Pathfinder

by Laura E. Reeve

  “Really? Because I feel like a puppet, with too many masters pulling my strings.” Matt’s eyes narrowed.

  Ariane agreed. Matt didn’t know the half of it.

  CHAPTER 11

  Our correspondent in G-145 suspects Tribunal members State Prince Duval and Senator Stephanos are conducting their own side investigations into the recent tragedies in that solar system. Of course, our correspondent is barred from both inquiries. . . .

  —Interstellarsystem Events Feed, 2106.054.14.28 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 7 under Flux Imperative

  Ariane and Matt used the time remaining in first shift for an elevator trip down to the moon surface. Matt hadn’t ever seen the alien structures, even though he’d mapped their outlines remotely. Their purpose wasn’t to sightsee, however, but to start sifting through offices, labs, and quarters used by Hellas Nautikos employees, just as they’d promised Contractor Director.

  Ariane enjoyed the ride, even though it took several hours. This was her third trip in the space elevator, but the first time she could relax and just experience it. She watched the views projected on the walls. There were no true windows, or radiation holes, as space crew called them. Thankfully, Matt had stopped fussing about not getting through to Diana. He looked like he was finally relaxing as he chatted with Dr. Lowry, who had business down on the moon’s surface, but might have time to help them inventory personal items, notes, and whatnot.

  “The Minoan translator is exciting,” Lowry was saying. “Supposedly, they claim it can provide direct translation from the Builders’ language and symbols to ours, but we have to be cautious.”

  “Why? You think the Minoans aren’t being honest with us?” Matt asked.

  “No, I worry whether they truly understand our semantics, much less the Builders. Our history with the Minoans is rife with misunderstandings.”

  “They’ve obviously been interstellar traders and peace facilitators longer than we can imagine,” Ariane threw into the conversation. “It’s hard for us to comprehend even the age of the Builders; didn’t we date the creation of these ruins to between ten and fifteen thousand UT years ago?”

  Dr. Myrna Lowry looked at her a bit sourly, as if she’d hijacked the conversation.

  “We had to make a wide estimate because the Builders cleaned out organic matter and atmospheric gases that would oxidize metals. To make it even more difficult, many materials appear to have been imported to this system and we don’t have references to calibrate nuclear decay. Hopefully, the Minoans can provide us keys to understanding the Builders.” Dr. Lowry turned to Matt. “If their civilization has existed long enough to see both the rise and fall of the Builders, and if this translator is as old as they insinuate—well, that has amazing repercussions.”

  “How so?”

  Ariane’s eyelids drooped, although she kept half an eye on the others, tracking the conversation.

  “Think about how dynamic human civilization is.” Lowry became animated. Her hands unconsciously made symbols that were part of the Martian patois, even though she spoke common Greek well. “We’ve developed thousands of languages, only to cast them aside to be subsumed in the ice of Terra. Mankind has created symbols for at least nine thousand years—but if we believe the Minoans, the Builders civilization collapsed as we were just starting. I question how the Minoans could possibly produce an accurate translation from Builder symbols to ours if they experience the same dynamic change that we do.”

  “Maybe they don’t. They make the distinction that we’re an evolved intelligence,” Matt said.

  “Exactly! The Minoans seem culturally static, which is impossible from our point of view. We can’t imagine keeping information over ten thousand years, without it drifting and losing integrity.” Lowry’s hands flitted about as she talked. “I follow xenologist publications, like David Ray, and a popular theory is the Minoans use some sort of mental telepathy. I hear the two of you came to similar conclusions after your time on the Minoan ship.”

  “David Ray told you that?” Matt sounded surprised.

  “Not in so many words. He was telling one of his stories.”

  “When?”

  “Um, can’t remember. But you know how he gets.”

  “Yeah.” Matt laughed. “Love the guy to death, but he does wander, doesn’t he?”

