"Keep in mind what we found on Mentack Nutai," the LAS-TOOR's first officer said. His voice was carried by radio signals limited to a range of fifteen meters. "It could be a matter of an ancient Akonian installation. Our teleportation technology was highly developed even then," he emphasized proudly. "If that's the case, I will officially claim it in the name of my people."
Denetree imagined the arrogance in Lethir's face. She shared Sharita's dislike for him.
The commander of the PALENQUE did not let any irritation show. Sharita pointedly checked the handbeamer in its magnetic holster on her belt. "Four crawlers have disappeared, twelve members of my crew. And with them a Halutian and his ship. That's what this is all about. Not any claims."
Denetree watched as Solina's eyes lit up. "If it's really an old Akonian base we're dealing with, we might get new insight into Akon's ancient history."
The fact that Denetree understood Terrans and Akonians and could speak with them was one of the many wonders of her new universe. Devices called Translators enabled understanding across linguistic boundaries. Even so, Denetree was trying to learn the languages of these people, and she was making good progress.
The communications unit carried a sound that apparently came from Lethir, something like a muffled snort. It suggested that he was not much concerned about historical value. Solina remained unmoved, although she did arch her brows for a moment.
The two crawlers flew so close to a small asteroid that Denetree feared a collision and instinctively cringed. Solina noticed her reaction and gave her a reassuring glance.
"We're just about there," Sharita said. The target asteroid was now filling the forward window, growing into a gray-brown world of craters, ridges, and crevasses. There was no sign of buildings or other artificial structures. "Nobody has detected us so far."
"Just because we haven't been teleported somewhere doesn't mean we haven't been spotted," Echkal cer Lethir said.
Sharita closed her helmet and Solina and Denetree followed her example. The indicators on the various displays inside the helmets showed all suit systems were functioning flawlessly.
"Communication range remains fifteen meters," Sharita said. "Attention—braking maneuver in a few seconds."
As Denetree watched, the asteroid swelled ever larger and smaller craters appeared to accompany the larger ones. She felt as though she was inside a projectile that was about to bore into a gigantic rock.
And then the crawler's instruments suddenly woke up to new life.
A flood of light shone in front of Sharita and Solina, and Denetree felt the artificial gravity giving her weight again. The engines hummed and their thrust slowed the craft's momentum while pumps sucked the air out of the cabin. Everything had been planned exactly, occurring in succession at precisely determined intervals.
The hatch swung open.
The emptiness of space awaited them.
Sharita had already unbuckled her belt and leaped out. Denetree hesitated in the hatch opening, frightened by the depths beneath her—the surface of the asteroid was much too far below. Solina appeared behind her and gave her a gentle shove that carried her outside.
"There isn't any danger," Solina's apologetic voice said from the helmet speaker over the com system.
Denetree knew how the spacesuit's controls functioned, and needed all her discipline to avoid operating them and activating the propulsion module to brake her fall into the abyss. It would have been a serious mistake. The object was to put as much distance as possible between them and the crawler as fast possible, and not produce any telltale energy emissions while doing it.
Other individuals fell through the void nearby, and out the corner of her eye Denetree saw the second crawler close to the first. The two small spacecraft remained behind her.
The light of the distant red sun disappeared behind the asteroid's horizon, and Denetree fell into a pitch-black world. The helmet displays showed her graphic depictions indicating her position in relation to her surroundings, and blinking points represented Sharita, Solina, and the Akonians from the second crawler. A dark, dusty surface curved towards Denetree, and as the distance fell to the pre-programmed minimum, the automatic system reacted and activated an anti-grav field. The lump in Denetree's throat quickly dissolved as she slowed and landed very gently in the immediate vicinity of the Akonian historian.
"Everything all right?" Solina asked.
"Yes." Like everyone else, Denetree checked her spacesuit's operational status. "All systems functioning normally."
Before the other members of the group could report their status in turn, there was a brief flash behind them.
"What was that?" Sharita asked.
Sharita looked at the multi-function device on her wrist. "Teleporter energy. The crawlers were just transported."
There was silence for several seconds.
"I would assume that there is nothing else for us to do but find the teleporter."
Sharita was still looking at the displays on her multi-unit. "Teleporter echo," she then said and read off the coordinates. "Distance eighty kilometers. In that direction." She reached out her arm and pointed to a relatively nearby crater wall.
They started on their way. At a height of just a few meters, they flew over the dust-covered, rugged surface of the asteroid. They used only a slight amount of their suits' maximum potential energy to keep the risk of detection as small as possible. Along with Lethir, Sharita took the lead and the others followed her at various distances. On the way they only seldom spoke with each other, and Denetree had the opportunity to lose herself in her thoughts and ponder some questions. Such as: Why was I so determined to take part in this mission? Because an adventure beckoned? Possibly. Although ... she had certainly not lacked for adventure lately. An important point was, of course, that not only had the crews of the four crawlers vanished, but also Icho Tolot, a being who was quite probably identical with the Keeper to whom Denetree owed her life. Once again reverence mixed with curiosity—she wanted to find out more.
