“I would hope so, I saw her going in from outside in other videos.” She smiled.
“Maybe I’ll have to go ahead and watch a few. Might learn something, even if I can’t understand it,” I told her.
I think another few weeks went by and Loka said, “Let’s try the Earth door, please? I want to see. We know Earth exists. Humans came here from someplace and now I think I know how.” What could I say? We were here to learn and investigate. A flash of thought crossed my mind, did Cullves make it?
Loka packed our packs with food and water and we each carried a pen thing now. She also took me to a cabinet in the wall and showed me how to open it with a hidden button. It had a dozen pistols and a lot of ammo in it. “Video,” was all she said. The rounds were huge.
When she felt we were ready we went to the bronze door, and she said, “Wait.” And disappeared back the way we came. About five minutes later she was back with the ticker box. “I don’t know what it measures, but it showed the difference between us and Duranu, and he died.”
I grinned. “Smart wife I have.”
“Not too smart. I married you after all.” Her grin thankfully said she was joking.
She showed me the dial again, it had a flip switch. If it was positioned one way the needle barely moved and the scale was different. If she flipped it the other dial had green, then yellow, then red areas. “Green is safe, yellow is warning I think, and red is death. All the bodies and equipment in the yellow room are red. Okay, let’s do this.”
She walked forward through the rock wall into the blackness. As the murkiness disappeared we were at the bronze frame and the beginning of the ice block. She held her pen out and walked—the ice disappeared, and we found ourselves in a rock tunnel. There was a drain in the floor, I guess it caught the water as the ice melted. The tunnel was short and we found at its end another fake door. As we passed through it we were in a huge, as in very big, large, extensive, humongous, room, so long and wide I couldn’t see the walls on any side, just the ceiling. Well, the air was somewhat foggy, like in the early morning coolness after a night of light rain. She checked the box, it was green, but did move some toward the yellow as it clicked. The entire floor was full of tables and strange gear and gizmos whirring and thumping and making noise. Lights blinked on consoles and panels all over the place. Something moved, it was mechanical, a box on wheels and a red light started flashing, so I took Loka’s hand and went back into the doorway and ran down the hall and past the frame. As I did I tried something different. I held the pen and pushed the little red button—instantly the ice was back.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Red, in all their forms it means danger or death. Red lights went off and that robot had a red light on top as well. I think we set off an alarm and we aren’t ready for that. Notice all that equipment there, but nobody around?”
She only pouted a few seconds, and said, “Let’s wait awhile on that one, but I think it is definitely some sort of huge factory or supply center.”
I suggested we try a different door, maybe the one right next to it. She agreed and we were off in a few seconds, she leading with her pen. This time I had one of the strange pistols drawn and ready.
The door dissolved into a sand hill. Sand was everywhere but we saw the water stained and clumped sand where the block had just been. I scanned the area—sand was all I saw. She climbed a nearby hill and I joined her, too easy to get lost here, hill after hill of nothing but hot sand. Nope, we were not staying here, and I told her so. The sky was a weird greenish yellow, and the ticker was up near the yellow scale as well. I made my way back to the door and we were soon back in the room we started from.
“That was nowhere on our planet,” I told her.
“I know, I think each door is some type of passage to a different planet. I know Earth is not us, but someplace far away. Interesting, no?”
I doubt we spent more than two hours so far. “Shall we try a third one then?” I asked.
She nodded.
It was different. We actually came out in a huge tree. A large wooden hut in the top of a huge tree, to be exact. Water from the ice ran down off the sides of the platform. We appeared to be in a large swamp-like area. The air was hot and humid. We seemed safe up here so we stopped to eat while I listened to the world. Birds, creatures and such, all sounded strange as they made their calls of warning, or mating, or death. This exact spot had been in one of the strange videos.
“What now?” I asked.
I don’t know, a short look around and we try another door? This doesn’t look inviting either,” she said.
I studied the platform and the tree. I saw two walkways, one off each side, so I chose one and we went down to the swampy shore.
As I moved along the edge of the swamp I found the ground to vary from sandy, to hard, to soft and muddy, causing us to slip and fall as if we were on ice. We circled back around and came to a wooden ramp, worn smooth. It looked like it was little more than a log split in two and lashed together. Just like those we came down. We worked our way up it and there was another and another. A walkway leading around and up from the swamp lashed to the trees and branches. Soon we were back at the hut.
I had noticed, and pointed out to Loka, the tree looked real but it, the hut, and the platform, were all a type of coated metal. We found recent signs of life—the logs were real wood, and some of the vine ties were recent as well.
“Why would they do that?” she asked.
“Just a guess, the original ‘door’ opened into a tree off the ground. Over time the tree may have died so they replaced it with a metal one? It would mean there may be humans here too.”
We went back through. The ice block would fill the entire hut. Loka wrote notes and placed them by the door. She wrote the other two up as well, placing them by their doors. Eventually, we, or others, would know what waited beyond each door.
We ate and slept when we felt the need, and we explored more doors, most leading to strange lands. We both noted some of the night skies. None were the same.
