Seeker's Light

by N. I. Snow

  Jonah took the pyramid out of his pocket and walked over to the cabinet. “Remember, after tonight, not a single word about this.”

  Emma nodded and Jonah placed the relic next to the dolls who continued to smile. Emma closed the cabinet only to realize later on that she wouldn't be able to take the dolls out to play with. Oh, well. It was a necessary loss to keep a secret. Later that night when their parents came home, they asked the same questions. How was your day? Did you have fun in the pyramids? Jonah didn't ditch you again, did he? Jonah and Emma gave the same answers: our day was great; oh, we had plenty of fun; no, Jonah didn't ditch me. After dodging more of their parents’ questions, they went to their rooms. Jonah played a hologame while Emma struggled to keep her concentration on her toys. But she kept looking at the hidden compartment. What secrets did the relic hold? Maybe if she learned them, it would make the sad eyes happy.

  However, even if Emma had known the secrets the relic hid, it would not have helped her predict the events of eight years later.

  One

  The High Elder, Salianos, sat on his padded bench chair like a feral kytian ready to pounce. His violet eyes flicked from one image to another, endlessly searching the transparent holoscreen that hovered before him. His long, faded blue-scaled tail flicked the air with mild impatience while a frown played at the edges of his gaunt snout.

  He sat alone in the dark circular room, the only light coming from lamps that bordered the room, the holomap he was searching, and a large blue orb set in the center of a round platform ten feet below his seat. Six more chairs curved around the room, three to each side of his own. This was the council room of the Elders. There wasn't a single Tazalian who didn't know of this room. From this room the Elders spoke directly to the Seekers giving them orders snout to snout.

  A sliding door opened behind Salianos. His thin mouth furled at the sound of two arguing voices. One angry, deep voice he recognized as the muscle-bound Yahrik and the other strained, brazen voice as scar- covered Tarline. Salianos pushed a button on his chair, turning it to face the arguing Elders. Though Yahrik was twice the size of Tarline, the wiry Elder had his broad red-and-gold robed chest puffed up and his bronze snout almost against Yahrik's red snout. Yahrik, in turn, glared through dark blue eyes at Tarline's emerald eyes. Both Yahrik's long tail and Tarline's sawed-off tail stood straight out like war flags. Salianos glared over at the still squabbling Elders and spoke in a smooth, raspy voice much like a priest with a sore throat, “Finect!”

  Then he noted that behind the arguing Elders stood the grizzled-faced Lutianist. Though he was the youngest of the Elders, he looked as though he could be their grandlizard. The other Elders thought this was due to the weight of all the knowledge he held.

  Salianos himself was beginning to show signs of aging with streaks of white in his green hair and minor cracks in the white spikes along his spine; but these signs were nothing compared to Lutianist, who was aging rapidly with each year.

  Now in 2422, Lutianist’s once pure black scales had started to turn gray and his golden eyes were nearly white and had started to lose their former keen sight. The tuft of white hair on the back of his head had once been red, and he had even developed a white beard on the bottom of his chin. Underneath his dark blue cloak, the once golden spikes that ran along his back were now nearly smooth knobs. The claws on his hands and feet had become dull, and his tail dragged on the ground as he slouched along, unable to stand up straight.

  Shuffling quietly past the two the arguing Elders, Lutianist stopped in front of Salianos and bowed. He then straightened out the best he could before speaking in a near whisper, “High Elder, we have important news.”

  “It had better be, Lutianist. I was in the middle of…”

  “I know very well what you were doing, Salianos,” interrupted Lutianist with a wave a hand, “and we both know you won't find your answer.”

  Salianos snorted, but he did not argue with Lutianist; it would not have done him much good. “Very well, what is it that you have found, brother?”

  Lutianist turned and beckoned the two Elders forward, who were still steaming with the rage of jealousy.

  “Enough Yahrik, Tarline,” Lutianist admonished, “Salianos will determine which path to take.”

