Aftermath (Sirantha Jax 5)

He tilts his head, listening. “Not organic life, I think.”

The noise grows closer, and I hear what he means; the hum of motorized parts is unmistakable. A bot whirs into view, quite unlike our own. This one is smooth and sleek, fashioned after the number eight with a narrow head and waist. I can’t tell its purpose just by looking at it.

The bot stops when it detects us, and a green ray of light beams up. I freeze, thinking it’s a weapon, but instead the machine appears to be scanning us. Then it speaks, but I’ve never heard the language before. If I had to guess, it’s a verbal version of the signs we’ve been seeing cut into the stone tables along the way.

“Can your chip make any sense of that?” Vel asks.

I shake my head. “It’s just noise. Yours?”

“My linguistic chip includes a complete database of all human languages, including the dead ones, and this is unfamiliar.”

“Try Ithtorian?” That makes sense. The Makers are so old, and the Ithtorians were one of the first races to travel the star lanes; therefore, their paths might have crossed at some point, long before the nuclear winter that changed the face of their planet. But I’m not sure how much the language has evolved.

In response, he switches to his native tongue, and asks, “What is your purpose?”

A green light flashes on the thing’s head. Well, what would be a head if it was remotely human. It’s very other; I can tell an alien intelligence designed it. The twinkling continues for a good several minutes. And then it answers in what sounds a language similar to Ithtorian, but my chip can’t process it. So I glance at Vel for clarification.

“An archaic form not included in your language set. There would be no purpose to it, as it has not be spoken in over five thousand turns.”

“So how old is this bot, then?” I ask in wonder. “And what did it say?”

“I have no means of ascertaining that without functional equipment. And ‘I safeguard the truth.’ ” After translating for me, he converses with the bot for a few minutes, then says, “We are to follow it.”

“Where?”

“To the truth, of course.”

I flash him a dark look, but he’s already turned. The machine reverses, and it leads us through the ruins, through twists and turns. It hovers when necessary, avoiding obstacles far easier than we do. Then it leaves us entirely, zipping up to a floor to which all staircases have collapsed.

“Shit.”

“We must find a way up. It spoke of Maker archives.” He hesitates. “It called them the Sha-Fen.”

The words mean nothing to me, which means they’re so old as to have been lost from all records. Except, possibly, the ones up there, out of reach.

“Build a scaffold?” It will take time, of course, but without working technology or a gate back to Marakeq, we have nothing more pressing to attend.

It takes two days to pile enough rubble in such a way that we don’t die trying to climb it. In that time, we finish the last of my paste. If we don’t find food or civilization soon, we might find ourselves wishing we’d stayed in the jungle, where we could, at least, eat what we killed, even if my stomach churns at the prospect.

I ascend first. Vel says it’s so he can catch me, but if it were me, I’d want someone else to test the integrity of the structure. He’s like me in that respect. I don’t argue because I’m dying to see what’s up there, and tired of sleeping on the hard ground. At least this place has a roof, and it appears to be mostly intact. Not that it’s rained since we’ve been here.

With care, I manage to scramble over the broken lip of the wall and into the tilting floor. The bot is waiting for us patiently, as if it has no concept of time. Most likely, it doesn’t, or at least, not in the same way that we do. It knows time has passed, but it’s irrelevant to something that can keep going for thousands of turns. While I wonder how that’s even possible, Vel resumes his discussion with it.

At the conclusion, it takes us through two solid double doors, which it unseals as it goes. Air hisses out as if it hasn’t been opened for a long, long time. Behind Vel, I enter a vault of some kind, filled with unfamiliar technology. Panels with rows of colored lights, silver coils twined around a flat disc with notched edges.

“Can you use any of this to repair our gear?”

“Perhaps,” he answers. “Or to replace it.”

Devices whir to life in our presence, and the bot circles the room, performing what I take to be maintenance. I’m already bored, in addition to tired, beyond filthy, and hungry, so I sit down on the pristine floor while Vel communes with the machines. At some point, I doze off because the next thing I know, he’s waking me.

“There are terabytes of data here, Sirantha, a treasure trove of immense and unbelievable proportions.”

“Did you fix your handheld?” While I’m happy that we’ve discovered the mother lode of Maker data, I must focus on practical concerns first.

“I did.”

“Learn anything about the bot?”

“It is ten thousand turns old.”

That leaves me wide-eyed in astonishment. “How?”

“It is self-maintaining, self-sustaining. Its power core appears to be solar-powered, and it can generate replacement parts here.”

“Which is how you fixed your tech?”

“Precisely.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a kitchen-mate.” Damn, I’m hungry.

“Not here, but I have not explored the whole complex by any means.”

“There’s more?”

