“We don’t need to know just yet,” Siobhan said. “Let’s not taste it.”
“Caution? From you?” Caden sniped.
“You channeling Imanol?” she said back.
“We can take a look at the local herbivores and see if their bodies run on this kind of chemistry,” Telisa said. “I’m betting they do. I want to capture some specimens and find out.”
“Clacker’s labs would have made that easy,” Cilreth said over the channel. Apparently she was listening in from the roof.
“I may have enough to get it done,” Telisa said. “When those two come down from the tower, ask them to try and catch us some critters. Not insects; I’d like to test something larger. Preferably a herbivore.”
“Will do.”
“The food in the boxes may be processed. It may or may not be what the robots collect,” Siobhan said. “Yes, maybe they collected this stuff from the forest. But it hardly seems necessary. Surely they have ways of mass producing food that are more efficient.”
“Maybe. We think they brought these vines with them from their planet,” Caden said. “So that rules out that they discovered some amazing alien substance they really wanted, right?”
“Ah yes. If we were right, this is a regular forest to them. Not alien. So if these packets come from stuff they collected from the forest, then this is a regular farming operation to them. Not a setup that collects samples for study,” Telisa said.
“Okay, well I think we’ll find a processing center in this building if the food was made here. Then we’ll know,” Siobhan said.
Telisa brought a bag out of her pack and put the wall machine into it. Then they went to a hexagonal door flap in the wall. The door was placed a high step above the floor. Siobhan noticed for the first time that the wall near the door did not have the hexagonal pattern on it.
“A real wall,” she said.
Telisa nodded. “There’s a scout in there. From what it sees, I think I found our processing center.”
They followed Telisa through the interior of the building. Once again there was no clutter as they expected from the Blackvines. They walked past more fake walls made from boxes of the syrup packets. Tucked into the middle of the building was a large white machine built in a smooth O-shape. It was the size of a multi-passenger land vehicle. Its outer surface gleamed like new plastic or ceramic.
Siobhan immediately saw a large upward-facing intake.
“Okay, here’s our processor,” she said.
“Which direction is it flowing?” Caden asked.
“This way,” Siobhan said, pointing.
“It’s just a circle.”
“Then it’s filtered. Maybe chemically altered, maybe not. But it comes in from here and leaves from there.”
“Well, that door right above the feed is where the tower is.”
“Cilreth, could you check the base of the tower please?” Siobhan said. “Is there a door on the surface of the building inside the support skeleton?”
It only took a couple of seconds for Cilreth to answer.
“Ah yes, I see a very fine line across the surface here. There’s a rail too. Lemme guess. Stuff is transported out that door up to the platform to be carried away? Or did I get it backwards?”
“Maybe both ways,” Telisa said.
“Did the Blackvines eat this syrup?” Siobhan said. “I thought Maxsym said they had some kind of photosynthesis.”
“He did say that,” Telisa said. “But maybe it’s a kind of luxury to be able to eat something you did not produce in your own body?”
“Or maybe they need it when they travel to dark places. Underground, underwater, or in space?” Caden asked.
Telisa did not comment further. Siobhan examined the beautiful white machine while Telisa and Caden searched every nook and cranny. They found only more boxes, more flexible ropes on the walls, and more of the machines Telisa suspected were gliding robots.
Siobhan got a scan of the inside of the machine from an attendant and started trying to make sense of it. Caden lost interest and moved on. She noted from chatter on the shared channel that Imanol and Jason had returned from their climb. Cilreth passed on the request to capture some animals, so they went into the forest. She felt a little nervous for them, but all she could do was flip through the video feeds of every attendant and scout they had deployed. She did not see any reason for alarm.
“What do you think?” Telisa asked her a few minutes later. Siobhan focused her eyes on her real sight and moved her PV aside.
“It’s basically an extruder,” Siobhan said. “If you’re right, a food extruder. The contents are modestly heated, pressurized, pushed out, then cut into these hexagons, and wrapped.”
“Makes sense,” Telisa said. “Can you tell if it’s still working? Or when it last worked?”
“Not until we figure out their electronics. Those are... well, alien. As alien as Shiny’s machine control components are to us. I can tell you one thing, though, it’s out of the materials used to make these boxes, and there’s none of the food mixture left in there, either. Judging from the age of some suspected lubricants in this system, I’d say it’s been down for less than a hundred years.”
“Wow. A very recent alien presence here,” Cilreth said from outside. “It fits though. I think the third installation has an active automated security system.”
“Let’s head back up,” Telisa said. “We can join the others on their little hunt.”
Siobhan touched the smooth surface before her. She had scans of everything, so the real deal was not very useful to her. She could easily build one herself if she needed to, but it would have to use her own electronics.
Telisa saw the move. “Is it well made?”
“Funny you should ask,” Siobhan said. “I don’t think it’s perfect for this job.”
Telisa smiled. “Then either the aliens aren’t very smart, or...”
She’s testing me.
“They’ve re-tasked it to do something it wasn’t designed for.”
“Or?”
What?
“I’ve made a bad assumption about what axes they optimized it upon,” Siobhan said.