After a while, Solina appeared at her side, and Denetree saw the historian's encouraging smile behind her helmet visor. Perhaps that was the reason. Perhaps Solina had become a role model for her, an ideal of a largely independent, self-confident woman that she wanted to emulate.
Denetree watched as the dead landscape of the asteroid swept past beneath them, wondering what might be down there. Hidden bases like the one on Mentack Nutai? Something had made crawlers and the ship of a Keeper—a Keeper!—disappear. How strange. In the meantime, she had learned that there was an entire race of Keepers, called "Halutians," who were now counted among the friends of humanity. 50,000 years ago they had tried to annihilate her people, the Lemurians. Denetree did not doubt that Rhodan and the others had told her the truth, but she still found it difficult to get used to so many new concepts.
Half an hour later, Sharita made a sign, and the group reduced its speed. They were approaching a wide but shallow crater in the asteroid's surface. It was probably the result of a glancing collision with another large wanderer in the asteroid belt. Behind the near horizon, the distant sun of Ichest was rising and seemed like a blood-red eye staring across the dust and rock.
The antigrav field set Denetree down gently at the edge of a wide valley. She watched as her companions used their scanning instruments to orient themselves and collect data.
"Either the base is surrounded by a very powerful absorber field that doesn't let any telltale signals through," Solina said, "or there isn't any base at all."
"It's possible an unknown spacecraft was the source of the teleporter energy and it has since changed its position," Sharita speculated. Her black battlesuit continually made her blend in with the background. "Whatever the case may be, the teleporter echo came from there." She stretched her arm out. "Just a kilometer from here."
Denetree activated the zoom function of her helmet visor and saw a rock formation that did not appear to be any different from the other accumulation
s of boulders in the valley.
Lethir put into words what went through her mind. "It's just rock. That's all."
"Let's take a look." Sharita pulled a small, wedge-shaped object out of the equipment bag on her belt and manipulated several controls on its side. "Behind that rock there."
The group stepped into the shadow of a large mass of rock and Sharita tossed the wedge-shaped object high overhead. In the slight gravity it rose dozens of meters, then a small propulsion unit fired that carried it still higher.
"What's that?" Denetree asked.
"Energy bait," replied Sharita's voice in the young Lemurian's helmet speaker. "Maybe someone will take a bite."
The small wedge turned into a blazing torch in the sky.
And almost a kilometer away, next to the completely normal-seeming rock formation, something changed. Denetree again used her helmet visor's zoom function. There was a glow between the rocks, and a finger of light probed upwards, towards the bait, whose bright glare abruptly vanished.
"Teleporter energy," Sharita announced. She looked at the readouts on her multi-function wristband. "And an echo."
She turned to her companions. "Listen to me carefully, and that means you two as well." Those last words were directed at the two Akonians, who stood close to Lethir and seemed to be having a silent conversation with him. "Whatever is responsible for the disappearance of the crawlers and the Halutian ship is over there. We'll approach it, but without the anti-grav. Our energy emissions must remain as slight as possible. Denetree?"
"I can manage."
"Very well. Let's get going."
Denetree made a mistake with her first step. She put her foot down too hard and shot upwards. She arched over forwards and went into a spin. Once again, Solina Tormas appeared at her side, stabilized her, landed together with her, and helped her with the next few steps. Walking in low gravity had looked so easy but was amazingly difficult. Denetree found that she made better progress with small, carefully controlled leaps, and together with the historian she followed the others, who had gained a lead of about twenty meters.
"Well, then," Solina said in Lemurian. "Now it's going a lot better. It's really very simple."
"Anything is simple if you know what it's about," Denetree replied.
By the time they reached the rock formation, the others had already begun to investigate it. Denetree refrained from getting involved herself, since these were matters that her companions knew more about.
The group stood back and watched as Solina and Sharita examined a visible metal surface with the help of their sensors. "It's an alloy similar to that used in the base on Mentack Nutai," Sharita finally said.
"That settles it!" Echkal cer Lethir exclaimed in an almost triumphant tone. "This is definitely an ancient Akonian installation. I hereby declare it to be under Akonian jurisdiction."
"Ma-Techten," Sharita said slowly but emphatically, "believe me, I have a great deal of patience. With a crew like the one on my ship, I have to have a great deal of patience. But if you carry on like this, you will see what happens when I run out of patience, and it is not a pretty sight ... "
Denetree stepped away from the group, and due to the short range of the communication units, the voices in her helmet speaker were suddenly much lower. She had noticed something out the corner of her eye that she wanted to see more closely. Several meters away from the place where they had found the piece of metal, a chunk of rock with an unusual structure had attracted her attention. Denetree had always had a good eye for patterns, and this special sensitivity helped her now. At first glance, the lines and grooves in the rock seemed to be of natural origin. But when she allowed her imagination room to play and was open to recognizing subtle meanings, she saw a symbol. It had a slightly raised center and was no more than a palm-sized bulge.
Denetree laid her hand on it.
And gave a startled cry when spark-like lights crawled over her glove and forearm. Reflexively, she yanked her hand back.
