As the shuttle descended and my eyes got used to the brighter parts of Makemake's surface, I began seeing spaceships parked inside caves and small valleys. I couldn't understand if these features were natural or man-made, but even if they were natural, they must have been heavily modified by humans. Either way, I was amazed by the speed at which people had adapted to this new place.
After we flew past those spaceship hangars, I noticed some antennas sticking out from somewhere underground.
"What are those things?" I asked. Mei and Professor Yamamari looked at where I was looking, but I got no answer.
Just a few minutes later, after our shuttle made a turn, a small enterance to an underground settlement was revealed. People of Makemake were living underground entirely!
The shuttle pilot carefully flew us inside, and we passed by some habitats, most of which were seemingly constructed out of spaceship parts. Those habitats were made out of tunnels rotating almost horizontally - most probably to provide artificial gravity, since Makemake's own surface gravity was less than 1/10th of Earth's.
After thinking about it for a while, an underground settlement made a lot of sense to me. It would protect people from the radiation from space, micrometeorite impacts and detection by genocidal machines. For a while, at least.
The shuttle slowed down and landed inside a small rectangular cave extension which was dug out carefully to be used specifically as a landing pad. The shuttle's hatch opened, and uniformed men lead us out. We were then escorted to a set of hallways which led us further into the underground settlement.
"Incredible." I said. "There is breathable air here, in the open hallways. I am amazed by the progress."
No one said anything in return, as if they were afraid of disturbing the creepy silence. I shut myself up as well.
We eventually came to a building, which was clearly serving as a health center. The three of us had many questions but none of us asked anything.
"Inside." said one of the people escorting us. They remained outside, we went in. A couple of doctors greeted us.
"Please."
They wanted us to lay down on hospital beds. For the first time, Mei opened her mouth.
"Why?"
"I don't understand." one of the doctors said.
"Why do you do this to us, whatever you are doing?"
"You are coming here from lands far away. We need to make sure you won't bring any diseases, or, even worse... any dangerous biotechnology device here."
Mei looked at me expectantly.
"Just let them do their thing." I told her. "We don't want conflict."
They laid us down on the beds and took us to separate rooms. Two doctors with various devices ran a lot of tests on me and carefully examined every centimeter of my body.
"You have leftover gadgets from a previous Vineura installation, which we need to remove." a doctor told me. I was going to say something, but then decided not to. They went on with the operation.
After about an extra hour of medical examination to make sure that we were clean, the doctors finally released me. Just when I thought that I was finally free, the men in black uniforms appeared by my side again.
"The council is waiting."
"Wait a minute." I said. "I need my companions."
"You don't need your companions." was the answer.
"What do you mean? We are on a-"
"They are already on their way... separately."
One of the men gave me a little push to get me going. I decided to obey - it was obvious that I was not going to come up with a working argument any time soon.
Those men then accompanied me through a complex hallway system. With one half of my brain, I was trying to memorize the path I came from; and with the other half, I was trying to make sense of the structure. Judging by the shapes of the walls, those hallways were partially dug by heavy machinery, and partially by hand tools. Only the floor was constructed out of metal, the rest was left as is. Different types of ice was forming and evaporating in various places.
In some hallways, there were large, heavy metal doors on the sides, colored bright green, all of which read "ESCAPE". Next to those doors, there were a couple of small analogue gauges. The purpose of those doors wasn't clear to me, the only thing I knew was how mildly disturbing their presence was.
Through the entire way, lighting was provided by generic low-cost systems, fed by exposed cables running along the corners of the ceiling, as if we were walking in an old coal mine. Only after some thinking, it started making more sense. Maybe this really was a mine!
"Hey, where are you taking me?" I asked the men by my sides.
"The council."
"What exactly is the council?" I then asked. "And where is it?"
"Only the council can give you the answers you seek." the man on my left said. "We are not allowed to exchange information."
"That's some powerful and sovereign council you have." I said.
"The council is righteous."
I did not continue wasting my time by trying to get information from the men. Carefully inspecting my surroundings the entire way, I finally arrived in front of a large two-piece door with various symbols and decorations on.
The door unlocked slowly, making loud noises which echoed through the underground structure. The two pieces of door slided to the sides, revealing a rather large room.
"Walk." the man on my right said. I started walking into the room, but they did not come with me. As soon as I got past it, the doors closed. Startled by the noise, I looked behind me. Inside the room, by the sides of the door, two people with spears were standing, watching me without even blinking. No matter how frightening they were, I couldn't help thinking...
"Spears? Really!?"
In my eyes, 'The Council' was an entity only trying to look powerful to hide it's actual desparation and remain in power. The worse idea was, however, despite that fact, they COULD actually be the most powerful entity in human space.
If that's really what mankind was left with, I couldn't really see how we were going to fight back in time to take Earth. In time... before the machines find all human enclaves in the Trans-Neptunian region such as this large one on Makemake.