The Martian Enigma

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  When they looked back at the valley, the stone wall was in place just past the foot of the slope, barring their way.

  ‘Looks like we’ve been spotted.’ Paul commented, sounding pleased that something had happened for them to investigate.

  ‘Right, let’s go take a look at the wall, but don’t touch it yet, it may be booby trapped in some way.’ Greg’s voice had an edge to it, which, if the wall creator had heard it, he would have realized that this was a different sort of man to those who had gone before.

  Three metres from where the wall sprouted up from the valley floor, they halted. Greg went to the trolley and picked up the sonic probe, switched on the external audio repeater, and advanced to within one metre of the dark basalt rock face which towered some ten metres above him.

  Pointing the probe at the wall, he pressed the button, and a beam of ultra sound left the probe and streamed on down the valley, the apparently solid wall offering no resistance to the high frequency sound pulses.

  ‘Well, as far as the probe’s concerned, the wall doesn’t exist, so I’m going to see if I can push my hand into it, OK?’

  The others muttered their consent, concerned that their leader was going to make the first move against the alien structure, but none too keen to do it themselves.

  Greg moved closer and extended his arm, and then one gloved finger, which seemed to disappear as it penetrated the illusionary stone barrier, and then his arm followed, right up to the shoulder.

  ‘I think that proves the point, it isn’t really there. Pass up a length of cord, and hang on tight to the other end, I’m going through. One of our predecessors made it to the other side, so I should be able to.’

  Greg tied the cord around his waist, handing the other end to Paul who had come up to stand beside him.

  ‘I’ll keep talking as I go in, if you feel a tug on the cord, pull me out, otherwise pay the cord out as I advance.’ Paul nodded, not trusting his voice.

  ‘Right, here we go. Just keep the cord nice and tig....’. The sound stopped as Greg walked into the wall and disappeared from view. Paul carefully fed out the cord as instructed, and then suddenly Greg’s voice returned in mid sentence,

  ‘..was the most weird thing I have ever experienced. I don’t think you need the cord, just walk on through. It’s a bit unnerving, but I think it’s safe.’

  The combined sighs of relief echoed around their helmets, and then, one by one, they walked through the seemingly solid illusion to appear on the other side. As they looked back, the wall slowly faded from view and was no more.

  The group carefully advanced down the valley, looking out for anything unusual and making sure they were not caught out by any other illusions on the way.

  ‘Going through that wall was strange.’ Hans said, feeling it was better to hear something, even if it was his own voice. ‘It wasn’t just the lack of light, but the most intense darkness I’ve ever experienced.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ Greg said, ‘I thought it was a sort of greyness, like a colourless mist.’

  ‘I felt a slight resistance, as if I was going through water,’ Paul added, ‘but it was quite bright, although I couldn’t see anything. What do you think, John?’

  ‘I think we all experienced something different because we are different. Whatever created that wall, it produced an illusion to suit something in our personalities, or even what we expected to see perhaps.’

  John was about to get into his stride on illusions and matters mental, but Greg didn’t want a long lecture on the subject just at that moment, they had other things to consider.

  ‘Well, you’re the Doc, and know about such things, perhaps you’d explain it all later, when we have a rest period.’

  They approached the area in front of the stone block which had seemingly swallowed their predecessors and not returned them, wondering how they would be able to outwit who, or whatever it was that didn’t like other people poking around the area.

  There were no more attempts to confuse the team as they approached the huge stone, and as they gathered in a little group a couple of metres from the block, Greg took the mobile robot camera off the trolley and put it down facing the supposed entrance to the rock.

  ‘OK, Hans, you’re the engineer, send our friend in there, and let’s see what we’re up against.’

  Hans took the controls, and the robot rolled forward, only to come up against the solid rock face with a loud clank.

  ‘So how do we get in?’ Greg asked, and rested his hand against the rock. No one expected what happened next.

