The sound of voices drifted down the hall, and the group stopped to listen. It came from the direction of the bridge and was cut off by what sounded like weapons firing. Then, silence again. Retinda glanced back to Blake who shrugged. She tilted her head to indicate they were going onward, and he nodded in agreement.
After a few more turns in the halls with no sound or enemy, they finally came upon the body of a Kursas near the open bridge door. He had been hit by multiple weapon strikes and appeared dead. She looked to Blake and nodded at the Kursas. Blake took out his scanner and aimed it toward the body on the floor. He shook his head as he held the scanner up and wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion.
“What is it?” Retinda whispered.
“There’s only one Kursas alive on this ship,” Blake said softly. “They’re on the bridge.”
“What happened to all of them?” Halera asked.
Blake pressed a few buttons on the scanner. “Weapons fire,” he said. “It’s like they had a shoot out amongst themselves with only one survivor.”
“Then that survivor will still have the forswight,” Retinda said.
“I would assume so,” Blake agreed as he put the scanner away.
“Why didn’t you use that when we first got here?” Perry asked.
“There was a lot going on,” Blake shrugged. “I can’t be expected to remember everything.”
“Let’s go,” Retinda said, and they moved toward the open bridge door ahead of them.
They stopped short of the entrance and looked across the ruined room. The dead Kursas from the original crash were still there, but they had been joined by multiple fresh bodies, all in the same condition as the one they had passed in the hall.
“Where’s the survivor?” Michelle asked as a shot flew past them and hit one of the walls in the hall. The group shrank away from the door and hugged the walls.
“I can hear you,” a familiar voice rank out with a desperate tone. “I could even smell you coming. That scent of mammalian sweat permeates my nostrils and tongue and makes me ill. Narans and whatever you travelers are. Disgusting creatures, all of you.”
“What’s going on, Pyrhinia?” Blake asked. “What happened to your crew?”
“They wanted it,” Pyrhinia said. “I could see it in their minds. They all wanted to take it from me.”
“Are you certain?” Blake asked.
“And now you want it too,” Pyrhinia said. “You can’t have it.”
“She’s got to be at the front lower right of the room,” Retinda said.
“I agree,” said Blake.
“What can we do?” Perry asked.
“You can die, little man,” Pyrhinia said and Perry suddenly went stiff. He turned to the bridge and walked through the door. “You all can watch as I kill an easy target, and then each of you will follow.”
Blake grabbed Perry and held him. He struggled to free himself, but Blake resisted. “You can’t have him, Pyrhinia,” Blake called out.
“You can’t save them all,” Pyrhinia said, and Michelle walked toward the door.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Retinda said. She moved toward the door and also stopped, controlled by Pyrhinia.
“What are you going to do, clever Blake?” Pyrhinia asked. “I can see your mind. Non-violent. Always the diplomat. And something else in there too. What is that?” Blake glanced to the front of the room and saw Pyrhinia sitting against the front wall holding the Manipulator with both hands as she spoke. He fired.
The ball shattered in her hands. She screamed as the connection between her mind and the others was forcibly broken. Blake walked past his companions as they shook off the effects of the mind control, and he made his way down to where Pyrhinia lay on the floor.
She had been hit by weapons fire as well, but her wounds were not mortal. Every breath was labored, and he could see she was in pain.
“Just kill me,” she said as he approached.
“The threat is over,” Blake said. “I have no need to kill you.”
“I will bring others,” she warned.
“How?” he countered. “If that were possible, you would have done it here, I would have thought. It appears that your species is weak to the effects of the Larsarin Manipulator. The thing you called a forswight.”
“We are weak to nothing.”
“No? A side effect of the device is a dependency on it. Like a narcotic. Based on the log I saw, your race is not only affected by it, but its very presence causes a jealous desire for it. All it did was ride in the cargo hold of this ship, and the chaos it caused led to the crash of this vessel and total loss of its crew. Now, your remaining crew are more casualties of it. Only you remain.”
“And she’ll be taken into custody to stand trial for the crimes committed against our world,” Retinda said.
“Why not kill her now?” Halera asked. “I saw what they did to us on that ship. She deserves to die.”
