hard–”
“We’re here,” said Olivia’s voice in their helmets. “Standby for a drop.”
After few seconds of decompression, another hatch opened behind them. Their way to Timor was open.
“Team, you ready?” asked Ailios. Luthis nodded and Faragar growled. “Okay, let’s do this.” And all three dropped down toward the surface, cables uncoiling as they go.
Ailios turned his head back to look at the temple. Gods, he thought, Cyons really hate the ancients. Round walls had collapsed in massive craters. The entrance pit next to the satellite dish was caved in while the dish itself was riddled with holes. Pieces of concrete and metal was strewed everywhere in the perimeter.
“How do we get in?” Luthis asked as they kept coming down.
Ailios turned his body sideways, the cable rubbing on his suit. His eyes moved around the temple, searching. “You see that pillar over there? The tall one with the inscriptions?” He pointed his finger down, behind the ruined temple.
“The metal frame in the middle?”
“No, that used to be a satellite dish,” you idiot. “The one behind. Over there.”
“Oh, that one. What about it?”
“Nothing, I just wondered if you see it.”
Luthis scoffed. It brought a smile on Ailios’s face.
“No, seriously, the pillar is the place we’re looking for. The ancients had secret entrances all over the place, as the archeologists love to call them. They marked them with these pillars. However, I think they were not entrances, but exits.”
“Exists?” echoed Luthis. “Why do you think they were exists?”
“Because you use them when things get ugly.”
All three landed on soft, dusty ground. They quickly detached their cables and watched them pull back into the ship.
Okay, team leader – said Olivia in Ailios’s head – From now on we’ll be using telepathic communication. We don’t want any Cyons intercepting our transmissions.
Okay – Ailios said in his head – How does it work?
Just think about me when you need me and I’ll be down there in a heartbeat – she replied.
Oh, I’m thinking about you all right, thought Ailios, but he tried to keep that thought to himself; though, unsuccessfully.
Think about me when you truly need me – she said.
Ailios looked up and waved at his yellow dolphin as it took flight away from the moon.
The terrain turned uneven and rocky and full of debris as they started for the pillar. For once Ailios was thankful that Cyons didn’t use projectile weapons like his own kind. He imagined walking around unexploded bombs – it would be dreadful.
But one step at a time, they reached their destination. The pillar was way taller now that they stood in front of it, its long shadow cast over them. Ailios made a rough estimate that the shadow stretched for at least a hundred meters. A tall son of a bitch.
“What now?” asked Luthis. “Do we pray?”
“Yes,” Ailios said. “But the thing is, it only works if a mover prays, not me and not Faragar.”
“You’re not serious,” said Luthis. “Are you?”
“Oh, I am. Every time I broke into temples this way, I had a mover with me to pray. He got rewarded nicely afterward.”
“But you said you worked alone.”
“After I get in. Not before.”
Luthis hesitated. “I don’t even know the words. I’m not religious.”
“I’m sure they’ll come back to you. It starts with: Mighty Gods of old … But you need to sing it.”
“Sing?”
“Mhm.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am very serious.”
Luthis hesitated some more.
“Look, you want your freedom back or not?”
Luthis cleared his throat. “Mighty Gods of old, who… who watch over us. Give us strength and power, and we shall… we shall rid this world of Cyons. Give us wisdom and knowledge and we shall rise again. Glory goes to you, oh mighty ones … I can’t remember the last part.”
Ailios smiled. “I didn’t know you could sing so badly,” he said.
“Now what? I don’t see anything happening?” said Luthis.
“Of course not. I need to open the door first.” Ailios kneeled before the stone.
“What? You said it would open with a prayer!”
“I did. But I don’t see the door opening.” Sucker!
The pillar suddenly started shaking. Ailios stood up and pulled back few steps. His eyes were fixed on this massive thing quivering in front of him. He knew if it fell down he would have no way to outrun it. He only had to choose the right side to avoid the pillar crushing him like a bug. He looked around and then he noticed something. Luthis’s arm was in the air. His angry face was clenched behind the visor of his helmet. He’s trying to move the stone, Ailios realized.
“Faragar,” he said. Faragar turned and slapped Luthis. It wasn’t a hard slap. In fact, it was the slowest-moving slap Ailios had ever seen, but it dropped Luthis on the ground. The pillar stopped shaking.
Faragar crossed his arms. He said, “Behave.”
Ailios then went to work. He kneeled and started digging through the sand and then digging some more until finally he reached a gray metal box the size of his two hands put closely together.
Faragar moved closer. “What is that?” he asked.
Ailios swiped his hand over the metal surface and pushed a tiny switch up. “This, my hard-slapping friend, is a keypad.” Ailios opened the box. On the inside twelve squares lay silent. Ailios leaned closer to see the symbols over the squares better. But even with his eyes closed he knew which combination to press. He reminded himself to be careful, though.
His senses were now focused only on his fingers as he pushed the squares down. He was looking for a faint click, so in airless environment he had to make sure he felt it under the gloves.
“How do you know which squares to press?” asked Faragar.
