Burnt Ice

Part One

Water

One

12 April, Year 573 ESF

‘Attention, all personnel. This is the co-pilot. We have twenty minutes to atmospheric entry. Stow and secure all equipment. AG will be powered down in twelve minutes. Section commanders, please check your sections — this is going to be a full simulated combat drop. There will be a five-minute warning.’

‘You good to go, Marko?’

‘Yes thanks, sar’ major.’

‘Good. Sort out Fritz, will you?’

Sergeant Major Harry Stevens looked around the Administration dropship cabin at the small engineering section he had joined under Captain Michael Longbow about five standard years before. His second in command, Sergeant Marko Spitz, was of average height and had a dark complexion, a creative drive and an optimistic demeanour. He was a very good friend; technically excellent and reliable though with the annoying tendency to sometimes act without thinking about the consequences. Then Harry looked across at his one constant problem — Tech Sergeant Fritz van Vinken. He was a small, cherub-like man with a big head who seemed to be always listening intently to music, oblivious to his surroundings. Harry, many years earlier, had taken on the permanent adolescent with the huge mind, and had eventually adopted him. That way he could activate Administration protocols and keep him close. Sometimes he regretted it, but his family loved Fritz. He mused that it did the little guy a lot of good. He too was fond of Fritz, having no sons of his own, but was often frustrated by his contempt for command.

‘Hey, Fritz. Fritz, wake up!’ Marko nudged his crewmate.

‘Piss off, Marko. This is a really beautiful piece of music and I’m relaxed, OK?’

‘Yeah, but you won’t be in a few minutes when you start bouncing around the cabin. Clip yourself in and ratchet down now.’

Fritz grumbled for a few seconds, grabbing the hold-downs and locking them across his body. Secure, he drifted off again.

Jan Wester checked and secured herself. She looked at Marko, catching his eye, and nodded and smiled. She wondered if she should invite him into her bed. He was the same height as she, similar build, with a serious intelligence and an outlook on life that she found attractive. But she decided against it. She had a job to do away from the section and after that she would move quickly on to another task for her Military Intelligence Corp. She liked Marko and could not suddenly disappear on him — he deserved better than that. She mused to herself that this was an interesting section and that it would be fun to be around them for a longer time.

‘Five minutes to atmosphere. Lock and seal.’

Marko looked around the cabin at the other sections, all military, then checked his air feeds, activated the helmet that folded up out of his suit’s collar, pulled down his visor and sealed the faceplate as everyone else did the same. Along with the dropship’s other passengers, he activated his internal bioware systems, pumping anti-motion-sickness drugs into his bloodstream, then selected and opened outside audiovisual feeds. He could watch the ship’s entry into the atmosphere of the watery planet below, choosing a feed from any of the ship’s external cameras, and stream it directly onto his faceplate.

The ship’s hammocks sealed over their occupants and they were pulled up against the ceiling and walls, inflating until they looked like insect pupae held secure by the padding.

The faintest trembling started through the dropship until, over the next fifteen or so minutes, it became an all-consuming, thunderous, roaring, bashing, thumping ride: the pilots did not so much enter the atmosphere of Cygnus 5 as throw the dropship all around the sky to simulate shaking off imaginary missiles.

As soon as the military-specced dropship had enough atmospheric pressure to generate lift, the wings deployed, the ramjets folded out of the hull and came online and the ship flew straight down towards the great golden ocean. There were no islands or other features, just one huge sea corkscrewing towards the thirty-metre-long, teardrop-shaped ship at an alarming rate. Those who had piloting experience found themselves subconsciously moving hands and feet, trying to find non-existent controls.

The pilots, deciding that their passengers had had enough frights, levelled out some hundred or so metres above the wave tops and screamed across the water at Mach 7 for half an hour before starting to slow. Now they could all see an island chain rising up ahead of them as the dropship transitioned from full flight through to antigravity, gradually slowing down to walking speed above the artificial coral-like tarmac. The graceful ship hovered just above the airfield as the landing gear was deployed.

