AJ Gibson

A white cat required

2008-01-31T05:04:00.000-08:00

This one took some getting I was nearly caught by the DRC I have no way of knowing if it was an Oran within the DRC or one of their ordinary guys either way I am going to have to be more careful at retrieving these notes.

When the cone appeared in the bear pit there had been a note attached. It had almost been destroyed by the spikes, without thinking I had placed it in the back pack. As I watched over R’Linda in the infirmary I had time to try and piece it together. The signature was damaged beyond repair it would seem that the note had materialised on one of the spikes and the signature was lost forever.

I had torn the note retrieving it but in a desk in the infirmary I found the remains of a roll of medical tape. There was just enough to stick the remains of the note together. This Gibso… guy whoever he is has been resourceful he has set up a system so he can get to the platform. From his note I have figured out he does not want loads of people trying to find it. Not only is the platform unstable. There is also a risk that the remaining Ohran may also find it if lots of people are looking.

He has set up a website to follow my progress and believes Ohran members of the admin staff are actively trying to restrict access to my story. He warns of a hidden agenda. It looks like the Ohran may have been responsible for the collapse of the DRC.

This guy sounds like a real conspiracy theorist but I can not complain at the moment he is my lifeline. I suppose I should say you are my lifeline because you clearly are the person retrieving these documents.

R’Linda has been running a fever. I think she may have contracted a local version of influenza. I gather from the city penthouse data point, that they experimented with inoculation here and had some tragic results. They did succeed with one trial and smallpox has been eradicated here. Just like back home. But their understanding of the immune system leaves a lot to be desired.

Getting into the lab we intended to use for the clone proved easier than I thought it would. It had a floor all to itself. I used the avatar approach the first time and discovered a locked door that Eric assures me is not a problem. I did some snooping around and it looks like a significant chunk of the hardware has been removed. Eric assures me that standard equipment can be diverted from other sites and we will trace the unique stuff and if necessary steal it back. The hard bit will be equipment that does not exist here equipment available on earth like stuff used to build gene therapies.

There is a transport cabinet that needs an upgrade. It relies on a cartridge system. All living things contain some trace elements. Things like minute quantities of iodine etc. The machine is connected to a second box inside this box are three cartridges, and a reservoir. The reservoir draws carbon and all its gasses from the air. It makes water from the air let’s face it water is hydrogen and oxygen. For the heavier elements it uses the cartridges.

I remember an old rhyme about what you need to make a man. It starts “Enough iron to make a nail” and goes on to list a load of elements that contribute to make a human body.

The box can replicate most things but it can’t make them live.

Eric and the Mettanic asked me over to the hangar I was reluctant to leave R’Linda but they assured me the automatic systems would inform us of any change. They asked me to put my KI it in a machine they produced it downloaded the cloning data Corvid had uploaded. They took some of my blood I did not feel a thing

I asked for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Eric got extremely perplexed. I spent an age explaining how and why we give blood and how back home you get a cup of tea and a biscuit when you do.

This then went into a long explanation about tea. Even the simplest statement can degenerate into hours of explanation.

They were complaining about all sorts of strange things they separated from my blood I asked for a small bottle of the altered blood back they said they had purified it they were highly confused when I asked them to put all the rubbish back. There were things in my blood that would scare the Ohran senseless. Puzzled but compliant they provided the sample.

Eventually R’Linda recovered but our problems were just beginning. We needed to get into the Lasha gate site this was the bear pit. Our first aim there involved getting R’Linda a Mk12 KI. Without destroying her old one. The second to try and reset the bear pit trap. If we have time I intend to visit the island and try and retrieve a set of scarabs from the link machine Eric told me about.

R’Linda and I had discussed the options as she recovered. She was doubtful if she could reset the bear pit with a Mk12 KI. She knew that there were interlocks that were dependant on her original KI that had been modified in the machine on Gahreesen. We were going to need to recover that as well.

We did agree it was worth a try as we would be there anyway. We had to take the tunnel system as R’Linda had no KI. I had an idea to the use the barrow as a central location, but R'Linda would have to gain access by finding the markers in the area around the site.

Eric did come up with a good idea, on the floor with the isolation unit where they were going to keep R'Linda. They had a room full of biohazard suits. These would allow was some degree of cover while walking around the site, ideal camouflage. Everybody else there was now wearing the same.

Eric also suggested that I stay in the barrow. It also had an avatar box that behaved like the beds that they had in their facility. I had assumed that this avatar box was a broom cupboard the first time I saw it. This only shows how mistaken I can be. The biohazard suits were not as bulky as those that we had on earth. We were able to get two into the small backpack I was using.

The trip to Lasher was uneventful. Just before we got to the final hub we stopped and put on the biohazard suits. R'Linda had no problems getting into the site, but she could have problems getting out.

We came out of the tunnel system at the Apple Wood I hardly recognised the place. Ostrachicken nest had been cleared and all the wood had been removed around the doorway. They must have fixed the sensor on the inside, because the doorway had opened automatically as we approached it. It was just like those wonderful turbo lifts on Star Trek. On the platform outside there were two people with bushes cleaning up. They just ignored us as we got out of there.

I took an old standard out of the backpack. One I had made earlier. A clipboard whenever anyone came near we mumbled to each other and one would point at the clipboard. It is amazing how well that works.

The barrow door code had been reset when I entered. So R’Linda had to go around again and collect the new markers. The beach, the signpost, the monsoon hut and the tunnel end were simple. The hard one was going to be the one on the steam vent above the barracks. I offered to use the /spawn command but R’Linda recommended against it as she was sure they would be monitoring.

Collecting the monsoon hut and the beach marker were by far the easiest as we saw nobody on that trip. We passed three or four people on the way to the signpost R’Linda said this was called a trawler and could be translated as way-marker.

She showed me a trick with my KI if you looked underneath there was a recess. Place your KI in the recess and the top now displayed a local map. Her farther told of checking trawlers for lost KI’s when he was a child, the story had made little sense to her till she saw a trawler in real life. It was fairly easy to see how you could put a KI in the slot and walk away without it.

Trace a route on the trawlers map and give it a name and you could use your KI as a GPS to follow the route. You could also dot the route with way points. This looked like the technology the D’ni had given to the Ohran and it looked like it was developed from the marker calibration. Eventually taken on by then DRC and made into the marker hunts.

I wondered if the Ohran on earth were responsible for the invention of the GPS the technology looked so familiar.

This map tracing method would assist in navigating a route in the dark or through a forested or a built up area. Particularly as you could lay the markers with a map rather than walk around placing them. Also someone else could lay a set of markers and transmit them to you just like you could send someone a marker mission in the cavern.

The ornamental bridge was occupied by a couple that appeared to be an item. I said that biohazard suits were definitely pro safe sex. Whatever they were doing they did not notice our passing with or without a clipboard.

With the /spawn option off the options list. We had to find a new way into the site to get the steam vent marker. Once in we might as well try and get R’Lindas new KI.

My stone door stop had been removed from the spike room and it now had a guard. He was a lot bigger than my door stop and looked like he would be a lot harder to remove. My impromptu graves were surrounded by barriers R’Linda translated a sign as biohazard. They were taking no chances for now.

When we went down to the lake shore there was a group of tents between the path and the moon pool cave. There was a lot of activity around the tents. It looked like this was a base of operations and there was another biohazard marker between the tents and the moon-pool cave.

I told R’Linda about my /boat option and the mini piranha. We considered the options and decided to kayak around the headland and enter the moon pool from the far side. There was one problem the /boat would not work if I retained the biohazard suit. I would be able to tow R’Linda in her suit. She was of the opinion that the piranha would not detect her as food through the suit material. We decided it was worth a try but we would wait till nightfall.

The lake was still shrouded in mist but I favoured a night trip in the dark we would see their lights but they would not see us.

We holed up in the training area R’Linda showed me some of the puzzles that she had been shown as a child, and I was able to show her some of the ones I had figured out. As dusk fell we worked our way back to the beach, if the lovers were still on the bridge we could not see them in the dark.

Back at the beach there appeared to be a briefing going on in the tents with all the activity at that end of the beach. I removed my biohazard suit I was really pleased it was so hot and uncomfortable. I set up the boat option and I showed R’Linda how to hold the front of the kayak I took a long route the light from the briefing working to our advantage. Not only was it a good marker for their position, It allowed me to take a wider arc than I had previously planned without loosing my bearings.

I had actually taken a very wide arc wider than I anticipated and we ended up at the submarine pen entrance. The massive doors were open but the dock was a mass of activity with dozens of people in Bio suits. We could not risk entering that way the only stairs were too visible. I was able to manoeuvre to one side where we were able to hear them talking.

R’Linda said she recognised the old language. The KI translating made it all sound English to me. It sounded really strange because the sentence construction was still in Ohran. A bit like mat cat sitting upon the. In place of The cat sat on the mat. Ohran is a poetic language and on her advice she showed me how to disable translation on my KI. I have to admit it did sound almost musical.

We worked our way back along to the moon pool there was a silhouette of someone standing in the entrance way. At first it was unclear if he was facing in or out. What was clear was his lack of a bio hazard suit because he was smoking a cigarette.

R’Linda was as shocked as I was. She had swung round on the front of the boat and was holding my paddle and the plants growing on the cliff with the other hand. R’Linda was positive that it could not be tobacco the Celtic cleft had been out of regular use long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic and was not available till Raleigh brought tobacco to Europe. There was the possibility that this was a parallel development. But she was more shocked by someone of the Ohran not wearing a biohazard suit.

I speculated that tobacco may have entered Ohranic culture via the New Mexico cleft. R’Linda dismissed this as improbable as that link had not opened up till a period just before the fall of the D’ni. My argument was also shot down in flames when R’Linda pointed out that there was no evidence of smoking in Ae’gura. Where were the no smoking signs and ashtrays?

As we waited he finished the cigarette flicking it into the water this made it obvious he had been looking directly towards us. He turned and walked back into the moon pool cave and out of sight. We waited about ten minutes then had a hushed discussion about the moon pool as an option. We both agreed that at this time it was still a little too risky.

I came up with another idea and we proceeded to climb the plants growing on the rock face. There was an awkward moment when I was using the /noboat command and R’Linda did find it difficult climbing in the Biohazard suit but she had no place suitable to change.

The barrack blocks appeared deserted. Recent observations led us to believe this was a small compliment of men. The main part of the complex appeared overly quiet and I was beginning to wonder if it was a trap when we discovered one of the reasons. Ostrachicken! It was very large and only just able to run in the corridor. We managed to duck into a handy side door that turned out to be the power distribution room.

The Ostrachicken was followed by two men in bio suits they failed to see us as they chased after the beast poking at the bird with sticks like cattle prods that only served to annoy it and keep it on the move.

I explained to R’Linda how I had spent a day in this room balancing the tube flows. She was impressed her father had told her only to do specific tubes to establish various functions on the base.

She also explained how the Ostrachicken could in extreme conditions metabolise certain frequencies of light and how my tinkering with the power grid I had fed this beast to its present size. Normal sunlight and predators prevented them normally becoming a problem, but my fiddling had at least provided a diversion.

This was probably the reason for the Ohran using tents on the beach rather than the main accommodation. I thought about why they had not killed it. This was all to do with this light thing. If they grow too quickly they become extremely tough and almost impossible to butcher. This meant trying to get this bird out of the tunnels without killing it and having to cut it up. They were exercising it to get it down in weight exercised and tenderized it could well become dinner.

Ostrachickens had been tried in the cavern but the light there was the other end of the scale and one enterprising D’ni had created an age and tried to farm them. It would have worked if they had been able to catch them. The eggs had proved popular for a while and it was one of the ages lost in the fall.

We skulked about the passages till we could make it to the KI machine. R’Linda used it and did not black out. I felt relieved. If she had I would have had few options short of barricading this room and staying till she came round. But thankfully it never came to that. We went to the upper observation room and in the early dawn took a KI picture of the steam vent.

We made use of the facilities and had a decent meal. We were discussing what to do next when we heard footsteps and voices from the stair well. I suggested I could open the door from the upper platform and she could hold it while I came down and we both escaped.

R’Linda pointed out I had never confirmed that this did open the exit. At the last minute R’Linda dashed to the upper level beckoning me to follow. She pointed to my relto book and signalled frantically at the share option.

I followed her just as the stairs creaked and one of the guards climbed into the room.

At my relto my roof was damaged again but not as badly as the first time R’Linda explained she would need to recover her D’ni KI if she wanted to get back to her Relto without damaging it. My relto already had wrecked books and links. So mine had been the only option. We repaired the roof a much easier task with two pair of hands.

She also showed me how to transfer links from my KI to hers. Each link took hours to set so we only transferred two the barrow doorway and the Mettanic base that way we could take the two-step /spawn back to the Mettanic.

While we waited she filled me in on some of the detail about her arrival back at Ohran. The Celtic cleft had been left with a warning alarm that had triggered when she arrived. The entrance was in a desert region not to unlike the New Mexico cleft. Only you exited from a fissure in a cliff face.

Corvid had sensed the alarm and silenced it but it was too late. Corvid had concealed himself in the fissure and R’Linda had sat it out and waited for someone to come. There was a chance that it could have been one of the old guard. It was not. It was a military officer and a dozen troops, who had cordoned the site despite the lack of anything for hundreds of miles.

Eventually they realised she was from the cavern and a full scale panic ensued they all suited up. When she became ill they decided to bring in that time dilation vehicle. They have a few and they had one stored reasonably close to the Celtic cleft entrance for just this sort of event.

They had to fly in the dirigible but that was a fairly quick operation.

Out of fear that this officer and his men had contracted this disease they were all isolated with a medical team inside their own cordon. R’Linda had become progressively worse till she had blacked out. The rest I already knew about.

R’Lindas KI had been taken by this officer since he and his men had already been exposed to any pathogen. It was decided they should work on the equipment they had removed from R’Linda.

Her KI was a special it was keyed to her DNA so there was little chance of them getting data from it. It was essential that it should be recovered.

When we returned Eric told us they had sorted the method of increasing the power to the Soval gate, their name for the Celtic cleft. This would significantly increase its capacity and cycle time. The downside would be that it would speed up its degeneration.

If we could get someone else to follow through that entrance they would have the opportunity to get in and launch a surprise assault. Corvid had disabled the alarm. The problem would always be co-ordinating any breach by that route. We also had no way of knowing if they had detected the disabled alarm and repaired it.

Eric also had some news. Information was sparse as the Ohran were using secure channels for communication. Our use of the KI machine in the base had been detected and they now knew someone had an upgraded KI but they did not know there were two and they had been unable to retrieve any personal data.

The Ohran had a base like the fabled area51 only theirs was called base47. These people had to be human in origin. What is the likelihood of two totally independent cultures both having a secret base with a generic name and a number. Once the Mega Vehicle had dropped R’Linda in the city they were planning to return the Mega Vehicle there. At some point after that they would also be moving the original team from the Soval gate.

We decided our best chance to retrieve Corvid was to get back onto the mega vehicle before it reached base47. The Mettanic had analysed the data supplied by Corvid and it looked like they could build the clone with my genetic material.

They could artificially accelerate the gestation period but they did not have the technology to accelerate the period from birth to adulthood. Mettanic know that the Ohran worked on a device on base47 that would allow things to age quickly.

I commented that it would be useful for cheese and we ended up in another two hour explanation.

From the documentation they had there were two gateways you went through the first selected an empty chamber from an array. Placed your package inside where you could connect it to a power supply you then locked the door with a puzzle lock code and exited by the gateway you entered. There was a specific warning not to leave via the second entrance.

Then enter via the second entrance and re-open your selected chamber where seven year will have lapsed. If more time is required repeat the process using another chamber. Under no circumstances are you to try and open an earlier chamber. The paradox consequences cause untold problems.

Eric maintained that our best option to move the clone would be the scarab devices. That meant another trip into the lions den.

As I have written these journals I have kept a copy on my KI. R’Linda asked if I would transfer them to her so she could read through them. Now she had a Mk12 there was no difficulty in transferring these notes.

She was not happy that I had read her mail but conceded that if I had not whe would still be a captive.

It was after this that she suggested I transfer the spawn points for the island to her new KI That way we could both go directly to the island inside the maze and retrieve two sets of scarab devices. Here would be an added advantage because one could watch the entrance for the other, while they sorted a set of scarabs each. It took a while to transfer the spawn points. It was a worthwhile project R’Linda and I got reacquainted again while we waited spending a lot of time on the top of the Mettanic hangar.

The local weather was like an Indian summer and we took our meals in the pleasant sunshine and I spent a lot of time re-telling my story and clarifying points from my journals. The Mettanic were gathering materials and equipment for the cloning, and researching where we would need to go to retrieve those parts that were non standard.

Getting onto the island was no big deal we went to my relto and used the two stage spawn from there. Eric was confident that a spawn from relto into the barrow and then to the island would be harder to detect. A single spawn within any given age shows as a finite event. And spawns within an age produce a stronger signal. Relto is outside this age and the combination weakens the signal of the second step.

We linked in at the top of the glass maze and I guided R’Linda to the control room. I had a feeling that there was something different. One of those times when you cannot quite put your finger upon a reason.

The office door puzzle was frustrating I had tried several times and it felt like the rules were changing as I did it. I called R’Linda up as there appeared to be no activity at the maze.

She tried and came to the same conclusion. Something was changing the combination as we did the puzzle. R’Linda suggested that we look around for the scarab machine we could have another go at this lock with a fresh outlook later.

We found the scarab machine in a side room it was surprisingly easy to use just like receiving a KI. Put your hand in the slot and retrieve the box of goodies just like a vending machine. I tried to retrieve a second one for myself but it would only give one set per KI. R’Linda retrieved a set and we returned to the office. R’Linda made another attempt at the door while I read the instruction file that had been added to my KI when I received the scarab devices. They were beautiful like ornate pieces of jewellery. The scarab name appeared to have the same origin as the Egyptian scarab beetle brooches. These did not have legs but appeared to stick gently but firmly to whatever surface they were placed on. Like a firm magnet they were quite secure even on flesh or fabric.

There was one red two blue a green and two purple the colours signified usage. The purple were going to be our first trial these were doorway scarabs. Attach to a door or wall the device will then disappear, walk through the wall or door retrieve the scarab from the other side. Two purples per set one to get in one to get out. One person per scarab per door. R’Linda insisted she would go first and placed her first scarab on the door. It disappeared fairly quickly and she stepped through the door as if it was not there.

I decided to give the wall a try. I placed the scarab on the wall to one side of the door and stepped forwards. It hurt a lot the scarab had not disappeared walking into a solid wall is not recommended. I removed it and replaced it, it failed again. I tried further over and this time it did vanish I stepped briskly through. It was like sinking into a swimming pool of syrup slowly descending. Then pop at the surface suddenly. It was totally dark. I looked behind the scarab was on the wall behind me a glow fading slowly I plucked it from the wall and placed it in my pocket. I used the /lite command I was inside a cupboard or a wardrobe or something. I pushed at the door it would not open.

I called out to R’Linda quietly at first finally banging on the door and shouting. The door opened and I was facing a stranger in uniform. He had a weapon of strange design in his hand and he was not wearing a biohazard suit. He flicked the muzzle in an upward motion that appeared to indicate I should put my hands above my head.

I looked over at R’Linda she was in a similar position. R’Linda spoke “Put your hands above your head. The weapon is a neural block it will not kill you but it will totally incapacitate you, and leave you in an extremely embarrassed position as regards body fluids”. “This is Zovak Drillar he is the commander of the unit that took me the first time.” “Zovak is a military rank use it when you talk to him it will make things easier”.

“Does he talk?” Yes but his translator will not handle English till he had received enough of the language. I have the situation partially in my favour I talk to him in the old tongue. I speak to you in Spanish your KI translates to English. He thinks I am teaching his translator your language by talking to you. It will take about twenty minutes of dialogue for his translator to learn Spanish then we revert to English unless you know another language.

I answered in my holiday Spanish. Only one and it is best I do not it is a language that’s related to the other cleft. R’Linda nodded. We were directed to a sofa. We sat down. “Kovak Drillar is prepared to leave us with our KI’s to aid interrogation. For all that is a non lethal weapon you do not want to be hit with it. They have a /spawn trap erected around the outside of the island our only way out is your relto or mine via my old KI. He appears to be unaware of the relto books.

My old KI is on the desk we really need that back. “Very good Ms Kassn” I started laughing. Both R’Linda and the Kovak looked at me as if I were demented. It took a while for me to regain my composure. Every time I tried to reply I had a mental picture of a man stroking a white cat and collapsed into apoplexy.

Eventually I was able to blurt out in my bad Spanish Senior Blowfeld needs a white cat and collapsed laughing again. R’Linda started to laugh trying to restrain herself. We must have looked ridiculous I was laughing so hard the tears ran down my face. Laughter is infectious and soon he was also laughing I fell off the sofa and was unable to use it as an opportunity for escape I just couldn’t stop laughing.

R’Linda tried to explain to the Kovak but concepts like cinema and James Bond were alien to him every time she got close to the explanation she would start giggling and we would start all over again. In the end he decided to enforce a translation using R’Lindas old KI. Our hands were tied to the wooden arms of the sofa both of mine to the right and both of hers to the left.

Kovak Driller activated something on R’Lindas KI and then placed her old KI on her other hand. They both spawned. I did not know if it was something Kovak Driller did. But from the look on his face it was not. I twisted around and was able to reach my relto book and escape. When I arrived on my relto my hands were still tied. The arm of the sofa was no longer in the loop and the rope fell from my hands.

I went back to the Mettanic base R’Linda was waiting with an unconscious Kovak. She had set up a command in her new KI so that if a forced translation command anyone touching the KI’s would warp to her relto.

Because they had warped into her relto it had kicked off the protection protocol. Just like the earthquake that had almost destroyed my relto. R’Linda was prepared. She had struck out at Kovak Driller knocking him out cold. She was livid his actions had ruined her relto. The walls of her relto had been reduced to rubble. She had removed her old KI and tied his hands together linked her KI to his and spawned back to the Mettanic base, where she had removed his KI before he regained consciousness.

Kovak Driller was seriously bruised R’Linda was not a happy bunny. Every time she mentioned the state of her relto she kicked him. This man was getting some serious hurt. I felt sorry for the guy he had not known the consequences of his actions. I persuaded R’Linda to let me secure him in one of the rooms in the infirmary. Without his KI and locked in we could use an isolation hatch to feed him and even without his KI R’Linda would be able to talk with him in the old language. My KI would enable me to understand them both. R’Linda and I would have secure communications because he would not understand English.

One thing was certain if we were going to play good cop, bad cop interrogating him. I was the good cop and R’Linda was the bad. Kovak Driller had the bruises to prove it.

Walker

Ouch!

Gibson

The Mega Vehicle

2008-01-28T04:26:00.000-08:00

I have picked up another transmission from Walker it sounds like he's having fun. The journals are not just coming through in the city now like this one tuned up in one of the guild pubs.

The ground vehicle approached the dam below me and crossed as a wall of water surged down the lake and washed over the top of the dam. The wave dropped back but the general level continued to rise.

My head up display cleared. Corvid told me the ground troops had been told to withdraw, as the civilian they had spotted would not be able to follow on foot. That civilian had been me. They were considering me a random contact. As they were moving along at a reasonable pace, they figured that on foot I no longer represented a threat to their mission.

The initial surge down the lake had drained from the top of the dam and the foot soldiers were able to run across it and climb into a ground vehicle that then linked away. I have to presume it ended up in either the ground vehicle or the dirigible.

Corvid flew off sending a final message as a data burst. He would fly down to the bridge and his long dead ranger and wait for the convoy. My task was to get my KI back to the Mettanic and start the ball rolling on the cloning project.

I waited till the convoy was out of sight, broke cover, and walked down to the dam. The troops had closed the door to the facility and locked it actually they had more than locked it there was a bar welded across the door.

The spillway on the dam was struggling. Even though the rain had stopped, the run off water from the hillside continued to run into the lake. The water level continued to rise and was already almost up to the road surface. There was a loud banging. The noise shuddered through the dam. I was looking over the side trying to figure out what was causing the banging when all the windows in the control centre popped. There was water pouring everywhere.

The flow of water from the offices quickly subsided. I ran to the control room roof and looked over. I was able to swing over and drop through the smashed window. Looking around I could see through one of the other broken windows. One of the control gates was trying to open, but dropping back, time and again. Each time it fell back the dam shuddered.

I ran down through the galleries, awash with broken timber and debris. I found a manual pump room with some equipment that looked like it was a mechanical hydraulic lifter for the control gate. Thousands of gallons of water were spilling into the generating hall through ventilation ducts and abandoned corridors. Most of the water was exiting through drains in the floor of the generator hall. But the water level was still slowly rising.

I found the control to open the gate on the spillway and pumped like crazy. As the overspill emptied down the spillway the generator hall remained flooded but the water was not getting any higher. All the water that had flooded the maintenance and administration levels was either pouring out through broken windows or was running through those internal galleries down to the generator hall.

I figured I would need to get at least one of the generators running if I wanted to start pumps so I could get down to the tunnel system.

The turbine control room was a washout. The force of water had ripped the control desk from its mountings and smashed it against one of the walls. I went down to the valve room and found the manual over-ride. These valves had not been used in years. I have resolved to find out why this plant was shut down but not de-commissioned. When it comes to having clean power, there is little to beat hydroelectric. Ok, there is environmental damage and a change to river flow but it is the cleanest of clean power after a wind turbine.

