REGENESIS
Page 28
“The rocky protrusions overhead may be our means of escape,” he tells Davina. “They are very like the formations that volcanos of my world make, as lava pours forth to create great outcrops of rock. When these outcrops cool, they form stepping-stones into the open lava tubes that transported the magma.
“If that is, indeed, what we are seeing, they will lead us away from this valley and may bring us to the surface above.”
He could not be more mistaken in his presumptions!
With that, the couple resolve to make their way to the valley’s far wall and there devise some means for scaling the sheer vertical rise to the lowest, most accessible outcrop.
It is a trek of several days and, as they get closer to the wall, the rocky outcrops take on a most unnatural and unsettling symmetry and consistency.
In contrast to the random, irregular ribbons of rock vomited from the lava tubes of Noah’s world, these are finely crafted ledges that project far into space from the valley’s wall. Each identical to the next in over-all size, detailed dimensions and surface smoothness.
It is as if some giant mason crafted each ledge and, like carefully measured bricks, mortared them precisely in place.
The rocky projections remind Noah of the lifeless headstones that herald the death resting beneath them in his world. Only the green vines extending from the dark shadow above each ledge betray the presence of life.
Arriving at the base of the valley wall, Noah points to the nearest outcrop and tells his mate:
“These are no lava tubes. Even the most gifted craftsmen of my world could not improve on the symmetry, exactitude and precision exhibited here. They are ledges, identical in every detail.
“I wonder what skilled artisan crafted them. And to what purpose?”
Approaching the edge of a nearby stand of the vertical lepidote columns, Davina offers:
“I wonder if we can rearrange enough segments of these strange trees to reach the lowest ledges and see for ourselves. They pull apart easily enough and, if we can stack them high enough, perhaps we can build our own stepping-stones.”
Demurring, Noah points out, “we have come far this day and would be better advised to rest before attempting so arduous a task.”
Leading his mate to a cairn-like formation backing onto the valley wall, he arranges enough boulders to seal its entrance, and they both find sleep.
Rising early the next day, the couple begin the daunting task of selecting and carrying many individual segments from the forest to the wall beneath the lowest ledge. By the time the second sun is high in the sky, they have built a pyramid of solid, interlaced segments. Providing a stable stairway to reach the ledge.
Noah is first to pull himself over the rim, and he turns immediately to help Davina onto its smooth surface.
The horizontal stone outcrop extends fully 10 feet into space from the valley wall that anchors it, and there is no sign of external support to prevent its ponderous mass from plunging to the ground below.
What’s more, the surface of the ledge is heavily and uniformly veined where constituent pieces of stone are cemented together. Each piece an exact replica of those around it.
“This is no random work of nature”, Noah observes. “It fairly shouts the craftsmanship of skilled hands.”
Bending to a closer inspection of the ledge tiles, he exclaims:
“We are standing on one of the great mysteries of your world, Davina, for here are sure signs of human activity!
“I wonder what they looked like and where they have gone, for there is no indication here of either.”
Rising, Noah leads his mate into the wide shadow frowning at them from the valley wall at the end of the ledge.
That is where they will make the great discovery concerning the origins of humanoid life on this planet!
Pulling aside the fibrous green vines hanging across the entrance, the couple step boldly into a place of timeless mystery.
While the interior of the cave is dim, they can make out its rough dimensions and general direction. It appears to be of uniform diameter, approximately 40 feet, and clearly trends upward away from its mouth fronting the ledge without.
Their eyes are immediately drawn to a glow of pure white light. Radiating from beneath a pool of clear water recessed at the edge of the tunnel, seven or eight feet from where they entered.
Reaching down, nearly his arm’s length, into the clear pool, Noah retrieves a brightly glowing, lichen-encrusted crystal about half the size of his hand. Despite its fiery glow, the crystal is cool to the touch. Its bioluminescence lights up the cave like a bright torch.
It is when the couple look upon the cave’s walls that they both issue an audible gasp!
For there, marching across its stony surface, are pictographs of anthropoids engaged in very human activities:
Hunting and eating the flesh of many of the chimera life-forms the couple has encountered in this valley;
Competing in sports-like activities;
Huddling in what appear to be family groupings;
Even attended by a distinctive humanoid figure, mortal or divine, that appears to be holding out a bowl of foodstuff in both hands.
Tracing the progression of images along the wall, Noah’s finger suddenly pauses above one as he exclaims:
“Look here, Davina! This shows a burial. You can see the departed creature curled up into a fetal position in the shallow pit, with onlookers kneeling around it. This is an image of great significance.
“It tells us these creatures were capable of fidelity, empathy, perhaps even love. The finer, nobler qualities of all cultures. And it makes me want to know more about this remarkable race.”
While all the drawings depict the kinds of scenes Noah has viewed from the cave-paintings of Paleolithic peoples in his own world, there is something bizarre, even inhuman, about the figures displayed here.
At first, he attributes it to the remarkable images of the monsters accosted by the hunters. But then it strikes him!
