Alpha 1472 (14 page)

JD glanced at Watkins and with his left hand he squeezed his lips. An almost unseen nod was passed between the two then JD took a deep breath and moved his hand away from his mouth and began to explain.
He began with what he thought would be his last sentence,

“We are not of this world”

He expected that this phrase alone would produce some reaction from the men that would end all talks, but to his surprise he received no untoward reaction. He paused for a while, and then he looked slightly into the air and said, to no one in particular,

“Captain could you confirm my translation please”

Daniels confirmed that what he had said had indeed been accurate. He cleared his throat and continued to give answers to their questions. He decided that it would be best if he did not try to blind them with science. Trying to keep his story simple he began. He explained that he was from a world that travelled in the sky and only came near their world once every two thousand, five hundred years or so, and that they were only here for a very short time. He told them that they were here on a mission of great importance to their people and that they had a deadline to meet. As he spoke the three, sat, quietly taking in all that was being told to them, their faces were expressionless, he had thought that what he was telling them would be exciting or shocking or even unbelievable. But, there was nothing. No emotion whatsoever. Continuing, he explained that his people had visited their world before many generations ago. Three travellers were left here to observe this place and to make records of their stay, which were to be collected at this time and that they were the chosen ones who were to locate the documents. One of the men raised his hand to stop JD from speaking. He acknowledged the stranger stopped speaking and waited to hear what he had to say. What the stranger wanted was a little more conformation as to who they were. What they wanted was information that could not have been made up or supplied by a third party. What they wanted was information about the first mission, information only they would know. JD was at a loss as to the answers he should give, he stumbled in his thoughts then offered the fact that their mission number was Alpha 1472 and that the original mission was Alpha 106. At this the three men slowly nodded, almost with an air of confirmation. They also wanted to know the names of the first visitors. Both JD and Watkins knew the answer to this question. It was part of their history. Malcolm Keogh, Garry Parr and Balvinder Hasar. At this the men began to smile for the first time since their meeting. There was one more thing they wanted to know. The sign of the fish. Why did JD use the sacred sign? JD explained that when the first mission was planned the three visitors had said that they felt like a fish out of water, a phrase on their world which meant someone who is in a situation they are unsuited to, and so this became the word that they used to identify each other.

With this final piece of information the three men fell to their knees bowing before them pledging their allegiance. The two travellers bid them stand up and not to do this again. It seemed that from this point onwards they had found at least three allies.

JD spoke to the ship.

“Captain
, can you hear me?”

“Go ahead JD”

“Everything is under control here Sir, we can now continue with our mission”

“Very good. C
arry on, Daniels out.”

