The Reticuli Deception (Adventures of Hannibal Carson Book 2)

by Alastair Mayer

  “The different color you mean? A result of whatever destroyed the city?”

  They reached the entrance to the building and Marten scanned the entryway as they left. “No talisman-shaped key recesses, either.”

  Carson chuckled. “They probably used something more practical. Same for the lighting system.” The lights in the building hadn’t worked.

  “The lights in the pyramids were fifteen thousand years old and still working. This place isn’t that old. Why use something different?”

  “Expense, perhaps? They built the pyramids to last. Also, the pyramids weren’t nuked, that might make a difference.”

  “You don’t suppose . . .” Marten trailed off.

  “What?”

  “We had iron age technology when you humans contacted us. In another thousand or two years, we might have developed space flight on our own.”

  “What, with timoans afraid of heights and zero gee?” Carson meant it as a joke, but there was an element of truth to it.

  “We’re not all like that—”

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, my point is that the locals here may not have been the pyramid-builders, they may have just developed space flight a couple of thousand years before humans. If they even had space flight; we haven’t seen anything to prove that yet.”

  “You mean not the original Spacefarers?” Carson didn’t like that idea. “What about the pyramid ship? They must still be around. And if you’re positing yet another technological species . . . well, Occam’s Razor says no.”

  “Occam’s Razor also doesn’t answer the question of what happened here, the two waves of destruction. Suppose the pyramid-building spacefarers wiped them out?”

  “Why? Why build teaching museums, like the Chara pyramid, if you’re going to wage war on folks when they do develop technology?” Carson couldn’t see any sense in it, except in some bizarre “give them a sporting chance” sort of way. Which made no sense either.

  “Bait for a trap?” Marten said. “As long as the locals can’t figure the pyramids out, they’re pre-technological and not a potential threat. Once they get in, they trigger an alarm. So far the two advanced tech pyramids we’ve found were on planets where the local intelligent species is no longer around.”

  “But why give them information to let them advance their civilization more quickly if you’re just going to wipe them out? Why not put the alarm where it will only trigger if they’re a true threat, like on the moon?”

  “What if there is no moon?”

  “All terraformed planets have large moons. It helps keep them stable.”

  “Oh. But consider the corollary to that hypothesis. Any technological civilization still around would have developed on its own, with no pyramids. There are no alien pyramids on Taprobane, and none on Earth, right?”

  “Not as far as we know,” Carson was forced to agree. He was uncomfortable with that conclusion. “But a lot can happen in fifteen thousand years. Much of Earth was still under a mile of ice back then.” There was something else, he remembered, that he had come across in his research. “There’s the Visočica hill in Bosnia, which someone last century claimed was a pyramid. It’s huge, big enough to bury the Chara pyramid. ‘Pyramid of the Sun’ he called it, but most researchers discount it. Nothing has ever been found within it, as far as I know. But I don’t know how thoroughly it’s been examined.”

  “Fair enough. And Taprobane hasn’t been thoroughly explored with modern gear. What about Kakuloa?”

  “Good question. There are ruins there, but they obviously weren’t built by the tree squids.” Kakuloa boasted a population of octopus, not squid, which dwelt in and around the mangrove-like trees in certain coastal swamps. They were unquestionably intelligent, though just how intelligent was the subject of much debate. They “spoke” with each other by shifting chromatophore patterns on their skin, and humans—even when mimicking the patterns on screens—seemed to hold no interest for them.

  “There’s nothing pyramidal about the ruins there, either,” Carson continued. “Not that the area has been examined very thoroughly either. A lot of the place is off-limits now; a tree-squid reservation, even inland.”

  They’d reached the relatively clear area where Jackie had said she’d meet them. Carson checked the time on his omni. “We’re just on time, Roberts is running late.”

  “That’s not like her.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Had something happened? She could have called, although perhaps the building had been blocking the omni signal. Carson tapped a key on his omni to call her when Marten interrupted.

  “Listen,” he said, “here she comes.”

  Carson canceled the call and listened. Marten obviously had better hearing than he did, but then came the distant hissing roar of a ship’s thrusters. He looked around and spotted the vehicle high up, coming from a different direction than the one in which he had thought they’d landed.

  “That’s odd. I wonder what’s up.” The ship was dropping towards them now and grew in his sight. There was something strange about it.

  “Carson,” Marten said, grabbing Carson’s arm and starting to tug him away from the approaching ship. “We need to get out of here. Let’s go.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That’s not the Sophie, it’s a different ship.”

  Marten was right; the outline didn’t look anything like the Sophie. The Velkaryans? “Oh crap. Run!” Carson said as he turned.

  The timoan was already several meters ahead, making surprising speed. Carson sprinted toward the shelter of the buildings, but his foot hit something, hard, and he stumbled and went down, pieces of rubble digging into him as he rolled to take the impact.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Jackie ran for the clearing, her pulse racing. She was sure this was where she’d landed Sophie, but she must be mistaken. Was there another, similar park? She scanned the landmarks as she went. There was the lake where she’d refueled. That was the building stump she’d passed on her approach . . . or was it? It looked different from this angle, perhaps there was another clearing where the Sophie was parked. Her ship certainly wasn’t here. She reached the center of the field, a knot growing in her stomach. But for her missing ship, this looked too damned familiar. Then she saw the clear signs of a ship’s landing exhaust and gear imprint. She wanted to throw up.