With one of the turbines running, the load eased on the overspill and the level in the generator hall appeared to recede some. It was looking like the pumps had been left on automatic and just needed the power restoring to get them to kick in.

I found the crew facilities while the water levels dropped. The rest room had been stripped but I found what looked like the night shift bunkroom. The bed had no mattress, but the surface that the mattress would have lain on was a fabric web that was reasonably comfortable. The room had even stayed dry with only one door in and no windows the pressure of water had kept the door shut. I wadded up my jacket and maintainer suit and used them as a pillow and slept the sleep of the just.

My KI woke me up. It was Corvid checking in. He was back at his second hand KI and was waiting on the convoy. He estimated he was at least a day ahead and wanted to know my situation. I told him about the dam and he used the KI to find out about its status. It was built to service a medium sized town with an industrial complex. Both had been totally wiped out in the plague. They had shut down the power systems and walked away. The town was a day’s walk away. This was just another tragedy in a world of tragedies.
There was also a power tap for something else that was not altogether clear.

Corvid signed off saying he would check back with me when the convoy got a lot closer.

As I went to get up, the webbing I had been sleeping on gave way. I was left in what can only be described as folded position across the bed with my bottom poking out of the bottom. This whilst comical was a problem. Then it got worse. As I went to push myself up both hands went through the webbing either side. I was trapped effectively tied to a broken bed. With my hands stuck in the webbing I could not operate my KI.

It took the best part of an hour of thrashing about to get myself free. The bed was a pile of broken parts and torn webbing. I was bruised, tired and embarrassed. In frustration, I kicked the remains of the bed sending a lump of the frame bouncing off the wall. The rebound gave me another bruise for my collection, springing back and hitting me on the shin.

I limped back to the generator hall. It was dry and strewn with branches and timber washed from the lake. The pumps had done their work and the water was down to a few deep puddles. When I went to the tunnel system, it was closed down. The entrance was a smooth rock surface. It must have triggered an automatic lockdown when the water level started to rise. I contacted Corvid. He was still at his look out point. The convoy was still well out of sight. He suggested I follow the power lines from the dam to find the town. He said it would have at least one tunnel point. It should also have power now that I had started the generator.

I made myself a breakfast using food dispensing machines in the dam these were also working now there was power. I ate sitting on the floor. I found toilets with separate wash and shower rooms, so I took the opportunity to clean myself up. Then I went for a walkabout in the dam offices.

I eventually found a visitor centre with a model of the whole facility. It was a really cool digital model. Various buttons showed the stages of the dam construction. The model could also zoom out to a view, which showed the surrounding countryside.

Linking technology had made building the dam easier than it would have been on earth as they were able to link in interlocking stones. The surface finish was a liquid pour that looked like concrete but the core was constructed as if it had been built from children’s interlocking building blocks.

The canyon was a twisting cut across a wide flat plateau. The surrounding area was scrubland with little, or no, vegetation. The power lines branched off in three directions. One ran down the canyon and vanished off the model.

One line ran away in the plateau at right angles to the dam. This one appeared to vanish into the ground before it reached the end of the model. This point had a downward pointing arrow with a name that translated as “Lost Dow Foundling.” I figured this was just a name rather than a description.

The third line ran up a ridge parallel to the side of the lake. It had a track to one side and both appeared to cross a small river that joined the lake halfway up.

The power lines eventually reached an area at the head of the lake that was coloured in blocks like a street pattern. A second road left this town and followed the ridge on the other side of the valley. This eventually joined the road from the far side of the dam, some distance down stream.

The power lines were substantial and were easy to follow using the track, which was more like a service road for the pylons supporting the cables. The track was in good condition considering the flood that had hit the lake area.

When I got to the river, it was a washout. The rain had undercut one of the bridge supports and there was no way to cross. I worked my way back to the dam. Given what I had seen, I had two options. I could cross the dam and follow the convoy, eventually back tracking up the other road. Or I could use the /boat command on my KI and paddle up the lake. Of course it was no contest.

I did a sea launch from the top of the dam, a run of about twenty yards. I have not had a launch like that in years. I wanted to get back onto the dam and do it again. I knew I had to make it to the town as soon as I could so I refrained from surrendering to the temptation to do it again.

The paddle up the lake was refreshing. I paddled up the river as far as the broken bridge. The wreckage on the side nearest the town made getting ashore on that side impossible. On the dam side, there was a track that led to a tunnel that looked like it may have been cut through the cliff to provide access for those who built the original bridge.

I considered exploring the tunnel, but decided it looked like a leftover from the dam construction rather than a new exit.
I returned to the lake and paddled on to the town. On the edge of town there was a small jetty and a launching ramp. Both the ramp and the jetty were only suitable for small craft. There appeared to be nothing suitable for larger vessels. Here was a sunken boat similar to the ferry in Ae’gura, It was in better condition but no more seaworthy.

The town was a lot smaller than I expected. The buildings were a mixture of timber frame and local stone and all stood alone in their own grounds. There was a hill behind the town, which gave a good viewpoint. I quickly found the industrial site using this high spot. Searching through the town I failed to find any tunnel points.

The industrial complex had a rail loop feeding one end of a long building. The rail lines ran up to and into a tunnel. I explored this but it led to a dead end. This tunnel must have been shut down when the plague hit the town. There was a maintenance shed and a stores building. I established their use by translating the signs above and on the doors using my KI. Both of these buildings were locked up tight.

The main building had the look of continuous process. One of those places where they feed raw materials in one end and get finished product at the other with no stopping in between. There were no doors at the top end, and just inside a strip curtain kept out the worst elements of the weather.

The rail line passed over a device that automatically triggered a shutter on the bottom of the trucks. The rail trucks then emptied into a hopper. There was some material trapped in the mechanism of the hopper. It looked like raw wool.

The material was passed through a tank that looked like it had a scum floating on the top. I figured this was the washing tank and contents had stood too long to be healthy. The smell was unbelievable. As I worked my way down the line, it could be seen that this was a fabric mill. There was a device that allowed for various patterns. The finished product was a fine green material with an embossed finish. Looking through the patterns, I recognised a design I had seen in the complex where they were planning to hold R’Linda.

The production line finished with a huge roll of fabric. The mechanism on the end of the production line looked like the roll simply dropped off of the end down a chute.

Ok, it was pure guesswork, but if this was a site manufacturing raw fabric, the chute at the end should lead to a new manufacturing location. In an effort at experimentation, I climbed onto the machine and dropped into the end hopper.

Nothing happened. After climbing out, I examined the roll of fabric on the end of the machine. It looked too big for the hopper. It did have a device that looked like a flying knife. That’s one of those devices that can zip cut across a moving strip. It was buzzing. I noticed a lump of material jammed in the machinery. When I pulled it free the knife sped across the fabric. The roll was released and it dropped and rolled into the top of the chute where it stuck. The chute was now humming gently.

The machine had a core for the next roll automatically warped in to replace the roll of fabric that had just dropped off. Mechanical hands grabbed the free end of the material and bonded it to the new roll core. The core turned and took up the slack from the material coming off the machine. I went to the chute. The oversize roll was blocking access. There was a gap at the sides that was too small for me to fit through.

As I walked back into town, Corvid contacted me with an update. He had been researching the ground vehicle. It was remote controlled from the airship. The stasis device had strange effects on living tissue resulting in organic time compression as you got closer and closer to the power source. The core of the machine was a device that behaved like a mini singularity held in a magnetic bottle. In reality it was an open link to giant singularity a black hole.

As you approached the device your personal time slowed from your viewpoint. The rest of the world speeded up. It would not affect Corvid because his processing was based on optical logic. It would also affect other materials but only at the atomic level.

When R’Linda had fallen unconscious, victim to a disease the local scientists thought was the plague, they used a remote control device to place her close to the core of the machine

Her personal time was slowed to a crawl and the disease was arrested. This gave them plenty of time to move her to the medical facility where they could establish the cause of her disease once and for all.

Corvid was of the opinion that we could rescue R’Linda from this vehicle much easier than we could from the medical facility. So it was time for me to play catch up.

Corvid told me to look for a striped building and that I would know it when I saw it. This would be the local equivalent of a police office. It would have a garage and a vehicle. They were called civil officers but the nearest translation was police.

I wandered around frantically searching till I sought the high ground again. Corvid was right. The stripes were obvious. Colours changed region to region but it was green and gold here. The vehicle was odd. It was a tricycle arrangement with the single wheel at the back. You sat low and steered with two-foot pedals. I was glad of the gliding lessons I took as a teenager. Using this pedal arrangement was very like using a rudder bar on a plane.

The speed was controlled by a hand throttle like you find on a motorbike and the brakes were buttons on a keypad. There were other controls, manual gear changing, and automatic steering. Corvid advised me to keep it simple. Put the machine into gear and accelerate till I was comfortable. If I wanted to try a higher gear then I should stop, select a different gear, and accelerate again. The procedure to change gear while moving was an acquired skill similar to using a manual gearbox without a clutch.

Not changing gear would give rubbish fuel consumption. If I tried to cover any real distance I would run out of fuel, but I only needed to catch the ground vehicle. He did describe a blue button with a black triangle. I would need this when I caught up with the ground vehicle.

There was also a red button with a black criss-cross pattern. This was only to be used if I had driven off a cliff. This was the crash net. It would wreck the vehicle but save my life. It was a bit like the airbag system that had been used on the Mars lander, the safe option of a nice soft landing in a totally wrecked vehicle.

The early part of the drive was frantic as I re-learned how to steer with my feet. I had to stop twice to retrieve my hat. In the end, I put it in my backpack and rode with the wind in my hair, what there is left of it. I should probably say wind in my stubble that was growing back slowly after the Mettanic had shaved my head.

It took me the rest of that day to get to the point where the road from the town met the road from the dam. I then spent most of the next morning back tracking to the bridge where Corvid was holed up with his dead ranger. I took some rope from the vehicles storage locker, tied it on, and repelled down to where Corvid was. I had to cut off the victim’s hand to remove the KI and I then hung the KI over Corvid’s neck.

I found cutting off the hand one of the most revolting things I had done since I had fallen from Ae’gura. That included burying the bodies at the first site.
I made another resolution. I would find out what happened to this ranger and sort out a proper disposal for his body. His death had helped me a lot. I felt at least he deserved a decent burial.

Did I ever mention I was rubbish at climbing ropes? Well rubbish is probably an understatement. Repelling or abseiling as we call it is easy going down. Going up a rope without an ascending device was a problem. It took me ages to get up the nerve. In the end I swung over to the cliff face and climbed. I was terrified but it was the only way. My consolation was a drop that would give me plenty of time to relto out. Unfortunately, it would also put me back at relto with no way of getting back quickly.

When we reached the top, I rested and then followed on the road. Corvid flew ahead, able to take a direct route, truly as the crow flies. The delays in recovering a KI for Corvid had put us well behind and it was getting dark.

On Corvid’s recommendation, again we stopped and I wore the maintainer suit to stay warm. Corvid had a plan that was best served by me arriving at the mega vehicle around sunset. The vehicle was still three to five days travel from the next built up area.

At first light the next day, I could see the dirigible on the horizon. Corvid wanted me to hang back so that we would arrive at the ground vehicle as it was approaching dusk.

The only person on the ground vehicle would be R’Linda. The vehicle would be controlled from a dummy cockpit on the airship. This would isolate the driver from the time dilation on board. Just before dusk, the air support would land one at a time to refuel. With only two in the air it would be easier to approach.

The plan involved getting under the body of the ground vehicle and hitting the blue button with the red triangle. This would cause a ramp to descend and I should be able to drive on without the vehicle stopping. Corvid would fly in and activate the closing switch. Provided we were quick, the crew hopefully would put any warning signals down as a sensor glitch.

They may not even see it. Things were very busy around refuelling time. They also had no reason to suspect that anyone knew or wanted to contact R’Linda. They also doubted anyone was prepared to risk catching what they believed was the D’ni plague.

I spent the day keeping in range but out of sight. At one point the whole convoy appeared to stop. It came as a relief. I found some rations in the storage locker. They were horrible but Corvid assured me that they were probably ok. Emergency rations usually tasted terrible but were nutritious. I found a stream and was able to top up my water.

As the time approached for our assault, one of the aircraft flew off. There was no obvious reason but we took the chance. We were able to catch up using the cover of the dust kicked up by the mega vehicle. I kept my maintainer suit on. This protected me from the dust and enabled me to hide under the moving vehicle.

The vehicle had eight pairs of double wheels twice the size of the biggest earthmovers I had ever encountered on earth. The vehicle was only travelling at about thirty miles per hour but the ground trembled as it moved.

I hit the blue button and a ramp came down nearly striking my vehicle. The surprise nearly had me under one of the wheels as Walker puree.

I drove up the ramp flat out and a crash web caught me at the top. The ramp closed behind me as Corvid hit the control. The room was like the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier. We put the vehicle in one corner. Unless you knew where to look it was invisible in plain view.

Corvid explained that as I approached the stasis chamber my personal time would slow. Time for anything mechanical or optical would remain the same; that included him. He would slow his communication to match my personal time. He had tapped into external sensors of the escort team. He was monitoring their communications traffic. They had noticed the hatch but had put it down to a sensor glitch as he thought they would. He would remain in the vehicle hangar. I would deal with R’Linda. He could communicate over the KI and maintain real time links to the outside.

Corvid set up a program on my KI to produce a regular mechanical click. As I got closer to R’Linda the clicks would get closer together till they became a buzzing. At some point he would need to adjust the frequency like changing gear.

As land vehicles go this was big. Inside it felt like being on a small ship. As I got nearer and nearer the stasis chamber, my KI started to sound like a Geiger counter entering a hot area. The whole vehicle swayed gently but these movements became more violent. Corvid explained that this was my time compression. My time perception was based on my slower rate but the vehicle continued to move in normal time. Things became problematical. I was finding it difficult to balance. Corvid suggested hands and knees. While I could understand this being safer, I questioned my ability to do any useful work when I reached our goal.

My KI click had become a whine and was changing pitch. With each step it had almost passed beyond my hearing when suddenly it became a click again. Corvid explained he had reduced the frequency by a factor of thirty. I was seriously worrying about the shaking when it suddenly stopped. Corvid shocked me saying we had stopped again and I had been in the vehicle a complete day. The vehicle had stopped for the night while I was parking the police tricycle and the first vibrations had been the next mornings start.

Over the next ten minutes of my subjective time, I found the chamber entrance and entered. As I did I felt a shudder and heard a heavy buzzing. Corvid explained we were moving again. I thought we must have been hardly moving but the explanation was even weirder. The movements had become so rapid that they had become a vibration. Corvid recommended we move as quickly as we could. Time compression this far into the vehicle was using my real time at a phenomenal rate.

Corvid had me take a number of KI pictures around the room and to then transfer these to the KI he was now using.

R’Linda lay on a bed that looked the same as a Mettanics bed only horizontal. Over the top she had a shimmering field in an elongated dome. Corvid told me this was just a medical barrier and that I should just reach through it. On one side of the room was a transport cabinet just like the one I had found at both sites. This one was empty.

Corvid had me place R’Linda in the cabinet and activate a transport to a location code he gave me. I just did not understand. This would make a copy of R’Linda at the destination, but that copy would be dead. I just could not see the point. Corvid insisted and then told me to retrieve R’Linda and place her back on the medical bed. Then I needed to make best speed back to the vehicle hangar where he would explain a plan that was audacious and a work of high cunning. This is not his description but mine.

On my way back, I nearly fell. Corvid reminded me to be cautious for all my time frame was slowed. An injury could be fatal. Even a few minutes of unconsciousness in this time frame would hand days to the crew outside.

When I got back to Corvid, he explained that he could detect a dynamic spawn point beyond a wall in the cockpit of this vehicle. This cockpit was only used when the vehicle passed through a tunnel and the airship could not maintain visual contact. The cockpit was hermetically sealed from the rest of the vehicle to isolate any drivers from medical contamination. The occupants would suffer some time compression but nothing serious. The cockpit was placed as far away from the time source as possible.

This spawn point in the cockpit could only be mapped when it was stationary relative to the network. Corvid’s idea was astounding. I spawned to the Mettanic base where I found R’Linda’s body in the transport cabinet. I transferred this dead copy back to the cabinet in the vehicle. Corvid had used the pictures I took in the stasis chamber to get the address of the transfer cabinet inside that chamber.

We now waited for that nights stop. Corvid mapped the spawn point in the cockpit and sent it to me. The Mettanic moved the spawn point ten yards, putting it inside the hangar space where I spawned in. I now went back to the stasis chamber as fast as I was able. I was quicker this time knowing where I was going. While I was away Corvid had the Mettanic move the spawn point back where it belonged.

I removed R’Linda from the medical bed and placed her copy I now found in the transport cabinet on the medical bed. I put R’Linda into a fireman’s lift over my shoulder and worked my way out as fast as I could. I was not long out of the stasis chamber when the Vibrations started again. I had managed the switch in one night of real time but the sudden start to the movements nearly grounded me. I was still at a loss how we would get R’Linda away she was clearly in some sort of induced coma.

But here Corvid struck again. He would remain. We would put the KI recovered from the ranger on R’Linda and Corvid would link it to my advanced KI so it would follow me. I would spawn back to the Mettanics and R’Linda would follow me as soon as I stepped off the spawn point. Corvid would hide in the police tricycle till the authorities opened up the vehicle at its destination. If they kept it locked I could recover him later in another daring rescue mission.

The authorities would find R’Linda’s duplicate body in the stasis room at the destination and with luck they would assume she died in transit from the plague. Hopefully their normal paranoia would kick in and they would dispose of the body as soon as possible leaving a cold trail.

Back at the Mettanic base, I moved R’Linda to the medical facility. I started my search for antibiotics in the hope that what she was suffering from was a bacterium based disease.

The Metannic had me remove the duplicate R’Linda body from the cabinet and place it on the spare bed in their facility. They warped this to their space ship where they analysed her condition from this duplicate. The beds here had always had this option, but only linked to their matching beds on the vessel at the lagrange point.

They downloaded the information from my KI and established what would be needed for the clone that Corvid required. The KI that R’Linda had used to escape was damaged. Heaven knows how long it had been exposed to the elements on that ranger or how much damage had occurred in his fall. The last straw had been the linking upload Corvid had performed that allowed R’Linda to follow me out of the vehicle.

Walker

I will post the next journal stuff as soon as I get it like I said at the start the locations are becoming more unusual and I don't like retrieving them when there's anybody around.

Gibson

The Corvid meeting

2008-01-25T04:31:00.000-08:00

I found the place where Walker broke through I stuck a note to a cone tied to a piece of cord I just kept throwing it in till it linked I was going to try again but my spare cord linked out with the cone. I am keeping the ledge a secret I have a climbing rope I carry with me and an ascender that I found that way the location can’t be stumbled on to accidentally. At least I now know he got the note.

I’ve also found an old travel scrabble set next time I meet him on the balcony I will be able to ask him questions. I should be able to get yes/no answers immediately because I will be able to see him nod or shake his head.

I’ve traced his next document here it is.

Over the next few days I expanded my working knowledge of the tunnel system. The Mettanics were able to update the map in my KI so I could mark tunnels that no longer worked. Tunnels I had looked at changed colour.

They also set up an option so I could update promising routes. There were lots of places within the zone that were open but the surface had fallen into such disuse that there was no point in investigating.

Following a request, the Mettanics were able to reset my KI. Now I could mark these stations so that the station marker no longer illuminated.

Eric suggested that at some point it would be an advantage to go back to the island and find a scarab link machine. I would need to go personally as the machine required a KI energy signature. It would give me a box of six devices. Each one was a single operation but the devices could be re charged in the machine on the island. The machine would be in a password-protected compartment and would look like a small pillar with a slot for your hand. From the description I imagined something that looked like the linking pedestals in Ae’gura.

All of the Ohran that went to Ae’gura will have taken a set, but without a recharge machine they would have fallen from use or kept for a real emergency.

I did find one city of great beauty. I saw small streets, tall spires and little shops but the city was completely deserted. This had been one of the main regional capitals completely wiped out by the plague. A local magistrate here had solved the problem of dead bodies. A vehicle was developed with a warp point. It was set so that re-materialisation was in outer space at the edge of the suns gravity well.

The quick removal of cadavers was seen as one of the keys to stopping the disease in its tracks. This was the Ohranic version of a man pulling a cart, shouting, “Bring out your dead”.

I was learning my way around and I felt I was getting somewhere. I called in with Eric to touch base. He told me the Ohran were moving R’Linda to a new base. This was a more ominous case. The base had a fixed stellar drop off link like the portable one in the city I had investigated.

I was curious if they thought Corvid was their missing compatriot why had they not been in touch. His answer was a surprise. Corvid would remain in cover. He would be unaware of the current status of this cell. Contacting him could be dangerous for both Corvid and R’Linda. The best way to recover Corvid would be to rescue R’Linda. That rescue was becoming imminent.

Eric came up with a new surprise. Apparently this cell could jump its connection between hubs. They had found me rather than the reverse. Their connection could only stay within the exclusion zone. Fortunately the Ohran were moving R’Linda to a location that bordered close to the zone. A portion of the zone on Asma, the second planet, was within reach but I was told to return to the officer quarters where I had been sleeping. Not only would the relocation be uncomfortable, the move to Asma would involve exposure to a new gravitational constant. Asma was a slightly larger planet and it would take a few days to acclimatise.

I do not pretend to understand everything Eric told me but I was unprepared for the move. I have often used an old joke that states the cure for sea- sickness is to sit under a tree. The move induced an extreme travel sickness. For the first hour I thought I was going to die. The second hour I was frightened I was not going to die. By the third hour things had started to ease, but I could not stand up. I crawled on hands and knees to the hangar and was unable to open the door. I could not stand to touch the contact point.
I crawled back to the medical facility it was closer. Inside there was a small pool in a hydrotherapy unit. I dragged my self in and let the water support my weight. Over the course of the next two days I became accustomed to my new weight. By the third day I was walking normally. Running was still an issue but function was returning with time.

Eric was not sympathetic. Apparently it was an issue that was only felt when you moved a node from a low gravity to a higher one. It was also proportional to how long you had been exposed to the lower gravity. Moving a node from free fall to anything like a normal planetary gravity, now that was, as he put it, “spectacular.”

Eric was of the opinion we should check out the area around R’Linda’s proposed prison. The method was unusual. I was asked to stand in a box and was scanned. The machine then shaved my head and coated my scalp with gel, a not totally unpleasant experience. The next sensor I was told was a magnetic map of my mind. After this when I returned to see Eric, one of the machines on the bed attached to my scalp. I panicked initially but Eric reassured me I would enjoy the experience.

The Mettanic were pleased my physiology was almost fully compatible with their equipment. When I stood up to get off the bed it was a real out of body experience. I looked back and there I was lying peacefully. My clothes had not joined me, nor had any body hair. I felt strangely exposed. I was directed to a room that was like the relto closet, only with more choices including hair. A disembodied voice guided me. When I left this wardrobe I felt a little overdressed.

Eric said I would investigate an occupied city. In this form I would be visible but unable to touch things. I would only be able to speak to people wearing an interface device. I took this to be a KI. Most of those would be unsafe to talk to because they would probably be security.

Eric recommended I walk to the city via the tunnels. This would accustom me to walking around things I could not feel. I was shown a sign to make if someone spoke to me and they were not wearing a KI. Using one hand (either would do), I was to place my fingers of that hand flat against my ear. This is apparently a universal sign that indicates that you do not know the speakers language. The interface device would allow me to hear and understand everybody.

I had to wear gloves to cover my KI. Most of the functions would still be available but standing in the street tapping the back of my hand would draw attention. Eric maintained a presence. He could accompany me as a disembodied voice but he would be invisible to anyone we encountered. Others would also be unable to hear him. So if I talked to him people would think I was talking to myself.

This new city was moderately busy and I was told this was extreme. A local holiday started tomorrow and people were getting in last minute supplies before everything closed.

I was guided through parks and galleries that seemed unusually quiet given the numbers on the street. This was another result of the pending holiday. There were some people in the park putting up streamers, flags and bunting. I thought it was nice how some things are universal.

Eric guided me to a huge edifice of a building. At the end of an alley that ran down the side of this building, stood a double strip of flame barriers. Behind the building looked like scrubland. Apparently this was the largest city affected by the isolation device. The city had been cut in two and the spaces beyond were highly dangerous and unstable.

Eric told me to go beyond the barriers. I did not fall. Over years the Mettanic had been edging the barriers forward and there was a substantial space beyond invisible to the general public.

Eric appeared as if linking in. This would be the only place in the city where Eric could actually show or demonstrate things. The large building was the security centre almost certainly where they would bring R’Linda. Walking through the sidewall behind the barrier would put me in one of the buildings lift shafts.

Almost everybody in this building, even janitors would use a KI. This called for a higher level of caution.

The local dialect was unusual provided I spoke clearly, my lip-sync error would go un-noticed.

The records had been changed so I would be able to pass for a D’ni language expert. This was a neat cover to enable me to get close to R’Linda. Moving around in the building was ok as long as I faced automatic doors. Eric would trigger an open signal as if I was physically there. But manual doors became a farce. I could not be seen just passing through. I had to wait till someone else passed. Once the door was opened I had to slip through before it closed.

Using my KI to rise between floors was useful but I needed to do it unobserved a body rising between floors would draw attention so I was going floor to floor by slipping into a janitor’s cleaning room then rising until I was a head poking through the floor of the cupboard above.

