by David Staves
“We are on final approach to Nova Station. Thank you for choosing The Pacific Space-Elevator. We’re the Southwest’s number-one choice for Earth departures. We will stop at Nova’s Infinity Terminal. If you are threading the needle please proceed to Nova’s Thimble.”
Nova Station?
He tried to remember what the attendant said.
He was sure she said that she spoke of a Nova Station. She also said something about Pacific Station? Which came first? He thought Pacific. Maybe he slept through it. He didn't think that was possible. He wouldn't sleep through that!
Clearly, it was possible for him to have slept through it.
Considering his current situation, anything was possible!
He took hold of the armrest and looked back out the window. The train was streaking through a city! There were skyscrapers and neon lights as far as the eye could see. He stood in the aisle of the cabin so he could absorb the panoramic view of the celestial city.
Though he had no sense of motion, no inertia, he knew from the perspective that his voyage on the train was almost done.
It stopped.
The doors hissed open.
Station
Ezra walked. He was a ghost. Despite its exquisite beauty, its sparkling towers, its streaking lights, Nova was a shell.
No businessmen moved about, astute, efficient.
No families, mothers, or fathers packing and shuffling.
No elders hobbling or reading newspapers.
No children looking and following, except for Ezra.
Beside abandonment, this place was pristine. There was a smell of fresh paint and a hint of freshly brewed coffee.
The spaces were wide open to the stars. The light flooded in through glass domes and glass walls.
The windows were a panorama of what, at first glance, appeared to be a vibrant city, backed by endless star-fields.
Ezra was a ghost.
Nova was abandoned, but still alive, animated by the spirits of the ones who built and inhabited these spaces.
There was even music – it filled the halls of the station. It was utterly foreign to Ezra, it still reminded him of home. The rhythm and cadence were ethereal. Voices, both male and female, called and chanted to one another – wordless sounds that had the same quality and flavor as a choir – meditative – spiritual. It was the voice of this place.
The artifacts of travel presented themselves. Small shops lined the promenade. A multitude of languages and symbols blared, illuminating vast spaces with neons and pastels.
Ezra paused to look at a map on display in the center of the promenade. It showed the train’s route into orbit. The diagram called it a ‘Space Elevator.’ Ezra would have laughed if he weren’t so exhausted.
There were a few signs in English advertising restaurants or ticketing locations.
How could this place be functional without people?
Well, it didn't seem precisely functional, but he had the sense that it was well maintained, that if suddenly the missing people magically showed up, things would be well set to handle their needs. He passed a small bistro – the smell of fresh bread invited him to enter. There were other smells too, his nose caught them with relish: coffee, fried chicken, onion soup. Ezra did not need to contemplate that smell, onion soup, his mother's favorite.
The scent evoked a memory of a rainy night, not a bad memory, one that put a smile on his face. Mom had been sick, Dad brought dinner home. Dad picked up roast beef sandwiches with french dip, and soup for mom, in a large styrofoam tub. He remembered how she looked at his father, how they looked at each other. His heart ached at the memory. He continued walking past the bistro – even though his stomach growled in protest. Stop, investigate, find the food, his stomach said.
He resisted, kept walking.
The mysteries swirled around him.
This was a space station!
It was a surrealistic dream!
He stared outside the enormous windows. The structures reached out in all directions: sideways, diagonal, even upside down. There was no up or down. He looked at his feet. It helped him regain his frame of reference when he started getting overwhelmed by the twisting perspectives. This method was failing him, however, as he looked at the path from which he had come, and the corridors ahead; Ezra saw that the walkway twisted as he walked. The floor, a few paces behind him, was on the wall. What he could see ahead of him appeared to be upside down. Rules of gravity didn't work here!
Whoever built this place enjoyed messing with perspectives. Ezra was reminded of the famous artist M.C. Escher. It would have been more enjoyable if he was here of his own will. A refugee of time and place struggled to make sense of nonsense as he entered the legendary Nova Station.
