by Jack Geurts
“Was it worth getting yourself killed over? Getting me killed over?”
Jasper sighed. “Look, I just grabbed it, alright?” He was annoyed now. She was too. Coming face to face with their mutual nemesis and letting him slip through their fingers was frustrating to say the least.
“Thank you,” he said at last, when he’d calmed down. “For saving me.”
Io said nothing, but he didn’t have the clarity of mind to wonder if she was giving him the cold shoulder or not – the pain was simply too intense. Io noticed his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenched, doing his best to bear it in silence. After a moment or two, she stood and walked around to Jasper’s far side, where Janus had hit him.
“What are you doing?” he said, but without a word, Io gently placed her hand over his shoulder. He let out an agonised yell and drew back, but Io kept hold of the dislodged bone. The glove began to glow blue and Jasper felt the pain recede like an ebbing tide. She took hold of his wrist with her other hand, lifting it up and around in a circular motion. Even as the bone slotted back into place with an audible pop, he didn’t feel a thing.
Io went back to her seat and Jasper just stared at his shoulder, moving it around in disbelief. He looked over as she belted herself in.
“Is there anything those things can’t do?” he said.
“You are just lucky Janus missed.”
“Lucky?” Jasper wasn’t sure what he considered himself to be at that very moment – scared, maybe a little exhilarated – but lucky wasn’t on the list.
“Yes,” Io said. “That was a glancing blow – if he had hit you in the chest or stomach, I am not sure I would have been able to help.”
Jasper frowned. “Why not?”
“There is only so much I can do. People with more experience in medicine are better healers, but even they have their limits. If a person is dead or close to death, there is very little chance of bringing them back.”
Jasper swallowed. “Then I guess I am lucky. Thank you...again.”
Io simply nodded and they flew in silence for a while. The clouds whipped past on either side, and at one point, they shot right through the heart of a large, low-hanging nimbus. Everything went dark as the sun vanished from sight – nothing but white and grey all around. For some reason, Jasper felt cold, even though he knew, logically, that the temperature inside the Flight Pod hadn’t changed.
It was a strange feeling, being inside a cloud. He had been through them on aeroplanes before, but to have nothing in between you and the cloud, to feel like you could just reach out a scoop up a handful of it as though it were cotton candy, was another feeling entirely.
In only lasted a few seconds, then they burst out the other side and back into sunlight, nothing but clear blue sky ahead. The Persian Gulf spread wide beneath them, its arid shoreline visible to the north.
Io brought up a holographic globe of the earth with her Window, and on it, the Yellow River region in China was marked out by a red dot. Jasper realised she was recreating the image from the pit on a smaller scale. No wonder it didn’t occur to her to take a photo – she was obviously able to take detailed mental pictures which she could recall at will. A kind of photographic memory, perhaps. Given their incredible Mind-link capabilities, a camera was probably as useful to a Precursor as a steering wheel.
Also on the holographic globe (a Mind Map, as Io described it), a glowing blue dot had appeared, hovering over the Gulf – no doubt representing their own location. While Io was apparently charting a course for China, Jasper was thinking. “You said the map would help us save ourselves when we were advanced enough to find it...”
“Yes...” She waited him to continue.
“And Janus attacked the dig site because he didn’t want us to find any trace of your people. Any trace of the map...”
Io could see the cogs turning in his head now, his mind working.
Suddenly, it all fit together and Jasper straightened in his chair. “So Janus attacked us because he doesn’t want us to find the map. He doesn’t want us to save ourselves.”
Io shook her head. “No, he does not. When my ancestors left this map behind, they knew that a species’ ability to destroy itself coincides with its ability to save itself. I am sure you know what I am speaking of – the damage you are causing to your environment, to other species as well as your own.”
Jasper nodded. He knew only too well.
Io went on, “None of my people know what the map is, only that it exists. Now that Janus has broken our laws and come here to stop the Progeny from ever finding the map, my father has sent me to intervene on your behalf – to use our technology to help you uncover the map, otherwise it might never be found. Janus might just keep killing anyone who finds any trace of it.”
“But how did he know we had found it? How did you know?”
“As I have said, we keep a very close eye on your planet – monitoring your progress as a species, keeping tabs on individual citizens, as well as nations.”
“Why, though? Why do you care what happens to us?”
“Because,” she said, “though we haven’t lived here for sixty-five million years, many of my people still regard this as our homeland, our birthplace. Some of them long to return, and are prepared to go to great lengths to do so.”
“You mean Janus?”
“And his followers. They desire the extinction of your species so they can recolonise the planet. Reclaim it for the Precursors, whom they call its ‘rightful’ inhabitants.”
“But you don’t feel the same way?”
Io shook her head. “No. This is not my home. It was once home to my people, but we left. We had our time here, and most of us are reasonable enough to see it that way. But the few who call Janus their leader – they want humanity to destroy itself so the earth is clear for their return.”
“Yeah, but you still haven’t answered my question,” said Jasper. “Why do you care if that happens?”
