The campaign on foot made their way through the mountain range, they avoided the peaks where they could and used a levelled depression as a base camp for the night. The night was cold and windy. Tent technology having not much improved in the millennia since you are reading this probably, the tents shook a little but none broke and most insulated from the deepest of chills. The breakfast of rations wasn't that inspiring but it was filling and much the same as they had been used to on the Follgun.

Eventually, half way through the day they come to a ravine, although it is more of a canyon, a tunnel cutting through the mountain and sloping down into the base of the mountain.

'This shouldn't be here,' said Hestamoloc, assessing the map.

'According to the Doctor, we've entered the boundary area.'

'Have we?' asked the Doctor, expecting to have felt something different in the atmosphere.

Aumegden confirmed they had and they continued along the ravine until they came across a rope bridge. They stopped and stared. Someone swore.

The gravity of the situation hit them immediately. There was no Earth-bound companion, no slow-on-the-uptake-exposition character (only Orlo to prove he knew more than you). And you know what they say, if you can't think of X in your social circle, it must be you.

This is important because, if you think about it, if you've actually been paying attention, this is an empty planet. No intelligent life was supposed to have remained, or even gotten this far. So how is it that a rope bridge, one so old and gnarled it's practically petrified to stone? A conclusion: Your assumption that the planet didn't have intelligent life on it is flawed. But to have gotten this far? Quite surprising.

'Maybe your humanoid assumption of alien life is flawed,' said Orlo. 'Not all species think with neurochemicals and have heart beats.'

'That isn't how we access alien life, or intelligent life,' said Icrel.

'Should we cross it?' asked Dr. Matsumoto.

'I probably could,' said Orlo, who wasn't humanoid. Didn't I say earlier? Sorry. He's a sort of big starfish, pearlescent and slick, maybe more of a sea anemone. He was less dense than humans, who were stone trolls compared to his lightness and flexibility.

'No. I'll do it,' said Hestamoloc.

'No, you can't, it might not be safe.'

'Thank you, but it's what I'm here do to.' Hestamoloc set up a cliff-scaling safety harness and made it half-way across the bridge before the planks fell through. The rope was like stone, the weaving of fibres still visible when looked at closely, blotches of lichen-like life and moss discoloured it all the way along. Yet it still creaked like wood, groaned under Hestamoloc's weight, begging him not to tempt fate by continuing on.

There was a chorus of gasps from those still on the ledge, Dr. Matsumoto begging him to come back and Chitra simply unable to look, covering her eyes and pushing herself into Icrel's shoulder.

Hestamoloc took another step and was fine, but when he delicately put his weight on it, it fell through and he hung there. He laughed at the shrieks of the students.

'Silence!'

Lt. Castillo wound him back up, and her icy glare made him stop laughing. When he had carefully crawled back to firm ground, Lt. Castillo took out a knife and hacked at the bridge.

'We are not risking anyone on it. We go down.'

'What?!'

'You can see the bottom. It should take us all more than an hour. Each of us militarists will bring down one of you academics. Understood?'

The militarists saluted and the academics nodded.

All went well, the Doctor, Vanessa, Hestamoloc, Tatsuya, all easily descended and waited in the canyon. Even as the fog crept over them and obscured the basin from those topside. Orlo descended on his own, without equipment he reasoned his lightness would carry him down awkwardly, but safely. He was not permitted to free-climb, however, he was careless and he slipped.

Chitra screamed and fell to her knees, clutched the ground.

'I can't do it, I can't do it. I won't bloody do it!'

Her heart rate spiked so hard that Dr. Chen was alerted. She slapped a mood patch on her to calm her. Don't worry, these are the first generation, nothing more than a small dose to soothe slowly. This is some time before the glitch and virus and the gridlock.

'Shouldn't you have asked?' questioned Icrel, finding himself having to hold the very relaxed Chitra.

'No.' Dr. Chen didn't think she needed to say anything more than that, it was clear why she acted as she did.

'I'm fine,' called Orlo as he was unclipped from the descent harness.

'That was a mistake. One that could have cost someone their life. You were lucky.'

Orlo's cold arrogance met with Lt. Castillo's cold disappointment and the glacial tension between them was numbed, neither quite willing to register the point of view of the other. It became nothing and so Lt. Castillo gave up, turning away first, Orlo thought he had won the argument.

'Vanessa, I think we'll have to continue topside for now.'

Dr. Chen's words were muffled in the density of the fog and echoed in the canyon.

Lt. Castillo sounded off on her radio.

Dr. Chen responded on hers: 'Chitra can't move and frankly… I can't see you and hear you. I think we need to continue parallel. Joshua is plotting an alternate route and sending it through.'

It appeared on the data pad.

'But we can't trust this is the same as the satellite imaging, this canyon shouldn't be this big,' pointed out Hestamoloc.

'Hm. I wonder if any rifts opened up along here while we made our way here.'

They all froze, and those who could see her, turned to the Doctor.

'You mean since leaving the cruiser, or since we made planet fall and left the ship?'

'Since we left the station. There are delays in the imagery. It takes time for signals to get from place to place, some relays are even just hard-copy transfer. We could have missed something.'

