David Sakmyster: The Cydonia Objective

His brother mirrors his actions. “I should say we better do as he says. Righto?”

“You bet!”

Calderon shakes his head with growing annoyance. “Boys, please. Today is a big day. I need you to show them what you can do. Show these men and women why I’ve invested so much time in your development.”

“‘Invested’, he says.” Isaac grins to his brother.

Jacob nods. “Sounds like livestock, we do.”

“Pork bellies, us!”

“Cow hides! Porcupine skins!”

“Boys!”

“What should we speak about, father?” Isaac stops now. He stands up and crosses his arms. His brother joins him.

“Tell them what we sees, should we?”

“Righto,” Isaac says. “Tell them what we likes to draw? The dead things? The bloody things?”

Mason Calderon sighs. “They will ask you questions. You will answer truthfully.”

“Questions,” Jacob says, looking at his brother. “Always questions.”

“Gotta know the right ones to ask,” Isaac explains. “Bigtime smartee pants questions, righto, father?”

Calderon nods. “Righto, boys. Now come.”

“I’d like very much to talk about the Dragon.” Jacob says it. Quietly, looking down.

“The dragon?” Calderon leans forward, his voice catching, eyes sparkling with sudden interest.. “How long have you been seeing… this dragon?”

“Long,” Jacob says. “Long time. Him too.” He points to Isaac.

“Dragon caught in a net. Dragon stabbed with spear.”

“Dragon go boom!” Jacob whispers, eyes wide.

Mason stands up tall.

“Fine, boys. In fact, more than fine. Tell them that.” He smiles. “Yes, I think they’ll like that very much. The dragon. The spear…”

Isaac and Jacob look at each other and grin.

“Righto.”

Later…

Older, a little bigger. The boys, stepping away from their snowmobiles. Taking off their helmets, revealing long blond curls. Shoulders broadening, arms thick, already tall for their age.

They stand over the twitching body of a magnificent stag. The deer grunts, lets out a mournful whine, then kicks helplessly at blood spattered snow.

Isaac removes the scoped rifle strapped on his back, the same one that had felled this creature minutes ago.

“Hardly sporting, brother,” Jacob says, hands on his hips. “Did you really need a scope?”

“Didn’t use it, you know. Never even saw the creature until I pulled the trigger.”

“Oh, you saw it all right. Just with your other eyes.”

“Righto.” He aims for the deer’s head. Fires. Smiles, never once blinking or looking away from the gore blasting outward from between the antlers.

“So much for a souvenir for father Calderon’s wall.”

Isaac shrugs. “He has enough. Besides, this is only practice. Isn’t that what he told us? Practice for when we meet mother.”

Jacob nods, glancing off to the weakened sun dancing between the trees, drooping toward the horizon. A chill wind blows through the dead forest. “Practice.”

“The time is coming soon, brother.”

“I wonder…”

“Yes?”

“What he’s like.”

“Our younger?” Isaac giggles.

Sensing the mood shift, Jacob joins in. “Our brother from another mother.”

“I bet he’s a tool.”

“We’re all tools, brother. But us, we’re tools for the right side.”

“Righto. The winning side.” Isaac slings the rifle over his shoulder and heads for the snowmobile.

“Leave the carcass?” Jacob asks, lingering at the corpse.

“The flesh is nothing.” Isaac closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and his eyelids flicker as if he’s seeing a vast panorama played out behind them. “Before we’re done, every living thing on this planet will be like this…”

Jacob nods, his smile matching his brother’s. He heads to the snowmobile, and together they drive off, leisurely weaving between the crooked trees, racing toward the spreading darkness.

Nina sighs, trembling.She’s about to let go and pull back from the visions, when one more rushes up at her like a wave and then drags her down into a maelstrom of furious images:

Caleb Crowe, hanging onto his son Alexander’s hand, follows after Xavier Montross, pursuing the red haired man leading the way through the passageways. They pause right before the entrance to a circular chamber with a low chamber that fills suddenly erupts with spring-loaded spikes, skewering the air before them.

Montross then leads them around the perimeter toward an upward sloping shaft where again he holds back a restraining arm—and then abruptly pushes Caleb and Alexander into a recessed nook in the hall, just as an immense block comes rumbling down the shaft and slams past where they had just been standing.

Later: Alexander leads them over a chasm, across a series of stepping stones, choosing only those with certain hieroglyphics.

Then: they come to a chamber with a central pillar and a doorway carved into its base. They gather around the shaft, shining their lights on the images, painted mural-like onto its surface. And they stare, uncomprehending, until Caleb points to something and says-

“Here…” Caleb Crowe’s voice was weak, half-choked with the thin air in the passageways under the Great Pyramid—or wherever they were after nearly seven hours of wandering this labyrinth. They had walked for miles. Winding passageways hewn from the bedrock, doubling back and forth, descending for hundreds of feet in places, then rising again. There were arched bridges spanning over yawning crevasses, and sections where they climbed spirals staircases around tower-like spires thrusting out of the impenetrable darkness below. It always seemed they heard sounds of distant splashing, as if from waves lapping against the foundations.

At first, Caleb had been surprised and relieved at the lack of water. He remembered reading essays on the geological makeup of the Giza plateau, and the speculation that even if there were tunnels or chambers below the pyramids, they would likely be full of water due to their proximity to the Nile and its annual flooding. But apparently the builders had constructed these chambers to resist seepage, or they had drainage tunnels out of sight.

His interest in geology, however, quickly waned as they proceeded deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, pausing only to remote-view the way, each of them occasionally getting glimpses of the ancient past, of robed men and women solemnly proceeding along these very paths. Just snatches of visions, unable to see the purpose to these chambers, or the destination of its early travelers. But they had seen other things: passageways where the floors would have given way or where sliding walls would have imprisoned them after a false step. Rooms where the ceiling was supported on gears that would release and flatten anyone who stepped inside.

They bypassed all of these traps, avoiding death at every turn.

And now, after climbing a steep staircase, they had arrived at the top of what seemed like an enormous rounded pillar. The lights couldn’t probe anything above or below, and there was only one bridgeway leading away into the gloom. In the center of the floor there stood a huge block, inscribed with hieroglyphics and carved images. Caleb stared at it for a thoughtful moment. “This is… I don’t understand this at all. Why should this symbol be here?”