The Ghost of Sephera

by J. D. Tew

I scaled the cliff, avoiding the use of my flight boots because of the strong gusts of wind. Loose rock lined the surface of the path, and a couple of times I lost my footing. Each time, I braced my fall with my hand, but kept going. Finally, I made it. I hoisted myself up into the cave, relieved that I was no longer in danger of tumbling to injury.

  The cave was dark and quiet. There was a gigantic overhang of rock that canopied the entry, ensuring a firm roof. For a moment, I forgot about Dan, and I thought: Damn, that looks like a great place to store a ship.

  I ran further into the cave and called out to my friend, who was always in a rush to find excitement:

  ‘Dan? Dan? Dan—’

  ‘Boo! Dangling Dan at your service!’ Dan yelled; he almost scared the crap out of me—which wouldn’t have been the first time I pooped my pants.

  ‘Crap, seriously!’ I shouted, after falling over.

  ‘Don’t be such a sissy! You didn’t poop your pants again did you, ha-ha? Here, take my hand.’ I could never stop Dan from re-telling that cringe-inducing story over and over. Anyway, after referencing an “accident” I had on Earth, Dan helped me up.

  ‘Very funny,’ I said, grabbing the hand he offered, while he pulled me up. ‘Okay, so I think this place looks like a good spot to hide the ship, what do you think?’

  Dan looked at me puzzled and said, ‘You think Nilo can pilot the ship into here? You’re cray-cray dude!’

  ‘Not Nilo... ED! Nilo probably won’t be with us much longer. I’ve seen ED fly. He would make an experienced maverick look like a wet-behind-the-ears rookie! Let’s get the others and show them this spot!’ Nilo was a damn good pilot, but I wanted a robot’s flawless maneuverability. ‘Wait. We need to secure the cave. Let’s go.’

  Dan slings his board over his shoulder after collapsing it to about a third of its extended size. ‘Alright. I’ll use my shoulder cannon’s floodlight. It’s bright as hell, dude. I’m just warning you. It’s intense.’ I shielded my eyes.

  Dan activated his floodlight, and the depths of the cave were illuminated.

  Immediately I scanned the cave’s dimensions. The entry to the cave led to a clearing. The dark throat of the cavern—at the back—swallowed shadows approximately two hundred feet from where we were standing—our flooding light poured about as far as it could go. The mouth of the cave would be more than enough to facilitate the size of our ship. Situated at the distant portions of the cave were narrow, long, and tapered stalactite cone formations, which were almost conjoined with their partnering stalagmites. I had taken a natural science course in high school. I knew that, roughly speaking, it took a year for three millimeters of stone stalactite to form. It was obvious that this portion of the cave hadn’t seen water in ages—it was incredibly dry and dusty—so I was sure the stalactite-forming process had come to a halt hundreds of years ago.

  As we walked, the beam of light illuminating the way, we noticed there were breathtaking formations of flowstone along the walls, some looking like bundled drapes and others like bulbous waves. Exquisite colors of tan and rusty orange tint washed throughout the rock surface.

  Time now to take measurements, I thought. I found a massive stalactite that I could focus on with my nanocom. My sensors initiated a red interlocked grid that captured the outline of the stalactite and computed its dimension and its volume. My nanocom beeped as it identified the material and displayed the word in front of me: sandstone.

  ‘It’s seven-point-three meters long. That’s roughly two-hundred-eighty-seven inches. That means this section of the cave could be around two-hundred-and-ninety-years-old!’

  ‘Okay. So you’re officially a dork. Nothing new here.’

  ‘Lincoln rubbed off on me. This is important. There is no telling what is down here. Do you have any portascouts?’ These were electronic orbs, about the size of baseballs.

  ‘I have two,’ Dan replied.

  ‘Deploy them and we will see if they show any life forms.’

  Dan pulls the portascouts from his pack. He depressed the buttons on the devices and they took off. We continued our exploration of the cave, which had started to drop downward at this point. At the end of each visible section, there was a large dark tunnel, suitable for a detour, displaying the possibility of an endless labyrinth. A river must have flowed through this hilly region centuries ago. I knew Karshiz had an oceanic history, so perhaps this was all due to water erosion.

  A glimmer in the distance captured Dan’s floodlight.

  ‘You see that?’

  ‘Yeah, what do you think it is?’

  ‘Water!’

