Strange Temple

by John Lilley

  One of them looked towards the group and shouted ‘Great to see you chaps, be over in a jiffy.’

  ‘Definitely Tin-Men,’ Ian said under his breath.

  Everyone else smiled in confirmation. Only a Tin-Man would have that kind of mid-20th century Public School accent and vocabulary.

  The two simulants finished packing their chutes in seconds and bounded towards the edge of the wadi. Not even pausing to assess their route they jumped down the 12 metres into the wadi and sped across its bottom towards the stack. The rest of the team who were in the Wadi jumped visibly at their sudden appearance.

  ‘What’s the best way up, old bean?’ enquired the lead simulant.

  One of the team pointed to the steps and away the simulants went. It had been less than a minute from their landing when Ian’s party on top of the stack saw the first of the simulants faces rise above the edge of the stack.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ exclaimed Ivan in a soft voice as he stared open mouthed at the two 2.2 metre tall agents.

  ‘Nothing to worry about chaps,’ said the lead agent. ‘We’re here to help you. I’m Jeremy, and my friend here is Tarquin. We’re both industrial archaeologists.’

  Ian was taking a close look at the two agents. They seemed to be identical to the two which had intercepted him on his last mission in North Africa. The only thing that had changed was their names: the ones in Africa were Jasper and Gervais. Most of what they carried in the packs on their webbing, Ian could guess at. However, he didn’t like the look of the pistols they were packing in their waist holsters, there was something very different about them. Anyway, thank goodness they couldn’t read our thoughts, or could they?

  Julie had just regained her composure: ‘Welcome guys, this is Ivan,’ she said as she pointed to the old man who was still transfixed on the top step.

  ‘Please to meet you,’ said Tarquin walking forward and enclosing Ivan’s outstretched hand in a paw the size of a ham. ‘I see you’re about to give us the ten-cent tour, please carry on.’

  With some hesitation, Ivan continued to work his way down the ladder. Tarquin gestured the others forward, then he and Jeremy followed up the rear. The two agents were too broad at the shoulder to fit down the opening so had to keep one arm extended above their heads. Even so, it was a tight fit for them.

  The ladder ended in a small dimly lit room some 20 metres below the surface. From there Ivan led them down a gently sloping corridor which opened into a large room roughly 25 metres square.

  ‘This is my main living room,’ said Ivan.

  They had a brief impression of a very messy existence, typical of a single guy who had been on his own for a long time. Ivan didn’t dwell at all in the first room but led the way down another corridor to the generator room and then straight on to the hydroponics centre. This was the most impressive of all the rooms, mainly because it was just so bright in there. The UV lighting made the racks of plants glow a bright green. The whole process was very efficiently controlled by a computer which was nearly 150 years old, but there was not much more to see.

  Ivan kept up a running commentary as they walked around the complex. He explained that the many other corridors were lined with store rooms and the occasional operations room, none of which had been used since the facility was destroyed. All of the original accommodation had been above ground and had been blown away in the initial explosions. The survivors had all been scientists who had been working in the underground laboratories at the time of the attack. The hydroponics facility had been built after the attack and grew the varieties of experimental vegetables which were being developed in the labs. The initial concern of the survivors had been their air supply. It appeared that all of the ventilation shafts had been sheared off and filled with rubble by the explosions. Several days of frantic digging got one of the smaller vents open. It was also an opportunity to observe the extent of the damage outside. The survivors were careful only to come out of the vent at night. The devastation had been extensive, and there were still high levels of radiation, which was a problem, but it did keep the migrants away. At that time there were still grasses and trees growing across the plain, and the network of gravel roads was still serviceable. The facility had always been off the beaten track and very quickly was forgotten as the roads fell into disrepair and became overgrown. Years later the great fires raged across the area, removing most of the remaining vegetation and fauna. The cycle of sun, wind and rain erosion did the rest. Within 80 years, the area was a desert.

  The tour had now finished, and they were back in Ivan’s living room.

  ‘Well I’m not being very hospitable,’ he said, ‘you must all try some of my soup.’

  He was standing at a large cooking range on which was a collection of iron pots. Ivan felt the side of one pot and then lifted the lid.

  ‘Still warm and only made yesterday,’ he proclaimed. ‘Now I’m going to struggle to find enough mugs.’

  ‘Just five will do,’ said Ian looking straight at Julian and Tarquin, before either of the agents could refuse.

  Disturbingly for Ian, both agents smiled what seemed to be a knowing smile while flashing him a dispassionate glance. As if to say: OK, we know your game mate.

  The soup actually tasted okay, it was definitely made from fresh vegetables, a welcome change from the freeze-dried stuff in the survey trucks.

  ‘Ivan, would you mind awfully if Julian and I do a little exploring of our own?’ asked Tarquin.

  ‘Of course not, be my guest,’ said Ivan, still intimidated by the agents.

  ‘Splendid, see you anon,’ said Julian.

  The two agents rapidly disappeared back down the tunnel leading to the laboratories.

  ‘What do you think they are looking for?’ asked Ivan.

