by S A Pavli
“We will spend the night here,” said Jana. “Sorry the facilities are not more comfortable. Tomorrow morning you will all be relieved by another team and can return to the Settang Despass.”
“There really is not much point us being here Jana,” I pointed out. “If there is a problem, the robots can sort it out. Why don’t we return on one of the fighters now?”
“I want to be here in case there is a problem. And I am not letting you, Captain, or your female sidekick and that Peacekeeper android … out of my sight.” She gave me a long scowl to reinforce her words.
“Should I take that as a challenge?” I asked politely.
“It is against my principles to wantonly take life,” she said, then pointed her gun at my head. “So feel free to give me a reason.”
“Oh, I would not want you to go against your principles,” I said with a disarming smile.
“Good.” She turned and walked across the room to join her three Cypraean colleagues, settling herself into a chair facing us. I escorted Manera to the bathroom where we both did our best to freshen up before returning to settle down for the night. And it was going to be a long night, of that I was sure.
Chapter 26
We both slept intermittently. The night was warm and humid and the sofa we reclined on had seen better days. But morning arrived and we re-visited the bathroom then had a frugal breakfast. The Earth ships had arrived in orbit which meant we had some support and would be relieved later in the morning.
Jana called a meeting of the whole team, all eighteen of us for later in the morning. Our Earth colleagues had been suffering the same discomforts as us and there was a general mutinous muttering. The senior officer was a Lieutenant Carol Lansett from the Atlantis. She was a tall Scottish redhead with a delightful accent.
“Captain, can we talk?” She had come over to me when Jana was temporarily out of the room.
“What’s on your mind Lieutenant?”
“The Admiral has asked us all to be on the look out for an opportunity to turn the tables. I just wanted to ask you and Manera to give that some thought.”
“Mmm…” I looked quizzically at Manera and she gave me a nonplussed look back. “Was the Admiral more specific?” I asked.
“No. Just look for any opportunity,” she said. “I mean, we all understand the dangers, but we have to try and fight back. We have no idea what these aliens intend to do with us in the end.” She spoke earnestly and there was an air of tension and fear about her.
I could not blame her. The Cypraeans had apparently taken the lives of ten of our number and seemed to have no moral inhibitions about killing the rest of us if it suited them. I nodded to her supportively.
“It goes without saying Lieutenant that we should resist. The key is to somehow take out their robot before it has a chance to raise the alarm. That removes Jana’s hold over us here.”
Carol nodded and gave us a tight smile before returning to join her colleagues.
“That robot is transmitting security messages every few seconds. If we knock it out then we have to duplicate the message,” Manera said warningly.
“Why can’t we do that?” As soon as I asked the question, I thought of the answer, but I let Manera answer.
“Because it is a coded message. We have to crack the code.”
“Put Alfred on it. He’ll have it cracked in no time.”
“This is a robot made by a race two million years ahead of us technologically. Alfred is good, but not that good,” said Manera with a wry grin. “Anyway, we have no way of communicating with Alfred.”
We knew that Cora still had a comms line to the Settang, but she had been warned by Jana not to transmit on it.
“Perhaps they will think about it on the Settang. It’s worth a try,” I said.
Jana returned and after a brief talk to her three Cypraean colleagues she called us together.
“We have another job to do,” she began. “It is the reason why we have come here.”
I groaned internally. I wasn’t going to get off this God forsaken planet so easily.
“This planet as you all know, was the original home of our civilization, where we as a species evolved. It remained the centre of our federation until we moved to the Galaxy hub.” She paused and looked around. She had our attention. “But our civilization did not travel to the hub by starships. That would have taken months for each journey. A new method of travel was discovered.”
She really had our attention now, and we all looked at each other questioningly.
“The orbital ring that you have all seen…. “ she paused theatrically, “… is a worm hole generator. It allows almost instantaneous travel to any part of our galaxy. Where there is a corresponding worm hole at the other end of course.”
“That is fantastic,” gasped Manera. “But surely, opening worm holes of that size must require impossible amounts of energy. We have calculated as much as the sun puts out in one second. How can you generate and handle that amount of energy?”
“That would be the brute force way of doing it,” said Jana. “There is a better way. We allow the Universe itself to supply the power. The orbital ring creates a distortion in Space Time which sucks in dark matter. It’s the dark matter equivalent to a black hole. Completely harmless to us. Properly focused it connects to the other worm hole at the destination. A starship can enter at one end and exit at the other in seconds. It is the method used by our civilisation to emigrate to the Galaxy hub.”
It must have been a vast engineering achievement, building two rings and transporting one 40000 light years to the galaxy hub and installing it around another planet, I mused. I asked the obvious question.
“Does it still work?”
“That is what we are here to find out,” she replied. “There is a control centre buried beneath the Tian-Sania mountains. We have to find it and see if it is still operational.”
