The Great Symmetry

by James R Wells

  Not exactly. Four hours ago, she had checked out a chopper, and now her heartbeat was gone. There was no further trace.

  Evan knew exactly where she was.

  Known associates. It was double edged. A hazard for him – he should not go anywhere near any of his known associates, especially her. But was the hazard even greater for Kate? Alone at the Valley of Dreams, she could be picked up so easily. Vanish forever. Spend her last moments crying out, over and over, that she had no idea where he was.

  Do something.

  He knew that was wrong. He knew. Breathe.

  Do something.

  Frantically, Evan searched for more information. There was nothing. Four hours, no heartbeat.

  Was he actually concerned for Kate? Or, did he just want to talk with her, at least one more time before his fate arrived?

  At that moment the ground shuddered and the sharp report of explosions arrived. Evan jumped up and out of his cube. Mira was intent on her console in the adjacent slot. He couldn’t believe she was still staring at the screen.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Sure did,” Mira told him.

  “And?”

  “Checking the best way to go. Now I know. Let’s go!”

  Mira launched herself, Evan rushing to follow. A door slid open for them into a long corridor. A right turn, then a left. More doors, then stairs down.

  Mira led them to a garage with a dozen choppers, grabbed a backpack and a helmet off a shelf, then rushed to claim a chopper. Others were streaming in, and a bay door on the far side of the garage was already rolling up.

  A tall, thin man came in through the door. “Kes − where’s Axiom?” Mira demanded of him.

  “He is safe. We are free to find safety ourselves.”

  “You are sure?”

  “I have made certain of it,” the man said.

  “Thank you for that.” She turned to Evan. “Grab a pack and hop on,” she instructed. “It’s time to leave.”

  A thought struck Evan. “What about the Codex?” he asked. “Will it be destroyed?”

  “Oh no,” Mira told him. “That was just one portal to it. The actual Codex is in many places.”

  The choppers streamed out of the garage. Like most of the Untrusted Zone, it was chaos that somehow worked out. After three near-collisions they found themselves flying at top speed down a narrow passage that was somewhere in size between a street and an alley. Mira took them through the maze, staying under rooftop level, finally pulling into a quiet alley and cutting the headlights.

  It was not completely dark. White light from Foray shone on a wall of the alley. As his vision adjusted, Evan saw a few stars above.

  Mira spoke quietly. “We can’t go to my place, and I’m running out of friends around here.”

  “I know where we need to go,” Evan said. “Our home turf. The place we both know best.” There was no need to mention that Kate might be at the same location, given Mira’s reaction to his mention of her earlier.

  “We need to stay in town,” she insisted. “The streets will give us cover. I just need to figure out where we can crash.”

  “As long as we’re with people, we’ll be traced. We need to leave. Tonight is evidence of that. What’s in those packs?”

  “Survival gear. To escape into the desert, if need be.”

  “I think it needs be,” he told her.

  The Ghost

  Kate’s sleep was troubled by dreams. Usually, she welcomed them. Even on this night, she resolved to gain some positive meaning from the confusing and despairing scenes in which she found herself. Loss. The legacy of her parents, gone. Trying to explain it to them, even as they weren’t there. Evan was with her, although he was dead. “Kate,” he called out to her.

  It was even worse when she awoke but knew she was dreaming still, because Evan was there, framed against the entrance to the cave in the predawn. And still he called.

  When she surfaced further and realized she could not possibly be asleep any more, she was incandescent.

  “I mourned you! Two years away, and then you were killed. You have been dead, and you didn’t even call me. Do you know what that’s like?” She looked around for something to throw. The stove was too far away.

  “Kate−”

  “You made me want to die. You could at least have the decency to stay dead.”

  The ghost placated. “I couldn’t tell you−”

  “Left me to twist in the wind!” In a single moment, Kate experienced the accumulated anguish of the past two days as a heavy needle stabbing through her left eye, directly into her brain. Or perhaps it was the act of standing up quickly in the paltry air pressure.

