A Star Wheeled Sky

by Brad R Torgersen

  “It’s not good, nor is it bad,” Lethiah said. “The Temple just is. It’s the workshop where the Others built the starlanes. Or at least where they created the machines who built and still maintain the starlanes. The Others aren’t around anymore. I don’t think they’ve been around for a very long time.”

  “We know this already,” Garsina said. “There are artifacts left. I’ve studied some of them. Just scraps, really. But we know that the Waymakers haven’t existed in this region of the galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years.”

  “That’s about right,” Lethiah said. “Though we didn’t know the truth at first. We thought the machines in the Temple were the Others. We learned better. And the people who came with me to this planet? We found out very quickly that living in the Temple’s shadow has a price. We obviously landed where we landed because we wanted to find out who the Temple builders were. We’d never seen actual aliens before. We’d speculated that they must exist, but never before had any living human discovered proof. And the Temple was proof! But it cost us.”

  “How?”

  “After we landed, we immediately got to work trying to explore not just the Temple, but establishing a city as well. We partially dismantled our ship—you’ve seen that already—and used what we could of the local materials to create new buildings. Everything went wonderfully. We were thriving. Or so we thought. Then, some of the women began to complain. They weren’t having children. Also, the crops and animals we introduced to the surface eventually died without reproducing. The only place we could grow food successfully was here. In the farm spaces, like the one I showed you earlier. As long as we didn’t grow those animals or those plants on the surface, they did okay. But the people? All of us had been on the surface, and especially inside the accessible places in the Temple. When it became apparent that we were sterile—even the children—it was too late to do anything about it.”

  “That’s horrible!” Garsina said, her eyes wide with shock.

  “Yes it was,” Lethiah said. “You have no idea how badly that single piece of news hurt us. Even those of us who’d had the longevity treatments. Or maybe I should say, especially those of us who’d had the longevity treatments? We got to watch everything slowly fall apart. The suicides. People simply giving up. Eventually it was down to just a few dozen of us. Like I said, the freaks. We knew we were doomed, but we made it our mission to try to understand as much about the Temple and the machines as we could. Especially the Anchors. Though we couldn’t use those too much without losing our minds.”

  “The same is still true for us,” Garsina said. “Prolonged Key use is guaranteed to induce insanity, as well as death.”

  “Eventually we became aware of the fact that other ships—survivors from Earth—had found other hospitable worlds in the relative vicinity of ours. Though we didn’t dare announce ourselves. Why invite more people here, to share our fate? It would have been cruel, especially knowing that our warnings for them to stay away would not have been heeded. So we stayed quiet. And watched the skies. And listened with our radio telescopes. And also with some of the devices in the Temple, which we gradually came to understand on a limited level. We only learned after the fact that the starlanes were possible. But by then most of us were gone, and there was no hope of resurrecting industry sufficient to build new spacecraft. Our original plan had been for future generations to do that. And of course, there were no future generations.”

  Wyo stared at his plate. He’d not made much time for relationships, to say nothing of a family. He’d followed in his father’s footsteps, and allowed Antagean Starlines to become his focus. But now that he was listening to this strange old woman talk, he realized how devastatingly lonely she must have been.

  Tears were dropping down Garsina Oswight’s face, and one of her hands had moved over to grasp Lethiah’s forearm.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It must have been agony.”

  “It was,” Lethiah agreed.

  “But we’ve seen life on the surface,” Wyo said. “Down at the beach.”

  “Primitive life that’s native to this planet,” Lethiah said. “Life that got used to the Temple during its construction and the early days of full operation. We did seismographic studies. There’s a shaft of some sort, directly under the Temple. It goes all the way down through the planet’s mantle. To the core, we figured. And it’s using the core for power. So much so, this entire planet’s geological cycle abruptly ground to a halt about the same time as the Temple’s appearance. Do you understand? All the energy from the radioisotope decay of an entire world is being funneled up into the Temple. Where the machines subsist on it, and use it.”

