The Unearthing (28 page)

“Childhood’s over when you know you’re going to die,” James said. It was a quote from an old, old movie; a movie about death and resurrection, as he remembered. Resurrection was a concept James wasn’t sure he believed in any longer. Death was an all too present inevitability. A door in the kitchen led out onto a balcony. He went outside to breathe in the night air. He was so afraid of dying. Watching the Prof’s death had triggered that fear, released the genie from a bottle he thought he’d sealed a long time ago.

He stayed out on the balcony, overlooking a small green space, taking in the night air and the stars for quite some time. It helped bring down the panic, but it did nothing for the Fear. After a little while, he heard the door to the fridge open and caught light from its lone sentinel of a bulb. Inside the kitchen, Allison was taking a long, thirsty pull from a bottle of orange juice. James was unaware. She felt the breeze against her bare legs below her nightshirt. The door onto the balcony was open and James stood outside, watching the sky.

“James?” He turned around and watched as Allison came outside.

“Hey,” He said, “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No,” She said, “James, are you alright?” He couldn’t help noticing the smell of sex on her. It was potent; intoxicating. Her scent was spice and musk at once. It made him feel again as alone as aroused. It also made him feel intrusive. She had better things to do right now. He wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah,” He said, “Bad dreams.”

“About Laura’s dad?” She took another step forward, the light from the still-open fridge enough to silhouette her beneath the filmy fabric of her nightshirt. He tried not to notice the way the cool air hardened her nipples.

“Yeah,” He said with a sigh.

“James,” She said, reaching to hug him. He let her, more from the need for comfort than anything else. But while Allison was in his arms he became uncomfortably aware of how warm she was under her shirt and that it was damp from perspiration. Her shoulder felt disconcertingly
there
under his palm, her breasts too present in their warm weight against his chest, her hip pressed a little too close to his for the interminably short hug. And then she broke contact to regard him.

“James, you have to try and take it easy,” She said, “We’re going out to do stuff tomorrow, you and me, to take your mind off of things. Okay?”

“Okay,” He said.

As terrified as he was of his own mortality, at that moment James had a completely different set of things to take off of his mind.

“Get some rest, James. Okay?” she said, with an encouraging smile. She kissed his cheek and padded back to bed, kicking the fridge door shut as she walked past. James turned back to the green space but regarded it from behind closed eyes. And Allison was all he could see.

“Get a grip James,” He muttered, “The last thing you need right now is the hots for your ex-girlfriend’s roommate.”

Now as he catalogued antiquities it was thoughts of death and of Allison’s warm body pressed against his that were captured in James’ mind; fear and longing, neither feeling bringing comfort. He turned on the radio on the Prof’s desk, hoping music would keep him from hearing the sound of Allison’s voice in a lover’s rapture. He’d not been paying much attention to the radio until he heard the announcement that the Ship Survey Expedition had just gained access to the Ship’s interior.

♦♦♦

The Encyclical Council was meeting with Santino’s group, the subject of the meeting of course focused on the Creation Myth. Santino, Rabbi Abrams, Mufti Ressam and Brahman Radu sat to one side of an ancient conference table and Cardinal Santangelo and three Bishops sat at the other end.

“There’s honestly not much we can tell you at this point,” Rabbi Abrams told them, “We are evidently not the only intelligent life in the universe and most probably not one of God’s first creations.”

Abrams had become Santino’s council’s de-facto leader, a wise and guiding voice among their ranks.

“That is precisely our problem, Rabbi,” The Cardinal said, “How significant do we become in our Creator’s eyes if we are one of many? What is our place in Creation?”

“‘Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?’” Mufti Ressam replied, quoting from the Gospel of Luke, “If we have one thing we can agree on it is that God’s love is universal. There are millions,
billions
, perhaps, of different forms of life on Planet Earth. God loves all His creations.” Cardinal Santangelo shook his head.

