Strange Temple

by John Lilley

  ‘Yes that’s fine my dear and please return the rest to the greenhouse.’

  While Juanita busied herself with the plants, Carlos strolled back to the house along the lime walkway. A small group of long-tailed tits (Aegithalos Caudatus) squabbled overhead as they jumped from branch to branch in the limes.

  ‘What are you guys doing here?’ Carlos said to the tiny pink and white birds. ‘Are the woods too busy today?’

  The fine brown gravel of the walkway crunched beneath his boots and stirred old memories. He remembered when all thirty Kids had run down the very same walkway for the first time. The sight of all their tiny boots in the hallway of the house was still fresh in his mind.

  Why did they have to grow up and go away? he thought.

  The first fifty feet from the house was now in the shade. The walkway brought Carlos onto a large limestone paved patio area. The limestone balustrade surrounding the patio was punctuated at thirty-foot intervals with large formal urns with barley-twist rims. The urns were uniformly planted with architectural plants, typically of the Kniphofia, Phormium and Nicotiana geniuses. After 100 years all of the stonework had taken on the stained patina of a property straight out of the 19th century. Carlos traversed the patio and entered the house through the large iron-studded oak door. The heavy door felt reassuringly secure as it thudded closed behind him. His boots squeaked on the newly polished, black and white marble tiles of the entrance hall.

  Better leave the boots here, don’t want to annoy Manuel, he thought as he reached the hall stand.

  He wiggled each leg in turn until the boots dropped off onto the coir matting. As always there was a pair of espadrilles waiting for him to slip into. Padding along the hallway he entered the elevator and rotated the large brass lever through three clicks until the pointer lined up with “Third floor Executive accommodation” and pressed the door close button. The old iron outer and inner lattice doors of the elevator rattled as they folded shut and the motor engaged with a loud “Ker plunk”. Carlos watched his horizon change through the elevator cage walls as it progressed slowly up the side of the two storey hallway and then punched through the ceilings and up to the third-floor, where it announced its arrival with a ding from its small bell. With further rattling from the doors, Carlos emerged into the lobby of his private suite of rooms. He had everything up there in his rooftop eyrie: a main and a guest bedroom each with an en-suite bathroom and day room, an extensive library, a breakfast room with a small kitchen and finally a large lounge which opened onto the roof terrace. This suite and the conservatory on the ground floor were where Carlos now spent most of his time in the huge house. He seldom ventured into the rest of the rooms except to welcome guests when they came to the front entrance, but nobody did that these days.

  After his shower, Carlos slipped on his bathrobe and wandered into his extensive wardrobe.

  Now, he thought, shall I go for smart-casual - 19th hole or maybe BBQ in the yard with the guys? Yes, that’s more like it.

  He selected a pair of green cotton combat trousers, a red tartan builders’ woollen over-shirt, tan work boots, white tee and a chunky ostrich skin belt with silver buckle. After inspecting himself in the mirror, he swapped the over-shirt for the same in khaki.

  You’ll do, he thought as he towel dried his curly black locks and applied a little hair oil and cologne.

  He wandered through the lounge and out onto the balcony. The decking afforded uninterrupted views across his estate. A small infinity pool provided a compelling illusion on the edge of the roof. Carlos loved it up on the roof terrace; it was a magic place for him. He hardly ever missed his customary evening tequila sundowner from this vantage point.

  Mitzy, Carlos’s Chihuahua, was curled up on her favourite steamer chair near the pool.

  ‘Hey Mitzy, fancy coming over to Uncle Bill’s?’ shouted Carlos at the small “dog”.

  Deep within the tiny creature quantum-nano brain, neural networks processed the incoming sound waves while inertial navigation systems prepared for action. Hydraulic motors instantly buzzed into life, and pressurised systems came online. Mitzy raised her head. With the neural cortex that Mitzy possessed, she could understand everything that Carlos said to her. There was little point of installing a dumbed-down “doggy” version. Most small simulated creatures took the same cortex. It was only when going down to insect sizes that further compromises were required. However, Mitzy had been designed to physically resemble a Chihuahua, and consequently, she didn’t have a human’s voicebox. So all that she could do was blink and pant vigorously in agreement.

