by Frank Carey
"Yes. I assume there will be eavesdropping."
"Yes. Alex and his people at the Alyson end; Zor and his people on your home world. Will that be a problem?"
"No. Not at all."
"Can I get you anything?"
"Did my pack make it on board?"
"Your pack and Dr. Minty's both made it aboard," she said while reaching into a storage cubby and extracting Kel's well-worn messenger bag. She handed it to him. "Anything else?"
"Just a bottle of tonic water, please."
"Coming right up. Did you want me to see if Dr. Minty would like to join us?"
"No, you'd better let me. I'm fairly blaster proof."
"Excuse me?"
"Just joking." He got up and walked over to her cabin door. He knocked. "Sheila, I'm calling the miners who found the cave. Would you care to join us?"
There was a crash, as if something ceramic had hit the door. The door opened a moment later. "Sure," Sheila said as she stepped out and closed the door behind her.
"Coffee cup?" Kel asked.
"Saucer," she said. "I hate saucers."
"Right. Have a seat."
"Are you ordering me to sit down?"
"Gods, no, I don't have a death wish. Please, have a seat. Would you like a drink before we begin?"
She took his, then gave him a smile which could strike fear into the heart of a real dragon.
He looked up at Felicity. "I think we should start."
"I agree," she said while flipping a switch on the top of the table they were sitting at. A screen next to the table lit up while a hologram formed above the table. Alyson, this is the Serengeti. Do you copy? Over."
"Serengeti, this is Alyson. We read you five by five. Over."
"Alex, are you online? Over."
"We're here, Serengeti."
"Home world, are you online?"
"This is Agent Sage speaking for the Patriarch. We are present."
Felicity sat back and sipped tea. "Dr. Hardy. The floor is yours."
For the next hour, Kel interviewed the miners in Tayla's crew while he examined a holographic reproduction of the text they found in the cave. Finally, his cousin, Tayla, came on. "Hey, goofball. Haven't seen you since your wings came in."
"Hey, Tayla. I hear you've gained some baby weight."
"Damned straight. So, what do you want to know that my crew hasn't told you?"
"The platform. Did it look like it was Sokuhl in origin?"
"Nope. I never saw anything like it anywhere I've been in the League."
"Was it inert?"
"Nope. It hummed. Real low frequency, barely audible. I figured it was powered. What does the book say?"
"It's gibberish. It looks like ancient Sokuhl, but if it is, it's unlike anything I've ever seen." He glanced up and saw Sheila examining it, a frown drawn across her brown. "What's up?" he asked.
"Nothing," she snapped back.
He closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Doctor, please. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated."
"Whoa," Tayla muttered under her breath.
"What, whoa?" Sheila said.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
"Fine. The text isn't gibberish. It's a cipher. All we need is a key to solve it. We can scan the text into the computer and apply the key to it. The computer can do the rest."
"A cipher key... Damn, Sheila, you're a genius. The problem is the cipher key. It could be anything."
"If whoever wrote this text wants someone to read it, they need to keep the cipherkey near the text. What about the statues or art?" Sheila asked.
Kel zoomed in on one of the statues. Starting at the head, he examined the sculpture, stopping on the base. "I think there's writing, but I can't make it out. We'll have to wait until we get there to test your idea."
"Kel, I..."
The comm beeped. Felicity looked at the screen and saw it was the Sokuhl home world chiming in. "Yes, Patriarch?"
"The Patriarch has been called away. This is Agent Sage. I would like to speak to Dr. Minty, alone."
Kel shrugged, then stood up as Sheila got up and headed to her cabin. Meanwhile, Alex announced he was going offline. He requested that Felicity call him when Kel and Sheila were ready to leave the shuttle.
"Home world is off line. That just leaves you Tayla. We'll..."
"Felicity, can I have a moment alone with Kel?" Tayla asked.
"Sure. Kel, you can kill the connection when you’re finished?"
"Sure," he replied with a nod.
