Sargasso of Souls – Session 19
For a while Santino continued drawing symbols on the floor in an effort to re-establish contact with the alien entity, but he was unable to stimulate a response. It seemed that for the moment at least it had gone.
“I think we have scared it off, or offended it in some way” the professor suggested after a time. “If only I had a better understanding of who or what we are dealing with”
We discussed our next move. Both Santino and Vaughan believed that, after what had happened, it would be best to vacate the complex for a short time and give the entity some room. After all we were trespassing in its territory. I bowed to their judgement.
Before we went, Santino left a message in the form of an unfinished sequence of symbols, hoping that the entity would be encouraged to continue the exchange when we returned. Just to be certain, we went back to the lab and duplicated the pattern there.
As Santino was finishing up, Vaughan observed that the interval between what we had assumed to be periodic scans of the complex inexplicably varied by up to ten seconds. This was surprising given that the signal appeared to be moving at a constant velocity when we encountered it. We wondered what was causing the discrepancy, but the decision had already been made to depart so we did not investigate it further. Instead we headed out of the complex, picking up Maya and Zofia at the entrance. For the time being the water level in the canyon remained too high for us to get across to the main base so we made our way back to the emergency shelter.
To our surprise, as we moved along the canyon wall, we were able to make out a large, dimly illuminated shape parked in the flow of water near where we were heading. It was the Salvation. I wondered what could have provoked the shuttle’s unexpected return. Since, after hearing of the near catastrophic system’s failure on the 1st August, I had thought it would be some time before I saw it again. Given the risks I assumed something pretty serious must have come up.
It would be a while before anyone could get on or off the shuttle however, since for the time being it was surrounded by water, so we went back to the emergency shelter, notified Locke of our whereabouts and then waited for the torrent to subside.
An hour or so later, we were just kiting up ready to head over to the main base when the shelter’s airlock engaged from the outside.
A few seconds later, I was astounded to hear Razor’s voice over the intercom. “Mind if we join you?”
He and Bauman came through the door. The two men removed their helmets and Razor smiled at me disarmingly.
“Good to see you again, Ramona,” he ventured. “It’s been a while”
“Sure has,” I said uncertainly, still somewhat taken aback by his unexpected arrival.
Razor seemed to search my gaze for a moment and then said, “You look tired.”
“I’m OK,” I said, a little more defensively than I had intended. “Actually, everyone on the team is holding up pretty well”
I briefly glanced at Bauman. The fact that Razor had the German in tow made me slightly uneasy. I wondered why they were both there. There was little point in speculating however.
“So what brings you here?” I asked Razor directly.
“In the last few days there have been some developments that I felt you should be made aware of” Razor replied. “In fact, if the rest of your team would excuse us, I can begin right away. Veldin, Professor Santino, would you be so kind as to remain here also.”
Katalina hesitated for a moment, looking to me for confirmation. I nodded. So she turned and led the other members of the team out through the airlock, heading for the main base. Bauman went with them. Razor, Veldin, Santino and I remained.
When the four of us were alone, Razor began filling us in on the developments he had mentioned.
Apparently, the previous day a team led by Morris and Ramsay had discovered a crippled freighter with a damaged warp-core. Its unstable warp-field was a hazard to passing jump-traffic so they had boarded it to shut it down and pick up any survivors. However everyone aboard the freighter had been dead. Inexplicably it seemed that the crew and passengers had killed each other or been carved up by maintenance robots known as ‘scutters’ which had been modified and reprogrammed.
Reviewing segments of security footage that had been recovered led to the startling conclusion that a ‘possessing being’ had jumped from body to body, killing everyone aboard, before disabling the controls and then leaving in an escape-pod.
At first glance this would seem totally unrelated to our operation on Esperi IV, however it had been discovered that one of the dead crewmembers on the freighter was wanted for questioning regarding the brutal slaying of a nurse on Bharat station. And the nurse had worked at the medical centre where Maya and the injured construction worker had been hospitalised. This suggested that the chain of ‘hosts’ might well lead back to the planet surface.
