RABAN (The Rabanian Book 2)

by Dan Haronian

  "There's electricity?" he asked.

  "No," said Musan.

  "Than what is powering this light?"

  Musan frowned. "I don't know," he said, "maybe it runs off a battery."

  Sosi turned around and walked back to the door. He laid his hand on its side. "Someone worked hard to preserve this," he said. "This is not just a room it’s a safe."

  He turned and walked deep inside the room. Patches of light on the wall caught his attention. He furrowed his brow and immediately shifted his gaze up to the ceiling. For a short moment he lost his balance.

  "Sosi," called Su-Thor and rushed to support him. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

  He went to sit down in one of the chairs. It was too low and he almost fell again.

  "Turn off of the lights," he said.

  Musan stared at him. He wasn't sure he’d heard right.

  "Turn them off please," repeated Sosi decisively.

  Musan nodded to the firefighter who turned off the light. In the darkness that filled the room, rays of light streamed from the ceiling and hit the front wall and the floor.

  "What you have to say about that?" he said in a trembling voice.

  "What's wrong with you?" asked Su-Thor trying to study his face in the darkness that filled the room.

  "I'm okay," he said immediately, looking up at the ceiling of the room.

  "Those are lenses," he said. "Sixty four lenses."

  Musan looked at the ceiling, raised his eyebrows.

  Sosi stood and walked towards one of the spots of reflected light on the wall. "What is this?" he asked pointing at their bright square in the middle.

  Musan walked towards him. "It looks like a photoelectric cell," he said.

  "Photoelectric cell," mumbled Sosi.

  "Maybe we should call a doctor," said Musan. He wasn't sure, but the light reflected from the wall illuminated Sosi’s face. He was very pale.

  "I don't need a doctor," said Sosi, annoyed.

  "What is going on with you?" asked Su-Thor angrily and walked towards him. He lifted his hand to the air as if he was trying to calm her down.

  "Nothing has happened to me, it's just…those lenses take me back. A long time back."

  "Turn on the lights," said Su-Thor. When they came back on she looked at him.

  "You don't look so good," she said.

  "It's just excitement, I'm fine."

  Su-Thor sighed. She looked at the ceiling. "Lenses? Are you sure? What are they for? Shuttles spent most of their time in space. Lenses would be useless there. Besides even if this shuttle is 200 years old, there should be enough energy on board to power a city. Why these games?"

  "I’ve never seen anything like this," said Musan.

  "You have no idea how odd this thing is," said Sosi.

  Sosi’s mind was back in the cave on the mountain at the Canyon. He’d never gone back there, but the pattern of the lights and the lenses in the ceiling of this craft were so similar to those in the cave that he had no doubt that the same designer was involved. It baffled him. How could that be? How could the same person be involved? This ancient shuttle must have travelled incredible distances before crashing here. The caves were old as well, but they were here. How could one person be the architect of both?

  He walked over to the terminal and stared at the blinking light. He lowered himself into the chair in front of the screen and hooked a neck sensor that looked as old as the terminals. The terminal woke up and text appeared on the screen. It was written in Seragonian.

  The Mineral Company of Seragon

  "The shuttle is from Seragon," he said and a shiver ran through his body. He looked at the Seragonian letters for few seconds before starting to surf on the terminal. Technical details appeared on the screen; Galactic space routes and information related to mineral deposits on different planets scrolled across the screen.

  "There's nothing special here," he said after a few minutes.

  Musan walked back and laid his hand on the doorframe at the entrance. "Is it customary to build such rooms into mining shuttles?" he asked.

  "No," said Su-Thor decisively.

  "Maybe this room served as the control center for several shuttles." said Sosi. Then he thought of the lenses and realized that didn't make sense.

  "And what about its advanced age?" Asked Musan.

  Sosi shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know."

  "Maybe we can find more information in the central computer’s memory," said Su-Thor.

  "Except for this room, nothing else survived the crash," said Musan.

  Sosi rose from his chair and walked over to the door. He looked again at the lenses and then at the odd graphics on the wall in front of the terminals that suddenly looked familiar. He nodded his head. "Come on, let's go outside," he said. "I can’t breathe in here anymore."

  He walked down the stairs and crossed the control deck. The complete devastation around him testified how unique the room at the end of the stairs was.

  "Did someone from Naan call you?" he asked Musan when they were outside.

  "Heneg called. I told him we have put out the fire and are scanning the area."

  "Don't tell them too much," said Sosi and looked back at the Shuttle. "There is something odd about this shuttle. Something beyond what we are seeing. Let's understand it first before we tell everyone."

  "Very well," said Musan.

  "I have to rest," said Sosi and walked away. Su-Thor followed him as they crossed the wooden bridge connecting the shuttle to the ground. As they hovered above the wreckage of the shuttle he pointed at the big square on the roof of the shuttle. "The lenses."

  Su-Thor nodded. "Why do I have a feeling you are not telling me everything."

  He shook his head.

  "Something happened in there. You almost had a heart attack."

  "It wasn’t a heart attack. It was shock I suppose. The kind of shaking feeling that hits you when you see something you think you recognize but suddenly you realize it's not what you thought," he said.

