Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins (5 page)

“Celarans,”
Telisa said. “The data from Shiny includes a rough line of colonized worlds
cutting through this area of space. One of the systems is believed to be their
origin. Celara Palnod by the Space Force naming algorithms. No Terran has ever
been this far in this direction, at least, not unless the Space Force sent out
scouts and never told anyone, which is vaguely possible.”

“So
this race is a complete blank? Shiny must have selected these systems for a
reason,” Jason asked.

“I
think they are, or were, an advanced race. Shiny doesn’t think there are any
Trilisks there,” Telisa said.

“He’s
not interested in Trilisk stuff anymore?” asked Imanol.

Telisa
hesitated.

“Since
it’s going to be obvious soon, I’ll just announce it. I’m a Trilisk clone body.
Shiny sent a duplicate Telisa to lead this group. The way I see it, it just
means we have a better chance to survive and succeed. The sooner you decide the
same, the better.”

“Knowing
you’re not the original gives us some trust issues,” Cilreth said. Though her
statement made it sound like she was questioning Telisa’s position, Telisa knew
it was really just to bring out the issues early to get them over with.

It
will be better if we’re open about this from the beginning.

Telisa
nodded. “There’s nothing I can say to prove anything. We live in a time when
trust is impossible. We’ve learned about possibilities that are so amazing, yet
they come with a price tag: you can no longer be sure of things you thought you
were sure of before. Like who am I, really? Who can you trust, really? There’s
no answer I can make you accept. Whether or not you trust someone is your own
decision and it’s always going to come with some risk. Even if you do trust
someone, how can you be sure that person next to you really is the one you
decided to trust? How can you be sure they’re not being manipulated?”

“It’s
nothing new. People have been susceptible to blackmail and other kinds of
coercion for a long time,” Imanol said. “Betrayal is ages old.”

“But
at least, in the past, they had a choice. Now we have perfect-looking
duplicates, mind control, and who knows what else,” Cilreth said.

No
one said anything more. Imanol held a deeper frown than usual.

Is
he wondering why he wasn’t told before he agreed to be part of the new
expedition?

“Now,
I’ve set up some nightmare scenarios based upon the data we have coming in from
the probes below. By the time you go through these, the reality is going to be
a piece of cake.”

Telisa
led her team into training on the simulated planet. When they died, they tried
it again. And again.

Chapter 5

The
New Iridar
floated down into the atmosphere of Idrick Piper V, protected
from the planet’s pull by its gravity spinner. As the spinner spooled down,
Telisa worked with Cilreth to select a landing spot. They stood near Cilreth’s
quarters within earshot of each other. The others were in their own quarters or
the mess, though linked into a common channel.

“There’s
no place to land. Should we make a spot?” Cilreth asked.

“Can’t
we find a clear area? Rocky plateau or anything like that?”

“Around
here, no. Near the ice caps, maybe. These vine-ribs are growing everywhere and
of course you saw all the huge vines. There’s no clearing to land near the
tower.”

Telisa
missed the amazing detachable feet of the
Clacker
. But she told herself
she now had a light, maneuverable scout ship that would attract much less
notice.

“We
could try one of the other spots,” Siobhan said. “They have some landing spaces
cleared by the other two sites.”

Telisa
shook her head though no one could see her. “We can send some of our attendants
to go and scout under the vegetation at some specific spots. They may be able
to find a stable area, then we can settle among vines to create a clearing if
we have to. The gravity spinner might tear the area up, but what other choice
do we have?”

“Maybe
one...” Cilreth said.

“Yes?”

“It’s
kind of crazy, but I found a formation that could support our weight.”

Cilreth
sent the team a pointer to a spot on the surface. The group took a look in
their PVs.

On
the surface of Idrick Piper V, not far from the tower, a pattern stood out from
the random arrangement of pale spikes. Seven of the giant bone-colored
structures had grown upward, then curved in toward each other in an almost
symmetrical arrangement. Their ends came together at a distance less than the
diameter of the
New Iridar
.

“Wow,”
Telisa said. “Coincidence?”

“I
think so,” Cilreth said. “I found a few similar arrangements with four and five
spires. Their patterns are pretty random. This is just a lucky configuration, I
believe.”

“What
if those things are hollow?” asked Caden.

“They
are
hollow,” said Cilreth. “But the
New Iridar
has calculated
their strength. These seven spikes can hold us. They can weather the gravity
spinner, too, as long as we have it ramped down as we would on any normal
landing.”

“Seems
dangerous,” Imanol said.

“But
less destructive, really, than burning or dispersing a larger area of the
jungle,” Telisa said.

“We
could be doing something sacrilegious to the natives, if there are any,”
Siobhan said.

“We
would be out in the open, instead of hidden in the forest,” Caden warned.

