In the dark of the entry way, the Vanguard crew felt around the walls for some time, before one of the Spitzers broke the silence.  “Didn’t you bring lamps with you, Rasmussen?”  She felt one of the Aquicos cringe away from her, hearing the frustration in her voice.

From across the room, the disembodied voice of Rasmussen came, “Sorry, captain.  I thought it wouldn’t be an issue.”

One of the Security Chiefs spoke.  “Feel for a handle of some kind, or recess to open the inner door, then.”  There was a quiet gasp from a man, and a polite cough. “Ah – sorry Doctor.”  The room filled with grunts of consternation as the crew felt around the walls.

One of the Aquicos spoke from near the door.  “I hate to say this, but I’m not so sure you want to do that.” The other one added, “Haven’t you watched the scary movies where the unsuspecting heroes bring about their doom or simply make the story worse by doing what you’re doing?”

The other Chief answered at the opposite side of the small space.  “Scared, Aquico?”  She had barely finished saying it when the room filled with a ticking like that of a sand-ridden grandfather clock.

One of the Mistelsbogs spoke, his voice even and clinical, “Ticking would indicate clockwork, and likely some sort of long-standing defense, like the tombs of your ancient Egypt.”  The ticking meanwhile continued unabated, but seemed to pick up speed. The other Mistelsbog added. “This does not necessarily bode ill, yet neither does it bode well. We would do well to take precautions.”

The other Captain spoke, “Sorry about that.  I found a handle here.  And a clockwork indeed, Mistelsbog, which is not a good thing.  Everyone, find a handhold – we don’t know what’s going to happen.”  She had hardly finished speaking when shafts of light spilled upward from the floor, and the ticking reached a fever-pace.  In seconds, the floor dropped away and the crew fell, with a cry of epithets in their native tongues.

They shunted down a smooth string of chutes, spinning, whirling, making corkscrews and counter-corkscrews, descending into the bowels of the planet.  After a few moments, the Aquicos had started giggling, despite their fear, and soon the others were wooping as they shifted from one curve to the next, all the while knowing that some sort of terrible, grizzly death could await them.  They scrambled for purchase to slow themselves down, but the stone was polished by millennia of use, and they could find no grip.

Ahead, a sickly greenish light grew and they scrabbled all the harder to find some sort of grasp to hold them back.  The Mistelsbogs were the first to howl in surprise as their ride was cut short and in short order the crew fell through a gap in the track and into a tangled pile on the landing of some stairs, the Mistelsbogs having cushioned the falls of the humans.  The crew began to stand aside from the dog-pile, dusting their cloaks and taking stock of any injuries.  Slowly their eyes became accustomed to the light – and as the Mistelsbogs were just standing again, the Aquicos gasped in surprise.  The crew shifted their attention across the wide expanse, seeing clearly for the first time a grand statue to their left.  There, in the distance, at the heart of the sickly glow was a great and be-tentacled statue, with glowing red eyes, like something from Lovecraft’s psyche. Carefully negotiating the stairs, the crew descended to the floor of the great chamber and walked toward it, awestruck.  Marie Bouc was the first to speak, as both twins said, “Wow.”

As the crew drew near to the statue, holo-displays in the crooks of tentacles flared to life, sputtered and went out.  Behind the statue the whine of generators began and electricity filled the channels, illuminating parts of the statue in St. Elmo’s Fire.  Aquico searched around the statue with her hand-held scanner while Aquico knelt down and looked for any hidden data interface modules. The Mistelsbogs stood back a ways, looking over the statue.

Ellen Spitzer stood, hands on hips, watching the search.  “There has to be a way to interact with it, Aquico.”

Each woman, startled by the captain’s exasperated tone turned and said in near unison, “I don’t know, Captain.”

Before Ellen Spitzer could answer, the Mistelsbogs stepped forward, a gratified smile on their faces.  “We have an idea, Captain, which will hopefully bring end to this situation.”  Ellen looked at them both, and they exchanged a glance and smiled again. “If you will all back away?”

Louise grumbled, “I don’t know that just looking at it would tell you more than Aquico’s scanner…”

The Mistelsbogs smiled, pointing to their eyes, the one on the left speaking. “We can see into the ultraviolet – and while Aquico’s scanner can scan the wavelengths, unless she specifically programs it to do so, she can’t see what we do.  Now, please, step back.”

The crew withdrew a few paces from where the Mistelsbogs were standing, looking on at the enigmatic Yrgoans.  With a nod, the Mistelsbogs walked forward as if of one mind, extending their hands to two tentacles that angled toward one another rather than away like the rest.  As they reached, the glow of St. Elmo’s Fire increased, and the Aquicos stepped forward, and shouted over the increasing noise of the generators, “Wait! Won’t that kill you?!” and “Look at the electricity coursing through it!”

The whine of the generators increased, and behind the statue, electricity began sparking as if from a Tesla Coil, or a surcharged Tesla Generator.  Screens flared to life with static and remained illuminated, and the eyes that had glowed dully red flared into life, casting a reddish glow over the Mistelsbogs, turning their purply skin a deep maroon.

The Mistelsbogs continued to stretch their reach, and as they nearly grasped hands and tentacles, said, “Lieutenant, our hearts are not in the same location,” and, “Also, our electrical signatures are much different than that of humans.”  They looked askance at the Aquicos, and said simultaneously, “but thank you for your concern.”  They shared another glance and grasped the tentacles and each other’s hands.  Contact made, an electrical snarl and a sonic explosion rocked the chamber.

As I hope some of you noticed we had a bit of website trouble.  Things should be better now.  Thanks to Cannon, who I believe fixed it for us.

At last they cleared the narrow road they had been following and entered into the plaza, where the ruins of a fountain lay, and surrounding the ruined fountain were a group of about thirty or so of the survivors from the Columbian crew. Behind them came the group they had met from the caves.  Ellen looked at them, those waiting for them, and those behind. As she counted the dwindling numbers around her, she remembered just how many crew members a Gothenburg-class vessel held.  She stepped near to Cabell, and when she spoke, it was barely a whisper.  “Is this—”

“All that’s left?” Cabell asked, fixing her with his saddened gaze.  “Yes.”

Ellen looked at the group.  All had to have been original crew to the Columbian, none were young enough to be a child of these marooned spacefarers.  “There were no children?”

Cabell looked away from her, at the distance, and then looked to the ground.  “Something in the environment prevented conception, ruined the medical equipment.” Louise’s face echoed the sadness of Cabell, and Ellen looked resolved.

“Let’s go meet your crew, Captain.”

