“Okay we should be safe here”. Arun said tapping the cabin roof. Luca looked out, then nodded and brought the tractor to a halt.
“So what was that about?” Raven demeaned. Arun sighed.
Sung seeing Arun’s reaction, spoke first. “So far the plants we have seen produce light as they produce sound. And that thing back there looked a lot like a plant. Also it had horns around it. The fact that is was still glowing suggested that it had just generated a very large amount of sound. So it was probably the source of the sound and standing that close to something that loud would not be good, particularly since we have no idea what might trigger it”. Sung looked at Arun with a little smile as if to say, did I miss anything?
Raven nodded. “We need to find water quickly. This place is clearly not safe”.
“No world is ever safe. And our best chance of getting water is in there”. Arun pointed to wall of the citadel.
The walls reflected the pale white light from the star. Arun wondered what they where made of. It looks like glass, he thought.
The gate house in the wall was visible some way to the there left. “Okay lets go. This place looks to be clear of the trees but no real signs of life here. There could be some sort of automatic system keeping it clear, so we need to be real careful here. Anyone sees anything odd, you let everyone know”.
The tractor headed off towards the gateway.
“This whole place is odd, do you want to know that”. Adams said to Arun. He didn’t seem angry now, just sullen. Arun noted it was the first time he’d talked to Arun without him speaking first. Maybe that was a good sign?
“You know what I mean. Anything that looks dangerous. And don’t forget your life is the on the line here to”.
“How do a know what’s dangerous?” He asked. “That plant thing didn’t look dangerous”. Adams asked.
He has a point, Arun thought. We have no idea what to expect, what is safe and what isn’t. Part of Arun knew this was a stupid risk to take, they probably could get water from the ground in the forest, after the trees probably needed fresh water just like normal trees. However another part of him, loved this exploring and the danger of it. He’d never done anything like this before, but he knew the risks of the sort of life he led. Danger was a fact of that life.
But what of the others, Luca he knew would accept just about any risk to explore here. Kharg and his kind didn’t fear death, they welcomed the right kind of death. Raven and Adams should accept this sort of thing, but following Associations rules gave you a false sense of security. You where taught if you followed the rules, you would be okay. But there where no rules for this place.
Arun worried more about Sung, more than he should, he knew. She had probably been ‘recruited’ by the Association with promises of lots of money or other advantages and guarantees of safety. There was no guarantee, here or on most worlds in fact. She hadn’t expected this, but she did volunteer for this however and seemed to share Arun’s joy at exploring this planet. Arun also realised he was not only worrying about her, but also thinking about her more than he should and in ways he shouldn’t be. She was in a happy relationship with Seaton.
The wall of the citadel now towered over them. The sensor readings had put it at nearly 80 meters tall.
“It’s glass!” Sung said with awe and wonder in her voice.
Arun’s first guess had been right. Now just a few meters from it, he could see their reflection on the surface, beneath that a deep green colour and beyond that, the suggestion of the shapes in the buildings inside the wall.
“Yes. Amazing. I wouldn’t have though the glass would support this sort of weight. The wall is probably meters thick”.
“It sort of makes sense”.
“How is that?” Arun asked Sung.
“Well if this is the legendary home of the lords of light, what better place for them to rule from than a glass place”.
Arun nodded. She was smart too. Sung seemed pretty much Arun’s ideal lady.
“Do you believe in the legend? Are you a…cyclist? I think that’s what Luca calls his faith”.
Sung smiled. It was the sort of smile a teacher might give a child when she corrects them on some fact. “No Cyclists aren’t one single faith. That’s the general class of faiths, basically any faith that doesn’t worship the Great Creator tends to get labelled cyclist. But it’s not that simple. Cyclists are those that believe that mankind has risen and fallen several, maybe many times”.
Arun nodded. “Believers in the ages of the Golden, Sliver and Diamond dreams”.
“Yes. But I don’t have any real faith. I was bought up in a Creationist family, but not strongly so”.
“You know a lot about the faiths, through”.
Sung nodded. “I know a lot about a lot of things”. She said with a smile. Was she flirting with Arun now? “No. All part of our history and studying Regan’s is mostly history, I’m afraid”. She added.
Adams starred in to his reflection on the glass wall. Arun worried about him again. What was going on inside that rigid mind of his?
The gate house was made from two square, blocky looking towers opposite each other with a gap between. There was no sign of an actual gate between them however. The tractor stopped in front of the gap, through it the central pyramid could be seen, the edge between two of it’s sides lined up exactly with the gate.
