Dragon's New Dawn - Chapter Four

[Wolvy† 0]

Meanwhile, upon another planet, resides the villa of Hasan:

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Planet Belos: The house of Hasan.

 

The last rays of the day were waning, and still Hasan worked on to improve the flitter’s drive system. He had missed dinner again, and his concentration was wearing thin. The door of his workshop burst open without warning, and his youngest son blasted into the shop, along with plenty of dirt and dust from the outside. His patience seemed to be getting the best of him, and he threw his wrench to the floor in frustration.

“Dad! It’s doing it again!” hollered Justin.

“What’s doing it again?” grumbled a testy Hasan.

The wiry little boy didn’t immediately answer, but instead, hopped around on one foot, eyeing the disassembled flitter. Justin bounced over to Hasan, stooped down, and absent-mindedly picked up the wrench.

“Look Justin, do you mind? I’m trying to work here.”

“Oh, Okay.” Said Justin, while looking this way and that: Tools and various parts of the home-made flier lay scattered all about the shop. He added,” You’re always working, Dad.”

“Just go back to the villa, Justin. I promise I’ll come over in a little while, as soon as I get the flitter back together.”

Justin stopped hopping and stared at the ground. His downcast eyes betrayed the disbelief of his dad’s promise, and he stood there, not saying anything. Finally he asked,

“Well, can I take it down and listen to it some more?”

Hasan’s attention to the flitter again wavered.

“Listen to what?”

“The touchstone. You said I couldn’t touch it unless you said it was okay.”

Hasan’s took the wrench out of Justin’s hand and placed it onto the cowl of the flitter. A feeling of irritation mixed with intense curiosity piqued in him concerning the half-forgotten relic that lay encased upon his mantle.

“Did you say that the touchstone is making noise?”

Justin shifted his feet and shrugged an impatient gesture that perfectly imitated his own siblings attitude.

“Yeah, didn’t I just say that it was doing it again?”

Hasan paused and pondered.

“Justin, has anyone else heard the touchstone make noise? What did it do?”

Justin rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious. “Dad, Essie says that I’m imagining things. She always says that! Even If I told her that the house was on fire she’d say I was imagining it! She’s deaf as a stump, I swear!”

Hasan wiped the dust off his hands and hastily placed his tools back into the tool box. He quickly scanned the flitter’s twin drives with his mind to ensure that they were stable, then led Justin out of the workshop and locked the door.

Justin scampered away towards the villa. Hasan followed Justin into the house, and hollered at Justin to please NOT touch the touchstone quite yet. Justin hopped around on one foot as his father reached up and removed the glass cover that encased the polished ebony-colored cube. Hasan lifted the cube, and set it onto the table in the middle of the room.

“Can you hear it, Dad?” said Justin. “It’s humming right now as if it’s waitin’ for something!”

Hasan concentrated his mind onto the black cube. He felt his consciousness slip into the matrix, and saw with his mind’s eye the atomic structure and microscopic control surfaces embedded within the cube. Sure enough, of the thousands of times he had peered into the artifact, this time there was an undeniable spark of life in the matrix. Justin was right: The mysterious touchstone had finally awoken.

 

#

The alarms of the stargate had been tripped, activating a pre-programmed, yet ancient sequence. With mechanical precision, It determined that the timer for quarantine lockout had long ago expired. It now sensed simultaneous activity at two of its portal entrances, meaning that it was time to activate the next sequence of its program. The stargate transmitted the order to arm the touchstone.

#

 

The next morning, Hasan awakened to the smell of breakfast that penetrated the villa. His rumbling stomach reminded him pointedly of the missed dinner from last night. Esryanna didn’t take kindly to her father when it came to missing meals. Some day he might have to learn to cook himself, he thought. Ever since his wife had been lost in child birth eight seasons ago, Esryanna attempted to become the substitute home maker. Hasan felt guilty about the whole affair, but he felt powerless with regards to situations involving family. Besides, Essie did a pretty fair job now that she was nearly eighteen. Perhaps, rationalized Hasan, Perhaps keeping her busy was a good way to keep her from getting “too interested” in some of Caleb’s friends that kept dropping by.

Hasan got out of his cot, dressed himself, and shuffled into the kitchen where Esryanna, Justin, Caleb and Ransom were sitting.

