The jungle proved to be as tenacious as I had suspected. Teeth grit, I forced my way through in the wake of the rough riders, which had forged ahead, all the while wondering why the hell I was here and grumbling that this 'structure' better be amazingly worth it. And then, as abruptly as the jungle had began, it ended and I staggered out into a spot that was completely free of entangling growth.
For a moment I took a quick look around. Had the rough riders actually taken the time to cut back the growth to clear the area around the structure? No, it seemed too organic, lacking the hacked-off appearance that bush had when manually pruned back. There was some other force at work here, something that prevented the jungle from growing closer.
"Just about done your sightseeing back there, doc?" Ash called from the knot of rough riders that were striding towards the squat, pyramid-like structure that dominated the cleared space.
Catching sight of the pyramid, all questions about how the jungle was being kept back were dropped as I sighed. Really? A pyramid? I knew such structures were inherently stable, represented a certain sophistication in understanding mathematical constructs and were relatively easy to build with primitive methods. But a pyramid? C'mon!
"Any other explorer cliches I should be aware before I do this thing? No? Very well, then," I muttered to myself as I prepared to step across the thick grass that carpeted the space around the pyramid.
Before I had a chance to take a step forward, however, a child's quiet voice remarked:
"Curious how perception and assumption colors understanding before true knowledge can be obtained," the voice said.
Barely repressing the urge to twitch in startlement, I looked to my right where the voice had come from. Then I did violently twitch when I found a small human girl with her blond hair in a ponytail and wearing a simple light blue frock standing there. She appeared to be looking at the pyramid in the near distance.
"Okay, beyond the fact that you're using vocabulary normally not associated with children the age you appear to be, and that advanced vocabulary is being used to render a rather philosophical, if somewhat vague statement, how the hell are you here??" I demanded.
Slowly the little girl turned from her apparent examination of the pyramid to look at me and give me a smile, albeit a rather mysterious one. I barely suppressed a shudder before I took a half step towards her, intent on demanding an answer. Before I could speak, however:
"Doc! C'mon, man!" Ash called, his strong voice strangely echoing in the cleared space around the pyramid. "Daylight's burning!"
My attention jerked to the rough riders for a moment by the shout, I turned back to the little girl, intent on continuing my interrogation. Only to find her gone, vanished as though she had never existed. There wasn't even any footprints left behind in the thick grass.
"You seriously must be joking," I breathed, vacillating between fear and an almost overwhelming curiosity. Then I was turning and running after the rough riders, epinephrine lending wings to my booted feet.
Ash turned with an upraised eyebrow as I ran up, panting from the exertion.
"What gives, doc? You look like you've seen a ghost," he dryly noted as I staggered to a halt beside him.
"Have any of you seen signs of living inhabitants since landing here?" I managed to ask between gasps for air.
"Living inhabitants?" Ash frowned then looked over at the other rough riders, who mostly wore looks of confusion. "Not sure what Command told you in the pre-mission brief, but Petra was cleared of sapient life before we even set foot on it."
"As were the other three elemental worlds," another one of the rough riders added.
"So, you haven't seen a little blond girl running around the pyramid."
That earned me a snort, even while a number of the rough riders shook their heads, one going as far as to mutter: "Dork has frickin' lost it on the first day!"
"We've been the only intelligent life on this rock since we arrived, doc," Ash assured me. "Science indicated Petra hasn't seen sapients in at least a couple millions years." His eyes narrowed as he noticed my expression.
"You saw something, didn't you," he quietly asked.
I returned his questioning look for a moment then shrugged as I pushed the knot of fear, anxiety, uncertainty and confusion into the back of my mind.
"To tell you the truth, Ash, I don't know what I saw,' I admitted then looked past him to the weathered gray pyramid. This close, I could see a series of alien etchings and images carved into the stone. I automatically began reaching for my notepad, an archaic yet useful assemblage of thin plastic sheets bound together with a pinch seal that I could use a stylus to write and draw on.