‘Welcome to Cygnus 5 and the base locally known as Nova Hawaii. Hope you had an enjoyable flight. I know we did! AG now restored.’

‘Pissant rocket jocks. Pain-in-the-arse bastards,’ Harry mumbled to himself as the hammocks lowered themselves and deflated. Their occupants clambered out, removing and stowing their helmets and faceplates as the dropship touched down.

Marko laughed and agreed, then toggled the switch on his hammock to transform it into his wearable pack. The pack’s computer tested the planet’s atmosphere, decided no survival protocols were required and folded down to default protocol — a large pack with Marko’s personal weapons on top.

Marko went over and gently kicked Fritz out of his hammock, watching as all over the cabin hammocks detached themselves from the overhead locks and rolled themselves up with their occupant’s entire personal kit intact.

‘Nice carbine, Jan. Don’t recognise the make.’

‘It’s actually my own design, Harry.’

‘Really? Now I am impressed. I’d like to look at it more closely when I get a chance.’

‘I’m sure you will. There are ranges around here somewhere, I know.’

They looked around. Everyone was checking gear and heaving packs onto their backs. The loading ramp doors swung open and the smell of the sea swept through the cabin, carrying with it the planet’s unique odours.

As Marko’s section approached the door ramp, their soft, skull-snug helmets automatically deployed a small visor that shielded their eyes from the glare of the local star. The HUD initiated, showing them where the rest of their section was and where each individual should be. They walked across the warm, bronze-coloured tarmac looking out across a horseshoe-shaped bay with pristine kilometres of sand. The breeze rustled the foliage of the trees at the landing field. Marko recognised many of the bio-altered colonist plants and trees, which humankind dragged around wherever they went, interspersed among the native plant forms — huge types of grass, all a similar greeny-bronze hue.

Captain Michael Longbow was waiting for his section in the shade of the veranda of a landing field building. He nodded down at them as each saluted and murmured a relaxed greeting. The captain had already been on the planet for a few days.

‘OK, people, good to see you. Fun flight, was it? You had the pleasure of being flown by one of the hot jocks of the Administration, Flight Officer Demetre Garland. Threw you all over the sky, eh? Had the same pleasure when I came down, but with my flight we had more brass on board, so it was even more interesting. OK, so here are the info packets.’

They tapped at the soft plates on their left forearms and personal computer screens folded out, showing the packets the captain had flashed across, containing information from the base AI about what her team had found, mainly in the shallow seas around the islands. There were also lists of services available to them — equipment, where the messes were, meal times, base protocols and all the minutiae that went with a large rest and recreation base.

Marko reached into his top pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a pair of antique spectacles. Everyone told him that wearing them made him look even more of a geek, but he did not mind. He looked into the sky and, as the filters came online together with a spot of magnification, he could see the huge Orbitals — processing factories — and the Administration’s weapons barges and carriers. A spectacular sight, but not unexpected, as this was an extraordinary planet. Its moon was liberally coated in Helium 3, the perfect fusion fuel, and the quantity available was staggering. Certainly it was a constant target for opportunistic privateers wanting to snap up the odd shipment. There was a sizeable security detail operating from the carriers high above the planet, with every conceivable piece of military hardware available. He looked further down the island and could see two more airfields busy with traffic.

The captain looked at his screen then across to Harry, nodded, and said, ‘Interesting to consider that this one operation supplies over forty per cent of all the Helium 3 used throughout our worlds, to say nothing of the numerous small outposts scattered across the fifty light years.’

‘Well, all I can add is … hell of a target, sir.’

‘You’re right there, Harry.’

‘Hey, this is amazing, guys,’ Fritz said. ‘Considering all we found inside fifty light years were some mashed-up, tantalising ruins and small bits of busted tech, but no living intelligent species that we could actually relate to. Looks really interesting, boss.’

