Resurrection (32 page)
Authors: Arwen Elys Dayton
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Adventure
He was helped up the long passages and into the central chamber. The sarcophagus sat at one end of this great hall, simple and unadorned. It was filled with the fluid that would keep him alive. The dark liquid within had been concocted from notes written by the Engineer. This was a man about whom his father often spoke. The secret of the Sleepers, the gods who went into long rest as they awaited the arrival of the ship to bear them home, had not remained secret for long. The location itself was well guarded—Osiris had never hinted of it, even to his son—but what had been done in the cave became the subject of legend. They had gone into the sleep of death to await resurrection. And Khufu had found the recipe for the fluid that would make this possible.
His priests had not had all the ingredients to hand, but they had replaced what was not available with potions of the highest quality, potions that had been handed down from the time of his father’s arrival. To ensure their potency, all ingredients had been repeatedly blessed, by priests who served his father Osiris and priestesses who served his mother Isis. Their power was beyond question.
Even so, Khufu felt a surge of fear as he looked at the sarcophagus. What would he feel? Would there be dreams, or would there only be silence? Propped nearby was the lid for the box, made of fine wood. He had not wanted stone, of course, for stone could not be lifted by the occupant. The wood was cured to last for generations, and it was light enough for him to push aside.
More priests and priestesses were standing along the walls of the hall. As Khufu took his first step toward the sarcophagus, they began to chant in unison, “He enters the realms. He ascends to the sky. He is given new life.” Their voices were eerie in this space, echoing into each other, reverberating through the walls. It was almost frightening.
On his own, Khufu walked the length of the hall. He reached the stone box and set his hands upon it, letting it support his weight. Within, the dark liquid was beckoning. It was time. His body was ready to give out. He would lie down in this sarcophagus and be preserved, resting peacefully, until the gods came to take him away. They would heal him, and he would live a second life with them.
“I am ready, Priest.”
They disrobed him, then took hold of his wasted body and gently lowered him into the fluid. It was cold and unpleasant. Khufu sank into it up to his neck, then slowly tilted his head back and let it sink below the surface. He felt the fluid covering him, felt it over his face, felt them pushing him to the bottom of the sarcophagus. He could feel the stone on his back now, cold. He must breathe in the liquid, that much he knew. He must take it into his lungs, just as the sleepers had. It would feel like drowning, but it would not be death, only sleep.
He did not want to take the breath. What if he was wrong? What if this fluid was only a foolish concoction? It was too late. They were holding him. He had ordered them to keep him under the liquid, even if he struggled. This was a leap of faith.
He inhaled. The fluid poured into his lungs, and it burned. He was drowning; he was dying. He struggled, but they held him pinned. He tried to gasp but only took in more of it. His muscles were gone. He had no strength. They held him, and there was no air. His lungs cried out, his body cried out, he felt a final convulsion of pain. Then he was dead.
When the king lay still, the priests in the chamber uttered the long, final incantation. Then the sarcophagus top was secured and the retinue moved out of the pyramid. Workers were already preparing to plug the entry with poured stone, for none belonged inside but Khufu himself.
Within weeks, new casing stones were grown in place, and the pyramid gleamed white and perfect in the hot desert sun. Within it, the body of Khufu was slowly dissolved by the fluid, a mixture that had been half right. Without the machinery of the stasis tanks and the tubes feeding his body, however, there had been no chance for him. Within a month, the body was eaten away, leaving nothing. The wood top, too, would eventually disintegrate.
None of this was known, however, and Khufu’s entry into the pyramid and into the sarcophagus spawned an elaborate royal cult of the dead. For thousands of years, succeeding generations sought to emulate him, developing intricate embalming techniques to keep bodies intact for the life to come.
The technology of building the pyramid remained in use, unadulterated, for several generations, and was then lost forever, diluted by priests who turned science into religion, forgotten by mystics who wanted only something to worship.
Present Day
The Lucien shuttle was just as Pruit would have imagined it. Its walls were a bright silver of polished metal, resembling the Lucien skin. The control panels were set into these walls in neat banks of monitors and lights. The craft was a squat cylinder, with three chairs grouped like petals in the center, facing out toward the walls. She, Adaiz, and the Engineer had trekked through Central Africa, up into the cloud forest at the edge of the grasslands, and had found the shuttle that Adaiz and Enon had hidden weeks before.
