by Bianca D'Arc
She was speaking in a soft tone that didn’t carry much beyond the command chair. Though the rest of the bridge crew kept throwing intrigued glances toward her, few of them had even a small inkling about what she had just done. They didn’t understand the miracle of her incredibly rare Talent.
“Agnor…” She seemed almost hesitant to say what was on her mind, but then she went on. “I don’t think… I mean… It’s possible that the entity I just encountered wasn’t human.” Agnor grew even more concerned. “I think… I think the mind was that of the crystal itself. I think it’s self-aware. And I think it’s more in control down on the planet than the collective is.”
Agnor was blown away by the idea. Thoughts raced through his mind. Nobody on Geneth Mar had ever speculated, to his knowledge, that the crystal could be alive. But why not? Just because nobody on a Council world had ever encountered something like this before didn’t mean it couldn’t be possible.
“If it’s alive, then why is it working for the collective? Is it evil?” he wondered aloud.
“I don’t think so,” Bet volunteered. “I got the impression that its focus was strictly on the planet below. Maybe once the small pieces of crystal leave here, they lose the connection with the larger consciousness.”
“An interesting theory,” Agnor allowed. “But until I get down there, there’s no way to know for sure. This could all be a very elaborate trap.”
Bet clung to his arm. “I know that, but if you’d felt what I did… Agnor, I really want to go down there with you. I think we’re on the brink of something here.”
Now that kind of talk was familiar. Agnor looked up at his XO. Lilith might be able to shed some light on the future, if her Talent was kicking in.
Of all the crew assembled on the bridge, only Lilith had been in a position to be able to hear what transpired at Agnor’s command chair. He trusted her implicitly and wanted her to know about Bet’s uncommon ability.
“May the gods help us all, but I think she’s right.” Lilith looked at the screen that showed the planet Ipson in all its blue-hazed glory. There was an oxygen atmosphere down there shared by most of the inhabited worlds, but there was more… So much more. “There’s something down there that I’ve never encountered before. It seeks a pure heart. It’s been tricked before. It’s wary now. I see you there, Agnor and Bet. No one else from our crew. Just you two.”
“What happens if someone else goes, or joins us?” Agnor asked, knowing Lilith’s particular Talent allowed her to see many probable outcomes in a split second.
Lilith shook her head. “Not good,” was her curt answer, her eyes slightly unfocused as she looked into the near future. “Just you two. That path has the likeliest chance of success, though even that is not more than a fifty-fifty scenario. You must tread lightly with this entity,” she cautioned. “And above all, you must be truthful. It will not tolerate more lies.” Lilith shook her head, her Talent losing its grip on her attention as her gaze refocused. “That’s all I can see. Sorry.”
CHAPTER NINE
Agnor left the ship in Lilith’s capable hands while he and Bet took one of the small shuttlecraft down to the surface. The ship had the most advanced stealth technology, and so far it seemed to be working like a charm. The shuttle also had stealth properties, which Agnor used to their fullest extent on the descent.
During the time her shields had been down, Bet had received an image of where the entity—if that’s what it really was—wanted them to land. All things considered, Agnor thought it was as good a place as any. And if this entity could be reasoned with, it might be better than most.
Whatever happened, this had been a high-risk mission from the get-go. Agnor had known from the moment the order was issued that he would have to take big risks in order to earn big rewards. Or die trying.
He knew his crew was behind him. None of them wanted to die, but they had all dedicated their careers, and their lives, to the Council. They would do as they were asked, simply because there was no one better qualified in all the Council worlds, to do what they had been sent here to do. They were a unique group of scientists, soldiers, Talents and thinkers.
While Agnor and Bet handled the away mission, the rest of the crew was busy aboard, using every sensor and observational technique at their disposal to make a full orbital study of the planet. They needed to learn all they could about this world. Even the smallest piece of data might prove to be vital in trying to end the collective’s stranglehold on so many thousands of captive minds.
And it could all start right here, right now.
Agnor began the approach to land, feeling the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. What he did in the next few minutes could decide the fate of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Talents who had been captured and subjugated by the collective. It was a heavy burden.
Agnor unexpectedly felt the light weight of Bet’s hand on his shoulder.
“You can handle anything the universe puts in your path. I believe in you.”
His thoughts must have been very strong to bleed through her strengthened shields, but he didn’t mind that she’d overheard. He felt no awkwardness in sharing everything with her, which said something for his feelings. He only hoped that she could feel the same one day, but he was very careful to keep that thought under wraps. He wouldn’t pressure her. Not ever.
Her soft words wormed their way into his heart. How long had it been since someone had spoken such uplifting words of faith in him? Probably not since his parents had helped him bring his plasticine volcano to his first primary school science fair.
“Thanks, Bet.” He covered her hand with his and met her gaze, inspired to smile by her words. “I needed to hear that. Even if it’s not entirely true.”
“I believe it with all my heart. You are meant to be here in this place and time. You are meant to do whatever it is we’re about to go do.”
