The Trilisk Ruins (7 page)

Joe remained linked with the
automatons, making use of their scanning information so he would
know if they detected any human signatures. Joe picked his way
through the spiny forest. The small battle group had made it
perhaps a hundred meters into the forest when a transmission came
in.

“
This is Two. I am falling
out of formation due to inordinate difficulties negotiating the
terrain,” a voice said over the link.

Joe rolled his eyes. “This wouldn’t
happen if I’d been assigned one of the Veer Leviathans,” he
complained to himself.

“
Do you need assistance,
Two?” Joe transmitted.

“
Negative.”

“
You are making
progress?”

“
Five minutes added to ETA
at logged destination.”

“
I’ll slow down. Notify me
of any further difficulties.”

Joe stood for a moment, listening to
the sounds of the forest. He realized that he could hear One and
Two churning through the woods nearby. He debated moving ahead and
scouting out the area alone.

“
This is One. A native
lifeform has attached itself to my leg.”

“
My momma Veer!” swore
Joe.

“
Repeat last,
sir?”

“
One, remove it with all due
haste. Stay focused on our priority,” Joe said.

“
I am unable to remove it,
sir.”

“
Can you still make
progress?” Joe asked, exasperation drenching his voice.

“
Five minutes added to ETA
at logged destination.”

Joe clenched his teeth. If some critter
still clutched the leg of his Series Seven when they got to the
power source, he felt inclined to shoot whatever it was.

“
This is Two.”

“
Let me guess. Five minutes
added to ETA?”

“
At logged destination, sir.
For a total delta of ten minutes over original
estimate.”

“
Both of you, break inward.
We’ll assume a file formation, I’ll take the point.”

“
That is not an optimum
skirmish formation,” Two transmitted.

“
I’m aware of
that.”

One came limping through the
undergrowth. A huge orange ball dominated the lower part of its
left leg. Joe carefully knelt to examine the thing.

“
What the hell is
that?”

“
A primitive hexaped with a
thick exoskeleton,” summarized One.

Joe reached out to try to pry the
creature off.

“
I suggest extreme caution,
sir. The creature has manipulators with an extremely high
mechanical advantage,” said One. The robot showed Joe its hand. One
of the metal fingers had been removed, leaving a small stub of
twisted metal.

Joe snatched his hand back.

“
We’ll shoot it off once
we’ve reached the site and made sure there’s no one there already,”
he said. “Catalog it and warn me if we near any other ones like
it.”

“
Yes, sir.”

Two eventually stumbled through the
forest and joined them. Joe took the lead, weaving back and forth
through the vegetation, searching for the easiest path. He could
tell by referencing the satellite data that they were almost at the
location of the power anomaly.

Joe slowed the column, stopping every
minute or so to listen. The group crept along until Joe could see a
ruined building ahead. The structure was dark gray and covered with
vines. A gaping hole beckoned in the side of the
building.

“
One, move in and
investigate the interior,” Joe ordered.

He hooked up with the Series Seven’s
optical receptors and got a view of the inside in his mind’s eye.
Dust covered a series of chest-high pieces of inexplicable
equipment. The devices could have been anything. It might take a
detailed examination and a year of work from a Trilisk expert to
figure out their function, if they ever did figure it out. In any
case, it was certain that they were ancient; Joe ignored
them.

A huge cylinder opened into the room
from the floor. It seemed like the only other interesting feature.
Joe and Two moved through the hole in the building’s
exterior.

Joe took a look at the inside for
himself. At one time it may have been a high tech facility, but it
didn’t look like much now. Joe realized that the fresh footprints
they were leaving in the dust would warn any smugglers
away.

“
Two, clean up our trail. I
don’t want it so obvious that we came through this way.”

“
Acknowledged,” said Two. It
shifted foliage and ruined pieces of equipment to cover up the
footprints. It smoothed over the remaining tracks, backing up
towards Joe.

Joe watched the process until he was
satisfied. Then he spoke quietly into his link.

“
This is Lieutenant Hartlet.
I’m investigating a local ruin site with subterranean components. I
may be out of reception for a short time.”

Joe linked out from the satellite
network and gave some more orders.

“
One, move into that tube
and tell me if there’s anything in there.”

The Series Seven clumsily climbed into
the aperture. The tube was taller than the robot. One moved deeper
inside until it was no longer visible.

“
The tunnel is descending
and spiraling to the right,” One reported. “I am continuing
forward.”

“
Keep us posted. We’re
coming in behind you,” Joe said. He motioned Two forward and
followed it into the odd tunnel. The inside was dirty, but the
tunnel walls were intact.

“
I have reached the end,”
One reported.

“
Shit. Dead end?”

“
There is an
anomaly.”

“
Did you find the power
source?” Joe asked. He linked in to take a look at what the robot
was seeing. The tunnel was blocked by a narrow circular rim with a
dead black center.

Joe couldn’t tell what it was. He
jogged down to the spot with Two.

“
Can you detect anything
beyond that circular... thing?” Joe demanded.

Two moved slightly forward, turning its
head side to side. “There is nothing there,” it
announced.

“
Nothing beyond the
opening?”

“
I detect nothing, sir,” the
robot said.

Joe didn’t feel comfortable with the
entrance. He decided not to risk it. He would send the robots in
first.

“
One and Two, move forward
and take up positions beyond the... beyond the circular frame
ahead.”

