Yellow gas began to shoot out from hidden joints as the putrid steam tried to escape the building pressure within the sealed vat. One of the hounds got caught in the blasts from the piping and screamed with a whine of pain. The creature's hind quarters began to corrode and turned white as it froze in place. The sight of his did little to settle Logan's frantic mood.
"Allllen ...hurry it up!" Logan cried out over his shoulder.
My eyes passed towards Mica who was preparing herself for the worse, but I caught a glimpse in her eyes as she motioned something to me. With her hands, she was making the gesture of placing the ring onto her wrist, the way she had carried the first one she held. Following her lead, I slipped the thick pewter band onto my arm and placed my palm upon the depression once again.
Suddenly the room turned a vivid blue and the hatchway swung shut, just in time enough for Logan to shoo back several Shiver hounds with his spear, which were nipping at nipping at him from the crack of the door. It wasn't a moment too soon, for less than a minute afterward we felt an explosion rock the chamber as the vat outside ruptured and sent a stream of its acrid contents downstream towards the retaining wall and into the overflow vents. Logan has set the tank to purge the system in reverse.
"What was that?" I remarked as we stood in the dim lighting of the chamber next to the colored crystals upon the panel.
"The purification system for the water treatment appeared to be overloaded, which was logical considering the amount of time this automated system had been running," the professor answered, "so I devised a backup plan in case we ran into any trouble in the breeding chamber used by those vile beasts," he finished.
"Hold on, you intentionally rigged that thing to go thermal?" I inquired with a note of shock.
"Well, not exactly," he admitted, "I was only intending to purge the vat to clear the passages in case we were followed by those creatures; but I guess system was so old it couldn't handle the added pressure and ruptured."
"You guess huh?" I added sarcastically, "you do realize Doc, that you just detonated our only source of fresh rations we've found on this barren block of ice..." I added with a scowl.
"Hmm, I admit, I hadn't calculated that outcome," Logan answered as he rubbed his chin in afterthought. I caught how Mica rolled her eyes, as we now found ourselves in the same fix we had been before. Who knows what we would find when we opened the hatchway again. From the sound of the wreckage beyond the door, the entire dome outside had been destroyed.
The two scientists turned their attention back towards the console and the crystal rods which controlled it. Mica set about resetting the crystal patterns to match the color sequence of a prism. Logan found what the rod which he presumed to control the hatchway door, but I warned him yet that it might be far too soon to open it if that caustic slag from the water filtration vat might still come gushing into the chamber if he opened the door too soon. With that note of caution, Logan admitted to logic of my advice and went on scrutinizing the ivory colored flywheel while his assistant worked at the panel.
"May I?" Mica turned to me suddenly as I tried to shake the stress we had built up over recent events.
Holding out her hand in expectation, I removed the metal band from my wrist and offered it to her. She quickly slid it upon her own forearm and began adjusting the crystal rods, which now lit up when she touched them the hand which she wore the ring upon.
"How did you do that?" I inquired, wondering what it was that I had missed.
"Unlike the limited resources that our own modern society is addicted too; it recently became clear to the Professor and I that this ancient civilization relied heavily on naturally existing energies ...and it was simple conclusion that the color scheme here was also based on a sequence from the natural spectrum of light wavelength," Mica advised.
"And the band you're using acted as a key to allow the user access," I added with a click in my mind.
"Exactly," Mica smiled, "now you're getting the hang of it," she granted as I was connecting the dots of how this ancient culture worked. After a minute, my radio clicked on again as the harmonics of the crystals synchronized with internal workings of the radio.
"Allen, are you there?" Walters voice came over the transmission. This time it only took a few moments for the line to clear up the static.
"Yes, Walter, you're coming in loud and clear," I answered, "Professor Logan and Mica are also here with me."
"Good to hear your voice Walt, how are things on the ship?" Logan spat over the microphone as I handed him the radio.
"Ah, Logan; not so well actually my old friend," Walter answered with a sigh of despair, "there have been several unusual weather systems popping up on global news reports along with increased earthquake activity which has caused thousands of fatalities thus far. We also picked up information from wildlife biologists that migratory species appeared to be confused, and the aurora Australis, the southern lights, was recently seen in Brazil, and the borealis itself seen as far south as Saudi Arabia."
Walter clarified that the crew of our vessel were concerned for their families back home on the mainland, but that they would hold out for a few more days until a replacement rescue party could arrive. Logan had not mentioned to the ships captain that there were actually no back-up plans for any type of recovery, even in such a dire emergency. This left the three of us in a dilemma. Walter had to locate us within the next 72 hours or the crew would turn the vessel back; leaving us stranded. I took that bad news personally, and clarified that we needed to get a visual signal to them of our current location.
