“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

King Lear - Act I, Scene iv

Genvass Shaafvaazif peered nervously into the yawning space as the group entered the ancient structure. The building was massive, but then, Precursor construction tended toward the large and imposing. The team carried flashlights with them as a precaution, but as they set foot inside the entrance, hidden lamps came to life, easily illuminating the interior. With a collective shrug, they turned off the handheld torches and stowed them back away. He wondered why they even bothered. The lights always worked.

Now that they were inside, it was time to go to work. “Preliminary Survey Report for Structure 371, Grid 004 - 105,” he began, speaking into the recorder. “Power and basic infrastructure functioning normally. 371 is constructed primarily with…”

He paused, looking closer at the nearest wall. Almost all the buildings were made from some sort of crystalline material they were still struggling to analyze, so in the interim, they’d decided on a simple classification system for now. The crystal was a deep blue, so that meant…

“... constructed primarily with Type 4 material,” he concluded, satisfied for the moment. Odds were that system would change if they ever cracked the ancient’s engineering secrets. Hell, for all they knew, the different colors were nothing more than decoration, the equivalent of splashing paint on a bulkhead. But they had to start somewhere. Coding the buildings by color was as good a method as any.

Up ahead, Sergeant Sultan swept her rifle left and right, on guard for any potential threats. He wondered why they bothered with that as well. There was nothing here, there was never anything here. The structure would eventually give up its secrets and tell them its purpose, but everything they’d discovered so far was utterly benign. Their distant ancestors certainly grasped the concept of occupational safety and had ensured their factories and research facilities wouldn’t annihilate the unwary because of negligence. That didn’t mean it was impossible to get yourself killed; you could still jump off the roof or order a machine to construct a laser in order to shoot yourself in the head, but at least they made you work for it.

“... Clear,” the Valkyrie announced, relaxing her posture as she pointed her weapon at the floor. “No threats that I can see.”

“Are there ever?” Diggs snorted, shifting his toolkit from the right hand to the left. “I don’t see why we even need an escort,” he continued, echoing Genvass’s own thoughts.

The Dharmist nodded in agreement. He almost hadn’t recognized Diggs when they teamed up. The kid had grown thirty centimeters or more since the last time he’d seen the boy, not to mention that he was talking, not merely grunting and growling, which had caught him completely off guard. But those mismatched eyes of his were still the same, and impossible to forget.

“For the same reason you use lockouts when you’re working on the ship’s engines,” Sultan fired back. “If you let down your guard and fail to cover your ass, eventually something with sharp teeth will latch onto it.”

“Words to live by,” Ess agreed from the tablet. “Spot anything I can plug into?” she inquired.

“Not yet,” Genvass replied, “but we’re keeping our eyes peeled.”

Ess Peon was an Avatar, and supposedly a highly skilled Data Retrieval specialist. He’d hoped to see Alphad again, and maybe even have him assigned to his team, but it seemed his old shipmate was under something of a cloud amongst his electronic kin, despite the weapon he’d unveiled at the eleventh hour to fight off the Yīqún. Ess seemed competent enough, projecting the image of a female dark elf with sharply pointed ears and long white hair tied up in a cascading ponytail. She had grayish-blue skin and wore stylized fantasy armor, though Genvass still hadn’t decided if he trusted her.

“Looks like elevators over there on the left,” Diggs pointed, as the team drifted in that direction. There didn’t appear to be much on the ground floor, something else common to most Precursor buildings. He wasn’t sure why. Too public, perhaps? He jotted that thought down in his personal notebook, filing it away with all the other random ideas he’d had while searching the ancient city.

Glancing about, Genvass noted for the record the lack of any obvious transport tubes. The Precursors had been amphibians, according to a certain Knight he knew, equally comfortable in both water and on land. It was the reason rivers and lakes abounded on this world, many of them obviously the product of intelligence. In several of the buildings they’d explored, they’d found massive tubes filled with aqua pura honeycombing the structure, apparently created so their ancestors could swim easily from one section to another. Oddly, they weren’t universal. In many cases, discreet atomizers would spray a fine mist throughout the open spaces instead, keeping the humidity level far higher than humans found comfortable.

