Chap. 422 The Warehouse

Engineering’s Chief stood next to Raylan, Jansen and K’ndar-Siskin happily chittering on his shoulder-as her team finished prying solidified ash off the pedestrian door of the warehouse.

“It will be dark inside,” she said, watching several apprentices loading the hunks of ash into a new cargo trailer, “I’m assuming there are solar panels on the roof, but you never know for sure. Ordinarily we start at the top and work our way down, but in this case, we want to get in there as soon as possible. I admit I’ve been eaten up with curiosity of what’s in it.”

“Me too,” Raylan said, “Especially after Jansen found that picture of DR Plank in front of it.”

“I remember when you opened the radio antenna shelter. Who would have thought it was just a framework?” Jansen said. “Will you continue on this building?”

Engineering nodded. “Might as well,” she said, “I think it’s going to be rewarding to have it fully opened.”

“Okay, that’s the last bit,” one of the apprentices said of the hunks of ash. I want to go in first, he thought. But it probably won’t happen.

“No lock on the door, Chief,” one man said.

“You made a good call on where this pedestrian door is,” she said. “Who wants the honors to go in first?”

They all looked at their Chief. She smiled. “You did the work, I just handed it out to you. You three, choose amongst yourselves.”

“Um,” one of the adult engineers said, “If it were my decision, I’d let an apprentice be first in.”

The three apprentices all thought that was a GREAT idea.

“I like that. Okay, if you lads are in for that?” Engineering said.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Choose, then.”

They grinned.  They turned to each other and, all three at once, threw rock paper scissors.

The winner smiled at one of the apprentices. You always throw rock, he thought of one of the three, that’s how I can manage to win or lose when I want. And this time I wanted to win.

“Take a flashlight, mate,” one of the losers said.

He nodded happily. “Got it right here,”

He reached to pull the door open, and of course it wouldn’t. Two men eventually got it to budge. It opened with a screech of long unlubricated hinges. A gust of stale air billowed out, carrying a light fog of dust or ash..

The winner took a deep breath, turned on his flashlight and entered the building.

For one long moment, there was a long silence as the teen swept the interior with his flashlight.

Then he shrieked in terror and erupted from the door in full flight.

Without thinking, everyone bolted, too.

They all stopped a safe distance, waiting to see what came out.

“What in the world?”

The lad gasped. “There’s something alive in it. It moved, it moved! It’s enormous, it’s all holey and has teeth as long as your arm!”

“What? That’s impossible, that building’s been closed up for over twenty five hundred years. Nothing lives that long.”

The lad panted, from exertion-and fear.

“I’m not lying, it moved, okay? You go in, see for yourself,” he protested, resolving to never win at rock paper scissors again.

Raylan and K’ndar watched the doorway. No one seemed all that inclined to go in.

After several moments, it was apparent the thing wasn’t going to come out.

“Well, now what?”

Inspiration hit K’ndar. “Allow me? Siskin! Go inside please? Show me what is inside.”

Siskin wheeked happily and launched.

“Ah, the sacrificial lamb,” one of the men said as they watched the blue fire lizard fly through the open door.

K’ndar laughed, although tinged with apprehension, “Whatever it is, it won’t catch him. This is all a game to him. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to see what he’s going to send me.”

I have GOT to get one of those, at least two of the people thought.

“He sees a very dark room. His eyes are adjusting to the darkness. There’re tables, I think cases? and a shelf, some of them have tipped over. WHOA. I see it I see it!!”

“WHAT IS IT?

“It’s, um, it’s uh, oh shaff, I can’t explain but it’s not moving. It’s a big skull. It’s huge, and it’s-you know what, I think it’s got the same sort of teeth that L’ichen had one of.  I’m going in.”

“It moved. It moved, I swear it,” the boy said.

“Maybe you saw shadows from your light?”

“Uh, well, now that my heart rate has slowed, yeah. That’s what it was but damn, all I saw was those teeth. K’ndar, you watch out!”

Siskin was still sending. And the more he saw, the more K’ndar thought, yes, yes, YES.

He stepped into the gloom, his flashlight bright. Siskin sent him an image of himself walking in with the flashlight.

Siskin was perched atop the skull.

——————————————————————————–

They were all in the warehouse now. The initial entrant was embarrassed.

“I swear, I thought it was moving.”

“It’s okay, lad, I can see why you would think that. Just playing my flashlight on it makes it appear to move.”

“Good grief what IS this thing?’

“It’s the skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex,” Jansen said, “I found a list that DR Plank made of the contents in his museum. Good grief, look at the size of it!”

