The pads of my feet are starting to ache, as I trudge along yet another slanting tubular corridor, watch another circular door open before me. Beyond is a room, an empty room, with low domed consoles around the sides. Some laboratory, perhaps. The domed things are consistent with Solanae science workstations, the sort of thing we've seen many times before. The control panels are inactive.
I sigh, and it's the loudest noise in the room. The silence is oppressive. This spire is clearly the site of considerable activity... but, again, it's the problem of scale. The main body of the spire is dozens of kilometres across, and it has many, many interior levels... there is room for whole nations in here, and lots of empty corridors and vacant rooms between them. I have trudged a long way since I scrambled out of the escape shaft, and still I have only gone a tiny distance into the spire.
I touch my combadge, more for the sake of hearing a friendly voice than anything else. "M'eioi to Timor."
"Timor here, sir," says Sumal Jetuz's voice. It sounds clearer than before. "What's your situation?"
"Unchanged," I say. "Nothing to report - just making my way through the interior. I'm bound to find a way back down to you sometime.... You sound very clear."
"Signal strength seems to be improving, sir. We're adding filters and processing to clean out some of the interference from the spire's systems - though I'm not sure how well it's working."
"Your voice is coming through strongly."
"Yes, sir, and we're getting some solid telemetry from your tricorder, too. But there still seems to be a problem. With the data we've gathered now, we should be able to get through to the exterior of the spire - maybe not strongly enough to raise Joint Command, but we should certainly be able to get a response out of the Tapiola or the Tempest. But we've heard nothing from either ship."
"Well, I guess all you can do is keep trying." I touch the control panel on one of the consoles, but nothing happens. This part of the spire is deeply asleep, it seems. I look around. "There are two more exits from the room I'm in right now. I'm going to have a look...." I aim my tricorder at each doorway in turn. "Hmm. There's a vertical shaft behind one of them... some kind of elevator, maybe?" I walk over to that doorway, touch the controls. Nothing seems to happen at first, then my ears twitch as a faint sound makes itself heard. An approaching turbolift capsule... maybe?
The door splits into segments and opens for me. Not a capsule, but a simple round platform - well, it will do, provided I keep my arms and my tail well away from the walls. There is a free-floating control console off to one side of the platform. I study the blue glowing readouts. "Nothing as simple as up and down. It's pick a destination time, and I have no idea where any of them are. All right. Timor, do you have a fix on my combadge?"
"We do, sir, but I can't guarantee we'll keep it if you start moving quickly." Sumal's voice is starting to sound tinny again. Additional shielding in the elevator shaft, perhaps.
"Well, if I don't start moving quickly, I'm not going to get anywhere." I tap one glowing icon. The door closes behind me, and I feel a faint pressure before the inertial dampers kick in. "I'm moving up. Pretty fast." The walls of the tube are hurtling down around me. I think I'll stick very close to the centre of this disc.
My combadge emits an unintelligible squawk. I hiss in frustration. I'm going to have to spend some time tuning in, compensating for the additional layers of shielding -
I turn my attention to the tricorder. If I'm passing through more layers of shielding, I'm getting closer and closer to the inside of things - including whoever, or whatever, might be running this place. The tricorder might be able to pick up some actual life signs -
But the tricorder is having the same sorts of problems as the combadge, as, invisible to me, energy fields are changing all around me. I'm still fiddling with the settings, trying to recalibrate, when the disc comes to a halt. I turn around as another door opens beside me.
There's a wide empty space beyond. I step through cautiously. I seem to have come out onto some plaza or concourse, a smoothly curving empty hallway whose far wall is lost in shadow. I check the tricorder. If it's registering properly, I'm about... three thousand metres higher up the spire than I was.
On the minus side, that's not helping me get back to the Timor. On the plus side, there are things moving - within a few hundred metres. Life signs. The tricorder doesn't recognize what sort of life, but definitely something alive.
I try the combadge. Nothing but static.
I advance out, along the empty concourse. I think about pulling my phaser rifle from my transporter buffer... but, no, I need to make peaceful contact, if I can. The tricorder contains subroutines for extending the combadge's universal translator; I cue them up.
Life signs. Consistent with humanoid body mass, approximately humanoid-range temperature and neural activity - but the tricorder still can't make an identification. Not just a new species, but a very different new species. I can only hope the translator is up to the job.
