The Lost Aria (Earth Song Book 3) Page 37

  “We might not have more than anecdotal evidence, but it sure looks like these worlds were trashed by orbital bombardment.”

  “The Concordians don't use space ships,” Aaron said, right from the textbooks.

  “They did once,” Ted reminded them.

  “Maybe this is why they stopped?” Var'at gestured at the vast, featureless desert all around them. “How many millions, billions of beings did they slaughter on world after world? You humans have only been exploring for a short time, and already found two. We know of many more. There could be thousands.” No one had anything else to say.

  Chapter 7

  January 13th, 522 AE

  Planet 'Sunshine', Galactic Frontier

  Minu kept them working on the shelter, mostly widening and working to create some sort of roof. They couldn't go any deeper. It was a compromise between the heat and cold above, and the lurking hard radiation below. Minu shook her head as she helped empty buckets of dirt. “So I either cook from the heat, or grow an extra arm.”

  The suns were all set, and the temperature was below 15 now. You could see your breath, but mostly just because there was no real humidity in the air. “Let me give you a rest,” Aaron said and dropped easily into the hole, relieving her of the bucket. She climbed out of the hole, slipped on her jacket against the gathering cold, and dropped exhaustedly into a camp chair. Above them the stars twinkled in a desultory manner, still partly obscured by the systems three blazing stars now behind the planet.

  Ted was snoring quietly in a camp cot a few meters away, the control rod still gripped in his hands. He'd never stopped working on it, trying to get around the programming that had them trapped. He and Bjorn sounded optimistic that they might eventually find a solution. Bjorn said he wouldn't give up, no matter how many years it took.

  She got up after a few minutes and stretched painfully, her muscles were trying to cramp after the hours of heavy digging. Walking around the small camp she ended up in front of the Portal dais, just standing there staring at it. She completely believed Ted’s statement that it was locked. Such a tactic was completely within the mindset of many Concordia species. But she just couldn't believe there was no way around it. That belief came from some knowledge that she alone seemed to possess. With a backwards glance towards the fighters and her friends all gathered around their makeshift shelter excavation, she climbed the steps.

  Instantly the Portal came alive, the archway popping up with all its swirling patterns of high energy plasma. As the Portal came alive, Ted woke up and looked down at his control rod. Seeing nothing had changed, he gave her a slightly bemused look and went back to sleep. Minu shrugged and sat down cross legged in front of the archway. The forcefields that made up the Portal always felt cool and slightly slippery to the touch. “Why am I wasting my time?” she asked herself. Because there is nothing else to do, was the silent reply. If there was even a slight possibility that there was a way out, she was going to try it. Tomorrow night, with the shelter finished, they would take the fully functional fighter up and begin extended search patterns, looking for any surviving structures. But now, this seemed the right thing to do.

  Relaxing her breathing and staring at the swirling patterns, she slowly began to unwind. The burning in her shoulders from all the digging began to abate, and that alone made the attempt worthwhile. She was just beginning to wonder if it was going to work when she fell forward and into the plasma.

  No matter how many times she did it which really wasn't that many yet, it was a jarring, disconcerting, and slightly alarming phenomenon. The brain tried to make sense out of the strange transposition, and ended up reporting that they had fallen into the Portal. Minu ignored the little jerk of panic and breathed deeply. I'm breathing plasma? Ugh, stop it and calm down, Minu.

  “We want the one you know as Pip.” As before the voice just appeared in her head as if it were her own thought. She looked around, and sure enough, there was one of the mysterious beings called Weavers. A ghostly, crab-like thing with spidery arms riding the currents of plasma a few meters away. Every time she saw a Weaver she did her best to try and detect any differences, any hints that they were distinct individuals, or if only one existed. If they exist at all, she reminded herself

  “We are,” it answered, as if she'd asked a question. As she watched, it waved one of its four inner claw-like limbs. The motion left floaters in her eyes and made her feel disturbed, deep down in the pit of her being. She'd tried focusing on one of those limbs long ago. The tip seemed to go on, and on, forever. It regarded her calmly with its four black-on-black eyes.

  “You are, I know. Pip is here.”

  “We know, bring him up so we can convene.”

  “Convene? What do you want to convene?”

  “We need to negotiate. Pip will/is/was be your representative.”

  “He can't represent anything; he's got brain damage and is in a coma.”

  “All things come, of their own choosing.”

  Minu tried to make sense of the disjointed statements. The Weavers had shown from her past encounters that they possessed no sense of the present, past, or future. It was almost as if they lived, at all times. She'd desperately wanted to discuss the bizarre beings with Pip, but he'd been injured and that never happened. She hadn't discussed them with anyone else for fear of being thought unhinged. It isn't a good sign when a Chosen starts having conversations with ethereal crab/spiders that lived in plasma.

  “If you want to speak to Pip you need to help me.”

  “We will/have/are speaking to him.”

  “I know, but to me that hasn't happened yet.” No answer, it just floated there. She tried another tack. “You helped me before.”

  “We have/will/do help you, Minu Alma. Our last helping disturbed many things; we believe it may not have been in our best interests.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “We are.”

