CIA00.11

Jadi Morok and the Dark Sapphire
Chapter Eleven : "Damaged Goods"
by Alan Taylor'''
Jadi was about to say something when he noticed Menha and the lizard people turn their heads to look at the door.  
He followed suit.  Then his mouth dropped open.
At length he closed it.  "What are YOU doing here?"
"I live here," replied Kluge.
***
Three years earlier.  Sutec.
   Evan Bresling had found the entrance to the tombs.  They were buried under about ten feet of ever shifting sands, but with the new excavators, they should be able to burrow their way down in about twelve hours.  He slapped the power off on the scanner, dropped a marker, and sent the signal to the others to recoup at base camp.  
   This would do it.   This would make his name.  He'd be famous -- all Kapone and Deremar would know about him.  He'd be on video casts.  He'd be on web sites.  Teenage girls would have pictures of him on their walls.
   When he got back to the camp, most of the others were there already -- Dek Trenoy, bombastic as ever, boasting and blustering; Cithos Mael, young and nervous -- the excitement as obvious as her admiration of Trenoy; Marek Vedaspel, normally moody and broody was smiling in anticipation; Kluge, singing quietly to himself.
   Bresling collapsed into a folding chair, accepted the whisky that Vedaspel offered him, and quaffed it in one.
   "We did it," he sighed, the pleasure evident in his voice, "We found the tombs.  And more importantly, we did it before the Summerfield-Kane dig.   Kluge and Vedaspel can set up the diggers tonight, and we can examine the door tomorrow.  With a bit of luck, we will be the first Kapones to step inside the H'syran crypts since the Eolithic period."
   "With a lot of luck," said a voice from behind Bresling.  "There's a storm brewing, and your marker could drift 
easily."
   Bresling turned to face the last two members of the expedition -- Kirena Morok and Menha Narranov.  They were standing in the doorway -- both looked exhausted.  He regretted having women on the expedition --regretted having to involve the Guild of Poetic Justice, but it had seemed kind of appropriate, since he had determined to prove his Grand Master wrong.  And besides, they made damned fine archaeologists.
   Kluge cooked dinner that night -- some lizards -- the only indigenous form of life - in a sauce made with 
the last of the vodka.  Kluge had only been hired as muscle.  He'd been raised on the moon, with low gravity, and he made light work of moving some of the heavy excavation engines.  He'd also turned out to be a versatile chef, and had found a dozen ways to make the ugly lizards in to an edible meal.  This time, he had excelled himself - or perhaps it was the general good humour among the group.  Spirits were high all round.  
   Vedaspel in particular seemed almost cheerful, and Trenoy seemed to be returning Cithos' advances.  Kluge and Menha retired early, and around midnight Bresling found himself standing outside the camp, looking down at the half-buried city in the valley below, sparkling eerily in the moonlight.
   The promised storm had failed to materialise, and the night was clear.  Looking up, he could see Deremar and Kapone, the outer planets, and beyond them, the stars.  Common wisdom, told him that there was no life beyond the system, that they were all alone in the hugeness of the universe.  He felt very small, suddenly, and filled with resolve to enter the tombs, and face his fears, and the history buried therein.
   He was suddenly aware of a presence behind him, and turned.  Kirena Morok was walking towards him, with a swagger that might have been an attempt at being seductive, and might have been due to too much Demarian Brandy.  She'd let her hair down.  She suited it like that.  He smiled.
   She walked until she was standing face to face with him, and about six inches away, before placing a hand on his shoulder, grinning, and pulling a half-bottle of Whisky from her pocket.
   "Fancy a walk?" she asked.
   So they went for a stroll though the city, arm in arm, sharing the whisky, imagining what it would have been like to live in the city, with its oddly wide avenues, and its giant stone geometric buildings.  They paused at the building known as the Great Pyramid, and watched the silent, insistent digger, burrowing its way down towards the doorway in to the unknown.  At one point, Bresling thought that he might be about to kiss Kirena.  But a lizard fell onto her head, and it didn't really seem appropriate after that.  And there was definitely a storm brewing.
   That night, Bresling slept peacefully.  He normally dreamed, vivid dreams of his glorious future.  That night, he dreamed of nothing at all.
***
He awoke in the morning to the roar of a gale outside.  
Opening the door of the hut, he was greeted with a face full of sand.  So he shut the door again.
He had two options.  He could delay for a day, hoping the storm broke, or he could break out the armour.  It was ungainly, uncomfortable, and (some said) unsafe.  He chose armour.
They shared breakfast -- the tension and excitement was almost visible -- then they made their way out of the camp and down the hill to the foot of the pyramid.
Seven ungainly figures in a line, tramping through a fog of sand.
Bresling was thinking of glory.
Kirena was thinking of a warm fire and a hot bath.
Trenoy was wondering about the lizards, and what they lived on.
Cithos was remembering the day before when she'd been walking with Vedaspel and Menha, and she had stumbled -- exhausted, parched, and half blinded by the sun.  This was worse.
Kluge was thinking of a poem he half-remembered, where a similar journey had occurred.
Menha was thinking of Kluge.
Vedaspel was thinking about the carvings on the walls of the smaller temples, about wheels within 
wheels, and about the future and the past.