“Are you serious?” Manera looked at her, disbelief written over her face. “After being abandoned for thousands of years?”
“Our technology is built to last. Our orbital habitat is even older,” said Jana. “No, the main problem is continental drift, earthquakes, ground movement and other similar activity. It is built to be earthquake proof but not if the whole mountain disappears under the ground.”
“So, do you intend us to travel to the galaxy hub?” I asked. “To meet your descendents?”
“I would have no idea who my descendents are,” she said with a snort of derision. “But yes, I do. I want our habitat to be transported back home, to our civilisation.”
She scowled fiercely and I began to get a glimmer of what had driven her to act in the way she had.
“If you had just asked us, we would have been happy to help,” I said. “After all, that is what we came here for, to meet your parent civilization.”
She looked at me and I saw a moments hesitation in her face, before she carried on talking.
“We could not take the chance,” she said abruptly. There is something she is not telling us I thought.
“So what’s your plan?” I asked.
“We have the location of the control centre. We will load up one of the fighters and go there. You Captain, Cora and whoever you think may be useful. The remainder will stay here to look after the Saraya.”
“Do we have any idea what to expect?” I asked. “In the way of wild animals, hazards, obstacles and so on?”
“It is very mountainous and tropical. Expect everything.”
“Jolly good, That is very helpful.”
Jana left us to make our preparations. Had I been in the Lisa Jane with my trusty robots Butch and Sundance I would have no problem. Survey and map the terrain, select our landing site and route to follow and prepare our equipment. But I had nothing like that here. I had no idea what awaited us and no robotic assistance. I called over Lieutenant Carol for a chat.
“Lieutenant, do you have any climbing experience?”
“Er… we are trained over ro
ugh terrain sir, but climbing mountains?”
“Yeah, ropes and crampons and stuff.”
“No sir. But I know someone who does. Captain Norton on the Atlantis is a climber. I think he climbed Ben Nevis. That’s the highest mountain in Scotland.”
“Good, get hold of the Captain and get him down here. If he knows anyone else with that kind of experience, get them as well. If they have any equipment we could use, tell them to bring that.”
“Yes sir.”
“Cora, do you know what equipment the fighters have?”
“Nothing to help us Paul. They are aerial and Space fighters not explorers.”
“Right, get one of the fighters down in front of this building. If Jana knows the location we may be able to use the Settangs equipment to survey the area and transmit it to the fighters screen. It will give us some idea of where we are going and what to expect.”
“It may be just as quick to go there and take a look Paul,” suggested Manera.
“That’s a good idea.”
I called Jana over and asked her to provide the location to the Settangs AI, and then suggested that we survey the site first, while waiting for our two climbers and their gear to come down from the Settang. She agreed.
“Yes, I want to see the site,” said Jana. “It may be easily accessible.
We left Carol to make the arrangements to get her climbing colleagues and their gear down to the planet. Jana and I boarded the sleek Peacekeeper fighter which had landed in the square. It was a relief to take to the air again. Watching the countryside scroll beneath the aircraft, I was in my element. It was just me and Jana. Cora and Manera had stayed behind to liaise with Lieutenant Carol and prepare the expedition.
It was awkward being alone with Jana/Lanatra. She was a beautiful woman, with a lush shapely body. The awkwardness became severe self consciousness within the intimate confines of the Peacekeepers cabin. She turned to me, her eyes like blue fire. She reached out her hand and touched my forehead.
“What…?” I looked at her questioningly, but before I could complete my sentence I was seized by an irresistible feeling of lust and desire. I wanted her body, I wanted to feel every part of her, kiss and taste her body, become one with her in every way possible. We fell onto the hard floor of the fighter, ripping our clothes off and falling like animals onto each other, gasping and moaning with lust. Her body was all lush pale curves beneath my groping hands, her skin firm and silky, slick with her sweat. The taste of her skin was tangy, her intimate areas warm and damp with her passion. Her hands, mouth and lips were all over me, our bodies writhing against each other as if wanting to merge and become one. We both cried out with pleasure as we became one, her long shapely legs locked around mine, her body thrusting against me. Our sexual union seemed to last for an ecstatic eternity and we both climaxed in a almost painful orgasm.
We lay in a heap on the metal floor of the Peacekeeper fighter, oblivious to the pain of our bruises and scratches and I gradually came to my senses. At first I was numb, then angry.
“Jana, what did you do to me?”
“Just a small technological enhancement to the seduction process,” she smiled, her face and eyes still suffused with her recent passion.
“If I was a woman and you a man, it would be considered as rape,” I said, scowling at her.
“Rape is when it is against your wishes. I think you wanted it very much.”
“It was against my wishes,” I said. “You know I have a relationship which I value.”
“For us, sex is not part of a relationship,” she said. “If you go out to dinner with someone else, are you being unfaithful to Manera?”