Adaiz-Ari sat in the single chair that had been designed to carry a human. He controlled the craft from this seat. Pruit and the Engineer, strapped into the other two chairs, were merely passengers, and they were experiencing the discomfort of seats that did not well accommodate a human backside. The shuttle generated moderate gravity, enough to keep all three of them firmly in place.
From her position, Pruit could just make out the approach monitors. They were in the final stage of deceleration as they prepared to dock with Pruit’s own ship.
“Adaiz, the dock is on the far side,” she said. Adaiz moved his hands over the controls, to bring the ships together. He adjusted the docking mechanism, letting it expand and conform to the shape of the Kinley ship’s hull.
They docked without incident, the craft making a gentle vibration as it connected with its target. Pruit watched as Adaiz deployed a variable airlock, creating a bridge between the hatches of their two ships. She had given Adaiz the docking code, and her ship was ready to receive them.
“Secured,” Adaiz said as the airlock clicked into place. They unstrapped themselves. The Engineer moved his arms to follow suit, but he could not manage the locking mechanism.
Pruit freed him from his straps and assisted him onto his feet. Then she shouldered the small backpack that contained their precious crystals. She helped the Engineer up through the round hatch in the shuttle’s ceiling. Above them was the hatch into the floor of Pruit’s ship. She reached it and pulled it open. There, above her, was the familiar room that had been her home for nearly twenty years. She guided the Engineer up the airlock’s rungs, and soon they emerged together into the ship. Adaiz followed.
“Hello, Central,” she said.
“Welcome, Pruit,” the ship replied, returning to life instantly, as though she had left only a few minutes ago. It was Niks’s voice coming from the walls. Pruit had forgotten it would be, and she was startled by the immediacy of the sorrow at the sound of his voice.
“Central, put the life-systems computer on full alert. I have urgent business,” she said, forcing herself to maintain composure. She looked around, her eyes moving over the cribs, their lids retracted, their inner wombs dry now, waiting patiently to be used for the return trip. Along the walls and at the ends of the ship were the two control centers, the exercise area, the medical and food stations, and the sentient tank, all in order.
“Adaiz, help me get him to the crib.”
Together, they walked the Engineer to Niks’s crib and undressed him. Pruit ordered Central to fill the crib, and biofluid began to pour in, hydrating the wombwalls, which became orange webs of tissue. She quickly programmed the tank for medical examination, not stasis.
“I’m going to put you in the crib,” Pruit said to the Engineer in Haight. She took her cue from the Doctor and never spoke down to him. She gestured to the biofluid, and the Engineer seemed to understand her intent.
She and Adaiz helped him down into the crib. Bioarms began to grow out of the walls, seeking out his body. The Engineer shied away from them, but Pruit squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. “It’s all right,” she said. “I think it will help you.”
As the tank filled, the Engineer slowly settled back into the crib. A breathearm found its way down his throat. He gagged a little, then calmed. In moments, he let his head float beneath the biofluid. Adaiz watched in fascination at this demonstration of Kinley technology.
Kinley
. There, he had said it in his mind. He had not instantly thought of them as “Plaguers.” It would take some time to get used to this change, but he was willing to try.
Pruit moved to one of the control centers, sank her hand into the putty pad, and accessed the life-systems computer. Adaiz watched the screens in front of her with the varicolored cells that formed and reformed in nanoseconds to create the images required.
“Central, please coordinate with life-systems and give me a workup on the man in Niks’s crib,” Pruit said.
She waited as the ship made a full examination of the Engineer. Then Central spoke.
“The prime problem is one of brain function, Pru.” She struggled not to be affected by the computer’s familiar tone. “He appears to have suffered extensive damage due to oxygen deprivation. This is a structural problem. Large blocks of cells have been destroyed and have not been able to regenerate.”
“Can we fix him?”
“I believe so. It would be a matter of matching his body’s cells and instructing his body where to place them. He has an unusual blood type, but still should be within ship capabilities.”
“Please put all available resources into fixing him.”
“Acknowledged. It will take some hours.” The life-systems computer, ordered by Central, began to work on the problem.
Pruit spent an hour loading the data crystals into a special crystal reader mounted in the control center, thus transferring all the Eschless Funnel data to the ship.
