They had to wear the suits for the first twenty-four hours. The claustrophobia from the EVA suit wasn't quite as bad as that from the probe control module, but it was still there, a constant disease, as well as a serious handicap to her work. She might as well try to work with her hands tied behind her back. And with the gravity one point three times that of Earth, the extra weight would exhaust them quickly.
She felt like an elephant lumbering around in the thing, an accident waiting to happen. She touched her thigh pocket, feeling the cushioned outline of the PPG Chang had given to her. After keeping it in the back of a drawer in her quarters since he'd given it to her, she'd decided this morning to bring it with her, although it was making her more nervous, not more secure.
She doubted she could even get it out of her pocket in under thirty seconds, and once she did, she wasn't even sure she could make the thing work. She'd never fired a gun before. Anna headed into the rear section of the crawler, followed by the other archaeologists. Along each side of the crawler ran a row of seats for the techs, while in the center was stored their crawler's share of the heavy equipment: a dozer, several drills, a heavy-duty resonance imager, the sonic probe, and a disassembled mobile elevator platform. She gave the tech the signal to open the door, and the door broke open along the ceiling, unfolding out to create a ramp. The techs and archaeologists began heading out.
Anna's steps came more slowly. The landscape of Alpha Omega 3 was more desolate and more majestic than any world she had visited. The craggy rocks and sharp, up thrust fingers of stone stretched to the limits of vision, where the misshapen forms of massive mountains distorted the horizon.
It was easy to feel lost, insignificant here among the huge blocks of stone, the towering pillars, and the vast scale, like a bug in the land of the gods. She remembered feeling this as a child, in Rome standing beside Trajan's column. These pillars stretched over twice as high, higher than the EVA suit would allow her to tilt her head back to see. The sky was a turbulent reddish brown, the dust constant, and heavier since they'd landed than when the probe had recorded it.
Its color added an air of distance and unreality to the landscape, almost as if she was observing something removed in time, or in some other dimension. As Anna stepped off the ramp, she realized that the unreal feeling of the landscape was more than a creation of the dust; it was the light. It came from the distant sun, frail, refracted by the dust and other elements in the atmosphere. That explained the darkness of the planet, as if it existed in twilight, but it didn't explain an odd, fine, threadlike quality to the light that had not come through in the probe's transmissions, as if the light had been filtered through a polarizing lens, or strained into a shifting, fibrous curtain in the dusk. As Anna rounded the side of the crawler, she saw the low, trailing fragments of the smaller mountain range up close.
The black rock of these dust-weathered remnants erupted from the reddish-brown stone of the landscape in a series of rocky outcroppings. Dunes of sand and dust had formed along their base. Near the end of these mountains, beside an outcropping of black stone approximately fifty feet high, the crawler had stopped. Anna moved away from the crawler toward the outcropping, climbing the slight dune. Gradually the sand gave way to the dark shards of rock that formed the talus. There, before her, lay the cave mouth, its shadow a darker black than the blackness surrounding it, an opening seventeen feet across and fourteen feet high.
Anna turned on her flashlight and aimed it at the edges of the opening. The flashlight illuminated a beam of blowing dust and, faintly, the ragged edges of the rock. The presence of the mice in the cave suggested it had once been inhabited, or at least visited. They didn't have enough data yet to know during what period that had been true, but she hoped to find out soon. In general caves were used for shelter, for storage, for mining, for strategic location, as holy sites, or as tombs.
Most often cave activity was focused around the mouth, where access to the outside and food was easy, though there were a few cultures where habitation was far below the surface. The extensive ruins on the surface were indicative of surface dwellers, but she'd been troubled before by the complete absence of bones and personal possessions on the surface. Perhaps, during or after the war, they had taken shelter in caves. Perhaps they had died out there. Or perhaps, considering what she now knew about Mars, they hadn't. Anna turned back to the crawler and to the pillar that rose up behind it.
Morden had refined his previous work on the identical pillar inscriptions. Previously he'd translated them to read, "Every light casts a shadow."
He'd now corrected that to read, "Every light carries a shadow."
This, unfortunately, hadn't led to any insights. Anna felt no closer to understanding this race than she had been back on Earth. Morden had revealed last night that the only reason he'd been able to make the progress he had in the translations was because he'd obtained a few textual samples from the ship on Mars. Though those had been insufficient for translation, he had, in the three intervening years, discovered their similarity to two very obscure ancient tongues, which he had then studied.
When the probe had begun transmitting new samples, Morden had been ready for them. Unfortunately, the work was still very difficult, and without the probe transmitting new source material, he'd been unable to make any further translations. Both teams had been instructed to record any writings they discovered. Anna headed down the dune toward the others. She had given Razor the job of overseeing the assembly of the mobile elevator platform, a complex and critical piece of equipment for cave excavation. With the platform they could move heavy equipment into the cave, raise or lower it through vertical shafts, into pits and crevasses, and maneuver it through tight spaces. The assembly would take most of the day and over half of her support crew.