“The vault has a back egress, accessible only from within. I believe we have only discovered the tip of their marvels.”

“Why is it helping us?”

“It is programmed to assist friendly sentients and to share knowledge with those who possess the wherewithal to ask for it.”

“The Makers figured if anyone showed up and was able to ask, they should be served.” I ponder that, pushing to my feet. “But what happened to them? Where are they now?”

“From the best of what I have been able to decipher with the bot’s help, there was a cataclysmic event. Global weather patterns were disrupted, solar flares went wild, and only a few ships made it off the homeworld.”

Chills ripple through me. “This is the Maker homeworld?”

They might’ve called themselves the Sha-Fen, but that means nothing to me. I imagine a handful of vessels setting out from here, and seeding their technology along the way. Nobody else in the galaxy knows this.

CHAPTER 29

The bot unlocks the door for us at the back of the vault. It swings open, a seamless exit, and I never would’ve known it was there.

After talking to the machine a little more, Vel turns to me. “It will not accompany us. Its task is to guard this room, not explore what lies beyond.”

That bodes well. Still, he cracks a torch-tube, and we set off into the darkness. There are no artificial lights here. This appears to be an underground tunnel, not dissimilar to the one Dace led us through. If there was some cataclysmic event, there may have been a time when the surface of this planet wasn’t safe to travel on. The Makers would’ve gotten in the habit of building down, which explains their ruins on other worlds. By that point, it was custom, not necessity.

These walls are, unquestionably, ancient, but the stonework is anything but primitive. Even by the pale green gleam, the construction reveals real sophistication; this place was built to last—and it has. A chill rolls through me at the idea that we’re the first in a thousand turns . . . or more . . . to see what lies before us. I get the same feeling I do just before a jump, full of anticipation.

“It’s humbling,” I say softly.

“You take my words. I do not feel worthy to be here.”

I shake my head at that. “If anyone is, you are.”

With his enhanced senses, Vel leads the way deeper into the labyrinth, and the vault door closes behind us, leaving us with only the glow of his shockstick. I follow for countless moments in silence, trying not to freak about the weight of the stone. Are we still inside the building or has this led down into the ground itself?

My heart races as I fight irrational fear. This reminds me of being trapped in the Sargasso, though there’s no accompanying stench of burning meat. The last time I had one of these trips, Doc talked me down, but he’s gone now. The wave of memory hits me like a tide, and the pain is blinding.

“Jax?” I can’t see him, but I hear sympathy and understanding in his voice. “One step at a time. Closing your eyes might help. Forget about the dark.”

How embarrassing. He knows. Sirantha Jax, afraid of the dark. Nonetheless I take his advice and squeeze my eyelids shut. Feel my way down.

Somewhere along the way, I miss a rung, but I don’t fall far. Solid as a brick wall, Doc’s placed to catch me. I think he could hold a baby elephant. He holds me for a moment, effortlessly, while we listen to the sky falling above us.

I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but I swear I can hear the rustle of wings. “Is this a good idea? I mean, don’t the Teras live underground?”

“Clan Dahlgren dug the bunkers,” he assures me. “And secured them. They don’t connect to the natural caverns where the Teras make their home.”

“If you say so.”

I remember what he said about magnesium mines. You couldn’t pay me enough to work down there. Or maybe it was all automated, like some of the moon’s mining facilities, just a skeleton crew to oversee and repair the droids.

Doc sets me on my own feet and cracks a torch-tube. I’ve never been so glad to see chemicals mixing. Soon, the ambient light bathes our faces in a sickly yellow-green glow.

“I’m afraid your tests will have to wait.”

Really? I thought you’d produce a pocket lab and cure me right now. Somehow I manage not to snap at him. He’s the only thing standing between me and madness down here.

“Yeah, I gathered that. Where do these tunnels lead?”

“To the main bunker. It’s a honeycomb down here, and unless you know the way, you could wander for days and never find the way in.”

“I guess that’s the idea.” I fall behind him, keeping one hand on his shoulder. I don’t care if he thinks I’m touchy-feely, overly familiar, or just scared shitless. The latter is true, and he’s seen me melt down before.

“Exactly. This is our final fallback. They can reduce the compound to rubble, but they’ll never find us.” He sounds so calm at the prospect of living for an undisclosed period of time belowground.

The very idea makes me sweat. I can smell my fear, sour and sickly. My fingers trail along the sides of the tunnel as we move, puffs of powder drifting into the wan light. I fall quiet, listening to our footsteps scrape over the dry stone. Time slows, becomes impossible to measure.

Just Doc and me, surrounded by an island of night. I want to hide my face against his broad back. Instead, I walk on, trying to think of this as a test. If I come out of it unscathed, I’ll be stronger.