by Dan Worth
‘The fact that two of those objects point towards the rings would seem to indicate that the two are linked,’ said Rekkid. ‘Perhaps they’re part of the same device?’
‘Yes that was our first thought,’ agreed Spiers. ‘But a device for what?’
‘Beats me. On the other hand, maybe they could be underground settlements? Some species are subterranean after all. Perhaps their cities drew power from the rings?’
‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to rely on geothermal power, given their location?’ said Spiers. ‘Anyway, we intend to conduct some deeper scans of the objects, Professor. Until then this is all just academic speculation. Whoever these people were, they were certainly capable of some very impressive engineering.’
‘Captain,’ said Katherine. ‘Is there any indication that anything you’ve found could be linked to the Arkari?’
‘We’re not sure about the structures themselves,’ Spiers replied. ‘But we found something else too, in the dust sea. Wait till you see this.’ Spiers zoomed in on the globe until the screen was filled with the map of the Alreda Sea with two points marked towards the centre. He then continued with his commentary. ‘Due to the nature of the dust and other loose materials that fill this large natural basin our sensors were able to probe much more deeply than they would through solid rock. Hence we were able to image the sea floor as well the rocks that lie below the dust layer. We found these objects lying on the bottom. They appear to be artificial and the returns and gravimetric readings we’re getting off them indicate that they are metallic and possibly hollow.’
‘These objects.’ queried Katherine. ‘How large are they?’
‘One is about a kilometre in length, the other is slightly larger. Here, I’ll show you.’ Spiers replaced the map with composite images taken from the ship’s sensors. One showed a graceful tapered shape, like that of a fish. The other was quite different: a battered shape which tapered at both ends but which swelled and subdivided into additional tapered sections in the middle. They were unmistakeable.
‘My god, Captain,’ said Rekkid. ‘I know what these are.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. The image on the left here is an Arkari ship of a design in use around ten thousand years ago. The other resembles the Arkari craft that we found floating between Barnard’s Star and Arcturus and which we believe to be around a million years old.’
‘Yes we thought that they might be ship wrecks too. I heard about that find of yours though. You two were dismissed as cranks weren’t you?’
‘That we were, Captain,’ replied Rekkid icily. ‘However, I imagine our reputations are about to be exonerated.’
‘Well I hate to cast any doubts on that Professor, but you may not get the chance. Those wrecks are resting on the bottom under a kilometre of dust. My guess would be that that’s the only reason they’ve survived. Anything that size falling out of orbit would leave a huge hole in the ground otherwise. The sea must have acted together with any shielding they had to cushion their fall and preserve them.’
‘There’s no way of raising them?’ said Katherine. ‘We’ve done it with sea ships before many times.’
‘That dust is much heavier than water Doctor. You’d need a powerful field generator to extract the wrecks, or else the weight of the dust would snap them in two when you moved them. Your best bet would be to use sand crawlers to burrow down to the wrecks, but I’m afraid we don’t have one on board. You’ll have to ask the Army for one I’d imagine.’
Rekkid sighed. ‘Well it’ll have to wait then I suppose. Never mind, at least we have these buried structures to keep us busy! Thank you for this Captain, you’ve been a great help to us. You and your ship have proven invaluable.’
‘I look forward to hearing about what you find down there,’ said Spiers. ‘I’ll be in touch when we’ve conducted our deep scans of the objects. Until then, Spiers out.’ his image vanished from Rekkid’s screen, leaving them with the stack of incredible imagery from the Darwin.
‘Well!’ exclaimed Rekkid. ‘Who’d have thought that this little planet would turn out to be so interesting? We could have discovered a whole new civilisation! These structures inside the planet, the rings – they all seem to be the product of a highly advanced society.’
‘I can’t wait to see what’s down there, underneath that hatch,’ said Katherine.
