The Centauri Surprise

by Alastair Mayer

  Finley stared at him, his gaze piercing. “Did you show her any other sketches, of characters that weren’t your alien?”

  “Uh, no,” Carson admitted.

  “So not really proof, then.”

  Carson immediately got Finley’s point. He hadn’t asked Sawyer to pick out her alien from a virtual line-up, as it were, just asked “was this the guy?” If he’d been a cop asking about a suspect, any defense attorney would have that thrown out as too leading.

  “Anyway, tell me about these aliens,” Finley said. “How long have they been watching us, if that’s what they’re doing, and why did they build the pyramids?” A quizzical look crossed his face, and he added, “They didn’t build the ones on Earth, did they?”

  “No, they didn’t. If there’s an alien pyramid on Earth somewhere, nobody has ever found it. But the alien Roberts and I met, presumably the same species as what Elizabeth Sawyer saw—”

  “If she saw one,” Finley interrupted.

  “Fine, if. Anyway, he said they had nothing to do with building any of the alien pyramids we’ve found either. Their own technology probably got a jump start from a pyramid on their home planet. The Kesh—that’s what they call themselves, according to the one I met—came along ten thousand years after the pyramid-building spacefarers.”

  “The original pyramid-builders are long gone?”

  “It seems so.”

  “Then why does Homeworld Security care about them? The—what did you call them? Kesh?—the Kesh, I can understand they’d be concerned about. What’s the connection?”

  “We don’t know, and in our one meeting the Kesh weren’t very forthcoming. They say we’re not ready for a formal first contact with them.”

  “Ha! They’re probably right,” Finley said. “Some people have enough trouble with the low-tech aliens we’ve met so far.”

  Carson nodded. He’d met a few of that sort, like the Velkaryans. “Anyway, that’s one thing I want to find out, if there is a connection. I’ve always suspected that there was some spacefarer link between some of the primitive ruins we’ve found on other planets. If your peak is a spacefarer pyramid—”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

  “If it is, it would be interesting to compare what’s inside with what we found on Chara III. It might also give us an idea of what technology the Kesh might have that we don’t.”

  Finley nodded. “Okay, I can see that. But what do you want from me? I can’t just say, ‘go ahead and dig.’ Despite the name, it’s not really my peak. And it’s in the middle of the Anderson Wildlife Preserve. Not that I really give a rat’s ass about that.”

  “The Finley’s leopard preserve? I thought you were involved in setting that up.”

  Finley shook his head no, and began to unfasten his shirt.

  “What . . . ?” Carson wondered aloud.

  Finley stood up and slid the shirt off his right shoulder and pulled his arm from the sleeve. He raised his bare right arm, exposing the side of his chest. Four lines of parallel scars ran down his right side, across the ribs. Roberts gasped.

  “Damned leopard did that to me on the hike back from the peak. They’d be a damn sight deeper if Naomi hadn’t been handy with a weapon. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be standing here.”

  His scowl turned to a wry grin. “I’d say the damned felinoids can bite me, but they already tried.” He put his shirt back on and sat back down, then picked up his beer and chugged it back. “They’re not really leopards, of course. They’re not even cats, as Ulrika would point out. Anyway, if you want to waste your time digging around an old volcano, I won’t stop you.”

  “Well, thanks, I guess. Do you really think I’d be wasting my time?”

  “The story of what you found at Chara and Zeta Reticuli is fascinating. Now, understand that I’m not calling you a liar, but I’m not sure I buy it completely. There are probably details you’re leaving out. But I’m not sure what that has to do with what’s on this planet. You admitted you don’t have a star map pointing to Alpha Centauri, all you’ve got is a hill that looks vaguely like a pyramid. So does Mount Beerwah, so that proves nothing.

  “Come on, Carson. Think like a professor of archeology. What would you tell a student who came to you with a story like that?”

