by M. G. Harris
“Ninbanda?” She looks up. “Ninbanda . . . how are we going to get to the moon?”
For a few seconds the fragile old woman seems puzzled at my question. Finally realization seems to dawn on her.
“Ah . . . you mean to activate the moon machine?”
“Right,” I say, nodding.
“My dear child,” she says, and there’s almost disappointment in her voice. “What made you think that the activator is on the moon?”
“It isn’t?”
“The Erinsi did not achieve manned travel to the moon. The moon machine is activated by a laser – which is located on Earth.”
“So you do know where it is?”
Now she sounds irritated. “Listen to my words, child. I know only that the activator simply cannot be on the moon.”
The Erinsi woman remains tight-lipped on our journey back. Everything I say on the subject results in nothing more than an enigmatic silence. I can only hope that Ninbanda will be more talkative in front of the Ruling Executive.
Ixchel and I communicate through wordless gazes and the touch of our fingers between the seats. It’s not easy to keep my mind from the gaping void of our possible failure.
Was it all for nothing? The whole elegant plan ruined by Bosch and his dumb meddling with technology he didn’t understand?
When hours later we land in Ek Naab, a medical crew is already there, ready to receive the second Muwan carrying the injured captain. They’ve radioed that they finally managed to get into the Muwan without anyone else being injured, with one of the pilots giving cover by shooting at the Sect’s aeroplane. Sounds as though the Sect didn’t stick around too long once their target started fighting back. With a little help from Benicio and me, Ixchel staggers out and immediately sits down on the floor of the hangar, rubbing her bandaged ankle. Benicio heads off towards the medical crew, to brief them about the captain.
Chief Sky Mountain and other members of the ruling Executive – Lorena, Lizard Paw, Rodolfo Jaguar and Montoyo – arrive. Tyler is at the chief’s side, his arm in a sling. Ninbanda takes my hand, steps out of the Muwan and climbs down a staircase that’s brought up against the aircraft. I stand at the top of the staircase and watch the chief welcome her to the city.
“Our honoured guest. We’ve guarded your secrets for over a thousand years. All we need now is the location of the moon machine. And your guidance to activate it.”
“My guidance, you’ll have. But the location was given to you. As it is written in the ancient inscriptions, the location is the key. I know it not.”
Realization takes hold over the next few seconds.
Montoyo speaks up. “Excuse me . . . you don’t know the three-dimensional map location?”
“No. So much detail could be lost; memories can degrade during hibernation.”
He looks flabbergasted. “So . . . even if we could get you there, you might not remember how to activate the moon machine?”
“There will be inscriptions to guide us. And a vocal instruction – a simple response that is imprinted into my memory.”
Tyler begins to chuckle. “This is sick, man! The old lady has to say a magic spell.”
The members of the ruling Executive seem to have been struck dumb.
I stare at them all and take a step backwards, leaning against the open cockpit. This cannot be happening. No. I refuse to believe that the Erinsi wouldn’t have left us the location of the moon machine.
Urgently I say to Ninbanda, “What did you just say . . . the location is the key?”
She turns to me, smiling. “Exactly.”
“And you’ve got no idea where the key is?”
“No. All I know is that the information was on our Temple of Inscriptions.”
“Yeah, I know, the ruins near Izapa. Bosch-I-mean-Itzamna copied it all down into his books. So it has to have been in one of the Books of Itzamna.”
“Yes. But don’t expect a vital piece of information like that to be plainly stated.”
It has to be in code.
My eyes lock with Ixchel’s; I can tell she’s thinking exactly the same thing as me.
“Surely not. . . The key location? Ixchel – the key!”
Ixchel frowns, gazing back at me. “Could it really be so simple?”
I climb back into the cockpit, grab the headset and bring up the menu for all basic flight programmes, just as I’ve done in every lesson I’ve ever had
The chief sounds puzzled. “What’s the boy doing?”
Ixchel replies, “All our technology comes from instructions in the four Books of Itzamna, and the specifications for the Muwan Mark II are in the Kan Codex, yes?”
