Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins (12 page)

This
new insight expanded further: this was how the creatures shared resources
without killing each other or running away: One of them used their interaction
protocols to dominate the others in some complex manner that had been unseen by
Huornillel. Evolution must have provided them a simple route to efficiently
diverting resources to one individual. The control codes probably allowed for
dominance with no need for physical violence. That way none of them risked
being harmed.

Amazing.
Elegant and efficient, in its own twisted way.

So
this was a dominance and avoidance system after all! Except the avoidance part
was not necessary. It turned peers into tools. One of them had control of the
others. This was probably the dominant one before her, unless there was
actually a complex hierarchy. The possibilities of such a massive system built
upon the interaction protocols boggled the mind. Huornillel doubted she could
grasp all the ramifications at once.

This
had one very useful conclusion: If Huornillel knew how, she could program and
command these creatures! As an alien she did not need to play by the rules
placed upon them by evolution. Once she knew how they worked, she could use
what she learned to her advantage. As an outsider she would come with none of
the disadvantages. This was a very familiar concept: when a new species was
introduced into a new ecosystem, sometimes it flourished rapidly, dominating
the competition which had evolved together with the surrounding flora and
fauna. Huornillel could be that invader.

She
began to respond to the alien inputs with a new plan in mind: first, learn the
protocols of inter-alien command; second, to use it to gain dominance among
them.

***

“Hi.
What have you guys found out?” Cilreth asked. She addressed both Telisa and
Jason. The channel gained more people as Telisa hooked them in.

Makes
sense. She doesn’t want to explain this to everyone separately
, Cilreth thought.

“It’s
basically a laser. An amazing laser, though,” Telisa reported.

“Weapon?”
Caden asked.

“It
could be. Here’s the thing, it’s much more flexible than our lasers in so many
ways.”

“Fits
with the Celaran theme so far.”

Telisa
added her vision to the channel feed and held the laser in front of her.

“This
aperture can create a focus point only millimeters away. It could be used as a
medical scalpel. But it will also adjust like so. Now you have a cutting laser.
Or even a welder. The frequencies are amazingly versatile. I can use this in
infrared as a campfire. Or heat a rock to warm us instead. And we can focus it
to become a weapon like our own lasers.”

“Okay,
so these guys are more advanced than us,” Imanol said. “We kind of already
suspected that.”

“It’s
a conceptual difference beyond that, I think,” Cilreth said. “We might be able
to make something like this. It would be larger, but we could do it. But we
don’t. Our tools are specialized. This is not. And it goes beyond what I’ve
talked about so far. The energy cell for instance.”

“Does
the cell have burst chambers?” asked Imanol.

“What’s
that?” injected Jason.

“Our
laser cells have a generic base, which lets the cells be used universally in a
pinch,” Cilreth said. “Such as for your flashlight under your laser there. But
in order to make it efficient and effective for the laser, some amount of the
cell is designed with burst chambers, one for each shot. Military designs can
be eighty percent burst chambers or even a hundred percent.”

“And
this one?”

“No
such design. The power cell has to be, you guessed it, completely versatile.
Like you said before, the Celarans are making different trade offs. This device
is great for a frontier site, it can be used for so many different things. But
as a combat laser, it’s not as good as we could make. Terrans would have ten
different tools for this.”

“So
we’ve confirmed this about them,” Jason said. “They’re generalists, at least
when it comes to their gadgets.”

Telisa
nodded. “That’s exactly how it pans out. The robots at the tower were the same
way. They were amazingly flexible, over five configurations at least. I think
we’ll find even more artifacts with the same properties.”

“How
did talking with the alien go?” Jason asked.

“Siobhan
got a ways with sign language and simple link signals. The drawings didn’t get
anywhere. Total lack of engagement with drawings. Seems like the Blackvine would
be able to see them but maybe its vision doesn’t work that way. Anyway, it can
understand things like, ‘we want you to have this’ or, ‘follow me’. Beyond a
few hand signals like that, they haven’t gotten far.”

