Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel 1: The Deimos Artifact (34 page)

Chapter 42.
The Teachable Moment.

Voltaire Crater, Deimos, July 16, 2676.

The next morning, Zack figured out a method by which the academics in either of the two caverns could communicate with the ships outside. It involved stationing two additional people in the caverns, one in line of sight with the ships outside and the other at the bend in the second corridor. The cumbersome system was made even more so by the presence of gravity in the inner chamber and the mysterious force field across the door. Anyone in the second chamber who wished to communicate with the outside had to poke their head through the force screen at the entrance, give the person stationed there the message and this person would then relay it to the others. It was slow and more than a little inconvenient, but the system did work, after a fashion. The two extra people would have had to be on hand anyway, since Zack and Ariane would not have allowed the scholars go to the caverns unaccompanied.

After a short while working with the new system, the Academics themselves had to admit that splitting up had been a good idea. Those remaining on board the
Capri
didn't have to deal with the inconveniences of wearing spacesuits and struggling to maneuver around the baffling contrast between gravity in the second chamber and microgravity everywhere else. Also, onboard the ship they could readily work with all of the inscriptions projected simultaneously onto the front wall of the meeting room on the
Capri
, including all the new material gathered during and after the activation event.

Those stationed in either of the caverns, of course, had the advantage of having the actual artifacts to work with. After a single sojourn back to those caverns, Olga and Kathryn had both come to the conclusion that they would be far more effective if they remained in the comfort of the
Capri's
boardroom surrounded by all of the projections and other recorded material than they would be out in the caverns encased in cumbersome suits, lurching clumsily between chambers.

Arnold and the Professor, who were more experienced in 'field archeology' were willing to endure the vagaries of the two caverns with their inconvenient and contrasting conditions, but, after they had done a couple of stints in the caverns, even they discovered that there was little they could do until they interpreted more of the inscriptions. Zack, Ariane, Gertrude and even Sergei each stood guard for them at one time or another.

After the destruction of the Soviet ship, the scientists had abandoned any idea of holding back information from one another and Olga was granted access to everything that the Federation team had gathered. Now that they all knew that real live aliens were involved, and that at least some of them were hostile, their goal was to solve the mystery and they had pulled out all the stops to get that done.

The academics had been working at the inscriptions with the idea that one entire facet of the completed pyramid contained instructions on how to operate the putative "control panel." For the umpteenth time, Olga and Kathryn were going over the images from 'facet one' of the pyramid, the one that faced the doorway to the second cavern, when Gertrude joined them. The Viking had found herself growing increasingly restless due to the lack of anything for her to actually do on the ship, so she had gone to the boardroom to see if there was any way she could help the symbologists. She found the two scientists staring blankly at a wall of projected inscriptions.

"How are things going?" asked Gertrude.

"Not well," said Kathryn, "We can't seem to figure out what we're supposed to do next."

"Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can make a big difference."

"We are open to almost anything," said Olga.

"So," asked Gertrude, "Why don't we go back to the beginning? Tell me what it is that makes you think that this particular facet has something to do with some kind of 'control panel' in the second chamber?"

"Because it has several symbols resembling an equilateral triangle interspersed into the rest of the text," replied Kathryn."

"That makes sense," said Gertrude. The room was silent for several minutes while all three of the women studied the symbols intently, seeking some kind of insight.

"Maybe you should try a more modern approach," said Gertrude.

"What do you mean?" asked Kathryn.

"From our own recent experience," said Gertrude, "we know that the original artifact became activated when someone touched it. I know that Zack and Ariane are insisting that we not touch anything, but everything we've done so far indicates that these things respond to touch."

"Da," said Olga, her head bobbing in agreement, "Touching very important."

"Humor me for a moment," said Gertrude, "Take a look at this triangle in the inscriptions down in the bottom of the center row."

Kathryn highlighted the symbol in question and zoomed in on it using touch gestures on her tablet. "Okay," she said, "What about it?"

"Doesn't it look a little different from the others?" asked Gertrude, "Maybe a little bigger and a little more robust?"

"Yes, I guess you could say that," replied Kathryn, "What are you getting at?"

"We've been working with computers all our lives," replied Gertrude, "They're so familiar that you don't even think about the process of interacting with them. What if this system is set up to work like a computer interface."

"What do you mean?" asked Kathryn.

"You read a set of instructions and then you see something like 'click here' that initiates a program or takes you to a link. Assume that the other pyramids higher up on this facet are part of the instructions for using it. Wouldn't it make sense that the last one that appears could be telling us to 'click here?'"

The two female doctors looked hard at the images and then at each other. Could this be a "Eureka" moment?

Fortuitously, the Professor and Arnold had gone back out to the caverns a little over an hour ago. They too had been getting somewhat bored on the ship and had decided to go back out to the site to see if there was anything they might have missed. With little to do in the second cavern, he and Arnold had remained in the outer chamber. Kathryn called the Professor, using the human relay system.

"Professor MacPherson? Respond please. We may have found something."

After a short interval, the Professor's voice came over the communications link, "MacPherson here. What is it?"

"Tell Zack that we need for you to try touching the very lowest of the triangles on facet one of the completed pyramid."

"Just a moment..." came the reply, followed maybe thirty seconds later by, "Done...Okay, now what?"

Apparently nothing had happened. The two doctors back on the
Capri
looked at Gertrude who shrugged and said, "It was certainly worth a try."

