“Yells things?” asks Hjarka.
He shrugs. “Like, ‘I knew it’ and ‘that’s why.’”
Sounds like Tonkee. “How does she have the door rigged?” you ask. The female Strongback shrugs. It’s a stereotype that Strongbacks are all muscle and no brain, but a few of them fit that description more than they should.
Ykka gives you another This is your fault look. You shake your head, then climb up to the top step and bang on the door. “Tonkee, rust it, open up.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then you hear a faint clatter. “Fuck, it’s you,” Tonkee mutters, from somewhere farther away than the door. “Hang on and don’t ice anything.”
A moment later there’s the sound of something rattling against the door material. Then the door slides open. You, Ykka, Hjarka, and the Strongbacks climb up—though all of you except Ykka stop and stare, so it’s left to her to fold her arms and give Tonkee the exasperated glare she’s earned.
The ceiling is hollow above the door. The green substance forms a floor, and the resulting chamber is molded around the usual white crystals that jut down from the geode’s rocky, grayish-green true ceiling, perhaps fifteen feet overhead. What makes you stop, your mouth falling open and your mind stuttering from annoyance into silence, is that the crystals on this side of the green barrier flicker and blink, transitioning at random from shimmering images of crystals into solidity, and back again. The shafts and tips of these crystals, which poke through the floor, weren’t doing this outside. None of the other crystals in Castrima do this. Aside from glowing—which, granted, is a warning that they aren’t just rocks—the crystals of Castrima are no different from any other quartz. Here, though… you suddenly understand what Alabaster meant about what Castrima is capable of. The truth of Castrima is suddenly, terrifyingly clear: The geode is filled with not crystals, but potential obelisks.
“Flaking rust,” one of the Strongbacks breathes. This speaks for you as well.
Tonkee’s junk is everywhere in the room: weird tools and slates and scraps of leather covered in diagrams, and a pallet in the corner that explains why she hasn’t been sleeping in the apartment much lately. (It’s been lonely without her and Hoa, but you don’t like admitting this to yourself.) She’s walking away from you now, glaring over her shoulder and looking distinctly irritated that you’ve arrived. “Don’t rusting touch anything,” she says. “No telling what an orogene of your caliber will do to this stuff.”
Ykka rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be touching anything. You’re not allowed in here and you know it. Come on.”
“No.” Tonkee crouches near a strange, low plinth at the center of the room. It looks like a crystal shaft whose middle has been chopped out: You see the (flickering, unreal) base growing from the ceiling, and the plinth is its (flickering in tandem) continuation, but there’s a five-foot section in between that’s just empty space. The plinth’s surface has been cut so smoothly that it gleams like a mirror—and the surface stays solid, even as the rest of the shaft flickers.
At first you think there’s nothing on it. But Tonkee is peering at the plinth’s surface so intently that you walk over to join her. When you hunker down for a better look, she glances up to meet your eyes, and you’re shocked at the barely disguised glee in hers. Not really shocked by that; you know her by now. You’re shocked because this high gleam, plus the new undisguise of her clean, short hair and neat clothing, transforms her so obviously into an older version of Binof that you marvel again you didn’t see it at once.
But that’s unimportant. You focus on the plinth, even though there are other wonders to behold: a taller plinth near the back of the room, above which floats a foot-tall miniature obelisk the same emerald color as the floor; another plinth bearing an oblong hunk of rock, also floating; a series of clear squares set into one wall bearing strange diagrams of some sort of equipment; a series of panels along the wall beneath them, each bearing meters measuring something unknown in numbers that you can’t decipher.
On the big plinth, though, are the least obtrusive objects in the room: six tiny metallic shards, each needle-thin and no longer than your thumbnail. They are not the same silvery metal that makes up Castrima’s ancient structures; this metal is a smooth dark color dusted faintly with red. Iron. Amazing that it hasn’t oxidized away over all the years of Castrima’s existence. Unless—“Did you put these here?” you ask Tonkee.
She’s instantly furious. “Yes, of course I would enter the control core of a deadciv artifact, find the most dangerous device in it, and immediately throw bits of rusty metal on it!”
“Don’t be an ass, please.” Though you did sort of deserve that, you’re too intrigued to be really annoyed. “Why do you think this is the most dangerous device in here?”
Tonkee points to the beveled edge of the plinth. You look closer and blink. The material is not smooth like the rest of the crystal shaft; on the edge it has been heavily etched with symbols and writing. The writing is the same as that along the wall panels—oh. And they are glowing red, the color seeming to float and waver just over the surface of the material.
“And this,” Tonkee says. She raises a hand and moves it toward the plinth’s surface and the metal bits. Abruptly the red letters leap into the air—you don’t have a better way to describe what’s happening than that. In an instant they have enlarged and turned to face you, blazing the air at eye level with what is unmistakably some sort of warning. Red is the color of lava pools. It is the color of a lake when everything in it has died except toxic algae: one warning sign of an impending blow. Some things do not change with time or culture, you feel certain.
(You are wrong, generally speaking. But in this specific case, you’re quite right.)
Everyone’s staring. Hjarka comes close and lifts a hand to try to touch the floating letters; her fingers pass through them. Ykka moves around the plinth, fascinated despite herself. “I’ve noticed this thing before, but never really paid attention to it. The letters turn with me.”
They haven’t moved. But you lean to one side—and sure enough, as you do this the letters pivot slightly to remain facing you.
Impatiently, Tonkee pulls her hand back and waves Hjarka’s hand out of the way, and the letters flatten and shrink back into quiescence along the plinth edge. “There’s no barrier, though. Usually in a deadciv artifact—an artifact from this civilization—anything truly dangerous is sealed off in some way. There’s either a physical barrier, or evidence that there was once a barrier that’s failed with time. If they really didn’t want you to touch something, you either didn’t touch it or you’d have to work pretty damned hard to touch it. This? Just a warning. I don’t know what that means.”
“Can you actually touch those things?” You reach toward one of the bits of iron, ignoring the warning this time when it springs up. Tonkee hisses at you so sharply that you jerk back like a child caught doing something you weren’t supposed to.
“I said don’t rusting touch! What’s wrong with you?” You clench your jaw, but you deserved that, too, and you’re too much a mother to deny it.
“How long have you been coming in here?” Ykka’s crouched next to Tonkee’s sleeping pallet.
Tonkee’s staring down at the iron bits, and at first you think she hasn’t heard Ykka; she doesn’t answer for a long moment. There is a look on her face that you’re starting not to like. You can’t say you really know her any more now than you did when you were a grit, but you do know that she isn’t the grim sort. That she is grim now, the tightened muscle along her jawline making it stand out more than you know she likes, is a very bad sign. She’s up to something. She says to Ykka, “A week. But I only moved in three days ago. I think. I lost track.” She rubs her eyes. “I haven’t slept a lot.”