Terry Bisson: The Fifth Element

An opening that was not―could not―be there.

But there it was.

“Unbelievable!” breathed the professor as the thing slid a metallic finder into the opening. The wall groaned and slid open, with a grating sound of stone on sand.

The two things set the professor down. While

he was still struggling to find his balance, their leader stepped through the door and motioned for the rest to come with him.

The old priest hesitated for a moment, then followed them through the door.

The professor was just about to follow when one of the things that had stayed behind waved its great metallic hand over his head.

Gently, like a prayer or a spell.

And he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

The old priest had never been in this inner room before.

It was made of a different material from the heavy, reddish stone that formed the outer chamber of the temple.

The walls were smooth and bright, like luminous marble. They rose to form a steep pyramid, with four sides.

In each corner of the room was a rectangular, twelve-inch stone. Each stone glowed with a different color: red, green, blue and yellow.

In the center of the room was a luminous sarcophagus, resting on a low altar.

The Mondoshawan leader stopped at the altar and gazed down at the sarcophagus reverenty, as if to confirm that even the gods have gods.

The old priest stood at his side.

“The Fifth Element,” whispered the priest, his words as soft as a prayer.

The Mondoshawan leader nodded, showing what might have been a smile.

He took a case from one of his followers —st simple metal briefcase made out of what seemed to be aluminum, except that it looked warm.

He opened the case and held it out.

Four Mondoshawans went to the four corners of the room, and brought their leader the four glowing stones, one by one.

The stones fit into the case perfectly.

“Kommander—”

The leader closed the case and looked at the priest wordlessly.

“If you take the weapon, we will be defenseless if the Evil returns,” said the priest.

The Mondoshawan nodded. “If Evil returns, so will we.”

The priest nodded and lowered his eyes.

“Hands up!”

The voice came from the doorway.

The old priest turned and saw the professor’s young assistant Billy. The artist. But instead of holding a sketchpad and pencil, he was brandishing an evil-looking weapon.

“Nobody move!” Billy said.

He staggered into the room as if drunk. Only the old priest knew that he was reeling from the effects of the poison in his water.

“Nobody move!” Billy shouted. “I’m warning you. I have a gun. And I know how to use it. Let the priest go!”

He thinks he’s saving me, the priest thought, amazed. And it is I who doomed him!

He ran across the room toward the young man. “No, my son!” he shouted. “The Mondoshawans are our friends. They come in peace. Put the gun down!”

“Friends!?” said Billy. He pointed behind him, to the professor’s body on the floor of the outer chamber. “They killed the professor. They’re monsters!”

“No, Billy.”

The priest slowed to a walk. The young man was swaying from side to side. The gun was waving dangerously.

The priest held out his hand.

“Trust me!” he said in his most authoritative voice. “Put the gun down!”

But the old priest’s slow movements seemed to terrify rather than reassure Billy.

He backed up: “No. You’re one of them! You’re…”

He tripped, stumbled, fell―and as he fell the Sten gun clutched in his hands sprayed the ceiling and the walls of the inner room with a wild rain of bullets:

Bratabratabratabrati.

“No!” shouted the priest. “Don’t!” Bratabratabratabrat!

Stinging sprays of rock and sand, thrown up by the bullets, stung the old priest’s cheeks. Behind him, he saw the Mondashawan leader take a bullet and fall. The others dosed in around him.

Billy fell backward through the door, into the outer chamber. His head hit the stone floor with a crack.

It was over almost as soon as it had begun. Billy lay on the floor of the outer chamber unconscious.

The priest made the sign of the cross, then looked up.

The door was closing.

“Hurry!” the priest said. He ran to the side of the Mondoshawan leader, who had taken several hits from the Sten gun. Although there was no blood, the priest could hear the slow hissing as the alien’s vital gases sublimated into the dry desert air.

The priest tried to pull the Mondoshawan leader to his feet, but it was like trying to move a piano.

The leader handed the metal case to one of his followers. Another was already carrying the sarcophagus from the altar out through the closing door

“Hurry!” the priest repeated.

The Mondoshawan leader shook his tiny head, slowly and yet firmly.

“Servant,” he said, “here is your mission now.

Keep the temple ready. Pass on the knowledge as it was passed to you.”

“I will do as you command,” the priest answered. “But please hurry! You still have time.” The Mondoshawan rose off the stone floor, and pushed the priest through the rapidly closing door. “Time is of no importance,” he said. “Only life is important.”

“But…”

The door closed on the Mondoshawan leader’s hand. The finger that was also a key snapped off. It rang like a bell when it hit the floor at the priest’s feet.

Billy looked dead, but he was breathing, too.

The old priest was kneeling in front of the scratchings on the wall. His hands were held upward in prayer―or triumph, maybe. Or despair.

He held up a crooked metallic finger. Or maybe it was a key.

“I will be ready, my lord,” he said. “If the Evil returns.”

He pointed toward three suns on the sandstone wall.

The mule was braying frantically, terrified.

Omar tried to quiet him, then backed up to get a better look at the gigantic ship. It was three times longer than any of the ships of the Europeans, and it stood straight up on the sand.

Then with a roar, it was gone. Very slowly… and yet all at once.

Dazed, Omar followed Aziz into the temple. The corridor was dark. The door that had opened was closed, and the chamber was as it had been.

The mirror still lay where Aziz had dropped it, reflecting the light from the setting sun.

One of the Mondoshawans’ globes was in the corner its light slowly fading. It popped like a soap bubble, and was gone.

The professor was crumpled on the floor, snoring noisily.

EXACTLY FIVE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, THE SAME THREE SUNS glowed on the digital control screen of a United Federation starship.

The coordinates projected from them, plotted by the fuzzilogical implicator imbedded in the EPROM chips of the starship’s calculators, crossed at one point in the emptiness called space.

A captain, wearing the colorful uniform of the United Federation Space Command, stood on the bridge, studying the crossed lines with a worried air. The control screen was his only view out of the ship, since the windows of the bridge were opaque by a protective energy shield.

A door slid open and shut behind him.

Moving buoyantly in the temporary gravity, General Staedert of the UF Central Command entered the bridge.

The arrogance and impatience of headquarters military brass was apparent in the tone of his query. “Anything yet?”

“No, sir,” the captain said. The resentment of line officers to headquarters interference could be heard in the tone of his reply.

“Not even a temperature?” The general had been debriefed by his analysts earlier that morning, and he hoped his question reflected both the depth of his concern and the breadth of his knowledge.