After enjoying the vista, Anna wondered how she’d missed her destination. According to her calculations, the site should have been about half a kilometer downstream from the lake. She lifted the wristcomp up with a couple of fingers and thumbed the switch to activate the screen, but it still didn’t turn on. Probably still needed to dry a little more. She decided to take a break.
Spying a stretch of grass along the coast not far from the river, she strolled to the bank. Setting the knapsack on the ground, she stripped her damp clothes off and hung them from a low branch of a nearby tree. Satisfied they would remain in place, she returned to the water’s edge and stretched out on the grassy bank. The rays from the sun warmed her skin, and she closed her eyes and laid her head down.
Anna’s mind wandered while she reclined in the soft grass, thinking about the creature she discovered earlier. Its form and actions reminded her of a deer she had seen in a movie as a child. Events surrounding that image returned; a Saturday afternoon spent with her parents visiting a local theater, then playing in the park after the movie.
Anna stirred from her unexpected slumber a while later. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around, taking a few seconds to remember where she was. Spying the wristcomp looped around her tool belt, she leaned over and pressed the button to activate the screen. To her disappointment, the holographic display still didn’t appear. Scratching her head as she unfastened the wrist device from the belt, she lifted it to eye level and scrutinized it. She shook it next to her ear, but heard no water inside. Thinking for a second, Anna pulled a thin bolt from one of her pouches and pressed the inset Reset button on the wristcomp’s underside. A split second later, it signaled an incoming message.
“Yes?”
“Anna, why have you not responded?” Kate sounded worried.
Anna rubbed the rest of the sleep from her eyes. “Sorry. I dozed off. How long have you been calling me?”
“I have been trying to contact you for three hours now, since I lost your signal. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Anna checked her clothes, finding them drier, but not completely done. “The wristcomp went out after I fell into the river. It must have recently finished drying, because it worked after a reset.”
“I am glad to hear that. Did you encounter a life form earlier?”
“Yep. It posed no threat, and reminded me of a deer from back home, except it was green and had the extra legs like the first animal we met.”
“I see.”
Anna slipped her damp sports bra over her head. “Can you locate me on sensors?”
“Yes, I have your location at the shore of the lake to the west. Is that correct?”
“That’s where I am. I overshot the site. But now that the wristcomp is back online, I should be able to backtrack and find it without any problems. Go ahead and link the ship’s sensor readout to my wristcomp. I’m going to start heading that way.”
A while later, after Anna had finished dressing and walked downstream, she found a narrow stretch of the river she had crossed earlier with little difficulty. Referencing the map again, she calculated her position to be about three hundred meters upstream from the place she sought. Drawing her sidearm, she stepped into the woods toward her goal.
With each step closer to her destination, Anna’s nerves tensed with anticipation, not knowing what to expect when she got there. Taking short breaths, her eyes darted from side to side as she scanned her surroundings. Part of her believed she wouldn’t find anything, confirming the station computer’s suspicion that the imager on her old utility skiff had recorded a reflection of the sun off the river’s surface. Perhaps she would find something else, like some piece of space junk that fell into the moon’s gravity well. In either case, she confirmed the spot she desired to reach would be over the long hillock ahead.
Anna climbed the steep surface and stopped cold, her jaw agape.
Chapter 12
Anna stared in awe. Through the trees stood a stone pyramid. Its construction reminded her of those built by the Aztecs; the dark gray structure stood several stories high with vines clinging all over it. Surrounding the roofed structure at the top of the pyramid were four thin obelisks, one at each corner. The peaks of the obelisks appeared to be made of a bright silver metal.
“That’s it.” Her whispered reverence touched the stillness around her.
Anna looked at the ground and discovered what she thought to be a long hillock was in fact a stone wall. Despite being partially buried under the sod, it framed the plaza surrounding the pyramid. Stalks of grass grew tall between large, flat stones that paved the ground leading to the pyramid, and around the smaller buildings encircling it. Judging from the growth, the area had been unoccupied for quite some time.
Anna studied her immediate surroundings again. The sounds from the native birds were more distant, almost as if they stayed clear of the ancient buildings. Deciding not to take the peace for granted, she gripped her pistol and kept it ready.
An uneventful relocation to the closest structure – a small, one-story stone building lacking a roof – set Anna’s mind at ease. She paused to examine the ancient construct. The simple architecture reminded her of ruins she’d seen in school holovids. Something about this structure was different, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Anna passed two more small buildings on her way to the pyramid, both identical to the first one. Finding nothing inside them, she headed toward the stairs leading up the side of the pyramid.
Anna reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up its length to the top of the pyramid. The stonework, appearing crisp and new from the edge of the plaza, betrayed its age as she approached. Edges smoothed from erosion, and cracked steps. The glyphs carved into the banisters flanking the stairs were blurred and faded. Anna glanced at the carvings again, decided to study them later, and began her ascent.
Sitting down on the top step to catch her breath, she surveyed the area. She could make out the river through the trees. She looked over her shoulder at the top of the pyramid again for a second, then back at the surrounding forest. The trees in this area are much taller than the ones around the ship. Is some outside force influencing their growth?
