by A. D. Nance
certain swagger that disregarded convention. And his talk was laced with slang terms, exuding a laid-back kind of honesty. Earl was experienced on restore projects and would train Eldon. They were transported to the top of the tall towers by anti-grav lifts from the outside since none of the lifts inside worked. The view from up there was truly spectacular. You could see all of Beyori-del Province. Eldon felt like he was on the top of this world. Earl and Eldon were in a room or space by themselves generally, though other workers were in the area. Eldon learned how to degenerate and regenerate with the D-R generators. He learned how to walk on walls and ceilings with anti-grav boots. Earl taught him the importance of thru-wall testers and how to develop skill at the whole restoring process.
After a few work nights they had restored to halfway down the first tower. Eldon was using a thru-wall tester and found something unusual. It was a cavity inside the wall large enough to be a closet. Closer examination showed that a door had been covered with fitted rocks. Earl was only too happy to take some extra time and open it up.
“Slam, Eldon! This is just the kind of nugget we like to find in this giant gravestone,” Earl exclaimed as he hurriedly removed the rocks. Inside was not a disappointment but a time capsule complete with a humanoid skeleton.
“Slamazing! Look at that!” The light shone through the cobwebs to reveal a grave chamber indeed. Shelves held books and tapes from another age. The skeleton was sitting on the floor leaned against the wall with some clothing scraps still intact. A broken bottle, a tube, a bucket and a few rocks were on the floor.
“Wow what a spooky find. Who, and how long was . . . what do you think, Earl?”
“I don’t know but this poor slade may have been trying to hide this stuff from someone. As much as I would like to crack open this nugget, we better not touch anything. Im’a call an expert in to check it out.”
“What kind of expert?” from Eldon. Earl started to back away as he said,
“Oh one of them archeo-. . aahh I call ‘em bone dusters. They know all about history and artifacts and such. We can call for one or two of those right from the academy down there.”
“So we should be able to know about this find soon enough, right?”
“Maybe Eldon. But it looks like a slam pack of stuff for them to study here.”
The next night during a rest period, Earl was telling Eldon a story of his past. Eldon knew it was probably embellished somewhat because that was Earl.
“ So we finally found Elpasa Village on Degon IV. We were there to help them rebuild after a battle against Cardengi raiders. But there was no one there.”
“No one at all?”
“No one alive anyway.
Inside a few dwellings we found bodies of some Degons. They were women and children only because the soldiers have terminal disintegrators that vaporize their bodies when they are killed or fatally wounded. That’s one slam-killplete way of covering their tracks. But in one res-pub we found the body of a Degon warrior, a commander.”
“Why was his body left there?” Eldon asked with building interest.
“I don’t know. His disintegrator must have malfunctioned. Well I guess you could figure the three of us there were just about spooked out, a-shaking like tree crickets. As we were looking over this dead Degon and trying to figure out what happened, we heard- -“ Just then a high pitched howl pierced the air. Eldon was startled and dropped his drink bottle. The howl lasted for about 7 seconds going from a high whine to a low growl.
“What is that?” Eldon asked nervously looking around.
“Slammin’ scary, woohwee! It may be a meercat,” Earl answered.
“An animal?”
“A rare mountain cat that used to inhabit this area. But I thought they became extinct long ago.”
“Wow it sounded kind of close.”
“Don’t you worry Eldon. No wild cat dare come inside this tower while we are here under the lights.”
“I hope you are right.”
“Where was I . . . aah yeah the dead Degon. Well we were looking at him and we heard a sound of talking. It was the chatter of a group of Cardengi raiders. They were coming closer. We had to think of something fast. So I told my two companions with me to help me lift the Degon up. We lifted him and brought him to the bar and propped him up on a bar seat. His body was not too stiff to sit him there and put his rifle in his hands. Well there we were, the four of us sitting at the bar. The Degon was a little bigger than the rest of us.” Earl watched Eldon’s reaction and when Eldon started to smile, so did Earl. Eldon did not believe it was all factual and true but was enjoying hearing it anyway. “So when those Cardengi got to the door of that res-pub, guess what happened.”
