Aurona, page 52
Elena bumped into him with a springy thud, her blunt needle shape colliding with his. “Ow-w-wch! What is it, Adam?” Her voice sounded hollow, pained.
He looked down at her. “The exit’s blocked! Something’s in the way!”
“Oh, no! What do we do now? It’s too narrow to turn around and I really don’t think I can back up all the way….”
“That’s for sure!” he interjected. “Hey, what’s your depth meter read? Mine says we’re only eighty feet below the surface.”
“Yeah, you’re right: eighty feet! What’re you thinking?”
“Well, we can’t go any further with these things, so we’ll have to swim from here. Slip on your fins and earphones, then activate your neck gills and head bubble. Tell me when you’re ready, and then we’ll dissolve the SeaSpheres.”
“Dissolve them? How do you do that?”
“It’s easy: You just turn up your pressure knob until the red lines match on your dial, then bingo: push that same blue bar again. Ready to roll?”
They scrambled into their gear. As the SeaSpheres dissolved, their once-encapsulated air escaped in a great bubble and rose to the top of the tunnel. The temperature dropped, their ears began to throb painfully, and as they floated up to the surface in the narrow rock tube, Adam began to hear a soft gurgle and hiss above him. “Huh?” He listened intently. “Elena, I think our air’s escaping somewhere!”
He reached up into the darkness over his head, feeling for the tiny current As a probing finger found the hole and plugged it, the hissing stopped. “Huh? Something feels smooth, like metal!” Using his lap unit’s screen as a light source, he tilted it upward. A large gold panel gleamed brightly near the top of the tube.
“Wow! An entrance, Elena!” His hands were shaking with excitement as he pressed on the heavily embossed surface, testing the resistance. It felt springy. Bracing himself inside the tube, he pushed with all his might. Something gave.
With a great belch, the trapped air escaped in a powerful, turbulent bubble. Their lap units were forcibly wrenched from their grasp as they were thrust into a great void, spinning head over heels. Helplessly, they watched them tumble down to the floor in slow motion, their sonar screens still glowing. The two tiny rectangles sent up a swirling, muddy cloud as they pierced a thick layer of sediment.
Light? They looked up, blinking in surprise. Yes, they could see! As their eyes adjusted to the low intensity, they spotted the source. Far over their heads, a tiny circlet of pinholes pierced the border of a great, barnacle-encrusted golden medallion. Intense shafts of light were streaming down through the ventilation shafts into the vault. They gave each other jubilant high fives and let out a whoop, their head bubbles jetting long streams of air.
They turned back to the floor. Glowing softly under the ooze on the bottom, their SeaSphere’s lap units seemed to be beckoning them. There was no hesitation: they dove eagerly, breathing hard, their neck gills pulsing. Adam reached the bottom first. Gingerly picking up his lap unit, he brushed away the sediment and carefully inspected the rubbery surface for damage.
“Look, Elena, not a scratch! All the debris saved them!”
“Thank God for that, Adam,” she agreed, turning hers over and over. “We wouldn’t be able to get home without these things!”
Moving quickly, they opened a small compartment, pulled out a set of built-in straps, and slung them onto their backs like knapsacks. They began to shuffle about awkwardly on the floor, clearing away patches of debris with their flippered feet. Soon, just as Adam had predicted, they’d uncovered glimpses of a star-map, a big one, lying under the eons of silt.
“Hey, look!” Elena was pointing up excitedly. “Our air bubble’s trapped under that medallion! We might be able to get a much better view from up there!”
They adjusted their antigrav belts and flippered upward. As Elena’s head broke the surface, she turned off her neck gill’s bubble. “Not bad,” she puffed, sniffing the air. “A little musty, but breathable!” She glanced at Adam. His eyes looked huge, the edges red-rimmed from the saltwater.
“Yeah, it’ll do,” he said, grinning. “And thanks for your initiative; this is a great perspective! Think we can get a photo or two of the floor?”
“Maybe,” she teased, “if we could see it!”
He looked down. She was right: the sediment was really thick. Suddenly, he brightened. “Hey, I just got an idea! We might be able to push it out of the way!”