“What concerns us, Mufti is that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus also tells us ‘But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.’ We have all been told time and again that we are God’s Chosen People. If the Human Race is simply one among many, if we are not the Chosen People, then who are we?”

“I would like to remind you if I may, Cardinal,” Radu said, “That Buddhists do not believe that we are God’s Chosen People. We do not believe in any manifest destiny for Humanity in the greater universe. Perhaps it is time you started to look at this from
our
point of view. We have always maintained that we are but one of many wonders in the Universe.”

“That may work fine for the Eastern Traditions Brahman Radu,” the Cardinal said, “But how would it upset the teachings and history of the Abrahamic Faiths?”

“‘Love Thy Neighbour as you would love thyself?’” Radu countered, “It sounds like a universal truth to me.”

Before the Cardinal could reply one of the Bishops accompanying him received a linx on his headset.

“I’m sorry Cardinal,” he said, “But I’ve just received a message from the Council. The Ship Survey Expedition has unlocked the inner hull of the Ship.”

♦♦♦

Allison was curled into her favourite chair, her console in her lap. A steaming mug of coffee sat in a cup stand to the right of the chair. She was switching between channels, looking for something worth viewing. She flagged a nature documentary on insects as a possible and continued searching. An image caught her eye as she slipped past it. She returned to that channel. It was a picture of the Ship as seen from the Zuni Mountain Range. The image changed as the familiar face of an INN anchor appeared. Behind him was a picture of Colonel Bloom.

“Hey Laura; your mom’s on INN again!” Allison called. She picked up her headset and linked into the console, studying the image on the screen. Allison pulled the INN story up and began viewing. In her room, Laura was linking her own console to INN. The Anchor began speaking right at the start of the newscast.

“Good afternoon and welcome to the Interactive News Network. Colonel Margaret Bloom, leader of the Ship Survey Expedition, announced this morning that the Expedition succeeded in gaining access to the Ship from the First Chamber. Access was made possible thanks to the discovery made by Professor Sonia Aiziz, about the nature of the Codex found in the First Chamber.” Each keyword said by the Anchor generated an icon at the bottom of the console screen. Icons linking to Bloom’s biographical data, an information page on the SSE, images from the descent into the Ship and the exploration of the First Chamber appeared along the bottom of the screen. Other icons for the Codex, on Aiziz and on her report to the Ship Summit closed out the list. Allison continued with the headline newscast.

“The sealed door in the First Chamber opened down a small corridor and into another, larger chamber beyond,” The Anchor said; Allison linked to the icon that read “SECOND CHAMBER AND BEYOND”.

♦♦♦

They all stared down the open passage. The next chamber was already lit up, inviting them in. Aiziz, closest to the now-open door had the clearest view. From her vantage she could see that the door into the next chamber was inscribed with another of the runes of Shiplanguage. As for the hall between the two chambers it was a plain enough passage by the Ship’s standards: golden walls, bisected by a luminous blue band of energy, the golden ceiling transparently backlit by orbs of soft light.

“How did you do that, Sonia?” Bloom asked, “Holy shit.”

“The Codex isn’t a language primer,” Aiziz said, “Not in the true sense. It is a list of their alphabet, their numeric system and yes, even their periodic table. But among the many equations and basic statements were what appeared to be false statements and false equations. That was not the case. The equations and statements were all coordinate sets; rows and columns. The false numbers that confused us were the key. Each supposedly false number was actually the atomic weight of one of the elements on the periodic table. The false runic values similarly located specific runes in the textual grid. It was just a matter of determining which number represented rows and which one represented columns.”

But there was still bad news: “The problem is we are still no closer to deciphering the Ship’s language,” Aiziz said, “All we have is a list of several hundred runes, of which we only know the meaning of a handful. We still have no sense of their grammatical structure, or conjugation.”

“We’re getting there,” Bloom said.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Kodo said, “But I’m ready to get going on into the rest of the Ship.”

“Hold on,” Bloom said. “There are some things we have to cover first. Peter: How’s our link to the surface?” Paulson checked his portable console.

