by Zaslow Crane
Abbot scowled. I really think I had spoiled his surprise. He wanted to tell, not have it prised outta him.
“Dangerous, it might be, yes. But we don’t know this. Pope will ascertain same for us, yes?” he looked over at her.
Pope made a gesture that said: “I guess…”
Abbot nodded, smiled and continued, “If nothing else, we will have all the terranium we can carry; if we’re skillful and lucky, alien tek might be gleaned. If they were here thousands of years ago, mustn’t advanced be our assumption? Very advanced?”
He paused, gathering his audience in. “And, advanced tek might not weigh much of anything and be far more valuable than terranium.”
Well, I for one, no longer wanted to shoot this lunatic in the head…not just yet anyways…I’ll wait to see how this plays out first.
Deacon had been watching for the bird again. This time the cannon that he’d been carrying since getting chewed out by Abbot was already aimed in the right general direction. The bird swooped and again began its blood curdling cry, but it was cut short by the thunderous boom of Deacon’s gun.
The bird shape flinched, flapped its wings hurriedly and was gone. The garlic smell was even stronger now. Something splatted loudly in the underbrush nearby. Shite no doubt.
The garlic smell is a factor in its blood? Is it a phermone it exudes? Or something it absorbs from the ancients?
“Blest Shot! Deacon, a wonder you are! Truly!”
An unmarked box we’d carried produced little probes on wheels and more that were drone shapes about the size of my boot.
We sent a probe on wheels up the driveway, for that was what the approach looked like: an access for large wheeled vehicles.
The wheeled probe was about a hundred millimeters tall with four articulating axels. It rolled blithely the entire way, slowly getting smaller in the distance.
We all watched hopefully with all spec distance glasses.
“It’s still okay…”
“Blest! Blest.”
There was a single large indentation. That was where I’d go if I were gonna knock to be let in. I steered the probe into it. The ambient light dipped radically, and we all switched to IR. Then we all saw the probe melt.
“Shite!”
“What was that?”
Pope looked into a spec analysis. “Without warning or ramp-up, suddenly there’s a highly concentrated beam of what looks like microwaves, and our little rollie is a meltie! It’s a puddle. Damn!”
I withdrew a flier and sent it off in the general direction of the cavity. I was intending to control it carefully and slowly once it got close to the artifact, but a hundred meters out, it was sliced into three pieces!
By what, I couldn’t see. It, too, was around a hundred millimeters tall. The pieces fluttered to the ground like broken little parts of some child’s toy.
The rollie went under the sensor, I guessed. None of us are less than a hundred millimeters tall while on our bellies! So, sneaking in under the sensors isn’t Option One. Just walking in upright is a no-go.
Glad t’know that, goin’ in…
Abbot took charge: “Five sides there are on this prize. Four we’ve not seen yet. Each of you take one rollie and one flier and try to approach from each side. Report what happens. Be back in a deci-hour. Go.”
As we left carrying our probes, I saw Abbot unlimbering the rail gun.
Okay…so that’s how it’s gonna be, I thought glumly. We blast our way in? If we do that, what happens to all that advanced alien tek?
He saw me looking and guessed my concern.
“A test shot is all. Testing what will be.”
He smiled benignly.
I’d seen the crazy beneath. That smile means nothing.
I needn’t have worried. The first railgun slug melted before hitting the door.
We gave the building a wide berth, sneaking up on it at a right angle to the side we each faced. And, we eventually returned, after tramping through the undergrowth with our toys, and watching them each die from something. I looked at my boots. They were noticeably worse than yesterday.
Pope and I reported for us all.
“What now?” I demanded.
Abbot looked perplexed. “Thinking…thinking, I am.”
I wasn’t used to being denied by machines, alien or not. I pulled out one of the shoulder mount laser cannons and began denuding the entire approach; first one side, then the other. I found nearly a dozen devices, any of which might have killed us.
Might have been what killed the original probes. A few fought back. By the time the laser had overheated, the approach was three times wider than it was a few deci-hours earlier. Ozone hung in the air, and my arms and hands ached from controlling that beast of a weapon.
One after another rolling and flying probes made it to the monument, if that was what it was. We dared the thing to take them, but all returned unscathed.
Pope and Saint tentatively went forward; Pope with a number of sensor/flux receivers on a little home-made cart. It had a shield for them to crouch behind. They pushed it in front of Pope. Both wore pulse armor and Saint had a pulse bomb launcher at the ready.
While they were inching their way up the driveway, Deacon, Abbot and I put on pulse armor as well. If Saint uses one of those pulse bomb things, I don’t want my insides turned to pudding.
Deacon and I covered them though, since we didn’t know what to expect, if anything. I wasn’t certain how effective we’d be if we needed to lay down fire for their emergency bugout.
No emergency retreat happened, though. We were all nervous as hell, but I admired Saint and Pope. They were doing the really dangerous work right now.
They slowly rolled right next to the left side of the opening, where Pope began scanning the insides. Saint produced a pry bar and pried loose one of the precious stones inset along the edge. It came off easily.