The robots stalked forward, their
rifles cradled in cold metal hands. They moved into the blackness.
Joe blinked. It was as if the robots had stepped beyond a black
curtain. They were not visible.

“
One and Two, are you in
position?”

No answer came. Joe transmitted again,
trying to reach the robots without luck. His link refused to
acknowledge their mental interfaces.

“
Shit. What the
hell...”

He paced nervously.

One emerged from the
blackness.

“
One. Are you functioning?
Is Two okay in there?”

“
Affirmative. I returned to
investigate a communications dysfunction. I did not read the
presence of your link once moving beyond the barrier.”

“
Describe what’s beyond the
portal,” Joe commanded.

“
There is a concrete
corridor with a white tile floor and standard lighting. The
corridor extends—”

“
Wait. You said ‘standard’
lighting. Explain.”

“
The lighting is provided by
long LED filaments, commonly referred to as glow rods,” One
replied. “An analysis of wavelength and intensity reveals that the
illumination falls very close to the Terran average for such
fixtures. Hence the term standard.”

Joe frowned. That couldn’t be right.
Humans hadn’t built any installations here. The two UNSF bases were
it. Unless smugglers had actually discovered it first and built a
base... the thought alarmed him.

He moved up to the black area and
tested it with his hand. It seemed harmless.

“
Follow me through,” he
said.

Joe moved quickly through the
blackfield and joined Two on the other side. One stepped through
beside him. He stared at the walls, floor, and ceiling as he walked
forward. He felt no doubt that this was a human habitation. It
could have been one of a million corridors that Joe had seen in his
lifetime. Everything, from the square tile floor, the height of the
ceiling, and the long tube lights, was familiar.

“
Follow me,” Joe
said.

Chapter
Five

Telisa looked at her packs of equipment
in the cargo bay. The four crew members had assembled to prepare
for the hike to the odd power source they had detected. A small
subset of the equipment would have to be selected; there was too
much for them to carry it all.

“
So we just have to decide
what to bring,” she said.

“
Well, all the cold weather
gear is out. It won’t be getting cold here for a long time, even at
night,” Thomas said.

“
Okay, that makes it a
little easier,” Telisa said. “How much food?”

“
It’ll take a day to get
there. I’d say a ten-day pack would be fine. What do you think,
Magnus?”

Magnus nodded. “A ten-day pack should
do. We can carry less water. There will be sources of water out
there that we can use in a pinch.”

Telisa assembled a food pack for ten
days. She then considered the remaining packs.

“
The terrain isn’t
mountainous. Climbing gear stays,” she noted.

Jack nodded. “Yes. I’ll take some light
digging stuff. Since the space force is looking for us we should
wear the active camo suits.”

“
Okay, you’ve got digging
stuff, I’ll take some cutters and a little explosive, in case we
have to let ourselves in,” Thomas said.

Telisa put on a camo suit over her
ordinary jumpsuit. Jack and Thomas did the same. The camo suits
shifted color moodily, trying to emulate the drab gray of the deck
and the flat black of their equipment packs. Telisa knew from
reading the manual of her camo suit that they broke up the wearer’s
heat signature as well, directing any radiant heat straight down
into the ground. The suits would make them much harder to spot in
an aerial or orbital scan.

She looked at Magnus expectantly.
“You’re not wearing one?”

“
Momma Veer already took
care of that,” Thomas said.

Magnus nodded. His suit slowly turned
gray and black like the other camo suits. Telisa assumed he had
turned it on using his link by sending a message to microprocessors
in the skinsuit.

Telisa linked up with the ship’s
computer and looked up the phrase “Momma Veer.” She had heard
soldiers say that before, but she never bothered to learn exactly
what it meant. The information came through from the ship’s cache,
feeding a visual report back into her brain. Apparently soldiers
were occasionally supplied with Veer Industries equipment when the
government ran short of its own supplies. Oddly enough, the Veer
equipment had often proved superior to government issue, and the
soldiers used the nickname “Momma Veer” for the company that
provided for them when the UNSF could not.

She looked up the price for the famous
Veer military skinsuits. At around 2000 ESC, it was a very
expensive piece of equipment. Her eyebrows rose.

“
For that much money, it
ought to, I guess,” she said.

“
Worth every penny,” Magnus
said, patting the material over his chest.

Telisa hefted her primary pack over her
shoulder and had a second bag of food concentrate. The others
carried similar loads. She saw that Magnus had insisted on carrying
the massive slug thrower as well. Telisa had her stunner and a pair
of good long knives. Just in case. She smiled to herself. It wasn’t
long ago she had thought Magnus odd for carrying weapons; now she
had three herself. Apparently being a smuggler hunted by the UNSF
could change your attitude pretty fast. Or maybe it was the
training. She’d used knives many times in simulated combat now so
she felt vulnerable without them.

“
I don’t feel like I could
carry a whole lot of stuff back,” Telisa said. “I guess we’ll have
less food and water to carry by then, though.”

“
If we hadn’t been detected,
we could have made better arrangements,” Thomas explained. “As it
is, we’ll just have to play mule. Trilisk artifacts are so valuable
on the black market that we could still carry enough to make us
rich several times over if we find the right spot.”

Jack looked grim. “But I’m willing to
write this one off if we have to. If we make it out alive, then we
can try again.”

Telisa was glad to see that even Jack
wasn’t so greedy as to insist that they stay until they were rich
no matter what. She walked with the others to the exit.