It was plausible that Bell had been the first victim. Perhaps he carried it from the Ancient complex. After all, his remains had been found in the rocks near to the construction site. Then, if the construction worker was next, it could have moved on to the nurse at the hospital, before eventually discarding and killing her when it possessed the freighter crewman. All of this was purely supposition but seemed disturbingly possible.
“So it is a distinct possibility that we have unwittingly unleashed this being” Santino commented. It wasn’t really a question.
“Yes” Razor replied. “Unfortunately that seems to be the case. And at present, unless you are able to shed any light on it, we have no idea what this thing is or what its intentions might be.”
Phipps, Santino and I glanced at one another. As yet Razor was unaware of recent developments at the complex.
“Professor” I said after a moment.
Santino nodded.
“As of the last few hours we have made contact with a disembodied alien entity that is apparently residing in the complex,” he said without preamble.
Razor looked a little uncertain that he had heard correctly, but from our faces he could rapidly conclude that he had.
“I have been attempting to communicate with it using rudimentary mathematics” Santino continued, “and its responses have been encouraging. However, in all probability it will be some time before we can have a meaningful exchange. At present our knowledge of Ancient symbols is extremely limited. That said, this is a historic moment and represents an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the Ancients and the nature of this installation. Ultimately it might also lead to revelations regarding the possessing entity of which you speak”
“Given that there appear to be at least two of these beings, is there a risk that more of them might attempt to get off planet?” Razor asked after a moment.
“I cannot discount that” Santino replied. “Although there is no reason to conclude that the two entities that we have encountered thus far are the same. For the moment our entity could best be described as curious and perhaps slightly child-like. It has shown no inclination towards hostility”
“What about the energy pulses?” I said.
“Perhaps, but there is no evidence that this entity is responsible,” Santino maintained. “The pulses may be beyond its control. Numerous explanations exist that could account for them. The only way to get to the bottom of what is going on here is to continue with our attempts to communicate. I would not want to make any rash assumptions, particularly given that we are dealing with something so totally unknown to us.”
“Very well” said Razor, acknowledging Santino’s wisdom. “You are the expert professor. I am content for you to proceed with this as you see fit, though naturally Ramona remains in overall command.”
Santino nodded.
“Now” Razor went on. “There is a second matter that needs to be discussed. One that I find even more concerning. When Morris and his team boarded the crippled freighter they discovered, amongst the cargo, a large shipment of small arms bound for the Weyland station. This is merely the latest of a growing number of indicators pointing to the fact that the Weyland Corporation is gearing up for war. Judging from what we have seen, it will not be long before Weyland make an aggressive attempt to take over the other stations in the system. And, since Bharat is the major food supplier, it will undoubtedly be high on their list of targets. Disturbingly our assessment of Bharat’s defensive capabilities indicates that there is little chance of it withstanding a determined assault from Weyland. Consequently there is a distinct possibility that we may be forced to relocate at short notice”
He paused for a moment to let his words sink in.
“One of the few options currently open to us is an evacuation of personnel to the planet surface. There is a shipment of construction materials aboard the Salvation, mostly sheets of steel and bonding gel. I need to know how quickly we can extend the existing facilities to cater for two or three hundred people? Or alternatively, how long it would take to excavate another location? Also how would we sustain a larger population for an extended period? What are your recommendations?”
Veldin immediately began prattling on about hydroponics but I couldn’t help feeling that we were getting way ahead of ourselves. The planet still held too many mysteries for my liking. It certainly shouldn’t be considered a safe haven. We had very little idea of what was going on there, something that news of the possessing entity had only served to highlight. We weren’t ready for such an influx of civilians. I said this to Razor but, as our discussion went on, I got the distinct impression that he felt my views were overly conservative.
“We’re undermanned and the last of the construction engineers left about a week ago,” I said after he had pressed for work to commence immediately. “We still have their heavy equipment but there’s no one on planet who can operate it.”
