Chapter 1.
The stage is set.
Vast mountains rose from the mist, like immense monuments of frost and ice sculpted by the hands of giants. Gabriel Maroque was filled with a heady sense of awe at the sight as he gazed up at the impossibly enormous glacier-mountains. For a moment, he wondered how something so gigantic could have been hidden for so long.
“Incredible.” Serena whispered.
The breathtaking sight similarly affected his colleague, Gabriel saw, and he could only nod in agreement.
The sky-liner Astartes was still quite a distance away from the majestic mountains, yet the entire viewing-bay was already filled with the sight. He could hardly imagine what a human would look like upon the great Taborean Range, so small, so minute, so insignificant. It was absolutely amazing, how the natural skyscrapers of blue and white towered over the entire landscape, allowing no other consideration to come into mind save itself. Gabriel spotted clouds hovering about it barely above the halfway mark: a testament to the height that this sheer wall of ice possessed.
“It's so huge..” He found himself murmuring. “And we're still a day or two away..”
His communicator buzzed, jolting him from his reverie. As Gabriel began to take it out, he saw that Serena was doing the same.
“Huh. We'd best get going then.” Serena said, reading the message quickly once more to be certain.
“A possible location to start from? I wonder what the sensors picked up.”
“.. we're looking at approximately twenty minutes travel time from where the Astartes will land. My lady Astartes here cannot locate any suitable location within the moutains, henceforth designated the Taborean Range, to land. We'll be landing at the edge of the whole Tabora Plateau itself, right here at the northern end. Then you archaeologists will take what equipment you need for a forward camp and head here,” The gruff Captain jabbed at a spot on the holo-screen just ourside the white patch indicating uncharted territory, “which will be a permanent spot for any further expeditions. We won't be establishing base camp, because it's just too dangerous, this is unknown territory, ladies and gentlemen. We know precisely nothing about the Taborean Range.”
“Congratulations. You archaeologists will be the first to ever set foot on that big block of ice. I don't care about it, one way or another. However, I am in-charge of your safety and administration. Your team will travel on the hoverbikes, because I don't see any other way of getting up there. Three-dee.” He instructed the computer. The holographic display on the screen flipped horizontally and large formations began projecting upwards. With another instruction, the display scaled down in size, reducing the size of the Range to be just above the heads of the members of the expedition.
“I don't have to tell you people that the Range is enormous. Its size is far beyond anything we've ever seen and the scanners can't even find the end of it.” The Captain cleared his throat before expanding a section of the mountains. What originally seemed like a single enormous block was now thick vertical pillars conjoined around the middle. Further enlargement focused on a natural basin surrounded by sheer mountain-faces that left only three openings.
“Your team enters through the southern valley and the forward camp will be set up right in this basin. There doesn't appear to be any streams running through- all frozen obviously- so any supplies you need will have to be taken from the Astartes. The basin itself is about twelve odd klicks in radius, situated nineteen and a half klicks above sea level. Temperature range is negative one in the day and can fall to negative ten past sundown. Any questions?”
“Captain Torrasky, why exactly was this location selected?” A thin, bespectacled man asked. “While I understand the need for proximity to this dismal ship,” The Captain stiffened at the insult. “I cannot comprehend the reasons for your choice.”
“Mr Karkasky, your concern is.. noted.” A slight tone of anger coloured the Captain's raspy voice. “However, there is good reason for this location.”
Captain Torrasky selected the north-western mountain face and the projection enlarged once more.
“Scanners indicated artificial formations of metals upon the face of this peak. The Acies Array acquired visuals of an entrance.”
An image appeared on the screen. A distinct entrance, the archway formed of some smooth grey rock, the passageway half-smothered in the pristine white snow. It was a doorway carved into the mountain, clearly a sign of a civilisation that made its home within the bones of the planet.
A ripple of amazement went through the ten members as they observed the image.
“Clearly,” The Captain continued, “You will want to explore it and that, Mr Karkasky, is the reason for my choice.”
Sinder Karkasky nodded. “Captain, do we have a frame of reference for this structure? To put it dumbly, how large is it?”
“I understand your lingo perfectly.” The Captain snapped. “The Acies Array puts the width of it at twenty metres, the height is about thirty-two.”
“That's enormous!” Arnold Winfried gasped.
“The Golden Ratio, huh? More proof that it's artificial.” Karkasky commented.
“Captain, does the Acies have any visuals of the interior?” Serena asked.
“No, Miss Hartmann. The Acies Array cannot penetrate the interior. In fact, this visual was the closest the Array could go. Any further and the image becomes so much static.”
“I see. Thank you, Captain.” She subsided into thoughtful silence.
“Any other questions?”
