by Tony Healey
“Put yours on, they’re working fine,” she told Chang.
“We saw your bird in the sky,” the L’ucrah told her.
“Yes. We have come to test the ground. Something of ours is buried here. From long ago. Don’t worry. We also want to look at the mountain.”
The L’ucrah appeared fearful at the mention of it, but he bowed his head anyway. Who was he to argue with a god?
Dana and Chang waved to Commander Greene and set off with the L’ucrah to his village.
* * *
“It is strange. I hear two voices from your mouth,” the L’ucrah told her as they walked to the village.
“So that we can understand one another,” Dana said.
“I see.”
“What is your name?”
The L’ucrah held a fist to his chest. “I am Night-River, son of He-Who-Watches.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Night-River.”
“We are honoured to have you visit us,” he told them both. “It has been a long time since the gods returned from the stars. We are truly blessed.”
“Can you remember what happened the last time the gods came here?”
Night-River looked at the others, then said, “It is myth.”
“Tell us.”
“There was only one. He came to end the dry season that had ravaged the land, to put an end to the poison killing the people. And he did. He made it rain.”
Dana and Chang didn’t say anything.
“He tamed the mountain.”
As they entered the jungle, Dana wondered what he meant by that exactly.
* * *
They were in the village several hours, nosing about with Night-River as their tour guide. Dana asked him questions about everything. From the irrigation of their fields, to the pattern of the seasons, to the character of the society in which they existed.
They experienced no change in the seasons. It rained when they need it to, and the rest of the time they basked in the sunshine, unobstructed by any clouds. It became apparent that they lived in peace because it was the law to do so.
“And who enforces the law?”
“The all-seeing mountain. It cannot be disobeyed.”
Chang looked up at the black peak. “The mountain?”
“Explain,” Dana urged him.
“If we break the law, the mountain will punish us.”
“How?” Chang asked.
Night-River swept his arm to indicate the lands around them. “The dark times will come again. The lands … will be spoiled. No rain. No crops. Only death.”
Dana swallowed.
* * *
Night-River would take them only so far. They went the rest of the way by themselves. He waited back in the jungle whilst they approached the base of the black mountain.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Chang said. She laid a hand against the smooth black material.
They decided to walk around it and see if they could find some kind of opening or entrance. When at first it looked like they wouldn’t find one, Chang noticed a small slit in the material. It was only inches long, but it was a definite imperfection in the otherwise perfect black pyramid. In that way it stood out like a scar.
“Doctor, here,” Chang said. She got down to examine it.
Dana joined her. “How strange,” she said.
“Isn’t it?” Chang said, and ran a finger across the break in the mountain’s perfection. To her surprise the crack got bigger. They both stood well back as the crack shot up the side of the mountain. They watched it break left and right to form a doorway that opened up. Inside, the mountain was dark.
“I’m a little scared,” Dana whispered.
“Me too. Come on,” Chang said. She unhooked her scanner, held it in front of her so it could record as much as possible, and led the way.
* * *
“It’s useless Commander,” Ensign Ladd said. “The reading shows us a clear image of how she’s laying under all that. And from what I can tell, she’ll just snap in two the minute we try to do anything like get her out of there. She’d never take it.”
Greene drank from his water bottle. He wiped his mouth.
“Well, it was worth a try,” he said, disappointment apparent in his voice. Secretly he’d been quite looking forward to getting his hands dirty and doing something useful for a change.
“And the signal?”
“Well to be honest sir, how it’s still transmitting is a miracle. Must have the heart of a Hikarian Ox.”
Green laughed despite his disappointment. “Tell them to pack up. We’ll go back to the Defiant once we hear from the girls. Besides, it’s getting late. They should’ve shown by now.”
As if on cue, Dana and Chang returned.
“Ah good,” Ensign Ladd said. “Maybe they can tell us what to do about this …”
“Forget it,” Chang said.
“Lisa?” Greene asked her. He looked at her, studied her complexion. She was white as a sheet. “Are you okay?”
“Yes sir. Just feeling washed out.”
“You don’t look much better, either,” he told Dana.
She dismissed him. “I wouldn’t worry about digging up that old ship. Or piecing together its transmission like you’re doing a jigsaw. It’s not worth it.”
“What do you mean?” Greene asked her.
“We already have the transmissions.”
“But how? You’re not making sense …”
“The mountain, sir. We went inside the mountain.”
7.
Chang helped Dana load the data taken from the mountain into the ship’s systems. The Defiant’s computer had to work to convert it all into something they could understand. Eventually they had Lukas’s last will and testament - as Greene put it - ready for everyone to watch. They used the holo display in the conference room, and it did a good job of displaying the recording.
“Okay, first of all, Doctor Oriz has found something in the memory of that monolith down there that she feels we should all watch.”
“Yes,” Dana said. “I believe it will shed some light on everything.”
