Alien, Awakening

by Sandra Harris

  “Does this mean anything to you, TL?”

  He oopled a negative.

  “Kathryn?”

  She pulled in a short breath and straightened. “Yes?”

  “Can your drone read this writing?”

  She raised her eyebrows in question at TL. He ooh-oohed an affirmative.

  “He can.”

  “Please ask it to translate.” T’Hargen gestured up the column.

  “Of course. Checking the accuracy of your version?”

  “It’s not my version, but, yes.”

  She turned her gaze to TL. “Have you done it?”

  He burbled at her.

  “Thank you.” She looked back at T’Hargen. “Do you want him to stream it to your scanner?”

  “That would be most beneficial. Thank you.”

  T’Hargen’s focus transferred to his instrument. A few moments later, his lower jaw slid to one side.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  His shoulders slumped a little to a sigh. “No, simply a hunch not coming to fruition.”

  “The translation is correct?”

  “It is.”

  “Okay. Well, I guess we have been successful in finding one way that doesn’t lead to a solution.”

  His features lightened from their grave set and he chuckled. “You’re quoting De’Nachay at me?”

  “No, I’m mis-quoting Edison at you. Who’s De’Nachay?”

  “An Angrigan philosopher. Who is Edison?”

  “An inventor, a pioneer that greatly impacted the way we live our lives.”

  She walked over to him, admiring the polished stone of the column. It shone as though comprised completely of sparkling flecks of dark red and charcoal. She reached out a hand, expecting at any second T’Hargen’s objection, and touched the pillar.

  Nothing happened.

  She twisted one corner of her mouth upwards in a rueful grin. Some hidden and vain part of herself had half expected the etchings to glow, or at least some of them to glow and reveal a comprehensible pattern.

  The sound of stone grinding on stone reverberated through the cavern. She took a hasty step back. T’Hargen’s hand grasped her elbow and drew her backwards until their shoulders were to the surrounding wall. She stared at the monolith. Dark, horizontal lines appeared along the huge length, divided the column into blocks. Some sections swivelled horizontally, others tumbled. Writing realigned then the whole thing settled and formed into one solid piece without discernible flaws.

  Half the hieroglyphs had disappeared to be replaced with the graceful swirls of symbols that looked familiar.

  Holy E-snoods!

  She stared with open-mouthed astonishment at the changed column. “Well, that was unexpected.” She blinked and herded her surprised wits into some form of reason. “Some of those symbols are similar in design to the one near the entrance of the cave.”

  T’Hargen’s hand tightened on her arm and tugged her around to face him. His other hand lifted and grasped her other elbow. Tension vibrated from him. Or was that . . .? Yes, he was shaking her.

  “What did you touch?” he demanded.

  She stiffened her neck muscles to stop her head from wobbling then looked into the wild light sparking in his eyes and decided not to rebuke him.

  “You saw where I touched. I didn’t feel anything but smooth stone beneath my fingers.”

  His grip lessened and his thumbs drew small, distracting circles over the insides of her arms. Wonder and speculation expanded in his eyes.

  “So it would seem you have the touch.”

  “Touch?”

  His rakish grin caught her breath. “I tried touching it, without result.”

  She drew a slow breath. “Maybe you loosened it.”

  “Hmm.”

  His gaze narrowed on her and wheels of thought she couldn’t characterise turned in his eyes. A proud, possessive cast settled on his features.

  What’s he processing in that sharp mind?

  “You are”—a gentle smile curved his lips as he lifted a hand and stroked a barely felt caress below her chin—“my lucky charm.”

  Then he jumped as if spiked with a thorn. An angry snarl curled back his lips and he swung away from her. In the blink of an eye, T’Hargen had his laser aimed at TL. All the armaments on her little friend glowed molten orange.

  Whoa!

  She jumped between them, held a hand, palm up, towards T’Hargen and looked along the line of her shoulder to TL.

  “Stand down, TL, it’s alright.”

  His angry warbling response flummoxed her.

  T’Hargen emitted what? Splicing pheromones? What the heck are splicing pheromones?

  She couldn’t question TL, not in front of T’Hargen. She could just imagine that scene. Yeah, that was a conversation she did not want to have with a witness. The bright burn of TL’s lasers dimmed. She turned back to T’Hargen. His mood didn’t appear to have improved.

  “He just thought I needed protecting.”

  “You will never need protecting from me, Kathryn, and if you want your friend to survive I suggest you convince him of that.”

  “Can it at least wait until he’s deciphered this new script?”

  T’Hargen’s lips compressed, then the light of destructive retribution in his eyes banked.

  “Very well. If he can.”

  She turned back to TL. “How about it?”

  His attitude retained a hint of aggression, nose and wing tips angled down, a distinctly hostile tone underscoring the hum of his engines. He hovered in place for a moment then sped off to fly a circuit around the altered column. She lowered her arms and managed to half-subdue a roll of her eyes for mismanaged testosterone. How had she become saddled with two over-protective males?

