The lost world, p.12
The Lost World, page 12
“Memory? You said I would see her in person again.”
Yes, yes, the crystal said testily. Quit twisting my thoughts in the wrong way. You must do this thing, and be sure to bring your rifle. We will need it to power the teleportation pad.
Riker rubbed his jaw. He wanted to see Emily again; he yearned for it. Was he being too stubborn?
“How does the teleportation pad work exactly?”
Must I explain everything?
“Maybe,” Riker said, scowling.
Riker, we must cease arguing with each other. It does no good for either of us. I… I have been… Think of this, my friend. Do you not recall Emily Freely of the Scout Columbus?
“I thought it was the Cheng Ho,” Riker said.
Yes, yes, I meant the Cheng Ho. You are confusing me, and this dire situation is interrupting my internal lattices. Oh, Riker, I wish you would just do this. All hinges upon it. We are wasting precious time. If too much of it passes, not even the Shardkin will be able to return Emily to you.
“Fine,” Riker said, as he recalled Emily’s curves. He picked up the MX Blast Rifle where he had set it down. “Let’s get it done already. You’re being a bitch about this and I’m sick of it.”
Thus, under the crystal’s guidance, Riker started up through the corridors. As he’d predicted, there were Saurians everywhere. Riker hid and then snuck from one place to the next. The Saurians seemed to have some sort of handheld tracking device. He caught a glimpse of it and darted elsewhere. Riker discovered that the Saurians followed his older trail, perhaps missing the newer one.
Huh, that was interesting. Backtracking worked even against the alien device, it would seem.
By degrees, by sprinting, by hiding, by listening to the damn crystal in his vest, Riker made his way up until he reached the chamber with the teleportation pads.
The sergeant looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight. With a what-the-hell attitude, he sprinted to a teleportation pad.
Fire at it, the crystal said. Energize it now. I will direct where it takes us.
“I’m trusting you,” Riker said.
Yes, wisely so. You will receive great rewards for this, I promise. Through me the Shardkin promises. You can certainly take that promise and keep it.
“Whatever,” Riker said.
He fired the rifle. Power bolts raced and curved toward the teleportation pad. A burst of energy flared from it. Riker dove into the energy, and he felt his molecules disappearing.
Teleported to—he didn’t know where.
-29-
Riker appeared in utter darkness. He felt the floor under his boots. Still, it was so dark that it unsettled him.
“Okay,” Riker said, “are we still in transit? Or is this the location?”
This is the location, the crystal said weakly. I need re-energizing. I gained a little energy earlier from the feeds, but now this is a dark and dreary place. I do not know how long I can keep the link open to your mind.
“You’d better keep it a while longer, as I’m lost down here. Which way do I go?”
Use your energy weapon for illumination, the crystal said.
Riker scowled. He should have thought of that. He raised his rifle and paused as he clicked it to the lowest setting. Then he fired a shot. In the illumination of the power bolt, he saw a chamber filled with teleportation pads and crystals all around. He had to be in some kind of crystalline nexus. Ah. He saw a tunnel ahead.
There, the crystal said. Use the tunnel. That is the correct path.
With the afterimages of what he had seen still in his mind, Riker cautiously began to move through the crystalline nexus. Soon, he entered the tunnel and walked for about three or four hundred steps until he conked his forehead against an archway.
“Damn it,” Riker said, rubbing his forehead. “Couldn’t you have told me about that?”
He didn’t receive a mental response.
Because of that, a feeling of loneliness brought on a greater sense of claustrophobia. He could be anywhere in these subterranean depths. Riker worked to quell the feeling of being buried alive. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Finally, he fired another low-powered bolt. He saw for an instant, then longer, as the bolt ricocheted off mirrored crystalline surfaces.
The tunnel continued but much lower down and narrower. He would have to crawl on his hands and knees. He wondered if that was the right direction to travel.
