by Matt Snee
The sky was dark now. They made their way up the mountain with little noise, but with great effort. Captain could feel his legs tiring and slightly panted as he made his way.
“No stars here,” Jennifer told them, gesturing above their heads.
“Why's that?” asked Captain.
“Weird Space isn't in the universe as we know it. It's more kind of like water inside of water.”
“Meaning… what?” riddled Plerxx.
“Meaning it's inside of what we usually think of reality, as if reality was just a box. Inside the box is Weird Space.”
“I think I get it now,” said Captain. “It sounds like something I read once.”
“The timeline isn't as simple as your people think,” Jennifer scolded Plerrxx.
“My people?” the Cat-man was annoyed. “I am not MY people.”
“We are all OUR people,” Jennifer argued.
“My ancestors might have stirred my ashes into flesh, but they didn't mold my mind,” Plerrxx continued.
“Perhaps,” Jennifer mused, infuriated by the Mmrowwr's materialism. It went against everything she had ever been taught and had experienced.
“Okay,” said Captain. “Can we just all agree all of this is nuts?”
Jennifer laughed as Plerrxx purred. “Yes,” she said. “I think we can.”
* * *
Hungry now, Captain fell into daydreams about his mother's cooking. It had been an incredible journey, but the pain of her absence was still powerful. He wondered where she was now. It wasn't just dust to dust, after all. There was more out there, but that fact didn't make it any easier. What great domains rose out there beyond the land of the living and what did they portend?
The simple fact was the distance between them was so great that he couldn't help but feel somehow torn in two. He lived both in the moment and in the warm, safe past. His life may have been boring, but he had been happy, in a way, and protected. It had been an isolating world, but it had also been an intense solace.
He remembered her as she was when he had been a child, her hair still thick with the color brown and her face less wizened by age. Despite his father, he could remember his mother laughing at jokes he had been too young to understand. He remembered many things now, and the aura of sentiment warmed his skin.
They had had a good life, other than his dad, and he was proud to have had her as his mother. It was difficult to imagine her as a girl, no matter how many stories she told him of dances and picnics; she was permanently maternal to him. She had been so caring, so loving, he could barely believe his luck when he thought of the human plagues of the world. She was gone, but at least he had her for quite some time.
He wondered about Jennifer. She was an orphan, her parents dying when she was just twelve. What sort of life had she led in this strange place? Did she play upon this mountain as a girl? What secrets awaited them about the Tiamatites, the Owls, and Jennifer Pichon?
He felt glad that their adventure was almost over. Maybe he would get back to Earth now. But how would he live now that he knew what he knew and had experienced what he had experienced? And what would happen to Jennifer? Would she stay here, or would she come back to Earth… with him?
Jennifer had promised answers once they reached the Devasthanam, and Captain anticipated them eagerly. But something still seemed off, something wasn't quite right, and as much as he trusted her, he still didn't trust her completely.
He watched her now, taking each step up the mountain. He could hear her breath and caught her shivering every once in a while, despite her claims of this being home.
And what did Plerrxx think? The alien intrigued Captain to no end, and he was glad that the Mmrowwr came along, despite his doubts and despite his own distrust of Jennifer. They were three adventurers here, through and through, and how could their adventure get more thrilling than it already was? Moments like this were far from glamorous, but Captain couldn't help but be excited when he thought of his new life. He was used to it now, he had expectations, and he liked it.
Earth, however, jewel as it might still be, seemed pale in comparison. But then the thought of the danger it was in gripped him from head to foot. It must be saved! But how could he do such a thing? He was just a nobody. He had never done anything heroic in his life. He had just expected peace and quiet for his remaining years. He had scurried any surprises and adventures away at the first sight of them. That was the way he had wanted it … hadn't he? What did he want now? To go back? And without his mother and her smile?
No. No, it was this or nothing. Life had shed its wooly comfort for something desperate and consuming.
He was amazingly glad of it.
* * *
“There!” Jennifer pointed. “Do you see the declivity up there?”
“I do,” said Plerrxx.
“Yeah,” said Captain, out of breath.
“That is our destination. There is a door there. A door into the Devasthanam.”
“Thank God,” said Plerrxx.
“I thought you were an atheist,” Jennifer noted.
“Fervently,” Plerrxx answered, sly.
“Well, the Owls weren't atheists,” she said. “Religion was the one diet they did not give up.”
“So I've heard,” Plerrxx began. “But so are most primitive races.”
“They were far from primitive!”
“Forgive me,” said Plerrxx. “I meant… ancient, not primitive.”
“Sure you did,” she muttered, smirking. It was well known that the Mmrowwr had contempt for the Owls and their technological divinities.
“You are going to see some insane stuff in the next couple hours,” Jennifer tried to convince him.
It was true that this place was built by the Owls, as much as it was true that these creatures had gone far beyond where anyone knew. For hundreds of millions of years, they ruled over peace in the solar system, before mankind even took its first steps. They were the first, somewhere between man and angel, and now they were merely legends, derelicts of their apparent wealth thrown around the solar system like ancient Roman aqueducts. Everyone had their theories, and if there was a truth to be known, there would be no way to tell.
