Part 13 (1/2)
His backside twitched slightly as he scanned the room with his ma.s.s sense, trying to find the next door. Kirizzo suppressed his curiosity about the devices in favor of his effort to escape to the surface. An oppressive feeling came over him, causing him to slow. Something was wrong. Kirizzo took another few steps forward. Ahead, below the floor, he detected something too ma.s.sive for his senses. His head reeled. Kirizzo staggered back, retreating from the overwhelming input.
A few moments later he began to recover. The golden alien knew what he had encountered: a microscopic singularity. The intense gravity close to the event horizon would daze a Gorgala almost to the point of helplessness. The tiny black hole was probably used as a source of power for the energy-greedy complex. Matter could be tossed into it, and the super-heated gases outside the event horizon would emit a small fraction of the energy released as high-frequency radiation that could be harvested by a sufficiently complex technology. Just holding the singularity in place took an advanced science. Without any support, the black hole would tumble into the center of the planet and consume everything until no planet remained, just a black sphere orbiting the star, a dark monster with a fat stomach lingering where its victim once lived.
Kirizzo took a different route, trying to avoid the dangerous area he had accidentally discovered. He skirted the outside of the large chamber and came across a circular opening in the side wall.
The tunnel reminded him of the entrance that he had scrabbled down, pursued by the Bel Klaven war machines. He entered it, moving through the tube. The inside was utterly dark so he relied upon his other senses to find his way. It took a familiar twisting inclined course up towards the surface.
He encountered a blockage at the end of the pa.s.sage. Dirt and leaves completely obstructed the exit. Kirizzo dug through the matter efficiently, scooping dirt out of place and under him with his forelegs while several sets of rear legs flicked it far behind him. He burrowed for a few meters down the tunnel. He sensed the surface, a vast low-density area only a few meters above.
The surface light flooded into the tunnel around Kirizzo when he emerged. The light-sensitive bundles under his gravity-sensing bulb retracted slightly to protect the sensors from overexposure. Once his vision had adjusted, the s.h.i.+ning searcher darted back into movement. He flitted through the dense foliage, taking his bearings. Kirizzo recalled the direction of his initial approach to the complex and took off, adjusting the tall plants out of his way with several limbs while the others carried him along.
Kirizzo thought about his flight through the forest as he traveled through one valley and into another. The forest seemed calm and peaceful compared to the tumult of the day he arrived, lulling Kirizzo into a sense of safety in the heavy cover. He came to the hillside where he had landed and started a spiral search for his craft.
Although a lot of time had pa.s.sed while Kirizzo was imprisoneda”several revolutions of this planet around its stara”he felt sure that even if his stars.h.i.+p had been destroyed there would be signs. He wandered along the hillside, his legs stopping occasionally but always moving his ma.s.s sensor bulb to feel for anomalies underground.
It took Kirizzo a long time to find the first piece of metal. He detected a small triangular fragment, buried under a layer of dirt and leaves. Kirizzo recovered it and held the clue up in a single hand to examine it visually. The plate the piece had broken from had been shattered; tiny fracture lines crisscrossed the item.
This was what Kirizzo had feared. The Bel Klaven had destroyed his s.h.i.+p in their zeal to exterminate him so long ago. He froze in thought.
How then might Kirizzo make his escape from this planet? What had happened in the war between his species and the Bel Klaven? Had they succeeded in eradicating his race from the galaxy, or had others like him survived?
It seemed that the aliens trapped in the nearby complex might serve as Kirizzo's only way to leave the planet. He might be able to convince them to allow him onto one of their s.h.i.+ps. From that point, it might be possible to return to a Gorgala stronghold, if any still existed.
With his new plans formed, Kirizzo returned to motion. His legs blurred and he ran back down the hillside towards the complex.
Telisa sat on the cafeteria chair to rest, opening her pack on the table in front of her. Across the table, Magnus and Joe moved in on a triplet of food kiosks in a predatory manner. They had tried to access the kiosks through their links, but the machines refused to function. The real versions of such machines back on Earth produced snacks for anyone who accessed the service through their link, and the cost would be charged to the customer's global account automatically. Magnus drove his knee into the plastic panels of the support column, putting white stress fractures into one of the panels and knocking it loose. Joe reversed his rifle and applied the stock to another vending kiosk in a sharp thrust. His attack broke out a large piece of the dispensing counter.
