Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins (18 page)

“Telisa
can’t send you in there on a crazy gamble. Your life is her responsibility,”
Caden sent to Jason. It looked to Jason like Telisa was not on the channel but
Siobhan was.

“Shut
up, she’s thinking,” Siobhan sent back.

“Normally
I wouldn’t allow it,” Telisa said. “But it’s so very important to be friends
with these Celarans. So important maybe we should risk it. I’ll go.”

“You?
We can’t risk you.”

Telisa
snorted. “I’m a copy, remember? Besides, I’m in charge and I already decided.”

“And
if they vaporize you?” Cilreth asked.

“Then
go back with some toys, prove yourselves valuable to Shiny, and tell him I died
because Magnus wasn’t here to help. Maybe he’ll send both of us on the next
expedition.”

Telisa
approached Vincent and motioned for him to follow. But the alien remained near
Siobhan.

“He’s
been acting strange since saving me,” Siobhan said. “And he sent some
messages.”

“Why
didn’t you say so?!” Imanol snapped.

“I
am saying so. This is a war zone. I wanted to give Telisa time to recover.”

“How
has he been acting and what has he been saying?” Telisa asked.

“He
hasn’t left me since then,” Siobhan said. “I’ve been afraid to try and avoid
him because I owe him for that. He told me to walk. He told me to stop, just
the nonverbal commands suite. He has my laser and I gave him permissions for
it, though he can’t shoot us.”

“Uh
oh. There may be some expectation on his part for payment,” Caden said.

“I’d
be happy to do what I could, but I don’t know what he wants. And we’re kind of
broke now,” Siobhan said.

That’s
true. We went from “you get whatever you want” to slaves of Shiny
, Jason thought.

“There’s
nothing bad here, it’s amazing we’re finally starting to communicate with him!”
Cilreth said.

“Especially
given that as far as we know, communication is rare with Blackvines,” Telisa
said. “His use of commands is interesting. Think about it. A non-social
creature might try commands first. It would treat us like machines to be
controlled. It uses tools, computers, things like that. Anything external to
itself would be thought of in the same light: things there to be used.”

“Back
to ‘uh oh’ then,” Caden said. “We won’t be able to have any meaningful
exchange.”

“Give
him time. Question is, should Siobhan go out of her way to obey, so that he
knows she can hear him, or should she not obey, to show that she’s an
independent entity?”

“Think
on it. Come up with a plan. I’m going to check out that ship,” Telisa said.

“Vincent
won’t come without me I think,” Siobhan said.

“Then
you’re with me.”

Telisa
left her weapons and motioned for Siobhan to do the same. Caden and Imanol
watched with obvious worry. Cilreth brought out two more rifles just in case.
Jason realized most of them were injured from everything they had gone through.

At
least we’re alive. For the moment.

Telisa
and Siobhan walked out of the forest and onto the hardtop. Siobhan and Vincent
followed her out of the ship. Jason watched the feed from their eyes and stayed
on the channel. He could tell Cilreth and Imanol were watching, too.

“I’m
going out alone first.”

“Come
on, Telisa. You need Vincent.”

“Does
it really make sense for all of us to risk our lives together?” Telisa asked.

“No.
It makes sense for me to go out with Vincent while you stay here.”

“Stay
here,” Telisa ordered. She moved out to the remains of the nearest tower.

Telisa
slowly walked out into the open. The
New Iridar
could see Celaran
machines patrolling the area. Two of them peeled off to approach Telisa.

Vincent
left Siobhan’s position and made a beeline for Telisa.

“Okay,
I think I’ve been accepted.”

“Maybe,”
Imanol said. “Look behind you.”

Telisa
became aware of Vincent. The disc shape robots hovered nearby. One of them
peeled off and left. The other stood by.

“Thank
you, Vincent,” she said.

“Forward.”

Jason
realized the nonverbal command came from Vincent. Jason’s link had no voice
profile to assign to Vincent’s communications, so it sounded cold and
artificial.

Telisa
shrugged and walked forward.

“Okay,
everyone. Looks like we got lucky. Myself, Siobhan, Caden and Vincent are
heading in to look. Cilreth stays at the ship. The rest of you can look around
but stay in these two buildings closest to the
New Iridar
. If you see an
eight-armed robot then run for it. That’s what their net trappers look like.”

