On the short way to the hole, Riccardo stopped to inspect the dome. He put a gloved hand on it and looked closely, then knocked on it. Tap tap tap.
"It sure looks like glass to me."
"I wouldn't do that," said Maya. "This material's weird. It's holding a whole lot of rock and dirt along this side like it's nothing, but collapsed under me because I leaned on my elbow."
"You don't know that. Even so, it could have very little resistance to concentrated pressure. It might be some kind of alien crystal," mused Riccardo, "with strange and eerie properties. Who knows."
"I'd like to."
He shrugged.
"Maybe we will. Now let's get organized."
As they carefully descended, walking on the steep but providential pile of dirt and rocks, Maya observed the edge of the hole. The "glass" was maybe two fingers thick, something like two or three centimeters. The fraying was made up of thick, bent filaments of the stuff. She grabbed one, and, to her surprise, it was relatively soft, even if it looked like glass. She tapped in a nearby area: tap tap tap. Solid.
Riccardo saw what she was doing and imitated her. They were able to rip away several pieces of it with little effort, twisting and breaking the filaments with their hands. Once frayed, the "glass" behaved like really tough taffy. They pocketed some and resumed walking down.
"We could put forward a claim to name this... whatever it is... taffy glass," said Maya. "What do you say? Markus'll love it."
"Markus'll rip your arms off if you try that," answered Riccardo.
"Aw, no way, he's a sweetie."
"So why d'you wanna be cruel to him?"
"I don't!"
"You do! I-" he stopped. He was looking down. Maya looked down too.
"Well, that's no natural formation," she said.
It was a floor. A real floor. A level, dull, tiled floor. The tiles looked like dark gray rock and were hexagonal, broader than she was tall. One of them could have easily accommodated her along a diagonal. When she'd fallen on it she had been too focused on everything else to notice the slightly brighter, thin, straight lines.
"Oh boy," she murmured. "Not a cave, then."
"What the fuck?"
"Indeed."
They crouched and touched the floor. It was smooth under their gloved fingers.
"It could still be some weird natural phenomenon with the trappings of artificiality," mused Maya. "Like the Caves of Rainbow on Scorpius Central, or the Death Valley's sailing stones on Earth."
"Aren't you the one with respect for empirical data? I can't think of anything natural that would produce a glass dome, or whatever it is, and a tiled floor underneath. And on a planet that never knew intelligent life," said Riccardo. "This is crazy. If this is what it is, we're the first one to find signs of civilization outside the solar system."
"I am a filthy empiricist, as you so affectionately noted earlier, so I don't jump to conclusions," she opined. "It could be any number of things. An old Jovian base, for example. They started colonizing early."
"That looks like denial to me. I think we should explore a bit."
"No," she answered.
"What?" interjected a suddenly irritated Riccardo. "What do you mean by "no", Maya? You don't want to go see for yourself if we've stumbled upon alien ruins?" he said, pointing with a thumb at the cavernous dark surrounding them.
"No as in "not right now", Ric! Oh, my excitable dude. I'm convinced we will get out of here, but we won't be doing it back the way we came. It's too high up. We need to look for another exit. And I absolutely want to explore this, are you mad? But we got things to do. You know, maybe make camp here, explore a bit, come back from time to time to try the radio and sleep."
Riccardo deflated, his shoulders slumping. "You were condescending just now," he said with an expression of tolerance. Maya felt immediate regret. He was the youngest on the team, barely twenty-five, and some colleagues at the base were quite dismissive of him.
"Sorry Ric," she said.
"But you're right," he shrugged.
"As usual! Let's check the rover."
They took inventory.
Air tanks, check. This added at least a week to their reserves. Time enough to be rescued or to find a way out of there.
Food and water, check. The regulation week of them had looked so overblown for such a quiet spot of the galaxy. Now Maya thanked the anonymous bureaucrat who decided to keep the standard amount.
Pressurized tent, a small solar panel they couldn't use down there, a survival shovel, flares that could turn useful later, first-aid kit, suite maintenance kit, check. It was a miracle the crate was intact. Banged up, yes, but no damage to the content.
No trace whatsoever of the radar. The straps were gone as the machine itself. The frame was dented at the anchor points like something had ripped it out of its cradle. Perhaps it was still somewhere up in the dark, caught on the tip of an outcrop.
