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T. Lucas Earle
* * *
“Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;
We are reconciled, and the first view shall kill
All repetition: let him not ask our pardon;
The nature of his great offence is dead,
And deeper than oblivion we do bury
The incensing relics of it.”
-’illian Shakes’eare
* * *
PART I
Kessler dreamt of his world freezing in the void, silent and lifeless. He awoke in a strange mood that morning and climbed down from his house to watch the cattle sleep. They twitched and moaned in the half-light of dawn. It was comforting to him to know that even on this strange planet, everyone dreamed. Even the beasts.
A villager quietly emerged from the mist and approached the sleeping cattle. He patted one of them until it awoke. He guided the creature out of the pen and gave Kessler a solemn nod as he walked it toward the slaughterhouse. The beast gazed at Kessler with dull eyes and did not look away until it disappeared into the mist. Kessler sighed and climbed back into his house. He couldn’t bring himself to eat breakfast that morning.
As the sun rose and the village came to life, Kessler stayed in his room, poring over glyphs, trying to decipher the language of the Ancients, hoping to uncover the elusive past of this glorious planet. The hours slipped by, until Kessler received word from a colleague that he was needed at a new excavation located some distance from the village. He collected his tools and a few reference documents, then promptly jumped out the window.
High above the forest bed, Kessler free fell for a moment before unfolding his wings and gliding through the forest, deftly dodging trees and branches. He alternated between gliding through the canopy and leaping along the forest bed, until he reached his destination.
The trees abruptly gave way to a grassy clearing. It was midday and the sun had burned away the morning mist. He shielded his eyes and looked up. A massive ruin stood before him, a long towering block leaning to one side, covered in vines, gray and crumbling in the hot sun—an ancient behemoth being wrestled to the ground, strangled by the foliage.
Kessler approached the team of scientists congregated around the base of the monument. He recognized most of them from previous excavations: Hissun, the engineer; Ki’en, the archaeologist, accompanied by his team; and his friend and neighbor, Ti’ek, the resident xenobiologist, who noticed Kessler first and bobbed his head to greet him. Kessler bobbed back and approached the group. Ki’en’s team busied themselves, setting up tents and unloading equipment from their vehicles. Ti’ek lifted his tail, affectionately swatting Kessler’s side as Kessler inspected the building closely. It was so weatherworn there was very little chance any glyphs were left intact on the structure. But Ti’ek seemed quite excited as he led Kessler into the ruins.
They approached a long descending shaft, half bouncing, half gliding down it until they reached the bottom. This was the largest ruin Kessler had ever seen.
They crawled through the tunnels dug by Ki’en and his team before emerging into a chamber bursting with energy and motion. The commotion seemed to be focused around the far wall of the chamber, where there stood a strange blue and white metal panel flush with the chamber wall, edged with glowing fluorescent strips.
Kessler had no idea what the object was, but he gathered it was something important. Ki’en explained that the panel was a door. And, because the hatch was completely sealed, Ki’en speculated the chamber beyond was most likely airtight, perfectly preserved. Ki’en’s team had found a geothermal power generator below the cavern. Whoever made this room had wanted it to stand the difficult test of time. Kessler approached the door with reverence. He hoped there would be some intact glyphs preserved within the chamber.
Sessek, the engineer, was working with his team on severing the door’s power supply in order to turn off the magnetic lock. Neither Ti’ek nor Kessler could contribute much to the procedure, so they crouched in the corner and attempted to contain their excitement.
Whatever lay behind this door had been waiting a dozen lifetimes to be found.
The panel slid into the wall, releasing a powerful gust of frigid air and bathing the cavern in a majestic white light. The group squinted into the chamber. They approached the door, carefully stepping into the room beyond. It was alive with mechanical equipment, blinking and pulsing. Its technology, advanced—its purpose, unknown.
They proceeded through the sterile white chamber, wingtips twitching nervously, tails raised and alert. No one spoke.
Through a side door, Kessler found a long room. Blocks of varying color were lined up in horizontal compartments along the wall. Kessler examined one cautiously, running his hands along its smooth surface. It was covered in unfamiliar glyphs. The object was topped with a hard flap. He pulled it back and beneath it were thousands of glyphs on thin layers of parchment. The awe nearly toppled him. Each and every block on the wall was filled with glyphs. Each one was packed with knowledge, bursting with hidden histories. Ti’ek stood next to him, occasionally clicking, as Kessler inspected each layer of thin parchment. Ti’ek asked what the glyphs meant. Kessler told him he had no idea.