  ‘Old archives and ancient electronic equipment, stuff like that. I don’t know what use Mother has for it. Surely she can fabricate any circuit known to man and many others which aren’t? All I know is what they took away from an old military site we found in northern Africa,’ said Ian.

  ‘Perhaps they will appear in the technology heritage site, alongside Leo and Baby?’ offered Julie.

  ‘We may never know, but technology from this era was often quite lethal, it’s more likely to make it into the war museum,’ said Ian. ‘Ivan, have you any idea what this facility was originally designed for?’

  ‘Mainly biological and military research for Russia, well biology was what this block did. The other blocks were destroyed in the attack. My father had a theory that they were deliberately destroyed from within once an external attack looked like it was going to gain access. He reckoned that the only reason that some of the bio-block survived was that they didn’t have time to fill it with charges in the run-up to the attack,’ said Ivan.

  ‘Interesting, I wouldn’t be surprised if our friends-electric come back with some serious digging equipment,’ said Ian. He was cut off by a loud squeaking noise coming from the tunnel. Almost immediately Julian and Tarquin appeared pushing an ancient trolley loaded with a collection of dusty old boxes. One of its wheels was squeaking madly.

  ‘Well, what have you there?’ enquired Ian.

  ‘Just some old junk we found in one of the labs,’ said Tarquin. ‘Would you mind if we took it away for further study Ivan?’

  ‘Of course you can, I doubt if I’ll have any use for it,’ said Ivan.

  ‘Oh and one more thing Ivan,’ said Julian.

  ‘Yes?’ said Ivan.

  ‘We would like to take copies of all your archives. Is there a terminal where we can access them?’ continued Julian.

  ‘Certainly, the most serviceable one is just there on the other side of this room,’ said Ivan, pointing the grey monitor and base unit.

  ‘Super,’ exclaimed Julian as the two agents approached the ancient hardware.

  Ian could not help the thought going through his head that the scene was one of two machines visiting their ancestors.

  Tarquin removed a small device fro
m one of the pouches on his combat harness. From another pouch, he produced a small box full of various adapters. Selecting a USB4 connector, he connected the base unit to the small radio device.

  ‘The password is “password123”’ shouted Ivan across the room.

  ‘When will people ever learn?’ said Tarquin with a smile.

  The ancient machine booted up and kept the two agents busy for the next twenty minutes.

  ‘OK I think we have what we need now,’ announced Tarquin.

  ‘But there’s many petabytes of information in there?’ queried Ivan.

  All the survey team smiled. Poor old Ivan, he really was from another age.

  ‘We can always come back if we missed something can’t we?’ asked Tarquin in an attempt to humour Ivan.

  ‘Of course, no problem,’ said Ivan. He was beginning to pick up something in the tone and manner of the agent that rang small alarm bells in the core of his hard-wired old brain stem. The bit which is programmed to say “Not one of us: Fight or flight”, but he managed to keep the lid on it.

  ‘Julie, would you have such a thing as a cargo net back at the vehicles?’ enquired Julian in his crisp public school English.

  ‘Oh I’m sure we can rustle something up,’ said Julie.

  The team took it in turns going up and down the ladder to bring the items the agents had selected to the surface. Ian took the opportunity to have a good look at them. In the main, they were small hard-disk packs, just like the one he’d seen in the science museum when he was a child. The strange Cyrillic markings on them meant little to Ian. They just looked like very long unpronounceable words in distorted text. Then the innate pattern-matching abilities of his brain kicked in, and he recognised a word on one of the boxes: “Gregory.”

  What on earth could that mean? He thought, but by that time all of the gear was on the edge of the wadi and ready to go.

  Back at the vehicles Julian and Tarquin wasted no time in packing the artefacts securely into the netting which Julie had provided. Everyone in the party was glad to be out of the underground gloom, but the rest of the team were taking their turn down in Ivan’s labyrinth and having a look around.

  ‘If you find anything else down there before the rest of the team get here, you’ll let us know as soon as possible, won’t you Julie?’ Julian asked her.

  ‘No problem, but I don’t think we’ll be hanging around much longer, we’ve got two more oases to create,’ she said, ‘Are you two on your way now?’

  ‘Yes, we must get these items back as soon as possible. We have moved the survey drone into this sector now, so you should get through more easily and we can keep an eye on this place once you leave,’ explained Julian.

  Tarquin shouldered the entire net and its contents, some 200 kg. It didn’t make him stoop, even slightly. Julian faced the team and shook hands with all of them.

  ‘Great to meet you chaps. You’re doing a terrific job out here. We’ll be in touch about the procedures for bringing Ivan into Britain, but keep him with you for now. I’m sure it’s the best place for him,’ he said as he shook.

  The two agents then retreated some 100 metres away from the survey trucks onto a slightly raised section of desert. Tarquin had put down the cargo, and they were both busy with something that Julian had produced from his pack. The team had been distracted by the agents’ activity and had not noticed the droning noise until the cargo plane was almost upon them. In what seemed like a flash the agents had inflated a small balloon which carried a line aloft to 300 metres. The next moment the agents and their cargo were gone as the line was snagged by the collecting pylon on the nose of the plane. The team wondered how the two agents were going to get inside the aircraft, but it was a dot on the horizon before any of them could bring their links to bear.

