by Scott Rhine
“Not a chance. Actually, Pacino is dragging me to the shelter. I’ve promised him shelter and at least one page. I think your mute button went both ways.”
Oleander swore at length, presumably in Swedish. “No more talking until we read the transcript.”
Despite the order, Yvette had Pacino top off his waterskin in the river. While he was distracted, she used the opportunity to drain most of her drink and pop some pills to reduce the swelling in her leg. She tried to nibble at a potato, but nausea prevented her from consuming too much.
Oleander called her an hour later. “We need you to ask him a couple questions.”
“Sure,” the injured woman replied.
“Does he know about hardwood trees?”
Pacino did, though any such tree beyond a sapling was hard to chop down.
The humans at the base launched question after question at their subject. Pandas used fire-heated rocks to cook on and had never heard of an oven. Eventually, Pacino asked, “Why so much talk-talk? Hunters find us and eat as meal.”
“The other spirits and I protect you,” Yvette assured. “The spirits want to know more to choose the best gift for you.”
They walked and talked through the night, the snakes of neon fire dancing in the sky. It was a good day to build a mythos.
Without intending, Yvette fell asleep during a lull. In her fevered state, she experienced florid, wild dreams.
Mercy became Gaia, the mother of the pantheon—mistress of gravity and caring. Her husband Lou was lord of music and wine. Zeiss, mingled with Zeus, was their king. He planned the course of the heavens. He could borrow from each to solve problems. Oleander was the messenger and eyes of Zeiss, who could see for kilometers. Risa was the goddess of the forge. Her husband Herk was strong and guarded the mountain. Nadia controlled the lightning. Rachael made sure that the air and water were pure. Sojiro held charge of art and the magic spirits of the air.
Each god, even the wicked one, had a task to do or heaven didn’t run right.
Chapter 35 – Tic Tic Lah-Zay
At dawn, Pacino wanted to rest, but Yvette goaded him onward. “There will be much food in the cave of secrets,” she said, knowing the others would fulfill the promise. After a pause, she said, “Unless you want my husband to find another merchant with more hunger.”
“No. Only wary of harvesters by day,” Pacino said, raising his nose and stretching upward to sniff the air.
“We see none in this branch of canyon.”
“This entire canyon belong to sky spirits?”
“And the dead,” she clarified ominously.
He paused a moment. “Why choose me?”
“You picked up the spear of Toby.”
“That makes me lah-zay leader?”
“Yes,” Yvette said. The others constantly whispered more suggestions in her ear, and she shared ones that seemed to match the flow. “We will give you more secrets after this, but you must teach the first lesson to people in at least ten places before you return. Ask those who learn at your feet to do the same before their next lesson.”
“Very tired. What secret about?” he fished.
“Can you tell me how a tic-tic-branch works?” Tic tic was the sound that chalk made on the wood.
“Not dropped on head. Tic mark on branch tells people downstream how much grain you sent.”
“So you send a message with branch,” she concluded.
“Maybe so.”
“Ghosts make chalk talk in secret ways. If you learn, you can send other messages about anything to anyone who sees. You can even send messages to your children’s children.”
“What kind of message?”
She thought of early forms of law, etching into tablets like the Ten Commandments. “Rules about how people should treat one another. Tell others ways to get the best harvest. Record who owes you trades. Every sound can be trapped with chalk on wood or stone.”
“This will give us power?”
“I would call it the foundation of all our secrets.”
When the panda merchant finally reached the hillside cave, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Yvette could hear the rover whir and whine in the distance as it rolled out of sight, rustling through the thin underbrush.
“What was that?” Pacino demanded, gripping the spear.
“No worry. My man-mate’s guard. It will protect us while we are inside,” she explained.
When they reached the torch-lit interior, Pacino was in awe. Food was scattered everywhere, reminding her of the lush banquet in the movie Babette’s Feast.
“Are you ready for your lesson?” she asked.
“Think better with full belly,” Pacino rumbled.
“Of course,” she agreed. Suddenly, he dropped the travois to the gravel floor with a bang. The jarring hurt less than the pit, but still brought a tear to her eye. She untied before he could repeat the incident.
The panda ignored her as he gorged himself noisily on all manner of food—six types of fruits, a hydra deer leg, and some of their cook Johnny’s most elaborate pastry work. After almost an hour of stuffing himself, Pacino picked his teeth with a hardwood tool and fell asleep sitting against the wall. Cookie crumbs still dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
“A man like any other,” Yvette whispered.
Oleander said, “Herk and I are outside the cave now. Leave your wrist comp in broadcast mode, and crawl out. I’ll switch armor with you and take the next shift. Put the speaker right up against his ear.”
When Yvette did so, she heard the soundtrack of a video clip Red had shared on her visit—Mercy softly singing the panda alphabet to Stu to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Whether it was for sleep learning or just to cover her escape, Yvette took advantage of the music to crawl away.
Herk scooped her up the moment she was clear of the panda’s field of view.
Oleander hugged her hard, eliciting a small whimper. “Sorry,” said the tall, Nordic blonde. “Toby wanted to be here, but he’s under house arrest right now. I think he cracked a crown grinding his teeth.” She was stripping Yvette of armor with practiced speed but left the wetsuit.
