| |
Devika screamed, stumbling backward, eyes roving. Who had spoken to her?
Nico raced to her side. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
The Etaem hologram on the closest memorial stared down at them. Its five clawed feet gripped the edges of the memorial. Unlike the other holograms, this one didn’t change every few seconds.
“I expected my first connection to be more defiant.”
“Is that you?” Devika asked, staring at the hologram. “Are you speaking to us?”
“Low intellect,” the hologram noted. A pale yellow color infused its pointy head. “Unexpected for a species capable of interstellar travel.”
Great. Even aliens judged her.
Gathering her wits, she replied, “You just surprised me, that’s all. Are you... are you a real Etaem?”
The hologram chittered, before responding. “The Etaem would not sit around some twelve hundred Havendesh revolutions to answer the questions of those attempting their trial. A more logical deduction is that I am a fabricated mind left behind to brief you on Laquir.”
“Fabricated mind?” Nico cocked his head. “As in artificial intelligence?”
“Those are applicable synonyms,” the fabricated mind agreed.
“The Etaem created you to answer our questions, didn’t they? You’re here to assist us with the trial!” Nico smiled like a kid alone in a candy store.
“To educate,” the hologram corrected, its yellowish hue deepening. “About Laquir. Not the trial.”
“And what is Laquir?” Devika wondered if this AI would help or hinder them.
“The city you stand in now.”
“Yes, I understood that much.” She decided it would be a hindrance.
“Laquir was once the Jade of the Etaem civilization,” the hologram intoned. “The city shone for a thousand years.”
She marveled at the longevity. “What happened to it?”
“Hate and greed. Wielding weapons we should have banished, we waged war upon our brothers and sisters and thems until our world lay in ruins, no longer hospitable to the few who remained. Survival was no blessing. We had built wonders to behold across Havendesh and even into space, yet we could not see, understand, and respect our neighbors.”
The hologram paused. Standing upon its memorial, it seemed to sag in upon itself.
Devika glanced back at the city, at the tall buildings surrounding this memorial. How many millions must it have once held? “And this city—”
“The City of the Sacrificed.”
“Yes. This city, Laquir, is a warning?”
“For you and those to follow. Do not let anger, pain, and suffering—self-prescribed poisons of the mind—become the means by which you touch the world.”
She wanted to assure the AI they had learned these lessons. But was that true? Could she confidently say everyone aboard Space City tolerated others? Only two years ago classmates at the academy had mercilessly attacked Rois and Jaya for their relationship, and had gotten away unpunished.
“You mentioned survivors,” Nico interjected. “Where did they go? Is this trial meant to show us where they’ve gone?”
“The survivors banded together to chart a new course for the Etaem society. They left behind their beloved home the way the sea snail leaves its shattered shell to seek another. They departed into the exile of space, intent on showing Ruuminya that we no longer hate ourselves, in the hopes she would birth a new Etaem home.”
“You don’t know where they’ve gone?” Devika asked.
“As advanced an intellect as the Etaem gave me, I cannot see the future and what became of them in exile.”
Nico’s shoulder’s slumped. “So much for learning that at the end of the trial.”
Devika shared his disappointment. While she’d enjoyed the trial, part of her enthusiasm was from the prospect of learning where the Etaem had gone. Anything less felt like a letdown.
“What about the toxins we picked up on the surface?” she asked. “Can you tell us what it was? Is that what destroyed the city’s inhabitants?”
“The toxin is a combination of viral and chemical elements,” the hologram replied, a dark yellow color swirling across its carapace once more. “A rot bomb.”
The name made her skin crawl. “What was it made from?”
“You should not ask.”
She shook her head, holding out both hands. “You misunderstand me. I don’t want to know how to make one. I just want to identify the components, so we know how to clean it up. And if someone gets contaminated, our doctors will need to know how to treat it.”
“A cleaning process is already in place. If you had arrived five hundred Havendesh revolutions prior, you would not have survived the trip through the wasteland. Sterilization is scheduled for completion in eight hundred forty-three Havendesh revolutions plus or minus one quarter revolution.”
Her stomach churned. Had other civilizations found the trial and died in their attempt to complete it? Or had this location remained hidden until her discovery?
“As for medical care, all knowledge of the rot bomb was destroyed. After witnessing the near annihilation of their species, the Etaem wiped all records of it. Only details on the devastation it caused were preserved.”
