ten months pass...
nine months pass...
Zak McKracken, Ace reporter for the National Inquisitor, was sweating, getting worked up, and starting to regret having worn all-black clothes on this fine, sunny day.
He was pacing the floor in the editor's office, on the 25th floor. The editor sat behind his desk, watching Zak disinterestedly. Despite his enormous overweight body, and egg-shaped head, he wasn't sweating at all. The occasional rise and fall of his chest was all that distinguished him from a boulder in suit and tie - the contrast between him and the energetic (and thinner) Zak was extreme. The editor barely had enough hair to comb. Zak had more than enough, but chose to keep it... not shaved, but short. A slight strand, however, was allowed to hang low above one eye.
"Zak, Zak, Zak," said the editor, trying to calm him down. "What am I going to do with you?" Printed in Gothic lettering on the window behind him, was The National Inquirer. Hanging on the walls were photographic prints of volcanoes exploding and grainy, slim aliens. It was that kind of paper.
"But Boss!" wailed Zak, still pacing the floor. "I'll never win a Pulitzer working for this sleazy tabloid! I'm sick of making up stupid stories!"
"Then make up stories that aren't stupid," said the editor reasonably.
This made Zak stop completely. Uh huh, he thought.
"Look," continued the editor, determined to get some work out of Zak. "Just do this last feature, and then you can write your novel. Here's your ticket to Seattle." He tossed a slip of paper onto the desk.
Slowly, Zak walked forward and picked up the ticket. "I want more on that vicious two-headed squirrel that's been attacking campers," the editor explained.
"Oh, all right!" said Zak, giving in. Every meeting with his editor seemed to go this way - it was depressing.
"And while you're there," added his editor, "the first UFO sighting happened on Mt. Rainer fifty years ago. Write it up too."
Zak's mood grew blacker. The ticket crumpled a little in his grip, as he shoved it in his back pocket. Tabloid Reporter Strangles Boss Over Lousy Assignment, he thought as he walked to the door.
That night.
Zak was alone, in bed. Again. Wherever the excitement in Zak's life was, it certainly wasn't in the bedroom.
But something strange was happening now. It was a dream - surely. Zak didn't dream often, and when he did all he usually remembered were a couple of grainy black-and-white images, some lingering emotions, and a lot of bluster. But what Zak saw now was crystal-clear, and smooth. He was floating in space, zooming past Earth and toward the red planet of Mars. He didn't actually seem to be there - this felt like something he was watching remotely.
Suddenly the view changed, and a series of slides came into view. The first was of the cratered Martin landscape, from quite high up, and below he saw a number of rectangular buildings squatting together, connected to a face the size of a postage stamp by twin tracks, or canals, or tunnels, or whatever.
The next slide zoomed in on the face. Zak recognised it instantly - the photo taken by NASA of something on the surface of Mars that was angular, looked to be constructed, and indeed looked like a face from above. Zak had written a story on it, inventing a conspiracy involving an observatory in Des Moines, Iowa, and a plan to spruik the water supply. Seen now, the face looked metallic, almost robotic, with its triangular mouth and expressionless eyes. This impression was only reinforced by its rusty-red colour.
The next slide zoomed in even further, on the mouth of the face. There was something in there, a rectangle blue and brown, with tiny yellow dots. He zoomed in further, and instantly Zak recognised the pattern - it was a map of the Earth.
An Earth slightly different to the one he knew, like a geographic projection of twenty million years ago. Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia were all merged up into one unrecognisable landmass. North America, Greenland and Scandinavia were all joined up into the one northern land bridge. Similarly, South America and Africa were joined at the equator. The orphaned North Atlantic, now a huge inland sea, was occupied in its middle by a large expanse of land. Atlantis? wondered Zak. It was certainly the right place.
His view zoomed in further. Now he could see the points of yellow light clearer. There were two on the North American west coast, one in the middle of Atlantis, one somewhere in Argentina, and one about where Egypt was. The significance of these dots completely eluded Zak.
Here, his dream suddenly diverged. Zak found himself, clad in his blue pyjamas, in a world of uniform grey. He looked forward, to a familiar bed (his bed!) and a familiar form, sleeping contentedly in the bed.
"Hey!", said Zak. He heard his voice quite clearly. "That's me!" Tabloid Reporter Spaces Out In Dream, he thought.
Zak ran toward the bed, but just as he got close it vanished. In its place appeared a huge humanoid alien, twelve feet tall, with mottled blue skin and a cranium the size of a beach ball. Zak pulled up short, a hand to his mouth. The alien stared impassively back then pointed at him, with a thin arm as long as a broom handle.
Zak turned and ran. Directly in his path appeared a huge golden Ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life. Zak skirted around it, his mouth open wide.
Suddenly everything vanished again. Zak turned around a full revolution, but he couldn't see anything in the uniform grey.
A girl appeared before him. She had black hair, was wearing a purple sweater and smiled at him quite attractively. At the sight of her, Zak's rabbity heart forgot to pound. Rapidly four more girls appeared beside her, all in a line, and all identical.
Zak's open mouth turned into a grin. He hurried over to the line of girls. They stood still, holding the smiles.
Four disappeared, just as Zak reached the first. They looked at each other, and in the space between them a squat grey machine appeared. Three arms thrust up from the machine, holding three shards of crystal. One gold, one near-white, one dark blue. The machine confused Zak a little, but the girl was still smiling, as if she knew what the machine was for.
The machine disappeared. Zak moved closer, the confusion gone.
The girl disappeared. Zak's smile disappeared with her. He didn't have much time to be disappointed, however, because out of the space above dropped a Groucho disguise, attached to a small yellow hat. It floated toward him, eyebrows winking madly, as if being worn by the Invisible Man.
Zak screamed, soundlessly, and ran. Away, although directions were useless in this grey void. He could feel the Groucho disguise behind him, drawing closer. A black doorway suddenly loomed before him. Zak jumped through.
He was in a blue corridor, which stretched before him straight and narrow. Zak turned, and the Groucho disguise had followed him through. Zak pelted forward. He was pulled up short almost immediately, because the way was blocked by a huge Groucho disguise, easily forty feet tall, staring impassively at him. Even as he halted, the Groucho disguise winked its eyebrows at him.
Zak turned on his heels and ran back.
He woke.
Zak was lying on his back, in his bed. He lay there a while, then got up and turned the lamp on. Yes, this was his bedroom, and it was the next morning. Everything was back to normal.
But somehow Zak knew that wasn't so.
He pulled on some clothes, opened the shades, then hunted around for a pen. He wanted to make a map of those Martian images he'd seen. It soon turned into a very frustrating search. He looked under the bed (nothing), on the dresser drawer (just his pet goldfish Sushi), in the dresser drawer (nothing in there but a phone bill for... $1138?!?!? That couldn't be right!), in his desk drawer (just his kazoo), under the desk (his CashCard was down there, and all he succeeded in doing was pushing it further under), and on his desk.
Nothing. Lots of junk, but no pen.
