Penumbra

22

Bennett rocked in his command couch as the Cobra phased out of the void. Tenebrae filled the viewscreen, awesome in its breadth, and Bennett had to search its face for Penumbra. He found the planet at last, a minuscule violet coin silhouetted against a central streamer of pastel green gas. As the Cobra accelerated towards Penumbra, he checked the flight program one last time and unstrapped himself from the couch.

He moved to the suspension chamber. Rana Rao’s unit was open, and she was blinking up at him. “We’re here?”

“Estimated time of arrival, one hour. Clean up and join me on the flight-deck. The view’s spectacular.”

She struggled upright. “It doesn’t seem two minutes since I climbed into this thing.”

“No dreams?”

She frowned. “No—yes.” She smiled at him. “I dreamed of my father, when I was young. We were playing on the lawn. It’s a recurring image. I’m—”

“Apprehensive about meeting him after so long?”

She jogged her head in that quaint Indian gesture that seemed to Bennett to signify a qualified affirmative. “A little. So many things have happened, and the circumstances of our meeting will be so strange.”

He smiled. “I’ll be on the flight-deck. See you soon.”

As he strapped himself into the command couch, he looked ahead to the landing and reunion, the handing over of the softscreen to Mackendrick and the rebels. He wondered at Mack’s reaction to being reunited, after so long, with the daughter he had lost.

Rana joined him fifteen minutes later, climbing into the co-pilot’s seat and staring in wonder through the viewscreen.

Bennett told her about his involvement with Mackendrick and his mission, the landing on Penumbra and subsequent escapades. Then he asked Rana why she had run away from home, all those years ago. Reluctantly at first, Rana told him about her unhappy childhood, how running away from parents who seemed not to care about her had seemed the right thing to do at the time. She told him about her years on the street, and her rise to the rank of police lieutenant. Her manner of speech was quick and precise, her delicate articulate hands turning with a million gestures. He was mesmerised by her impossibly large eyes, which seemed to contain at once the dark shadows of experience and the light of hope for the future. He thought that there was something immensely strong about the woman, but that also within her was the vulnerable child who had run away from home so long ago.

She stared through the viewscreen at Penumbra turning slowly before them, and behind it the immense backdrop of the gas giant. “It’s hard to imagine that my father is down there.”

As they watched, Penumbra grew from the size of a coin held at arm’s length, expanding like a ball thrown towards them in slow motion. Soon it filled the view-screen, a rolling sphere wrapped in bands of cloud.

“Strap yourself in, Rana,” Bennett said. “The ride down might be bumpy.”

They entered the cloud cover. For long minutes they experienced nothing but a glowing opalescence beyond the viewscreen, and vision-impairing vibration as atmospheric turbulence rattled the ship. Then they fell from the clouds, the sudden appearance of purple-clad plains and mountains startling to the eye. Rana gasped and leaned forward against her harness, staring down at the folded hills far below and the upthrust mountain ranges. They were travelling at a little over twenty-five thousand kilometres an hour, and the land below seemed only to be crawling by.

To their left, Tenebrae was rising slowly over the line of mountains. Another day was dawning on Penumbra.

Bennett had programmed the Cobra to approach the plain where they had originally landed, and then relinquish control to him. From there he would fly the Cobra up the valley and into the mountains where the rebels had their hide-out. He had copied their co-ordinates into his com-board; it would be a matter of seat-of-the-pants flying through the mountain peaks until they reached the valley. He smiled as he imagined the reaction when Mack, Ten Lee and the rebels heard the sonic booms announcing their arrival.

The Cobra screamed down the long valley plain at an altitude of five hundred metres. This low, with the mountains slipping by to either side, the sensation of speed was breathtaking. Rana gripped the arms of the couch like a child on a funfair ride.

“Down there to the right,” Bennett pointed out, “you can just see the ruins we found the day after we landed.”

They appeared briefly, reduced to the size of a child’s model, and then were gone.

