Can hardly wait, Hayden thought, wincing at a sharp shoulder pain as he still tried to look beyond the shuttle’s lights.
‘I want to see how they built it.’
‘How they built it?’ Kel looked at him with some concern. ‘You will be first getting that shoulder fixed.’
‘Fixed?’ Hayden looked at the bandage covering the searing wound. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think they can do much about this?’
Kel smiled at her Earthling friend.
‘You will see they can do what I tell.’
By now the fissure had opened to a size large enough to fit their ship. Hovering directly above, they again began to descend further.
Hayden took a long, deep breath.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He closed his eyes as they entered. The light emanating from below illuminated the small cockpit warmly.
Unlike Salar-One, Hayden was now on a real other world. Another living, breathing planet. A planet with what he could only imagine to be filled with as strange or stranger life as that on Salar-One.
A planet with customs and a history and despite his painful shoulder wound, despite his family and old friends not being with him, a planet he found himself immensely excited about and not so afraid of because he had Kel with him and the fact that Kuhlians didn’t like Sepians.
Far below them under a strange evening-like light from somewhere, another dark metallic dome, though this one much larger, lay with eight dark tubes spreading from it and continuing for what, from his vantage seemed many kilometres at least and he marveled.
Kel had now left the small bridge in preparation for their landing but Hayden remained most content to look at the strange engineering spread beneath them and beyond.
It was more than impressive. It was incredible.
What exactly he was looking at and what all the tubes were he couldn’t know. He just knew it was all new to him and that hopefully he could explore as much as he could in safety.
He heard something behind him so turned and was met with the ADR-4. It just stood staring as it was always doing. It gave him a fright and he bumped the back of his head against a metallic pillar between the glass panes.
‘He looked bored,’ Kel said reappearing in the cockpit as Hayden rubbed his sore head. ‘- so I brought him to here.’
‘It looked bored? But it’s only got one expression.’
‘Well,’ said Kel. ‘Bored it was.’
The Mechan dwarfed Kel’s small frame. It was one mean-machine with its gun-arm and rockets and everything else it had that Hayden probably wasn’t aware of. He was really glad it wasn’t their enemy though so despite knowing he’d get no reaction, he smiled and carefully tapped its arm to thank it for saving them.
It remained unmoved.
‘We will land at the airport in a short while,’ Kel announced.
‘It’s coming with us?’ Hayden asked, looking the brassy giant over again.
‘Yes, he will be with us.’
‘Won’t he spook them?’
Kel placed her hands on her hips in exasperation.
‘The natives of Kuhl-Agev are not Bilsonian nectar bats.’ Hayden’s long pause clearly revealed to Kel that, unsurprisingly, he had no idea what a Bilsonian nectar bat was. ‘They do not scare easily,’ she clarified as Hayden was considering just what a Bilsonian nectar bat was.
‘Besides, they have scanned our shuttle and know he is here.’
‘Mechans have their own signature?’
‘Yes, and they know we are on board and we are not Sepian so they would trust a mechan soldier with us.’
Hayden recounted the dreadful destruction the mechan had recently meted out.
‘That would be very trusting.’
Kel looked over the instrument panel, checking that the right systems had been shut down then turned as Hayden tapped her shoulder. ‘These Bil - sonian bats?’
Kel’s eyes widened, waiting for this near stranger’s next words.
‘These bats - are they from here?’ He pointed through the floor to the approaching Kuhl-Agev below. ‘Are they big? They scare easily right?’
Kel chuckled as airily and as pleasantly as she had before.
‘You have nothing to fear from nectar bat. They are large but eat only nectar.’
Hayden was relieved.
‘Unless,’ Kel started and Hayden held his breath. ‘You are really a Purple Seed Orchid?’
The shuttle was brought above a broad circular landing pad where upon approach, its hydraulic landing feet lowered for a gentle three-point touchdown, its shock absorbers bracing under its considerable weight. Kel released the vacuum binders for the shuttle door and immediately they heard a sharp hiss as it separated from the fuselage. Shutting down the ship’s few remaining systems, she moved aft toward the exit with Hayden and the mechan following closely.