The disappointment in the room was palpable. Olga's face scrunched up in thought, "Wait for minute," she said, suddenly excited again, "You might be on for something. When we work with computer, we must check boxes to validate that we have read instructions."

Kathryn, immediately grasping the significance of Olga's idea, got back on the communications, "Professor? Try touching all of the triangles on side three in sequence, starting from the top."

"Okay, here goes..." There was a longish silence.

Out in the cavern, Zack, was providing communications capability between the two groups of scientists by maintaining station in the bend of the tunnel at the entryway to the first cavern. In this position he was lined up with the people in the outer cavern and with the outside entrance. He also had a ringside seat to any activity that took place.

Ariane, who had also volunteered to do a shift babysitting the scientists, was at her station across the cavern near the short tunnel that led to the second cavern. From there she could observe the completed pyramid and by moving a short distance down the tunnel and turning ninety degrees, she could observe the triangular construct in the adjacent cavern through the doorway at the end of that tunnel as well. With no one currently in the second cavern, there was no need for her to be in the tunnel, so she was in the outer cavern and also keeping an eye on the two scientists as they scrutinized the pyramid.

Ariane and Zack both watched as the Professor followed the latest set of instructions and went about the process of touching the triangular symbols in sequence from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. At last he came to the final, larger triangle in the bottom of the center row of figures. With a mock flourish, he touched the last triangle and moved back. The bright glow of the central pyramid dimmed rapidly down, almost as though a power demand of some kind were robbing it of the energy to maintain its brightness. After a few seconds, the light from the pyramid cycled back up to its original intensity.

"Something's happening in the next chamber!" said Ariane, excitedly. She used the handholds in the wall to pull herself down to the doorway. Even though that put her out of Zack's line of sight, their radios remained in contact over the short distance that separated them.

Zack relayed the information back to the group on the Capri, "Ariane says something is going on in the second cavern!"

"For heaven's sake, what?" asked Kathryn.

"I'll let you know as soon as I know something," said Zack.

Meanwhile, the Professor and Arnold had made their way as quickly as they could past Ariane, through the short tunnel with the force screen and into the second chamber. Once inside, they both pulled up about two meters short of the central column. To their astonishment and delight they saw that each of the three "workstations" on the central triangular column were now lit up. Unlike the brief glimpse of something that might have been controls that MacPherson had demonstrated for Zack earlier, the outlines of what might be a control panel and a monitor had now become permanently visible. The lower rectangles on each of the facets now looked even more like computer keyboards, covered as they were with several neat, horizontal rows of symbols.

In the very center of the flat top of the three-sided column, a slender, triangular "spire" about half a meter tall had appeared. Each of the flat sides of the central spire was about ten centimeters wide and was aligned perfectly parallel to one of the workstations. The spire ended in a flat top.

On the side nearest him, the Professor, with Arnold looking over his shoulder, approached the angled facet and reached his hand out over the top of the "keyboard." As he passed his hand over it, the symbols directly beneath glowed more intensely before returning to their original brightness. In one corner of the control panel, the Professor could see a blinking light. Without taking time to think, he passed his hand over it. The "monitor" section of the panel, which had been a featureless blank before, began to brighten up. The Professor and Arnold, startled, moved back. The "monitor," if that's what it was, had settled into a permanent display of a symbol or perhaps a logo of some kind. The Professor and his assistant approached the workstation again.

Without any warning, a narrow, cone-shaped beam of greenish light shot out of the side of the spire and caught Arnold full in the face, shining right through the faceplate of his spacesuit helmet. Through the faceplate, from his vantage point right next to his assistant, the Professor could see Arnold's face frozen in a wide-eyed, startled expression. The cone-shaped beam flickered a few times, grew brighter and then abruptly shut off. Arnold stood frozen for several seconds before shaking his head and staggering backwards. The entire episode couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds. Arnold was fortunate not to have fallen down in the full gravity. As it was, the Professor had to grab him to keep him from backing into the wall of the cavern.

"What was that?" said Arnold, wearing a profoundly befuddled look while rapidly blinking his eyes, "It felt like I blacked out for a moment."

Ariane, who had witnessed the entire episode from her vantage point on the other side of the force curtain that covered the door, burst through that barrier and got to the two men as quickly as she could, "I saw a bright light and then Arnold staggering back from the center console," she said, "What just happened in here? What did you do?"

"We were examining the workstations on the console when...I don't know...a beam of some sort shot out of the new spire on the central construct," said MacPherson, "It was shining on Arnold's face through his faceplate! Are...are you alright, Arnold?"

"I think so," said Arnold, somewhat groggily. "I...I was behind you, Professor. Why would the beam strike me and not you?"

"I'm not sure," replied MacPherson, "Perhaps it's because you're one of the 'sensitives' or something. How do you feel?"

"Disoriented," replied Arnold, "and my eyes are still dazzled from the light or whatever it was."

"Do we need to get him back to the ship?" asked Ariane.

"I don't think so," said Arnold, "Let's give it a few more minutes. It feels like the effects are already starting to fade."

"Let us know if you start to feel anything unusual," said Ariane, "getting sick in a spacesuit is no laughing matter."

"I will. Thanks, Ariane."

"Tell me more about this beam, Father," said Ariane.

"There really isn't much to tell," replied the Professor, "We didn't even touch any of the controls. I waved my hand over that light in the right-hand corner of this board and, five seconds later, the beam came out."