Waking Olympus (The Singers of the Dark Book 1) (32 page)

"Well I ... "

He didn't get a chance to finish because then the circular platform, floor, guard rail and occupants lifted into the air. Or rather, the rest of the Citadel fell away since there was no sense of motion. No acceleration, no air rushing past, just the essence of motion. They were moving upwards through the air, the ornate walls flowing past hypnotically. As they rushed past, the walls seem to tell a story, of great battles between combatants who were clearly not human. Above, a dark circle grew larger and larger, it looked like they were going to be squashed against the underside of something. Then lights came on above and they saw a ring around the circumference of the shaft. The platform they were on now came up level to it. Part of the guard rail separated and the ring platform oozed towards them forming a walkway with its own magical rails. Mikel glanced down the terrible drop to where they had been. The globes moved along the railed 'gangway'. As they followed more lights on the walls came on.
 

The globes led them down more human-sized corridors, light blue looking as if they were made yesterday, made of strange materials, perfectly clean and featureless. Finally, they arrived in a room, with chairs, tables, landscape paintings on the walls, and strange items. Handheld things with inscribed and colored buttons on them.

The globes spoke before anyone could react to the room's contents. "Please do not press any of the buttons. This room was designed for humans at the height of their civilization. Many of the machines would be completely unfamiliar to you. The remote controls have been disabled, though Terrans would have typically used neural links to activate devices in this room. If you need anything you only have to ask."

The globes continued, "To your left there are toilets and places to wash."

One of the walls now became a screen, a bit like a shadow play but in full color. Briefly on the screen was a moving drawing showing how to use the toilets, and how to use the taps. Even the showers, which caught everyone's attention.

"When you are finished come back here and you will be given food and drink."

After their adventures in the
Rest Room
Mikel felt better than he had a right to. But he quickly returned to reality when he remembered where he was, it was daunting. The others felt it too a feeling of near complete overload. Not just sensory either. Deep down part of them wanted to crouch in a corner and deny that any of this was real, but they had to ignore it, there were more important issues here than a childish need to hide under the bed. When they came back there was a table with familiar foods on it.

Tarvis picked up a pastry. “How does it know what foods we eat? How could it possibly prepare and cook them in the time we were cleaning up? Hmm. Look.” He had just spotted a carafe of wine and glasses.

Kay was the first to speak. “What on Neti was that disc? That platform we just rode?”

Mikel had been thinking about it. “Zeus trying to impress us. I’m sure such an amazing …” There was a moment when the memory of it almost stopped the words in his mouth, “ … means of transport could be much simpler. But this is
His
introduction to us. He’s saying, don’t forget how much more I know than you do.”

Tarvis shook his head. “We don’t need impressing. It wasn’t meant for us, it was meant to impress the Ancients.”

Mikel had to agree, it made more sense.

"And others from the looks of those wall reliefs," Kay added.

In the room were soft, comfortable chairs, strange upholstered chairs in a rust red leather. The chairs now arced around in front of a blank white wall. The same wall that showed them how to use the Rest Room. There had been such no arrangement of chairs, or table of food, when they went into the Rest Room, the room had somehow rearranged itself. The room darkened slightly and the wall started to move with images.

The wall showed moving images of cities. The Cities of the Plains, before their fall, before the Great Battle. Great ships gliding, drifting like silvered clouds, in to a city. Lindin he guessed. He couldn't really tell, these cities resembled their current form like a beautiful woman resembles her skeleton. They were magnificent, but he kept reminding himself that although they shared names with cities of Earth, they were really only provincial towns in comparison.

A directionless bass male voice spoke. "I am Zeus. Who are you and why are you here?"

He cleared his throat and crossed his fingers and tried not to panic.

"I am Mikel Peres, a Wizard of Lind. My companions are Traders from Tanten. We have come here to ask for help. To help save the peoples of Neti from falling further."

