CHAPTER 7

STONE CIRCLE

Unknown planet's surface

Daniel, Victor, John, and Sam stood on the barren surface of the planet in their pressure suits, looking up as the U.P.N. Kanto climbed away from them, disappearing in the blackness of space.

'Lenny say's he'll be fully dark in five minutes. I've instructed him to stay in range of my uplink.' said the voice of Ise over the suit comms.

'Roger that Ise. We're coming to you.' Sam said.

Everyone gathered together with pistols in hands and tablets hanging in pouches on their waists. Dan gripped his gun while his other hand hugged his left side. He looked a little unsteady.

Sam walked over to him, 'Arm over my shoulder, Dan. We'll go slow.'

Daniel nodded and put his arm around her shoulders, steadying himself.

The group started toward entrance building just a little way off from them. Jing was waiting for them.

'Welcome. Let me get the door for you,' Jing said.

He keyed up a command on the open panel, and the door slid down. They started down the ramp way.

Reaching the second airlock, they all crammed in as Jing started its cycle sequence. It was a tight fit.

When the door opened, and they stepped inside, Sam could see for herself the cages and medical instruments. Ise had placed most of the devices out on the floor and had been consulting with Lenny as to their purpose.

‘Air is breathable if you want to pop your seals,’ Jing said, opening his helmet.

Sam followed, and so did everyone else. As soon as they did, the helmet folded back and collapsed down flat, forming a half ring three inches thick along the back of their neck.

The air was cold and had a metallic tang of machinery.

Jing went to the door that lead to the rest of the complex while Sam walked over to Ise.

'Lenny have any insights?' She asked.

'It's mostly diagnostic and surgical equipment. I used one of them to check the stains in some of the cages. Most of the stains are old, and I can't get a reading from them. The few I could analyze came from recognizable sources.'

'Recognizable?'

'Yeah, they seem to be blood stains from animal species found on some of the colonized worlds. I can only imagine that the old stains are also animal blood,' Ise reported.

'Animals... Maybe we've found a poacher den.'

'There is a market for exotic animals. The stranger the better in some circles. I don't think we can rule out poachers,' Ise agreed.

Sam nodded and looked around the room. Victor and Jing were prying the cover off the door control panel. Sam walked over.

'I thought you said the security wasn't that strong here.' She said.

'I thought it wasn't. But there's a passcode on the door. Victor is going to plug into the system to see if he can hack it,' Jing said.

They popped the cover, and Victor plugged a handheld computer into a port.

They watched in silence for a moment. Victor made a face and looked at the door with a frown.

'What's the matter, Vick?' Jing asked.

'It's got an International Space Agency encryption.'

'Can you break it?'

'It's about twenty years out date; I can break it easily. I'm just wondering why they'd keep that encryption and not upload a new one. So far we've found a U.P.N. faster than light signaler, and now we have an I.S.A. door control.'

Sam looked at Jing, 'Jing, did you find out who built the filtration system by any chance?'

Jing glanced over at the filtration system. 'No ma'am, but I know it's not a government system, it was a civilian system. If it had been U.P.N. or I.S.A., it would have been unmistakable.'

'So we've got three different sources for equipment, a collection of old medical equipment just lying around, and the possibility of animals being brought through here. The more I think about it, the less sense this place makes,' Sam said.

'It reminds me of one of the first bulk haulers I served on,' John said.

Sam turned and looked at him, 'How do you mean?'

He gestured with his arms around the room, 'A hodgepodge of assorted equipment all rigged to work together. If you weren't one of the more well off ships, you had to make do with whatever you could trade for, salvage, or find for a good price. It was never pretty, but it kept working. Whoever built this place was short on money, but had plenty of intelligence to go around.'

A beep from his computer drew Sam's attention back to Victor.

'Door's ready Captain. Shall we proceed?'

'Open it, Vick.'

The door opened, and they stepped onto a raised walkway. It spiraled clockwise down a long deep shaft, with the occasional doorway along its path at lower intervals down the shaft. They were near the top of the shaft, and above them sat a large circle of metal with a seam in it.

'This caused that patch of disturbed dust on the planet we saw,' Sam observed.

'Doesn't look like a hanger though,' Victor commented.

