Diego & Germán - 8. Chapter VIII: The dusty room

The moles were slowly, and carefully approaching the chamber. My experience told me, I couldn’t simply open a hole on the wall, and walk in to take a look. Everything had to be planned with great care, so as not to destroy any possible findings. I had been preparing everything for the big moment, and talking nonstop about it. Germán surely was the most patient person on the planet, listening to me for the umpteenth time about what would happen, what could be inside the chamber, and how I’d become the first famous archeologist in the galaxy.

“... and we’ll have to be very careful not to let any air into the chamber. Pigments react to oxygen, oxidizing, and the colors are gone forever. Well… I guess I could reconstruct the colors virtually, based on the chemical traces left by the decomposed colors, but it’s just not the same… And cellulose disintegrates into something like ash... that’s more difficult to restore...”

“What will your family have to say about your big discovery?” Germán interrupted, before I launched myself too deeply into technical details.

The question surprised me, but I understood his curiosity; he had never had a family.

“What? I guess they’ll just shrug it off, and think it’s one of my antics. Oh! They’ll be happy for me. They just don’t understand me going to the end of the galaxy to dig a hole in the dirt, to be able to tell what these people had for breakfast. I’ve heard it thousands of times:” Going for the voice of my mum Isa, I repeated, “‘‘You’re never going to be able to provide for your family with your pipe dreams about history. You have a responsibility with us all. We count on you to help support your siblings and nieces. And you’re not going to achieve it with all that old stuff.’ Well you know how family is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m sorry. That was inconsiderate of me.” He nodded his acceptance, and I continued with what I was telling him. “Not that I don’t love my family to death. Don’t get me wrong. I’d give my life for them, and they’d do the same for me, but they don’t understand me. I’ve always been the oddball, and the pressure to conform is enormous, more so taking into account I'm gay. So I ended up as a Professor in the History Department at the uni; actually you are seeing all of the Department. I teach history of technology, something they consider marginally useful at the colony. Archaeology is kind of my hobby.”

“What I’m hearing from all of this, is that in Belmonte not everyone’s as sexy as you are. I was already thinking it would be dangerous to get near that place.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“I have other methods for that…” He said, taking off his t-shirt in the most sexy way possible.

My mouth went dry. Don’t let yourself be manipulated like that. Show him who wears the pants! -- He does. -- Distract yourself. Think of the forest, the flowers, the bees,... -- No! Not the bees! -- Think of …

He continued with a low, and sultry voice, pure, concentrated sex, leaning in, “And how is it in Belmonte? What do you do to have fun?”

I licked my cracking lips, and cleared my throat. Keep your eyes above the shoulders, and you’ll be golden. Eyes above the shoulders… those wide, muscled shoulders…

“Ehrmm… well… we often go to the… the… whatsitsname?... the games hangars. That’s it, we go to the games hangars…” I stuttered while he looked at me as if I was edible.

Shit! I can’t concentrate! -- I am in control! He can’t play me so easily. -- Ha! I’ll show him!

“We play military… I mean… adventure games… there.”

Shit! I shouldn’t be talking about that. -- That asshole is really enjoying the effect he is having on me. -- What’s got to him? -- Let’s see if I can change the subject.

“Is that all you do?” He asked. And with that, moving like a cat, he came to stand by me, very near, but not touching. I stepped back two steps, and felt the bed on my calves. He followed me slowly, standing in front of me. He looked deeply into my eyes, letting his gaze stop at my lips, watching every little movement I made. My heartbeat sped up.

“Ehrmm.. well, I used to study a lot. I didn’t go out to drink with the rest very often. I usually just stayed home, and read, or studied.”

“You were such a good boy. Were you always studying?” He said, while he stepped nearer, touching me with his body, and smelling my neck. “Hmmmm…” I heard him purr.

Fuck! -- Resist!

“Sometimes-I-went-to-the-spaceport-to-watch-the-ships-as-they-were-being-loaded-and-unloaded.There-is-a-gallery-above-where-you-can-see-everything-without-being-seen. It-has-a-great-view-of-the-docks.” I rattled off, almost panting. The man must have been exuding pheromones like a pro wrestler, because I was getting a little dizzy, telling him things I should have remained silent about. By then, I was lying on the bed, with Germán on all fours above me, with his nose touching mine, rubbing it slightly. The heat he was radiating was slowly melting my brain.

“Is it there where you went to jack off, watching all the hot dockers? Would you have seen me, if I had disembarked? Would I have seen you?” His body was now touching mine, only so slightly. He wasn’t letting me feel his weight, but I could feel his arousal on my thigh.

