Erin peered in the gloom at the haunting face of a dead man.
Factum abiit, monumenta manent. The event is past, the memorial of it remains.
—Ovid
Chapter Nine
“Dr. Knightwood, I think you and Zhdanov had better get down here!” was the message she had received; now it replayed itself over again and again in her mind. Knightwood had pulled Zhdanov from his laboratory without a protest—he knew she would not interrupt his delicate experiment unless she had a good reason. The two of them checked Kansier’s position as they headed towards the elevation device. Kansier was no longer on the bridge. His wrist communicator showed that he was traveling in the same direction as they.
Even with the use of the moving corridors, it took ten minutes for them to reach the section where the call had come from. As they approached the last corridor, they met up with Cheung and the team that had come from the bridge, including Kansier, Dimitriev, Ross, Kusao, Anderson, and Kim-Han—Captain Kolesar had been on hand when the transmission arrived and was left in charge of the bridge.
Erin Mathieson and Ho-ling Chen stood by the door of a darkened room among a scouting party of about ten; Major Johannsen pointed into the room as he explained—his had been the voice Knightwood heard.
“I was at the end of this corridor when Lieutenant Mathieson discovered this place. See for yourself—but I warn you, prepare yourself for something shocking.”
Zhdanov’s curiosity was momentarily sidetracked by a vague feeling of dissatisfaction—Erin Mathieson had again been at the root of another discovery. Odds were it could no longer be ruled coincidence; she was clearly in contact with whatever force governed the ship, though for what reason he could not imagine. But he put his concerns aside for later. For now, he wanted to know exactly what it was that she had found.
Kansier entered the room, followed by Dimitriev, who took the proffered beacon from Johannsen. Knightwood and Zhdanov were about to follow when Kansier turned back and called through the doorway.
“I want lieutenant Mathieson to come in here and tell us exactly what happened and what she’s done so far.”
Knightwood followed Erin into the room and waited until her eyes adjusted to the dimness.
“The door must have been opened by the power loss. I came in here and saw those—”
Watching where Erin pointed, Knightwood cast down the coruscated light of her beacon onto a rectangular box and sucked in her breath.
The sea of diaphanous, blue-tinted coffins held thirty-one humanoid beings.
* * * * *
“Are they dead?” Major Dimitriev asked, as Knightwood and Zhdanov moved away from the container they were investigating. The others, taking Kansier’s lead, had gone to wander among the bodies. Dimitriev stopped and gazed down at what was clearly a woman’s face.
Her sharp features and long hair reminded him of some forgotten face he had known long ago.
She could have been human, he observed. Then on closer inspection he realized that the translucent blue-tinted canister had nothing to do with the fact that her skin and hair appeared pale grey. The top of the canister was clear like glass or transparent metals, like the room near that metallic sphere in the engine room.
“Who are they?” he called to the scientific duo. As he leaned over the canister, he noticed that the woman in the coffin was wearing the same pale silvery blue uniform as he.
Zhdanov looked up. “Judging from what we have seen, I would say that these people are or perhaps I should say were the inhabitants of Discovery.”
“Then they are dead?” Kansier asked.
Zhdanov shook his head. “I don’t know—Knightwood’s sending for our scanning equipment. They may be in some form of suspended animation.”
“Then who could have put them here?” Kim-Han asked, wondering if that person were still around somewhere. The others absorbed the suggestion, and reflexively glanced around the room.
“If they are in some kind of suspended animation, perhaps no one was needed to activate these devices. We have seen already that the Discovery’s computer controls much of the ship.” Cheung responded.
“These people remind me of the Charon aliens,” Erik Ross commented, wiping his hand on the surface of one, but the ice-crystals had formed on the inside.
“Hmm... what’s this?” Zhdanov suddenly mused. “Some kind of writing?” Knightwood reappeared beside him and nodded.
“Just like the symbols we found on the calendar—like the symbols on the uniforms we’re wearing,” she reached down and stroked the alien nameplate over her heart. “Are they all marked?” she asked, and rushed to look at the coffins on the same front row. At the third name she stopped, a puzzled frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. “I could swear that’s the same script from the first uniform we found—I must have looked at the letters a hundred times—” she glanced up to look at the figure inside and stopped.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, and the others headed over to her instinctively. “It’s him,” she whispered, “the man in the picture.”
Behind Knightwood, Erin approached the coffin, glancing down at the familiar words on the side that resolved once more into the name Fielikor Kiel.
* * * * *
When the two technicians finally arrived with the scanners, the group had already taken digital impressions of the faces and correlating symbols. Only one of the containers had no nameplate, but the team could not come up with a reason why his name had not been preserved.
“Perhaps we’ve just assumed that these are names—they may be ranks, and in that case, the last person may not have been a person of relative importance.” Koslov suggested.
“...just put it down there,” Knightwood was saying to the technicians. The others waited while she activated the machines; a minute or so would pass before they warmed up, so Knightwood returned to Erin’s side in front of the third coffin. The entire assembled company had spent some time wandering among the alien bodies, observing them, but Knightwood and Erin had spent by far the most time regarding the man whose picture the Blue Stripes had found on their first exploration of the ship while waiting for the scanners to arrive.
