Horizon Alpha: Predators of Eden

by D. W. Vogel

  Josh has to see this, I thought, and turned to head back up the passage. I switched on my flashlight for the walk through the dark passage, and its beam hit the wall through which I had just arrived. And on that wall, I saw the writing.

  Chapter 30

  I played my flashlight over the rough walls of the cave.

  It really was writing.

  Not some kind of debris left by crawling insects, or some random pattern from centuries of water trickling down from the glowing ceiling, but intricate shapes painted in straight vertical lines as far as my beam illuminated. I had no idea what it said, and didn’t recognize a single letter or number. It looked like nothing I’d ever seen in the enormous archives of Horizon’s stored history of all Earth’s written works. Asian characters and Middle Eastern letters, ancient Greek and even hieroglyphics . . . I couldn’t read a word of them, but I knew what they looked like.

  These lines were straight and scratchy, with lots of parallels and crosshatching. The paint flaked in places, but it didn’t look ancient. I followed the wall of writing around the perimeter of the room and made another discovery. Of the many passages that led off this huge cave, only some were natural. The tunnel I had walked through to get here, that led back out to the front opening of the mountain where Josh waited for me, that one was a rough channel of varying height and width. Several other natural holes led off this space, but others had the rounded smoothness that only fine tools could shape. Flat floors and clear cuts told me these tunnels were not formed by water or by the natural movement of continents that pushed mountains up from the sea and rent holes in stone.

  Someone lives here. Someone that isn’t a ‘saur or a dumb shrew.

  I racked my brain, remembering all I’d been taught about Earth animals. There had been plenty of diggers, creatures who burrowed into the soil to make safe nests or hunt for prey. Even worms could push through softer dirt. Could an animal have carved these rounded spaces?

  The blue light from the cave ceiling and my flashlight’s thin beam did not illuminate this space to my liking. My imagination went wild in the dark, enclosed space.

  I had watched too many movies onboard Horizon. An image of horror popped into my brain, of giant worms that bored through the ground. That could bore through solid stone, just like this, on a planet far from Earth. I pictured huge worms with gnashing teeth, spiraling through solid rock toward me from every side. It was just a movie. Not real. They couldn’t know if it was real. Or maybe enormous moles with steel claws, scrabbling through the mountain to investigate this noise, this human smell. Who or what had carved these passages, and where were they now?

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in primal dread.

  Stop it. You’re being ridiculous. This isn’t Dune. I kept my back pressed to the wall, wildly swinging my flashlight through the darkness. Inching around to the path I had entered by, I gritted my teeth, waiting for claws or teeth to rip through the stone and my body. But nothing moved in this gloom except me and the tiny glowing worms that twinkled on the ceiling. When I reached the correct tunnel I ran, ducking and weaving around the natural rock formations that suddenly looked so comforting.

  I emerged blinking from the mouth of the cave.

  “Josh! Scat it, Josh, you have to see this!” I shouted down to him.

  He stood up, tucking my trans into his pocket. “Where did you get off to? I was getting worried.”

  “Never mind that, Josh, you have got to see what’s in this cave!” I repeated. I felt much braver in the sunlight.

  “Okay, what did you find? Let’s be quick about it. We have a long walk tonight.”

  “Come up here. I can’t tell you, you just need to see it.”

  He frowned and looked out across the jungle. The sun was nearing its zenith. If we were going to try to reach base tonight, we had about seven hours before we needed to leave. Plenty of time.

  I led him down the left-hand tunnel and into the huge open cave.

  “Whoa, this is really beautiful,” he began, looking up at the indoor sky of blue glowing stars.

  “Not that,” I said, grabbing his shoulders to turn him back toward the wall. “This.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “This looks like writing.”

  “That’s what I thought. It’s paint. See? It’s flaking off in places, you can pick it away. No way is it natural.” I took his arm and pulled him down the wall. “That’s not all, though. Look at this,” I said, and played my flashlight beam around the smooth edge of one of the unnatural tunnels.

  “You know what this means?” he asked quietly, running his hands over the tool marks on the wall.

  “Something else lives here. Something that’s not a ‘saur.”

  “Something intelligent, that uses tools and paint,” he added.

  “Are you sure? Could it be some kind of huge tunneling animal?” I asked. The gaping maw of my imaginary tunnel worm flashed into my mind.

  “No, I don’t think so. These marks are too regular, too smooth. No animal did this. It looks like the work of humans, but you and I are the first to ever set foot in this place. And the painting on the wall, whatever those letters are. Not an animal, definitely.”

  I nodded in the blue worms’ glow.

  “Sara has got to see this. She’ll go nuts.”

  Josh laughed. “That’s for sure. I’m not sure Erik can make the climb up here, but let’s go tell them.”

  I followed him back out of the cave.

  “So what did Mom say? How long do they have at base? We’re going tonight?” In the excitement of discovery I had almost forgotten about Eden base.

  “Their power is getting low. They can hold out through tomorrow as long as nothing presses the fence.”

