"Simulations have given conclusive results. The Gondol Stone anomaly will appear as nothing more than a solid foundation."
"Check to see if the Denzee ships have left from Gondol."
"They are on their way to free space."
Harris said, "Let's get this ball rolling. Worker bots, this is Gruberg. I'm ordering you all to Gondol immediately. We have a building to construct. Alex is sending you the plans."
Minutes later, thirty-six robotic workers walked up the ramp onto the Hailstorm. Tawn joined Harris in the cockpit of the Bangor as Trish, Gandy, Sharvie and Bannis piled in behind. The mini-armada lifted off in unison, turned skyward, and raced toward free space. Twenty-four minutes later they were landing on Gondol.
Sharvie clapped her hands. "This is exciting."
"I wouldn't get too excited yet," said Harris. "Gonna be five days before that building is finished. We won't be going in whatever's down there until then."
"Really? I thought we had free run of the planet now?"
"We do. But our first order of business is to get that monitor station built. The Denzee pushed hard to move in the deadline for planting their crops. They're already worried about the Hoya catching up with this six-month delay."
Trish placed her hand on Sharvie's shoulder and said, "It's five days. You can do this. I know you want to explode about now, but just hold it in a little longer."
Harris walked to the hatch. "Alex has given each of us assignments. The sooner we get those done, the sooner we'll be in that building. Let's get to work people."
The worker bots moved out among the debris of the downed Denzee Dulons. Forty minutes after they had begun their salvage, a retaining wall around the stone was taking shape. Two hours later, the wall was being lowered into place from above and being sealed at the sides. Makeshift pumps were dropped in and the water inside pumped out.
As the water receded to the edges of the stone, a team of eight bots were dropped in and a bucket brigade began hauling out buckets of muck. After three hours of scooping, the stone had been uncovered going down two meters on the sides. The Hailstorm hovered overhead, dumping load after load of Gondol-made concrete.
The following day, as a final step of foundation preparation, meter-thick Denzee armor plates were lowered onto the stone, bonded to the surface, and welded in place. A box room with a door was added to the center of the stone, with a meter thick armor roof placed on top.
The third day saw a stairwell leading to the room door being welded in place, and concrete poured going up a meter above the waterline. On the fourth day, a two story building made entirely of Denzee armor was lowered onto the foundation. The final day saw a power unit, comms, and an environmental system added.
When the final bit of electronics gear, a sensor station, was added to the top of the building, Harris looked down at the timer on his comm. "Twenty minutes early. The Denzee will be thrilled."
Tawn chuckled. "Forget the Denzee. Sharvie is about to burst over there."
Harris turned. "Well, it's getting late. We should be heading back to Midelon to get some sleep."
Sharvie piped up. "Nooo, you said five days, four hours!"
Harris began to laugh. "OK. I was just trying to get a rise out of you. We're all eager to see what's down there. W6, can you retrieve the modified plasma blaster for me?"
The bot turned, walking up the ramp into the Hailstorm.
"Plasma blaster?" Tawn asked.
"Just a repeater I had one of the bots work over. Puts out small pulses of plasma at a frequency that should pulverize that stone. We have three meters to dig through to reach that shaft underneath."
Sharvie sighed. "How long will that take?"
"Alex says about forty-five minutes."
Sharvie plopped down on the concrete floor. "Is this ever going to happen?"
Trish laughed. "I knew you were into this stuff, but wow. You're starting to scare me."
"I guess I am being a little dramatic."
Trish raised an eyebrow. "A little? You've shown more emotion in the last few days than the entire time I've known you."
"Sorry, I guess I don't do drama or desperation very well."
Harris gestured toward the ramp. "You may all want to go hang out up there. Gonna get real dusty in here."
Tawn asked, "You doing that yourself? Why not have one of the bots do it?"
"And let them have all the fun? No thanks. I want to be standing right here when we break through."
"Scans say there's nothing there but a stairwell. Not gonna be all that exciting. Whatever we're about to uncover is a half kilometer or more below."
"Just go up the ramp and quit pestering me, OK? I'm doing this."
Rumbles could be heard from below as the others sat outside on the ramp going up into the Hailstorm.
Gandy said, "Other than being covered in water and mud, it's not a bad looking planet. Temperature is decent and those rainstorms sweeping across it out there are kinda cool."
Tawn replied, "Low oxygen and low carbon dioxide. That's why there's so little plant growth here. The soil is rich but the atmosphere is poor."
"It could be terraformed. Set up giant burners to up the CO2 and the plant life would follow. With that comes oxygen."
Tawn chuckled. "You have ten thousand years to enact this plan?"
"We're smart, we can build machines to help."
"The scale here is too big to be done in our lifetimes."
"Then we leave it as a legacy."
The rumbles from below stopped a short while later.
Harris called up the stairwell. "Almost through for anyone who wants to come watch."
Sharvie raced down the ramp into the stairwell.
Trish shook her head. "Don't think I've ever seen her move that fast."
The others followed.
Harris pointed to his feet. "This crack goes through."
