Chương 29: Part 29 - Caretaker

Upon Maja all things rest, and from Maja all things flow. He coaxes grain from the soil, water from the rock. But more than this, He holds cloud, wind and rain in His hand, guiding them to be gentle and constant. The child may ask, are not the clouds pleasant, the wind and rain gentle by their nature? It is good that a child is well-loved, and during their youth understands the world as a gentle place.

Youth ends with entry to the world of men, and the knowledge that such idyll is purchased by the labor and blood of those who work diligently to preserve it. Understand what it means, then, to say that we are all as children to Maja. - Subsequent passages of the Majan Saom.

"What am I supposed to do?" Gusje whispered, looking around apprehensively.

"I don't want to be punished!"

"It's okay," Arjun reassured her.

"I don't believe we're in any danger. Oh, this is incredible." He walked forward to peer further into the room, taking care to stay behind Gusje.

"In hindsight it's obvious, I was just saying the other day that the pre-collapse culture here struck me as more advanced than even our own. A culture with a language dedicated to shaping flows of power." He turned back to the others, nearly delirious with glee.

"It's code, all of it. Of course they would have computers."

"What is he talking about?" Tesu asked. Jesse turned to look at Tesu and Tasja, both of whom looked as though they were seconds from fainting. He frowned slightly as he considered his choice of words.

"Arjun believes that Maja's true form is… let's call it 'script that can think.' A huge collection of scripted instructions, processing information and acting accordingly." Tesu's eyes went wide before he spun to glare at Tasja, seizing him by the shoulders.

"What lies have you been parroting?" he growled.

"How dare you-" He was cut short as Mark yanked him backwards forcefully, frowning down at the scriptsmith.

"Yeah, that's enough of that," he said darkly.

"What the hell are you mad at him for?" Tesu glared up at him, for once not cowed by Mark's threats.

"It's the Lysvarun heresy," he spat.

"The ceivaceiqan kings, Lysvaru Vae and Qavazhe Vae, they spoke similar falsehoods. Your young companion has done you a disservice by filling your head with that filth." Tasja sputtered in protest, but Jesse stepped in between him and the furious scriptsmith.

"Tasja did mention those two kings," he said, "but only their names. He never told us any details." Tesu snorted, although the pallor of his face was beginning to suffer under so many hostile glares.

"Preposterous," he said.

"You're all clearly quite familiar with Lysvarun thought. Why else would you leap immediately to such an unnatural conclusion?"

"Because where we come from there are millions of such machines," Jackie said, bringing him to a sputtering halt.

"We've all seen hundreds, personally. Sorry, Tesu, but we all came to an independent and identical conclusion. That should tell you something."

"So Maja isn't a god?" Gusje asked. Tesu's horrified look shaded into silent apoplexy, and Arjun winced.

"I believe that Maja is every bit as powerful as the Sjocelym think," he explained, speaking at a careful pace.

"I have no doubt that it controls the weather, keeps the rain and wind steady. But I believe that it is a complex machine that was designed for that task, a long time ago. Think of it like an immense saon drai, or perhaps a collection of them with linked functions."

"Preposterous," Tesu repeated firmly." Did none of you hear Maja speak? There is no saon draim that can counterfeit speech, not one!" Mark lifted an eyebrow.

"Weren't you just telling us that it's also impossible for the doors to open for Gusje and not the rest of us?" he asked.

"That you were starting to think all your scriptsmith buddies might not know jack shit compared to the folks that built this place? They built the gateways, you dumbass. Script that can tear a hole in space and cross half the country with a footstep." He leaned down and looked Tesu in the eye.

"Are you seriously going to try and tell me that talking was beyond them?" Tesu glared back mutinously, but before he could respond Jackie cleared her throat.

"Maybe we should talk about this later?" she suggested.

"There's no point in fighting over speculation. Let's open the door, and then we can fight over actual evidence."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Gusje asked. She looked sidelong at the raised panel in the center of the room.

"No matter who or what is here, this place is important. The room is obviously built to keep people out."

"But it recognizes you, for whatever reason," Arjun said.

"You have access to open all of the other doors in the facility. Granted, this one appears to be somewhat more important, and there's no reason to believe that your access is universal - but if it will open for anyone, it's you." She gave him a tentative nod and walked further toward the panel, stopping well short of it.

"Should I just touch it?" she asked.

"Try and blow some of the dust off first, see if there are any markings," Jackie advised her.