He gritted his teeth, he had not told any of his thoughts to his fellow travelers but he was certain now about what he wanted.

"I also want to change humanity."

Everyone looked at him.

"What is the situation? I do not currently monitor humans apart from my orbital satellites." Zeus said.

"The Cities fell to barbarian onslaughts several hundred years ago. Lind maintains art, the scientific method, and scientific knowledge. The Traders maintain libraries of history and culture. They also are museum curators for any technology or artifacts that survived. The city of Bethor is bent on imperial expansion into the plains with the cities of Lindin and Pareth as puppet states. Sanfran is allied to Lind and Tanten, we were hoping for a renaissance in learning until Bethor started its war. Bethor now marches on Tanten. We need weapons."

Zeus spoke. "I help allies. Humans broke the pact. After the last battle the surviving humans had to do without me. I took some serious damage and repairs take time. My silence disturbed them, even when they came to visit it seemed to them I was dead. But eventually I recovered, I sent probes to the cities but they were already in decline. There was no one suitable or who was interested in the
big picture
as you humans would say. Humans are no longer my allies. Therefore, I have stopped my terraforming activities, the effects so far are relatively mild, expanding deserts, shorter growing seasons. Human populations are no doubt already in decline. In a few millennia there will not be much habitable land left on Neti."

The stakes it seemed were even higher than he thought. “Could you become allies again with humans?"

"Perhaps. It would mean a new pact and I would have to like and have confidence in the other party."

"Could you enter into a pact with Lind and Tanten?"

"I do not know Lind or Tanten. I like you and your party. I have been following you since you entered the Xanadu Valley. I saw how you studied the ruins of Sydney, not plundered, not ignored, but studied, recorded. You were very sad. And to your next question, yes I can read human emotions very well even from a distance, though not as far as I would like. One of my agents was destroyed by the battle robot while it was monitoring you, it was one of many. Most of my agents you would not even recognize. You have seen the maintenance robots, they are large and deliberately look like machines so humans can keep them at a mental distance, it is a gesture of honesty, but some of my other agents look just like any animal of the wild, big or small. I have watched you all closely. I will now start sending them south into the Plains to verify what you say."

"So you will make a new Pact with me?" Mikel felt he may have been moving too fast. But he really was desperate. No point trying to lie, with the forces available to Zeus he would likely quickly detect any attempt at deception.

"Perhaps, Mikel Peres, what do you want?"

"I want you to assist in the recovery of human civilization on Neti. And the alteration of humans to prevent — I mean to reduce the instability in human civilization.”

"How will I assist this recovery? Also, I do not genetically modify sentients, they can do that for themselves. I can, however, give you access to the genetics of eight intelligent species and their ecosystems, I can also re-establish contact with the
Raymond Tans
which is what your people would once have called a 'Library Ship’.”

Kay said. "That is supremely ironic." Tarvis looked quizzically at her. "Raymond Tans, library ship — you know."

Zeus interjected. "The Universe is fundamentally ironic. There is a theorem, with a proof, if you want it."

Mikel smiled, Zeus seemed to have a human side. "Was that a joke?"

"No. Again to my question, how will I assist this recovery?"

"We will need weapons, speedy communications, resources, information, and transport. Also guidance on how to again build the Ancient machines."

"Communications, yes. Resources, yes. Information, you will have more than you can handle. Transport, a limited number of vessels, eventually you have to build your own once the fab machines are constructed. The fab machines take raw materials and large amounts of energy and construct anything you have detailed plans for, you have the schematics on the
Raymond Tans
. I can supply large amounts of energy and materials. Optimally, it should take you less than a century to return to the stars. I will also supply you with weapons, but only under your direct command, I don't trust anyone else at this stage. No nuclear weapons, I do not approve of my allies destroying their own cities. Before you leave we must work out the details. The Pact does not need to be long. If you disobey the spirit of the agreement it will be terminated. Trust will be hard to regain."

