- AL, I MISSED YOU BUDDY. EVERYTHING OKAY HERE? I asked him.
- SYSTEMS ALL OPERATIONAL SIR. NATIVES HOSTILE?
- NEGATIVE. I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T BEEN IN TOUCH, BUT I NEED YOU TO STAY ACTIVE. I WANT THE SHIP TO BE READY, THOUGH I CAN’T SAY FOR WHAT. THE LONGER WE’RE HERE THE MORE I FEEL SOMETHING IS OFF, I told him.
- ORDERS UNDERSTOOD.
I waited as Druga finished his analysis of my bridge. He didn’t study the computer systems as much as I thought he would have, which was a relief to me.
“Weapon capabilities . . . vessel?” He asked me.
“Two plasma lasers at the bow and a missile tube stern,” I told him, and then had to explain the terms bow and stern to him. I tried to explain the humor of the designer when placing the weapon ports, but Druga didn’t seem to get it, or maybe it wasn’t as funny as I thought it was.
Druga finished with his study and we walked back toward the bay. He seemed genuinely disinterested as I gave him a small tour of the ship on our way back. The rest of the gang was still in the bay waiting for us. Druga sang something to the others which didn’t translate and the three other Dawnians all nodded to him.
“Daniel,” Laraar said to me. “Tell us . . . your reason . . . why here?”
I thought about how I would approach it. I looked at Cessa, but she turned from me, clearly not interested in being a part of the conversation. I wasn’t sure how they would react or even understand what I was going to tell them.
“We came here for what we call empyreus . . . it is a great power source. After much research we discovered that it exists on your world. We came here to see if that was true.”
“And take it?” Idza asked. How honest should I be with her? It wasn’t exactly an easy answer. I could have said anything from ‘yes’ to ‘only because a powerful madman wants it for his own personal gain’, but with Cessa here and still dangerous in my eyes I chose something a little less descriptive.
“My mission is to find the empyreus and if possible, retrieve it. If you know what I speak of, I want you to understand I am not trying to deceive you in any way. I have no interest in taking it from you, but instead I wish to negotiate a deal that will allow us to mutually benefit both of our people.”
I waited as they stood there listening to me, then looked to each other and conversed in their native song. I heard notes of varying degrees, some minor, some melodic. There were soft sounds and loud ones. They knew exactly what I was talking about, but unfortunately I couldn’t read their facial expressions. If anything I noticed some disagreement between Druga and Laraar, but I based that off the intensity in their eyes and their quick songs back and forth.
As I was about to sit down, my feet still sore from the trek to the ship, Laraar moved forward and waved his hand toward me.
“Follow me,” he said, then looked at Cessa and said, “She stays”.
“I don’t trust these people with my equipment anyway. You go. Don’t screw anything up.”
I rolled my eyes at her and left the ship with Laraar, hoping Al would keep an eye on things. The two of us walked about thirty degrees left of the trail back to their settlement. In the distance I saw movement, a lot of it. About 45 meters in front of us, a group of large animals traveled in a pack. I jogged closer to get a better look. Their skin was a light brown and from here looked somewhat leathery. I wasn’t sure if they had hoofs or paws, but the ends of their legs were covered in a black fur. Horns protruded from their jaw bones, and they slightly resembled a hippopotamus in the facial area.
Laraar startled me from behind as he let out a loud siren call and I watched in awe as the lead animal raised his head and responded in a similar sound. None of the beasts seemed to be bothered by our presence as we closed in on them. They simply continued to graze.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Can you understand them? Talk to them?”
“Understanding . . . very simple,” he responded.
I kept my eyes out for additional animals as we continued across the field and entered a forest that looked similar to the one by our camp, but little variations told me it wasn’t the same one. I heard chirps and cricket type sounds, but couldn’t see anything. I tried activating my eye, but the pain was too difficult to bear. Whatever had numbed it the previous day had apparently subsided, so I shut it down and simply enjoyed the music and sounds of the forest.
