Aurona, page 54
As the airlock’s inner panel slowly slid open, he stood there confused, disoriented and dizzy. In a moment, he saw Duron out in the middle of the room whispering urgently to a detachment of Bandor warriors. His hand shaking, he jabbed his translator button way too hard, raising the volume up to max.
“Yo! Duron!” it bellowed. His eyes flew open, his hands flew to his ears, and Elena ducked away from him in shock. Startled, the Bandor warriors dropped to their knees on full alert, leveling their menacingly glowing stun-weapons at him.
There was a long, nervous pause, then Duron’s tensed shoulders relaxed a bit. He turned, a questioning look on his face. “Ah, yes, Adam?” Noting his confused condition, he made a discrert motion and the warriors lowered their weapons.
Totally embarrassed, Adam shuffled toward them, fumbling with his volume control, lap unit and flippers. “Ah, sorry. I-I didn’t mean to…. Aaack!” Mid-stride, his foot caught on the airlock’s raised sill. Totally off balance, he staggered out into the middle of the room and fell flat on his face. His lap unit hit the floor with a deafening clatter, skidding in a wild spin toward the warriors. He lay there in total shock, his face burning.
Thinking quickly, he leaped to his feet, hastily brushing the dirt off his knees. He ran his fingers nervously through his salt-caked hair. “So! Ahhh….” He rubbed his palms together, looking around brightly. “Where’s this dream ship I’m gonna pilot?”
There was another shocked silence. This time, Duron broke into an uncharacteristic fit of coughing. Scarlet-faced, Adam turned to Elena, his eyes pleading for support. She grimaced at him, peering from behind the airlock’s massive door. After a long, uncertain pause, one of the warriors tentatively reached out with a toe and pushed the lap unit toward Duron. The Old One stood there numbly, collecting his thoughts. With a sigh, he resolutely bent over and picked it up.
Adam attempted a smile, grinning a bit too much in the tooth. “Ah, w-what can I say? It-it’s, um … it’s just one of ‘Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments,’ right?”
Averting his eyes, Duron handed him his equipment. “You are most correct, Adam.” Suddenly a slit-smile teased at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I do remember a similar instance involving Movon and his first attempt with a WingSuit! He…,” the old one covered his mouth, the corners of his eyes crinkling with laughter. The spell was quickly broken and the warriors joined in heartily.
As Elena sidled up, he glanced at her sheepishly. “Smooth move, huh?”
“Right up there with your best,” she nodded. “But don’t worry, you’re still my dashing hero-type.”
Chortling, Duron led him carefully by the elbow toward a pair of enormous doors. “I think I understand what just went on, Adam. As you say, you still have not ‘gotten it together’ as yet. All of us here in Meseo are aware that your mind and body have just been through incredible torture…. Actually, how are you feeling?”
Adam took a moment to reflect, assessing himself. “Hmm. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel like I’m me anymore? Does that make any sense? For one thing, physical sounds are much louder and clearer and your furthest remote mind-messages blast through like you’re yelling into my ear. And to top it all off, I have this huge tenseness inside my head, like an enormous static buildup.”
Duron exchanged knowing looks with the other Elders.
“Oh yeah, and speaking of that tenseness: when I was back in the tomb I actually got to use one of those mind-controlled switches you mentioned. Man, I never expected it could be so easy! There was this switch hidden behind a leaf with a code inscribed … on the….” His voice trailed off as he noticed Duron’s steps faltering.
“Adam!” the old one stopped short, spun around, and looked him squarely in the eye. “There are only twelve Bandors alive who have that capability!” He pulled his cloak tightly over his frail shoulders. “That is why we are Elders!”
He was stunned. “But I-I thought you said anybody who was proficient….”
“No, Adam,” he interrupted. “Telekinesis is apex, the ultimate plateau. Many have studied this difficult offshoot of telepathy all their lives and have never come close to it. Now, without even trying, you have just entered a very elite group!”
Elena hesitantly joined the conversation. “Well, it’s true, Duron. I saw him do it. He lowered the great central medallion without touching a thing!”
