“And you believe the collider will provide a bridge to send miners to these planets?” she asked.
Ikato shook his head. “Organic life forms would not survive the journey. I’m hoping that the raw material can be extracted using robotic lasdrills and collected through a tractor beam.”
“Where does that lead?” asked a member of the delegation, pointing to a side entrance.
“The worker’s dormitory,” said Ikato. “Would you like to see it?”
“Dormitory?” asked the member. “We’re subsidizing their living quarters?”
“Their living quarters and their food,” said Ikato. “I’ve spent months training them how to operate the lasdrills, since Lowcastes have only ever been used to pilot the hemo-crop seed drillers and harvesters. The workforce consists mainly of abandoned adolescents. By keeping them housed here, they can easily be organized into three shifts working nonstop. Meeting their nutritional requirements ensures they are in fit shape to perform their duties efficiently. It’s a small price to pay when one considers the long view of extracting large quantities of titanium and nickel to shore up our dwindling supply. The future of the space program depends on it.”
“What is the time scale for becoming fully operational?” asked Veta.
“Three standard years, minimum,” answered Ikato.
Councilor Veta led the delegation away from Ikato to consult with them in private. Ikato pretended to be inspecting a lasdrill as he strained to overhear their conversation. It had been made clear to him that the Council wanted instantaneous results with minimum investment, but he could tell from their facial expressions that the potential payoff his work offered would win the argument.
“Your request for funding will be approved for another standard year,” said Veta. “We’ll forward the official documentation to you when the approval process has been completed.”
“I said I needed three—” began Ikato.
“We will reevaluate your progress at the next funding cycle,” said Veta, cutting him off.
“The Primus assured me this project would be given priority,” protested Ikato.
“There are no open-ended projects,” said Veta. “It’s standard protocol to have annual reviews. Even the Primus must abide by that.”
Realizing he would get no further concessions from her, Ikato smiled and made a slight bow. “I’ll escort you back to the lab,” he said.
“There’s no need,” said Veta as she and the delegation filed into the elevator.
Ikato watched the security footage of the delegation exiting the elevator and leaving through the automatic double doors at the laboratory entrance. “They’re gone,” he said through the speaker system.
The young workers abandoned the lasdrills and gathered around Ikato.
“We’ve been approved for funding for another year,” he announced. “That is more than enough time. Come, let us all give thanks.”
“Everyone?” asked one of the workers.
“Yes, everyone.”
They followed Ikato into the dormitory and waited for him to disable the cloak. A freight elevator large enough to accommodate all of them came into view. Once they took their places, the cloak was reactivated and the elevator began to descend. A full five minutes passed as they descended another thousand meters.
When the elevator arrived at the bottom, they paused to marvel at what they beheld — a completed particle accelerator with a circumference of ten kilometers. The site that the Council had inspected was an elaborate sham, and Ikato had his own plans for the wormhole that he was certain he could create.
Ikato led the workers through a passage that led to another vast chamber containing thousands of stasis pods. They waited patiently as the revival sequence was activated, and then they assisted their groggy companions as they exited from the pods.
“My children,” began Ikato. “Thanks to the largesse of the Council, it was possible to construct this great holding chamber so our family could grow. Your numbers are tenfold to what has been reported, and no one suspects a thing. Your day of liberation is coming soon! Once the wormhole is a reality, we will use it to travel to a new world where you will be the founding members of a society with no caste system!”
The youths smiled at him. They did not break out into raucous celebration — the life of a Lowcaste consisted of little more than drudgery and subsisting off meager hemo-rations, and in the presence of Highcastes they were purposefully emotionally flat.
Throughout Vambiri’s history, there had always been a few Highcastes who would provide secret aid to them in the way of better living conditions, but to do any more risked discovery, and discovery meant that the Highcaste in question would be demoted to Lowcaste, along with their entire family.
Lowcastes never ascended to Highcaste status. Never. Even servants of Highcastes were themselves Highcaste. Any Lowcaste children showing signs of superior intelligence or creativity were punished with extra work duties in the hemo-fields.
Ikato was unlike any Highcaste who had come along before. Initially, he had contrived to give the Lowcastes a better life by employing them as lab assistants after fooling the Council into believing the working conditions were too risky for Highcastes. His work stimulated their budding interest in science, and they began exchanging ideas. Impressed with their intellectual potential, Ikato added more abandoned Lowcaste children and adolescents as his assistants. When the numbers became too great to justify to the Council, he came up with the idea of using stasis pods to rotate the shifts. It allowed for thousands to be rescued from their life of drudgery, but ultimately it was only a temporary solution.
A permanent solution presented itself when Ikato’s work on generating wormholes came to fruition. Once a suitable planet was identified, he and his “children” would escape to a new life of freedom. Through his interactions with them, he had discovered a well-guarded secret they had kept for centuries — their religion.
