Alec's Dream

by Dave Birchbauer

  * * * *

  Despite her strange encounter with Chander the night before, Jessie couldn’t help but enjoy her breakfast of honey bread and a drink tasting of coffee and cinnamon. Sofie sat next to her at a long table that was set near the cavern’s front entrance. Leland, Jade and Phyllis quietly talked across from them.

  “They kind of look like wraiths.” Sofie said as she watched the Cheorgh busily walking about carrying the same baskets and sacks from the night before. Their movements were stiff, but somehow graceful at the same time.

  “I think you mean sprites or elves... wraiths are ghosts.” Jessie corrected watching them entering and exiting the forest; seeming to appear and disappear at its edge. “Elves, they definitely look like wood elves.” Jessie concluded.

  “I wonder what all those pipes are about.” Phyllis pointed across the lake at the rows of huge ductwork-like tubes extending up from the lake into the rock ceiling above.

  “Those pipes carry water to the top of the cliff, where the rivers and streams begin.” Chander’s voice came from the cavern’s darkness behind them. “I feel you have some questions for me, let us sit and talk.” he took one of the empty chairs.

  “The most pressing question we have is… can you help us get off this ship?” Leland asked.

  “I am afraid that I cannot help you there, as you see, we unfortunately do not have access to this ships technology. It seems that we are very much like prisoners here.” Chander answered.

  Jessie wanted to ask if that key he had could help them, but kept quiet.

  “We searched the area around our ship hoping to find some sort of controls to open up the doors we came in.” Leland continued his questioning. “Do you know of any controls? They would most likely look like big metal boxes.”

  Chander shook his leafy head. “We know of no such devices in the forests. The ships technologies do not fare well in our forests.”

  “Can you tell us how we can get into… no, I mean, out of this portion of the ship, into an area where we could possibly find what we need?” Leland continued.

  “There are doors along the side walls.” He pointed to the ships sections sides. “They are locked to us. It may be possible that these controls you speak of may be behind them.” Chander was turning out to be very unhelpful.

  “You said you were gardeners... just what do you do here?” Jade changed the subject.

  “Our planet was visited by the Kan-ji a very long time ago… and in time we became their… ah, you might call us servants. They have found us useful because of our relationship with nature. Our home planet supplies much food and supplies for the Kan-ji, while some of us are chosen to manage the plant life of these ships.” The leafy sound of his voice grew sullen. “We are not fighters, but we are long lived. Someday they will grow bored of our planet and forget us.”

  “Why is this ship here? What is it for?” Phyllis asked.

  “I know they are angry, all of them. They are looking for the spring that feeds their anger, so they can stop it.” Chander said.

  “Angry at what? Why are they here?” Leland asked.

  “This ship is called a Seeker. There are many of them spread throughout the galaxy. They are seeking the source of their anger.” Chander answered. “I cannot tell you much more about the Kan-ji as they treat us like insects and kill us for no reason if we are spotted. All we know is what we overhear.”

  “I am sorry about your dilemma... of you being prisoners here… But we are not going to accept being prisoners on this ship.” Leland said angrily. “With or without your help, we will find a way off, and if you people want to join us you are welcome.”

  “Do not worry about us. Our destiny is at hand thanks to you.” He nodded at Jessie. “As for help, we can provide you with provisions and a guide to the side wall. But as I said, we do not understand this ships technology and cannot be any help once you find it.” Chander stood, ending the conversation. Another Cheorgh approached with a basket filled with more fruits, vegetables and loaves of bread. They gratefully loaded their packs.

  Leland declined Chander's offer of a guide when he found that a path leading to the wall followed along the base of the cliff. By his estimation, the ships wall was barely three miles away and figured it shouldn't take more than an hour or so to get there. As they were about to set out, Jessie looked back to see Chander watching her and as their eyes met, he smiled and waved like old friends. She sheepishly smiled back.

  With the forest to their left, they walked in uneasy silence along the base of the cliff, and as there were no streams or rivers to cross, they made good progress. “I guess they're not following us.” Sofie broke the silence. “I don't think we have to worry about them listening, do we?” They had been continually checking the forests edge, half expecting to see a tree stepping out. Jessie never bothered to look, knowing the Cheorgh had other plans.

  “I would agree.” Jade said. “It does feel like they're standing behind every tree listening to every word we say.”