Minutes before they came to the colonists’ original timber settlement and the crash-landed spaceship, Bennett took control of the Cobra, decelerated and veered right, ascending over the foothills towards the western mountains. He glanced at the screen of his com-board, reading the distance they had to travel to the rebel valley. Two hundred kilometres and falling… estimated time of arrival, four minutes.

Bennett eased the Cobra between great mountain peaks, covered with blinding white snow at this altitude and whipped by raging winds. He slowed, banked around a clenched fist of rock, and planed down into the broad saddle of purple grassland.

“I can see buildings down there,” Rana reported. “And people, Josh. They’re leaving their houses and waving.”

Bennett felt a sudden tightness in his chest, an emotion he had not expected. He glanced down and saw a wide area of grassland beyond the last A-frame. Rana was right. Rebels, dozens of men and women, were streaming from the buildings and across the plain. He applied the vertical thrusters and brought the Cobra down slowly for the gentlest contact with the ground.

When they hit land he cut the engines, exhaled and lay back in the sudden and profound silence. Through the viewscreen he could see the A-frame and domes, and people running towards the ship. He hit the command to lower the ramp, then unbuckled himself from the couch and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

Hans Hupcka was the first aboard. He appeared at the top of the ramp and then burst into the flight-deck, more wild-looking and bearded than Bennett remembered. Others appeared behind him: Miriam James, and other rebel faces he recognised.

Hupcka halted before him, staring like a madman. “You have the softscreen, Josh?”

Bennett tapped the folded screen in the pouch of his flight-suit and Hupcka enveloped him in a fierce bear hug.

“Incredible! We never expected… We thought you’d take a year at least, not just eight months.”

Eight months… To Bennett it seemed just like yesterday that he had left Penumbra.

“How’s Mack?” he asked. “Ten Lee?”

“Ten Lee’s fine,” Hupcka said. “Her leg’s healed. She spends much of her time meditating. Mack…” He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Mack’s ill, but he’s stable.” Hupcka’s gaze slipped past Bennett to Rana, standing beside her couch. “You have a co-pilot this time?”

He smiled. “It’s a long story.” He passed Hupcka the softscreen. “I’d like to see Mack.”

Hupcka nodded. “I’ll take you straight to him. We’ll study the screen and plot the position of the entrance to the underground caverns. Also, Mack isn’t up to a trek. Can we make the journey in the ship?”

“If there’s somewhere reasonably level to land, I can’t see any problem.”

Hupcka nodded. “I’ll take you to Mack.”

Bennett turned and reached out for Rana. She took his hand and they hurried from the ship, past smiling faces, across the purple plain.

Hupcka indicated an A-frame. “Mack is in there. Ten Lee is nursing him. See you in a while.”

Bennett and Rana climbed the steps to the veranda of the A-frame. He turned to her. “Perhaps it’d be best if I saw Mack first, explain what happened. It’s likely to be one hell of a shock.”

Rana nodded, her expression worried and apprehensive. “Ah-cha,” she said. “Okay. I’ll wait out here.”

Bennett opened the door and ducked into the room. Ten Lee, tiny in her scarlet flight-suit, her skull cleanshaven, rose with fluid grace from a cross-legged position and hurried across to him. Her face showed no hint of emotion, but her embrace was greeting enough. He pressed her head to his chest, looking past her to the bed where Mackendrick lay, struggling to sit upright.

Ten Lee pulled herself away and looked up at him. “You have the softscreen, Joshua?”

“It’s with Hupcka. He’s studying it now.”

“I want to find the subterranean chamber,” she said, staring at him but seeing much more. “I want to find out if the Ancients are still in existence.”

He moved past Ten Lee and crossed to the bed, sat down and forced Mackendrick back into the stacked pillows. He seemed much older now, as if in the eight months he had aged a decade. The skin of his face was drawn tight and wax-like over prominent bones. In Bennett’s arms he seemed light, reduced physically if not in spirit.

“Well done, Josh,” he said. “You don’t know how damned proud I am.”