“You’re a believer in fate now? You’re going to have problems with Lilith and her probability calculations if you keep talking like that,” he teased her as he put the shuttle on a landing vector.
“Sometimes you just gotta have faith,” she replied, more confident than he had ever seen her.
He leaned in to kiss her quickly before turning back to the necessity of landing the shuttle. He had to bring it in delicately, both to hide their presence as much as possible and because he didn’t know exactly what the ground was like.
They were inside a ring of mountains, landing on a small plateau that rose out of the inside of a vast crater. The geography was strange, indeed, and Agnor set the cameras on the shuttle to take both motion and still pictures on every frequency, beaming at least one feed directly up to the ship…just in case they didn’t make it back to the Calypso.
The scientist in Agnor marveled at the geology. He’d never seen anything like it on all the worlds he’d visited. The ring of mountain peaks looked like a round circle of sharp teeth, reaching into the sky. Inside that ring were other formations, including several deep caverns and craters. The one they had been directed to had a little flat plateau of rock shooting upward from just inside the rim of the massive opening in the ground.
Agnor wasn’t sure if these structures had been excavated or had occurred naturally. If the latter, this was a strange planet, indeed. If the former, he couldn’t begin to estimate the time and manpower an arrangement like this would require.
There were no structures inside the massive ring of mountain peaks, though sensors had picked up small settlements elsewhere on the planet. Still, Agnor couldn’t be sure if there were people around here anywhere or not. The sensors were not reliable this close to the surface. Massive amounts of power were zinging through the atmosphere. It messed with some of the sensor readings, but otherwise seemed harmless enough.
Agnor ran through the shut-down sequence for the shuttle’s engines. They were committed now. Whatever was out there—wherever it was—would have to be dealt with. Making a quick getaway was possible, b
ut not really all that quick now that he’d shut down the engines. If he’d wanted to leave someone inside, engines hot, he could have, but Lilith’s vision of the probabilities said no.
They couldn’t afford to overbalance the odds by adding another person to the away team, and leaving the engines hot showed a level of distrust, as well as acting as a beacon if any hostiles were searching for them. Better to shut down and have to restart later.
If there was a later.
“Well,” he said as the engines stilled and the constant hum of them ceased altogether. “It’s now or never.”
“Shall I…” Bet asked hesitantly.
“I have to assume it knows we’re here by now,” Agnor reasoned. “Crack your shields just the tiniest bit. You’re much closer now to the source. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed…or worse, taken over. Remember, the crystal from this planet is routinely used by the collective to enslave thousands of Talented minds. We can’t be sure that whoever you communicated with down here doesn’t want to do the same to us.”
Bet frowned. “Let him try,” she muttered.
His little mouse had found her teeth over the past few weeks, and Agnor couldn’t be more proud of her progress. He watched as she lowered her shields a bit. And then, she smiled.
“He says not to worry,” she reported. “He doesn’t want to control anyone. He only wants to live in harmony and bring harmony to others.”
“Is harmony another word for the collective?” Agnor asked dubiously.
He had to keep his skepticism. This planet was too amazing, and he could easily be sidetracked by the wonder of it. He had to keep his mind on the mission and the very real dangers they were facing.
“It doesn’t understand the word collective,” Bet said, cocking her head to one side. “Not the way you mean it, anyway. It seeks to bring order. It doesn’t seek to control.”
“That’s splitting hairs, isn’t it?” Agnor muttered, but Bet held up one hand.
“It’s sending a representative who will speak for it, since it seems we aren’t fully understanding each other with me acting as intermediary, and it doesn’t want to take me over, as you put it before, out of respect for our wishes.” She had the attitude of someone listening. “The emissary comes.” She blinked and looked up at him. “That’s all. It withdrew its mind. It’s got someone to speak for it, apparently. We’ve been invited outside to wait. Discussions will take place outside on the plateau.”
Agnor didn’t like being out of the ship, but as he’d thought before, they were committed to this course now. They had to see it through.
“I guess we’re going outside then,” he said with forced cheerfulness. He felt both eager and a little queasy.
Agnor had been on many away missions before, but this time, he had Bet with him. He wasn’t a chauvinist or anything like that, but something inside him needed to protect her from all possible harm. The queasiness was due to worry for her safety, even as he felt deep pride in her abilities and courage.
“It’s a shame it can’t ‘path,” Agnor said, repeating something they’d discussed earlier.
Agnor was a high-level telepath. If he could have talked directly with the entity, it would have saved a great deal of drama, but he’d tried several times. It seemed only Bet’s mind-reading Talent could pick up on the entity’s thoughts, which was as odd a phenomenon as anything else they’d discovered about this planet so far.
The usual concepts didn’t seem to apply here.
Agnor took Bet’s hand as they walked to the hatch of the small ship. He kissed her just once before he hit the control that would lower the ramp. Whatever happened next, they were in this together.
The ramp lowered, and Bet got her first real look at another planet. This world was as alien as she could have hoped. It was like nothing she had ever seen in vids and storycubes. This place was completely unique, and fascinating.
