by Rachel Caine
“Understood.” To my relief, Bea didn’t seem disappointed to be passed over for the ground team.
Or maybe I was the weird one for being excited about this? The adrenaline was already starting to kick in as I glanced between Yusuf and Starcurrent. “We could probably use a third. I’m willing to let you two decide. C-X?”
“That’s fine, as long as we get moving soon.”
“I’m . . . feeling a little better,” Yusuf said. “But still perhaps not the best person to take along on a suicide mission.”
He had a point. Plus, he wasn’t at a hundred percent physically, either. Whoever we took with us needed to be fully committed to the mission. “Starcurrent?”
“Will assist with all tentacles.”
“You heard the Abyin Dommas. Let’s roll out.”
Once Marko told Typhon that we wanted real bombardment, the Elder Leviathan got seriously into it, like we invented Leviathan football. He and Nadim rounded up a giant circling swarm of small asteroids, and one after another, started flicking them down toward the surface.
Chao-Xing piloted the Hopper out of Nadim, and we hovered out from the two Leviathan and watched the light show. It was horrifying, and at the same time, fascinating. Nadim and Typhon danced, constantly on the move, and the casual flicks of their tails or bumps of their bodies to send the asteroids tumbling were as precise as a ballet dancer’s spins.
The defense shields below ruthlessly devoured every one of those rocks, a relentless sustained assault, and when it finally flickered and failed to make a full revolution around the planet, I slapped the back of C-X’s seat. “Go, go, go!”
She pushed the Hopper to full speed. “We’re going to hit the atmo hard,” she warned. “Hang on!”
The Hopper shuddered when we encountered the first layers of the exosphere, and the shaking got worse as we hit the thermosphere. The shielding was burning off heat nicely, and creating an unnerving orange blaze at the nose of the craft; I couldn’t see a thing through the forward screen, so I relied on instruments to tell us what was happening downstairs. There were energy bursts from both poles, but they were weak and erratic. The defenses were trying to come up, but after guarding against eighty-seven asteroids, the goalie was sitting down.
We needed to be on the ground before the time out was over. Chao-Xing pushed it, beelining for the site where Bacia had told us we’d find their precious trinket, but like me, C-X also had eyes on the readouts.
When I saw the spike, I yelled, “Evasive!” as she yanked the controls, starting a sudden, corkscrewing twist that threw us off course. We dodged a thick, red beam slicing at us from the north pole. The forward view had started to clear, so I got a heart-stopping look at the brute force of the thing as it sliced the air only about forty meters from our craft.
Chao-Xing promptly swung back toward the beam, which was so counterintuitive that I had to bite my lip to keep from swearing at her about it, but she was right; the beam only held for a second, then blinked out. She kept pushing the Hopper to its shaking limits, and we dove. Fast, faster, and when we dropped below the level where the last asteroid had been incinerated, I finally remembered to breathe.
We were coming in hot, and only a pilot like Chao-Xing could have pulled us up in time to settle on that gray ground in a flurry of dust and made it gentle as a soap bubble touching down. Chao-Xing hit the button to release restraints, but she kept the door shut as we both scanned the sensors.
“Atmo is good for us,” I said. “Air’s thin but breathable. Starcurrent?”
“I can adapt my filter quickly.”
Nodding, I added, “Keep your helmets on. Even if the air isn’t toxic, there might be poisonous pollen or invasive alien spores. Better not to risk it.”
Chao-Xing was studying the scan results. “I’m not finding any significant life signs.”
“Nothing big out there,” I said. “Plants, some small animals.”
She nodded. “Then let’s get in and out, fast as we can.”
“I hear you, but this is my area of expertise. Understand?”
Part of me expected her to argue, but she said, “You take point, then. Starcurrent, if anything about this place looks familiar, sing out.”
I already knew that was the wrong phrase to use for a race of galactic musicians before ze said, “Sing what song?”
“Tell us what you recognize,” I said. “Preferably not in song.”
That got me a ruffle of tentacles. “I am quite proficient in—”
“We’re moving.”
