Now he was in the machine, bringing it to life. The men on the deck of the King Solomon looked up as a beam of pale blue light, more powerful than any lighthouse they could imagine, shone through the storm directly at the pylon where Lynella was.
Paul put his entire being into the light. Around it he could sense both Lynella and the presence in the network. He did not communicate with them in words, just images of systems and rituals from long ago, which he drew from the God and showed to Lynella.
Now the angel flew into the storm, dancing around the light, sometimes in the beam, sometimes beside it. She was buffeted by the blasts of wind which threw her hair out in long strands around her head; but seemed unable to touch the rest of her body, cocooned in its sphere of pinpoints of light. At one moment she would look like a cluster of stars above the cylinder of light, but a moment later she would be inside it, blazing like a sun with her face framed by the halo of the ring.
On the ship the crew dropped to their knees in prayer. They held on as best they could as the deck swayed in the storm and the angel came towards them.
Paul could not see what he was doing in the real world, but he knew what it must look like. He felt as if he was part of it, he was drawing information and power from others, but he was an essential conduit, a link between God and man. His rational cynicism faded mainly because he made it fade. He felt that what he was doing was an act of faith. If he lost his faith it would all collapse. Lynella would fall to the sea and drown in the storm.
He had no idea how long she took to transport, it could have been seconds or hours. Somehow, he opened a door in the side of the room and closed it behind her when she came in. After that he let go and slowly felt his mind leave the network, holding on just long enough to get out before slipping into unconsciousness.
14
The director had been looking forward to the reply from earth. He had even kept a shuttle busy for several days placing satellites in orbit to detect it. The bullets entered from hyperspace and then it took up to a few weeks for them to be collected depending on how near the target the emerged. The reply to his first report had come through in good time; and had been detected immediately because the ship was still in orbit. That reply had brought worrying news about political changes on earth, but he was confident that his second report would guarantee him fame fortune and a place in history. He had, after all, reported first contact with native people and the potential of their technology.
His first reaction when the report came was to tell the Abbot and invite him for a drink in anticipation of the news that would come. His desire to impress this man was so strong that it troubled him at times, especially when his staff made thinly disguised comments. This time he ignored these worries, the man would surely be impressed by the praise from the great powers on earth.
They saw the shuttle land in the compound. The container was delivered by an officer who turned smartly and left the room after showing him the unbroken official seals. Secretly, he always wished that they would salute him like their senior officers, but he did not let his disappointment distract him. He fumbled slightly with the seals and looked up to see the Abbot smile in a way that might have been condescending. The man was holding out his hand. The director instinctively started to pass him the disc but quickly saw he only wanted the container. Another condescending smile as he looked at the complex container with its shining holographic seals.
‘I shall admire the technology in this small item while you enter the codes.’ He walked back in a deliberate way and sat in the chair that was furthest from the director’s desk. This was quite un-necessary, because it would not have been possible for him to see the passwords from any of the chairs other than the one in which the director was sitting.
He started entering the passwords when he looked up to see the Abbot looking in great detail at the seals. ‘The company seal is a work of art isn’t it.’ He commented with pride.
‘These are not the seals of your company’ the Abbot said.
‘What are they?’ He replied suddenly thinking that he had carelessly broken them without even looking at them.
‘They are seals of the United States of America. It is written on them.’
This was the new order, he should not be surprised, but he should have looked. Why did this man always see what he missed?
He used the last password to open the executive folder and displayed the leading message. The next thing he noticed was that the Abbot was standing beside him. He knew that he must have gone completely silent for so long that he had come over to investigate.
ALL CONTACT WITH NATIVE PEOPLES MUST CEASE IMMEDIATELY. MINING MAY ONLY CONTINUE WHERE THIS DOES NOT AFFECT LOCAL PEOPLES AND CULTURES IN ANY WAY. AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT MUST BE DESPATCHED TO US WITHIN SEVEN DAYS WITH YOUR CONFIRMATION OF COMPLIANCE WITH THIS INSTRUCTION.
‘You are shocked.’ The Abbot said, leaning close to him.
‘We must pretend we haven’t seen it.’ He replied quickly. ‘Never seen it. The disc was damaged. No. The bullet was lost in hyperspace. Something like that. Lost and destroyed.’ He was about to close it when the Abbot replied. ‘Wait, we must read the rest.’
He felt slightly uneasy as the Abbot drew up a chair to read through the whole confidential folder with him; but the man’s manner soon put him at ease. They read a long and detailed criticism of his handling of the contact. The document kept referring to the rules of contact for aliens. A committee had been formed as soon as the first light speed ship had been designed. Months had been spent drafting them and eight volumes had been produced, all carefully thought out to prevent everything from inter-galactic war to unwanted influences in folk music. He had ignored the contact rules knowing that the old company management was not interested in them.
The Abbot poured scorn on the message, and he soon found himself joining in and regaining his confidence.