She grinned and held it up triumphantly. “That will pay for some of the equipment,” I heard Abbot intone distractedly. “Blest…”
I wondered if now wouldn’t be an excellent time to cut our losses. I’m no coward, but I know when to call for a tactical retreat. I said nothing, though…Just like hormones, greed also usually wins an argument.
Abbot picked up the intercom: “Saint? What’s the range of your launcher?”
“With the big bombs or the little cuties?”
“A big one, I’m thinking…”
“Around thirty meters…”
“Then withdraw you should, twenty-eight meters.” “Doin’ it.”
Then Abbot had Deacon and I readied the laser cannons.
I hoped that the one I’d used had cooled off enough to be effective.
Abbot donned the half helmet of a rail gunner.
“On my mark, concentrate fire on the center of the door. Pope watch the door, if you see any wavering in the field, signal Saint to launch at the same target.”
I gulped, hoping pulse armor would be enough.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” times four.
“Fire!”
Deacon and I concentrated on the center of the indentation, hoping it was a door of some sort. The lasers first hit the microwaves, but eventually pushed through! I could feel the weird tingling in the air get more pronounced.
Then, I saw wavering in the fabric of the door.
So did Abbot.
He fired the railgun, and a second or so later the pulse bomb exploded.
Despite the armor, the pulse felt sickening, but I was alright.
We all stopped firing at once.
Saint and Pope made their way back to us. The blast had been ‘shaped’ by the indentation to pass by them, but Saint had a bloody nose just the same.
Damn lucky that’s all! I thought, smiling. I admired the two ladies all the more now!
We all sighted on the door, for that was what it was. We knew that because it was open now.
“The base is almost two meters thick! And it’s all terra
nium!” Pope exulted, producing various scans from her close up peek.
“Amazing! I didn’t know there was that much in the entire system, much less here in one spot on a backwater planet like this.”
That was the most Deacon had said all at once, in the entire time we’d known him. It was made all the more striking and strange by his odd accent.
We all looked at him.
He looked uncomfortable at all the attention.
“And, there are over thirty of these…” Saint held up a gemstone the size of her fist.
I was feeling a bit better about my decisions then.
That good feeling wasn’t to last.
We were standing around feeling happy that we’d succeeded, at least as regards this step of the journey, and wondering what we might do next. We weren’t prepared for an attack. We should have been, but we were tired and felt great that we’d won…at least a bit.
Suddenly, the entire area – the spot in the middle of our group was full of feathers that reeked of offal and feces…and garlic. We were all knocked down and blown back by the huge bulk that had just landed amidst us! All of us, save Deacon.
A split deci-second later, that same huge tree-colored bulk lifted off. We were pressed us to the ground as the wings beat the air to get aloft. And, when it did, we were four, not five. Deacon was gone!
Then it hit me: The area I’d cleared in the last few hours to make us safer, wasn’t so safe. I’d cleared an opening that had allowed the Roc to swoop in on us. The wings had made no noise at all. And all that was left after Deacon was gone was a blood spot on the trampled ground. Though, the blood didn’t look like human blood…it looked thinner, very, very dark, but somehow less dense.
The Bird’s blood? I wondered. Deacon hit him. He shot at him… He wounded the great Roc! And so, if that’s true…Did the animal know which of us to take his revenge on? Were these birds that smart? Oh shite. Now we’re fighting the aliens and the birds?
We beat a hasty retreat. The sun was failing anyway, and we needed the cover of trees to stay safe from the Roc if it returned. Abbot tried to cheer us up.
“An even 20% each. That’s something, it is….Poor Deacon, but his was the responsibility to watch and shoot if the bird returned…”
Pope was incensed.
“Poor Deacon? You don’t care a whiff of smoke for him; for any of us! Poor Deacon! You hid information from us, you doozer! Information we might have used to decide…better, if we wanted this thing…this fucking quest. You cheated us! I should kill you now!”
At this, Abbot’s hand appeared with a sidearm in it as if by magic.
“Calmly…My dearest…Most calmly. Truly, Deacon is missed, but what can I do to assuage your grief…?”
He spread his hands, one still holding the pistol, but he’d spread them anyway, as if to say, “I’m as bereft as you, you who only met him a week ago!”
“I know…Instead of 20%. I’ll share my stake money. Now we’ll all split equally. We all are in for 25%. Blest?”
He looked around, and seeing the indecision in our faces, holstered his weapon as a sign of leadership and confidence. “Blest!”
We sat around, most of us introspective; none of us talking over dinner.
Then we bedded down, posting a well-armed guard, which we changed every few deci-hours.
It was still dark, though not long ‘til sunrise when we arose.
We donned the all spec visors and scanned the area for any unfriendlies.
Nothing.
“Pope, my dear…” Abbot began, whispering in the chill and dark.
“Could you please send some probes, and affix some smoking pyrotechnics, to see if we’re still cleared?”
She said nothing, but soon, two rollies and one flier were doing their work, smoke trailing behind them. They got all the way to the doorway and…nothing happened.
“Good. Call them back.”
She did, still not speaking.