Zak was starting to get pretty worked up, and forgetting the dream. This was just typical. He picked up the phone receiver, and heard nothing but a low monotonous tone. So the phone was out, too. Well, that was just typical.
Moody, Zak walked out into the living room.
He turned on the TV. Even this turned out to be a torturous process, involving searching under a couch cushion for the remote control, finding out it didn't work, looking around for the power cable, losing temper, finally locating it under another, discarded couch cushion, plugging the cable into the outlet, and finally turning on the TV.
Sheesh, thought Zak. He settled back into the couch and watched the tube.
Meanwhile, in a secret room a lot closer than you might think...
Alien #1 (his true name is unpronounceable, and certainly unwriteable, so let's just call him this) was standing in front of the control panel, watching the readouts. He was in a long passage made of metal. The control panel had two very obvious features - a huge on/off switch, and a large dial, whose red needle was currently pointed at sixty. Behind the control panel was a massive network of thin piping and cable, all intertwined.
As for the alien, if you weren't looking at his head you'd scarcely notice him. He wore a nondescript black suit with a yellow tie, was about the same height and build as a human, and about the only noticeable difference was that his head looked like a shrivelled peanut, or a rotund figure eight. He was watching the control panel like a hawk, his head motionless. At the edge of hearing, there was a faint, low-pitched whistle.
Alien #2 approached. You could tell he was Alien #2 because he wore a blue tie. A little perturbed by the utter lack of reaction from Alien #1, Alien #2 coughed.
Alien #1 turned and looked at him. The expression on #1's face was as blank as before.
"I just talked to The King," said #2. "He said the machine is working perfectly."
"Yeah... working perfectly," echoed #1.
"He said in just a few more days all earthlings will be stupider than we are."
"Yeah... stupider than we are."
#2 paused. "I think you've been hanging around the machine too long."
"Yeah... too long," agreed #1.
#2 snorted. "I think I need a new partner," he muttered, as he turned and walked away.
"Yeah... new partner. See ya." #1 turned back to the control panel, staring avidly at the screen.
It was the morning news. The kind of program Zak should watch more regularly, although his main viewing habit these days seemed to be daytime soap operas.
Nevertheless, Zak soon found his interest roused. It seemed plenty of people had been having an interesting night, last night.
The newsreader was a young blonde woman, Lori Amore. "Good morning, San Francisco," she said. "We'll continue with today's top story about the Yale coeds' mission to Mars... after this important message."
Mars - it was mildly interesting, but what followed next picked up Zak a lot more.
The commercial showed a young girl, with black hair, wearing a purple sweater, standing in front of a bookshelf and looking steadily into the camera. Zak sat up sharply - she looked like the girl in his dream!
Whoever this was, she was utterly entrancing, a quality which extended to her voice. "Hello, I'm Annie Larris from the Society for Ancient Wisdom in San Francisco," she said. "Our quest for a greater understanding of the past can make a better world today. But we need your help! Please deposit artifacts in our 14th Avenue drop slot."
14th Avenue was only one block away. Zak lived on 13th Avenue.
"I promise they will be returned undamaged," said Annie. "Thank you for your time." She vanished, as the morning news and Lori Amore returned.
They were going with the Mars story. "Now from Mars," continued Lori, "one of the women who made this dangerous journey, Melissa China."
Melissa China appeared on screen - what she looked like, Zak found hard to tell, as she was inside her spacesuit, standing on the Martin landscape. "Hi there!" she said cheerily, her voice distorted by the low-quality spacesuit microphone.
Back to Lori. "Melissa, why have you and your friend Leslie travelled all the way to Mars?"
Melissa's answer was a little unsettling, for Zak at least. "We had dreams in which an alien told us how to convert our van into a spaceship. We were told to fly to Mars and await further instructions." Melissa looked around the landscape. "So here we are!"
Lori's look of professional disbelief was something to behold. "I see. And have you received your, uhm, 'instructions'?"
"No," said Melissa, clearly disappointed. "We haven't talked to any 'intelligent beings' since we landed. But we're willing to wait!" Melissa suddenly looked downward. "Oops. My helmet says my oxygen level is low. I have to go refill it."
Lori returned to screen. "OK, Melissa. Good luck!" The screen backdrop changed, and they were on to the next story. "We'll continue with today's top story, about the universal stupidity epidemic, after this."
Stupidity epidemic? Tell me about it, thought Zak. But he listened closer.
Suddenly, Lori's expert autocue reading faltered. "Ummm," she said, suddenly looking very lost. "After this... uhhh..."
A low buzz was coming from the television, similar to that from his telephone.
It stopped, and Lori was back to normal. "After this story about the universal stupidity epidemic," she said, as if completely unaware of what had just happened.
This was weirding Zak out. What on earth was going on?
"If you've been feeling increasingly stupid lately," said Lori, "you're not alone!" A big question mark appeared on the screen behind her. "Scientists are baffled by a mysterious buzz that is affecting people worldwide. The sixty-cycle hum seems to come from every telephone line on the planet."
A lot things started to fall into place for Zak, then.
"A spokesman for The Phone Company refused to comment," said Lori in her neutral newsreader voice. That was the end of the story, and Zak soon turned the set off.
He sat there for a while, thinking. What he was meant to do today was fly off to Seattle, find or fake a two-headed squirrel, talk to the nutty locals about Mt. Rainer UFO's, and eventually write two stories. Routine.
In the morass of information he'd just been given, however, there was a decidedly non-routine story. It was all tied up somehow in his dream - the girl, the crystal shards, the alien, Groucho Marx, Mars.
So Zak didn't pack, not then at least. He went into his bedroom, got his CashCard out from under the desk (using a butter knife), picked up his phone bill, and walked out of his apartment.
Outside on the pavement, it was a shiny, clean day, the sky perfect blue above. The bustle of the city was soft today, hardly anyone about. That was probably because he'd slept in again, like usual.
He walked along the pavement, stopping at the very next door to the apartment entrance. Here was the local office of TPC, The Telephone Company. In fact, the office was probably directly under his apartment (he was on the second floor).
Zak pushed open the door. And got a real shock. The guy behind the counter was wearing a something black and close-fitting, yellow tie, a Groucho Marx disguise and a dinky yellow hat.
Like in his dream.
Zak controlled his reaction well, and walked into the office. He walked up to the counter and showed the representative his bill.
The guy whistled. He had a deep, throaty voice. "$1138! You callin' Mars or something?"
I wonder, thought Zak. He handed over his CashCard. The representative keyed in the transaction. "Next time be prompt with your payments," he said, handing back the CashCard.
Zak nodded politely, and walked to the door. "See ya," said the representative. He walked back up the steps to his apartment and sat down in the living room.
Mars. The Phone Company representative, whoever he might be, reminded Zak what he'd been meaning to do when he woke up - make a map of those images he saw. Zak hunted around for a pen, but like before had no luck. He only found a single yellow crayon.