This worked well till I came up inside a bucket being refilled by an industrious cleaner. His reaction to seeing a disembodied head in his bucket was panic. I jumped to the floor above where I was in a totally dark room. Unable to see, I tried to use my KI to create light. Eric’s voice told me my real body on the bed back at the base was glowing. I explained the situation. The light came on automatically. I discovered why the room was dark. It was a photographic darkroom. For some reason they still needed to produce photographs the old way. They had converted a janitor’s room for the purpose.

There were strips of film and photographs hanging from clips all over the room. Amongst them were my doings at the bear pit. I tried to remove them to get a better look only to have my hand pass straight through. You would think that the ability to pass through solid objects would make clandestine operations easy. It was proving to be the opposite.

I had Eric warp me back to the alley and we discussed the matter. The options were adjusted on my KI so I could engage a limited invisibility. It was only about sixteen seconds but it was enough to look through a door or floor to see if the coast was clear. My second attempt at infiltration was more successful. While I still had to exercise caution, my progress was a lot quicker. I was still hanging around till I was sure there was nobody looking. If it was clear on the side of the door I was on I could look the other side to see if it was clear there.

The biggest shock was the janitor who saw my head in his bucket. I felt sorry for the poor man. I entered a corridor and he came in the other end. He saw me, recognised the face, and ran up to me. When his arms passed into my chest he fainted. While he was out cold, Eric did a quick change to my appearance adjusting my build and giving my face an older appearance removing my hair altogether. It was definitely the fastest haircut and shave I have ever had. R’Linda always said I could do with gaining a few pounds.

I was keen to look at the computer terminals but I could not connect. Eric was adamant that I would be able to access that data from my KI when we returned. We eventually located the secure wing. The two guards in biohazard suits on the airlock were a give away. I found an open office on the floor below and rose to the occasion. R’Linda was not there but Eric assured me that she was still in transit. Given the need for bio-security by the Ohran, they were transporting her by vehicle.

The Ohran had a strange mix of technological understanding. Some knowledge had survived the collapse. Other things like getting hard copy pictures from a KI and the intricacies of the tunnel system were beyond them.

I was looking round the isolation suite for access points when Eric came back to me. He sounded agitated. “Walker your physicality is behaving strangely.” It took me a while to realise he was talking about my body. I was warped back to the base expecting to arrive either at the beds or the hot spot. I arrived on top of the hangar. The hotspot here gets relocated when the unit does a re-attachment, particularly when that move takes it to the second planet.

Eric recommended I walk. Warp type moves this close to origin can be tricky. When I got to the bed there was a moment of disorientation where I was looking from both directions. I was aware of my avatar looking at myself on the bed and myself looking back at the avatar. The illusion faded with the avatar.

I was not long back in my body when I realised the problem. My stomach was rumbling. The Mettanic were fascinated. They had dispensed with eating and drinking by using machines to directly feed the blood externally. It was at this point, I realised their bodies appeared to be moving but only just. They had almost dispensed with breathing.

I excused myself and went to the dining room. I had three meals to catch up on. While I was eating I thought about getting into the isolation section.

At our next meeting in the hangar, I was adamant we had to find another way to rescue R’Linda. There was no way they would risk bringing R’Linda through the city and risk potentially exposing everyone in the city to pathogens they had no immunity to we may not have the D’ni plague but we well have other diseases that the locals had no immunity to . If it was my decision I would have a spawn point inside the lab and bring anything in that way. It would be inbound only. The airlock was for leaving. There would be a second point in the lab that linked to a star. This would also be one way, but only because it is difficult to use your KI when you have been atomised by the heat of a star.

I would not be able to enter the lab and leave twice. This was a one shot rescue. If I wanted to rescue her from here, it would only be as a last resort. One shot in and out. It would be a better idea to take her from the transport.

The Mettanic confirmed the presence of rare surface craft, owned by the extremely rich ruling class of the Ohranic pair.

There were some civil authority vehicles in remote districts used by the local equivalent of police or rangers. I was lost for answers without access to a terminal. The Mettanic were data rich and information poor. The city was the answer.

Eric was able to assign me a vacant penthouse suite with a terminal. It had its own exclusive spawn point and a matter transfer box. I moved in and resumed a hobby as a computer geek. Searching the local equivalent of the Internet, I researched anything and everything. I had Erick pass me feeds from weather satellites. Their formidable skills eliminated all visible transport that could be accounted for. We were left with one small group of vehicles. The group consisted of a giant ground vehicle being escorted by three small flyers and shadowed by a large dirigible. This had to be the transport they were moving R’Linda in.

I suspected she was in the ground vehicle and the airship was support and emergency cover. They were only travelling in daylight so that the dirigible could maintain visual contact with the ground vehicle. At night, the airship would remain overhead, holding station tethered to the giant machine, watching the surrounding area with infrared sensors.

My avatar movements emitted a minimal heat signature less than the local wildlife, so I would remain undetected at night. It looked like a good opportunity to evaluate the situation.

We decided it would be a good idea to contact Corvid and assess his situation so I sent the “hello” message. Eric recommended we give Corvid a couple of days to respond, as it looked like the convoy was taking a roundabout route avoiding areas of population. Corvid responded the next day. Corvid had found a KI with a dead body. The user was an area officer in a deserted region and had died of natural causes on a field trip. Corvid said that local conditions would mean that the convoy would have to take a wide diversion because of ground conditions that he would be able to avoid.

Corvid recommended I use a full presence and not the Avatar. If a situation presented itself I could intervene. As an avatar I would have been limited to observation.

The ground vehicle they were transporting R’Linda in contained a machine that would effectively put R’Linda and any disease she had in stasis a situation where she would exist outside of time. This machine required enormous amounts of power. This power was generated in the vehicle but it made the vehicle too massive for air transport and beyond the scope of most bridges and the tunnel system. Their route meant they had to bypass a light bridge over a canyon. The diversion took them up stream where a dam had been built across this canyon. While it was no longer used for power production the dam was massive enough to take the weight of this giant ground vehicle.

We tried to see if we could recover Corvid via the tunnel system but he was well away from any useable locations. The KI did give us some time to establish an exchange of information.

Corvid was the eighth Mettanic and he had a solution to his lost body. Whilst on earth he had absorbed a great deal of information on human physiology. The mapping of the human genome project had provided masses of data. Corvid was confident he could create a human body that would support his consciousness.

Given the nature of Mettanic physiology and a lack of internal organs, a Mettanic construct was not an option if the body was to transfer between worlds. It would need human innards to support eating and drinking and the less pleasant bodily functions.

There was a risk that the mind transfer might take time to adjust. Creating a body from some of my body tissue would take only a few weeks. There were problems the Mettanic had foreseen but they were bridges we would cross later.

I expressed an objection to having a cloned twin, but Corvid insisted that some of the changes to the genome to support his consciousness would mean that the features would have a family resemblance but not an identical twin.

The transfer would also involve a substantial risk to Corvid. The mind support structure of the mechanical entity he was currently occupying would be destroyed in the transfer. It would be a one-way trip. Some twists in the DNA would give him some longevity but the net result was a significantly shortened Mettanic lifespan. There was an outside possibility he could move onto a second cloned body. This was not by all means certain.

The diversion the vehicle was taking gave us three days and a meeting point for Corvid. The old dam was on the tube system. As we were able to track the convoy from satellite observation we could time our trip so we would all be at the dam together. Corvid would be travelling just ahead of the convoy and we would meet on top of the dam structure.

The tube-way came out in a room below the generator hall. The massive machines were silent and brooding. It took me ages to find my way to the upper chambers and eventually to the gallery that led to the entrance on top of the dam.

I was early. Corvid got well ahead of the convoy and it looked like we would have a local day possibly two to sort some things out before the convoy arrived. Corvid had been V’Erik’s pet crow, and he was a lot bigger than I remembered. He interfaced with my new KI and told me the body plan was an oversized Raven to accommodate added equipment, most of which was memory.

Corvid’s life program would have originally fitted into one of the newer Mk 12 KI’s but over two hundred years of earth data had pushed his capacity. There was a mass of offline storage left on earth secreted in shards on servers all over earth.

In his years on the surface Corvid had hacked his way into a myriad of systems secreting away little bits of code that enabled him to exist in close contact with the internet and all its data.

Corvid proceeded to upload a mass of data to my KI. Sending this much data over the network would have drawn attention and he wanted the Mettanic working on the data as soon as possible. The plan was for Corvid to remain with the convoy and check in whenever he could. I would have to trace and break into another lab to start the cloning process.

This had to be my job because the machine would need to draw fresh DNA from my body as a baseline. They would need me around to move the clone back to the facility. There was a disused lab in the same building they were taking R’Linda. My biggest problem would be getting that machinery on line.

The data transfer took time as the hardware in the Crow body was limited and required using an old protocol. I hung my KI over Corvid’s neck and went exploring the local terrain with Corvid tucked underneath my arm. Corvid was surprisingly light. The feathers were real and had been renewed regularly over the years using road-kill as a source of new material. The bird was not moving but the activity on the KI showed the download in progress.

We were outside on the hillside above the dam when we caught our first sight of the convoy down stream of the dam. The first vehicle was the dirigible, then two of the escort flyers. I didn’t see the third till it was too late. It came from the other direction, flying down the lake, directly over-flying our location.

Caught in the open, we had definitely been spotted. I ran for cover. I had seen some mine workings where they had recovered some mineral probably during the construction of the dam. I hid here hoping no wild animal had done the same. Not long after, Corvid sparked into life. He told me the download was completed. With the KI around his neck Corvid was able to use the KI to simulate a voice. I nearly died of shock. I was not prepared for this disembodied voice. It sounded very strange.

Corvid had a large library of recorded sound like a massive MP3 library. He had loaded them into my KI and was making sentences by clipping words from the recordings. This procedure was quicker than simulating a new voice from scratch. It sounded like the audio equivalent of one of those ransom notes made out of newspaper clippings.

Corvid informed me that the dirigible would have infrared sensors that would pick up my body heat. If I could get my heat source underground they would not be able to detect the hot spot. When they got closer they would put down ground troops and would follow the trail with hand held sensors. Until that time I should take cover in the mine workings.

Corvid also told me to put my KI back on. The voice synthesizer within the KI stopped working and Corvid’s messages reverted to type on the head up display. There was no way for me to get back to the dam as the airship closed in. I could see ground troops repelling from the airship as it hovered over the dam.

Corvid flew to my wrist and placed his head near my KI. There was a sharp buzz and my KI and the head up was suddenly a mass of lights. It got dark as if I was blacking out. I did not feel faint. Then I heard the first thunderclap. I had not been fainting. The weather had suddenly been closing in. It had actually been getting darker and a massive thunderstorm rolled over the hill behind me. The downpour was incredible, a true desert storm. I was safe in the entrance to the workings but the troops were forced back down the slope by a wall of water and scree tumbling down the slope like an avalanche.

Got to go Walker.

There is a story around about the fall of D'ni It tells how the plague was spread amongst the ages I am trying to reconcile this with what Walker is telling me I mentioned this in the note I sent him hopefully he may be able to find answers that end of the link.

Corvid

2008-01-21T03:22:00.000-08:00

Another message from Walker it looks like he solved his journal problem.

I do not know who or what Corvid is. The name has a root in Latin that relates to the crow family of birds. R’Linda's brother V’Erik had a pet crow he called Corvid. R’Linda said in her letter she was taking Corvid with her.

I can understand why she might take Corvid along as a pet. R’Linda implied that Corvid could help her retrieve data. She also implied that Corvid might work with a mark12 KI data core.

This was confusing when I read it. I have always assumed that Corvid was a common crow. The more I think about it, as crows go, he did seem to be large for an ordinary crow.

I became more perplexed when I retrieved a KI message claiming to come from Corvid. I am putting it here in full. It is short.

“Walker

I am, as you can see from my contact details, Corvid. I am in Ohran. I am aware of your messages. The ones you have sent to the cavern. You have met me but will not be aware of my existence and status. R’Linda is here. She cannot contact you directly. We are in need of your help.

You appear to have figured out that Ohran consists of two habitable worlds. At the moment you need to know we are on the other planet. This is not as big an issue as you may think.

The Ohranic pair survived the plague that destroyed the D’ni. When I say survived it is a relative statement. The society suffered a severe setback from a twenty percent drop in population. This is massive beyond any earth pandemic.

At this time I am limited to short messages and I must close now. Expect further messages later. For now, please do not reply. Your signal may compromise my position.

Corvid”

This is one of those communications that answers nothing. It is a message that just poses more questions. Things like, “This society has been decimated.” “A society that stretches over two planets.” Corvid is self-aware whatever he she or it is. I am going to assume that the tunnel system does cover both worlds. That is why Corvid believes being on the other world is not an issue. The name for the people here has been clarified as Ohran.

I hope Corvid gets in touch soon. Meanwhile I will just keep on exploring and trying to solve the puzzles in the training area.

Two days later I received another message from Corvid, it was a little longer. It was positively more revealing.

“Walker

R’Linda is being held in isolation. The authorities here believe she may be a carrier of the D’ni plague. I am free to move around and can send messages to you when I encounter what you call a KI. The devices are less common in general society here. The Ohranic council must not become aware of my position. All of my operations must remain clandestine.

You must get away from your current location. The last communication I am aware of, you were speculating about the training area and the tunnel system.
These two are linked. In the training area you need only the most basic of promotions to get into the Lasha city this is the nearest hub to your present location.

You need to get into the tunnel system proper if you are to avoid capture. For now your greatest asset is the Ohranic paranoia. You are perceived as a serious biohazard, the ultimate Typhoid Mary. We both know you are no such threat, but they do not. The members of this bi-global society live longer than what we can consider standard humans like you. The D’ni plague happened before the advent of Jenner and inoculation. However, this society had instantaneous travel. Consider how the humans on earth have speculated on the dissemination of influenza pandemic spread by airline based travel. Now transpose that onto a society that has the instantaneous travel experienced in the tunnel transit system.

The people here had only one means at their disposal, isolation, shutting off vast sections of the population. They had already made large areas depopulated as a side effect of cutting off access to Ae’gura. The people here have since discovered vaccination and anti-viral drugs. Another bi-global pandemic is less likely but still feared. They do not have the confidence in their discovery. They are as yet unaware of why it works.

The Lasha City hub will be the only hub you can get to beyond the training area. This will look like a wheel with a series of mechanical gates. As long as you remain in the training area they will be able to detect your /spawn movements. You must find a hot spot outside the hub gates.

On the end of this message I have provided a user code and address. Put the user code in your buddy list. Send the word “Shorah” when you have a hot point outside the hub. Stay on the Ohranic pair till you get a reply. I will only be able to contact you live and I will not be able to reach you at your relto.

If you have been to your relto you will have fired the closure protocol and will be restricted to it and the Ohranic pair. If it is still working completely, you will now be totally isolated from Ae’gura.

You will be able to /spawn back to the barrow, as you call it, and then to your new location outside the hub. You can create a new command by combining these two /spawn commands.

If you call your new hot spot “escape,” then use the command /spawn door escape from your relto, it will take you from relto to the new location outside the hub in one step. Security will see a blip on their screens but your destination will be unreadable.

I will contact you again on receipt of the word “Shorah,” not before. Do not send me any other communication, as they will put us both at risk. Send nothing more than the one word.

Corvid”

On Corvid's advice, I stepped up research in the training area. I solved five puzzles and activated code inputs on my KI at the end of each task. On completion of each task, I had a symbol light up which corresponded to a station in the local tunnel network. As I found each station, the matching symbol glowed on the wall like those below the tree in the cleft.

I had found five and was getting nowhere till I touched one. This opened a door to an elevator. As I searched, I found some were stairs, others ramps. On the surface, I was in a set of walled walkways that matched the layout of the training area. Each location with a puzzle in the training area had a corresponding model on the surface above the station.

I was struggling at this point till I discovered each model had to be turned, pushed or twisted to open a door in the pedestal. The door was a KI slot and the code for the puzzle was changed. The corresponding door to the station was closed.

I spent two days wandering around the surface. I slept on the ground. I was resisting the urge to use relto to escape and I knew I had to find an answer. I was also not using the /spawn command as this was another way of reducing detection. In the end, I must have wandered into one of the barrier-protected stations.

Falling.

I used the panic button and I was back in relto. When I returned to Ohran and the training area, the puzzles I had solved had been reset. I was beginning to worry. From the viewpoint above the barrow, I saw people in full body biohazard suits. I warped to the hub and ran to the exit.

Whatever I had done on the surface had activated my KI to open the gate in the Lasha City hub. I ran through the tunnels, always taking right or straight on. Eventually, I found a hot spot and tried to name it “escape” as Corvid suggested. I was tired, dirty and not thinking straight. It took me half an hour to realise I was trying to use a six letter code.

I would have used a seven letter word “pillock,” a fine old Anglo Saxon word for “idiot,” but it was seven letters. I eventually decided on “free”.

I was clear of the base and the men in biohazard gear. I had a way in and out of relto. I was cut off from a comfortable bed and a source of food and drink. I still had my water filtering pack so I had drinking water, but no Mocha and no beer. I sat dejected and sent the word “Shorah” to the Corvid contact in my buddy list. Then I waited uncomfortably hot and sweaty for a reply from Corvid.

The reply, when it came, was not what I expected. All it said was, “Run randomly! They are on to you!” I was running again. I ran until I was fit to drop. I ran through tunnel after tunnel, not looking at my KI once, relying on random chance. I eventually ended in a new hub. I knew it was not one of the originals as it was smaller. It only had twelve exits. When I consulted the KI, I found one exit that appeared to lead away from the tunnel system.

Unlike the first one at the training area which had its own maze of tunnels this led immediately to an automatic set of doors. If the first base had been big, this was the opposite, having no more than a dozen buildings. One was big like an old aircraft hangar. The remainder were no more than small office blocks or administration buildings. There was what appeared to be a medical centre. I found a small canteen by recognising the food dispensers. There was a small accommodation centre big enough for about thirty enlisted men. I say men; they could have been either gender. Enlisted is also a moot point. I guessed these were other ranks, not officers. There were four separate accommodations that looked like officer areas.

There was one building sealed tight. It had no windows and a very solid door. Given that it was surrounded by a blast wall I took this to be an armoury or a bomb dump. There was a communications centre. It was a building with eight of the machines I had used to communicate with Ae’gura. In the corner of this room was a man sized metal chest attached to the wall. It was joined to a separate box with a pad and screen. Inside the box there were copies of some of the DRC books I had found in the mound storeroom. Apart from the pad on the outside it was identical to the chest I had found in the storeroom.

I found a well equipped but small engineering workshop. I borrowed some tools and used them to break into one of the officer quarters. The bed was easily as comfortable as the one in the base at the first site.

There was a terminal in this accommodation but I ignored it for the time being. I sent another Shorah message to Corvid and lay on the bed for a well-earned rest.

I do not know how long I slept but I awoke with my arm buzzing. It was Corvid he congratulated me on my evasions and told me to avoid any terminals where I was the only base occupant. Any data accessed from a terminal on a deserted base would flag my presence. If I wanted to use a terminal I would be best doing it from an occupied base or a location with people.

Corvid told me to keep to our “Shorah” protocol because it was vague enough. If I was asked questions that did not start and end with his name, I was to assume a reply was unsafe. My best procedure would be to only send the one word.
It was not a word that would be used on Ohran.
At this time my location was unknown to him. By that measure it would also be undetected by the Ohranic medical security team. Their communications traffic was open to Corvid at this time and they believed I was still in the area of the first base.

While they knew about R’Linda they were unaware of my status and Corvid himself was still under cover.

It would be helpful if I could locate a mass transfer device. From the description this was the metal chest I had found attached to the wall.

Apparently it was like a matter transport for organic matter. The mass transfer device created a copy of any organic non-living material. A destination code is entered in the box at the side an indicator light signifies a connection. Then anything placed in the box is duplicated at the destination.

Three factors, first it must fit inside the box. Second it must once have been alive. Third it must now be dead. Actually it could be alive but the created copy at the destination would be dead. The original remained unharmed only its structure was transmitted. The information in a body that constituted life was beyond the scope of the box.

If my new location had book transmitters and I could find Journals, I could and should transmit them to Ae’gura. Corvid considered it essential that I keep them informed of both my own and their status. I have assumed by “their status” he means R’Linda and himself Corvid.

I still have not figured out who Corvid is and how he got to Ohran.

Apparently, I have to find a terminal in an occupied area specifically not the first area. That location is under surveillance. I am to use it to get a D’ni locator code. This will allow me to pair a journal with its corresponding one in D’ni.

I went exploring the hangar. Like an aircraft hangar it had huge double doors at the end and a small door. The small door was locked and the large ones had a spindle that looked as if it would take a handle. Scrapes on the door marked a scribed circle around the spindle where previously a handle had rubbed the door repeatedly.

The hangar was one of those long tunnel type structures and was completely grassed over. The grass had not been cut in years if ever. I climbed up the side and along to the other end. This had a similar door arrangement but the door looked like it had never been opened. Grass and scrub was growing right up to the door and the spindle on this end had no circle of scratch marks around it.

The small door looked as if it had been painted shut several times because the paint was so thick. I went back to what I assumed was the front end. I searched around for some time and could not find a handle. I went to the workshops and used some scrap that was lying around to fashion a handle to open the big doors. I have not used welding gear for over twenty years and this was strange gear. If I say so myself, my handle was tidy and did the job.

With my manufactured handle opening the doors was surprisingly easy. I waited till it was dark and stopped when the gap was shoulder width. I considered opening them fully but that could have drawn attention. A shaft of sunlight would have alerted anyone inside. I need not have worried. I used the new KI /lite function. Inside the hangar was a conversion job, a building inside a building. Built inside a hangar it was a light structure. There was some sort of generator that hummed and glowed. Some sections of the floor appeared to glow faintly. I simply avoided those areas.

The inner structure only had windows in a set of double doors on one end. The glass in these doors was frosted but a narrow, clear edge of about three millimetres about an eighth of an inch allowed me to see there was nobody moving inside. I entered the building.

The room was filled with eight beds, each angled slightly steeper than forty-five degrees. The beds were arranged in a circle so they all faced inwards. The equipment attached to the beds made them look more like machines. On each bed there was a person. One was dead and mummified, although the machines at this bed appeared to be still running.

The others all appeared to be unconscious. They looked human but there were small differences that marked them out as something other. The heads were encased in a web of sensors with earpieces from headphones. If these were what they appeared to be, the ears were to far forward, almost at the temples. They also appeared to be too shallow. The five fingers on each hand were slightly too long, as if each finger had an extra joint the thumb was also longer giving each had six digits.

The fingers had no nails, but a small tuft of hair grew from each hand where the nail should have been. The skin had a colour that was slightly redder than it should have been.

I heard a noise so I hid behind some of the machinery. It was a robot device that looked like a mass of machinery put together by the proverbial mad scientist. It had at least five arms. It was hard to count they moved so quickly. It manoeuvred around the room on wheels and approached one of the inclined beds. The bed tilted to the horizontal and the robot proceeded to wash and tend to the bed-ridden figure. It was as quick and efficient as any nurse. When it had finished it went on its way and the bed returned to its previous angled position.

The screen above some of the patients lit up including the one that had just been given a bed bath. The face on each screen matched the occupant of the bed.

The mummified screen remained off. One of the faces the one that had just had a bed bath spoke. It was some incomprehensible language. My KI started a running commentary as a head up display subtitles.

“We have a visitor.” “It is a long time since someone came to visit us” come out and talk we are not in a position to harm you.” This statement had come from one of the others. I came out from my hiding place strangely confident.

My KI appeared to buzz and the language became familiar. But it was as if the KI was interceding because the lip synchronisation was out for the words I was hearing.

“You appear to be from the D’ni cavern but are not of the true D’ni. We are aware that someone has recently entered through the Soval gate. That was a female of the Ohran and is still on Asma. We must assume that you came through the Jall gate. We do not fear the D’ni plague as the Ohran do as we appear immune to its effects.”

I risked talking to them. “I see one of your people is dead.” “He speaks well if strangely.” This was a new speaker. I told them how the cavern was occupied now but not by D’ni and how I had become trapped by the very system designed to try and keep me out. While I stood the robot came back and cleared the mummified body it also removed most of the equipment from that bed.

All the bedding was changed it was a nurses dream. Once the body had been removed all the bedding vanished as if linking out and a complete new set appeared. The one that had been the first to speak invited me to rest on the unoccupied bed. A long conversation followed. I will summarise what I found out.

These are the Mettanic. The name is longer but I have used their shorter version. They are a space faring race that does work for hire in any society that can support them. They have had most of their body systems replaced by artificial organs like cyborgs without any super strength. They can secede of their consciousness into complex mechanical systems like wandering artificial intelligence programs. They need to re occupy their real mind space from time to time so their bodies are kept functional. This facility was built to service their physical needs.

Apparently the three screens that were not running were covering for those that were here. The mummified one had been with the Ohranic agents in D’ni at the time of the fall and because he had not returned to his body. It died. They had left the body feeling no need to remove it until now.

Whilst the body needed their consciousness they did not require being conscious. This virtual meeting was enough and they apparently swapped duties to ease some of the boredom. There were other sites but this was more like a family group. Some were hundreds strong. They were the smallest at seven, the only group within the isolation zone. The other groups have been planning to leave for over two hundred years. They all became trapped when Orhanic society collapsed to a stage where it was almost pre-industrial.

The Mettanic outside of the zone remain hidden to the modern Ohranic general population. Some of the ruling class, however, are aware.