“It’s a WHAT? Tie ran uh?”

“Tyrannosaurus rex. Tyrannosaurus means “terrible lizard”, and rex means ‘king’, like the chess piece, although I’ve never seen a chess piece look like this!  Just call it T. rex, it was a carnivorous dinosaur from Earth’s late Cretaceous era.” 

“Good grief, it’s bloody enormous.”

“I can’t imagine having one of these monsters in the commons,” said one of the engineers. “It looks like it could eat a steer in one gulp.”

Jansen laughed. “Not to worry. They went extinct in a great asteroid collision, 65 million years ago. The only mammals then were no bigger than a cat.”

“No humans?”

“Nope. Almost all the dinosaurs went extinct in that disaster. If they hadn’t, I doubt very much we humans would have evolved.”

“Did they fly? Like dragons?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only now begun to begin researching them. But I know this T. rex didn’t have wings. Earth creatures were all four legged, not six.” She savored the sudden realization that she’d discovered a passionate interest in Terran dinosaurs. There’s an enormous body of literature on them, she thought, what fun it’s going to be!

“We do call our dragons and other beasts ‘saurians’. They’re a textbook example of what is called convergent evolution,” K’ndar said.

Several flashlights played on the skull, making it appear to move.

“And the colonists brought this beast with them? Just this one?”

“No, no, not an entire animal, just this skull, although I don’t know that for sure. I don’t see a big skeleton, not yet, I’ve been in this museum just as long as you. Is there an entire skeleton of rex here? I dunno. I’m pretty sure this skull is a replica. We’ll have to wait for better lighting to see if it’s a real fossil or not. Not everything went extinct after Earth’s asteroid hit, some reptiles, amphibians, mammals and most amazingly, birds, survived. In fact, we have a descendant of T. rex living with us right here on Pern.”

“No. Really?”

“Like this one?”

“Oh, no, much smaller. They don’t even have teeth anymore. We eat them and their eggs all the time. We call ‘em ‘chickens”

“Chickens??”

“Aye.”

“They’re T. rex?”

“Evolved, adapted, changed, yes.”

“Then this is the biggest badass chicken I’ve ever seen. I hope I don’t see a live one,” Engineer said, patting the skull.

K’ndar noticed that there were many tables, all of them appearing to have been shoved together. One had fallen over with a broken leg.

“It looks like someone moved all these tables into the middle,” he said, “I wonder why?”

Engineering said, “It wasn’t purposeful. I’ve seen this in other buildings. The earthquakes moved them. Remember, they had quakes here not long before the volcano erupted.”

“They caused the mountain to erupt?” asked one of the apprentices.

“No,” Raylan said, “Other way around. The quakes came from magman moving up into the cone. It wasn’t until gas had built up to the point that the rock broke up and released the gas…and the magma.”

Even by the meager light of his flashlight, K’ndar realized he wanted to spend a month in the warehouse. He tore his attention from the T. rex skull to wander around the cluster of tables. They all were shallow boxes, the top being that of plexiglass. Some were empty, with nothing but pins showing that at one time, something had been displayed in it. Others had a pile of small fossils, all shaken into a loose pile.

The fallen table was laying on its side. He could see letters on one of the uprights. He played the flashlight on it.

It was a brand, barely legible, that said, “Acme Pallet Co.”

That’s meaningless, he thought. Next to the fallen table, though, he saw footprints in the dust/ash on the floor.

“Chief?” he called, “There’s footprints in the dust here. All the same size of boot.” He went a bit further and saw differently shaped prints, one he recognized immediately. “And now I know how L’ichen got in here even though it’s encased in ash.”

Raylan looked at the footprints. “These prints came from the same boot as were in the bunker. It had to be L’ichen, although the light is poor, you can see one of his boots had a chunk missing from the sole. He was in here, sure as sunrise, probably opening these display cases to steal from.”

“And over here?” K’ndar said, “These are dragon foot prints. He had Sorath come out of between INSIDE this warehouse,” K’ndar said. “Blues are so agile, and Sorath was small for a blue.”

“Whoa. That is some dragon riding.”

“Maybe not. It was Sorath’s work, give HIM the credit.”

“I thought you had to have an image of something in order to tell your dragon were to go?”

“Yes, and I have no idea what L’ichen used for an image. You can’t go somewhere without seeing where you are going to end up.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he was here during the colonization.”

Jansen, having heard, came over. “I think so, too. The clothing L’ichen stored in the bunker looks like fabrics they had at colonization. But we know that the warehouse wasn’t repurposed until five years later.”