Their jaws dropping, the Bandor warriors stared at Adam in awed silence, seeing him in some kind of new light. Duron faltered, closed his eyes, and hurriedly joined into a mind-conversation with the other Elders. Shrugging, he sighed in resignation. Slowly, carefully, he pulled out a small, multifaceted sphere from the voluminous folds of his cloak and turned the object over in his hand, contemplating.
“Adam, this moment has come a lot sooner than we expected. We Elders have just reached a decision.” He held out the odd-looking sphere. “This … is the Zevox.”
“Huh? The Zee-what? Come again?”
“The Zevox. None of us have reached its inmost compartments: it consists of seven spring-loaded spheres within spheres, each with a mind-code and nano-switch. They are progressively and exponentially harder as one exposes the spheres within. Only one Bandor, I myself, have entered through the first three to reach level four. Legend has it that the inmost sphere holds the key to ‘the Power.’” He expelled a long, nervous breath. “Now. It is both my honor and privilege to offer you this unprecedented opportunity, my son.”
Adam hefted the small, lightweight object, glancing questioningly at Duron. “This is all so sudden. But may I ask you a far more important question before I try?”
“Why, yes. Absolutely.”
“I’m just curious: why’d you just call me ‘son’?”
The old one raised a thin brow. “But I-I do not understand. By attaining such a level so quickly, you have indeed become the heir apparent, and our laws cannot be broken. If you open the Zevox even one more level than I, you will automatically become the Supreme Leader of Aurona, and….”
“The what?” Adam fumbled the sphere, nearly dropping it.
Duron shrugged. “We are comfortable with this concept, all twelve of us.”
As Adam gripped the Zevox a bit tighter, it began to feel strangely warm in his hand. Microscopic rows of lights began to light up, brilliantly outlining the perimeter and defining its shape. He raised it to eye level, watching it warily.
“What’s this little, ah, gizmo doing?”
“It senses your ability, Adam. It is preparing itself.”
“For what?”
“It is changing all the codes. It happens every time. No one can memorize them.”
Suddenly, involuntarily, Adam’s eyes squeezed shut quite by themselves. The tiny object had an enormous pull, a magnetism that locked his body in time and space as if he were in rigor mortis. No amount of struggling could change his position.
A long, twisting tunnel opened before him. With ever-increasing speed, his mind entered the tortuous pathway, blazing past first one, two, then three and more glowing inscriptions on the smooth walls. Ignoring the flashing codes, it burrowed relentlessly toward the center, homing in on the prize…. There it was! A runic ‘CDX-4’ blazed in front of his inner eye! He pushed mightily. There was a small click, then another and then more. As the outside sphere opened, all seven levels collapsed and lay flat in his hand. The Zevox had simply opened from within.
Just as quickly as it had come, the pull left him. Giving his head a quick shake, he opened his eyes. Duron had fainted and fallen into the arms of his shocked warriors. Everyone else lay prostrate on the floor, facedown and afraid to move. Imploringly, he caught Elena’s eye.
“What’s with them?” he breathed. “I-I just opened their little do-thingy!”
“I saw!” she whispered.
He turned toward her, sputtering. “But-but it was a cinch! A piece of cake!”
“Adam,” she quavered, “you opened it from the inside out!”
“Oh, no! Maybe I did it wrong!” He turned the loose contraption over and over, studying it. The semicircular flaps hung limply from the center, looking like the petals of a wilted impressionistic flower. He tipped it upside down and shook it. “But-but there’s no key inside,” he shrugged. “It’s empty!”
“Wait,” she pointed. “Duron’s coming around. Maybe he knows where it is.”
As Adam bent to help the old one to his feet, the warriors let go, shrank back, and fell facedown next to their companions. Awkwardly, he folded the flaps together, trying to make it look round again.
“Ah, I’m afraid I gotta break the news to you, Duron: the Zevox is empty.”
The Old One took a quavering breath. “Of course it is,” he whispered.
“But you said….”
