“Not sure,” replied the scientist. “But I think it’s safe to say it’s been here for a very long time. Millennia, or so said the Lycians.”
“Which leads us to the larger question,” said Ravenwood as he tilted his head back and looked toward the top of the glowing sphere. “What purpose does it serve? Are the Lycians right? Is this just a power plant still churning away long after its creators disappeared?”
“On the surface, that appears to be the case. But after reviewing the data recorded when General Brandt had his…,” Komatsu paused as he searched for an appropriate word, “episode inside the alcove, I have come to believe it is more than that. And I have collected some interesting data to support my belief.”
Logan’s mind was suddenly flooded with the memories of the terrifying encounter he’d had with whatever was guarding the gate beyond the alcove. He recalled how he had been pulled into a communion similar to what he had experienced with Suvial – similar but not identical, for he was assailed by a powerful presence which declared in a booming voice that the way was barred to him. The entity then severed the communion and violently ejected him. The thought of entering that room again sent a shiver down his spine.
He gave Beth an uncertain look, fearful of the glyph-paneled alcove but too proud to let others know it. She sensed his discomfort and turned to look into his eyes. She gave him an encouraging smile before turning her attention back to Komatsu.
“Did you show the Lycians that data?” she asked.
Komatsu looked at General Vessey. “Well…er,” he stammered. “I’m not entirely sure they had an opportunity, to…”
“We haven’t shown them a damn thing,” interjected Vessey. “Continue, Doctor Komatsu.”
Komatsu nodded his head. “When we compared the data from that event with certain data collected when I was studying the Apollo Stone under the prior regime, I saw several instances of similar space-time fluctuations. I have therefore hypothesize that this cave performs a similar, though probably not identical, function as the Stone.”
“How is it like the Apollo Stone?” asked Ravenwood.
“The few observed space-time distortions have centered around the little alcove over there,” he indicated with a node of his head, “including General Brandt’s event. Interestingly, additional space-time distortions have been reported at a number of other locations around the world, though those who observed them could not have known what caused them. I believe they are connected to this place.”
“So there are more caves around the world like this?” asked Logan.
“Perhaps. I would need permission to visit those places and confer with foreign colleagues,” said Komatsu with a quick glance at Vessey. “But even without doing so, I’m quite certain this place is somehow bound to a number of others around the planet.”
“This is a highly classified military operation, Komatsu,” said Vessey. “I’m not ready to tell those idiots in the new Congress about this place, much less a pack of foreign pencil necks.”
“General Vessey’s refusal to permit consultation with foreigners notwithstanding, can you say for certain who built all of this?” asked Beth. “The Sahiradin and Lycians believe we’re the descendants of a forgotten Alamani colony, but Logan and Ravenwood say we’re descended from a different species related to the Alamani. What’s your take on it?”
“You refer to the Geth,” said Komatsu. “Ambassador Ravenwood shared his theory with me. In all honesty, we have no way of knowing for sure. If we had access to Lycian records and their technical expertise, we might be able to answer those and many more questions.”
“We’ll bring them in when the time is right,” said Vessey. “But not yet. They’ve got a serious security issue. The assault on Halduan is the most spectacular example of it, but it’s just one in a long list of intel breaches. Besides, we don’t want them getting the crazy idea that they should be in charge here.”
“While I appreciate your concerns with Lycian security, General Vessey, time is on the side of the Sahiradin,” objected Ravenwood. “We must assume they have already learned about this place through Harken, who you recall fled the Capitol District on a Sahiradin shuttle. By keeping your findings a secret from the Lycians you are essentially conferring an advantage on the Sahiradin.”
“We’ll take it slow with the Lycians and Congress alike,” said Vessey. Looking at Komatsu, he said, “Well? You’re the one who invited these people here. Are you going to let them see what you found or not?”
Ravenwood looked at Komatsu and raised his eyebrows. “You found something, Dr. Komatsu?”
“Yes, yes I did,” replied the scientist excitedly. “Something I’m confident you three can help me to understand.”
“How intriguing,” replied Ravenwood with a smile. “Please tell us how we can help.”
“It is better if I show you.”
“Well then, lead the way.”
With a wave of his hand, Komatsu beckoned them to follow him toward a sliding metal door opposite the alcove. All followed, except for General Vessey.
“Are you coming, General?” asked Ravenwood.
“No thank you. I need to maintain my ability to claim ignorance if anyone questions me about what goes on down here. I already know more than I care to.”
With that, Vessey turned around and departed while the others followed Komatsu, who opened the sliding door and entered the tunnel beyond. As they walked down the tunnel, Beth reached out her hand and dragged her fingertips along the rough stone wall.
Noting Style’s curiosity, Komatsu said, “This is the original tunnel the coalminers had dug that led to the discovery of the cave.
The scent of soot, ash, and smoke reached Logan’s nose. “Is the fire burning anywhere nearby? I’d rather not die of smoke inhalation down here.”
“A reasonable concern, but there is no fire hazard where we are. Nevertheless, although we do vent the smoke from the coal fire away from this area, you may still catch a whiff of something burning from time to time.”