Fritz, of course, had been reading through the latest files released to him a few moments earlier. He had no curiosity about what was happening above him. He reckoned his section was the only interesting one around, otherwise he wouldn’t stay with them. They moved around a lot, so he rarely got too bored — although he was pissed off that he was not allowed to post some of his more significant thoughts on humanity and its future developments through even more radical bio-engineering onto the public sites, or at least not allowed to have them attributed to him.

‘Just don’t discuss it with anyone outside your section,’ said the captain. ‘OK, Fritz? I know you and you’ve been working with the restricted data for weeks.’

‘OK, boss, whatever, but there is some amazing stuff here and everyone has the right to know.’

‘It stays between us, sergeant.’

They stared at each other for long seconds before Fritz shrugged and dropped his gaze. He knew that a shady group within the Administration Intelligence Corps took a very serious interest in everything he did, and he did not want to twist that particular tail again any time soon.

The crew turned back to their screens and watched a stream of ore barges making their way up to the nearest Lagrange point for their initial jumps out of the system. Marko looked across to the other side of the operation, slaved his glasses to the base telescope and watched as empty barges flashed through their self-generated wormholes to then power across and dock with the enormous ore processors, uplift their cargoes, swap out crews as necessary and start the process all over again. He also pulled up some of the stats on their location and learnt that, at any one time, up to fifteen hundred military and military contractors would be on the ground on this string of island resorts, resting up and enjoying a little R & R, before returning to the job sites above.

‘OK, guys, I would like you to digest what you have there and let’s have a discussion about it after lunch. Square your kit away and I’ll see you then.’ The captain nodded to them, turned and strode purposefully away.

‘The boss is in a bit of a hurry, eh, Harry?’

‘Yeah, Marko. That officer — Viche Angstrom — is here, so I reckon that’s where he’s headed. Not quite sure what he sees in her — she’s a tough bitch. Always comes across as a real hardarse.’

‘Yeah, but she’s as tall as him so she would be great in the shower. Must have nice somethings otherwise he wouldn’t be interested in her.’ Fritz grinned.

‘Careful, Fritzy. If you keep speaking like that, I might have to teach you some more martial arts so we don’t have to rescue you so often.’

‘Yes, Jan.’

Harry and Marko exchanged smiles, knowing that although Jan had only been with them a few weeks, Fritz clearly adored her and, even more interestingly, respected her.

‘Right, guys,’ said Harry. ‘You heard the man. Go sort your crap out. I need to find the regimental quartermaster, then the president of the mess committee, to introduce myself. See you at lunch, maybe.’

‘OK, Harry. See you guys soon. I’m told that they have a very good armourer here.’ Jan turned and walked away.

Fritz sighed. ‘Magnificent. Still wondering why she’s with us, eh, Marko?’

‘Yeah, not sure, still figuring that one out, Fritz. Was considering bedding her, but Harry told me to keep it in my pants as she won’t be around for long. I pressed him for info but he just tapped his nose.’

They walked up to the classically designed, two-storey bio-engineered Senior Non-Commissioned Officer barracks, located on a low rise above the beachfront with its sweeping curves and arches based on open fungal plant forms, and signed in. After throwing their packs into their allocated rooms, they had a quick look around, decided on a nice cold beer to be followed by lunch and sat at a table overlooking the idyllic beach dotted with service personnel. A good spot to go through the file packets. On each side of the military accommodation and base there were many similar buildings, all conforming to the surrounding terrain. After querying his screen, Marko noted them as the civilian R & R resorts and permanent accommodation for the standard human staff of the facilities.

