The Centauri Surprise

by Alastair Mayer

  By now Roberts and Dundee had come over to join them.

  “That’s a shame,” Dundee said, not sounding very concerned. “Was he armed?”

  “No, why?”

  “He was bleeding pretty badly the last I saw him. Leopards can smell that. He won’t get far.”

  Rico laughed.

  “All right,” the Guardsman said. “I think we’re done here. We can airlift you out.”

  “Ah, no,” Carson said. “You’d better medevac Rico here, but the rest of us can get a ride back in Captain Roberts’s ship.” He gestured toward Jackie.

  The Guard looked a little non-plussed, and looked from Roberts to Finley and back. “Ma’am? Sir?”

  “I’m parked in the clearing a couple of klicks away. You may have seen it,” Jackie said.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Finley said to the Guardsman. “Something we didn’t finish before we were interrupted. We need to do a bit of clean up.”

  “All right.” The Guardsman pulled a small radio free from a clip on his belt and handed it to Finley. “Here. If you need anything, holler.”

  Finley took it and nodded.

  “Okay, men,” the Guardsman called to the others. “We’re done here. Let’s get this show in the air.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  As the aircraft flew off, Carson said to the others, “All right, where’s the talisman?”

  They all looked at each other. Jackie said, “Well don’t look at me, I just got here.”

  “Reid dropped it when he got shot,” Dundee said. “Check the trench.”

  “Ah, right.”

  After a minute of scrabbling around in the dirt, Carson found the talisman. The door was still stuck mostly closed, with just a narrow gap at the bottom. Carson got down and peered under it. There was no way he could wriggle through that gap, and, peering through, it looked like there was a pile of dirt or something behind it. Probably that’s what had jammed it.

  Carson stepped back and had Finley ready to pry the door up with the pick. With Finley at the ready, Carson applied the talisman to its recess. The door groaned, Finley heaved, and then with a grating sound, the door slid up the rest of the way.

  “What the hell?” Finley exclaimed.

  Carson looked on in wonder, thinking the same thing.

  Behind the doorway, where in the Chara pyramid had been an open passageway, the corridor here—if there was one—was filled floor to ceiling with what looked like solidified mud. Scrape marks on the outer surface showed where the door had rubbed against it while rising. No wonder it hadn’t wanted to open.

  “Well,” said Dundee. “That was anticlimactic.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Carson muttered a curse, then after a few moments said, “Finley, give me that pickaxe.”

  Taking the pick in hand, Carson stepped up to the dried mud filling the doorway and swung at it, overhand. The sharp end dug into the dirt a half meter and stuck. He pried it loose, dislodging a clump of the compacted soil, and swung at it again. Another lump broke loose. He raised the pick again.

  “Carson, are you sure that’s the best approach?” Jackie said. “What if there’s something fragile behind that?”

  Carson paused in mid-swing and turned to her. His intended retort of “who’s the archeologist here?” died on his lips. She looked somewhat bedraggled, her hair in disarray, and sporting scratches and torn clothing from having run through a couple of kilometers of predator-infested forest to come to his aid. She looked as good as when he’d seen her in the cheongsam. And she was right.

  “No, it’s not.” He dropped the pick. “Although if this is like the others, the passage should go straight back from the entrance. It should be clear.”

  “And yet it’s filled with dirt,” Finley said. “Why?”

  That was a very good question. “The pyramid seems to have been deliberately buried,” Carson said. “Maybe when it was, some mud seeped in around the doorway.” But, looking at the entrance, he didn’t see how that could have happened. Maybe if the door had been open at the time? But then how did it close, and how far inside had the mud flowed before it did?

  He lifted the pickaxe from where he’d dropped it, and, this time holding the head of it in both hands, used the tip to scrape away at the pit he’d already made in the mud face.

  “I think you’re wasting your time,” Dundee said, pounding on the dirt a little way from where Carson was scraping. “This seems pretty solid.”