  “This is a promising reunion,” observed Mira, stepping forward to join them.

  “You! So that’s why you wanted a ship. And you kept it a secret from me. So you could get some private time with Evan, I suppose?”

  “Kate, we have only been together for a day,” Evan told her. “No, not together! She picked me up, I mean, in a shuttle. Mira rescued me, so I could come here to you.”

  “Rescued you. So you called her first. Didn’t even think of me.”

  “Kate! She’s a pilot! I was going to be killed. I sent a message to the one person who could pluck me out of space.”

  “You want me to believe that? Get out of my cave! Never mind, I’m leaving.”

  “That’s not going to be a good choice,” Mira told her.

  “What, are you threatening me?” The stove was only two steps away.

  “Nope, just pointing something out. Look.” Mira indicated the landscape outside.

  Out in the valley, the choppers were arriving. Troops piled out and were bounding up the slope to the cave. Toward them.

  “I suppose you brought them here. Well that’s just great.”

  “See Kate, that’s why I couldn’t find you sooner,” Evan started to explain.

  “Well maybe you should have waited a little longer,” Kate huffed.

  “You’re not being internally consistent. First you said−”

  “Hey lovebirds, stow it,” Mira ordered. “We need to move. Grab the gear and go!”

  “Maybe we can sort it out with them?” Kate asked.

  “Not these guys. Trust me. Move!”

  Mira, Evan, and Kate hastened down the large passage into the cave, hopping over the large boulders that had fallen from the roof millennia ago.

  Mira stopped at a small passage that sloped steeply upward. “Up here! We need to go through the vaults.”

  “The vaults?” That seemed to Kate like the worst possible choice. “We would have to go right past the skylight entrance.”

  “The vaults. There is a lot more passage there, beyond them. The big passage doesn’t go the farthest.”

  If anyone would know, it would be Mira. She had explored deep into the cave during the expeditions, dragging along anyone who would go. For many, including Kate, it was just one trip. Mira had photomapped the entirety of Blowing Cave, in great detail, pushing every passage to the bitter end. One night she had provided a show to everyone on a big screen, zooming around the virtual cave so they could see every feature without the effort.

  Mira, Kate, and Evan scrambled up the steep incline, then a series of other passages, before emerging in the upper cavern.

  A faint light shone from far away to their right. They headed left. “We don’t need to go too near the skylight, and they won’t figure it all out quickly enough,” Mira told them. They headed around the corner into a much larger cavern.

  The three found themselves in the vaults.

  Springing The Trap

  Soon enough, one of the trap lines bore fruit.

  They had been tracking Kate DelMonaco as a top priority. McElroy’s partner of many years. It was a no brainer. She was the highest profile selection out of twenty surveillance subjects, known associates of McElroy.

  Electronic monitoring sufficed at first. DelMonaco left an obvious heartbeat wherever s
he went, a large bow wake on the surface of dataspace. Then, when she checked out a chopper, dedicated physical resources were dispatched.

  Still, she was easy to follow. Carelessly flying at a thousand meters of altitude regardless of whether she might be tracked. Coming in for a slow, casual landing. Parking her chopper and walking around, first up a hill, then back to the chopper, then on to the cave. Not even the most basic checks for signs of anyone following, as the surveillance team was.

  The team brought up the map of the Blowing Cave. It had been made by Mira Adastra, of all people, and published four years before. In the strange fashion of the denizens of the Untrusted Zone, Adastra had published it without sponsorship from any family, scorning any revenue which might have accrued from product placements or advertorials.

  The map provided the details of every passage, large and small, proudly summarized on the map as 6.53 kilometers. The end of each passage was described and photographed. There were no unexplored leads shown – the mapping project was complete.

  The cave map showed three entrances, of which DelMonaco had entered through the largest by far. The team could still see her heat signature, just inside, as she set up camp. Two smaller entrances connected into the network.

