The Sigian Bracelet

by George Tome

  Even though his full name was Gillabrian, the Antyran tradition dictated that his friends only used the first letters, “Gill,” while his enemies, if he had any, would use the last ones—namely, Abrian. No one called him Abrian—at least not yet—since he was just a secluded archivist hidden behind his archaeological interests, trying hard to avoid stepping on anyone’s tail. Although he had no doubts that if he managed to crawl higher on the rigid hierarchy of the Archivists Tower, lots of archivists would call him Abrian behind his back. It would be inevitable.

  He was living in the crowded outskirts of the capital city, Alixxor, far enough from Karajoo’s noises—but not far enough from Tadeo’s long arm. After grudgingly greeting the hologram of his boss, he dressed as fast as he could and abandoned his tempting nest to face the morning chill.

  He didn’t usually have to wake up so early because his work started at more decent hours, but Tadeoibiisi’s voice didn’t allow him any doubts that something serious had happened. His boss asked him to drive with utmost speed on one of the western magneto-bypasses. According to the instructions, he was to park the magneto-jet in a vertical parking lot and meet a security crew to bring him to a secret base in one of their chameleon sky-jets.

  He stopped for a moment, trying to get used to the darkness inside the underground base. It might have gone faster if he could manage to keep his eyes open, but despite his goodwill (to be honest, not a great deal of it), the treacherous darkness lured him to shut them again immediately.

  A dim light revealed a long corridor vaulted with greenish stone tiles descending gently into the earth’s bowels. A few steps away, he spotted several silhouettes, the unmistakable one belonging to Tadeoibiisi—his boss—a head taller than the others.

  “Gill! Sorry I woke you up, but you have to see what we just brought in. Very important stuff. And, above all, very damn secret,” said Tadeo with a somber intonation.

  Gill approached the group and briefly greeted them with his fist pressed to his left breast, according to the custom.

  “They’re going to work with us,” Tadeo said, then started the introductions. “I believe you already know our colleagues from the Archivists Tower: prime archivist Krinandrin, archivist Armondengava, and his assistant, Ernonhafir. The others are from the Security Tower. They’ll help us with the examinations as part of the team.” He didn’t say their names. Most likely, he didn’t know them, either. “My assistant, Alala, has gone to the Security Tower, but she’ll join us later. Should have been here already, but it looks like she’ll be late.”

  Of all the names, Gill only knew Alala. With the others, he barely exchanged a casual greeting when he stumbled into them in the dark corridors of the Archivists Tower.

  Alala was a beautiful Antyran, one of the few pleasant faces in an institution packed with old male researchers, invariably owning some large desks full of boring holograms of their fat, androgynous nephews; ancient rolls; and drawings stained by sardac juice.

  He had few opportunities to talk with her—mostly when he was looking for Tadeo—but even though she always looked friendly and cheerful, he never managed to smell her. Usually, it took him little time to figure out what kind of Antyran he was dealing with, but Alala was a different story. She had something special—mysterious and cold—in her eyes, which didn’t bode well with the friendly mask worn on the outside. And instead of minding his own business, he felt attracted to her like an innocent licant9 by a tekal seed, anxious to peer behind the wall she raised between her and the rest of the world. Maybe this was his chance to finally get know her better…

  “Let’s go,” shouted Tadeo and waved his right hand to ask them to follow him. “Alala knows where to find us. We don’t have to wait for her.”

  “I figured it has to be something big since you awoke me so awfully early, but what the heck are we doing here?” mumbled Gill in a low voice, trying to make himself heard only by Tadeo’s ear holes. “Did you visit… one of the vitrified cities?” he quivered, haunted by a gloomy feeling.

  “You’ll see!” his boss said, smiling. “A bit more than that. We found something buried on Antyra II.”

  “Oh, come on! You can’t dig things on that planet! There’s no history there,” Gill exclaimed, incredulous, forgetting to control the pitch of his voice. “We barely colonized it!”

