The tourist guide

Chapter 1

made by MTT3

<<<Note: If not mentioned differently, all persons of that story are talking German. I just wrote that story in English to provide it to a wider audience.>>>

"I hate this place. I'm freezing my tail off. Why do I have to be on this trip?"

Shricktas pulled at the collar of his coat, trying to get it closer to his body, but the cold wind still felt like liquid air on his scales. And the spikes along his back lifted the coat up, giving the wind even more attack surface.

"You know exactly what and who we are looking for, Shricktas. This mission has the highest priority. Even the exploration of the abandoned cities is secondary to this." security-commander Orrlanovss said. He took a quick look at his navigation-computer to make sure they were on the right way, but since they had only minor orbital observations of that place they had to rely on small reconnaissance troops like themselves.

"I know why we are doing this. But why in the name of the Sacred Ancestors do I have to be on this trip too? I'm an engineer. I didn't even had a course for first-contact situations!"

Orrlanovs sighed, shuddering at the cold air that filled his lungs. He wished they could have used their EVA-suits to protect themselves from the cold weather, but they would have slowed them down so much that it would have taken days if not weeks to explore this area.

He tugged at his coat like Shricktas did. Since they had no idea of the weather-conditions of that place they didn't had the right clothing to protect them. So they had to improvise and were now wearing something the inhabitants of that place called 'Winter-clothing'. Of course everything was way too big for all of them so it just looked ridiculous.

"I've chosen you to escort us since you proven yourself very well with understanding their technology better than anybody else. So if we will run into any problems with their technology I thought it would be better to have you with us."

"But...I... ." Shricktas didn't know what else to say. In fact, even if he would have found a reason not to stay with them, it would have taken quite some time for one of their aircrafts to get him. And since that incident at a place called...damn it, what was it called...Russia yeah, that was it, they tried to avoid aerial explorations and pick-ups whenever possible and so they had to rely on small foot-troops like them. Their small number of ground-vehicles were mostly used in the cities they were exploring that's why they were going by foor.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice the metal bar, that was halfway hidden in the high grass. When he stumbled over it he tried to catch himself but failed and hit the half-frozen ground hard.

Istras, the first-contact expert in their group rushed to him to help him up.

"Shricktas, are you alright?" she asked.

"No, I just love to smell at the plants they call here grass. Of course I'm not alright.” He rubbed his three-toed foot, wincing when he touched the bruises that metal bars left on his scales.

"Seems like you found what we were looking for." Orrlanovs said, examining the metal bar.

"What do you mean, it's just some metal bar. We've seen so many of them. It's probably part of some wreckage." Shricktas said, still rubbing his hurt foot.

"No, it's not." That's surely part of a..." He took his small computer, checking the list of the technologies they have examined until now. "…a railway. And as you can see..." he removed the thin layer of soil at each side of the rail with one claw "...it is not built as the usual railways. See? Instead of a thick layer of rocks beneath the rails there is a normal street, so it's built kinda improvised."

"You think that the...'Heritage-Train' did pass by here?" one of the two guards commented, obviously surprised. Maybe they would finally find what they were looking for, after more than three Solstan-months of seek and hide. Everybody of the crew of that expedition was excited to find the person they all just call 'The caretaker'.

"I'm sure. There is no other explanation for that railway. It's not mentioned in the maps we found. So it has to be built by the Caretaker." Orrlanovs looked into the direction of the mountains, several kilometers away.

"That's where we will find the caretaker. I'm sure he is hiding there."

Shricktas rolled his eyes. *Great, more walking in this freezing place. Why did I even sign up for that expedition?*

---

When they finally came to the place where the railways ended, everybody, including Orrlanovs, was totally exhausted. The gravity of this planet was nearly twenty percent stronger than the one of their home-planet. Although they have been on this planet for about four Solstan-months they were still not quite adapted. It would take much longer for their muscles to built up and even then it would still be hard. Also the thicker atmosphere and the colder weather made it hard for them.

Despite their exhaustion they all looked with a certain eagerness at the sealed entrance where the railways ended.

"Istras, you can read these signs. What do they mean?" Orrlanovs asked, pointing at the semi-weathered letters above the tunnel-entrance.

She looked at them, trying to figure out their meaning. It was hard for her to understand their meaning, since she only studied this other language, German. With this one she had only about one Solstan-month of experience. "Che...Chey......Cheyenne Mountain Complex. But I have no idea what it could mean. Maybe it's just named after an important person."

"It is surely important if it's that well hidden here in the mountains. Let's see if we can find an entrance."

When they approached the closed main door, they suddenly noticed an animal lying in front of them. The two guards readied their rifles. They had already some dangerous experiences with the local fauna, so they wouldn't let it happen that this animal would attack them.

