Finally, Fian and I picked up two flexiplas cases. Inside were some special gadgets, which were designed to induce electrical currents. If I’d been right about an alien device being temporarily powered up by the solar super storm, this equipment should reproduce the effect. I was having last-minute doubts about that part of my idea, but in a sense it didn’t matter. We’d found something here. It might not be exactly what I’d predicted, but there was something, and that was a merciful relief.
We were ready. Dalmora, Amalie, Krath, and a very reluctant Playdon, left through the portal. Fian and I were left alone in a dark landscape, looking at a hillside where a jumble of rocks and earth were harshly lit by the glaring floodlights. I opened a private circuit to Fian.
‘Last chance to change your mind about coming.’
He laughed and shook his head, so I started climbing up the hill towards the tunnel. The slope was steep enough to make me use both hands and feet, but I made it, stopped at the entrance to look around, and found Fian already beside me. I opened Military command channel.
‘Sensors still clear?’
‘We’re not detecting any active technology, just an abnormally high metal content in the rocks,’ replied Commander Leveque, who was co-ordinating advice and instructions.
I slowly entered the tunnel. The lights on my suit illuminated rock walls on both sides, and I paused to examine a white strip running at head height. ‘What’s that?’
‘It appears to be some sort of crystal,’ said Leveque.
I reached out a finger to touch it, and instantly snatched my hand back. ‘It feels cold! How can something feel cold through an impact suit?’
‘It must be a highly effective conductor of heat,’ said Leveque, ‘though it seems unlikely that’s its primary purpose.’
I made a mental note not to casually prod anything else, and moved on a few steps to where something utterly black blocked my way. ‘That’s not a stasis field is it? It’s black enough, but it doesn’t have the fuzzy effect.’
‘It seems to be a door,’ said Leveque. ‘Sensors indicate it’s a form of glass, with highly unusual properties.’
‘It doesn’t look like glass. What sort of properties?’
‘Unclear. The sensor reports of its physical characteristics are impossible. That may be a failing of either our sensors or our current knowledge. In any case, our optimal course of action is to open the door, rather than break it down or bypass it. There’s a separate area to the right which is probably a control panel.’
‘That’s completely black as well,’ said Fian. ‘Shall I try one of our gadgets?’
Leveque didn’t say anything. If he knew any reason why we shouldn’t, then he’d tell us. I was Field Commander, so the decision was mine.
‘Try it,’ I said.
Fian opened his case, and took out a weird, pyramid-shaped object. He put it on the floor next to the black door. ‘Better back off.’
I wanted to stay, but dutifully did as I was told. If he got in trouble then it was better if I didn’t and was in a position to help. I watched nervously as he twiddled the top of his little pyramid. An area of the black door suddenly glowed in a complex pattern of scrolling symbols and colours, Fian scampered to join me, and we stood there, tensely watching. After two minutes had passed, with no apparent threat, I allowed one of the vid bees in to take a closer look. It was a further minute before Leveque spoke on the Military command channel.
‘Threat team predicted several possible scenarios on entering the tunnel, and this appears to match our highest probability case. Extremely gratifying, since it indicates our improved understanding of the alien methodology. Our society’s level of development is being tested before we’re allowed entry. The displayed pattern is repeating in three phases. The red phase seems to be teaching us their numeric symbols.’
I studied the red phase and could see what he meant. Each symbol had a set of dots next to it, and they made sense up until …
‘They’re working in base eight then,’ said Fian.
That explained what had been worrying me. I was no mathematician, but I vaguely understood the idea of working in base eight. ‘That could mean they had eight fingers instead of ten, or just that they chose not to include thumbs when counting.’
‘Agreed,’ said Leveque. ‘The green phase is showing us a sequence of the first eight prime numbers. Our theory is we’re supposed to continue the sequence in the blue phase, presumably by touching the correct combinations of symbols.’
I was an obsessive historian who’d quit studying maths and science as soon as she could. Fian might be a disappointment to his high achieving family, but he still understood this much better than I did.
‘Captain Eklund had better enter our answers,’ I said.
