by Frank Carey
Once inside, Lexa activated her torch and panned it around to get the lay of the tunnel. She stopped when a square metal plate came into view. "It couldn't be that easy, could it?" she said as she tapped the plate. The tunnel filled with light from illumination panels embedded in the ceiling along the length of the tunnel.
"Damn," Doma said as he reached up and ran his fingers along a panel, "We built things to last, didn't we?"
They hurried down the tunnel. As they went, a loud roaring filled the tunnel followed by silence.
"I think the rocket returned," Doma said.
"Great. More tourists," Lexa replied.
When they reached the end, they found another door. This one, though, was in much better shape. They found the control pad and killed the lights before opening the door with only a gentle push. After a quick visual scan of what was beyond, the two of them pushed the door fully open and walked through.
They found themselves at the bottom of a dark staircase. They climbed upwards to a curved hallway running out of sight in both directions. On the inner wall were massive stone doors, equally spaced along its length. Next to the staircase was another control pad, which Doma tapped. The hallway was flooded with light from fixtures inset in the ceiling.
"Where are we?” he asked as he put his torch away.
"I'm betting this is a hidden service corridor running along the outer circumference of the store rooms. The doors on the inner circumference, the ones accessed from the courtyard, are security doors while these are simple doors for the maintenance workers to use to make repairs," she said as she walked up to the closest door and listened. She pulled out her hand scanner and tapped its small face with a fingernail before pressing it against the pad. The door slid open to reveal a room filled with empty racks. The door at the far end had been broken open. "I wonder why they didn't continue through this one?" she whispered. Doma pulled out his hand scanner and tapped it against hers, synching the two. He stepped out and pressed his against the outer pad. The door slid shut revealing scoring and pockmarks. After a moment, it slid open.
"Well?" he whispered
"They tried. It must be much stronger than the one they smashed."
The pair reentered the corridor and checked all the rooms while watching for people.
As she got close to the end, she came to a room with a pile of debris and tables filled with journals. The far doorway was gone with noticeable scorching surrounding the opening. She picked up one of the journals and blew it off. "Undamaged, just completely out of order. The dates are from the first half of the war. There must be another room with the rest of the story in it."
Only one room was left. She used her key to open the door and found it filled with many shelves, each shelf contained dozens of Journals. "These are untouched and from the last half of the war," she said as she reverently picked one up and opened it. "Doma, these were recorded by our ancestors at the close of the war, when it was thought the end of our people was in sight," she said as she put the volume back on the shelf. "I remember Father telling me how close we came to extinction. Before he could answer, they heard voices at the inner door followed by a click as the lock released. Without a word, she pushed him through the outer door, but fell before she could make it through herself. She used the inner plate to seal the door while she hid herself in the corner. As she watched from her vantage point, the door opened and a very tall woman walked up to the doorway and looked around. Kicking herself, Lexa brought out her hand scanner and started recording in the hope that the woman spoke the same language as the others.
"Well, that was easy. Ms. Stryke, call the others and have them bring everything they'll need to grid and catalog this room. No one else goes in until we have every object located and cataloged," she said as she tapped something on the wall next to her which caused the door to close.
Lexa waited for a moment before getting up and opening the outside door.
"Are you okay? What happened in there?" Doma asked.
"I'm fine. One of the new arrivals is different. She's careful, methodical. She thinks things through. We need to find her and talk to her."
"Find her? Talk to her? How?"
"She smells like the flower of the anexa bush. We just need to sniff around to find her. Something about her… We need to get her alone, somehow, and talk to her before this whole situation explodes."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As predicted, the orbit insertion chime sounded about three hours later, followed shortly by the landing chime. Soon, the Ionis had landed near a group of ruined buildings interspersed with several large tents. Once on the ground, the group of scientists was led into a large tent for orientation. Guards could be seen patrolling a force-fence surrounding the site.
"That's a lot of firepower," Jason whispered to Nebulon as they entered the tent.
"And where are the diggers, the carriers, the strong backs needed to move dirt from the dig to where it's processed before being stored?"
Once in the tent, a large man in field clothing walked to a podium and started to speak. "Hello, my name is Bentley, and I'm the site coordinator. The dig portion of this expedition was concluded by the previous group of scientists and assistants. This group will be involved with the translations of several hundred texts that were found during excavation. We've set up facilities inside Building One, the one shaped like a big donut, so please follow me over there. Dr. Blyst, would you and Mr. Thurgood please stay behind? Our sponsor would like to speak with you."
"This isn't good," Jason said as he checked his pocket for his blaster.
"Hello, Nebulon. Long time no see," Thorenn said as he entered the room flanked by Stark and a tall red-haired woman.
"Thorenn. I'm not surprised the stories of your death were greatly exaggerated," she said as she made a fist. Jason placed his hand on her arm to calm her and check her body temp. It was zooming.
"And Mr. Thurgood. I believe you and Ms. Stryke are acquainted."
"Hello, Jason."
"Hello, Fiona."
The tension between the two could be cut with a knife.
