Ancient Hunter
Chapter 39

I stood in the shelter of the ‘finds’ tent. It was a large canvas structure open to the front and lined with tables. Some of Joyce’s team and a few of the local archaeologists she’d hired were shifting through piles of dirt. Sieving the piles with meshed trays. I don’t know what they were trying to achieve but they looked serious as they went about their work. I turned my attention to the dig outside the tent. Heavy machinery scraped the dirt into a pile then stopped. A team would descend on the new exposed surface with trowels and scanners. They would scour the surface then exit and let the machinery dig deeper. It was a slow laborious task and I felt myself grind my teeth in frustration.

“Gwen?” Joyce called to me. She had gone of somewhere and now returned. “I know it slow but please take that frustrated expression off your face.”

“It’s taking too long,” I complained. I felt justified in saying that.

“That’s the nature of archaeology. We have to be patient otherwise we might miss a vital clue.”

“It’s just so slow.”

“It is for you but we’re going as fast as we can.” Joyce made a hand gesture.

“Anyway I came to find you, we’ve got another mystery to solve.”

“Mystery?” Seemed like I was falling into bad habits again.

“The Stepping Stones. Did you know there’s a ‘U’ shaped hollow underneath it?”

Joyce handed me a datapad it took me a while to recognise what I was looking at.

“Scans from beneath the Stepping Stones. We’ve been unable to scan the Stone itself it just refuses to co-operate.”

I looked again at the datapad. “I could ask?” In a weaker moment I promised Joyce I’d get hold of the Keepers if they found anything they didn’t understand. I glanced around it was too busy here. “We need to go somewhere quieter.” We walked away from the dig sight to a stand of trees on the edge of town.

I turned to Joyce. “This should be quiet enough?”

I doubted the validity of this. “Ok I’ll try and get hold of them.” Contacting the Keepers was the easy part it what happened afterwards would be the clincher.

“That won’t be necessary,” a new voice said.

I turned to see Jennifer standing there. “Jennifer?” I said surprised. I hadn’t expected to see her again.

She smiled at me I took it as a good sign. Joyce stared at Jennifer her face dumbstruck.

“Who are you?” Joyce stuttered. It felt odd to me hearing her sound less confident.

“Jennifer Valden,” She glanced around an all too human gesture. “It’s certainly a lot busier since I was last here.”

“We’re certain there is a city beneath Grunnleggerby?” Joyce replied. I noted she kept looking at me. “I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before. Not in person but on a holo?”

I thought it best if I stepped in. “Joyce this is Jennifer Valden she’s from Saros.”

“You’re a Keeper?” Joyce stared at Jennifer.

“That’s what those I date call me,” Jennifer laughed and then turned serious. “I’m not one of the Janari.”

Joyce looked even more confused.

“Jennifer is a First One tasked with watching over Saros,” I told Joyce.

“You look so real?” Joyce stared at Jennifer harder.

“Because I am real.” I heard a sigh in her voice. As if she had to explain it many times before.

“What are you doing here?” I said to Jennifer. She had one heck of a lot of explaining to do.

“Keeping,” Jennifer chuckled at that. “An eye on you. I see you’ve found some friends.”

I interrupted. “You did know there was a city under the town?”

“There was and there wasn’t,” she replied cryptically.

“That made no sense.” Joyce said coming back to herself.

“Professor!” a voice called out.

A man hurried up to us clearly in a state of excitement. He looked it the typical archaeologist his knees dusty and streaks of dirt on his hands. “You got to come see what we’ve found.”

I turned around to find Jennifer gone. Just one day I like her to stay put so we could a civilised conversation.

“What is it I’ve got to see,” Joyce said clearly irritated by the interruption.

We followed the man back to the dig site.

A number of archaeologists were gathered around a widened hole examining of something that shone in the sunlight. It appeared to be melted smooth except for the scratches from the machinery. I’d seen similar images of a place in Nevada on Earth but that didn’t look like this. The rock was fused, what sort of weapon did this, the thought was frightening?

“Radiation?” I automatically asked.

“Joe?” Joyce looked at the man.

“Professor?” Joe answered instantly.

“Do we have a live rad count?”

“We wouldn’t be standing here if there was,” he replied.

“So what do we have?” Joyce demanded.

“Something melted this place the heat must have been intense.”

“What could have caused that?” I surmised. The only thing I could think of was an atomic bomb but that would leave radiation and according to the archaeologists there wasn’t.

“The Heart of the Sun,” a familiar voice behind me said sadly.

I turned around to see Jennifer standing there. “The Heart of the Sun?” I had all but given up on repeating others words.

“It wasn’t a weapon at first,” Jennifer said adding. “We can’t talk here we’ll go somewhere else.”

