Joe nodded. "Let"s test that idea. Two, return to our deepest point in the complex and then walk back here. See if there"s any discrepancy in the inertial navigator readings."
Two tramped away dutifully. Joe stood thinking as he waited for it to return. After a minute there was a sc.r.a.ping noise, and Joe saw that the orange creature on One"s leg was beginning to move downwards on the metal column.
"One, don"t move. Let that stupid thing run off to wherever."
"Acknowledged."
The crablike thing crawled down to the metal foot below it and hesitated. Eventually it abandoned its post on the leg and crawled away down the corridor, b.u.mping into the wall periodically. Two returned, walking carefully around the orange creature.
"The test is complete. The inertial locating system is showing no errors," Two said.
"Okay. First thing, help me smash through this wall. I want to see if the entrance is behind it."
The robots worked with Joe to break through the wall. Its surface was made of fairly flimsy materials with a reinforcing honeycomb structure behind. Joe had a hard time with this support material, but the robots ripped it methodically to pieces, revealing the s.p.a.ce beyond. Joe looked through the hole.
"It"s just another room. The entrance really isn"t here," Joe said.
"The entrance has moved," Two agreed.
Joe shook his head. "We"re missing something. The inertial systems seem to be working, but the entrance has been moved. Or closed, or hidden, or something. Let"s move out in a right-handed maze search of the entire place. I want to find the exit as fast as possible."
Joe indicated One to lead. The Series Seven moved out, keeping the wall at its right side. They moved into a room with long tables and chairs in the middle with numerous metal cabinets lining the walls. Joe resisted the urge to search through the cabinets. He wanted to find the way out quickly. He felt trapped in this strange place. He would come back and search more once he had returned to the surface and made his report.
They moved through another series of rooms typical of what they had already seen. They reminded Joe of an emptied university or research center. The trio had just walked up a stairwell when One came to a halt in front of him.
"Sir, there is an anomaly ahead."
Joe stepped forward and looked over the robot"s shoulder.
"Whoa," Joe said. Just ahead, the smooth concrete floor ended in an irregular hole. The room at the top of the stairwell emptied into a large cavern. Cl.u.s.ters of odd red and beige blocks the size of his fist grew out of the wall in random patches. The groups of cubes had greenish-colored sticks or spines poking out of them at all angles. He stared at the odd cavern for a long moment.
"One, do you have any record of this sort of... cave?"
"These structures are unknown," One reported.
Joe walked up to the edge of the cave. He kneeled down to examine the border where the floor ended. The concrete was sheared off smoothly. There were no chunks or debris of the room on the floor of the cavern beyond. The walls and ceiling had been cut off in the same way.
"This cave or whatever it is was somehow created after this place was built. The floor wasn"t built this way, it was cut off."
One and Two didn"t say anything. Joe shook his head and paced.
"None of this is making any sense," he complained. "This whole place... I just don"t understand what"s going on. Something is happening that I"m missing here. These funny blocks look like kid"s toys."
Two leveled its rifle and stepped forward.
"There is a possible lifeform reading up ahead."
"The orange crab-thing?"
"No. The reading is much larger. A high-metabolism creature with metallic accoutrements. Possible electronics signature detected."
"s.h.i.t!" After years in the service, Joe had never heard these words except in training VRs. He unslung his rifle, then considered his sidearm for a moment. The sidearm would be more useful in close quarters, but it was a lot less sophisticated than the rifle. Its slugs were undiscriminating. Joe decided to stick with the rifle.
"Send the profile over to my rifle," Joe ordered. He could set the seeker slugs to match the reading they were getting. "How close is this d.a.m.n thing?"
The end of his question was lost in the painfully loud stutter of automatic weapons fire. One moved quickly, darting into the tunnel while Two moved up to the edge and added its own fire.
"Hold your fire!" yelled Joe. He almost followed the demand with the question, Why are you shooting? But two things changed his mind. First, Joe realized that the robots had been told to a.s.sume anyone they met were artifact poachers and should be shot at, and second, Two"s head exploded.
The Series Seven"s torso leaned to one side. Fragments of metal shot out in all directions and the robot"s legs froze in place, sending it hurtling to the ground. It fell and twitched, more lifelike in death than it had been while operational. Then it stopped moving.
Joe hit the ground and crawled back, retreating from the mysterious smooth cavern. He heard the boom of One"s rifle. There was another hissing sound and a metallic crackling. Any second he expected to feel the impact of a projectile.
"s.h.i.t! I think we"ve found something capable of harming humans," Joe commented dryly. He accessed his rifle"s interface and logged a target around the corner, then started shooting as he backed up further, taking a few steps back down the stairs. He didn"t know if he was. .h.i.tting anything, but he hoped that the rounds flinging around the bend in the cave would be enough to keep the thing from pursuing him.
