The Ruins of Mars (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy Book 1)

by Dylan James Quarles

  “Is it time?” he asked.

  “I think so, yes,” replied Remus.

  Caves—Sol 26

  With the blue glow of their Augmented Vision lighting the insides of their helmets, Harrison, Marshall and William walked cautiously through the underground corridor. Leading, Harrison frequently snapped screen shots of the symmetrical walls and ceiling, logging their dimensions as they moved deeper into the cave system. Having taking several curves and bends, the three explorers were now cast into utter blackness. Shuddering at the memory of blind helplessness he had felt during the storm, Harrison religiously checked battery life on his suit CPU, not wanting to relive the experience.

  “You guys feel that?” asked Marshall, stopping to rub his thighs. “Are we going up?”

  “Yes,” replied Braun matter-of-factly. “The incline of the floor has increased by four percent.”

  “I thought I felt that too,” said William, leaning his back against the wall.

  Taking another screenshot of the cave ceiling, Harrison pressed his gloved fingers to the wall and felt for the subtle signs of tool marks. Finding none, he searched his mind for possible ways these caves could have been formed so precisely. Dancing in the back of his subconscious was the cave network of the Bayan Kara-Ula Mountains in China and their mysterious Dropa stones. Smiling, he made a mental note to run this similarity by his father the next time he sent a transmission home.

  “Dropa stones,” he chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

  Though he laughed, a quiet voice in his head chided him, melting his grin away with its words.

  You’ve poked fun at your dad and his ancient astronaut belief for years, it said haughtily. And yet here you are, standing in a cave system that looks manmade. On Mars.

  Trickling in, Braun’s even voice sounded in their helmet speakers.

  “Based on your current oxygen consumption, I would suggest that you turn on your suits’ filtration systems to supplement your air supply. I would also advise that you continue forward.”

  Sliding a finger across his wrist tablet, Harrison turned on the survival pack’s air scrubbers. A faint vibration shuddered up his back as the motor purred to life, pulling the usable gasses from the cave chamber around them. Reaching out again, he felt the walls with his gloved hands and wished dearly that he could play his naked fingers across their smooth surface.

  Speak to me, he urged the silent rock. Speak.

  Walking up to stand beside him, Marshall put an arm around his shoulder.

  “Ready, Indy?”

  “Indy?” Harrison repeated with a frown, pulling his hand from the wall.

  “Yeah, like Indiana Jones. You know. Harrison Ford. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen those movies!”

  Grinning, Harrison turned to face Marshall.

  “On Earth, I’m Indy,” he said. “Up here, I’m Han Solo.”

  Laughing, the three set out again, following the uphill curve of the tunnel as it led deeper into the ancient Martian earth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The blessing

  Stopping at the first row of pillars, the Martian procession ceased their drumming. Breaking away from the group, Teo and Ze helped Olo to his knees. Pressing his forehead to the ground, the wise man chanted in a voice that was little more than a whisper. Despite that morning's promise of sun, deep clouds had begun to form at the base of Atun. A cool wind licked across the open land, whistling through the monoliths and drowning out Olo’s shaking chants. Finishing his blessing, he was helped to his feet and taken to the next pillar. Stone by stone, he moved through the temple in a circular pattern. The rest of the procession followed behind with silent diligence as he knelt before each pillar, chanting his mystic prayers. Soon, the sky overhead filled with dark clouds, and a light rain began to patter down, creating spots on the dry soil between the standing monoliths. Working his way towards the center stone, Olo seemed to gain strength from the droplets of cool water. Twisting free of Teo’s helpful grasp, he spanned, on his own, the short distance from the last pillar to the triangular center stone. The smoldering remains of the burning herbs hissed in the clay pot as fat beads of rain splashed against the sides. With a flash, lightning split the sky, bringing with it the carnal roar of thunder. Worried voices drifted forwards from the ranks of the watching group. Turning, the wise man fixed them with his frosted eyes.

  “Do not be afraid,” he called in a voice much louder and stronger than his hunched figure seemed capable of. “The Great Spirits are only testing our courage before they welcome us.”