  She gave him a short look. "Sosi Plaser, are you losing your mind?"

  He suppressed sigh. "It was a memory of something that happened a long time ago. When I ran away from Naan."

  "The first time or the second?"

  "The second," he said firmly. "The time I was also running away from you," he added.

  "Okay."

  "I went to the Canyon, at the end of the White Plains."

  "Where the new neighborhoods of City of Naan are?" she asked.

  "Yes, that dying place was once the center of someone’s life a long time ago. I got lost in one of the caves."

  He stopped and she noticed the stress on his face. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to," she said.

  "No, it's nothing. I am just remembering all sorts of things that I’ve tried to forget." He paused for a while before continuing. "I went into a cave there just before darkness fell and before Mampas rose. The cave was quite dark. It was stupid. I still don't know what pushed me to go inside. Anyway I walked inside and glanced back from time to time to the entrance so as not to lose my way. When I finally decided to turn back it was too late. The entrance was gone."

  "Is this a real story or were you hallucinating?"

  "I panicked. I don't know how long I stood there," continued Sosi. "I was helpless. But then, all of a sudden, several entrances appeared all around me. I didn't know what I was looking at. I just stood there frozen for a couple seconds. It felt like forever. Eventually I walked over to one of the entrances and found out it was only a reflection on the cave wall that came from the ceiling. I thought it was some sort of lamp. After I found the entrance and went outside I discovered it was lenses. Sixty-four huge, man sized, lenses. They were arranged in a square on top of the cave just like the ones we saw back in the shuttle, only much larger."

  "What a crazy story."

  "In the morning when Dion rose I went back inside. The cave was illuminated with soft daylight." He paused for a few sec
onds and then contemplating he added, "The cave simply shined with natural light."

  "How come you never told us the story?" asked Su-Thor.

  Sosi shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe it's because I don't like remembering it. Maybe it's because I don't understand it."

  "Are you telling me that this shuttle is from Naan?"

  He looked at her and frowned. "I don't know what it means. Who builds lenses like these? It's so unusual that the same people must be responsible for both."

  They remained silent for a few seconds before he added, "On the other hand, the words on the screen were in Seragonian."

  He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand any of this. There are so many contradictions and unexplained things," he said contemplating. "The lenses, Seragon, the age of shuttle. Did you notice the seats, the stairs, and the opening to the room? They were all built to Naanite scale. How does it all add up?"

  "Did Daio know about this cave?" she suddenly asked.

  He raised he's eyebrows. "I don't know. They leveled the mountain to build the new neighborhoods. Maybe the engineers went inside before the demolition. I bet they were happy to wipe them out. That’s what they did to everything that reminded them of old Naan."

  "I suggest you go in and rest," she said as the hovercraft settled onto the landing site beside the house.

  "That is exactly what I'm going to do," said Sosi.

  When he reached the second floor however, he walked into his study, logged into the network, and set to work as if he was suddenly reinvigorated. He wandered around from information circle to information circle for a while, hoping to find clues about the odd shuttle. His curiosity kept him going. Was the strange craft one of the hundreds of shuttles that came to Naan many years ago to strip it of its valuable mineral resources? If so what had happened to it since? How could a shuttle get lost in the first place?

  The huge lenses came to mind when he finally lay down on his bed. When the network had eventually reached the City of the Chosen he’d looked for any mention of them but hadn’t found a clue. He’d always believed they were some sort of combination of utility and art. To arrange lenses to bounce light to the walls of a cave in the middle of nowhere was one thing, it even made sense, but installing lenses on the back of a shuttle was completely senseless.

  "I don't suppose there were any survivors," said Daio as he walked towards Heneg who was waiting for him at the elevators in the government building. It was early morning. Heneg had called him the previous night to tell him what had happened.

  "They didn't find any remains," said Heneg. "Musan thinks it was an unmanned shuttle, but I think it's too early to say that."

  "Do you know where it came from?"

  "No."

  "How can that be? It's a shuttle," said Daio. "Someone should be missing it somewhere. Did you check with the airport?"

  "That was the first thing I did, but there are no missing shuttles. We’re checking with Mampas now. It’s possible the shuttle was on its way there and tried to make an emergency landing here because of some malfunction."

  Daio shook his head. "Landing is the last thing a shuttle would do if it was in trouble. And besides we would've known it was on its way. They would've made contact."

  "I guess you're right," said Heneg,

  "I heard it slid quite a long way before it stopped. I assume it completely broke apart."

  "It came down in their territory so we don't really have any way of knowing what happened."

  "Shuttles don't just crash," said Daio contemplating. "If there are no remains it will be hard to understand what exactly happened to it." He approached the elevators. "So we somehow have a crashed shuttle that no one is missing," he summed up to himself and shook his head. "We must find out what happened," he said and looked at Heneg. "If we don’t this may end up causing us serious harm."

  "Harm?"

  "Someone may suspect we had something to do with it."

  Heneg looked at him surprised. "Why would someone suspect us?"

  Daio didn’t tell Heneg what was going on in his mind. He didn't want to bring up things that were scrambled and forgotten. "I don't know, but I would rather be updated on what's going on over there so we can prepare for any possible scenario."

