by Steve Simons
Ed swung the air sleaker to the right and the temples gradually slipped from view. The air sleaker appeared to be heading towards distant mountains to the east. Ed continued on this path for a short while, then swung back to the left, lowered the craft towards the ground and eased it towards the walls of the temple itself, although maintaining sufficient distance that they would not be seen by any eyes that may be about at this time. There was sufficient cover from the bushes and shrubs that surrounded the temples and gave them some protection from the winds that blew from the east in the long hot summer months. After what seemed like an eternity, the air sleaker came to rest within a fold between parts of a building. There seemed to be no exit from the building at this place, but there was sufficient looping round of the building to provide an ideal parking spot for the Airsleaker. Then as if an added bonus, Ed spotted a storage door marked the equivalent of E226. Ed dismounted and carefully opened the door, checking for any form of alarm system trigger, but there was none. Ed couldn't believe his luck, the cupboard was completely empty and sufficiently big enough to hide the air sleaker in the shadows. Between him and Paul they soon had the air sleaker, safely stowed away. They retrieved some food and drink from its storage compartment and they were soon walking away from the alcove, they quietly discussed their tactics and decided that as the temples were so vast there was bound to be a way to sneak into complex without being detected. They should be able to find somewhere to hide until the visitors arrived and then they would be free to move around like any other visitor.
They walked for a while keeping close to the walls of the building and keeping an eye open for any form of window or security monitoring equipment. Luckily there were neither. The locals must feel so confident that the temples were sufficiently away from the populace that they did not need extensive security.
Suddenly the modern building ended, there was a gap between the old and new buildings. Ed and Paul pushed between the two buildings and emerged into a large empty square, surrounded by temple buildings and walkways between them which lead off to other parts of the complex. Behind them was the catering and administration building, whilst there were a few lit windows there were no real signs of life or activity. Ed and Paul stayed close to the old temple building to their right, there was a golden arched entrance quite close to the area that they had just squeezed through. They slipped through the entrance into the shadows being careful not to make any noise. Their way was faintly lighted by small archways high up on the walls, which let light through and it reflected off of the light coloured walls. The building they were in was rather like a maze, they managed to get themselves in deep enough to avoid detection, yet not too far that they would be unable to find their way out.
They found a nice little raised platform to sit on and settled down to breakfast.
"Sorry we haven't got your favourite Tastiday." whispered Paul.
"Just great to have something to eat and somewhere to sit." whispered Ed.
"This place must be a nightmare at closing time, to ensure that you've found and evicted every visitor." said Paul, between mouthfuls of food.
"It must be. I don't know what we're going to do at the end of the day." said Ed.
"Well I suppose we could always leave with the other visitors, sneak round to the air sleaker cupboard, hide there for a bit and sneak back in through our secret entrance, when the staff have gone." suggested Paul.
"Good idea." agreed Ed, "They probably count in and out the visitors so that will confuse them when they have two extras appearing on the tally."
"Lets hope we're not holed up here too long then, otherwise they are bound to get suspicious." said Paul.
There was silence for a while, then curiosity got the better of Ed and he asked, "How long were you held prisoner at that place?"
"I'm not sure, as I don't know how long I was unconscious, but I think it was only a day, how about you?" asked Paul.
"It was difficult to tell, as like you found there was nothing to measure time by, but I think it was only a couple of days. Did they get anything out of you?" Ed asked.
"I treated the whole thing like a Galcomnet game, a challenge of wills and they didn't get a thing from me. Mind you I don't mind admitting it was a painful game, so I was glad of the power cut." said Paul.
"Yeah me too, they did get my name and linked that we'd come in search of Dad, but that was all. They couldn't figure out why we'd come to Jedhaed instead of Genthaed, they were waiting for us on Genthaed apparently, then for a brief moment our baggage showed up on the check-in system of the hotel. It was long enough for their systems to flag up our arrival." said Ed.
"Well at least no-one betrayed us then." said Paul.
"Apparently not." replied Ed.
Paul told Ed about Sylvie and the safe house. Then typical for Paul he focused on the films and games he played on the Secrenet system.
The boys were deep in whispered conversation about a particular game that Paul was getting pretty good at playing, when they suddenly they heard noises come from outside. Two members of staff were on their way to the administration block and seemed to be exchanging comments about their night's activities. Although Ed and Paul couldn't understand all that was said, they could understand odd words and phrases, such is the beauty of having a Galactic language.
Paul remarked, "Well they had a packed night by the sounds of it!"
Ed replied, "Almost as exciting as ours by the sounds of it."
