King of Jupiter

Circad 23, Maius, 2345

As of the time of writing this entry, I have just exited Jupiter's moon Ganymede. I normally do not write much during my travels, but I have been witness to such an odd series of events these past few weeks that I feel I must inscribe my experience for, at the very least, someone else's amusement.

It was 15 days ago that I arrived with the Solar Express to Ganymede Central Station. The place seemed rather new, with every corner clean and polished. I must imagine that, with the sheer amount of people buzzling about in Central Station that it must have been quite the endeavour to clean up all the trash and urine from every nook and cranny. Regardless, the effort is well appreciated on my part.

Ganymede is well known for its mercantile tradition. As a matter of fact, all of Jupiter's moons are. People from all over the Solar System travel to the far reaches of our little domain to trade all kinds of goods, mostly rare metals. This amount of interchange, no doubt, attracts the usual suspects: thiefs, conmen, obnoxious salesmen...

One individual from one of the aforementioned classifications, I still cannot decide on which, caught my eye amongst the crowd -or rather, I caught his eye-. He started shouting at me from the other side of the busy hall. The irritation of such shouting eventually forced me to give in and ignore my better judgement. I came up to him to discover he was more excentric than I thought at first.

The person in question was a young adult, though he seemed more like a kid. He had a jovial and childish nature to his face, but his clothing was beyond description. He boasted every colour under the sun, and a diverse array of pathologies too, it seemed. He had eyes of different paints of green and yellow, what looked like a limping leg, a middle finger that was absurdly long in comparison to his frail hands, and a severe case of Acne.

He told me he used to be called "Jeremiah Ali" but that "it didn't matter any longer" for he had a much greater title that his worldly name. He looked at me with a grin as wide as his face, and with a high pitched enthusiastic tone he declared himself to be "Julianus IV".

I must admit it took a herculean amount of effort not to burst out laughing or question the kid's sanity. He did, in fact, have a crown. In all fairness, it wasn't "royal" in any way, but I doubt there could be a crown more fitting for King Julianus. Just like the man, the crown was bombastic and colourful. It looked 3D-printed, with a miss-match of materials or every composition, and at the centre it had a dark, dull quartz.

After Jeremiah told me about his titles, he demanded I bow down to him. I would have protested if his parrot, yes, his parrot, didn't follow suit. I oblidged while trying to hold my laughter in. I felt like I was convulsing trying to take the apir seriously. I cannot deny that curiosity had gotten the better of me.

Once on my knees, the kid and his parrot got on my back and demanded I take them on a ride like a knight on his medieval horse. I'm somewhat of an old man, at least old enough to know I would break my back if I tried to lift up the two of them. However, the moment his command was spoken, the station's gravity was turned off. I learned afterwards that it had been a simple recalibration procedure, but at the time it felt magical. With their weight literally off my shoulders, we bounced up and around the weightless air, jumping into the roof and back down again as the gravity slowly came back online.

Right after giving my services as a stalion, King Julianus IV decided to name me his squire, and for the next few days he would make me do chores for him whenever he saw me. At some point he found out the hotel where I was hosted and bothered me on the entrance in the mornings. I should have been more bothered by such behaviour, yet the sweetness of the kid made me want to help him out. He kept promising me a reward, but I thought of it as just another one of his delusions, I did it for him.

At the end of my stay in Ganymede I came back to Central Station, and I saw young Julianus IV one last time. However, this time his demeanour had completely shifted. He told me that he had been greatful for my service, and that he was sad to see me go, but that "a promise was a promise". He then handed me an encrypted folder. I asked him what the code was, and surprisingly the parrot replied:

He who wonders beyond the veil

And sees his soul and heart curtailed

No will to give or live

And sees no one forgive

He slips words of blood

Or so the story is told

The old man beyond the veil

His land and crown curtailed

I left confused, back to the Solar Express, wondering about what the parrot told me. Then I remembered the poem's author , Anya Gerard, and I typed her name as the passcode. Just like that the folder unlocked. I looked inside to find papers that gave me a vast land and house in the outskirts of a Ganymedean town. That could cost a fortune.

So now here I stand, alone in a train, an endless sea of nothing away from where I was, with a house to my name on a planet with a king that is awaiting my return. Perhaps I ought to visit him again someday, and learn more about the king of Ganymede, the royal lost in Central Station, with a crown and good intentions... The old man beyond the veil.