The Rosetta Codex

by Richard Paul Russo

  He tried to sit up, and lost consciousness once again.

  The lander shook, as though buffeted by a storm.

  Complete darkness again or still. Then either his vision returned, or the lander’s power (some of it), for the dim blue cabin lights came on and the instrument panels came to life and Cale could see the others around him . . .

  Sidonie at the main controls unconscious, eyes closed and face slack and head lolling to one side.

  Behind her, Cicero with eyes blinking, murmured unintelligibly.

  Aliazar slumped in his seat, also unconscious.

  Only Harlock seemed unaffected, gazing mutely at the black view screens before them as though seeing something imperceptible to the rest of them.

  The lander continued to buck and shimmy, but with the view screens dark it was impossible to know what was happening. Cale adjusted the screen controls without success. He pressed the switches to move the two screens to the left and the right and requested the protective shielding be retracted from the steelglass forward windows. The safety authorization sounded and the shielding slid back from the high and wide windows.

  The view through the glass was as featureless and dark as that on the view screens.

  “What . . . what is this?” It was Sidonie’s voice, quiet and bewildered.

  Cale turned to see her sitting upright and alert, moving her hands uncertainly toward the controls, her attention shifting back and forth between the screens and the view through the windows. She activated the exterior lights, but nothing changed—either the lights didn’t work, or they had no effect on the darkness surrounding them.

  “Are you all right?” Cale asked.

  “There’s nothing out there,” she said. Then, in a whisper, “Nothing.”

  The shaking eased, gradually became little more than a resonant vibration, and finally ceased altogether. The view remained black.

  The lander hovered completely motionless, as if they were suspended outside the universe.

  Just as the lander hovered, Sidonie’s hands, too, hovered not quite touching the controls.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “Engines?” Cale asked. “I don’t hear or feel anything.”

  Sidonie shrugged. “Instruments indicate the engines are running, everything go. But there’s no acceleration, no fuel consumption.” She shrugged again.

  A heavy stifling quiet, a stillness that encased the lander. Cale sensed the void pressing in on them, yet he felt no fear, no concern that the pressure and the void would overwhelm and crush the lander and all of their lives with it. There was an assurance to this pressure, a security to the grip in which the void held them. Without knowing why, he felt certain that they were safe.

  Time passed strangely, with an extreme slowness that somehow dispelled any possibility of tedium or impatience. They remained in their seats, watching for something to appear within the black and featureless view before them, rarely speaking.

  The windows and screens lit up with a blazing white flare, a bright wash like sheet lightning. Cale jerked, startled by the flash, and pulled out of the trancelike state into which he had fallen. He sat upright as the light faded and the screens and windows went dark again. Then dark blue color appeared, and hints of distant lights, and suddenly the lander’s engines resumed their roaring, the sudden acceleration shoving him back and deep into his seat as the craft blasted forward into the darkness.

  Aliazar cried out, a wordless shout harsh and frightened. Gravity manifested itself and the lander dropped, falling suddenly, then slammed into something with a crash and caromed upward as Sidonie gave it a burst of lift.

  “Lights!” she called out.

  Cale searched the panels before him, trying to remember, then recognized the switches and hit the lander’s exterior floodlights as the vehicle crashed into something above them.

  “Shit . . . shit . . . shit . . .” Sidonie muttered, hands moving frantically across the controls as the lander fell once more, now listing and pulling to the right.

  The windows and screens came to life with the shadowed images of rock spread out before them, though overhead and to the sides loomed only darkness. What had they hit overhead? They hurtled along over blackened stone, broken and jagged, the ground coming up at them once more.

  Cale glanced down at the instrument panels, then returned his attention to the uneven terrain, feeling utterly helpless. The lander bucked and swerved and rose in a looping arc, pulling up and away from the rocks. The floodlights beamed elongated cones away from the craft that vanished into blackness, illuminating nothing.

