The Rosetta Codex

by Richard Paul Russo

  “So what is it?”

  She finished her iced coffee and stared at him. “Come with me.”

  Two hours later they stood before a skin parlor in one of the busiest and most congested districts of Morningstar. The skin parlor was wedged between a bar and a stunner arcade, the trio of businesses in turn flanked by a music store and a shock shop. Above ground level, the concrete building rose another four stories with what appeared to be apartments.

  Several blocks away, across the ring of canals that served as a kind of moat, rose the gleaming edifices of The Island. Up close, the buildings appeared to rise into and above the clouds.

  “You seem confused,” Karimah said.

  Cale nodded, blinking at the glare of sunlight reflecting off the polished metal and glass, then turned back to the skin parlor. The door opened and a fleshy woman emerged, hardly able to walk. Her cheeks twitched spastically, and her lips trembled as if she were silently mumbling some prayer or other incantation. Long thin scars striped both of her arms. She eyed Cale, gave him a ghastly smile, then winked at him before turning and staggering down the street.

  Cale turned to Karimah. “We’re nowhere near where we’ve been staying, where you pulled me out of the canal.”

  “That’s where we live,” Karimah said. “We keep to ourselves, for lots of reasons. But the ruins are here. Beneath us. Morningstar was built right on top of them.” She shrugged. “This is where we dig.”

  She led the way into the skin parlor, and Cale followed.

  They began their descent from the third floor, in a wide central stairwell secured from the skin parlor and the building’s other establishments by two doors and three key codes. The stairwell was bare and cool and quiet, the echoes of their footsteps strangely hushed and distant; the air smelled of damp clean earth. Three floors down they emerged into a vast concrete-walled chamber with a large freight lift, several loaders propped against the walls, and dozens of crates stacked or scattered about, some empty and some filled with chunks of stone or bits of metal or strips of ragged and rotted wood. An older woman squatted before a pile of rock and dirt that had been dumped from one of the crates, poking through it with long thin tweezers; she looked up and nodded at Cale and Karimah, then returned to her task without a word.

  Karimah led the way to a narrow stairwell in one corner and they climbed down to the next level, which was unoccupied. Here the lights were dim and tinged blue, and the cooler air smelled of oil and rusted metal and a hint of scorched rubber. Cages marked the two shafts that led to the lower levels, and Karimah pointed out the emergency shaft across the room, the top of a metal ladder visible in its outlet. She opened one of the cages and they stepped inside, then she closed the interior gate, pressed a button, and they resumed their descent with a clunking jolt.

  The cage elevator shuddered as it dropped, like some ancient mechanism kept functioning with makeshift parts and constant repairs. The shaft walls were shored with metal and wood scarred by the repeated passage of the cage, lit with moving patterns by the elevator’s overhead lamp.

  They hadn’t descended more than thirty feet when the cage stopped before a wide opening in the dirt and rock; the gate opened and Karimah led the way into a long passage lit by strings of gold and silver angel lights. The air was warmer and drier than he expected, and a hot breeze moved past them carrying with it the smell of cinnamon.

  The passage angled off to the right and pale light washed over them. They stepped into an antechamber carved out of the earth, the ceiling close to twenty feet above ground level. On the other side of the antechamber was a glass wall and a doorway twelve feet high and three or feet wide leading into a room with more glass walls. Cale and Karimah crossed the antechamber and entered.

  Glass walls surrounded them, and a ceiling of paneled glass curved overhead. Floor lamps illuminated the large room, the soft white light penetrating the glass and revealing a sky of rock and earth only inches beyond the glass. Not a single pane of glass was cracked or otherwise marked.

  Without a word Karimah led Cale to a spiral staircase that wound down from the center of the room, and they continued their descent.

  On the next level down they walked through a series of empty rooms faintly helical in appearance, as if upon completion the polished stone walls had been slightly twisted by the hand of some great beast. The high ceilings were faceted as though inlaid with enormous dark crystals, and an eerie glow reflected in bluish hues from the facets, the glow punctuated by tiny pockets of darkness. Their boots trod upon large tiles etched with diagrams of circles and arrowed lines linking one tile to another.

