Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins

by Michael McCloskey

  That never even occurred to me, Imanol thought. Wow, I’m such a newb at this planetary exploration thing. She’s right. I never saw any half-grown ones.

  “So how did they get here?” asked Caden.

  “Nanomachines,” Siobhan said. “Judging from their microscopic structure here just under the surface, they were manufactured in place.” She folded up her device and put it in her pack.

  “Well don’t you have all the answers today!” Imanol said. “I guess I should just go back into the ship and take a vacation while you send back a full report to Shiny.”

  “Perhaps you forget this is related to my specialty,” Siobhan said. “Adaptive industry applications for colonies. These ribs were created from the crust of the planet. I suspect they were all made at about the same time.”

  “For the vines,” Telisa said excitedly. “They were made to support the vines. This place has been terraformed!”

  “Celaraformed,” corrected Jason.

  “Amazing,” Cilreth said. “I guess we should have realized that by looking at the tower. It has cords all over it. Like artificial vines. I assumed at first they were all support cables, but many of them don’t add stability at all. So wherever the Celarans came from, they like vines. This vegetation is a different color than the Blackvines. Would they fit in here?”

  “Creatures that live under the canopy may not be as green,” Telisa guessed.

  “Did you see the fauna catalog? The creatures here are specialized to the vines. So the Celarans must have brought a lot of other living things with them from their homeworld,” said Siobhan. “That also explains the low biodiversity we noticed. They may have brought a minimal set of living things to achieve a balanced ecosystem, or at least one they could cheaply maintain.”

  “Or those things are the Celarans,” Caden said. “What if they’re still living here? Out in the vine forest?”

  “Why would they?” asked Imanol. “These are their buildings, right? They would be living there.”

  “Unless something happened to make them uninhabitable,” Jason said. “Or some kind of collapse of their civilization.”

  “They’re aliens. Maybe they make buildings for other reasons, and still live in the forest,” Telisa said. “Let’s investigate and we’ll learn what happened.”

  “Okay, let’s head out. I want to see this tower in person,” Caden said.

  Imanol bit off a snarky reply. As fun as it was to poke the wunderkind, he was anxious to get started as well.

  “Are we going to camp there?” Siobhan asked.

  “I’d like to,” Telisa said. “But I guess we need to see it first.”

  Imanol spotted the tower in the distance. It was thin and hard to see. He started toward it.

  Soon the entire team was walking across the burned ground. Five Terran scout robots walked out ahead of them with a few attendant spheres. The spidery Terran robots struggled as their thin legs sank into the fresh ash. They scuttled along leaving deep rivulets behind.

  Imanol did not see any rocks. He supposed they might be covered by the ash. He wondered if the battle sphere had detected any caves and neglected to mention them.

  Everyone hefted a weapon. Imanol was surprised when he looked back and saw the battle machine had stayed put.

  “DM-109 isn’t coming with us,” he noted aloud.

  “So if we could find a ship somewhere else, we could give it the slip,” Siobhan said.

  Keeping it positive. Ah, the young.

  The tower grew on the horizon as they approached. Soon they arrived at the edge of the untouched forest. The vines and their huge leaves beyond the perimeter were not even partially burned. Imanol was impressed. He did not see so much as a wilted leaf.

  Precision as well as power. If I cut a hole through some trees with my laser, it would probably leave a black spot on the last leaf. This energy weapon was perfectly focused out to a range.

  The forest looked almost the same as it did in the sims they had been practicing with. Heavy vines as thick as arms extended from the tall white tusk-shapes, branching chaotically in all directions. Imanol knew some of the vines grew even thicker, big enough to walk along. A few insect-sized things wandered out onto the burned ground in confusion. Imanol looked at them warily. He felt glad for his suit. It would take more than an average bug to bite through his flexible armor.

  “Bugs. The universal constant,” Imanol muttered in disgust.

  The scout robots slipped into the dense plant cover and disappeared. Telisa traded her rifle for a machete.

