The very long hallway ended in a sloping wall of dark metal pierced by a triangular door. This particular portal seemed to have become jammed, for at the top of the triangle they could see a portion of the valve itself. The edges of the massive frame were also mottled and streaked with carbon scoring and sections of the metal had melted before cooling into odd shapes. Beyond the door, illuminated by the hard white radiance of their helmet and hand lights, stood a nonagonal chamber of moderate size-only thirty or forty meters across.
“Nine walls.” The Prince’s voice was filled with irritation. “Three was sacred to them, then? And a dead end, Doctor.”
“I think, Lord Prince, that they are doors,” Gretchen amended. “All alike save this one, which has been damaged.”
“Massive.” Xochitl did not spit on the floor, but his impatience was very clear.
“They fought hard here.” Cuauhhuehueh Koris traced his light across the signs of ancient battle-huge discolorations from plasma discharges covered the walls, there were melted panels here and there, and the inlaid floor was scored with deep gouges. The Jaguar Knight dug at the wall with his monofilament combat knife, but left no mark. “Huh!”
Sahane offered no comment, standing amid them with his shoulders tucked in, radiating unease.
The glyphs and signs ghosting across Anderssen’s vision pointed her to the right, collecting like ephemeral birds over a collection of interlocking triangles scribed into the floor.
“Which way?” the Prince snarled, nervously swinging his assault rifle from side to side. “Is this a transit nexus? Swede, all we need is-what are you doing?”
Gretchen had nudged Sahane down onto the floor, just where he could step onto the triangles illuminated by her hand light. At the touch of the Hjogadim’s boot, there was an almost imperceptible tremor. Eight of the walls shuddered, spilling faint clouds of dust into the air. Behind them, the triangular door slid down with unexpected violence, grinding along hidden tracks with a squeal. The party turned in alarm, their lights sending a cluster of gleaming circles dancing across the battered walls. The door failed partway down, momentarily revealing the hallway beyond dropping away with dizzying speed. This brief visual cue was the only indication they were in motion. Then the door closed as firmly as its eight counterparts, vanishing into the larger expanse of the wall without leaving a visible join.
Xochitl cursed-a long, bitter oath-and his face suddenly cleared, dark eyes glinting through his faceplate. Anderssen felt his “mask” stir. In her Sight, hidden signs and symbols flared to life around the Mexica lord as though he were wreathed in ghostly flame. Fascinated, she watched them solidify first into a wholly alien symbology and then flicker into the more recognizable glyphic alphabet of the Mexica.
Customized, she had time to think, before a dissociative jolt jarred her mind. There had been no noticeable physical sensation of movement, but Anderssen was suddenly sure they had passed over a threshold. What a peculiar sensation-as though we’d stepped through a doorway within a doorway, leading into a room within the room where we were already present.
Slowly, she withdrew her gloved hand from Sahane’s arm and turned to stare at the alien. “Revered Sahane,” she breathed, as though addressing him for the first time.
“Get away from him,” the Prince ordered. The marines and Koris turned as well, catching a peculiar tone in her voice.
Ignoring the threat in Xochitl’s command, Gretchen marveled as the Hjogadim’s periphery gleamed brightly with a dizzying array of symbols. Far more in number, and far more varied, than the ghostly effusion accompanying his outburst in Secondary Command on the Naniwa . Now his z-suit and fur were literally crawling with signs and symbols of all varieties. Yet as she watched, they began to settle down, consolidating into a rotating, half-seen mesh of glyphs which almost entirely obscured the alien.
Apparently unaware that he had changed, Sahane returned her gaze with one of great curiosity.
Her awareness of the symbology congealed as the glyphic aura around the creature settled down. Vectors of meaning began to emerge, revealing the shadow of a greater pattern. Anderssen found she could not-did not want to-look away, but at the same time she felt her own memories begin to fray… Hummingbird, she howled mentally. You evil old man! Nothing ever happens around you by accident.
“Your eyes are… quite golden,” Sahane said in puzzlement. The Hjo didn’t remember if this toy had expressed such a peculiar appearance before. Then he flinched back as the Prince’s Macana assault rifle jammed past his snout and against Gretchen’s head, muzzle wedging in between her neckring and helmet.
“Where are we going, Swede?” Xochitl’s voice was flat, menacing, much like the flash-suppressor digging into her ear. “Is this a transit car?”
