His backside twitched slightly as he scanned the room with his ma.s.s sense, trying to find the next door. Kirizzo suppressed his curiosity about the devices in favor of his effort to escape to the surface. An oppressive feeling came over him, causing him to slow. Something was wrong. Kirizzo took another few steps forward. Ahead, below the floor, he detected something too ma.s.sive for his senses. His head reeled. Kirizzo staggered back, retreating from the overwhelming input.
A few moments later he began to recover. The golden alien knew what he had encountered: a microscopic singularity. The intense gravity close to the event horizon would daze a Gorgala almost to the point of helplessness. The tiny black hole was probably used as a source of power for the energy-greedy complex. Matter could be tossed into it, and the super-heated gases outside the event horizon would emit a small fraction of the energy released as high-frequency radiation that could be harvested by a sufficiently complex technology. Just holding the singularity in place took an advanced science. Without any support, the black hole would tumble into the center of the planet and consume everything until no planet remained, just a black sphere orbiting the star, a dark monster with a fat stomach lingering where its victim once lived.
Kirizzo took a different route, trying to avoid the dangerous area he had accidentally discovered. He skirted the outside of the large chamber and came across a circular opening in the side wall.
The tunnel reminded him of the entrance that he had scrabbled down, pursued by the Bel Klaven war machines. He entered it, moving through the tube. The inside was utterly dark so he relied upon his other senses to find his way. It took a familiar twisting inclined course up towards the surface.
He encountered a blockage at the end of the pa.s.sage. Dirt and leaves completely obstructed the exit. Kirizzo dug through the matter efficiently, scooping dirt out of place and under him with his forelegs while several sets of rear legs flicked it far behind him. He burrowed for a few meters down the tunnel. He sensed the surface, a vast low-density area only a few meters above.
The surface light flooded into the tunnel around Kirizzo when he emerged. The light-sensitive bundles under his gravity-sensing bulb retracted slightly to protect the sensors from overexposure. Once his vision had adjusted, the shining searcher darted back into movement. He flitted through the dense foliage, taking his bearings. Kirizzo recalled the direction of his initial approach to the complex and took off, adjusting the tall plants out of his way with several limbs while the others carried him along.
Kirizzo thought about his flight through the forest as he traveled through one valley and into another. The forest seemed calm and peaceful compared to the tumult of the day he arrived, lulling Kirizzo into a sense of safety in the heavy cover. He came to the hillside where he had landed and started a spiral search for his craft.
Although a lot of time had pa.s.sed while Kirizzo was imprisoneda"several revolutions of this planet around its stara"he felt sure that even if his starship had been destroyed there would be signs. He wandered along the hillside, his legs stopping occasionally but always moving his ma.s.s sensor bulb to feel for anomalies underground.
It took Kirizzo a long time to find the first piece of metal. He detected a small triangular fragment, buried under a layer of dirt and leaves. Kirizzo recovered it and held the clue up in a single hand to examine it visually. The plate the piece had broken from had been shattered; tiny fracture lines crisscrossed the item.
This was what Kirizzo had feared. The Bel Klaven had destroyed his ship in their zeal to exterminate him so long ago. He froze in thought.
How then might Kirizzo make his escape from this planet? What had happened in the war between his species and the Bel Klaven? Had they succeeded in eradicating his race from the galaxy, or had others like him survived?
It seemed that the aliens trapped in the nearby complex might serve as Kirizzo"s only way to leave the planet. He might be able to convince them to allow him onto one of their ships. From that point, it might be possible to return to a Gorgala stronghold, if any still existed.
With his new plans formed, Kirizzo returned to motion. His legs blurred and he ran back down the hillside towards the complex.
Telisa sat on the cafeteria chair to rest, opening her pack on the table in front of her. Across the table, Magnus and Joe moved in on a triplet of food kiosks in a predatory manner. They had tried to access the kiosks through their links, but the machines refused to function. The real versions of such machines back on Earth produced snacks for anyone who accessed the service through their link, and the cost would be charged to the customer"s global account automatically. Magnus drove his knee into the plastic panels of the support column, putting white stress fractures into one of the panels and knocking it loose. Joe reversed his rifle and applied the stock to another vending kiosk in a sharp thrust. His attack broke out a large piece of the dispensing counter.
