“That’s why we thought the place wasn’t as interesting as it first looked.”
“Perhaps, but the fact is that the entire Three Kings is an artificial construct.” Darch saw their stares. “Somebody built them, and this whole thing, and is maintaining it. That’s more than enough down there for a maintenance base.”
“We’re coming up on the wreck,” Randi Queson put in. “We were all excited by it, I remember, since we hadn’t seen all the life on the other two yet. It’s still impressive, though. There! See?”
It did look very much like an artificial structure, but not for humans. It also gave off virtually no power signatures, meaning that it either used a power system unknown to them and therefore unmeasurable or, more likely, it was a derelict from times long past, covered and then uncovered by the shifting sands.
It was a huge ball shape, perhaps three hundred meters across, sticking out of the sand. It was light gray in color, and all over its surface it had short probelike protrusions. A close-up didn’t reveal much more about it, but it did reveal at least one clear breach of the hull or exterior or whatever it was. A jagged hole, half in the sand and possibly anchoring it there.
“That’s been down there a while,” Darch noted. “You can smell it as a long-term derelict, an ancient shipwreck. Sure, you wonder if any of ’em survived and, if so, did they manage to set up something permanent down there, but it’s a long shot. More telling is that it’s there at all, and that there’s good evidence it’s been buried by the sands and winds several times, and maybe baked and thawed as well on the sunward side. Good bait, though, for the curious.”
“Not a bad spot to visit, either, if they’ve gotten the shuttle cleaned up,” Maslovic noted. “If they’re putting that thing there to attract visitors, why not, well, visit?”
“Maybe because it could be a trap?” Murphy suggested.
“Could be. Let’s see… I’ve got full suits for my team, and most of you can fit into them, but Ann, it’s going to be a very loose fit.”
“I’ve had your computerized shops working on modifications as we approached,” the strange woman responded. “I think you’ll find there’s one that’s just my size.”
Maslovic was now positive who he had aboard. Now all he had to do was decide whether or not he liked it. Certainly he felt as if he could handle it.
“Okay, then. Surface team… Might as well make this a political thing; it sure doesn’t seem like we’re going to do battle down there, or that it would do us much good if we could. That makes it me in the lead, Ann of Balshazzar, Cap if you want to try it, and Nagel and Queson of Melchior. Bring one of the stones each but we won’t distribute until we’re away from the ship. The rest stay locked and secure so our little girls won’t have the run of the place while we’re gone.”
“I would like to come as well,” Joshua put in.
Maslovic was surprised. “You joining the team?”
“I am in the service of the one who killed Macouri,” he told them. “Besides, I have nowhere else to go.”
“Okay. That makes a pretty awful military team but a good science and muscle blend. Draw your suits and check your equipment, suit up, and be outside Bay One in an hour. My own team, who are showing really nasty looks at me at the moment, will be backup. We’re not going in blasting here. I have a feeling that this is pretty close to the group whoever it is down there would want invited.”
“Not at all by the book,” Ann muttered. “About what I’d expect of an intelligence man.”
The fit for the suits, including Ann’s, was quite good. Nobody there would have to face the elements, nor go in cold. All also had sidearm weapons, but it was understood that those were a last resort and Maslovic had a cutoff. If anyone got too nervous, he could stop them from shooting.
They decided on the alien spaceship simply because it was so prominent. Anyone who actually landed would be almost forced to check it out and, for that reason alone, it seemed to be the logical place to start.
Nobody said much on the way down. Joshua took it slow and easy on manual and put it down about a hundred meters from the alien wreck, which seemed even more ghostly and bizarre close up.
“Okay, you can expose your stones to the outside,” Maslovic told them. “Let’s see if they act as old Kaspar’s candy and bring the natives for a treat.”
“Yeah, us,” Murphy said gloomily. It was too dark, too barren, and too alien for him.
Queson and Nagel finally got to examine the wreck close up. It was gigantic, and much of the interior that had stayed intact didn’t make a lot of sense, but clearly it was what it appeared to be. What had come in it? How long had it been since they’d crashed here, and where were they or their descendants now? These questions had no obvious answers.
After several hours of surveying the wreck and the surrounding area, though, it appeared that they had guessed wrong.
“We’re going to have to pack it up and move, folks,” Maslovic told them, gathering them around him against the eerie backdrop of the ruined ship. “This is getting us nowhere. I propose we try one of the low cave entrances. There appears to be illumination just inside, so maybe we’ll have to go knocking.”
They all agreed, turned to go back to the shuttle for the move, and stopped dead in their tracks.
How long the creatures had been there it was impossible to say. They didn’t show up as a recognized life-form on any of the instruments, yet they had something of a familiar look. And, Ann noted, they were even smaller than she was.
There were six of them, one for each of the humans it was supposed, and they looked identical.
In one sense, they were humanoid. Less than a meter tall, they stood on two thick trunklike legs with massively oversized feet and they had two arms ending in equally outsized hands, three fingers and an opposable thumb that extended opposite the index finger rather than at the end of the hand. Their heads were hairless balls, with two big, round black dots for eyes flanking either side of what seemed to be a massive nose that began almost at the top of the head and extended down and out to the waist, sausage-shaped but with a number of tiny pits at the end rather than a single large pair of openings. Two outsized floppy ears, one on each side of the head, completed the look, as well as earth-tone tunics and pants, leatherlike floppy boots, and light brown gloves.
Most important, each wore a ring on the middle finger that clearly contained one of the Magi stones.
“Silica based,” Nagel commented, checking his readings. “Definitely not the natives here.”
One of the little creatures stepped out from the others and looked at each of the humans in turn. The huge round eyes captured and reflected the pale light, but there was no question that it was examining each of them in turn. Finally, it raised one oversized gloved hand and, with its index finger, it pointed in turn to several of them. Ann, and Maslovic, Queson and Nagel, and then, after a thoughtful pause, it pointed to Joshua and to Murphy. With a dismissive wave, it made absolutely clear that those were the only ones it wanted, period.
“I wonder what would happen if the squad followed us, no matter what the big-nosed bastard wants?” Maslovic mused aloud.
“I don’t think they’d get very far,” Ann responded matter-of-factly. “Any group or power that can keep several high-tech masses on a world by negating their technology and who can play the kind of games they’ve played so far isn’t likely to be overcome by a show of force. These things, or whoever or whatever they serve, most likely built these three worlds and rearranged the furniture of this less than hospitable solar system to maintain it. I don’t know about the other worlds, but you have no idea how advanced one of the other alien colonies is on Balshazzar. They were nonetheless as helpless as we were.”