The Trilisk Ruins Part 5

They forged on for several more hours. Telisa was glad she had been working out regularly, even if the exercise was quite different. She wondered how long Thomas and Jack could continue this level of exertion, although she figured Magnus could probably outlast them all. Her questions were answered when Jack spoke up.

"Okay, let's take another break," Jack said. "This hiking is killing me."

Telisa was exhausted. The sun was no longer visible above them, although the light level told her that it hadn't set.

"Are we there yet?" asked Telisa, smiling at her delivery of the cla.s.sic question.

Thomas frowned. "Actually we're barely halfway. I underestimated the speed we could make out here. I suppose we should find a spot to hole up while it's still light."

Magnus nodded. "We could sleep in the trees."

"That would be safer on Earth," said Jack. "Here, who knows? Maybe the trees are more dangerous than the ground."

"The ground should be okay, unless this planet has some particularly nasty nocturnal predators," Magnus said. "Unfortunately, we can't use a campfire without risking detection."

"How about over there?" Telisa suggested, pointing to a slight rise in the terrain. They moved over to the area she had indicated and set their packs on the ground so they could prepare the makes.h.i.+ft camp.

Everyone arranged their tiny one-person sleeping tubes in a circle with the zippered entrances facing inward towards each other. Magnus and Telisa gathered a bunch of arm-length needles that had fallen from nearby trees and arranged them facing outward around the area for defense.

Telisa looked at the failing light filtering through the trees. "Only a minute or two to spare, I'd say."

"Yes, just in time," Jack agreed. "Should we have someone awake all the time? Take s.h.i.+fts staying awake?"

"If anything comes around, I think we'll hear it," Magnus said, looking at the camp perimeter. "I think setting watches at this point would be overly paranoid. We have the spines, the tents, and a fair amount of firepower."

They each crawled into their sleeping modules and sought sleep. Telisa opened a vent to let fresh air in and then sprawled out, resting her aching muscles. She fell asleep quickly.

At some point later, Telisa bolted instantly awake. Something was wrong. She listened for a moment and realized that something moved towards their camp, breaking branches and rustling in the leaves of the forest floor. She sat upright, reaching for her pack. She brought out her stunner and unzipped the opening of her tiny sleeping tube.

Magnus stood in the center of their little clearing, holding a flashlight pointed out into the forest. His slug thrower was level with the ground, the barrel pointed out into the darkness towards the noises. Jack and Thomas seemed content to watch from their tent flaps. Telisa scrambled to find her own flashlight. The noises outside were getting closer. She forced herself to calm and found the light.

Telisa clambered out of her tube and stood to Magnus's right, clutching her stunner. She added her light to Magnus's and saw some kind of bluish tentacle waving through the brush at the height of her chest. She took a deep breath and forced herself not to shoot.

The thing pushed aside Magnus's sleeping tube with another blue tentacle. A huge sh.e.l.l pushed through the spiny branches, revealing the rest of the creature. It had spiny legs and about a dozen tentacles. It moved slowly out into the clearing, its tentacles wavering as it searched for the next shrub.

Suddenly Magnus yelled maniacally and kicked the ground in front of him, sending a bit of forest floor debris flying at the creature. The thing flinched away, moving in slow motion, and then it altered its course. It pushed its way though the spines on the perimeter and crawled away.

Everyone let their tension drop. Then Thomas started to laugh. The laughter spread. Even Magnus started to chuckle.

"Well, I guess we showed it," Thomas said. "That'll teach it to disturb us."

"I don't think I can go back to sleep after that," Telisa said.

Magnus nodded. "I probably can't either, but I don't want to try and walk in the dark. Let's just try our best."

Telisa crawled back into her tent. She could still hear the giant sh.e.l.led thing moving away through the brush. She tried to go back to sleep. She tossed and turned for a while. Her legs itched. Telisa scratched, then she felt a small b.u.mp on her leg. She dug out the flashlight and examined herself in the tent. Her legs were covered in welts. Some of them had tiny splinters in them.

She picked at the wounds for a short while, convincing herself that they were nothing but a minor irritation. Apparently some of the plant's spines were able to penetrate the chameleon suit. By this time Telisa became groggy again, and she turned off the flashlight and went back to sleep.

In the morning they repacked everything and moved out about fifteen minutes after sunrise. Telisa's legs were stiff, and walking sent shooting pains through them for the first few minutes. Her pain must have been minor compared to Jack and Thomas, who were complaining loudly.

"Oh, my legs! They're gonna fall off!" Thomas groaned.

"Mine too. And be careful, some of these spines can go through our suits," Jack said.

"Yes, my legs are full of them," Telisa agreed.

Thomas nodded. "Me too," he said.

"How bad is it? Do you feel sick?" Magnus asked.

"They just seem like splinters I got on Earth," Telisa said. "What, you didn't even get one?"