Then Hissun’s hand was on Kessler’s shoulder, and he was being led to the entrance of another room where the engineers and architects were huddled, staring at rows of white pods.
At first, no one spoke. But every one of them knew what these pods were. The Ri’ik had slept in them for centuries as they sailed through the stars from their old, dying world to this vital new one. These were hibernation pods.
There could be no doubt these pods were built by the Ancients. And inside each pod was a creature, they presumed an Ancient, with the answers to a thousand questions.
Hissun, Sessek, and Ti’ek spent the remaining daylight hours and many of the sunless ones examining the technological differences between these pods and the Ri’ik’s own. They began the cycling down process slowly with just one pod, picked at random, so as to safely awaken its inhabitant. Most of the team slept in the cavern, where they could set up heating units without worrying about damaging the find.
Kessler would not be separated from his work, so he slept in the hall of documents, wrapped in layers of heated blankets. He had spent so much of his life digging through the faded remnants of an ancient language, and yet, surrounded by millions of glyphs, he felt suddenly out of his depth. What would these glyphs sound like, spoken aloud? Would he even be able to hear the sounds? Perhaps the Ancients communicated with frequencies the Ri’ik could not perceive. Kessler’s mind squirmed under the enormity of it all. He fell asleep with the irrational hope that the glyphs would somehow leak out from their bindings in the night and permeate his dreams, filling his mind with the wisdom of days long past.
The next morning, he immediately began poring over the documents. He couldn’t decipher the symbols yet, but they were familiar in their general design, if not pattern. He constantly referred to his notes, matching each glyph with the few intact glyphs from other finds. It was Ti’ek’s chirp that finally broke his concentration. He was crouched at the doorway, explaining that the awakening process was starting. Kessler leapt up, still clutching the document he had been examining.
Kessler watched, transfixed, as Hissun and Ti’ek slowly opened a pod. Strands of a gooey substance spilled out as the pod was pulled apart, leaving the creature within lying in a puddle at its base. The ancient monitoring equipment, as well as the Ri’ik’s, hummed, telling everyone that the creature was alive.
As the last of the viscous substance ebbed away, a silence fell upon them.
Of all the theories Kessler and his colleagues had debated about the Ancient Ones, this was the one they had never entertained.
It was a cow.
One of the scientists, an engineer, actually wagged his tail.
Kessler saw the humor. That was, until the creature began to howl. It was a horrible, ear-splitting sonic explosion. And while disorientation was not unexpected, given the recent awakening of the animal, it was still rather alarming.
Quickly, Ti’ek and another biologist approached the animal with sedatives. The creature, though still sluggish, was surprisingly strong and managed to ram the other scientist, sending him tumbling into the far wall. But Ti’ek’s syringe found a home in the beast’s back, dropping it to the floor. The whole group of scientists pushed in while Ti’ek made sure it was not injured as it lay before them, breathing shallowly. It was not unconscious, only weakened.
It was a female, but it was bigger than the other cows. Its face was longer, and its eyes were larger, brighter, shockingly aware, and terrified. And it was making noises—noises unlike any they had ever heard a cow make. Ti’ek prepared more sedatives while Kessler listened to the incapacitated beast. The sounds it made involved a motion with its lips that Kessler had never seen before. Ti’ek swooped in with another syringe and crouched by the beast, but before he could level the syringe, Kessler’s tail landed heavily across Ti’ek’s chest. Kessler’s wings spread protectively over the cow, and he screeched for his colleagues to stop. They retreated instantly, and looked on as he dropped to all fours and looked into the beast’s eyes.
It was speaking.
The other scientists fell silent and listened to the creature. It was undeniable. The sounds had repeating patterns. It wasn’t mewling, or whimpering, like the other cattle. It was speaking. But how could a cow speak? They had been dwelling alongside the beasts for decades now, and the creatures showed a pronounced lack of communicative or even cognitive skills.
