With their position just a few hundred leagues south of the equator, the breeze drifting across the narrow fo'c'sle deck at the very bow of the ship was on the warm side of comfortable, and smelled of the thick jungle, only a kilometer away. Gareth stood alone with his hands behind his back, as he had for the past two hours. Chiu and Lyndra, both sensing his mood had wisely chosen not to bless him with their company, leaving him to wrestle with his conscience by himself. It wasn’t until the shore party returned that he began to hear the whispers of ’killer’ from both sailors and marines as they walked past. The problem was that they were right, and he knew it. Even worse was the knowledge that he would do it again, if necessary.
“Buy a girl a drink, sailor?” A soft feminine voice said from somewhere behind him.
“You really don’t want my company tonight, Athena.” He replied, without turning.
“You’re wrong.” She murmured, taking his arm. “This is just exactly the right time.”
Waves lapped at his toes, and in the dark starless sky lightning flashed in the distance. The air now held the chill of autumn, or early winter, and the smells were heartbreakingly familiar. “Oh damn.” He grumbled. “Why here and why now?”
“Because we need to talk.” She said casually, as she folded gracefully to the sand. She waved a hand imperiously. “Sit!” Ignoring the command Gareth stood, saying nothing. “You’re blaming yourself for those deaths, and in a way, you are responsible. Were you wrong in what you did? Not even a little.” She answered her own question. “Those four would have cost you half of your marines, and possibly even your own life. If you hadn’t done something about them I would. This endeavor is much too important.” She leaned toward him. “Those four were like a cancer, and needed to be cut out of the organism before the entire corpus sickened.”
“I know that in my mind, but…” He stopped when she handed him a rock glass half full of golden liquid.
“Drink.” She commanded.
Gareth sniffed at the rim of the glass, and his eyebrows rose. “Is this a single malt whiskey?” He could see the flash of her smile.
“A friend of mine outside Edinburg bottles his family label, and has been doing so for several hundred years.” She raised a glass to her own lips and took a long drink. Her eyes closed, and she let out a long contented sigh. “Good, isn’t it?”
Gareth took a long swallow, and hummed in pleasure. “It is indeed very nice.” As if the drink had loosened the tendons in his legs, Gareth folded to the beach beside Athena. “What the hell do I do now, Athena? It feels like all I’ve done is screw things up.”
She took another drink, and smiled. “How many times have I come down to straighten things out for you?” She asked bluntly.
Gareth scowled. “I can’t think of any, at the moment, but there must have been a few occasions when…”
“None!” Athena interrupted.
“But…”
“None.” She repeated. “I should know. I’ve watched you very carefully. You’ve done several things differently from what I would have, but in all of those instances your way turned out to be better. In this last instance with the four idiots, I would have lined them up and shot them. That, unfortunately, would have caused problems.”
Gareth chuckled. “I can imagine. I thought of it myself, along with shooting a certain sergeant.” Athena laughed this time as Gareth took another long drink. His looked sobered. “What the hell is wrong with Ojor Cay?”
Athena sighed. “There was a government research facility on the widest part of the island studying offensive and defensive biological weapons.”
“Viruses and things like that?”
She shook her head. “Plants, animals and certain pathogens that will turn humans into killing machines. Things got out of hand, and the island was abandoned.”
“But not the city?”
“Not the city.” She confirmed.
“If I can’t get to the land, then how do I get to the city?” Gareth’s look was perplexed.
“You had the right idea.” Athena said slowly, as if deciding what she could or couldn’t say. “You just didn’t go far enough.”
“Far enough on land?”
“No.” She replied firmly, and although her face was serious, her eyes were sparkling. Gareth’s own eyes suddenly went wide, and she smiled. “There. See how easy it was?”
“Ha! If it weren’t for you, I’d fall flat on my face.” He wobbled slightly, in his seat on the soft beach, and suddenly realized that his nose was slightly numb.
Athena took the glass from his hand, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Goodnight, my Gareth.” With that, his head fell back onto the warm sand, and he slept.