"So, you're the one behind the new artifacts on the black market. It makes sense. Why the ruse?"
"Someone put out a contract on him, so I obliged," Stark said.
"What about the Goranthi contract on Stark?" Jason asked?
"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Thorenn said. "Right now, we need your services to get into a room and find the location of a bridge generator to the Erdexi home worlds. It's here, somewhere in this complex," Thorenn said.
Jason could see trickles of blood running from Nebulon's hand where her fingernails had embedded in her palm. "Look, it's obvious that you two are not the ones to be briefing us. Things would go a lot faster if we worked with Fiona."
Thorenn saw the look in Nebulon's eyes. "Good idea, Mr. Thurgood. Stark, with me," he said as he walked out of the tent with Stark in tow.
Jason ran over and grabbed Nebulon before she fell over. "Fi, get me a chair and a first aid kit," he said.
Once she was seated, Jason tended to her hand. "These look superficial," he said as cleaned and bandaged her wounds. "I didn't realize how badly you dislike him."
"I don't dislike him. Hell, I haven't thought about him until Stark brought him up at Orinoco. I don't understand why I'm reacting to him like this. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't gotten him to leave. What's happening to me?"
"I don't know," he said as he checked her with the scanpad. "It says you're fine except for the virus running its course. I scanned the air and there's no trace of Thorenn's cologne."
"He ran out a few days ago right before making a delivery," Fiona said.
"What's with you two?" Nebulon asked, skipping every social protocol in the book.
"Nebulon Blyst, meet Fiona Stryke, younger sister of Ciara Devlin," Jason said as Fiona gave a little wave. "Fiona has sworn vengeance against me for betraying her sister. Vengeance which includes death."
> Nebulon looked at Fiona who shrugged and smiled.
"I'm dealing with morons. Didn't you tell her?"
"Tell her what?" Jason asked.
"That you didn't betray Ciara. That Ciara almost fed on you?"
"How do you know that? Did Ciara blab again?"
"No, Nat and Carla told me. I'm the team leader, and I need to know this kind of shit. When were you going to tell me?"
"I…"
"She tried to feed on you?" Fiona asked quietly. They looked at her and saw tears forming.
Jason walked over to her and held her in his arms. "I had to make the story up to protect you and her. You know how people are. They'd accept a cad leaving a girl at the altar before they'd accept a girl giving into some primal urges."
"I could have killed you."
"Naw. I'm nimble. You'd never catch me."
She stepped away while pulling herself together.
"I hate to break this up, but could we get to the point here?" Nebulon asked.
"Yes, of course. We think there is a device that creates bridges between worlds, a bridge generator, hidden in this complex which connects to one on the Erdexi home world. We need to find it, activate it, and connect with the Erdexi."
"The drawing we found of the people entering and leaving the orb. It's one end of a bridge," Nebulon said.
"You saw that picture? I thought we had removed all references to the Erdexi from the data bases?”
"You missed a few. What does this bridge look like?" Nebulon asked, feigning ignorance.
"Large fiery ball maybe seventy meters in diameter. It's generated by what we call an orb generator, a meter-wide metal sphere."
"You have one that works?" Jason asked innocently.
"Inside the circular domed structure next to the Donut. We use it to ship stuff back to the League."
"So, what do you want us to do, exactly?"
"Thorenn is very impressed with your work, Dr. Blyst. Even though he's dead, he still reads all your papers. We need you to do two things. First, get into a room that we think contains more books. We got the gist of the story being told by the first set of books, something about a war, but the narrative ends. We're convinced it continues in the next room. We also need your help translating texts. Thorenn says you're a wiz at translating. Like I said, we got the gist of the story, but there are gaps and he thinks you can fill them in."
"Fine. I'll help; just keep him and his little friend away from me."
"No problem. Can I get you anything before I take you over to building one?”
"Water. A bottle of nice cold water, please," Nebulon said as she rubbed her temples.
"Sure. Be right back."
When she was gone, Nebulon unloaded. "Really? Are you kidding me? These people are the ones who found what is probably one of the greatest xenoarchaeological finds this century? I wouldn't trust them to park my scooter. Are you sure she's related to Ciara?"
"Yep. She has her moments. Nebs, I don't think they have any idea what the hell has happened with Tennosh or the station, at least not Thorenn or Fiona."
"I bet Stark knows, but he just doesn't care. Jason, where are we?"
"Don't know for sure. I will need to access a computer more powerful than my datapad…"
Nebulon handed him a black case about the size of a hard cover book. "Will an AI do?"
"Damn. You scientists and your toys. I'll run the data through once we're alone. Are you really okay? You look beat."
"Like you said, it was a helluva party last night. Are you sure we didn't…"
"Nope. I have rules: First, dinner and a movie with popcorn, then we can talk."
She threw an empty plastic cup at him. "Dinner. You'll probably want steak."
"And mashed potatoes."
"I'm back," Fiona said as she handed bottles of cold water to Nebulon and Jason. "Come this way, and I'll show you the door."
The trio walked across the site to the building known as the Donut. "Fiona, why all the guards and the fence?" Nebulon asked.
