Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1) (30 page)

Electra smiled. “Yes, I have family.”

“You have said so little about you, your family, and, for that matter, your people. I cannot hazard a guess as to what I am in for.”

“I believe you will do alright,” she said.

They arrived back at the beach, following their own tracks back to the ship. The silence between them was contemplative. A sideways glance, a smile, a firm grip — all saying, “You’re making a commitment.” The trail left the beach inland. In the distance, Dancer inspected the hull.

Alec broke the silence. “All this time you lived in, or on, the Emperor’s Hanging Gardens, The Eleventh Wonder of the Universe.”

Electra looked at him intently. “The wave coming our way.”

“A tsunami,” replied Alec.

“A tsunami then — it’s a symptom of what’s happening to this world. The Garden’s systems have not required maintenance in thousands of cycles.”

Alec stopped on the path. He said, “Maintenance.” Alec looked to the sky. “The Emperor’s Hanging Gardens is the largest structure in the galaxy that I know of with more usable real estate than ten thousand worlds.”

The world around them rocked under their feet, and the force field-enclosed sky changed to darkness. Alec looked up to see the sky flicker from translucent to black and back again. The ocean dropped quickly away from the shoreline.

Alec grabbed Electra, and they ran together toward the
Quest
. Alec yelled to Dancer, “That really big tsunami is coming.”

Alec and Electra ran toward the airlock’s force field.

Dancer jumped from atop the hull, with his toolkit sinking a little on landing. He darted into the airlock. A loud roar engulfed them, and the ocean rose as it surged ashore with a 20-meter wave behind them. The wave took out the trees nearest the water first. Alec and Electra were 20 meters from the landing.

Alec held on to Electra tightly and yelled, “Go, go, go!”

The ocean wave rose to the sky. The wave caught them a meter from the airlock and hurled them against the hull. Alec grabbed the doorframe and pushed Electra through the force field that kept the water from filling the airlock. He pulled himself through as the
Quest
was picked up by the wave and taken inland.

Alec kept his footing as the deck pitched back and forth on his way to the command deck. The
Quest
tumbled in the onshore tide.

Dancer was strapped into the copilot’s seat. Alec landed in the pilot’s. The forward ports were filled with water and debris.

“Wow! Shields,” Alec exclaimed.

Dancer watched his console and incoming readings. “The sphere’s structure shifted, and the garden we are in shifted like a quake, creating a tsunami.”

Electra made it to the command deck and buckled herself in. She read the instruments in front of her. “This garden is unstable. We are fortunate it was a small wave.”

Alec and Dancer looked back at Electra.

“Small?” inquired Dancer.

Electra said, “The garden’s ocean is capable of producing tsunamis much higher than this.”

The
Quest
tossed to and fro. It slowed as the energy of the wave decreased. The ship was no longer among the debris at the top of the wave. The
Quest
sank within the wave as it slowed; then, it sank further, to the level of the tree tops they had been carried over and which were now hitting the hull of the ship.

Dancer raised the shields, stopping the thumping from the hull. He looked at their position. “The wave has lifted and carried us inland 12 kilometers,” noted Dancer.

The
Quest
slowed further as the wave dissipated and was no longer able to carry them aloft. The waters were filled with vegetation ripped from the soil and swept inland. A small grove of trees blocked their forward progress as the
Quest
collided with them. The
Quest
spun around as the water carried it past the grove into an open clearing.

The ship rocked as the landing gear settled once more on solid soil. Water and floating vegetation were all around them as they looked out the ports. The water lowered as it began to recede from what was once a clearing, now filled with trees and all sorts of debris picked up in the tsunami.

“Let’s check the hull for damage,” said Alec as he shut down the
Quest
’s shields. The heavy airlock door opened and vanished into the doorframe. Alec and Electra stood in the doorframe to look out at the destruction. The
Quest
’s orientation when it touched down was with the airlock pointed in the direction of the shoreline — the way they had come inland. The scene brought up for Alec the memories of videos from Old Earth, where tsunamis had devastated shorelines and communities for millennia. There were few trees, if any, within visual range without some sort of damage — some were just snapped off at their base. The destruction was unimaginable. Alec, Electra, and Dancer left the ship and stepped off into this new world.