Chapter 11

Things
felt quiet. Imanol checked the ship’s status and confirmed what he suspected:
they had landed near the third ruins site. The whole team was impatient for
answers. Imanol admitted to himself he was intrigued as well. He now felt just
as motivated as the others to figure out the Celarans.

Imanol
had been reviewing the feeds from the site that had accumulated since they came
to Idrick Piper V. He watched the few glimpses of Celaran robots their
attendant spies had seen at the third ruins site.

The
first machine was a flyer. Telisa had matched it to a configuration of the
flying machine they had found at the tower in the first site. The feed showed
the machine circling the perimeter of the flat area around the buildings.
Imanol’s gut feeling was that it was nothing more than a scout.

Imanol
flipped to the next sighting. The next machine they had spotted was much
larger, the size of a military vehicle. It usually moved around on four low
profile treads, though at one point it simply flew over a fence. It used a
powerful laser to cut away the encroaching vines around the compound, then
scooped them up and moved them inside.

That’s
a lot of material. What is it being moved in there for? Food?

The
last machine their spy attendants had spotted was smaller and circular, perhaps
a meter in diameter. Its upper surface was slightly convex, rising to a flat
turret on the top. Sensors hung from the lip of the device around the
perimeter. It looked like an armored frisbee, and the footage showed it flying
like one around the base. The video ended when the robot swerved to intercept
the attendant that sent the feed. That attendant had been destroyed.

That’s
a security machine. It has to be. It’s like a hover tank, except it truly
flies.

Imanol
weighed the gravity of the response. Did the destruction of the attendant mean
the Celarans were hostile? Or just security conscious and diligent? He decided
to leave the jury out on that one. Just in case, he loaded target signatures
for each of the robots into his weapons and sent the team a pointer advising
them to do the same.

As
Imanol left his tiny room with his equipment, he arranged his PV to feature the
maps of the compound they had targeted.

The
entire area was kilometers on a side, the size of a small city. The buildings
were more uniform than the houses, with sharper edges and more regular square
shapes. Imanol presumed that was because those shapes had more volume for the
surface area than a crazy hodgepodge of angles like the houses had. The entire
compound sat upon a flat gray surface. It was probably something hard like
concrete or a ceramic. A net fence surrounded the compound. The fence looked
metal and connected 36 towers placed about every 200 meters.

The
towers bore what looked like weapons. They were large dish-shaped projectors
mounted so they could swivel and face any direction. So far, no serious weapon
capability had been displayed. The dishes would occasionally swivel toward an
airborne creature, causing it to swerve away. An attendant had tested the
towers to determine the nature of the deterrent. As far as Cilreth could
determine from the data, the tower somehow caused a force to act on a flyer and
literally push it away. Whether that force was electromagnetic or gravitic or
otherwise, she could not say.

An
analysis from orbit had concluded the surfaces of the compound buildings and
the gray surface surrounding them absorbed sunlight very well. The PIT team all
agreed that was probably a secondary source of power. Any Terran industrial or
military complex would need more power than could be captured from that cross
section of sunlight, even at high efficiency.

No
doubt about it. There will be tech here we can claim. But with those machines
around, we may have to fight for it. And if there are any Celarans left here,
it seems like they would be here.

The
others assembled in the main bay around the same time as Imanol. He did not see
the Vovokan battle sphere and assumed it had already moved outside.

“Is
the sphere going to fry the jungle again?” Imanol asked.

“I
doubt it,” Telisa said. “We landed far enough from the compound, just in case.”

Imanol
took a look through the exterior feeds. They had landed the ship directly upon
the vine forest this time. The ship had settled through many of them, finally
resting near the surface.

The
floor shifted slightly underfoot.

“The
battle sphere is cutting things from underneath the
New Iridar
. I guess
it wants us on the ground,” Caden said.

“Should
be relatively easy,” Cilreth said. “We landed pretty far from any of those
superclusters like Imanol and Jason found.”