Her brows rose. “We could? How’s that possible?”
“Hopefully, this vault should be like the others and have a lot of antechambers around the bottom. Wait a sec … I’ll check it out.” He poked his head under the surface to study the carved decorations.
Yes, the panels were there, but these had very different motives: a collection of embossed, golden sea fans embellished the pendentives between the great circle of arches at the bottom. He lifted his head excitedly, shaking the water out of his hair. “I’m gonna dive again, Elena! Those arches look a bit crusty, but I’ll try to open a panel or two. Watch what I do, and if it works, come down and help me.”
He dove, his flippered feet thrashing exuberantly. In a few moments, he’d found a likely-looking rosette and pushed: sure enough, it moved! There was a crackling sound as a cloud of barnacles rained onto the floor, then a huge panel slowly pulled loose and began to raise smoothly, its alloy cables and counterweights still working flawlessly after untold eons of rest. As it reached ankle height, a long slit of light clicked on, glowing faintly through the murky sediment. Suddenly, Adam jumped: intense light was pouring in behind him. He turned to see Elena swimming around the perimeter of the great chamber, poking at sea fan rosettes.
Within minutes, the vault was flooded with light. Shielding their eyes in the brilliance, they swam toward one of the big antechambers. The domed marble room was on a far grander scale than the ones Adam had seen, and lying in darkness since the inundation, the lack of light had worked to its advantage: sea life had shunned the pitch-black cave and nothing could gain a foothold on the ultra-smooth, polished alabaster walls.
A row of buttons lined the wall near the entrance. As he pressed one, the nearest subchamber opened. They entered cautiously: sleeping niches lined all the walls, looking like catacombs in the eerie overhead light. A button was glowing next to one of the small, closed panels. As Elena pressed it, she jumped back in horror.
Bones! A disjointed torrent of skeletal fragments tumbled out onto the floor! Rising in wispy clouds, clumps of organic material began to gather speed as they circled upward, swept by some kind of a strong current exiting through the ceiling. In moments, the floor was scoured clean.
As she shuddered outside the entrance, Adam lingered, picking up the large, domed skull. He gave it a gentle squeeze, and it parted along the fissures and crumbled. He held a section up close to his face, his eyes widening.
“Let’s go!” she squealed, jumping up and down. “This is too creepy!”
He glanced at her. She looked cold. She was right: it was time to move. In a moment, they broke the surface and deactivated their neck gills, breathing hard.
“That jawbone was laced with gold!” he panted.
She scowled. “I know all about the bones, Adam. Roson told me. The Bandor’s entire skeletons are one b-big telepathic receiving unit, especially their s-skulls!”
He noticed that her teeth were chattering. “Of course,” he grinned, draping his arm protectively around her shoulders. “There be gold in them thar Rasheens!”
She pressed closer to him for warmth. “I don’t l-like it here, Adam,” she chattered. “Are all those antechambers f-full of dead people … ah, I mean Bandors?”
“They’re mankind, Elena; there’s no doubt. Our bone structure’s identical, our smiles are, ah, almost the same and our emotions are becoming the same….”
“So what happened here? What kind of great c-catastrophe could’ve caused all these p-people to die in their beds? An earthquake? A tsunami?”
“Well, Roson’s chalk island shows definite evidence of large-scale plate tectonics. If there was a quake, this place was probably inundated within minutes!”
She looked up. “So fast? B-but those holes in the ceiling are so s-small….”
“No,” he corrected, “the ocean spilled down the big spiral staircase. It was the air that escaped through those little vents! The sleeping Bandors had no time to react. Most likely, the gold panels cranked down as a safety measure, but they move very slowly. The water was probably up to the top of their rooms by then.”
“W-what a horrible way to g-go, Adam,” she chattered. “This p-place is like the T-Titanic! No w-wonder the Bandors never w-wanted to c-come down here again!”
He suddenly realized that her lips were blue. “Holy cow! You gotta get warmed up, quick! Let’s slip back into our SeaSpheres and talk through our headsets. I’ve got another plan hatching.”