“This area used to be sealed off,” said Ravenwood. “Why did you decided to reopen the tunnel?”
“As you know, the large sphere in the cave is a fusion reactor. The question that has long plagued us is what was it intended to power? We’ve been adding detection equipment to answer that question and we recently noted that there was something nearby that appears to be drawing energy from it. So, rather than dig a new tunnel to learn what it is, we reopened this one.”
“Very practical,” observed Ravenwood. “And what did you find?”
“You will see,” said Komatsu with a grin.
As they walked, the old rough-cut tunnel curved to the right while to their left a new passageway led away at a forty-five degree angle. Though similar in height and width, the recently cut tunnel lacked the jagged rock walls of the original mining tunnel. Instead, it had a perfectly flat floor of recently poured concrete and smooth, semicircular sides and ceiling.
They walked for about seventy-five meters through the smooth-bored passageway until they reached a reinforced metal door. Komatsu pressed his palm against a pad built into the rock next to the door. He entered a code consisting of numbers and symbols. A whirring sound emanated from within the door then it opened inward.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, a bank of recently installed ceiling lights flickered to life, revealing a vast circular chamber.
At first, Logan had trouble comprehending what he was looking at, but then soft voices whispered in the still places of his mind and he understood, though it did not please him.
They were standing on an elevated platform, which gave the group a commanding view of the vast open space before them. It was many times larger than the cave they had just left. Logan followed the curved platform with his eye and realized it was actually a walkway affixed to the rock wall about three meters above the cavern floor. The walkway continued around the entire circular chamber in a great ring. He cast his eyes downward. On the
floor below was a multitude of pillars packed so tightly together that a person could scarcely squeeze between them.
He looked up and saw that Ravenwood was staring at him. They locked eyes for a moment, silently acknowledging the fact that each had recognized the tightly packed pillars. They were nearly identical to the ones they’d seen inside the inner chamber of the laboratory on Tarsik. It was on Tarsik that Logan had retrieved the crystals Veiju Dhurlan had demanded in exchange for the coordinates to Khadiem’s rogue planet. It was also on Tarsik that Logan had been infested with the spirits of long-dead Alamani which now lurked just below the surface of his conscious mind.
For the thousandth time, Logan felt the urge to tell the others the truth of what had happened to him on Tarsik. But the thought caused a tightening in his chest and guts. Voices whispered strange words in his ears. Visions of murderous Sahiradin warriors flashed across his mind. Though frightening, Logan knew the images were more than a warning from the spirits. They were a plea not to expose them. And so, as he had done so many times before, he held his tongue. The spirits did not want it known that they exist. And though he resented their presence and wished them gone, they were not malevolent. Yet, how long could he sustain this fractured existence before going mad, even with the meditation techniques he’d mastered? And how could he ever rid himself of them? Would he have to return to Tarsik? And if he did return, could he survive another encounter with the powerful beast that stalked its corridors?
Beth drew in a sharp breath, drawing Logan’s attention once again to the present. “It’s impossible,” she whispered, for she had also been on Tarsik and recognized the pillars.
Komatsu looked from face to face, stopping when he saw Logan’s pained expression.
“This is why I invited you three to come here,” said Komatsu. “When we were on Tarsik, I remained on board the Drake but you all went inside the Alamani complex. You saw something there that you later described as a room full of pillars. Is this what they looked like?”
Logan swept his eyes across the great cavern filled with pillars, all identical to each other but slightly different from the ones he’d seen on Tarsik. There were so many of them. Hundreds upon hundreds - thousands of them. A sudden panic gripped his heart. What if these pillars carried spirits in them? His face went pale with the thought of a host of ghosts emerging from those countless columns and invading his mind and body. Shivering with fear, he took an involuntary step backward until his shoulders were pressed against the rock wall.
“How…How many are there?” he stammered.
“Over twenty thousand,” said Komatsu. “Do they look like the ones you saw on Tarsik?”
Logan didn’t answer. The thought of twenty thousand spirits invading his body and mind left him terror stricken.
Seeing his distress, Beth placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey?” she said. “What’s going on?”
Logan looked at her, but did not dare try to express his fears. How could he? How could anyone understand what had happened to him without them thinking he was crazy?
“It’s nothing,” he whispered, though he avoided her eyes.
“They are very similar, Doctor,” said Ravenwood, noting Logan’s discomfort but not wishing to draw further attention to him. “The pillars on Tarsik reached almost to the ceiling and they were a bit thinner, but such minor differences aside, I would say they are identical.”
“Interesting,” said Komatsu as he considered Ravenwood’s response. “There’s more, follow me.”
The scientist led them to the right along the elevated walkway until they came to a large opening in the rock wall. He entered the dark interior and pressed a button which caused a half-dozen high wattage lamps placed all around the room to come to life. The bright light revealed that the walls were covered with symbols similar to those on the alcove walls in the cave. In the center of the room was a flat slab about two meters wide and three meters long. Metal clasps were located on each side at the head and foot of the table. Above it were a half dozen dark rods of varying lengths.
