The Elicon

by Rob Roth

  He was being carried on unseen wings as an observer, and soon one particularly large and beautiful tower loomed closer. It was rich with windows to allow light in to fill a royally appointed room. The center window was open and Jace flew in and hovered by a royal-looking chair or throne, where a golden-haired woman was clasping her hands together either in prayer or because she was holding an object, or perhaps both. Head bowed, she suddenly looked up toward Jace as if startled, but then her countenance lit up as if in pure joy and relief. At that instant, Jace too was startled, because he was looking into the face of the woman in the fiery mirror.

  Immediately coming awake as if out of a very deep sleep, Jace felt a little confused and his brain somewhat foggy. Jace’s first thoughts were sorrowful, having been yanked out of a perfect dream from which he had no desire to depart. No, not a dream. It was too real. He could feel that the marble case was still in his pocket, and thought he felt a warmth coming from it. He wondered if this was some sort of vision that had been given to him but dismissed that as being farfetched. It must have been a lucid dream. Logically a vision delivered by a blue stone was clearly improbable.

  Becoming aware of his surroundings, Jace sat up and saw he was in a pleasant large room with a high ceiling and two comfortable beds. He was sitting on one, and Dooley was still asleep lying on the other. A nearby sofa had two chests on either side of it, and beyond that was a writing desk and a little square table with a chess set sitting on top. Jace noticed a small bathroom next to what he presumed to be a closet. A couple of windows filled the room with light, but they were high on the wall and did not provide a view.

  Slowly getting up because he felt a slight dizziness and did not wish to encourage it, Jace first visited an attached bathroom and washed his face. After he felt a bit steadier, he came back into the main room and noticed another closed door, but found it was locked. As Jace was further checking out his surroundings, he heard Dooley stir.

  “What the hell happened?” Dooley murmured, opening his eyes. Then he rolled his legs off the bed into a sitting position. “Woah. The room is spinning a bit,” he added.

  “Dooley, did you have any dreams while you were out?” Jace asked.

  “Nope. I recall Trask putting us into a bus that looked like a giant worm… hey, was that a dream? Anyway, that’s all I recall until I just woke up now, with my head spinning.”

  “No, unfortunately that was real enough,” Jace said. “Go wash your face. You will feel better. There’s a little bathroom over there,” Jace said pointing.

  Jace sat there for a minute trying to gather his thoughts and make sense of what had happened, while Dooley went in and filled the basin and washed his face. After a minute or two, Dooley finished up and raised the plug in the sink.

  “Holy Mother!” Dooley exclaimed, when he saw the water was draining counterclockwise. “We must be somewhere on the other side of the Equator. I think Trask may have taken us back to Australia.”

  After Dooley came back out to the main room, Jace thought about stacking some of the furniture to see if he could at least look out the windows, as they were too narrow for exiting, but gave up. He suspected they were not in any particular danger given the nice quarters, and someone would probably check on them before too long. He was really more curious than afraid, and Allison didn’t seem like a threat. The last thing he recalled her saying was that she was trying to save them from the military, so he decided to relax and wait.

  “Hey Dooley, how about a game of chess while we wait?” Jace asked.

  “Wow, Professor, when did you acquire such steady nerves? What did you do with the real Jason Larkin?" laughed Dooley, who was usually the one not prone to undo worry, given his training.

  Jace was starting to wonder the same thing.

  “Sure, why not," Dooley continued. "We can always break ourselves out later and save our lives. What’s the rush?” he said with sarcastic humor.

  As she walked down one of the many hallways of Connor Van Dyne’s expansive estate just north of Melbourne, Australia, Allison thought it was about time to check on Jace and Dooley. She wasn’t really anticipating a very warm reception on this initial visit, as she considered they would likely be less than thrilled to see her, and not prone to want to listen to what she had to say. Well, given that she had gassed them, kidnapped them, and transported them half-way around the world, they do have some justification for not trusting her, she supposed. Rounding the corner to one of the several guest rooms in the estate, she came to the room where they were sequestered and knocked on the door.

  “G’day mates. Might I come in?”

  After a pause of a second or two, Jace responded, “You have the key, not us. Obviously you are able to come and go as you please.”

  Allison responded, “Before I do, I want you to know I’m alone and unarmed. And the door was locked more to keep you safe, so you didn’t wake up and take a wander, getting yourself into trouble. After I unlock it I will leave it unlocked and you will be free to leave whenever you wish. I would greatly appreciate it, Dooley, if you did not assail me when I come in.”

  Jace, who was standing in front of the door, gave a nod to Dooley, who was standing at the side of the door with a hard glass vase in his hand. Dooley shrugged his shoulders and went back to sit at the table where he returned the vase.

  “Ok Miss Trask, you can safely enter the door,” Jace responded.

  Allison unlocked the door and came in, noting that Jace was standing relaxed about eight feet from the door, and Dooley was sitting at a table farther back, straight and formal.

  “So, it’s Miss Trask now?

