Brooks watched as the porter drones went down the ramp, loading boxes of cargo and supplies onto the starlancar.

Kat Michell was supervising the loading, and not far beyond, Nadian was having a heated - if private - argument with Fergus. Earlier they had stopped talking when he had come over, pointedly making it clear he was not to share in their discussion.

Which was fine, Brooks could already sense the dynamics here and could not say he was fond of them.

Nadian did not trust him, nor did Brooks in return. No one seemed to trust Fergus. And Kat only had trust in Nadian himself, the otherwise-tough woman practically hanging on his words.

The relationship reminded Brooks of the other, younger blonde who had been with Nadian when Brooks had first met him on Gohhi. She appeared to be suspiciously absent here, though.

Kell, the only one who he might be able to count on, was standing still, gazing at the image of the temple. He'd deigned to talk to Brooks about the mission, only telling him to be patient.

This was foolish, Brooks thought. More and more he saw the absurdity of letting this be approached by people who were not organized, with no real support system.

Though, he realized, the Sapient Union had put itself into that support role. If only Nadian and his people would give them at least a basic level of trust. The head of his technical support team had told him that they were essentially sidelined by the Ghost's crew, who were constantly watching them.

But they needed the presence here. There was no choice; letting Nadian go in alone would not guarantee that he hadn't altered or manipulated what he found for his own ends.

Brooks had no interest in doing that, either, nor had he been ordered to. But the Union had to have eyes in there on the first expedition.

He could have delegated the task, but he wouldn't send someone else in unless he had to.

Fergus stomped away from Nadian, now going over to argue with Kat, who seemed eager for the confrontation. As they began to yell, the argument now audible, Brooks could only feel amused.

"Why are my crates packed in the innermost hold?" Fergus yelled. "I cannae access things as fast as Nadian!"

"Because I deemed it so," Kat replied. "It's the weight. It's got to be stowed in a balanced way."

"Horseshit!" Fergus said. "By the Dark, my backers are not going to be pleased if they find they've been shorted because ye won't let me get access to my things!"

"Your backers can go fuck themselves," Kat replied shortly.

Brooks stood, coming over. "Who are your backers?"

Fergus rounded on him, his fury dying down just slightly as he saw it was Brooks - who at least was not responsible for the packing of his goods.

"My backers," he said, "Are my business."

Brooks shrugged. "I assumed it was not a secret piece of information. Is it so controversial?"

Fergus was quiet a moment, then pointed over at Nadian. "If he's not telling, I'm not. That's the end of it."

Brooks looked to Nadian, who shrugged, his expression disgusted, as if to say "I don't know why he's like this."

"It's time to start boarding," Kat said. "Or do you have a problem with that, Fergus? You can wait until last, if you want."

Her tone made clear how much she wanted to just leave him behind.

"You'd just love that, wouldn't you?" he snapped back, stomping towards the hatch that led down into the starlancar.

"Fromm, time to get on," Kat called.

The man looked nervous, and ready to argue.

"No argument," Kat said. "Just get your ass on!"

The man slunk onto the ship, and Kat headed on after him.

"Well, Captain, after you," Nadian said with faux-politeness.

"Kell, we are boarding," Brooks called. The Shoggoth waited a moment longer before turning and coming over. He said nothing, but walked down the ramp into the ship. Fergus watched him, having stopped halfway down the ramp, but said nothing.

Brooks went down, finding that the cabin was surprisingly roomy.

The starlancar was a relatively large ship, a bit too big to be an easy shuttle. The yacht-type vessel that had been purchased and converted into the Raven's Ghost came with this lancar as a smaller pleasure cruiser for her intended audience - the ultra-wealthy.

The conversion for Nadian's needs had been haphazard; much of the decoration had either never been installed or had been removed, and numerous functional pieces of tech were welded or bolted to the floor, ruining the flow of the space.

Brooks stepped between two different models of seismic scanners to move towards the ship's control room.

He stepped in, eyeing the controls, but staying well back.

