CHAPTER 8: THE PYRAMID The group kept its distance from the disc as it led them down the corridor. Rick had a taser at the ready in case they ran into any more of the strange creatures which had attacked Robert and Steve a few minutes before. Somewhere close behind, a shadow loomed out of the darkness and laboriously shuffled along a corridor. Soon they had reached the end of the long corridor to meet a blank wall. The disc uttered another grating electronic twitter and the wall slid away to reveal a bright, glowing passage running at a right angle to the one they were standing in. The disc went through the doorway and waited for them to do the same. Rick led the way cautiously into the passage, the rest of the group following when he was sure there was no danger. The disc shot down the passage at lightning speed and left them waiting by the door. "What do we do now?" Vicki asked. "I guess we should go down there," said Rick. They started to walk down the passage when a door opened in the wall beside them. Rick aimed his taser at the opening as an alien appeared before them, half hidden in shadow. It studied the group with its faceted silver eyes from the doorway, then stepped out into the light. It looked part reptile and part insect, with humanoid features as well. Its elongated, egg- shaped head had two bent antennae sprouting from the top of its large, flattened ears. Its skin was smooth and scaly like a lizard's and it had four long legs with camel-like feet. Covering its chest was a glassy, ribbed exoskeleton. "Greetings, you have been expected," the creature said in perfect english, "I am Kryll. Follow me, I shall take you to the pyramid, the Overseer wishes to speak to you." "My God!" said Captain Freeman, "they're speaking with an alien!" The pictures on the screens would soon be unintelligible, Will had already enhanced the scratchy images to their fullest. "You speak english!" Rick said. "Our race speaks all of your people's languages, we have been waiting for your arrival for centuries." Just as the alien finished speaking, the creature that had been stalking them lunged through the door and bore down on them. "Get down!" yelled Kryll. The scientists hit the floor and Rick turned and fired his taser. Simultaneously, their martian ally shot a burst of energy from a compact device held in its hand. The giant hit the wall and slumped to the floor as it caught the barrage fully in the chest. The team righted themselves and the martian dragged the creature with ease through the door to the cryogenic chamber gallery. It touched something on the wall and the door slid back into place. "What was that thing?" Rick enquired, "is it dead?" "No, it is only stunned," said Kryll, "It is what we call a degenerate, they are rejects created during the period of genetic experimentation. They live primitively in the labyrinth of corridors beneath the face. Now let us move on, I shall take you to the main pyramid of our city to meet our ruler, he has been waiting for you." "Rick, are you and the team alright down there?" Captain Freeman's voice, barely intelligible, burst over the intercom. "We're fine," Rick replied. "The static's getting bad up here, are your recorders still going?" "Yes sir, we've got everything our cameras have seen." "Okay. Will, Grey, keep watching the screens and when their images get too bad turn them off," Captain Freeman was saying. "But make sure you don't loose track of them, boost the tracking systems to full power." The group followed Kryll down the passage. "What about the other creatures in there, the ones in the chambers?" asked Dan. "They are of the martian race, they were, as are we, genetically engineered to improve life expectancy and intelligence. We once looked like yourselves, that was before the time of the meteor..." "The meteor?" interrupted Vicki. "Xanthir, the Overseer will answer your questions," Kryll continued. "Millions of years ago our race started genetic experimentation on themselves, cloning cells and mixing genes, to try to create a better race." They stopped at the corner, where the passage led off in another direction. There was an opening in the side wall through which a large, cylindrical vehicle, hovering about a foot off the ground within a round tunnel could be seen. Kryll stood on a platform leading to a door in the side of the cylinder and motioned for the scientists to board. Rick entered first and was greeted by another martian. This one was different, it was a reptilian creature, but looked almost human in form. Adorning its greenish skull were three backward swept spikes, one at the top and one at each side. It had a row of blunt spinal plates running down its back, three clawed fingers on each hand and a pair of large reptilian eyes. It remained silent until everyone was aboard and seated. "I am Betl," it said, "Welcome to Mars." He closed the transparent door which slid down to cover the opening in the side and stood by it while Kryll worked the globular control at the front of the vehicle. The front, and