When they approached the animal slowly, it suddenly lifted his head, watching them with curiosity, his flexible ears moving into their direction. The two guards aimed at the animal's head, ready to fire. It watched the group of five for several seconds, before it got up and slowly approached them. Since it didn't seem to attack them, Orrlanovs signed the guards to lower their weapons.

When it reached the group it began sniffing at their scaled feet, obviously surprised by the unknown smell and form. Then the animal set down in front of them, his tail wagging in anticipation, barking at them. It seemed to wait for something.

"Istras, do you know what kind of animal it is? I didn't had to time to get through all the reports."

Istras got a little bit closer, offering her hand to the animal. It sniffed at each digit, then it suddenly began to lap her palm. Since she had read several books how to deal with that kind of animal, she knew what to do. She began to stroke through the dog's fur, concentrating at the part between the ears and below his maw. The dog seemed to enjoy it, despite the eventual scratches by her talons.

"It's called a dog, a German Shepherd I think. They were used as pets but in some parts of this worlds they also used them to guard livestock." When she stopped stroking the dog, he barked at her happily. But when the creature that had petted him didn't continue, the dog just turned around and headed to the big closed door. He scratched at it and whined all along his tries to open the door. The exploration-group watched the dog, really surprised by his action.

"What is this creature trying to do? It will never get the door to open with just scratching." the engineer commented.

"I don't think it is that intelligent to see that far. It's just trying to get inside." Istras diagnosed.

"As are we. Okay then, same procedure as always, swarm out and look for something to open this door. It shouldn't be hard to find. The Caretaker always places the keys at very obvious places."

Orrlanovs gaze wandered around trying to find the tools they would need to open the door. The dog had already given up trying to get inside. Instead he was now looking directly at Orrlanovs, as if to say *Please help me to get inside*.

After some five minutes they found the keys. They were hidden in a neon-orange painted box, made out of pure concrete, exactly above the entrance's roof. It was a so obvious placed that they didn't see it in the first place.

When they finally managed to open up the concrete with a directed-energy cutter, they found the usual on paper-printed-and-in-plastic-sealed-instructions together with some keys and magnetic-coded cards. The dog got really excited when they walked to the big door and opened the metal box built into one side of it. After some more minutes of complicated Code typing and using one of the keys, suddenly the big door cracked drily and slowly retreated into the wall to the left.

It wasn't even half open when the dog rushed through the open gap, and into the dark tunnel. The small group put their small flashlights on their wrists before they followed the dog. The two guards went first. The didn't aim into the tunnel while the lit it up with their torches, but their rifles were still ready. They walked deeper into the tunnel, following the rails. After about one hundred-fifty meters and a curve they found what they have been looking for several Solstan-months.

The heritage-train. A long, sleek, white painted vehicle, resting silently on its rails. Parts of it were still looking as if just coming out of the factory while others were obviously rebuilt to serve other uses.

"By the Sacred Ancestors, we found it. We finally did it."

Suddenly several lights at the ceiling came to live. When their eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness Istras could see the dog. He seemed to wait for them in front of another closed door.

The metal plates didn't show any sort of a key hole. There was just a small silver colored button, bedded into the concrete wall. Shricktas was already familiar with that kind of technology and recognized the door immediately as the one of a elevator. When he pressed the button he could see the digital display above the door counting. When it reached 0, they heard a *Ding* and the door opened.

The two guards first inspected the small room, then they gave their okay. The group together with the dog walked inside the elevator, which was surely big enough for more than seven humans. But since members of the expedition were just the size of about an average 15 year old human they had no problems fitting into it.

"Shricktas, watch out. Your tail!" Istras yelled out.

He barely made it to bring his tail into the elevator too before the doors closed behind him.

"Great. That's the third time this happens. Now it's obvious, this planet hates me!" he murmured, stroking gently over his nearly lost tail-tip.

"You should be more careful Shricktas. This planet is still totally new to us, as well as the human technologies, you know it....Well, what now, Shrick? You read the manual."

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a second." He skipped through the manual, stopping from time to time. It took him some seconds to find the part with the instructions for the elevator. When he found it he took the orange-colored magnet-card and put it into the small slit at the side of the panel with the stories-signs. Then he used the complex-built metal key and turned it around twice in its key hole. He finally pushed the button for the lowest floor where the command center was located and hoped he had done everything the right way.

He was glad when he felt the elevator began to move downwards, the digital display above them counting downwards. They decided, since they were now not exposed to the, to them, harsh weather-conditions, to disrobe their unfitting winter-clothing. The gray uniforms they were wearing below their winter-cloths were made after the few audio-visual transmission they received on their home planet. Istras hoped that the Caretaker wouldn't mind if some details wouldn't look like the humans would probably be used to, for example they had no idea about the colors of the uniforms, because all transmissions were only mono-chromatic. So they colored them simply in the different gray shades they saw in the transmissions. They also were not wearing these weird-shaped hats, simply because they were not able to keep them on their heads.