  Ariane watched this verbal dance through lowered eyelids. Dr. Lowry was vague about how she learned about Matt’s time on the Minoan ship, while Matt was guarded about his experiences. Both Matt and David Ray had given statements about the isolationists to the ICT prosecution, but they didn’t consider Matt’s testimony relevant to the charges they were pressing against Rand and his men. Hearsay! By the Great Bull’s balls, one of those hearsay isolationists almost killed me, Matt complained to her later. But, when it came to their observations of the Minoans, Matt and David Ray remained tight-lipped.

  Matt’s conversation with Dr. Lowry degenerated into polite small talk, such as the variety of cuisine available on Beta Priamos and whether they’d get anything other than prepackaged space rations down on the Priamos surface. Ariane dozed until the arrival chime yanked her upright. She rubbed her face, trying to massage herself awake. As she stood, she adjusted for Priamos’s three-quarters standard gee.

  “I’ll meet you at Barone’s quarters. Take your time—I have to check with the message center,” Lowry said brightly, moving away, down the pressurized corridor.

  This left Ariane as guide to Matt, a duty she didn’t mind, although she wasn’t the most informed choice. She led him down the corridor that connected the elevator to the alien archeological site. The temporary tube went gradually downhill and underground, where it curved and ended at another temporary airlock. It had just finished cycling; Dr. Lowry had moved through quickly.

  Before the site-side doors opened, she told Matt about her first experience seeing the underground Builders’ facility. “I never understood why the Minoans were paying Hellas Nautikos to document human reactions to the Builders’ ruins,” she said, as the site-side doors opened.

  “Oh.” His mouth fell open.

  She gently pushed him forward, so he tentatively stepped onto the honed hard surface with irregular opalescent striations. They stood under an arch of the same material and on the edge of the glittering main hall, which reminded her of a jewelry box carved of translucent semiprecious stone. The hall was lit by glowing designs on the ceiling. Two rows of columns extended from their position to the end, creating an internal walkway with overhead ribs, like soldiers holding a ceremonial arch of swords. Behind them, the temporary airlock pressed into the arch like a plug into a bottle, closing with a huff.

  “I thought the Builders didn’t use ninety-degree angles.” Matt looked about at the rectangular hall that measured approximately twenty meters by ten meters.

  “This is the only space built in a rectangle, and all routes lead off it. Hellas Nautikos found that we humans are more affected by these shapes than we expected. They said video proved we gravitate back to this area for serenity and mental relaxation.” She moved to the side of the arch and looked thoughtfully at nodes mounted on a thin metal structure built inside the arch. Their power was on, indicated by a tiny light on their edges. “I wonder if these are still recording. Abram and his band of thugs might have continued to use the Nautikos equipment for security.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Major.”

  She jumped. “No rank, please. I’m not on active duty,” she answered the voice that broadcasted from the disc-shaped node smaller than her thumb.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, Ms. Kedros. Master Sergeant Pike at your service, representing the ever-faithful multidisciplinary Shock Force Command. We’re responsible for security here on the surface.”

  “Autonomist Commandos, Matt. Here’s where our guys are working.” She smiled.

  Matt nodded wordlessly, having moved to the closest pillar. He examined the symbols at the height of his head. They appeared backlit, made of work
ed metal embedded into what seemed to be polished, alien onyx.

  “I assume you’re here to take possession of the Nautikos facilities and data. We’ll get you keyed into the system. Just go straight through the hall and turn right—well, angle toward the right through two branches,” Pike’s voice said.

  She thanked the sergeant and tried to herd Matt through the hall. He resisted until she pointed out he’d have plenty of time to study this later.

  “Do we know what any of this means?” he asked.

  “No, but I have a feeling we’ll figure it out.” She gestured toward a linguistics team on the far side of the hall, working with slates and a big board that had fragmented pictures and symbols. The team stepped back from it as the graphics moved about, joined, and rejoined. The discussion was unintelligible, but their voices held excitement.

  Ariane and Matt entered the hallways, turned sixty degrees toward the right, and he balked again. “Why does this place now feel oppressive? The ceiling isn’t much lower than in the great hall.”