"Can't hurt to take a closer look before you try anything." Gusje nodded and lowered her face to clear the panel. Her breath raised a billowing cloud of dust that left her coughing, but when she had caught her breath and blinked away the grit from her eyes the panel was clear. It had no writing upon it, only a faint outline of a splayed hand with a small circular indent in the center of the palm. She frowned and spread her fingers to match the outline, then slowly lowered her hand to touch the panel.

There was a high noise, almost past the edge of her hearing. She strained to listen for it, shifting uneasily - and nearly jumped out of her skin as the voice from before spoke again.

"Authentication failed," it rumbled.

"No valid token was found. You have three attempts remaining." Spooked, she danced back a few steps while Jesse repeated back the pronouncement for the others.

"Well, that's unfortunate," Arjun said, scratching the back of his neck while looking thoughtfully into the room.

"I wonder what sort of token it's talking about?"

"There were two shapes on the stone," she said, glad to find her voice steady when she spoke.

"A hand, and inside it a small circle. The circle was set into the stone a bit." Jackie walked closer to the panel to see for herself.

"Hm, about the size of a larger saon drai," she said.

"It would make sense, they made a ton of other stuff in that format. It's small, convenient to carry." She turned to Mark, who had joined her to examine the indent.

"Did you find any odd saon draim in the guards' stuff?" she asked.

"Something about that size?" He shook his head absently.

"Nope," he replied.

"Nothing past a few qim and utelym, and I doubt those are going to get us through. All they had were supplies, a few books, a journal and a creepy severed hand."

"A what now?" Jackie asked, her eyebrows shooting upward.

"I know, right?" Mark said.

"Just be glad you're not the one who wound up accidentally touching it. Some mummified hand wrapped in cloth, cut off about here," he said, holding a finger to his own wrist to indicate the spot.

"Tesu didn't know anything about it, but he said the guards here were kind of known for being nutty." Jackie frowned, looking back at the indent. It was shallow, and sat in the precise center of the outlined hand's palm-"Oh," Jackie said. Mark turned to her with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh?" he inquired.

"It's biometric security of some sort," Jackie said, glancing back at Gusje.

"Has to be, otherwise it wouldn't be able to pick her out from all of us. Now that you mention the hand I'm thinking the guards might not have had access to open the doors either. If that was the case, they'd need a key." She held her hand up and waggled her fingers. Mark made a face.

"That's both disgusting and disturbing," he groaned.

"It's exactly what I'd expect from the Sjocelym. So, what, you want to try using the hand on the panel?" Jackie shook her head.

"No, between the indent and what it said about a token I'm still pretty convinced we need a saon drai. You're sure there wasn't one with the hand?" Mark shook his head.

"It was clenched into a fist, but it was loose enough that I would have noticed something inside." He paused, then blinked.

"Actually, it was wearing a leather bracelet," he said.

"There was no coin attached, but now that you've got the idea in my head it strikes me as pretty similar to the way Gusje wears her asolan." He paced over to where Jesse and Arjun were talking in low voices.

"Hey," he said, "let me see the asolan real quick." Jesse gave him a curious look, but fished in his shirt for the coin and handed it over. Mark held the coin and its lanyard under his flashlight, grim-faced.

"Oh, balls," he said quietly.

"I knew it reminded me of something. This isn't just similar to the bracelet on the hand, this is identical."

"What's this?" Gusje said, coming over to look.

"My asolan?" Mark nodded.

"We found an old, severed hand in the guards' belongings," he explained.

"It was wearing a bracelet like this, just the cord." Gusje's face darkened.

"Then it's likely the hand was from a Cereinem," she said.

"The cord and the asolan are passed down together, and if the cord must be replaced it is always remade to match the broken one." She picked up the coin from Mark's palm and held it up.

"The weave is traditional for such a binding, and unique to them. I've never seen it used elsewhere."

"So the facility recognizes Cereinem?" Arjun said, frowning.

"That doesn't make much sense. We're practically in the heart of Tinem Sjocel." Jackie shrugged.

"Occam's razor," she said.

"How likely is it that there's an entirely distinct explanation for the hand, given how much of that lines up with what we already know?" She looked at Gusje, who wore a vaguely troubled expression.

"Tesu told me earlier that the Sjocelym weren't sure who made the Sanctum," Mark said.

"That a fair chunk of them said they came across it already built." A faint croaking noise came from the scriptsmith as he caught Mark's implication, his mouth dropping open. Gusje shook her head.

"My people wouldn't have made a place like this," she insisted.

"We live with the cerein, we build with wood and grasses. This place is wondrous, but it is not Cereinem." Arjun looked her over while stroking his chin.