  ‘Welcome to our world Ivan,’ said Ian with a smile and a wink.

  33 RESCUE

  Dennis had tended to Jane’s wounds as best he could, and they were both sat in the cockpit watching the landscape streaming by below. The Osprey was not well. Dennis had initially headed back the way they came, intending to fly down the coast, but due to the erratic behaviour of the plane, he’d decided to take the shortest route possible back to Asheville. He reckoned that something had gone wrong with the control systems. Even though all the kit was military grade fly-by-wire with several backups, he just could not get the plane to fly straight. He’d abandoned the auto-pilot because it just took them round in circles. There seemed to be nothing wrong with the port engine, and the explosion had not punctured the cabin or damaged any of the control surfaces, it was a mystery.

  He would have liked to land and do some further inspection, but he had little capability of fixing things out where they were, and the stress of landing and take-off might do even more damage to the plane, so they had just pressed on. The Osprey could land by autorotation in the event of power loss, but even so, the aircraft had a quite steep glide ratio, so he’d kept to 500 feet where possible to mitigate any sudden engine failures. They were within 500 miles from home when without warning the power from the port engine began to drop. Jane went back into the cargo bay to see if she could see what was wrong. From the under-wing window, she could see some dark patches near the engine nacelle, but they appeared to be nothing more than soot from the explosion. Dennis compensated and kept the plane on course but ten minutes later the port engine died completely, and the plane dipped sharply to that side. Dennis made further adjustments but was struggling to stay on course. Then the temperature of the starboard engine began to climb.

  ‘A vertical landing with one rotor is going to be rough,’ he said.

  ‘How much further to go?’ said Jane.

  ‘380 miles,’ said Dennis.

  ‘So what should we do?’ asked Jane as she subconsciously checked the buckle on her seat harness.

  ‘We could look for an old airstrip or somewhere flat, where I could attempt a more conventional landing,’ said Dennis.

  ‘OK, so what old settlements are we near?’ said Jane.

  ‘Summersville is 10 miles away, it did have an airport, according to this ancient nav-system,’ said Dennis pointing to the display.

  ‘Summerville it is then,’ said Jane.

  ‘OK, prepare for a rough ride,’ said Dennis.

  They flew over the ruins of Summerville; the once verdant forests that surrounded the town were all gone, replaced by blackened tree stumps and scrubland. It was hard to make out the old airport runway due to the sand and low-level vegetation which had encroached in the past 100 years. Dennis didn’t hang about; he took the plane straight down as soon as he could line it up with the runway. He adjusted the rotors for a short landing and let down the undercarriage. Definite shudders were coming from the one remaining engine as it took up the increased load. Dennis and Jane were watching the needle on its temperature gauge as it continued to climb into the red zone on the gauge. With fifty feet to go the engine sputtered briefly and died. The plane’s nose lurched downwards as they continued their descent with just flaps and the autorotation of the two dead rotors to slow them down. The plane hit the ground hard, but the nose wheel assembly survived and bounced, while the rear wheels were dragged through the sand and weeds which now covered the runway. Two more bounces and the plane spun around to port as it came to a halt. Dennis let go of the controls, and they both leant back in their seats and sighed in unison.

  The runway was hot and dusty. Dennis spent the next half hour walking around the plane checking for damage. Most of that time he was looking at the scars the explosion had left behind. He had to get a small ladder out of the cargo bay to be able to reach the underside of the wing for a closer look. The area next to the port engine was blackened. Running his hand over the surface, he found several small holes, nothing bigger than two millimetres but obviously caused by the explosion. However, as he’d said earlier, he couldn’t do much about them. If it was something hanging loose, armed with a roll of duct tape he might have stood a chance, but
it looked like the plane was dead.

  ‘OK, so we’re 370 miles from home, we have about fifteen days of rations and water but could probably stretch that out. We could just about walk it, but as you can see the terrain is not easy going. The only good news so far is that I’ve not picked up any significant radiation on the Geiger Counter, so Jake was right about that,’ said Dennis.

  Jane was lying down on the floor of the cargo hold, staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘I thought you would say that,’ she said. ‘What about the hand-held radios, can’t we contact Jake?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, its range is limited to around 20 miles with good line-of-sight,’ said Dennis.

  ‘Why don’t we make something to eat and think about it some more,’ said Jane as she attempted to stand without stressing out her wounded body.

  They were sat in canvas chairs at the bottom of the cargo ramp. It was a clear, cloudless night, and they were both staring skywards. The occasional bat (Nycticeius Humeralis) flew over silently blotting out some of the millions of stars. There was a slight breeze, but nothing strong enough to require additional clothing.

  ‘The drone,’ Jane said. ‘Could we not use it to extend the radio’s range like you did over the forest?’

  ‘You might be on to something there,’ said Denis. ‘In retrospect, I was stupid not to have been trying the radio while we were still airborne.’

  Returning inside for a couple of minutes he came back with the drone’s instruction guide and a head torch. He poured over the handbook for the next ten minutes.