At some point I sigh and speak up.
“Why not just fry the damn thing?” I say tiredly, recalling my threat to the Imperator earlier this morning in his Red Office. “If it’s so much impossible trouble, and if its active state can bring the ancient enemy, why not just destroy it once and for all?”
And as everyone turns to stare at me as if I’ve gone crazy, I continue, “Seriously, what’s the big deal? So, it’s an old-technology ancient vessel with all kinds of amazing, priceless artifacts. I totally get that! But it’s not like you expect to have to fly it again! Besides, you can fry it selectively. Just the dangerous parts. Put all the rest in a museum!”
Chapter 14
“You have no notion of what you speak, child,” the First Priest Shirahtet says softly. “It’s the one option we can never consider, for the simple fact that we don’t know what would happen. We do not know which parts are dangerous and where they are located inside the ship—even assuming that such a separation is possible and it is not the ship in its entirety that presents the problem. If the ship’s orichalcum layers are destroyed, it might cause a chain reaction—a reaction of such magnitude that it would rip apart this planet and much of the space-time around it, opening a cascade of dimensional rifts far worse than the one that we already have to deal with.”
“But you don’t know that for sure,” I say. “It might be completely harmless.”
“True. But until we do know, the ship must remain as is.”
“Okay, I see the risk now.” I nod. “Which means you really do need to go back down inside that ship and try to find out the truth. And I would like to see for myself what’s down there.”
Even as I say it, it occurs to me that I’ve just volunteered to enter the secret research facility where the Imperator wanted to keep me as a test subject.
Even Aeson is staring at me.
I must be insane.
Which is right when the wrist comm alarm sounds, indicating to us that the ark-ship has just activated itself again.
For a moment we all go quiet, with only the noise of the TV feeds in the background.
The Imperator looks at Aeson and me with a grave expression, then beckons us with his hand to approach—yes, it’s time again to do our newfangled vocal duty back at the Red Office with its monitors and camera-feed setup all ready and waiting for us.
But just as we stand up to leave the room—while the Imperator is using his wrist comm to initialize the machinery in his office to call up the stadium live feed ahead of our arrival, so as not to waste a precious moment—in that instant something odd happens on the TV.
The crowds go absolutely silent. Literally, the noise levels fall away in a span of a few breaths, and it is near-dead silence around the complex—so much so that for a moment I think someone turned off the sound.
And then, in that deep pause, we hear the voice of the commentator from the main feed window.
“And—it appears to be—we have something, Poseidon! Yes, indeed, to all our viewers, this is not a mistake! Those of you down there on the ground—you have stopped marching and expressing your concerns, and you are all looking up! It’s happening right now, even as I describe the scene to you, Poseidon! Up in the sky, yes, everyone is looking up—may we have a different view angle, please, over at control—”
There’s a momentary scramble on the screen, and then the camera starts to rotate and pan away from the street view of the crowd where people’s faces have gone slack, signs lowered, and they are instead staring upward. . . . The camera leaves them all behind and sweeps up past the background view of the surrounding tall buildings to the open night sky directly overhead.
“There it is!” the commentator says in a surprised voice, as the view moves across the deep indigo sky with its usual dense star field, past one of the rising moons—it’s the largest, Amrevet—to rest on some kind of odd phenomenon in the shape of a glowing, shimmering, vaguely round blob of light.
At the same time the mesmerized crowds come alive and start to make a different kind of noise, which rises in a fearful swell.
“What the—?” Director Tiofon exclaims, leaning forward.
“What is that?” Aeson says, stepping toward the hovering TV panel. At the same time the Imperator freezes, staring at the screen, while next to him the priest and the STA Director do the same.