Standish supervised the rest, running a survey of the area surrounding the cave, taking various readings to fill in gaps in the probe's data, and establishing a datum point, from which all site measurements would be made. She consulted with both of them and made sure things were progressing smoothly before she asked Morden and Favorito to accompany her on a preliminary exploration of the major cave. Morden was the one she felt she could trust the most now. He'd told her about Mars, about IPX's discovery, three years ago, of a ship buried at Syria Planum.
The ship had utilized biomechanical-or as he called it, organic-technology, unlike anything they'd ever seen before. As soon as the ship had been exposed to sunlight, it had sent out an automatic coded message. IPX, in a bit of a panic, contacted their friends at Earthforce New Technologies Division, and Morden was sent over as a consultant along with a team of Morden advised that the signal was most likely an automatic distress call, and if the owners of the ship were still around, they would send someone to retrieve it. After taking samples from the ship and planting a homing device, IPX pulled back quickly.
Three days later, an identical ship arrived, finished excavating the buried ship, repaired or activated it somehow, and they both flew off. IPX had tracked the ship to Alpha Omega 3. After much debate and political wrangling, a probe had been sent to follow up. IPX had cut Earthforce out of the testing of the samples from the ship, which were IPX property, but had agreed to provide reports on their progress, which turned out to be nonexistent. When IPX reported that the probe detected no signs of sentient life on Alpha Omega 3, Morden theorized that the activity of the ships might have been automatic, that it was possible the culture was long dead. Endless arguments ensued over the theory and what course of action should be taken. Until Anna. And the mouse.
Earthforce learned from IPX that the mouse had many of the same characteristics as the ship found on Mars. Suddenly the prospect of using and mastering this technology seemed much more immediate, and the appropriate course of action was clear: send an archaeological team, including Anna Sheridan. Anna remembered Chang telling her he "needed" her for the expedition. Anna had thought he'd meant he needed her because he knew she would do a good job. Now she understood
that he needed her because others wanted her on the team-others at IPX, and others in Earthforce. While this thought had angered her before-Chang may not even have wanted her on the expedition, in fact he'd seemed disappointed at her acceptance-now as she thought about it she wondered if he'd been disappointed because he'd known the potential dangers of the trip and had wanted to protect her from them.
Morden had told her that Chang and IPX had been under strict orders from Earthforce to keep the discovery of the ship on Mars a secret. Although Morden hadn't said it, and she thought he would disagree with her if she did, Anna was left with the sense that Earthforce was using them all as pawns-IPX, Anna, and the rest of the team, even Morden himself-in the attempt to secure this new technology.
After Morden had told her about Mars, Anna had told him about the probe, and about the smuggling arrangement between Donne and Hidalgo. He seemed unsurprised-he said when communications broke down that he assumed Donne must be responsible, and that Donne must have help among the crew-but he was hungry for details, details which, unfortunately, Anna couldn't provide. But at least she felt she had an ally. Even at her most paranoid, she found it hard to believe Churlstein, Favorito, Razor, or Scott would do anything to hamper the expedition, but neither did she think it would do her any good to confide in them and try to enlist their help. They would probably go straight to Chang in disbelief, or if they didn't, they might become victims of the power struggle that was sure to erupt. As second in command, she had to keep their safety in mind. She, Morden, and Favorito gathered their equipment. Anna had to readjust her old tool belt to get it around the EVA suit.
She and Favorito each had preferred hand tools they carried with them all the time, from hi-tech sonic scrapers to the old dependable trowels and brushes to Anna's favorite antique dental picks. Then there was the larger equipment: scanners, lights, and a camera. Anna directed them to travel as light as possible, since this was just a scouting trip. Of course Favorito brought his ever-present comp-pad.
It bothered Anna a bit that Morden's tools were all new, standard issue. They went along with his smooth palms. He must do most of his work behind a computer, not in the field. They reprogrammed the links in their suits to treat the three of them as a subgroup. That way they could communicate among each other automatically, and link out of the subgroup to the main group when they wanted to talk to the rest of their party. Favorito activated the camera, a saucer the size of a dinner plate that floated along behind him like a trusty dog, automatically recording everything he took an interest in. He checked the manual controls, in case the camera needed to be taken off automatic for special, detailed work. Then they headed up the dune that led to the mouth of the cave, Anna feeling the familiar rhythmic tapping of the hand tools against her body.
She had told herself again and again that they had four months on site, but she had a sense of insecurity about the entire expedition that made her feel rushed. Besides, she wanted to retrieve the mouselike objects she had found before Donne or anyone else got to them, and if she could locate the probe as well, it might provide the evidence about who had destroyed it and why. They paused at the cave entrance as Favorito made sure the camera was recording, Anna and Morden searching with their lights for signs of any artificial component to the cave or any signs of habitation.
It appeared to be a natural formation of the landscape, despite some odd, jagged outcroppings along the floor that looked almost like teeth. Anna led the way into the cave. It sloped steeply downward, and she had to keep her light trained on the ground to watch for differentially lifted slabs of stone and fallen rocks. As they moved away from the entrance, they became enveloped in darkness, their three lights shining damped and ineffective in the space surrounding them. The cave walls seemed to swallow their light. Anna had spent a good deal of her life in caves, cathedrals of mystery and beauty and truth. She'd never seen darkness like this.