The second I stepped foot on this nameless, alien world, all my defenses came right up. The air was thin, and the sounds rang flat and tinny; the lower grav was nice, but I’d have to watch myself.
Reminding myself to be careful of sudden movements, I checked the coordinates. We were just over 400 meters from Bacia’s target, and the early scans had been right: there was a temple there, similar to what we’d found on Firstworld . . . only this one stood tall and straight, translucent shards of crystal reflecting the light of the dim sun. There was an eerie elegance to it, and as a wind blew past me, it cut itself on the crystal edges, and the whisper of its passage vibrated, pulsed, rang.
Frightening and beautiful, all at once.
“Slow down,” I said. “Follow my lead. That means step where I step, and don’t touch anything. Got it?”
Starcurrent flared tentacles in a yes. C-X nodded.
I led the way, one careful step after another. I was acutely aware that we had no way of knowing how long we had before the defense batteries recharged, but rushing would get our asses killed fast. I was looking for traps, signs, anything that looked wrong.
“Starcurrent,” I said. “What can you tell me about this place? What was it built for?”
“Beauty,” ze said. “Song. Life. Protection.”
“Hang on. Tell me about that last one.”
“Protection?”
“Yeah, because mostly in my world that means against attacks.”
“No,” ze said. “Protection for. Not against.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I had the feeling ze was at a loss how to explain it more clearly, and this wasn’t let’s-guess-the-meaning time. This was go time, and I had to decide how to proceed.
“Is the temple going to protect against us?”
I got a bunch of lifted tentacles. I didn’t need a translation matrix to know they meant Your guess is as good as mine. Great.
I nearly took a last step forward, onto a shimmering crystal walkway, and changed my mind at the last second. “Can you sing to it?” I asked zim. I got a confused wiggle. “That’s not a metaphor. I mean, really sing a song to calm this place down if it gets angry?”
“I can sing. Cannot guarantee effectiveness.”
“Well, if something goes wrong, go full opera. I’m counting on you.” I glanced back at Chao-Xing. “You watch our backs.”
“I’ve got your six,” she said softly.
Unexpectedly comforting.
With a deep breath, I set my boots on the pathway. Charcoal sand gritted under my feet. Silvery plants swayed nearby, standing three times my height, and they made a pleasant, muted chiming sound when the wind stirred them. They also let loose a continuous stream of faint pollen, but the breeze blew it away from us. This was exactly the kind of shit I’d worried about before. No telling what it would do to our lungs.
I didn’t see anything animal-wise. Here, the ground was mostly barren, though I could see lusher forests of the big bell fronds farther off in the distance, and beyond that, a massive thrust of mountains. The sky was a peculiar color of purple, like permanent twilight, even though the sun was at its peak just now. This place would be very dark when the planet rotated. I wondered how fast that spin was, and how long we had before darkness fell. No matter how irrational the feeling, I didn’t want to be here when the curtain of night came down.
I was five steps up the path when the bells from the fronds chimed louder. The w
ind hadn’t increased; it still blew a faint, loose pressure across the temple’s crystal. So, what was up with the bells?
“Starcurrent?” I asked, pointing at the bell fronds. “Familiar?”
“No,” ze said. “I have never seen such. Very pretty.”
“I wasn’t asking for gardening tips—never mind.” I was asking a pacifist creature to be paranoid. “Keep your eyes on them, okay?”
“Of course.”
Six more steps, the bells clanging with intense volume, and I set my boot on the first step of the temple.
The bong that rang through the landscape was so loud that I nearly fell from the shock of it, and it took me a disordered second to realize that it was coming from the bell fronds. Starcurrent said, sharply, “Alarm!”
“No shit,” I said, but that was drowned out by another sound that came all the way from the distant bell frond forest, and it was deafening even in this thin air. C-X clapped hands over her ears, and so did I; I was breathing too fast, suddenly, and the thin, dry air had a bitter smell now, discernable even through my helmet’s filtration system. I didn’t realize why until I saw a shimmer of silver in the air around us . . . and a silver cloud rolling across the empty space, coming from the bell frond forest.