How could this place exist?
How could it be so well maintained?
He had the sense that the people had been gone for a long time – how long?
Years, he thought, maybe decades.
He knew it wasn't his imagination, the smell of paint, fresh food, it was as real as real could be.
What bothered him most was the feeling of normalcy.
Maybe he was in shock.
Maybe none of it was real, he had to stop thinking like that!
Not for the first time, he thought: maybe I'm laying in a hospital ICU somewhere – body in a coma, mind on a fantastical journey.
Stop it! He ordered himself, feeling angry for the first time for questioning his own experience. Must trust myself, believe in myself, if I'm going to make it!
He sauntered through an area whose signs began looking more regular, more professional. The ones he could read, said: DEPARTURES AHEAD.
Ezra needed to get to his destination, that was for damned sure, he laughed. He needed those friends he was told to find. The man who rescued him at home wasn't helping him now. He had to find his own way, no doubt. He touched the cross, hanging under his t-shirt. He said he would find me at the mill, he thought. I wonder what happened to him. I wonder if he's dead.
The stars watched from afar. They had no answers, only mystery.
He passed through a turnstile into a huge circular terminal.
Above the entry was a sign that read: WELCOME TO NOVA'S THIMBLE. There were tiers above. He was inside a giant, upside down, wedding cake. Whoever built this part had to have been thinking of the Colosseum. It was like a stadium, without the seats.
Dozens, maybe hundreds, of marble archways lined the tiers. Each had a name etched above it. His footsteps traced the wide oval-shaped room. He read the words above the arches: Mercury Station, Venus Station, Mars Station, Aster Station, Jupiter Station, Uranus Station, Neptune Station, Pluto Station, Kuiper Station, and Alpha Station. He walked all the way around the terminal and examined the archway through which he had just come: NOVA STATION was etched above the archway. The words were illuminated.
There were a set of steps between each doorway. He saw many of the archways above were unmarked. Some had names he was unfamiliar with, others were recognizable: Titan Station, Europa Station, Io Station, Callisto Station. The archway directly above Nova Station was lit up. It said: Luna Station. He climbed the steps, paused in front of the Luna Station archway. It was inky darkness beyond the threshold, not so different than the doorway exiting his bedroom the night of the landslide.
He was too tired to be afraid.
Well here goes nothin’, he said to himself as he lifted his sneaker-clad foot, poised to take his first step. Threading the Needle, the voice had called it…
Ezra was one step away from meeting his destiny.
Gus and the Wasp
Prodigal
Each word was carefully enunciated, but not spoken by a voice box. It materialized from the air around the large insect. Ancient syllables were produced by vibrating and rubbing various parts of exoskeleton: legs, wings, abdomen, mandibles, and antenna. It was the way passed down from mother to daughters over countless generations, another dead thing from a bygone age, a dead language from an ext
inct tribe. One of many arcane traditions passed from generation to generation.
Her species used some sound to communicate, in combination with pheromones, but this ancient way, weaving strings of sound together was left from a time when the matriarchs actually spoke to humans.
She repeated the passage over twenty times, each time getting closer to mimicking the pitch and tone of the human’s speech.
Here in the safety of her nest, she prepared herself to awaken human speech. Long ago it was a sacred mode of communication, now it was forbidden.
Her body began humming, tiny eddies of air swirled within her nest.
“MMMMmmmmMMMmmmmmmm------MMMmmm,”
Then a simultaneous, “SSSSSSShhhhhhhShhhhhhhSSSSSSSSSssssssss….”
Then a quiet clicking began, “TchhhhhTTTTTChhhhhhhchchchCHCHTCHTCH….”
Words began to emerge from the layers of sound emanating from her body.
“Mmmmy nammmme iiisssss SSSSShhhhhhChChKeeeeye.”
Each time she practiced, it became clearer. Within a short time of emulating the child’s speech patterns, she was able to express her herself correctly: “My name is Sky!”
