Empty Planet

by Lynette Sloane

  A further six men joined him. All powerfully built and dressed in like manner, they held rocks and looked ready to pummel us. I wondered if they had been keeping watch or had been alerted by the rock fall. Maybe it had been a trap to stop any invaders entering the cave system.

  “Who are you?” the first man demanded.

  “We come from outside,” said Geoff. The men backed off slightly at this information.

  “You can’t come in here. Outsiders bring death.”

  “Not anymore. The virus has gone. We need to speak to someone in charge, if that’s not you,” said Geoff, appointing himself spokesperson for our group.

  “Stay here until tomorrow. If you are still well when I return it will be arranged.”

  We agreed to wait in the cave. All but two of the men left us leaving the others to guard the opening at the far end of the cave.

  “Great, now we’re in quarantine,” I said. Gemma gave me one of her ‘oh you’re not complaining again are you’ looks so I took the hint and shut up. We decided to extinguish all but one of the torches and use it to light another when the first was nearly spent. This would optimise our lighting time. Not knowing the level of danger in which we found ourselves we took it in turns to sleep and keep watch throughout the rest of the day and night.

  The next morning the men returned. After checking us for signs of sickness, and being convinced we were all well, the robust man who had done all the speaking the previous day said, “Follow me.”

  Wanting to fulfil our mission to tell any possible cave dwellers that they could once more live outside, we voluntarily followed the man. The rest of our guides, or maybe I should say guards, walked a few paces behind us. For a long while we followed the path of a river flowing on our left. I reasoned that it was probably the same river we had followed in the valley the day before.

  This was a massive cave system; the passages forked several times but each time the leader knew his way without hesitation. After a while, we found ourselves walking along a narrow ledge thirty or more metres above a huge gorge. Ahead of us was a small opening in the rock face. We followed the ledge through the opening and into another passage where a strong wind blew in our faces. I remembered Rachetta’s father asking if we had come through the windy passage on the eleven thousand year jump and wondered if this was the passage he had referred to, or if we were in an entirely different cave system, possibly even on a different continent.

  Gemma touched my arm to get my attention.

  “Look, there’s a light up ahead,” she said quietly. At first I thought it was an opening in the cave roof, but, as we approached, I was surprised to discover overhead lighting. Carla, who had been carrying the remaining torch, doused it in a nearby pool of water.

  After a few minutes the passageway opened up into another enormous, well-lit and very familiar cavern.

  “Oh my goodness, we’re in the Hub!” I exclaimed.

  The cavern still looked the same, except that the screens, computers and comfortable seating had gone, and the entrance we had just come through hadn’t existed the last time we had been here.

  Soon hundreds of men, women and children of all ages surrounded us. The scene reminded me of an old film I’d seen set in ancient Egypt. The men all dressed in the same way as our guides and the women wore full-length straight dresses with one or two shoulder straps and had their hair loose. Despite never having been in the sunlight, these people had olive coloured skin. Most wore golden jewellery: earrings, bangles, and bracelets, and had thick dark hair, brown eyes and generous features. I thought I could see the attributes of many races in their make up: Asian, African, Hawaiian, Caucasian, Indian, and many more, it was a beautiful mix and their children were gorgeous. The cave dwellers were very inquisitive but kept a few metres away from us, still not confident that we wouldn’t pass something nasty on to them. Gemma tried to tell me something but her voice was lost beneath the chatter of the great crowd.

  Suddenly the cavern fell silent as a middle-aged man took his place in front of the people. He stood resolute, his feet astride and his arms folded in front of him. Like the other cave dwelling men he wore a short wrap-round skirt tied at his waist with a belt, but unlike them he wore an ornate gold necklace embellished with several polished, blue stones. His sandals appeared to be made from woven papyrus or palm and he was completely bald and clean-shaven.

  Our guide walked over, stood besides him, and gestured with his hand, signalling us to approach the leader. We walked forward stopping a few metres in front of the two men, again at the guide’s directive.

  “I am Ini-herit,” he said, “and this is my father, Chenzira, who speaks for the people.”

  Chenzira asked us, “Who speaks for you?”

  Geoff spoke to me quietly, “This is your mission, you have the photos, you speak.”

  “Sir, I speak for my people,” I addressed the leader. “We have good news for you. We came from the outside to tell you it’s now safe to live out there. The virus, or poison as your ancestors called it, is gone.”

  “I would need proof before I could believe you and agree with any of my people venturing into the outer-world,” Chenzira countered wisely.

  “We have lived in the outer-world for years and are in perfect heath,” I said, using the leader’s terminology. “This must prove it is safe.”

  “It is not ultimate proof,” he answered. “Your people may be immune to the poison.”

  Good point, I thought.

  Geoff prompted me, “Tell them everything.”

  I said, “Sir, I have proof.”

  Hoping the cave dwellers’ legends would support our story, I began retelling how we travelled through the vortex. This word got their attention. The leader looked at me intently.

  “One of our legends states that a man and a women travelled through time to tell us the poison would fall for another nine thousand years. They came in through the top entrance as we had been told they would.” He paused.