  “To form new Slipways,” Garsina guessed.

  “Yes, and to keep the extant starlanes maintained.”

  “And this is connected to the sterilization of Earth life?”

  “You asked me about why your communications aren’t working. The sterilization is connected. Something about the functioning of the Temple throws out particles, or waves, or something else entirely. It’s the strange, non-Einsteinian nature of the Others’ technology, and their ability to access a universe beyond our own.”

  “We call it Overspace,” Garsina said. “It’s where starships exist for an infinitesimally short span of linear time when they are in transit between Waypoints—which are the specific regions of space at the edge of every star system in the Waywork, where the Keys—your Anchors—can be used. But if the pyramid is causing some kind of Overspace disruption that is harmful to Earth life, how come nobody who’s used the Waywork ever experienced a problem?”

  “The starlanes are not the source of their own power,” Lethiah said. “And neither are the Anchors.”

  “Assuming everything you’ve said is true,” Wyo said, choosing his words, “I still don’t understand how you can be the only survivor left alive from Earth. We know there were many arks launched before Earth was destroyed. Some of them found the Waywork. Others—like yours—went elsewhere. There must have been other people who received the longevity treatment, and survived?”

  “Maybe there are,” Lethiah said. “And if so, I pity them. I pity us all. God did not intend for people to live forever. Not since He threw us all out of the Garden.”

  “What does that mean?” Wyo asked.

  “I think I know what it means,” Garsina said. “We have a belief in the Waywork, called the Word. Some people take it seriously. Most do not. Part of the Word says that when the universe was created, people—our essence—was one with God. But when we chose to live corporeal lives, we descended to a lower plane of existence. Became mortal. And could never go back again. Except only at death.”

  “That’s about what Daddy said, when I was a little girl,” Lethiah said. “Even the First Man had to die some time, and he lived much longer than most. I lost track of my years, but I have a hunch I’ve beaten them all by now. And if there are more like me—out there, somewhere—it’s a hell of an existence. Listen to me, you two. You have to get off this world, and soon. Before whatever sterilized me, sterilizes you too. Don’t let the Others’ infernal technology take away your babies. Find somebody. Hell, you’d make a fine couple yourselves. Give yourselves to the new generation. Make them smart, but more importantly, teach them how to be wise.”

  “What’s the difference?” Wyo asked.

  “Knowledge is what you think you know, boy. But then you take what you think you know, and you hurl it against the wall of reality so that it smashes into little pieces. What you pick up off the floor? That is wisdom.”

  “Was it wisdom that spurred you to convince these Waymaker devices—these machines—to build the new Slipways?” Garsina asked.

  “I hope so,” Lethiah said. “Because something is coming. None of you know it yet. But I know it. The machines know it too. They don’t care. But I care. Because if your civilization in the Waywork is obliterated, humanity might be extinguished from the galaxy.”

  “What could possibly
destroy every system in the Waywork?” Wyo said, letting his fork clatter on his plate in exasperation. “For all we know you’ve been telling us lies. How are we supposed to trust any of this?”

  “I can take you into the Temple,” Lethiah said. “I can show you some of what I’ve seen. Including how I talk to the machines. Maybe then you’ll believe me? Because it’s important that you do. Too many lives are depending on it.”

  “Starstate Nautilan might get there first,” Wyo said. “They’ve got to be in orbit already. And if the storm has broken, they might even be coming to the surface.”

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 37

  Golsubril Vex’s aerospace plane descended into Cheops’ atmosphere with ease. She rode in a gee chair directly behind the pilot, with Colonel Jun sitting in a gee chair in the aisle across from her, and their detachment of troops behind them. Vex’s only change to her plan prior to departure had been to add the young Waypoint pilot whom Vex had observed earlier in the expedition. She was a nervous little thing, unused to the physical sensation of atmospheric flight. While Jun craned his neck and looked out his window, the Waypoint pilot kept her face buried in a crash pillow braced on her knees. Jun had promised to tell her when it was all over.

