The craft bucked slightly and then the clouds broke and ahead of us was the tower, rising into the sky like a fist raised to the heavens.
“How big is it?” I gasped as it slowly approached, descending towards the island from which it was rising.
“It is just over a mile high.” said auntie as I studied the light on the top of it. It was red and flashed about the island and rivers below, illuminating the foliage and the water and the stone of the island in a way that was reminding me of something.
“It’s a lighthouse.” I said aloud, suddenly realizing what it was I was looking at. “It’s a bloody lighthouse.”
“Well it’s not doing a very good job of keeping the ships away from danger.” said auntie, “Quite the opposite in fact.”
“Exactly the opposite.” I said, employing the gravitational dampeners to slow the glider shuttles descent. The nose rose slightly as we dipped towards the island, and then there were trees, and bushes racing past and I pulled the brakes and the glider fell to the ground, shattering trees and foliage as it landed, skidding across the ground towards the lighthouse, slowing rapidly now and then finally coming to a halt.
“Not bad.” said auntie with admiration.
“Well this is my area of expertise.” I smiled. I have amassed nearly one hundred training hours on these things.
“Gliding hours.” corrected auntie as I popped the canopy and the rich loamy scent of the planet hit my nostrils. I felt dizzy for a second and then it passed. I stood and climbed out then slid over the broken nose of the glider and looked up to the tower which rose impossibly high above me like some sort of sentinel, clawing its way above the clouds towards the heavens and then above that the Austin 3 which had now less than twenty minutes before it began to burn in the atmosphere, and two hundred thousand sleeping colonists and crew along with it too.
I steadied myself, breathing in the rich air and seeing that the single sun was already beginning to set, ran towards the tower.
Scan for an entrance, auntie!” I shouted as I ran. I don’t have time to circle the damned thing. it is huge!
“No need.” said auntie quietly. “The tower is opening up an entrance straight ahead. It is like the rock is forming a door. I have never seen anything like it.”
“Never mind that now.” I said, “Any life signs?”
“Nothing.” said auntie ominously. “Though I am getting multiple energy readings from inside the tower.”
“Energy signals?” I said incredulously, “How many?”
“Millions.” said auntie dreamily, her voice almost full of wonder. “Billions. No. More than that. Oh Kim, it is like counting the stars. Come and see, Kim. Come to the lighthouse and see.”
I raced ahead and the foliage cleared, and i saw an opening in the base of the tower large enough for three of me to walk abreast through, and so I raced forward and through the gap, and the light shot from me as I entered, and floated high up from the ground, leaving my now redundant body behind and then I knew I was home.
“Welcome to the lighthouse.” said a voice that came from everywhere around me. Then another voice. “From where you came.” Then another voice, older and female this time. “So shall you return.”
***
So many voices. I tumbled about the sky, each soul a star that floated around me and I was of them as they were of me, and their knowledge glowed through me, my old crippled and materialistic being a thing of the past. I absorbed their knowledge and remembered who once I had been when I had been sent from this place, a mewling infant on the shores of a pollution ravaged lake in the centre of a country obsessed with standing and money and material gain, and it all meant nothing. Yet I had learnt from these things. I had grown, and seen the depths of a material existence, the lows to which it could plummet, yet also the heights to which it could soar; to aspire to and create. The highs could compose love and song and art and words that would tear your heart in two, and I was stronger, but now I was home again, as all souls would be when they returned to this place.
“They are like gods.” said auntie in my ear, and there was laughter.
‘We created your God, and the gods before them too. The gods of all things and all races flow from this place. You have forgotten much and learnt more, but you will remember. Yes, in time it will all come back to you. You have such joy to discover, so much to remember, to come back to you.”
I was so much more than I was before, and yet I had one last task to perform. One great gift to give to those who were like me, were of me.
“Auntie.” I whispered. “Are you still in touch with the ship's main computer?”
“I have a memory of that but it is fading.” she said.
“They must return to the lighthouse as have we.” I said.
“Ah. The sleepers.”
“Yes. Release them from their sleep auntie. Let them come home.”
“I shall.” she whispered, and the walls of the lighthouse seemed to fade and from the burning ship as it entered the planet’s atmosphere sprung forth the lights of every waking soul, and from the colonist discs’ lights began to pour down from the heavens, pouring down to greet the billions and billions of souls that waited for them to return back from where they came, and slowly the lights poured into the tower, and they were home, coming back once again.
To the lighthouse.
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