The Menagerie 2 (Eden) (5 page)

“We are so low on the evolutionary scale it’s not funny,” said O’Connell. “We need to understand the ancient script to help balance the playing field as much as we can and as fast as we can. We need Ms. Moore to break down the language so that we can bypass these systems and begin the process of reverse engineering.”

Alyssa examined the warrior hominid with studious eyes. For nearly sixty-five million years it remained unblemished, not a single nick upon its armor-plated hide. “Are you sure these things are not in stasis form that’s similar to our cryogenics, but far more advanced?”

“Ms. Moore, we’re talking about sixty-five million years here. They’re dead. Every single specimen, I assure you.”

“But you said yourself that
this
race was on a level to
us
as we are to the amoeba. Who’s to say that they haven’t devised a way to perfectly preserve these specimens? Just because we don’t think that something beyond our understanding can’t exist when, in fact, it certainly could, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist at all. Look around you. This entire ship is a marvel of engineering miracles beyond our comprehension.” 

“Ms. Moore, they’re biological matter. And biological matter does not live forever. They eventually break down.”

“I was just saying.”

“Ms. Moore, my team has been stonewalled. But we believe that your abilities can open up gates here and there for my team to at least be able to piece together a theory of understanding as to the fundamentals of this ship.”

“All I can do is give my best. So keep in mind that the language may not be the same, the text indecipherable.”

He nodded. “We have the collected records of the ship’s writings down below, on the third level. So if you and Mr. Savage will follow me, then we can begin—” 

The hull once again began to shake, the tremors far more than the mild aftershocks O’Connell had led them to believe.

When the tremors subsided, Savage shot an unyielding look to O’Connell. “What aren’t you telling us about these tremors?” he asked.

“Aftershocks are not an abnormality, Mr. Savage. We’ll be fine.”

But John Savage was a seasoned soldier whose life was balanced with good reasoning and common sense, whereas O’Connell was a black-op spook who would kill in order to keep secrets safe. And the fact was that aftershocks ebb with time, not heighten in activity. There was no doubt in Savage’s mind that the region was highly unstable. “This far along after the initial quake,” he offered as more of a statement rather than a question. “After two weeks?” And then: “The crater’s resettling, isn’t it? The surrounding walls weakening.”

“Mr. Savage, this isn’t the time or place—” he cut himself off. “We’re safe,” he concluded edgily. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

If John Savage learned anything at all as a Navy SEAL, it’s whenever a government spook says ‘there’s nothing to worry about,’ then there’s something to worry about.

Savage pressed him with a hard look and O’Connell pressed back, the two men sharing a tie with Intelligence by trying to absorb the secrets of the other, both failing.

“Since time is of the essence,” O’Connell finally said, “we need to move on.”

Mexican and American nationals—the biophysicists and the biotechnologists, the scientific geneticists and evolutionary biologists, physiologists, mathematicians and statisticians, astrophysicists and astrobiologists—were all moving about as a grouping of scientists thrown together in a playpen of strange wonders to seek the answers within.

For as far as they could see there were more enclosures containing inexplicable life forms with each container specifically built to suit its inhabitant. Whereas some stasis chambers were built to hold some type of colossus, others were created to maintain something as miniscule as a virus or bacteria inside a glass tube.

In one setting stood a massive sea creature, the beast having a segmented body and multiple legs, much like a centipede’s, but more powerful, more muscular. Its head was a crown of tentacles that seemed to flow with soft fluidity as if wavering peacefully with the course of a gentle sea current. And its eyes, separate of the tentacles, stood upon stalks capable of maneuvering independently, its eyes at any given time having the advantage of 360-degree vision.

In another bin were dual mates—one male, one female—resembling the velociraptor. There were, however, marginal differences. Its tail was longer and whip-like with sharp, serrated ridges running along the appendage that was engineered to rip its opponent apart with a swipe of its tail. Its neck was longer, thinner, the skeleton of its throat more like cartilage than bone to give it flexibility, that option of telescoping its head and jaws outward in a savage thrust, like the spring of a snake.

