Nightfall_at_Algemron

There was a roar of laughter at the other end. "Here? There's nothing here!"
It was a comment that Gabriel had heard before from natives of other planets, sometimes with even less reason than someone on Ohmel.
"We'll take a look at the outbound list early next week," Gabriel said. "I'll have it ready for you."
He closed down comms as the infotrading system finished its business and displayed the NO DATA TRANSFER. BEGINNING PURGE CYCLE heralds.
"It is kind of funny," Gabriel said, "to come straight back here."
"Maybe," Enda said. After a moment she added, "You are thinking that you know perfectly well why the stone did not bring you here the last time?"
"Mmm, partly, I was too tired, and I think I was still in shock. Can you go into shock after being telepathically wrung out?"
"You saw me do it on Danwell," Enda said. "For a human new to mindwalking, it strikes me as entirely likely." She looked out the front ports at the dark. "For my own part it was such a strange experience, that contact, and then the interfacing with the great machine down there in the old facility. I am not sure that I came away from it entirely unchanged, either."
"It wasn't so much that I was thinking of," Gabriel said. "After the little edanweir looked into me."
"If 'after' is the word we are seeking," Enda said. "Causality took some bending that morning, as did my perception of the flow of time—yours, too, I think. We were both sifted, both examined, by whatever that presence was that looked at you through the child." She got up, stretched, and looked at Gabriel speculatively. "Otherwise I am not sure that I could have done what I did with the device that spoke so forcefully to me regarding its use. What it was bending—time or space or both—I am not sure, but I was permitted its use because we two were linked. Or rather"—she headed down the hall—"because I was linked to you and therefore permitted access."
Gabriel turned that over in his mind. "Are you all right?" he said. "The stone—"
"Believe me," Enda said, "I know. Its pressure against me is increasing all the time. I am maintaining, for the moment, mostly by trying to be very quiet of mind, but we are moving among uncertainties here. I do not know what will happen if the stone becomes much more active." Enda went down to her quarters to change into wanner clothes. "I would say this. You should be careful with yourself, for any attempt by the rest of us to investigate these places without you and the stone is likely to be disastrous. Just a feeling I have. The excitement of exploration is heady stuff, and I would not attempt to deprive you of it, but do not get yourself killed in the exploration we are about to undertake. If you do, we are all likely to experience something similar."
Gabriel swallowed hard and went for his coat and breather gear.
They met up with the other four, all of them wearing heavy coats and the breathers, which were sufficient for Ohmel's springtime. Together, they all went out to dinner at a place not nearly as good or as fancy as the one on Algemron—rough stone walls, a textured composite stone floor, rustic chairs and tables and a limited menu—but the atmosphere was much better.
"Actually," said Helm, "if you came here in the winter, you could say that it didn't have any atmosphere." There were groans. "Terrible," Enda said. "Helm, you should be ashamed."
"Factual correction," Delde Sota said: "does have atmosphere in winter, but mostly lying on the ground."
More groans. "Better poor meal in comfort than stalled ox in military dictatorship," Delde Sota said.
"Sssh," said Enda, for "dictatorship" was not a word one used too loudly on Ohmel. There were many who would take offense at its use since it was an accurate description of the present regime. Lady Kfira Ngongwe was a true daughter of her house, meaning that as far as she was concerned she owned Ohmel and had no intention of simply letting the Concord waltz in here and liberate the place.
"Why is the ox stalled?" Grawl said. "I thought it was an animal. Is it a some kind of biomachine?"
This devolved into a long discussion of Standard idiom and many more bad puns, which Helm and Enda both considered a high form of humor. When the meal was done and they were nursing the last of their drinks, they began making quiet plans for the next day.
"It is good to have a guide with a 'detector' of sorts," Enda said. "At least we will not be going into this blindly, not knowing what trouble to expect."
"No," Gabriel muttered. "We're going to get into trouble right away, which will be worse." Helm looked at him sharply. "You didn't mention trouble."
Gabriel laughed. "I didn't think I'd have to. You've got the bestiary. You know what kinds of things live here."
They had all spent some time after that dinner at Helm's running copies of the bestiary through its paces. There were numerous lifeforms known to be associated with Glassmaker sites, some of them believed to be directly associated with the Glassmakers themselves—creatures they either created or altered from others extant elsewhere.
The arachnons were the ones Helm had been most concerned about. Anything that could either rip you apart with synthodiamond claws or spit nitric acid at you if it couldn't reach you was worth taking more than passing note of.
"Yeah, well, I'll be wearing my armor," Helm said, "and I suggest everyone else does the same. Those of us who don't have any, we're going to have to fake something up. Meantime, that's just generalized trouble. Anybody could have that. Anybody sent you any postcards about what to expect?" He glanced at the stone.
Gabriel let out a long breath and replied, "Nothing specific, but Helm, this place is alive. It's like the place on Danwell but bigger. I can tell that from even here, and it's more dangerous. The Danwell site was an untended facility."
"Opinion: could have fooled me," Delde Sota said.
"The machines were somewhat alive, as we reckon things," Gabriel said, "but there was no one there to tend them, no caretakers. This place has those—the stone can tell—and we're going to have to deal with them."
"Will not the stone make that road open to you?" Grawl asked. "What use giving it to you, otherwise?"
"I don't know," Gabriel said. "It worked that way at Danwell." He glanced at Angela. "No telling if it's going to do any such thing here."
She gave him a look.
"Does the stone give any indication of exactly what those caretakers are?" Enda asked.
"If it does," Gabriel said, "it doesn't know how to tell me." Or, he thought, it's refusing to. He shook his head. "I may have to improvise when we get there. Meantime, the best we can do is arm ourselves sensibly, go in carefully, and have the ships handy so we can make a quick getaway if we have to." He looked over at Delde Sota. "One thing, though: the werewisps. I don't think the weather here gets quite as bad as it does on High Mojave, but the nights are still going to get very cold. Are they going to get cold enough to bring the werewisps out in strength? Those things could suck all the power out of a ship in a hurry."
"Assessment: even one or two are strength enough for me," Delde Sota said. "Initial response: borderline situation, as planet is on inward swing, approaching perihelion four months twenty-nine days approximately. Orbital 'spring' indicates nighttime temperatures plus-minus negative thirty degrees C, but no colder."
Helm shivered. "Remind me to get out the woolies." Grawl looked at him. "What is a 'woolie'?" "They're in the Awful Cabin, I bet," Angela said. Helm threw her a look. "As a matter of fact—"
"Ahem," said Delde Sota. "Assessment continues. Temperature may be rather milder in central areas, but worst-case suggests no lower than negative thirty. More realistic suggestion negative fifteen degrees C."
"You won't even notice," Angela said to Grawl.
"I would prefer not to spend nights on the planet surface anyway," Enda said, "if that can be avoided."