Successor - Chapter 1: Pieces in Play

CHAPTER 1: PIECES IN PLAY

         The vast beyond.  An endless black void.  Baron knew full well that it stretched further than his imagination and was populated with worlds without end.  Starships traversed distances he could never walk in a hundred lifetimes while stations and satellites orbited planets.  Yet from his penthouse windows it seemed little more than an ebony backdrop riddled with holes through which light from the other side streamed.
         He was grateful for having a place so high in the Eisenler Building.  It was expensive, but it took him above the noise of the city and with the help of state-of-the-art filters in the windows, he could mute out the city’s light and gaze into the sky with clarity previously only obtained in the wastelands of Old Arizona. 
         “Baron? What are you doing?”
         He looked over his shoulder and saw the slender figure of his wife, Analoia, standing in the doorway of their bedroom. A smile creased his lips and he held his gaze upon her for a moment, before turning it back to the sky. “Just stargazing, hon.”
         Her footsteps were nearly silent, so much so that Baron was surprised when he felt her arms sliding around his torso.  She was warm, such contrast from the absolute zero of the vacuum he had been looking into.  With her breasts pressed into his back he could feel the gentle pulse of her heart.  His own hands came to rest on her arms and stroked them lovingly.
         “Come to bed,” she whispered, a kiss on his shoulder giving weight to her plea.
         “You go lay down. I’ll be in soon,” he replied. 
         “Staying up isn’t going to make tomorrow come any quicker,“ she said with her cheek pressed to the back of his neck.
         “I know. I just want it so badly.  I mean, this is why I got into engineering in the first place.  They‘ve turned down my application three times already,“ he said.
         She kissed his should again. “It’s only a matter of time, darling.  They’ll accept you.”
         She lingered a moment longer, then slipped away with silent steps.  He heard her climbing into bed and pulling the covers up over herself, then the deepening of her breathing.
         Among the stars
         Beyond the oceans and mountains
         Do wander the minds of men
         To the edges of infinity          
         The words of the poem echoed in his mind while he said a silent goodnight to the pale moon above.  Turning, he waved his hand towards the lens in the far wall and the windows disappeared, replaced by a white wall.  Baron walked into the bedroom and climbed into bed, the warmth of his wife’s body lulling him to sleep.

         As children, Sameen and his friends had ventured beyond the walls of Re’Tehran and out into the desert to find adventure amongst the hills, canyons and caves of the Iranian desert.  The scrawny boys were natural climbers, leaping from ledge to ledge and boulder to boulder with ease.  Their feet became tough and calloused, for they would leave their sandals in a pile on a rock just outside the city and run barefoot.  Flesh gripped sandstone better than leather or rubber.
         The reflexes he had developed as a child were all that kept his fall from being fatal when the earth gave way beneath him twenty years later.  With a cry of surprise and dismay, he released the drill he had been using and threw himself backwards, twisting so that he landed upon his stomach.  As stone and soil dropped away, Sameen unwillingly followed suit.  He threw his limbs out, hands grasping and feet prepared to intercept anything rushing up from beneath.  Still slender and his body toned by years as a far-world digger, he managed to absorb most of the impact of his landing, though not without consequence. His feet touched down first and as he had practiced time and time again as a child, he flexed his knees and leaned to his side, hoping to roll across his shoulder like a ball. Instead, he landed on his arm and felt hot pain that sent stars to his eyes coupled with the pop of his forearm breaking.
         Minutes ticked by and all Sameen could do was moan and lay still.  He managed to turn onto his back, but not without eliciting a fresh wave of pain.  With his arm laying across his stomach, he stared upward at the hole he had come through.  The lamp on his helmet cast a ring of light around the edges while the rest was swallowed in the darkness that tunneled upward. 
         “Sameen! Sameen! Are you alright?!” came a voice over his headset.
         “I think I have broken my arm,” he said with a trembling voice.
         “Stay where you are. We’ll send someone down to get you.”
         The adrenaline had subsided a bit and while it made him all the more aware of his broken arm, it also gave him the presence of mind to take in his surroundings.  He had fallen into a cavern; a long and narrow one that sloped downwards from the ledge he had landed on.  Looking over the edge he saw a series of similar ledges that vanished into the darkness.  He ran his hand along the cavern wall and was overcome with a sudden feeling of wonder and confusion.  Even through the glove it was unmistakable: grind marks.  The cavern wasn’t natural. It had been made.  Looking all around he realized the cavern was almost perfectly cylindrical, save the ledges along the bottom.
         “Sameen?”
         Another light cut across the darkness and Sameen looked upward to see a figure descending from the hole.  It was Edward Kelzo, one of the senior members of the dig crew.  A thick cable attached to the harness built into his coveralls lowered him and with both hands clasping it, he began to turn his head from side to side, looking the cavern over.
         “It’s not natural,” Sameen said, his breathing labored by his pain.
         Kelzo touched down on the ledge and disconnected the cable from his suit.  His voice was distracted, his attention clearly divided between his injured worker and the cavern. “Just the broken arm?”
         “I think so. God it hurts,” Sameen said.
         Kelzo nodded and fastened the cable to the other’s suit. “Alright, he’s secure. Bring him up slowly.”
         The cable went tight and Sameen rose away from the ledge.  Kelzo watched the man ascend and disappear into the hole, then began to inspect the walls of the cavern.  Sameen’s assessment had been correct, that much was clear. The cavern had most certainly been cut by someone, but that was precisely the problem: no one had ever been on this planet.
         “This is Edward Kelzo.  Send a message to The Shop and tell them we need another dig team brought over. We’ve found something big and it’s going to take more than just us to uncover it,” he said into his headset.
         “Copy that, Kelzo,” came the reply.
         

