by Jake Elwood
The third and last building held offices. The furniture had a temporary look, as if it was designed to be taken apart for transport. People worked at terminals or bustled around on mysterious errands. There was no sign of the prisoners.
"Please, let there be prisoners," she murmured. "Don't let them be dead."
She left the office building, glanced at the tents, and dismissed them. They were not being guarded. Lark and Jerry wouldn't be there. She gazed around the camp, looking for inspiration.
She found it on the second level of the pyramid. The vast structure was built in steps, each ten or twelve meters high, with a horizontal surface six or seven meters across on each level before the next, smaller level rose up. Parked on the second level was the same hovercar that had taken Jerry and Lark away.
"Are you still in there?" she murmured. A woman with a hand scanner walked past, and Cassie called, "Hey there! Can you hear me?"
The woman kept walking.
"Good to know," Cassie said, and headed for the pyramid.
The massive stone structure was the only thing that looked the same in both versions of reality. From a distance it looked primitive, something crafted from stone by pre-industrial hands. Up close she could see that the outer surface was smooth and seamless, as if it had been cast in one enormous piece.
There were no gaps, no windows, no passages, no features at all except a single huge entrance just beyond the camp. In the normal world, there was nothing to see but a massive door of some dull gray metal, set in a vast stone-like frame. In Cassie's out-of-phase reality the metal door was absent. She examined the ghostly version of the door as she stepped through it. It was quite thick.
The passage beyond was gloomy but not quite dark. Sand had blown in, but it grew thinner as she walked, until she was walking on smooth stone. The ceiling was twice her height, a dark, featureless surface that was hard to see clearly. On either side of her the walls rose straight and smooth to the ceiling. Both walls glowed faintly, providing enough light to navigate. She ran her fingers along the nearest wall. The surface was cool and remarkably smooth. She had no idea what it was composed of.
Ahead of her the corridor ended in a rectangle of light. She walked for a time, trying to get a sense of where she was in relation to the outer walls. The pyramid, by her best guess, was about a hundred meters across. If she'd walked forty paces so far, the end of the corridor had to be almost at the center of the structure.
Something moved ahead of her, and she stiffened. There was a shape at the end of the corridor, a dark outline with the glow of the next room lighting it from behind. She could make out a humanoid shape, but not a human one, with short, thick legs and a broad, stocky torso. The head was huge, and dominated by vast ears that curled up around each side of the skull. The creature stood half again as tall as Cassie, and it must have been five or six times her mass.
She kept walking, then slowed when she was within half a dozen paces of the creature. She could make out its features now. It had golden-brown skin, no eyes that she could see, and a broad mouth with a bit of a snout set high on its head. A couple of slits on the underside of the snout might have been nostrils.
It had arms, two on each side, the upper set quite solid and strong-looking with paw-like hands, the lower arms much more delicate. There were hands with fingers on those arms, more fingers than Cassie had, long and delicate-looking.
The thing wore a tunic of sorts, made of pale blue cloth and hanging almost to the floor. There were no other garments or ornaments that she could see. She stared up at the thing, wondering what it thought of her, and edged closer. An alien! A real, live, actual alien, still walking around! This had to be one of the most astonishing discoveries in human history.
Regret. Not use. Kill.
Cassie stopped, her hands going to her temples. Telepathy? She stared up at the thing, wondering if it was reading her mind.
I regret. You do not use. Kill.
"Sorry," she said. "I don't know what you're trying to tell me." She gave a helpless shrug. "Not that you'll understand English, I assume, but I don't know how to do whatever it is that you're doing."
Verbal. Brain. Knowledge.
"Right. Um, that's a bit abstract for me. I'm Cassie. Who are you?"
I regret. You cannot use the device. The device to kill.
"The weapon?" she said. "The very old weapon that's hidden here? That's all right. I have no desire to use it."
The weapon. Yes. I cannot let you use the weapon.
"That sounds, er, very enlightened of you. Good policy. Did your people build the weapon?"