The introductions were short and sweet, and the group, now numbering in the forties walked onward toward a distant building Cabell assured them was the place Doctor Rasmussen was going to land.  As they walked, they could see glimpses of the towering building, like a ziggurat of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates valleys in Al-Iraaq.  Even from this distance, age and decay had taken its toll, the once crisp edges of the building were rounded with age, and pockmarked from the forces of nature.

They entered a wide boulevard, turning toward the distant temple and overhead in the skies the noise of a jet increased until they were overshot by the S.U.M. Sicilian, piloted by the other Birgit Vasasdotter, on approach to the plaza where they would land, and where their procession would meet them. The wide boulevard struck Louise in that moment as being much like the Voie-des-Emigrés in Paris-sur-Mizouri, or the Champs-Elysées of Paris.  She felt as if she were walking through the ruins of long ancient Rome or Greece, the voices of millennia past speaking to her from beyond the grave.

The procession gathered a safe distance from the Sicilian as it pinged, popped and cooled from its atmospheric entry, and finally, after some minutes, the hatch opened, releasing Doctor Rasmussen and Birgit Vasasdotter as well as two other security guards, twins.  Vasasdotter strode up to the Captains.  “Captains – glad to be here on the ground.  I’ve brought some additional security – Lieutenants Cramer and Totty Cannard.  I figured with the Nai’s temporarily out of commission, we could use the extra support in case of an incident.  Their duplicates are still shipboard.”

Louise nodded, while Ellen spoke.  “Let’s form up, Vanguard.”

The crew formed up into march formation while the Captains, the Doctor and the security chiefs conferred with Captain Cabell.

“Doctor,” Ellen gestured, “This is Captain Yscius Cabell, duplicate of our Admiral.”

The Doctor nodded.  “My research shows that if we disable the device, it will make it so you and your crew, as well as the Vanguard duplicates could have children – and no more duplicants from passing space-craft.”

Louise coughed.  “What of the seeming pull to the planet?”

The Doctor shook his head.  “That I can’t say.  There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it, aside a potential quantum shift in your synapses that have changed your loyalty to the planet?  I really don’t know.”

Ellen looked at her mentor.  “You can come with us, Captain, if you wish.”

Cabell smiled, shaking his head.  “I’ll only slow you.  Go, and godspeed.”

The Doctor gestured toward the ziggurat. “My scans indicate the power source is in here.”

Ellen nodded at Cabell while Louise gestured the crew to begin marching into the temple.  As the crew passed and she began taking up the rear, Louise noted for the first time the statuary flanking the ramp down into the earth.  As she looked at them they looked like oursine-spiders, glistening fangs lining their gaping jaws and wide, furry arms splayed wide with talons on the hands.  She could hardly contain her shudder at the thought of meeting so many fearsome beasts.

Ahead of them gaped a rounded opening, showing the path leading further down into the darkness.  The crew marched smartly forward, but as Louise and Ellen cleared the door, they could see that the crew was stopped just inside the opening, and they were looking for a means to proceed.  Louise turned her head a bit, feeling the questioning stare of the Columbian survivors, but just as she made eye-contact with a now-distant Cabell, the opening behind her clanged shut as two great bronze doors sealed the Vanguard crew into the temple.

The Columbians gasped in surprise and Cabell motioned them forward to examine the doors, to find some way of opening them.  As they ran forward, they could see clearly etched into the bronze the great design of a deity, and ancient god of the alien race that had lived on this world, and as he and his crew drew near down the ramp, the eyes of the god in the door, and those of the statuary surrounding the ramp began to glow a dull, angry red, and an electric hum began to fill the air.

Cabell looked at the Vanguard security teams that stood on the edges above the ramp around him, and their leadership all shook their head.  One, a blond man spoke.  “There’s no radio contact.  Something is blocking the signal, Captain.  I vote we retreat a safe distance.  Without further support from the ship, we have no way of getting them out.”

Cabell nodded.  “Well, as ranking officer, of sorts, I’d say to send a detachment of your troops back to the ship to get supplies.  We’re going to need to extract them from this temple before something sinister happens.   You’ve seen the old movies – move!”  He turned his attention to the temple, a look of frustration, and oddly, happiness on his face as he tackled the first challenge to his skills in a long time.

The wind whipped over the alien city, sending dust-devils scurrying down the streets and alleys.  The spires of the various species were backlit by flashes of lightning, painting the night sky in washes of color that just as quickly faded to black.

The Mistelsbogs surveyed the city, sitting on an outcropping of rock above the cave compound where the survivors of the Columbian had lived for so many years. Each man sat, arms crossed over knees, their Yrgoan headwear, the aristak, wrapped over their noses and mouths, covering all but their eyes, which glinted with each flash of lightning.  Over their ship-board clothing they wore ponchos of local fabric, imbued against the rain.  A clutch of Yrgoans had been aboard the Columbian it seemed, and they had welcomed Mistelsbog with open arms to the planet.  The two had taken time apart to confer.  In the quiet moments that followed the breaking of the storm, one spoke to the other.  “It is good you found this means of seclusion.”

Without looking aside, the other said, “You would have eventually.”

From their vantage the two looked at a barren space, filled with smaller hills, in what may have at one point been a park or green space.  The first spoke again.  “Do you think of home?”

The second did not immediately respond, but blinked a few times before breaking the silence.  “I do.  The barren wastes are much like Tresht.”

The two men sat, at ease, staring at the storm.  After a while, the first spoke.  “It has been too long since we’ve returned.”

The second was again slow to speak.  “I feel, for me, it shall be much longer.”

The men turned their attention to one another.  “You are assured to be surrounded by others of our kind.” The first’s eyes blazed with pride at the thought.

The second sighed and adjusted the poncho, looking at the storm, then back at the first. “It will be good to have the peace of our culture again, away from these overly sentimental humans.”  A down draft brought wind and a heavy spate of rain, and the duo sat in silence for a moment, waiting for the weather to quiet again.  When the noise fell and the storm front had moved on, the second spoke. “I should like to see Mother again, and Father.”

The first chuckled.  “I will bring them to visit.”

The second turned to look at the first.  “Why are you laughing?”

The first coughed. “I was just thinking how the simianoid humans are such slaves to their biology.  They would be showing a meaningful touch at this point, a pat, a hug.”  The men laughed, but the moment turned somber and they each sat pensive.  It was some time before they spoke again.  When the storm had settled into rain and the thunder abated, the second broke the silence again.

“I won’t miss appraising the crew.”

After a short pause, the first spoke. “The human’s animosity for oversight is always surprising, given their love of bureaucracy,” and the two could hardly maintain their stoic façade.

