Sacred Ground

Sacred Ground

D. A. Ratliff

The twin suns of the Icai system were beginning to peek over the horizon as Renata Ledger raced toward the ancient viaduct. Since arriving on the planet, when she was twelve years old, she had met the sunrise on the ancient bridge. Running to the highest point, she stopped, dropped her backpack, leaned on the stone ledge, and watched the orbs rise, one slightly behind the other, and bring light to the day.

The river below her was pristine and clear, and the air filled with a musky smell of rich soil and fragrant wildflowers. She breathed deeply, pulling oxygen into her lungs as she turned her face to the rising warmth. Having spent the first twelve years of her life on a space station or spaceship, Renata relished every moment of living in the open air.

Activity by an archeology team on the pier jutting from an old building into the river caught her eye. The building, built approximately two hundred years ago, remained a mystery to the scientist and engineers among the colonists. Her older brother Zeno was an engineer, and he speculated that the building was a water purification plant, but no one had found a power source. In the distance, a city’s ruins stood against the sky.

Renata turned to leave the viaduct when she heard splashing water. She rushed across the bridge to see concentric ripples spreading across the still surface. A fish? But there were none. One of the reasons the Etherian Colonists Consortium chose the planet was that there was no animal life or harmful pathogens present. She leaned over the wall peering into the dark water. Peculiar, she thought. She would tell Mr. Harmon, the school director, about it. Maybe they could arrange a field trip.

A chill ran down her spine as she heard a sound, like a soft garble, as she turned to leave. She spun around, but no one was there. A tad unnerved, she ran off the bridge and back to the compound.

Renata hurried to the metal pod where she and the twenty-two other children in the colony attended school. At fifteen, she no longer thought of herself as a child but as a young woman. Too bad no one else did.

Slipping into the pod, she sat next to her best friend, Unika, who was fourteen. She started to tell Unika about the bridge when Mr. Harmon called the class to order. She pulled her tablet from her pack and tapped the lower corner of the transparent pad. The day’s lesson plan was projected into the air as Mr. Harmon began. Renata smiled. Mr. Harmon was a cheerful man and a good teacher. Scientists and engineers often visited to give lectures on science and math to enhance his curriculum. Once she graduated from the colony school, she could take the university modules stored on the servers or leave the colony to attend a physical university. But that would prevent her from returning to her family for several years. She shivered. Maybe she wasn’t as grown up as she thought. She didn’t feel prepared to leave the colony without her parents and Zeno just yet.

As she walked home, she thought about Mr. Harmon’s reaction to mentioning the ripples on the river’s surface. He had become serious, asking her several questions about what she saw and heard. He quickly said no when she asked if they could go on a field trip and check it out—that they had better things to do.

After school, Renata headed home to a stainless-steel structure, part of a housing cluster. There were several clusters scattered within the walls of the gated compound. As a family of four, the Ledgers lived in a two-story unit. Before they arrived, they lived on a space station in far less space. Renata entered her room and opened the window allowing fresh air inside. She never wanted to live on a space station again.

She had just finished her homework when Zeno knocked on her door. “Hey, Mom says time for dinner.”

“Now? It’s early.”

“Yea, a bit.. uh.. we have a meeting to go to this evening—so, early dinner. Come on.”

During dinner, Renata noticed her dad, the compound director, and an astrophysicist, was not as talkative as usual, and her mom seemed distracted. Zeno kept the conversation going talking about an upcoming sports competition. She decided to tell her parents about the incident at the viaduct. Their reaction surprised her.

‘Ren, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Her father’s stern voice confused her.

“I told Mr. Harmon today. I thought he might like to take a field trip to the river and check it out.”

“Terrance, Ren did what she should have.’ Her mother flashed a reassuring smile. “How about we have dessert after we get back from the meeting?”

“Can I come?” Renata asked, knowing what the response would be.

“No, not this time, dear. Just routine issues we need to discuss.”