"And conjecture at this early stage in the game is useless. So, until I do know what I saw, I think I'll concentrate on something I can touch with my hands," I said before stepping past him and through the rough riders.
Ash watched me for a moment before sighing.
"If you say so, doc. Just keep us in the loop if you spot something weird, hey?" he said. "Despite our attitudes, we are here to help you." I looked over my shoulder at that last sentence and nodded.
"Of course." Then I was focusing on the wall in front of me.
Yet, even as my hand began sketching out the etchings and images in a clean and clear hand, I found my thoughts returning time and time again to the little girl and her rather vague sounding statement. Perception? Assumption? True knowledge? Just what the hell was she talking about? And what the hell was she, if no other sapients were supposed to be on the ground?
Still consumed by those ponderings, I found myself inside the large, yet strangely simple structure. It was there that a strange series of designs on a hallway wall caught my eye. Frowning, I pulled out a small light and used it to follow the designs as they took me deeper into the dusty-smelling darkness.
What was so strange about the design, you ask? Why, nothing at all! They were recognizable symbols from human history to denote the four elements. And that was what made them strange. Recognizable symbols in the middle of absolutely alien and unrecognizable imagery and symbols. So intrigued was I with the dissonance of finding such symbols in this place, coupled with the image of the little girl, I found myself almost running down the hallway in pursuit of their source.
And in doing so, I stumbled almost accidentally into a large chamber.
"Doc, come in," Ash's voice lifted from the small comm device I had attached to my collar. "Doc Weber, are you receiving?"
I pulled the device closer to my mouth.
"I read you, Ash," I said with a frown even as I lifted my light to scan the rest of the chamber, my eyebrow lifting to see it was covered with even more of the elemental symbols.
"Ah, there you are, doc." There was no mistaking the relief in Ash's voice. "You disappeared and we couldn't find you. Where are you?"
"Inside the pyramid," I said, scanning the next wall. "In some sort of large chamber, with strange symbols etched into the walls. I'm going to take a moment or two to document them."
"Sounds good, doc. Just let us know before you decide to vanish next time, eh? You made Sargeant Briscoe nervous. And apparently Brisket Boy here doesn't like being nervous."
"Ah," I replied, not knowing what else to say? Brisket Boy?? "I will do that next time, Ash. You have my word on that."
"That's all we can ask for, doc. Thanks. Ash out." And the only soldier that I had found that seemed to give a damn about anything other than his duty, signed off.
"Soldiers sure use strange names for each other, don't they?" A quiet, yet familiar voice asked from somewhere close by.
Instantly my light snapped down to find the little girl from the hedge and a chill swept through me.
"You, again," I husked. This time her appearance, timed to coincide with me being deep inside an alien pyramid, surrounded by darkness and hauntingly familiar symbols from humanity's past, was enough to send a chill racing up my spine.
"I'm not sure what kind of game you're playing here. I know you're no human, and certainly not a little girl! And this appearing out of nowhere has to stop! Just tell me what you want already."
The little girl's mysterious smile grew slightly.
"Your intuition serves you well, Doctor Weber; I'm not human. I simply felt appearing in this form would seem less threatening." Yeah, a little girl where no children should ever be, appearing at random and out of thin air to make vague yet profound statements. That's so much less threatening than the alternative.
"But you are mistaken. I don't want anything from you," she said, her hands held innocently behind her. "But I would like to give you something."
"And, and what would that be?" I stammered, unable to control the shaking that overcame me at that point. Where the hell was Ash and his soldiers when I needed them? I lifted a trembling hand to tap at my comm link but it was dead.
"You are a seeker of knowledge," the little girl said as if she hadn't seen me reach for my comm link, turning to look at the symbols now nearly hidden in shadow all around us. "That's what drew you here, against all reason. And what drew me to you. So I would like to give you some knowledge." She paused to look over her shoulder at me.
"Unless I've made a mistake about your purpose here."
"No, no," I hastened to assure her. What would happen if she thought I was here as part of the military??
"I am a scientist, seeking after knowledge, as you said."
"Good." She returned to her examination of the walls.
"Then knowledge you will receive!"