Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins

by Michael McCloskey

  Imanol sent one attendant way ahead to run the entire search path without waiting for them. The other three attendants assigned to them would deploy two to the next house and one trailing. Telisa had placed the old Terran bug scout robots along a route heading back to the New Iridar to secure a retreat path out of the settlement.

  They set out. Imanol became competent though not brilliant at navigating his way along the vines. Sometimes they had to ascend or descend on detours to get where they wanted if they felt too lazy to deploy a smart rope. Imanol did not mind; it gave him a chance to experience the planet from the point of view of a native. The houses proved empty. Even Jason’s excitement at his second major outing on an alien world deflated as it became clear the place was not only deserted, but very clean and devoid of interesting clues.

  “There’s no signs of an advanced transportation system,” Imanol said as they headed to their twelfth house. “So they flew or they had flying cars, I think.”

  “Could be a subway,” Jason said. “The entrances would be buried under all that wild growth near the ground.”

  Imanol shrugged.

  “Speaking of wild growth,” Jason said as he pointed out through the vine forest.

  Imanol followed Jason’s line of sight. At first he thought there was nothing but dense forest to see. Then he caught sight of some enormously thick vine stalks. The forest rose higher in that direction. Jason saw some kind of smooth green barrier like a natural membrane or perhaps a wall that was designed to look natural.

  “Something odd there,” Jason said. “Any ideas?”

  “I don’t know,” Imanol said.

  “Some really big vine cords coming out of there,” Jason said. “The rest of that... looks like a huge husk or something.”

  “Yah, a big shell,” Imanol agreed. The vines were so thick and dense around the shell he could not see anything else in there. “Siobhan said the tree trunks are artificial. Maybe all the vines started out like this. Some kind of giant vine egg. When they Celaraformed this place, they dropped a few of these around and they started the vines off.”

  “Wow. I guess I don’t have any better theory. My attendant can’t even get in there. It’s just solid vine stems coming out of that area. They do seem to be older and thicker there than anywhere else. Maybe the vines are the Celarans? There could be a huge brain in there.”

  Imanol shrugged. “Then why the houses?”

  “Maybe to house their alien friends, like Blackvines. Or they could even be for creatures that serve them like bees serve flowers.”

  “Sounds farfetched, but I can’t say that’s impossible,” Imanol said. “With some other equipment we could scan that cluster and see if there’s anything scary in there. I’ll mark it down and we can talk about it later.”

  “You’re not curious to look?”

  “If the attendant can’t get in there, what chance do we have? We can check it from orbit, too. I don’t know. Let’s take note of it, clear the houses, and see what the others think.”

  Jason accepted that. Imanol checked the video feeds again and kept on their planned course. The next house was in the same shape as the others so far, yet he saw it was different immediately.

  “Something there. On the rail,” Imanol said, drawing his laser.

  Strips of cloth or plastic had been tied to the orange rail. Imanol saw yellow, red and blue. Something else sat on the platform, some curved metal snake-shape.

  “Yes! Finally something worth finding!” Jason said excitedly. He pulled out his stunner and crouched on the vine.

  “Questions first shoot later,” Imanol said. “These are artifacts, and probably did not belong to my theoretical jaguar.”

  “Right.”

  Two attendants hovered in. Imanol saw the metal snake had two three-fingered graspers on each end. The shape reminded him very much of the gliding snake things they had seen in the trees, though this little item was not at all flattened to catch the air. It did not look like it could glide.

  The attendants pushed through two trap doors and checked the interior. It looked empty.

  “No one home,” Imanol said. He scanned the surrounding vines. He did not see anything but vines, leaves, and insects.

  Are we being watched?

  Jason went forward and dropped onto the platform. He looked at the colorful strips and the metal snake, then pushed into the house. Imanol stopped and picked up the device. It flexed in his hands. The middle section was like a stiff smart rope. He pulled the graspers in different directions with each hand. The device lengthened easily.

