The Tethys Report (The Rise of the Chirons Book 1)

by Rian Davis

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said with remorse in her eyes. “All the time I do my research, I only think of them now. They’re what I work for.”

  “That’s good you have something to, but can’t there be more? Do we always have to live for others? Can’t we just think of ourselves sometimes?”

  She looked at me but gave no answer.

  The computer panel gave a noise, and I looked down to read the message. “It looks like it has given us a specific reading. He’s down there in that section.”

  “That’s right below us—somewhere above that strange feeding trough.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  “I’m on it. Look—over there. It looks like another smaller portal of some kind. This time it’s closed. I wonder if he made it through there?”

  “According to this, he has to be inside beyond it.”

  “Then this place has rooms, other than this big one?”

  “Apparently so. Me, not being an expert on mysterious buildings made twenty million years ago, I would have to concur with that.”

  That gave me a smile on her face, which calmed me. I was worried she was getting into a deep depression discussing the deaths of her colleagues, which she didn’t seem to have fully processed yet.

  “It looks like we’ll have to get out. The ship’s too big to get through the portal.”

  “How do we even know it’s a portal,” I said.

  “Because hope springs eternal, and I’m going to drink from the well as much as possible.”

  “Just because the computer shows he’s behind it?”

  “Let’s just see what happens, OK? We’ll have to suit up. I’ll keep this thing tethered here. EROS should be up to the job.”

  “Good. If the Cucumber disappears, we’re toast.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just get ready.”

  We finished getting the suits on. The suits were designed to keep our body temperature warm, but they were cold to the touch, even though they weren’t wet. I shivered after putting mine on. Some internal circuitry started to warm the suit up causing me great relief.

  There was a hatch toward the rear of the ship, and we swam off from that point. All around us the light of the mini-sun hit us as we approached the portal. When we finally reached it, I reached out with my gloved hand, just to see if the building was, in fact, real. It was.

  “Now what? It seems like it’s not opening automatically.”

  “Well, give it a break. The thing is pretty old.”

  “Look at that. It looks like some kind of light signature next to the door.”

  I looked at it too. She was right. There was something different about it, but it was far from certain what it was.

  “Should I touch it?” I asked. Famous last words.

  “Go ahead, but let me back up a bit,” she said through her radio. I gave her a look that I’m not sure she saw, which was for the better.

  The light was coming from a square indentation. It was not clear what function it served, but I reached out to push it. Nothing happened. Then, remembering the differences in the physiology of the beings, I put two fingers out and touched them gently against the panel.

  It worked. The portal opened silently, and there was very little light inside, but it seemed that there was water on the other side as well. We moved in. As soon as we stepped inside, the portal closed.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Jen shrugged, and we examined our surroundings. We were in a much smaller room, perhaps ten feet high and fifteen feet across on both ends. There was one thing unusual about the room, however. It was in the shape of a cylinder. A light came on and the water drained from the room. I looked at Jen, and she stared back with a look that was just as puzzled as I was.

  “Should we take off our suits?” I asked.

  She shrugged again. “My readings on the suit indicate that we have oxygen in here. That’s strange though. The oxygen levels are slightly higher than the atmosphere on earth. How the heck did that happen.”

  “I won’t light a match then,” I said with an unconvincing smile. It was all too weird, but I decided to play along with it. What else could I do?

  “Alan is beyond this next portal here,” Jen said indicating the area in front of us.

  “Should we wait for it to open or—” I was interrupted by a whooshing sound as the door opened. Somewhere inside my suit near my heart, I gripped the Chert rock.

  Chapter 10

  The room was dark, and our flashlights did little to improve on that. There was nothing in the room other than us. There seemed to be little tiny vents in the room. A noise came on, and the water drained from the room. After that, another portal opened, and we walked through. There was little noise beyond the occasional tapping from where the sea life were feeding below and the electrical current sounds that were similar to the ones made at an electric power grid, but more powerful. We no longer needed our own light too. Some illumination appeared from the floor and the ceiling as if we were on a guided path.

  “This is too weird,” Jen said stepping from the cylindrical room. I followed from behind. I couldn’t make out what was in the next room. However, I did notice something odd right away: The room had a perfect circular shape as far as I could tell. I immediately felt a pushing force that pressed me against the floor, or perhaps it was an attractive force from the floor itself. The room appeared to be usable from throughout its surface which meant that I could walk along the wall or the ceiling as if I had suction cups on my feet.

  “I think I can walk on the walls,” I said.

  “What? You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope. Watch.”

  “My god. What is this place? And how to get the air through here. I’m assuming that whatever these beings were, they breathed oxygen.”

  “Of course they would have to. What other way could they burn enough energy to move muscle tissue? We know of no other way.”

  “How would there be vents like this if whoever built this could never know this whole place would be under water?” I asked.

  “Good point. And what about the light, the feeding of the fish below, everything. This place is too strange, and I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I’ve got the same feeling,” I said, noticing the walls were dark enough, full of cracks that may have eyes in them. It seemed like there were many panels that made up the walls and that some of them were missing. I didn’t see any more artwork like the statue we saw outside. It was pretty much barren, but that was to be expected after all the age.

