by David Smith
As good as his word, Chief Fisher managed to set shuttle down on the raised bank around fifteen metres from the base of the pyramid, and as the dust settled a little O’Mara peered out through a window at the megalithic structure. It towered above them, its apex lost in the ever-present swirling dust clouds, but even from here she could make out a raised frieze on the surface of the pyramid, perhaps fifty metres tall.
It appeared to depict the same oval shape as the earthwork raised around the site, with a bar across the middle, much like the Greek letter theta. That shape clearly had a great significance and O’Mara called Chief Yana Petrokova forward. The tall Russian was a cultural anthropologist, and had studied many alien cultures.
‘Yana, what do you make of that symbol?’
‘I’d need to see more iconography to be certain, but in most cultures symbols like that one are representative of an eye. They often have religious connotations, along the line of a god being all-seeing or all knowing.’
‘Huh. Big brother is watching you’ snorted O’Mara derisively. She still couldn’t believe the fact that the skipper had warned her to be careful. This was as dead a planet as she’d ever seen. A ghost world.
‘You might say that, but the concept of being watched from above is a social as well as religious staple. The phrase you’ve just quoted comes from a very old dystopian fiction that commented on control and oppression. Many evolutionary biologists might tell you it’s a carry-over from an instinctive fear of being watched: If you’re anywhere apart from the very top of a food-chain, anything watching you can only be bad news.’
O’Mara mulled this over. ‘So it’s likely this is a religious site?’
Petrakova nodded. ‘It’s the one thing that most cultures have in common before they become heavily industrialised. The only thing simple cultures are willing to invest huge amounts of time and labour in is big devotional projects.’
‘Devotional?’
‘Yes. Egyptian pyramids were built to ensure the passage of a Pharaoh to the after-life. Mayan pyramids were built as temple mounts for the gods of that culture. Think of any cathedral or mosque. If they’re not the biggest single structures within that culture, they always strive to be the most impressive. Only castles and the like come even close, but they have a practical defensive function, unlike a church.’
O’Mara nodded, but Petrakova’s assertion raised more questions than it answered. It was clear that the crew of SS Hubbard had been on a pilgrimage after all. But how did they know this site was here? And what could possibly link a war-ravaged world with an obscure religion hundreds of light years away?
She looked out at the pyramid and as the dust thinned a little she caught site of what appeared to be recess at the foot of the structure. Possibly an entrance?
She had questions that needed answers, and there was only one place she was going to find them.
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As well as the two shuttle crew, O’Mara had space for four people on her away team. In addition to herself and Chief Petrakova she’d selected Guiseppe Lozado, her specialist in alien languages and Simone Chartres, a xeno-anthropologist.
The four of them headed across the causeway with all comms open so they could share their observations. O’Mara herself immediately noted that below the dust underfoot, the raised bank was paved in some kind of hard stone. She took time out to inspect the stonework and noted that the individual slabs were astonishingly smooth and even. The gaps between slabs were miniscule and there were no obvious deviations in height. A lot of time and effort had gone into this pathway.
It was soon apparent that the same care and attention to detail had gone into the construction of the pyramid. Its sides were constructed from huge blocks of stone, but the fit of each block into the larger structure was perfect, giving an angled rampart so smooth that from any distance it appeared to be a single surface.
High above them the raised eye-like symbol disappeared into the swirling dust, but its lower reaches could be seen to be richly embellished. The raised surface appeared to be metallic, and finely inscribed interlocking patterns covered the entire surface.
The wind dropped for a moment and the dust subsided a little. Through the thin wisps the theta symbol loomed above them, looking down on them, making them feel wholly insignificant.
O’Mara tried to take in the whole symbol, but then suddenly had to look away as if she’d lost a staring contest. She looked at the ground and around at her team, but couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that the giant eye was still staring down upon her.
She physically shook her head. She was being ridiculous. With an effort of will she pushed these ideas to the back of her mind and forced herself onward.
As they approached the opening at the foot of the pyramid, they became aware that this was embellished too. The broad entrance had appeared to be a dark and unwelcoming gap in the otherwise perfect structure, but closer up they could see the entrance was lined with statues.
The entrance was not square, but broadened as it went deeper into the pyramid. In this area, a long row of statues stood, each in an identical pose, with arms bent at the elbows, and hands reaching out in front of the body, palms upward, in an apparent gesture of welcome. To their amazement, there was not just a single row, but dozens of rows, fading into the gloom of the deeper parts of the recess.
Each statue seemed to be an alien of the same race, although each was slightly different. One or two had suffered damage in the past, but most were intact, and revealed a bipedal species, slightly taller and slimmer than humans, draped in some kind of ceremonial robe.
Closer inspection revealed what appeared to be a pair of huge eyes, set in a triangular head, much like an inverted pyramid. There were what appeared to be nostrils, but oddly, no mouth or ears.
