by Mark Wandrey
“You’re breaking up a bit,” Colin said. “I got you, be careful.”
“Roger that,” he said and set out.
He detached one of the lamps from his helmet so he could use it separately. There was a lot of crumbled rock on the ground, and the floor itself was cracked in places, making for treacherous footing. His cybernetic leg made things a little more challenging, too.
The tunnel went for 20 or 30 meters, then it suddenly opened up into a wide low-ceilinged chamber that his lights couldn’t illuminate the far side of. It had the look of a volcanic lava-formed cave, like many in Hawaii. He also smelled seawater.
Terry spent a few minutes playing his lights around, examining the cave. It was fairly featureless, with a sandy floor and a few scattered rocks, the biggest the size of a trashcan. After a few minutes he found the source of the seawater odor, a large pool that took up half the cave. He moved closer and investigated the pool. It was deep enough to swallow his light.
He stood and looked around. The chamber ended at the other side of the pool, the roof slanting down until it met the floor. End of the road. However, as he walked back around the pool, he realized there was ample space in the room. He used the flashlight again in the water and saw movement. Checking his watch, he saw he’d only been gone a few minutes. “Might as well check it out,” he said.
Since he was already wearing his drysuit to stay warm in the cavern, all he needed to do was properly seal the helmet and verify the gloves and boots were also sealed. Flipping the rebreather on, he set his bag aside, sat on the edge of the pool, and slid in.
He felt the cold through the neoprene material of the suit stinging his skin. Instantly, the drysuit’s heater kicked into high gear, the extra hot air flow making the suit billow out from his skin slightly and alleviating the cold’s bite to some degree. He waited while the heater caught up, then submerged.
He kept one of the lamps in his hand as he dove down and examined underwater. He set his suit’s buoyancy for a slight negative and slowly sank into the dark water. After only a few meters, he realized the pool was actually an extension of the lava tube he’d been in all along. Small native fish swam around him, their feelers occasionally contacting his suit, causing them to race away from the strange contact.
If there’s fish, there must be an exit, he thought. Or was it a huge independent ecosystem? It seemed an unlikely probability, but it was an alien world, so who knew? It widened out the deeper he went, and soon he couldn’t see the sides any more. The suit’s heads-up display said the temperature was dropping. Another few meters, and he felt a slight current tug at his feet.
He set his buoyancy to neutral and swam around. A larger fish raced past from side to side, confirming what he’d thought. I’m outside. The pool above was a moon pool like the one in Templemer, which explained the higher pressure; it was holding the water back from flooding the chamber. He reached a hand up and activated the suit’s hydrophone.
“This is Terry, can any orca or bottlenose hear me?” He added a couple of low-frequency calls, knowing the sound range carried better in water. He didn’t know whether the Selroth or Xiq’tal communicated with ultrasonic underwater clicks. With his reception volume all the way up, he waited.
He heard a series of clicks on his hydrophone, then several more. He repeated his call until he heard a reply.
“Terry, Terry,” came the bottlenose’s voice over the hydrophone. “Where you?”
“Can you follow my voice?’
“Keep talk, try find.”
Terry did as he was asked, and kept up a monologue. A minute later a bottlenose shot into view, arced around him, and came to a stop. He reached out and stroked the dolphin’s side. “Hi, Wikiwiki. Are you okay?”
“Wikiwiki good. Fun mess with crabs!”
“Has anyone else been hurt?”
“No more hurt. You say we tease, we tease.”
“Good.” He pointed up into the lava tube. “We’re going to move everyone up there. If you follow the tube up, you’ll find a big pool and a cave. It’ll be safe for a while when they find our submarine. Understand?” Wikiwiki’s head bobbed up and down. “Good, go tell your pod and the orcas.”
“Wikiwiki tell pod and Dark Killers,” she said. “Bye!” She shot off into the darkness and was gone. It was a little disconcerting how they often didn’t bother with their harness lights. He guessed they weren’t important when you had built-in sonar. With confidence Wikiwiki would lead the others back, Terry headed back to the lava tube, and ultimately to the others.
* * * * *
Chapter 13
Volcanic Lava Tubes, Planet Hoarfrost, Lupasha System, Coro Region, Tolo Arm
May 13th, 2038
It took six hours of hard work to move everyone and all the equipment down the tunnel and into the pool cavern. Colin and Dan ended up using tools from the sub to fix metal pipes into the tunnel wall, allowing everyone to move up and down much quicker. Still, it was a slow process.
Terry had expected difficulty convincing the adults to come down. He needn’t have worried. They were too despondent to disagree, merely concerned their children were as safe as possible. They couldn’t argue with Terry and his friends, anyway; the caverns down the lava tubes would be safer.
Halfway through the move, the first orcas showed up in the pool and examined the new location. They used their sonar and harness lights to look around, then left to give others a turn. The pool was large enough for several orcas at a time to float there, or most of the bottlenoses.
Having the dolphins hanging out in the pool helped the younger children feel better, and when lights were brought down and turned on, the bright colors and intricate stalagmite formations helped more. Then they got to watch Terry and his friends feed an extremely hungry Pōkole. All in all, with temporary cots and the lights, the entire situation took on the feel of a camping trip to the kids.
