H.M. Hoover - Lost Star (4 page)

She wondered what the supernova looked like. She had been looking forward to seeing it. In those final fusion stages was all matter really converted to iron, and could one actually see that happen, then see the iron-red ball blast into pure energy? By the time she got back, it would all be on film, tapes of the past, like any other nova she had ever seen.

Her parents must be so excited, so pleased. It was their prediction that this giant star would nova that had prompted the building of the observatory on this distant world. Lian grinned, remembering how little all the learned papers of envious professional rivals, all the vicious attacks had bothered diem. They knew they were right and simply staked their joint and considerable reputations on being so. She wondered if she would ever possess that kind of knowledge and courage.

As she thought about them, she almost envied their passion, their total absorption in the stars. To care so deeply, so exclusively about one's work must be— Lian couldn't even imagine the feeling. But she knew she lacked that degree of caring. She liked astrophysics because they liked it and because she appreciated the poetry of it, the serene order. But with her it was no passion, but a lonely intellectual interest which she sensed would grow tedious with time.

The luxury of self-pity was tempting, but it altered nothing, she decided, and rolled onto her back to enjoy instead the luxury of warm sunshine and grass.

The music crept into her mind without her awareness, almost as part of her daydream. She found herself singing a song she did not know, in words she could not understand. She sat up, frightened, heart beating fast, and heard nothing but the familiar woodland sound.

It's not my imagination, she thought. It's the same song I heard yesterday when we flew over here. But what is it? And am I the only one who hears it? I must be. Wouldn't they have dug here first if they had heard it? If I tell them about it, will they believe me? They really don't know me . . . what if they think I'm crazy?

Lost in thought and more than a little edgy, she made her way off the hill. Why did Dr. Scott think the lumpies might be telepaths? Or did she? Because they lived in the site and she "heard things," too, and suspected the lumpies were responsible?

Lian almost bumped into the lumpie before she saw it. It was standing erect and quite still in the shrubs at the rim of the hill, watching her as if it expected her to talk to it. On impulse, she hummed the song she had just heard.

A dim, glazed expression entered the lumpie's eyes, as if she had confused it. It tilted its head, and the smiling mouth opened slightly. It had small white teeth, almost human in shape. She repeated the song. The lumpie listened.

When she had finished, it waved its anemonelike fingers very rapidly and nodded its head. And then it did something that both frightened and excited her. From deep in its throat it began to sing in rich round tones that seemed to trace a pattern in the mind. It repeated the simple melody Lian had hummed, corrected and enriched it and sent it soaring through the trees. Then it stopped abruptly and looked around, as if afraid someone else had heard, its distress so evident that Lian felt nervous sympathy for it.

"It's all right," she said. "There's no one else here."

The lumpie looked at her, and she felt helpless to soothe it. And all the time her mind was wondering,

Was this a song or language? Intelligence or an instinctive territorial call? But if that, then why this evident fear of self-betrayal? Fear of whom or what? The archaeologists? Some carnivore attracted by the sound? And how had she first heard this song from the air?

There was a rustle of twigs and scrunching leaves. Both she and her companion turned to see two other lumpies running toward them. There was much urgent finger waving, and the three surrounded her. A cool, soft anemone hand reached out and touched her arm. She flinched away, startled, and then felt ashamed of her rudeness. They all regarded her now, then slowly backed away. Somehow she got the feeling she had just become a great disappointment, as if they had expected more from her.

The three looked at one another, then turned away and started off down the path, walking slowly. They did not look back. After hesitating a moment to argue with her common sense, she followed.

5

The lumpies led her to the far side of the hill,
down through a thicket, and beside an oblong meadow bare of trees. They seemed in no hurry, almost aimless.

Orange berries grew at the meadow's edge. They stopped to pick and eat them. Their fingers were very deft. When they moved on, it was to wander downhill into a heavily wooded area.

Vines flourished over a low cliff. The three left the path and approached the cliff, pushed aside some vines, and disappeared behind them. Lian stopped and waited, watching to see where they would re-emerge. But they did not, and when some minutes passed, she decided they had grown tired of being followed and had given her the slip. And very neatly, too.

She imagined this trio of chubby gray creatures tiptoeing away into the woods and smiled at the image. She walked up the slope to investigate, but slowly, just in case they were hiding back there, watching her. She did not want to irritate or startle them. Even gentle animals bit when provoked.

"Hello?" she called and patted the vines.

There was no response. Birds sang among the trees.

She pulled some vines aside and saw a cavelike hollow space behind them. The lumpies were not there. She slipped inside and let the vines fall shut. Gravel scrunched beneath her boots. It was a pleasant hiding place. The sunlit leaves made an opaque wall of jade that shadowed green on green. The cliff narrowed down to nothing to her right. She turned left and followed the tunnellike curve of the outcropping. Around the second bend she saw an opening in the cliff wall and stopped still.

It was a doorway, perfectly round and machine tooled, as if designed for a huge vault. A few yards away, almost buried in soil and leaves, lay the massive door that had once fit that frame. Lian stood there, taking in the meaning of it all, then reached over and knocked on the cliff wall. It rang not as stone but as a foamed metal, part of the ruin. Lumpies went through that doorway; she could see their finger marks all over it.

Her first impulse was to run back to the dig and tell Dr. Farr. But tell him what—"I found an open door"? That sounded rather silly even to consider. Besides, they probably knew about it. He said they had sonar-tested and measured the whole site. Probably it was only a wall remaining from a ruin and not exciting at all. Still, there were no human tracks. She went up to have a look, thinking, That's how the lumpies gave me the slip.

