Story Game v2.0

Elander Hays didn't really like shuttles.
There were times when she felt a little too old for this kind of thing. Maybe exploring is a young person's adventure, she thought. Maybe she should keep her distance, sit back and just stick to the academic side of things. Let them have their fun while she can relax and write up papers and books for the generations to come. The young could have their discoveries while she could have her own legacy through her subsequent lectures. Ha! She stopped her whimsical thoughts with a harsh scolding laugh. She was almost beginning to sound like Professor Relin!
No, it would be good to get down to the planet, she now found herself arguing the opposite viewpoint. She could get to see the quarantine protocols in action at first hand while also seeing the enthusiasm of the young scientists at work. That's what knowledge and wisdom were all about. Feeling comfortable with all points of view so that you can compare and contrast them without prejudice until all that remained was truth.
The shuttle jolted her harshly in her seat.
"Just a bit of turbulence," the pilot called back from the cockpit, adding, "Nothing to worry about."
But another bump and judder left her somewhat sceptical. She gripped the arms of her seat and thought, you HAVE flown one of these things before, haven't you?
"Hundreds of times, Professor."
She blushed a little upon realizing that she'd spoken the question out loud rather than merely thinking it. Nerves can do that to you, making you blurt out the things that you fear.
"See?" The pilot told her. "All calm now."
And he was right, but she didn't relax her hold on the seat.
Perhaps she would have felt better if she'd had a decent view. Or ANY view for that matter. This particular model of shuttle was certainly not a pleasure craft of any kind. This one was really just a military transport to move troops around like cargo. Here in the so-called "Passenger" section there were no windows at all and she was completely cut off from the pilot, even though his muffled voice could bleed through the bulk heads when he forgot to use his comm. Elander didn't even have anyone to share this journey with. It was a completely unscheduled flight. She had just been summoned to the surface to check something out. Why they couldn't do it over the comms was a mystery to her. But she liked mysteries ... most of the time. So, with such a impromptu flight, she was the only passenger and was stuck alone in the back end of the kind of shuttle she didn't really like.
Despite the isolation there was still a presence of sorts here. It smelled a little musty, as if a throng of unwashed soldiers were still sat around her. Tainted ghosts haunting the dim surroundings with their clammy residue. Above her head the yellowish, inset light flickered with a buzz that was almost inaudible. Almost. She really didn't want to be plunged into complete darkness so it was a relief when the buzz became completely inaudible and the light resettled to a more consistent glow.
"Approaching the surface now," the pilot warned. "Prepare for landing thrusters."
Once more Elander Hays did not relax her grip on the seat.

"And thank you for flying Air Omicron. Have yourself a lovely stay on Planet Holiday."
"What?" shouted Elander over the noise of the thrusters, still gripping her seat with anticipated dread.
"We've landed," the pilot declared as the engines shut off.
"We have?" she was still shouting and then realised she didn't need to, so she repeated in a calmer voice. "We have." Perhaps the pilot was more experienced than she thought.
Elander heard a satisfying clunk and still felt its vibration beneath her feet as the noise was replaced by a subsequent hiss. The shuttle's main door was swiniging down like the drawbridge of her own private castle. The high horizontal crack of light was blinding in the contrasting gloom of the shuttle and Elander shielded her eyes as that glare expanded and cascaded down with the fall of the door's opening.
She stood from her seat and walked into the light of another world.

Elander's final step off the ramp was a wobble. The first foot was unsteady, soft and sinking, but the second foot was more secure. The ground was soft and spongy, so different from the firm, artificial floor of the shuttle, but the difference was good. It felt welcoming, comforting, like a cushion for body and mind. She wondered what it would be like to run barefoot along this ground, to flex her toes and let them sink in. She closed her eyes and imagined, taking a deep breath to accompany the feelings in her thoughts. The air was sharp and fresh, instantly flushing the musty shuttle smell from her experience and memory.

"Professor Hays?"
Elander stood, oblivious to the voice as her thoughts wallowed in sensation.
"Erm-" The voice hesitated and tried again. "Doctor Hays?"
She opened her eyes and felt as if waking to a new day, born to a new life. She smiled, feeling a little embarrassed, and saw the person addressing her. It was the girl Yana, with a pack over her shoulder and a sample case in one hand, looking like the proper little explorer and here to be the welcoming committee. "Yes, my dear. I'm sorry, I felt a million miles away. You wouldn't think that I'd already set foot down here the other day but every time feels so wonderfully new and different. I feel that if we spend a lifetime here there will still be so many things to surprise us."
"I think we all feel that way," the girl declared through a lighthouse beam of a smile. " And wait until you see what we've found."
"Lead the way."