“It must’ve been a hell of a wait, Mack.”

He laughed. “Hell no! I assumed you’d be gone for ages. Times were when we even reconciled ourselves to the possibility that you’d never find the damned thing!” His voice, at least, was as strong as ever. “But I want to know all about it! Everything!”

Ten Lee came and sat on the bed across from Bennett. “How did you find the softscreen, Joshua?” she asked.

Bennett looked at Mack. “I... to be honest I don’t know where to begin. Mack… there’s someone I want you to meet. I think she’ll be able to explain about the screen better than I could.”

Mackendrick gave him a puzzled look. “What the hell are you talking about, Josh?”

Bennett glanced at Ten Lee. “Is he up to a surprise, Ten?”

She nodded and touched the old man’s hand. “He’s as strong as an ox.”

“Josh?” Mackendrick growled.

“One minute.”

Bennett stood and moved to the door. He slipped out, expecting to find Rana on the veranda, but there was no sign of her. Then he saw her, about ten metres away, standing alone on the purple plain, staring up at the lofty mountain peaks, at Tenebrae majestic overhead. He stepped from the veranda and crossed the grass, pausing beside her. He touched her arm.

“Rana…”

When she turned to him he saw that her eyes were glazed with tears. “It is all so sudden,” she said. “There are so many years, so many incidents that have made us both different people. We’ll be strangers to each other.”

“He’s your father,” Bennett said gently. “Now’s the time to get to know each other again.”

“We’ve so little time left, Josh.”

“All the more reason to meet him and say what you have to say.”

She smiled up at him. “I know. You’re right. It’s just so… so very difficult. Ah-cha.” She took a breath and nodded. “Okay, I’m coming.”

He walked with her back to the A-frame, up the steps and into the lounge. Rana was holding herself tensely, her small fists clenched. She paused across the room from the bed that contained her father. Mackendrick raised his head from the pillow, mystification in his eyes.

Rana stepped forward and approached the bed. She sat down on a chair and pulled it closer. Ten Lee stood and moved to Bennett, sensing their need to be alone.

Mackendrick was staring at the Indian woman. He glanced at Bennett, as if for confirmation. “Josh?”

Rana reached out and took her father’s hand. She lifted it and kissed the bony fingers. “Father, I have so much to say, and I don’t know how to say it.”

Sita?” For once, Mackendrick seemed at a loss for words. In barely a whisper he said, “Sita, is it really you?”

Rana held her father’s hand in hers and touched it to her forehead. “It is me,” she said. “Sita.”

Bennett looked at Ten Lee and they moved quietly from the A-frame and sat down on the steps of the veranda.

From the beginning, the time he left the valley with Hupcka and the rebels, Bennett told Ten everything that had happened.

The gas giant rolled overhead, filling the valley with its vast creamy underbelly and effulgent glow. Someone brought them cups of the excellent coffee substitute, and plates of bread and cheese, then quietly left them talking. Ten Lee listened without expression, this strange distant woman he had come to respect over the period they had been together, even if he could not honestly claim to know her.

At last, after a long silence, Ten Lee said, “There is a sense of perfection and closure to Sita Mackendrick’s reunion with her father, as if it were destined.”

Bennett smiled. “And you? Are you okay?”

She blinked at him. He had that feeling again, of wondering if she thought him crass with his need for superficial talk. “I am at one with the essence,” she replied, making him smile. “I, too, was destined to come here.”

Across the plain, Bennett saw Hans Hupcka, Miriam James and others hurrying towards them.

“We think we’ve located the entrance!” Hupcka called. He was waving a map, which he spread on the deck of the veranda. The contour map of the western mountains was marked with a thick red line. “We’re here,” Hupcka said, indicating a valley. “The marked line is the route which Quineau and the others took. It twists and turns for over three hundred kilometres from a point ten kays north of here. This’—he brought a thick forefinger down on a point at the very western extreme of the map—‘is where the entrance is located, at the very top of this valley, below an overhang.”