We waited an hour before daring to open the hatch again, and we stepped outside into a cold wind. The dome had collapsed at the area of detonation around the container and destroyed much of the greenhouse. What plants hadn't been killed in the initial blast would likely be dead by sunrise from the encroaching frost as frigid air seeped in through the broken bubble. A long yellow stain now layered the rim along the surrounding walls where the purged pollutants form the vat surged until they were drained through the elaborate system of pipes down into the cavernous chamber below.
We stepped outside into the debris field, finding everything that had been touched by the caustic foam had turned an eggshell white. Grasping one of the dead plants with her gloves, the leaf snapped off in Mica's hands.
"They're all frozen solid..." she whispered aloud in wonder.
Logan hadn't mentioned what he had witnessed the butter colored steam do to the scaled hound before the chamber door had sealed. Now he could see that everything the purge had touched had become brittle and layered with frost. It must have acted like some sort of coolant agent, he thought to himself as he stumbled across a few limp bodies of the Shiver beasts which shattered like glass beneath the weight of his feet. The smooth outer walls of the collapsed dome were still too high to climb, so we cautiously made our way back down the twisting tunnel to the core room to see what we would find.
Cycles of Change
It was the inner earth's magnetic dynamo reorganizing itself which was the cause of humanities concern. How it actually worked was a mystery we had not yet solved, but it may have been a subject of advanced study by the enlightened minds of this ancient culture. They understood that this device they had acquired had the ability to tap into the natural fields surrounding our planet and could harness those forces for their own needs. From what Logan had seen in the lab back in the tower was that they had been on the verge of a breakthrough.
Discovering the true function of this mysterious device they called a great weapon they had dismantled was one avenue to follow when the time came. Though now, learning how it worked and understanding how it manipulated the earth's fields was our prime goal. Logan surmised that they may be able to reverse these waves and persuade the earth's core to enter dormancy once again; but that had far greater risks than anyone would be able to predict. Inquiring further about his plans, I didn't like what I heard coming from the professors mouth.
"Hon
estly, the mechanics of the earths core isn't exactly known, but if it were to stop it by accident or design, there is the chance our planet would become a sister to Mars," he explained.
"What the hell?" was all I could manage to utter, realizing the utter foolishness we were getting ourselves into by playing with such massive and mysterious powers within our planet.
"Both Venus and Mars have a hardened core and virtually no magnetic field," Mica explained.
"So you're saying that screwing around with these devices might kill our planet?" I was forced to ask Logan.
"Truthfully Allen, we're not quite sure, to put it frankly," he granted, "if a pole shift happens, it might take decades or centuries to complete its cycle as we explained before; leaving our planet and everyone on it at the mercy of the suns radiation and solar winds until the field regenerates. However, I believe that these devices, these geomagnetic energy spheres, could greatly reduce that interval with the proper application."
"And, what happens if you get your calculations wrong...?" I inquired as to the shallow look in his eyes which meant he hadn't told me everything.
"Well, if I'm wrong, we would effectively be throwing a wrench into the gears, as they say," he added with a shrug, "we could stop the polar shift, but that might stall the core which might have unforeseen consequences over time."
"How much time are we talking about?" I asked.
"On the grand scale, I would say a million years or less most likely. The earths outer crust would still spin, which might very well kick-start the core on its own; but there is the remote possibility that it might freeze up and our planet would slowly turn into a mirror of what Mars looks like today," the professor acknowledged.
"You're worried about that? Hell, I say we take the chance and cross that bridge a million years from now, Doc!" I blurted.
"But there's no guarantee, lad," Logan replied, "such a catastrophic suspension of the earths natural cycle could cause all sorts of unprecedented consequences; such as a vast increase in energized electrical fields and magnetic eruptions; or solar ions stripping the atmosphere with a significant loss of oxygen molecules. Our planets surface could be exposed to a devastating level of ultraviolet light emissions and become far more susceptible to the effects of solar storms."
"You make it sound as if its a lose-lose situation, Doc," I returned in rebuttal, "but you need to get your head out of the sand and realize that risking the population to a couple of centuries of such lethal effects would destroy everything we know from what Mica has told me," I clarified as best I could, "and it would only make sense to give the human race time address that situation in the distant future."
"So you agree that it's worth taking the risk?" Logan asked with a raised brow.
Nodding my head to him, I had to concede that the benefits outweighed the risks at this point; despite the peril of likely condemning our little planet to an early death if we got it wrong. We just had to make sure we didn't screw things up. Unfortunately, we hadn't attained a reliable track record of accomplishing that at this point. By accident nor not, we had started this scenario, so we might as well finish it.
When we reached the chamber we found a mess of frost and foam and tangled corpses of the Shiver beasts. Mica felt a larger sense of guilt about killing the species of creatures who had survived here for countless ages, so I tried to console her that there were likely many more of these animals roaming around the crystal fortress. If and when we got out of here, she could send back an expedition team to collect live specimens if she was so inclined.
