Black and White

by Mark Wandrey

  He went to the other buildings, looking inside and making notes in his slate. The more he scrutinized, the surer he was that the dome was a serious installation, and it had been empty for an extremely long time. Then he opened a building and stood in shock.

  “Those have to be weapons,” Terry said. The dome was lower and squatter than all the others, shaped more like a hotdog bun than a regular dome. Inside was a large machine, and racks upon racks of weapons. After seeing pictures of various guns during MST back on Molokai, he was certain. In addition, they were like the guns Doc had talked about. They were unconfigured.

  He examined the machine in the center, which, like the powerplant, came alive as soon as he walked up to it. Since his slate was already configured for the strange Kahraman language, he held up the computer and examined the display. “Manufactory Ready.”

  “Holy shit,” he said, walking along the racks of weapons. They were stored in groupings by type, though he couldn’t tell what type many of them were. Another rack had stacks of plates. He picked one up and examined it. The material was semi rigid and as light as plastic. The only markings were the Union common numbers in what he guessed was a part or serial number. He had no idea what they might be for.

  The door closed behind him as he left and moved to another building. Once inside, he found six blocky structures mounted to the floor, and one hanging from the ceiling, which ended at the height of all the screens on other machines he’d seen. Like the other machines, it came alive as soon as he walked up to it. He used his slate to translate. “Computing and Communications.”

  “Now we’re talking,” he said and linked his slate with the controller. Immediately a data packet began to flood in, and it was the strange 3D data. He let out an awkward squeak and quickly made sure it wasn’t going straight into open memory. It wasn’t, thankfully. He knew from experience that it was too complicated to do anything with, so he ignored it and tried to examine the systems. They were far more complicated than anything he’d ever seen before.

  “Whoever created the 3D programming obviously wrote this OS, too,” he said after a few minutes. He couldn’t get past the operating system to the core controls of the computer, so he settled for seeing what kind of systems the computer was overseeing. It only took a minute to realize the big blocky machines were core memory modules. Unbelievable huge ones.

  “What could possibly need this much space?” he wondered. Then he remembered how massive the 3D data packets were. If the entire system had been written with it, they must consume hundreds of exabytes. Maybe thousands of exabytes, which would be zettabytes.

  The idea of the system needing zettabytes of space to store the strange data went out the window. There was simply no way. As he understood, the entire GalNet was only one or two zettabytes. Maybe if you added all the associated data, you’d maybe double the total. Maybe. Then he found out how to access the communications system. He used it to access the frequencies he and his friends had been using.

  “Anyone out there?”

  “Terry?” Katrina answered immediately. “Where are you? When we woke up, you were gone!” She sounded almost frantic.

  “I’m fine,” he explained. “The cetaceans found another cavern. It’s artificial, a base of some kind. I’ll send Wikiwiki to come get you, and you can see for yourself.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 14

  Kahraman Base, Planet Hoarfrost, Lupasha System, Coro Region, Tolo Arm

  May 14th, 2038

  Terry woke up and yawned. The ever-present low-level of illumination in the Kahraman base wasn’t enough to make sleeping difficult. There’d always been more light on the Teddy Roosevelt than he had to deal with now.

  When his friends arrived, they’d spent a couple of hours walking around and gawking at the structures. Everyone had been amazed that Terry had figured out how to get into the buildings, then he’d explained he’d done so by accident, and they’d enjoyed a good laugh.

  “Do you think this is what the Selroth are looking for?” Taiki asked.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Terry said. “The answer is, I don’t know.”

  They still hadn’t explored all the buildings when they needed to go back and check on the kids and adults. It was a good thing they had, because when they got there, some of the middle school-aged kids were arguing with the adult women about going back up the hatch and to the submarine. They thought maybe Templemer was still there. Of course, it wasn’t.

  Terry and his friends calmed the situation down, explaining that they’d found a better place to stay and they’d work out how to get everyone there. Of course, getting them there was the problem. One of the adults had been so shaken by the argument, she was afraid she’d gone into labor, which nearly caused Terry to panic.

  Luckily Katrina knew more about such things. She verified in short order that it wasn’t actual labor. The woman wasn’t due for another two months. Then, while the labor drama was going on, several of the younger kids decided to go exploring. Dan and Colin went to go bring them back. By this time, Terry decided he couldn’t leave the rest of them alone, and it was late.

  The adults were in no condition to take charge (which was obviously why Doc had put him in charge in the first place.) Two of the women just sat and stared at the walls in shock. They could barely care for own their children, to the point that two of the other mothers did so for them. The last two were quite pregnant and needed to rest. Added to this, the kids were becoming unruly.

  Terry left Taiki in charge while Katrina, Dan, Colin, and he returned to the Kahraman base to explore, then spend the night. Taiki wasn’t happy, but Terry didn’t care. Back at the base, he had the bottlenoses do a check outside. They came back an hour later confirming the Xiq’tal were still searching the area, though it didn’t appear they’d found the sub.

