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40: Secret of the Seven Lenses
Now as I speak, the missing key becomes clear to me. It isn't just the seventh location on the circuit, now found with exact precision. The key, the secret code, to unlocking the past as well as the future of Mars, lies in a formation of stars: the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters. I fall silent in shock, realizing that the Holy Mothers for centuries have been following an artificial circuit stealthily patterned on that formation of stars, with one missing on their map.
The light of the Pleiades, filtering down through just exactly the right micropores in the metal created by the dots on the map, and then entering the inside of the plate, now causes a signal to be sent to the Anomaly. The Anomaly, in turn, fulfills its final duty as if its long-dead passengers were still on board and waiting for their lives to resume.
"I will have a powerful sign from the Gods. All hail Divine Mars!" I cry and lift my arms to heaven as dawn comes over the mountains. In a tense fifteen minutes, while the startled and uneasy factions and the Council stir in their seats, the night sky gives way to a pale salmon dawn speckled with blue.
The crowd begins crying out, pointing, even wailing in fear. I remain with my arms raised and look dramatically up to heaven.
In the sky of Mars, seven round spheres begin to glow. They hover at about 1,000 feet altitude, and each is probably 100 feet in diameter. At first they look simply like circles filled with silvery light. As the day blossoms, and the Holy Sun rises on the horizon like a God walking toward us in magnificent dignity, water begins to pour from the openings.
At first, it looks like smoke drifting out—but heavy smoke that keeps coming, and bends downward and falls toward the surface in spirals. Then, as the sun shines on the rapidly dumping waterfalls, water begins to pour out by the millions of gallons. A rich, metallic tang of salt water fills the air as it drifts toward us. The ancient Laars' final trick was to steal the oceans of Mars and lock them in a reservoir in the Temporale. The Anomaly was not only their ship to the future (which the City of En allowed Balesso to steal from them), but is also the spigot that turns the water gates on. Seven great waterfalls pour down, and the wind roars around us like a Scriptural disturbance. The roaring makes us hold our ears. The sixty torches blow over and shatter on the hard ground. My wooden altar, having outlived its usefulness, blows apart like paper. The light and lens shatter. I manage to grab the seven-dot map plate and wrap it in an altar cloth. I tuck it under my warm, and feel the warmth of its excited state.
Sims and the Council hold each other as they stagger toward me. I can barely understand them as they shout at me. I read Sims' fevered expression and the joyous fire in his eyes. "You are innocent. You are free!" he shouts. "You have saved us all!"
"He is a holy monk of Divine Mars!" some of them yell as they thump my back. In a blur of orders and activity, I am surrounded by a protective cordon of Temple police ordered by the Holy Mother. Sims orders the Palace police to join them in protecting my person. All of us, nearly 600 souls, cling to each other as we hurry toward the safe shelter of the Dome. Nobody will harm me now, and I tremble with relief. I shudder all the more with happiness that our sacred mother world will continue to nurture and sustain us. May NASA praise and uplift Mars the Divine and all her tender living creatures!
I barely hear the crowd yelling all around me: "Protect his Holy Person! Guard His Sacredness with your lives!" I want to protest that I am only a humble monk whose name means nothing, but they lift me on their shoulders—a far cry from being cursed to a criminal's death mere hours ago.
I take one last look back at the dawning day, and sunlight gleams brightly in the greenish-golden foam—rushing down from high in the hazy sky—from the seven pipelines of the Temporale.
There they are—the lost oceans of Mars, sparkling amid rainbows. Soon, our red world will turn blue like Old Earth, and I will have many new things to explore and tell about.
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