"Portents Of The Coming Gyre"

by

Mei-Wan frowned at the man on the other side of the stand, clouds of steam rising off the broiling meat. "You had them when I was here six years ago."

"That was then, this is now. Things change," the man said with a shrug of his shoulders. He stood a few inches shorter than her and seemed intimidated by having to look up at her. "This is the menu. Order from it, or go away."

Mei-Wan smiled. "Okay by me."

She left the sandwich stand, not reacting to the insults behind her back. She wasn't about to let one man's bad disposition ruin her good mood.

Mei-Wan strolled down the street past the family run shops she'd remembered from her last visit. The stores, the people, even the man back at the sandwich stand, all reminded her why Tehran was her favorite city on Earth.

But it wasn't her love of this city which brought her here today. The reason for this trip was the mystery written on the paper she held in her hands.

However, coming here had provided her with the benefit of keeping her mind off Carlos Lorente, and for that she was grateful. Despite telling herself thousands of times how their relationship wouldn't work, she still regretted leaving him three mornings ago.

There was love, or at least the possibility of love. But she knew it would never grow into anything lasting.

It couldn't.

She stared at the paper again.

It had been the only contents of an envelope handed to her by a courier back in San Francisco. Neither the courier, nor the company he worked for, were able to reveal the source of the envelope aside from the fact it had been sent from an office on Plathmere Seven, a world she'd had to look up, having never heard of it before. Little more than a mining outpost, there was no one on that world who could have, or would have, sent this.

But the content intrigued her more than its source:

Go to the shop named Bahar on Molavi Street in Tehran. Inside, ask Darya about the tablet with the square runes.

She had to assume the person who'd sent the message knew of her interest in the Ancient Progenitors, and the square runes mentioned were those of their language.

Of course, this could all be a set up to lead her to false information. From her past visits to the city, she knew it held treasures lost to history for hundreds and even thousands of years, so what the message suggested wasn't impossible, just extremely unlikely.

Making her way down the street, she finally caught sight of the shop, Bahar. It wasn't much more than a sign over a narrow doorway with larger shops on either side.

Mei-Wan hesitated before entering. “I hope this isn't a waste of time,” she murmured.

She went inside.

But as the door closed behind her, everything seemed to turn and turn about as if she were caught up in a violent vortex.

Darkness and light combined, shattering into a fog of color.

As the mist began to clear, she saw a man's face. He was tall and Chinese. The man stood in front of a window overlooking a barren rocky terrain. Stars filled the sky beyond.

We're in space...

He turned to her and smiled. “Hello, Mei...”

Then as quickly as it had come, she was back in the entrance of the shop again with its drab color and musty still air.

She put a hand on a nearby table to steady herself and took several breaths.

“Maybe I should see a counselor... and soon,” she whispered to herself, finally regaining her bearings.

The layout of the shop made it appear a tornado had pounded through, tossing everything haphazardly about. Strange trinkets sat upon a series of crates arranged at odd angles. Several books were piled on a table just beyond the crates.

Mei-Wan picked up one of the books, doing her best to read the spine in the dim light available.

A large tan cat leaped onto the table, announcing its presence with a proud, “Meow!”

“Are you the guard here?” Mei-Wan asked with a smile.

“Yes he is,” came the reply of a female voice from within the bowels of the shop.

Mei-Wan spun about to peer down a narrow canyon of crates. At the end of the passage a woman sat hunched over a glass counter.

“Come on,” the woman said, waving Mei-Wan forward. “I won't bite.” She giggled. “I've already had lunch.”

Mei-Wan stepped cautiously, trying not to knock over anything to her left and right. She was pleased to find the area around the counter a little less crowded.

The woman appeared about sixty, short, and wore a set of faded cloaks wrapped around her body. She paused to look Mei-Wan over.

“Hmmm... interesting.”

“What's so interesting?”

“Are those artificial?” she asked, pointing to Mei-Wan's legs.

Mei-Wan laughed. “No. Should they be?”

The woman shrugged. “I was told to expect a woman, looking like you, but without legs.”

“Well, that's not me.”

“It has to be you. I'm closing up now, and no one else has come in today.”

“These are the legs I was born with.”

The woman moved from behind the counter and walked past Mei-Wan. “Excuse me while I lock the door.”

“Now wait a minute...”

