Apostle of the Terrians by Simon Kattenhorn

[Reviews - 0]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer

- Text Size +

Apostle of the Terrians (3/4)
by Simon Kattenhorn

Chapter Three

Danziger stared at the device before him. It was almost ready. Almost, but not quite. There was still one small problem that John had to address: the device didn't work. Considering that this was the primary objective for building the device, it was understandable that Danziger was slightly irate.

"What's wrong with it?" asked Devon.

Many of the crew were gathered around Danziger's work bench, studying the device that was for all intents and purposes, their ticket out of this place. The concern played across their faces noticeably.

"Did you build it wrong, Dad?" wondered True.

"No, I didn't build it wrong!" Danziger had raised his voice slightly, and regretted it instantly upon seeing True's crestfallen expression. "It's just got a part missing, that's all True-girl."

"I thought you had found all the parts you needed." Devon was only trying to understand the situation, but it still sounded like a reprimand to Danziger. He had labored long and hard to get the subsurface surveyor working, and was not about to stand around taking condescension handouts.

"I *did*," snapped back Danziger. "At least, I thought I did." He straightened up to stretch the muscles in his back and shoulders and ran his hands through his curly hair. "Hell, *I've* never designed one of these things before! This geophysical imaging stuff is more complicated than I was expecting."

Devon was trying to understand, but Danziger certainly wasn't giving her much to go on. "I thought you went over the specs with Yale," she reminded him. "Did you follow the same designs as existing devices?"

Danziger jumped to his own defense quickly. "To the letter, Adair. Unfortunately, the device alone is not much use to us."

"Not much use?" jumped in Julia. "Why? I thought this was supposed to be used for shallow-depth ground imaging."

"It *is*!" Danziger started getting impatient. "And it's exactly what this *does*!"

Now people were looking visibly confused. Danziger had obviously been working too hard on this project. He'd stopped making sense completely.

"It ..*does* work," Baines stated slowly, hesitantly, attempting to understand.

Danziger shook his head and let out a long sigh. "No!"

"Danziger, you're going to have to give us a little more to go on here," said Alonzo. "First the device is working, and then it isn't? Which is it?"

"Oh this device works alright," shot back Danziger. "Works like a charm. But it's no use to us because we can't process the data it collects. We may as well have been given a free library full of books in Spanish. Won't do us any good."

"I can speak Spanish," offered Mazatl. Danziger glared at the man. "Well, I *can*!" he said defensively.

Devon was the one starting to get agitated now. "So what do we need to process the data? Can you find the component? Could it be taken out of one of the transponders?"

"Oh no!" interjected Baines. "There's no way he's getting his hands on any more of the communications stuff!"

"Cool it, Baines, you don't have what we need," Danziger cut him off. "I don't think any of us do."

There was a stunned silence as the news sank in.

"Maybe we can try to get through here without it," suggested Magus. "If we scout ahead. Maybe learn some geological skills beforehand."

Devon looked to Yale for a response. She knew him well enough after all these years to know what the look on his face meant. It was too risky.

"It would be impossible to accurately evaluate the potential hazards as we progressed," Yale indicated.

"Well, what exactly is it that we need to do the data processing?" asked Julia. "Is there any way we can do it manually? Even to a first order?"

Danziger shook his head, echoed moments thereafter by Yale who had been accessing his databanks.

"It would seem that the processing of such geophysical data requires a complex computational method," Yale began explaining. "Some of the numerical algorithms are quite convoluted. Even *I* wouldn't be able to do it and be able to provide an accurate final rendering."

"From what I can gather, we would have to have a means of processing the raw data and re-imaging the seismic wavelets," continued Danziger. "A compact microprocessor unit of some kind. As far as I know..." he paused to take in the entire group, "we don't have one."

It was at this point that the Zero Unit came to life, startling Cameron and Walman, who had been standing right next to it. Sometimes it was easy to forget the robotic member of their group was even there.

"That is not correct," Zero's mechanical voice began. "We have available a high-frequency compact microprocessor."

"What?!" Danziger almost fell over. "What do you mean? *Where*?!"

"I am fully equipped with the microprocessor unit required to enable the successful operation of this device."

If any of the human members of the group had been the one to deliver such news, the excitement would undoubtedly have been free-flowing. Zero relayed the information as if it were about as important as the current atmospheric barometric reading.

"You!" exclaimed Danziger. "Why would a construction worker series Zero Unit come equipped with a microprocessing unit?"