Now the chief looks dumbfounded. “Any pilot learns that on his first day.”
I call out, “Well, that means that code in the Kan Codex can translate into a pre-programmed flight plan in the Muwan.”
“What Josh is saying,” Ixchel concludes, “is that the information we need could be in the on-board computer.”
The chief looks stupefied. “How would such a thing be possible? If the location of the moon machine were in the program bank, we’d know!”
From inside the cockpit I call out, “But the actual location is in computer language! You’d only see that particular flight program come up. . .”
Ixchel completes my sentence, “. . . if you were to search for it. You’d have to know the exact sequence of letters. The exact fifteen letters!”
“And it never even occurred to us to look,” the chief says. He sounds almost ashamed.
“Why would it?” I say. “Ever since Lorena’s team found the fifteen letter sequence that’s inscribed on the Adaptor – we thought it was only a chemical formula. But what if it was BOTH? A chemical formula AND the name of a flight program. The location is the key.”
Montoyo’s reponse sounds like laughter. “The key location has been in the on-board flight computer all along?”
Leaning out of the cockpit, I give him a grin. “Totally! There are lots of pre-programmed flight plans and manoeuvres. My personal favourite is Crazy Benicio – that’s full-on. I bet you anything that the location we’re looking for is one of them.”
Montoyo’s enthusiasm seems to have infected the other members of the ruling Executive. Lorena says, “Josh – that’s astonishing. Go ahead – try it!”
I type an A. The list of manoeuvres appears. I type in the rest of the fifteen-letter sequence. And there it is. One of the hardwired basic flight programmes, taken directly from the Kan Codex: location AGYLIHRPPREIKGR.
Not exactly a sequence you’d type in by accident or coincidence. Hiding in plain sight. Unless you understood that the fifteen letter sequence of the Key peptide is also the key to the location of the moon machine.
On the holographic projector, I see the route being plotted out as data is pulled into the programme. The red line flows west, across the Pacific Ocean.
I call to Ninbanda and Tyler. “Get in! I’ve got it!”
Shaking with excitement, I try to steady myself as I strap into the pilot seat.
Once again . . . What Key Holds Blood. Arcadio’s message to me on those postcards keeps getting more prophetic.
Two Muwan engineers perform flight maintenance checks as Ninbanda and Tyler climb inside. The chief calls across the hangar to Benicio, ordering him back into the Muwan. But Ninbanda won’t hear of it. She becomes stern, even hostile. “This was always planned as a final journey for descendants of the Erinsi. There can be no witnesses.”
With a nervous glance at his watch, the chief backs down. Tens of thousands of years after their civilization ended, one of the Erinsi still holds all the cards.
Before I get into the Muwan, I tug at Ixchel’s elbow and take her to one side.
“Well, I guess this is it,” she says, but her smile is an anxious one.
“I’m going to finish it this time. Then our worries are over.”
That actually makes her laugh. She hugs me tight. “Yeah. Impossible to h
ave any problems in life apart from the end of the world.”
“Hey, don’t knock it! I’m looking forward to only worrying about exam results and getting a job and all that other stuff. . .”
Ixchel kisses me and I don’t hold back. Who cares if the rest of them are watching?
Then I’m in the sky again, at the helm, Tyler by my side. I take some time to show him the controls once more. He might as well practise if he’s going to remain in Ek Naab. Ninbanda sits quietly in the rear passenger seat. Her mood has become, quite suddenly, rather sombre. We watch the route appear in holographic form.
“Where are we going?” asks Tyler.
I peer at a transparent network of lines in the air. “I’m guessing Indonesia. . .”
Ninbanda makes a tiny sound, somewhere between surprise and sadness. “Lake Toba. Well, well.”
“Of course!” I say. “Lake Toba is in Indonesia. Bosch told us that the original Erinsi civilisation was destroyed by the supervolcano that created Lake Toba.”
“Indeed. The ancient Erinsi is now known as ‘Indonesia’.”
