by Aaron Hubble
All he had to do to get to the door was walk underneath that delicately-balanced monolith. It just depended on how much he wanted to risk his life. After hanging from a cliff earlier that morning, walking under something that might crush him seemed almost tame.
Almost.
He looked up and down the street and chuckled to himself as his mother's voice echoed in his head with a childhood warning to look both ways before crossing the street. A squad of black-uniformed soldiers was marching in the opposite direction, their backs to him. He waited until they were far enough away that the sound of him running would not reach them, and then dashed out of the trees. Setting his feet in motion he sprinted across the street, zig-zagging around large chunks of stone and dead bodies. Calier ducked under the stone column before he had a chance to think of the danger and jumped through the opening that had once been the door. His shoulder brushed the door-frame, jarring loose a few remaining shards of glass that tinkled to the floor. A groaning of walls not meant to support the weight they were being asked to bear met his ears and he froze, holding his breath.
No more sound came and he let out the breath he had been holding, realizing that he had also closed his eyes - as if not seeing a collapsing ceiling would save him from the certain death that it would bring.
Opening his eyes, Calier was startled. Several people stood in front of him, all Am'Segid, all silent and all staring at him. Two men and a woman were holding packages of food and a tablecloth lay spread before them piled with food they had scavenged from the shop.
Lifting his hand in greeting, Calier took a step forward. "It’s really nice to see someone else alive. I've been..."
"That's close enough, brother," said the man in the center. In his hand he held a large kitchen knife, leveled at Calier's chest.
The man moved in front of the tablecloth and took up a defensive posture, the same kind of posture Calier had seen wild animals take when rivals threatened to steal a fresh kill. There was a savageness and depth of fear in this man's eyes that Calier had never seen in a person before. Those eyes told him that this man would kill for the loaf of bread he held.
Did Calier himself look like this man?
The tension in the air continued to grow and sparked with electricity. The man spoke again. "The best thing you could do right now is turn around and walk out the door. Nobody gets hurt and everyone lives to fight another day."
Calier sputtered, "I wasn't going to steal from you. There must be enough here for everyone.” He searched the man’s face, trying to read his thoughts. Desperately, he added, “I'm planning on escaping the city tonight. It’s not safe here. Why don’t you join me?"
"And do what? Hide in the hills? Build a new city?” The man sneered at Calier, “Look, we’re all going to die, it’s just a matter of time. A larger group will be seen sooner than a smaller one, so pardon us if we choose to try this on our own."
"So, no sharing?"
"No sharing." The man waved his knife toward the door. "It’s probably time for you to take your chances elsewhere."
Calier took a step backwards, his foot crunching on the broken glass that littered the floor. "All three of you know this is not how the Am'Segid live. Especially at a time like this." He turned toward the door and then turned back to the trio and bowed at the waist, placing his hand over his heart. "May peace follow you to your journey's end." The ancient Am'Segid benediction sounded hollow considering what they were facing, but he meant every word.
Walking through the door he heard a shaky female voice from behind him intone the familiar response, "And may blessings light the path of peace before you."
In her voice Calier understood that all was not lost. There was still hope that his people might survive if they could hold onto a part of the past.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After retreating from the small eatery, he looked for another shop where he might find food, but the rest of the shops in the immediate area had been destroyed, or debris choked their entrance, making it impassable.
Perhaps not getting inside was a blessing. The attack had taken place during a busy time of day when people would have been coming in and out of those little shops for breakfast or buying food for later in the day. Calier felt sick to his stomach when he thought about how many people might have been crushed when the buildings collapsed. He was sure his heart and mind weren’t capable of taking in that much more death.
He set his path in the direction of the university. It was close and he knew each one of the many buildings, giving him an advantage. He could get in and get out quickly. In the antiquities department there would be equipment that would be valuable after he and the woman escaped the city. If memory served him correctly, there was even a stock of instant meals used for expeditions where packing in fresh food was not possible. While not high-class cuisine, the meals would keep them going for awhile until they were able to find another food source. Calier prayed that the buildings were still standing or at least, to some extent, accessible.
Calier stayed in the small alleys and pedestrian walkways that wound between the buildings. After the initiation of the Great Peace, Gadol City had become a destination for those of a more artistic mind-set and the setup of the city expressed that. A renaissance and urban renewal had exploded through the city when warfare and survival had ceased to dominate the lives of its citizens. Artists began to influence the layout of the city and the city, in turn, began to reflect the creative mind and heart of the people who called her home.
Where they were not covered in debris, Calier could still make out the intricate designs that had been created by the patterns of the stone pavers. Some sidewalks were actually made of grass. On this trip, however, he did not have the luxury of admiring the artistic flavor of his home city. Survival was the only thing on his mind. He was attempting to make it to his university without being spotted by the murderous soldiers who were roaming the once-peaceful streets.