Yet there she lay, speaking, pleading with them. Then, without warning, she stopped and looked directly at Kessler, who was still clutching the ancient document to his chest.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment before Kessler, remembering his training, placed his hand on his head. “Kessler,” he said, simply.
The creature paused. Then it placed a pale paw on its upper torso and uttered a single word.
“Human.”
* * *
KESSLER SAT ACROSS from the cow and watched as she inspected the glyphs on the hibernation pods.
She was refined, delicate even, for such a large and peculiarly proportioned animal. She opened a cubby and took out fabrics, which she wrapped around herself. She glanced at Kessler periodically as she went about investigating the pods. Cows couldn’t understand the simplest tools. It was odd—even humorous—watching one operating advanced machinery.
Kessler had persuaded the scientists to allow him to spend some time alone with the beast, to try to communicate without the distraction of the others. So far, the plan seemed to be working. She spoke often; although Kessler couldn’t understand what she was trying to communicate. He tried speaking back, but she understood nothing. Kessler tried pointing at objects in the room and saying their names, but she didn’t respond. So, instead, he opened his bag, where he had stored the document he had been studying earlier, and presented it to her.
She looked at it for a long moment. Then she opened it and sat down on the floor. As she examined the glyphs, she wiped moisture from her eyes, and her breathing became quite labored.
Kessler cautiously approached her. She did not react. He crawled next to her and looked at the parchment she was inspecting. She lifted the thin sheet and moved it to the left. He observed her eye movements. She was clearly reading the glyphs from left to right. Finally, Kessler worked up the courage to point, first at one glyph, then another, and another. She looked at him and he at her, his thin finger tapping the parchment. Then she spoke.
“Words,” she said.
What a delightful sound she made. A bilabial! But of course she could, with prehensile lips. Kessler clicked with excitement.
Kessler was overjoyed to discover that the symbols the Ancients used were not glyphs at all, but phonemes. Each symbol did not represent a word but instead a single meaningful sound. It made her language simple to write. All he had to do was learn all the corresponding sounds, which was easy enough once he found replacements for all the bilabials.
He had finally figured out the tenses—the language actually had a means of conveying a future hypothetical situation that did not yet exist! The sophistication!—when he, quite surprisingly, blacked out. It was in mid-sentence, and it was only for a brief moment, but in no time at all he was lying in Sara’s powerful arms. He shook his head and tried to stand up, but the room seemed to bend and wobble. Sara made frantic sounds.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“I hath not... eaten.” His head ached. “Need thood.”
“Food,” she said.
Kessler nodded.
Kessler stood, Sara hovering over him in case he fell again. He tried not to make eye contact as he crept on all fours to the door. He tapped on the metal hatch a few times until it opened.
Under the warm rays of sunlight, a bright-eyed young villager brought him food. The young attendant hummed pleasantly as she laid out an assortment of foods. Once she was done arranging the food in the proper ceremonial manner, the villager watched Kessler expectantly, waiting politely for him to eat.
Kessler stared at the thin gray strips in the center of the platter.
* * *
TI’EK AND THE OTHER biologists came in daily to examine Sara. They found that she was, for the most part, biologically identical to the beasts they ate. The differences were minute enough to be caused by simple mutation—an extra chromosome.
* * *
“LET HIN NOT ASK OUR ‘ardon.”
They read together, as they had done the days prior. Kessler had quickly unpacked the syntax of the language and was in the process of devouring its majestic contexts.
“The nature oth his great othence is dead,” he went on, “and dee’er than...”
“Oblivion,” she said.
“Odlithian,” he echoed, poorly. “O’at does it nean?”
“Oblivion? Let me think...” Kessler waited eagerly for the new concept. “It’s where things go when they are lost forever.”
Kessler stared at the word. Thoughts of his freezing homeworld came to mind.
A sharp rasping sound made him raise his head. Sara coughed once again, then she began to wheeze and clutch her chest. Kessler leapt to his feet, but, just as he was about to ask what was wrong, she collapsed. Kessler shouted for Ti’ek and the other biologists to come in. They crowded around, frantically trying to find something to do.
Sara grabbed Kessler and whispered, “My lung... is... filling...”
Kessler hushed the scientists. He relayed what Sara had told him. They worked quickly and efficiently. Sara moaned as they stuck the needle between her ribs. They pulled out a full vial of fluid. Kessler stood back as the biologists rushed about the room.
