Starship Summer (Starship Seasons, #1)(25)
Matt was leaning forward, his head emerging through the front seats, interested. “Such as?”
“Well… the one that Kee subscribes to says that the Column is heaven itself. Once entered, it will prove to be of infinite dimensions, with room enough for all the races of the galaxy. Life everlasting awaits those who enter.”
“Except,” Maddie put in, “no one has ever entered it.”
“Right,” Hawk said. “Kee says that only the virtuous and supremely good can even attempt to step through the light of the Column. In death, the good pass through immediately.”
“That’s just one theory,” Matt said. “But they have others?”
“Scads of them,” Hawk laughed. “One says that the Column was placed there to watch over the Ashentay, to ensure they didn’t go down the path of technology, or else it would destroy them all. Another has it that the Makers did communicate with the Ashentay—they told them that they would return in twenty thousand years, and if the Column was still standing and in good repair, that’d be an indication of the Ashentays’ virtue. Then they’d be allowed into the light and experience eternal life. Another theory is that the column is a bridge to the stars. Of course they didn’t know that the Column is only thirty kays high—they think it goes all the way up, without stopping.” He paused, then said, “Take your pick.”
“I’m not sure that any of them appeal,” Maddie said, “but then what have our scientists come up with?”
Matt said, “Only that it’s constructed from some material unknown to humankind, that it’s porous but unbreachable, emits a powerful light but, and this is interesting, the light is cold. You can walk right up to the Column and touch it without burning yourself.”
Hawk said, “Don’t the various religious cults charge you to approach their section of the Column?”
Surprised, I said, “They do?”
Matt explained, “The circumference of the Column is sectioned off, with each cult having a small slice. Some claim that miracles—cures and vanishings and visions—have occurred at their sections, and so make an appropriate charge.”
Maddie said, “Typical…”
“If what Maddie experienced the other night is true,” Hawk said, “then we know who made the Column. The question remains: why was it made? There was obviously some—I don’t know—technological reason for it.”
“Is there, Hawk?” Matt said. “What if it’s, say, a work of art, or a religious symbol, or something so alien we have no hope of ever understanding its significance?”
Hawk nodded. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. It’s just that I have the kind of brain that demands rational, scientific explanations.”
“Most of us do,” I said. “We live in that kind of age. Centuries ago it would have been ascribed to the glory of a Creator, and left at that.”
Maddie said, “But even if what I felt was correct, then are we any closer to understanding what the Column is all about?”
“Well, we can’t be much farther away than we were,” Matt grunted.
I said, “It has a maker, and we’re in some kind of contact with that maker. Isn’t it only a matter of time before we make a breakthrough?”
We sat and thought about that for a while as we climbed from the central plain, leaving behind the neat, parcelled farmland and following the twisting road into the foothills. The vegetation changed too; gone were the rows of cash crops regimented by settlers, to be replaced by alien trees and shrubs, green but bearing strange multicoloured fruits and flowers. I saw many examples I had not seen before on my drive to and from MacIntyre, shocking silver blooms and dazzling red fruits: it was like travelling through some crazed artist’s impression of an alien world, and the Ring of Tharssos, scintillating through the heavens above us, only heightened the effect.
As we climbed it became cooler, but not uncomfortably so. We had set off just after midday and it was now three. We had another two hours to drive before we reached the Column.
The road switch-backed up through the mountains, becoming narrower as we progressed, and I hoped we wouldn’t meet a vehicle heading in the opposite direction. I slowed to a crawl, not bothering to look to my right at the precipitous drop that began half a metre from my shoulder.
At last we came to a cutting between two rearing peaks and passed into its shadow.
Seconds later we emerged again into sunlight and began to descend. Then we rounded a bend, and the sight that greeted us compelled me to brake suddenly and stare ahead, and up, in amazement.
I’ve heard that the first sight of great mountains has a similar effect on people: the first Westerners to behold Mount Everest were stopped in their tracks, rendered breathless by something so huge emerging from the earth before them.
I just gaped, open mouthed, as I took in the enormity of the Golden Column.
We were still ten kilometres from the Column, but it dominated everything about it, the plain on which it stood and the surrounding mountain ranges. It emerged en bloc from the flat, green plain, a vast rounded pillar that rose and rose and didn’t stop. Collectively we craned our necks, but still we were unable to make out where the Column terminated: its upper reaches were wreathed in cloud.
But, perhaps more striking even than its vast dimensions, was the glow that it emanated. It was a gold I had never imagined could exist, a bright, almost pulsating effulgence. It filled me with wonder and a strange, tearful emotion I could not place.