“I agree,” Retinda said, “but we need a face to put to this atrocity and the one out near Wilster’s place. She was the one in charge who ordered it, so everyone on our planet will see her and hate her before the end. Few crimes lead to the death penalty here, but I cannot imagine she will be allowed to live. She is too dangerous to us and will never assimilate into our society.”
“And I will not cooperate,” Pyrhinia said.
“I don’t need you to,” Retinda said. “Now get up.”
Retinda grabbed one of Pyrhinia’s arms and tried to drag her to her feet. Pyrhinia pushed her away.
“Would you all mind helping me?” Retinda asked.
Between the five of them, they lifted Pyrhinia from the floor of the bridge and carried her through the halls and outside. She cringed as her legs were taken as both of them had been hit by weapons fire. She attempted to fight against them anyway, but seeing that resistance was worthless, she stopped before they left the bridge.
Upon reaching the vehicle still parked where they had left it, they set Pyrhinia inside. Retinda retrieved restraints from a compartment in the back and ensured Pyrhinia was not going anywhere. In addition to arm and leg restraints, Retinda produced a thick belt to keep Pyrhinia’s biomechanical wings in place.
As Retinda stepped back, the travelers heard the light ding of an elevator nearby.
“Would you be able to keep an eye on her as we make our way back?” Retinda asked.
“I’m afraid it’s time for us to go,” Blake said. Retinda looked confused.
“Go?” she asked. “Where are you going from here?”
“Well, our ship is back, and they’re waiting for our signal,” Perry said. Blake rolled his eyes.
“Can I come with you?” Halera asked.
“Your place is here,” Perry said. “It was a pleasure knowing you though. I don’t know what you did before, but if you were looking for a change, Retinda might need you for a bit to sort all this out. After all, you were in the guts of that ship and you were here at the end.”
“He’s right,” Retinda said. “You’re it. I need you to at least be a witness to all of this. We’ll talk about your future from there if you like.”
“All right,” Halera said. She threw her arms around Perry. “I will miss you.”
“Likewise,” Perry smiled. Halera stepped away from him and stood next to Retinda.
“Thank you all for your help during this time in our history,” Retinda said. “It’s nice to know that not all aliens are evil.”
“Of course they’re not,” Blake said. “We’re just like you. Some are good. Some are bad. We just have our things to do. I have no doubt you’d find good Kursas on their world too. We just got the sour end of their race. Good luck to you.”
Retinda and Halera waved as the three travelers approached the open elevator which was within eyeshot of them. With a final wave, they stepped inside, and to Retinda and Halera, it appeared that they simply disappeared.
EPILOGUE
The elevator opened into the common room of the
Maze: a long, white, four walled space with a couch and some chairs in front of a monitor which still displayed Zago as the destination. Blake, Perry, and Michelle entered their home, and Perry was the first to plop down on the couch.
Michelle glanced at the monitor again, which tended to show their previous destination for a short while before it shut off. Normally, the monitor showed the date according to Earth Standard Time prior to their departure, but in the case of Zago, it showed nothing. Now that they had returned, a date finally showed.
“Blake, is this right?” Michelle called out.
“Is what right?” Blake asked, walking up behind her.
“The date,” she clarified.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“4,927 B.C.?” she noted with surprise.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked again.
“They had technology, like big buildings and society and self-driving cars,” she said. “How can they be so far in the past? I thought people were still pretty primitive or whatever that far back.”
“Primitive on Earth, sure,” Blake said, “but we weren’t on Earth. Neither the narans nor the Kursas were human or from Earth. They were both true alien races to us. As such, their technological development would have taken place at a different pace and from a different time. Even the naran and the Kursas were at different points in their development, and the Kursas had clearly encountered other cultures who also knew space travel. All that in 5,000 B.C. I believe that predates even the Biblical Adam and Eve.”
“How far back can the Maze go?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Blake shrugged. “I’ve been thousands of years past my time, and this as far back as I’ve gone so far. I don’t know how the Maze figures out where to go, nor do I know its limitations. I have the idea that it can’t go past itself, and that may have come from the Guide. But how far in the past is probably as far as the past can go. Well, as long as there is something interesting to see.
“The purpose of the Maze is to gather information, and traveling to prehistoric times seems like the kind of information we would want to acquire,” Blake finished.
“To be fair, this wasn’t prehistoric to Zago,” Perry said.