  She took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the pain in her gut and the pounding in her chest. Think this through. There was no ship debris or crater, it hadn’t exploded. She examined the landing area more closely. No, the disturbances were just from her landing jets, a takeoff would probably be more violent, and surely she would have heard it. What the fuck?

  Could the Velkaryans be responsible? How? Again, there was no debris and no other landing or liftoff signs. She tried her omni again, trying to raise any signal from the ship. Nothing. A thought broke through her rising panic, and she smiled a brief, wry smile. Ducayne is going to be pissed. That was enough, the panic was under control. She’d better get back to Carson and Marten; they’d work out their next steps together. She took a last look around the landing site then turned to head back to the rendezvous point.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  At the rendezvous point

  There was no sign of either of the archeologists when she reached the flattened rubble field they’d designated as the meeting spot. The panic started to creep back. Don’t tell me I’ve lost them, too. No, they were probably just late, still exploring the building. Please let it be so. She started towards the building, scanning the area for any sign of them. There, in the shadow, was that . . . ? Yes, that was Marten, crouched in a recess in the building wall, waving at her.

  “Marten!” she called. “Are you all right? Where’s Hannibal?”

  Marten dashed from the building to Jackie’s side, then pulled her down beside a pile of rubble. “It’s not safe in the open. The Velkaryan ship, they got Carson.”

  “What? How?”

  “We were w
aiting at the rendezvous for you. We saw a ship descending, and then realized it wasn’t the Sophie. We started to run but somehow Hannibal wasn’t behind me. He may have tripped. When I turned back, the ship had landed and Velkaryans had grabbed him. I should have tried to help, but—”

  “But they’d have grabbed you too. No, I’m glad you stayed free. We have to get him back.”

  “Agreed.” Marten looked around, then toward the clearing. “By the way, where is the Sophie?”

  “I wish I knew. When I got back to the landing area it was gone. I thought perhaps I’d gone to the wrong place, but I looked around and saw clear signs of my landing. It was just gone. No debris, it wasn’t destroyed.”

  “Somebody stole it? The Velkaryans?”

  “They’d have had to figure how to crack the ship’s security, and then figure out how to take off without me hearing them or leaving extra exhaust marks on the ground.”

  “What?”

  “It’s like it just disappeared.”

  Marten darted a look around. “Could it have been targeted by some kind of defense system?”

  “Unknown.” She pressed a hand to her forehead and kneaded her brow. What were they going to do now? Well, there was one possibility. “I’m wondering if making some kind of deal with the Velkaryans might be our only way to get home.”

  As she said that, a glint of light in the sky caught her attention. She looked up. A small dot was growing as it approached. “And it looks like here they come now.”

  Marten followed her gaze and held up a hand for silence. He listened for a few seconds then said “I don’t hear their thrusters. If it’s the Velkaryans, they’re either gliding or falling.”

  Roberts studied the growing dot. Definitely not gliding, and probably too slow to be falling, although it looked like they might be almost directly underneath it. “Let’s move,” she said. She looked around and pointed. “Back to that building.”

  From the entranceway, Jackie watched as the dot grew large enough to make out a shape. “Marten, that’s not any kind of ship I recognize.”

  “No,” Marten said. “I think it’s a pyramid. It looks like our Chara friends are back.”

  “I hope you’re right about ‘friends’, although I’d be surprised if it’s the same ones. It looks like we’re about to get a first contact. Remember Captain Cook,” Jackie said, recalling a conversation they’d had the last time they had seen a pyramidal space ship.

  “Cook? Ah yes, Hawaii, killed by the natives. But Carson said that was a second contact.”

  “And this is the second time we’ve seen a flying pyramid.” The pyramid itself was much lower now, looming very large.

  It paused nearly overhead, looming huge, and hanging there in an unnatural way. Then it slowly started to descend. On the ground they could feel a rumbling vibration, almost infrasonic, barely perceptible at first but now growing. Jackie and Marten looked up at the descending pyramid, out at the clearing, at the building they huddled beside, and ran the mental geometry. It would nearly fill the clearing, but it wouldn’t land on them. They breathed a small sigh of relief. But they didn’t relax.

  The rumbling was becoming quite audible now. The vibration under Jackie’s feet was growing, accompanied by a slight swaying, as if a mild earthquake were taking place. Whatever it was must be related to their anti-gravity. The technology they must have! The pyramid starship lowered further, crushing a small boulder that had been out alone in the clearing, and settled to the ground.

  Interlude III

  Northeastern Mexico, circa 100 CE

  It had taken closer to two years. The trek west and north had involved many detours, many occasions where they’d spend days or even weeks with local tribes. In some cases word of their existence had preceded them, and the locals treated them like minor gods. Kukul began to understand the temptation that had befallen the original priest class.

