Long tendrils of vertiginous smoke, a riot of vibrant hued-color and headily gouting incense, described a euphoric haze as it issued from the pot-bellied censures that were thrust into the scorching, shifting sands – teased by the intermittent winds. The smoke remained the only active thing moving below the slow transcribed arc of the Night Sister as she chased her sibling incestuously across the morning.

Save for the fragile van of the black – clad Plaintiff’s as their thin line expressed their exodus of veneration across the shifting dunes of the desert sands.

His head felt light from a combination of all-pervading heat, thirst and the heady tendrils of incense made his stomach uneasy. His vision constricted at the bleaching glare and his head drifted with the breeze.

The more dominant, leading binary star know to the ancient Primarion as “The Day Brother”, led its blazing twin a teasingly (but never to be requited) slow chase across the burning azure sky.

Both announced the early morning and already the punishing heat bore unrelenting down on the faithful as they made their solemn pilgrimage toward where the blessed Providers had spoken their first wisdoms to the fathers of the Primarion and so was founded the Reliquary of Ost.

The confounding brisance of desert heat defeated Jonas Hyland’s eyes, making the great temple seem so far away via the heartless, shimmering subterfuge of mirage, but in his heart, Jonas knew that their tribulation was nearing an end and that the purgatory they had suffered through the punishing desert to attain, was nearly at hand at this blessed sacristy nestled in the great desert.

The terrible, enduring Bass – clarion of The Callers filled every fiber of his being as the red – hooded figures spaced upon the dune – tops incanted their song, so much so that Jonas was aware of fine particles of sand beginning to vibrate and shift under his sandaled feet.

In loops and waves the pervading sound of their chorus grew in intensity as the pilgrims neared the sanctuary of the Reliquary, Psalms of ritual devotion issuing in thanks from the cracked lips of his fellow travelers were first suborned, then subsumed by the concentric waves of sound – amplified by the structure of the sacred – place until Jonas began to feel his very bones vibrate.

The Reliquary now loomed above the pilgrims, the structure omniscient and pervading, the sound now so perfectly acoustically attuned that Jonas, stepping into the epiphany of coolness afforded by the shadow of its ancient walls, breathed a prayer in antiquated VA’s aalii…

Wait? What! – Jonas’s mind started.

“We stand within the Shadows of the Gods.” He breathed, lifting a grateful forearm to wipe the swift-cooling sweat from his stinging brow and saw that the arm was slim, with only three long grey – skinned fingers.

Just like those of the other worshipers disrobing their dusty desert – garb around him and rubbing the desert from their sun-bleached hair.

“Those that come with minds wide open, are ever the more like to see.”

Curator Kese’an spoke and instantly Professor Hyland experienced a whirling, discontinuous wrench of consciousness back to the here and now as the beautiful Va’ Saal Archaeologist (his contemporary and equal in all essential ways – bar one) caught the stumbling Federation scientist before he collapsed through the sheer weight of the experience.

“What?” Jonas blathered, momentarily in two worlds but strangely at one in the echo – chamber of his own mind.

“It’s…nighttime?” He wondered aloud, suddenly feeling foolish and out-of-place.

The harsh, pervading heat of the burning sands had instantly been replaced with the cool, soothing breeze of the desert night it seemed to Jonas – although the structure of the Reliquary loomed in the darkness above him – where (subjective?) seconds ago (Centuries ago?) it had been early morning in the Great Desert.

 Curator Kese’an guided Jonas Hyland to be seated gently on a small pile of receiving pillows, strewn over a gorgeous and elaborate weaved rug – a low, gauzy canopy above ruffled in the night – breeze. She gently placed a simple earthenware cup into his trembling hands – filled with an aromatic and gently steaming tea.

“It is this way for all that hear the voice of the Providers and feel their presence for the first time.” The Curator assured the Archaeologist, as the rational centers of his brain sought to extricate his mind from the memories that had been imposed upon it by the resounding Psionic resonances that the Reliquary of Ost were justly famous for.

Jonas managed to take a tentative sip and touched his lips with Caucasian hands, his lips were not sun-parched and cracked as they had been seconds ago. His hands were the Terran hands that he had known his entire life. He had no vertiginous neck-fronds that radiated the desert heat away to cool him.

“I was there…” Jonas shook his head; the warming suffusion of the الشاي Tea beginning to level and center his thoughts. “The Desert…” His hands tried to describe the sensation but were unequal. He slowly sipped again.

He looked plaintively to Kese’an, even as more Federation personnel began to coalesce into being as the bright energies of the Transporter Beam receded, leaving the newly arrived to separately experience the mesmerizing psychic flashback that Professor Hyland had just emerged from.

