Commander Gruber sat alone in Magellan’s conference room, although alone was a relative term. Telepresent at the table were holos of Captain Tiberius aboard the Bucephalus and Captain Ridgeway, still on the surface of Solonis B. Floating above the middle of the table was footage from inside the Cave of the Creators.
Allison’s image was narrating a walk-through of their discoveries. “Here’s where things get weird. Mr. Fletcher found a door hidden in the wall of this rough-cut antechamber. We searched for a release for over an hour without luck. Eventually, we gave up and went back to the shuttle for a boring laser—”
Maximus’s ghost cut her off. “Boring? I always thought lasers are pretty exciting, myself.”
“A mining laser, Maximus, for boring holes.”
“I knew that.”
Allison clenched her teeth. “Anyway, we melted through without any trouble.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Gruber chuckled. “Whoever put it there probably wasn’t expecting the Pirikura to build a megawatt-range laser anytime soon.”
“Too true,” Allison replied. “Once we moved inside the room, carefully, here’s what we found…”
The holo-recording resumed, sweeping through the darkened doorway. As soon as the cameraman crossed the threshold, the room beyond lit up in response. Organic webs of iridescent wires pulsed along the smooth walls, just like the inside of the buoy.
One by one, images appeared on the walls. The Pirikura village came to life from a dozen different viewpoints. Women and children walked up and down the dirt roads and boulevards, blissfully unaware of the voyeurs peering at them from beneath the ground. Allison paused the replay.
“Yikes,” Maximus said. “It’s an observation post. But why bother spying on these people? They’re no threat.”
“I don’t think they were spying, so much as studying,” Gruber said.
“What do you mean?”
“This feels more like a duck blind or a tree stand. Whoever built this was observing these people ‘in the wild,’ as it were. That might be why they were brought here in the first place, as a kind of control group for studying human behavior.”
Allison smiled. “Excellent, Marcel. That’s the consensus we’ve reached down here as well.”
Maximus studied the different views of the village. “Where are all the men?”
“What do you mean? The Pirikura males?”
“Yes, they seem to be almost all women or children. It’s like a prehistoric meat market down there.”
“Their annual celebrations have a somewhat … deleterious effect on the male population. Women outnumber the adult men almost three to one.”
“There must be a lot of lonely single ladies floating around, then,” Maximus observed while managing not to lick his lips.
“Not really. Their marriage customs are polygamous, to account for the dearth of males,” Allison said.
“Hmm. Never held with polygamy.”
“Really?” Allison could barely conceal her surprise. “I thought building a harem was the alpha male ideal.”
“Well, it would certainly have benefits, but strategically, I just can’t see wanting to be outnumbered in every fight. Nope, I’m a one-woman man.”
“One at a time, you mean.”
“Well, yeah. Why, what did I say?”
Gruber pushed in to try to avert the looming personality clash. “Captain Ridgeway, am I alone in thinking that the tech in that room strongly resembles the interior of the buoy?”
“Not at all, Marcel. I thought so, too, and it was the first thing Mr. Fletcher said when he walked through the door.”
“So the same consortium that fenced in Earth has been out here running their own little human research colonies, studying us like packs of gorillas. That’s going to play well back home.”
“Careful with the primate references, Commander,” Maximus said. “If Buttercup hears that, he might tear your legs off. Or, worse yet, write an unflattering article about you.”
Gruber filed that last sentence away as an important insight into Maximus’s mind. “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking about Mr. Buttercup.”
“Not at all. Please continue, Captain.”
Allison nodded and restarted the recording. “Now, this is where it gets really strange. Beyond the surveillance room, we found another chamber.”
The camera view floated through an archway, and two parallel rows of tiny beds came into view. They were impeccably tidy. The beds were ominous, but not nearly so bad as what they saw next. Set into the far wall, a pair of figures stood ramrod straight. They appeared human, but their flawless posture hinted at something artificial. As the camera focused on their features, it became apparent their designers had tried to cross the Uncanny Valley, but slipped off the footbridge and were subsequently devoured by crocodiles.
