Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins

by Michael McCloskey

  Telisa checked the output of the star to the radiation profile from the space habitat. They did not match well, but this was not expected to be their native planet, either. Maxsym had noted the light of the habitat was matched well to the Blackvines. Or had he only been talking about the windows? She decided it was too early to conclude the buildings were Blackvine. If they were, it should become apparent when they arrived.

  The fauna analysis from the second site had spotted the same sorts of insect like creatures. Though she saw a new creature or two, the main thing that caught her eye was the existence of the meter long eel things with the colorful stripes. Telisa did a quick check ahead: they were at all three sites.

  A dominant life form?

  The last ruins site was composed of much larger buildings. Telisa’s gut reaction to it was that it must have been an industrial complex. About fourteen large constructs rose to the equivalent of four or five Terran stories high. A hard pavement cover had been put over the planet’s surface around the buildings. Despite some cracks it had held up pretty well. The native vines had not managed to make as much headway here as they had among the second ruin.

  Telisa immediately noticed that attendants had gone missing trying to investigate these buildings.

  Some kind of automated defenses, Telisa surmised. This is the most dangerous, but perhaps the most valuable of the three sites. We’ll get warmed up on the others, but this is probably the one with the greatest prizes.

  Telisa called for a face to face to discuss the data coming in. Everyone assembled quickly; the New Iridar was so small there was no place anyone could be that would take a long time to arrive.

  “By now I’m sure you’ve all taken a look,” Telisa opened. “We’re going down at the smallest site. The tower site.”

  “Any ideas what the tower is for?” Siobhan asked.

  “Theories only. We’ll take a close look,” Telisa said.

  “I think it’s for aerial reconnaissance of the planet,” Cilreth said. “I think when these aliens came here, they set up this tower to launch and maintain their robots to fly over the planet and map part of it out in detail.”

  “Easily done from orbit, just as we’ve done,” said Imanol. “Why the up close?”

  Cilreth shook her head. “I don’t know. The same reason we sent down the probes I guess. The vine canopy hides a lot. Maybe they needed the details. I would, if I were setting up a colony.”

  “They needed to collect something from the surface,” Caden guessed. “It’s for finding something, or harvesting things.”

  “They could have needed to see something coming. Something dangerous,” Siobhan said. Everyone chewed on that for a moment.

  “The smaller house-type buildings remind me of the space habitat,” Caden said. “The shapes are crazy.”

  “Yes, all those weird angles,” Siobhan agreed.

  “The attendants haven’t spotted any Blackvine boxes shuttling around,” Cilreth said. “And I also checked for a Blackvine network. None are transmitting.”

  Everyone’s moving rapidly ahead on their own initiative. It’s a great team. If we had Magnus...

  “So the similarity struck you, too?” asked Imanol.

  “Yes,” Cilreth admitted.

  “It’s not clear,” Telisa said. “If there’s a connection, we’ll find it.”

  “Another interesting question is, which came first? The big buildings, the tiny houses, or the tower?” Siobhan asked.

  “Don’t assume they’re houses,” Telisa said. “Though I agree with that assessment as a first guess.”

  “Well, I think the big buildings show more signs of wear, so they may have been first,” Cilreth said. “I don’t understand why they’re not all together. Three very different types of structures, isolated from each other. They’re not really in three different climate zones. So why the separation?”

  “What are we calling these aliens? The ones who made the ruins,” asked Caden.

  “Blackvines, if that’s what they are,” Imanol said. “Otherwise, Idricks or Pipers. Or do you prefer Idrickians?”

  “Celarans,” Telisa said. “The data from Shiny includes a rough line of colonized worlds cutting through this area of space. One of the systems is believed to be their origin. Celara Palnod by the Space Force naming algorithms. No Terran has ever been this far in this direction, at least, not unless the Space Force sent out scouts and never told anyone, which is vaguely possible.”

  “So this race is a complete blank? Shiny must have selected these systems for a reason,” Jason asked.