  The lander slowed and dipped again, falling to the right. Cale watched Sidonie at the controls, trying to follow her efforts, remembering now that the engines had been at full thrust when they’d broken through the gate. She was trying to cut back on the thrust while compensating for damage that must have occurred when they’d first bottomed out. They pulled up, hung for a moment weightless, then pitched forward and descended, this time slightly more smoothly and less precipitously, though still pulling so hard to the right that Sidonie could barely keep them close to a straight course.

  The lights showed a rocky plain that abruptly ended several hundred meters ahead. They hurtled forward and passed the boundary, the ground dropping away and becoming one with the darkness above and around them. The lander continued to list, but Sidonie gradually brought it under control, nearly leveling the flight and easing back on the velocity.

  Darkness surrounded them again. It was not black and empty like the void of the gate, however, and Cale thought he could detect distant glimmers of light or vague shapes beyond the reach of the lander’s floodlights.

  The forward thrust engines died, and the lander dropped. Sidonie cursed and hit all the vertical thrusters, jolting the lander but halting their descent. Varying the power to the verticals, she brought the craft around in a wide bouncing turn and headed slowly and awkwardly back toward the rocky ground they’d left behind. As the solid ground approached, Cale could see that the cliff edge was straight and even and stretched unbroken and without apparent end in both directions, and the wall that fell into the deeps was smooth and featureless, reflecting the floodlights like polished metal.

  Despite the damage and the pronounced list, Sidonie managed to set down as more rough landing than crash, the craft bouncing and scraping and sliding before coming to rest. The cabin became profoundly quiet except for the harsh whisper of ragged breaths.

  “Everyone okay?” Sidonie asked, surveying the interior. Cicero and Aliazar nodded, while Harlock simply blinked at her without expression.

  “What’s the chance of making it back out in this condition?” Cale asked.

  Sidonie shook her head. “Might be able to limp it along back to where we came from, but we don’t even know if this gate is two-way, do we? Or if it would take the same kind of thrust to get through going back, in which case we wouldn’t have a chance. We shouldn’t even think about it now. We try to do what we came here to do, deliver the codex, and then we worry about getting back afterward.”

  “How do we do that?” Cicero asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Deliver the codex.”

  Sidonie just shrugged, and Cale said, “We go outside. I assume we’ll be able to figure out where to go once we’re out there.”

  Cicero smiled. “That’s optimistic of you.”

  Sidonie returned her attention to the lander controls. “Outside temperature is cold, but not bad, hovering around freezing. Atmosphere analysis is running, but we’ll be using the Metzen Fields anyway.” The Metzen Fields would enclose each person’s head like an invisible helmet, providing air and insulation.

  Sidonie reached across the control panels and switched off the exterior and interior lights. Harlock moaned quietly, but gradually the surrounding environment became dimly visible through the windows, illuminated by a faint ambient light of background radiation. The lander rested on rocky plain that paled int
o a strange and utter darkness in the direction from which they’d entered this place, ended abruptly at a cliff in the opposite direction, and stretched unending for miles to their right and left.

  “All right, let’s activate the Metzen Fields,” Sidonie said.

  Cale twisted the flange on his suit collar . . . and nothing happened. He worked at the switch, resetting it and twisting again. He looked at Sidonie, who shook her head at him in dismay.

  “Cicero?” Sidonie said.

  “My field doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “Not mine neither,” Aliazar said from the darkness behind them. “What’s wrong?”

  “None of them are working?” Cale asked. “How can that be?”

  Before Sidonie could think of an answer, or could tell him she had none, a ringing alarm sounded and red light flashed on the control panel.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Sidonie switched on the interior lights and got to her feet, turning around toward the rear. “The outer door . . . Harlock!”

  The inner airlock door at the rear of the cabin was open, and Harlock had worked the manual override for the outer door, which now slid open as he turned the wheel. Cold air rushed in as their own air rushed out, and when the opening was wide enough Harlock stepped through the doorway and dropped to the ground outside. After a brief hesitation, Aliazar ran out after him, calling his brother’s name.

