Valor At Vauzlee (48 page)

"Edward, wake up! It's Dakshiku. The door is open!"

"Then close it, man, and let me get back to sleep," Dr. Peterson said grumpily. "Your shelter's auto-sprayer will kill all the insects before they have a chance to bite you."

"Edward, wake up. The
door
is open!"

"What? What door?" Dr. Peterson asked, a little more awake now. "What are you talking about, man?"

"The door to the vault! It's open!"

Doctor Peterson came fully awake as the information sank in. "How? Who? When?" he rattled off in quick succession as he tried to focus on Doctor Vlashsku's face in the darkness of the tent. The Nordakian was so excited that his skin was flashing different colors faster than a nightclub strobe. During times of emotional agitation, Nordakians lose partial control of their skin coloration. In extreme situations, control deserts them completely and they appear like spinning rainbows gone amuck.

"I couldn't sleep so I went down to the tunnel," Doctor Vlashsku said. "I reexamined every square centimeter of the door and frame, but I couldn't find a thing that offered a clue for opening it. After a couple of hours, I just started yelling at it out of frustration. Then it suddenly creaked, and opened of its own volition."

"On its own? You just yelled at it?"

"Basically."

"What did you yell?"

"I don't know. I was weary and lost my temper. I screamed out of anger and frustration. The
important
thing is that it's open!"

"Okay. Okay. You're right. Wake everybody up while I get dressed."

"The entire camp?"

"No, just the main staff— and the laborers that worked with us in the tunnel. Let the others sleep. They have their own work to do in the morning."

"Right, I'll tell everyone to meet outside the door in fifteen minutes."

Some fifteen minutes later, a stimulated group of scientists in various states of dress and undress, and armed with light torches and an assortment of recording and measuring devices, was gathered outside the doorway.

"I still want to know,
before
we go in," Doctor Ramilo said, "just what Dakshiku said to open the door."

"I've already told you
several
times, Anthony, I don't remember," Vlashsku said, with a touch of irritation in his voice. "I was tired and frustrated, and I just screamed at it. It creaked for a second, then opened noiselessly. That's all I can tell you."

"You should have had the vid cams running, Dakshiku," Doctor Ramilo said, his voice angry and accusing. "That's what they're for."

"I was only examining the door; I never expected to actually find the key that would open it. You're
right
, I should have turned them on before I started. But— I
didn't
. And reminding me— over and over and over— that I made a mistake, will not alter the situation, Anthony."

"What if Dakshiku isn't responsible for opening the door at all?" Doctor Huften asked calmly."

"What are you suggesting, Barbara," Doctor Peterson asked, "that the door was opened by some life form inside?"

"In a word,
yes
!" she said emphatically.

"Impossible," Doctor Ramilo said. "The life form would have to be twenty-thousand years old. That's the most recent date that evidence of planetary habitation will support."

"Or possibly just
asleep
for twenty-thousand years," Doctor Huften countered. "Perhaps we awoke it with our earlier attempts to gain entry."

"Asleep for twenty-thousand years? Barbara, be practical," Doctor Ramilo said. "Our most brilliant scientists say that a person in prime physical condition can only be suspended in stasis sleep for forty-two years. Then he'd have to be awakened and made completely healthy again before being put back in stasis. That's why no expeditions to other galaxies have ever been seriously contemplated."

"That only applies to Terrans, Anthony. As an example of my hypothesis, let's use Alyysians. Their unique physiology, similar to that of a Terran frog, has allowed them to be frozen solid, and then revived centuries later. Our first contact with them was when a pre-FTL ship containing Alyysians was discovered by Space Command as it crossed our outer border. The occupants had all been asleep for more than seven hundred years. Think of it, Anthony. They were already underway when Galileo was still working to perfect a refracting telescope for astronomical observation. All were revived successfully."

"What if this is a cryogenic prison facility?" Doctor Vlashsku asked. "Perhaps our tampering has begun an awakening process? We might be responsible for releasing the worst criminals in the galaxy. Look how strongly the facility is constructed."