The
team stood by. Once the ship had settled upon scorched ground, the Vovokan
battle sphere moved out to patrol. Then they dropped the ramp and descended.

The
air smelled smoky, but Imanol could see the forest around them had gone mostly
unharmed. A trail of black smoke drifted away above.

“The
smoke announces our presence,” Imanol said.

“The
Celarans or their machines are sophisticated enough to detect us at this
distance anyway,” Telisa said.

And
what about anything less sophisticated but more hungry?

Vincent
scuttled out of the bay after them. It moved upon several dark, leafy stalks
that looked just like its arms to Imanol.

“It’s
coming with us?” Imanol asked slowly.

“Vincent’s
not our prisoner,” Telisa said.

“Okay.
Creepy.”

I
hope Telisa’s not ready to make the same old mistakes again. Trusting aliens
hasn’t worked out well for us.

As
if reading his mind, Telisa spoke up again.

“I
know we can’t trust Vincent. I also know, we stand to learn a lot from him.
He’s not Shiny. If we can communicate, chances are Vincent knows a thing or two
about the Celarans.”

“Which
would be a thing or two more than we know,” Siobhan said glumly.

“Oh
we have some ideas,” Jason said.

Imanol
looked at Jason. His partner seemed to be taking the accompanying alien plant
well. As for himself... Imanol had added Old Leafy to his weapon target sigs
long ago.

Wait
till the damn plant tries to eat him like that other thing. Then he’ll get a
healthy sense of paranoia and cynicism.

Jason
caught his look. “I’m okay. It was some kind of wild animal that attacked us, I
think. Your jaguar. Vincent here is an intelligent creature.”

“Which
makes him more dangerous, not less,” grumbled Imanol.

He
sounded like the old Telisa. Too trusting.

Jason
did not reply. Imanol decided he had caused enough trouble and focused on the
task at hand. He looked at his link map and oriented himself relative to the
complex.

Telisa
took the lead again. She walked over to the edge of the undergrowth and brought
her arm back to start hacking, but Siobhan interrupted her.

“Let’s
just climb instead. We can get a view from above, and avoid any more holes in
the ground.”

“Is
that what the rest of you want to do?”

“Yes,”
Caden said.

Well,
of course.

“I’m
not such a good climber, but I could use the practice I guess,” Cilreth said.
She sounded a lot less enthused about the idea, like Imanol himself.

“Yes,
fine, we’ll play up there with the young’uns,” he said grumpily.

The
team took to the vines like a bunch of kids. Caden and Siobhan, at least, were
just kids as far as Imanol thought. They climbed up and started along a huge
vine heading in roughly the right direction. He saw Jason take a smart rope out
of his pack and hand it to Vincent. The Blackvine reached out and took the
cluster of black rope.

“Does
it know about our link interfaces?” Imanol asked.

“Vincent?
He’s been playing with them, but hasn’t figured them out yet,” Cilreth said.

“Don’t
give him too many permissions!” Imanol blurted.

“Of
course not,” Cilreth said on a private channel. “Us veterans will keep these
kids in line.”

Imanol
nodded.

“I
gave him permission for the smart rope,” Jason said.

“Okay,”
Telisa said. “Just that for now.”

Vincent’s
smart rope jumped and coiled at random. Telisa took her rope out and prepared
to demonstrate. She paused.

“Hrm.
The link protocols aren’t set up to send messages in the open. Vincent sees
only encrypted signals. And I can’t add him to the channel to let him see the
conversation with the rope unobscured.”

“It
would be too dangerous to let him clone your link,” Siobhan said. “Besides the
commands all have a time-component to the authentication. He can’t just copy
your same commands a second later and get it to work.”

“I’ll
fix it,” Cilreth said.

“How?”
Telisa and Siobhan asked simultaneously.

“I’ll
give him a link. I can set it up as a repeater. He can transmit commands to his
link and it will establish his secure connections. We’ll authorize him to do a
few things here and there.”