While the Mistelsbogs sat with one another above in the rain, the Spitzers sat dry and snug under an alcove of rock.  Ellen sat, her back to the wall, Louise near the entrance, occasionally pelted by the drops of rain. A distant rumble of thunder made it clear how far the storm front was, and that the rain had settled to a stready drizzle that would last all night.  Louise sighed, drawing Ellen’s attention.  “It’s beautiful.” Louise looked at her twin. “Don’t you think?”

Ellen shrugged. “In its own way, yes.”

Louise’s eyes betrayed the twinge of her pain, hearing the words of her twin. “We loved them as a child.”

Ellen adjusted her cloak, and smiled gently at Louise.  “Childhood was a long time ago.  I miss the sweeping vistas of space.”

Louise quickly agreed, “Well, yes.  There’s nothing like looking down on a proto-stellar nebula.”

Ellen grunted in agreement, but stared off across the rain falling on the city. After a few moments of silence, Cabell coughed, announcing his presence.  “I couldn’t help hearing your conversation.  You should know that it was the same for us when we were caught by the beam.”

“We had just finished supporting Harlow VII’s new colony with a resupply mission, and were on our way to Jespiria when we heard the Aquean distress call.  Just as you experienced, as we came near the planet, the beam lanced out and we were duplicated.”  Cabell walked forward and sat down on the floor of the cave between the women.  “We must have searched for the source of the beam, some way of reversing it, something.  We searched for a month of local time.”

Cabell grunted, and cast a stone out of the entrance to the alcove. “It was the toughest decision we had to make, marooning half of the crew – people we had known and enjoyed the company of – on this barren planet, away from the normal star-ways.  Suffice to say, those that wanted to stay, did – and it was quite the attachment I felt at least – it wasn’t so much a choice as a compulsion.”

He shifted, and looked at Louise.  “We set up farming communes and tried to survive on our own here. We lived fairly well for the first two years, but then some of us missed the rest of humanity, the Space Condominium.  I even felt a twinge of it now and again. Within those first ten years, those who were with us that weren’t attuned to the planet died.”  He sighed again.  “I could take you to the graveyards, if you really wanted.”  Louise could see he was shaking his head.  “Many of them were suicides. They just couldn’t take it, being alone here. It was somehow so much different than being cooped  up aboard the Columbian. That, and the alien world, the alien diurnal cycle.  Thankfully, not all were suicides.  Some were accidents.”

Ellen spoke.  “There was a large percentage of the crew that died.”

Louise added, “They called it Columbian Disease because it only affected your crew.”

In the clouds across the city, a flash of light lit the skies, and the radio in Louise’s pocket crackled to life. Doctor Rasmussen’s voice was garbled at first.  “Captain–I repeat–I’ve discovered what’s powering the beam.”

Louise had pulled the radio from her pocket and thumbed it to transmit. ‘You’re coming through loud and clear.”

Rasmussen’s voice chirped through again.  “It’s an alien power source, but it’s not any sort of power like we’ve encountered before.  It’s about a mile southwest of you.  Can you direct us to a landing spot?”

Ellen handed her radio to Cabell, who thumbed it on.

“Sir, you see the large tree-like sculpture in the middle of the city?”

There was an awkward pause before Rasmussen spoke again.  “Yes – who is this?”

Cabell smiled at the women, and said, “Not important.  There’s a wide plaza nearby.  You should be able to land there.  Your companions took the only other suitable landing place.”

Rasmussen’s voice sang with his doubt.  “Captain?”

Ellen laughed, and so did Louise.  Able to control herself first, Ellen took the radio from Cabell’s hands.  “He’s a friend, Doctor.  Land where he says, we’ll meet you there.”

Faithful readers – first, let me say thank you to all of you that have stuck around with our change in format! It’s so heartening to me to see that you’re sticking with it. I had a crazy weekend, sorry for the late update!

The noise of the ship’s canteen was a welcome sound to Jimmy’s ears after a long shift in the engine room.  Jimmy patiently waited his turn.  As the last person ahead of him walked away with his tray, Jimmy stepped  forward, looking over the evening’s menu.  His attention was drawn upward as Morale Officer Zhowan Kryszkot cleared his throat.  “Good evening, Jimmy.  Anything grab your interest?”

“Zhowan.”  Jimmy grunted.  His attention returned to the dinner offering and he tried to make up his mind what to have.  He was interrupted again by Zhowan.

“Care for some peas?”

The look of disdain Jimmy gave Zhowan would have withered anyone else of a weaker constitution.  “Ye daft?”  Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Zhowan.  “I can’t stand’em and you know it!”

Zhowan smiled, carefully hitching his thumbs behind the straps of his apron.  He smiled his crooked grin and looked at the taller Scotsman.  “Thought I’d offer.  The other Jimmy didn’t take them either.”  He pulled the apron off and adjusted his vest, smoothing out his cravat as well.

Jimmy’s face had colored at the mention of his name.  “He’s not Jimmy.  I’m the only Jimmy here.”

Zhowan smiled broadly as he passed two plates to other crew members bypassing the gridlock Jimmy had made.  “You know, he said that about you, too.”  Zhowan grabbed a cloth to wipe down the serving area.  “That’s why he’s calling himself Scotty.”  He placed the cloth in the tray of the sink and smiled at Jimmy, bracing his hands askance on the serving rail.

Jimmy’s expression had changed from one of frustration to one of surprise.  “Scotty?”  He turned his head to follow the gaze of Zhowan across the room where he could see Scotty sitting with the other mechanics.  Zhowan smiled as he watched Jimmy’s shoulders relax.  When Jimmy turned back Zhowan had a ladle in hand.

“Alright, ye crazy Vened.  Give me some o’them green balls o’snot.  I’ll gag’em down like me mam said to.”

Zhowan happily ladled the peas into a bowl and offered them to Jimmy across the plaz partition.  Jimmy nodded grimly at the Vened and turned, walking across the crowded room.  Scotty and the mechanics around him didn’t notice Jimmy’s approach through the crowded canteen and only realized his presence when Jimmy stood behind Scotty.  The whole table turned to look at the interaction of the two.

The silence lasted, and the two Scotsmen looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak or make some comment.  At last Jimmy broke the silence.   “Make room, if’n ye don’t mind.”

