“I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. If there is, your Captain Hayakawa will take care of it and we’ll just show up after they’ve finished analyzing all the dead bodies.”
“Don’t I hope.”
“Jack, is it going to be like this every drop, or is this just bridegroom nerves?”
He scowled at her and brought his hands down to rest at his side. “A bit of everything.”
“We’ll be fine,” she said, and rested her eyes on the screen at the end of the drop bay. The first three landers were down, and Hayakawa was deploying his troops by the book. Or at least he was trying to.
The space-suited boffins had somehow escaped the landers before the battle-armored Marines declared the site safe for civilians. Their mob had rushed to the base of the pyramid much faster than the Marine skipper wanted.
To his shouted orders on net, they showed no signs of hearing, much less obeying.
He did what any smart commander would do. He kept his men to the cautious pace his duties required . . . and let the civilians rush ahead to trip any land mines in their path.
Fortunately, there were no land mines, literally or figuratively.
In the end, the scientists set to work doing their analysis, and the Marines deployed both an outer perimeter and an inner fire team, ready for anything that might issue forth from the pyramid or charge in over the glass plain.
As it happened, nothing did.
It was Jacques that got Kris’s attention.
“There is a door just where Penny said there would be. It does not have a doorknob or anything so prosaic. There are runes carved into the doorway. We’ve got nanos out examining them and the cracks in the rock around them. I think there’s a combination lock here, I just don’t know how to work it yet.”
“Can you slip some nanos through the doorjamb?” Kris asked.
“We’ve tried that,” Jacques replied. “It’s not as easy as it appears. The jamb is mitered. There seem to be several zigs and zags in there. On top of that, it’s electronically active in some way. Anyway, what we’ve tried to slip in there has died before it got very far. I’m trying to squeeze a camera in on a long-necked probe, but we’ve only made it through two zigs. We need a Smart Metal programmer down here to knock something together.”
“Maybe next pass,” Kris offered.
Behind Jacques, a science team turned a laser loose on the surface of the pyramid’s rocky face.
“Are they getting anything?” Kris asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Jacques answered.
“I can answer that, possibly before your Nelly can,” Professor Labao said, coming up on Kris’s elbow.
“I won’t spoil your report,” Nelly retorted.
“The initial report on the surface rock was not interesting, but the team applied the laser several times. Once they got past the surface contaminants, the results were more than interesting.”
“And they are?” Kris said. The professor, like Nelly, seemed to enjoy stretching out important reports.
“It appears that the granite comprising the pyramid was not quarried on this planet. Based on the ratio of rare earths and isotopes, the mountain it was obtained from is somewhere on the planet we previously studied.”
“And the counterweight Nelly analyzed?” Kris asked.
“It came from this planet. Most likely this very continent. Given enough time, we may identify the mountain range.”
“I doubt we have that much time,” Kris said.
“I agree.”
“So we have a smoking gun and a bullet,” Kris said.
“I would not argue that,” the professor said.
“But why lug all this rock back here and plunk it down in the middle of this mess?” Jack asked with the air of one not expecting an answer.
“That is not a question for science but of human motivation, or alien, as in this case,” the professor said. “I am only too happy to leave messy things like that to the conjecture of witch doctors and shamans like yourselves.”
No doubt, Kris had just received a backhanded, and front-handed, compliment of the highest, no, make that lowest scientific order. She decided that, discretion being the wisest part of both the command and management of eggheads, she should ignore it.
“Hey, we got something here,” Jacques reported from the ground. “Three of the glyphs seem to be moveable. Let’s see if I can push them in and make something happen.”
“But in what order should they be pushed?” Amanda cut in from beside Kris.
“That’s an interesting question,” Jacques answered. “A base-three key is not a cypher that’s very hard to break. Let me see, which one should I push first?”
“Is there one that appears to be the first one?” Kris asked.
“There is one that’s the first on the right side. All it has on it is a sun.”
“They’re into one-man rule,” Kris said. “I’d go with one being important to them.”
“Then one it is,” Jacques said. “I’ve pushed it, and nothing happened, so I guess we’re good. Now which one is next? Honey, you want to suggest one?”
“Don’t you go getting me into this, you lunkhead,” Amanda said. “I’m still stuck in orbit looking at your pictures on a screen. How can I form an informed opinion, assuming we can call what you’re doing an informed action?”
Unfazed by Amanda, Jacques went happily along. “Okay, I’ll try these two.”
A moment later, he was talking again. “That didn’t open up anything. But what don’t you know, no spray of poison gas, either. Maybe they ran out of it fifty thousand years ago?”
“Or maybe they’re saving it for the second mistake,” Amanda put in.
“We’ve all got our space suits on and helmet visors down, dear. We might need to wash ourselves down in the nearest stream, but it can’t kill us,” Jacques insisted
“Don’t worry, Amanda,” Kris said, “the nearest stream is three hundred klicks away. While walking to it, they might meditate on their sins enough to learn something.”
“I heard that,” Jacques said. “Here goes the second try.”
There was a long pause. “Hey, it worked. The door’s sliding up in its track. Hey, that’s good workmanship to be that smooth after all this time.”
“Traps may be working, too,” Jack put in. “Let Captain Hayakawa take over checking the place out.”
“Okay, okay, we’re backing away. No need to prod us with those guns.”
No doubt, Kris suspected, the Marines did indeed need to prod the scientists a bit to get their attention.
Now a simple and large probe, a copy of the surveyor used on the other planet, rolled into the yawning doorway. It trailed a wire tail that carried its report back.
“There’s plenty of electronic interference in there,” Jacques reported. “I don’t know the source of it yet. Oh, that was not nice.”
“What wasn’t nice?” Kris demanded.
“I guess they didn’t forgive us for getting the combination wrong on the first try. Something opened up and our scout dropped into a pit with a whole lot of pointy things designed to maim and wound. The camera’s still working, but that rover won’t be roving anymore.”
“I told you to study that combination more carefully,” Amanda snapped.
“And you were right, darling. Now, the Marines are getting a twin-rotor flyer ready to check the place out.”
The flyer entered the yawning dark maw, trailing a wire to carry its reports back. On the screen, a second window opened up, showing the feed from the flyer’s camera. Progressing down a slight incline, it showed walls covered with carvings, none of which made any sense to Kris. At her elbow, Professor Labao issued orders to his boffins to start the analysis of those markings, along with the entrance glyphs.
The flyer skipped over the hole in the floor where the rover’s lights still showed its place in the pit. The flyer got about six meters past that and suddenly went dead.
“They shot it down!” Jacques said.