  “I think they are, or were, an advanced race. Shiny doesn’t think there are any Trilisks there,” Telisa said.

  “He’s not interested in Trilisk stuff anymore?” asked Imanol.

  Telisa hesitated.

  “Since it’s going to be obvious soon, I’ll just announce it. I’m a Trilisk clone body. Shiny sent a duplicate Telisa to lead this group. The way I see it, it just means we have a better chance to survive and succeed. The sooner you decide the same, the better.”

  “Knowing you’re not the original gives us some trust issues,” Cilreth said. Though her statement made it sound like she was questioning Telisa’s position, Telisa knew it was really just to bring out the issues early to get them over with.

  It will be better if we’re open about this from the beginning.

  Telisa nodded. “There’s nothing I can say to prove anything. We live in a time when trust is impossible. We’ve learned about possibilities that are so amazing, yet they come with a price tag: you can no longer be sure of things you thought you were sure of before. Like who am I, really? Who can you trust, really? There’s no answer I can make you accept. Whether or not you trust someone is your own decision and it’s always going to come with some risk. Even if you do trust someone, how can you be sure that person next to you really is the one you decided to trust? How can you be sure they’re not being manipulated?”

  “It’s nothing new. People have been susceptible to blackmail and other kinds of coercion for a long time,” Imanol said. “Betrayal is ages old.”

  “But at least, in the past, they had a choice. Now we have perfect-looking duplicates, mind control, and who knows what else,” Cilreth said.

  No one said anything more. Imanol held a deeper frown than usual.

  Is he wondering why he wasn’t told before he agreed to be part of the new expedition?

  “Now, I’ve set up some nightmare scenarios based upon the data we have coming in from the probes below. By the time you go through these, the reality is going to be a piece of cake.”

  Telisa led her team into training on the simulated planet. When they died, they tried it again. And again.

  Chapter 5

  The New Iridar floated down into the atmosphere of Idrick Piper V, protected from the planet’s pull by its gravity spinner. As the spinner spooled down, Telisa worked with Cilreth to select a landing spot. They stood near Cilreth’s quarters within earshot of each other. The others were in their own quarters or the mess, though linked into a common channel.

  “There’s no place to land. Should we make a spot?” Cilreth asked.

  “Can’t we find a clear area? Rocky plateau or anything like that?”

  “Around here, no. Near the ice caps, maybe. These vine-ribs are growing everywhere and of course you saw all the huge vines. There’s no clearing to land near the tower.”

  Telisa missed the amazing detachable feet of the Clacker. But she told herself she now had a light, maneuverable scout ship that would attract much less notice.

  “We could try one of the other spots,” Siobhan said. “They have some landing spaces cleared by the other two sites.”

  Telisa shook her head though no one could see her. “We can send some of our attendants to go and scout under the vegetation at some specific spots. They may be able to find a stable area, then we can settle among vines to create a clearing if we have to. The gravity spinner might tear the area up, but wha
t other choice do we have?”

  “Maybe one...” Cilreth said.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s kind of crazy, but I found a formation that could support our weight.”

  Cilreth sent the team a pointer to a spot on the surface. The group took a look in their PVs.

  On the surface of Idrick Piper V, not far from the tower, a pattern stood out from the random arrangement of pale spikes. Seven of the giant bone-colored structures had grown upward, then curved in toward each other in an almost symmetrical arrangement. Their ends came together at a distance less than the diameter of the New Iridar.

  “Wow,” Telisa said. “Coincidence?”

  “I think so,” Cilreth said. “I found a few similar arrangements with four and five spires. Their patterns are pretty random. This is just a lucky configuration, I believe.”

  “What if those things are hollow?” asked Caden.

  “They are hollow,” said Cilreth. “But the New Iridar has calculated their strength. These seven spikes can hold us. They can weather the gravity spinner, too, as long as we have it ramped down as we would on any normal landing.”

  “Seems dangerous,” Imanol said.