‘You couldn’t have done that.’ The Abbot was saying. ‘By the time you were informed Paul Evans had already made the contact and broken all the rules. These people don’t understand the situation.’
‘We must reply and tell them all about it.’ He said. ‘Tell them what would happen if we let them all go back to the kingdoms.’ He reached for the intercom to summon an assistant.
The Abbot moved quickly. The only word he said was ‘Perhaps’ and the movement of his arm was only slight, but the effect was sufficient to stop the Director before he reached the button.
‘Perhaps we should not be specific.’ He said. ‘Perhaps we should think very carefully what we tell them. The new town you have built for them.’ He paused while the Director realised that he was referring to the collection of huts his men had assembled. ‘Perhaps we should not mention that. But we should guard it more carefully. That’s what they want isn’t it, secure measures to prevent contact.’
‘I think they would want us to release them back to their towns.’ The Director said, before realising he was stating the obvious. The Abbot ignored him.
They started preparing a carefully worded reply promising compliance and lying by omission. The Director started a long section blaming Paul for what had happened, accusing him of mutiny and even attempted murder. The Abbot looked at it carefully.
‘No.’ He said finally. ‘We must not tell them of any problems.’
‘But, as you said just now, they will find it all out when we get back.’
‘I have reconsidered. That is in a year’s time.’ The Abbot replied with a broad smile. ‘Let’s not worry about it yet.’
During the next few days the report and the impact assessment were prepared. Their relationship with reality faded as they progressed.
15
The harbour breakwaters were massive and appeared to be in perfect condition with their smooth metal surface gleaming in the sunlight. Only the absence of working ships, and the encroachment of the jungle on the city beyond, showed that it had not been used for generations. Sailing around the end of the wall they saw the whole ci
ty. Wide boulevards fanned out from the port with great houses to either side. The jungle had taken hold, with mature trees established in the roads and creeper obscuring the windows and hanging off the ornate balconies. The only structure which defeated it was the wall, which reached higher than the tallest house and encircled the whole city coming down to the harbour at either side.
‘What on earth is that wall for?’ Maria asked.
Captain Turner was standing next to her. ‘To defend the city of course.’ He replied
‘What from?’
‘Presumably dragons or other people or.’ His sentence tailed off as he realised what he was saying. Lynella had killed dragons on sight, and the mages from this city had been much more powerful than she had been when she had done it. This close to the mountain, the mage ships could fly so no people could threaten them. Nobody could imagine any possible reason why the walls were needed.
There were wrecks in the harbour which looked as if they had simply been abandoned at their moorings. They lined many of the wharves, and some lay in groups where they had been anchored in the open water. Many of them had masts still standing and, as with those at the island, these stood clear of the water with the remains of their standing rigging still on them. One open channel lay between them leading to a length of wharf which seemed to form an ideal mooring.
Adam ordered the anchor dropped and, as the cable came taut, the ship stopped in mid-channel. All except the crew had been so engrossed in looking at the city they never noticed him give the order, and now Lynella turned to ask him why they had stopped.
‘It’s a trap.’ He replied in his usual tone which left no opening for discussion. ‘This ship will remain here until it’s cleared.’
There was no shortage of volunteers to row them down the channel in the ship’s boat. She stood with Paul at the front while the four men rowed slowly forward and the crowd on the ship watched. Looking down through the clear water they soon found the start of an elaborate pathway for their power. Pausing in their plane only long enough to tell their crew to stop the boat and keep it in place they rested their physical bodies against the warm planking and descended to the gateway.
This city was a place to live. The machines which it lived to serve were under the mountain behind it. Apart from the simple defence at the wharf, which Lynella had disdainfully ignored, the power that was formed within it provided the many domestic requirements of the houses. The gates in the wall at the far side of the city could be opened with the simplest possible command. They explored the houses, Lynella leading, rushing in to find the perfectly crafted devices made for the individual owners and show them to Paul as he followed her. She turned lights on and off as they went leaving their friends on the ship staring at the old buildings to see what would happen next. She even chose a house and showed him how they would live in it. She explained how they could use each room before moving on to explore the streets around it. He wanted her to stop, to leave things which could wait for another day, but she rushed on to find more. He sensed her energy dwindling and shouted that she must stop. He pleaded with her to wait until their bodies were safely on land. Finally, she listened, and they returned. He had to remind her to disable the trap as they passed the wharf.
It was almost dark when they moored up and, with assurances from Lynella that it was safe, the crew wandered through the magnificent streets. They paused only to enjoy fruit from the many orchards which had survived well, and even seeded some of the trees which had grown up in the streets. Beyond the streets, but still within the walls, they found areas fully grown over with trees, and realised that they must have been fields for crops. They crossed them to look up at the walls towering above them, but still nobody could work out why they were needed.