'Maybe it's for cargo loading. They could lower the containers down the shaft to whichever level they needed to go,' Jing said.

'How would they unload if it's just floating in the air though?' John asked.

Jing walked up to the railing and looked at a door further down the shaft. He pointed at something, 'You can see seams in the railing and walkway down there by the door. I'm guessing there's some extendable platform. They could activate it, lower the cargo onto it, and then unload from there. Come on, let's have a look at the control panel.'

'I don't think we should run off too quickly,' Dan said. He was looking better but was favouring one side as he walked, wincing on every other step.

'You're not going anywhere quickly,' John commented.

Dan shot him a look. 'You could always just carry me there John.'

'I don't think I'm quite that fit, but I can give you a hand at least,' John said, walking over to Dan and letting him lean against him, 'Us flyboys have to stick together.'

The group moved down the spiral walkway. As they did, a strip of lights along the wall illuminated their way. The lights followed them down the passage, turning on in front of them and turning off behind them. There was a circle of light coming from the bottom of the shaft. They reached the first door.

Jing looked at the wall, 'That's odd. There's no control panel.'

'How are we supposed to get in?' John asked.

'I'm not sure.' Jing said, 'Maybe if we can get to that wireless network and access the whatever control system runs this place.'

Sam walked to the guardrail and looked over the side, through the ring of lights at the bottom she could make out some colour, it seemed like a mat of green. She looked at Ise. 'How's your strength on the wireless signal?'

'Still rather weak, if we go lower, I should be able to access it.'

'I see something at the bottom of the shaft. If we don't find any door controls on the way, we'll just go right to the bottom.' Sam said.

The crew started off again. They passed another six doors as they spiraled down the shaft. At the bottom the ramp continued into a larger room. The room was circular, with a dome-shaped roof, from which the shaft came out of the centre The walkway arced just beneath the roof. The crew walked the rest of the way out of the shaft and onto the walkway. They stopped and looked over the railing at what was below them.

'Is that grass?' John asked, looking confused.

They all stopped and stared in silence at the unexpected find. The green Samantha had spotted up in the shaft seemed to be a layer of tall grass. In the grass, there was a ring of what looked like human sized stones.

'What kind place is this?' Jing asked, his voice thick with surprise.

They followed along the walkway until it reached the edge of the room and angled down and allowing them to step into the room. The floor extended for a few meters before giving way to the grass. Scattered bits of dried grass lay on the floor by their feet.

Victor bent down and picked up one of the dried stalks of grass, 'This stuff has been growing here a while,' he stood up, 'And look at the stalks, some of them have gone to seed recently.'

'What, are you a farmer as well Vick?' John asked.

Victor glanced at John. 'I'm a man of many talents.'

Ise took a step out into the grass. It came up to her hips. Sam watched as she put her hands out and walked forward a few steps, her gloved hands brushing along the tops of the stalks.

'Ise?' Sam asked.

'Just a minute. The wireless signal seems strongest near the centre of the room.' Ise said, still walking forward.

The others stepped onto the ground, moving with deliberate slowness. Sam followed behind them. The ground was soft and reminded Sam of her time growing up on the planet Veil with her mother. She bent down and poked through the grass. She felt the soil and pulled up a small patch of it. It was dark, moist, and had been maintained in some fashion. She brought her hand close and sniffed. It had a rich loamy smell that reminded her of a garden. She stood up and looked around the room again. Everyone was looking around, except for Ise, who was still ambling toward the centre of the place. Sam closed her eyes and held her hands out as Ise had, and walked through the grass, feeling it brush against her palms and rustle against her legs. For a moment, she forgot where she was, her mind wandered back to the fields of her home on Veil. She breathed in deep the rich aroma of grass and dirt. She felt some of her tension melting away with each breath.

She heard something and opened her eyes.

All around, the crew was walking through the grass, each moving toward Ise who now stood in the centre of the room. They seemed lost in their thoughts. Sam concentrated on the sound and looked around. She looked to where it had come from and saw the walkway retracting into the wall. She frowned at this and turned to look at her crew. Her gaze paused on one of the standing stones. The stone seemed to quiver almost imperceptibly as she watched.

'Guys, something's happening here.' She said.

No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. One by one, they walked past the circle of stones and continued toward Ise.