Kirlian Quest (27 page)

"This level differs," Herald said, observing the cross-sectioned passages. "These tunnels are machined."

"Yes," Sixteen agreed. "We conjecture that they were preparing to depart, and knew there would be no further burials, so had to standardize their passages for ready access. They are far more uniform, with fewer residential chambers."

They drew up at last in a nether chamber of considerable size. "This is their chamber, not yours?" Herald inquired.

"Yes. We have not destroyed anything it was possible to retain of the originals. We conjecture that this contained a mattermission unit that transported the individuals directly to their orbiting ship, then either self-destructed or mattermitted itself to the ship."

"Mattermitted
itself?
" Hweeh asked dubiously.

"We don't know the capabilities of the Ancients," she reminded him. "Their machinery may have had this power. At any rate, the chamber was empty. Possibly it was dismantled by a cleanup crew and carried to the surface for transport to the ship. It was obviously an orderly evacuation. The mystery of their abrupt departure, in the face of no apparent threat, remains."

"That
is
the mystery of the Ancients everywhere," Hweeh said.

"This cessation on Mars coincided with that of all the other dated Ancient terminations?" Herald inquired, sure that it did.

"Yes. They disappeared all over the Cluster—simultaneously, as far as we can tell."

"So they did not leave Mars to go to another planet," Herald said. "When they left here, they left the Cluster too."

"It is almost as though some Cluster-wide threat drove them out," Hweeh mused.

"Like an Amoeba?" Herald asked. "Then we are surely lost, for even the science of the Ancients cannot save us. Yet there has never been evidence of invasion. Surely the Ancients would have dug in and fought."

"Here are the cubes," Sixteen said, cutting short a dialogue that had no reasonable resolution.

Herald drew up before the platform and contemplated the display. There were only two cubes. They were decorated in relief on the sides in the manner typical of Ancient artifacts of this type. "These are the best-preserved cubes I have encountered," Herald said. "Odd that they should turn up in ruins, instead of in some functioning site."

"These are not ruins," Sixteen said. "They are closed-down residences." But then she made a gust of negation. "The distinction becomes irrelevant; you mean that this is not a
technological
site. The discovery of these cubes transformed this excavation; prior to that, this was a routine cataloguing mission. If these are functioning Ancient texts...."

Yes, indeed! Prior Ancient cubes had been amenable to evocation only by the application of high aura. Herald had handled several, but they had been music recordings with no apparent meaning beyond that. Mintakan experts had analyzed the sounds and been baffled. What was needed was a definite language that could be deciphered. So far there had been only circumstantial evidence that the Ancients even
had
a language. Perhaps this was it!

Herald extended his forward feelers to touch the nearest cube, and tasted the air circulating around it. Normally the Ancient artifacts were evoked by an aura of 180 or stronger, so he expected no difficulty. The only apprehension he felt was over the possible content of the Ancient record. It might be empty or it just might be the one they needed, the one that told the key secrets of Ancient science.

Suddenly he was aware of other Jets. They had been working around the site, so that he had hardly noticed them, but now they were closing in to witness the evocation of the cubes. Well, he could hardly condemn their curiosity and interest. They had found these significant artifacts.

He concentrated his aura on the cube. He felt it begin to respond—then it balked. Hweeh focused on him, concerned, knowing something was wrong.

He could not evoke the cube.
Like his healing power, his evocation strength was gone. And Hweeh of Weew could not salvage his reputation this time by doing it for him; his aura was 125, too low for this work. "Dead cubes?" Sixteen asked anxiously. Herald hesitated. They expected so much... could he disappoint them? Yet if he remained Kirlian-impotent—

He would have to try again, harder. Maybe he could break through his own stasis—

"ALARM! ALARM!" the site speaker system clamored. "Strange nexus has materialized in orbit about this planet. Nature unknown."

"Strange nexus?" the Jet super, numbered "1," inquired. "Clarify."

The observer sounded confused. "It registers on our sensor like a meteor-shower—but it's
orbiting
. And it has some kind of energy shell. Maybe our equipment is malfunctioning, but I think it's a ship."