“We don’t take the same view in our society Jana. Sex is an intimate act between two loving individuals.” I said that, knowing that in practice it was often not the case.
“I wanted you Paul. This body is so beautiful, so full of desire.” She looked at me, almost pleading and I could not maintain my anger with her. We got dressed as the Peacekeeper banked and began to descend.
“Let us say no more about it,” I scowled at her. “But If you do that again with anyone else, ask them first.” I suspected few if any of the males in any of the starships would say no.
The Peacekeeper was descending on its AG between two forested mountains towards a deep ravine. I could not see anywhere for the plane to land. I called up the ships AI.
“Display closer visual on the landscape below.” The 3D on the wall lit up and showed a view of the ravine.
“Jana, where would you want to look?”
She was frowning at the screen. She took out her tablet and unfolded it, pasting it against the wall next to the screen. Scanning between the two she directed the AI further up the ravine.
“There, there,” she exclaimed. The view expanded, zooming into the ravine. There was something metallic deep in the wall of the ravine, Below, I could see the white surf of running water, tumbling over the rocks.
“Shit, how are we going to get down there,” I muttered to myself. The camera zoomed in closer and I could see what appeared to be a metal wall set in the side of the cliff. There was a large door in the metal wall.
“It looks like there has been subsidence to the side of the mountain,” mused Jana.
“But why have they put it in such an inaccessible place?” I asked.
“There was a small city here Paul. Look carefully into the trees.”
I looked and sure enough, poking up through the trees here and there I could see spires and the remains of crumbling walls. The earth movement had subsided the city and the vegetation had overgrown it.
“It was a beautiful spot a few hundred thousand years ago,” she said. “Over there was the sea and up there the mountains. The city was between the two. Now it has moved inland, the sea is miles away. The ravine was a river in the past and the control centre was built on its banks.”
“Did you come here Jana? I mean, when you were alive…physically?” I was not sure how to express myself but she understood. She paused, as if uncertain.
“Ah… No. I was not from this planet.”
I marvelled that I was talking to an individual who had lived so long ago, and had died and then re-lived many lives, and yet was as young and fresh as I was.
“How do you stay so young Jana? I mean, psychologically. After so many thousands of years and so many lives?”
“Because every life is new. All memories of the previous life are erased.”
“So how did you know, just now, that you had not been here before?”
“This life is different. The original memories of my first life have been partially restored. But this is a new body, young and vital. It was as if I had never had sex before. You were my first.” She looked at me with a sultry expression.
“And your last with me. Choose another victim next time.”
She smiled, but looked apologetic.
“Jana, what has happened to Lanatra?” I asked.
“She will be restored to this body when this is all over. Lucky girl.”
I looked at her in surprise. She was looking downcast.
“And what happens to you?”
“I am a copy of the original Jana consciousness. When Lanatra‘s consciousness reasserts itself, I will die.”
I was shocked, and it must have shown on my face.
“You are a copy?”
“Yes. The original Jana is still back in the habitat.”
“But why can’t you return to the virtual habitat?”
“The physical brain and consciousness are one. They cannot be separated and retain continuity.”
“Good God.” For the first time I felt genuine pity for the Jana individual inhabiting Lanatras body. “Jana, how long will it take before Lanatra… returns?”
“Some months. Less than a year.”
“Is there no solution?”
“The main civilization may have one. It is my hope that my consciousness can be transferred to another body, maybe an an
droid body, where I can continue to enjoy a life.” She looked at me and sensing my sadness she came and over embraced me.
“Thank you for being so caring,” she said. “And I apologise for my rudeness before … before we got to know each other.”
Got to know each other in the biblical sense I thought with a wry smile.
“Well, then we must do everything we can to get you back there,” I said firmly.
“Thank you,” she smiled.
I wanted to ask her more about the physical process of transferring a living consciousness into the virtual habitat, but this did not seem to be the right time.
“Back to business?” I asked and she nodded. “Let’s have a close look at that ravine to see if there is a way down.”
“The fighter can hover above the ravine and lower us down on a rope?”
“Yes perhaps. But I‘m not sure we have the equipment. We may have to climb down.”
“Let’s go down and have a look,” she suggested.
“Mmm. There is a clear rocky ledge over there. Could the fighter land there?”
“It doesn’t have to land. Just get close to the ground and we can jump out.”
“Good idea. Let’s do it.”
We instructed the ship’s AI and it turned towards the clear rocky area a couple of hundred metres from the entrance to the Rings control centre. As it gently came down we could see there was a large enough space for it to land.
I jumped out of the fighter first and helped Jana down. It was very warm and humid and we were soon sweating profusely as we made our way back to the entrance to the control centre. There was a racket of noises from the forest, birds or cicadas or whatever life forms existed here, each of them doing their best to be heard. The edge of the ravine was rocky and broken with few plants or growths so we were able to make our way fairly easily. We had to keep looking over the edge to see how far we were from the metal doors.