Each statue was carved from fine, hard, polished white stone different from the causeway and pyramid, and stood on a plinth. Each plinth bore an inscription in an alien language that O’Mara took to be very much like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Whilst Lozado took images of this writing, O’Mara used a scanner she’d brought to examine the stone of the nearest statue.
‘Wow. That’s interesting. If I can get a geological baseline I could probably carbon-date the stonework accurately, but it seems from the differences in carbon decay that there’s a huge difference in age of this statue and the pyramid itself. If it’s anything like readings we’d get on earth the stone of this statue is about a thousand years old, but the actual structure of the pyramid must be at least fifty times older?’
Petrakova was wandering among the statues taking her own readings. ‘It looks like they get newer as they get toward the front. There must be about three or four thousand of them.’
Lozado was still studying the inscriptions. ‘I notice that each heading begins with the same phrase. I’d have to assume that each of the individuals these statues represent must have held the same rank or position.’
Petrakova agreed. ‘Almost certainly the equivalent of the high priest for this temple. What does strike me immediately is how stable this society must have been.’
O’Mara didn’t understand. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well in most cultures, especially the pre-industrial ones where such religious megaliths are prevalent, socio-political changes mean cultures rise and fall. On earth, Egyptian culture waxed and waned over a period of about three thousand years. Rome lasted about two thousand. Greek culture was dominant for less than a thousand years. In each case, the rise of a new dominant culture led to near obliteration for what had gone before. Whoever built this structure was able to keep adding these beautiful, fragile statues for something in the order of fifty thousand years. That’s a long run by any cultural standard.’
‘Do you reckon they were the dominant power in this region for that long?’
Petrakova shook her head inside her suit. ‘Not a chance. Aggressive empire building normally results in shorter lived cultures than more restrained societies. If
you build an Empire, there will always be challengers for status and power. It’s more likely this race was happy with their lot and had nothing in particular that anyone else needed. I reckon it’s more likely that they developed very slowly over a very long period of time.’
‘But they were capable of faster-than-light travel: we’ve seen the remains of their ships in orbit.’
‘I don’t deny that they were capable. I just don’t think they were interested. I think this species was seriously introverted.’
They were interrupted by Chartres who was also examining the statues. ‘I’ve done a quick headcount; there are four thousand one hundred and eight statues. That’s a lot of priests.’
Lozado concurred. ‘It is, and I reckon these inscriptions are dated as well as named. There are a pair of icon sequences below the name on each statue. The sequences are concurrent, so the sequence on the left on one statue is the same as the sequence on the right on the next statue. Each of these beings held their post one at a time.’
He scuttled further back into the depths of the recess and looked at the ones at the very back. ‘There are only ten different icons used so it appears they used a decimal numeric system. How long is the orbital period of this world?’
‘About three hundred and ninety earth days’ replied O’Mara.
‘Well in that case . . . ‘ said Lozado, tapping away on a PAD ‘ . . . these statues represent the various head honchos of this monument over a period of about ninety thousand years.’
‘Wow. That’s a long time’ mused O’Mara as she wandered forward to examine one of the statues more closely. She was physically quite a small woman and had to look up into the alien face.
‘Long enough to show some significant physiological development’ replied Chartres. ‘The statues at the back have different facial features from the ones at the front. These back here have got a visible mouth and what appears to be ears that are missing from the more recent ones near the front.’
O’Mara was surprised. ‘Are you sure? Couldn’t that just be an artistic representation?’
Petrakova was weighing up Chartres observation. ‘Unlikely. With the attention to detail on the robes and other body parts, I’d guess the sculptor made these statues as life-like as possible.’
Chartres was almost talking to himself. ‘Over a period of a few thousand generations, the maxilo-facial bone structure has almost completely changed. It’s almost as if this species gave up talking and eating.’
O’Mara barely heard them. She was fascinated by the face of the statue. The face bothered her. All of the statues looked out levelly across to each other, but this one seemed to be looking down at her. It had to be some kind of optical illusion.
It was so life-like it didn’t look like stone at all. She could almost feel the warmth radiating from flesh and see the dark, dark eyes looking at her . . . looking into her.
Eyes. Huge dark eyes. Dark staring eyes . . .
. . . that blinked.
She screamed and fell backward, waiting for the statue to pounce on her, but as she looked up in terror all she saw was stone. White stone eyes, set in a white stone face. Stone as cold as the grave.
‘Aisling! Are you alright? Aisling??’
She felt arms lift her. She pushed the hands away and said ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a little stumble. I’m good thanks’
She didn’t take her eyes off the stony face.
A beep inside her helmet reminded her that time was moving on and radiation dose rates were still rising. She was incredibly glad of the distraction. Abruptly she said ‘Let’s see if we can get inside.’
They moved deeper into the recess and were surprised to find that there didn’t seem to be any doors at all. At the end of the recess a passageway led further into the pyramid via a number of right angle turns that helped prevent the howling winds filling the inner spaces of the pyramid with dust. From this broad passageway, other narrower passageways led off to either side.