“Do not bother looking for the key, Adam: you already possess it. What you have effortlessly demonstrated is something we never realized: there has been only one path into the inmost sphere all along, and for millennia, we have been approaching it from the most obvious direction. How you instinctively knew, or could somehow ‘see’ inside to read the inmost code I do not know. But what I do know and therefore now all of Aurona knows, is that we have a new Supreme Leader. I happily and proudly step aside.”
Adam let out a gasp. Hundreds of curious eyes were peering at him from behind the massive doors: as he turned to the left and then to the right, receding waves of Bandors fell facedown, unable to return his gaze.
“You know,” he murmured, “this has got to be written down in some kind of record book as the most ultimate in extremes: First I’m a bumbling idiot, and then… a-a God?” He spun to Duron. “You guys can’t be serious about this ‘Supreme Leader’ thing! Look at me! I’m just a dork, a dweeb, a hopelessly possessed techno-geek who’s gotten way over his head into a lot of mind-bending phenomena!”
Duron gazed into the distance. “You are forgetting one important thing, Adam.”
“Whazzat?”
“Your mind-body combination is a superior vessel, prepped and trained by the best your Earthly universities had to offer. When the new was added and tempered by extreme fire, the vessel proved resilient.” He sighed, and then finally turned to meet Adam’s eyes. “What has resulted is what your grandfather called a ‘synergism.’ You now have ‘the Power,’ and it is yours alone, my son. Do you know the scope of your new abilities?”
A slow, lopsided grin stole across his face. “Come on, Duron, this is way too hard to swallow. I might be able to move tiny things, but … bigger objects? Nah.” He paused, reconsidering. “I’m willing to try, though.”
Elena grabbed his arm. “Listen, Adam, Duron really may be onto something here! Remember how you were thrown onto your face by the Razah’s mind-wave? You might be able to do far more than….”
“Adam,” Duron interjected, “please accept the fact that you are now indeed Aurona’s Supreme Leader? As such, we can withhold no more secrets from you. At the moment, we are in a crisis and have urgent business to attend to. But most importantly, as promised, your dream-ship awaits you behind those big doors.”
“What?” Adam’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere!”
“You will find the latest and best aboard. Your ship contains an experimental command center fitted out exclusively with mind-controlled devices. This, shall we say, ‘flying bridge’ occupies a raised frontal area directly over the conventional electromechanical bridge, and can override it at any time.”
“I see,” Adam nodded. “Redundant systems. I’ll give you a few comparisons from Earth’s history: when our old-fashioned sailing ships switched to the new steam power, a lot of them kept their sails for a while until the unreliable source proved itself. And-and when electric cars finally approached the mainstream, some still kept small gasoline generators to extend their range. You made a wise, conservative decision to incorporate the two control centers.”
Duron slit-smiled. “Why, thank you. We constructed it with the hope that some day we might possess the telekinetic capacity approaching your ability, Adam. Thankfully, that day has arrived!” He waved an arm, and the lights came on in the cavernous room in front of them. “Behold! Your dream ship!”
The only sound was that of Adam’s excited breathing. As he stared at it in a trance, a powerful wave of déjà vu washed over him … yes, he’d seen this ship before! That familiar bell-shaped curve of the hull, that sphere within, the shapes burned anew in his memory from his childhood dream-series. He knew the exact location of every thruster jet, every hidden door, and every shape-shifting aileron. This ship had been constructed for him and him alone.
Suddenly, deep inside, he felt the now-familiar static charge building, channeling forward like quicksilver into his frontal lobes.
Was the ship calling to him? Was it alive?
Channeling this new extension of his being, he pushed forward gently with his mind. Silently, a hatch opened and a ramp extended to his feet. Excitedly, he bounded up to the top to look around. Yes, there it was; somehow he could see right through the airlock’s door: the speed elevator to the flying bridge!
He quickly lost all connection with his open-mouthed companions. They scuttled up the ramp after him, their eyes wide, watching in wonder. He opened the airlock, then hands behind his back, he shifted his focus to the elevator door. A code appeared in his inner eye, flashing brightly. As he pushed forward, the doors opened on silent, rubbery rollers. They quickly crowded into the smooth capsule with him..