I wish I had gotten a chance to look at the landscape from the air, but at the time I was too focused on landing. The environment was very repetitious. We either walked through a busy forest or over a wide open field. I assumed Earth was at one point very similar, but on our planet there were numerous mountains, rivers and deserts. I had only ventured a short distance on this planet, but even far off in the distance all I had seen so far were either open fields or busy trees surrounding me.
Laraar hadn’t spoken since we saw the animals which he called 'Irinx’. I was curious as to what he thought of my ship, of Cessa and me, but he didn’t seem interested in sharing anything. In a way it upset me. I felt like the two of us were bonding after we first met, but then he downgraded himself to an observer while Idza took over for all the translating. Maybe he needed someone to talk to him.
“What did you think of my ship?” I asked him.
“Adequate.” Coming from him I took it as a compliment. He could’ve said ‘sucked’.
“None of you seemed surprised by it. Even when Druga overlooked the consoles on my bridge he didn’t seem terribly interested in what he was seeing. If anything, he just wanted to know the tactical capabilities of the ship.”
“Star . . . travel, not unknown to us,” He said, and completely threw a figurative curveball at me. I almost tripped over my own foot when he said that.
“Your people have traveled through the stars? I didn’t see any ships. Do you have many? What are they like?” I bombarded him with questions much like the engineers did to me.
“Travel no longer . . . it is . . . unnecessary.”
“But why?” I asked him.
“Everything we need . . . right here,” he responded.
That was the end of the conversation concerning space travel and it irritated me. There was so much about these people that I didn’t know. In some ways they reminded me of humans, but in other areas not so much. They were easily as advanced as us if not more so. They were curious, but it never lasted very long. A question here or a comment there and that was the end of it. They were too easily satisfied.
We never left the forest, but kept walking for what felt like a lifetime. My feet were beginning to get sore when we arrived at a mountain side within the forest itself. At the base of the mountain I spotted an opening which led into a deep cavern. Inside was a soft golden glow, not unlike the color of the sun in this star system. I thought it was fire at first. Maybe this was an active volcano or something due to the comfortable heat the mouth of the cave was giving off. The two of us entered.
The walls were lined with crystal like structures protruding from the walls. I heard myself gasp at the sight. I couldn’t even begin to count them, there were so many. The glow came from afar and reflected so brightly I had to put my hand up in front of my eyes. The other hand I used to touch the crystal structures themselves. Neither warm nor cold, they were hard as rock and smooth as marble. As Laraar walked farther ahead than me, I could see a warped version of him through the crystals, which were transparent as glass.
The cave tunnel was a little difficult to navigate, as the crystals were various shapes and sizes. Some ended in a point, while others were square shaped. They led us to a wide open cavern that was completely covered with them, but as amazing as they were, that wasn’t the most amazing sight I found there. On the hard surface were machines, conveyer belts, smelting stations, and other devices that I couldn’t really label.
The entire system was automated as there were no other Dawnians in the cavern with us. Two automatic hands reached out to the mountain and cut the crystal with som
e type of beam attached to the fingers. Then they placed the broken piece on the belt which led to the smelting station. Once the crystal was melted or processed, it was simply dumped into a stream of gold that flowed out the other side. I walked up to the stream and took a closer look.
The golden liquid was littered with streaks of blue, like small diamonds floating in the stream. Each blue diamond left a trail behind it. I finally decided to activate my bionic eye, grunting a bit at the pain. The sight of the stream completely blinded my optic adapter for a moment and I fell back onto my ass.
Laraar just stood next to me watching. I sat still for a moment clutching my head as my eye reset and once again activated. I tried to keep from looking directly into the stream, but it seemed to adapt to the overload and filtered out some of the brightness. Scanning the area told me 68,503 crystal structures grew in this cavern alone. The machines were made of an unknown metal, though it did recognize a small concentration of iron, just like the probe in space. I took one more look at the stream, moving slowly over it to prevent another overload and the power readings were completely off the charts.