  The two Elders turned from each other and looked at Salianos. Yahrik spoke first, his gruff voice unable to contain his anger, “Lutianist has found a new relic.”

  Salianos lifted a boney ridge above one violet eye, “Is this what your argument is about, brothers?”

  “In a way,” nodded Tarline.

  Salianos’s interest was aroused.“Tell me everything, Lutianist.”

  Lutianist closed his eyes, “I was trying to decipher the Ancients’ runes as usual when the relic detector's alarm went off. When I pulled up the status of the relic, I was surprised at how high the level of chromina was coming off of it. This relic is one of greater importance than any of the others we have found yet. As you should well know, chromina is a substance the Ancients' used to store knowledge, the higher the level of chromina, the more knowledge the relic contains.”

  “I am aware of what chromina is, Lutianist. What good will it do us when even you cannot understand their language?” Salianos growled with a mixture of sarcasm and yet interest. “But, I suppose this new relic could give us a clue to deciphering the language of the Ancients. Where is it?”

  “It has been located in the Sol System within the Orion Arm on a planet called Earth; its inhabitants are known as the…”

  “The humans,” finished Salianos, doing well to hide the delight in his eyes. At last.

  Lutianist nodded. “Correct. And when I told these two, they began arguing over which way to retrieve the relic.”

  “I merely suggested that we send out Seekers as we always do,” said Tarline coolly while glancing over at Yahrik. “There is no need to waste our time with the humans.”

  “I say we mount a full scale invasion and destroy all the humans; they are too much like us. If they found out about the Light, they would use it against us,” growled Yahrik while eyeing Tarline.

  Tarline rolled his emerald eyes, “Please, the humans are dull-witted creatures that can hardly get their ships out of their own star system let alone figure out the Ancients' writing.”

  “Yeah, well then, what if they did learn to unlock the relic's knowledge, what's to stop them from making their ships better to get to the Light,” Yahrik puffed up again.

  “Because they are idiotic primates, like you,” Tarline goaded. Poking Yahrik's chest with a claw, he continued the argument, “Why waste our military efforts on them when our Seekers are more than capable enough to go in and grab the relic.”

  “And who's going to pay Zaharak when he learns of this, eh? Not me.”

  “Enough,” Salianos waved a hand shutting up the two Elders. Then, mainly to cover his own ambition, his tone changed to that of a wiser Tazalian, “I, too, know about the humans. Their will is far different then our own. They wish for nothing more than power for their own causes, but our cause is that of the Ancients. Should the humans learn of the Gaia, then they would search it out and use it against our Ancients' will of Tazalian rule and peace. Full destruction is not the will of our Ancients,” Salianos touched down briefly on the truth, “but an invasion is called for. To ensure that humans do not rise up and steal the secrets to the Light, we shall govern over them. We shall watch and make sure they do not find the Light before us.”

  This last, however, was a lie. Salianos knew very well that humans and their technology were not capable of finding the Light. However, like many other planets before it, Earth had caught Saliano’s interest. He wanted it under his claw.

  Tarline looked at Salianos with disbelief while Yahrik bowed. “I will order our commanders to ready their troops. It will take a standard year before all available soldiers and automatons are prepared, but we will be ready for the invasion by this time next year.”

  “Very good. You
can go now.”

  The two Elders did as ordered, and still noticeably displeased with each other left the room. Lutianist started to leave as well; then turned back towards Salianos, his near white eyes boring into his superior, as though the old Tazalian knew what the High Elder was up to. “Zaharak will hear of this.”

  Salianos bared his fangs, “I have no doubt that wretched degenerate will. He has that uncanny ability to sniff out where profit can be made.”

  Salianos would later find out just how right Lutianist was.

  Several parallaxes away a large shuttle floated aimlessly with its engines off. The spacecraft looked as though it had been crafted from some child's worst nightmare. Sharp jagged panels jutted at every angle off the sides of the long, flat, cone-shaped hull. Thick transparent thermal panes spanned the front of the hull forming a viewport for the pilot’s compartment. The two engines were rectangle in shape with sharp edges curved outward. Between them was a ramp that opened out to form an entrance into the hull. At the bottom of the hull was a round docking terminal used to board other vessels.

