Aurona, page 51
Hope lit up in Adam’s eyes. “Hey, go for it, Duron! That’s the best option so far; I feel it in my gut! If you guys see that blue signal, send me a mind-message the minute it shows up. You’ll have to bear with us on tomorrow’s mission, though: Elena and I should be gone most of the….”
“I’ve been thinking, sir, Peter interrupted. “Why couldn’t we just throw up those big gold shields around the planet so they can’t get away?”
Duron intervened. “I am sorry Peter, but we would be blind. Those strong shields would definitely interfere with the delicate electrical root sensors.”
Adam pulled Elena to his side and squeezed her protectively. “Well, right now my wife and I are going to get some much needed rest. We’re totally exhausted. First thing in the morning, though, we’re definitely onto Plan B. At first light, I’d like a quick lift back to the island on one of these starships. I just hope that Roson will go along with my harebrained scheme.”
The ancient one had finished her gardening and was relaxing in front of the great window in her room. Adam noticed that her medicine bottle was empty, tipped over on its side. He stepped hesitantly off the elevator.
“Ah … hello?”
She turned her head wearily. “Yes Adam. I’ve been waiting. I’m glad you went back and took some valuable time to comfort your remaining crew. I see that they dropped you and Elena off on my roof. You must be in a real hurry to get on with your Plan B, whatever that is.”
Encouraged, he and Elena picked their way through the instrument-cluttered room toward her contour chair. “Well, ah, speaking of Plan B, you’re the only one on the planet who can help us with it, Roson.”
“How so? And why me?”
Adam came directly to the point. “We need two of your newest SeaSphere transporters and directions to the coastal tombs.”
“What?” She sat up indignantly, her eyes flashing. “Those tombs have been underwater for millions of years! They’re sacred! It’s forbidden for any Bandor to….”
“For any Bandor to visit them,” he interrupted politely. “That’s precisely right! However, we,” he winked, pointing to himself and Elena, “are not Bandors!”
She stopped short, pondering. In a moment she returned with a carefully phrased question. “What is it you seek?”
“Answers,” he shrugged.
“How do you expect to find them there?”
“Intuition? It seems logical.”
“Explain yourself.”
He paused a moment to put it together. “Those tombs,” he began, “are the earliest evidence of Bandor civilization on Aurona. If the pattern I’ve seen so far holds true, the earliest star maps should also be inscribed into their floors, showing your civilization’s earliest journeys. But most of all, I believe one of the tombs is different.”
“Different? How so?” She looked at him suspiciously.
“Among other things, it might have clues to obtaining a forgotten power source.”
She raised a lone, wispy brow. “You’ve been listening to Duron!”
“So tell me,” he insisted. “Is it true or not? If he’s been lying, I’ll forget the whole mission!”
She fell silent, mulling it over. The sound of Adam’s excited breathing quickly found a rhythm, synchronizing with the breakers far beneath the open window. Finally, she looked up. “My boy,” she sighed, “it appears that you’ve outfoxed an old fox. Yes, it is true, but I’ve been testing you.”
The hint of a smile that had been playing across his face quickly disappeared. “Testing me? Why?”
“To see if my prophecy about you was genuine. I couldn’t believe it myself and so have been trying to head you off with this conversation. Your future path seems set.”
“Huh? My future? Tell me then, what did you see and why do I feel so driven to go to the tombs right now to find it? Especially at this really critical time?”
“Be assured, Adam. This is indeed the time. You will find two things: one of them is intangible but vital to this rescue. It will be for your people, our people and the very future of this planet. Oddly, you may not even recognize it when you find it!”
“Huh? Did you get any idea of…?”
“No,” she interrupted, “I simply caught a glimpse of you becoming very excited as you discovered it. My visions are not as strong as they used to be.”
“And the second thing?” he prompted.
She turned her head, pondering, staring out her great window. “Well, it was tangible, a tiny object. I couldn’t get a clear view of it as you held it in your hand. I’m only guessing that as the tomb is so old, it might be some kind of a forgotten link to our distant past….” She paused, scowling. “But!” She held up a scrawny finger.
“But?” His faint, hopeful smile faded.