She wondered if she should destroy the samples she’d taken on the surface. Scientists could study them to develop a treatment. Would it be possible to use those samples to recreate the rot bomb?
Mainyu, leader of the Dahaka and enemy of Space City, would certainly exploit such a weapon. She wasn’t sure she trusted Space City leadership, either. They might develop the weapon under the guise of self-defense. It might already be too late. Countless trial participants had reached the beach and would eventually explore the wasteland. They would surely take samples as well.
“Is there anything you can tell us to assist with the trial?” Nico asked.
“The last puzzle resides within Laquir,” the AI said. “I witness. No more.”
“Well, thanks. I guess,” Nico scowled as he turned his attention to her. “What do you think?”
She forced down her concerns for now as she mulled their options. “Keep searching for the last clue, I guess. We might find it through here?” She gestured past the AI to the rest of the memorials.
He eyed them. “If that’s how we finish this thing, then after you.”
She led the way through the ever-changing images of the Etaem hovering above the memorials. As she passed one, a gray Etaem hologram with cracks in its carapace spoke. “I raised my family here, a father to three sons. As children, they were inseparable. As adults they killed each other, divided by beliefs that no longer tolerated the existence of differences.”
At first she thought the Etaem was another AI, but its eyes focused ahead, not on them. Just a recording. It started to repeat its story, then fell silent when they moved on.
“I served as a doctor.” A female Etaem hologram drew Devika’s attention. The hologram possessed a light brown carapace, bright gray eyes, and what appeared to be a small tattoo of the Goddess Ruuminya. “I tended to everyone in need, inspired by my grandmother. As a child I learned from her that all life is sacred. The large or small, rich or poor, old or young, she did everything she could to preserve life. I took pride in her mantra, even when popular belief changed and I was branded a traitor for healing the enemy.”
Each hologram they passed possessed a different tale. “I was a daughter. Grandfather. Brother. Chef. Scientist. Deep-sea diver. Teacher. Homemaker to my family.”
Everyone had a story. Devika hurried past them, unable to bear the weight of the hopes, dreams, and fears wasted because they had destroyed what they couldn’t understand. And what they couldn’t understand, they refused to accept.
She fought back tears as they reached the far side of the memorial. It was too much, what they’d done to each other. The loss of life. Had they departed the planet, or had their civilization crumbled? Or both?
In the middle of the street stood two giant statues. Both were Etaem. The one to their right—half white, half black—had a tattoo of the sun on one shoulder and a full moon surrounded by three stars on the opposite. The statue stood straight, serene, at peace.
Ten or fifteen meters to the left, the second, blood red statue pointed one outstretched finger at the first in condemnation. Fury marred its visage. Thick chains encircled its torso and legs, securing it to the floor.
A podium on a dais stood between the statues. Devika approached it and spotted a message on the podium. The last puzzle.
“Lucked into the next clue in the trial, huh?” a cold voice said, as she scanned the message with her wrist-comp.
Striding down the road behind the red statue came Adrian, Falk, and Vincent. Adrian slow clapped with a mocking smile. “You two have some kind of luck.”
This time Devika didn’t bristle at the attack. The memorial still weighed upon her. By comparison, his insults didn’t amount to much. This was probably how the war between the Etaem started. Trading insults that seemed harmless.
“What does the riddle say?” Falk asked, glancing up at the red statue as they passed it. “Man, does he look enraged.”
The text had finished translating on her wrist-comp as the boys joined them on the dais. This time, rather than hide the message, she cast it into the air for everyone to see. She couldn’t keep it from them. They’d just scan it themselves. Matching their abusive behavior said something about her, not them.
“Two citizens,” she read. “Two paths. Two cities. One, the city of Life. The other, Death. The citizen from the city of Life always tells the truth, with all that entails: compassion, hope, and understanding. The citizen of the city of Death always lies and represents the antithesis of life in every meaning imaginable. One question asked. One question answered. Only one leads to the city of Life.”
Vincent blinked, expression puzzled. “So, we ask which way to the city of Life or city of Death?”
“No. We won’t know if the answer is the truth or a lie.” Devika put her fist to her chin as she contemplated the message.
“We’re already in the city of Death,” Nico pointed out.
She shook her head as she reread the riddle.
“We want to reach the city of Life,” she said. “We’ll find the prize for the trial there. But first, we have to determine which citizen tells the truth and which is a liar.”
