He looked to his left and saw a similar picture. The tall trees did seem to getting more crowded. He saw the huge towering trees were no longer masked by other types of trees in the forest. Only the shorter trees and ground foliage had thinned. He looked back from where they came and once again in the direction they were headed. Then he observed something else.
Owens remembered his initial thoughts regarding the giant trees, how evenly spaced they appeared. He saw he had been correct. More than ever, without the various species of smaller trees and other foliage masking a clear view, the conifers now seemed to be evenly spaced, like an orchard. He frowned.
“Sharné, do you notice something else about those trees?” Owens asked.
She shook her head.
“Let’s walk a little farther,” he suggested. And they headed in general direction of their original course. They walked for another half-hour before he had them stop.
She was looking all around. “Yes, I believe I can now see what you were intimating. It is the giant trees. The trees are laid out in a pattern, are they not?” A note of excitement entered her voice, “They appear to be planted in straight lines, and if I am not mistaken, the spaces between the rows are gradually diminishing.”
“Exactly,” Owens confirmed. Now that they were in more open space, they could see many more trees, in the distance. “In fact, it looks to me like the trees are arranged in rows, like spokes in a wheel, all converging on a central ‘hub.’”
Sharné frowned. “I was not aware of this. My education exceeds that of most citizens. I am a member of the royal family, a holder of high office and I was not given such information on these trees. There have been a number of government-sponsored visits to Selane. How did they not notice this before?”
Owens responded cautiously, “Actually, I have to think they did. They had to; even a cursory survey above the planet’s surface would quickly reveal the pattern. And this pattern is comprised of trees that predate your people’s entry into the system. That tells me the spoke-wheel pattern and whatever is at its center is there by some deliberate design. And if that is the case, I can certainly see where such information might be considered sensitive.”
Sharné had been honest when she had said the tree pattern was new and unexpected. But his latest conjecture had a chilling effect. What could it mean?
Owens, oblivious to her dread, pulled his eyes away from the trees and looked over at her. Sharné’s eyes were widened and a delicate hand was to her mouth. Misinterpreting her expression for simple amazement, he said, “Yeah, I know it’s a pretty big leap of logic, but it’s as good as any other, at least until we get a look at area where the spokes meet,” he added.
“I…” She could not think of what to say.
He said, “I’m sorry Sharné, but to me, it looks like the information was deliberately withheld, perhaps kept a state secret. I just can’t see any other answer. As to why you were excluded, I can’t begin to guess.”
She said, “What you say may be true but the rationale escapes me. Truly, I should be privy to such a state secret and…, and I am not.” A sudden thought struck her. She asked, “Has that… that feeling returned?”
She surprised him. He hadn’t expected that question. She had quickly made the logical bridge between this ‘intelligent design’ and the unexplained feeling he experienced earlier. He had almost forgotten it. With the mystery of the trees, he pushed it completely to the back of his mind. But with her just mentioning it, the feeling came crashing back, stronger than ever.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Now that you mention it, it is back and seems to be stronger than before. It feels like something is beginning to move, like that rustling I mentioned, but now it’s more intense.”
She was alarmed to see him wince. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them.
“Sorry, it’s a little disorienting. It’s different this time and it doesn’t seem to be fading. I feel… it seems to be pulling me.” He swayed slightly as if weakened.
Sharné looked at him with apprehension and asked anxiously, “Where? Where is it pulling you?”
He shook his head, trying to clear it. “It’s hard to think. Wait…” He lifted his arm and pointed, “That way, I think we should go that way.” His voice sounded strained.
To her dismay, she saw that he was pointing in the direction of the ‘hub.’ The trees predated the humans that settled in the Golstar system. Could they truly be part of an alien artifact? Could whatever it was at the ‘hub’ be responsible for Owens’ sudden erratic behavior?
Before she could frame an answer, multiple energy beams suddenly erupted from nearby trees and struck the ground around Owens, one hitting him square in the chest. His body was immediately engulfed in a blinding flash of light. When Sharné's vision cleared, she saw Owens lying in a crumbled heap, the chest of his survival suit a blackened ruin.
“Owens! No!” she screamed.
There was shouting coming from where the weapons fire originated, but they barely registered on her consciousness. She stood paralyzed, staring at Owens’ motionless body. She heard one voice much closer than the others call out quite plainly, “He was hit! He was hit square on. The bastard dark-bringer is finally dead, righteously scorched by the Light!”
“No!” she sobbed. “Dear Founder, no!”
Her paralysis left her and she rushed over and knelt down beside Owens’ body. He was not breathing. She reached out to touch his still face. Before her fingers made contact, she felt hands grab her roughly from behind and was jerked forcefully to her feet.
Tears blinded her eyes. She heard a man’s coarse voice, as if from a distance. “Load the cursed body on the back of the carrier.”
Another voice asked, “Who is the woman?”
“I do not know who she is or why she accompanied him,” the man with the coarse voice responded. “But for now, do not harm her. We will bring her back with us. I am sure Linden will want to interrogate her.”
