The Trilisk Ruins Part 10

"We're in deep trouble on the speech part all right," Magnus said. "It's looking more and more like you said at first, that's how Shiny talks. He stomps his feet. And he's using complicated patterns of all those legs... so many combinations that we'll never follow."

"Yes, that's gonna be hard to learn, considering that we have two feet and he has... forty! Forty exactly."

"I wonder if it's the vibration of his feet hitting the ground that he senses. It would be either that or sight, and I don't see any eyes."

Telisa shook her head. "He could see through his skin for all we know. Let's do some tests and see if we can find out."

Telisa took her arm and slowly waved it over her head. Shiny copied her move, his body flexing beneath the silvery coating.

"How can we tell how he senses it?" Magnus asked.

"Keep watching him, we'll learn what we can," Telisa told him. She walked around to the other side of Shiny. The alien didn't move much, shifting its legs a little. Telisa waved her arm again. Once again, Shiny waved its arm.

"Well, it still notices, even though you're behind it," Magnus said.

Telisa walked about twenty paces farther back, still on the other side of Shiny. She waved her arm again, and Shiny matched it.

Telisa thought for a moment. "Wait here. Tell me if he does anything," Telisa said. She walked around to the far side of the large cl.u.s.ter of cubes and waved her arm.

"He's waving his arm," Magnus said, his voice distant. Telisa walked back around.

"He can tell I'm waving my arm on the other side of that," she said.

Magnus shook his head. "Maybe he can hear, I mean maybe he can hear so well that he can hear us move limbs through the air."

"Or maybe he can see through stuff we can't," said Telisa.

Telisa noticed Magnus had started pointing his rifle back at Shiny again. He had a frown on his face.

"Magnus, what's wrong?"

Magnus shifted uncomfortably. "This reminds me, Telisa. After Jack and Thomas were killed. Remember, we were in that corridor and the wall exploded right next to me from some kind of projectile hitting the other side. I'm pretty sure whoever killed Jack and Thomas could sense through rock too."

Chapter Twelve.

Magnus and Telisa sat down against the rock wall of the large chamber while the alien worked with the cube devices piled in the center of the cave. The creature worked rapidly, its limbs moving almost faster than Telisa could follow. She saw that each of its legs ended in three stiff, pointy toes that were equidistant from each other around the perimeter of each foot. Each foot reminded her of a three-way crab pincher.

"Do you think he's trapped here just like us?" Telisa pondered aloud.

Magnus grunted. "Maybe. Probably."

"He must have brought a lot of equipment with him."

"Or he collected it. We should probably start doing that ourselves. If everything shifts all the time, we should search every room for food and supplies and take it with us."

"So maybe this is his h.o.a.rd of stuff that he's collected," Telisa thought out loud. "But how does he keep it from going away when he's gone?"

Magnus blinked. "I never thought of that. That's a great question. Maybe the corridors change but the caves don't... or maybe he is a Trilisk after all."

"Or he may have learned how to tell what's going to change when."

Shiny abruptly stopped and waved the head-like bulb on the front of his body.

"He seems to be acting differently," Telisa said.

"I wish I knew if that was its head," Magnus said. "I mean, I wonder if its brain is in there."

Suddenly Telisa caught a glimpse of movement at the nearest adjoining tunnel mouth. She gasped as she realized a human stood at the entrance looking at them.

The person stepped closer, coming into a patch of reddish light so that Telisa could see a man dressed in a UNSF officer's uniform.

"s.h.i.t," Telisa whispered. She realized that the newcomer held a deadly looking pistol in his hand, pointing it right at them. She glanced at Magnus and saw that he was covering the man in turn with his own weapon, his finger resting on the trigger.

The UNSF man spoke.

"No one move. Tell me what's going on here. What is that thing?"

"We don't really know what it is," Magnus said. "It's intelligent, though."

"We call it Shiny," Telisa added. "There's no need for the weapon." Telisa's heart thumped against her ribcage. She feared that a gunfight would break out, and more people would end up dead.

"Put the weapon down," the man commanded.

"No," Magnus said.

"There's no point in us shooting each other," Telisa said.

The officer stared back at Telisa and Magnus. Then he took a long look at the alien. Shiny seemed content to stand idle while the humans talked.

"I'll make you a deal. Tell me how to get out of this place, and I'll forget that you were ever here," he said.

"We don't have any idea," Telisa said. "Everything changes around here."

"What about him? Shiny?"

"We're just trying to communicate with him... or it, I mean," Telisa said. "Look, let's cooperate. I don't know who you are, or how you got here, but I bet we all have the same problem."

"Eminently reasonable," the officer said. "But I don't trust you. How did you get here?"

Magnus and Telisa exchanged looks. "We're here illegally," he said. "I'm Mark and this is Tam."

"I'm Lieutenant Joe Hartlet, UNSF," he announced. "As you've probably guessed, my job is to arrest you. But I meant what I said before. If you know how to get me out, I'm willing to forget about you. I need to tell the UNSF that this complex and this alien are here. It's possibly one of the greatest discoveries we've ever made. That's all I care about now."

"The alien may not be real," Telisa said. "None of it may be real. h.e.l.l, you may not be real."

Joe nodded. "This place may be virtual. I don't know how, but it might be possible. But it's a weird kind of virtual. Different things bring their environment with them and interact here."

"What do you mean?" Magnus asked.

"Well, this place doesn't just happen to look like a human-built complex. It looks that way because we're here. I accidentally brought in an orange crab-thing from the surface, and when I encountered it again later, it was surrounded by a little sphere of dirt and native plants, just as if it were up above. Then there's these caves. I figure that they must be this guy's usual habitat."