“That’s easy.” Falk pointed at the white and black statue. “That statue is from the city of Life.” Then he gestured at the angry red statue. “That’s the citizen of Death.”
“It won’t be that simple,” Devika said. “Yes, I think you’re right about what the statues represent. But so far, none of the trial up to this point has been that easy.”
“But if the white and black statue represents the city of Life, we can simply ask it where the city of Life is,” Vincent argued.
“Forget what the statues represent,” Devika said. “Assume we’re asking this podium here the question. We don’t know if it will tell the truth or lie. We need a question that will point us to the city of Life whether the podium lies or tells the truth.”
For a few minutes they studied the message in silence.
“We should ask in which direction it would go.” Adrian beamed. “If this is the citizen of Life, it’ll direct us to the City of Life because it tells the truth. The citizen of death will want to go to the city of death, but since it always lies, it will also point us to the City of Life.”
“That’s it!” Vincent said.
“You got it,” Falk added.
The pair clapped Adrian on the shoulder.
“No, that’s wrong.” She knew Adrian’s logic didn’t work.
He glowered at her. “You’re just mad I thought of the correct question.”
“No, listen,” she protested. “We agree the citizen of death always lies. However, if we ask it where it would go, we’re assuming where it wants to go. We could be wrong. Just because it’s a citizen of death doesn’t mean that’s where it would choose to go.”
“So, we ask the question and go in the opposite direction instead,” Vincent reasoned.
“Then we’re assuming the podium is the citizen of Death instead of the citizen of Life telling the truth. We need a question that doesn’t require us to make assumptions. You know what they say when you assume.”
“You make a donkey of you and me,” Nico pitched in, grinning.
“Or we don’t worry about who is who.” Adrian’s nostrils flared. “We ask directions to one city or the other and go check it out. If we end up at the city of Death, we’ll know if the citizen told the truth or lied, depending on which question we go with. Then we return and flip the question to get to the city of Life. And if we guess the city of Life the first try, all the better.”
Devika checked her oxygen levels. She had less than two hours’ worth left in her tank. She gestured at Nico. “We only came with one oxygen tank each. We’ll run out of time checking out both locations.”
“Sucks for you,” Adrian crowed, pointing at the pair on his back. “We came with spares. But you head back. We’ll keep going. Don’t worry.”
She ground her teeth as she pulled up the results of her toxins tests. “I also don’t think we can visit the city of Death. The toxin levels on the surface used to be considerably higher. Our suits protected us. But my gut tells me those levels in the city of Death are higher. I’d bet they’re high enough to compromise our suits and kill us.”
“Who’s assuming now?” Adrian countered.
She hoped he could read the concern on her face, not only for herself and Nico, but for them as well. “Call it caution. I don’t want to risk going to the wrong city. Based upon the parameters set by the riddle, there has to be a question that will correctly lead us to the city of Life regardless of which citizen we ask.”
“Maybe we should return for help?” Nico suggested. “Someone back at the beach can figure out the right question.”
Adrian crossed his arms. “No way. I’m not giving up our shot.”
Devika agreed with him. She intended to solve the puzzle, not hand it over to someone else. And while she wasn’t ready to admit it, she knew Adrian felt the same way. It made her think about the AI’s words.
Nico consulted the pedestal text again. “We need to figure out which citizen we’re talking to.”
“How about we ask it?” Falk proposed. “If we ask the citizen of Life which one it is, it will answer truthfully. If it’s the citizen of Death, it has to lie and tell us it’s the...” His words trailed off, as if he had realized his error.
Devika shared Falk’s frustration. They all did. “If we ask a question that answers which statue is which, we can’t then ask a second. We have to figure out both with the same question.”
“Two birds with one stone,” Adrian growled, his nose wrinkled.
Vincent threw his arms up in the air and walked off the dais.
Nico tapped an open palm onto a curled fist. “How do we learn where they are from, and which path leads there with one question?”
Devika gripped his arm with both hands. “That’s it!”
“What?” Nico raised his eyebrows.
She bounced over to the podium, resting both hands on its edges. Staring down at the message, she asked. “Down which path do you live?”
******
FROM UNDERGROUND, LOUD gears shifted. Both massive statues rotated to face the memorial.
“No!” Nico grabbed the sides of his head. “The memorial commemorates the dead. You gotten it wrong.”
Devika feared she’d overlooked some flaw in her question. “It’s correct. It has to be.”
