The Depths of Time (71 page)

As bad as it all looked to the naked eye, the briefers had assured them, it was worse on the microscopic level. The bacteria seemed to be mutating into new and more deadly variants with every passing day. Even the roaches were succumbing to opportunistic infections. The entire dome was nothing but a tangle of disease vectors.

Koffield, Norla, and Ashdin walked along what had once been a tree-lined path of white crushed stone, and was now a dismal alley, the stone stained black with lichen, the path half-blocked by fallen tree limbs.

“
Thanks be to the founders,
”
Koffield whispered.
“
For look what they have bequeathed unto us.
”

“
This is dreadful,
”
Ashdin said.
“
I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea. I was here, years ago, before it started to go bad. It was lovely then. Just lovely.
”

They came to a big ceramic heater that had been set up along one side of the path. It was not powered up yet, but it would be soon. Norla checked her suit
’
s outside temperature gauge. It was already warm out there without the heaters running, and the heaters were due to kick in at dusk. She glanced up through the mildew-fogged dome to the slightly blurry image of the SunSpot.

“
We don
’
t have a lot of daylight left,
”
she said.
“
If we
’
re here to get a look at DeSilvo
’
s Tomb, maybe we should get there while we can still see it.
”

“
You
’
ve been here before, Dr. Ashdin,
”
said Koffield.
“
You lead the way.
”

Ashdin chuckled dryly.
“
Well, the place has changed just a bit since the last time I was here. But I believe if we bear off to the left at the next crossing, that will lead us there.
”

The tomb, Norla was not surprised to discover, was hexagonal, and stood in the precise center of the dome. She had seen enough DeSilvo designs to recognize his style at a glance. The man had used the same motifs and design elements over and over again.

This DeSilvo design, however, wasn
’
t a glass-wall job, but simple white stone, marble by the look of it. At least it had been white marble, before it was blackened by the omnipresent mold and mildew. The entire structure was built on five low hexagonal platforms, each slightly larger than the one above it, so as to form a continuous stairway around the tomb, with the tomb itself at the top of the stairway. Five faces of the structure were stone. The sixth face stood open, forming the entrance to the interior. The tomb itself was about fifteen meters from side to side, with the outermost and lowest platform adding about three meters to that. Dead leaves and twigs littered the stairways, and a dead sparrow lay just outside the entrance on the stained and darkened marble.

“
There it is,
”
Ashdin said.
“
Your answer. A small six-sided building in the middle of a dome. If you can see a way that
’
s going to solve the climate crisis on Solace, Pd be interested to hear it.
”

Koffield ignored her sarcasm.
“
I
’
m sure you know the tomb backward and forward. Walk us around it. Tell us about it.
”

Ashdin turned to Koffield and gave him a funny look.
“
Why not?
”
she asked.
“
We
’
ve got until tomorrow night before we can get out of here. Might as well fill the time up somehow. I don
’
t even know why I came here in the first place.
”

“
It
’
ll come back to you,
”
Koffield said mildly.
“
Walk us around.
”

Ashdin stared at Koffield for a moment, then shrugged.
“
All right,
”
she said.
“
The marble itself was quarried on Solace, from the same quarries that built many of SolaceCity
’
s great public buildings. The six sides of the building, and the six levels formed by the platform stair and the tomb itself, recall the hexagonal shape of a honeycomb, and are meant to remind us that from the hard work of the bee comes the sweetness of honey. If you
’
ll follow me around the exterior of the tomb, you will see that four of the five exterior panels bear carved quotations from DeSilvo
’
s various speeches and letters and so on.
”
She paused on the side of the building opposite the entrance.
“
This fifth panel, the one opposite the open side of the structure, and the one that, as you will see when we go in, is closest to the urn that holds his ashes, bears an inscribed reproduction of DeSilvo
’
s design for Solace City, demonstrating that it is close to him and is the face he would best like to have presented to the outside world.
”

She led them around the other side of the tomb and came back to the front.
“
Note also that near the top of each panel is a glyph, a different one for each panel. The fifth panel
’
s glyph is a stylized ray of light, symbolizing the sense of sight and the doors of the soul. The other panels display stylized symbols of the senses as well. A musical note to indicate hearing, a flower for the sense of smell, a loaf of bread and bottle of wine for taste, and a feather for touch. The five senses that are our gateways to the outside world are on the outside of the building, to remind us that buildings are the work of architects and should engage all the five senses. And, of course, the sixth panel, the one that is not there, and yet whose shape is formed by the presence of the existing panels, symbolizes the sixth sense, the passage that links the inner and outward life, and guides and shapes the actions of the artist.
”

“
That doesn
’
t look the least bit like a feather,
”
Koffield said.
“
And I
’
d have never guessed that was a bottle of wine.
”

“
A bit overly clever, isn
’
t it?
”
Norla asked.
“
The symbolism is pretty forced.
”

“
A matter of taste, I suppose,
”
Koffield said.
“
But I must admit I don
’
t seem to see any grand answers to the terraforming crisis.
”

“
Thousands of people have visited here over the years,
”
Ashdin said snappishly.
“
If it was there, surely one of them would have spotted it.
”

Koffield gestured, hands upturned and empty.
“
You
’
ve got a point,
”
he said.