  The team set up in position, not just to track the movements of their subject, but also to observe if anyone else came nearby. Then they waited. They were on the clock, so that was fine.

  A few hours before dawn, a chopper came in. It flew carefully, with no lights, down in a shallow canyon, and then at only two meters above the ground when the cover of the canyon ran out. The maneuvers were no match for military equipment, which picked up the chopper easily.

  The team leader alerted their command and continued to monitor, as the chopper pulled up near the entrance to the cave, and two people stepped off.

  Backup came within minutes. Six choppers, twenty agents, and their leader, Arn Lobeck. The agents fanned out and approached the cave.

  The trap was sprung.

  Hall Of The Departed

  Nine vaults. Each was an enormous rounded rectangle, over three meters tall, two wide, and five long, and unadorned except for one short set of symbols in a small rectangle on each, centered on one end. They were arranged in a perfect line, just over four meters between each vault. Still, the vaults took up only a small part of the large natural hall.

  Having already been shushed once by Mira, Evan gave his regards silently to each one.

  Greetings, Edras. He was no longer in the vault, but still deserving of a word.

  Greetings, Elanas. Also in the museum.

  Emmala. Still here. They had raised the top, in the 2298 expedition, and taken many images.

  The plan had been to remove the remains for display and further study, as for the prior two. As they had observed and catalogued over three days, they had pondered, until finally Kate had opened up the topic. “She belongs here,” Kate had announced, clearly expecting disagreement. Evan had been filled with relief, and the next day they had slowly winched down the cover, leaving Emmala to her rest.

  Uve. When they had opened her tomb, they had already known what they planned to do. Observe, photograph, replace the top.

  The last five had only been seen by remote imaging, as well as the team could achieve through the stone. There were definitely remains there. They discussed boring a hole, and putting a camera through. Somehow that project never got to the top of the list. What did they hope to learn, that would be worth disturbing the sleep of the departed?

  Greetings, Irstis, Essatti, Wei, Rissta, and Ote.

  Kate had named them. The names were based on a transliteration of the symbols, using a scheme that they had since abandoned. But the names had stuck.

  Beyond the vaults were the pits that Evan, Kate, and their helpers had dug. Many had rich yields of artifacts. First they had imaged, and then dug where there were promising signs.

  Kate and Evan followed Mira as she hurriedly threaded the trail past the pits, heading deeper into the cave.

  Seeing the vaults brought it all back for Evan. The reason he had spent so many years scratching at the past. The existence of the Versari was one of the great wonders in all of known space. Almost a million years ago, these space-farers had lived here. For over a hundred thousand years they had traveled between the star systems known to humans, and beyond. Then they were gone. Died out, or perhaps they had moved on.

  Although some trace of the Versari had been found in twenty six out of the thirty currently explored star systems, the locations all appeared to be outposts. Way stations – not grand cities that would have left a larger footprint even so many years later.

  Did those cities exist? Evan believed so, although he couldn’t prove it. Not yet.

  Soon they were in much more rugged passage. Evan had been here before, surely, but he had no memory of the choices. Through an obscure hole. Straight up a wall for five meters. Mira simply leapt up, then helped each of them. Walking sideways. Crawling.

  As they traveled, Evan tried to catch a look at Kate. It had been more than two years. The cave was dark, and it would be blinding to shine his light at her face. He collected fragments. A backlit profile from Mira’s light ahead. The outline of her cheek as she turned to assess the next climb. Her nose, just slightly turned up.

  They came to a junction in a tall room. Mira directed each of them. “Evan, walk that way until you get to a fork. Go into each fork for as far as you can go, and then come back here. Kate, crawl into that hole. You should get about fifty meters until you have to back out. I’ll go this way. We meet right here.”

  “Are we looking for something?” Kate asked.

  “Nope, we’re leaving something. Now hop to it.”