The Jets hovered on their fibers, amazed. "A ship
materialized?
" Hweeh demanded. "Could it be the Lodo freezer mattermitting again?"

"Without a mattermission receiver?" Herald asked. Sixteen read the detail code coming in over the speaker. "It is no wormship," she said. "Even allowing for our sensor malfunction, the shape is wrong. This is a Sphere, not a Worm."

"An Atom-ship, perhaps," Herald said. "Maybe it found an old orbiting receiving station. Still, why would anyone waste all that energy mattermitting here? They could have called us via Transfer-link."

"It is an alien vessel," the lookout said excitedly on the speaker. "No record of this type in the Cluster. Now it is hovering above this site—"

"No ship of the Cluster can mattermit without a specifically identified receiver," Herald said. "If it is an Ancient receiver undiscovered until now, this ship can only be—"

Hweeh started to lose form inside his suit. Grimly he hung on. "It is—" He sagged, then struggled to reform his speaker horn. "
It is the Amoeba!
" And he sagged into shock.

"The Amoeba!" Sixteen exclaimed. "
Here?
"

"What is this Amoeba?" One demanded.

"Enemy fleet," Sixteen said tersely.

"Or one ship thereof," Herald amended. "If Hweeh is right—and I think he is—we're in trouble. Find cover—fast."

The Jets milled around uncertainly. Of course there was no cover. They were already deep in the ground, with nowhere to go but up.

"This is not a battle base," One retorted. "It is an archaeological site. No one would attack—"

She was interrupted by a crack as of thunder. The tunnel shuddered, and dust sifted down.

Herald hooked the unconscious Hweeh with his graspers and jetted for the exit ramp. "Get out before this dig collapses!" he wooshed back at the confused Jets.

Sixteen zoomed up beside him and helped him haul the inert Weew. Herald hoped the suit was maintaining the life processes without assistance. "How can there be thunder?" she asked, seemingly unable to focus on the main issue. "Mars has no water-storms!"

Another crack of thunder sounded. This time part of the ceiling caved in, showing the red Martian sky above a ballooning cloud of dust. "That's no storm!" Herald cried. "That's a laser strike!"

"But the noise—"

Herald realized that the explanation did not come naturally to a nonlaser species, so as they struggled through the throng of panicked Jets on the ramp, he explained: "The laser heats the air it passes through, making it expand explosively. That's the thunder. Mars has very thin atmosphere, but this is evidently a very strong laser, so the effect remains. Lasers are basically space weapons, where no atmosphere gets in the way. Here—"

"But why?"

"I'm not sure why we're under attack. But I suspect the Amoeba recognizes this site as a threat. That means the Amoebites know about, and are afraid of, Ancient science. That's a good sign."

"A
good
sign? That they ray us down?"

"Because it means we are close to achieving what we need to defeat them. A strike like this must be a desperation measure, as it betrays their presence and intent prematurely."

A third strike came. This time the cavity behind them caved in completely. The crack of thunder was followed by the roar of the collapse. "Oh, oh!" Sixteen cried in anguish. "The work is incomplete! All our labor of excavation and preliminary cataloguing—"

"Keep moving," Herald told her. "Or more than the work will be lost. This is war." He was surprised at his own stability. Probably it was due in part to his Slash heritage, and in part to his recent loss of Psyche. Death simply was no great threat to him in his grief.

"The Weew is too heavy," Sixteen cried. "I cannot carry him much longer!"

Herald had to agree. His Jet host was healthy, but was not designed to carry heavy weights. "We'll have to hide somewhere, and try to bring him to," he decided. "He is the only one who can operate his suit."

"Here," she said. "These passages are long and deep; we should be safe there." She guided him into the labyrinth of Ancient tunnels.

The passages were too narrow for them to pass three abreast, except where the archaeologists had widened them for exploratory access. But this was a Jet-developed offshoot that penetrated deep into the ground, almost to the base of the city, with each level carefully marked off for reference. When it seemed safe, they parked Hweeh in a niche formed by an intersection, rested briefly, and tried to revive him.

Herald touched the Weew's suit with his aura. "Wake, friend," he said.

There was no response.