She leapt from her nest, which crowned the elder tree, the tallest and oldest in her forest. She surveyed her kingdom. The sky had been changing since her encounter with the human. There were hints of color where there had always been cloying gray.
Her soul shifted like the sky. The human boy threatened the balance of this land. The sky knew and responded warmly: a change was coming.
Her wings blurred as she climbed the wind, seeking a better view.
The smoke marked the atmosphere, reaching up from the horizon, like an open wound. The reek of burning machines muddied a keen sense of smell, no trace of the human boy.
She practiced speaking the holy words as she traced the old road, a highway of yesteryear, great artery of a dead race, swallowed by the dark forest, the road was difficult to find from the land. It took steady concentration to keep track of it from the sky.
It led her to the smoldering structure, the relic facility: The Mill. She knew the word from the master tongue, but not the meaning... She lowered herself. She caught the faint smell of the human child. It was fading, stale.
The human odor was one she would henceforth be familiar with, not unpleasant, but distinct, different than anything she ever smelled. The scent evoked a new sense of awe and even reverence.
As a citizen of the dark realm, she never knew these emotions: instinctual, base, and powerful.
She drifted to the ground seeing the impossible. Littered among the mechanical carnage were the bodies of dozens of high lords. She had mistaken the smoldering forms as garbage strewn about by some explosion.
The building appeared to be gutted. The ink-black smoke was rising from a deep pit which descended through the building into the Earth. A red glow defined the width of the cavity. It was crowned by a spire of churning smoke. Anyone from the Golden Age would have recognized it for what it was: a laser strike from an orbital satellite.
Maybe the sleeping queen was finally awake…
These dark creatures were supposed to be immortal.
What else had her vespid mothers lied about?
How could this be caused by a being such as she had observed only hours before?
She examined one of the dead.
Her kind communicated by scent. The dark lord had a reek she could hardly tolerate.
Every instinct told her they were evil, not the merciful liberators she and all of her kind had been indoctrinated to follow.
And how many times had she actually witnessed one of the dark lords? Sightings were rare and only from a great distance. Based on the evidence before her, she had been raised on a diet of lies.
Suddenly she saw another being, standing vertical against the horizon. Another human! It was approaching her from the gloomy trees.
Its arms were extended into the air in a gesture recognized as surrender and good will.
She was prepared this time, after hearing the child speak the sacred tongue; she knew it was distorted by generations of tradition.
She readied herself, rehearsing the words in her mind before releasing a series of sounds that produced an eerie version of human speech.
“Greetingz zuman. I zeek the boy. Doez zee yet live?”
The human’s face changed. Expression, she told herself, beautiful, fantastic!
Augustus Flavius Plimpt relaxed his arms, smile overtaking his face. He had been so downcast. The sight of his home-world in despair and ruin filled him with aching defeat, wretched futility.
This feeling must have been the same feeling that had driven so many of his friends to ascension. Futility.
He looked at this giant insect and remembered the spritely geneticist who had dreamed them up. What an idealist she had been! The fruit of her long-forgotten genius regarded him quietly.
It seemed that this boy, this victim of circumstance, doomed to die in the mud, had navigated a harsh land, full of malevolent creatures, had somehow made a friend of the creature before him.
“I am happy to see your kind survived this genocide. The boy lives, I am happy to report. He has left this terrible place. His journey is only beginning.” Gus felt an excitement he hadn’t known for ages. The machine entity Jack told Gus everything! He was beginning to feel that his encounter and ultimate rescue of Ezra Quell had not been an accident or coincidence. The boy was here for a purpose. Maybe he was here to save the fabled Earth. Maybe he was here to save her children… Gus only knew Ezra was here to do something important.
“My kind zervez the purpetratorz of genozidez – clenze they zay.” the insect’s posture conveyed defeat.