Luca’s head popped out from the cabin. “Just drive on in?” He asked.
Arun pondered on that for a moment. Unless there was some sort of force field there should be nothing to stop them and he did want to just drive in, but he reminded him self he had told everyone to be very careful.
“Hold on for a moment”. He dismounted from the tractor. “I’ll take a look first”.
“Here take this”. Sung handed him a small hand held box. It was a sensor unit. “Know how to use it?”.
Arun switched in on. “Air temp 8 degrees, pressure .87 standard. No local em sources beyond the motors in the wheels of the tractor. All looks good. A standard unit”.
“A simple yes would have sufficed”.
“Thanks. Be back in a moment”.
Arun walked towards the gap between the towers scanning for any changes in background em activity. He could read the distant low level out put from what ever it was under the pyramid, but nothing closer. It seemed safe. But he still stopped just short of the entrance to the gap. He looked around on the ground and the sheer glass walls either side. The gap was about 20 metres wide.
He couldn’t see any sign of anything that looked like a trap so he took a breath and stepped froward.
Nothing happened. Arun walked right the way through the gap between the two towers and distance of probably 10 metres.
Again nothing happened. The ground inside the complex seemed to be made of crushed white rock. The bits of rock, maybe marble, where large and the edges sharp. Clearly this would stop any animals that didn’t have thick skin on their feet from coming in. But so far we’ve only seen birds, Arun thought. We haven’t seen much of the world yet, he added in his head.
“Seems safe”. Arun beckoned the tractor forward.
“Do a circuit of the central pyramid, there must be a way in to that place”. Arun told Luca as he boarded the slow moving tractor.
As they had seen from the sensors while in orbit, the pyramid was surrounded by a number of small blocky buildings scattered around in the complex. What they hadn’t been able to see from orbit that there where pathways made of glass connecting each one of the buildings. The buildings them selves seemed to be made of large blocks of glass. The outside wall had a looked like a single huge chunk of glass, these buildings where clearly made of regular square blocks. There seemed to be no particular pattern to the buildings, some where regular single story buildings while others looked 3 or 4 stories tall and looked like they had been built by a 3 year old with his building blocks.
“Why?” Arun asked out loud, with a quizzical grin.
“Good question, why are we here?” Adams asked.
“I don’t think he meant that”. Sung said with a grin.
“Because we need water and this place is the best place to get it”.
“That’s not it and you know it” Adams said angrily. “We could have got water in the forest. No you came here because you wanted to and you don’t give a dam about any of us”.
Arun knew the man’s words where at least partially true. “Yes we probably could have got water in the forest, but we have no idea what sort of contaminants would have been in it. This place must have a good source of clean water somewhere, life needs that”.
“And your guessing that the life that built this place is like us. We don’t know what sort of abominations against the great one lived here. There water must be contaminated beyond cleaning as where they. The great one cleared this place out and hid it away so none would be touched by it again…” The man’s voice was getting louder and hasher with each word. He was starting another religious rant. Arun was about to interrupt him when Sung suddenly shouted, “Then why come?”
Adams stopped. He just looked at her, with a looked of pure hate. His eyes flicked to Arun. Everyone tensed for a moment.
“That’s what sort of people built this place”. Sung shouted, pointing behind both Arun and Adams. They both turned around.
The tractor had now rounded one of the corners of the pyramid and it was moving along the back, flat, side of it. Here there was clearly an entrance. It was right in the middle of the face and it was flanked by two large statues. The statues, like everything else here where made of glass, but unlike everything else, the glass was deep black, obsidian glass.
Only the faint white light outlined the sharp edges of the figures. Against the dark green glass of the pyramid they where the blackness solidified.
It was difficult to make out details, but the figures where humanoid in shape, but there looked elongated and to tall for normal human proportions. They looked more pure blood Fabian than human, but then every edge was sharp and every face a flat plane. It could have been a stylised Fabian figure, Arun thought. Given that they where made of glass, maybe this was the best that they could do? He wounded.
“Fabian?” Sung said to her self.
“I think so” Arun answered. “They do clam to be one of the old races”.
Sung nodded. “They don’t really know them selves. I know first hand, Seaton is a major authority on his peoples history”.
The figures stood 10 meters high, apparently guarding the small entrance to the pyramid.
