Destroyer from the Lost Planet, page 16
Reaching the edge, Shagshag serenely hopped backward and dropped out of sight.
Catharine gasped and stepped forward (too late to prevent Shagshag from falling), and Nergal grasped her firmly by the arm to keep her away from the precipice.
Suddenly, numerous places in the facility roared with the sound of huge electric fans, though none could be seen.
A moment later, Shagshag, still blithely filing her nails, popped up at precisely the location from which she’d dropped into the abyss moments earlier. She took a step forward onto the platform and stood face to face with an astonished Catharine.
Shagshag stopped filing her nails long enough to remove the band from her bun and release her tresses, which fell loose about her shoulders.
David laughed nervously. “Neat trick,” he muttered. “You certainly made your point.”
Still non-plussed, Catharine hesitantly confessed, “I don’t have an emery board.”
Shagshag smiled indulgently. “You won’t need one,” she said, “because you’re not going to fall.” Evidently unsure whether it was understood that her unharmed reappearance had nothing to do with the emery board, she hesitantly offered it to Catharine. “You can borrow mine, if you like.”
It took only ten minutes to get both David and Catharine into their VR suits, and another ten to explain how to control their movements in the virtual world.
As Shagshag explained matters to them, in the virtual world they would see themselves and each other as wearing no special gear, free-flying over the super-high resolution virtual copy of Planet Nibiru. Because of practical computer-storage limitations, they would be overflying a three-dimensional two-hour VR video of Nibiru taken on a day when the planet was approximately a billion miles from the sun.
As for the travelers’ control over their movement, they could soar or swoop down simply by pointing in the desired direction. As they chose to travel hand in hand, Shagshag assigned David’s right hand as his control hand, and Catharine’s left as hers. If they were to thrust their control hands in a particular direction, they’d move rapidly in that direction. Pointing more gently in the desired direction would result in a similarly gentle motion. As David and Catharine wished to remain together, in the event David’s control hand were to point in a different direction than Catharine’s, the computer would prescribe an intermediate path based on best-fitting-curve calculations.
The travelers could, of course, speak with one another at will and agree on changes of course, should they so choose. They could also speak with Shagshag at will through their headsets, but Shagshag told them she’d prefer to step aside once they’d become accustomed to the system.
David and Catharine’s lowest practical altitude would be approximately fifty feet, although at such low altitude the resolution of anything on the ground would suffer, leaving details a bit smudged. Their highest practical altitude would be low orbit, roughly the altitude of Lord Enki’s orbit around Earth.
In the real world, they would be moving minimally—just enough to provide a sensation of movement consonant with the visual images they’d be seeing, and their experience would be enhanced by the facility’s fans, as moving air would enhance their sense of movement.
When asked their preferred opening altitude, David and Catharine chose to begin two hundred feet above the planet’s surface, roughly the altitude of a low flying hot-air balloon on a fair day.
If either of them were to say the assigned word “panic” aloud, or if their vital signs (which would be constantly monitored) were to fail to meet safe values, Shagshag would stop both their virtual and real-world movement and appear in their screens for a calm interlude. If worse came to worst, they would be brought back to the ledge until such time as they were prepared to try again—or give up.
“Are you ready?” Shagshag asked through the headsets.
“Yes,” they each replied.
David and Catharine’s view of the VR facility slowly dissolved to black and they felt themselves being gently hoisted up, up, up until their hearts pounded.
“Easy now,” said Shagshag, who was monitoring their vital signs. “No reason to get excited. Look down, but remember, it’s just a video. No one can see or hear you. Even if a bird were to fly into you, there would be no collision, because you’re not really there.”
From the blackness slowly emerged a breathtakingly realistic view of a grassy green field area as viewed from two hundred feet above the surface. Dotting the grass were small herds of ruminants of various kinds, including cattle and sheep, grazing at whim, apparently untroubled by predators.
“What God hath wrought!” muttered David, as though to himself. He turned his head toward Catharine, who’d obviously heard his remark. He could see her face next to him, as though she were without helmet or VR suit. The luminescent maroon sky behind her, full of wispy clouds, caught his eye.
Catharine turned to see what David was seeing behind her. “What energy source,” she wondered aloud, “could ionize an atmosphere to the point where it glows?”
David shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’d bet it involves gold,” he said, referring to Enki’s arrival on Earth in ancient times to gather the gold needed to repair Nibiru’s atmosphere.
Despite the apparent daylight, a nighttime sky could readily be discerned in the gaps between the clouds, with only the brightest stars visible through the atmospheric glow. David and Catharine both found the effect otherworldly, which should have been unsurprising as, after all, they were on another world.
“Where’s the sun?” David wondered aloud.
