Nightfall_at_Algemron

"Great gods," he whispered.
Slowly he stepped into the great echoing open space that lay at this end of the tunnel. It was as if the builders of this place had set out to make a tribute to some great natural cave, but with less accidental formation and more grace. Formations of every kind hung from the ceiling and grew up from the glassy floor.
"What a wonder the world is," Enda breathed as she came out to stand near Gabriel.
He had to agree with her. This was nothing like the straightforward geometrical precision of the facility on Danwell—so little like it that Gabriel started wondering if the same species had created both these places. At this end of time, judging from just the evidence, there was no way to tell, but these people, whoever they had been, were most definitely artists. This might be a weapons depot or energy-manufacturing center, but it was also a work of art.
Endless spires and spines of crystal reared up here, acre-broad sheets of reflecting glass as polished as water lay scattered beneath the glittering sky. Glass cascaded down from ceiling and walls in a hundred shapes—curtains, spears, ropes, liquid flows caught as if frozen in the act of splashing, some with drops actually still hanging in midair as if caught by a fast imager. In reality, the drops were held in place by hair-thin threads of glass as strong and hard as steel. There were stalactites and stalagmites of the glass, but not simply dripping straight down. No, nothing so commonplace. They were mock chandeliers, swags, and twisted and braided cables of glass woven through one another, wound around pillars and posts of glass in cream and green and glowing rose. There were streams of cabling on the floor, like frozen serpents, which he looked at and had trouble swearing hadn't just moved. Up high near the shining ceiling, in shadows that dwelled there despite the softly glowing surroundings, there were tiny glints of light, and Gabriel looked up and couldn't swear that they weren't eyes, watching. He found he was having trouble just standing still and being there, for he didn't think he had ever seen a place more beautiful or more terrible. The beauty spoke for itself; the terror was because the makers were all gone.
The same thing will happen to us, Gabriel thought. No matter how successful we may be as a species, sooner or later time comes for us all. Your sun goes nova or dies of old age. Your planet goes cold and
loses its atmosphere. Things run out of steam, give up, kill each other off.
All around him he thought he could hear a faint sound in the air, like chimes, sad notes colluding in a minor key, melancholy and melodious, endlessly resigned. Deep they made the resting place. Subtle they wrought it, strong to bear the years, wise to do their work, but they are gone, all gone. Gone a long time now.
In the middle of the sad song, Gabriel's head turned as he heard the delicate tickle-tickle-tickle sound of little feet running on glass.
Those were eyes, he thought.
The source of the sound came out from behind a pillar of glass and looked at them. Then another one came out, and another. And another, and another.
They stood about a meter high. The bodies had thirteen segments, each one legged in triplicate, the legs staggered at one-hundred-twenty degree intervals so that when they moved they gave the impression that glittering crowns were coming toward you. The central segment had a ring of six glowing eyes and huge mandibles that worked together softly all the time. Slowly they surrounded the group.
Arachnons.
"Gather together and don't do anything sudden," Gabriel said softly. "We haven't damaged anything. Even if they're controlled, they may let us pass."
"If they're not controlled?" Helm asked through clenched teeth.
There was no answer to that. Gabriel shook his head and for the moment just watched the arachnons circling them.
Slowly they began to press in. Helm cocked the stutter cannon. "Don't, if you can help it," Gabriel said. "Don't! Really, Grawl, I mean it!" The weren glared at him, growling. "This is a not a time for misplaced sentiment!" "Whatever it is, it's not misplaced. Just trust me on this!"
They were pushed together as the arachnons pressed in closer. Some of the creatures were already lifting those razory claws, raking at the group as they were pushed closer together still.
"Don't let them hit you," Gabriel said, "especially with the acid, but stay out of their way! It matters."
Then one of them leaped at Gabriel, all its claws outstretched.
Shit! There was nothing to do. Gabriel lifted the pistol, let the creature have it right between the eyes, then threw himself to one side. From behind him, a roar of other shots broke out. There was nothing left when Gabriel scrambled to his feet but a scattering of dry shards and glittering broken bits.
He stared at the remnants then looked down the long corridor reaching into the darkness of the cliff.
"Well, so much for not breaking anything," he said softly. "Now what?"
The other arachnons stood still and watched them. Gabriel clutched the stone, trying to feel about for some hint as to what to do next.
Nothing.
Come on, he said. I don. 't want to hurt you or any of these. I was told to come here. I came. Now what?
A little shuffling movement came from the arachnons. All those eyes were dwelling on Gabriel now. Is it just me, he thought, or is the expression changing?
Two of the arachnons standing between Gabriel and the far end of the cavern drew aside, slowly, leaving a ga p.
"That looks like a hint," Gabriel said.
He stepped forward slowly, watching the arachnons. They watched him, but they made no move to hinder him. "All right," Gabriel said. "Let's go this way."
"I'll just play rear guard," Helm said, looking at the arachnons less than kindly as the others went on behind Gabriel.
They continued through the cavern, the arachnons coming close behind but never nearer than a meter or so. The ambient lighting of the place began to trail off in this part of the cavern, and increasingly Gabriel had to slow down, choosing his path between the glass constructs standing up from the floor. Twilight fell around him until only the upstanding slabs and twisted pillars of glass glowed. and he suddenly caught sight of a dark shadow reflected in one slab of crystalline glass as he passed it. Human once, the figure was now green-hided, armored in glowing-veined armor, clawed, and hunchbacked. Kroath! Kroath here in the darkness—!
Gabriel lifted his pistol, horrified, then caught a motion from another side in another slab of glass. A smaller kroath this time, thin-armed, frail, small, but twisted and terrible. Something about the way the head armor was constructed raised the hair on his neck.
Then Gabriel suddenly knew what he was seeing: that strange image that had occurred to him long ago, of Enda as a kroath. He had rejected it violently then. He did the same now, realizing that this moment was the origin of the image, and that a shattered fragment of it had somehow reflected back into the past, into his mind.
"Cut it out," Gabriel said under his breath, trying to calm his breathing down. "I'm not interested."
But someone was. Suddenly the place was full of reflected images, moments of old fear, old pain. The dripping, glassy cold of the glacier on Epsedra, battle after battle with the little ball-bearing kroath fighters, the VoidCorp cruisers bearing down on them at Danwell, the horror of the tangle inside Major Norrik. Again and again, the terrible flower of fire as the shuttle blew up, taking the ambassador and Gabriel's friends with it.
Stop it! Gabriel cried inside him, clutching the stone as all around him in the crystalline interfaces old dreads and new ones played themselves out. I'm not interested. They're all gone, all over with. These are illusions!
The reflections surged toward him, faces twisting with pain and rage, fire and smoke and energy bolts rising around them, and Gabriel lost his temper. " Stop it!" he yelled.