We got up early and talked for a while. The whole universe had shifted. Everything seemed better, filled with a greater life than it had before. I was smiling without a reason to smile. Adrian and I left our quarters hand in hand. Aeniah and Sean were nowhere to be found and so we wandered about the communal area, eating and talking.
‘Arrival at Hercula imminent,’ the AI announced. Adrian and I looked at one another and made our way into the Command Centre.
‘Just on time,’ Aeniah stated as we entered. I felt the sudden deceleration as we translated back into real-space.
I had remembered reading about Hercula at school. So little had been know about it. In fact all that we really knew was that Hercula had a green atmosphere and it supported a dense tropical belt of life along its equator. The rest of the world was not thought to be habitable by humans.
‘Okay,’ I said ‘so where do we go from here?’
Sean was the one to deliver the information this time. ‘Blue Dawn stated that Carvelle made many of his discoveries in an archaeological site.
‘Before the Resource Wars Hercula was a site of great importance to the international communities. There were many digs, all showed some evidence of a highly evolved society that was thought to have become extinct when the environmental conditions on the planet suddenly shifted six thousand nine hundred years ago. As a result of this shift colonisation was not thought possible. The air is breathable but the planet is too geologically unstable to support a civilisation. The equatorial area is anomalously stable considering the rest of the planet and so it was there that the majority of research occurred. The dense forestation in the area made it difficult for many science teams because of the labour intensive nature of setting up a clearing through which to conduct research. Quite surprisingly and in spite of this there are over two hundred dig sites.
‘I have now discerned the location of the dig that Carvelle attended. Working through the night I analysed this ship’s database. It appears that this vessel is the very same one that Carvelle took to find the Eye of Orion. Cross referencing this data with the scans of the planet taken by Blue Dawn I have found the likely location of the research site.’ Sean faced a terminal and stared intently at it. The holo of the planet that we were rapidly approaching spun and zoomed in on the site of interest.
‘As you can see,’ Sean continued, ‘there is little data available on the planet.’ A chime sounded and a square zoomed onto the location Sean was emphasising. ‘The ship has found a landing site and is preparing its descent,’ he remarked
The holo switched back to the real-time feed. The ship was clearly entering the atmosphere because a red trail of flames could be seen on the lowest part of the image. We were now crossing the northern hemisphere. The ground below was a stale mustard colour and there were angry red rivers of lava running along their surfaces. This world was a violent and deadly place.
But just as quick as this observation was the planet responded by slowly revealing its greener colours. From small patches of isolated green to the now entire rainforest, like those that I had only ever seen in stories, rushed up to meet us. Within a matter of minutes the vessel was clipping the tree tops and we were beginning to land.
We stepped out of the vessel and into a green sky. Everything was incredible; there were reds and blues calling out to us, tempting us. The canopy of tangible delights was set out against the background of a watery green sky. No moon clouded its ocean of slowly moving clouds, and no sun blocked out the lightning striking between them. I swear that I thought I was looking at heaven.
Hercula had none of the fatal unreality of Ascension. If the station was the finest example of anything man had ever created then this was the finest example of something that nature had ever created. I wondered for a moment if the United World had been right. I wondered if it was true that there was a god. But I dismissed this notion out of hand. No god would have allowed us Ascension, no god would have allowed us to execute our own destruction. If a god existed then it was a cruel and bitter tyrant.
Adrian was staring up into the canopy with amazement too. I saw Aeniah doing the same. For once it was me that had the responsibility of keeping everybody moving. I tapped Aeniah on the shoulder, she nodded, and we began to walk into the undergrowth.
We were tracking a position on Aeniah’s holo display. The foliage made it a difficult task to get anywhere quickly. The heat was such that in a moment I felt as though I had sweated all the water from my body. The moisture was so intense that even with no water in my body my mouth overflowed. Thankfully we were not that far away now. The holo said we were nearly on top of it. With all the overgrowth it was difficult to see an opening into the dig of any kind.
After another half hour we finally found the entrance. It was a cave like structure that looked as though it might collapse at any moment. It was unlit and so I went first using the night vision of my scope to descend into the darkness below.
After a while the cave began to widen and then it levelled off and went into a small room. There was a small DCN in the corner just about visible through my scope. Remembering how we turned on Ascension’s DCN, I repeated the procedure and soon the lights in the room began to glow.
The light revealed a small room, furnished with a desk and some scientific equipment. At the end of the room was an elevator that I assumed would lead us down into the site of interest itself.
Carvelle had clearly not been here for a long time. The papers strewn all over the place were cracked and brown. I read a few of them but they contained nothing but some ravings about a civilisation more powerful than his own, a technology that would free the world, and a political theory that would ravish millions. There were pieces of technology everywhere, clues as to the existence of new life. I wondered why Carvelle had not told anyone of the aliens, for he would surely have made the greatest find in all of history. But then I realised how Carvelle was motivated. The revelation of the evidence that this site contained would have made it available to anyone. He wanted a monopoly over the technology, and he wanted it for the same reasons powerful men want things, he wanted more power. So many people had died for the sake of his vanity. He clearly thought that he was a god.
‘Nothing here,’ I said.
‘Looks like it’s the lift then,’ Aeniah sighed. I had a feeling that after the amount of alcohol she had drank the night before she had wanted a bit of a break.
We all walked over to the lift and prepared ourselves for what we would see. I imagined great wonders and fantastic things that maybe I wouldn’t even understand. As I fantasised the lift began to descend. I thought of beings who looked like us but could throw fire from their hands and heal you with just a touch. The lift began to slow. I thought of sprits and temples and all the wonders of a star.