“That can easily be resolved” Razor responded, “Another construction team can be down here within the next day or two”
“Aren’t you forgetting about the threat to the shuttles?” I remarked a little petulantly. “I thought we had suspended flights because of what happened with the energy pulse. Now if anything we’re stepping up operations”
“It can’t be helped” Razor replied. “It is one of the reasons I felt it necessary to make the trip personally. I needed to know that it was safe”
“That hardly makes it safe!” I snapped. “The fact that you made it doesn’t make it any more likely that the next shuttle will!”
Razor scowled. “How do we even know that this energy pulse wasn’t simply a one-off event?”
“Are we willing to take that chance?” I retorted.
Razor turned to Santino looking for support. “Professor, do you consider that there is any real likelihood of this phenomenon reoccurring?”
Santino shrugged. “Unfortunately there is no way of knowing” he replied.
Razor looked a little exasperated but gathered himself. “Ramona your reservations are duly noted,” he said firmly, “but we need to get past this. From where I’m sitting there are very few options and like it or not this is one of them. Be assured that I will take your concerns under consideration when making my decision, but let me make it perfectly clear that, if Weyland does attack, there may well be no other alternative.”
“When it comes down to it we’ll do what we have to” I acknowledged. “I just want to make sure you understand what you’re asking.”
Razor nodded, but honestly I doubted that he shared my concerns. He continued to make it obvious that he felt I was overstating the risk and, as a consequence, my belief that he had confidence in me was seriously undermined. I was disappointed but nothing could be gained from further argument. I let it be.
As a final issue Razor brought up the fact that, with Veldin and I almost permanently down on the surface, it was next to impossible to get a quorum at any of the board meetings. Consequently he proposed that we give him proxy to act in our stead. As the alternative was to make regular trips back to Bharat station we both agreed.
When we were done, Razor asked if he could take a look at the main base before his departure, so I took him across the canyon and showed him around.
Part way through the tour we came upon Stanford Enterprises cartography and geo survey team members standing around a 3-dimensional, holographic representation of the canyon. This was the product of the cartographer’s efforts thus far. Those present were engaged in a lively debate about the network of tunnels that were revealed criss-crossing beneath the canyon floor. Apparently these were not geological, though they had at some point filled with magma. It raised a lot of questions and the geologists were keen to go in to one and take a look. The cartography team on the other hand wanted to make a trip out to the end of the canyon in order to complete their map.
I promised that I would do my best to accommodate their wishes, though given our experiences in the access tunnel the day before I was wary of sending anyone down into the tunnels. It would be next to impossible to get them out if whatever was moving around down there came along.
Fortunately the geo survey team seemed agreeable when Vaughan suggested modifying a robotic-rover to do the job for them and so I set Vaughan and Phipps to work immediately, making the appropriate modifications.
Meanwhile Razor made ready to depart. He had hoped to have an opportunity to visit the Ancient complex while he was there, but Santino did not want to risk returning until morning and Razor didn’t want to wait that long. Bauman however would be remaining on planet with us.
A short while later, I escorted Razor back to the Salvation and we said our goodbyes. I wished him luck though, given our difference of opinion over the extent of the risk to the shuttles, it was admittedly a slightly barbed offering.
“You need a break,” Razor advised in reply. “Take a few days off planet, some time soon”
After what had gone before the remark seemed somewhat patronizing. I bit back my irritation. I can take care of myself, I thought.
And yet, despite my bravado, once Razor had gone I could not help dwelling on the doubts that his visit had sown in me.
I briefed Locke on the potential threats that Razor had revealed and told him to pass on the information to the rest of the security team. I wanted them to know what they might be dealing with. Then, since I was still owed a couple of hours of downtime and there was nothing else pressing for me to attend to, I went back to my room.
It was there that Maya found me. I guess she sensed that I was in need of something to hold on to. Things changed between us then. Our friendship became something deeper.