  “Does it make any sense now?” she asked.

  T’Hargen stared at the screen of his scanner.

  “That depends of your point of view. If your friend’s translation is correct”—TL emitted a sharp, high-pitched whistle of indignant protestation—“it now reads, ‘Build the buildings to light the paths.’”

  Kat ran over that several times in her head. She pursed her lips. “That doesn’t seem extremely helpful.”

  T’Hargen shrugged. “As I said, I can’t guarantee the translation is correct.”

  She sent him an admonishing glare. “Stop baiting TL.”

  Build the buildings. Build the—

  She swung back to the holographic image held within the inner wall of the rock maze then narrowed her gaze in thought.

  What does that remind me of? Something pertinent. Something about—

  Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man slipped into her mind. A light bulb flickered on. She snapped her fingers in triumphant recall.

  “Canon of Proportions!”

  “Of what do you speak, Kathryn?”

  She spun back to T’Hargen. Excitement brimmed in her veins like a full-on Rio carnival.

  “It could be a wild guess, but I think it’s all to do with proportions.”

  T’Hargen’s calm regard vexed her lively enthusiasm. She wanted to shake him, direct inject him with her exhilaration of a possible solution. Words forged forwards, jumbled together on her tongue and kept her mute. She closed her eyes, dragged in a long, slow breath, and forced calm over her mind.

  “Kathryn?”

  She looked up at T’Hargen. “On Earth, one of history’s most influential men drew an image of the ideal man. His drawing is based on the work of an ancient architect that used the proportions of the ideal human male figure in certain orders of architecture.”

  T’Hargen’s brow creased.

  “Sorry, I’m not being terribly clear, am I?”
r />   “Take your time.”

  His sure, low tone helped her order her thoughts. She rolled her shoulders then dropped her head to either side, stretching her neck.

  “Okay. It’s like this. For the human male to be physically ideal, each part of him must be in certain proportion to the others. For example, the measurement of his face from hairline to chin should be one-tenth his entire height. The width of his chest a quarter of his height.”

  One of T’Hargen’s eye-ridges rose.

  “It’s for humans. I can’t remember the rest and I doubt it’s important, as it’s the concept we’re after here. Are you getting the picture?”

  “You are saying that certain parts of buildings correlate with certain parts of this”—he pointed at the hologram—“figure, and that those parts should be proportioned into the building as per those of this figure.”

  “Yes! If a roof corresponds to the head, then the roof height should equal the fraction of the head-to-height ratio of this figure as applied to the building.”

  T’Hargen gazed at her for a moment then nodded. “It is a sound idea, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “What buildings, Kathryn?”

  She blinked. Her excitement took a direct hit from practicality. A sigh of disappointment deflated her lungs.

  Damn!

  TL nudged her shoulder then crooned a little rondo of assurance. He flew off to the far side of the clearing and hovered before a transparent display panel embedded in the rock wall that had not previously been evident. What appeared to be fragmented, structure blueprints covered most of its surface.

  Astonishment and triumph arced through her. She raised her eyebrows and jutted her chin towards the drawings.

  “I’m guessing those ones.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Kat stood beside T’Hargen and studied the building drafts. She stabbed a finger at one and moved it sideways across the bio-interactive screen. She pinched her thumb and forefinger together. The plan condensed to a smaller version.

  “Right, well that’s pretty self-explanatory,” she said. “We know how to manipulate the structure’s sizes, now all we need are the proper dimensions.”

  T’Hargen strode back around the column to the hologram and held his scanner before it. His satisfied grunt echoed to her as he marched back.

  “We will need to determine which segments of the figure represent those of the structure.”

  “Shall we start with the roof?”

  “The concept is yours, Kathryn, so shall be the decision.”

  His genuine belief in her slipped into the dark cloud in her mind where her self-protective nature lurked, ever ready to defend herself and her actions, and lightened it a little. Over the next few hours, they experimented with parts and counterparts until finally stumbling upon a formula. Elation skipped through Kat as the building plans fitted together in a natural manner.

  “I think we’ve got it!” Exultation flickered along her nerves like a rain of sweet lightning.

  T’Hargen manoeuvred a final cornice into place. In unison she turned with him and faced the column. Expectancy thrummed the air between them. Her ears stretched to hear rock grind on rock, a path to be revealed. A shaft of sun-bright light struck the column, for a brief moment an explosion of glare snatched her vision. She blinked, took a step back, and refocused on the pillar. The beam of light shone on a circular motif about four inches in diameter. It gleamed like a piece of iridescent, midnight-blue sky.

  And that was all.

  No lines, no diagrams, no indication of a route—geographical or written. Nothing path-like. What. So. Ever.

  Disappointment hammered her elation.

  “I’m not seeing any paths.”

  She pulled in a deep breath, filling her lungs with air and her mind with resolution.

  Well—

  “Perhaps not, Kathryn, but I believe that may very well be.”