R...e...s...i...s...t

“You-wouldn't-see-me. There-is-a-concealed-passage-to-the-maintenance-corridors. No-one-can-see-you.”

I don’t remember really what happened next, but the people from Shboa must have seen the fireworks.

~~~

And finally the big day arrived, in spite of all the distractions. The moles had excavated a tunnel of about fifteen centimeters in diameter, where an airlock kept the chamber airtight. A camera mounted on a spider was now showing the interior diaphragm opening. Germán was at my side, watching the holo, as the spider slowly entered the chamber. Of course, I was also seeing everything directly through my link with Lisa, but I hadn’t told Diego about her yet, and now was not the right time. There would be time enough for that, if everything went as planned. So I sat there with my contact lenses and the hearing aids, reciting the instructions as if Lisa wasn’t there.

The first images left us excited. It was a room, dusty, and grey, but a perfectly intact room. Whatever had happened, the room had been sealed, preserving everything inside almost untouched. I adjusted the movements of the spider, to avoid raising dust, and the lights, to illuminate the scene a little better, and ordered the robot to slowly enter the room.

In the center was a platform, raised about fifteen centimeters from the floor. It looked like a bed, of about two meters by two meters, kind of a grand king size. On each side was a smallish box, and at the foot of the bed was what looked like a wardrobe, with doors or something raised from the smooth surface.

Is that all?

My disappointment must have been showing, because Germán laughed, put his arm around my shoulders, and said, “Don’t let the first impression disappoint you. I’m sure you’ll squeeze the last drop of information out of the room, even if you have to interrogate every single piece of furniture personally.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” I turned to look at him, and was greeted with one of his blinding smiles that always warmed me inside.

He really tries hard to make me happy. -- Well, that’s what boyfriends are for! -- Shouldn’t you ask, before calling him boyfriend? He may not like it. -- If I can’t say it, at least I can think it. No harm done. -- And then it will slip out and you’ll embarrass yourself, for a change. -- But how do you ask? You just say ‘do you want to be my boyfriend?’ as if you were twelve, or do you go down on your knee in front of everyone and ask him with a ring? -- Problems, problems, problems. -- Stop daydreaming, you’ve got a job to do.

The information slowly arrived, while the spider explored the room. The furniture seemed made out of wood and plastic, and the wardrobe and the small boxes were hollow.

Maybe there is something interesting inside? How could I get to it? A hole on the side?

Germán pointed with his finger to a small pile in front of one of the boxes, and said, “Do you think there will be some primitive slippers there?”

So much for glory. I’ll have to make my holo for the uni about the history of slippers.

“Let’s see,” I answered, and directed the spider towards the pile.

As the spider approached my heart begun to beat faster. These were no slippers.

“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!”, I begun to chant. “These are no slippers. Come on, my treasure, talk to daddy.”

The spider begun scanning the pile revealing it was made of cellulose.

I shouted, “Yesss! Yesss! Yesss!”, and begun dancing around Germán. “We did it! This will show them!”

“What? What happened? What is it?”

“Those are cellulose sheets!” I cried happily.

“And they are important because…?”

“Because they have symbols and images!”

“And that’s important because…?” He was talking to me as if I was crazy. I was so excited, I hadn’t realized he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Until now I couldn’t study the cellulose sheets because they disintegrate as soon as I found them. Actually I had just found a couple of them, here and there, but here we must have several hundred of them! And well preserved! I’ll be able to study them, and maybe discover what they are. Can you imagine!“

“Oh, so they’re just another type of thing you can study.”

“No. I’m not explaining myself. Do you remember those metallic cylinders I showed you? Do you remember the small black or white drawings on them? I have been suspecting for some time they carry a meaning. The problem is, I don’t have enough to decipher them. Most of it seems some kind of ritual text that is repeated very often with very few variations. They are just too similar to be of any help. Here we now have maybe a thousand sheets, hopefully full of images and symbols! If there are enough, and we can decipher the symbols, it would be as if those people were talking to us! We could communicate with people that have been dead for hundreds of years! Imagine!“

“Uhu ... and being so smart, does that hurt much?” He asked, trying to imitate innocence herself, but not achieving it completely.

“Aaarrrggghhh!”, and shouting my war cry I tackled him, laughing, trying to wrestle him to the floor. Well, yeah, I was very successful, if you consider success ending in bed, naked, with a hunky stud.