The two mile high, rectangular structure, stood ominously before them. Mirrored on all sides, it reflected the surrounding area and almost cloaked to the human eye, depending on what angle it was viewed from. One could be fooled as to its sheer mass, unless one was face to face on the surface. There it stood peacefully. A monument to an ancient civilisation. Surrounded by a hub of monitoring platforms and miles of duatronic cabling, which monitored every wavelength of energy emanating from the structure. Silently, it looked out into the universe and played its song over and over. Tyrell looked at the structure. More familiar with it than anything he knew. It had been his life’s work on Earth. Every inch of its surface plagued his dreams. The Monolith signal had been steady over the last hundred years and the human race was no closer to understanding what it meant. Not as far as Tyrell was concerned. The algorithm relayed Terabits of information every second on a carrier wave so strong it had been theorised that the only way it could have been compressed was through subspace. Tyrell knew one thing. The origin.
“Image locked, Doctor Tyrell, relaying data now,” said Carrie.
“Thank you, Carrie. Hold it there for now,” he said. Tyrell linked his console with the relay on the orbiting moon and began downloading the daily updates on the signal. He sat back and watched it, as it streamed past his screen. Thousands of symbols flooded his console. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. His latest set of algorithms had revealed no pattern to the random stream of data. Again. He was beginning to grow weary of the chase. He raised his eyes and watched as Carrie looked on at that rectangular structure being represented in the viewing chamber. He watched her closely.
Carrie stared on at the black rectangular Monolith and moved the viewer in for a closer look at its flat polished surface. A familiar gentle hum began to resonate in her mind. The sound felt strangely organic and it always stopped when she repositioned the array away from the moon. She likened it to a cat purring and, when mentioning the sound to Tyrell a few weeks back, she’d realised that she was the only person able to hear it. She had opened her mind to the structure on many occasions but had learned nothing from doing so. It just hummed gently in her mind. She actually found it relaxing.
“Carrie, reposition the array to the Aristaeus system, will you? Let’s say hello to our friends,” said Tyrell from behind her.
“Yes, Doctor,” she said, tapping in the commands for the target star system. Visiting the home world of the signal makers, or what was thought to be the home world of the signal makers, was a daily trip for Carrie.
“Quickly now, I would like to get a closer look at that large orbital we were locked into yesterday,” said Tyrell. Carrie took a breath. His tone was grinding her more than usual this evening and she had begun to find it irritating. His proximity lately had begun to send shivers down her arms. His mind had always been difficult to read. His thoughts were highly organised and she could tell he made great efforts to conceal information from her. It was more than secrecy. He had disciplined his mind to focus in such a specific way when he was near her and she could feel the strain it had on his concentration. He was hiding something from her mind. And so they played their little game of hide and seek.
“Inputting target coordinates now,” she said. The image pulled away from the surface of Phobos and past the red planet, before zipping through the stars. At six hundred light years away, the array was only able to show the system at a distance. After several minutes the viewing area slowed to a gentle halt, revealing a bright star.
“Aristaeus system locked,” came the soothing, female computer voice.
“Lock in Aristaeus Three,” Carrie said into her command panel. The viewing chamber flew past a small rocky planet and past another large gas giant, before settling on the target world. At this distance, Aristaeus III resembled Earth. It was a large blue oceanic world, with swirling cloud masses orbited by the two moons Hemera and Groma.
“Would you like to complete the gravity readings on Hemera, Doctor Tyrell?” she asked.
“Not today, Carrie, try and get us closer to object Delta,” he said. She tapped in target vectors and moved the array.
“Scanning,” she said.
“Object Delta cannot be located at this time,” said the female voice.
“Dammit!” said Tyrell.
“It probably burned up in the atmosphere. It was in very close orbit,” Carrie said.
“That doesn’t explain why it had a stable orbit yesterday, Carrie,” Tyrell retorted gruffly. Carrie bit her tongue. There was tension in the air.
