by Terry Mixon
And if push came to shove, he could potentially get something to eat that way.
When he reached the first building, he found that it had a defined doorway. Admittedly, it seemed that the jade wall was solid, but there were hints of paint or some other substance in the shape of an outline.
No, not paint. Something that had once been part of the building itself. Something that was fused into the other material. It had faded over time but wasn’t completely gone.
The door was like the alcove, low to the ground, and made for something squat. He supposed that was conclusive proof that the aliens hadn’t been very tall.
Unlike the obelisk, there was a defined portion of the wall beside the door that looked like it was meant to be used to activate the entry. He doubted it was powered anymore, because this wasn’t like the obelisk, where it was intended to stay active and pay attention to the world around it.
Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Talbot pressed his hand against the discolored area and was shocked when the door flowed open. Literally flowed. The stone-like material seemed to just draw into the wall around it and leave an opening into the darkness beyond.
He drew his pistol and brought out one of his hand lights. He flashed the beam through the doorway, looking to see what was inside. The entry room was wide and deep, as he’d expected. It almost looked like a hotel lobby, with some type of furniture arrayed around small tables. The ceiling inside was high enough that he could stand. Barely.
Talbot ducked inside and waited for the door to close. When it did, he found a similar place to activate it on the inner wall and touched it. The door once again opened, so he wasn’t trapped. Excellent.
He made his way over to one of the chairs and saw that they had no padding whatsoever. They were like small platforms that a creature could climb up on. In fact, the rear of the “chair” had a small ramp that could allow for exactly that. Based on its width and height, whatever beings had used it, they hadn’t had very long legs, and they were wide of body.
Maybe they were kind of like crabs. Inflexible bodies, short legs, and long front-grasping claws.
Whatever they’d been, they were long gone.
He started walking deeper into the building but stopped as soon as something moved. Advancing out of the darkness at the rear of the room was something that looked very much like a crab.
Jared smiled at Kelsey as he stepped into Persephone’s wardroom and took a seat. Lily took the seat beside Kelsey, giving her a smile that seemed a little strange.
Weirdly, Lily had been a bit on edge during the trip over from Invincible. He wasn’t sure why she’d asked to accompany him, but as she was one of his senior officers, he wasn’t going to say no. If she felt she needed to be here, that was good enough for him.
Kelsey seemed nervous, and that was entirely out of character for his sister.
“Is everything okay, Kelsey?” he asked.
His sister smiled at him. “I’m fine. We should have the Raiders back on board in just a bit. Once we’re loaded up, we can explore the route leading to Twilight River and get the probes on their way if we get into the system itself.”
He nodded. “Excellent. I’ve decided I need to be with you, since we might need to execute an immediate assault because of the distraction that the Clans have so helpfully provided, and I don’t want to delay making the call. As planned, we’ll bring most of the fleet with us but leave them one flip from Twilight River. That should be safe enough.”
“You shouldn’t assume that,” Kelsey said. “Trouble follows me around.”
“But not recently,” Lily said. “Things have been pretty sedate for you over the last six months. I hope that’s not going to change.”
Kelsey smiled somewhat weakly back at the doctor. “Rest assured that I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure there’s no drama until we’re ready to take out the master AI.”
This conversation was getting really strange. There was some kind of subtext that he wasn’t privy to.
“What’s going on?” Jared asked slowly.
Lily gave Kelsey a wide-eyed, innocent look. One that was obviously manufactured.
Kelsey sighed. “You’re a real pain in the ass, Lily.”
“It’s part of my job description.”
“You’re not the only one expecting an addition to the family,” Kelsey grumbled, turning to face him. “My contraceptive implant failed too. I’m about five months pregnant.”
Jared felt his eyes narrow as the situation became clear in an instant. “You weren’t going to tell me. You were going to go on this mission and fight.”
“You’re damned right I was,” Kelsey said vehemently. “This is about the survival of the human race. I’m willing to risk my life, and that of my child, when the stakes are that high. If I’m not there, this entire thing could fall apart. I have the Imperial override codes in my head, so I have to be there.”
He started to snap at her but forced himself to take a breath and count to five before he allowed himself to speak. “Not true, since we have Julia. You’ve already confirmed that her codes are identical to yours. You don’t have to be there. You want to be there. That’s a critical distinction.”
Jared held up his hand when his sister started to speak. “I understand how important this mission is, believe me, and I’m pragmatic enough to admit that there may be something to what you’re saying. What I’m not willing to do is put you in danger unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“Julia will go with the attacking force, if I decide to send one, to provide the codes. She has Marine Raider augmentation, even if she’s not a trained Raider. Jake Peters can be her bodyguard. If anyone can keep her safe, it’s him.”
He waggled a finger when she started to object. “This is not subject to discussion, Colonel. Those are my orders, and you will obey them.”