“I suspect that’s exactly it,” Telisa said. “But of course, there are many possibilities.”
Interesting that she challenged me in my area of expertise. Yet I feel like she saw something there that I didn’t.
“Let me study the design some more,” Siobhan said. “I’ll figure it out.”
***
Jason and Imanol dropped back down onto the roof of the tower building. Cilreth greeted them back. Jason felt good. It was amazing to be on another alien planet. The sun and the wind and the view had lifted his spirits.
I could get used to this. The lower gravity is nice, too.
“Learn anything?” Cilreth asked.
“The rail goes all the way up. The top platform has a door there to let things through,” Imanol said.
“The view up there is fantastic,” Jason said enthusiastically.
“Twenty five says Caden and Siobhan will be jumping off the tower within the next 24 hours,” Imanol said.
“ESC?” Jason asked.
Cilreth and Imanol laughed.
“What?”
“Frontier folk don’t need your core world banks’ rigged bucks. Peer-to-peer currency if you please,” Imanol said.
“Frontier, peer to peer,” rhymed Cilreth. It had the ring of a well known saying.
Jason shrugged. “Okay, sure, I have some. A little.”
“Well you’re going to need more, so don’t take his bet,” Cilreth said. “It was bad enough before, using UN banks. Now that Shiny’s taken over, who knows?”
“Well, can you guys go out and capture some of the life forms we have catalogued with the attendants? Telisa wants to see what they digest. We think there’s a food processor down there that makes some kind of syrup for the Celarans.”
Imanol shrugged. “Sure. As long as we have eyes in the
re looking for big baddies.”
Jason felt a mixture of excitement and dread. In the action VRs, the first guys to head out into the alien forest always died. He did not express his concern.
“How about between here and the New Iridar?” he asked.
“No, we should go out farther,” Imanol said. “We may have scared some critters off on the way in.”
Well, exactly.
Jason checked the attendants. There were three attendants out in the forest on the far side of the building. He hoped that would be enough to spot any major predators.
“Do you want to come with us?” he asked Cilreth.
“Me? No thanks. I’ll stand here and cover you.” She winked.
She has experience with what happens when you go exploring. You get gnawed upon by hideous alien creatures. Ah well, I wanted to be part of the PIT team. Now I am.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Imanol said. He pointed down an incline and took the lead. Jason followed him down. He sent his personal attendant ahead into the vine cover, but told it not to go far. They were able to slide off the building onto a big vine branch without using a smart rope. After that, they walked on the huge vine deeper into the forest.
It felt completely different to merge with the forest rather than follow the superhuman Telisa as she hacked through it. Jason immediately saw more insects than before. Their bodies glistened with reds and blues among the vines and leaves. Jason wondered why they were so easy to spot.
They must have predators. So they should be camouflaged. Or maybe most of them are, and I just can’t see those... oh, or some might be concealed predators with body parts that look like bugs to draw something to it.
The thought made Jason shudder. At least he had attenuated to the heights in the simulations they ran on the ship. When he looked down, he no longer felt like dropping to hug the vine. The lower gravity also helped him to put fear of falling aside.
“Here are some critters. I don’t have many containers, though,” Jason said. “Why do you suppose the bugs are so brightly colored? Sparkly, almost.”
“Who knows? We can use a bag or two to catch some creepy crawlies,” Imanol said. “We could even leave some food or equipment here near the tower building to free up some storage containers. If we need it, we’ll come back later.”
“Something might—oh, nevermind. I guess nothing would eat Terran food.”
“Dunno. Seems unlikely,” Imanol said.
They went through their packs and gathered a few containers and bags. Jason also had one empty water bottle he decided would come in handy. They caught a few insect-like things.
“Here’s one that can hide itself,” Jason said. “These ten-legged ones can flatten themselves against the vine so much I can barely see them. The sparkly parts of their body fold in flush against the vine.”
“Yeah, as soon as I reach for them it’s like they disappear. And they’re hard to dislodge when they do that,” Imanol agreed. “Let’s find something bigger.”
Jason reviewed the creature catalog they had collected from attendant observations. Something seemed wrong compared to what he knew of biodiversity on other planets.
“You know, I’m looking at that catalog from the attendants. There’s not that many different critters here. Siobhan is probably right. It really is like they just chose a few to bring with them.”
“Could be. Or maybe we’re missing a lot somewhere. This is only one spot.”
“Well, any other forest would have hundreds or thousands of types of bugs and animals, right? We see here only like six small animals and like ten or twelve different kinds of bug-things.”
“Well, maybe the life on Celara doesn’t mutate much compared to Earth. Maybe there just aren’t any chemical mutagens, or the creatures defend themselves against it.”
“Isn’t mutation a tremendous evolutionary advantage?” Jason asked.
“On Earth, yes. Here or Celara? I don’t know. If Celara is more stable and homogenous than Earth, there could be fewer types of critters. Low disruption rates would reduce the need for life forms to constantly change.”
“I wonder if intelligence would ever emerge in such a place,” Jason said.