Wow.
We’re really just allowed in? Or are we being drawn out for the slaughter?

Jason
decided he had been training with Imanol for too long. He headed over to the
nearest building and prepared his smart rope.

“Let’s
see what we can see,” Imanol said.

“What’s
up with that Vincent, anyway?” Jason said. “What’s your analysis?”

“My
analysis
? My analysis is that that big black weed is going to screw us
over just like Shiny did,” Imanol said.

“Bet
on it?” Jason said.

“What
could we possibly bet?” Imanol said.

Jason
checked back with Telisa’s team. They had made it to the top of the spacecraft
hangar building.

“It’s
not letting us through,” Telisa said.

“I
guess we’re friends, but not close friends,” Siobhan summarized.

“We’re
on probation since we trashed part of the complex,” Cilreth said from the ship.

“Then
what did Vincent do?”

“Good
question.”

Chapter 18

Caden
stood with Telisa and Siobhan atop the Celaran building. Vincent scuttled about
nearby. Caden was still riding high on his relief that Siobhan had returned. He
still keenly felt the precarious nature of their lives. She might have never
come back.

Telisa
must think of Magnus a lot,
he
thought.
She’s patient, though. She had no choice.

“This
is the building,” Telisa said.

Caden
saw Vincent hovering around a hatchway leading into the building.

“Vincent
knows something interesting is in there, too,” Caden noted.

Siobhan
went over and tried to open the door flaps again. They refused to budge.

“No
go,” she said.

“Is
this punishment for the attack? Or just... they’ve become more cautious?” Caden
wondered aloud.

“There’s
a puzzle here,” Telisa said. “Vincent could go into the compound at will, but
could not get through any of the doors. We’ve always been allowed through the doors,
until now.”

“Not
true,” Imanol said to the group channel. He transmitted to them from the top of
an adjacent building. “I’m free to enter this area.”

“Then
investigate,” Telisa sent back.

“Okay.
Certain areas are restricted,” Caden said. “And is it really surprising? They
won’t let us in the building with the spacecraft.”

“They.
They who?” Siobhan said.

“Probably
an AI,” Caden said. “Or computers, robots, whatever.”

“Okay.
Investigate what you can. Collect what you can. Don’t try to force anything. We’ll
show ‘them’ we’re just curious,” Telisa said.

Telisa
stayed with Caden and Siobhan as they went from building to building, checking
their access and snooping around. The robots were always nearby, but they did
not encounter any of the net throwers and nothing interfered with their
investigation. Most of the structures housed complex factories of staggering
complexity. Knowing what they did about the Celarans and their love of
multifunction systems, it seemed likely the complex could produce anything needed
for a large colony.

Hours
later, each of them had as many artifacts as they could carry. Unfortunately
most of them were alike. Either batons like the ones they had already, or what
they thought were spare parts for the robots or hexagonal wall blocks as were
used in the houses. The team was about to head back to the
New Iridar
for the day when their links got a message.

“We’ve
made a breakthrough,” Cilreth transmitted from back near the ship. “Imanol and
Jason found more of those black cloth items. A lot more. We’ve been looking
them over.”

“We’ll
be there in just a few minutes,” Telisa said eagerly. “What’s the gist of it?”
Telisa headed back for the smart ropes they used to scale the building.

“I
figured them out. I know what these are and I know more about the Celarans.”

Telisa
hurried over to the edge of the building and started down. Everyone followed,
even Vincent. Caden shared Telisa’s urgency to learn about the Celarans. They
double timed it down to the flat surface of the field and across to the border.

Two
robots worked to repair the fence, one from each side. They avoided the
machines and walked through the center. Caden spotted Cilreth in their small
camp set up just outside the old compound net. Everyone gathered around Cilreth
in the tiny encampment. She had the black things arrayed around her on top of
Vovokan equipment containers.

“So
what are these things?” Telisa asked.

“Here’s
the key: we found them in four different sizes. There are a very large number
in this biggest size. The other three sizes, well, there’s a lot less of
those.”

“Clothes?”

