by Dan Haronian
I arrived at my parents' house for lunch the day after we returned from the crash site and heard mumbling coming from the kitchen.
"I don't understand what he is thinking," I heard my mother saying as I walked into the kitchen. She stood alone in front of the sink.
"It can't be so bad that you have to talk to yourself," I said announcing my presence so she wouldn’t say something she didn't want me to hear.
She turned and looked at me, then forced a smile and let out a short sigh. "Your father is driving me crazy."
"Yes, but you wouldn't have married him otherwise."
She shook her head in disagreement.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"He went back to the shuttle."
"When?"
"A while ago."
"Did something happen? Did Musan call?"
"Not that I know of. I wanted him take a few days off from this story."
I nodded. "You hoped the mystery would resolve itself."
"More or less. I thought we would at least know where the shuttle came from. If he knew where it came from maybe I thought he might lose interest in it. But no, he must be involved. It’s as if he's here alone and there are no professional people to take care of it."
"He'll be fine," I tried to calm her down.
"Where will he spend the night? It reeks of soot and everything there is unstable. Why does he have to take such a risk?"
"He's not going to be there by himself," I said.
"I don't know about that. He shouldn’t even be wandering around all by himself. He gets lost in his memories, and I'm not sure all of this excitement is good for him."
"What memories?"
She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she told me the story about the caves and the lenses.
"Why didn't he tell us this story? He had countless opportunities," I wondered.
"I asked him that myself, but he didn’t know how to explain it. Please don’t tell him that you know. I don't think he wants anyone to know."
"You worry too much. Let him deal with it. What's so bad about him being interested in this shuttle? It'll keep in busy for a while, and eventually things will get cleared up and the story will fade."
"He should have someone take him over there," she said ignoring everything I’d said. "He didn't even want me to take him. He took one of Irome’s horses. It will take him hours to get there and it's already noon. Why is he doing all this?"
I walked over to her and kissed her forehead. “I guess I am not going to stay for lunch after all,” I said. I grabbed few pieces of sliced roots that were lying on the cutting board and said, "I’ll go and watch him."
"Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. I'll call you when I find him. I’m guessing he's still on his way over there. We'll probably be back tomorrow morning."
She wiped her hands on her apron then held my face with both her hands and kissed my forehead. Her left palm was colder than her right. "How are things with you?" she asked. "I invited you over because I wanted to hear what you have been up to. I understand you have a few new ideas."
"There are always ideas. The question is whether they are worth anything. We can talk about it tomorrow."
The bag from yesterday was still there next to the entrance. I hoisted it onto my shoulder smelling the soot wafting from it, and left the house.
I walked to Irome’s stable and found one of the employees, an old man with white shoulder length hair.
"Your father was here," he said in a low tone.
"Yes, I know."
"He took a horse and said he was going into the forest to where that thing fell. I didn't understand why he's riding a horse. Why isn't he taking a hovercraft? He is Sosi, The Chosen, in the name of all plagues."
He spit on the floor. I didn’t know if his spitting was part of the expression or if it was a coincidence.
"You're right. I'm going to go watch over him."
"You want a horse?"
“Yes, thank you," I said.
He walked away and came back with one of the tallest horses in the stable. He led the horse to a wide stall and put on its saddle and bridle.
"Go watch over him," he said walking the horse towards me. "He shouldn't be alone there."
I thanked him, mounted the horse, and started down the trail toward the forest.
After an hour’s hard riding I saw my father in the distance moving slowly forward as if he had all the time in the world. I urged the horse on and reached him a short time later. He heard me coming. I saw him shifting his head a bit to hear. But he didn't turn around. I assumed he was not pleased.
"So she called you" he said when I finally rode up next to him.
"No, I came to dinner."
"There is a plenty of time until dinner, don't you have anything else to do?"
"I meant lunch."
He nodded. "I left her behind, and ruined your lunch. She is not going to like it."
"Why didn't you ask someone to take you?"
"I don't need anyone to take me."
"You're risking yourself for nothing."
"I'm not risking anything and besides everyone else is busy."
"Believe me they will be much busier if something happens to you."
"These mountains are my home, what could happen to me here?"
"Many things come to mind. The horse could startle and throw you off. It happens you know."
He didn't answer. After few seconds I tried again, "You should learn how to fly."
He smiled bitterly. "Learn how to fly?" he said with a grin. "Learning to fly a hovercraft was relevant when the whole world was after me. When my life eventually calmed down, it was the last thing that interested me."
I felt bad. Usually he would make a joke out of it, but now he sounded bitterer than ever.
"What happened?" I asked.
He gazed at me for a moment and then looked away. "I don't know, he said, "maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm becoming an old bore."
"You're none of those things," I said. "Something is bothering you."