  "We could send some people to help them investigate," said Heneg.

  Daio shook his head. "They won't agree," he said and stared at Heneg. "How are your Flyeyes doing?" he asked.

  "My Flyeyes?" said Heneg and swallowed.

  "They would be a very efficient way to search for remains or survivors."

  "Yes, it's a possibility," said Heneg thinking of the Flyeyes that were already hovering over the City of the Chosen.

  "You think you can do it without their being noticed?"

  Heneg nodded silently as if was afraid he would say something that would reveal the fact that they were already there.

  The elevator arrived and Daio stepped in. He gave Heneg a short look. "Be careful. Don't do anything stupid and keep me updated," he said just before the door slid closed.

  The word Flyeyes sent a shiver down Heneg's back. It gradually faded but for a long time he remained standing in front of the closed elevator door contemplating the opportunity that had fallen into his lap. He had been afraid for so long that at any moment he would be asked to explain why one of his Flyeyes had fallen from the sky and landed right at Sosi’s feet. Now he had an official sanction from Daio himself. A great sense of relief spread through him as he rushed to the control center.

  The torn body of the shuttle was centered on the screens of the control center. A buzz of conversation went through Heneg’s team when the Flyeye focused its telescopic lens on the shuttle and the image covered the entire central screen.

  "This is upper part of the shuttle," said Carr Holan, head of the Flyeye unit. "So something survived," said Heneg surprised.

  "It looks quite complete, but I don't recognize the model." He rotated his head as if a different angle would refresh his memory.

  "Maybe it got twisted during the crash," said Heneg.

  "Yes, it's possible," said Carr. He pointed to a side screen. "This picture shows the debris trail. "It plowed through the whole forest before it stopped."

  "Wow," mumbled Heneg.

  "I think I found it," said one of the team members. He surfed on one of the terminals. Pictures of shuttles scrolled across a secondary screen, gradually moving backward in time, until the scrolling stopped on a picture of an old shuttle.

  "They’re not exactly the same but look how this part is so similar," he said pointing to the upper part of the shuttle.

  Those gathered in the control center nodded and he continued. "The shuttle was built in Finekia three hundred years ago."

  Heneg looked back and forth between the two screens and felt confused. "Finekia is not far from here, but that doesn't prove anything." He shook his head. "Their shuttles are probably the best around, but even they cannot last that long. Who would still be operating such an old shuttle? Who is dumb enough to subject such an old shuttle to gravity? It's too ridiculous to even think about."

  He reached for his comlink. He wanted to ask Musan a few questions but he pulled his hand back immediately after remembering he wasn’t supposed to know any details yet. He rubbed his chin, thinking through the conversation, and then he called.

  "Any news?" he asked when he heard Musan on the other end of the line.

  "No, not yet," said Musan after a short pause.

  "Are you saying that you still have no clue where it came from?"

  "Unfortunately not much remained after the crash. We’re still looking for survivors. We haven't even found any identifying marks on the shuttle. In any event the situation is under control. The fire is out and there is no risk anymore. Thank you very much for your interest and the offer of help."

  "I don't think this is as simple as you think," said Heneg. "Daio asked me to find out what happened over there. He's worried. Shuttles don’t just crash. Not kn
owing where it came from is a risk in itself. I think we were lucky it didn't crash in a populated area, but he thinks it's more than just luck. Daio even raised the possibility that someone might claim we were responsible."

  "I understand," said Musan.

  "If you will let us maybe we can help you find out where it came from?" said Heneg.

  "Help us?"

  "Yes, send us the details, we are connected to every system along every approach vector. Maybe they can help."

  Musan sighed. "I wish I had more information to give you. There is massive amount of wreckage but there is nothing left to help identify the shuttle. No name, no ID, nothing."

  Heneg contemplated this for a moment then said, "Okay, send me an update as soon as you have something new and we'll be happy to help."

  Musan thanked him and the line went dead.

  Heneg walked over to the screen and looked at the picture the Flyeyes had captured of the shuttle. "Why didn’t he tell me it's old?" He asked out loud. "Why is he hiding that fact?"

  "Maybe he doesn't know," said Carr. "Maybe it's not so important to him."

  "Of course it's important," said Heneg. "Every detail is important to identify it. They are connected to the network. With few neck twists they can know as much as we do," said Heneg. "And besides…" he paused for a moment before continuing. "I mean to say that maybe they wouldn’t recognize its age from the outside but surely they have gone inside and seen how old it is." He shook his head. "But I guess it’s possible someone has upgraded the interior. Not that it would make sense to upgrade a three hundred year old shuttle."

  He rubbed his chin again. "I don't know, I really don't know," he said and sourly gazed at the screen. "Can we get one inside?" He asked hesitantly.

  The technicians looked each other and then at Carr. "I guess we can try with number 54," he said. "It has good light sensitivity, and a short response time."

  Heneg nodded and Carr continued, “There are still people in there, but I assume they will leave before the nightfall."

  "Okay, let's give it a try," said Heneg and walked to the door. "I'll be back this evening, don't go in without me," he said and left the control center.