Looking out from the shuttle doors, Hayden felt as he had on Salar-One but despite the same feeling of excitement and fear, his family and his friends weren’t with him, so this time it was decidedly different. He had Kel, though, and that did mean something. She walked down the fully extended ramp and Hayden followed gingerly. She’d gotten him out of the biggest jam of his life so for however long it was to be that he was away from his family, wherever she went he would follow.
The landing zone was surrounded by very tall walls that were at least twenty metres high but as he looked up, Hayden was surprised to see the night sky. ‘The stars look very clear.’
‘Not stars.’ Kel corrected. ‘Plants grows under tree roots. Light comes from them.’
Hayden was surprised. ‘Do those trees grow on top of the dome?’
‘We are dig-ed under trees.’ Kel replied and Hayden imagined the work it would’ve taken to dig out such an immense area.
At the end of the space the walls narrowed to a large metallic door with fat rivets dotting its borders. It seemed to be the only exit.
The mechan swiveled its head 360 degrees to scan the area as Kel moved forward and Hayden followed. The robot stopped, was satisfied all was good and lumbered hydraulically behind them.
As they neared the door, Hayden could see wonderfully intricate patterns etched into it of tree branches and other organic representations aligned in perfect symmetry. As he traced the leafy patterns down, and followed them as they spread along the bottom of the door, he saw the floors tightly compacted concentric rings.
They were standing on a tree trunk! A gigantic tree trunk so ancient its surface had hardened as dark grey as basalt and was worn to a matte sheen from countless arrivals as the stone had been on Salar-One. Kel started to speak but was interrupted when a small hatch opened from the wall to the left of the door and a dirty white metal orb appeared then floated toward them. Hovering at head height in front of Kel, a dusty white sheath opened abruptly like a single eyelid to reveal a silvery lens and Hayden watched on with fascination. ‘Kun-Jud Tika,’ it said mechanically. ‘Kun-Jud Tika ur ta wandoo?’
‘What’s it saying? ’ Hayden asked edging toward Kel all the while trying to work out how it was actually floating before them.
‘It asks if we are friends of the city and where do we go to?’
‘Ur ka Drak?’ The orb bleeped.
Hayden watched his reflection in the periphery of the orb’s dusty ‘eye’.
‘Wandoo yar Tika,’ she replied confidently. ‘Nug ka Drak.’ Unintelligible though it was to Hayden, he listened intently.
‘Kel Jeles,’ she added pointing to herself.
‘Kel - Jeles,’ the orb repeated with a recording of Kel’s voice as a blue wave flashed across its lens before it floated over to Hayden and once at his eye level, asked what it had asked of Kel. He, much to his embarrassment, actually had to think for a moment what his surname was.
‘ Blake,’ he answered, it feeling a bit odd to hear. ‘Hayden Blake,’ he repeated and the orb then repeated his name in his voice. An orange wave flashed across its lens closely followed by a blue, then the de
vice hovered over to the robot and rose steeply up to its head height. The mechan’s eyes flashed in waves of white and gold and the orb repeated the sequence and ended with a blue wave as with the other two. Hayden was impressed by this protocol.
With no further utterance, the sphere closed its eye then disappeared into the wall where the trapdoor promptly shut.
The travelers had only to wait a few moments before the large door began to creak open revealing what to Hayden looked an awful lot like a subway station. As he was becoming accustomed, he looked at Kel for guidance.
‘This is The Junction,’ she explained ‘Transport here will take us to Tika.’
‘We’re not there yet?’ Hayden was disappointed. ‘How far away is it?’
‘Far.’
He often found Kel’s lack of enthusiasm for answering his questions a little depressing. He didn’t know if it was just the way she was, whether something had made her that way or if it was because he was a stupid alien who knew nothing of her galaxy.