  “He’s right,” Finley said. “We need to come back with the backhoe, or some other specialized equipment. Maybe pressure hoses.”

  “There’s no water around for those,” Carson said dejectedly, “but yeah, you’re right. This isn’t just a thin layer behind the door. I’m going to try digging a bit farther, but the scope of this excavation just got a whole lot more difficult. Crap.” He tossed the pick to the ground again.

  Roberts came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s not what you wanted, but the fact that your talisman opened the door proves definitively that it’s a Spacefarer pyramid and high tech. Whatever’s inside can wait.”

  He smiled at her. “I guess it will have to. Thanks Jackie. And thank you for getting out here so quickly.” He reached up and pulled a scrap of leaf from her tangled hair. “That must have been quite a run. I’m glad you didn’t meet any leopards.”

  She grinned back at him and patted the weapon now holstered at her side. “No, the leopards are glad they didn’t meet me. I was in no mood to play fair.”

  Dundee looked at her, pointedly looked at her holster, and said, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, seeing as I’m grateful for you and Rico coming to our rescue. But leave it in the holster on our way to your ship, all right? Cuts down on the paperwork.”

  She got a sudden horrified look on her face. “Oh, crap! The paperwork!”

  “No, I just said don’t worry about it,” Dundee said.

  “Not you,” she said, “Space Traffic Control. I busted all kinds of regulations getting here. Shit, shit, shit!”

  “It was an emergency,” Finley said before Carson could say anything. “Even Space Guard came out. We’ll get it sorted.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Roberts said. “It’s my ship and my license on the line. But maybe you’re right. Either way, dawdling here will just make it worse. Come on, gentlemen, if you want a ride back in the Sophie, you’d better get your things packed up quickly.”

  Carson wasn’t quite ready to leave. “Dundee, make sure she gets back to her ship safely. Finley, you can go too if you want. I’m going to stay here, maybe try digging a bit farther, and then seal up the site. I’ll be fine here alone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “After the ruckus we made I doubt there are any animals anywhere near here. I can hike out tomorrow. The aircars should still be back at the clearing.”

  “They were when I landed,” Jackie said.

  “I’ll come back for you,” Dundee said. “I don’t want you to have to shoot anything with more than two legs.”

  “What about terror birds?” Carson asked dryly.

  “Not them either, but you won’t see any in the forest.”

  “All right. Now you better gather whatever you’re taking. Jackie needs to get back. Oh, and Jackie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Dinner when I get back?”

  She smiled. “As long as it’s not food bars around a campfire, you’re on.”

  CHAPTER 49: WRAPPING UP

  Ducayne’s Office

  “CARSON’S HERE,” THE VOICE came from the intercom on Ducayne’s desk.

  “Have him wait. I’ll just be a few minutes,” Ducayne said, and turned back to Regina Elliot. He closed the screen on the post-mission summary she had given him. It was about the UDT-Space Guard wargames.

  “Well, that was a disaster,” he said. “For one, the UDT underestimated just how well-armed the Sawyers World ships are. I guess they don’t read our reports.”

>   “Indeed,” Elliot said. “But the Space Force still had the edge in firepower. How did Space Guard manage to coordinate their warp jumps so precisely?”

  Ducayne shrugged. “Home field advantage. They know this system and their ships very well, so can jump with sub-millisecond precision. The Space Force could probably do as well in the Solar System, but not out here in a planetary system they’re not familiar with. Accurate charts help, of course, but there’s a human tendency to want to verify information like that before acting on it. It also helps that the local crews know that this system is mostly empty because orbits between the two stars are unstable. Alpha Centauri has no asteroid belts, but most singleton systems do.”

  “It has some asteroids, surely?” Elliot wasn’t as familiar with the Alpha Centauri system as Ducayne was.

  “Yes, and most have beacons on them. The beacons won’t help in real time, of course, but they do pin positions down very well. The accurate tracking data lets the Guard predict exactly where they’ll be, and since there aren’t many, they can pretty much ignore them.”

