»… including us, I guess?« Pi asked sardonically.
Maya Ivanova frowned. She didn’t like Kuster~Laap’s evaluation either.
»Your opinion is noted, but you don’t command the Techno-Ferry,« Vasina announced calmly. »Toiber Arkroid does, unless I’m mistaken!«
Arkroid grinned and winked at her.
»That’s right,« he acknowledged.
»You’re making a mistake wasting your time in this forsaken system …,« Kuster~Laap appealed.
»… fine! You’re welcome to stay aboard,« he interrupted. »Nobody’s forcing you to set foot on Equinox!«
»I suggest we land near a southern city close to the equatorial ice ring,« Nautilus suggested. »The aggressive flora is not as thick there in the cold, so it hasn’t overgrown the ruins. I have selected one for us, Toiber.«
Arkroid looked at the marker on the display.
»Great, Nautilus! Take us to that one …,« he confirmed.
The ship changed its form to a perfect sphere and entered the planet’s atmosphere like a meteor with a long flaming trail.
Fascinated, Arkroid watched the dense clouds billowing by the ship as it descended. Seconds later, the rugged landscape was on the displays. The pressure wave created by the ship thundered over the land and the ruins of a futuristic city. Hundreds and more hundreds of bird-like creatures were scared up, disappearing in the air into the distance. Larger animals with glistering colors herded and fled on six legs. Tall, purple-hued meat-eating plants closed their fanged blossoms. A few more moments and Nautilus had landed, or rather hovered ten meters over the ground. The landing place resembled a large plaza, surrounded by the ruins of once-tall buildings.
As the crew was preparing to disembark, Kuster~Laap and his companions stood up. He had apparently changed his mind.
Pi knit his eyebrows, while Maya Ivanova threw a cold glance at Kuster~Laap.
»My scanners and sensors detect various lifeforms, ranging from microbes to animals. Please use your decon fields and personal defense shields – you may encounter sudden attacks or defensive reactions!« Nautilus advised.
»Everybody, make sure that your gear is in working order!« Arkroid reminded the team.
»I am sufficiently protected!« Kuster~Laap responded to Arkroid’s inquiring look.
Voit Masgur looked nervous.
»What’s wrong, Voit?« Vasina asked.
»I’m feeling … a strange unrest,« he replied. »Maybe it’s just me, but it’s like there’s a strange mood in the air, coming from the planet itself.«
»Can you be more precise?« Vasina inquired. She knew Voit Masgur’s ability to aid self-healing powers in Humans. What other abilities did he possess?
»There’s an underlying mood here, and it’s directed against us,« he answered. »Not so much the emotion of one person … it’s like all the lifeforms are projecting it … as if they’re telling us that we’re foreign bodies and don’t belong here …!«
»… and the critters would be right,« Ivanova interrupted. »We don’t belong!«
Lai Pi was a bit more sensitive about the issue.
»You remind me of the “Gaia Theory”,« he announced.
»Pi, but what I’m feeling is no theory … it’s real!« Voit Masgur rebutted. »Even on Earth you can feel the whole bioelectric aura, if you’re sensitive enough.«
Arkroid looked at Voit Masgur interestedly.
»Well, you seem to have that sensitivity, and it may be helpful while we’re exploring the city,« Arkroid recommended. »We need to follow Nautilus’ advice, and try to avoid aggressive encounters! Don’t start shooting like drunken cowboys if there’s no threat to our lives. Clear?«
»Clear as pea soup! I hope the local animals think the same way,« Ivanova laughed and shouldered her weapon. »And what’s a cowboy?«
»Never mind,« Arkroid grinned back.
A toaster
»Repeat that, please!« Nok Daralamai demanded. »What are you saying you found in your holo memory banks?«
»We haven’t been able to estimate the full extent of the received data. The octahedron’s transfer was too massive. An entire science section would probably need years to sift through it all. However, we did locate some sort of an index we can use to begin sorting the accumulated data blocks. They’re mostly are construction plans and documentations for numerous technologies.«
»Construction plans?« Nok asked again.