"But what were the Cereinem, before everything fell apart?" he asked.

"Think of the sophistication we've seen thus far. I doubt your people lived then as they do now." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"I know that in the past the cerein grew widely and the desert was kinder," Gusje said uncertainly.

"My father never told me anything about our people living in the mountains, or anywhere besides the desert."

"There's an easy way to test our theory," Jackie said.

"If we're assuming that the facility recognizes Cereinem, then it would make sense that the linked saon drai is the one that every one of them always carries. Gusje, you should place your asolan in the circle and try again." Jesse frowned.

"You sure about that?" he asked.

"The message said we had three attempts remaining. We may want to be careful, failing all of our attempts could lock us out forever - or, worse, trigger some sort of security response." Gusje looked at Arjun accusingly.

"You told me this would be safe," she said.

"What he just said doesn't sound safe."

"Adjusting your opinions to account for new information is a good thing," Arjun said sheepishly.

"That said, I believe I only said that you have the best chance out of any of us. I haven't seen anything to change my mind on that count yet." Gusje gave him a flat look, provoking a grin from Jackie.

"Come on, it said we had a few tries left," Jackie said.

"We don't have to use the other two just yet." Mark sighed.

"Your call, Gusje. The danger and potentially disturbing revelations are all yours, so you get to choose." He scratched his head and looked back down the hallway.

"But I'm fresh out of ideas for saving our collective ass if we don't get this open, so - take that into account when you're deciding." Gusje nodded and turned back towards the panel, taking the asolan off it's cord. The metal coin was warm in her hand, the familiar ridges and swirls of text a soothing feeling under her fingers. She passed her thumb over its face, then placed it in the circular indentation. It fit precisely. Gusje felt a pang in her stomach as she saw how right the indent was for the coin.

She splayed her hand once more and placed it over the asolan, wondering how she fit into whatever outline it was using to measure her. There was a brief pause, then a low chime from within the walls. A cracking noise sounded from the door as mineral deposits crumbled and fell away. Through the dust and falling debris she could see a dark hallway continuing forward until its end was lost in inky shadow. The door was open.

"Oh, man," Mark said.

"I can't believe that actually worked." He ignored Gusje's annoyed glare and walked forward to shine a flashlight down the hall. It continued for a short distance before the path turned and was lost in shadow.

"You'd think these folks would have figured out interior lighting at some point." They began walking cautiously down the hall with Gusje in the lead. The air past the door was warm and humid, with a faint breeze that rushed past them as they walked. After a gentle downward slope and a seemingly endless straight corridor the hallway terminated in a round room with no exits. A single pillar stood in the center of the space, and after a few moments of examination Gusje laid her hand on it.

The floor shuddered briefly as it sank downward. There were a few alarmed looks at the sudden motion, particularly from Tasja, but Arjun only murmured appreciatively and walked over to study the wall as it slid past. Suddenly, a line of blinding light intruded on the darkness from the edge of the room. The shaft opened up into a room lit by tall windows that stretched from floor to airy ceiling on one side.

They stayed carefully away from the platform's edge as it descended from the top of the space and settled into the floor with a slight hiss. They stood in the middle of the cavernous room, blinking and rubbing their eyes against the sudden flood of light from outside. A constant low roar sounded from somewhere near. The windows showed mostly cloud-covered sky, but as Jackie walked near them she saw hints of green mountainside slope below.

"Guys, take a look at this," she called out, waving them over. Her voice echoed back oddly from the room, as did the footsteps of the others as they jogged (or, in Tesu's case, were half-dragged) over. They lined up at the window and peered out, then looked down. A deep, green valley stretched beneath them, wooded on both sides as they plunged steeply down to the bottom.

Below the window there was a straight drop downward to a stone channel filled with rushing water that flowed in cataracts from within the structure. The roar of the waterfall was immense and primal, and Gusje stood spellbound as she watched it pour forth from below.

"Fascinating," Arjun muttered.

"We haven't gone down that far, but the climate below the cloud layer is entirely different. It's the same effect as when we crossed the wall at Sjan Saal."

"But where are they getting all this water?" Jackie asked.

"We're basically on top of a mountain, there's no way they found a natural source that large." Gusje nodded and put her hand up against the glass, feeling the vibrations from the torrent through her fingers.

"My father spoke of a place like this," she said.

"He and his brother traveled to Tinem Sjocel, long ago. He said they saw the mountains that caught the clouds. He said that they herd the rains like tari, keeping their waters on the Sjocelym side of the mountains."

"Of course," Arjun said, snapping his fingers.

