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13

Clad in a surface suit, Kieran crossed the few hundred feet of ground separating the two camps. Neither he nor Hamil wanted direct confrontation at this point, and he passed Chas Ryan, Lou and Zeke, laying out and inventorying equipment in anticipation of the expedition's having to pull out. A camera mounted inside the opened outer door of the Mule scrutinized him as he approached. He mounted the steps to the access lock, waited for it to close and pressurize, and when the inner door opened, entered the main cabin.

The Mule was designed for inhospitable environments, and as such provided extended-term living accommodations besides being simply a vehicle. In some ways a flying version of the Juggernaut with freight space instead of lab facilities, it possessed a full galley and surface-endurance life support system, with the main cabin functioning both as dayroom and sleeping quarters. Observation from the other camp had shown Banks and his group to be generally keeping to the Mule, availing themselves of its superior comforts compared to the shacks. Kieran guessed that the shacks were being left for the military contingent that he was expecting, who would be using more basically equipped, less commodious vehicles.

The same trio who had met Hamil were waiting in the cabin: Banks, Gertrude Heissen, and Tran Xedeidang. Clarence Porter had left on foot about half an hour previously with one of the three crewmen identified so far. The two others were probably in the nose section, Kieran guessed. That could be a problem, because he wanted to get in there. Banks watched with a sour expression while Kieran removed his helmet and gloves and placed them on a side ledge before sitting down uninvited and settling back with as much comfort as a light-duty suit, even with its flat, compact back unit, would permit. Kieran had dusted his hair a little grayer and added some line work that added a few years to his face.

"Mr. Keziah Turle," Banks acknowledged.

"Doctor, if you don't mind."

Banks shrugged. "As you wish. Now, would you get to the point? Your professor said there were matters you need to discuss directly. I can't imagine what they might be, but you have our attention."

"I'm not actually a member of Professor Hashikar's expedition," Kieran began. "Archeology, geology, and so forth are not my kind of specialty. I'm more, what you might call an external consultant, brought in because of my expertise in the more . . ." he paused, as if weighing how to phrase a delicate but significant matter, "esoteric aspects of the discoveries here." He looked at Banks expectantly.

"Go on," Banks said in a neutral voice. His two companions remained stone-faced. Kieran treated them to the smile of one accustomed to gently leading others into new conceptual territory.

"I'm sure you've all heard of the ancient Technolithic culture of Earth," Kieran said. His voice took on a mildly quavering, reverberating tone, as if revering hidden secrets of the universe. "Long before any civilization of ours existed, they built the pyramids of Egypt, the lost cities of the Hindu Kush, the engineering miracles of Mexico and Peru. They wrought feats that defy gravity itself, wonders that Zorken Consolidated with all the resources and knowledge at its command would be unable to match, even today." He rose to his feet, as if unable to contain the excitement surging through him, turned a full circle, extending both hands, and pointed downward with a trembling finger. "And now, beneath this very spot where we are—"

"Yes, yes," Banks interrupted impatiently. "We've been through all that with your—what's his name?—Trevany. If you're about to tell us again about structures here that you think were made by the same aliens, ancestors—whatever your theory is—then you can save your breath. We have the prior claim on this area, which, as I have already advised you, we are prepared to enforce. I'm sorry if that frustrates your immediate hopes, but we're a business enterprise, not a philanthropic society with academic sympathies. If these Technolithic people were here, no doubt there will be other signs of them all over Mars—and probably other places too, from what you seem to be saying. I can only suggest that you show patience and tenacity in the best tradition of your profession. But you can't expect serious development and commerce to halt every time you find a few rocks that nobody else is interested in. If that were allowed, the race would never have gotten off Earth at all."

Kieran shook his head emphatically. "No, you misunderstand. I told you, my field is outside the academic disciplines of Dr. Trevany and his colleagues." He made a flourish—and in the process swept his helmet and gloves off the shelf he had put them on and onto the floor. Banks and the others watched disdainfully while he fussed around gathering them together again and stood up, regaining his composure. "I didn't come here to plead, or to belabor you with scientific details. I came here to warn you."

Banks blinked. His face showed reaction for the first time. "Warn us?"

Kieran's eyes gleamed, fixing on each of the three in turn. He moved a pace toward the cabin center, causing Xedeidang to pull back in his seat, and gestured with an extended arm. "Study the histories down through the centuries of those who violated the places made sacred by the Technolithics. How these things happened, we don't know, but the records and testimonies of those who were there, and who saw, are clear. Strange accidents and misfortunes befell them. Lives that were successful and prosperous fell into ruin. Inexplicable diseases ravaged their bodies. . . ." That one was thrown in for Gilder's benefit. "Others went insane, committed suicide, turned violently upon each other. . . ."

Xedeidang looked perplexedly at Banks, silently saying they had a madman aboard and asking what to do. He started to pull his leg back as Kieran turned to retrace his course; Kieran tried to evade by altering his step, went off balance, and steadied himself against the bulkhead.

"This is preposterous," Gertrude Heissen muttered at Banks.