“You know it is, Tlatocapilli,” she squeaked, forcing her unwilling tongue to form human words. The peculiar jolt in her perception made her aware of two distinct identities occupying the same physicality-her old self and now something new. This evolving Gretchen rode at the edges of her nerves, altering her perceptions of the universe… supplying meaning, context, and direction. Constellations of glyphs began to appear in silhouette around the Prince, the marines, the Jaguar Knight-even Sahane had his own annotations. A Hjogadim epithet suddenly sprang to mind: A sure and certain Guide to my thought!
“I assure you, Lord Prince, we are going where you wished to go.”
“I do not think so,” he said, eyes narrowed. His exo-and by the Risen Christ, it was a vast relief to have his exocortex operating again-was reporting a flurry of unexpected changes in Doctor Anderssen’s breathing, in her kirlian field, in the tension visible in her skin and bone. “I think you have become infected with something.”
Gretchen raised her arms, turning fully towards him. The flash-suppressor clinked across her helmet, coming to rest square on her faceplate. “I am very sure, now, that Hummingbird did not expect you to be here, Lord Prince, nor indeed, the Holy One.” She opened her hand towards Sahane. “He expected to need just one key -myself.”
“Key?” Sahane said, curiosity winning out over naked fear. “Key to what?”
The transit core suddenly came to a halt and everyone froze as they felt the ancient device grow still. In motion, none of them had been aware of anything, but now that the room had completed its travels, each of them felt their equilibrium settle. The door that showed the worst battle damage ground up, shedding dust from long-unused mechanisms, allowing a pale roseate light to shine through the opening. Armored corpses spilled into the nonagonal room, tumbling away from the hulks of shattered war-meka. Even Xochitl jumped back in surprise as a cascade of broken battle-steel bounced away across the floor.
There was a buzz of static on their comm channel, but then the earbugs cycled frequency and the irritating sound died away. The Prince was the first to regain his composure. He whistled in astonishment at the size of the chamber revealed behind the long-dead combatants.
“Now, Swede, now you’ve found us something.” Xochitl felt a great lightness rise in his chest. “We are the first beings to look upon this vista in ten thousand years,” he said. “Marines-patrol pattern! There may be automatic defenses left active, even after so long…”
Sahane’s long snout peeled back from his fore fangs in horror to see the faded signs and symbols emblazoned upon the shattered fragments of armor. Hundreds of corpses slithered down out of the doorway, many of them bearing recognizably similar diagrams.
“The place of the Celestials,” the Hjo whispered, unable to believe his eyes. “And The Fallen Thousand… the Banner Crimson and Black. My revered ancestors. This is… impossible. This is a children’s fable! ”
“All too real, Esteemed One,” Gretchen said in a thick, hollow voice. Her facial muscles jumped randomly as her old self struggled to regain neural control from the gold-tinged invader. “My Lord Prince, your control structure.” She pushed his assault rifle aside and stepped down from the sled, hands spread wide to frame the vast chamber lit through a clear wall by the glare of the accretion disc’s light-year-long plasma jet shining far, far away to her left. Beyond the wreckage at the doorway, where some ferocious battle had denied an equally forgotten, unknown enemy entrance, long rows of triangular crystalline cradles rested upon the floor in such numbers as to vanish, uncountable, into the distance. Far, far away, a tall pylon rose from the flame-lit darkness. It shone with subdued green and gold lights, crowned in shadow.
Xochitl pushed past a seemingly frozen Sahane, following Anderssen cautiously, gun at the ready. The xenoarchaeologist moved slowly, trying to keep control of her limbs, the visible world a riot of conflicting data. The Mexica prince signed for one of his marines to shadow her, while the other four set themselves to the points of the compass. Koris followed slowly in the sled.
Left alone in the transit core, the Hjogadim heaved violently into his waste-tube and wept purple tears into his matted, unkempt facial pelt. He trembled uncontrollably, leaning against the door frame, overcome by stunned fear. Oh Guide of Thought, he blubbered to himself, why have you sent your worthless servant into such a terrible place? I am no priest, no demagogue-I know nothing of the rituals of greeting or awaking! What cruel, cruel fate has placed me here, among barbarians and slaves and discarded toys, at such a time? To place me before the Gods themselves? He could not bring himself to step across the threshold.
But the toys are already inside the Holy of Holies. The voice in his mind was faint and hard to understand; by far the most ancient of all his teachers. The others, who had begun babbling in counterpoint, fell silent.
You must go in, young smoot. Your only way home lies forward.