The memory-lava had been raised here before human history, and it remained as intact as it had been on day one. It knew not society, it knew only the cold and the Owls, and much later, the Pichons. If it could speak, its words would only describe wind and light.
But it would not be forever.
One could not see the No-Shape from here, as one could in most other places in the terrestrial solar system. It was almost as though it didn't even exist anymore. But tear down the walls of Weird Space, and there it would be.
This is what Jennifer hoped.
* * *
The longer they climbed, the colder it got. Finally, Jennifer commanded they take a break for ten minutes. Captain was glad of it. He eased his tired bones onto the memory-lava and stretched his back out.
Plerrxx sat cross-legged, and to no one's surprise Jennifer sat and dug a cigarette out of her bag. Captain sighed, Plerrxx closed his eyes meditatively, and Jennifer exhaled blue smoke. The wind was at its strongest now, and the chill struck deep into their cores.
“It's steepest before the door,” Jennifer told them. “We will probably be crawling on our hands and feet. But it means we will be almost there.”
Plerrxx and Captain nodded, too tired to speak. This was a miserable business.
Jennifer shrugged. The cigarette tasted good, even though she was out of breath. Now nostalgia reverberated through her cells. She was so close she had to take a moment just to savor the victory.
“What will the aliens say?” Captain asked her.
“I don't know,” she lied.
“What are they like?”
“They are dead,” she said. “Their spirits remain, but do not be fooled. They are incorporeal and thus are unfathomable.”
“They're ghosts?”
“Yes,” Jennife
r told him. “They have not passed into the next world. They remain here, sorrowful.”
“Sorrowful?”
“They are sad. Too sad to move on.”
“Did they know they were going to die?”
“Yes. But they didn't believe it. They didn't listen to their wise men. And now they are gone.”
“No one could escape?”
“My mom asked my dad the same thing all the time. If there was a survivor, the spirits would know of it.”
“So they really are a dead race? Like the Owls?”
“We don't know if the Owls are dead,” corrected Plerrxx.
“Plerrxx is right,” Jennifer said. “We don't know about the Owls. But about the Tiamatites, we know.”
It made Captain sad to think of this, but Jennifer found herself bitter. Her parents had been more fascinated with a dead alien species than they had with their daughter. She was not terribly capable of pity for the Tiamatites, as they had always been both an annoyance and an obsession. She was probably the only person living with the knowledge of them that she had, and she didn't exactly want to share it.
They had been a terrible race. Bloodthirsty, for beings that had no blood, and yet craven. They fled from the No-Shape, but they did not flee from their own draconian desires. They had never invented technology, other than the science of brutality. They were a mob, savages, eating each other. There never was a civilization, there were only animals that did not lack in intelligence, but did so in conscience, devoid of both science and religion.
She wondered what the Tiamatites would tell Captain of themselves. Would they present an untold glory or the dilapidated truth? The Owls believed them to have been punished for their sins; the Tiamatites had no such word in their simple lexicon.
16. The Devasthanam
You are not your father. But you are your father's daughter.
Kitty Pichon to Jennifer Pichon, letter
Finally they came to the door, which was perhaps fifty feet wide and one hundred feet high. It was made of a dull, blue metal and seemed to have been part of the mountain since the beginning of time. As they walked toward the door, it slid open, eliciting the sound of metal scraping against rock and revealing a large corridor lit by warm white light.
Plerrxx and Captain hesitated.
“Come on,” said Jennifer, her eyes bright. “It's okay.”
They followed her into the mountain. Inside, Jennifer took deep breaths of the dry, stale air. It felt so good to be home. Inside the Devasthanam was just as cold as outside, but there was no wind. They all continued to shiver.
The halls were wide and tall, with emerald colored mosaics that stretched above them to reach the ceilings. The pictures depicted a race of Owls, in all matter of battle and repose, perfuming Herculean efforts with abstract things. It was dizzying and alien.
They seemed not to be in a hurry anymore. They walked slowly, looking at the walls, sometimes reaching out and touching the cold stone around them. Captain and Plerrxx were curious; Jennifer was just so tired.
“We still have a long walk ahead of us,” she told him. “But we're safe here and it's not as blustery. Let the Devasthanam soak into you. You'll be glad you did.”
Captain already knew what she was talking about. He could feel an immense peace radiating through his chest. Places can inspire moods, but it was more than that: there was something majestic in the air. It filled Captain up inside despite the cold.
The sound of their footsteps and breath echoed through the corridor. They came to a fork, and Jennifer led them left. She watched everything closely, looking for the slightest misplacement. Nothing should have changed. There should have been no intruders. Everything should have been exactly as she had left it.
And it seemed that way. Still, she worried. What If something had gotten in? What if something had gotten out? What if the foundations of the place had decayed too far?
“This is all very amazing, but where are we going?” Plerrxx asked.
“We're going to the elevator,” Jennifer answered.
“How deep are we going into this mountain?”