  “I’ll blaze the trail. The rest of you, watch the video feeds. Cilreth, watch our six.”

  I’ll watch your six, Telisa, he thought. He never expressed such thoughts out loud, despite his love of trolling the others. Telisa was stronger than he was and besides, how could he compete with Magnus, dead or alive? She was the leader, and a pretty good one. He had had a dozen inferior bosses on the frontier. Messing with her would force her to do something to put him in line. That would be unpleasant.

  Telisa hacked into the forest with amazing speed. Her augmented body obviously provided tremendous strength. The PIT team entered the forest behind her. Soon Imanol was also marveling at Telisa’s endurance: she kept going forward easily even though she had to hack every step of the way.

  The huge leaves were about as thick as a finger. The cut edges oozed a sap just as Imanol would expect from a Terran plant. Imanol saw a few insects had already stopped to drink the fluid leaking from the cut vines. He carefully waved his hand in front of a few of the tiny creatures. They scampered for cover.

  Okay then. Something eats them. So when they see movement, they run.

  “Too bad our guardian didn’t burn a trail for us,” Caden said.

  “Telisa will have us there in no time,” Imanol said. They walked at a normal pace even though she had to clear the way.

  Finally Telisa stopped to rest. Or so Imanol thought until he caught a glimpse of the tower through a gap in the giant leaves. Telisa stood before a smooth white wall. Though it had looked clean from their scans, he could now see it had a thin coat of dirt and a few stains. The wall itself looked intact. It rose at a slight angle rather than perpendicular to the ground.

  Telisa started to clear a walkway around it. The building was large up close. Larger than the New Iridar. Whatever had made it obviously felt no need to make buildings in rectangular prisms. The wall they had found gave way to planes built at other angles within the next twenty meters. Hexagons were the most common shape among the mess. The shape generally rose from the ground and surrounded the base of the tower above, but otherwise it was crazily varied.

  “There’s no way in,” Siobhan observed as they moved further around the building without finding any portals.

  “Not from down here. I think there are openings above,” Cilreth said.

  “So how the hell did they get in and out?” Caden asked.

  “Well, it might be this way to avoid letting critters from the forest in. To protect them. Maybe they only accessed this place by air. There is that platform on the top,” Telisa thought out loud.

  “Maybe they were big rats and they ran along the tops of the vines,” Imanol said.

  “Is that your professional opinion?” asked Cilreth.

  Sure, I’ll play along.

  “Based on evidence,” Imanol said defensively.

  Telisa launched a smart rope up the side of the building. She put away her machete and grabbed her laser carbine in one hand. Then she launched herself up the side of the building with a pull from her free arm and a jump. Telisa hurtled halfway up the angled side of the building.

  Imanol and Jason traded looks.

  Superhuman.

  Caden pulled himself up the rope, followed by Siobhan. Imanol shrugged, then turned and grabbed a vine.

  “What’re you doing? Is that safe?” Jason asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” Imanol said, climbing up. Caden and Siobhan had been climbing the
m since the very first of their simulations back on New Iridar. Imanol had done the same thing in a couple of the simulations. It was pretty easy to walk atop the biggest vines, but every now and then he would lose his balance and fall.

  “Well, actually we have several ways to analyze those vines besides climbing on them,” Cilreth said.

  Imanol ignored her. He reached the nexus of the vine he climbed and another, thicker vine running almost horizontal to the ground. He stood up on the thicker vine and turned to cover the others as they climbed the building. He examined the tower above them.

  “Those tower handles are farther apart than would be comfortable for us to climb,” Imanol noted over the team link channel. “So the aliens must be tall.”

  “Or long,” Siobhan said. “How long is the reach of a Blackvine?”

  “Pretty long, I think,” Caden said. “I mean, longer than a Terran’s reach.”

  “Maybe they’re not climbing rungs at all,” Telisa said.

  “What then?” Caden asked.

  “They might only be anchor points for attaching things. Or we don’t know yet.”

  “I like the tall theory because it’s a low grav planet. So makes sense that things here would be taller, like Fast ’n Frightening here,” said Imanol, referencing Siobhan.