All forms of religion were banned on Vambiri, regardless of caste. Religious themes such as diversity and equality were in direct conflict with the caste system, and the Council viewed it as a threat to the quality of life enjoyed by Highcastes. Vambiri was a planet of limited natural resources, which, if shared equally, would create too many hardships that Highcastes would not tolerate. Ikato had begun his wormhole research in the hope that if vast amounts of titanium and nickel could easily be mined from distant planets, it would be a step towards abolishing the caste system. He quickly realized how naïve he had been, since no amount of mined material would change opinions that were so deeply entrenched. The Council was made up of masters of manipulation and propaganda. The two castes occupied separate housing sectors in the city of Lun, with no interaction permitted. Highcastes were taught from an early age that Lowcastes were intellectual throwbacks who suffered from a myriad of genetic disorders. Although the Council had the ability to eradicate Lowcastes through forced sterilization, they took the moral high ground and claimed doing such a thing would be genocide. Instead, they explained, the caste system provided housing and work for these unfortunates. The truth was that Lowcastes were needed as slave labor in the hemo-fields and mines. Technology had made their lives better; in the distant past, Lowcastes would plough fields and dig in the mines with hand-held tools. Combines and lasdrills meant that they no longer had to work as beasts of burden. They seemingly lived out their lives as empty shells in acceptance of their fate — something the Council did not believe, and they were constantly looking for any hints of rebellion.
Ironically, the secret religion practiced by the Lowcastes made them malleable to the designs of the Council. They believed that their Creator would send to them a righteous Highcaste who would lead them out of bondage into a new world of freedom. So strong was their faith that they did not question when their delivery would come and accepted that it would happen in the Creator’s own good time. Their stoicism was mistaken by Highcastes for intellectual inferiority.
Their religious t
enets had never been recorded on paper or electronic devices — secrecy demanded it. Instead, they had passed down their beliefs through the generations in the form of whispered chants before bedtime. When Ikato revealed his intentions to the young workers as to how the wormhole would be used to liberate them, they believed he was the one whose coming had been promised and recited the chants in his presence.
“Let us now celebrate with the Chant of Origin,” Ikato announced as he made the sacred symbol of the circle by touching his forehead, shoulder, chest, opposite shoulder, then returning to the forehead.
“In the beginning,” they chanted in unison, “the Creator made the stars and Vambiri. Our home world was without form, and the spirit of the Creator hovered over the waters. And the Creator commanded the light to shine, and the light shone. But the Creator made the light a curse after Akam partook of the forbidden Plant of Knowledge. Akam and his prodigy would toil underground, only venturing to the surface at night. And those who behold daylight shall evermore be burned.”
ANOMALY
Mount Nebo, Jordan
2034 AD
“The batteries are almost dead,” said Salma Kair, director general of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan to her assistant, Hisham. “We’ve got just enough juice left for one more sweep.”
As they had done hundreds of times before, they unwound the cables and hammered the electrode stakes into place. Salma wiped the sweat from her brow and gazed back at the Franciscan monastery in the distance.
“It couldn’t be this far away,” said Hisham. “Sacred sites were always erected directly on top of relics to protect them.”
“If that was common knowledge, it would stand to reason that the monks deliberately built the monastery away from what they wanted to hide,” she retorted. “Besides, there’s not an inch of the monastery that hasn’t been searched by every scanning device known to man.”
Salma picked up the tablet and waited with Hisham as the three-dimensional graph of what was beneath them took shape.
“There,” said Hisham, pointing to the screen, “thirteen meters down.”
“C’mon,” whispered Salma to the dark blue splotch on the screen as it expanded.
As the seconds turned into minutes, it continued to grow before abruptly ending.
“It didn’t taper off,” said Hisham, looking at the C-shaped splotch.
“It’s a cave with a walled-up entrance,” said Salma. “I’m sure of it.”
“Just as the legend says,” murmured Hisham.
*******
The next day, the area was abuzz with excavation equipment, video recording devices, and dozens of archeology students assisting with the dig.
“I don’t want one second unaccounted for,” said Salma to the videographers. “The cameras must be rolling nonstop to record the unearthing as well as the ride back to the museum. There must not be a gap in recording that would give skeptics an opening to claim any relics we find are fake.”
When the sealed entrance was revealed, everyone could see that it was composed of Egyptian mud bricks.
“Send in a video endoscope, along with a manipulator,” ordered Salma.
After two tiny holes were drilled into the mortar at waist level, the probes were delicately pushed through the openings.
“They’re coming online now,” said Hisham as he operated the movement controls.
Inside the cave, the endoscope snaked across the ground as it transmitted images to Hisham’s tablet.
“Pan right,” said Salma.
“There it is,” said Hisham.
As the probe moved closer to the object, the artificial light revealed it was covered in what appeared to be a linen cloth caked with dust.
Hisham moved the manipulator into place and entered the command for it to emit a short puff of air. Vibrant threads of gold, blue, and purple woven into the fabric came into view.
“The veil!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to do a 3-D scan.”
Hisham’s voice faltered as he read aloud the results. “Wooden base with gold overlay…solid gold top with two symmetric winged objects facing each other…dimensions…fifty-two inches in length…thirty-one inches in width…thirty-one inches in height.”
“Retract the probes,” said Salma. “Let’s get that wall down.”
