In Search Of Elysium

Epilogue

Ricky took Kevin's and Elee's advice and assigned a staff to do the mundane, everyday work at the moon base. Darden, elected the first president of Elysium, helped bring peace throughout Elysium for the first time in thousands of years. The scientists on the base studied the information left behind by the ancient Elysians, and they are trying to learn how the ships and underground systems were built and why a virus could destroy their world.

Ricky and Ladon, in their quest for knowledge, took archeologists on field trips into remote areas to search for the ancient cities. The records of the past told of God's golden cities on Elysium, but the locations were sketchy, and all of them had become overgrown with forests. Most were over 400 million years old, and if they still existed, Ricky did not expect much would remain intact. He was taking on this quest because Kevin asked him to dig up as much information as he could. Kevin, it seemed, still wanted to find God and heaven, and have that important chat with Him.

The trip today was one such mission. Ollie, Ricky's ship, used several scanning systems to detect the structures under the canopy of vegetation in this remote area of southern Elysium. The nearest city was over a thousand miles away, and Ricky's crew believed no one lived in this area. If they did, they would be an indigenous tribe.

"Ricky," Ollie announced, "There is something here. Stop and let's study this region."

Ricky brought the ship to a standstill, a few hundred feet above the treetops. He could make out the remains of a building, white with some shiny gold on the surface. As they scanned the landforms, other shapes also resembled buildings. The survey continued for over two hours, and the lead scientist, Klazon, kept asking if he could go down to the surface. He was eager to see these ruins up close.

"Come on, Ricky, let's get down there. This could be the lost city of God," he begged.

"In time, Klazon. I want to make sure there aren't any dangers lurking in this land. It would be terrible if I returned you to the moon base as a dead scientist," Ricky said.

"Gee. How could that happen? Can't Ollie put a force field around us or something?" Klazon asked.

"No, I cannot," Ollie continued, "There is too much vegetation for a shield to be operational. We have to do as we did in the past when we were on a mission. Take our time and study the dangers until we are sure we are safe."

The scan reports showed a map of a city over ten square miles. There were streets and parks with huge buildings and individual homes.

"Ollie, is there any way we can clear away some vegetation without having to cut them out?" asked Ladon.

"Yes. Direct the particle disrupter at the buildings and set it to these levels," Ollie said as he flashed a list of numbers on the screen. Ladon set the controls to Ollie's numbers and pointed the ship toward a building.

Lightning flashed, and vegetation fell to the ground as a powder. The building remained standing, and cleared of millions of years of growth. They continued to clean the buildings and roads, avoiding harm to any plants in the garden and park areas. At this rate, they would have a several square miles cleaned by nightfall.

This city was special. The buildings were large and ornate. Some resembled cathedrals and others were more utilitarian. All of them had a beautiful gold trim. What remained of the roofs was also solid gold, and piles of gold surrounded each building.

Ricky thought about the value of this discovery. The gold alone was worth a fortune, on Earth. However, what lay inside the buildings might be more valuable to their quest. From all accounts, this was the lost city of God.

One building caught the archeologists attention. It had a base of pyramids with steps rising to a huge building on top. Klazon said he would like to go into the building to see what was there. With the street in front of the building now cleaned, Ricky said he would land.