"What have I done?" Joe asked himself in dismay. He should have told the robots to hold their fire as soon as he realized the lifeform was possibly an intelligent alien. As it was, he actually hoped that it was just a trick of the smugglers. At least that way, he hadn"t just started a war with an alien race.
Joe turned around and ran back down the stairs. He couldn"t hear any more sounds of fighting behind. He kept running down, past the level from which they had arrived until he hit the bottom of the stairwell three floors down.
Joe linked to the nearest information service and asked about the floor. A list came up. Joe read "archives" and then the link scrambled and dropped out. He tried again and read "fire control station" before the link disconnected.
He pushed through the stairway door. A gray corridor stretched to his left and right. He went to the left until he saw a doorway and pushed through it. Joe found himself in a restroom. The wall before him was lined with mirrors and sinks.
Joe looked at his reflection in the nearest mirror. He saw a wild-eyed man with the beginnings of a beard from his long flight to Yarnitha. He held his rifle in a death grip. What chance did he have without any real a.s.sault robots on his side? Just one man?
He had only felt this much fear one other time in his life. Years ago he had been a cadet in training at New Kellur, a student of military science at the finest academy the s.p.a.ce force had.
Joe thought he had found a way of communication outside the censored loop at the academy and shared certain cla.s.sified facts with his brother, an engineer outside the service. When they discovered his transgression despite his precautions, he had been gripped with a terror that his entire life had been destroyed. That had felt like he felt now, helpless and ruined. Joe believed that there were worse things than death, and living as a prisoner of the world government was one of those things.
As it turned out, he had been thrown out of New Kellur and a.s.signed to another, less prestigious officer school on a faraway planet. He heard years later that his brother had been interrogated and placed under increased surveillance for a time. Joe"s career had been downgraded, but despite the bitterness he cleaned up his act after that. A life in the s.p.a.ce force was the only thing Joe had ever wanted.
Joe thought about that close call so long ago. He told himself that if he died now, it would not have been such a bad life. Not as bad as if he had been thrown into a mining colony to rot and had never joined the s.p.a.ce force at all.
"I"m gonna die in this s.h.i.thole," Joe mumbled to himself. He checked the load on his rifle and walked back out into the corridor.
Chapter Seven.
Telisa examined the brightly lit hallway. The light came from glow rods affixed in the corners of the ceiling. Thin, dull-colored carpet covered the floor. The walls were colored a deep green.
"It"s amazing. We could be on Earth," she said.
"This has to be a UNSF facility. The power sourcea"it must be some kind of secret research facility," said Thomas.
"But why hide the entrance in a tube in the middle of a Trilisk ruin?" asked Telisa.
"And where are the guards, the security robots, the automated checkpoints?" added Magnus.
Thomas shook his head. Jack shrugged.
"Something weird is going on, that"s for sure. Should we bolt?" asked Jack.
"There should be Trilisk artifacts here. Let"s find some and then leave as soon as possible," said Telisa. She had come so far and didn"t want to give it all up now.
"Maybe the place is still under construction," said Magnus. "But I can"t explain the field at the entrance. Unless it"s Trilisk technology the UNSF has mastered."
The suggestion was amazing. If the UNSF had already gleaned some of the secrets of Trilisk technology, then they were ahead of what she had expected. What powers had the government scientists gained in secret from the civilian world? Could they be trusted to use the technology wisely? Telisa didn"t think so. The government didn"t have the best interest of the ma.s.ses in mind anymore. It had grown into a beast of its own that lived for its own growth and satisfaction.
"I see some services, but don"t link up," Thomas warned. "Security is really lax here, but maybe the main computer is farther along. It might report us if we link up and it finds out we"re not UNSF."
Telisa automatically checked the services available at the mention of them. There were general ports for information, and a main library port. She took Thomas"s warning seriously and didn"t link up. It took a surprising effort of will. She was accustomed to querying services without a second thought her entire life.
"Which direction?" asked Jack. He looked at Telisa. "Take your pick."
Telisa shrugged and pointed to her left. A corridor extended past a set of doorways in that direction. Magnus took the lead and headed for the first door. He carefully opened it and peeked inside.
"Some kind of storage room. Let"s find something a little more interesting."
No one disagreed. They moved along the corridor and started cautiously looking into each room. They found a meeting room and several more storage areas with boxes in the corners and lockers along the walls. Then they got to a series of deserted living quarters, with two beds bunked together in each one.
Telisa stood in the corridor and sighed in frustration.
"Hrm, either it"s just now finished and not occupied yet, or it"s been abandoned," Telisa said. "If it"s been abandoned, then we"re wasting our time here. The UNSF, or whoever built this place, wouldn"t leave if there were still artifacts to be found."
"Something"s odd around the corner," Magnus said. He was at the end of the hallway, unslinging his slug thrower. Telisa and the others walked forward to the turn in the corridor, curious to see for themselves.