“It couldn’t have been a meteor,” he said.
“Any impact on Hemera or Groma would have left residual debris and we would have seen any incoming projectile on the previous days’ scans of the system.” There was silence in the lab.
“Whatever it was, it’s not there anymore,” Carrie said passively. She could feel Tyrell approaching the viewing chamber and straightened her back. The tension between them began to increase when a low frequency alarm sounded, attracting Tyrell’s attention. A female voice came over the comms.
“Signal frequency change in aspect. Doctor Tyrell, please come to Astrometrics.” Tyrell stood beside Carrie and tapped the console on her chair.
“Tyrell here, I am on my way,” he said, looking sharply at Carrie.
“Keep looking; it may have been flung out into the star system by an asteroid impact or something,” he said, turning away from her.
“I may be a while, so if you still don’t find anything in the next half hour complete those soil samples for Doctor Meridian and place them in the refrigeration unit. The last thing I need today is her breathing down my neck,” he said.
“Yes, Doctor Tyrell,” she said, feeling at ease as he made his way to the lab exit. Tyrell took an instrument out of one of the lockers behind the workstation and left. The hiss of the door column left the room deathly quiet. The only sounds were the quiet chirps from the instrument panel above Carrie’s head. She was finally alone with the Universe at her fingertips. She tapped a few commands in the panel and redirected the array back towards Earth. She magnified the planet so that the equator filled the space in the viewing chamber and relaxed into her chair, watching it spin silently.
As the minutes drew past, she began to lose herself in Earth’s abundance of life and light. She began to feel her eyes close as she followed the continents. As she began to drift off to sleep, the rhythm of unconsciousness was interrupted by what looked like a bright beam of light. Her eyes felt too heavy to look at it any further. It began to brighten. As her mind drifted off to sleep, her mother’s voice began to echo in her mind.
Her eyes open as she feels her hand slip from the inside of a weathered cave wall, while she manoeuvres under a protruding rock face which lies directly ahead of her. The red soil is loose and, although untouched in millennia, it falls from underfoot with ease. She draws in a strong breath as she steadies herself and checks in with the team, who follow closely. She checks her suit for tears and does a visual on her oxygen levels. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in her arm display. She has long brown hair framing a soft and sallow complexion. She has an athletic physique and can feel the adrenalin flowing through her veins as she makes her way through the cave. Her husband is watching intently from miles away, while her daughter sleeps soundly under the watch of Doctor Chase Meridian.
“Easy, guys, it’s loose underfoot here,” she announces to her colleagues who follow closely behind. The cave is dark and she tells the team to activate their overhead lamps. Her two companions follow closely and light up their path with white light. One of them is a young cadet by the name of Charlie Weston. A rather serious twenty-seven-year-old who fills out his suit to bursting point. John had insisted on taking backup. Physical backup, should she run into trouble. While Charlie is pleasant company, he isn’t much of a talker and usually wears a stern and serious expression on his face as he prepare
s himself for combat at a moment’s notice. She had objected initially but finds him to be a comforting addition. Her other companion is a pretty Japanese mathematician by the name of Jin Li Chun. She has an intoxicating sense of humour and loves to cook little treats for her for their all night lab analysis sessions. As they continue their descent she begins to feel the ground beneath her soften.
“Romeo Two to Aquaria base,” she says.
“Aquaria base here. Go ahead, Jennifer.” Carrie hears her father’s voice coming through the comms. She feels her mother’s heart beat calmly at the sound of his voice.
“John, I’m taking Romeo team into the cavern now. There are high deposits of iron in the cave, so comms may be intermittent,” she says.
“Aquaria base acknowledges. Proceed with caution, Doctor. Aquaria base out.” Carrie’s mind leaves her mother’s and travels across the Martian desert. Through the blinding sand storm and towards the light of the colony. She sees her father standing at a curved window and enters his mind. Their thoughts begin to intertwine as a new set of emotions layer themselves onto her own. For a moment the floodgates of feelings overwhelm her, but it quickly dissipates and they become one. She feels her father’s anxious heartbeat.