“Afterward, we’ll get onto other business. Dim the lights,” Jessica said. She sat down next to Commander Greene. Chief Gunn was there. Lieutenant Chang and Dana, Ensigns Boi and Rayne were also present. Chang started the recording and they watched as Lukas -
* * *
- started up the ladder. The ship jumped beneath him as he climbed. He clambered out onto the sand, regained his footing then moved quickly away from the sinking vessel. When he was a good twenty feet away he turned to watch as Sophie slid beneath the sands.
“Farewell.”
He climbed the embankment and with the sun nearly at its zenith behind him, he followed his Captain’s footprints into the barren wilderness. And whatever awaited.
* * *
Moonwatcher took the last remaining invader and dragged him in front of the sacred stone. The carvings at the top depicted the Star God, the Guardian of Sanctuary. The village elders assured the rest of them that sacrificing the invaders would bring the rains they so desperately needed. The drought had lasted far too long.
The man struggled in Moonwatcher’s arms, but he was no match for the L’ucrah’s lean strength. The others in the village cheered.
“Sanctuary,” Moonwatcher said, then withdrew his blade.
As he moved to draw it across the invaders throat, a flash of lightning tore through the atmosphere over his head. Only it wasn’t lightning.
He spun about, as did everyone else. Stood on a hill above the village was another invader, only this one was different. His hair was bright blonde.
One of the hunter-warriors made to move. The invader shot him with the weapon, blew him to bits. The villagers staggered back.
“Stop!” the invader yelled. He walked slowly toward them. He raised his hand to the sky, made as if he were clutching at something there. “I come from the stars. I mean you no harm,” he said, thumping his
chest.
The gesture of connecting sky with self had an instant effect on them. A steady murmur spread throughout the village as the invader came to stand before Moonwatcher.
“No more killing. Please,” the invader said.
Although his words were meaningless, his actions were not. He was brave in front of them, cool and collected. In control. He could make a man split apart with the stick in his hand.
This invader was different from the others. Standing close to him and seeing his blue and green eyes, Moonwatcher did what any primitive mind would do, faced with such a being. He knelt in front of him.
Moments later, the rest of the village followed suit. The Star God had returned.
* * *
None of the other crew of the Sophie survived their encounter with the natives. None had matched Lukas in stature, in appearance of strength and vitality. In a society built around hunter-gatherer culture, size mattered. Brute force mattered.
It didn’t hurt that Lukas had dealt pure lightning from his hand, either.
However he didn’t rest. He investigated the giant black mountain from all sides. It took days for him to find the small slit in the base of the structure. Mere inches in length.
Lukas hunkered down in front of it, his head cocked to one side. He ran a finger down the length of the slit. It grew in front of him. He stood back up, and watched as it spread upward across the face of the pyramid, until it stopped at a height of thirty feet. Then the slit opened to create a doorway ten feet wide. There was no sound, no vibration. The walls of the mountain might as well have been made from oil.
The L’ucrah who had been following him around the whole time went crazy. They didn’t know what to do. The Star God had opened the mountain with a simple movement of one finger. And then, cool as a cucumber, Lukas stepped inside and the mountain swallowed him whole.
* * *
WE ARE HERE it boomed in his head.
“Who are you?” he asked in the darkness. His voice echoed over and over.
WE
“I do not understand …”
YOU ARE PRIMITIVE
“Not as primitive as some.”
THE TINY CREATURES WHO SWARM LIKE ANTS OUTSIDE HAVE NO CONCEPT OF TIME AND SPACE. THEY CANNOT KNOW OF THE REALITIES OF REALITY. BUT YOU ARE DIFFERENT
Lukas felt with his hands. They touched nothing. No air stirred within the dark chasm of the mountain’s insides.
WATCH
A holographic display appeared before him, out of nowhere. The mountain showed him how it had arrived on the planet, long ago. Showed the simple life of that world coming to worship the structure. Thousands of years stretched past, and yet the mountain waited. It had been placed there, and now it waited … but for what?
It did not tell him.
“I still don’t understand.”
The silence stretched out, dragged. Then in the same voice inside his head, it answered him.
YOU WILL, it said, and then the insides of the pyramid lit up.
* * *
Lukas came to realise that operating the many functions of the device - he’d found himself calling it that, in the end - required only the use of one’s mind. The initial communication with it had been more of a test than anything else. As he responded to it, the device mapped his brain. Tested it. Seeing what could be made of such a simple ball of mushy grey matter. Lukas wasn’t sure how long he spent inside the mountain. It might have been days, weeks. Even months.
The device provided food for him in the form of a blue, clay-like material. It had no taste to speak of, yet it seemed to hit the spot. Water ran from an opening in the ceiling into a wide basin three feet up from the floor. From this he drank and washed, as it was continuously replenished and refreshed. When he drank, it was cold. When he washed, it was warm. He slept flat out on the floor, his hands resting on his chest as he contemplated his circumstances.