  Gemma stepped forward and took my hand. “That was us,” she said.

  Ini-herit interjected, “How can you prove this?” He seemed a lot less patient than his father.

  “We have pictures,” she replied.

  Addressing the leader I said, “Sir, may show you something?”

  The leader signalled me to step closer. Taking a few steps toward them, I slowly took the envelope out of my pocket and showed both father and son the proof.

  “Twenty thousand years ago this cavern was known as the Hub,” I said, passing them several photos. I handed the next photo to the leader, “and this photo shows Gemma and I with Chenzira and Rachetta, his wife, eleven thousand years later.”

  “I was named after him,” The leader said. “Chenzira means, ‘born on a journey’. Who is the child?”

  She was their daughter, Sari,” I answered.

  “The closed caves…” Chenzira mumbled. Something about Sari’s picture had obviously triggered a thought or memory. He cleared his throat, then spoke with purpose. “Tradition says that Sari painted the murals in the closed caves, although we didn’t know she was Chenzira and Rachetta’s child. Her paintings have been preserved and only the leader and his children are permitted to enter once a year in order to remind themselves of the story. I believe now is the time we should enter and check out your account and pictures against Sari’s paintings.

  A small delegation of five cave dwellers, including their leader and his son, led us to the caves. The route down the manmade passages and several stairways was surprisingly familiar: this was level seventeen. Only the Chenzira, his son, Gemma, and I were permitted to go any further; the others were instructed to wait for us.

  We entered the first cave on the left. It was small with a ledge at the far end and murals painted all round the walls. Near the doorway was a life-size portrait of a beautiful young woman with long, wavy hair and brown eyes. At the bottom was a signature; it read, ‘Sari’. I could well imagine this being the same Sari Gemma and I had
met in the top cave nine thousand years previously.

  “The story starts here,” said Chenzira, pointing to a picture depicting a group of people on the surface world. The people were sick and dying.

  “That’s when the super-virus started to fall,” I said. We moved to the next mural. “And here is the battle that resulted in the outer-world,” the leader continued.

  I explained, “We made an anti-virus, a medicine, to give to the people. The virus couldn’t hurt those who took it, but those who refused were soon infected and died. Unfortunately very few people took it so the death toll was immense. Eight and a half billion people lived on earth at this time, but only about five million took the vaccination. This of course was the first generation. Every generation since needed to take the vaccination for themselves and those who didn’t, because they thought they wouldn’t need it, or that their parents’ vaccinations would cover them, those people would also have succumbed to the super-virus. This is when we left our natural time to make homes in the future.”

  We moved to the next cave where the murals showed more people dying of the super-virus and a great war where many, many more people perished amidst great explosions, their flesh burning away in an instant.

  Chenzira asked, “Did you know about this war?”

  “No Sir.”

  The next mural showed valleys and valleys of dry bones.

  Chenzira, his voice thick with emotion, explained, “The bodies and bones were poisoned and no one could touch or go near them. Men wearing protective clothing were sent out to find the bodies and place markers by them.” He pointed to pictures of men wearing full-body protective suits with transparent masks, “And these people collected them and buried their remains in mass graves.”

  Was this a depiction of a nuclear holocaust or had mankind invented other weapons of mass destruction?

  Still more murals showed hundreds of people streaming into the caves for protection from the onslaught, where their descendants lived to this day.

  We were shown one more cave with a large and very detailed mural at the far end, and a blank wall that had been prepared for another mural although none had been painted.

  “This was our canteen,” said Gemma looking around the cave.

  We walked over to the picture. It showed a crowd of people in the Hub cave. Some sat on the sandy floor and others sat on rocks or stood around. All wore rough garments except for a man and a woman in the centre of the picture. These two people stood out from the cave dwellers as they wore western clothes: jeans and Tshirts. The woman was slim, had long hair and a cut on her forehead; the man, tall and fair-haired, was showing something to the cave people.

  Sari had painted a large ring of sparkling light on the left side of the mural. A small group of people were looking into its centre and an older man was running towards it, about to jump into the light.

  For a moment Gemma and I were speechless.

  I fought to speak, “This is nearly the same as our photo!” I brought the appropriate photo out of the envelope again and passed it to Chenzira.

  Gemma pointed to the light and spoke excitedly, “That’s a vortex. It’s a doorway though time.”

  I continued with my explanation, “And the two people in the centre of the mural are Gemma and I. You can see us in this photo and Gemma still has a faint scar on her forehead. She cut it on a rock at the top entrance that same day.”

  Chenzira motioned Gemma to step forward and checked that her scar matched the cut on the girl’s forehead in the mural. I continued, “We travelled back home through the time portal. The two cave dwellers next to us are Chenzira, and Rachetta, Sari’s parents, and the old man running into the vortex is Sari’s grandfather. He didn’t trust outsiders and wanted to find out about the vortex for himself.”

  In that moment the two cave dwellers believed us.