“Fucking planet,” he whispers under his breath. He paces behind the monitoring station. “Weather report,” he says to one of the men at a control console.
“That dust storm is right on top of them, Commander. I would have them stay put for at least twenty-four hours,” he says.
“Perfect timing, Jennifer, as always,” he mutters under his breath. He strokes his unshaven cheeks. Carrie feels her father’s muscles tense. He a fit forty-year-old man. He feels tired and is in need of a night’s sleep, but his mind is sharp.
“She’ll be fine, John. Jen’s a tough cookie. Tougher than you, I might add,” comes a female voice from the corner of the room. He turns to see Doctor Chase Meridian staring at him. She smiles. He notices the little smiles on his crew and walks over to her.
“I would appreciate you keeping comments like that to yourself, Chase,” he whispers. She puts her hands up in mock apology.
“Sorry, Commander, my bad, but that woman flew a very long way to an alien planet with you. Not to mention gave birth and recovered from nearly being blown up by some lunatic. So I think she can handle a little camping trip. She’s in her element John, she needs this,” she says. Carrie sees the look in Meridian’s eyes and feels comforted by it. She has a spark in her eyes, has tightly cropped blonde hair and has youth still carved into her cheeks. She has an air of authority that her father deeply respects. He nods and turns back.
“Aquaria Base, this is Romeo One. We have entered the canyon. Readings indicated something a hundred meters north of our current position and seventeen meters down. We are proceeding.” The commander’s brow furrows.
“Aquaria base acknowledges. Watch yourself, you didn’t bring your lucky dice.” He looks over at Meridian who meets his gaze. There is a pause on the comms system, as the unusual familiar tone that the commander uses is understood.
“Aquaria base, that is a negative. Romeo One has it firmly in her atmo suit,” she says. Meridian smiles.
“Aquaria base acknowledges,” he says, smiling.
Carrie’s mind shifts, leaving her father and floating across the red soil. It finds her mother’s mind and merges with it. She feels her hands grasping at the cave wall as she makes her way inside it. At first, she thinks the soil is giving way before she looks down and starts to see the rocks have started to become smooth and uniform. She stops in her tracks and turns to the others.
“You see this, Jin?” she says
“Yes, Doctor, very strange. Seems to get flatter the further we go down. Some sort of erosion from a lake or freshwater source?” Jennifer shakes her head without answering and continues on.
“The passageway opens up in twenty-two meters,” Jin chirps over comms. Their lights begin to disperse as they approach an opening slowly. The ground is dark. Black. They pause and take in their surroundings. Jennifer reaches over to the side of the cave wall and runs her fingers over the surface. It is smooth, like polished stone.
“Jin, are you getting any readings?” she asks.
“Mapping it now, Doctor. One moment,” she replies, as she points a long cigar-shaped instrument around the inside of the cave and along its floor. Charlie holds firm, directing his lighting array onto the cave floor.
“Why is the ground black?” he asks. Jennifer looks on.
“I really don’t know, Charlie, but it looks like some sort of ice formation,” she says. Jin finishes up with her scans and looks bewildered at the results on her pad.
“My God, it’s organic,” she says in awe.
“What?” Jennifer says, as she makes her way over to confirm.
“The cave floor,” Jin continues, “it’s not ice. It’s some sort of organic matter.” Charlie bends down and reaches a hand out. The two scientists do not see him do it. His fingers slip into the ground easily.
“It’s not solid, Doctor,” he says, immersing his whole arm beneath the surface.
“Charlie, step back,” Jennifer says. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”
Charlie looks at Jennifer.
“Sorry, Doc, wasn’t thinking.” He does not move. Jennifer steps closer to the young man.
“Charlie, I said step back,” she repeats, annoyed that she has to tell him again.
