The Forgotten Shrine Page 11

  “Fly Guy, what gives?” Marco shouts. He stands at the edge of a cliff.

  I zoom to where he is. When I’m almost there, he grins, then turns around and dives off the cliff. I zip after him and tip my pack into a near-ninety-degree dive, headed straight for the water.

  Marco rights himself a meter from the surface and skims the water. He slows to let me come up beside him. The spray from the waves spritzes my face. I lick my lips and taste the salt.

  “Awesome, right?” he asks.

  As soon as the words leave his mouth, we hit the ground.

  The ground? I thought we were flying above the ocean.

  The world has shifted around us. We’re lying in a dense thicket of decaying leaves. A hundred meters above us, a tree canopy shields the star. There’s stirring in the brush and a loud shriek that definitely came from some sort of creature.

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “Not sticking around to find out!” Marco says, taking off in his blast pack, heading roughly in the direction we came from. Hopefully, that will take us to the door.

  It seems like we’ve been flying too long, like we must have taken a wrong turn, when I hear Lucy calling. “Over here!”

  Finally I spot Lucy, Mira, and Cole through the dense brush. They’re gathered around a large metal box roughly the size of the chute cubes at the space station, about three meters square. It looks incredibly out of place in the middle of the jungle.

  I drop to my feet in front of the box. Cole is examining a panel right in the center. This must be the door to the VR room.

  “Let me guess, we owe the abrupt change of scenery to you, Wiki?” Marco asks when we touch down. He walks his hands against the wall of the cube right to the edge, then keeps walking them right off. What looks like the continuation of the jungle is actually a solid surface—the boundary of the VR room—the metal box is actually a two-dimensional square.

  “Yeah, thanks for scaring us half to death,” I say, pressing against what looks like open air but is actually the wall. I blink, trying to reorient myself, and step back from the edge.

  “Sorry about that,” Cole says. “I wasn’t sure how to work the panel. I decided to wait until you returned to try another shift.”

  He presses a button, and the room changes again. This time it’s a mountaintop covered in snow, looking out across a hundred more snowy peaks. The next shift takes us to a marsh. Our feet sink into the ground.

  Lucy squeals. “Yuck! Change it! My socks are all wet!”

  The next few settings call up landscapes so foreign I hardly have the words to describe what I see. They must be vistas from alien planets.

  Finally Cole twists the knob and the room resets. Beyond the metal entrance, the walls, floor, and ceiling are all orange mush. The room is huge, but not limitless. No matter what we experience in VR, the physical boundaries of the space must be the same.

  “Their VR tech is truly amazing,” he says.

  “Go back to one of those super strange planets,” Marco says. “I want to explore.”

  “Hold on,” Cole says. “I want to get a closer look at the room in its dormant state. I’m pretty sure this is the same material used in the Youli ship, the same material I believe they’re using in our quarters.”

  “Do you think they traded the Youli for it?” I ask.

  “Or stole it?” Marco asks.

  “I hate to break up the party,” Lucy says, “but we only have an hour before Steve returns, and we need to be back in the hangar when he arrives. Right now we should look for the occludium tether access point.”

  “Lucy’s right,” I say. “We can mess around in here the next time we come for training. We need to get going. We told Admiral Eames we’d search for the tether immediately, and instead we vegged in our quarters for a week, not that it was our fault.”

  “Since you mentioned that,” Lucy says. “Even though the glove practice wiped me out, I don’t feel half as tired as when I woke up this morning.”

  “Same,” Marco says, “which makes zero sense.”

  “It’s almost like they want us to be tired,” Cole says.

  Maybe they do.

  “Mira thinks that might be their plan,” I tell the others.

  “You and your brain-talk,” Lucy says. “It’s creepy.”

  “Probably not as creepy as whatever Seelok and his crew are up to,” I say.

  “I’m not sure,” Marco says. “This morning I was convinced the Alks were up to no good, but now they’re meeting their end of the bargain. They’re letting us train.”

