Heirs of Empire

power leakages, not detection systems, but the biggie is something else.” He tapped his teeth. “Hmm… You know, that just might be an orbital power feed. Look there—see the smaller source tucked in to the east? That looks like a leak from a big-assed bank of capacitors, and the big one’s definitely some sort of transmission. How about a ground beacon for an orbital broadcast power system?”

“Could be,” Sandy mused. “Hard to believe it could still be up after all this time, but you’re right about it’s being a transmission, and it’d sure explain why it’s so much more powerful than the others—not to mention how there could still be power for any active installations. But if it really is a receptor, that means the Valley of the Damned has an active link to at least one power satellite. Even if it’s only a passive solar job, you’d think the quarantine system would spot the transmission.”

“So?” Tamman countered. “If you and Harry are right, the Temple’s running the system by rote, so what could they do about it? For that matter, why should they even understand what their ‘Voice’ was talking about?”

“Yeah.” Harriet twisted hair around a finger and glanced at her twin. “I think Tam’s right, Sean. Either way, the transmission’s just a steady tone, not a detection system. I don’t see anything that looks like one, either, but I’d rather not take the cutter much closer or give away any more scan image than we have to until we’re certain of that.”

“You and me both. What d’you think about that for a landing site?” He pointed to a wide ledge. It was at least thirty meters across, covered in the local equivalent of grass and brush, but a visible depression had been worn through the vegetation. “That looks like some sort of game trail, and it’s headed just about the right way.”

“How far out are we?” Tamman asked.

” ’Bout thirty klicks, straight-line. Don’t know how far by foot.”

“Suits me,” Tamman agreed, and Harriet and Sandy nodded.

Sean slid closer, studying the ledge. A swell of rock broke the grass close beside the game trail, promising no hidden surprises for his landing legs, and he set the cutter down. He held the drive until the gear stabilized, then cut power but left the stealth field up.

“End of the line.” He tried unsuccessfully to keep the excitement out of his voice. “Let’s get our gear.”

He rose from his couch and opened the weapons locker while Sandy and Harriet slipped into the shoulder harnesses of a pair of scanpacks. He strapped on a gun belt and grav gun and handed matching weapons to the others. The Malagoran mountains were home to at least two nasty predators—a sort of bear-sized cross between a wolf and a wolverine called a “seldahk,” and a vaguely feline carnivore called a “kinokha”—both of whom had bellicose and territorial personalities. None of them felt like walking around unarmed, and Sean wished privately that Israel’s equipment list had offered something a bit tougher than their uniforms. The synthetic fabric the Fleet used for its uniforms was incredibly rugged by pre-Imperial Terran standards. He had no doubt it would resist even a kinokha’s claws, but it wasn’t going to stop a seldahk’s jaws, nor would it stop bullets. Of course, it was unlikely, to put it lightly, that they’d meet any armed natives this close to the Valley of the Damned in the middle of the night, yet kevlar underwear would have been very reassuring. Unfortunately, neither Battle Fleet nor the Imperial Marines issued such items, which he supposed made sense, given that nothing short of battle armor could hope to resist Imperial weaponry.

He grinned at his own thoughts as he and Tamman clipped extra magazines to their belts and shrugged into knapsacks heavy with spikes, pitons, ropes, and assorted mountaineering gear Sean hoped they weren’t going to need. Then he eased his pack straps more comfortably, opened the hatch, and led the way out into the night.

The game trail helped, but it was far from straight, and many of its slopes were almost vertical. Tamman took the lead while Sean brought up the rear. The formation freed Harriet and Sandy to focus on their scanpacks (which had far more reach than implant sensors), without worrying about anything they might meet, and the four of them moved at a pace which would have reduced any unenhanced human to gasping exhaustion in minutes.

The moon was still high when Harriet threw up a hand and beckoned them all to a halt. Sean closed up from behind as the other three clustered to wait for him, and his eyes brightened as he looked down at last into the valley they’d come so far to find.

It was bigger than he’d expected—at least twenty kilometers across at its widest point and winding deep into the mountains. A sharp bend fifteen kilometers to the north blocked their vision, and the shallow, rushing river down its length gleamed dull pewter under the moon. He adjusted his eyes to telescopic vision and felt a shiver of excitement. The shapes clumped on either bank of the river at mid-valley were half-buried in drifted ages of soil, but they were too regular and vertical to be natural.

“I’m getting those same readings.” Harriet swung the hand-held array of her passive backpack unit slowly from side to side and frowned. “There’s a batch of new ones, too. They’re lots weaker and more spread out; that’s probably why we didn’t spot them before.”

Sandy turned, directing her own attention down-valley, and nodded.

“You’re right, Harry. Most of what we saw before seems to be clustered in those ruins, but I’m getting a line of weak point sources about ten klicks to the south. Looks like they run clear across the valley.”

“Yeah.” Harriet shaded her eyes with her free hand as if it could help her see farther. “And there’s another line just like it up there where the valley curls back to the west. I’m not too sure I like that. I can’t lock in well enough to prove it, but they could be passive sensors, and those’re logical places to put some sort of defensive system.”

“Good point,” Sandy agreed.

“Um.” Sean moved a few meters south, peering in the direction of Sandy’s find, but not even enhanced eyes could pick out any details. The valley floor was too heavily covered in scrub trees and tall alpine grasses, and moonlight and shadow did funny things to depth perception even in low-light mode. He pinched his nose in thought, then turned back to the others.

“Anything right in front of us?” he asked, pointing down the steep-sloped valley wall, and his sister shook her head.

“Not on this side, but that big one’s just about opposite us. And I’m getting something else from it now. Do you have it, Sandy?”

“No, I—oh. That’s funny.” She made painstaking adjustments. “The darn thing isn’t steady, almost like it’s got some sort of intermittent short.” It was her turn to frown. “See how the beacon power level fluctuates just a bit in time with it? Think it’s some kind of control system?”

“If it is, it looks kind of senile. Then again, from the state of the ruins this whole place must’ve been abandoned thousands of years ago.” Harriet tinkered with her own scanpack, then shrugged. “Let’s spread out a little and see if we can triangulate on it, Sandy. I’d feel better if I at least knew exactly where whatever-it-is is.”

“Suits me.” The two of them separated and took very careful bearings, and Sandy nodded and pointed across the valley.

“Okay, I see it … sort of,” she said, and Sean stood behind her and followed the line of her finger until he saw the more solid patch of shadows. He couldn’t make out much in light-gathering mode, but when he switched to infrared things popped into better resolution. Not a lot better, but better. The ruins were built out from a bare stone precipice and whatever they were made of had different thermal properties from the cliff. Small trees sprouted from a thick roof of collected dirt, but the vertical walls were clear.

“Any better ideas about that intermittent source now that you know where it is?” he asked, but Sandy shook her head. He glanced at Harriet and sighed as he got a shrug of equal mystification. “That’s what I was afraid of. Well, whatever else this is, it’s clearly the leftovers of some Imperial site, and I’m not too surprised it’s in such lousy shape. In fact, if I’m surprised at all it’s that anything’s live down there. But it looks like we have to go on down if we want any more to go on. Any objections?”

There were none, though Harriet looked a bit dubious, and he nodded.

“Okay, but we’ll play this as smart as we can. Let’s rope up, Tam, and since you’re the closest we’ve got to a Marine, you take point. Sandy, you stay up here and play lookout till the rest of us get down. Keep an eye on the whole place, but especially on that thing on the far side. Harry, you follow Tam with your scanpack, and I’ll bring up the rear.”