  This connects two things. Two vines? Two structural struts? Why does it look like the gliding snake-things? Maybe those damn things are the Celarans after all.

  “I found something!” Jason called.

  “Something new?” Imanol asked, but Jason was already there, holding out a black tube with a hole in the end. It looked like a drill without the bit, or perhaps a pistol with no handle.

  “What is it?” Imanol asked.

  “I have no idea, of course,” Jason said.

  “Where was it?”

  “Hanging from one of those flexing racks. See this little spiral? It wraps around the rail if you hold it right there.”

  Imanol saw a thin black filament wrapped up into a spiral on the end opposite the aperture.

  So you can hang it... I bet it would hang on a vine, too.

  “It’s a tool,” Imanol said. He eyed the hole in the end. “Or a weapon. Don’t point that hole at me.”

  “Of course not,” Jason said. “Still, it’s a danger until we learn about it. Could be a grenade for all we know.”

  “Then put it into the cargo carry of one of our old fashioned bots,” Imanol suggested. “I think we have one around here.”

  “What about that grabber thing there?”

  “I could be wrong, it just doesn’t look as dangerous. Judgement call. I’ll put this thing in my pack.”

  The old six-legged bots were crawling slowly through the forest closer to the shared zone. They were at an extreme disadvantage to the Vovokan attendants which could fly and hover wherever they wanted. Still, having a small carry compartment was an advantage this time.

  Jason paused. Imanol assumed he was waiting for the arrival of a robot. He paced the outside platform, looking into the forest.

  So many animals. There must be some predators... unless the Celarans just decided to leave those behind. I guess that makes sense. Terrans don’t bring dangerous predators to the regions to be settled. We drop them on islands and place them into reserved areas far from the people when we decide to bring native species to alien planets.

  Most of Earth’s animal species had been preserved only as genetic samples. The destruction of the environment had brought so many animals to extinction, and only slowly had Terrans brought the creatures back. It was difficult and expensive to re-establish stable ecosystems which inevitably involved at least hundreds of plant and animal types.

  Imanol saw a scout approaching on his link’s overview map. He faced its general direction, trying to hear it approach. It did not work. Imanol saw the bug machine first, scuttling along on its thin metal legs. It left marks on the vine where its legs had been. Imanol guessed it had to squeeze hard to stabilize itself as it moved.

  Jason met the robot on a thick vine and dropped his find into the robot’s carrying hold. Then the machine turned and retreated back into the forest.

  “Might as well tell it to head back to the New Iridar,” Imanol said.

  “Okay. I sure hope nothing happens to it. Can you imagine how pissed Telisa would be if we lost the only artifact around here so far?”

  “Yes, it would suck, but we have a lot here. The pieces of the houses are sophisticated enough we could learn a lot. Just studying the main battery might be amazing. I don’t know. I’m not much of a scientist.”

  “Me neither, but I’d like to learn.”

  Imanol suppressed an annoyed face.

  Yo
ung people. Enough time and energy to learn everything in the whole damn world.

  “I’m stoked to check the other houses out now,” Jason said. “I was thinking we had found a big fat zero here.”

  Imanol nodded. He sent the attendants ahead and started in the direction of the next house. Jason led the way. The new recruit remained cautious despite the excitement of the find. He moved across the vines well enough, showing no more fear of the height, and stopped often to check around.

  He’s young, but not as young as Caden and Siobhan. I don’t need to treat him like a kid. Well, not much longer anyway.

  The next house looked empty. Jason shook his head. Imanol followed him in and they gave it a personal look just to be thorough. There were no extra possessions lying around. The inside was free of dust and smelled clean.

  “What could have been different about that last house?”

  Imanol shrugged. “Last ones out? Or maybe just the sloppiest ones. Or maybe they just forgot to activate the cleaning service.”