“What happened?”
“Well first they were surprised to see us alive. Then they yelled at us. Right then I gave that Degon’s seat a nudge with my foot and it slowly started to turn. It made an eerie squeak sound as it swiveled around to face the door. The Degon was holding the rifle, his eyes covered by his goggles, with the site laser on, looking like he was ready to fire.” Earl paused as if to think about it. But he was just extending the suspense.
“Well what then?” from Eldon.
“The sight of that Degon warrior turning toward them was too much for them. They screamed and shot out of there like Vulcan bats flying out of an erupting volcano.” Eldon laughed.
“I knew they were superstitious and afraid of ghosts or zombies or whaterver they called them. And they were tired and half drunk anyway.”
“So that trick saved you from having to face those raiders.”
“You could say that. Now just after they took off, I mean like the next second, that Degon body leaned forward and fell to the floor. It caused his rifle to fire which I’m sure they heard. But they were scooti-scooti down the road each one of them flailing his four arms.”
During the next several nights Eldon and Earl finished restoring the first tower. Now they were in the next tall tower working their way down. They heard the strange howling. It was heard at least once each night now. The locals believed it was some kind of phantom making that sound. But the tower workers did not subscribe to the locals superstitions. They preferred a logical more probable explanation. Even though they did not know what it was, and a meercat was highly unlikely.
It was not long before they were about halfway down the inside of the second tower. The work was progressing well as all could see that two tall towers were completely restored on the outside. The workers were all enthusiastic about the project. They felt that there was nothing to fear or to prevent them from successfully completing the restoration.
At the SSD Academy they often announced reports from around the galaxy of good accomplishments and successful missions of SSD. Today’s announcement centered on their work on Beyor Towers. It was sent to all the SSD colonies galaxywide. This report included information on what Eldon had originally located in the first tower – the hidden room with the skeleton and ancient records. The room contained a journal which revealed the identity of the person that died in it. His name was Tazekon Jordan, the son of Tazekon Samuel. He had sealed himself in the secret room with all the important records of Beyor Towers to preserve them. The Broonors that were left could not hold off the Synorese armies any longer. So T-Jordan made a last desperate move to preserve their culture. He believed that sealing himself in the wall and committing suicide was the only way to prevent the total destruction of their memory. It was a short time later, by ENorS standards that there was a battle for the towers between the Synorese and Denovan operatives. Because they were so involved in their post-war power struggle, they did not notice the increase in solar flares. They had no time to search the towers thoroughly before they had to evacuate. T-Jordan used a penetrating sealer that sealed both sides of the wall. Even so, there was a small chance his secret chamber would be discovered. But it was not discovered
until about 400 earth years later when Eldon found it. Also found inside the chamber was the original blueprints to the Hi Light of Beyor. There was only a broken remnant of one of those special lenses left in one of the towers. Now they could be rebuilt and perhaps even improved. All this was indeed stimulating for all the workers and everyone at the academy.
This night felt somewhat cooler as the planet now was moving away from EeNor and entering on its long run toward Sec Nori. Eldon felt invigorated by the cooler temperatures and it helped in doing the restoration work. There should be plenty of time to finish the work before it got really cold because of the orbital position. As he looked out a tower window port, his view was of the purple streams near the horizon, visible only momentarily as the far sun neared its setting. This was just one example of the stark beauty here that Eldon was beginning to appreciate.
“You’ve got time to view, so you’ve got time to renew,” Earl said to Eldon as he entered the room.
“Hello Earl. I try to catch the far sunset each day.”
“Seen any Beyorbats flying around?” Earl asked.
“Not yet. But the shadows are so dark, I’m not sure. I would like to shine a spotlight into those shadows,” Eldon said turning back toward the window.
“Well you know what I say to that,” Earl said opening his tool