We scanned the area on every freeq we could access; sub viz, visual, near viz, ultra viz…Nothing. It was still and quiet between here and the doorway.
After that, all bets are off, I thought. I wish we could have brought the field dampeners…
One by one, we made our way to the side of the monument. We leaned against the cool and very valuable metal, armed and ready to fight, panting and tense.
Yet nothing happened.
Saint went off by herself for a moment, just to test a theory, and returned with another fist sized jewel.
“Lookit! Ain’t it binkie?”
Abbot looked at her with disgust.
“Focus, please. Put it down. That’s the little shite, it is. Bigger and better awaits.”
He turned to Pope.
“Now what?”
She thought for a moment. “We don’t know what to expect…What the floor’s like. We sent fliers in, with scanners… cameras…we check and prep. But mostly, we wait.”
She looked at Abbot: “…‘Kay? ‘Kay! Blest it is!”
He didn’t think her making fun of his speech patterns was funny; she seemed to be making a point however obliquely. She didn’t think that Deacon was expendable…Because if he was, we all were.
In a little while, three fliers were outfitted. In that same time, we donned the pulse armor, and Abbot added the railgun helmet and charged the gun itself. Even if I hadn’t seen him ready the gun, I’d have felt it.
The air vibrated and shimmered, more so now, it seemed. Just a bit and just out of visual range or acuity.
My skin itched. And, I wanted to shoot something. Almost anything. All this tension could only be dissipated in one way: Killing something that was threatening me.
Give me something to kill! I thought.
The fliers went through the charred hole of the doorway and began sending back pics and scans of the inside.
“It’s bigger than Caracol, on Pentalume!” Abbot gasped.
Myself, I’d only heard about that, and heard about the ancient treasures that were found there. Part of the reason I was interested here…I smiled. I took a deep breath and lowered my laser cannon a trifle.Things were looking up.
“Abbot,” I said. “I might have an idea…”
“Yes? What is it…Tell…”
“What if we use the lasers to slice off huge sections of this… thing? We’d leave enough so that it wouldn’t fall over or become unsteady, but we’d open up a lot of it – we could see in, without getting into the hot-hot of danger…”
Abbot smiled. The smile said: “And that is why I brought you!”
It was slow work, but we sliced off sections weighing far more than we could carry away quickly. It soon became apparent that we must cut pieces that were manageable sizes. Sections fell upon the dirt, cut away from their…home. Then, they were cut up, again and again. It was slow, hot dangerous work, but we were putting money in the bank! Sections made of solid terranium! In time, we were cutting them into ingot sized pieces and stacking them off to one side.
I began to feel hopeful. The lasers were replaced by the special saw. We might need the laser yet again.
“Let’s not wear out the battery,” I offered. I got dirty looks because the laser was a lot faster. But the saw isn’t as important as the laser…
The stack grew but the view inside the monument didn’t improve much, though now we did have easier ways to send in probes to gather even more information. It was almost as if the darkness inside was fighting the light that tried to get in.
After two days of intense work, we’d substantially opened up two sides. We all agreed that it was time to go into the monument. Abbot wanted to see if the treasure that was the monument, contained something else; something better. So did we all. We didn’t need prodding. That was why we were here, right? Or was there something more…?
However, since the two sides we’d opened up were contiguous, Abbot wanted to open up a side as far away from the initial cut as possible, “To see if light will travel through it.
”
Since it was so dark in there, there’d been talk that perhaps the artifact was partially in another place, and was a nexus for transportation for the builders. That dark could be the transition area…That would explain why it was so dark inside this… thing. That would be a good thing to know before, just charging in discharging weapons.
The next morning before dawn and after we’d sent the smoking probes out in front of us again, we started cutting away at the other side of the artifact.
This time we didn’t cut up the pieces, we just opened the side.
We shone a light from our position to Abbot, who’d walked to the other side.
“See the light, I can’t. Wave it around.”
We gave up eventually. We couldn’t shine the light all the way through. Was that a reason to give up? I didn’t think so.
“Time, it might be, to send probes again…”
Pope readied two and two. We each had a controller and by plan, we stayed as far away from each other as possible.
I had a little flyer and I dove it into the dark that still persisted in the center of the monument. I knew that if I lit the area up with all spec, I’d kill my batteries pretty quick, so I opted for a quick look around and a hasty get out, before my flier ran outta juice.
I captured some pics of the interior…It was kind of disappointing. I half expected a starship comm. station or something, but it was mostly empty inside.
Saint had a flyer also, and after a quick spin around the interior, daring them to shoot her, he used up the rest of her reserve batt taking pics, backing her way out.
All the probes returned unscathed, and ready for recharge and reboot.
We poured over the pics and motion feeds looking for anything that might be threatening. Since it was mostly empty…it looked like a covered and protected meeting place more than anything. There wasn’t anything that was overtly threatening; no gun emplacements…nothing obviously set up to deter the likes of us.
Also there was nothing inside that looked like alien tek; nothing we might cart away and reverse engineer. So the terranium was all there was…Well, that’s okay, too, I guess, I thought.