  “First, the dimensions don’t feel right.” She pointed out that the halls and doors were tall, but narrow for their height, violating what felt balanced to humans. The symbols and door controls were almost at her shoulder level. “Second, we’ve found these angles are disquieting to our minds. Third, their ventilation system automatically humidifies the air. The Builders liked their atmosphere a bit thinner, so when we push up the pressure from life support, it gets more dank than we like.”

  By now, they’d arrived at Pike’s makeshift operations center, which also happened to be the message center. Abram had likewise chosen this room as his operational center. Ariane shivered, trying not to remember.

  Pike introduced himself. “You’ve really stirred up the teams, Mr. Journey. When that translator downloaded a couple of hours ago, everybody was rousted, even the off-duty personnel. It’s been a wild techno- clusterfuck ever since.”

  “That’s good?” Matt’s hesitancy with Sergeant Pike was understandable. Ariane hadn’t been around shock forces much herself, and Pike’s rough edges made Sergeant Joyce seem cuddly by comparison.

  “Yes, sir, it is.” Lines at the corners of Pike’s eyes deepened, which might be as close to a smile as he’d allow. He put his broad hand on Matt’s shoulder and gently pushed him toward the woman commando standing at a Builder console. “Why don’t you have Technician Greco scan your palm so we can get you into the Nautikos rooms. I need to speak with Ms. Kedros.”

  There was no resisting that calm, authoritative tone. Matt went over to Greco, who gave him a wide natural smile, and Ariane followed Master Sergeant Pike into an interior room. He closed the door and cocked his head, telling her that he’d checked for listening devices. The room was secure.

  “You’ve got your queue responding with a recording, ma’am,” Pike said reproachfully, once the door closed. “And Sergeant Joyce says you don’t often pick up your calls.”

  “Emergency calls come through. I figure I can handle all other calls later.” She touched her implant panel on her inner arm above her wrist, but didn’t change the settings. “Besides, there wasn’t much comm support on the surface the last time I was here.”

  The lines deepened around Pike’s eyes. “We’ve made improvements, Ms. Kedros. Emergency calls can be originated, and received, in the elevator. We’ve added nodes in the great hall, so you have mesh coverage for local calls. We even have an extra relay, but our bandwidth is being eaten up by this R&D. You should check with the message center regularly, particularly if someone must send you a large—or classified—payload that has to be fragmented.”

  “Someone, like Sergeant Joyce?” She pulled out her slate, showing its military encryption and secure- storage identifier.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded as she authenticated with thumbprint and voiceprint, tapped the slate, and requested the download. “I gave your sergeant a piece of my mind, for swamping our comm.”

  “I’d like to have seen that.” She couldn’t imagine that picture. The table of contents for Joyce’s package displayed on her slate, showing that she was scheduled to testify to the ICT tomorrow from oh nine thirty to eleven hundred. She’d give the testimony virtually, which brought up the question: where?

  “You’ll have to give it from Beta Priamos, where they have the equipment and authority,” Pike told her.

  I can forget about doing anything useful during first shift tomorrow. However, her slate now contained Joyce’s mission notes about Maria. Back on Beta Priamos, she’d be able to make real-time calls if she had questions for Joyce.

  Pike must have guessed her thoughts. “If you’re going back up to the station, you might make time to stop in at the Terran Space Force brig. There’s a prisoner, name of Frank Maestrale, who wants to speak with you.”

  She sighed. Frank had been a friend she’d met in an earlier solar system opening. But her most vivid memory, now, was seeing Frank point a weapon at her, having been seduced by Abram’s cause.

  “He’s cooperated with the Terrans, and been helpful in wiring more ComNet support into the station.” Pike looked sideways at her. “I think he’s holding on to something, some bit of information that he only wants to give to you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” was all she could say.

  “And don’t forget to keep a watchful eye, Ms. Kedros, considering the recent attempts on your life. Any orders, before I transmit the daily report to you?”