»Didn’t I just say that?« Ranguin replied with a sigh. »Very detailed plans … they’ll let us jump decades in technology – if not hundreds of years!«
»Yeah, right, Ranguin. You’re telling me that you know that much already?« She couldn’t help doubting Ranguin’s account.
»If you could see the pale faces on our base scientists, you’d believe me!« Ranguin defended. »They just looked at a couple of segments at random and found information and construction plans for tachyon technologies, and even faster-than-light tachyon drives – theory and practical applications! Solutions to problems transporting matter through tachyon hubs … applications of higher dimensional energy fields ... even plans for a super-efficient toaster …«
»Are you pulling my leg, Ranguin? A toaster?« Nok winked at him.
»Well, we think that’s what it is,« Ranguin chuckled.
Nok had to sit down.
»We were wrong about the octahedron. It wasn’t a scout or probe – it’s an envoy from an unknown civilization.«
»We’re under the same impression, Commander. An alien civilization seems to want to sponsor us and they’ve sent us their entire encyclopedia.«
Nok shook her head in disbelief.
»Let’s not speculate too much. I do not believe in a free lunch. There’s a hook somewhere!« she responded. »Everything is done for a reason, nothing is free. There must be a reason why the octahedron came to us. Isn’t it strange that it appeared just after the dimensional shield was reestablished?«
»Maybe, maybe not. It could’ve been a coincidence,« Ranguin replied.
»Whatever! You’re now solely responsible for this treasure, the most valuable Humanity ever possessed. We could be dealing with a Trojan horse, so we won’t transfer the data to the terrestrial computers yet. Get ready for a lot of people on your base, because when the scientists at home get a whiff of your find you’ll be seeing a lot of them.«
» We should make a copy of all the data, but I don’t have any more capacity,« Ranguin explained.
»Don’t worry, Ranguin. You’ll get what you need!« Nok promised with a smile. »Did the octahedron return in the meantime?«
»No,« Ranguin shook his head. »It disappeared after the data transfer. Strange …«
»Damn right …!«
›… and Friedberg was ready to atomize this treasure!‹ she wondered.
»Ranguin, secure the data and wait for further instructions,« Nok commanded, and broke the link to Titan.
She stayed staring at the dark holo for a couple of seconds.
›If Ranguin is right, it’s a new era for Humanity, thanks to the octahedron,‹ she pondered. ›I hope I’m still around to see it …‹
Where are you from
A fine layer of fog drifted slowly across the plaza, where the tough roots of unknown plants had broken through the marble-like plates and tiles. The heavy plates had shifted slowly and given way. The plants would cover the place in a few years. The team had to watch where they stepped; the shifted marble plates were unpredictable. Wobbling and teetering were the least of their worries. Over the years, the plates had become slick with plant sap. The spaces between them were large enough to house dangerous creatures.
»The flora and fauna are really active!« Arkroid warned the team; they received him perfectly despite the staggered energy shields. Nautilus had provided the members with light, mobile shield generators. »Avoid these plants … they look like meat eaters.«
»Will our suits and shields protect us?« Voit Masgur asked worriedly. His face
was pale as he watched a large flower grabbing a 20-centimeter long insect, devouring it with loud squishing sounds and pushing it down its hollow stem.
»I don’t think we’re in danger, but let’s steer clear anyway,« Arkroid insisted.
At this moment, a 30-centimeters blue insect flew by them. Its 40-centimeter, swirling wings gave off a deep humming sound. The front mounted 10-centimeter stinger looked threatening as the bug hovered like a firefly near Arkroid’s head on its return flight.
Arkroid nervously groped for his weapon.
»Stay calm,« Voit Masgur whispered suddenly. »This insect has a rudimentary intelligence. It’s only observing you. It’s not after our blood ... it only drinks plant juices from the meat eaters. It numbs the plant’s nerve center so it can suck the nectar.«
Masgur no sooner finished his explanation than the insect flew away toward the ruins.
Arkroid sighed.
