The Trilisk Ruins (19 page)

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.

“
Shit,” 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 prone 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 Shiny!” 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 Shiny,” 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.

The small group of humans followed the
glittering, many-legged creature. After about twenty meters the
human corridor turned into the familiar reddish-crusted
caves.

“
He stole our environment
from us again!” Joe shot out. “How does he do that?”

Telisa shook her head and kept
following Shiny through the dim caverns. The footing altered
randomly, causing her to slow down and walk carefully. She wondered
where the alien was taking them this time. She half expected to see
another room with a beautiful pile of red cubes in the
center.

Instead they came to a gray barrier of
hex-shaped cells. A hole large enough to walk through had been
ripped in the center of the stuff. Shiny went into it without
hesitation. Telisa walked up to the new material and felt it with
her hand.

“
Wild. It’s like a giant
wasp nest made of tough plastic.”

“
Another environ? Does that
mean there’s another alien of a different type?” Joe
asked.

“
I’ve never seen this stuff
before,” Magnus said. “Something different is going on. Let’s keep
up with him.” Now Magnus stepped ahead of Telisa and followed after
Shiny. Telisa smiled as she saw his skinsuit replicate the gray
hexagons around him. He looked like a sim model without texture
art, a generic human silhouette waiting to be painted. Telisa
turned her suit back on as well, just in case.

They moved through a cramped passage in
the tough material until coming to a hexagonal portal made of
metal. When Telisa stepped through, she looked around and
gasped.

“
This is Trilisk stuff!” she
announced, looking around the dark room. Columns of metal rose
around them, bedecked with flat black panels and cubic clusters of
metal that looked like art sculptures. She no longer had any doubt
that Shiny wasn’t a Trilisk; his technology had a different look
and feel. She wondered if his race was as advanced as the Trilisks
had been.

Telisa took out a flashlight and
immediately started examining the column before her. Fuzzy violet
symbols flickered on the flat panes of the column, but they hardly
gave enough light for a detailed examination. As she fully focused
on the machine, Telisa’s foot nudged something on the floor. She
turned her beam down to the ground and saw a metal object lying in
the dust.

She crouched down and snatched up the
item. It was about fifteen centimeters long, and looked like a
small double wrench, with a viewing panel embedded in each flat
end. A hexagonal opening sat next to the view screen on one end,
and a one centimeter spike of metal protruded from the other
end.

Joe distracted her. “Shiny is up to
something unusual,” he said.

Telisa surreptitiously dropped the
artifact into a pocket of her camo suit and turned to look at the
alien. One of the small spheres that moved around Shiny’s trunk
glowed gently, casting a feeble light onto the scene. Shiny opened
a silvery pack lying on the ground in front of him. Telisa saw a
collection of small green objects inside, like green charcoal
briquettes.

“
What’s up?” Magnus asked,
walking up to the others. He clicked his own flashlight
off.

“
He has some weird package
full of green bricks or something,” Telisa said. She pointed to the
pack Shiny had unlimbered, then realized there might not be enough
light for the others to see her pointing, especially with her camo
suit on. She turned her thin light to wide beam and added its light
to the area around Shiny.

Magnus and Joe stood with Telisa and
watched. Shiny rotated his body and faced away from the open
container. The curved end of Shiny’s trunk dipped down and split
open from the sides. A slimy, reddish interior was
revealed.

“
Oh, so gross,” Telisa
breathed. She unconsciously stepped back. Her light
wavered.

“
Uh! Is he all right?”
Magnus asked.

A charred black rectangle slid out onto
the floor next to Shiny’s package of smooth green blocks. The black
thing was similarly shaped to the green ones, although much
smaller. As soon as the darker object was ejected, Shiny’s body
flexed and the opening fastened itself onto one of the green
blocks. In seconds the entire thing had been consumed whole. Then
the trunk closed up again, and the end of Shiny’s body resumed its
appearance of a curved beak or hook.

Joe stood as stunned as the others.
“What did we just see?” he said. “Did it just defecate and eat from
the same orifice?”

Telisa winced. “I think so,” she
said.

“
If that’s food, he has the
whole rest of the pack. I wonder how long it’ll last him?” Magnus
said.

Joe shook his head and then took a long
look around the giant chamber. “I’m going to try and find my way
up,” he announced. “I have to contact my superiors and report this
complex and the alien. As I said, I only care about the big picture
here so I’ll hold to my word and leave your presence here out of my
summary, if that’s what you want.”

“
Okay, leave me out,” Telisa
said.

“
Same here,” Magnus
added.

“
Very well,” Joe said. “I’ll
be back soon.”