“Empyreus,” I whispered.
“Yes . . . power . . . life,” Laraar said to me.
Something else in the cavern caught my eye. A large sphere of metal covered with antennas sat at the far end on the opposite side of the cavern. My readings displayed the metal as human in origin, specifically an ESA model.
The ESA probe . . . the one Al discovered . . . that led us here.
I ran over and studied it. There was definitely some damage, but it was still intact. I remember Al telling me how it was still sending back readings, but they were erratic most likely because of tampering. Then I fit the pieces together.
“That’s how you can translate . . . you used parts from this probe to build your translator didn’t you?” I wondered how the hell they managed to learn to translate human language so easily. They must have been able to access files on the probe itself!
Laraar nodded.
“Always good . . . to be prepared. Come friend,” he said as he led me back along the path of the stream. He took us through another tunnel with the same obstacles as before. When we emerged into the open, my heart stopped, my hands and jaw dropped as far as they were allowed. There was no forest or field, but a giant lake of empyreus, fed by the mountain and its processors.
The lake was illuminating the night sky with its golden glow. I wanted to pinch myself as if it were some kind of dream. Laraar told me that the lake itself was the one and only method of harnessing the empyreus. After the processing device in the cave melted the crystal, the stream of golden power flowed out to the lake to be collected and transported back to the village. They used empyreus for everything in their daily lives.
Truth be told, this lake was so big that every single Dawnian living in the village could fit in it at the same time. Hell, I could even land the Kestrel Belle in it. I could only imagine the kind of power my ship would absorb from coming in contact with the lake.
“You . . . first outside to witness,” he sung softly to me.
My bionic eye was figuratively in a bad mood, giving me a small headache. After making more discomforting noises, Laraar grabbed my arm and led me down to the . . . I guess, empyreus shore line. I wanted to ask so many questions but my mind was blanking out on everything except one detail.
Despite being sent here against my will, I made first contact with an alien race, earned their trust, and was the first human to lay eyes on the supposedly mythical energy source we call empyreus. The last five years of my life had been less than ideal. I had a ship, which was great, but to keep her afloat and live my life, I needed work. I took what jobs I could and put my name out for every opportunity that presented itself to me using the Starcade. Mercenary life was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Most of the jobs I took were either accomplished unsatisfactorily or required violent means of action, which I wasn’t willing to do. As the years passed, my name and reputation cascaded into nothing. Now no one could deny what I accomplished. I wouldn’t deny that I had help. Al, and in her own way Cessa, helped me get here.
I was speechless, shocked and excited all at the same time. I stood in front of what was most likely the most powerful energy source in the galaxy, possibly the universe.
“Why is this so powerful?” I asked Laraar. There was a slight strain in my voice as each sound only hurt my head more. I was about to shut down my eye when Laraar stopped me.
“Stop . . . remain active . . .”
He knew about my eye, which I suppose wasn’t a huge shock. With their technological prowess I knew there was a chance they could discover it. Laraar knelt down and placed his hand directly over the liquid. I moved to stop him, thinking it was something dangerous like fire or lava, but he thrust his hand in and . . . nothing. He turned to look at me and smiled.
“Daniel . . . Try,” he said to me, nodding toward the empyreus.
Kneeling down, I couldn’t help but take a couple of deep breaths. I was nervous. I reached out toward the warm golden liquid, my hand trembling. Before I could psych myself out, I plunged it in just like Laraar did. The best way I could describe it would be like inserting your entire hand into pudding slightly above room temperature. The texture was thick, but I could easily move my hands through it. Oddly enough, the longer I held my hand in the better I felt, physically and mentally. Aches and pains that nagged at me dissipated and even my headache lessened some. I shrugged it off, thinking maybe the relief of stress was the reason. That’s when Laraar removed his hand, cupping the empyreus in it. He took a step closer to me and put his other hand around the back of my head, gently pulling on my hair so I was looking up.