  “Does this place look really old to you? Where’s the dust?” Jen asked.

  I looked around and shined a light on the far right side of the wall and observed the surface. It seemed to be some metallic fine-grained substance. I couldn’t readily identify it, but it almost looked like it was a part of an enormous microchip.

  “I can walk on the walls too! Looks!” she said. Sure enough, she was walking on the wall, which from my vantage point, seemed like she was walking sideways. It was completely bizarre. The room itself was bigger than the previous one. It had perhaps a radius of twenty feet. There were instruments and panels throughout the room, but most of them were dark. Directly overhead was a figure of a person-like being who was kneeling into one of the panels.

  “Dr. Aspect!” Jen said. I arrived in short order and saw that it was the famous doctor I had heard so much about. “We’re here to save you. We’re going to take you to someplace safe.”

  “Get away! Out!” the person shouted. He was tall, skinny and his clothes were well-worn, ripped in some places.

  I moved to restrain him, but he screamed out. “Don’t touch me!” he said in a full voice.

  “Dr. Aspect. Please listen. It’s me Jen. I’m Jen Li, your colleague. Do you recognize me?”

  He stopped then when he heard her name. The confusion slowly melted from his face. After a moment, recognition flooded into him, and he looked very surprised to see us. “What are you
doing here?” he said. Then he realized his position and stern and surprised looks, and grudgingly continued, “I’m sorry for all the trouble I must have caused. Please let me go now. I’m all right, I assure you. I got into an accident and found this place. Isn’t it amazing?”

  “Dr. Aspect where have you been? We’ve been looking for you for days?”

  He looked back with a perplexed face. “Why, I’ve been here. I cannot tear myself away from this place. Jen who is this with you?”

  “Dr. Aspect, it’s great to finally meet you sir. I’m Jake Bloom, a geologist. The inventor of quantum gravity is certainly someone special,” I said smiling. I was trying to make the best of the situation. My heart had been pounding due to the sudden shock. I was standing on a surface that in the normal world would have been upside down, talking to one of the world’s most famous physicists who had been missing for several days in a city of unknown origin more than a mile below the surface of Antarctic ice. One week earlier, I had been sipping on cheap drinks at a bar boat in Bangkok. The whole thing just captured my situational vertigo.

  “Dr. Bloom, it is very nice to meet you. I think I’ve read some of the articles you wrote about ancient life and its origins—very interesting stuff. I too am interested in the origin of life and the Last Common Ancestor.”

  “Dr. Aspect—look. I’d love to talk to you more, but you see we’ve had an accident back at base and I think it’s best that we go back.”

  “What? What’s happened?” he replied. He looked genuinely concerned.

  “Dr. Brenner and some others are now dead. I’m sorry to say that so suddenly.”

  “Dear God, Brenner is dead? He was so much younger than me—impossible,” he looked into her eyes as if declaring that gravity was no longer considered a fundamental force.

  “We’ve no time for this doctor.”

  “Call me Alan, Jake. We’re all professionals down here.”

  “Alan, we’ve got to go. There are people injured and needing transport to dedicated medical facilities—facilities your base does not provide.”

  He ignored my question after scrutinizing me for the first time. “Why are you wearing that military uniform Jake. You said you are a scientists?”

  “I am doctor—Alan. It’s complicated. I can tell you all about it later—my mission, what group I’m a part of, all of that, but we need to get going. This place is amazing, but we can’t stay here unfortunately.”

  “Why not? I said I was all right, but I may have fibbed slightly. As you can see, I’m injured.”

  “What? Dear god,” Jen said. “What happened to your legs?” she started to assess the injuries to his body.

  “It’s all right. I don’t feel that much pain anymore. This place has provided me with food and water so far,” he said pointing to some used up fish carcasses lying nearby. “ So I haven’t been in too much need, but it does not seem able to provide me with medical care—not yet anyway. There’s also fresh water here too.”

  “Is there anything wrong with it?” I asked.

  “Apparently not. I’m still alive after all!”

  “Alan,” Jen said. “What do you mean ‘it’s provided you’? How can this place do any of that?”

  “Good question. I would say that this place is somehow ‘alive’—in the sense that artificial intelligence is ‘alive’. That’s just my guess though. When I first got here because of the accident, it seemed to sense my presence and recognize me. Then it adapted to me.”

  “What do you mean ‘adapted’ to you?” I asked. Becoming slightly nervous, I looked around the room one more time but did not see anything obvious that needed immediate scrutiny. Of course, I would have loved to have studied the various panels and objects in the room. I had no idea what they were and what activities they performed.

  He didn’t give an answer at first. Instead, he looked at us as if in terror, not of our presence, but perhaps more the fact that we would take him away from this place.

  “Alan, please be reasonable. We have to go back. You can’t stay here. Who knows what this food is or how long it can go on.”