  “So you’re saying our Space Force would hold its own better in a more crowded system, like Epsilon Eridani or Delta Pavonis?”

  Ducayne considered that. Both those systems had a single sun, and had asteroid belts. Two asteroid belts, in the former case. “Maybe. It depends on the opponent and their numbers. I noticed that Space Force seems reluctant to use fast short-range warp jumps in system, but Space Guard had no problem with that.”

  “The Sol System is a busy place,” Elliot said. “Space Force has to generally abide by space traffic control regulations too. That out-and-back warp near Earth would cost a civilian pilot his license and his ship, and get a military pilot grounded pending an investigation.”

  “There is that.” Ducayne shifted in his seat. This whole situation left him uncomfortable. He knew the Velkaryans were up to something, he just wasn’t sure what, and the Space Force had to be prepared. “On the other hand, it’s a maneuver they should be practicing. If not around Earth, then perhaps Mars or Venus. Or get them more time in the out-systems.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Elliot said, “but that’s hard to justify. Half the UDT thinks the Space Force is just a waste of budget as it is. Of course, they don’t know anything about the other spacefaring species out here.”

  “And I’m sure the Velkaryan-influenced governments aren’t helping.”

  “What do you think? Venezuela has already proposed disbanding the Space Force all together, replacing it with an unarmed search and rescue organization.”

  “Of course they have.” Ducayne shook his head in disgust. “All right, I’ll add my comments and forward your report along. Thank you. And speaking of disasters, go ahead and send Carson in.”

  “Will do,” Elliot said as she rose to leave.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Ducayne’s Office

  Hannibal Carson thanked Ducayne for his prompt action in getting help out to them at the excavation, and for somehow smoothing things out with the Sawyers World government.

  “Space Guard owed me one, but mostly it was Finley and Maclaren. They have more influence than they pretend. But tell me about the pyramid.”

  Carson explained what they had found, or perhaps rather what they hadn’t.

  “I don’t get it,” Ducayne said when Carson finished. “Why would your Spacefarers go to the trouble of building a pyramid and then fill it in? Did they decide it was unnecessary because the locals had gone extinct? But why go to all that trouble?”

  “I don’t think the Spacefarers filled it in,” Carson said. “I think it was a lot more recent.”

  “How recent?”

  “I’m still looking into whether there’s a way to date the fill material, but there are signs a Kesh pyramid ship may have landed nearby about a hundred years ago. That’s Sawyers World years, about a hundred-fifty standard years.”

  “The Kesh? That would put it just about the time our space program was getting started,” Ducayne said, looking thoughtful. “What signs?”

  After Carson’s surprise and disappointment at finding Pete’s Pyramid apparently filled in—the compacted muck had extended back as far as he had dug, several meters at least—he had re-examined the unusual features he’d seen earlier in the nearby cleared area, relying on his expertise as a field archeologist. “I found compression of the ground in the clearing, with straight edges to that. There were signs of vegetation recovering after a destructive event, the way it does after a fire or a volcanic ash-fall, but with no signs of either. The rings on the new tree growth give us a pretty good date. It’s about the same age as the oldest trees growing on the pyramid itself, a hundred local years.”

  Ducayne frowned. “Coincidences make me suspicious,” he said. “Are you saying that the Kesh both filled in and covered up the pyramid?”

  “Somebody did, and something big and heavy landed nearby at about the same time. I can’t be certain of what, but a Kesh pyramid ship would fit. Then there’s Elizabeth Sawyer’s sighting. If it was the Kesh trying to hide that pyramid, they would have freaked when the USS Anderson, given the choice of the whole planet, landed just sixty-five kilometers away. Of course they’d investigate.” Carson knew that the Anderson hadn’t had much latitude in the choice of landing area, but anyone worried about their proximity to the pyramid wouldn’t care.

