Read Online Parker Interstellar Travels 6: The Celaran Ruins by Michael McCloskey - Free Book Online

least.”
    “Okay,
so, those things fly from the tower, grab stuff, and put it in the funky
hexagonal boxes,” Caden said. “So what’s in the boxes?”
    For
once Telisa did not warn against making hasty assumptions. She knew Caden was
just voicing a theory out loud. Siobhan found the lip of the box. It opened
much like a manual Terran box that could not take link commands.
    “It’s
filled with smaller wrapped blocks,” Siobhan said. “They’re light. I’ll open
one.”
    Siobhan
slipped a hexagonal slab out of the end. She tried to rip open a wrapper.
Telisa offered Siobhan her tanto knife, but the material ripped easily. A
sticky liquid leaked out.
    “Watch
it,” Telisa said. Siobhan held it out. Telisa had a clear plastic vial ready to
catch it. None of it touched them. Siobhan felt the thrill of danger.
    This
could be poisonous, explosive, infectious... anything.
    Telisa
took out an analyzer. “This will have to do,” she said. Siobhan decided that
meant she was missing real lab equipment. Telisa swabbed a sample and closed
her eyes to concentrate on the interface.
    “Well,
there are a variety of molecules,” she said. “Here’s a familiar one,
kojibiose.”
    “Koji
what?”
    “A
disaccharide. This is a soup of energy molecules, I think. It’s all about
carbon making chains and rings with hydrogen and oxygen. I believe these are
food packets. If I’m right, the Celarans are very similar to us, really, for
aliens. They’re carbon based life,” Telisa said.
    “If
these really are food packets,” Caden said.
    “And
the food packets are for them and not alien visitors or prisoners,” Siobhan
said.
    “Highly
likely. I suppose they could be hoarding poison. Or paint. Or whatever. I don’t
think it’s coincidence. We might even be able to digest some of this
ourselves,” Telisa said. She repacked her analyzer.
    “We
don’t need to know just yet,” Siobhan said. “Let’s not taste it.”
    “Caution?
From you?” Caden sniped.
    “You
channeling Imanol?” she said back.
    “We
can take a look at the local herbivores and see if their bodies run on this
kind of chemistry,” Telisa said. “I’m betting they do. I want to capture some
specimens and find out.”
    “ Clacker ’s
labs would have made that easy,” Cilreth said over the channel. Apparently she
was listening in from the roof.
    “I
may have enough to get it done,” Telisa said. “When those two come down from
the tower, ask them to try and catch us some critters. Not insects; I’d like to
test something larger. Preferably a herbivore.”
    “Will
do.”
    “The
food in the boxes may be processed. It may or may not be what the robots
collect,” Siobhan said. “Yes, maybe they collected this stuff from the forest.
But it hardly seems necessary. Surely they have ways of mass producing food
that are more efficient.”
    “Maybe.
We think they brought these vines with them from their planet,” Caden said. “So
that rules out that they discovered some amazing alien substance they really
wanted, right?”
    “Ah
yes. If we were right, this is a regular forest to them. Not alien. So if these
packets come from stuff they collected from the forest, then this is a regular
farming operation to them. Not a setup that collects samples for study,” Telisa
said.
    “Okay,
well I think we’ll find a processing center in this building if the food was
made here. Then we’ll know,” Siobhan said.
    Telisa
brought a bag out of her pack and put the wall machine into it. Then they went
to a hexagonal door flap in the wall. The door was placed a high step above the
floor. Siobhan noticed for the first time that the wall near the door did not
have the hexagonal pattern on it.
    “A
real wall,” she said.
    Telisa
nodded. “There’s a scout in there. From what it sees, I think I found our
processing center.”
    They
followed Telisa through the interior of the building. Once again there was no
clutter as they expected from the Blackvines. They