  They each completed their assigned missions, and soon were reassembled at the junction. “You guys are so lucky to have me,” Mira told them. “Watch.” She jumped straight up, catching a ledge with one hand and then pulling herself up. From there she hopped to the opposite wall, then back, and then launched upward once again. Evan had the distinct feeling that she was showing off. Finally she called from a spot that was at least thirty meters above them.

  “Okay, I’m up. Who’s next?”

  “Mira, I don’t think we can do that,” Evan shouted upward.

  “Really, didn’t you watch?” Mira was taunting.

  “Are you going to leave us?”

  In answer, a silver line came down. “You are all so double lucky to have me. Never leave home without it.”

  They climbed up the rope in turn, easy to do in Kelter’s low gravity. Kate was next, then Evan. With a grunt, he pulled through a narrow spot and climbed up to a ledge in the chamber above, while Mira pulled up the line. The entire ceiling consisted of a jumble of boulders, and Evan couldn’t see any way on. It was a miracle that the rocks weren’t raining down on them. Somehow they were jammed in place. “Where now?” he asked.

  Suddenly Mira held up her hands. “Lights!” she hissed. “And be still!”

  She reached up to turn off her light. Kate must have already done so, because Evan saw that his was the only light still burning. He reached for the switch and clicked his light off. Then they were in darkness.

  Evan felt behind him and found the wall. There was just a little bit of space, and he stepped back, away from the edge of the ledge that he knew was there.

  Far below, he heard a series of irregular thumps. It was nothing like a person walking. The passage below had not allowed it.

  The noise grew louder. Scrapes were added to the thumps. Evan, never able to turn off his analytical mind, realized that when high frequency sound was audible, there were very few bends in the passage between him and those who approached.

  With the complexity of the passage they had traversed, he wondered how they had followed so quickly.

  A faint light came from below. Their pursuers were in the room at the bottom of the climb. “Three ways on,” echoed up to them. “We’ll scan while the rest of the squad
gets here.”

  Despite the situation, Evan was relieved to see where the ledge ended in front of him. It was better than standing in complete darkness, knowing the edge was somewhere out there.

  “I’ve got a hit! Twenty-three meters, straight up!”

  A focused beam now shone up through the hole. Evan could see dust in the cylinder of light, describing swirls and eddies but mostly flowing down, to the chamber below.

  More people were arriving. Evan heard the now familiar sequence of low thumps and knocks, then sharper sounds, with scrapes and finally voices conferring.

  “Right here, sir,” Evan heard, followed by the most recognizable voice he knew. Deep, powerful, assured. Calling up from below.

  “Evan! Evan McElroy! It’s Arn! Talk to me, friend!”

  Love Letter

  Eliza Malken looked into the camera’s eye and kept speaking.

  “So Krishnan, those are the updates. But, there’s one thing more. I wanted to say that I miss you. I hope that you are well and that you will return here soon.”

  After a pause, she continued. “I know we have just been co-workers. But we have done so much together, when you are away from here it is not the same. And I have not been able to get any news of you. Colin says it’s just routine security process, but still I worry.

  “After you get back, perhaps we could take some time to talk. About what matters the most, about what we care about. We could have dinner, just you and me. That is, if you would like to do that. I guess I shouldn’t assume.

  “Please make me proud, by doing great work, with judgment and always doing what is right. And then come right back here.

  “I so hope to see you very soon.”

  Eliza reached out to stop the recording.

  She turned to her wrangler. “There. It is done. I hope you are happy.”

  “That’s just great,” Colin Ellison told her. “We’ll do a little editing and get it sent right off to Ravi. Thanks Eliza!”

  “Mr. Ellison.”

  “What, I’m not Colin anymore?”

  “You are not. And from this moment forward, you will address me as Dr. Malken. Always.”

  “As you say, Dr. Malken.”

  “Out!” A few moments more, and she would not be able to hold it back.