Magnus shook his head. "Momma Veer..."

"Argh! I should have known."

Not only did he seem unaffected by yesterday's hike, but he had been spared the needling as well. Telisa shook her head. Somehow none of it surprised her. In the short time since she had met him, he had given her the impression of invulnerability. It wasn't the kind of bragging, pretend-out-loud sort of toughness, but a quiet, understated acceptance of the world's problems without slowing down. Telisa found herself attracted by it, but she put those thoughts aside again. There were the artifacts and getting back alive...

They spent more hours moving through the forest as in the previous day. Telisa tried to stay alert through it all, even though the constant scanning became tedious as they moved through the forest. She challenged herself to spot as many of the local creatures as she could. Sometimes the things would ignore the intruders, other times they flashed into their sh.e.l.ls, falling back onto a lower branch or even to the ground.

For the first time Telisa found a disastrous-looking arrangement of the trees that grew atop each other. A single strong specimen drooped under the weight of two piggybackers. It seemed that the behavior didn't always work as planned. Telisa wondered if somewhere, a chain of three or four of them stacked on each other extended high above the surrounding forest. At least until the whole arrangement came cras.h.i.+ng down like a house of cards.

Telisa almost asked about their progress but realized that she could check for herself. She examined the map in her mind, her current position indicated by Thomas's navigation equipment. She could see that they were almost upon the site of the unusual power emanations. Magnus must have been cognizant of the same thing, as he slowed their progress, scanning the area ahead carefully.

"I can see a ruin directly ahead," he reported.

Everyone followed him closely, eager to see for themselves. Telisa made out a large gray building overgrown with the local trees and shrubs. Telisa couldn't tell what it was made of. It surface remained smooth despite its age. She guessed it could be constructed of some metal or ceramic.

They approached one seamless wall and then paralleled its course. When they turned the corner, Telisa saw that the wall had been breached. Some kind of root system or underground plant had shattered the wall long ago. The hole was large enough to climb through.

Magnus fished out his flashlight and peeked inside. He turned around and shrugged.

"Looks alien to me. Maybe Telisa should take a look."

Telisa took her own flashlight and stepped up to the opening.

The disc of light fell upon dusty pieces of equipment larger than a human. The materials and angles looked right for Trilisk origin, but the dust was too thick and she was too far away to be sure.

"I'm getting a closer look," she said, and without waiting for a reply, she switched the flashlight to her left hand, unclipped her stunner with her right, and went in.

Jack and Thomas walked up to her as she brushed the dust off the nearest device. It didn't seem to have any levers or b.u.t.tons, which was a good sign right off. Trilisk artifacts never did. Most human theories on the subject indicated that they were used through mental interfaces. There were flat black plates built into the gray metal surface. That was another good sign. The plates were display ports, made to show information about the state of the device, like the front panel of a chronometer. Presumably the readouts could provide their information via a mental interface as well, but the Trilisks seemed to prefer having the panels on their equipment too. No one really knew why.

It looked dead. Perhaps all she had to do was find out how to activate it. Unfortunately, Trilisk devices never had anything as simple and primitive as a power switch.

"Amazing. We're the first humans to look at this. Real Trilisk artifacts."

"So it is Trilisk. Any idea what it does?" asked Thomas.

"I have no idea. But I need toa""

"Let's take a tour of the place first," Jack suggested. "Don't settle on anything just yet. That thing you're looking at is probably too heavy for all of us to even pick up. You see what I'm saying?"

Telisa looked up from the mysterious cl.u.s.ter of equipment. Magnus was across the room, looking into the end of a giant tube that descended into the floor.

"I guess you're right. I want to look at everything of course, but our time is limited. And as you pointed out, we can't carry this thing."

Thomas nodded. "We're excited too. I'm glad you can see the bigger picture though. A Trilisk can opener could net thousands of ESC. We don't need a big piece of factory equipment or whatever this is."

Telisa scanned the floor for something smaller. Dirt and dead vegetation lay scattered around on the floor.

"This goes deeper into the installation," Magnus said, calling to the others from the mouth of the giant tube sticking up out of the floor.

"And that appears to be the only other way to go," Jack said. "So let's follow him."

Magnus extended a hand and helped the others up into the tube. Telisa took out her flashlight and shone it farther into the round tunnel. The pa.s.sageway was empty. It extended as far as she could see, angling off to the right and descending deeper into the ground. It gave Telisa a rather eerie feeling. She didn't normally suffer from claustrophobia, but being in a dark, dusty underground tube made her a little nervous. She realized that their ignorance held great danger. For all she knew, they could be walking into a giant machine that could turn on and grind them up at any moment.

Magnus trudged forward and Telisa followed. The tube curved in a long circle, leading them deeper into the planet. Telisa wondered why such a thing had been built. The answer probably wouldn't come from guessing without more information. Understanding aliens could be a tough business.

