The Trilisk Supersedure Read Online Free PDF Page B

They cut the ceiling and held it open with cables. Then the Trilisk
columns inside were pried from their mounts. All three columns would be removed
together, as they were still attached to each by several umbilical lines of
varying thickness. No one knew what the lines were for or how they could be
disconnected.
    A heavy
lifting robot stood ready to carry the Trilisk machines. Parts of the robot had
been stripped down and reconfigured to fit down into the tunnel. Everything had
been a struggle from the beginning. Yet it had given the men purpose, and hope.
    It is
as if the entire tunnel system was just grown in place, all in one piece by nanomachines , one
of his engineers had said. Having to take out the columns by themselves had
been like trying to remove a brain intact from its skull with a few wooden
sticks.
    The
whole time, as they had worked feverishly in the tunnels, the monster had been
hunting them. Extracting these devices had been their last hope. The
scientifically inclined among them had chosen these columns carefully. They had
said one was a power source. A staggeringly powerful one. No one knew what the
other two columns were, but sitting next to that power they must be important.
Possibly weapons or defense of some kind. And that was all they knew.
    Forty-three
lives lost, and a good part of our sanity, and we don’t even know what we’re
stealing.
    Holtzclaw
wondered what he had done to anger the Five Entities in a previous life.

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
    The
trio of Terrans followed their scouts toward the center of the ruins around
them. Magnus and Telisa eagerly took the lead, while Cilreth was content to
follow behind. The rocks were ridged and sharp, clearly not worn by weather as
they would have been on many other habitable planets. Cilreth couldn’t spot a
speck of dirt or even one dead leaf; just the red rocks, the greenish clumps
atop their stalks, and the blue sky.
    I’d
probably be more useful back on the Clacker , trying to figure it
out, Cilreth thought as she picked her way over the rough terrain. But
after being stuck in there, it’s nice to get out and see a new world.
    Cilreth
had discovered that even a huge ship was still an enclosed microenvironment.
She often roamed through virtual worlds, which fed her advanced mind, but some
primitive instinct in her brain still cried out for a real planetary surface.
    “What
do you think?” asked Telisa, bubbling with enthusiasm.
    “I can
see why you enjoy it,” Cilreth said neutrally.
    “You
like it, too,” Telisa said. “The excitement of checking out a fresh, new world!”
    “Yeah,
well, so far so good, but where’s the dirt? The leaves? And Shiny said there
were dangerous things here.”
    Telisa
shrugged. “I don’t know. We can find out.”
    Something
made a noise to their right. It sounded like a clicking or grinding on the
rocky ground. Telisa raised her weapon. “Magnus.”
    “Telisa,”
Magnus replied and turned. Telisa indicated the direction of the noise.
    “Check
your feeds,” Magnus said, turning away. “That’s one of ours.”
    “Shit,”
Telisa said. Cilreth checked her own scout information and finally found the
one Magnus had mentioned.
    He’s
good at that. Must be military training.
    The
scout robot came into view, checking the dark holes in nearby rocks with a
measuring laser and an ultrasonic probe. Cilreth checked its data. The larger
plants it had investigated had created underground fissures in the rock filled
with softer material. She thought all the surface particulates might have been
washed into the resulting holes.
    Self-made
plant pots?
    Telisa
and Cilreth walked after Magnus. The first of the ancient houses they found
were broken open and destroyed. Cilreth thought of them as houses because they
were small and isolated on the outskirts of the ruins. The structures were
always cubical. Each house held the rubble of its own broken walls and ceiling.
Nothing had really survived on the surface of the