“Impressive isn’t it?” Siladan asked them rhetorically as they stared up at the imposing walls of the Infotheca. Years of study in the core of Coriolis station had left him jaded, but for most of the Firebirds it was their first experience taking in the wonders of the station’s central halls, which formed a huge space two kilometres across and several hundred metres high and held most of the station’s most impressive architecture. This included the Infoteca, which though nowhere near as visibly stunning as the Dome of the Icons or the plaza at the centre of the Core was still an incredible sight. Almost a hundred metres long, fifty metres wide and a hundred metres tall, it lay in the centre of a wide garden plaza like a huge rock or a strange skeleton, its pearlescent white walls and graceful arches of marble and rose-gold stone looking almost mythical against the more prosaic grey, silver and black of the architecture that surrounded the park. From their position in the Café of the Ancients, on the coreward edge of the park, the Infoteca took on an even more stunning aspect, because the far side of the park ended at a huge plexiglass wall, the outer edge of the station itself, which looked out into space and created a vast viewing field of stars and drifting spaceships. The stars and ships drifted behind the Infoteca, so that viewed from the ground at sufficient distance it looked more like a spaceship, an elegant white-hulled library drifting through the stellar wilderness.

  “It’s certainly impressive,” Saqr admitted, her eyes wide like saucers as she took in the star-spangled backdrop, the arches and minarets of the shining marble library, and the carefully-manicured lawns and ponds of the park that surrounded it. “Is it as good inside?”

  “Completely different,” Dr. Delecta told her. “Lots of rules, very cramped, not many elevators.”

  “Very mundane,” Siladan agreed. “It has underground sections too, which are even more cramped.”

  “Not enough lighting either,” Dr. Delecta added. She and Siladan had been three days inside the library, chasing leads along its narrow corridors and up and down its cramped and musty stairwells as they tried to understand rumours, ancient texts and fussy reports from arrogant, long-dead scholars. They had finally found what they sought, however, and had gathered the Firebirds here to show them what they knew. They had chosen the Café of the Ancients so that they could take advantage of its fine view of the park and the viewing wall beyond the Infoteca, and also because at street-level it offered several private rooms, where they could discuss delicate matters without being overheard. The Café of the Ancients was said to be almost as old as the station itself, and was jokingly said to have witnessed every major conflict over tenure that had occurred in the field of archaeology in the last two centuries.

  In keeping with the café’s reputation and his own academic history Siladan had prepared a small report, which he flicked to them now as they turned their gaze away from the stunning view and settled down to a small afternoon meal of coffee and sweets. Siladan and Dr. Delecta had spent the last three days digging through old books and video memories until somewhere in the back of the library they had found a strange headset that could be used to upload memories, which would then be searched through an extensive and mysterious library of recorded impressions. This strange technology from the Portal Builders had led him to a series of obscure poems from a long lost nomad prophet. This prophet had been studied by an archaeologist called Shahr Bhaga, who had recorded details in the marginalia of one of his early notebooks that described a statue very similar in form to the statuette they had briefly held. This statuette, so old it had no name, was said to be able to store any memory that the holder projected into it – and could recall that memory at any time in the future, perfectly vividly. Shahr Bhaga speculated that this statuette must use a technology similar to that of the fabled Spirit Ray, a legendary artifact of the Portal builders that was rumoured to steal souls and store them in its dimensionless memory banks. Shahr Bhaga speculated that, since the statuette seemed similar in origin to the Spirit Ray, it might have originally been part of a suite of technology that enabled anyone who accessed it to store and recall any memory. By the time Shahr Bhaga found the statuette its accompanying technology suite had been lost, and only a trained Mystic could project memories into the statuette or draw them out, but he postulated that somewhere in the Third Horizon it might be possible to find a complete set of tools, and if the statuette were in good condition it might be possible to directly access the memories of the Firstcome.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Or, since the statuette was suspected to be of older origin, could it even be possible to access the memories of the Portal builders themselves? Shahr Bhaga’s speculations trailed off at this point, and Siladan had been unable to find more information in the archives.

