LOST AND FORGOTTEN: BOOK THREE - ENIGMA

by Maurice Barkley

  Instead of having more coffee, we pitched in and helped the drone crew. Fran kept busy with her machines and as we finished, she was spreading a big map on one of the IHOO tables. She fabricated it by taping together a series of smaller prints and then secured the corners with four of the clunky military saltshakers. We positioned ourselves on both sides and Fran stood at one end with a yard long pointer. A light rain had begun to fall outside.

  She dropped her stick in the middle of the map. “To properly orient you, this is where we lost Carl. Okay, here you see Manheim City and most of the land beyond,” she said, while waving her stick over the table. Her pointer made swooshing noises as she tapped the four edges. “The whole area you have named Tiberius is a rectangle, about eight miles north to south and maybe thirty miles east to west. The city limits form a square that reaches the borders of this area to the north and the south. Beyond the city east and west is mostly undeveloped. There’s generally jungle and very hilly country to the west beyond the Omaha portal.

  “Here are the blue trolley lines north and south, both running twenty-five miles—almost the entire length of Tiberius.”

  “How far out has the drone gone?” M1 asked.

  “Just beyond the edge of the city to the north and south. It’s easy to see the borders of Tiberius— a razor straight line and beyond it is wild country. Here, at the west end of the south line,” she pointed with her stick, “you see a huge crater—two or more miles in diameter. There are dozens of waterfalls all around the perimeter. There’s a shallow lake at the bottom and a mile wide island in the middle. The line ends here by looping around this round building.

  “The most interesting feature is the island. There’s not much detail, but there seems to be many structures and lots of vegetation. I wish this map was in color, for the whole place glows like gold. This could be the area of entertainment I’ve heard about.

  “Now, following the south line back this way, first we come to the Omaha portal. Barely visible is the little pond and the gully, which leads up to a small but rather high plateau. You’ll notice some mist or a fog obscures the high area—can’t quite make out any details. Continuing on, it enters Manheim here and heads straight for us at Grand Central and then it goes on to the Atlas Mountain Station.” Her pointer made little tapping noises at each stop. “Here you see the eastern edge of the city. The line keeps going and ends at the Dormant Chambers.” Her pointer swooshed to the opposite side of her map. “Okay, next we go directly north to the eastern end of the other blue rail. It parallels the south line and is just about the same length—I think I said that.” We nodded. “Anyway, here there is a small station and a very little building next to it. Coming back toward the city, there is nothing but wild country. There’s the Phi-Phi station, then the Antarctica station and then the edge of the city. The line crosses a river here and here and then ends at a point opposite—well let’s call it the Golden City. Here you can see this great round building. It’s almost half a mile in diameter.” She dropped her pointer and leaned on it like a cane. “That’s it for our big rectangle.”

  “Terrific, Fran,” Alice said. “This gives us a lot to chew on.”

  “I haven’t finished,” Fran told her. “About six miles of wild country surrounds this area in all directions, but beyond the drone saw any number of rectangular areas with cities. I’m sorry, but your ‘to do’ list just got one hell of a lot bigger.”

  One other thing, when the drone, at about three hundred feet, reached the point where the city ends and the wild area begins, it experienced a decided bump. When it flew back at a higher altitude the bump was there, only much diminished. It could be those mysterious builders enclosed this whole place in its own bubble.”

  “Is it possible,” Shan asked, “that Carl was transported to one of those other rectangle places?”

  “Good thinking, Shan,” Alice said. “It could be that the symbol transports people between the bubbles, but really, there’s no way to know without testing and that’s a problem.”

  “There must be some way,” I said, “to activate it. I can’t imagine it being anything other than another portal to somewhere. Perhaps if I had a few days...”

  “No way,” M1 said and Alice nodded. “Another portal or not, we can’t risk losing anybody else. We need to know a lot more.”

  “I wish we could put up a satellite,” Alice said. “Maybe we could put up more drones.”