"That might be what saved my ass up there. Whatever ripped the radar from there surely broke the rover's fall."
"I was under the impression the straps broke when the rover toppled," said Maya.
"Apparently, not all of them," said Riccardo.
"Let's hope our luck persists."
They tried switching the rover on.
"Our luck didn't persist," said Maya flatly.
"Cut it some slack, the poor thing has taken a beating. The engine casing is all bent. If we have to remain here for a while I might give it a go. We still got the batteries, though."
"True. How's yours?"
"Another two hours," said Riccardo, checking the HUD on his visor. "Without Ziggy."
"Think you can troubleshoot him?"
"Sure, now that we've got power to spare."
"Get on it, I'll check your wrist."
Riccardo extracted a cable from his left forearm, hooked up to the battery's panel and brought up a terminal window on his HUD to restart Ziggy. Maya fetched the suite maintenance kit and started working on his wrist.
It took quite a bit. Working at the center of an insignificant speck of white in the dense gloom, bathed in the dancing circles of light coming from their helmets, they didn't speak. They were focused and tense. At one point, they decided to simultaneously recharge the suit's air tanks from the rover, just to feel a little bit safer, which made them laugh the nervous laughter of someone trapped in a cave on a remote planet.
And to think Maya had ditched the Belt exactly to avoid that risky shit.
Life's a bitch.
At last Ziggy stopped draining the battery and Riccardo's wrist was secured by gel and on its way to healing. The radios still didn't pick up anything, but things were looking up.
"Time to go on a hike," said Maya with a grin.
"I hate to be the voice of reason, but we still got to put up the tent."
"Easy peasy," answered Maya, taking said tent and pulling a string.
The tent expanded as she threw it and fully inflated before touching the floor. It was large enough for four people and had a small airlock to minimize loss of atmosphere. Riccardo helped her move the batteries and tanks into the tent's slots. Modular design was a staple for anything in the galaxy, or at least that minuscule part of it humanity had colonized. It just made sense to make everything compatible.
They decided to eat before leaving for a little scouting, but not in the tent: they didn't want to face the lengthy process of shedding the suits, and Riccardo's wrist needed to be kept immobilized anyway. So, no prepackaged rations you can chew, but a brisk affair with capsules of what they referred to as "sludge" inserted in the right slot of their helmet. Same thing with the water. The suits could efficiently process waste for twenty-four hours before needing a filter replacement–of which there were several, as per regulation–turning it into clean water and storing solid, dried remains as a powder in some strategically placed pouches the user could empty in various ways.
"Well, we're set. Let's go!" said Riccardo.
"Which direction?"
"I don't know. We could follow the perimeter of the dome, but it could be a long trek. The hill over us is roughly three kilometers by four," he said, pointing at the wall disappearing in the gloom.
"And I bet the really interesting things are in the center. You don't build a dome to put nothing under it."
"I hate to rain on your parade, Maya, but if we go around we're more likely to find an exit."
"If we go to the center we're more likely to understand what the hell is this about. I wonder why this area hasn't been better explored when the base was built," mused her.
"It's a low hill on a dead planet. If our current well weren't drying up, no one might ever even have walked up to here."
Maya stopped to think for a moment. Riccardo quietly waited. He knew that when she had her brow furrowed like that, he just had to wait a bit for a decision to come up. Maya was a more experienced spacer than him, having lived on Mars and in the Belt, so he tended not to force his opinion on things. As he did with the others, of course. He'd graduated just a year prior and this was his first job, so he observed a lot and confided in the others.
"We're not in immediate danger," she said at last. "We got air, food, shelter, and time. I say we go for the center and see what's there."
Riccardo, who had secretly hoped this was a suitable option, grinned.
"Lead the way!"
They left the dome wall behind their shoulders and started walking. The floor was smooth and regular. No dust, except the one coming from the freshly opened hole. Maya numbered every slab they passed with a laser pen–a little multi-tool included in every spacer's equipment.
They soon lost sight of the rover, the tent, and everything else. They were proceeding in absolute darkness except for their torches, which could light up about twenty meters or so in front of them. There were no echoes they could discern. The space seemed to suck up sound like a sponge while they walked, their steps faint in the hushed silence. It was like stepping in a temple.