“Why does any parent care about the fate of its child? You inherited the earth from us and we do not want to see it destroy you, despite how reckless you have been with it.” She paused. “But as a mother and father will quarrel, so too did Saturn and Jupiter.”
Jasper furrowed his brow, confused. “The planets?”
“The people. Two of the most well-known figures in our history. They were on opposing sides of this argument long ago. Saturn was king at the time, and he wanted to return and wipe out the Progeny while they were still weak and few in number, but Jupiter disagreed. He believed that they had found a new home and should leave the Progeny to flourish in their old one. So Jupiter gathered up his followers and led a rebellion against Saturn. Imagine it: legions of warriors riding dinosaurs into battle, flinging bolts of energy at one other.”
Jasper’s eyes went wide, barely able to fathom such a spectacle.
“What happened?” he said, captivated.
“It was a long and costly war, but eventually, Jupiter was victorious. Saturn and his followers were driven underground, into the caves beneath our planet’s surface. And there they have lived for the past ten thousand years. Now, their skin is translucent and they have no eyes. They have no use for them down there in the dark, nor any kind of colour in their skin as it never sees sunlight. Whenever they come to the surface, they must cover up every inch of themselves or they are horribly burned.”
Jasper thought back to massacre at the dig site, recalling Janus astride his tame dinosaur, covered head-to-toe in black rags. He recalled the glass-like skin, the face without eyes.
“How do they find their way around?” he said.
“Without sight, their other senses are sharpened. Their hearing, their smell, their taste, their touch. Mainly, they navigate using a kind of echolocation, like your bats or submarines. But do not make the mistake of underestimating them. Just because they do not have eyes does not make them any less formidable.”
Jasper took a moment to process all of this – the history of this incre
dible, impossible civilisation. “So...Janus was a follower of Saturn?”
“He is his direct descendant, as my father is Jupiter’s. Both of them are kings in their own right – one above, one below – but only my father is the true king.”
As Jasper continued to reel in disbelief, something occurred to him. “He shifted time forward again, didn’t he? While we were still in the pit.”
Io nodded. “I assume so, yes.”
“But how did he know where we were? And how did he just appear like that? Does he have an invisibility shield too, like the Flight Pod?”
“A mastery of the Mind-link and the Elemental allows a person to do incredible things. The possibilities are almost limitless. In Janus’ case, he is able to use it to teleport between places instantly. It is very draining for him to do so – he cannot do it again and again without end, but we figure that is now he managed to get to earth so quickly after you found the saddle. As for how he knew we were in Eridu, that is more distressing. The only possible way that he could have found us at that location, at that point in time, is that he already knows the layout of the map. The location of all the Markers.”
Jasper sat back and considered this. “So he could just be waiting for us when we get to China?”
“It is a possibility,” Io said, her face grim.
They were somewhere over Iran now. Mountains jutted up beneath them, and rags of snow were strewn about the bare, rocky slopes. It was a while before Io spoke.
“Why would the map lead us to China?” she said.
“Obviously, because that’s where the second Marker is.”
“Yes, but why begin the map in Eridu, then simply lead us somewhere else?”
Jasper thought about it. Put that way, it didn’t seem to make much sense. “You said when we were advanced enough, we’d be able to follow the map.”
“Yes...”
“When we were advanced enough...” Jasper repeated, deep in thought.
Io was growing irritated by his vagueness. “What?”
“Well, think about it. When they laid out the Markers ten thousand years ago, we were just starting to adopt agriculture. The first people to settle in the area were fishermen, farmers and herders. All from different places, different ways of life. Yet they all came together in that one place to found the world’s first city.”
Io saw where he was going with this. “You think the Marker drew them there?”
“Well...yeah. How often would they have come across a ten-foot metal pyramid?”
“Probably never,” she said, not getting that it was a rhetorical question. Jasper didn’t bother correcting her.
“Imagine the first people coming across it, not knowing what it was. Imagine one of them touching it like I did, and the whole thing exploding into a giant map of the earth.” He paused. “But that’s not what they would have seen. I’ve grown up in a world where people have walked on the moon and taken photos of the earth from a distance. I know what the world looks like. They didn’t. They wouldn’t have even known what they were looking at. The flashing red dot in China would have had no significance to them. They wouldn’t have been able to locate themselves on the map, let alone China.”
“So humankind needed to be advanced enough to realise where the dot was,” Io said, finishing his thought.
Jasper smiled. “Your people must have been pretty clever.”
“Still are,” Io said, with an air of mock-superiority. “Had you not already gathered that?”
Jasper settled back, content with having figured out the first clue.
“I suppose they buried it,” he said. “Covered it in sand and made that first little dune the chapel was built on.”
“Why would they bury it?”
Jasper shrugged. “Out of fear or...respect, maybe. They would’ve thought it was something left behind by the gods, something they didn’t want to mess with.”
Io was silent for a moment, a puzzled expression on her face. “The ziggurat must have been an attempt to recreate it, then? The stories would have been passed down through generations.”
