Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [186]
As they explored, the fused stone corridors widened, tending toward what seemed to be a nexus in the cliff city. DD tromped ahead with the light, and they followed into another chamber. The air in this room vibrated with a strange humming silence, as if some odd quality of the stone walls themselves absorbed echoes.
As in most of the Klikiss chambers, every smooth surface here was covered with designs, writing, hieroglyphics, and mathematical symbols—as if the insectoid race felt compelled to record thoughts and historical events for all to see. Oddly, though they were clearly a star-traveling race with colonies on many planets, the Klikiss had also never drawn any images of spacecraft or other vehicles on their walls.
Encased machinery crouched in one corner of the room, casting razor-edged shadows. As DD shone his glowpanel around the chamber, Margaret saw that a major section of the primary wall was completely blank, a trapezoidal sheet of stone like a virgin canvas, framed by a dense perimeter of symbols. The blank space was striking in contrast to the sheer density of designs and pictographs on every other clear surface of the wall.
"Well, it looks like the Klikiss weren't finished here," Louis said. "But why avoid that particular section? Some quality of the stone, perhaps?"
Margaret shook her head. "No, old man. Look, it's a perfect trapezoid. This patch was left intentionally blank, as if they needed it clean and flat for something. We've seen this before in some of the other ruins."
"Yes, now I remember. But we never figured it out, dear."
Arcas hunkered down and contemplated the flat trapezoid, which was three meters across at its base. "It looks to me like a broad window...or a door."
Margaret could not argue with his impression, because she'd had the same eerie feeling. "But where would it go? There's nothing but stone behind it." She went forward to study the inscribed symbols bordering the blank space, compelled and curious. The few other "stone windows" they had previously discovered had been surrounded by rubble or damaged in some way. This one was intact.
But its purpose was still unclear.
DD interrupted her thoughts with an exclamation. "Excuse me! I have found something important!" He stood by the encased machinery against the wall, turning his glowpanel into the shadowy gaps between cubical modules.
There, Margaret saw a motionless shape, a smooth dusty shell with several twisted legs and a rounded body core with a dull and dusty outer covering that gave the hulk the appearance of a gigantic, squashed beetle. It looked vaguely like the Klikiss robots, but more natural, smoother.
She drew in a cold, astonished breath, reeling with excitement. She could feel the adrenaline surge through her blood. "Is it?...Louis, is it really?"
Louis trotted over, then gave a laugh of triumph. Margaret knew exactly what the thing must be even before Louis turned to her, his wrinkle-seamed face lit up in a huge grin. "It's the first one!" he crowed. "Good work, DD!"
With the compy shining a light upon the mummified Klikiss cadaver, Margaret bent to study it. She took extreme care not to touch the alien, because age had made it a fragile construction. "The body is so old, it'll turn to dust if we try to move it."
Louis pointed to a long crack along the back of the Klikiss carapace. "It seems to have been crushed. A blow from behind...or maybe part of the ceiling fell in on top of him."
"Then where's the rubble?" Margaret stepped back, drinking in every detail. The Klikiss alien bore a superficial resemblance to the hulking black robots, but was no more identical to them than DD's crudely humanoid shape was to the delicate contours of a human form.
Incautious as always, Louis reached out with a gentle fingertip to brush the alien's twisted forelimb, and a portion of the gray-brown body armor crumbled into powder. "Well, I guess