Telisa
waved them away. “Infinite possibilities like that,” Telisa said. “No way to
know which ones are meaningful. Damaging the vine forest could be just as
offensive to anyone here as landing on a unique formation. We could be doing
something insulting to natives just by walking out and breathing.”

“Staying
hidden is meaningful
to us
,” Caden said.

Telisa
nodded. “What about the tower itself? The landing pad on the top is small, yes,
but is it strong enough?”

“Borderline,”
Cilreth said.

Telisa
nodded. “I don’t want to damage any artificial alien structure. These
rib-spikes are natural, and there’s millions of them. So let’s land on this
arrangement you found.”

“Okay,
here we go,” Cilreth said. Then she smiled and transmitted a crash tube event
across the team’s link network.

“CTE?
There are no crash tubes in this Vovokan shitpile!” Imanol growled immediately.

Telisa
smiled despite herself. Though Cilreth was being playful, it was a solid
warning. If anyone was not on the ball it would alert them to the landing.

“Should
we strap in somewhere?” Siobhan asked.

“Just
sheathe your swords and put down your forks, people, we’re landing and it could
be a crash if it doesn’t work out,” Telisa said. She hoped she was overstating
the danger.

Telisa
sat down into a chair that had thankfully been adapted for Terrans and waited.
She watched the approach on the exterior sensors, as she assumed everyone was.
The formation became visible below in a huge forest. Telisa saw the tower, only
a couple of kilometers away.

They
dropped closer. Telisa saw the huge leaves around the formations start to
flutter as the turbulence and the spinner’s gravity distortion started to
disrupt them. Only another few seconds remained. Telisa took a deep breath and
steeled herself.

I
have to succeed here, for Magnus. For everyone.

The
ship settled on the giant tusk-shaped spires without so much as a creak. Then
the vines and leaves nearby settled. The
New Iridar
sat just a meter
above the top of the vegetation all around it. The PIT team had a penthouse
view above the alien forest.

“They’re
strong,” Cilreth said. “Minimal deformation.”

“Us
or the damn trees?” Imanol said.

“You’re
always bent out of shape, Imanol,” Siobhan said.

“Wait!
I heard something!” Caden said.

“Landing
gear?” Telisa asked.

“No,
I have that—cargo bay doors are open!” Cilreth said.

Telisa
spotted the Vovokan battle sphere on camera feeds from outside the ship.

“The
battle sphere—” Caden said.

“Is
outside!” Siobhan said.

“It’s
shooting
!” Imanol exclaimed.

“Let’s
get out of here!” Caden suggested.

Telisa
brought up her tactical combat pane arrangement. “No enemies on my screen,” she
said.

“It’s
burning the forest to the northwest... moving toward the west,” Cilreth said
with a calmer head.

The
battle sphere used some powerful weapon to obliterate the vegetation in a long
line. Telisa watched the swath of destruction grow. The enforcer machine had
cleared a pie-shaped section of the forest out to 950 meters. Even the huge
white trunks beyond the formation they landed upon were being incinerated. The
line slowly swept clockwise toward the west.

“It’s
clearing a perimeter,” Cilreth concluded.

“So
much for our plans to spare the forest!” Siobhan said.

“Wow,
that thing has a lot of juice to spare,” Imanol said.

He’s
right on that count. This has to be costing a lot of energy.

“Could
it become depleted? When it completes the circle, that might be a good time
to...” Jason said.

“With
what? Our pistols?” Imanol asked.

To
attack it? Maybe the breaker claw. But Shiny knows I have it, and the breaker
claw is more effective when the storage rings have more energy, not less. He
could have rigged it to explode with even more power than a normal
superconductor rupture unless I got it in just the right place. If I get that
desperate, I have to make sure the others are far, far away.

“We
won’t do anything yet,” Telisa said.

Is
it really afraid of the alien forest’s secrets? Or did it do that to intimidate
us?

The
battle sphere stopped when one quadrant had been burned away.

“Cilreth,”
Telisa began.

“Way
ahead of you,” Cilreth said. “Calculating how much energy that took. If it’s
stopping to recharge now, that’s a clue.”

“I
think it would hold at least 20% in reserve,” Telisa said.

“One
thing’s for sure, it could vaporize the whole team in a second,” Cilreth said.

Yes,
it could.

***

Imanol
took a deep breath. He smelled the air. He could not tell much about the
planet’s natural odor, since the smell of burnt foliage was overpowering. The
seven curved spires that supported the ship had been left intact. Every other
bit of material had been burned down to the near-level ground beneath. He could
see the alien vegetation on the horizon.

“Nothing
like the smell of plasma in the morning,” Imanol drawled. He stepped out onto
the fine ash. It covered the ground fairly deep, judging from how his boots
sunk into the ground.

What
kind of crazy mission are we on this time? Damn death machine breathing down
our necks.