There was quiet again for a while, then more voices that sounded as if they were heading for the same building as the last two.
Ed and Paul packed away the empty food wrappings, ready for disposal in the nearest bin. They didn't want to leave any sign that they'd been hiding in this building. They headed back towards the entrance that they'd first entered this building through. Then waited until the general noise levels raised. Suddenly someone passed by them and went on into the building, he or she nodded at them and grunted some form of greeting, Ed returned the greeting and the individual carried on deeper into the building, soon two more people came in trying to catch up with the first.
As Ed and Paul emerged into the square they could see the sun was quite high now and the buildings looked even more spectacular than before. More of the story characters could be clearly seen on the sides of the buildings.
"Lets go to the centre temple, the altar and central statue are quite amazing according to the info we read." suggested Ed.
"OK with me. I've been quite looking forward to seeing it." agreed Paul.
Ed was pretty good at remembering the layout of the complex, he lead the way and only made one slip up, resulting in a dead end, but what a dead end, it was a massive painting that showed a really spectacular flood that was smashing rocks against each other and snapping trees as if they were match sticks. The boys spent a few minutes admiring the vibrancy and shear size of the painting, before resuming their hunt for the central temple.
Ed remarked that the site was pretty light on signs and sign posts. Paul suggested that it would mean greater sales of live maps.
"I dare not download one, as turning on our communicators would give away our location immediately." said Ed.
"Don't worry you seem to be doing a good, from memory job." re-assured Paul.
After a further 5 minutes, they saw the easily recognisable frontage of the main temple, it had been quite prominent in their reading materials and had been used on the publicity posters back at their hotel and the space port. There were hoards of people walking up and down the steps, no-one took any notice of Ed and Paul, they blended into the crowd easily as just two more visitors.
~~~~ Later ~~~~
Sylvie waited in a caf? at the space port awaiting the announcement of arrival of Edward and Richard's flight. Anyone looking out for Sylvie would not have easily recognised her, her clothes and hair were totally different from those of the previous day. She kept a cautious eye open for a
nyone who appeared to be watching people carefully, somewhat difficult in a place where people were always watching and waiting for travellers to arrive. However, Sylvie's talents for reading minds paid off here. Luckily thus far no-one seemed interested in trying to find her.
The announcement of arrival of Edward and Richard's flight came over the tannoy system. Sylvie didn't even bat an eyelid, let alone get up out of her seat. They had already arranged to meet up outside of the space port, she just wanted to be doubly sure that no-one was following either her or Edward and Richard.
Whilst they were heavily disguised, Sylvie still recognised Edward and Richard as they emerged from their arrivals gate along with their fellow passengers. Sylvie resisted the temptation to send Richard a mentally transferred message re-assuring him that she was near by. She wasn't sure if anyone else was around who had talents similar or the same as her own. She simply, casually observed the two men break away from the crowd. As she suspected, they were being followed, as a third character set off in the same direction in a determined way. Then there was the classic agent's cross as the individual nodded at someone standing to one side, he then nodded in the direction of Edward and Richard, changed the direction of his own travel and left the tracking to his colleague.
Sylvie got up and casually followed the first agent, she managed to follow him into a quiet area, where she shot him with a hidden weapon. She held her hand up to her chin as if she'd just remembered something and headed back in the direction that Edward and Richard had headed. By careful navigation she managed to catch up with their pursuer without him noticing her. She paused, reached into her handbag and pulled out a map, whilst sneakily looking around to see if there were any other potential "hand over" agents. But there were none. Suddenly the man following Edward and Richard stumbled and grabbed his own left leg, as if he were in pain. Sylvie walked off at a tangent and headed for an exit further down from the one that Edward and Richard had just gone through. As Sylvie put the map back into her bag there was a small explosion coming from the place where the agent had fallen with a painful leg. As Sylvie walked through the exit she knew from the thoughts she received, that the man who had been following Edward and Richard was dead.
"I suppose I could have been a little more subtle." thought Sylvie as she waited for Edward and Richard to join her in her private transport. They nearly walked straight past, until Sylvie used the pre-arranged question pass phrase.
They didn't talk until they got back to the safe house, even though the transport was private you could never be too sure whether it was bugged or not.
When they arrived a few streets from the safe house, Sylvie parked up and they walked the rest of the way. At one point Richard broke off and headed in a different direction and headed back on himself to check if they were being followed. However the area was so quiet that there was no-one around to follow them in any case.
"Better safe than sorry." thought Richard as he he entered the safe house and the door closed behind him.
