Embedded Files
James Abraham Carter
Preface
This story of interplanetary adventure is set in an alternative reality where a counter-Earth occupies our solar system. This hypothetical planet occupies the same orbit as Earth, but always remains on the opposite side of the sun, hidden by our star’s mass. The idea was first proposed by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Philolaus (c. 470 – c. 385 BC) to support his non-geocentric cosmology.
**********
The rain beat a relentless, rhythmic tattoo against the leaded glass of the Aden residence, blurring the neon lights of the suburban avenues into smeared strokes of amber and crimson. Outside, eighteen-year-old Jade Ming, a junior reporter for The Star, clutched her handbag tighter against her raincoat as she walked around the side of the professor’s home toward his private laboratory at the rear. She had braved the autumn gale to capture the final act of a local tragedy: the utter professional ruin of Professor Maxwell Aden.
Jade thought about the professor’s sons as she hurried along the wet pathway, James and Alex, whom she had been dating over the past several months. At first, it had simply been a means to an end - a method of gaining greater insight into their eccentric widower father’s activities. But this changed as she got to know them better, with the situation becoming more complicated when she had sex with Alex, the older of the two.
It wasn’t a planned seduction on anyone’s part. Alex had taken her out to dinner. The wine flowed freely, and both became intoxicated to the point where their inhibitions were loosened, culminating in their making love in the back seat of Alex’s car on a quiet, secluded street in a leafy suburb. In the aftermath of passion, Jade realized that she had made a serious mistake. She couldn’t be objective if she became emotionally involved, so she pushed aside these thoughts, along with her feelings of guilt, and focused on her job as a reporter.
Four years earlier, in 1960, astronomers had confirmed the existence of Nerthus, a terrestrial-sized planet that shared Earth's orbit in a peculiar co-orbital configuration. Throughout human history, the planet, named after the Germanic earth goddess, remained hidden on the far side of the Sun. Its discovery, only made possible by recent advances in astronomy, had triggered an unprecedented technological race to develop spacecraft capable of reaching it. But Aden had remained a persistent thorn in the side of his peers. Conventional rocketry, he proclaimed from his suburban parlor, was a dead end. Gravity was not an unyielding prison; it was a lock, and he had made the key.
For months, the newspapers had feasted on the bitter feud between the eccentric physicist and his colleagues at the University of Galello, so named after the famous Renessance astronomer. While governments and aerospace conglomerates poured billions into conventional multistage chemical rockets—massive, thunderous machines designed to breach Earth’s atmosphere and reach Nerthus, the professor claimed that he had perfected spaceflight in his backyard workshop.
Jade’s influence on Professor Aiden’s sons had at last won her an interview with the eccentric scientist. Expecting a junk-filled shed of secondhand parts and delusional dreams, she knocked on the heavy oak door of the workshop. Almost immediately, the door was jerked open, and Professor Maxwell Aden stood before her, his unruly white hair standing on end as if it were charged with electrostatic forces.
"You're late, Miss Ming," the professor barked in annoyance, though his eyes burned with manic triumph. "And fortunate. You are about to witness the abolition of human history's greatest tyranny. Come in out of the rain."
"Professor, your colleagues at the department say that what you're building is nothing more than pseudoscience - the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine," Jade said, stepping inside and handing him her raincoat.
"My colleagues are moribund idiots," Maxwell snapped. "Behold the Planitaria, my ship."
Jade halted in sheer amazement as her eyes took in the astonishing sight before her.
The Planitaria occupied the entirety of the converted coach house. It bore no resemblance to the needle-nosed titans launching from Cape Canaveral. It was a giant globe, a silver-hulled craft complete with circular observation ports, tripod landing gear, and an exterior of seamless, rivetless metal. Through an open hatch, she glimpsed its drive unit - a device that defied precise description due to the shimmering aura surrounding it—a gyroscopic cluster of superconducting rings, casting a faint, unearthly violet luminescence that spilled through the airlock and over the stone floor.
Standing beside the ship’s airlock were the professor's sons. Alex, twenty-four, serious and jaw-clenched, checked a clipboard with disciplined intensity; his grimy fingers betrayed hours of grueling manual labor. James, twenty-one, leaned against the gleaming hull with an easy, rakish grin; his eyes glowed with the wild, romantic light of an adventurer who cared little for calculations and everything for far horizons. Both brothers, despite their starkly different temperaments, shared a quiet, unspoken awareness whenever Jade entered the room—a subtle tension born of months spent competing for her attention. But tonight, petty rivalries were dwarfed by the silver colossus before them.
