Dusk (39 page)

“Press on, but stay alert.” Cyrus leaned
forward to get a good look, but looked over his shoulder to see
exactly how far away the envirosuits and assault rifles they had
brought with them were.

They moved down the hallway and the point of
light grew. It became a square of blue light, stretching out just
in front of the vanishing point. The sliver of light slowly began
to keystone out toward them until it became clear that whatever
nothing
existed in the cave before them gave off a good deal
of light. The contrast between the palpable darkness of the tunnel
and the blue-white glow before them spotted and blurred their
vision. And then, as they rapidly approached the entrance to the
cavern, their headlights were no longer necessary, and their vision
became clear.

Milliken looked up from his holomonitor.
“Mother of all things great and small…”

The cavern did not appear to be a cavern at
all. Before them lay the impossible, bathed in a white and
ultraviolet light that could only come from a filtered yellow sun.
Their pupils widened, thirsty for the light that whispered ‘home’
to their skin. They marveled at the sublime vision before them; a
wall that must have stretched out for kilometers on either side and
rose at least a hundred meters toward a sky that should not have
existed. On either side of the cavern there was an immense cataract
of water flowing in calculated streams into a moat that was deep
enough to hide the splashback from the bottom.

As Cyrus’s vision adjusted, he could see the
sky was not a sky at all, but an illusion created by some sort of
stonework or material that stretched across the ceiling of the
cavern at least a half-kilometer away.

“There’s some sort of energy source ahead.”
Uzziah remembered his instruments, trying to stop the awe of their
discovery from distracting him from the mission.

“How far?” Cyrus asked, leaning close to the
windshield to see as much of the structure as possible. There was
something that looked like a hole in a protruding section of the
wall directly across from the tunnel they had just emerged
from.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Uzziah shook
his head, “Hell, I don’t.”

“Disbelief seems to be a recurring theme
these days.” Tanner craned his neck beneath the slant of the
windshield.

“If these readings are correct, which they
must be because there’s no reason for this particular sensor to
even be
on
now, the power source is about 110
kilometers
away. On top of that, the temperature is about
twenty-five degrees in here, and it’s consistent for the next three
K in any direction.”

As they moved closer to the wall of the
structure, the distance from the wall was hard to gauge as light
seemed to dance not just around, but inside the brickwork. As they
approached, Cyrus realized that his initial estimate of one hundred
meters high had been inadequate; the wall was clearly at least
two
hundred meters high, and as they reached the side, they
realized the hole was as honed as the corridor they had traversed
to get here. What had appeared to be an aberrant opening was a
worked arch, and the protrusion was a wide gateway as smooth as
glass. The brilliance of the light, the humidity in the air, and
the marbling in the rock of the archway played a cruel trick on the
eyes at a distance. But now, standing before the shear monstrosity
of the gateway, the depth of its strangeness was utterly
unavoidable.

“What is this?” Tanner muttered to himself,
looking up at the arch as they stopped in front of it, its sides
stretching out forty-five meters in either direction.

“Whatever it is,” Milliken answered
unexpectedly, “it’s made of one solid block of marble. And I don’t
mean the stuff they form out of asteroids with coring ships. As far
as I can tell, Mother Nature herself made this whole block at once,
and someone or something carved it.”

“What about the walls?” Cyrus turned to
Milliken to see a look of awe illuminated by a light they had never
expected to see again.

“Quartz. Pure, untreated quartz. It seems to
have been cut directly from the ground.”

“Isn’t all natural quartz cut from the
ground?” Uzziah asked, obviously rattled and uncomfortable.

“Yeah, except the stuff made in labs or cored
from asteroids and space rock. But that stuff, from asteroid or
Earth proper, is usually
taken
to where it needs to go.
There’s no seam here between this stuff and the ground beneath it.
This stuff was cut right out of the rock it was found in.”