  Carson sighed. He could see Finley’s point. Maybe he was putting more hope than reason into this. It would be one thing if it was just him, a shovel, and his own time, but a proper excavation would take multiple people, resources, government permissions to enter the preserve. He’d need more than a hunch to justify it, and without proof, tales of aliens and flying pyramids weren’t going to do him any favors. Especially if it turned out that Finley was right, and it really was just the remains of an extinct volcano. That could be a career-killer.

  “Okay, sure, I’d like to do a dig, but I can see that it would be impractical.” He stood up and gestured to Jackie with a sideways nod of his head to do likewise. “Thanks for your time, Pete, I do appreciate it.”

  “Hey, no worries,” Finley said, rising himself to escort them out. “It was worth it to hear about what you’ve been up to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are other spacefarers out there. The terraforming is proof enough of that. I’m just not sure they’ve built anything here, and, quite frankly, I’m not sure of how most people would react if they found out they had.”

  Carson nodded. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  “But don’t be strangers. I’d like to hear more about some of your adventures.” He looked at Roberts. “Yours too, Jackie. I’m glad Carson brought you along. Maybe we can all trade stories over another beer sometime.”

  “Thanks, I’d like that,” Carson said.

  “Likewise,” said Roberts. “Carson, give me a moment to check out the car.”

  Finley looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned. “Right, I heard something about you having problems with an autocab.”

  “That, and it looked like we were being followed part of the way here. Jackie lost them.”

  “In an aircar? That must have been some fancy flying. But don’t worry, security here is good. The Robot would have yelled out ‘Danger, Will Robinson!’ if anyone had approached it, but I won’t be offended if you check for yourself. I would.” He turned back to Carson and shook his hand again. “Cheers, mate.” He half saluted, half waved, then turned and closed the door.

  “Uh, cheers,” Carson said, and at Roberts’ reassuring nod, climbed into the aircar.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  As Jackie piloted the aircar back toward the city, Carson sat staring glumly out the window. Don’t ask about the talisman, she mentally urged him. She couldn’t be certain, but this was Ducayne’s aircar, and she’d be very surprised if it didn’t have listening devices. If Carson wanted to keep the package he’d received secret from Ducayne, this was not a good place to talk about it.

  Carson turned to her and began, “Jackie—” but she cut him off.

  “Finley seemed pretty sure that it was an old volcano,” she said. “You were hoping for something else, weren’t you?”

  He sighed. “Yes. A pyramid here, if it were built by the same people who built the ones at Chara and Delta Pavonis, would make it difficult to hide the fact of a fifteen-thousand-year-old spacefaring species, whether Ducayne wanted to go public with it or not.”

  “You want vindication for your theories,” Jackie guessed.

  “Of course I do. It’s one thing to be ridiculed when you’re wrong, and I can accept that, but everything we’ve been through over the past year proves that I was right. And I can’t talk about it.”

  His frustration was obvious, and she couldn’t blame him. He’d mentioned what his boss at the university, Matthews, had said about von Dänikenism. She’d heard of von Däniken’s “Ancient Astronaut” theories, and agreed with Carson that they were rubbish and nothing at all like the connections he had found between far-flung alien but primitive races.

  “So, if it is a volcano, what w
as with this talk of it being a pyramid?” she asked, trying to steer the conversation away from a sore point, and to get him lecturing rather than asking questions.

  “It happens,” Carson said. “It wouldn’t be the first time a natural geographic feature got mistaken for something artificial. The Bimini Road, for example, which looks like a sunken road from the air. Apparently, Bimini Bay on Kakuloa was named for a similar-looking feature. Sometimes a glacial esker will look like a wall. It’s generally pretty obvious once somebody gets down on the ground for a closer look.”

  “So Pete’s Peak . . . ?”

  “Pete is a geologist, he would know. He says it’s a volcano.” Carson turned away again to stare out the window. After a moment, he turned back to her. “By the way, have you had a chance to—”

  She reacted quickly, lashing out her right arm to cover his mouth with her hand, and saying: “To look at that data you wanted me to analyze? Sorry, not yet.” She glared at him, shaking her head “no”, then took her hand from his mouth and held a finger to her lips.