In a few minutes, they were leaning back against the soft inner walls, drying out and enjoying the higher oxygen content. Elena looked at him. “Your, ah, plan?”
He grinned. “Okay, this may sound kinda kooky, but here it is: First, think about that big, swirling current of water we saw in the antechamber and then think about a centrifuge. We’re gonna make our SeaSpheres into an engine. We’ll dive to the bottom and start circling and spinning around each other…”
“You’re kidding,” she interrupted, scowling. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Nope,” he chuckled. “Last one down is a rotten egg!”
They dove to the center of the floor and started to spin around each other, spreading the debris toward the open antechambers. The powerful filters seemed oblivious to the fact that they were pulling seawater and the strong current began to vacuum fine, billowing clouds of debris upward through the tops. Soon, the glass floor was immaculate. They raced to the top and peered down excitedly.
Spread out in grandeur beneath them, a fantastically detailed, dustlike barred spiral galaxy was set into deep cobalt. The aggregation of stars seemed disturbingly familiar. Thinking a moment, Elena suddenly recognized it. A gasp escaped involuntarily from her lips.
“The Milky Way!” she blurted. “You’re kidding! This was their very first trip?”
“It had to be,” Adam reasoned. “This is supposed to be their oldest vault and the map in the glass floor was poured when they constructed it millions of years ago….” His heart pounding, his eyes skimmed along the runic border. “Okay, right over there! I’m reading their actual words, now. Listen to this: ‘As this is the first and greatest of our underground dwellings, it will be a prototype for countless others to follow.’”
He glanced back at her. She was scanning the walls in confusion.
“Where’d you read that, Adam? I don’t see….”
He bumped her bubble for attention. “Look down,” he pointed. “See those runes around the border? I began at one o’clock and started to read around the dial.”
“Oh,” she shrugged. “Is there any info about the Earth or the Milky Way?”
“No, not yet. It’s just, ah, well … I don’t want to bore you, because it’s just a lot of construction details. It’s saying the outer shell was cast in one piece out of an impermeable alloy, a breakthrough in technology. The gold plates and alabaster walls were merely decorative fascia that slid into channels, overlapping each other…. Hey, wait! Do you know what that means? This thing can’t rot! With impermeable alloys and solid gold, it’s no wonder everything still works so well after so long!”
She bounced her bubble up and down, persisting with her question. “I’m so glad you cleared that up for me! I was just dying to know!”
“Huh?” He glanced at her, puzzled.
“The Earth, Adam! Does it say anything about the Earth?” She pointed to another spot on the border, her finger poking her bubble’s taut membrane. “Try over there! Those runes look much more interesting … I think.”
Stifling a grin, he swiveled his SeaSphere around and tipped it toward the floor to read. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. “Wow! Sorry, Elena, there’s nothing about the Earth yet, but it’s saying something about the twin moons orbiting Aurona, and the distant future after the Bandors have finished the greening of their planet!”
She drew in a sharp breath. “The prophecy? The one Duron didn’t have time to finish in Meseo? Quick! My babies!” Her arms encircled her stomach protectively. “Does it say anything about my babies?”
“Okay, here goes….” Collecting himself, he began to translate directly from the border. “‘Just as our twin moons, Mazan and Eonia, are spun from the same slab of primordial rock and are mirror images of each other, so twins will be born one day to rule Aurona. They will mirror each other’s moods, offering balanced judgment and a carefully planned future to our people. As it is genetically impossible for Bandor women to give birth to twins, we look to the heavens and await this gift with eager expectation. They and their parents will live for untold millennia, playing pivotal roles in the future of Aurona.’” He paused, breathing hard, contemplating. “Hon?” He waited a moment for an answer and then turned to her. She was staring blankly ahead, chanting something. Her voice sounded muffled, far away.