What made the situation even stranger was that when Terrans entered a complex that used the spraying systems, they would immediately shut down. Somehow… they still weren’t sure by what means, exactly… the building could sense their physiology and adapted accordingly. Not only that, the humidity level dropped to something they found more palatable, yet did so with no obvious pressure or temperature changes. How? How did they know? And how did they adjust so quickly, so seamlessly? Yet another mystery to be solved.

The group made their way over to the lifts, choosing the first one by default. Genvass reached inside his pocket and removed a pipette, placing it over the sensor as he squeezed out a few drops of blood. The Novo Terrans grasped no one enjoyed slicing their thumbs open to activate the ancient equipment, so instead, they came up with an alternative solution. Using syringes, they would draw blood from a volunteer, infuse it with anticoagulants, and then store it away until it was needed. The clan leaders had even briefly toyed with combining blood from multiple donors, since it wasn’t destined for medical use.

That practice had ended even more quickly than it began, when they learned Precursor tech got twitchy when exposed to the mixed hemoglobin. The first time they’d tried using the stuff, the machine muttered something about a “Rashmi’Kem Protocol”, and after a hushed consultation with Chevalier Blye Tagata, they immediately ended the project.

Better safe than sorry.

The controls glowed as the red droplets landed, only for the blood to be siphoned away, disappearing into the panel as the platform beneath their feet rose. The lifts they’d found in most structures weren’t all that different from ones used by other races; apparently, even the Precursors couldn’t improve upon the old-fashioned technology. Choosing their destination was still hit or miss, but they were slowly making progress.

And isn’t that just our situation in a nutshell? Genvass sighed. We’re surrounded by machines that could give us anything we need, and yet we’re nothing but apes, trying to grasp what a wheel does. But hey… we’ve almost figured out how to go up and down!

It was frustrating, but then no one said it was going to be easy. And they really shouldn’t complain. After all they’d endured since the destruction of Earth, life on New Terra truly was paradise. They were safe, well fed, no longer subject to the whims of aging ships, able to breathe fresh air and feel the sun upon their face. It was all they could have asked for, and more.

But when you looked around and saw all that incredible architecture, filled with treasures and secrets beyond imagining, it was hard to not strain at the leash. The Precursors had once held the power of the gods themselves, and with a bit of luck, not to mention a great deal of hard work, one day, perhaps, they could as well. It was heady stuff.

Dangerous stuff, if they weren’t careful.

The lift glided to a halt as the door slid open, revealing a chamber filled with strange-looking structures and devices. Diggs gave out a low whistle as they stepped off the elevator, with Becca taking point once more. “Damn,” he said in wonder, “I could spend my whole life here, and I don’t think I’d ever figure it all out.”

“Look for a compatible port,” Ess Peon urged. “Maybe I can get some idea what they used this place for.”

The team fanned out as they searched for somewhere the Avatar could jack in. Most of the technology they’d uncovered so far activated the same way Samara’s Guardian or Athena, the protector of this world, did via a DNA lock. Sometimes, however, they found ports where compatible electronics could link in. It took them a while to come up with the right combination of hardware and software to actually make them work, but once they had, it sped up their investigation of New Terra considerably. The Avatars would take point when a suitable port was found, since they were uniquely qualified to exploit them. It was the reason Ess was on their team, in case they spotted one.

Genvass moved from one object to the next, recording his observations, but the devices meant nothing to him. The space could be for literally anything, from a child’s playroom to a computer factory to something so bizarre they lacked the words to even describe it. Exploring these ancient structures was both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure, and while this world fascinated him, he could never quite rid himself of the sense that they were playing with fire.

“Hey, I found one!” Becca called out, waving the others over. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, Ess,” she proclaimed, pointing at the data port she’d just located.

“Care to do the honors, Gen?” the Avatar chuckled, rubbing her virtual hands with glee.

“Certainly,” he agreed, setting the tablet down on a convenient shelf as he made the connections, double-checking the cable to ensure everything was secure. “Be careful,” he cautioned her. “If you sense any danger, get out of there at once.”