Firstly, they had to locate the documents. It never occurred to them to ask the others, they simply activated their wrist locators which indicated that they were within two hundred yards of their goal. They started to scout around to find anything that may give them some indication as to where they were hidden. Eventually Watkins looked at one of the men and gave him a shrug of the shoulders, indicating his frustration. The man sheepishly raised his eyes and pointed skywards. Matthew’s eyes followed his gaze and a rather foolish realization came over him. He called to JD and indicated where he thought that the locators were pointing to. As they stared at the face of the cliff they could see no obvious sign of any place that could conceal what they were looking for. They backed up from the cliff to gain a better vantage point and at a distance in excess of two hundred, or so, meters they could just see a small dark shadow that was being cast by the angle of the sun. If this was what they had been looking for it had certainly been selected with great thought. It was out of reach of most people and concealed brilliantly. Returning to the base of the cliff they opened their backpacks and took out some of their equipment. There were four slender tubes which screwed together to form one long tube approximately half of the height of JD. To the bottom of this Watkins screwed a small gas bottle which he had detached from the cross member of his bike. He then stabbed the base of the bottle into the soft sand and dropped to one knee. Aiming the contraption skywards he hoped to secure a line in the proximity of the shadow they had seen earlier. This would be a one shot chance, missing this would mean an arduous climb to get to the ledge. When he was satisfied with his aim he reached down to the bottle and pressed the fire button. As he pressed there was a loud hiss of gas as the compressed air propelled the anchor skywards. This made everyone flinch, involuntary. The anchor had embedded itself into the rock about three feet wide and to the right of the ledge. There were now two hanging wires leading from the anchor point to the ground. To one of these they attached an extremely thin high tensile rope which they pulled. As they did so the rope ran up, through the loop and back to where they stood. The next task was to secure these two ends, as one, into the base of the rock. Reaching once more into his back pack John took out a small contraption, it was a handle attached by a cord to a footplate which he clipped onto his shoe. He then attached the handle onto the cable which ran up the mountain side and slipped his pack onto his back. Activating the handle winch he began to rise up as he ascended he had to stop on occasions to free himself from where the cable had snagged on the uneven surface. Upon reaching the top of the cable JD found himself with a two to three foot reach to land himself on the ledge. The ledge itself looked to be stable but with the reach and the uncertainty of its actual stability he was a little wary. He paused for a moment to consider how to make the short traverse from the cable to the ledge. With his free hand he reached around his body and detached a line from his back pack. He then clipped the one end of the line into the loop of the anchor and tied the other end around his waist and his legs thus forming a makeshift safety harness. Having done this he held the cable with his free hand and released his other from the handle that had held him safe. It took him a few minutes to free climb across the gap but shortly he had arrived. From where he now stood he could see why the location of this now apparent cave was the perfect hiding place. It was almost impossible to see from ground level because the entrance to the cave had been built to form an obscuring wall that blended perfectly into the natural mountain side. He slipped off his back pack and once more took a piece of equipment out. This one resembled a gun. Placing the barrel against the rock surface he fired two, more secure, anchors into the wall then he dropped a sturdier line to the ground. Watkins told the others to wait were they were the others would only be a short while, then, he attached another winch to the fresh cable and ascended the cliff. Looking out from the mouth of the cave the view was spectacular. Desert and rocks stretched out as far as the eye could see. But they were not here for the vistas. Armed with their halogen lamps they entered the cave. As they walked in through the small entrance they were met with a mild musty smell, which was not unpleasant, there seemed to be a spicy fragrance to the aroma inside which, although not overpowering, did remind them of the smell one would encounter in places of worship. The chamber in which they now stood was about half of the size of the cave they had used to stow their gear on the shoreline. It had about the same head room but was demonstrably smaller. Stacked along the back wall were a number of earthenware containers. They counted twenty in all and thought that their work here should only take a few hours. They tried to relay this information to Captain Daniels but there was no communication inside the cave. The thickness of the rock had interfered with their earcoms. The only way to contact the ship was to return to the precipice at the front of the cave. Matthew returned to make contact while JD further examined the cave. He began by pulling the jars away from the wall, inspecting each one. They all seemed to be intact and each of them was sealed. When Watkins returned, he told JD that they had the go ahead. They began to open the first container. The lid had been sealed to the main body using a thick viscose material with a similar consistency to tar. Quite what it was was unclear. It did, however, slow the process. JD took a small blow torch from his bag and began to play the flame onto the seal. After a few moments the material began to melt and run down the pots in black rivulets. It took about three or four minutes for the seal to become malleable enough for them to prize off the lid. When it was opened they peered inside and could see that the interior was well packed with rolls of parchment. The two smiled at each other and began to remove the contents. The parchment felt fresh and pliable, not at all what one would expect from a centuries old document. Either the seal performed extremely well or this artefact was not as old as they were expecting. They unrolled the first document and spread it across the floor. Watkins stood far enough away so that he could get it all within the screen of his digital camera. There was a bright flash from the camera which illuminated the whole cave. The first piece was done. JD rolled it back up and placed it aside. They repeated the process until they had documented the entire first container, then they repacked it and rolled it back into its original place. Watkins went to the precipice and transmitted the records back to the ship. He returned to find John sitting on top of the containers, stroking his top lip, contemplating. Matthew asked what was wrong. He said that he wasn’t sure but something didn’t feel right. To him the documents felt too new to be what they were looking for. Watkins agreed and went to his bag. He took out a small box and waved it in the direction of JD. “Let’s test its age” he suggested and asked John to get him a sample. He re opened the first container and using his knife cut a piece from the corner of one of the documents and passed it to Watkins who placed it into the machine. After a few minutes their suspicions were confirmed. The documents they were examining were no more than a few years old at best. JD pointed out that these twenty containers could not possibly be the result of over two and a half thousand years of documentation. They left the cave and made their way back to the men who were still waiting at the base of the cliff.