One by one the screens went out till I was left talking only to the first one. I was told if I wanted answers to specific questions in the future I should come and occupy the vacant bed.

I was also told to take the handle I had made for the outside of the main door and close it from inside. At this point I would realise how they detected my presence.

Also the smaller door had been unlocked and would now operate for me if I touched it.

I followed the instructions when I closed the big door the lights came on. It was like a fridge in reverse. The lights came on when the door was closed not opened. The hangar felt bigger on the inside than it had on the outside once the lights were working. Large sections of the floor were transparent and pipe work and equipment could be seen through these sections. Small indicator lights on equipment in these sections had been the faint glow I had seen when I entered the hangar.

I had been awake for a good while when I left as I had waited for sunset before entering. I had a meal, wrote my journal, and went to bed. In the morning I searched for a hotspot but the site appeared strangely devoid. I eventually found one at the small door for the hangar. I gave it the name Mett. The association with the Mettanic should help me remember it.

Next day, I met with the first Mettanic. He told me this site was secure from the Ohran. It had no direct links with the tunnels. He also said that if I would help them they would try and find a way to refresh the power source for the Celtic cleft. This was the one, which they called the Soval gate.

He said he would be my contact and would speak for all of the members of this Mettanic cell. He told me his name and it sounded like a chirp of clicks and whistles. He told me was only a label and that I should find a suitable name and use that.

I have taken to calling him “Eric the red” because the colour of his skin was a reminder. When I told him the skin colour on the screen changed to green, as did his body. “The skin colour is arbitrary use the name it is as good as any. Apparently his skin colour is unfixed. But red is our rest state”.

We both agreed that rescuing R’Linda was a priority as she was my only hope of finding the exact location of the Soval gate. The group believed that Corvid may be the lost consciousness of their mummified colleague. He would be trapped within an artificial device. His major hardware left with the Ohran on earth. He would currently be in something self-mobile. He would be unable to return here to his life matrix. This was their name for his body.

Many of their people had ended up trapped like this. Some would choose a sort of suicide. They would enter a portable device and then remove the power source.

Some went crazy. This usually manifested itself as a catatonic withdrawal. Some escaped to a virtual world. This was held in their deep space transport.

It was parked at a LaGrange point for the two worlds of the Ohranic pair. It was a large facility like the one in the hangar but with space for thousands of Mettanic. When travelling, their bodies would be metabolically slowed and their consciousness would travel between the stars, occupying a virtual world.

When the Mettanic and the Ohran first encountered the D’ni, they believed the cavern might have been a virtual world like the Mettanic space ship. The art was perceived as nothing more than writing extensions to their virtual world.

This had been dispelled when Ti’Anna had entered through the cleft. Either she was real or an unthinkable event had occurred. The alternative was possible but highly unlikely. The program that was the cavern had become self-aware and had developed a way to rewrite its own code. This raised the possibility that the plague was also a manifestation of this self-aware code.

This also would mean that the art was nothing more than computer code written to generate new virtual worlds.

I found it hard to sleep that night. Eric had given me so much to think about. Was I a piece of code generated by the cavern? Are you a piece of code generated by the cavern? Who are we? Why are we here?

Walker

This one did not come by the usual means or at least not from the same location
I was still guided by notes in the message post script and I am keeping those to myself for now.

Gibson

Walkers relto

2008-01-15T02:11:00.001-08:00

Walker has managed to send me a picture of his damaged relto.

I've posted this straight away he has not mentioned it in the text yet but I thought you should see.

Over the flames

2008-01-14T23:12:00.000-08:00

I've picked up another letter from Walker it looks like he has figured out he is not actually writing to R'Linda here it is.

I closed my last entry telling you I was going to jump that flame barrier.
Well if anyone does follow me, do not jump through the flame barriers! I repeat! Do not do that. The flame barriers are the local equivalent of barrier boards.

Panic set in and I used my relto. In some ways, I wish I had not. My relto was trashed as I arrived. There was huge bang and the whole place shook like an earthquake. I was thrown to the ground. The violence of the throwing about must have knocked me out.

When I came round the place was a mess. The thatch and the rafters on the hut had fallen into the building. I spent good half-day sorting things out. My linking books were scattered and no longer worked with the exception of the cleft. At the cleft, I was able to salvage some rope from the bridge. I used this with some rope salvaged from the wreckage. I was able to tie the rafters back.

With the roof repaired, I checked the closet. It felt good to get a change of clothing. Strange how such a simple thing like clean clothes can cheer you up.

When I say all my linking books did not work that is not completely true. I was able to get to the balcony above the hood using the balcony page. That is the same page that you get in your hood book if you use the bharo stone in Gahreesen. When I tried the jump from the balcony I failed dismally. It was so frustrating. I could see people in the hood but could not reach them.

My KI also failed to show buddies or neighbours and even R’Linda was missing from the list.

Back at my relto, the Bharo pillars would not respond and my linking books would not reset. The Gahreesen reset tab was broken off completely. The others looked Ok. They even showed the picture of the destination. They just did not work when I touched them. The hood book main page and nexus were showing swirling black clouds. The only exception was that balcony page.

I returned quite a few times to this balcony and just watched the people. At one point, an explorer appeared. He was thin and seriously folicaly challenged. He appeared translucent and a little insubstantial almost ghost like.

He pointed at me and at my KI. Then he waved his hands through me as if I were the ghost. Then he operated his KI. I did get a message but it was seriously broken up. His name came up as Gib%$£. The message was similarly garbled. The contact really spooked me and I reltoed out.

“N.B Yes it was me Gibson”

I did get one clear message on my KI and this one really did scare me. I do not know why it came through to me. It may have been because I was using this new Mk12 KI. I am going to include the full text here and you can make what you want of it.

Dear Father:
I have found the Celtic Cleft. It appeared as you said. You were correct in the intervening years the access has become unstable. My hand device shows the power has decayed. It has reached a point where it will carry one person to Ohran. It will take two years to recharge to a point where I can be followed or I can return via this route.

I have managed to upgrade my hand device. The one the explorers call a KI.
It now has storage where I can carry all the data you sent me on Ohran flora and fauna. I have also loaded the technical specifications for the safety cage. If I am successful, we should be able to use our pass codes to withdraw the spikes.

If only Walker had not tampered with the keypad, we would still be able to open the gate before linking. From his description, the spikes may eventually fail safe into the locked up position. Fail-safe for Ohran means a death trap for anyone using Walkers’ route.

I know you regard Walker as a meddling idiot but he is young and the inquisitiveness of his people may yet open a way for you to return home.

I do understand why I must be the one to go. R’Ethig is too old to make the journey on the other side. I am the next best qualified to modify or repair the cage. I know I have to find Walker, as I will need someone’s help to unlock the mechanism. He is possibly my best hope.

I am taking Corvid with me. I know Yeesha specifically did not want him in the cavern. Nevertheless, the cleft leads straight to Ohran. It should not be an issue till we return. Not even then if we come back via the cleft.

Corvid may help me retrieve data. An advanced Mk12 data core may be compatible with his systems.

Fear of the plague should have passed. I do understand your desire that I do not contact Ohran authorities. If they still exist. Closing off the vast sections of their tube system should have sufficiently isolated them. However, their paranoia may still drive them to harm me before I can undo Walkers damage.

The closures within the tube system should restrict Walker to those areas of exclusion. The no-go zone that was established when the plague broke through to Ohran.

I hope that it will have run its course as it has in Ae’gura. The disease without a population to carry it should have died out on the Ohranic pair.

I am also aware that I carry the spores of diseases the Ohran are yet to encounter. R’Ethig also pointed out there were diseases in the Ohranic population to which I would have no resistance. Any illness arising from contact could be interpreted as plague. That is aside from any serious effect it could have on me.

R’Ethig has instructed me in using the communications device in your old headquarters. That would allow us to set up a new channel of communications. With luck, some of the old guard will still be around. Many of mothers’ old friends in the administration may be able to help.

I have to agree with you their influence may have passed. We might be negotiating with a generation who are sons and daughters of a devastated population.

If I can repair one of the old links, we may be able to ship one of the Mk12 KI generators. Imagine the things we could control with Mk12’s

I have been told that Walkers communications have got out into the cavern population. I was so sure I was unobserved. It just shows how useless my little brother was at being a lookout.

Do not worry V’Erik. I know it wasn’t your fault. Sharper was always a loose cannon. R’Ethig said that he had sorted him but I think that is easier said than done. There is no way we could have known he was still snooping around.

I wish mother were still alive. She so missed Ohran. I have taken her locket with me as a keepsake. You never did tell me how you retrieved that from the DRC. Was it one of your agents? The ones you always denied were in the DRC.

You and your covert operations! You and R’Ethig were always too secret for your own good. R’Ethig has also shown me how to retrieve myself a replacement Mk12 KI without damaging my enhanced Mk7. That way I should be able to come back without disrupting anything.

How did you persuade Yeesha to uncover the Celtic Cleft? She held its location as a bargaining chip for so long. Has she some other hold on you? Thank the others for their good wishes.

I will not be able communicate again till I get to either the gate or a communications node. Heaven knows what other codes he has changed. With any luck, he will have had a Torqua bird bash his skull in. Cancel that. I did find him cute but if he had his brains bashed in at least he will not do any more damage in Ohran. It would also make re-activation of the cage problematic.

I love you Papa.
R’Linda.

Well good news for me someone can read these messages. I was in two minds about sending this back. It does blow open the fact that R’Linda was part of the Ohran. I did think it could dry up any further messages, but I have concluded that she probably will not send anything till she gets to the bear pit.

I have considered hanging about till she arrives but that could be forever. From the sound of things, I should be safe to explore as long as I do not run into a Torqua bird. I wonder if this is my Ostrachicken. The beak on that thing certainly looked like it could do some serious damage.

R’Linda mentioned Corvid who was a pet crow. Now this really confuses me. She talks about him and an Mk12 data core. She cannot mean a second person because she makes it clear she is going alone. The crow was V’Erik’s pet. Why would Yeesha object to a crow?

The fact that you are getting this means I have made it back from my relto. Also I have found another Journal. Getting back was the easy part. I used “/spawn door” none of the other named spawn commands work from relto. It must be the mound has a stronger link.

I also tried another panic relto and got another earthquake. The second was a lot less severe, barely a shimmy. I will admit I dropped to my knees in panic. I need not have worried. I crossed to my big island and missed. When I panic reltoed the shake was hardly noticeable. The big bang only happened the first time.

I think this is some sort of failsafe to stop people having links to the City and to Ohran. It may all be tied in with this Mk12 KI. The damage to my books may be accidental. This might be why R’Linda wants to preserve her old KI.

The reason I jumped to the island was the clue on the next journal machine. If you are reading this then you managed to figure out the clue. I do not know what I was supposed to see. It may be hidden when you use the Mk12 KI.

I wish I had R’Linda’s flora and fauna files. At least I would know what was safe to eat or use as a big leaf when nature calls and I am inconvenienced.

I went into the big control room in the barrow. At one of the desks I found a KI slot and my KI was updated with a map of the hub network. It looks like it keeps my current location centred on the head up display.

It is useful for knowing which lines are blocked. I still need to figure out where I want to be heading. The names are still gibberish. It is like navigation on the Japanese underground. Unless you know you want to go to the Ginza, the name will mean nothing. I really need to find out what the other sites were called. What I need is a tourist guide, not just a map. The rough guide to Ohran or How to survive Ohran on twenty-five dollars a day.

Confirmation! There was a cone in the bear pit with a note attached. Unfortunately, both the cone and note had been wrecked by the spikes. I was able to make out part of the signature. “Gibso” I wonder if this was the mysterious Gib%$£ I met on the hood balcony?

The cone had some cord attached as if whoever had sent it had been clever and cautious. Clever! They repeatedly threw the cone into the tunnel and used the cord to retrieve it each time. They only let go of the cord if the cone linked out.

The spikes have now jammed in the up position. Jammed by the sand and metal fillings created by the rocks I put in the bear pit. This has now trickled down and clogged the mechanism completely.

Every so often it makes a noise like its got constipation and its straining.

I have decided to leave it alone. I know my messages have gotten through. Nobody will be coming via my route till R’Linda has been here and sorted the mechanics.

I wonder what the mysterious Gibso was trying to say. I wonder if he was trying to tell me that he had seen me on that balcony in the hood. I wonder if I was as insubstantial to him as he was to me. Sometimes I think I wonder too much for my own good.

The new journal I am using here was on the island. It was in that director’s room with the puzzle lock on the door. This puzzle was difficult. It took two days to crack. Moreover, it reset when I left.

The journal was sitting on the desk. There may have been other journals in the room but I figured I could look later. That was before I realised the lock would reset when I left. Ok, so I am a moron. There was a nice paperweight I could have used as a doorstop. I just did not think.

I know the puzzle is not that hard to crack once you have the way of it.

I have decided to write this journal up. Then I intend to go on a walkabout in the tube system.

I did a quick exploration to try the new map and it kept a highlighted path of my current location. I tried a couple of the blocked local paths and they had flame barriers. I think I now know what they signify. Some paths are unmarked but still have flame barriers.

There must be some way to update this map of blocked pathways but I have not figured this out yet.

I have found if I make a return journey, my path on the map resets when you close the loop and return to your start point. This is useful for the current path. I have been taking notes to establish a mental picture of the layout.

I have also been exploring other parts of the hub. With one exception, all of the hubs linked to the one here appear blocked. Some are flame barrier blocked and some just do not operate. The ones that do not operate appear to be those crossed out on the map. It looks like the marking is different for local paths. I am assuming the flame barriers are holes in the environment like I fell through in Ae’gura.

The non-working ones come to a smooth section that ends in a polished wall. The pattern in the rock differs, as does the colour, but the finish is always like smooth marble.

I have not fully explored the one that does work yet. I have enough to find locally. There is a problem with this one working hub. You arrive in a hall with one exit. This leads to a spiral ramp that exits in the middle of another hub room. Between you and the exits, you are surrounded by a series of gates. These look like those you would find in an underground (subway) station. The gates are locked and appear to have a KI and a Card slot.

My KI would not open the gate so I think I have to get some change activated in my KI to open the gates. Alternatively, get a card with some sort of credit.

I returned to my local hub. The tunnels at first appear random but I have figured out a representation that works for me. The system consists of two circles, an inner and an outer. Seven lines cross both circles. Various sections of these lines make up the inner circle. At the centre is the hub and there is a tunnel from the hub to each of the points in the inner circle.

Some of the points on this circle appear to have flame barriers on all sides. The tunnel that leads to the base appears to be separate from the double ring. Almost like a spur or branch line. Each point on the double ring appears to be a station of some description. I have yet to find an exit from one of these stations. This may require a KI setting, a credit, or possibly just finding the door.

So far, I have been lost three times. Each station has a section of smooth wall with a symbol. I have seen most of these symbols in the training area. I think there is some pattern. I am going to spend some more time in the training area and figure this out.

From the sound of R’Linda’s message to her father I have a while before she gets here to familiarise myself with the layout. I want to be in a position where I know more about this place than she does. I thought I was the one introducing her to Ae’gura and she was one of the natives all along. Ok, she was a particularly nice native.

It does sound like she is going to require my help in resetting the system. I want to be in a position where we can all visit Ohran.

I am worried this R’Ethig person might try to silence me permanently. I have never seen the name in the hood but that does not mean anything. He has clearly had something to do with the Sharper business. (What ever that was!) I think Sharper was one of the guys with the DRC. From what R’Linda says he is still around somewhere.

I think I met V’Erik when I was at her place in New Mexico. He looked a little like R’Linda. That would fit if he were her brother. He looked about the same age. Slightly more rugged always wore dark glasses and rode an old Indian motorcycle.

The only time I spoke to him was about the bike and he seemed to talk as if he had had the bike from new. I always thought that was odd. The bike was pre-war and I mean WWII.

I have been thinking if I could meet with this Gibso character, again I might be able to send him pictures. Our text might not be working but pictures might.
I am going to take loads of the training area and try and get them to him. My biggest problem is arranging a time and date. The place has to be the balcony above the hood. Gibso, whoever you are, carry a piece of card with your KI number written in large black numbers. I might just be able to add you to my buddy list.

I am re-drawing a map of the training area. It is stylised this time. It’s a little like the original Harry Beck London Underground map where the distances are not to scale but the orientation is. I will probably have to invent names for the points. I think I will re-do the tunnels as well. Names I invent may be easier to remember. If I can find a way to write them on the walls, it may stop me getting lost.

There was a guy called Simon Patterson who did a picture called “The Great Bear.” It was a recent version of Harry Beck’s map with the stations re-named. I am positive that I am going to do the same with this network.

As an intellectual exercise, it might stop me going crazy. The names in the local script are just so much gibberish. I cannot be as strange as some of the names in London. Let’s face it; there can hardly be a place with a name as odd as Cockfosters or Crouch End.

I do not know what the Ostrachicken was living on in the base but it has grown enormous. I am certain it is bigger than the one in apple wood. I was following it around and ended up back at the moon pool. I happened to look at the screen and saw someone get out of the pool. It took me a while to realise it was me. The camera must be on a delay loop showing stuff from weeks ago. I decided to stay and watch to see who took my rope and weight belt.

It did not take long. It was those mini Piranha fish. It was like watching something evaporate. Well that was at least one mystery cleared up.

I took a couple of days off. I spent the time between the officers’ quarters and my relto. I found a setting on my new KI that played music. What I had was ok and I did find some weird classical sounding stuff on the terminal. There must be a way to load the KI with other music. One of the settings plays music automatically when you enter various sections. It must be the local equivalent of elevator music.

I might write some suggestions in the sand on the beach. I can photograph them and send the photos to our mysterious Gibso. I wonder if I can get him to throw a MP3 player into the bear pit, but knowing my luck the spikes will get the batteries.

I spent a lot of this leisure time I granted myself surfing the officer terminal. It was a bit like browsing the Internet at home. I was missing doing that. Shame I cannot set up a web site. Posting these messages would be useful. The terminals are like the Internet, packed with goodies but murder to search. I did find some information. It looks like the training area and the local tunnel network are linked.

As you solve puzzles and tests in the training area, your KI updates with codes that let you through automatic doors in the tunnel network.

Some are logic puzzles; some are physical. The route you take assesses your ability. You do not have to solve all the problems and most topside locations can be reached using alternate routes. It is a bit like the London underground again. Two stations may look miles apart on the map but at the surface, you only have to cross a road. There may be some of the locations blocked by flame barriers underground that can be reached from the surface.

Solve enough of the problems and you get the equivalent of a military travel warrant or a pass that will let you into the rest of the hub system. They even included some target shooting stuff. One of the weapons looked like it was the prototype for the Teledahn gun. They may have been a peaceful people but they did not count on everybody doing the same.

This gun could be another thing they got from the D’ni or the other way round it could be the real prototype and they eventually traded the finished article to the D’ni. It has part numbers in D’ni script but that’s nothing definitive.

Some of the tests in the training area were simulators for vehicles they had encountered on other D’ni ages and worlds. Yes, I was really amazed. Apparently, these vehicles have no instruction. It is part of the test to work them out for your self.

It looks like I will not be getting bored for a while.

I have found another Ostrachicken skin. It must be close to filling the passages. I am assuming the one tending the nest was a male. It is usual for the egg layer to be bigger. I still find the sexual dimorphism unusual. The only large animal with that large a difference that I recall is the Orang-utan. Chance I should find a similar dimorphism on this world I now know as Ohran. It is pure coincidence that “Ohran” and “Orang” are similar sounding words.

I finally got my motivation back. I am not sure why but this morning I woke and decided to start tackling the tunnels again. If I make a note of the symbols assigning names as I go, that should help me attempt the training area in a systematic way.

I found a code in the food machines that gave me a drink that looked and tasted like beer. It must be on a rationing system because the code only works once a day. I am not complaining; it tastes fine. I recorded the code in my KI, as it is one I do not want to forget. I wonder if it was rationed like rum used to be in the Royal Navy.

My two maps are coming on well. The layout in the training area bears no relation to the tunnels. That may change when I get through one of the doors onto the surface.

I did have another look back at the balcony but the hood was empty. It feels less lonely knowing I can get somewhere I have a chance of meeting someone. I did not pick up any new stuff from R’Linda either.

Looks like I have to commit to mapping for a few days. Before I wandered off, I thought it would be useful to have a notebook. I went to the mound and went on a rummage in the store room. Now this is something I found odd. I found copies of just about every document in the city and all of the ages. I completely missed these books the first time around. By way of an excuse, they were in a trunk.

Books I would never have thought could be are here. Things like the instruction manual for the climbing wall in Gahreesen and translations of the manuals relating to the D’ni Kings. Now everything tells me this world was isolated in the fall of Ae’gura and the collapse of D’ni society.

I know it is possible for books to be written here and duplicated in the city. So there is every possibility that the opposite could be true. If this is the case then there was communication between the Ohran and the DRC. I am beginning to wonder if these DRC books can be used to transfer my messages to Ae’gura. If this is true, I could transmit to any book that I have a copy of here.

What I find frightening is somebody must have transferred these books from the linking facility in the base to the storeroom in the mound.

On the brighter side, I have also found a blank notepad and some pencils. I have all the makings of a budding cartographer. Look out Captain Cook because this man Walker is after your mapmaking crown.

Two strange things I found when I started navigating the tunnels. I encountered a cleaning machine. It was like a huge Zamboni machine and it was moving at walking pace. When I stood directly in front of it stopped and a voice boomed out in a strange language. My KI translated this as “Closed for cleaning please use another route.” Since then, I have encountered another three of these giant machines.

The second strange thing was a message from Corvid. The message will have to wait. I have run out of room in this Journal.

Walker

I thought throwing the cone in on a piece of rope was quite a good idea if I say so myself. I am going to get my self that big piece of cardboard if I can find some in the cavern.

Gibson

Walker the open letter

2008-01-12T06:06:00.000-08:00

Hello! Anybody Hear Me?

When I woke, it was still dark, so I used my memorised code to make myself a mug of hot mocha. Then, I went and had a surf at the terminal. I have found a reference to the people here that will not translate using my new KI. Well that is not strictly true. It translates to a word that looks like Gallic. I was looking for references to the D’ni. One talked about a people who called themselves the Garbhchriocha na Ohran. I know that is similar to what the Irish call the Highlanders of Scotland. Well nearly anyway. They call them Garbhchriocha na Alaba and Alaba is a Gael word for Scotland. I get a feeling the Ogham Celtic link may not be so tenuous.

The context made me believe these people considered themselves as the people of the high land which is logical considering the D’ni live underground in a cavern.

To cut a long story slightly shorter, I have decided this place should be Ohran. Anybody got a problem with that? Deafening silence! Well being alone has one advantage. Nobody argues with you. Some of my best friends are oxymoron’s.

I must have been plodding at that terminal for ages. When I went to the upper deck to stretch my legs, the sun was well up in the sky. I went for a rummage in the storeroom and found a backpack with a bladder and a built in drinking tube.

I found an instruction guide attached to the inside of the pack. It was fitted with a concealed second tube that, when placed in a water source, would draw water into the bladder. It would purify this water at the same time. I know a few people back home that would kill for a piece of kit like that. Well ok, not cold-blooded murder, but definitely a serious flesh wound.

The bladder was limited in capacity, but you could use any source you found, including seawater or animal blood. They did recommend that you only recycled body waste as an extreme last resort and that it would invalidate the warranty. Some things never change even on a new world.

I went back to the upper deck and used my new KI commands to drop onto the barrow. I decided it was time to visit the Ostrachicken again. When I passed the cold stream, I filled my new water bottle. I was sitting on a rock having my first drink playing with my KI when I noticed this was a hot spot. I logged the location and called it rock. Okay, so sometimes I am not that inventive.

When I got to the heart of apple wood, I tried to get past the bird without success. I decided to try the keypad at the end of the platform. When I got there, I could not remember the code. After consulting the picture in my KI, I remembered the numbers I had marked on the platform. As I had my KI activated, I noticed this was also a hotspot. I logged this one and called it bird.

I used the code on the keypad and was rewarded with the sound of breaking wood and a loud bang this time. The bird flew away and I quickly made my way to the door collecting two eggs on the way.

The doors were well open this time. As I walked down the passage they closed behind me, jamming not quite shut. They were too close together for me to squeeze through. The log that previously had been making the noises was splintered and broken with only a few small pieces holding the door open a crack.

The tunnels were quickly too dark to see clearly, so I used another new function on my KI /lite function. This lit up a small area I suspected it was not actually a source of light but an image intensifier using the KI camera and head up display. While I had my KI activated, I started a Journal entry. I noted left and right exits, crossroads, and forks at all junctions. I went straight on and at forks I turned right. I figured I could at least back track to the entrance. On a couple of occasions, my KI sopped giving location (GPS) information. I presumed something was blocking the signal.

Sometimes the passage was as wide as seven yards and sometimes it narrowed to as little as three yards and at one place I could touch both walls. The rail lines had curved away at one of the early forks. The floor was smooth, flat and even as if machined. The walls had a hand carved look and feel. Every so often, the tunnel changed to a section of smooth almost marble finish. In these areas, the floor was also polished to a fine finish.

Eventually in the distance, I glimpsed the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I doused my own light and approached cautiously. The floor became wet and I found myself walking in a stream. That was till I walked into a wall. I had come to a dead end with a low arch at the bottom through which some light passed. I Put my KI light back on and noticed the stone, which faced the end of the passage, was the same as the stone used to build the revetment. The one I had found on the fourth path beyond the wooden bridge. I had a definite feeling I was the other side of that wall. I checked my KI, another hotspot. I logged it and called it tube

I figured it was now or never. Typing the following commands took me to:

/door, back to the barrow.
/spawn rock, to my water stream.
/spawn bird, and I was on the platform in the apple wood.
/spawn tube and I was back to the tunnels.

