Pools of Yarah

by J Gurley

  Anderson waited patiently while she found a place where she could crawl back up to the causeway. The sun hammered her tender flesh, but she felt ten kilos lighter. Anderson handed her her clothes. She dressed, wishing she had clean clothing to don, and said, “Okay. We can go now.”

  Behind a partially collapsed metal door, an open bay carved into the solid rock of the cliff contained several wheel-less platforms that had served as a means of conveyance, but time and the elements had rendered most of them useless. Creeping vines, drawing moisture from the humid air, grew in the thick layer of dirt burying several of the platforms. The moisture had corroded some so badly that the metal crumbled in Anderson’s hand as he examined one.

  “Antigravity sleds,” he said with a look of surprise, “a technology we lost five hundred years ago.”

  Most of the antigrav units were no longer functioning, but by cannibalizing parts from the others, Anderson managed to get one sled operational. The seats and seat frames had rotted away, so they had to stand, and it was slow, moving barely faster than a slow trot, but it was preferable to walking, especially after the many kilometers they had covered on foot. Many of the openings they passed were unremarkable, similar to the one by which they had entered; however, one corridor was much broader and lined with numerous small rooms and banks of machinery. Cathi pulled her laser when a small, spidery automated device shot out of a panel in the wall, but relaxed when it ignored her and rolled down the corridor picking up debris with its many arms and vacuuming the dust with two wide nozzles, still housekeeping after hundreds of years.

  Just a small portion of the technology they discovered would have made a real difference during the Trade Wars two centuries earlier – antigravity, broadcast energy, long-term storage of food, self-repairing automated machinery. Some planets, such as hers, had returned to simple agrarian economies in order to survive. Many hundreds of thousands of people had died from starvation caused by lack of trade. Cultures had stagnated. Rebuilding a network of trade routes had been long and costly. The wars had led the way for ships like the Long John Baldry to operate as private trading vessels, members of the Trader’s Guild.

  Once again, she thought of her captain and hoped he would forgive her for letting him down.

  20

  The Glass Plain

  Hramack noticed that the walls of the tunnel had become more regular as they progressed. The machined stone lining had given way to a hard casing of a hard ceramic-like material. The closer they got to their destination, the warier Grey Eagle became of ambush. He insisted they stop often to quiet their footsteps and listen for any sign of threat. The beams of their lights picked out gleaming metal in the darkness. As they drew closer, Hramack recognized it as a ladder leading upward through a smaller circular tunnel. At its end was a circular metal hatch with a round wheel in its center. Hramack was curious, but no one suggested climbing the ladder to see where it led. Like him, fear tempered their curiosity. Finally, he stepped forward and began climbing.

  “Be careful, son,” Kena called to him from below. He heard several chuckles from the others at his father’s warning. His cheeks reddened with embarrassment. He was too old to be treated like a child. Some of the men from Pueblo Nuevo had fought battles when younger than he was.

  He could not budge the massive wheel. One of Grey Eagle’s men joined him on the ladder. Together, they were able to turn the recalcitrant wheel and push open the heavy metal door. He emerged into what had once been a large building, now merely two crumbling walls and piles of debris open to the sky. The metal door set in the floor of the building had withstood the ravages of time and weather without rusting, but the building had fared poorly. Once more, they climbed into the open sky. A feeling of relief swept over the men. Some hoped it was the end of their journey, but Hramack knew it was not. By Kena’s estimate, they were still well south of their destination. Still, after days in the close confines of the tunnel, a sortie into the Empty Lands would be a welcome relief.

  “We must keep an eye out for Marauders. No fires,” Grey Eagle warned his men as they emerged. “We are in the heart of their territory. They will have patrols about.”