»You’re scaring me, Voit. How did you know that? How can you know so much about this insect?«
»I don’t know,« Masgur answered honestly. »Its aura told me!«
Perplexed, Arkroid looked at Masgur for a moment before he turned to Pi, who was operating the detection and recording equipment. Paafnas – probably the most vulnerable team member – was at Pi’s side.
»Do you show anything Nautilus hasn’t detected?« Arkroid inquired.
»No, nothing we already don’t know. The equatorial ice ring is really impressive. It’s like a mountain chain, a barrier that separates North and South. It wouldn’t be easy to cross those mountains of ice. There’s no vegetation along the foothills, and animals, unless they can fly like our visitor, probably couldn’t reach the Northern hemisphere. The Ice-Ring Mountains are about 800 kilometers wide in most places … altitudes over two thousand meters … and temperatures similar to Antarctica on Earth. I’m guessing that different types of plants and animals have developed in each hemisphere. Nautilus can verify that later,« Pi reported.
Vasina looked at the inside of her golden shield and smiled.
»I can confirm Pi’s readings; my sensors show the same indications. The prevalent temperatures at the equatorial zone are around minus 50 degrees centigrade. Since we’re relatively close to the equator, temperature here is zero degrees. There’re also kilometer-wide, raging rivers flowing to the South … unbelievably exotic scenery.«
While Pi and Vasina exchanged data, Maya Ivanova explored the surrounding ruins.
»How was this city destroyed?« she muttered.
Voit Masgur had accompanied her and he overheard her remark.
»It was destroyed from space, wasn’t it?« he inquired.
»Definitely,« she replied. »The decay and plants overrunning it happened after the city was destroyed in a sudden attack.«
»Why didn’t the people just abandon it?« Masgur asked.
»Voit,« she whispered, »I can put one and one together: and the big impact craters plus the shipwrecks in the system’s outer ring … and don’t forget the Globusters were active in this system … tell me that the cities – we know there were more than one – weren’t just abandoned. The people of this planet fought back hard and lost. Their civilization was literally thrown back into the Stone-Age! They must have reached a level of technological advance that the Globusters or their masters could no longer tolerate. Remember: the Globuster Lord, as well as the Agitator, wanted to destroy the Solar Union’s infrastructure too. They wanted to halt our development and turn time back on us. That’s what they did here – successfully!«
Ivanova looked around. The ruins stretched far and wide. She saw collapsed domes and large structures, toppled walls and houses without roofs, what looked like foundations of former towers and a lot of rubble, partially overgrown by plants. She didn’t know what purpose these buildings had, habitats, office buildings or whatever. The basic building material seemed to be a granite-like rock by her analysis. Despite the strangeness of the architecture, it somehow resembled certain timeless sites in the Cambodian rainforest, but far larger.
At a distance Ivanova saw a destroyed spaceship, its remains. After all these years only the ship’s skeleton was left. The rest had corroded away.
»There’re lots of caverns and cellars underneath this place, throughout the entire city,« Vasina commented, reading her scanners while she slowly trailed Ivanova. »Some of the shafts are filled with organic matter, possibly plants or even animals.«
»Huh! Vasina just found the subway system!« Ivanova mocked.
»My home-world had caverns and underground bunkers with well-developed tunnel systems. I still believe that many of my people survived the catastrophe in the underground infrastructures.«
»We should take a look at this underground tunnel and bunker system,« Kuster~Laap suggested, pointing toward his feet.
»What for?« Arkroid was surprised at Laap’s change of attitude.
»Vasina may be correct. We might find descendants of the survivors, or evidence of their existence. Nood and Naad can determine for us!« Kuster~Laap insisted.
»There’s no need to go underground into dark caves to find signs,« Pi interjected from where he was exploring some walls near the landing area. »I may not be an expert, but I’ve seen this before … on Earth!«
»What?« Arkroid asked in surprise.
The team gathered around Pi, who was cleaning off an overgrown granite block, disturbing some angry bee-like insects who had built a hive near the rock. Their shields protected the team from the insects trying to defend their habitat. Pi removed all the plants coving the granite block, revealing a depiction which he intuitively thought resembled primitive terrestrial cave drawings.
Arkroid held his breath as he looked at the drawing.