“Will I be able to land the Cobra?”

Hupcka stabbed the map. “A matter of a hundred metres away, in the valley. We can land there and move on foot to the entrance. I’ve arranged supplies of food and water.”

“When do you want to set off?” Bennett asked.

“We’ve been ready for months,” Hupcka said. “It really depends on how you’re feeling. Are you up to an immediate start?”

“I can’t think of any reason to wait.”

Hupcka folded the map and passed it to Bennett. “Very well. I’ll get the ship loaded with the provisions. We’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

Bennett returned to the A-frame. Rana was sitting beside her father on the bed, holding his hand. She stopped talking when she heard Bennett, looked up and smiled.

“Sorry to interrupt—we’re almost ready to go. There’s a valley near the entrance, Mack. I can land the Cobra and we’ll go on foot from there.”

Mackendrick looked at his daughter, and then at Bennett. “Can Sita come too? I’d like her to be with me.”

Bennett nodded. “Of course.”

Mackendrick closed his eyes. “This is it, Sita,” he murmured.

Bennett and Ten Lee returned to the ship, followed a little later by Rana and Mackendrick. He walked slowly, like the old man he was, assisted by his daughter.

Hupcka and his men were carrying backpacks and thermal wear up the ramp. A crowd had assembled around the ship, watching in silence. As Bennett strapped himself into the command couch, he looked through the viewscreen at the faces of the gathered rebels. In their hardened expressions he saw the dawning light of hope, after so many years fighting a hopeless battle.

Ten Lee read the co-ordinates from the map and Bennett programmed them into the onboard computer. Five minutes later they were ready for lift-off.

Hupcka stepped on to the flight-deck. “The provisions are aboard, Josh. Mack and Rana are in one of the sleeping chambers. We’re ready when you are.”

Bennett sealed the hatch and looked at Ten Lee. Her eyes regarded him from beneath her bulky flight-helmet. “Ready, Joshua.”

“Hold on, Hans,” Bennett said.

He touched the controls. The vertical thrusters fired, filling the ship with a concentrated roar. The crowd gathered on the purple plain quickly backed off. Bennett turned the Cobra on its axis, until they were facing west, and eased the ship forward, felt it surge with restrained power. They climbed slowly and banked around the enclosing mountains. Bennett relinquished control and set the Cobra on the pre-programmed flight-path, slabs of cold grey rock passing slowly by a matter of metres from the sidescreens.

He glanced across at Ten Lee, absorbed in the figures scrolling down the screen of her visor. On the engineer’s couch, Hupcka was gripping the harness, staring through the viewscreen with an expression at once awed and alarmed.

Thirty minutes later the Cobra decelerated, and down below they saw the valley between two high summits of snow-covered rock. The valley, likewise, was covered with an undisturbed mantle of snow, blinding in the glow of the gas giant.

Hupcka pointed. “There, the entrance is beneath the overhang to the right.”

“I’ll bring the ship down as close as possible,” Bennett said.

He engaged manual override, decelerated and edged the Cobra towards the rock face. Perhaps twenty metres from it he switched to vertical thrust, lowering the ship gradually to the valley floor.

“There’s a bit of a slope down there,” he warned. “Hans, go warn Rana and Mack that we’re coming down on a right-to-left incline. Tell them to brace themselves.”

Slabs of iron-grey rock rose around them as the Cobra descended and hit the ground. The ship tilted suddenly, and settled at an angle of fifteen degrees from the horizontal. Bennett cut the thrusters and the engines whined into silence. He peered through the sidescreen at the overhang, two hundred metres away through a deep drift of snow.

For the next thirty minutes they prepared themselves for the trek. Hupcka handed out thermal trousers and jackets, then distributed the backpacks containing food and water and flashlights. Bennett suited up, began to sweat immediately, and opened the hatch to admit cold air. Mackendrick and Rana emerged from their cabin, muffled beyond recognition in their thermals.

