Forsyth and Phipps returned to Fort McMurray early the next morning, close-mouthed about what They’d been doing.
Phipps, it seemed had taken to his bed with “one of his turns”. Whatever they had been up to, it apparently was rather draining on the poor doctor.
After receiving Hartwell’s and Wilhelm’s report on the previous days’ activities and events, Forsyth ordered an immediate recce of the explosion site, and a party of twelve trusty Terran troops, along with six Martian lads was assembled under the command of lieutenant Catesby (known as 'Eagle Eye' by the enlisted men). Forsyth, Wilhelm and Hartwell saddled up Gashants and joined the sortie.
A little more than 3 miles out of Fort McMurray the party was caught in a dastardly ambush by pernicious Steppe Martian tribesmen out for blood and no doubt whatever loot could be had from the bodies of the foolish Red Devils.
Fortunately most of the party spotted the attempt to surprise them, with the notable exception of Lieutenant Catesby, who demonstrated the ironical nature of his nickname by blindly riding into the ambush completely unaware.
By some miracle he survived, merely being dislodged form his saddle and falling to the ground when his mount bolted. By a stroke of fortune his turned out to be a good hing as the ground gave him sound cover while he recovered. Shots were exchanged, with the heroes giving good account of themselves and dealing with a handful of the bounders, albeit at the cost of Wilhelm falling in the same way as the unfortunate Catesby, and then the tribesmen let fly with their dreadful black powder muskets.
Each of these antiquated weapons belched foul black smoke, sending a half-inch diameter ball of red-hot lead toward our brave lads and killing two of them1 outright but inflicting no further casualties.
even though the tribesmen were mostly obscured by the smoke from their own volley, the British and Martian soldiers fired to good effect, as did the heroes, and the paltry remains of the ambushers fled into the steppe, starting a stampede of all untethered gashants.
Arriving at what they believed to be the site of the explosion, the expedition discovered a very large crater, several hundred feet across, cracked ground radiating from the rim, pulverised earth covering the bottom, from which protruded a large piece of metal.
Detailing the troops to secure a rope, Forsyth made a descent into the crater, and pronounced it safe for the moment, but dangerous and unstable in the event of more tremors. The heroes assembled in the crater and examined the metal slab poking out of the ground. It was massive, covered in soot, exhibiting a bluish tint that was unevenly distributed over its surface. It was also torn in several places, as though ripped from whatever structure it had been a part of by some malicious giant.
Hartwell peered closely. There was writing under the soot. German writing. Some sort of manufacturer's mark.
A shout came down from Lieutenant Caldwell. "Airship spotted, sir! Coming our way!"
Leaving off their speculation on the metal having formed the curved ceiling of a tunnel reinforcement or perhaps part of a vehicle of some sort, the heroes climbed our of the crater and took a look, Forsyth through his trusty telescope, Wilhelm with his oddly disturbing goggles and Hartwell using good old-fashioned British squinting.
Not only was the interloper a zeppelin, not only was it approaching from the direction of those mutinous Shastapsh devils, it was the very vessel of that inconvenient "diplomat", Count Oberluft!
Forsyth order3ed the troops to adopt a dispersed formation to avoid catastrophe in the event the Count decided to forgo diplomatic niceties and indulge himself in a more bellicose exchange of pleasantries.
The dirigible slowed and descended, dropping lines with sandbags as temporary anchors, and the Count hailed Forsyth, with the news that a large mounted Shastapsh force was approaching, perhaps only fifteen minutes away and offering to convey Forsyth's party to Fort McMurray. Sadly there would be no way that the riding animals could be accommodated, but the Count felt sure that if left to their own devices that they would return on their own.