The heads of the people in the group moved back and forth between Danziger and Zero as the conversation progressed. This revelation was news to everyone. Zero had essentially been thought of as nothing more than robotic labor until now. The fact that the unit might also be able to process complex wavelet data was a little more than anyone had expected.

"I am a modified construction worker series Zero Unit customized to the needs of the Eden Project," the mechanical voice continued. "To aid with construction site evaluation, I have been equipped with the necessary computational capabilities to process and render complex scientific data."

The Eden Advance crew gaped at each other as if manna had just rained down from heaven. It seemed there was a solution to Danziger's difficulties with the subsurface scanner device after all.

"Can we remove the microprocessor unit from Zero?" Devon asked of no-one in particular. She was certainly no expert on the inner workings of a Zero Unit.

Danziger decided to put the question to Zero. "Zero, would you be able to function if we removed the microprocessor from your system?"

"Affirmative," replied the robot. "My microprocessing unit is required only in conjunction with my shallow geophysical survey hardware and routines."

Danziger felt like a ton of bricks had suddenly alighted from the sky and pelted down on him. "*What*?! You have a geophysical surveying capability?!"

"Affirmative," replied Zero.

"Then why the *hell* didn't you tell me before I spent four days putting *this* thing together?" demanded Danziger as he fought back an image of deconstructing the robot to a heap of scrap metal.

"You did not specify the function of this device," Zero stated in a mechanical drone. "You did not ask."

Danziger felt like his eyes were about to launch themselves out of their sockets and splatter all over Zero's idiot plastic visor bubble. Baines, not being able to resist the urge any longer, burst into laughter. It was enough to infect the rest of the group. Danziger found himself surrounded by laughter, and despite the utter frustration he felt coursing its way through every vein in his body, he soon found himself unable to resist the urge to laugh with the rest of them.

Devon patted John on the back and gave him a wide grin. "I guess this means I can have my gear back, Danziger?!"

"And my laser emitter," added Julia between fits of laughter.

"All right, all right!" Danziger fought back. "I'll have to remember not to underestimate tin man here again!"

"Tin man? My frame is primarily a nickel-titanium alloy," Zero attempted to correct Danziger. This only succeeded in an increase in the peals of laughter from the gathered group, causing Morgan and Bess to come hurrying over from the evening meal preparations to find out what was going on.

"If you'll excuse me," Devon was down to a chuckle now, "I need to get my son to clean up for dinner."

Devon walked off with a grin plastered on her face as Bess and Morgan arrived looking quite incredulous at the laughter going on around them.

"Could someone perhaps let us in on the joke?" Morgan demanded. Instead, he was met by a further round of laughter. "Great! Everyone here is high on a happy drug and I'm stuck chopping white-root."

***

Devon Adair was becoming frantic. She could not find Uly anywhere. And she cursed herself a thousand times for not paying more notice of his whereabouts over the previous few hours. She realized that she had not seen her son since soon after lunch time. What had she been thinking? With the day-to-day responsibilities of keeping the Eden Advance team operating at peak efficiency, it was easy to forget that they were traveling through an uncharted wilderness. It was no place for children to go off exploring by themselves and it was her duty as a mother to ensure that her child be kept aware of that necessity. Instead, Devon found herself now running around the campsite in a panic. Tent to tent- Uly could not be found anywhere.

"Uly!" she began to shout. "Uly!"

Julia popped her head out from the tent nearest to Devon.

"Devon? What's wrong?"

"Julia have you seen Uly? He's not in camp."

Julia shook her head. "Haven't seen him since lunch. Wait, wasn't he....oh." Julia stopped short as she realized Uly had not been with the group a few moments before when everyone had been gathered at Danziger's workbench. It was easy to assume the two children were around when in fact they may not be. True had been present. Perhaps the mind immediately allowed the assumption that the second child was also nearby- at the back of the group perhaps, obscured by one of the adults.

"We need to start a search." Devon's single-mindedness kicked into gear. There was no more time for panic. Her son could be hurt. He could be lost. She needed to find him and quickly.

"Alonzo!" Devon launched at the man as he appeared from around the corner of one of the tents. "Grab Danziger. Uly's missing."

Alonzo absorbed the information for about half a second and understood the implication. "I'll grab Baines and Walman too." He hurried off, yelling across the camp to Baines and Walman to meet up with him as he beelined towards Danziger, who appeared to be deep in some form of argument with the Zero Unit.

"What's going on?" asked Bess as she walked by where Devon and Julia were now standing, scanning the nearby hillside- Devon with a pair of jumpers and Julia using just her eyesight.