Joe turned and moved away from the
machines, headed towards a far side wall.

“
We must get out of here
now,” Magnus said. “We won’t have much time once he tells the UNSF
about this place.”

“
But we’re in the middle of
a Trilisk complex! Who knows what amazing things are lying around
this place!”

“
Grab what you can. I’m
going to follow him just long enough to figure out the way to the
surface. Then we’re out of here.”

Chapter
Sixteen

Telisa looked at Shiny. She felt the
need to speak even though the alien couldn’t understand
her.

“
Unbelievable! Here I am
surrounded by artifacts and now I have to leave in a matter of
minutes!” The creature shifted, as if it took great effort to sit
still and observe her.

Telisa moved up to the nearest pillar.
She ran her hands along its surface, searching for loose items in
the dim light. The smooth metal felt cool against her skin. The
column bulged in many spots. Its surface meandered in a chaotic
way, covered in knobs and extensions of all shapes and sizes.
Telisa knew from previously studied Trilisk technology that the
knobs would not move; most Trilisk artifacts had no manual controls
of any kind.

“
I wonder how they kept dust
from accumulating on it?” she asked herself. Her hand found a
depression, and she slid her fingers along it.

“
Probably going to lose a
hand doing this...” she commented. Her fingers wrapped around a
ridge and she pulled a drawer-like container open. Instead of a
hollow box, the device pulled out and then folded open with a small
whir. An ovoid device glowed in the interior. It looked like a
glowing egg with a metal net woven over it. Some other items sat
next to the lit ovoid, revealed by its dim light.

Telisa pulled her backpack off and
unzipped it. “Let’s hope this stuff isn’t super fragile,” she said.
She put the egg into a pocket and examined the other items. She saw
a flat, square plate the size of her palm that had ridges on its
edges as if it were made of dozens of layers of metal. She gently
picked up the plate and felt for something else in the drawer. Her
hand found a triangular-shaped piece of material identical to that
of the plate, with the same ridges on its side. She slipped these
things into her backpack and closed it up.

“
Fantastic! We have to make
the best possible use of our time,” she said to Shiny. She moved to
the next pillar without waiting for any response from the
alien.

A scraping sound emanated from the
floor nearby. Telisa jumped, turning back towards Shiny.

“
Shit! Was that you?” Telisa
asked. She didn’t expect an answer. Another noise came from the
other direction, several meters away from her and Shiny. A chill
ran down her back, and she grabbed her flashlight again. Turning
the device to wide beam, she swept the area.

Something moved along the floor. It
left the swath of light rapidly, causing Telisa’s heart rate to
climb. Was she being attacked? Her other hand groped for her
stunner in a moment of terror while the noises continued, bouncing
off the pillars in the dark. Then her beam caught something in
front of Shiny.

A small stack of devices had been
created in front of the alien. As Telisa watched, a small silver
sphere flew over and deposited another artifact into the pile.
Telisa realized that the sphere looked the same as the thing that
had blocked Joe when he pointed his weapon at Shiny.

“
Wow! You’re collecting
stuff faster than I am!” Telisa exclaimed.

Shiny indicated the pile and moved
several of his legs. He pushed one of the items towards Telisa and
then backed off.

“
For me?” Telisa asked. She
watched the alien for a moment, then moved forward. The intriguing
stack beckoned her, and the alien didn’t move.

“
Thank you!” she said,
bending down to scoop the items into her backpack. “Thanks!” she
said again. “I need to figure out how to say that so you
understand.”

Telisa continued to look for loose
items in the room for a few more minutes, but it seemed that
Shiny’s scavenging efforts had retrieved most everything in the
area since she found nothing else that wasn’t attached to the other
heavier equipment.

The sound of footsteps alerted her to
someone’s approach. Telisa slid behind a pillar until she heard
Magnus’s voice.

“
Telisa?” he called, walking
carefully up to Shiny.

“
Over here,” she
answered.

“
There’s a passage upwards
to the surface,” he told her. “If we’re going to lose him, we have
to go and wait for Joe to come back through it. We’ll hide near the
entrance and when he walks back to this spot, we’ll run for
it.”

“
So soon?” Telisa moaned.
“There are all kinds of amazing things around here.”

“
What’ve you
found?”

“
I haven’t the slightest
clue,” Telisa said. “All kinds of stuff, maybe enough to discover
something really amazing about the Trilisks!”

“
That’s great, but we have
to go or end up on a prison asteroid chipping at ore veins,” Magnus
said. “He could be back soon, I don’t think it’ll take very long
for him to make a report.”