Eye of the Beholder

Chapter 3.5 Annunaki

They arrive at the chamber. Their first impression is of a burial chamber, with a neat row of sarcophagi along the far wall.

Stovie points out that the Annunaki did not die.

Newt has read of this in Sitchin's work, and nods his head. He checks the sarcophagi and they are empty. No mummies, no bones, nothing.

Looking upward, they see that the chamber is sculpted into the shape of a pyramid. Everywhere the walls are adorned with life-like carvings and cuneiform inscriptions.

Sedna finds a number of tablets stacked by one wall, and begins trying to read them.

Dutch is staring at the carven image of a bird-woman. As he watches she becomes more and more lifelike. He is sure he is dreaming, and is not surprised. Then she steps toward him from the wall, talons splayed on the stone floor, wings fluttering behind naked shoulders. 

In his dream, the wings vanish and the talons become delicate human feet. Her hand reaches out to touch his cheek, a touch he should not feel but does.

What magic is this? she exclaims in a voiceless dream voice. You are here, but you are not.

Dutch can only continue to stare at this perfect Nubian goddess.

Sedna comes to stand beside him. As are you, she says. Is this your chamber?

Long ago, yes. But it came time to leave, and we returned to Nibiru. It was there in the long sleep that I chose to join my ancestors in this dream.

This dream. Dutch looks around and sees all of his own dream companions there with him. Sedna appears to be her true self, not her drone. He raises his dream hand, and it too appears to be his own.

He says, This can't be real.

What is real? replies the goddess. We know only what we know.

What can you tell us of this place, of Niburu? Sedna asks.

Dutch realizes he is understanding what they say. But in this nearly airless void there is little sound. It is the non-verbal drone speech, the mind speech. The dream speech.

His goddess answers. Together we dreamed a world where life was good, she says. We voyaged through the ages, enjoying our dream.

Then our dream changed. Our dream world became entangled with these newer worlds, and gradually lost its glory.

Newt had come to stand by Sedna. This story seemed to confirm what Sitchin had reported. So you came here? he asked.

To preserve what we had we needed the heavy metal. It helped to capture and contain the dwindling energies. We found that metal here and came to take it.

We caused the rock to melt and run out of the ground. When the rock stopped flowing it left behind these hollows, paved with the heavy metal. We gathered up the metal and carried it home.

Dutch was thinking, The gold! They took away the gold! The goddess looked at him as if she had heard his thoughts.

First from this place, then from others like it. When the metal was gone the hollows became our homes, like on the home world, where we could sleep while the processes continued elsewhere.

Newt said, And that worked?

For a while. Then again the heavy metal was running low. To keep our world's energies contained, it needed to be suspended high in the atmosphere. Gradually it got swept off into space.

In orbit. It had to be in orbit, thought Newt.

We came back here and made a bigger, deeper hole, to draw the metal from the very heart of the planet. While we slept, it worked on and on. When we woke, it was to a different world. Gone was the water, gone was the air. The world was barren.

Olympus Mons, thought Dutch. Wow. That explains it.

As before, we gathered the heavy metal and took it home. It was enough to preserve our world for many ages. But finally we again needed more.

We explored your world. It was burgeoning with life, huge and hungry life that saw us as food, easy prey as we sought the heavy metal.

So we dropped a space rock on it to destroy the raptors and moved on to the next world, a vast water world where we could safely extract the heavy metal from the seas.

A certain numbness had set in among her listeners.

We set the processes in motion and went home.

When, after the next long sleep, we returned to collect the metal, we found that again our processes had worked too well, and the vast seas were dry.

Despite the oppressive heat, we gathered up the heavy metal and took it home.