THe Sentinal Satellite Read online

  She returned her attention to an inquisitive daughter and said,

  “Because your dad is listening, I’ll try to keep it simple. You know that Grandma Liana is from a different planet right?”

  “Yeah, from a different dimension too. How did she get here then?”

  Maria understood that Belle was now in that irritating ‘why’ stage. As much as she tied to accommodate the endless questions, it still at times became annoying. Taking a deep breath, she attempted to explain,

  “Your second question of how she got here is difficult to explain so let’s stick to the first one. The science that governs their concept of time operates on a different clock than ours. It is sort of like at our home on the island in the Aegean Sea, when you talk to Grandma Liana at lunchtime, to her it is actually suppertime. See? When we leave our time zone and travel to hers, it is sort of like traveling through time. Therefore, when Grandma Liana was here on Earth as a little girl, she aged according to our time. However, when she went back to her own dimension she was there for a great many years aging appropriately to that dimension. When she came back here to our time zone she was much older but I had only aged a few years.”

  Maria looked to Santo and playfully asked,

  “Did you get all that honey?”

  There was defeat in his reply.

  “No.”

  He heard Belle proudly announce,

  “I did. That’s why mommy can call Grandma Liana her adopted daughter while a much older Grandma Liana can call mommy her adopted mother.”

  Feeling that two brilliant scientists had attacked him, his only defence was to lie.

  “I wasn’t listening anyway.”

  He was just glad that Belle had not asked how it was possible for Quastima, also a Sky Person, to live on this planet for 800 years. Ruefully Santo wondered what the rest of his life was going to be like when living with two brilliant women. He silently moaned.

  An hour after leaving the House of the Nazarene they were over top of the Amazon Jungle at the specified GPS coordinates. Sending an approach signal to Liana, Santo dropped the D-wing to 5,000 feet. When the ‘approved’ signal returned, he programmed for a final approach.

  One mile to the south of where Liana lived, through the jungle was a small tribal village. As he skimmed the treetops of the dense forest, Maria asked,

  “Aren’t you going to cloak the vehicle? What if the natives see us?”

  Santo said,

  “It doesn’t matter. They do not understand what they are seeing anyway. To them we are just gods coming down from the stars to visit Liana.”

  She shook her head derisively, smiled and said,

  “You like to be identified as a god, don’t you?”

  He did not realize that he was grinning and nodding ever so slightly.

  The clearing in the thick jungle was about fifty yards across. In the middle of the field was a great mound of dirt. Inside that mound were two concealed pyramids. One was proper side up whereas the other was upside down and on top of it. The dirt was the structure that supported the strange configuration from toppling over. If the dirt were removed, the two pyramids would give the appearance of an hourglass with a great round boulder in the middle.

  Hundreds of years ago, when the Sky People were the Kings and High Priests of the great Inca Empire, Conquistadors came and devastated that culture. Part of the purpose of the conquest was to convert the heathen people to Christianity. However, because of their slightly different appearance, the Conquistadors saw the Sky People as creations of the devil and set on a campaign to eradicate them. The surviving Sky People fled across the Andes and hid here in the Amazon jungle.

  It was in this location the survivors created an energy source sending a signal across the vastness of the universe as a distress signal. Great pressure on the middle stone created the signal. Alas, for whatever reason, help never came and the survivors of those who escaped the Conquistador slaughter eventually became another of the countless tribes in the Amazon jungle. Ten years ago, this was where Maria and Santo returned the lost Liana to her people.

  In the ten years that passed since Maria and Santo returned Liana to her people, for a reason not known, the surviving tribe of Sky People moved away from the dirt mound. Santo thought it was because the signal for help never worked and they simply gave up and moved on. This old tribal sight in now where Liana came back to Earth as an older woman and now lives with Quastima.

  As Santo circled the field, he noticed that one side of the mound was repaired. Five years ago, when he brought Quastima here to live out his life with Liana, the local natives had torn at the mound and taken the square stones as building material for their homes.

  To the side of the great dirt mound about twenty yards away was the home of Liana and Quastima. It gave the appearance of a log cabin but much bigger. As Santo landed between the mound and house both Liana and Quastima already stood on the porch waiting their arrival.

  A few natives in the clearing saw the wondrous god star land and felt the reverence of seeing the spiritual event. When Santo stepped out of the vehicle, he was wearing his sunglasses. However, because they were now in the shade, he removed them. When the natives saw the god remove his eyes, fear took hold and they fled into the jungle.

  After the customary hugs and comments of, ‘it has been too long’, the two women and Belle disappeared into the house. Santo and Quastima stayed behind to unload Belle’s luggage. When rescued from the Vatican castle, Quastima was an obese seven hundred pounds and unable to move. That disability was the bars to his prison. He could neither walk nor move. Now, thanks to the science of the House of the Nazarene Doctors, although still overweight, he is at least now mobile.

  Quastima was supposed to help with the luggage but with his aversion to doing anything physical, including walking, he stood by and watched Santo unload the D-wing. Santo understood, didn’t mind and in a jovial mood asked,

  “How is the old girl treating you these days?”