“They are Fabian, look at the weapon” Sung pointed to the swords that both figures held. They where the traditional long pointed blades that pure blood Fabian’s of the warrior cast where required to carry when in public.
“Oh Seaton will love this a definite,albeit indirect connection between the Fabian’s and Regan’s”. Sung giggled happily.
“You laugh at there dark heresy” Adams muttered under his breath. Sung just looked at him but said nothing.
“Well the good news is that whoever build this place, these statues aren’t life sized”. Arun pointed to the door way in to the pyramid. It was large, but only 5 or 6 meters tall.
The tractor came to a halt. “No wide enough for Regan’s to get through comfortably however”. Sung said, sounding a little sad.
“We go on foot from here”. Arun said as they all disembarked from the tractor.
Arun stepped over the threshold and in to the pyramid.
“Woha”. Sung called out as he did. Arun stepped back quickly. “Whatever the power source is in there, it just spiked in output”. Sung was looking at her hand held scanner. “The output just when up 10 fold”.
“This is to dangerous, we have no idea what is in there”. Raven said.
“True, but it’s the surest source for clean water. We have to go in there”.
Raven shook his head. “No we don’t there must be water out there in the forest and if not you could generate some from your reactor or we could skim some when we get back to normal space”. Arun glanced over to Luca, he nodded ever so slightly. Arun knew the generating of water from the fusion reactor was in theory possible, and it seemed Luca had just confirmed it was a practical possibility too. “This is exploring because you want to”.
Arun was hesitated for a moment, everyone was waiting for his come back, but at the moment he had none.
“This place could be very important”. Sung said, filling the short silence. “I was hired to research possible Regan colonies in…”
“Ah…Remember your contract”. Raven interrupted her.
“Oh forget my contract, this place is far bigger than that. Yes there is probably an old Regan colony in the Kason system”. Sung said to Arun with a grin. “But this place could prove the link between the Regan and Fabian races, which could prove that Fabian’s where one of the five races. Do you have any idea how huge that would be?”
“What value would that knowledge have to the Association?” Raven asked.
Trust Raven to think of that. He was a real company man, Arun thought. It was true that information would probably be no use to the Association, in fact it would probably weaken human’s standing in general. Now if they could prove, as the Association and much of mankind believed, that mankind them selves where one of the 5 races, that would be huge.
It seemed that Sung didn’t have an answer to that, but Arun did. “Your right it’s probably not of much use, but a working Regan built jump gate and one of that size. I’m guessing that would prove to be hugely valuable to you”.
“Yes of course, but what does that have to do with exploring this place?” Raven asked. It was a good question, the Association hadn’t knocked all of the sense from this man yet.
“Quite a bit actually. The station and this place are almost certainly linked and if you are to get any real value from this discovery, you will need to look at it detail over a period of time and since you can’t guarantee that you will ever be able to get back here, you need to do that now. For that you will need food, air and water. Your only going to find that right here”.
It was Ravens turn to be lost for an answer for a moment now, but no one leapt to help him. “You are correct of course, but I still believe this place is an unnecessary risk”.
“Noted, but we are here now and we are going in”. Arun said flatly. “Any indication of anything else going on in there” Arun asked Sung.
“Just the power increase oh and that”. She pointed to upwards to the pyramid. Somewhere inside the mountain of glass something was glowing softly. The light was faint and had a deep green colour by the time it reached the surface. Something cast a shadow in the light as well. It was not moving but there was for sure something solid and dark inside.
“Just light at the moment, no sign of any other radiation”. Sung said showing the readings to Arun.
“Any chance that the glass could be blocking other forms of radiation that we might hit when we get inside?” Arun asked
Sung shrugged. “Not sure. That’s not really my field. But there is a lot of glass and glass is pretty dense. I would say that it would have to be a very strong source to read it from here. We might come across higher levels inside”.
“That’s a good answer from someone that isn’t sure”.
Sung smiled at Arun. “Like I said I know a bit about a lot of things”.
“Okay. Sung, keep your eyes on those levels, we are going go in”.

Nothing happened this time when first Arun then the others stepped over the threshold to the huge building. The corridor was once again made from blocks of green glass. The blocks large and very precisely made. There faces looked perfectly flat and smooth. Arun wounded how they could be made like that.
The corridor was just big enough to get two people walking side by side in, but that was a cosy fit. Arun didn’t mind at all that Sung wanted to walk by his side.