"All right, lads," Maxwell said, addressing his sons. "Proceed with the demonstration."
Alex and James moved quickly to the master console, throwing heavy brass switches. The violet hum in the machine's core deepened into a low, thrumming bass that rattled the fillings in Jade’s teeth. The air grew heavy, smelling faintly of electrical discharges.
For ten agonizing seconds, nothing happened. The heavy landing gear remained firmly planted on the paving of the converted coach house. The critics, Jade thought, were right; it was an expensive, crackpot machine.
Then, the incredible happened.
Without a shudder, without the deafening roar of combustion from the blazing flare of rocket engines, the Planitaria detached from the earth. It drifted upward—an inch. A foot. Three feet. Several tons of solid, space-grade alloy hovered in midair, suspended on an invisible electrogravatic field of rewritten physics.
Maxwell threw his arms wide, a mad prophet in a tweed vest. "Gentlemen—and Miss Ming—we have just abolished the tyranny of gravity!"
He turned to his sons, his voice dropping to a gravelly, solemn register. "The calculations are verified. The field is stable. The Planitaria is ready. Tonight, in an hour’s time, we depart for the enigma that is Nerthus."
Jade’s pen flew across her pad in swift shorthand. "Tonight? You're launching now?"
"I am sending my sons," Maxwell corrected. "I remain behind to refine the mathematics. They will plant our flag on a sister world."
"Let me accompany them," Jade said.
The words left her mouth without hesitation. They weren't spoken with the petulant demand of a society girl, nor without an awareness of possible dangers, but with the cold, unyielding steel of a reporter who knew she was staring at the front page of the next millennium.
Maxwell scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "Absurd. The mission is fraught with peril. My sons know the risks. I’m not happy about them going, but there are no others who can pilot this vessel. I will not add a young woman to this dangerous mission into the unknown."
"She has a brain and a voice, Father," James interjected, pushing off the ship’s hull. He stepped toward Jade, his roguish grin softening into something genuinely admiring. "If Miss Ming chooses to risk her neck for the story of a lifetime, she has every right to decide."
"Quiet, James," Alex muttered, his jaw tightening. "Father is right. This isn’t a game. We aren't playing explorers; we are test pilots flying into the dark. It’s too dangerous."
Despite Jade’s further pleas, Maxwell remained adamant, turning his back to begin the final diagnostic sequence.
James came to her aid. “Father, the least we can do is show her the ship and promise her an exclusive interview upon our return.”
“Granted,” snapped Maxwell. “Now, don’t bother me; I’m busy, and I’ve given enough of my time. Alex, come here, I need your help."
Alex watched his younger brother guide Jade toward the Planitaria. He remembered their lovemaking in the back seat of his car. It had been intense. Jealousy flared within him as the girl laughed at some witty remark James had made. Maxwell nudged his son in the ribs. “Focus on the task at hand,” he reprimanded.
James helped the reporter aboard the levitating ship. He glanced back at his brother, then turned serious. “Jade,” he began, looking at her earnestly. “Alex has feelings for you, as do I. I know you’ve been intimate with him. No, I’m not angry, and he didn’t brag, but he is my brother, and I can tell. I hope that you’re not playing games with us just to get a scoop.”
Jade couldn’t meet his gaze. “It did start out like that,” she confessed. “But now? I … I have feelings for both of you, but I’m unsure and confused. I need time to sort out my emotions.”
James let the matter drop and commenced the tour, showing her the ship’s propulsion system, its life-support mechanisms, and guidance instruments. Jade asked intelligent questions and took notes, as well as photographs, while a daring plan formed in her ambitious mind.
The tour of the cramped ship took about ten minutes. Upon its completion, Jade bid her polite goodbyes, and Alex escorted her to her car. As he opened the door for her, he paused. “Jade,” he said, his expression one of concern. “I don’t regret what happened in the car. For me, it wasn’t just a casual fling, a moment of intoxicated madness, and I hope it wasn’t for you either.”
“I like you, Alex” she cautiously replied. “You are a decent man. But I fear I may hurt you unintentionally.”
She stepped into the car, and Alex stood in the rain watching as she drove away.
When Jade was out of sight of the Aiden residence, she turned down a side street and pulled into the curb. For a while, she sat thinking, not about the brothers, but about the scoop of a lifetime slipping through her fingers. Putting aside all ethical considerations and the danger she was getting herself into, she exited the car, determined to enact her plan, and hurried along the rain-soaked streets back toward the professor’s home.