“Pretty deep.”
“Will you take us to the aliens?”
“I will.”
“What will they be like?”
She could hear the fear in the Mmrowwr's telepathic voice. “They will not harm you.”
Plerrxx nodded.
Finally they came to the elevator, a great spider of tubes leading this way and that. Jennifer pointed to one of the open tubes and told them they would be riding the air down.
“How old is this machine?” Captain asked.
“Old,” she answered. “And for all its theatrics, it still works.”
“How did your parents find this place?”
“They heard about it over and over and eventually hunted it down. They discovered it. There is no evidence of anybody else ever finding this place. And my parents kept it a secret. They didn't want anyone to ruin this place. It was sacred to them. It's sacred to me.”
“And this is where you grew up? Running around these halls?”
“Yup, mostly, I guess. It's pretty boring, I admit. I read a lot. I talked to the aliens. It wasn't so bad. I like things quiet.”
“I'm sure you do,” Plerrxx commented.
“So you were never on Earth before we met?” Captain was astonished.
“Never. I lived my whole life here, except for the winters, which I spent on Jupiter, and trips I took around the Jovian planets when I was a kid. For the past twenty years I have been all alone.”
“That makes me sad.” Captain was honest.
“It makes me sad too,” she said, a tear falling from her eye.
* * *
They stepped into the tube and floated downwards, carried by unseen forces.
About a minute later they stepped out and found the halls here were more of a lavender color with golden details.
There was a human couch sitting next to the tube here—her mother's touch. They were close to home.
There was also a strange light that only Jennifer could see, just down the corridor. Too late, she realized it was another clone warp. Anybody else would have thought themselves crazy to see something invisible to others. Jennifer, however, remembered her personal history and why the clone warps existed at all.
It was of her mother and father arguing. Kitty Pichon stood with her hand on her hip, long brown hair pulled back seriously, and her father stood there defiant but shrunken.
What if something happens to us?
Kitty, nothing is going to happen.
What about Jenn? Can't you see she's not growing up?
Next year we will go back to Earth. I promise. We'll live a normal life. We'll forget…
You're lying to me.
I promise, I swear.
It's not just about you and me, Martin.
I know that, Kit.
Jenn needs to come first. Jupiter, Earth … it doesn't matter. I'll take her to Saturn if I have to.
No! We'll leave. I just need another year. That's all. I'm wrapping things up.
That's what you said last year, Martin.
I know. This time, I'm telling the truth. I'll … I'll do as you ask.
Jennifer bit her lip. She had suspected there was tension between them before their deaths. This couldn't have been too long before that. Her father had promised they would leave the Devasthanam, over and over, but they never did. Her mother wanted Jennifer to live a real life, this she knew, but she never considered that her parents had planned to go back to Earth.
What would they have done there?
“Much farther now?” Plerrxx asked, his thought-voice penetrating her reminiscences.
“No,” she said, distant.
She took one last look at the clone warp as it started over again, replaying the scene, forever.
* * *
It did not take much longer to reach the Pichons' living quarters: small rooms furnished sparsely with only
the most necessary accoutrements and comforts. Still, it was surprising to Captain to find such lived-in conditions here in a place as strange as the Devasthanam. He was especially surprised by the amount of photographs of the family, which found them in amazing locales and mostly featured Jennifer as a young girl. She was an inquisitive looking youth with fiery eyes and boney limbs. She was pretty even then.
“Are you guys hungry?” she asked. “I can make some food.”
“Sure,” Captain answered, stomach grumbling.
“I'm famished,” agreed Plerrxx.
“Okay,” Jennifer said. “Just make yourselves at home. I'll be in the kitchen.”
She disappeared through a doorway, and Captain and Plerrxx looked at each other briefly, then sat down in what appeared to be the living room. There was a couch, a rocking chair, and even a TV. Captain settled himself onto a side of the couch, and Plerrxx sat in the rocking chair. The Mmrowwr obviously had not sat in one before as he appeared immediately surprised by its features, a moment not gone unnoticed by Captain.
“Easy there,” Captain said.
“Humans are relentlessly strange,” Plerrxx replied, rocking slowly.
Captain laughed.
“This is quite an illusion here,” Plerrxx began.
“What do you mean?”
“Don't you see this is all a mirage? The carpets, the photographs… it appears like home, but it's more like a prison.”
“You think so?”
“I feel an immense sadness here.”
“Yeah, I sort of do too,” Captain said softly.
“Your mate is a perplexing individual.”
“She's not my mate,” Captain said, defensive and a little embarrassed.
“Isn't she?” The Mmrowwr stroked his furred chin. “All the more perplexing, then. It's funny. We sit here waiting to be fed while the No-Shape also waits for the same thing,” ventured Plerrxx.
“Yeah…” said Captain. He had temporarily forgotten about the No-Shape and wasn't happy to be reminded of it.
“I find it hard to believe that it can be stopped,” the Mmrowwr continued.
“Jennifer will find a way,” Captain argued.
“Perhaps. But I can't help but wonder if you're on a fool's journey.”