Kieran straightened up and resumed. "You don't understand. Your experience is confined to the materialistic processes that your scientists tell you are all there is to the universe. But they have barely glimpsed a fraction of it. The Technolithic peoples, whoever they were, wherever they came from, had knowledge of powers that we can only guess at. The structures they built were not tombs and monuments as has been told. Materials are found in them that we use only in our most advanced scientific creations. They were precision machines—instruments involving forces unknown to us today, serving purposes that we are unable to imagine." Kieran stabbed a finger in the direction of the ground outside again. "And down there, beneath where we are standing, is an example of—"

"This has gone far enough," Banks cut it. "We've heard as much as we're prepared to. Whether you're officially a member of Professor Hashikar's staff or not, go back and tell him that if—"

But Kieran seemed to have worked himself up into too much of a frenzy to hear. He whirled, throwing out a hand and causing Heissen to duck in alarm, gazed rapturously upward as if for inspiration, in the process backing into an empty seat by the folding table serving the area and sitting down heavily in it. But his verve and vigor were undiminished. "Communicate back with those who sent you here, and have them end your mission. Strange powers operate in these places, manifesting themselves as radiation fields and magnetic disturbances. They exist here!" As if Banks and the others didn't already know. "They know those who come with malevolent intent. They can distinguish. Leave while you are still safe! Things happen that scientists cannot explain. Their instruments stop functioning. Even as you sit here—" Kieran turned his head toward the door leading forward, as if a thought had just struck him. "The instruments in this aircraft, maybe. Wouldn't that make you think? Can I ask your crew?" Before anyone realized what he was doing or could stop him, Kieran got up suddenly, pulled open the door, and stepped through into the nose section. Two surprised faces jerked around to greet him from the crew positions. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but can I ask you—"

"What the hell?" one of them demanded.

"Get him out of there!" Banks's voice shouted from behind. "He has no authorization. He's not wanted in here at all."

But Kieran tripped on the step up to the flight deck and went down on a knee. He braced a hand against one of the consoles to raise himself, but it slipped off and shot between it and an adjacent unit, causing him to sprawl sideways. Rough hands hauled him back onto his feet and ejected him back into the main cabin. "I just wanted to ask them about—"

"Get him helmeted up and off the plane!" Banks yelled. "If I hear one more word out of him, just throw him out as he is. I've had enough!"

* * *

It was a rueful-looking Kieran who stumped back down the Mule's access stairs several minutes later and returned to the inflatable-frame cabin. But the smile that broke out across his face as soon as he got inside was unnecessary. Harry Quong was already tuning in to the two bugs—from the items sent by Leppo—that Kieran had planted, one in the main cabin of the Mule, the other underneath the c-com operator's table in the nose compartment. The first was bringing tirades from Banks, still incensed over the "lunatic"; the latter, a resumption of ratings of girls in various bars in Lowell and Osaka that Kieran's intrusion into the crew compartment had evidently interrupted.

In his contrived fall, Kieran had also found the cable shown in the installation drawings obtained by Harry Quong, which connected the c-com panel to the amplifier-driver unit feeding the antenna system, which was where message encryption and decryption were performed. Hence, messages traveling through the cable itself were not encrypted. Kieran had attached to the cable a small clip-on collar that would pick up the external magnetic fields generated by incoming and outgoing signals and transmit encodings of them to the Juggernaut via one of the devices that Chas and his crew had buried outside—it hadn't been by accident that they had picked the area between the two camps to sort their equipment. So now the team had a tap into the Mule's external communications link as well as bugs inside it.

Banks would no doubt forward a report of Kieran's antics to his boss, Thornton Velte, at Asgard, which was the whole idea, and hopefully the essence of it would find its way to Gilder. If so, Gilder would probably order a check on the net to see what information on Keziah Turle could be dredged up. But that was okay—they would find him to be mildly eccentric and excitable, but highly regarded within his own circle. For most of the night Trevany, Juanita, and Dennis had been writing biographical and background notes, extracts from supposedly published papers, and other inspirations, and posting them on a net site that June had created for the purpose on behalf of the fictitious personality.

The tap on the Mule's communications link quickly revealed that the use of supporting military had been approved from Asgard, and a force would be arriving later that day. In anticipation of this, the devices placed by Chas and his men included several remote-controllable miniature radio signal and interference transmitters near the area where the military's aircraft would probably be positioned after it arrived. Meanwhile, Hamil, Juanita, and Dennis, after informing Banks that they needed a final visit to the Hole to tidy up their notes and recordings, had placed several more among the excavations. Also, while there, they had gone around touching up selected spots with fluorescent dyes from the Juggernaut's lab that would activate at varying periods after being excited with ultraviolet light—which Kieran said would be emitted by the security devices that he predicted the military would deploy. Not especially surprisingly, the response from Banks had been aloof indifference. Finally, Rudi had sent Gottfried up among the crags overlooking the shelf to dispense a number of canisters that Kieran and Harry Quong had contrived for emitting smoke and releasing pressurized volatile liquids.

There was nothing more they could do for the time being but wait. Or maybe, Kieran suggested, they could always try praying to the protective spirits of the Ancients.

 

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Framed