by Rick Jones
But John Savage was a seasoned soldier whose life was balanced with good reasoning and common sense, whereas O’Connell was a black-op spook who would kill in order to keep secrets safe. And the fact was that aftershocks ebb with time, not heighten in activity. There was no doubt in Savage’s mind that the region was highly unstable. “This far along after the initial quake,” he offered as more of a statement rather than a question. “After two weeks?” And then: “The crater’s resettling, isn’t it? The surrounding walls weakening.”
“Mr. Savage, this isn’t the time or place—” he cut himself off. “We’re safe,” he concluded edgily. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
If John Savage learned anything at all as a Navy SEAL, it’s whenever a government spook says ‘there’s nothing to worry about,’ then there’s something to worry about.
Savage pressed him with a hard look and O’Connell pressed back, the two men sharing a tie with Intelligence by trying to absorb the secrets of the other, both failing.
“Since time is of the essence,” O’Connell finally said, “we need to move on.”
Mexican and American nationals—the biophysicists and the biotechnologists, the scientific geneticists and evolutionary biologists, physiologists, mathematicians and statisticians, astrophysicists and astrobiologists—were all moving about as a grouping of scientists thrown together in a playpen of strange wonders to seek the answers within.
For as far as they could see there were more enclosures containing inexplicable life forms with each container specifically built to suit its inhabitant. Whereas some stasis chambers were built to hold some type of colossus, others were created to maintain something as miniscule as a virus or bacteria inside a glass tube.
In one setting stood a massive sea creature, the beast having a segmented body and multiple legs, much like a centipede’s, but more powerful, more muscular. Its head was a crown of tentacles that seemed to flow with soft fluidity as if wavering peacefully with the course of a gentle sea current. And its eyes, separate of the tentacles, stood upon stalks capable of maneuvering independently, its eyes at any given time having the advantage of 360-degree vision.
In another bin were dual mates—one male, one female—resembling the velociraptor. There were, however, marginal differences. Its tail was longer and whip-like with sharp, serrated ridges running along the appendage that was engineered to rip its opponent apart with a swipe of its tail. Its neck was longer, thinner, the skeleton of its throat more like cartilage than bone to give it flexibility, that option of telescoping its head and jaws outward in a savage thrust, like the spring of a snake.
In the bin next to it, which almost reached the ship’s ceiling, was a behemoth similar to the T-Rex—although this version was much larger and heavier, its carcass armor plated like the skin of a rhinoceros, with protective folds and flaps. Its eyes were marble-sized inside a gargantuan head. Its jaw powerful and slightly agape, revealing teeth that was more saber-like than those of the Rex. And the spine of its tail bore the same razor-like ridges similar to its neighbor, the velociraptor.
O’Connell stopped before the velociraptors and pressed the flat of his palm against the force field, which ultimately repelled his hand with an equal force. “As you can see, these look more like the cousins to our own velociraptors. And that,” he inclined his head toward the Rex, “came from the same planet as these specimens. It’s amazing how creatures from distant galaxies can resemble creatures from our own planet. That tells me that the evolution between our planets were at least on an even scale. It would be interesting to see how they have evolved over the past sixty-five million years. Did a bolide ultimately collide with their planet and wipe them out as well, giving rise to a new race of apex predators? Or do they continue to thrive?”
Alyssa and Savage moved closer to the stasis bins.
“Minor differences,” she commented.
O’Connell nodded in agreement. He then waved his hand over the mushroom gem, prompting holographic images of the creature’s anatomy and its point of origin. The second image, their point of origin, was the Milky Way. The third holographic screen was that of a planet based at the edge of the Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, which is an area far removed from the Orion Spur, the minor arm that planet Earth is stationed. “Our planets are separated by hundreds of thousands of light years, but the similarities are uncanny. There’s no doubt in my mind that humanoids similar to us exist as well. The question is, are they friend or foe? If they fall into the latter category, then we need to prepare ourselves defensively.”
“Getting a little paranoid, aren’t you?” asked Savage.
“Paranoid?” O’Connell stood back from the chamber. “It didn’t work out too well for the Native Americans when Columbus first set foot on North America, did it?”
“That was different.”
“Really?” And then: “What you see here, Mr. Savage, is a menagerie of what our team believes to be the universe’s greatest apex predators—some humanoid, some not. But apex predators they are. And to prove my point—” O’Connell cut himself short, turned, and began to walk at a normal clip. After passing several bins bearing the oddest configurations of creatures, O’Connell stood before two empty chambers. With a wave of his hand the corresponding holographic images took shape. Savage and Alyssa caught up and took note.
The first holograph from the first empty chamber was that of Earth’s velociraptor and its anatomy, the image rotating. The second was its point of origin, the Milky Way. The third image was the planet Earth before the land masses split off into independent continents. “They were coming here,” he said evenly, “to this planet to fill these bins. But something obviously happened, which caused this ship to become the bolide that created the final extinction event.”