Scotty could only grunt in confusion at first, but a general shuffling as the mechanics backed away from Scotty cleared enough space that Jimmy could join them.  As he seated himself, Jimmy grunted.  “Now, that wasna so hard!”  He flapped his napkin and settled to eating.  He cut the first bite of steak and held it up, examining the color.  “Tha’s one beautiful steak, innit Scotty?”  He held the fork aside to his twin, who sat in stunned silence.  Jimmy popped the morsel into his mouth and began chewing.  After savoring the steak for a minute, he acknowledged the silence at the table around him.  “Well, am I right?”  He turned and looked Scotty firmly in the eye.  “Scotty, isn’t it?”

The man finally broke his silence.   “Aye, s’right.  There canna be two Jimmy Dohans – we’ve seen the result o’that.”

Jimmy smiled his wicked Scottish grin.  “Well, my friend, I’ve come to make peas with ye.” He deftly plopped the plate of peas between them, looking first at the peas and then at Scotty, who took his own turn staring at the peas.

Scotty looked Jimmy in the eyes, his own eyebrows quirked in amused confusion.  “We hate peas.”

Jimmy smiled.  “Aye, but it’d make our mam happy tae know we’re eatin’ em.”

The two shared a hearty laugh, wile the other engineers shifted nervously in their seats.  Jimmy returned to his steak, spearing some, dragging it through the gravy and loading a dollop of potatoes and a few peas onto it.  “You are a tattie-heided blowdart, but yer me own family, and I’ll take ye any day.”  He lifted the loaded fork to his mouth and ate the bite happily.

Scotty took the quiet instant to speak his own mind. “Right back at ye, ye caber-catching mangey muppet!”  He paused, staring at Jimmy from under his red eyebrows, and caught Jimmy doing the same.  In that instant the two men exchanged a knowing glance, and a wry smile cracked their lips.  As if one person, Scotty grabbed the peas and Jimmy his neighbor’s potatoes and began flinging the food at the unsuspecting mechanics around them.  The cried out, each in turn, finishing one another’s sentences.

“Take that, ye tattie-baking,”

“haggis-gummin,”

“crenixian shiftin’,”

“toley-tossin’ grease-monkeys!”

Jimmy lobbed a handful of cake frosting, and shouted, “Ye thought we’d fight again, well, not wi’ourselves!”

Scotty tossed a handful of carrots at another mechanic.  “We’ll take ye glaikit dog-faced tadgers!  An’ we’ll trounce ye!”

Jimmy grabbed a glass of water and lobbed the contents at one of the Joneseys. “Like the nantsy stinkin’ muppets ye are!”

Across the canteen, the Zhowans stood together, smiling at the fracas taking place a matter of meters from them.  Food began flying not only amongst the Mechanics, but amongst their neighbors as the crew began to blow off tension, devolving into a juvenile release of the stress that they had all been feeling.  The Zhowans turned and smiled at one another.  The one nearest the food counter was the first to speak.  “Well, sir, I think our work is done.”

“Yes, sir, it is,” replied the other.

“Should we stop them? I think we’ll have to, eventually, to make them clean up.”

“Yes. Eventually.”

Far above the ruins, skimming the upper limits of the atmosphere, the S.U.M. Vanguard sailed along like a sailing ship of old, her ventral surface to the planet below.  Her instruments and optics were set to full, scanning widely, on all frequencies.  Some were looking for landforms, others, vegetation, but the bulk of the scanners were monopolized as she sailed nearly through the atmospheric ethers.  At the nerve center of the ship Doctor Hans Rasmussen stood, looking deeply into the results of the ongoing scans, for it was his scans that were so stringent.  In the scant hours that Vanguard had orbited the world some thirty percent of the land surface had been mapped, yet only in the last pass had anything of interest been uncovered.

Cranking wheels and flipping toggles frantically, the Doctor tried to increase the gain of the optics under his hands.  In a flurry of red lights, his work station powered down.  “Vad Heckan!*”  Doctor Rasmussen stomped over to science 1 and mashed the comm buttons active.  “Jimmy! I need extra power.  I’ve got to boost the gain on these instruments!”

Jimmy’s voice crackled over the comm.  “Doctor, I cannae give ye any more.  I’m giving ye all I’ve got!”  The optics whirred back to life, phlogiston flow restored, if only marginally.  With the power flowing again, the Doctor twisted knobs, flipped switches, and whirled gyros, each step refining the parameters he wished to search the planet below with.  For someone observing from the opposite side of the bridge, like Birgit Vasasdotter was, it looked almost as if he were idly nattering with his fingers, while speaking to Jimmy through the intraship comm tube.

“Jimmy, I understand that, but I know you’re holding out on me.  You can give me at least five more poncelets of power before you have to kick in with the Crenixian drive generators.”  The doctor could envisage Jimmy as the silence lasted a few seconds.  He would be staring at the generators, flustered that his bluff was called so easily.  Knowing the Chief Mechanic, the Doctor could see him running his hands through his hair, a frown on his face.  At last, the Scotsman spoke, and the frown came across in his voice, loud and clear.

“I’ll string in some buffers for ye, but it’s pushing to the limits.”  The disapproval in Jimmy’s voice made Rasmussen smile.

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

“Thanks, nothing!”  Jimmy huffed over the come, and before the connection closed, the Doctor could hear him say, “You heard him, boys!  Let’s show him how miracles happen!”

The Doctor bowed himself over the stereoptical targeter, waiting for the promised increase in power, fiddling with knobs and dials all the while.  After a few minutes he stood upright, stretching and popping.  At last, Vasasdotter made her presence known as she turned from her duty station to speak with the Doctor.  “Find anything?”

With hardly a glance, the Doctor returned easily to his refinements.  After spinning up the magnification a few degrees he muttered, “Nothing yet.”  A chime chirped, and he raised a toggle to the on position.  It sparked to life and the phlogiston flowed.  Within seconds the color had shifted from the glowing blue to a purplish color – the Doctor quirked a smile, realizing that Jimmy had buffered in the Crenixian drives.  He adjusted another few knobs, and pulled back from the viewer, a saddened look on his face.  “Aside the fact that Nai is, in fact, dead.”

Vasasdotter’s disapproval was nearly caustic. “Figures.  The only blighter who shows some gumption.”  She walked forward to see just what the Doctor was scanning for, watching him adjust the stereoptical targeter to a different location of the city.  After she’d watched him for a moment, the Doctor grumbled, “Yes, Commander?  Can I help you with something?”

Birgit leaned gently against the station’s edge, smiling, her arms crossed in a relaxed position. “Just waiting to find out your report on anything else you’re looking at.”

The Doctor’s spine stiffened.  He looked to the security chief with a side-long glance, frowning.  “I’m a doctor, not an entertainer, Commander Vasasdotter.  I’ll tell you the minute I find anything out.”

