flesh-coloured, and reminded me of tripe, striped here and there with rust-coloured ulcerations. It was as if we were in the gut of some gargantuan bovine creature.
Da Souza took her tour-guide stance before us.
“The caverns were discovered five years ago after a botanist uncovered the standing stones and statues in the rainforest above us. A team from the University of Mackinley searched the area for more statuary, and found the entrance through which we’ve just passed. It was a narrow defile then, and it’s since been widened. We think the race responsible for the lower chambers had another, as yet undiscovered, entrance.
“As I was telling Maddie earlier, at first scientists thought the standing stones were of Ashentay provenance, but subsequent investigations discounted this theory.”
“But there were no native peoples on the planet before the Ashentay,” Hawk said.
Da Souza smiled. “Quite. That led researchers to speculate that the stones were of extraterrestrial origin. What archaeologists discovered down here bore out that idea. If you would care to follow me.”
She set off and, intrigued, we followed.
We walked for a hundred metres and came to the end of the cavern. The walls closed in, the stalactite-spiked roof descended, and ahead I made out a dark opening, through which our guide now ducked.
Ella could walk upright through the narrow corridor, but the rest of us were forced to bend double. A sharp, dry, salty smell filled the air.
After fifty metres the corridor gave way to another chamber, this one quite different from the last.
We stood up, stretched, and let out exclamations of surprise.
In complete contrast to the natural contours of the first chamber, this one was so obviously manufactured that it was as if we’d been teleported from one locale to another. But what was even more staggering about what opened up before us was the nature of the work done down here. For some reason I had been expecting statues and carvings hewn from the rock, perhaps crude figures, effigies… I should have known better, of course: if a star-faring race had left vestiges of their civilisation here, then it was not likely to resemble something out of Terran antiquity.
For a start, the cavern was triangular: two great sloping walls rose to meet at a sharp point a hundred metres overhead, and the walls were fashioned not from rock but from metal, smooth and seamless. If the very shape of the cavern confounded my expectations, then so did its contents.
Hundreds of thousands of silver columns, each perhaps three centimetres in diameter and as high as a man, rose from the flat metal decking. They stood a metre from each other, like some enigmatic extraterrestrial work of art.
“But what are they?” Hawk asked.
Da Souza smiled. “The 64-million-dollar question, Mr Hawksworth. If the scientists could work that one out…”
I gestured towards the closest of the columns. “Can we…?” I asked.
“Be my guest.”
We stepped forward and touched the spears. I pulled my hand away quickly. “They’re… warm …”
“Thirty degrees Celsius, Mr Conway. All of them.”
I laid my hand on the column again, feeling its comforting heat.
Ella, with the audacity of childhood, embraced a column. “I know what they are!” she piped up. “They’re alien heaters. It’s cold down here!”
Da Souza laughed. “They might well be, Ella. I’ll tell the scientists about your theory.”
“I suppose you don’t know how they’re powered?” Matt asked.
“Again, we don’t know. As with all alien technology, we have to be very, very circumspect… not only in our interpretation of what objects might be, but on a more practical level, in terms of our physical address of the objects. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. For all we know, it might be as potentially dangerous as a nuclear power station.”
Matt stood before the array of columns, arms folded across his chest, frowning.
I mooted my
Da Souza took her tour-guide stance before us.
“The caverns were discovered five years ago after a botanist uncovered the standing stones and statues in the rainforest above us. A team from the University of Mackinley searched the area for more statuary, and found the entrance through which we’ve just passed. It was a narrow defile then, and it’s since been widened. We think the race responsible for the lower chambers had another, as yet undiscovered, entrance.
“As I was telling Maddie earlier, at first scientists thought the standing stones were of Ashentay provenance, but subsequent investigations discounted this theory.”
“But there were no native peoples on the planet before the Ashentay,” Hawk said.
Da Souza smiled. “Quite. That led researchers to speculate that the stones were of extraterrestrial origin. What archaeologists discovered down here bore out that idea. If you would care to follow me.”
She set off and, intrigued, we followed.
We walked for a hundred metres and came to the end of the cavern. The walls closed in, the stalactite-spiked roof descended, and ahead I made out a dark opening, through which our guide now ducked.
Ella could walk upright through the narrow corridor, but the rest of us were forced to bend double. A sharp, dry, salty smell filled the air.
After fifty metres the corridor gave way to another chamber, this one quite different from the last.
We stood up, stretched, and let out exclamations of surprise.
In complete contrast to the natural contours of the first chamber, this one was so obviously manufactured that it was as if we’d been teleported from one locale to another. But what was even more staggering about what opened up before us was the nature of the work done down here. For some reason I had been expecting statues and carvings hewn from the rock, perhaps crude figures, effigies… I should have known better, of course: if a star-faring race had left vestiges of their civilisation here, then it was not likely to resemble something out of Terran antiquity.
For a start, the cavern was triangular: two great sloping walls rose to meet at a sharp point a hundred metres overhead, and the walls were fashioned not from rock but from metal, smooth and seamless. If the very shape of the cavern confounded my expectations, then so did its contents.
Hundreds of thousands of silver columns, each perhaps three centimetres in diameter and as high as a man, rose from the flat metal decking. They stood a metre from each other, like some enigmatic extraterrestrial work of art.
“But what are they?” Hawk asked.
Da Souza smiled. “The 64-million-dollar question, Mr Hawksworth. If the scientists could work that one out…”
I gestured towards the closest of the columns. “Can we…?” I asked.
“Be my guest.”
We stepped forward and touched the spears. I pulled my hand away quickly. “They’re… warm …”
“Thirty degrees Celsius, Mr Conway. All of them.”
I laid my hand on the column again, feeling its comforting heat.
Ella, with the audacity of childhood, embraced a column. “I know what they are!” she piped up. “They’re alien heaters. It’s cold down here!”
Da Souza laughed. “They might well be, Ella. I’ll tell the scientists about your theory.”
“I suppose you don’t know how they’re powered?” Matt asked.
“Again, we don’t know. As with all alien technology, we have to be very, very circumspect… not only in our interpretation of what objects might be, but on a more practical level, in terms of our physical address of the objects. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. For all we know, it might be as potentially dangerous as a nuclear power station.”
Matt stood before the array of columns, arms folded across his chest, frowning.
I mooted my
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