Once Felicity was out of earshot, Kel asked, "What's up, Tayla?"
"What's up with me? What's up with you and Sheila? I thought you were going to pop the question on this trip?"
"Where did you get that? I don't remember telling anyone about my plans."
"You know how it is."
"Actually, I don't. I had the impression that the rest of you forgot I even existed."
"Whaaaat? You need to get out more. Sure, the elders don't talk about you, but the rest of us sure as hell do. You're the mythical Kellen Hardy, the family's one and only dragon. You're a freaking legend."
"Really? But I haven't shown my face in years."
"The matriarch and your parents are a never ending source of information. Friend, you are the real thing to the rest of us non-elders. So, what's going on with Sheila? Did you ask her?"
Kel sighed. "Yes, I asked her."
"And?"
"And she turned me down. She said she needed to think about it."
"Oh. Shit, Cuz, I'm so sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry about. Things happen. So, when is the baby due?"
"Not for a few months. She's going to be the first child born on Alyson in over ten thousand years."
"Congratulations to you, your bond mate, and your child. You are truly blessed. Look, I need to get ready. We need to get together when all this blows over."
"Love it. Until then, bye."
"Bye."
He reached over and cut the connection. "Well, the day hasn't gone all bad." He got up and headed to his cabin to prepare for his trip into the past.
###
Sheila sat down at the cabin's desk, then took a device from her day pack and connected it to the communications terminal. "Go for Minty."
"This is Sage. How do you read?"
"Five by five. Where's Zor, really?"
"Zor is a cover. I need to keep our communications on the QT."
"Well, don't I feel special."
"Status?" he asked while ignoring her comment.
"The cave is full of Basili relics. There is a strange platform and a metal tablet covered with what we think is cipher-encoded ancient text. Kel and I are convinced the cipher key is written on one or more statues in the room."
"Excellent. I assume you are going to accompany him to the cave?"
"Yes, sir."
Remember, Kel Hardy is not to be allowed to contact any of his kind, understood?"
"You mean there might be other Basili in this cave?"
"I mean that if the opportunity presents itself, he is not to come into contact with any Basili."
"The Basili race was a myth earlier today, now they're a dead race represented by a dozen or so statues. There is no one to come into contact with."
"Mummies, dead dragons, zombies, live dragons carrying briefcases, I don't care, Doctor. He is not to come into contact with them, only you are."
"That's going to be difficult. He's a two hundred kilo fire-breathing dragon. Keeping him away from a live member of his race will be somewhere between impossible and extremely impractical."
"Sheila, let me make this perfectly clear. The SIS has made sure 388 of 389 mutants like your boyfriend are now jars of ash. I have no problem with making Dr. Hardy number 389."
"How dare you!" she hissed as her hair formed a halo around her hair. Sage would have been eviscerated if he had had the misfortune of being in the room with her.
"You cooperate and nothing will
happen to Dr. Hardy or his parents. The decision is yours. Now, I am uploading a program into your device. Activate it when the time comes, if it comes."
"And how will I know when the time comes?"
"You'll know. Remember, this is only a precaution. Is there anything else, Doctor?"
"Sage, when this is over, you are a dead man. You have my word."
Sage chuckled. "Really, Doctor..."
"Laugh it up, herb boy. I suggest you access the redacted section of my personnel file. Use code 'Banshee.' You can resume laughing when you finish reading."
Sage's face changed from smiling to frowning. He killed the connection from his end.
"Rot in hell, you bastard. You and everyone who knows what you're up to."
She retrieved the device and placed it back in her bag. For a moment, she calmed herself before walking out into the cabin. Back at the table, examining the tablet hologram, was Kel. He was drinking from a half-gallon bottle of seltzer water. As she drew near, he held it out, almost as if it were a peace offering. She took it and drank deeply. "Kel, I'm sorry. I wish I could explain, but I can't. Could we start over?"