His words obviously infuriated her, but she’d grown up a lot over the last few years. She simply sat there, stewing.
He turned his gaze to Lily. “I understand that this news was covered by doctor–patient confidentiality, but you should’ve informed me that Kelsey wasn’t fit for duty.”
“She’s fit for duty,” Lily objected. “Having a child isn’t a disability, Admiral. What she’s not cleared for is combat. I only suspected what she had in mind, so I couldn’t tell you anything. I have my duty and my oath, and I’ll uphold them both. You’re just going to have to accept that that’s the way it is.”
As much as he didn’t want to, he knew that she wasn’t going to compromise her ethics for him. So be it.
He returned his attention to Kelsey. “I can see now that it’s doubly important that I’m here. Who’s going to stop you from doing whatever you want if I’m not looking over your shoulder once Lily heads back to Caduceus?”
“Fine!” Kelsey grumbled. “You’ve made your point. I disagree with it, but I don’t exactly have a leg to stand on, do I? You’re going to be my minder and make absolutely sure that I do what you want. Great.
“How about we actually get this mission on the road? I just got word that the last pinnace has docked, and everybody except for Talbot is now aboard. We can depart, and we should.”
“One more question first,” Jared said. “Am I going to have a niece or a nephew?”
Kelsey’s expression softened a little bit. “A niece.”
That made him smile. “I’m really happy for you and Talbot. I’m glad that I found out, because I want to see your girl grow into a strong woman just like her mother.”
Kelsey’s expression hardened. “Mark my words, Jared. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make certain that she doesn’t grow up under the sway of those machines. I don’t care how many people that pisses off, you included.”
“Let me be the first of many to wish—though likely not to your face—that your little girl grows up to be exactly like you,” he said with a wry smile.
This was the bullheaded girl that he’d grown t
o know and love. He’d definitely have to keep an eye on her. If she could find a way to wiggle out of obeying his orders, she would. He just knew it.
It was his job to save her from herself. To save her unborn child from her impetuousness.
God save him. God save them all.
12
Carl had to admit that he was flummoxed. Whatever had happened to Elise had obviously disrupted the operation of the alien facility in some way. It was strange that it had only begun acting strangely after she’d arrived. He couldn’t see any reason for the change, but obviously, something was responsible.
One of the most interesting aspects of this was that Elise could see whatever it was that swirled around her, but no one else could. To any outside observer, using even the most sophisticated imaging gear, there was nothing there.
How could she perceive something that they couldn’t? He supposed if it was being transmitted through her implants, that could keep them from seeing it externally, but her implants were designed so that nothing external could influence them without her explicit permission.
Permission that she certainly hadn’t given.
Nevertheless, as Sherlock Holmes had once said, when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Frankly, with alien technology this advanced, calling it magic wasn’t that much of a stretch.
Still, whatever was happening had to involve something that didn’t violate the laws of physics. He didn’t believe that mystical handwaving could influence the world without being detectable.
It was always possible that whatever the aliens used for computers could remotely interface with Elise’s implants in ways that its creators had never envisioned. Just like he’d be able to use his tools to manipulate computers on prespaceflight Terra in a manner that the brightest scientists of the day would’ve flatly denied was possible.
It didn’t really matter how they were doing it. The important thing was that they were. He had to accept that and move along.
With Elise seemingly in control of this facility, she would have to master at least some rudiments of manipulating the alien interface if they were going to have any hope of getting out of here.
He supposed he was lucky that she had implants that could transmit what she saw to the rest of them. If she didn’t have something like that, she’d have been reduced to drawing pictures on tablets and trying to explain things verbally.
That would’ve made a difficult situation almost impossible. As it was, they were able to see everything that she did, and that gave them a chance to make this work.
“Well?” Elise asked, arching an eyebrow. “What do I have to do to get us out of here?”
“Damned if I know,” he admitted. “We could continue playing with what are obviously controls only available to you, but that might do something that none of us expects. Hell, you might turn off the facility, and we’d be trapped down here with no expectation of being able to escape at all.”
“No pressure,” Olivia said dryly. “Perhaps rather than manipulating the controls, she should make a trip around the interior of this chamber to see if she sees something that we can’t. Something is presenting her with information that’s only visible to her. If someone took Talbot out of this chamber, there has to be a door somewhere.”
“It doesn’t hurt to try,” he granted. “Want to take a walk, Highness?”
“We slept on the ground for a week on Terra and were prisoners together, Carl. I think you can call me Elise.”
He followed along behind her as she walked to the nearest wall and then began moving along at a slow walk. She’d only gone half a dozen meters when she stopped.
“There’s a rune on the wall.”
Carl tapped into the feed that she was providing and saw what she was talking about. This rune was blue and sat at about chest height.
