The Elicon

by Rob Roth

  Also, he and Davis both enjoyed the social life. Because everyone was stuck in this god-forsaken place together, they made the best of the situation with board games, card games, bowling, beer, midnight pizza parties, and developing relationships. Everyone knew everyone, and it seemed like they tried their hardest to get along, since you couldn’t really get away. Yes, the people were very nice. And Severs couldn’t forget last night’s surprise, a pleasant evening spent with the very cute green-eyed Corporal Mattie Stevens…

  “Captain, we’ve got something strange here,” called out Davis, who was bent over a radar screen studying it intently.

  “Talk to me Davis,” replied Severs.

  “According to our radar, something just popped into our air space almost directly above us, about one mile up in the air.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “That’s just it. It didn’t. I just appeared. You know… like we’ve seen before… a few months back in Arizona. The signature looks exactly the same.”

  Severs knew quite well what Davis was referring to. What are they doing here, right over where Davis and I are? That can’t be a coincidence. How did they find us? What is it they want?

  “Now it’s heading north, Captain, at a very fast pace! I lost it about eighty miles out. At that height and distance, it’s too low to track with radar beyond that distance. I’ll switch to satellite to see if I can find out where it’s headed.”

  In a few seconds, Severs heard Davis say, “There it is! I caught an image of it. It’s hovering about three hundred klicks north of us at the edge of Inglefield Land, at a very low altitude. What the heck is it doing there?”

  “That’s near the Hiawatha impact crater,” said Severs thoughtfully. After seeing how the aliens seemed to be drawn to the Barringer crater last fall, Captain Severs had researched the existence of impact craters in Greenland, once he knew he was going to be stationed there, just on a whim.

  "Take cover!" Jace yelled, prompting the three to run between the boulders, which provided some protection but permitted them to see everything that was happening above.

  The ship shot a wide red beam straight down toward the crevice. It looked as though smaller rocks and particles were riding up the beam to the ship. They had little doubt that the blue dust was the target, and it was caught up as well. It was sucking dust up for what seemed like quite a while — way more than necessary to collect the stash they had seen, Jace thought. They must have located more further down.

  Suddenly they heard Aput fifty yards away standing clear of the boulders and yelling up at the ship, as if waving or warding them away. Oomaaluq was standing next to him looking up and barking.

  “What are you thinking!?” yelled Dooley, running toward Aput. As he was closing the distance, the wide beam shut off, having accomplished its task, and the narrower part of the ship swung right toward Dooley.

  “No!” he yelled aloud just as he dove into Aput, driving them both behind the boulders at the same instant a narrow red beam shot out, exploding into the cluster of boulders where Dooley had been a split-second before. Oomaaluq yelped as his hind quarters got scorched in the blast and ran behind the rocks. The spaceship then switched to a wider beam and scanned the area where Dooley had been. Apparently satisfied, the spaceship literally vanished out of sight.

  “Dooley!” yelled Jace as he raced over to the group of boulders, some of which were now shattered, with Allison right on his heels.

  There was no answer back, so Jace and Allison feared the worst for what they might encounter when they reached the two buried under rubble created by the blast. The two were not moving at all, as Jace and Allison worked to free them. Once they got the last of the rubble off, however, they heard Dooley moan and saw Aput’s hand begin to twitch a little as well.

  With help from Allison, Dooley slowly rose unsteadily to his feet.

  “I’m ok, I think,” he said as he stood straighter and then dusted himself off, while Jace helped Aput off the ground. “That alien craft was aiming right at us! What the hell was that all about?”

  “Bugger! They tried to kill you!” Allison shouted.

  “You’re just lucky they didn’t take a second shot to make sure. We’ve got to alert someone,” said Jace. “Allie, grab the sat phone. I believe there is a U.S. air base in northwestern Greenland, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Right-o,” Allison replied. “Thule air base is about two hundred miles south of us. It’s some kind of a radar listening post, so maybe they saw the bloody spacecraft when it popped in on us.” Allison was able to use the sat phone to call the Danish operator and obtain the number to Thule air base, so she placed the call.

  “Hello, this is Captain Severs. You’ve reached Thule air base. May I help you?”

  “Severs? Bloody hell! You’re at Thule?”

  “Who is this? Please identify yourself,” Severs said.

  “This is Allison Trask, and I’m with Dr. Larkin and Dooley Marz. We’re about two hundred miles north of you at the Hiawatha Crater. Listen, you of all people should believe me when I say a silvery spaceship just popped into existence right above us.”

  Allison heard a pause for several seconds, and then Severs replied, “Copy that. Our radar detected the unidentified flying object above us, minutes before you called. Davis recognized the pattern as being similar to what we saw near Flagstaff last year. What the hell is going on, and why the hell are you all there?"

  “We were following up on a lead that we received recently about the possibility of a stash of blue dust. We just located a sizable stash in a crevice, but before we could take it out, the buggers popped in and literally sucked it all up. The ship now has more blue dust.”