  They walked back out onto the house platform that surrounded the white spire holding up the house. As usual, several of the green vines had grown over the side of the house and some anchored themselves on the house rail. Imanol walked up to the rail to find a thick vine to exit onto.

  “This vine has some silver parasite plant or worm on it,” Jason said.

  Imanol checked the vine between them. “I see something on this side too,” Imanol said. “Be careful. It’s moving! Damn creepy...”

  Jason pulled on a vine and leaned over the rail to follow the path of the silvery vine below the platform. Then he bucked and released a strangled cry.

  “What?!” Imanol saw silver lines on Jason’s suited legs. He looked down at his own side of the vine and realized the extra silver vine on his side was gone.

  Jason rolled off the platform and plunged. He struck one of the huge leaves, coming to a halt, then started to slide off.

  “Man down!” Imanol transmitted across the common channel. He told his smart rope to crawl out of his pack while he scanned the area with his laser. He told his attendant and Jason’s to try and break Jason’s imminent fall. Imanol noticed his attendant refused to move.

  “What?” he said out loud, staring at it. He looked down. The smart rope had not responded, either. He looked over the rail. Jason was still about four meters above the ground. He had slid halfway off the huge leaf but caught on the vine that supported it.

  His suit will protect him from the fall. That thing, I don’t know.

  “I saw a silvery vine. Wrapped around regular vines. It’s done something to Jason,” Imanol transmitted. He pulled out his laser pistol and took one second to give it a target profile: Silvery tendrils.

  Imanol vaulted over the rail. He caught hold of a vine in his other hand and swung clumsily, waiting for a target to present itself. He glimpsed a bulbous silver mass pulsing behind two huge leaves and told his weapon to fire. It did not respond. Imanol pulled the trigger manually. The laser blew through one, then two bursts. Imanol missed his first shot since he had not been ready for manual fire. His second shot hit. Smoke or steam sizzled up from the thing, then Imanol lost sight of it.

  “Stay gone or I’ll fry your ass again,” Imanol called out. Jason hung limply nearby. Thoughts raced through Imanol’s head.

  Why haven’t they responded to me? Nothing is hearing me. Are we being jammed?

  Imanol kept looking into the foliage around them as he made a medical query to Jason’s suit. He got no response. Imanol ran a diagnostic on his own link and found the problem: his connection capability was down.

  Some kind of a trap. We’re helpless.

  Imanol climbed closer to Jason. He had to be careful, because the way Jason lay across the vine, if Imanol shook the area Jason would probably just slide and fall farther. Imanol summoned his smart rope again. He stared up at the house platform and saw nothing.

  “Blood and souls, how can I get anything done like this? Damn caveman style.”

  Imanol started to swing on the vine. He looked one last time for the silvery thing. When he did not spot it, he holstered the weapon and used his other hand to grab another vine. Slowly he maneuvered closer to Jason.

  “Jason, can you hear me?”

  I think he may be dead. Blood and souls!

  Imanol wrapped a thinner vine around his leg and drew his pistol again. He surveyed his surroundings with his own eyes. He saw only static feeds from the attendants. Something had changed with them. Even though they could not hear his link, they had also stopped searching.

  Imanol put his pistol away a second time. Then he rearranged himself on the vines.

  I think I can just reach him...

  Imanol stretched forward. His hand was almost to Jason. He told his suit to expose his hand, but it did not obey.

  “Dammit!” Imanol exclaimed in frustration.

  I can’t even get my suit to open up so I can see if he’s breathing.

  Imanol thought of stories from the frontier about people who had died when their suits malfunctioned and would not regulate temperature or open for them. They had overheated and died inside their suits. He told himself his manual suit release was not damaged and would still work.

  Imanol noticed his attendants had started to move again. They positioned themselves around Jason.

  “Damn right you stupid things! He’s in trouble.”

  One of the attendants slipped below the huge leaf and worked to stabilize it. Imanol figured it was less likely Jason would slip the rest of the way down. Imanol just waited, looking all around for the silver creature.