He backed up the vid feed to see if it had always been there and noted that it had only appeared when she was a dozen meters away. Interesting. This was a context-driven presentation.
“See if you can touch it,” he said. He gestured for the scientists following behind them to move back.
Elise reached out and pressed her index finger against the rune. It turned lime green, and a half circle of the stone below it simply vanished. One moment it was there, and the next, an oval almost a meter tall was gone.
Inside the newly revealed area was a small chamber. It went back a couple of meters, and the ceiling was no taller than the opening.
Carl squatted down and stared inside, using a handheld light to illuminate the interior. The walls of the small chamber were covered in runes that looked to have actually been carved into the stone. That was different.
“These look to be similar to the runes floating around you, but they’re permanent. I wonder what purpose they serve.”
“Should I go in and take a look?” she asked. “Maybe I’ll see something that you can’t.”
Carl shook his head. “What can appear can disappear. I’ll go in and get a good look at what’s there, and if the door closes, you can open it again and let me back out.”
He got down on his hands and knees before crawling into the small chamber. He stared back at the opening to see if it was going to remain open. It did.
Now that he was inside, he saw something that hadn’t been visible from the outside. Some—but by no means all—of the runes were glowing softly blue. He estimated that the walls were covered with more than a hundred of the carvings, but only six were lit.
After scanning the chamber for a moment, his implants confirmed that there were one hundred and forty-four runes carved into the stone. He used his instruments to check and found no sign of Talbot’s DNA.
He sent the data out to the rest. Better safe than sorry.
“Talbot wasn’t in here. I’m not sure what it means, but only a few of these runes are glowing. Maybe only some portion of whatever this does is active or functional. Or maybe there’s a sequence that needs to be pressed, but only a few options are available to start.”
“Are you going to press one of them?” Elise asked. “If so, I think you’d best send me a video in real time so that I know what you intend to do and what happens. If I have to come in after you, I don’t want to be guessing what the best course of action is.”
He initiated the transfer of video data and then scanned the walls again. He picked one of the lit runes at random and made a point of gesturing toward it.
“Here goes nothing,” he said as he reached out and touched the rune.
The first thing he noted was that the stone that had once sealed off the small chamber had reappeared. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.
The light-blue color of the rune changed to lime green. He immediately noticed that he didn’t need the flashlight he was holding anymore. There was a white illumination coming from somewhere in the chamber, though he couldn’t tell from where.
It grew bright enough that he couldn’t see anything other than the light itself, and he was forced to close his eyes. After about fifteen seconds, the light went out, and he opened them again, looking cautiously around.
The door to the chamber had opened again, only it wasn’t looking back into the larger chamber. Instead, it now opened into what looked like a dark cavern.
Carl shined his light out, and it revealed what certainly looked like strange machinery. None of it was lit, and he couldn’t tell if any of it was functional.
Since he hadn’t felt any kind of movement, he had to assume that he’d been transported somewhere in a fashion similar to how the transport rings Omega had given them had worked. He was probably deep underneath the obelisk.
A quick scan of the runes showed that they were different than the ones above. As above, only a few of them were lit—in this case, four. None of them matched the one he’d pressed, but he noted that there was one that was identical to the rune that had opened the small chamber in the first place.
Time to see if he could get bac
k to his friends. He touched the rune.
Kelsey fumed as Persephone arrived at the multiflip point to begin the journey to Twilight River. It annoyed the hell out of her that Lily had played her like this.
Well, perhaps “played” was the wrong word. After all, she’d intended to do something contrary to what the doctor had ordered. More accurately, Lily had foiled her.
The word made her feel like she was some kind of vid villain.
Sadly, she was well and truly screwed. If she’d thought that she had a chance of getting away with it, she’d disobey Jared’s order in a heartbeat. She knew that he knew that, so she didn’t expect him to allow her the opportunity to make that happen.
Being outmaneuvered sucked.
She was just going to have to accept that she wasn’t going on the final assault. That galled her, but what was she going to do? Stun her brother and try to slip away after hiding his unconscious body? Unlikely to succeed.
Angela now knew that she wasn’t supposed to go on the actual raid. Her friend didn’t know the reason for it because Kelsey hadn’t chosen to reveal her condition. Talbot deserved to hear about it before her pregnancy became public knowledge.
It only took a short amount of time to flip down the different branches of the multiflip point network and arrive at the system that supposedly contained the far flip point leading to Twilight River.
She wasn’t sure that she trusted a map provided by aliens, especially when they’d compiled it over seventy million years ago.
Carl had assured them that it showed current features. That implied that the aliens had had some type of real-time sensing arrangement like Omega had had. Not only had the alien that was now part of the Omega station sensed the flip points in the general area around his system, but he’d been able to open ways to other realities.
For all she knew, so could these ancient aliens. Or maybe they could do even crazier things, not that she had a clue what that might look like.