“As they say and have said before…” Gus shook his head. His smile was gone. “Do you yet serve?” he asked.
“No Choizezz…” she answered.
“And if I offer you a choice? Leave this place to seek justice and balance. Together we may have a better chance to succeed.” Gus couldn’t read its body language. He tried to imagine what he might do if it attacked him. He remembered the boy still had his pistol.
“Zuczeed at whatz?” the glistening insect responded with a question.
“Preventing the spread of genocide, preventing this…” He gestured to the world around him, “from spreading to the farthest reaches of our existence…”
“Vee were zlavez of zumanzz.” she answered.
“A lie,” Gus replied, “your kind was master of its own fate. I can take you to their descendants if you wish. They thrive on worlds of their own design. They are very far away.”
“How? What magiczz?” she asked.
“The magic is only technology. I will take you to distant stars yet untouched by this blight. But I must depart now. I must act with haste if I am to succeed. Follow me if you wish. Otherwise, I bid you farewell. Your human mother would have been proud,” he turned toward the path of the forest he had entered from.
“You goez to zee boy?” the wasp asked.
“Eventually, he will come to me. I have set him loose to find his way. His destiny is his own. I have broken enough laws regarding the boy. Even I don’t care to push my luck. I know the price all too well,” he walked to the forest and disappeared.
She folded her wings, pressed them close to her body, and followed the human into the void that lay just steps inside the forest, along the faded path.
THE END
PREVIEW Climbing Echoes Book Two: Threading the Needle
The Oracle
Prehistory
Giza, Egypt
Northern Africa
Earth
Setting sunlight ignited the Nile. It was the autumnal equinox. The forest hummed contentedly. A floating city crested the ancient canopy of trees above. Father Faust watched with awe and reverence.
His tall, gaunt frame navigated the landscape delicately, an urban creature in rainforest wilds. Life teamed wondrous, harmonious. The atmosphere was electric wi
th the exuberant celebration of harvest. Larks sang in solemn jubilance. Crickets chirped with glee. Moths and butterfly wings fluttered in elation, comingling in twilight. Clouds of phosphorescent insects added their scintillation. Elated blooms stretched, dewdrops sparkled on delicate petals.
Shades of green danced through reaching branches as temple lights swelled and dimmed.
Another procession of celebrants passed him on the well-trod path.
Pools of luminescence swept outward from another celestial metropolis.
Immense trees obscured his view of the sky, the temples, the pyramids.
The cities above floated, surrounded by smaller craft. The sky-lanes swelled with revelers from all over the globe!
In all his unnumbered days, he never glimpsed such a celebration.
Before his foray into the past, temporal guardians cautioned him to avoid contact with inhabitants at all costs. He flinched away from them, fearful, apprehensive, and ever-mindful of paradox. The trivial could be paramount. Harm leered in tiny ripples.
He observed from under his cloak. They were beautiful. Every culture from around the globe was manifested in the faces of the crowd. His appearance wasn’t out of place. He was accustomed to receiving glares and glowering glances when he was away from his seclusion.
Everyone looked happy. There was an atmosphere of kindness. This is the nature of these ancients, he thought, not just the rhapsody of festivals.
How long had he been waiting? He didn’t know. The time was passing quickly. There was too much to witness.
Father Faust had never plied the high roads and arteries of time. Never had he encountered such a spectacle. It was a revelation! He knew himself to be unlearned, illiterate to the truth. Lifelong dedication and study were void. What else is there? What other wisdom has the Archive entombed? He wondered, feeling the pillage, futility, expungement of lifelong toil.
He would never have tasted an age of such vintage if it weren’t for the advent of darkness. The end was nigh! Woeful desperation mandated this plunge into antediluvian rapture. His contemplations were those of a sorrowful time traveler. That’s what this is, he made his conclusion from the deep shadow of a tattered tunic. Mine is the terminal age! This age is the germination of providence! Despair gripped as he contemplated his tattered origin.