The URANUS Code (Citadel World Book #1)

by Kir Lukovkin

  Soon, there were three different ugly mutants watching him, and they started slowly but surely coming closer to him. Rick was hurrying, spurred on by anger and fatigue, wanting to get things over with this place as soon as possible.

  “What you doings?” the small-headed mutant exclaimed, “Not allow!”

  However, Rick ignored him and jumped over to the fire to pick up a glowing stick, blew on it and threw it into the nearest oily puddle. A flame burst upwards, which soon moved onto the barrels and spread across the floor. The fire sang, taking over the constructions, with the tongues of flame licking at the container and the ancient machines. Rick dove into the hiding place where Ahmed was waiting for him and started to watch sleepy mutants jump up from their sleeping spots, running around and screaming, trying to understand what was going on. The mutants quickly panicked. The hissing flames consumed all that they could reach. The surrounding hoarfrost rapidly melted and the puddles of water reflected the brightly flashing fires.

  A disturbed looking Yarg appeared from within the container. His wart-covered face held an expression of absolute surprise. The chief threw himself into the thick of the crowd, generously giving out orders and kicks. The mutants milled around the camp in complete confusion. Rick went inside the container and almost tripped over Maya, whoa had been tied onto a bed. Nearby, on a higher point, there was a cage with a tiny humanoid creature that started to howl something in an incomprehensible language. The tiny, big-headed mutant continued screaming, while Rick cut the girl's bonds and helped her rise. That was until Rick picked a rock up off the floor and launched it at the cage, hitting the mutant on the forehead and forcing it to shut up.

  He dragged Maya outside, and no one paid any attention to them as they were all occupied with the fire. Rick got to the hiding place where Ahmed awaited them and they ran from the cage together. However, they had only gone a hundred paces when a rock lying ahead of them suddenly changed into the dwarf that Rick met. The dwarf silently pointed towards the Chorda, smiled ominously and suddenly disappeared.

  As there was no time, Rick did not explain anything to his companions and led the group in the direction shown by the dwarf. Soon, they saw a two-leveled structure appear ahead, which looked a lot like the place of execution in the Omicron sector. There was definitely going to be a staircase there, Rick realized.

  “Over there!” he commanded, and the runaways did not waste words, surging forward until they reached spiral staircase a few moments later.

  The inside walls of the well which contained the Chorda were covered by four staircases of this kind, one for each sector segment. Just like his home sector of Omicron. The staircase was wide, but it had no railing. They were descending into the darkness, often tripping over. Their feet slid upon the steps. The bluish twilight filled the surrounding space, with a weak light coming from all around.

  Once they had passed ten levels, Ahmed could no longer take the pace and fell, lying still.

  Rick and Maya stopped, breathing heavily and straining to listen—they heard noise and stamping feet coming from above. A burning torch fell downwards into the chasm by the side of the stairs.

  “Ahmed, get up!” Rick growled hoarsely, “We must run!”

  They helped Ahmed rise and continued their descent. Wind could not be felt inside the well and it was not as cold. Soon, the hoarfrost was gone from the surfaces, replaced by slimy black spots, fungal growths and furry mold that weakly glinted with green light. Some sort of plants hung raggedly from the edges of the steps. The smell of metal and rust changed to a smell of decomposition and flowering, which Rick was familiar with from the Commune farm.

  They descended thirty-five floors, when Maya exclaimed, “Stop!”

  The pursuit continued above. Rick worriedly looked at the circling chain of torch lights above. He was about to argue with Maya, but she just thrust her finger at the open doors of a radial corridor leading into the sector segment. The “π” glyph could be made out above the doors. Rick felt that there was danger below, and that they should not descend any further.

  He nodded, “Let's run there!”

  They threw themselves into the depths of the sector. It was good that Ahmed had miraculously managed to keep his torch, as it was now their only light source. The floor underfoot suddenly became softer and the air filled with particles in the torchlight—this was earth! Rick dodged some creeper strands hanging down from above. If there was earth on the floor here, that meant that the sector might be similar to the farm in the Commune. He noted many familiar details—the same doors, levers and glyphs, large and small altars of the Machine God, the same division into rooms and the width of the corridor. However, there were differences too—part of the corridor had transparent walls, where rooms emptied by fires or explosions could be seen.

  They kept walking along the corridor, away from the center of the Expanse until Maya ordered a stop again. It was only then that Rick saw the grimace of pain on her face. With a sigh of relief, she entered a large room which was two levels high and had transparent walls. Rick and Ahmed followed her inside.

  “Ahmed,” she asked, “seal the room hermetically.”

  The barbarian shut the door tight. The room was full of beds, cabinets, shining metal tables and ancient machines.

  “Help me lie down,” Maya asked Rick, “no, over here.”

  He put her on a large and wide table. Maya got her breath back.

  “All right. Now turn the dial on that panel.”

  Rick shook his head, “I may not touch the altars of the Machine God.”

  “Ahmed!” Maya closed her eyes—she was probably in a lot of pain. “Please.”