  “But they didn’t come from here,” Cilreth said.

  “But they chose to stay here. So they might have come from a similar place. Also, they may well have adapted themselves to the local environment.”

  Like Siobhan did, he almost said. He caught himself looking at Siobhan fairly often. She was tall and beautiful. Terrans had been known to tweak a few genes here and there, to produce adapted locals.

  Telisa came to the base of the tower. She completed a sweep with her own eyes, checking the top of the building. Imanol decided if something bad was going to happen up there it probably would have already gone down. He climbed off his perch and headed for the rope in last place.

  Chapter 6

  Siobhan made it to one of the flatter roofs of the crazy building. Telisa stood waiting for her and Caden.

  “Look familiar?” Telisa asked. Siobhan took a quick scan of the top of the building.

  It’s just like the floating space habitat buildings, except it has a top and a bottom, Siobhan thought.

  “Yes. And these are just like Blackvine doors. Except these are hexagonal.”

  “The Celarans are Blackvines, then,” Caden said. “This can’t be coincidence?”

  “I guess so,” Telisa said, though she did not sound confident of the conclusion. Siobhan walked over to the nearest trap door. She tested it carefully. “Too many details the same. The shape has changed, but the construction of it, the resistance, very similar.”

  “Some of those eel-things could be in there,” Caden warned. “Those doors open from either side with simple pressure, so wild animals could get in. Can’t the doors lock? It seems like a useful function for any building made by any race.”

  “They don’t look broken. It must be by design. Jam it open with something,” Telisa ordered. “I’ll do the same over there. If it looks clear, Caden and I will go in at the same time.”

  “We’re not checking out the tower?”

  Telisa glanced up. “I think we’ve seen enough from above. I’ve been waiting a long time to see what’s down here.”

  Siobhan took out her smart rope and told it to hold open the door. The rope pressed the flaps open and then hugged each side to hold them. She sent her attendant into the building.

  Siobhan’s attendant fed back an image of a nearly empty room with white walls. The walls looked like they were covered in hexagonal white tile. Tiny holes dotted the black floor like a huge sponge. Along one wall she saw five complex metal devices. Another wall had rows of ropes or bungee cords running horizontally across the room with a meter of space between each row. She saw no dirt or dust.

  It looked somehow wrong to Siobhan, though she could not put her finger on it until Caden commented.

  “It’s so different. There’s no clutter,” Caden said.

  “Interesting. The only buildings this clear in the Blackvine habitat were the factories,” Telisa said.

  “So maybe they make something here,” Caden said. “Makes sense. It’s one big building.”

  Siobhan had not seen anything that made her think it was a factory. Adaptive industry was her area of expertise. She started looking for clues.

  “If it’s a factory, it’s reasonable to assume that source materials would be coming in from the tower, or finished product would be lifted away from the tower. Yet none of these doors are of significant size,” Siobhan said.

  Telisa and Caden absorbed that speech.

  “I agree, unless it was all moved in and out underground?” Telisa asked.

  “Maybe through big pipes. The result of processing could be some kind of liquid,” Caden said.

  “But then why the tower?” Siobhan asked.

  “Let’s go in,” Telisa said. She withheld further judgement. “Send the attendant farther ahead. Check the whole place for threats. Make sure there’s no Blackvines here.”

  Caden and Telisa dropped down into opposite ends of the room through two doors. They held their weapons ready. Siobhan took another look around outside. Cilreth and Imanol had caught up to them. Jason stood by the tower.

  “I’d like to climb up and see if there’s anything interesting up there,” Jason said.

  I wonder if we should split up like that, Siobhan thought.

  “I’ll head up with you,” Imanol said. “We’ll drop quickly if anything rears its ugly head down here,” he added, looking at Cilreth.

  Cilreth took a long look at the tall tower. “Knock yourself out,” she said. “I’m on lookout down here.” She cradled a laser rifle in her arms.