He looked over at her and saw the pain she was feeling. "Sure," he said though he wasn't sure at all. He suddenly got a feeling of dread, a premonition of what was ahead for the two of them. He said nothing; for his premonitions were never something he could count on. "What did grandpa have to say?"
"Just good luck. He worries."
"As do we all," Kel replied as he continued to watch Sheila. His musings were interrupted by Felicity making an announcement over the intercom.
"We've arrived. Please prepare for landing."
Kel and Sheila stowed their gear, then buckled into their seats. In moments, the shuttle was down, its airlock connected to a temporary structure which allowed for shirtsleeve access to the cave's entrance.
Felicity emerged from the cockpit and helped the two researchers gather their gear. "I'll take you two to the elevator, then let you have at it while I monitor from the ship."
"Good," Kel said. He looked at Sheila. "Ready?"
"Hardly,' she said enigmatically. "Let's get this done."
They exited the craft and walked across a metal walkway spanning the distance between the structure's airlock and the entrance to the complex. Kel knelt down and grabbed a stone from the asteroid's surface. "Is this not the coolest thing ever? I'm holding a rock from outer space."
"Come on, Big Guy. When we're finished, I'll buy you an ice cream cone."
"Really? Would you, please?"
She cuffed him, suddenly happy that things were good between them again.
They walked through the airlock embedded in the rock outcropping and into the corridor leading to the elevator. "Look, Kel, you fit, even with your wings out."
He tested her assumption by extending his wings, suddenly going from biped to full-blown dragon man. Felicity just watched in awe. "Oh my," she whispered.
"Kel, do the pose," Sheila prompted.
Smiling, Kel knelt next to Sheila with his wings out and his hands suggestively placed on her right thigh. Meanwhile, the mirth in his smile was replaced by a smoking male interest.
Felicity started to sweat, then it came to her, where she had seen that pose before. "It was you! The dragon on that romance novel. You know, the one with Lars Steele on it."
"Yeah, and that was me between them," Sheila noted. I dared him to do it and he took me up on the offer."
"Damn," Felicity said as they went back to walking. "Lars is going to be so pumped when I tell him you're both here."
"Lars is here?"
"Yeah, he's Alex's husband.
"OK, I can so see that," Sheila said.
Moments later, they found themselves standing at the open elevator door. Kel looked down at the control pad. "Press 'Basement' to be taken to the transfer level," he read. "That's on the label. I can't read the script on the pad itself. The language is unknown to me." He looked around the door and read the buttons on the inner panel. "Yep, the last button is labeled 'Basement' with some kind of sticker." He used a claw to peel back the added verbiage. "That ain't Sokuhl. It looks like old Olympian."
"What language is the label written in?" Sheila asked.
"A Basili offshoot of Ancient Sokuhl. We need to get down there."
"OK, activate your comms, please."
Sheila and Kel reached up and tapped the devices in their right ears, activating them and linking them to the ship.
"Good. Now, call me if you need anything. I'll pester you when I start to get lonely."
"I like her," Sheila said as she and Kel entered the elevator. She waved goodbye to the Katalan as Kel hit the "Basement" button.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The elevator doors opened as the car came to a stop at the basement level. Lights came on as the two researchers walked out into the cave. "Oh yeah," Kel said as he ran over to the nearest statue and read the inscription on the pedestal. He moved to the next, then the next. "One of these better be a cipher key, or else our Basili ancestors suck at making inscriptions."
Sheila walked over to the platform. Reaching down, she ran her hand over its smooth surface. "Glass-like, with an almost imperceptible vibration. No obvious controls anywhere."
"Any inscriptions?"
"Nothing. It's totally featureless." She activated her scanner. "Isotropic analysis suggests it was built around the time of the Basili diaspora, but the design doesn’t match anything on file."
"I figured. The platform is out of place or the artwork is. What about the tablet?"