  “Well, isn’t that a good thing? The aliens had talked to me through a special device they had left for us, and implied they needed more blue dust. From what they told me it was vital to their planet’s safety. Remember that egg Dr. Larkin left in the hotel room? It apparently disintegrated into the blue dust. I talked to the aliens a second time, and that is what they said they needed. Before I could deliver it to them, Heissman took control of the blue dust and left for Melbourne, and I was reassigned to Thule. No doubt to keep me totally out of the loop.”

  Jace asked Allison to give him the mic.

  “Captain Severs, I do not believe it is a good thing, at all, that the aliens took the blue dust! I have a strong suspicion they are not friends, but enemies. They took a direct shot at Dooley and would have killed him if he hadn’t been saved by a stand of boulders preventing them from disintegrating him!”

  Severs thought for a second and replied, “Hm… that is consistent with what Davis has been trying to tell me. They took out one of our helicopters without a second thought. Now I’m wondering if they were pretending to be friendly merely in order to secure the blue dust.”

  “What else did they tell you, Captain?” Jace asked. “Anything that might give us some clue as to what they are up to?”

  Jace asked the question matter-of-factly, but he was feeling anything but that. Jace’s heart was pounding. He needed to know everything Severs heard from the aliens now more than ever. And not because he wanted to know what they were up to. His life had just been turned completely upside down again.

  The instant he had seen the spaceship, he knew for a fact he had not been merely dreaming about the girl, or the place, or the battle. The spaceship looked exactly like what he had seen in the vision, down to the very last detail. Logically he knew it would be impossible to dream up all the details that precisely. There was no doubt in Jace’s mind that the girl in the fiery mirror was in danger, and about to head into battle against the aliens. And she desperately needed Jace’s help.

  “Well, there’s one other thing,” Severs answered. “I’m guessing you found something else in that egg and took it, because I saw the indentation where something smaller had been, inside. The aliens asked about that.”

  “Yes, I did find something else inside, which I havrig
ht now. What did they say about it?”

  "They told me it was very, very dangerous to their planet and ours. That it needed to be shattered or destroyed. You should keep it cold. That was all they said about it.”

  “Thanks, Captain Severs. you've been most helpful. We had been trying to get with you to confirm your story about the spaceship and your communications, but now that I’ve seen it myself I have no doubt you are describing exactly what you saw and heard. We felt like we should report this sighting to someone, and I’m so glad it ended up being you. It seems like coincidences are becoming more common place for us. At least I know you believe what we have now seen and reported,” Jace said. “Is there anything else you need us to do on our end?”

  “If you would be so kind as to send us your GPS coordinates, that would be most helpful. Eventually we will get a team out there to investigate, but I don’t know when we will be able to outfit a team for the trek up there. The Medevac helicopter we have can only get us up to Qaanaaq. What about your team Dr. Larkin? Is there anything else we can do for you?”

  “No, we are all set. It will take us a couple days by dogsled to get back to Qaanaaq, but from there, Air Greenland can get us wherever we need to go. Thanks again for the help Captain Severs. Goodbye.”

  Jace turned to Allison and Dooley.

  “We've all seen that spaceship, and believe me when I say, it looks exactly like it did in my vision. And it was a vision. What I had were not dreams. I was viewing a real place — perhaps a different dimension as Van Dyne believes his portal was viewing.”

  The concern now weighing on Jace's face was crystal clear to Allison and Dooley.

  "I know the woman in the fiery mirror is a real person, in real danger, and she desperately needs my help for some reason. Now that the spaceship has the blue dust it was looking for, I’m afraid time may be running out for her, and I still don't know how to help!”

  Dooley turned to him and said, “Jace, think about what Severs said. Those aliens clearly want you to destroy the blue stone. They want you to shatter it. So, it must be very important somehow. I'd say destroying it is the last thing you want to do!”

  “I know! But what do I do with it?" Jace asked. “The aliens said keep it cold, so my thought would be to heat it. Maybe even subject it to fire. But as I already told you, heat expands matter and it would likely crack or shatter it. That’s basic physics.”

  “But it's not made of matter, is it mate,” said Allison slowly. "It’s non-baryonic…"

  “That’s true... but how can I be sure it wouldn’t react exactly the same way?” Jace said thoughtfully.

  “You can't. But sometimes you have to go with your feelings Jace. Since the aliens said to keep it cold, I’d say toss the bloody stone into a fire. What do your feelings tell you?” Allison asked.

  “My feelings tell me I am running out of time and I have to make a decision. I don’t like relying on feelings alone, but it just occurred to me the fire could also provide the energy to align the dodecahedrons in the stone. If so, that could cause it to work the way I’m hoping it was meant to. It’s not much to go on, but it’s all I've got. Ask Aput to build a fire.”

  In a short time Aput had a hot fire going, and a little while later the lower logs had burned hot enough to collapse into red hot coals.

  "Well, here goes nothing," said Jace. He took the blue stone and dropped it right in the hottest coals. Nothing happened at first, but then it seemed to Jace that the blue became darker and richer in color. Then it erupted in a burst of light that immediately reduced into a steady blue glow.

  Taking a knife out, Jace worked the blue stone out of the coals. It quickly cooled, but its newer, dark rich blue color remained.