  After picking his way through the rusted and demolished artifacts in the building, Hramack climbed atop a partially tumbled stone wall and gazed out onto the countryside. Around him stretched a broad, shallow valley broken only by spires of rock and the occasional low shrub. Kena handed him a pair of binoculars. He scanned the still horizon. No creature stirred as far as the eye could see. A jagged line of mountain peaks, perhaps the very ones they sought, thrust above the valley rim to the west and northwest. To the north and the south along the length of the valley, he saw nothing. The valley seemed to continue forever, featureless and desolate. To the east, the valley’s gentle slope climbed toward an uneven row of sentinels carved by the wind from an up thrust finger of rock.

  “It seems safe,” he called back down and handed the binoculars to Kena.

  He began walking toward the sloping fan of rock.

  “Be careful, Hramack,” his father called out to him. “Don’t show a silhouette on the valley rim. The Marauders may spot you.”

  Hramack swallowed a retort about children and fathers began to ascend the slope. His father’s constant concern for him annoyed him. The farther they went, the more his anxiety increased. Could not his father see that he was a grown man? Grey Eagle did not treat him like a child. With the Pueblo Nuevo leader, he was an equal to his own warriors. He admired Kena’s knowledge of medicine and desert lore, but here in this strange land, he was making it up as he went along.

  The ridge proved farther away than it first appeared. He had thought it perhaps half a kilometer distant. It proved closer to one and a half. He glanced back at the others and considered waiting for them, but, still fuming from his father’s chiding, he continued to climb. At first, he could distinguish little of the flat, featureless plain beyond the valley rim. The sun was a mere smudge on the horizon, and the plain was a vast sea of darkness.

  “There’s nothing here,” he yelled to the others.

  To his shock, the entire horizon behind him burst into a blaze of light, illuminating his startled companions and the building ruins as if in full sun. He fell to the ground cowering in fear. When nothing more happened, he summoned his courage, rose to his feet, and looked toward the plain. He donned his sunshades against the dazzling glare, but even so, he had to squint to see.

  The rising sun revealed a vista beyond his comprehension. The entire plain was cracked and frozen, covered with hundreds of square kilometers of what appeared to be ice. He knew ice could not exist in such heat. What, then, could it be? He reached down to pick up the binoculars he had dropped. Sunlight glared from the lens and stabbed his eyes. The answer dawned on him. It had to be a sea of glass. Some monstrous unleashing of power had melted and fused the sand and earth of the entire plain into a cauldron of glass.

  A sound behind him startled him. Spinning around, he saw it was only his father. Kena shielded his eyes from the glare of the plain of glass, as well, immediately surmising the source of the power.

  “If my calculations are correct, we are north of Pueblo. The tunnel must have veered eastward from a direct north-south direction. This area was once the launch site of many of the great space vessels that depopulated Earth. During the wars, it would have been a threat to space-based weapons. Yarah help anyone or anything that had been beneath the touch of such a weapon. It is little wonder Arun Kane did not anticipate the destructive power of the lasers he unleashed on Denver Dome. How could anyone of sane mind envision such a destructive force? Our ancestors were madmen.”

  He turned to Hramack. “A major supply base for the construction of the dome was located just north of here, maybe only a few kilometers. I think we should investigate it.”

  Hramack eyed the cracked glass plain and wondered if the base had suffered a similar fate. “Won’t the Marauders be there?” he asked.

  “I doubt it
. Grey Eagle thinks they fear such places as haunted. As nomads, they have little use for what they may find there. We, on the other hand, could find many useful things there. I’ll talk to Grey Eagle.” He scanned the plain and sighed. “Such power and still they could not rise above their petty problems. Can we do better?” He walked back down the slope to the men gathered there.

  Hramack took one last look at the frozen earth shining like a mirror and followed Kena back to the building. The opening through which they had emerged had been a maintenance entrance for repairs on the waterway below. The building, partially shielded from the plain by the valley rim, had suffered damage during the destruction of the launch site. Time had completed the decay.

  After a lengthy discussion, Grey Eagle called a council, in which he voiced his objections but left it to the others to decide what course to take. Kena, ever persuasive, convinced the group that a side trip to the supply base was in their best interest. Exploring it now and cataloguing its contents would save time. If a second expedition was warranted, they could return with the proper tools and equipment needed for salvage. Grey Eagle reluctantly conceded.

