Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel 1: The Deimos Artifact (15 page)

Zack and Ariane looked at each other in astonishment.

"The artifact
is
on this ship!" exclaimed Zack.

"We have to go take a look at it!" said Ariane.

"How could we not?" replied Zack, "Let's make sure that the outer airlock door is locked and head down to engineering. I wonder if Cliff is still awake?"

"Will it matter?" asked Ariane.

"I suppose not," replied Zack.

Chapter 17.
A Nondescript Container.

Nova York Orbital Station, July 7, 2676.

After making sure that the outer airlock door was indeed securely locked, Zack and Ariane made their way down to the engineering section of the
Capri
. There they found Cliff in what was probably the very workroom mentioned in Marv's message. The engineer was poking around in one of the damaged Takahashi hyper-diodes and had it disassembled on one of the work surfaces.

"Cliff," said Zack, "Glad to see you're still awake."

"I don't need all that much sleep these days," replied Cliff. "What can I do for you two?"

"Uncle Marv gave you a box to store for him. Could you show us which one it is? I need to take a look at it."

"Sure," replied Cliff, "he borrowed an empty storage box from me; said he needed somethin' to store some of his diggin' tools in. It was the day before he had his accident, in fact. In all the excitement, I forgot all about it."

"Where is it?"

"Right back there," replied Cliff, turning and pointing to a rack of shelves that covered the rear bulkhead of the work room. The shelving was filled top to bottom with storage containers of various sizes but of an identical design. All of the containers were an integral part of the shelving system and they not only fit snugly into the rack, they also locked automatically into it when properly slid into place. As a result, each container was held securely during maneuvering and free fall conditions.

There was a single row of large boxes racked three across on the very bottom of the shelving. Each of the ascending rows contained slightly more boxes as the containers grew progressively shorter and narrower the higher up in the rack they were. The top two rows contained the smallest boxes and there were eight of them in each row. All of the containers were about equally battered from years of use and all of them displayed a few minor scrapes and random, nondescript smudges on their surfaces.

"Okay, which one?" asked Zack.

"It was one of the big ones on the bottom row," said Cliff, "The one on the left-hand side." Cliff looked at the fresh, clean clothes that his two visitors were still wearing after their earlier meeting and offered, "You want me to get it out for you?"

"That would be nice," replied Zack.

Cliff got up and took the two strides between his work table and the shelving and stepped on a short, stubby lever on the side of the rack near the floor to release the locking mechanism holding the box in place. He then slid the container out onto the deck, undid a couple of latches on the front of the hinged lid and tipped the cover back. Zack and Ariane crowded up on either side of him to look inside. Squeezed snugly into the box was a padded shipping container about a half meter square.

"It's another container," said Zack.

With some effort, Cliff slid the padded container out of the storage box and placed it on an open area of the table he had been working at.

"Don't feel like tools to me," said Cliff, as he transferred the container to the table.

"We think it might be the artifact," said Ariane.

Cliff gave her a shocked look.

"If we're careful with the packing material, maybe we can put it right back where we found it," said Zack, "Right now, all we want to do is take a look at it."

While his two companions watched, Cliff carefully removed the top of the obviously custom-fitted, padded container and folded down the sides, laying them out flat on the table to reveal a transparent case inside. Zack didn't know for sure what he had been expecting but what he saw was beyond anything he had imagined.

Suspended within the perfectly cubical, transparent case was an object in the shape of a regular tetrahedron. Because of the special relationship between the geometry of a cube and that of a regular tetrahedron, the little pyramid fit perfectly into the container with each of its six vertices running diagonally across one of the six facets of the cube. No matter how the cube was orientated, the pyramid would appear to be balancing on one of the vertices. With all four sides of the little object on display, the three of them could see that one side was the tiniest bit lighter in color than the rest.

The vertices of the pyramid were subtly rounded with each of the six edges measuring somewhere around fifty centimeters long. It was made from a dull, non-reflective, dark substance of some kind. Zack's first impression was that it was carved out of stone, but the material could just as easily have been an exotic metal or even some kind of plastic.

"Yeah," said Cliff, "This is it. Marv showed it to me a couple times." He shook his head, "To think he hid it right under my nose!"

After a quick inspection, Zack snapped the cover off from the clear display case and laid it aside. With Cliff helping, the two of them carefully lifted the artifact out of the transparent case and set it down on top of one of the sides of the padded container that they had folded out onto the table. Without knowing exactly what they were doing, they chose to use the odd-colored side of the object as its base.

The illusion that the artifact was made of stone was immediately contraindicated by the object's weight. It was light enough that the two of them could handle it without a lot of effort. Had it been granite or some other kind of rock, they would never have been able to lift it as easily as they did. Was it metal then, or...something else?

Like a chunk of rock or metal, it was cold to the touch. Zack couldn't resist the urge to touch the surface again.

"This is really strange," said Zack, "It suddenly got warmer!"

Cliff cupped his hand over one of the edges, "It sure as heck has!" he exclaimed, giving Zack a somewhat worried look.

The artifact was indeed no longer cold to the touch! Instinctively, both of them took their hands off the object.

Along with the little tetrahedron getting warmer, the faces of the object were changing in appearance to something that was no longer smooth and featureless. As they watched, a series of intricate markings, which had definitely not been visible before, gradually became more and more distinct.

"Looks like it's got some kind of writing on it," said Zack.

The dull, black surfaces of the artifact's sides had become covered with dense rows of tiny glowing curlicues and squiggles that looked like they could possibly be a form of writing or hieroglyphics of some kind. Zack and his two companions watched as the writing began to fade back into the flat smooth surface that had greeted them when they first removed the object from its container.