  Cave—Sol 26

  Trudging silently through still darkness of the cave, the steady in and out of his breathing lulled Harrison into a semi-lucid trance. Aware of his surroundings as presented through the blue glow of his Augmented Vision, he saw, too, the ancient light of a hundred torches, swaying gently as they lined the immaculate walls. Like golden sentries, they stood guard against an army of darkness, which threatened to invade and snuff out all hope of light and life. A voice, distant and echoing, drifted through the eons, coming as little more than a dry whisper. Turning his head so that his right ear faced into the darkness, Harrison followed the elusive source of the beckoning call.

  “We’re almost there,” he stated.

  “Okay?” said Marshall incredulously. “How do you know that?”

  “Because,” said Harrison flatly. “I just know.”

  Shrugging, Marshall extracted an x-ray beacon from his rucksack and placed it on the floor. Like the bullet shells of the deep-soil CT scanner, the small black orb pulsed pings of x-rays, which painted the walls with an invisible light that danced in their Augmented Vision.

  “To mark our progress,” he explained with a grin. “So we don’t get lost.”

  Moving on, it wasn’t long until the blue light from the little beacon had faded into the blackness beyond their vision range. As the tunnel took a sharp left, Harrison felt the ground under his boots grow steeper, as if they were ascending a long ramp. Checking the walls, he saw that the tunnel was beginning to widen on all sides, the perfectly even lines warping out before them. Snapping a screenshot with his helmet cam, he peered ahead intently.

  “I think we’re nearing a larger chamber,” he radioed, ears prickling with the ancient call of secret spirits. “We’re almost there.”

  The Great Spirits arrive

  Another jet of electric blue streaked through the heavens, this time gutting the clouds like a butcher’s knife. Rain cascaded down in force, making streams between the pillars and turning the ground muddy. Kneeling at the center stone, Olo rocked back and forth, mouthing a silent prayer as the crackle of static charges built in the air.

  From above, a low growl broke across the sky and echoed down, morphing slowly into a shrill whine. Heads turned their squinting eyes into the downpour as the strange noise repeated itself over and over, like the drum line of a timpani chorus. Shadows began to appear in the low clouds, growing larger as they descended from above the cover of the storm. With screams, the frightened group of Martian onlookers shrunk back, some shoving against one another in an attempt to dislodge themselves from the mass of bodies that surrounded the temple. In the sky, the falling shadows began to take shape as they parted the roiling curtain of the clouds. Silhouetted by forks of lightning that backlit the heavens in flickers of blue fire, huge black triangles lowered themselves through the heavy rain with the sizzle of electric heat.

  “The Great Spirits are here!” cried Olo, his face alive with energy.

  Caves—Sol 26

  As they pressed onwards, Harrison increased the ping range of his Augmented Vision to its fullest capacity. Six meters ahead, he could make out the walls and ceiling of the tunnel as they funneled out, growing wider to feed into a large chamber. Unable to enhance the ping distance any further, his screen showed straight, haunting blue walls, which parted quickly to give way to a black and gaping hole. The huge room swallowed the waves sent out by his suit’s Augmented Vision, returni
ng nothing but a shadowy blanket of darkness.

  “Looks like this room is too big for the range on my A-Vision,” complained Marshall. “All I can see is the floor and some of the near walls. I don’t want us walking in there blind.”

  “Toss out some beacons,” offered William as he dug in his bag for a handful of the x-ray emitters.

  “Good idea,” agreed Harrison, taking out a few of his own.

  Turning the beacon on, he cocked his arm back and threw the pulsating sphere into the darkness. As it arced through the air, flashes of x-rays bounced off the walls and ceiling of the massive room, echoing back to the helmet screens of the three explorers. Landing silently, the beacon rolled a little, then came to a rest. Faint light undulated from the plastic sphere like the glow of a full Moon as it filtered through the shallow waters of a coral reef.