"Caves? I'm not sure," Telisa said, looking at the alien. "I think it's an advanced creature, capable of using technology and communicating. Wouldn't it live in a constructed environment like we do?"

Joe shrugged. "Who knows?"

"The cubes aren't natural though," Magnus pointed out. "It uses them to create devices of some kind. So maybe this is the kind of surroundings it's used to."

"So what you're saying is that this isn't a UNSF installation?" Telisa asked. "This place just made all the human areas up?"

"If it's UNSF, then it's a secret I wasn't let in on," Joe said. "It probably isn't UNSF since the technology required is beyond our current capability, unless it is virtual and we're being used as guinea pigs..." Joe stopped for a moment, as if considering the possibility. "My theory is it's Trilisk, and as I said, any creature that enters this area is surrounded by an environment that it's used to. Like a holding pen for aliens, or for all I know, some kind of Trilisk hotel for varied lifeforms."

"We aren't used to this," Telisa said, indicating the surrounding cave.

"I was wondering about that too," Joe said. "Sometimes you get something like your own environment. In our case corridors and rooms of all sorts. Sometimes you don't. The crab I saw was in its own habitat when I spotted it, but then it crawled out onto the tile floor as I watched. The area didn't follow it when I was there."

Magnus had been listening, but now he spoke up. "So it makes sense to suppose that the caves, with these red cubes, are what Shiny is used to. I'd like to find some corridors and try and lure Shiny into them, just to prove that he can end up out of his environment. We went looking earlier for the human part of the area but couldn't find it."

"I came from an area that looked like a university or something, made by humans, straight back about forty meters," Joe said.

"Well, we couldn't find it. It's probably gone by now," Magnus said.

"I think I figured this out," Telisa said. "This place is like first come, first served."

"How's that?" asked Joe.

"If we're someplace, it becomes like a human complex, like when we entered. But if we come across an area Shiny is in, then it stays like he likes it. That's why one human corridor seemed to join the caves so abruptly. But once the area moves out of sensory range again, it can be anything."

"And the crab was surrounded by its own environment until I came along and trapped it in a human area?" Joe asked.

"Yes. Your senses can go farther than the crab's. You surrounded it by your own type of environment."

Magnus shrugged. "It's as good a theory as any, I suppose."

Telisa wasn't done. She continued excitedly.

"It gets better. This theory explains why we can't find any corridors now. Shiny is the problem. He's trapped us. Joe, Shiny can see through walls."

Joe blinked. "He can?"

"Yes. We proved it to ourselves earlier. Somehow he can sense through dense matter or around it. So he forms caves as we move around, beyond our range of sight and sound. He traps us in the caves just like you walked up and trapped the crab in a human corridor."

Magnus nodded. "That does sound like it all fits."

Joe scratched his head, allowing himself to lower his rifle. "Very well. I like that theory too. It should be simple to test. You two stay here with Shiny, and I'll walk away through the caves. If it works, I'll eventually move beyond his range and run into some human rooms or corridors."

Telisa shrugged. "Sounds okay to me. I hope his *range' isn't too far."

"It's worth a try, but that doesn't explain what you mentioned earlier about how Shiny keeps his h.o.a.rd here from disappearing whenever he goes for a walk," Magnus said.

Telisa nodded. "Let's try this experiment first, then we'll try and tackle that mystery."

Joe looked at the other two humans for a second. "Well, since I'm already used to making my way around on my own, I guess I'll go look for the corridors. I realize that you two may run away while I'm gone, but I really do just need to escape, so I give you my word you're in no danger from me. We'll have a better chance of escaping if we keep sharing information and work together."

Telisa nodded, trying to encourage Joe. Magnus gave no reaction.

"Okay, be back in a while," Joe said and walked back out the way he came.

"Well, what do you think? Is he our friend or our enemy?" Telisa asked.

"I think it's more complicated than that. Should we trust him? Almost certainly no. But still, we may have to work with him to get out of here. I think we should just stay calm and cooperate with him, but if we get out of here, the situation may degenerate back into a fight between us."

"The most important thing is communicating with Shiny, I think. We can still try and learn more about the complex, of course, but it seems that Shiny understands it better than we do."

"I agree. But I'm also tired. I don't know how long we slept before, but I feel like I've been up forever."

Telisa realized that fatigue gripped her as well. "I guess it's just hard to think about sleep with so much going on. I do feel tired."

"Sleep may be a problem with Joe around. Should we rotate our sleep so one of us is always awake?"

"No. I'll hide my stunner somewhere he can't s.n.a.t.c.h it while I'm asleep. If he takes your weapon, then I'll get him later. Besides, you have a lot more weapons than that thing on you."

Magnus smiled. "So true. And this strap will make the slugthrower hard to s.n.a.t.c.h quickly. I can also disable it with my link."

"Oh yeah. My stunner has that feature too. I forgot about it."

Joe returned from the same entrance as before, walking slowly.

"I found Terran-style rooms about fifty meters in that direction," Joe said, indicating his exit point. "Of course, they looked different than anything I've seen so far. Things are still changing around behind our backs, I suspect."

"So it probably was Shiny since he was walking with us," Telisa said.

"Have you talked with it?" Joe asked.

"The only thing we've really managed is wave your arm for follow me," Telisa said, demonstrating with her arm.

"Look. We have to sleep. We've been up for a long time now," Magnus said.

"Go ahead. I slept just a few hours ago. I'll stay up and watch him."

"Don't come over near us. I'm sleeping with my weapon, and I intend to keep it," Magnus said. "I don't harbor any ill will towards you. I just want to escape."