Alec had problems processing the magnitude of what they had just lived through. “Better check out the damage.”

Dancer replied, “I just took new readings and have a secondary wave coming in but far shorter than this one. We should be okay here. I’ll take the top.” Dancer nimbly scaled the hull of the
Quest
. Alec had a pair of thick working gloves in hand as he turned to get a better look at the ship’s hull. Tree branches fell from above as Dancer started to clear debris from the ship.

Electra looked to the trees and back at him. “You don’t need me, do you?” she said with her best alluring smile.

Alec grinned back at her. “I thought you were all about helping.”

“When my people visit other gardens, we look for technology left by the custodians.” She gave him a coy look.

Alec gave in. “Why don’t you have a look around?”

Electra looked at the ship. “Are you sure?”

Alec replied, “Yeah, go ahead. We’ll be here a while. Besides, Dancer isn’t going to let me up there because I’ll just get in the way. We both don’t need to be here.” He slipped the gloves on.

“If you are sure, I will see what I can find in the area. These gardens have similar systems, and there might be some support system access nearby. Maintenance buildings are hidden in the terrain,” replied Electra. “I’ll change into something more appropriate.”

Electra ran into the airlock and soon came back out with some self-sizing hiking boots and a small backpack with a camel bladder filled with water. She pulled at the bootlaces, and the boot’s internal systems formed to fit her feet perfectly. Electra admired them and stood up. They fit well and looked good. She looked around at the devastation and decided to head further inland to explore.

Alec made his way around the
Quest
to inspect the undercarriage and hull. He pulled limbs and fronds from the landing gear. The enclosed hydraulic systems made them easier to clean. Alec made it to the
Quest
’s tail and engines. It was hard to distinguish where the
Quest
started and the trees left off in the debris piled against the ship. He started to clear the debris from the tail of the ship. He examined the ship’s exterior as it was revealed. Alec muttered, “This will never buff out.”

Electra had a hard time at first getting through some of the tree trunks piled up in front of the
Quest
. Once past the first set of barriers, she found the going easier. When the wave had set the
Quest
down, it was already starting to dissipate. The devastation beyond the clearing was minimal, as the trees and other larger pieces of debris had also been set down on the ground. Electra picked her way through the downed trees and finally into a wooded area showing no signs of the devastating wave.

Electra followed the trail inland. The trail showed signs of animals having used it recently, but there were no signs of anything motorized or of artificial coverings like shoes or boots. Electra clasped the drinking stock from the side of the pack and pulled it to her lips. She took a limited drink, not knowing how long it might be before she would be getting back to the ship. The trail headed for a hillside in the distance, which was exactly what she had been counting on. Garden builders designed their creations so that the supporting systems were out of sight but accessible to the maintenance staff. She guessed that the trail should end with a support building, but, until she found it, she would not know what kind. She closed in on the hillside as the trail ended five meters from its base.

Electra walked to the rock face and examined it closely for any signs of an entrance. She made her way along the wall 10 meters and checked for an entrance or a trigger for one. Electra’s efforts were for naught. If there was an entrance, it was very well hidden. She then went to a secondary check on her mental list. The builders of the gardens used natural lighting when they could to reduce the need for maintenance. A window was preferable to a lighting fixture that would wear out eventually. The builders would camouflage them normally, but if they were to be placed high up and out of sight from the ground level, they would be out in the open.