“Don't worry,” the woman said. “You're perfectly safe here. Unfortunately, once you leave, I can't make any promises.”

Mei-Wan heard her latch the door before coming past again to return to the stool behind the counter.

“I was told there was a tablet with square runes on it here.”

“Of course there is, why else would you be here?” The woman smiled. “I'm Darya.”

“Nice to meet you. I'm Mei-Wan.”

“I know.”

Mei-Wan sighed. “So do you have such a tablet?”

“You're not a very patient person are you?”

“I didn't come here to browse.”

Darya shook her head. “You miss out on a lot being that way.”

Scratching.

“I don't go somewhere unless I know what I'm looking for.”

More scratching.

“What's wrong with a surprise or two along the way?” Darya asked with a grin.

Scratching.

Mei-Wan turned to the source of the noise, a two by two by one foot wooden box sitting on the counter. It had a narrow mesh on the long side facing her.

“Do you have another cat?”

“Kitty...” came a high, chirpy voice out of the box.

Mei-Wan took a step back. “What the hell is in there?”

“Hell, hell, hell.” the voice said, almost in song.

Darya tapped the box. “Be nice.”

“Okay... mama.”

Mei-Wan leaned down to try peering through the mesh on the side of the box, but the room provided too little light for her to see inside.

“You're keeping a sentient being in that box?!”

“Only when customers come in. He's shy,” Darya said. “There's no latch on the outside. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

“What species is he?” Mei-Wan asked, trying her best to see around to the back of the box where she noticed a small door was open. She only wanted to get a quick look.

“The Chinese gentleman who brought him to me didn't know.”

“You own him?”

Something between humming and singing rose out of the box.

“No,” Darya said. “I was given the responsibility of caring for him so that he might protect the world.”

“I feel so much safer knowing that.” Mei-Wan grinned, doing her best not to offend the older woman. “He does seem happy.”

“Most of the time he is. But the two times the Borg were headed this way, he became most excited.”

“I was on Earth for one of those attacks,” Mei-Wan said. “I think everyone was frightened.”

“He wasn't frightened. He seemed to almost look forward to their arrival.”

“I assume he doesn't know how they assimilate worlds.”

“He knows,” Darya said. “He always tells me not to be afraid. That he'll take care of me.”

“What does that mean?” Mei-Wan asked.

“I have no idea.”

Darya opened the door to the box and placed a small plate of food inside.

“Yum... yum.”

“So...” Mei-Wan began, hoping to get down to business.

Soft chattering erupted from the box. Darya leaned one ear toward it.

“No, no,” Darya said into the box. “We have no right to do that.”

“What's he saying?”

Darya forced a nervous smile. “Nothing important... at least for now.”

Mei-Wan drew in a deep breath. She had the growing suspicion she was being played. “Okay, look. I'm not going to buy anything, so you can stop with the game. I'm here to see the tablet and nothing else.”

Darya smiled. “That's up to you.”

A small furry hand reached out of the opening and stroked Mei-Wan's fingers.

“I'm sorry... Mei... Wan.”

“About what?”

The hand went back into the box. No more words were forthcoming.

“What did he mean?”

“He's...” Darya closed her eyes briefly. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“He often tells me what will happen to a customer after they leave. The times I've checked, he's always right.”

“He can see the future?” Mei-Wan asked with what she knew was a sarcastic grin.

“Seeing the future is easy,” Darya said. “Determining if that future will indeed come to pass is a different skill.”

Mei-Wan let out a sigh, deciding for the moment to play along. “So, what's going to happen to me?”

“I don't know. I can ask him later and send you a message if you want.”

This is crazy. Why the hell should I listen to this fortune telling little creature any more than I would a human con-artist?

“How about you show me the tablet?”

Darya nodded and lead Mei-Wan to a side room.

It was small and circular, maybe ten feet in diameter. Old, musty curtains draped the walls completely, if there were indeed walls. At the center was a raised platform, and sitting on it was a one foot by two foot piece of stone. Three candles sat on the platform, providing the only illumination.

Mei-Wan approached it cautiously, figuring if this was a trap, either economic or physical, this was when it would be sprung.

“Can we get a little more light in here?”

“No,” came the only reply.

Mei-Wan leaned close, finally able to see the runes on the stone. “This isn't the Ancient Progenitor language.”

“Did I say it was?”