She offered to clear the dishes while they left. Her mother sent a message for her to have dessert without them. They would be late.

~~~

Renata rose before daybreak, dressed, and went downstairs to find a note from her mother that breakfast was in the warming tray and to go straight to school and not leave the compound. Not to leave the compound? That made no sense. She went to the bridge each morning and was going today regardless of her mother’s request. She grabbed her breakfast sandwich and her bag and headed out the door.

Her heart began beating faster as she noticed more sentries than usual at the gates, which were open as teams overseeing the farming operations and research teams exploring the city’s ruins were leaving. Renata slipped into the middle of a group of geologists and exited the compound.

She ran to the bridge, arriving as the first light from the prime star broke into the dawn, followed by the secondary star. The spectacle of the twin suns rising mesmerized her. In the distance, she could see dust rising from the wheels of several rovers as they headed toward the ancient city.

A leaf drifted past, flowing underneath the bridge on the calm water. Renata bit her lip. She was feeling anything but peaceful. Mr. Harmon didn’t act as she expected, and now her parents were behaving out of character. She scoffed. Why would they tell her? She was only a kid.

“They will come.”

A voice? Heat flushed through her as she swallowed hard and turned slowly. She gasped and backed up against the viaduct wall. A ghost? She eked out, “Who are you?”

The apparition, floating above the roadway, appeared to be a young girl about her age. The image fluttered, repeating, “They will come,” but disappeared before she could respond.

Renata sank to her knees, shaking. What was happening? She had to get back to the compound. She rose to her feet and ran.

Throughout the school day, she felt uneasy. All of the adults appeared distracted, whispering when they met. Was she too hypersensitive after seeing a ghost? Maybe so, but something was wrong on the compound, and it frightened her.

She was quiet through dinner, but no one seemed to notice. Zeno received a message and left mid-way through the meal, and her parents retired to their room after dinner. When she went upstairs later, she heard their muffled voices.

As she closed the door to her room, Renata vowed to visit the bridge in the morning. There was no school, and she could stay as long as necessary. She needed to talk to a ghost.

~~~

Rain pelted the ground as Renata slipped out of their quarters and made her way to the gate. The rain hindered and helped her as fewer people were outside, but fewer were going through the gate. She hid behind a water storage tank waiting for an opportunity to get past the sentries. It came when the convoy of rovers set out, heading for the ancient city. With the sentries distracted, she slipped behind them and ran for cover behind a grove of trees. Satisfied that no one saw her, Renata headed to the viaduct as fast as possible.

She stood in the center of the stone roadway as the river, now swollen with rain, flowed rapidly below. Her nerves were raw. How did she summon a ghost? Calling to it seemed ridiculous, but she did.

“Please, if you are here, come talk to me. I know something’s wrong. Please, tell me.”

She waited. Nothing. The rain, now driven by the wind, stung her face. Tears dissolved into the wetness on her cheeks as she was about to give up.

“They will come.”

Renata spun to find the girl standing in the center of the bridge, appearing as a translucent shimmer in the downpour. “Who is coming? You have to tell me.”

The apparition floated closer, and Renata noticed bony ridges on her forehead and temples. The ghost’s words resonated in the rain.

“Find the answer under the bridge. Look for the crescent. We left it there.”

“Left what there?” Renata raised her voice over the din, but the ghost faded into the gray sky. ‘No, come back. What did you leave?” She continued calling for the spirit to return but gave up and headed home.

She changed out of her wet clothes and began to dry her hair when she heard footsteps pounding on the stairs. Her door flew open.

“Renata, were you outside the compound today? And don’t lie to me. Someone saw you and called me at the clinic. I had to finish with my patients before I could come home.”

“Mom, I just went to the viaduct. You know I go every morning.” Her mother’s anger frightened her, and she was scared to tell her about what she had seen.

“We told you not to go outside the walls, yet you did.”

“Why can’t I go the bridge?”

“School is out for three days. I don’t want you outside of these quarters.”

“But why? I wanted to study math with Unika.”

Her mother rose. “Just stay here, so we know where you are.” Her mother left, closing the door behind her. Renata expected to hear the lock engage to keep her in the room, but she did not.

Once again, her parents and Zeon left after dinner, and her father reminded her she was not to leave the house. She stomped to the couch and flopped down. This was ridiculous. She needed to talk to the ghost again. Her parents would never believe her unless she knew more than they were coming.” She needed to talk to someone. She pulled her vidcom from her jacket pocket and tapped Unika’s icon.

“Ren, hey, what’s going on? My parents just left and told Gem and me not to leave the house.”

“I don’t know. Mom, Dad, and Zeon left for some meeting and told me the same thing.”

“I heard Mom telling Dad that what they found could be dangerous. Something I think they found in the old city. What was it, do you know?”

Renata sucked in a breath. She had to tell someone. “Uni, I was on the bridge a couple of mornings ago, and I….”