The lift doors opened and I was very wrong. In the centre of the room was the artefact and there was little else. The artefact was the only thing that was unlike anything I could have imagined. The object was a seven foot tall obelisk, with carvings of animals and beings that I could not even begin to describe all over its skin. The colour was no colour, it seemed to absorb all light in a shimmer of half revealed things. Nearby the artefact were a few pieces of dried up technology. The technology had obviously been alive at some point. Through the half decayed crystalline structure I could see the remnants of organs and arteries.
‘Amazing!’ Sean said. ‘Organic technology! I never thought I’d see the day.’ He whistled merrily as he floated around the dig site taking everything in.
The artefact was clearly alive. It pulsed and throbbed as though it had a heartbeat. I walked over to it. Bracing myself for some awful thing to pop out and get me, I touched the skin of the object. But nothing happened. In fact nothing seemed to be happening at all. There were no screens, nor any evidence that there ever had been. In fact there seemed to be no way of interfacing with the artefact at all. It just seemed to be a living, but very much inert, statue.
‘I can??
?t see anything, how am I supposed to shut it down if I can’t even communicate with it. Blue Dawn couldn’t even destroy it, so how am I supposed to?’
Aeniah placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘George,’ she said kindly, ‘if there has even been one constant between our lives and theirs, it was the Promethean Layer. Carvelle once said to me that the road to Ascension could only be travelled by the enlightened. So go ahead and connect. All, I am sure, will be revealed.’
I looked for that star again and found it much more easily than I had on Ascension. It was so much brighter and so much more powerful. I grasped onto it and became connected.
Here was something I would have had to have seen to understand. This cold and barren room was not barren at all. Everywhere there was noise, thoughts, brainwaves. I looked at the artefact and it showed me everything. I did not need a screen to interface with it, everything I could have ever been shown was already there, before I even realised that I could ask for it. I could see the energy being broadcast out of it. I could see the very Promethean Layer itself. The Layer was a universe of pure light, pure bliss and was the very closest example of heaven I think I will ever find.
‘Aeniah, Adrian, this is...it’s beyond words. You’re never going to be able to understand...this.’ Neither of them responded. They both seemed to know exactly what I was seeing, it was as though my face told the entire story.
I looked at those emaciated little machines and with their dying thoughts they told me the truth. By now I had realised that these beings had evolved beyond the need for standard communication. Their lives existed in between worlds, always connected to the Promethean Layer and always planted firmly in reality. This was the world that they saw, the world that they had made. No wonder that I could not see anything without the connection, because without the connection it did not exist.
I also knew, what I must always have known, the truth. I knew what the artefacts were for. I always had. They were a means of terra-forming. They created the conditions necessary for their connection to the Promethean Layer and so their survival. And they knew that it would kill us. The artefact showed me images of the genes required for the connection to the Layer, my genes.
I saw how to shut it down. It was almost too simple. The device simply required that someone would will it silent. The artefact explained through images and concepts that it was the master hub and that shutting this down would severe the connection to the others. The entire network would shut down. All that a person had to do to complete this operation was to want it, to truly want it.
I could not say that I did. This vision was something that I could not let hold of, something that I simply could not will out of existence. Carvelle might have turned them on, and ordered them to begin terra-forming the colonies, but I didn’t want to be the one to turn them off.
It was then that I saw Adrian in the periphery of my vision. He was bathed in pure light. He was the very image of perfection. Suddenly the light of the Promethean Layer did not shine so brightly. This star, my star, outshined all others. I could see in a moment of pure contemplation the very essence of his soul, his good nature, his love, the reasons that I loved him; and they were all a greater bliss than anything Ascension could ever offer.
The artefact shut down. A flurry of concepts and images flashed across my mental paradise. The lights in the room went out. The artefact stopped pulsing, and yet the room didn’t darken at all, because the light shining from Adrian never faded.
As the network faded so did the Promethean Layer. I let it go with a mixture of regret and relief. I was very aware of just how addicted one could have gotten to that sight.
‘It is done.’ With those words we turned. Aeniah, Adrian and I reached the surface, linked arms and walked back to the vessel. We all sat comfortably in the communal area and told the ship to reach the atmosphere and break orbit.
We were lounging around not saying very much as the vessel lifted its little self up and into the cosmos. Aeniah spoke for the first time and seemed to be smiling at some private joke. ‘So guys, you wanna take a look at my little contribution to our stories end,’ she announced innocently. A holo resolved of the planet. She pulled a small canister from her pocket. ‘You know, I’ve been carrying this around ever since the wars, and I never found a use for it until now.’
She pulled a little rip cord out of the canister and pointed to the holo. At first I couldn’t see it, but then it grew in size and took on the form of a blast of light that would eradicate a small section of the continent. ‘Planted the charge right next to that bastard artefact, even if it survives don’t think anyone’s gonna dig far enough down to find it.’
Despite ourselves we all laughed. ‘So where to now?’ I asked.
Adrian was the first to reply, ‘to the colonies.’
The little ship, this Xenith class vessel bolted out and into the night sky. The starlight twinkled about the vessel as it crossed the rivers of emptiness and into our future. We all sat around that table and discussed the worlds we hoped we’d find. We sat there and promised ourselves a quiet life, tending the grapes in a sunlit field. With delight I held onto Adrian’s arm, and kissed him.