It would have to do. Zak looked high and low for a piece of paper, and finally found some in his bedroom. He sat down, concentrating, and made a rough sketch of what he'd seen. It took ten minutes, and the final result was a little smudged and indistinct. Zak folded it up carefully and put it in his back pocket. Then he returned to his bedroom.
If his apartment was above TPC's office, then right now he must be above the back room. Standing there at the door, perfectly still, Zak could just hear something, on the edge of hearing.
It was coming from the floor. Zak bent down, silently, and pressed his ear to the rug laid out on the floorboards. Yes, he could hear it clearer now - a low monotonous rumble.
Zak stood up. There was something going on down there. What, he didn't know.
But he was going to find out.
Which was why he was now one block distant, walking along 14th Avenue toward a certain store he knew of. The noise of nearby construction work was loud, but otherwise it was quiet and calm back here.
Zak was also here because he wanted to investigate the Society for Ancient Wisdom. Soon he came to a large red doorway, flanked by fake Greco-Roman columns. Zak tried the door, but it was locked.
He read the sign taped to the door. "Society for Ancient Wisdom. Deposit artifacts in slot." That was all. It was depressingly impersonal.
Zak sighed, and walked to the next door down - Lou's Loans: we buy almost anything, from almost anyone! He entered.
Zak didn't want a loan from Lou. Lou was a pawnbroker, and he often had a lot of interesting stuff for sale, at bargain prices.
A bald, slightly tubby man greeted him from behind the counter: Lou. "Hiya buddy," he said in his broad, strong voice. He might have been a bartender or card shark in a previous life.
"Hi," said Zak. He scanned the shelves behind Lou. There was a lot of interesting stuff there - for Zak in particular. Serendipity had become a way of life for him in just the last few hours, because on one shelf, beside each other, were a pair of Groucho Marx nose glasses and a black bowler hat with yellow trim.
Zak had a certain talent for disguising himself. It was nothing special - he was no James Bond or Mata Hari - but usually, if Zak had to be somewhere, he knew what to wear and how to act so no-one would notice his presence. This flair for disguise had gotten him some good stories in the past. He got some ribbing from his colleagues about this, because you didn't have to be there at all. You just made the whole thing up.
Right now, Zak's journalistic instincts were telling him to find some way to get inside the TPC offices. And for that, he'd need some kind of disguise. The hat and the nose glasses looked perfect.
Zak looked around at the stock. A black wetsuit with transparent gloves and green trim caught his eyes. Zak thought, then decided on taking a red toolbox as well. He pointed out the relevant items to Lou. Lou took no chances with his stock - everything was kept well out of reach of the customers. This was prudent, considering his clientele. Lou gathered up everything and brought it to the checkout counter. The counter was an old, converted movie ticket outlet, with a scratched, milky perspex shield that might possibly be bulletproof.
It all came to two hundred and eighty three dollars. Zak pushed his CashCard through the slot. Lou completed the transaction, then gave him his purchases. "Here," he said.
Zak returned to his bedroom. That noise he'd heard from the floorboards was still there, a monotonous drone that never went away. He bent down and lifted up one corner of the heavy rug. Underneath were three loose floorboards. Zak opened up the toolbox. Inside was a monkey wrench, rope, wire cutters and duct tape. With the monkey wrench, Zak loosened the floorboards further. The tiny scraping noise set his teeth on edge.
After a few minutes work, he was able to lift the floorboards up, leaving a space large enough to fit through. The space below was bright, and light blue, but Zak couldn't see anything else. That drone was louder, though.
Now for his disguise. Zak pulled his shirt and pants off, and struggled into the wetsuit. He put on the hat and the nose glasses, and looked at himself in the mirror. Just as he'd been hoping - totally unrecognisable, and very similar to the TPC guy. He looked at himself a while longer, then had an idea. He stuffed some tissue paper into each earhole. Perfect.
He took a deep breath, grasped the sides of the hole, and fell into space.
Zak's boots hit the floor, and clanged loudly. He winced. That light blue surface he'd seen was the metal floor. He was in a corridor with metal walls, surrounded by machinery and flashing lights. The droning sound was louder, but bearable.
A door at the far end of the corridor opened, in response to his loud entrance. Here came the TPC representative from the front office, wearing a hat and nose glasses almost identical to Zak's. "An intruder!" he said, and pounded toward Zak. When he got close, however, he suddenly stopped.
"Sorry!" he said, apologetic. "I thought you were an intruder. I didn't know there was a Brother here." The TPC representative walked back the way he came, shutting the door to the front office.
His disguise had worked. Zak wiped his forehead and had a look around. One wall was covered by a large map of the world, with no distinguishing features as to its purpose. The source of the noise, however, came to Zak's right, where a huge control console was mounted on a maze of pipes and wires, fully six feet high and twelve feet long. On the far side of the console was a lockup, and several more doors which went goodness-knew where.
Zak studied the machine closely. There was a large horizontal readout at about head height, with a scale ranging from zero to sixty. Apparently, this was set for sixty.
The stupidity frequency.
There wasn't much Zak could actually do here. He saw plenty of readouts and data, but no controls. The only obvious control was a large lever, whose two positions were marked as ON and ON. Zak flipped the lever, but nothing happened.
It was all very baffling. There were no signs, no labels, no written materials around whatsoever, and Zak didn't have the faintest idea who might be behind this. Or why they used hats and nose glasses to disguise themselves. Zak came to two metal lockers. He pulled them open, but they were both empty.
He'd come to the end of his search. Zak returned to the hole in the ceiling, which was mostly obscured from vision. It was also quite high up, and beyond reach. Zak had no choice but to head out to the front office.
Sure enough, the door led him to the small area behind the counter. The TPC representative looked at him disinterestedly, then continued about his work. Zak moved along the bench, looking for stationery, letterheads, or anything that could identify what was going on back there.
He came to the accounts computer. Zak stopped and examined it. He didn't have the time or the expertise to find anything interesting, but the accounts program was running. It was the work of a moment to find his file, and cancel the $1138 debited from his CashCard.
Zak hummed contentedly, lifting the counter door up and heading to the front door. He saw a flyer in a small slot by the door. Zak stopped at the door and stuffed the flyer in his back pocket.
"See ya," said the representative as he left.
Zak went over things back in his apartment.
He didn't have much to go on. In fact, he had zero to go on. The flyer he'd taken from the TPC office turned out to be the application form for The King Fan Club, as in Elvis. Don't delay, join today! Zak was exhorted. He filled the form out and posted it into the mailbox at the front of the apartment block. There was probably no link to the TPC backroom whatsoever, but best not to take chances.
For a quarter of an hour he racked his brains. Nothing. All his leads were exhausted, and there were no more. He watched a bit of the news, but there was nothing new there either.
He knew what he should be doing. And with a final sigh of disappointment, Zak gave in. He picked up the tickets, got his stuff together, and headed down the stairs. He was off to Seattle to find a two-headed squirrel.
At the San Francisco airport, Zak's mood lifted a little. But only marginally.