The sea had a slightly more purple tinge to it than either had seen before. Marko, being an avid diver, checked his bioware then uploaded the details of the local ecology from the base. He looked up any possible nasty fauna that his biosystem could not handle. There were not a lot on land, but there were a lot in the water, some even noted as edible. Intrigued, he checked the food available to them. Fish and crustaceans were on the menu, which he thought was wonderful, as well as all the real fresh fruit and vegetables grown here. He linked across to the mess and perused the menus, seeing that they would all enjoy eating there, except Fritz, who regarded food strictly as fuel. He flicked the menu across to Harry and received back a grinning image seconds later.

‘Mate, they even have fresh beef here! Anything new for you, Fritz?’

Fritz shrugged, saying, ‘Beef? As long as I can get it between slices of bread, I don’t care. You know that, Marko. I’m interested in the music — and there’s lots of it! Huge database — they even have live bands. Good stuff as well. Might have to reconfigure our databases so I can store more.’

‘Um, mate, don’t get caught lifting that data, will you? You know how the boss feels about that.’

‘Hey, Marko. Don’t stress, man. I shall have the base’s AI hacked by this time tomorrow, tops. Just watch.’

Marko mused that that, of course, was one of the many scary things about Fritz. He’d do it — and probably in much less time. Strange guy, but absolutely wizard at electronics and maths and so far off the chart with esoteric physics that he could have conversations with the top Administration boffins. And those outsiders listening in would only understand one word in ten.

‘Great! There’s a group of Ethiopians here! Time to take up a new language.’

‘Holy crap, Fritz. How does that stuff all fit in your head?’ He paused. ‘It always fascinates me — Earth was totalled such a long time ago yet there are still ethnic groups that cling onto their identity.’

‘Takes all types, Marko, and makes the Sphere a slightly more interesting place. Just as long as someone keeps me intrigued I don’t care where the shit they came from.’

As they had a pleasant lunch of fresh fish and salads, Marko watched a pair of native sea birds hovering high overhead. After magnifying the images in his glasses, he recorded them so he could study the wing structures in his own time.

Afterwards, they walked the few hundred metres on bonded stone pathways through the exotic undergrowth, which was the same bronze hue as the ground, on their way to join the captain and the rest of the section in a small briefing theatre. Large multi-winged, insect-like creatures darted around them, staying in the middle of the path until Fritz swatted at one, which flashed across to an innocuous-looking flax-like plant. A pod propelled up out of the plant and promptly enclosed the small squealing creature, then snapped back down into the foliage.

Fritz yelped and jumped. ‘Shit! Insects are not supposed to scream!’

‘Do it again, Fritz, swat another insect — I want to record that!’

‘You’re as strange as this place, Marko.’

Marko just laughed and gestured Fritz ahead of him into the theatre where the rest of the section were assembling, each sitting behind a transparent, vertical screen.

They were still settling in when the captain began speaking. ‘Everyone sorted with the accommodation and such? Good. Right, Fritz, your thoughts please?’

Images of alien pictographs presented themselves on the screens as Fritz spoke.

‘Definitely a language of some sort. Note that the dating puts an estimate of some fifteen thousand and fifty standard years, given the makeup of the stone and the layers of marine growth taken off them. So it would mean that they have been in existence for about twelve thousand, three hundred, twenty-two of this planet’s years. Quite advanced pictographs. Would say that this civilisation was mid-cycle. Considering all the evidence, they look too perfect to have been made by sentient creatures manipulating tools; rather they have been machined or pulse-cut into the underlying stone. Looking at the planetary history, there’s little or no tectonic activity and sea levels have been stable for the last twenty thousand planet years. So, yeah, I’d say we are dealing with a fully sentient aquatic species. Mining has been in full swing for years and nothing has been seen, with the exception of a few small boats lost at sea — and who would want to go on an ocean in a boat powered by wind? That’s just nuts! So I reckon that whoever they were, they’re long gone.’

The captain nodded. ‘OK, good work, Fritz. Our task is to decide whether it is feasible to release the information. We are also to try to find any tech and examine that. Some of the hierarchy believes that there may be progenitor tech in the ocean.’

