Kelto squinted at the holographic display that floated above the pristine silver pedestal. He flipped through a few more pages of his notebook, the rustling of them causing a few of his colleagues to look up.
"'Sleep?'" he mumbled to himself as he looked again at the letters on the display. The memory of another word elicited a small twitch from his ears. "No… 'suspension,' maybe?"
He scribbled the glyphs into the book next to the others and, with the notebook still in his hand, he pressed the small button at the side of the pedestal marked with an arrow.
A new set of letters appeared on the display. "Habitation," if he remembered correctly. He had found a great many references to what he believed to be suspended animation, farms that had been reclaimed by nature, and now: a map of the ship that told him where its builders had lived upon it. The function of this specific ruin was still a point of contention among the experts, but Kelto was certain by now that it was a sort of generation ship that had never left its world.
The actual name of the species that had built these ruins — whatever the actual structure turned out to be — was still a mystery. They were spread all over the galaxy, connected by giant gateways that still functioned even millennia after their Creators had disappeared.
But that was no surprise.
The unceasing nature of their creations was the reason they were now on this world, one of many they had found beyond the gates. There were some like his own home — worlds free of all ruins except a singular gateway located somewhere in the local system. Other gates led to worlds packed with ruins, littered with technological marvels that fueled the galactic community.
"Pack up, everyone!" the voice of Neltori rang across the hall. "A Watcher is coming."
Technological marvels, ruins, and of course, the Watchers: giant, fully autonomous ships that patrolled the system with ruins inside them. Usually, they did nothing. Merely passing through, they scanned the ships they passed, then stopped above the planet for a rotation or two to do whatever they did.
As far as anyone could tell, they did nothing — unless you were on their planet looking at their ruins when they came. The giant ships were, as everyone knew, aware of their presence on the planet as soon as they entered the system. For reasons unknown, however, they never seemed to care unless you were still present on the planet when they arrived in orbit. No one Kelto had ever spoken to had understood the whys of it.
Kelto took a picture of the hologram, his wristband chiming to inform him that it had created a reconstruction of the entire pedestal. He closed his book, giving the piece of technology one last glance before he joined the other researchers shuffling into a shuttle.
Most would consider his work boring — tedious, even. But he liked it. Trying to figure out what the signs and documents they found meant brought him joy. That it was also vitally important for his government was just a bonus, one that paid well and afforded him luxury he had not expected when he had taken Extraterrestrial Linguistics as the main focus of his studies.
At the time — nearly fifty years ago now — he had chosen to study language out of equal parts spite and intrigue. He had always liked the history of the Watchers, and his lack of Psionic ability certainly narrowed down the potential choices. The spite part was mostly directed at his parents. They wanted him to become an adjudicator, and even now he was still certain that he would not enjoy that sort of employment.
Sitting in a cushy office on Minalair might have been nice for some, but he much preferred being out in the field and learning about the people that made the rise of the galactic community possible.
"Find anything new?" Neltori asked him as he sat himself down next to her. "You've been awfully fascinated with that pedestal."
"I did find something," Kelto replied with a small smile on his face. "I am now certain that this place was meant to be a generation ship of some kind. I couldn't tell why they would need something like it, but the Waypoints all make mention of suspended animation."
He twisted his arm a little, and a small projection of the pedestal he had studied appeared above it. "This Waypoint also had a map in it, but the only section that is labelled is Habitation."
"It's not the first time we looked through one of those," Neltori said, grabbing hold of the handrail next to her as the ship shook a little. "Still worth looking into, though — but finding the pods would be even better."
"Of course that would be better," he replied, dismissing the projection. "But I wouldn't get my hopes up. The last time we found any of those, they were empty. Given the age of the ship, I don't think this will be much different."
His colleague nodded at his words, looking at a projection of her own wristband. "Perhaps. This ship would've been built a few years before the Vanishing, not the prime time for sitting in a sleeper pod."
Kelto sighed. A few years ago, he would have been exuberant about finding a generation ship as intact as this one, but he had long given up on the foolish hope that any of the Watchers' Creators were still alive. Still, he would be lying if he said that the idea of finding the cryo bay did not excite him.
"Did you find anything of note?" he asked, shifting slightly in his seat as the artificial gravity of the shuttle took over from the planet's own.
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"No," she replied. "Not a single weapon in the ruins and the shielding is the same as the one we found on Kilamir. Perhaps the ships came from the same yard. The ages would match, at least."
"Just another day, then," Kelto mumbled.
They sat in silence for the rest of the flight, and Kelto was only taken from his thoughts when his body shook as a result of the shuttle setting down in the hangar of the carrier that hosted their expedition.
"How long do you think the Watcher will stay this time?" he asked, unbuckling himself.
His colleague shrugged in reply before she got up from her chair. "A day. Two, perhaps." She pulled her bag free of the nets above his head, mumbling her next words. "I swear they stay longer when we're near the planet."
