It’s nearly time for lunch when my shovel hits something solid. I strike deep, clearing away more dirt in another spot, but am stopped again and again by the hidden barrier.
A shiver runs down my spine as I step back to see what I’ve uncovered. The stone is perfectly smooth, extending in all directions. Not broken bits of rubble, like what we found so far. The silence rings in my ears and I notice the girls have joined me, staring up at the wall with wide eyes.
Masi clears away more dirt and stones on either side, but the rock seems to extend forever. Finally we find an edge; but it’s just a hairline crack between another massive stone. These megaliths are bigger than my cabin. One and I could have discounted as a natural phenomenon, some kind of weird geology or volcanic rock. Two, fitted together like this… it makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“How old is it?” I ask.
“Thirty thousand years?” Masi says. “Maybe more.” He starts digging at the base of the wall, until a deep trench forms. I send Janice and Claryce to ask for the ladder so we can reach higher. Twenty minutes later I hear them return, the ladder clanging between the two of them. We set the ladder up eagerly and I climb up to work on the top of the wall, knocking down piles of dirt for the girls to shovel to the side.
We send the anti-grav cart full of dirt, but leave out the chunks of embellished stone we found. There are too many of them to hide, and we don’t want the Kreons to find out what we’ve discovered until we find a way in.
When our rations come back in the empty cart, we sit in a row, staring at the structure. It looks like it could withstand a nuclear blast.
“There’s got to be a door or an opening or something,” Masi mutters. He’s nearly up to his neck now, digging deeper into the earth. The smooth expanse of rock dwarfs him. The giant stones are fitted together perfectly, but grooved with subtle lines forming some kind of larger, jagged pattern. They remind me of the discarded computer circuitry I’ve seen on electronic devices, but on an impossible scale.
I’m so absorbed I don’t notice footsteps behind me until it’s too late.
The mech guard stands like a statue behind me, and its red eyes glow in the darkness of the tunnel.
“You found it,” he says. There’s emotion in his voice that doesn’t fit the metal shell and wires of its robotic body. Awe, or maybe dread.
My heart sinks as I look up into his mechanical face.
So much for keeping secrets.
SIXTEEN
HE RAISES THE LASER CANON on his arm, and I shield the girls protectively with my body.
“Did you just uncover this today?” he asks, pointing at the wall.
My hands get clammy as I look up at the guard. I nearly choke on the last bit of protein bar I’ve just stuffed in my mouth. “Yes, we figured we’d get it cleaned up a bit more before showing you. We found these too,” I say, gesturing at the row of broken shards of stone against the dirt wall of the cave.
The red eyes blink and I can almost hear him processing.
Then he turns and hustles off without another word.
“We need to see what’s in there before they send the supervisor, Rya.”
“How?” I ask, swallowing my panic.
I rap my knuckles on the hard stone.
Masi jerks his head and I follow him towards the trench. My eyes widen as I see what he’s uncovered. It’s the triangular arch of a doorway, framed by pieces of decorative stone like the ones we found earlier. I can see that some of them are broken off, and the doorway itself leans crookedly to one side.
I lower myself into the pit and help him, awkwardly shoveling out more dirt for the girls to collect. There’s barely room for the two of us. Masi’s shoulder brushes up against mine as we dig deeper with our hands. I automatically lean away.
It takes twenty minutes just to uncover the top of the doorway, even though it’s already taller than I am. But there’s no opening that I can see, just a solid slab of black obsidian. I can see designs and texture on the whole door now. I step back and look at it. It’s beautiful, but foreign at the same time. I wonder about the story Masi told me. This looks like the entrance to an important building, not a mausoleum. Why build something this large just to contain one rebel princess?
“What do you want us to do?” asks one of the older girls, leaning over the pit.
From her body language I think she’s still nervous around Masi. Most of the girls have just accepted his presence, though they still keep their distance. I realize with a start we’ve spent the last few hours working side-by-side. For all his strangeness, I was starting to think of him as an ally, maybe even a friend.
“Choose another girl to work with you,” I say. “We’ll lift up buckets of dirt, you can grab them and pass them to the others.” I’m hoping that if she works with us it will put her at ease around Masi. If anything happens to me, they need another adult who can look out for them.
Her smile freezes, but she looks at the door and nods. She picks one of the other girls and they grab buckets to hand down to us.
“The rest of you get busy clearing the other end of the wall. Maybe you’ll find another window or door. This building can’t be that big.” I smile at them as they take their exhausted little bodies to the other side of the tunnel to work. I need them to keep busy. It’s hard not to be drawn to the impressive entrance we’ve uncovered, but I can’t have them blocking the light as we work.
Once we finally scrape our way to what looks like the bottom of the doorway, I have the two girls start digging around the wall to the side of the door, while Masi and I work on figuring out whether or not we can get it open.
“So tell me what they’re looking for,” I whisper as we try to leverage the door open with one of the shovels. There’s no handle or anything to grab on to. He pulls the shovel out of my hand and starts tapping on the door experimentally. The two girls are out of hearing as long as I stay close to him when I speak. I’m not sure why I’m still keeping secrets from them, but I don’t want them to find out we made unreported discoveries, or that we’d discussed hiding it from the Kreons.
