She started and blinked hard as if he’d struck her.
“How is it we knew exactly where
you
were when you came down?” he jeered.
She hadn’t thought of that. “Why haven’t you stopped them already, then?”
He exhaled loudly, obviously impatient with her. “Because, for some reason, the
Chimera
set down in the deepest part of the
vishna
forest,” he said. “The part into which few Eosians have ever ventured…and returned.”
“Oh,” she said with a swallow.
Azaes nodded gravely and muttered, “You cursed humans. Will you never learn?” He rose to his feet and reached out to help her to hers. As she took his hand, he gruffly lifted her up, a bad-temper still lingering on his tight face, and said, “Before you and I attempt a rendezvous with them, I think I need to show you something first.”
Chapter Nineteen
As they stepped into the light and smells of the aromatic
vishna
forest, Genevieve saw the scree lying in wait in the clearing near the ship. It ceased its preening and looked up. Azaes indicated for her to mount the large bird. Once she did, he climbed behind her and she fought the dizzying seduction of his body pressed against hers. It didn’t help that the
vishna
forest conspired with its own provocation.
She was jolted out of her reverie as the scree rose sharply to its feet. Azaes spoke with uncommon gentleness to it and with a shrill cry, it leapt into the air. Genevieve grabbed hold of its feathers to keep from falling as the scree soared effortlessly over the forest. Genevieve threw a glance backward to Zac, abandoned like a discarded shell by its entire crew, and swallowed down a rush of feelings, guilt and remorse being chief among them. She wasn’t giving up on Zac, Genevieve convinced herself.
I’ll come back, Zac
…
They flew in silence, Azaes directing the bird from behind. As her body delighted in his solid flesh pressed against her back, arms snugly enfolding her waist, her mind digested his recent revelation. He was an immortal, probably hundreds of years old with a knowledge and wisdom she could never hope to match. She must seem a fool to him, she thought, and wondered what he really thought of her.
His passionate lovemaking with her was clearly the effect of an accumulation of factors from the
vishna
’s seductive vapours to her own tormenting dreams and smells. He was clearly as annoyed with her as he always had been. Perhaps more so, because he was probably angry with himself for having weakly abandoned his restraint. Lack of restraint had been the undoing of his people, after all. And God only knew how long he’d exercised that restraint up to now. A hundred years? Five hundred? A thousand?
Of course he regretted having intercourse with her. Probably felt seduced and tricked by her crafty scent and guile. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know their strange laws or that she gave off nasty sexual smells. To him she was just another sly and base human, but one who’d managed to tempt him and deflower him, just before his momentous formal joining. It must have infuriated him. How would he explain this awful transgression to his beloved? Also an immortal, no doubt, who’d waited God only knew how long to fuck someone. Genevieve had royally spoiled things for them indeed. If she managed to prevent a catastrophe caused by her own race, she might at least redeem herself a little in Azaes’s eyes, she thought glumly. As for getting home, that had suddenly become a secondary priority.
They’d flown for about an hour when Azaes instructed the scree to circle. Genevieve, who’d taken to staring blankly ahead of her, drew herself up and gazed below. She spotted the ancient wreck instantly, its copper-glow glinting in the sunlight of a clearing thick with vines. It was the same remnant she’d seen earlier and would have explored, if not for her impatient urgency to get to Zac and learn of his condition.
As the scree dipped low to land beside the structure, her heart slammed up her throat. It was a vessel. A space ship! And no ordinary space ship. This vehicle looked just like Zac!
Azaes brought the scree down in a very small clearing beside the ship and the great bird knelt down for the two to slide off. Genevieve hopped to the ground, feeling the soft vegetation on her bare feet, and crashed through the thicket of shrubs, congested with thick snaking vines, for a closer look.
She turned sharply to Azaes who’d followed closely behind. “What is this?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
“It’s the seed ship that brought us here some 12,000 of your years ago.”
She stared at the ship, speechless.
“It’s made of
orichalkon
, a highly durable alloy made by the Epoptes,” he explained. “
Orichalkon
resists break down of any kind and both conducts and repels certain energy waves with incredible ease.”
A sophisticated version of Zac’s bio-film plasma shields, Genevieve thought, observing that it was also the same material that lined the arcane rods in Azaes’s pyramid.
Azaes continued in a subdued voice, “The ship resembles yours with uncanny degree.”
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked, now inspecting the ship more critically.
Azaes shrugged with a lame smile.
The hull of the ship sparkled in the filtered light of the
vishna
forest with a brilliant copper-hue. Except for the copper glow, it looked exactly like Zac, which was singularly creepy. She didn’t know what to think of it and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
Genevieve pressed forward and noticed Azaes hanging back, watching her closely. As she walked around to the starboard side of the bow, craning to inspect the ship, she read the ship’s name, still clearly inscribed. They resembled a mixture of Greek letters and Egyptian hieroglyphics…In fact…Her heart raced in sudden recognition and she turned sharply to Azaes, coming alongside her. After a convulsive swallow, she pointed and rasped out through a dry throat, “Is that written in Eosian?”
“Yes, ancient Eosian. We don’t use that form of the language anymore, except the written pledges in the tablets of our temple.”
“What’s it say?” she asked in a hollow voice, already knowing what he was going to answer.
“It says
Atlantis II
.”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. It all suddenly matched like a giant puzzle coming together. Why hadn’t she figured it out before? The strange things she’d seen in the Posedonus temple and museum. The brilliant and mysterious crystal in Azaes’s room that matched the description of archeologists finds in the Caribbean Sea. All items she should have recognized from her readings. The Eosians were the descendants of Atlantis. They came from Earth!