He was walking along the terminal, past those huge double-glazed plate glass windows which showed the full complexity of the airport. The bitumen several storeys below his gaze was a faded black, tarnished with oil and tyre marks.
The usual ersatz muzak was being pumped (expelled describes it better, thought Zak) through the airport sound system. Here, by another group of floor-to-ceiling windows, there was a much louder sound. A Hare Krishna, bald except for a long flowing mohawk, danced around in a small circle on the patterned blue carpet, tapping out a beat on a tambourine. His pale skin glowed in the sunlight that came through the glass.
Zak pulled up a little. The Hare Krishna wasn't bothering anybody at the moment, but Zak knew that if he walked past the guy would immediately stop dancing and try to sell him something. Zak looked around, and saw a newsstand on his right. There was one paper left, and the headline was interesting: COEDS DISCOVER MILE-LONG FACE ON MARS! He bought a copy with his CashCard and folded it under one arm. Then he started to walk on, looking any which way but at the devotee.
As he came close, the Hare Krishna suddenly stopped his frenetic dancing motion. He stepped out into the path of Zak, and said, "Want to buy a book on enlightenment? Just forty-two dollars."
Zak was trapped. And, just as he knew he would, he meekly gave over his CashCard. The Hare Krishna took it and completed the transaction in a handheld unit.
Zak was given back his CashCard, along with a thin leather-bound tome. "May you find True Enlightenment," said the Hare Krishna, bowing slightly. Zak walked past, a little stiffly, to the departing gates.
Meanwhile, back in that secret room...
Alien #1, after a short break, was back at the control panel. In three days, he'd spent over sixty hours standing there. And it was starting to get to him.
Alien #1 was dancing around in a drunken circle, swaying his hips and shaking his arms. Scraps and fragments of song came yodeling out of his mouth in a stream-of-consciousness manner: "O Baby - I'm a jailhound dog lovin' meat tenderising rocker in my blue suede shoes..." In his head, he heard the music, those unforgettable guitar riffs, and in his head it all gelded together beautifully. He'd never felt this great before.
Alien #2, however, was even now returning to check on things. Like Alien #1, he no longer wore the nose glasses and hat, showing his full overblown head. And his expression, which was one of growing annoyance.
"And what do you think you're doing?" he said sharply.
Alien #1 stopped his wailing, but danced just as energetically as ever. "Grooveling to the King!" he said, wiggling across the floor.
"STOP IT THIS INSTANT!" roared Alien #2. Alien #1 stopped, and stood sourly to attention. "You're supposed to be watching the machine, not dancing like a gloon!"
"Sorry," mumbled Alien #1.
Alien #2 led him to the map, a serious expression on his face. "There is still a chance - a very small chance - that someone will discover and activate the Skolarian Device. It's the only thing that could stop us. Of course," he admitted, returning to the control panel, "we will soon be in control and won't have to worry. But until then..." - he drew close - "KEEP YOUR MIND ON THE JOB!"
"Whatever you say, boss," said Alien #1 obediently. Alien #2 stalked past and returned to the front office. "See ya." Alien #1 waited a prudent amount of time, then, as if a switch had been thrown, instantly began to groove. "Don't be cool to my heartache hovel just treat my lice cuz I'm all shook up..."
It was early evening when Zak came down in Seattle. He had been most supremely bored on the flight. The newspaper story contained nothing he hadn't already found out on the news, and the book he'd bought from the devotee turned out to be titled 'How To Improve Your Consciousness And Lower Your Golf Scores,' written by a Swami Holanwanda from his monastery abode in Nepal. Zak put it down almost immediately.
He found a motel room nearby. The owner was only too happy to fill him in on the two-headed squirrel, which was apparently a big local news item. Zak made a few phone calls, and was soon driving through the woods outside Seattle in a rented car, heading toward a nature reservation near Mt. Rainer.
Mt. Rainer. He was not going to Mt. Rainer.
The sun was starting to set when Zak finally reached the area of the sightings, helpfully signposted. No one was around. He walked along a narrow dirt path, climbing up to a sheer dirt overhang.
Down by the ground at the base of the overhang was a tiny burrow. Peeking out of the burrow was a tiny two-headed squirrel. It got agitated as Zak got near, but hung around.
Zak looked at it for a while, took some photos, then thought. What he needed was a snappy headline, and the rest of the article would write itself. Let's see... how about, Two Headed Squirrel Attacks Tabloid Reporter? No, not dramatic enough. Two Headed Squirrel Devours Seattle and Tacoma? Too dramatic. And hokey. Vicious Tabloid Reporter Turns Two-Headed Squirrel Into Monster? That was about the truth of it, thought Zak sourly.
God, he hated his job.
A few minutes later, Zak had a headline nutted out. The two-headed squirrel was still here, staring at him curiously. Zak felt around in his pockets, and took out some peanuts he'd taken from the plane. He put them down on the ground in front of the squirrel. The two heads darted down, as one. They munched away. Then suddenly the squirrel turned and ran into its burrow. Zak heard the patter of tiny paws fade, and start to echo. They lasted for a surprisingly long time.
Hmmm. So the two-headed squirrel had a big burrow. So what? But Zak was starting to feel some life in his veins. That journalistic sixth sense he never could figure out. He looked at the overhang - dirt, quite loose dirt, was wedged between stone supports. It was at its loosest directly above the burrow.
Zak looked around. He picked up a sturdy stick, and scraped away.
Five minutes later he was a metre deep into the wall. The dirt came away absurdly easy, and as it went back the burrow widened. Now the stick was digging through the last layer of dirt, poking out into a wider space beyond.
Zak widened the gap, and squeezed through. The space before him was pitch dark, but somehow he could sense a large open area. The floor was dry dirt.
Zak reached into one pocket and lit his lighter. The light it gave it was shallow, and barely enough to see a metre ahead. Standing here at the new gap, walls curved away on either side, suggesting a circular space. They weren't dirt, but a strange gnarled stone. This must be a natural cave.
He walked along the left wall, and soon came to a niche about head height. In the niche was an old abandoned bird's nest, dry and prickly. Zak held it in one hand and kept on going.
Otherwise, the walls were featureless, uniformly covered in rills, gullies and fissures, like a wrinkly skin. Zak was coming to the faint patch of red/grey that indicated his exit, so he decided to cross the room.
Soon his foot struck a smooth stone, about half a foot wide. A circle of stones lay on the ground, here in the centre of the room. In the middle of the circle was a shallow pit.
He needed more light. Zak tossed the bird's nest into the pit. He then broke the stick up, and lay it over the bird's nest. He lit it.
The flames caught, and grew, and yellow light streamed past him. The walls glowed in response, and suddenly Zak was lost in wonder.
The colours. What had been featureless stone was now a running patchwork of magma red, deepest blue, and fractured maroon. The colours blended, melted, and ran over each other, and reflected the flickering light. They were so bright that the dirt beneath Zak's feet glowed faintly, reflecting a pattern of red, blue and orange. It was a geological marvel.