“Unbelievable, Poseidon! We have definite confirmation of the previously reported sky manifestation, a phenomenon being seen right here, from the heart of Poseidon city center! Previous sightings have been made beyond our borders all around the Lower Hemisphere side, and now that it’s nighttime, we have full visibility—”
The commentator pauses, then resumes, “And now I am being told, yes—the object appears to be in a haze and is roughly circular, partially transparent, its location forty degrees away from zenith, with Amrevet full and rising below, and Mar-Yan definitely visible but low on the horizon. Pegasus is nowhere to be seen yet, at this time of night—no, my apologies, I’m being now corrected and told that Pegasus the moon is on the other side of the sky, but that this object could be a massive grouping of pegasei, a kind of super-flock, since it resembles the energy cluster of—”
“Rawah bashtooh!” the Imperator cries and then begins walking to the door. “To the balcony! I need to see this right now!”
Not needing to be told twice, all of us follow, rushing after him.
We walk at a near run along a few corridors, emerging in an antechamber that has a grand terrace balcony running along its exterior wall, and the Imperator opens the glass enclosure door and emerges outside.
Director Tiofon, Director Bennu, Shirahtet, Aeson and I, and a couple of other staff, spill onto the balcony, and cool evening air washes over us.
I feel Aeson’s strong hand steadying me on my upper arm, as we stand behind the others and look around. There’s no other illumination here, only the natural Atlantean darkness, distant walls of adjacent Palace structures, black gardens below sprinkled with light-orbs, and only a few soft sconce-lights casting a warm persimmon glow in the interior at our backs.
“Can you see it?” someone asks. “There, there, is that it?”
“Over to the right and down there,” STA Director Bennu whispers, pointing up.
“I see it,” the Imperator’s hard voice sounds.
I look up, straining to see the sky in that direction.
And then, somewhere near a rooftop overhang draped by a descending green vine with curling, wide leaves and sparse branches, to the right, I see it.
A large, shimmering, impossible splotch of light.
It is vaguely round, the size of my pinkie fingertip, or maybe a small Earth coin, with blurring edges, as if it’s made out of vapor, or possibly cloud mass. However, unlike a normal cloud it seems to be sparkling or glittering, or in some other way exhibiting constant change along its diaphanous surface.
What surface? What the hell is this thing? A bizarre energy cluster? An artificial hologram projection, or a weird alien mirage? Superimposed against the star-filled darkness of the Atlantean sky, it appears partially transparent!
Could it really be some kind of crazy super-flock of pegasei, as the network commentator called it?
My mind is blown. Can pegasei even do that? Can they gather in a flock and form a huge sky cluster and just sit and pulsate up there, in the sky?
What the hell is it?
Even as I wonder, my lips parted stupidly, hearing Aeson at my side draw in his breath sharply, the others respond with their own versions of bewilderment.
The First Priest whispers what could possibly be an incantation or prayer, because all I can guess is that it must be Classical Atlanteo—some of the words are almost familiar, or archaic variations of Atlantean words I know. The only word I am certain he’s muttering is “pegasei.”
“That’s incredible . . .” Rovat Bennu, the Science and Technology Agency Director whispers with wonder. “I have never seen a pegasei flock this size
.”
“Are you sure? Do you really think those are pegasei?” the ACA Director responds. “Especially at night, with no solar feeding source—”
“What else could that be?” Bennu says. “Look closely at the fine micro-pattern of colors, swirling and sparkling—that’s pegasei energy! Consider the distance, elevation, I am guessing, at least a mag-heitar from ground level, it must be thousands of them—”
I recall that mag-heitar is a measure of distance in Atlanteo that is approximately ten kilometers.
“No,” the Imperator cuts in. “That’s impossible.”
“Indeed, My Imperial Sovereign, it is very unlikely, as you say,” the priest echoes him.
“Then what is it?” Director Bennu shakes his head and rubs the back of his bald spot.
“At this point, anything,” Aeson speaks up. “A stealth aircraft. Atmospheric gases or chemicals combined causing a cloudburst emission—our own weather tech malfunctioning?”
I get a crazy thought. “What if it’s them—the alien enemy of your ancients?”