         “Missus Potrelli, there is a call from Mister James Thaton, the site manager for Auris-three.”
         “Put it through.”
         Olivia Potrelli sat in her office behind a massive, wrap-around desk with her back to the window that looked out over the towers of the city.  She was an attractive woman at forty-three, though with her hair pulled tightly back in a bun and the rectangular-lense glasses perched atop her nose, she gave a stern impression. 
         Following a soft chime the holographic projector on her desk lit up with the disembodied head of a young man. His hair was combed neatly to the side and his face was clean shaven. Coupled with his youth, he positively reeked of inexperience and mediocrity.  Olivia felt a ripple of anger at the thought that he was calling to present her with some trivial difficulty.
         “Hello, Mister Thaton,” she said with a hint of disdain.
         “Hello, Missus Potrelli. I’m sorry to bother you but we’ve uncovered something here on Auris-Three that I felt should be relayed immediately to corporate headquarters,” the young face said.          
         “I’m an incredibly busy woman, Mister Thaton.  I do hope you have carefully considered this call.  If every junior manager in the company began calling CQ every time something came up-”
         “Yes, I know. I understand completely, Missus Potrelli.  I assure you that this merits your attention.”
         Olivia was taken aback by his boldness in interrupting her.  He spoke directly and with confidence. Either his competence had been misjudged or he was naïve enough to think that he was more important that he truly was.
         “Go on,” she said.
         “Four hours ago we received a report from one of the four dig teams we have on Auris-Three.  One of their crewmen -one Sameen Alir - fell into a cavern during an excavation,” he began.
         “This had better not be an injury report,” she hissed.
         “No, ma’am,” James Thaton said, his demeanor unshaken by her barragement of insinuations. “Senior Crew Member Edward Kelzo was lowered into the cavern to extract Mister Alir.  Upon his descent, he discovered that the cavern was not one of natural construction.  There were marks, similar to those made by deep terrain burrowers.”
         Olivia’s brow furrowed and she was silent for a moment as she queued up the data on Auris-Three. 
         “That’s impossible.  That planet was deemed vacant,” Olivia said.
         “I’m aware, Missus Potrelli.  I sent a geological team in to take some samples and the reports show traces of high friction metals and several oil compounds commonly used for burrowing.”
         Olivia frowned and sat back in her chair. “You seem an intelligent young man, Mister Thaton. What is your assessment?”
         Despite his stoic demeanor, Olivia could see the corners of his mouth twitch towards a smile, clearly appreciating her compliment. “The most likely scenario is illegal burrowing and excavation.  Such outfits are rarely equipped with the tools for true deep terrain burrowing.  They get several hundred meters in and their gear starts to break down and wear out.  If they haven’t uncovered anything by that point, they pack up and ship off.”
         “Meaning…” Olivia asked.
         “Meaning we may be sitting on a dry zone.  I have some diggers going in to see just how deep the tunnel runs, but it’s entirely possible there’s nothing to be had here,” James said.
         Millions of dollars to put the teams on that rock and now she was being told they may come up empty handed.  She felt a pit growing in her stomach.  The board would not look kindly on such a mistake.
         “Notify me as soon as you conclude your investigation, Mister Thaton,” Olivia said.
         “Yes, ma’am. We should know within the hour.”
         The hologram faded and Olivia was alone. She touched a hand to her right temple and sighed, closing her eyes.  What a mess this would become if Thaton’s assessment was correct. She hoped he was wrong.  It wouldn’t go well for him if he was, as the anxiety caused by a premature report was inexcusable.  Nevertheless, she wasn’t concerned with James’s aspirations and reputation within the company. She was more concerned with her own.

