by K. Aten
Both Dozier and Penn carefully stood, holding tight to the line in front of Tosh but it was Dozier who answered. “Lieutenant Savon was at the back and he kept sliding down the hill behind us. When I saw the drop off, I installed anchors to the walls on either side of the passageway and ran another line, assuming we’d have to belay down. Penn and I clipped to the line as Lieutenant Savon came down the path. When he tried to stop, his braking mechanism snapped and the clip that held him on the line malfunctioned. Ser, he just went right over the edge and we can’t see him from up here.” Sorrow washed over her face. “I failed my team, ser. I failed my lieutenant.”
Tosh patted the specialist’s shoulder and turned to Olivienne. “Can you light it up so we can see a little better?” All three newcomers clipped to the shorter anchor line that Spc. Dozier had strung across the passageway and Olivienne focused on making a fireball out in the darkness. Tosh shaded her eyes as she peered down into the gloom. As soon as the flame of the Connate’s pyrokinetic channel lit the chamber, Castellan could make out the body of Savon lying near an underground river some ten yords below them. “There he is and I can hear his unconscious thoughts in my head! I can just lift him up from here, no need to go down.”
“Ser...”
Four sets of eyes turned toward the medican. “He needs to be stabilized before he can be moved. I will need to go down there and assess the situation, ser.”
Castellan nodded and pulled another line from her pack and tied it to the new anchor line since the original from the cave mouth didn’t go more than a foot beyond the drop-off. “I’m going to lift us down but I want to clip onto the line just in case.” They clipped onto the new line and Tosh quickly lowered them into the cavern and set them down on the rock floor near Savon. Right away they could see his helmet was cracked and his arm lay at an odd angle. “He probably tried to grab onto the wall to break his fall—”
“Look there, ser! You can see where his helmet struck the rock.” Holling pointed toward a bright mark left from when the colored helmet impacted the wall on his way down. Holling knelt swiftly and began an examination of Savon. The most he could discover was that the lieutenant’s upper left humorous bone was broken. He stabilized Savon’s neck with a brace and splinted the arm as best he could with supplies from the med pack then stepped back. “If you could keep him as level and stabile as possible when you lift that would be optimal.”
Castellan called out to the three people standing above. “Clear a space, I’m going to lift Savon up to you!” The commander stepped back as far as she could in the chamber until the small underground river blocked her way. She would rather telekinetically lift the unconscious man than levitate all of them at once. It was about energy consumption and she knew she should keep some in reserve. But to lift him, Castellan needed to get a good line of site up to the ledge. “Connate Dracore, can you light it up again?”
No sooner had she finished speaking when the cavern was lit from high above. Just as she was getting ready to lift the unconscious lieutenant, her voteo crackled with the alert tone and Lt. Madlin’s voice came over the speaker. “Cave four reporting a large chamber straight back from the entrance, Commander. There is a panel with twenty-five buttons on the far wall, other indicators are placed around it, and a series of numbers. Team status is green and need instruction. Over.”
Castellan grabbed the voteo from her belt and keyed the com. “Tosh here. Roger status, cave four. Return to the cave entrance and hold position, we are in the process of evacuating Lieutenant Savon to the dirigible.”
“Roger for return. Madlin out.”
Commander Tosh knew that Lt. Madlin would inform the dirigible crew to ready their own medican. If Lt. Savon looked in more serious condition when they got him topside, she was prepared to send the dirigible back with him alone and keep the team on the cliff until they returned. They had shelter in the caves and enough rations to last for a few daes. Water would be the only difficulty but Castellan figured she could just take the saline filter and levitate herself down to the ocean surface to fill their canteens. She looked down at Gren Holling, the man who had been the Connate’s medican for a few rotos. “Ready?”
“Yes, ser!”