  As Alice finished her statement, Fran made a noise like half of a hiccup. “But that would mean more drone crews,” she said, with an almost stricken look on her face.

  I realized that Fran had the same proprietary feelings we had about Enigma and our current organization.

  “Look, Fran,” M1 said, “things like this will happen eventually, but not until we, including you, agree that we need more help. As it is, you are feeding us more information than we can act on right away, so you can relax. We won’t need any new personnel for the foreseeable future.”

  “Thank you for that. Thank you all. My crew is as concerned about this matter as much as I am, or rather was. They asked me not to mention it to you because it might plant the seeds of a major expansion, which would dilute our involvement. Anyway, I’d like to go and give them the good news unless you have more questions for me.”

  “I think we’re good for now,” M1 said, as he looked around the table.

  She left her maps behind as she walked away, waving her pointer to a tune only she could hear.

  Bebe nudged me. “There is magic here, James. I watch, I listen and I learn. This group smoothes the path ahead with remarkable ease and I cannot imagine any task beyond our capabilities.”

  I nodded in agreement. We spent the next few minutes examining the maps and indulging in casual chat.

  Harry had something to add to the conversation. “On each corner of the monument park there are three gazebos, an assortment of tables and benches among a grove of those miniature trees. The one closest to us would be the perfect location for a permanent eatery. Maybe we should give Lieutenant Roy the green light to scout out the location and begin to make his plans. He told me he’d like to create a proper restaurant. It’s rather close to where Carl disappeared, but the walkway is guarded and roped off.”

  There was general agreement and Alice excused herself to go and give the Lieutenant the good news.

  “Ain’t it great,” Amy said, “that our chain of command is tight enough to make decisions like this and just do it?”

  “I don’t know how long this will last,” Harry said, “but thanks to the director, we’ll just keep on doing what we’ve been doing.”

  Alice returned and we continued our examination of Fran’s maps.

  “What to do? What to do?” Alice asked. “I want to go in five directions, but which one do we pick? I can’t help but think we need to do something to find Carl, but short of standing around that monument scratching our heads I don’t know what.”

  “Excuse me Alice,” M2 said, “but I think I have an answer to your question.”

  We turned our attention to M2 who had slid his chair back from the table and was holding something silver in his hand.

  “We were in such a rush back at the theater,” he said, “that I failed to complete my examination of this empty pack of Camels. You’ll notice the package consists of two layers. The outer layer has all of the printing on it and the inner layer is a piece of foil-coated paper. Now—someone, and I think I know who, disassembled the pack and wrote two words on the foil surface using a fingernail. Then that someone reassembled the pack and left it there in what must have been a faint, desperate attempt to leave a message.” He turned to our pilot, “Harry, how do you spell your last name—I forget.”

  Harry gave him a hard look. “Cut the comedy, pal—it’s B-I-S-M-A-R-C-K”.

  M2 smiled just long enough for Alice to react.

  “And the two words are?” Alice prompted.

  “BISMARCK and MUSEUM. Also it looks like she began
to write another word but was interrupted. She only scratched Au—a capital A and a lower case u. Funny, she wrote everything else in caps.”

  It was so quiet you could hear a snewel burp as Harry reached across the table and plucked the foil from M2’s hand. After giving it a close examination, Harry passed it to Amy.

  “So,” he said, after taking a deep breath, “all the while I was searching for her in Peru, she was here on Enigma.”

  Alice then took up the speculation. “She may well have been at the theater for only a short stay. Maybe she was brought here to play her violin, but something happened and there was a big change of plans. I can’t imagine she was in chains or anything like that. I can see her emptying the pack and pocketing the loose cigarettes, then surreptitiously extracting the foil to write the message. There had to have been one unguarded moment when she had a chance to drop the reassembled pack behind the file cabinet.

  I winked at Harry. “Sounds like your sister is not one to give up easily.”