Our Muwan drifts, a lone arrow fired against a fearful destiny. My thoughts drift along too, as I wonder what we’ll find at the mysterious, secret location. It seems impossible to grasp that those years that Tyler lived, an apocalypse I merely glimpsed, could soon be nothing more than a nightmare.
The descent begins. Detailed images of the land below appear. Tightly knitted green, forest hues. A gigantic ring of deep blue water; a lake. At the water’s edge the blue gives way to a low white mist rolling in from nearby forest-coated peaks. In the middle of the lake, a vast island. Even from hundreds of metres above, I can’t see across to the other side.
Ninbanda leans forward. “Those who survived the supervolcano acquired a marvellous expertise in tunnelling, at living underground. Why live under a sky of ash that yields nothing but poisonous rain? We believed the winter would never end. And just when it did, when we began to recover, to return to our homeland . . . from the centre of the galaxy came the superwave. We didn’t know what it was, what had happened, for decades. Finally we came to understand the nature of the superwave: a cosmic event that was destined to repeat every twenty-six thousand years – the same period as the precession of the equinoxes of our planet. We prepared. By then we were too few to survive as we’d been. And we knew that however great we became again, it mattered not. One day the superwave would return.”
I murmur, “So you made the plan.”
The Muwan slows even further, lowering us on to the middle of the island.
“Lake Toba,” says the Erinsi, gazing down. “Oh my dear children, if you’d seen our city.” She smiles at me once, very sadly. “What is left, the very little that is left, lies sunken hundreds of metres below, at the bottom of the crater. Destroyed by a volcanic eruption, the explosion of a caldera, a cataclysm of terrifying violence.”
The Muwan landing protocols kick in. With a practiced hand, I guide the craft to a landing spot as close as possible to the flashing light on the route map. We fly in low, swooping over palm trees and the dark wood of steeply sloping roofs that peek out from the green. Lakeside settlements disappear behind us as the Muwan enters deeper towards the island’s interior. To the last remnants of a lost world.
We land at the edge of a forest, high on a ridge. In the distance I see a narrow road stretching out, not more than a few kilometres away. The landscape is parched, green in patches but drying fast. “Keep your visor on,” Ninbanda tells me. “The aircraft computer can relay the location to your visual cortex.”
“How do you know so much about flying a Muwan?”
I hear a faintly smug smile in her reply. “My dear, who do you think built these craft?”
“What – you?!”
“No, child, I’m of a more recent generation than those who devised the 2012 plan. But my mother lived in the last living city of the Erinsi. She designed the holographic interface of the craft you know as ‘Muwan’, which we called ‘sparrow hawk’. Her specifications are incorporated into the instructions in the book you call the ‘Kan Codex’. She told me many stories of the days when she flew in such a craft.”
I lead us into the forest, blinded by the visor, stumbling over tall grass that I can’t see, just following the map in my head.
“There’s an entrance,” I tell them. “In the ground. About a hundred metres in.”
We move slowly, at Ninbanda’s pace. I want to keep checking back with the Muwan but she tells me not to worry. “It’s no longer your concern,” she murmurs. Tyler and I give each other an ominous look. What does that mean?
Finally we reach the opening. A stone slab in the ground, no more than a metre across. Ninbanda removes a bottle of water from her pocket and kneels down. She cleans the surface, first with the water, then with some wet wipes from a packet. When it’s clean I see that there are three faint depressions, inside which the stone gives way to the same strange alabaster-like surface of the Adaptor. She hands us the packet of wipes. “Clean your right hand,” she says. “The bio-sensor needs to react with molecules produced by your skin. It is sensitive to contamination.”
Then, following her lead and in a concerted action, we all place the heel of our right hand in the depressions. It takes several moments before anything happens. Then I’m aware of the vibrations of machinery, deep underneath the stone. Ninbanda sighs a little and stands. Hesitantly, Tyler and I also stand. The stone slab starts to rise. Inside is a cubicle, a tiny life-pod, just big enough for one person. Ninbanda indicates Tyler. “Let this one go first. When the capsule stops, get out and stand back. The capsule will return to the surface.”