“I think so, yeah.”
There was a pause, then Io said, “Do you suppose the same thing happened in China?”
Jasper considered it. “I guess we’ll find out.”
*
Mountains and deserts gave way to jungle, and then to even greater mountains as they passed into India and skirted along the Himalayas. Giant, snowy ridges cut into the sky, and as Jasper pointed out Mt. Everest, Io was quick to mention that she had much larger mountains on her homeworld.
Finally, the jungle returned as they came into China.
They flew close to the treetops, Jasper watching the unbroken canopy of green rolling out right beneath his feet – a carpet of leaves that seemed thick enough to walk on. Io was studying the Mind Map, which had automatically zoomed in as the blue dot approached the red one.
The Map was now entirely confined to mainland China, focused in on a region of the Yellow River north of Xi’an. The red dot was glowing over a bend in the waterway. Apparently, they were coming up on it fast, but as they left the jungle behind, all Jasper could see was farmland. The ground below was dissected into squares of all sizes and shades of green.
Then, suddenly, the ground fell away beneath them into the murky, brown water of the Yellow River.
Io slowed, and then stopped in mid-air. The river came towards them from the west, then curved sharply and disappeared around a bend. On either side, the banks rose in sheer, earthen walls that had been cut and made into terraced farms. Jasper could make out tiers of pooled water that were rice paddies and ant-sized people wading through them, barefoot.
Jasper and Io both looked at the map. The blue dot was almost directly over the red one.
“We are here,” she said. “But...I cannot see any sign of the Marker.”
“If we could see it, people would know about it.”
Io didn’t like his tone – her look said as much. “Where do you propose it is, then?”
Jasper shrugged. “Underground probably, like the one in Eridu.”
“Where underground?”
That, Jasper didn’t know. He scanned the earth below, looking for some sign, any sign. Any little mound or hill. At least in Eridu, there was a ziggurat to give away the Marker’s position.
“Do you suppose it even is a pyramid?” she said. “It might be something totally different.”
“What else could it be?”
“I do not know.”
Jasper thought about it. “Are pyramids sacred to your people?”
“Well...yes, I suppose.” She was surprised by the question, but he was not at all surprised by the answer.
He went on, “They were sacred to the earliest civilisations here on earth, too. The Egyptians built them, the Sumerians, the Aztecs. People separated by entire oceans and continents, with no way of contacting each other. I’m guessing the reason they built the ziggurat at Eridu was because of the Marker your people left there.”
“What is your point?”
“My point is...I think there’s a pattern here. If this map is going to take us to the other cradles of civilisation – which it’s looking like it is – then the building of pyramids all over the world by isolated peoples isn’t just a coincidence. They were finding what the Precursors left behind for them to find.”
“You think the Markers are pyramids just scattered all over the earth like...” She tried to find the right word or phrase, and Jasper offered, “A trail of breadcrumbs?”
Io gave him a puzzled look. Clearly, she had never heard the expression before.
“You know, like out of Hansel and Gretel?”
Again, Io just stared blankly, so Jasper continued, “Well, Hansel and Gretel left these breadcrumbs so they could find their way back home. I don’t think the Precursors left these breadcrumbs to guide themselves back home, but to guide us to them. So we can learn what they have to teach us. But then...why not just t
each us? Why make us follow this map?”
“Maybe to prove you are worthy.”
There was a certain haughtiness in her voice now and it riled him a little. “Worthy?”
“Of being saved. Or of being taught how to save yourselves.”
Jasper was tempted to argue the point, but instead he looked down at the silted river coursing beneath his feet and wondered if Io was right – if he was worthy, if his parents had been. And if they weren’t worth being saved, then how could he be? He watched the brown water moving along on its natural course, the same way it always had...
Then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. “Of course...”
Io looked over, seeing the light bulb brighten above his head. “What? What is it?”
“Look at the river,” Jasper said, tracing its shape with his finger. “We’re just assuming that it was exactly the same ten thousand years ago. But rivers flood and change shape over time. It probably wasn’t even close to where we are now. Zoom in on that map.”
Io turned her attention back to the Mind Map and it zoomed in instantly. As the view magnified, the blue dot was revealed to be a little to the south of the red one – not in the same location as it had previously seemed.
“I think you need to do your time rewind-y thing again,” Jasper said.
The smile that had crept back onto Io’s face quickly vanished. She was not at all impressed by his use of slang to describe such a technological marvel.
“It is called a Time Shift,” she said. “Shift. Not rewind-y thing.”
The word came out stilted and proper, and he had to stifle a laugh at her attempt. This did little to improve her mood. While still glaring at him, she raised her glove – which was glowing blue now – and for a moment, Jasper thought she might turn it on him.
Instead, she faced it to the land below and looked down at the world. He watched her doing this, watched her thinking and turning that thought into action. He imagined the impulses travelling down the neural pathways from her head to her hand, and then being converted, via the glove, into a physical reaction.