She knew his face so well, but no amount of study had prepared Knightwood for the actual sight of him, the creature whose image had been the one and only representation of the Discovery’s original crew before now.
The man from the picture was clad like the other encased humanoids, wearing one of the silver-blue uniforms Knightwood herself now wore. They were all unspeakably beautiful, these unearthly creatures that surrounded her, but she found herself most drawn to the man who had been in the picture.
His eyes were shut as though he slept. Short, ice-white hair glinted in the light of the Earth beacons, though the strange quality of the casing softened his features and the brightness of his hair. To Knightwood, his face was almost perfectly formed. His small, elfin ears gave the impression of a mischievous nature; even in death a faint smile seemed not to have parted willingly from his lips. His face was angular but not severe. But though the handsomeness of his features lent the appearance of youthfulness to his face, he was fully grown, lean, with long legs, and broad, muscular shoulders. His form one might call ideal for speed and sinewy strength, Knightwood observed.
He must have died not long after that picture was taken, Knightwood thought, suddenly and uncharacteristically overcome with grief and pity. How she wished she could have truly seen him smile, this creature before her, rather than be haunted by an image of him from some day long since passed! He had likely died eons before the human race had even risen to take possession of the Earth.
“Strange,” Erin said. “Strange, to be so beautiful, and who knows what he was like on the inside?”
“What do you mean?” Knightwood demanded, gazing back at the form that was the handsomest of all the aliens, even given that they were all far more beautiful than any Earthling she had ever seen. Knightwood glanced at the girl. Erin was extraordina
rily lovely herself, so much that a lot of men loved her and many women thought she was vain. Knightwood had never thought about it before, but now she understood what Erin was saying. Great beauty or talent made some people uncomfortable.
“I don’t think people really see those who are as handsome for what they are beneath the exterior. Do you think any one liked him for who he was, Knightwood?”
“I—I don’t know,” Knightwood admitted.
“I don’t know, either. He might have been a monster, on the inside, but I hope he was a good man.”
For the first time, Knightwood began to wonder what he had done, what kind of man he had actually been.
“And yet we can admire people like this alien man as long as we don’t know them personally.” Knightwood laughed, mussing Erin’s hair with affection. “But we’re talking about aliens here, Erin. And they all look pretty much the same—”
“To us,” Erin pointed out.
The scanners abruptly signaled that they had fully charged. Knightwood signaled that they would shelve this discussion for later, if there was ever any time to return to it.
“What about this plate?” Koslov repeated, further away, addressing Zhdanov. “Some kind of occupation or rank, do you think?”
“I think they are names,” Erin interrupted, returning to the main argument. Zhdanov turned to her.
“But can you explain why the last over there hasn’t got one?” Zhdanov asked. “Surely a species so advanced to have built the Discovery wouldn’t have forgotten to include a man’s name on his coffin?”
“If they are dead,” Kansier reminded him. “But perhaps the lieutenant is right. Maybe the man was to be punished for some crime, and given an anonymous ‘burial’. We can’t rule anything out. Even as you say, they may not have been able to get a name on his coffin in time. Remember the state the ship was in when the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks went in for the first time? All of the doors had been left ajar—everything was a mess. It looked as if they’d left in a big hurry.”
“You mean before they abandoned the ship they had to give their dead some kind of resting place?” Cheung saw Kansier’s line of thought. “Then why didn’t they just take them with them, or leave them, or cast them into space?”
Kansier narrowed his eyes. “Would you leave your comrades without seeing to their proper burial if you could? We don’t know what these people believed, but we couldn’t get in here until the blast cut power to this area. My guess is they hoped no one would ever find this place. I’d say—we can see they took care of their dead—no matter what kind of hurry they might have been in.”
“What if these were the wounded?” Kusao asked. Kansier, Cheung, and Zhdanov stopped, and turned to regard Knightwood, who was now busy taking measurements. As if on cue, she looked up.
“No,” she announced evenly. “They seem to be dead.” She swallowed, ignoring the open-mouthed expressions. “But I could be wrong—I’m having difficulty analyzing them—they started emitting some bizarre energy fluctuations when I turned the machine on—but that’s not the worst of it. These coffins seem to be sucking the energy from this machine—I’ll bet the canisters’ mechanisms protect them from laser weaponry.” Despite the problem, Knightwood didn’t sound very displeased.
“Incredible,” Scott breathed.
“Isn’t it?” Knightwood agreed. “The coffin is made of a dense crystalloid alloy, not unlike the materials we’ve already come across,” she continued, contemplating as she explained. “But whatever they are, they’re almost impregnable. I can’t explain what’s going on, but the machine doesn’t pick up the smallest scintilla of life functions. If this man were in some form of suspended animation, we’d be able to see the energy exchange system that supports him—there’s nothing of that kind—the coffins are only set up to protect the man inside from harm.”
“What about the ice inside?” Erik Ross objected.