  As they drew near the wall they stopped at a small circle of stones to rest and grab something to eat. “What do you see?” Sofie quietly asked Jessie who was facing the cliff wall staring at some faded markings.

  “Those symbols look familiar... I'll tell you about them later.” Jessie whispered then turned her attention back to her fruit.

  Leland stood and stretched. “Well, is everyone ready to head out?”

  Jade and Phyllis stood tossing their scraps into the forest behind them. Jessie and Sofie grabbed their backpacks.

  “Ouch!” Jessie groaned tripping over a broken rock next to the path. She sat rubbing her ankle.

  “You OK?” Jade asked kneeling down next to her.

  “Yea” Jessie tried getting up then fell back to her knees. “I’m good… I just need to walk on it a little…. ow”

  “It doesn’t look broken. I don’t think there’s any real damage.” Jade furrowed her brows examining her ankle again.

  “Maybe you should wait here while we check out the wall.” Leland said. “Jade, do you want to stay here?”

  “Sofie can stay.” Jessie said wincing as she sat back on her rock.

  “Well, you should be safe here.” Leland looked around. “If you think there’s trouble, head back to the Cheorgh camp. We shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”

  Jessie and Sofie nodded as they watched Leland, Phyllis and Jade walk away down the path toward the wall. Sofie sulked silently until they were out of sight. “OK, what’s the deal?” She said kicking Jessie in her ankle.

  “Oooww” Jessie meant it this time.

  “So what’s going on? Don’t you want to go with them? How come you faked spraining your ankle?”

  Jessie reached in her backpack and pulled out the ball Chander gave her the night before.

  “Did you steal it?”

  “No! That Chander guy gave it to me after you went to bed last night.” Jessie said offended.

  “Why would he do that? Come to think of it, he did seem to take a little interest in you, didn't he?” Sofie gave her a curious look. “I just thought that you reminded him of one of his tree friends.” She added.

  “It was strange… he said it was given to him a long time ago, and that he was instructed to give it to me.” Jessie said then told her the rest of her story.

  “Wait, how long ago?” Sofie stopped her.

  “Something about 2 lifetimes of the Kan-ji; those are the aliens who built this ship.” Jessie replied struggling to recall her conversation.

  “If the Kan-ji live as long as us... say about 80 years… that would be 160 years! Wow, that's how long the Cheorgh have been on this ship.” Sofie calculated.

  “He said the Kan-ji live twice as long as us.” Jessie corrected.

  “Whew, that would be 320 years.”

  “He said they were waiting for me... and after giving me this ball he said they can now go home.” Jessie finished.

  Sofie examined
the ball, then the symbols on the cliff wall. Giving Jessie a sideways glance she ran to the wall and brushed the dirt away. There were dozens of carved symbols filling a three foot square.

  “Some of these symbols are the same as the ones on the ball.” Sofie said rolling the stone in her hand. “I wonder if this is some sort of key.”

  Jessie perked up after studying it again. “Not some, all! It looks like all of those symbols are on the wall.” She stepped back to get a better look at the wall. “It almost looks like a word search.”

  “What are you doing?” Sofie asked watching Jessie touch and push at the carved symbols.

  Jessie gave an impish grin. “I thought that maybe there's a secret code or something.”

  Sofie examined the ball again.

  “I wonder why that one’s circled.” Jessie said looking over Sofie’s shoulder at one of the odd symbols circled in white.

  “I got it! These symbols, they stick out, they’re not carved!” Picking the circled symbol, she placed it against its counterpart on the wall. “It fits perfectly.”

  Jessie watched in anticipation… nothing. “What do you think will happen?”

  “I don't know, maybe a treasure or something…word search... you know that's a good idea.” Sofie stepped back. “We just need to search for a word.”

  “How about…” Jessie picked up a stick and started scratching the symbols from the stone into the sand on the ground. There were 6 symbols in all; front, back, top, bottom, left and right. She wrote two 4 character words starting with the circled one. The first one made from the symbols circling around the top, the second from the symbols circling sideways.

  “How do you know if those symbols are right side up?” Sofie asked.

  “Duh! I just look at the ones on the wall. They’re all right side up.” Jessie grinned.