Our next door of worth brought us out on a little hill. We were in the middle of a screaming snowstorm, then, as it came, it quit. Off in the distance I saw a wrecked space ship. It was smoking and steaming like it just arrived. I had no doubt what it was, but it was unlike anything I had even dreamed of or read of in our books of fiction. Its nose was stuck in the ground. Loka and I discussed it, yes, we would check it out. It was why we were here. If any people would ever die of curiosity it would be us.
We started off in the direction of the ship. It hadn’t looked far, but the wind began screaming. Time crawled about as fast as our progress felt.
We had been out there for hours, but I sensed we were getting close. I felt it more than seeing anything in that blank canvas of white… The snow was deep, over my head in spots where it had been drifting. Loka was seldom more than a step behind, holding her rope to me tight as we plodded on. My hands were getting numb and my feet had long ago left the land of the living. We were not in our cold climbing gear.
We finally topped the little hill. What, six hours to go—a mile and a half, two miles at the most? As we moved down the other side of the hill the wind was partly blocked. Not much but some. Jeez.
A short lull revealed the ship was close now, less than a couple hundred feet. The rear side of the hill had less snow and almost no drifts so we made good time.
It was bent in front of the hatch. I think maybe three feet of it was stuck in the frozen ground. It had six massive engines in two rows of three in the back. Except where it was buckled, the skin was so shiny and deep you wanted to reach into its depths. The back end stood almost straight up.
We went to the hatch and I finally found how to open it against the wind, which was back with a vengeance. I climbed inside behind Loka and the hatch slammed shut. I smelled cool air, but it had that acid smell of blood. I couldn’t see anything and slipped on the floor as I cleared the hatchway. I fell down a
nd slid forward toward the nose, coming to rest against a metal chair. I told Loka to stay put. I realized it was warm enough in here that my hands started to tingle from thawing out a bit. I took off a glove and felt forward and around. Yes, it was a chair. There were a few little lights, some in front and a few further back along the walls in various spots—most were red, a few green and a few yellow. All were so small you couldn’t see by them, but enough light came you saw some shadows were not as dark as others. The chair had someone in it. I carefully pulled myself up as I felt it. It felt like us, male from the beard, and dead. A good portion of the top of the head was missing. I felt the squish as my hand hit his brains and I instinctively wiped it off on my pants, yet I still saw nothing. I could now smell the blood quite clearly. This was all very real and very recent.
Turns out his chair was further back than most of the little lights and I moved forward and found two more chairs, one left side and one right, both occupied as well. I fell against the right chair and found it was a woman as my hand ran over her breast. She was almost naked. As I felt her head, the angle told me she had a broken neck. She was getting cold so she was also dead.
The left seat was occupied by a male. He had something metal sticking all the way through him and out his back. It was covered with warm blood. I suspected it wasn’t supposed to be there either.
His head was lolling forward so I pulled it back and he moaned. He was alive! I told him to hold on, I would try to see if I could do anything.
He heard me and said something.
Loka came up and turned on a memory stick as he repeated it several times. As he said that his hand moved a little knob and real lights came up a little. He tried to speak some more, but would never finish.
“See?” Loka said, “You can almost understand him too.”
“Maybe you can, I don’t.” I lied—she was right, almost, as if it was there for the understanding, sitting just out of reach.
I saw the knob he had been trying to turn so I moved it a bit more and could see quite well.
He was tall, bronze skinned, and blond haired. The woman was also bronze skinned but had black hair. I’d heard of them. Quite beautiful in a dead kind of way. They were called humans. The guy missing most of his head was darker skinned with brown hair. Loka said she felt sick.
I started climbing up to the back. After I cleared the chair by the hatch, I grabbed a table or counter mounted to the floor across from it and had put my now painfully burning foot on the chair by the hatch. It slipped in blood. I slammed into the console in front of him. I heard a squeak and a few pops, then nothing. I knew nothing about these things and hoped it didn’t explode.
I finally managed to get a solid hold on the counter and pulled up the slope. Using the chair again, I grabbed the other side of the table and pulled myself up to it. I tried putting my foot on the floor and it slipped and I cussed.
A female voice said something over a speaker. I heard it but no clue what it was saying. Loka said, “We don’t understand you. We found this ship in the snow and are trying to see if we can help.”
“They are all dead, I am trying to get to the back to see if there are more,” I told her/it? Sounded mechanical.
I heard a few things then a valid and clear, “Test, test. Can you understand this?”
Loka smiled and said, “Yes, we understand that.”
“Please identify yourselves,” she said.
“We saw your crashed ship and came to see if we could help. The guy in the left front chair said something and died, other two are also dead and I am trying to get to the back to see if anyone is alive.”
“Please identify yourselves, you are using a language from antiquity. My scan shows you are not crew, so again, please identify yourselves.”
“I am Aelfrice Brokk Eldon Gnoth and this is my wife Loka Dulcina Fay Gnoth. We are from a planet we call Olgreender.”
Loka told it a brief history of our trip to the ledge then the doors and the storm, the ship, and our battle to get here. It seemed satisfied.
