Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt (12 page)

Magnus seemed alarmed by the
change. He trotted over toward Caden. Caden just looked confused.

“It’s a huge white plain,”
Caden said. “Oh. I think I’m sitting on the sky.”

Caden dropped back down into
the depression. Suddenly Maxsym felt pain spike in his ears. The atmosphere in
the area popped.

Vacuum!

“What’s wrong?” Siobhan
transmitted.

“We’re losing pressure!”
Arakaki said simultaneously.

Maxsym instinctually crouched
as if under direct physical attack. He closed his eyes and covered his ears
with his hands. Other members of the team expressed their astonishment in link
transmissions, but Maxsym stopped listening in a moment of panic. Then his
brain started to work again.

My Veer suit can help. It’s
trying to help.

Maxsym removed his hands. A
thin cover slipped over his head and pressurized. Maxsym opened his eyes. At
first everything was blurry. Then the cover’s pliable material solidified into
a perfect faceplate he could see through. His ears still felt wrong, but he
could vaguely hear the sounds of his own movement. He noticed a semitransparent
wall had closed over the depression, sealing them in.

“Everyone okay for the moment?”
asked Magnus. Maxsym sent a nonverbal assent code.

“I’m going to try a grenade.
I’ve told it not to detonate toward us, but move back toward the lock anyway,”
he said. “If it doesn’t work, we should load back into the shuttle and use the
robots to figure this out.”

Maxsym gladly moved back toward
the portal to the shuttle. Magnus finished programming a grenade and let it
loose. The device unerringly whizzed up into a corner of the depression under
the clear material and attached itself in the silence of the vacuum. Maxsym saw
shrapnel fly into the sky on the other side in a silent ballet. Then the
atmosphere came back. More sound returned with it.

“Is the habitat losing
pressure?” Telisa asked.

“No. No, this area was losing
pressure when the wall closed over us, but now it has stopped. The opening to
space has been closed.”

Maxsym calmed. Telisa and
Magnus were so matter-of-fact about the incident. Not exactly placid, but they
were not rattled.

“Did we screw up the lock
seal?” asked Siobhan. “We did force the door, after all.”

“No, the seal stayed tight
here,” Cilreth transmitted. “Some other pathway out was opened for a while.”

Maxsym looked around and
realized Cilreth was not with them. He decided she must be back on the shuttle,
or even back on the
Clacker
.

“It was a trap,” Caden said.
“Something sealed us under that glass and tried to suffocate us.”

No one replied immediately.

“I tend to agree,” Arakaki
finally said. “The Trilisk got here first. It must have set a trap for us.”

“How would it know where—oh, or
maybe it programmed all the doors to do that,” Imanol said.

“Let’s move into there,” Telisa
said.

“The grenade made a nice hole
for us,” Caden observed. He walked under it. “Wait! The hole is getting smaller.”

“Self repairing? We’d better
hurry, then,” Arakaki said.

“But then we’ll be trapped on
the other side,” Maxsym pointed out.

“We’ll blow another hole in it
if we have to,” Siobhan said. Caden climbed up to the edge as he had before.

“The light comes from the plain
above and all around us,” Caden said. “Is it safe?”

“The scouts say it is. Not any
worse than ordinary starlight,” Magnus answered.

Caden crawled through the hole.
The rest of the team followed.

When Maxsym climbed to the
edge, he told his Veer suit to withdraw his hand coverings. He carefully waved
his naked hand out over the edge of their tunnel. The light felt vaguely warm
on his skin. He felt the metal of the lip of the tunnel. It felt cool. Below
his body temperature.

“Not too hot, of course. Pretty
efficient,” Maxsym said. “I can only assume this is light similar to that of
their natural star.” He climbed out and stood upon the lit plain. Looking up,
he agreed with the previous assessment: they stood upon the vast lit plain that
served as the “sky” of the artificial environ.

Once the last team member
walked onto the lit plain, the covering over the depression below withdrew.

That was scary. And strange. If
that thing set traps for us, it will be hard to identify the dangers in such an
unfamiliar place.

Siobhan stared up at the
floating buildings with Caden.

“How will we get up there?”
Siobhan wondered aloud.