There was one patch on the circular wall, smoother than usual, where a fourth colour could be seen. Yellow. A pattern of yellow dots. It reminded Zak of his dream, and the yellow dots on the map of the Earth.
Zak peered at them closer. He felt a little like Indiana Jones. Those dots weren't arranged slapdash in any old order, but clustered together, like an unfinished drawing. Acting on a wild impulse, Zak took his yellow crayon (still with him from his apartment), and joined up the dots. His lines were faint, stone not being a good drawing surface for crayon, but they were clear.
The shape was also becoming clear. Zak started to fill in the space between the lines. About five feet high and two feet wide, this was an Egyptian Ankh. The symbol of life. How it had got here, Zak had no idea.
All of a sudden, the stone surface fell away from his crayon, in a neat rectangle. It pulled to one side, and Zak realised he'd opened the door. The space beyond was a small square room, all bricked up. The mortar glowed and pulsed with blue light.
Zak walked inside. Right in the centre of the room, on a flat stone pedestal, was a yellow/grey pedestal, stepped like a pyramid. At the top of this pedestal was a red circular sensor, and above it was a shard of dark blue crystal, held in place by steel clamps.
The crystal Zak recognised instantly. He walked closer, in awe. What had he been drinking that night? This was one of the crystals from his dream. He remembered the strange machine, and the girl who stood beside it. Annie. He saw her most vividly, as if she stood beside him now. The image was half that of his dream, half that he'd seen on the TV.
Zak gasped. The Society for Ancient Wisdom. This was a definite artifact, just the thing Annie was appealing for on television. He reached out to touch the crystal. It was smooth, warm and somehow defied his sense of touch. The pulsing blue light of the walls was reflected and multiplied in the crystal. Vague, wispy forms of light wavered in its very centre.
But Zak couldn't pick it up. The steel clamps held it very firmly in place. He tried pressing the sensor, but nothing happened. Zak looked around, then ran back to the fire. He picked up a burning twig, raced back, and jammed the flame into the sensor.
The sensor flared. With a creak, the clamps released the crystal and fell back. Zak pulled the crystal from its metal socket, and instantly the light in the walls went out.
Zak made his way back outside, the crystal nestled snugly in his shirt pocket. It was too late to catch a flight back now, but tomorrow, first thing, he was heading back to San Francisco.
He didn't get much sleep that night. First, he typed out a small article about the squirrel. Two-Headed Squirrel On Ravenous Rampage In Pacific NorthWest! it was titled. He faxed the article to The National Inquisitor, along with a couple of pictures of smiling squirrel to be digitally altered into snarling beast. The whole thing would hit the front pages the next day.
The next morning, just as his article was being carted express around the country, Zak arrived at San Francisco Airport. He caught a bus back to the 14th avenue, and got off at Lou's Loans. Another sunny, quiet day in San Francisco. The construction was still going on at the far side of the avenue.
Zak walked along the pavement, to the thick red door of the Society for Ancient Wisdom. That sign was still there - "deposit artifacts in slot" - but Zak knocked, anyway.
He waited several minutes, but got no response. Zak looked at the crystal. He didn't want to part with this if no-one was interested in it.
Oh, hell, might as well take a risk. What have you got to lose?
Zak dropped it into the slot. He heard a high 'tink' as it hit the floor on the far side. Zak stood there and waited.
Nothing. Listless, Zak turned and looked around.
Behind him, the door opened, inward. "Hey, you!" said a female voice.
Zak turned. He could no more have disobeyed that voice than floated upside down. Here, standing in the doorway in front of a set of tall wooden stairs, was Annie Larris. Wearing dark pants and a purple sweater, just like on her ads, and in his dream, but the reality was so much more arresting than images. She looked at him, an expression of urgent curiosity on her face. "Where did you get that artifact?" she asked.
"Never mind that!" Zak managed to say. "You're the woman who was in my dream!"
"What a line!" said Annie admiringly. There was a current of friendly irony in her voice, and somehow Zak knew he wasn't being laughed at.
A thoughtful expression, which looked lovely on her, crossed her face. "Wait... I had a dream too. I was in a strange room with a strange man." Her eyes, staring at Zak, widened with recognition. "IT WAS YOU!"
Her shocked voice sent electric shivers through Zak's body.
Unbelievingly, Annie was beckoning him inside. "Come with me."
He followed her up the stairs, to a second floor room covered wall-to-wall in bookshelves. A place where regular activity kept away the dust and the cobwebs. The bookshelves held thick, leather-bound volumes, just some of the Society's collected Ancient Wisdom. They could have held the Encyclopaedia Britannica or Monty Python scripts for all Zak cared. He was watching Annie, who stood in the centre of the room and started to talk, returning his gaze steadily.
"My two friends and I had special dreams sent to us by the Ancient Ones," she began. "You're the one they told us about."
"Me?" said Zak, wondering who the two friends were. "But why-"
"I see you're sceptical," said Annie. "You'll soon change your mind." She walked along the wall, where a chart hung from the ceiling, all curled up. "In the dream we shared, we saw a strange device which we must build. Here's a drawing of it."
Annie pulled down the chart. It was a diagram, an exact diagram, of the machine Zak had seen in his dream. The metal chassis, the three outstretched metal arms, and in them crystal shards of yellow, cyan and blue. Zak came forward and looked closer. "Yep, that's it," he said softly.
"The blue crystal you brought me is a part of this device," continued Annie, holding the crystal in her right hand. Zak noticed her thin, curled fingers and smooth fingernails. She turned from the diagram and picked something up off a bookshelf. "This is another part of it." She offered it to Zak. "Here."
Zak took a fragment of yellow crystal from her warm, soft hand. It was smooth, like the blue crystal, except for the jagged fracture lines.
"When whole," said Annie, "this yellow crystal shard will let you join my friends on Mars."
Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place for Zak. Melissa China and her companion on Mars - they were Annie's friends! Dreams in which an alien told you how to convert your van into a spaceship. Amazing.
"Of course," continued Annie, "you'll need a spacesuit."
"Ummm," said Zak. "A spacesuit?"
Annie remembered something. "Oh yes, here's your artifact back." Zak took the blue crystal from her and stared at it, baffled. For one moment everything had seemed crystal clear and precise, but now he was getting all confused again.
"From now on," said Annie, looking at him again, "we will all share knowledge through our dreams. Be careful! If one of us dies, it will be impossible for us to complete our mission!"
"Our mission?" said Zak. "And that is...?"
Annie's gaze was like iron - implacable. "Aliens are using subsonic impulses to dumb down the population. We've got to build the Skolarian device and stop them!"
Zak grinned. "Well now. I might just be able to help you there..."
A few hours later, Zak was on a transatlantic flight bound for Katmandu, Nepal.
This was mostly Annie's idea. She and Zak had talked for hours, going over the individual signs in their dreams. She was most interested in the map Zak had made, and they spent a long time puzzling out the significance of each yellow dot.