         James Thaton watched the woman’s face fade and smiled slightly, turning to face the man standing at the door of his office.  The man was dressed in a digging rig, a heavy body glove armored in mechai-framework.  Servos and motors at the joints gave him the strength needed to operate and move the heavy tools used by those in his line of work.  The head shielding was retracted, the mandibles swinging out and back, while the face place rested on top of his head.  The man was Viktor Dvotny, foreman for the dig team that had uncovered the cavern.  For ten years he had worked for Zeferron Corp as a digger, hopping from planet to planet and burrowing deep into their crusts in search of resources.  The rigorous work had left him with a weathered face, gray hair at his temples, and a hardened body. 
         His eyes weren’t on James, however.  He was looking at the dozen photographs displayed on screen that took up most of the west wall of the office.  The look on his face clearly spoke his bewilderment.  The pictures were of the cavern, some close ups of the grind marks while others focused on the ridges and the overall size.
         “How much farther do you think this goes?” James asked.
         “There’s a lot of interference from the tormite deposits scattered through the region.  We can only get an accurate reading for about two hundred yards at a time.  I won‘t lie to you, it‘s not my favorite way to work, blind like this,” Viktor said, his accent still thick despite the fact that he had not stepped foot on Russian soil in over a decade.
         James walked up to the screen and Viktor followed, his heavy footsteps staying several behind his employer.  The servos whined and whirred as he moved, then went silent when he stood still.  James stroked his chin thoughtfully, steel gray eyes drifting from  picture to picture.  He reached up and traced a finger along one showing the ledges that ran along the bottom of the cavern. “They almost look like stairs.”
         “Stairs? For what? A giant?” Viktor said.
         James ignored the remark.  Diggers weren’t thinkers or analysts. They were workers, nothing more.
         A chime rang out from Viktor’s suit.  He pulled a hand-sized device from his utility belt and pushed a button. His eyes scanned the screen on the front of the device. “They’ve set up video feed, Mister Thaton. Shall I connect you?”
         James nodded. “Please, do.”
         Viktor stepped up to the small console at the bottom of the wall screen and connected his device via a small wire in the back.  After a few moments of entering commands, the pictures on the wall vanished and were replaced by black and white streams of static. They finally cleared and the two men saw a grainy image of the cavern, washed in a green tint created by the low-light illumination of the camera making the feed.
         A voice came over the speakers in the console. “Are you getting this, Viktor?”
         “Yes, Kelzo, you’re transmitting clear. You‘re being watched by Mister Thaton and myself,” Viktor replied, then turned his voice to James. “Sameen Alir was the man who fell through into the cavern.  Edward Kelzo was the one sent in to retrieve him and called in the site.”
         James nodded his acknowledgment and watched intently.
         “Hello, Mister Thaton.  Alright, we’re currently about a kilometer from where Sameen fell through.  The angle of descent ranges from twelve to fifteen degrees and an approximate measurement of ten meters in diameter.  I’m currently standing on a ridge similar to the one Sameen landed on. These run the length of the cavern so far and were apparently cut into the floor.  We found similar traces of metal around the ledges as were found on the walls, as well as obvious cut marks.  Each platform is about seven meters wide, three long and drops about a meter and a half to the next one,” Kelzo said, moving the camera as he spoke to try for the best shots available. “It’s a little difficult to show with no lighting, but it almost looks like a staircase.”
         James glanced over to Viktor and raised an eyebrow. The Russian paid no mind.
         “What about finding an end to this thing, Kelzo?” James asked.
         “I have two men going ahead of the main team.  They should be about two hundred meters ahead of us. I told them to radio in as soon as they find an end.”
         “I want more equipment moved in,” James told Viktor. “lights mainly. This is here for a reason and I intend to find out why.”
         “Shall I radio the other dig teams?” the older man asked.
         James shook his head. “No. Too many people get made aware of this and lips get loose. We keep this to just us and this outpost.  All reports are to be made directly to me.  Absolutely under no condition is anyone to send information off-world without my explicit consent.”
         “Whatever you say, Mister Thaton.”
         Above all else, Viktor was loyal.  Loyal in the way that he knew who signed his paychecks and that was the extent of his involvement.  He gained nothing by going against James’s orders, while risking everything. After all, decision making was what James was paid for.
         “I take it Missus Anton isn’t to know about this,” Viktor said.
         “Remember your pay grade, Viktor,” was James’s cold reply.
         Viktor walked up to the console and said, “Kelzo, we’re cutting the feed for now.  I’ll be returning to the site shortly.”
         “Sure thing.”
         James walked to his desk and took a seat while Viktor retrieved his device from the console.  The investigation was uncovering more questions than answers and being in the dark wasn’t James’s favored position.  He hoped the two scouts Kelzo had sent ahead would report in soon.