The entire team was now looking at the depiction of Human-like beings wielding hand weapons that threw lightning bolts at an attacker – Globusters! Crude as it was, the drawing clearly told what had happened here long ago.
Pi scanned the depiction into his mission log for later reference.
»This is the first evidence of an extra-solar, Human culture,« he whispered.
»My analysis of the ruins reveals that possibly 10 million people lived in this city!« Nautilus reported. »The city was about the size of New York. As I determined on our approach, there were 32 large cities like this one and many smaller ones in both hemispheres. All of them were destroyed at the same time! Most of the spaceports close to the equator are covered with plants or sand dunes. This city is unusually well preserved ...«
»WATCH OUT!« Vasina yelled and flared her defense shield.
Arkroid was watching her perplexedly as she assumed a fighting position facing a collapsed building that resembled a mosque with tumbled minaret towers. Dark nooks and fallen walls gave hiding spaces for an attacker. Arkroid could see nothing threatening in the dark areas even with his sensitive eyes.
»What, Vasina? What did you see?« he asked.
»Detected, Toiber … detected,« she corrected him mildly. »Somebody in the ruins over there is using some very modern disguise technology. I should’ve detected it earlier … we’ve been observed since we landed here!«
»Nautilus? Can you confirm Vasina’s findings?« Arkroid inquired.
»I’m on it, Toiber!« Nautilus replied. »No … I detect nothing with conventional scanners … but … one second … I have some eddy currents in the air, uncommon …«
»Good, Nautilus!« Arkroid acknowledged, stepping over to Vasina. »Your technology’s not better than the Techno-Ferry’s. What are you doing?«
»Well … Progonaut technology may yet surprise you,« she replied testily.
Arkroid noted from the corner of his eye that the ZyClonians had taken defensive positions by Kuster~Laap. They must have seen something too!
»Deactivate your defense shield,« Arkroid whispered to Vasina.
»What?« she asked perplexed.
»Please, just do it … a gesture of trust. You can reactivate it in a microse
cond, right?« he pleaded with a wink.
Moments later, the bluish energy field collapsed. Vasina remained alert.
»In a nanosecond!« Vasina assured.
»There’s a disguise field just in front of you!« Nautilus announced. The Ferry sounded surprised. »A highly advanced field! It adapts to different scanning techniques by modulating its frequency. It recognizes different scanning signatures and instantly implements countermeasures. Even with my broadband scanner, I can only vaguely detect it. It has the form of a Human being, standing upright!«
Arkroid stepped forward, waving the team to stay back. He reached his open hands out in a friendly gesture in the direction of the disguise field.
»I don’t expect you to understand what I’m saying, but my arms show you that we only want to establish a contact. Since you have been watching us for a while, I assume you want the same. Show yourself, and we let’s communicate and learn from each other. We want to know what happened here … we come as friends!« he said in plain English.
Seconds later, Paafnas and Voit Masgur shouted a hoarse warning. They’d both sensed a presence. Exactly where Nautilus and Vasina had located it, the air was scintillating … and a Human-like body appeared. A being about two meters tall, powerfully muscled, became visible. Two lively, dark and intelligent eyes looked at the team. The stranger’s stance was combat ready, but he was suppressing the will to fight. There was no doubt this was an intelligent being, even if he hadn’t been equipped with advanced technologies.
The strong facial hair and the characteristic limbs and receding forehead left no doubt in Pi’s mind.
»I must be dreaming … a Neanderthal man!« he remarked.
The stranger wore only a tight shirt and short pants made of a leather-like material. The shoulders were padded and the leather there carved into strange symbols. A wide belt with several pockets was strapped around his slim waist. A twisted, 20-centimeter-long horn decorated his neck suspended on a gold-like chain.
»Don’t be so quick to judge by looks, Pi« Arkroid corrected. »He’s an inhabitant of this world … his ancestors may have had something in common with primeval Neanderthals, but that’s history. The destroyed spaceship, the remains of the colony on Taif, even his equipment tell a different story.«
NEBULAR Collection 4 - Second Reserve: Episodes 17 - 21 Page 12