“What Duron doesn’t know is that I alone have pinpointed the location of the oldest tomb that you seek! Up to now, I’d intended to bring this knowledge with me to the grave!”
His smile returned. “Yow! Does that mean we get the new SeaSpheres?”
Elena intervened, her eyes pleading. “Adam, I still don’t get any of this! Why that one particular tomb? Why now? It all sounds too risky, too dangerous!”
He exhaled a long breath, looking down at the floor. “We’ve just got to go, Elena, especially now that we know all this stuff! Every instinct I have is pulling me there! Remember that ‘big picture’ I told you about? Call it intuition, call it clairvoyance or prophecy, call it anything you want. As Roson just said, what I’m seeking will be a vital link to my ability to rescue our crew. My grandfather never gave up, especially when answers were so close!”
They both stared at him, deep in their own thoughts. Finally, Roson relented with a sigh. “So it is done,” she mumbled. “Logic prevails. Yes, your grandfather never gave up; I trusted him and so must trust his progeny.” She waved a scrawny arm and motioned behind them. “You’ll probably need underwater foot propulsion, adjustable gravity belts, and breathing equipment. Be a dear and open that big drawer over there? Third from the bottom in the twenty-second row?”
“Yes!” He punched the air, hopping in a tight circle. “Thanks, Roson!” He sprinted to the far wall, counting. With a puzzled look on his face, he pulled out a handful of rubbery tentacles dangling from wide, spongy-looking, slitted bands. “What are these?” He squeezed and stretched them as he trotted back.
She reached out impatiently. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Shaking one of them free from the pile, she demonstrated, slipping it around her thin neck like a collar. “They’re really quite simple to wear.” Fumbling with her crooked fingers, she fastened it in the front. Raising her thin brows, she shrugged mutely in a very human gesture.
“That’s it?” Adam was incredulous. “That’s all?”
She chuckled. “They’re gills. Artificial gills. Layers of semipermeable nano-membranes inside slits. They’re just like a fish’s lungs but far, far more effective at extracting oxygen and nitrogen from seawater. We invented them centuries ago. Oh, and they generate a force field over your heads, similar to Tavan’s electronic helmet. The resulting bubble permits you to talk to each other underwater with your SeaPhones. We added that feature….”
“We?” Adam pressed. “You keep saying ‘we,’ Roson. Who? My grandfather?”
“No,” she shrugged, “this rush of creativity happened centuries before he arrived. I teamed up with the Bitrons, actually our ancestral cousins. They form a branch of our evolutionary tree that prefers not to eat of the mind-fruit. They believe it’s a matter of matter over mind, and not….”
“Mind over matter?” he finished, chuckling. “Hey, I like those dudes! They’re techno-geeks, just like me! But seriously, you guys are related to the Bitrons?”
“Yes. And there you have it, Adam, your first answer. Bandors and Bitrons share a common ancestor somewhere in the past.”
“Wow! I knew you guys looked alike, except for the size of your heads!” As he studied her, his expression darkened momentarily. “So tell me, Roson, what’s really going on? You know, Elena’s kidnapping, and now this hostage-taking? I-I know our crew has evil ones in our midst and you Bandors have outlaws like those prophecy zealots who captured Elena, but-but now … the Bitrons, too?”
Roson’s thin lips drew into a straight, hard line. “This is very difficult, Adam, as the Bitrons are my friends. Most are of superb character and excellent allies. As you’ve seen from Kron’s holo-tape, our distant cousins have developed an offshoot of the cloaking and holographic technologies, coupled with rapid stem-cell generation. It’s called plasmorphy, where another body image can be physically formed around their own to totally change their appearance. Yes, it’s the ultimate in disguises but eventually it causes a lot of scarring on their original bodies. It’s only inevitable that a few Bitron outlaws have capitalized on this technology and used to ‘mix in’ with resident alien populations. What am I saying?” She shrugged. “Just this: there are Bitron/Bandor plasmorphs living right here on this planet, Aurona, at this very moment. They’re impossible to detect because they’ve learned the difficult art of mind-shielding.”
Adam put it together quickly. “They mimic your mannerisms, too?”