“You
have spare links lying around?” asked Imanol. He knew it was illegal to have
links other than your own unless you were an authorized entity that installed
them in people. Of course, he had seen it on the frontier before—and they were
now way beyond that.

“I
picked up some, yes,” she said. “If you recall, things were kind of busy last
time we made it home. That opened some opportunities. Given we’re on the outs
with the... well, we were working against the previous government, and now,
maybe the new one, too.”

Wow.
Connected.

Imanol
checked Telisa’s face. He gauged that she already knew about the links.

“I
wish we had thought about this earlier,” Caden said.

“Give
me fifteen minutes,” Cilreth said, running back inside.

“Bring
some camping gear. We probably won’t be able to just walk in and sleepover this
time,” Telisa said.

“What’s
the plan, exactly?” Imanol asked.

“We’ll
take a look around. Our scouts have never been bothered off the flat area that
surrounds the buildings. There’s a fence of sorts, beyond that, our machines
have been attacked. So we’ll set up a temporary camp just outside the fence.
Then, Siobhan and I will go in cloaked and see what we can find out.”

Imanol
walked back in to fill another pack since he had to wait anyway. Knowing they
would have a temporary camp opened up new possibilities. He could take some
extra food, water, and equipment, knowing he would not have to carry the whole
thing far.

I’ll
pack like Maxsym
, he
thought. Imanol realized he actually felt sorry for the once-PIT member. He had
died on the
Clacker
when Shiny backstabbed them. Poor guy had never had
a chance.

Who
else has PIT lost? Quite a few. Arakaki. Magnus, sort of. And the original
guys, Jack and... Thomas? There were more. Telisa doesn’t talk about it much.
Kinda puts a damper on recruiting I bet.

Once
Imanol had his pack and returned, Cilreth was outside and working with a link.
Everyone tried not to watch her, even though they were all waiting. Finally
Cilreth handed the small device to Vincent. The Blackvine accepted it.

“The
rope is the only service he has available to start,” she said.

The
rope started to move. It performed some random maneuvers, this time with clear
purpose and nothing like the spastic twitching from before.

“Let’s
move out. Vincent can stay here and play all it wants,” Imanol said.

Telisa
shrugged. She leaped straight up, caught a big vine above and swung up onto it.
Everyone else started to follow more slowly. No one else on the team could
match her feat of strength. Once on her perch, Telisa moved slowly forward,
scanning for danger while everyone else made it to the huge branch of the vine.
Vincent followed along last. It had stowed the smart rope among its dark
tendrils.

Nothing
threatened them as they climbed away from
New Iridar
toward the third
site. Telisa kept the attendant spheres from wandering onto the flat surfaces
ahead so they would not get lost like the others. She picked a big vine that
approached their goal and followed it up to the top of one of the huge
artificial spires that rose from the ground.

Telisa
stopped to take a look. Caden arrived next, then Imanol. The vine wrapped
around the spire, providing a solid ledge with a great view of the compound.
Imanol paused with the others to look out over the alien buildings.

Their
gray surfaces looked clear. There were not many windows. To Imanol, the large
buildings looked a lot like spacecraft hangars.

If
we got a Celaran space ship, that would please Shiny. Maybe Telisa could get on
his good side and snag Magnus back. Then we could go back out on a mission and
just run like hell.

“This
is our new camp,” Telisa announced. “At the base of this spire.”

“Should
we camouflage it?” Caden asked.

“If
you want to design it with that in mind, fine, but don’t work too hard. At
their technology level, I imagine those machines would spot us anyway, if
they’re searching for a threat.”

“Okay,”
Caden said. He took out a smart rope and told it to head down. Imanol joined
Caden. He was eager to get rid of the extra weight he had been carrying.

As
Caden and Imanol cleared the ground around the trunk of the spire, the
conversation continued up on the overlook. The two at ground level listened in
on the group channel.

“So
what’s the plan?” Siobhan asked. “We go in first? What if they shoot?”

“We
can’t risk just walking in. They took steps to keep our robots out. You and I
will go in stealthed.”