In places there were steps that led up or down, and although everything appeared to be completely symmetrical, there wasn’t enough time to even begin to explore the vast structure.
Eventually they came to a huge open space. To their surprise, it wasn’t completely dark. In the walls far off to the sides and the ceiling high above them, small lights glittered in the darkness. At first O’Mara was confused: There was no power source at all in the pyramid. How could there be lights here, nearly a hundred metres into the pyramid?
It took her some time to understand that this was natural light, brought in from outside via some kind of reflective tube or conduit. From no obvious place more light streamed into the space focused on a single point in the very centre of the cavernous space. Here a simple stone dais was raised above the floor.
O’Mara felt a strange compulsion and walked over to the raised stone. She looked up. From here, the lights were more evenly spread, but were far from regular. Her brow wrinkled. Why bother to go to the trouble of bringing in light from outside in such tiny, inconsistent amounts? She edged further in and for some reason felt that the lights looked vaguely familiar. Almost welcoming.
She nearly tripped over the little dais. Without thinking, she stepped up onto it and looked up again.
Something wasn’t quite right. She moved a little to her right, into the centre of the little dais, and turned just a little to right. Yes that was better.
She looked up. Hundreds of tiny lights sparkled all around her, but only one caught her eye. It was quite dim compared to some, almost insignificant, but it called to her somehow.
It seemed to get larger in her view, and suddenly she felt as if she was falling, falling up towards the light. She reached out . . .
Petrakova’s voice brought her feet back to the ground. ‘Aisling? Are you sure you’re ok?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine’. The display in her helmet told her that they were running out of time. Unnerved now, O’Mara wasn’t overly disappointed about that. She kept nervously looking around into the dark reaches of the pyramid looking for . . . she mentally shook herself. She was a scientist for god’s sake! There was nothing here to be afraid of. Everything was dead. The whole planet. Dead. She felt an involuntary shiver that seemed to start at her spine and work its way out to her extremities.
So much for a scientist to explore, so much to learn, and so little time in which to work. Now though, she couldn’t wait to be away from this place.
With a shudder, O’Mara set down a container she’d been carrying and opened it up. She’d brought a set of mapping drones, knowing their time on the surface was limited. The radiation inside the pyramid was a little lower and she hoped that would allow them to work properly.
She activated the four little drones and they obediently rose and hovered in front of her. She pulled out a control PAD that was also in the box and selected the functions she required: Spatial survey, visual record, temperature / pressure variation, atmospheric chemical composition, radioactivity levels.
She defined boundaries for the operation from the grid co-ordinates for the structure before checking her radiation dose readings. They had about forty minutes in here before the dose of radiation they were absorbing would give health problems. She set a default time of thirty minutes for the little drones in which time they would gather as much data as they could within the parameters selected.
She pressed the execute command and the little drones rose further, flew a couple of neat circles above her head, and having divided the space amongst themselves, all four zipped off in different directions.
‘Ok, the survey-bees are on their way, we’ve got about thirty minutes of useful work we can do here. Let’s make it count.’
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Back on the ship a few hours later, O’Mara and her team were going through the data they’d accumulated.
The Archaeology and Anthropology team were convinced that the pyramid held a religious significance and the evidence had mounted that the theta
symbol was key to it all. It had occurred everywhere, right across the site and much of the iconography seemed to indicate that it was indeed a representation of an eye.
O’Mara was desperate to try to shed light on this by sending a team to one of the major population centres, but the damage to every one of them was extensive and the radiation levels were terrifyingly high.
She’d had to settle for sending the scout robots down to the surface, but even they were not entirely immune to the horrific conditions: Two cut short their missions and returned to the ship with circuit boards damaged by exposure to excessive levels of gamma radiation.
The two that had completed their missions didn’t add much to their understanding of the poor murdered world. The cities they visited were just a series of blast craters connected by fields of rubble. There was barely a standing structure anywhere in the major cities.
Alarmingly, there were still bodies in the ruins. The Environment and Ecology team had already concluded that the world was effectively sterile. It seemed that the radiation was so great that even most bacteria had been destroyed: there was nothing left to cause the bodies to decay.
What did become apparent though, was that the significance of the theta symbols was not limited to their original landing site. It occurred everywhere across the surface of the planet on every scale. In some places it was etched into the stone-work of a fallen building, but in other places, entire cities had been planned to follow the outline of that one symbol.
O’Mara was in the Sick-bay discussing the possibility of recovering a cadaver for autopsy with Doctor Mengele when the survivor from the ship-wreck overheard them.
‘You’ll find nothing of worth in examining the physical remains. They are merely prisons of flesh for a spirit long since departed.’
O’Mara failed to hide her disdain for what she regarded as new-age hippie mumbo-jumbo. ‘I appreciate your opinion, but as a scientist I feel we need something a little more definite. Something like facts, rather than superstition.’