"If the upper boundary has the same sharp temperature gradient it would act as an incredible condenser. The rain shadow effect would be amplified a thousandfold, almost all of the moisture would precipitate out immediately." Tesu nodded hollowly.

"From Maja all waters flow," he muttered. Jesse turned to take in the rest of the room. The soft blaze of light from the clouds overhead lit the room in muted tones, softening its geometric pillars and buttresses that receded away to each side. There was a raised dais ringed by a small ridge of stone near to where they were standing, the only disruption in the otherwise smooth and expansive floor. He walked over to inspect it.

The ridge was angled to present a continuous curved face to those standing upon the raised platform. A regular crosshatch of bronze was laid thickly across it, finely arrayed ridges of metal that covered the stone almost completely. Light danced across them in an ever-shifting flow, forming patterns, images - and words. Precise lines of light grouped together to form burning text in the scribe's script that they had seen above the entryway.

"Tasja!" he called out, urgently beckoning him over.

"Come here, I need you to translate something." The young scriptsmith ran over quickly, picking up on Jesse's tone. His eyes went wide with amazement as he saw the flickering lights of the display. Moving tentatively, he stepped upon the dais to get a closer look.

"This is incredible," he breathed, still flushed from his run.

"I've never seen anything like it." Jesse had, but refrained from commenting.

"The text," he reminded him gently.

"Can you read it?"

"Ah, yes," Tasja said, focusing on the nearest group of words. He was keeping a calm demeanor, but there was a distinct unsteadiness to his voice as he spoke.

"This says - 'Main Status,' and then below it there are a number of different items listed." He leaned in, getting as close as he could without actually brushing against the panel.

"Below reads 'Airflow Shaping', 'Water Retention', 'Ruud Concentration', and 'Stabilization Array'. Beside each, it reads 'Awake.'" He looked back at Jesse, wide-eyed.

"The things it has listed," he said tremulously.

"This is it, isn't it? This is Maja." Jesse nodded slowly.

"I think so," he said, putting a hand on Tasja's shoulder to stabilize the boy.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," he replied, swiping a hand across his eyes.

"It's just - you're not from here. At the foundhome they told me every day that we were Maja's wards. I've asked him to watch over me many times." He shook his head.

"But this is it. All those people whispering his name, and nobody is listening." The others had followed along behind Tasja, albeit at a more relaxed pace. Mark whistled as he walked up and saw the shifting lights.

"So this is what, a control panel?" he said. Jesse nodded, feeling lightheaded.

"Seems that way," he agreed.

"Tasja, can you read any of the other text?"

"I can try," he said, collecting himself and moving further along the curved panel.

"So much of it is changing, moving numbers and lines. A lot of the words don't mean anything to me, and some are just one or two glyphs." He paused before another block of text.

"This one is like the other, though it reads 'Location Status.' It has different items below it." He frowned as he read through them.

"I don't know all of these words. Let me see - 'Lighting', 'Temperature', 'Integrity Salyvesja', I don't know that one…" He frowned, tapping his chin.

"Then there's 'Advanced Gajhaeve', ' Ymajhelan Control' - I've never even heard half of these words before." He shook his head and stepped back.

"Almost all of the ones in this group are marked 'Asleep', only the temperature and integrity-whatever ones are 'Awake.'" Mark walked up onto the dais and frowned.

"So you're telling me that there's stuff this building could be doing that it isn't," he said thoughtfully.

"Anything about sealing the doors or blocking the road up or, I dunno, poking holes in anyone that comes up the path?"

"Mark," Arjun said, a note of reproach in his voice, "We should be cautious. If our theories are correct, this station may well control the entire climate of Tinem Sjocel. Meddling blindly could have catastrophic consequences."

"I'm not suggesting we turn off the rain or anything," Mark said, his face atypically stony.

"But I wanted to come here because without some help we're fucking dead. Now that we know there's no man behind the curtain, we need to explore other options. We could move all the Aesvain in here and seal the door, I guess, but without food that's just dying more slowly." He paced around the curving panel, eyeing the flickering lights as they danced across the metal.

"We need a way to stop them from reaching us or to keep them from trying. Right now, this is looking like our best option."

"We could do the lights?" Jackie suggested.

"That seems relatively safe, if we're trying to get a handle on things. The Aesvain would appreciate it, although it'll probably freak them out at first." Everyone turned to look at Gusje. She blanched, holding her hands up as if to ward away their stares.

"What do you expect me to do?" she asked.