Hupcka looked at Bennett, then around at the others. “So, if we are ready, my friends…”

Hupcka led the way down the ramp and into the snow, Bennett and Ten Lee following Mackendrick and Rana. The snow was a metre deep and concealed uneven terrain. They picked their way through the drift with difficulty, losing their footing and frequently falling. Bennett helped Rana with her father, and ten long minutes later they made it to the overhang. They rested, regaining their breath, while Hupcka scanned the wall of rock for the entrance.

Mackendrick held on to his daughter’s arm, breathing heavily.

“You okay?” Bennett asked.

“Don’t patronise me, Josh. I’ll be fine.”

Bennett smiled and joined Hupcka in looking for the entrance. The rock at the back of the overhang was a seamless dark grey slab, with no sign of a break or inlet. He considered the awful possibility of coming so far and being unable to find the entrance.

Hupcka had moved up the incline, to where the overhang narrowed so that he had to stoop. At last he gave a cry and waved. “Up here!” He indicated a narrow, dark shadow in the face of the rock.

They joined him and he stepped through first, soon disappearing from sight down the steep drop. Rana and Mackendrick went next, illuminating the way with their flashlights. Bennett stepped after Ten Lee, having to turn and force himself with effort through the crevice.

They were walking down a tight, sloping corridor cut into the rock. Within minutes Bennett was sweating, despite the cold. He unfastened his thermal jacket and cooled rapidly. He stopped and looked back up the way they had come. The entrance was a glimmering sliver of opalescent light high above. He continued walking, soon catching up with Ten Lee.

The corridor sloped through the mountain at an angle of thirty degrees, for the most part chiselled from solid rock, but occasionally following the contorted twists and turns of natural chambers.

Only when they had been descending for over an hour did Bennett notice the carvings. In square panels of rock to either side were chiselled hieroglyphs similar to the ones they had discovered on the plain, so many months ago: stars and circles and crosses, all enclosed within squares, triangles and ovals. He recalled the statues of the Ancients they had discovered in the temple ruins. So far he had never really considered the possibility that they might still exist—it seemed too incredible a leap of faith to believe in the word of a single man, Quineau, deranged by too many months locked in a suspension unit. He wondered at Mackendrick’s desire to believe in the remote possibility that, even if the aliens were still alive, they might just possess some form of remarkable healing power. As they descended, Bennett considered Mackendrick, and the desperate desire only the dying must know to go on living.

They had been walking for perhaps three hours, and Bennett was tiring, the muscles of his legs becoming tight with unaccustomed use. Even the appearance of the circular patterns on the walls, which Ten Lee said were mandalas—representations of the various stages on the path to nirvana—failed to divert his attention. He wondered how Mackendrick, ahead, was coping with the descent.

At last Hupcka called a rest halt. They sat down and passed a canteen of refreshing ice-cold water between them. Bennett played his flashlight up the natural walls, catching flashes of blue and turquoise veins rising in the rock like the ribs in a cathedral ceiling.

Rana sat cross-legged beside her father, holding his hand.

Bennett joined them. “How are you feeling, Mack?”

Mackendrick waved away his concern, “I haven’t felt better for months, Josh.” He stared at Bennett, his gaze intense. “I’ll be fine.” In the glow of the flashlight, though, his thin face looked pared of flesh and his eyes bright with something like fever, or faith.

Bennett looked around at his travelling companions. “How far can we go before having to turn back? What if we find no sign of the Ancients?”

Hupcka shrugged. “We have supplies enough to last us six, seven days. If we find nothing in that time, we really should consider returning to the ship. We could mount a bigger, better-equipped expedition at a later date.”

“So we have a week,” Ten Lee said. “If the aliens are down here, then in that time we will find them.” She looked around the group, something defiant in her expression. “And I know we will.”

They fell silent. Bennett drank his share of water and passed the canteen to Rana. Her eyes shone like amber gemstones. She returned his smile shyly, accepted the canteen, and held it to her father’s lips.