  His hand disappeared as it penetrated the supposedly solid surface, and he withdrew it even quicker.

  ‘It looks as if we have two things here.’ John offered. ‘There’s the illusion of the stone face, and what I would describe as a differential force field. It can differentiate between organic and non organic material, stopping the robot, but allowing your hand to go in.’

  They stood there for a moment looking at each other and then the rock, in silence, trying to come to terms with something well beyond their comprehension, and seemingly impossible.

  ‘OK, I’ll go in,’ said Greg, ‘but I’ll take the cord with me. Attach the other end to the trolley, and hold it steady. If I jerk the cord pull me out, please.’ He emphasized the last word trying to make it sound light hearted, but he meant it.

  Everything which had happened so far, had been witnessed by those back on Earth via the relay cameras. Greg, remembering that the radio link didn’t work when passing through the stone barrier, advised them that they may not be able to pick up their transmissions once they had entered the rock face, and so it proved to be.

  After the prescribed time interval, Earth gave the go ahead to enter the block, and Greg stepped up to it and disappeared from view. A few anxious moments later he reappeared.

  ‘Seems safe enough.’ he said. ‘There’s a long tunnel the other side, but I couldn’t see how far back it goes. We’ll have to surround the trolley so that it will be ‘accepted’, and all go through together.’ They huddled around the trolley, and, tentatively at first, pushed through the rock face which wasn’t really there, and were inside the tunnel.

  A lamp attached to a pole on the trolley lit up the featureless smooth walled passageway into the far distance, and the five men huddled together in a little group, not daring to move as they remembered that no one else had returned having once entered the rock. Greg carefully reached over to the trolley and picked up the ultrasound probe, saying,

  ‘I’ll sweep the area ahead to make sure the floor is really there, it looks too easy for my liking.’

  Advancing slowly, the probe’s steady tone indicated no change in the solidity of the tunnel floor, and feeling a little more confident, the pace was increased to a steady walk.

  The sudden squawk from the probe almost caused Greg to drop it, and the whole group froze like a tableau.

  ‘Everyone stay put while I map out the area. To be on the safe side, I’ll have the cord again, attach it to the trolley and then hold onto it in case I slip over the edge.’ Greg held the probe vertically, sweeping it across what appeared to be the solid rock of the tunnel floor. ‘Got a marker anyone?’

  Hans, who had thought of just about everything, produced a spray marker from the trolley, and Greg proceeded to mark the outline of the anomaly the probe had picked up.

  ‘Looks as if we have a vertical shaft here, I can put my hand into it, and it disappears as it did on the barrier. Pass a portable lamp along, I’ll see how deep it is.’

  Although the lamp had a very powerful beam, it couldn’t penetrate the illusion of the solid floor of the tunnel.

  ‘How wide is it?’ asked Hans.

  ‘Don’t know,’ replied Greg, ‘pass a couple of extension rods over, I’ll tie the probe onto one, and someone can tie the marker onto the other along with a piece of cord to work the trigger.’

  Kneeling down as close to the marked line as he dared, Greg leaned over the hole and swu
ng the probe out as far as possible. The change in tone from the probe’s output clearly indicated the further edge of the chasm, and it was duly marked with the spay marker.

  ‘Looks like nearly two metres,’ Ben commented ‘we can jump that distance, but we’ll have to attach cords onto the trolley and lower it over the edge, and then lift it up the other side, I don’t think we can risk trying to lift and pass it across.’

  The passage floor the other side of the hole was checked for reality as best they could using the probe on two extension poles, and Ben and Hans jumped across the invisible gap, landing safely on the other side of the trap.

  In the low gravity, passing the loaded trolley using the cords across the gap in the floor proved to be relatively easy, but everyone agreed as the trolley disappeared into the seemingly solid rock, it must have looked very odd to an observer, not that there was one they were aware of.

  Paul suggested that they tried spraying the ‘illusion’ with marker paint, just to see what would happen. The spray just swirled around for a few moments and then disappeared down the shaft, caught on a slight down draft.