I have not danced since I was last in the hood. However, this new information deserved a quick jig. I took a written note of the GPS codes for the revetment tunnel location. I intended to walk to the outside and confirm that it was the other side of the wall just beyond the bridge to nowhere.

The floor at this point was comprised of pebbles. I tried removing some below the wall where the stream passed outside to make the hole bigger. I succeeded but not enough to squeeze through. The hole I created was big enough to put one of the eggs under the wall but the wall was too thick to pass the egg all of the way to the outside. If I were right this would help confirm my hypothesis that this was the revetment.

I warped to bird, the platform location in apple wood, and walked back to the fourth path. It was a nice day and I enjoyed the walk back to the revetment. With a little piece of work, I was able to remove some of the pebbles from the outside and retrieve the egg. This had to be the other side of the wall in the tunnel.

I climbed up the slope at the side of the revetment. At the top, the area to my right sloped down for a short way, and degenerated to a very unsafe looking cliff that overlooked the lake. The top of the mystery island was just visible in the distance.

The area to the left of the revetment became gradually wooded until it was impenetrable. The path ahead started as grass and eventually became compacted a stone and earth finished roadway. The road had been well made but had become seriously pot holed.

Either side of this roadway was a deep storm ditch, which contained barely a trickle now. Heavy rain of the type I had experienced in the monsoon had kept it clear of vegetation.

After a while, I turned around and headed back to the revetment, all the time checking my KI for hot spots. I had decided to walk down to the lakeside. I could start a fire there and have one of the eggs.

The bridge to nowhere was another hot spot. I logged it and spent ages trying to think of a name.
Now there are lots of four letter words but all the ones I wanted to use were five or rude. I settled on Xing meaning crossing. The lack of anything either side still puzzled me. The hot spot was on top of the bridge. There was always the possibility that the bridge was put up when the path was a stream. The paths to and from it had long since become overgrown.

Of course, it could have just been artistic. I was sitting on the bridge looking through my KI pictures when I was suddenly struck by a feeling that something was different. I ran back to the revetment. The symbol on the end wall had changed. Well, that proved the barrow had control over some of the environment.

Curiosity satisfied, I restarted the walk back to the lake.

At the lakeside, I eventually made maintainer helmet scrambled egg. The fire was the hard bit. I still had my helmet lens but my previous fire had long since gone out. The sun kept hiding behind clouds at critical moments.

As I ate, I decided it was time to try for the island. I had the boat option on my new KI and I could always spawn out to one of my new locations. My kayak was cool. Better than anything I had at home. It had an inherent stability and self righted provided I lay back. All of the serious paddlers back home would call that cheating. I was well out of practice and it was hard to keep in a straight line, a normal problem. The boat was susceptible to wind and it did not have a skeg.

The Island took ages to circumnavigate. It had no obvious beaches. I eventually concluded it had none at all. It did have an extensive cave system. The island was like those ones in the Phuket Sea just off Thailand where the water has undercut a huge overhanging cliff. It stood on the water like a gigantic upturned bottle. It was riddled with caves. I eventually found my way into a sheltered area that looked carved. The cave was almost perfectly circular. The roof of the cave was low and appeared to shimmer.

I reached up with my paddle and it passed through making a strange buzzing noise like the noise I heard at the door to the barrow. I used my paddle to check the depth of the water below the boat it was just over a paddle length.

No problem if I dropped back. I used the /noboat command and was not quite as ready as I should have been. I used a new command to retrieve my new maintainer suit. Then I used the small collapsing grapple and knotted rope and ended up about a foot above a semi transparent floor hanging from a lighting unit. I braced for a drop back into the water but when I dropped I only fell as far as the semi transparent floor surface.

I took off my maintainer suit so I could empty out the water leaving a puddle that had been most of the water trapped inside the suit.

The room had one exit and as I approached the door, the floor appeared to be buzzing again. I knelt beside the floor and reached down. My hand passed through the floor surface I had just walked on, and my puddle slowly drained away. Very odd indeed! My grapple and rope still hung from the light fitting.

The only door led to a spiral passage that twisted both outwards and upwards. I ended up about thirty feet on a circular walkway with a balcony. I was looking outwards from the island. This balcony completely encircled the island. Leaning out from the balcony and looking down was a drop of approx forty feet to water, that was of unknown depth.

I am always reminded of a sign I once saw on an oil rig. It said “A fall of thirty feet into water can be dangerous.” Someone had scrawled underneath on this sign, “Thirty feet onto anything’s bloody dangerous, waters probably the safest”

However I have always taken that as a warning and as this looked over thirty feet. The water looked too shallow for comfort. I decided discretion was the better part of valour and I did not jump.

Looking upwards, the sky was misty. The balcony was at the limit of visibility looking downwards and upwards you were looking at the base of a cloud. The balcony had one door on the inner wall. The door was positioned one hundred and eighty degrees opposite the exit from the spiral ramp. I worked this out by pacing out the balcony. This door was not locked and it receded into the roof when touched and closed behind me when I entered. It did open just as easily to leave.

What I encountered next I can describe but I cannot tell you how to pass. It is one of those places that are dynamic. It is different every time you attempt it. This place is a glass maze with some fiendish devices. By devices, I do not mean physical traps. This maze was a delaying device not unlike the rotating towers on Ghareseen. This was a real trial and error job but once you have figured out your method is easy. You only need to do it once correctly. At the end there is a spawn hotspot.

Ok, the room is huge. It contains a layer cake of rotating glass rings. All the glass is tinted but looks one colour from one side and a different colour from the other. The rings do not move quickly. The rings have passages through them and you must follow one colour to the middle. The passages are not too narrow. Sometimes you move outwards; sometimes inwards, but always to a passage that flashes.

Did I mention do not touch the walls? Touch a wall and you warp to the outside of the entrance door back on the balcony. Sometimes, you cross the boundary to an inner ring and you warp up a level. Move to an outer ring and you move down a level. The whole dammed thing is fiendish beyond belief.

Make it to the middle and you rise to a room above on a platform lift like he ones you find in theatre You end up inside a cage that holds you for about twenty seconds and then the cage rises into the roof.

Step out and the floor turns opaque with a lit twisty path. The cage and floor section descends when you step off. Stay on the path and walk to the exit. Guess where you end up if you step off the path. Yep, back outside that door on the balcony.

Get to the end of the path and you find another door that opens to the touch. Once you are through the puzzles are over and figuring out your moves is easy once you know to follow a colour. All paths lead in to the middle, none are quicker or slower. It depends on which point of the cycle you enter.

The hot spot is outside the second door. I tried to call it something vulgar and my KI would not recognise it. I called it QQQQ just out of frustration.

At this point, I warped back to the bridge. From there, I walked back to the bear pit spike room. I stopped to add a few rocks to the spikes then I plodded up the stairs to officer country and found a hot spot on the balcony. I went to bed absolutely bushed. I am not going to tell you how many attempts it took to traverse the glass maze only the sun was setting as I looked from the balcony. I slept well past dawn the next day.

The bed must have been comfortable, I do not remember. Come to think about it, I do not remember entering the room. I do not think it was anything sinister just I was too tired.

When I got up in the morning, sorry lunchtime, I stumbled about for a while till I found the dinning room. I had an Idea that it would have a hot spot and it did. I logged it and called it grub. I was famished.

Remember the second egg? Well I have lost it. I think it may be in the officer’s bedroom, under the bed. I think it must have rolled there when I went to bed. It was not in the bag now.

I decided to leave exploring the island till the next day. I spent the remainder of my day looking for hotspots in the base. I found one in the submarine pen, one on the top floor sports court, and one in the lower watchtower room. One outside the floating obelisk room, one outside the power room and one outside the Ae’gura monitor room. My final hotspot for the day was outside the door to the bear pit spike room. That is the outer door that leads out of the complex. I felt sure there were more but I did not find them.

I went back to my bedroom and wrote up this log. It is reasonably short this time. While this log is the shortest so far, it probably covers the most ground. I may add some more before I send it.

I must spend some time in that Ae’gura monitoring room. There must be a way to send this stuff to the city. If I can figure a way, I want someone to tell all this to. Preferably, to someone who can send something back. For now, I just want to find some way to send my bottled messages.

I have lost track of how long I have been here. I do not know how long I was unconscious in the bear pit or on the ledge in Ae’gura for that matter. It feels like weeks but it is probably not.

I warped back to the bridge. From there, I explored the path on top of the revetment. This was a revelation. The road climbed to a hump where they had used some sort of metalled surface. Just beyond the hump was an offset junction. The paths to either side were compacted stone and gravel again. Over the next twenty days, I explored this area I know it was twenty days I kept a record this time.

The area was like a small section of forest. There were a number of these paths and there were carvings and structures all over.

The trees had been worked in blocks there would be a section of one type with a uniform size then the next section would be a different age or type. It was definitely some sort of managed forest but it did have the look that it had not been worked for some time.

Some of the carvings and structures appeared to have meaning. Some were artistic. I am almost certain some of them were parts of puzzles. Some of them are complete puzzles in their own right. I must have taken hundreds of KI photographs.

I have found about fifty artefacts and mapped all the paths. They crisscross all over the place. They all end back at the central road. The perimeter is about twenty-two miles that’s about thirty six kilometres and I have not figured out all the linkages. Some of them are truly fine pieces of art but some I just cannot figure out almost as if the artist lost the muse.

I had to keep going back to the base for rations and I did find some of the mock apple trees. There were definitely creatures here as well but these were shy and retiring. More often than not, they were heard rather than seen. Water was not an issue my new pack allowed me to take water from almost any source with confidence.

There were new trees and vegetation that may have been edible but I knew I had a safe option back at the base. I usually slept on a bed of foliage in the maintainer suit. I saw several Ostrachickens vanishing into some of the thicker vegetation.

The central road ends in a metal bar across the road. This bar has a sheet of flame coming out of the top. This flame is about five feet high and flickers like a candle in the lightest of breezes regardless of the wind conditions. The flame is highly realistic but is clearly artificial, as it radiates no heat. I have tried moving the metal bar but it appears to be fixed to the road.

I took a stick from the local vegetation and passed it through the flame with no effect. I am wondering if this is some sort of barrier. The local equivalent of those cones I foolishly ignored in Ae’gura

I was in for a surprise when I returned to the base. The surprise was not however immediate. I was heading back down to the Ae’gura observation room when I saw and heard something scampering down a passage. I ran hither and yon for ages. I eventually caught the glimpse of a young Ostrachicken. A couple of days later I found its skin, sucked dry. I figured something had killed it and I had some predator on the loose in the base.

This was concerning till a few days later I found another version of the same. This skin, I am sure was bigger. I thought I saw the ostrachicken a few days later and it appeared bigger still. I have assumed this animal sheds its skin like a snake and what I was finding was its sloughing.

I do not know what it is living on and I was unaware of how it had gotten into the base until I found the remains of the second egg. Most of the shell had been consumed but what remained was the shell of an Ostrachicken egg. The shell was under the bed in the officer’s bedroom. I have yet to figure out how it got out. I am almost certain the door was locked before I went exploring.

After hours and hours of research in the Ae’gura model room, I figured out that the Ohran had placed something like journey cloths in Ae’gura. These cloths had been locations for drop letters transmitted to their agents in the city. In some way they were getting messages back to here to Ohran. It is possible they used the modified KI, the Mk12, or possibly some version in between. It looks like they were cut off and isolated deliberately. Possibly, they were isolated as a sacrifice to prevent the plague that attacked the D’ni striking here.

As you can tell, I have now solved this problem. The next message will have to be relayed by a new method. I have run out of books created by the Ohran in the city. I may be able to amend other documents in the realm of the D’ni If I can figure out their coding system. I may be able to attach documents to other journey cloths.

These old drop letters were long since wiped but I was able to add new text to these documents. A machine in the model room takes a notebook. We are not talking any book here. I have only found five so far. I write in this book with a special stylus and the book is placed in a machine in another room. I got the room designation from a terminal in the Ae’gura model room and was able to find its location from my mapping exercise.

The room has a number of machines. Each one joined to a matching document in the ages. The first five are linked to the journey cloths in Ae’gura. I place the book in a machine and lists of tasks appear on a monitor on the machine. Here is the fun bit. I cannot change the tasks and I have to translate the instructions using my new KI. I then remove the book from the previous machine and add some sort of clue to the end of the previous book to help you find the one I have just made available.

Apparently, once the documents are accessed they also duplicate on other documents within the personal space of the receiver.

I am beginning to think R’Linda may be one of the Ohran. Her name strangely follows structures I have found on the teaching machine in the officers quarters. I know a number of users from what I now regard as my home world Earth have used KI names with similar structures. How many of them are Ohran and how many of the administrators are Ohran? That is before we consider how many have been recruited from the followers of Yeesha. I can only guess.

I am almost positive that some of the people involved in distributing KI’s are from the Ohran or their descendants.

I am not sure if there are factions, who want to re-establish ties with Earth.

Some of these people may believe Earth was the source of the D’ni plague.

It looks like they may have helped Yeesha with aspects of relto specifically the journey cloths. At the moment this is only speculation.

I do not think I can add new hot spots but for the time being, I am able to embed new data behind the ones that exist in the city. The duplication to books in personal space is ambiguous. I am hoping this is relto. I have included a trigger with these documents. I hope someone eventually gets a message to me to let me know if this has changed anything in their relto bookcase.

I am going to take a break for a few days. I am just so tired. I will have to sit on this book till I can locate another. If I do not this will be my last message from Ohran.

………….

I have had a few days rest so I decided today was about time I did something useful again. I warped to tube. This put me just inside the revetment and I backtracked towards the doors behind the ostrachicken nest. I came to a fork in the path I had missed in my mapping. I figured it was because I had been coming from the other direction.

From that direction, it would have been two paths merging and easy for me to miss in the dark. I took the right fork and tried to be wary of making the same mistake again. I figured I could always warp back to tube if I did become lost.

I was unprepared for what I did find. It is a huge hall with about forty exits. Above each was a piece of Ogham or I should probably say Ohran script.

Some of the scripts translated to meaningless collections of letters that were probably like proper names. Untranslatable, some of them ended in a word that translated as hub. In the roof of the structure was a sign that was barely illuminated and I was only able to see it by using a KI picture. The sign also ended in this new hub word. I eventually noticed the centre of this hall was also a hot spot. I logged it and named it hubs

I have surmised that the tunnels that lead off from this hub are links to other locations on this world. Some of them may link to the other world I saw in the night sky. This is probably part of the system I saw in the control room in the barrow.

I noted the passage I had entered through by back-tracking my footsteps. I scuffed a path with my shoes as I did so making sure I could find my point of entry. I was unaware of a linking noise between the base and this new location but the passage from which I had emerged may well have been a linking tunnel.

I tried /spawn door to take me back to the barrow and it worked so I was still inside the working range of the new KI. I went inside and used the information terminal to investigate the word I had translated as hub.

The terminal came up with an extremely complex map. I reworked the search to include the specific name for the hub I had found. This time the map came up with a close up. There was a double line crossing a lot of the lines that approached the hub. The name for this one was flashing. I picked one of the closer ones that appeared ok. When selected it also flashed. I assumed this was just to show the station selected. I think the double line crossing may mean a line is closed.

I had actually started thinking of these hubs as city stations. I went back to the larger map. I decided that this constituted a huge expansion.

I went back to the bear pit and spent days loading it with stones. Periodically the spikes would still retract and reappear. They had a dull gunmetal finish when I first arrived. Now they were getting shiny as if the stones were wearing away the surface.

Unfortunately, they also looked like they were getting sharper.

I checked the lower chamber. The machinery below was slowly becoming buried in a mixture of sand. Probably from the eroded stones and what looked like metal filings probably from the spikes. I was hopeful I would eventually wear away the spikes.

After several days of loading rock, I spawned into the upper chamber on the island. Exploring, I found a room with several screens watching the maze and the path. I was definitely looking like this was the observation room for staff protecting this site.

In the passages, there were several rooms. One of which had a terminal. This terminal had a puzzle like lock. The puzzle looked as if it was some sort of delay tactic. Not so secure that someone would be locked out should something happen to the current incumbent of the office.

The terminal had a file that told of how the Ohran had felt threatened by the plague that had attacked D’ni. This was becoming a familiar story.

The file also added some detail about the non-lethal weapon that had been developed that would de-stabilise the cavern. By focusing the weapon on the linking tunnel between the cavern and the Ohran home world the Ohran believed this would protect them from the plague that had so devastated the D’ni.

The Ohran had arranged for some of their people to stay behind in the cavern. They were to report to Ohran if the plague was ever deemed completely clear. They were also to confirm that access to the linking tunnel was broken.

The island had been chosen as the site where the device would be developed. Its power calculated to destroy only the reception location in the cavern. The island was also the centre for communication to the Ohran agents who would remain in the cavern. These people were considered heroes destined to either die in the plague or at best survive in a prolonged exile.

The weapon destroyed the tunnel but also sent fractures all through Ae’gura. The device also caused factures in ages attached to the cavern at the time. Later devices were refined to a point where the link was broken but the damage was limited to the atomic structure of the area immediately surrounding the link.

If these were the tunnels that Yeesha had linked to the Bharo cave then it would explain why you can fall though and have to panic relto in the ages Yeesha provided links to.

The journey cloths were a means of communicating with the Ohran still in Ae’gura. They communicated back using the advanced Mk 7 KI’s. The Maintainers Guild were using Mk 3’s the original KI. They were unaware that the Ohran had an improved device.

The Ohran exiles reported to a director or something similar. Apparently, his office was somewhere on the island; probably behind that puzzle locked door. Communication was through linked books. These linked books were the journals I was now writing in. They were embedded in the very fabric of the ages accessed by specific actions and paired with matching journals in his/her control. Whatever was written in journals here could be accessed by opening the matching journal in the cavern.

It had become imperative for me to find that office and more of those journals. They would enable me to send further messages to the Ohran agents. Or, to anyone who could figure out how to access them. I was certain that if I could enlist their (hopefully your) help I would be able to get home and maybe just help them return to this beautiful place.

The Oran had severely damaged the cavern, but only to prevent the plague that had struck the D’ni destroying this world. Apparently, shockwaves from the device had caused fissures in the physical fabric here. The base and its surrounds had been evacuated. There had once been linking books here to other locations on this world. These sites were also damaged by the weapon and had been evacuated and secured. It was possible I was in a set of linked exclusion zones.

The Ohran linking books and this time they appeared to be talking about real D’ni linking books. Were taken to one of these other sites and hidden in the hope that one day they could be re-activated. They made no specific mention of books that linked to other ages. Who knows what I will find in this place? That is if I can find it.

I figured my next move had to be here on the island. I need access to the directors’ office. My only hope of significant communication would be finding more of those linked journals.

The terminal talked of a training area. From the description, this was probably the area behind the revetment. There was a partial reference to another link at the far end of this training area. I think this may be what is beyond the strange flame barrier.

As I went to sleep that night I thought about my new life here, and how my likelihood of return home was limited. How my credit card bill had not been paid since before I left, and how my car had probably been re-possessed by now. I thought about these things but I did not worry. I would be worried if they could do something to me here. Any tax man following me would have a pointed experience in the bear pit.

I had stumbled into an adventure that at this time appeared endless. I was Well fed, comfortable and in good health. My desire for a cigarette remains a moot point because even If I had some I would only get a light on a sunny day. I suppose my only regret is that this is a lonely place. The prospect of communication means that some day others could follow. At that point, I would no longer be alone.

Tomorrow morning I am going to the bottom end of my suspected training area and will leap through the flame barrier.

Walkers fourth document

2008-01-10T12:44:00.001-08:00

Walkers Fourth Document

I suppose I had better address this to anyone who can receive this. I hope that you will have read my three previous letters from here, so I will not labour you with my story so far.

I am going to send each new letter with copies of the previous till I hear that someone is getting them.

Today I took the risk and swam out of the moon pool but not before I had made some key discoveries about this site.

In my last letter, I told you about officer country and the terminal where I discovered that this was the Ahrotahn military headquarters. That was established in response to what they saw as a threat coming from the D’ni.

The people here were very afraid that their society could be destroyed by the plague that had infested Ae’gura and the ages of the D’ni. The people here were not normally aggressive. The military was not a standing army as such. It looks like the Ahrotahn were not an agrarian society either but an industrial power.

We found many machines in the ages of the D’ni but no manufacturing. The DRC were hinting that everything was a construct of the art. It is beginning to look like at least one industrial workhouse was here. I am still trying to figure out what the D’ni could have traded with. It could be the Ahrotahn people here had become reliant on the art for transport links and new markets.

I had revisited the submarine pen and it looked even more deserted than before. It could have been a covered dock for surface ships. My reading of it as a submarine pen is coloured by our own history.

There was no mention of a military use for the pen in the notes on the officer terminal.

Before I left, I had a play with the lock on the one door I could access both sides of. That is the one on the door to the officers’ quarters. I discovered that the code entered on the inside randomised the key layout but the key press and order remained unchanged. I had been very lucky with the lock by pure chance the layout on this lock was the same as the one in the bear pit spike room, even though that actual code had been different.

I searched out the dining room and experimented with the food machines till I had a selection to take out. Of course, this shows my lack of forward thinking, because as I said I was planning on swimming out through the moon pool, and I had no means of keeping the food dry.

I felt I just had to take the risk of leaving if all else failed. I had some scraps of maintainer suit left outside. There were plenty of rocks on the beach. The tunnel had a flow of water to the outside so I was able to swim out on one breath.

It must have been the food I took with me. I left the tunnel from the moon pool, and re-entered the cave. The pool became alive with millions of small creatures that made the water look like it was boiling. Within a couple of minutes, they were gone. It was odd because they had not attacked me when I entered, and they had not bothered with the apple type fruit.

This world is rife with paradox.

Back on the outside, I headed back to the spike room. This time I wanted to enter from the outside. My fourth attempt at the door caused it to unlock. I made a note of the keys I had used to open the door in my KI. Always preferring a safe approach, I wedged the door open with a stone from the rubble pile.

I was nervous that I could lock myself out of my comfortable bedroom and the dining room. In general, things were beginning looking better.

I still had a long to-do list that included the door behind the ostrachicken nest. I wanted to figure out the light I had seen beside the monsoon hut. The one I had seen when I was looking from the barrow. There was also a need to figure out a way into the barrow.

Although notes I had read in the base hinted that this was more of a ceremonial lock than something aimed at keeping people out. There was the mysterious island in the misty lake. The thought of swimming was one to be undertaken with caution, after seeing what happened to the food in the moon pool.

I still had one path leading away from Apple Wood to explore. There were functions on my new KI I had yet to find. I still wanted to disable the spikes in the bear pit. My only source of drinking water was still the fountain in the customs shed. Ok, the dining room could provide me with food and drink. If I was going to continue my explorations on this world, I would need to carry at least water. I still only had one water bottle.

I am curious where the plague came from that attacked the D’ni. While it appears the holes in Ae’gura and the other ages are the fault of the Ahrotahn. They may as a result have become victims of their own aggressive stance. They appear to be as much in the dark as the D’ni as to the source of the plague.

Apparently, there were some problems here with D’ni trapped by the Ahrotahn isolationist stance. The Ahrotahn wanted to cut off all travel and communication to and from the tunnel. They must have dealt with these D’ni somehow. It could be the D’ni here were willing exiles. I will probably find out eventually.

I must find a better name for these people. I do know that this was the D’ni name for those who entered through the cleft. We are the Ahrotahn, not the natives of this world. I am going to have to stick to this title and strictly speaking, we are both Ahrotahn outsiders.

I am taking the existence of the Ogham script to be evidence that the people here had some link with ancient Celtic Europe. The existence of Ogham there may have been the other way around i.e. The people from here were visitors to ancient Celtic Europe.

I went to the monsoon hut and found the remains of a firebrand that I was sure I had not seen the day of the monsoon. There were scrapings in the ground that looked like they were a number in the local script. However there was only one character and it could be viewed from any direction.

The realisation that the mark had to be fresh was one of those occasions when the penny drops after the fact. It was made after the monsoon. No matter what the significance this was evidence of intelligence at work.

I was contemplating this later and realised that this may have been a message for eyes other than mine. I took a KI picture of the character before heading back to the Apple Wood later.

First I decided the barrow deserved further inspection. So I went back to the path. This time I took some of the apple fruit and at the bottom of the path I filled my drinking bottle at the stream. It was still unusually cold but it appeared clean and I figured I tasted ok. As such, it was probably ok to drink.

The barrow was still a long oval grassy mound with an ancient looking stone door at one end. It still had a strangely out of place keypad at its centre. One of the buttons matched the symbol I had pictured at the monsoon hut. When I pressed it, there was a distinct click and it showed a faint illumination.

Standing on the top of the mound I realised I could see over the vegetation. I could just make out the top of the Island and the observation post at the top of the military base.

A faint column of smoke or steam was rising from the top of the observation post.

I must have run all the way back, taking the path around the near side of Apple Wood. I stumbled down the disused rail line. It was mostly down hill till I got to the rail line and level from there the door to the spike room. The entrance was still wedged open. I ran wheezing up the stairs till I reached the control room.