  “Excuse me?” Then she remembered Edones saying she’d have authority to take emergency mission command of the platoon, but this wasn’t an emergency and—“What daily report, Sergeant?”

  “With both the colonel and Bright Crescent offline, you’ve got command, as the local ranking officer.” Pike didn’t look ready to argue about this, adding a final punctuation of, “Ma’am.”

  “Er—I’m not—” She stuttered to a stop. She was, technically, on active duty. Not wearing her uniform for this covert operation didn’t mean she could opt out of sudden administrative tasks. She wasn’t risking her plainclothes mission—everyone on Priamos and Beta Priamos Station knew she was AFCAW. Reluctantly, she said, “I can go through whatever you’re sending Colonel Edones. What kind of reports?”

  “Security issues here on the moon surface. As well, the colonel wants us to keep an eye on the comm in and out of here and the station.” Pike nodded firmly, as if to forgive her previous and un-commandolike indecision. He tapped and pointed his slate to directly transfer the report to hers.

  “You can track the command post and out-of-system messages up on the station?” She brought up the report on her slate.

  “Well, what we’re allowed within CAW exploration law for open systems. And whatever TSF Ensign Walker lets CP give us. Surprisingly, the ensign has been quite generous. We get tallies of bandwidth used and gigabytes sent to other solar systems.” Pike’s gravelly voice became sterner, giving her the same prickles on her scalp as the sound of active armor tearing off a ship. “I’m sure Ensign Walker has noted the interesting distribution of outgoing comm this past couple of days.”

  Looking at highest recipients of data and messages, she was surprised to see District Six systems at the top of the list. She’d expected Autonomist solar systems, given that both Hellas and Konstantinople Prime had research centers and universities contracted to process data. The same went for the Sol system, with Terra and Mars supporting significant research, but not for New Sousse or Zhulong, the official seat for the Terran League’s District Six. Frowning, she said, “This might be due to SP Duval’s staff, or because the ICT defense—”

  Pike stopped her with a tight negative nod. “That doesn’t show out-of-system traffic originating from the Pilgrimage or its docked ships. But, keep in mind that the destination addresses can be forwarders or bouncers. We’re not allowed anything specific about the receivers.”

  “Can you determine who sends each message?”

  “Only that these transmissions originate from Priamo
s and Beta Priamos. Pilgrimage statutes don’t allow anyone—including Ensign Walker—to monitor comm to that level of detail. To do that, we’d need authorization from a Pilgrimage command officer to install special software and equipment.”

  “Strange,” she murmured.

  “I figure the colonel would want someone keeping an eye on this, ma’am. Until he comes back online.” Pike’s shoulder, under his impeccably pressed uniform, twitched with a shrug. He didn’t seem concerned about appropriating both her eyes for security issues beyond her civilian job.

  Pike opened the door to the outer center, where Matt was playing with Builder technology, specifically the palm reader that extended a holographic four-clawed appendage. Greco was explaining how these readers allowed Builders, and now humans, to open doors within the facility.

  Ariane said good-bye to Pike, as she thumbed off her slate and its puzzling report.

  This was much worse than an operational readiness inspection, which was the only similar event Lieutenant Oleander had experienced. Normally, inspectors were uniformed military personnel with experience in the same operations they were evaluating. In this case, called the “Ad- hoc Senate Investigation into AFCAW Response to the Pilgrimage Mission 145 Crisis,” the Bright Crescent crew had to deal with civilian auditors and data collectors.

  After Myron pulled her from the Pilgrimage maintenance shop, Oleander spent the next shift escorting auditors around the Bright Crescent, helping them collect logs and recordings. She and Floros had this onerous task because they were Directorate personnel. The auditors were Myron and two other politicians-in-training, a young man and woman displaying severe deficiencies of humor or even basic cordiality. When being audited, crew members had to shut down their systems and remain at their stations to answer questions.

  By the time she could go off duty, she was exhausted and filled with impotent ire at Myron and his two political clones. In her tiny quarters, as she unsealed her Alpha jacket with trembling fingers, she tried to calm down.