The vidcom went silent. “Uni…? Are you there?” Only silence. Renata shivered. Why would the coms go down? What’s happening?

~~~

The answer to what was happening came in the middle of the night. Renata woke to hushed voices in the hall. She heard footsteps on the stairs and hopped out of bed. Stepping into the hallway, she gasped. Blue light flooded the house.

“Mom, Dad, what’s happening?”

Her mother answered. “Renata, you should go back to bed.”

“No.” Zeno shook his head. “Mom, it’s kind of hard to miss that there is blue light in the house from the artifact. Renata needs to know what we found.”

Terrance stared at his son for a few seconds, then spoke. “Layna, Zeno’s right. She is old enough. Let me contact the command center, and then we’ll talk.”

Minutes passed as Renata, sitting at the dining table, waited for her father to end his call. She had tried to get Zeno to tell her what was happening, but he said that Dad should tell her. She had something to tell but wondered if they would believe her.

Terrance ended his conversation and joined his family. He cleared his throat, which sent a chill through Renata. He only did that when he had terrible news.

“Renata, as you know, the last supply ship also brought a team of xenoarchaeologists to begin exploring the city’s ruins and the rest of the planet. They had been here only there for a couple of days when they found a chamber under the fountain in the square. In that chamber, they found an artifact. A large carved stone pillar that had some sort of mechanism inside. They had no idea what it was. Zeno’s been there and thinks it is a communication device.”

He paused. “While one team was in the city center dealing with the artifact, another team checked out a few buildings on the city’s periphery and made a horrid discovery.” He swallowed again. “They found a mass grave filled with the remains of humanoid bodies that don’t appear to be the inhabitants of the city. The statues we found reveal taller humanoids but with large heads, prominent noses, and no bone ridges like the bodies we found. We think…” He stopped. “Renata, what’s wrong?”

Renata gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. She shook as she asked her father about the remains. “The ridges,” she sucked in a breath, “were they straight across the forehead and then little wing-like ones by the ears?”

Her parents exchanged glances, and Zeno put his hand on her shoulder. “How do you know this, Renata?”

“I told you that when I was on the viaduct two days ago, I thought I heard something. So, I went back yesterday and a, I don’t know… a ghost appeared. She was about my age and said, ‘they will come.’ I couldn’t see her very well, but I went back this morning. She came again and moved closer, and I could see her features… pale and transparent, but I saw the ridges.”

Renata was trembling, and her father took her hand. “Take a breath. Did this ghost say anything?”

She nodded. “She said we could find the answer under the bridge. To look for the crescent that they left it there.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

Terrance squeezed her hand. “Of course, we believe you.” He turned to Zeno. “When it gets light, take a couple of sentries with you and check that bridge. With that beacon going off last night, we need as much information as possible.”

Renata pointed to the window. “Dad, what is the beacon? It’s causing this blue light?”

“About an hour ago, the mechanism under the fountain turned on, and a crystal on top of the sculpture in the center of the fountain began to glow blue, sending a beacon into the sky. We think it is a signal of some kind.”

Renata looked toward the window and the blue glow. “She said they will come.” Turning to her dad, “Are they coming?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll be ready.” He rose. “Your mother and I are going to go to the command center. Zeno, make sure she gets breakfast and contact Daniella, Unika’s mom, and tell her we want Renata to stay with them this morning. We’ll be back.”

~~~

It was nearing daybreak, and Zeno had called for sentries to meet him at the gate. He was about to contact Daniella when Renata came downstairs, no longer in her night clothes but dressed. Zeno laughed.

“There was no chance I was going to the bridge without you, was I?”

“No, I have to go. She might not come there unless I am there.”

“Okay, I’ve been in trouble with Mom and Dad more than a few times. One more time won’t hurt.”

As they neared the bridge, Renata ran ahead. Zeno directed the sentries to launch the rubber dinghies the sentries had brought earlier and search under the bridge before joining his sister.

“You love this bridge, don’t you?”

“Yes, I love the view and the fresh air.”

“I know, living on space stations, even with the holorooms simulating the outdoors, it isn’t the same. Can’t simulate real air.”

“Look, Zeno, the first sun is coming up.” They stood in silence as both suns rose.

“You are right, little sis. This is a beautiful place, but….”

She finished his thought. “We may not be able to stay.”

“No, we may not. Come, let’s help look.”

Zeno and Renata got in the empty inflatable and joined the sentries as they worked toward the bridge’s center. It wasn’t long before a sentry yelled out, “Over here.”