Somewhere in all this, Annie started talking about Swami Holanwanda, a buddhist guru from Nepal. She thought that Holanwanda might know the secret behind the blue crystal.
The name was naggingly familiar to Zak. Suddenly, it became clear. Zak reached into his back pocket, and took out the slim book he'd bought from the Hare Krishna. Yep, it was the same - Swami Holanwanda, author of 'How to Improve your Consciousness and Lower your Golf Scores'. The photo on the back jacket was of a serene, smiling man, whose head and lanky beard were enveloped in a gentle yellow glow - some clever backlighting techniques. Almost immediately, Zak decided to head for Nepal.
And so now here he was, disembarking in the Nepal passenger lounge, and walking out into the smoggy, rarefied air of Katmandu. Mountains loomed around on all sides, separated by deep folds in the earth, but the sky above was blue. Definitely worth the two thousand six hundred dollars or so the ticket had cost.
Among the oriental pleasures of Katmandu was its unusual transport system. Zak didn't take a taxi, or a rickshaw, or even ride a bike. Instead, he sat atop a shaggy yak, around whose thick neck hung a CashCard machine. The yak led him through the narrow streets of Katmandu. It seemed to know where it was going, so Zak let it alone, enjoying the wonderful peaked architecture of the city.
They climbed up steep cobbled streets, negotiated thin alleys, always seeming to take the back route. Finally the yak ended up on a narrow rise, affording a view over the whole city.
Zak got off the leather saddle of the yak, and looked around. The yak had chosen a resting place right between two buildings. On his right was a squat, strong looking building whose lower half was built of red brick. The door was reinforced and there were bars on the windows. Zak couldn't read the sign above the door, but by all signs this was some kind of jail.
The building on his right was a low concrete compound, whose street front was decorated with large rectangular designs of woven bamboo. No signs or otherwise indicated the purpose of the building. But standing in front of the twin doors was a tall man, bearded, wearing a purple turban. His hands were by his sides, and he stared forward patiently.
Zak walked toward him. The man - guard? - didn't react to his presence. His eyes didn't flicker. But when Zak got close enough to reach the doors, the guard suddenly spoke. "Only devotees of Guru may enter," he said, pleasantly but implacably.
Luckily Zak was prepared for this. Without a word, he pulled his well-thumbed copy out of his back pocket (Zak had spent a lot of the flight mercilessly thumbing the book, for a need such as this) and showed it to the guard.
The guard's face lit up. "Oh! I see you are a follower of Guru!" he said. "You may enter." He stood aside deferentially, opening the door.
Zak bowed, and walked inside.
He was in a passage, a multicoloured passage that went back to a small firelit room, from which came faint chanting noises.
Zak looked around at the passage. The walls were cyan, almost gunmetal, and adorned by rectangles of yellow and blue. Steel girders supported the ceiling above him. It was strangely militaristic for a monastery.
He came to a bulletin board, flush against one wall. Zak stopped and examined it. The first and largest piece of paper was an advertising flyer. "Buy 'How to Improve your Consciousness and Lower your Golf Scores', available at airports around the world." It seemed Swami Holanwanda was going into business. Tacked next to the flyer was a certificate, with curly borders and ornate handwriting. In brief, it was "Awarded to Swami Holanwanda: For a record-shattering score of nineteen at Pebble Beach." And last, down in the lower right-hand corner, was a small postcard. It held a picture of the Swami and an African Shaman playing golf. The Swami Zak already knew; the African Shaman had dark chocolate skin, and wore an enormous blue mask. Zak looked at him a while, but could not place the face (indeed, the face was hidden). Finally, he picked up the postcard and pocketed it.
He walked on. The passage came to a narrow entrance. In the chamber beyond, the floor was purple and covered in a long, hand-woven rug. The walls were stellar black. Against one was an enormous bronze statue, reaching up to the ceiling, of a kingly figure rising from his throne. His right hand rested on his enormous sword, and his left held aloft a burning torch. Either side of the statue were two tall candelabras, each bearing three lit candles.
It was in front of the statue that Swami Holanwanda floated, a foot off the ground, his legs curled together in the lotus position, his hands pressed together, and chanting softly. Swami Holanwanda wore white pants, and was naked from the waist up. It didn't really matter, as his beard, white and stringy, had grown a lot since the author photo and now stretched down right to his belt.
Zak paused in the entranceway, astonished. Even as he did so the Swami looked around, with eyes beady and alert. He instantly spied Zak, and floated toward him, as if sitting on an invisible magic carpet. He stopped a couple of feet away, faintly bobbing up and down, and looked steadily at Zak.
Finally he spoke. "You've kept yourself karmically clean, and you have the Blue Crystal with you," he announced. His voice was mesmerising, hypnotic - the kind that could make a fortune if it ever went into telemarketing. "I will now teach you how to use it. It will put you in a state of deep rapport with any animal. Simply focus..." The Swami exhaled, closing his eyes.
Zak paid close attention.
One hour later.
"...and then," continued the Swami, "you saute it in yak butter with a clove of garlic over medium heat..."
Two hours later.
"...and he says 'that was no lady, that was my wife!' Get it? Ha ha ha!"
Three hours had passed. Zak was starting to fidget.
But fortunately the Swami appeared to be reaching the end of his instruction. "...and it only works if you are in some contact with the Earth," he said. "Now go out there and do some good!"
Zak bowed before him, and retreated. Outside, he sought out the yak, and slowly they made their way back to the airport. The whole way down, Zak stared at the postcard. Who was the Shaman?
From Katmandu, Zak flew to Kinshasa, Zaire. He might not recognise the shaman, but that ritual headdress looked familiar - central African, without doubt. Once in Kinshasa, Zak took the postcard around to a few likely sources, finally finding someone who could identify the man. This someone also offered transport, which Zak gladly accepted.
He was driven for several hours through jungle and veldt, but strangely the guide declined to drive the last few metres to the shaman's village, for reasons that seemed highly suspicious to Zak.
So Zak was left alone, on a winding path deep in the darkest jungle, with only his guide's assurance that the village was nearby. Zak paused, listening for anything important (just the high screetch of jungle insects), and eventually set out. He was prepared for the eventual meeting, both with the Shaman and anything else remotely dangerous - in one hand Zak held a golf club (a sand wedge), brand new and reassuringly weighty.
The path of soft brown dirt wound round trees and under lianas. The air around was hot and stuffy. Zak was surrounded by a black cloud of bloodsucking insects. Several times he heard ominous crashing noises, far off. But the guide was true to his word - the trees thinned out, and soon Zak came into the open, on a flat plain under burning blue skies. The kind of terrain a pride of lions might make their own.
Several yellowgrass huts were clumped here together, all the same size except for one near the middle, which was wider and taller. Nobody was in sight. No campfires burned. Had the villagers been eaten by lions? A little spooked, Zak approached the largest hut. He didn't feel better when he saw the collection of spikes around the hut, and the strangely shrunken skulls fixed on them.