By that evening the modifications to the rover were completed and it was ready to explore the tunnel. Among other enhancements Vaughan and Phipps had fitted a reel of fibre-optic cable to the back of the unit and additional lights had been added. There were also an echo sounder, video cameras and a robotic arm with a drill fitting for collecting samples. All of it could be operated by remote control. It was well thought-out.
A small crowd of interested parties gathered around the monitors as the rover was lowered into the fissure. A short while later it was trundling along the tunnel, which sloped slightly downward.
For around a kilometre-and-a-half the surface of the walls was almost smooth but from that point on they became mottled with a previously unseen moss-like substance. Shortly afterwards the rover’s lights picked out a ‘tumbleweed’ creature hanging from the ceiling up ahead. Before the rover got much nearer it scuttled away.
Two-kilometres in and the tunnel became an opening part way up the wall of a huge cavern. It must have been at least four hundred metres across. A short distance below the opening, up to within a few metres of where the rover was standing, the cavity was filled with a sea of large rock fragments.
A few minutes after the rover arrived, someone noticed movement amidst the rubble. It became apparent that there was something under the surface. Intrigued by this development the operators parked the unit and waited to see if they could make out what it was.
As time passed the majority of spectators tired of the lengthy vigil and drifted away to do other things but Certified Bioware’s Heather McKay and Peter Colt remained engrossed. They stayed glued to the monitors for the rest of the evening and long into the night.
Meanwhile, revitalized by my interlude with Maya, I had begun making plans for the next morning. It was my intention to send out two exploration teams. One, led by me, would take Santino back to the complex to see if communication could be re-established with the entity. The other would escort members of Stanford Enterprises cartography and geo survey teams to the end of the canyon to allow them to complete the mapping they had undertaken.
I considered my options for a while and then went to tell Katalina Johansson that I wanted her to lead the second team. It had been a difficult decision, purely because I had not wanted to show favouritism to someone who had become my friend, but upon reflection it was clear to me that she was the best choice for it. I trusted her judgement and during our time on planet she had amply proven her worth.
After speaking with Katalina and notifying the other team members of my plans for the following day, I stopped by the med lab in search of Maya once again.
Early on the morning of the 6th August I slipped out of bed, dressed and left while Maya was still sleeping. When I arrived at the rover monitoring station Peter Colt excitedly showed me footage of a thirty metre long, eight metre wide, worm-like creature that had briefly surfaced during the night. Its gaping maw seemingly allowed it to chew through the very rock itself, which suggested we now knew where the tunnels were coming from.
The geologists had also got pretty excited when the creature left a shiny metallic deposit in its wake. They were convinced that this was pure gallium and had theorised that the metal had been excreted as a solid lump because the creature was unable to ingest it with the rest of the rock.
After the worm’s brief excursion to the surface it had disappeared and the rover had been sent to explore the tunnel in the opposite direction. However the gradient had rapidly bent downward until it was too steep to continue. Eventually they had decided to withdraw the rover from the tunnels in order to recover the material samples that it had collected.
Later that morning I saw Katalina’s team off as they departed on their patrol to the end of the canyon. I wished her luck and reminded her that she knew what she was doing. “Follow your instincts,” I told her. “And don’t take any chances.”
Along with Katalina went Bauman, Hasek, Heather McKay and members of the cartography and geo survey teams. I trusted Katalina, but the planet was unforgiving and held plenty of nasty surprises for those who were not sufficiently wary. I hoped everything would be OK.
Not long after she had led her patrol off into the roaring wind, my own team; consisting of Santino, Vaughan, Phipps, Jankowska and myself, set off down the canyon towards the Ancient complex.
Our own short trip proved uneventful.
Once we were inside, Santino and I went off to see if we could re-establish contact with the entity, while Vaughan, Phipps and Jankowska headed for the power room to determine what they could about the workings of the energy columns.
Santino and I went to the workshop first and then the lab, but there was no evidence in either of any change since we had left the day before. It seemed that the entity had not returned.