“Wasn’t it?” Blake asked. “Prehistory only refers to history prior to the time that your present culture has records. That was more than 7,000 years ago for all of us, and who knows how old it is to the Maze?”
“Can we find out about modern Zago?” Michelle asked.
“We can see what information there is on the planet at this time,” Blake said.
Blake led her to a computer terminal in the library and gestured for her to sit. “I believe you have something called the internet in your time,” he said. She nodded. “Perry thinks it’s a wonder of the next age, and to be honest, it just keeps getting better, or worse, depending on your persuasion on information penetration. At any rate, you can search for Zago and see what comes up. Google it, as they said.”
Michelle typed in a search for Zago and acquired several results. It took a few clicks to find something meaningful, but when she found it, she was unsure how to feel. It spoke of fossils and relics from a past age before a worldwide extinction event that destroyed 90% of all life on the planet. The four fingered naran race persisted, though they weren’t called that now, but according to the history she found, the Earth Standard Date for the event was around 4,500 B.C. She sat back and closed her eyes.
“Those people were at the end of their civilization, and they didn’t even know it,” Michelle said. “What we found really was prehistoric, even to Zago.”
“We saw a slice of life lost for thousands of years,” Blake said. “You know, the people of Zago, probably even in your time, may not have believed that such a society existed so long ago. They may not even believe in aliens.”
“It’s so strange to wrap my head around,” Michelle said. “We were just there and saw everything that scientists in this article only speculate about.”
“And incorrectly, I might add,” Blake noted. “Not much survived whatever happened. I’ll bet the survivors took shelter in those underground bunkers, if any were still around four hundred years later. After that, they came back out into the sun, and had to start over with who and what they had. A new world from scratch.”
“I think I’m done on here for the moment,” Michelle said, and she closed the search window. “Perhaps another time I’ll search for something interesting. For now, I need rest. And I need to accept the strange fact that only a few hundred years after we left that planet, some sort of calamity wiped them out. What was it all for?”
“For the moment,” Blake answered. “Sometimes, you have to accept what is in your present for what it is. Retinda and Halera and all those people we saved had the rest of their lives to live. They had years before them as did several more generations. They didn’t know their time was limited, but truly it doesn’t matter. All of our days are limited for at some point, death will take us all. The key is to make the most of the time you have – to live in the moment the best you can. Once you finally do go home, these moments will be times you never forget. I know my former life can’t begin to compare to this one, and I come from a more space age world than you. Enjoy right now. Let today be today, and let tomorrow worry about itself.”
Michelle nodded and bid him a good night. She walked to her room and saw Perry had fallen asleep on the couch. The monitor had shut off, and the room was silent.
She entered her room and the door swished shut behind her. Her mind was haunted by Blake’s words since her former life was consumed with what she did not have for tomorrow. Sure, “do not worry” is the watch cry of those who have none, but she had worries. Her worries drove her to drinking herself nearly to death the night she came into the Maze.
Live in the moment, and accept your present for what it is.
The words stayed with her as she bathed, changed for bed, turned off her lights, and snuggled under her covers. What would the days ahead hold for her? How long would she stay here? If she chose the moment, those questions would not matter. She could simply wake up every day without a care for what it held and enjoy where they went.
As she drifted off to sleep, she resolved to do just that. She would enjoy right now, for now, it was time to dream.
The Maze continues in
The Off-Worlders
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Willson was born in 1975 and has lived in Oklahoma the majority of his life. Following his graduation from Broken Arrow High School in 1993 where he excelled in the music program, he had a short tour in the U.S. Army as a trombone player before returning to civilian life in Oklahoma. He started by writing musicals and eventually collaborated on one that had a small scale production in Sweden at about the same time he had a play produced in Tulsa, Ok in 2001. He is a moderator for the Simplyscripts.com screenwriting community. He produced, directed, and performed the soundtracks for a short and a feature film as well as writing the soundtracks for two other short films. He still writes music regularly and can play piano along with a dozen other instruments as well as sing, all of which are talents he shares with his church on a weekly basis in its worship team. He has written four novels for the Fempiror Chronicles series, two for The Maze, and two other novels of a miscellaneous nature. He currently lives in Broken Arrow, Ok with his wife and three princesses.
www.fempiror.com
The Kursas Page 15