  “The truth is, Jen, I can’t go back. I’m wounded inside too I think. I can feel pain behind my ribs—”

  “All the more reason to go back with us. You don’t have to die here. If you stay here, you will die. I don’t know what this place is, but I do know you don’t belong here.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Jake. My whole career has been about seeking the truth—finding the equations that led to quantum gravity and uniting the standard model, that was one of the greatest achievements I could make but look what they did with it. Sure they made quantum computers, but they also made weapons from it too. Look at the chaos it’s caused. We’ve got a sinking Earth, and all our leaders are acting like idiots. They all want to fight over the remaining scraps of land we have left. Meanwhile, all the farmers and villagers who caused none of the problems in poor countries now have to face starvation and get treated like criminals when they try to find a place they can actually live in. Now this gentleman here is with the military of the USA and wants to take over this lake and its city no doubt and—”

  “Doctor, let me speak please. I don’t want to do—”

  “Let me finish please. I don’t want to be a part of it—I don’t. Down here, it’s amazing. Look at this. I’m learning about this amazing place more and more. I’ve finally figured out how to communicate with it.”

  “It?” Jen asked.

  “Yes. ‘It’ means the computerized systems and other functions that this panel is showing me. I’ve been working with it ever since—trying to learn its secrets. I’ve discovered much so far. It’s amazing.”

  “Dr. Aspect,” Jen said. “We must take you to safety. You’ve been gone weeks.”

  “Weeks? Impossible.”

  “You’ve been gone exactly twenty-three days. It’s a miracle you’re still alive. You don’t look too badly injured, but you don’t look perfect either.”

  At that moment, the entire building shook. Something inside it was moving—changing might be the better word.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Shhh—” Dr. Aspect said. “Listen. It’s adjusting.”

  “Adjusting to what?” Jen said.

  “Just listen and find out.”

  The whole room lit up. All the circuitry running through the walls suddenly shined with intense radiation—at least part of it was the photons that nearly caused temporary blindness. Thoughts about Dr. Aspect’s safety quickly shifted to our own.

  “This is not good. We need to leave.”

  “Impossible. I haven’t finished what I’ve come here for,” Dr. Aspect said.

  “But if you’re wounded, as you appear to be—more or less, why would you want to stay here and risk further damage to your health? Your friends and colleagues need you back at the home vessel. We need to leave this lake.”

  “Are you crazy?” Dr. Aspect asked. “This is the most exciting discovery the scientific community has come across since Einstein’s general theory of relativity was proven by the bending of the light. We can’t go now. Look at me. I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m going to be OK.”

  “I believe you,” Jen said. “Now that we know you’re safe, we should at least try to understand this place better I suppose. But there is not much time. We lost a lot of our oxygen supply and the situation is dangerous.”

  “I see that. Let us linger a bit longer. I just have to finish a few things.”

  Curiosity was boiling over. It was clear Dr. Aspect had learned a lot about this place while he was there doing research.

  “Who made this place, doctor?”

  “Call me just Alan—please!”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Sorry. Who made it? The building we’re sitting in, that miniature sun, all of it.”

  “That’s the amazing part. They are—were—a very ancient race, similar to our own. I’ve seen images of them in this panel and other p
laces I’ve been to.”

  “You mean you’ve traveled through this building?” Jen asked.

  “I’ve traveled through this city! There are other areas that have some limited functionality.”

  “But how is that even possible. They probably were around over twenty million years ago.”

  “That’s the important part. They discovered a way to cheat the Second Law of Thermodynamics.”

  I was in shock to hear that. I wasn’t a physicist, but I knew enough physics to know that that in all the Universe, was one thing that you could never do.

  “You mean the miniature sun out there, that’s part of it? That’s why it’s lasted for so long?”

  “Yes, and you are right. They did exist millions of years ago, before the ice covered this place. They were a civilization, somewhat like our own, though much more advanced as you can see.”

  “How did they manage to make such an energy source?” I asked.

  “Nuclear fusion,” he answered. “This whole building is a support system for that power generation. The hydrogen atoms get fused into heavier elements. I’ve seen the entire process and have taken notes on it. It’s simply fascinating. Here, I’ve put the notes here onto this personal computing panel—so many details that could help anyone build the structure of nuclear fusion energy.”

  I looked at the view panel with his notes, thinking about how much power was in that thing and how badly certain people would want it. Fusion energy production was the holy grail of every nation. Wars would have been fought over its secrets—if it were not shared.

  “My God, but that would take a lot of force, wouldn’t it? To fuse the atoms together would take massive amounts of energy in of itself, and to get that much force, how could they have done that with just this building?” I asked. “That doesn’t seem possible. It would have to be very hot because what you’re talking about is essentially creating a sun like ours, and we all know the sun is very hot.”

  “Yes, but that’s the thing,” Alan replied. “They found a way to contain the forces. The outer sphere around the miniature sun’s core contains a barrier that is at a temperature of perfect zero. It is able to route the power to this building and also to the plants and algae that make up the food for this whole ecosystem. If, we humans, were this smart we would be able to feed our entire planet and get rid of all the damaging pollution that has wreaked havoc on our civilization. At least, that’s what I thought at first, but then I realized how stupid we are, and how dreadful our decisions have been. We have truly chosen the path of Achilles, not the path of Plato. We seem to never be able to figure out how to co-exist peacefully with each other. I don’t have any illusions.”