The nearest alien to me is... about two hundred metres away, moving parallel to the concourse wall. It must be in an adjacent corridor. If I can find a doorway, I can get through, find the alien, say hello. The walls, the doors, they are simple physical things - the tricorder has no trouble locating them. I have a rough map in moments, and I make for the nearest door. The alien life sign isn't moving quickly... it seems to be ambling along at a steady pace, as if it's out for a stroll. As if it lives here. As if it belongs here....
There is a doorway. I reach it. The lights are dimmer than usual, here - I don't know if it's a failure of maintenance, or an attempt to simulate a day-night cycle, or just somebody's choice. It's not a problem for Caitian eyes, of course. I open the door. Beyond, a corridor curves around sharply and slopes upwards. I make my way along it. The alien lifesign is quite close, now, according to the tricorder -
I round the bend of the corridor, and I see it, and the words of greeting die on my lips.
It is shuffling past the intersection of this corridor with the next one, and I have only a brief glimpse of its face - but that is enough. That, and the horny carapaced body, and the silhouette of the thing - and the clawed forelimbs. It is wearing strips of fabric instead of a hooded robe, but there is no doubt, nonetheless, of what it is. Even though it's impossible.
Solanae.
---
I stand there, wide-eyed, and watch the creature shuffle out of sight. I don't think it saw me - black uniform, black fur, in shadow, I can't have been noticeable even to its huge eyes. I'm glad of that. It gives me time to think, about the implications of this -
The Solanae. The builders of the Dyson spheres, the original occupants.
I shake my head. But the Solanae are supposed to be gone. The disaster that overtook the sphere forced them out of normal space-time, into subspace -
But this spire is elaborately shielded. A - a survival bunker, of some sort, perhaps. Holding a community of the Solanae, protecting them from the tetryon contamination... letting them survive the disaster. How long have they been living here? Why have we not had signs of them before? How have they survived, how have they lived? And what are they doing now?
Well. The simplest way to find out, of course, might be to ask them.
After all, they can't be tools of the Iconians any more - the Iconians are gone. Though these Solanae might not know that... but, I won't know what they know unless I ask them. Make contact. Not only is it the right Starfleet thing to do, it's the only thing to do.
I wish I could reach the ship, though. Someone besides me needs to know about this... but the interference is too strong, still. So, it's up to me. I square my shoulders and start to march briskly along the corridor, following the path taken by the alien.
Except it's not as simple as that - the architecture of this place is a maze, as usual. Although I can sometimes hear the clacking of chitinous feet on the deckplates, the Solanae stays, maddeningly, out of sight as the corridors twist and turn. I have to proceed slowly, checking with my tricorder's map at every junction - and, even so, I am falling behind, and I'm not sure I haven't got myself crossed up or turned around in the passageways -
I stop walking. I take a deep breath. And think.
Many Solanae. That implies a community. And communities have gathering places, social venues. Instead of following this lone alien, I should be looking for a large space that has a number of them in it. It might make better sense, from a first-contact point of view, too. If there's several of them, and only one of me, they'll be able to see I mean them no harm. Probably. Possibly.
So I consult the tricorder again, and map out a route to a large hall, or something, that's showing several Solanae life signs. Quite a number of them, in fact. At least the tricorder now recognizes them - perhaps, though the readings are still a little confused. So. Up the next ramp, take the next turning but two to the left, then a little way around a curve, then the next right....
I forget my fatigue as I follow the path. This is - this is important.
I come to the end of the path, step up to a big round door. It opens before me. I step through.
I'm in a big round space, with a shallow domed ceiling, and lights pouring down, brightly, onto the centre. In the centre is a flat space, marked out with lines of varying colours, and - there are Solanae on it, going through some sort of rapid movements. Are they... dancing? Playing a game? There are other Solanae, ranged about the room, standing or sitting, looking at the centre.
No one seems to have noticed me, yet. I take another step forward.
I'm about to clear my throat and announce myself when there's a noise, and movement, over to the side of me. I glance in that direction -
Another door has opened, and there are people coming through. Not Solanae. The noise I heard was the tramping of heavy, armoured feet, and the bulky, scaly forms with the elaborate head crests are instantly recognizable.
Not Solanae.
Voth.
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