After the corridor turned, it continued another thirty feet and then ended in an irregular gaping cave. There was another ordinary-looking doorway on the left wall. Everyone advanced closer to the cave, trying to see inside.
The lights of the corridor showed a natural-looking s.p.a.ce with patches of cube-shaped blocks clinging to the walls and ceiling. The floor of the cavern was about a meter lower than the hallway flooring. The edge of the overhang looked like it had been cut, fitting perfectly into the side of the cave.
"Looks like there"s some damage to the installation here," commented Thomas. "I don"t understand. Could some kind of earthquake have caused this?"
"Who knows? This planet"s seismicity is an unknown at this point," Jack said. "Those blocks are weird. They remind me of something. I wonder if they"re worth anything?"
"Project blox," Telisa said. "They look like those kid"s toys... for building all sorts of stuff."
"Well, at this point we have nothing to lose by taking some. We don"t have any Trilisk artifacts to weigh us down," Telisa said bitterly. Somehow the artifacts that she had been dreaming of had not materialized other than the inoperative hulks in the building above. There had been no clue as to the source of the blackfield. Telisa wondered if they should go back to the entrance and try to break through the walls around it to find the mechanism.
Jack hopped down and approached one of the cl.u.s.ters. Telisa examined the edge of the floor where it met the cavern. Magnus stood next to her while Thomas milled around behind them.
"It doesn"t make any sense," Telisa pointed out. "The floor meets the cavern perfectlya"so do the walls and ceiling. Where is the rubble from whatever caused this?"
Thomas pulled aside a ceiling panel.
"You think that"s weird, look at this," he said. He pointed to a lighting rod above. The LED filament stopped halfway along its length where it met the cavern, as if it had been sheared in half by a laser.
Magnus nodded. "Something is wrong. I don"t have an explanation."
Telisa stared at the ceiling. She couldn"t think of what could have caused the strange transition from hallway to cavern.
"Well, I have some of these things, whatever they are," Jack announced. He had pried some from the wall with pliers and placed them into a container from his pack.
Thomas hopped down and reached for one.
"Don"t do that," Jack said. "Who knows? It might be poisonous."
"I agree, you shouldn"t touch that stuff until we figure out what it is," Magnus said.
"Don"t touch them? This coming from the guy who just walked through the black doorway? They could be valuable. Take a few more, and we"ll keep looking," said Thomas. "n.o.body said this was safe. We could be hurt just by walking by an artifact."
Jack was turning back towards the wall when he exploded. Flesh and blood gouted out of his chest like a bad horror sim, accompanied by a loud popping sound.
Telisa froze for a moment, watching as Thomas absorbed in utter shock what had happened. He was literally covered in blood and body debris.
"Fall back! Run!" Magnus ordered.
Thomas scrambled for the lip of the cave and Magnus held out a hand to help him up. Telisa took out her stunner and backed away, not seeing any target.
Magnus grabbed Thomas"s hand and started to pull him up. There was another awful popping noise and Thomas disintegrated over Magnus. Blood sprayed onto Telisa. She crouched, unable to believe what was happening. Time seemed to slow, and she found herself thinking that she had come too far to die here. Tears were welling in her eyes.
Magnus fell slightly backward, off balance, and released a burst from his slug thrower. The sound was louder than anything Telisa had ever heard, even with the weapon pointed away from her. She couldn"t see what he was shooting at, if anything. Magnus turned and sprinted towards her. Telisa"s muscles released, and she turned to run with him.
Telisa ran around the corner with Magnus close behind her. She stopped short just around the turn. Instead of the long corridor of doors they had just explored, there was a smooth empty wall on her left with another cave entrance straight ahead. An open corridor branched away on her right. None of it was the same as she remembered.
"s.h.i.t! How"d we get turned around?" Telisa asked. Her voice sounded rapid and squeaky in her own ears.
"Cover the corner," Magnus said, pointing back where they had come from. He aimed his own slug thrower in the opposite direction towards the other cavern. He moved up to the edge.
Telisa set herself a meter from the corner, holding her stunner out ready to fire. She realized she was panting and shaking. Would something come around the corner? Telisa heard Magnus behind her. She wondered if he planned on going into the other cavern.
"Let"s go this way, try and find our way back," Magnus called. Telisa turned to join him, stepping closer.
The wall on the left exploded next to Magnus. He tumbled forward, enveloped in flames and chunks of building material. Telisa curled away, cringing from the smoke and debris in the air.
"Magnus!"
A second or two later she staggered back to her feet. Magnus appeared as a shadow through the haze, crawling forward. Telisa ran to his side and pulled him up. Magnus stood uncertainly.
"Somehow the thing knew where we were through the wall," he said hollowly.
Then he seemed to recover and started retreating further back, dragging Telisa along with an iron grip on her arm. They took the corridor to the right that formed the T intersection.