  “True,” I say, “but we need to stay alert. And we need to execute our plan. The sooner we locate the access point for the occludium tether, the sooner we have a bona fide escape route once Admiral Eames arrives.”

  We fly back to the hangar and set out down an adjacent hall that has illuminated floor runners. Since we know the Alks need to maintain the tether, we figure the hallway that’s in the best shape must mark the route. And since this is the only hall with lights, it’s our best guess.

  The lights lead us all the way across the abandoned saucer. Given how long we’ve been flying in our packs, we must be nearly there.

  At our next turn Mira pulls up short. Look!

  I stop at her side and glance down the short, branching hall. It ends at a purple marble door no higher than my waist. Thick silver handles shaped like serpents are affixed in the center.

  “Hey, guys!” I call to my pod mates. “I think we need to check this out.”

  12

  “WHOA, WHAT IS THIS PLACE?” I ask as we crawl through the tiny door into the room. The floor is made of smooth, dark stone that is polished so finely I can see the reflection of my face. The ceiling is domed and covered in white cloth that drapes all the way to the floor. The thick smell of musk and cinnamon fills the air. The scent is so heavy it makes my head spin.

  I drag myself to the center of the room and collapse on a pile of velvet cushions fringed with gold thread.

  “This place is a tad fancy,” Lucy says. “Do you really think the occludium tether is in here?”

  “Definitely not,” Cole says. “Do you even know what an occludium tether looks like?”

  “Do you?” she asks.

  “Obviously.”

  Mira waves her hands, then draws a finger to her mouth to signal silence. A low hum fills the room, kind of like the pull of a minor note on Addy’s violin, then the hum blends with a second note, and another, until the room sings with a lulling, eerie melody. The dome above flickers to life, and a picture emerges across the white-cloth ceiling: an image of a planet.

  It’s not like any planet I’ve ever seen. There are hues of purple and silver and a brilliant blue, striped with the whites of clouds. We recline on the cushions and gaze at the planet as the vantage point of the camera lens rotates through different angles. Then it zooms in like we’re traveling by ship, crossing through the atmosphere, heading straight for the planet’s surface.

  Lucy gasps. “Where is this?”

  “What is this?” Marco asks.

  We cut through the clouds, and the screens reveal the planet beneath. The music swells as we glide across the surface. It’s breathtaking. Purple-gray rock with veins of white ore covers the surface. Crevices show where water has cut its way through the stone to reach the shining turquoise sea. Patches of silver stretch from the rocks and arc over the water.

  “Are those buildings?” Cole asks.

  “They must be,” I say. “But they’re so beautiful. They blend perfectly with the planet’s landscape.”

  As we’re brought in even closer, we can see that dense lichen covers much of the rock, and more silver structures rise up from the crevices. As we pass above the cliffs and look down at the banks of the river delta, there is movement. It isn’t possible to tell what’s down there from this distance, but it’s clear this planet is inhabited and is home to an advanced civilization.

  Amidst the music a strange scraping noise
fills the room, like someone dragging a bag of sand across the floor. I squint at the screen, wondering what that noise is supposed to be.

  Something brushes my leg. Twice. Three times.

  “Cut it out!” I say to my pod mates.

  “Cut what out?” Cole asks.

  “Someone keeps kicking my leg.”

  “Mine, too!” Lucy snaps.

  Marco bolts up with a squeal. “Snake!”

  I pull in my knees. Sure enough, a long reptilian creature circles the room. It keeps right on circling until it can nearly close its mouth on its own tail. It stops when it’s a perfect circle in the center of the room with us in its middle (hopefully not about to be literally in its middle).

  “Uhhh . . .” Marco makes a shaky noise like he’s trying to talk. Finally he whispers, “Did I mention I hate snakes?”

  “Yep,” Lucy whispers back. “And if you didn’t, the squeal would have given it away.”

  Now all of us are sitting up. I’d stand if I could, but I’d bonk my head on the ceiling. This room was definitely not built for humans.