“We could jump,” Caden said
jokingly.

“We’re strong, but… I doubt
it,” Telisa said.

Caden jumped.

“Noooo!” he exclaimed as he
shot away into the air.

No way! He isn’t that strong!

Caden kept flying upward
rapidly. Maxsym could see the trajectory wasn’t changing.

“The artificial gravity is
localized to the inner surface,” Telisa quickly summarized.

“Whoa!” Caden said as the
distance between them continued to grow.

Caden slowly tumbled end over
end as he flew away. Suddenly a long cable shot out and latched onto one of his
legs, sharply stopping him. Maxsym heard Caden’s grunt from the sharp stop.

“You’re welcome,” Magnus said.
The smart rope had been shot from one of the scout robots. It had secured its
leg against the hole they left in the pane that snapped shut over the entrance.
It started to pull Caden back to the surface of the “sky”.

“If that happens to any of you,
remember the attendants. They might be able to boost you around,” Arakaki
suggested.

“Well, what now?” Telisa asked.

“We can put a few smart ropes
together and shoot them over to check out that one,” Magnus said, pointing at
one of the floating buildings. Three scout robots moved over toward the edge.
Maxsym assumed the machines acted on Magnus’s link commands. They joined smart
ropes together for a minute as Maxsym watched. He kept scanning the air above
for any signs of birds or other life. He did not spot anything.

Caden made it back to the lit
plain. He dropped back into the gravity zone on all fours like a cat. Maxsym
heard him exhale in relief. Siobhan laughed.

“Looked like fun,” she said.

Finally a scout shot a smart
rope over to the floating target. The smart rope stuck, and then it moved like
a long worm, finding a purchase somewhere on the surface. The robot clasped the
rope and headed out. Suddenly it looped out of control, spinning around the
rope again and again. The machine slowed its spin by letting one leg entangle
to brake against the rope as it got wrapped. Then it released the leg and
resumed its progress forward.

“They can work in zero-g,”
Magnus said proudly. “It just took a second to compensate.”

Maxsym wasn’t impressed. Nature
had evolved much more amazing and graceful creatures than this clumsy metal
mimic. The robot was just a cheap toy, a convenience.

The machine reached the far
side. It approached the floating island. Suddenly it crashed into a platform.
The machine picked itself back up and sat firmly on the flat surface parallel
to the platform the Terrans stood upon.

“Artificial gravity over there
as well,” Arakaki noted. “Or at least some kind of attractive mechanism.”

“So we
can
just jump
over there!” Siobhan realized gleefully.

She wanted to jump from the
moment she saw Caden fly away. Her idea of an extreme sport, I suppose.

“Whoa, hold on there,” Telisa
said. “You realize if you’ve made a bad assumption, you could fly through a
gravitized zone and fall… well, all the way to the bottom of the gravitized
corridor.”

“Let’s grab some of the quick
chutes from the
Clacker
, then,” Siobhan suggested. “I know we have some.
I’ve been daydreaming about being able to take a sky dive since I learned we
had them.”

Telisa shook her head. “You
assume there is air everywhere in here to fill your chute. Shiny could make a
vacuum corridor with his fields; maybe the Trilisk can, too. You would still
fall and die.”

Magnus just smiled. “Yes, but
that sounds like an unlikely event.”

“I’ll send a robot to retrieve
some chutes from the shuttle,” Arakaki said. “Or it can head back to
Clacker
to grab them. But let’s assess the lay of the land before we start hopping
around like a bunch of flies.”

Siobhan seemed satisfied. She
actually started to hop lightly, as if warming up. Caden grabbed her arm.

“It’s easier to break free than
you might realize. At least with our new bodies it is.”

Maxsym’s head felt a little
weird. He had thought it was his ears, perhaps damage from the drop in
pressure. He took a pack off his back and held it up. It felt light. He knelt,
feeling the pack grow heavier.

“Yes,” he said. “The gravity
field here isn’t too deep. Our heads are lighter than they should be!”

Maxsym held the pack up over
his head. It became almost weightless. He let his pack float above him while he
unzipped it. Imanol laughed as he saw Maxsym working. Maxsym took out a
collection of tiny motile spheres with legs.