  “That’s Nora, all right.” he replied. “She’s a fighter to the end,” his arms and hands moved to a fighter’s stance, “and thanks for saying is and not was.”

  “Well,” I said, “our assumption is she and Carl are still alive and it’s up to us to find them.”

  “Here we go again,” Alice said, with a happy grin, “back in time to pick up another very cold trail.”

  “Okay,” M2 said, “to be clear, our working assumptions are that the first word identifies Nora and the second word tells us where she was going. I think we are looking for, presumably, a museum of artifacts from Earth. The Au could be the start of automatic or auto or autogiro. Nothing stands out. That’s the extent of my thinking on this. James, have you anything to add?”

  “Nothing definite,” I said, “but it seems to me, based on what we’ve seen thus far, the purpose of Tiberius and Manheim was the study of Earth. Fran has learned there are an unknown number of cities similar to this one. It’s possible each of those other cities is central to other planets that were of interest to whoever ran this place. This possibility alone is very intriguing, but probably not significant to the search for Nora except that it maybe ties in some way to the Nazi problem.”

  Shan asked me if I thought the museum was somewhere here, in Tiberius. M2 answered for me and said that is what we were to find out. “Trouble is,” he said, “the beings who built all of this have a very efficient method of moving from planet to planet. The museum we’re looking for may be a very long way from this spot. It would be as easy for them to have it fifty light-years away as fifty miles, but regardless; we have to start from here.”

  Alice shrugged. “Of course this museum could just have been the next stop on a longer journey; however this will not deter or thwart us. The sibling quest shall proceed.”

  “We could plan a building by building search,” M1 said, “but I’d rather spend the remainder of the evening kicking around more ideas.”

  “I agree,” said M2, “and like our search for Carl, another day should make no difference.

  Bebe stood up. “I need a Coca-Cola. By the time I return with my drink, one of you will have come up with a splendid idea, I’ll wager.”

  “Okay,” Alice said, “I’m now accepting any and all splendid ideas.”

  “Well,” M1 said, “it removes any doubt that she was here. Now it’s up to us to pick up her trail.”

  “Yeah!” M2 said. “The museum hunt is on.”

  “Hold on, everyone,” Amy said excitedly, “I just remembered something from my chemistry class. The Periodic Table lists elements using a two letter abbreviation of its name—like NY stands for New York. I just remembered that Au stands for gold. So it could be that the Golden City is also a museum and a prison. She must have known somehow that it was her final destination.”

  “Amy, you are fabulous,” M1 said, “I think you’re just... ah, great.”

  At that point he ran out of romantic gas and looked away. He missed her flaming red cheeks which I thought was unfortunate.

  “And that crater Fran mentioned,” Bob said, “the one with the small city in the middle of it. She said it was golden.”

  “Now we know where to go, Harry said, “The drinks are on me.”

  “We know where we’re going,” M1 said, “but we need to make a plan or two. We can ask Fran to try for a low pass over the island tomorrow morning. That will give us more details before we hop on the trolley.”

  Alice stood up and you-hooed Fran to join us. As she arrived, Bebe returned with her glass of Coke. M1 had them join us at the table then asked Amy to tell them of her discovery. When she completed her story, Bebe looked in my eyes, lowered her head and dropped her jaw. It was the same as she had done when she first saw me with brown skin.

  “When I left to get my Coca-Cola,” she said, “I was just kidding about the splendid idea, but really my friends, this is too much.”

  “Anyway, people,” M1 said, “it’s almost bedtime. Fran, I need you to launch your drone at first light. How about you make several passes over the crater, dropping about one hundred feet after each pass?”

  “Can do,” she said. “You want us to fly below the crater rim if we reach that point undisturbed?”

  “By all means,” he said. “Are there other things we should know about your capabilities?”