After Yvette’s arm was bared, Oleander handed her a syringe. “Antibiotic cocktail with painkillers and vitamins.”
The nurse injected herself without hesitation and then asked, “What are you going to do in there?”
“Spray the alphabet onto the wall, along with the sentence Lou constructed. Of course, we change the fox from quick to lah-zay to fit the audience: Lazy foxes jump over the pink sand dog. Risa made a template of everything along with the pictures Sojiro drew to illustrate each word. We’re going to teach him the alphabet and give him the templates to use in other places.” The rover cave would become a shrine.
By the time the armor was transferred, Yvette was blissfully unconscious.
****
For almost a week, Yvette faded in and out of sleep, and Toby tended to her every need. He dressed her wounds and fed her by hand. When she finally asked about the pandas, he replied, “Lieutenant Rachael doesn’t like them talking to prisoners like me. I only know that the whole team is listening to the new feeds. By remote-control, Oleander returned the aqua sled to the birthing village so it could collect data 24/7. Or would that be 16/10? Anyway, Pacino is spreading your message like wildfire, spraying our graffiti on anything he can. Risa had to repair Cerberus to follow him. He started at the Gray village. I hear he’s a rock star in that town, and they’re making more paint-on alphabet templates from his bobcat hides. When I clear you for active duty again, Lou can brief you. They’ve got me working on a tranquilizer dart for pandas.”
“Why are you a prisoner?” Yvette asked.
Toby whispered, “I’m charged with treason. They found out I’d rigged the satellite zoom cameras and transponder tracking functions to fail.”
“You did what?”
“For you to get to the lake unseen. You can’t fake that kind of failure for
over a week, dear.”
Once again, the scope of his affection overwhelmed her.
Thank God I didn’t mention the keyword Vienna to trigger his distraction.
Explaining further, he said, “When the satellite went dead, I was hoping they’d pass the rest off as damage from the flare.”
“All for me?” she asked shyly.
“Anything,” he repeated.
She patted the edge of the bed, and the light went off with a clap of his hands.
****
Risa knocked on Yvette’s door. “Lou is demanding to speak to you after hearing the first of the rover transmissions from Gray town. I’ll route the conference call through your comp pad if you’re willing.”
Yvette nodded and arranged her pad on the desk like a photo frame.
Toby said, “I’ll be right here for you—anything you need.”
She smiled and patted his hand.
Risa typed a command, and Lou’s grim face appeared on Yvette’s screen.
“Why so glum, Prince Charming,” she asked. “I found several bugs in your product and collected more data in a week than you’ve gathered since we landed.”
“This is cancer serious, Nurse Chenonceau,” he replied. “I was puzzled by Pacino’s comment about picking who lives and dies, so I listened to the birthing village recordings. Most L pandas have twins.” Lou wiped his face in weariness. “There’s no easy way to tell you this: the slave owners who run the village kill off most of the boys.”
“Why?”
“The same reason we do it with cattle. You only need a few for the whole herd.”
She covered her face as the shock hit.
Continuing, Lou said, “In fact, there’s a lot we got wrong. Granith doesn’t mean spirit. The closest term is tribal gods. You’ve deified our team, the very thing Sensei was trying to avoid.”
“Bullshit,” Toby spat. “Name one thing Sensei’s done since he met us that wasn’t playing God. He gets off on it. We followed the letter of the law, and that’s all he enforces.”
“We’re better than that,” Lou insisted. “Pacino’s presentations sound like sermons from the chosen one. The tone reminds me of that Sean Connery movie, The Man Who Would Be King.”
“Are people listening?” Yvette asked.
“Some. Why did you give the gift of literacy to a drug dealer? He’s handing the secret weapon of democracy to a cartel of young men too lazy to work.”
“Hey, DARPA gave the Internet to shoppers, cat lovers, and porn addicts,” she countered.
“Point,” Lou agreed.
“Pacino saved my life. I have to believe, in the cosmic balance, that makes him a good candidate.”
Toby sided with his wife. “When Snowflake shows you how to make pages, it’ll spread the idea like wildfire.”
Lou shook his head. “That’s Magi tech. We can’t have access. Every uplifting race chooses their own method, but we can only tell one person. They have to disseminate it and share with others.”
“It can still work. Give it time,” she insisted.
“Why did you scrub the sled recording on your trip back?” Lou asked.
The screen went blank. Risa said, “I thought it was best to end that line of questioning since you two can’t lie.”
Yvette nodded. “If Lou ever wants to be healed or see his family, we can’t give him any clues about the crash.”
Risa shook her head. “Infanticide, slavery, stone walls without windows, rope, sensor blocks, and hiding from the sky—what did the last ship teach them before the crash? What kind of people are the Magi? Worse, what did they introduce to Earth?”
“If we ever want to get back to uncover them, we can’t show our hand now,” Yvette said.
“To keep up appearances, we have to officially ban you from scouting or speaking to pandas again. Telling the truth all the time can get us in trouble,” Risa said.
“So Toby can’t talk to the pandas either?”
“No.”
