House of the Morningstar: Chapter 26
Created | Updated May 15, 2023
House of the Morningstar: Chapter 26
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I have been thinking about my discoveries and I wonder what kind of place it is that Bill has found down there. It looked kind of old in a strange and unfamiliar way. I don't want to say it is out of this world, because it probably is exactly of this world. Or maybe not?
Laurine Luftschloss will leave today after lunch. This probably means we'll be back to lentil stew and beans with tomatoes by tomorrow. I have smuggled some real bread out of the canteen to save for later. It will last for a few days. While she was holding a final speech I saw a chance to go down to the strange underground place again, but I only had limited time while I was sure that Bill was occupied. When I was there I noticed that there were marks on the door I had closed by removing the blue crystal. Obviously Bill has desperately tried to get it open and failed. That's good, I guess. Serves him well. I am now pretty sure that the blue cylinders are power sources of some kind, because when I remove them from pieces of technology they tend to not work anymore – although I am never sure what exactly they do. And the crystals? I don't know. I found a set of small ones which produced different holographic images when inserted into a device, but could not make head or tail of it all.
For the rest of the day we tried to figure out how to fix our major problems with the building project. Gene says if we continue to work hard and do everything we can then next year maybe the boss can afford a second boat. I'm not sure if I can find that funny. He has been trying to reach the boss because of some important matters, but he got that reply that the boss has gone out to play squash because he is exhausted from working for four hours yesterday and said it would be nice if for once someone else would do some work, too.
I am now sure that Bill has killed Bob and Dave himself, probably after they discovered what he was hiding down in the underground tunnel. I have tentatively tried to talk about it to Frank from security, but it seems like he wants to hear nothing more about it. But I have also heard about Bill giving those security guys all kinds of presents for 'handling that case so well.' So I don't know what to do.
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The Road to Eldorado
Tanja put on her helmet and checked the small screen which was embedded in the arm of her standard-issue red-ish police suit. She looked up at the camera in one corner of the airlock and gave a thumbs up. With a loud creak and crunch the outer door of the airlock started to roll upwards. A thin line of light appeared on the ground and started to grow larger. Soon she had a view of the outside landscape: rocks and sand as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by the dark ribbon of the old, cracked road which led into the distance. The air was dusty and the sun was already low over the horizon in front of her.
The metal ramp clanged under Tanja's bouncy steps as she pushed the hover-bike down to the cracked, dusty street. She checked whether the storage box at the back of her bike was secure. She had taken enough ration packs to last her two days from the police station and a second battery for her vehicle. She had the coordinates she had found on one of the hand drawn plans saved on the map on her pad. It was quite a long way, but she hoped that maybe Angela Morgenstern and whoever was with her had not come that far yet.
Tanja got up on the bike and started her way down the road, in the direction of the place she had found in the old box at the archives. She took a short look back at the city, which was gleaming brightly in the evening sun. The many glass houses around it stretched far into the distance. In front of her the sand and dust and stones reached as far as the eyes could see. The old road was parting the landscape like a straight line. It looked strangely out of place. It was also partly covered in sand, which the wind frequently swept over the land.
After a while Tanja reached an old street sign at an intersection. Although part of the paint was already off it was still possible to make out the words '...domtown' pointing to a large cluster of ruins in the sand. She continued down the road, past a large broken experimental terraforming machine. Someone had deemed it fitting to paint it fern green with a pattern of leaves. One of its six wheels was off. It had been lying there for at least two decades. Nobody had made any effort to repair it, but a few removed hull plates was an indication that someone had salvaged some of its parts.
The sun was setting in hues of blue against the sky. In the dimming light, Tanja could see a sand-filled ruin at the road in front of her. In front of it, there was a large sign saying 'Welcome to Arid Hills'. Someone had obviously tempered with it at some time and it had once said something else. Tanja activated the night vision function in her helmet. She did not turn on the lights on her bike, so as not to draw attention to herself in case there was anyone about. She also put one of the water rations into the dispenser which was incorporated in her suit.
Tanja was about to continue down the road, when she saw a dim light glowing somewhere to her left. She turned at what may have once been an intersection and moved down a patch of sand between ruins of houses. It was hard to tell what they looked like exactly in the darkness, but each of them seemed to be two storeys high with a round pointy tower to the left and an arched entry in the middle. There were dormer windows in the high, pointed roof gable and lots of decorations from various centuries. The only thing that seemed to make it possible to tell them apart was the state of ruin they were in.
When Tanja was reasonably close to the light she had spotted, she got off her bike and left it next to one of the houses. Slowly she sneaked around the corner of the house and peaked into what could have been regarded as the backyard of the neighbouring property. There, in a dusty patch between rocks was a collection of bulky structures. They were arranged in something like a circle, one connected to the other and in the centre there was a large empty space. For a moment, Tanja imagined a campfire, a pot of stew and chatting people at this place, but there was none of this. There were, however, shadows moving behind the illuminated windows.
Tanja hesitated before she further approached the camp.
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