"Uly's missing," Julia filled her in. We haven't seen him since lunchtime."

"I saw him," replied Bess. "About two hours ago."

Devon spun around quickly. "Where?! Did you see where he was going?"

Bess' eyes narrowed as she evaluated if something may be wrong. "Right over there," she pointed to the edge of the nearby grove of trees. "He was walking off into the trees."

"And you *let* him?" Devon shot at the woman. "It's dangerous out there!"

Bess recoiled at Devon's verbal attack. She felt immediately guilty, as if it were truly her fault that Uly had gone off on his own.

Julia jumped to Bess' defense. "Devon, this isn't Bess' fault."

"Are you saying it's *my* fault?" Devon snapped back. She glared at Julia and then realized that she would prefer to not hear an answer. It *was* her fault. Or maybe it was no-one's fault. What did it matter anyway, they needed to find Uly.

Danziger came running over, Alonzo, Baines and Walman close on his heels."Uly's missing?" he wanted to hear it straight from Devon's mouth.

Devon nodded and composed herself as best she could. "Bess saw him two hours ago. Heading into the trees." Devon pointed off in the direction Bess had indicated. 'I told him not to go in there,' Devon thought to herself. 'Why must children disobey?'

"Any idea where he was going?" Danziger near interrogated Bess.

Bess shook her head. She was beginning to choke up. Something may have happened to Uly and it would be her fault. What was she thinking allowing a little boy to go wandering off into the forest like that?

"He said he was going looking for Terrians," Bess recounted. "He said he hasn't seen any around here yet."

They all looked at each other, recognizing that this fact was true for all of them. It hadn't struck them as strange. There had been many times when they had encountered no Terrians for a period of time. It wasn't by any means unusual.

"The Dream Plane's been quiet for a while," Alonzo added. "I just thought we were away from Terrian enclaves around here."

"You'd think somewhere with so many caves underground would have a thriving community of them," said Walman.

Danziger looked at him and nodded. "Yeah, you would."

"We need to start looking!" Devon began marching off towards the trees. "Spread out across the hillside and comb along the length as we ascend."

Danziger, Julia, Alonzo, Baines and Walman followed after Devon.

"Wait! I want to help!" offered Bess. She attempted a half-limp, half-walk after them but soon recognized the futility. She would be a burden more than anything else.

Devon's face softened slightly. "Bess, we need someone to keep a look out for him from down here. You can use jumpers to scan the hillside and stay in touch over gear."

Bess nodded, glad to be involved in some way. "Good luck."

Morgan had been standing close by and walked over to comfort Bess as the others headed into the trees. "It's not your fault Bess. You're not his baby-sitter."

Bess buried her head into Morgan's shoulder. "Oh Morgan, what kind of mother would I ever be if I can't even look out for Uly?"

Morgan's eyes widened. "Mother? Bess...what?...er...I mean...er...?"

"Morgan you've got to go and help them." Bess was now standing defiantly in front of her husband, her determination clear. "They need as many eyes as possible. I'll coordinate from down here and get the rest of the group looking off in the other directions in case Uly circled round."

"But Bess, I can't just leave you here! Alone!"

Bess was resolute. "Morgan, I am not a child. I'm fine here." She took his hands and clasped them inside her own against her chest as she looked into her husband's eyes. "I need for you to go and help them. It's the least we should do."

Morgan gazed back into his wife's eyes, and as usual, his heart melted into a puddle inside his chest. There was nothing he wouldn't do for this woman. It might take a complaint or two along the way, but ultimately she could always win. "Alright Bess. I'll be on gear. Stay in contact, okay?"

"I will. Go on."

Morgan hurried off to catch up with the others as Bess watched him go. A frown creased her brow as he disappeared beyond the edge of the trees. Her heart weighed heavy inside her.

***

It was difficult trying to be brave. Uly was trying very hard but the pain was intense and the tears rolled freely down his cheeks in the darkness. In his mind, he found a small consolation in the fact that he had never been afraid of the dark. It helped a little now, as he sat in all-consuming darkness. His eyes may as well be sewn shut for what use they were in the blackness of this cavern.

Uly had awoken to find himself laying on damp ground in the dark. At first, he wondered if he were still asleep- perhaps that was why he couldn't see anything. Then the pain from his broken leg shot through his body and he let out a loud yell that immediately echoed back at him from all directions. It was enough to silence him in sudden confusion. Then the dim memory of falling returned and he realized that he must have fallen into a cave beneath the ground.

