Eric Olafson, Midshipman 71

Part 71: INTERLUDE: LARTHOP

It was not as easy as she said it was and it took him quite a while to get the hang of this dangerous four wheeled contraption that kept bouncing like an unruly beast of burden over the uneven ground.

It didn’t help that she made fun of him and told him that it would take Terran kids a few minutes to learn how to drive one of these. He asked her why the most advanced civilization in the Galaxy was not able to produce something more civilized and perhaps robotic and fully automatic. The Union had so many technical marvels after all.

Her answer was that Terrans did not want things like that automated and loved to drive themselves.

While he was thinking about the crazy and barbaric Terrans, who by all natural means should not even be one of the most powerful members of that cursed Union, he did not even notice the passage or the effects of a trans-dimensional trip, shortcutting 90,000 light years to a 4 hour motorcycle ride through a bat infested cave. He had seen the swarms of bats stuck to the ceiling band their nervous movements, but they had passed underneath before any of them decided to attack.

They emerged through a similar gate into the open and Larthop could feel that they were no longer on Wichita planet and had indeed traveled to another world.

Here on the other side of the cave tunnel also was a collection of prefab buildings, but none of the security measures of the entrance.

She stopped her bike and said. “Here we switch to a flier. There is an ocean between us and the continent where the Cave of Things is located.”

He wanted to say something when he saw a huge gray monstrosity coming up a narrow path.

He could feel the monsters mind and knew it was not an animal but an intelligent being. “What is that?”

Cherubim answered.”This is a Huffh, and the owners of this world. They are also real Terrans so shield your mind when you think negative things about Earthers. They are gentle for the most part but like all true Earthers they do have a violent temper. This one is coming to the station most likely for medical attention. I don’t see any other Huffh which would mean a funeral procession,”

He followed her to an open flyer while he kept looking over his shoulder at the approaching giant.” The more you talk the less you make sense. How can these be Earthers?”

She activated the flier and he climbed in. Two humans and a Petharian in Uniforms of the medical branch of the science corps stepped out of one of the prefab buildings and greeted the Huffh. One of the humans waved to them as the mysterious woman steered the flier into the sky.

He leaned back into the seat and asked her. “Isn’t it treason what you are doing. What would happen if that robot did make a report?”

“Treason against whom I would ask.”

“The Union of course, the government you are protecting and if the legends are true you doing it for millennia.”

“I think it won’t hurt to let you know a few things. I was not chosen by the Guardian, and act long before Stahl or Mc Elligott or some of the others.

I was chosen by someone else to be the eyes and the ears of Earth and by identifying any potential danger, exposing any enemy as early as possible. This is the reason I still exist and this is all I am loyal too. I am loyal to the Union as long as Earth is part of the Union, but I am loyal to Earth and Humankind first. Chances are Earth will be Terra and a Union member for the foreseeable future.”

She pointed at him. “You are not interested in the Union, you care not about Saresii. You hold no allegiance to the Kermac or anyone else. You seek to resurrect a power so immense, all else does not matter. Union, Kermac, Saresii, Earth and the rest of the Galaxy means nothing compared to that power. This is what this quest of yours is all about, is it not?”

There was no sense of denying anything. “Yes that is what consumes me to the last fiber of my being. The Church of Darkness is nothing more than a vehicle to get me where I need to go. You know it all.”

He spoke with such intensity and conviction; finally talk to someone who already knew. Was that her true motivation; was she after the same thing? No other explanation was possible in his mind. She had admitted to him that she had studied the same things and she it seemed she was indeed an immortal and on this quest much longer than him. Maybe she knew how he could get out of the control of the Brotherhood. He needed to learn all she knew.

Cherubim stared at him from beneath a simple face that was most certainly another disguise.”Some of my immortal friends, chief among them the Narth Supreme put their hope and trust in a simple boy from a cold planet, I don’t.”

She fell silent as she pointed the nose of the fast flier downward pointing it to a single mountain, most likely an old volcano sticking out of the surrounding forest covered landscape.

She landed on a narrow rock ledge from where short but steep path led to another cave entrance. Larthop held his breath, he knew without a doubt this was the Cave of Things. He had the wafer thin disk he had found underneath the mountains of Koken with him in a hard shell case. He it like a purse strapped to his body. Following an impulse he took out the disk and it no longer showed a star map as it had before, it showed an image of this very mountain and illuminated the path to the cave entrance, the very path that was now before him.

This time he was leading the way, Cherubim the Terran enigma was right behind him. He had only eyes for what was ahead, that the woman had pulled her blaster and was aiming it at his back, he did not notice. She said to him while they climbed the path.” We have little time. A fleet of military ships and freighters of the Science Department are almost here. They went the long way because no one knows how secure and stable the trans-dimensional tunnel is and they bringing big equipment too. Lots of scientists, Xeno Tech experts and a load of Security.”

Larthop only listened with one ear as he reached the cave entrance and without pausing went straight in, holding the dinner plate sized disk with both hands before him, almost as if he was carrying a religious symbol.

The cave they had entered was clearly made by someone or something; the walls of this perfectly hemispherical hall were lined with a smooth gray material. Red colored light illuminated the place but neither of them could really say were the light source would have been.

The cave was empty except for a pedestal made of the same gray material in the center of this cavern that measured perhaps 100 meters across. A narrow ring of white light lit up as they went closer to the pedestal, centering on that dais at about eighty meters.