'How can you be sure it hasn't happened since we left the ship?' asked Dr. Matsumoto.

The Doctor dismissed him with a wave. 'Nah, I'd taste it.'

'Really?' asked Dr. Matsumoto.

'Joking,' lied the Doctor. 'But I'd know.'

'Either way,' said Lt. Castillo, taking command again, 'we can stick to these planned routes. Stay near to the edge as you can. If we lose radio signal meet at the base of the canyon and stay there for half a day. If radio hasn't been established by then, get to the event site and stick as close as you can to the planned route.'

The militarists sounded off their salute and the two groups made their way.

Walking further on, the fog thickened, everything was a white void. The Doctor experienced that future déjà vu they sometimes get, the feeling that they are going to experience this again in the future. It became so hard to see in front of people, that the topside group moved away from the edge of the ravine and tied the safety cables around each other so as not to get lost.

The topside group came to a dam, wide and dry, they first thought it was a bridge. The pooling water on the side had not filled enough to reach the flood gap. By the growth of moss, it suggested it hadn't for a while. Chitra, a little trippy, crouched down to run her hand through the cool current.

'Maybe we should take samples?' suggested Icrel.

'Yeah.' Chitra, doing that self-aware intoxicated thing of toning it down, but not exactly knowing how to.

'No. I can mark it on our map for later, but its not important right now,' said Aumegden.

'Says, you. But think about it: This isn't naturally occurring. This had to be built by someone. If we are in a part of the event site that wasn't previously mapped, it shows that life existed here, it went this fat out. That is important.'

'Again, I will log it for later, but it is not important now. Keep moving.'

Both students reluctantly went on.

'I bet Diana is having a great time,' said Chitra.

Just outside the event site, the rain had not stopped falling heavily since they arrived. All they could so was sit in the hover craft and wait. Diana and Dr. Zimorax were still quietly arguing and Gesto was stuck in the driver seat. Every squeak and rustle of fabric, every hiss of skin and click of tongue, she could hear it. She tried listening to her music, but it felt very rude to sit in silence and let everyone else sit in silence. She was desperately waiting for the rain to lighten up enough for them to begin with even building the floor.

Chitra happily let everyone edge themselves over the bridge, while she stayed back. Even going so far as to unclip her self from the cable between Joshua and Aumegden.

Aumegden looked down at her. 'Cross.'

'I will, you go ahead first.'

Aumegden looked down at the cable, Chitra had to go first.

'Chitra, it's fine,' called back Joshua, who was hard to make out as he strode across. Everyone else was making sure they didn't even go near either edge, he just sauntered. Even when a stone came loose and he slipped, her quickly caught himself.

'What was that?' asked Chitra, unable to have seen this.

'Joshua messing around,' said Icrel pointedly, hoping his look was readable through the fog.

'Yes. Sorry.'

Chitra was gently brought across with Aumegden.

Eventually the only option was to go deeper into the forest, the edge of ravine was terribly frayed, hard roots were exposed through the earth, one tree in particular was impossible perched, half hanging in the air, the other half clinging on. Chitra threw up looking at it.

Deeper into the forest, the fog eased and the day brightened into something pleasant enough. The rain still had put a chill in the air, and the density of the canopy meant their breathes were plumbing before them.

From nowhere, came a shrill whine, it was not unpleasant. It turned into a haunting song and in the heat of the sun, evaporated the forest floor to raise mist. The song stopped.

A shape vanished amongst stone works.

They froze.

The mist must have been caught in an up draft. In fact, one of them said it aloud to convince themselves and everyone else agreed. Even as they approached the stone work and found something like the foundations of a dwelling, a triangular room of stone, they told themselves it was not a ghost, or temporal spectre. One wall remained, sloping down into rubble. This is where the not-spectre had vanished from. The singing began again, a lower key, more less haunting and more haunted.

'Can you hear the singing?' Dr. Chen asked, because Joshua and Aumegden wouldn't dare to.

'Yes,' said Orlo and the singing stopped. 'The acoustics were too good to resist.'

Icrel rolled his/their eyes (they were feeling very they at that moment).

'Oh.' Was all Dr. Chen had to say and the rest of the topside group were in fits of laughter.

'The first was a eulogy, the second a drinking song.' Though, more one to sing over a drink, not to get people drinking.

'Chitra, Icrel, have either of you come across dam-like formations at all?'

'Yes, one. It worked like a bridge too.'

'Wonderful. Because we've come across two, and I see a third one up ahead.'

The ravine group were approaching a dam. It was in every way similar to the topside one, however, it was slightly smaller.

'Did it have any iconography on it?'

'No. Not that we could see.'

'We think ours have serial numbers on them for a record of construction,' said Orlo.

'It is a possible theory. Although in what order we don't know. I can't make out the iconography clearly. I have taken data of it. If you see any more, take notes.'

'Of course.'

The topside and ravine groups continued on. Although, below, Orlo was a little transfixed by one particular icon, carved into the stone it was vaguely familiar. He found his appendages could trace it easily, like muscle memory.