Shadows of Golstar (52 page)

He chuckled, “So I’m the big bad bogeyman. I guess
they can’t accept my escapes were due to their own ineptitude, inferior equipment
and more than a little luck on my part, huh? It seems they’d rather chalk up
their failures to some sort of mystical intervention.”

Another thought struck him and he sobered, “You know,
I hadn’t realized I was gone for so long. The Controller must have kept me
knocked out a lot longer than I thought.”

She nodded, “It was almost a day, long enough for the
mutineers to give up looking for you. The ringleader said the rescue ships were
getting too close, and they had to leave soon. He was still quite agitated when
his men failed to locate your body. They delayed as long as they could, but in
the end, his concern of being captured won out. They had just broken camp. I
was being led to the shuttle that would take us back to the main ship when the
Controller intervened. I can only imagine their reaction when I also
disappeared.”

“Given what you said earlier about my growing
reputation, we can assume your disappearance only added to their fears.” He
didn’t try to clarify the Controller's role in her rescue was due solely to his
intervention. She remained safe, on the planet instead of being held captive
aboard the mutineers’ ship, because of his direct request of the Controller. He
was convinced the Controller would not have intervened on its own, but he saw
no reason to mention this to her. Still, it added one more question to his
growing list.

“I have told you what happened after you were shot.
Now I believe that it is your turn.” Sharné asked, “What happened when you
awoke?”

Owens frowned, “Not much more than you already know.”
He then gave her a quick synopsis of his conversation with the Controller and
expanded on his experience with the tranquilizing sound.

When he had finished, she remained silent, thinking
about what he had described. Then, “Do you think the Controller was using
subsonics in an attempt to manipulate your thinking?”

“Well, the Controller described it a little
differently… more like the electronic equivalent of a mild sedative. It made a
reference that it wasn’t the first time it was used on a human. Whatever its
purpose, I didn’t like what it did to me. But at least it didn’t hesitate to
switch it off when I asked.”

She absorbed this, and then asked. “Owens, right
before you were shot, do you remember what you were doing?”

“What I was doing?” He looked at her blankly,
searching his memory. “Oh yeah,” he said slowly, “pretty hard to forget. You’re
talking about my weird behavior just before the attack, aren’t you… about that
strange feeling that came over me? I was convinced someone was watching and
pulling me towards… somewhere.” He smacked his forehead.
 
“It looks like I forgot to tell you about
something else that the Controller told me.”

“What?”

“Only that it admitted it was responsible for placing
that compulsion in my head. Sorry, it slipped my mind.”

“I understand, Owens. After the trauma of being shot
and resurrected, I am not at all surprised. But why did the Controller seek you
out? What was its purpose in placing such a compulsion?”

“It said it was for my protection.” He remembered the
Controller’s presumption of his relationship with the Founder and decided not
to mention it right then to Sharné. He might have misunderstood. The Controller
had just shut down the sound emitter and he may have been a little fuzzy from
its effects. He figured he already had enough things on his mind without having
to weigh what he might have heard spoken by an ancient alien intelligence
thousands of years old. He rubbed his jaw, “Right after that, you arrived and I
forgot to question it any more about that.”

At his mention of the Controller Sharné’s thoughts
turned again to her lack of foreknowledge. She had been confronted by the
unexpected discovery of the alien presence on Selane. How was it she did not
know of this? She held a very high position within the government and a special
place in her father’s heart. Yet vital information had been withheld and the
questions as to why had returned to gnaw at her. 

Why had she not been informed about the true
importance of Selane? She should have been told long ago, certainly after she
had assumed the office of Keeper of the Way. Arguably, the Founder’s Shrine
concealed the most important discovery ever made by mankind. The Grand
Patriarch’s seal, her father’s seal, protected it as a state secret, but a
secret to which she should have been privy. Instead, it was kept from her. What
else had she not been told? She endeavored to maintain her outward composure as
she wondered if other, equally important secrets had been withheld from her.

She put aside these thoughts and asked, “Are you still
experiencing that compulsion?”

He shook his head, “No, not that I can tell.” He
closed his eyes then opened them again. “Nothing, I don’t sense anything.” He
looked at Sharné and saw an expression of relief. “I guess it served its
purpose. Now that we are safe, no more intervention by the Controller is
necessary. Still, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. For a while
there, I really thought I was losing it.” He smiled, “You did too; I saw it in
your face.”

She shook her head, “No, I have read your dossier and
now coming to know you better, you seem to be extraordinarily grounded, and
given our recent experiences, not someone who would be prone to flights of
fantasy. So I believed you were experiencing some genuine anomaly. It was
concern you saw on my face. I was worried about your reaction, your apparent
confusion. And right before you were fired upon, you looked to be in some
degree of pain and I felt helpless. ”

He paused, remembering. “It wasn’t pain exactly, it
was more like the feeling you get when you come out of a darkened room and into
bright sunlight. The dazzling intensity of the light is acutely uncomfortable
and causes you to wince in reaction.  You could say I reacted to the
sudden glare of a strong mental force, pulling at me.” 

“You were being pulled, Owens, drawn to this very
location, the Founder's Shrine.”

“The Founders Shrine?” he asked. “Okay, what are you
talking about? You didn’t mention anything about a Founder’s Shrine.”

“It’s my turn to say I am sorry, I meant to.” She
stood up and pointed to the shimmering stone wall. “There is a monument located
just behind that wall dedicated to the memory of the Founder. It was quite a surprise.
I was unaware one existed on Selane and I admit, at first sight, I found it a
little odd. You see its construction is that of a moving, articulated
sculpture. All the major monuments to the Founder are normally rendered in the
classical forms, full body sculptures, busts and plaques. This is the first
abstract, kinetic monument I ever have encountered. Still, it is quite
striking.”

