part0117

“I’m watching,” said Hackford’s voice over the feed. “The video is patchy, I think the feed is faint where you are. Al Jahi is working on it. But I’ll look closer at your recordings when you get back. Ask Titov to take some samples for me.”

“On it Dorothy,” said Titov from ahead as he scraped the wall with his sampler.

“Can you tell if water made these?” asked Rebecca. “I can’t find any edges or ripples. No tool marks at all.”

“I don’t think it’s water. It’s too regular. And there would be exposed rocks where the current dug around them. Except for the little bit of debris at the mouth of the tunnel where you fell, I haven’t seen any. Are there some underfoot?”

Rebecca focused the camera on the ground below. “No, just this smooth stuff that’s on the walls.”

“Is it a clay, Titov?” asked Hackford. He ran the sampler and it beeped.

“It’s definitely a silicate of some type. It’s vitrified.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Liu.

“It’s been heated. It’s a ceramic now. A volcano, Hackford?” asked Titov.

“Where are the deposits then? You may not have explored enough to find it yet, but there should at least be some in the hole. Where’d the ash go? And the gasses? Even long dormant, there should be some signs.”

“Geyser vent?”

“I’m not going to rule it out, but it wouldn’t be my first idea. Not level and sideways like that. It’s no good guessing, we need more information.” She paused. “I wish I could be down there with you.”

“Don’t worry, Dorothy,” said Rebecca, “you and I will come back tomorrow.”

“Only if you find something significant.”

“Then we better keep moving,” said Liu, “and bring the lady some get-well-soon rocks.”

They followed the tunnel farther in and it widened, the bore becoming larger and flaring until it ended abruptly in a massive chamber. Two enormous columns flowed upwards into the dark. Rebecca followed them with her light but the small lamp would not reach the ceiling. “I can’t see,” she fumed and set down the equipment case. “Liu, help me set up a few of the lamps.”

He knelt beside her and pulled the small drone lanterns from their case. She switched one on, guiding it with the feed. It was soon joined by Liu’s, floating around the top of the column. “What is that?” asked Titov. Rebecca made the lantern hover near a massive globe of sparkling glass embedded in the column.

“That’s no steam vent,” breathed Hackford.

“Liu, pull your light down toward the middle, I want to see the whole thing.”

Deep lines swept down the column in gradual curves. Titov lit another lamp and it circled the back where the curves rounded into thin blades of clay, studded with large panels of colored glass where the light seeped through to the other side.

“It’s a— a bug. Like one of those hopper things Spixworth has in the lab,” said Liu, craning to see up through the top of his opaque helmet.

“What now? What’d you find?” Spixworth said sleepily into the feed. “No fair, been up all night and now you find the good…” he trailed off. “Oh, wow,” he breathed.

“What is it? Do you know?” asked Liu.

“Hold on, I’m switching through the feed so I can see all of it. Nobody move.”

Rebecca fidgeted. Any other time, she’d be as lost in wonder as the others, but the hours were creeping by and as beautiful as the column carvings were, they could neither help nor harm the Keseburg. They had to find something soon, or she’d have to wait years to get another chance.

“It’s rather like a locust— but not the same. The eyes are wrong and the legs. Do you think these things were worshiped, Emery?”

“I don’t know. All we have to compare it with so far is the other column. For all we know this could have been the pest removal area of this place.”

“They aren’t pests.”

She smiled. She could almost hear Spixworth’s scowl.

“Don’t leave, I’m coming down there.”

“Oh no,” broke in the Captain. “I okayed this mission for Emery, Liu, and Titov. You are supposed to be on your sleep cycle.”

“Exactly,” said Spixworth, “I’m not doing anything important, so what difference—”

“No.” The Captain shut the feed off as the argument continued.

“You think he’ll make it down here?” asked Liu.

“He’ll make it. We did,” said Titov with a short laugh. “But we can’t wait. Do we have enough pictures of this, Emery? We’ve got to keep moving.”

“Let’s get a few around back,” she said, reluctantly moving her lantern, “and then we’ll figure out what else is in here. But I don’t think we need to worry that we’re walking around a live volcano anymore.”

Liu wandered away as Emery and Titov positioned the lamps and took minuscule samples from the statue. The columns looked vaguely like the thing that had flown over him, the thing Spixworth had traced over the feed. They’d gone over and over the video, but it was too short and the rising sun had made large spots of glare. And now they were down here in the dark looking for it. What if it was frightened of them? What if it wasn’t? What if it saw him and thought he looked delicious? Liu shivered. He looked around to steady himself and kicked something accidentally. It rolled unevenly over the floor. He bent over to look at it. A small figurine lay about a foot from a pair of others. He picked it up. It was similar to the column, a long, winged insect, but this one was painted. The other two were different. Some kind of bird or bat. No feathers and a sharp, curved beak and long claws. They were posed, their pale veinous wings outstretched, long necks bent like the old images of vultures Liu had seen long ago in school. He looked back at the figure of the insect in his hand. A thin spike of bright metal was attached to its foreleg and Liu had a sudden memory of his brother’s room. Tiny battles with ancient soldiers. A gun had broken off one of the soldier’s hands and his father had been angry. He’d lectured them on the expense of wood on the Keseburg and how lucky they were to have such a lavish toy. They’d been extra careful after that.

“Hey, Emery,” he said, “come look at these.”