“That would be for the best.” Joyce said.

In the time it took me to blink we were back at the Admin Building. It was deserted everyone was busy elsewhere.

“Is that the same as the Planet Killer the Rhosani had?” Were the first words out of Joyce’s mouth. “The same device that killed Analon and all those that lived on that world?”

I felt a chill run down my spine as I regarded Joyce who was staring at Jennifer. Kelli had told me her family had been on Analon. I had assumed it had been a normal attack but no one had uttered a word that the whole planet had been destroyed. I would have thought Kelli was would have told me that much. “What’s this a whole world destroyed and no one knew about it?” I cried out.

“Sorry Gwen this was kept under wraps to avoid a panic. The Planet Killer converted worlds into matter,” Joyce told me

“That much is true,” Jennifer said with a wave of her hand. “The Rho’xan were gathering enough mass to crack open the hole that they had made in their pocket universe.” She grimaced. “We never saw that coming.”

“That’s more than a shame,” Joyce countered. “So much pain not to mention all poor unfortunates who died.”

“It was an oversight we never learned about it until the Rho’xan fled after the battle in the Direkki system.”

“Ok let’s step back here and go over things one at a time?” I interrupted.

“The device you call a Planet Killer wasn’t one created by us. The Rho’xan must have created it themselves.” Jennifer glanced at Joyce then at me. “I shudder to think that they’d experiment on hole in their pocket universe. It was enough to let a couple of their ships through.”

“Is there a link between that and the Heart of the Sun?” I asked.

“The Heart of the Sun was a tool we used to study the internal working of a star.”

“And you considered it too dangerous to study the sun itself?” Joyce guessed.

“Exactly we created gateways between the star and a barren planet creating a containment field so it could be studied.”

I winced at the thought. This thing whatever it was, was used to destroy a city. “Who turned it into a weapon?”

“That we cannot be certain of,” Jennifer with a grimace.

“Is that why you sent me here?”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d find, just that you find it here?” Jennifer looked at me directly. “I just knew it was important for you to be here.”

I glanced at Joyce I didn’t understand a word of what Jennifer had just said. I was sure she wasn’t being cryptic. I wasn’t understanding what she was trying to say. “I don’t understand?”

“Call it limited precognition. The past is fixed it is the future that is fluid. I had a feeling I got off you when you walked into my office. I needed to send you here. The why is why you are here.”

That didn’t explain why she wanted Juliana.

“So finding the city was significant?” Joyce surmised.

Jennifer shook her head. “The city isn’t, the trigger is something else?”

“What is?” I started to feel frustration we seemed to be talking around in circles.

“That’s the point I don’t know. Only that it’s something to do with you and it is important.”

“Oh great. I’m stuck here when I should be out searching for the Keepers.”

“The important bit is that it will lead you to those Janari you deem you children.”

The shut me down completely. “Come again?”

“I’m afraid that is as much as I can tell you for now. Keep searching you are the key to this. I must go.” Promptly Jennifer vanished.

Again I’d end up with more questions than answers. I turned to Joyce she was staring at the spot where Jennifer had stood.

“Did you make any sense from what she was saying?” I asked her.

“No,” Joyce said quietly.

I shook my head the beginning of a headache forming. “Wonderful, why is it every time I talk to Jennifer I end up wanting to bang my head against a wall.”

“These First Ones have been around for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they predated the whole Human race?”

I wondered what she was getting at. “And?”

“They are old they’ve been around a very long time and must have seen it all?”

“And yet they don’t have to be so cryptic,” I grouched.

Joyce regarded me carefully. “I don’t think she was trying to be cryptic. She genuinely didn’t know.”

I knew I couldn’t win. “What am I supposed to be finding?” I doubted it was anything to do with the passage. There was another mystery to be solved. My list had grown so long I’d never be able to complete it in my lifetime. “I thought she could see into the future?” I paused and added. “She should be able to tell me?”

“I don’t think it works that way. Interesting I’ve heard of telepaths with precog abilities. It is extremely rare and nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand are they incorrect. You know when you have a gut instinct.” Joyce looked at me.

I had those before but this was different. “That isn’t precog,” I stated.

“Intuition isn’t. It’s your mind collecting the data and joining up the dots.”

I heard what she was saying.

“What we need to do is gather all the evidence and keep searching.”

Joyce nodded. “Yes that’s what we have to do.”

“There must be something other than the Stepping Stones that links the destruction of an ancient city and the attack on the Landottir?”

“That’s where archaeology comes in.”

We headed back to the dig site I wondered how we could explain our sudden disappearance. In the end it didn’t matter it seemed that Jennifer had got there before us. She’d wiped the memories of all those there. I shivered at the thought of what she was capable of.

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