Chapter 102: The City of the Travelers

From the snowy boundary, the view plunges toward the towers and geometric avenues of an immense Xeno city stretching as far as the eye can see, surrounded by mountains.

The buildings are of smooth stone, green, sometimes black, between which the gnarled trunks of vegetation wind about, as though some crawling monster were trying to flee the center of this place.

For at the center rises, immense, singular, cyclopean, the inverted Tower of Babel that haunted the dreams of Xeno civilizations and Ada’s dreams as well. As large as an entire city, monstrous in its proportions and in the impression it casts upon its surroundings, it is completely black. Thinner at its base than at its summit, it is encircled by a vast staircase carved into its flank, slowly spiraling upward toward the top.

Ada is not in the best shape, but her eyes are fixed on her goal. She staggers, and, freed from her pack, begins descending toward the warmth of the plain.

On the ground, the roots of plants seem to climb the path she is following in reverse, as though life itself were fleeing this abandoned and, it must be said, perfectly silent place. Sometimes a drop of condensation falls in the distance into a puddle. A pebble splinters and falls with a thunderous noise. But there is only silence.

Ada is now in a broad avenue, flanked by Alpha. Kukth rummages with curiosity through the empty buildings. The openings are polygonal-pentagons, octagons, whether doors or windows-and far too large for humans. The Xenos who lived here must have been two or three times taller than a man raised on a station.

Sometimes, between two famished bushes that have clawed their way painfully through a road over the centuries, there are strange objects: metallic spheres, abstract statues. No visible inscription has survived the passage of time.

Ada is hungry and thirsty, and she has walked far too much for her own health, but she decides to explore a large building that could have been a ship hangar. There are no vehicles inside, or at least no machine that appears to be a vehicle, but rather sorts of enormous grinding stones that must once have rolled to accomplish some unimaginable purpose.

“What is this place, Alpha?”

He never answers, but this time he replies with a single sign:

- TEMPLE

- HOME HERE, TEMPLE, QUESTION

- TEMPLE. EVERYTHING. TEMPLE.

She thinks she hears a rumbling outside and approaches the entrance while remaining hidden in the doorway.

The sky thunders. Rain? she wonders, licking her lips. The sky thunders and glows. Orange lights, the glow of fire.