Arriving at the laboratory, Jade carefully tested the heavy door. It was unlocked. Opening it a fraction, she peered cautiously inside. The three men were still engrossed in the Planitaria’s pre-flight checks, hunched over the external testing unit, and gazing intently at its readouts. Taking advantage of their distraction, she slipped inside and stealthily made her way toward the ship.
**********
When the workshop roof slid back in preparation for the launch, and the Aden brothers entered the Planitaria to strap into their acceleration couches, Jade was concealed in the storage compartment beneath the deck, a small space packed with emergency rations, scientific equipment, and other items deemed needful for the exploration of Nerthus. She pulled a heavy canvas tarp over herself and held her breath.
A moment later, the hum of the field generators permeated the ship. The silent lift of the antigravity field took hold as Alex and James completed their final pre-launch diagnostics. Then the Planitaria slipped quietly through the roof’s opening, ascending into the rainy autumn gloom, swallowed entirely by the velvet blackness of the night.
**********
It was not until the blue curve of Earth had shrunk to a brilliant, fragile marble, swimming in a sea of darkness, that the silence of the ship was broken.
"Cabin pressure nominal,” Alex’s voice sounded through the forward compartment. "Jim, did you check the weight of the equipment in the storage locker? I’m reading a slight mass variance—"
But before James could investigate, the storage locker’s door rose, and Jade climbed out, straightening her wool coat and offering a sheepish, unapologetic grin.
The silence that followed was grave-like in its bleakness.
Alex’s face drained of color; his mouth opened and closed in furious disbelief. "You—you absolute lunatic! You stowed away?"
"There’s no turning back now, Alex,” Jade said evenly, holding her ground against his towering fury. "Unless you plan to throw me out of the airlock without a suit.”
James burst into laughter—a bright, ringing sound that cut through the storm clouds of tension in the cabin. He reached over, clapping a hand on his furious brother’s shoulder. "Give it up, Alex! The gods of adventure favor the bold. Besides, we could use a good reporter to write about our discoveries.”
Alex glared between them, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. The unspoken rivalry in the room sharpened to a razor’s edge, but the vast, terrifying expanse of the cosmos brooked no further argument. They were a crew now, whether Alex liked it or not.
The voyage defied every conventional expectation of space travel. Guided by the professor’s revolutionary equations, the Planitaria did not fight the sun; it rode it. The immense gravitational wells of the solar system became navigable currents. Earth dwindled to a distant star. The sun, free of Earth’s hindering atmosphere, became a blazing, corona-haloed globe of unimaginable brightness.
And then, out of the blinding glare, Nerthus materialized.
From orbit, it was a breathtaking illusion of familiarity. Deep sapphire oceans churned against sprawling brown continents capped with brilliant green vegetation, all veiled beneath majestic swirls of pearlescent white clouds. Yet, as the Planitaria drew closer, the alien reality bled through. The cloud formations coiled in unnatural, mathematical symmetries. The continents possessed jagged, razor-sharp geometries unknown to terrestrial cartography.
"It’s an alternate Earth," James breathed, pressing his face against the tinted glass of the observation port as the ship entered the fringes of Nerthus’ atmosphere. "Evolved in parallel for billions of years."
Suddenly, the control console alarms shrieked. A cluster of warning lights changed from green to a harsh, angry crimson.
"We’re losing field integrity!" Alex shouted, his hands flying across the controls with frantic speed. "The antigravity apparatus is destabilizing! We’re dropping altitude—too fast!"
The Planitaria shuddered violently, hurtling like a cannonball through the upper stratosphere as atmospheric friction hammered the hull. The spherical craft bucked and rolled, diving headfirst toward an alien horizon in a terrifying rush.
"Jim, pull up!" Alex shouted, as he detached a panel and crawled inside to inspect failing circuitry.
"The ship is not responding!” James yelled back, sweat beading on his forehead as he frantically flipped switches and jabbed buttons.
Jade mastered her stabbing fear. She pressed her face to the bullseye window, wedging herself against the copilot's console. Through the vibrating toughened glass, she scanned the rushing landscape below—a vast, tawny expanse stretching toward the horizon.
"Not the mountains!" Jade called out sharply, “Look over there,” she pointed. “The terrain flattens out into a massive basin. Hard to port, James! Bring us around thirty degrees!"
Trusting her implicitly, James heaved the flight levers over. Nothing happened. The Planitaria was out of control. Then Alex managed to bypass the defective circuitry, and the ship responded. The Planitaria banked hard, hurtling through a mass of emerald-green clouds before decelerating savagely and coming down hard into the unforgiving sands of a colossal alien desert.