Everyone smiled, with Fritz rolling his eyes for good measure.

‘Yeah, yeah. I know it’s dumb,’ said Harry. ‘But that’s the job at hand.’

‘That’s right,’ said the captain. ‘Use all available sensors, etcetera. And let’s see what we can find. And of course we keep mum about what we’re up to. No pillow talk, OK? The official cover story is that we are a specialist comms team working on a new marine application communication system. The one thing that does bother me is that no one’s done any serious deep-sea surveying of this planet. Then again, it’s expensive and I know that the Administration wanted the mining operation in full swing as quickly as possible.’

Everyone nodded.

‘Jan, you have experience in piloting subs, so I’m making you pilot for the duration. You may even get to like us and want to permanently transfer, eh? Could you check over the sub and grab any other equipment we may need please? Your Q card is sorted with a priority tech requirement, so no one will even blink an eye at any of your requests. Is all the equipment we brought intact and working? I brought it down, but have you eyeballed it, Harry? Yes? Good.’

The captain looked at his screen then spoke again.

‘Harry, Marko, set up full search patterns stretching out to five kilometres surrounding the islands. Harry, you and I will fly those surveys. I note that they have a few Aurora here, so requisition us a pair of those please. I’ve always liked that aircraft. Fritz, start work on possible translations please. We are all here actually to support you, but don’t push it, mate, OK? We’re going to start researching all the planetary records as far back as we can go to see if anything has been filed. Standard protocols apply. Anyone who finds anything of note — flash it across to us all. The base AI has allocated a specific secured channel just for us, and she is also keeping an ear on what we are up to. Classy entity, so don’t upset her. OK, any questions? No? Right, go to it, people.’

Two

The captain and Harry flew the two Aurora with the weapons stripped out to make room for sensor equipment that enabled them to see down through the ocean. The rest of the section manned multiple screens in the base headquarters, sifting through the data streams, looking for anything that would be considered artificial. The task was made easier as the base AI gave them any assistance she could. Only one really interesting area turned up; it looked like some sort of ruined underwater structure, so the decision was made to go and take a closer look.

Early the next morning everyone was assembled in one of the vehicle hangars, looking up at the submarine.

‘For those not familiar with it, this is a Mark 3 Sunfish combat submersible,’ said Harry. ‘It can pick up, transport and sustain a full section of troops for a month without having to return to base. Two wet-locks can rotate three divers each every five minutes. Good weapons systems. All the other specs are on your plates, if you’re interested. Jan, if you would take the right-hand seat please. From your specs I note that you are checked out on these. OK. We lift in three minutes. Everyone buckle up.’

‘Thanks, Harry, like I really need to know any of that,’ Fritz said sarcastically. ‘Sometimes I think that I should call you Dad.’

‘Be nice, Fritz.’

Fritz wondered to himself why he bothered with the section. He thought faster than any of them, could beat each and every one in any game requiring mental agility and could — and on occasion, did — do the same with any AI he met. Then again, he thought to himself, I like the section and they treat me well enough. He had hacked all the mail coming to the captain within a day of being adopted by Harry and subsequently became part of the investigative engineering section. So he knew that the only reason he was not hardwired into an AI hive was Captain Michael Longbow’s unusual influence high up in the command chain and Harry’s family patronage.

Marko watched from the engineer’s seat as Jan’s fingers danced over the controls, powering up the turbines and AG units. She logged the flight and underwater plan and, after receiving clearance from the local flight controller, lifted off.

Jan flew out across the bay towards a point in the ocean some four kilometres offshore. She dropped the sub towards the surface, coming to a gentle stop immediately above the low swell, then lowered it into the water as the antigravity units powered down. The sleek, wasp-shaped sub sank beneath the surface. Jan brought the four magnetic, teardrop-shaped, water thruster pods online and the crew could hear the tone of the turbines change as they came under load. Simultaneously, the atmospheric thrusters rotated and folded into the smooth hull. They flew through the ocean down to a depth of two hundred and twenty metres, with the system front screens now displaying the underwater scene as if it were in sunlight, which of course it was not — not even the very harsh UV falling on the planet would penetrate much more than a hundred metres down.