  ‘I think we’ll check out the floor for a little bit further just to be sure there are no other traps, but I don’t think there will be,’ said Greg, ‘that one was quite efficient in its way, and could easily have got us if we hadn’t tumbled to the illusion trick.’

  The group moved on down the tunnel, the powerful lamp on the trolley lighting up the way ahead with stark clarity.

  ‘If we join two or three extension poles together,’ suggested Hans, ‘we could push them ahead of us as we go, and if the ends drops into an illusion covered hole it will still give us enough warning, and then we can use the ultra sound unit to delineate the hole.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Greg responded, ‘and it’ll be quicker.’

  The floor of the tunnel was so smooth that the pole slid along with hardly a sound, and they were able to walk much faster with the same degree of hazard warning.

  ‘I wonder why we haven’t heard the singing sound yet?’ asked John of no one in particular, ‘unless ‘it’ has decided that we wouldn’t be fooled by such a thing.’

  ‘I don’t think ‘it’ is a sentient being. Much more likely to be some sort of automatic response device, something left over from a bygone age.’ John was about to expound his theories on artificial intelligence, but was cut short.

  A bright flash of light in the tunnel roof caught them unawares, and the whole group froze. There were several more flashes in quick succession, and then a rod-like section in the tunnel roof lit up briefly, flickered once more, and stayed on, lighting the tunnel up brightly.

  ‘Good God,’ exclaimed Ben. ‘They’ve put the lights on for us.’ He quickly picked up a hand lamp from the trolley and played its beam along the tunnel roof behind them.

  ‘Thought so. There’s a series of those rod like things all along the roof, this must be the first section that’s still functioning.’

  ‘That, plus the fact that the illusion device needs power of some sort to drive it, implies a power source which is still working, and that would be worth looking at.’ Hans had something tangible to look forward to now, apart from the more mundane engineering required to maintain the Lander and their equipment.

  Once they had got over the shock of the automatic lighting system, and extinguished the lamp on the trolley to conserve their power, the group got under way again, striding out more confidently than before, but still wary of possible traps in the floor of the tunnel.

  The lighting system seemed to sense their presence, turning on the rod-like luminaries ahead of them, while extinguishing those they had passed.

  Another two hundred metres, and the tunnel came to an end. A blank wall confronted them, with no way ahead. The group halted, wondering what to do next.

  ‘There must be somewhere to go, it doesn’t make much sense to just finish the tunnel here.’ Greg’s voice vocalized the frustration the others were feeling, ‘There’s got to be something other than a blank wall of stone.’

  Paul first spotted the faint markings high up on the end wall of the tunnel, and the others quickly joined him.

  ‘Looks like some sort of hieroglyphics,’ he said, ‘but God knows what they mean.’

  They stood there, hopefully trying to interpret what the barely visible markings could mean, when Greg exclaimed,

  ‘Look, there’s another one, lower down, like a sort of triangle.’ and he began to trace the outline with his finger.

  ‘This one has been cut into the rock, I can feel the slight indentations of the lines.’

  He had hardly finished speaking, when they felt a slight vibration in the floor of the tunnel through their feet, and the walls began to slide around them. Before they could retreat further back from the blanked off tunnel end, the moving wall had cut off their exit, and they were trapped in a circular chamber which continued to growl as ancient machinery tried to obey the command it had received from the triangular symbol on the wall.

  A hissing sound was now added to the vibration, rising in pitch until it was an ear-splitting screech, and then it died away, and all was still once more. The airlock had cycled and the inner doorway was open.

  A united gasp echoed around their helmets audio system as they tried to take in what lay before them.

  A vast hall stretched out into the far distance, the ceiling some thirty metres above them glowed with light from the rod luminaries, only a few of which had failed the test of time. Down each side of the hall were what appeared to be doorways, each with its own, but different symbol, indicating some unknown content. Down the centre were two parallel tracks, some eight metres apart, suggesting some form of railed transport, but of massive proportions.