They came around a last curve and the tube ended with a metal rim around its entire circ.u.mference, with a flat black hole through the center large enough to for a hippo.

They walked up to the rim. Both Magnus and Telisa s.h.i.+ned their lights into the hole, trying to see beyond the low barrier.

"It's not just dark," Jack noted. "It's pitch black. The light's not going in there."

"Or no reflected light is coming out," Thomas said. "Our s.h.i.+p's stealth device uses technology a little like this to s.h.i.+eld us from orbital scanning."

Telisa walked forward, pointing her light at the edge of the zone of blackness. The light just ended at the border, giving no reflections.

"It's wonderful!" Telisa exclaimed. "And beyond our current technology. We can't make a blackfield of this efficiency, can we?"

"That's not all," Magnus said. His eyes had a faraway look. Telisa realized he was accessing the mental interface of his military scanner. "There aren't any gravitons emerging from it either."

Thomas whistled. "I wish we had equipment that could check for neutrinos. Surely it wouldn't be that perfect..."

Telisa looked at Jack. "If we could bring whatever it is that generates this field back with us, it would be enough to pay for the whole trip," she told him. "Enough to make us all super rich."

Jack looked around the circular perimeter of the opening. "Let's try. I'm not sure we'll be able to find and carry it, but let's try. The sooner we can grab something really valuable and get off this planet the better."

Magnus shrugged. "Stick your finger through," he suggested.

"You're nuts. What if it takes it clean off? Or instantly kills all the cells in it?"

Magnus rolled his eyes. "Then we'll grow it back when we get to Earth," he said exasperatedly. He walked past Thomas and flicked the end of his little finger through the blackfield.

"It's fine," he said, holding up the finger for all to see. Then he stuck his arm through the blackness. He pulled it back, moving the arm and testing the feel of it. "Seems harmless so far," he said.

"Wait a minute and see if it bruises," Jack suggested. But Magnus had already walked through.

Telisa moved up to the edge of the field. "Magnus? Can you hear me?"

There was no answer. She examined the edge of the opening carefully, looking for any details they may have missed. Telisa didn't like the idea of just walking through to see what happened. She valued her life a little more than that. After a few more moments Magnus stepped back from beyond the field.

"Come in here. You're not going to believe this."

Chapter Six.

Another automatic door opened before Joe. He peeked into the room.

"More of the same," he said. So far he and the two Series Sevens had traveled perhaps a hundred meters into the complex, searching for inhabitants. He had found room after room of labs, meeting areas, supply closets, and other mundane facilities, but no people.

Joe checked the services that were broadcast to his link chip from the building. There were two general information ports and a maintenance port available. So far all of Joe's attempts to link to the installation's services had resulted in odd errors after very short interactions.

He tried again, connecting to the maintenance port. A menu came up in his mind's eye, showing local water, power, and atmospheric controls. Further access was restricted, and he didn't have valid identification codes to continue. He unlinked from the maintenance port and tried another general information one. Joe requested the route to the nearest restroom. A map came up of the local corridors, showing the path in red. He panned the map view slowly to the right. The image wavered and the link was broken.

"The information computers are hopelessly trashed," Joe complained. "Two, have you had any luck getting maps of this place?"

"I do not have sufficient access to get that information. I have multiple errors logged as well. The system is highly unstable."

Joe was frustrated, but he came to a decision.

"Let's get back to the entrance. This is an amazing place, we should report it. Its presence here proves that someone beat the UNSF to the punch. In fact, now that I think about it, that explains the s.h.i.+p we encountered. I wondered how they got here so fast. But the truth is, they may have been here all along."

Joe knew that people resisted the world government, formed secret societies and rebel groups, but he had no idea that they had these kinds of resources. To scout out a Trilisk planet before the UNSF and to create a base here... they were stronger than he realized. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Hrm, I may be making some bad a.s.sumptions here. Maybe this is a UNSF base that I don't have clearance to know about. But that means Mailson must not know about it either, or he wouldn't have sent me."

The robots listened to Joe's suppositions without comment. Joe turned back and retraced their route through the underground complex. He led them through a series of rooms and walked down a flight of stairs. They exited the stairwell and walked down a long corridor. Joe slowed, looking back over his shoulder.

"One. I've become disoriented. Where's the entrance?"

"We are at entrance location. The door has been obscured by a new wall," the robot said.

"A new wall? Two, do you agree with this a.n.a.lysis? Someone built a new wall here?"

"This is the entrance location. However, there is no evidence to support the theory that this is a freshly constructed wall. It may be that a wall constructed at an earlier time has been moved to obstruct the exit."

"Wonderful. But how do we get out? Maybe we've been fooled into thinking this is the same spot," Joe said. He reached his hand out and felt the wall. It seemed solid.

"Something could be interfering with our inertial sensors," Two said.