Imanol was on his hands and knees examining the vine up close. Jason swept his eyes around the forest. He did not want to get ambushed by a nasty creature.
“See these little indentations? They’re along a twisting little trail,” Imanol said.
“Looks like caterpillar footprints.”
“Yes, I think something walked over the vine there with pincer feet or something.”
Imanol produced some spherical objects from under the nearest leaf. They were orange with brown swirls.
“We should take these in.”
“What are they?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t say we should take them in. They could be plants, fruit, eggs, anything.”
“I guess we have to,” Jason said.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Well, you know, in all the VRs they always show up on a new planet, grab some funny looking rocks or something, they turn out to be eggs, which hatch on board the ship and whatever comes out eats them all one by one.”
“We’ll keep them contained.”
“That’s what they always say on the VRs, too. It never works.”
“Well then we’ll shoot whatever comes out.”
“They say that too. Never works.”
Imanol just gave Jason a warning look and put the objects into a container.
“A few years back on Indigo Station...” Imanol began.
“Uh oh, another story coming on,” Jason said.
“Oh yah? Okay, you do the story this time,” challenged Imanol.
“Me? You know this is all being recorded for the team?”
“Yeah so? We’re supposed to be professional every second? We’re only Terran. Not robots.”
“Okay, well, I was recently at Stark’s!”
“What?”
“I was in Stark’s.”
What’s confusing about that? He just doesn’t believe his ears.
“Stark’s what?” Imanol persisted.
“Seriously?”
“Jason. What. Are. You. Talking about?”
“You know, Stark’s, the famous flying dance club? Moves around all over Earth, major hotspot of famous and noteworthy Citizens?”
“No, I don’t know anything about it,” Imanol said.
Now it was Jason’s turn. “Seriously?”
Imanol shrugged. “Must be an Earth thing.”
“Well this place is super famous. There are always over a million vid feed viewers at even the dullest times.”
“A million watchers? Of this club? Earthers are bored.”
“It’s huge. It’s being broadcast to the Core Worlds, too.”
“Wait. You mean someone is keeping a tachyon transmitter going with a feed from this place just so people can watch some celebs dance in another star system in near real time?”
“Yes. Totally. It’s not a lot of energy by Earth standards.”
“Those transmitters eat up huge amounts of power!”
“By frontier standards,” Jason stopped to check their six. “Can I go on with my story yet?”
“Okay fine. So you were there. Like a tourist.”
“Not just anyone can even walk in there, man. You have to be some kind of major mogul or UNSF biggie or a serious VR star. That kind of thing. But turns out, Core World Security escorted me through there.”
“What?”
“Yes. They took me through there because they have a secret presence there.”
“Are you on some weird drug?”
“No it’s all true. My story. So this amazingly beautiful and elegant woman walks up to me and asks, ‘Dance me up?’”
“What? She wanted you to dance?”
“Yes. A goddess. She must have thought the CWS escort were my bodyguards. So I say, ‘I can’t, I’ve got to save
the Earth.’”
Imanol chuckled. “And it was the truth. Kind of.”
“Well I thought it was the truth. So she says, ‘You’d better!’ and walks off.”
“I wonder what she thought later when you showed up as a wanted traitor against humanity,” Imanol said.
Sigh. Leave it to him to say that.
“I looked up her face. She’s on the board of Guriti Nervous Integration.”
Imanol opened his mouth, but Jason cut him off. “I know, you never heard of it. It’s the main company putting links into kid’s heads these days. Not just Earth, either. Did you know some of the latest links are installed right in the womb tanks? Before the kids even come out.”
“All I know is, you better be ready to run from the CWS on your date with her,” Imanol said. He stopped and pointed.
“Look! A cave down there.”
Jason followed the pointer. Almost directly under the huge vine stem they stood on, the detritus on the forest floor gave way to reveal a rocky hole in the surface. It looked deep.
“Whoa. There are caves here? Under all this?” Jason asked.
“Apparently! Let’s check this out.”
“Bad idea, man,” Jason said.
“Why?”
“There’s always a cave, and it’s always bad news.”
“Man, you’re just a rookie out here how the hell do you know it’s bad news?”
“It’s always a disaster in the action VRs, I mean.”
Imanol rolled his eyes. “Blood and souls, man.”
***
Telisa and Siobhan climbed back out of the building. The doors on the ceiling had no stairs or ladders, so they had Cilreth open the door and send a smart rope down. The difficult exit got them thinking again about how the creators had used the doors.
“I guess the Blackvines can reach up there and pull themselves out? Or maybe only robots came down here,” Siobhan wondered aloud.
“Or maybe Imanol is right: they were tall,” Cilreth said. Siobhan would have expected sarcasm there, but she heard none.
“Not Blackvines?”
“I’m still mulling it over,” Cilreth said. “The Blackvines could have been living in someone else’s space habitat. Or, they could have been their pet plants. I mean the possibilities just go on and on. The Blackvines could have been alien ambassadors that survived whatever killed off the Celarans. They could be conquerors fallen back on hard times after the war. Or artificial lifeforms created for entertainment.”
Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins Page 6