He shook his head and didn't say anything. We continued for a couple of hours until we reached the mountain where we’d camped the night the hovercraft crashed. We walked into valley that bypassed the mountain from the right and the smell of burning trees reached our nose. Blackened trunks and scorched earth appeared as we rode. After a while we reached an area of exposed and plowed ground. We stopped and looked around. The strip of land marking the path of the crash was as wide as two houses and it continued into the distance as far as we could see. I looked at my father. His face was sad and frozen.
"It will grow back," I said.
He didn't respond and only urged his horse forward along the path of destruction.
Large and small pieces of metal were scattered along the way. Sometimes these were big enough we had to make a small detour around them. We reached the glade just before nightfall. A police hovercraft was on the ground, tilted a bit to the side, next to the shuttle. Two policemen climbed out of it as soon as they spotted us.
"Hello sir," said one of the policemen as soon as he recognized my father.
"Hello," replied my father.
"There's no one here. They are finished for today," said the policeman.
"What are you doing here then?"
"Guarding the place. It's a bit risky here. They will start tearing it apart tomorrow and clearing the wreckage."
"Tearing it apart?" asked my father.
"I think so, sir. I heard someone saying that the wreckage is not stable, that it would be a death trap for curious travelers if we left it this way."
"Musan didn’t mention that to me, but I guess it makes sense," said my father. "We are just going in to check couple of things."
"Okay," said the policeman and sounded hesitant. "Do you need help?"
"Can you take care of the horses?"
"Sure."
"Do you have water to give them?"
&nb
sp; "Don't worry sir. We’ll tie them up next to the trees. There's grass there, and we’ll bring them some water."
"Thank you," said my father dismounting. We walked towards the shuttle.
"Stay there, don't move," yelled Carr at the technician.
"I can’t hold him like this," replied the technician in a tone that sounded as if he himself were hanging from the ceiling of the control deck of the shuttle. "I have no grip."
"Just a few more seconds," said Heneg from behind him. " He is moving away from the entrance."
"Ok, now!" called Carr as the person moved off the edge of the view on the screen.
The technician released the grip. The Flyeye started to hover but struggled to get itself under control. He ordered it to exit the shuttle and the Flyeye balanced itself, stabilized, and then shot toward the entrance.
My father walked into the shuttle. I stopped to start the generator that was just outside and then followed him in. Something buzzed over my head as I stepped inside. I waved my hand around to shoo it away, and whatever it was disappeared. I glanced around at the wreckage. Despite the destruction I could still tell that everything was very old. I walked inside and looked at the tiny stairs along the wall. Light poured out of the door at the top of the stairs. I went up the stairs and walked into the room. My father stood in the middle of the room gazing up at an array of lenses that were set into the ceiling.
"So this is the room you were talking about," I said studying the room.
He nodded. Walking forward he sat down in front of one of the terminals.
"It’s amazing how complete it is," I said.
"As I told you," he said and connected the sensor to his neck.
I leaned down and placed my hand on the chair next to the other terminal. "Is this a Naanite shuttle?" I asked.
"Maybe."
"Can you imagine they had Naanite pilots?"
"It's not clear yet that it's Naanite," he said impatiently.
"The stairs are for short legs, the doors are low, and now these chairs. Do you have any doubt who was meant to sit in them?"
"Maybe, but the language on the terminal is Seragonian, and most of the preloaded traveling routes are very far from here."
I backed away from the terminal and looked at the graphics on the wall. Something about them suddenly looked familiar. I tilted my head a bit and squinted at them.
"I guess space is big enough to get lost in," I said, still scanning the graphics on the wall. "You know, there are very few routes that lead to settled systems. The rest is just empty space."
"It's not that simple."
I looked up. "Why isn't it that simple? Why is it different than getting lost in the forests and valleys of Naan and to popping up years after in the city?"
I was surprised by my own words, and I suddenly wondered if I had offended him.
He nodded his head. "You are correct, but I left of my own free will. I didn't got lost," he said sounding as if he was about to lose his patience.
For moment I played with the thought that maybe this shuttle hadn’t exactly gotten lost either.
I looked at the lenses at the ceiling. "What these lenses are doing here?" I asked remembering the discussion I had with my mother.
"Feeding the photoelectric cells on the wall."
I looked at the wall. It was already dark outside so no light was passing through the lenses. "Wouldn’t it be simpler to use photo-electric cells instead?"
"Yes, I suppose," he replied impatiently.
I looked around me. "Still, it's almost like someone made all of this just to survive the crash," I said.
He stopped surfing and his shoulders slumped a bit.
"Have you thought of that?" I asked.
He didn't answer and continued surfing.
"So what are you looking for?"
"What do you think? Something that will make this thing less odd. Something that will explain where this damned shuttle came from."
"If this shuttle is damned then why is it so important to you?"
He stopped surfing again and contemplated. "Something about it bothers me. And it's damned because I would rather it hadn’t crashed here; Old, new, small or big."