"Even if the building somehow recognizes me, I don't know how to tell it to do things." Jackie blinked, then laughed and shook her head.

"Right, of course," she said.

"Sorry, we have so many of these things back home that I'm used to assuming everyone knows what a user interface is." She gestured to the bank of flickering lights.

"They've already shown that they use touch controls for doors and the elevator. I would assume that you can control the items shown on the screen by touching either the status indicator or the name of the item itself."

"That… actually makes a lot of sense," Gusje said, pursing her lips. She walked up to where Tasja was standing, looking down at the rows of unfamiliar text.

"Which one is it?" Tasja held his finger just above one of the lines, and Gusje tentatively poked it with her finger. A pulse of light rippled across the nearby metal grids, and the next segment was replaced by a few snippets of text that glowered at them from the console.

"Let me see," Tasja muttered, moving closer to the new display.

"I think it's confirming the command. These two bits by themselves, that one is 'Yes' and the other is 'No.'" He pointed, then looked up at the others. Jackie and Arjun both wore excited smiles as they nodded in confirmation.

"Convergent design," Arjun said, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet.

"It makes sense, but it's incredible to see examples!" Mark waved a hand at him, unable to suppress a grin.

"All right, Doc, ease up," he chuckled.

"Probably shouldn't distract Gusje too much when she's poking the weather." Gusje carefully touched her finger to the "Yes" text. A sudden wash of soft light came from recessed fixtures in the upper reaches of the ceiling, dispelling the shadows that lurked farther away from the windows. Echoing clicks and whines issued from far above as lights switched on elsewhere in the facility. Jackie looked around appreciatively.

"Nice," she whistled.

"Okay, anything else that we know for sure what it does?"

"Not really," Tasja said, wrinkling his nose as he looked back at the status display.

"There are a few where I've got a guess."

"Hey, grumpy," Mark said, nudging Tesu with his boot.

"How about giving the kid a hand?"

"I will not assist you with this blasphemy," Tesu grumbled.

"It is one thing to go against the wishes of Vumo Ra, another entirely to meddle in matters of the vinesavaim." Mark rolled his eyes and turned back to Tasja.

"Sorry, looks like you're on your own," he said.

"Anything that looks like the word for 'security' or 'perimeter' on there? Ooh, or how about 'weapons?'" Tasja shook his head, and Jackie punched Mark on the shoulder.

"Are those really the first systems you want to turn on?" she asked.

"Let's work our way up from the bottom and see if we learn anything first. Tasja, what about anything that looks like an informational or help system?"

"There was one that looked like it might refer to information," Tasja said, turning back to the panel.

"Or maybe interaction. Or communication." He shrugged and pointed at one of the entries on the display.

"Like I said, I only have guesses about these." Jackie shrugged.

"Sounds like a reasonable second choice. Anyone have an objection?" The others shook their heads, and Jackie nodded at Gusje. She touched her finger to the item Tasja was pointing at, then walked over to confirm on the screen beside it. The screen rippled as the confirmation dialog disappeared, but there was no obvious change in the room. She looked around, frowning.

"I'm not sure what that did," she said, turning to Tasja.

"I pushed 'Yes', right?" He nodded.

"Maybe it just activated another device elsewhere in the room?" he suggested.

"We haven't really had a chance to look-""Welcome, Caretaker," a woman's voice said, resonating through the stone around them with startling volume. Tasja made an undignified noise and spun around in surprise, searching for the origin of the voice. In the middle of the platform a pillar of warm light began to coalesce, motes of fiery luminance swirling around a central spire.

"It has been one million, one hundred and three thousand, five hundred and forty-eight days since the last activation," the voice said.

"Local status is within normal bounds." The light flickered and danced, then darted inward to form into a more defined outline. There was a flash, enough to make everyone avert their eyes for a moment. When they looked again, a woman stood before them sketched in shimmering golden light. She turned to face Gusje, who stared back dumbfounded.

"Who… are you?" she stammered. The woman cocked her head." Maja Tsena Sazhotse je Drautivat," she said.

"The First Stabilization Array Control System, out of seven in the global array. For addressing the interactive representation, 'Maja' is the common shortened form." She turned to look at the others, who were staring speechlessly at her luminous figure. She was wearing a plain white linen dress and had dark hair stowed in a neat plait atop her head. Her eyes were pale and bright, scrutinizing each of them in turn. The vast room was silent but for the distant roar of the waterfall below.

Jesse took a step forward, his gaze locked on her and his hands shaking.

"You," he said softly, looking into the eyes that had plagued his dreams for weeks.

"It's you."