There was nothing on fire. I felt a fool to discover a ventilation duct had opened and was issuing a thin column of steam. Nothing severe but the cover that had opened did have another character. I took a KI picture of this one trying to figure out if someone was trying to guide me. I lay on the floor of the observation room and slowly recovered.

When I got my breath back, I took the opportunity to check out the room below. I found part of the wall of dials and gauges swung out from the wall when I pulled a lever next to a symbol that looked like an open door.

These things are obvious when you know what they do. Behind the door was a small rest room like a small canteen with a table and a couple of utilitarian looking chairs. There was a machine against one wall that looked the same as those I had found in the dining room.

Experimentation turned me out a reasonable meal. One of the vegetables came out like okra, which I never have really liked but it was edible and I was hungry.

Further exploration found a chute, which I presumed, was for my used dishes. If it was not then I apologise to the builder or whoever was at the bottom of that chute.

Looking around I found what looked like a combined toilet and bidet. I took some relief in its use, no more large leaf hunting for me. It appeared to be fully automatic like one of those Japanese ones doing everything except play music.

Sitting contemplating the world I realised there was some writing on the back of the door. Thinking it may be some novel alien graffiti I used my new KI to translate. I was disappointed to discover it was the operating instructions for the toilet. A further instruction, nay order was to leave it as I found it. When I thought about it there must have been other such facilities around. I was darned if I could remember seeing any.

Going back to the room with the tables and chairs, I sat and reviewed my KI pictures. I was looking at the crossroad marker picture I had taken a couple of days ago. I do not know how I missed it. There was another character in the middle of the stone. I suppose at the time I had been to busy trying to figure out the meaning of the distances, but there it was as plain as anything. This new character was bang in the middle, straddling the line back pointing back to the camp.

I had one symbol from the monsoon hut one from the observation post and one from the crossroads sign. If things were to go to form, I was probably looking for another two.

There was one path leading away from the Apple Wood that I had not explored. I decided that the time had arrived.

I left via the bear trap spike room. I double-checked my stone doorstop was still in place. As I walked back along the rail line, I thought about using the rubble pile in the bear pit. It may have been possible to jam the system as it cycled if the pit was filled with stones. Or the stones may eventually wear away the spikes, it had to be worth a try. I would transfer stones into the bear pit resolving to do a few every time I passed.

I stocked up on a few apples as I passed the wood and the fourth path was not as long as the third. It meandered as if it had once followed a stream and at one point passed under a wooden arched bridge. This was very strange, as there appeared to be no paths leading onto the bridge.

The landscape on either side of the path was encroaching. It consisted of tall grasses that were alive with the chirp of what sounded like summer crickets. It could have been anything.

The path ended suddenly in a structure like a revetment one of those concrete gun emplacements the army build. The surface was well finished using smooth marble with a pattern, but I knew I had found another symbol. This one was too obvious. Not only was it marked in a contrasting stone, but also incised and surrounded by an incised circle. This was also inlaid with a contrasting stone. The whole marking was about a foot in diameter. This was not a letter from Ogham but a new symbol. However when I checked my picture of the barrow door there it was.

Below the marking against the ground, there was an opening. An arch no more than a couple of inches high, from this opening a small stream of water ran for about a couple of yards till it vanished into the ground.

Again, I took KI pictures of the markings and on the way back for good measure; I took a couple of the bridge to nowhere. It was not till I was back at the beach that I realised I had not bothered to climb the revetment and look above and beyond.

I suppose as an explorer I lack the thoroughness and record taking of my illustrious predecessors. I sometimes like to think I follow in the footsteps of great explorers like Captain Cook and Scott of the Antarctic when I am probably more like one of the hangers on going through the motions.

I considered swimming out to the island I had seen from the balcony in officer country. Then I remembered that tiny swarm of fishes that had turned the moon pool into a boiling mass the last time I used the moon pool.

They so reminded me of tiny piranha. Small as they were, I would avoid swimming in the lake for now. On later consideration, I figured that the maintainer suit should protect me but, just for now, I did not want to take the chance.

As I lay on the beach it started to get dark. I started to feel chilly, so I wore the maintainer suit for the first time since I got the upgraded KI and the head-up display functions had more detail but only when I wore the maintainer suit.

Then as it gets darker, the stars start to appear. The constellations are almost familiar. By my reckoning, I must be close to Earth, close enough to make most of the constellations familiar. You must be aware that when it comes to stellar distances, close to earth could be forty plus light years. Even if the distance were larger, the constellations would probably not be that different. The point of rotation may change but Orion would still look like Orion and Cassiopeia would still be a big W.

I fell asleep under the stars and awoke with a start trying to turn over in my sleep hindered by the suit. The panic that lasted only moments changed to awe when I looked towards the horizon. I saw a crescent of blue green planet. Wispy white clouds and brilliant white ice caps. It looked like those pictures the astronauts took of earth from the moon. It had an apparent diameter about two thirds of the moon as viewed from earth. I figured this was the cause of the tidal effect I noticed at the sea beach.

There was clearly a lot more to explore and I was definitely not in Kansas any more. Not that I had started there anyway.

As I struggled out of my patchwork maintainer suit a large pebble hit me in the small of my back. I made a mental note to do my sleep out on a softer surface next time, or at least clear the surface of stones.

Before I left the beach I took some KI pictures of that startling view.

I decided to take a walk in the dark back to the comfortable bed up in officer country without thinking I failed to take off the helmet and I left the head-up display switched on. In my semi stupor, I had engaged one of the new functions. The new readout was giving me a number reading that changed with my movements.

I have presumed that this is something like a global positioning system twelve digits in three groups of four. Longitude, latitude and elevation. I realised later that there was another group of two sets of three digits that only appeared when I was moving. These two must be direction and velocity.

By walking in a circle as near to a constant speed as I could, I worked out that the first of these additional two was a bearing. The second was speed. The bearings appeared to run from zero to three hundred and sixty. Therefore, their mathematicians had taken the same route in dividing a circle as we had.

It was either that or it was something else that machine had sucked from my head when it adapted the new KI.

As for the speed, it was anybody’s guess. Ok I had figured they had a distance approximately equal to a kilometre and the numbers were possibly comparable to kph but the time unit was an unknown. I figured my walking speed was somewhere around 4 kilometres per hour. I could probably work out a time unit. My mind was still too befuddled with sleep to work on that.

Back in officer country, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the dead. In the morning I stumbled my way to the observation post to have breakfast. I figured it was marginally closer than the dining room.

I found the code in the machine for a drink that was a cross between a coffee and a chocolate. As close to a good mocha as I have had in a long time. It is strange how the mind will remember things it wants to. By the time I was on my third mug, I had that code memorised.

As I was drinking this third mug, I went to the upper floor and decided that today was definitely a sea beach day. I had four symbols and past form said I would need a fifth to open the door. Of the areas that I knew about, the beach and the lake island were the areas left to search. I did not want to swim in the lake so the sea beach it was going to be.

Instead of descending all those stairs I made a concerted search for the exit in the control room. I did find a lever in the observation room that made a noise in the lower room. This lever returned to its previous position when I released it. I guessed it was a door release but set so that you could let someone else in or out, but not yourself.

I sorted myself a picnic for a day at the beach but I still could not find anything to carry it in the knapsack I used for the eggs had holes that would not allow the big egg to pass bet was useless when it came to anything smaller. Imagine trying to carry dried peas in a string bag. I wish I could trust a trip back to my relto. The trusted closet did have the small backpack. However, without a guaranteed return route I would rather stay here for the time being.

I checked my doorstop on the way out and used some of the time to put a few stones inside the door to use as ballast. Just in case I needed to use the moon pool again they could be handy. Then I set aside five minutes to throw some of the stones in the bear pit before I finally set off for the beach.

It turned out not to be as good a day. The weather was overcast and got darker and more ominous as I got nearer the beach. I was rained on as I crossed the dunes. It was only a light shower compared to the drenching I had suffered in the monsoon a few days earlier.

When I got to the beach, I turned right. Walking up the strand line, I was struck by the similarity between the seaweed here and back home. When I thought about it, this was a submerged plant in the same conditions.

These musings highlighted another regret. I found myself wanting to read, “The Blind Watchmaker” again in the light of this new world. This is also a place where evolution had followed another course.

The beach straggled on for ages periodically crossed by small streams. The beach eventually started to curve to my left. The dunes petered out as a cliff rose into a headland. This new headland was studded with caves. Most of them small and above my reach. One of the caves had the appearance of tool work. The sides were worked in ridges as if someone had been digging at the walls. I selected a stone from the beach and tested the walls. The stone was hard. This led me to believe this cave may have started naturally but a creative hand had expanded it.

The floor sloped upwards and I reached a point where I was beyond the reach of everything except the fiercest storm. I had to wait till my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. There, at the back of this isolated cave was a short obelisk. The stone stood about five foot high attached to the front was a journey cloth, like one of Yeesha’s the colour and shape were all too familiar. The cloth glowed in a familiar way when touched.
but the pattern was different the hand shape only had three fingers.

This was a world of puzzles. Had Yeesha been here and given these people the journeys or had she taken the knowledge from here to the cleft the cavern and the ages of the bharo?

The top of the pillar carried another mark on the same face as the journey cloth. Above this mark was carved with sharp edges crisp and clean as if it had been etched by laser. It took a few attempts to get a clear KI picture. The mark was sharp and clear to the touch but shallow as the obelisk was uniform in colour. The etching had little contrast and only showed when I took the picture at an extreme angle.

Armed with my fifth keypad symbol I headed back. As I wandered, the day brightened. I walked on the firm sand of the beach wondering if I would find a footprint like Robinson Crusoe. But all I saw were strangely familiar shells only the colours were wrong. Things like razor shells with a blue black finish, and other unfamiliar ones were shaped like six pointed starfish with a hole in the middle. Quite often they were broken but occasionally I would find one complete. This world had a beautiful complexity of forms.

As I sat and ate my picnic, I contemplated this world and its strange beauty. It reminded me of some time I had spent in the tropics. There, things had been different in many ways but familiar on a subtle level. In that, all grass was grass like and trees were trees, woody stems with branches and leaves.

There was a pleasant passing thought that my income tax return would be lying unfilled on the doormat at home. There will be an indecently high mountain of junk mail and unopened demands. There was a bright side to my isolation. The demands of our industrial modern world were literally light years away. That second planet proved it. I had to be on another world orbiting another sun.

If I stayed here, money bills and income tax were all things of the past. I had a desire for company, but writing these journals was an escape. I missed listening to music but the songs were still in my head. I lay back on the coral sand and drifted into a peaceful sleep. I awoke some time later covered in sand with my skin tingling in those places where I had been exposed to the sun.

Classic sunburn. As I walked back to the base, I laughed at my own stupidity. Half my face and one arm became painful as the sun damage became more apparent. There was a piece of the modern world I could do with. A soothing after sun cream, or a sun block that could have prevented the damage in the first place.

When I reached the apple wood, I gathered some of the over ripe fruit and spread some of the gel on my arm and face. It was cooling and took away the painful part. I was all too aware of the strong antiseptic smell.

I was having difficulty in figuring out how it was that I had managed to sunburn the left side of my face but my right arm. I eventually concluded I must have slept with my right arm over that side of my face.
I stayed in bed nearly two days. I felt lousy. The sun had not felt that warm but you never know what the invisible parts of the spectrum are doing.

I did get up from time to time, but only for the necessities. My hat is not a necessity in bed. As long as I remain here when I am outside in daylight, I shall be wearing it.

The next time I went to the mirror room, I was breaking in a new nose. The old one was peeling away sunburnt and crispy, yet another remainder that my face had survived. I looked reasonable once I had trimmed my beard.

My right arm did have an intolerable itch. I used the bottle of antiseptic juice I found in the customs shed. While I was there, I noticed some of the doors were locked. I was beginning to wonder if my memory was playing tricks. I was almost certain they were all open previously.

The water fountain had stopped flowing. I panicked till I operated the handle again. It re-started and I was unable to switch it off again.

When the gel peeled off, I had a better suntan on my right arm than my left but I had had that happen before. The previous time it had been the left arm from driving in the tropics with my arm on the open window.

As soon as I felt well enough I went up to the barrow. It took a number of attempts but eventually the door not so much opened, as changed state. It shimmered and when I touched the surface, my hand passed through. I stepped through and as soon as I was clear of the inside, a buzzing noise I had been almost unaware of, stopped. The door was as solid as it had been before. It was very dark. I raised my KI to use the camera function and as I did I must have moved in range of some sensor. The lights came on. Startled, I stepped back and they went out again. It is sometimes strange the things that make you laugh and it took a while for me to regain my composure.

The interior of the barrow was a long narrow corridor with niche alcoves running down either side. Each niche had a folding chair and a terminal screen, which was set in a slide so you could use it standing or sitting. The screens were counterbalanced in some way. They were easy to move but remained steadily in place once you let go.

About ten yards down the central passage was a ladder which led up to a floor above and down into a basement. I considered the up as the most unusual. On my earlier walkabout I had stood on top of this mound almost directly above this point and had seen no sign of this ladder.

Things were even stranger when I climbed the ladder. I passed through a large round chamber about the same size as the hall of kings in Ae’gura. This room was full of terminals and panels with a multitude of dials and switches. Along one side was a huge electronic map with some sections illuminated. A row of desks faced this map as if locations for controllers.

Each desk had its own screen and control pad and a large track ball device. Each track ball was illuminated with its own colour and appeared to move a circle and cross symbol on the screen like a gun target. A colour matched the track ball. The whole room reminded me of a rail system control room.

At the back of the room, on a raised platform, was a large seat. On the seat was a helmet connected to a number of cables. A gauntlet was attached to either armrest. When I sat in the seat and wore the helmet nothing appeared to happen till, I lowered the visor. The map opposite appeared in three dimensions. As I put my hands into the gauntlets I was able to turn the map which was a three dimensional wire frame model. A model consisting of two spheres with about ten lines joining the two. If this was a model of a communications system, it could well be a network that encompassed two worlds.

The aspect that I found most disturbing about this room was that logic should place it on top of the barrow. The ladder continued up another floor where the weirdness did not cease. As I stepped from the ladder, the floor I was standing on shimmered. The floor then disappeared leaving me floating about ten feet above the barrow. About twenty foot away in all directions was a grid walkway with a metal handrail. This new location gave a commanding view of the environment I had come to. The Sea Beach and the Lake were still in blind spots and some of the features were too far to make out the details.

Looking back, the top of the ladder could be seen in the middle of the room. Floating in mid air, I was able to walk on the intervening space. I could hear my footsteps on a surface I could not see. I could also see the sun in the sky but it appeared to be hazy as if it were passing through tinted glass. As I grabbed the ladder the floor became opaque again.

I descended the ladder. I passed down through the control room to the original passage and used the ladder to go down to the lower floor the one below the entrance corridor where there was a room with four exits. One exit on each wall. Through each exit was a room almost identical to the restroom below the observation post at the top of the military base.

In one room, there was a toilet. In the second, there was a terminal like the one I had found in officer country. In the third, the door in the back wall led to a small room with a single bunk bed. In the last, the strangest of all, the back room was full of shelving filled with junk.

A collection of the items you would not believe. All of them were objects that had been littered around the age’s; cones, barriers, beacon lights, fire marbles, and a beach ball, I also found a small collapsing grapple with a knotted rope attached that had to be worth taking. There was what looked like an undamaged maintainer suit but made of new lighter materials and with colours and stripes like a modern set of team motorbike leathers.

There was a collection of books in all kinds of scripts. Not just the new local Ogham. One was cuneiform. One looked almost like old English but the words were gibberish. Several appeared to be a pictographic language like Chinese and at least one that looked like Cyrillic.

We are not talking about a small room here. There were several of each item. The room was easily twice the size of the platform on my relto with shelves three tiers high.

I went back to the exit intending to examine the barrow from the outside again but the door was firm. Baffled, I decided examining as much of this facility as I could was my next best bet.

I tried the terminals beside the entrance. They were training stations for the new KI. These stations were a wealth of information on new functions. One function, /boat and /noboat, this new function required a boat device. Once I knew what I was looking for I found one in the junk room I was particularly interested in. When you sit waist deep in water and use the function you get a functional kayak complete with paddle. With this new ability, exploring the island out in the lake became a distinct possibility.

Equipment acquired to go with the commands would be stored digitally in the key and produced at will using the associated command like a solid hologram. The equipment had to be made from special materials but this digital encoding meant you could carry things like this boat or a maintainer suit inside your KI.

This online tutor went into detail about safe places to use a new command /jump but then did not detail what it did and it also specified how the device would detect your being embedded and account for it. It also mentioned how the cavern had been structurally altered by the weapon.

It told how some surfaces had become semi permeable allowing you to appear to be passing through the surface. In reality, your KI created a field that allowed you and the material to co exist subtly out of phase. They also explained that you should exercise caution as a number of agents had been killed during the commissioning.

The guys at the DRC had been correct. The KI on the back of the ones they had found were mark three devices and the term KI was the device the Ahrotahn had developed with the maintainers. The device I was wearing was a mark twelve. I discovered I should not have put my mark three into the machine without entering a code word first.

What was really frustrating was they did not say what the code word was. The central control matrix (apparently the floating obelisk type thing in the main base) held master copies of each language encountered.

The first time a user with a new language was encountered; the machine would scan the user and extract from that new user a language reference set. This sometimes would cause the user to black out and leave the client, as they called them, with a slight headache. This was only the case for the first of any particular language. Subsequent scans with the same language would only feel a tingle as the device recorded personal variations.

The machine must have possessed some local artificial intelligence because I was apologised to for any discomfort I had suffered as a result of this process.

I was given a new command /door which would link me to a point place me outside the door to this facility provided I was within range and if I wished to enter again I should go to the top of the mound and use /observation this should place me on the observation deck. The code for the door I had collected in the environment would no longer work for me and would change for any new user.

Their name for a KI was unpronounceable and I have decided for now to keep calling it a KI. It is a name with which we have all become familiar. /mound at any of the workstations will put you on top of the mound. /observation puts you on the observation deck. The only way into the control room is via the ladder that becomes invisible to you once you step away from it. These new commands only work while you are beside the mound.

The GPS location codes were just that. You would find hot spots in the environment where the codes change colour and glow red on your KI. At these locations, you could use /spawnlog to log them as hot spots. Once logged you could assign them a four letter name by entering /spawnname xxx-xxx-xxx abcd where the x characters were the reference numbers and abcd was a four letter name of your own choosing. Thereafter you could use /spawn abcd or whatever four letter name you have chosen to get to that location. Provided you were within range. But you had to get there first.

There were agents of the Ahrotahn in the DRC. They had helped develop the KI but had withheld some improvements. There were limitations. They could only modify the mark threes as there was no way to get a newer machine to the cavern or the ages. The Ahrotahn in D’ni were locked into a situation where they could modify and improve the KI. But at its heart, it would always be the KI they had developed with the maintainers guild.

One new function was /sink. This would allow you to pass down through a surface of suitable permeability. The increment was about two feet.

I did some experimenting with the new commands getting in and out of the facility. I practiced till it got dark. Then I used the bunk bed in the rest room and bedded down for the night.

I will break off at this point and send another message as soon as I have a decent amount. Probably when I get bored playing with my new Mk12 KI

Walker

Walkers third document

2008-01-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

This is the next document of Walkers I have been able to trace I am not accessing R'Lindas KI he found another method of transmition which has been useful for me. I am going to keep posting them here. It is definitely safer than having loads of people looking at them in the cavern.

R'Linda

Ok, my letters have had no reply but I still have them as Journal entries. At least that part of my KI appeared to be working.

I am sending this part as well but I think I may have another method that may be better at reaching a number of explorers.

I am assuming your account with the KI system is still receiving these but that as you are not in they (my messages) are falling upon deaf ears.

I am going to continue sending to this address but I will attempt to get the attention of someone who can redirect messages from the KI system.

In my last letter, I told you about the viewer I found here. The viewer that appears to be looking at Ae'gura. The next room was even more enlightening.

I found a machine similar to the machine that issues the KI's in Ghareseen. When I say similar it looks like they may have acquired a machine and added loads of stuff and I See this one has at least provided me with my Rosetta stone although in a very strange and unusual way.

As you may have realised by now I am of a curious nature but reasonably cautious. I like to think I do not take frivolous chances. However, this time I was probably the complete idiot.

I approached the machine and placed my hand with KI in the aperture. There was a flash and I woke up some time later lying on the floor with a blinding headache. I checked myself over and could find no injuries.

Did I mention that this KI machine had a screen? Well it did and was now showing the content of my former KI, which now looked dead. It was as if this machine had sucked the content out of the KI. Now this is where the real incaution comes to roost. I removed my KI and put my hand in again.

Ok, so, I am an idiot but it paid off in droves. I was issued with what was a new KI. It appeared to have some extra screens. What they did I could not tell? It did project into my viewing field with a head up display the same way my old KI used to.

One of the options was a head up display keypad that had Ogham characters. I do not know if they are really Ogham but they look the same. I input words I find in this environment and they come up in English. I do not know if the English was taken from the old KI or from me. I suspect me and that is why I had the headache.

I have a translation matrix and it appears to have the same working functionality of my old KI. As for new features, I dare say I will experiment when I am outside this building. I just do not want to be found as a dead body having tried some new function plastered as some sort of new avant-garde wall or ceiling effect.

I returned to the viewing room and started translating some of the labels on the machine.

It looks like I can make simple marks on the walls of Ae'gura. Nothing extravagant but at least I may be able to do something to catch someone's attention.

That may enable me to get a simple message out which will then get someone to open your mail even if you don't.

This new KI does show you still as my one and only buddy so I am hoping that these journal entries are still getting through.

I found another room with a viewer and was able to download the pictures from my new KI onto it. I could also make it zoom in and out, pan, and clip.

When l started with a blank screen, I was able to pan around till I was showing a view of the room I was standing in including myself like a mirror. This mirror view reversed left and right. Do not ask why or how. I do not understand it myself.

I was really shocked by my appearance. My clothes were clean but my hair and my beard was a mess. My multi-tool had a blade but without soap, I was not going to attempt a shave. I was able to trim my beard and moustache with the scissors.

It was not easy. The left right reversal of the image meant that I nearly removed my top lip and a lobe of my ear. It was like one of those tricks where you try to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. I started laughing and eventually broke down feeling so alone and isolated.

I took my own picture after I tidied myself up and I will try and send that through as well.

I went back to the double doors at the end I felt was below my point of entry into this world. The doors did not have a keypad and no push plate. They had every appearance of automatic doors.

A sign above translated as one word “Exit” but they remained stubbornly closed.

I resolved to at least get to know this facility thoroughly and I started to systematically search every room with an open door. The plates above the doors were letters and not numbers. They appeared to be a sequence. Almost as if this society had used the letters of their alphabet to indicate sequence the same way, we use letters to indicate the columns in a spreadsheet.

I started taking a note of every room I checked and entered. I used the word empty against all those that I found in that way. I also recorded those doors I found locked with a keypad. There was no significance in this other than to give me the satisfaction that I had looked everywhere and to give me something to do.

I found several rooms with equipment I did not recognise. One huge room had a black obsidian base with a white glowing framework. The framework had the same arrangement as buckminster fullerene (carbon60). Floating, spinning above it, and inside the framework there was a blue opalescent dodecagon rotating in the opposite direction.

I was not sure if this was a functional piece of equipment or just a piece of art. It did have a strange beauty like the floating obelisk in Eder Kemo.

The whole thing was inside a room with walls of solid stone. The room had a door through which it would have been impossible to pass the obsidian base or the object floating above it.

It was clear the people who had created this environment were artists with extraordinary control of their physical world. Even if this was an illusion, it appeared solid without a hint of projection. I approached it but was pushed back, unable to get near enough to touch it.

In another room, there was row upon row of desks. Each desk had a blank screen. The desks had no keypads. Almost like an unfinished call centre. Each screen had a seat and side panels making it like a small terminal.

I sat at one and my new KI activated the screen illuminated showing the moon pool I had used to enter. It was clearly the same pool because some of the fruit was still floating on the surface.

Everywhere I looked, I found more questions and no answers. In my travels, I came back to the room with the tubes. I spent some time, actually a lot of time, adjusting them so that all the floats were sitting between the two lines on each tube. This was a labour of love because it appeared some were affecting others. It took me an age to figure out the pattern.

When I left this room, the corridors seemed brighter. This may have just been because I had spent a while in this darker room with its eerie glow.

Eventually, I found myself back at the mysterious locked exit doors, which now opened automatically. Beyond was a short staircase downwards between two staircases that climbed either side. I must assume that my time in the tube room had restored power to the facility and some of the doors that had been closed to me would now let me pass.

I descended the stairs and entered another room through a quite ordinary double door. In the middle of this room was what was clearly a roughly installed piece of equipment. It was a jury rig of pipes and cables and consisted of a series of pistons with metal shafts on top, which pierced the roof of the room.

When the pistons shuddered into action, I realised this was the mechanism that raised and lowered the spikes in the bear pit. At the far end of the room was the inside of the set of doors I had found below the rail tracks. I was in a room that lay below the linking point where I entered from D'ni.

I considered disconnecting all the connections to the device. However, what if my actions left all the bars in the upper position? Anyone linking in from Ae'gura would materialise skewered on a rack of metal bars. I considered it prudent to leave them connected for now.

On the back of the exit doors was another keypad. This one had five illuminated buttons. This looked like it could well be the code to open the door. Rather than change anything I tried to take a KI picture. It was far too faint to see clearly. I tried to remember the pattern made by the faintly illuminated squares.