  We sit with our backs pressed together, crammed in the center of the room, in the middle of the creature’s extraordinarily long, unbelievably snakelike body. It sort of looks like an Alk, but not the ones we’ve met so far. The creature is easily five times as long as the other Alks. And it doesn’t have a cyborg arm. Instead it has three sets of tiny arms and webbed hands near its head, kind of like the Alks riding scooters we saw when we first arrived at the siphon port. As we stare, the creature lifts its chest off the stone floor, jerks its head in our direction, and juts its forked tongue in the air between us.

  “Ummm . . . guys . . . bright ideas welcome right about now,” Lucy says.

  “I got nothing,” Marco says. “Except I hate snakes.”

  “You’ve mentioned that,” Lucy says. “But let’s try to shift the focus, shall we?”

  “Hey,” I say to the snake. “Do you speak English? We’re the Bounders here for training. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”

  The snake’s tongue whips out of its mouth, and it bobs its head from side to side. It slides its thick body around the circle and stops in front of me. At first I think maybe it understood me and is about to deliver a lecture about busting into its private movie theater. Instead it rises up, flaps its tiny arms, and hisses right in my face.

  I scoot back against my pod mates.

  The snake hisses again, then clicks, then hisses. It lifts its head even higher and glides forward. Its tongue juts out and almost touches my nose.

  “Some . . . help . . . here . . . ,” I manage to squeak.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Cole says. “I think it’s trying to say something.”

  “Yeah, something like ‘Get the heck out of my snake den,’ ” I sputter.

  Cole pulls the voice box Gedney gave us from his pack and sets it on the ground in front of him. “This should only take a second. I just have to figure out how to make it two-way translation.”

  The snake waves its head in front of my face and hisses again. Its eyes are black marbles. I can see my own reflection staring back at me, just like when I looked at the stone floor. And I look freaked.

  “A little faster,” I whisper. “We have a situation here.”

  “Almost got it,” Cole says, monkeying with the box. “Okay . . . I’m close . . . there.” He lifts the box to his mouth and says, “Hello! We are from Earth. We’re here for training on Alkalinia.” Out of the box comes a strange assortment of swish noises and clicks that sound vaguely similar to the noises that have been coming from our snaky friend.

  The snake swings its head away from me—thank goodness—and slides around to where Cole sits. It starts up with the hissing and clicking again.

  Cole raises a finger, then calmly lifts the box and speaks his introduction in English again. After the box translates, Cole presents the box to the snake.

  It dips its head to the box and senses it with its tongue. Then it lifts its onyx eyes to Cole again, who nods. The snake positions its mouth near the box and hisses.

  “Welcome to the Shrine of Remembrance, the Temple of End of Days,” the box translates.

  “Welcome? Really?” Marco says. “This isn’t my idea of welcoming.”

  “I hope that doesn’t mean it’s our end of days,” I say.

  “Yeah, let’s stick with Shrine of Remembrance,” Lucy says.

  Cole glares at us. “Thank you,” he says into the box. “Who are you?”

  Again the snake hisses and clicks into the translator. “I am Serena, the Great Mother, Guardian of the Shrine, the One Who Remembers.”

  “That’s quite a title for a snake,” Marco says.

  Serena tips her eyes at Marco, as if to ask for a translation.

  Cole lifts the voice box, but I grab it from him. “He says it’s nice to meet you.”

  After it translates, Serena hisses at me. “And who are you?”

  “I’m Jasper Adams, and these are my friends: Cole, Mira, Lucy, and Marco.”

  Serena nods her head. “Yes. But who are you?”

  Lucy kicks me in the side. “Tell her about us! Tell her what we’re doing here!”

  That’s tricky. Who exactly are we in the bigger picture of the galaxy? Who are we to an Alkalinian? Or, in particular, who are we to Serena, Guardian of the Shrine, and other miscellaneous titles, who apparently has no idea about Earth Force and our diplomatic delegation, or she wouldn’t be asking.