“So, Captain Evvos,” Gareth asked the next morning as the Spray crept into the wide bay, keeping the shoreline on her starboard side, a cable length away. “how fast can you stop this ship?”
The Captain didn’t look back from his position at the front of the bridge. “How fast will we be going?”
“Dead slow, like now.”
“Two hundred meters.” Captain Evvos replied without hesitation. “You tell me and I rings the engines for reverse and stop ye just as slick as ye like.”
As they slid past their anchorage of the previous day, Gareth nodded. Thirty minutes later, and a good part of the way around the bay a forward lookout set his binoculars down and called out. “Ahoy the bridge. Something in the water off our port bow!”
“Something alive?” Captain Evvos called back in a worried tone.
“Naw.” The lookout replied, putting his binoculars back to his eyes. “Something like a pedestal made o metal. A round thingie on top. Range about a cable, Capin’.”
Gareth cleared his throat. “You might want to stop, Captain Evvos.”
The Captain flushed, tearing his eyes from the bridge window, and pushed the lever on the Engine Room Telegraph to Reverse. The ship shook under their feet for a moment as the ship slowed. Evvos pushed the lever to Standby. Under their feet the engines quieted. Evvos touched the com button. “Release the anchor!” There was a crash and a rattle of chain. The Spray jerked once under their feet, and then silence fell. Gareth could see a strange metal pole rising from the water, two hundred meters from their port bow.
“Please have the gig prepared to launch, Captain.”
Evvos shot him a sideways glance. “Sending the marines today?”
Gareth swallowed. “This time I’ll go alone.”
Other people, Gareth discovered, had something to say about that decision. The resulting expedition was two sailors to row, two marines to act as guards, unsurprisingly Corporal Xianliang and PFC Yong, Gareth and Chiu. He’d put his foot firmly down when Lyndra and Mairi suggested that they come also. He wasn’t going to put all those he loved in harm’s way.
His mouth was dry as the gig pushed away from the side of the ship, and the sailors propelled the boat slowly toward the pedestal. Sticking out of the water a single meter, the stainless-steel pipe was unmarked by either light or design. On the top of the pole rested a thirty-centimeter translucent glass ball, again without light or design. PFC Yong reached out a hand, and before he could warn her, touched the top of the ball. Jerking her hand away, she turned to Gareth with wide eyes. “It’s cold, Sir.”
Gareth looked up at the mid-morning sun, feeling the heat on his brow. “Let me try.” Pulling the gig closer, he reached out and placed the palm of his hand on the top of the globe. Nothing happened at first, and then the globe began to glow brightly, changing first from white to green to blue to red and then back to white. The glow faded and Gareth removed his hand, elated yet disappointed in the sparse reaction.
“Port side, sir!” A seaman called. To the port side a dozen meters away from the gig the ocean was churning. Gareth hadn’t known what to expect from the City that Time Forgot, but he surely didn’t expect the seven meter translucent soap bubble when it came boiling up out of the water beside the boat. The seamen swore, and
the young marines cocked their weapons.
“Safety your weapons!” Gareth said sharply. “If they wanted to kill us we would be dead already, don’t you think?”
Looking incredibly embarrassed, the two marines flipped their weapons on safety. Bobbing before them, the translucent bubble shimmered with the colors of the rainbow. Gareth felt his sphincter tighten. “Take us over there.” He said to the sailors, ignoring his guts. They looked at him as if he were crazy. It took only a half dozen strokes of the oars before the boat bumped softly against the side of the bubble. Reaching out a hesitant hand, he went to touch the curving side, only to see his hand disappear thru the glimmering surface. Wherever it was, his hand felt no different than normal, and when he withdrew it the hand was warm and dry. Gareth was preparing himself to step through the translucent wall when Corporal Xianliang politely touched his shoulder.
“Excuse me Sir. I believe that this is my job.”
Gareth gave the obviously scared-to-death lad a long look, and a thin smile. “You’re right Corporal. You have point; lead on.”