Making a last meen change in decision, she unclipped her harness then pointed at his. “Unclip. I was going to lift him first and bring us up second but I think I’ll just take us all at once. I have the power, it just takes a lot of focus.” He nodded and did as she asked then she carefully but swiftly lifted them the ten yords to the ledge where Olivienne stared down at the trio worriedly. Tosh reassured her. “He’s not critical, just unconscious and as far as Holling can tell has a broken arm. The return trip is a little far and the ceiling is too low for me to just float us all out so we’re going to have to climb back up the incline the hard way. I will use my telekinesis to float Savon though, horizontally in front of me. When we get back into the main cave proper I’ll levitate the two of us to the top so the ship’s crew can care for him. While I’m up there, maybe you can check in with the remaining team and get a status report.”
The Connate nodded and all five healthy members of the group clipped onto the original rope coming down from the cave mouth and made the slow trek back up the slippery slope. Olivienne called out to the rest. “Easy does it now, we don’t want anyone else taking Savon’s slippery adventure slide.” She joked because even if they all knew the lieutenant wasn’t in serious condition, they were still worried.
It took nearly thirty meens to make it back to the cave opening. Olivienne watched Castellan lift herself, Savon, and Holling out into the empty space some fifteen yords above the crashing water below. She pulled her head back in when she lost sight of the three as they went up to the top of the cliff. After that, Olivienne unclipped the voteo from her belt and gestured toward the climbing line. “I’m going to contact the cave four team and see if they’ve found anything else. In the meantime you two can start climbing.”
Spc. Penn frowned. “Begging your pardon, Connate Dracore, but we’re supposed to keep you secure and we can’t do that while hanging from a line over the ocean. You should bring up the middle, ser.”
“Someone experienced should bring up the end, Specialist.”
Dozier held up a hand and Olivienne stopped. “If I may, I’m from over by Dara Mountains, that’s why I’m specially certified in caves and mountain training. Been doing it practically all my life, ser. I can bring up the rear.”
Olivienne sighed at the seriousness with which Castellan’s team took their job. There was a time when no one would argue with her, just let her go about her duty. But she had to admit that both guardians had a point and they had certainly been useful during their adventures so she let it go. “Fine. Specialist Penn, start us off and I’ll begin my ascent when you’re halfway up.” She turned back to Dozier. “You can contact the cave four team and let them know we’ll meet them at their cave mouth after Savon is sorted out.”
Spc. Dozier gave Olivienne a salute and a grin before pulling her voteo from her belt. “Yes, ser!”
It wasn’t long before all teams, minus cave four, were back up to the top of the cliff. Lt. Savon had been taken aboard the dirigible and the ships medican, along with Spc. Holling were treating him for a broken arm, a concussion, and possible fractured fingers. Both Castellan and Olivienne spoke with him before heading out to meet with the rest of the team. They left Savon awake and hurting but in good hands.
Once again at the top of the cliff, Castellan spoke with the remaining members of the unit. “You may have heard Lieutenant Madlin say that they’ve found something in cave four. Connate Dracore and I will go down there to investigate.” She pointed out names as she called them. “I want Qent, Dozier, and Yazzie to come with us, the rest of you stay topside and guard the cliff. And thanks for the good work so far, just a little longer and we’ll get to head home. You’re dismissed to assume your stations!”
Olivienne held back a smile when the entire unit saluted T
osh all at once. They had a lot of respect for the woman who had claimed the sovereign’s heart. Instead of commenting on it, Olivienne turned to Castellan with a look of eager anticipation. “Are you ready?”
Now that the fear of Savon’s injury had tempered, the excitement of discovery had begun to rise again. Tosh gave a nod and a grin to the sovereign. “Of course! After you, Connate Dracore.”
Chapter Twenty-one
LT. MADLIN’S TEAM was waiting for them, helping to pull each one in as they lowered themselves to the cave entrance. “It’s really straightway down the passage, Commander. The chamber is fairly small but it’s dry with no hidden surprises that we could ascertain.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Madlin.” Unfortunately for the lieutenant, the next thing Tosh did was order her and the rest of her team topside. “You’ve done good work here, all of you. But with Lieutenant Savon down, I want to make sure we don’t have all the team leadership stuck underground. Also, these caves aren’t very big so I’m taking the ones with the most adventurist training below and one medican, no more. Savvy?”