“Defenses,” Starcurrent said. “Interesting.”
“Interesting? Try singing something!”
Ze did, a caterwauling grate of sound that made me wish I’d never asked. It didn’t last long. “Unfortunately, there is no effect on the bell plants.”
“What does this silver stuff do?”
Chao-Xing had her H2 out, and she was already scanning. “It isn’t microbial,” she said. “Or bacterial. It appears . . . inert.”
Yeah, I didn’t believe that for a second. The silver cloud billowed toward us, driven by a gust of wind that had to have been generated out of the forest, and even through the skinsuit I felt the sting. This wasn’t pollen. It was needle-sharp glass.
I whipped out the triangular device that I’d killed the blob with, programmed it for the widest possible circumference. “Huddle up!” Beckoning the other two, I dropped the device between the three of us, and activated it with a quick tap of my foot.
Ten seconds later, a bubble of lacy gold burst out around us. Protection field. The silvery stuff that was already inside hung weightless in the air for a few seconds, then began drifting down to the bottom, like glitter in a snow globe. Just in time. Outside, the storm crashed over us, a constant, brutal hissing stream of cutting edges. We’d have been flayed in seconds, skinsuits and all, if we hadn’t come prepped with defenses.
It felt like standing in the middle of a tornado, and none of us made a move, like we were instinctively trying to avoid the notice of an apex predator hungry for raw meat. Chao-Xing was breathing fast. So was I, and I felt the hot prickle of sweat breaking under my arms and breasts, on the back of my neck. It didn’t run, because the skinsuit quickly wicked it away and tidily stored it for later recycled use, but damn. I’d been through some intense moments, but at least during those I could run, fight, do something.
This, I had to stand still for, and hope the shield held up. My nerves burned with the need to move, but I held on. Outside the bubble, the bonging of the bell fronds kept going, sending wave after wave of silver dust at us.
Nadim said, via the remote, “Zara! What’s happening?” He sounded frantic. I could feel it, and he could probably feel my rising, frustrated panic too. “Are you all right?”
“We’re waiting out a storm,” I told him. I kept it calm outwardly, and tried to force that inside too. Like the defense system, the plants couldn’t keep this up constantly, either.
“It’s fainter,” Starcurrent said. “The sound.”
Ze was right. The bells were softer now, and I could see a faint hint of sky, temple, ground through the attacking silver haze. Definitely lessening.
It ended with a soft, almost mournful bong, and then the silver dust settled into a cloud and floated to the ground. I realized we’d been walking through this gray dust on the way here, the eroded remains of this sharp pollen, cracked and broken by time.
Our shield popped with a sudden, audible snap, and I flinched as a rain of silver filtered down. Nasty, but not capable of killing us now.
“Come on,” I said. “Before it reloads.”
FROM THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION LOST LEGENDS OF PAST STARS
Source: Bruqvisz Planetary Database, licensed copy, DNA coded
Imagine, if you can: a past so distant even old stars were not yet born, galaxies still close together in their Great Migration, and at the center of all, gods. Beings unknown, of vast power and great cruelty, who did not create life but instead took from it to enhance their own empty souls, for souls they had not. Creatures of power and hunger.
This seems a distant fantasy, yet two species remain who record this as a real time. Perhaps these records are lies to entertain. Perhaps they are true but slander a race long dead without even ruins to record them. Yet the Abyin Dommas quietly sing of this, and the Biiyan, whose resonant temples lie in broken crystals everywhere. The Biiyan are a dying race. The Abyin Dommas speak not of the past to those beyond their oceans.
Who is to say if these gods existed?
Or if they may yet wander?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Binding Actions
CRUNCHING UP THE path to the pyramid or the temple, whatever the hell it was, gave me the chills. Felt like we were walking on layers of dust that came from centuries of death, and that . . . was probably true. If other crews had landed here, that powdered glass storm would’ve flayed them alive, left them to decompose into the dust beneath our feet.
