Corrosion (The Corroding Empire Book 1)

by Johan Kalsi

  Enjo threw down one end of the ladder into the chamber, and tossed the anchor end to the crew. He didn’t wait for them to secure it before he started his descent. He asked his light to beam, and noticed that he had caused a cloud of dust that had risen to his chest. Of course, he should have sent in the non-invasive hover-glints first. No dust, no touching, no harsh lights. But footprints had built this place, and only footprints would make sense of it. He excused his greed for knowledge by gracing holy ground with human feet.

  There were more carvings; the East wall showed far more than a dragon—an entire zoo of creatures filled its surface. On the opposite wall were humans and buildings, although the humans were not as well defined as the many creatures. Enjo scanned his light around the corner, just as the first hover-glint breached the portal. Just after that, the first crew members descended the ladder for themselves.

  Enjo rounded the corner. Another small chamber. This time what appeared to be a very heavy door stood shut.

  On the floor in front of that sealed door lay a skeleton, curled into a fetal position. It was that of a standard human being.

  Years passed in the low-lying sulfuric mists of the desert to the industrious swiftness of the excavation. Aside from the dreamlike shifting of the dunes, Movexa hadn't changed, but Enjo's world had. Of course, the shattering discovery that astronautical human beings had, in the very, very distant past, visited Movexa and encountered the native Onhi had been the biggest change to his daily life and career prospects, but some of the smaller things were, over time, great influences on his mindset as well. For example, he had now a good friend in Gretz, the personal diplomatic overseer from the Onhi contingency.

  The Ambassadors Council now occupied an office in the semi-permanent embassy just to the north of the dig. Aside from a small perimeter of guards and virtual touring guides at a reasonable distance, there was no other sign of life besides the excavators, who were, to a body, human beings, and most of them planetary natives, although there was a small contingent of avatars. These avatars looked like full-body humanoid exoskeleton suits or robots. They were operated by extremely wealthy archaeological hobbyists from off-world who had donated large sums to Enjo’s museum project or the Canon Archive for the virtualized experience of contributing to a historic dig.

  The only exception to the humans and avatars was Gretz, who accompanied Enjo everywhere, only working when he worked.

  Enjo didn't mind. Gretz would be silent for long stretches. Even though they were rarely more than ten steps apart during the workday, there were times that Enjo forgot entirely that he was accompanied. When Gretz did speak, it was always with curiosity and an alien spirit that seemed to most closely resemble deep compassion.

  It had taken years for the team to unseal the next set of doors, and even more for the raging controversies over the first skeletal remains to die down.

  The best working theory was that Denizen Zero – the skeleton Enjo had discovered decades before upon opening the first hatch – had died in isolation from poison, possibly quarantined by the host Onhi of those days. The next bodies were those of other humans who came into contact with the first as they tried to investigate.

  The speculation was that the poison was transferred from person-to-person, but had a source somewhere outside of the complex. In other words, humans had been poisoned elsewhere, and had come to the Onhi complex for treatment or rescue. In the early days, back when they still thought the temple had been a type of cemetery or necropolis, one of Enjo’s colleagues back at the Canon Archive had coined the term Xenohospital in one of his speculative papers, and the moniker had stuck, as further investigations revealed that the building – whatever its original purpose, certainly tended to the healthcare of humans in the end.

  Although the competing theories were many, the one that had the most consensus by the most prestigious of researchers was that the poison had been common spohr, likely used in a gas-bomb attack by a warring human tribe. It was a common enough technique, and fossilized traces of spohr had been found in the area. The afflicted Denizen Zero sought, along with his mates, refuge among the Onhi, who took them into the chambers in an act of tragic compassion.

  The Onhi, perhaps unfamiliar with the human war tactics of those barbaric days, unwittingly exposed themselves to the spohr in treating the humans. In the scientific narrative, this explained why some humans had been left where they had fallen – the Xenohospital had become a house of the dead. Both Onhi and Human researchers fully anticipated the discovery of poisoned Onhi remains deeper inside the chamber, if only they could find the secret doorway in.

  Denizens One, Two and Four (the originally identified Three was later found to be only consisting of components of Denizen One) were found shortly after the discovery and painstaking unsealing of the narthex door.

  Their disposition and composition began to steer the arguments towards the “Wet Lung” theory – that at least one spohr cannister, had cracked open within the temple. The mystery had many facets and puzzling peculiarities that would likely continue long after Enjo was gone, but every little step mattered. Enjo had long figured that finding the doorway, and then finding the Onhi remains, were the last two steps necessary for him to make his career legacy a lasting one of galactic interest.

  Enjo and Gretz, however, rarely discussed the possibilities. Enjo, for one, was happy to let the chemists and forensics duke out the niggling details and pointless esoterica with the Noegenetic data processors. Enjo was a scientist of stone and dust, of bone and metal, of evidence and eyes. He could tell more with his eyes than any spectrometer could speculate.