‘Power up your boards, people,’ said Harry. ‘Give me whatever you find. Take images of everything, the local flora and fauna in particular. We may find a key image in those to help Fritz understand more of what is here. Standard survey orbit over the site please, Jan.’

They cruised across the area with Jan navigating in an ever-increasing spiral for a couple of hours, allowing the marine radar, magnetic pulse and gravity-measuring tech to paint a picture of everything non-organic down to a fraction of a millimetre for a five-hundred-metre radius of the site at the centre of the ruins. Jan fully relaxed for the first time in a long time, feeling the rhythm of the sub and those working around her.

Harry summarised the data for the captain.

‘They are ruins of intelligent design and construction, captain. Even the most cursory glance at the first images confirms that this was once an inhabited site. Pretty easy, really. Something grown does not have ornaments of recognisable surface plants on it like those, eh? Can’t determine the purpose of the buildings yet, but by measuring the openings we can start to estimate the physical parameters of the inhabitants. Appears that they were swimmers of some sort. Can’t see any ground-level entrances.’

‘OK, thanks, Harry. Send in the drones.’

The four two-metre-long Tigerfish drone-class submersibles dropped out of their nested bays. They moved towards their designated targets and opened their eyes, ready to supply 3D images back to the section.

‘Drones away, boss,’ Jan confirmed. ‘I’m putting two through that large break in the wall. I’ll control those. The other two are directed to study the outer walls and surrounding seafloor more closely. Marko, you have one and, boss, you’ve the other. Images coming up. Filters on. Wow, look at that! A temple, maybe? Deities or monsters? Deities. Those will excite you, Fritz.’

‘I’m already excited. Match! I have a bloody match! Outstanding. Look at that carving on the left wall — three o’clock high — the critter there. Look at the shape, now the pictograph. Excellent! Shit, there’s more coming in. Plant type there, there and there! Great.’

‘Boss.’

‘Marko?’

‘I have metal and ceramics. Do we go for a recovery?’

‘No, not in our current brief. Images only unless something is completely exposed, on the seafloor surface and on hard strata.’

‘No, none of that,’ Marko said. ‘Drone hovering over the deposit now. Bronze and ceramics. Interesting. How the hell did the creators of these smelt and form metal and pottery in the sea? We have biologicals as well. I make them a squid type. Yeah, I have a match! They seem interested in the drones but aren’t getting too close. Big bastards. Various fish types as well. Hey, that’s different. A paddle crab type has just hitched a ride on my drone.’

Marko extended an eye stalk from the top panel of the drone to get a closer look at the steel-grey crab-like creature. It seemed to stare back until suddenly a titanium-blue tentacle shot into the picture and pulled the crab off the casing. As Marko watched, the crab was neatly broken in two by a pair of tentacles, almost as if it had been designed that way. The squid then flashed a series of colours on its skin; another squid came over to it and was given half of the crab. Both squids seemed to hold a flashing-skin-colours conversation before the crab portions were consumed. The squids then came to the main eyes of the drone and flashed a different series of rapid colour changes. They then both rose up, away from the drone, and departed into the ruins.

‘That was wild!’ Marko exclaimed. ‘You guys see that?’

‘Yeah, look up Old Earth species cuttlefish, Marko. They did that.’

‘Yeah, but do they share their food, Harry?’

‘Don’t know, mate. I do know that squid tastes good, especially when stuffed with crab! Boss, we’ve mapped everything. What’s next?’

‘Right, people. I’ll upload everything that we have to the base AI. She will be interested and seriously pissed off as well. The place is about to be overrun by boffins! If the Administration is at all interested anyway. Jan, step a hundred metres out, and another orbit please. Record and measure everything else, people.’