  Each member of the team uttered their own particular expletive as they gazed in wonderment at the scale of the complex, the cavern stretching out into the far hazy distance.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt,’ began Greg, ‘that a civilization of some kind once lived and worked here, but what happened to them? There’s no sign of life now.’

  ‘We might get a clue if we do a little careful exploration,’ Ben said. ‘I for one would like to take a close look at their electronics, that’s if I can understand them. The illusion projection doesn't fit in with anything I know about, so there could be a whole new technology here for the taking.’

  ‘That’s if the complex doesn't take us first.’ Paul wasn’t that eager to expose himself to the whims of the alien environment.

  They left the recess in the wall, and went over to the first of a series of what appeared to be doorways, possibly leading into other departments.

  ‘Before we touch anything, let’s see if we can figure out what it might be intended to do.’ said Paul, mindful of the air lock device which had given them access to the chamber.

  Greg suddenly stopped in mid stride and held his hand up,

  ‘That hissing sound we heard as the wall rotated, I don’t think it was the machinery doing the turning that made that sound, I think it was air or some gas being let into the rotating chamber so that it would balance with the pressure in here. That means we may have a breathable atmosphere.’

  ‘We can test the pressure, there’s a gauge on the trolley, but I don’t think there’s a gas analyser. There’s one back on the orbiter, probably.’ Hans added as an afterthought.

  ‘I expect the atmospheric pressure in here is a lot lower than what we’re used to,’ said John, ‘and we have enough oxygen, anyway.’

  ‘It would be more pleasant to work without the restriction of these helmets, though.’ Greg put the subject on one side for now. There was no rush, he would try again later when they felt more at ease with the idea.

  The doorway, if that was what it was, consisted of a recessed panel let into the rock wall. There were no handles, knobs, or other means of opening it which were apparent to the team, just a series of squiggles cut into the stone above the recess.

  ‘We
can’t reach those marks without standing on something, so they were either very tall, or there’s some other means of operation.’ Hans was thinking out loud, while the others nodded sagely. Paul climbed onto the trolley and reached out towards the panel. His hand was thirty centimetres from the surface when there was a faint hiss, and the panel slid sideways, revealing the chamber beyond.

  A long row of benches ran down each side of the room, and above them, racks on the walls held a variety of what they assumed to be tools.

  ‘My God, what a workshop,’ exclaimed Hans, ‘I’d like one like this. I wonder what they made here?’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  Leaving the trolley in the doorway to ensure their escape route, first Hans, and then the others entered the room, careful not to get too near the benches or touch anything, despite the temptation to do so.

  They had walked down the long chamber for about half its length, when Hans gave way to temptation and stopped.

  ‘That looks like a hand power drill of some kind, OK with you if I take it down?’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Greg. ‘and drop it if it comes to life or does anything unexpectedly.’

  Hans reached over the bench, and took down the device from its rack on the wall, carefully cradling it in his hands as he regained his upright posture.

  ‘Even with these gloves on, it feels beautifully balanced,’ he said, ‘but I don’t see where you would put the drill bit, that’s if it is a drill.’

  The others eagerly crowded around Hans, admiring the alien tool glinting in the soft light from the rod-like luminaries overhead.

  ‘There seems to be some sort of writing on this part.’ said Hans, as he turned the device onto its side. ‘But nothing which makes any sense.’

  ‘Surely you don’t expect it to.’ Greg retorted, a little impatiently, and immediately regretted his harsh tone.

  A soft click sounded, and Hans nearly dropped the device.

  ‘A little knob’s just popped out.’ Before the others could stop him, a gloved finger reached out and touched the knob, and a brilliant blue white beam of light cut a neat hole in the bench without a sound, except for a faint hiss accompanied by a small cloud of vaporized metal rising to the ceiling.