  As they exited the last room, they emerged from the building and stood on a bridge of wooden planks laid across a deep fissure. Broken walls of stone and a large network of scaffolding were visible in the crevice below. The bridge led to an opening in another partially excavated building, its upper reaches disappearing into the earth above.

  Cale followed her across the planks. He craned his neck and gazed up as he walked through the doorway, which was twelve or thirteen feet high like all the other doorways they’d passed through.

  They entered a vast gallery lit by angel lamps, the golden lights mounted in the corners of the high ceiling, illuminating complex spirals carved into dozens of stone wall panels, lighting shiny maroon disks affixed to the floor.

  “All this,” Karimah said as they moved through the gallery, “and hardly anyone cares. An entire civilization—a civilization of intelligent aliens—extinct for reasons we’ll probably never know. But there’s so much they left behind, here and on other worlds, and most of it’s like this, buried beneath our own cities, neglected, forgotten, dismissed.” She shook her head in disgust. “Nobody gives a shit.” She stopped and turned to him. “That’s why we’re here, to unearth as much as we can, save as much as we can, learn as much as we can. It probably sounds crazy, but some of us feel we owe it to them.”

  Cale shook his head. “It doesn’t sound crazy.”

  Karimah snorted. “Then you’re just as crazy as we are.” She tilted her head and gazed up at the ceiling, which was painted a deep indigo so dark that gauging its height was impossible. “This is just the beginning.”

  He spent the next several hours in a state of overstimulation, at times hardly aware of himself. The Resurrectionists had strung all the rooms and chambers and passages with angel lamps, clusters of luminous gossamer that cast a clean warm light and diminished the shadows so that the details within were clear and visible if often incomprehensible. As they encountered people along the way, Karimah introduced Cale to them, and them to him, but their names slipped from his memory as soon as they moved on.

  . . . Doorways and ceilings all so much higher than expected, and Cale became certain that the aliens must have been at least two or three feet taller than human beings . . .

  . . . Channels that might once have carried water or other fluids along the floors of a series of interconnected dome-shaped rooms, the oxidized metal ceiling/walls etched with intricate depictions of lush plants and vague bipedal forms hidden behind the dense foliage . . .

  . . . A vast network of severed pipe and cable that emerged from walls and ceilings of a building that appeared to have had one side completely cut away so that its interior structure could be exhibited . . .

  . . . Two women who carefully brushed and scraped away at a wall of dirt and rock in a room still partially buried; four shiny metal tubes lay in a basket behind them . . .

  . . . A long wide hall with tables on one side and sinks on the other and pipes entering and exiting the walls, and racks of strangely shaped cutting instruments and gripping tools and implements whose functions were indecipherable, yet all organized and waiting to be put to use if their owners were ever to return . . .

  “One more thing to show you,” Karimah said to him. “For now, anyway.”

  By now Cale was truly captivated in some deep and terrible and wonderful way. He followed her along another high and wide
passage, then through a doorway of dangling vines of delicately carved wood, and into an enormous vault lit by more angel lamps. He stopped, stunned and immobilized.

  Hundreds or thousands of sheets of thin, coppery metal hung from wooden dowels suspended from the ceiling on nearly invisible wires, the sheets carved through and stenciled with markings like the tracks of terratorns and blades of grass. They angled in different directions, yet hung above their heads in a curving pattern so that Cale imagined that if he started here at the door and moved about the room, following them, reading them over the hours or days it would take, he would in the end achieve some special insight . . . or revelation.

  “This is the writing you saw, isn’t it?” Karimah said.

  Cale nodded. More than she knew, he thought. He remained there a long time, staring at the metal sheets, the pages of alien text he hoped he might someday understand.

  FOUR

  Cale lay beside Karimah on the mat, his damp skin touching hers. Breathing hard, he lifted his hand and laid it gently across her belly, his fingers lightly brushing dark coarse hair. He felt her own fingers find his and weakly curl around them.