Rested, Anna strode to the entrance that led inside. After looking through the open doorway for a few seconds, she turned on her flashlight and entered. The darkness within descended on her, almost as if it was a living entity. Any ambient sunlight dissipated after the first few meters. Only the beam from her flashlight cut through the oppressive darkness. She frowned, feeling a bit uneasy.
The room was empty, with the sole exception of a stone outcropping on the wall opposite the entrance. The item, extending only a quarter of a meter from the wall, was nothing more than an unadorned stone beam that tapered to a flat edge.
Anna walked to the odd beam and studied it for a brief moment. If whoever created the pyramid conducted rituals like the Aztecs had, the purpose of this particular item eluded her. With her flashlight guiding her eyes, she examined its entire length, until she found a seam in the wall around the shaft. Deciding to test the beam, she pulled it down, and found that it moved with little effort. Moving it further toward the floor, an audible click reached her ears. A portion of the floor dropped and slid open, revealing a stone staircase leading down into the pyramid.
A broad smile on her face, Anna walked down the stairs into a small room beneath the roofed structure. Using her flashlight, she surveyed the room. Finding it the same size as the upper level, this one was at least decorated. A few tall pottery urns stood in the corners of the room. The shattered remains of many more littered the floor around them.
The wall, decorated with murals of various plants and animals, intrigued Anna. The plants depicted familiar-looking grains and bizarre vegetables in woven baskets. Despite the hairline cracks in some of the murals, the images remained mostly intact, but had faded over time.
A doorway in one of the walls led into the darkness beyond,
beckoning her to continue. Anna passed through into a corridor, which led to another set of stairs going down. She estimated the steps were positioned below the first staircase. Seeing nothing barring her way, she pushed onward.
At the bottom of the staircase she entered a larger chamber, probably big enough to house the room at the top of the pyramid. The murals adorning the walls here depicted new scenes. Although the pictures were badly faded, one in particular captured her attention.
A gold, metallic object embedded in the wall on the far side of the room, near another doorway, glittered in the light. Anna locked her gaze on the artifact and crossed the room to examine it. The item seemed to be nothing more than a gold spearhead attached to a thin wooden pole located in a tiny alcove in the wall. Curious, she stepped back a few paces and surveyed the wall around it. Within seconds, her eyes widened. The spearhead aligned with an illustration of a spear being held by a creature she had never seen before.
The creature appeared to be life-size, with three arms and three legs arranged in much the same fashion as the animals she had so far encountered. It had light brown skin, and appeared rather muscular under the dark blue leather it wore. Its head, or its close approximation infused into the top of its body, sported a mouth at the very top locked in a tight-lipped grimace and two eyes below its orifice, spread out in such a way that Anna deduced the existence of a third eye facing the other direction.
Anna stared at the image for a long moment, until the impact of the flashlight against the stone floor broke her trance. Staring for a second at the flashlight, she cursed herself and retrieved it. Returning her gaze to the mural, she studied it for a moment longer before activating her wristcomp.“Kate?”
Anna heard her voice, barely understandable between static.
“Kate, can you hear me?”
Static filled the chamber for a couple of seconds before the signal finally cut off.
“Damn.” She shut down the holographic screen. Turning on her heel, Anna marched back up the stairs, retracing her path until she received a clear signal, at the base of the pyramid. She attempted to call her ship again. “Kate, do you read me?”
“I can read you now. What did you find?” Minimal static.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I am standing at the base of a pyramid.”
“A pyramid? Are you sure?”
Anna frowned. “Yeah, pretty sure.” Snark colored her words.
“Sorry. What kind is it?”
She turned toward the structure. “It’s a kind of step pyramid. It reminds me of what the Aztecs built in ancient Central America.”
“Intriguing. Do you have any idea who might have built it?”
“That’s the thing. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it was human.”
Kate paused. “How do you know that?”
Anna grinned as she continued. “I found these pictures on the wall inside, and they…”
“You went inside? That was dangerous, Anna.”
“Well…”
“You could have fallen into a trap or gotten hurt.”
“Yes, but…”
“How would you get assistance from a drone, if you were stuck somewhere…”
“Would you shut up and listen to me?” The ensuing silence helped her calm down.
“Thank you. Inside the pyramid is a picture on the wall, which depicts a three-armed, three-legged alien holding a spear.”
“Technically speaking, if this is their world, then you are the alien.”
“Semantics.” She took a second to shake off irritation. “But, don’t you see the significance of this? This is the first piece of solid evidence of a sentient species not originating from Earth.”
“Anna…”.
“Sure, we’ve got humans, dolphins, and whales. Some people joke about white mice, but I don’t buy that crap.”
“Anna…”.
“But up until now, we thought it was just us out here. This is amazing.”
“Anna, have you taken a moment to consider that they might have died out?”
Kate’s question hit her like a rock smashing through plate glass, sobering her. “Wh…what do you mean?”