  ‘Yes. I knew you would. Come to Daddy,’ said Carlos.

  Mitzy, now fully activated, jumped off the steamer and scuttled across the decking. Carlos scooped her up into his arms and let her lick his chin. Cradling the small dog on his left forearm while stroking her with his right, he looked out across his estate. Deep in thought, he slowly became aware of Juanita’s steel-tipped heels clicking across the decking towards him.

  ‘Everything is ready sir. The plants are in the hovercar which is ready to leave when you are,’ she said.

  ‘Great, thank you, my dear,’ said Carlos. ‘I’m on my way down now’.

  Carlos returned to the lounge, went out into the hallway and entered the library. Standing with his back to the small mirror in the middle of the left-hand wall he reached up with his right hand and pulled the light bracket down two inches. The section of wall behind him immediately rotated. Carlos was now behind the wall of the library. To an observer within the library the wall, mirror and light fittings looked exactly as they’d done a few seconds earlier, except that Carlos was no longer in front of them. The floor panel on which Carlos was standing descended ten feet and Carlos sat down in a pilot’s chair that was now immediately behind his knees. He put Mitzy on his lap while he buckled himself in and put on the headset. Meanwhile, the chair had begun to descend into a well-lit shaft. After a sixty foot descent, they emerged through the ceiling of the hovercar hanger and continued on down the supporting guide-pole right through the modified roof of the waiting hovercar and into its cockpit. Once they had touched down on the car’s cabin floor, the guiding pole retracted, and large pneumatic bolts clunked home to secure the chair and fully connect it to the hovercar’s control systems. Carlos let Mitzy jump off his lap to seek refuge in her small padded cage at the rear of the cockpit. The chair then moved forwards to allow Carlos access to the control pedals and joystick while the craft’s eight engines had already started their ignition cycles. Carlos could feel the build-up of thrust at his fingertips. He watched the instruments for the correct moment at which to release the brakes and push the throttles fully home. Under a modest one-g of acceleration, the car lurched forward up the launch ramp. The opening at the top of the ramp was already visible as a blue hexagonal slash. In three seconds the car had blasted out of the launch tunnel and into the bright desert sky. Carlos had never stopped enjoying the exhilaration of his hovercar launches. Gene had thrown up the last time that Carlos had persuaded him to join in the fun, but that was over 30 years ago.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Buck Rogers?’ Gene had said just before he’d honked onto the cabin floor.

  Mitzy held on tight with her jaws clamped firmly onto her cage’s padding. Just as well, because predictably Carlos immediately put the car into a victory roll before accelerating vertically to two thousand feet. Mitzy had learnt the hard way 70 years ago when on her first flight with Carlos, she’d been severely damaged as her face cushioned her fall against the rear cockpit bulkhead. Carlos levelled off and selected Bill’s dome on the GPS display. The desert sky was clear of clouds; the only impediment to distant views was the heat haze which was making the mountains appear to float just above the horizon. The massive structure of Bills dome came across the horizon very quickly, its multi-faceted panels glistening in the intense afternoon sun.

  Bill and Gene could clearly see the vapour trails from Carlos’s approaching car as they
sipped their tea from Bill’s veranda.

  ‘Just look at that sucker move. He’s coming at us like a missile,’ commented Gene.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know what the hurry is?’ said Bill, laughing. ‘Molly dear, would you get Jethro to meet Carlos please.’

  ‘No problem sir, he’s already on his way,’ Molly said from behind them on the veranda.

  Sure enough, when Bill looked down the driveway, he could see the golf caddy with Jethro at the wheel approaching the main airlock entrance. What he could not see was the small translucent creature attached to the rear panel of the buggy. The black dot in the sky which was the hovercar grew rapidly larger. When it already appeared to be too late, the craft turned its engine nacelles to decelerate into a vertical landing fifty feet from Bill’s dome. Sand and stones bounced off the outer hull of the dome as they were ripped out of the ground by the jet-wash of the hovercar as it overshot the landing area and cut into the desert soil. Poor old Jethro was inundated. He had to shield his eyes from the streams of abrasive particles, and one of the caddy’s headlights was shattered by a small stone. Jethro had approached the craft before the dust had settled. The eight engines were still whining to a halt as he opened the hatch and waited for Carlos to extract himself from the pilot seat and pick up Mitzy.