"So," asked Yana as she bounded along a stride ahead of the woman. "Is it Professor or Doctor?"
"Actually it's both. But don't tell the medical doctor, she'll have a fit."
"Yes, she gave me all my vaccinations before planet-fall. She seems ... nice?" The compliment was unconvincing.
"Dr. Grey just feels underappreciated. And maybe she is. But if I learned one thing from her then it's this... We could all do with a little less officiousness on this mission. So, please just call me, Elander. And..." she let the words go as she became distracted by the tall trees that they were approaching at the forest edge. They looked like pillars of a great doorway.
"Amazing, aren't they?" Yana declared with a self-assured confidence. She suddenly seemed more mature. As if the experience was making her grow as a person in ways neither of them would imagine.
"Yes, they are. But i'm guessing that's not what I've been called here to see."
"Nope," Yana giggled, revealing that the young girl was still there inside. She pressed a finger to her lips and whispered. "Can't say. It's classified. All hush, hush. You'll just have to see it."
It was then that Elander realised the ground was not as soft as before. She looked down and saw that beneath her feet was a paved path of flat, pale stones. She bent down to touch them. They were smooth. They were made. Not carved or cut. Maybe baked like clay bricks. Is this it? she wondered. She looked up at the girl, but Yana shook her head and smiled. She turned and walked on. And Elander followed.

"Inside?"
"Inside," Yana confirmed.
The path led them on to a sheer, rock face. A large crack ran vertically down it, opening up at ground level to present a wider fissure that looked very much like an invitation. Before it, two soldiers stood guard either side of the path, their breathing masks unnecessary, their weapons hopefully unnecessary.
"Well, it's good to see you're still following the protocols I set down."
"Where we go, they go first. And they've already checked it out inside, so we're safe." Yana waved some ID at the military men, telling them, "X-8."
One of them checked, nodded to the other and the two women were waved through.
As Elander passed the soldiers she paused and looked at the one on the left.
"You OK?" Yana asked.
"Yeah," she laughed. "I think I smelled him somewhere before."
She let the awkward moment go and focused again on what was before her. She could hear her pulse deep inside her ear, beating an ominous rhythm of importance and urgency. All that was behind her was now gone, cast aside and away by the inner noise pushing her on.
"Come." Yana urged.
The two of them left the guards behind and entered the dark orifice.
Elander's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness allowing her to see the lowering ceiling of the tunnel that extended into the rock. She ducked down and followed Yana who seemed to know where she was going. They shuffled on carefully for about a minute until the tunnel opened out into a chamber about 20 metres wide. Yana pulled a red flare from her pack and ignited it to reveal the hollowed cavern. A flat circle of dirt lay in the centre and surrounding it were seven knee-high rocks, evenly spaced with their top side levelled off and smooth. They looked like seats around a... "Camp fire?" she asked out loud.
Yana was nodding as Elander moved to the walls. They looked plain, in form and colour. Smooth like the seats. This whole place was constructed by someone, by something. It was a shelter. A haven. It was a... a home. Someone lived here.
"We think they burned the foliage from the surrounding trees." The girl seemed overly confident of this.
"How can you be sure?"
Yana opened up her sample case and carefully removed a handful of leaves, each riddled with vibrant fractal veins. She set the leaves in the flat, central circle, touched them with the flare and then extinguished that flare. The leaves began to burn with a blue flame, deep and dark, sparking occasionally with unexpected colour. Around them, the cavern blossomed in light, but not the light from the fire. This light came from the walls.
The rock walls, that had been plain and drab were now alight with golden lines. Swirling curves, patterns of intricate symmetry, glyphs and shapes and... Pictures.
"The burning foliage emits beyond the ultraviolet..."
Yana's pause allowed Elander to finish, "...and it excites the pigment and makes it fluoresce" She traced the lines with a single finger, feeling the movements of the curves, drawing and redrawing the art like a student creating a master copy, trying to understand the mind of those that had gone before. "How old?"
"We don't know yet. The geologists don't yet have a baseline for the radioactive decay. Could be hundreds of years. Could be thousands. Could be..." She shrugged but Elander didn't see it. She was looking at the art. The pictures. Hands. Three fingers and thumb. Some direct prints, some outlines, some negative stencils. She put her own hand over one and felt it. Felt what is was like to leave your mark, to communicate, to speak out over all extent of time and say, I was here and I was alive.
"The pigment?" she asked and looked to her left to see a landscape, a huge familiar mountain jutting up from flatter surroundings, a spiral starburst jewel painted at its base.
Yana answered. "It's a mixture of the sap from three different species of tree. We've been experimenting with them to recreate it. They have to be very accurately mixed to get the right glow. If the ratios are out by less than one percent then it doesn't work."
"They were sophisticated," Elander observed. "They knew what they were doing, these ... people." She looked at the figures drawn before her. Dynamic and animated in their stillness. Humanoid, yes, but different proportions than they were used to. Legs a little short, head a little big. She saw figures drawn with lines and others drawn with dots. Pointillism, an artist would say. And with one figure the dots seemed graduated, fading away towards the feet, and another had the dots fading the other way towards the head. Between them a perfect circle. Shaded like a sphere. She turned and elsewhere saw another perfect circle depicted as if falling from the sky. Meteors? Comets?
"What are they?" asked Yana. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know," replied Elander. "And it's wonderful."