Norla gestured toward the entrance.
“
I suppose that, with the outer panels symbolizing outer life, the interior is going to symbolize inner life?
”

Ashdin was plainly embarrassed by the degree to which Norla was unimpressed.
“
Yes,
”
she said.
“
Come on.
”
She led the way into the tomb, her e-suit making her move awkwardly as she went up the low marble steps.

The SunSpot was close to the horizon, and it was starting to get dark. But the entrance of the tomb was sighted to point due west, so that, as Norla could see from the outside, the setting SunSpot flooded the interior of the tomb with light. Light reminded Norla of heat. She checked her suit
’
s exterior temperature gauge. It was already thirty-five degrees Celsius. That was nothing her suit could not handle, and it was far less hot than it was going to be—but there was no question that the dome
’
s interior was heating rapidly. Ashdin walked inside the structure, and Norla followed, with Koffield taking up the rear.

The interior was on the grimy side, but in far better repair than the exterior. A marble sphere sat by the west wall of the tomb, and a golden urn, a cylinder of understatedly simple design, sat on the sphere. The single word
DE-SILVO
was etched into the urn, and the legend
THE FOUNDER
was carved into the floor beneath the sphere.

“
The setting SunSpot illuminates the Founder
’
s final resting place,
”
said Ashdin—

“
Just as his work illuminated all our lives?
”
Norla asked.

Ashdin turned and glared at Norla. With sunset coming on, their faceplates had adjusted their reflective coatings down to full transparency, and Norla could see Ashdin
’
s expression quite clearly.
“
Something like that,
”
Ashdin said. * He was a great man! Maybe not a saint. Maybe he made mistakes. But this is his tomb, his final resting place. It could do you no harm to show a bit of respect.
”

“
I
’
m sorry,
”
said Norla.
“
You
’
re quite right. Please, show us the rest.
”

Anton Koffield came in behind Norla, and she turned to look him in the face. The disappointment was plain on his face.
“
I don
’
t know what I was thinking,
”
he said.
“
Madness. Hopeless optimism. I don
’
t know. There
’
s nothing here.
”

But now that Ashdin had started out to give the full tour, it was clear she was determined to see it all the way through. She gestured up.
“
The ceiling of the chamber is deliberately bare,
”
she said.
“
It is the future, uncharted and unmade. An empty canvas upon which we draw what we will.
”
She gestured at the floor.
“
The floor is the past, the tools and knowledge given to us. Note the single point inscribed on it just inside the entryway, and then, a little farther in, the line that runs the width of the tomb. Then, beneath our feet, an equilateral triangle inscribed in the floor. Around the triangle is a square, and outside that, a regular pentagon and a regular hexagon. Plane geometry. Note the crystal cube and the steel cone that sit on the floor in front of the side panels. Note also the marble sphere that supports DeSilvo
’
s funerary urn. Solid geometry, and three dimensions, and the combination of materials, produce architecture.

“
On the left side of the chamber, the wall formed by the two side panels is inscribed with a line of random numbers. On the right, it is inscribed with a line of random alphanumeric characters. The two lines point to the panel behind the funerary urn, just as the geometric forms of the floor move toward it. And on that panel, as you see, the letters become words, and the words poetry—quotations from noted poets on the theme of the natural world. The string of random numbers and letters form into the vital formulae that define the timeshaft wormhole that links the worlds, while the geometric forms are resolved, as I have said, by the sphere that holds the urn. But the sphere, as you will note if you look carefully, is lightly inscribed with a map of Solace. Mathematics, poetry, and geometry combine to form not only architecture, but the science and art of terraforming.
”

Norla shook her head.
“
I
’
m sorry, Dr. Ashdin. With all due respect, it
’
s too much—and not enough. The symbolism is too heavy-handed. It
’
s forced. It doesn
’
t show us how noble and good it is to have aspirations. It
tells
us that we must be inspired. It lectures at us. It
’
s as if there were something here that had to be in here, that didn
’
t fit, so that everything else had to be bent out of shape to make it fit.
”

“
What do you mean?
”

Norla pointed at the side panels.
“
The random numbers and letters don
’
t work in the concept at all. Everything else is so orderly as to be completely sterile. Lines, angles, geometry. It?s all rigid and symmetrical. Randomness doesn
’
t fit in.
”

She glanced behind her, at Anton Koffield, realizing that he had gone awfully quiet. She had thought he would be doing what she was doing—looking moodily around the self-important chamber for the clue that wasn
’
t there, quite unaffected by the overworked good intentions, the nag-gingly virtuous tone of the place.

But Koffield was looking, no, not looking,
staring,
in one direction, and one direction only. At the left-hand wall. At the string of random digits that marched across the wall toward the unconvincing order and perfection of the west wall.

“
I don
’
t believe it,
”
he whispered to himself.
“
I can
’
t believe it,
”
he repeated, shock and astonishment in his voice and on his face.