Chapter 11
Magnus and Telisa finished up a snack while sitting in luxurious, overstuffed chairs that they had found in a lounge or waiting room. They ate from their packs since they trusted their own food more than anything they might find in the complex. Some weird form of elevator music played in the background. Telisa found the notes vaguely familiar but could not associate them with any particular song.
“Let’s keep going,” Magnus said, standing up. “Even if the surroundings change, we might be able to find an exit that just randomly appears somewhere.”
“Okay. Something else useful might appear, too. We need to check everything we see.”
Telisa organized her pack and rose to join him. Magnus prepared his slug thrower and opened the door. It opened into a cave.
“Shit,” he said. He closed the door and exchanged looks with Telisa.
“The cave? We’ve been surrounded by a cave while we ate?” Telisa’s voice conveyed deep dismay.
The caves with those funny blocks made her nervous, as they forced her to think about the death of Jack and Thomas.
“Sometimes I think the cave part is taking over. But we always find more of the regular human complex,” she said.
“It makes me think it’s a trap,” Magnus said. “But there’s no choice. Let’s go.”
They each held weapons ready when Magnus opened the door again. He hesitated, looking out into the caves beyond and letting his eyes get used to the light.
“There’s something there,” he said.
Telisa moved slowly, stepping to one side and peering over Magnus’s shoulder. Some kind of shiny thing stood in the center of the large cave beyond the door. She thought it was some kind of complicated structure made of metal.
“Is it a machine?”
Magnus stood staring straight at it for a few more seconds.
“I think it moved just a little,” he said.
He slowly opened the door all the way so that light from the lounge came out into the redly luminous cave. Telisa gasped when she saw that the thing was golden, a complex creature with many legs that stood as tall as her chest but at least twice as long.
“Amazing,” she breathed, almost afraid to make noise. “It’s… amazing.” She committed the image to her link memory.
Magnus took a slow step forward, bending low on his knees and keeping his slug thrower pointed at the thing.
“It has some kind of machinery on its back,” he said. “There are… things floating around it, hanging in the air.”
Telisa struggled to catch sight of what Magnus was talking about. After a moment she noticed something: a small dark sphere, moving lazily near the front of the creature. As far as Telisa could see, there was nothing attaching it to the thing’s body.
“I hope it isn’t dangerous,” Telisa said, keeping her voice low.
“If it’s what killed Jack and Thomas, it could have killed us by now. It’s just sitting there, though.”
As Telisa’s eyes adapted further to the low red light, she could see more details of the thing before them.
“Uhhh. It’s so… well, alien.”
The creature shone, as if covered in gold plating. It had many long, thin legs, at least a dozen on each side of its body. The central trunk tapered to a sharp point that arced down toward the ground on the far side. It reminded Telisa of a sharp beak, and she wondered if it could be used as a weapon. The other end of the flexible body came up into a round knob a little smaller than a human head. The protrusion was mostly featureless except for what looked like hundreds of bean sprouts gathered underneath it. The top knobby part moved back and forth slowly. One of the many legs in the back twitched a little.
Telisa saw that the top of the long trunk had small silver knobs and rods across it, and a silver coating covered the predominant gold color across parts of the trunk with holes for the legs to protrude. She suspected the silver parts might be its clothes or equipment, because their knobs and rods looked more regular than the smooth curves of its golden parts. When the body flexed, the rods stayed straight. She stored more images of the creature away in her link.
“I can’t tell anything about it. Are there eyes, ears, anything? I don’t even see a mouth,” Telisa said.
“You got me there,” Magnus said. “Another important question is: is this a Trilisk? Is it native to this planet? Does it have anything to do with whoever or whatever killed Jack and Thomas?”
Telisa took a deep breath and tried to relax. “Okay, maybe you keep covering it and I’ll try to communicate.”
“Okay. Good luck,” Magnus said neutrally.
Telisa lowered her stunner and took a slow step forward. The thing was shifting quite often, as if excited or impatient. Telisa had no way of knowing if she could make any assumptions about that or not. Instead she just attached her stunner to her belt and held out her hand.
