Legacy of Ages: The Colony

Chapter 70

Ela gets back to her quarters and relaxes by the window for a moment. The Calling is all but done now, as the lights in the clouds dim down to almost nothing. She turns in for the night but lays awake as she realizes that she has done everything she can think of to ensure that the Luc's and her people will live again together in the future. The feeling of helplessness, and the giving over of herself to fate is hard for a person so driven to control her environment, and everything around her, but she finally falls to sleep, only to be woken by a knock at her door.

The knock is so unusual that it has her sitting up in bed trying desperately to figure out what is causing the noise, because everybody on the surface is supposed to be dead by now and the remains cleaned up by the guardians.

"That's it," she thinks. "The guardians must be done, and one has come to get the final occupant to enter the very last sleep chamber."

Ela dresses quickly in a plain brown shirt and baggy pants that she has tucked into her high black leather boots. A quick look in the mirror shows a plain person making no statement of high station, which is what she thinks will be the most appropriate for her hopeful revival from the sleep chamber many centuries in the future. She opens the door to see a shiny guardian identical to the one standing guard in the canyon on its single ball. She exits the quarters and it follows her a discreet distance behind her. She ascends the elevation tube to the top and looks around just a little apprehensive, almost expecting to see the evidence of a people who had died by the thousands, and what would be left behind.

The guardian follows her as she heads straight for the ground level tunnel that leads into the Central City where Shaba's office was situated at the top of the central spire. She however carries on to the end of the corridor, where an elevation tube is located that will take her down to a large cavern, where all the sleep chambers from the three ships have been placed and filled with new born babies.

She enters the chamber and sees one sleep chamber just inside the large double doors made from solid stone. There sitting on top of it is her Stone, the one she used to connect with Nel and take her on her birthday present of a trip to the Luc's village. Beside it is a cube, used for holding information. She takes it and places it in a slot beside a screen on the wall just inside the huge doors.

Shaba Set and Nel's faces appear on the screen. It is all She can do not to look away at the images of them, as Shaba speaks first. "Dear Ela. Roz has now passed away from the forgetting disease, and most people have decided to end their lives in a dignified manner. Once their babies have been born and placed in Sleep Chambers, they have willingly taken a poisonous drink that allows them to pass on gracefully. So please take heart in it being a civilized death. We were also able to retrieve your Stone from the wreckage of the Hermes that was just inside the line of trees on the plateau where the City of the Sun was."

Nel breaks into the conversation next. "I will be the one to stay alive as long as possible so that I can place the Stone and the cube on your Sleep Chamber. I will miss you, Mommy, but I'm so proud of you and everything you have done for our people and the Luc's. I love you and will see you in the west when your time comes."

Shaba takes Nel's hand and guides her away as Set moves in close to the camera. "Dear, I would be lying if I told you I was happy about what has happened. I have missed you for so long now that I feel sad that you must carry on alone when everybody you know will have died centuries ago. The only joy I have is the fact that unlike everybody else, you who are a big part of me will carry on saving our people in the distant future. I wish you luck, but now I must say good bye. Shaba and I are going to have a final drink in his office. There is no rule saying that it can't be taken with as much alcohol as possible." He leans forward and kisses the lens of the camera before saying a tear full farewell, just before the screen goes blank.

She sits down with her back against the wall of the corridor and cries openly for as long as she can, because the next task she must perform is something that every part of her is resisting. Unfortunately, it is something she must do because there is simply no other way to do it, now that everything is outside of her control.

She returns to the Sleep Chamber and picks up the Stone that is laying there for her, placed by her beautiful daughter. She takes the elevation tube to the surface and walks out the ground level corridor to the edge of the cliff.

She stands perched on the very edge, looking down on the clouds below her. The Stone is resting in the palm of her hand, as the tears start to flow again. She looks up to the sky and thinks about all that she has sacrificed to hopefully set in motion a chain of events that will ensure the continuation of mankind here on this alien planet under a red sun.

The Stone in her hand is the key to the success or failure of all the time she has devoted to researching the inhabitants of this beautiful world.

The clouds below her start to blur even more now because the tears are running as if from an open faucet, and she knows what she needs to do. She turns slightly as if she were going back to the city on the edge of the plateau above the clouds, but instead, raises her arm out behind her and uses all her strength to fling the Stone as far as she can out from the cliff. She watches it arch into the air and then start to plummet towards the clouds, soon entering them with hardly a ripple in the thick cover.

She lets the rest of the emotion drain from her as she realizes she is done and turns back to the city free from any more responsibility. She enters the ground level corridor, going back to the elevation tube and the cavern below the city. A city that was once full of life, with people scurrying around going about their day to day business, but is now completely deserted as are all the cities that arrived here just a year before. They had traveled for generations full of hopes and dreams of a better life in a new land they could call their home, but things did not work out that way, and now the cities are silent.

She takes one last look out the corridor to the open area in front of the cliff edge. "Did I just throw away our last hope for the future?"

She takes the tube down to the lone Sleep Chamber sitting in the corridor just inside the huge doors before the vast sea of pods in the chamber beyond. The pod that will suspend time for her while she is inside. She opens the lid and enters the pod, laying down on the cushions in the bottom. A display lights up on the lid above her head requesting a time interval for the sleep period. She does not enter one, but just pushes the start button. A recorded voice states that a time interval needs to be entered before the lid will close. She does not enter one, but just pushes the start button again to override the command. Then, one last time the recorded voice reminds her, but this time adds that if no time interval is requested then the only way the pod can be opened is from the outside.

Ela lays down flat in the pod and tries to stop the tears from flowing as she reaches up and pushes the start button a final time. The lid slowly lowers to close the pod, as the interior starts to darken. When the lid stops, so does time for her inside the pod, for how long she does not know. Maybe forever.