Everyone turns, frowning. They stare at me.
“Hush, don’t even say such things, Imperial Lady!” Hijep Tiofon, the Atlantis Central Agency Director says after a meaningful pause, glancing around at the others nervously.
The Imperator trains his dragon gaze at me. But before he says anything, Director Bennu speaks up. “Instead of making nonsense speculations, let’s find out. Send research drones, probes, whatever necessary. Even pilot shuttles—”
“Agreed,” Director Tiofon says. “Immediately—we need to ascertain the level of possible danger the phenomenon poses, especially if it is something other than pegasei. Such as an incoming comet or meteor—or even an asteroid.”
There is a grim pause, and this time everyone stares at Director Tiofon.
“Before we proceed—did anyone notice the timing correlation?” STA Director Bennu asks.
The Imperator focuses on him. “What correlation?”
“Well, the ark-ship had just been reactivated—the alarm went off—at about the same time when the phenomenon appeared in our sky.” Bennu reasons out loud. “My Sovereign Lord, you and the Imperial Lord and the Imperial Lady were just about to perform the lock sequence when the media interrupted us with the appearance of the—”
“Bashtooh, yes!” The Imperator curses and nods in agreement. “We were interrupted right then!”
“Okay, we need to verify this, right now. Simple test.” Aeson steps back and opens the glass door leading inside. “My Father, let’s return and finish the Voice sequence. While we perform it, someone needs to remain outside and observe this thing in the sky and tell us if anything happens when we complete the command!”
We hurry back inside, and take the corridors back to the Red Office and the Imperator’s desk with its monitor panels ready to go. Director Tiofon is instructed to remain out on the balcony to observe and keep track of the time, while the rest of us crowd in the small room.
We perform the Plural Logos Voice Chorus command sequence before a mesmerized audience—this time Director Bennu gets to witness our performance and time it.
The ark-ship stops humming as expected and is put to rest until the next time.
As soon as it goes silent, the Imperator’s wrist comm sounds. It’s Director Tiofon, calling to let us know that the object of light has just disappeared from the sky.
“What?” the Imperator exclaims with a strange expression. “All right, get back here, Tiofon.”
In minutes, ACA Director Tiofon comes running to the Red Office. “The light object just faded away, My Imperial Sovereign! I timed it—it started to fade at precisely eighth hour, forty-one daydreams, and three heartbeats.”
“Which is the precise time when the Logos Voice command sequence was completed,” Director Bennu says in an excited voice, checking his own wrist. “We have an actual correlation.”
“When you say ‘disappeared’—” Shirahtet chooses his words carefully, “do you mean it moved from its position in any way, akin to a flying craft, or did it simply dissolve and fade in place?”
“I mean the latter,” Director Tiofon replies. “There was no motion, no physical displacement, just a dissolving effect. As though someone turned it off.”
“Interesting,” Aeson says, glancing at me. “So that would generally rule out a comet, meteor, asteroid, or any other such natural passing visitor made of cosmic matter from deep space. They don’t simply lose their surface albedo at a moment’s notice—not unless something steps between them and their reflected light source. And a comet heated up by proximity to Hel’s radiation wouldn’t lose either its ion tail or dust tail that quickly.”
“So, what does it mean?” I ask. “What is happening?”
“Ah! Now we send out the tech equipment and begin the tests to find out!” Director Bennu glances at me with an almost pleased level of animation. It’s the scientific curiosity kind, and I get it, really, I do—curiosity is killing me also.
Except, now I’m also terrified.
It’s really late evening, after eleventh hour, and there is still relentless activity, both here in the Palace, and on the media.
After the mysterious “light blob” object abruptly disappeared from the sky during our most recent Voice command sequence, and the Poseidon crowds reacted with appropriate fear and confusion, they eventually started to disperse. Media crews and various network and law enforcement hover cars continued to patrol the downtown area, but it soon devolved into empty chatter and baseless speculation.