  A minute later, he finally received an update through his link. It had been relayed through his attendant. The positions of the other team members appeared in his PV map.

  “I see them,” Imanol said aloud. “They’re coming this way. Probably wondering why the hell we aren’t answering them.”

  Jason did not react. Imanol tried Jason’s suit again. This time it responded with data: Jason’s heart was beating. The tissue damage chart he saw open in his PV showed that Jason had some internal burns along a route through his body.

  “It electrocuted you,” Imanol said. “Hang on Jason. If you can hear me, just hang on.”

  Imanol told his smart rope to secure Jason and it finally responded.

  “Imanol, if you can hear me, I’ll be there in five,” Telisa said. Imanol saw from the feed that she had moved way ahead of the others.

  Of course. Her enhanced Trilisk body. I had already forgotten.

  His smart rope wrapped itself around Jason’s waist. It was anchored above on the house rail. Imanol gave the profile to the attendants and sent them on a patrol of the perimeter. Imanol decided to just wait below the platform until help arrived. He took his laser out and double-checked its target profile. He saw that it would not fire at another team member, but would shoot at unknown targets and it prioritized silvery tendrils. Imanol went into his Veer suit controls and queried about electrical resistance. The suit’s operations manual told him that he could dump a portion of the suit’s energy reserves as heat to increase electrical protection by freeing up some storage to absorb the offensive charge. He accepted some suggested settings. Hot air started to flow over the surface of his skinsuit as it shed energy. Inside, the suit stayed comfortable. Imanol noticed from his energy report that his suit had more energy now than it had had when he left the ship.

  What the hell?

  Imanol heard a clang above. It was Telisa.

  She probably leaped some superhumanly huge distance and landed hard on the platform.

  “He’s alive?” Telisa asked, though she probably already had the data.

  “Yes. It was some silver colored plant-thing. Round, almost our size, with long silvery tendrils, at least four of them. My laser pistol drove it off.”

  “So it completed a circuit with his body. Probably fed from some internal chemical battery.”

  Telisa’s smart rope secured
Jason from above. Imanol did not care much about the details at the moment. Jason was alive, and the silver thing had retreated when hit with the laser. The rest of the team arrived by the time Telisa and Imanol had hauled Jason back up to the platform. More attendants flew in with them and started to patrol around the house in concentric orbits.

  Cilreth took a larger medical scanner out of her pack. She attached it to Jason.

  Imanol waited a long moment to hear the report. Cilreth shook her head.

  “The diagnosis is electrocution all right,” she said. “Some tissue burns inside his leg... the suit saved his life.”

  Jason muttered something. Then he yelled out.

  “We got you. Don’t move,” Telisa commanded.

  “We couldn’t reach you guys. My link lost its ability to connect,” Imanol said.

  “Electrical attack and disabled links. Probably not a coincidence,” Telisa said. Imanol nodded sheepishly. In the heat of the moment, he had not thought of that.

  “My link went out too,” Imanol said.

  “And you took a charge,” Telisa said.

  “What?” Imanol checked his suit. “Oh, right, I just noticed my reserve had filled up.” The suit had not been able to report the occurrence to him when his link went down. He checked the timestamps. They were both attacked at almost the same second.

  “It didn’t fry your links. It would have to be some kind of EM field disturbance,” Cilreth said. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Did the thing have any tools? Any signs of intelligence?” asked Telisa.

  “Nothing I saw. My impression is of a carnivorous animal or plant.”

  “Other than being silver did it look like a Blackvine?”

  “No. Not at all. This thing had a bloated body like a giant onion. No leaves or anything that looked like leaves.”

  Jason’s eyes were open.

  “Did it... bite me? Try to eat me?” he asked weakly.

  “I don’t think it got to you, really,” Imanol said. He almost added something heroic sounding about jumping over the rail after Jason, but decided not to say anything.

  “Imanol burned it,” Telisa said. “He gave it something else to think about.”