In the bin next to it, which almost reached the ship’s ceiling, was a behemoth similar to the T-Rex—although this version was much larger and heavier, its carcass armor plated like the skin of a rhinoceros, with protective folds and flaps. Its eyes were marble-sized inside a gargantuan head. Its jaw powerful and slightly agape, revealing teeth that was more saber-like than those of the Rex. And the spine of its tail bore the same razor-like ridges similar to its neighbor, the velociraptor.

O’Connell stopped before the velociraptors and pressed the flat of his palm against the force field, which ultimately repelled his hand with an equal force. “As you can see, these look more like the cousins to our own velociraptors. And that,” he inclined his head toward the Rex, “came from the same planet as these specimens. It’s amazing how creatures from distant galaxies can resemble creatures from our own planet. That tells me that the evolution between our planets were at least on an even scale. It would be interesting to see how they have evolved over the past sixty-five million years. Did a bolide ultimately collide with their planet and wipe them out as well, giving rise to a new race of apex predators? Or do they continue to thrive?”

Alyssa and Savage moved closer to the stasis bins.

“Minor differences,” she commented.

O’Connell nodded in agreement. He then waved his hand over the mushroom gem, prompting holographic images of the creature’s anatomy and its point of origin. The second image, their point of origin, was the Milky Way. The third holographic screen was that of a planet based at the edge of the Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, which is an area far removed from the Orion Spur, the minor arm that planet Earth is stationed. “Our planets are separated by hundreds of thousands of light years, but the similarities are uncanny. There’s no doubt in my mind that humanoids similar to us exist as well. The question is, are they friend or foe? If they fall into the latter category, then we need to prepare ourselves defensively.”

“Getting a little paranoid, aren’t you?” asked Savage.

“Paranoid?” O’Connell stood back from the chamber. “It didn’t work out too well for the Native Americans when Columbus first set foot on North America, did it?”

“That was different.”

“Really?” And then: “What you see here, Mr. Savage, is a menagerie of what our team believes to be the universe’s greatest apex predators—some humanoid, some not. But apex predators they are. And to prove my point—” O’Connell cut himself short, turned, and began to walk at a normal clip. After passing several bins bearing the oddest configurations of creatures, O’Connell stood before two empty chambers. With a wave of his hand the corresponding holographic images took shape. Savage and Alyssa caught up and took note.

The first holograph from the first empty chamber was that of Earth’s velociraptor and its anatomy, the image rotating. The second was its point of origin, the Milky Way. The third image was the planet Earth before the land masses split off into independent continents. “They were coming here,” he said evenly, “to this planet to fill these bins. But something obviously happened, which caused this ship to become the bolide that created the final extinction event.”

Savage went to the second chamber, one that was built for something that was obviously large, and waved his hand over the gem. Three holographic images popped up, as required. The first image was that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, its phantom likeness rotating with alien script denoting certain regions of its body. The velociraptor and the T-Rex, he thought, the dominant predators of their time, their bins empty—the caretakers, the zookeepers, long dead.

“Why?” asked Alyssa. “Why this particular collection of apex predators?”

O’Connell shrugged. “As to guesses, I’d say they’re more for study. But this intergalactic ark holds many secrets. And the quicker you can decipher the language, then the faster we can find the answers to your questions—the answers to my questions.”

“And don’t forget to answer the government’s questions,” added Savage. “Let’s not forget them.”

O’Connell allowed the muscles in the back of his jaw to work. Savage’s veiled insinuation was laced with undeniable suspicion directed against him, a conduit to the most powerful men in the world.
You, Mr. Savage, need to keep yourself in line.

“Yes,” O’Connell said very dryly. “Let’s not forget them.”

Alyssa heard the exchange, could feel the tightness between them. But she also knew John to be a man of caution, someone with the awareness of his surroundings. Obviously his senses were picking up red flags.

O’Connell waved his hands over the gem and the holograms disappeared. “Follow me,” he said.