Mei-Wan turned to Darya. “That was the impression I was given.”

“Your impressions are your problem, but obviously not your only one.”

“What language is it?”

Darya grinned. “I'm a shopkeeper, not an archaeologist.”

“That's not an answer.”

“But it is the truth.”

Mei-Wan returned her gaze to the stone. “Then I'll find my own answers.” She pulled out a tricorder and began scanning the tablet.

Darya shook her head. “You expect the universe to stand up straight for you, and follow your conceptions of how it should be. You obsess over it, forgetting to live.”

“You don't think I'm alive?” Mei-Wan asked, grinning while continuing her scans.

“There are many who are technically alive, but few who live a unique life.”

Mei-Wan stopped the tricorder. “I'm not sure I know how to do that.”

Darya took Mei-Wan's hand in her own. “Everyone does when they're born. But after a while, innocence is drowned, and the demands of others take hold and we forget.”

Mei-Wan suddenly felt as if there was something she very much needed to mourn.

But after a minute, she pushed the feeling aside.

“Do you mind if I continue to scan this?”

Darya stepped back. “I have things I must attend to. Take it with you.”

“But I couldn't... I...”

“You want to take it more than anything else right now.”

That was certainly true, but this wasn't right.

Then nothing had felt right in her life for some time.

“I'll borrow it,” Mei-Wan said. “And return it when I finish.”

“Put it in a museum. I have no use for it here.” Darya left the room.

Mei-Wan carefully removed the stone from its stand, placing it into her backpack.

She left the small room and found Darya had returned to her counter.

“Thank you,” Mei-Wan said.

“I'm glad I had something of interest for you.”

“Won't you at least let me pay you something for it?”

Darya smiled. “You gave me a few minutes of interesting conversation. Consider us even.”

“Okay.” Mei-Wan hurried out of the shop.

***

Nearly an hour later, Mei-Wan felt as if reality was spinning around her. Her experience at the shop had shaken her, but other than Darya's mystical foolishness annoying her, there was nothing she could pin this feeling on.

What is happening to me?

Mei-Wan made her way down an alley, worried what others might think if they saw her shaking as she was. But she had chosen the wrong alley, and was soon headed back to a main street again. She looked past the crowd filling in around her.

“Excuse me...” She tried to get the attention of a man passing close by, but he ignored her.

She glanced about for a street sign, hoping to find her way.

But before she could, the world about her shuddered.

Earthquake?

Every person around her shimmered a moment, then like sand falling off a ledge, they all collapsed to the ground. A moment later, the buildings shattered into the smallest of particles.

She felt her heart race as if it were about to explode out of her chest.

The next second, she was back in that strange place... it was a living room.

And the Chinese man was there.

“Mei... I know you're not happy. I wish I could change that. I truly do. But think of what our life means, of the work we have put into it. Think of our children. Aren't Jia and Qiang worth giving up whatever you feel is so important?”

She heard her voice speak, but it didn't come from her mouth. “I never wanted this.”

“What we want isn't important. We have responsibilities.”

“You mean I'm trapped.”

Everything shifted like paint bleeding off a canvas.

She felt the cold pavement caress the bottom of her feet. She liked the roughness on her skin, but something was very wrong. Mei-Wan stood in the middle of what appeared to be an abandoned city, its buildings empty tombs for a civilization long gone, not even a ghost to haunt this graveyard of unknown hopes and dreams. Looking down she saw her feet weren't the only thing bare.

Being nude out in the open, something which should have terrified her, didn't trouble her in the least, as if she knew there was no one to be modest for.

She stopped, sure she'd heard a voice.

A pair of eyes, glowing crimson in the twisted corner of a rusty window sill, bore down on Mei-Wan with such a weight that she knew it would shatter her if it continued for very long. But how to stop it? How indeed, when here she stood in the middle of a street with no help in sight. Her only companion were those eyes. The creature need not come out from hiding to devour her, its eyes were already doing that. She felt the very flesh being stripped from her bones, muscle by muscle, sucked into the insatiable pit of those eyes.

Red, hell-fury eyes.

She turned away, but their gaze burned her skin as they slithered up her back. She feared the twin coils would weave their path until meeting for a last time at the base of her skull, then burrow into her brain, carving out a darkness in her mind.