  “We will avoid the glass plain. I do not like it. We would be too exposed should Marauders be about.”

  “I agree,” Kena said. “It would save time, but the heat would be unbearable. We can travel north using the valley for cover. We can wait until nightfall if you prefer; shelter in the tunnel.”

  “No,” Grey Eagle replied quickly, glancing back towards the maintenance shaft. “If the base is not far, we can rest there.”

  Hramack understood Grey Eagle’s reluctance to re-enter the tunnel. He was beginning to feel like a mouse in a burrow.

  They followed the valley northwards for six kilometers until they reached a side canyon veering northeast, where Kena’s map showed the supply base to be located. After traveling a few kilometers farther in the sweltering morning heat, they climbed a low hill and saw in the distance, rising like a ghost from the wavering heat mist, the ruins of Colorado Springs spread out over a number of small hills and valleys.

  Colorado Springs had not been a large city, but to Hramack it looked like giant’s playground. Most of the tall buildings in the center of town had collapsed into an impenetrable pile of rubble. The roofs of other buildings along the city’s perimeter protruded through rows of sand dunes encroaching from the southwest. The faint lines of highways and streets divided the city into blocks and neighborhoods. The dry gully of an ancient creek bed snaked through the city. It was Hramack’s first glimpse of a city other than photos in books. In spite of the destruction, he was awestruck by its size.

  “Most of the old city had been abandoned years before construction of the dome began. Much of the population was relocated to the construction material depot built south of the city on each side of Interstate 25.”

  The city bore the unmistakable aura of a dead thing. It was apparent that no living creatures, other than small desert animals, had disturbed its streets or buildings since its abandonment centuries ago.

  Kena pointed to a wide ribbon of cracked and eroded asphalt running north and south. To the south, a complex of large warehouses lay nestled between two low rows of hills. “That is our destination.”

  They had to bypass collapsed bridges on the old highway. In some places, multiple layers of raised roadways had collapsed onto each other, like pancakes. Massive piles of rubble like manmade mountains surrounded the complex, dirt and rock scraped away to create a flat surface for building.

  “I do not like it,” Grey Eagle stated flatly. “It is like disturbing a grave. It should be left alone.”

  Hramack winced, recalling Chu Li’s similar thoughts.“Your Chief gave you command of all things concerning our safety. I will not override your decision,” Kena affirmed, “but it seems a shame to come so far just to look at it. Who knows what could be in those buildings?”

  “That is my concern also.” Grey Eagle’s gaze was busily marking every possible hiding place for Marauders.

  “We could wait until dark and sneak in,” Hramack suggested. He was eager to examine the city from a closer viewpoint but trusted Grey eagle’s Judgment.

  Grey Eagle gave it some thought, and then turned to Kena. “There is no shelter here. We will do as you ask, but at the first sign of danger, we will leave. I do not know this area, and the Marauders are on their home ground. I will not allow them to trap us in some unholy building while they send for reinforcements. We must push on to our destination before dawn.”

  Kena was upset that Grey eagle was allowing only a few hours to explore such a large area, but Hramack was glad for any opportunity. They found shelter in the rubble of a row of collapsed buildings. Most of the men rested. Grey Eagle and two others kept watch as Kena restlessly wandered around digging into rubble piles. “What are you looking for?” Hramack asked. He was too excited to sleep.

  Kena smiled. “I don’t know. Clues from the past, maybe.” He reached down and picked up a brick. He showed it to Hramack. Hramack saw there were words written on its side.

  “1929,” he read. He looked at his father questioningly. “So?”

  “That brick was made before man even reached into space,” Kena said. “It has been used and reused countless times over the centuries much the way monuments of the past were destroyed and used for new monuments. It is an endless cycle. Man builds on the ruins of his past.”

  “Perhaps someday we can rebuild on ruins such as these,” Hramack added.

