Storm Chaser: Chapter 52

Chapter 52

The next morning at first light, everyone but Elena left the ship and headed to land. Spin watched them leave with an air of distain. Elena rubbed her ears.

“At least it will be quiet,” she told the cat. Spin meowed in response and went to find a sunny spot on deck to curl up. While it was bright on the ocean, with the morning mists kept low to the water, the land was still shrouded in mist.

“I hope they step carefully,” she said aloud. She shrugged, recognizing something completely out of her control and went back to her quarters. Elena cleared her maps to one side and took her laptop out of the protective casing that kept its circuits from being fried during crossings. While it booted up she gathered her notes for the proposals. A message box appeared as she settled herself in the chair.

“No wireless connection available,” She read. “Good to know, although I would be kind of surprised if there was a connection available.” Elena closed the message box and began to formally prepare her proposals. Periodically she shifted to her reader and ferreted out phrasings and protocol from council records, other times she used her small collection of Guild approved books. For lunch she made herself a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich and walked on deck in the bright sunshine. There was no sign of her explorers other than random aerial disturbances as the local birds reacted to the intruders’ presence. The mist had lifted as the sun rose and Elena hoped they had brought enough water with them.

“It looks like a scorcher,” she commented. After a little while she gratefully returned to her somewhat cooler quarters. As the light faded she heard the sounds of people and put her work aside for the day. She reached the deck in time to see them climb into the dinghy and begin their way back to the ship. She lowered the clamps and let the winch haul them up. The day’s exertions had not dimmed their excitement. Elena could see they were hot, dirty and sweaty, but still eager to show off their prizes. Benjamin excused himself to go wash up and start dinner while Kiera and Mateo showed her their day’s samples and Andre flipped through his slide show of new photographs.

After a quick clean up and dinner, Elena found herself left alone on the deck as she continued her mapping of the constellations. All of the others had been exhausted from their early morning and heavy exertions.

“Besides,” She thought. “They will be doing it all over again in the morning.” Elena yawned and realized she too would need to get to bed soon. She folded up her star chart and glanced at the map Mateo had given her. It showed the pier, the road and the location and size of the buildings they had come across. Since Mateo’s stride was just a little over three feet long, the distances were marked in approximate yards. Elena squinted at a second set of numbers placed below his yard measurements. They were written in a different hand and the notation at the bottom of the page regarding the second numbers made her smile. Apparently Kiera had brought a pedometer with her and was keeping track as well.

“I wonder how you mark that on your daily exercise log,” Elena mused as she folded up the map and went inside. “Three hundred and eighty six calories burned while walking on an alien planet.” Elena chuckled to herself. “I hope she isn’t reporting to a personal trainer.” When she reached her quarters she plugged her laptop into the small portable generator so it could charge in the night, changed into her pajamas and slid into bed.

The rest of the time on the planet passed much the same way. Elena would be left alone to work while the others explored, fleshing out and expanding their map as well as adding to the samples in the cargo hold. Fruits, nuts, and berries joined the fish, water, soil and plant samples. Andre’s sketch pad was full and he was quickly running out of space on his memory cards.

In addition to the flora, Andre had added images of birds, snakes and the impressions of several animal tracks. Many of them looked to be feline in nature. Andre had wanted to stay close to shore one of the evenings to see if he could catch images of some of the creatures but Elena nixed the idea as too risky this time out.

“We have no medical staff on board,” Elena explained. “In addition the pier would be a little tricky to negotiate after dark so you would have to stay the night on shore.” Andre wasn’t happy but gave in. “Next trip maybe,” she told him as consolation.

It was on the day before they left that Elena finally made it to shore. Mateo was left in charge of the ship. She had the feeling Benjamin was left in charge of her. It felt odd having a body guard and she wasn’t sure she cared for the feeling, but as Mateo had pointed out if anything happened to her everyone was stranded. She settled herself in the dinghy and in no time found herself on the steep stairs leading up to the pier’s surface.

The lower steps were slicked with seaweed and algae and the steps were a little too steep for comfort but she made it to the top with no mishaps. To her surprise the surface of the pier was not smooth stone as she had imagined it to be but marked with long cuts into the stone in a hatch work pattern. Much of the hatching was worn down and the rock face nearly smooth in those sections.

As she walked she realized the hatching was there to make the wet stone less slick. She nodded in appreciation. She felt a little wobbly walking on solid ground anyway due to her length of time on board the ship and hoped she wasn’t reeling like a drunken sailor.

Periodically there were places that were divots in the rock and she could see why the others thought smaller craft were tied up closer to shore. In her mind’s eye Elena could see this place as a bustling port with ships of every size carrying exotic cargo. Kiera pointed out some other half hidden steps near these peers that would have allowed pedestrian access. They reached the coast and Elena paused to look around.

“The buildings you need to see are this way,” Benjamin said.

“In a rush?” She asked. He smiled.

“The less time you spend off the ship the safer you will be,” he pointed out. Elena shook her head and bowed to the inevitable. This trip out she would not be given the leisure to sight see.

“Lay on, Mac Duff,” she told him.

