by Greg Curtis
Instead she went on to tell him that they could even provide a room, so that he didn’t have to wait until he was recovered. One where the doctors could watch them closely as they mated, and make sure his health wasn’t put at risk. Naturally she also asked if she could watch, which he was certain, had always been her true motivation. She’d never witnessed humans mating, and thought it would be most fascinating.
The nurse didn’t understand why an already red Daryl spluttered for at least five minutes after that, and worried he might be having some sort of reaction to the medicine. Regularans apparently had no understanding of embarrassment. Nor did they seem to understand the word ‘no’ as she kept pursuing him, while he was trapped in a bed. But in time he realised, they could also be fun.
Feeling extremely impish he suggested that she speak with Karen, and tell her that if it was fine with her then it was fine with him. Within twenty minutes his nurse had been replaced by a Myran as his former caregiver damn near ran out of the clinic on a break. No doubt to put the question to Karen as fast as she knew how. Daryl had to work hard to control his laughter as he watched her leave.
Still, while it was nice to know that Karen was so dedicated to keeping him alive, and even nicer to imagine what his sexually demented nurse believed was the case, it was still boring in the bed. Especially after the first morning. All he could do was lie there and talk to the screen above his head. But at least that gave him something to do, especially when he realised it was linked to the ship’s computer, which was finally operational again. And the research facility.
Finally, a chance to do something interesting instead of fixing broken circuits. A chance to do what he was actually built for.
He spent the morning reviewing the data he and the others had collected, trying to put together a better picture of the Calderonians. He still didn’t understand why they had chosen to leave their home when they had other options, and now finally, when he had enough time on his hands to think about it, he realised he didn’t know why they’d bothered to lay over on their journey.
The more he reviewed it, the more he became convinced that the city itself was the remains of one of their ships. Purposely dismantled and converted into a city. But why? The ships were obviously big enough that they didn’t need to stop for supplies, and if the size of the apartments was the same as the size of their cabins, they could surely have carried on, without anyone becoming too stir crazy. The journey would have been far quicker.
Neither was it the result of some form of accident. A ship destroyed by some freak event. There was no evidence of damage, not even repaired damage. And the power plant, surely a modified grav drive as the field tests showed, was working perfectly as it had for ten thousand years. It had been a planned stopover from the beginning, else the computer records wouldn’t have been able to point them towards it. They had been made before the journey even began.
But then if it was a ship, he had another riddle. What had happened to the people? Had they simply abandoned a ship and then been crammed on to the other ships? It was possible, especially considering the size of their fleet, but it didn’t feel right. Why abandon a ship at all? Especially if it was in good shape? If they could dismantle it into a city, surely they could reassemble it into a ship again and be on their way? But they hadn’t. They had left it behind, bereft of anything important, then set their guards in case of discovery, and left. It made no sense.
Lunch came and interrupted his musings. Some sort of vegetable paste that tasted like peas. Overcooked mushy peas. One thing about hospitals throughout the ages, though it was probably nutritious, hospital food had never improved. An elderly Edenite fed him, in what he liked to think of as companionable silence, and then left as quietly. Other than his name, William, Daryl knew no more about him at the end of the meal than he had at the start. Except that his green eyes too had accused him of sin. So it was a relief to be able to return to his first love.
During the afternoon Daryl turned his attention to the artefacts that had been brought on board. And in particular the one that had caused all their woes. A little golden box, no larger than a back pack, and with little in the way of obvious controls. It was marked though. Stamped into its metal frame he found a number of images had been lovingly engraved. And looking at the close ups, by hand. Whatever it was someone had put a lot of time and care into making it beautiful. And that, more than anything else, told him that whatever else it was, it was important to the Calderonians.
Yet they had left it behind.
He had the computer replay the music the machine had made, only to discover that whatever was music for them was chaos to him. It made no musical sense at all, and quite frankly sounded most like a cat yowling and jumping up and down on bagpipes in a puddle of water. But then as he reminded himself, his hearing and theirs were probably very different.
On a hunch he had the computer try and convert the music to allow for the differences between human and Calderonian hearing. They heard far deeper sounds than him, down to about eight hertz and very little above a thousand hertz. And despite their large size, there was also some belief that their reactions were quite a bit faster than human. Forty percent faster. With that in mind he slowed it down as well.
The resultant concoction was still no clearer to him than it had been before. Or at least it made no more sense. But he did realise one thing. It was music. It had a melody. Though not one he’d ever listen to at home, he could still make it out. It also had a strange cadence, one carried by the instrument itself as there was no drum beat. But it wasn’t some obscure code, nor a strange language. It was simply music. For some reason the Calderonians had left a music box behind.