  ‘Good afternoon sir. I hope you had a pleasant flight,’ he said as Carlos dismounted the steps.

  ‘Never felt better Jethro, my man. Hey, you’d better get that uniform cleaned up, you know what a stickler for cleanliness Bill is,’ said Carlos as he reached for Jethro’s arm and brushed off a thick layer of sand.

  ‘Yes sir will do. Here, just wait a minute while I dust-down the caddy’s seat for you,’ said Jethro as he hastily wiped the sand from the seats with a large golf towel.

  ‘Splendid Jethro, I don’t know what Bill would do without you,’ said Carlos.

  The outside temperature was now over 1200F, and the caddy didn’t afford much in the way of shade, so Carlos was sweating slightly by the time they reached the airlock. As they did so the small translucent creature that had hitched a lift on the caddy was figuring out the best place to attach itself to Carlos’s hovercar. The air inside the dome was cool and fresh, and Carlos enjoyed the heavy scent of newly mown alpine meadows as the caddy ascended the driveway towards Bill’s lodge. A group of Alpine Marmots (Marmota Marmota) peered cautiously from their burrows as the caddy sped by. As they neared Bill’s lodge, the air was suddenly filled with dozens of White-throated Swifts (Aeronautes Saxatalis), screeching as they chased insects in the upper reaches of the dome’s biosphere.

  Priceless, thought Carlos as he took deep lungfuls of the clean mountain air.

  The buggy slowly continued its ascent of the gravel driveway to Bill’s lodge where Bill and Gene were waiting. After over 100 years the smiles on their faces told of their deep affection for Carlos. They were a select few, brought together in adversity, and their reliance on each other was what kept them going. Carlos had jumped out of the buggy before it stopped. All three embraced in a group hug.

  ‘OK, let’s go and see what Molly has prepared for us in the yard,’ said Bill to his friends.

  They strolled into the main lodge entrance and straight through the property to the veranda at the back. Sure enough, Molly had laid on a magnificent spread. She knew exactly what they all liked. It was not overdone but just right, as always. Carlos tucked straight into a chicken fajita with extra jalapenos; Gene went for a tuna salad roll while Bill picked up a beef burger. They all sat around the circular beech table with their selections and cooed approvingly as Molly served them with ice-cooled draught. All their aches and pains instantly disappeared in the euphoric congruence of boys and beer. Why did the first one of the day always cut it so well? Somewhere deep inside Bill’s dome, calorific calculations were being done. Each of the attendees would not notice the subtle manipulation of their diets over the next few weeks. The complex calculation of keeping a human being in good health at an advanced age, were a big problem when certain foods and beverages were involved.

  ‘Bloody Hell I needed that,’ burped Gene to laughter from Bill and Carlos.

  ‘Well yet another bloody perfect day in the Alps,’ said Carlos.

  Bill just farted in approval to yet more laughter. The “boys” had done with envy, hatred, jealousy and just falling out many years earlier. They were, as always, having a great time in each other’s company. Life was just too short.

  The time passed very quickly. After the second cup of coffee, Bill suggested that he took them for a drive around the estate.

  ‘Sounds great, I hope Jethro will be driving? You nearly crashed into a ditch the last time you took us out,’ remarked Carlos.

  ‘No, I thought that Gene would like to drive us today?’ said Bill, as they both watched as his enquiry sunk into Gene’s consciousness and his eyes bulged in disapproving horror.

  ‘No way, I hate those damned buggies,’ coughed Gene.

  ‘Well, I’m giving Jethro the afternoon off, and we all know that our blood pressure would not allow you to drive Carlos, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me at the wheel. Come on let’s get out there,’ commanded Bill.