  They’d bedded down in the open, not far from the armory he’d found. He didn’t want to sleep in the buildings yet. Simply put, he didn’t trust them. Better to be able to make a run for the moon pool if something weird happened while they slept. He got out of the simple sleeping roll he’d brought and checked on the others. Colin and Dan were still asleep, but Katrina was standing near a building looking at its wall.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  She looked up and grinned when she saw him, giving him a patented wink. “Come over here; you might be interested in this.”

  “What?” he asked as he walked over. He couldn’t see anything other than a wall.

  “Just watch,” she said and slipped her hand into his. She was warm and felt good.

  He smiled from ear to ear. Then one of the triangular panels suddenly swung up, and a little animal skittered out. “Wow!” he said and jumped back. She hung on and kept him from retreating further.

  “It’s okay, take a closer look.”

  He’d thought it was a spider, but it wasn’t alive. He could see mechanical components, and it had a pair of large multifaceted eyes, along with a single antenna. “What is it?”

  “It’s a robot,” she said. “A lot more advanced than any I’ve ever seen before, even in the Union.”

  The machine skittered right toward them. Terry was about to move when it changed course, skirted around the two young people, then resumed its course. He took out his slate and snapped a digital image. With the picture, he ran a comparison in the GalNet.

  “Multi-Environment Type 92 Service Bot,” the slate informed him. “No longer in service. Last used during the Great Galactic War.” The robot skittered out of view. Instead of following, he clicked to find out more about the war.

  “The Great Galactic War between the Dusman and the coalition led by the Kahraman occurred more than 20,000 standard years ago. Involving all the major member races of the First Republic, the war lasted 322 years, and cost many trillions of sentient lives. After the mutual destruction of the Dusman and the Kahraman, the Peacemakers brought the remaining hostilities to an end and were instrumental in the format
ion of the Galactic Union, a government designed to make large-scale warfare impractical.”

  “Wow,” Katrina said as she read over his shoulder. “Did you know about this?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I wonder if Doc was going to teach about it in MST later?” She shrugged. “Where’d the robot go?”

  “Don’t know,” she said. “Another will be along. I’ve seen three so far.”

  “You know, this explains why everything’s so clean.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I guess these Kahraman left the base, and the robots keep it running.”

  “The power system said it had something called a thermal tap. I think it gets power from the planet, and there’s a fusion powerplant, too. This whole place is weird. Here, come into this room.” Terry took her to the armory and watched her eyes bug out at all the guns and stuff. “And this is a manufactory.”

  “Woah,” she said, running a hand along it. “It’s a tiny one.”

  “Well, autochefs are a kind of manufactory. Since this one is here, it’s probably designed to make weapons and stuff.”

  “So maybe this is an abandoned military base,” she suggested.

  “You know, that makes sense.” He suddenly felt like someone was watching him. Maybe there were Kahraman around? He used his slate to find out what they looked like.

  “No Data,” it told him. Maybe it was data he’d never loaded. Also, the Kahraman were all gone, according to the GalNet. The Dusman and the Kahraman had exterminated each other. There were no pictures or details on the Dusman, either. All he cared was, they were gone, and that meant the base was theirs for the taking.

  Colin and Dan were awake when they came out. Katrina explained about finding the little robots. One obliged by skittering by just as she’d finished her story. This time they followed it. The machine led them to a building near the center of the dome, where it went in though a tiny door. Terry walked around until he found a full-sized door and touched it. Nothing happened.

  “This is the first time I couldn’t get into one,” he said and tried again. Nothing. All three of the others tried as well, with no luck.

  “Maybe we can sneak through when the robot comes back out,” Dan suggested.

  “Pretty small hole,” Colin said. “Taiki would fit.”

  “Dan, go back and relieve him, okay?” Dan frowned. “See if you can organize everyone to move. The bottlenoses said the aliens haven’t found the sub yet, so go up and get all the drysuits and survival bubbles you can so we can prepare to move everyone here. Don’t take long at the sub. We’ll be back this afternoon to help.”

  “Okay,” he said, though Terry could see he still wasn’t happy about it.

  “We might as well keep looking around while we wait for Taiki,” Katrina suggested.

  Consulting the map on his slate, Terry could see five buildings he hadn’t investigated yet. One was the biggest by far, and he headed for it. “Keep an eye out for more robots,” he told the others. “I don’t exactly trust them.”

  “They’re just robots,” Katrina said.

  Just robots, Terry thought. That didn’t comfort him at all.

  They reached the big building. Terry didn’t have to look far for a door; one was already open. Like the portal that hadn’t responded to him, this was another first. For some reason, he had a strange feeling, and he drew his laser pistol and peered carefully around the corner.

  “You see something?” Colin whispered.

  “No,” he admitted. I’m getting jumpy, he thought and holstered the gun.

  This was the first building he’d found that wasn’t a big open structure. The door opened into a short hallway, and he could see doors on either side, and one at the end. All of them were also open, but no lights were on inside. The lights in the hall matched the same pattern as every other building, scattered and rather dim.

  They walked into the building and slowly down the hall. They still had their drysuits on, so each took one of the flashlights from their helmets to see better. Katrina pointed hers at the ground.

  “Look,” she said. “Dust. The robots don’t come in here.”

  “I wonder why?” Colin asked.