The wasteland’s silence was broken by a mighty crash. The shock absorbers of the landing gear buckled. Metal shrieked, and the world went black.
**********
When consciousness returned, the air smelled of shorted circuitry. James groaned and unbuckled his safety harness. He gasped in fear. Jade and his brother lay on the floor, unmoving. Were they alive or dead? He stumbled to the girl’s side in a lather of anxiety and checked her pulse. She moaned and opened her eyes, roused by his gentle touch.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern.
“I… I think so,” she managed to gasp.
A muttered oath made them turn. Alex sat up and, by his further curses, James knew, to his vast relief, that his brother hadn’t sustained any serious injuries.
“Well,” remarked James with a wry grin to lighten the situation. “As they say, any landing that you can walk away from is a good one.”
The next hour and a half was spent assessing the damage and analyzing the planet’s atmosphere. The former was serious, but not unfixable, while the latter was breathable.
“Need any help,”Alex asked his older brother, who was elbows deep in an access panel working on restoring the ship’s field generator.
“I’ll be fine,” Alex replied, distractedly. “Besides, there isn’t enough room for two people to work on this at once.”
“In that case, Jade and I will do a little exploring.”
Alex looked at James sharply; his jealousy flared at the thought of them being alone together. “Exploring. Of what? The environment or each other?”
“I never objected to your exploring,” replied James, calmly but meaningfully.
Jade quickly intervened as James stood, his hands balling into fists.
“We’ll be careful. We won’t go far, and James has a gun.”
Alex glanced at the automatic strapped to his brother’s waist. “Yeah, and that’s not all he is armed with.”
James ignored the suggestive remark. He and Jade put on their robust tracking bracelets - a kind of emergency beacon that could be used to locate them in the event of an accident or threat - and left the Planitaria before things could escalate further.
The desert around them was far from dead. Towering stony hills rolled beneath an azure sky, their rocky soil marked by colossal, three-toed tracks left by unknown beasts. About a hundred yards away, half-buried beneath the soil of ages, stood the cyclopean ruins of a forgotten civilization—massive stone blocks carved with strange glyphs that chilled the blood with their unnerving alien forms.
But most disturbing of all were the fallen pillars lining an avenue that was old when Babylon was young. Their surfaces bore deep, intricate reliefs depicting bipedal reptilian humanoids clad in scale armor, wielding heavy bronze spears and other weapons similar to the Viking two-handed Dane axe.
"We aren’t alone,” James said as he stood up from examining a carving and drew his sidearm—a standard military-issue automatic weapon they had brought for self-defense.
Jade, who was taking photographs and making notes, paused. “They could be extinct,” she suggested. “These ruins look incredibly ancient.”
“Maybe,” replied James. “But stay alert.”
They had advanced into the ruins a little further when Jade spotted an extensive clump of strange plants growing near a stairwell descending into the earth. Curious, she approached the growths, which resembled the terrestrial aloes she was familiar with - earth succulents adapted to desert conditions. But as she bent over them to get a better look, a spray of odorous liquid jetted from the growths’ tips, splashing her with a foul, sticky fluid.
Jade stumbled back with a sharp cry of surprise and fright. James rushed to her side, fear for her clearly visible.
“Are you feeling ill?” he gasped, worried that the secretions might be toxic.
“No,” replied Jade, shaken but unharmed. “This plant is the vegetable equivalent of a skunk!” she continued in disgust. “I can't go back to the ship smelling like a sewer.”
“The plants may indicate the presence of water,” James replied, relieved that she hadn’t been injured. “Those stairs might be the entrance to an underground well. If water is present, then you can wash. Let’s investigate.”
They descended cautiously into the dim interior. Light seeping in from above glinted off the water at the bottom of the well. James’s deduction had been correct. “Please turn around,” said Jade as she handed him her camera and notebook, and then began to undress. “Hopefully, water alone can get this muck off my skin and clothes.”
James complied, somewhat disappointed as he thought about her intimacy with his brother. He put aside his envy as best as he could, realizing that it was her choice, and he had to respect it.
Jade entered the water and began to wash herself, freeing her body of the foul-smelling fluid. Her soiled apparel was piled on the lowest step. Suddenly, something brushed against her leg. She screamed, leapt from the water, and collided with James. Both fell onto the stairs as a horrific shape burst through the surface of the water. The thing looked like a giant pallid, eyeless worm, its sucker mouth rimmed with writhing tentacles.