As we moved around I noted that the adjustments Vaughan had made to our suit sensors appeared to be working. Now all of us were able to see the energy signatures that tracked our movements along the corridors. It was hoped that this would give us warning if an entity were present, though thus far the periodic scan was the only other signal that we had encountered.
Once we reached the lab, Santino began painstakingly drawing sequences of symbols in chalk upon the floor. However his attempts to coax the entity out reaped no reward.
Meanwhile Vaughan and Phipps were able to determine that the columns in the power room each corresponded to a different area or function within the complex. When power was required from a damaged column the system would attempt to compensate by drawing it from undamaged columns nearby.
Almost two hours had passed without any sign of the entity being present when Vaughan’s voice cut across the comms. “There’s just been a jump in energy levels at your location. Has anything changed?”
At that very moment the floor at the centre of the room rippled and a symbol appeared.
“Looks like our entity is back” I responded.
“It would assist with my research if I could come and take some measurements of the activity at your location” Vaughan requested. “Would that be acceptable?”
“Professor?” I asked Santino.
“One moment” Santino replied.
He began drawing a rough map of the Ancient complex on the floor. However before he had completed it a full 3-dimensional model appeared at the centre of the room.
I quickly noted that it showed no unknown areas. We had explored every location other than the room with the inactive iris.
Santino then drew two stick figures at our location in the lab and three at the location of the other team in the power room. He started drawing a line from one to the other to indicate Vaughan’s proposed movement, but again the entity responded before he could finish.
Three small lumps appeared on the alien’s model; one was where we were in the lab, one moved in a clockwise rotation around the complex and the third was moving along the tunnel from the entrance hall towards the exit.
I was slightly disturbed by this and looked to Santino for confirmation that his understanding of the message was the same as mine. Was the entity telling us that another entity was about to leave the complex? Santino shrugged. It seemed likely.
However the entity’s message was still unfolding. After a moment or two the model of the Ancient complex gradually faded back into the floor. It was almost immediately replaced by another cross-section. This one was modular and was easily recognisable as our base in the canyon. Next to it six small lumps appeared. This was then replaced by a representation of a shuttle with a further eight lumps by it, and then finally the shuttle reappeared with a single large lump at its side.
It seemed likely that the entity had shown us the locations of more of its kind. The latter perhaps was a representation of the possessing entity leaving the planet. It was hard to be sure.
“I believe that Mr Vaughan’s team can join us now” Santino offered.
“You got that Vaughan?” I confirmed.
“We’re on our way”, was the reply.
A short while later Vaughan, Phipps and Jankowska arrived.
For a time Vaughan monitored the consoles as Santino taught the entity how to play Tic-Tac-Toe. It caught on quickly and had soon mastered the game. They moved on to draughts. It seemed a little frivolous but Santino maintained that one couldn’t rush such things.
Meanwhile Phipps had observed that the level of bacterial contaminant in the atmosphere was decreasing. Inside the complex it was now less than 25% of what it was outside.
Eventually Santino announced that he was satisfied with the progress that had been made and proposed that we leave. By that time I was more than ready to do as he suggested, so we did.
A couple of hours after we had returned to base Katalina and her team came back from their reconnaissance at the end of the canyon. Once she had showered and changed, I got her to fill me in on what had happened.
The mission had been largely without incident and had been successful in allowing the cartography and geo survey team to collect the data that they needed. In addition they had been able to obtain some footage of the plain, which appeared to be covered in low fern-like scrub and thick moss-like grass, except for where a long four metre wide swathe of molten rock had been cut across the canyon mouth. It was not clear what had caused this scar upon the surface nor when it had occurred but infrared imaging had indicated that the scorched area was still hot at the time the patrol was there.
During their return trip the team had been stalked by a large, spindly looking quadruped that had appeared to be a predator of some kind. It had moved incredibly quickly and possessed an array of wicked looking teeth, but like the multi-legged, ground-hugging creatures that we had already encountered, each time it had approached it had been scared off by the lights. After a while it had given up and left them alone.