They both stopped without saying a word, wondering if the ring of light had any significance or effect. It was completely quiet; there was no sound other than their own breathing. Right above the pedestal formed a purple light ball and it pulsated and from it formed a strange looking thing. Larthop tried to describe it by comparing the apparition with two snakes, with heads that reminded him of a sewing pin of old, with a hole in the blunt end. Each of these loop like heads had a glowing blue light in the middle and the bodies of both snakes were intertwined and reminded him somehow of a representation of a DNA helix. The thing so he guessed was at least two meters tall.

A sexless voice spoke to them both acoustic and mentally.”This is the Dualix, we are from the beginning and wait for the coming of the Master and the decision.”

Both Larthop and Cherubim knew that this was an entity, not a projection or a machine. It was alive they both were certain, but on a level completely alien to them. The Dualix addressed Cherubim first. “You are from the place the One has chosen. You are servant to the Old you are an agent of the will. The vessel, the one you do not believe is the one was already here.”

Then the Dualix spoke to Larthop.” You are from the ones that have been blessed by the Pree. You are the one that ventured to Narth Prime, the first Non Narth. Yet your mind and your spirit were too weak, too small to contain what you have found there, what you seek is not for mortals, yet you carry the Disc and Dualix will answer.”

All around the wall alcoves opened, revealed from the smooth gray material and each held an item, some of the things were clearly weapons yet other of such alien design, neither of them could even begin to guess their function. Larthop’s voice trembled as he said. “Which one is the token of power?”

The One was here and taken what was his. This place contains weapons from cultures and civilizations of many realities and many Universes. Each one had been conceived to be the ultimate weapon and to defeat the One. They all failed, as powerful as these weapons are, they failed to prevent the One from destroying, killing and obliterating.”

Larthop kept holding the disk he did not realize he was crying in frustration as he yelled at the being in front of him. “You tell me I came here for nothing? The token is gone? To the deepest pits of Under-all with you! I was promised you will tell me how to obtain it.”

“We are the Dualix and we must obey the holder of the disk. Find the key hidden on a cold world and guarded by a white God and with it you can obtain what is on Narth Prime.”

The purple glowing snakes started to fade away.

Larthop screamed. “I am not done with you. Tell me where to find that cold world.”

“You are a fool. You were within reach of it already; all you had to do was being patient and learn what the Narth Supreme wanted to teach you. It would have been yours for the asking. Yet you tried to steal and cheat. Now with the disk you had control over the Dualix, and all knowledge we contain, yet you commanded me to the deepest pits of Under-All and this is where the Dualix now must go. Find me there and I answer more of your questions.”

The Dualix vanished, but the strange entity managed to leave with a quite human sounding laughter.

In a fit of rage he flung the disk after the vanishing apparition, but it passed through thin air and fell to the ground on the other side. The alcoves closed before he could reach even one. Larthop was near insanity as he hammered his fists against the smooth gray metal. He was about to give up. A cold planet guarded by a white god that was certainly not enough of a clue. The Universe was full of cold worlds and I there were millions of legends about white gods in a million books and scrolls. He dropped to his knees and kept banging his fists against the wall. This was not fair, this was simply not fair. He was supposed to be a villain, a man on his way to become a god. He had felt the power, he knew it existed. How could the Universe be so cruel, but wait he had come with that woman Cherubim. She was much older than him and she was after the same, she would be his guide and help him to find the next clue, there were supposedly twelve tokens out there and each held tremendous power.

Had she not mentioned a simple boy from a cold planet? Someone the Narth Supreme was waiting for?

He looked up and saw her picking up the disc.

“What now, Miss Cherubim? Where do we go from here? Who is that simple boy? The cold world? Is it Eric Olafson of Nilfeheim. Is he the key to it all after all?”

“You have done all I needed you to do, you found the disc and gave it up on your own free will. You know I could not have taken it from you; the disc only works for its rightful owner. You have been that rightful owner by finding it first. Now you tossed it and it accepted me. I actually almost pity you Mr. Larthop. First the Narth, then the Dualix and now you threw away the disc that is showing me the location of another token.”

Larthop could not believe his ears. He slowly got up and said. “What will happen now, are we going to find the next token?”

Cherubim raised her arm holding her blaster and fired, Larthop died instantly. She continued to fire until his body was completely consumed and nothing more than an atomic dust.” That is what will happen. I said I almost have pity, but then I am not known to be the emotional type.”

Cherubim secured the disc in a pouch and went outside the cave. There she used her PDD and spoke into it. “That keeps the Disc of Koken out of the hands of the Brotherhood and it is in working order that unlucky Larthop gave it up on his own free will. It turns out that Neo Viking has received the ring form the Coven and gathered whatever was here. We better keep an eye on him and if he is really The One we must be prepared to terminate him before he becomes too powerful.”

A male voice answered.” Do you really believe all this meta-mumbo-jumbo about dark powers and god like beings? I was there when he was in that cave and all he picked up was simple axe.”

“I am doing this far longer than even you Old man. This disc and the Dualix are proof that this is quite real. The Narth would not guard one of these tokens if it wasn’t dangerous. I am not sure what the role of this Neo Viking is in all this, but I think we need to be very careful and keep close watch.”

“Thanks for the update; we keep this quiet for now. I don’t want the Old Warrior to get wind of this and I certainly don’t want anyone else to know.”

“I am going after that not so dead ex admiral now. It might be a while before I contact you. His trail has gone cold.”

Part 72 »