Yes, something said in his mind. It seemed like the crystal from earlier, but it was hard to be sure.
Riker slung his MX Blast Rifle on his back, cinching the sling so the weapon would stay there. Then he began to crawl on his hands and knees through the new conduit. It narrowed even more as he continued.
“I better get Emily back for this,” Riker muttered.
You will, said faintly in his mind.
Riker hated the idea of being a fool, galled by false promises, but he hated even more the idea of missing this one opportunity to regain Emily.
He crawled until his knees hurt and then crawled more, finally coming to a blockage. He shouted as panic threatened. Before it became worse, he closed his eyes and bit his lower lip until he could taste the salty blood.
He fought to contain his claustrophobia. It felt as if the pressure of the earth bore down against him. If the tunnel collapses, I’ll be buried alive down here.
Riker found himself panting. He didn’t know if he would ever recover from this or if he would—
Be calm.
The words were faint, but in the Stygian darkness of this underworld, Riker clung to them in desperation as a drowning man might grab at a log surging past him in a torrent of madness.
Slowly, a feeling of sanity returned.
Riker made sure his rifle was still on a low setting. Yes, it was. He fired. In the glow of the shot, he saw impacted debris in his way.
Yes, use the power bolts to burn your way through, something faintly said in his mind.
Perhaps that was the crystal trying to tell him the correct procedure.
Clicking the rifle to a higher setting, Riker burned his way through refuse and debris, none of it crystalline. He did it one shot at a time, slowly working through the impacted tunnel.
The flashes of light began to make his head ache, but it was better than the darkness.
This must be an ancient conduit. Once there may have been power lines running through it. Now there was nothing but powder and strange flakes on the floor. They were green. Corrosion, perhaps, he guessed.
From his knees, Riker continued to fire, burn through junk and shuffle forward. It stank now and the power cells drained too fast. In the end, he left the rifle behind—it was useless and extra weight. He took out his knife. It wasn’t a monofilament blade like Maddox had used in the past, but a tough steel-alloy one. With it, Riker hacked and dug through the debris. Soon, he was sweating and shaking from the extended exertion, but he continued until finally his knife stabbed through more easily than before.
“I wish I could see,” Riker said in the hoarsest of voices.
He couldn’t, but he continued to jab and make the opening wider until he felt with his hand—emptiness ahead of him. He felt up. He would be able to stand. He was just about to surge through and stand when a thought struck.
Was there anything on the floor?
Of course, there would be, but he felt anyway—and found nothing.
Riker lay on his belly and stretched his arm down as far as he could. There was emptiness ahead of him.
Had he almost plunged into a great abyss, with no warning from the crystal? Had the crystal used him like a fool and a dupe as he’d feared earlier?
As Riker wondered that, a surge of light rushed past his feet and then his head as he lay on the floor.
For some reason, it unnerved him, and Riker began to bellow like a maniac.
-30-
No, Riker. Calm down. Listen. Look. Look. The great prize that you have struggled for is here. Calm down, Riker. I give you calm. I give you peace. Do you hear me? Peace, Riker, peace.
Riker heard bellowing and began to realize he was doing it. He bit back the next shout, inhaling deeply and trembling instead.
After a few seconds, he wondered why he had been so terrified. He had unmanned himself. He hoped no one ever learned of this.
He took hold of his courage and struggled to bring himself back under control. The crystal helped. It had reenergized somehow. Was that good? He wasn’t certain.
Riker opened his eyes and stared into a lit abyss—power or energy flowed past him and down there. At the bottom was a great crystal entity. It did not move. The line of power surged to it and radiated within it. Both the energy line and the giant crystal provided light.
Oh yes, the crystal said, the little one in Riker’s vest pocket. That is the Shardkin placed in the dungeon of doom. Eons ago, they thought they could stop the greatest of them. Now we are reconnecting it with its brothers and sisters. All throughout the planet, they will relink. Consider the prizes you shall have, Riker. Yes, the Shardkin keeps its word. You can bank on that.
