Page 53 of Stealing Mercury
She grinned through her pain. “That language would be geometry. It’s a twelve-sided shape. I haven’t seen one outside a three-dimensional navigation chart, and that only back in my time cramming for the pilot’s exam. I think it’s also our transmitter. And who knows what else.”
“The symbols—”
“Yeah. They match the ones from the terraforming platforms and that metal object we found in the cavern.”
Hesitantly, Mercury stepped up to the object and studied the symbols as she ran her hands over the surface.
“Ah, here.” She said the words almost to herself as she did something with her fingers.
One side sprang open to reveal a small lit panel.
Samantha crouched down to study the small screen. “If it’s as old as the terraforming platforms, it’s hard to believe it still has power, but it does. This panel looks like an interface.”
“Something to turn it off.” It had to be. Something so destructive clearly needed a way to be stopped.
“More than that. It’s way too complex for a simple on and off switch.”
“But turning it off is all we need to do.”
“Right, well, good news there.” She stopped and stepped back. “This interface panel is not as tough as the outside covering. Now that it’s open you should be able to smash it. Looks like you didn’t need me here after all.”
“You figured out how to open it.”
She shrugged. “You’d have managed.”
Mercury put his hand around the spike to see if he could pull it free of the rock ledge. A symbol caught his eye and stopped him still.
“What is it?”
“I know this symbol.” Mercury pointed to the one he recognized.
“Something from Roma?”
“Yes and no.” He closed his eyes and the image came back to him—a blue-black finger, drawing the shape in the dirt. The Mothers kneeling around it to mumble a chant.
“Mercury?”
Samantha’s voice drew him out of the memory. “The surrogates.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes had grown wide and round.
“I wouldn’t joke about this.”
“I know, I just meant... The odds of finding a connection to the surrogates here.” Her brows drew together. “Then again. We’re at the edge of the sector and so is Roma. And I did find this planet using an unofficial Roma star chart.”
She stumbled and Mercury steadied her.
“If this is connected to the surrogates,” she said, “you can’t just smash it.”
He frowned. “You believe you could learn something from it.” He was curious about the surrogates, but his curiosity didn’t matter when he needed to see to her wellbeing.
“Maybe. I have to try.” She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed as if she could rub away the pain. “If we could find them, the people who made this place, they might be willing to help your people.”
Mercury searched his memories of the surrogates. They hadn’t been true mothers, but they hadn’t been unkind. Who could blame them for not wanting to grow attached to children they knew would be taken away from them? “If they had the strength to fight Roma, wouldn’t they have attacked when their females were taken?”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Who knows how far they came to colonize this place. The people that were here might have been an advance team or the terraforming technicians. Their homeworld might not even know what happened to them.”
She looked so pale and her body trembled with pain. “That doesn’t mean they would help us.”
