Survivor by Saffron Bryant

interpret foreign
languages, provided there was a patch for it.
    She whispered the words under her breath.
"Enter and you will have the power to control the universe."
    "I suppose Codon was partly telling the
truth," Cal said.
    "Looks that way," she said. "I'm going to
have to go further though. Those fugitives are supposedly working
in the deep."
    "Confirmed," Cal said.
    She waited for the next worker to pass by
her alcove and then stepped into place. She walked with her eyes
locked onto her own feet, avoiding the gazes of everyone she
passed. It wasn't hard to find her way; the lighting in the tunnel
walls guided her.
    The sounds of excavations echoed through the
tunnels. It rumbled and shook the earth, threatening to cave-in at
any moment. Not that that would be a problem for Codon or the Human
Confederacy, it would just mean finding more workers and sending
them to dig past their crushed companions.
    There was no sign of digging. These tunnels
must have been clear when the Confederacy arrived. What were they
digging through now? The tunnels gave her no answer.
    The further she went, the fewer workers she
saw. They were assigned to scouring the tunnels for trinkets. For
the moment that kept them mostly near the surface. Nova found
herself alone in the eerily lit tunnels. The echoing excavations
were her only company.
    As she went deeper, the noise got louder, as
did the vibrations. The shaking set her teeth on edge and she could
feel her bones vibrating. Her legs wobbled with the motion of the
ground. She kept one eye locked on the ceiling, scanning for signs
of a cave-in.
    As she reached a fork in the tunnel, she
heard raised voices. She slowed down and tiptoed to the fork,
listening.
    "It's now or never. We don't know what's
going to happen when they make it through."
    "Maybe not, but it's too early. We're not
ready."
    "So what? How many more times do you think
we're going to be able to get away? This might be our last chance
and we have to make it count."
    "What if whatever they uncover does our job
for us?"
    "We can't count on that. Besides, you saw it
'you will have the power to control the universe'. We can't let the
Confederacy get that."
    "That's a bunch of crap carved above an
ancient tomb. It wouldn't be the first time idiots have fallen for
that kind of rubbish."
    Nova didn't have to hear more to know who
she'd found. The fugitives were planning their next attack and from
the sounds of things, it could happen at any moment. She frowned.
She could use her gun and take them both out but then what would
she do? Cart two bodies out of the excavation site?
    She could threaten them and order them to
walk out. Somehow she didn't think they'd come without a fight.
They were on edge and that made them unpredictable. Unpredictable
was dangerous.
    She glanced at the yellow wall. There was
more writing carved here. The letters were much smaller, the script
spreading out over the wall and interspersed with tiny
pictures.
    "You rose up and grasped your hands around
the universe. You held it in your grip and it was good," Nova
repeated the words. There was something wrong about them; the beat
of the sentences didn't feel right.
    "Cal, how sure are you of this patch? It
doesn't feel right," she said.
    "I'm not sure at all of the patch. It's only
been recently created and is largely based on dead languages, so
it's impossible to confirm. Rest assured, I am collecting
information based on what you see, and the patch will probably
undergo multiple upgrades."
    "Something's not right," Nova said. "It's
like it's telling the reader their own history, but that doesn't
make any sense."
    "Perhaps it's a spiritual text?" Cal said.
"The sentences in such documents are often aimed directly at the
reader."
    "Maybe," she said.
    She continued to read the passage; it still
wasn't right. She rested her hand against the wall. She didn't have
time to stand there and read ancient alien carvings when there were
two fugitives planning to blow the