  This piqued everyone’s interest – could the full technology suite for the statuette, or that mysterious and storied Spirit Ray, be hidden in the dig? “And what would be protecting such a monstrous device?” Saqr asked, bringing a brief silence to the table.

  “Some old Portal builder automaton?” Adam suggested. “Something big and heavy and fast.”

  “Or something worse,” Al Hamra offered. “A creature from the Dark to defend a Mystic device.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dr. Delecta said. “It’s likely it was just the statuette. But what Siladan found explains why people were interested in it.”

  “And now the Draconites have it,” Olivia mused, “So are they rifling through the Mystical memories of a thousand generations right now? Or speaking to the memories of the Portal builders?”

  Everyone looked at Adam, who shrugged non-committally as Olivia asked him, “Do the Draconites have Mystics?”

  “Dunno,” He grunted. “I was an experiment, not an initiate. I don’t think I know much more about them than you do.”

  “I think they must have,” Dr. Delecta interjected for him. “Whatever technology goes into their psycho-sculpts, some of it must be Mystical. Maybe they think there are lost secrets in the memories there.”

  “And probably only a Mystic can access them,” Al Hamra guessed. “But they aren’t the only people who knew about it, I think.” Al Hamra had assigned himself the responsibility of investigating the dig site, and now he told them what he had found. “While you two chased ghosts I confirmed what we suspected. There was no official record of a dig being conducted at the coordinates Lavim gave us. But,” he raised a finger to forestall questions, “I found out a little about the site itself. It might correspond to a network of tunnels under a large rock, kind of a plateau that rises out of the jungle. And though I couldn’t find out who was doing the dig I did discover that someone called Dr. Wana was running a dig nearby, at an old collection of ruins by a river east of the plateau. There’s no evidence that she interfered in the dig under the plateau, but …”

  “I’ve heard of her,” Siladan said with a sigh as Al Hamra’s explanation trailed off into the unanswered question at the end of his investigations. “She’s famous for unorthodox methods and she’s had a few ethics investigations. Maybe she did something to disrupt the dig? I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Or her dig was a cover for a raid on the neighbours,” Olivia suggested. She looked to Adam, who was toying with a small bowl of pickled fish. “Did you find any lost mercenaries, big man?” But Adam shook his head. Getting nothing more out of him, Olivia continued with her own report. “I checked the area, and I have to tell you it’s a delicate situation. It’s near an encampment of people called the Sogoi, they’re remnants of Firstcome settlers. Went primitive during the Long Night, which makes sense given the conditions in the jungles of Kua, but they never recovered and now they reject interference.” She flicked them a map of the surface of Kua, scattered with red splotches showing the location of Sogoi bands. “They live in the jungle like natives, but this tribe are living near a small logging settlement. I found a fragment of a Colonial Agency report that says there’s growing tension in the area between the Sogoi and the loggers, who’re Zenithian.” She flicked them the report, with a couple of sentences higlighted. “Here’s the interesting part, they say the loggers are stirring up the spirits of the dead. Could be Firstcome superstition,” she said with a shrug. “Or …”

  “It would be typical of Dr. Wana to dig up some ancient evil,” Siladan murmured. “Another ethics investigation she’ll get her rich patrons to bury.”

  “If it hasn’t buried her,” Olivia finished. “Anyway we need to go carefully. We could maybe learn something about the area from the Sogoi if approach them right. I suggest weapons.” Seeing their stern looks and hearing Saqr’s sharp intake of breath, she added, “What?! There’s no interdiction! And the jungles are dangerous! I’m sure they’d appreciate a few carbines.”

  “I think she’s right,” Al Hamra backed the engineer up. “They’re going to be especially desperate for weapons if the dig site actually did disturb the dead. We know something’s there, and if it got out after it killed Lavim’s team, these Sogoi might know where it is. And they’d probably appreciate any help we can give them with killing it.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Adam said in a low, soft voice. “Let’s give ‘em some weapons, and go hunting shadows.”

  “Well then, I think we know what to do,” Al Hamra concluded. “We leave in the morning. Let’s go and find out what happened to Lavim’s dig.”

  “And kill it,” Adam said in the same threatening tones, “Before it kills us.”