"They fought to the end," Bowles observed sadly.
"With whatever they had," Marcia Soto added.
The shelter had an entrance about two meters wide, while the building itself was around ten meters wide and fifteen deep. Inside they found a nightmarish charnel chaos of bones, dozens laid one on the other. It was impossible to tell how many without a careful excavation, but they ranged from small to tiny.
Barnes and Soto photographed the scene, then turned away, disgusted.
"What now?" Barnes asked after a moment.
Bowles looked around. "I want to see what's over there." He pointed to the south. "The people in the trees are holding the enemy back from something in that direction."
"I don't understand," Marcia said.
"Don't understand what?"
"Well, Joe, why would they run to this place? It's a dead end."
"I don't know yet."
Barnes turned back from his own study of the area. "Maybe they were driven here. This is really shitty ground, what with the ocean at their backs and the enemy on the ridge to the east. Really shitty ground."
"And the enemy split their line as they came through the gap?" Carol asked.
"Seems reasonable," Joe answered. "Let's get over there and see what we can find."
They walked the hundred meters along the PCH to the second structure which looked to be the apex of the second band of defenders under the trees. As they approached, Carol stopped.
"What, Lieutenant?"
"Doctor Bowles, there are no bodies around this place." They all looked again at the small structure, and indeed, it was not surrounded by bones. There were fallen defenders nearby, but nothing around the entrance or within. Like the first shelter they investigated, there were numerous burn marks on the building where enemy fire had hit it. The impacts seemed to have melted some of the masonry and left a dark, singed ring.
Carol stepped carefully inside the entrance and then suddenly stopped. "It's hollow."
"What?"
"The floor, Wayne, it's hollow." She pounded her feet harder, and they could all hear the echo of a void beneath.
"What the hell..."
Carol spun to face the small group standing in the entrance. "Wayne! No bodies. A hollow floor —"
Bowles looked at her skeptically, on hand on his hip. "You think this is an escape route of some kind?"
"I'd love to think that, Doctor Bowles, I really would."
Barnes joined her inside, and together they tried to find the edges of the void beneath the floor.
"OK, we gotta clean out the damn dirt. I don't suppose we brought a broom?"
They hadn't, so they used their feet and hands as both broom and shovel, digging out the accumulated dirt and pushing it out the entrance until they had uncovered a dark metal door. The combination of SLUGs, heavier gravity, and grunt work left them sweating and out of breath, hearts pounding.
"Enough! Take a break, all of you," Soto demanded. "Water!"
Reluctantly, Hansen, Barnes, and two Marines came out of the building and dropped to the ground, each leaning against a tree. They took a deep drink of water from the supply in their isolation suits. After a few minutes, they returned to the building where James George and Joe Bowles were standing on the newly revealed door, discussing what to do next.
"OK, what now?" George asked.
"It's almost certainly a trapdoor of some kind, Commander."
"Even if we can figure out how to open it, should we?"
Barnes knelt down, looking at the edges of the door. "I'd be really worried about a booby trap...but I can't see anything that looks suspicious."
"After all this time, on an alien world, I would not be too sure I could recognize what is or isn't suspicious, Captain."
"Yes, Doctor, I understand. But we have to work with what we know, don't we?"
"Just be circumspect about what you don't know."
Carol knelt down and kept digging at one end of the rectangular metal slab.
"There's a hinge."
"What?"
"A hinge. Actually, hinges. Two." She sat back on her legs so the others could see clearly. "Anything up there that looks like a handle?"
George just stared at her. "Lieutenant, have you not been listening to this conversation about how the whole damn thing might blow up in our faces?" Carol looked back at her superior.
"I have, sir, but the question of whether we should open it is secondary to whether we can figure out how."
"Hansen —"
"Yeah, Carol, there are handles," Barnes said, interrupting the XO.
"That will do. Captain Barnes, Lieutenant Hansen, out!"
"But, sir —"
"Out!"
Carol and Wayne's eyes met, and they silently decided that mutiny probably wasn't the answer. With a small nod to each other, they rose and left the building. They walked a small distance away to talk in private.
"Hinges?"
"Yeah, two heavy ones at that end. What about the handles?"
"Two."
"Well, if they installed handles, makes sense someone should be able to lift it, right?"
"Someone of their species, maybe. Not necessarily one of us weakling humans."
She laughed. "Well, we're not as weak as we were before this trip!"
"No question about that." The young woman Marine that had gone to the ridge with Carol joined them.
"Corporal?"
"Just checking on how the insubordination plan was coming, sir."
"Well, Kendra, we'll keep you posted."
"As you say, Captain. But I think we're all in it with you."
Carol smiled. "That's comforting, Corporal Case. That way, we can all be shot together."
"Have to catch us first, Lieutenant Hansen. And, come on, they can't shoot you."
Carol stifled a laugh, making quotation marks with her fingers as she spoke, "Oh, but she died so heroically fighting the evil alien attack!"
They were interrupted by James George's voice close by.