“Well, it isn’t ice at all—they’re some form of crystallic substance. Perhaps they are what is preserving the bodies from decay. I know what you’re thinking—I thought at first they might have achieved some form of cryogenic sleep, but the temperatures are far too high on the outside for anything of that kind.”
“Can we open them?” Kansier asked.
“Yes, I believe given some time, we might figure out a way to get the containers to open. An autopsy will tell us more than I can give you right now,” Knightwood cleared her throat.
“Leave them alone,” Erin said, stepping from behind Kansier, her voice barely audible.
“What?” Knightwood cried, startled. There was an ominous note in Erin’s voice, though the tone had remained calm. Knightwood was reminded of Erin’s sudden speech before the UESF Council and sidestepped away from her without knowing why she had.
“They’ve been at peace all this time.” Erin continued in the same low, even voice. “Someone took great measures to ensure that they would not be disturbed. Why can we not honor the wishes of Discovery’s creators and leave them alone?”
“She’s right,” Kansier nodded decisively. “We have no business defiling the dead.”
“But there’s so much we might learn from them—” Knightwood began, but trailed off, seeing Kansier’s expression. “Well, I can see it’s not going to do any good to argue with you people! I guess for now, until I can get you to reverse your decision, science will just have to suffer from the loss.” She looked over towards the handsome face she had come to know almost as well as her own, the face in the picture she had observed countless times, and again remembered his smile. She was less angry about not dissecting him than she thought, even though she was a scientist and never minded dissecting anything.
Sleep well, my friend, she thought fondly.
The silent presence in the room regarded them with approval.
* * * * *
“Project the home planet of Discovery’s creators,” Knightwood called into the echoing holo-room. She had returned there later that evening, shortly after Kansier forbid further access into the “Memorial Room”. Knightwood had no intention of disobeying the Captain; but he had created a permanent watch by the room in case his order might not be obeyed by all of the ship board scientists.
Knightwood had hurried away after the team left the Memorial Room, leaving Zhdanov and Cheung to begin the analysis of the measurements. She had another idea in mind and was anxious to test it.
Many of the crew and scientists had been requartered in the nearby new crew sections, but the transfers were not to be completed until the ship had been fully explored. The process of moving was slated to begin the next morning at 0600—only five hours away. And Knightwood knew she had to go alone.
But the Discovery computer wasn’t responding. “Show me the home world of the creatures we discovered,” Knightwood repeated, but again no response came.
“If you know, show me where our alien pursuers came from,” she waited, but nothing happened.
“Show me the Hulmua Lake on Tiernan,” she asked, and a strange but awesome alien landscape formed around her, the scene she remembered from their short visit to the third planet of Tiernan. “So, you are listening to me, then.” She glanced around the room, eyeing the walls—but there was no sign of this room’s computer terminal, the main force she suspected behind Discovery’s actions. Maybe the original inhabitants had abandoned the ship because the computer had gone haywire.
“Some reason why you’re not showing me the grey-skinned people’s home planet?” she asked as if her audience were a human, capable of emotions and selfish whims. “Fine,” she shrugged, “have it your way.”
* * * * *
“Not again,” Lieutenant Kusao awoke to the sound of his personal frequency—the high pitched shriek told him he was needed on the bridge immediately.
They must have jumped through the wormhole while he was asleep, he thought. He got up quickly and pulled on the alien flight uniform that had become everyday attire. He felt strange emerging from his soundp
roof quarters into a corridor full of his fellow officers also on their way. Kusao almost missed his roommates, but he liked the new privacy of his own space.
“God, I’m tired,” he grumbled as he left.
Along with the other bridge officers, he had been quartered in the new crew wing close to the corridor that elevated the crew in seconds to the bridge, located near the very height and in the center of the ship, protected by a ridge of overlapping metal that created the large observation window. The three other dimensions had been constructed to appear seamless, but a few tiny features—such as the casemate surrounding the main gun and auxiliary weapons—disrupted the even perfection of the top and sides of the ship. The hairline cracks that disguised them projected the weaponry in battle.
Kusao often reflected that only a few armor plates protected the “brain” of the bridge crew from space, but he had faith in the Discovery’s shields.
“What’s happening?” he asked Erik Ross, who had been quartered nearby as the two headed to the bridge elevator.
“We emerged right on top of a planet—the ship’s about to draw into orbit.” Erik said, rubbing his eyes. It appeared as though he had been awake most of the night.
Kusao’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute—how do you know?”
Erik shook his head and laughed. “I was awake when it happened. I had my viewscreen on—guess I missed the old porthole windows on the Stargazer. Anyway—suddenly there it was. A big green sea—and we weren’t exactly slowing down.
“How close are we?”
“My guess is we’ll hit the upper atmosphere any second. We were entering the magnetosphere when I left—” Suddenly the floor echoed with a deep rumbling noise. “Well, folks, we’re here,” he said with a hollow, nervous laugh.
* * * * *
“That wasn’t a very smooth stop,” Kansier observed, then looked at the image coming through the vidscreen holo-monitor as the rest of his bridge crew arrived. “You’d think the stabilizers we found would have deadened the impact into orbit.”
Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 21