As she piloted the craft, Jan quietly looked around her, considering the actions of the crew. She smiled to herself, feeling secure that they were definitely odd types, but good people all the same. She decided that she would have to discuss them with her seniors, as she now understood they were not just any group of investigative engineers.

An hour or so later they had not found anything else to seriously interest them. Once the drones had all been recovered the sub returned to the surface, lifted off and flew back to Base Hawaii. The captain gathered the data and went off for discussions with the base AI while the crew cleaned the data files on board, then hosed down the ship as it sat in its cradle before moving back to the conference room.

The captain was waiting for them; as soon as they were all seated he started the briefing, saying, ‘OK, now this is going to interest you all. The base AI has gone through the survey records and found another interesting site, fifty-two kilometres south of this island. She looked carefully through all the data and is going to give us a five-day grace period to explore it before informing the Games Board for one of their general-interest stories, as Administration Head Office is already aware that something alien is here. So if anything interesting is out there we have five days to find it. Anyone got plans? No, sorry, Fritz, going to a concert tonight does not excuse you. Provision the sub with fresh foodstuffs. No need to do things hard. Harry, we’re off again in an hour.’

They walked back down towards the aerodrome, Marko slowing as he passed the carnivorous plant he had seen eating the insect, ramping up the magnification in his bioware. He spied a tiny skull — picked clean — at the side of the plant. He quickly took some images.

‘Work now, play later, Marko.’

Marko turned and looked up at the captain and grinned.

‘Sorry, boss, can’t help myself.’

Two hours later they were all three hundred and twenty-two metres below the surface of the sea, slowly circling down around a large seamount. As they passed a series of cave mouths, the drone’s mapping radar showed them a wealth of information regarding a long-dead aquatic civilisation. What appeared to be a relatively advanced culture started to give up some of its secrets, and they spent the next two days mapping everything that could be found within a two-kilometre radius of the site. The architecture reminded them all of an elegant insect hive, with hundreds of chambers all interconnected via avenues, shafts and tunnels. Everything was covered in native life forms of weed-and coral-like materials — the entire deep-water ecosystem alive and prospering in the outer layers. The further the drones penetrated, the less plant life existed.

‘It’s clean, boss,’ Harry told the captain sitting behind him. ‘There’s basically nothing here: no personal effects, no vehicles, no tech, just habitats, the remains of farms; just the buildings themselves. We can’t even find any sort of burial ground — not that we would recognise it — either. Just the depictions of the creatures themselves in the stylised wall plaques, although they could be indicators of toilets for all we know. Whoever they were, they are long gone. I think that this place was stripped when they left. It’s not random post-Conflict or post-disaster stripping. Plenty of evidence to show that it was done slowly and systematically. Lots of empty conduits, for instance. It’s a long-dead city with everything of value tech-wise removed. The only interesting thing that doesn’t add up are those unusual mosaics on the wall of what could have been a public concourse. Is it art, maybe?’

They all looked at the indicated mosaic on the screens but no one had any idea what it depicted.

‘Thanks, Harry. Fritz, anything further on the language?’

‘Nope, we still haven’t found the key to the sounds, if there were any. I have about twenty-eight per cent of the pictographs sorted by cross-referencing between me and our hardware, but no Rosetta yet.’

‘OK, let’s recover the drones, do a final sweep over the top of the seamount, then head back to base. The AI can chew on this lot.’

‘Weird that we didn’t see any squids or crabs.’

‘Maybe they had a feast before we got here, Marko, and have buggered off, looking for more.’

Back at base, the captain debriefed the crew. ‘Good work, people. You are all stood down for the next day. Make the most of it. Base AI will go through everything we collected. See you all later.’

Marko smiled as he watched Fritz actually running full tilt across the quadrant to get to some bar or other to hear an undoubtedly