Calier moved in short spurts, scuttling from one heap of debris to another, one collapsed building front to the next. With his head on a swivel, Calier took cover wherever he could find it.
His heart hammered in his chest. His nerves were pulled as tight as guitar strings and he was sure he saw black-uniformed soldiers around every corner. Was that footsteps behind him? His head jerked around, but there was nothing. Calier was quickly losing the fight to keep himself calm. Getting inside a building would help. He swallowed and realized how parched he had become. His mouth felt like he had eaten dust, and, in reality, he had; the air was full of ash and dust, impossible to avoid. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath that made him cough.
If there was anyone around, they would know he was here now. Willing himself forward, Calier reminded himself that there was only another block until he reached the university. He needed to hold himself together until he could get inside a building.
The landscape had changed so much that familiar landmarks and buildings that he normally used to guide his way through this part of the city were gone and he began to second-guess whether he was going in the right direction. He glanced at the skyline to see if he could spot the observatory tower, but it, like most of the city’s tall buildings, was nowhere to be seen. If he hadn’t known better, it would have been easy to convince himself that he had been transported to an alien place.
He stood up from his hiding spot and continued on, in what he was relatively certain was the correct direction. He was heartened when he saw the familiar sign for the university still standing. With renewed energy he sprinted toward the sign and crouched behind it, then warily peered around the edge to look into the heart of the university grounds.
He looked down into the bowl-shaped courtyard. The first thing he noticed was that most of the buildings looked to be in good shape, as if this part of the city had been intentionally spared. Several larger black aircraft had landed, their side doors open and helmeted soldiers moving about carrying and setting up equipment. The most obvious casualty was th
e observation tower. It had stood since the founding of the university three thousand years ago, a sentinel in the middle of the courtyard. For many years it had served as a watch tower for the city, keeping a lookout for hostile armies, but the Great Peace had rendered that function obsolete, and it had been reborn as a celestial charting tower. Now the magnificent structure lay in ruins, toppled by an enemy weapon, jagged and scorched.
Calier puzzled over why the university had been spared in the attack. He watched the men moving equipment and then he understood that they were setting up a field headquarters or a place where they could direct whatever plans they had in mind. The university offered them a ready-made set of buildings and living quarters for their troops.
His eyes were drawn to one of the dormitories where students lived. He watched in horror as students were led out of the dormitories at gunpoint, their hands bound. What were the soldiers going to do to them?
From his hiding spot he watched the soldiers separate the students by gender. The women were herded into one of the waiting aircraft, while the men were ushered toward the other side of the courtyard and lined up against the stone wall of the arts building.
Several soldiers stationed themselves before the students and raised their weapons. Repulsion ripped through Calier’s mind as it dawned on him what was about to happen. They couldn’t be doing what he thought they were about to do! How barbaric were these men?
Calier saw the burst of fire erupt from the muzzles of the weapons, heard the sound of gunfire and saw the bodies of the students drop to the ground.
It was over in seconds, but the image of what he had just seen would stay with him far longer. Lives had just been taken…but why? What reason could these soldiers have for mercilessly slaughtering those young men who had done nothing? He gulped air, his hand gripping a jagged piece of rock.
For the first time in his life, Calier wanted revenge, wanted to treat the soldiers the way they had just treated those students, some whom he had probably had in his classroom. He felt the jagged edge and ran his finger over the sharp point and imagined the damage it could do. He looked at the rock and then let it drop in revulsion. Thoughts of violence were so foreign to him, so…wrong.
He turned his back on the courtyard and hung his head. He felt helpless and guilty that he had been unable to stop the grisly taking of life. What was he to do now? He couldn’t charge into the courtyard, as much as he wanted to. He must stick to his plan. He had to get into the antiquities building. Was there still a way to get there and find what he wanted? He thought so. The building lay on the outer ring of the concentric circles that formed the university. The outer ring was at street level. Three other levels were built into the sides of the bowl-shaped depression that made up the campus. Each ring was set lower and closer to the center, creating a stair-step configuration.
Perhaps these men hadn’t made it to the outer buildings yet. They couldn’t have been here that long.
Calier looked back at the courtyard and said a prayer for those who had been slain and then, keeping his head low, began moving away from the sign and back the way he had come.
It would have been quite a bit faster to cut across the courtyard, since the antiquities building lay on the opposite side of where he had been hiding, but that option had been taken away from him. He would need to follow the semi-circular pathway that skirted the edge of campus until he reached the northern side of the grounds, and then move in among the buildings. His building was in the last of the four rings that made up the university. He prayed he could still get inside.