  Instantly on alert, all three astronauts froze as the images from across the cave played inside their helmet visors. In the swaying light of the x-ray beacon, they could just make out that they were not alone in the chamber.

  Ships

  Awestruck, Remus and Romulus watched as dozens of massive black metal arrowheads skimmed through the violent skies with effortless ease. Falling like inky snow, they came in droves, and soon their numbers had grown to blot out the weakened light of the choking sun.

  Bellowing with unbelieving wonder, Romulus gripped his brother's arm.

  “Remus! Do you see what I see?”

  “Ships!” cried Remus above the shouts of the crowd. “They’re ships.”

  Caves—Sol 26

  “Holy shit,” whispered Marshall. “Don’t move.”

  The beacon lay some six meters from where the three men stood, pulsing out a steady wash of x-rays that lapped into the darkness like the incoming tide. With each wave of illumination, the blue light of their Augmented Vision played across the distant cave floor and danced up the leg of an unmoving figure, still shrouded in darkness.

  “No,” Harrison heard himself say. “It’s not what you think.”

  Before the other two could stop him, he hauled back and hurled another armed beacon with all of his strength.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Landing

  As the first of the imposing triangular craft reached the ground near the edge of the temple stones, three hinged legs silently unfolded from beneath the faintly glowing underside. Touching down like the feet of a giant insect, it settled itself in the mud and became still.

  Remus and Romulus clutched one another as the rest of the ships descended to the ground, arranging themselves in careful formation. Landing with perfect precision behind the first, they created a patchwork of triangles, which checkered out across the wet grasslands. In total, there were more than twenty: thick steam rising off of their backs as the rain continued to fall.

  Caves—Sol 26

  Sailing through the thin air, the little plastic ball blinked in slow motion as it flew past the orb of light emitted from the first beacon. Harrison’s aim was true, and the new x-ray emitter landed squarely at the foot of the figure across the cave from them. As the echoes of blue light leaped the distance of the chamber, the three explorers exhaled with a mixture of relief and awe. What they had seen standing in the shadows was not a living monster of unimaginable dread, but rather a large stone statue.

  Four-and-a-half meters tall, with a body as humanoid and androgynous as a Christian angel, the figure stood, its long arms hanging rigidly at the sides of its shapeless torso. Its head, oval-shaped and bald, depicted three squinting eyes arranged in a triangle atop the bridge of a narrowly pointed nose. Each eye possessed a different curve: the left looking up, the right looking down, and the middle eye—above the others—looking straight forwards.

  “Holy shit!” yelled Marshall. “I mean...Holy shit!”

  Invigorated, Harrison scrambled to locate more beacons while Marshall and William began tossing their own into the chamber. As the flashing balls of x-ray waves spread out into the open cave, another statue was revealed standing to the left of the first. Practically a perfect copy of its partner: only the eyes were different, appearing as the mirrored, or reversed, image of the first statue. Pulling back, Harrison threw his last beacon into the darkened space between the two imposing figures and waited for the pings to reach him.

  Opening

  As the rain drove down in sheets and waves, it exploded against the hot metal of the black ships. Flashes of loose electricity arced between the closely stationed crafts, spreading like currents of disrupted water as it danced through the armada. Most of the watching crowd had turned to run, but those who had stayed were now dropping to their knees, chanting in shrill voices that pleaded and begged. Among them were Teo and Ze, rainwater beading on the oily sheen of their deep purple skin. Struggling to his feet, Olo held his hands out in a gesture of peace.

  “Great Spirits!” he called above the voices of the fearful people. “You have arrived!”

  A low groan, like the shifting protest of an object long-since settled, broke out from the fleet. The noise sent shockwaves through the driving rain, momentarily suspending the droplets so that they hung like ornaments, caught in the invisible grasp of an alien energy field. The deep note sounded for a second time and, all at once, the dangling beads of rain fell to the ground in a flurry of motion.

  “Look!” cried Remus, pointing. “It’s opening!”