“We’re doing good,” He said, “But I’d like to set up relay additional points down here. We’re a good five kilometres down. Topside’s another time zone from here.”

“How long will it take to set up another relay transmitter down here?” Bloom asked.

“Counting round trip topside I could have it done in an hour, hour and a half.”

“That being the case I think we should go back up ourselves and make our reports to the World Ship Summit before we continue,” Bloom replied She toggled her linx and spoke: “Doctor Cole? I’ll need you to have some of your EMTs set up a small ambulatory center down here in the First Chamber.” She paused as Cole made her reply and then Bloom said: “We’re going into the Ship, Doctor and I’ll want First Responders down here on scene. All right. I’ll see you shortly.” She cut the link and gestured for everyone to follow her to the elevator. They did so, reluctantly.

“The Ship’s waited sixty-five million years for us,” She said, “Believe me: it’s going to still be here when we get back.”

♦♦♦

“Good afternoon Major,” Bloom said as Benedict sat down at the table she had taken in the Officer’s Mess. Like most of the buildings on the base, the Officer’s Mess looked out over the Ship. Bloom had chosen a table near a window.

“Good afternoon Colonel,” Benedict said before digging in to his lunch. It was a little past noon and shortly after returning to the surface Bloom had scheduled this lunch meeting with her second in command, who was also serving as security officer.

“Good coffee here,” Bloom said, sipping from her mug.

“Not as good as we had skyside,” Benedict said, “Concord Three had the best damn coffee I’ve gotten in a commissary.”

“The disadvantage being we had to drink it from a plastic sip-pouch.”

Benedict grinned.“It’s good to be back under you, Colonel.”

It was Bloom’s turn to grin. “If I had a dollar for every time a man said
that
to me…”

They laughed and ate in silence a few moments.

“How would you say the SSE is adjusting to the security measures?” Bloom asked.

“Bitchy,” Benedict replied, “It’s furloughs into town that are going to be really problematic. Washington wants to send in the Secret Service if they need escorts. Geneva looks inclined to agree.”

“What have we been able to tie to Ashe?”

“Sweet fuck all,” Was Benedict’s bitter reply between mouthfuls of lunch, “Goddamn, this macaroni salad’s like
rubber
! Shit. No, Ashe is resourceful. The gun used in the assassination was completely clean. Never used before in connection with anything. Registry information hasn’t been able to turn up anyone connected to the Untied Trinity Observants in the Village who owns that kind of gun. We’re spreading our search to the national database, but so far nothing. Plus because fourteen member nations of the World Council have recognized the Observants as a legitimate religion, the World Ship Summit’s upheld their right to be in the Village, despite the obvious connection between them and the slayings.”

“Obvious but improvable,” Bloom said, “Ashe
is
going down. I’m going to see to it. I owe that fuck. I want to know everything that goes on inside that lunatic’s asylum he calls a church. I want full reports from you and the civilian authority. I’m not going to be happy until they haul that bastard off to the shithouse to rot.”

“We do have some leads from informants inside.”

“Nothing from his inner circle,” Bloom countered, “And that means nothing that INN and INTERPOL haven’t already told us.”

“No. But we’re trying there, too. We know that Ashe is planning something; we just don’t know what, yet. He seems to be divesting power to his inner circle. They may be forming terrorist cells.”

“I’m supposed to be taking the SSE back into the Ship in a few minutes. We opened the way out of the First Chamber and twenty minutes later the whole fucking world knew about it. And tomorrow we’re scheduled to start crawling around the outside of the thing, looking for a shortcut inside.”

“You want extra security?”

“I want a
full
security net on the SSE,” Bloom replied, “Tactical response, emergency response and evac standing by. I want guards posted at the entrances into the Ship and in the First Chamber, as well as an escort with each SSE team. I want attack helicopters on the perimeter and snipers guarding every access to the base, the Expedition and the Ship.”