“Hopefully without the hounds of war,” he relied. He pointed towards the roadway. “This way,” he said leading them under the trees canopy. Cool green enveloped them and the temperature dropped. Elena shivered a little in reaction to the simple lack of heat. Their footsteps were muffled as they moved from bare stone to sad to the loam of the forest. In places she could see that the accumulated dirt and debris was over the ancient road bed. It offered a wide flat spot on which to walk. In some places the stone was still visible. It appeared to be the same stone the dock had been made of and she wondered if the blocks were as huge.

“That would account for none of the tree roots busting up the road,” she thought. “Although that would make this an absurdly overbuilt road.” Occasionally she could see the outlines of buildings, or of building remains to be more precise. The stones used for these buildings were smaller than the pier and many of the outlines were obscured by growth. The odd glimpses of raw stone looked to be the same as the road and the pier. The roofs of these smaller structures were either flat or missing. From Elena’s vantage point she couldn’t tell which.

As they moved, Kiera pointed out several plants and Elena could see where some of their samples had been collected. On the left she recognized a vine that bore clusters like grapes. The ‘grapes’ in this instance looked more like red currants. They had been in one of the first day’s samples. While Kiera chatted excitedly, Andre’s camera snapped shots of bugs, birds, nests, and animal tracks. Benjamin simply looked out for danger. She noticed they were not stopping to collect samples today and smiled to herself. She knew they were moving at a much faster pace than the team had moved in prior days.

In time they reached a clearing. Elena felt as though she had entered a valley as large mountain like buildings towered above them. There were five buildings in this cluster. The road met in a cross road like pattern. One giant building sat in the center of the cross roads, to Elena’s mind it reminded her of the stepped design of Mayan or Aztec architecture, although she was pretty sure neither of those groups topped their structures with spires they way these were. The other four buildings were stationed around the central structure. The main entrance to each lined up with a different corner of the central building while the roads ran between.

“Each of the central building’s corners points in a cardinal direction,” Kiera said. Her voice was somewhat lower than it had been on the trail, as if she didn’t want to disturb anything. Elena nodded.

“You have pictures of these?” She asked Andre.

“Both inside and out,” he told her.

“You went inside?”

“Only into that one,” he said pointing to the building on her left. The one with the doorway facing east.

“What is inside?” She asked turning towards the building.

“We didn’t go too far in,” Andre explained with a glance at Benjamin.

“The building has a central atrium and then walls divide the interior. I thought it best not to explore the interior until either more information was gathered or medical personal had been brought in,” Benjamin added. Elena nodded in agreement.

“Wise,” She said. “We have to take safety first this time out. Perhaps the next trip out Mateo can bring his probes in to scan the building rather than just the landscape.” She walked towards the indicated building. There was no door left in the entry way. Either it had been carted off or lost to the ages. She could see recesses where a door could presumably be attached.

“Did you get a picture of this?” she asked. “That way they know a door could be put in.”
Andre dutifully took a picture. He shot a grin her way.

“Yes I know I am restating the obvious,” she told him with a laugh. “I’m just nervous about the librarian that’s all.”

“Of course,” he said. “I would be too. Direct away.” Elena stepped through the door and into the atrium. As mentioned it was a wide space that ended in a wall with two doors. The space was dim and dark, the recesses lost in shadow.

“Must have been lit by torches,” she said. “There certainly wasn’t a sky light.”

“Which is a good thing as a skylight would have let in the rain,” Kiera commented. Elena didn’t see any carvings that looked like her dream. For that she was grateful. Since Benjamin was getting fidgety she stepped back out of the building and let them lead her around the square. Apparently each of the roads led to clusters of smaller buildings.

“It is possible that the plaza around the central building served as sort of a market square,” Kiera said. “As to the function of the larger buildings they could be ceremonial, commercial governmental,” she laughed. “Well they could be anything really. Without any records it would take a vast amount of digging to come up with any theory that could be substantiated.” They followed one of the roads leading to a cluster of smaller buildings.

“Smaller, I guess is relative,” Elena commented as each of the buildings she estimated around two stories tall. There were smaller buildings around these that had been covered over to the point of looking like small hills around the larger buildings. Elena took note and to Benjamin’s relief she signaled that the tour could be concluded.

“I’ve seen what I need to pitch to all the parties involved,” she told them. The pace at which Benjamin marched them back to the ship made Elena laugh and Kiera keep the commentary to a minimum. She noticed Benjamin did not relax until they were back on board.

“So,” she asked him as the winch pulled them from the ocean’s surface to the Storm Chaser’s deck. “What did Mateo said would happen if I got hurt?”

“Oh the usual,” he said. “We’d be stuck here, those you had gathered to your house would be abandoned and shunned, commerce would fail and the world would basically come to an end.”

“Really,” she said not quite bringing herself to laugh. She had only thought of those on her ship being stranded and had given no thought to the pilots she left at home.

“Something like that.”

“I see. Well you will be happy to know we set sail for home tomorrow and will soon be in a lot less risky a position.”
“Sure,” Andre answered. “As long as there aren’t any sea monsters here.”