Returning to the door I had come in through, I climbed the stairs that had been on the left as I had come through the automatic doors. These spiralled upwards and outwards away from the centreline of the underground tunnels. Eventually I emerged into a room encrusted with lights and control dials like the array you would find in an old power station. In the middle of the room was a double ladder leading upwards. This I believed was the observation tower at the top of the hill. Above my customs house. From the windows, I could see Apple Wood almost to its furthest edge and I could quite clearly make out the railway line and embankment.

My view towards the lake was obscured by tree growth. Like wise the view to the rear. The entrance I had climbed to in my earliest days on this world must be concealed behind some of the equipment in the room below.

I was sure that building was smaller but the view I am getting is almost certainly that position. I went back down to the automatic doors and this time used the stairs to the right.

Again, these climbed outwards and ended in a long curving passageway with ten locked doors on the left. At the end the passage, you turned to the left and then curved back. It was almost a duplicate of the curve of previous passage making a strip of rooms in between the two corridors.

The doorways were still on my left. These looked like they were corresponding doors to those I had discovered in the first part of this passage. To the right was a panoramic view of the lake. A low balcony wall covered in shrubbery had obscured its outline from the beach.

The view over the mist, which still shrouded the water, revealed some sort of offshore island just poking above the mist. A distant shoreline could just be made out with what looked like buildings. It was hard to make out the details through the mist.

Each of the doors had a large picture window beside it. All but one looked like they were frosted glass.

The one that was clear had some sort of blind arrangement. By looking at an angle, I was able to view a mirror, which looked onto the back of the door. I could see the illuminated panel almost identical to the one I had found in the bear pit spike room.

The view was not totally clear. I was unable to make out the writing on the buttons. I was able to distinguish the pattern of six illuminated. I would have to reverse the pattern to compensate for looking in a mirror and work out the order in which to push the buttons.

It was this point that something clicked in my subconscious. I examined the dark KI picture I had taken of that door. I could just make out that the blank was not in the top left corner.

Some of the markings in my KI picture were unclear. I was going back to take another picture.

As I approached the end of the balcony there was a point where you could see the cliff face beyond. I noticed that there were some other balconies further along. They were in tiers down a further two floors.

The undergrowth attached to the wall looked strong enough to take my weight. I climbed over and worked my way down and along. The planting did not extend to the balcony level with my starting point but I was able to get to the one on the floor below.

The new trio of balconies were cut into the cliff face that had been above and beyond the beach cave.

The climb on to the balcony was easy. I found myself on a wider path than the original. The doors here were double and not locked. The rooms were like barracks with rows of bunk beds. This looked like conscript country and I assumed the previous had been officer accommodation.

At the end of the balcony, there was another staircase. It looked like it was built to accommodate large numbers of people. It was constructed like a conventional stair well but with the space in the middle only inches wide.

At the top, it opened out into a large open space surrounded by smooth high wall. Trees could be seen growing beyond. There appeared to be nothing in this area bar some markings that looked like they could have been for a team game.

Back downstairs; I eventually came to a short corridor, serviced by two sets of double automatic doors.

When the first set of these doors opened for me, I realised I was at one set of the double doors I had found in my first search of the labyrinth.

I eventually figured out I was at one of the upper pair. I worked my way back to the lower, which now also opened for me.

I was in a large covered space that looked like a submarine pen complete with gantries, hoists and cranes for loading equipment.

I was on a balcony with a number of ladders. The far end was closed with what looked like a massive and very closed sliding door.

I made my way back up to the bear pit spike lifting room to try and get a clearer picture of the code pad on the door. I wedged open the doors I had used and angled myself so my shadow did not fall on the pad I then used my new KI to take the picture. With that project achieved, I made my way back to officer country.

After some fiddling about, I was able to open the door and it was worth it. A real bed! It was a little short for me but it was better than my previous best bed, which had been the furs on a bench in the customs shed.

The room had another of the desk terminals. This one was different. When I sat at the desk, a cavity lit up and shone a laser type beam onto my new KI. The terminal started displaying text in English.

There was a lot of reading including a potted history of this place and its peoples. I was not able to gather what they called themselves. The D’ni considered them “Ahrotahn” or outsiders. For now this is the only name, I have.

These people were traders and farmers. This place was some sort of shipping place where goods were exported to Ae'gura. Apparently, there were other similar sites where links in tunnels connected to other D’ni ages. I wondered if these tunnels were the same, tunnels that Yeesha had somehow modified to establish the Bharo cave links.

Tunnels disused would have existing links and Yeesha was skilled enough in the art to modify these links. As part of this trade, the D’ni provided links to join all of the Ahrotahn sites.

It also became clear that the people of this world were afraid that the plague that had so devastated Ae'gura and the cavern could spread to their world. So fearful, they had built various traps and fail safes into their connections.

They had started by establishing this military base. Eventually they had realised that some D’ni were capable of modifying this link. Some D’ni thought the Ahrotahn from here could be responsible for the plague.

The Ahrotahn decided to try and destroy the connection in Ae'gura. They developed a weapon that would destabilise the physical structure of the cavern. This site was chosen as the launch point. Some of their people volunteered to stay in Ae'gura to monitor the effectiveness of the weapon. Apparently, they could get clandestine messages out using a device with a name I did not recognise. A description of its use established that this was what we have come to call a KI.

Ahrotahn military needed a way of communicating with agents in Ae’gura. This base was modified to pass these secret messages into Ae'gura. Apparently, some of the equipment can subtly change materials in Ae’gura. The weapon lacked finesse the first time it was used and the damage to the city and the cavern was random.

Later modifications to the weapon allowed subtler strikes to be made against other ages of the D’ni. Eventually these attacks started to feed back through the link. The Ahrotahn started to see affects in the areas around the trade connections.

It looks as if the places you fall through the floor in the ages and worlds of the D’ni are the result of the Ahrotahn weapons de-stabilising the physical structure of the world surrounding the link. In much the same way that fallout and nuclear radiation became a problem around the sites of nuclear detonations in our world.

The Ahrotahn have withdrawn from their bases and surrounded them with exclusion zones.

There was also mention of another local site. I believe might have been the barrow construction. The one I found at the end of the second Apple wood path.

This site had a device that could mechanically produce small temporary linking books that would work like return tickets. If I could find a way into this location, I could make linking books that would allow me to travel to my relto. I would be able to return here without risking a pointed experience.

I just have to go now. I am going to get my best and happiest sleep since I arrived here.

Walker

I’ve figured that Walker must have left Ae’gura before the trouble with the Bahro I don’t know if he is right about Yeesha and modification of links but it is clear he has found one of the places that supplied the D’ni with food and explained some of the damage in Ae’gura that’s not directly attributable to the fall.

It also sounds like there is another group in the city that’s not directly allied to either the DRC or Yeesha and they have knowledge of the KI and it’s operation.

I have always wondered how the DRC figured out how the KI worked if there was another group working in the cavern maybe they have infiltrated the DRC.

Gibson

Walkers second letter

2008-01-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

On the end of Walkers first letter there were some cryptic clues I did not publish. Those clues eventually enabled me to recover his second letter I’ve posted the second letter here.

R’Linda Please pass this on.

Well, the weight belt worked. At least in the pool it did but I need to find something to tie it to. The tunnel under the water is like a moon pool with nothing to climb out on. The weight belt will keep me under. Once I remove the belt, the maintainer suit buoyancy will take me to the top. However the belt will be left on the bottom. I always prefer to be in a fail-safe situation. If I bob up inside all well and good. If there is no other exit and nothing to make another weight belt inside I will be stuck there. Not a prospect I relish.

My desire to explore this new place has stopped me using my relto as an escape route as it would be one way. My fear of the bear pit stops me using my original method of getting here.

I have dumped my prototype belt with the furs for now, and decided to investigate the second track that leads away from Apple Wood. I think I mentioned that I was numbering them in my last letter I can’t remember if I mentioned that I was going to number them clockwise.

If I did, I will apologise for repeating it here. I am treating the bear pit rail line as path zero. I have already said trail one leads to the dunes and a sea beach. The second trail follows the seaward side of the low ridge that obscures the Apple Wood when looking from the sand dunes. It is separated from the dunes by a marsh fed with water by a small stream that appears to be the run off from this low ridge.

The stream defines the ridge side of the path and crosses the bottom as a jumpable stream provided you use the stepping-stone in the middle. You do not need to; however, I preferred to keep my feet dry.

The water in this stream felt unusually cold almost as if it was run out from a heat exchanger. Even the sea and the rain are warm by comparison. The lake is positively balmy even though I thought it cool at first. That may explain the mist that always seems to obscure any opportunity to view any distance offshore.

Ok back to my description of the second path. It rises slowly and at one point you can see the back of the hut where I dried out after the monsoon.

This path is edged by a variety of undergrowth and I was aware of a number of small and unseen animals scurrying off as I approached.

I walked for ages and the path meandered but never much from a direct and straight path. It was almost like it had originally been a constructed path that had fallen into disuse and then been reclaimed by nature. I turned right at the top after walking for some time and entered a clearing with an elongated barrow like an ancient burial mound.

There was an entry stone at one end that looked as if it had been there two thousand years. This was clearly an artifice because at its centre was another keypad just like the others. The function appeared the same and a few attempts only bought on frustration.

Unlike the other path, this one had no clear junctions so I lay on top of the barrow and enjoyed the warmth.

It was getting dark as I returned. As I passed the point where I could see my monsoon hut I glimpsed what looked like a firebrand torch. It winked out quickly as if it had passed behind the hut. I could not be sure and as darkness continued to fall, I stumbled through the darkness. I decided I would investigate the hut the next day and would concentrate on getting back to the customs shed, as this was the nearest shelter. It started raining again but it was a lot lighter than the monsoon.

I was glad I did for I discovered that the customs shed had some automatic lighting.
I was damp and cold from the light shower and I decided to bring my bedding (the animal skins) from the cave up to the shed and sleep up here. I had already gathered most of my salvage into one of the back rooms in the customs shed.

One of the rooms had a low bench that made an adequate bed. The lights in this room were out and it was comfortably dark for sleeping. The bench kept me off the floor. I awoke during the night and in the dark stumbled to the drinking fountain only to hear something scrabble away in the darkness. It sounded like a small dog skidding and scrambling on the tiled floor.

The creature, what ever it was, had been as startled as I. It had vanished by the time I reached the illuminated part of the building and the drinking fountain.

I spent the rest of the night mistaking the noise of the fountain for the return of the creature. I have yet to find out what it was I had startled in the night.

The more time I spend here the more I realise this is not one of the ages created by the D’ni it feels different more natural and less constructed. I also get a definite feeling it is bigger.

The next morning I went back to the rail platform in Apple Wood and tried to retrieve some more eggs, but I could not get close to the nest. The resident Ostrachicken was lunging at me. I went back to the keypad and tried all the combinations of the five known keys. No luck. I then started random combinations of the remaining keys. At one point, I accidentally finished on what I considered the highest of the original set and was rewarded with a mashing of timber and a startled bird.

I went back and counted the eggs. There was one more than last time. I removed two but a couple were making scraping noises. I guessed these must be near hatching. Another two had slightly lighter shells so I figured these were the most recent.

The shells were reasonably rugged so I put them in a backpack I had recovered from one of the bear pit victims. It was very old but appeared to be fairly strong. I could not use it for a lot but it did for two of the eggs and the maintainer suit I was carrying.

I decided to make the most of the missing bird. I went beyond and found some tracks that went through some clamshell doors. The doors were like the bharo cave doors but bigger. A tree was jammed in the gap and I was able to see the rails branch in two directions and disappear into the gloom. The gap was wide enough to look through but just a little to tight for me to squeeze past.

As I returned one of the young birds had hatched and was eating some of its own shell. I noted a beak strong enough to handle those shells was not to be tangled with.

As I stayed and watched I realised the shell actually was breaking a lot easier than I had encountered. Then I remembered some creatures absorb some of the shell material chemically. The minerals are used in the body and the shell weakening to assist in hatching.

When the chick was finished it just walked away it had not eaten all of the shell. Clearly, this animal was devoid of parental intervention. The chick wandered off into the wood and pecked at anything it found on the way. It was a quick learner when it came to the blackened variety of fruit and I last saw it scraping of the blue gunk on branches as it foraged its way into deeper cover.

I decided to leave opening the doors for now theorising that at some point in the future I would have to scare big bird yet again. This keypad would use the code that was the variation on my first five digits. When I checked the marks I had made on the platform were beginning to fade. I figured this was probably due to the monsoon.

I re-scratched the figures hoping they would last till either I remembered them or I was able to find a better way to record them.

I also underlined the one that had been significant in the closing sequence. I saw the parent bird returning so I headed back to the lakeside beach planning on an afternoon collecting driftwood and making a new fire.

Once I had my fire lit, I transplanted it into the cave figuring at least it would not fall victim to another monsoon. The time spent beachcombing did reveal a certain lack of manufactured goods. There was no rope, no painted timber, and no plastics. There was lots of branches and bleached timber. There was no tide here but there was a higher watermark as if this was not the fullest the lake had been.

It was at this point I realised the sea beach had been at a low water mark with a strand line marking the normal high tide. I was on a planet with a moon. I had not seen yet but it had a moon. You have no idea how significant I found this. D’ni ages were limited in scope by comparison. This was a world. A real world. The possibility that it was a true alien world was reinforced by the plants and animals I had encountered.

The D’ni ages had small concentrated colonies of animals in close-knit communities that could be self-sustaining. Here there were few visible animals. The ages were like safari parks. This was more like the real world. Animals few and far between. Animals who would have a lot of space to spread out.

I ran, danced, tumbled, and then cried for the want of someone to tell. Both saddened and elated I explored the opposite end of the lake beach to the cave. Eventually it degenerated to large pebbles and a new stretch of woodland that grew right down to the waters edge. This precluded further travel in that direction. Before I came to this far edge, I discovered a bed of fresh water mussels, almost hand size with a bronze line around the edge very like green lip mussels I had eaten in New Zealand. I decided to name them bronze lipped mussels. How’s that for inventive?

They tasted awful without seasoning, but at least it was another protein source. I resolved to go to the sea beach and boil some sea water to get salt. That was going to be a big job. I would need to be there for at least a day and that would mean I would need to carry more fresh drinking water. I would also need a boiling pan but that could be another inventive use for a maintainer helmet. I resolved to re-examine the mystery bottles in the customs shed.

I also had this bright idea where I took my weight belt into the moon pool and a handful of extra stones. When I got to the far end I could float to the surface I could then throw these extra stones onto the ledge where I could use them if I needed to return.

My plan was to drop the stones from my weight belt in the bottom of the moon pool and fill up with the ones on the ledge to come back.

It did seem to be an elegant plan. Only one fly in this pristine ointment. When I got to the bottom of the moon pool with my arms full of stones I had spare weight once I threw my stones I would not be able to sink and I was unable to float to the surface carrying the extra stones. Ho hum, back to the drawing board.

On the way back to the cave, I think I saw a fish. It was fish sort of shape and fish dinner sort of size, and a silvery fish sort of colour. I was only one long pointy stick away from a fish dinner sort of taste. I am probably lucky it may have been the local version of blowfish, and I did not want fugu poisoning.

You always come back to the old saying though if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is fairly safe to assume it's a duck. I was just applying the same idea to a fish. The concept of linked ages had changed a lot on that front in that it could look like a duck quack like a duck but have fangs like a snake.

When I think about it I could have killed myself with anything I have eaten so far heaven knows what toxins could be in the bronze lipped mussels . There again, if I had not eaten I would have probably been dying of hunger by now.

Back at the customs shed I checked the bottles by smell and visual appearance, the first one of them did look suspiciously like the blue fluid from the black apples, but I was curious how it had not set. It did carry the same antiseptic smell. The bottle had a blue label with a word in the local script. I smeared some on my hand and it started to gel. I figured some additive prevented it setting till it was applied or at least exposed to the air.

Another bottle smelled like vinegar but it could have just been wine that had gone off. One was definitely some sort of alcohol as it smelled reminiscent of surgical spirit. I will need to take it to my fire to see if it burns with a clear blue flame. That’s probably the best test I can do.

To my amazement the water in the drinking fountain was still flowing. It has been running for days now. I suppose I should not be too surprised. Water on tap is hardly an unfamiliar idea. This world looks so deserted and abandoned. I took the opportunity to refill my drinking bottle again.

I took some time to examine the wall posters. I could not find anything I found some script that looked like the D’ni language it was similar the sort of differences you find between printed and hand written letters. Most of the posters were in this new Ogham style script. I have a theory that may bear some scrutiny.

If anyone gets these letters and eventually follows me here, please bring as much information on Ogham as you can. I suspect that a long time ago there was a second cleft that had its opening in Europe. Specifically Eire and that Ogham either entered this world there or the language here surfaced there.

I have seen lots of Ogham script on standing stones and the resemblance is uncanny. The problem is my familiarity with the language structure.

Time for me to think about the third path leading away from Apple wood. I rested so that I would be ready for the next morning. I had noticed that day length felt natural. Something had affected my watch when I linked here. The readout was gibberish, but I had retrieved a mechanical watch from the big guy at the bear pit.

It had a bracelet fitting and I hadn’t figured out how to adjust the strap so I was carrying it in my pocket. It was one of those watches with a motion activated winder and in my pocket it was not winding. It did have a manual winder but I kept forgetting to wind it I should really set aside some time to sort out the bracelet so I can wear it.

I am a victim of the battery watch syndrome. I think it will take time for me to get used to all the new ways of doing things.

Next morning I set off early to explore the third path. After a while, I noticed a marker like a milestone at the side of the path. A little further on another. When I found a third milestone I was intrigued. They seemed to be regularly spaced. I back tracked counting my paces. I figured I had nothing better to do. It came to 1024 paces both times in both directions. It was 1024 again to the next marker. Now 1024 is a natural hexadecimal round number. Either that or the natural pace of the measurer was slightly longer than mine and he or she was taking a thousand paces. Another 1024 paces and there was no marker.

I started to become despondent till I found it at the bottom of a small bank where it had rolled after coming loose. A small stream had run across the path at this point and undercut the stone.

The markings on the stone consisted of three lines of text; the top line was a single character from the door keypads. The second line was what looked like a single Ogham word. The bottom line was almost familiar. As if some crude hand unfamiliar with the language, had carved the D’ni characters for D’ni. It was not a lot but I believed I had the first part of my Rosetta stone.

It was probable that the top figures were numbers counting off distance. The second could be local word for the D’ni. The third line in all probability was the same word for the benefit of someone who only understood D’ni.

I continued following the path. After two more markers I came to what I can only describe as a crossroads. Beside this junction was a large flat stone on three pillars. It stood like an oversize milking stool, about three feet high. The top stone was slightly domed and had pointers with arrow heads. The one pointing back the way I had come had the now familiar indication but on this stone it was crossed through with what looked like red wax.

On closer examination, it was a paint of some kind. The other three pointers only had number characters and the Ogham style script. The numbers left and right looked like double digits and the one that continued in my current direction looked like three digits.

I decided if these were as I surmised, hex numbers, the locations they indicated were beyond a day’s exploration so I back tracked. On the way back I took lots of pictures of the stones with my KI the picture function appears unharmed.

When I arrived at the wood, I went to the station and checked the keypad. The feeling these were numbers was re-enforced but the layout was unusual. I was taking the blank in the top left as zero. Across the top they read as zero, one, two, three with four below three and five below two. It was possible that the layout was one I had heard about before. It was called boustrophedon. Boustrophedon is an ancient Greek word meaning ‘ploughed’ field (it is strange the things you pick up in the print industry). The top line runs left to right. Second right to left. The third left to right again. This could be important later on. I decided to take a KI picture of the keypad for reference.

I took a KI photo of the numbers I scratched on the platform I really cannot figure out why I did not think of doing that earlier.

I went back to the bear pit and went around taking KI pictures of the various door pads. I was sitting analysing the pictures beside the bear pit when the spikes retracted completely. The mechanism formed the cage and then went back to the original trap formation I had found them in. I am not sure if this was a normal cycle that was set to trigger on a regular basis or if it was something I had set up when I tinkered with the control panel. I know it surprised me so much it nearly sent me on a large leaf hunt.

I just had to get into the room below. I had a definite feeling there were answers in the cave room at the end of the lakeside beach. I went back to the customs shed and started searching the offices again. The building and rooms had the feel of an organised withdrawal. As if everything had been systematically removed and the only things left were scraps that could not be of use anywhere else. I resolved to find a solution to my cave problem in the morning.

I awoke early, caught the sunrise, and noticed for the first time the noise from an abundance of small bird like creatures, which were flying in the Apple Wood. I had never been here as early and the shrill twittering sounded like a dawn chorus. I was able to see them but I was never able to get a good view. I tried several times to take a picture with my KI but they were far too quick.

After some searching, I eventually found a stemmed plant that was similar to willow but not quite as rigid. I soaked this at the lakeside and pounded it between two hand-sized pebbles. This eventually reduced it to fibres which I platted into a coarse rope that had some, if limited, flexibility.

I put on my salvaged maintainer suit, donned my weight belt and tied the new rope to the belt it had to be now. The time had arrived to explore the far end of the moon pool. I did not know how long I would be staying in this new area so I took with me a sealed bottle of water the bottle of blue fluid and some of the ripe and under-ripe fruit and plunged into the pool.

The passageway to the moon poolside was just to long for me to swim without air. The maintainer suit was water tight but the normal air recycling appeared to be deficient. With the additional weight from the stones I was able to walk through. Once at the bottom of the pool, I released the fruit. This floated to the surface, taking hold of my carefully hand made rope I untied the weight belt. As the belt dropped to the bottom of the moon pool, I bobbed to the surface only to find I had dropped the carefully made rope and I was now inside without my means of escape.

Ok, I could relto and would probably loose this world to everyone. Since my discovery of this world I feel I have a duty to explore it to the best of my ability and for now at least it excludes using my relto as an escape.

I swam to the edge of the pool. As I clambered out I gathered up nearly all the fruit some of it was out of reach I considered an option of swimming down to the bottom of the pool and retrieving my rope. For the time being, I decided to leave it there.

The room containing the moon pool was not much bigger than the pool itself and there was a walkway that surrounded it. The wall that passed over the submerged tunnel access had a touch control panel and a view screen that appeared to show a corner view of another moon pool. Only the moon pool on the screen had no floating fruit and was devoid of an idiot who had left his rope and weight belt on the bottom.

The view on the screen was taken with a wide angle lens from an upper corner. I could see an eye like device above the doorway that was obviously taking pictures of this room, in the same way.

I left via the only door that was nothing more than a one metre long, man high tunnel. This tunnel led into a passageway that curved away in both directions. I turned back and looked at the doorway I had just exited. There was a small plate above the door with what I now took to be a number and some characters cut into the floor at the doorway. This had more of the appearance of a word, as a common centre line joined the characters.

I started exploring and quickly realised I was in a labyrinth that went down one floor and up three. The entire complex had a military feel with clean austere lines and a distinct lack of ornamentation.

There were lots of side rooms with doors. Some of which were locked with the now familiar keypad and some which were open but bare. The look again was one of organised withdrawal, but this time everything had been removed. Almost every room had a control panel but they were all inoperative and blank. The rooms all had that military look of a place cleaned within an inch of its life in accordance with normal military bull.

Every door did have a number plate above it and some did have Ogham wording carved on the floor. I started taking KI pictures of the doorways and after a while I reviewed them. The pictures were pointless in accordance with the military theory the doors were all Number one standard door the only difference being the number above and the name plate in the floor.

I eventually found five Main corridor doors that prevented further exploration. One at the top that felt like it was at the end nearest the bear pit and four at the other end two on the top floor and two on the bottom.

I found one large room with cubicles down each side. I took this to be some sort of medical facility. This room was different. All of the corners were rounded and the lighting was more subdued. Everything was the same shade of pale green. It was not until I entered this room that I realised that there appeared to be an absence of direct lighting. There were lights, but they were all concealed and this was not just this room it had been everywhere.

Another large room was a vast open space with a low ceiling. The size of the room initially had the appearance of a sports hall. Control panels topped a series of niches all down one side. The doorway was three times as wide as any of the others. Another two doors exited into other parts of the labyrinth. All three doorways were above the floor and were serviced by long sloping ramps to the main floor of the room.

To one side of the doorway, a glass panel appeared to have an array of touch pad buttons that matched writing on the floor. There were several extra buttons down one side. There was one position where you could stand and look through the panel and the writing on the buttons lined up with what you could see on the floor. I touched some of the buttons and nothing happened till I touched one of the larger side panels.

There was a faint buzzing and the glass illuminated slightly. I touched one of the buttons nearest the niches. A table and benches like you would find in a fast food place extruded from the floor.

I tried other buttons, but the panel flickered as if the power had run out. The table remained extruded. I went over and investigated. The seat was comfortable. There was an opening in the middle of the table.

I crossed to the niches. There was a screen in the panel above with what looked like a numbered list with a scroll arrow. There was a number pad and what looked like, a simple one-line screen. There was a large push button at one end.

I selected a number halfway down the list. I entered it using the keypad It displayed the number and the wording next to it on the one-line screen. Then the readout started flashing and disappeared. I entered the number again and this time I pressed the big button. The machine presented me with what looked like a bowl of hot soup.

Looks like I had stumbled on the base-dining hall. I took the bowl to my table and ate. After a few days of eggs and fruit, it was excellent.