The low, curving doorway was shaded shut by a curtain of hanging grass shoots. Curiously, two signs were affixed to the hut's exterior, either side of the doorway: CASHCARDS ACCEPTED, and THE DOCTOR IS IN.
Zak breathed in, and parted the curtain. He stepped inside.
It was like stepping into a different world. The ground was covered in polished floorboards. The walls were studded with purple tiles. A chandelier (?!!??) hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room.
Almost the entire place was bare, except for a low wooden desk in the centre. At this desk, sitting in a plush chair, was the African Shaman. The very same from the postcard - enormous blue facial mask, green and yellow loincloth, and otherwise bare brown skin.
He immediately got up. "Hello, hello!" said the Shaman cheerily. "What can I do for you?" He had a jolly voice which was totally at odds with the fearsome mask.
Zak looked at the Shaman, and behind him to a set of certificates and notices stuck to the wall. There was a diploma from Watsamatta University (Master of Cranial Diminishment), and another from Kinshasa Medical School (Witch Doctor First Class). Next to these was a photo of the Shaman and the Swami, on a golf course no less. And in the corner were a set of golf clubs, in a zebrahide bag.
Zak relaxed a little. His preparation had not been in vain.
He brought out the golf club from behind his back and offered it to the Shaman. The Shaman's eyes lit up. "A Golden Boar Sand Wedge! Just what I needed for my set!" He stood, taking the golf club in reverent hands, and placed it into his bag. At the door, he turned to Zak. "Come, my friend," he said.
Zak followed him outside. Two young tribesmen had gathered here, by the fireplace, wearing identical loincloths but no masks. They stood side by side and said nothing.
"We will perform the sacred dance taught to us by the Ancient Ones," said the Shaman. "Watch carefully. It is said to 'unlock the door to the Head'."
The Shaman was joined at the fireplace by the two tribesmen. They danced around its stone circle, shuffling and leaping in a breakdance motion. Three times they danced around the circle, then they drew back and stood in a line, the Shaman slightly apart.
The Shaman looked at the fireplace. With a whoosh, flames leapt up from the kindling. The fire burning, the Shaman joined his tribesmen in a single narrow line. They turned and faced Zak.
The tribesman on the right bent his knees. Then the tribesman in the middle did the same. Twice. Then the tribesman on the right, then the Shaman, then the tribesman on the right.
Zak was puzzled. Was this some sort of code?
The tribesmen dispersed. "Don't forget what you have seen!" said the Shaman to Zak, sternly. "Remember, I cannot help you until you bring the yellow crystal!" Then he too disappeared.
Zak looked around. Eventually, he started back.
Mars, Roman god of war. A planet of ochre dust, high, cold winds, peaked mountains and plains littered with bronze, rusty red rocks.
Inside their converted, spaceworthy van, Leslie Bennett woke with two things uppermost in her mind: a strange dream where African natives performed a cryptic ritual; and the determination to get off her backside and do something. It was two days now they'd been here, and not a peep from the aliens.
Leslie struggled to her feet, hampered by her cumbersome purple spacesuit, and refilled her oxygen tanks using the van's supply. Then she swung the door open and looked around.
The view was now familiar to Leslie, but may need a little explanation for the rest of us. Essentially, they had landed in the area of Zak's dream. On her left, looming high above, was a huge stone temple, its outside worn and featureless. On Leslie's right, some distance away, was a pyramid of ancient stone. Connecting the two was a thin steel railway, on which was a bare carriage, nearby. Leslie and Melissa had tried it earlier - it didn't work.
Nothing much seemed to work around here. Near the carriage was a low squat building, seemingly built from metal. There was a metal plate by the door, holding messages in many strange languages. One of them was English: "Welcome, space travellers. Please leave the Friendly Hostel as you found it." Leslie and Melissa had tried to get inside earlier, but only gotten as far as a cluttered, rusting airlock. A fault somewhere in the machinery prevented them from closing the outer door, which meant they couldn't open the inner door without depressurising the whole place.
All in all, there wasn't much to do. The only doorway they'd found on the temple was closed. Three buttons loomed on it, far above, but despite pressing all of them, separately and in turn, no luck. The pyramid was too far to walk - they'd run out of oxygen. There was a black monolith next to the Hostel which, surprisingly, accepted CashCards. One hundred dollars bought them a small token, which could be used to take a ride on the carriageway between the temple and the pyramid. But of course the carriage wasn't working.
Leslie saw all this. She saw Melissa China standing in front of her, a few metres away, patiently maintaining a lookout. These last two days they'd swapped duties, one sleeping while the other watched. Well, no more. She was going to do something, by God.
She turned to the van and opened the side door. Inside, she opened up the glove compartment and rummaged through their meagre repair tools. Soon she found what she wanted - a fuse.
Leslie shut everything and walked over to Melissa.
"Seen anything?" she shouted. The atmosphere on Mars might be thin and unbreathable (composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide), but it did conduct sound. The main barriers to communication were these bulky glass helmets.
"Not a thing," Melissa shouted back. "God, this place is starting to give me the creeps."
Leslie entered the Hostel airlock. Soon, she found what she was looking for - a metal plate, screwed shut. Leslie removed the screws with her token from the monolith, and pulled the plate out. Behind was a row of fuse wire, and one of them had blown. Quickly Leslie pulled the strands of fuse wire out and put her spanking new one in place. Getting up, she tried the outer door again.
It clanked shut, and Leslie heard a low hydraulic whoosh as the airlock was repressurised. Finally a light above the inner door changed from red to green. Leslie pulled it open, and entered the Hostel.
It was no five-star affair. In just one small, metal room, Leslie saw two beds bunked above each other, a grey metal cabinet, and a ladder stretched back against one wall. The floor beneath her feet clanked as Leslie walked inside. Disappointment was mixed with a sort of relief - well, at least they hadn't been stuck outside some leisure land for two days.
She tried the cabinet first. There was just one thing inside, but very useful - a flashlight. Leslie flicked it on and off, and found the beam was wide and strong.
Leslie took another look around the room. It was pretty bare, and dusty. There was nothing here...
...but that ladder looked useful. Leslie clanked over, and picked it up. It was a thin metal ladder, pretty lightweight. She could carry it easily.
Leslie did carry it easily, taking it back out to the airlock. She waited for the room to depressurise, then walked outside, heading toward the temple.
She approached Melissa. "I'm going to try the temple door again," Leslie said.
"Oh. Okay," said Melissa. "I'll just wait around for a few more minutes."
Soon Leslie stood before the temple. Up close, it was an impressive, towering thing, with such a look of rough-hewn toughness that it was as if Nature, builder of mountains and cliffs, had decided to have beat at one stroke the best man could produce.
The door was an extension of this philosophy. Twenty foot high and an unguessable thickness, it was flat and featureless except for a series of three buttons. The first was twelve feet above the ground, a stone disc a foot wide and protruding slightly, while the others were slightly lower and to the left. Looking at them, Leslie was reminded again of her dream. The pattern of these buttons was so similar to that of the African natives.