  After walking closer, I noticed a machine docked next to the pond. It was intricately composed of hundreds of mechanical and electronic parts—probably the most advanced machine I had ever seen.

  ‘Scan it,’ Dan said.

  I scanned the machine. ‘A replicator. What the heck is that? My IPU says the device is used for replicating matter. This one is used for water.’ The machine was the size of an industrial generator; it was pulling water in and processing it—spraying water into the form of mist onto the cave walls.

  ‘Dan. Be on guard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If this replicator is lining the walls of this cave with water, then we are in the right place for sure. And if we are in the right place, that means we are trespassing.’

  ‘Crap, dude. Not cool.’

  The pond was teal blue, with swaying stalks of seaweed at its base. Another water replicator sat at the other edge of the pond, spraying a wall covered in vibrant red and green vegetation. Some of the plants were moving and rustling—full of life—maybe even reactively sentient like the jungle plants of Tritillia.

  ‘Dude!’

  ‘I know. I’m standing in it too.’ I looked up to see the entire section above us was covered with a bat colony, consisting of hundreds of bats, all in sleeping position. We dared not breathe, lest we disturb this slumbering colony and trigger a swarm of shrieking rat-faced flying mice. On the ground in front of us was an inch of white and grey droppings.

  ‘Disgusting!’ Dan shouted, and a lone bat separated from the colony, flying over the pond. The replicator fired a burst of plasma from a small cannon on its top, vaporizing the bat which threatened contaminating the water source. ‘Whoa. I was thirsty, but I think I’ll pass.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Those flying rats look freaky.’ The bats were prehistoric looking, each with the wingspan of a healthy hawk and an eerie white underbelly.

  Dan said, ‘That’s weird. The portascouts should’ve come back by now.’

  ‘Something’s not right. Turn your light back on!’ Dan promptly turned his light off, and I could hear him scuffling close by.

  Suddenly, a cloud of gas struck my nostrils, and my lungs protested at the drastic cut-off of precious oxygen, cleansing my sinuses as the contents of them poured out over my lips. I couldn’t open my eyes. I scarcely inhaled enough breath to shout out, ‘Is that gas? Dan? Dan?’ His floodlight turned off. Then, nothingness. I had passed out.

  Later, I came to. My vision was blurry. Numerous LED light housings were embedded into the ground. They dimly lit up a part of the cave that I did not recognize.

  ‘Well looky here. A human. In all of my years, I have not seen such baby soft skin. You are younglets! Yes, yes, wake up you silly human. What are you doing in our cave?’

  It was an intelligent life form. To my left sat this humongous symmetrical but amorphous blob of tan soft-tissue, slimy, and long—about four meters in length, with two of those meters rising upward to gaze upon Dan and I; its eyes—the size of a cow’s, projected upward at the head of the being, bulging and balanced upon two shiny peduncle appendages. The shell upon its back was six feet tall, with many fabricated saber-like spikes, which were probably used as a defense mechanism.

  I figured maybe we had frightened the being initially; the spikes withdrew into the shell as the beast relaxed. Probably since Dan and I were detained; Dan was hanging from his
ankles.

  The most magnificent feature of this animal, was its shell; the conch was glowing with a yellow aura, as its inner circuitry feverishly hummed and conveyed instructions to all minute components simultaneously behind many small and sealed transparent windows.

  At the top of this mechanical and obviously computerized conch was a large moisture cannon, arcing a subtle mist to lavage the being’s ever-mobile soft tissue below, providing a localized moisture rich environment for the life form as it slid across the grate system with the inch long hair-like projections under its foot. This life form left viscous ooze behind the areas that it had already traveled. The condensation from the shell’s inboard moisture cannon dripped downward, accumulating on the body of the sentient life form and shedding excess down to the floor into the grate system beneath the glistening wet foot of this giant being.

  From the ventral sides of its body, it was using two wobbling tentacles similar to the size of an elephant’s trunk to manipulate a giant wall of computer monitors. The command center looked like a traffic control station, because of its ample monitors showing various vantages of security footage, research spreadsheets in a foreign language, and a weird dramatic motion picture—some kind of strange soap opera.

  The cave itself was made of some sort of composite—some type of faux construction which maintained the essence of a cave.