  The surface of Cheops was mostly barren. Though water stretched across vast distances, it was the same uniform green-blue throughout, and there was no foliage on the land. Some of the escarpments and fields of boulders appeared to harbor primitive plant life, clinging to the surface of the rocks. But there were no forests, nor large animal life from what anyone could see. Just kilometer after kilometer of blank, promising desolation. Aching for someone with a vision to take hold of it, and remake it to her liking.

  Vex closed her eyes, and imagined—at some future point—the surface studded with cities, and vast tracts of farmland spread throughout. It would take centuries. Vex herself would not live to see the project through to its completion. But her fingerprints would be deeply embedded in this world, which would serve as her stepping stone—Nautilan’s gateway—into the wider galaxy.

  Vex eagerly looked out her window as they approached the pyramid. It was even larger, when viewed up close, than it had appeared from orbit. At least two kilometers tall. Or more? A tiny tuft of cloud hung around the pyramid’s peak, while the sides gleamed perfectly in the post-storm sunlight of the new morning. An etched pattern of geometric lines covered the pyramid’s surface, repeating itself on each of the four faces. What those lines meant was just one of many puzzles to be solved. Vex was eager for a personal inspection. Especially since Constellar posed little threat to her now.

  “Anything on wireless?” she asked the pilot.

  “No, Madam Kosmarch,” the man said. “And our connection to Alliance has broken up. That’s normal during atmospheric entry, but we shouldn’t still be having problems. I’ll keep trying.”

  “But the beacon—coming from the beached vessel—hasn’t repeated?”

  “No, Madam.”

  “What about Constellar signals on the surface?”

  “Their wireless is encrypted, just like ours. We wouldn’t be able to decrypt it.”

  “But it would be detectable.”

  “Yes, Madam. Nothing yet.”

  Colonel Jun looked over at her.

  “It’s entirely possible the storm got them,” he said.

  “It is,” she agreed. “But I somehow suspect our Constellar friends can’t be gotten rid of so easily. Their drop modules were scattered, not destroyed. And if the occupants of the module which landed near the beached wreck were able to seek shelter within? They could be alive and well.”

  “We should send the spaceplane up immediately, to bring down more men,” Jun said.

  “I agree, Colonel. I’ve already given instructions to that effect. But first things first. We need to find a way into that pyramid. Everything we came all this way for—what our men and women have died to obtain—is in there.”

  “Assuming we can even get inside,” Jun said.

  “Do you really think the Waymakers would build it without an entrance?”

  “They built the Keys with no obvious way to access their interior. We’ve been trying to figure that mystery out for as long as we’ve known about the Keys. If this pyramid is the same, you may have come all this way for nothing.”

  Vex eyed the old man. He should have added Madam Kosmarch on the end of his sentence.

  “No,” Vex said. “The humans who originally came to Cheops found something there. I see every sign of it.”

  “Maybe what they found was too much for them to handle?” Jun opined. “We’ve been using the Keys for so long, to such good effect, we forget that we don’t understand anything about the Waymakers or their motives. If this is a Waymaker artifact—and I think we’re absolutely correct to assume it is—what we discover about it may not be to our liking. What if the pyramid is a weapon of some sort?”

  “A weapon to do what, Colonel? Against whom?”

  “Again, we can’t read the minds of the Waymakers, who aren’t here to tell us what they intended. But whoever these first people were, something went very wrong for them after they landed their ark. These were men and women from Earth, or at least their descendants. They would have been very eager to remake this world in Earth’s image, just as the founders of all the Starstates were. Yet, for whatever reason, the humans who came to this world went extinct. They landed, took half their ship apart for technology and raw materials, began the construction of the first city, and…stopped. Just seemingly quit the project. Or died off before it could be completed?”

  “You mean, killed,” Vex corrected the colonel.