Agnor held her hand as they walked down the ramp. At first, she thought they were completely alone on the plateau, and then, all of a sudden, they weren’t. A mist rose in a ring around the ship that carefully mimicked the round edge of the plateau. When the mist dissipated, men were standing in a circle all around them. And all around the ship.
CHAPTER TEN
Bet did her best to control her reaction. She was very proud that she didn’t jump clear out of her skin.
Looking at the men, she noticed they were all wearing similar robes of deepest blue. Some had markings on the fabric, and on their faces and hands. Some glinted in the uncertain light of the crater, and she realized those glints were crystal facets—some sewn into the fabric of their robes, and some embedded into the skin of their bodies.
“That’s just like Jana,” she whispered, almost unaware that she had actually spoken aloud.
“Who is Jana?” The voice came to them from a mist that had gathered at the foot of their ramp. As the mist cleared, a triangle of men, in those same blue robes stood in front of them.
The men were all shorter than she and Agnor, and their skin was either ghostly pale or weathered and dark. It was as if some of them lived and worked on the surface, in the sun, and some spent the majority of their time below ground. Bet had seen miners before, and they all had a sort of pallor, but these men took it to the extreme.
“Jana is a woman who escaped the collective only when the control scepter she had been given shattered in her hands. Her mind had been enslaved for many years, but she fought her way free of their control, and though she almost died, she is now recovered. Relatively healthy and free of the collective for the first time in more than a decade, she is traveling the stars with her mate, who is my good friend.”
“Why do you say she is like us?” another of the men in the central triangle formation asked of Bet.
“I don’t know her personally, but everyone knows about the crystals. They’re embedded in her skin. Just like some of you.” Bet looked around at the flashing of crystal that could be seen here and there around the circle and in front of her.
“Have you seen this?” the first man asked directly of Agnor.
“I have,” he answered in a solemn tone. “She has over one hundred shards of varying sizes permanently embedded in her skin. Some are as small as a sliver. And some are as large as my thumb.” He held up his hand so they could see the size of his thumb.
A sort of impressed silence greeted his claim. Bet looked around, feeling uneasy.
“How is that you speak our language?” she asked.
“Ki bestows many gifts,” the man answered mysteriously.
“Ki?” Bet repeated, puzzled.
“What you call crystal. It is known to us as Ki. Ki teaches and empowers. Ki enlightens and strengthens.”
“Sadly, its power has also been used to enslave many Talented minds in the wider galaxy,” Agnor said quietly.
The first man looked grim, as did his fellows. His mouth tightened into a compressed line.
“We welcomed you here to learn your truth,” he said finally. “Ki demands information we have been unable to provide.”
“I will do all in my power to provide the information you seek,” Agnor promised.
“Good.” The first man nodded. “Will you come with us to experience Ki?”
Agnor nodded. “It is what I have come here to do.”
The group of men surrounded them as they walked in a processional line off the plateau, following a winding path that led down into the bowels of the crater. Bet looked up a few times on the long journey, shocked to find she could just barely see the ship from a certain angle. They were traveling deceptively fast, though their walking pace seemed slow to her. Still, they were covering ground at a rapid rate.
As they moved downward, the light changed. It went from dim to dark and then dim again. Then, suddenly, the glow started to grow again in intensity. It was a blue-tinged illumination that grew as they moved along the bottom of the crater. At that point, they were moving into the ground itself, into a massive cavern
that glowed brightly.
It was beautiful. Alien in the extreme, but amazingly lovely. Blue flickered along the walls of the long, narrow corridor that led…somewhere. The source of the light was there. Wherever this tall tunnel led.
Fear had been left far behind. This was an experience like no other, and Bet wasn’t afraid. Somehow, Agnor’s presence calmed and reassured her. She felt as if nothing bad could happen to her with him around, unreasonable as that seemed.
The line of men shuffled and reformed until they were walking single-file through the narrowest part of the tunnel. The light was growing brighter and moving now as they drew near to what appeared to be an opening. Agnor led, holding Bet’s hand as he stepped through first. She followed and nearly tripped over her own feet.
They were in a massive underground chamber that danced with radiance in the blue part of the spectrum. The walls and parts of the floor of the cavern was filled with crystals of varying sizes, and the beams bounced from shard to shard, pillar to pillar. The play of light was both fascinating and inexplicable.
They were in an enclosed chamber. There should be no light source to illuminate the crystals in such a way. Unless…the light was coming from inside the crystals themselves.
Bet gradually became aware that the robed men filed in behind her and arrayed themselves around the giant room. They all faced inward, forming a rough circle in the open spots of the floor, between the crystals. Some were so massive she wouldn’t be able to get both arms around them. Some were tiny, as if they’d only just started growing. All danced with the blue glow that bounced around inside the crystal lattice and out into the world around.
Perhaps that was the way they communicated with each other, if they were all different entities. Or maybe, if it was one giant entity, that’s the way information was passed from one part of the organism to another.