A very important music box. He realised just how important it must have been to them when he reviewed the images of the chamber where it had been found. A great round amphitheatre like room, where the music box stood on the central dais. Almost as though they had worshipped it. A machine.
In fact the entire room was a place of worship. Enormous lengths had been gone to to make it appropriate for their gods, assuming they had any. The floors walls and ceilings were ornate. Rather like a Catholic chapel. And looking at the detail of the painting and sculpture, he realised it too was all carved by hand like the box. Machines didn’t leave imperfections. Hand tools did.
The size of the amphitheatre was also staggering. It was easily large enough to hold many hundreds of Calderonians, each of whom was over seven feet tall, and probably twice the size of a human. There were of course many larger structures around, but none that he could think of that were carved so extensively. All of the walls, all of the support pillars for the ceiling and even the floor. The huge domed ceiling, the only part that wasn’t carved, was painted instead, with a twenty thousand square metre mural. Hand painted.
Even though the paint, or whatever they’d used, had faded over the millennia, there was enough detail left to show to even his naked eyes some of what they had painted, and computer enhancement brought it all back into glorious colour. The subjects were Calderonians, more of their own people, and so lifelike that they almost seemed to be staring back at the viewer. Many thousands of them graced its heights, most wrapped in the blue and white of a typical Earthly sky, and he had the strange feeling that they were images of those who had gone before. Their ancestors perhaps, and their most famous statesmen.
Yet if that was the case, why were there so many children among them? Their families? Or did they have a high child mortality rate? Something that no other advanced culture he knew of would ever tolerate. One thing every intelligent race had in common was that they protected their children carefully. Raising them for decades rather than the few years most animals would need, sheltering them from harm. Children were an incredible investment to all sapient beings.
The entire amphitheatre was an artwork, that even with the best hand tools, would surely have taken many years to create, or a large team. That spoke strongly of its importance to these people. And the
images, and the carving, there was something almost strikingly religious about them. In fact it reminded him very strongly of the ancient cathedrals of Earth. Perhaps that was partly the domed ceiling and the painted mural adorning it, but there was definitely something spiritual in it. After all, what else could have inspired such awesome work?
If it had been a church he knew, then the images looking down at him would either have been important religious figures or angels, but he could see no sign of halo’s or wings. Of course a Calderonian angel or saint might well look identical to an ordinary Calderonian, or else the differences might be something his human understanding would never notice. He had no way of knowing which.
The other artefacts didn’t help him much. Most hadn’t even been touched, especially after the disaster Helos and his people had caused. They weren’t likely to be either. Not until the ship arrived at Unity in a few days, and then only under extremely controlled conditions. The last thing they could afford was another accident. But none of them showed anything like the amount of care that had gone into the music box or the amphitheatre, and in fact none were hand made. The music box and its amphitheatre were unique.
As an archaeologist, everything about it spoke to him of religion. Pure and simple. This was a church with its own built in organ. It indicated deep spirituality, that so much work could be invested in such a structure, and that they took their religion with them on their journey. But it told him nothing about their technology, the rest of their journey, or their meeting with the Ancients. It was fascinating but useless to their mission.
Tea came and took his mind off things once more. This time a tired looking Myran, assuming he could be any judge of such things, fed him more of the pea paste. It definitely wasn’t getting any better with time.
Then came the hook up.
For the previous five days the scientists had been able to have more of their conferences as the worst of the damage had been addressed, and with faculty members on Unity. Up until then Daryl had been either too busy to attend, or too ill. In any case, he knew he wouldn’t have been welcome. But one thing about being stuck in the hospital, he had the time. In fact time was all he had. And he was actually welcome, if only because none of the scientists would realise he was attending.
Strangely he was actually looking forward to it. If the previous meetings prior to the disaster had been anything to go by, at least it should be lively, as the different factions abused each other. While he might not be proud of it, he could see the meeting as being good entertainment if nothing else. Besides, he didn’t have a lot else to do.
Of course he couldn’t actually attend the meeting. But at least he could watch through the screen. Maybe even have a few good laughs, discreetly of course, and best of all, no one could really abuse him if he just stayed on the monitor.
He knew from the lunchtime gossip over the previous month that the scientists had divided into camps once more. The strongest, Li’s by virtue of the fact that Helos and five of his juniors were still in the brig, believed that the device they’d dug up was an equivalent to the Rosetta Stone. A tool the Calderonians had left behind, knowing that others would follow them in time. After all, even ten thousand years ago many of the great races had had well established civilizations. They might not have had space travel, but there was every reason to believe the Calderonians had known of them.