It was problematical eating without a spoon. But as they say, “necessity is the mother of invention.” At least I would not starve in the maze I had stumbled into.

As I finished, I pushed the bowl away and a mechanism reached out of the hole in the middle of the table and took the bowl. Waste disposal as well.

I did puzzle about what the normal staff would use for cutlery I did remember that members of the British army were expected to carry what they referred to as KFS on all occasions. KFS is the abbreviation for knife fork and spoon.

I wandered about the labyrinth mentally mapping the layout trying as many doors as I could. The only thing I could remember of a similar nature was the Majinot line fortresses built by France between the first and second world wars, as a defensive line. Self-contained, they were defeated because the line was incomplete. Everything else about them was excellent for the time.

I eventually returned to my point of entry intending to dive for my weight belt. If I could grab the rope I could stand on the side and haul them out.

There was no belt in the pool. I searched again wondering if I had found another moon pool but I was in the right place. The fruit I had brought was still sitting on the ledge at the side just as I had left it. Some pieces of fruit still bobbed on the surface there even appeared to be some familiar stones on the bottom.

In my continued and extended search I found a room with an array of vertical tubes. Each tube contained a number of plates at the top. A spinner bobbed in the bottom and there was a dial below each tube.

Four of the tubes one at each corner was set so that the float spun and hovered between two lines marked on the tube.

One of the floats hovered slightly bellow the lower line I adjusted the dial till it assumed the same position as the other three.

The two lines were not in the same position on every tube. On most, it was near the middle. It was on a later visit to the dining hall that I noticed that the seating panel had started to glow again. This array of tubes had every possibility of producing power or controlling power for the complex.

I realised that if this were true this room with its array of tubes would need later visits.

Amongst the other rooms there was one, which had seating around a holographic representation of Ae’gura. The city in the cavern was as it is now. Dials at each station allowed the view to expand. There were five workstations. Each workstation had a binocular device like a binocular microscope with controls not unlike the gun in Teledahn. Controls adjusted the view through the binoculars. The image was not a true scope as the walls and surfaces were plain and un-textured.

I could see dots moving around the city. This was some sort of tracking device and I was in no doubt that I was seeing people moving around the city of the D’ni.

Walker

It does look like the Age walker is in has some connection with D’ni I have retrieved more documents and the later ones appear to explain how I have retrieved them. Each one needs transcribing for this system so I will release them as fast as I can. I hope you understand I cannot tell you how to retrieve them yet but I hope to publish screen shots eventually.

Gibson

Walkers first letter

2008-01-06T03:30:00.000-08:00

As I said in my last posting I took Sharpers second journal and in it he talked about seeing a young female explorer acting strangely and appearing to link into places that were not usual.

I had also seen this person and established the name R’Linda following her one day I found a note left in the book of inspired verse. It was written as a rhyme but appeared also to be a message.

When I looked a couple of days later it had gone.

I was in the city up by the library a couple of days later when I saw her on the outer ledge of the building I ducked from sight and when she left I followed. She crossed the rope bridge and went down to the ferry landing finally she ended up on the ledge above the alley link. Then she linked out.

It took me a while to figure out what she had done but I was eventually able to recover this first message from Walker.

R’Linda Please pass this on.

I was experimenting with back jumps when I dropped through one of the fall spaces in the city. You all know the routine. You panic link back home. Then you have to come back through the system to find the people you were fooling around with.

Well I did not relto out; I landed heavily on a ledge. I was trying to land on the strip that leads through to where the map says the Guild Hall is located. I must have knocked myself out. When I came to there, no one was around.

This was not just a narrow ledge either! What looked like narrow gauge rail tracks ran into a cave or tunnel past the remains of a turning plate and a very heavily damaged hand truck. There seemed to be a whole edge broken away like the area at the back of the Library. Perhaps something had exploded because the edge was fused and melted. There was a strange absence of rubble.

My whole body was aching like hell. I was almost sure I had broken or at least cracked a couple of ribs. Painful but not life threatening. I decided to try and wait out someone coming back and trying to contact them using my KI. The readout was intermittent and I thought about a jump. My ribs hurt. I did not fancy another hard landing.

I also did not like the idea of a splat if a panic relto failed.

It was dark and in the gloom I tried to follow the tracks after about twenty paces, I heard the linking noise and everything went grey.

As I awoke, my pain had expanded and a lot more than my ribs. There was an overpowering smell and I was immediately violently sick. As I retched my body raised and a stabbing, pain in my right leg caused me to black out. When I came to the second time I was a mess and I did not like what I was lying on.

A lot of the pile was just bones but the top of the pile consisted of two dead bodies. Both looked male and had been dead a while. What had killed them was apparent. They had been impaled on metal spikes.

The linking point was in the air above a bear trap. The ground, consisting of solid rock had been hollowed out and some sort of keypad mechanism attached to the wall behind. (Later I discovered this keypad would allow the spikes to either push upwards into recesses in the roof or retract in the middle and up at the outside forming a cage).

For now, I was on top of a pile of what appeared to be human bones, the remains of a lot of maintainer suits and two fresh bodies. Although fresh is probably not the best word. One was thin and tall and the other was a big man not unlike Zandi. It may have been him. I could not tell for sure because the body was too much of a mess.

The mass of his body and the bones beneath had resulted in blocking the top of the spikes. The pain in my leg had resulted in my falling differently. One of the spikes had inflicted a significant wound in my upper thigh. It was deep and painful but had missed both the bone and the femoral artery. I had lost a lot of blood. I felt weak but as you can tell by my writing this, I survived.

I dragged myself off and left the semi darkness of the cavern I was in. By ripping up my shirt and cutting away my jeans with my multi-tool, I was able to bandage my leg. The wound still hurt like crazy but I must have been lucky in missing anything major as most of my bleeding had stopped.

I tried using my KI to send a warning message but it appeared to be only partially working. I moved slowly as my ribs and leg were both painful.

I was also reticent to risk a link since I did not know the locality. Past experience noted that sometimes this ended with a drop. I did not want to end up skewered on the pile of bodies again. Considering my panic relto had already failed once.

When I left the city, I had one user in my buddy list. That was you R’Linda and you still showed but with no location. I had to assume either you were not around or my KI was not receiving information. I was showing no neighbours and nobody sharing this age. I decided to explore what I had found.

I exited the cavern following the rail lines similar to the ones I had found in the city. The cave opened out at the entrance into a formal entrance in four lanes. The rails went through the middle two lanes with the outer left path leading into a building with a long bench down one side with rooms behind.

The building had an exit at the far end and looked like a customs or reception centre. The wall opposite the bench was marked with the remains of posters. There was definitely a script that was uncannily like Ogham, transposed onto horizontal lines.

The double doors at the far end looked like a lift entrance but it had no buttons and appeared to be locked so I backtracked to the cavern.

The path to the right had a small desk in the entrance. It then opened out into a wider walkway that curved round on itself. This path spiralled to the right like one of those American cloverleaf freeway exits. It circled around a large heap of rubble. Stone that appeared to be from the hole they had dug to make the bear trap. There was more rubble than should have come from that hole significant as it was. The path descended as it curved and eventually passed under itself forming a downwards spiralling ramp.

Where this path passed under the entrance and rail tracks above, there was a doorway to the left with an embossed sixteen-button keypad. This keypad had a wider edge that appeared to work as a reset or enter key. As I tried some of the keys at random, they lit up. As I touched the outer edge, there was a clunk like a failing lock mechanism and the lights on the keypad all went out.

I figured the numbers would be on in sequence and that the one with a blank was zero. With sixteen buttons, it may have been hexadecimal. At this point, I figured I would need more information.

The path continued around the outcrop that contained the cave. I climbed a zigzag path to the top. At the top I found what looked like an observation post. Another locked door with another keypad of the same design!

I backtracked to the cavern and checked out the area to the left of the bear trap exit. It looked like a customs shed area.

I found some bottles behind the counter and what looked like a Victorian water fountain; it was in the shape of a floating unsupported stylised stag’s head it appeared to work. I took a drink then found I could not get it to stop, the water just kept flowing out. The operating lever had stuck. I hoped the water supply was not finite as this for the time being was my sole source of drinking water.

Most of the bottles contained mysterious fluids but one appeared empty and had no residual smell. I filled it at the fountain and the top self-sealed when it was full. On closer examination of the bottle, I discovered that when I rubbed the neck of the bottle in an unscrewing action it opened. In the other direction, it re-closed.

The pain in my leg had subsided to a persistent dull ache. It was still badly swollen and as I felt horrendously tired, I lay down on the bench and slept.

I do not know how long I slept but when I woke, I was hot and feverish. My leg had swollen even more and the bandage had tightened as a result. When I loosened the bandage the pain was even worse. I cleaned the wound with some of the water. Despite the pain I was in, it appeared not to be infected. I must have passed out again but when I came to the pain was subsiding and the swelling was down a little.

I went back to the rail lines. They ran overgrown with weeds in a sweeping arc first to the left and then to the right. The rails were raised level on a manufactured embankment. The sides of this embankment were steep and dangerous. I followed the tracks till the land either side of the embankment became wooded. The ground either side eventually climbed to meet the top of the embankment.

The woodland at this end of the tracks totally encroached on the rail lines. The trees were low and appeared to have an apple like fruit. The wooded area appeared to be mainly these trees like an overgrown orchard. My stomach started rumbling I do not know how long I was unconscious on the ledge in Ae’gura or how long I had slept here but I was clearly hungry. The fruit looked good but I was uncertain of eating something I did not know. I eventually relented and tried the fruit.

It took several attempts to figure out which colour indicated ripe fruit. When the fruit was green it was hard and woody. If it was red it was ripe and tasty. Fruit that was crimson was soft and over ripe and stained everything it touched. Those that had a black or mottled skin popped open and coated everything in a blue gunk.

This blue semi liquid gel smelled faintly antiseptic. I was getting desperate to find something to ease the pain in my leg. I applied some of the gel to my leg. Surprisingly it took the pain away. The leg quickly started to heal. Within the next few hours the swelling was completely down and the wound had started to close.

The wood was too dense to proceed through but I was able to walk down the embankment where it met the wood. From there I was able to loop around the wooded area. I passed four clear exit paths leading away from the wood and one path into the wood just before the last exiting one.

I eventually found myself back at my start point, although this time I was the other side of the embankment with no way of climbing it.

At this point, a narrow footpath meandered back towards the outcrop where I had entered this age. I was much lower and it finished in a twisting footpath that descended to a lakeside beach. I tasted the water. It was fresh, not salty and the lake was shrouded in mist.

I was unable to see the other side of this lake. The shroud of mist hung like thick cloud on top of the lake and the water was cool. I did feel I would be able to swim in it once my leg had healed completely.

At the far end of the beach, there was a rock arch with a cave containing a pool connected to the lake and some animal skins. It had been a long day so I bedded down here. It was sheltered and I did not want to make the long climb back to the top. The fur of the animal skins made a comfortable bed. I slept soundly and naturally for the first time since entering this age.

Next morning the blue fruit residue had turned opaque and set into a stiff gel and the swelling had completely subsided. The wound was still tender when I poked at it and I made a mental note not to.

It was dark in the cave. I could make out a faint glow coming through what looked like a submerged tunnel. This tunnel was at the bottom the pool that made up three quarters of the cave.

A path that surrounded the pool. It must have passed over this submerged entrance, I was unable to exit the far side of the arch. The far exit opened onto the foot of an un-climbable cliff face. There was no safe way to get to the foot of the cliff without falling into the pool.

I returned along the beach still unable to penetrate the mist. I decided to return to the original cave and do something about the bodies. I wanted to see if I could do anything about the spikes. I did not want anyone following me ending up impaled as my two most recent predecessors had.

It was difficult removing the bodies. The larger of the two was of substantial mass and although in a lesser state of decomposition, he was heavy. The effort caused my leg to start aching again I took the opportunity to empty all the bones from the bear trap. In retrospect, I would later realise that anyone following me would, as a result, face the full impact of the spikes. I was grateful that I appeared to have no followers and the stakes remained undecorated with fresh cadavers.

The older body’s where there was clothing left appeared to be wearing maintainer suits but mostly they were just bones and fragments of cloth.

Fiddling with the panel on the wall allowed me to discover some of the options for the stakes. They never retracted for long without returning to the lethal position. Sometimes the spikes returned quickly and sometimes after about fifteen minutes. This panel is going to take some figuring out before anyone can follow me by this route.

I found a bowl in one of the rooms in the customs shed. I was able to gather some of the black fruits. I used them to cover the bodies and the remains of maintainer suits figuring the antiseptic scent was preferable that of rotting flesh. I would have cremated the bodies but I had no source of fire and I never did figure out how to do that trick with two sticks.

I dug three shallow graves, and I buried them using the rock waste from the rubble heap making three mounds. I recovered two KI’s that operated in a similar way to mine. One of them operated in what looked like Greek. The other in what looked like one of the Cyrillic languages. I also salvaged as much maintainer equipment and a pile of D’ni KI’s that were calibrated and only gave readouts in the D’ni language. I was on a losing streak here, at least in the salvage department.

I figured there had been eight D’ni I figured this out from the KI’s, skulls and maintainer suit fragments. Their bodies were just bones so I placed them all in one of the graves and our two non D’ni in a grave each. It looked like some of the victims had not been wearing maintainer suits and their clothing had rotted completely.

I assumed that the big guy was not Zandi. I was almost sure he was not Slavic and the thin gent was the Greek. When I checked all the KI’s, all of them including my own showed an absence of neighbourhood information on that part of the screen.

By the time I was finished I was very tired. I would say shattered but you would say I was talking that slang English again. One of the maintainer suits had covered me and kept some of the worst mess off me and I found if I exactly aligned the edges of the holes the suit repaired itself. When I removed the maintainer suit, my ordinary clothes had repaired. When I checked the wound in my leg, I noticed the blue gunk was starting to peel.

I went down to the lakeside cave, stripped and went for a bathe. The water did not feel that cool. After about ten minutes the gel covering the wound in my leg floated off. I left the pool in panic. I was amazed. I had no scar. The leg did feel a little stiff but the level of healing was incredible.

I decided to try and swim for the light in the tunnel. I could not hold my breath long enough. Then I tried with the salvaged maintainer suit from the pit but I was unable to make it submerge the retained air making it too buoyant. There was obviously some KI command or control that would make it lose its buoyancy but I couldn’t figure it out. I even tried putting the suit on while submerged. It was ok if I wanted to breathe the water trapped inside. I managed the loss of buoyancy but I nearly drowned in the process, when I went swim down the water ran from the body of the suit into the helmet.

I decided I could make a weight belt using rocks from the rubble heap and some of the maintainer suit scrap fabric. I may be able to beat the in built buoyancy problem.

I resolved to return to the bear pit the long way and take the opportunity to investigate the path that led into the wood at the same time.

This was quite a trek. The path split a few times and at one point, I could even see the tracks to the bear pit cave but the wood was impenetrable. Climbing into the trees allowed me to confirm that I was nearly there but it did leave me covered in blue and crimson stains. I eventually found my way to a large clearing with what appeared to be hoppers for loading fruit. This fed some processing machinery. It eventually became clear that this machinery was doing something with the fruit and this had been a plantation and the trees had overgrown its paths in the great time it had been out of use.

I was eventually able to find another path through the trees where I found a loading platform and the outputs from the processing machinery. This also appeared to be the continuation of the rail lines. There was one lone carriage at the platform. Its inner surface was coated with a glass like substance and there was a tap in the bottom. I was unsure if this was for unloading or just to allow someone to drain the carriage after it had been cleaned.

It was not long after this that I discovered that I would have to find something to balance my diet. Fruit and water proved to be a little to much of a laxative. It also took me some time to find a suitable large leaf without spines to clean up afterwards. Do not let anyone tell you that toilet paper is not an essential.

A trip back to the lake allowed me to bathe again but I was beginning to miss the pleasures of a hot bath and soap or its equivalent. I found by switching to the salvaged maintainer suit and back at least gave me a chance to clean and dry my clothes and the antiseptic gel removed the worst of the grime from my body.

I took a trip back to the bear pit and from there to the customs shed. I refilled my water bottle at the drinking fountain. The water was still flowing from the stags mouth just as fast as it had originally. So it was looking like I had nothing to worry about on that count for the time being.

Back in the woods, the loading platform tracks were destroyed at one end by the tree growth. At the other end, the tracks seemed to run into a mound of some sort. This mound was now also overgrown with trees but it looked like there had been an entrance. I needed something to clear this area if I wanted to explore further in this direction.

The loading platform was awash with plates and notices with what again looked like Ogham script. Some had the definite look of warning notices while others were clearly operating instructions.

At the end of the platform nearest the mound, there was a post with a keypad the same as the one on the door below the bear pit. However, on this one, five of the numbers were illuminated. Hey, I was still guessing these were numbers at this point. I took a stick and scraped a copy of the illuminated characters on the platform, before I pressed the surrounding edge.

When I did, I was rewarded with a scraping and grinding noise like a giant metal monster was trying to eat one of the surrounding trees.

At the same time the trees on the mound shuddered and a large bird-like cross between a chicken and an Ostrich punched its way out of the undergrowth and flew out over the trees. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed a bird that big and leggy could fly but fly it did.

On further investigation, I found the bird had left a nest with a massive clutch of eggs. I figured this must be an animal that reared its young as a crèche or group nest. I only saw one bird and about forty eggs that were large and about half the size of an ostrich egg.

If I could find a source of fire, I had a new protein source for my diet. The fire came from an unexpected source. While I was examining the maintainer suits for a method of making a weight belt, I noticed that one of the old maintainer suit helmets had corrected lenses.

Using my multi tool I unscrewed the housing. The lens allowed me to focus sunlight onto some dried weed on the lake shoreline. With the aid of driftwood I was able to start and maintain a reasonable fire.

Ah, scrambled eggs cooked in a maintainer’s helmet on a beach in the sun, bliss. What a shame the fog had not cleared the lake.

Later I went back to investigate the area behind the nest but the bird attacked me as I got near. The noise from the door scared it once. I calculated that it may work another time. I assumed that pushing the same buttons would work again. It is just a case of figuring out the correct order.

It did not work. I figured I had entered the code to either open or close doors or whatever it was beyond the bird and now I need to do the opposite. I have decided to try these codes out on the other key pads. It means a hike. I can come back and investigate this area again later.

Guess what! They do not work. I tried every door I could find. Every combination of the keys that were illuminated on the platform keypad. I am hoping its five digits like I found on the platform key pad, but it may not be. What if the keys are letters and I am spelling out the word close or lock in the local language?

I need a Rosetta stone and a brilliant linguist to decode it. Typical! You can never find a linguist when you need one. I have decided to do a little exploring along the four other paths that lead away from what I have chosen to call Apples Wood. I have also deemed it prudent to number the paths. At least if someone gets these messages and is able to follow me without getting impaled, they might find my ramblings useful.

The first path wandered on for miles. There are a few short offshoots. The second offshoot led to a hut that was not unlike my relto but even less sparsely furnished. It did not even have a door.

Though I must say the thatch was immaculate. Much better than the one on my relto hut and up till that time I had not experienced any rain here.

I returned to the main path and that eventually terminated in a real beach white coral sand and salt water.

At first, I thought I was looking at another arm of the lake, but as I say, this was saltwater like a sea or an ocean. The view was a blank canvas, nothing as far as I could see. A beautiful clear blue horizon on a beach backed by dunes. Looking back inland from the top of the dunes I could see all the way back to the outcrop with the bear pit. There was some high ground between me and the wood. Nothing huge, but enough to put the wood out of sight in dead ground.

On the way back and just short of the hut, it rained a warm tropical monsoon with head hammering rain. I made it back to the hut and it stopped just before I made it inside. The sprint to the hut had left me tired and I slept. Next morning I trekked back to my now familiar surroundings, replenished my water and headed down to the lakeside cave.

I was shivering when I made it to the cave and I wrapped myself in the furs and tried to warm myself. I realised had been stupid because all I had to do was use the maintainer suit and I would have been protected from the rain.

It rained all the next day so I remained in the cave except for a short excursion to place the eggshells and an old maintainer helmet to catch rainwater to drink. I felt cold and miserable. I did spend the time usefully getting this journal up to date and posting a copy off from my KI in the hope that it might get some results. I must warn everybody. Do not follow me yet! I really need to find a way to get those spikes to retract permanently.

Walker.

It looks like Walker has found a new age and since this R’Linda has not made this public I figured I should. From the sounds of things this is an area the DRC don’t know about or if they do then they are also involved in a cover up.

Gibson

I have to start somewhere

2008-01-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

I do not know why I developed an interest in Christian Walker. When I first picked up the trail I was on holiday in New Mexico. I had been touring and lost my way. Wow, that’s an understatement. I found myself in a small town that I can barely pronounce and even the spelling has some doubt because the place had three town markers. Each one had a different spelling.

My second hand generic American pickup had died of overwork and underpay it was abandoned on the side of a dirt track some way down the road. I would have to do something about it eventually. For the time being I flagged down a bus and landed in this strange desert town.

I was not the first. The local bus regularly dropped off strangers and I was told my best bet for help was a man who lived in a trailer out in the desert. One of the locals dropped me on at the side of the road and pointed me towards what can only be loosely described as a volcano. We are told in England that everything in America is bigger. This has to be the smallest excuse for a volcano I have ever seen.

As I walked towards it, I could see the volcano was surrounded by a fence. Outside the fence there were vehicles of every description. All had an abandoned look. There was a double wooden gate that been allowed to set closed in the mud that had dried to the consistency of concrete. I figured if he did not have parts to fix my vehicle, he may sell me one of the ones sitting around his property.

There was also a professionally produced sign telling people “Private property” and to “keep out.” The sign also named the owner as a something Zandi it was hard to make out what the first name was. I struggled to climb over the fence. It is not the easiest of manoeuvres when you are missing a leg above the knee. My leg had been crushed by a roll of newsprint paper. It was an injury I lived with, although I never did get used to the itch in the bit that was missing.

I could see the trailer in the distance over by slowly turning windmill so I headed over. As I got near, there was a big guy in a loud and tasteless Hawaiian shirt sitting on the steps to his trailer drinking a beer and listening to the local radio station.

Closer still and he gestured to an empty seat and asked me if I would like a cold beer.

“There’s a burger if you want and I have soda if you don’t want beer” I took a beer and I sat and explained my situation. This Zandi guy was friendly but uncommitted about the vehicles. In the course of our conversation he told me about the cleft.

This was a fissure that had been home to local natives from a time before the Europeans came to New Mexico. There was a suggestion that since I had trekked all the way here I should at least give it a look.

I descended into the fissure. It was dark after the glare of the desert sun. It was a good fifteen degrees cooler, almost air-conditioned. You could see how ledges and rooms had been carved into the walls.

The rooms were bare and there was the eeriest feeling of deserted occupation. I heard a faint and ethereal voice calling. I must have stumbled or something. I can’t remember exactly but it grew dark and I was spinning. When this stopped, I was on top of a mesa rock outcrop floating in a sea of cloud.

There was this brown pedestal which opened when I touched it there was an open book inside and when I tried to pick it up everything went black again and as the lights came up I was back beside the wooden gates but on the inside. The sign was rusty and had fallen from its posts and was no longer as clear as when I first saw it. The gates were still set in the concrete like dried mud but the vehicles were all gone.

My leg itched. When I unconsciously reached down to scratch, I fell over. I can swear to you there is nothing quite like it. My leg was back. As I got back to my feet I was aware of a stone in my shoe. Not unusual, but feeling in a foot that had been amputated with the leg below the knee thirty years before.

The trailer was still over beside the windmill that was no longer turning. I tried the leg out by walking towards the trailer. Zandi had moved from the steps to the folding chair I had been sitting in.

He smiled as I pointed at my leg. He was obviously not as astounded by the replacement as I was. “Hey Welcome. I’m Zandi I probably know more about why you’re here than you do. Don’t worry about it. You felt drawn here just like the others. Don’t worry about your leg you will learn to live with it again. Look I’m not here to give you answers. Just to point you in the right direction. Go back to the cleft and seek out the message. You my friend have a destiny you are going to enjoy. Your journeys are just beginning, and you are going to need to find your key”.

If you are reading this and you have been to relto then I don’t need to tell you about the desert and the cleft and Yeesha and the journeys. If you have not been to relto yet then I will not spoil it for you.

I wish Zandi had made it clear I was looking for a KI and not a key. In some ways his hint slowed me down. The search did get me familiar with all the locations and I enjoyed finding the journeys.

Once I had my KI, I was able to communicate with the others and use some of the wilder stuff. I was welcomed to a neighbourhood. It was one of these new neighbours that told me about Sharper and how the DRC had abandoned the cavern, then come back.

I had been wandering around for about a month when I started taking a deeper interest in some of the books lying around. Sharper must have been back not long after I took his second journal. I am still wary about taking it back in case I am caught in the act. I have taken to reading the other books where they lie.

From what I can gather, Sharper is a bit of a loose cannon, but he is observant and like any good scientist, keeps a log of everything. I was following up on his notes and I think I may have seen the R’Linda character before he did. I was able to find the same messages.

I am not sure who I can tell. The people around here who call themselves ResEng seem to have more control than your average Joe. I have concluded these might be the Ohran that Walker talks about, agents trapped in D’ni. I have decided to place this record of what I have found in a public place.

This may sound like gibberish to you but It will not by the time I am finished I have opened with the letters from Walker as they arrived they should make sense to those spending time in the cavern. What follows here in the first two entries are Walkers first letters.

Gibson