  “I have a lot of thinking to do,” said Chenzira. He turned to his son. “Ini-herit, your name is prophetic. It means ‘he who brings back the distant one’ and it was you who brought the distant ones back here.” The leader turned from his son, and addressed us. “If the air is good in the outer-world many will want to explore it, but some of the older ones may want to stay. You and your group must leave now. Return in seven days. Ini-herit will be waiting for you at the entrance.”

  We walked back to the Hub, joined by Carla, Geoff, Sam and the other three cave dwellers who had been waiting with them at the entrance to level seventeen.

  In natural time we had always arrived and left Section Headquarters by vortex, the exits to the cave system having been sealed. We’d not even known on which continent the cave system was located.

  I remembered the rock fall and wondered if we would be shown a different way out, and if it would be a long hike. I was pleasantly surprised. After walking down a few passages and through one more enormous cavern we saw a light ahead. I knew I would never fail to be impressed by the enormity of these caves and the wondrous rock formations.

  It was easier going this time as the floor was, for the most part, pretty level and we didn’t have to clamber over huge rocks. The light proved to be a massive hole in the cave roof through which rain and seeds had fallen. Large trees, shrubs and small plants grew in the mud on the cave floor creating a huge oasis.

  “You will find the exit past the wooded place,” said Ini-herit. “I will see you in seven days.” A man of few words, he turned and walked back the way he had come.

  We made our way past the trees and out through a large opening in the cave wall.

  The day was overcast but after spending so long in the cave it seemed very bright to us. Rain threatened and although the cave air was fresh, it was good to be outside in the breeze.

  We wondered if the larger part of our original party had gone back to the settlement after being separated from us by the rock fall. My concern was that if the others had believed us killed and returned to the settlement without us Anna would have been devastated, and I didn’t want her getting upset in her delicate condition.

  Not knowing exactly where we were in relation to our original cave entrance, we decided to trek back around the mountain until we spotted somewhere we recognised.

  After about an hour spent circumnavigating the mountain, gradually descending, half walking and half sliding on the loose stones, we spotted the small opening where we had entered the cave system the day before.

  A man’s voice shouted out from behind us, “Hey!” We turned and saw Gab and his new friend, June, making their way towards us through the trees.

  He called out again as he walked towards us, “We’ve been waiting here in case you found another way out. The others are searching for another entrance. We hoped you weren’t buried.”

  Carla asked anxiously, “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, now you are here all are accounted for,” he answered.

  Chapter 26

  The journey back to Pinewood Heights took the rest of the day and most of the next one. As we neared the settlement I spotted Anna and Lillie waiting for us by the oak tree—Sam had run on ahead and told them we were nearly home, so they had come to meet me. Lillie ran towards me shouting, “Daddy, Daddy,” and leapt into my arms.

  “I looked after Mummy,” she cried, energetically.

  We received a great welcome from everyone; they were ecstatic at the news that so many people had survived in the caves for so long. We explained we would have to return to the caves after three days to find out what the cave dwellers had decided. This would allow the two days travel time needed for the return journey.

  An emergency meeting of the seven settlement groups was called with two spokespeople attending from each group. Afterwards, Carla and Sam, our delegated spokespeople, reported back that it was agreed that any cave dwellers who wanted to could join us, and if any of them chose to live nearby, our builders would help and train them to build homes for themselves and their families. We would also make our medical services available to them and offer them training i
n outdoor survival, and in anything else they needed to learn. Of course they had managed very nicely on their own for the last six hundred or more generations and could probably help us with a few things—if, of course, any of them wanted to leave the caves.

  Three days later a large group of us, including Gemma, Carla, Geoff, Sam, Tim, Gab and I waited near the large cave entrance Ini-herit had directed us to leave by seven days previously. Anna stayed at home as the journey would have been too much for her. She was already getting backache and couldn’t wait for our son to be born. Lillie had come along, happily skipping and walking for short distances and begging shoulder rides off anyone who was willing to carry her the rest of the time.

  We sat down on the loose shale and scrub grass, exhausted from the climb. After about an hour Ini-herit and a small group of cave dwellers appeared in the cave entrance. They stepped outside for the first time, blinking in the strong sunlight and looking rather apprehensive. Ini-herit took a few steps in our direction then stopped and waited to see who would come forward.

  Carla had already told us it was best if the same five people went back in the caves and the rest waited outside, so Gemma, Sam, Geoff, Carla and I moved towards the cave dwellers.

  Lillie ran up to me shouting, “Me too,” so I took her hand keeping her next to me.

  “The child can come,” said Ini-herit.

  I picked Lillie up and placed her on my shoulders and we followed our guide into the cave, taking a moment to get used to the dim light. This part of the cave system didn’t have overhead lighting, as these caves had never been inhabited. The cave dwellers feared that the poison would fall through the hole in the roof making the cave as dangerous as the outside world had been.

  “Look there are trees in here,” Lillie shrieked excitedly, as we passed the wooded area. She liked this part of the cave system but wasn’t so keen of the smaller tunnels that led to the Hub. However, once inside the well-lit cavern, she settled down. It was obvious that the people were expecting us, as the enormous cave was full of people. Some of the multitude sat on the sandy floor, others on rocks and still more stood at the back of the crowd straining their necks to see their leader.