“Well,
you know the Celarans. They’re more like, clothes, link, medical kit, chameleon
suit, battery, fly booster and Cthulhu knows what else. It’s decked out eight
ways from extinction.”

Telisa
picked one of the suits up and tried to make heads or tails of it.

“Clothes?
So this is the biggest clue we’re going to get as to what they look like,”
Siobhan said.

Caden
took a suit and started to look it over too. “Uhhh,” he said helplessly. “This
is like trying to figure out women’s clothing before I got old enough to want
to learn how to take it all off.”

“I
cracked that one too,” Cilreth said. She brought up a pointer and passed it out
to their links. Caden accessed it and brought up picture of a creature wearing
the outfit in his PV.

“The
glider snakes are the Celarans!” Jason said.

“Well,
probably no, they’re all too small. The most common size fits one about two and
a half meters long.”

“But
if the shoe fits... sorry. You know what I mean.”

Caden
looked at the outfit and Cilreth’s concept rendering. There was no question it
was for a creature just like the glider snakes. The entire thing was
symmetrical along two axes, just like the glider snakes. The black part covered
the top, complete with a webwork of miniature equipment embedded inside. The
straps or bands came around to secure it, and they were spaced perfectly to
allow the glowing chevrons on the underside to be seen.

Probably
that’s how they speak
,
Caden thought again.
Those light patterns. Though at this level they must
have links, inside or in those suits.

The
garment was widest in the middle, and connected from one end to the other with
a hole in the center where they glider snakes were thickest.

“Any
idea about the hole? They don’t have anything there, do they?” Caden asked.

“Light
sensors,” Cilreth said. “They also have some more on each end, around the
fingers.”

“Too
weird. Creepy,” Siobhan said.

“Two
hands, six fingers,” Telisa said. “It makes sense. I suspect base six math.
There were 36 towers around the third site. And they seem partial to hexagons,
that may be related.”

“But
with a hand on each end like that, they can’t move and use their hands at the
same time,” Imanol said.

“Every
race has its advantages and limitations. I think these guys can eat and breathe
at the same time, for instance,” Telisa said.

“Yeah,
eat and... it never comes out,” Jason said.

“We
don’t know that,” Telisa said. “Shiny regurgitates his old meals. Eventually.
So they could do that, too. But I think this tree sap may be so pure, and they
may have evolved to eat only that one thing, so maybe their bodies know how to
use every bit of it.”

“But
a metabolism—” Cilreth said.

“Waste
gases?” Siobhan said.

“Basic
hollow tube structure, seems like an almost universal design. Food goes in and
comes out. Though here both ends look the same... which end is which?” Imanol
said.

“No
idea just yet,” Telisa said. “Let’s move on. Why are these Celarans all so
stunted? Maybe some environmental disaster on the new planet they did not
anticipate?”

“Or
maybe these are a dumber larval form,” Imanol said.

“A
possibility,” Siobhan said. “Another one is that those things are to the
Celarans like monkeys or primates are to us. They just happen to be the most
similar life form from the same planet, but they fall short of intelligence.”

“Ah.
Good theory. Imagine the confusion if an alien landed on our planet and found
primates in the jungle outside an abandoned human city!” Telisa said.

“They
could still be similar to dogs and cats or something,” Jason said. “We don’t
usually have primate pets but they might enjoy domestic creatures very similar
to themselves.”

“They
could be testing the terraform,” Caden said. “If Celarans are closely related
to those things, they could see if the planet is safe by observing how those
things fare here. Maybe they haven’t arrived yet, or something went wrong and
they’re not coming.”

Telisa
brightened. “Now we’re producing some great ideas.”

“But
the robots could tell if it’s safe here,” Imanol said.

“To
some degree. This is a more robust way to check the chemical and biological
safety?”

“They
would be pretty mean to send their equivalent of primates to live here and just
see if they live or die,” Siobhan said.

“Maybe
yes. Maybe it’s not wrong by their mores to do such a thing. Or maybe they were
almost certain it’s safe before the creatures were populated here,” Telisa
said.

“But
they never showed up. So maybe they
were
wrong,” Imanol said.

“Well
we still have no real live Celarans. But we do have a lot of toys to play
with,” Cilreth said brightly.