The green light above them, seemed to be coming from the centre of the pyramid and lit the ceiling, walls and floor of the corridor. Only a small rectangle directly ahead of them remained an inky black.
Luca was directly behind them, which left the three Association people at the rear. Arun didn’t like the way this had turned out, but Raven wasn’t going to be separated from his body guard and Adams…well he was Ravens problem now.
“Does this fit in with any legends you know of?” Arun asked Luca.
“No, sorry this all new to me. New and wonderful” The big man sounded like a kid with a new toy, Arun thought with a little grin. Arun was having a great time of it as well, exploring something that probably no human had ever seen, with a smart, beautiful, wonderful lady…No, Arun told him self. He shouldn’t think about Sung like that.
There foot steps echoed against the hard flat glass surfaces.
“Do you hear that?” Luca asked. Both Arun and Sung stopped dead. Luca nearly walked in to them. “What do you hear”. Arun asked him.
“The echo it’s…changed. Sounds different now”. Every one had now stopped.
Silence filled there ears for a few moments. “Nothing else is moving here”. Arun said.
“Maybe the corridor changes up ahead. We have travelled about a quarter of the way in to this place. There is probably some sort of open space in the middle, maybe we are coming up on that?” Sung suggested.
Arun nodded. “Only one way to find out”. He started walking again.
“Oh yes” Luca whispered under his breath.
As they moved forward, the light coming from the walls and ceiling of the corridor changed. Instead of being three long ribbons of dim green light fading in to the darkness in the distance, they came to a definite end.
“Some sort of chamber?” Arun said, mostly to him self.
A few meters further down, the corridor did open out in to a large chamber.
It ran at right angles to the corridor and was much bigger, both wider and taller. Their foot steps which had been quickly echoing around them, where now much longer echo’s. From the corridor you could not see either end of the large camber. It had a gently arching ceiling some 10 metres above there heads.
The glowing light coming from within the pyramid seemed brighter here to.
“Now this is more like the sort of size Regan’s would be comfortable in”. Sung said.
“But how would they get in? They couldn’t come the way we did”. Arun looked around the chamber, like the corridor it was totally empty.
“But no water”. Raven said sullenly.
“So we spread out along this chamber then?” Sung asked.
Arun shook his head. “No we stick together. Any changes in those readings?”
Sung checked the meter. “Getting some heat from the light now, but nothing else. Which way then?”
Arun shrugged and then pointed left. The chamber was wide enough now that all of the party could walk side by side. Luca took up position by Arun and Sung. But Raven stayed close to Kargh and Adams lagged behind, looking numbly around him.
After walking a short distance they came across another corridor on the opposite wall from the one they entered though. This corridor was wider, but no taller than the first corridor. It slopped upwards noticeably too. The slope was gentle, but even so every few meters a small step cut in to the glass.
“Still to small for Regan’s. We go up then?” Sung asked. Arun nodded.
Moving upwards the light continued to get brighter.
“Getting warmer now”. Arun commented.
Sung checked the meter. “Yes, starting to see slightly increased radiation levels to. Still well within safe limits however”.
“And do you hear that as well?” Arun asked. They all stopped and listened. In the distance they could hear a gentle hissing sound. “Sounds like running water doesn’t it” Arun said, turning around to look at Raven. He just nodded.
The continued climbing the corridor. A minute or so later, the corridor opened out in to a huge chamber. It was was brightly lit compared with the rest of the pyramid and way bigger than anything they had seen so far. It was circular and must have taken most of the space in the middle of the pyramid. From it’s wide base, it slowly tapered to a blunt dome. The corridor opened out on to a gallery about mid way up the wall of the huge chamber. Above the centre dome, the glowing light sat. It was still some way above that, buried deeply in the green glass.
Below this, on the chamber floor was a large deep pit. In to this pit falling from both sides where two wide but shallow streams pouring down steps cut in to the vertical walls of the pit. The pit was deep, deep enough that you couldn’t see the bottom from the gallery.
“And I give you water” Arun said with a flourish. Raven looked carefully over the edge of the low wall which surrounded the gallery.
“It’s not much good down there however”. He looked around the camber. There where three more galleries equally spaced around the wall. Each one was wide, but they fell short, just of connecting up with each other. Each one appeared to have a corridor leading on to it, and a low wall of glass at it’s edge. The glass walls where made of clear glass instead of the normal green. Below on the floor there where two large openings opposite each other, probably leading to more corridors, Arun suspected. The openings where a quarter of a turn from where the streams entered the chamber. The entrance to the galleries where skewed by an eight turn from the entrances on the floor.