  I stopped smiling. When one of the bigger ‘saurs bumped into the electric wires surrounding our base, the current gave it a nasty jolt. But it often caused a power surge through the fence. With only the fading power supply from the two remaining shuttles, Eden’s fences wouldn’t survive a large surge. And once the ‘saurs figured out the wires weren’t juiced anymore . . .

  “So we go tonight, right? We can make it by morning. Once the power core is installed, everyone will be okay.”

  “We go tonight,” Josh agreed. “And the core will hold us for a while.”

  Chapter 31

  Sara went nuts.

  “Writing? Real writing, not just mold or something on the cave walls? You’re sure?”

  She peppered us with questions as we repeated the morning’s climb. Erik stayed below. I hoped he’d be able to keep up tonight on the way back to base. The bullets were probably still in his leg somewhere, but the wounds had closed over in the three months he and Josh had been hiding in the lower cave.

  We brought all the flashlights and a large lantern, part of the haul Josh had recovered from the tank. The back of the small cave below held weapons and ammo, blankets and medical supplies.

  “Why didn’t you just get in the tank and drive Erik back to base?” I asked Josh as we climbed.

  “I tried to. But we left the hatch open when we went out on the mission and by the time I got back to the tank, the shrews had gotten inside. They must have chewed through some wiring or something because it doesn’t start.”

  My heart sank. For a brief moment I pictured us crashing through the forest in that tank tonight, rumbling along with the power core safely stowed away. I wasn’t able to open the hatch when I was alone on the tank, but I hoped maybe Josh and I together could have popped it. Figures it wouldn’t work. It looked like we would be walking after all. As much as I hated the idea of trudging through the jungle again, I felt a moment’s relief. If the tank had been working, Josh could have come back to Eden base at any time. As thrilled as I was to find him out here, I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit of resentment that we’d mourned him for months while he hid in a cave.

  We reached the entrance to the cavern. Sara plunged ahead, eager to get to the writ
ings.

  “Take the left-hand passage,” I called to her as she disappeared into the darkness.

  I heard her exclaim when she got to the huge glowing chamber.

  “Amazing! It’s glowworms up there!”

  Josh and I exchanged a grin.

  Sara was kneeling on the floor examining the first column of strange writing when we emerged. The large lantern lit most of the cave and I could now see to the far walls. Maybe ten passages led away from this enormous hall, most of them smooth and round.

  I walked into the middle of the room with far more confidence than the first time I was here.

  “I’m going to check out some of these tunnels,” I said, and chose one at random.

  It led off to the right, deep into the mountainside. I crept along until I came to an opening, another passage leading off at a right angle. I considered following it, but decided that since I had no string or paint to mark my way, I should stay on the straight path. Even with Josh and Sara within shouting distance, I didn’t want to get lost in what might be a confusing warren of tunnels.

  Several more paths led away from this main thoroughfare, but I continued until it dead-ended in a T. I chose the left-hand fork. I’ll just see what’s down here. But there were more passages leading into this one, and I knew I’d lose my way in no time, so I retraced my steps to the huge open room where Sara was frantically scribbling in her sketchbook. I didn’t see Josh.

  “There are tunnels and more tunnels in this place,” I said.

  Sara looked up from her writing.

  “Someone cut these tunnels,” she said, echoing my earlier thought.

  “Do you think they’re still here?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think so. Not for a long time. Ours are the only footprints in the dirt, and this paint is old. It doesn’t look like anyone has been here in many years.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. It just feels abandoned. It reminds me of Horizon, how it must look inside now.” My father and a few of his officers stayed behind in the chaos of the evacuation. The oxygen wouldn’t have lasted more than a few hours once the ship’s hull was breached by the explosion that sent us fleeing for the planet’s surface. It would be dark in there now, airless, still. Only ghosts prowled its metal hallways, silent in endless orbit.

  “I agree,” Sara said. “I wonder who these people were? And where they went?”

  “Can you read any of the writing?”

  “No. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. I don’t know the characters or the language it’s written in. But you were right, someone here had a lot to say.”

  “Where did Josh go?”

  “Exploring, like you. He said we could spend an hour here, then we should try to get a nap in before sundown.” Her face darkened.

  “Just one more night in the jungle,” I encouraged her. “By morning we’ll be home.”

  “Home,” she repeated, and turned back to the markings on the wall.

  I chose a different tunnel at the far end of the cavern. This one was smaller. At regular intervals small chambers branched off it, single rooms hewn out of the stone. Most of them were empty, but a few held objects I couldn’t identify. Some of it resembled furniture, wooden pallets that might have once been padded with cloth or woven grass to make a mattress. Tiny items of bright metal, some of it still bearing vividly-colored paint were under the pallet, as if left behind and forgotten by whoever lived here once. I picked one of the little metal things up. It was a clip of some kind, hinged to clamp on top of something. No rust marred its surface and the front was painted in red and gold in a swirling pattern. I tucked it into my pocket.