Sheila walked over to the dais the tablet sat on. She ran the scanner over it as she had done with the platform. "Pure adamantine. Isotopic analysis suggests it is from the time of the diaspora. What about the statues?"
"The same. The question, now, is where did the tablet and statues come from. Were they dropped here by the Basili on their way past, or is there another mechanism," Kel said. "OK, I'm going to scan the inscriptions into the system along with my translation. Sheila, if you would scan the tablet..."
"Done. I've instructed my scanner to load your translation of ancient Basili as a baseline for any decrypted text. Felicity, are you ready at your end?"
"Roger-Dodger. I've cleared the memory banks and the task scheduler. You are now priority 1."
"Sending pedestal scans," Kel said as he downloaded data from his scanner into the ship's computer.
"Sending tablet scan," Sheila said.
Data flowed into the ship's data banks before the onboard computer began deciphering the text on the tablet. Unbeknown to Felicity, her passengers, or anyone on Alyson, a computer virus, injected into the system by the device Sheila had connected to the comm system, shunted a copy of the data streams into a stealth comm channel which led directly to Sage's office computer. The virus also shunted copies of any results generated by the onboard computer system. In effect, what Felicity saw, he saw.
One by one, the computer attempted to decipher the tablet text using the text from each pedestal as a key. It would apply the key, then use an advanced lexicon of Basili text developed by Kel to make sense of the text. The results were then presented to the three researchers for review along with the computer's ratings.
Kel joined Sheila and examined the tablet as the computer churned the data. She leaned her head against a massive bicep and sighed. The day was turning out to be a strange one. Her reverie was interrupted by Kel's exclamation.
"That's it, that's the one," he said as he glanced back and forth between tablet and scanner screen.
"What's it say?" Sheila asked as he showed her the scanner's screen.
"It says, 'we’ve arrived at our new home. Gate access code...' followed by eight symbols, which I thought, were decorations. Interesting..."
"That's all it says?"
"Yep, that's all it says. What the hell is a gate?" Kel wondered aloud.
"You know that little door that keeps your dog in and visitors out. It's notoriou
s for squeaking."
"Ah, yes, now I remember. They come in garden and picket styles."
"Touché. Maybe there's a control pad laying around. Can you download the data into my scanner?"
"Sure... Done. Be careful. Those symbols are not from any civilization in the scanner's databanks, so watch out. I don't want you eaten by some acid-spitting alien life form."
"What about your friend? Maybe she knows," Sheila suggested.
Kel went silent for a moment. "Nope. She's got nothing."
"I noticed she hasn't chimed in once since we left Alyson. Is she angry with me?"
Kel glanced at her. "I promise you, she'll let you know if and when she's angry with you."
"Hey, guys, this is Felicity. I'm curious. Who are you talking about?"
"Clio, Kel's imaginary friend."
"Clio is my muse, and she's not imaginary."
"Your computer, then. I will admit, she does sound real."
"You have an Alue?" Felicity asked.
"Nope."
"An AI then."
"Nope. She's a muse, specifically, the muse of history."
"Oh, I see, you're a historian and she's the muse of history. Got it."
"Oh joy, another person who thinks I'm the mad recluse."
"Sweetie, you're not a recluse anymore," Sheila said as she walked around the room in her search for a control pad.
"And you want to bond with her for the rest of your life?" Clio asked using the sub-audible link they used for private conversations. "That could be reason enough for you to think about spending time in a rest home."
He looked down at his bracelet, Clio's home. "You are not helping."
"Was I supposed to help?"
"It would be nice," he said as he returned to examining the tablet.
"Have you looked at the back?" she asked.
"Back of what?"
"The tablet."
Frowning, he flipped the object over. Arrayed on the reverse side were sixteen symbols, including the ones in the message. The symbols were arrayed in a four by four grid. "Thank you, Clio," he said. "You are extremely helpful."
"You're just so sweet."
"Sheila, could you step away from anything that looks like it could be a mechanism."
"What? Why?"
"So you don't get hurt."