As such they believed the music box was a message. A record they had determined to leave behind for others to find. So they could know of them, and their great journey. Why else they argued, would it have been placed so specifically in the centre of a great amphitheatre, if not to draw their attention? Of course it was a message more complex than any they had ever encountered. Its words tied up in the complex mathematical equations that represented the music. Once they had cracked the code, they would have both a unique insight into the Calderonian’s language and culture, and also the next point on their destination.
Already mathematicians had spent countless hours breaking down the complex music into phrases and equations. None that they could interpret of course. Not yet. The little Regularan believed that in order to understand the message fully, they should have recorded its message in the amphitheatre. After all, the room was clearly designed as a sound shell, and it probably added and changed the finer details of the notes. Thus their research at present was in trying to reconstruct a virtual amphitheatre and refine the message until they had the intended soundtrack to work with.
A second group led by the incomprehensible Centavlon, Doctor Mush, which was the closest any translator was likely to come to explaining either his name or species, believed it was a key. A musical key, probably with higher heuristic features, which when activated in its proper position, the centre of the amphitheatre, would cause something to happen.
It was a theory that Daryl could almost ascribe to. And he suspected it would have been the predominant theory if Helos hadn’t done so much damage trying to prove it so badly. But it made sense. Musical keys had been seen before in many technologically advanced cultures, even including some of the Calderonian’s contemporaries of the last twenty thousand years. And whatever else it was, the box was important to the Calderonians. Maybe it was a key to their holy of holies.
If it hadn’t have been for the third theory, he could have almost accepted it. But the third one was just the most logical by far, and it fitted perfectly with everything he’d seen.
Doctor Norn, who until then hadn’t really impressed him too greatly, especially after he’d suggested effectively bombing the city out of existence from space, believed it was a religious artefact, much the same as many seen all over the universe. He pointed to the incredible handcrafting that had gone into both it and the amphitheatre in which it was left. That by a technologically advanced culture that could easily have manufactured something perfect instead, and in mere hours. He spoke of the way in which it had been placed in the very centre on a raised dais. Good solid points.
His was the theory that Daryl liked best, and he wasn’t alone. Many of the other scientists quietly supported the view, even some of those supposedly in the other camps. The only real problem with it was that if they were right, the music box was of absolutely no use to them in following the Calderonians, and no one wanted to admit that.
As the meeting began, Daryl lay there trying not to smile too much as he waited for the expected fight. It had been a while since he’d had a chance to enjoy a good mudslinging match and he was looking forward to it. Let the punches fly he figured.
Sadly he was disappointed from the outset as the meeting began as a much more orderly affair than any he’d ever seen. Perhaps it was because everyone there realised that they were being watched by scientists all over the world of Unity. Or maybe it was because the captain had appointed one of his officers to chair it. And First Officer Larg, the largest Myran he’d ever seen, wasn’t about to take any rubbish. Especially from the scientists who’d treated him so badly, at least according to the gossip he’d heard from the junior scientists when they occasionally spoke.
Instead of a blood bath it was an entirely orderly affair as each of the head scientists was asked to relay all they’d achieved in the previous day. And each of them gave a thoroughly professional, detailed account of their activities, with any sniping reserved for polite pointed questions and innuendos.
For the first hour or so Daryl was largely bored by it. It wasn’t just the lack of fireworks, it was the fact that none of them seemed to have anything new to report. Just small incremental advances on what they’d been doing the day before. Top flight scientists from across the galaxy, banded together to work on just one problem, and they’d failed to make any great headway in nearly a month. It was depressing. There was nothing for him to sink his teeth into, nothing to get the little grey cells fermenting, as one ancient fictional detective had called them. Just the tedium of endless details and the lack of an overarching theory behind them.
It was not a good thing
for a scientist to admit but he was bored. So much so that he eventually turned his attention to his fellow patients, who were watching sports on another channel. He didn’t understand the game, or even why the Myran’s who were already naturally armoured, were dressed up like rubber clad tanks, but it was fast and furious and it looked like good fun as the players ran madly around a large field chasing a tiny ball and trying not to get flattened by the opposition.
He suspected the game was a little like ice hockey, where the theoretical point of the game might be to get a puck into a little net, but the audience really just watched it for the thrills and spills. As such it didn’t pose much of a challenge to his tired brain. And on that level he even managed to enjoy it a little. But then after a particularly heavy fall by one of the players, he overheard a comment that forever changed his understanding of the entire Calderonian race. Out of the mouths of babies and rabid sports fans. Yet all his fellow patient had said was that if the player took any more falls like that he’d win a funeral rather than a trophy.