  They had also made some surprising discoveries. There was a great diversity in the local lifeforms, but that in itself was not startling. The lifeforms on this world were hardly unique, but there were odd gaps. There were no feathered lizards like the Kesh; all the feathered animals on this planet, or at least this corner of it, were almost completely covered with feathers, had beaks instead of teeth, and were small. Most were specialized for flight, and all lacked forelimb digits. Those lizards without feathers were all cold-blooded. Neither Quetz nor Kukul were biologist enough to know if this pattern was common on other life-bearing worlds, but the protein and gene analysis confirmed a strong connection with life elsewhere. One theory held that because life on all the planets was so similar, it must have been seeded from elsewhere, although Kukul thought this begged the question of where it came from in the first place. If the life here had been transplanted from elsewhere, somebody had forgotten to bring his ancestors.

  Or so Kukul and Quetz had thought until they’d left the Yucatan some distance behind them.

  “This deposit is considerably older than what we were finding earlier,” Quetz said, scanning a sample of sedimentary rock.

  “Oh?”

  “The oldest we found there was about 20 million years old . These rocks are over 80 million.”

  “Okay, so it’s from early in the planet’s history. Lots of planets have rocks older than that.”

  “Igneous and metamorphic, yes. Sedimentary rocks tend to be younger, something about how long it takes oceans to form,” Quetz had continued to examine the specimen as he talked. “But there’s something even more unusual about this one.” Quetz paused.

  “Well?”

  “It has fossils.”

  “What? That’s not possible.” On no planet had fossils—other than some microbial remnants—been found which were more than about sixty to sixty-five million years old, curiously much younger than how old estimates based on genetic drift suggested complex life should be. The discrepancy was generally assumed to lie in some massive mutation event which triggered the beginning of complex life in the first place, but there were other theories.

  “If the seeding theory is true, then that seeded life came from somewhere. Here?”

  “But . . .” Kukul felt the implications rolling over him like an avalanche. “But, that would mean that life arose here first, not on the Kesh homeworld. That would mean—”

  “That our ancestors evolved here first, yes.”

  “It would also mean that there were spacefarers 65 million years ago—beyond whoever it was that built the original pyramids.”

  “I’m beginning to see why this world is off-limits.”

  “I’m starting to wonder why the priest class hasn’t wiped everything out to destroy the evidence.”

  “That’s more easily said than done, that would be a massive operation. And it might piss off the natives.”

  “So what? They’re barely out of the stone age at best.”

  “No, Kukul, think it through. If 65 million years ago a spacefaring species was seeding other planets with life from here, where did they come from?”

  “Uh. . .” There was only one answer that made sense. “Here?” But that didn’t seem right either. “I don’t know, Quetz, you’re reading an awful lot into one sample. How complex are those fossils?”

  “Invertebrate shells.” He sounded disappointed.

  “Okay. That shakes up what we know but wouldn’t generally be considered significant. We need to explore further.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  As they continued northward they also steered inland to higher ground, to where the ancient deposits were more likely to be shores and beaches and coastal plains rather than old sea beds. They found older fossil-bearing rocks, with more complex fossils. Finally, in part of what would later be known as Texas, they found a clincher.

  “Look at that streambed,” Quetz gestured.

  “And what am I looking for?”

  “I’ll show you.” They scrambled down the gentle valley slope to the broad shallow stream at its base. Quetz started wading out
into the ankle-deep water, then stopped about a third of the way across the stream.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come here.” When Kukul had joined him, Quetz pointed down at his feet. “Look down.”

  There, beside Kukul's feet, was a three-lobed depression, easily three times the size of his foot, pressed into the smooth stone the stream flowed over. Was that...?

  “And over there,” Quetz pointed. “And there.”

  “Footprints!” Kukul realized. They formed a clear pattern, the half-dozen impressions running along the streambed for 20 meters or so. “Whatever made these was big.”

  “But how long ago?” said Quetz.

  He had a point. The strata they’d been exploring had registered at about 100 million of this planet’s years old, perhaps a bit older. They’d been finding many invertebrate fossils now, shells, something like sea urchins, and fragments something that might be crabs or large insects. This all suggested shallow coastal waters—but soft sand might have taken footprint impressions.

  Quetz had been looking for a crack or the edge of a layer so that he might break a piece off. He held up a fragment triumphantly and ran the scanner over it. “Ignoring recent contamination, the youngest reading I get is 103 million years old, plus much older readings for the larger grains. That will be the parent rock.”

  “Could the footprints have come later?”

  Quetz's crest feathers waggled. “Point me to something that leaves footprints in solid rock.”

  “So, there’s our proof. A huge animal, surely a vertebrate, almost twice as old as what the priests say anything could be.” The idea was no longer shocking, they’d had been growing to accept it for several months now.

  “What now?”

  “We record all this, of course. Beyond that, I don’t know. Look for vertebrate fossils? Are they likely? Find somewhere to set up a more permanent base to see if rescue ever comes?”

  “Perhaps the latter. Settling down would be a nice change.”

  Kukul had to agree. They'd been on the move for a long time, and if the Reformers did come for them, they might be easier found if they stayed put. “All right.”