Forsyth thanked the Count for his offer, but declined in favour of riding back. The Count shrugged and made his farewells and the sandbag anchors were reeled in, the zeppelin rising majestically by releasing a small amount of water ballast - drenching Forsyth to the bone. He swore he heard the Count laughing as the dreadful engines restarted with their characteristic racket. Internal combustion might well be the wave of the future, but it lacked the majesty of the mighty steam engines of the British Fleet or the quiet gravitas of a Martian kite.
back at Fort McMurray, a quiet evening was spent, with the sole exception of the sighting of many lights, possibly campfires, about where the crater should be, but the peace of the new day was broken by yet another strafing run by a Shastapsh privateer bomber.
This was what Wilhelm was waiting for! Determining the path of the Shastapsh swine and realising that the field of fire would be blocked on the inward run, he made a rapid estimation of the return path, knowing as he did that these blighters always made two passes on d__n near parallel courses, and brought the Crystal Device to bear, then vaulted into the weapon (or what he hoped was a weapon) firer's seat and bided his time as bombs rained down, causing some damage to the south wall but reaping no casualties this time.
The brave lads of Fort McMurray opened fire with small arms, but the Shastapsh pirates were more wary than on previous runs and kept their heads down, and no casualties were inflicted.
No doubt bolstered by their seeming invulnerability to violence from the fort, the privateer swooped in for the return run, and Wilhelm was swallowed in the coruscating green light of the Crystal Device as everyone felt their heads were about to split, their ears explode and their teeth fall out, all of which would be a blessing if it would all just stop!
What it did to the attacking Shastapsh kite no-one was in a position to assess, but it broke off its attack and swerved away from the fort, climbing quickly and running for Shastapsh.
Wilhelm disabled the Crystal Device and fell over the controls, reeling from the experience. All around, men and Martians were in much the same condition. Wilhelm wondered if this was the effect around the device, what must it have been like in the path of the reflector? Assuming it was a reflector, of course. Not that he'd ever admit it to anyone, he only had a hazy idea of what the Crystal Device was, what it did.
Much later, the body of a Martian in sailor clothing was found on the Steppe by a picket rider. Although the fall from the ship had cause massive trauma, Wilhelm became convinced he'd died jumping off his ship in terror. Phipps would have perhaps known better, but was still indisposed and bed-ridden.
After a quiet night, Forsyth, Wilhelm and Hartwell descended into the undercroft to try and understand some of the things they'd seen and felt.
Dropping down the shaft to the second level, they made for what they were calling the "Bodies in the Fog Room". Wilhelm supplied everyone with respirator masks and he entered the room trailing a rope held by the others standing outside. Though unaffected by the fog now - he surmised the whole "getting lost for hours" thing was an effect of breathing the miasma in the room - he was unable to find anything other than remarkably well-preserved bodies of Martians of an heretofore unknown sub-type wearing battle-damaged clothing.
Returning to the shaft, the party descended another level and Forsyth was able to see for himself the so-called "Hall of Cogs", but although he spent over an hour in there he was unable to fathom exactly what the machine - or machines, plural - did. Tempting though the lever frames were, he erred on the side of caution and left well alone.
They then visited the strange oval space, carved or machined into a perfect ovoid, so smooth were the walls that one couldn't actually see them per se, nor was the source of soft white illumination that filled it - but shone no further than the doorway - discernible.
Wilhelm pointed out the runic sigil set into the floor outside the ovoid space.
Hartwell had himself secured by the rope and ventured in a little way, experiencing the weightlessness inside with aplomb but noting a slight gravitational force oriented to or from the ovoid space's axis. Shrugging, he had himself pulled back into the corridor by the others.
This exploration had taken a toll, and so the heroes returned to the surface to find it was early evening, dinner time. Refreshment and rest were the order of - well, hardly the day since most of it seemed to have fled, but certainly what was left of it. The lights on the horizon were seen, but did not appear to be any closer. Forsyth believed that the fort was safe from attack for the time being, and that the Shastapsh force was involved in some business at the crater.
If only he had thought to leave an observer at the site.