Duron broke the spell. “Ah … Adam,” he coughed, “there were no mind-switches installed on the hatch, ramp, or elevator. They employ electromechanical devices, or use remotely operated codes such as those found in your explorer’s….”
“I know,” he shrugged. “You guys stashed my e-helmet in a locker down on level C. I used the helmet’s menu codes and routed them up to the flying bridge.”
Duron looked at him in shock. “W-what? Those codes up on the bridge can only be tapped into from there, but we’re still way down here! H-how could you….”
“See them?” he finished. “I don’t know, everything on this ship seems to be made of glass, just like in my dream. For instance, I just turned on the main computer in the flying bridge and read the menus. The mind-switches were a cinch to manipulate: they’re totally electronic! There’s nothing remotely mechanical about them, like that old-fashioned switch in the medallion’s leaf!”
Duron was completely baffled. “But-but…,” he stammered. “They were designed to be operated from a range of six feet, maximum, and as such, they were arranged in a precise semicircle around the pilot’s head at eye level. He glanced at the elevator’s readout. We are still sixty feet from the flying bridge!”
“Like I said,” he shrugged, “I just don’t know: six or sixty, walls, hulls, and even distances don’t seem to be an issue anymore. Maybe it’s a quantum electron chain reaction? Anyway, right now for instance, I’m reading the menu on the main screen just like it was in front of me.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll tell you what I see….”
Shrugging, they exchanged uncertain looks.
“The monitor’s showing a schematic of the whole ship and we’re almost to the top in this little red blip of an elevator. The room’s matte black, and all the equipment’s been stashed behind the walls except the huge main monitor. There’s a chair in the middle of the semicircle, and it’s fitted with mind-sensors for my head, galvanic pads for my fingertips, and a pair of biofeedback gloves. Artificial Gravity is off and the chair’s suspended in a gimbaled linkage with a built-in gyroscope to keep it in the same plane no matter what the attitude of the ship is around it.”
They gaped incredulously as he finished rattling off the specs. “The menus are responsive to my voice or mind-commands for the various forms of space, atmospheric or underwater travel, and….”
The elevator door silently slid open and the flying bridge blazed to life, almost as if it were welcoming him home. He entered, slid into the suspended chair and closed his eyes in satisfaction. “Now,” he whispered, “let’s get down to business.”
It had been close: somehow, they’d been detected. The Scarred One had spotted the security light flashing urgently on a monitor, and letting out a string of curses, sprinted up to the control center. Pushing his cronies aside, he’d thrown up the shields and cloaking device, then flew the heavily laden starship to the other side of the planet to land in another old-growth section of rainforest. Every sensor on alert, they’d slipped silently into a two mile, grassy clearing on the continent of Benou, landing next to a particularly large Motherlode.
They’d been about ready to leave Aurona, but the only thing keeping them was greed. Nearly every available space had been stuffed with knotted, stinking, dirt-covered masses of roots. The Bitron outlaws had hollowed out only enough space in the Pod Room to disrobe and climb into the few remaining sleep transporters.
The crew was painfully aware of their fate. Sitting in darkness, they now faced stark reality and debated the three most obvious outcomes: either they’d be killed in the next few hours and dumped overboard, or they’d be killed in the jungle after they’d filled the last room with gold, or they’d continue to be used as bargaining chips until they were jettisoned into interstellar space. Groaning in frustration, they prayed as hard as they could for a miraculous, unseen Option Number Four.
Dexor was puzzled. He’d just been given orders to join a large, combined scouting party to check out the root supply. As the mixed group trudged toward the jungle, he began to scowl in suspicion…. Was this a setup? Nearly all of the Bitron outlaws had been dispatched to accompany him. They were eyeing his group, repeatedly checking their weapons. He set his jaw: something was definitely afoot.
He studied the landscape as they approached the jungle. It was beautiful, even serene. Some really strange plants surrounded the perimeter: hundreds of the short shrubs were flowering profusely, their hot-pink blossoms looking like an exotic carpet. He glanced into the clearing behind him. The Motherlode was by far the largest he’d ever seen, with a trunk at least two hundred feet in diameter.