Professor Relin sat in the ship's library looking over his notes, along with the latest updates from the various science teams. He wasn't alone here, but he wished he was. The only other person here was some fellow sat over at the far side of the room near the door. He was not the sort of person you'd expect to see in the library. He looked young and athletic and... Well, he looked a little stupid, to be honest. To be brutally honest, he looked like one of those soldiers. Soldiers. Grunts. Drudges. The Professor groped for another word. Pawns. Yes, that will do. Both his faces smiled at that nomenclature. Still, at least the man was quiet. Quiet enough for the Professor to do his thing in peace.
He was due to give a lecture at tomorrow's briefing so it seemed apposite to do a modicum of preparation. Corvan was becoming rather entertained at his own "Professor" charade. Confidently lecturing these scientists on subjects that he actually knew little about was remarkably satisfying. It was like a grand game. An elaborate bluff. And the Professor's face gave his opnions a gravitas, a weight. It allowed him to really put these people in their place, to show them who was really the intellectual here. He picked up a particular old-fashioned book and- And to his annoyance was disturbed.
Another person had popped his head in the door. He said something, laughed and ran away. Within a moment he was back again. Said something -a single word- laughed and ran away. The other stupid looking man lowered his head as if trying to ignore it all. If only the Professor could ignore annoying people with such ease. He sighed and opened his book but that person appeared again, his head at the door. "Fetch!" he cried out. The stupid man stood as if to confront him and Corvan could take no more of this. He slammed the book shut, stood with obvious indignation and began to stride over there with conspicuous intent. The shouting man saw him and promptly disappeared leaving only the foolish man to hear the Professor's question.
"What's going on here, hmm?" he was enjoying this role too much now.
"I'm sorry, Professor. It's just some silly joke. The other guys keep shouting 'Fetch' at me. I guess I just have to put up with it."
"And why, pray tell, would any credible person utter such a word?"
"It's cos of Doggo. The robot?" the man explained. "I was with the first team landing on the planet and I had the robot duties. Again!" He rolled his eyes and continued. "Anyway the robot was bleeping off as if he'd found something and I thought I saw this silver sphere. But then it was gone. And, like, no-one believed me, not even Sergeant Holst, and now they're all making jokes all the time. So I thought I'd come here to look through the archives to see if there's anything here to back me up. You know, some kind of other sighting that..."
The man droned on and on with his words but the Professor was not listening. He had stopped listening when he had heard the words 'silver sphere.' At that moment Corvan tried hard to control his MindShroud, tried hard to control 'Professor Relin's' face, because he wanted no-one to see the expression that was on his real, true face.
The silver sphere, he thought.
This could only mean one thing.
They're back.
This complicates things.
He wondered if he was too late.
He wondered if they were ALL too late.

Yes, it's amazing what characters get up to in between chapters!
As the old writer's adage states, "Arrive late, leave early."

Also I'm a bit jealous at the way these ancient aliens can draw hands with such ease.
Smug show-offs!