“I’m with Nico.” Adrian’s brow darkened. “If that memorial marks one city, it’s the city of Death. You got it wrong, Devika. You screwed this up for all of us.” He pushed her away, taking her place. He pawed at the podium. “We have to figure out how to reset this thing. Come up with a different question.”
The gears continued to churn, the sound rumbling beneath the ground.
Devika grabbed Adrian’s arm to stop his efforts. “The memorial doesn’t mark their death. It honors their lives. Learning from the past instead of dwelling on it leads to the future.”
He shook her off. “If you say so.”
“Look!” She pointed to where a spiral staircase rotated upward from within the memorial until it connected with a door far overhead. “Do you believe me now?”
Adrian leapt off the dais and sprinted into the memorial, Vincent and Falk on his heels. Devika chased after them, annoyed that they were taking advantage of her discovery once more. But as she re-entered the memorial, the Etaem holograms kicked on again, recounting their stories.
How had their destruction started? Pride? The desire to be right and get the credit they deserved that grew until it spiraled out of control?
She had solved the riddles, yes, but would she have figured it out without Nico’s ideas that helped her think through it? Would she have come this far, through the toxic wasteland, if not for Adrian’s challenge?
“What do you think is up there?” Nico’s chest heaved as they rushed up the staircase.
“I don’t know.” Despite the AI’s claims to the contrary, she still hoped it revealed the Etaem’s whereabouts.
The door at the top of the stairs opened on a grand hall filled with hundreds of obelisk pairs―one rising from the floor while the second dropped from the ceiling. A large diamond hovered in the air between each obelisk pair. Bright white light emanated from the diamonds and filled the room, though Devika didn’t think that was their purpose.
“Congratulations,” the AI from the memorial said. Light pulsated from every diamond in rhythm to its voice. “You’ve reached the Etaem city of Life. Stored here is the sum of all Etaem knowledge. Our history, our technology, our understanding of our home and the universe. It is yours.”
“Thank you,” Devika said as she approached one of the obelisk pairs, staring at the diamond light.
“We bequeath it to you. In honorable hands, it provides healing for all sickness and disease. It can prolong life, show you how to access any resource you encounter, and offers methods to create wonders beyond belief. In the clutches of the corrupt, you’ve witnessed below the destruction it can wreak.
“We hope we’ve chosen wisely.”
Within the diamond before her, she observed the mobile thorneways, how they operated showing like a video within the light. Then a galaxy appeared and transformed into a map with numbers along the perimeter.
“The Etaem mapped numerous galaxies down to the micrometer level,” the AI told her. “They assigned precise coordinates, and with that could establish a thorneway to any spot in the galaxies they’d mapped out. They created billions of thorneway wristbands from which anyone could initiate a mobile thorneway.”
She marveled at that. At present, Space City only had access to a handful of galaxies via their thorneways. With the coordinates from the Etaem database, the number of galaxies open to instantaneous travel expanded exponentially.
In a second diamond she discovered a universal vaccine. Instead of providing immunity to one specific virus or bacterium as human vaccines did, this universal one could supercharge the immune system. Given to young children, the vaccine helped the immune system identify, mobilize, and defend the body against any type of infection. The diamond also detailed how to adapt the vaccine for a wide variety of physiologies. It could work for Etaem, humans, Alfar, Malsain, Kali, Traga.
Emotion overcame her. If they’d found this place a year ago, they might’ve avoided the outbreak aboard Space City and among the Alfar. Anand wouldn’t have needed to travel to Orestes to help with the cure when the Dahaka attacked the facility. He would’ve never been wounded, forcing him to go to Ourania for the healing that permanently isolated her from him.
With this technology, they could improve the quality of life for trillions throughout the universe. But it couldn’t undo the healing process Anand had already undergone.
Nico whistled while starting at another diamond. “These diamonds store radiation. That’s what powered the city. They can power this place for thousands of years.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Devika noticed Adrian approach. He’d pursed his lips in an unreadable expression. She tensed, wondering what he wanted.
He held a thin black tube. “I’d like to give you half my spare oxygen from my extra tank.”
“What?” She eyed the tube, wondering if he was trying to trick her.