"Your perfection can end this," spoke an odd, echoing voice from behind Mei-Wan's right shoulder. "Give up this foolishness, give up your pain. The child has doomed you already, taken your life, your love, leaving only suffering."

"Don't listen!" came the piercing screams of a voice behind her to the left. "You exist to be the vessel of rebirth. Forget all of it. Nothingness is not so bad as you believe. Soon you will sleep the ageless sleep. Rest from your life of unhappiness."

Mei-Wan turned and saw them both. They were her, but each had eyes opposite of the other. One chalk white orbs, the other black as pitch. Both stood as she did, naked.

"But I want to live my life!" Mei-Wan cried.

In unison, "It is not yours."

"Yes it is!"

"Obedience is your duty," again in unison. "Obedience and oblivion."

"No," Mei-Wan said, now calm for having spoken it.

"You are ours to do with as we wish!" the white eyed apparition said.

"You have been ours for an eternity," stated the black eyed phantom.

"No."

"But why not?" the dark-eyed version of Mei-Wan asked. "Why choose now to assert that which you've never before had the courage to do?"

The white-eyed doppelganger walked up to her. "Your time is nearly over."

The next moment, Mei-Wan stood tied to a stake in a now crowded city square, flames rising all about.

The assembled populace shouted for her death. "You destroyed our world! Now you will burn!"

"No, please... I'm sorry!"

"Burn! Burn! Burn!" The gathered angry choir chanted.

Mei-Wan felt her flesh boil and drip away. She closed her eyes, hoping the end would come soon.

But instead of fire, cold pierced her skin like a million small blades.

Mei-Wan opened her eyes, finding herself on the ground still in the alley. But it was dark, only light from the street ahead gave any illumination.

Water fell from the sky, soaking her clothes to her skin.

She sat up slowly, trying to see past the sheets of rain falling about her.

“I have to find the spaceport... get to the shuttle.”

***

Once inside her shuttle, Mei-Wan felt she could finally breathe. The overwhelming fear of being chased dissolved as her mind cleared.

She opened her backpack and placed the stone tablet on the table. She had the computer scan the text to begin a run at translating it.

“This will take a while,” she said, watching the nearby display attempt to locate a language match.

Mei-Wan removed her soaked clothing. She made her way to the cot in the back of the shuttle and sank into it, hoping she could rest.

***

The computer alarm screeched, waking Mei-Wan from a stony sleep.

“Okay,” she pleaded, doing her best to stand. She stumbled her way to the computer terminal and fell into the chair in front of the station. Her fist smacked the control to end the noise.

She pulled up the machine's findings.

“It's not text?”

This couldn't be right. She scrolled quickly through the computer's report. Immediately, a sphere appeared on the display. A second later, a surface map of the Earth was placed over the sphere.

Mei-Wan smiled. “It's a map!”

The globe rotated about until finally stopping over the Arabian peninsula. A flashing red dot appeared in Yemen about 900 kilometers due south of Riyadh. Oddly, the map indicated no name, nor did the computer have one to give it.

“This is definitely something worth investigating.” Mei-Wan hurried to the shuttle's controls.

***

The golden sand looked the same in every direction. Without the sun, it would have been near impossible to have any sense of direction. Fortunately, her tricorder was able to provide the navigation needed.

But aside from knowing exactly where on Earth she was, Mei-Wan didn't know much else except that there was nothing here.

“Damn it,” she mumbled, taking another reading with the handheld device.

A whole lot of sand.

Wonderful.

Well, it wasn't the first time she'd gone somewhere only to find she'd discovered a big nothing.

What the hell am I doing out here?

She laughed out loud. “What I'm always doing... looking for something no one else has ever found.”

She adjusted the tricorder to scan for density changes below the surface, and awaited the results.

“Someday I need to get a life that doesn't waste so much time with dead ends and...”

The tricorder chirped away as results flooded its small screen.

“Well... that is certainly unexpected.”

Mei-Wan walked forward. The heat wasn't unpleasant, especially now that she had found something.

She stopped and swept sand away with her boot. After only a few minutes, Mei-Wan found a stone.

She smiled. “Now I'm getting somewhere.”

The next moment, the ground shook beneath her. Mei-Wan's first thought was to run back to her shuttle, but curiosity kept her anchored where she stood.

Sand fell into an ever widening fissure, opening in the ground before her.

