He waved them forward, unable to hear any crunching of their boots on the snowpack from the howling of the arctic wind. Xiong had not been on the planet long enough to get a feel for impending white-out conditions, but as he placed his gloved hands on the hatch’s center wheel and strained to turn it, he had to wonder whether this was the start of some weather he did not want to witness firsthand. A form stepped alongside him to grip the wheel as well, and they both attempted to turn it again.
“The automatic locks keep freezing shut!” Xiong yelled over the wind to his helper, whom he now recognized as Captain Zhao. The two tugged to break the wheel loose of the outdoors’ frozen grip, and after spinning it freely, Xiong pushed his weight against the door and opened it enough to admit them into the airlock.
Stepping back so the others could pass, Xiong clanged the hatch shut behind the last of them and started to twist the interior mate to the locking mechanism to seal it. Once the wind’s whine was shut out, the room filled with the clatter of feet stamping against floor plates and hands slapping against parkas to loosen the ice crystals that had accumulated on their protective clothing just in the short amount of time they had stood outside. Xiong pushed back the fur-lined hood of his parka and moved to the opposite door.
“This one’s a bit easier,” he said, slipping his hand from a glove and keying a security code into a panel next to the door. As it slid open, a rush of warmer air greeted the new arrivals. They made their way briskly into a darkened, ebony-surfaced corridor, one with a graded slope that led under the planet’s surface, with Xiong leading them toward a dim source of light and sound several hundred meters into the structure. Their footsteps rang crisply against the smooth floors and walls of the low-ceilinged corridor, and no one spoke as Zhao stepped up into the point position of the group a few strides before they entered the control room, a move that Xiong dismissed as being more out of habit than arrogance.
“Report,” the captain snapped in a voice loud enough to capture the immediate attention of the three researchers in the room. Xiong saw Lieutenant Spencer, the young, blond-haired officer with whom he had worked most closely since his arrival, draw himself up from a crouch next to a power generator and approach the group.
“Uh…yes, sir,” Spencer said hesitantly to Zhao before looking at Xiong. “Isn’t this information…?”
Nodding as he slipped out of his parka, Xiong said, “Captain Zhao’s presence is authorized, Spence. Just tell us what’s going on.”
Spencer spoke as he turned and walked deeper into the room, prompting Xiong and Zhao to keep up. “When I called you, we’d just picked up a power source activating below the surface a few kilometers from the artifact. We thought that was interesting enough to notify you. But now we have three of them.”
Xiong felt his jaw go slack, and it required physical effort to keep his mouth from dropping open in surprise. “ Three?Where?”
Spencer turned and pointed to the screen of a portable computer viewer propped up on a pitch-black console top in front of them. “One northwest of us and two others south. They’re building in output, and we’re detecting some deep melt—there!” Spencer poked at the screen where a blinking amber dot indicated a fourth budding power level, this one situated northeast of the artifact and apparently equidistant from the others. “They just keep activating, no rhyme or reason.”
“Lieutenant Spencer,” Zhao spoke, “how long have you been attempting to transfer power from that generator into the artifact’s control center?”
“Not long, sir,” the younger officer replied. Looking past the captain’s shoulder, he called out, “Hey, Bohanon, how long has our generator been up and running?”
A large-built Denobulan in a blue jumpsuit stepped to the pulsing generator and stooped over it. “Two-point-three-seven hours, Spence.”
Looking to Zhao, Xiong asked, “You think we may be activating those power sources, Captain?”
“Or,” Zhao countered, “are they activating as a responseto your activities here?” Any further discussion was interrupted by the sound of the captain’s communicator beeping. Unzipping his parka, Zhao retrieved the device and flipped it open in a practiced motion. “Zhao here.”
“ Khatami here, Captain,”said the voice of the Endeavour’s first officer, filtered through the communicator’s small speaker. “ We’re not getting a strong signal….”
“I can hear you,” he spoke back. “What’s your status?”
“ We’re fine, sir,”Khatami continued, “ but we’re monitoring multiple power spikes from the planet in the vicinity of the artifact.”
“We’re on top of the situation, Commander,” Zhao said in a voice that exuded more confidence than Xiong himself was feeling at the moment. “I’ll presume you are transmitting your readings to the research base?”
“ You know me too well, sir,”Khatami said, her voice easing a bit. “ We’ll keep you apprised.Endeavour out.”
As Zhao closed his communicator, Xiong said, “If this is a response, I don’t see why it’s…”
The ground trembled beneath his feet and he reached out toward the nearby wall to steady himself as a heavy metal clanking suddenly rang once, then again from within the structure. Everything in the chamber seemed to register the vibration, which also rattled equipment and made Xiong look to the ceiling for any sign that they might be facing a cave-in. He fell silent along with the rest of the men in the control room and, just like each of the others, found himself instinctively looking to Zhao.
Evenly, almost quietly, the captain said, “We’re leaving. Collect any data you can carry and get moving, now.” Pointing to Bohanon, he added, “Disconnect that power coupling.”
“Wait!” Xiong said in a loud whisper, drawing Zhao’s narrowed gaze. “That’ll kill the computers. I need time to transmit our data to the Endeavour. We can’t afford to lose it.” When Zhao did not answer after a moment, the lieutenant took a step forward, his expression anxious. “Captain, please!”
“Do it quickly,” Zhao ordered before turning his attention to the others. “The rest of you, continue the evacuation.”
Xiong dashed to the portable console and his fingers sped across the buttons and switches, dumping all of their accumulated raw data into a central file and pushing it upstream into a communications feed. Once he had begun the data transmission to the Endeavour’s main computer, he snatched his parka from a chair back and was just beginning to shrug into it when another resounding crash echoed through the room. Instead of the low rumble that just moments earlier had washed over everything and everyone in the chamber, this clamor was localized, sounding as though it had come from the control room.
Frowning in confusion, Xiong looked toward the adjoining room in time to see a pair of Endeavoursecurity guards scrambling back through the entrance, their phasers drawn and aimed toward the way they had come.
“Everybody out!” one of the men shouted. “Now!” Even as he shouted the order he punctuated the words by firing his phaser into the control room.
“What’s going on?” Zhao shouted over the weapons fire, and Xiong saw the captain reaching into his parka to extract his own phaser an instant before the entire room was plunged into darkness. The sound of the generator faded, as did the gentle hum of the portable computer and communications equipment.
“Report!” Xiong heard Captain Zhao shout as other members of the team cried out in alarm.
Fumbling into one of his parka’s larger pockets, Xiong drew out a flashlight and activated it, its narrow beam playing across the darkened interior of the ancient control room. He quickly found the group of Endeavoursecurity guards and other members of his own team gathered near the airlock.