We stood there above on the ledge, gawking at the devastation we had wrought upon the creatures lair and left wondering how we could get back down to clear away the area around console with our only hope that it had remained undamaged, when suddenly the room began to tremble. The vibration hummed through the chamber as the brittle material caked around the sphere began to crack and bust apart. Thin blue lines of electricity began to finger their way through the tear until the giant orb began to move; breaking itself free from the nesting material layered upon it over the ages. With a fiery spark, the arcs of light began to dance across its surface as the giant globe began to turn.
"It's been activated!" Logan breathed in astonishment.
"I'm confused, isn't that what you've been trying to get it to do all along?" I asked, bewildered by his reaction.
"From the models we found in the lab room in the tower, we believed this was the Alpha core, as it was the largest of the spheres," Mica explained, "I was attempting to resynchronize the transmissions to the other five energy orbs located around the continent; but we hadn't initiated the activation itself."
The worried look on her face explained more than I was able to grasp in her answer. The professor himself seemed just as upset at this turn of events. This occurrence put a kink in their hypothesis since they had hoped that the Alpha sphere would be able to control the other smaller cores it was linked too. That idea however, was now questioned since it was triggered by some other means.
"The reason we came back down here was to turn the thing on by using the power ring with that console down there, and to see if we could manipulate its attunement with the geomagnetic frequencies of the earths core," Logan explained to the confused look which had glazed across my face, "but it has activated itself somehow, or one of the lower station spheres had stimulated its connection to the main sphere already!"
That made Logan and his assistant wonder if there was any chance of actually gaining control over the device or if it was too late. The professor made it clear that this system was once a weapon, and no matter the outcome, the greatest fear he had was that a single country or government might get a hold of such a device for nefarious purposes.
Since it was activated there was no reason to go below into the chamber, so we made our way back up to the destroyed greenhouse and back to the to the bridge lift. This time Mica was able to actuate the bridge with the ring key, and she took us up to the first level above so that we could further explore the complex. Letting ourselves in through the portal door, we entered with a sense of caution, lest there be more of the Shiver beasts lurking within.
"That was a pretty big explosion; do you think there's a chance that Walter might have been able to spot the smoke from the greenhouse back there, Doc?" I asked the professor, but his thoughts on the subject turned into a scowl.
"Maybe so Allen, but satellite updates take a day to cycle if we are located too far inland for them to make a visual confirmation from the coast. Unfortunately, any real-time satellite imagery would be from devices owned by military entities," the professor admitted.
It still wasn't clear to me why the Professor and his assistant were so spooked by either military or government involvement in this epic project. And sure, I could understand his ethical dilemma of letting one country get a hold of such unique technology; which might taint his polished principles, but he had to admit that things have gotten out of hand. Mica seemed to follow his lead even he when failed to spell out his objectives from moment to moment; which made me uneasy about what it was I wasn't being told.
The entire floor of the tower we had entered was brushed with silver foil along the floor and up along the lower walls, but the place seemed to be fairly clear of dust and debris one might expect of such an ancient fortress. The temperature was a might chilly compared to what we had grown accustomed to within the arboretum, but there was little we could do to repair the amount of damage we had done to it. Mica spotted something on a shelf upon the wall, and called us over.
There sat another sculpture of a broad tree, made of the same crystalline material of the fortress. It appeared to be nothing more than an art piece until Mica pointed out what appeared to be embedded around its trunk. There above the grasp of the molded limbs was a duplicate key ring exactly the same size and shape of the one Mica was now wearing upon her wrist. It was a strange symbolism that made Logan reflected on the many depictions he had researched about the World
Tree he had seen drawn in historic volumes. He now realized what the border ring surrounding all these images might have actually represented.
Of all the deities and idols these people might have held in worship in their ancient culture, they had chosen a symbol of nature as the most divine. The ring in its shape meant a cycle of life or representation of the earth itself; or even combined both of these icons within the same motif. Crystals and harmonics, earth frequencies and the solar cycles were all woven together in a graceful balance of being one with the world around them. Their system technology of was a place far removed from our modern civilization where we exploited our resources and created great atrocities against our ecosystem, which would be considered crude and ugly in comparison to their practiced philosophy.
The architecture I had seen here made me wonder how we had lost such knowledge and science during our evolution, and how men were able to create such grand accomplishments without all the mechanical devices we relied upon today.
"The way I see it," Mica answered my inquiry, "is that the people back then merely thought a different way."
"What do you mean?" I asked, truly curious about her statement.
"You need to understand Allen, that the character and ethics of an individual is molded by their social environment," she began, "we could not find a qualified anthropologist to accompany us on this expedition in time, but Logan is doing his best to reveal and study the culture of the people who once lived on this lost continent. In their day and age there may have existed vastly different motivations for daily existence other than the petty accumulations of wealth or power," she noted.
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