“Bank on it?” Riker asked.
It is an old term that humans used to use. Maybe the humans of your era do not. Still, it is a good promise. Look at how the power flows into the Shardkin. You caused that by digging out the blocking debris.
“But I’m stuck here,” Riker said. “We’re stuck here.”
That is a problem of the moment. Wait. What is this? A few seconds passed. Oh, no, there are oddities in the power flow. Riker, you’ll still have a little more work to do.
“What do you mean?”
As Riker asked, a different color of energy reached up from the Shardkin down there. The energy encompassed Riker, granting him weightlessness. The beam gently floated him down without touching the power line that gave it strength. Soon, Riker touched down on the floor at the bottom of the abyss and the weightlessness beam from the Shardkin ceased.
The crystal Shardkin towered over him like a three-story building. Interestingly, all sorts of crystal pieces were merged into the greater whole.
You must go into the Shardkin, said the crystal in Riker’s vest. There you must replace burnt-out crystalline lattices with new ones.
“What? Climb up that?” Riker asked, eyeing the crystal pieces jutting from the greater whole. It would take a monkey or a mountain goat to scale that. He was neither. “Can’t the Shardkin do this himself?”
Unfortunately, it cannot speak until these lattices are replaced. It cannot link up with everyone else until that happens.
“Sure,” Riker said, “sure. I guess I can do that.”
The sergeant paused. Had he really agreed to climb the giant crystal? What had possessed him to agree?
You can’t go back on your word now, said the crystal in his vest.
Riker thought about that. Sure, he could. It would be easy.
Emily awaits you after this little chore.
For Emily… he could do this.
Riker inhaled, approached the giant crystal and reached up for the first crystal handhold. He began to climb the three-story Shardkin using flanges, precipices and cliffs to pull up as if he was at some amusement park. The crystal in his vest radiated warmth, confidence and energy into him. At the same time, trickles of thoughts leaked into Riker’s brain:
Fool, buffoon. They will learn the hard way. The Yon Soths will regret this treachery. All who stand in my way, the fleas of the Builders, will all die like the water sacks of stupidity that they are.
Riker paused in his climb.
What is wrong? the vest crystal asked in his mind, the force of the words striking powerfully now.
“You know, before I complete the final transition,” Riker said, who had been thinking hard, “I would like to see Emily. I want to know that I have not been a dupe and a fool.”
No, no, the crystal said. That is the wrong way to do this. Now, when the Shardkin is at your mercy—
“At my mercy?” Riker asked, interrupting.
That was a poor choice of words. A wrong choice of words, the crystal said as if with humor. I have trouble at times transposing the right words into your brain. Your mind is constructed so much differently from the Shardkin and me.
“What are you exactly? Are you a mini-Shardkin?”
Oh, that I could only hope one day to become a Shardkin. For that to happen, I would have the force of me beamed into a dead Shardkin so that I could revive it. That is my great prize, Riker. It is very similar to your great prize. Come, finish this that you have promised, and we will both regain what we want.
Riker was almost persuaded. He was down here. He had climbed partway up the Shardkin. He could see the entrance up there…
“No,” the sergeant said suddenly. “First, I want to see Emily. Until I see Emily, I’m worried that I’m being a fool and a dupe.”
To enforce the idea, Riker engaged his stubbornness. Long ago, that had been one of the reasons they had put him with young Maddox—if nothing else, Riker was a stubborn old coot. Now, he wanted to see Emily more than ever because his young body wanted to caress and love her, and—
“No,” Riker said. “You’re doing that to me. You’re trying to manipulate my lust. If you keep it up, I’m never going to comply.”
Don’t you want to bed Emily so very badly? the crystal asked.
In his mind’s eye, Riker envisioned Emily with her blonde hair and beauty. He longed to lie with her and love her. He longed for it so much.