  “You’re right. There’s no Antyran history,” Tadeo said with a smile.

  “Then what the—”

  An imposing soldier appeared from a dark gallery, blocking their way.

  “And who’s this one?” the voice whipped in Gill’s general direction while the soldier’s eyes stung him as if he was perfectly able to read his darkest secrets right through his skull.

  “He’s one of my assistants, our best researcher of comparative anatomy!”

  Tadeo had this talent of “slightly” exaggerating things, especially when he talked with profanes. Truth was, comparative anatomy was Gill’s specialty—but still, the “best researcher” was a bit of a stretch.

  “I need him to analyze the skeletons. Moreover, it’s not his first sensitive project with… the Security Tower. Here’s the approval,” Tadeo said and handed over a hologram.

  Then he turned his head toward him.

  “Gill, this is the bunker comman—”

  “Right… checking now,” the commander sputtered, rudely interrupting Tadeo. He blatantly ignored the cherished Antyran palm ritual, which didn’t really surprise anyone.

  Same pleasure meeting you… I hope I won’t have to meet your sorry mug too often, thought Gill, annoyed by his lack of manners. He was never too happy to meddle with security’s bullies, and this particular soldier seemed to be one of its finest embodiments. The commander held the hologram near a wall scanner until a green light lit, and then he moved off their path.

  “Move to the elevator! Down to the last level!” he waved his hand vigorously to encourage them to speed up their steps.

  The descent went on forever. Gill glanced through the transparent walls at the countless layers of basaltic rock in which the secret base was dug, below a training garrison built at the surface as a decoy. Surely very few Antyrans were aware of this. It was quite remarkable how the security forces managed to excavate something that huge right in front of the temples’ nostrils. But he couldn’t help wondering if Baila XXI knew about this place. Most likely, yes—his spies and agents swarmed the Shindam’s Towers and informed him about pretty much everything. And considering what a ruckus Tadeo must have caused with this expedition, everyone in the elevator was in mortal danger if the temples found out the slightest thing about it.

  As they dropped lower and lower, he started to feel the cold numbness of fear seeping into his bones. Even though he was aware that few archivists had the good fortune to die of “natural causes” at a ripe old age, he’d rather get killed outside, bathed in starlight, than buried alive like a baski10 in this stinky hole.

  The elevator finally stopped. Gill walked briskly behind Tadeo through a series of armored doors and reached a long gallery, better lighted than the entry tunnels. Looking through the thick glass walls on the corridor’s sides, he saw a long row of laboratories stuffed with all sorts of unidentified machines and displays.

  “You told the ‘nice’ commander something about err… some skeletons?” asked Gill, dispelling the silence.

  “We found the skeletons of the gods!” replied Tadeo, grinning from gill to gill.

  “What?” Gill exploded, filling the cavern with long echoes.

  “As you heard. Look here,” he said, pointing to a large automatic door, which opened when they reached the area in front of it.

  They stepped inside a round room whose wall to the corridor was made of ceramic glass. The god lay on a table in the middle of the room, bathed in a bluish glow coming from a bunch of lights hung on a portable stand. Gill approached it slowly, holding his breath, not daring to believe that what he saw was real. Two scientists in blue robes were carefully measurin
g the skeleton.

  Did the bones belong to a god? No one knew what a god should look like. There were no descriptions, except the ones of Beramis, a giant firewall, and Belamia, an eternal twister. The skeleton, in any case, didn’t resemble a firewall or a tornado. It looked just the way a skeleton was supposed to look. But what a skeleton! One thing was obvious to everyone in the room: the bones didn’t come from their planet and had no connection to any living or long-gone Antyran species.

  Its stature was similar to that of the Antyrans, but the similarities ended there. Its bones were more robust; the big, elongated skull had prominent arches, and its strong arms had wide hands with four long fingers, ending in claws. It was bipedal, and—another amazing detail—the tail was missing!