“Hello. I am Telisa,” she said loudly.
Telisa felt immensely silly, but the enormity of facing a living alien kept her focused. The alien kept its feet planted but it fidgeted again. Telisa watched it carefully. The knob where its head should be was bobbing back and forth in a smooth and repetitive fashion, but there didn’t seem to be a reaction to her greeting.
Telisa pointed at herself. “Telisa,” she said.
Suddenly the creature began rhythmically lifting and dropping its legs in a complex pattern. Telisa whimpered in fear but quickly regained her composure. She glanced at Magnus. He lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Is that how you talk?” she said. The alien gave no visible reaction.
She stamped her foot. The creature stamped its front foot on the opposite side, mimicking her.
“We’re doomed. I don’t even know if it can hear me,” Telisa said.
“Maybe it isn’t intelligent,” Magnus said.
He was still keeping his slug thrower aimed at the creature, although he was standing straighter now.
“It almost has to be. It was waiting here for us, and there’s that machinery on its back.”
“Dogs can be told to guard doors. And they can wear collars with electronics or have links in their brains.”
Telisa looked back at the alien thing again. “Well, it’s possible. But I get the feeling it’s smarter than that. It responded to me, a little bit. You know, with no eyes or ears… it probably can’t hear us.”
“It definitely senses us somehow,” Magnus said, strolling to one side.
The knob on the front end of the creature kept waving side to side, although it seemed to center more on Magnus as he moved. After a moment it pointed back toward Telisa.
“So assuming it is intelligent, should we try and get it to follow us?”
“You want to go look for Terran corridors again?”
“Well, this place is dark, and these glowing blocks are creepy.”
“To us they are. This thing might live here, in this part of the tunnels… still, it’s worth a try. Let’s move away slightly and see if it follows us.”
Telisa faced the thing again. She waved her hand through the air, motioning for the alien to follow.
“Come this way,” she said slowly.
They took a few tentative steps to their right, toward an opening in the stone wall.
The creature waved its front right arm, the thin appendage mimicking Telisa’s arm wave. Then it advanced slowly.
“Its arms each have three stubby fingers or pinchers,” Telisa said.
“We can examine it more closely when we find the Terran corridors,” Magnus said.
“Yes, you’re right,” Telisa said.
She followed Magnus into an adjoining cavern, looking back frequently to make sure the thing was following them. It kept a distance of two or three meters but seemed to be content to let them lead through the caverns.
They moved through several more caverns, but no Terran constructs were apparent.
“Let’s try another direction. We must be deeper into the caves tha
n last time.”
“Remember it all shifts around,” Telisa said. “The Terran part could be gone.”
Magnus shook his head as if he didn’t want to consider that possibility. They shifted directions and traveled for several more minutes, but failed to find any Terran-friendly areas.
“We’re really lost this time,” Magnus said. “I don’t sense any links in range except yours.”
Telisa realized that the thing was waving its arm at her. It made the motion twice and then took several intricate steps away, its many legs working rapidly.
“Looks like it’s our turn to follow,” Telisa said. “If we can’t find the Terran complex anyway, I suppose we have nothing to lose.”
Magnus nodded. “Okay. Maybe it knows the way to someplace interesting.” His face brightened. “Actually, maybe it knows the way out of this place!”
“I hope you’re right!” Telisa said.
Magnus and Telisa followed the alien. They had begun to relax in its presence, gaining confidence that it meant them no harm.
The creature moved slowly at first and then darted forward. It stopped to wait but didn’t turn around.
“It knows we’re back here, and it isn’t pointing that thing that looks like its head back toward us,” Telisa said.
Magnus nodded. “It can sense us, I don’t know how. I think maybe it wants us to move faster. Should we try and run?”
“It might be dangerous… let’s try moving a little faster since it seems to be urging us on.”