“I am trying to, Doctor, but I appear to be stuck.” Charlie starts to jerk his arm backward to no avail.
Then the screaming starts. His mouth opens and his eyes turn red. Jennifer realises there is something very wrong. She moves quickly towards him and tries to pull him out. She cannot. Carrie feels panic begin to well inside her mother’s chest as her heartbeat begins to increase. Whatever has him has a firm grip and is pulling his arm in deeper. It looks like thick black liquid. He begins to flail widely, in agony, unable to speak. Jin grabs his other arm and jams her feet into the ground to get resistance. Charlie jerks forward and the momentum of the motion throws Jin straight into the black fluid. She gives a last shocked scream before disappearing from Jennifer’s view under the surface. Charlie begins to sink.
“Jin!” Jennifer shouts, while trying to keep a firm grip on the manic security officer. He looks at her as blood begins to flow from his eyes. She tries one last time to hold on as he is pulled under the surface. She lets him go and steps back to the edge of the blackness. She is out of breath and tears of shock begin to stream down her face.
“Jin!” she screams into the darkness. No answer. She stands up slowly and keeps quiet, trying to listen for voices. Nothing. She turns to pick up the scanner and loses concentration for an instant. She loses her footing on a smooth rock and slips into the dark fluid.
“Fuck,” she says. To her surprise, she is able to stand in it. Knee deep in what feels like warm mud. A tingling sensation begins to creep up her legs. Then the pain. It shoots through her legs like a high voltage shock. She cannot scream. The shock of it has knocked the air out of her lungs. Her feet go numb. Her mouth is wide and eyes bulge. She begins to sink into the black fluid. Her legs go numb. As if they are no longer there. Carrie feels the pain. She feels her mother’s panic. She feels her helplessness. Her thoughts begin to merge and blur. She can feel herself losing consciousness and grabs the comm panel on her arm. It activates. Now chest deep. No feeling in her torso. She has no muscles contraction in her lungs. She cannot breath. She finds the strength in one last breath and gives it to her husband who she desperately hopes can hear her.
“John,” she screams, her throat beginning to fill with blood. “I love you. Save Carrie!” As the black liquid covers her eyes and fills her lungs, she can only mouth the name of her daughter as the organism takes her.
What seemed like an eternity later, Carrie awoke screaming. Grasp
ing at her chest. She looked into the viewing chamber. The Earth was gone. What looked like an asteroid field was now swirling through the chamber. Huge sections of rock and fire were floating past her slowly. She caught her breath and tried to clear the images from her recurring nightmare, as she righted herself in her seat. She closed her eyes and took in several deep breaths, before looking around at the empty lab. Tyrell was still out. She was alone.
“Computer, time,” she asked, feeling groggy.
“Time is zero three zero ten,” said the soft, female voice. She looked on at the asteroid field.
“Computer, realign array Earth,” she said.
“Alignment currently locked to those coordinates,” said the voice. Carrie looked at the rocks. She looked at the control panel above her and checked her readings. Twice. She felt confused. She tapped in the coordinates for Earth’s moon. The image in the viewing chamber shifted out to show the moon. It was definitely Earth’s moon.
“Aspect change to Earth, viewed from lunar surface,” Carrie said. The viewing chamber obeyed and took Carrie to the white powdery surface of the Earth’s moon. There, looking up from its surface, were masses of floating rock.
“Where is the Earth?” Carrie asked.
“Planetary body cannot be found. Gamma radiation detected,” said the calm, female computer voice.
“What?” Carrie said. “What do you mean, it cannot be found?” she asked. “Gamma radiation?” She reached up and tapped some commands into the control panel.
“Computer, show me the last thirty minutes of recorded data,” she said. The images in the viewing chamber froze and went black.
“Time index commencing at three seven,” said the soft, female computer voice, not sharing a hint of the anxiety Carrie was now feeling. The imager came to life, showing the blue rotating Earth.
The Agathon: Book One Page 2