  “I knew that.” Sofie quipped and picked up another stick then searched the symbols on the wall for the matching words. Jessie jumped forward determined not to let Sofie find the first word. Sofie still found it with Jessie coming in second... finding one just a moment later. They scratched circles around each word they found and it wasn't long before 14 words were circled.

  “I can't find any more, can you?” Sofie asked.

  Jessie, chewing on her tongue as she concentrated on the wall shook her head. “Me neither. I only found 5. Now what do we do?”

  Taking the ball back, Sofie rolled the ball over a circled 'word'.... and waited… and tried again and again, for all the 'words'.

  “Nothing.” she sat in frustration. Jessie started randomly rolling the ball over the circled symbols while chewing on her lip.

  “What if the words don’t stop at 4 symbols?” Jessie wondered. “See, after you read the last letter.” she traced her finger over the front, right, back then left symbols, then traced up and down after that.

  “Oh, I see, you can go from top, to front, then left, then top, any direction.” Sofie said… then looked depressed. “There must be hundreds of combinations; we'll never get them all.”

  “Not really, all we need to do… is for each circled word, just look for matching adjacent symbols.” Jessie concentrated on the wall again, surprising Sofie with her use of the word 'adjacent'. Sofie joined her, and it wasn't long before they found about 5 more combinations off the circled words.

  “Boy, I would have thought that there'd be more.” Sofie said as Jessie rolled the ball over the new multi-directional words. Again nothing happened.

  “I wish we knew what was supposed to happen.” Jessie said trying to find combinations they might have missed.

  “What about partial words?” Sofie asked. “Like there.” she pointed to a vertical circled word in the center of the puzzle. “You can go upward from the first letter in addition to downward.” They both realized that instead of 4 symbol words, they could have up to 7 symbol words that wrap around... or just words that can start with any symbol. After studying the symbols on the wall, they realized that they just needed a partial word of the 7 symbols, like if you had the following letters; A, B, C, D, E, F, G, you could have ABCD, BCDE, CDEFGA... just as long as the symbols were adjacent to each other on the ball. This time they worked at modifying the circled words by extending the circles to contain all the concatenated symbols. After half an hour they sat down satisfied with their work.

  “Do you think everyone’s OK?” Jessie asked looking down the path where Leland, Jade and Phyllis had gone.

  Sofie didn't respond… she just looked down the path saying a silent prayer. Jessie put her arm around her and joined in.

  “That looks like a 'J'.” Sofie said looking up at the wall at a pattern of words in the middle of the puzzle.

  Jessie stared with her mouth hanging open. “Do you think?” She picked up the ball and nervously stepped to the wall. Hesitantly she rolled its matching symbols over the 'J'. This time they heard a series of clicks. Their eyes caught a slight movement off to their right as a rocky portion of the cliff wall gently pulled away.

  “This is definitely getting weird.” Jessie said walking to the opening.

  “Wow, the only way you could see this door is if you were standing by the puzzle.” Sofie grabbed their backpacks.

  “Maybe we should leave one behind, in case they come back while we're in there.” Jessie recommended.

  “Maybe we should wait for them to come back.” Sofie said after dropping her pack back down. They looked at each other, then at the opening… Jessie swallowed hard and stepped in.

  The ancient room smelled musty with a trace of ozone. Dust covered what could have passed for old science fiction movie props. Unpowered control panels filled with analog gauges and dials, switches and buttons. Naked picture tubes attached to typewriter style keyboards lined 2 of the walls. A row of book cases were stacked along the back with the only light coming from the opening they had just entered.

  “This is a bust.” Sofie looked around. “It looks like a long lost storage room, a dump.”

  “I don't think it’s a storage room.” Jessie said. “A storage room wouldn't have chairs in front of those panels.”

  Sofie, for the first time looked down to see small stools bolted to the floor, spaced evenly along the control consoles.

  “Something else seems familiar.” Jessie slowly walked to an empty bookshelf at the back of the room. She let out a small gasp seeing a pair of dirty marks on the floor.

  “What is it?” Sofie asked as she walked up behind her looking curiously at the marks.

  Jessie put her feet on them and hesitantly reached out with her right hand and placed it on the inside wall. Holding her breath, she almost hoped she was wrong but after a few moments, the back wall of the book case began shimmering; revealing a simple lever, aglow in a red light.

  “Jessie?” Sofie asked reaching for the lever.