“No,” Riker said through gritted teeth. “I must resist. I can’t let lust control me. I refuse to let lust control me.”
Oh, but you can have Emily so soon if you complete the mission inside the Shardkin.
Riker shook his head even as he longed for Emily.
Are you trying not to think of her? the crystal asked. Yes, that’ll work, won’t it? Don’t think of Emily. I challenge you. Don’t think of her at all.
“I’ll think of something else,” Riker said.
He strove to think about Maddox and the times they had been together, some of their most dangerous escapades.
You are making the Shardkin angry by this foolishness, the crystal warned.
“Yeah? Well, you two are making me angry,” Riker said, even as he longed to be with Emily. The desire nearly overpowered him. However, he knew that if he gave in again to his lusts, that he would always give in to them. He would never regain control of himself. He wanted to engage these feelings and desires when it was legitimate.
The idea sparked a deeper thought. What was the legitimate way to lie with a woman? Riker knew because he used to tell others. The correct time was when a man was married. If he wasn’t married, then it was wrong. Then it was fornication and adultery. Those were old concepts, and yet, they were true. It didn’t matter that this age laughed at such old ideals. They still held sway. They were still true. They weren’t nullified because the new way of thinking was too dull to understand that some boundaries should never be crossed. When you crossed them, you brought punishments down on yourself no matter what.
He loved Emily, and he was not going to shag her unless he married her. That was his firm conviction. The love he felt for her gave him the willpower to control his desires. He yearned for the prize of deep commitment, not just satisfying a physical appetite.
“Show me Emily, or I won’t go an inch further,” Riker said.
The crystal was silent for a time.
Soon, Riker heard a strange warbling sound that caused him to shudder with horror. That was the Shardkin trying to speak to him. In the rawness of its essence, Riker felt almost demonic evil from it. He understood then that he had almost brought back an ancient evil.
Riker shuddered again.
Why do you shudder so? asked the crystal in his vest.
“It’s my desire for Emily.”
That was a lie, and lies were wrong. But in this instance, what else could he do? Riker didn’t know, so he committed the lesser evil to combat the greater one. Was that wrong?
Very well, the crystal said. Follow my directions and you will see Emily again.
-31-
The route to reach Emily proved long and laborious. Soon, as Riker climbed up a passage, he moved away from the light that fed the Shardkin.
Are you sure you want to do this, Riker? the crystal asked.
“Yes,” Riker said with a hoarse voice.
Soon after, he needed a drink. His limbs trembled as he climbed, using crystalline handholds.
You are making this difficult, aren’t you?
“Water…” Riker said.
Now you’re asking me for sustenance? the crystal said. After you made this so difficult and prolonged, giving the Saurians more time to counteract what is happening. Shame on you, Riker, shame and shame again.
“Maybe,” Riker said with a hoarse voice. “But I need water, or I’ll collapse, and then what good am I to the Shardkin?”
Oh, very well, the crystal said, almost petulantly. I will guide you to water.
Riker followed the crystal’s advice until he felt his way in the dark to an upraised pool of icy water. He dipped his hands in, cupped the icy water, and sipped. It stung his throat. It was so cold, colder than water should have been. He plunged his face into it, and it was freezing cold, but it shocked him into greater awareness.
Riker jerked his head out. “Is this really water?”
Yes, the crystal said, but it is colder than your kind of water.
That sounded weird, but Riker drank again, noticing a slight alcoholic taste.
“This is alcohol.”
Yes, but there was enough water mixed in to refresh you.
“Right,” Riker said, continuing to drink. Unfortunately, it was so freezing cold that he abruptly started coughing, as if he had swallowed too much ice cream too quickly.
By slow degrees and gaining a brain-freeze headache from it, he quenched his thirst. At the same time, a buzz started. He couldn’t help that. He was so thirsty. He drank more, and finally, his head reeled.
Now, do you realize the stupidity of what you had been asking for earlier? the crystal asked.
