Sargasso of Souls – Session 12
Doing four-hours-on four-hours-off, the days blurred into one, but I was still conscious of the time that was passing. It looked as though we would manage to complete the emergency shelter (which would house twenty) by the 26th, but the excavation of the opposite wall of the canyon would still be ongoing. It wasn’t ideal but under the circumstances I thought we had done pretty well to get that far.
During the next twenty-four hours we would use the majority of the first-shipment of base modules to establish a habitable environment in the emergency shelter. This would become our new base of operations when the Salvation departed to make the rendezvous on the 26th. Six of the construction workers would remain with us on planet and complete the excavations; the rest would depart as originally intended.
On the morning of the 25th the archaeologist, Santino, came to me and asked if he might ascend the canyon wall to gain a better vantage point. He had observed that lightning was consistently striking the same spot on the opposite ridge and hoped that higher up he would have a better view of it. I declined on the grounds that I couldn’t spare any of the security team to escort him. It was the same reason I had not attempted any exploration or reconnaissance on this trip. We were all too tied up supporting the construction of the base. Santino replied that he would stay in sight of the sentries but, knowing how limited visibility was, I doubted this was realistic. Besides if something happened to him we would be forced to go looking for him. What had happened to Bell wasn’t easy to forget. I told him to wait.
A couple of hours later one of my men sent a communication down the fibre-optic link from the main excavation site; Santino had been spotted heading towards the escarpment.
I ground my teeth. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about!
When the Professor returned I confronted him as to what the hell he thought he was doing!?
“Oh come now” he replied jovially. “Really; there was very little danger and besides it was my own neck that I was risking.”
“That may be so but you do anything like that again and you’ll be on the next shuttle out of here” I said. “Are we clear?”
Santino regarded me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes, quite clear” he nodded.
From his manner I suspected he was merely humouring me but I had made my point. He was an intelligent man. I hoped for his sake he had got the message.
Later that day, seemingly in line with my wishes, Santino proposed sending a weather balloon up with a camera attached. It would mean he could view the ridge without going anywhere. Looking at the lightning filled skies I didn’t rate the balloon’s chances, but hey it would keep him out of trouble while he made the attempt!
I told him to run it past Veldin and the two were soon engrossed in their new project; which was fine by me.
The rest of us continued the excavation or made ready for the following day when the rendezvous with the second shuttle would take place.
That evening Santino and Phipps made their attempt. The balloon slowly rose up towards the boiling black clouds, thrashing against its tether as the wind buffeted it back and forth. Briefly it crested the lip of the canyon and then there was a loud bang and a charred hunk of metal plummeted onto the rocks.
Before its demise however, the camera had captured a couple of seconds of grainy footage. There was a cluster of what appeared to be ‘metallic trees’ up on the ridge. It seemed that this was what the lightning was striking. However, the discovery raised more questions than answers.
The next day the Salvation departed, leaving myself, Phipps, Santino, Bauman, Sawyer, Sibanda and six members of the construction team to continue on the surface.
It would take around half a day for the shuttle to complete the rendezvous, discharge the dissipaters and return. During that time we kept busy finishing the excavation work.
As planned, the emergency shelter had become our new base of operations. Inside we had assembled nine of the base modules to provide sanctuary from the harmful environment. It was comfortable enough given the alternatives.
While we were inside scrabbling noises on the roof of the shelter alerted us to the fact that something was in the cavity between the modules and the excavated rock. I sent Bauman and Sibanda in to take a look.
It was pretty cramped for anyone in an EVA suit but they managed to flush out a six-legged, foot-long, lizard-like creature that had been laying clusters of sticky white eggs near some of the vents. It was very agile and had vicious looking claws and teeth, suggesting it was some kind of predator. Bauman bagged it however and christened it a ‘Storm Rat’. The eggs were removed, though Veldin kept some of them for scientific study, and the cavity around the modules was sealed to prevent any further ‘unwanted visitors’ from getting in there.
A few hours later the Salvation came back.
Having noticed a ‘slight bump’ during the landing, Ramsay reviewed the video footage and determined that they had hit something as they touched down. Inspection of the landing gear revealed green viscous material splattered all over it.
I guess a landing wouldn’t be quite the same without Ramsay hitting something!
Bauman and Phipps were keen to go out and see if there was any sign of a body and the cartography team, who had come down on the shuttle, were ready to start mapping the canyon, so it seemed like a good time to send a patrol out.