The introductions over, Sylvie set about fixing something to eat, whilst Edward went off to have a refreshing wash and Richard enquired whether anything further had been heard about the boys.
"Yes apparently they have escaped, however the Jedhaedians haven't a clue where they've gone, but I know that they are most likely to be hiding out at the Temple complex, it was the last thing that Paul passed to me when I told him that if anything were to happen, he should hide somewhere where you would be most likely to think of. He immediately thought of their mission to go to the temples." replied Sylvie.
"He'd make an excellent agent." remarked Richard.
Just at that moment Edward entered the room again and said, "Now I don't want you recruiting my sons, there's been enough family involvement in the service."
"Of course, of course." replied Richard feeling somewhat ashamed of his remark. His nephews had been placed in enough danger for a lifetime. "We'll have some lunch and then set off for the temples to find them."
"I've got new identities for you." said Sylvie.
"Speaking of which, your new look had me totally fooled, didn't recognise you at all." said Richard.
"Why thank you, I had excellent training sir." said Sylvie in somewhat of a mocking tone.
Chapter 12 - Discoveries and Meetings
The central temple lived up to expectations, it was massively tall from the exterior and the interior seemed even bigger as there were division upon division, each causing the tourist to crane their neck even more just in order to see right up each wall. Originally each inner division would have been separated by really heavy high doors, to allow easy access for the modern day visitors, these were all kept permanently open, so it was just about possible to see right into the inner division from the entrance doorway, except for the throngs of people in the way.
Ed and Paul examined the paintings and carvings on the walls carefully, after all this was probably going to be the one and only time that they would see such a splendid sight. Eventually they stood at the base of the main altar steps. The statue of Gradulux towering above the altar table and the boys themselves. They could not but fail to be impressed at the workmanship that created such a massive yet incredibly detailed statue. What amazed them was the fact that no-one in the times when the temples were built or since, had actually claimed to see Gradulux in person, yet the statue was so magnificent in detail that it was almost as if it was actually based upon a real entity.
Ed and Paul were amazed that everyone was actually allowed to touch the statue and altar. Most places like this that one visits are so roped or screened off, that you are not sure that what you are seeing is a projection or real. There was no doubting that this was real.
There were a few people on bended knees before the statue, as if in prayer or shear adulation.
Paul was so taken with the moment that he asked Ed, "Do you think we should kneel also out of respect?"
Ed replied, "No whilst it might be viewed in that way, it might equally be viewed that you are taking the mickey and being disrespectful. This isn't our worshipful entity, whilst we can admire the workmanship that went behind the statue's construction and the faith it continues to draw, anything beyond that would not be appropriate."
Someone close by was obviously listening to Ed's argument as they got up, dusted themselves off and scurried away in embarrassment. Someone else in local planetary costume looked round to see who was speaking, saw Ed and smiled a very exaggerated smile of agreement with Ed's words. He got up and walked over to Ed, nodded respectfully and said, "Words of great wisdom from one of young times, but the meaning is very deep and could almost have been spoken by a devout of Gradulux himself. I am much in admiration of your respect and pass my deep respect also to you and your beliefs. May you take the peace and understanding of Gradulux with you to your home land." He nodded and bowed respectful to Ed and Paul.
They felt compelled also to bow in return and Ed muttered, "Our grateful thanks for your blessing and we equally pass unto you and your kin our deepest respect and wish for peace."
With that the man, rose again, turned and briskly walked away. He paused, turned, bowed again and disappeared into the crowd.
"Wow that was a really spiritual moment there." remarked Paul.
"It certainly was." agreed Ed, then continued, "Kind of leaves you with a rosy glow inside."
Ed and Paul explored the central temple a little more, but nothing further impressed them as much as the altar room, the statue of Gradulux and their encounter with one of his faithful.
Ed said, "We'd better make our way towards the main entrance now, as its probably only a couple of hours from closing time and I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry now."
Along the route to the entrance there were several smaller temples including one with a bathing pool, the boys couldn't believe it, but visitors were allowed to dangle their legs into the water. Not wishing to miss out and having walked all
day they felt pretty hot and tired anyway, they joined in the ritual.
Ed whispered to Paul, "Hey does this remind you of the paddling pool that mum used to put out for us in the summer months?"
"Yes it does, same sort of cooling refreshing effect too." replied Paul.
"Apparently the water naturally carries soothing oils from fiche's deep in the planet's core. Be poisonous to drink though." said Ed
"Hey can you imagine getting your water supplies mixed up?" asked Paul.
"Pretty fatal mistake eh?" agreed Ed.