  The three friends boarded the buggy that Jethro had parked in its normal spot to the left of the veranda. Bill set off at his usual leisurely pace, much to Carlos’s disapproval. They soon left the well-manicured lawns surrounding the lodge and entered the forest. The track was not completely smooth since the roots of the trees had pushed the ground upwards in places, but the buggy bounced effortlessly along on its air suspension. Noise from the forest wildlife increased as they sped away from the lodge and a flock of small finches seemed to be following them for part of the way. Gene and Carlos had been down this track many times before, but they still enjoyed the drive since there were always some slight changes to see. The lodge was only half a mile from the main entrance and the track which Bill had taken headed straight across to the opposite side of the dome. There were four and a half miles between the lodge and the dome wall on this side. They were now nearing the exact centre of the dome, some two miles from the lodge. Bill slowed down and took a right turn down one of the smaller tracks. This track was not as well used as the previous one; the bushes on either side of the buggy were overgrowing the track and brushed against it as they passed. They continued on a slight downwards incline for a few hundred yards.

  ‘I know this one,’ said Gene. ‘We’re going to the waterfall?’

  ‘There is no fooling you,’ said Bill.

  ‘It must be 10 years since we last went there?’ added Carlos.

  ‘Yeah, do you remember when we used to have parties down there?’ said Bill.

  ‘Now that was a seriously long time ago. The waterfall was not there at first, but Jake insisted that we had one built,’ commented Carlos.

  ‘Absolutely, good old Jake, I wonder what he’s up to today?’ said Bill as he slowed to negotiate a series of overhanging branches.

  Gene and Carlos were both now wondering why Bill was taking them to the waterfall. It wasn’t exactly the nicest spot in the forest. A bit dark and gloomy and that was 10 years ago, before the plants had grown so much more. Their suspicions were heightened a few moments later when they rounded a bend and were confronted by a large tree which had fallen across the path.

  ‘Oh dear, we’ll have to go back,’ said Gene.

  ‘Oh come on now, we’re only a few yards from the lake,’ said Bill, ‘let’s finish the journey on foot.’

  Carlos and Gene stared at each other wide-eyed.

  He is losing it, thought Carlos.

  The three clambered from the buggy and approached the tree looking for a route through. A few yards to the right, nearer the top of the tree, there was a gap in the branches. Carlos jumped up onto the trunk at that point and held out his hand to pull Gene up alongside him. Bill scrambled up next to them and then slithered down the other side. Carlos hopped down, and they both helped Gene down. Beyond the
tree, the track became even more overgrown. Gene was in his element now and stopped every few yards to observe some form of insect life as it scurried across the forest floor. They made good progress and were all enjoying the unusual turn of events; after all their time together they still liked an adventure.

  Things were going to plan; Bill’s plan and Bill always liked that situation. The tree was an added bonus for him because it gave him a good excuse to park the buggy well away from the lake. The cameras on the buggy would be having trouble seeing where they’d gone through the branches of the fallen tree. That just left the cameras on the roof of the dome. In their haste to leave the veranda, both of his friends had left their phones on the patio table, just where Bill wanted them. Things were progressing just as Jake had told him and Central would be caught off guard. He gently touched his left forearm to make sure that the translucent creature was still there beneath his shirt.

  The lake was mirror calm as they approached the water’s edge. They all jumped as a moorhen (Gallinula Chloropus Cachinnans) suddenly fluttered across the lake in a desperate attempt to escape from what it thought were three large predators. They followed the flight of the small bird as it skimmed across the water and as they did so, they could see the waterfall in the distance on the other side of the lake, some two hundred yards away. The crest of the fall was glinting in the sunshine, but its plunge pool was in the shadows from the large trees which now grew on its flanks. The flow over the fall was not what it was. It used to gush over the top with some force, and they all remembered the times when they would float over the edge on an old car inner-tube and plunge the twenty feet into the cold water beneath. Today it was not much more than a trickle.

  ‘It’s no good, all this gushing water. I’m going to have to go,’ announced Gene.

  ‘OK, pits-stop,’ said Bill, who had been thinking the same thing himself.

  They each selected a nearby tree and relieved themselves. At the base of the fall, Bill immediately headed straight for the bushes to the side of the overhang and disappeared from sight.