“Morning Dad,” muttered Esryanna, as she placed a generous plate of Quenal egg and meat in front of him. Justin was eating his food quickly, and it looked as if Caleb and Ransom were already finished.

“Father,” said Ransom, “Caleb and I are going to head out to the back meadow today and trim out some of the hedge bush. Can we perhaps borrow the flitter?”

“It’s a couple of weeks early, isn’t it?” replied Hasan.

Caleb jumped in “Yeah, we know it’s early. However we never got around to it last season, and now the hedge bush is taking over the back portion of the meadow. It’s gonna take extra time this year!”

“You wont get much sap out of them runners if you take them early, you know.” Said Hasan.

“There will be plenty, Father.” Said Ransom. “The first batch might not produce, but as Caleb was saying, this job will take us straight into the season where the sap runs strong. We’ll get plenty. Plus, we need to clear out that meadow.”

Caleb and Ransom looked at one another as Hasan put his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes.

“Boys, if you can put the cowl back onto the flitter, its yours. I’ve got another project to work on today.”

Justin piped up: “See Essie?? I was right! It was singing, just like I said it was!”

Esryana shot Justin an annoyed look, then glanced at her father with concern.

“Do you even know what that thing does, Daddy?”

Hasan looked up at his children.

“Well, Justin’s heard it sing, and I know that Ransom has seen the controls inside. It’s very old, yet has not a scratch. I got it while I was still at the university, because no one knew what to do with it. It came from way south, from the deep tropics. I think it’s a touchstone of some kind, from the ancient city of dragons. For some reason, it chose yesterday to come alive.”

Caleb smirked. “Maybe Justin dropped it and fixed something by mistake!”

“And maybe,” retorted Justin “it took one look at you and mistook you for a dragon, you’re ugly enough!”

Justin tossed his spoonful of egg at Caleb to drive home his words, but Caleb ducked and they flashed over Caleb’s shoulder and onto the floor. Caleb laughed, but Hasan interrupted.

“ENOUGH!”, He yelled. “You two, quit it. Caleb, act your age, and as for you, Justin, you can help Essie clean the floor after breakfast.

A glowering Esryanna stomped over to the cupboard, pulled out the mop and set it next to the door for emphasis.

“Ransom”, continued Hasan, “I will need your help after you get back from the field in working with this touchstone. Your insight will be most helpful. Let’s give this thing a going-over to see what it does.

Later that morning, Hasan sat alone in his study with the touchstone. As he extended his mental touch into the ebony surface, he could see that the device was indeed quite active. It hummed with alien energy. No doubt this was the sound that Justin felt. Hasan closed his eyes and used his gift to mentally probe the device. It was composed of ordered domains of quartz and silicon, nicely arranged to form an informational matrix. Hasan had probed other similar devices, but all of them were much simpler than this one.

Hasan poured over the touchstone in thought, taking great care to avoid the control surfaces that appeared inside. These surfaces were obviously designed to accomplish some task, and they were very much alive. Only, what was their assigned task? As he mentally hovered inside the touchstone, it’s unique design began to take shape. The controls appeared to be related to three, possibly four different zones in the structure. Only two of the zones were, at this time, activated. The largest of the zones appeared to move with Hasan’s mind: It was the entry point in which Hasan had entered the touchstone. All activated touchstones he had experienced up until now had one zone. Most touchstones performed simple tasks, like providing heat or cold. Some of them would emit enough energy to make them glow to provide illumination. This one, however, was very different.

Hasan, continued focusing his mental energy onto the artifact. He stared with his astral eye at the second, mysterious zone. After a while, he began to hear noises emenate from inside the stone block: Regular household noises, or so it seemed. Hasan heard snatches of muffled conversation, of unfamiliar voices from outside his home. Could this touchstone be some kind of communication device? As he continued to peer into the matrix, he could not help but notice a change in the crystalline structure: This artifact was adapting itself to his mind in a wonderful, unique way that he had never before experienced. The structure began to change, and with it, the control surfaces. They looked fluid, and Hasan had difficulty handling them. Reluctantly, Hasan withdrew his mind from the touchstone. He opened his eyes to stare at the featureless black cube.

 

“This one will have to wait for Ransom,” thought Hasan. “ It’s going to take both of us to master this device, whatever it is.”