  Inside the ship was no more inviting. A sharp-angled, barely lit hallway spanned the entire ship leading to the ship’s only five rooms. In the starboard side was a sleeping cabin, which held only a hard bed made from what seemed to be rock. A study bay took up nearly the entire center of the hull. The room was comprised of a large holoscreen that could display different types of star charts and of a small canteen for the occasional light meal. A weapons room lay to the port side of the vessel housing a broad collection of weapons ranging from plasma pistols to larger launchers that could destroy a being with a single blast, not to mention a nasty collection of torture devices awaiting use. The ship’s aft was taken up with a room filled with holding cells for prisoners. This room remained the least used in the ship. The remaining and smallest room in the ship was the cockpit, which was dominated by an above-control panel viewport that reached from one side of the room to the next.

  The Death Shadow, Zaharak, sat in the pilot's chair in front of the control panel. His strong, gray-scaled arms were folded behind his thick neck and his booted feet lay on the edge of the control panel without any regard to the on-board computer's feelings. The black military pants he wore had been tailored to accommodate the thick base of his long tail, yet, the leather jacket he wore had been tailored around the sharp white spikes on his back. A black fedora was pulled over his snout to cover his eyes, allowing a patched tuft of silver hair to show.

  If anyone had boarded and seen Zaharak, they would have thought he was napping. That mistake would have cost the intruder his life. Zaharak was very much awake and alert. He had been listening in on the Elders' conversation through a bug he had planted long ago in the conference room. Not even the best detectors had discovered his device.

  When the Elders finished their talk, Zaharak sat there going over different plans in his mind. He knew the human planet very well, just as he knew every other sentient planet. Even without the Elders' planned invasion, he could have gone in, grabbed the relic, and been gone before the humans could even blink. That was, if his relic detector was working properly. The detector had pointed to which quadrant of Earth's cities the relic was in, but something was keeping it from pinpointing exactly which city.

  Zaharak had an idea about what was keeping him from tracking the relic's exact position; he suspected the Ancients were hiding its location. Just as he knew Salianos's true intentions were to use the Gaia's power to control the galaxy as his own kingdom, Zaharak knew what the Ancients' had wished to do, and their goals were very different from each other. Not that it mattered to him; as long as he received his payment, he didn't care.

  Sitting up, Zaharak planted his booted feet on the metal floor. Reaching out with one claw he began entering the coordinates for Earth on the holoscreen built into the panel. When he finished, a robotic butler-like voice began talking, “That was rather fast, master. You have a plan already to find the relic.”

  Zaharak pressed an image on the holopanel, igniting the engines. He turned to another holoscreen and began pressing a number of images to ready the lotarKor-drives. As he was doing so, he spoke to the ship’s A.I. in a deep guttural voice, “I have a few, Valkyrie, but they will require the Tazalian invasion to be in progress.”

  “So, why go now? You've overloaded my engines, so they go faster than any ship the Tazalian fleet possesses. Besides that, the Elders will have to organize the Tazalian armies before moving out. You'll beat them there even if you leave at the same time as they do,” the A.I. protested.

  “Indeed, but arriving on Earth now will give me time to analyze human activities to understand them better so that my plan goes smoothly,” Zaharak responded and then finished setting the coordinates to Earth.

  “Can I calculate that this is a large-scale plan?” questioned the Valkyrie.

  Hardly a ghost of a smile appeared on Zaharak's snout as he sent his ship streaking off through the stars.

  Two

  Emma Sholtal, now fifteen years old, sat in the passenger seat of the hovercar driven by her brother Jonah. The young girl leaned her forehead against the window staring out at the infinite rows of buildings as she and her brother flew through the city. Jonah was focused on his inner thoughts and was grinning ear to ear with the news he was about to tell Emma. Of course, she already knew what it was, Mom wasn't good at keeping secrets. Jonah was going to propose to his girlfriend, Shalinda.