Shagshag’s clear voice returned. “I’ll answer that question,” she said, “but then I’ll try to leave you two alone. If you look straight ahead, the sun is about fifteen degrees above the horizon. Once Nibiru reaches this point in its orbit, the sun at last becomes one of the brightest bodies in the sky. It’s visible, but barely. Obviously, the sun is not what’s providing the light in the atmosphere. During the course of your overflight, you’ll probably also notice several constellations that, although they would be quite prominent from Earth, will look a bit distorted from your current vantage point nearly a billion miles from Earth. If the VR video were longer, the constellations would appear to you at different hours and locations than they would when viewed from Earth, and they would be moving in a different direction across the sky, as Nibiru revolves around the sun in a direction opposite that of Earth. Other constellations readily seen from Earth would be completely unrecognizable to you from Nibiru, though you’ll unwittingly be seeing many of the individual stars of which they’re composed.” Shagshag paused. “I leave you to your own thoughts.”
Catharine said, “So this whole panorama is a snapshot of two hours on a single day?”
When Shagshag didn’t immediately reply, David ventured, “I don’t know how long it took to photograph the whole planet, but that seems to be what we’ve been told.”
A quarter mile in front of them, the head of a giant male Anunnaki bobbed up above the tallest trees, moving toward the grazing animals immediately below them. Beside the giant, several male figures a fraction of his size scurried along the lawn to stay even with him.
Like King Enlil, the figure was dressed much as an ancient Greek.
“Look!” said David. “Could that be King Enlil with a few of his subjects?”
“He really is a colossus, isn’t he?” remarked Catharine. “He seems even larger than he appeared when we were in his presence.”
“Well, we don’t really know much about the biological effects of Anunnaki dominance—”
Shagshag couldn’t resist. “You are both right and wrong. On the day chosen for this recording, our King Enlil had not yet assumed the throne. Whom you see here is our beloved Majesty King Anu, may his name be forever revered. If you had lived in Mesopotamia as recently as six thousand years ago, of course, you might have seen him in the flesh.”
Catharine shook her head as though to clear it. “David,” she said tongue-in-cheek, “it looks like we just missed him.”
“Well,” said David, “let’s go and see him now.”
He thrust his right index finger in the direction of King Anu and they floated to within a hundred feet of the King’s head, looking down on his face. By the time the VR video was recorded, King Anu was a stern old fellow, but his visage was still pleasant to view. They could hear the twig-crunching sound of his majestic footsteps and the clamor of those trying to keep up with him.
“Impressive,” said Catharine. “The Anunnaki accompanying him aren’t even tall enough to be clearly displayed.”
“Yeah,” said David, “they do seem a bit fuzzy.”
David’s eye was drawn a few miles ahead to a sizable city laid out in front of a large mountain. There was something … incomplete about the buildings, most of which appeared to be made of steel and glass and were pressed right up against the mountain. In any event, while the city seemed sleek, it seemed purely functional. No joyous Emerald City this.
“I suppose that’s the planet’s capital city,” said David.
“Stands to reason, since this is where the king lives,” said Catharine, “but what’s wrong with the buildings?” She gently pointed her left hand at the city, and they began moving in that direction at a gentle pace. Catharine laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked David.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like Supergirl or something.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” said David. He glanced again at the buildings. “Oh, I think I know what’s strange about the buildings’ designs.”
“Oh?”
“I think they’re built right into that mountain,” he mused.
“So, the Anunnaki are like … hobbits?” she said.
“I suppose they are, on their home planet,” said David. “I expect that the mountain houses numerous large caverns. This way, the denizens can occupy the buildings when conditions on the surface are hospitable, and retreat into the caverns when the surface gets too hot for comfort. In fact, I’d imagine, that mountain may well be their reason for placing the capital city here.”
“Do you suppose the goats and cows we first saw are what feed this city?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too few in number, I think. That was probably a royal park, so those herds are probably dedicated to supplying meat to the king’s household.” Pointing his chin at the city, he said, “Just judging from the size of those buildings up ahead, they’re occupied by tens of thousands of Anunnaki. Queen Inanna told me that all Anunnaki need to eat meat to survive, so the city probably has much larger herds and slaughterhouses of its own, some of which are probably underground.”
“Don’t we humans need to eat meat, too?” asked Catharine.
“Nope,” said David. “The prophet Daniel proved as much, limiting his diet to those items God intended man to eat: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. No animal products and no processed foods. I haven’t eaten meat for the better part of a year, and I feel better than ever. Queen Inanna confirmed that we got our custom of eating meat from the Anunnaki.”
As they approached the city, they could see several uniformly gray monorail trains speeding soundlessly along their tracks. Some tracks led away from the city into the lands ’round about, and other seemed dedicated to local transit.
When David and Catharine came close enough to see a few Anunnaki standing on the train platforms, something seemed amiss.
“Notice anything unexpected?” asked David.
“You first,” said Catharine.
“Okay,” said David. “First, I don’t hear a sound. The trains are silent. They must be levitated; otherwise, they’d be clattering along the rails. In fact, we know from the Sumerians that Enlil likes things quiet. The noise made by humans was one of the reasons he allowed us to nearly perish in the Flood.”