"Not exactly health food," Telisa commented as she counted up her remaining food packets from the ship.
"We might find some other stuff in those refrigerators back there," Magnus said, pointing back behind Telisa. "Go check them out if you want."
Telisa nodded and got back to her feet, leaving her pack behind. She had a craving for some real fruit since the rations they had been eating, although tasty, had a texture that left something to be desired. She thought it odd that humans could travel through s.p.a.ce to distant planets, but they couldn"t come up with nonperishable food packets that didn"t grate on the consumer after a few days.
Telisa opened up the first industrial-sized refrigerator and started looking through it. A couple of shelves were filled with milk containers. The lower shelves had dozens of square cakes on small white plates. Telisa removed the wrapping from one and took a close look. It looked like pineapple upside-down cake.
"Hrm," Telisa murmured. She closed the refrigerator and walked back towards Magnus and Joe. They had finished ransacking the machines. They each had a pack full of candy bars and snack packages.
"There"s some cake in there. If we"re going to eat it, it had better be now. It"s not going to keep."
Magnus frowned. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.
"We should eat all of our food first. The food created here by the complex might harm us somehow."
Joe shrugged. "If it tastes like the real thing, it"s probably of the right molecular makeup."
"There are a lot of things people can"t taste that can kill," Magnus replied.
"But that would almost be intentional," Joe said. "Actually, our taste buds amount to a pretty sophisticated a.n.a.lysis system. If the food is off by any significant amount, it will taste different. If the complex creators meant to kill us, why do it by poisoning the food?"
Telisa thought that made sense. "I agree there"s a possibility that it is poisonous and we wouldn"t taste it. But compared to the other dangers of this place, I"m thinking it"ll be small."
Magnus smiled. "Okay. Eat it if you want. You can be my guinea pig."
Telisa grimaced and turned back towards the refrigerator. She dug out a couple of the plates and brought them back to the table. She set one in front of Joe and kept the other for herself.
"Forgive me if I forgo the silverware," she said, picking the cake up in her hand. She noticed that Joe had made no move to eat his cake and stopped. She frowned at Joe.
"Wait a minute," she said. "You were the one who convinced me the food would be okay!"
"It probably is," Joe said. "But it would be a silly risk for me not to wait and see what you think it tastes like, wouldn"t it?"
Telisa looked at Magnus. He smiled.
"s.h.i.t," Telisa muttered. She took a bite of the cake. It tasted just as she remembered it should.
"Tastes okay," she said. She set down the rest of the cake. "I"ll wait a while. If there"s something wrong with it, one bite may let us know without killing me."
"A wise decision," Magnus said.
Suddenly a sound echoed through the cafeteria. Telisa couldn"t identify the noise, but she thought that perhaps it was a chair being moved or a door being opened.
Magnus reacted first, grabbing his slugthrower and dropping p.r.o.ne to the floor. Joe and Telisa followed his example quickly. Telisa managed to find her stunner within the next few seconds. She realized then, lying on her stomach and peering through the chair legs across the room, how much she had relaxed since the early hours in the complex when Jack and Thomas had been killed.
Telisa heard something else, another sound joining the thudding of her heart. The skitter of many feet. A glint of gold pierced the masking chair legs in Telisa"s field of view.
"It"s Shiny!" Telisa exclaimed.
Magnus remained in position and trained his rifle on the bundle of legs. The alien came to a stop several meters away and then stood still, as if waiting.
"I guess he could kill us now if he wanted, even though we have some small amount of cover," Magnus said.
Apparently Joe came to the same conclusion, as he had risen to his knees to get a clear peek at the creature.
"Looks just like Shiny," he called.
Telisa took a quick look and agreed. "He"s waiting for us."
"He"s still trapped in here too, then," Magnus said gloomily.
