Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations (23 page)

Gallops diminished to silence. Aaron wrestled free from under the pudgy worker and gauzed his wounded shoulder with cloth ripped from Haguyu’s sleeve. He recalled Duncan’s words, ‘
the Golden Horde always let one live to witness and spread the news they were to be feared.’

Of the Kahn’s triumphant return, he had been the one spared to spread this warning.

Aaron glanced from the jeep to his cell phone. He removed his blue cap and pondered the haunting memory of the metal’s otherworldy color that had slipped through his shoulderblade. He needed to find shelter right away, to get to a doctor, to
spread the warning.
Reaching for his phone, he read aloud the final translation . . .

‘
The Golden Horde rides again.’

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Recently accepted into,
A Glitch In the Continuum
, anthology by Pill Hill Press,
Jay R. Thurston
is honored to present his second published work,
The Funeral Procession
. When not writing, Jay enjoys attending concerts, paintballing, and chess. He has a B.A. in International Relations, and lives in New Hampshire with his wife. Check out his blog site at
www.jaythurston.blogspot.com
.

Jason Andrew

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Jason Andrew brings a unique perspective to this collection. Humans have long sought to discover life on other planets but, if that day should arrive, what exactly would the implications hold? Would alien life be so different from that of Earth, or would it mirror our own, filled with joy and pain and fear? Could we find commonalities with our galactic neighbors and, if so, what is it that all
“
intelligent
”
creatures seek? One suggestion lies forthwith in
Requiem
, a quiet passage that is both beautiful and telling.

=[]=

Tonight, I want to share a story with you. Some of you have lived your entire life with the warm knowledge that we are not alone in the universe. I was but a very young boy when the first message from Tau Ceti was detected.

My father had won tickets to the World Series in Detroit. It was a rare prize. We were from a working poor family and we hadn’t spent much time together since the divorce. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my father could have sold those tickets for a tidy sum. The White Sox were our home team. It is a rare gift when a father and son love the same baseball team.

Watching the President of the United States throw the first pitch, we knew that was a historic game. We cheered as the Sox led into the seventh inning stretch. The White Sox were going to win the World Series.

The lights then flickered haphazardly. The shrill whistle of the Umpire stopped the game. I remember looking around at the panicked faces of the other fans in the stadium. None of us knew what to expect. What could be so important as to interrupt a baseball game where the White Sox were about to win the World Series? Had there been a terrorist attack? Did someone assassinate the president?

The announcer flipped on the PA system. “Ladies and gentleman. New Comiskey Park would like to apologize for the interruption. This is a day that will long be remembered.” I had never heard Ken Harrelson, the Voice of the White Sox, so flustered. “I can’t explain the science behind it. I certainly can’t explain the religious connotations or the meaning of it all. The Associated Press just reported that two hours ago, the Large Hadron Collider located in Geneva confirmed the receipt of a communication from a solar system known as Tau Ceti, which is located just twelve light years away. We are not alone.”

We waited in silence while the Star Spangled Banner played. What did it mean to all of us that we had cosmic neighbors? What did their message mean? The low mutterings of the skeptics were quickly drowned out by the President’s speech.

“Citizens of America; Citizens of the World. On this day, we have received a message originating from beyond this world, beyond this solar system. Learned scientists from all around the world have verified the origin of this message, but as of yet, we have not decrypted the meaning of it. Our brothers from Tau Ceti have gifted this day with the knowledge that we are not alone. We ask that you remain patient. This government wishes to assure you that there is no known danger and that all possible precautions are being undertaken.”

And then the world, all of humanity, held our breath in anticipation.

The young of today can’t fathom what it was like at that time. War stopped. Governments didn’t broker peace. Armies and militia simply quit fighting. Lands and people that had soaked in blood for centuries simply went quiet. School was canceled. It wouldn’t have mattered as none of us were willing to leave our television sets. We spent our time messaging each other, wondering what it all meant.

My father took me to church the very next Sunday. I had never been inside of a church before. We had to sit in the aisles. The entire neighborhood had come seeking some sort of answer we could all digest. The Pastor smiled and welcomed us all, but he didn’t have any answers. Instead, he called us all together to sing.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

I realized then that if there was a God, then he lived in the beat of a song. Millions of children that day were inspired to learn the subtle craft of science to meet the challenge of our new neighbors. I followed the beat.

It took the governments three months to finally admit to the world that it seemed beyond our science to decode the message. The possibility contained within the message frustrated us all. The message became a Rorschach test against which the frightened, the hopeful, and the faithful flung their own ideals against. It was a challenge the world willingly accepted.