And now they’re still out there, but we have more pressing issues to deal with. The Imperator has directed all the agencies and their tech resources to investigate the global skies around the planet, and Aeson, as SPC Commander, has ordered new shifts of deep space patrols to investigate distant space.
In addition, there have been foreign heads of state calling the Palace, and the Imperator has been busy talking not only to the Pharikon of New Deshret (again) who called at the start of his own morning, but to the Crown Hereret of Vai-Naat, the First Speaker of the Ennead of Ubasti, the Rai of Ptahleon and the Rai of Shuria, the Hetmet of Qurartu, and—my God, the countries and ranks all spin in my head, and I cannot even remember who all these people and places are. Naturally, the visiting Oratorat of Eos-Heket, who is staying right here in the Palace, has requested another immediate Imperial Audience to “discuss the potential global crisis.”
Now that the phenomenon observed in the night skies all over the globe earlier has reached our hemisphere (it’s night here now in Atlantida, in the Upper Hemisphere, while the opposite side of the planet with New Deshret is experiencing daytime), these other countries are mobilizing their own resources to look into this anomaly.
Are they overreacting?
One thing that I picked up during my studies on board the Fleet ark-ships over the past year of our journey here, is that the Atlanteans are good at knowing everything about their home environment—be it the planet surface itself, its skies, oceans, or the surrounding space and solar system—everything is analyzed, tracked, constantly monitored. There are no surprises. So, when something out of the ordinary is discovered, they tend to go into full alert mode.
And now, because I’m additionally aware of their constant state of vigilance against an alien enemy, I can see why everywhere around the globe there’s a sense of unspoken panic. Unlike Earth, where UFO sightings are—or were—made light of by the public and summarily dismissed by the authorities as conspiracy nonsense or ignorant misinterpretation of common natural phenomena (and in some cases clandestine government activities), Atlantis takes everything potentially alien dead-seriously.
It occurs to me, that’s probably a good thing.
All throughout this madness, Aeson has been receiving his own flood of calls on his wrist comm, many of them from our friends and family. Gracie called, crazy with worry, and Aeson gives me his personal unit for a minute to talk to her and calm her down, then ha
s our conversation transferred over to a nearby TV panel display, to free up his line for urgent incoming data. Then the astra daimon start calling Aeson, one after another—Xelio, Ker, Oalla, Erita, and some others, all asking what is going on, and I overhear thinly veiled talk about “lights in the sky.”
Eventually, everything just gets so chaotic that my mind is no longer able to keep the events straight.
I don’t even know how late it is now. . . . Twelfth hour?
“Father, permission to return to my estate—Gwen needs to rest, and she has the Final Ceremony to attend tomorrow—and so do we,” Aeson says firmly, as we all sit in another room over a half-eaten late niktos meal. “I’ve configured my personal unit to connect remotely to the Stadion live-feed, so no need for us to be present here. As soon as the alarm sounds, it will wake us. We can then coordinate with you, and call in our three Voice sequences together—remotely. As for all the rest, I am getting SPC reports in real time, so will let you know if anything important comes up.”
The Imperator has a feverish, tired expression on his face. “Yes, fine. There are enough people working on this hoohvak issue that a few hours of rest will not harm. It is important for all of us. Indeed, a necessity, if we are to function.”
And so, the Imperator dismisses us and the Directors and his other staff.
“Come, Gwen,” Aeson tells me gently—as I’m barely keeping my eyelids open while I sit hunched in my seat, rubbing my elbows with my fingers to keep myself alert. “Let’s go home.”
We return to Phoinios Heights around Midnight Ghost Time, flying over a brightly lit city that seems to have lost its ability to sleep—even the air traffic is excessive for this time of night, as residents scramble to their destinations, later than usual.
At the doors of the estate, Gracie and Gordie hurry toward us, followed by Oalla, Laronda, Keruvat, and Dawn, while more of our friends are gathered in the large living room.
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