Olmy detected a sharp rise in Mar Kellen’s emotions. The old soldier was experiencing grief, anger, and finally a grim kind of triumph. Mar Kellen was sincere, but was he sane?

He motioned for Olmy to step forward and place his hand on the panel, below a green light.

“Don’t worry, just keep your personal barriers ready. You can handle it. I barely managed, but it caught us by surprise.”

Mar Kellen said, “Access occupant, guest of Ingel.”

Olmy’s head jerked back and all his muscles locked. He was getting impulses from something within the panel, something not used to a human body. He saw snatches of visuals, more than just distorted; almost incomprehensible. And he heard a voice far more alien than that of a Frant…or even a Talsit messenger.

>> Time concern. Duty concern. Inactive unknown time. <<

Olmy jerked back his hand with considerable effort.

Mar Kellen’s features had contorted into a rictus of enthusiasm. The old soldier was sincere, but he was also irresponsible. He had been shocked by his experience here, perhaps even emotionally damaged, and yet had managed to almost completely conceal his condition from Olmy until now. Mar Kellen laughed and sucked in his breath to regain composure. “It killed Beni. After we riddled the maze. It distorted all her neural paths, even reached into her implant memories and scrambled them. There wasn’t anything left to download into city memory, but her body was perfectly intact, alive. I killed what was left of her and disposed of it myself. That’s why I have to charge you.” His face was blank and pale. “For her loss. For her pain. What do you think they stored in here?”

“I don’t know,” Olmy confessed.

“I have a good theory. If I’m right—” He stuck his chin out and grinned his wicked grin. “—They must have captured it a long time ago. They must have downloaded its personality or whatever the equivalent is, in secret, in this clandestine memory store…And then they abandoned it. It waited all these centuries, dormant, for Beni and me to stumble across it. You believe we’ll face Jarts again, am I right? What would the mentality of a captured Jart be worth to the Hexamon if that happens, heh?”

Olmy shook his head, too stunned to answer.

“Come look at this. I didn’t find it until after she was gone, after we’d…Yes. Come.” He stepped toward the wall opposite the doorway. The wall separated in five L-shaped segments and withdrew silently, smoothly. They entered a large dark chamber, cool air eddying around them.