“So now what?” Katrina asked after they’d fed Pōkole, while Terry checked the tiny autochef they used to make their own food and the milk for the calf.
“We wait and see what develops,” Terry said. “We have about five days of food, then we’re limited to what the cetaceans can bring us.”
“The power won’t last much longer,” Dan pointed out, “unless we run a line from the sub’s fusion plant.”
“No,” Terry said. “We stay isolated to be safe.”
Before they’d closed and locked the hatch into the tubes, they’d set a simple radio tripwire in the sub. If it went offline or someone broke in or destroyed the sub, the vehicle’s computer would send a radio pulse letting them know. Terry decided in five days’ time, they’d consider going back out for a look.
“I’m out of my element,” he admitted to the other seniors.
“We all are,” Taiki said. The others nodded in agreement.
“All we can do is our best,” Katrina said.
“Thanks to you, we’re still alive,” Dan said.
So, they waited.
They kept their normal day/night cycle. Keeping things normal helped everyone, and turning off most of the lights conserved energy. The cavern didn’t take much to keep it warm, as the geothermal heat radiating from the floor helped.
When Terry woke the second morning, he found Skritch and Wikiwiki in the pool talking to a solitary orca. He climbed out of his bedroll and stretched. Nobody else was awake yet. He checked his watch and decided it was close enough to morning, so he quietly walked over to the pool.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The orca was Maka, a female from the former Wandering Pod. Next to Pōkole, she was the smallest of the orcas, and their equivalent of a late teenager. Even so, she was huge next to the bottlenoses.
“Maka think Wardens move now,” the orca said.
“You think we should move? Why, are the aliens near?”
“No crabs, no funny things,” Skritch assured him.
“Then why should we move?”
“More space, good heat,” Mak
a said.
Terry scratched his head as he tried to understand. The orcas understood that Humans needed warmth to survive. It was a little difficult for them to grasp why cold was a problem, as they had evolved to live in arctic cold with ease.
“No, no,” Wikiwiki said. “Too far.”
“Maka, did you find another cave?”
“Not like here,” Maka said, rolling on her side and looking at the cavern. “Like other place.”
“Like Templemer?”
“Not like, some different,” Skritch said.
“When did you find this?”
“After you show us here,” Wikiwiki said.
Damn it, Terry thought. They’re naturals at keeping things to themselves. “Where is this? How far away?”
“Short swim us,” Maka said. “Long swim you.”
Terry looked back at the others. Nobody was awake yet. He decided. “Take me there.”
He was forced to mostly swim after he’d donned his drysuit and slipped into the water. The bottlenoses weren’t strong enough to tow a Human far, and Maka was unfamiliar with the process. The researchers always cautioned him about being towed by an orca unaccustomed to the process, as it was extremely easy for them to injure him.
After a few minutes of swimming, he began to wish he had his minisub again. With it he could keep up with the orcas, if not the bottlenoses. Then Moloko and Pōkole appeared out of the dark.
“Terr!” Pōkole said and nuzzled his head against Terry.
“Hi Pōkole, hi Moloko.”
“What Terry do?” Moloko asked.
He explained what Maka and the two bottlenoses had said.
“Yes, strange place.”
“From now on, when you find something, tell me?”
“We would,” Moloko said. “Kray now look.”
Terry decided not to push the issue. Explaining what was likely a minor point of timing to beings who didn’t understand time was inherently difficult. “Can Pōkole tow me?” he asked the calf.
“Yes, yes!” Pōkole said excitedly and rolled to offer Terry his dorsal fin. He gratefully grabbed on and was instantly racing through the water, being escorted by orcas and dolphins.
They took him down the lava tube toward the outside, then turned. He expected the wall to appear at any second. It didn’t. Instead they angled upward again. The dark water and strange turns had him disoriented, but he was pretty sure they were moving higher than the pool he’d just left behind. He was so busy thinking about such things that he didn’t immediately see the light.
“What?” he said, looking up at the growing light. For a second, he panicked, afraid they were taking him to the surface. If they did so, he’d die a horrible death, the compressed nitrogen in his bloodstream forming fatal bubbles and causing strokes. But there was no way they could have traveled the two kilometers to the surface, the light was the wrong color, too.
Then suddenly he was on the surface, Pōkole stopping next to him. Terry gawked. He was inside a geodesic dome carved from volcanic rock. He bobbed for at least a minute, his head turning every which way as he took in the surroundings. Intermittent glowing light fixtures provided dim if sufficient illumination. The color spectrum was bluish.
The pool he floated in was huge—at least a hundred meters across—and roughly circular. The floor of the dome was paved in a similar manner to the geometric shapes above in the dome. In addition, several small domed structures were scattered seemingly at random around the space. There was no doubt, this was a purposeful structure. It was also obviously not Human, and quite warm outside the water.
“See, see?” Maka said, her dorsal fin skimming past a few meters away. Pōkole was enjoying himself by performing jumps out of the water, making massive splashes. Clearly he was enjoying the surface of a larger body of water. Having been born on a spaceship, this was a new experience for him.