“It’ll be fine,” she assured him. “No one’s been hurt yet on these expeditions, right?”

“The operative word in that sentence is ‘yet’,” the Valkyrie snapped. “Don’t get cocky.”

“You’re mistaking confidence for cockiness,” Ess grinned. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck…” Genvass began, but by then she had already vanished.

“Someday she’s gonna bite off more than she can chew,” Becca predicted.

“I dunno. I kind of like her,” Diggs admitted with a cautious smile.

The Valkyrie just sighed. “Come next Rendezvous, we really need to find you a girl.”

“Hey!” the young Tinker protested, his cheeks now bright red.

“Don’t take it personally, Diggs,” Genvass told him, “but you are kind of quick to fall for a pretty face.”

“I am not!” he objected, louder and even more embarrassed.

“Diggs, it’s okay,” Genvass said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve all been there. We were young once too, you know.” he smiled.

The boy gave him a dubious look, earning a chuckle from Becca. “So, what do you think this place is?” she asked, changing the subject to spare him further humiliation.

“I have no idea,” Genvass shrugged, before glancing over at the boy. “Diggs?”

“I dunno,” he said again, scuffing his foot on the crystal floor, his eyes now downcast.

Thankfully, Becca stepped up and took the lead. “Diggs, I’m sorry we teased you,” she apologized, “but you are the Tinker of this team, so we really need to hear your best guess. For the record, if nothing else.”

He looked at her with misgiving, attempting to gauge the honesty of her words, before finally deciding that she meant it. Bobbing his head, he moved forward, giving the space a more thorough examination, inspecting each of the objects. “Huh,” he said at last, as something seemed to catch his attention.

“What is it?” Genvass asked, curious.

“Well, those Precursors,” he said awkwardly, scratching his chin in a way the other man immediately recognized, “do we know how big they were?”

The other two shared a brief look. “Roughly the same as us, according to Blye,” the Dharmist said. “Why?”

“Well… cause those things are all about person-sized,” he observed. “Could be some sort of… I dunno… medical equipment, maybe?” the young Tinker surmised. “That’s the first thing that pops into my head, anyway.”

“Interesting…” Genvass said thoughtfully, peering closer at the objects himself. There certainly seemed to be a space where a Terran… or Precursor… could fit on or in each of the devices. “Could be you’re onto something, Diggs,” he smiled. The boy lit up with a broad smile at the unexpected recognition.

“Not bad, kid,” Becca grinned with approval, as Ess suddenly reappeared on the tablet’s display.

“... you won’t believe what I found,” she said with excitement. “Do you know what this place is?”

“A hospital, perhaps?” the Dharmist guessed, giving Diggs a knowing wink.

The Avatar scowled. It bothered him somewhat that she made it look cute. “All right, just how the hell did you figure that out?” she demanded.

The others chuckled. “I’m afraid I can’t take the credit,” he answered. “In fact, it was actually young Master Diggs that suggested the possibility.”

“Is that so…?” she said carefully, giving the Tinker an appraising look. Diggs blushed again as she eyed him before shrugging. “Well, you were right,” she continued, “although it’s not exactly a hospital in the purest sense, from what I’ve been able to glean. More like a medical research center that also conducts outpatient treatments, though I’m not sure if the Precursors made that fine a distinction between the two. There’s a lot of it I can’t make heads or tails of, but what I have been able to grasp is telling me that this place could treat, well, anything.” The Avatar looked more than a little astonished at the possibilities.

“The Knights are definitely gonna want to hear about this place,” Becca observed.

“Not just the Knights,” Genvass said pointedly. “There’s plenty of Proteans out there desperate for medical intervention, individuals that the Knights simply can’t help. Some of the procedures they underwent…” He shook his head, suddenly reminded of his own experience in that area. “If this place can offer them some measure of hope,” he continued, “then it is truly priceless.”

“Too bad it’ll probably just get buried,” Diggs said sourly. “Getting a place like this operational again could take years.”

“Maybe not,” Genvass replied, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Oh yeah? You have a magic wand you can wave?” Ess demanded.

“Not exactly,” the Dharmist smiled.

“But as it just so happens… I know someone.”