No matter how long Uly sat and stared ahead of him, his eyes did not grow accustomed to the dark. There was absolutely zero light for his fully dilated pupils to attune to. So he was left with the realization that he was not going to find his own way out of here. Certainly not by sight, and not by walking either. He had attempted to stand up briefly but the pain had been excruciating and Uly had needed a good ten minutes or so for the flow of tears and sobs to subside.

As he stared sightlessly ahead of him, Uly wondered where the rest of the Eden crew were. Had they realized he was missing? How long had he been down here? Hours? A day? Uly's stomach had been growling for food since he had awoken. He wasn't sure how many meals he had missed, but it sure felt like he'd missed more than one. 'What if they don't find me?' Uly wondered to himself. The thought was a catalyst for a fresh start of soft sobbing. It wasn't that Uly was afraid of dying. He had spent so much of his life surrounded by death, and by the promise of death for himself care of the Syndrome, that the concept of dying meant little to him anymore. What Uly was scared of was being alone. Of possibly dying alone. He wanted the last thing he saw to be the smiling face of his mom looking down at him, her soft hands caressing his forehead and hair. Down here in the dark, he would not have that. He would die alone, a frightened and broken little boy, trapped forever in the darkness.

Uly wasn't sure exactly how long he sat staring ahead of him, seeing nothing. But it was long enough that his body eventually demanded rest. Slowly his eyes drooped closed and he rested his tear-stained cheek against the damp earth as his mind drifted in search of sleep.

***

"Hello?"

The sudden change from utter darkness to the brightness of a hundred suns startled Uly. His heart was thumping inside his chest and his eyes struggled to see anything through the tiny slits that they had become.

"Is someone there?" Uly's voice no longer produced an echo and it was almost immediately clear to him that he had entered the Dream Plane.

"Hello? Alonzo? Didididididididi." There was no answer from anyone. Why would he have gone to the Dream Plane by himself? Only the Terrians summon anyone to the Dream Plane. Unless...

"Am I dead?" Uly shouted out into the air of blinding light.

The sound was only barely perceptible to Uly, as if it were coming at him from miles away. 'Dididididi.'

Uly's mind struggled to make sense of the circumstances. Was he alive? Was this heaven? Were there Terrians in heaven too?

'Dididididididid.'

The sound was getting louder and Uly realized that a Terrian was slowly approaching, gradually morphing from a small speck to a fuzzy outline to a definable shape as the blinding light attacked from all directions. Again, the walking. Uly's eyes were almost fully open now and his mouth dropped open in surprise as the Terrian finally approached where Uly was standing. The Terrian's skin was a deathly gray color. The eyes were as black as obsidian and the sounds that the creature made were only slightly intelligible to Uly.

'Didididi.'

"What?" replied Uly. "I don't understand. Where are we?"

The Terrian's movements were slow, as if the creature's body moved within an atmosphere of molasses. 'Dididididi. #Mountain of the night.#'

The words sounded familiar to Uly. Perhaps the Terrian had mentioned this place to him once before. He wasn't exactly sure. "Mountain of the night? What do you mean? Is it because of the darkness?"

Uly glanced around him. Everything here beyond the Terrian and himself was completely drowned out in an ocean of white light. It seemed silly to talk of darkness.

'Didididi. #Darkness. Living kill the self.#'

Uly attempted to fathom the meaning behind the Terrian's thoughts and sounds. No matter how hard he tried, he could only come up with one answer.

"Am I dead?"

The Terrian cocked his head to one side in a slow, viscous arc.

'Dididididid. #Stone in the sky.#'

Now *that* was finally something Uly's mind could grasp. "Yes! Bird through the ground became stone in the sky! I fell..." The Terrian stared at Uly as if waiting for more. "You warned me, didn't you? You knew I was going to fall. That I was going to die in the dark. In the mountain of the night."

'Dididididid. #Life sometimes gone forever.#'

Uly couldn't help himself. The tears had started to flow again and he suddenly felt terribly alone.

"I didn't say good-bye to my mom..."

The Terrian said nothing.

"She's gonna be so mad at me," Uly collapsed into a small heap and buried his face in his hands. He had never cried in front of a Terrian before. He wondered if they would think less of him now. But he couldn't help himself. The tears would not stop, not even after the blinding light was swallowed up by darkness and he could again feel the coolness of the damp earth against his cheek as he lay on the floor of the underground cavern, his body heaving in uncontrolled sobs.

***

The tinkling sound of the gear's activator sounded and Alonzo pulled the eyepiece down over his eye. Devon's image stared back at him through the tiny optical projector.