He clutched his document.
Hours later, when Sara’s condition was stable, he asked one of the biologists what was wrong with her. The biologist tried to find a diplomatic way of saying he didn’t know. Kessler sat down next to Sara.
“I should tell you.” Her voice was weak. “I’m dying. You know that word?”
Kessler shifted from one foot to the other, his claws clicking on the hard floor. “Odlithian?”
Sara waved at the rows of pods. “All the people, all the humans sleeping in this room, are all dying of the same disease. It’s incurable. The disease will affect my brain. Then it will kill me.”
“O’aye did not you tell I this dethore?” Kessler grasped at the words.
“Because it was obvious you had never seen a human being until me. We must all be dead.”
Kessler said nothing.
“That means that the cure was never found. There’s nothing you can do.”
“O’ee are scientists,” he said.
“Who have only two months’ worth of knowledge of human physiology,” she said.
“No. O’ee hath nuch knowledge,” Kessler said before realizing the implications of his statement. Sara stared at him, her eyes huge.
“Kessler,” she said. “Is there something you are not telling me?”
Kessler feigned confusion. “I do not understand.”
“What do you know?” Sara grabbed Kessler’s fragile arm.
“O’ee learned a lot in the tine o’ith you.”
Sara squeezed Kessler’s arm and Kessler winced. He was suddenly reminded how much stronger she was than he. She seemed to notice as well, because she loosened her grasp.
“Kessler, tell me,” she said, “are there other humans outside this room?”
“No, not like Sara.” Kessler chirped.
“What do you mean, not like me?” she said.
Kessler clicked incoherently.
Sara pulled hard on Kessler’s arm, using him to lever herself up.
“Not like,” he murmured, trying not to fall over.
Once she was sitting up, she took a painful breath. “Show me.”
Kessler took a step back.
“Kessler,” she said. “Am I your prisoner? Am I trapped here?”
“No. O’ee do not... It is thor thy sathety.”
“Then you will not stop me from going up to the surface,” she said. She was not asking. She gripped her ribcage as she stood. “I deserve to know.”
“I deg you...” Kessler said, “Lie down. Thou o’ill hurt thyselth.”
Sara lay back, her breathing heavy, labored.
Kessler’s wings fluttered as he held her wrist. “I o’ill take thee in the norning.”
Part II
Her stretcher was fitted to lines of cable and lifted up a long vertical shaft. Sara recognized it as the elevator shaft that had led to the hibernation chamber under the ETI facilities. Sara tried to focus on the streaks of light high above, where sunlight was waiting. Her small companion accompanied her on her ascent, clinging to the cable above her, watching her intently. His eyes, in the gloom of the shaft, looked like tiny pools of water. Despite their weeks together, she still could not read his expression. The sclerae of his eyes were dark, unfathomable, like a lizard’s—yet it was hard for her to think of Kessler as a lizard. His intellect was impressive, astounding even. And yet he displayed such simple compassion for her. Shakespeare had been an apt primer for his understanding of humanity.
Kessler’s colleagues climbed the walls, their skin shimmering, beaks clicking, long tails twitching; they seemed unable to hold still. Yet, despite their unreadable black eyes and greenish scales, they watched her in a way she instinctively recognized. They observed her like scientists, with deep interest, but without judgment. It was familiar, comforting.
She shielded her eyes as she was carried out of the ruins of her research building. The oppressive muggy air wrapped around her. She winced when a grayish alien with a red sash and several medical bags adjusted the tubes running from her chest. This alien had been looking after her medical needs since she awoke. Knowing the disease that infected her, she did not envy him.
As the group crested a hill, Sara saw the landscape of what had once been her city. She recognized none of it. The world of concrete and glass, asphalt and plastic, had been completely swallowed. Everything was green—overwhelming, deep, powerful green. She would never have believed this was Miami if not for the rusted remains of the Carnegie Research Center, jammed into the earth like a broken knife. She tried to locate the remnants of the stadium and the College of Medicine, but they were gone. Miami Beach was nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the sea. She imagined much of Florida was now underwater.
As they bore her through the forest, Sara stared up at the forest canopy. She noticed a large dull orange bulb, wrapped around the thick trunk of a tree. An alien emerged from a hatch in the side and glided through the trees.