“He had to have seen SOMETHING in the interior, you don’t just think I’ll go here. You have to have an image in your mind,” K’ndar said.

Jansen said, “The picture of DeeArr shows some men building a frame, but is that enough?”

“I don’t know. I wish we could get better lighting in here.”

“That will come, K’ndar. I’m not sure how this building was powered but we’ll get lighting. Promise,” said one of the engineers.

Raylan had been splashing his flashlight all over.

“There. See, on that long wall? I see lines, very faintly, that aren’t part of the building’s wall. I’m betting it’s the mural the Contact referred to. Didn’t the picture show something blue on the wall?”

Jansen shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t pay much attention to that part of the photo. I’ll have to get a better look at it.”

They walked over to the wall. The mural was heavily coated in dust, whether it was ash or dust, they didn’t know.

“Don’t inhale that stuff,” Engineering called, “It’s pretty nasty for one’s lungs.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Raylan said.

“I want to see everything in here so badly I can taste it,” K’ndar said. “Flashlights don’t do it justice.”

Jansen said, “Chief, I wonder-my museum is so small and I don’t have a whole lot in it yet, although the skeletons outside it take up a lot of room. I think I’d like to bring the skeletons over, if nothing else. Maybe we can make this the Main Museum of Pern. Stars knows there is more room here. Maybe the other warehouses are empty, too.”

Raylan grumbled. “They took a lot of time and effort bringing them up and placing them. And I wonder about the scientific part of it. All of your specimens are from Pern, these are all Earth. Do we mix them together?”

She shook her head. “I guess I can keep that small storage building for the little stuff, but still, if K’ndar here keeps bringing me gigantic specimens like the diver and the speartooth, my skeletons are going to have to find a bigger home.”

K’ndar laughed. “I thought I was being paid to bring big stuff in?”

She thumped his arm. “You know what I mean. I spent an awful lot of my own time moving them. I am so grateful for some of the men here who volunteered to pick up the bigger pieces. That skull from the deep diver is enormous.”

Aye, thought one of the engineering team, and I don’t wish to be one of the blokes to move it again. Especially that bloody speartooth, it didn’t matter how clean the scavengers and bugs got it, it still stank. For months.

“Not as big as ol’ Rex, there,” K’ndar said. I have a feeling I’m about to be volunteered to help her. And I will.

Engineering walked over, having heard her.

She contemplated the covered mural. “I can just see outlines here.”

“In the photo, it showed a big blob of blue/gray. I don’t know if someone put it up here or if it was painted,” Jansen said.

Raylan said, “Chief? Who chooses which buildings to open?”

Engineering laughed. “I wondered how long it would take for you to ask that. Based on what the database says is priority and what is not, I make that decision. Remember, the database ORDERED the antenna shelter to be opened for the shutdown and that saved our arses. But that threat is past, and the database just says that there are other antennas, none of them working. To cut to the chase, then, it’s MY decision on which building to open.”

They looked at her.

“Um, would a homemade bubbly pie influence your decision?” Jansen wheedled.

Engineering laughed.

____________________________________________________________

It was done.

Engineering was extremely proud of her team-they had, in her terms, “busted ass to” get the building open in record time. She had taken the Chiefs on a tour of the exhibits, leaving K’ndar to look on his own. Which didn’t last long.

“You opened this fast,” he said to the three engineers and their apprentices, who’d removed the entire casing of ash from the outside.

“Had to, mate,” one of them said to K’ndar, “the more we looked inside, the more we HAD to get it all open.”

“Aye,” said another, “it had been renovated. Wait until you see it.”

Their Chief, standing next to a panel on the wall on the opposite side of the warehouse, called out “Opening!”

“Watch this, K’ndar,” one of them said, “It took a week for our electrics genius to get the wiring fixed. She said ‘something ate the insulation off the wires.”

“And we did the lubing. It’s amazing how well built this thing was.”

Something beeped, and then one half of the warehouse roof separated down the middle and began to retract. As it did, sunlight began to pour into the building, like liquid gold, illuminating the T. Rex skull and display tables, now in orderly rows.

“Whoa,” K’ndar said, “Look at this beast, it’s even bigger in the sunshine.”

“No doubt,” said the first man to see it, “And, you know, it hasn’t moved since.”

K’ndar roared.

“In the middle, there was another skeleton, of what I don’t know, it was laid on its side in a tray, there used to be a placard saying what it was, but that was removed.”

“Removed my arse,” said another, “It was stolen whole. All you see now is the outline of where it was.”

“Hmmm,” K’ndar said, “Any bets it was stolen from someone in the future?”