four areas on the sides, were transparent. Through the front could be seen the interior of the seemingly endless glowing tunnel. The tube shuttle started on its way, carrying them toward the city. It reached a tremendous speed almost instantly but the passengers felt absolutely motionless. Betl opened a cabinet in the wall and brought out a long metal box, in it were a row of clear, globular, glass-like objects. He walked over to the scientists and handed the box to Rick. "Attach these to your belts, they are gravity converters. They will adjust your weight to adapt to our gravity." Rick held one of the glassy objects in his hand and examined it, inside was a delicate arrangement of interlocking crystal fragments and alien circuitry. He clipped one on to his belt and passed the rest around to his team members who did the same. Grey, while trying to make out the pictures on the wall screens, glanced at the tracking map. The signal was getting dim, but something else got his attention. "Sir! They've left the face!" he said to Captain Freeman, who was studying a map of the interior of the face that had been made up by the ship's computer. "What?!" "That alien is taking the team towards the D&M pyramid." "That's ten miles away!" He looked for himself, the scientific team were over half way to the huge D&M pyramid and were moving at an amazing speed. "How could they get that far so quick? You'd better take the ship over there, I'll take care of the tracking station." "Yes sir." Grey and Will rose from their seats and made for the bridge. Captain Freeman sat in Grey's place and continued watching the tracking map. "Amazing." he said to himself. In a matter of seconds the shuttle reached the end of the tunnel. Betl opened the door and they stepped out into a huge cavern spanned by a network of metal walkways and huge structures bustling with machinery being operated by teams of martians. They walked along the side of one of the walkways and looked over the edge at the wide expanse of illuminated ice below, being melted and excavated by martian machinery. "This," explained Betl, "is where we reclaim air and water from the ice trapped beneath the planet's crust." "Amazing," said Rick. A levitational vehicle carrying a number of martians zoomed past them, and up above their heads a number of columns dropped slowly into the ice below. They came up to a transparent elevator cubicle in the center of the walkway, Kryll stepped in followed by Betl and the scientists. The elevator moved up at the touch of a button and gave them a birds eye view of the bustling excavation site below. Nestled amongst a mass of pipes and machinery, the elevator tube rose through the roof of the immense cavern. In the scout ship, now situated at the base of the towering, five sided D&M pyramid, Grey and Will were looking tiredly at the screens on the wall. They showed nothing but static. "We've lost total visual contact and tracking sir," said Grey, "something's shielding their homing signals." "Damn." said Captain Freeman who was trying to make radio contact. "Communication is down as well, there must be something in that pyramid that's shielding our signals." The next level was just as large as the one before, and was a brilliant display of glowing, spider-like, crystalline structures and more immense machinery buildings. "This is where the energy comes from to run our city," said Kryll, "We harness the sun's radiation through the walls of our city, convert it into energy and store it here." "This is all absolutely amazing!" said Clara. Soon the elevator left the harsh light of the intermingled mass of metal and crystal and came to a level with a lower ceiling filled with giant vegetation growing in rows of transparent tanks. Betl stopped the lift and the door slid back. They alighted from the elevator and their two martian guides led them to a forest of hydroponic tanks. The plants within ranged in size from about five to eight feet high, were light green in colour and had thick leathery leaves with rounded ends. In shape they resembled squat, dense leafed leeks. The tanks they were contained in were framed with thin metal pipes with spray nozzles along their length at regular intervals. Above each tank two pipes led off to a small pyramid attached to the ceiling. "These are what manufacture our oxygen," began Kryll," the plants have been genetically engineered to specifically carry out this function. The atmosphere inside the tanks is carbon dioxide rich to further promote the oxygen manufacturing process." "They have no roots," Betl continued," they absorb water through the leaves, that's what the nozzles are for. The oxygen is sucked out, mixed with other gases and transferred throughout the pyramid." "Over there," Kryll said, as he pointed to more tanks filled with even stranger looking plants, "are the food production tanks." The group then went back to the lift cubicle and began to ascend to the top of the huge pyramid, through many levels of living quarters and work places. ************************