The Trilisk Supersedure (3 page)

And now
we’re going to investigate another ruin of their civilization.

Telisa
and Magnus had considered the possibility of looking for the suspected Trilisk
outpost in Mesopotamia back on Earth, but flying back into the teeth of an
unfriendly government did not seem wise. Magnus had argued that it was pretty
clear the outpost was dead, since as Shiny mentioned, supplication had stopped
working on Earth long ago.

Telisa
had agreed with this point, while at the same time having to argue that they
should all stay allied with Shiny. At first Cilreth and Magnus were all too
eager to abandon the alien after their last expedition, but slowly the lavish
rewards of their toils had mellowed them out. The plentiful resources, an
ability to produce almost anything you could specify carefully enough, and a
vast complex of rooms, tools, and technology at their beck and call had
softened their suspicions and paranoias. The Vovokan had made good on his
promise of providing a new starship, and it was better than their last one in
every way. Except perhaps that it would get too much attention at any Terran
spaceport. In the end everyone agreed to stay away from Earth for now, remain
with Shiny, and embrace the idea of looking at other ruins on the frontier.

Telisa
donned her new Veer suit and prepared a personal collection of useful
artifacts. She arrayed her equipment before her in the large shipboard room
before a giant mirrored wall. Telisa kept her cautious attitude despite the
fact that she felt equipped to face a small army and survive. Shiny had
downloaded his knowledge of the vault collection, allowing her to separate the
alien artifacts into two groups: those for sale and those for her personal
collection. The limitations of the Trilisk AI meant there were still things
Telisa could not pray up back at their base, and thus still wanted to buy.
Besides, as Magnus kept reminding her, they had to fund their front company
back at home since it might prove useful if they dared to return to Earth
someday.

After
long hours of study and several heated discussions with Magnus, Telisa had
selected several items for use on the mission.

Feeling
more like a warrior every expedition, she had started out with weapons. She
chose a tanto, a stunner, and the powerful alien weapon that had saved her life
on Vovok, which she called her “chain lightning gun.” Though it shot
sophisticated projectiles and not any kind of electrical energy, the display it
had made in the dark shaft on Vovok had resembled nothing more than a
multi-pronged lightning bolt. Shiny had prayed her up a reload for the weapon,
which could only hold three shots. But what shots they were!

The
next artifact she chose was a cloak system from the Vovokan vault. Telisa had
taken a liking to the invisible sphere she had found by accident on one of the
shelves. She’d learned how to extend the cloak of the sphere to hide herself.
The effect was similar to the special suit her father had taken from a spy.
Though she couldn’t tell the difference, Shiny assured her the alien stealth
sphere was a more complete and durable stealth system than the Terran
equivalent. Shiny had easily seen her father in the Terran stealth suit due to
his mass signature, but the sphere system was able to block that as well.

Telisa
had figured out how to activate the sphere with her link, so she hid it away in
her backpack where it could remain safe and serve her as needed.

The
next item was another kind of weapon, really, though a highly specialized one.
It could be used to deadly effect on large machines. Telisa held the flat piece
of metal in her palm. It was shaped like a giant eagle’s claw. Exactly why it
was that shape probably had more to do with the details of some unknown alien’s
physiology than anything else. She called it her “breaker claw.” It could
remotely cause a superconductor to gain resistance. Superconductors were used
for many things, including power storage in large robots and machines. When a
superconducting storage system suddenly got hit by the breaker, at the very
least a lot of power would be wasted, and more likely in many systems was a
violent explosion as the stored energy was released in spectacular fashion. Telisa
had tested it on one of Magnus’s scout robots. The machine had been completely
destroyed because it contained a Vovokan power system Magnus had adapted with
Shiny’s help.

The
last two items were identical: tiny spheres. Telisa grabbed them in one hand
and gave them a solid upward toss. Instead of arcing up, then falling to the
floor, the spheres immediately began to orbit her about half a meter away. They
were both Vovokan attendant spheres, gifts from Shiny. The gifts were part of
the next “mutually beneficial arrangement” for the expedition. The spheres
could not only help to protect her, but they could also be used as spies,
scouts, computers, and a long list of other miscellaneous services. Cilreth had
taken a liking to them immediately, and a day later she had figured out how the
Terrans could integrate the spheres with their links.

Telisa
regarded herself in the mirror. The spheres lazily drifted by.

I’m
like a superhero with a long list of cool devices stowed away on my utility
belt,
she thought.
If I can only remember all my amazing superpowers
when I need them!

It was
only a half joke. With so many new toys, selecting the right one for her
attention under pressure took some getting used to. It was like giving a
kickboxer another couple of arms and legs: she would fall back on her originals
by instinct but needed to remember the new arsenal. Telisa and Magnus had been
training with her new items in VR, trying to integrate them with their combat
styles. But it had all been too much, too fast. She still didn’t feel
comfortable enough to get everything working by reflex.

Maybe
there won’t be any combat this time,
she thought.
Just some
digging around and some mysteries to be solved…

***

Cilreth
calmed herself, trying to master feelings of frustration. She struggled with
her interface to the ship and demanded a surface scan for the tenth time.

She
finally got some unknown parameter correct. Her link filled with data. The next
problem presented itself: information overload.

She
tried again with a restrictive set of filters. She got a graphical display of
the planet and opened it in her personal view.

“Okay,
well, what can I see here? No major cities. Good. Progress is progress.”

