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Two days later, Amanpreet was lying on the bed in the isolation chamber and reading one of her collection of antique Science Fiction novels when Talis Station’s head doctor, a tall, dark haired and light olive skinned woman, came in. Amanpreet sat up in surprise. No one had been allowed into the room since she’d woken up – her only contact with others had had been through the window to the visiting chamber and most of that had been with the authorities to explain what she had seen.

“We’ve finished the tests,” the doctor said. “You seem to still be yourself.”

“You don’t sound too sure,” Amanpreet said.

She chuckled. “How can we be? This sort of situation is unprecedented outside of fiction – we have no idea what it would look like if you weren’t. But your brother and crew say your behaviour is normal and your brain activity seems normal and matches the scans taken for your navigation license within tolerance. It’s a good job you’re a navigator or we have had nothing to go on other than the testimony of people who know you. But we’ve done all we can and we can’t hold you here indefinitely with no evidence of a problem so you’re free to go.”

“Ah! Thank you!” She closed her book and leapt to her feet. “I was getting so bored.”

“Yes, I’d imagine,” the doctor said. “The isolation block isn’t the most interesting place. I’ve been told to tell you to go straight to the administration section. They want to ask you some more questions about what you saw.”

“Of course,” Amanpreet said. “I’ll just drop my things back at my cabin and go there directly.” She gathered her things and hurried out the door.

Sangat was waiting for her outside and she hugged him firmly. It was a relief to touch another person.

“I thought I was never going to get out of there!” she said. “Apparently I’m wanted in the administration hub.”

“Yes.” He hugged her back and they started walking to where the Whisper was docked. “We found the egg chamber and the gene bank based on what you told us and the original inhabitants left a computer system designed to be easily accessed for information on what the atmosphere and biosphere was like. Messages have been flying back and forth with the Council of Planets and they’ve sent some more questions for you and Mei, though the Ishtari are already developing a bioforming plan to recreate the planetary environment as it was before the supernova. And we’ve confirmed that it was a supernova.”

Once they reached the Whisper, Amanpreet dropped her bag in her cabin and checked on the systems before heading for the administration hub. A short, golden-skinned woman met them there, smiling and bowing when Sangat and Amanpreet came in.

“Captain Amanpreet! Welcome. I am Takeashi Midori, chief administrator of the human section of Talis Station. I’m sorry we have to trouble you again but your experience has presented us with quite the quandary.”

“It’s not a problem,” Amanpreet said. “I quite understand.”

“Thank you,” Midori said. “Please come with me. Umi and Qichi are waiting. I believe you’ve met Umi already?”

“Yes,” Amanpreet said. “It’s been an eventful week. First we were attacked by a Fish and now this. I hope things settle down a bit now. I don’t need more excitement.” She pulled a face and sighed. “Perhaps I’m in the wrong business.”

Midori smiled but said nothing to that, leading through into the main administration office. Transparent partitions divided the room into three distinct environmental sections, allowing all three station administrators to talk face to face without the discomfort of environment suits. Inside the dimmer section Amanpreet could just make out the form of Adminstrator Umi and in the other, a Kska Ishtari who must be Administrator Qichi.

“Amanpreet,” Umi said via her speech synthesizer. “Good to see you again. We need to ask you some more about your experience so the council can decide what to do about these babies we have found.”

“Babies!” Midori shook her head. “We’ve been over this – they’re still eggs. They aren’t babies yet.”

Umi’s tentacles shuddered rhythmically in a Mez shrug. “They’ve been laid so they have separate status. You may as well say our babies aren’t people until they go through metamorphosis because we don’t develop sapience and self-awareness until then.”

“Stop this, both of you!” Qichi said. The way her fushia feathered tentacles thwapped the interface of her synthesizer betrayed her irritation. “The legal status of the eggs is not the issue here. If Whether we should do as their parents have asked and restore their planet and species is, and the fact that both your species are dubious about it.”

“They’re just worried this is an elaborate trap and the species will turn out to be dangerous,” Umi said. “Not an unreasonable fear with a species that appears to be at least somewhat eusocial and capable of some form of telepathic communication. Though there aren’t enough in this first clutch to be a real threat numerically.”

“A threat?” Qichi said. “There’s no evidence they are any sort of threat.”

“Knocking people out and forcing your thoughts into their heads is pretty threatening,” Midori said.

Qichi made a trilling sound of exasperation. “Perhaps they just wanted to be sure that whoever found this had to pay attention? It’s not the easiest situation to communicate in. And why would they attract attention to if they were hostile? They’d have found some other way.”