  “Damn it!” Sidonie snapped. She ran to the main panel to seal off the interior door and flipped the switch. The door slid shut and the alarm ceased.

  There was little to be done or said. Cale and Sidonie and Cicero remained in the lander, watching Aliazar and Harlock. Cale switched on one of the exterior floods, which illuminated their two companions and cast long shadows across the rocky ground. Harlock seemed quite content and worked his way to the cliff edge, where he stood and looked out into the yawning darkness. Aliazar joined his brother and tugged at his arm and appeared to plead with him, but Harlock would not budge.

  It was only a matter of time before they joined those two, Cale thought, certain Sidonie and Cicero recognized the same thing. Unless the atmosphere outside held certain death for them, they had no choice but to risk it. They could not stay here indefinitely, and returning the way they had come did not appear to be a viable option.

  Fifteen minutes later Sidonie glanced at a set of readouts that had begun to blink and said, “Preliminary analysis indicates a breathable atmosphere. Harlock and Aliazar will be glad to hear that.”

  Cicero chuckled and got up from his seat. “Shouldn’t we go tell them?”

  Cale retrieved the rucksack with the codex and worked his arms through the shoulder straps, adjusting them. Sidonie activated the lander’s rooftop beacon—a slowly pulsing orange lantern that cast an eerie illumination about the vehicle—and switched off the exterior floods and the interior lights.

  “Harlock’s walking off,” Cicero said as he stood at the window.

  Cale and Sidonie joined him, and observed Harlock making his way across the plain, angled slightly away from the edge of the abyss. He hiked steadily, but in no hurry, and Aliazar followed.

  Sidonie opened the interior door, and the three of them disembarked.

  SEVEN

  They followed Harlock for no reason other than that he seemed to have an actual destination in mind, or was guided by some hovering cynosure recognizable to none but him: his own personal Star of Bethlehem. Intentionally or not, he led them on, shambling across the broken and yet unnatural terrain, hunched forward as if still harnessed to the cart Cale had seen him pulling all those years ago across the desert. Aliazar followed his brother as in those days, but hatless and on foot, now.

  The way was dimly lit by an ambient silver blue light. Cale walked behind Aliazar, the rucksack with the codex on his shoulders; Cicero came next, and Sidonie last. Pilgrims on their way to a holy shrine. Disaster survivors looking for rescue. A little of both, Cale supposed.

  Sidonie shone a powerful hand light into the darkness on all sides, casting long shadows and illuminating blocks of quarried stone, shattered glass, and spiky shrubs of oxidized metal that had never lived and never would, yet would endure for centuries. No hills, no cavern walls, an endless lifeless plain. Whenever the light shone ahead of Harlock, he would stop and turn back to her with a grimace, and would not resume until she had aimed the light in another direction. Eventually she switched it off and followed in the dim illumination.

  They marched on in this way for hours in silence, and Cale wondered if they were all afraid that any question, any word at all might bring them to a halt, might engender some discussion of whether or not to go on, might result in their turning back when they all knew there was little or no hope in that. Occasionally he turned around and searched for the tiny pulsing beacon atop the lander, and he always found it, but each time it was smaller and dimmer. Soon he would not be able to see it at all.

  At one point during their march they heard a muted roaring and crashing and screeching from far behind them. When they turned to look, there was a dulled flicker of light in the distance, back from the direction of the lander.

  “The Sarakheen?” Sidonie wondered aloud. No one replied, probably because there was no one else it could be. They stood watching and listening, but when they saw and heard no more they turned and went on, hurrying to catch up with Harlock, who had not paused in his private and resolute march.

  Sometime later, a high wall rose in the distance ahead of them, a solid darker shadow blotting out all other shadows. As they neared it, the wall loomed over them, a massive presence, the demarcation between one unknown place and another.