The door led into a ruin, but not the ruin she expected. It opened on a wide, dim corridor that stretched away into darkness. Its floor was covered with mud and leaves. Lumpie tracks were everywhere, and the vaulted walls were hand-marked as high as they could reach. One glance and Lian knew she had made an important find.

"I wonder where it goes," she whispered to herself. "To the center of the eye?" It would be interesting to learn what was under that green hill, learn it by herself without having to explain about the singing to people who might not believe her.

The lumpies must have come in here; it couldn't be too dangerous or they wouldn't go in and out. And it must be here that they had learned to sing. She checked to see that nothing lurked on either side of the doorway and then entered. It was very still inside. There was a cellar smell of dampness and age.

"Hello?" she called. There was no echo. These walls were as sound-absorptive as the corridors of a star-ship. "Lumpies? Are you in there?"

If they were, they weren't answering.

Lian set off down the hall, walking almost on tiptoe. Between every other support beam was a closed door, like an oddly shaped hatch. She did not want to touch them for fear one would fall on her, as the outer door had fallen off. After about three minutes she turned and looked back. It seemed a long way to the entrance. Suppose there was something alive in here. Suppose the roof was ready to collapse. Her footsteps slowed.

Suddenly they loomed up out of the shadows, their eyes shining gray with reflected light from the distant door. She gave a yelp of fright and ran. They did not chase her. Afterward she was not sure why she stopped running, except that she knew they meant no harm and had only been waiting for her. She turned back to join them.

They led her through dark hallways and down dim corridors, past shadowy things vaguely seen, and none of it recognizable. Only a faint glow from the ceiling overhead kept her from feeling trapped in a labyrinth. As they went deeper into the ruins, passageways stood open, dark and mysterious. Twice she saw what could have been wall murals, but it was too dark to be sure.

The passageway ended. In the dim light she could see no door or branching hall. Her guides stopped as if confused, and exchanged finger signs, then sat on their haunches and looked at one another.

"What is it?" said Lian. "Is this what you wanted to show me?" They smiled their clown smiles, then turned to look at the wall again. She felt a flicker of irritation and disappointment and at the same time understood Dr. Scott's remark about their playing the fool.

But that was unfair of her, she decided. They had already given her the knowledge of the existence of this place. What more did she expect? Or want? Ruins were of no real interest to her.

But she did expect more, even if she wasn't sure what. She stepped around the lumpies and approached the wall. Directly past them the floor began to slant, ramplike. One did not usually find walls built across ramps, but one often found security gates at the top of ramps. If that was what this was, then her exploration in here was ended With no power source to move it, the gate would never open.

But its existence would be of interest to the archaeologists. She ran her hands along the rough texture of the wall and found a seam and then a frame that reached from
the floor to
as high as she could stretch. She checked the wall on the other side of the ramp, and as she felt
for the
matching seam,
her
fingers struck against a switch plate.

It was too dark to see what it looked like. There were holes in it, a radial design, perhaps a plug of some sort. She looked back at the lumpies, wondering if they knew it was a security gate—or if they knew what lay behind it. One lumpie got up slowly and came over to join her. At close range it smelled of grass and berries and a mustardlike scent of its own. It stood erect, peered nearsightedly at the thing her touch had found, then reached past her and fit its fingers into the holes.

"Very good!" she said, and then was interrupted by the hum of a motor. A faint crack of light appeared along the floor and grew slowly higher. "This can't be!" Lian informed the trio, who gazed at the light in wide-eyed simpleness, the one beside her with its hand still on the switch. "What's in there?" She reached up and pulled that supple hand away from the switch plate. The gate continued to rise. She began to back away, just in case. It was probably an old power cell still functioning by freakish circumstances . . . but just in case there was anything alive . • .

There was not.

The Counter looked out upon a small and rather monstrous alien and three of its responsibilities. It hummed the greeting signal.

Lian saw a great amphitheater, the center of it
occupied by what looked like a massive and very elaborate computer. Glassed booths lined the circular walls. Opaque green glass covered the dome. Looking up at the light patches caused by disarrayed soil and vines, she recognized the trail of her footsteps up and down that dome and the spot where she had rested. A shiver went over her. From here that roof looked very thin.

The air rushing past them to escape down the dark hallway felt warm and dry. It smelled of machinery and dust and some aged sweetness. Hidden speakers whispered a song of eight notes, paused, then repeated at slightly louder volume, paused, then repeated again, like an alarm signal, or a coda.

Dust in the recording device crackled in amplifiers. Dust covered the endless expanse of blue floor. Dusty cameras like huge eyes peered at them from either side of the gateway. They were being greeted and recorded by some still-functioning relic from the past.

The lumpie beside her inhaled deeply, as if it had

been holding its breath, and moved closer to her. It looked so worried she impulsively put her arm around its shoulders and found it was a solid creature and as nice to touch as a very expensive leather glove. She hugged, then patted it reassuringly. "It's all right," she said. "It's all machinery. Nothing will harm us if we're careful."

Something brushed against her right hand, then twined through her fingers. She glanced down to find herself holding hands with the other lumpie, who was also holding hands with the third.

"I'm sure we all feel safer now," she said, and laughed at the thought of the picture they must make. "It would be nicer, of course, if we could talk it over. But since we can't, I will talk and you can all smile. It will be just like home."

The lumpies looked at her.

"The first thing we must do if we're going inside is make sure we can get back out. That means we must secure this door." She freed herself from their huddling and looked about for something with which to wedge the track. Some distance down the hall lay a pile of rubble. From it she selected a sturdy strip of metal and tugged it back across the floor to the ramp. It was too heavy to lift. The lumpies watched her, wide-eyed.