  Quastima produced a frown and said,

  “Terrible. The damn woman will not allow me any sweets. She knows how I crave them so.”

  Santo was not sympathetic to his dilemma, saying,

  “Maybe she doesn’t want you to balloon back to a seven hundred pound blob again.”

  Quastima was not finished complaining.

  “She makes me go for long walks almost every day.”

  Santo, putting down the last suitcase grinned and said,

  “Love is grand huh?”

  “On this planet love is a pain you know where.”

  With the chore done, they strolled toward the great dirt mound. Santo said,

  “I see that you have made repairs to the pyramid.”

  “Yes but only as something to do. I am aware that our universe was destroyed by anti-matter so I am not trying to open a portal. For some reason the original Sky People incorporated a series of chambers as well as connecting tunnels in the two pyramids. I’m just trying to understand why.”

  In the house, Maria and Liana were sipping tea and talking about the days gone by. Belle was also at the table curiously looking about. Liana knew why, smiled and said to her,

  “Monks has not been around for a few days. You might have to call him.”

  With furled forehead and concentrating hard, Belle closed her eyes and seemed to go into a trance. Seeing her daughter’s contortion, Maria commented,

  “It always freaks me out when she does that.”

  Liana shook it off and said,

  “It’s not that unusual dear. Many people can communicate that way. They just don’t know it. All she is doing is lowering her brain waves to Beta and calling him.”

  When Belle opened her eyes, a small Golden Lion monkey just a little larger than a squirrel ran into the house and leapt into her arms. It had a long golden mane giving it the appearance of a lion. After an exchange of affection Belle said,

  “I missed you too.”

  At that, both da
rted out of the house to play.

  With fond goodbyes followed by promises to Belle that they would be back soon, Maria and Santo got in the D-wing and disappeared straight up. Reaching the stratosphere, Santo reset the coordinates for New Zealand. A few minutes later, Maria commented,

  “I sometimes worry about Belle living in these two worlds, one of high technology and the other this close to nature.”

  Santo asked,

  “Are you worried that she will somehow become adversely affected by the two extremes?”

  “Well yes, aren’t you?”

  After a thought, he had to admit,

  “I never gave it much thought, but now that I have, no I think she will adjust just fine.”

  In a playful tone she squeezed his arm and said,

  “Well, I guess my little toy soldier will just have to help her adjust.”

  Although he hated her affectionate term ‘little toy soldier’, for the sake of love, he had learned to suffer it. With playful aversion he turned to her and said,

  “So I’m just a boy toy to you now am I?”

  She sang back,

  “You bet.”

  Chapter 5

  In Denmark, west of Copenhagen, on the far coast of the island, sits Dragsholm Castle situated only yards from the coastal cliff. In the Great Hall, under the massive wrought iron chandelier a small tour group stands listening to the old man’s lecture on the castle’s history.

  “--- because the castle’s location has no statistical military importance, nobody really knows exactly why it was built right here. Rumors have it that it was to protect what is under the castle but excavations and searches have found no secret rooms or dungeons.”

  One of the tourists blurted out what the old man had heard a hundred times before.

  “I read that it is haunted.”

  It was a boring and mechanical response.

  “Yes, in fact it is reputed to be one of the most haunted castles in the world. Many tourists coming here at night often see the ghost of a woman wearing a white smock walking through the halls. That is why she is called the Lady in White.”

  “Will we see her?”

  “Well many have but you need to get really lucky for that to happen.”

  He then pointed to a long narrow hall leading to the kitchen. With tongue in cheek he teased,

  “Maybe we will see the Lady in White as we enter the kitchen.”

  As he led them into the long narrow hall, he heard nervous chuckling from a few.

  He was only half way into the hall when the chuckling suddenly turned into gasps as well as a few swear words. One woman screamed. He turned to the crowd just in time to see a brilliantly glowing woman dressed in white walk out of the solid wall to his right. She stopped and appeared confused to see people staring in disbelief at her. Cameras were quickly fumbled with, but by the time the apparition was in focus she had already walked through the wall on the other side. Stunned, all the old guide could think to say was,

  “That concludes our tour of the haunted Dragsholm Castle.”

  On the other side of the wall, the woman in white stopped and looked down a dark steep staircase cluttered with cobwebs from by years of neglect. Knowing this was the path to take, she mumbled,

  “Damn Grays. Why couldn’t they just transfer me right inside the basement instead of all this drama?”

  Holding her breath and with flaying arms she bravely took her first step. As her foot touched the second stone step, as if by magic a dim light came on.

  It seemed like a forever staircase winding steeply downward. By the time she reached the bottom, she found herself standing in what she at first thought was a large dungeon. It was cold and she was choking on dust. In the dim light she saw what she was after, a car sized D-wing covered in dust and debris. When she clicked the remote that the Great Grays had given her, the dome slid open. As she struggled to get into the seat, her white smock disturbed dust that had settled on the D-wing over the hundreds of years hidden there.