While she worked, Adaiz took a seat on the floor and let his eyes close. He was thinking of Enon-Amet, trying to find him. He thought he could sense him, his spirit, home, ready for his next life on beautiful Galea. In spirit form, Enon had crossed instantly a distance that would take twenty years in physical bodies.
Good-bye, Dear Brother
, he said to him,
I hope I may have the honor of knowing you again
…
When Pruit was finished with the crystals, she found herself standing by the sentient tank. She was thinking of the future. How nice it would be to climb into the tank and talk things over with Niks. She would tell him everything that had happened. She would tell him about her plan, and the chance she saw ahead for the Kinley to free themselves. She would tell him about Eddie and ask him if he minded that she had found someone else, ask him if he minded that she cared about him. She would tell him these things, and then she would ask him about the future, and they would plan together.
But that was not Niks inside the tank; that was a computer with his voice. Niks was gone, and the future was up to her. She put her hand on the tank and thought of him, the way he looked, his humor, his love. She found she did not need to cry; those things were still with her.
Softly, she said, “Good-bye, Niks.”
After three hours of monitoring the life-systems computer, Central spoke.
“The crib occupant is ready to wake.”
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Structurally, he looks repaired. His brain function should be normal and continue normal. He may or may not have full memory, however.”
Pruit moved to the crib, just as the plantglass retracted and the biofluid began to drain. As the bioarms released the Engineer, she reached in and took hold of his hand, helping him to a sitting position. His hands came to his eyes and rubbed them, then he opened them and coughed. He looked at Pruit and then at Adaiz, who was standing behind her.
“Do you know your name?” Pruit asked him softly in Haight.
“I’m the Engineer,” he said, his voice scratchy.
Pruit smiled.
“Yes, you are. Do you remember coming here with me?”
The Engineer squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes,” he said, as though the memory pained him. “Of course. I’ve been…living in a nightmare these past weeks.” Then he opened his eyes and took hold of Pruit’s hand. “Thank you.”
She got a blanket for him. He stood from the tank and wrapped himself in it.
“Can you remember the Eschless Funnel?” she asked.
“Do you have something to write with?”
Pruit found him a stylus and writing pad. He took them in his hands and sat down on the floor. Quickly, he jotted down a dozen long mathematical formulas, then did a few sample equations. Because of their complexity, this took him several minutes. Then it was his turn to smile.
“The core equations I still know by heart,” he said, “The rest I can reconstruct.”
“We have your data crystals,” Pruit said.
The Engineer smiled again. “Then the Funnel is secure.”
She returned his smile, then sent him to shower and dress. She and Adaiz moved to one of the control centers. “He can build me the ship I need,” she said. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Adaiz replied.
Pruit accessed her ship’s communication capabilities. There was a powerful broadcast transmitter aboard. It had been designed to send the Eschless technology back to Herrod. Transmitting the information in this way meant that it could be intercepted by the Lucien as well, but Pruit had a set of incredibly complex ciphers to use as protection. Now, however, she was not worried about the Lucien intercepting the information and eventually breaking the code. With the spies they had on Herrod, that was, perhaps, inevitable in any case. She had another plan, one which she and Adaiz had agreed upon together.
With Central’s help, she aligned the transmitter and prepared the ship to broadcast the manuals. When everything was ready, she turned to Adaiz again.
“Are you ready?”
Adaiz paused, then, “Yes. I may be called a traitor in my home for this. But I know my own heart, and I am willing to bear that personal burden.”
“You are not a traitor. This is a new time, and the rules have changed. We will give the Funnel to both of our races. The field will ultimately be level for both.”
“I hope you’re right.”
She turned back to the screen, double-checking her instructions. The data would be sent eight light-years through space, landing squarely in their home system. She was also sending the data to Earth, where it would arrive within a few dozen minutes of broadcast.
“Then here we go,” she said. “Central, transmit.”
There was a brief pause as Central executed her command. “Done, Pruit.”
Pruit and Adaiz did not look at each other. They were thinking of the invisible beams of information traveling the speed of light, hurtling inexorably through the reaches of star systems, heading for home. And here, in the local neighborhood, Earth receiving stations in every country on the globe would soon be picking up an incoming message that would change the course of civilization.
At last, Pruit realized that she was not breathing. She let out her breath and drew one in. She would remember that breath for years, the first breath of a new life.
“Something is different,” Adaiz said quietly.
Pruit knew immediately what he meant. “Yes,” she agreed. “Everything is different.”