The plasma blaster was turned back to the hole. Crushed rock dust began to float up into the already smoggy room.
Tawn said, "Should you be—"
The floor broke through, dropping Harris two meters down to a metal stairwell below. Corroded bolts pulled from the stone walls, causing the entire stairwell to drop and collapse by a full floor.
Tawn continued as she waved dust from in front of her face. "I was gonna say you probably shouldn't be standing there."
Harris looked up with a wince as he rolled off his back, revealing a jagged piece of stone. "Would have been nice to hear that ahead of time."
Tawn shook her head. "If I'd managed to get that out earlier, I'd just be looking down at you now telling you 'I told you so.'"
Harris chuckled as he stood. "Probably."
"I wouldn't move around much down there. Looks like those stairs are unstable. You're still at least a half kilometer up in the air there."
Harris looked at the sensors on his arm pad. "Three kilometers."
"What?"
"This shaft goes down three kilometers."
"Well, that's gonna be a fun descent."
Trish said, "The descent will be easy. It's the coming back up that'll kill ya."
Gandy leaned over the hole. "Mr. Gruberg, I think we should send one of the bots down first to check those stairs. They weigh about a third less than you do. And they're expendable."
Tawn chuckled. "Huh. We were always the expendable ones. I guess we've moved up the value chain thanks to these bots."
Harris said, "Seems stable enough down here. Those bolts up top were corroded. From the stains on the walls it looks like there was some minor leakage around that capstone. Didn't make it down this far, so we should be good. Have the bots fashion a ladder or something for the rest of you and we can start our way down."
Another twenty minutes passed before an alternate method of moving up or down was put in place. The bots fashioned a simple spiral staircase they had mounted on a central pole. The pole was welded to four supports that ran out over the top sides of the hole. Sharvie was the first
one down.
The descent to the far bottom took thirty-two minutes, ending in a room five meters per side. A single large metal plate covered most of one wall.
Harris walked up to the plate, placing his ungloved hand on the cold steel. "No handle." He looked back up the stairwell. "We're gonna need a cutter. Sharvie? Want to go get one for us?"
"Me?"
Harris chuckled.
Tawn stepped forward, bracing her shoulder against the plate. She began to grunt as she pushed. The wall moved back a few centimeters. "Come on, moron. Help push."
Harris leaned in. Gandy and Trish stepped up to help. Several hard, heaving pushes later, a gap could be seen between the plate and the wall.
"Keep pushing," Harris said. "We're almost there."
The metal wall stuck in place with a screech and then broke free, swinging around to one side.
Harris flipped down his face shield. "Guh, smells like dead cat in here."
Gandy pointed. "Probably whatever creature that was curled up there in the corner."
The group stood over the mummified skeleton of a creature measuring less than a meter in height. The remnants of clothing covered a pair of short legs, a long torso, and medium length arms with three fingers and opposable thumbs. The thumbs were something that seemed to define the sentient beings that were known of, Humans, Denzee, and a new gray skinned creature with large black eyes.
— Chapter 18 —
* * *
Tawn said, "There's a console over here."
After a short inspection, Harris saw a single flashing light on the console. He reached over and pushed it in.
Tawn sighed. "Can we do one thing at a time here? Remember what happened last time you just blindly pulled levers and pushed buttons? You almost got us boiled to death."
The panel lit up fully. A different button began to flash.
Harris grinned. "No bubbling, no boiling."
As he moved his hand toward the next flashing light, Tawn reached out, grabbing his wrist. "No you don't. Not until we figure out what's going on here."
Lights in the ceiling flashed on, illuminating the room. A second, hardened door was cut into a wall on their left. As Tawn's attention was diverted, Harris reached in and pressed the flashing button. The light went green and the flashing stopped. No other indication of action was apparent.
Tawn said, "You're just begging to get us killed. We don't know what any of this is. Let's take a little time to figure that out first."
Harris nodded. "You take your time, I'll get things moving. We have lights, we have another door. The obvious thing to do next in here is go through that door."
Trish stood over the creature and frowned. "Look at the size of that skull. And those huge eye sockets. Such a big head. It's a wonder that tiny skeleton could support it."
Gandy knelt beside it. "Brain cavity is almost the size of ours."
Harris walked over to the door. Leaning his shoulder into it, he gave his best shove as he grunted. The door didn't move.
Tawn chuckled. "Looks like you might need the strength of a woman to get that open."
"If you know any with strength," Harris replied, "send them over."
"Hang on. Let's have a look at the controls on this console."
Trish walked across the room and stood beside her. "That looks like lights."
Tawn pressed the button Trish pointed to. The overhead lights flipped off. A second press flooded the room with light.
Trish pointed. "That's a door symbol."
The massive door they had come through swung shut with a loud clang, followed by the thump of a lock sliding into place.
Harris put his hands on his hips. "Nice. Lock us in."
With a second press, the lock slid free and the door again swung open.
Tawn smiled. "Imagine that."
Gandy stood behind his sister. "That looks like some kind of stack. With smoke coming up from them. And those look like clouds."