“Seriously.” He gestured to the tank on her back. “We might be here a while checking all this cool stuff out and I’ve got extra.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
He grimaced. “I...” His eyes dropped to his feet, his voice hushed. “Screwed up. I assumed you were here to look cool.” His thumb brushed back and forth across the oxygen tank in his hand. “This has been our passion for five years, since our first days at the Academy. And...” he sighed, “... I’m sorry I let my desperation to solve the trial lead me to unconscionable actions. I have no excuse, but my threats were empty. You were smarter than everyone who has been trying to solve this trial.”
She almost snapped at him. He had been horrible to her, but her thoughts drifted to the memorial below commemorating a city’s worth of dead Etaem because they couldn’t get over their hatred of each other. She didn’t want to perpetuate that cycle.
Adrian coughed uncomfortably, offering the tank again and drawing Devika from her thoughts.
“I wasn’t smarter,” she said as she accepted the oxygen tank. “I brought a fresh perspective. Though I would like to think that I earned this.”
“You did one hundred percent.” He smiled as he gestured to the oxygen tank. “Would you like me to help you refill your tank?”
“Thanks!” She handed it back and turned to give him access to her tank.
She felt the earnestness of his apology and thanks. She understood his feelings, even if they didn’t justify his actions. But people could learn from their mistakes, couldn’t they? Choose a different path that didn’t perpetuate division?
He connected his spare oxygen tank to hers and transferred air until hers was refilled. Vincent did the same for Nico. They now had a little over three hours to study the Etaem tech before they needed to head back.
“Look at this!” Falk pointed at another diamond light. “They wore eye contacts like we do. Ones that let them zoom in on faraway sights, have night vision, and thermal vision. But they also had a mode that lets them see invisible gases. Like those outside.”
“No way!” Nico hurried over to join him. After a couple of minutes of study, he said, “I think... I might be able to adapt the programming in our contacts to make it work for us, too.” He went to work on his wrist-comp.
Devika strolled to other diamonds, wondering what other miracles they’d find in this place. Miracles that would one day be commonplace. After a couple of hours perusing this Etaem Hall of Wonders, as they’d taken to calling it, they finally decided to head back. None of them wanted to leave, their voices giddy with each new discovery. But they needed to rest, to eat, and to share their discovery, not to mention refill their oxygen tanks.
Nico uploaded some additional programming for their contacts, giving them temporary patches that allowed them to see invisible gases. Space City scientists and programmers would need to develop long-term solutions for the tech.
They hiked back through the city, marveling at the sights, and up to the surface. When they reached topside, they all halted. Devika’s skin crawled as she scanned the wasteland. Bile rose in her throat.
The previously invisible gas registered as a sickly green slime that covered everything. Even knowing her suit protected her, the idea of passing through it made her shiver with disgust. Unfortunately, they hadn’t discovered any wristbands that would allow them to open a mobile thorneway. She debated suggesting they go back down and search harder.
Nico’s mouth wrinkled. “I shouldn’t have added the new coding.”
“It’s okay.” Adrian took one tentative step forward. “We crossed it once. We can do it again.”
He was right, but Devika didn’t have to like it.
He started forward. She groaned and followed. If he could do it, so would she. While she’d let the enmity between them go, she wasn’t about to let him outdo her.
They pushed hard, wanting to cross the wasteland quickly. The toxic slime stuck to their shoes, and soon covered them. She wished they had some B-choppers from the Mars base to fly over it.
It didn’t take long to reach the hillside that divided the wasteland from the beach. Many trial participants had departed. Someone had discovered a mobile thorneway device while they’d been underground.
An older woman spotted them and called out, “What are you five doing out there?”
Devika recognized the woman as one of the two who had helped her with the clues for the map riddle back in the temple.
“Didn’t you see the warnings about the contaminations?” the woman asked.
“We did.” Devika stopped short of the woman, not wanting to get too close until she’d undergone decontamination. “We also found the final stage of the trial. We completed it.”
“Completed it?” The woman’s eyes widened.
“Devika did,” Adrian corrected, pointing to her.
Those on the ridge crowded in, barraging her with questions.
“Keep your distance. Our suits are covered in the toxins from the wasteland,” Devika warned.
People backed away, but the barrage of questions continued. She answered as best she could, Nico and the others adding in their own experiences.
Finally, she sagged with exhaustion. “Could someone send me back to Space City? And alert them that I need a decontamination cleaning.”
The older woman agreed and activated a mobile thorneway for her. Devika thanked her, walked up the hillside to the thorneway, and stepped through.
Her eyes widened as she beheld the flight deck of an alien ship.
It was not Space City.