Kat was already in the captain's chair, and gave him a suspicious glance. "Don't touch anything," she said.

Nadian followed a moment later, and behind him was Fergus. Fromm came in last, still seeming sullen. Nadian took the co-pilot's seat, and Fergus sat behind him.

"You don't all need to stay in here," Kat said acidly. "Go strap in."

"There's enough chairs and straps in here," Brooks replied evenly.

Kat glanced at Nadian, who just shrugged. "Well, strap in here, then. Just let us handle the ship."

Brooks sat down, webbing himself in. While they began the pre-flight checklist, he checked his suit's integrity seals against vacuum. In the equipment he'd brought were two proper spacesuits for he and Kell - though the Ambassador had dismissed his as pointless - but if there was an emergency his uniform would have to do.

"Preparing to detach," Nadian said. "Raven's Ghost, confirm detachment at hardpoints."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Detachment confirmed," the reply said. "Godspeed, Black Feather."

There was a thump, then the ship shook.

"Confirmed loose," Kat said. "Engaging ion engines, taking us away from the ship."

The ship started forward, slowly. Pleasure craft were not really for getting anywhere quickly, and ion thrusters were perfectly suited towards that goal, being more efficient in terms of propellant than most other conventional thrusters.

"I wish this thing had proper engines," Kat said.

"You know how much that kind of refit costs?" Nadian replied. "Besides, I happen to like ion ships. Brooks, you ever flown an ion ship?"

"Yes," Brooks replied. "Used to fly some in the rings around Jincoczyk."

"Seems like you've been everywhere and done everything," Kat said dryly. "If half the stories I hear about you are true."

"Every spacer has," Brooks said. "And even the lies are true."

Nadian laughed. "Just no one's called you out on your bullshit yet."

"Exactly. If you want the truth; yes, I really did fly an ion ship in the rings around Jincoczyk - for two weeks. Just needed a paycheck to get by."

"Why'd you leave?" Kat asked. She didn't sound as hostile.

"The pay was bad and the conditions even worse."

Nadian shrugged reasonably. "I've been there."

"Bringing our heading in line with the temple," Kat said. "Transit should only take . . . fifty-five minutes."

The stars shifted as the ship turned, and the temple came into view.

It already dominated the stars, filling their entire screen.

They fell into silence, just watching. Against this scale, any words they might say seemed to feel inadequate.

Brooks realized that Kell was next to him; he had not heard the Ambassador enter the bridge, and he was simply standing, unaffected by their acceleration, slow as it was.

They drew ever closer to the entrance of the temple.

The shock of its scale wore off slowly, and Nadian broke the silence first.

"Fromm, you feeling anything funny about the place?"

The man considered a moment. "It has a powerful air," he said.

"So no?" Nadian replied. "Don't bullshit me."

"I don't feel anything," Fromm admitted.

"We should have brought your CR," Nadian muttered.

"I can do the job!" Fromm bit out.

"Yeah, but she was cuter," Nadian replied. Kat snorted, but out of annoyance or amusement was unclear.

"Look around the gate," Fergus said, pointing. "There's a symbolic meaning there."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Nadian said. "Whoever built this, they wanted to make something clear. Too bad we can't read the message."

Brooks listened interestedly. He knew a little about archeology, but he was no expert.

Fromm just seemed uncomfortable; aside from being a CR and protecting by his presence, he had no relevant skills to the situation and he knew it.

"Hands," Fergus said, throwing his out to show how obvious it is. "It's a classic motif we see repeated across the planetary temples."

"I've read your papers on that," Kat replied. "It's pure speculation. Just because you think it's common symbolism doesn't mean that that's what it means here."

"It is the best theory that-" Fergus began, raging.

"Quiet," Nadian said suddenly. "Something just changed."

Kat changed tacts immediately, checking the systems.

"You're right," she said. "The radiation levels have dropped."

She raised her head, looking out. "There is a bubble of safety around the temple, just like we thought."