“I’d lay money on it, K’ndar.”

“Aye,” said another, “and, for that matter, I think he tried to steal ol’ Rex the Tie Rano.”

 Siskin flew over the tables that were sunlit. He uttered a delighted week! and pounced on one of the tabletops, only to be stymied. His delight turned to frustration and he started to scratch.

“Hey, hey! Stop him, that’s plexiglass!”  Engineering shouted.

K’ndar called him back sharply. Siskin returned to his shoulder, showing him an image of large insect. It was, K’ndar noticed, a Pernian insect, not a Terran one. I imagine any specimens that were organic were eaten, he thought.

“What did he hit?”

“It’s called plexiglass, they make the table top covering the specimens inside. We righted the tables but it’s going to take some time to sort out the stuff in them, they were all moved around during the earthquakes. Some of them have things missing.”

“What IS plexiglass? It’s not glass, is it?”

“I don’t know. They had substances we have no idea how to make, never mind what to use. But real glass would probably have been too heavy, and I really have no idea how one would make a big sheet of glass.”

“It didn’t have any ash on it?”

“Not much, and once our electrics genius rewired the controls, she was able to get the roof to retract. We opened the big bay door, and the wind blew out most of the ash.”

“That’s a relief. That stuff is nasty.”

“Aye, it is. And I want to show you something else,” the man said, “see over in that corner? There’s a shelter, I guess you can call it, like a big cage. It’s got a fine mesh all over it, it’s almost invisible. Top, bottom and sides, all of this very fine mesh. The mesh is metal but I’ve never seen metal like it before. No rust, no galvanization, not even a buildup of ash! About the only problem is a few of the staples used to attach it to the wood supports pulled out. That shows you the tensile strength of this mesh was far stronger than the metal staples from Earth!”

“I think it came from Vulcan,” said another engineer, “They are masters of metallurgy.”

“I’d give a month’s pay to talk to a Vulcan, and get about ten kilometers of this mesh. It’s fabulous stuff.”

“The starships DID stop at Vulcan,” Jansen said, coming over. “One of the crew on the Bahrain jumped ship there.”

They walked over to the shelter, lit up by the sunshine.

 “We can’t figure out what this thing was for,” one said.

K’ndar could see rocks laid out in a sinuous S on the floor, bordering a channel, with pots of what appeared to be rock strewn all through.

 “Want to go inside?”

“Of course!”

Twenty five hundred years of darkness and the depredations of generations of insects and crawlers had destroyed anything organic. He looked at the S. Rocks formed a border of the channel. A perforated metallic disc covered a drain at one end, and a rock, hewn to allow a pipe through it, had a funnel at the other end. Several small rocks were piled in a shallow bowl beneath the funnel. Ah, K’ndar thought, it looks like a small waterfall.

“It’s piped and rigged for water flow,” the man said. K’ndar looked into the pots and realized what he’d taken as rocks was really rock hard soil.

Overhead, there was more of the mesh with empty hooks dangling.

“Ah,” he said, “I think, I think this is what they called an aviary. Where wild birds could be kept, like in a giant cage, they could fly in here but not escape.”

Yes, he thought, I can see it in my mind. “The pots, I bet they had plants in them, so the birds had a place to perch, maybe even nest. I’ll take some soil samples and see what was growing in them.” Now, I could use you, L’ichen, you jerk.

“Do you think you could, um, put birds in it now?”

“Whoa,” K’ndar said, Excitement building in his mind at the idea, “I could. Even if you couldn’t get water running again, because I think that S was a stream, we could still put plants in here, flowering ones, maybe even a smaller tree, like a manyberry shrub, and keep birds or little wherries in it.”

“That will mean someone needs to clean up after them, feed them, take care of them,” Jansen said, “never mind catching them. Honestly, to me, keeping a wild bird or wherry in a cage is cruel. Let them live their life out in the wild.”

“Oh. Right. Okay, well, I, I can at least start some plants. I’ll get P’jar to help,” K’ndar said.

“You’ll want to see the tables, too. Most of them had things that are gone, now, all eaten up, but there’s some with rocks and gems, and fossils, that sort of thing.”

“One of them was broken into, K’ndar, what was in it I don’t know, but there was definitely something valuable in it. It had a label but that thing was so old it crumbled into dust at some time.”

“Damn that thief,” another said.

“If I may interrupt?” they heard Engineering’s Chief call, “Wait until you see this!”

“K’ndar, come out, Chief’s going to open the other half of the roof. And you’ll see something that will knock your boots off.”

The three men were almost bursting with contained glee.