She was shoved forward and forced to follow the two men dragging Owens’ body. The man behind her kept a hand weapon pushed hard against her spine. Owens’ weight was considerable and in starts and stops, the men pulled the inert body by its heels towards a small four-seat, open cockpit vehicle.
After some struggling to get Owens’ body onto the small cargo platform at the rear of the ground-bug, the two mutineers climbed into the front. Sharné and the man still holding the weapon pointed at her were already seated in the rear. The vehicle took off with a jolt and then gradually eased into a relatively smooth ride. She noticed they were headed in the direction of Owens’ ‘hub.’ Even in death he was still being drawn there. Fresh tears tracked down Sharné’s cheeks and she fought the dark blanket of despair that threatened to smother her.
In spite of what happened to Owens, she knew she had to keep her wits about her and tried to focus on the mutineers. She saw that the thick-haired driver was using the vehicle’s com unit, talking with someone. She could not hear his words over the buffeting wind-noise, but from time to time he would laugh loudly. After a while, he turned off the com and shouted that they were almost at the base camp.
The man in the front passenger seat turned around and winked at the man beside Sharné, who was now casually holding his weapon on her. The front passenger’s face split into a wide, toothy grin. His head bobbed up and down excitedly and he shouted, “Can you believe our good fortune? He had the entire planet to conceal himself and what does he do instead? The dark-bringer practically walked up to us and begged to be killed! I think it was my shot that brought him down. Linden will finally be pleased. We are heroes!”
The man beside her barked a cynical laugh. The driver joined in and the front passenger giggled. On hearing her captors’ glee, Sharné's grief was momentarily pushed aside by a flood of anger. They laughed at killing Owens, laughed at the death of the only one who might have saved them. They merrily celebrated their ambush, their cowardliness. They were fools. She wanted to lash out and
burn them with the same energy weapons they had used to fell Owens. She could barely contain her growing hatred, but she had the presence of mind to remain outwardly calm, while her thoughts seethed. Because of them, the crew of the Light Saber and now Owens were dead.
Owens, her thoughts immediately returned to him. How could he be gone? He saved her life more than once and suffered injuries in the process. He seemed almost indestructible. He had come into her life for so short a time, yet in that short time, she had grown to love him; she finally admitted to herself. They had kissed only once, yet his loss left a chasm in her soul. With these thoughts, grief, lurking in the shadow of her mind, crept forward and again tried to pull her back from anger and into a pool of despair.
She refused to submit to it. She stubbornly pushed the darkness out of her mind and instead tried to take stock of her situation. It is what Owens would have done. But she could not stop thinking of him. She could still feel his incredibly strong arms holding her while he ran through the disintegrating Light Saber, his heart thundering with exertion as he carried her to safety. She had grown to depend on his strength, but now she must rely solely on her own. She rubbed the fresh tears from her eyes and looked about.
The vehicle was traveling relatively unimpeded. There was little in the way of underbrush and it almost seemed the path they were traveling was graded. She could easily see the spacing between the trees was gradually diminishing and the rows had indeed continued to converge. As they approached their destination, she saw Owens had been right. The spokes did come closer together in a single area; the spacing between them narrowed to about fifty meters. The lines of trees finally ended, creating a large circle. Within the circular area was a smaller one surrounded by a tall, stone wall.
As they neared the wall, she felt there was something familiar about it. It dawned on her that the reason for its familiarity was the type of stones and their placement. To Sharné's eye, it looked like it was built employing techniques similar to those used on Berralton. Even the materials used to construct it were akin to those used on Berralton. Otherwise, it appeared quite unremarkable, almost commonplace. As they drew closer, she saw that the wall looked to be about seven meters in height. Some of the walls that comprised the Palace were well over fifteen meters.
What was unusual was its existence on an uninhabited planet in the middle of a forest. Furthermore, she noted its image wavered in the fading afternoon light, a typical telltale sign that the wall was protected by a force-field. She wondered why. What was behind the wall that would require such protection? Even with this discovery, she felt a pang of disappointment. Owens must have been mistaken. This obviously was of human construction, not the alien artifact he had envisioned.
She saw a large gate, a single heavy, metal door, which had swung wide open. A hastily erected campsite was located near the gate. It was presently unoccupied. They approached the gate from an angle and whatever the wall protected remained hidden from view. The vehicle came to a stop about ten meters from the opening.
The driver turned around and exclaimed to the man holding the weapon on Sharné, “They made it in and Linden did not say a single word of it when I was talking to him on the com. I suppose he did not consider it essential we be told. Whatever it is in there, it is important enough to be guarded by a wall, force-field and a gate with the seal of the Grand Patriarch. But I guess we were not important enough for them to tell us what they found.”
Sharné was surprised at the driver’s mention of a seal. Her father had to have known about this. The Grand Patriarch’s seal was not used lightly and could only be applied at his direction. Why had she not known of this? As next in-line, she had assumed there were no secrets to which she would not be privy. She was starting to see her father held more secrets than she had realized, secrets to which she was totally unaware.