She saw
what looked like forests or jungles. A lot of life was catalogued in her scan.

I don’t
have to struggle by myself for hours to make each little insight. I’ll bug
Shiny for a minute.

She
connected to Shiny aboard his own ship nearby.

“Shiny.
I’m trying to understand what I’m seeing from the planet below.” She sent the
alien the results she’d received from the ship’s systems.

“Scan
parameters suboptimal,” Shiny responded. “Data highly filtered, restricted,
limited.”

“That
part is on purpose. I’m trying to start small and work my way up.”

“Understandable.
Forgivable. Reasonable.”

“Well
do you see any threats on the surface?”
Oh wait…is he going to take that too
literally?
“And by the surface I mean…do you see any threats on the planet?”

“Affirmative.
Millions of threats, dangers, potential sources of harm. All within expected limits,
boundaries, ranges. Recommend team proceed with caution.”

Cilreth
rolled her eyes. “Duly noted.”

By next
time I’m going to have this thing mastered eight ways from extinction so I can
know what the hell I’m getting into.

“Thanks,”
she said. “What’s the name of your ship?”

A
series of clacks and thumps came back.

Oh
right.

“Ah, I’ll
call it
Thumper
,” she said, continuing Telisa’s streak of humor.

Cilreth
turned her attention toward the planetary approach. The landing procedure was
completely automated, of course. Cilreth had stubbornly looped requirements for
her approval into every step, in an effort to become more familiar with the
spacecraft. With her approval, the
Clacker
launched its landing “feet”
down toward the surface ahead of its descent.

Detachable
feet for a spaceship. I never would have thought in a million years…

The
landing feet were small metal platforms that arrived ahead of the ship, scouted
the area, secured themselves to the surface in a landing geometry that their
scans indicated could support the weight of the ship, and then accepted the
ship’s landing struts. The system enabled the massive bulk of the ship to
settle on almost any surface.

She
watched a feed from one of the remote feet as a huge sphere of black metal and
carbon descended from the sky onto the rocky yet richly vegetated world of
Chigran Callnir Four.

When
the ship made contact, she had it send out a message to the rest of the crew:
Magnus and Telisa.

“We’re
here. And Shiny says: many dangers, proceed with caution.”

I’d
better get into my gear. Those two will be out there in no time.
She
sniffed the air.
It’s still not quite right in here. Sigh. Another problem
waiting for me when I get back.

***

A flat
metal landing pad detached from the underside of the
Clacker
and
established itself below the ship to receive those embarking onto the surface.
It was the size of a small building, more than enough to hold the Terrans and
their machines. Once the pad settled, three large tubes extended from the belly
of the ship. The tubes started to disgorge six-legged scout robots. Each
machine had a roughly spherical body with four sensor bulbs spaced across the
equator and a weapon mount on the top. Magnus had given the machines a quick
spray of red paint to match the rock of the local terrain. The scouts floated
gently down onto the detachable landing pad; then they started to move off in
all directions.

Telisa
emerged from one of the tubes. Like the scout robots, she floated gently down
onto the landing pad. She walked toward the edge of the pad as Magnus descended
behind her. She took a careful step out onto the surface of the planet.

Magnus
stepped out onto the rocky ground next to Telisa. She had a pair of binoculars
in her hands. An attendant sphere picked them up and lifted the optical sensor
high above the ground. She closed her eyes to see its input clearly in her
personal view. It showed a close-up of the remains of old buildings through the
alien vegetation. The buildings looked like collections of cubes glued together
and made of a homogenous material of the same color as the reddish rocks. She
judged they might be constructed in a manner similar to adobe or brick houses.

“So
this is how it’s going to be?” Magnus said. “We come down here and hoof around,
taking all the risks, while High Lord Shiny looks down on us from orbit?”

Magnus
put on an air of frustration, but Telisa saw through it. He was just
complaining for the sake of complaining. She knew he was actually as excited as
she was to be back on the ground on a new world.

“Think
of him as our rich employer,” Telisa said. Magnus laughed.

A small
army of scout machines explored the area around them. Magnus had brought an
even twenty of them to map the landscape ahead of any in-person exploration.
The
Clacker
’s
vast cargo bays held ten more in reserve. The new
scout robots used Vovokan power plants and mass detectors, allowing them to
operate for weeks without recharge and giving them the capability to see
through walls and other obstacles. Their legs were also much stronger, as
Magnus had given them each six legs modeled after those on Shiny’s walking
machine.

It
almost takes the fun out of it,
Telisa thought.
If there’s
any alien nasties, though, better a scout than me.

“I’m
already seeing tunnels under the ground from the scout feeds,” Magnus noted.

“Tunnels?
Damn. We barely made it out of the tunnels last time,” Telisa said.

Magnus
shrugged. “Underground habitations survive better across long periods of time.
I’d get used to it.”

Telisa
sighed. She heard a sound behind her. She turned and saw nothing, until Cilreth
materialized from thin air.

“Sorry,
just testing,” she said. Cilreth wore the stealth suit.

“You
better not have been using that thing to get a peek into my shower tube,”
Telisa joked.

Cilreth
had made it clear during the voyage that she preferred women, though with
Telisa already in a monogamous relationship with Magnus it hadn’t impacted the
group’s dynamic much if at all.

“Oh, I
have spy programs for that,” she said.

Telisa
smiled. She noticed Cilreth had a stunner on one hip and a machete sheathed on
the other.
Our weapons fetish has already spread.