Birgit threw her hands in the air and backed away from the science stations.  “Look – no pressure.  I just wanted to know what’s going on below.  It’s driving me nuts not to be there.”  Birgit’s impatience showed in her pacing, striding up and down the aisle behind the Doctor who pulled a lever and glowered at her.  “You are there, Vasasdotter.”

Birgit scowled at the Doctor’s back.   His bedside manner, in her opinion, left much to be desired.  “A me is there.  Not Me-me.”

The Doctor began pressing buttons, multiples, singles, and as he cranked another wheel, he pressed three buttons at once with his splayed fingers.  “I don’t have time for this Vasasdotter.  I’m sure …” His diatribe was cut short as a chime jangled, and he crouched over the viewer again, fitting the stereoptical eye-pieces firmly to his eyes.  He grunted, and Birgit’s brow furrowed, confused by the sudden stop.

“What is it?  What’d you find?”

The  Doctor stood up from the targeter, and looked her firmlyi in the eye.  “Thanks to Jimmy’s miracle-work, I have been able to finally track it down.”

Birgit threw her hands wide, emphasizing her confusion and frustrations. “What?”

“A power source that fired that weapon or whatever it was, and  that is keeping the planet shielded.”

Birgit nodded.  “I’ll get another squad of Watchmen ready to accompany us to the surface.”

The Doctor turned back to the scanners as she walked away.  “You do that.”

*: This is Swenglish for ‘What the heck!’. Click here to go back to the top…

Ellen Spitzer waved around her.  “Surely there’s a way to disable the ray.  Couldn’t they have sent in science teams to bring you back?”

Cabell shrugged and walked on toward the caves and the Vanguard personnel.  “That would’ve been the easiest thing, you’d think.” His foot kicked a stray stone skittering off toward a rubble heap.  “Problem is, it wouldn’t work.  After a week of existing, the thought of leaving this planet horrified me.” Ellen Spitzer kept step with Cabell, but Louise lagged behind.  Something resonated in her, an odd twinge, that something Cabell had said gave her insight to the alien race that had lived in the sprawling city.  Lost in thought, she dimly heard Ellen ask Cabell, “You feel attached to this planet?”

“Yes.” His voice came as if through fog. “For some it was almost immediate.  Some days, or weeks. Others, months, and some, never.  They weren’t happy.  Those that felt the connection found peace with this planet.”  Cabell stopped his walk short as a stream of some twenty watchmen walked past, heading for the caves.  He scowled at the Spitzers.  “For having taught you at the Institute, I’m surprised you would breach protocol like this.”

The Spitzers exchanged a confused glance.  Ellen was the first to speak. “Breached protocol?  In what way?”

“That’s the last thing we’d do,” Louise rejoined.

Cabell gestured around himself to the receding line of Watchmen.  “Such a glaring misuse of resources.  All these Watchmen.  We were never so wasteful with the security officers in my day.  No one in Starmada would dream of it.”

The Spitzers smiled knowingly at one another.  Ellen fixed Cabell with a firm gaze.  “That policy was changed once you got into the Institute.”  The confused expression on Cabell’s face prompted Louise to add.  “That was the first thing you changed once you were promoted to Counter-Admiral.”

Cabell stood silently for a moment.  After opening his mouth a few times like a gasping fish, he managed to mutter, “Why would I do such a thing?”

“I think the landing on Vullatrix IV had something to do with your decision.” Louise said.

“You mean the time I remember, or did my twin go back to that sand trap for some insane reason?”

Ellen patted his shoulder.  “That and every other situation like it.  You realized just how many officers were lost to landing and first contact incidents…”

“…so you suggested that rather than waste the lives of well trained leaders, run the risk with security…”

“…since they’re trained for it anyway.”

Try as he might to look flustered at that moment, the Spitzers could see that Cabell was pleased.  “Come on.”  He huffed, his voice gruff,

***

Louise Spitzer stood at the mouth of the cave system, watching the storm approach from over the city, lightning flashing, and the distant, echoing boom of thunder.  She could feel with each gust of wind the soft pelt of dust and debris kicked up by the storm.  For a disorienting moment she felt as if she were home in Les Plaines on her family’s estate, looking at an afternoon thunderstorm.  Her ether communicator chirred and she brought it out of her jacked almost unwillingly.  Just as she was about to answer, the last of the watchmen climbed past her, into the caves.

She flipped the toggle and punched two of the many buttons and was greeted by the voice of Dr. Rasmussen.  “Captain – how goes the mission?”

Louise was grateful this wasn’t video, but fought against the frown that quirked at the corners of her mouth.  “Well  enough, Doctor.”  She watched a flash of lightning. “Once this electrical storm passes, I’d like you to run a scan for life signs in and around this city.  Now that we’re closer we might get better resolution on the observation pallets.”  The wind picked up and Louise clapped her cloak around her.  “I’m fairly certain one of the Nai’s are dead.  We’ll need to retrieve his body.”

The radio hissed with two strikes of lightning not far distant.  As the static cleared, the Doctor could be heard again.  “…Captain?  I repeat-understood, Captain.  Your signal’s weak, with that storm moving in.  Get to shelter.  We’ll send down a well-equipped search party when it clears.”

Louise buttoned the flaps of her cloak to her belt buttons, and held her hair from whipping around, the wind picking up fiercely.  “Good.  Contact us when you’re on your way.  We’ll get you directed to a suitable local landing site.”  Louise deftly closed the communicator and slipped it into the folds of her cloak.  A flash of lightning lit the far city.  In the depths of her field of vision, she could just make out the shadow of a large tower.  Repeated flashes of lightning lit the city like a strobe, and in her vision she could see a tower falling, as if in a stop-motion film.  From the distance, she could only guess that it was near where they had lost Nai, and where he would quite likely have to remain.

Cabell gestured around himself.  “You can see how barren this place is.  We managed to make a go with the aqueduct for many years, but after about 5 years anything more complex than simple machines, anything with electronics, failed.  When the aqueducts began failing we began terrace farming, to some success, but eventually much of the crew left for the lower valleys, out of the rain shadow we’re in.”

The Spitzers stared at the city that sprawled around them, rising to the lower slopes and filling the valley from side to side.  In the distance to the east they could just make out a promontory where terraces had been cut into the sides.  In the distance they could see billowing cumulonimbus.  A crack of thunder caught their attention and they could see another cloud bank coming at them.  Cabell soldiered on in his explanation.  “Haven’t heard from them in years.  Probably dead.  It’s not an easy world we live on.  The short day plays hell on your sleep cycles, that’s for sure.”  He hitched his cloak about himself as the thunder boomed, closer.  “Well, come on, all of you – come in out of the rain.”