  “We have a spare drone, just in case. The drone records and transmits in ultraviolet, infrared, normal video and it has a magnetometer.” She thought for a moment. “It comes with a quick release device. Think of it as a one-bomb bomber, but we don’t have explosives. We have magnesium flares with parachutes. The things can illuminate a large area after dark. I could replace the flare with a broadcast camcorder and drop it directly over the island. We could watch it descend the whole way and if there is some sort of defense system still working, we won’t lose the drone.”

  “So that’s our plan for the morning,” M1 said. “Launch the drone at first light and we all will join you when the craft reaches the target.”

  “Very good,” she said. “I’ll get things set up now and see you in the morning.”

  Jesus walked down Alice’s arm and onto the table where he lay down and closed his eyes. Blue was already asleep on the ground behind Shan.

  I said aloud to my second button, “Joe, any thoughts about our plans?”

  “On observing your current situation,” he replied, “the only suggestion I have is you all get some sleep. I am very curious about the buildings at either end of the other blue rail line, but we will get to them in due course.”

  That settled it. We went to bed to the sound of softly falling rain. It was a rainy night on Enigma.

  CHAPTER 12

  Waking up to a fresh, sparkling morning and an IHOO breakfast was a much-appreciated treat. Fran said her craft was doing its thing over the Golden City and she would have video for us within the hour. This meant we could linger over our morning meal.

  A trolley pulled in from the east. It was Mary, arriving with the newly awakened Primes on their way to Shenandoah. They had the look of curious, happy and excited tourists on a holiday jaunt. Mary explained that they all had originally arrived at the Omaha portal and had gone directly to the Dormant Chambers. This was their first good look at Tiberius and Manheim.

  “Can they stay to see the snewel show?” Alice asked her.

  “I wish they could,” she replied. “I’ve heard about the show and I am anxious to see it myself, but these people are needed for training.”

  While this exchange was going on, I noticed several Primes from the new group had gravitated to the IHOO counter. It became obvious the smell of well-cooked bacon has a universal appeal.

  “Do they have time for an IHOO breakfast?” Alice asked Mary.

  “No, but we will make time,” she replied.

  Alice gave Lieutenant Roy a thumbs-up and he turned to his grill with a smile.

  “These people are our guests,” M1 said. “Let us show them a good
time.”

  The Dance Band galvanized into a restaurant waiting crew. We ushered the new Primes to their seats at the IHOO table while Roy’s crew got busy with the food. By the time we passed out the stainless steel ware and napkins, the coffee was perked and delivered by the ladies. Minutes later the first servings of bacon and omelet were ready and the male members of the Band lined up to deliver the steaming plates.

  We would have liked to talk to them about many things, but their time was at a premium and they were still busy chewing the last of their meal when Mary took them away. Alice and the two M’s reported to the director and then reported to us.

  Alice did the honors. “He said everything is ahead of schedule except preparing the dormant Primes for their new duties as administrators. Our troops will occupy the cities on all five home worlds and hold them until the Primes are ready. He’s considering a personal visit to Enigma sometime soon. He reminded us in no uncertain terms to keep the Nazi problem on top of our list. Knowing that place, I shudder to think of the pressure on the poor guy. He said that small teams of astronomers are on the way to Shenandoah and Enigma. They need to determine their locations in the galaxy. They’re still working on deactivating the orange sky at Nexus.”

  Fran arrived with two monitors. “The craft has two cameras,” she said, while pushing some buttons. “One fixed to the drone and one on a parachute. Here,” she pointed, “the drone camera is pointed ahead and forty-five degrees down.”

  We had a wide-angle view that was clear and very steady. A big waterfall drifted below and half a minute later the round building appeared at the top of the monitor. Fran’s pilot kept the drone straight and true as it flew over the edge of the great chasm, showing us the immense lake and the Golden City—this time in color.

  “What a jazzy place,” Shan said. “I would really, really like to go there.”

  In seconds we were looking closely at parts of the island. There was heavy vegetation, but we could see the tops of a variety of buildings and many winding paths. It seemed as though the buildings were fewer toward the center.