  I lift the voice box. “We’re Bounders from planet Earth. We’re like this special group of space travelers. Our planet has a kind of partnership with yours. That’s why we’re visiting.”

  After the translation Serena circles us, taking us in one at a time. “But you seem young, yes?”

  “Right. We’re pretty young, or at least, we’re not old.”

  “Ask her about this place,” Lucy says. “What is the planet in the pictures?”

  “Can you tell us about the shrine?”

  Serena lifts her head to the top of the dome. The image has zoomed out to the first still frame—a picture of the planet from space. “This is where we come to remember, although no one comes anymore. You are the first visitors to the shrine in many years.”

  Lucy grabs the voice box. “And you’ve been waiting here all this time?”

  “Yes. I am the guardian. The One Who Remembers. That is my calling.”

  “What is that planet?” I ask, tipping my eyes to the ceiling.

  “That is our home,” Serena says.

  “This planet looks nothing like those pictures,” Marco says.

  “Our true home,” she hisses. “Alkalinia.”

  “Oh!” Lucy says to us. “Remember what Gedney said?”

  That’s right. Gedney told us that the Alks had nearly destroyed their planet and had been forced to relocate to another system. Seelok and Steve and the rest of the Alks may call this Alkalinia, but it’s really not.

  “What happened to your planet?” Cole asks.

  Serena pulls her heavy body around and around until she’s tightly coiled. In the image above, the star slides near the edge of the horizon, casting deep shadows across the planet. The surface glows with a deep-purple light.

  She flicks her tail, and the image above changes. The camera zooms out, and there are a dozen planets on the screen, then it pulls back again to show multiple solar systems. She hisses and clicks into the voice box. “There was a great war. Many battled. Many died. I wish I could say we were mere victims, but alas, that is far from the truth. Alkalinian greed, dishonesty, and betrayal fueled the conflicts that were already raging across the galaxy. The strong preyed on the weak. The advanced races exploited those that were just making their way into the world. My kind stoked the flames and pulled riches from the ashes.”

  “Wow,” Lucy whispers. “What drama!”

  “What war?” Cole asks.

  “The only war that matters,” Serena says. “The war that preceded the peace and
the rules and the universal light that prevailed. The Alkalinians were not on the side of victory, and our planet was destroyed through our own misdeeds. We were forced to leave aboard our saucer and live in space for more than a generation, taking refuge on planets that would have us, refueling when we had the currency. This planet was also brutalized during the war. Its civilizations were destroyed. Only the barest of life remained in the oceans. But there was enough that we could rebuild. Just like the dawn of Alkalinia, we could lay down our cities in the seas. So we landed our saucer and began again. Someday, perhaps, this planet will be healthy enough—and we will be wise enough—to rise from the seas and truly start again.”

  Marco grabs the voice box. “Look, Serena. I hate to break it to you, but your people aren’t all underwater. We flew here on your spaceship. And your buddies in the other building don’t seem to be pining for their old planet.”

  Serena sighs wearily and lays her head on the cold stone. “We must remember. If we do not remember, we will forget. If we forget, we will repeat.”

  So that’s why it’s called the Shrine of Remembrance.

  For a solid minute no one speaks. Then Cole grabs the voice box. “Serena, do you know where the occludium tether is?”

  Marco slaps Cole’s back. “Good thinking, Wiki. Hit the snake up for info.”

  As Cole’s voice translates through the box, Serena recoils. She rears up as if she might strike, then lowers her head to the box and hisses. “That foulness is the root of our evils!”

  Lucy takes the box. “We don’t want any occludium, Serena. We just want to know where the tether connects to the saucer. We saw it from the water. It’s probably near a major power source.” She recounts what the admiral told us back at the space station.

  “I do not know, child,” Serena says. “I do not leave. I rise from the depths to attend the shrine, then I descend. I don’t abandon my children. Where are the others? You must bring them! We must remember!” Serena coils in circles, flicking her tongue at the images above.

  Marco knocks me on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Ace. If we want to find the tether before Steve shows up to cart us back, we need to get looking.”