She nodded. “Yes. One of these plasmorphs is particularly dangerous and has tricked some of your crew to join him in his treachery. I’ve only been able to catch glimpses of him in the past few hours, as he has momentarily let down his guard in the midst of all the action. Mind-shields are powerful defensive weapons.”
Adam rolled his eyes and let out a low whistle. “Wow! So much for my idealistic view of this peaceful planet! Think of it: Plasmo-Wars!”
Elena tugged his arm and locked her eyes with his. “We’ve got to focus on your mission here, Adam. It’s getting late and we need directions to the tomb.”
“She’s right,” Roson agreed. “Once you employ your new SeaSphere’s Phase II acceleration, it’s precisely two and a half sea-hours away. If you’ll pardon my trite but misplaced Earth-expression, you’ve got a lot of ground to cover!”
Chapter 28: THE TOMB
Hovering over the rolling waves in the predawn darkness, a pair of SeaSpheres flattened out into teardrop shapes and plunged quickly beneath the surface. Their supercharged skins danced like eager, spirited horses, chomping at the bit and raring to go.
Excitedly, Adam shouted into their new SeaPhones. “Hear me, hon?”
She flinched. “Ouch! Gotcha! Very loud and clear!”
“Oops, sorry,” he apologized, “I’ll crank it down a bit.” He glanced at her through their shimmering walls. “Oh, Roson mentioned that these lap units fit down between our knees. She said it was very important.”
Elena looked up, surprised. “Huh? Okay, lemme see…. Hey, they fit nicely! So that’s why they have those soft u-shaped channels running down the sides.”
“Aha! You’re right! Form does follow function, right? Okay, I’m setting my stopwatch function for exactly two and a half hours now and I’ll punch it when we’re ready to start moving. About twenty miles from here, she said that the sea floor drops away from the island’s continental shelf, and there’s a huge pillar in the way, a big seamount of some sort. That’s where we switch over to Phase II acceleration. It’ll power us straight east for three thousand miles through unobstructed ocean parallel to the equator.”
“Hey!” Elena blinked. “What happens if sea creatures get in the way?”
“Um, Roson also mentioned some kind of conical shock waves being generated about a half mile ahead of us. I hope that shoves anything out of the way.”
“Good,” she scowled uncertainly. “I feel much better … I think.”
He studied her expression. “We’ll be okay, hon. Really! I’m figuring on seven or eight hours for this whole mission, including five hours for traveling both ways. When we get there, it might take two or three hours just to find what we’re looking for.”
“Ah, what are we looking for, Adam? Please remind me; I still don’t know.”
He sighed. “I don’t know either, but I’m positive it’s there. Remember, she said it was, um, intangible. I just hope one of us recognizes it when we find it.” Shrugging, he poised his finger over his stopwatch. “Ready?”
They departed in a rush of power. It seemed like mere minutes before the seamount was directly in front of them. They swiveled eastward, then nudged their throttles all the way forward to initiate the Phase II acceleration. Without losing a beat, a pair of long, thin probes began to extrude from the front of their lap units.
Elena looked down and yanked her feet away in alarm. “Good heavens!’ She stared wide-eyed at the sharp points. “What are those little pricker things? If they stick out any further, they’re gonna poke through the front of my bubble!”
“Let’s wait and see,” he whispered. “Maybe they’re supposed to?”
As the probes reached the front walls of their bubbles, they simply flared out and attached themselves. A pair of long, sharp golden needles began to pierce the tensioned surface. They exchanged puzzled glances.
“What do you think is happening, Adam?”
He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know; these new SeaSpheres seem to have a mind of their own. Again, I’d say let’s just wait and….”
Without warning, two tremendous arcs of lightning sizzled out into the water! As the probes blazed open a huge gaseous chamber in front of the bubbles, a great wall of water immediately closed in behind them. Their SeaSpheres lurched forward into the openings, sliding and skittering under the surface like two bars of soap dropped into a bathtub.
“Holy Pokeymon!” Adam pried himself off the back wall. “Electrolysis!”
“Yeah!” she shouted back. “Seriously big time!”