The crew walked along, following Cabell.  Walking carefully around the ever present rubble, the crew made their way through the ruined metropolis.  As they passed what could easily have been a Zesucuto or Xintò shrine they were faced with triangliform architecture that baffled their senses and didn’t even seem to obey the laws of physics.  “I’d just look at the ground, if I were you.  Ver’disorienting.  If I had my way, I’d ask you to phlog this neighborhood from orbit.  It’s an ugly bugger of an eyesore.”

Within a few minutes Cabell had begun grumbling ot himself.  “Where’s the route out of here?”  He turned, abruptly down an alley.  “S’what I get, trying a short cut.  I knew better’n to enter this blasted quarter, but here we go – Little Sagittaria.”  The were soon enough through the neighborhood – and it was apparent as they passed that it had been some hundreds of years since Sagittarians had lived there.  After ten minutes of walking, they had passed through a Koorxani district, and rounded a curve only to face a large plaza, filled with small fractal sculptures.  In the center stood what appeared to be a vast tree, springing from a small point maybe the thickness of a man’s thigh.  As the crew approached it, it became more and more clear that it too was a fractal, an immense sculpture that had grown some 15 meteres up and into the sky.  The Spitzers exchanged a worried look, and the Aquico’s gasped in a small show of fear.

Cabell looked at the asian women.  “Yes – that one worried us, too.”  He shook his head.  “It hasn’t changed in the years we’ve been here, hasn’t weathered, hasn’’t aged.  Hasn’t grown either.”

“Is it Zeniak?” Ellen Spitzer stood near Cabell’s shoulder, mesmerized in awe and fear for a moment, as she scrutinized the fractal branching.

Cabell waved the crew on and started to pace away.  The others were compelled to follow.” We thought so at first.  It’s a million Earth years old.”

“How can you know?” Louise Spitzer spoke, incredulous as Cabell waved the crew to a stop before a large pile of rubble.

“While Columbian was still in orbit, we did some scans, and we scanned it yearly until about five years ago, when the scanner finally broke.  The one thing that we didn’t really need, and it broke last of all.”  Cabell smiled at here.  “We weren’t left helpless.”  The elder man spryly began jumping up the large blocks.  The enormous pile seemed to rise interminably from the valley floor, yet the man leaped as confidently as a mountain goat.  “Come on.  This is an uplift fault.  Fortunately the building that was here collapsed into a heap that made it easy to negotiate a path to the higher city.  It’s the only way up for miles in either direction.”  He jumped a few more blocks up to what seemed the top, where he danced a jig.  “It’s solid.  We’ve poured cement into the crevasses and only put some loose rubble as a disguise.”

Cabell waited patiently as the crew mounted up, and when the last had reached to lip and surveyed the city to either side, he clapped his hands and they were off again.  A few streets down Cabell turned sharply, marching them toward a hole the size of a man which had been blasted or rather, melted into the wall.  The glassy-blue of the phlogiston-infused sandstone caught Ellen Spitzer’s attention as she stepped through.

“Your ship had reported an attack by Zmorite raiders, and that they were lucky to escape with their lives!”

Cabell moved onward, unphased.  “Just in those caves there.  That’s where most of my crew are living.  We heard the ray blast and knew we’d have guests.”

The Spitzers had stopped stock-still, arms crossed, waiting for his answer.

The old man waved his hands at them.  “Yes, fine, it was in part a lie.  The system is designed to blast any ship coming to orbit.  If your ship left and returned, we’d have another set of clones.  As Captain we decided we couldn’t risk it.  We’d had a skirmish with pirates who had somehow gotten hold of Zmorite weapons.  We figured it would cover our absence, and hopefully prevent more Starmada personnel going through this.”  He sighed and looked each woman in the eyes for a moment before continuing.  “Would you force someone to this fate?”

The silence following the phlogger fire was deafening as the crew rounded the corner to find Lieutenant Nai on the ground, with Lieutenant Nai standing over him, phlogger holstered.  “He’s stunned is all!”  Nai held his arms in the air.  “It could’ve been worse!”  The two parties had encircled the Lieutenants.

“Nai,” Ellen Spitzers voice was soft, “let’s have you step slowly away from your twin.”

“But!”

“I know, friendly fire, high-strung and all, but let’s just have you move away – there, to the blocks of stone.”

Nai’s countenance fell, the Captain’s gentle reprimand falling heavy on him.  He neared the stones and Louise Spitzer urged him, “Sit down, and we’ll talk about what happened.”  Nai moved to sit and then stopped.

“Do you hear that?”  His eyes showed white at the edges.  “A creaky noise?”

The Spitzers looked at each other, a bit dumb-founded, when they began hearing creaky, metallic ripping noises.

“Captain!”  Nai’s face had gone ashen, looking at the ground near him, where puffs of dust lifted up in a fissure-like pattern, centered on his feet.

“Nai!  Move!  NOW!” Louise Spitzer cried out as she and the rest of the crew backed away, dragging the stunned Lieutenant.

As he struggled to run, the ground heaving under his feet, a vast cavern opened with a “cricky-cri-cri-cra-CRABOSH!” and Nai, and the building behind him disappeared as if in a freight elevator to the underworld.

The crew began to edge forward to peer to the depths to see if Nai had somehow survived.  They all stopped short as a gruff yet wheedling voice came down from above them.  “Oh, this will never do, no, it will never do.”

The Vanguard crew watched in surprise and awe as the cloaked and hooded man jumped down from the balcony like a well-trained gymnast, landing with an aerial spin to a crouched position just near the Captains. His robe was threadbare, yet seemed to be a quality fabric – something no native could have made. His bipedal nature let the Spitzers know that he could likely be reasoned with from one species to another, if he weren’t human, but the women exchanged a knowing glance. There was something to the voice of this man, and it was indeed a man.

He rose from his crouch, dusting his robes, exposing a faded and outdated Starmada Uniform, patting pockets as if in search of a pipe, or something, which he shortly produced and puffed a few drags before tapping out the ashes toward the ground and stowing it again. Through all this the crew remained somewhat stunned, though the Myassovitchs and Birgit had managed to turn their phloggers in his direction.

Unphased by his reception, the man continued onward in his commentary.  “That’ll be one o’them old tunnels.  He’s likely a dead’un – 150 ft drop, straight down, jagged rocks.”

The captains were the first to break from their surprise and Ellen Spitzer asked, “Are you sure?” as Louise countered, “There’s nothing we could do?”