We tried to learn everything we could about our new neighbors. Our largest telescopes couldn’t pierce the debris disk surrounding that star. Through spectral lenses, we caught pictures and shadows of the planets there hidden inside that celestial briar patch. What did our neighbors look like? What sort of world did they live in? Did they laugh? Did they love?

Ten years passed until a married couple from California discovered the solution to understanding the message. It had been delivered through a complex quantum entanglement that pulsed at regular integrals. Standard communication would have taken centuries. The Tauians, as we had come to call them, had managed to link a few quantum particles from their system to ours creating the longest string in the history of man. We simply couldn’t figure out how to tie that string to a can so we could communicate.

The Brooks had an argument. Matt decided to blow off steam by playing his oboe in the garage. Jen tried to work on her dissertation while listening to her husband butcher the scales. It occurred to Jen that the human ear and the human brain were programmed via evolution to appreciate music. The pattern from the quantum entanglement mimicked a musical scale that extended beyond the human audio range. It was different than any human scale, but the coincidence seemed uncanny. She made an innocent notation in her personal forum and others noticed a similar pattern.

I was a man of twenty then. I was almost done with school, eager to prove I could make it. I mastered the piano, the guitar, and the cello, but still I feared the cool attention of an audience. It was a good time to be alive. The world had changed.

It might have been the fear of our neighbors that brought out the best of us. I like to think that it was our awakening. We realized that we needed to put aside childish things. The world learned to work together, feed our hungry, and live in enlightened self-interest. Those of you in the audience attending Jerusalem World University might forget the two thousand year struggle of this city. We long had the means to resolve our own problems on this world, but rarely the will.

It took a message to remind us all of the possibilities.

Within the year, scientists had figured out that the notes in the cosmic scale provided them with a mathematical key to build a transceiver. The transmissions were translated by mathematical alchemy into sounds. We had searched the skies for centuries seeking a sign that somewhere else in the universe there was life; that we were not alone. None of us ever expected to hear the song within our lifetimes.

Some of my learned scholars believe that using the word song is an improper anthropomorphism of the Tauians’ method of communication. I strongly differ on this point. Music requires a special evolution to appreciate. Our brains are wired by millions of years of evolution to seek out and appreciate connections. It changes the way we think, the way we perceive the cosmos. How eloquent and strange to us would a creature be, that communicates solely through music?

The songs of the Tauians use a twelve-scale pattern that feels to the human mind like a fusion of the Baroque and the Blues scale. Listening to them can bring joy, sorrow, or any emotion in between.

Some of the sounds of the songs are a bit out of our range, but translation software has improved our ability to enjoy them. And through listening, we learned more about the universe. It took a few years to realize that the Tauians use a duodecimal system.

Mathematics is just another way to describe the universe. Once we realized how the Tauians thought, we were able to understand their language of whistles, pitches, and hums and they opened to us a universe of possibilities. We learned about their science, their history, and most important their stories.

We dreamed of their aquatic world of crystal and refracting light. Each of us longed to see their cities carved from the Great Coral Reefs along their equator. They learned to communicate almost telepathically by musical notes alone. They shared everything with each other and realized that their greatest strength was their community.

Our world burned with questions. What did the Tauians think of us? Why did they communicate with us?

It would be years before an answer would come even with the quantum entanglement cosmic line. We waited with as much patience as we could muster and slowly the songs of Tauians became our songs.

I was almost fifty when I wrote my first Tauian Symphony. It had taken a lifetime to understand and master the subtle shifts in tone, the joy of their crescendos, and the sorrow from their andantes. I had locked myself away for the better part of a year ignoring my wife, my grandchildren, and yes, pesky agents wanting their new song.

And then came the answer from the Tauians. A cosmic disaster virtually destroyed the fourth planet in their solar system. It caused a disaster of biblical proportions. By the time we received the message on Earth, the world of the Tauians had been destroyed a century past.

The Tauians reached out to us on their last nights desperately wanting someone to mourn them. They wanted their songs to pass on to another generation and so they launched probes to broadcast their songs.

Some speculate that our neighbors escaped to the stars seeking a new home. Perhaps the children of my grandchildren will find out that answer.

I dream of those dead cities and I think of all that they did for us during their final hours.

And then I remember their courage and that their last wish as a people was to share their songs. I present to you the
Requiem of the Tauians
.

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Jason Andrew
lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. He is an associate member of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
and member of the
International Association of Media Tie-In Writers
. By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the
Creature Feature
classics and furiously scribbling down stories; his first short story, written at age six, titled
The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason
was rejected and caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years. Jason is at:
http://jasonbandrew.com
.