  A hint of awe shaded T’Hargen’s steady words. She turned to him then peered over her shoulder, following the direction of his gaze. A diagram reflected on the marbled rose-and-grey inner rock wall of the maze. A large, gold disk took up most of the right side of the image. Five smaller dots each at varying distances and joined to the larger disk by straight lines resided on the left.

  She waved her hand in front of the circular, blue motif. The design on the rock wall flickered.

  A reflection.

  She peered back at the motif. No evidence of engraving or impression of any kind.

  Interesting.

  She followed T’Hargen to the diagram. “That appears to be a very cryptic path.”

  His thoughtful gaze moved from the diagram to her. “Yes.” He pointed to the large disk. “This appears to be a central point.”

  “Like a sun?”

  “Possibly. Though I would expect if that were the case these smaller points would be scattered in a circular orbit around it. Perhaps it represents where we are.”

  Mmm, like a ‘you are here’ reference on a map.

  She looked about, trying to see if any of the straight lines coincided with the exits in the maze.

  No.

  “Maybe we need to see if any of the buildings here lay along these paths.”

  T’Hargen nodded and turned to her, a relaxed smile warming his features. Her blood heated and her lips curved in automatic reply to the offering.

  “I’ve measured the degrees of angles between the conjoining lines,” he said. “From the top of this wall I should be able to determine if this diagram corresponds to any of the structures in the cavern. So, my lucky charm, which target should we use as a base line?”

  Her mind refused to accept the implied intimacy of the nickname while her heart, her heart did nothing. Really. It definitely did not swoon. No way. Hearts didn’t swoon and absolutely, positively hers did not.

  “This one.”

  She lifted a hand and touched her index finger to the top, smaller, dot. Her peripheral vision caught the flash of a broad, vertical purple beam as it swept towards them. T’Hargen’s warm hand wrapped around her upper arm in a firm grip. The world . . . hiccupped. Nothing violent, just as if it had blinked. She glanced around. Everything appeared unchanged. TL hovered a few feet from her, oopling surprise and delight.

  The pillar remained the same, as did the rock walls. No trace of purple light, though.

  “What was that?” she asked, turning to T’Hargen.

  “I do not know.”

  The wary uncertainty in his tone sent a frisson of alertness down her spine.

  “TL?”

  Her friend warbled that he had never before experienced such a thing. She looked back at the diagram. Four of the smaller dots had changed distance to the large disk.

  “That’s odd.”

  T’Hargen’s eye-ridges lowered as he stared at the alteration. A gentle, cool breeze puffed over her warm skin and tickled the hair at her nape. T’Hargen straightened. Tension vibrated from him, caught her unease and ramped it up.

  “Remain still,” he ordered.

  In one smooth motion, he reached for the top of the wall, then jumped and hauled himself up with graceful power. His gaze locked on to something far behind her, beyond the confines of the maze and his features solidified into deadly calm. A prick of fear darted through her chest. T’Hargen knelt and extended a hand towards her.

  “Kathryn, give me your hand.”

  His extracted promise about obeying his commands bloomed with a sense of warning through her mind. She reached up and grabbed his hand. His engulfed hers, and before she could find purchase on the smooth rock of the wall, he’d lifted her to his side.

  The confining circle of his arm anchored on her waist, allowing her little movement as they bal
anced on the foot width of the wall. She turned her head and stared over her shoulder.

  The cavern no longer existed.

  On the far side of the maze, enormous lavender-blue flowers growing on a huge dark-green vine clung to the rock edges of a large cave mouth. Far beyond and down a huge drop in elevation, terraced ponds reflected the golden-pink light of a far off setting sun. Lofty copper-coloured spires echoed the shape of the column behind them on a rounded, grand scale.

  Oh, hell. “We don’t appear to be in Kansas anymore.” Again.

  Chapter 5

  That may have been one touch too far.

  Kat clenched her hands on the shirt covering T’Hargen’s chest and stared at the view.

  “Is it a hologram?”

  His clasp on her remained firm as he used his other hand to check his scanner.

  “It is not.”

  Unease bounced around her chest like a ricocheting bullet. “So”—she cleared the disquiet tightening her throat—“are we still on New Earth?”

  His fingers dug a little deeper into her hip. “I am unable to verify that, Kathryn.”

  The doubt clouding his tone pricked her and she peered up at him. “But?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  Wonderful.

  She forced her heart to cease its painful imitation of chaotic flyball and settle into a determined, practical rhythm.

  “What makes you say that?”

  He remained mute, seemingly disinclined to share his reasoning with her.

  She slid her hands up to his shoulder line and gave him a shake. “Just give it to me straight, T’Hargen, I’m not about to freak out on you. I’ve experienced worse.”

  His gaze dropped from the unfamiliar vista and he stared with sombre intensity into her eyes.

  “I do not wish for you to have to endure such things again.”

  Warmth flowed over her spirit like a summer breeze and she patted the hard slope of his pec. “That makes two of us. Now tell me why you’re certain we’re not home.”