Kelto stood up himself, stretching his arms and back a little after he did. The flight to the carrier might have only lasted for a couple minutes, but something about the shuttle’s chairs did not play right with his back. Or am I starting to feel my age?
A flick of his wrist opened the ship-wide video feed that tracked the Watcher. Its polished black surface and sleek lines were unmistakable. They had not yet found wreckage of a Watcher, but they were sure that it was not molded from a single piece of metal like it appeared.
"You coming?" Neltori asked from the bottom of the ramp.
Kelto had not noticed his colleagues leaving; he was too focused on the Watcher. Despite outwardly looking like all the others he had seen, this one seemed different. He could not yet place why, but something was inconsistent with his memory of the ships.
He shook his head and closed the feed, walking down the stairs instead. "I need to get some sleep."
"Me too," Neltori said, patting his back. "Me too."
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A loud, gurgling gasp echoed through the empty halls of the Virto, followed by ratcheting, a scream, and the sound of metal shearing. The remains of the cryopod’s hatch were blown away by an invisible punch that was accompanied by another, quieter scream.
Green fluid spilled from Kaylin's mouth as she leaned out of the pod. She coughed, more liquid vacating her lungs as she did.
The screams had left her out of breath and her throat sore. How she had managed to make any sound in the first place was beyond her clouded mind. There had been no air in her lungs; only the Aqua Vitae that had kept her alive during her stay in the pod.
She took a shaky breath of the frigid air, shivering as she lifted her exposed arms out of the warm gel that filled the pod.
Slowly she pushed herself up, strength returning bit by bit to her waking body as her implants did their job and filtered out the cocktail that had put her to sleep. Light flooded the room on a mental command, blinding her for a moment before her eyes adjusted.
Everything was as pristine as the day she had entered, but Kaylin already knew that it was a farce. She could not feel a single soul aboard the Virto, nor did the vessel reply to more complex inquiries. The latter was worrying; the first was not.
She heaved her legs over the edge of the pod, gripping the metal to steady herself. It deformed a little under her grip, the modifications and augmentations she had undergone more pronounced now that they had had time to settle in.
Kaylin had been put to sleep not long after she had gotten them; an experiment she had signed up for on her own accord. Humanity had left, and she stayed behind. But she was not alone; the Custodians would stand watch over their creations as nature reclaimed them.
They should have woken her up long before the fail-safe kicked in, however. The reason she had woken up was quite apparent as she looked at the red flashing readout on the side of her pod. It had the same message as any other display in the bay. Intruders.
The Virto might have been damaged — even broken, perhaps — but its most rudimentary functions were still working.
Kaylin pushed herself off of the pod, her bare feet landing on the cold metal floor. She could not stand straight and had to grab hold of a robotic arm that stuck out of the wall. Her legs had no problem supporting her weight, but her mind was having difficulty figuring out how it should use her augmented muscles to steady herself.
A small push of her Psionics caused the replicator on the other side of the room to spring to life, its buttons pressed by an invisible hand. The glass of water it produced floated into Kaylin's waiting hand without a sound.
Psionics were a handy thing, and one of the reasons she had volunteered for this mission. While every Human was Psionic to a degree, only some could undergo the procedures she had. The details were beyond her; Kaylin did not know why some brains accepted the implants and others did not.
She could assemble the implant that would go into her brain and explain how that worked, but not why it would only work with certain people. It was one of the few downsides of learning something by injecting the knowledge into your brain.
A small chime in the back of her mind caused Kaylin to pause, her now half-empty glass of water floating next to her.
She recognised the sound — the feeling. They had tested it countless times before to make sure she could control the Custodians and make use of their localised gateways.
When Kaylin accepted the communication request, the Custodian on the other side identified itself as Alphera-4. It followed the greeting with a flood of information — a basic timeline of what had happened after Humanity had performed Ascension. Most of it was filed away for later, her mind briefly lingering on the fact that the races they had seeded were scavenging through their ruins. It had been anticipated — planned even — but she still disliked it.
The Custodians did too, it would seem, taking a rather lax interpretation of their rules. They only allowed the new races to walk on Humanity's old worlds when they were not above them.
Kaylin took a deep breath to steady herself as the information she had searched for finally came from Alphera-4.
She was fifteen millennia late.
The others in the program had woken up on time, performed their duty in their respective galaxy and then joined the rest of Humanity in Ascension. She was the last, forgotten by the Custodians and out of reach of the rest of Humanity. Ascension is a one-way street.
The Custodian in orbit above the planet in which the Virto was buried relayed an apology. Its voice did little to soothe Kaylin as she slumped to the ground. The glass next to her ceased to float and clattered to the ground where its contents spilled out.
A single thought repeated in her mind again and again as the warm swirl of energy that heralded the travel through a gateway wrapped around her body.
Why?