Holding the edge of the gig for balance, the young man stepped through the side of the bubble and disappeared. A moment later his head reappeared… just his head, nodded once and disappeared back in the bubble. Without a moment’s hesitation, Gareth followed the young trailblazer through the door that wasn’t a door, followed quickly by Chiu and a very pale faced PFC Yong. The seamen looked at each other, and turned the gig back to the ship. When they looked back over their shoulders, the bubble was gone.
PFC Yong had just dropped into a comfortable looking seat by the Corporal when the bubble began to sink. The dark interior slowly brightened enough for the occupants to see each other, and their eyes widened when they noticed that the walls of the bubble, along with the floor and the entry way they had all passed through were as clear as glass. Without a sound the bubble sank completely beneath the surface. Gareth knew that they were committed now. There was no equipment that he could see and no lights, yet the bubble traveled smoothly beneath the surface at perhaps a walking pace. An arm long silver fish swam by, and then another. Gareth recognized them as barracuda. When they reached what Gareth guessed was thirty meters below the surface the outside of the bubble began to glow, shedding a soft yellow radiance into the surrounding waters. Schools of multi-colored fish swam by in dense clouds, unafraid of the bubble or its occupants.
“Look!” Chiu grabbed his arm and pointed. Pacing their progress and almost as large as the bubble itself, a jellyfish pulsed as it swam, trailing meters of purplish tentacles.
“It’s a jellyfish.” Gareth commented. “It’s harmless, unless you touch the tentacles.” Just as he said that a barracuda swam curiously toward the jellyfish. A long tentacle lashed out, wrapping itself around the silver predator. The barracuda spasmed violently a few times, and was still as the jellyfish slowly reeled it in. “Mostly harmless.” He amended. “Jellyfish have come a long way in thirty eight thousand years.” The bubble continued its descent, leaving the jellyfish behind with its lunch.
The smooth descent lasted fifteen minutes, and then Corporal Xianliang touched his arm. The boy was looking straight down, between his feet. “Sir, is it supposed to be brighter below us?”
Gareth looked up at the blackness above them, and then down. “That, Corporal, is our destination, or so I believe.”
“The City that Time Forgot.” The young man whispered, gripping his carbine tightly.
“In the old days,” Gareth said softly, “the real name of the city was Jafelon, and it was one of the five great cities on Eldenworld.” Gareth grinned to himself as beside him the young Corporal mouthed the exotic name of Jafelon, obviously trying it on for size.
“How many people lived down here?” PFC Yong asked in a reverent whisper.
Gareth tore his gaze from the growing light below them. “If it’s like Brivrelsea or Shsa-Tirion, two or three million probably. Azheles was destroyed, so we have no idea of how many lived there.”
“And The Yeugate?” She asked, her eyes bright.
Gareth grinned. So at least one person had been listening to what he’d said about the ancient cities. “The Yeugate was the greatest of the five cities, and served as a hub for both transportation and power. From the levels we saw, the city might accommodate six or seven million people.”
She looked at him with something like awe. “That’s more people than…” She fumbled for words.
“More people than there are on Eldenworld.” Gareth finished helpfully.
“What was it like there?” This from Corporal Xianliang. “Was it beautiful?”
By his side Chiu snorted. “It was dark, dangerous and very scary, even when we managed to activate the central AI.” He said slowly.
“AI?” The Corporal asked.
“Artificial Intelligence. An artificial being created by man to run the entire city. Eventually that intelligence developed a personality and existence of its own.” Gareth explained. “I hope to find an AI running things down here.” He looked down at the brightening lights. “Something kept all this running.”
The Corporal swallowed. “Is it dangerous?”
Gareth gave him a level look. “Very dangerous, in the same way that I am very dangerous. If you want my recommendation… be polite.”
The Corporal and the PFC both blinked. “Be polite?” They intoned together. Gareth grinned.