“What the hell are those?” Maximus exclaimed.
“Androids,” Allison answered. “Our best guess is they serve as automated nannies.”
“It’s a nursery,” Maximus said. “They’re raising children in there like baby cranes, and those things are like the creepy hand-puppet mama-bird heads they feed them with.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but the comparison probably isn’t far off.”
“What do they need them for? The Pirikura raise their own kids.”
Gruber drummed his fingers on the table. “Maybe they’re for starting new tribes. There are dozens of them on the planet, but they’re all geographically isolated from each other. Maybe the aliens cook up a new batch of children and raise them here when they want to start a fresh experiment.”
Allison was impressed. “That’s a sound hypothesis, Marcel.”
“Yes, indeed. Good work, everyone. Captain Ridgeway, pack up your team and get headed back to Magellan. Lieutenant Harris and his squad will remain long enough to cover your departure; then we’re moving on to the next system.”
Allison cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Captain Tiberius. As I understood our mission charter, I hold discretion over the scientific and exploratory aspects of the expedition, and I say we have a lot more work to do here.”
“That’s true, but this isn’t my idea. We received a QER burst from the president’s office a few minutes before this briefing started. Remember, we’re out here to make contact with the buoy races. Since they aren’t here, he wants us to move on to the Twinkling Star.”
“I don’t give a flying frog what that shrunken-headed idiot—”
Gruber made a show of clearing his throat. “Excuse me. I’ve been fighting a cold. I think what Captain Ridgeway is trying to say is that we’ve been waiting for the opportunity to survey this planet for more than sixty years. It would be an awful shame if we had to withdraw before we’re finished.”
“I sympathize with you,” Maximus said, “but we have our marching orders. Besides, it’s not like Solonis B is going anywhere. We can always come back.”
Allison wasn’t finished. “We’ve only investigated one tribe out of dozens, and we haven’t even had a full day in the cave complex yet. Who knows what else we can learn from the tech in those rooms. That’s part of our mission, too.”
“So strip the rooms and stuff everything you can into the shuttles. We’ll sort it out in transit. Right now, we’ve gotta boogie.”
“What about the people on the surface?” Gruber asked. “We can’t just leave them down there in a planet-sized lab. We need to rescue them.”
Allison shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Marcel. Even if their ancestors were kidnapped from Earth, the Pirikura have lived on Solonis B for generations. They’re humans, all right, but they aren’t earthlings anymore. ‘Rescuing’ them now would be like a second abduction.”
Gruber bowed his head a fraction. “I hadn’t thought of it like that, ma’am.”
“No worries. Your heart is in the right place.” Allison’s translucent head turned to address Maximus. “Captain, it will take time to secure all of our equipment. Some of it is here in the cave, but some is still in the village. I’ll need at least a full shift before we’re ready to depart.”
“That’s fine. We’ll need almost that long to retrieve and secure the Gargoyle platforms. We’ll see you in orbit.”
* * *
Vel Noric watched through bloodred, artificial eyes as the two human vessels disappeared through their high-space portal.
His attention then turned to the world they’d just departed. The earthlings almost certainly had another designation for the planet, but the civilized galaxy knew it as Culpus-Alam, set aside many generations ago to observe humans in a controlled setting.
The experiment had run unattended for many cycles as the tribes of humans developed distinct cultures. The next step was to facilitate contact between the tribes and observe their interactions. The hope was to learn enough to better predict humanity’s eventual integration into the galactic community.
In Noric’s opinion, Culpus-Alam was typical of the way the Assembly of Sentient Species operated. A time-consuming, complicated, and expensive reaction to what should be a straightforward problem.
It was a problem that Noric had been tasked with solving by the Kumer-Vel himself.
“Has their high-space portal sealed?”
“Yes, Vel.”
“Very well.” Noric straightened his spine and stood at his full height. “Hedfer-Vel, you may begin the operation.”