  “Can it be a genetic manipulation?” Tadeo asked him. “Look at the pelvic bones, they’re—”

  “No. I don’t see how somebody could build such a thing,” Gill babbled, hardly finding his breath. “I’ll tell you more after checking the others. Did you say you found more of them?”

  “Yes. And we found the remains of a ship. A golden one, just like the Fire Chariots.” Tadeo grinned with the serenity of someone having no worries to squeeze his tail.

  “A Fire Chariot? How did a Fire Chariot end up on—”

  “Shot down. We found a hole this big,” said Tadeo, showing him the size with his hands. “Some sort of a laser beam.”

  As Tadeo happily revealed more and more details of the unbelievable story, Gill felt claustrophobic again and had to fight the urge to run back to the surface to get some fresh air. What a huge mistake I made to answer the call this morning, he thought.

  “The anatomists are checking the remains. Soon, we’ll have more details,” said Tadeo.

  “How old… how old do you think they are?” murmured Gill.

  “Several hundred, maybe a thousand years. Look at the bones! They spent quite some time underground.”

  “Right. At first smell, I’ll give them over five hundred. Anyway, they’re pretty well preserved. I hope we can date them.”

  “I thought that myself,” Tadeo said with a smirk. “What if they came from another world, with a different isotope frame? The radioactive dating would… jump off the scale,” he uttered in a low voice, aware that he just said the biggest conceivable blasphemy.

  “You’re insane,” whispered Gill, although he wasn’t sure anymore that he was saner.

  A sane Antyran wouldn’t be here, two steps away from the… creatures.

  “The other skeletons are here, too?”

  “Yes, back there,” Tadeo said, waving his hand toward a pile of black crates stacked in a corner. “There’s one in another lab I want you to check out. Someone will lead you to it.”

  “Are there any children?” asked Gill.

  “Only adults. There’s no visible sexual dimorphism.”

  “Maybe they’re all males?”

  “That’s one of the things I expect you to tell me,” Tadeo said, still smiling.

  “Of course. I’ll start working right now.”

  Surely the soldiers won’t let us out of the bunker until the research is finished, but I need my microtomograph, my spectrometer—

  “I asked for your tools,” said Tadeo, interrupting Gill’s thoughts. “They’re in the B8 lab with the other skeleton I told you about. I’d like you to study that one first. But before you leave, take a look at this.” He leaned over to reach the contents of a crate and carefully lifted out a golden bracelet. “I found this thing on his arm,” he said, pointing at the skeleton on the table.

  Gill took the object. It was cold to the touch.

  “Quite light and smooth, without ornaments. Oh, look, a painted effigy, a black star with three curved rays.”

  “What could be its use? Some sort of ritual?” wondered Tadeo.

  “It’s too simple for that; it doesn’t seem decorative. All of them had bracelets?”

  “Maybe—we found the remains of fourteen individuals and only six bracelets. I suspect the others may have been destroyed on impact.”

  “The star is a button. We managed to open it earlier,” said one of the Antyrans from the security team who was measuring the skeleton.

  “What?” Tadeo jumped, surprised. “How did you do that? Show me!” He took the bracelet from Gill’s hands and handed it to the other scientist.

  “Very simple,” replied the researcher. “Just press here on the three-rayed star.”

  One of the bracelet’s sides opened, uncovering eight strange symbols, the likes of which Gill had never seen in his entire life.

  “They look like buttons!” exclaimed Tadeo, taking the artifact back to examine it closer. “This can only mean the bracelet was some sort of device. I wonder what these buttons do…”

  “Absolutely nothing,” said another security lab worker. “I’ve pressed them a couple of times, but they can’t work after so many years!”

  “Next time be more careful with these things,” Tadeo admonished him, “or I’ll ask your commander to remove you from my team!”

  “I don’t think so,” replied the researcher arrogantly. “No one told you who gives orders around here?”

  “You say you found the bracelet on his arm?” asked Gill, interrupting their bickering.

  “Yes. Something like that,” exclaimed Tadeo abruptly, still angered by the other researcher. He carefully pulled the artifact onto his arm to show the position. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at it later, after you finish the skeleton in B8.”