On either side of the two floor level entrances where two shiny metal objects. It looked almost like they where standing guard over them. From the galleries Arun couldn’t make out what the objects where, but they looked like metal.
“Well there are two ways in down there and the chamber back there is still unexplored”. Arun said looking down. “We’er going to need more pipes to collect that water however”.
“Ah” Sung’s voice came from Arun’s left. She had slipped past him and was now at the far end of the curving gallery. “Come look at this”. She called.
“What have you got?” Arun asked. The others followed along behind him.
Sung was pointing at the section of the low glass wall in front of her. “Tad-ah! I give you Regan script”. A section of the glass wall was sloped towards the gallery and carved in to it where lots of small curving symbols. The symbols had been infilled with something black so they stood out on the clear glass. Beneath them there was some sort o pattern of dark and light lines.
“More proof of the Regan builders of this place”. Arun said, but Sung shook her head.
“Nope. It’s Regan script, yes, but look at this gallery”. Arun did. “It’s wide enough to two people side by side, but think about a Regan. Standing normally, comfortably for them, they would be a wider than this and there torso would normally be two and half metres up. No the console was designed for a humanoid to operate and probably…”
“Sorry console? Do you know what it operates?” Arun asked.
“Yes and no idea…yet. But if I can get back to my point, it’s important. Very important”. Sung said pointedly. Arun felt like a child being scolded by a teacher. “Sorry”.
“The console is the right height for a humanoid to operate”. Sung demonstrated, she was a little short to make an truly effective demonstration. “So a Fabian then?” Arun suggested.
Sung smiled. “That’s what I thought at first, but think about it. You might have never met a true blood Fabian, but I have. Half bloods like Seaton tend to be shorter and stockier than the real thing”.
“This console is for a human to operate”.
Sung smiled. It looked like she couldn’t contain her excitement any more. “Yes! I think this place could be the first bit of real evidence that humans where one of the five races!” She bounced on the balls of her feet with excitement.
“Wow”. Arun said. He understood the importance of this if it was proved. Mankind always had believed it’s self to be one of the 5 major races, but the only confirmed member, Regan’s, had always poured scorn on that idea. Even the Fabian’s which as Sung had said, weren’t sure them selves if they had been one of the 5, where sure mankind hadn’t been.
“Heresy!” Adams muttered darkly. “It’s all heresy, I tell you. Mankind is the true creation on the great one. All other races are lesser works of the true creator or worse tools of the dark ones, created to keep mankind from the path of true belief”.
Luca turned to look at Adams. Neither said anything.
“So the console, does it do anything useful?” Arun asked.
“What’s with the rush all of a sudden?” Sung asked. “We know we have water here now. As you said, we need time to study this”. She smiled, shyly and added in a soft voice. “There is no need to rush”.
Arun had used this argument on Raven, he now felt like Sung was using it and her obvious womanly charms to get her way.
“True…” Arun nodded. “…but we need to make sure this place is secure and that the water down there is good before we set up camp here. So we need to get back down there”.
“Your not going to let me stay up here and work while you do, are you?” Sung asked.
“Not a chance”.

They returned the long wide corridor and continued heading up it. The corridor contiuned for some way. Arun estimated that they must have been getting close to the outside wall of the pryamid when they came across another side corridor. It was the same size as the large one they were in and just after it, the main corridor ended in circular alcove. The alcove had no floor. Once again the shaft heading down was deep enough that the bottom couldn’t be seen.
“No wall around this” Sung said, apparently thinking out aloud.
“Is that significant?” Luca asked here.
“Could be, not sure yet, but I’ll tell you what it is”.
“Yes” Luca prompted.
“Not safe”. Her face light up with a dazzling smile. She truly is a amazing lady, Arun through. And she was clearly loving being here. Just being around a lady like that when she was this happy was… Arun decided there was no good end to that line of thought.
The side corridor this time was flat and level. Like the main corridor it had a high, vaulted celling.
“Regan sized again”. Arun commented. Sung nodded.
“And the Regan’s legs look kind of spider like don’t they?” She suggested.
“Yes, sort of. Your point being?” Arun asked.
“Maybe they evolved from something like arachnids, possibly subterranean and that could climb walls”. Sung suggested.
Arun nodded. “Makes some kind of sense. But walls of glass?”
“Just an idea”.
