The Shadows of Xaya

Ari - 8

They pass strange carvings on upright rock slabs that have been faded and dulled with millennia of slight, but persistent, wind action. But erosion is easy enough to fake. The first Astrela site was met with much fervor and dedicated study hundreds of years ago. But then someone had noted how much people were willing to pay to walk inside of one. Copies came to life on moons and planets within systems that had the population density to generate tourism. The wide distance between sites can make it difficult to tell which are real and which are the amassed dreams of people skirting the edges of colonized space. Ari has been privy to the initial reports of the site, and they know that the surrounding rock faces announce something in what little humans know of this ancient, quite possibly dead civilization. "Sunlight" and "life" are present among seven other iconograms without clear definitions. They are engraved with sharp lines and turns that define the Astrelan symbols and are tens of meters high. But the star in this system shines weakly upon a near-barren moon billions of miles away. It feels like most of the light that reaches it is directed from the gigantic gas giant that hovers nearby. Nearby in the astronomical sense. Actually quite far away if you needed to get to it.

Using the fastest transports humans have, it is still months away from other settlements. That alone makes Ari wonder why more people at base don't theorize on the site being of actual, alien-make. But few have wandered out here, fewer make regular trips. Few besides Porter. Chi stops gushing about Porter's potential angles once they get within a few hundred thousand meters, when the first two carved rock faces become visible. "Gorgeous, aren't they?" Ari asks the transport crew. The monuments are eerie and make them uncomfortable, knowing that thousands of years ago things that did not look like them had erected such works. But they are pleasing to look at. Wyatt nods before going back to regularly reaching out to the satellites that circulate above their heads, trying to find holes in the jamming signal through pure persistence. Chi seems to ponder the rock faces a while longer. "Why would anyone go through all the trouble of tearing into rock?" She pulls up a picture of the rocks onto the big screen in front of her, leaning forward to examine them more closely. "Those symbols are written nearly fifty meters in the air. What's the point?"

"To make it convincing," Ari shoots back. They realize they sound stiff and angry so they add on to soften the already spoken words, "After a while, the hoax sites stopped being believable. I'm sure the builders wanted to make something really convincing. I've only been to a few Astrela sites and I'm not the best judge of which ones are real and which ones are faked." What Ari wants to do is let her teammates know that the site is potentially real without making it explicit.

"Really Doc? This looks kind of real to you?" Chimanda catches onto Ari's bait.

Ari answers right back, "Compared to the two other sites I've seen in holovids, yes." Chimanda hums pleasantly, "Well it must be pretty cool then. I'm excited to look inside. Too bad Porter's probably booby-trapped it."

Ari does not like this idea, does not like that she didn't think of that possibility. "Why would you say that?" Wyatt asks, tensely facing Chi who is still scrolling over the image of the stone faces. She shrugs while replying, "I've never liked Porter... she has always been too aloof and too patronizing," she shudders as if reliving some prior Porter reproach. "I feel like if I was her, I wouldn't want people to know what I was up to. And we saw her with that... device, she seems like a weird enough person to know how to set up traps for anyone who might uncover a secret."

"I guess I have to agree with you," says Wyatt with a huff, turning back in his seat to keep transmitting to the blocked satellites.

"I still think she's probably an abandoned heiress who's planning to take over this quarter of the southern hemisphere, make a name for herself at this hoax site."