Other aliens climbed out of the bulbs to watch the arriving procession. Some of them circled above her. Kessler, always protective, hissed at them, his wings spreading, and they scattered, scrambling up into the canopy.
Kessler led the group to the only structure that was built on the ground. Unlike the bulbs, it was large, spacious, made of wooden planks. Sara’s stretcher was gently placed beside it. As an alien with a medical pack examined her, Sara watched Kessler’s animated yet hushed conversation with another scientist. Their short, delicate arms hung limply by their sides as they spoke, but their tails whipped about in a frenzy. Sara couldn’t pick out any of the words—but it looked as if they were arguing. Finally, Kessler broke off the conversation with a swat of his tail, and approached Sara.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Thou deserth to know,” he said. “Renender, o’ee o’ill not hurt thee. Dost thou understand?”
Sara held onto Kessler’s hand as the aliens lifted her stretcher. The doors opened and she finally saw what Kessler had been keeping from her. The building was a barn, filled with stalls. Each stall floor was lined with hay, and each resident was staring at her, dull-eyed, uncomprehending.
“Oh, my God!” Sara struggled to sit up. “They’re still alive! Put me down!”
They lowered her stretcher onto the straw.
“Bring one of them here.”
Kessler opened a stall gate and guided a girl to her side. Sara touched her round face gently, examining her small almond-shaped eyes, her tiny ears. She put her head to the girl’s chest, checked her hands.
“She’s showing signs,” she murmured to herself. “How old is she?”
Kessler spoke with the grayish alien for a moment.
“Eighteen years,” he said.
She checked the girl’s nails. “This is remarkable. She has the disease, but it’s not killing her,” she looked over at Kessler. “Can they speak?”
Kessler shook his head. “No. O’ee are sorry. O’ee did not know.”
“Well how could you?” she said, absorbed by this new discovery. “She is showing signs of the later stages of the disease, but for some reason, she isn’t dying. Do you see?”
“She hath sickness?”
“Yes. She must possess some genetic mutation that somehow keeps her alive, even after contracting the virus. There is massive cognitive damage, but do you see what this means? It means that there is a way to resist the disease!”
“They all ... hath sickness...?”
“They all have the disease. It’s teratogenic. It transfers to the children. That’s why they all have it. But they don’t die of it!”
Kessler said nothing. Sara noticed the silence that had fallen over the other scientists.
“This is a major breakthrough,” she said. “I worked to cure the disease for years. But I never found a single person who survived. Now that I have, I can solve this! And if not, there are dozens of other scientists in those pods who have devoted their lives to...”
The aliens seemed to be shivering. There was something she was not seeing. She looked into Kessler’s fathomless black eyes for some sign. Then a horrible thought came to her.
“Why are they in stalls?” she demanded.
“O’ee didn’t know... O’hen Ri’ik traveled here. Ri’ik took thood with us. Old o’rld thood. Our thood did not last. Ri’ik landed o’ith no thood. Ri’ik o’er starthing.”
Sara covered her ears. She imagined the herds of humans, after the pandemic, with no language, no society. They had probably scavenged for berries, small animals. They had survived here, in Florida, where the winters were mild. And to the aliens they would have seemed just like any other animal.
And then she remembered all the times Kessler had excused himself to eat.
“Why us?” Sara frantically looked from one black-eyed lizard to the next.
“It... I do not know this ‘ord...” Kessler opened his bag. He took out his notebook and began flipping through it. He opened and closed his beak. Finally, he gave up and pointed at his beak, then made a line down to his stomach.
“Digestion?” she said.
“Digestion,” Kessler said. “Thor us to digestion any oth the thood on this ‘orld. Hath to eat...”
“I get it. You have an incomplete set of enzymes, but... but why us?” Sara was beginning to wheeze. “We are made of the same proteins as every other species on this planet. Why people?”
Kessler shifted from one foot to the other. “Not all. Ri’ik only eat the...” He began chirping and clicking to the other scientists. One of the aliens pointed at his own head and Sara suddenly understood. The muscle tissue was the same, but the brain tissue was not.
“You eat our...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She suddenly noticed Kessler’s serrated teeth.
