"Not a bad spot to visit, either, if they've gotten the shuttle cleaned up," Maslovic noted. "If they're putting that thing there to attract visitors, why not, well, visit?"
"Maybe because it could be a trap?" Murphy suggested.
"Could be. Let's see… I've got full suits for my team, and most of you can fit into them, but Ann, it's going to be a
"I've had your computerized shops working on modifications as we approached," the strange woman responded. "I think you'll find there's one that's just my size."
Maslovic was now positive who he had aboard. Now all he had to do was decide whether or not he liked it. Certainly he felt as if he could handle it.
"Okay, then. Surface team… Might as well make this a political thing; it sure doesn't seem like we're going to do battle down there, or that it would do us much good if we could. That makes it me in the lead, Ann of Balshazzar, Cap if you want to try it, and Nagel and Queson of Melchior. Bring one of the stones each but we won't distribute until we're away from the ship. The rest stay locked and secure so our little girls won't have the run of the place while we're gone."
"I would like to come as well," Joshua put in.
Maslovic was surprised. "You joining the team?"
"I am in the service of the one who killed Macouri," he told them. "Besides, I have nowhere else to go."
"Okay. That makes a pretty awful military team but a good science and muscle blend. Draw your suits and check your equipment, suit up, and be outside Bay One in an hour. My own team, who are showing really nasty looks at me at the moment, will be backup. We're not going in blasting here. I have a feeling that this is pretty close to the group whoever it is down there would want invited."
"Not at all by the book," Ann muttered. "About what I'd expect of an intelligence man."
The fit for the suits, including Ann's, was quite good. Nobody there would have to face the elements, nor go in cold. All also had sidearm weapons, but it was understood that those were a last resort and Maslovic had a cutoff. If anyone got too nervous, he could stop them from shooting.
They decided on the alien spaceship simply because it was so prominent. Anyone who actually landed would be almost forced to check it out and, for that reason alone, it seemed to be the logical place to start.
Nobody said much on the way down. Joshua took it slow and easy on manual and put it down about a hundred meters from the alien wreck, which seemed even more ghostly and bizarre close up.
"Okay, you can expose your stones to the outside," Maslovic told them. "Let's see if they act as old Kaspar's candy and bring the natives for a treat."
"Yeah,
Queson and Nagel finally got to examine the wreck close up. It was gigantic, and much of the interior that had stayed intact didn't make a lot of sense, but clearly it was what it appeared to be. What had come in it? How long had it been since they'd crashed here, and where were they or their descendants now? These questions had no obvious answers.
After several hours of surveying the wreck and the surrounding area, though, it appeared that they had guessed wrong.
"We're going to have to pack it up and move, folks," Maslovic told them, gathering them around him against the eerie backdrop of the ruined ship. "This is getting us nowhere. I propose we try one of the low cave entrances. There appears to be illumination just inside, so maybe we'll have to go knocking."
They all agreed, turned to go back to the shuttle for the move, and stopped dead in their tracks.
How long the creatures had been there it was impossible to say. They didn't show up as a recognized life-form on any of the instruments, yet they had something of a familiar look. And, Ann noted, they were even smaller than she was.
There were six of them, one for each of the humans it was supposed, and they looked identical.
In one sense, they were humanoid. Less than a meter tall, they stood on two thick trunklike legs with massively oversized feet and they had two arms ending in equally outsized hands, three fingers and an opposable thumb that extended opposite the index finger rather than at the end of the hand. Their heads were hairless balls, with two big, round black dots for eyes flanking either side of what seemed to be a massive nose that began almost at the top of the head and extended down and out to the waist, sausage-shaped but with a number of tiny pits at the end rather than a single large pair of openings. Two outsized floppy ears, one on each side of the head, completed the look, as well as earth-tone tunics and pants, leatherlike floppy boots, and light brown gloves.
Most important, each wore a ring on the middle finger that clearly contained one of the Magi stones.
"Silica based," Nagel commented, checking his readings. "Definitely not the natives here."