Telisa and Magnus broke into a light jog, following the alien. It picked up its pace accordingly, its legs moving at blinding speed. It still easily outdistanced them but always waited at intersections in the caverns to guide them. Finally they jogged into a particularly large cavern, and the thing was waiting for them in the center next to a tremendous stack of the beige blocks. Some of them glowed steadily. Most of them had one or more of the protruding green spikes.
“This is the largest cavern by far,” Magnus said.
Telisa stared at the objects in the center. Stacked on the floor, they rose as high as her head. For the first time, Telisa noticed some warmth emanating from the glowing ones.
Magnus was also examining the clusters in the center. “There’s some other metal in here too. See the silver parts?”
Telisa nodded. She examined the pile closely and realized that many of the clusters were arranged in repeating patterns.
“Look, there are several identical clusters here. Actually, it looks like most of this stack is the same thing replicated over and over.”
“That warmth… we may be in trouble,” Magnus said. “If there is radiant heat, there might be radiation in other wavelengths too. It could be dangerous. Friggin’ radioactive alien project blox.”
Telisa looked at the pile and stepped back. The alien was waiting nearby.
“I guess that might be true. If this creature is more resistant to radiation than we are, it could be dangerous here.”
Magnus and Telisa backed off to the outer wall of the cavern. The golden creature didn’t move after them, but after a moment it moved up to the stack and manipulated one of the clusters.
“What could it be doing?” Telisa asked.
“Look at the cluster it’s holding,” Magnus said. “It’s glowing brighter than the others.”
Telisa saw that the object did get brighter, but then it dimmed to the level of the rest of the cube clusters. Then the alien set it back down with the others.
“This is gonna drive me nuts if we don’t figure out how to communicate,” Telisa said. “Whatever those things are, they aren’t Trilisk artifacts. The fact that this thing—Shiny or whatever we should call it—is using them makes me suspect that they are devices of its race. So this probably isn’t a Trilisk.”
Magnus shrugged. “It’s too hard to say. It could be using these things just like we use some alien artifacts. Maybe it has figured out how to use them.”
The creature came back toward them and stopped about two meters away. It moved its legs rapidly in place in complex patterns.
“We’re in deep trouble on the speech part all right,” Magnus said. “It’s looking more and more like you guessed, that’s how Shiny talks. He stomps his feet. And he’s using complicated patterns of all those legs… so many combinations that we’ll never follow.”
“Yes, that’s gonna be difficult, considering that we have two feet and he has… forty! Forty exactly.”
“I wonder if it’s the vibration of his feet hitting the ground that he senses. It would be either that or sight, and I don’t see any eyes.”
Telisa shook her head. “He could see through his skin for all we know. Let’s do some tests and see if we can find out.”
Telisa took her arm and slowly waved it over her head. Shiny copied her move, his body flexing beneath the silvery coating.
“How can we tell how he senses it?” Magnus asked.
“Keep watching him, we’ll learn what we can,” Telisa told him.
She walked around to the other side of Shiny. The alien didn’t move much, shifting its legs a little. Telisa waved her arm again. Once again, Shiny waved its arm.
“Well, it still notices, even though you’re behind it,” Magnus said.
Telisa walked about twenty paces farther back, still on the other side of Shiny. She waved her arm again, and Shiny matched it.
Telisa thought for a moment. “Wait here. Tell me if he does anything,” Telisa said.
She walked around to the far side of the large cluster of cubes and waved her arm.
“He’s waving his arm,” Magnus said, his voice distant.
Telisa walked back around.
“He can tell I’m waving my arm on the other side of that,” she said.
Magnus shook his head. “Maybe he can hear, I mean maybe he can hear so well that he can hear us move limbs through the air.”
“Or maybe he can see through stuff we can’t,” said Telisa.
Telisa noticed Magnus had started pointing his rifle back at Shiny again. He had a frown on his face.
“Magnus, what’s wrong?”
Magnus shifted uncomfortably. “This reminds me, Telisa. After Jack and Thomas were killed. Remember, we were in that corridor and the wall exploded right next to me from some kind of projectile hitting the other side. I’m pretty sure whoever killed Jack and Thomas could sense through rock too.”