  As Jonah was chattering happily, Emma grew more quiet. When he left for the Academy, Jonah had grown more distant from the rest of the family only visiting on rare occasions like when Emma had received an award for being the youngest person to pass Academy Level space physics in a program that let her take Academy classes while attending high school.

  Their mother was always surprised at how much Emma was able to learn and how quickly. At age nine, she was able to figure out that she was adopted, which didn't bother her. She understood that Earth's laws regulated families to only have one biological child. She loved her parents and Jonah; no matter who her real parents were, she would always be a Sholtal.

  At age ten she was able to speak fluently in five different languages. At twelve she passed calculus. Her mother told her these were wonderful accomplishments, as it meant different careers would be open to her. This was okay, but Emma didn't know what career she wanted to pursue. Every time she thought of a career, her mind wandered back to those few moments inside the pyramid. She couldn't just travel around the world with an alien relic in her suitcase.

  Emma started twirling her long black hair between her fingers as an overzealous Jonah continued on. How come he wasn't bothered by the thought of the relic. Or was his constant talk of his girlfriend a way of keeping his mind off of it?

  “Shalinda is going to be ecstatic when I ask her,” grinned Jonah.

  “Oh, I'm sure,” said Emma faking enthusiasm.

  Emma had met Shalinda once before. One week Jonah brought the prissy girl home to meet the family during spring break. Mom and Dad seemed to like her; Emma on the other hand, hated her, and Shalinda knew it. When the two girls were alone they threw snide remarks at each other, though Emma had the upper hand with her wit. Shalinda had often tried to degrade Emma but failed, when the younger girl managed to cast out remarks that tore deep into Shalinda's ego.

  “Are you even listening?” asked Jonah snapping Emma out of her memories.

  Emma nodded, “Yeah. You're going to propose, Shalinda's going to accept, blah, blah. I don't really care Jonah as long as you're happy.”

  Jonah flew the hovercar toward a group of office buildings, “I know you and Shalinda didn’t get along very well when you met, but at least try. I want you both to be happy.”

  “Jonah I wouldn't care if you married a Klytonian. You have your life and I have mine. We're not kids anymore.”

  Jonah smiled, “What do you mean “we”? You are still a kid.”

  Emma laughed and said in a childish
voice, “Mom says I'm more mature than you are.”

  Laughing, Jonah landed the hovercar on a steel lot next to the Alien Embassy building, “Is that so Miss Smarty Pants, then why haven't you moved to the Academy yet?”

  Emma opened the passenger door and got out. “I get to take some Academy classes to keep me from being totally bored; and besides, I told you already, I want to experience high school like every other teen.”

  Jonah got out of the car and stretched, “Trust me you wouldn’t be missing much to skip it.”

  As they walked towards the entrance of the tall metal building Emma looked up at the blue sky, “What's it like being a pilot?”

  A few months earlier Jonah had completed his pilot's test and he took his first flight above planet. “It's amazing. The Earth looks so different from up there. The city lights look like enormous veins feeding the planet.”

  They were near the entrance to the building when, remembering the ancient creatures they had meet eight years ago, Emma pondered, “I wonder what they saw when they came here.”

  Jonah stopped. “Not again, Emma. Every time we get a chance to talk to each other, do you gotta bring them up?”

  Emma shook her head, “I'm sorry, Jonah. Lately I just keep getting this odd feeling.”

  “Yeah, you told me before, like we haven't been fulfilling our promise. C'mon, Emma, we hid the relic and haven't spoken a word about it to anyone. What more can we do? Now, let's go get Shalinda and grab lunch.”

  They entered the high-ceiling lobby of the building, where the patterned floor was polished to look like glass. A round clerk’s desk sat in front of a bank of elevators. The only people present in the room beside them were three business men talking to each other and the blonde-haired clerk at her desk looking at a holoscreen.