Free The Trilisk Ruins by Michael McCloskey

those thoughts aside
again. There were the artifacts and getting back
alive...
    They spent more hours moving through
the forest as in the previous day. Telisa tried to stay alert
through it all, even though the constant scanning became tedious as
they moved through the forest. She challenged herself to spot as
many of the local creatures as she could. Sometimes the things
would ignore the intruders, other times they flashed into their
shells, falling back onto a lower branch or even to the
ground.
    For the first time Telisa found a
disastrous-looking arrangement of the trees that grew atop each
other. A single strong specimen drooped under the weight of two
piggybackers. It seemed that the behavior didn’t always work as
planned. Telisa wondered if somewhere, a chain of three or four of
them stacked on each other extended high above the surrounding
forest. At least until the whole arrangement came crashing down
like a house of cards.
    Telisa almost asked about their
progress but realized that she could check for herself. She
examined the map in her mind, her current position indicated by
Thomas’s navigation equipment. She could see that they were almost
upon the site of the unusual power emanations. Magnus must have
been cognizant of the same thing, as he slowed their progress,
scanning the area ahead carefully.
    “ I can see a ruin directly
ahead,” he reported.
    Everyone followed him closely, eager to
see for themselves. Telisa made out a large gray building overgrown
with the local trees and shrubs. Telisa couldn’t tell what it was
made of. It surface remained smooth despite its age. She guessed it
could be constructed of some metal or ceramic.
    They approached one seamless wall and
then paralleled its course. When they turned the corner, Telisa saw
that the wall had been breached. Some kind of root system or
underground plant had shattered the wall long ago. The hole was
large enough to climb through.
    Magnus fished out his flashlight and
peeked inside. He turned around and shrugged.
    “ Looks alien to me. Maybe
Telisa should take a look.”
    Telisa took her own flashlight and
stepped up to the opening.
    The disc of light fell upon dusty
pieces of equipment larger than a human. The materials and angles
looked right for Trilisk origin, but the dust was too thick and she
was too far away to be sure.
    “ I’m getting a closer look,”
she said, and without waiting for a reply, she switched the
flashlight to her left hand, unclipped her stunner with her right,
and went in.
    Jack and Thomas walked up to her as she
brushed the dust off the nearest device. It didn’t seem to have any
levers or buttons, which was a good sign right off. Trilisk
artifacts never did. Most human theories on the subject indicated
that they were used through mental interfaces. There were flat
black plates built into the gray metal surface. That was another
good sign. The plates were display ports, made to show information
about the state of the device, like the front panel of a
chronometer. Presumably the readouts could provide their
information via a mental interface as well, but the Trilisks seemed
to prefer having the panels on their equipment too. No one really
knew why.
    It looked dead. Perhaps all she had to
do was find out how to activate it. Unfortunately, Trilisk devices
never had anything as simple and primitive as a power
switch.
    “ Amazing. We’re the first
humans to look at this. Real Trilisk artifacts.”
    “ So it is Trilisk. Any idea
what it does?” asked Thomas.
    “ I have no idea. But I need
to—”
    “ Let’s take a tour of the
place first,” Jack suggested. “Don’t settle on anything just yet.
That thing you’re looking at is probably too heavy for all of us to
even pick up. You see what I’m saying?”
    Telisa looked up from the mysterious
cluster of equipment. Magnus was across the room, looking into the
end of a giant tube that descended into the floor.
    “ I guess you’re right. I
want to look at