Beyond the Infinite - Tales from the Outer Reaches by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-28T20:00:00+00:00

***

The crew hovered around the table screen in the communal area while the image of the inscriptions was overlaid thousands of times a second with glowing red stencils. The flickering stopped. “Translation eighty-eight per cent complete. Nine symbols unrecognised,” said Carol.

“Display on-screen, Carol,” Thomas said, drifting to a more central position. The photo wiped from the screen to be released with a grey background. Red letters began to appear, separated into four panels, representing the four chunks of hieroglyphs carved into the rock:

Here interred lies Seth, god of chaos and evil, god of the desert and disorder.

Seth, here imprisoned by the Ra, god of the sun and the all-seeing eye and Nut, goddess of the Sky.

The sanction here placed upon Seth by Ra and Nut is without end. He who attempts to break this prison shall… (untranslatable)

The crimes of Seth: Genocide, destruction of the… (untranslatable) … are without precedent. So shall be his punishment.

“What in the name of fuck is that?” Lucas stared, mouth agape, first at Thomas, then at Reis. Reis shook her head but continued, struggling to form words.

“Carol, why are those two parts untranslatable?” Thomas’ voice caught in his throat, his breathing ragged. Even he was spooked.

“Nine symbols from the rock face are unavailable in my primary source database. Currently querying both British Museum in London and Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo for guidance. Transmission time estimated at fifty-seven minutes. Estimated time of response is two hours and eleven minutes.”

“Shitting hell,” Thomas balled his hands into fists. “Two bastard hours. Reis, we need to record a video message to the ground team at Ad Astra HQ. This – surprisingly – is not in the mission manual. I have no idea what we should do to proceed…”

Reis nodded. “Sure thing, Captain. I’m going to go and splash some water on my face, eat something.”

Thomas offered her a half-hearted smile and turned to Lucas. “Lucas, I need you to map collision data for the area. I’m not going to have time, with the message to base, and there’s debris everywhere out here.”

Lucas’ expression was grave. “I’ll get to it, Captain Thomas.” He drifted over to the cockpit hatch and went in. Thomas held his hands up in front of his face. They trembled. He covered his face for a moment and inhaled a long breath. The hissing of the sleep quarters’ door jolted him to attention. Reis swam over to him.

“Are you alright, Thomas?”

He stroked the stubble on his chin with one hand while he considered how to answer. “I’m just a bit… shaken, I suppose. I’ve done some crazy, dangerous things in my life, but even on black ops with the RAF, I’ve always felt like I was in control. You know?” He looked down at his hands, the fingers absent-mindedly knitted together. “When we arrived at Psyche. Manoeuvring around all that debris… No problem. But this? I mean… what the fuck even is it?”

Reis gripped Thomas’ shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.