dozen men and women in AI gear were arrayed around the scene. Most sat glumly on bedrolls or other convenient pieces of camping equipment, drinking bottled water and munching on energy bars. They surged to their feet in unison when they saw the rescue team.
“You got her,” someone said. “Thank God.”
“I didn’t think she’d come,” a woman said. She gave Lyra a grateful smile. “Thanks, Miss Dore.”
“Always happy to be of service to Amber Inc.,” Lyra said lightly.
The bald-faced lie produced a wave of nervous laughter.
The amethyst chamber stood in the center of the clearing, a windowless structure carved out of what appeared to be a single massive block of purple amber. The ruin was circular in design, nearly thirty feet high, and a little over half that in width. Lyra knew the numbers because one of the first things she had done after finding the chamber was measure the interior. A colonnade of amber columns surrounded the outer wall, giving the structure an oddly graceful appearance. The columns supported a dome-shaped roof.
The door of the chamber was an imposing, vaulted entrance that was a little more than half the height of the structure. At the moment, it was sealed with a roaring, pulsing cascade of intense, flaring energy. It was impossible to look directly at the hot, flashing bolts of raging purple psi for more than a second or two at a time. Lyra noticed that no one was sitting close to the entrance of the chamber. So much throbbing, churning energy had a disturbing effect on human senses.
One of the men came forward. He was in his late forties or possibly early fifties, a tall, thin, sharp-featured individual in thick, dark-rimmed glasses. A goatee framed his narrow, unsmiling lips. Lyra decided he probably did not have much of a sense of humor.
“Dr. Felix Webber,” Cruz said. “The head of the lab. Felix, this is Lyra Dore. She very kindly agreed to help us.”
Webber nodded brusquely and managed to look even more irritated.
“Miss Dore,” he said. “I’ve tried several times to get in touch with you during the past few weeks.”
“I’ve been busy,” she said. She started toward the door filled with purple lightning. “Let’s get this done, shall we?”
“Are you sure you can handle this, Miss Dore?” Webber demanded.
“With one hand tied behind my back.” She stopped in front of the door, her eyes slightly averted from the veil of searing energy that filled the entrance from top to bottom. “What did you guys do to close this thing?”
Webber’s expression tightened with outrage. “What makes you think it was something that one of the team members did?”
“Let’s just say I’m a tad suspicious, because I know how this door works. Someone must have triggered it. You know, you people really should be careful when you fool around with alien ruins like this one. Someone could get hurt.”
“Who are you to lecture me on how to deal with alien technology?” Webber snarled. “You’re just an opportunistic little tuner who happened to get lucky when you found this ruin. But you didn’t have the training, the talent, or the education to appreciate its real value. To you this place was just a source of expensive relics you could sell on the underground antiquities market.”
Cruz moved forward. “That’s enough, Dr. Webber. If it hadn’t been for Miss Dore, we might never have found this chamber.”
Webber’s jaw clenched. “I don’t trust her, Mr. Sweetwater. She has made her hostility toward the company and the lab abundantly clear.”
“I trust her,” Cruz said simply. “She says she can get our people out. Let her do her job.”
Webber swung around to face him. “How do we know she isn’t going to make the whole thing explode? Or maybe she’ll booby-trap it so that the next time it will close on one of us?”
Lyra wrinkled her nose. “No offense, Dr. W, but you’ve got some serious paranoia issues. You might want to try a few sessions of
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