  “But less destructive, really, than burning or dispersing a larger area of the jungle,” Telisa said.

  “We could be doing something sacrilegious to the natives, if there are any,” Siobhan said.

  “We would be out in the open, instead of hidden in the forest,” Caden warned.

  Telisa waved them away. “Infinite possibilities like that,” Telisa said. “No way to know which ones are meaningful. Damaging the vine forest could be just as offensive to anyone here as landing on a unique formation. We could be doing something insulting to natives just by walking out and breathing.”

  “Staying hidden is meaningful to us,” Caden said.

  Telisa nodded. “What about the tower itself? The landing pad on the top is small, yes, but is it strong enough?”

  “Borderline,” Cilreth said.

  Telisa nodded. “I don’t want to damage any artificial alien structure. These rib-spikes are natural, and there’s millions of them. So let’s land on this arrangement you found.”

  “Okay, here we go,” Cilreth said. Then she smiled and transmitted a crash tube event across the team’s link network.

  “CTE? There are no crash tubes in this Vovokan shitpile!” Imanol growled immediately.

  Telisa smiled despite herself. Though Cilreth was being playful, it was a solid warning. If anyone was not on the ball it would alert them to the landing.

  “Should we strap in somewhere?” Siobhan asked.

  “Just sheathe your swords and put down your forks, people, we’re landing and it could be a crash if it doesn’t work out,” Telisa said. She hoped she was overstating the danger.

  Telisa sat down into a chair that had thankfully been adapted for Terrans and waited. She watched the approach on the exterior sensors, as she assumed everyone was. The formation became visible below in a huge forest. Telisa saw the tower, only a couple of kilometers away.

  They dropped closer. Telisa saw the huge leaves around the formations start to flutter as the turbulence and the spinner’s gravity distortion started to disrupt them. Only another few seconds remained. Telisa took a deep breath and steeled herself.

  I have to succeed here, for Magnus. For everyone.

  The ship settled on the giant tusk-shaped spires without so much as a creak. Then the vines and leaves nearby settled. The New Iridar sat just a meter above the top of the vegetation all around it. The PIT team had a penthouse view above the alien forest.

  “They’re strong,” Cilreth said. “Minimal deformation.”

  “Us or the damn trees?” Imanol said.

  “You’re always bent out of shape, Imanol,” Siobhan said.

  “Wait! I heard something!” Caden said.

  “Landing gear?” Telisa asked.

  “No, I have that—cargo bay doors are open!” Cilreth said.

  Telisa spotted the Vovokan battle sphere on camera feeds from outside the ship.

  “The battle sphere—” Caden said.

  “Is outside!” Siobhan said.

  “It’s shooting!” Imanol exclaimed.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Caden suggested.

  Telisa brought up her tactical combat pane arrangement. “No enemies on my screen,” she said.

  “It’s burning the forest to the northwest... moving toward the west,” Cilreth said with a calmer head.

  The battle sphere used some powerful weapon to obliterate the vegetation in a long line. Telisa watched the swath of destruction grow. The enforcer machine had cleared a pie-shaped section of the forest out to 950 meters. Even the huge white trunks beyond the formation they landed upon were being incinerated. The line slowly swept clockwise toward the west.

  “It’s clearing a perimeter,” Cilreth concluded.

  “So much for our plans to spare the forest!” Siobhan said.

  “Wow, that thing has a lot of juice to spare,” Imanol said.

  He’s right on that count. This has to be costing a lot of energy.

  “Could it become depleted? When it completes the circle, that might be a good time to...” Jason said.

  “With what? Our pistols?” Imanol asked.

  To attack it? Maybe the breaker claw. But Shiny knows I have it, and the breaker claw is more effective when the storage rings have more energy, not less. He could have rigged it to explode with even more power than a normal superconductor rupture unless I got it in just the right place. If I get that desperate, I have to make sure the others are far, far away.

  “We won’t do anything yet,” Telisa said.