Mei-Wan's heart raced, not out of fear, but excitement.

The shaking ended as the opening stopped expanding. A set of stairs descended into the new abyss, but there wasn't much else she could see.

She pulled a light from her backpack, then adjusted the tricorder to scan into the darkness ahead.

She followed the stairs down.

After descending for nearly twenty minutes, Mei-Wan stopped to look back over her shoulder. Only a small patch of lonely light remained to indicate the way back.

At least it hadn't closed.

She continued on for another half hour.

A check of her tricorder indicated she was nearly a full kilometer below the surface. It also told her that the dust present hadn't moved in nearly ten thousand years.

Her foot moved forward, but there were no further steps.

Finally.

She scanned the area before her with both light and tricorder.

The space was some thirty meters square with a single opening directly ahead.

Mei-Wan felt a chill come from the same direction. Though she knew it had to be a draft of subterranean air, her mind raced with other, more primal possibilities.

Despite her trepidation, she moved forward.

On the other side, a vast plain stretched out across several square miles of archaic darkness.

The tricorder alerted her to something new--- structures. They formed a grid pattern across the silent expanse.

“My god... it's a city.” Her words echoed in the lifeless void. Mei-Wan went up to the nearest building, realizing it was a house of some sort.

The tricorder chimed again.

She could spend a lifetime examining every detail of this place, but the display in her hand indicated an energy field where none should have been.

Mei-Wan followed the path her tricorder indicated.

After several minutes she stood before a structure at the center of the city, larger than the rest, and circular in shape.

She entered.

Inside, she found a maze of passages. She quickly made her way to the center of the building where a new set of stairs led downward once again.

Mei-Wan hurried down them as if something pursued her, but she didn't know why that feeling suddenly overwhelmed her.

At the bottom, she followed a wide corridor. At the end of it was an opening to a hexagonal tunnel.

She stopped to examine the walls of this new passage. Up to this point everything had been stone, and made by human hands some fifteen thousand years ago if her scans were correct. But this was made of a metal her tricorder could not identify.

Again, she felt the cold pierce her skin, this time as if looking for a route into her very soul.

Mei-Wan walked into the tunnel, cautiously at first, but then after she was sure it was nothing but a passage, more rapidly.

She stopped, looking back, then forward.

“This isn't right.”

The tunnel was curving, both to the right and downward.

Why am I so afraid?

Before, the unknown had always excited her. But this was different.

This place was different.

She continued on.

After nearly an hour of spiraling down into the belly of the Earth, she came to a small room not ten feet wide.

Her light caught a glimpse of something...

A face.

No.

Mei-Wan took a reassuring breath. It wasn't a face, but a skull, and a very old one at that.

Whoever it had been, had sat in the corner to either rest or perhaps... to die in this place.

Her eyes took several seconds to adjust to the brightness of her light shinning on the metal wall behind the skull, but there it was--- a wall full of text.

The tricorder identified it as an ancient form of cuneiform, a variation that did not immediately avail itself to translation. But after several minutes of manual adjustments, she was able to read what had been written more than twelve thousand years before.

“Here in our city with no name, we keep the secret, and we will die for the secret. Our sin must remain hidden from the eyes of others. None must know what was done for our sake. For if they knew, all would end.”

“I would have hated to live here,” Mei-Wan said with a frown. “These people must have been incredibly depressing.”

She read again, “One day they will return and we must give back what...”

She stopped when the soft sound of dust stirring invaded her conscious mind. She turned her light to the wall behind her and could see the swirling patterns along the lower edge.

“Air flow? But from where?”

She stepped up to the wall and reached out to touch it.

The moment her finger made contact, the room erupted in light.

Her eyes adjusted to the brightness and she found the wall had turned into a display.

“This is definitely beyond the technology of humans at the end of the Pleistocene epoch,” she whispered to herself.

Mei-Wan trained her tricorder on the wall, scanning to discover the technology at work. But the glow of the wall fluctuated with every adjustment she made on the tricorder.

“It's trying to communicate...”

She set the tricorder for translation, and soon after the device and the wall were trading basic language protocols.

After several minutes of this, it ended abruptly.

The wall dimmed and began to rise upward.

Before the wall had risen completely, Mei-Wan looked back to the skeleton in the corner. “How far did you get?”

She walked beyond where the wall had previously stood.