The creature lunged at Jade like a striking cobra. James had dropped his gun. It was out of reach. He kicked the thing, slamming his boot against the rubbery flesh. The horror recoiled. James grabbed the screaming girl and dragged her up the stairs as the creature attacked again, its darting tentacles narrowly missing them.
They collapsed at a safe distance, with James holding the trembling girl in his comforting arms. The creature, entirely aquatic, did not pursue. As Jade settled, James’s passions grew. An attractive naked girl that he cared for was in his arms. Slowly, he pressed his lips to her neck, feeling her pulse quicken beneath his touch. Desire rose within him, pushing all thoughts of danger from his mind. His hands slowly slid up her belly toward her bosom. She didn’t resist as he cupped her breasts and began to gently fondle them. Jade gasped. Her nipples swelled between his teasing fingers, and she felt herself grow wet with desire. Her thighs parted as his left hand slid down her trembling belly. She leaned back against him and moaned as he began to caress her clit. Then sanity prevailed, and she gently placed her hands on his and stopped his erotic explorations.
“This isn’t the right time or place,” she pointed out, somewhat breathlessly.
James sighed. “Yes,” he agreed, rather crestfallen. “Your clothes are ruined and can’t be washed with that thing lurking in the water. I’ll give you my shirt, retrieve my automatic, and then we’ll head back to the Planitaria.”
Once those things were done, they made their way up to the surface, where they found Alex hurriedly approaching them, the locator device in his hand having zeroed in on their tracking bracelets. But as he drew near, his worried expression at their prolonged absence turned to jealous rage when he saw Jade clad in nothing more than his brother’s shirt.
“It’s not what you think,” James quickly said.
“Really, then what should I think?” Alex sharply replied as he glared at his brother.
But before an altercation could erupt, violence of a different kind exploded from the rocky hills behind them.
A dozen grotesque desert predators—scuttling, multi-limbed horrors resembling armored hounds with snapping ant-like mandibles—burst from the defile of the prominences, hissing viciously as they rushed toward the startled trio. James and Alex raised their pistols, pouring rapid fire into the charging beasts. The creatures shrieked, scattering into the hills, as the gunfire echoed like thunder across the silent wasteland.
Moments later, as the men were hurriedly reloading their automatics, the true masters of the desert revealed themselves.
Cresting the highest hill, came a mounted patrol. The riders were the living embodiment of the stone pillars: reptilian humanoids standing nearly seven feet tall, their skin a mosaic of olive and light green scales. They wore gleaming bronze armor and carried deadly bronze-tipped lances, war axes, and circular shields.
"Hold your fire!" James shouted to Alex as he raised his empty hands. Then he called out to the humanoids: "We come in peace!"
The reptile men reined in their mounts - bipedal creatures resembling the velociraptors of Earth's late Cretacious epoch. The scaly humanoids gazed angrily at the carcasses of the slain creatures - their equivalent of hunting dogs. To their ancient, insular, and alien worldview, the humans standing before them were not explorers; they were demons—or perhaps evil spirits sent by the Dark Lord, Sekheth, to profane the shrines of their sun god.
With a terrifying, guttural roar, the patrol lowered their lances and charged.
"Run!" Alex screamed.
An atom bomb of violence detonated. The desert exploded into a blur of flashing bronze and gunfire. In a running battle, both brothers emptied their blazing automatics. James fired. His aim was true, and hot lead slammed into a reptilian warrior’s head. The being fell, half his skull blown away. Alex shot another in the chest. The creature reeled. It fell off its scaly steed and crashed face down on the sand. The heavy slug had punched through bronze armor as if it were mere cardboard. Both men reloaded and unleashed another volley in quick succession, dropping more wild attackers and driving the ferocious warriors back. But in the choking dust storm kicked up by the wild melee, Jade became separated from her companions.
Disoriented and terrified, she fled down a narrow alley between fallen monolithic slabs, only to find her path blocked by three towering reptilian warriors. Before she could scream, a heavy net was cast over her, dragging her down into the sand.
When James and Alex finally fought their way clear of the skirmish, the desert was empty save for the bodies of the slain and the smoking casings of their spent cartridges. The silence was broken only by the faint, fading sound of distant war rattles echoing toward the horizon. Jade was gone.
**********
Deep within the heart of the desert, carved directly into the living rock of a towering mesa, sat the citadel of Zarath—a sprawling metropolis of monolithic towers, strange gardens of fruiting plants, and dark, brooding temples.