  Is it really afraid of the alien forest’s secrets? Or did it do that to intimidate us?

  The battle sphere stopped when one quadrant had been burned away.

  “Cilreth,” Telisa began.

  “Way ahead of you,” Cilreth said. “Calculating how much energy that took. If it’s stopping to recharge now, that’s a clue.”

  “I think it would hold at least 20% in reserve,” Telisa said.

  “One thing’s for sure, it could vaporize the whole team in a second,” Cilreth said.

  Yes, it could.

  ***

  Imanol took a deep breath. He smelled the air. He could not tell much about the planet’s natural odor, since the smell of burnt foliage was overpowering. The seven curved spires that supported the ship had been left intact. Every other bit of material had been burned down to the near-level ground beneath. He could see the alien vegetation on the horizon.

  “Nothing like the smell of plasma in the morning,” Imanol drawled. He stepped out onto the fine ash. It covered the ground fairly deep, judging from how his boots sunk into the ground.

  What kind of crazy mission are we on this time? Damn death machine breathing down our necks.

  The Vovokan battle sphere moved around the ship in an arc as if on patrol. It moved in eerie silence. Somehow the spherical machine was clearly alien, but Imanol could not figure out what gave it away. The machine even looked Terran to his link, identifying itself with a serial number and a local name, “Escort 1”. It offered no services, but Imanol had seen specialized corporate or military robots that did not publicize civilian services. If he had seen that on a Terran world before all this, would he have even noticed? Perhaps it was those strange green patterns that sometimes played lazily across its surface. A Terran machine would have had his link display an advertisement on its surface or camouflaged itself, depending on whether it was civilian or military.

  “That thing has too much nervous energy,” Siobhan said.

  “What’s DM-109 got to be nervous about?” Imanol asked.

  “It’s not a death machine,” Siobhan said.

  “True. This thing is probably even more powerful than 109.”

  “I meant death machines seek to destroy all life,” Siobhan said.

  Imanol knew she was right. Only a
vengeful madman would deploy such a device. DM-109 had been such a machine in a series of entertainment VRs experienced by the masses. Imanol had never been in the VR himself, but he had heard of it. In the virtual world, the machine always started by destroying the very city in which it was constructed.

  “It’s concerned about aliens in the forest?” asked Caden.

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s a display of power,” Imanol said. “Our friend Shiny wants to make it impossible for us to forget we’re on a short leash.”

  Imanol felt a vague fear in his gut looking at the machine. The sphere stopped and emitted a new low frequency noise. Imanol felt it in his feet.

  “Blood and souls, what’s that damn thing doing now?” asked Imanol. His fear came through as grumpiness.

  “Seismic analysis of the area,” Cilreth said. “Looking for tunnels.”

  “Wow. It’s thorough,” he said.

  “Well, given that Vovokans are subterranean, I think it’s second nature for them,” Telisa pointed out. Jason twitched as if he wanted to say “subvovokan” again.

  “Just like stabbing us in the back is second nature for Shiny,” Imanol said.

  No one answered him. The group spread out and tested the ground. Siobhan seemed bubbly; he recalled she was from a low grav space habitat. Imanol tested his vertical jump. His attendant reported the results: 76 centimeters.

  Not bad for a ripe old man of 45 years. If it was in Earth gravity.

  “It’s pretty close. Feels like just a bit of a boost,” Cilreth said. She did a test jump of her own.

  Caden knocked on one of the round spires that supported the ship. He tried to climb it, but it was too wide and too smooth, even with a good jump and the inwards lean.

  “What are those made of?” Telisa asked.

  “Carbon, mostly. The structural pattern is amazing. I don’t see how it grows, though,” Cilreth said.

  “They don’t grow,” Siobhan said. “They were manufactured at that size.” Imanol looked at her. She was looking at some gadget and pointing it at the spire. Her attendant flew an orbit around the curved base of it.

  “What?!” asked Telisa.

  “Well, it’s obvious,” she said. “They’re all the same size. All over the planet.”