“What the hell can do that? Those S-to-S
lasers?” Cyrus wasn’t agitated, but his blood seemed to have lost
the ability to warm his body spreading gooseflesh spread across his
skin as an anxious tremolo wracked his voice.

“Nothing I know of could do this. Nothing was
even in speculation when we left. And even if something had been
invented that could cut this much rock with this level of
precision, it would still take more than six hundred years just to
clear out the excess.”

And then they fell silent.

All the wonder of the ominous underground
waterfall, the perfect sunlight emanating from some unseen source,
and the shear walls cut directly from the stone they stood on,
could not have prepared them for what lay on the other side of the
gate.

There was a cluster of buildings set out in a
pattern that immediately arrested the eye; the height and spacing
of the buildings pulled the eye to what must have been the center
of the city, where in the distance, a blinding ball of light that
the mind would only believe was Sol itself, hovered and spread its
light through the vaulted, crystalline ceiling. The play of light
across the polished blue stone spread impressionistic clouds over
the dome as far as the eye could see.

“Are the buildings made from…”

“Yes,” Milliken answered before Tanner could
finish his question. His readings showed that not all of the
buildings were made from single crystals, but a great many of
them—too many to keep the mind from boggling—were.

“The ave…” Cyrus didn’t need to complete his
sentence. The ave, which led through the lattice of perfectly
sculpted buildings, shimmered beneath them in the light. It
sparkled and shone as if some magical light projected from beneath
it.

“Fused quartz,” Milliken reported looking
back and forth between the ave and the monitor floating in front of
him. “Made from a vein of quartz similar to the one outside. It
seems to be full of gold deposits as well.”

“So this ave was cut from the ground too?”
The magnitude was still overwhelming, but Cyrus’s body was
adjusting to the shock.

“No, this stuff seems to have been placed
here, but this much fused quartz would have required an immense
amount of energy and an incredibly accurate machine to not ruin the
city around it, which most definitely was here when they fused
it.”

Cyrus looked to Uzziah, “Any threats on the
gram?”

“Not so far. My readings are clearer now we
are past the waterfall, but the whole place seems to be… dead—at
least for the next four or five K.”

“Okay, so anyone against seeing what’s at the
center of this place?” Cyrus didn’t need to explain why he chose
the center, it was clear, even before Uzziah began to raise the
ship above the buildings, that something about this place drew you
to its heart.

Everyone nodded, and as the craft cleared the
level of the highest buildings they could see, Uzziah checked the
holographic imager for blips, and then pulled the craft into full
throttle.

As they passed over the buildings, they could
see the city’s layout formed a spiraling lattice work reminiscent
of a sunflower. The organization of the buildings compelled the eye
to the center, and as they sped over the buildings, the pattern
seemed to undulate beneath them. It was as if the city itself were
alive, its breathing as anxious as their own. And after too many
minutes of travel, Uzziah slowed the craft, quelling the hurried
gasps of the city beneath them. And as he slowed, their eyes were
led to a solitary building resting alone on a mound of earth. It
seemed as if the other buildings lowered their heads in reverence
to it; as if here, beneath the light of the artificial sun shining
brightly above it, it was the only part of the city that really
mattered. Four lions, each half the size of the central building,
lay guarding respective corners. They were not rampant or vicious,
but they still carried a look of vigilance accented by the play of
light throughout their expertly carved, crystalline manes.

Uzziah set the lev down outside the squarish
building and, after a short debate over whether or not to put on
the two envirosuits they had brought with them, they double,
triple, and quadruple checked their readings, and then left the
ship without them. Uzziah carried an assault rifle at his side, and
Milliken slung his over his shoulder so he could bring along a
portable datadeck that linked to the surveying deck inside the
lev.

“Wait,” Tanner motioned for them to stop
moving as they moved to the center of the building even more
magnificently rendered from the rock than the city outside.
Tanner’s voice was airy, less sure than normal, “I know what this
is. But why here?” He looked around and, more to himself than
anyone else, said, “
Bet ha-mikdash
.” He then stood there as
if the words themselves had frozen him.