“Checking onboard systems, wait one please?” she asked. “They call me Lucinda, Lucy for short. Onboard AI. Yes, we were attacked. Final approach, storm, explosions above, main comp damaged, I was initiated too late, crash,” she said.
“Well, I can vouch for the storm anyway, it is nasty outside,” I told it.
“Wasn’t the storm that downed us.” I saw some of the red lights turn yellow and some yellow turn green. “Please hang on to something, I am going to level the ship.”
I heard loud noises, like the swish of our engine exhausts on our tractors under full power, then bang, slam. The main ship was now level and the nose was up high in the air, blood started running down to the floor now and I thought Loka was going to get sick.
“I lost some of my sensors,” it said. “You came through an Honor Gate? I thought they had all been destroyed after we found the Morant Küchenschabe. Well, rather they found us.”
“Sorry, never heard of them,” I told her.
“Loose translation is those strangers who come to stay, big cockroaches that eat most animals, like humans.
“Many years ago one of our gate teams opened a gate to another galaxy and went through. They were never seen again, but the horde of Morant Küchenschabe that came back, as in millions of them, were quite pesky. They wiped out many planets including the original earth. They continue to do so today. We found they didn’t like cold and we already used the ice fields to shield the Honor Gates—they can’t get through unless we have them open. That was almost 1900 years ago. We deactivated all the F/F reactors which killed the warp fields and closed the gates. We started battling back, been doing it since, and losing. My records indicate all the reactors had been shut down.”
Loka took over and between telling what we found and where, of the yellow door and such, the computer we now called Lucy was quite impressed we had done so well on our own and managed to stay alive.
“Well, to start, your door writings. I have record of GMT2, it was lost. We have always had some disappear, hostile planet, some demise or another, but usually they are backtracked. For some reason his wasn’t. Lucky me.
“Steve Smalls was in charge and Diboca Honor was lead scientist. She and her husband developed the gates, but he died on their first trip. GMT meant Galactic Mapping Team. They were the earliest pioneers. Nine teams formed initially and went out after the first one, eight came back. Smalls’ was listed as lost.
“Let’s see, the 371734LY is the Light Years from earth so he went quite far for his time. System 12 means he had hopped to there through eleven other system cores—I have a list of them. A core is where you jump and find enough livable systems within the parameters of the reactor power and establish links, or doors to them from that core. Each reactor could build and sustain a maximum of 20 doors counting the earth link. It is a bit complicated, but they would use a reactor to create a random space fold, which could be traveled, a door if you will. The way they built the system, it would only open on a minimal life sustainable planet, it might be on for several months as it searched space near wherever it came out, looking for a planet. You could specify a large sector of space to search but could not specify an individual system. If the team found one that looked promising a portable reactor system was moved in and set up. The door to Earth closed and the reactor would open as many ports to livable planets as it could support, twenty max. Then the team would travel through one of those to a new planet further out and repeat the process. In each case, the portal originally used to establish a new center was closed so the reactor could establish its own random set of new doors.
“Portal 17 is but the door number—as stated the max would be twenty.
“Once a core and its doors were established as viable it would get a special link to old Earth. In theory, all cores went to old Earth and no core went to another core after initial development. This gave control to Earth and prevented hopping from core to core by thieves or, as it tu
rned out, bad things. When the MK came we barely got most cores shut down, but the MK got through to more than a few. I suspect hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions died as food for them, galaxy wide.
“Oh, before I forget, the MK were the result of our first attempt to jump beyond our galaxy, and our last.” Lucy was silent for a minute.
“Loka, you say there was a bronze door to Earth?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, things moved, machines with red lights and horns were sounding so we went back and put the door ice back up,” she explained.
“Good, again your luck holds. Guard robots from the sound of it. Nothing lives on Earth anymore, maybe a few billion MK’s but we don’t yet know what they eat after all the food is gone—maybe each other?” Lucy sighed.
“Well, I do know you need to go back. I must destroy myself and this ship. The storm will not last a few more hours, then they will come looking for food and you must be gone.”
“They? The MK things you speak of?” I asked.
“Yes, I wish I could get a message out, but I can’t fly and there are no tachyon paths near here.
“Quickly, tell me of your origin beliefs,” Lucy said.
Loka filled Lucy in on our beliefs. “Many thousands of years ago we were monkeys living on the ground and in trees. The tall, thin ones were Elves who lived in the trees. We are each half Elf.
“The shorter and stronger ones were Dwarfs who lived in caves. There were others, most long gone now. Um, Gnomes, Dragons, Orcs, Trolls. We evolved with time and then the humans came from Gods-Cut Castle and mated with us, and gave us intelligence, and we now slowly become one.”
“Different anyway. Darwin’s theory on human evolution is wrong, we are not yet sure what is right. All the planets we have found with intelligent life have been populated with DNA compatible humanoid types. Different sizes, colors, looks, whatever, but always still human. Our entire Galaxy is close to being, at least cursorily, explored and there is no difference. Only when we went to another galaxy did it clearly become non-human.
A Planet's Search For History Page 3