“Honestly, nobody really knows. The ancient records show the basic outline of the tomb, but the location and details were lost.”
A shiver creeps up my spine. I frown and wipe sweat across my brow, leaving a trail of dirt. Who was Masi really? How could he have gained access to these ancient Kreon plans? Before I can ask, the alarm sounds again sending the girls scurrying toward me.
“It’s fine,” I call. “They’ve probably just reported our find. Keep working and I’m sure we’ll be rewarded.” I hate myself for giving them false hope, but I need them distracted for now.
Masi pounds on the door in frustration. I’ve never seen him so unsettled.
“Even if we find this ancient artifact,” I whisper, “won’t they just take it away from us once we find it?”
“Not if we can disable it first,” he stops and looks at me. At least his helmet is pointed in my direction, so I’m assuming he’s looking at me. “This weapon, what do you think will happen to the humans they’ve enslaved if they get it? To the compounds, and the miners? Everything has been in service of this one agenda. Do you really think they’ll still need you? That they’ll even stay?”
For a second, hope flares in my chest at the thought of the Kreon finding their ancient artifact and leaving. Disappearing back into space, taking their robots with them. But then I think about Jamie and my stomach clenches painfully. “What are you trying to say?” I whisper, my hands clenched tightly to my sides.
“Right now, the Kreon empire is spread across galaxies, but it takes them decades to travel between all their outposts. Centuries even. Imagine if they could travel at the speed of light. Further and further, consuming everything in their path. Hundreds of worlds. Thousands. It’ll never stop.”
Anger rises up in me. I place my hand on the doorframe for balance.
“That’s why
they’ve invested in the compounds, in training human slaves. They’re counting on a long-term outpost. But if they leave, they’ll take their new pets with them.”
He lowers the shovel and his arms hang at his sides.
I bite my lip as the girls walk by with a bucket for the cart.
No wonder Masi was so determined to find the artifact.
My head is buzzing with all that Masi has said, and the warnings that Elan gave me this morning. I feel stuck between two worlds. I could try to escape with Elan and leave everything behind—or take a stand and fight the Kreon, for real, by destroying the one thing they want most.
I couldn’t help thinking about New Terra. This was the intel that Tessa had gone into the compound to find. People were risking their lives for this information, and somehow I’d ended up right in the center of it, about to discover it with my own hands.
But it was much worse than they even imagined. It wasn’t just a weapon or power source. It was a chance for the Kreon to have unlimited and total dominion, over everything. Once they got it, no planet in the universe would be safe from them or beyond their reach.
I remember the anger I felt when first coming to the mine, of everything the Kreon had taken from me. I’d never wanted any part of the rebellion. After my parents disappeared, I just wanted to avoid everything and retreat from the world, but somehow fate had led me here. If the Kreon found their artifact, they’d take Jamie to serve in their violent empire, plundering and burning their way through the skies. Maybe I’d never see the stars again, maybe I’d be buried down here like Masi’s dead princess, but I could do this one thing. This one act of defiance. Even if it meant sacrificing myself so that Jamie might one day be free.
“Okay,” I say finally. “I trust you. If you say the Kreon can’t get this thing, we won’t let them. Whatever it takes.”
He nods and turns his attention back to the door.
“We don’t have much time,” Masi says. “Now that they know the door is here, they’ll widen the tunnels for the mechanical drills.”
I turn to examine the door again. I have Masi wedge his shovel at one edge of the smooth rock, and I wedge mine at the other. We pull the shovels outward trying to pry the door loose. I’m sweating when I finally hold a hand up to stop.
“This isn’t working,” I say.
He runs his gloved hand over the carved stone.
“Maybe it’s not supposed to open like a regular door.”
“What do you mean?” I step beside him.
“There’s no door handle or any hinges visible.”
“Right. That’s why I’m trying to pry it open.”
“But I think we need to slide it up instead.”
I shake my head. “Most doors open outward. And if it’s full of dirt on the other side, we’ll have to break it into pieces and keep digging.”
He bobs his head. “Let’s try anyway. Come on.” He points to my side of the door and places both hands on his side. “Push.”
I’m doubtful, but I do as he says.
We push up with all of our strength, digging our boots into the dirt to give us more leverage. But nothing happens. It’s way too heavy to lift, especially since we can’t put something beneath it for leverage.
“What about sliding it sideways?” I ask. We try again, awkwardly pushing to the left, and then the right. I’m about to give up when I feel the stone catch on something. We strain against the rock, and I feel the door sliding into the earth, rolling on an invisible mechanism. The door keeps going as we push, and soon I feel an icy chill that curls my breath into a fine mist past my lips.
I look at Masi, my eyes wide.
“You were right.” We’ve only opened the door halfway, but it’s already created a gap that’s just big enough for us to slip through. I marvel at the dark void.
“I’m afraid so. We need to hurry.” He looks nervously down the tunnel. I can hear the clank of heavy machinery, and it’s getting closer. I look between him and the darkness on the other side of the door.
“Then let’s go,” I say.
He nods his head.