After only about twenty feet, she found herself in a circular chamber some fifty feet wide. Lines ran from the walls to a three foot diameter circle in the center of the room.

“This looks familiar,” she told herself, preparing her tricorder to capture anything which transpired.

But after almost a minute, nothing happened.

No, it wasn't exactly the same. The metal walls were a different alloy. The color was much darker than the Ancient Progenitor site she had visited on Dalvanax Two.

“But then who?”

Six displays came to life along the walls of the room.

“This is new.”

But something else wasn't. The circle in the center of the floor rose six inches.

Mei-Wan readied her tricorder.

A shaft of light appeared over the raised circle, but instead of a holographic image of one of the Ancient Progenitors, she watched a gossamer winged, glowing figure float in the air, its dark eyes closing momentarily as the figure turned her direction.

“Hello,” the Wubon said... but that wasn't the tricorder translating.

“Are you actually here?”

“No,” It replied. “You may not understand...”

“I know you're a holographic projection of some sort,” Mei-Wan said.

The figure paused. “Since you possess sufficient technology to understand how I have appeared to you, you must also understand that the computer system has analyzed the fragments of language you spoke, enabling me to speak in the same.”

“I'm talking to a computer then?”

“One programed by us to respond in conversation.”

A thousand questions flooded into Mei-Wan's mind. There was so much about the Wubon she didn't know. But one rose above the others.

“Why is this place here?”

The figure hesitated only a moment.

“To inform the Vedala they were too late. We have prevented the extermination of the Joktan species by helping them move to a place of safety.”

Mei-Wan hadn't expected to hear the Vedala mentioned again by anyone. But perhaps this computer didn't know they were gone.

“I am not a Vedala,” Mei-Wan said.

“Very true... but you are one of their masters' progeny. We saved the Joktan from you.”

Mei-Wan shook her head. “I don't think you understand. We are not the same as the Anicent Progenitors. Their war ended billions of years ago.”

“You are what you were created to be. How can you be any different?”

Mei-Wan let out a long sigh, then a laugh. Why am I arguing with a computer?

Better to spend her time retrieving its information. “Who were the Joktan?”

“The original inhabitants of this planet.”

“Earth?! They were here before us?”

“This planet was designated as one to be seeded with the genetic code of those you called the Ancient Progenitors. The Joktan were to be eliminated by the Vedala in preparation.”

“My god... Why didn't they just seed uninhabited worlds?”

“Worlds with preexisting life did not require extensive terraforming to make them suitable for the project. All that was required was the removal of the previous lifeforms.”

“The Joktan...” Mei-Wan asked. “Were they intelligent?”

“Yes. They had joined the fight against the Ancient Progenitors, but lost. They returned here to their homeworld, awaiting either slavery or destruction.”

“But you, the Wubon, you worked for the Ancient Progenitors just as the Vedala did.”

The figure paused longer than before. “For a time, yes. But when we realized what they had planned, we covertly did what we could to stop them, and in cases where they could not be stopped, either slowed them down, or in the case of the Joktan, preserved the life they had chosen to destroy.”

Mei-Wan thought a moment, then smiled.

“Why were you left here? And why would you tell me this?”

“So that they would know they had failed. So they would know we now stand against them. And that those who they had tried to destroy might one day return to reclaim their homeworlds and destroy the infestation seeded in their place.”

“But that's us! You want us to be destroyed?”

“You exist because of an act of genocide on a galactic scale. That act must be made right.”

“No...”

The implications of what the Wubon computer was telling her were too horrible to fathom. What had humans... all humanoids done to deserve the destruction the computer spoke of?

“Are there other worlds where you saved those slated to be exterminated?” Mei-Wan asked.

“Multiple thousands.”

Mei-Wan's legs nearly gave out as the weight of this knowledge sank into her soul. Thousands of species who were displaced from their homeworlds, each with more than enough reason to take out that injustice on the humanoids seeded on their worlds.

“How many still exist in this time?”

The holographic figure remained silent.

“I asked...”

“Do you think we would betray those we worked so hard to protect?” the hologram asked.

“I'm not asking so that I can destroy them!”

“Of course you are. It is in your nature to finish the job begun by your progenitors.”

“I am a free being able to make my own decisions,” Mei-Wan insisted.

“Or you are concerned that they may return to enact justice upon you... as you should be.”