  He looked at her quizzically, rubbing his face. She’d hit him harder than she had meant to. “What—?”

  She pointed at the dashboard, then at her ear. He got it, and nodded.

  “No worries. Whenever,” he said, but frowned.

  Jackie changed the subject. “What did you think of that robot of Finley’s?”

  Carson barked out a short laugh and turned back to her. “That was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. You too, from that grin you were trying to hide.”

  “You’re right,” she said, “but I recognized it. I’d seen it before. Not his, I mean the original.”

  “Really? On those long deep space voyages with your parents and nothing else in the ship’s library?”

  Jackie had forgotten just how much Carson knew about her past, but in this case his guess was wrong. “No, at least not that I recall. It was in the science fiction class I took as part of my starship pilot training.”

  “Oh, right, to prepare you for the unexpected,” he said. Then he grinned. “I guess it worked. I certainly wasn’t expecting that robot. And how did it manage to hold onto that tray with those claws?”

  Jackie grinned back at him. “There’s obviously more there than meets the eye.” She pointed to the dashboard again.

  “Yes, there very probably is,” Carson said, looking thoughtful.

  By now they were nearing the spaceport, and Jackie had to focus on her flying.

  CHAPTER 10: DEBRIEFING

  Sawyers World, Ducayne’s office

  “HOW DID YOUR meeting with Finley go?” Ducayne asked when Carson reported in.

  Carson shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose” he said. “He seems convinced that what he found really is just a volcano remnant, and I’m inclined to believe him.”

  “What about Elizabeth Sawyer’s comments? Didn’t she say he thought it was a pyramid?”

  “She said he thought it looked like one. But Finley’s the geologist who went out to the site.”

  “Then we can write it off? That’s unfortunate. You had my hopes up for more of whatever’s in the Chara pyramid, and what was taken from the one on Verdigris. I guess we’ll have to look elsewhere.”

  “Yeah. Still,” Carson said, “part of me is unconvinced. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I’d really like to take a look at it myself.”

  “You think Finley was lying to you?”

  “Maybe he’s lying to himself. He seemed uncomfortable with the idea of recent spacefaring aliens.”

  “So am I, but I’m forced to recognize that they existed and they or their successors are still around. Maybe you should go and check it out.”

  “First I’d like to review the original geology reports of the area. I looked for them when I got back from Finley’s, but for some reason they don’t seem to be online or in the university library.”

  Ducayne grinned at this. “You’d almost think somebody was trying to hide something. I’m shocked.”

  Carson shook his head. Maybe Jackie was right, and Ducayne did have a sense of humor. “Sure you are.”

  “Couldn’t you ask Finley for copies of those reports? If they exist at all, wouldn’t he have them?”

  “After fifty years? I don’t know. Maybe. But if he doesn’t, or won’t give me copies? Or they’re inconclusive?”

  “Then you go take a look for yourself. That is what you’d want to do, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. But it’s in the middle of a wildlife preserve. The area is off-limits.”

  Ducayne looked thoughtful. “That would be a great cover story if there was something there the local government didn’t want investigated. Maybe they know something after all.”

  “Then why would Elizabeth Sawyer have even brought it up? And Finley seemed willing to support some kind of excavation if it could be arranged. He has no love for the wildlife there, it tried to kill him. He showed us the scars.”

  “Oh? I hadn’t heard that story,” Ducayne said. He shifted forward in his seat, leaning toward Carson. “What would it take for you to verify what that thing is? I don’t mean a full excavation, just a quick in and out to take a closer look.”

  “You mean a covert operation? Do you really think it’s worth the trouble?”

  “You don’t?”

  That surprised Carson. “Logistics aside,” he said, “aren’t you worried about the fallout if the operation is discovered? A UDT agency conducting illegal operations on an independent world? What about the Treaty of Alpha Centauri?”