The two girls working with us crowd closer, excited to see inside the chamber. I touch each of their shoulders softly. “We don’t know what kind of creepy things we might find in there. It might not be treasure or the fun things we talked about. It could be dangerous, so I need you to stay here and look out for the other girls.”
They seem disappointed, and only my sharp look keeps them from arguing.
I watch as they join the girls on the other side of the cave.
Then I reach into my pocket and pull out several unused glow sticks. I crack two open and hand one to Masi. He raises it above his head, casting himself in fluorescent green light, and steps into the darkness. I follow, my heart beating loudly.
We find the room nearly empty of dirt. Wide stone stairs lead down into a rectangular cavern, perfectly cut out of the rock. The floor is set with large patterned tiles, and the ceiling is so high I can barely make it out under the feeble light from the glow stick. Decorated pillars as round as trees flank us as we creep slowly forward, and I have a feeling the expanse around us is even larger than what I can see.
“This room has been well preserved,” I say. “Mostly.”
I walk carefully forward, looking around in the grim greenish glow of our lights, with Masi following close beside me. The room looks like it extends into the darkness forever. I stop and head away from the wall to see how far the opposite side goes. In the middle of the room I step down into a dip in the floor, twisting my ankle. Masi catches me before I fall.
I look down to see deep groves have been cut down the length of the room.
“Think this was for water?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I heard liquid mercury was piped through to keep her power suppressed. This could be one of those channels.”
“Hmm,” is all I can think of to say. I gingerly place weight on my foot and step over the channel with a slight limp. Finally we make our way to the central chamber, where a raised platform offers a wide stone sarcophagus, made of a translucent purple rock I think might be amethyst, and trimmed with gold. It sparkles in the light as we approach. Behind it, tall pillars of black stone stand guard like a crown, covered in the dense alien script we’d seen earlier. They remind me of tombstones. Masi steps closer to them, lifting his light to study the markings. Their gold pigment is mostly intact, making the letters seem to glow as Masi moves his hand.
Stone shelves, hidden in recesses along the walls, beckon with gleaming objects made of onyx and gold. We find sealed vases, figurines carved in amazing detail, and an assortment of stone and ceramic vessels.
The whole thing reminds me of the sacrificial altars I saw in one of Dad’s old magazines. A pang goes through my chest as I picture my cabin. It seems so long ago that I was living there. I stumble as pain shoots up my leg, and lean heavily against the stone sarcophagus.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Masi turns to look back at me.
“I’m fine. Just remembering something.”
“Does this remind you of the last ancient alien tomb you raided?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s kidding. I’ll bet he’s smiling under that helmet, even if I can’t see it. I walk around the square box, my fingers tracing the stone. Something cold rolls away at my touch. I reach deeper beneath the lid, to find small shelves hidden under the lip of the slab of stone. More objects are tucked away on these discrete cavities. I kneel down to get a better look.
Masi kneels next to me. We study the objects together. They’re perfectly preserved, as if they were made yesterday, but I have no idea what they’re for. Most look like they’re made of gold and silver with all shades of jewels set in the designs that wrap around them. Some are in shapes of strange creatures and plants and flowers I don’t recognize. Each one must be worth a small fortune.
I pick up a metal insect and my eyes go r
ound as I realize it’s a tiny machine, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
“This is amazing,” I say. My voice echoes in the dark space. I take a deep breath, then rub my arms and shiver against the cold.
“The Kreons will take all this away, won’t they?”
He nods his helmet.
“Do you think any of these are what they’re looking for?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “Maybe it’s inside.”
He nods at the stone coffin. I shudder, but he’s probably right.
“That lid probably weighs five tons.”
“There must be a hidden mechanism, like the door.” He says, shoving and pushing on different parts of the stone box.
I frown, looking at the assortment of items and the large stone pillars behind the tomb. It reminds me of something I saw once, in the stained-glass ruin of a church. Stepping closer, I realize there’s a small alcove in the middle of the largest stone. I put my hand inside the shadowy space of dark rock cautiously, feeling around, then look down at the metallic seams laid into the floor, spreading out like rays of the sun.
“It’s a circuit,” I breathe. Masi’s head snaps towards me.
“See? Something goes here, something is missing. I think… I think we’re supposed to choose.”
“An offering,” Masi nods. “The Lucarite were a superstitious people.”
I ignore the unfamiliar word or the fact that Masi knows it, and pull out as many objects as I can find from the hidden cupboards and shelves. I make a pile of everything lined with silver, copper and gold, then divide it into objects of roughly the right shape and size. I toss them to Masi one by one, who fits them into the slot before discarding them to the side.
Just as I’m about to toss him another, I feel a rumbling beneath me. A shower of dust and pebbles falls lightly from the ceiling, pattering around me like hail.
“Do you feel that?” I look to Masi.
“Yes, we don’t have much time.”
I kick over the scattered objects on the ground with my foot.
We’ve already tried everything the right shape and size. I hold my glow stick between my teeth for better light and pick up the discarded objects to study them more closely. My pulse quickens when I lift a carved horse made of black onyx and notice it’s wearing silver shoes and a golden crown. When I hold the light behind it, I can just make out slim channels of metal running through the figurine like wires.
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