  A narrow shaft of light ran down the underside of the nearest craft, spreading out to form the shape of a long rectangle as it grew. In perfect time, a metal walkway unrolled from within the ship like the lazy tongue of a lizard, reaching down to rest in the mud with a hiss.

  Caves—Sol 26

  With a muted rush of blue light, the shadowed area between the two standing statues came into view. Kneeling behind the others was a final statue. Two large egg-shaped eyes stared back from the diminishing dark as the tightened waves of the x-ray beacon illuminated the final corners of the ancient cave. Kneeling, the figure was that of what appeared to be a praying woman. Bare-breasted and hard-featured, her fingers were woven together like braided snakes, and her eyes were impassively deep. The three statues loomed in the giant chamber as the wavering light of the pulsing x-rays seemed to give movement to their rock-hard stillness. Unable to speak, Harrison stared at their finely carved faces, listening to the calls of a distant whisper. In a voice both ancient and foreign, he heard the words of a story as familiar as the details of a fading dream.

  The Great Spirits

  In the brilliant light that poured from the open ship, two ethereal forms began to take shape. With slow and calculated movements they emerged: stepping out into the rain and onto the metal ramp. Bathed in a luminescence that seemed to shine through matter and time, the two humanoid astronauts each raised an arm and pointed with impossibly long fingers. Following the line of their indication, Remus and Romulus turned to face the temple. Sparkling with veins of metal ore, the monoliths glowed like melting glass in the coals of an endless fire.

  EPILOGUE

  Spreading out, the three explorers wandered between the standing statues, snapping screen shots in the oscillating fluorescence of the scattered x-ray beacons. Drawn by the expression of reverence on her face, Harrison made his way towards the statue of the kneeling woman. Nearing her, he saw that she was fused to the very rock of the back wall—her body growing from the smooth surface like living stone. Mind racing over the possible ways in which the woman could have been so magnificently crafted from the existing rock, Harrison could not shake the feeling that there was a bigger mystery staring him right in the face. Lifting his head, he looked up and inspected the statue’s delicate eyes. Her inspired gaze was trained on the backs of the standing figures, and she looked to be praying to them as if they were indifferent gods. Suddenly struck by a thought so glaringly obvious that it had thus far eluded him, Harrison jogged back towards the opening of the cave, then turned to stare into the faces of the standing statues.

  “Correct m
e if I’m wrong,” said Marshall as if reading his mind from across the chamber. “But it looks like there are two different types of, um, people here. Which ones are the Martians?”

  Scanning from the three-eyed faces of the twin statues to the slightly bovine features of the kneeling woman, Harrison felt his mind trip and snag as it banged against the simple yet profound question.

  “I—” he started. “I don’t know.”

  To be continued...

  Special thanks and considerations.

  I would be a scoundrel if my first and most emphatic thank you did not go to Mia Mann, my best friend and wife. From random plot ideas to full on character and story arcs, Mia was always there to lend an ear, a mind and a personality that kept me honest and true. Her kind yet brutally honest nature helped provide invaluable perspective and constructive criticism when building the reality my characters were to operate in. Without this, I would have been confused and scattered. Secondly, I would like to thank Cougar George. His unflappable skepticism was a constant source of chagrin for me, yet in the end I always felt better about an idea after running it through the “Cougar-grinder.” Furthermore, he did the cover art which exemplifies his connection to the project. Thirdly, I would like to thank my parents, Jim Quarles and Jean Baldwin. They created me, raised me, and set me loose on the world. What more needs to be said? Also, in need of thanks is my friend, Cary Thielen. His mind for sci-fi and general interest in the whole undertaking was received readily and warmly by me each time we talked about the book. Another superbly important player in need of my thanks is Garrett Jenkins. His help with my second draft propelled me forward on the path that eventually lead me to here. Special thanks as well to Yvonne Verser for her help early on in the project. Additional thanks to Kelley Williamson for listening patiently to my caffeine induced babblings and never becoming too annoyed. Lastly yet not least importantly, I would like to thank my editor, Andrew Olmsted. For soldiering on through the mountains of punctuation errors and formatting missteps, I will be forever grateful.