“We haven't done anything wrong! We didn't participate in this galactic genocide!”

“But you are its primary benefactors. You live on worlds which are not yours.”

“I was born on this planet,” Mei-Wan said, but knew how hollow it sounded the moment she spoke.

“My message has been delivered,” the Wubon image said. “May the justice your kinds deserves find you.”

The projection ended.

“This can't be possible,” Mei-Wan murmured. “I can't believe...”

“You of all people shouldn't be surprised, considering what you know about the Ancient Progenitors.”

Mei-Wan swung around to find the source of that voice. “You?!”

Sydathus Pervalt smiled. “Did you really think Temporal Investigations wouldn't keep an eye on you at least for a while?”

“You sent me the message?” Mei-Wan asked, walking up to him.

“No, but as soon as we found out you received it, we increased our surveillance on you.”

“You can't stop me from reporting what I've learned here,” Mei-Wan said. “This has nothing to do with my mission for you.”

“How do you intend to explain your knowledge of the Wubon without mentioning your work for us?”

Mei-Wan thought a moment. “I'll find a way.”

He grinned like an animal which was about to feed. “Of course, you'll also have to explain where any of what you heard here came from.”

“People can come here to judge for themselves.”

“What will they learn from an endless sea of sand dunes?” he asked with a laugh, straightening his flawlessly pressed suit.

“You can't hide this place.”

“You don't have to hide what doesn't exist.”

“No, you wouldn't do that!” she said, nearly begging. “You can't destroy this place! The Galaxy has a right to know...”

“Know what?” His earlier jovial tone had become stern. “Would you tell a child its father raped its mother?”

“This isn't the...”

“No, it's far worse.”

“Oh... and I'll take that.” He pointed to her tricorder.

“Bastard,” Mei-Wan said, handing him the device. She knew better than to attempt to keep it. Such defiance would only get her killed, or worse. “You used me to find this place. You've known about this all along haven't you?”

“Temporal Investigations knows many things which we protect the public from.” He walked forward to examine the room. “This is just another to be added to the list.”

Her mind raced until the obvious became clear. “You've found similar sites on other worlds, haven't you?”

“Of course.”

Mei-Wan didn't know which was worse--- what the Wubon had told her, or that Temporal Investigations would do all it could to prevent her from telling this story to the Galaxy.

“What about the Joktan? What if they return?”

He turned to her, his face far more somber. “Considering they have had billions of years to evolve, pray they never do.”

Mei-Wan shook her head. “Please, this is too important to destroy. Let me scan...”

“You should leave now. Our team will be installing explosive devices within the hour.”

At first she thought to argue with him to at least preserve the human structures above, but decided he wasn't likely to listen. He didn't have to.

But...

Other worlds... They had found sites like this on other worlds!

That was her one hope. And with the resources she'd have at the Archaeological Institute on Kel-j'na, a region Temporal Investigations wouldn't have had the time to search, she might just beat them to those sites.

She had to.

“I would suggest...”

Mei-Wan turned back to him. “What?”

He regarded her for several seconds. “Why is revealing this so important to you? Can't you understand what this knowledge would do to humanity? To the Federation?”

“People have a right to know about what I found here. The right to know the truth.”

“Is it really for them? Or is it important to you, personally somehow?”

“Me?”

“You might ponder that,” he said. “I suspect you won't like the answer you'll find.”

Mei-Wan laughed. “I think you've got far more soul searching to do that I ever could.”

***

It took her several hours to make it back to the surface. Along the way she ran into a whole herd of Temporal Investigations personnel, wearing sunglasses and hats, headed the other way, some carrying very large cases. She recognized several as magnetic containment units for antimatter.

I can't believe they're doing this!

Once on the surface, Mei-Wan moved quickly to her shuttle. She couldn't stand the thought of watching all that history being demolished.

But despite her anger over what was about to be done to this place, something far worse weighed upon her. No, preyed upon her.

The Joktan... Earth is their world. What if they come back for it someday?

***

Pervalt watched as the workmen brought in their large cases.

After setting his load down, one of the workmen walked over and removed his sunglasses.

“I still don't understand why you didn't want her to see you here.”

“I have my reasons, Sydathus,” John Thomas Belvedere said with a smile. “And you can be sure they don't involve you.”

“We're nearly finished.”

Belvedere nodded. “And the detonator?”