“Kessler,” she said very softly. “Can everyone go?”
Kessler hissed at the others, and they quickly shuffled out. He turned and gave Sara one last mournful look before leaving as well.
Alone, Sara looked at the faces of her fellow survivors. They approached her cautiously, like curious puppies. A young boy sank to his knees by Sara’s side, and leaned against her. Sara stroked his head, and his shoulders drooped, his eyes closed. She patted him gently as the others slowly congregated around her, gingerly laying themselves at her feet.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, a group of aliens came into the barn, checked her vitals, shone lights into her eyes. She repeated Kessler’s name until they brought him, along with the gray alien.
“I’ve been thinking all night, and I believe I have some understanding of the problem we face.”
Kessler stood quietly while she spoke. She had never seen him so still.
“I understand that to be able to digest any food on this world you must also eat...” She took a breath. “You must also eat the human brain.”
Kessler nodded.
“And I think I know why,” she said. “The disease that killed my people is very similar to Kuru. It’s caused by a prion, which is a type of protein. You may not understand any of this but, what I’m saying is that the reason you have to eat ... us ... is because of the disease. You’re actually eating the disease itself. A healthy human brain would not provide you the necessary protein and you would all starve.”
Kessler and the other alien fell into a hurried conversation of clicks and hisses.
“I understand that you couldn’t have known,” she said. “I know how you must feel. To you, we were just beasts.”
Kessler drew close, his head bobbing up and down.
The other alien clicked. Kessler translated.
“Can you cure the sickness?”
Sara nodded. “I can.”
“O’eee can kee—keet you alithe and in health thor long tine. And you can cure the sickness.”
“You would let me do that?” she asked.
Kessler and his colleague clicked for a moment. “Oth course.”
“Kessler, if I cure all the humans then what would become of your people? You will starve.”
“You could just cure sone oth the hunans.” Kessler said. “And o’ee could still hath thood.”
But Sara was already shaking her head. “We can’t have a world where your people eat mine. We couldn’t live with that. You couldn’t live with that.”
“O’ee hath scientist. So do you,” Kessler said. “O’ee could renove the... ‘rion.”
“The prion cannot survive outside the human brain. There is absolutely no way to remove it.” But even as she spoke, Sara began to formulate theories. Maybe she could grow the prion in another mammal. With enough time, if they woke up the other scientists, maybe she could find a way. But she knew what would happen next. People, her people, would kill every last alien. She could clearly imagine how they would justify the genocide after seeing barns like this one.
It was a dilemma with no solution. The fate of her people was now inextricably bound to the fate of the aliens, and it seemed neither could live while the other existed.
Leaves rustled in the wind. She thought of the world, before she had fallen asleep hundreds of years ago, before humans had made diseases into weapons, weapons so effective that the only survivors could hardly be called human at all.
Before they had made the prion.
The solution settled upon her. It was so much simpler than she could have imagined.
“Kessler. I want you to put me back to sleep.”
“O’en shall I o’ake you?”
“Don’t wake me,” she said. She was shivering and her heart was pounding in her chest, but she had never been so sure of anything in her life. “Don’t ever wake any of us.”
* * *
THE PROCESSION BACK to the hibernation chamber began at dawn the next day; a long line of scientists headed by Sara on her stretcher. They brought her through the woods. She sometimes saw a corner of concrete, a metal shard, rusted and corroded. The last remnants of the human world. When they arrived at the clearing where Sara’s people slept below the earth, Kessler crouched by her stretcher.
“It is wrong,” he said. “This is your o’erld.”
“Not anymore,” she said.
“O-’at o’ill I do o-ithout thee.”
“We’re not dead. We’re just asleep,” she said.
She touched Kessler’s cool ablated face then nodded to the other scientists to take her below. They brought her to the room with the other pods and they put her to sleep with her brothers and sisters.
Part III
Kessler sat in the cave before the blue and white door, clutching one of the human documents. The other scientists were on the surface discussing what to do next. He knew they would choose wisely. He looked at the document and fixed his eyes on a single letter. Alone, it meant nothing; he could not even pronounce it. But surrounded by all the other letters on the page, its meaning was so overwhelming that he could not breathe ... he could not breathe.
* * *
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
* * *
FEBRUARY 2022 Vol.3, No. 2