Their first meeting took place a few days later in the chamber of the city hall. Many of the streets and houses had been cleared, and a start had been made on the fields. Angus felt awkward talking to the crowd, but he seemed the only person prepared to speak for the people from the planet.
He started by explaining that he could not represent the views of all of them. He knew that some had come from Adam’s village and he knew little of their backgrounds. For the people from the kingdoms, however, he knew that their great wish was to reclaim the land from the Director and set free the people who were imprisoned at the source. He was realistic. ‘We shall have to wait’ he explained. ‘Our priority is to defend this place until the Atlanta goes’.
The discussion moved on to the details of the defences. ‘We have two choices.’ Angus explained. ‘We either clear the land for crops inside the walls and risk a shuttle landing on it or we farm outside the walls.’ Since nobody knew what the walls were built to keep, out nobody really knew the answer to this.
‘The Director’s got to explain the loss of two shuttles already.’ Captain Turner observed. ‘I don’t think he’ll risk another’. In the end, they decided to farm inside the walls.
The days were taken up with clearing the fields, sowing the crops was the highest priority. Fishing was also essential to provide food to go with the supplies they had brought with them and the fruit from the orchards. Exploring the town was a lower priority, but they still found time driven both by curiosity and, also a desire to know what else there was that shared the protection of the walls.
Most of the town was built to the same opulent architectural style but, as they cleared more of the streets, they came across some buildings that looked older and more basic. Towards the eastern end of the harbour there was a group of cottages which looked as if they might have been built around a simple fishing port. Behind them there was an area which was completely overgrown. Realising that this would have been an area of garden, they decided that it was not worth the effort of clearing, so they worked around the edge and, on the far side, they found a church.
Behind the bushes and creeper, they found walls and buttresses built out of roughly hewn stone. Clearing more, they saw that many parts had been added and changed with finer materials, but the basic building clearly dated back to soon after the original landing. The tower was old and solid and seemed to have been lowered to keep it well below the level of the city walls. A mage lock on the door made them suspicious so they continued cutting away the undergrowth all the way round the outside before gathering to watch as Lynella opened it.
Inside, the sun pouring in through the windows revealed nothing that showed any connection to Christianity. All of the images were of the intricate circular patterns of the mages. There were no pews or altar, just numerous circular tables of different sizes surrounded with wooden rails and screens.
Looking more closely, however, they could see traces of the original purpose of the building. Some of the windows had stained glass which showed pictures of saints. At one point on the wall an inscription included a cross. It had been carefully worked into a new pattern, but was still visible for what it was.
Paul sat down with Lynella at one of the tables and, almost without thinking, entered the network, expecting to find the now familiar pathways around the city. Suddenly the presence was talking to them.
‘Where have you been? Why have you stayed away? You have been in the city for some days now, but you have not found me.’
With a shock, he realised that they had been taken directly to the main highways of the network. There had been no portal to warn them. He felt obliged to make excuses, pleading that they had been busy.
‘Your faith is not something that you can forget about and pick up when you need it. Your God is demanding.’
‘Are you God?’
There was a pause. Long enough for him to feel Lynella’s horror and fear the response. Then it came. ‘No – I am Tiana. I am the prophet. I light the way for you to find God. Serving me is serving Him. Following me is following Him.’
He thought about this and decided that the scenario was becoming more familiar. History was populated with prophets, not Gods. In some ways, the new revelation would make life
easier, because he could not take very seriously the idea of worshiping somebody who engaged in conversation. In other ways, it made life more difficult because it was going to be far harder to find out if they were genuine. Nobody had managed to persuade many people that they were a genuine God since man had moved out of the caves. Prophets got far more credibility by only saying that they talked to God.
Paul noticed that, while he had been trying to decide what to do, nobody had been saying anything. Perhaps prophets needed a good flow of questions to be able to provide smart answers. Lynella obliged, first asking for forgiveness and then asking what the God demanded.
‘First you must come to this mountain and reclaim the halls which are being desecrated by the dragons.’
Paul panicked. This whole business was interesting and had proved extremely useful in getting them away from the pylon. Now they were going to have to take it seriously. What was being demanded sounded extremely dangerous and nearly impossible. The idea of risking his life for something he did not really believe in, did not appeal to him at all.
‘You must come to this temple every day and receive more instruction.’ The prophet added before telling them to leave the network and tell their comrades that they must also follow the ways of the god of the ancient mages.
Back in the church, he was just regaining his senses when a powerful light appeared. He looked up. Just below the rafters of the roof a vast glowing ring had appeared. So bright that he had to shield his eyes. It was almost as wide as the church. A brilliant pale blue torus. It pulsed every few seconds. Glowing even brighter, humming. The noise reverberated off the old walls. Ancient plaster fell away in clouds of dust. Then it faded. A few more seconds and it was gone. Vanishing and leaving no metal ring or any other trace behind it.
Ringships Page 27