Ten minutes later Hupcka suggested they continue. He led the way, followed by Rana and Mackendrick, Ten Lee and Bennett. They made their way slowly into the heart of the mountain, the plummeting corridor becoming so narrow in places that they had to force themselves sideways to get through. Ten Lee, Rana and Mackendrick managed this without much difficulty, but more than once Hupcka and Bennett became lodged fast in fissures and crevices.

After a further hour of walking, the slope levelled out and they found themselves in a long, high corridor flanked by carved panels. They rested briefly and passed around the water canteens. The random beams of their flashlights illuminated an assortment of panels, and the scenes depicted were all the more stark and startling for being picked out in isolation. As he rested with his back against the rock wall, Bennett looked around at the bas-relief carvings. Among the mandalas were more graphic images: a scene depicting a line of aliens, arms raised; and individual Ancients, long and thin of arm and leg, their heads attenuated, almost equine.

Ten Lee pointed out a mandala to Rana and explained what it represented. Rana gazed around at the alien carvings. She shook her head in wonder. “Do you really think that the aliens—the Ancients—believed in Buddhism?”

Ten regarded her impassively. “I think they believed, maybe even still believe, in the truth, the universal truth. I call that truth Buddhism, but what the Ancients called it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that they shared a common understanding with certain schools of human thought—”

“You can’t be certain, Ten,” Bennett objected.

She turned her passionless gaze on him, and he felt involuntarily chastened. “I’ve had eight months to meditate, Josh. I have come to understand that Penumbra is special.” With a small hand she indicated the mandalas carved on the walls. “These are not the only signs that the truth is to be found here.”

Rana stared at her with massive amber eyes. “Do you think the aliens still exist?”

Ten inclined her head minimally. “I truly believe in my heart that not only do the Ancients exist, but that we’ve been called.”

Something about her calm certainty, her air of utter conviction, sent a cold shiver down Bennett’s spine. He wondered at the chances of two races, separated by hundreds of light years, independently arriving at a similar system of belief. If so, then did it necessarily follow that that belief had its foundations in some form of universal truth, as Ten seemed to believe? For so long he had been comfortable in his belief of nothing, and the notion that there might be some real truth out there he found disquieting.

As if to lighten the atmosphere, Rana said, “At least we know we’re heading in the right direction.”

Bennett smiled at her. He didn’t point out that there was only one possible direction in which they could proceed.

“I reckon we’ve walked for something like five kilometres,” Hupcka said. He looked around him at the narrow corridor. “This is obviously leading somewhere, chambers or living quarters where the Ancients gathered, or still gather.”

Put like that, in terms of this being the lair of aliens, the possibility, however slight, that the Ancients still inhabited this subterranean network made Bennett shudder. It was an involuntary sensation, a superstitious fear his rational self knew to be irrational, but which he could do nothing to banish.

“We’ll go on for a few more hours,” Hupcka said. “Then I suggest we stop and camp for the night.”

Everyone nodded. Bennett was tired and could do with a rest, though he guessed that sleep in the circumstances would be impossible.

They started up again. The corridor was perhaps two metres wide, four metres tall, and, like the incline they had left behind them, seemed chiselled from the rock but for occasional sections where the tunnellers had hit natural caverns. Here the tunnel-like aspect of the corridors ceased, along with the carved panels, and opened out into irregular grottoes, spiked with stalactites and stalagmites, echoing with dripping water. Then the corridor would begin again, along with the panels depicting Ancients in all manner of strange and unguessable rituals.

Hours later—Bennett had lost count; it seemed as though he’d been walking for days—Hupcka halted and pointed ahead. “There! Look!”

Bennett peered. Beyond their flashlights’ dancing cones of radiance, he made out a pale pink glow. They started up again and walked a hundred metres, and the corridor opened out into a cavern perhaps twenty metres wide by as many high, lit by a wan, pink fungus which covered the rock walls and high cave roof. They switched off their flashlights and were plunged into an insubstantial and eerie half-light. As they passed into the cavern, their course was joined by a stream of water pouring in from a mouth-like hole in the rock high above. They followed the burbling stream on a slight downward incline, the pink fungus reflected in surging and rushing highlights.