Savage went to the second chamber, one that was built for something that was obviously large, and waved his hand over the gem. Three holographic images popped up, as required. The first image was that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, its phantom likeness rotating with alien script denoting certain regions of its body. The velociraptor and the T-Rex, he thought, the dominant predators of their time, their bins empty—the caretakers, the zookeepers, long dead.
“Why?” asked Alyssa. “Why this particular collection of apex predators?”
O’Connell shrugged. “As to guesses, I’d say they’re more for study. But this intergalactic ark holds many secrets. And the quicker you can decipher the language, then the faster we can find the answers to your questions—the answers to my questions.”
“And don’t forget to answer the government’s questions,” added Savage. “Let’s not forget them.”
O’Connell allowed the muscles in the back of his jaw to work. Savage’s veiled insinuation was laced with undeniable suspicion directed against him, a conduit to the most powerful men in the world. You, Mr. Savage, need to keep yourself in line.
“Yes,” O’Connell said very dryly. “Let’s not forget them.”
Alyssa heard the exchange, could feel the tightness between them. But she also knew John to be a man of caution, someone with the awareness of his surroundings. Obviously his senses were picking up red flags.
O’Connell waved his hands over the gem and the holograms disappeared. “Follow me,” he said.
They walked the length of the ship between enclosures that were filled with creatures from oceans of toxic ammonia to sulfur-rich caverns, from glacial wastelands to scorching hot planets—with each specimen designed to handle a very specific environment.
As they toured there were teams of scientists everywhere—logging or taking notes, some running diagnostic machines Savage could only hazard a guess as to their functions. Other machines poured steady streams of laser capable of cutting through the densest metal had absolutely no effect at all on the energy fields. There was a sense of desperation—at least in Savage’s view—to solve the vessel’s mysteries by serendipity.
There were more enclosures, seemingly endless aisles of them, bea
ring captives from all over the universe, creatures great and small, some intelligent and some not so, most appearing vicious and cruel, and all sharing the same fate.
But what grabbed Savage’s eye the most were the heavily armed personnel. They were wearing domed helmets with a formation of gadgetry marching up one side and down the other, an assemblage of NVG goggles and thermal ware. Their faceplates were a convexity of opaque plastic. And their ensembles completely ‘Robocop’ with specially designed composite shin and forearm guards.
More disturbing, however, were the patches they wore on their shoulders, that of a grinning skull wearing an eye patch and beret with two crisscrossing tantos beneath it, the insignia of the Tally-Whackers, a legendary wetwork team operating strictly for the DOD. Their existence is by rumor only, a unit mentioned only in whispers, a group of men who tallied high numbers of kills with impunity.
John Savage dismissed the idea that they ever existed, mere fabrications of simple myths and legends and nothing more. But all legends had a foundation of truth—all of them. But this one came with the rumored insignia no other group sustained.
By John’s estimate there were at least eight, maybe nine, all meat and muscle.
Why are you here? he wondered. For what possible reason?
He glanced at Alyssa, who was completely enamored by the surrounding specimens.
And he worried for her safety and for his. The presence of Tally-Whackers was never a good sign. By rumor they were vicious and unmerciful, killers who thrived on adrenaline while waiting to make the next kill at the direction of the government.
He grabbed Alyssa and pulled her close.
At the end of the ship there was a downward incline that led to the next level. The tunnel was slim, the walls ribbed and coated with a textured sheen, and the grating beneath their feet glowed a pulsating phosphorous green, the light casting ghoulish lines along the walls and on their faces, their features writhing with shadow play.
At the bottom of the corridor was a circular room with a domed ceiling. The ribbing of the dark walls curved upward to meet a central point on the ceiling, the roof’s center, where a conical-shaped beam of light alit on the chamber beneath it.
Inside was a cloud mass, a free floating mist that continuously morphed into Rorschach shapes, the vapor moving with slow, hypnotic grace. Not only did the cloud alter its shape but also its coloring, the mass changing from cool blues to warm reds, colors that pleased. Small pops of energy shot off as bursts of bioluminescence, the sparks igniting in gemlike colors.
Alyssa circled the chamber and placed a hand against the energy shield, feeling nothing but the gentle repulsion of its force. “It’s beautiful,” she commented.
O’Connell had to agree—the vision was quite magnetic. “Why it’s separated from the rest is a matter of simple hypothesis. But our determination is that as beautiful as this entity is, it’s also very noxious. If this particular Elemental ever escaped its containment cell, then we can only assume that harm would have come to the crew or the specimens.” And then: “Not everything that appeals to the eye, Ms. Moore, is appealing underneath.”
The mass continued to undulate as if moving with the gentlest of breezes, with a honey flow to it, soft and mesmerizing.
On the opposite side of the corridor, behind the Elemental’s chamber, was a small doorway crafted for something much smaller, perhaps a child. Except the door was not a conventional door at all, but a translucent wall that was as thin as a sheet of glass, emerald in color, its surface reflecting their images in a funhouse sort of way, shapes that were twisted.
O’Connell went to the wall and waved his hand over a lens next to the opening, and the emerald glass disappeared. “Another energy shield,” he said. “Impassable. Bullets couldn’t penetrate it. Neither could torches or diamond cutters. How they were able to take pure energy and manipulate it to suit their needs is utterly fascinating. We’ve got to figure this out.”