"Davits, the local tribespeople. They don't like us. They think we're on sacred tribal land without permission."
"Where are they development wise?" Nebulon asked
Fiona hesitated before answering. "Bronze age at best."
"Here we are," Fiona said as they walked through the entrance into the courtyard at the center of the Donut. Around them were eleven doors, one with a hole blown in it, three that had been obviously beaten down with tools. The rest had been beaten down centuries ago by the forces of nature. They stopped in front of a large slab of stone inset in a stone wall. "The first journal room is over there," she said, pointing to the door with the blast marks. The other scientists are down there trying to translate the texts."
"What happened to the door? It seems to be missing completely," Nebulon asked, pretty sure she already knew the answer.
"Stark got antsy, so he used a demolition charge to breech it. It took down the door, the ceiling and the shelves inside. The first group dug the books out and removed rubble. It's all cleaned up. We want to use a more surgical approach to this room."
"And those three doors?"
"Sledge hammers and blasters. They only contained some minor artifacts, nothing of importance."
"So, you got your hands on a number of these journals. How much have you translated and what did you use as a reference?"
"Each book seems to have a section written in ancient Erdexi while the rest is gibberish. I did some of the base Erdexi translating while Thorenn did the brunt of it. We both used your papers and the reference book you wrote. Even with those, it wasn't easy. We translated maybe thirty percent of the Erdexi sections."
"Gibberish? Didn't it occur to your fearless leader that he might be sitting on a treasure trove? That the Erdexi may have written those books in more than one language just in case they were wiped out and their language lost to the ages? He and I were in the same Doctoral program, yet he seems to have spent more time in Tomb Raiding 101 than in real xenoarchaeology classes."
"Yeah, he is kind of obsessed, isn't he?"
"This may take a while," Nebulon said as she walked up to the door and ran her hand along the face of it. "How much detonite did Stark use?"
"Five kilos give or take. How did you know it was detonite?"
"I can still smell it. I'm surprised the two of you are still alive. Amazing. You could breach Nixa Dam with five kilos."
"I'm going to give the linguists a hand. Call me if you need anything," Fiona said as she handed Jason a radio. She walked off down the hallway toward the first room.
"Linguists?" Jason said as he put the radio in his pocket.
"Yeah, most of our group is linguists with a few xenos mixed in for color. Thorenn really does think the answer lies in these books he found," she replied as she pulled out a piece of card stock and pushed it between the door and wall. "She’s lying to us about the artifacts, and I'm pretty sure about the davits as well. We need a way to get up close to a davit. I have some questions for it."
"How are you going to ask one a question if we don't know its language?" he asked as she pulled out her scanner and ran it around the door.
"I never told you this, but I've always had a knack for picking up languages and my datapad is programmed with several promising universal translator applications I'm testing for the museum's field work section. I can always resort to pointing."
"She mentioned a bridge generator. So, there are at least two functional forms of the generators: one for ships and one for fixed sites. So far, the ship ones are what gave us trouble."
"Almost as if they were last minute modifications to a proven design. The term 'rush jobs' come to mind," she said as she put the scanner back in her pocket. "Hand me my bag, please," she said as she squinted at the door.
Jason picked up her bag and gave it to her. She rummaged around inside before pulling out a small, well-worn miniature scanpad and a ball of putty, which she pushed against the back of the scanpa
d. She then pushed the scanpad against the wall about a meter up on the left side. The pad stayed on the wall when she removed her hand, held in place by the putty.
Next, she removed a pouch made of what looked like black velvet. She reached inside and pulled out a white oval object. "Call Fiona and let her know we're ready to open the door."
Jason called. Fiona arrived almost immediately.
Seeing everyone was ready, Nebulon pressed one end of the white object before placing it on the door near the seam. The object sprung legs and flattened out before slipping into the seam. "Pickbot," she said.
As they watched, clunking and rattling came from the door, followed by a beep from the mounted scanpad and the door sliding open. Nebulon held out her hand just in time to catch the bot as it fell from the top part of the door track. She put it back in its pouch and returned the pouch to her bag.
"Well, that was easy. Ms. Stryke, call the others and have them bring everything they'll need to grid and catalog this room. No one else goes in until we have every object located and cataloged,” she said as she tapped the mini scanpad, closing the door.
"Do all xenos have those things?"
"No. I got mine during my misspent youth. Ms. Stryke, I need to sit down and confer with Jason in private. Is there any place I could use as an office? I need power and a case of bottled water in a tub of ice."
"No problem, Doctor, we have one of the other rooms set up as a field office which no one is currently using. It even has a functioning door. It's where we have stored the Journals from the first library. This way," she said as she walked past the destroyed rooms to one with a wooden door. She left the two alone while she attended to the preparation of the second library.
"Nice. Here, doc, cold water," Jason said as he handed her a bottle from a field refrigerator. He checked her pulse while he was at it.
"Will you stop being such a mother hen? I tell you, I'm fine. Thanks for the water, though," she said as she sat down at the desk. She leaned back in the chair and propped her feet up on the table.