This entire world was a graveyard.
No danger, my ass.
As we landed, I’d noticed that this site wasn’t ruined like the temple on Firstworld, leaving us the damn fine question of how we were getting inside. We mounted a black stone ramp that could’ve been jet or obsidian or some alien mineral I didn’t know about. Time had stripped the shine and pocked it with holes. Some spots seemed like natural erosion.
Others could be blast damage.
Moving slowly upward, I didn’t see anything as obvious as tripwires or pressure plates . . . not that I’d be able to second-guess how an alien species would rig traps, anyway. I wished I could stop and feel a little of the majesty of this thing: a real space pyramid.
A walkway went all the way around at the base, and I led the parade; the pyramid had a silver side, a black side, and a white side, which baffled me. There was a puzzle to solve in those choices, and one of those options would offer us a way in. Three brains were better than one, so I started speculating aloud.
“There won’t be human associations with these colors or material choices. Starcurrent, does your lore cover any of this?”
From Starcurrent’s posture, ze was checking out the seemingly impenetrable structure as well. A flare of tentacles. “Black is the abyss from whence all life springs. White is the nothing to which we return when our songs fall silent. Silver is the walk-between, for those who see both worlds, beyond life and death.”
“Huh, okay. Anyone have thoughts as to where the door would be, the one that doesn’t kill us?”
We were standing in the open, close to the temple, but not near enough to activate murderbots, if there were any. I didn’t like the delay, but survival meant taking our time, even when all my nerves were urging me to smash and grab. The cool heist-planning part of my brain knew fast action would be fatal. There was a reason people didn’t return from here, so we had to be smart and careful, more than anyone who had come before.
Chao-Xing scanned the structure and bounced the data to Nadim to be analyzed with Bea’s help. We got back a stream of numbers, but nothing that helped with the symbolism or pinpointed the safe pathway. Per those readings, there were corridors that led inward from all three sides.
“I don’t like theoretical bullshit,” C-X said finally. “How do we know
having different colors on the sides isn’t just . . . alien design choices? Colors mean so many things to different cultures, even back on Earth.”
“Well, it’s safe to say human influences haven’t made it this far,” I pointed out. “Let’s go with Starcurrent’s analysis. From that point of view, it would be too straightforward for safe passage to come through the life door—”
“Silver,” Chao-Xing cut in. “Which stands for gray, the in-between. The safest path would be between the two extremes. Logically speaking, it should be at most half-danger, which gives us reasonable odds.”
All things considered, that theory made as much sense as anything, and we couldn’t hesitate until the sun vanished. The temp was already dropping, frosting my skinsuit. I glanced at Starcurrent. “All in favor?”
“Have always wanted to be a walker-between, as in our stories.”
That settled it. Still stepping carefully, I headed for the silver side. My heart hammered in my ears as I listened for the next alarm, but we got all the way to the faint outline of a door without waking up the bell fronds again—or anything else that I could tell. Problem was, there wasn’t a control panel here, no handle, no sensors that I could spot. This wasn’t the same interface as on the Sliver. The door looked like normal glass, but according to our readings, it was denser, comparable to titanium in strength, and utilized an interwoven smart crystal matrix that wasn’t in production anywhere anymore. All Nadim could say about it was that it was a variation of Leviathan tech, but far enough off that he didn’t have any idea how to hack it.
Dead-world tech, beyond anything I’d seen or imagined.
I shivered. “Nadim, are you sure there’s nobody inside this thing?”
“There are no life-form readings of any kind inside,” he said. “And there are no life-forms above the rudimentary at all on this world. The plants are the dominant species.”
I could see why.
From a safe distance, I tried breathing on the door, since that had worked back on the Sliver. Nothing. Working up my nerve, I touched it, but that only left a smear of fine dirt gritting the smooth surface. Chao-Xing went next, same outcome. Of course, we were both in skinsuits . . . I didn’t want to take off my gloves, but I did it anyway.