"Craton," Brooks said. "Confirm that we are in the safe zone."

"That's right, Captain," Urle said. "You're outside our sphere now. Probes had called it safe, but we're keeping our distance for now."

"Keep it up," Brooks said. "Go ahead and launch our shuttle."

Nadian turned sharply. "Another shuttle?"

"Yes," Brooks replied. "We're sending our own team in."

"What?" Nadian demanded. "No, that was not the deal! We agreed-"

"We agreed," Brooks said, raising his voice over the other man, "That you would have first entrance and that we would not interfere with your mission. All of that is still true. But we will have a second team setting down just inside, to run our own tests."

Nadian stared at him, incredulous. "You lying son of a-"

"You do not own this relic temple," Brooks told him. "You will go down in history as leading the first expedition into it. But the Sapient Union will conduct its own investigation into the temple, following after you."

Nadian turned back, seething. Kat glanced back at Brooks. She didn't say anything, but she did look angry.

Dark, Brooks thought. Was every step going to be this way?

He glanced at the other two members of Nade's party. Fergus's face seemed eternally set in angry and unhappy, and Fromm just looked regretful. The reality of the expedition was getting to the man.

He looked then to Kell, whose face showed no emotion whatsoever.

Brooks shifted his gaze back out. They could no longer see any sides of the frame or even the floor of the temple below.

In front of them yawned a black abyss. There was no starlight to even give a hint of scale.

He felt the urge to recoil, as if they were about to strike a solid surface right in front of them.

Above that primal fear sat another one; why was it all so massive?

The station was on the scale of some of the largest space structures any species had ever built - and never once had they been of one solid piece.

It was not possible through anything but the trickiest of mass-manipulating engineering. Tensile strength and other ways of measuring the properties of materials no longer meant anything. At this scale, all known materials behaved like liquids.

Fergus spoke, his voice soft.

"'Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours because we have sought the Lord our God; we have sought Him, and He has given us rest on every side.' So they built . . . and prospered."

He turned to look at the others. "But these bastards didn't prosper. No one home. What the hell could have wiped out beings who could have built this?"

"We could never build something like this," Kat said. "Whoever they were, they were so far beyond us that we can't imagine it."

"No," Brooks said. He saw looks of skepticism and annoyance flicker to him. He didn't flinch. "It's hard, but not impossible. I'm not trying to argue here, only give a sense of scale. With active electromagnetic support you could stabilize even at this size."

He pointed out. "There's no practical reasons I know of to build a place this large. I can't rule out technology or purposes beyond those we know, but it seems to me that this was built on this scale just as a sign of their greatness."

"With that kind of technology," Nadian noted. He clearly was alone among the group in believing Brooks. "They must need an incredible power source. Maybe even something as dangerous as antimatter or miniature black holes."

"No one's that stupid," Brooks said immediately. Both forms of power generation were possible, but were just more trouble than they were worth. The potential dangers far exceeded even the hottest of fusion drives.

"I've seen some strange things in these temples. And we can't rule out that they had methods of stabilizing those things."

Brooks gave a skeptical look, and Nadian shrugged. "Just saying - we need to be careful."

"We have to be able to see the other side by now," Fergus said. "It's not so far we shouldn't be able to see it."

They had moved quite a distance inside.

"I'm going to start slowing us down," Kat said, uneasily. "I don't know why we can't see anything, but I don't want a wall showing up on us without enough time to brake."

"No," Nadian said. "No, let the ship keep going. We've got some emergency brakes built onto this thing. Be prepared for an emergency stop - be ready to vent every bit of reaction mass in the brakes, just so long as it doesn't crush us."

"But why keep going?" Fergus asked. "We could land and make our way-"

"Do you really want to cover all this on foot? Even with cars it could take days. No," he shook his head. "Brooks is right. This place was meant to awe. This antechamber is massive just to make us feel that awe, but they wouldn't want anyone crashing in it. We'll see the other side in time, so let's wait and get closer to the back."

"If we do before it's too late," Kat grumbled.