The Menagerie 2 (Eden) by Rick Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

tremor.
    “We’ve much to do, Ms. Moore. So if you please, I need you to follow me to the Central Post. Everything you’ll need will be there.”
    She appeared not to hear him, concentrating on the string of characters she aligned side by side on the holographic image. There were symbols and glyphs, archaic lettering with Sumerian and Egyptian similarities, most bearing the telltale signs of slight evolution in character shift.
    “Ms. Moore, please. Time is limited.”
    Alyssa stood. When she did the holographic panel closed to the size of a pinhole, and then it was gone, squeezing itself out of existence. The chair also took its regular shape, small and less suited to fit her physique.
    Amazing , she thought.
    As they made their way to the lower levels the rooms became wide open, the corridors leading from one area to the next tall and arcing overhead, meeting at a central point at the center of the ceiling. Here the ribbing along the walls served as luminary conduits, the ribs flaring with emerald-green light. In one section techs had removed a squared panel along the wall where light was emitting from, only to find no originating source or filament. Just . . . light.
    When they reached the bottom level it was as spacious as a football field, long and wide and filled with rows of lights, tech benches and computer consoles. The entire floor remained as busy as a factory as engineers milled about with their clipboards and tablets while others managed PC’s. Through the aisles the Tally-Whackers meandered with assault weapons draped over their shoulders, each one keeping a watchful eye.
    “Over here, Ms. Moore.” O’Connell was standing next to a long console with multiple monitors and PC’s. “This will be your station,” he told her, holding his hand out to showcase the work area. “The scripts, the lettering, the symbols from this ship have been logged and downloaded onto these computers. Whatever needs analyzing, you will find it right here.”
    She sat in the chair facing the screens, then booted up, the three screens coming to life in unison.
    There were thousands of archaic symbols, thousands of characters and glyphs. She immediately put her hands on her head, distressed, her mind racing with overload.
    “Problem, Ms. Moore?”
    She let out a sigh as the monitors continued to scroll through the symbols.
    “Ms. Moore?” he repeated.
    She shook her head. “This isn’t going to take days,” she told him. “Even if I was able to piece together bits and pieces here and there, it may not be enough to put together what you need for your engineers to begin the process.”
    O’Connell leaned forward and tapped the keyboard. The scrolling on the monitor stopped, and then winked off. After tapping in another set of commands, the center monitor showed archaic script. On the screens that flanked the central monitor were linear configurations of the creatures within the menagerie, their images revolving slowly to give a 360-degree view before closing to the size of a computer app and sliding off to the screen’s upper edge. More images came up, more creatures, each one rotating in display before shrinking to a tile and moving to the top edge of the screen, joining others. This process went on until the tiles filled the flanking screens.
    “How many of them are there?” asked Savage, whispering, the others not sure if he was being rhetorical. Either way, no one answered.
    Dozens of computer tiles turned to a hundred, then from a hundred to several hundred.
    How many ?
    “These images, these tiles, are in essence—at least we believe them to be—the biological history of those within the menagerie,” said O’Connell. “We believe this to be the mainframe instructions that manage the energy walls to the enclosures. If you see here,” he said, allowing his words to drift away as he hit more buttons. When he finished, a series of schematics to the holding enclosures came up, each with alien symbols denoting