The alien waved its forward most arms rhythmically. It turned slightly and took a few steps away.
"He says follow him," Telisa said, recognizing the motions from before. Everyone slowly stood up and watched the creature.
Magnus and Joe exchanged glances. Magnus nodded.
The small group of humans followed the glittering, many-legged creature. After about twenty meters the human corridor turned into the familiar reddish-crusted caves.
"He stole our environment from us again!" Joe shot out. "How does he do that?"
Telisa shook her head and kept following Shiny through the dim caverns. The footing altered randomly, causing her to slow down and walk carefully. She wondered where the alien was taking them this time. She half expected to see another room with a beautiful pile of red cubes in the center.
Instead they came to a gray barrier of hex-shaped cells. A hole large enough to walk through had been ripped in the center of the stuff. Shiny went into it without hesitation. Telisa walked up to the new material and felt it with her hand.
"Wild. It"s like a giant wasp nest made of tough plastic."
"Another environ? Does that mean there"s another alien of a different type?" Joe asked.
"I"ve never seen this stuff before," Magnus said. "Something different is going on. Let"s keep up with him." Now Magnus stepped ahead of Telisa and followed after Shiny. Telisa smiled as she saw his skinsuit replicate the gray hexagons around him. He looked like a sim model without texture art, a generic human silhouette waiting to be painted. Telisa turned her suit back on as well, just in case.
They moved through a cramped pa.s.sage in the tough material until coming to a hexagonal portal made of metal. When Telisa stepped through, she looked around and gasped.
"This is Trilisk stuff!" she announced, looking around the dark room. Columns of metal rose around them, bedecked with flat black panels and cubic cl.u.s.ters of metal that looked like art sculptures. She no longer had any doubt that Shiny wasn"t a Trilisk; his technology had a different look and feel. She wondered if his race was as advanced as the Trilisks had been.
Telisa took out a flashlight and immediately started examining the column before her. Fuzzy violet symbols flickered on the flat panes of the column, but they hardly gave enough light for a detailed examination. As she fully focused on the machine, Telisa"s foot nudged something on the floor. She turned her beam down to the ground and saw a metal object lying in the dust.
She crouched down and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the item. It was about fifteen centimeters long, and looked like a small double wrench, with a viewing panel embedded in each flat end. A hexagonal opening sat next to the view screen on one end, and a one centimeter spike of metal protruded from the other end.
Joe distracted her. "Shiny is up to something unusual," he said.
Telisa surrept.i.tiously dropped the artifact into a pocket of her camo suit and turned to look at the alien. One of the small spheres that moved around Shiny"s trunk glowed gently, casting a feeble light onto the scene. Shiny opened a silvery pack lying on the ground in front of him. Telisa saw a collection of small green objects inside, like green charcoal briquettes.
"What"s up?" Magnus asked, walking up to the others. He clicked his own flashlight off.
"He has some weird package full of green bricks or something," Telisa said. She pointed to the pack Shiny had unlimbered, then realized there might not be enough light for the others to see her pointing, especially with her camo suit on. She turned her thin light to wide beam and added its light to the area around Shiny.
Magnus and Joe stood with Telisa and watched. Shiny rotated his body and faced away from the open container. The curved end of Shiny"s trunk dipped down and split open from the sides. A slimy, reddish interior was revealed.
"Oh, so gross," Telisa breathed. She unconsciously stepped back. Her light wavered.
"Uh! Is he all right?" Magnus asked.
A charred black rectangle slid out onto the floor next to Shiny"s package of smooth green blocks. The black thing was similarly shaped to the green ones, although much smaller. As soon as the darker object was ejected, Shiny"s body flexed and the opening fastened itself onto one of the green blocks. In seconds the entire thing had been consumed whole. Then the trunk closed up again, and the end of Shiny"s body resumed its appearance of a curved beak or hook.
Joe stood as stunned as the others. "What did we just see?" he said. "Did it just defecate and eat from the same orifice?"
Telisa winced. "I think so," she said.