“And you’re probably forbidding him access to either the rover or the satellite after what he did.”
Risa cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You repaired the damage, so you know exactly what—”
The structural engineer held up a finger. “Didn’t I just say that telling the truth all the time can get us in trouble?” Risa and her husband had joined the conspiracy.
****
The crew of Elysium planned a copper mine in the desert only one hundred kilometers from the crash site. The same vehicles that could extract ore could unearth evidence during the times that Sanctuary had its shutters closed. Yvette took over running the gardens while the others built a dune buggy and designed housing for the mine. On October fifth, Rachael presented her overview to the entire crew by conference call. With an estimated ten weeks between gifts, they would need to deliver five major ideas to the natives in the next E year. The team proposed crop fertilization, kilns, baked-clay ceramics, charcoal, and wine. The more advanced gifts would take prototyping. At this rate, all twenty-seven ideas could be presented just in time for Sanctuary to catch the slipstream back to Earth.
The head of the observation colony concluded with, “Without our gear inside, this mining colony will look just like the aborigine cities after we show them how to build a smelting furnace. In ten years, this place will look like one of those ancient Egyptian digs. Once we have all the copper we’re likely to need, I propose to hand the bare mud and brick part of the site over to the pandas just like the Magi gave us a starship.”
Zeiss was stone-faced. “Which faction of pandas would that be?”
“Wha-what do you mean?” asked Rachael.
“The group known as the lah-zay foxes has painted their graffiti in every known settlement and hut,” Zeiss said.
“That’s the Stone Age meme we were hoping for,” Yvette said, excited.
“One of the young artists was publicly executed by stoning,” Zeiss said, stunning the crew into silence. “Now that Lou has a couple weeks of data and context clues, the word lah-zay doesn’t mean clever like we thought. It means rebel.” After a pause, he added, “Our first gift may tear apart the very fabric of the society we were sent to uplift. Tic Tic Lah-Zay is not the alphabet to these people; rather, it is the message of the revolution.”
Rachael laughed. “Let my people go.”
Chapter 36 – Busy Little Elves
After Yuki suffered from a series of nightmares, she met with Auckland in his Garden Hollow office. At first, she didn’t want to voice her suspicions about the Magi.
“Go on,” he encouraged. “Yvette was my closest friend and coworker. My one regret about my own actions this mission is that I didn’t hear her out before she was exiled. I should have made her feel more accepted.”
He wasn’t a psychologist, but after several sessions in his office building in the Hollow, the two of them approached the truth together. She didn’t speak freely until he found her specially-lined gloves to block the Magi transmissions from her fingers. Auckland even studded the exterior with synthetic sapphires that Risa had created for mahdra experiments.
Although she didn’t recover all her memories, they deduced several facts from the clues and dreams.
“There’s something important behind that camouflage panel in the barn. I know it,” Yuki said.
“I concur. Yvette’s last clue was writing the word ‘Persephone’ on her helmet,” Auckland explained. “Also, your observation about multiple, distinct voices from the Magi is backed up by several sources. Snowflake uses the pronoun ‘we’ constantly. The aliens are fixated on multiples of the number three. Even Sojiro’s choice of the term Magi denotes three individuals acting toward a single aim.”
“So I’m not paranoid?” she asked.
The doctor shrugged. “Maybe you have reason to be. There seems to be an adversarial element to one of the members of their triad. It often acts against our interests in the guise of th
e law.”
Yuki leaned forward, relieved of a great weight. “You believe me. You have no idea how good that feels.”
“Have you shared your feelings with Park? He seems very worried about you.”
“Since Plato sent that note, I’ve been afraid the aliens are analyzing my every movement.”
He nodded. “You know about the shed we’re fixing up in Mercy’s backyard?”
“We constructed that as an outbuilding because of the high-power breaker box. Mercy is afraid that much power could burn down the house. She also insists we keep the shed locked until Stu is old enough to use electricity safely. Why add to it?”
“The radiation flares are going to keep getting worse, peaking eighteen months from the first storm. Then, the levels will taper off to normal.”
“Yeah. Z wanted to bring in some of the sensitive electronics from Ascension so they don’t fry. Unfortunately, Sensei won’t let us bring the COIL in because it’s a weapon.”
Auckland raised a Zen finger. “Ah, but everything else will be stored in the shed, mere meters from the barn . . . including the high-resolution gravity sensors.”
Yuki tilted her head. “Interesting. Are you suggesting I take advantage of the power leads in the shed to make sure that moving the instruments didn’t damage them?” She could use the sensors to map exactly what the inside of the mountain looked like.
He nodded and, in case someone was listening in, said the opposite. “Not at all. I merely thought it would be a good way for you and Park to spend some time together and share pressing emotions.”
She tapped her fingernails to indicate the implanted tracking devices.
Auckland smiled. “We store all sorts of tools in there. You two could use them to build shelves for the equipment we’re storing.”
Insulated gloves? A Faraday cage? The doctor was hinting that something in that shed should block the alien eavesdropping.
Soon after this productive session, Snowflake announced to the planners that Auckland’s Hollow office would need to be torn down for security reasons. If the doctor wasn’t on Yuki’s side before, he was after the decree.