  Ducayne looked pained, as though wrestling with a decision. “I’m not suggesting such an operation, just brainstorming. Our governments do have an informal arrangement, as I’ve mentioned before, but now is not the best time to be pushing on that. There are other things going on, things you don’t need to know about. You’re right, it’s not worth the trouble.”

  Now Carson was intrigued, but he knew better than to push Ducayne on the matter. But he had begun to think about what would be needed to check the Peak out.

  “Okay,” he said, “but it would probably just take me and a shovel, depending on how deep the dirt covering is. And someone to watch my back in case of predators.” The thoughts came as he talked. “But that area is patrolled; there used to be a problem with poachers. So, some way to get in and out quickly.” He was warming to the idea. If there was some way to arrange it, he could decide for himself just what Pete’s Peak really was.

  “No,” Ducayne said. “That’s the problem. ‘Quickly’ implies an aircraft, at least to get you out. Since we’re being hypothetical, I suppose you could parachute in. Ever done a HALO jump?”

  Carson chuckled. “High altitude, low opening? Remember how you sent me to Tanith? If entering from space doesn’t count as high altitude, I don’t know what does.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But that would still leave the problem of getting you and your backup out. An aircraft off course with mechanical trouble? It’s way too thin. No, just leave it. If it looks worthwhile in future, we’ll come up with a cover story, or just cooperate with the local authorities.”

  Carson shook his head. “Fair enough. It would be embarrassing to go through all that for an extinct volcano.”

  Ducayne nodded. “It would. Meanwhile, you have plenty of other things to keep you busy.”

  “I do,” Carson said, understanding Ducayne’s comment as telling him to just drop it. Not that Carson had any intention of dropping it, but there was something else. “Oh, by the way, somebody might have been trying to follow us on the way to Finley’s. There was another aircar trailing us for a while.”

  “What?” Ducayne frowned. “You should have mentioned that sooner. Maybe we should put an emergency beacon app on your omni.”

  Carson shrugged it off. “Jackie lost them in the clouds, we never saw them after that.”

  “Did they follow you long enough to know where you were going?”

  Carson thought back. “I can�
�t rule it out. As Jackie said, there’s not much on the heading we were on, except for Finley’s place. Why would that matter?”

  “It might not. But there aren’t many reasons you would be going out there. They might guess it had something to do with Pete’s Peak.”

  “And if they did? It’s not exactly the jungles of Verdigris. As I said, the reserve is patrolled, watching for poachers. You and I just talked about trying to sneak an excavation team in there. It’s not going to happen.”

  Ducayne sighed. “You’re right. It’s just something else for me to worry about.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Ducayne seemed about to dismiss Carson, then had a second thought. “One other thing,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  He hesitated, then said, “It’s confirmed; Rico didn’t die in the shoot-out on Earth.”

  Carson blinked. Rico had caused him so much trouble before ultimately saving all their asses on the Chara expedition. He’d come to like the guy; none of his antagonism had been personal. The last Carson knew, Rico had been on an assignment with Malcolm Brown to retrieve original documents from an old government UFO study, when he got involved with Velkaryans after the same files. He’d been killed delaying them while Brown escaped, although the body had gone missing. “That is good news. Where is he now?”

  “That’s a very good question.”

  “You don’t know?” Carson said, surprised Ducayne would know one thing without the other.

  “The local police found him bleeding out at the Denver Spaceport, the Velkaryans were gone by the time they got there. They put him in a traumapod which immediately put him into a medical coma. And then they lost him.”

  “They lost him? How?”

  “We’re not completely clear on that. When they got him into a traumapod, it triggered on the DNA tags we gave him, and reported that he was a government agent. The local cops naturally bumped the case up to the Feds, thinking Rico was one of their guys. Sometime after that, Federal agents—or at least, someone with appropriate credentials—showed up and took custody of him, traumapod and all. A while after that, another group of credentialed agents also showed up to take custody. As you can imagine, hilarity ensued, for very small values of hilarity.