I stood watching while Fian conferred with Leveque and then stepped up to the panel. He waited for the blue phase to appear and tapped some symbols. The pattern stopped scrolling upwards, and flashed for a moment.
‘First answer accepted,’ said Leveque’s voice.
The flashing stopped and Fian entered the next set of symbols, which was again accepted. After the fifth answer, I started to wonder how long this would take. Fian entered another three answers before the panel suddenly went dark and the door swung open. The aliens worked in base eight, and wanted eight correct answers. Well, that made sense.
I stepped up to the door, and my light showed the tunnel continuing ahead with the same curious horizontal white crystal line. ‘I see another door ahead.’
I walked on down the tunnel, with Fian beside me. We’d taken six or seven steps, when I heard a sound overhead and instinctively looked up. I saw the darkness of the ceiling move, a shaft of light where there shouldn’t be one, and then rocks crashed down on me. My impact suit triggered hard in response, freezing me like a fly trapped in amber, and sending me into the darkness of impact suit blackout.
37
I woke up, unable to move or see. There was the usual second of disoriented panic after impact suit blackout, before I worked out where I was and what had happened. The suit material was clamped tight around me making it hard to breathe, my comms had gone to emergency mode and were squawking Mayday codes, and there was the sound of Colonel Torrek’s tense voice. I remembered the panic when Drago’s fighter was hit by the sphere’s meteor defence, and gasped out a few urgent words.
‘Cave-in. No attack. Repeat, cave-in.’
‘Major Tell Morrath, you’re sure you haven’t been the target of a hostile action?’ asked Colonel Torrek.
‘Perfectly, sir. I saw the ceiling coming down. What comms channels am I speaking on?’
‘You’re on command and auto distress channels, Major Tell Morrath,’ said Leveque. ‘We still have your suit telemetry but we’ve lost sensors and vid bees. What is your status?’
‘I’m buried under rocks,’ I said. ‘The tunnel ceiling was probably weakened by the landslide, and opening that door made it collapse. Captain Eklund, are you conscious yet?’
‘Yes. I seem to be in one piece but buried too.’ Fian’s voice sounded breathless but calm.
I relaxed. ‘Good to hear that. Can someone please patch our comms into site broadcast channel?’ I heard the comms note change as someone did that. ‘This is Major Tell Morrath. What’s our suit pressure looking like?’
‘This is Dig Site Command. Both your suits are green, except for your left leg, Major. That’s green flickering amber, indicating increased pressure from a sharp edge of rock, but still within safety margins. We have a lot of teams volunteering to assist you.’
‘This is Major Tell Morrath. Thank you for the offers. We’ll need to use some non-standard methods on this, because I still don’t want to risk lift beams too close to alien technology.’
‘This is Commander Leveque. Major Tell Morrath is correct to avoid the use of lift beams. The Science teams’ initial analysis indicates the control logic for the doors is encoded into the glass control panel and might be disrupted by
a lift beam.’
I’d actually been worried about the alien technology hurting us, not the other way around, but it would be better not to break anything.
‘This is Colonel Torrek. Although I want to avoid damaging the alien technology, I also want my officers out from under that rock fall. How do we handle this, Major Tell Morrath?’
‘This is Major Tell Morrath. We need the assistance of the correct experts, sir.’ Thankfully, I knew exactly who to call on in this situation. ‘Are Rono Kipkibor and Cassandra 2 listening to this?’
‘This is Rono,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Cassandra 2 are in the volunteer queue.’
‘This is Major Tell Morrath. Captain Eklund and I were injured by a magnetic hazard at an old research laboratory on Eden Dig Site. I believe your team went in there to deal with it, working without sleds or lift beams, so you’re probably the best experts in this situation. I saw light from the floodlights outside as the roof caved in, so we have an opening in the tunnel roof.’
‘This is Rono. If the opening is big enough, we can set up a block and tackle and use ropes to lower people down to you. They may be able to move the rubble aside by hand. If necessary, we can shift larger rocks using ropes and some of the harnesses we normally use for stasis boxes.’