  Sitting and looking at the controls, she cursed the Grays again. When she was leader of the House of the Nazarene, the D-wing she controlled was the latest technology. Now she was sitting in something equivalent to an old Model T Ford. There was no camouflage program, no GPS, no armaments, and no autopilot controls. Everything was pilot operated. She moaned when seeing that there was also no harmonized rotating planet speed ability. There would be no zipping through the lower stratosphere at 10,000 miles an hour or reaching places around the globe in the matter of hours. The maximum speed of this ancient relic would be no more than six thousand miles an hour. She hated it but for now, it would do. More importantly, it did not alter her plan for revenge.

  After closing the dome, she activated the antigravity pods. As promised, there was at least two hundred years left in the old nuclear power cells. By dreaded manual control, she diligently lifted the ancient D-wing a foot off the ground. She then slowly turned it to face a seemingly solid stone wall. Pressing a button on the control panel triggered a hidden mechanism in the wall. With a great grinding noise of stone and besieged ancient levers, a part of the wall then struggled to slowly slide open. Looking at the radar image on her screen she saw that the revealed tunnel was just barely larger than the D-wing.

  As she slowly squeezed the D-wing into the narrow gap, it tore through roots and more grime accumulated through years of abandonment. Thankfully, the tunnel was not very long. When emerging she found herself hovering at the side of a steep cliff and facing the ocean. Turning to face the cliff, she saw the opening close. The D-wing then lifted high over the castle and hovered to get her bearing.

  At the same time, the tourists who had seen her as a ghost walking through walls were now outside in the parking lot. They stood in a group excitedly talking about their good if not scary fortune of seeing the ghost called Lady in White. One of the tourists chanced to look up to see the Duchess speed away in the D-wing. He excitedly pointed and the others too witnessed the event.

  As the D-wing picked up speed all the dust on the shell that had accumulated through thousands of years hidden in a cave blew off. The twigs and roots that had clung to the body when squeezing through the tunnel too joined the freefall back to earth. There was no doubt in their minds that they were seeing the Lady in White ascending to heaven. It was a good day to visit the haunted Dragsholm Castle.

  Without GPS, the Duchess was forced to fly to her secret location by compass. However, the magnetic north had moved since this Tin Lizzy was put into storage. With one hand on the stick control, she was forced to fly by ‘Recognition Navigation.’ From a height of 5,000 feet and at maximum speed, she followed the coast of France and Spain until recognizing the Straights of Trafalgar. She then located Tangiers and followed Morocco south all the way down the coast of Africa until reaching Cape Town. Only then did she turn west to disappear far over the South Atlantic Ocean.

  Without GPS to locate her destination, it took another two hours to fly a search grid over the middle of the South Atlantic. Finally, in the distance, she spotted a small extinct volcanic cone barren of vegetation and habitation jutting out of the ocean. The islet belonged to a Spanish Landholding Company but had no value or strategic importance to them or anybody else. One square mile of a volcanic cone jutting a thousand feet straight out of the ocean made it unapproachable by sea. The isolation made it the most remote island in the world. Superstitions and stories of giant sea creatures along with flying monsters big enough to scoop up fishing boats had kept fishermen and the curious away for millennia. For now, it was her new command center.

  On the outside of the volcano, about half way up the sheer cliff appeared what seemed to be a smooth black sheet of molten lava perhaps thirty feet wide and fifteen feet high. The fact that it was black and matching the cone, the few people who had seen this island never thought it to be anything more than simply smooth lava.

  As a precaution, she circled the volcano looking for intrusions to her secret retreat. See
ing that none of her security triggers were compromised she returned to the smooth lava sheet and hovered in front of it. After pressing a remote, the glass lowered enough for her to fly into the opening.

  It was not a vast cavern but large enough for her needs. Deep inside was a well-stocked supply room permitting survival for years. Although she was not adept at preparing food, there was a kitchen. Down the hall, was a massive bedroom befitting her imagined status. The main area of the cave was furnished with sofas and lounging furniture. Many loungers faced the one-way glass panel looking out over the vast expanse of ocean. The most important items were five computers on a large desk by the cave entrance.

  She was close to extracting her long awaited and much sought after revenge but as much as she wanted to get started right away, there were dire matters needing attention. The first was to get out of this smelly white frock and into the shower. After freshening up and dressing in a robe, she looked at the inviting bed but resisted the temptation. There was work to do. Walking back into the main area of the cave, she sat at the desk and looked affectionately at her computers. They were no more than sheets of glass propped up at an angle but they were the tools needed for her diabolical plan. The black solar panels hidden from view inside the crater had successfully kept them all charged.

  After confirmation of power, she reached into her pocket and brought out a disc containing a Universal Frequency Operating system so advanced that no computer language on Earth would be able to interface with it for the next thousand years. She then brought out the step down atom Based Frequency operating program capable of interfacing with the antiquated human transistor systems. Now with all three systems up and running there was communication between far advanced technology and what the Great Grays considered antiquated human technology.