01.29.2016
Dalence explained her connection between the darkened lights of Bansuth and the wolf she’d seen leap into the heavens from that side of the Knuckles. Some in the group were skeptical of her tale of an empty Bansuth, but she encouraged them to look for themselves tonight after dark. And then hike into the city tomorrow. She had nothing to hide or lie about.
“The wolf grows larger with every comet or moon or planet it devours, right?” she asked to those around her. “And it makes sense to assume that it was once much smaller. Perhaps even the size of a normal wolf. Eating normal wolf food. But it must have out grown small game. And as it ate more and more, what more plentiful source of meat but a dense, human city? And it might have been the tipping point, where after devouring everyone on the Far Finger, it was large enough to transition to the sky.”
A man with silvery hair followed up with another thought, “And how hungry will the wolf yet get as it grows larger? Will it take our planet? Take us all?”
“I cannot say,” Dalence replied, “but what should we do?”
Another woman answered, “There is nothing we can do. Our weapons on the mountain sides failed.”
“All of them did. Miserably.” quipped a stocky man from beside her, and he gave a laugh and shook his head, resigned.
“I don’t mean what should we do about the wolf,” Dalence said. “I meant more what should we do in terms of telling others about this? Do we alert the entire city of Suu-manth? Or just the governor?”
“And,” the man with silver hair added, “do we become an alert group of sorts, instead of only an observation group?”
“Exactly,” Dalence said.
“Wouldn’t you want to know if your life would possibly end? I know I would.” said the stocky man.
The other woman replied, “So you could waste the time with worry? Give me death unknown and swift.”
The man with the silver hair said, “We have to at least tell the governor. The people elected him, so we should let him decide.”
No one argued with the logic.
“First thing in the morning,” Dalence said, “I’ll head down to tell him. For now, I need some rest.”
The group went about their business, and Dalence fell asleep in the shade of the boulder until evening, when the rest of the astronomers and star-lookers arrived from their day trip into Suu-manth.