“What are those things?” Telisa
asked.

“Insect collectors,” Maxsym
told her.

“Well… okay, I guess. Does it
work in a gravity-free environment?”

“The leg tips are designed to
stick so it can climb a wall like an insect,” Maxsym explained. “It was
designed for variable gravity environments, but I admit, not really zero-g.
Couldn’t hurt to try though. I have several, and we can lose one or two.”

Magnus nodded. “Give it a toss.
You might miss this nearest building, but I guess it would float on until it
landed on one.”

“Oh. I was going to release
them here.”

Siobhan shook her head. “Looks
very clean here. I don’t imagine any bugs around. But you never know. They may
just be hiding.”

“What if the bugs here are
intelligent? You would be capturing another sentient being,” Caden said. Maxsym
analyzed Caden’s tone and decided he was joking.

“That also seems unlikely,”
Magnus said. “Go ahead.”

Maxsym let one go on the bright
ground. Then he looked back toward the houses above. He gave one of the
collectors a sharp toss. It hurtled away.

Everyone else headed for the
line. It became clear to Maxsym they were going to climb up.

“Do you think we will
accidentally pull the building down?” Imanol asked.

That would be crazy. But I
guess this place has to break at least a handful of assumptions we’re likely to
make.

“I doubt it. We’ll find out,”
Magnus said.

Siobhan had held back near
Maxsym. “They don’t have to do that,” she said. “They can just jump over.”

Another scout headed over
toward the house above. Magnus looked at the scout for a moment as it clambered
over on the smart rope.

He’s conferring with it,
Maxsym
thought.
And he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Hrm,” he mused. “Uhm, I’m
going to have to alter some programming. I didn’t foresee this kind of
gravitational mix. The transition is confusing for them.”

Maxsym noticed the others were
quiet.

Of course. They must be looking
at the building.

Maxsym brought up a pane in his
personal view and selected the feed from the scout they had sent over. The
machine had somehow found its way inside. The directions were confusing. The
crazy architecture was not helping, either. The machine stumbled here and
there. The artificial gravity pulled it in different directions as it moved
about.

The inside of the building was
filled with a stunning array of items. Maxsym could not identify a single
thing. Junk of all shapes and sizes lay about, pieces as small as insects and
devices the size of small cars. Maxsym could not even tell “up” from “down”,
and judging from the scout’s clumsy movements, it could not either. It was like
the lair of a mad scientist, except Maxsym felt at least he would recognize
half the equipment of a Terran mad scientist.

“The gravity actually shifts in
there,” Magnus said. “It’s causing some problems.”

“What a collection of stuff.
Can we actually figure out what all those things do?” asked Siobhan.

“A fun part of the job,” Telisa
said.

The scout’s view focused on a
large black plant. Maxsym was immediately fascinated. It did have certain
similarities to a Terran plant on the surface, but he saw it was in fact very
different. He did not see any single stem or root. Instead, several thick stalks
radiated outward from a central mass. The “leaves” were small but thick, like a
Terran succulent.

“This is an interesting plant,”
Telisa said. “It looks familiar.”

“It looks something like a
dense black vine, but I assure you it is something else entirely,” Maxsym said.

“Blackvines?” Arakaki said over
her link. “Yes, I know those! Blackvines, from Chigran Callnir Four.”

“Where?” asked Maxsym.

“A planet from a previous
expedition. I don’t remember seeing any,” Magnus said.

“They were hard to spot,” Arakaki
said. “Usually out of the light. It’s definitely the same thing!”

“Could that be a Trilisk?”
Siobhan asked suddenly.

“No, I believe they looked
similar to the three-legged robot we found,” Telisa said. “Or they look, I
mean. I guess some are still around.”

“Still, very interesting this
thing is here as well as on Chigran Callnir,” Magnus said. “They may be
connected somehow to the Trilisks. But there were none of them in the Trilisk
tunnels.”

“And now we have one here,”
Telisa said. “Come to think of it, these don’t look anything like the other
plants, the stalks with those dumb green clumps. Perhaps the Trilisks bring
these with them. Spies? Pets?”