She swung to stare at him. He didn’t look surprised by her reaction.
“You knew?”
“I guessed. You just confirmed it. When I first saw your ship you can imagine my astonishment,” he said grimly, then pointed her to the aft side of the ship. “Come, there’s more.”
Azaes opened a hatch in the aft side of the ship. He led her up the ramp inside, and Genevieve felt her heart pumping. The inside of the ship was in remarkable shape for something thousands of years old. There were small differences between it and Zac, but they were subtle. Even the walls and floors of this ship were a smooth mixture of nano-organics and metal alloys. She recognized the glint of
orichalkon
flakes embedded in the walls, which were lit indirectly by some unknown source. It was beautiful and uncanny.
Azaes led her forward, to where Zac’s main impeller drive would have been. In its stead stood a console that housed a large blue crystal shaped like a huge flower.
“Unlike your ship, whose bio-technology still retains some archaic components, the
Atlantis II
is driven by our advanced bio-crystal technology,” said Azaes. “When our people landed here some twelve thousand years ago, I was just an infant, born on the seed ship. They disassembled the ship and removed its four primary crystals. They scattered them throughout the jungle and planted
vishna
trees around them to protect them.”
The fact that Azaes had just admitted to being thousands of years old hadn’t been lost on Genevieve. But she had to tuck that in the back of her mind to pay attention to the crystal and its significance. “So, this crystal is responsible for running the ship?”
“Part of the ship
—
its sub-stellar power, much like your ship’s impeller engines.” He looked at her uneasily. “What’s significant here is that this crystal, like its three brothers, was, up to a few weeks ago, safe in the jungle. Someone has removed them and placed them here,” he said, then added, hiking an eyebrow for emphasis, “Correctly.”
She swallowed hard. He responded with a knowing nod. “Your man, Sanchez, is quite good,” Azaes said with cool respect.
“You mean the ship’s functional?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, pursing his lips, eyes piercing into hers. “It should be.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, reading him correctly. Sanchez was a crystal physicist. He knew exactly what to look for and what to do. They all knew.
Azaes pointed out of the room. “Come, I’ll take you to the control room. You can see for yourself.”
As Genevieve followed him forward to the control centre, she fumed. The bloody bastards! They’d known for a long time, long enough to build Zac in the image of
Atlantis II
! They’d figured it out somehow. It was obvious in the choice of the crew, something that had always puzzled her. Now it made terrible sense. Even her casual interest in the legend and archaeological findings of Atlantis were likely considered by Zeta himself in accepting her for part of his crew.
Someone had probably recognized the crystal arrangement that matched the one found by Earth archaeologists a hundred years ago. In fact, now that she thought of it, she wondered how she hadn’t figured it out herself, after the many times she’d seen the vid and had read of the recent findings in New Zealand. Plans for the
Atlantis II
might have been uncovered by some other team and kept quiet by the government, she concluded. They’d figured it all out. Only, as Azaes revealed to her, they had it all wrong.
They climbed a ladder to the control room, fitted with another crystal complex and sundry consoles made of a hybrid mixture of
orichalkon
and the Eos’s organic building material.
After assessing the main panels and playing with a few controls, Genevieve glanced up and noticed that part of the console and ceiling corresponded exactly to the top and base of the complicated crystal-rod arrangement in Azaes’s room. Deciding not to remark on this, particularly since she wasn’t supposed to have seen the inside of his private chambers, she turned to Azaes. “We must stop them,” she began excitedly. Then she had a sudden thought and fixed an intense look on Azaes. “Why is this ship still here and why
did
they land the
Chimera
in the middle of the jungle?” Her eyes narrowed with challenge. “I think you know. And if I’m going to help you I need to know too.”
His lip quivered into a savage smile, then he blew out a long breath and nodded gravely. “You make a logical point.”
She planted her fists on her hips and waited.
He nodded, acknowledging her determination. “There is another crystal. The largest of them, jade-coloured and intricately laced, and said to have been grown during ancient times in our homeland. It is called the Giant Crystal.” Homeland, indeed! She’d read about it in the Atlantean legends on Earth. “It stands over twenty meters in height and its hexagonal extensions span about ten meters. While it is not directly involved with running this ship, the Giant Crystal forms a crucial part of our overall crystal network and is an extremely powerful conductor. For this reason it is located in the deepest part of the
vishna
jungle,” he added contemplatively, tapping his lip. “The crystal network is maintained by the
shwarma
, small four-legged creatures who are sensitive to the crystal’s energy and with whom we can communicate telepathically. The Giant Crystal is heavily guarded by the
shwarma
, who do not share our own reservations for using violence. They will kill intruders.”
“Why is DAWN interested?” Never mind how they knew, she added in her mind.
“The Giant Crystal functions as not only an interstellar communications node, but as an energy wave focuser. It is capable of ultimate destruction as well as ultimate healing. You saw a smaller version of it in the healing pool that I put you in after your fall. I believe your crew thinks that the Giant Crystal provides the ultimate answer, the treasure they seek, including the power of immortality. It is why they came here.” He shook his head ruefully. “While it serves as a powerful force to heal someone from what would otherwise be a mortal wound, only the
vishna
can impart immortality. At any rate, your DAWN crew wish to seize it and place it in this ship’s hold, which corresponds to the berth for the
Chimera
in your ship, then use the
Atlantis II
and its crystal energy to leave with the treasure they have. Your ship no doubt served as a backup.”