“Mazan, Eonia, Mazan, Eonia, Maz….” Sensing his silence, she looked at him. “Those names sound like a boy and girl to me, Adam. Duron did say fraternal twins, right?” Her eyes were round. “Those names are perfect!” she exclaimed. “Mazan is strong, masculine! And Eonia? C’mon, you simply couldn’t refuse me that one; it’s incredibly beautiful! I love both of those names and I want to keep them!” She crossed her arms with finality, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He was tapping furiously on his wrist programmer. “Honestly, Adam, what are you up to now?”
“Dictionary function,” he muttered, his eyes focusing intently. “Ah, here it is; I thought it looked familiar. ‘Eon’: From the Greek word ‘Aion,’ meaning ‘lasting for an immeasurably long time.’” He looked at her pointedly through his rippling wall. “Greeks? The Bandors got this name ‘Eonia’ from the Greeks? What’s going on? A prophecy over two million years old, with Greek names?”
She shrugged indecisively.
“What are they, time-walkers, just picking out names from wherever and whenever it pleased them? It’s downright spooky!”
“Maybe it’s the other way around, Adam. Think: maybe the Greeks got the names from them! Open your imagination in new directions!”
“I-I don’t like this direction; it’s like a shotgun wedding or something!” he scowled. “I’d prefer to choose our kid’s names like most parents-to-be!” As he caught her hurt look, he quickly tempered his rising tone. A mischievous grin began to tease at the corners of his mouth. “But on the other hand, you’re right about one thing….”
Silence. Her bottom lip was teetering dangerously on the brink of a pout.
“Adam Junior does sound a bit dorky, doesn’t it?”
She squinted at him with one eye. “Just read, please….”
He quickly tucked in his chin and scanned some more, paraphrasing on the fly. “Ah, I think this section of runes over here refers to holograms. It says the moving scenes can be controlled and changed several ways, one of which is by means of…,” he stopped short, studying the great central medallion over his head: the embossed, heavily chased gold filigrees were standing out in deep bas-relief. “There’s supposed to be a way to access some kind of main control panel up here, Elena. Help me look.”
“So what are you looking for? A switch? A button?”
Suddenly, he pointed excitedly. “There it is! I see a tiny inscription, a code or something, carved into that six-foot leaf! C’mon! Let’s go read it!” Their SeaSpheres bumped hollowly as they tapped along the ceiling.
The small hand-carved inscription was still gleaming as brightly as the hour it was painstakingly incised into the golden surface. Adam’s eyes widened.
“Does it say to push somewhere, Adam? Does it have springs? Does the whole leaf swivel away from a concealed button?”
“Nope, nope and nope,” he teased. “You’d never guess.”
“What are you….” Her voice trailed off as he held a finger in the air.
He closed his eyes and began to imagine a delicately balanced mechanism; one that could be triggered by a mere nano-puff, a whispered breath of air. Duron had only hinted at such mind-controlled switches, yet here was one of them in the flesh, labeled with a numeric code and concealed from view only inches away. He focused on it mightily, pushing with his mind, concentrating on the coded runic numbers.
There was a muffled click, and the great medallion began to shudder. As eons of encrustation cracked loose, debris rained down into the clear water. The strong current from the antechambers swept it outward toward the brightly lit rooms.
A faint hum crescendoed into a loud rumble over their heads. With barely enough time to exchange wide-eyed glances, they scudded their bubbles out of the way. A gleaming, gold-railed viewing platform perhaps forty feet in diameter slowly descended: the enormous central medallion had concealed it all along! Open-mouthed, Elena turned slowly toward him.
“Y-you didn’t touch a thing, Adam. I watched you. Your arms didn’t move. You didn’t budge. That means you opened this thing with your … with your….”
He tapped his forehead. “Telekinesis, Elena,” he whispered. “Remember how the Razah’s mind-stun slammed me onto the ground?”
She nodded slowly, hesitantly. “Yes, but … you?”
“Listen. I don’t want to scare you, but if a so-called dumb animal can do such an incredible thing, why couldn’t I do something similar, on a much smaller scale?”
He was right. She relaxed, a softness returning to her eyes. In a moment, they grew round in wonder and admiration. “Wow,” she whispered. “Just imagine all the new doors opening to you, Adam! This is definitely radical, cutting-edge stuff!”