With one last, nervous look at me, Tyler steps inside, turns around and frowns as the capsule begins to descend. He disappears into the earth. I wait, filled with anxiety and excitement.
Turning to Ninbanda, I ask, “Why are you called Erinsi? People of Memory? What do you remember?”
“We remember the secrets of others. Just as you and your family remembered our secrets.”
“But . . . whose secrets? Were there others before you?”
She smiles. “Yes. But not of this place, not even of this universe. We never knew them. They also died. Not just their world; their universe. As it collapsed, they sent a radio signal. Unthinkably old, it came to our universe, to us, through a black hole. Days, weeks, months of continuous data. Their world memory. In a universe where everything dies, they found a way to transcend death. The body must die, yes. But knowledge . . . knowledge is eternal. They bequeathed this truth to us. As we now bequeath it to you.”
I’m still riveted by the ancient woman’s gentle smile as the capsule arrives above the ground. Dazed, I step forward and feel my stomach lurch as the ground falls away. I grip the sides of the pod, trembling with fear of the unknown. The capsule burrows deeper, deeper into the earth. The rich smell of warm clay fills my senses. Then after what seems like an eternity, the pod lands. In the pitch black, I hear Tyler’s voice.
“Josh . . . is that you?”
I take a torch from my flight jacket and turn it on Tyler. He looks frightened. The first time I’ve really seen that.
“You scared?” asks Tyler, hesitantly.
“I’m bloody terrified, mate.”
Shivering, we stand in what seems to be some kind of antechamber, not very big at all, maybe two metres by three. We wait for the capsule to return. Three minutes later it does, and Ninbanda steps out. She looks calm, serene. The second that she steps into the centre of the chamber, part of the wall ahead begins to rise. A door opens.
Ninbanda leads us inside. We follow her through a tunnel that passes two more stone doors, both closed. Then we reach it. Another chamber, similar in feel to the Revival Chamber, but without the sarcophagi. There’s a hexagonal centrepiece covered with inscriptions.
“Bit dark in here. . .” grumbles Tyler. It’s sounds as though he’s trying to lighten the moment, but I suspect he’s as tense as I am.
This is totally unknown territory for both of us. No one’s been in here for tens of thousands of years.
Ninbanda takes out her water bottle and begins, once again, to wipe the surface of the altarpiece clean. She hands us each a fresh wipe. “Clean hands, please.”
My hands feel numb, but I do as she asks. Then I watch as the woman takes up a position beside the centrepiece. She crouches, examining the inscriptions, lightly running her fingers over the carved stone.
Standing again, Ninbanda places both hands on the surface. From the edges of the chamber, a soft pink light begins to glow. As its intensity increases the inscriptions on the centrepiece become visible. Ninbanda instructs us to stand as she does, at the other points of the hexagon, each with a hand over the remaining sectors. She shifts the position of her hands, rests them beside a panel of inscriptions on the centrepiece. Some of the inscriptions are illuminated from behind, by a sequence of gently blinking lights.
“Learn the sequence,” she says. “Take a moment to study it – it is quite simple, only five symbols. Then touch each symbol, in the correct sequence.”
Tyler and I stare with furious concentration, trying desperately to memorize the incomprehensible symbols.
“Ixchel would have been much better than me at this,” I mumble, trying to cover my nerves. “At least she’d know what the symbols mean. . .” But I’m sweating hard. Utterly terrified. What happens if we get it wrong?
“Take your time,” the woman says, gently. “We’ve all come a long way. There’s still enough time for this.”
Eventually Tyler says in a steady voice, “OK. Got it.”
The pressure is immense. I stare at the inscriptions, trying to think, to clear my mind of the million thoughts that are whirling around. Is this the end, is this my destiny, or does it always end the same way?
After another minute I let my breath go. “OK. Ready.”
Ninbanda touches something and the entire panel of inscriptions lights up. I keep repeating the sequence in my head. Going first, she presses her five symbols. There’s a low crackle, then a sound. A series of musical notes, in a strange rhythm, repeated. It sounds something like Morse code.