Understanding washed over the lieutenant’s face and she nodded to Tosh before turning to the rest of her group. “Yes, ser. Come on you lot, let’s head up.” As the original four person team began clipping in and ascending the line up the cliff, Olivienne turned on her headlamp and led the other four deep into the recesses of the cliff.
Twenty meens later they came into a small chamber, just as Madlin described. The light of their headlamps showed a large panel of buttons, twenty-five by twenty-five square. Each button had a number written on it and above the panel was a horizontal tube mounted to the wall, no more than a finger’s width in diameter. It looked like a clear glass ampule that has been segmented into three sections. Along the right side of the button panel were tiny square slates showing numbers, each number appeared to correspond to the row of buttons to the left. And along the bottom of the panel was the same thing, with the tiny number slates corresponding to the column above. “How peculiar.” In all her rotos as a historical adventurist, Olivienne had never seen the like.
Castellan looked at her and grimaced. “I’m not even sure where to begin but strangely enough I don’t get the sense of danger with this one that I had back on Mater.”
Olivienne tapped her chin as she studied the panel. “Me either. Look here, notice how the rows and columns of numbers each add up to sixty?”
Spc. Dozier shook his head. “The last column and last row add to sixty-one. That’s strange.”
“But what are the slate numbers off to the side? Spc. Qent pointed at the ones to the right of each row and called them off. “Fifty-three, forty-five, thirty-eight, fifty-one, and sixty-one. There is no pattern that I can detect!”
Castellan cocked her head and studied the buttons in the combined light of their headlamps. “Could there be maths involved? What if we subtract the slate number from the total?”
Olivienne pulled out a stylus and small slate from her belt pouch and wrote down the row totals in a line. Four were the number sixty and the fifth was the number sixty-one. Directly below that line she wrote out the second group of numbers and started subtracting. She wrote the remainders in a third line at the bottom. “Seven, fifteen, twenty-two, nine, and zero...that still makes no sense!”
No one in the little group had a clue as to the meaning, none could find a pattern. But before frustration could mount further, the voteo at Castellan’s hip sounded an alert tone so she responded. “Tosh here. Over.”
“Madlin sending, Commander. Specialist Meza has had a clairvoyant episode. She’s asking me to send Specialist Penn down to your location. Over.”
Olivienne looked at Tosh with confusion. “Why would we need Penn?”
The Shield Corp commander thought for a meen then abruptly snapped her fingers. “Penn has interpretist training! What was the last line of the poem?”
The sovereign’s face suddenly lit up and she reached down to pull the translated poem from her waist pouch. She followed the lines with her finger until she came to the last one. “The Key of keys will open.” Then she looked back up at the panel of buttons. “That’s it, we need to use the key...not the pendant but the translation key!”
Tosh smiled. “That makes sense, do you know it?
The experienced historical adventurist snorted at the humor of such a question. “I’ve been translating texts, albeit slowly, for rotos. Of course I have the numbers memorized by now. The first key was for the Temple of Archeos so I’m guessing this one will be Illeos or Antaeus.”
“You want me to cancel Specialist Penn?”
Olivienne was already writing the name of Illeos out on the slate in her hand and trying to remember the corresponding letters as well as numbers from the much read cypher. “Yes, probabl—er, wait. I really only have the key numbers for the established temples memorized, and I don’t have the full alphabet with me. See if she knows the full alphabet so we can translate Antaeus to numeric value.” Tosh took a meen to communicate her request to Madlin, who in turn put the request to Penn. Indeed she did have the entire twenty-six character cypher memorized and they translated both remaining temples into number form.