Electra walked out from the wall and shaded her eyes as she tried to spot a window amongst the rock and brush. She scanned the hillside carefully. It was a quarter of an hour before she saw what would be best described as a void amid some bushes. Electra ran to the wall below, where she suspected the window to be. She hurled herself up the wall. Her prowess in free climbing was demonstrated as she hardly broke a sweat as she approached the ledge 11 meters up. Electra stopped and saw it was a void in the wall; more so, it was bigger than what she could make out from the ground below. She grabbed one of the bushes and pulled it from its attachment, dropping it to the ground. She could see the rectangular windowsill much better. The windowsill’s force field flickered as she reached out and touched it. Electra was able to grab the sill and draw herself up to a sitting position.

She looked around the room from her perch on the windowsill. The equipment was still active. Electra jumped to the floor; the thud of her landing echoed through the room and out the open doorway on the far side of the room. She walked toward the door but stopped when she noticed some skeletal remains. It was humanoid and long dead. The environment here was not suited for preserving remains, and the body’s poor condition said as much. Electra checked the wall by the window. No moisture. She touched the force field again. It was still functional and kept out excess moisture and rain.

She went back to the body. In one hand was a clear crystalline tablet the size of a clipboard — a maintenance screen.

Electra lit up with recognition. “So, you were a custodian,” she said softly.

She knelt down and looked at a maintenance screen that had slipped ever so slightly from the body’s grip. Electra had seen one during her training. They were extremely valuable, giving the user access to the garden’s maintenance systems. Only the custodians were issued one. They had never found one still functioning.

Electra said solemnly, “You were left behind, weren’t you?” She reached for the thin sheet of flexible crystal, the thickness of construction paper, and touched it. An organic light-emitting diode sheet glowed; the displayed data scrolled in real time on the left side of the screen. Graphs and what looked to be alerts blazed across the rest of the sheet. She took it from the floor, held it by the top left corner, and lightly drew a line diagonally over the graphs. They changed, as did the data below them. It was active and responsive to her access. Electra rolled up the sheet and put it safely into her pack. She returned to exploring the rest of the room, noting the equipment running quietly along the wall. It was interesting, but she had a find of real significance. A functioning maintenance screen! Her people had been looking for one of these for thousands of cycles. Electra reached the door and looked into the darkened interior. She hesitated at the door, shook her head, and went back to the window.

Electra pulled herself up to the windowsill and looked over the trees toward the devastation in the distance. She would head back and let Alec know of her discovery. Electra turned to where she knew the body to be resting. “Thank you for everything. I will return to make things right for you,” she said and turned to get a grip on the windowsill and let herself down. She made her way down the wall with the agility of a six-armed Levol. When she neared the ground, she leapt from the wall, landing without incident.

*

The
Quest
stood alone in the clearing. The pile of vegetation and tree trunks that had enclosed the engines were long gone. Shredded plant matter lay in large heaps around the perimeter of the ship. Alec was sprawled out under a shade tree that had managed to stay mostly upright. He had a look of total exhaustion and was covered with small nicks, scratches, patches of dirt, and smears of mud. The goggles he had over his forehead were covered with dirt and wood chips. The circular clean patches of skin on his face indicated that he had used the goggles heavily. He had pulled the heavy work gloves from his hands; they had fallen to the ground near a hot chainsaw-chipper and gone unnoticed by their owner.

Alec mused, “I really could use a beer.” It was a rhetorical statement to the universe more than a demand. “Ice cold, with a full body.” He stuck out one hand and grabbed an imaginary beer bottle; the other hand grabbed a bottle opener. He opened the bottle and took a whiff. “Not too much hops. I want my beer to complement what I eat — not overpower it.” Alec tossed back the imaginary bottle, guzzling the nonexistent suds. He gave a satisfactory sigh of contentment and leaned his head back against the tree trunk.

Dancer wielded the chainsaw-chipper; the chain cut its way through the tree trunks at high velocity. Energy fields combined with the chain’s actions and shredded the tree trunk. Dancer ground it down to a more manageable piece and tossed the last of the cut tree aside. He looked at Alec. “We don’t have any of what you call ‘good beer.’

Alec responded, “I know. It’s the hops — a good Willamette Valley variety. Could you see what we do have? I need to find another source of hops. What we have is getting a bit old.”