“There aren't... there's no sign of life at the entrance, is there?” A wispy, nervous male asked.
“Not that we have discovered, Mr Winfried. No electronic signatures, except ambient ghostings from the material itself. As I said, the Acies cannot probe further. If there's nothing else, then go and get all your equipment ready. The Astartes touches virgin ice in twenty hours.”
Each downloading a copy of the information gathered, the archaeologists broke off into groups as they departed the briefing room.
Gabriel walked with the polemical Sinder Karkasky and a quiet, soft-spoken professor of geology by the name of Dorian Painter.
“What do you expect to find in there, Gabriel? Ancient ruins, just like the speculations of popular pulp fiction. I honestly didn't expect Horske to have a good reason for such a location, convenient though it may be.” Karkasky snorted.
“Sinder, at least try to be polite to the Captain. After just now, he probably wants your skin if he didn't before.” Gabriel sighed. “Horske Torrasky is quite the able Captain and we're lucky that we have him and not some unlearned bigot as Captain.”
“Yes, well, it doesn't matter. What matters is what we're going to find. I can just imagine the headlines: 'Ancient civilisation discovered in mysterious mountains' or maybe something like 'Tabora Plateau greater mystery than ever'. We'll be famous, my friend!” Karkasky spread his arms dramatically.
“The headlines will be filled with the same issues as usual.” Dorian commented. “'Tensions peak after failed peace talks'. Have the papers even reported 'news' for the past few months?”
“Truth in that, Dorian. Anyway, Sinder, what makes you think it'll be an ancient civilisation? For all we know, it might be some strange alien artifact.”
Karkasky shrugged, a smirk filling his expression. “I don't know. Whatever it is, what do you two intend to bring down there?”
“You have it easy, don't you? You just need your recorder, don't you?”
“Perhaps a handy note-taker too. You'll never know when the inspiration for description hits you. Both of you, on the other hand..” Sinder laughed mockingly. “I bet you two'll be lugging so much equipment along, you'll be dead tired when we just make camp.”
“Knock it off, Sinder. Being the linguist-cum-documentarist doesn't give you the right to be an ass.” Gabriel said irritably.
“You're just sore. A little premature, I think, to be sore. Now don't,” Sinder lifted a hand to stop Gabriel's retort, “get so worked up, go ahead and prepare. I shall retire to those minute quarters that we call rooms.”
Karkasky left with a last parting smirk and Gabriel could feel his choler rising at the abrasive man.
“Relax, Maroque.” Dorian put a hand on his shoulder. “We have work to do.”
Gabriel nodded, slowly turning away from Sinder's diminishing figure. “Right. According to this, we'll need to clear out the snow first for the camp. That's not a problem. If this mountain is like anything we've seen before, the next layer will be the- what are you laughing at?”
“Maroque, you're concentrating on a camp when everyone is thinking about that entrance?” Dorian chuckled softly.
“Well, yeah, I mean, it's not like we have any information on that entrance. The Acies didn't get anything after all, I'm just working with what I have.” Gabriel retorted defensively.
“Regardless of what Karkasky said, I am curious about that structure.”
“Who isn't?”
“I mean, just look at the thing.” Dorian called up the image onto his datapad, filling the holographic display with the mysterious archway. “There isn't any buildup of snow at all within the entrance. Right outside, the ground is clear for a metre or so before snow starts piling up. Someone or something's clearing the snow. From surrounding images, it's quite clear that precipitate is quite.. abundant.”
“Remember, the Captain said there were no electronic signatures. Maybe the snow just doesn't fall there.” Gabriel remarked, sounding unconvinced himself.
“Maybe.” Dorian said dubiously. “I'm going to consult the Acies.”
“Then we'd better hurry, I bet some of the others have the same idea as you.”
As they quickened their pace, Dorian continued expounding upon his theory.
“.. so whatever this is, it's definitely far more advanced than anything we've ever known. Neither of us are experts in this field, so we'll have to check with-”
“Woah woah woah, slow down there, I've never seen you this excited. You might want to calm down a little there.”
Dorian placed his palm against the blank square plate embedded beside the door. The panel lit up bright blue and within a moment, the gunmetal grey door slid open with a hiss.
The Acies Array was, strictly speaking, not entirely mechanical in nature. What was mechanical about it were the multiple display screens, where paragraphs of data scrolled through continuously and the holographic projection of the observed image as well as the thick and dull cables which seemed to cover all the walls and floor. Several cables, most prominently, were attached to the displays on one end and into the rear of the helmets.
The helmets were vaguely reminiscent of those purportedly used by ancient mariners: they had large and singular portholes rendered opaque by some strange misting upon the lens. The face of the Acies was, thus, unknowable.