Pervalt handed it to him. “Do be careful with that.”

Belvedere ignored him. “Are you sure she didn't leave with a recording of what she found here?”

“Yes, yes... I'm not a complete fool.” He showed Belvedere Mei-Wan's tricorder. “And she was scanned on her way out.”

“She's quite resourceful. Don't make the mistake of underestimating her.”

“I doubt she had any idea we would be here.”

“Any luck finding the source of the message she received?”

Pervalt shook his head. “We've narrowed it down to a few suspects, but nothing concrete yet.”

“We can't take any chances. Bring all your suspects in for interrogation.”

“But that could send the real culprit to ground.”

“Then your suspects are only guesses?” Belvedere asked with a grin.

“Why not just end this and terminate her now?” Pervalt asked.

“Mei-Wan Lau?”

“Yes. She's becoming far too much trouble.”

Belvedere laughed as he examined the detonator. “I doubt even we could disappear one of the best known archaeologists of our time.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Pervalt said with a grin out of the pit of hell.

“No. We've had too much contact with her. The Federation Council would connect the threads and place us upon their bureaucratic rack until they had all our secrets. Mei-Wan Lau isn't worth that kind of scrutiny.”

“But she knows about the Joktan!”

Belvedere placed the detonator in his jacket pocket. “That is unfortunate, but without scientific evidence, she has nothing. Just an insane story no one will want to believe.”

“And if she finds proof?”

“It's up to us to make sure she doesn't find it... Sydathus.”

Pervalt shook his head. “No... I will not take the fall for this. You made the call to leave her alive and free in the face of my clear admonition to do otherwise.”

“As much as you may like to think we are free to do as we wish, the legal system of the Federation and whatever world she happens to be on at the time say otherwise.”

“Since when are we subject to the law?” Pervalt asked with a laugh.

“Since Ambassador Tharmon Pelagius has been considering opening hearings into our activities... public hearings, Sydathus,” Belvedere said with narrowed eyes.

“The president would never allow it! He can't! He knows Temporal Investigations must have a free hand to...”

“Unfortunately, the current holder of that office appears to be on his way out. My sources tell me there may be a special election within six months.”

Pervalt ran his hand over his face. “We can't allow that.”

“We are doing what we can, but obviously in trying to prevent Pelagius's hearings we don't want to invite the very scrutiny we are attempting to avoid.”

Pervalt grumbled, but didn't reply verbally.

“As to Doctor Lau, we can't very well eliminate her before finding out who sent her that message. She may be our only way of flushing them out.”

“Then you agree they will attempt to lead her to more Wubon sites?”

“Or worse,” Belvedere said. “Until we find out who it is, we can't assume what their intentions are.”

A workman walked up to Pervalt, who nodded.

“The antimatter charges are in place,” Pervalt said. “We can leave whenever you like.”

“You and the others can go now. I will take my own ship.”

“You are coming back to San Francisco aren't you?”

“I have other business which is demanding my attention.”

Pervalt shook his head. “I will be asked where you are during the debriefing.”

“Those who need to know already know.” Belvedere grinned at the frown on Pervalt's face. “Don't let your usual anxiety get the better of you. Before coming here I read a report which suggested Mei-Wan may not be the problem we fear.”

“Oh,” Pervalt said, his frown fading.

“I can't go into specifics, but it appears her family may solve the problem for us.”

“God bless hearth and home!”

Belvedere laughed. “While wealth and tradition aren't the forces they once were, they still have a strong influence upon key members of Earth's population. Mei-Wan will find that such people, once sufficiently motivated, may offer her a life even she will find difficult to reject.”

Pervalt turned and walked out of the chamber.

Several minutes after everyone else had left, Belvedere rolled up his sleeve and touched a spot on his arm.

The platform in the center of the room rose again. Light shined down and a figure appeared after a few moments of static.

“Is this a secure transmission?” the old woman asked, her charcoal black eyes gazing blank and pitiless as the sun.

“Yes,” Belvedere replied.

“I assume you have secured the Wubon site.”

“It will cease to exist within three hours,” he said, pausing momentarily. “But there is another matter I must bring to your attention.”

“Go on.”

“I believe I may have discovered the temporal location of Dajjal Therion.”

* * *

Dark Horizon Story and Characters Copyright ©2008 Michael Gray

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