  Light was a dim yellow glow here in their private cell some forty or fifty feet below street level, the glow produced by a phosphor globe suspended from the shored-up ceiling above them. Two metal sheets of the alien glyphs hung from copper wires and cast patterned shadows across the polished stone walls. Dark fabric draped across the doorway, muting the brighter lights of the adjacent passage as well as the sounds of those working in the chambers and passages around and below them. The air was warm and heavy despite the Underneath’s ventilation systems. They usually slept back at the main Resurrectionist encampment, and occasionally in a cubicle two floors above the skin parlor, but Karimah insisted their lovemaking take place down here in the Underneath, surrounded by alien artifacts, lying amid the ruins of the Jaaprana’s world. Sometimes the two of them stayed down here for days, working, sleeping, eating food brought down by others from above.

  A bell chimed just beyond the curtain, and a woman spoke, voice hesitant. “Karimah? Cale?”

  “Yes?” Karimah replied.

  “Cicero’s waiting. He said you were going to help him at the markets today.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Cale. “Remember?”

  Cale nodded, closing his eyes and wishing he didn’t have to move.

  “Tell Cicero we’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  They climbed ladders and stairs, the air becoming steadily cooler as they came up into the building. Outside, it was winter, something it was easy to forget in the Underneath with its pockets of stifling air. They found Cicero sitting alone in the main basement, drinking coffee and reading a pocket folio.

  Cicero was a small, wiry, and kindly old man with sparse silver hair that seemed to float about his head. He had been with the Resurrectionists for years, but he never did any of the excavation or exploration, never descended into the Underneath. He helped out with whatever needed to be done above ground, and sometimes cooked huge meals for everyone back at the main encampment at the outer edge of Morningstar, serving large quantities of his foul-tasting home-distilled alcohol that made people quickly drunk and produced cramped bellies and painful hangovers. Cale didn’t know much about the man, but he’d heard that Cicero had once lived on The Island; it seemed an unlikely story.

  Cicero shook his head at them. “Put on some warmer clothes. There’s snow out there.”

  “Snow?” Karimah said. “When did that happen?”

  Cicero shook his head. “You people lose touch down there. It’s been snowing for three days.”

  The snow was knee-deep, and there was a hushed feel to the city around them. This was Cale’s second winter in Morningstar, but last year there had been no snow. The thinnest layer of gray cloud hung above them, and the midday sun burned a brighter gray disk through the clouds, bringing a glitter to the snow. A few vehicles skidded along the road, but most people were on foot. Businesses were open, and there were nearly as many people out as usual, but the pace was slower, as if everyone was taking advantage of the snow to relax and ease up on their frantic lives.

  Cicero led the way along paths that had been dug out of the snow by others. The route to the markets brought them near The Island, within a hundred feet of its protective moat; its buildings appeared to grow and dwarf everything surrounding it, and the metal and glass gleamed more brightly than seemed possible from the clouded sun. Cale had been this close to The Island a few times before, but had never entered; it was more difficult to gain access to The Island than it was to cross the Divide. He felt the same way as he always did in its presence—that this place was mysterious and magnificent, intimidating and enticing . . . and malign.

  They were still several blocks from the first market, walking along Gibson Channel toward a footbridge spanning the waterway, when a voice called out to them.

  “Young Cale!”

  Cale stopped abruptly, struck with fear at the familiar voice. He forced himself to turn and look across the road. Blackburn sat with another man at an outdoor café table, sheltered from the snow by an opaque canopy and surrounded by lush ferns and flowering plants. His shaved head was large and shiny in the light reflecting from dozens of faceted glass hangings. Cale couldn’t see much of the other man, who was obscured by plants and shadows.

  “Join us,” Blackburn said with a sweep of his arm. “Bring your companions and join us.” His smile did not provide Cale any comfort.