The driver struck the dash with a closed fist, “He is most decidedly an arrogant bastard and I truly rue the day he was made our leader.”
The man beside him nodded, “But he does have the colonel’s ear and whenever he is able, he uses his position of trust to everyone else’s disadvantage.”
The driver shook his head, “Mark me; he will take full credit for the dark-bringer’s demise. Our role in removing the threat will almost certainly be diminished, if not omitted entirely.”
The other man agreed, then said, “Still, I do wonder how he did it. The field was locked and we had no equipment or weapons on the shuttle that could penetrate it or decipher the code module.”
“He probably just threatened it into submission,” the man beside Sharné grumbled.
“Not so loud,” the man in the passenger seat admonished the other two. “He could hear you. Keep it down, the both of you.”
The man in the back seat snorted, but said nothing further. The driver said, “We get out here and walk to the gate.”
The man beside Sharné motioned with his weapon for her to get out of the bug. She did so and was immediately joined by all three men. The driver looked over his shoulder at Owens’ inert form and asked, “What do we do about the body?”
“There is no sense in dragging it inside the wall. Leave it for now,” the man holding the weapon replied. “It is not as if it will get up and walk away.” He looked at the body with speculation and said, “But just in case…” He fired his energy pistol at the motionless body. Owens’ body jerked violently in galvanic reaction to the weapon’s discharge. One of his arms flailed out as if in protest to this final indignity.
Sharné screamed and fell to her knees. He grinned and then looked over at the other two men and said, “Bring her along.”
The two men grabbed her under each arm and lifted her to her feet. She looked away from the body and stared up at the man with the weapon. Her reddened eyes were dry. The hatred in her face was tangible. “I will personally see you are put down like the animal you are.”
He smiled mockingly, turned his back on her and started towards the gate. The men tightened their grip on her and propelled her after him. Their pace was rapid and she almost had to run to keep from being dragged.
She thought furiously. She knew she must regain her calm, at least outwardly. If she were to avenge Owens, her head had to be clear, her wits about her. She could not afford to be mired down by her anger. Like Owens, she had to be observant, find an opportunity and take full advantage of it. She refused to dwell on her inexperience in such matters. With all that she had gone through recently, she was determined to find a way to strike back. Her father would expect no less from her. She almost tripped and was forced to pay more attention to staying on her feet.
They abruptly stopped. She was not prepared for the sight that greeted them on entering the walled enclosure.
The strange construction took up half of the area within the enclosure. It was a sprawling assembly of glistening gold and silver rods and geometric shapes. They were in motion, all shifting planes and angles. Light from the distant sun reflected blindingly on the constantly moving surfaces. It made the bright shifting objects difficult to look at directly. Surprisingly, she noted it made no sound.
Her eyes were drawn to the top of the moving mass. She saw, suspended above the eccentric mechanism, a large sphere of pure light and circling the bright orb, a number of shiny globes in various striated colors. Sharné immediately recognized that it represented the sun and planets of the Golstar system. What could such a construct mean?
The man in front of her stood with mouth agape and the two men holding her arms seemed stunned as well. They all stared in awe at the wondrous thing before them. A voice from behind startled them. “Impressive, is it not?” The words came from a tall man with red hair, silvering at the temples.
The man who had shot Owens’ body stared mesmerized at the object and without looking at the speaker asked, “Linden, how did you get past the force-field and what exactly is that?”
Linden shrugged, “I wish I could say we were responsible, but I cannot. We did not do anyt
hing, Niske, not a blessed thing. We had nothing that would breach a level ten force-field. And all of our attempts to access the coded control box failed.”
Niske asked, “Then how?
“It simply went down by its own accord. We do not know why, but interestingly enough, only the portion of the field covering the gate actually went down. The remainder of the field is still energized. It is all quite remarkable, is it not?”
Niske was about to speak when Linden interjected, “As to what the mechanism is, I have absolutely no idea. I cannot say if it even has a function. It may be no more than a kinetic sculpture. According to the plaque,” he pointed at a large bronze plate set in a boulder near the mysterious object, “it is the Founder’s Shrine. The plaque indicates this marks the very place where the Founder was gifted with the final revelations, so the object may exist as nothing more than a commemoration.”
Sharné had listened to Linden and immediately discarded his explanations. Although placed high in the government by both birth and position, she had never heard of such a shrine. Why would she, as Keeper of the Way, be kept unaware of such a significant historical and religious artifact? And why would someone wall-up such an important symbol? As for Linden’s musings regarding the object as being a kinetic sculpture, one look at the object told her it was not created by a human artisan’s hands.
Niske’s reaction was different. He immediately fell to the damp earth, kneeling and said, “Bless me Founder.”
“Oh, do get up Niske. We do not have time for that,” Linden said crossly. “I am sure the Founder will understand our urgency and forgive the brevity of our piety for the moment.”
Niske said nothing but remained kneeling, head bowed.
Shadows of Golstar Page 42