Rebecca turned toward Liu and he held up the figurine “I think they might be action figures,” he said.

“Action figures?” she asked.

“Toys.”

She looked around them. “Children. A school maybe?” She shook her head, trying to refocus. “Let’s not assume anything yet— where did you find them?”

Titov tuned them out, moving his lantern back toward its case. Something shimmered at the edge of his helmet as the light passed by. He turned to look. A spire of glass stood behind him. Crystalline shape, familiar but he couldn’t place it. He wasn’t a geologist. “Hackford, what does this remind you of?” he asked, circling the glass. There was a pause over the feed.

“Looks like a prismatic growth. Or maybe— can you put the light at the peak?”

He moved the lantern and waited, his eyes trailing down the glass, staring at the strange, dim reflection of his suit.

“Definitely sphenoid, but the color is wrong. Can you get a sample?”

Something beneath Titov’s reflection caught his eye and he focused on the interior, moving the lantern to the opposite side so it would shine through. “It’s not a stone, Hackford.”

“Flaming core. What is that thing, Titov?”

He shook his head. “I’m— I’m not certain.” It glittered in the lantern’s glow, translucent and glossy. His attention was caught by the legs first. Rigid silver spikes splayed to the sides. The bottom two had thick, curving thorns and the top pair ended in sharp, ridged claws. Each leg would have matched Peter’s height. Titov raised his head still higher, his gaze sliding to the top of the central body. It was curled, shrunken, but still, it towered over him. Thick panels overlapped down its broad center. “Like hull plating,” he murmured. “It’s like a suit of armor or something.”

“Titov, look at its eyes,” gasped Hackford.

They were hollow, filmy things, the light passing through as if they were large globes of thin mist. “Creepy,” he muttered.

“Forget its eyes, look at its teeth,” said Liu at his side. Titov glanced over. Liu’s face curled back in revulsion, the figurines in his hand sagging and forgotten. Titov turned back to the thing inside the glass. The mouth was a triangular void ending in a pair of long articulated fangs.

“Maybe— maybe we should go back,” said Liu nervously.

“Why?” asked Titov. “It’s obviously dead.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more around here somewhere. And I don’t really want to be bitten by one of those things.”

“It’s a trophy case,” said Rebecca, circling it. “Perhaps whoever lives here hunted these things. It would explain the veneration— the statues, the figurines, these cases of corpses.”

“Cases?” asked Titov.

“Didn’t you notice?” Rebecca moved her lantern, letting it sweep down the long room. Two long rows of cases, flashing and sparkling as the light passed by. Shadows of the same curled shape, the same slender spines of legs appeared and sank back into the dark.

“Galactic void…” breathed Liu. “If they hunt these things, what will they do to us?”

“Everyone just relax,” Spixworth’s voice broke in. “Those aren’t corpses, Emery. At least, not the one you’re standing in front of, I won’t know about the others until I see them.”

“Sure looks like a dead thing to me,” said Titov.

“Go around to the back again. See that hole in the shell?”

Titov circled the case, followed by Liu. He focused on the large break in the body.

“You see how the material is peeled back, poking outward? It means something burst out of this.”

“That isn’t making it better,” said Liu.

Spixworth sighed. “It’s a molt. The organism inside outgrew its exoskeleton, that’s all. It wasn’t killed, it just shed its old shell.”

“So it’s bigger than this?” cried Liu.

“When I find one, I’ll tell you. I’m almost to your beacon, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

“Why would they keep a shed skin?” asked Rebecca.

“Your hypothesis is that the people that lived here venerated them. I don’t see why this should change that line of reasoning. If these people venerated these— bug-things, why wouldn’t they keep anything the bugs left behind? Maybe the molted shell was sacred, a type of relic.”

“What about these bird guys?” asked Liu, holding up a figurine.

Rebecca frowned. “Some kind of bat, maybe? That lived down here or were forced down here by the bugs? They were clearly enemies of some kind.”

“Intelligent birds?” asked Titov.

She shrugged. “Not necessarily. Could be difficult prey. But then, why not? For all we know, they could be mythical. The equivalent of dragons or something.”

“I fail to see how any of this helps us.” Captain Stratton’s voice was flat. “Time’s ticking, Emery.”

“Yes, of course. We should leave the theorizing for later. We need to gather as much actual information as possible.” She recalled her lantern and picked up her case of equipment, ready to move on. “We should finish surveying this room and then head back to the ramp, unless there’s another passageway from here.”

Liu quietly packed the figurines into his specimen case. Titov ran his hands down the glass case, looking for a latch. “I want to get a sample of that thing if I can,” he said.

“Abort! Spixworth, abort!” Captain Stratton’s voice yelled over the feed. “Flaming core, Spixworth, do you hear me? I said abort!”

“What’s going on?” asked Liu.

“Liu! Get them up here, get everyone back here, now. Leroux, into the ship, give Hackford your sidearm.”

“Sidearm?” asked Titov, turning toward the others.

“Spixworth, abort and meet the others or so help me, I’ll leave you out there for that thing!”

“But Captain I think—” Spixworth’s voice halted as a thick hiss stuttered through the feed. It trailed off and a vibrating chirp replaced it. Rebecca flicked through the feed to find Spixworth’s visual. Hovering over him, swaying side to side on slender stilts, was a living version of the skin in the case. Its head snapped forward, articulated teeth spread wide and a sharp clacking erupted from it.