"Now everyone calm down," Doctor Peterson said. "The door is open, and whether it's an invitation to enter, or simply a response to something that Dakshiku said, we'll never know unless we go in. Dakshiku, can you and Glawth please stop flashing. You're giving me a severe headache."

"I'm sorry, Edward. We'll try. But you know that we can't completely control our chromatophoric cellular distensions when we get excited like this."

"What happens if we all go in and the door closes behind us?" Doctor Ramilo asked. "We'll be trapped inside without anyone out here being able to rescue us. One of us should remain outside."

"Good thought, Anthony," Doctor Peterson said. "You remain out here and guard against that eventuality."

"Wait a minute!" Dr. Ramilo said loudly. He wasn't about to remain outside when everyone else entered the— whatever it was. "Why me? I want to see what's inside as much as everyone else."

"You can't have it both ways, Anthony," Doctor Huften said, grinning slightly at Dr. Peterson's mischievous taunt.

"Okay, let's all go in— but leave a pry bar in the doorway so the door can't close completely."

"From what we saw yesterday," Doctor Peterson said, "I doubt that a simple pry bar could stop
this
door from closing, but we'll try that as an attempted safeguard to prevent becoming completely sealed inside. Is everyone ready?"

Doctor Peterson led the way in slowly and carefully, taking radiation measurements and checking the air quality as he went. The others crowded close to him and pointed their lights ahead, looking for any signs of life or danger.

After passing through the entrance doorway, the scientists found themselves at one end of a broad corridor. A high, arched ceiling capped a hallway with a floor comprised of large square tiles of polished metamorphic rock. Four more doorways, with doors of a size similar to that of the entrance, disrupted the smooth lines of the corridor walls. Only one, on the immediate left, was open. They nervously moved that way in a tight cluster.

The large open doorway was revealed to be an entrance to an impressive rotunda, at least fifteen meters in diameter. Standing just inside the entrance, the scientists shone their light torches around the room and played the beams across the high vaulted ceiling. Half the room had what appeared to be tall cabinet doors built into the walls, while much of the remaining wall space was dedicated to peculiar looking instrument panels. Roughly three-meters from the entrance sat a solitary table. The floor of the rotunda, like that of the corridor, was surfaced with highly-polished marble slabs with mottled green streaks in a slightly off-white background.

"We need more light," Doctor Peterson pronounced. "Let's get some of the Chembrite Light panels in here."

Without waiting for further instructions, the laborers retreated quickly through the doorway and returned promptly with some of the work lights from the tunnel. Once aimed at the highly-reflective domed ceiling, the entire room became brightly illuminated. Now able to see clearly, the scientists ventured further, moving to more closely examine the instrument panels mounted on the walls.

"I shouldn't need to remind anyone not to touch
anything
," Doctor Peterson said. "The fact that the outside door opened, clearly indicates that there's at least a small amount of residual power in here."

"Edward, look at those markings in the floor!" Doctor Ramilo said excitedly as he unnecessarily aimed his powerful light torch towards the polished stone floor in the center of the room. "They're like the symbols that the team at site three found!"

The scientists chattered enthusiastically as they moved to the center of the room to examine the strange gold symbols inscribed into the floor while the laborers continued to carry more portable lights into the room to provide even better illumination.

Mounted on tripod stands, the thin, flat, meter-square Chembrite panels were arranged primarily around the walls of the room, and aimed up at the ceiling, but one was placed on the solitary table and pointed down at the floor to brilliantly illuminate the etched symbols. Suddenly, the entire center of the room, where the archeologists were still congregated, was bathed in amber light, and each of the eleven scientists was paralyzed where he or she stood. A ten-centimeter-thick circular wall, made of a transparent polymer-like substance, rose soundlessly from the floor to enclose the immobilized group. The speed with which the encircling wall rose was phenomenal. One of the laborers, rushing to help the scientists, was carried aloft straddling the wall, a leg on either side. As the wall reached the ceiling, the enclosed area inside began to fill with a dense ocher gas that smelled of persimmons. In seconds it was impossible to see into the walled area.

The laborers, who had witnessed the event with terror-filled eyes, ran screaming from the room.

(end of Chapter 1)