"If that"s food, he has the whole rest of the pack. I wonder how long it"ll last him?" Magnus said.
Joe shook his head and then took a long look around the giant chamber. "I"m going to try and find my way up," he announced. "I have to contact my superiors and report this complex and the alien. As I said, I only care about the big picture here so I"ll hold to my word and leave your presence here out of my summary, if that"s what you want."
"Okay, leave me out," Telisa said.
"Same here," Magnus added.
"Very well," Joe said. "I"ll be back soon."
Joe turned and moved away from the machines, headed towards a far side wall.
"We must get out of here now," Magnus said. "We won"t have much time once he tells the UNSF about this place."
"But we"re in the middle of a Trilisk complex! Who knows what amazing things are lying around this place!"
"Grab what you can. I"m going to follow him just long enough to figure out the way to the surface. Then we"re out of here."
Chapter Sixteen.
Telisa looked at Shiny. She felt the need to speak even though the alien couldn"t understand her.
"Unbelievable! Here I am surrounded by artifacts and now I have to leave in a matter of minutes!" The creature shifted, as if it took great effort to sit still and observe her.
Telisa moved up to the nearest pillar. She ran her hands along its surface, searching for loose items in the dim light. The smooth metal felt cool against her skin. The column bulged in many spots. Its surface meandered in a chaotic way, covered in k.n.o.bs and extensions of all shapes and sizes. Telisa knew from previously studied Trilisk technology that the k.n.o.bs would not move; most Trilisk artifacts had no manual controls of any kind.
"I wonder how they kept dust from acc.u.mulating on it?" she asked herself. Her hand found a depression, and she slid her fingers along it.
"Probably going to lose a hand doing this..." she commented. Her fingers wrapped around a ridge and she pulled a drawer-like container open. Instead of a hollow box, the device pulled out and then folded open with a small whir. An ovoid device glowed in the interior. It looked like a glowing egg with a metal net woven over it. Some other items sat next to the lit ovoid, revealed by its dim light.
Telisa pulled her backpack off and unzipped it. "Let"s hope this stuff isn"t super fragile," she said. She put the egg into a pocket and examined the other items. She saw a flat, square plate the size of her palm that had ridges on its edges as if it were made of dozens of layers of metal. She gently picked up the plate and felt for something else in the drawer. Her hand found a triangular-shaped piece of material identical to that of the plate, with the same ridges on its side. She slipped these things into her backpack and closed it up.
"Fantastic! We have to make the best possible use of our time," she said to Shiny. She moved to the next pillar without waiting for any response from the alien.
A sc.r.a.ping sound emanated from the floor nearby. Telisa jumped, turning back towards Shiny.
"s.h.i.t! Was that you?" Telisa asked. She didn"t expect an answer. Another noise came from the other direction, several meters away from her and Shiny. A chill ran down her back, and she grabbed her flashlight again. Turning the device to wide beam, she swept the area.
Something moved along the floor. It left the swath of light rapidly, causing Telisa"s heart rate to climb. Was she being attacked? Her other hand groped for her stunner in a moment of terror while the noises continued, bouncing off the pillars in the dark. Then her beam caught something in front of Shiny.
A small stack of devices had been created in front of the alien. As Telisa watched, a small silver sphere flew over and deposited another artifact into the pile. Telisa realized that the sphere looked the same as the thing that had blocked Joe when he pointed his weapon at Shiny.
"Wow! You"re collecting stuff faster than I am!" Telisa exclaimed.
Shiny indicated the pile and moved several of his legs. He pushed one of the items towards Telisa and then backed off.
"For me?" Telisa asked. She watched the alien for a moment, then moved forward. The intriguing stack beckoned her, and the alien didn"t move.
"Thank you!" she said, bending down to scoop the items into her backpack. "Thanks!" she said again. "I need to figure out how to say that so you understand."
Telisa continued to look for loose items in the room for a few more minutes, but it seemed that Shiny"s scavenging efforts had retrieved most everything in the area since she found nothing else that wasn"t attached to the other heavier equipment.