  He had known within five minutes of finding the first skeleton that he was bound to find a few more beyond the narthex walls. He also knew that the ones they would find would have been the last ones to die, that they had been struck with the symptoms only moments before dying, and although they had taken the poison in through the lungs, it had been delivered as deadly particulate matter – not a gas – that had stuck to their clothes or skin. He had never shared any of this, because he knew as well as any that his thoughts were merely predictions based on experience, and had no roots in Noegenetic logic or data processes. The “particulate” theory was not unknown, but it was not popular, and Enjo was in no position to challenge the orthodoxy on that point. Not yet at least. Maybe not ever.

  Besides, he had another puzzle to crack. A big one.

  The so-called “Hall of Heroes” where One, Two and Four had lain dead for millennia was a marvel. With a vault of five stories high, and two “whisper points” beyond a great, handmade crevasse, the enormous room was lined with carvings, glyphs, wards, artwork and symbolic instruction. The thousands of wall features were crusted in dust, and Enjo simply didn't have the man-power to uncover and catalog the room and, at the same time, focus on finding the secret passageway.

  The truth was that he didn't have any evidence that there even was a next passageway. Sure, he knew that there were other chambers beyond these walls, but he couldn't find any trace of another sealed door. Still, just as he knew that the three men and one woman had died from particles, not gas, he knew that this room had to connect to others, somehow.

  The crew in the meantime focused on carefully revealing the wild mix of messages secreted into the walls. The written language of the ancients was only now being initially processed by the resources of the grand computational Noegenetic Ruminator, located deep within the Canon Archives on Ouffland sent nearly daily updates on progress in the language processing project.

  Enjo himself was at a loss about that. In all his studies he'd never seen a language, alphabet or pictograms quite like it. Whether it was from visual images, old-fashioned, physical rubbings, or just standing in front of the exposed carvings, Enjo and Gretz had both spent months poring over the glyphs. Whenever he thought they might be onto a pattern, it would be broken by another. Without a key of some sort, of course, they'd never get the full story, but Enjo had not even found the nearly un
iversal basics: symbols for “baby” or “man” or “family”.

  It was well enough, he supposed. Just focus on discovery. Let the armchair lords do their analytic work far away. Though an ability to read the walls would be helpful, he was confident that he would find the next door the old fashioned way: by dusting for it.

  Gretz, for once, wasn't keeping up. Enjo put down his sensitive airbrush and cracked his stiff knuckles, which had become slightly arthritic with the years. “Something the matter?”

  As always, it took several seconds before the long-limbed creature replied conventionally, although the gills at the various joints on his body inspired noisily in a slow, thoughtful stream. He flipped down the recessed speaker that had been tucked up by his brow, and pulled up his transback, a small device that – allegedly – would return to him the retranslated meaning of things he said to humans. After all these years, he was still married to the guide, even though he rarely misspoke without it.

  “No one has harmed me,” said Gretz. “Nothing has harmed me. In spirit, all is as it was the day before. May I make an assumption that you find my work to be of slower pace than typical?”

  “Yeah, man. I'm referring to that.” Enjo didn't use his own translator with Gretz anymore, because Gretz was adept at everything but forming the foreign sounds. It hung disconnected to his shoulder exo. It had been months since he'd had to present at the Ambassador's Office...in fact, almost a year. Gretz went back and forth there once a week still, and Enjo was glad to be rid of the politics.

  “Perhaps, there is no door. Perhaps, this is a separate chamber.” His gills sighed. “Perhaps, we should seek a new entry on the exterior.”

  Enjo was surprised at the alien's bout of melancholy, or doubt, or whatever it was. It wasn't in Gretz's nature to despair. He looked behind them, relieved to confirm that the rest of the crew was well out of earshot, working on the far wall at DZ-53, as they had for most of the month.

  “You know that's an entirely new project, one that we don't have the manpower for, at least not if we want to keep excavating here.”

  “Maybe, it is time for a change in direction. Maybe, as you have yourself said, 'These chambers are a ruse.'” It was always unsettling to hear his friend quote him back exactly, complete with human accenting. This time, Gretz's point was even more upsetting.

  “It has only been eighteen months on this course. We contracted with your people for three years on this course. We don't even review progress with the leadership for another six months. You yourself made the case for the internal approach to the Council!”

  “Even so, my people are flexible. Even so, my people adapt. Even so, I have a sense.”

  I have a sense. Of all the common phrases Gretz repeated in their conversations, this one was rare. The first time it had come up, it had led to the discovery of the whisper points. The last time he had said it, it preceded advice that had saved two men's lives from a rock slide at the crevasse.

  Enjo cocked his head. “Okay, but didn't you have a sense in favor of this project?”

  “Of course, as you well know or can review in the minutes from that meeting. Of course, I am on record. But that sense passed, of course, some time ago. Now a new one has taken its place.”

  Anxiety crept over him. “This isn't like you, Gretz. You are throwing me off.”

  “Never would I! By all means, we can keep at this process. Let's stay here. Concern you? Never would I!”

  “No, no no. I trust you. If you've got a reason to make a change in the project, I definitely want to hear it and consider it. It's just...you are talking about a very big, very significant and possibly very counterproductive change. It seems to have come from out of the blue.”

  “Blue?”

  “Unexpectedly. It means it fell out of the sky...very surprising.”

  “The sky is blue?”