It took half an hour to get to the Great Pyramid, and the tunnel to the door.  They removed their helmets, 
lit their torches, and made their way forward and down.
It was disappointing, thought Bresling.  A plain rock slab, three feet wide by seven feet tall.  A simple inscription of two different eyes.  No obvious way to open it except brute force.  That meant Kluge.  Or if 
Kluge failed, carefully placed and controlled explosives.  
Sometimes archaeology is the detailed, careful examination of the past, without disturbing it.  And sometimes you just have to resort to brute force and ignorance.
Kluge stood, legs apart, arms apart, and placed his hands about midway down the door and pushed. Nothing.  He pushed harder - still nothing.  He tried pushing at a different point - farther up the door.  He found himself breaking out in a sweat, beads of perspiration forming on his brow, running down his nose.  Menha mopped his brow, and he grinned.
He was still pushing and grunting when Vedaspel placed his hand over one of the eye symbols and the door slid silently back about a foot, and then to one side, with a grating, grinding sound.
They drew lots to decide who would go inside, and who would stay behind, in case of emergencies.  The 
advance team would consist of Bresling (of course), Trenoy, Vedaspel and Cithos.  The others would stay 
at the entrance, and keep video contact at all times.
Bresling led the way into the first chamber.  Large, plain, empty sandstone.  Again, no decoration, but three wooden doors, hinged, on the far wall.  Trenoy walked around the room, scanning the walls for hidden detail, while Cithos followed with a camera, recording everything.
Vedaspel and Bresling debated which door to open, Bresling deferring to Vedaspel's greater knowledge of 
H'syran architecture.  He walked forward and opened the middle door.
The figure behind the door was seven feet tall, as muscular as Kluge, and wrapped from head to toe in broad gray bandages.  Implacable, silent, giant, and undeniably shocking.  It rocked for a moment, then toppled forward, on to Bresling, forcing him to the floor.  As it fell, it seemed to crumble from within, so that Bresling found himself wrestling with a pile of bandages and dust.  Cithos was laughing at him, and Bresling found himself laughing too.
There was a corridor behind the door, and another chamber beyond that.  The treasure room -- filled with coins, and jewels, statues of lizard men and lizard women, and of tall thin men with animal heads.  There were also a range of electronic devices, which seemed far in advance of anything that Kapone or Deremar had produced.  They spent about an hour recording this, and scanning it, admiring the metalwork, and the use of crystal, before Vedaspel found the hidden door.
It was tucked away in an alcove, with the same mechanism for opening as the main entrance, but much lower down, almost at floor level.  It opened on to a carved staircase, descending in a gentle spiral into the depths of the planet.  Bresling led the way.
//////
Menha watched the small image flickering on the portable screen.  They seemed to have been on these stairs for about half an hour.  And they were pretty boring stairs.  When they finally reached the bottom, things were far from boring.
The cavern was giant, cathedral-like, with a wealth of galleries and platforms all around.  Bresling and Vedaspel were clearly surprised by it, and Trenoy seemed as unimpressed as ever.  A waterfall of lava ran down one wall, flowing through the cavern and disappearing into a rend in the floor  The central feature of the room was a crystal pillar, deep blue rock which seemed to be glowing from within.  Cithos carried the camera closer to the pillar, recording it from every angle.  Menha called Kluge and Kirena over to watch, fascinated by the events.
There was some commotion, and Cithos whirled round suddenly, focusing the camera on Vedaspel.  He seemed to be particularly excited about some carvings on one wall, and was comparing them with a notebook, and pushing them, pressing them like keys on a stone computer keyboard.  He seemed frantic, like a man possessed.  Then he threw back his head and laughed.  A deep, dark laugh, that seemed to be coming from all around
Kluge and Kirena were already running in to the crypt.  Kluge had grabbed a heavy duty rifle.  Menha followed, more cautiously, keeping her eye on the 
monitor.
There was a scream, and Cithos turned again, to face the pillar.  The pillar which was gone.  In its place stood an emaciated figure with wizened limbs, and the head of a cat.  The figures eyes were fiery red, and displayed complete insanity.  The creature was holding Bresling.  It was Trenoy who had screamed, and he was now curled up in a corner, sobbing quietly to himself.  Menha found herself wishing that Cithos would turn and flee, get away from this thing.  The thing beckoned Cithos.
"Make me whole," it said.  "Find the Dark Sapphire."
It beckoned, and Cithos approached.  The thing reached out a hand to Cithos.  Cithos reached out a 
hand to the thing.  Contact.
The portable screen exploded, and Menha dropped it in shock, swearing.  She quickly caught up with the 
others, about half way down the stairs.
When they reached the great chamber, Trenoy was still sobbing, and Bresling was lying on a dais in a coma.  They searched, but there was no sign of Cithos or Vedaspel, beyond some metallic shards that might 
once have been part of a camera.
It wasn't until they were on the rescue shuttle taking them back to Kapone that they discovered that Trenoy was clutching a deep blue sapphire in his hand.
***
"So Kluge is only *pretending* to be working for Travis, so you can keep an eye on him?" asked Jadi, as Menha explained again.
"Yes," she sighed, as the living quarters exploded and the Meeting Chamber started to depressurise.
To Be Continued...