  “I’d say that’s a distinct possibility,” he said.

  Vex didn’t say anything more, as the pilot continued to circle the pyramid, then slowly dropped down toward a flat stretch of ground not far from the pyramid’s northwest corner. The vertical takeoff and landing system was a series of nozzled thrusters lining the belly of the aerospace plane. During level flight, they remained shut behind louvered hatches. But when it came time to use them, the hatches louvered open, and the thrusters engaged. Reaction-control exhaust gusted out from around the aerospace plane on all sides, until the craft’s landing pads engaged. Vex held her breath for a few seconds until she felt the vehicle settle securely, then the pilots spent several minutes performing a routine touchdown check, as well as an external atmospheric analysis—to determine if the air outside was dangerous.

  “It’s breathable,” the pilot finally announced. “Though, Madam Kosmarch, I cannot guarantee against biological hazard.”

  “I know that,” Vex said. “As long as there are no toxins present, we can proceed—and accept the danger of a germ threat.”

  “As you wish, Madam Kosmarch,” the pilot said. “Nitrogen and oxygen content is consistent with clement atmospheres. There isn’t as much carbon dioxide as there should be, but this won’t be a problem for humans.”

  “No large fauna,” Colonel Jun said, still looking out his window.

  Now that they were on the ground, Vex could see the bleakness of the land in fine detail. Little patches of green and brown lichen covered most of the exposed stone, with larger clumps of moss forming near the depressions which collected water during storms. Not so much as a single flower showed its lovely face to the sun. The life on this world had not evolved enough.

  Vex imagined surrounding the Waymaker pyramid with a square-shaped garden, kilometers in circumference. Such an artifact—in pristine condition—deserved to be beautified. She would make it one of her priorities, once she had enough manpower moved from Jaalit system to justify the effort. For now, it was enough to dream.

  The security detail accompanying the detachment were already out of their gee chairs and adjusting their armor and equipment. Every man carried a battle rifle with full kit, to include hundreds of rounds of ammunition, several antipersonnel grenades, some demolitions explosive, and a pack containing both water and
rations for three days. They were big—per Nautilan guidelines regarding infantry—and they followed their battle sergeant’s commands without asking questions.

  “Madam Kosmarch,” the battle sergeant said, “once my team has secured a perimeter around the plane, you and the colonel may descend safely to the surface.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  The loading ramp popped out of its stowed position in the side of the plane, then the hatch at the top of the ramp unsealed with a hiss. Vex felt the change in pressure in her ears, and had her breath taken away by the sudden gust of moist, thick air that came up into the aerospace plane’s cabin. The security team trooped down the ramp on the double, and quickly fanned out around the plane at regular intervals, where they each took a knee and brought binoculars up to their faces. As each trooper finished a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree visual sweep, he reported over the security net to the battle sergeant, who finally said, “Madam Kosmarch, there are no threats detectable within our vicinity. You may come down. Once you are down, half of my men will return to the plane to retrieve our equipment, and begin setting up a camp of operations.”

  “Just find us a way into the pyramid,” Vex said, walking purposefully down the ramp, and out onto the soil of Cheops. It was mostly sand, albeit mixed with decayed plant matter. The grayish uniformity of the sand matched that of the rocks, and also the battered heap of a mountain range which Vex could see very far off in the distance. It had been a long time since that range had been thrust up, and worn down. With no new geologic activity to break up the monotony of the geography in this region of the planet.

  The side of the pyramid itself was perhaps a hundred meters from the battle captain’s perimeter. The slope of the two sides—meeting at what appeared to be a perfect forty-five degree angle—was distinct. And the pattern of etched lines, now seen up close, was huge on the pyramid’s immense, smooth surface. Which appeared to have been untouched by time, or the elements. Sunlight glinted on the semireflective surface like off the surface of a still pond. Depending on which way Vex faced, she had to shield her eyes from the glare.