Hellsky (Hunter-Killer #3)

Chapter 13 - The Long Course of the River

Year 248 P.L. Rychter Calendar
Coordinates: 15.4°N; 29.8°E
Site Designation: Rubicon (City of)

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Deep beneath the splendour of Rubicon, the white walls of stone fell away. Colourful banners no longer adorned the walls and the looming twin suns of Rychter no longer blazed down upon the world.

Buried here was the first dot in the violent history of this world.

Lanto walked slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, chin held high with the reverence this occasion deserved. The corridor was long, hewn out of the same stone of the great cliffs that ringed the capital, and if you listened – really listened – you could just hear the thunder of the waterfall and the river itself, far, far above.

Ahead of him guards in the crimson and black livery of Commissariat Security waited, their uniforms crisply pressed, military caps perched on their heads and long truncheons and pistols holstered in their belts. The spherical armoured door they stood in front of loomed like a boulder blocking the passage.

The measly task force that Xanthus had allowed him to have walked in his wake. No survey teams, no cadres of engineers, no military escorts to delve into the wastes. Just a team of archivists. Good people – intelligent people he'd hand-picked – but nothing like the kind of resource he would need to truly unravel the mystery behind the Crawlers.

But he had to start somewhere.

"Sir." The guard on the left took a small step forward as they approached. Lanto halted, inclining his head to the man as they observed the niceties of protocol.

"Corporal," he said.

"May I see your authorisation please?"

Lanto motioned the leader of the archivist team forward. The woman stepped up, handing over a data slate to the guard. She was tall, pale-skinned and lean-framed, with a short bob of grey-blond hair tucked under her dark blue archivist beret.

"Senior Archivist Karrin Thaniakas," she said. "Commissariat Authorisation for access."

The guard nodded, running his eyes slowly down the page. Maybe a little over-committed to his duty given that there was a Commissariat Minister standing right in front of him, but Lanto preferred that to laxness.

After scrutinizing the authorisation for a moment, the man raised his head, smiled through his stubbly beard and handed the data slate back to Thaniakas. "Everything looks to be in order. Please." He stepped aside, making a gesture to the door and giving his companion a nod. She punched an access code into the control panel beside her, and the grind of mechanisms vibrated through the hallway.

Lanto braced himself. The slab of heavy metal rolled gently aside and he took a deep breath of the air that flowed over them. It was a damp, metallic smell, filled with mineral richness; an oddly cooling sensation against the heat of the surface. Allowing himself a feeling smile, he glanced at Thaniakas.

"Well, Archivist," he said. "Shall we?"

"After you, sir."

Raising his head, Lanto strode forward, into Rychter's past.

He stepped through the circular aperture and out into a vast cavern of grey-black rock, its walls festooned with walkways and gleaming strings of light installations that filled it with a fearsome brightness. His feet clumped against solid metal plating as he emerged onto the main gantry and looked down.

All of that light shone on the vessel that had brought the human race to this world.

A long time ago the ship had sat where the Commissariat chambers now held dominion, the centre of the fledging human civilisation. As years rolled by and as this world developed its own identity, the Nautilus had been moved, its whole structure transported down into the city's archive, forming the centrepiece of history instead.