Now that the pressing need to get the weapons was supported, all their curiosity came to the fore, a flood of questions came to them. Pent up for so long.

"Zeus, who was the Great Battle against? And, what are you?"

The wall with the moving pictures came alive again. This time it showed things he had never imagined.

"About thirty five million years ago, Earth or Neti years are not important, there was a culture that occupied a large portion of the galaxy. They were often referred to, by your historians, as 'The Thousand Tyrannies'. Their actual name is too hard for you to pronounce and anyway your name for them is uncannily appropriate. They were a large group of feuding families, vying for prestige and reputation. Reputation was won by enslaving other races. It should be understood that starflight is very difficult. Normally interstellar war makes no sense, but intelligent beings produced by evolution are largely irrational. They found other
reasons
to go to war.”

On the wall vast armadas among the stars fought in silver ships. Like a swarm of silvery glints at first, sparkling, like quartz sand in the sun. Sparkling sand thrown among the stars. Then the scene would zoom in on a one of the
speckles
and there would be what looked to be a huge silvery ship like those that were shown visiting the Cities. He couldn’t tell the size but guessed the larger ones were immense.

“The supply of intelligent species is very limited. Intelligence is rare in the galaxy. So there was intense competition. Soon, some families were supporting insurrections against other families by supplying slaves with weapons. That invited wholesale slaughter in response. Eventually, the inevitable happened, they started fighting each other directly. Reputation was now achieved by conquest of other families. They started devouring themselves, surrounded by a lot of very hostile slaves with a grudge, and weapons. The collapse was amazingly fast for a starfaring species, hundreds of years instead of tens of thousands. But some families banded together to find another solution. They constructed a time portal that would project them into a remote future beyond the collapse where they would find a
replenished
galaxy awaiting a new wave of conquest. Each of the greatest families built one or more ships of incredible power and sent them into the portal.”

A great ship appeared on the wall, harried by many smaller ships of different design. There were brilliant flashes of light and many smaller ships disappeared. Some just exploded as if they had been hit by something. The camera viewpoint always changing trying to avoid being destroyed.

"Several times these ships came through and wrought great devastation. Finally, the most advanced culture of the time, my people, built me. A planet, whose star is gravitationally bound to the portal, was engineered as a base of operations that would monitor this last remaining portal. The portal itself cannot be destroyed without releasing energy levels greater than a typical supernova."

Mikel, looked about and concluded that he was the only one who saw what this meant. "Wait! Do you mean to say that Neti, the planet, is artificial? That it was constructed?"

"A suitable planet in this system was found and drastically reworked. Very little of Neti, as you call it, is natural. Certainly, nothing you have seen is natural, even many of the animals were reconstructed by me from tissue samples of extinct species."

This was not what anyone had expected. To Mikel's credit he took a deep breath and continued on, mentally feeling like he was riding on top of a runaway horse.

"This mountain. What is it made of? It can't be natural either. No normal stone could support this structure."

"Not only is this structure not natural it is not held up by mechanical forces, other forces maintain its integrity."

The voice changed tone slightly and continued on with the monologue.

"When the planetary and space borne systems went online the builders left. The task had taken a long time, and in those centuries and then millennia they had grown tired of exploration. They were clearly in their decline but typically for those in that state they did not even see it. When they did, they no longer had the unity or will to arrest it. After a few millennia the ships stopped coming and those that were here left. I maintained the ecosystems for millions of years, always hoping they would return. But finally, a new species found me and learned of my role. They struck up a partnership with me, as I was designed to do, then I scrapped the old ecosystems and repatterned the land, air and seas, seeded it with the life forms of the new guests. It was a sad but hopeful time. Eventually, they too stopped coming. I kept the ecosystem running for some time but after about a million years I stopped regulating it and it died. That happened a few more times, finally I decided I would just let the ecosystem drift if there was no contact, though sometimes the ecosystem was destroyed by Dawn Ships, as they were called; ships from the Tyrannies."