  “I’m sorry we trespassed in your cave, sir. Please let us go.’ After looking to my left, I saw Dan. He was hanging from the ceiling by a synthetic rope noose; his feet were tied and he was upended below the roof over a bed of stalagmites. ‘Listen. We were told of your species and we come in peace on a fact-finding mission. We are not here to do any harm to you.’ I could feel my hands swollen and throbbing.

  ‘You are having a reaction to the nerve gas. Don’t worry, it won’t do any lasting damage. You humans are so frail and cute. Look at you, so pudgy and weird! We need samples! Mag! Mag! I’ve caught some humans!’ I felt rumbling.

  ‘Holy crap! What the hell are you doing, you blob!’ Dan shouted, after waking up. ‘Let me down from here!’

  ‘Oh this is a grand discovery! I am grateful to the gods. To imagine that you wandered into my cave. Mag! Are you coming? We need to prepare the specimens!’ We were in another massive cavern, one underground at an angle to the one we had entered when we climbed the cliff. Regardless of the man-made structures, the beings preserved the natural formations of the cave by building around them; this part of the cave had even larger stalagmites and stalactites that rivaled some of the largest formations on Earth. This subterranean cave, which was new to us, was thousands of years old, at least.

  I figured the only way to change our situation was to reveal the importance of our quest. So I shared all that was on our itinerary. ‘Okay, okay. Please don’t run tests on us. We are on a very important mission to discover your species! What is your name? Maybe we can make a deal?’

  ‘You can’t make deals when you’re hanging from your hooves! Wait a minute. You have no hooves! Mag told me humans have hooves!’ The Gitushka’s flatulence filled the room and caused me to heave from the reeking stench. ‘Mag! You lied to me!’

  From behind a wall, covered in popcorn shaped rocks, a smaller, similar aboriginal appeared. ‘I meant heels, not hooves, my prodigy. Our names are not of your concern. Let me hear what you are dying to say,’ she said.

  ‘Mam. We were looking to discover your incredible species and were told you possessed wisdom. On second thought, perhaps we have no business here. I apologize for that.’

  ‘Apologize!’ Dan shouted. ‘We are hanging from our feet.’

  ‘Dan! Quiet. I will handle this. I am sorry for my friend. He is a dude and they tend to say whatever comes to their mind.’ I was backpedalling.

  ‘He’s funny, Mag! Can we keep him?’ the larger, but more ingenious being asked.

  ‘Gorb. Let the earthling finish. Carry on, boy. Be quick, I’m losing my patience.’

  ‘I am a messiah from Earth, mandated by the Urilians. Well, not anymore. We are disconnected from their objective. We are on our own, my crew and I. We were trying to establish contact with your species, so we could gather valuable information for our fight in the war against Odion. Plus, we were trying to rescue a friend of ours, who was stranded around here while we were fighting Zane. I realize this must sound complicated.’

  She was much smaller than her declared prodigy. Her body had stiff long hairs. Their skin was green and scaled, serpent-like, yet with tentacles. They were the ancient mollusks—the Gitushkas—I was in search of. A respiratory duct upon her back continued to spurt mucus over its soft tissue.

  ‘A messiah? Hmmm. We have not seen the surface for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean we are unaware of the state of this galaxy.’ She presses a button on a switchboard, revealing a rotating screen. The entire cave wall rotated on an axel. It was if I had stepped into some secret super hero’s cave. The massive screen displayed an image of me. ‘You are Theodore. There are many who would love to lay their filthy mitts on you, like this Odion and Zane that you speak of. We also unequivocally and totally oppose their war games that threaten to disrupt this galaxy. Here were are scientists, discovering paths to the truth.’

  Her words reassured me, and I quickly warmed up to the Gitushkas. ‘Then we are on the same side,’ I said excitedly, ‘We are seeking a paradigm that would revolutionize the war, thus saving millions of lives.’ My amulet wasn’t glowing, so I considered the Gitushkas may have not wished us any harm.

  ‘Exactly what are you seeking, little one?’ she said. ‘Hmm?’

  My face fell. ‘I don’t know.’

  Mag tut-tutted as she turned to Gorb. ‘I like him. He is honest. We do not need more of these warlords that know everything, yet know nothing.’

  Her prodigy butted into the conversation, ‘I always thought messiahs were bigger. This one is tiny.’

  ‘Size is not a measure of strength, my dear. And this dude dangling next to you, what is his name?’ she asked.