‘Me too Katherine.’ said Rekkid, his eyes gleaming eagerly. ‘Me too, but this is much bigger than we can handle alone. I suggest that we see what’s down there and prepare a preliminary report of our findings. We can use that to request a larger team, more funding and resources from Earth and give these artefacts the proper attention that they deserve. This could mean years of work Katherine, not just in excavation, but in cataloguing our finds and studying them all properly, not to mention the scientific study of any new technologies we might find buried down there.’
‘Yes, I agree. If this is evidence of a whole new ancient civilisation we could have opened up a whole new field of study here Rekkid. But something troubles me though.’
‘What?’
‘Those images of wrecked Arkari vessels: what if Quickchild’s estimates were wrong? What if these structures were created by the Arkari? Considering the nest of hornets we stirred up by finding that ship before, we could be in real trouble. What if they try to forcibly intervene this time? What if we get arrested?’
Rekkid saw the fear resurfacing in Katherine. He put a hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. ‘Katherine, don’t worry,’ he said calmly. ‘We have Steven with us… Steven?’ Rekkid turned to the figure lurking in the corner fiddling with the straps on his pack.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ll watch over us, won’t you? Katherine has nothing to fear, isn’t that so?’
Steven continued to concentrate on his pack. He couldn’t look Katherine in the eye and give her an answer. In truth, he himself didn’t know if he could protect them.
‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I’ll watch your backs, I promise. Anyone arrives on the planet that shouldn’t be here and I’ll know. I have my contacts back in Erais: Ambassador Croft for one.’
‘So let’s get to work on that hatch. In fact, Steven, would you like to join us? We could use an able bodied helper, and it would mean you could watch over us both and give you something to do.’
‘Alright, at least this way I get to see what you two are so excited about down there. I’ll just gather my gear.’
‘Very good,’ said Rekkid contentedly. ‘Well, let get to it shall we?’
Work on the hatch was difficult. Despite being badly corroded on the outside, the core metal of the hatch and its bolts was still sound. Rekkid’s initial plan to use hand tools break the metal bolts in two proved unworkable. In the end they had to find heavier cutting equipment. A hurried trip to the railway yard produced industrial cutting gear that had to hefted onto carts then transported to the temple along with a couple of Dendratha mechanics who were enlisted by Rekkid to show them how to operate the device, though even after he negotiated a suitable amount they seemed unwilling to actually do the job themselves.
Whilst she was waiting, Katherine, with Kukadis, organised the students into starting the preliminary studies on the twelve bodies in situ, recording every aspect of their burials and their appearance in order to determine if they were indeed the twelve missing priests. Early studies were encouraging - especially after Katherine carbon dated a scale from one body and found it to be around ten thousand years in age.
Rekkid returned an hour or so later with the cutting gear and they got to work. Nevertheless, it was still a difficult task cutting the two dozen heavy bolts that secured the hatch to the rock. The chamber was cramped and airless and grew increasingly hot and dusty from the work. Katherine cursed the fine dust which fell from the ceiling as the vibrations from the cutting gear shook it loose after millennia of accretion. It got into her eyes through her goggles, up her nose through her face mask, into her hair and ea
rs and skin. Rekkid and Steven appeared to fairing little better, Rekkid’s complexion was rendered reddish brown by the dust, small drifts of which collected between the plates of his head crest.
Finally, after some hours, as the last bolt severed they levered the heavy metal hatch aside with a clang that reverberated loudly in the small space. Katherine removed her goggles, the relatively dust free area around her eyes showing up white in the gloom, then peered over the lip of the gaping round hole they had uncovered in the centre of the room.
The utter blackness stared back at her as a musty, stale smell assailed her nostrils. She couldn’t see the bottom so she reached for her torch and shone it down into the dark. The beam ended in a small spot a few metres below, where it illuminated a smooth, slightly reflective surface scattered with small pieces of fallen stone and dust. Rekkid and Steven too were peering over the edge for a look.
‘Hmm, four metres I should think,’ mused Rekkid.