“What is this place?” asked Beth, disturbed by the sight of the table and rods.
“It’s an examination room,” said Ravenwood with quiet certainty.
“I agree,” said Komatsu, pausing for a moment to watch Ravenwood as he slowly looked around the room. The older man lightly touched the table and studied it intently, as though trying to recall a long buried memory. Komatsu watched Ravenwood for a few moments before turning to the others. “Assuming this is an examination table, and judging from its dimensions and position of the clasps, the subjects of interest were humanoid.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” said Ravenwood.
“But who built it?” asked Beth. “The Geth?”
“Yes,” said Logan as he pushed away the wisps of alien thoughts rising from the lake of his subconscious mind. “The Geth built all of this - the fusion reactor, the pillars, this examination room - all of it.”
“But why? What is it for?” asked Beth.
Logan placed a hand on a nearby wall and traced a few of the abstract symbols. “The pillars on Tarsik contained…”
He paused as the spirits within him stirred more violently, warning him not to reveal too much.
“The pillars contained memories,” he continued. “By entering the laboratory we must have triggered some kind of display; that’s how I was able to discern them.”
“What did you see?” asked Komatsu.
“Just quick flashes of strange images. They didn’t make any sense to me. It’s my guess that those pillars on Tarsik served as a means of preserving the essence or consciousness of the departed Alamani. Until now, I had assumed the pillars were an Alamani invention, but now that I’ve seen the pillars here on Earth, I think I was wrong. If our chronology is correct, the Geth created the pillars here on Earth long before the Alamani created theirs on Tarsik.”
“Are there more examination rooms like this?” asked Beth.
“Yes. Twenty-two of them. And recall what I said earlier. Based on my studies of satellite data from before the Impact and data collected from the reactor itself, I am quite certain there are more places like this, all of them drawing energy from the reactor in the cave.”
“And if that’s true, perhaps there are more pillars,” suggested Beth.
“Precisely,” said Komatsu.
“How many other caves do you think there are?” asked Logan.
“At least thirteen.”
“Where?”
“They’re scattered all around the world.”
“Is there one in the central part of North America near the old Canadian border?” asked Ravenwood pointedly.
“Yes. I believe there is and one in the Southwest.”
Logan glanced at Ravenwood, who was staring at him from behind the examination table. His countenance showed a mixture of anguish and profound comprehension. Logan wanted to reach out to the old man and let him know he understood why this place seemed so familiar to him. Komatsu had stated another cave, probably with examination rooms like this, existed somewhere near the old Canadian border. There was no doubt in Logan’s mind that it was located near Raven’s Rock, the place where Ravenwood was found naked in the snow by the old woodsman soon after the Impact. Something had happened to Ravenwood up there in that remote place that provided him an inherent knowledge of Alamani, Sahiradin, and other Lycian species’ ways. He knew their languages, history, and customs long before he had ever met any of them. That information was somehow planted in his brain, and this examination room looked like the sort of place where that could have happened.
The idea that Raven’s Rock was a place of special significance might also shed light on Ravenwood’s rapid return to health after being mortally wounded by Kurak during the Red Leg raid on Jasper Airbase. For it was to Raven’s Rock that Kane had brought Ravenwood’s body where he laid it out and stood vigil all night until Ravenwood miraculously awoke, fully healed.
&nb
sp; “So, you think these pillars might have the residual memories of thousands and thousands of Geth?” Beth asked Logan, interrupting his thoughts. “If that’s true, they’ve been trapped inside them for millennia, even longer.”
Logan nodded his head. “If they perform the same function as the pillars on Tarsik, yes.”
Komatsu folded his arms across his chest. He looked down at the floor and gently rocked back and forth on his feet as he considered what Logan had said. “Interesting, interesting…You say you witnessed something on Tarsik – images or memories of some sort. Do you sense anything like that now?”
“No,” said Logan as he shot a nervous look through the examination room entrance toward the massive chamber filled with pillars. “Nothing.”
“But why would they do it?” asked Beth. “If the Geth had reached the relative safety of Earth, why not colonize it? Why hollow out huge caves, build these pillars then disappear into them?”
“Remember they had been defeated by the Alamani and their army of Sahiradin cut-throats,” said Ravenwood. “Building a colony for all to see would have invited their utter annihilation.”
“I see,” said Komatsu. “Maybe building the pillars deep below the surface then vacating their bodies was their way of preserving their thoughts, memories, and culture. But if one combines this theory with my ideas that the alcove near the power plant is a dimension door, one comes to a rather startling conclusion.”
“You don’t think the Geth built all of this to preserve their memories,” said Beth. “You think it was their way of using the dimension door to leave Earth and this galaxy, maybe even the universe behind.”
“It is a theory,” said Komatsu. “Difficult to prove without access to Lycian information and more powerful research tools.”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Ravenwood. “If the Geth exited through a dimension door, why are we here? Why are humans, the descendants of the Geth, left on Earth?”
“Maybe some remained behind to protect the pillars from the Alamani and Sahiradin if they ever came to Earth,” said Beth. She looked at Komatsu. “What do you think?”
The Renegade Page 23