  The barbarian opened the lid, blew the dust off the controls and turned some sort of lever. A deep thrumming noise started up.

  “An autonomous generator,” he explained. “A little weak, but enough for us.”

  The room filled with a soft white light. Ahmed was doing his magic with other instrument panels, pressing and turning something. Rick stood and watched his movements with an open mouth. These people knew technical magic better than any priest. Unceremoniously, Ahmed moved Rick out of the way and helped the girl undress down to her waist. Her wiry body was covered with ugly bruises and there was a torn, bleeding wound in her side.

  Ahmed took some sort of needled device out of a cabinet and stuck it into the girl's shoulder. Then, he put a lamp above her so that he could see the wound, washed some terrifying looking instruments under the water and sprinkled some unknown powder over them and the wound—the blood around the wound started to bubble, and Maya started to groan from the pain. He cut away the ragged flesh from the edges and then took the needle and thread and sutured the wound with quick, obviously experienced movements. It took him another couple of minutes to apply the bandage. He rubbed a brown liquid over the bruises and grazes and bandaged them as well. Ahmed worked quietly and confidently, it was obvious he knew what he was doing. Once the operation was finished, Maya went to sleep. Ahmed looked at the walls and ceiling and cheered up.

  “Everything's fine,” he said, “the medical block is isolated. We can sleep.”

  He turned off the light and fell on the nearest bed. Rick sat down on the floor and spent a while in the darkness, examining the companions that had suddenly changed his entire life after their meeting.

  9

  “WE WON'T reach it.”

  The words sounded like the statement of an obvious fact. Maya sat on a table, dangling her legs, while Ahmed changed her bandage.

  “It's impossible. We will die,” Maya seemed to argue with herself.

  “What are you looking for below?” Rick asked.

  Maya never answered, distractedly looking through him and obviously thinking some thoughts of her own.

  “First it was Dimitri, then Varg and then Roxana,” she continued, “no. We should have already turned back when we reached the New.”

  “We knew what we were signing up for,” Ahmed replied, “I could have be
en in their place. Or you.”

  “This is too cruel!” she struck the tabletop with her fist and suddenly started crying. Ahmed finished the bandage, threw a jacket over her shoulders and hugged her.

  Once Maya calmed down, Rick said, “We must find food.”

  Maya stared at him with fury in her eyes.

  “Barbarian!” she spat out, “No intelligence, no emotions, only instincts.”

  Rick did not know the meaning of the last word, but understood that it was an obvious instinct. He stepped in close to the table, and glanced at Ahmed and then Maya.

  “We need to talk. Why did you come below?”

  Both of the barbarians were silent.

  “Tell me about your world. Who are you and where are you from? If she doesn't want to talk, then you should.”

  “Don't tell him!” Maya elbowed Ahmed in the ribs.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she doesn't trust me,” Rick answered. “I heard everything while I slept. All of your conversation with Reiner. When you were persuading him to leave. Isn't it interesting, what would have happened if I didn't follow you?”

  Maya began to take angry short breaths. Rick no longer felt unsure around her. These people were flesh and blood, just like him.

  “Personally, I have nothing to hide from you. My Commune is dying of cold because our holy fire is growing weak and no one knows what to do. Even the Warden.”

  “Holy fire!” Maya laughed. “How stupid!”

  “I don't understand what's so stupid about that.”

  “Maya,” Ahmed interrupted, “he really doesn't understand.”

  She stayed silent for a minute, solving some sort of complicated problem in her mind. This was a strong girl, and Rick liked watching the way the emotions showed on her face.

  “All right,” she surrendered. “But first, you must know that I don't trust you and I will never trust you. You are a barbarian, a savage and an uneducated brute.”

  “Thank you for your honesty. You don't have to thank me for saving your life. Now tell me about your civilized world.”

  “It's not a world, but a sector just like yours. It is just higher along the Axis.”

  “Axis?”

  “You call it the Chorda. That's the whole problem. You turn everything inside out...”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  So Maya gave him a short description of their home sector—Kappa, which was the location of the so-called Order, a group of people that were the descendants of some sort of settlers and who had inherited knowledge that was considered to be the greatest treasure from them.

  “I thought that there was nothing more important than a warm home and tasty food.”

  Maya chuckled at Rick.

  “Yes,” she said. “But neither is possible without knowledge. It is only thanks to knowledge that man knows how to make fire and grow food. The Order carefully preserved knowledge, passing it from generation to generation, until it became obvious that it was insufficient for the people and new knowledge was needed. The charge in the sector generator is running out, and it is unknown where to get more. The Archivist spent a long time studying all of the existing records, but the problem is that few of them survived the great fire. At last, they managed to find a diagram on which Kappa sector and four other sectors of the second aeon were marked. The Archivist carefully studied this document and came to the conclusion that other aeons and sectors exist. Before this, the Order had been sealed—the settlers made a vow to remain within the walls of their shelter until the Plague passes,” she carefully looked at Rick. “Do you know what the Plague is?”

  Rick shook his head.