‘This is Major Tell Morrath. Given my current limited view of events, I’d better leave you to organize this, Rono.’
‘This is Commander Tell Dramis. Major Weldon and myself have suited up, and are ready to be lowered down and follow instructions on moving rubble.’
There was a brief argument, with Drago taking the view that the Military should take any and all risks in the universe, and Rono pointing out the archaeologists on dig teams did this sort of thing all the time. The Colonel stepped in and ruled in Drago’s favour, since archaeologists didn’t usually work in tunnels dug by aliens. I stayed out of the argument since I had my own problems. I’d been fine when I came out of impact suit blackout, but now I was starting to panic.
For the next forty-five minutes, Cassandra 2 worked somewhere above me, setting up ropes and pulleys. They sent vid bees down to examine the rock fall, and then lowered down Drago and Marlise. Most of the rubble could be shifted aside by hand easily enough. A couple of large boulders were lifted out in harnesses.
I spent the time fighting my own private war in the darkness. I’d been buried on dig sites lots of times, but it had never been like this. I’d always had a deep inner belief that I couldn’t possibly die because I was only 18.
Now I had the memory of my suit torturing me on Eden Dig Site, and the grim knowledge that I wasn’t invincible, indestructible and immortal. Teenagers could die. Joth had died. Fian and I could die too. Was that what my impact suit phobia was really about? Had it been an excuse to avoid taking risks that might kill me?
I tried telling myself I was a nardle. My suit had just saved me from injury or death in the cave-in, and was my friend not my enemy. Fian and I weren’t going to die here. We were only under a thin layer of rocks, with rescuers already working to get us out.
That didn’t help one little bit, so I lay there, concentrating on just one thing. Keep quiet. I mustn’t say a word, or make a sound, because if I did then I might start screaming. A few times, someone asked a question on the broadcast channel that was clearly aimed at me, but Fian answered them all. He must have guessed I was in trouble after I didn’t reply to the first question, and was saving my neck again the way he always did.
It seemed like a lifetime before I could suddenly see light, and an impact suit clad figure bending over me. It was a Military suit, with a rope harness clipped around it.
‘Just a couple more minutes, Jarra,’ said Drago’s voice. ‘We’ll free you first, and then Fian.’
Most of me was still buried, still trapped, but I could see and I could move one arm, and for some nardle reason that was enough. My panic vanished, like a chimera running from sunlight. If it wasn’t for the rocks still holding me down, I’d have hugged Drago Tell Dramis right then. Chaos take it, I’d have hugged a Cassandrian skunk at that moment.
‘Nice of you to drop in, Drago,’ I said, inadequately.
Time had been crawling by, but now it suddenly accelerated. I seemed to be free within seconds, and helping to dig out Fian.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ he said, when he was able to sit up. ‘Jarra’s usually buried by herself.’
‘You wanted us to be in things together, Fian.’
I heard him laugh in response, and indulged myself by gripping his hand for a moment. Since we were both in impact suits, there was no warmth of human skin against skin, but the gesture was still comforting. I forced myself to be practical after that. ‘What’s left of the roof can’t be too stable. We’d better move from here.’
As we walked along the passageway, there was the hum of a private channel opening, and Colonel Torrek’s voice spoke. ‘Jarra, Fian, I’m talking to you on a private channel, and we’ve arranged a slight problem with the vid bee link so no one else can hear us. I’d like a situation check. Are you in a fit state to continue with this?’
‘I’m fine, sir,’ I said.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Fian.
‘You’re sure, Jarra? Medical reported adrenalin readings from your suit hit orbit level for a while back there. I made sure Commander Tell Dramis and Major Weldon were the ones who dug you out, so if you’ve hit your limit, they can take over. No one need know it was for any other reason than injuries from the cave-in.’
Colonel Torrek was handing me the chance to run away and keep my dignity. I could do that, turn my back on being Military and an archaeologist, and find myself a nice safe life where I’d never be afraid again. Nuke that! I wasn’t running away from one of the most dramatic moments in history.