Jade, stripped of her shirt and hands tied behind her back with coarse ropes, walked beside a huge reptilian warrior mounted on his towering scaly steed. She thought about James and Alex and wondered if they had survived the attack. She prayed that they still lived and speculated on what fate awaited her. Fearful things arose in her imagination. The frightened girl stumbled, and the scaly warrior venomously hissed at her.
Soon, the imposing fortress loomed before her, and the helpless girl was forced into its ominous shadow. Jade was dragged through the cavernous entrance and along narrow, twisting streets under the cold gaze of the citadel’s scaly inhabitants. A huge temple, dark and forbidding, rose before her. The girl’s captors dismounted. Jade was frogmarched inside and cast onto the cold, hard floor of the Grand Temple of Neroth, the sun god of the scaly Zarathans.
Hundreds of reptilian warriors lined the colossal hall, their scales gleaming in the torchlight. At the head of the chamber, standing atop a raised dais flanked by roaring braziers, stood the High Priest Khar-Zul. He was ancient; his scales were scarred from battles and dull with age, but his eyes burned with fanatical zeal. Above him, resting on a plinth, towered the immense, terrifying gold idol of Neroth—a serpentine creature with a crest of spikes and coiled in the manner of a cobra. Before the idol was a huge square basin of blazing oil - the sacred fire of the god.
The leader of Jade’s captors recounted the events leading up to her apprehension. The high priest listened. He grew wrathful. He hissed and stamped his feet in rage.
“Enough,” he wildly shouted in the hissing tongue of the Zarathans.
Khar-Zul raised an ancient sceptre carved from the thighbone of a sacrificial victim, his voice hissing through jagged teeth. "Devils from the sky have come among us in fleshy form and have slaughtered our noble warriors with foul sorcery. To appease the great God of the Sun and avenge our dead, the interloper shall be cast alive into the sacred fires of purification! Imprison the creature until the preparations for the ritual have been completed.”
A collective hiss of approval rose from the assembled horde. Two massive guards hoisted Jade from the polished floor, dragging the terrified girl down a side passage, where she was cast into a gloomy cell.
**********
Back at the crash site, the brothers argued hotly about the best course of action.
“We must complete repairs to the Planitaria,” insisted Alex. “We need the ship fully operational so we can swiftly rescue Jade. Those creatures have obviously taken her to their stronghold. We need to get in and out with the utmost speed if we are to succeed in saving her.”
"We don't have time," James snapped, his face dark with a fury Alex had never seen before. "She’s out there. In that fortress. I’ve seen it from the top of the hill. It can’t be more than an hour’s walk. Night is fast approaching. The cover of darkness will aid us."
"If we die trying to storm a city of a thousand armed warriors, nobody leaves this godforsaken planet!" Alex shouted, slamming his fist against the metal hull. "We fix the ship first!"
"Her tracking bracelet is still active. She’s alive in there, and I’m going after her tonight - alone if I have to,” James snarled, stepping toe-to-toe with his brother. For a heartbeat, sibling rivalry flared between them—not just over an argument, but over something much deeper: the love of a woman.
Alex looked into his brother's blazing eyes. He saw the raw, desperate terror there, and he saw the truth. He remembered the scene he had witnessed as James and Jade had stepped from the well. He had seen how his brother looked at Jade, and how Jade looked back, and how she had never looked at him that way.
Slowly, Alex’s shoulders dropped. The anger drained out of him, replaced by a profound, heartbreaking clarity. He knew James would face death to save the woman he loved, and he couldn’t let him go alone.
"All right," Alex said quietly. "We leave now."
Armed with their pistols and the bronze war-axes stripped from the fallen reptile-men killed during the ambush, as well as other useful items from the Planitaria, the brothers crossed the dark, windswept desert under the eerie, moonless sky, ablaze with uncountable stars. Utilizing the shadows of the towering, rocky hills, they evaded roving patrols and eventually arrived at the massive, sheer outer walls of Zarath. Here, they found the exit of the city’s drainage system, which emptied into a narrow river that snaked between the hills; a watercourse whose banks grew thick with gnarled, thorny plants.
The entrance to the sewer was protected with thick bronze bars set deep into the stone, but Alex, anticipating its need, had brought a miniature cutting torch with him, and its white-hot flame soon sliced through the alloy. Within less than three minutes, the men had breached the citadel’s defenses and were creeping along the walkway of the foul-smelling subterranean drainage conduit leading deep beneath the foundations of the fortress.
“This way,” whispered James, his eyes fixed on the locator as its compass-like needle guided him in the right direction. “Jade’s tracking bracelet is still active, thank God. The right-hand branch ahead will take us toward her.”
