Echos
The myth ran somewhat like this – There was a time when the Master made all the races that filled the earths and the skies and the seas. A great dwelling rose up higher than the tallest mountain and that was were the Masters lived with their chosen, they gave them wings and they would sing into the chasm beyond the clouds. Created as guardians they swooped through the celestial spheres, majestic and mighty.
Some of them though hungered for those they guarded, and took a lesser people to their beds. The slaves of Earth with whom they produced the halflings. The halflings roamed the earth and heavens, viscous and stark and the Master was displeased.
And from the heavens they were cast, wings ripped from their backs, they fell… an army led by Luc, he who had been the brightest. The rebellion failed but the halflings endured. So did the spheres hanging in the clouds.
The Master cut the heaven and the earth asunder, each now unable to speak to the other… the angles bide their time, warriors awaiting the call. The chasm beyond grows restless. ….
It was an old tale and distorted in many ways in many cultures, but going through The Archive suggested that it was however, real. Sitting on the Orbital Prometheus a women with magenta curly hair stared at a light wall that chimed with little bubble floating up – thinking. Earth/humans had been in space for a couple of hundred years, they had sent a couple of probes beyond the helio-sheath and that was it.
They were still stuck in the solar system, the oort cloud and beyond – a dream. The cynic in her thought that it would only become something to do once the mineral and organic riches of the asteroids had been depleted. But as a species or rather mix of species they had survived this far. What was worrying her was that strange things had been found on the asteroids and rumours of ghosts and monsters were coming to her from the exploration crews.
Punku stood up and stretched blinking her eyes to clear the Archive link she had been embedded in, her stomach rumbled and she went in search of something protieny. Her early memories were still not all accessible on demand but there was something there – it niggled. They’d spoken to the sky, not in pray though that later took it’s place.
She feared that after all their trials and tribulations Tia would win.
The question was before Babel, before the three empires fell – did they have space technology? She had been born in Babel, had survived millenia herself, that was a long time for people to be trapped in space, cut off from the civilization that had sent them to the limits.
The empires had imploded with self hate, a race for racial purity – a war that was barely over now – what if there were groups still harbouring such thoughts out here in the stars, hidden amongst the asteroids and planets? It had not really occurred to her before… until the strange signals had appeared. Just an echo of light really, a blip on the spectroscopy but it had rung alarm bells.
Aten was not playing fair again, he was still concealing secrets, he always gave half truths, always felt he knew best for everyone. The fact that he was generally right was just infuriating. Punku ground her teeth.
The corridors of Prometheus were old now, but the fish tanks they had installed gleamed at her, the swimming creatures calmed her as she searched out The Architect – The Aten. He was sitting in the board room with his little elite, she was one of the them so she didn’t know why it bothered her especially as here it was the core. Here earths destiny was decided. Here a future was being forged for everybody, no slaves anymore, no poor dying and the wars within quelled. Now they had hoped to focus on the real enemy – disease and ageing. Something Aten had done really well millenia gone before the empires had collapsed.
‘Archetect,’ she said, he nodded his large broad head at her, the old formalities had reappeared too soon. ‘We may have a problem, there are echos in the light. Did Atlantis have space travel?’
He closed his mouth of pointed teeth and looked with over large eyes to ceiling. ‘Yesss… but I never thought it possssible that any of them could survive. The programme wasn’t finished, there was sabotage.’
‘Do we have any idea of what the space programme entailed?’
‘No each of the three had their own Alantis, Heva and Pacifica and then… each of the council had secrets, none of us trusted the others.’ He shrugged, mottled skine beginning to look very creased. His hands were freely webbed and on display, something that had not happened in thousands of years. His existence was now known, all of them where now exposed but only a few extreme religious people had bad things to say. And those they had monitored.
‘So we have no idea what might be lurking in the asteroid fields and beyond?’
‘No.’
Everyone looked around hoping for reassurance from the others, the exploration teams were jumpy and now it looked like they had very real reason to be worried.
Punku pulled the data up on the table, cutting edge optronics and electronics mixed with solid state and liquid crystals. Aten clicked in that way he and the other Masters had.
Jonathan who still looked barely middle age, scratched at them with his calloused finger pads. He began his humming – they all knew he was thinking and processing and did not interrupt. Prometheus was his space station, the first of the orbitals.
He sat back and tapped the table. Sound crackled out, a string of unintelligible words, just ghosts of sound. The Aten tilted his head listening intently.
‘It is old, communications between… the Spheres… I need to analysis this more the language is slurred and wrongly ordered but it is 2nd Empire elite speak.’
Punku shivered and looked at the observation screen, she had a bad feeling, where they about to feel heavens wrath?
Posted: Wednesday, October 8th, 2014 @ 8:12 am
Categories: Flash Fiction, The Punks World.
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