  Ducayne was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Since you bring that up, there were also the Betty Hill and other UFO incidents on Earth in about that same time frame. Even though most of those could be dismissed as something innocuous, Brown did find a few reports that fit with what we now know about modern spacecraft systems. I’m beginning to think that the Kesh are hiding something.”

  “Only beginning to?” Carson said. “You’ve always thought that.”

  “Maybe,” Ducayne allowed. “I’ve always thought it prudent to assume they were, anyway. I think we ought to ask them just what the hell they’re playing at. Phrased more diplomatically, of course.”

  “How? They don’t want to make contact.” The one Kesh who Carson had talked with, Ketzshanass, had been explicit about that.

  “Maybe it’s time to return to Zeta Reticuli.”

  Carson wasn’t sure he liked that idea. His previous visit almost ended badly. “They warned us off. Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Sure? Heck no,” Ducayne said, his expression sour. “But why did they warn us off, do you suppose? What are they hiding?”

  “Ketzshanass said it was more of a respect thing. That and lurking degkhidesh automated weapons systems.” Carson remembered too well the particle beam attack on Vaughan’s ship, and the similar damage to the crashed alien ship they’d found at Kapteyn’s Star.

  “Perhaps,” said Ducayne, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped below his chin, looking thoughtful. “Any chance they’re working with the Velkaryans? Vaughan showed up on Tanith later, after all.”

  Carson considered this. The Kesh ship had done something with Vaughan’s ship, Carcharodon, when it had been pursuing Carson and Roberts aboard the Sophie. But Ketzshanass had been adamant about not interfering. Or rather, Carson realized, about not attacking the Velkaryan’s ship. Did that mean . . . ? No, that didn’t make sense.

  “Why would they?” he asked Ducayne. “The Velkaryans are xenophobic, they want terraformed planets for humans. Why would they work with aliens, or vice versa?”

  “They don’t seem to have a problem using alien technology when they can get hold of it. But you’re right, I don’t see what’s in it for the Kesh. Keep humans off balance, maybe? Again, another reason to ask them outright.”

  “That sounds confrontational, but the way they’re acting . . . do you think they’re scared of us?”

  “If they are, I have to wonder why. But maybe it’s just natural caution. I suppose I might do the same thing in their place, but we need answers, not speculation.”

  “Does that mean you want me to go back to Ze
ta Reticuli?” Carson asked. “I’m not a diplomat, and I don’t know anything about making first contact. Which,” he reminded, “the Kesh aren’t interested in anyway.”

  “But you have talked to them before, however briefly, so you might be the best person for the job. And that presents me with a dilemma.” Ducayne sat forward, putting his hands on his desk. “I actually had another assignment for you.”

  “Of course you did,” Carson said resignedly. He was about to complain that his recent assignments had had little to do with archeology as such, like being sent to 82 Eridani for a completely unnecessary follow up on what Jackie had been doing there. Although, he had to admit, that had led to investigating the presumed-Kesh wreck on Kapteyn’s II. He held his tongue.

  “Were you about to say something else?”

  “No. You were saying, about a different assignment?”

  “Have you had your fill of pyramids yet? Pardon the pun.”

  Carson eyed Ducayne warily. “That depends,” he said, “what did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I think you’ll like this one. You’ve been wanting to follow up on the Spacefarers, the original pyramid builders. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, but I’m also interested in the Kesh. I agree with your feeling there’s something they haven’t been telling us.”

  “They haven’t been telling us much of anything, so that’s hardly a surprise. But that’s not really archeology, is it?”

  “Unearthing what they’ve really been doing for the past few thousand years since they developed space flight is.”

  Ducayne nodded. “You’re right, and that does tie in with what I want you to do. Listen, Carson, there’s a war coming. No, not with the Kesh,” Ducayne hastily added at Carson’s expression, “but with the Velkaryans, or at least with some of the territories controlled by them. It’s not that the UDT wants one, but we can’t sit by and let the Velkaryans continue to act on their agenda. On Earth, they would have already had a visit from UDT Peace Enforcers, but our Space Forces aren’t quite ready for that.”