"We'll have to start with the floodlights," Anna said to Morden.
He was carrying a supply. He nodded.
"They're not going to go far in here."
His smooth voice, through the EVA suit links, was reproduced with an almost uncanny quality. It seemed as if he were standing right beside her. Morden took a floodlight out of his pack, held it against the cave wall, and activated it. It sealed itself against the wall and flickered on.
The light would last for approximately six months, longer than they'd need. Anna followed the cone of bluish illumination out along the cave floor.
"It doesn't seem as bright as it should be. Are we getting full output?"
Morden checked the side of the device.
"It's at one hundred percent. These walls seem to absorb the light.
"Anna checked her coordinates with the hand-held scanner, moved toward the cave wall, a few yards down from the light. She found the small hole that she had dug with the probe. "Can you bring your lights over here?"
Morden and Favorito came closer, following her lead and pointing their lights at the jagged stone fragments and larger stones that made up the cave floor.
"This is where I left the two mice."
She couldn't believe it. They were gone.
"Do you see them?"
Anna crouched, a difficult maneuver in the bulky suit. Morden was shining his light down the hole.
"This has filled partway in. Do you think they slid back down?"
"I didn't leave them that close to the hole."
They searched the surrounding area. Anna ran a focused thermal scan using the weak, hand-held scanner. The three of them were the only heat sources in the immediate area. The mice were not there. The probe wasn't there either, of course. It had been taken somewhere to be destroyed. Knowing what she now knew about Mars, Anna supposed it was possible that a surviving member of this race had destroyed the probe, but that wouldn't explain the erasure of the probe record.
Someone from the Icarus bad destroyed the probe and had taken the mice as well, and either hidden or destroyed them. The idea of someone destroying the mice infuriated Anna. They might be the only such devices remaining in existence. One of the first lessons archaeologists learned was that they had only one chance to discover the secret history buried by time.
If the data taken during an excavation were incomplete, or an artifact was damaged, there was no way to put everything back the way it had been. The mice were precious. Anna hoped that if Donne was somehow responsible, she had hidden them in hopes of smuggling them back to Psi Corps with the help of Captain Hidalgo. Anything would be better than their destruction.
"All right," she said, "they're not here. Let's move on."
"But where could they have gone?" Favorito asked.
"It's not like somebody could have come by and taken them."
Anna exchanged a glance with Morden. Then she pressed a control on the arm of her suit to link to her party outside.
"Razor."
"Razor here," came the response, again as if he were standing right beside her.
"I'm about thirty feet into the cave. How's my transmission?"
"Clear as a bell."
"Okay."
This had been where the probe's safety lock had engaged as it had begun to lose contact with the orbiter.
"Keep talking for a minute."
She walked further into the cave.
"I don't know what to say."
"That's got to be a first."
"What was that?"
His voice was breaking up. She stopped.
"Can you still hear me?"
No response.
She checked her position, backed up a step.
"Razor."
Backed up another.
"Razor."
The reply was faint and crackly.
"Sheridan."
She checked her position, took another step back.
"Razor."
"Sheridan. I read you."
"It looks like our communications are only good up to thirty-six feet inside the major cave
. After that, we're going to have to communicate by runners."
"Too bad Churlstein's not on our team. It would be a perfect job for him."
"Don't be cruel, Razor, you know that's my job. How's the platform coming?"
"We're progressing on schedule, meaning we're about fifty minutes farther along than when you left fifty minutes ago."
"I've bet Favorito a ten-spot that you won't finish on schedule."
Favorito pointed a finger at her to show he accepted the bet.
"You want to double that action?" Razor asked.
"You're on. We're going out of communications range now. Expect to be out for two hours. If you need us, follow the blue lights."
"Find any bugs in there?"
"Just the one that's going under your pillow tonight."
They continued into the cave, which sloped downward at a steep angle, their boots sliding on the loose rock fragments. Morden crisscrossed from side to side to set up the floodlights. Favorito supervised the camera and made constant notations on his comp-pad. Anna ran the several scans available to her on the hand-held scanner, searching for any signs of artifacts or habitation. The results showed nothing, but then these hand-held scanners were crude devices, without the capacity to convey the detailed information that she needed.
Usually her eyes were the best tool on a preliminary survey like this anyway. Often the surface contours of the cave floor could indicate habitation. But she saw no such signs. The cave gradually widened, the darkness around them growing vaster, and as Anna scanned it, she found that the cave was branching apart.
"The cave is separating into three branches," she said.
"Door number one, door number two, or door number three," Favorito said.
As she widened the scan to determine the size, direction and route of each branch, the scanner showed a vast network of caverns overlaying caverns, multiple, contradictory patterns stretching to the limit of the scanner's range.
Babylon 5 07 - The Shadow Within (Cavelos, Jeanne) Page 13