  Harlock kept on without pause, and walked purposefully toward an opening in the wall, a high arched doorway. He stopped before it and leaned forward, reaching hesitantly toward it, then pulling back his hand as the others came up beside him.

  The open doorway revealed the same thorough and palpable darkness as that which had waited for them beyond the gate. Cale moved to the side of the opening and put his gloved hand against the wall. He felt a surprising warmth through the glove. He stared into the darkness of the doorway, but it had no dimension, as if the wall was infinitely deep or had no depth at all. Harlock swayed and hummed before it, head cocked as though trying to make a decision. Cale looked at Aliazar.

  “No, he’s not going to have a vision,” Aliazar said, answering the unspoken question. “This is too quiet.” He reached up and gently laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder, but Harlock did not seem to notice, and continued to hum and sway.

  Cicero spoke, lightly but seriously. “If Harlock goes through, we follow.”

  Aliazar glanced at Cicero, then looked back at Cale. “He’s right,” Cale said. “That’s what we do.”

  They remained like this for some time, watching and listening to Harlock. He stopped humming, stood straighter. He appeared to focus on something on the other side of the darkness, something again imperceptible to the rest of them. He sighed deeply, stepped forward and into the doorway, and vanished.

  Aliazar hesitated only a few moments, then followed his brother and he, too, disappeared.

  Cale looked at Sidonie and Cicero, and they both returned his gaze without questions spoken or unspoken. They were waiting to follow him. He turned back to the doorway, gripped the straps of the rucksack to hold the codex tight against his back, then stepped through.

  One step, was all. He stood on the floor of a vast and wondrous chamber, an immense cylinder that appeared to be several miles across and far more than that high, the upper reaches disappearing into a darkening mist. A steady vibration emanated from the floor, gently penetrating his bones, and a deep and low thrum enveloped him. There was more light here than back on the plain they’d marched across, though here, too, it infused the air itself, pale and blue. The walls held row upon row of wide horizontal metal lockers of a silver-bluish cast set within niches of polished black stone—thousands, tens of thousands . . . probably hundreds of thous
ands or more, Cale thought.

  The Graveyard of Saints?

  Harlock sat cross-legged on the floor, head tilted back, gazing up raptly at the endless curved wall, at the innumerable metal vessels. Aliazar stood beside him, silent and awestruck, mouth open.

  Cicero stepped through the doorway and stopped at Cale’s side, and a few moments later Sidonie followed. Cale expected the doorway to disappear or transform, but it remained unchanged, an arched darkness revealing no sign of the unnatural plain they had walked upon for hours.

  “What is this place?” Cicero whispered, but with nothing in his voice to suggest that he expected an answer.

  “The Graveyard of Saints.” Cale approached the wall and touched one of the metal lockers. The surface was so smooth his gloved fingers slipped across it without traction. The container, like all of the others, was about three feet high and at least ten feet wide. He had the distinct feeling that if there had been a handle on it—and he were strong enough—he could have pulled the locker out of the wall like the drawer of some immense and indestructible cabinet.

  “Where’s the light coming from?” Sidonie asked.

  “It was dark when we first came through,” Aliazar replied. His voice was tentative, as if he were afraid to speak aloud. “The light kind of poured in from the walls, it . . .” He trailed off.

  “Now what?” Cicero asked. This time it was clear that he did expect an answer to his question.

  “We look for the shrine.”

  “Shrine?” Aliazar asked.

  “That’s what the codex says. We come to the ‘Graveyard of Saints,’ and look for the shrine. When we find it, we place the codex inside.”

  “And then what’s supposed to happen?”

  “The re-genesis of the Jaaprana.” Cale shook his head. “We don’t know what that means. Some kind of creation, perhaps. Or resurrection.”

  “Then maybe it’s not such a good idea to do it,” Aliazar said.

  “It’s why we’re here,” Cale told him.