Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins Read Online Free PDF

at the system Shiny had ordered the PIT
team to investigate. The target system had no name, but the UNSF had a set of
rules for naming systems based upon their location relative to Earth. The
auto-naming algorithm called it the Idrick Piper System for casual
conversation, and there was a long universal identifier to go with it that no
one would remember. Cilreth almost stashed the UUID away in her link cache,
then decided she could just recalculate it as needed.
    “Seven
planetary bodies,” Cilreth summarized to the team. She worked from her
quarters, where she had set up a smaller version of her isolated workspace she
had built on the Clacker . It was a sad comparison to the old one, which
had made her feel like the mastermind at the center of a massive crime
syndicate. Now she felt like a teenager operating out of a frontier basement.
    “The
target planet will be something we can visit in person,” Telisa said from
elsewhere on the ship. “I don’t think Shiny would send us to investigate a gas
giant, at least not without the means to survive there.”
    Cilreth
eliminated most of the planets based upon their environments, leaving two
candidates. She told the New Iridar to scan both of them. The initial
summaries came through in the few minutes it took to send energy pulses out to
the bodies, receive the reflections, and analyze them. Idrick Piper IV was a
vast brown vat of mud. Some compounds existed there that hinted at primitive
life. Idrick Piper V held vast forests and signs of a wider variety of life.
Several massive constructs were spotted among the natural flora which the
computer labeled as artificial.
    “The
fifth planet is almost certainly the spot,” Telisa said. “Bring us closer.”
    “Scanning
is a priority,” Cilreth said. “Should we send down some hardware?”
    “Yes.
Send twenty attendants to gather details.”
    “So
many? Aren’t they a valuable resource?” Cilreth asked.
    “We
don’t want to run out,” Telisa sent Cilreth privately. “But the fewer
attendants we have, the less eyes we have recording our every move. They’re
more than our eyes and ears; they serve as the enforcer’s spies too.”
    Cilreth
activated the attendants and sent them through the smallest lock on the Vovokan
ship, which was less than a meter on a side. Telisa continued the private part
of their conversation.
    “I
haven’t really asked—”
    “Yes,
I’ll go planetside with the team,” Cilreth said. “We don’t have an army
anymore. And this tin can ain’t the Clacker .”
    “Thanks.”
    “We’re
going to hit the jackpot and get whatever it takes to get Magnus back.”
    Cilreth
meant it. She knew what it was like to find someone only to lose her.
    The
probes hurtled down toward the planet. They were too small to have their own
gravity spinners, even with Vovokan technology, but since the New Iridar had a spinner, it did not have a high orbital speed. The attendants did not
have to lose much velocity relative to the surface below, so they would be able
to survive the atmospheric entry and take their places within the hour.
    Cilreth
kept dropping the New Iridar ’s scans into a team feed. The PIT team
would all be poring over the data. She received a request to access the data
from an entity she did not recognize.
    Oh.
The battle sphere. Our big brother. Does it ask because it can’t snoop the
feed, or just to give the impression it can’t snoop the feed? Or to remind me
I’m at its service?
    Cilreth
granted the access request, then dove into it herself.
    Here
we go again. No doubt swarming with large predators waiting to take their turn
at me. Her inner voice
was sarcastic but the thought still reflected a real fear.
    Cilreth
saw similarities between the fifth planet’s composition and that of the core
planets inhabited by Terrans. Its gravity was relatively mild, and the surface
was relatively warm. It had water, but only covering thirty percent of the
surface. Billions of plants or plant-like