  “Look Trask,” Dooley replied with more than a little anger in his voice, “If that’s your name… we don’t know who you are or what your game is. You’ve been dishonest and deceitful since the day I met you. And I knew that scene at the bar was staged. Also, you neglected to mention you went out to the meteorite impact site on Thursday. Oh yes, and that you got into the site because you are part of the military. Now you’ve kidnapped Jace and me and held us hostage in some crazy scheme for God knows what reason. Have I forgotten anything?”

  Dooley was absolutely fuming, but he did try to force his emotions down a notch when he noticed Allison was looking at least slightly contrite.

  “Look, mates” she answered, “you have a right to be angry with me. And my name is Allison Trask. You are correct that I haven’t been honest with you and have kept some secrets. But in fairness, haven’t you also kept secrets from me? I only went out to the meteorite site because I found out that Jace had already been there earlier, which never came up in any conversation.

  "Also, I bet Jace was working something you both are keeping quiet about, Dooley, during the days you were either with me or tailing me. Am I right? I’m sorry you don’t trust me at the moment. But my friendship toward you both was genuine, and I have never done anything to intentionally hurt either of you. I may have made a few mistakes, I admit, but I was trying to protect you.”

  Because his feelings for Allison had not been played as much as Dooley’s had been, Jace was more inclined to accept her words at face value.

  “Miss Trask… Allison… I can accept that you did what you thought was in our best interests. But now it’s time for honesty. We need to know who you really are, and what you want. Dooley and I will then decide how we want to move forward with that information.”

  “No worries,” Allison replied while glancing at Dooley to see if she could detect any softening in his face, but Dooley remained stoic and hard to read.

  “I work for the Australian military and am part of their special forces. Our own government currently has a secret joint project initiative with the U.S. government, and the project location is here in Melbourne, Australia. Additional funding and technology for the project is being provided by the Australian billionaire opal mining magnate, Connor Van Dyne. In fact, you are currently in a guest room in Mr. Van Dyne’s Melbourne mansion. Connor is involved becau
se it was one of his research companies that originally stumbled upon certain knowledge that forms the foundation of this joint government research project. He did not have the resources or equipment required to pursue it independently, so he was the driving force behind creating a joint project to secure those required components.”

  “If that’s the case and you are all working together, what happened back in Flagstaff, Trask? Why were we knocked out and dragged here, and how the hell does that Colonel Severs fit in?” asked Dooley, somewhat calmer but keeping things formal to avoid any further emotional distress.

  “As to Colonel Severs, Dooley, I can’t answer that one. He was trying to thwart his own military commanders for some reason, from what I saw. But I can tell you what I know and why you are here,” Allison said.

  “The Australian government and Van Dyne himself had reservations about bringing in the U.S. government, because we suspected they wanted to use the technology for military purposes, whereas our government and Van Dyne were looking for scientific breakthroughs that would benefit society. So, they decided to put me undercover as a scientist working for Van Dyne within Panterra Enterprises, his research organization involved with the secret project. I did have an undergraduate degree in astrophysics, so it wasn’t too difficult to sell the story that I was Dr. Trask.

  “During the course of my duties as Dr. Trask, I began to get suspicious of the U.S. government’s involvement, just as we feared. We heard rumblings that General Heissman was going to be put in charge of the U.S. contingent of the joint project. Heissman was the bloody general responsible for the U.S.’s Strategic and Tactical Weapons Development, so it set off alarm bells for us when he was reassigned to our secret project.

  “Where you come in, Dr. Larkin, is that we are looking for something we need in order to continue our research. I will have Connor Van Dyne tell you all about the project tomorrow, but suffice it to say, we thought you or your network of chums may have some good intel about where we might acquire what’s required.

  “I was sent to the Barringer conference because we knew you were the keynote speaker. I had intended to talk to you after the conference and simply convince you to come with me. But then Heissman showed up in Flagstaff, and we got wind of the fact that he was convinced other governments were pursuing a project similar to ours. He was able to determine you had been at the meteorite impact site at about the same time a helicopter of theirs at the site was destroyed. He came to the conclusion you were working with that other government and you or they destroyed the helicopter.

  “Heissman was coming to take you by force, Jace. We still wish to pursue peaceful goals, and decided we better proceed as planned to get you here to help Van Dyne, but things got buggered. I didn’t have time to explain all this to you and Dooley with a bloody assault underway. The easiest solution, thanks to Severs having the knockout gas, was to simply grab you and bring you here, and update you when time afforded. Van Dyne had pre-arranged a jet to be at the Flagstaff airport, so I drove you there and put us all on the plane. Sedation supplies were on the jet, which I must admit I used to keep you under until I got you to Van Dyne’s secure mansion. That’s the full of it, mates, and brings you up to date as far as my activities in all this. Now what about you? What can you add to the story?”

  Everything Allison said made sense, Jace thought, and was consistent with what he had seen and heard. However, the involvement of Colonel Severs was still a big unknown and could shed a new light on things. He didn’t know what Van Dyne’s secret project was all about, but it sounded like he might find out tomorrow. So, Jace was willing to give out some information, but certainly not everything.

  “Dooley and I arrived in Flagstaff on Monday afternoon,” Jace began. “Even though I didn’t have to speak until Friday, I thought we should hear some of the conference speakers, at least. But first we wanted to check out Barringer crater on Tuesday, since it was the subject of the conference and my keynote presentation. So, Dooley and I got up early on Monday, and stopped at a coffee shop before we started on our way.