  "I guess we will see if our hope is well-placed," said Jace as he bent down and picked up the blue stone. Holding it in his palm, Jace closed his hand into a fist and gripped it firmly. Soon the outline of the mirror appeared, but unlike before it appeared directly in front of Jace, and continued to get brighter and brighter, and more substantial, until it was a solid flaming portal, crackling with the sound of power.

  “I think it might be working…” Jace started to say.

  Instantly, as Dooley and Allison were looking on, Jace and the mirror merged as one and vanished.

  "What the…." Dooley said startled.

  "Jace!" Allison shouted out. But there was only silence.

  They waited for five minutes. Then they agreed to wait another thirty minutes. Then another hour. After that they began to realize Jace may not be coming back soon. Allison suggested they spend three more nights at the crater's edge, but given their limited rations, they both knew they had to head back after that, with or without Jace.

  Dooley awoke on the third day as soon as the smallest amount of light made its way through the igloo entrance. It was just before sunrise, when the light of the sun streaked the horizon with a narrow band of gold color. He climbed out of the sleeping bag and pulled on his boots, snow pants and parka, and crawled outside. He made his way over to the rock circle where the fire had been burning the last three nights, and from where Jace had disappeared. Dooley was standing and staring into the now dead fire.

  “Where are you buddy?” he spoke softly. “I hope whenever you finish whatever it is you were needed for, you come back to us soon. If you can come back. I wish we had thought this through more… talked it over more. Allie and I aren’t sure what we should do now that you are… wherever. I’ll leave a sat phone here, in a plastic bag with a message, in case you come back to this same place. But we must leave today, or we risk not having enough food for us to get back. I’m sorry we are leaving you, Jace, but we don’t have a choice.”

  Dooley heard the light crunch of footprints, and as he turned, Allison stepped next to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, mate. I’m sure Jace can take care of himself wherever he is. I really do believe he is fine and it’s a fair bet he's helping the woman in the image. She will help him return when the time is right. But for now, we have to move on without him — make our own plans and follow our own path.

  The aliens took the blue dust and who knows what their plans are, but I’m betting they’re up to no good. I hope Jace and the woman are dealing with them wherever he is. But we have our own bloody problems right here. Heissman and Van Dyne are working to get their own supply of blue dust in order to open up their own dark portal. I have a feeling that may be just as dangerous as what Jace is dealing with. Since we are on our own now, it’s up to us to stop them. This is our battle now, I’m thinking.”

  Dooley sighed, and said, “You’re right, Allie. I’ve always been there to look out for Jace, but now I can’t do that. I just need to get refocused on what I can do. Jace gave me access to his email, so when we get back, I’ll check to see if anyone else answered him. If so we should be prepared to take the lead and get to any stashes of blue dust before Heissman or Van Dyne do. I guess we need to tell Van Dyne something. He’s going to wonder why he hasn’t heard from Jace in a while. I think we can stall for a couple weeks but after that we need to contact him. And, we need to keep him motivated so he will fund any more necessary trips. Let’s go back and see if we can find any traces of the blue dust at the crevice. If we find even a small sample that we could show him, that might get him thinking he needs to keep funding us.”

  After searching the crevice area, they could not find a single grain of blue dust. It seemed the alien beam was quite effective in gathering up the exotic matter, thought Dooley. They were both feeling very discouraged at that point, when Dooley suddenly remembered the little plastic bag.

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” he said as he reached in his pocket, “I gathered this small sample in the big cavern. Looks like we have something to show Van Dyne after all.”

  Aput had another breakfast of fresh fish waiting when they came back from the crevice. They ate it quickly so as not to lose any more time than necessary, and the
n broke camp and packed everything back into the sleds so there was hardly a trace of their having been there, other than the circle of stones and the sat phone protectively wrapped in plastic. Allison had added a brief note to it, explaining that they were going to carry on with the mission to eliminate any additional blue dust, and they looked forward to hearing from him whenever he got back. With that completed, they hitched up the team and headed south on the wide white expanse, aiming to reach Qaanaaq in two days. The dogs were excited to finally be moving again, yelping in joy as they began their initial run at a good pace.

  NINE

  Staring into the dying flames of the fire, Elysia the Eldian, Servant of Eld and Guardian of the Elicon, felt that she had done everything she could. She would take comfort in that. Now it was up to Eld. Thrice she had used the Elicon to seek out the one in the Dream Realm, and Eld had granted Elysia success. The dream dweller had received her messages, including this last plea she had just concluded. Eld, please grant him insight and wisdom to understand, Alysia thought to herself.

  In truth, she smiled to herself, out of curiosity she had used the Elicon one time before the three, to see what the Dream Realm looked like, and view where the Elicon had been sent. But it had already been received by the dream dweller, just before the Maliconi could intercept it, thank Eld.

  It was a peaceful night despite the looming war. She could feel the warm breeze on her face and see the higher branches and leaves gently swaying. She could hear the soft sounds of the night wings in the trees, and her own tent flag flapping in the wind. Immediately behind the small wooded glen secluding her royal tent were the Grand Plains filled with ten thousand tents and myriads of Eldane Guardians. Most had retired for the evening, but many were still outside tending the numerous campfires visible across the broad plains, and no doubt petitioning Eld for victory.