‘Thank you, sir. That’s not necessary. I’m no Tellon Blaze, so I got a bit scared for a moment back there, but I’m fine now and I want to continue.’
‘Everyone has their moments when they get scared, Jarra. Forgive me for interfering. As I said before, I’m very aware that I drafted you into the Military.’
The hum vanished as the Colonel closed the private channel. I guessed the problems with the vid link were suddenly cured at the same moment.
‘We’ve brought spare lights, sensors and hover belts,’ said Drago. ‘Your lookups should have survived the cave-in, since they’re designed to be shock proof.’
‘What happened to our equipment cases?’ Fian looked around. ‘Oh, you’ve got them.’
‘The cases weren’t damaged,’ said Marlise.
We sorted out our lights and hover belts, then Drago and Marlise wished us luck, went back to clip their harnesses to two dangling ropes, and were lifted upwards through the hole. Fian and I moved on down the tunnel, warily checking the state of the roof. Two replacement vid bees trailed after us, the original ones still buried somewhere under the rockfall.
‘The tunnel seems quite solid again,’ I said.
We reached the next black door, and Fian set up another of his pyramids. This time we were prepared for the glowing patterns to appear.
‘Pi,’ said Leveque, almost instantly. ‘Well, actually they’ve doubled the value of pi, so their formulae would be correspondingly different. Sending you the answer sequence now, Captain Eklund.’
Fian entered the next symbols in the sequence, the door opened, and we moved on towards where a third door awaited us.
‘The doors seem to be equally spaced,’ said Leveque. ‘We can expect two more after this one.’
‘There’s another line of white crystals,’ I said. ‘It seems to be glowing very faintly now. Perhaps it’s a failed lighting system.’
‘Or possibly it’s working,’ said Leveque, ‘and the aliens are nocturnal and require low lighting levels.’
Door three was another mathematical test. Door four took the experts longer to work out, and Fian had to make two attempts to get the sequence right. Leveque’s team seemed to have been happily predictin
g possible mathematical sequences, and this one took them by surprise because it wasn’t just based on physics, but something quite obscure as well. Door five was faster again, and something to do with chemical elements.
I was feeling pretty powered as the fifth door opened. Our position was now directly under the alien sphere. Whatever we’d come to find, would surely be in here. I stepped through the door into a circular chamber. The walls had the usual white crystal line, and in the centre of the room was a pillar, triangular rather than round, and made of the same black glass as the doors.
‘We power it up?’ Fian’s voice sounded oddly breathless.
‘We don’t know how the sphere may respond,’ I said. ‘Do we have a fighter shift in orbit?’
‘They’ve already pulled back to the portals, Major,’ said Leveque. ‘Earth Africa solar array is on standby. You can go ahead.’
Fian did the pyramid thing, and scrolling symbols appeared on the side of the column closest to us. I blinked, took a second look, and strolled slowly around to inspect the three sides. Well, this was different. We didn’t just have one set of scrolling symbols, we had three, one on each side.
‘A final test,’ said Leveque. ‘Clearly rather more complex.’
There was a pause. A very long pause. After ten or fifteen minutes, I started getting restless. Fian was staring at the symbols and working on his lookup. I knew I couldn’t figure it out, so I didn’t even go through the motions of trying.
‘We’re looking at all three sequences, as well as the sequence achieved by combining them,’ said Leveque. ‘None of them match any of our predictions.’
There was another wait of at least twenty minutes before he spoke again. ‘This doesn’t seem to be mathematical. It’s probably based on some sort of science, but we can’t work out what. There is, unfortunately, the possibility it’s a branch of science we haven’t yet discovered.’
Even more time passed. I was bone tired by now, and aching from impact suit bruising after the cave-in. I gave up worrying about looking good for the vid bees, sat on the floor, and leaned against the wall with a sigh of relief. Whether we managed to solve the final test or not, my main worries were over. The alien sphere was obviously here to communicate with us. There wouldn’t be a war. Earth was safe. I wasn’t going to be a laughing stock. I could join the Tell clan and be part of a family.