"OK, you two. You can cancel the mutiny for now."
"Mutiny, sir? Us, sir? Oh, no, sir!"
"Listen, you two —"
"Jokes aside, Commander," Carol said, suddenly serious, "we'd never do that to you."
"Yeah, Hansen, I know. Anyway, you kids got what you wanted. We're going to try to open it. The boss approved it."
They moved back into the building, just Carol, Wayne Barnes, and Corporal Case.
"First, let's clear out the joint between the door and the floor. Try to get that as clean as we can." They pulled combat knives from their packs and began carefully scraping the remaining dirt from the narrow gap between the metal door and the hard-paved floor. "Watch for wires or a trip mechanism, anything that doesn't seem to belong."
In a few minutes, there was a small pile of excavated dirt all around the door. Carol and Wayne pulled out flashlights. Under the bright light, side-by-side they studied the gap at the top of the door. Kendra Case looked over their shoulders.
"Looks like the pavement goes under the door. Figures."
"Figures?"
"Well, you gotta hold the door up somehow, right?"
Wayne ran his hand around the top edge.
"Nothing that looks like a lock."
Carol looked at him. "So, are you ready?"
Wayne nodded. "Flip you for it."
"Heads I win, tails you lose," she answered, delivering one of her dad's old lines.
"What?"
"Get outta here, Barnes. This one's mine."
Barnes stammered a little, trying to explain. "But, Hansen, Carol, I can't just, just —"
"Leave it to a girl?"
"No, that's not —"
"I found it, Wayne, It's mine."
Barnes looked at the XO and Doctor Bowles, who offered him no help.
Finally, he surrendered. "If you get yourself killed, Hansen, I'll never speak to you again."
"I can live with that."
Kend
ra Case gently shoved her Captain out the entrance, then snuck back around the side to reenter. Carol frowned at first when she reappeared, but Case just shook her head when Carol pointed for her to go back outside. They didn't speak a word, and Carol relented. They took positions on either side of the door, which was less than a meter wide, and each took hold of a handle. Carol counted three-two-one on her fingers, and they pulled as hard as they could.
The group outside jumped at the metallic crash that came from the building. They ran in to find Hansen and Case lying on either side of the door, laughing as a cloud of rusty dust floated down around them.
"What the hell is so goddamned funny?" George demanded.
"Counterweight, sir. I think I could have lifted it with two fingers!"
As the dust settled around them, Barnes was shining a flashlight down the opening. He saw stairs leading to a narrow tunnel.
"Carol, I think you might have got your wish."
"Really?" She stood and brushed the reddish crud off her isolation suit, then walked to the top of the opening. She started to step down the stairs when Wayne touched her on the shoulder.
"Not this time, Lieutenant. This part is mine." He pulled his sidearm, chambered a round, and started down the steps, flashlight in his other hand, pointed down the tunnel.
"Nothing in sight. Tunnel goes for some distance straight ahead."
Carol stood at the top of the opening, trying to align herself with the tunnel. "It leads to the ocean?"
"If you say so."
Carol carefully descended the stairs, following Barnes.
"I don't get it," XO George said flatly.
"Don't get what, sir?"
"How did they ever have time to build an escape tunnel, paved no less, while under attack?"
"Maybe it was already here."
"We need to get Professor Este's input on that," Bowles said.
"Either way, where the hell did they go?"
"Not too far, Captain," George called out, "Make sure you keep the opening in sight."
"Yes, Commander, understood. It looks pretty straight, but I can hear something ahead."
"What?"
"Something wet."
"Wet?"
Barnes decided not to respond to the XO's question, but continued his slow walk into the tunnel, Carol just a few meters behind.
"It's going downhill."
"Yeah, caught that myself."
They walked perhaps thirty meters when light started to reflect off the floor.
"Water."
"Shit."
They had all seen the small sea animals Marcia had reported in the ocean water samples, and no one was about to get exposed to those. The water moved slightly as they watched, sloshing gently back and forth.
"This is open to the ocean, Wayne. If it was closed off, it would be still."
"Weird."
Reluctantly they turned and walked back out to the opening.
"I got video, Doctor Bowles, but it's just a tunnel that gets flooded not that far in. No writing, no markings that I saw."
After Wayne and Carol climbed out, Bowles and James George did their own inspection of the tunnel, taking more video as they walked cautiously to the point where the ocean blocked their path. It was narrow, just wide enough for two people to pass. It was barely taller than Barnes, less than two meters. As Bowles and George climbed out of the tunnel, Barnes was standing outside, looking out to sea.
"Where did they go?" he asked aloud.
"Well," Carol said, "we have to assume they knew what they were doing, right? That heading down that tunnel was a rational, life-saving act."
"OK, so?"
"We don't think they had gills, right?"
"We don't really know, Lieutenant, but probably not," Bowles answered.
Barnes turned back to them. "So, the tunnel must have been dry, but now it's below sea level. Where did it go?"