The acceleration quickly leveled off: there was no detectable G-force, no sense of movement at all; the undersea world had simply turned into a blur. A display blinked to life on their lap units. “ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY-ON.” Their eyes met questioningly and there was a short, numbed silence as they struggled to figure it out.
“Wow,” Elena breathed, “how do they do all this stuff?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea; I-I guess we just have to trust the inventors!”
They blasted forward smoothly with ever-increasing speed, the continuous arcs of lightning shooting ahead of them like a torch. It was as if the SeaSpheres had sought and found a harmonious vibration within their own element, skittering alongside each other in perfect sync and leaving two long rooster tails of bubbles rising up to the surface. Their brightly lit probes gave the whole scene a dreamlike quality: in the dark ocean, they looked like enchanted, crystalline narwhals.
Adam settled into the back curve of his bubble, letting out a long breath. ““Whoeee, what a ride!” Slowly, page-by-page, he began to flip through the SeaSphere’s on-screen manual. The low hum droned on, the blurry view remained unchanged, and in spite of himself, he drifted off. Suddenly a loud, insistent beep and a jarring buzz from his wrist programmer alerted him. His hands flew to the controls, his voice tense with excitement. “Whoa, whoa! Elena!”
She peered at him through her watery curtain, her eyelids heavy.
“Sorry, I-I fell asleep,” he exclaimed nervously. “It’s time! We’ve got less than a minute! Got your throttle ready?”
Nodding, she gave him a thumbs-up. On his signal, the SeaSpheres simultaneously withdrew their probes, their propulsion waves reversed, and they stopped dead in the water. Roson’s timing had been precise: Two and a half hours to the second! They looked up.
Dead ahead of them was a vertical cliff!
They gasped, their jaws hanging open: Roson had figured out the timing way too closely! The wall appeared to be the edge of an ancient continental shelf, but oddly fractured and crumbling into the abyss beneath them. As they rose slowly through the dark waters toward the distant sunlight, a sudden warning beep alerted Adam: his lap unit’s sonar had picked up a moving object below him. He spread his legs wide and looked straight down. His startled eyes riveted on a tremendous shape hurtling towards them from the depths.
“Holy cow!” he bellowed. “Elena! Pull a sharp right, now!”
As they snapped into opposite ninety-degree turns, a massive, blurred form shot between them, its jaws agape, its paddle feet lashing furiously.
“Yow, an Elasmosaurus! It’s just like the one we saw back in Meseo!”
She pointed at the cliff. “Adam, look! There’s a big crack in the wall!”
The sonar’s warning beep intensified. The sea beast had turned and was diving directly at them, homing in for the kill. “He’s locked onto us, Elena! Follow me inside and turn on your sonar! We’ll have to use these lap units as our light source!”
They shot like crystal bullets into the opening. Their thumb steerers seemed to work intuitively, the AI assisting them as they skirted the ghostly 3D images of the walls. Suddenly, Elena felt a shove. She spun around, looking behind her. Its jaws agape, the great beast was snapping at the long whiptail of her SeaSphere.
“Eeek!” she squealed. “Faster, Adam, faster! He’s gaining on me!”
Ahead of them, a blinding shaft of sunlight suddenly appeared and the walls fell away into a huge rift. As they accelerated into the open, Adam looked around desperately, blinking sweat out of his eyes. There was a tiny, dark spot on the surface of the far wall. He squinted at it, trying to focus. Could that be another opening?
There was a sharp cry from Elena: two more sea creatures were closing in! As they sped toward the wall, he improvised quickly.
“Quick! Flatten out your SeaSphere into a needle shape!”
“How?” she screamed in frustration. “How do I do that, Adam?”
He tried to keep his voice calm. “See that thin blue bar on the left? Hold it down, then lie on your stomach with the unit in front of you.”
They contorted themselves like gymnasts inside their SeaSpheres, then changed their shape and shot into the tiny circular opening. With a series of loud thuds, the sea creatures crashed into the cliff behind them. Their nerves were on razor edge as they slipped through the unexplainably smooth, tubular passageway, threading through it like a pair of clear, flexible needles. As the tube rose in a short, vertical shaft, Adam’s sonar let out a loud beep. Alarmed, he braked to a panic stop.