Uzziah looked around and whatever had
arrested Tanner took hold of him as well. He clutched at the sleeve
of his shirt and pulled on it until the seam ripped apart at the
shoulder. He repeated the action with his other hand and then
looked to Milliken who looked like he was attacking the datadeck
with his stylus. “Please tell me who could have possibly built
this,” Uzziah asked, more moved than anyone had ever seen him.

Milliken seemed as if he had not heard him,
but he stopped pecking at the deck and looked up. “I have no idea
who could have built it, but whoever did, did it a long time
ago.”

“Six hundred years ago?” Cyrus was trying to
put too many things in perspective at once.

“Try six hundred
thousand
. This
building was made the same way the rest of the city was made. Cut
straight from the rock. It seems
all
of these buildings were
cut at the same time, and it seems, according to the radiometric
scans, this fused quartz has not been worked for six hundred
thousand years. The working of the aves and the carving of the
buildings had to have happened concurrently, at least on a
geological timeframe. And give or take even a hundred thousand
years, no human could have done this.”

“You sure of this?” Uzziah asked, his face
flushed and his eyes quivering.

“As stupid as it sounds, I still said it—and
I take my craft very seriously.” Milliken looked indignant.

“It’s the Third Temple.” Again it sounded
like Tanner was speaking to himself. He gathered himself, and then,
without looking back at the others, he walked into the next
room.

• • • • •

They emerged behind Tanner into an expansive
foyer with shimmering quartz walls that stretched out about
twenty-five meters on each side. Ahead of them were two pillars
that stood at the head of protruding walls leading to another
chamber at the center of the complex. Light filtered in through
slits in the ceiling and played through the quartz, giving the
walls life that made them look like they were not cut from stone,
but from the hide of some mythical beast. The scientists moved
slowly across the pearlescent floor, which must have also been some
sort of fused quartz, but was of a different luster and hue than
the quartz that formed the aves of the city. Tanner led them into
the hallway ahead and then suddenly stopped as if some wall of
force prevented him from ascending the stairs at the end. It looked
as if his very breath had been siphoned from his body when he took
another step toward the center and was forced to lean against the
wall for support. The others rushed up behind him, initially afraid
that something had happened to him, but even as they rushed over to
assist him, they understood.

The stairs led through to a square room about
fifteen meters wide. Light streamed through a skylight in the
center of the room and bathed the raised platform beneath it in a
mystifying light. A ramp across from them led up to the platform
where rays of blue and gold danced through the evanescent mist that
filled the room from some unseen place, giving the room a fresh,
airy smell.

Tanner steeled himself and walked to the top
of the stairs where a sense of urgency sobered him back to
awareness. “Wait!” he exclaimed, pushing himself away from the
wall. He ran across the edge of the ramp to another set of stairs
that led into a hallway. The others began to run after him, but he
yelled back, “Don’t follow me!”

When Tanner reached the stairs, he ascended
quickly but stepped cautiously into the hall as if he believed his
next step might cause the floor to collapse beneath him. And then
he disappeared into the shadows separating the two rooms.

Uzziah moved to the edge of the ramp, waited,
and then turned to face the others. He took Milliken’s assault
rifle and moved back to the hallway. “These have no place
here.”

By the time Uzziah returned, Milliken was
fidgety with angst. “Is he okay?” spilled from Milliken’s tensed
vocal chords.

Before Cyrus could calm him, Tanner emerged
with a look of defeat on his face, as if his own soul had been
revealed to him inside that room, and it had been found wanting.
“It’s not there,” he breathed between gasps. “There were settings
for two of them. But why
two
?” he said more to himself than
everyone else. “And it’s… they… are not there.”

“I think we should be leaving. This is bad.”
Uzziah said as he moved to help Tanner.