  “The Plague is a fatal disease against which there is no cure. This is why no one knew what awaited us outside—life or death. There was no choice. So we had to risk it. We opened the main gates, and the first unit went on an expedition to go above.”

  Maya paused and sipped some water from the glass Ahmed brought her.

  “None returned. Then, the Order Council instructed for another expedition to be sent downwards. We have a week. If we don't come back in time, the Order will make their decision.”

  Rick was deep in thought. He remembered the execution after the Spring Run.

  “All right. Now tell about this “gen-er-at-or”.”

  “It's a power source,” Ahmed joined in. “To understand how it works, you must know the foundations of physics and chemistry, areas of knowledge which are called science. How can I explain this to you? It's an energy like fire, but it is much stronger and burns in a different way. It is sort of like an internal fire.”

  “Does it burn according to the will of the Machine God?”

  “You should forget about your Machine. Everything that surrounds us was created by man.”

  “This can't be!” Rick shook his head. “A man cannot create the whole universe.”

  “The ancients could. They were so powerful, that they could control time, space, matter and life itself. They created this world and lived in it, and it was a true Golden Age. People lived on every level, in every sector and every segment. It was a living world, filled with people. Then, the Plague started, and humans began to put up barriers, seal doors and isolate levels and sectors. Every sector saved itself the way it could. It was a question of survival. The Order has existed for twenty generations because our Founding Fathers sealed their sector in time. We would never have ventured outside, if it wasn't for the disaster.”

  “They would never have let us out,” Maya corrected. “The thing is, that there is a group of scientists in the Order that wanted to investigate Outer Space, which is what we call the rest of the sectors, for a long time.”

  “We call it the Expanse.”

  “Whatever you like,” she agreed. “These scientists had long dreamed of an expedition outside to understand how the world works and what is its size. And when the time came, they included one of us in their group... I mean, one of them.”

  “You?” Rick indicated Ahmed.

  Maya nodded.

  “You are more intelligent than you seem,” Maya admitted. “Perhaps your ignorance can gradually be cured. Our Order is organized so that knowledge is inherited in scientific categories. Some inherit the knowledge of mathematics, some of physics. Ahmed is an engineer. Reiner was a physicist. I am a biologist and I know everything about plants. Everyone shares their knowledge with each other, so that all of society has a high level of education. They took a specialist from every category for the expedition. There were ten of us. You can see how many remain now.”

  “My condolences,” nodded Rick.

  “I loved everyone in our unit, because the Order is one family. We have no superiors and subordinates, everyone is equal and everyone's life is valuable. Our Order is the heir of great settlers and must continue its existence no matter what.”

  Rick had heard similar words somewhere before.

  “Our scientists have managed to discover the main Axioms of the World. All children learn them from a young age, even though few now understand what they truly mean. Even I. However much I think about them, I still don't understand what they are about.”

  “So what do the Axioms of the settlers say?” Rick asked curiously.

  “The world in which we live is the Thermopolis. It is a place that is composed of a huge number of aeons, sectors and floors. The Thermopolis is pierced by the Axis, and these things exist around it. The Thermopolis has an external border. It is unknown how tall and wide it is. The ancient documents were destroyed by fire during the revolt, because the ignorant decided that all misfortunes come from books and that they must be destroyed. But we know that there is something there, beyond the external border. Because that is where the ancients came from. Some of our scientists say that there is only emptiness out there and the Thermopolis is constantly falling into an abyss. Others consider the opposite—that we are at the center of Creation, and it rotates around us, and that there is such a huge enclosed space above t
hat it is not even an enclosed space, for it has no ceiling. Could you even imagine a place that does not have walls or ceilings at all?”

  Rick tried to imagine one, but failed completely.

  “So what is out there?” he scratched his head ponderingly.

  “That is the greatest mystery,” Maya said with flashing eyes.

  “That means that it wasn't a god that created the Expanse, the Chorda and the universe...”

  “That's right. Your whole cult is a complete misconception. And the reason for this is lack of knowledge. Even if we have only retained grains of knowledge, your connection with the past is completely broken.”

  Rick thought about what he heard.

  “We studied the mechanisms,” Maya continued, “and the underlying principles of how they work. We study every artifact or item from the past, trying to understand its purpose. Every find is of great value to us, as it allows us to solve the mysteries of the past. When we set off downwards, we suspected that we would run into difficulties. We understood that the descendants of other sectors would be different to us, but we never imagined that they would want to kill us. We knew that we could come across monsters, but we never thought that the monsters could be humans. This world is a disgusting place.”

  Maya sobbed.

  “Now that our unit has been destroyed, there's no point in our mission. The only one who could have worked out the way the generator works was Reiner. He dedicated his life to this issue.”

  “Was it him that decided that you need to head below?”

  “That was the decision of the Order Council. Reiner merely suggested that there is a main generator that supplies all of Thermopolis and that it is switched off right now. Otherwise, every sector would be full of light and life. Look around you. Everything is dead. That shows that the power has been switched off and only the emergency generators are working.”