“The pyramid that you have been recklessly exploring, even though it is positive proof of non-human intelligent life, may be all that is left of a species that has long been extinct.”
As Kate continued, Anna’s elation dissipated almost as quickly as it had filled her moments earlier.
“Besides, your scouting mission around the gas giant revealed no evidence of an existing civilization on the surface of the moon to indicate that an intelligent life form currently lives here. With that information, a logical conclusion would be that the only form of intelligence living on this moon right now would be us.”
Anna cast her gaze at her feet. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I am sorry, Anna. But now that you know what is at that location, you should head back and continue working on the ship.”
“No.”
Kate paused for a second. “No?”
“I want to check out the rest of the pyramid first.” Anna glanced over her shoulder as she spoke.
“Anna…”.
“It shouldn’t take too long. Besides, I’ve already gone through half of it, and it’s not that big. Really, how long could it take?”
“Anna, you shouldn’t…”.
Anna cut off Kate’s objections mid-sentence by closing the channel.
“I’ll be okay,” she whispered, then climbed the stone steps, ignoring the chime from her wristcomp.
Anna returned to the spot where she found the gold spearhead in the wall. As expected, nothing had changed, so she moved onward.
Stepping through the doorway and following the corridor around, she passed through a long, narrow room that held no purpose, in her mind. The only objects she saw were metal shafts that extended from floor to ceiling. She figured they were related to the obelisks surrounding the roofed structure. The hall intersecting the other end took her around to another set of steps leading down. As she descended, she wondered about the metal shafts.
The landing below opened to a room much smaller than all of the others. Barely able to stand fully on the floor without brushing her shoulders against the walls, she looked at the door blocking her path. Although similar in appearance to the other doorways, this one was sealed shut. Unlike the other doors, half a dozen stones protruded out from the walls on each side.
Anna sat on the steps and puzzled over the door for several minutes. Clearly the stones needed to be manipulated in some way to open the door. How, and in what order, evaded her, and nothing she had found provided any clue. She remembered hearing stories back on Earth of tomb robbers being killed by such doors rigged with traps of falling stone slabs or poison needles, and she feared the same might be true here. Not wanting to fall prey to an ancient security system, she made her way back upstairs and returned to the room with the golden spearhead.
Anna pored over the faded pictures, checking every detail for some indication on how to proceed. Nothing came to mind, and she was ready to give up and search elsewhere. Then her eyes fell upon the spearhead, and she noticed the detailing engraved in the metallic weapon. On the surface was a doorway with three asymmetrically-placed circles around it. With a smile, she memorized their positions and hurried back to the door at the foot of the stairs.
Standing before the stone portal, she grabbed the stone at the first location and pushed it into the wall with some effort. She followed suit with the second and third stones, then stepped back and waited for the door to open. Several seconds passed, until she heard a click. She smiled for a split second, then screamed as she fell through the trap door that opened beneath her feet.
Chapter 13
Anna slowly awoke and opened her eyes. At least, she thought she opened her eyes. She felt her eyelids slide up. She blinked a few times, but the only thing that changed in her vision was the appearance of the faint blue dots glow
ing from her left shoulder.
“Great!” she snarled. She was immersed in total darkness.
With a heavy sigh, Anna moved to get up, but searing pain shot through her leg, driving her back down into the dirt. Screaming in agony, she gingerly investigated the leg and found the fractured bone. She did not feel any blood. She attempted to pull her pants leg up to the knee, but the pain was almost unbearable after the first tug, forcing her to abandon the effort.
Fighting back tears, Anna willed the pain away with little success. So she focused her efforts on assessing the rest of her situation. She activated her wristcomp’s screen and, using its low light, looked around her. Several of her tools lay scattered in the dirt, including her flashlight just an arm’s-length away. She stretched toward it, doing her best to ignore the pain surging in her calf, and grabbed the end of the metal handle. Grinning at her small victory, despite the pain, she dragged the flashlight to her and turned it on.
Sweeping the bright beam of light around her, Anna determined she sat on the edge of a large cavern. It had to be somewhere under the pyramid. A glance upward revealed only a gray, rocky ceiling, but looking around revealed the opening in the side wall through which she’d entered, falling what she estimated to be over ten meters.
One by one Anna gathered her tools, dusted them off, and returned them to the pouches on her belt. While she did, she considered her broken leg. The condition in which her leg may be sickened her, and she knew she would have to do something about it if she was to find a way out of the cave.
The thought of getting out reminded Anna of the promise she had made with Kate about calling for help if needed. She turned on the communicator and called the ship, only to receive static in response. Her shoulders slumped, and she shut down the wristcomp and returned her attention to her leg.
With extra care, Anna checked over her leg to find the point of fracture, wincing each time she pressed too hard. She’d need medical attention to mend it properly. If she was back on the mining station, she’d have been carted off to the infirmary and had the bones stitched together to be back on her feet within a day. The way she looked at it now, she’d be bedridden for several weeks. Even then, she couldn’t be sure she’d walk normally again.
Alone in Paradise (The Chronicles of Anna Foster Book 2) Page 9
