The Fold Ship - part 1

Posted on Mon Aug 3rd, 2020 @ 12:33pm by Lieutenant Alekela illm Meaho'ōla

1,653 words; about a 8 minute read

Alekela watched the painting on the wall. The holo-painting of her world was now shading toward morning, the Queen of the Night's promise; the great rings that encircled her home fading as the Twins in their eternal dance were about to rise above the ocean view. She thought back on all the events of the day and the dream of last night and sighed.

"Computer record log"

[Recording]

"Everyone has been nice, but all seem curious not so much about me and our world. They do not know what A’ksu means nor should they. That word, I know it has meaning from our past, but what a past we had. Yes, we made horrible mistakes but we also soared in a way that many do not know. Knowing what I now know it burns my hearts to see us so dependent on others when at one time we were powerful."

"I guess all that dream again has shaken memory. Let me talk about how I came to know that what we had in the past and that only a few still know. My path started with my first flight and the discovery that our past was different than I knew. My first flight and the discovery of what I learned later was called a Fold Ship. A fantastic thing from our history that could literally fold time and space such that one could move from here to there in a mere blink of an eye, but I get ahead of myself. It starts thusly:
The flight had been exhilarating. The suns warm on her wings and many times she could just use the currents of air to float rather than tire herself. It had been exhilarating, that was definitely past tense, and Mysima had been correct as well, storms blew up all the time.

It had seemed that one moment the suns were bright and the sky light blue and the next grey clouds and cold hard gusts of wind. I tried to drop further down but it seemed that every time tht I did the winds caught me in an updraft and forced me up. The wind was so strong I hardly needed to use my wings except to try to stabilize a little of the wild flight. Now the mountains, their grey forbidding slopes sans vegetation and crowned with white, were looming close, way too close. I knew that to fly back meant going into the teeth of the storm and a very real possibility of having the thin film of wings torn asunder. All I could do was to ride the front as it swept her closer and closer to one grey wall. A sudden gust lifted me and by the narrowest of margins pushed me through a tight little pass between the peaks. For a moment on the lee side, a little calmer wind gave me a small respite. I noted the soft snow that lay deep and folded my wings. This time I plummeted and no updraft caught me. Turning at the last moment to cushion slightly the impact, I slammed into the white but cold yielding snow.

Shock from the sudden cold and the still heavy impact took my breath away and shot electricity through me as my warm body reacted to the sudden cold. All I wanted to do was to lay there but in my mind I knew that cold had always been my species enemy. Though I wanted to rest, while I retained the heat from my exertions I needed to find shelter before my body surrendered to the cold.

Slowly I gathered my legs under me and stood up. Immediately, I wished I had not, the cold wind bit hard and in moments I was shivering. I had heard about other species making snow caves to keep the wind chill away but that would not work for my species which did not have a self-regulation. Whatever the case, I needed out of the wind of the storm now.

Scanning the terrain I spotted a cave opening, thankfully not far away, and headed toward it. Though cold rock scarcely hinted at much comfort, if it went sufficiently far in the ground temperature would be at least higher than any other shelter I could think of.

What seemed like a long time, but was only minutes, I found myself at the mouth of the opening in mountain wall. Nothing lived this high up and thus I was sure I would not run into something nasty. Entering the dark passage I held out a hand to the wall to help guide me as I walked into it. Still cold, being out of the wind was a relief and I shivered just a little bit less.

I continued to walk slowly down the tunnel until I was more questing with my feet rather than seeing the floor, since the light from the mouth was dim now indeed behind me. I was about to stop when it registered finally in my mind that my hand trailing along the rock wall no longer felt rough rock, but instead the passage was smooth. I ran one foot across the floor and noted the same applied to the area under my feet. This part of the passage had either been made or reworked by someone or some machine which implied someone had been here before.

Why anyone would do such a thing was definitely curious, and obviously they had not continued the project to the entire length, that implied that someone was trying to hide something within. My curiosity aroused made me forget about my current predicament and I slowly went further questing with touch for unseen trips.

The passage curved slightly until I could not see even a hint of the opening to this tunnel as it was not a cave anymore. Again, I pushed forward and deeper until one foot indicated a drop. Instinctively I looked down and in the dimness noted a shallow step.

"A step?" I thought and the fact that I could even see it suddenly dawned on my that a dim light was present and it was coming from in front and not behind my as I swept my head back and forth. One step, two, three, four, while again the passage turned to my right. As I came around on the fifth step, the light while still terribly dim was bright enough I could make out the source.

A large metal disc gave off the dim light, sitting in front of me not more than twenty paces away and filling the cavern, which I noted was again smooth and worked. The disc was unlike anything I had ever seen or heard of. What it was and why it was here was a mystery. It revealed no door, nor any windows and yet it was like the cavern and the step clearly an artifact.

I slowly touched the skin of the faint glowing thing and found it was slightly warm to the touch. I pressed myself to it as though a lover for a few moments enjoying the slight warmth after the fall into the snow and chill of the cave.

Many minutes later, I began to explore the edges of the artifact. It was smooth, warm but nothing revealed itself as an opening that I could obtain entrance to the inside. Defeated in my efforts I made myself comfortable as I could on the smooth stone floor and huddled up to the skin of the artifact. In moments I was asleep.

I do not know the time but I awoke cold and stiff. I blinked my eyes in the dim gloom and the memories of the day before came to me. The ship was still there and its faint warmth had kept my from falling into a coma from which I knew I would never have woken. My hands trailed across its smooth surface and I gave thanks to whoever had put this thing there. Though it must have been someone's from long ago, I none the less thanked the Twins for the gift.

Slowly I got to my knees and then to my feet feeling the stiffness of the cold in my body. Pangs of hunger then struck me as I straightened. They reminded me that I had flown far and had used a lot of energy. I knew that I would have to leave and hoped the storm that had caught me had abated.

As I slowly traced my way back through the tunnel, my right hand trailed along the wall for guidance and at one point my fingers encountered indentations in the rock. The indentations were too regular in their outlines. I traced the outlines with both hands, and I realized they were writing.

The symbols were old but I could still figure out their meaning. It was an inscription that read: 'We hide the past to preserve the future.' The phrase stuck me like the cold had. It was so similar to what every school child learned, ‘We put away the past in order to preserve the future.’

I turned and looked at the artifact hidden within the cave and realized that this was one of those machines, objects from our past. One of those things created that now had been put away and hidden. I could not help but return to it, slightly glowing as if still alive somehow and touch it again. What it was I vowed to find out even if the Mother beat me. This was no hallucination, but a real thing, no cold fever dream, but exactly what the old phrase referred to. An artifact that had not been destroyed, but put away, perhaps forgotten but the stories of a more technological past were real.”

*YAWN*

“Sorry, do not record that!”

[Deleted]

“Well close the log, maybe finish some other time.”

[Log closed]

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