*******
Salma and Hisham sat next to the relic during the drive back to the museum, accompanied by the two videographers. The museum’s basement contained a vault and several laboratories to accommodate the different fields devoted to analyzing ancient discoveries.
A group of scientists stood in anticipation as the van rolled into the underground parking entrance. Off to the side stood Brother Elias, a Franciscan friar from the Mount Nebo monastery, and Rabbi Moshe Kohavi. Everyone watched in silence as the veiled artifact glided out from the van on the hover-bot.
“You first,” said Salma to Jacinta Phillip, a textile archaeologist.
“Can’t we cut the ropes binding the fabric?” asked Jean-Paul Champollion. He addressed his question to Salma, hoping she would overrule Jacinta.
“The hessian rope is as ancient as the artifact,” protested Jacinta. “We just can’t cut it up.”
“Okay, so it’s ancient rope,” said Jean-Paul. “It’s still a rope, and it’s wrapped around the find of all time.”
“You’ll need to cut a piece anyway for the carbon dating,” said Salma to Jacinta. “Do that first.”
Jacinta cut through the rope then placed a piece of it in a specimen container. After handing it off to the technicians for accelerator mass spectrometry carbon dating, she used robotic tweezers to untangle the rest of the rope. Once it was removed, the dusty fabric was carefully lifted from the artifact.
“It’s pristine!” exclaimed Jean-Paul.
Brother Elias and Rabbi Moshe came forward and inspected the object that had been wrapped in the veil.
“Two cherubim of gold,” said the rabbi, “with their wings spread out above, shielding the cover. They confront each other with their faces being turned toward the cover.”
“We can see that,” said Jean-Paul.
“It’s the description from Exodus 25,” explained Brother Elias.
Robotic arms descended upon the artifact and emitted filaments that burrowed into the creases beneath the cover, lifting it free. After gently setting it down on an observation table, the arms redeployed the filaments and removed the objects contained in the artifact: a ceramic jar, a wooden staff with dried buds attached, two intact stone tablets with cuneiforms, and pieces of rubble neatly wrapped in linen. Upon removal of the linen, it was revealed that the rubble also contained cuneiforms.
“Magnification!” ordered Jean-Paul as he placed a piece of rubble on an examining tray.
A magnification plate was positioned directly above the piece by the robotic arm. Jean-Paul stared intensely at it for a few seconds. Suddenly, his expression changed from elation to disgust.
“I was supposed to be presenting a paper today at a conference in Paris,” he said to Salma, his voice barely above a whisper. He turned away from her and stormed out.
“Jean-Paul!” she shouted as she ran after him. “Wait!”
He stopped abruptly and turned to face her. “Did you think I wouldn’t see it?”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
Jacinta ran down the hall toward them. “The results from the carbon dating are in! The rope is from the reign of Amenhotep II!” she said breathlessly.
“That only makes things worse!” said Jean-Paul to Salma. “The entire find will be ruled a fake because you had to add something to make an ordinary dig look spectacular!”
“What are you talking about, Jean-Paul?” asked Jacinta.
“That’s what I just asked him!” cried Salma.
Jean-Paul looked each of them in the face, desperately searching for any signs of deception. “The cuneiforms on the rubble were carved with a laser,” he said. “There’s no mistaking it
.”
“That’s impossible!” shouted Salma. “Every second of the dig was videotaped! The earth was undisturbed!”
“Then you’ve got a magician on the payroll, because this smacks of one of their tricks!” he retorted.
“Jean-Paul!” called Hisham. “You need to see this!”
“I’ve seen quite enough,” he said as he turned to leave the facility.
“Jean-Paul, please!” pleaded Hisham. “It’s the cuneiforms — you must see this!”
Jean-Paul relented and returned to the lab. “Make it quick.”
“This was the magnification level you were looking at,” said Hisham. “I admit, it looks like the work of a laser. But now, look at it magnified a further tenfold.”
The magnified image appeared before them.
“The cuneiforms are outlined in some kind of decorative pattern,” said Salma.
“Bolstering the argument that only a laser could have carved it,” said Jean-Paul.
“Keep watching,” said Hisham. “This is another tenfold.”
As the new magnification came into focus, the decorative pattern reappeared — unchanged from the previous scale of magnification.
“And tenfold yet again,” said Hisham.
“Something’s wrong with magnifier,” said Jean-Paul. “You’re seeing the same image.”
“No, I checked,” insisted Hisham. “These are magnifications.”
“But the images are the same,” said Salma.
“It’s a fractal,” said Hisham. “No matter how many times you magnify it, you get the same pattern. There doesn’t exist a laser capable of doing this!”
“What else would you expect from an object written with the finger of God?” asked Rabbi Moshe.
“And in the language of God — pure mathematics,” added Brother Elias.
“Rabbi Moshe and Brother Elias,” said Jean-Paul, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice, “you are here as a courtesy as unofficial observers. We are scientists, and with all due respect, we are here to analyze these objects without having to listen to a sermon.”
The Nosferatu Chronicles: Return to Vambiri Page 2