No enemies seemed about to attack the next morning, so Forsyth felt confident about leaving the fort in the hands of his officers and leading another expedition into the undercroft. The heroes had decided between themselves to try the so-called "Fear Corridor" again, and Wilhelm donned his respirator and made an attempt to traverse it, but could not, being overcome with dread and having to quit the corridor in a funk.
Forsyth led the team down the shaft, which seemed to have no bottom - though definitions of top, bottom, up and down could become confused in the gravity-free shaft. The third exit was several hundred yards from ground-level, that was certain. The corridor they found led to a massive door with four dials, similar to safe combination dials but lettered or numbered with alien characters Wilhelm could not read using his goggles - no-one wanted to get too near as they could all see the runic sigil on the door, the same one as was seen in the floor in front of the Ovid Space and the Fear Corridor.
The door also had a large, spoked wheel, and there were obvious locking bars running up, down and across the door into the jamb. The team reasoned that the dials were some sort of puzzle lock and the wheel would retract the locking bars. Wilhelm's interest was peaked. He pulled of one of the metal buttons from his jacket and tossed it at the door, where it stuck fast.
He approached the door, and began to experience he effects of high voltage electricity. The nearer he got, the stronger the effect, until his all his hair was sticking out from his body and corona discharges were leaping from his hands and head to the walls. He began fiddling with the dials, but the electric effects were very painful and despite heroic persistence and willpower, he collapsed with the strain, and was pulled back by the others.
Forsyth and Hartwell picked up their fallen comrade and tried to revive him, but he was completely insensible. They rushed him back up the shaft to the first level and summoned a stretcher team to carry him to the infirmary where a corpsman suggested bed rest. Professor Wilhelm was to lie as one dead for nine worrisome hours before waking.
Forsyth, badly disturbed by this turn of events and feeling that some action of any sort was better than sitting around doing paperwork while his comrade lay comatose in bed, pondered a sortie with silent Winchesters to harass the Shastapsh force now assumed to be at the crater, but eventually decided to err on the side of caution and clamped down on his urge to exhibit leadership.
The next day things seemed quiet again, so, once again leaving he fort in the hands of his officers, Forsyth, led Wilhelm (now recovered) and Hartwell into the undercroft once more.
This time the team descended past the worrisome door and continued down to yet another adit, which lay an estimated mile below the fort. Following the corridor thus revealed, the team were amazed to discover a gargantuan cavern filled with machines of wondrous design and operation. Huge bolts of lightning leapt from silver globes many yards in diameter to travel tens of yards and discharge against other globes, each globe part of towering, cyclopean mechanisms that were wholly electrical in nature. Not a moving part in evidence.
The heroes tried to make sense of the devices they were seeing, but these devices were far beyond anything in their experience.
Forsyth found the first of many pits, vast shafts diving into he ground, containing pipes and finned assemblies, some that also shot bolts of lightning or had coronas of St Elmo's Fire. The scale of the machinjes was mind-numbing, and unlike the mechanical machinery of the Hall of Cogs, these machines (or possibly, this machine) was in what appeared to be fully working order and indeed, busy working away.
Wilhelm spotted the maze-like structure of the place and suggested that the greatest prize might logically be at the center of the maze, and was able to lead the team to the center, with a few false starts and one or two wrong turns along the way.
In a space clear of machines was a chair, not built for humans but usable by them. Hanging to one side was a jeweled headband.
Wilhelm strode forward and sat in the chair, and placed the headband on his head. His face showed him reacting, as if listening to something or someone, then he reached forward with a hand and swatted at something no-one could see. His facial expression became at first blank, then ecstatic. He spoke: "Of course, it's so obvious". Then he reached up, removed the headband smiled and said "You all should try this".
Hartwell went next, and his reactions were almost identical to Wilhelm's, except that just before removing the headband his face became deeply thoughtful, with perhaps a flash of embarrassment.
Forsyth then took a turn, and his final reaction was to look worried, then concerned.
Forsyth, Hartwell and Wilhelm exchanged knowing looks, Then turned to leave the hall, ascend the shaft and exit into the light of day.