Toward the top of the center arch was a stone with a crescent carved into it.

“Zeno, it’s real.”

“Never doubted it. Now let’s figure out how to get to it.”

A sentry returned to the compound for ropes and more people to help. They strung a rope across and under the bridge and attached a pully. A sentry in a harness went over the edge and pulled himself to the spot. With a bit of coaxing, he pried the stone away and pulled a metal box from the crevice. Back on the bridge, he handed it to Zeno.

“Now we see if we can learn something from whatever’s inside the box.”

As they left the viaduct, Renata looked over her shoulder and saw the wispy image of the ghost before it faded away.

~~~

Several anxious hours went by as the engineering and cyber team worked to make the alien tech compatible with their own. It was dusk before the oblong box with rounded corners flickered to life. Zeno contacted his father, and the council met in the command center.

Though her parents told her to stay home, Renata shadowed them and slipped into the meeting hall, hiding behind a pillar.

Zeno set the metal box on the desk. “We approached this problem assuming that this is a communications device. We have reason to believe this is a message from a race that once lived on this planet. We finally found a workaround to activate the instruments using hologram technology we got from the Cuzsar. Fortunately, there seems to be a universal translator included in the data crystals.”

Terrance nodded. “Then let’s see it.”

Zeno pushed a button, and a life-size image of a woman with the same ridges on her head as the remains found in the city appeared. The meeting hall fell silent as she began to speak.

“If you are seeing me, then you are in grave danger. We are the Tomarons. Our home world became overpopulated, and we sought other worlds to colonize to reduce the burden on our planet’s resources. Before I tell you more, the data crystals included contain information on our home world. If you could somehow get word to them to let them know what happened to us, we would be grateful.

We discovered this planet and were thrilled as it suited our needs. The air was clean, the soil rich, and shelter was available until we could build our own. We moved into the city, and all was well until children playing in the square found a hidden door on the fountain base that led to a chamber. We thought it might be a mechanism for turning on the water flow to the fountain, so some of our people worked on it.

That was not what it was.

Three nights later, the crystal at the top of the fountain began to shine a blue light into the sky. Thirty-seven cycles later, they arrived. A large ship hovered above, and they came to the surface in smaller vessels. We learned they were called the Reuti. They were tall, with large heads and noses, yellow eyes, and scaly skin tinged green. At first, they seemed friendly enough, but soon we realized that they were only trying to determine the location of our home planet. When we started to ask questions, they became violent.” She stopped to compose herself.

“We tried to escape on our ship, but they had disabled it. We fled deep into the city, trying to hide from them, hoping they would leave, but they didn’t. They hunted us down. We never saw those captured again, except for a few who managed to escape. That is how we learned about this planet.

The Reuti bragged about their clan heritage and that this was sacred ground. They would allow no one to live here. Many eons ago, two tribes of the Reuti lived on this planet, but a civil war broke out. The Reuti-suan lost and fled their world. After they left, a plague struck, killing all inhabitants and animals and leaving only the vegetation. When they returned, they found their clansmen gone and vowed that no one would live on the planet again. They installed the beacon so they would know when visitors violated their homeworld.

She took a breath. “Only a few of us are left and have taken refuge in the water plant we were building on the river. We knew we would die, but we hoped to warn others. Our race can linger on a celestial plain after death. If you have seen one of us, then we have succeeded. If you unknowingly activated the beacon, evacuate immediately. It is your only hope.” She reached out, pulling a young woman into the hologram image. “I am Cetate Yneu, and this is my daughter Oolara. We wish you life.”

As the hologram faded, Renata yelled. “That’s her. That’s the girl from the bridge.” She ran to her mother, who hugged her tightly. “That was her, Mom.”

Her mother whispered, “We wouldn’t know what we were facing if you hadn’t gone to the bridge. You saved us.”

~~~

Terrance contacted Etherian Colonists Consortium, forwarding the message and data from the other crystal discs in the box. The Consortium instituted emergency evacuation orders and informed him that the Etherian Alliance Force sent a starship to help with evacuation and security.

The EAF directed all traces of the colony removed, so the location of Etherian and her allies and any technology did not fall into hostile hands. A monumental task lay before them. If they were lucky, they had thirty-plus days to break down the camp.

Renata and her friend Unika packed Unika’s belonging before coming to Renata’s room to do the same. Unika sat on the floor, putting data crystals that stored books on them into a storage box. Unika sighed. “Ren, do you think we will get out of here?”