The corridor ran for quite a distance before, as Arun had suspected, it reached a turning on the left.
“If I’m right this will lead in to the main chamber”. Arun announced. Sung nodded.
“And if your wrong you could be leading us all to our deaths”. Raven said. Arun ignored him.
The turning on the left side was another corridor looking identical to the one they had just left.
“It would be easy to get lost in here”. Luca pointed out.
“Yes it would be if this place where a maze, but I don’t think there is a lot open space inside” Arun replied.
“Yes, given the this place is built, mostly solid glass, it’s probable that it isn’t strong enough to allow much space inside. We see that in pyramids of primitive cultures”. Sung added.
The corridor opened out in to a large brightly lit space after a short distance. Arun had been right. They where now on the ‘ground floor’ of the large central space.
“Okay, now those look nasty”. Sung commented on the metal figures either side of the mouth of the corridor.
The figures where large, impressive and, yes, Arun admitted, nasty looking. The back half of the statue, which was at least 2 meters long, looked vaguely like a big cat, but this statue, didn’t seem to bother with the skin of the animal. It large, powerful looking muscles where obviously exposed. Beneath these Arun could see the tendons connecting them to the large bone structure. It was like someone had intended this to be an anatomical model of whatever creature this was. But why make one of those out of metal?
While the body was feline in appearance, the head was more like an insects. It’s smooth, elongated skull was almost featureless apart from the large mandibles which had another mouth, complete with it’s own teeth inside it. On obvious sign of any eyes either.
It was a very odd and almost horrific thing to look at.
“We if they wanted to scare people off, job done”. Luca said taking in the strange looking statue.
“But why make it of metal, when everything else we have seen is glass?” Sung asked.
“Well it certainly makes it look more scary” Arun said as he walked to the edge of the pit. “No wall again…and it’s a long way down”.
“But we have water”. Raven edged towards the stream running in from one side of the chamber. He stayed well clear of the mouth of the pit. Kargh dutifully followed him, apparently unworried by the pit or the statues. Arun wondered if he had been suprised by anything thing they had seen so far.
Raven looked at the flowing water. It was clear and looked clean.
“You can’t test it just by looking at it” Arun said from his side.
“So how do you propose to test it then? By going straight in and drinking it?”. Raven asked him.
“Seems as good an idea as any”. Arun knelled down by the stream and after a short pause put his hand in the flow.
“Well it’s cold”.
“What are you doing?” Sung’s loud voice echoed across the chamber.
Arun’s cupped hand stopped just as it left the water, it’s contents quickly leaking away. “Just testing the water”.
Sung shook her head. “Typical men, rushing in with no thought. Try one of these”. She pulled a small glass tube from one of the many pockets on her jump suit.
“Ah a water tester. Good thinking”. The tube had a number of small slips of what looked paper stuck to the inside of the tube. Each one would detect a given contaminant. Arun filled the tube. “I wouldn’t have used your hand either” Sung said, tutting under her breath. “That could have been acid for all you know”. Arun looked back at her, she had a little grin on her lips. But Arun did realise it had been a little silly to have gone straight in like that. Had he been trying to impress her?
He shook the tube and carefully inspected the strips. They stayed white.
“Looks good. So we have clean water all we have to do is get it back to the ship”.
“We don’t have pipes long enough to get from here to the tractor, that I know”. Luca said.
“But we have a lot of collapsable tanks?” Arun asked.
“Yes about 30″.
“Okay so we fill them and carry them out by hand. Each tank gives one person three days supply right?”
“Yes, 3 days, but that won’t work either. Can bring the tanks in though that corridor, but not out. They won’t fit”.
Arun sighed. “But will they fit through the larger corridors”. Sung asked Luca
“Yes, no problems there”.
“And the pipes will travel the length of the entry corridor?”
Luca through this one through for a moment. “We can get enough piping to do that yes, but we don’t have that much with us”.
“Okay then it’s easy” Sung said with a smile. She had worked out a plan.
“Oh right yes”. Arun got it just then too. “We fill the containers here” Sung said, prompting for Arun to finish. “Then move them to the entry corridor and pump them out to the tractor”. He looked at Sung. She nodded.
“Seems like we have a plan, but it’s going to take a while. And we need to make serval runs” Arun looked at Luca.
“4 to get the tanks back, plus the run there and back to get all of the tanks and the extra pipes and the final return. It’s probably going to be a couple of days in total”.