The core of the Acies was organic. Three people stood in a triangular formation, each facing outwards. They wore the grey helmets, the portholes glowing with a fey light that made Gabriel shiver. They were garbed in form-fitting black suits with obsidian bands embedded in the psychoactive material about their limbs and neck. The backs of the three were arched backwards, their spines so curved that Gabriel could almost hear them breaking. Protruding at regular intervals from the stressed spines were what looked like rounded spikes about ten centimetres long and three centimetres in radius. The strange garb gave Gabriel the impression that they were humans no longer, but were some strange, mutated deviant harnessed and enslaved. These three people were not normal; their minds were enhanced by virtue of a genetic roulette and their psychic capabilities were harnessed for the Array. Whispers filled the room, vague whispers with contents just frustratingly out of reach of comprehension.
Dorian stood before the three; the trio did not respond in any way whatsoever to his presence.
Clearing his throat, he announced, “Recall last vision.”
What sounded like a faint whisper interspersed with a moan flitted through the room, causing Gabriel's hair to stand on end. He had never liked the Acies Array and found it quite disturbing.
The holographic tank flickered and the image of the stone archway formed.
“Zoom out.”
The archway became smaller and Gabriel saw that the snow built up to a prodigious height around the structure, but only after a certain distance. For that distance, the snow was simply missing and bare ice was exposed.
“It can't have been melted away then..” Dorian muttered.
A pneumatic hiss sounded once more and a ebony-skinned woman stepped in, accompanied by the comparatively pale form of Serena Hartmann. As always, Gabriel felt himself inhale sharply in Serena's presence.
“Well, Carmen, it seems that others have the same idea as we do.” Serena smiled and Gabriel couldn't help but smile in response.
“Hartmann, Santiago.” Dorian nodded in greeting. “I suppose that we all have the same purpose. We may as well settle all our queries in one viewing. If there's anything else you want to view, feel free to say so.”
Carmen Santiago was bald, not through any fault of her genes, but through her own choice. Her smooth brown pate was covered by a cap and the lack of hair facilitated her connection to the logic banks containing her memories. She was a documentarist, as Karkasky was, but she dealt more with images and videos. Nobody had said it, but when Gabriel found out that she was psychic, he knew that she was also there as their emergency communicator, in case mechanical means failed. That in itself was astounding, because psychics were expensive these days thanks to the Anglo-Sino conflicts and because the Taborean expedition wasn't particularly well-funded. As it was, their budget had limited them to this small team of ten and while the Astartes was quite grand, this was to be its final voyage before being decommissioned. He wondered vaguely what would happen to the Acies Array when the ship would be decommissioned..
“.. Maroque? Maroque?”
Gabriel blinked as Dorian waved a hand in front of him.
“Yeah?”
“You zoned out there for a moment. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“As I was saying, the Array cannot detail the composition of the arch. It's not any material I can think of, can you?”
Gabriel watched the screen for a moment before shaking his head. “No. We'll need to go right to it. Serena, you're the geo-chemist here, what do you think?”
“I'm sorry, but I've got no idea as well. The first thing that came to my mind was that perhaps there's a high concentration of chromic acid within the rock, but that wouldn't make sense, considering that the Acies can access it from any direction and wouldn't be stopped. Also, remember that the Acies is first and foremost psychic. For the Acies to be unable to function, the rock likely has a disruptive electromagnetic field coupled with psi-infused crystals. Unless it's simply warded..” Serena trailed off and looked meaningfully at Carmen.
“No, the psychic imprints I'm picking up from the Acies is nothing like wards. It just.. is. It doesn't seem.. I can't put it very well, I'm sorry. It's just natural.”
“Natural? That's clearly artificial.” Dorian remarked.
“No, no, not in that sense. Natural, like it's meant to be there.”
Gabriel shared a look of disbelief with Dorian: neither of them were as yet wholly comfortable with the idea of psychics. Back at the University, he had never had any contact whatsoever with these mind-reading, thought-transmitting freaks.
“Well, if that's all, then I don't suppose there is anything more to see. Shall we leave, Maroque?” Dorian turned to the door.
Gabriel followed in suit, head turning to catch one final glimpse of Serena. As the door hissed shut behind them, Dorian chuckled.
“Turn your head any more and you'll snap your neck.”
Face blushing rubicund, Gabriel retorted, “You're very loquacious today, aren't you? You weren't quite as talkative as when Sinder was here. He would have made a great conversationalist with you.”
“Karkasky is a caustic upstart with no sense of decorum. He has no respect whatsoever.” Dorian remarked irritably. “Don't compare me and him.”
Gabriel kept silent, noting with surprise his friend's hostile reaction to the linguist. He hadn't realised Dorian disliked him with such vitriol.
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