Freyr nodded. “An audible fossil…” She murmured, deep in thought. From the unfocused corners of her vision, she vaguely noticed the Rübezahl clamped to the underside of the cube like a tic. Information had begun streaming back to the rig, indexed and prioritised by the program on the fly. 

“Is it possible those creatures on the audio file are having the same conversation we are, right now? Or could this just be another expression of the entity’s psyche. An imitation of life...” Freyr mused, looking up at the mission timer. Her mind was whirring away at top speed despite her outward tranquility.

[hr]595’s boot crumbled a fragment of masonry into dust. They advanced in as tight a formation as the labyrinth of destruction around them would allow. The Agent’s heart was pounding in her chest, but her breathing was measured and deliberate. Her suit’s internal sensory suite was going haywire, detecting threats and changes in temperature around every corner. In the end, she switched it off, focusing on her own eyes and ears.

Unfortunately, they were just as provocative. The closer they got to the shaft of light, the more footsteps 595 felt around her than those of the ground team. Snatches of conversation drove 595 to manually scan dozens of dark nooks, only to find nothing there after all.

The throne the Navigator had greeted them from before had been destroyed by a large chunk of the roof. They carefully crept around it, forced to skirt almost to the side wall. 595 gulped to wet her dry throat when she finally clamped eyes on the source of the light.

A pool of liquid, lapping at the stone edges of a narrow hatchway that headed into the depths of the floor below. The shaft of light shone right through the liquid and into the sky. The flying creatures above flew all around the light, avoiding its narrow blade.