  Kena smiled. “That is my hope, too.” His smile faded. “If we can unlock the secret of the water.”

  The remainder of the day passed quietly. A few hours before sunset, the group slipped into the city, carefully using piles of rubble to conceal their movements. To their great relief, they encountered no Marauders. The first buildings they explored were all empty hulks, slowly crumbling with age. Hramack began to worry that looters had stripped all of them over the centuries. One large building, less decayed than the others, sat alone in a large clearing, its westernmost wall partially buried beneath towering sand dunes.

  “Let’s try that one,” Hramack suggested.

  A row of large sliding doors, partially submerged in the sand, lined the building’s outside wall. Each was sealed shut. Two Clouds discovered a smaller door behind a pile of rusted machinery. Forcing it open, Kena rushed inside before Grey Eagle could stop him. Hramack dismissed Grey Eagle’s scowl of disapproval, shrugged, and followed his father.

  Hramack expected the interior to be dark. Instead, large skylights in the ceiling washed the entire cavernous interior with light. A thick layer of dust covered the concrete floor. Row after row of metal storage racks reached almost to the ceiling. Their tiers of dust-coated shelves contained wooden crates and bins. Many of the wooden crates had disintegrated with dry rot, spilling their rusted or rotted contents onto the floor, but others, made of a durable plastic-like material, remained in pristine condition.

  Bin after bin contained pieces of metal, bolts, nuts, and screws as shiny as the day of their manufacture. Piles of tarnished but undamaged bars of steel and other alloys were stacked higher than a man could reach. Pipes and pumps still enclosed in their greased casings littered the floor. Hramack investigated a few of the smaller containers inside the larger bins, finding small machined parts still gleaming like new: metal cogs, sprockets, and gears. The building was a gold mine of technology. No, Hramack realized, more than a gold mine. Gold held no value as great as the contents they had discovered.

  “It’s a warehouse,” Kena shouted as he danced with glee, laughing.

  Even stoic Grey Eagle broke into a broad smile at the sight of the metal. Hramack climbed high up the side of one storage rack, disturbing a cloud of dust that billowed around him. He pried loose the lid of one long, undamaged crate.

  “Father, look,” he cried, holding aloft a delicate three-meter length of vane for a windmill. “It is as light as a feather, yet will not bend under my full weight.” He pr
oved his point by leaning against the fragile-looking vane. “There are dozens of such boxes, enough to pump water or run generators to light a dozen villages. It’s amazing!”

  “This was a major distribution center. All those doors along the sides were for loading and unloading freight delivered by the truck full. Imagine a long, narrow home filled with goods. These were probably destined for the people who refused to enter the dome, or those who did not qualify.” He turned to Grey Eagle. “These rightfully belong to your people.”

  “We will gladly share,” he replied.

  Grey Eagle’s curiosity drew him to one heavy steel cabinet against one of the roof support beams. Large yellow letters emblazoned across its doors proclaimed, “Warning – Explosives.”

  “Careful,” Kena warned as Grey Eagle jerked on the door handle.

  Grey Eagle frowned. “It’s locked.”

  Kena found a short, metal bar and carefully pried open the doors. It hissed as the seal broke and air rushed inside the hermetically sealed door. Inside on a shelf laid dozens of blocks of a white doughy substance carefully wrapped in plastic sheeting. A ceramic metal box held electronic timers, each resting in a fitted molded recess. He picked up one of the blocks of explosives and examined it.

  “These were used in demolition,” he explained to Grey Eagle. “They may have been used to destroy some of the buildings around us. The cabinet was sealed with a vacuum inside to protect the contents over the centuries.”

  Grey Eagle examined the package in Kena’s hand carefully. “They are very small for such destruction.” He picked up the ceramic box and looked at Kena in surprise. He hefted it in his hand. “It is very light for a ceramic box. He eyed the timers, noting the blank screen on some. Others looked much like the watch Kena wore. “These are used to ignite them when needed?” he asked.