  A recent memory flashed into my mind as I tucked the bright metal object away. A memory of the General digging around the mud of the swamp, excavating another shining metal object. Whoever painted on these walls and made the discarded items I was seeing in the tunnels, they had traveled as far as the swamp. Or had some kind of drone that traveled for them.

  The hallway ended in a steep staircase leading downward. There were no handrails, and my flashlight didn’t penetrate far into the gloom. I listened and heard nothing moving below but a breath of moving air fluttered past my face.

  I turned back at the top of the stairs.

  On the way down this hallway I had looked into the rooms on the left side. Now I reversed direction, looking at the rooms on the other side. I kept flashing my light behind me, making sure nothing had crept up those dark stairs, but I was alone.

  The last room I examined was the closest to the cave where Sara worked. It was larger than the others and I shined my light along the walls.

  It was full of paintings, pictures drawn in the same paint as the writing in the main cavern. They showed figures with two legs and two arms, figures that walked upright like humans. The shapes didn’t look human, but there was no question that the posture was bipedal. I moved along, examining the pictures. I saw the images of the painters, which I assumed these figures depicted, engaged in different activities. One picture clearly showed a T-rex eating one of the humanoids. One showed a Wolf pack. And one of them clearly showed a circle of them around a Brachi lying on the ground . . . a successful hunt. My flashlight showed these images, one by one.

  I was so engrossed in the pictures that until I tripped over it, I didn’t even notice the body.

  Chapter 32

  I yipped and jumped back.

  But there was no mistaking what it was. My mouth hung open as I stared at it.

  It was ages dead, dried and shriveled. Tight skin stretched over bones, flesh mummified by the dry air in the cave.

  I backed out of the room and ran for the light of the lantern.

  “Sara! Josh!” I yelled, skidding to a halt in the middle of the huge cave.

  “What are you yelling about? You’ll wake the dead!” Josh joked, emerging from a nearby tunnel.

  “I won’t wake this dead,” I answered. “Come here, both of you. There’s one of them still here!”

  “One of who?” Josh asked.

  I led them to the room and shined my light on the desiccated corpse.

  “Stars,” Sara murmured.

  Illuminated by all three of our flashlights, the still form looked less alarming.

  “It looks . . . like a bird.” Sara said.

  And it did. The figures painted on the wall with their strangely-shaped heads and long arms suddenly made sense. The mummy lay curled on the floor. Its two empty eye sockets sat atop a rounded beak with teardrop nostrils and a serrated edge. Its two legs ended in taloned feet that were flat on the bottom. The creature wore a rotted garment long-stripped of color, and the skin of its head and long arms were studded with the decayed pins of what must once have been feathers. One long-fingered hand rested on a metal dish, black with the dried remains of his paint.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Sara murmured.

  “Look at the pictures,” I said, shining my light on the walls of this room. Each picture was accompanied by writing in the same scratchy characters as the main cave. Sara examined one of the drawings.

  “It’s obvious that his kind drew these,” she said. “Look, you can see the beak and the . . . wings? Arms?”

  “They walked on two legs like us,” Josh said.

  “And none of these drawings show them flying,” she agreed. “But that’s not what is so strange. Have you seen any birds here on Eden? Ever?”

  “Well, the pterosaurs fly like birds,” I offered.

  “Yes, but they’re not birds. I mean like Earth birds. With feathers. Like this guy,” she indicated the still mummy on the floor.

  “No. I only know real birds from books.”

  “Exactly. So what is he doing here? If this planet evolved birds smart enough to have written language and tools, then where are the rest? Not just where are the rest of this poor fellow’s lost tribe, but where are the other branches of the family? Earth was full of primates, of which humans were the smartest. So where ar
e all the other species of birds?”

  None of us had an answer.

  Sara knelt down next to the mummy.

  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “We need to get back down the mountain and get geared up. We have to leave for base in a few hours.”

  Sara looked stricken. “I can’t leave now. I have to study this. I need to record all these drawings, the writing. I need to study the body.”

  “We need to get the power core back to Eden. Otherwise we’ll be the only four people left alive on the planet,” I reminded her.

  “Or the only four people left alive in the universe,” Josh said, almost to himself. It was a sobering thought.

  “Maybe so, if we don’t hurry,” I insisted.

  Sara hesitated and opened her mouth as if to protest, then followed us out of the small room.

  We collected the lantern and climbed back down to the lower cave where Erik waited. We told him all about our finds, and he nodded in wonder.

  “Where did they go? Maybe they’re still here on the planet somewhere. Maybe they could help us.”

  Sara shook her head. “That cave has been abandoned for years, maybe centuries. I don’t know how long it takes for a body to dry out like that, but no one has been in these caves for a very long time. I doubt there are any bird people left here.”

  I took the power core out of the tattered pack and placed it in a newer one, cinching down the flap. I started to organize the weapons Josh had salvaged from the tank.

  “We’ll make a travel pack for each of us. Weapons and flashlights,” I began.

  “I’m not going,” Sara said.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m staying here. I can’t leave this place. I need to study it, figure out what happened here. I can’t go back to Eden now.” Her eyes were pleading but her lips were set in a straight line.