The lizard began to think, looking at me with an unblinking gaze.
“You’re going to do us a favor again, Igor,” finally said she. “You informed me immediately of your contact with the Empire, and now you’re offering us a real way to integrate ourselves into a new alliance that will allow us to play a prominent role in it. Why are you doing this, man?”
“Because I see good for us all, Lit-ta. Lizards are very convenient allies for humans, just as humans are for lizards, and I want this situation to last as long as possible. Do you remember a world without war, Governor General?”
“I do,” responded Lit-ta after a little pause, but she didn’t go into details.
“And I don’t. But I’ve been told a lot about how it was, and you know, I hope to see this for myself as soon as possible. My children should not lead battleships and aircraft carriers into battle. I want a completely different fate for them, and for that to become a reality, I believe it is right to lay the foundations of mutual benefit in relations between our races.”
“I’ll tell the Senior what you’ve said, and I don’t think there will be any delay or difficulty with our decision to negotiate with the Empire. As I understand it, we’re almost there on our journey,” Lit-ta’s changed her subject, “Have you forgotten what a space suit looks like, Admiral? We’re going to have to walk on the surface of one of the asteroids.”
The asteroid looked, frankly, peculiar on the projection screen. In fact, it wasn’t really an asteroid, but rather an asteroid stump. Once upon a time, this massive rock block had almost a spherical shape and a diameter of about 300 kilometers, but now there was only a little more than half of it left, and it seemed that once, quite a long time ago, a stone ball had been cut in half with a very sharp and hard object, leaving behind a perfectly plane surface resembling a petrographic cut. It was unclear where the other half of the asteroid had gone, at least, the scanners did not see it in the immediate vicinity. It’s been clearly not a year or two since the event that gave the asteroid its current appearance. The surface of the cut, which had once been smooth, was now covered by numerous traces left by the impact of rock fragments of various shapes and sizes, which were abundant in the outer Iota Persei belt. There was no doubt that the asteroid was being used extensively by someone at the time of the accident. On the surface of the cut, in many places there were stains of the entrances to the tunnels going deep into the rock, which were almost identical in shape and size. The asteroid was pitted with these passages, but the lizards have been unable to determine their purpose.
“It’s a pretty old story,” said Lit-ta looking at the screen. “About 120 years ago, some 30 years before we started to develop Iota Persei, a rather nontrivial astronomical event took place here, I would even call it extremely nontrivial.”
“What happened here?” I asked with genuine interest.
“Our observers near Lambda Aurigae have recorded the appearance of a new star system consisting of three low-mass sub-brown dwarfs, one light month from Iota Persei.”
“I’m sorry, Lit-ta, did I hear you correctly? Did you say «appearance»? Maybe you meant that previously unknown stars were discovered?”
“That’s the thing. They did appear, there’s no doubt about it. They weren’t there before. Even 150 years ago, we couldn’t overlook a triple star system, even though it was made up of these little brown stars, right in front of us, in less than two dozen light years away. Naturally, this phenomenon aroused great interest among our ancestors, but at that time, flying this distance was still a difficult business, and while the expedition was being prepared, its purpose disappeared instantly and without a trace. However, it did not disappear completely – here is the trace. This asteroid is the only material evidence of the events of those years. It came from the direction of the vanished sub-brown dwarfs and was captured by the gravity of Iota Persei, becoming part of the outer belt of the system.”
“I take it this is only part of the story?” said I with a slight smile, “I’m sure you found there something worthy of attention.”
“Yes, we did,” confirmed Lit-ta, “but it’s better if you see it with your own eyes.”
“Once upon a time, something of value was clearly mined here, but what was it? ” The asteroid was pitted with tunnels that diverged in the most unexpected places and also ended suddenly in dead ends. Sometimes the rock had strange cavities, as if part of it had suddenly disappeared into nowhere, leaving behind a cavity of unpredictable shape and size.
“We’ve been through all the drifts, but we haven’t found any valuable minerals,” Lit-ta’s voice sounded in my helmet headphones. “Perhaps by the time of the catastrophe, the deposit of what was mined here had probably been exhausted and the asteroid was being used for other purposes. Come on, you haven’t seen the best part yet.”
Some of the tunnels in the surviving part of the asteroid were filled with equipment of unclear purpose, often embedded in walls. Only one thing was beyond doubt: the civilization that used these devices was developing along the path of technological progress.
“We didn’t touch anything here,” Litta continued her story, “It was obvious to us that we wouldn’t figure out the purpose of all this iron stuff anyway – it was too alien to us.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before, Lit-ta? Our scientists could do a lot to understand what happened here 120 years ago.”
“I wanted to do it, but there were so many more pressing matters. Do you remember when I invited you during my first visit to the Federation? I wanted to show you this place, but then you didn’t find the time, which was natural in that situation. Come on, the most interesting find still awaits us.”
The tunnel we were walking through made another turn and suddenly led us into a rather spacious room cut down in the rock. I changed the pace at which I’ve been going, there were machines in front of me whose purpose was beyond doubt.
I stood there silently and looked at dozens of combat robots, which remained stationary in neat rows along the walls of the cave. They looked sort of like insects. This impression was caused by joint limbs, which for every combat machine were between six and ten, and scaly segmented armor. The largest of them were equipped with cannons, the barrels of which jutted out of the front of their bodies in such a way that they started an involuntary association with mandibles of arthropods. Smaller machines were grouped around each big robot, apparently, they were supposed to act on the battlefield with it, doing reconnaissance and destroying minor targets, although I wouldn’t say that with full confidence.
In my long service to the planetary commandos, I have encountered various robots, or as they were called in my first world, walking tanks. This was the first time I saw such a design, but I was paying attention to all the little things and details that were saying a lot to the man who had often seen such creatures in battle. Latticed emitters of protective fields were only visible on the bodies of large machines. Missile launchers were mostly hidden inside the hulls, but the launchers of small robots partially protruded outward, forming a characteristic hump on its «back». In general, I suspected that in combat these machines would be stronger than our Bisons and Goannas, but they could hardly compete with the walking tanks I controlled in my last battle in the body of General Dean.
“And what is your impression of this?” Lit-ta interrupted a prolonged silence.
“It’s a very dangerous adversary. I think you’re lucky those sub-brown dwarfs disappeared as quickly as they came. If they would have stayed here, and something like this would have got out of them,” I made a gesture around the cave, “you and I wouldn’t be talking right now.”
“Our scientists came to the same conclusion,” Lit-ta agreed with me, “but despite their best efforts, there is still no explanation for what happened.”
“Have