“Equally possible,” Midori conceded. “That is what the council needs to decide.” She turned back to Amanpreet and waved her towards a comfortable chair. “They’ve sent a lot of questions, most of which you’ve already answered but they insist we ask again, so this is going to take a while.”

“I expected as much.” Amanpreet sat down. “What do they want to know?”

—

Prompt Post 6 is here. Come and leave a prompt.

Comments Welcome.

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As the group made their way down the gentle ramp towards the floor of the cavern, the crystal lights in the walls glinted off swirls and lines of iridescent multi-coloured rock. The colours formed such a deliberate pattern that it couldn’t be natural and Amandeep could have sworn the walls had been blank when the lights first came on.

“Mother of the Universe,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful!”

“They certainly had quite the sense of aesthetics, didn’t they?” one of the human archeologists said. “And by the looks of it, a similar visual range to us.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Right,” Sangat said. “We’ll have the robot grab the book but no one is touching it until we’re sure it won’t affect people the way the Rune affected Mei.”

“We should have Mei have a look at it,” Doctor Mensah said. “Maybe it’ll be able to read their language. Our chances of reading it otherwise are slim to non-existent.”

Sangat tilted his head thoughtfully, then nodded. “You’re right, but I don’t want Mei touching it either. It might aggravate its condition.” He looked over at the technician with the remote. “Can you grab that book?” Read the rest of this entry »

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A/N: Uses the prompts in the comments on Prompt Post Two.

The largest of Talis’s oceans covered nearly half the planet but it took the atmospheric shuttle less than an hour to fly across it – which wasn’t bad for an atmospheric vehicle. As they few over the sparkling blue waters, Amanpreet’s mind wandered to the question Chen had thought she was considering in the lounge.

“So what did happen here?” she asked. “Life’s pretty stubborn; it doesn’t usually disappear.”

“Well, it didn’t completely disappear,” Sangat said. “Some single celled life survived.”

“But all the multi-cellular life was destroyed,” Niobe said. “There were even people who evolved here. What happened to them?”

“We think it was a nearby supernova,” he said. “Possibly as close as twelve parsecs. Which is interesting – that would suggest that the people here were thriving around the same time humans first evolved back on Earth. From what we’ve uncovered so far they seem to have been an interesting bunch, but much as I hate to say it, I’m pretty glad we don’t have to deal with them. Any civilization that can create the Rune is disturbing.”

“Chen said that it wasn’t visible at first?” Amanpreet said.

“Yes, not until a Tkin scientist was taking rock samples in the mountains and apparently activated it by chipping off a bit off the wrong rock. The Rune flashed into existence right underneath them.” He frowned. “Mei still isn’t itself. It hears voices and has shown a remarkable ability to locate dig sites. It’s as if the Rune somehow psychically imprinted on it even through its environment suit.”

“I knew this was a horror movie,” Niobe muttered. “That’s going beyond disturbing into full-on scary.”

“I agree,” he said. “But that’s been the only incident so far – no one else has been allowed to touch the Rune. Anyway, we’re nearly at the primary dig site so I’d better call and check everything is okay.”

The call was answered by a Mez scientist in a fully opaque environment suit but even the flat tones of the voice synthesizer and the lack of body language couldn’t conceal their excitement.

“Doctor Singh! You’re here! We were digging in the area Mei suggested and broke through into a huge cave. We haven’t entered yet but I sang into the hole and heard what I think are buildings. Buildings after all this time! What were they building with that it’s still standing? And why underground – did they know what was coming and try to escape it?”

“Niobe’s right,” Kane said. “We’re in a horror movie. It probably contains an army of the former inhabitants in suspended animation. They’ll wake up and kill us all!” He mock swooned. “Oh, the horror!”

“We thought of that,” the Mez scientist said. “It’s not really likely and the Ishtari scientists think we’re being paranoid but we’re arming everyone just in case.”

Amanpreet covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. It said a lot about the Mez that they thought of such things as well.

“Better safe than sorry,” Sangat said. There was no hint of laughter in his voice and his face was completely straight but Amanpreet got the feeling her brother was thinking the same thing.

***

Half an hour later, they had landed and joined the other scientists in front of a ragged black hole in the ground. Amanpreet looked dubiously at the laser carbine one of the Mez handed her and tried to give it back.

“I’d rather not,” she said, “I’m a pacifist… Well, mostly a pacifist.”

The Mez pushed it back into her hands. “You have a license. Take it for self-defence – just in case.”

Amanpreet sighed and took the gun. “Thank you.”

“Humans make such impressive weapons,” it said. “It comes of being so hard to kill.” It turned away to continue handing out weapons.

“Was it talking about the guns or us as being weapons?” Kane asked quietly.

“With the Mez you never know.” Amanpreet shrugged. “I’m just glad our environmental needs are so different or we’d probably be at war instead of allies.”

“We need to be careful, so we’re sending in the robot first,” Doctor Mensah said. “Only once we’re sure it’s safe and nothing inside will be damaged will we open the breach further ourselves.” She looked down and stopped, a confused frown crossing her features. “Wait, where’s the robot? It was right here…”

Sangat covered his eyes with his hand and sighed. “Are you sure you didn’t forget it again, Emma?”

“No,” one of the technicians said. “I helped her carry it. It was there. I’ll see if I can recall it.” He fiddled with a small remote. A few minutes later, there was a soft hum and a disc shaped robot about the size of a large dog hovered into view from behind a nearby ridge. “There is it. I’ll run a diagnostic.” He waited until it floated over to them then knelt down beside it, held the remote above it and studied the small screen. After a long moment he frowned. “It appears to have suffered a power surge that got past the breakers and that’s what activated it.”

“We have been getting some odd readings,” one of the Tkin scientists said. “Is the robot functional?”

“It should be,” the technician said. “Shall we proceed?”

The Ishtari and humans gathered around the screen as the robot dropped through the hole into the cavern and watched the images from its cameras as the Mez listened to the echoes from the sound pulses it was putting out.

“Those are buildings all right,” Amandeep said as the robot’s lights revealed a regimented grid of glistening white flat roofed buildings stretching from one cave wall to another. “But the doors are all open.”

“Yes and the shape of them suggests that the people who lived here were about a 130 centimeters tall and nearly as wide,” Doctor Mensah said. “This place is so large and well preserved that we’ll have to spend decades cataloguing everything.” Her eyes were sparkling. “But we should start there.” She pointed at the largest white building which stood at the exact center of the grid.

“Agreed,” Sangat said.

The robot swooped over the buildings and down towards the doorway. As it entered, its lights revealed that the building was a large single room. On the internal walls were paintings of dozens of creatures whose headless forms rather resembled barrels of scaly scarlet leather. They were dancing on short stubby legs with multiple long sinuous arms whirling around them and around them was painted a forest of what Amanpreet assumed had to be trees. There was something joyous and unrestrained about the image.

“Oh! So that’s what they looked like!” Sangat said. “Wonderful. We’ve learned so much today already.” He looked like he might say something else but instead he gasped as the robot’s light shone on something else. On a plinth in an alcove lay a book with a smaller version of the Rune on its silver cover.

—

Prompt Post 3 is here. Come and leave a prompt.

Comments Welcome.

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A/N: Uses the prompts in the comments on Prompt Post One.

—

Like most orbital stations, Talis station had a lounge with a viewscreen looking out on the planet. Amanpreet sat in one of the comfortable chairs and stared at the planet some more. The Rune wasn’t currently in view and without it Talis looked like any other scum world – blue sea and beige land. Nothing else showed that any kind of multicellular life let alone intelligent life had once existed there.

“You’re wondering what happened here, aren’t you?” The voice was flat and artificial. She turned and saw a green Tkin Ishtari – one of the two intelligent species that had evolved on Ishtar – in an environment suit standing there. Through the suit’s face panel she could see the slender, multi-jointed feeding arms that emerged from its head racing over the suit’s voice synthesizer controls to allow them to communicate with her, though the rest of its body was hidden by the controls. “Everyone does.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Notes: Incorporates the prompts gathered from Prompt Post 0. I only half covered Lyn’s as I didn’t manage to incorporate the dialogue line she gave me but did cover the prompt.

And now, without further ado, here’s the first installment. Comments welcome here or at Dreamwidth/LJ where this is crossposted.

Prompt Post 1 is here.

—

Someone was shaking Amanpreet. She didn’t want to wake up; it hurt too much. She was vaguely aware of muttering to herself and curling up but that just made the shaking intensify.

“Captain! Wake up!” That was Niobe’s voice, wasn’t it. Was she crying? “We need to crack the dome. Kane’s still in there.”

Amanpreet groaned but opened her eyes to find herself lying on the floor of the Whisper’s pitch-dark bridge. Cautiously, she sat up and tried to figure out what had happened. They’d been in hyperspace, a routine jump to take supplies to the archeological dig in the Talis system when… Her body went rigid as the a memory of noise and light hit her. Something had hit the Whisper hard. Read the rest of this entry »