  ‘He is Dan, a human member of my crew,’ I answered. Dan was following my orders by maintaining silence. I could tell the order to cease and desist was killing Dan. ‘We are here for the good of the galaxy.’

  ‘If you were summoned by those Dieton slinging Urilians all the way from Earth, then I know there is something amuck. Humans are never chosen. They are too weak. Years ago they tried only to meet failure. Who sent you?’

  ‘Trazuline.’

  ‘Of course. The wayward king.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ I asked.

  ‘We are the last remaining Gitushkas in existence. We are currently the oldest living species in the galaxy. I know we seem savage, sweating mucus and pounding about in this cave, but we are the highest level of encryption specialists.’ In the background, I could hear ED’s voice over the speaker of my communicator, nestled in a pile of our gear on the floor. It was only a matter of time before ED accessed my IPU to contact me.

  ‘Encryption specialists?’ I asked, wrinkling my nose.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she said testily. ‘More commonly known as hackers.’

  ‘I’ve been told Rangiers are the most elite in the galaxy,’ I said, an assertion that I would have liked to retract.

  ‘Rangiers! Comparable to us? Gorb, kill the dude first, and we’ll let the other one hang around for dinner.’

  Gorb’s uncontrollable outbursts continued. He said, ‘I get it, for dinner! Haha. I have been wondering how tasty they would be. Look Mag, the dude is squirming!’

  ‘Oh man, I’m not tasty at all. I’m like a fish. There isn’t much meat on me at all, just brittle bones that will scratch your throat when you swallow me!’ Dan shouted.

  ‘We don’t swallow our food like humans! We absorb our food rectally,’ the one called Mag said.

  I gagged at the mere thought of being ingested through an alien’s rear end. I started a tirade of apologies and followed up with some flattery. ‘I’m so sorry
. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I get it, you’re both amazing. I’m sure you can hack the most advanced computer in the galaxy.’

  ‘You bet your toe knuckles we can,’ Gorb said.

  Mag walked toward me and kissed me on the forehead. Her lips came close to swallowing a portion of my head. ‘Apology accepted. I understand. You’re lost. You need some help. Well, you have stumbled in the right direction. I am not surprised your landing was influenced by Trazuline; he is constantly meddling.’

  ‘That seems like an accurate statement,’ I said. Dan was done sweating and he released a sigh of relief because it seemed he wouldn’t be ingested today. Yet the Gitushka, Gorb, was swinging Dan by his tentacles from one side of the cave to the other as if he couldn’t wait to devour him.

  ‘As I said, Gorb and I are far more advanced than any surface-walking Rangier. I am six thousand, seven hundred, and twenty years old. This lair of ours is where we do most of our encryption decoding—uh, hacking. Our greatest achievement was securing an indirect link to Eppa.’

  ‘Wait! Did you just say Eppa?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, yes. We have seen the evolution of the Rangier civilization and many others through our computer hacks. Long ago, when the Council was considering Zane’s creation of Eppa; this false God was prime for hacking, during its inception. This was when it was most vulnerable. No one even knows of our existence or our access; as far as the public goes, we are extinct. Trazuline is one of the few that know of us. We work hard to cover our electronic footprint. Well, not everyone, which is why I was concerned about your seeking us.’

  ‘Eppa is all bad isn’t it? Why not just destroy it?’

  ‘I see. The Opposition’s mission statement has fallen hard upon your ears, right? Keep an open mind, Theodore. Any-who, that is one strongly opinionated perception of Eppa. We are aware of what happened to your friend Lincoln. The previews for your motion picture film are being played all over the galactic funnel. I have a pirated copy of the movie. It was breathtaking, but the casting could have been better.’ She broke to catch her breath. The galactic funnel was like our World Wide Web, but on a galactic level. She continued and I couldn’t help noticing there was a large hair, with a blob-like mass at its end, rocking like a pendulum near the back of her shell. It was disgusting. ‘How can I put this in Earth terms? Eppa... she’s a lot like a good grandfather clock, always ticking and more importantly, giving you the information that you desire, feeding your need for decorum and order. People love Eppa, worship her even. And since people know that Eppa created Sephera, people who crave the digital afterlife of Sephera naturally perceive Eppa very positively.’ She sighs. ‘So you see, to use Earth analogies, we are against Father Christmas, Mother Nature, and good old all-American apple pie. It isn’t easy. To go against Eppa is to destroy the hopes of many, which is nasty business.’