Lea Santorin stood in the spartan, sterile structure known as the Waiting Room and tried not to grin like an idiot. She still wasn’t sure why she’d been picked for this expedition, but she wasn’t complaining. Even though the decorating scheme was pretty much all Early Cargo Container. The Waiting Room did feature some windows with a view of what looked like a regular cave, just like on Earth but without stalagmites and stalactites and things. Boring. Except that the Waiting Room existed so shuttles could dock and people could enter the rest of what they’d come all the way to the edge of the solar system to study.
If she looked closely, she could see the join. On one side it was human–made steel, and on the other a rough, fine–structured material they still had trouble making a dent in. Whoever had made it—and the rest of the huge structure discovered in the core of Pluto—was not human. That much they knew. What Lea wanted to know was how anyone had ever thought to drill down through hundreds of meters of Pluto’s ice to find the cave and the rest of the structure the cave connected to.
Vagrant gleams of light reflected off the dark ice of the tunnel. The shuttle was coming, and it was carrying the one object they had successfully removed from the alien base. That fact, and its location in a niche in the big foyer–like area connected to the cave, meant it had to be important. For what, she didn’t know—but since the whole mission was focused on figuring out the alien base, Lea had persuaded the mission director that she should be allowed to study the object in its original setting. And so, the Gizmo, her name for the thing, was being taken from Kepler, the ship that had brought them from Luna Base to Pluto so she could do so. She wondered how long they would let her keep it.
The expedition leaders had waited until Kepler was nearly halfway out from Luna Base to tell them what they were really going to investigate. All Lea had been told on Earth, under heavy security restrictions, was that they had found alien wreckage on Pluto. Which was not exactly true, but not completely false either. Pluto, under a coating of ice and rock, was an alien construction. Nobody was sure if it was wrecked or abandoned or what. No alien skeletons or equivalent had been found. At least that’s what they’d said.
The shuttle slowly rotated and settled to the floor of the cave, and Lea fidgeted impatiently waiting for the docking collar to connect. Some military types in uniforms were first off the shuttle, but Lea paid no attention to them. Her focus was on Dr. Vasili Adi, who was carrying a bulky metal case.
She reached for the case, but Dr. Adi frowned. “I open when we get there. You want to break only one we have?”
“I’m not going to break it! Come on, let’s get it plugged in.” Lea sped ahead along the rough–walled corridor, turned, stood a few seconds, and ran back to the slower man. “Are you getting paid by the hour or what?”
Dr. Adi gave a long–suffering sigh. “Young Santorina, it has waited for us many years. You can wait a few minutes for an old man, yes? What do you miss in this time?”
“How would I know? That’s what I want to find out!” She bounced up and down. “Come on!”
They knew the alien base was huge, and also that parts of it were inaccessible, closed off behind doors they couldn’t find or that wouldn’t open. Lea suspected the Gizmo was a key of some kind. Of course you would leave the key by the door, where you could find it when you came home after visiting the Andromeda Galaxy, right?
This must have been what it was like for the archaeologists who dug up Tutankhamen’s tomb. As soon as it was opened up it would take years of unpacking and exploring and figuring out the alien technology. And she got to be a part of it. She could spend the rest of her life here in a happy, geeky haze.
Finally Dr. Adi and the case reached the niche in the wall. All of the corridors and spaces they could reach had the same rough–textured surface, uniformly pale gold in color. Light glowed from the ceiling, but not from a separate fixture. At regular intervals the wall had a recessed section framed in a thicker border, looking like a shallow doorway, but it appeared to be merely decorative. The recessed area wasn’t more than a few inches deep. The floor was darker and not as rough—it had a resilient feel. The air was dry and cold, with no scent.
Lea’s diagnostic gear was spread out around the niche, ready to go. Dr. Adi propped the case on a wheeled equipment cart and unfastened the latches.
“You should be using gloves,” he said with disapproval, but Lea had already grabbed the Gizmo.
It was dark but slightly translucent, asymmetrical, and obviously alien. She’d studied the photographs during the months–long trip out and knew every millimeter of its surface. It felt solid and smooth under her fingers, still a bit warm. Had they been keeping it in a heated environment for some reason? She’d have to ask.
Shifting it so it looked just like it had in the original photos, Lea carefully placed the Gizmo back in the niche. “Just like tha—” She stopped, looking around in puzzlement. “Did you hear that?”
“I hear nothing,” Dr. Adi said.
Lea wasn’t sure she’d heard anything herself. It was more like an echo of a sound instead of the sound itself. An echo that felt like they were in a huge, open space, and for some reason she had a strong feeling that something other than themselves was listening. She shivered. Better get to work and stop imagining things.
She connected probes, watched scanner screens, made notes, and pondered. Dr. Adi was seated on a large equipment crate, reading and occasionally looking over to see what she was doing. A faint vibration in the floor made her glance up, but it subsided and Lea went back to work.
Someone ran by, heading in the direction of the Waiting Room. One of the soldiers. I still don’t know why those guys are here, she thought, her tongue sticking out in concentration as she tried to get a large probe in a small space. This isn’t a military project. Yet another question to ask.
Her attention was diverted by the sound of distant voices. Distant shouting voices. Two more soldiers ran by, and a wave of cold washed over her, seeing weapons in their hands. A third followed, yelling into a radio. “Repeat, what is status of shuttle?”
And then the alarm sounded. In the first moment of panic she forgot what it meant, just knew something was badly wrong. Then she remembered. Evacuation. Assemble at the Waiting Room, instructions will follow. Dr. Adi was trying to pack the Gizmo but it wasn’t coming loose from its niche.
“Come on, it’s an emergency! Leave it!” She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him behind her.
As they got closer to the Waiting Room she could hear more. “What do you mean, we lost the shuttle? What happened?” someone shouted.
The shuttle was gone? How were they going to get out? Lea wedged her way through the crowd to one of the windows. No visible wreckage. Then she noticed something else missing. The dark ice of the tunnel was gone too. She could see stars at the end of the cave. That was impossible. The ice was several hundreds of meters thick. Even if they’d been hit by an asteroid, wouldn’t they have felt something? Wouldn’t some of the ice remain?
The stars began to disappear again, and then she saw why. The huge bulk of Kepler was floating into the cave, and not gracefully. One edge scraped along the floor, bits of metal breaking off as it went. Clouds of gas escaped from the holes created.
“Move back from the windows!” shouted one of the soldiers. “It’s coming in fast!”
Lea stayed where she was, feeling numb. If Kepler crashed into them they would die anyway. No way to get back home. Only one sealing door between the Waiting Room and the rest of the alien base. Is it under attack? What is out there more dangerous than bringing the ship in here?
Behind the dark shape of Kepler, the starfield had vanished again. It had been replaced by a shifting, nacreous silver cloud completely filling—and blocking—the opening of the cave. They couldn’t get out anymore.
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