No. We hid it in this non-place. We could not destroy it.
"Pity. You could have saved me a lot of trouble." She frowned up at the creature. "Er, if you don't mind me asking, how are you still alive? You've been here for a very long time."
The creature didn't answer. Instead, if flickered. Like a moment of bad reception in a holo transmission, a band of static ran through the creature from feet to head, then vanished.
"Ah. I see. You're long dead. Um. Sorry about that."
I saw my race die, and my world. My own death was a mercy.
There wasn't much to say to that. She stared up at him, trying to project her sorrow, hoping he understood. She had no idea if he was a "he", but she couldn't keep thinking of him as "it".
Thank you.
"I won't use the weapon," she said. "But I'd like to see it." She walked toward him, and he didn't object. When she started to skirt around him he stepped out of her way, then followed her to the end of the corridor.
The pyramid had a central chamber, an open, airy space so high she could hardly believe it was inside a building. The ceiling was lost in shadows, which added to the illusion that she was out of doors, after dark. The floor glowed, showing her an area twenty meters across. The glow increased as she approached, getting brighter with every step she took.
When her foot touched the edge of the glowing circle, a map of the galaxy sprang to life above her. The map was huge, the same size as the lit circle in the floor, and incredibly detailed. It shone, pale and lovely, each star its own light source. Cassie stood frozen, gazing up in wonder, afraid to move for fear that the wonderful model would go away.
At last she looked down. There was a structure of sorts in the middle of the glowing circle, a contoured chair with curved bars around it like arm rests for an octopus. She walked toward it, glancing up to verify that the map was still there.
The aliens who had destroyed the Ancients were very small, she decided. The chair was scaled for a child. She looked down at it, wondering how creatures so small must have felt when the first, vast Ancients arrived.
We would not have hurt them. They destroyed us anyway.
She knelt. The armrests had colored disks inset in them, and she held a tentative fingertip over one disk, hoping she wasn't about to destroy a planet.
It is safe. To actually fire the machine is quite a complex process.
"All right. Tell me if I do anything dangerous." She touched the disk, and the map shifted above her. The galaxy slid to one side. She dragged her fingertip back and forth over the disk, and the galaxy moved in time.
Another disk let her tilt the galaxy. A third disk let her rotate it. The fourth disk was the best one, though. It let her zoom in. She zoomed until the stars were the size of grapes and she could see planets as tiny specks, frozen in their orbits. She stared up, entranced, jumping from system to system.
They used this to select targets.
Her finger lifted from the armrest. All the wonder, all the joy of discovery was gone, replaced by a sick chill. She turned to the vast Ancient. "How do I destroy this thing?"
You cannot. But you can destroy the entry key.
"The entry key?" She touched the straps of the backpack. "The egg and cube. Right. Are there any more of them?"
Yes. But they are here, in this non-place.
"Right. Okay. I'll smash it and hope for the best." S
he looked up at his ancient, alien face. "How do I destroy it?"
Expose it to temperatures in excess of two thousand degrees Kelvin, or pressure in excess of twelve hundred atmospheres.
"Two thousand degrees?" She shook her head. "Would a volcano do it?"
No.
"Great. I've got the key to a doomsday device, and it can survive being submerged in magma. That's terrific."
We made five keys. The Ancient pointed with one of his smaller hands. The others are here.
Cassie looked where he pointed. A shelf near the little seat held four cubes, four eggs, four black spheres and four tiny red rings. She walked over and peered at the array of shapes. "Mine doesn't have these," she said, indicating the spheres and rings. "What do they do?"
The rings allow one of us to locate the cube remotely. They would not work for you. The spheres control the size of the portal.
"Oh." She could see a little rectangular bump on the side of the sphere. No doubt it would lock into a matching indentation on the cube. "Well, maybe that's the solution, then. I just need to leave my cube and sphere here. No one can get to them. Problems solved." She paused. "Why did you guys remove one set?"
There is no way to leave without taking a key.