  “On some planets.”

  Gretz nodded a few times, slowly, as if he was storing the new idiom in his head for safe keeping.

  They knocked off early that afternoon so that Enjo could consider the ramifications of taking Gretz's advice, and so that Gretz could prepare a case for the argument. Cullacks and Fawkes, the two humans closest to Enjo, took over the team as they typically would when Enjo was called away. Enjo and Gretz agreed to meet that evening for a supper by the string of sulfuric pools known as the Bent Serpent.

  The native aliens breathed the thick and noxious air quite naturally, but it was a rare human who would even wander past the pools with a filtering mask. The odor was strong. Enjo was the only human who enjoyed the smell. He left his mask back at his quarters in the main dormitory.

  The friends sat with their legs dangling above the mists of a pool, watching the sun spill down the side of the sky like a slow melt. Even with time to process the project change request, Enjo was uneasy. Soon, the off-duty guardians of the Ambassador would begin their evensongs, and the distant tones would carry into the sandy vale. Perhaps then Enjo could recline a bit more, and let his mind be carried to the simple paradise of exotic but familiar music.

  “The Canon Archive is sending an avatar here,” said Gretz. “The Ambassador has told me this.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  Enjo laughed. “You must be mistaken. I just talked to the Canon earlier this week. They said nothing. Something like that takes weeks of planning and coordination. I don’t even know if we have an available avatar model right now. We’d have to ask one of the hobbyists to give his up. I doubt we want to anger a donor in that way.”

  “I am not mistaken.”

  Enjo had spent decades of his career in this lonely place. He had become quite monastic. Over the past few years, avatar technology had improved somewhat, and his department had one constructed specifically for him to use on special occasions. When they first delivered his robotic suit, he had dutifully, and with great difficulty, suited up and, taking the controls of a robot in the light-years’ distant Canon Archive. By laser relay, he looked through the eyes of that robot, as it attended a committee meeting.

  Enjo had fallen asleep during it.

  Now, in the interests of never again delivering a snoring robot to his own department meeting, he maintained a secret vow to avoid avatar travel as much as possible. The Canon Archive had to come to him. In all the years he had been stationed there, the Canon Archive had never once sent an actual Canon Archivist by avatar. It simply wasn’t necessary.

  “Are you sure it isn’t just a new donor hobbyist? I’m sure that’s it.”

  “I am certain. It is because of something of unusual importance.”

  “So important that they contact your people without consulting me? Very unusual indeed!”

  “The Canon Archive did not contact us. The request for help, it came from my people.”

  “This is crazy. This takes coordination, handling. For pity’s sakes who do we have who can act as personal chronometer for the poor avatar? The first two weeks are nearly impossible to adapt to without a companion reminding you to eat and sleep on schedule!”

  It didn't help that they still kept time on Ouffland Standard, despite the planet's much slower and stable track around its sun. In Movexa, a new year came about once every three irregular OufStans. Therefore, Enjo had only been digging like a mad hermit in the desert for just over seven years. Of course, by that standard, he'd likely be retired in only three more and dead in five.

  He just as soon preferred to think in OufStans instead.

  In any case, plopping an avatar in the midst of dig without any sane preparation whatsoever bordered on a criminal act.

  “Does this have anything at all to do with your strange change of heart today at the dig?”

  “Perhaps,” said Gretz. “We could just focus on linguistic analysis for a while. Perhaps the walls will tell us what to do next, where to look. Perha--”

  “No, no. You are getting distracted by the literal again. I mean did you want to stop our search for the door becau
se you were told by the Ambassador to stop it? You know as well as I do that we've got more than enough linguists right now. The data centers at Ouffland don't need any more data. They don't know how to decrypt the data we are sending right now. Sitting on our thumbs and pondering imponderables is a bad idea.”

  “Technically, I only have an opposable hallux. I have no thumb upon which to sit.”

  Enjo said, “Ah yes, the literal. Let me try this a different way. Remind me again. Are you even capable of lying? I mean, if you set your mind to doing it, could you lie on purpose, even for experimental purposes?”

  “Lies as you define them are incomprehensible.”

  “The fabled planet of Whist in my home system was the first known one in the entire known galaxy to conquer permanent poverty entirely. They ended hunger. This concept ‘End Hunger’ was incomprehensible, too. Until they did it.”

  “Well, then, I would say, yes. Our people can lie, but, like most things, we do it with a much longer view than you might imagine. We, for example, value modesty. Thus, over the centuries, we have developed an aversion to beauty. We will ignore a female Onhi if she conforms too closely to our traditional standard of beauty.”

  “But beauty is relative. You can’t really lie about that. It is not the same thing.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “I am simply trying to determine whether you believe that, and are mistaken, or if you are lying. Human thoughts are never very straightforward.”

  Enjo laughed. “I say the same about you in my reports!”

  “To the contrary,” said Gretz, “It is merely your ability to interpret the truth that is twisted.”

  Even Gretz found humor in this, as his vents vibrated with mirth.

  “Okay, so let me be very direct, my friend, and I want you to take no offense, as I intend none.”

  “Please, you are not the sort to offend.”