Return of the Ancients

Chapter 25 It’s Another World

‘Is that a tunnel? I mean, our tunnel?’

Albert Harper felt his heart thumping in his chest as he strained to take in the detail that was just visible from the probe’s camera feed. Data ran up the side of the screen — atmosphere: 78.09 % nitrogen, 20.95 % oxygen, 0.93 % argon, 0.039 % carbon dioxide, 0003 methane… A little high on the methane, he thought. Ambient temperature: 73 degrees, water vapour content, air pressure, and on it ran. All fairly normal.

Jim Takada leaned closer to the large screen. ‘It’s in ruins… and not just burned or blown apart. That’s antiquated ruination. So if it is ours, then when the hell is this happening?’

‘Good question. Swivel 360 degrees; I want to see what’s around us, and also what we just came through. Is the sound on?’

The technician keyed in some commands, and then carefully thumbed one of the twin joysticks. ‘Sound on, swivelling.’ The image slowly panned to the right.

A soft mewling came from somewhere in the dark.

Takada flinched. ‘What was that?’

‘Forget about it. We’re recording, so we can play it all back and analyse it later. For now, we need to get our bearings and see if we can find the kid.’

The camera continued to pan around until it was facing back towards their entry point.

‘There’s nothing there.’ Takada bit his knuckle in agitation.

He was right — there was no magic dark hole, or glowing doorway — just a damp, debris-filled tunnel.

Harper shook his head. ‘Gotta be, otherwise the signal would have no path back to us. We’ll find it. Focus — micro-matrix — analyse section by section.’

A mesh-like grid appeared across the screen, and each square was enlarged and briefly scanned in turn. Harper banged his fist into his hand.

‘Bingo.’

In the centre of the final quadrant, there was a slight swimming of the dark atmosphere, like steam rising over a hot bath.

‘That’s it. Lock it in.’

The location of the anomaly was recorded into the device’s memory. Harper spoke out of the corner of his mouth, not wanting to turn his eyes away from the screen for a second.

‘At least now we know we can find our way home. Drop a marker, just in case we need to find a way back in a hurry. Then take it back around and prepare to move forward.’

The floating electronic eye whined softly as its turned in the air.

‘Give me maximum illumination’. Circling the camera lens, an extra ring of lights shone deeper into the tunnel.

‘Jesus…’

Something the size of a large, pale, greasy-looking dog scuttled away into the darkness.

Takada grabbed Harper’s arm. ‘Did you see it?’

‘Hmm?’ Harper stared straight ahead. ‘Yes, I see it. Look.’ He tapped the bottom of the screen with his pencil.

For a moment, everyone was silent.

‘The ground.’ He continued to point.

At last, Takada murmured, ‘I see it.’

There were footprints leading down the centre of the tunnel. Harper nodded. ‘Size ten sneaker, wouldn’t you say? Follow them, ASAP.’