“Great that will give me time to start to document this place” Sung said with child like joy. “Will you be able to get Seaton back here on the next run?”. She asked Arun.
“We will be able to get one person back here, but I’m not leaving anyone here alone”. Arun knew where this was going.
“Look this could be a massively important discovery and as you say, we might not get another chance to visit here again, so I need all the time and help I can get to record every detail I can”.
“No I just can spare the man power”. Arun told her.
“Do I look like I’m going to be able to help you move the those tanks when they are full? And Seaton won’t be much help either. Fabian’s aren’t noted for there strength”.
“No I’m not leaving anyone one here alone. We don’t know enough about this place yet, we probably…”
“I can stay with Sung” Luca volunteered. Arun should have expected this from the big man. He was always the perfect gentleman when it came to dealing with any women and of course he wanted to stay here as long as he could as well. If Arun had to choose someone to stay here with Sung it would have been Luca anyway.
He looked at Sung’s pleading eyes and then at his old friends face. It sort of made sense anyway, he told him self. Raven would never be separated from Kargh and Adams clearly wasn’t a good choice here.
“Mmm, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be given much of a choice here does it?”
Sung shook her head. “Nope, didn’t you know a lady always get’s her way?”
They where left with a radio, although it wouldn’t work through the 100 meters or so of solid glass that surrounded them in the pyramid and the rifle from the tractor. Arun didn’t need to tell Luca what to do, he knew what ever happened the big man wouldn’t be more that a few meters from Sung at any given time.

“So this is who you run your ship then?” Raven asked as they left the complex.
Only two could fit in the cabin of the tractor, so it had to be Raven and Arun.
“You let your crew decide what is going to happen”.
Arun looked at the man, this could be a very long journey back. “I trust their judgment and listen to them and they respect my judgment”.
“So you take a vote then?”
“No. I am captain of my ship. I give the orders and my crew follow them, but not because that’s what they have been trained to do, not because of some blind faith in ‘the system’, but because they know me and know that I’ve got all of our best interests in mind when I give the order”.
Raven nodded. “And that’s not ‘blind faith’ in you then?”
“No, not blind faith. I’ve proved many times to my crew that I have our best interests at heart”.
“Mmm, best interests. I see and that would include working with a bunch of pirates, thieves, smugglers and slave traders like the Free Traders Guild then. That is you having your crews best interests at heart?”
“The Free Traders Guild is not all like that, there are a lot of merchants in the guild who simply want to avoid the crushing taxes and controls you place on everything”.
“Yes avoiding taxes and controls, that certainly sounds like something a bunch of criminals would be interested in. And you admit your self that the Guild contains pirates and smugglers, yes?”
Arun felt he was losing ground to his old student now. “Yes of course there are. Maybe most of them are, but that is only because you drive the guild underground everywhere you find it. What do you expect when you do your best to criminalise an honest merchant just for being a member of an opposing guild”.
“Opposing! The Association is nothing like your guild, it has standards and training, not to mention a very large fleet”.
“Yes, your large fleet. Bigger than many of the league of worlds own navies. I wonder why you need such a big fleet, what plans you have for it. Well no actually I don’t wonder, I know. I know what the Association is like because I’ve seen it from the top down, from levels that you will never achieve. I’ve sat on the high council, I know how corrupt the Association is”.
Raven looked slightly shocked at this. Did he believe me, Arun asked him self. It didn’t matter it was the truth.
“Yes the guild has it’s share of pirates and smugglers, but at least they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. The biggest band of pirates on the space ways is the Association. It doesn’t board ships and steal there cargos, no it steals them when they arrive in port, it kills independent merchants with crippling taxes and landing fees and then when someone tries to do something different, something better, it sends it’s own little army of murders to get rid of them and pretend that some sort of accident happened”.
Raven didn’t say anything at the end of Arun’s angry rant. “Yes I know the Association and that’s why I left. And that more than anything else I have done to them is why they want me dead”. Arun’s voice was now calm.

Nothing else was said for the rest of the trip.
Arun was just happy to drive and keep his eyes open for any local animal life that passed by. There wasn’t a lot of it. He was lots of the light birds, as he was calling them in his head now, but nothing else so far. There must be other life forms, he thought, an ecosystem can’t work with just 3 forms of life.
There can’t have many if any predators, the birds seemed far to confident approaching a strange newcomer for that, but on the other hand there was the sharp stones on the ground in the complex. Was that just decoration or was it to stop local animal life from just talking in?