They walked until the cavern widened yet again, and became a subterranean valley so vast that on either side the walls were hidden by pale wreaths of mist, and vaulted so high overhead that Bennett had to crane his neck to make out the fungi-shrouded ceiling. The valley dropped away at their feet, and far below they made out a forest of etiolated fungal trees, and great lianas or vines hanging from the ceiling. Closer to hand, Bennett saw tiny delicate flowers, pale pink and yellow, growing beside the widening stream.

Hupcka called a halt. Above ground, Tenebrae would be setting. He suggested that they keep to the natural rhythm of night and day and make camp. They pulled bedrolls from their backpacks and laid them side by side on the river bank. Their evening meals were pre-packed cobs of bread, tinned meat, hard cheese and fruit. They gathered in a circle while Hupcka brewed a pot of coffee on a portable stove.

Bennett ate his bread and cheese, surprised at how hungry he was. Hupcka refilled his mug with hot coffee.

Rana stared down into the valley. She caught Bennett looking at her and smiled. “It seems like just yesterday,” she told him in a small voice, “that I was working for the Calcutta police force.” She shook her head. “How did I get here?”

Ten Lee looked at Rana above the rim of her mug. “You were called, Rana, as we all were called. We are here for a purpose.”

Rana looked up. “What purpose?”

Ten Lee, sitting in the lotus position with her back as straight as a bamboo cane, looked as thin as Buddha after his period of denial. She blinked her canted eyes and regarded Rana evenly. “I do not know. We will find out when the time is right.”

Rana half-smiled and looked at Bennett, who tried not to smile himself.

He finished his coffee, moved to the river and swilled out his mug in the water. He remained squatting on the bank, staring down into the valley. He tried to detect movement between the pale trees, the first sign of animal life down here, but saw nothing. When he returned to the camp, the others had bedded down for the night. He lay on his bedroll, closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

He must have succeeded, as he was awoken some time later by the murmur of voices. He rolled over and opened his eyes. Ten Lee was sitting cross-legged on her bedroll, eyes closed in meditation. Hupcka, Mackendrick and Rana were gathered around the stove, sipping mugs of coffee. He joined them, feeling surprisingly refreshed.

“How long have I been asleep?”

Rana passed him a mug of coffee. “About six hours, Josh.”

Hupcka was staring down the valley at the fungal trees. “I feel we’re getting somewhere,” he said at last. “The chamber is widening the further we go. Perhaps we’re almost there.”

“There?” Bennett asked.

Hupcka shrugged. “Wherever it was that Quineau claimed he made contact.”

They packed away their bedrolls and ten minutes later were ready to move on. Bennett and Hupcka led the way, striding down the gentle incline. They kept to the bank of the river which bisected the valley. On the far side was the forest of pale, leafless trees, as intricate and delicate as undersea coral. This side of the river was bare of vegetation save for a pale fungal growth which covered the ground and made walking treacherous. They made slow progress until the incline levelled out and the fungus gave way to bare rock.

Perhaps one hour later, as they were still trooping through the vast cavern, Bennett saw something. He happened to be looking to his left, to where the wan, ghost-like trees climbed the slope on the far side of the valley, when he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned and stared. He could have sworn that he saw a tall, upright figure move quickly into a stand of distant trees.

The others had halted. Mackendrick was pointing. “There,” he said, his voice unsteady. “I saw it too. It had…” He looked at Bennett. “It was watching us. It had red eyes, and it was watching us.”

Perhaps, had he been alone, Bennett might have persuaded himself that he was hallucinating. Mackendrick’s confirmation that he had indeed seen something filled him with unease.