Every day the device opened up to him. However the true purpose of its existence was a persistent mystery he could not break. He learned how to control the weather using the device. With this power he brought the rains to the simple village of the L’ucrah, and watched from a holographic display as they partied with joy at the answering of their prayers. For them it was a time of posterity. The Star God had spoken to the Black Mountain, and the rains had returned. The L’ucrah’s fields became green and lush. There hadn’t been a golden age like it for thousands of years. Far back, beyond the generational memory of the people.
THEY ARE CRUDE. THEY HAVE NO BOUNDARIES
“I can teach them,” Lukas offered.
By way of answer, the mountain opened again.
* * *
Somehow, he knew their language. Perhaps, he thought, the device has planted it there within me.
He spoke to the village elders directly, told them the bidding of the mountain.
“You will not fight amongst yourselves. You will not commit murder or seek to harm one another,” he said. Lukas thought back to some of the teachings that were implanted within him when he was created. Every replicant was taught a moral code in the rapid succession of their growth. Now he called upon it to show him the way. “You will not steal, you will love one another. You will …”
And so it went. On and on, until he was finished, and he was sure that the elders had understood.
“What will become of us, should these rules be broken?” the oldest of their kind asked him.
Lukas looked away then, away from the crackling firelight. Out there, in the darkness of the night, lay hidden the giant mountain.
“You will suffer,” he said, his voice a flat monotone sound like electric coursing through a wire.
But this did not stop them testing him. They fought. They killed each other. They went on with life as they always had done. And when they did, the rains would not come. The Black Mountain that controlled the weather would not work in their favour. The great mists and clouds that shrouded its peak would dissipate, and the people would know … they had done wrong.
Apart from isolated incidents, the desires of the Star God were followed without challenge after that, and life was good. The L’ucrah forgot their primitive roots. They cast aside murder and sacrifice. As a people, in the shadow of the Black Mountain, they washed their hands of bloodshed.
Lukas continued to learn from the mountain, well into his old age. And then one day he simply disappeared for good. Some said he went back into the mountain one last time … and never returned. Whatever the case they were mindful of his final words to them. “One day others, like me, will come. There are many Star Gods,” he said. “But I do not leave you alone. I will always watch over you.”
The L’ucrah went on as if he were still there with them, watching from afar. They did not know the lifespan of the Star God. For all they knew, he still existed.
And over time, he was not merely a ghost spoken of in stories. The Black Mountain became The Star God, their protector, their ruler. A giant presence that obstructed the sun for hours each day with its sheer size alone. The rain-bringer.
Lukas, the Star God and the Black Mountain were one and the same; something more powerful than the L’ucrah. Something from another place, another time, sent to watch over them.
It had the power to sustain them, or destroy them. And for as long as the L’ucrah obeyed its laws, it would ensure life continued as it should.
* * *
The holo display faded away, and the lights came up.
“Wow,” Greene said.
“How did we get this though? How was it made? The recording I mean,” Olivia Rayne asked.
Chang leaned forward on the table. “I think … and I know this sounds off-base, but I think it was pulled direct from his mind.”
King nodded. “So it stored him.”
“Stored his memories, yes.”
Greene frowned. “I don’t get it. How did that massive machine know you’d want to learn about him? How did it know to give you those specific memories?”
<
br /> Dana answered this time. “Because it read our minds and knew we wanted that information. It’s like it expected us.”
“Maybe it did. He told them we’d come one day, and maybe he told the device to expect us too. Perhaps it already knew that from reading his mind,” King said.
“Yes.”
“And were there any star charts or data like that from Sophie? Anything to help us get an idea of where to go in this galaxy?” King asked.
Chang shook her head. “Sorry sir. Nothing. They just arrived here and crashed.”
“Captain, before we go too far into discussing all of this, I want to mention something else,” Greene said.
“Oh?”
“We’ve gotta bit of a situation. Our first estimates of ships stores and supplies might have been wrong.”
She rubbed her head. “So what are we saying here?”
Commander Greene looked from one to the other, then back down at his data tablet. “Well, there was anomalous data on the system. When we conducted a count in person, we realised the two sets of data were wildly different.”
“How different?” Chief Gunn asked.
Greene’s face became grim. “A lot.”
“Talk me through it,” King said.
“Well, we’re re-counting now, to ensure accuracy, but we’re in a lot worse shape than we thought. From my own calculations, we have little more than a month’s worth of food before we have to resort to processed rations. Whilst we could survive like that, we have to think about the repercussions on morale, on the well being of the crew,” Greene said. “Our figures show we’re also running low on Ditaron for the core.”
Chief Gunn picked up on that point. “Whilst we aren’t reliant on fuel, we still require some means of rejuvenating the main core. Unfortunately, on this ship, Ditaron was the ore chosen with the necessary attributes. All ships are different, depending on the class of core installed. But the Defiant is an old bird. She’s one of the last Union ships using the stuff … or she was.”
King sat. “Will it be easy to come by? Naturally abundant?”
Gunn shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve asked Lieutenant Chang to look into possible sources. We need at least a hundred kilos of pure Ditaron to function for another couple of years.”