“Some call it trial and error, Faragar, but I call it intuition.” Once he pressed the final square a slight movement shook the ground beneath their feet. The dust started jumping up and down, vibrating, almost like a dust over a drumhead after a hard beat. Ailios stood up as the door in the ground opened, taking dust in like a waterfall in slow motion. “There,” he said to Luthis who pushed himself on his feet. “Thanks for the prayer.”
Luthis made a grimace, but he didn’t dare say anything. Not with Faragar standing next to him.
The way inside was tight, and dark. Luckily, Ailios had cat’s eyes, and it seemed Faragar had them as well. Only Luthis complained about the darkness.
“Your eyes will adapt,” said Ailios, but he was certain that Luthis didn’t believe him anymore, not after the prayer thing back there.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Luthis. “I have a flashlight.” Two beams of light extended from his helmet. It made Ailios squint for a moment.
Ailios turned to see how Faragar behind them was doing. He was stooped, careful not to bump his head on the low ceiling.
“What are we looking for?” Faragar asked when he saw Ailios turn.
“Anything that might tell us where these non-humans are hiding.”
“That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” said Luthis.
“Yeah,” said Ailios, “and no one asked for your opinion.” Ailios could feel how the mover was getting angry again, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
Luthis was so damn frustrating – he was even worse than Friseal.
You’re a team leader, the good guy in Ailios’s head reminded him. You need to make sure they listen to you. “Okay, Luthis, maybe it’s not the brightest plan ever, but it’s the best I have. And be grateful for it because it’ll keep your head on your shoulders for the time being. Unless something kills you down there.” Which wouldn’t be bad, but …
After a while they were inside a room that seemed to be domed once. Now the closest word would be ru
ined. All three had to crawl out of pieces of walls with ancient symbols stenciled on them, and then walk sideways hard-pressed on the remaining walls, careful not to fall into dark pits. Eventually they came under a safe spot.
“Okay, search for anything that looks suspicious to you,” said Ailios.
“I’ve never been into a bloody temple before,” said Luthis. “Everything is damn suspicious to me.” He kicked a fist-sized rock on the floor. It took a slow flight in the distance.
“Look for dead bodies,” said Ailios, remembering the five hundred non-humans that infested the last temple. Maybe they would be of any use, if there were any. Besides, Major Ailig said they sent a team of archeologists. Maybe some of them are under this rubble.
“Do I look like a gravedigger to you?”
No. You look like an idiot, thought Ailios, but didn’t say it. He needed his team to obey him, not trying to kill him. “Then do whatever you like,” Ailios said. “Just don’t stand there.”
Luthis scoffed and then turned around to find some amusement of his own.
Ailios walked behind a half-smashed computer, and he kneeled just like he did the last time when he was hiding. He tried to copy his moves so that the trapdoor would open again. He crawled across to a large chunk of metal that had fallen and smashed another computer under its weight. He stopped there, but nothing seemed to happen. Maybe I should ask Luthis for another prayer. Ailios smiled on the thought, but he was frustrated at the same time that his lead ended here.
“Team leader,” Faragar called. “Look what I found.” He had a piece of cyon metal dangling from his huge hand. Whatever it was before was now unrecognizably deformed. “It must’ve been someone important. It has gold in it.”
Gold. For a moment Ailios’s eyes shone, he could feel them. He took the piece from Faragar’s hand and studied it. “It looks like a hand,” said Ailios. The thumb and the index fingers were missing, the other three were smashed but they definitely reminded Ailios of someone’s hand. Someone important. “We’re taking it with us.” We can melt it and take the gold. The military isn’t paying us anyway. Ailios stashed the hand in a bag he took out from his leg pocket and gave it to Faragar for safekeeping. He turned at the computer and when he made a step he felt the ground shake. There are no earthquakes here. And then he remembered the shaking of the pillar above – It was Luthis! Ailios rushed over a large piece of ceiling that had separated the room in half, and found Luthis on the other side lifting rocks by waving his hands down and up and sideways.
Luthis turned to him. “Now there’s something suspicious, team leader,” he said with a venomous note to his last words.
Under a piece of ruble lay a heavily deformed Cyon body. His legs were gone. The midsection was smashed. One arm was just wires, the other gone from the elbow down. The skull was badly damaged, blackened and dented. The lower mandible was gone. Remaining locks of silver hair covered one eye that was a dark hole with a wire hanging out. The other eye was a faint red shine of a ruby. Half his body was silver-coated. Gold, silver … not bad.
“It seems alive,” said Luthis.
Ailios rocked the skull and talked very slowly, “Hey. Can you hear me?” He knocked on it and then waved in front of the eye. The eye seemed to focus on his hand, but the mandible was gone, he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to. Ailios then tried the few words in Cyon he knew. “I am Ailios. Gold. No weapons.” The eye shone brighter for less than a second, as if he understood what Ailios’s moving lips said, before it turned faint again.
Luthis kneeled next to Ailios. “His heart is smashed. See the blue thing over there? It’s leaking. He’s as good as dead. May I smash his head?”
“No. We’re taking him with us.”
“What?” said Luthis. He stood up. “Did you just say we’re taking him with us?”
Ailios didn’t reply. He called Faragar to help him.
“He’s a bloody Cyon! I would gladly let him die here, slowly like he deserves.”
“Good thing you’re not in charge then.” To Faragar, “Put him in the