”Not exactly health food,” Telisa commented as she counted up her remaining food packets from the s.h.i.+p.
”We might find some other stuff in those refrigerators back there,” Magnus said, pointing back behind Telisa. ”Go check them out if you want.”
Telisa nodded and got back to her feet, leaving her pack behind. She had a craving for some real fruit since the rations they had been eating, although tasty, had a texture that left something to be desired. She thought it odd that humans could travel through s.p.a.ce to distant planets, but they couldn't come up with nonperishable food packets that didn't grate on the consumer after a few days.
Telisa opened up the first industrial-sized refrigerator and started looking through it. A couple of shelves were filled with milk containers. The lower shelves had dozens of square cakes on small white plates. Telisa removed the wrapping from one and took a close look. It looked like pineapple upside-down cake.
”Hrm,” Telisa murmured. She closed the refrigerator and walked back towards Magnus and Joe. They had finished ransacking the machines. They each had a pack full of candy bars and snack packages.
”There's some cake in there. If we're going to eat it, it had better be now. It's not going to keep.”
Magnus frowned. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.
”We should eat all of our food first. The food created here by the complex might harm us somehow.”
Joe shrugged. ”If it tastes like the real thing, it's probably of the right molecular makeup.”
”There are a lot of things people can't taste that can kill,” Magnus replied.
”But that would almost be intentional,” Joe said. ”Actually, our taste buds amount to a pretty sophisticated a.n.a.lysis system. If the food is off by any significant amount, it will taste different. If the complex creators meant to kill us, why do it by poisoning the food?”
Telisa thought that made sense. ”I agree there's a possibility that it is poisonous and we wouldn't taste it. But compared to the other dangers of this place, I'm thinking it'll be small.”
Magnus smiled. ”Okay. Eat it if you want. You can be my guinea pig.”
Telisa grimaced and turned back towards the refrigerator. She dug out a couple of the plates and brought them back to the table. She set one in front of Joe and kept the other for herself.
”Forgive me if I forgo the silverware,” she said, picking the cake up in her hand. She noticed that Joe had made no move to eat his cake and stopped. She frowned at Joe.
”Wait a minute,” she said. ”You were the one who convinced me the food would be okay!”
”It probably is,” Joe said. ”But it would be a silly risk for me not to wait and see what you think it tastes like, wouldn't it?”
Telisa looked at Magnus. He smiled.
”s.h.i.+t,” Telisa muttered. She took a bite of the cake. It tasted just as she remembered it should.
”Tastes okay,” she said. She set down the rest of the cake. ”I'll wait a while. If there's something wrong with it, one bite may let us know without killing me.”
”A wise decision,” Magnus said.
Suddenly a sound echoed through the cafeteria. Telisa couldn't identify the noise, but she thought that perhaps it was a chair being moved or a door being opened.
Magnus reacted first, grabbing his slugthrower and dropping p.r.o.ne to the floor. Joe and Telisa followed his example quickly. Telisa managed to find her stunner within the next few seconds. She realized then, lying on her stomach and peering through the chair legs across the room, how much she had relaxed since the early hours in the complex when Jack and Thomas had been killed.
Telisa heard something else, another sound joining the thudding of her heart. The skitter of many feet. A glint of gold pierced the masking chair legs in Telisa's field of view.
”It's s.h.i.+ny!” Telisa exclaimed.
Magnus remained in position and trained his rifle on the bundle of legs. The alien came to a stop several meters away and then stood still, as if waiting.
”I guess he could kill us now if he wanted, even though we have some small amount of cover,” Magnus said.
Apparently Joe came to the same conclusion, as he had risen to his knees to get a clear peek at the creature.
”Looks just like s.h.i.+ny,” he called.
Telisa took a quick look and agreed. ”He's waiting for us.”
”He's still trapped in here too, then,” Magnus said gloomily.
The alien waved its forward most arms rhythmically. It turned slightly and took a few steps away.
”He says follow him,” Telisa said, recognizing the motions from before. Everyone slowly stood up and watched the creature.
Magnus and Joe exchanged glances. Magnus nodded.