The team gazed up at the panel of buttons and compared the numbers available to the two sets of temple digits. Dozier pointed at the first row of buttons. The numbers across read eighteen, five, twenty-four, seven, and six. “Look, one of the numbers in the first row is also found within the Illeos set, and it is the remainder of our maths. Seven.”
Qent pointed at the second line. “This one is the same pattern. The remainder of the maths was fifteen and fifteen is also found within the Illeos set. But the third one...” He shook his head.
Olivienne started writing on the slate. “If the pattern holds, then the button should be twenty-two, which was the remainder, however that is not a number in the temple key. So could there be more than one button in that row?”
“Tricky.” Tosh pointed at the buttons, careful not to depress any. “It could be one and twenty-one. Or it could be one, ten, and eleven together. And it looks like the fourth row also accounts for multiple buttons but the only combination available is the eight and one to make nine. How do we figure it out for certain?”
Olivienne carefully traced each column down. “Look at column one, the remainder is one so that must be the only button pushed in that column. Now let’s look at column two, the only remainder is fifteen, which we established was the button to push in row two. That means the ten button in row three can’t be one of the ones depressed, because it’s also in column two with the fifteen button. So it has to be one and twenty-one!”
Castellan looked at her with amazed affection. “Brilliant! So let’s check it out, yeah?”
Ready to complete their second temple mission, Olivienne began pressing the six deduced buttons in order from left to right. Each time she pushed one in, the panel gave off a psst-chshhh sound, as if aether were escaping somewhere behind it. When she was finished with the last one, the horizontal indicator mounted above the buttons flashed and red liquid filled the first of three segments of the glass ampule. Nothing more happened. The Connate growled her displeasure. “Bollux! I was sure we had it.”
“What if you press them in order of the key, I, L, L, E, O, S?”
The Connate looked at Castellan worriedly. “But what order to push the one buttons? There are two of them.”
Tosh shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t matter, or try both if the first one doesn’t work. By the looks of the indicator, you have two more tries. What does your gut tell you?”
She got a finger wagging as a response, then Olivienne smiled and answered her. “You’re the one with the highly rated intuition. What does your channel say, oh great Commander?” Though they were all anxious to discover the secrets of the Maker’s mysterious panel of buttons, Qent, Dozier, and Yazzie all laughed with the Connate and their Cmdr. Tosh.
Castellan rolled her eyes and pointed at the panel. “T
ry them in order.”
Even Yazzie, who had been off to the side with nothing to do since she was only in the cave for her capacity as a medican, leaned forward as Olivienne pressed the buttons in order. With each number pressed, the sovereign recited its corresponding letter, her whispering voice nearly drowned out by the hissing of the mechanism inside. “I, L, L, E, O, S.” When the last number had been pushed in, the indicator flashed again and the red liquid drained out of the glass ampule above the panel. Then a series of mechanical clicks sounded. “That’s it?” Olivienne gripped the sides with her fingertips trying to swing it open but it wouldn’t budge. “Maybe it’s stuck?”
Tosh waved all of them away from the panel. “Let me try something.” Focusing her mind, she used her telekinesis to pull the panel toward her and ince by ince it began to slide out from the wall.
Yazzie gasped, recognizing the motion and container for what it was. “It looks like the place bodies are kept in hospital, a mortum drawer! I had to do a rotation at the one in Cordeesh as part of my medican training before I transferred from Medi Corp to Shield Corp. But something is different about this one.” She stopped talking as the stele drawer finished sliding out from the wall. The difference became obvious as the drawer stopped much too short to house an average Psi.
“Is that a child?” Spc. Dozier’s voice was quiet as the partially disintegrated skeleton came into view.
Yazzie stepped near and Olivienne backed up to let her look. “No, definitely not.” She pointed toward the arm and leg bones that were still intact. “For one, these upper and lower arm bones are the same length as are the ones in the legs. Psierians are proportionally quite different. Also look at the head? It is unusually large for the body size and the intact right hand only has four strangely-long digits. We have five. Either this is the skeleton of someone with a significant physical deformity, or—”