Zack cupped his hand over one of the edges of the artifact again and tipped it slightly over to inspect the base, "It's cooled back down," he said, "and now it's warming back up again. As the artifact began to warm up in response to Zack's touch, the writing came back into view though the facet they had chosen to use as a base remained blank. He eased the object back down and removed his hand. The writing slowly faded back into invisibility

"Maybe it would be best if we didn't mess around with this thing until we have more information," suggested Ariane.

"I second that motion," said Cliff.

"I agree," added Zack, "In fact, I think we'd better put it back the way we found it." He and Cliff carefully slipped the artifact back into the transparent case. The little object again heated up and the writing briefly appeared from the obligatory handling, which they did their best to keep to a bare minimum. Through the walls of the protective case, Zack gave the artifact another hard examination but avoided touching it any further." He cocked his head, "Your father and his people weren't being honest with us. There is no way this can be thousands of years old. Look at the condition it's in."

An outrageously radical thought regarding the origins of the artifact suddenly flashed through Zack's mind.

"What if this thing isn't of human origin?" he asked.

Ariane responded, "You mean..."

"Yeah," replied Zack, before she could finish, "What if this thing was made by some kind of alien civilization?"

"Mankind has been traveling the stars for nearly six hundred years, Zack," said Ariane, "We still haven't encountered any evidence of alien civilizations."

"That only means we were bound to at some time or another," replied Zack.

"You could be right," said Ariane, "but I doubt the three of us are going to solve this mystery by ourselves right this minute. Whatever this thing is, we're going to need some expert help."

"I have to agree with you," said Zack, "At this point, the important thing is that we found the damned thing. That solves one big mystery. Let's put it back into its hiding place and leave it there for now."

Cliff and Zack closed the lid on the transparent display case and the two of them rewrapped the case in the form-fitted, padded storage material before slipping the entire assembly back into the large trunk. Cliff re-secured the hinged lid of the trunk, slid the box back into its slot on the shelving and locked it in place.

Ariane's military intelligence instincts kicked in. "I think keeping this a secret for a while longer is the right thing to do," she said. Her look grew serious, "Your uncle was probably killed over this little pyramid and, if you remember, a Soviet craft was shooting at us just a day or so ago, not to mention the mass hysteria that may or may not be connected to it. Let's not discuss this with anyone until we're safely out in space and on our way."

"We goin' somewhere?" asked Cliff.

"I'm afraid we probably are," said Zack. He shared a look with Ariane before he added, "Ariane's father said this thing came from somewhere in the Sol system. We're pretty sure that he wants to go there."

"You said 'we.' Are you goin' too?"

"Yeah, I got an email from my commanding officer half an hour ago assigning me to the Professor's mission."

Cliff shook his head.

"You don't have to go along, Cliff, none of this is your fight."

"Oh I'll be goin'," replied the engineer, "That's where Marv got this damned thing in the first place! I knew it'd just be a matter of time before somebody figured out we had to go back."

"You sure you're okay with this?" asked Zack.

"I'll be fine," replied the engineer, "The Sol System ain't that bad if you know the right people. Marv and I made two or three trips there in the last couple of years. Made some pretty good profits from it too. Besides that, where're you gonna find an engineer who knows more about this old tub than I do?"

Zack looked at Ariane, "He has a point, you know."

"As long as you know what you're getting into, Cliff," said Ariane, "Don't say we didn't warn you that this operation could get dangerous."

Cliff just shrugged, "I've been in plenty of tight spots in my time. Don't worry, I'll be alright." The engineer paused for a moment before adding, "If we're goin' on a trip, we're gonna need a lot of stuff." He gave a quick glance at the component he had been working on, "Replacements for these fried hyper-diodes and a couple of spares would be first on my list. That's just a start, though. Right now we're about out of everythin', medical supplies, reaction fluid and Lord knows what else. We gotta make sure we got enough food for everybody. We could probably use some decent spacesuits too...oh, and hand weapons. We'll need hand weapons."

Zack looked at Ariane.

"My father's grant money will take care of the supplies," she said, "I think you should start making a list. As far as weapons are concerned," she looked at Zack before continuing, "Zack and I are both active military and we've both been ordered to be a part of this expedition. I'll see to it that we get some decent weapons."

"While you're at it," said Zack, "how about a couple of sets of battle armor for you and me? We have no idea what we might run up against when we get to where we're going."

"I think that can be arranged as well," replied Ariane.

"Good," said Zack, "Now let's just hope we don't have to make use of any of that stuff."

"I'll call my father and tell him to meet us for breakfast. In the meantime, whenever there is a chance that you might be under surveillance, try to act as though everything is normal."

"Whatever that means," said Zack.

***

Out at one of the inner-system sublight insertion zones, the
Murmansk
translated back into normal space and began limping towards the Central Planets.

***

{...Elsewhere in the Isis star system, a Morpheus omnicast module, placed earlier by Sentinel Guardian Third Class, Symantia L'proxa, detects a short-lived but insistent series of signal pulses, indication that the Sentinel Key for the target species has been partially activated nearby. Responding automatically to the stimulus, the module initiates a dream program omnicast, ramping up both the intensity and the duration of the program. Guardian L'proxa, who had been waiting patiently in her heavily stealthed scoutship for just such a development, notes the time and instructs the Morpheus command computer on her ship to similarly intensify the dream programming within the entire network of omnicast modules deployed throughout Human space...}