I sat down at the terminal next to him and placed its sensor on my neck.
"Can you see this terminal from your terminal?" I asked.
"No, that terminal is not working and there isn't a connection between the terminals. I already tried," he said.
"Maybe there is a hidden door. Like the entrance to Shor."
He gave me a sour look.
"There's no one here," I said and tried not to laugh.
He shook his head and I felt maybe I’d gone too far.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have said that name."
He didn't say anything.
"Maybe I’m behaving like this because I think you are taking all this too seriously."
He didn't respond and I went back to playing with the terminal. It was pointless. The access was blocked. Out of boredom I tried a few of the special neck movements.
"Maybe this is a code," I said looking at the wall in front of me. Again I tilted my head. Suddenly I thought I saw something familiar. I scanned the curved lines from left to right and noticed the letters. I felt chill run down my spine. I smiled, embarrassed, and thought it must be a crazy coincidence. I almost told my father what I thought I was seeing. But it was so ridiculous, and I had already bugged him enough with my stupid remarks. In a flash of inspiration I tried entering the letters I saw on the wall and the terminal woke up.
"What did you do?" asked my father his eyes wide.
I looked at the screen completely shocked. My heart was racing.
"How did you do it?"
"I… I entered the code," I said and swallowed. I pulled off the sensor, stood up and looked at the wall.
"Code? What code?"
"It's here, on the wall," I said and pointed forward.
I walked to the wall and moved my fingers along the letters.
P L A S E R.
He stood up. "That can’t be," he said and walked towards the wall.
It wasn't completely clear, but with a little effort and imagination it was possible to see it.
"It's just a coincidence," he said. He walked back to the terminal I used, and placed the sensor on his neck.
"What are you doing? I asked.
"I'm trying something else," he said.
He logged out and tried a string of letters with no meaning, and then a different string of letters that formed words, but the terminal remained silent. He shook his head and I could see his jaw clamping down on his teeth. "This is crazy," he said then entered our family name. A shiver shook me again when the screen turned white and a statement appeared offering a short variety of options.
"Plaser is a common name on Seragon," he said. "It even has a meaning in Seragonian."
I knew he was trying to convince himself that this thing made sense. "What is the chance that a shuttle crashes near us with our name written on the wall?" I asked.
"Not only written on the wall, but programmed as the key to open a terminal," he continued my line of thinking. He looked at the wall. "What is the sense in all this?"
"Maybe someone on Seragon is sending you a hint that he knows about you," I said.
"The crash of a three hundred year old shuttle is not a hint."
He paced the room shaking his head. "It's crazy,” he said. He stopped, facing the wall and looking at the graphics.
"If it doesn't make sense then maybe it's a coincidence after all," I said. "Tomorrow they are bringing heavy tools to break this thing into pieces and that will be the end to this annoying mystery," I said trying to convince him to let it go.
"Our family name is written on the wall. If we ignore this fact we could be ignoring a coming storm," he said. Unwillingly he sat down in front of the terminal. Just as he started to surf Naanite sentences suddenly appeared on the screen.
"Who are th
ey?" asked Heneg.
Carr signaled with his head, and one of the technicians uploaded the recording from the Flyeye. Heneg approach the screen and stared at the picture. "It looks like Sosi. You can’t mistake his beard."
The video continued until it stopped at the picture of Raban taken during the Flyeye’s escape maneuver.
"Who is that?" asked Heneg.
"We can process this picture a bit and find out," said Carr signaling to one of the technicians.
The technician had clipped the image and moved it to one of the secondary screens.
Heneg went back to looking at Sosi's picture. "What's he's doing there?"
"Everything inside that Shuttle is ruined," said Carr, "but I can say conclusively that the inside of the Shuttle is just as old as the exterior. It’s as if it flew out of the past and crashed here." He ran a video on one of the screens. "These communication lines," he said and pointed with his finger. "That technology has been obsolete for hundreds of years."
"What about the central computer?" asked Heneg.
Carr surfed again and showed a short video scanning the control deck. "There isn't even a single complete terminal," he said. "In any case Flyeyes cannot help us there."
"I know that," said Heneg. "I just wanted to know if there was a terminal there that could tell us something more about this Shuttle. Because if there is one then it's clear they are hiding something from us."
"Look at that," said suddenly Carr.
The bearded image of Sosi climbed the stairs and disappeared out of the corner of the screen.
"Where is he going?" asked Heneg.
The technician ran the video again. When the stairs appeared, he stopped the video and progressed slowly for a few frames then stopped.
"It's a door," said Heneg pointing at the bright line at the edge of the stairs.
Onimin wisdom hidden in machines flew circuitous ways until his brain sanctioned he all its secrets revealed waited for world sanctioned to tell until seven and its secret where to it would carry them.
"Sounds like a song," I said.
"Onimin wisdom," mumbled Sosi. "What is that?"