The general brightness below them resolved into the gentle curve of a huge dome. Beyond the clear walls of the dome Gareth could see the vague shapes of buildings, domes and towers. Lights twinkled in the city far below.
Chiu took his arm and whispered. “It’s like a fairyland.” Her eyes shone.
Gareth stared. The technology involved here surpasses a mere thirty eight thousand years of advancements. He thought as the bubble dropped. There is an otherworldy, almost alien quality to it. Looking up at the black ocean above them, he fervently hoped that they weren’t in over their head.
The bubble fell past the towering sides of the city for several more minutes before their motion slowed. A soft chime sounded in the transport, and Gareth rose to his feet, motioning the others to do the same. Without as much as a quiver, the bubble passed through the wall of the domed city and slowly came to a stop. Going up to the wall they entered through, Gareth took a step. The platform he stood on was wide and solid, made of a mauve colored material he couldn’t identify as either metal, concrete, or plastic, and was probably none of the above, he thought sourly. He took another two steps forward before coming to a stop.
Corporal Xianliang came out on his heels. “The wall wouldn’t let us through, and then suddenly it did.” The young man stammered.
Gareth nodded. “It senses when someone is blocking the exit… as you are.” He raised an eyebrow and blushing, the Corporal moved quickly aside. Chiu stepped through, coming to Gareth’s side, and then the PFC.
The air in the city smelled fresh rather than endlessly recycled, and unless he was mistaken Gareth thought that he could scent a fresh hint of the sea. Scattered streetlights gave the place a quaint, old-fashioned look, although when he studied it more carefully he noticed that the interior walls of the city were themselves glowing.
“Well, what do we do now?” Chiu asked as she held his hand with a fierce determination to appear outwardly calm.
Gareth looked around. “Whoever is in charge sent an elevator for us, and I suspect that our arrival has been duly noted. We wait. Something is bound to happen.” There was a soft sigh in the air, and the bubble they’d traveled in from the surface slowly sank through the platform and disappeared. “There, what did I tell you?” Gareth smiled and tried to ignore the butterflies in his stomach.
“To your right Sir, at fifty meters.” The Corporal hissed, not quite aiming his carbine in the same direction. “Someone or something is approaching.”
Gareth turned to see a tall man wearing a well cut suit appear out of thin air, as if he were stepping out of a
thin fog. As he approached Gareth noted, with some surprise, that the man’s skin was slightly green and composed of very fine scales and that the very edges of the man’s form was faintly transparent. It was nonetheless, Gareth thought to himself, an impressive hologram. He gave the approaching man a wry smile. “Green skin?” He asked softly.
The approaching figure stopped and rolled his eyes. “The original programmers,” he said in a soft cultured voice, “thought that giving me green skin and scales would be in keeping with the marine environment and submarine décor in general.” He held up a green hand and looked at it critically. “I think that it looks like I’m a corroding tin man.” He held out the hand to Gareth. “I am called Saint Brendan of Clonfert.”
Gareth took the offered hand, surprised that he could feel a hologram at all. “Saint Brendan of Clonfert?” He asked, both eyebrows going up.
The man with the green skin sighed. “The programmers again. Saint Brendan was the patron saint of marine scientists.”
“What would you prefer to be called?” Gareth asked politely, shooting a wink at the young Corporal.
“I’ve always wished I was named Thomas, Sir. Simply Thomas.”
“Do I have the authority to make the change?” Gareth grinned.
“Yes sir. Ell from The Yeugate notified me of your impending arrival, Mister Köhler.”
“Then Thomas it shall be.” He shook the hand again. “It’s nice to meet you Thomas, and please call me Gareth.” He turned. “And these are my companions; my wife Chiu, and my honor guard, Corporal Xianliang and Private First Class Yong.”
Thomas nodded to the small company. “I regret to inform you that interior transportation is not yet operational.” He waved a hand. “This entire facility was on emergency power that would have failed within the year if The Yeugate hadn’t reactivated broadcast power. As it is, the city is barely habitable at the moment, and surface transport was only reactivated last week.”
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