“Sharné, from your description, I’m afraid the
original purpose of the artifact was not to commemorate your Founder.”

“You are mistaken Owens; there is a plaque, inset into
a stone that dedicates the monument to the Founder.”

 “The plaque must have been placed after its
discovery. The Controller described it as an artifact, one that matches your
description of the monument, but it referred to it as the Messenger.” He said
sheepishly, “It’s one more thing that I haven’t yet told you. The Controller
characterized the Messenger as some sort of universal communicator. I believe
it’s the mechanism the Controller used to draw me here.”

Sharné put her hands on her hips in mock anger, “Is
there anything else that you forgot to tell me?”

Relieved that she hadn’t taken offense, he laughed and
shook his head. “No, I think that’s all. That mind control sphere must have
some lingering side-effects.”

She thought a moment and then said, “Well, that at
least makes more sense. This Messenger must have been annexed as a monument to
the Founder, a dedication to his unique discovery.”

“That sounds logical.”

“But what I was leading up to say, is that what you
kept asserting all along the way, has been confirmed.”

He scratched his head. “I seem to remember saying a
lot of things.”

“Well then, do you remember what you said to me about
there being a core that the trees formed the spokes that converged onto a hub?”

He nodded.

“Owens, look around you. See the way the trees are
formed in a wide arc? If you were to walk around the edge you would see the arc
is merely a section of a much larger circle. Each tree that forms the circle is
the beginning of a line of trees or spoke, leading out from this, the central
hub. This is where you were being drawn, straight to this location. The
Founder’s Shrine… the Messenger… resides at the center of the hub of the wheel
formed by the trees.”

He looked around, his eyes widening. He had missed it.
Now that he looked, he could see the lines of trees forming the spokes did
point inward to the circular wall. He wished he could have seen the Messenger
in person, but the strange mechanism that Sharné had described was behind the
stone wall and force-field.

“I’ll be damned. The trees must form some sort of
signpost. It’s so obvious; the spoke pattern is designed to draw the eye from
the air. It’s one more visual signal to entice intelligent beings to
investigate the area where the trees converge.”

She nodded, “It seems like a reasonable hypothesis. If
the Controller is to be believed, the complex is directly below the Messenger
and is linked to it.”

Owens arched an eyebrow, “The Messenger does sound
intriguing. I wonder at its message. Come one come all; witness and share in
the glorious wonders of the Trah-tang ?”

She nodded in agreement, “Probably something close to
it. That must be what the Founder encountered when he led the fleet into the
system. He was the first to receive the message of the Trah-tang. I can only
imagine what he must have felt, being the sole human to contact an alien
entity. It's easy to understand now why it was designated as a Founder’s
Shrine.”

Finally, thought Owens, a piece of the puzzle dropped into
place.

“Owens, I am sorry you did not see the Messenger with
your own eyes. As I described earlier, it is very large and has geometric
shapes seemingly piled on top of one another. They have no physical connection
with each other and each moves independently. The entire array is in a constant
state of motion. The Mutineers took some measurements but could find no
apparent power source or a discernible reason for its existence. But we know
now it is part of a beacon, a call to other intelligences.”

Owens looked toward the wall that hid the artifact
from his view. Sharné described the alien construct situated behind the wall, a
man-made wall. The entity that called itself the Controller sat in a mechanized
lair called Prime Two, miles beneath the planets’ surface, and was definitely
part of the alien construct. But, he thought, why the wall? Why would a simple
stone wall be erected around the artifact?

He asked Sharné for her opinion.

“I can only tell you what I observed.” She smiled
suddenly, “Do you think I am I beginning to sound like a private investigator?”

He smiled back her, “Yeah, I must be rubbing off on
you. I’m happy to know that even though you were taken prisoner, you still kept
your head, and your ears and eyes open. So, what else did you observe?”

“When I was first captured, I overheard the leader of
the mutineers tell one of his henchmen about a bronze plaque. I believe that I
mentioned it earlier. It was set in a boulder near the artifact. He said it
identified the artifact as the Founder’s Shrine. He went on to say the engraved
message marked the artifact’s position as being the place where the Founder was
given the final revelations. I believe it referred to the revelations that
provided some of the principle tenets of our society.”

“What were the plaque’s inscriptions? Did it provide
any direct information about the artifact?”

“I know only what the mutineer said about it. I was
not given the opportunity to read it for myself. But I did see something else
that supports the mutineer’s assertion and with what I surmised earlier, it all
comes together. I saw the
Grand Patriarch’s
Seal on
the wall next to the gate.”

Owens’ looked at the wall near the gated entrance and
could make out a blue rectangle attached to the wall. He couldn’t see from where
he was if there was writing on it. He pointed to the area, “The Grand
Patriarch’s Seal? That sounds official. What does it signify?”

She looked to where he pointed, nodded and said, “It is
a safeguard. It informs all who encounter it that the area is under the Grand
Patriarch’s protection. It is a warning.”

“I see,” said Owens. “It’s sort of like a ‘No
Trespassing’ sign.”

“I suppose you could look at it that way,” she agreed.
“But violating the seal’s warning is serious breach of our law and the penalty
is most severe.”

Owens briefly wondered what could be more severe than
their usual punishment of death by firing squad.

“It was unfortunate it is in such bad condition,” Sharné
went on. “It is badly weathered and the date is barely legible, making it even
more difficult to read. But even so, I could discern the first year it was
placed.” She saw his blank look. “If the date on the Seal is to be believed,
the wall that surrounds the shrine dates back to the first settlement and that
means it is almost five-hundred years old. Since then the seal has been
periodically renewed by subsequent Golstar leaders.” Including her father, she
thought.