  Cale looked hesitantly at Cicero and Karimah. Cicero nodded and said, “We should accept. The other man at the table is a Sarakheen.” He turned to Cale. “You know who the Sarakheen are?”

  “Not really. I’ve heard the name a few times, but I’ve never understood who they were.”

  “I don’t like it,” Karimah said with a frown.

  “I don’t either,” Cicero said. “But it’s impossible to know how the Sarakheen would react if we decline. And your friend Blackburn,” he added, glancing at Cale, “he definitely doesn’t take rejection well.”

  “You know him?” Cale asked.

  “I know who he is. I saw him several times when I lived on The Island, but I never actually met him. It surprises me, I have to say, that you know him.”

  “The last time I saw him,” Cale said, “we didn’t part as friends.”

  Cicero nodded once. “That doesn’t surprise me. We really should accept, anyway. We won’t stay, we won’t accept an offer of drink or food. We’ll make polite conversation, then we can leave.”

  Cale looked at Karimah, who shrugged, then turned back to face Blackburn. “All right,” he said.

  They crossed the road, and when they entered the café the temperature immediately rose, became mild and pleasant as if they had passed through an invisible barrier. Seated upright and expressionless next to Blackburn, with a large smoke-colored drink before him, was the Sarakheen. He wore a black bodysuit, and his right hand and fingers were perfectly formed and articulated like a natural hand of flesh and blood, yet were constructed of metal and plasteel and glass.

  Cale made the initial introductions, since he knew everyone except the Sarakheen. There was no real introduction of the Sarakheen; his name was a private matter, Blackburn explained. Although the Sarakheen didn’t say a word, nor did his expression change, he shook each of their hands with his own, artificial hand.

  Blackburn stood and put his hand on Cale’s shoulder, as if they were good friends. “It’s been a long time, young Cale.” Cale just nodded without directly looking at him, and Blackburn turned to the Sarakheen. “This is the young man I was telling you about last year,” he said. “The one I met on the other side of the Divide.”

  The Sarakheen leaned forward and studied Cale, his eyes widening slightly; yet his face remained unreadable, which Cale found intensely disturbing.

  “Sit down,” Blackburn said. “Have a drink with us.”

  Cale could not pull
his gaze from the Sarakheen, could not manage to decline Blackburn’s offer. Blackburn said something about getting extra chairs, Karimah responded, but their voices had become faint and distant. The Sarakheen’s stare had shifted Cale into some other time or place.

  “Cale?” Blackburn gripped his shoulder once more. “You’ll join us.”

  Cicero took the opportunity to say, “We don’t want to interrupt anything, and we need to go anyway.”

  “Underneath?” the Sarakheen said. His voice was surprisingly soothing, but that one word created an instant stillness and tension.

  “No,” Cicero answered calmly. “The markets.”

  At that, the Sarakheen smiled. Yet even the smile disturbed Cale, for it seemed not quite human; or if human then not quite normal. The Sarakheen turned to Cale, leaned forward, and shook his hand again, staring intently at him. Cale thought the Sarakheen was going to say something, but if he did intend to, he changed his mind and sat back without a word.

  “Where can I get in touch with you?” Blackburn said.

  “You can’t,” Cale replied, still frightened without quite knowing why. He turned from the table and walked quickly out of the café without waiting to see if the others followed.

  Karimah and Cicero caught up to him on the other side of the Gibson Channel footbridge. Karimah took hold of Cale’s arm and forced him to slow his pace. He stopped and leaned against a kiosk wall, breath ragged.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  “They’re human beings,” Cicero began, “though in some ways they seem hardly human at all. They live in an artificial world called Sarakh, which they built for themselves. Each of them has one mek arm, one mek leg, and one mek eye, and every one of them has their reproductive organs surgically removed immediately upon producing their second child.” He shook his head. “I’m sure there are other things they do or don’t do that I’m not aware of, but those are the most well-known. They come here to Conrad’s World with some regularity,” Cicero went on, “but they rarely leave The Island. I became acquainted with several when I lived there. I don’t think anyone ever really gets to know any of them.”