The
Vovokan battle sphere moved around the ship in an arc as if on patrol. It moved
in eerie silence. Somehow the spherical machine was clearly alien, but Imanol
could not figure out what gave it away. The machine even looked Terran to his
link, identifying itself with a serial number and a local name, “Escort 1”. It
offered no services, but Imanol had seen specialized corporate or military
robots that did not publicize civilian services. If he had seen that on a
Terran world before all this, would he have even noticed? Perhaps it was those
strange green patterns that sometimes played lazily across its surface. A
Terran machine would have had his link display an advertisement on its surface
or camouflaged itself, depending on whether it was civilian or military.

“That
thing has too much nervous energy,” Siobhan said.

“What’s
DM-109 got to be nervous about?” Imanol asked.

“It’s
not a death machine,” Siobhan said.

“True.
This thing is probably even more powerful than 109.”

“I
meant death machines seek to destroy all life,” Siobhan said.

Imanol
knew she was right. Only a vengeful madman would deploy such a device. DM-109
had been such a machine in a series of entertainment VRs experienced by the
masses. Imanol had never been in the VR himself, but he had heard of it. In the
virtual world, the machine always started by destroying the very city in which
it was constructed.

“It’s
concerned about aliens in the forest?” asked Caden.

“Maybe.
Or maybe it’s a display of power,” Imanol said. “Our friend Shiny wants to make
it impossible for us to forget we’re on a short leash.”

Imanol
felt a vague fear in his gut looking at the machine. The sphere stopped and
emitted a new low frequency noise. Imanol felt it in his feet.

“Blood
and souls, what’s that damn thing doing now?” asked Imanol. His fear came
through as grumpiness.

“Seismic
analysis of the area,” Cilreth said. “Looking for tunnels.”

“Wow.
It’s thorough,” he said.

“Well,
given that Vovokans are subterranean, I think it’s second nature for them,”
Telisa pointed out. Jason twitched as if he wanted to say “subvovokan” again.

“Just
like stabbing us in the back is second nature for Shiny,” Imanol said.

No
one answered him. The group spread out and tested the ground. Siobhan seemed
bubbly; he recalled she was from a low grav space habitat. Imanol tested his
vertical jump. His attendant reported the results: 76 centimeters.

Not
bad for a ripe old man of 45 years. If it was in Earth gravity.

“It’s
pretty close. Feels like just a bit of a boost,” Cilreth said. She did a test
jump of her own.

Caden
knocked on one of the round spires that supported the ship. He tried to climb
it, but it was too wide and too smooth, even with a good jump and the inwards
lean.

“What
are those made of?” Telisa asked.

“Carbon,
mostly. The structural pattern is amazing. I don’t see how it grows, though,”
Cilreth said.

“They
don’t grow,” Siobhan said. “They were manufactured at that size.” Imanol looked
at her. She was looking at some gadget and pointing it at the spire. Her
attendant flew an orbit around the curved base of it.

“What?!”
asked Telisa.

“Well,
it’s obvious,” she said. “They’re all the same size. All over the planet.”

That
never even occurred to me
,
Imanol thought.
Wow, I’m such a newb at this planetary exploration thing.
She’s right. I never saw any half-grown ones.

“So
how did they get here?” asked Caden.

“Nanomachines,”
Siobhan said. “Judging from their microscopic structure here just under the
surface, they were manufactured in place.” She folded up her device and put it
in her pack.

“Well
don’t you have all the answers today!” Imanol said. “I guess I should just go
back into the ship and take a vacation while you send back a full report to
Shiny.”

“Perhaps
you forget this is related to my specialty,” Siobhan said. “Adaptive industry
applications for colonies. These ribs were created from the crust of the
planet. I suspect they were all made at about the same time.”

“For
the vines,” Telisa said excitedly. “They were made to support the vines. This
place has been terraformed!”

“Celaraformed,”
corrected Jason.

“Amazing,”
Cilreth said. “I guess we should have realized that by looking at the tower. It
has cords all over it. Like artificial vines. I assumed at first they were all
support cables, but many of them don’t add stability at all. So wherever the
Celarans came from, they like vines. This vegetation is a different color than
the Blackvines. Would they fit in here?”

“Creatures
that live under the canopy may not be as green,” Telisa guessed.

“Did
you see the fauna catalog? The creatures here are specialized to the vines. So
the Celarans must have brought a lot of other living things with them from
their homeworld,” said Siobhan. “That also explains the low biodiversity we
noticed. They may have brought a minimal set of living things to achieve a
balanced ecosystem, or at least one they could cheaply maintain.”

“Or
those things
are
the Celarans,” Caden said. “What if they’re still
living here? Out in the vine forest?”

“Why
would they?” asked Imanol. “These are their buildings, right? They would be
living there.”