Trish nodded, "This one could be the symbol for a generator. And that looks like plumbing or piping."
Harris said, "Can we focus on getting this door open?"
Trish said, "Here."
She pressed a button and a locking mechanism could be heard sliding. A pop was followed by a rush of air. The second door cracked and then slowly swung open.
Harris smiled over his shoulder as he took a step into the new room. Three-meter-tall round drums sat on the floor with myriads of piping and wiring running everywhere. The drums went back into the ultra-deep room for at least a half kilometer. Alien writing could be seen on each of the drums.
Tawn stood beside him. "What do you think they are?"
"Have no idea. Water filters maybe?"
Trish said, "They look like the generator symbol from that console."
Harris said, "We should try it out. See what they do."
Tawn winced. "I don't know that I'm comfortable with that. This is a big facility, which to me means big results from pressing that button."
Harris walked back out to the console. "Don't be such a wuss, Freely."
The symbol button was pressed. Seconds later a deep rumble moved through the complex.
Tawn took in a deep breath. "I hope you didn't just kill us."
Deep clangs and rumbles were followed by hisses and the occasional metallic screech.
Gandy said, "Whatever's in there is coming to life."
Rumbles were replaced by hums, which one by one were replaced by whirs. The facility was soon full of the white noise generated by spinning machinery.
After a minute of listening to the quieting and even-pitched sounds, Harris said. "There, wasn't so bad, was it?"
Tawn shook her head. "Just not advisable."
"Look, we have limited time here before the Denzee come. We need to know what this facility is for. We can't do that by standing around scratching our heads. We have to take action. So what's next?"
Gandy said, "This stack symbol followed by the clouds. Both are now flashing as if meant to be the next buttons pressed."
Harris reached out, depressing the flashing button with the stack symbol. Again rumbles could be heard, this time coming from a distance.
Tawn scowled. "I don't like that at all."
Harris held up a hand. "Just be patient."
Several minutes later, the rumbles were replaced by the occasional vibration. "See, no catastrophes."
Gandy pointed. "Might as well hit the next one."
Harris pressed the flashing cloud symbol. No apparent result could be seen other than another flashing light on the console.
Trish said, "That a galaxy symbol?"
Harris reached for the button. "Let's find out."
Tawn again grabbed his wrist. "A galaxy symbol? I think we might want to wait on that one."
Harris pressed down with his finger. Seconds passed with no sign of a reaction.
"Was that so bad?"
A low rumble quickly turned into a violent shaking. The quiet whir of the drums in the other room one by one turned into high-pitched whines.
A comm came in from the bots topside. "Sir, we are seeing activity up here on the surface. A half kilometer in each direction, sixteen positions surrounding us are bubbling up huge fountains of water mixed with muck. It may be time for us to leave."
Tawn scowled. "Nice going, idiot. You may have boiled us yet."
The group turned for the stairwell, hustling out and beginning the three kilometer climb. The first ten floors went fast, followed by Trish, Gandy, and Sharvie slowing to a single-step walk. Huffing and puffing filled the helmet speakers.
Harris looked at Sharvie. "Here, climb on my back and hold on."
The short stocky Human complied. Harris began a slow run going up, taking two steps at a time. Tawn followed after with Trish riding her back.
Gandy called up after them. "You just leaving me here?"
Tawn glanced over her shoulder as she yelled. "Just keep coming. We'll be back to get you."
"What is going on out there?" Bannis asked.
Tawn said, "You see those columns of water and mud spewing up, kind of at an angle?"
A comm come in from Alex. "I've done a quick analysis. It would appear a machine was started that generates a hurricane. In about two hours’ time you should see a marked decrease in the winds around that station as an eye forms and moves outward."
Harris returned a confused look. "Hurricane generator? What purpose would that serve?"
"Using sensor data obtained from our ships in orbit, there are currently ninety-six such hurricanes taking shape across the globe. Along with those storms, there are two hundred eighty-eight immense geysers spewing columns of smoke and ash as much as a kilometer up into the air."
"What for?"
"I believe we are witnessing the terraforming of Gondol. In five years’ time the atmosphere of this planet will contain five hundred parts per million of carbon dioxide. Given the soil analysis we already have in hand, we would see an immense increase in the growth of foliage across the entire surface. Within seven to eight years, the oxygen level would grow to be as much as 26 percent."
"Have you been able to translate the other symbols on that console?"
Alex replied, "No, we do not yet have enough information."
"What about the alien we saw?"
"It would appear, given the height of the individual, the console was either built for them or by them."
"And the room full of drums? Any thoughts on those?"
"I can only surmise they are part of the wind generation system. Several assumptions would have to be made, but the volume of air moved outside, as detected by the Hailstorm's sensors, matches an estimate coming from that room. It is possible that room, and sixteen others like it, are being used to create the hurricane in which your ship resides."
"This all leaves us with more questions than we came in with," said Tawn. "Who are the people that built this? Where are the people that built this? The why is obvious. Any thought on how old that complex down there is?"
ARMS Beckland's Fall: (Book 5) Page 16