The five men sat in a small circle, JD and Watkins needed some more information, urgently.
They told the men what they had found and explained that it was not feasible that their findings could possibly be the result of two millennia. They insisted that everything they were seeking was indeed held within that cave. One of them took the lead and began to tell them the story.

“We know that what you seek is in the cave, it has been our sacred place for many, many centuries. We are the keepers. We are nine strong and we belong to three great tribes.
Three of us from each tribe are sworn to protect and defend the cave against all comers. We have known of your arrival since the beginning and have been expecting you. We did not know exactly when, but it has been written that it would be around this period. You see, our tribes were founded by the people of your original crew. History tells us that they were sent from the skies to be with us and to observe, document and record for future generations. The kings of our tribes are bestowed with the original names of your peoples and once every year on the anniversary of ‘the visit’ a delegation chosen by the kings themselves make the pilgrimage to this place to deposit the scriptures for the preceding year. Each of the collections from each tribe are placed together and taken to the cave. It has been this way for countless generations, it has always been here, and we and our predecessors have always protected them. There is no other place, these are our sacred grounds. So, if what you seek is not where you seek it, maybe you need to look deeper for what you desire”

This last comment confused John and Matthew, but they were convinced that what they needed was back in the cave and so they started back up the cliff.
They re-entered the cave and activated their hand held torches. Looking around they could not see anything that was out of the ordinary, it was to all intent and purpose a simple cave. They decided to check the walls. Each of them started at the wall near the entrance and worked their way around the perimeter in different directions. They tapped the surface with hammers, tapping high and low as they went. Having checked nearly the entire wall without finding anything untoward they met on the far side of the cave. They were just about to give in when the final tap sounded with a different timbre. Both of them stopped immediately and looked at each other for a moment. Watkins tapped in the same place again, then two or three inches to the right and then back in the same place. There was definitely a distinct difference to the tone of the two places. Stepping back from the wall they tried to visually detect a difference in the wall surface, but there was none to be seen. What to do? It was evident that they had to find out what was behind the wall but how to achieve this presented a minor problem. At first they tried to attack it with their small picks, and although they did find that the wall was a degree softer in this place, it was also obvious that it would take them far too long to break through. Whoever had sealed this newly discovered entrance had been master builders; it was strong and undetectable from the natural rock surface.  After consultation with their commanding officer, it had been decided to use explosives to break through. They moved the containers in this first cave to the far wall near the entrance in an attempt to save them from any damage. Having done this they began to examine the far wall in more detail. They tapped around the area and managed to locate the approximate area of the sealed opening. Judging the centre of this they attached a small, round metal container. On this container there was a small read out and a couple of buttons. Watkins asked JD how long he thought, and JD said that he didn’t know but suggested about twenty seconds. This agreed Matthew set the timer, waited for his partner to leave the cave and activated the device. He then ran across the cave, out of the entrance and onto the small precipice where JD was waiting. They huddled together waiting for the explosion trying to make the best use of the limited cover they had on the ledge. The ten seconds that were left before the detonation seemed to pass slowly, then, almost without warning, the device exploded sending a dust cloud rocketing out of the entrance. They shielded their faces to protect them from any flying debris. Then all went quiet. For a few seconds, from within the cave they could hear rocks falling but soon this too became silent. From the foot of the cliff the commotion had stirred the three men who demanded to know what had happened. JD shouted down to them that everything was alright and they would explain when they descended the cliff. They waited until the dust had settled somewhat and went back into the cave. Switching on their lights they could now see a second entrance in the back wall. The explosion had torn out the false section perfectly leaving the debris strewn across the floor. Picking their way through the rubble they entered. What they found astounded them. It was a second room that they estimated to be at least twice the size of the first and it was packed floor to ceiling with containers. They took a little time to estimate how many there were and then returned to make their report. Standing on the ledge they began to talk to Daniels,