‘Shouldn’t be too much trouble.’ said Steven confidently. ‘I reckon we can rig up a rope winch to get us down there. A pity no-one on this planet can use a ladder save for ourselves.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Katherine, shining her torch around the bottom of the hole and finding that the walls too, were unusually smooth and regular. ‘You know this temple is supposedly built on top of a sacred cave or something?’
‘The Cave of Maran,’ said Rekkid. ‘Yes, the thought had occurred to me too.’
It took some time to construct a rope winch above the hole. Luckily, they were able to borrow pulleys and gear from the builders amongst the monks who continually maintained the temple and who obligingly offered their services in operating the rickety equipment. Even so, the gloom and cramped conditions made the work awkward. Eventually, the winch secure, Steven erected comm. signal boosters to allow the three of them to speak to the surface and to the Darwin if need be, then they lowered their equipment down into the darkness, before following it themselves. .
Torch beams piercing the blackness, they looked about them. They were in a long corridor that curved away from them downwards into the earth. Its floor and walls were composed of a smooth, dark metal, seamless and slightly reflective, yet which offered sufficient grip underfoot for easy walking. The walls arched up and over to form the vaulted ceiling which bulged into strengthening ribs every ten yards or so. It was like staring down the throat of an immense beast.
They began to walk. The corridor’s curve lessened to become a steady gradient which led them ever deeper into the ground. They moved in silence and enveloping darkness broke only by their echoing footsteps and the all too feeble light of their torches. The chill air smelt like the grave. As they walked they began to notice blemishes on the previously pristine walls, places where the material had been gouged or melted, or chipped by some impact. Further on, the incidence of these marks increased.
Several hundred metres further on, the gradient flattened and they came to an immense set of doors. They were armoured and metal and not unlike those found on spacecraft airlocks, however it was apparent that they had been forced aside and one had been left half open. They were pitted with countless weapon strikes.
There was writing on the doors. It had been applied as if stencilled on and was hard to make out under all the cratering and scarring. The sentences had been divided awkwardly by the doors being opened, but the characters were familiar to both Rekkid and Katherine. They were exactly the same as those they had seen on the walls of the wreck, and in Captain Cortill’s log that they had found there. They were ancient Arkari.
Rekkid took out his computer and accessed the dictionary he had stored within it. Having done so, he began to translate.
‘Warning: Do not enter. This device was claimed by the Great Empire of the Arkari 24.01/01/6782 in the name of Pro-Consul Astani Durdino for the good of all. This is a military installation. Violation of this notice is punishable by death. Hmm.’ he added. ‘It seems as if someone didn’t take too much notice of the warning.’
‘Well, I expect they were unable to read it. The Dendratha holy texts claim it was one of their species who opened the Cave of Maran as they call it.’
‘Yes, it must have taken some effort to open this door though.’
Steven stepped up to the doors and pushed it, it failed to move. ‘Too right,’ he said looking over his shoulder at them both. ‘Seems pretty solid. Somebody left in a hurry though, if they left the door open…’ He looked through the gap and saw something, an armoured shadow in the darkness. ‘What the hell?’ he muttered. ‘There’s something lying on the floor on the other side.’
Katherine and Rekkid stepped forward to look, there was a large form lying in the middle of the corridor. Keeping their torches trained on the object the three of them passed through the great doors. The thing was huge, the size of a tank and was sprawled on its front facing away from the door.
Four segmented legs supported a silvery torso that was armour plated like that of a crustacean. The torso tapered to a small head that was little more than a collection of sensors. Moving back from the head on the underside was a series of spindly manipulator arms resembling the legs of crab, but which were tipped with delicate many-fingered hands.
Moving further down the length of the beast, its body sprouted what looked like a number of weapon turrets from its back, whilst on its belly were mounted additional limbs. These were much larger than those situated near the head and ended in curving blades, sharpened to molecular precision. The armoured insectile legs of the thing lay folded under its sprawled form.