  “Right,” she sighed. “Anyway, you need to help again. This Portal that I communicate through, it is locked and we are trapped on this world. We may die here, and Pip too, if we cannot unlock this Portal and continue onward. Our mission is to help Pip so he can meet with you.”

  “It is so.”

  “Okay, so help.”

  “You have/will/did lock the Portal.”

  “No, we didn't do it, someone a long time ago did.”

  “You.”

  Fucking retards, she thought, and instantly regretted it, knowing the Weaver would hear her thoughts. But they didn't seem to take any offense so she continued. “Alright, whatever, I locked the Portal. Now I can't unlock it.”

  “Overriding the Portals is against our agreement. You are asking us to do many things we are not supposed to do.”

  “I can't help it, you seem to think I'm doing all this stuff, and it couldn't be farther from the truth!”

  “We cannot override the Portal.” Minu felt her anger beginning to build. “But we will show you your code, the one you will/have/did give us.”

  Her head swam with a cryptic series of Concordia script that flashed by so fast she didn't have time to recognize a single symbol. Her script fluency was somewhere between average to good, but that was way too fast. She was about to complain when she was shoved out of the Portal with a gasp.

  “Are you okay?” Minu looked up at Aaron's worried face. The temperature was no more than ten degrees, maybe less. She only wore a light windbreaker, the sweat from her earlier exertion was dried and she was shivering almost uncontrollably. Aaron stepped up to kneel next to her, putting a powerful arm around her shoulder. The contact made heat spread in more ways than one as his smell of dirt, soap, and honest sweat filled her nostrils.

  “I fell asleep,” she said, her teeth chattering.

  “Looked like you were having a conversation in your sleep. You looked kind of pissed, then suddenly you jerked upright and looked in pain.”

  “Bad dream.” Minu gently shrugged off his arm and climbed to her feet, reach
ing into a pocket and clicking on the jacket’s heater. It was only good for a light warming, but would be enough if luck was with her. “I got an idea.” she hopped down from the dais and strode over to where Ted was snoring. Bjorn sat next to him now, a tablet in his hands. Only a couple of torches provided light in the working area so the tablet cast his aging face in stark relief. He looked up and gave her a smile. “Can I borrow the control rod?”

  “I don't suspect he'll mind,” Bjorn said and slid it from his hand. Ted fidgeted in his sleep, missing the rod, so Bjorn picked up a long rock and put it in his hand. It seemed to do the trick because Ted sighed and quieted down. “What do you have in mind? We've tried just about every piece of magic...”

  His voice trailed off because as soon as he handed it to Minu she began working on the holographic script. She watched her fingers in amazement, the digits moving with blazing speed. Minu shook her head, it felt like she was entering a locker combination she'd known for years, or dialing a best friend’s phone number. Only this sequence had at least twenty moves. Bjorn elbowed Ted who grunted and sat up straight, looking first at the rock in his hand then at Minu in confusion. “What the-”

  “Shhh!” Bjorn snapped and pointed; “just watch.”

  Minu finished what she knew was the level one cypher. The entire field of holographic script flashed once, then changed from its normal white to a bluish hue. In addition a new set of scripts appeared, hovering over the first. She went right at those and entered the Master Code. The code entered, she pointed the rod at the Portal and stabbed the initiate icon. The Portal pulsed brilliantly, all the script icons along the Portal flashed like a string of pearls, and the rod displayed a message in script. Minu responded by releasing the rod from Master function and returning to the general user level it had been before.

  “Let’s get packed up,” she said and turned to her stunned group of friends. If Ted's jaw hung down any farther it would have been in his lap.

  “That isn't acceptable, young lady,” Ted snapped. He was as upset as Minu had ever seen him. From the moment she'd reset the Portal and gave him back the rod he'd verified it was clear and free then followed her every step she made while helping the team get ready to go, continually insisting she explain both how she'd suddenly learned something that no other human knew, and to teach him. She would have loved to at least teach him, but for some inexplicable reason, she couldn't! “What did you do to me?” she asked the Weavers before remembering she was no longer inside the Portal.

  “I'm not your young lady, need I remind you?” she snapped aloud at Ted, her anger flaring as always when that pejorative was used to describe her. “I would tell you if I could, but I cannot.”

  “Then tell me why!”

  If I did you'd think I was nuts, she thought. “Because now is not the time. Look, I'm in command; you accepted that when you came on this mission. For now you have to take my word for it that I will explain later, and help us get out of here before the sun comes up.” The sky never got completely dark, and already the eastern horizon was beginning to glow once more. The temperature hovered at five degrees, but not for much longer. Ted glared at her, his jaw muscles bunching as he tried to control his feelings of frustration and betrayal at being, what seemed like, purposefully excluded from valuable knowledge.

  “Come on Ted,” Bjorn finally said and slapped his longtime friend in the back, “it will just sweeten the telling once she can let us in on it. I, for one, love a good mystery! Did I ever tell you of the time I saw a Mok-Tok trying to mate with a Beezer? It was about thirty years ago...” He succeeded in leading the reluctant Ted away, casting a quick glance at Minu and sparing her a little wink, before joining the others to load the rest of their gear. Minu heaved a sigh and smiled at him with gratitude. It hurt to keep a secret from one of her few friends. It hurt even more when it wasn't a conscious decision.