It is not the savage appearance of the huge carnivores that so unsettles him. It is the portrayal of the hunters themselves. For they are chimera-like. Combining the familiar physiology of humanoid figures with outlandishly incongruous bird-like heads. Their large, unblinking eyes staring back at him. Reaching into his very soul.
They look very much like Horus. Falcon-head king of the gods. Eternal symbol of pharaoh’s divine rule over the mortal world.
Only here, they are an entire society pictured in traditional social functions.
“I have seen their likeness before”, Noah realizes, “on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs! The artists here have captured every symbolic detail. Even the same all-knowing eye of the falcon. On this far distant moon. How can that be?”
That is a question which, like so many others about this strange race, will go unanswered.
Sweeping the crystalline torch from side-to-side and up-and-down, the couple scrutinize every detail of the pictographs. That is when Noah discovers these are not random designs. They follow a progressive pattern, beginning at the cave entrance and continuing into the dark recess within.
What’s more, they tell the story, over time, of the creatures that once lived here. Through countless generations.
It is a story written in violence. Beyond the scenes of social intercourse. And of the mysterious creature offering food.
It is a story traced in the scenes of the hunters. And of the falcon-head defenders of their race against the gargantuan carnivores on the roof of the world.
Returning to the cave entrance, Noah begins to read the recorded history of these creatures from the first chapter.
These earliest hunting scenes depict the falcon-head creatures circling various chimera species and assailing them with stones. One shows the hunters surrounding an animal identical to the bush-rabbit Davina speared for their first supper in this valley, and he tells her:
“Here we see the falcon-head creatures employing strategy and
cooperation in the hunt, although their weapons are only the crude stones that now litter the valley floor.
“The scene with the bush-rabbit may be particularly telling. If it was as small then as the one you speared yesterday, the falcon-head creatures must have been a pygmy race by our standards.
“But I will hold that thought unless or until we come upon further evidence confirming or dispelling it.”
The same scenes of hunting line the cave from the entrance to the dark, farthest inner recesses of the cave. Noah’s only additional observation is:
“These scenes appear to cover many generations, and they show no improvement in weapons and no difference in comparative size of hunter and prey. They are wielding the same crude stones, and they hunt creatures their own size.
“But the pictures do highlight an important difference between the falcon-head creatures and those we have encountered in the world above: They hunt many different species and, so, are not locked into the singular predator-prey food chains that so limit the surface land-dwellers.”
As they reach the deepest recess of the narrowing cave, the drawings appear to trail out in darkness. But not before revealing the horrific images that tell the end of the story on the wall.
Gone are the scenes of social intercourse.
Gone are the circles of hunters casting stones at quarry their own size.
In the new images, the falcon-head hunters form a protective arc. The geometry not of attack but of defense. For in each new scene, they are assailed by a colossal carnivore.
Noah has seen one of these monsters before!
It is the giant cave bear that menaced Davina from its icy tomb on the high mountain plateau.
The same great claws. The same wicked teeth. The same snarling visage. The same muscular arms reaching out toward its antagonists.
The falcon-head hunters look like Lilliputians, standing only as high as the titanic bear’s waist. And their crude stones are like pebbles against the might of the towering beast. They are defenseless.
“Isn’t it odd”, Noah muses, “that creatures who possessed the technology to engineer self-supporting ledges extending 10 feet into thin air never invented weapons more lethal than the crude stones they found on the ground?”
In this world, as in his own, “size matters”, he admits. “Especially as the falcon-head creatures here lacked the technology that, in his own world, is the great equalizer against the threat and physical strength of brutes.”
He does not credit the lack of materials suitable for spears or other weapons in this isolated valley, with its unearthly plant-forms. Nor does he credit the fact stones were appropriate technology for hunting the dwarfish animals here. There simply was no necessity for the invention of more lethal weapons. In this deepest place in the world.
It does not require a spear to dispatch a dull-witted aurochs even though its head sits on the body of a wolf. Nor does it require a feathered shaft to run down an aurochs’ ponderous mass even though it supports the head of a wolf. Until the hunters emerged into the world above.
The cave bear dominates the pictograph beyond the dire wolf. Both showing falcon-head hunters in defensive arcs before gargantuan carnivores. There, the story ends. Abruptly and altogether.
But they are not the last chapter. That awaits the couple beyond the inner recess of the cave. At the end of a tunnel. At a gate that is no more.
Returning to the wide part of the cave, the couple inspect the opposite wall, which is bare, and the floor for other clues to the culture and activities of the falcon-head race that made their home here.
There are scatters of stone implements here and there, but nothing else except rock and dust.
None of the bowls or pottery shown in the cave-art.
And no bones of any kind.
Only rock and traces of fine dust.
Bending on one knee, Noah scoops up a handful of the pale granules, letting them sift through his fingers. All that remains in his palm is a collection of small, white irregular fragments. Looking up to his mate, he explains:
“These appear to be calcified shards of osteoid tissue, the mineral bones are made of. If they belonged to the previous owners of this cave, given its lack of humidity, then they have been here a very long time indeed!”