They moved on. Bennett led the way with Hupcka, keeping close to the big man. The valley widened, and soon they left the forest in their wake. Now the terrain was flat on either side, a smooth expanse of dun rock stretching as far as the eye could see. At least here they knew that they were not being watched.

One hour later the ground began to slope downwards, and Bennett hurried ahead and then came to a halt as the valley floor dipped more dramatically. He caught his breath and stared, aware of the others pausing beside him and gazing in wonder at what stood before them. They were standing on the edge of a vast amphitheatre, perhaps two kilometres across, though more amazing still was the structure that occupied its centre.

A towering, monolithic ziggurat rose in a great series of steps connecting the floor of the great hollow to the stone high above. It was as if the ziggurat had been laboriously wrought from the solid heart of the mountain, as if the chamber had been expressly excavated to produce this startling feat of architecture, and then the jet stone polished to create a lustrous, midnight gloss.

The others halted at the edge of the amphitheatre, staring down in silence.

Only then did Mackendrick speak. “Christ,” he whispered. “Christ almighty, look!”

He swung his arm in a gesture encompassing the entire circumference of the chamber which contained the amphitheatre.

The pink radiance was faint here, and the distant walls were in shadow, but even so the serried rows of hollows in the surface of the surrounding rock could be seen, and within their dark depths the twin ruby points of staring eyes.

Bennett tried to deny the fact of what his senses were communicating, but as he stared with a mixture of awe and fear, he made out more than just the staring eyes. It was, he thought, a vast gathering of the august beings, a convocation. He guessed that there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of individuals stationed silently in their hollowed caves. They sat with their great shanks crossed, their backs ramrod straight, their heads held high and staring ahead.

Mackendrick looked at Bennett. “Quineau said… over and over he said one word: temple. It didn’t mean anything at the time, of course. I didn’t give it a second thought.” He stared down at the polished jet ziggurat.

“I feel,” Ten Lee said in a whisper, “I feel as if I am being drawn towards the temple.”

Bennett nodded. Perhaps it was nothing more than the knowledge of the aliens’ massed regard that suggested to him, too, that they were being tacitly invited to continue.

He turned to Mackendrick. “Are you sure it’s safe?” he began.

“Of course it’s safe!” Mackendrick almost snapped at him. “You don’t think I came all this way… ?” He gestured impatiently. “Enough talk. Let’s get down there.”

They set off again, slowly this time, moving in a group down the steep slope towards the rearing ziggurat. The slope eventually bottomed out and they stood in the great dish of the amphitheatre, still perhaps a kilometre from the first step of the ziggurat. Only when they began walking again, and the structure grew before them so that they had to crane their necks to make out its summit, did the ziggurat’s true size become apparent. They were reduced to the size of ants as they stood in the shadow of the first step.

Before them, a long stairway was carved through the rock of the great step, leading to a shadowy archway high above, itself the size of a three-storey building. They began the steep ascent, the high steps—clearly not designed for human use—a final torture after so long a trek.

Perhaps ten minutes later they reached the top of the stairs. A wide apron of polished inlaid rock, as midnight dark as obsidian, stretched away to the arched entrance of the ziggurat proper. As one they made their way towards the awesome portal, their footsteps echoing on the burnished rock.

Bennett stopped suddenly. He made out movement in the shadow of the archway. The others came to a halt around him, staring.

A figure stepped from the entrance and paused before them, a human figure dressed in a simple robe and smiling at them with an expression of beatification.

“My friends,” he said, his voice as calm as his expression. “Do you come in the name of peace?”

Mackendrick stepped forward. “We come in peace,” he said. “I… I knew Quineau. He told me of the Ancients.”

The man smiled. “So Quineau made it back with word of the truth.”

“Carstairs?” Bennett said. “Is it really you?” He shook his head. “We thought you were dead.”

The gaunt, balding man, his face thin and pale from so many years spent underground, inclined his head. “Iwas dead,” he said. “A man called Klien shot me, many years ago.” He turned and gestured up at the ziggurat. “Welcome to the temple of the Ahloi,” he said.