“What about the softening procedure?” he asked Laira, his arms unconsciously tightening around the girl on his lap.
“That should be reversed too,” Laira said. “Mia, do you feel any different in that regard?”
“I don’t know,” Mia said, a small frown appearing on her face. “I can see that my reactions were a little off before, when I woke up in Lenkarda, but I don’t feel any differently now.”
“You don’t?” Korum asked, and Mia smiled.
“No,” she said, her gaze warm and soft. “I don’t.”
Another weight lifted off Korum’s shoulders, making him feel lighter than air. Up until that moment, he hadn’t known how much he’d dreaded the answer to that question. Mia had loved him before her memory loss, he’d known that, but some part of him had still been afraid that her feelings after Saret’s procedure hadn’t been as real – and that undoing the procedure would destroy whatever love she thought she felt for him.
Mia made a move to get up, and he forced himself to let her go, even though he wanted to keep holding her forever.
Getting up himself, he turned toward Laira and gave her a cool nod of thanks. Although the procedure had worked, Korum still couldn’t quite forget the tortured expression on Mia’s face during those awful ten minutes. He’d felt helpless, unable to do anything to ease her suffering, and he wouldn’t forget that any time soon.
Not the least bit disturbed by his obvious displeasure, Laira grinned at him. “Looks like you got your charl back, all safe and sound.”
“Yes,” Korum said, putting a supportive arm around Mia, who still looked too pale. “Looks like it indeed.”
Their flight back to Korum’s house took about twenty minutes, since Laira’s lab was located a few thousand miles from his home region of Rolert. Korum could see that Mia was fascinated by the view outside their transport pod, and he directed the aircraft to fly at a lower altitude and with slower speed, to give her a chance to observe more.
He tried to view Krina as she would be seeing it, and he had to admit that his home planet was beautiful. The giant landmass of Tinara was home to a tremendous variety of flora and fauna, and, from the air, the vegetation looked like a colorful carpet of green, with some red and gold tones mixed in. There were large lakes and rivers, some as blue and clear as the Caribbean, and others a rich blue-green.
The Krinar settlements were sparse, mostly clustered around these bodies of water. There were no cities as such, only Centers that served as focal points of commerce and business. The majority of Krinar lived on the outskirts of these Centers, commuting in for work and other activities.
Korum’s own house was next to Banir – a mid-sized Center in the Rolert region, near the middle of the supercontinent and close to the equator. When Korum had brought Mia and her family there earlier in the morning, they’d all commented on how hot the weather was – even hotter than Florida in the summer. The heat didn’t bother Korum, but he knew humans were more sensitive to it, so he had made sure to get them inside quickly. This evening, when the temperature cooled, he planned to take them to the nearby lake to swim and look at some of the local wildlife.
“That’s Viarad,” Korum told Mia as they flew over a particularly large Center. “It’s the closest thing we have to a planetary capital. A lot of research and development happens there, and it’s also where the Arena fights and other major gatherings take place.”
Mia looked up at him, her eyes bright and curious. “Your cities are nothing like our own,” she observed. “I don’t even see a lot of buildings, much less skyscrapers and the like.”
“They are there,” Korum assured her. “Not skyscrapers, but there are plenty of large buildings for various commercial purposes. You don’t really see them from the air because of all the trees. The forest surrounding Viarad has some of the tallest trees on Krina, with many exceeding a twenty-story building in height.”
Her eyes widened. “Twenty stories?”
“At least,” Korum said. “Maybe more. Those trees are ancient; some of them have been there for over a hundred million years.”
“That’s incredible.” Her voice was filled with wonder. “Korum, your planet is amazing.”
He smiled, enjoying her enthusiasm. “It is, isn’t it?”
Even flying at a slower speed, they reached his house just a few minutes later. Korum led Mia inside the house, where her family were relaxing from the journey. “I’ll make us dinner,” he told her. “You can rest for a bit if you want. You’ve been through a lot today.”
“I’m all right,” Mia said, and he could see she wasn’t lying. The color in her cheeks was back, and she seemed fully recovered from her earlier ordeal. “I’ll go hang out with my parents if you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not, go ahead,” Korum said. “I’ll see you soon.”
* * *
The dinner Korum prepared was as unusual as it was delicious, consisting of a bunch of local seeds, fruits, and vegetables prepared in creative ways. Mia and each member of her family discovered something new that they greatly enjoyed.
One of the dishes consisted of a teardrop-shaped vegetable with purple skin that tasted like a cross between tomato and zucchini. It was stuffed with nutty-flavored grain that had a bubble-like texture. Mia’s dad loved that dish, going back for seconds and thirds as soon as he finished. In the meanwhile, Mia and Marisa were both crazy about the kalfani stew, with its rich, hearty flavor, while her mom and Connor kept eating the exotic fruit that was their dessert. “All of this food is safe for human consumption,” Korum told them. “Not everything on Krina is, but I made sure these specific foods would be fine for your digestive system.”
After dinner, Korum took them to the lake that was near his house. The sun was setting, and Mia could see the three moo
ns starting to appear in the sky, despite the fact that there was still plenty of light.
As they walked, he showed them various plants and insects, explaining a little bit about them. “That’s a nooki,” he said, pointing at a large yellow spider-like thing with what looked like hundreds of legs. “They extract nutrients from the soil, almost like plants do. Our children like to play with them because they do some funny stuff when you startle them.” He clapped his hands next to the creature, and it puffed up, each of its legs nearly tripling in thickness and its torso turning bright red. “It’s completely harmless, so you don’t need to be afraid of it.”