“Yes, I do. Zeno said if it takes over thirty days to travel here from wherever the Reuti live, they don’t have stardrive yet or are very far away. The EAF ship should be here in four days, and they will be able to protect us while we pack.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to find another place where we can all live?”

Renata shrugged. “I don’t know, Unika. I hope so. I loved it here.”

“Me, too.”

“Let’s get this done, and then I promised Mom we would go to the clinic to help her box up supplies.”

~~~

Four days later, EAF Starship Griffin arrived in orbit. Captain Harku Moya and his officers transbeamed to the surface, greeted by relieved colonists. They gathered in the meeting hall to discuss the situation.

Captain Moya stood before them. “Dr. Ledger, we wish we were here in better circumstances. As we approached the planet, its beauty revealed the appeal for you to colonize it. However, beauty is often an illusion. We are here to provide security and assist in the compound’s disassembly. We have an ETA on The Latimer. She will arrive in ten days, giving us ample time to remove the structures and your belongings.”

“I have a lot of anxious people here, Captain, who would like to know what measures you have taken to protect the colony?”

“The Griffin will remain in a fixed orbit above the colony, and we will have shuttles patrolling the area. We have also placed sensor buoys around the planet, so we will not be surprised by a ship approaching from any sector.”

“We’ll be sad to leave here.” Terrance stared out the window at the dark sky. “I was looking forward to celestial research.”

“We’ll map the stars for you, Dr. Ledger.”

~~~

It was day twenty-nine of the evacuation. Between the colonists, and Griffin and Latimer crewmembers, parts of the physical colony disappeared daily. Now, the non-essential colonists had transbeamed to the Griffin, and only the essential staff remained on the planet. Renata had begged to remain, and her parents allowed it as long as she stayed with Zeno at all times.

The behemoth cargo/maintenance ship that served the colonies was in low orbit over the planet and visible to the naked eye. They watched in silence as the last of the containers, and the disassembled building units were tractored onto the ship.

“Ren, almost time.”

“I know.” Her shaky voice betrayed her sadness. She would never see a sunrise on the viaduct again. Zeno started to hug her but was interrupted by shouting from a Griffin crewmember emerging from a shuttle.

“Sensors have picked up a fleet of ships headed this way. ETA ten hours. Captain wants everyone onboard in one hour.”

Zeno turned to take Renata to the shuttle, but she was gone.

~~~

Renata had planned to go to the viaduct one more time before she left, but time was running out. When Zeno looked away, she ran past where the compound’s walls once stood and slipped into the trees so no one could see her.

Her heart raced as she ran onto the bridge. It would be the last time she would stand on it. She gripped the railing and gazed at the old city on the horizon, the afternoon light from the binary suns casting a golden glow. She sensed Oolara before she turned to face her.

“Oolara, we found the box. You were right. They’re coming, but we’ll be gone before they arrive.”

“We are glad you will live.”

“We would have died without you. My dad promised to find your planet and tell them what happened to you.”

Zeon had caught up with her. “Renata, we have to go.”

Tears spilled onto her cheeks as Oolara’s image faded, and she turned to her brother. “Did you see her?”

“Yes.” He hugged his sister as tears ran down his cheeks as well.

~~~

Space Station 227 was now their home, at least temporarily. Most colonists had chosen to stay there while awaiting the decision to colonize a new planet. Meanwhile, they had assimilated into the station research departments.

Renata was enjoying school, thankful that Unika and her other friends were there. She was sitting in a forward observation area studying when her parents and the commander of the Etherian Alliance Force on the station approached her.

Terrance and Layna smiled, and her dad spoke. “Captain Jeffers has something for you, Ren.”

The captain handed her a polished rectangular wooden box. “Renata, we contacted the Tomarons to inform them of what we learned about their colonists. We kept the stone they carved to mark the hiding place of data crystals as we thought they might want the remembrance.’ He paused. “They were thankful that you communicated with one of their spirits and asked that we give this to you as thanks for providing a way for them to know the colony’s fate.”

“Why didn’t they come looking for them, Captain?”

“They did but found remains and debris from their ship in space near the planet. The Reuti must have planted it there to keep anyone from landing on the planet. A scan of the planet revealed no life, so they assumed all had died on the ship.”

Ren opened the box to find the worn stone with the crescent carved on the surface. She looked up, gazing out the viewport at the myriad of stars. Someday, she would breathe fresh air again.

***