They walked into the station, it was another tree trunk, hollowed out with a glossy floor varnished with what may have been a few hundred coats of clear. Six large steel supports carved with more intricate organic patterns were evenly fixed around the perimeter from the reflective floor to the open roof following the trunk’s shape with several spheres of light at their ends. Hayden stood at the edge of a long platform and swiveled on his heels paying particular attention to the series of tunnels on his left and right. He counted eight. Maybe something flew in through the opening above? He admired how smoothly the tubes were constructed but of what they were, he couldn’t tell.
It all looked so perfect. On the floors in the centre of each of the openings were thick T-shaped constructions that looked like rails. They stood upright a metre or so off the ground and ran from one tunnel to its opposite and beyond, presumably.
Without warning, Kel pulled Hayden backward and as he was righting himself, a smooth glossy, incredibly aerodynamic white train with many round black tinted porthole windows simply appeared before them like some giant albino serpent rushing silently out of its lair then stopping still.
He looked forward of the craft in the vain hope of seeing the driver of the vehicle but was distracted as he observed a series of seemingly invisible carriage doors unseal themselves with a hiss from the fuselage and slide aside tantalizingly to reveal another adventure waiting to be taken. Kel directed Hayden’s attention to a large flat monitor embedded in the far wall that flickered with changing unrecognizable blue electronic symbols. From its position above the platform, Hayden presumed that it was a timetable. ‘You could have been further hurt,’ Kel scolded but with genuine concern in her tone and Hayden apologised.
They entered the cylindrical transport and found themselves, disappointingly for Hayden, alone but for the mechan.
Hayden’s interest was piqued again though when he saw the layout of the carriage. Elongated and sparse but for twin rows of elliptical high-backed chairs. When he’d taken his seat as Kel had, he swiveled completely around in the chair then strapped himself in with a simple, albeit concerning, four point harness as he observed Kel do. Again, the mechan clamped magnetically to the floor.
A familiar whistle blew and the transport headed slowly away from the platform. They must be humanoid - or at least have the requisite nimble fingers and opposable thumbs, Hayden pondered as he scrutinized the engineering. Quite impossible to make something like this with only two fingers or a claw-or a tentacle.
Entering the tunnel he watched as a series of small white lights lining the middle of the walls on either side flashed past faster and faster until after only moments they appeared as one continuous line. Gripping the sides of his chair, Hayden felt for vibrations but could feel none. He looked at Kel who seemed as if she was about to fall asleep and deservedly so. The mechan was physically unmoved and as perfectly still as if they were not moving anywhere at all. He felt as if he wasn’t either until he looked out the portholes.
The ride was unbelievably smooth as he could detect no contact with whatever it was they travelled along. No contact meant no friction and no friction meant the only thing he knew of that this train could be motivated by was Magnetic levitation or Mag-Lev. Magnets were used to barely raise trains off of tracks on Earth in some countries and they travelled very fast. Waves of magnetism were sent down in one direction causing the train to move in that same direction. But he could be wrong. Whatever propulsive technologies they had on Kuhl-Agev, he’d imagine would surpass any Earthly tech. ‘How far again to Tika?’ Hayden asked but Kel didn’t answer this time; she had limitedly reached across and was making use of the downtime, checking the mechan for damage. Hayden didn’t mind, at the rate they were travelling he was sure it wouldn’t be long.
They had been moving for several minutes and they were still in the tunnel. He could see by the humming single line of light outside that they were still moving at a tremendous rate and yet he couldn’t feel it. He surmised that a vacuum was the only way they could be travelling so fast and therefore they must have passed through an airlock and into an airless environment. This combined with the fluctuating magnetic energy meant no drag and so would be responsible for fantastic speeds that theoretically were limitless. At the speed we’re travelling, we must be heading out a very long way. Hayden’s thoughts flicked off the transport.
‘That word - Drak?’ He turned and asked Kel, referring to what the sentry eye had said at the gate.