“The Desert is as it always is.” Curator smiled, not unkindly. “The Reliquary shows us echoes of the past, so that we may trust in the Providers and be assured our future.” The Va’Saal made sure that the Human was comfortable – the visions effected different people in different ways.

Jonas Hyland began to feel more like himself and managed to sit a little more upright as those that had beamed down now stood, as if statues, with a Va’Saal attendant close by, ready to steady and comfort the traveler when they returned from whatever journey the Reliquary chose to embark them upon.

“I had read about the effect…the…Journey.” Jonas admitted with a nervous laugh, his hand reaching habitually for a Datapad and Stylus – so he could begin to document the experience in detail before the memory faded. “But the Trieste’s, really, they don’t even begin to encompass the….”

He laughed and rubbed his receding hairline.

“I’m so sorry Curator.” Jonas gathered himself and remembered his tenure. “You must think me exceedingly weak minded and frivolous to carry on so. You must have guided many travelers through the Journey before.”

Curator Kese’an made a gesture with her long hand that was both dismissive and casual (Jonas made a mental note to return to this gesture for Dr Duval).

“It is both my honor and my purpose.” Kese’an demurred as she stoked the fire under the small cauldron of tea. “You will have need for rest and more الشاي tea. It is aways so.” She nodded sagely.

Jonas Hyland decided to acquiesce to the Alien’s obvious wisdom in this and settled back into the slightly grainy pillows and wondered at the starscape – so brilliantly arrayed above the dark hemisphere of desert sky.

A distinct blink of light announced another shuttle departing the USS Sacramento, bound planeside with equipment too sensitive to be beamed down to the surface. The realization of where he was and where his daughter orbited high above him – suddenly making the man ruminate on the gulf that had grown between them.

Jonas’s mind was idly bidden to compare the connotations of “Sacristy” as it applied to both the name of the starship and the purpose of the awesome ruins, in whose shadow he rested.

He smiled ruefully and wondered how (if ever) he could heal the rift with Sammie – a rift that seemed to have opened first after he chose to leave Starfleet when his wife died and when his headstrong daughter had elected to join the same organization when her mother was lost to them both. The gulf had seemed to have widened between them whilst he and she had been busy with their respective callings.

Rome wasn’t built in a day – Jonas reflected evenly, hoping to hope – But even Romulus was destroyed in an instant.

“Your right, of course Curator.” Jonas yawned “Tomorrow is another day, and I cannot wait for a chance to share in your peoples’ yesterdays.”

The Human scientist wistfully considered the broad, sweeping arc of broken Sandstone that described the once – perfect perimeter of the great amphitheater bowl that dominated the central space of the Reliquary -proper.

Now it was ruled by slow decay and stubborn desert weeds were the only new life tenacious enough to cling to the leaned stones over the march of centuries.

“Sadly, Professor Hyland,” Curator Kese’an bobbed her head in deference and regret, “that will never come to pass.”

This made Jonas stir in his blankets and peer at the slim Alien as she busied herself in that customary, unhurried way all of her people did.

“Whatever do you mean?” Jonas asked, incredulous. “You’re the Chief Archaeologist for this site. The leading authority on these ruins. Your work – from what little I have read – it’s peerless, insightful, beautiful even.”

Kese’an smiled apologetically as she prepared her own bedroll.

“That is kind of you to say Professor – it really is.” The Curator lay down and turned her back to the fire, so better to sleep.

“But…”

“But I am Va’Saal. I cannot be permitted into the inner – sanctity of the Reliquary. That is forbidden to my people. That honor is only afforded to the B’Queth, through the will & providence of the Providers. So it is written. Thank the Providers.” Kese’an stated simply and was silent.

Professor Jonas Hyland, exhausted as he was by his journeys (both the instantaneous transfer from orbit and the seemingly weeks-long memory of pilgrimage, borrowed from a millennium – dead Va’Saal), considered the stars for some time longer before he asked quietly.

“Kese’an?”

“Yes Professor?”

“The Journey that I experienced when I arrived, do all of your people experience it when they come to this place?”

“So it is said Professor.” The curator replied sleepily.

He paused, considering the implications of his next question as the stars slowly wheeled above.

“Do the B’Queth also experience the Journey in the same way?”

A silence endured some long seconds between them as the embers glowed and cracked, held mute under the panoply of stars and the undulating winds of the Great Ost calling its endless, unknowable song of shifting sands.

Then…  whispered so quietly that Jonas fancied he might have imaged it on the breeze.

“They will not say Professor…..”