He mentally ticked off a list of items that he wanted to procure. His department kept a supply of tools and field gear that researchers used when they left the university to study at archaeological sites. Calier wanted a holographic map unit, because there were a lot of places in Aereas that he knew nothing about and the unit would show him where he needed to go. Matches, water containers, a knife, rope and blankets came to mind first, oh, and maybe coats if he could find them. While Gadol City was in a temperate climate zone, he knew their journey could take them through places that were much less hospitable. He thought the university had issued coats for the researchers at one time, but nobody wore them because they were so ugly, instead preferring to purchase their own. Being the height of style was not a concern now.
Moving as stealthily as he could, Calier was struck by the contrast between the two sides of the street. The side of the street that the university was built on was, for the most part, untouched by the attack. There was some scorched stone, broken windows and cracked walls, but most of the buildings were still whole.
The other side of the street looked exactly like what it was: a war zone. There was barely one stone left sitting on top of another, no window left intact.
This attack had been well planned, he thought, deliberate in its precision and cold-blooded in its execution. There had to be a purpose to it. Which of the great cities was capable of this?
Twenty minutes later he had picked his way through the debris and the grisly remains of Gadol City inhabitants and made it to the other side of the campus. He had kept a wary eye on the courtyard, but he had not witnessed any more executions like the one he’d seen earlier. Several men were loading the bodies of those who had been shot into a small truck that sat next to the aircraft. A lot of equipment had been unloaded and was being carried inside the medical research facility. From this distance Calier couldn’t identify any of the equipment, but he had the feeling that it wasn’t meant to help the Am’Segid.
Crouching behind a tangle of twisted metal, Calier looked up the path and saw the antiquities building. Made of the rainbow-striated stone that dominated the landscape around Gadol City, three of its four spires still reached into the sky. The fourth lay on the ground at the back of the building, the side that faced the street, a casualty of the concussions and flying debris from the explosions.
Calier remained hidden for several minutes, observing the building, straining his senses, trying to pick up any indication that the building was now occupied by the soldiers. He did hear noise, but it seemed to be originating from the courtyard. The antiquities building was silent and deserted.
Taking a deep breath, Calier broke from his hiding spot and ran to the front door of the building, diving behind some decorative shrubbery just as an aircraft roared low over the building and descended into the courtyard.
Calier held his breath, expecting the aircraft to turn around and come back for him, but that didn’t happen. The urge to curl up into a ball and hide from everything was intense. The body and mind were not meant to be drenched in this amount of adrenaline for such a prolonged period of time. He was a university professor, not a great adventurer or a military man. He didn’t think he could take much more.
Mustering up what courage he could, Calier crept out of the shrubbery and quickly entered the building. Inside, he waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the lower light level. The interior lights were out, but natural light streamed in through the arched window that formed the front of the building and looked out upon the rest of the campus. In the atrium, glass cases housed a revolving collection of ancient Aerean artifacts showcasing different time periods. His eye caught the gleam of metal blades in one case. How appropriate, he thought, that the instruments of wars of the past lay housed in the university that was now the center of the war for the future.
He looked around the silent atrium and then moved through the space, glancing up at the mural painted on the vaulted ceiling. The mural depicted the major turning points in the history of Gadol City from its founding to its signing of the Great Peace Covenant. Calier had spent a lot of time admiring the mural, but he barely noticed it this time.
He darted past empty classrooms and moved into the storage area of the building. It was a large area, containing rows and rows of cataloged artifacts and pieces of history. Calier glided down a row that was piled with pottery of all shapes and sizes and headed toward the back of the
storage area. The equipment room was his destination.
In the room he located a large backpack and began scouring the shelves for useful items. He found a good supply of matches and hurriedly dumped them into the backpack. Rope, a small shovel, and several blankets followed the matches.
He scratched his head, looking about him to try and locate a holographic map unit. Calier considered this piece of equipment vital for his survival as it would show him the location of water and various routes that had been forgotten over time. He scanned the shelves until he spotted what he wanted: several map units sitting on the bottom shelf. As he bent to grab one, something heavy crashed into the shelf above his head, striking several mess kits and sending them clattering to the floor.
Calier whirled around and caught a blur of motion just as a shoulder caught him squarely in the chest. The air rushed out of his lungs and he was thrown back against the shelves and then crashed to the floor in a heap. Pain exploded in his ribs and he was unable to move as his arms were pinned to the floor by the figure on top of him.
The figure was silhouetted against the door-way. Calier could not make out the person’s face as he struggled against his attacker. The silhouette raised its fist and then abruptly rolled off Calier’s chest.
“Professor, oh man, Professor, it’s you,” the shadow said.
Calier had instinctively rolled away from the shadow when the weight had left his chest. He now looked up at the voice and strained to make out features in the speaker’s face.