The tall man nodded. “Sure. That’s one reason why this is barren here. But they built it where they did so that it wouldn’t accidentally be in the way of harvest wagons, big animals, that sort of thing. It isn’t that unusual for even some of these lost and reverted folk to have remnants of the technology they brought here, or even to keep it hidden from us. The question is, what are they hiding and why do they think it’s so important that they’d risk us finding it? If you’re going to pretend to be a primitive, be one. Don’t keep sneaking off and checking to see if the crown jewels are still there. It’s like being so fearful of a pickpocket in a group that your hand keeps going to the pocket where you carry your valuables, thereby pointing out just where they are to every thief in creation. They aren’t just hiding something from us here. Who cares if they do? No, they’re up to something, and I’m afraid it’s the devil’s work.”
There was some noise from the front of the invisible vault or entrance and on both sides the professionals hissed, “Down and quiet! They might not even see us! Let them get well clear!”
They barely had time to do this before there was a crackling and first Gregnar, then Alon appeared, walking back up the irrigation ditch. If either was concerned that they left the door unlocked they didn’t show it, but each of them was carrying a heavy looking case full of what nobody else yet knew. Still, they didn’t even give a glance backward, and might not have seen all that company anyway. Robey in particular noted with admiration that Corby’s professional eye had placed them where the same illusion that masked the vault helped mask them from anyone exiting into the cornfield.
There was a danger if either went along the path and looked back, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. When they reached the field, they said something to one another but neither gave more than a furtive glance around and then both men walked off in opposite directions, each carrying their new load.
“Give them a few minutes,” Corby said quietly. “If they’re any good at all and spotted us, they’ll double back. I want to make sure they’re well away.”
It was a nervous five minutes, but then Corby decided that either the coast was clear or it no longer mattered. Getting up, he took his probe and pointed it at the unseen chamber, this time picking up whatever those small cubes had recorded.
“Got ’em! Not a problem, like I said,” Corby exclaimed with satisfaction. “Fairly simple locking mechanism at that. We’ll have no trouble playing it back. Robey, Toloway, come with me. Ruth, Erin, you cover for us. Anybody shows up, you know what to do.”
Both women reached into the folds of their robes and showed impulse rifles. “Yes, Brother. We know what to do.”
“Then let’s find out what they’re up to, shall we?” With that, he walked forward of the mysterious vault area and jumped back down into the muddy ditch. Steeling himself, Robey followed and managed not to fall on his face in the mud; Corby more gently lifted Eve down.
Corby then waved his probe to cover the whole area, invisible or not, and nodded to himself. “Step up, children, and watch that first step,” he warned, then stepped back a couple of steps, almost knocking Robey over, and jumped forward and up. There was a crackling sound and he vanished.
The other two just stood there a moment, uncertain. Then Corby stuck his head out so that it floated ghostly in what seemed to be midair and called, “Well, come on! Or I’m going in without you!”
Eve shrugged, went to the edge, as it were, and allowed two long, large, ghostly hands to pull her in. Robey shrugged and, with a single hand up, managed to get into what turned out to be a spartan cube okay, although he bumped his knee and knew he’d have a bruise there if nothing else.
It was a very plain box, as it were, with no obvious way in or out. Dimly but adequately lit by a kind of phosphorescent glow emanating from the walls and ceiling, it felt more like a cargo container than anything else.
“This is what it’s all about?” Eve managed, disappointed to say the least. “What were those two doing in here all that time?”
Corby gave a slight smile to both of them. “You haven’t figured it out yet? Well, I’ll show you, then.” He walked over to the back wall and they now saw that there was a touch switch embedded in it about one meter from the floor. Corby touched it, and there was the sound of something engaging front and back, a kind of solid chunk! chunk! Then the cube began to vibrate.
“It’s a lift!” Eve exclaimed, amazed. “But it’s above the canal! How can we go down?”
“Well, at a guess, I’d say those two sounds were blockers coming down on both sides so that if there was any water in the ditch it would be restrained on both sides,” Corby responded. “Once they’re in place, it is likely that the base goes down and then swings away to allow access to the shaft. The reverse will happen when it goes back up. Some mud will fall into the bottom of the shaft, but I suspect there’s a cleaner or drainage mechanism down there to keep it from building up too high. Ah! Not too deep! We appear to be here!”
There was a shudder and then a total absence of vibration, and now the forward entrance winked out, revealing a damp, rocky chamber lit much like the car. Corby walked out into it, and the other two followed.
It appeared to have been developed out of a natural cavern left by eroding underground drainage over eons of time. The shaft and entryway were artificial, but the cavern itself was quite natural, much like those found in limestone and similar sedimentary rock regions on world after world. Lighting appeared to be permanent and chemical; there didn’t seem to be any controls or power source, but half globes had been attached to the cave walls every few meters allowing for adequate vision.
“It would be interesting to see just what the other branches hold,” Corby commented, “but this is certainly sufficient. I can see where the most recent traffic has gone—muddy traces—and they go into that branch there. Let us see.”
Robey looked around at the eerie but impressive installation. “Now, who built this? And why? Certainly this is beyond these people!”
“Probably, but it isn’t beyond their ancestors, the ones who came here and put up that temporary capital and landing area we first went to,” Eve pointed out. “They were here with a lot of technological support for a number of years before things began to fail.”
“Good deduction. I am impressed,” Corby commented. “This, and perhaps others over the inhabited parts of the continent, was certainly done at that time, and, I would suspect, they wound up abandoning the tech center because they needed to grow food and they couldn’t repair or adequately maintain their high tech base. They knew what they were doing, though. Development here was probably very quick. Somebody brought the original settlers here and left, since there’s no sign of a ship or wreckage. They then had to move fast with what they had just to survive. These are, perhaps, stores of things from the old days that may be useful in an emergency, or it might—oh, my!”
He stopped suddenly as they came into a larger chamber, and they followed and then did the same, astonished at what they saw.
“Weapons,” Robey muttered. “Every kind imaginable.”
Stacked in cases, and displayed on a wall that keyed the crate numbers to the displays, were very high tech weapons indeed. No planet killers, but every kind of hand weapon from guided projectile to disruptors, small cannon, small and medium laser and phaser weapons, even surface-to-air smart missiles.
“You could fight one heck of a war with this stuff,” Robey noted, looking at display after display. “I don’t recognize a lot of them, but it’s pretty clear what they do. Some are high military stuff, I’d say.”