Examining the tiny particles, he rues the loss of the miniaturized tandem electrostatic accelerator that perished with the Cosmos spacecraft. He also regrets leaving the solar-powered portable mass spectrometer behind when he abandoned his scout vehicle. Even without the accelerator, the spectrometer might help him unravel the constituent elements and properties, if not their age, that make up the peculiar chemistry of this planet.
He vows to return one day to the edge of the imploded valley on the high northern desert and retrieve that useful tool.
The evidence remaining on the cave floor is as significant for what is not there as for what is. And the trained scientist in Noah can read it for what it likely says about the anthropoids that once lived here and about where and when they went.
Coupling this evidence with the tale the pictographs reveal, Noah tells Davina the likely story of the ledge-builders who dwelt so long ago in these caves:
“This is a very ancient race. The fact of whose very existence disappeared into the opaque mists of antiquity. See here, even their bones are turned to dust so old are they.
“The builders of this ledge-city may be the seminal form of humanoid life on this planet. If not the first, then surely among the earliest progenitors of your own race.
“What’s more, the bird-like heads of these early humanoids are noteworthy. We have not seen a single creature with a bird-like aspect among all the chimera living in this valley.
“It makes me wonder if the same creature that gave rise to humanoid species differentiated upon reaching the surface of this world to give rise to feathered creatures as well.
“If my suppositions are correct, Davina, you and I have stumbled into the very cradle of life on this planet!
“For I believe every plant growing and every creature moving on its surface began as part of a chimera life-form in this valley before ascending to the surface and differentiating into itself. It is the only explanation that accounts for the inconsistencies, improbabilities and contradictions implicit in the bizarre coexistence of this deep world with the surface world above.”
So rapt are they in this epic discovery of the womb of terrestrial life, they fail to notice the deepening shadow that has spread across the cave entrance.
Even as they focus their attention on the eerie figures staring back at them from the cave walls, thick verdant leaves are sprouting across the lianas of clotting vines. Shutting out the light of two suns. Where earlier there was openness and light, there is now an impassable barrier shutting out both.
Turning to quit the cave, Noah is appalled to find he and his mate are trapped!
The sinuous vines have sealed the entrance, and no amount of effort can loosen their iron bonds.
The vines have woven themselves into an impenetrable, interlocking web. Even persistent poking with their sharp-edged lances fails to pierce the leathery bark.
“There is no escape in the direction we came,” Noah admits, “so let us see where the narrowing tunnel at the back of the cave leads.”
With that, the couple begin their ascent from the gallery of the ledge-builders’ art into the depths of the Great Rift Valley’s flank.
The way is smooth and remains wide enough for them to pass. The air is fresh and cool. And they welcome the gentle rise they hope will take them to the valley’s roof.
The climb is the work of many hours. Taking them to a tightly packed litter of enormous boulders sealing the upper end of the cave. Preventing further progress. Rills of sweet water trickle and cascade down the sides of the largest rocks, feeding a deep pool at the end of the cave.
This water displays a remarkable property.
This water burns with an inner fire.
Bright, white light suffuses every cascading molecule, illuminating the pool below. The water is brightest at the top of the large boulders, where it streams down from an unseen source. It is noticeably dimmer in its reflection on the pool below.
Famished, the couple do not at first consider the implications of the light. Contenting themselves with slaking their thirst and probing the pool for food. But there is no sign of fish or other life here.
Only the lifeless stone that imprisons them.
“We have reached a dead-end,” Noah remarks, “and we must rest before returning the way we came. Let us sleep here where, at least, there is water to quench our thirst.”
After drinking their fill, the couple are soon sleeping soundly. Serenaded by a symphony of the soft sighs of freshening air and the melodic tinkle of water thrumming against polished stone.
As the couple arise refreshed, their only light is from the crystalline torch which casts dancing shadows on the surrounding rock. Mimicking the smooth, graceful movements of Davina’s stretching form. The water trickling down the stone surface is clear and dark, and the pool casts no reflection beyond the torch’s glow.
But again, the couple do not consider the implications of the light that shines in the water no more. That is because they are drawn to a feature they did not notice in their haste to find rest from the exhausting rigors of the previous day.
At the foot of the largest boulder is a series of short steps, evenly spaced and crafted in the same pattern as the surface of the ledge leading into the cave. And like the craftsmanship of the ledge, Noah observes, these stairs are no work of nature.
As Davina joins him in examining the steps, she wonders:
“Why would the ancient people build steps here? And where do they lead?”
His eyes shining with the bright glow of enlightenment, her mate answers:
“I am confident that this buried staircase leads to the surface world above.
“That this end of the cave was their portal to that world.
“That at least some of the ledge-builders traveled to the surface.
“And, it is reasonable to assume, back again.
“If so, the First Eden of this planet was not as isolated as I had supposed.