They walked the length of the ship between enclosures that were filled with creatures from oceans of toxic ammonia to sulfur-rich caverns, from glacial wastelands to scorching hot planets—with each specimen designed to handle a very specific environment.    

As they toured there were teams of scientists everywhere—logging or taking notes, some running diagnostic machines Savage could only hazard a guess as to their functions. Other machines poured steady streams of laser capable of cutting through the densest metal had absolutely no effect at all on the energy fields. There was a sense of desperation—at least in Savage’s view—to solve the vessel’s mysteries by serendipity.

There were more enclosures, seemingly endless aisles of them, bearing captives from all over the universe, creatures great and small, some intelligent and some not so, most appearing vicious and cruel, and all sharing the same fate.

 But what grabbed Savage’s eye the most were the heavily armed personnel. They were wearing domed helmets with a formation of gadgetry marching up one side and down the other, an assemblage of NVG goggles and thermal ware. Their faceplates were a convexity of opaque plastic. And their ensembles completely ‘Robocop’ with specially designed composite shin and forearm guards.

More disturbing, however, were the patches they wore on their shoulders, that of a grinning skull wearing an eye patch and beret with two crisscrossing tantos beneath it, the insignia of the Tally-Whackers, a legendary wetwork team operating strictly for the DOD. Their existence is by rumor only, a unit mentioned only in whispers, a group of men who tallied high numbers of kills with impunity.

John Savage dismissed the idea that they ever existed, mere fabrications of simple myths and legends and nothing more. But all legends had a foundation of truth—all of them. But this one came with the rumored insignia no other group sustained.

By John’s estimate there were at least eight, maybe nine, all meat and muscle.

Why are you here?
he wondered.
For what possible reason
?

He glanced at Alyssa, who was completely enamored by the surrounding specimens.

And he worried for her safety and for his. The presence of Tally-Whackers was never a good sign. By rumor they were vicious and unmerciful, killers who thrived on adrenaline while waiting to make the next kill at the direction of the government.

He grabbed Alyssa and pulled her close.

At the end of the ship there was a downward incline that led to the next level. The tunnel was slim, the walls ribbed and coated with a textured sheen, and the grating beneath their feet glowed a pulsating phosphorous green, the light casting ghoulish lines along the walls and on their faces, their features writhing with shadow play.

At the bottom of the corridor was a circular room with a domed ceiling. The ribbing of the dark walls curved upward to meet a central point on the ceiling, the roof’s center, where a conical-shaped beam of light alit on the chamber beneath it.

Inside was a cloud mass, a free floating mist that continuously morphed into Rorschach shapes, the vapor moving with slow, hypnotic grace. Not only did the cloud alter its shape but also its coloring, the mass changing from cool blues to warm reds, colors that pleased. Small pops of energy shot off as bursts of bioluminescence, the sparks igniting in gemlike colors.

Alyssa circled the chamber and placed a hand against the energy shield, feeling nothing but the gentle repulsion of its force. “It’s beautiful,” she commented.

O’Connell had to agree—the vision was quite magnetic. “Why it’s separated from the rest is a matter of simple hypothesis. But our determination is that as beautiful as this entity is, it’s also very noxious. If this particular Elemental ever escaped its containment cell, then we can only assume that harm would have come to the crew or the specimens.” And then: “Not everything that appeals to the eye, Ms. Moore, is appealing underneath.”

The mass continued to undulate as if moving with the gentlest of breezes, with a honey flow to it, soft and mesmerizing.

On the opposite side of the corridor, behind the Elemental’s chamber, was a small doorway crafted for something much smaller, perhaps a child. Except the door was not a conventional door at all, but a translucent wall that was as thin as a sheet of glass, emerald in color, its surface reflecting their images in a funhouse sort of way, shapes that were twisted.

O’Connell went to the wall and waved his hand over a lens next to the opening, and the emerald glass disappeared. “Another energy shield,” he said. “Impassable. Bullets couldn’t penetrate it. Neither could torches or diamond cutters. How they were able to take pure energy and manipulate it to suit their needs is utterly fascinating. We’ve got to figure this out.”