Leslie lined the ladder up against the door. She climbed up and pressed the first button. It sank an inch into the door, making a grinding noise, then rebounded as Leslie released her pressure.
She pressed the middle button twice, the right button, the left button, and the right button again. As Leslie pressed the last button home, the huge door began to swing ponderously open.
The ladder, perched against the door and still bearing Leslie's weight, started to slip. Leslie screamed as, holding the ladder tightly, she crashed down to earth.
The door stopped, open at a ninety degree angle. Wincing, Leslie picked herself up. She rubbed her knees - they hurt like all hell - and looked at the space once hidden by the door.
Not six feet away was a wall of grey strips. She could see something beyond - something huge and spacious and golden - thinly perceived in the gaps between the grey strips, which looked like a space-age metal.
Leslie stopped rubbing her knees and walked forward. The grey strips looked solid, but they parted in front of her like transparent sheets of rubber. Then she was inside the temple.
A massive chamber, larger than an aircraft hanger, stretched out in front of her. Giant golden arches crisscrossed the roof, running down to the floor in huge fluted columns. The walls were built from gold and bronze bricks. Set along the left wall at regular intervals were three bronze slabs, embossed with a helmeted face, eyes staring and mouth open.
It felt like she was in some kind of cathedral. A fairly empty cathedral, at that. The floor was bare, excepting two enormous metal statues. The first was a thin, regal Egyptian king sitting on a stylised throne; the second, much the same, except it wore an Aztec headdress.
Leslie came forward, staring at them. There were a group of strange markings, low on the throne of the second statue. From a distance, they seemed familiar.
Closer, Leslie saw a simple outline, in yellow, of an I. She looked at it a while, and finally gave up.
Those doors on the left wall interested her. As she got nearer, Leslie saw something else - a thin pedestal, ten feet high, was mounted just to the left of the door. Gripped by metal claws at the top of the pedestal was a large blue crystal sphere, whose surface glimmered transparent and milky white as she came closer.
Leslie stopped, looking at the sphere. Then she went to get the ladder. Soon she returned, and put the ladder up against the pedestal. Leslie climbed up, until her face was level with the sphere. She reached out her gloved hands and gently pushed the sphere.
Immediately a low chewing noise filled the air. The sphere flashed from the inside with an awesome array of psychedelic colours. The open mouth of the door flashed too, in unison. As the colours deepened, the noise grew louder and more fractured, rising steadily through the octaves. Volume rose to an almighty crescendo.
It suddenly flicked off. And at the same time, the enormous face of the door swung back, revealing a long narrow tunnel.
"Waycool earstuff!" enthused Leslie. "Those old aliens sure played herenow noizbop!" She climbed down, and peered inside. Very quickly the light faded into utter blackness. She turned on the flashlight, and walked on.
She was in a straight tunnel, on whose left wall were a number of doors, irregularly spaced. Each door had a different colour border - it might be green, or gold, or blue, or a black and white pattern. As near as she could tell, shining her flashlight into them, the doors merely led to more passages. She was in a maze.
It was so quiet. In the two days she'd been here, Leslie had grown used to the high squall of the Martian winds. It was a constant background noise. But not here. Here, the only sound was her space boots, clanging noisily on the metal floor. The only light came from her flashlight, a hopelessly meagre beam that barely illuminated twelve feet. That the whole temple felt dead - worse than that, felt fossilised - was not much comfort.
She was coming to the end of the line. Up ahead, the passage stopped at one final leftward door, its border black and white. Leslie looked back fearfully (the light of the great chamber was so distant - a mere golden postage stamp surrounded by night), then walked inside.
After a couple of twists and turns, the doorway came out in another passage, straight and level and possibly perpendicular to the first. She was at one end - to her left the passage continued, past more doors. Leslie suddenly realised she could get lost in here. She turned to the door she'd emerged from, and noted the yellow border with her torch. Then she walked on.
Past a green door, past a purple door, past a blue door. They were nothing more than gaping black rectangles. But this passage too, came to an end, at another door bordered with black and white.
She was getting further and further from the light. But Leslie steeled herself and walked on.
The doorway led her to another passage, straight as before, yawning away on her left. Determined, Leslie passed a green door, and came to a purple door.
It wasn't the end of the passage. But she stopped. And listened.
There it was; the faintest noise - a distant hum. Leslie looked at the purple door. It might have been a trick, but there seemed to be the faintest hint of grey light.
She walked inside. The passage curved left, then right, and there could be no mistaking it - there was a light source somewhere up ahead.
Past a final curve, and she came to it. A small room, lit from above by bars of grey light. But the walls and ceiling were black, the utter black of space. It was the grey floor, and the machine resting on it, that enabled Leslie to guess the dimension of the room.
The machine was huge, the size of old 1950's computers. But it didn't look all that complicated. Basically, it was split into three thirds. The leftmost third, and rightmost third, held huge sliding switches, both pulled down into the closed position. In the middle were two flat, easy-to-read gauges. The top gauge had a scale that went from blue through yellow to green, before finishing in red. The needle was in the blue region. The bottom gauge was simpler - red throughout, except for a small green region. The needle was in the red region, well removed from the green area.
It did not take much thought to work out what these gauges represented. The top one must be the temperature of the temple - at the moment, pretty bloody freezing. The second gauge measured the breathability of the atmosphere, at the moment not good.
The machine hummed along steadily. Leslie was hesitant at first, but eventually she got enough courage to pull up the left switch. Immediately the machine kicked smoothly into gear. The needle on the temperature gauge began to inch into the yellow zone.
Leslie heaved up the right switch. The machine took it in its stride, its volume doubling. She began to feel air pressure on her space suit.
She looked at the needles. The top gauge was now fully in the green zone, and steady. Leslie watched the bottom needle inch closer and closer to the green region. The noise from the machine got higher and higher - like the sound of the last few drops of bathwater gurgling down the pipe.
The needle clicked home. Leslie tensed herself, took a deep breath, and pulled off her helmet.
The air around her was dry and warm. She took a shallow breath. The air was stale, but breathable. Relieved, Leslie breathed in deeply. It felt so good to be back in open air. Her hair, especially, had not been too fond of the past few days stuck in this glass fishbowl. She teased at it, letting the roots breathe in.
Soon enough, holding the helmet in one hand, Leslie retraced her steps. Head uncovered, she felt a lot bolder walking back through the dim tunnels.
She only made one wrong turning, but it put her way out of course. So it was that Leslie came to a wholly unfamiliar passage. Puzzled, she chose a doorway at random.
A twisting passage led to another lit room. A regular, rectangular room, that oddly reminded Leslie of bank vaults and boardrooms.
Nearly the whole length and breadth of one wall was taken up by a map of the world, which Leslie studied, amazed. It wasn't quite exact, and there were yello
― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link
two months pass...
three years pass...
three weeks pass...
four months pass...
seven years pass...
four months pass...