The man had clambered spryly up the side of the building nearest the hole and angled himself out from one of the balcony supports, peering down.  He again swung and jumped away from the hole landing near the Aquicos.  “I think we’d best move back.  This area could sink in minutes, or hours.  It’s happened more since the rains came last week. As for your friend, well, you’d lose more people trying to retrieve his body.  And having his head disconnected like that won’t keep him alive, I’m afraid.”

The Captains had moved closer to him as he had spoken to the gathering.  Within reach, Ellen Spitzer grabbed the man’s arm and looked long and hard at him. “Admiral Cabell?  Admiral Yscius Cabell?”

The man swatted some dust from his robe and looked at her, placidly.  “I don’t know nothing about Admiral.  I was just a starship Captain in my day, at least until we heard the Aquean distress call and came here.”

The Spitzers looked at each other, incredulous.  “You trained me …” Ellen began.  “…I guess, us, through the Starmada Institute Training.”

Cabell soffed.  “Must not’ve been deductive reasoning, then.”  He looked away from the Captains, “I think you know who and what I am.”  He looked suddenly at Louise Spitzer.  “Same as you are, captain.”  The awkward pause after this revelation was filled with questioning looks between the twins, each looking at the other, and wondering which one was the clone, and which the original.  The silence that had settled was breached by the cries of Lieutenant Nai.  As the Aquicos knelt to help Nai to sit up, and to stand, the Spitzers looked again at Cabell.

Ellen was the first to speak, staring hard-eyed at the man that could easily have trainer her, and been her most esteemed mentor.  “What’s happened to your crew then, Captain?”

The familiar hiss as the pressure doors released filled the cabin, and as the doors retracted into the fuselage, the crew gained its first personal views of the planet.  Their landing space was a plaza, paved in great stones, wider in square than the Halberd or Corsican, and almost more than the two of them combined.  The large pavers filled an area the size of a football pitch, with the gate acting as the goal.  The gate itself seemed to be a grand entry to the city, one of the major thoroughfares.  Crenellations on the surrounding walls gave the appearance that not only was this a major thoroughfare, but at some time in the past it was necessary to defend it.

As the crew disembarked in turns, each new person would gasp in amazement at what they saw around them.  Each new arrival was forced to nudge aside the one before in order to descend from the ships, but they too fell silent and immobile.  Before them lay the vast bulk of the sprawling city, ruins sprouting from ruins like a great and ancient coral reef.

It was a cacophony of styles from the myriad races of the galaxy as Captain Louise Spitzer had noted from the air. Despite the odd mixing of styles, there appeared to be fusions of the stylings in a pleasant mix never before seen in the galaxy, as if some of these races had cohabited this immense city.  It was clear that some buildings had been razed in favor of new styles, giving the feel of an artist turned architect, and that this large, sprawling cityscape were nothing but an enormous doodle pad.

“By the Spires of Tresht!” a Mistelsbog exclaimed as he caught glimpse of the buildings.  “There are even Yrgoan and Safloan styles here.”

The crew remained transfixed, frozen as they were on debarkation, or as they had been pushed aside, until Captain Spitzer spoke, holding her scarf against the wind.  “It’s so beautiful!”  The moment of reverie lingered as the crew began to truly realize the immensity of the city that lay before them.

Captain Ellen Spitzer adjusted her coat, exhaled and said loudly, “Let’s get going!  We’ve got a mysterious city to explore!”  As the others broke free of the trance, Birgit stepped forward.

“Let’s form up.  Nai, Myassovitch – one set of you with each party. Let’s put one of each of us in each party.”  She waited as the crew sifted out.  “I’ll go with you Captain,” Birgit said, pointing to Louise Spitzer who calmly adjusted her gauzy scarf.  The crew walked forward in one body, skirting aside from the overhanging arch of the ruined gate.  The buildings near the gate were ruins, barely three walls held together in best cases.

As they moved further from the gate the quality and condition of the buildings improved, taking on a Mediterranean flair.  Even though the whole of the planet seemed deserted but by Starmada personnel, the guards held their hands at the ready near their phloggers.  They passed through a quarter that seemed to be nothing but grand palaces, arches and balconies piled upon each other, mounting to the sky.

“As decadent as New Babylon,” Louise Spitzer mumbled half-heartedly to the Aquico at her side.  The procession continued and as they rounded the corner they were suddenly faced with a street that would have been at home in any of Asia’s metropoleis.

Aquico looked aside at what had likely been a grocery of some kind.  “I would swear I’ve seen this street on Edo.”

“Or any other East Asian colony,” the other Aquico chipped in over her shoulder.

Birgit’s hands fell upon the Aquicos’ shoulders.  “Hush – and catch up.  This is not a time for sight-seeing.” She shepherded the science officers back to the group in silence and then gestured at the other group to walk down a side street.  As the first group rounded a corner, Birgit motioned her own group forward.

As they walked down the dusty street, Spitzer spoke quietly to Birgit.  “I thought we were deploying line-of-sight.  Where’s the group of watchmen that we sent down to scout the area?”

Birgit didn’t break stride and pulled out her monoggle, jacking it in to her coat.  As the monoggle flared blue with the glow of phlogiston, Birgit spoke.  “They’re securing a widening perimeter now that we’re down on the surface.  We detected no life I n this area initially, and decided to better use the resources.”  Birgit raised her fist, and the group stopped around her.

“We’ve picked up a human life-form, about 10 pertica* that way, Captain.”  She gestured toward a thickening maze of streets just down the way.  Birgit pulled her phloggers from her holsters and tapped two buttons.  “I don’t expect trouble, but let’s move in with caution.  Nai and Myassovitch take point.  Bouc, Spitzer and Yamamoto, hang back in case of a fire fight.”

Spitzer watched as the crew left, and loosened the clasp on her phlogger.  She hefted it free as they cleared a downed tower, crawling nimbly over the rubble.  She shook her hand a bit with the weight of the phlogger and frowned.  “It’s just not the same,” she grumbled and waved Marie and Aquico closer, observing the Watchmen move further down the lane.

“What’s not the same, Captain?” Aquico whispered.

Spitzer gestured forward and walked cautiously after them.  “This phlogger.”

“That’s not your personal one – why don’t you have it?” Aquico grunted quietly, side-stepping some masonry on the road.

“I do – well, the other me does.”

Spitzer pulled a button on her lapel, applying it to her jaw and another button to stick to her ear.  “Birgit – location on the human?”

The tingle of the transducer relayed Birgit’s response through her skull.  “Waiting on Vanguard‘s optics for confirmation.   It’s close, Captain.  Bring Bouc and Yamamoto forward to Myassovitch – both of you.”

