go where they gather, and talk to them, and they will answer you.

All right, if that's what I should do, then that is what I will do. As soon as Jhalhemha is in my pouch I will go to the Game Room. Maybe I could play Pent'hăr.

And the operative word is 'maybe.'

N'hŏŵrhachyzh 3.99/Day 199

The date below reflects the current date on Alharhan, but being on board a spaceship that is in deep space, making its way to Tereskàdhar, the Alharhanian dates seem rather obsolete now. Soon after we boarded the ship I asked Captain Bekrol Lhuâdel how time is measured aboard the ship, and he told me that for the first half of the journey Alharhanians usually relied on the clocks of Alharhan so they would not lose track of a time measurement they were so used to, but for the remainder of the journey to Tereskàdhar they would have to get used to Tereskàdian times. Since we are still in Alharhanian territory, so to speak, I will continue to use Alharhanian dates. The Captain also told me that the ship's computer uses an internal time clock, but that the passengers do not have to worry about that.

It has been more than three weeks since I made my last journal entry, but the news is that there was really nothing to report other than the fact that we Tereskàdians and whistling dragons were getting ready to travel to Tereskàdhar on the first of Mharhachyzh. Unlike Alharhanians who tend to pack a lot of things, including clothes and personal items, we Tereskàdians had it rather easy in that department since we don't wear clothes, and we don't need such items as soap or shaving accessories, or deodorant, or combs or brushes, or dozens of other items that Alharhanians use. Lheana suggested that we take some reading material, but I said the ship had a library, and if we wanted something to read, we would find it there. What about toys for the cubs? They had several play rooms there, presided over by an android nanny who was programmed to watch Alharhanian children and Tereskàdian cubs.

In the end we took nothing with us. That made it so much easier to get aboard the shuttle craft quickly and easily. One of the shuttles had left already when we arrived but there were six more that would be making the flight to the mothership which was orbiting above us, ready to set out for Tereskàdhar. When Shuttle #2 was announced, we said our good byes. Thank the Supreme One there were no tears, because I don't think I could have stood there and watched the Dhorens cry because we were leaving. I could tell by their expressions that they would miss us, and they wanted us to be careful up there, but other than that the good byes were fairly simple and straightforward.

Since Tereskàdians look very much alike, I had to reintroduce myself to Captain Lhuâdel. It finally dawned on him that ten years before I had been the leader of the more than one hundred cubs who had journeyed from Tereskàdhar to Alharhan. I introduced him to Jhorhea, and Rheža, and told him that Jhalhemha was a 'tweener' now, but she was currently asleep in my pouch. He invited us for dinner, but I told him we would have to find our cabins first, then we would come down for dinner as long as it wasn't too late.

I found out that there were two thousand six hundred and seventy-four beings on board the ship, and that included a family of five Tereskàdians and five whistling dragons. We were the only Tereskàdian family on board, so we found ourselves the subject of much staring, especially by Alharhanian children. You would think they had never seen any Tereskàdians and whistling dragons, and maybe they hadn't. Some of the passengers came from the rural area of Te'hănys and other countries, and seeing an alien species who was linked to a furred, flying mammal was something new to them. It seemed that every time we drank from our whistling dragons they stood and watched, and talked among themselves. I turned up my hearing to listen to their conversations, but all I could hear was questions: Why are they doing that? Can't they drink another liquid like everyone else? Should our children be watching this?

One incident that comes to mind happened on the third day out from Alharhan. Rhalhea and I were sitting in one of the lounges (Jhorhea and Rheža were asleep in our cabin, and Jhalhemha was in Rhalhea's pouch), and we were watching the wallscreen that was showing the latest news from Alharhan. There was this large, heavy-set Alharhanian whom I took to be one of those rural males, because he was wearing those green and black coveralls they like to wear. He came up to me and asked me if I wanted to engage him in a wrestling match in the sixth-deck gym. I looked at Rhalhea, and via our whistling dragons she told me that it was up to me to set this Alharhanian straight. I asked him if he knew anything about Tereskàdians, and his answer was another question: Are you scared? I almost expected him to say 'animal', but he didn't. It almost seemed as if he wanted to say it, but restrained himself.

The last time I was scared, I told him, was when I was four years old and a khobharet wanted to have me for a meal. I told him that if he wanted to wrestle me, I would take that as an attack and I would defend myself. If he knew anything about Tereskàdians he would know about the poison in my claws. I extended my claws, telling him to stay back, and I told him that the light-red liquid inside is a very deadly poison. Instant death, I said. No antidote. That backed him off a bit, and his face registered a major degree of disappointment. He looked like the kind of Alharhanian who would have enjoyed a good tussle with someone who could take care of himself.

When we walked down the hallways of the ship I noticed that Alharhanians tended to step aside. I don’t know if it was because they were afraid of us, or because I might use my claws if they brushed against me (the hallways are not that wide), but it seemed as if they were making an extraordinary effort to stay out of our way. I didn't let that bother me; I was more concerned with getting from here to there.

There is still a lot of distance to cover, and the ship we are on is a world onto itself. There are so many things to do, and so many places to go to that it would take the entire voyage to even experience it all. Perhaps over the next few weeks I will concentrate on the different venues the ship has to offer and I will let you know what these venues have to offer.

Right now, I am sitting in the same lounge where I had met the Alharhanian who wanted to wrestle me. Ever since I refused his offer I haven’t seen much of him, although he does come here occasionally. Once I tried to engage him in conversation, but he either didn't hear me, or he didn't want to hear me. After that, I just let it be.

There are about three dozen Alharhanians here… and one Tereskàdian and his whistling dragon. I noticed that nudity is allowed on this ship, which is understandable, since the ship originated on Alharhan. Of the three dozen, about a third of them are completely nude. I should mention here that the ship's internal temperature has been designed to accommodate Alharhanians so of course it is warmer than I would like it. But no matter, the temperature in my cabin has been adjusted by the computer so we Tereskàdians are comfortable throughout the voyage to Tereskàdhar.

I will write more as the mood dictates.

Mharhachyzh 17.99/Day 183