“And we didn’t have trains then. Notice anything else?” asked Catharine.
“There are comparatively few people around,” said David. “Indeed, from what I see, it’s hard to imagine how so few passengers could support a railway system of that size. Another thing I notice is that there doesn’t seem to be any smoke coming from the city.” He turned to her. “What do you see?”
“It’s what I don’t see,” she said with a shiver. “I see no children.”
“They have far fewer children than we do,” said David. “They’d have to; they don’t die of old age. A high birth rate would quickly lead to over-population. We humans are a case in point. The Anunnaki gave us the power of procreation only a few thousand years ago, and in that short time our population has burgeoned to almost nine billion.”
“Still,” said Catharine, “a life without the clamor of children would be fairly morose, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded. “I suppose so. Our experience of the Anunnaki to date has not shown them to be particularly … lighthearted. Has it?”
“And no wonder,” said Catharine.
David caught sight of smoke rising from a distant mountain. “I wonder if that’s a volcano,” he said.
“Why don’t we get a bird’s eye view of the planet?” suggested Catharine. “Maybe there are more volcanoes.”
“You mean—?” began David, apprehensively pointing straight up. “Aren’t you afraid of going so high?”
Catharine laughed. “Once Buck Buchanan’s flown you in a fighter aircraft, the sky holds no further terror. If he didn’t kill you, you’re gold.”
She thrust her left index finger straight up, and David’s stomach turned to butterflies as they rocketed skyward.
David and Catharine’s android was taken for examination to the android maintenance facility on the third level of the royal pyramidion. Ninurta, before going to examine the android, called ahead to add two specifications to standing orders; he ordered that the android be presented for examination in a soundproofed Faraday cage to ensure that neither sound nor radio waves could escape, and that an audiovisual recording be made of the examination.
Ninurta had stationed outside the facility a female radio technician of undoubted loyalty. Just before entering the examination room, he asked her, “Is the android transmitting anything now?”
“He’s been pinging a single frequency once every two minutes since he got here—and probably before,” said the tech. “There’s no detectable data embedded in the signal. It seems to be just an all’s-well beacon.”
Ninurta nodded gravely. “Copy the ping into your computer and begin transmitting it at precisely the same frequency and duration as soon as I close the door to the exam room. Also, paste a copy into a handheld transmitter for me, so I can carry it around, and start and stop it at will.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the tech.
The android was sitting alertly on a swivel chair in the middle of the room when Ninurta entered.
“So,” said Ninurta with a smile as he shut the door behind him, “you piloted our friends all the way here from Earth?”
The android nodded. “Well … from Earth orbit, yes.”
“What duty were you assigned to before that?”
“I was valet and companion to Doctor Zia.”
“I see. For how long?”
“Pardon?” asked the android.
“How long were you with Doctor Zia?”
“Oh,” said the android, as though searching his memory, “many, many years. Too many to count.”
“Can’t you answer that just by checking your internal service log?”
“As I’m running a self-diagnostic program,” said the android, “the log is currently unavailable.”
“I see. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Enkidu.”
“Have you no personal name?”
The android looked a bit confused, and shrugged. “Enkidu,” he said.
“Is that what Doctor Zia calls you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you personally perform any maintenance on the antimatter craft before leaving Earth orbit?” asked Ninurta.
“Yes.”
“What was the maintenance that you personally performed?”
The android appeared to search his memory. “I checked the engine seals using air pressure and India ink.”
“And did you find any broken seals?”
“No,” said the android dubiously. “If I had, we wouldn’t have left Earth orbit until it was repaired.”
“Android,” said Ninurta equably, “power down neocortex. Enter sleep mode.”
The android’s face registered momentary surprise, then slackened involuntarily, and his hands flopped to his sides.
Ninurta had vocally triggered an override mode in the android’s processing unit that almost no one knew existed—not even artificial-intelligence specialists. The existence of the override mode was known to only five Anunnaki, and only their voices could invoke it. With Anu dead, only four remained: Enki, Enlil, Ninurta, and Nergal.
The radio tech’s voice suddenly piped in. “My lord,” she said, “the android just began broadcasting like mad. Sounds like a distress signal.”
“Are his transmissions fully contained?”
“His transmitter’s surprisingly strong, my lord, but our baffling and our jammer are far stronger.”
“Good. Make sure it stays that way. If he pumps up the signal strength, pump yours up that much more.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ninurta turned back to business at hand.
“Android,” he said, “state your series data.”
While in limited-access mode, the android’s voice was hardly the robust baritone it used in all other modes, but a rather small, nasal, computer-generated voice.
“Enkidu Improved Class, Unit 142,” replied the android.
“In Earth reckoning, how long ago were you commissioned?”
“Twenty-two days, fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes.”