**********
In the darkness of the cell, time had lost all meaning for Jade as she huddled in despair in a corner of her bleak prison. Then a grating noise made her head jerk up. The bolt slid back, and the door groaned open. Fear made Jade’s heart race as reptile men swarmed into the cell and seized her cruelly.
The scaly beings dragged the terrified girl out of the prison and up the corridor toward a primitive crane that had been erected beside the sacred fire of the idol. The machine took the form of a long wooden pole mounted on a pivot, with a hook and release mechanism attached to the long end and a heavy stone counterweight on the short end. The screaming girl’s bound wrists were slipped over the hook, and she was hoisted into the air and swung out directly above the immense square stone basin in which the god-fire blazed.
**********
The brothers continued their advance, each fearful of what they might find; then the needle of the locator swung to a vertical position in its gimbal mount. A bronze ladder stood before them, affixed to the tunnel wall. Both began the ascent. A heavy metal grate lay above them. James slowly lifted it, and they emerged through an aperture behind the plinth on which the idol sat. As they stealthily exited the tunnel, the brothers froze in horror. Above them, suspended over the roaring flames, Jade hung helplessly, screaming wildly. Her legs kicked in unabated terror as the flames, like fiery hands, leapt up to grasp her. Sweat dripped from her heat-tormented body as Khar-Zul stood at the edge of the dais, his thighbone sceptre raised high as the final rites began, surrounded by a sea of chanting reptilian guards.
"Now!" James shouted.
Hefting his bronze war axe and firing his revolver with deadly precision, James leapt from behind the plinth and charged straight into the heart of the congregation. Pandemonium erupted instantly. Guards shrieked and scattered as bullets slammed into scaly bodies. Stone pillars chipped under the barrage, and lead whined in deadly ricochets.
Alex covered the flank, his gun blazing with furious, relentless accuracy, cutting down the warriors rushing from the side corridors.
James scrambled up the massive stone stairs of the dais. Two guards leapt to stop him, but he felled them with his swinging axe and roaring automatic. He saw the High Priest Khar-Zul lunge for the lever that would release the hook and plunge Jade into the biting flames. With a savage cry, James surged forward, driving his bronze axe straight through the skull of the scaly brute. The ancient reptile gasped, his eyes widening in disbelief, before collapsing into a lifeless heap on the flagstones.
Quickly, James grasped the crane and swung Jade away from the flaming basen, then lowered her to the floor, and with a swift slice of his axe, he severed the thick fibrous ropes binding the weeping, terrified girl.
"We got her!" James shouted, pulling Jade to her feet. "Move, move!"
A thunderous clang made them turn toward the chamber’s exit. A massive portcullis of solid bronze had slammed down, blocking a potential escape route. Behind them, hundreds of armored bloodthirsty reinforcements were swarming up the stairs, their war axes raised to deal brutal death. In mere seconds they would be overwhelmed.
Alex stared at the massive stone basin in which the sacred god-fire burned. It must contain hundreds of gallons of oil, he thought. Then he saw the weak point in its construction—and he saw the advancing wall of scaly foes.
"Alex, the sewers!" James yelled, dragging Jade toward the point where they had entered the temple.
"They’ll follow us!" Alex’s voice rang out, shockingly calm, cutting through the din of hissing war cries.
James stopped, turning back. "Alex, what are you doing?"
Alex looked at his brother, and a faint, sad smile touched his lips. He thought of all the years spent in the laboratory, all the races he had tried to win, all the times he had lived in the shadow of his brother's charismatic charm.
"All my life I've tried to beat you, Jim," Alex said softly, his voice steady. "Let me be the hero for once."
Before James could comprehend his intent, Alex jerked the sticks of dynamite he had brought with him from his belt, ran to the sacred fire, and lit the fuses in its flames. He turned to his brother a final time. “Get out. Save Jade,” he shouted. “I’m going to blow this place to hell.”
"NO!" James screamed, lunging forward, but Jade caught his arm with a desperate, sobbing yank, pulling him toward the open grating of the sewer and urging him into the narrow aperture just as Alex shoved the high explosives against the weak point of the huge basen. His last thoughts were of Jade and what might have been.
There was a terrific explosion. Stone shattered like a hammered windowpane. Rocky shrapnel flew everywhere, cutting down the scaly foe. A tidal wave of flaming oil burst outward, flooding the temple floor in a sheet of roaring, all-consuming fire. Those reptilians who had survived the fury of the blast tried to run, but were instantly engulfed in the searing inferno.