  “No wait.” Jessie held her arm back. “This is just like the lock my dad put on his secret lab.”

  “Huh?”

  Jessie reached out and put her hand on the lever and nervously held it there until the red light turned green. Looking at Sofie, she grimaced and gave it a pull. The bookshelf to her left silently swung out.

  “How could that be?” Sofie whispered, astonished.

  “Only me... and my dad know how that lock works. I can’t believe that those aliens could have built this.” Jessie looked at the antique control panels on the side walls. “There’s no way they could.”

  Taking hold of Sofie's hand, she entered the newly exposed room… knowing how ridiculous it was to hope that her dad would be there waiting. It was empty, except for a huge stone chair in its center. The room lit only by a small bulb wrapped in a wire cage above it. The chair looked like a wide armed throne made for a giant. The rest of the room was bare, even its walls were smooth rock.

  After walking around the room, Sofie said. “There’s nothing here. Maybe we missed something in the other room.” she returned to the control room leaving Jessie alo
ne.

  Jessie stood in front of the chair staring at it. All she could think about was that lock; it was built with their anti-gravity technology. Only she and her dad knew how to build it. There has to be something special about the chair. Why would a lock that only she knew how to operate be guarding it? Maybe it was a way to get back home, like that stick Chander had!

  She slowly sat on it while gingerly sliding her hands over its arms. Feeling a soft spot with her right hand, she wiped away the loose sand to uncover a small depression. Examining it, she almost froze in astonishment as engraved in the bottom of the depression was a familiar symbol. Looking at her stone confirmed her suspicion… the symbols matched. Her mind began spinning. That ‘J’ on the key pad puzzle, Chander waiting for her, acting like he knew her, her dad’s door lock and now this chair… it had to be more than a coincidence. Knowing what she had to do, she placed the stone ball in the depression, lining up the symbols.

  The chair instantly dissolved and with nothing to grab onto, she sank into it until she was fully suspended inside. Panic grew with each failed attempt at wriggling out. Pausing to gather her wits she looked around the room and saw it was still empty. She wanted to yell for Sofie and realized she was holding her breath. She cautiously took a small breath. Surprised by the feel fresh air, she took a deeper one, followed by another, then another and began to relax. Soon an overwhelming sense of calmness washed over her as her eyelids started feeling heavy. She tried fighting it, but soon became too tired to continue and let them close.

  She fell into a strange dream, or dreams; of alien symbols flying by, scenes of the giant ship they were in along with thousands of its construction plans and schematics. There were visions of the Cheorgh; their speech and voices sounding of rustling leaves. There were other human-like aliens, speaking with strange, sing-songy, yet harsh voices. The dreams seemed to go on for days, and when they finally ended, she woke feeling drained... definitely not refreshed like one normally feels after a long sleep. As her senses returned, she found she was sitting back on the rock chair again, shaking and confused.

  “No... “ She said under her breath looking at the pile of sand under her hand where the rock ball had been. It was gone, the key to their escape!

  “What???” she gasped as she noticed that the strange symbols of the ball had somehow transferred to her hand; wrapping it and her wrist while giving off a greenish-gold glow in the dim light of the room. She tried rubbing them off, but they seemed to be part of her skin, like a tattoo. The more she tried, the more they glowed. She reached in her backpack for a bottle of water to try washing it off when she heard voices coming from the other room. They sounded like the familiar sing-songy voices of her dreams.

  “You, girl, stay...” they said. She sprung from the chair to the other room and found it empty. The voices came from outside and she started toward the hidden door and as she was about to step out, it silently shut… locking with a soft click. The voices, along with the light, vanished leaving her standing alone in the darkness. As though back in her dream, she felt herself reach out and flip a toggle switch on the side of one of the control consoles. Lights flickered on. She curiously noticed that the switch she flipped was not a lone switch, but one out of many, in rows filling the entire side of a control panel. A part of her mind watched curiously as her body seemed to move on its own flipping more switches. The hum of power flowed through the panels and the antique TV tubes began giving off soft green glows as the room came to life.

  Like a spectator, she watched as she stepped to another panel and typed into one of the odd looking keyboards. Pictures of the camp site just outside appeared on one of the screens. As though not satisfied, her body walked over to yet another panel and after adjusting a dial, sound was added to the scenes playing out on the monitors.