  “I hope you have a good reason for that secret.” She glanced over at where Aaron was stuffing the last of the carefully rolled solar shields into their packing case. “Ted looks really pissed off.”

  “You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” she said and went over to help him. “I frankly don't believe it myself.” He looked up at her, concern and curiosity etched in the strong lines of his olive complexioned face. His dark black hair was cut short, as usual now, and even through the powered windbreaker she could see his massive muscles work as he heaved the crate to carry it into the fighter.

  “Thanks,” he said as he turned to go, his deep brown eyes twinkling. Minu felt a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach she hadn't felt in a couple years. He stopped and looked at her. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing!” she said quickly, her face turning red from cheeks to neck.

  “Girls,” he mumbled and went inside.

  Minu turned away and tried to calm her fluttering heart. She'd known him since they were on their trials, and only once before had she felt that deep of a connection to him, they'd just happened to both be naked and her head was in his lap, the back of her head pressed against his erect penis. He'd just saved her from drowning and was looking at her, those deep brown eyes full of concern, and something else. “No,” she said and shook her head, “he can't be...with me.” She turned her head and saw he was securing the crate, but looking right at her. The flush came back and she quickly looked away. “Quit acting like a little school girl!” she admonished herself. “He's cute, sure, and maybe he does have feelings for me, but so what?”

  “What?” hissed a voice nearby. Var'at was there holding a crate of Rasa manufactured gear and had been listening to her confusing monologue for a few seconds.

  “Oh, crap, nothing, nothing. I'm just trying to figure things out.”

  “I've been wanting to tell you, about that Portal and what you did?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I've seen that done once before.”

  “Really?” She exclaimed. “When, who did it?”

  “It was many years ago, when I first became a scout leader. A very remote world where we negotiated the purchase of a special sort of Portal control rod. Once the sale was completed, the owners handed them over to my team, and they programmed them just like you did.”

  “What species was it?”

  “It was a Poolab. They are a reclusive aquatic species, not many in the Concordia are aquatic. From your earth records, I would say it looks rather like a seahorse. They float in little fish bowls that are attached to centipede-bots. An old species, intelligent, and very hard to deal with. Many say they go back to the founding of the Concordia, millions of years ago.”

  “Why are they so difficult to deal with?”

  “They aren't motivated by money, or power.”

  “So what did motivate them?”

  “Information. Unfortunately back then, I had little influence so I didn't know what I was trading them.”

  “What about these special control rods?”

  “Don't know about that, either. I heard later that they may have been designed to open new Portals wherever you wanted to.”

  “Never heard of that, doesn't seem possible.”

  “I agree, which is why I discounted the rumor. Anyway, they knew how to do what you just did, and I suspect much, much more.”

  “I'll have to keep an eye out for them.”

  “I wish you luck, I have only seen the one in all my years, and I don't know anyone else who has either.”

  Var'at went back to his task and left Minu to think. Another line in her grand mental notebook, full from front to back with clues to a mystery bigger than the galaxy. She sighed and turned, almost walking right into the deep pit they'd dug as shelter. Cursing herself for not paying attention she easily jumped over, and missed her landing. “Son of a-” she squawked, and slid down the other side to the bottom.

  “You okay?” she heard Aaron yell from inside the fighter.

  “Yes!” she barked, much more brusquely than she'd intended. “Thanks,” she added after feeling guilty.
/>
  “Okay,” he replied and went back to his work.

  Minu brushed dirt from her bottom and got up, now very glad they wouldn't have to spend a day in the dank hole. And as she stood there, that was when she saw the bone. The dirt was all dark gray or black, a result of the planets demise according to the scientists. The bone was bleached almost pure white and caught her eye immediately. “What's this then,” she said as she bent over it. Brushing away more of the dirt she could see it was an arm or leg bone of some animal, about half a meter long, and fairly thin. From her biology classes she could recognize tendon attachment points and places where veins once entered.

  “We're just about ready!” Aaron yelled to her. “You going to the toilet down there?”

  “Don't be crude,” she yelled back. She almost just jumped out and left it there, then decided against it. Instead she dug a couple of the bones loose and dropped them in the pocket she would normally have carried her control rod. And with no more thought about it she jumped out and headed for her craft.

  A few minutes later the Portal flashed to life and the two fighters climbed off the ground, their gravitic impellers whining and sending up a flurry of dust from their excavations. They both flew across the trench they'd dug on the way to pass through the Portal, the wildly spinning gravity fields brushing dirt around in mini cyclones. As they passed the first sun was broaching the horizon and sending bright blue light flooding into the pit. Had Minu been standing where she'd discovered the arm bone, she would have borne witness to the uncovering of a bleached and cracked skull. A skull, that except for a few noted differences of the eye socket shape and angle of the brow, would have been a dead ringer for a human skull. A moment later the second fighter passed over and its powerful gravity field collapsed the trench, burying the excavation forever.

  Chapter 8

  January 13th, 522 AE