The rock before her started moving. A section of it pivoted forward and swung upwards, opening the way into a lighted chamber.
"An airlock," Sharita said in amazement. Denetree turned her head. She had not noticed that the others had come up. "How did you do that?"
"I ... " Denetree had no idea how she should answer.
Solina appeared at her side and smiled. "You're going to make a first-class historian."
The airlock was not especially large and they all had to squeeze together to find room inside. Solina examined the control switches on the wall, and her attention was particularly concerned with the written characters next to them.
"It does in fact appear to be an ancient Akonian base," she said. "These symbols resemble early Akonian letters that I've seen more than once in archaeological excavations. These even seem to be a good bit older." Solina raised her hand, hesitated, then touched a control field. The airlock hatch that had been camouflaged to look like rock began moving again and closed.
Tightly pressed together, a Terran, several Akonians, and a Lemurian stood in the small airlock chamber. Denetree heard a soft hissing that quickly grew louder and then faded out again.
"Standard pressure," Sharita said. "And the air is breathable." She opened her helmet; its molecular memory immediately folded it behind her head, turning it into a kind of collar for the battlesuit.
The inner hatch slid to the side with a low humming. Behind it stretched a larger, less brightly lit room with a door in the opposite wall.
Sharita stepped out of the airlock, her right hand close to the beamer in its magnetic holster. The others followed her and opened their helmets as well to conserve their resources. When they had all left the airlock, the inner hatch closed.
Sharita was about to turn to the door in the opposite wall when a voice was heard. The words it spoke sounded both familiar and strange to Denetree. Some seemed to come from Lemurian but others were completely meaningless to her.
Denetree's translator unit interpreted: "Identity verification procedure initiated."
"What does that mean?" Lethir asked.
Sharita took another step towards the door—and froze. So did her companions. Suddenly, Denetree could no longer move. Something held her tightly, a force field of some kind.
As if that was not enough, a curtain of energy descended from the ceiling on the other side of the room and moved towards the group.
11
Deshan Apian
Lemuria, 4505 dT (51,895 B.C.)
A thick carpet muffled Deshan Apian's steps as he wandered through the Tower of Truth, once again enjoying the atmosphere of majesty, age, and knowledge along the way. Was there a more honorable mission than to preserve what his people had been, and to add to it what the present and the future brought? He slowly strolled along, his gaze sweeping over endless shelves and wall niches in which scrolls, books, and modern data chips were stored. When Deshan stopped and concentrated, he felt almost as though he heard their voices whispering from out of the past. They told stories of hopes, wishes, and pain, of war and suffering, of privation and the desire to make the future more secure.
He went by a dark window and, noticing his reflection in it, stopped for a moment of contemplation. The glass and the night behind it showed him a slender young man who was not yet even thirty years old and already ranked as one of the most respected Chroniclers in Marroar. Since he had received an exclusive contract from Levian Paronn, he was earning a considerable income with his reports on space travel, a subject that attracted great interest in Lemurian society. In addition came the Merit shares that Paronn assigned to him for continuing his work on the chronicle. Deshan looked into his own large dark eyes and saw in them the first fulfilled dreams, but also still unanswered questions about life.
A strange inner unease had led him to the Tower of Truth that night, and now caused him to turn away from the window and resume his stroll though the deserted rooms and corridors. Only a very few persons were in the Tower at this
hour: Chroniclers like him, absorbed in books or occupied with making their own recordings. As Deshan walked, he listened within himself and tried to identify what was keeping him from sleep. Was it the fact that he had been a father for several months? At the beginning of the year, Mira had given him a daughter, and as a result of little Tamara there had been great changes in Deshan's private life. Often he no longer found the peace and quiet at home that he required to put his thoughts in order. However, that was a small price to pay for his satisfaction that with Tamaha, the couple of Mira and Deshan had become a family.
Deep in his thoughts, Deshan went up a flight of stairs, came out on the next floor of the Tower, and there, too, wandered through long hallways and past the mute witnesses of prior ages. He remembered Dauzart, the first Curate of the Curatorium, the cognitive methods that had occupied him in the Center of Memorial Contemplation. A Chronicler had to learn to separate the important from the unimportant and to discern the pattern of meaning even where the eye of an untrained observer saw only trivia.
Suddenly he understood the reason for his unease. In the pattern of meaning that he saw, something important was missing, an aspect that left the picture incomplete without it.
Deshan sat down in one of the many study areas and switched on the Zephalon. Mira and the other Zephalon experts were working on a new entry system that allowed direct speech processing, but it would be a while until it was ready for use. Until then, the keyboard remained the handiest interface between man and thinking machine.
Keys clicked under Deshan's fingers as he input his Chronicler's code. The Zephalon offered him access to all the digital information in the Tower of Truth, but that amounted only to a small portion of the gigantic archive. Most data remained stored in analog form: written characters on scrolls and in books.
Deshan entered the search term without thinking about it consciously: Levian Paronn.
Texts and images appeared on the screen, and most of them referred back to him, to his work as Paronn's Chronicler.
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