«I will», Smorg said with a nod. «Though this place isn’t easy to find. I learned about it only from the archives.»
He stepped into the spiral and began to make his way down. The combat droid followed, moving soundlessly yet ominously, like inevitability clad in armor, fitted with positional actuators and kinetic joints.
Arma activated the tracking protocol, bringing up the feed from the droid’s sensors. On her screen, Smorg was merely a small figure in a tunnel, yet she clearly registered his footsteps, his breathing rate, and the characteristic pauses in his movements, as if he were walking along the traces of his own past, and she was following after him.
The underground passage sloped gently downward. At times, the walls seemed to pulse with a faint reflected glow, as though something within them absorbed the beam of the lamps and sensed their movement. The air was dry and clean. Too clean. The spiral tunnel soon ended, giving way to a rectangular corridor of the underground complex.
«Air filtration is still functioning», Arma remarked with a barely noticeable hint of sarcasm. «Strange, and yet somehow all too typical.»
«Smart Smorgs always did everything with foresight», Smorg replied, with a touch of stubborn pride. «As if they knew something hidden.»
He walked slowly, examining every recess, every turn. A symbol flashed by – faded, yet recognizable – the mark of the ancient jewelers’ clan. One of those he had seen in the archival capsules on the station.
«Something important is down here», he said. «Perhaps a route to the central vault. Or to the workshop of synthetic prototypes.»
«There is another cavity below», Arma noted. «Large, but closed.»
«All right», Smorg answered brightly. «Let’s try to get in.»
He went up to the panel. Thick with dust, it nearly merged with the wall. Smorg reached out and drew his finger along the raised holographic markers, tracing the ancient symbol of the local clan. The panel flared with a soft light.
«It’s strange that this responded», Arma’s voice held a thread of irony. «And why, I wonder, aren’t there hordes of lucky tourists and seekers of Smorg exotica roaming here yet?»
«The system reacted to my biosignature», Smorg answered, humbly. «A reliable way to keep out uninvited guests. And the sequence itself – there it is, right under our noses.»
«Ah, the romance of engineering thought», Arma remarked. «John would have agreed with me.»
«He’d be taking notes right now», Smorg replied, as if in agreement. «And I’m just remembering. I hope he’ll forgive me for that.»
The wall at the base hissed, drawing a stream of air inward, and then slid aside. Beyond it lay a corridor paved with even slabs, leading to the lower tier. The air carried a faint smell of metal and stone – materials untouched by anything living for many centuries.
«Ready?» Arma asked.
Smorg did not answer. He simply stepped forward, and the combat droid followed in silence.
Chapter V. The Whisper of the Underground Halls
The passage grew wider, and its walls stretched far into the darkness. An intricate ornament, carved with care and great diligence by ancient craftsmen, adorned the panels, set with refined inlays of dark stones that glowed faintly in the dark, framed by neat round crystals which shimmered invitingly and warmly, even beneath a layer of millennia-old dust.
Wide-eyed with awe and shifting excitedly from foot to foot, Smorg accidentally stepped on a slight protrusion in the floor. At once, something clicked inside the wall, and a large square recess slid open. Light glided across its inner surface, reflecting off a hemispherical dome. Inside lay a small bright-blue crystal. At first glance, it appeared simple and clear, but once viewed from a different angle, a strange glimmer flared deep within, as if someone had lit a tiny lamp in its very core and forgotten to turn it off.
«That’s impossible», Arma responded, analyzing the data received from the droid. «Inside the crystal there is a stable compound of several inert gases. By all known parameters, it should have decayed immediately after synthesis.»
«Smorgs didn’t like when things fell apart», Smorg replied. «Especially things meant to shine. Everything here breathed harmony. And combination – precise, like the proportions in a cut. If something didn’t sparkle… it simply meant it was meant to sparkle a little later.»
He froze, tilting his head to the side, as if trying to see not the crystal itself, but what lay behind it. Then he carefully crouched down, stretched his neck, blinked once, for certainty, and whispered:
«This… this is it… the legendary Single Prototype! I read in the chronicles that it was stored separately, in a compartment marked ‘do not enter unless necessary.’ Which is exactly where we are now! And we do have necessity!»
«Let me get this straight: the Smorgs named one of the greatest masterpieces of their people ‘The Single Prototype’?» Arma inquired delicately. «Isn’t that a bit too prosaic, even for the driest of scholars?»
But Smorg seemed not to hear her. He did not breathe for nearly half a minute, and then, with a reverence rarely found in beings capable of repairing equipment and synthesizing questionable chemical elixirs, he slowly lifted the dome and took the crystal into his hand. It was unexpectedly warm, almost alive. Just in case, he felt around the bottom of the niche and found an old folio with a beautiful emblem, cast from fine white metal with a purplish sheen. The inscribed pages with illustrations had been preserved surprisingly well. Apparently, the warmth of the crystal had served as a decent protection against relentless time and dampness. On the back, the same emblem could be seen, only smaller, and within it, some letters could still be made out.
«‘Property of Master Sindr’», Smorg read in a whisper, squinting a little, speaking to Arma, who was closely monitoring everything through the droid’s sensors. «Now we have living fire!»
The droid tilted its head slightly, as if agreeing politely. As though in response, a sharp mechanical sound came from somewhere deep within the chamber.
Smorg froze.
«That… that was you, right, Arma?» he asked with a barely noticeable hint of fear, and Arma registered his pulse rising.
«No», she replied. «It appears there is something else here, but my scanners are not detecting any movement.»
«Perfect», Smorg whispered, tucking the crystal and the folio into the breast pocket of his suit.
The path continued through a gallery. The dust underfoot resembled soft ash. When they reached the hall, Smorg stopped again, struck with awe. The floor was made of transparent crystallite, and within it was an enormous mosaic of precious stones arranged in the shape of blossoming trees. Some inlays had cracked, some had grown dull, but it did not spoil the overall impression.
«This is the work of the Teiran clan masters», Smorg said quietly, sniffling slightly. «Their emblem is on the folio, by the way. I’ve seen only small fragments in the archive, but I never thought I would see this whole!»
He slowly knelt down and noticed faint traces.
«Someone was here», Smorg said. «Someone long ago, and someone more recently. Old tracks from heavy magnetic boots, like those used by mercenaries… and another one… quite unusual and large…»