Terry swam over to the nearest edge and found the floor of the pool gently rising up to meet him several meters from the edge. He swam until he was only waist deep, then stood to walk out of the water. His suit began to quickly decrease heat output, and the heads-up said the temperature was 19 degrees; comfortable. Standing on dry land, he removed his helmet and gloves. The air felt nice. Even a slight breeze brushed his cheek.
“There’s power,” he realized, looking up again at the lights, then at the domes/buildings, which all sported a light or two as well. “Where’s the power coming from?” he wondered.
Terry checked his laser pistol to be sure it still worked after being submerged. Doc had said the weapons would work in any environment, but he still checked that the power indicator was green, then reholstered the weapon. Nothing about the dome suggested anyone lived in it. Regardless, the hair on the back of his neck kept wanting to stand up.
He walked around the perimeter of the moon pool and found himself examining the roof again. What he’d thought were geometric cuts in the rock structure now looked more like steel panels. Some had lights, some didn’t. The ones without lights reminded him of something. The memory was tantalizingly just beyond his reach. He walked toward the closest building.
“What us do?” Maka asked. Pōkole pulled off a full 360 degree backflip in the center of the pool, bouncing off Maka’s peduncle. Maka pushed him aside gently with her much bigger fluke.
“Can you wait here, please?” Terry asked.
“We wait Terry,” Maka agreed.
“Wait, wait!” Pōkole called and dove deep to jump again.
“Thanks,” Terry said and continued on.
The first building he came to was one of the smallest, maybe five meters tall and about ten across. It was also the closest to the moon pool. It reminded him of a doghouse style common back on Earth—an igloo for a dog. After he’d walked all the way around, he realized there was no door. He skirted the outside a second time, just to be sure he hadn’t missed it.
“Well, that’s strange,” he said. His voice echoed slightly until Pōkole crashed back into the moon pool. He glanced back toward them to be sure everything was okay, then reached out and touched the building. It felt cool to the touch, maybe five degrees lower than the air temperature. He couldn’t decide if it was stone or metal; the finish was strange. Slightly discouraged, he moved on to the next building.
After a while, he took out his slate and began making notes on the buildings and dome layout. He circled two more buildings and found no entrances to them, either. Not even a window or a pipe. He wondered what they were. Certainly not buildings, if they didn’t have any way to get in or out.
He leaned his slate against a triangular section of the geodesic dome, only to have it and several more slide away and send his slate tumbling inside.
“Holy crap!” be barked, and backpedaled, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on his butt. “Oof!” He sat and gawked, his weapon completely forgotten. As he watched, the interior of the dome lit up.
Slowly he got to his feet and cautiously stuck his head inside. He found a series of large machines clustered around the room’s center. They were of various heights, with one attached to the roof. Low intensity lights were fixed around the highest part of the room. He bent and retrieved his slate before walking up to the closest machine. As he came close, a screen came alive on its side, slightly lower than he would find easy to read.
Bending over, he examined the display. It was immediately recognizable to him as a power system. He’d seen them on the Teddy Roosevelt during visits to her engine room. He was standing next to a fusion reactor and its associated power generation/distribution systems. However, he couldn’t read the language.
Terry moved his slate so its pickups could see the display. Centering it, he activated the machine translation feature. For such a powerful computer, it took an inordinate amount of time to find a translation matrix. As it began to display in English, he saw untranslated segments. He’d never seen a result of the sort before. A translation either worked, or it didn’t. This was especially true with me
chanical and technological devices.
After examining the various readings for a moment, he went into the slate’s translation program and inquired what language the machines were using. “Kahraman” was the answer.
“Never heard of them,” he said and shrugged. He’d read up on them later, and maybe find out why there was an incomplete translation matrix. He could see the power generator was operating on minimum, though he couldn’t see how much fuel it had, or its F11 condition. It could be there, but he didn’t know how to find it. One of the displays read “Thermal Tap.” He wondered if that was like geothermal power? Maybe the base was running off lava under the core.
“Is this what the Selroth are looking for?” he wondered. It was clearly an old base built into a volcano. Even rich and powerful alien races wouldn’t go to these sorts of extremes, building a base kilometers under the ice on a remote moon, unless they had a plan. From what he knew about the Izlians, it didn’t look like something they’d build, either.
Terry went around looking at the various machines, mostly guessing at their functions, before walking back out the entrance. The triangular sections of the dome’s wall that had moved to make a door returned silently to their original position, creating a seamless wall once more. He leaned in closely to examine the sections that made up the doorway and eventually found what distinguished them from all the other sections. One triangular section had a nearly invisible green outline, and it was the one he’d leaned his slate against.
He touched the section, and the door instantly opened again. Out of curiosity, he went inside the dome and found where it folded against the inside. He touched it, and the door closed. “Yes,” he said. Another touch of the trigger from the inside, and the door quickly folded open.
Armed with the knowledge, he returned to the first dome and searched for a green outlined section. When he found it, he opened the door and looked inside. It looked like a series of water or air pumps and other such equipment. Since his suit said the pressure was higher in the dome, that only made sense.