  "While we were there, we overheard a reporter talking to some friends at a nearby table about a celestial fireball that a number of eyewitnesses had seen in the desert the night before. Those witnesses had called the newspaper to see if anyone had reported it, or if it was perhaps a military test. The reporter took their statements late Monday night, and was planning on writing up the complete story that Tuesday, in order to publish first thing Wednesday morning.

  "Since I was going to speak about the nearby Barringer impact, I thought it would be great to get out to the impact site, assuming there was one, and see if I could find a meteorite sample to use in the presentation. I had Dooley spend some time with the reporter gleaning all the information he could possibly get about the likely coordinates, while I headed out toward the suspected impact area. After Dooley radioed me the likely coordinates, he wandered down to the hotel tavern for a burger. I believe you know the rest of Dooley’s story.”

  Allison nodded to Jace, while glancing again over at Dooley, and said, “Yes I do. And for the record, I knew you and Dooley were best mates, and I asked the bloke at the bar to come onto me to make some guy I was interested in jealous. At first he didn’t want to be involved, seeing how big Dooley was, but I paid him fair and said he only had to play his part for about thirty seconds. I told him, no worries, Dooley was just a big koala and he’d be fine. Well, I also said I was special forces and could handle Dooley if things got out of hand.

  "But Dooley, I want you to know, I didn’t have to pretend much after the bar scene. I enjoyed your company, and our connection after that was genuine. At least, on my side it was, partly because of our shared military backgrounds.”

  Dooley was looking at Allison as she spoke, but he maintained his passive, mildly disinterested expression, while at the same time he took in the things she was saying. Partly?

  “I tried calling Dooley a few times while he was with you, Allison, but apparently he had left his radio on the other table,” Jace continued. “I found the impact area and managed to pick up a few meteorite samples. After I discovered the actual impact crater was on the side of a canyon wall, I almost gave up, but since I was there I decided to scale down to it. Honestly, at the time the grade didn’t seem that steep from above.

  “I managed to reach the crater and extract a black nickel-iron stone that was a little unusual… somewhat rounded like an ostrich egg. That’s the one I told Severs about, but really, I knew it was just a regular meteorite. Although… I did think the impact itself was a little weird. You just don’t find impact craters that small, normally. But nature has a way of accomplishing weird things.

  "I took the samples I had collected and started to head back home. It was dusk by that time. When I was a mile or so out, I heard what sounded like a helicopter approaching, although I could tell it was still somewhat distant. And one thing I just remembered… when I was a few more miles out, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, I thought I heard the peel of thunder and saw flashes of lightning. I wonder if that had anything to do with the helicopter crash?”

  Dooley had kept his expression flat throughout Jace’s report and noted that he did not mention the blue stone or the woman in the flame. Like Jace he thought it was best to not mention those until they both knew a lot more about them, especially considering the military’s involvement. He hoped Connor Van Dyne could shed some more light on this top-secret project everyone kept referring to.

  “Just to fill in a couple more missing pieces,” Jace proceeded, “On Wednesday and Thursday I borrowed the geology lab at Northern Arizona University so I could run some tests and confirm my samples were indeed nickel-iron meteorite fragments. Sure enough, they had the right properties and mineral percentages to verify their authenticity. That’s pretty much it. The rest I believe you know, Allison.”

  “Thanks, mate, for filling in some of the missing pieces. I understand you both may not trust me because of what I did, bu
t I hope once you have talked to Van Dyne you will understand why keeping this technology out of the control of the military is so bloody important and maybe we can get back to being mates again. Now, I must call Van Dyne and let him know you both are awake and safe and make other arrangements for tomorrow. In the meantime, as I promised, I am leaving the door unlocked and you are free to go wherever and whenever you want.

  "Oh, Mr. Van Dyne has provided a car and driver for you today. You can ask the driver to take you wherever you want to go. But please, if ok by you, come back here and spend the night, so we can meet with Van Dyne in the morning and he can fully explain this secret project to you. He is at another location and won’t return here tonight, but I’ll take us to him tomorrow morning.

  "Feel free to take a wander around the mansion. By the way, Mr. Van Dyne purchased several changes of clothes in your sizes… shirts, pants, socks, shoes and undergarments. They are in the chests and closet if you haven’t discovered them already. The driver is in the kitchen whenever you decide to head out. Cheers for now.”

  Allison turned and left the room, keeping the door open, and as they watched she turned a hall corner and was soon out of sight.

  “Tell me, Dooley, what do you think of all this?” Jace asked.

  “Not here, Jace. The room could be bugged. Trask seemed sincere, but let’s not take any chances just yet. How about we take a drive and see the sights of Melbourne? The car could be bugged too, but we can talk as we wander around outside,” Dooley replied.

  Jace agreed that a little sightseeing would be a welcome diversion, so they each showered and changed into some comfortable clothes provided by their host and were pleased to discover two shavers and toiletry sets had also been provided. Once they were ready for the day, they started out by wandering around the mansion, which was a sizeable two-story estate with numerous rooms.