There were, at least, some pictures along the wide hallways and in many of the large offices and stores that were built, multilevel, around the control center. Both Queson and Nagel had expected to see exotic faces in some kind of ancient-looking cultural garb, but the fact was, the folks looked pretty ordinary. Beaming faces, mostly dark complected but with Oriental cheeks and eye structure rather than Indo-European, making it likely that the original guess was right. Something like Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, or perhaps Malayan was at the root of these people’s ancestry. They certainly had a sameness about their racial features that made it clear that they were either picked to a standard or had remained cohesive when having children long before these people had come here.
“Vegetarian, most likely, and not enamored of synthetic foods,” Nagel guessed from the three-dimensional photos that seemed so real. “That would explain the huge greenhouses. Funny, most of these racial-purity-type colonial projects were also selectively technophobic; I don’t see any signs of that here.”
Queson nodded. “A couple of the pictures show they had babies the old-fashioned way, and I don’t see much attention to livestock. You’re probably right. Some form of Buddhist sect, I would suspect. Affluent, well educated, setting up a colony so they could practice their specific faith, whatever offshoot it was, and keep away from the culture polluters while enjoying the benefits of modern life where it didn’t conflict. Makes sense.”
“Except they chose this hole. As you say, they clearly had money, so what the hell were they doing picking a cold, rotten desert like this?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Queson replied. “They were here for the long haul, and for religious and cultural reasons. They probably took it because nobody else wanted it, and it had enough underground water and a heavy enough atmosphere to sustain them. Their ancestors way back not only lived in dense jungles but in valleys carved by glaciers from mountains eight or more kilometers high. If they indeed had any Laotian blood in them, then their distant ancestors picked up and walked ten thousand or so kilometers from ancient southeast Asia on Old Earth up to the frozen Arctic, across frozen ice bridges eighty kilometers across, and down another two continents back when they were hunting prehistoric mammals with spears. These people were technological enough to grow fat and lazy without a challenge. This was it.”
“Yeah, I’ll take fat and happy to dead and consumed,” Nagel commented. “Look at where their faith and high dreams took ’em. What a waste.”
“Maybe. I’m reading fifty-two percent power, though. If we can’t find the light switch and get going, we’re going to wind up a kilometer short and with no protection.”
Nagel nodded and stepped up his pace. It was getting easier and easier to just ignore the density of empty clothes and just make sure you didn’t slip on them.
They’d had this discussion before, and would again. Nagel believed in nothing but the moment, and attaining by any means available the wealth to indulge every pleasure; he thought it was stupid to do anything else. The universe, after all, was going to end someday, going to go out and die, and then everything, everybody, and the sum total of all human achievement would be absolutely meaningless. To him, and many of the others, such a philosophy was the easy way to justify just about anything they felt like doing.
Scavenging dead worlds was a way to accumulate great wealth without having to dig mines or commit more daring robbery against the living. It could be dangerous, as now, but never once in his experience in the salvage business had a dead man ever shot him.
Randi Queson stopped and shined her light at a doorway that was, like almost all of them, wide open. It had been standard procedure when the power went down for all the locks to spring open and all the doors to slide open unless tagged specifically for security. That way, you could always get out. It was a much larger entrance than most of the others, and had all sorts of signs and pictographic symbols as well.
“Jerry, I think we’ve found the control center.”
He came over and looked. As with many of the important stores and offices in this part of the complex, there were lots of empty suits stacked up around the doors. Clearly there had been great panic at the last moments here, but it was also clear that they knew what was coming for them. It seemed clear, from the direction of most of the clothes, though, that whatever they were running from had begun right around here.
“Everybody’s running away,” she noted, feeling a tightness in her chest and breathing very heavily.
She could hear his breathing, too, and took some comfort that it was as labored as her own.
They walked cautiously into the control center office. It was a large place, clearly the center of administration as well as the central power plant. The inner wall, however, was transparent, a shielded window down to the power plant and reactors far below. She checked her suit monitor. Radiation was well within tolerance, although higher than it should have been.
The window area, and the whole inner office complex, was also notable for its near lack of empty clothing. Whatever had come for them, they were running from it, running from right here.
The control board and manual override stations were still active, as they’d suspected. The screens were dark, but unless they’d shorted out or been damaged somehow they should come on when an operator assumed control. That would not only give them a view of the power plant area at various levels but also access to the bank of screens on the inside corridor wall that probably would allow them to examine any greenhouse or, perhaps, any public area in the whole complex.
“I wonder how long this stuff’s been sitting here, running on standby?” Nagel mused. “Maybe a century or more. Control, can you still get us?”
“We’re all eyes and ears, Jerry,” An Li’s voice responded. “Give us a scan of the panels and the control system. We’ll see if we can access an operator’s manual. They almost certainly used a standardized system, and if we can translate the stuff for you then we can show you how to operate it. Both of you, do as much scanning of hardware as you can, will you? And if you see any manufacturer name, symbol, serial or model number, or whatever, focus in.”
They did as instructed, and finally An Li called, “That’s enough. They’re Kalnikoff Systems units, almost certainly fifteen oh fives. That makes the power station almost certainly a colonial model five five six three Kaminichi Power Systems unit. Yes. No problems. And in that condition we might be able to do a ton of salvage. That’s fairly recent stuff for colonial kits, no more than a hundred and five years. You just can’t get those any more. Expensive to chip it out and move it, but it might well be sold in place. Then it would be the buyer’s problem.”
“Quit adding up the hypothetical profits and let’s see if we can get some of it back on line!” Queson snapped. “The sooner we do, the sooner we can access and upload the records and find out what the hell happened here. And the sooner Jerry and I can get out of here and back to warm food, showers, and a bed!”
“Only one? Hmmm… Never would have thought it of the two of you.”
“Can the comedy,” Nagel grumbled. “Something killed a shitload of people here, and I’d really like some confirmation that it isn’t going to suddenly show up and dissolve me too.”
“All right, all right. Are you sure you want to bring it back on line, though? Somebody deliberately shut this thing down before they panicked, or maybe while everybody was panicking. Sorry, but if something’s shown up and started eating or dissolving folks right and left, do you take the time to lock the door and turn out the lights before you run like hell?”