  Tadeo, still holding the bracelet on his forearm, waved Armond’s assistant to accompany him.

  “Ernon, please lead Gill to B8. Ernon will assist you in examining the skeleton.”

  They traveled a considerable distance through several dimly lit, winding corridors. In some places, the glass walls allowed them to peer inside other labs. He noticed only a handful of researchers working in them—and about as many soldiers.

  “Why have you brought this skeleton so far from the others?” asked Gill.

  “There are only two labs equipped to study them.”

  “I’d like to be with the others.”

  “Don’t worry. Tadeo told me to bring everything to his lab after we finish here.”

  They finally arrived in front of an armored door, which Ernon opened with his hologram. They stepped inside an empty lab similar to the first one. It also had no windows.

  Another skeleton—a bit taller and thinner than the first—lay on a table, waiting patiently to reveal its secrets, hidden for so many centuries. The creature still had a golden bracelet on the right forearm.

  “The best preserved of all! Look, your tools are there,” said Ernon, pointing to a dark corner.

  Indeed, the crates in which he packed his equipment were there. Although he was anxious to examine the bones, he felt a bit uneasy at the very thought of touching a god. He feverishly seized the microtomograph and unpacked it on another table near the wall to the left of the door. A clogged hum announced that the machine was ready.

  Gill’s profession usually implied working with all sorts of relics, so in principle, he knew what to do. But nothing could be further from routine than today.

  After a moment of hesitation, he reached out his gloved hand and touched the god’s bones, almost with awe. The contact felt cold to his fingertips. Once upon a time, the “thing” in front of him was alive, breathing, wanting, maybe even loving. He slowly touched the sternum and ribs, then stopped at the left forearm—the one without bracelet—aware that he had to keep his head cool. There’s nothing unusual here, he forced himself to reason. They feel like any other bones.

  The arm bones weren’t completely detached from one another, held together by all sorts of debris—traces of clothing and even things that looked like tissues. Since Antyra II had few microorganisms capable of chewing on a corpse, it wasn’t such an unexpected finding. The fingers still held their grip.

  Very slowly, Gill checked if the left forea
rm was still attached to the rest of the skeleton and managed to dislodge it easily. He raised it slowly from the table and laid it in the microtomograph. Only after setting the hologram resolution, he cast an eye on the display.

  “Hey! What’s this?” he couldn’t stop an exclamation of surprise.

  “What happened?” asked Ernon.

  Ernon abandoned the skull he was measuring and came to watch the display.

  “There’s something in his hand, see?” Gill said.

  Indeed, a black metallic object was clearly visible inside the skeleton’s fist.

  “We should call Tadeo!”

  “The holophone is near the door,” Ernon said, pointing at it. “His lab code is A21.”

  Gill keyed the code, and a small hologram of the first lab appeared nearby.

  “Tadeo, we found—” he stopped midsentence, deafened by the high-pitch sound coming out of the holophone.

  Tadeo didn’t notice him. He was surrounded by the other researchers in the room, still wearing the bracelet of the gods on his right forearm. All of the researchers were tensely looking at the artifact.

  “Tadeo!” he shouted as loud as he could, hoping to overcome the maddening buzz. “I don’t think he can hear us! Is this thing broken? Ernon! What the heck are you doing?”

  Ernon was busy trying to extract the metallic object from the skeleton’s hand by pulling brutally on its edge—wholly unconcerned that he could damage the bones.

  “Stop right now!” Gill shouted, horrified. “Have you lost your kyi?”

  “I pulled it out,” Ernon said with a grin, showing him a small oval object made from two different alloys, which had a black star with three curved rays painted on the golden side.

  “Hand it over to me!” exclaimed Gill sternly, extending his hand to get the object.

  “The same symbol as on the bracelet,” said Ernon, more to himself, ostensibly ignoring Gill’s hand. “The black edge looks like a sheath. Maybe it comes off?”