“Laraar, what are you doing?” I asked him, struggling to free myself.
“Stop . . .” He said in a calm, soothing voice. He brought his hand up over my head, specifically near my eyes. I closed them shut, but he insisted I open my bionic eye. I refused at first, but then he said something to me.
“Daniel . . . I trust you . . . Trust me . . .” The moment I opened my eye, he let a drop of empyreus fall into it.
I flailed around, backing away from him. The sensation was a mixture of intense burning and pinching all around my optic receptor.
“What the flux?” I cursed, then cursed some more, but as I tried to wipe the liquid away from my eye, I found that it had completely absorbed into my skin. My eye twitched as the burn receded into an itch.
I couldn’t tell you how long it lasted. I felt like it was hours, when in fact it was probably closer to a minute. When the feelings subsided, the results were . . . impossible at the time to convey.
I felt amazing. The fatigue and strain in my body from traveling were gone. The pain in my head ceased to exist. My bionic eye was functioning at full capacity and everything I looked at was in a high definition of clarity. I shut the eye off. No pain. I turned it back on. No pain. I even knocked on my head a couple times with a closed fist, but there was no irritation or pain whatsoever. I could almost feel Laraar beside me and I could sense other life forms far beyond us. The empyreus was more than energy and power. It had the capability to induce biological organisms with healing properties and enhance their senses.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked.
“Sorania,” he said. “That is name . . . to us. Sorania. It . . . powers us all . . . machine . . . every living thing that contacts it. Every machine it powers . . . strong . . . connected. Your eye . . . machine . . . now you.”
“What do you mean, now the eye is me?” I looked around more, closing my left eye and focusing with my right. Sure enough, even though the eye still scanned my surroundings and reported statistics to me, it felt just like a real eye, the same as my other. “Are you telling me that this liquid fused my mechanical eye with my biological body?”
He nodded.
Things started to fall into place, whether it was due to the empyreus in my system or my brain just puttin
g everything together. Not only did I feel healthy and invincible, but I also felt unbelievably relaxed, like I didn’t have a worry in the world. Time itself didn’t even matter. Why would it? With the empyreus I had everything I would ever need.
I thought back to when I used my eye against Grent, the food and drink I ingested, then my injuries afterwards, which were healed with the medicine. The Dawnians even infused their food with it.
The possibilities, the potential of being able to harness empyreus for almost anything was worth more than . . . well, it was priceless. You couldn’t put a price on something that was compatible with man and machine alike. I could also imagine the various ways that something like this could be used for evil, for lack of a better term. Raymond Erebos could use it to turn the entire galaxy upside down, lead into a new era where he was the ultimate power. Then I remembered my original intel came from the ESA Echelon and specifically Sarah King. If she got her hands on it, no one would be able to stop her.
Unfortunately, the time for revelation was short lived as my gut suddenly told me something wasn’t right. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, similar to the same feeling I get when someone is watching me from afar. I turned toward the opening of the cave and I couldn’t see anyone, but my bionic eye easily detected a third set of footprints at the mouth. I ran up to it and zoomed in for a closer look. There was one set of Dawnian footprints and two sets of human boot prints, one noticeably smaller than the other.
“Flux! Cessa!” I muttered as I ran back into the cave, my guard up and ready. Maybe I was delusional, but I thought I moved quicker than before. I put on the brakes as my eye revealed something terrible.
“Daniel?” Laraar called out as he ran up to me. I was looking down at the ground, right next to the processed stream that led out to the lake. The smaller set of footprints turned towards it, then the right foot dragged back, followed by a small indent in the ground. Her knee. I imagined Cessa somehow managed to follow us here. With all the cargo on the ship it wasn’t hard to assume she brought a collection device of some kind with her. She went to the opening leading to the lake, and made sure we were engaged in discussion, possibly while Laraar was giving me the empyreus. She ran back to this spot, dropped to her knee and collected some of it. Flux.
Energize (From the Logs of Daniel Quinn Book 1) Page 12