But it had been smashed. The right hand side of the creature had been mangled by some sort of high energy impact which had crumpled the head along one side and cut a huge gouge through the torso. The exotic metals had melted into a pool of slag that welded that side of the beast to the floor. As they shone their torches around the corridor they saw that the walls and floor were scarred with innumerable craters and gouges and that there were other remains: An Arkari arm, skeletal and mangled. Half of a Dendratha’s skull, the other half torn away by an immense blow. Discarded equipment and weapons and fragments of shattered armour plating littered the floor.
‘My god…’ murmured Steven. ‘This must have been one hell of a fire fight, look at all these impact points. You think the Arkari were fighting this thing, whatever it is?’
‘Yes, I do Steven,’ agreed Rekkid. ‘As for what this thing is – I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘Maybe it was guarding this place. What if there are more of them?’
‘No, no I think it was trying to get in. Look, there are fewer marks on this side of the doors, and those marks on the insides of each door seem to indicate the doors were forced apart.’
‘They barricaded themselves in here you mean?’ said Katherine.
‘Yes. What good it did them I don’t know.’
‘Look at this though, you two,’ she said, stepping around to the damaged thing’s flank. ‘See, no inner workings. It’s just solid material all the way through. Though if you look closely,’ she peered into the gaping wound. ‘There are intricate patterns all the way through the material, like fractals or circuitry or something.’
‘I know what that thing’s made of,’ said Steven suddenly.
‘You do?’
‘Roughly, yes. It’s a nanotech material. During my training we were taught about alien technologies, or what the Commonwealth knows about them or thinks it knows. The Arkari and the Esacir have quite advanced nanotech materials, they use them in their star ships for one, and in cross section it looks like this. Whatever this thing is, it came from a very advanced civilisation.’
‘You ever see anything like this thing this during your ah… training, Steven?’ said Rekkid.
‘No, never. It sort of looks like Arkari tech but to be honest I don’t think the Arkari have nanotech this refined. I think this entire creature, mechanoid, or whatever it is, would be able to reconfigure itself at will if it wanted to.’
‘Amazing, absolutely amazing,’ mused Rekkid. ‘Maybe we should press on; perhaps we’ll find the answers we’re looking for ahead of us?’
Leaving the smashed metal creature behind them they pressed on into the gloom, past more bodies and debris and other signs of battle. Another creature emerged from the darkness ahead and they stopped to examine it. It lay on its back, its silvery body blown almost clean in half. This one had six legs and more weapon turrets though it lacked the slashing arms, and if upright and intact would have squatted low on its multiple limbs like a crab.
It guarded the end of the corridor. Beyond it, the space swelled to a huge vaulted chamber hundreds of metres across. It was filled with serried rank upon rank of obelisks - concentric rows of mysterious machinery of unknown purpose that filled the floor and ceiling save for a space at the centre. Intact and in apparently pristine condition, they had been standing silently in the dark for millennia and rose on all sides around the amphitheatre shaped space.
As they entered the chamber it was suddenly flooded with light. Motion sensors detected their presence and illuminated the vast artificial cavern, drawing power from energy stacks unused for a hundred centuries and which were still in perfect working order. The three of them gasped in wonder as the chamber dragged itself from its age long slumber. The banks of obelisks stirred into life, unknown energies flowing beneath their surfaces as the hum of waking machinery grew.
At the centre of the chamber lay a raised platform which, like the rest of the chamber was slowly coming on line. Its appearance was less pristine. The graceful lines of the original technology had been sullied by the grafting on of cruder devices. A primitive computer terminal had been literally bolted to the platform. Seemingly grossly out of place, it attracted the two Humans and Arkari to it as it too came online.
Closer inspection revealed the truth. The terminal seemed to be ancient Arkari, judging by the characters printed on its casing and keyboard, but it had had additional modules grafted onto it. These were much more recent and of a far more advanced design and they clung to the ancient device like silvered polyps. There was no mistaking the familiar Arkari characters that began to fill its screen.