The second half of the clamshell roof retracted, allowing the sunshine full access to the warehouse.

The sun illuminated the entire lengthwise wall-and a mural, that stretched from end to end for almost 30 meters.

For a long, long moment, there was stunned silence as everyone grasped what they were seeing.

“Whoa,” said almost everyone. Then they walked to the wall. On it was a mural in paints that had dulled over the years, but still were visible.

“Don’t touch it,” Engineering said, “I don’t know if oils from our hands will hurt the paint. We were very careful in cleaning most of the ash and dust off, but I’m still wary of destroying any of it.”

“It looks like the colors have, well, I guess, faded?”

“Aye. I’m going to get with Acquisition to see if the colors are merely faded and maybe can be restored, or if what we see is what we get.”

Like reading a book, K’ndar saw the first figures: a tiny little animal squatting on its greatly enlarged hind legs. It was green with bulbous eyes. Next to it what was a furry little creature, no longer than K’ndar’s pinky finger. It had a short tail, a pointed snout with long bristled whiskers and sharp teeth.

Next in the parade was a snake, with an odd tail that looked like buttons had been strung together.

In a definite line, there were more: an animal slightly larger than a cat, with a black mask surrounding its eyes and a ringed tail

 Next to it was what was obviously an equine, with black and white stripes. Safely in front of that was a feline, larger than a lion, but with a short bobtail and two long sabers protruding from its upper jaw. Continuing down the line of figures was a sea creature, similar in build to a dolphin but no dolphin had gills on the side, nor a pointed snout above an underslung jaw lined with the most fearsome array of triangular teeth

Next to it was a tall animal with long red hair reaching down to its knees. Its elongated proboscis reached up between two long, gracefully incurved tusks.  

The next animal was unlike anything they could imagine. A bulky body atop four immense legs like bolsters supported a long whiplike tail that reached past the red haired tusker behind it. Its neck, almost as long as the tail, went straight up from its shoulders to an impossible height, topped by a ridiculously tiny head.

K’ndar noticed flying figures over the long necked beast. One had an elongated skull with tooth filled jaws, topped by a pronounced crest. A long neck stretched to a short body, with wings that stretched from long fingered hands all the way to short back legs. Leading it was a much smaller but riotously colored bird, long red tail feathers trailing behind. Ahead of the bird was a tiny furry creature, its skull topped by huge ears, with leathery looking wings.   

“All these creatures,” Raylan said, “note they’re all quadrupeds rather than most of our beasts have six limbs. All of them must be Terran. I wonder what in the world they are. Or were.”

The next and final creature was a man, dressed in clothing similar to the nylon things that L’ichen had stored in the bunker.

How odd, K’ndar thought, that the terrestrial or sea creatures grow larger and larger until it ends here at this relatively small man.

“It’s odd, that this human is the last one in the line.”

Jansen, who’d been next to him all this time, said in a strangely muted voice, “Um, no. K’ndar. Step back. Look up.”

Puzzled, he did as she said.  

He saw a curved line way up on the wall, easily several meters above the long necked creature.

It suddenly popped into clarity. All these creatures were lined up in front of one enormous beast.

Someone gasped in amazement. The big one made every other creature look small, even the long neck. Its eye was larger than the human’s head. Its jaws appeared to be several meters longer than the long necked beast. The underside of the lower jaw was pleated, as if to expand. It was obviously a sea creature as it had no legs, but it bore a long fin nearer the head, and, all the way to the other end, was a tail that ended in flat flukes, like those of a dolphin. The rest of the creature was one enormous body, with a tiny, almost insignificant dorsal fin on its back.

“This thing is enormous,” K’ndar sighed. The realization that the creatures were depicted in their true size made the big one even more astounding.

“This big one. My stars, it’s colossal. It must be thirty meters long.”

“I just noticed, there’s printing on the wall underneath each animal” one of the engineers said. “It’s still covered with ash but I can barely make out the words.”

He carefully dusted the one nearest the front end of the big one. “It says: “Balaenoptera musculus”. I have no idea if I’m pronouncing it correctly. You science types don’t seem to speak Global,” he smirked, “but it also says “Blue Whale” and says it grew to a length of more than 30 meters. That was a good call on the length.”

“A ‘whale?’

“What I wouldn’t give to see a live one.”

Its body build is similar to a dolphin, K’ndar thought, but the proportions are different.  

One person sighed. “This thing is the biggest creature I’ve ever seen in my life,” they said.

“And, quite probably,” Raylan said, sadly, “is like the rest depicted here, save for the human. It’s probably extinct.”