Then Maya yelped.
"What?" said Riccardo, looking where Maya's beam fell on the floor.
There was a road.
A cobbled road.
It started abruptly, in the middle of the pavement, and went straight into the darkness in front of them. It was more or less six meters wide and had smooth, big, irregular paving stones flush to each other. A row of identical squared rocks, large enough to stand on with one foot, lined the path on both sides. It emerged from the hexagonal slates of the floor like a jeweler had inset it there, black against gray.
They stared at it for several seconds, mouths agape.
"W-w-" said Maya, her brain frozen.
"Looks like we found the yellow brick road," whispered Riccardo.
"What's that?" she asked, shaking her head.
"Nothing, an old movie. After you, Dorothy."
"Who's this Dorothy character?"
"Don't mind me."
Maya stepped on the road. It was, well, real. And solid enough. She hadn't been entirely sure. She felt like she was going mad.
"This is no ordinary road. No asphalt, and the stones don't look machined," she said, a few meters in. Riccardo was beside her.
"Yep," said Riccardo. "No polymers, no nothing. Stone. Looks ancient. Like they used to make in the past."
"But it's so... pristine..."
Around them, off the road, the gray floor remained unchanged and still stretched in every direction.
"Have you ever been in Rome?" asked Riccardo.
"I'd like to. Never been on Earth," answered Maya.
"A pity. You should go at first leave."
"That'll be in two years!"
"Still. Anyway, they've got similar roads. There's a place there called Ostia Antica. It's an ancient city full of streets like that. But old–like, weathered, overgrown. Beautiful place."
"Roman Empire, I presume."
"I'm impressed!"
"Mars is not the backwater you think, you smug Terran! We were their God of War, you know! We inspired their conquests! It's part of our spirit, really, even if just, like, at the supporting-your-team level."
"I didn't know that."
"There's much you don't-" she retorted, smiling, but the words died in her throat.
Maya and Ric stared ahead, slack jawed.
They looked at each other. Looked ahead again. Neither was able to speak.
They quickened their pace at first, then broke in a run, oblivious to any danger.
They stopped, breathless, just in front of it.
It was a gatehouse. A goddamned ancient gatehouse, like you saw in the historical vidseries. There were two squat towers with a gate between them. Thick, big chunks of stones at their base gave way further up to a white plaster wall into which was anchored a wooden superstructure with a walled passageway and a roof. The arch was wide as the road and open. A raised iron portcullis was visible up above, where it disappeared into the roofed passageway between the two towers. A straight wall of gray stone departed from the towers and went on in the gloom at either side. The road continued beyond the opening, where their torches revealed other buildings. The gray slabs came flush with the walls and appeared to stop outside.
"What the fuuu..." exhaled Riccardo, the first to regain speech.
"There's..." tried Maya, then cleared her throat and went again, "I think I see an inscription on the arch, on that plaque. Point your torch there, will ya?" asked Maya.
Riccardo complied.
"Those are letters, Ric. English letters."
"We're eight light years from Earth. On an exoplanet. Underground. In a place that probably hasn't seen any light in centuries, maybe millennia."
"Well..."
"Yes yes, empirical data and yadayadayada. Ziggy," said Riccardo, "scan that plaque and send a render to Maya too, please."
"Sure boss," replied Ziggy, and brought up a virtual reconstruction of the plaque on their visors for easy inspection.
The inscription read:
SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS
COLONIAE LAVRENTIANAM MVROS ET PORTAS DEDIT
TITVS FLAVIVS POSTVMIVS QVIETVS CONSVL FECIT LOCAVITQVE
"That's not English," said Maya, "but the script is recognizable! We use the same letters, more or less. Solar for sure."
"Ziggy, is this a language you recognize?" asked Riccardo highlighting the text on his visor.
"Yes boss," answered his suit.
"Can you translate it for us?" went on Riccardo.
The translation appeared on their display.
Maya's eyes widened in disbelief.
THE SENATE AND PEOPLE OF ROME
GAVE WALLS AND A GATE TO THE LAURENTIA COLONY
CONSUL TITUS FLAVIUS POSTUMIUS QUIETUS MADE THEM AND PLACED THEM HERE
"Called it," said Riccardo, snapping his fingers.