After they entered the adjoining room, O’Connell waved his hand over the lens on that side of the door, and the emerald-colored glass reappeared, locking them in.
The corridor they entered had a corkscrew wind to it, the level descending, until they reached a darkened chamber, a room with a sepulchral air to it. The walls offered a phosphorous illumination, an eerie green, with no known filaments or power source to set off the light. In the room’s center was a horseshoe-shaped console. But this console was made of the same energy as the emerald-colored door, solid and glasslike. And indestructible.
Alyssa traced her fingers over it. It was cold and smooth to the touch. “Is it real?” she asked.
“As real as that door we just passed through,” said O’Connell.
“How . . .” Her words simply trailed. To fashion something from pure energy was beyond comprehension. To understand the physics or the mechanics behind such science, she believed, was light years away—no matter how brilliant O’Connell’s people may be.
She maneuvered behind the desk, could see through the desk’s surface to the floor, and sat in the chair. It was translucent and as smooth as glass, the ergonomics of the chair coming alive to suit her shape, forming to her comfort. “This is absolutely amazing,” she said disbelievingly.
Savage had thought he’d seen it all in Eden, the mysteries. But this ship harbored far greater mysteries—that of the universe.
He moved around the desk and traced his fingers over the surface, discovering the same sense of awe as Alyssa. What may have been a novelty to O’Connell was apparently gone, the technology no longer a marvel as the man appeared flat and disinterested.
“To your right, Ms. Moore, you will find a keypad upon the surface,” said O’Connell. “Do you see it?”
The keypad was the same color as the surface of the desk, a phosphorous green, but pulsating. “I see it.”
“Touch it.”
She did. And three archaic symbols appeared.
“It’s actually an easy combination to figure out,” he told her. “Whether the symbols be numbers or letters, the pattern was easy to figure out since there were minimal combination arrangements. Tap the third symbol, the first symbol, and then the middle one.”
She did, feeling a static charge at the ends of her fingertips, the sensation not unpleasant at all, just a tingle. A moment after striking the last symbol a holographic image the size of a chalkboard appeared in front of her. On it were schematic images of the ship in detail. But on the board’s right was a series of characters, ancient and archaic, with marginal similarities to Sumerian and Egyptian type, situated like text and documents.
“Of course we were unable to decipher it,” O’Connell continued. “But as you can see there are similarities to the writing on that holographic image that corroborates with the writings you posted in your publication regarding your discoveries in Eden. As I said prior, Ms. Moore, the percentage of similarities is much too high to be coincidence.”
When she touched the board it responded, the images touch-sensitive as she was able to drag the image from the right side of the panel to the center with the point of her finger. With a few taps the symbol grew larger, like zooming in. “I know this character,” she said. “It’s ancient Sumerian.”
“Does it give any insight at all regarding this ship? A manual perhaps?”
“It’s just one character,” she told him. “I don’t mean to get your hopes up, O’Connell, but it’s still a puzzle. To line up the language and decipher it could take months.”
Months? “Ms. Moore, we brought you aboard because of your expertise in such matters. Surely you could apply your skills of interpretation in speedier manner.”
“This is a language never seen before,” she told him. “And a majority of these symbols are completely alien, no pun attended. But their syntax, their meaning, or to determine if we even have a word in our language to describe what they’re talking about, may not exist.”
“Ms. Moore, we do not have months. What we have is days.”
“All I’m saying,” said O’Connell, “is that time is not a luxury. We need Ms. Moore to interpret the language to a point where we can at least begin the process of reverse engineering. Just enough to open the door a crack, is all we need. Once she does, then we can do the rest.” He turned to face Alyssa, who was enamored with the board by continuing to drag symbols from one point to the next. “Surely you can do that much, can’t you, Ms. Moore?”
Savage could see Alyssa dragging symbols that she recognized, characters he recognized, to the board’s center. There were quite a few.
“I think that may be a possibility,” she said. “But don’t be surprised if I can’t—at least not in the amount of time that you’re giving me. But I will give it my all, O’Connell. I promise.”
He nodded. “That’s all I can ask for, I guess.”
“You said you had books, annals, filled with symbols your team gathered from all over the ship.”
O’Connell nodded, then faced the opposite side of the chamber and pointed. “Down that corridor you’ll find a Central Post with more personnel. Of course you’ll have your own space with the best computer and software to aid you in your work—absolutely everything you’ll need. It’s a big ship, however, with lots of corridors. But you’ll get used to it. You’ll be able to find your way around.”
Savage went to the doorway and noted a string of light pods as far as his eyes could see. “How big is this ship exactly?” he asked.
“Big enough.”
“And we’re on what? The third level?”
“With two more below us, yes.”
Savage did a quick calculation. The point of the remnant was exposed beyond the wall of the crater, this he knew, with the lower tiers buried within the surface.
His eyes scanned overhead, at the surrounding walls. They were buried this far in, but hanging precariously in the loose earth and could easily dislodge and fall to the bottom after a massive tremor.