"Ah." She fell silent as the implications sunk in. She could make the artifacts permanently inaccessible. All she had to do was stay out of phase. Forever.
Yes. You could remain here, and the weapon would never be used.
It was, she sensed, the right thing to do. The heroic thing. The only reasonable, responsible course of action. "Like Hell," she said. "Sorry, but I can't stay."
I understand.
"My friends are out there. They're in trouble." She patted the backpack. "This toy of yours. It lets me walk through walls, at least while I'm close to the pyramid. I can use it to save them."
The Ancient didn't reply, just stared at her.
"It's not that I don't care," she said. "I don't want any planets getting destroyed. But I got them into this. Lark, at least. Jerry's a big boy. He's responsible for himself, but Lark's just a kid."
I understand.
"Stop saying that." She lapsed into silence. After a while she said, "Is there a way to get up to the second level of the pyramid? And outside?"
Yes.
"Great. I'll need you to show me." She reached down and took a black sphere from the shelf. "But first, tell me how this works."
Find the matching indentation. Plug it in. Turn clockwise to increase the size of the portal. Turn counter-clockwise to reduce the size.
"Well, that's easy enough. All right. How do I get upstairs?"
The staircase had once had a railing. Cassie could see indentations where the posts had been set, and a trail of brown dust where the railing had been. The steps remained. They were built for the Ancients, not humans, but the Ancients had disproportionately short legs, so Cassie found the steps only a bit too big for comfort. The staircase hugged one wall, well back from the circle of glowing floor.
Cassie prodded the lowest step with her toe, half expecting it to crumble underneath her, but it seemed solid. She heaved herself onto the first step, then jumped up and down. It held her weight.
"They built this place to last," she said.
So little remains. It was beautiful once. The whole interior glowed. Every wall was its own work of art. The ceiling was a wonder. If you could know how much has been taken by the irresistible march of time, you would weep.
She looked around at the gloom, tried to imagine it as he described it, and gave up. She climbed.
The Ancient climbed with her. For a projection he was remarkably authentic, plodding along from step to step as if he had to. Cassie wasn't sure whether to be irritated or glad of his company.
At the top of the stairs she found a wide floor with a thick coating of dust that swirled around her feet. Had it been rooms once, walls and furniture, or fantastic works of art? Or were her feet stirring the remains of the builders of the doomsday device?
She decided not to ask.
The door remains sealed in your version of this world. Here, it is long gone. He gestured toward a narrow corridor with warm sunlight spilling through it.
Cassie paused at the opening. "Thank you," she said. "I'm hoping not to come back. I really want to find some other solution." She patted the shoulder of her backpack. "If I don't return with your key, you'll know that I destroyed it."
Thank you.
She nodded, turned, and stooped to enter the narrow corridor. She walked for five quick paces, passed through the misty door in the other world, and emerged onto the top of the pyramid's first tier.
The ghost jungle stretched before her for as far as she could see. There was a plain of featureless sand visible through the translucent forest. She liked the living world better. She tried to imagine being trapped forever with only the ghosts of living things for company, and shuddered.
The hovercar was not in sight. Cassie squinted at the sun to get her bearings, then trotted along the top of the platform to the corner. She was terrified that the hovercar had departed, and she felt her stomach unclench in relief when she rounded the corner and saw the outline of the machine before her.
Scouting the hovercar was an eerie experience. She walked through the hull, peering left and right. The driver was in a cockpit area at the front, his feet propped on the dash, playing a holo game on a PAD. She saw three men, pale figures with their backs to her, in a little room just behind the cockpit. Then she poked her head through the next bulkhead and looked into a tiny chamber in the very back of the hovercar.
Jerry sat slumped with his back against one wall. Lark was curled up on a seat, unmoving. Cassie stared, holding her breath. Then Jerry yawned and stretched, his arm brushed Lark's foot, and she shifted away from him.
They were alive. Cassie squeezed her eyes shut and felt a sudden rush of tears spilling onto her cheeks. They were alive! She stood there, telling herself that she needed to get a move on, as the tears kept coming.