In the sewers, Jade and James were shielded from the terrific detonation; even so, the earth shook violently, causing loose stones and dust to rain down on them as they raced madly along the tunnels’ walkway. Behind them, a growing inferno raged uncontrollably. The explosion had weakened mellennia old stone. The floor of the basin containing the sacred fire collapsed completely, and burning debris fell into the reservoir of highly volatile oil, similar to naphtha, beneath the temple.
A terrific blast, far more powerful than the one before, rocked the reptilian stronghold. Sheets of fire shot into the air. Whole sections of the curtain wall collapsed from the earthquake-like detonation. Shattered stone was hurled high into the air and rained down on the desert for miles around.
Hand in hand, coughing, weeping, and battered, James and Jade sprinted out of the sewers into the cool night air, as behind them the ancient citadel of Zarath burned beneath the alien stars in a mass of leaping crimson flames and roiling smoke.
**********
Dawn was breaking over the desert when James and Jade finally collapsed back inside the dented hull of the Planitaria.
James sat in the pilot's seat, his face caked in soot and streaked with tears, staring blankly at the damaged drive unit. They were alive, but they were stranded. The ship was not a complete wreck, but the vital field generator stabilizer was a write-off, and he lacked the technical genius of Alex to rebuild the damaged component.
Then, Jade pointed toward the auxiliary maintenance locker behind the pilot's chair. “Look,” she said, “there’s a note stuck to the door. It’s in Alex’s handwriting.”
James blinked, wiped his face, and stood up. He walked over to the locker, pulled the note off the door, and read the message: Jim, it began. If you’re reading this, then I’m probably dead. I’ve rebuilt the stabilizer. All you have to do is install it. I wish you and Jade the very best. You’re a lucky man, and I know you’ll treat her well.
His brother had repaired the component in secret before setting out on the rescue mission. Alex had known the risks from the very beginning, and he had ensured their survival even as he walked to his death.
Choked by a grief too profound for words, James fitted the stabilizer into the drive unit. The violet hum returned to life—stronger, purer than before.
"Hold on, Jade," James said, his voice cracking.
"Let's go home, Jim," Jade softly replied, gripping his shoulder.
The Planitaria lifted silently from the alien desert, rising effortlessly through the multicolored clouds of Nerthus. Below them, through the observation port, the smoldering ruins of Zarath faded beneath the cumulus of a world humanity was still entirely unequipped to understand.
The return journey was a nightmare of failing systems and manual calculations. The repaired stabilizer held up, but other components began to malfunction. Life support collapsed, the air grew stale, and the cabin became a sweltering furnace. For hours, James fought the controls with white-knuckled desperation, his mind entirely focused on the memory of his brother’s steady hands.
Miraculously, they survived.
Ahead of them, a familiar, pale-blue globe swam into view.
The Planitaria descended through the clouds of Earth, touching down softly in the exact same suburban Ohio neighborhood from which it had departed thirty hours ago.
The world went mad. The return of the daring explorers triggered an epoch of astonishment, rewriting every textbook in existence and proving that Professor Aden’s theories were not the ravings of a madman.
**********
Several months later, the rain fell once more over the suburban avenues, but the mood was altogether different.
A solemn, beautiful memorial had been erected on the university grounds where Professor Aden had once been mocked. At its center stood a polished bronze plaque bearing Alex Aden’s name, forever immortalized among the pioneers of spaceflight.
Jade stood beside James in the quiet drizzle, her hand resting securely in his. In the months since their return, shared grief and shared survival had forged an unbreakable bond; they had quietly married, finding solace and a new beginning in each other’s arms.
Jade was pregnant, but the timing proved beyond doubt that it was Alex’s baby, for she had been a virgin at the time of their lovemaking. James had taken the news calmly. In some ways, he was glad, because it meant that a part of his brother lived on in the unborn child that they would raise as if it were their own.
Professor Maxwell Aden stepped up to the podium, his white hair tamed for once, his eyes reflecting the soft glow of the memorial lights. He cleared his throat, looking out over the crowd of scientists, reporters, and citizens.
"Mankind has spent centuries looking toward the stars," the professor began, his voice carrying clearly through the evening mist. "We built rockets of fire and steel, believing that conquest was the key to the cosmos. But in this grand enterprise, the greatest thing of all was not the secrets of a hidden world. It was the courage of one young man who gave his life so that two others could return safely home."
James looked down at the bronze plaque, his thumb gently brushing Jade’s hand. Above them, the stars shone bright and clear through a breaking sky, waiting for the next ship to rise.
The End
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse