e-Ghosts of Rogue Planet

Chapter 12

We suited up and went down to planet the next day. James and I took along extra air cylinders, food and water in order to prolong our stay on the surface. We went back to the alien metropolis and used the Data-Bridge to search for electronic processing signals. Computer chips radiate weak electromagnetic signals when they do their thing.

“I’m detecting signals in the one to two millimeter band,” Alisha said. “But, the patterns are spurious.”

“Can you obtain a direction on them?” I asked.

She pointed. “They’re coming from that direction.”

I turned to the right and began walking in the direction that she had indicated. We moved down a narrow avenue that passed several quartz-domed structures. Despite being perfectly transparent, we couldn’t make out anything inside them. After walking nearly a mile, we saw what looked like a stone bunker down a side street.

“That’s odd,” I said. “Why isn’t that made from titanium like everything else?”

“Maybe it postdates the civilization that built this city,” James said.

We walked up to it. The structure appeared to be carved from a single block of calcium carbonate, according to Marie’s scanner.

“One has to wonder where they got this block of essentially shell or chalk,” I said. “I thought that this stuff is formed in oceans.”

“The oceans on this planet never produced that,” Marie said.

“Why is it here?” Alisha asked.

“That’s a very good question,” I said. “It doesn’t match up with any of the other structures in this metropolis.”

“Could this be an entrance?” Marie asked.

“An entrance to what?” I asked.

“I’m detecting a sizable cavern under this location,” she said. “Maybe this is the entrance.”

“I don’t see a way into it,” James said.

A number pad appeared on the side of the block.

James jumped back. “What the hell . . . “

“The e-ghosts are playing with us again,” I said.

“What do they want us to do?” Marie asked.

“They want a numerical sequence,” I replied, punching in the one I used to free her and Alisha. “But, the one I used before isn’t working.”

“Maybe it’s more complicated,” James said. “It could involve powers.”

“Yes, something like X equals X + X squared.” I punched 1, 2, 6, 42 etc. . .

The block moved to one side, revealing a stairway down into the cavern.

Marie bent down near the edge of the stairway and used her scanner. “I’m detecting oxygen in the air coming from . . . wherever this goes.”

“Now that is interesting,” I said. I began going down the stairs.

“Are we going to get trapped again?” Alisha asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe, but we have to find out where the oxygen is coming from.”

Like lemmings, they followed me down the stairs, and as expected, the block moved back to cover the entrance, plunging us into darkness, but just as quickly, light panels illuminated our way. The e-ghosts were definitely toying with us.

“The oxygen concentration is about three quarters of what Earth’s is,” Marie said.

“That’s interesting,” I said. “At this higher pressure, it should be sufficient to breath.” I removed my helmet and took a breath. “Yeah, it’s working.”

The others removed their helmets.

“It smells funny in here,” Alisha said. She consulted her bio-scanner. “I’m detecting a residual amounts of pollen, mostly from angiosperms.”

“That could explain why there’s oxygen down here,” I said. “However, that would mean that there’s a source of blue light to cause photosynthesis.”

“These light panels have light in the blue part of the spectrum,” Alisha said.

“They’d have to in order to produce white light,” I said.

After descending several hundred meters, we got to the bottom, or at least what we thought was the bottom. As before, light panels came to life and lit our way. The lights beckoned us to walk down a corridor, and we did.

“You realize that they’re leading us to something we’re not prepared to deal with,” James said.

“Welcome to space exploration,” I said. “They want us to find out who created this civilization, and maybe this underground installation holds the answer.”

“Or the seeds of our destruction,” James said.

“Stop it, you two,” Marie said. “You’re not helping.”

That shut us up. We continued down the corridor with the light panels heralding our way. The ones that lit up behind us went off. We were essentially being led down the primrose path. I felt like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz going to see the Wizard.

“What’s that?” Alisha asked, pointing.

My eyes grew larger. “My God!”

We stopped in our tracks and stood staring at something we did not expect to see.