  “They’re afraid of the vampires,” Terry said. Both looked at him, agog. “I was trying to be funny.”

  “Stop trying,” Colin said.

  “Yeah,” Katrina agreed.

  “Sorry.”

  Katrina narrowed her eyes at him, and he shrugged. She sighed and put her hand on the green spot, and the door opened for her. When the light from her flashlight fell inside and she saw what was there, she screamed.

  Terry jerked the laser pistol from its holster and tried to move around Katrina. She was frozen in the middle of the doorway, gasping for breath. He managed to pull her sideways to reveal the threat. Skeletons.

  “They’re not Human,” he said.

  “I know,” she said, turning and grabbing him around the neck. Hot tears fell on his face. “It’s just, all this going on.”

  “It would have freaked me out too,” he said, holstering the weapon. “If I’d opened the door, I probably would have shot the shit out of everything.” She gave a coughing laugh.

  “If you two are done smooching?” Colin asked.

  “We’re not smooching,” Terry complained.

  “Yes we are,” Katrina said and kissed him. Colin groaned and rolled his eyes. “You came to my rescue!” she exclaimed. He shrugged. “That almost makes up for the vampire bit.”

  “Not in my book,” Colin said.

  “You want a kiss, too?” Terry asked.

  Colin flipped him a rude gesture. “Can we see what’s inside now?”

  The room was maybe eight meters on a side, and a dozen or more skeletons were scattered about. There were six low pallets, which reminded Terry of Japanese-style beds. Two of the skeletons were lying on them, adding validity to the concept. He knew they weren’t Human, because they possessed long necks, and almost alligator-type jaws, which came to a point and were full of sharp teeth.

  “They weren’t very big,” Katrina noted, kneeling next to one on a pallet.

  She was right; in life it had probably been no bigger than a large dog. Despite its size, its rear legs were longer, so it might have stood upright like Humans, and it was about a meter and a half tall. With so many teeth, he didn’t think he’d want to meet a living one.

  “I wonder if these were Kahraman,” he said aloud. He took some pictures with his slate. It couldn’t hurt.

  “Why didn’t the robots take the bodies away?” Colin asked. “They just left them here to rot.”

  “Gross,” Katrina said.

  The three moved around the room that Terry was thinking of as a bunkroom, examining the skeletons. He knelt down next to one that was lying over a pallet and saw a tiny angular hole in its head. He carefully moved the skull, which detached from the long neck, causing a few vertebrae to fall away and rattle to the floor. He found another hole roughly on the opposite side of the head.

  “I think this one was shot in the head,” Terry said.

  “This one, too,” Colin said across the room.

  “Same here,” Katrina noted.

  They spent a minute going from skeleton to skeleton, verifying; they had all been shot in the head in an obvious scene of mass execution. In total, there were 14 skeletons. Other than the bones, the room was only rusty with some discolorations on the floor or pallets around the bodies. Terry guessed if they were Kahraman, they might have been killed 20,000 years ago. He wondered if the people who’d first gone into the Egyptian pyramids felt like he did.

  “Let’s see what’s in the other rooms,” Terry said.

  They exited the bunkroom and crossed the narrow hall. Katrina touched the green space, and the door opened. Terry had a hand on his laser pistol, just in case. The room was the same size as the other, with three long tables less than a meter high. A machine took up half the length of one wall. Terry went over to the machine, and a display came al
ive on it. He used his slate to translate.

  “Autochef Online—Nutrient Reserve Status—Low.”

  “Food, heat, safety,” Terry said.

  “Looks pretty good to me,” Katrina agreed.

  “Going to be tough getting the little kids down here,” Colin said.

  “Harder for the moms with little babies,” Terry agreed. “As soon as Taiki gets back, we’ll see if this will work.”

  “What about the last room?” Katrina asked, pointing back out to the hallway.

  “Yeah, let’s check it out,” Colin agreed.

  Terry shrugged and they approached the last door. He was mentally comparing the spaces they’d discovered so far in the building against its exterior size and guessed more than half was left. Katrina opened the door and verified his estimate. After finding a lunch room and a bunkhouse full of skeletons, he guessed he couldn’t be surprised. He was wrong.

  “What the hell?” Katrina said.

  All three entered and looked at what they could see. Three cubical-style workstations were in front of them, and a line of clear tubes to either side. The tubes were full of water, and a creature was suspended in each one. Terry walked over to the nearest workstation, while his friends wandered over to look at the tubes.

  Like every other machine he’d encountered so far, the workstation came alive. This one had a complicated wraparound Tri-V instead of a flat display, which made it much harder to translate through his slate. He had to hold the slate at just the right angle and distance, which took several tries.

  “Codex Status—Standing By.”

  “Codex,” he said aloud. “What does that mean?”

  The submenus were no help either. “Codex correlation,” “Biome Codex Indexing.” “Task Codex Assimilation,” and many more options like them. The words had meaning, but didn’t help him understand what they meant in the current context. A few of the menu selections were like the big computer, not translated at all.

  After a few minutes, he realized his friends were gone. Since he wasn’t learning anything, he got up to see where they were. The workstation shut down as soon as he was a meter away from it.