  Siobhan had to choose. The tower looked cool. It could be fun in low gravity. But she wanted to work with Caden. She dropped down into the room after him. He stood with a gladius in his hand. Telisa was examining machines on the wall.

  “What’s wrong?” Siobhan asked. Her hand found the handle of her shock baton.

  “Nothing yet,” Caden said. His sniper rifle was slung over his back and a pistol was at his belt.

  “Why not your pistol?”

  Caden shrugged. “You have one. She has one, and the claw. Diversity in armament.”

  “I think it just makes you feel safer,” Siobhan told him over a private channel. “Blood Glades gladiator.” He smiled.

  “We have attendants and scouts in here with us,” Telisa said absent mindedly. She was holding a few thin metal rods that were part of the machine on the wall. She moved them around. Siobhan had no idea what the thing was. It looked like a folded up bat robot.

  Siobhan examined the tiles of the wall. Their separation boundaries were extremely thin. She reached out and touched one. The tile depressed slightly under her touch.

  “Shit,” she said. Caden instantly turned toward her. Telisa found her way over from the other side.

  “What?” demanded Telisa.

  “I hope I haven’t actuated some device. This tile just moved so easily. Like cardboard.”

  Caden walked over. He touched another tile. Its surface was flimsy. It moved a bit. Then he pushed it further. It kept moving back, and back, until it fell through the other side of the wall. They heard a light impact from the room beyond. The hole showed the white sides of the other hexagonal prisms that fit together perfectly to form the wall.

  “The wall is made of paper bricks? How could it be so flimsy?” he said.

  Siobhan slid another prism out of the wall below the one Caden had pulled out. She saw one side had a crease. It was a lid.

  “It’s a container!” Siobhan said. “This isn’t a wall, it’s a stack of boxes!”

  “Perfectly arranged,” Caden noted. “They were so perfectly stacked I thought it was a wall covered in tile.”

  “Then how are these things not toppling it over?�
�� asked Telisa. She pulled on one of the machines mounted in the wall. It slid forward easily. Telisa dug around in the boxes behind it.

  “Ah. I see some support struts here where these are attached,” she said. “But I think they pull right out of the wall.”

  “What is that thing?” Siobhan asked.

  “A robot. The way it unfolds, I would say it’s a flying robot. Well, a gliding one at least.”

  “Okay, so, those things fly from the tower, grab stuff, and put it in the funky hexagonal boxes,” Caden said. “So what’s in the boxes?”

  For once Telisa did not warn against making hasty assumptions. She knew Caden was just voicing a theory out loud. Siobhan found the lip of the box. It opened much like a manual Terran box that could not take link commands.

  “It’s filled with smaller wrapped blocks,” Siobhan said. “They’re light. I’ll open one.”

  Siobhan slipped a hexagonal slab out of the end. She tried to rip open a wrapper. Telisa offered Siobhan her tanto knife, but the material ripped easily. A sticky liquid leaked out.

  “Watch it,” Telisa said. Siobhan held it out. Telisa had a clear plastic vial ready to catch it. None of it touched them. Siobhan felt the thrill of danger.

  This could be poisonous, explosive, infectious... anything.

  Telisa took out an analyzer. “This will have to do,” she said. Siobhan decided that meant she was missing real lab equipment. Telisa swabbed a sample and closed her eyes to concentrate on the interface.

  “Well, there are a variety of molecules,” she said. “Here’s a familiar one, kojibiose.”

  “Koji what?”

  “A disaccharide. This is a soup of energy molecules, I think. It’s all about carbon making chains and rings with hydrogen and oxygen. I believe these are food packets. If I’m right, the Celarans are very similar to us, really, for aliens. They’re carbon based life,” Telisa said.

  “If these really are food packets,” Caden said.

  “And the food packets are for them and not alien visitors or prisoners,” Siobhan said.

  “Highly likely. I suppose they could be hoarding poison. Or paint. Or whatever. I don’t think it’s coincidence. We might even be able to digest some of this ourselves,” Telisa said. She repacked her analyzer.