Bowles crossed his arms, also looking out to sea. "More importantly, Captain, where did they go?"
They stood outside the structure for a few moments, still not fully understanding what they had seen. There was something missing from this puzzle, perhaps some small fact, a seemingly minor bit of data, that would complete the picture and unlock the mystery. For now, they had gathered plenty of data but were left with even more questions than when they arrived.
"Time to get back to the ship," George told them.
Reluctant, but weary of the increased gravity, SLUGs, and isolation suits, they walked back to the shuttle and lifted off for the safety of Antares.
After a shower and a meal, Carol sat down with her journal.
Dear David —
So today we walked the battlefield. Gruesome is the best word I can think of.
Bowles is the real thing, though. Tough, insightful, demanding. I like him a lot.
There were small children killed here, David. I mean, it's like a Nazi death camp or something. Horrible. Such a beautiful place to find such an ugly scene. Ugh.
Tomorrow there will be more to find, more places to search. I'm not sure I should be looking forward to it, but I am.
Wish me luck.
—Carol
Antares
Big Blue
Saturday, October 8, 2078, 0945 UTC
Greg Cordero did not want to let the books out of his sight. They double-bagged six of them on Blue and then washed and irradiated the bags once they were back on Antares. Ship's doctor Marcia Soto looked at the "dictionary" as if it were Pandora's Box itself as she placed it in the isolation glove box in the sick bay and secured the door. Greg sat down at the side of the clear plastic box, putting his hands through the gloves, and began carefully cutting off the clear transport bags. His translation processor, a black box a foot square and perhaps four inches thick, sat on the counter nearby. It was wirelessly connected to his tablet and the camera he'd positioned over the isolation unit.
Soto watched him carefully.
"Something on your mind, Doctor Soto?" Greg asked as he worked.
"There's always something to worry about around here. These books are just the latest."
Greg stopped and looked over at her.
"We've done what we know how to do, right? This should be sterile, right?"
Marcia shrugged. "Should is a big word with a giant loophole right in the middle. I don't like 'should.' I prefer something more definite."
"But, you're the expert. Is there anything else you think we could have done to make this safe?"
Marcia shook her head. "No, but the thing I'm most skeptical of is my own expertise. I just don't know enough to be sure, and I don't know when or if I ever will."
"I appreciate that Doctor, I think we all do. But we need to know what's in here if we're going to understand this culture."
"Yes, I know," she said with resignation in her voice. She pulled up a stool across from Greg and opened a soda. "Are we going to just sit here and chat or are you going to open the damned thing?"
Cordero smiled as he finished cutting away the plastic. "You have time for this?"
Marcia looked over her shoulder and then looked back at Greg. "I have some cultures to check but not until after lunch. So, yes, I have time."
"Thanks, I can always use another hand."
The book was about eight inches thick. The top was less rectangular than most Terran books, almost square but slightly taller than wide, and about a foot on each side. The binding appeared similar to the hardcover books he was familiar with, but the material was not cardboard but something harder, almost like wood.
Greg mounted a multi-spectral camera above the chamber so he could photograph the contents without contaminating the camera. He had Marcia snap a photo of the cover before he opened it. On the first page was the writing that they believed was an inscription of some kind.
Greg opened the next page, revealing the two columns of characters. He had Marcia take the picture and then spent a moment just looking at the page, hoping some insight would reve
al itself. He'd approached translation problems in this way many times, simply immersing himself in the characters and letting the innate language mechanism in his brain, amplified with experience and long study, work the problem on its own.
Marcia let him think on it a moment, and when he blinked and looked up at her, she asked: "OK, so what do you see?"
"The paper is interesting. It's kinda green, right? And it's not perfectly smooth. The ink, whatever it is, is flat, not raised. So, whatever the pigment is dissolved in must move through the paper pretty easily."
"Weren't there like ferns along the streets? Some kind of small tree? Might this be a papyrus?"
"That's a thought..."
"OK, what else? I can tell you're not done."
Greg smiled. "The paper is stiffer than ours, but it still bends a little. I'd be interested to see what the print shop looks like. This looks like a mass-produced book to me, so, somewhere, there's probably a printing press."
"What else?"
"Not much, yet. We expect a dictionary, if indeed that's what this is, to be in some kind of rational order."
"Well, it has to be ordered somehow, right?"
"Yes, otherwise it would be useless."
"Even I can see that there is just one blob of characters in the right column and much more text in the left."
Greg nodded. "Yes, so let's take a look."
He pulled his hands out of the chamber's gloves and displayed the page image on the large monitor on the wall.
"OK, so there are three basic ways to organize a dictionary. By sound, by concept, or by graphic."
"Graphic?"
"By its appearance, as if it were a pictogram. English dictionaries are like that. You start with the letter A then B then C."
"Isn't that by sound?"
"Well, not really. Not all letters sound the same all the time. The long e-sound can be either an e or an i, depending on the word. So, it's really graphical. The letter E is still e even when phonetically it's eh not ee."
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