They walked forward and crouched down near Birgit.  Her attention drifted off as the monoggle displayed Vanguard’s eye-in-the-sky view. She motioned Nai forward and then Myassovitch a short time after, as rearguard.

Louise Spitzer watched anxiously as the watchmen rounded the curve into the heart of what could easily have been a North African medina, the silence of the planet around her oppressive.  A clatter of pots and the “Zzrop!” of phlogger fire sent the crew running forward.

The hiss of the velocigrapples retracting, the pumping of phlogiston to the vessels and the resounding clang of metal filled the flight deck of the S.U.M. Vanguard like a percussive fugue. The compression doors wheeshed shut, and mechanics who had otherwise been talking among themselves set to work in the maintenance bay, passing spanners and wrenches.  Satisfied that their slightly lingering presence had served its purpose, The Captains Spitzer nodded, one smiling, the other with a wink, and began their walk across the great open hangar bay.  With each step on the metal deck the echoes increased, mutated and seemed to take a life of their own, and the Captains Spitzer heard their footfalls as a maraca  in the resounding drum sectional .  In the distance, they could see Birgit Vasasdotter, the Aquicos, the Mistelsbogs and a handful of security guards waiting for them.

Unaware of the Captains approaching from the rear, Aquico began to lean toward Birgit.  Coughing politely, she waited for Birgit to speak.  When she could tell Birgit hadn’t heard, Aquico coughed again, drawing only a sidelong gaze from Birgit which just as quickly returned to attention, focusing on the same spot on the distant, riveted wall.  Speaking from the corner of her mouth and looking up at the taller Scandinavian, Aquico finally asked, “Why isn’t Lt. Fowler going down with us?”

From the other side leaned the other Aquico, just as eager to hear the answer.  Realizing that both were leaning at her, Birgit could only roll her eyes, and flexed her arms.  “I figured I’d keep him safe for now.” She could hear the tattoo of footsteps, and squared her shoulders further still.  She smirked as Aquico’s next question was cut short by the Captains speaking.

“Ladies and Gentlemen.”  The pause served to bring all attention firmly to them, and the Spitzers waited just a second more before beginning.  As they began to speak, a wry grin began to quirk the corners of their mouths – the novelty of having a twin playing out in humor.  The counterpoint of the Captains brought even a mirthful squint to the eyes of the Mistelsbogs. “Keep your phlogger at the ready…”

“…but keep it out of sight.”

“We’re not expecting anything hostile …”

“…but it is an unknown world.”

“We’ll be taking the Corsican and the Halberd.”

“Security forces will board the Corsican with Marie Bouc, and will launch in primary position.”

“Senior crew will board the Halberd with Marie Bouc, and launch second.”

Then, as one, they smiled and said, “Dismissed.”

As the crew dispersed to their assignments, and Birgit was sure the Aquicos would not be so easily dissuaded from their line of questioning, she approached the Captains.

“I’d like to introduce you to your personal guard, Captain – they’ll be remaining close to us while we’re on the planet below.  We’ll be joined by Niku Nai and Mertvoy Myassovitch, two — well, four promising lieutenants.”

One of the Spitzers, sporting a green scarf smiled and said, “But what of your double?”

Birgit smirked as they turned and walked to the waiting vessels.  “Someone has to watch over the ship while we’re away.”

* * *

Bathed in planet-glow, the S.U.M. Vanguard slid from shadow into light, orbiting the planet in a tight orbit.  Like a great cetacean glimmering just below the surface, Vanguard smoothly rolled her dorsal surface to face the planet below – or, rather, Marie Bouc’s computer programming smoothly rolled the vessel to face the surface of the planet.  The grace of the moment was disrupted just as a Terran whale would do, exhaling a puff of air, but in Vanguard’s case, it was not air, rather two gleaming vessels launched from the forecastle, set on an arcing trajectory for the planet below.  They fired their own thrusters and curved in their descent, reorienting to the planet while the Vanguard slid majestically by, peaceful in her orbit of the mysterious world.

The slower ships dropped gradually into the atmosphere as the graceful Vanguard edged off into the distance, seemingly flying toward the planet’s colorful moons swaying just above the horizon.  As she began to fade in the planetary haze, the vessels made a sharper turn and banked into the atmosphere.  With a flap of the tail fin of each ship, the incredible turbulence began slowing the ships quickly.

Inside the vessels pistons creaked and phlogiston flowed, powering the hydraulics that held the fins spread apart.  As the shuttlecock spread of the tail fins brought the vessels down to a more typical atmospheric flight speed, the wings re-oriented and the shuttle cock tail folded back together, allowing the ships to maintain their atmospheric flight.  With the speed and turbulence of atmospheric entry dissipated the vessels drew closer together, flying in formation.

Through the bolted porthole, Marie nodded knowingly at herself, and, almost as one they flipped the switch, opening communication between the ships, but said nothing but a few code words   sufficient to formation flying.  Marie tapped the phlogiston gauge to make sure it read correctly, and as she did so, the clouds separated below them.  The last wisps of the cloud bank cleared away, and before them the passengers could at last see clearly the jagged mass of the mountains that they had surveyed from space – jutting up to the sky before them, the central range that separated the landmass of this planet into a north and a south.

“They look like the Himalaya,” Marie muttered to herself.

“True,” Marie said over the radio.

The Captains Spitzer looked knowingly at each other as they heard the pilots speak.  One of the captains who had taken to calling herself by Louise, her middle name, spoke.  “Marie – both of you – I’d like the Halberd to land first.  The Corsican can land just after us.  Find somewhere suitable.”

A lesser bank of clouds that had only appeared moments before, shrouding the shoulders of the mountains, gave way suddenly. Before their eyes the crew saw a long, wide valley, filled from side to side with architecture representing all the races of the galaxy, from the earliest known history of those who voyaged the stars nearest to the Earth.  The rhomboids of the Silico, the large conjoining towers of the Grashan, and even, here and there, signs of Calgon, Monfareen and others drew exclamations of fear and awe.

Louise pointed through the nearest porthole, eager at the sight of the architecture below.  “What intriguing architecture.  The variation and difference, yet almost like a mosaic.”  She keyed up the overhead screens to show the others in the ship.  “I think I notice at least 50 of the known styles of the region – even Hydran!”

Marie’s voice interrupted the beginnings of an archaeological lecture, “We’re going in for landing.  I’ve found an open space outside of what appear to be some ancient fortifications – city walls.”  Phlogiston flowed and reacted within the bowels of the ship and retrorockets fired, signifying the end of this leg of their journey.  Louise and Ellen Spitzer shared a knowing look – all that had gone before was merely preamble to their discoveries on the planet below.