A short while later, Bauman, Phipps, Butler, Johansson and the two cartographers departed into the swirling dust.
When they returned they brought with them the mangled carcass of one of the large ground-hugging creatures. They had also discovered that we were much closer to the Ancient complex than I had realised. The entrance was only a few hundred yards away.
This was slightly irritating, given our desire to keep the complex a secret, but short of abandoning our plans entirely there had been little option other than to build the base at our current location. Anyway it was a bit late to worry about it now.
On the plus side it made it easier to send out an exploration team, which I was quite relieved to do, since Santino had been pestering me about what he should be doing with his time.
And so, on the morning of the 27th, with the excavations completed and the main base modules being assembled, Professor Santino, Phipps, Bauman, Pietersen and I set off for a return visit to the complex.
When we got there the cave was as I remembered it. Inside the darkness was only broken by patchy illumination from our suit-lights, which also glinted off the smooth surface of the hexagonal crystals that made up the back wall.
Many, perhaps Santino and Phipps included, might have perceived the strange, alien beauty of it, but for some reason, standing there upon the planet, I felt only a nagging sense of disquiet.
Santino took his time inspecting the surface while Phipps stood nearby and fiddled impatiently with his scanner.
The Professor would not be rushed however. Only when Santino was good and ready did he press the raised hexagonal surface that would operate the door mechanism. The iris valve obediently opened.
We were about to go through into the darkness beyond, when Bauman signalled for us to wait. He shone his torch beam towards the floor. In the dust on the other side there was a set of bare human footprints leading down the corridor towards us.
“Maybe that construction guy saw something after all” Bauman commented.
We looked at one another uncertainly for a moment and then cautiously entered.
We passed through the airlock and into the first room. Disturbingly this area was now illuminated and the crystal pillar that had once held the charred Ancient corpse had been shattered. The Ancient’s remains had toppled to one side and were lying in a heap upon the floor.
Santino asked that everyone stay back while he spent a few minutes prowling around noting telltale signs of what had happened there. The rest of us covered him from the doorway.
When he had completed his examination the Professor pointed out tracks where someone had been moving around the room. A set of EVA suit boot-prints led over to the opposite doorway and the bare human footprints that we had seen at the entrance, led from there out past where we were standing.
Could Bell have made it there?
There were three more exits, two to the left and one to the right.
Santino suggested following the tracks through the opposite doorway, so that’s what we did.
Beyond the next iris there was another corridor. Here, in the dust once again, we could clearly see booted footprints leading in and bare footprints leading out.
We went where they had been.
We had only gone a short distance when the door behind us closed. At the noise, we all spun round.
“It’s probably on a time delay”, Santino calmly theorized.
Everyone relaxed… a little.
Santino led us back to the door and opened it. Then we waited. After forty-eight seconds it closed. Santino repeated the experiment and got exactly the same result.
“As I surmised,” he said triumphantly. “It resets after fort-eight seconds”
Satisfied, we went on again.
About two thirds of the way down the corridor Bauman picked up some readings on his scanner. There had been some pretty heavy-duty electronics there but they had been dead for a long time.
Then we came to another room. This one was dimly lit. There were a number of benches or consoles there, all made from the same hexagonal crystals as everything else. At the four corners of the room were openings that led into smaller chambers. Around the entrance to one of these there was a faint glow. It seemed to have a weak energy field across it but the power levels were fluctuating as though it was about to fail. One of the consoles had a matching signal.
We moved cautiously forward, fanning out around the room.
On another of the benches there was an Ancient skeleton. Something about the way it was laid out was reminiscent of an autopsy or perhaps more disturbingly a dissection. There was a pile of small bones and dried biological matter in a nearby corner that might well have been the remains of a dismembered body.
Standing there in the dark where the Ancient had been butchered was strangely unsettling. Thousands of years had passed, and yet I could still somehow sense the horror of what had happened.
And that was not all. A dozen more Ancient skeletons were sprawled in the chamber with the fluctuating power signature. Some were smaller in stature, possibly children. It looked as though they had simply been left to die there.
“Looks like some kind of lab” Bauman observed.
I shifted nervously. The room gave me the creeps.
It was then that Santino found Bell’s discarded EVA suit behind one of the consoles. His weapons and equipment were also there. The suit was torn in a number of places and the faceplate was cracked, but still I couldn’t figure out why he would have abandoned it there. It didn’t make any sense.