When at last the tears ended she dried her cheeks carefully with her sleeve. There was no way she was ever going to let them know she'd had a crying fit. She dried her eyes, blew her nose, took a couple of deep breaths, and squared her shoulders. Then she drew her pistol and considered her options.
The portal field was too big for the tiny room where the prisoners waited. She would have to take out the pilot and the three guards. She retreated through the bulkhead and returned to the little room where the three men sat.
The floor was at waist-height for Cassie. She had unpleasant visions of finding herself cut in half when she tried to return. She pushed them aside. The soil around her feet hadn't been a problem. Surely the skin and floor plates on a hovercar would be the same.
Wouldn't they?
All three men were looking in the direction of a little panel on one wall. Whatever they were watching, it wasn't visible to Cassie. It didn't matter. The panel made a great distraction. She shifted the backpack around so she could get a hand into it, found the egg by touch, and took careful aim at the back of the nearest man's head. The range was no more than a couple of meters. She took a deep breath, held it, and pulled the egg loose from the cube.
A tingle ran through her, a vise seemed to close on her legs, the ship became suddenly solid around her, and she squeezed the trigger. The man started to turn as she fired, and the stun bolt hit his temple. He flopped sideways, and Cassie shot the next man as he rose from his seat. He grunted and fell to his knees, and she shot him again in the face.
The third man burst from his chair and spun to face her. At first she took in only details. He wore civilian clothing, an expensive-looking suit. He was too thick-bodied to be a soldier, and it made him an excellent target. She took aim on the center of his body.
"You!" He stared at her, his mouth slack with shock, his hands opening and closing at his sides. He was unarmed, and she held her fire. It was Carmody, the man she'd stolen the egg from, what see
med like a lifetime ago. Lark's father.
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
"Wait!" He held up a hand, palm toward her, as if he could stop a stun blast. His gaze shifted sideways as feet clattered on the floor of the car. The pilot appeared in the cockpit doorway, and she shot the man in the stomach. The pilot crumpled, and Cassie swung the pistol back toward Carmody.
"Wait," he said again. His gaze moved to where her body vanished into the floor of the car, and his eyes widened briefly. He shook his head and lifted his gaze. He loomed above her, but he looked small and fearful.
"I had to do it," he said. "Everything. I had no choice." His hand stretched toward her, a strange, beseeching motion. "When you stole that artifact. I wasn't supposed to have it, but I insisted. I made them give it to me. I wanted insurance. So they couldn't cut me out."
She wiggled the pistol at him. "Get to the point."
"You don't know what these people are like. Well, maybe you do by now. They were going to kill me! I had to—"
"What people?" Cassie interrupted. "Who, exactly, is behind all this?"
"Greta Armstrong. She's the one who figured it out. She put it all together."
"Greta Armstrong?" Cassie gave him a skeptical look. "Not Peter?"
Carmody dismissed Peter Armstrong with an impatient flap of his hand. "Peter's nothing. She wears his balls for earrings. No, it's Greta who runs Armstrong and Noguchi." He closed his eyes for a moment. "That bloody woman. She's a shark."
Greta Armstrong. The faceless enemy hunting her at least had a name, now.
"Oh, there's one more thing," Carmody said. "You need to see this." His hand dipped into his pocket.
Cassie almost fell for it. It was the expression on Carmody's face that gave him away. His lips started to peel back from his teeth in a victorious grin just as his fingertips slid out of his pocket. Cassie shot him in the center of his thick body, and he spasmed, a small black pistol dropping from his hand as he flopped against the back of the seat behind him, then slid to the floor.
"You talk too much," Cassie told him, and holstered her pistol. It was a snug fit. The metal and plastic of the car's floor were pooled in a low ridge around her thighs and the top of the holster. Farther below, she could feel the skin of the hovercar clamped tight around her shins and calves. She tried to squirm upward, and finally gave up.