She had somewhere read a human saying: If you're in Rome, do as the Romans. It was interesting that two different species with several light years between them were thinking so alike, to adapt to local rituals and traditions to show your friendliness.

She tugged her armband straight, still wondering about the strange sign the humans used, a black square with a black cross in it, all within a white circle. Because of the great distance between their planets, the transmissions were often blurred, so it was very hard sometimes to see them clearly. That's why they had to guess sometimes what it should look like.

She was torn from her thoughts when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. The dog hurried out of the elevator, sniffing the air and halted every few steps.

Orrlanovs watched the dog. Although its intellect didn't seem to come to that of a human or one of themselves, it clearly showed a certain intelligence.

"Do you think this...dog is looking for the Caretaker too?" he asked

"Possible." Istras diagnosed. "From the other records the caretaker did left us, we know that he had always kept dogs with him to distract himself from his loneliness. So you don't have to worry that he would attack him. I just wonder why the dog was outside and left on its own, without the Caretaker. I'm also wondering why he didn't already notice we are here."

They found out that this dog seemed to know better and faster where to go than they could with their manual. This complex was a gigantic labyrinth but they finally managed to find the main control room.

It was big, even bigger than the control room of their star-ship. With all the big screens and the computer-terminals all around It looked even similar. They looked around the room. Since there were no further instructions in the manual they didn't knew what to do now.

"Hey, what it that?" One of the guards had found something extraordinary. They gathered around one of the computer-terminals. It had been manipulated, several wires, which surely were not built like it was original intended, were leading to two small plastic boxes. One was blue and was signed with a big '1', the other one was green and had a big '2' on it.

"Well, I guess we should open it in the intended order." Istras concluded. Orrlanovs simply nodded. She touched the blue box with the number one, realizing it was not screwed to the terminal. When she lifted it, there was only a blue button. She looked at Orrlanovs, who just nodded again to signalize her to push it.

When she pushed the button she expected something to happen immediately. They waited for nearly ten seconds and were already thinking that the device was probably suffering a malfunction, when suddenly......the main screen did come to life.

"Okay folks seems like you been following my clues very carefully if you made it until here. Or maybe you were just lucky and stumbled over this base by random. Whatever.....I don't care how you found this base. The important thing is what comes now."

The Caretaker. It was really him, this person that head led them all around the planet, showing them well prepared rituals and very interesting looking sights. But all this was nothing compared to what they were really craving for. The didn't want to see only the things he had prepared or the stuff from the abandoned cities. It was himself in person they were looking for.

"Now that I've been doing my self-chosen mission for about six Sol-Standard years, I must say.....I have enough. I have done everything I could do, to preserve as much as possible, but I'm tired now, just - so - tired......So I decided to take a little rest. A rest that will last until now. I used a experimental technology we call Cryostasis. This technology should be able to keep me alive for a very long period of time without aging. Why I've done this you ask. Simply said: I wanted to meet you." The man with the black hair on the big screen first pointed at the small exploration-group, then looked to the side, grabbing a clipboard with several sheet of paper on it. "As far as I can understand all the experiments they have done have been successful. They only lacked long-term experiences. Hmm, seems like I will be the first one to test this. If you will push the second, the green button now..." he pointed at the terminal " the door to your right will open and reveal the room where I – hopefully - will still be alive when you will you arrive here, and it also will begin with my reviving-process. I will maybe a little bit disorientated and need some time to recover, that's why I left some other instructions in that room what you have to do. So, I sign off now. See you there"

When the screen turned black they all watched it for several more seconds. Istras gaze wandered from Orrlanovs to the green button. She hesitated only for a second then pushed it.

Suddenly they were interrupted in their thoughts by the barks of the dog. He was sitting in front of the door the Caretaker had pointed at. It was opening very slowly, white mist escaping the room. Despite the fog the dog walked inside the room when the gap was big enough.

No one of the group said a single word when they slowly approached the open door. They all shivered when they walked into the mist. It was really cold, but they still walked into the room. Now that they have come that far there was no turning back.

The room was not very bright, only a single lamp lighting up the room. They could see a lot of machines scattered all around the room. All the machines were connected to a single tube on a small podest in the middle of the room, the dog sitting in front of the top of it, whining at the sight.

Istras walked very cautiously to the top of the tube. There was a small glass window built into the top, covered by a thin layer of frost. She tried to wipe away the ice. She did this very cautiously, trying to avoid to damage the machine. When all of the ice was removed, she was finally able to see the human in person for the first time. Thomas Jenninger or 'The Caretaker' as all members of their expedition called him.

The last human on earth.