Another explosion reverberated down the tunnels, making Herald suddenly claustrophobic. This warren had lasted three million years, but it was brittle. Too much shaking...

"Why does he not wake?" Sixteen asked, frightened. "Is he dead?"

"He is in shock. I am a healer—but I too am in a kind of shock. I did not heal you, for I have lost my power. Hweeh healed you. Now I cannot help him. I am sorry."

"Maybe I can do it," she said.

Herald, worn out by the haul and preoccupied by the continuing sounds of destruction elsewhere in the site, hardly paid attention. Any physical comfort she could offer the Weew would help, though only an aura above Hweeh's own level of 125 could revive him from shock.

"He's just a gray mass!" Sixteen said, concerned. Herald was not certain how she could determine color in this dark niche; perhaps she spoke figuratively.

"This is normal for Weew shock," he assured her. "His suit preserves him. He is in health, only unconscious."

His thoughts returned to the Amoeba. Assuming it really was an Amoeba ship out there, how could it have pinpointed this site so accurately, of all the locations on all the planets of the Cluster, and why had it struck
now?
There could be no coincidence about it! If the Amoeba knew where the Ancient sites and receivers were, and it was out to destroy them before the Cluster species could use them, it was a horrifying indication of the capacity of the enemy. But even so, it defied coincidence that the strike should come right at this moment, right when he was trying to evoke the Ancient cube....

That was it! That cube was no text—it was a transmitter! It had reacted to his aura by issuing a Kirlian signal. It was a machine, triggered by exposure to aura of the intensity of its makers, the Ancients, and it obeyed without question or discrimination when evoked. The cube did not know or care that the Ancients were three million years gone. So it had dutifully transmitted its message—perhaps no more than a blank carrier impulse, since he had not been trying to transmit—and the Amoeba had picked it up, believed it represented an animation of Ancient science, and acted immediately to destroy it. No, no coincidence at all. He had brought the attack upon himself!

And the destruction of the site on Planet Keep had been by Amoeba action too. Psyche had evoked that site, much as he had evoked the cube, tuning into it unconsciously, and the strike bad come. Now the enemy was reacting much more swiftly. Or perhaps the signal this time had been more specific:
Here is an aura of
236,
capable of keying open Ancient sites!
, while before it had been a more general thing, mystifying the enemy even as it had mystified the nobles of Keep. Either way, it was apparent that the Amoeba was closing in at an alarming rate. It was no longer a distant, highly theoretical menace; it was here and now! Its strategy was most specific: Eliminate the auras capable of evoking Ancient equipment, thereby eliminating any possible use of that equipment by Cluster entities. If the Cluster did not obtain Ancient science soon, it would be too late. Any enemy that could strike so swiftly, so specifically, when its base was over a million light-years distant...

He was getting nowhere. If only Psyche had survived! Not merely for personal reasons, compelling as those were—even here in the Jet host, he longed for her!—but because of her seeming ability to draw enhancement from an Ancient site. She might have been able to—

"Did I shock out again?" Hweeh asked. "Thanks for reviving me, Psyche."

"Who?" Sixteen asked.

Hweeh rotated his eye-stalk inside his suit. "Pardon, Lady. I was misinformed. For a moment I mistook you for another entity."

Herald felt a slow amazement. He had been thinking of Psyche, and Hweeh had named her. Coincidence? Then how had the Weew been brought out of shock? There was no way that Sixteen's fractional aura could have done it.

Hweeh must have snapped out of it himself spontaneously. Perhaps his shock had been countered by the knowledge that he had to keep functioning if he were to survive at all.

Another laser beam struck, closer. "They're chasing us!" Sixteen said.

"More likely destroying the whole site," Herald said. "We just happen to be in their path."

"Then let's get
out
of it!" she said.

They jetted on through the passage, seeking the surface. Sixteen knew the way, and led them through a labyrinth that otherwise would have baffled them. Soon they emerged to the Martian day—and saw the enemy ship.

It was a shimmering globe floating so close to the surface that it seemed like an atmospheric balloon. Herald had never seen a ship quite like it. So this was the Amoeba, seeming close enough to touch!