"Alonzo. Anything?" Devon's face was a mask of anxiety. There was nothing
she could do to hide it any longer.

"Nothing. We've combed this entire part of the slope and we're almost at the summit."

Devon recoiled noticeably at the news. The worry was becoming increasingly evident in each and every facial expression. "We're already at the summit..."

Alonzo didn't know how to respond. They had combed every inch of this portion of the hillside. Between himself, Walman, Baines and Morgan, they had searched under every shrub, in every nook and cranny, and kept a lookout for any caves or sinkholes that Uly might possibly have fallen into. They had found nothing.

"Maybe he never came up here at all," Alonzo offered.

Devon shook her head. "Where else could he have gone? There was no way he could have gotten off the slope without passing right by the campsite. It doesn't make sense."

Alonzo heard Danziger's voice from Devon's end of the communication. "He's a kid, Adair. He could have slipped by the camp easy."

"But why?" Alonzo watched Devon, who had turned to talk directly to Danziger, although from Alonzo's perspective she was looking slightly off-center from directly at him still. "Why would Uly try to make it appear he was walking off into the woods and then double back again? No, he wouldn't do something like that. He would know that would be silly and dangerous. I think he came up here. Somehow we missed him. He must have climbed down into a cave and gotten lost."

"We didn't find any cave entrances on this side, Devon." Alonzo turned to receive confirmation of this from the nods of the other three men in his search team. "What about you?"

Devon shook her head and frowned. "We must have missed it. We're gonna have to work our way back down and look again."

Baines and Walman exchanged a glance between them that spoke of their doubt at finding anything the second time around, but they nodded anyway and began heading back down the slope.

"Alright Devon, we'll keep our eyes open for any entrances. Out."

Alonzo pulled the gear's eyepiece away from his eye and looked at Morgan. "What about up there?" he asked. Did you search up there?" Alonzo was pointing at the cliff-face that ran along the edge of the summit of the hill, about ten meters upslope from where they were standing. It wasn't a very high cliff- perhaps five meters total- but would still be a foolish venture for a child to contemplate.

"About to head up there," replied Morgan. "That's all that's left on this side of the hill."

"Come on, let's give it a look."

The two men completed the short distance of the ascent to the base of the cliff while Baines and Walman backtracked down the hill, each covering the other's ascent routes. The cliff was fairly featureless limestone, and was obviously too crumbly and unstable for anyone to attempt to climb it.

"There's no way he went up that way," said Alonzo as he scanned left and right along the length of the cliff face.

"No, but he might have taken a peek in here," replied Morgan excitedly. "Look!"

Morgan was standing beside a small shrub that resembled what on Earth was referred to as a yew.

Alonzo frowned. "Look at what, Morgan?"

"Here!" Morgan replied as he lifted back the pliable branches of the shrub to reveal a small opening at the base of the cliff. "I guess we've found our cave entrance."

Alonzo smiled broadly and was about to pull down his gear to tell the others when he hesitated. "I dunno, Morgan. That looks kind of small. I'm not sure if Uly would go in there, assuming he found it at all. Are there any footprints?"

Morgan blanched as he stepped away from where he had been trampling around the entrance to the cave. "Er...I'm not sure. I, er..."

Alonzo rolled his eyes. "Great! Let's take a quick look before we contact the others."

Morgan nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. You'd better take a look before you contact the others."

"Me?" Alonzo shot back. "Don't you mean 'we'?"

Morgan darted nervous looks back and forth between Alonzo and the cave entrance. "Don't you think one of us should stay out here?"

"Morgan, don't tell me you're afraid of a li'l ol' cave?" Alonzo taunted the man.

"Of *course* not," Morgan shot back. "I *have* been into caves before...remember?"

Alonzo did recall, although in that case, it would have been best if Morgan had never gone into the Terrian caves in the first place.

"So what's the problem?"

Morgan peered tentatively into the cave entrance, seeing nothing but blackness beyond. "Well it *does* look kind of tiny in there..."

"Fine, Morgan. Whatever." Alonzo ducked his head down to fit through the cave opening as he grabbed onto Morgan for support. "Let me take a quick look while you just stay right out..." Before he had a chance to finish the sentence, Alonzo felt his footing give way on the steep slope of wet mud immediately inside the cave entrance. Before he had an opportunity to register what was happening, he was tumbling down the wet slope in the dark, like some form of water-slide amusement ride, dragging a hapless flailing Morgan behind him in an open-mouthed, silent yell.

End of Chapter Three. Concluded in Chapter 4.

You must login (register) to review.