‘Drak is dark.’
Easy enough to understand, he thought. Kel explained that Kuhlians saw evil as ‘dark’ and of course, wanted none of it.
‘They’re a mystical people then?’
‘No. They believe that all things are connected. If you are good, good things happen. If you are bad -’
‘Karma.’
‘Karma?’
Hayden smiled. ‘It’s what you said.’
Peeling back the sleeve of his top, he looked at his watch.
The transport had sped along swiftly for another five minutes before Hayden realised it had started to decelerate rapidly and they had appeared alongside an earthy platform with a domed roof that this time was bathed in light from massive oddly placed and shaped windows glazed with some thick semi-opaque material lighting the platforms. The architecture was more so than the last station, completely at odds with the slick design of the transport in which they’d arrived.
Kel unclipped her harness and moved toward the door.
‘About time,’ she muttered.
‘You can say that again.’ Hayden agreed then smiled when he had to stop Kel from saying it again. He unclipped his harness and joined her while behind them he heard the familiar thunk as the mechan release its magnetic grip on the floor. They stood momentarily holding onto leather straps that hung from the ceiling. Hayden could only imagine what type of animal gave up its hide for them. The train came to a full stop, the doors slickly opened and they all stepped out. No sooner had they done so when another two transports appeared out of other tunnels and slowed almost instantly to a stop. When their doors opened, the platform was suddenly filled with commuters.
‘I knew it!’ Hayden exclaimed, seeing Kuhlians for the first time and Kel looked at him oddly.
He saw that they were humanoid like him and Kel.
It was the most familiar sight he had seen since he’d left Earth and in fact, excepting the style of transport and the clothing worn, it could easily have been a scene from any one of Earth’s metropolises.
‘We go,’ Kel announced in her usual manner and they followed the natives moving down a winding corridor with more than a few of them turning inquisitively to look at the mechan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As the three walked down the last few metres of the sloping passage behind the other commuters, a bottleneck had formed at the end and while they had to wait as it cleared itself, Hayden noticed that the Kuhlians were quite tall on average, at least judging from the crowd
he now found himself amongst. Craning for a view of what was beyond them, he heard the same language spoken in the throng as he had heard from the little orb and felt himself longing for the day when he could make complete sense of it. The crowd, after some polite maneuvering, had streamed off in different directions and Hayden studied them as they did. Unlike the hordes of varying life-forms on Salar-One, the Kuhlians had no discernibly noticeable features other than their height. Taller for sure than an average adult human.
When all had diverged down the passageway, the magnificent ‘hidden’ city of Tika spread before them and looked to Hayden like a bejeweled blanket tucked into a gigantic bed inside a warm cocoon. Tall spires and towers and domes of varying sizes gleamed and glittered beneath the mysterious bio-light from the massive domed ceiling. Every colour of the spectrum contributed to the remarkable cityscape and it seemed to Hayden as if he were staring into a kaleidoscope. It was a massive and beautiful place, stretching almost beyond view and surrounded by immense walls that disappeared into a hazy distance.
‘How?’ He gushed with astonishment, forgetting the pain in his shoulder completely.
‘Great, yes. Now we must move,’ urged Kel, seemingly unmoved by the spectacle.
The boy from Earth reluctantly tore himself from the view and he and then the mechan followed Kel as she walked toward the edge of another wide tree trunk platform that jutted sharply out at the base of the passage. A massive staircase made of more tree trunk slices stacked on each other, not as big as the landing zone but still big and equally as old with the centres of the steps again worn smooth by countless feet. It was perhaps hundreds of steps to the bottom.
‘You’d think they’d have an elevator,’ Hayden hoped, despite his interest, he was really feeling tired and sore.
Kel didn’t respond, she’d started down three steps, turned to make sure the mechan could manipulate the wooden steps with its large feet and when satisfied it could and easily so, continued. She cautioned Hayden to watch his step.
They all began their descent.
The Blake Equation- Discovery Page 15
