The Tar-aiym Krang (19 page)

They had been cruising on jets for only a short while when his excited cry broke the cabin’s silence.

“
Maisha,
there it is! Check out the ports to your right.”

There was a concerted rush to that side of the ship. Even Sissiph, her natural curiosity piqued, joined the movement.

They were still high, but as they banked the ruins of what had been a good-sized city, even by Tar-Aiym standards, came into view. They had built well, as always, but on this planet very little could remain in its original state for long. Still, from here it seemed as well preserved as any of the Tar-Aiym cities Flinx had seen on tape. As they dropped lower the alien city pattern of concentric crescents, radiating out from a fixed point, became as clear as ripples from the shore of a pond.

But even at this height the thing that immediately caught everyone’s attention and caused Truzenzuzex to utter a soft curse of undefinable origin was not the city itself, but the building which stood on the bluff above the metropolis’s nexus. A single faceless edifice in the shape of a rectangular pyramid, cut off squarely at the top. Both it and the circular base it rose from were a uniform dull yellow-white in color. The very top of the structure appeared to be covered with some kind of glassy material. Unlike the rest of the city it looked to be in a state of perfect preservation. It was also by far the tallest single structure he had ever seen.

“
Baba Giza!”
came Malaika’s hushed voice over the speaker. He apparently became aware that his speaker pickup was on. “Take your seats, everybody, and fasten your straps. We are going to land by the base of that bluff.
Rafiki
Tse-Mallory,
rafiki
Truzenzuzex, we will explore the entire city beam by beam if you wish, but I will bet my
majicho
that your Krang is in a certain building at the top of a certain hill!”

Nothing like understatement to heighten anticipation, thought Flinx.

They landed, finally, on the broad stretch of open sandy ground to the left of both city and bluff. Atha had wisely elected to use replaceable landing skids instead of the wheeled gear, being uncertain as to the composition of the land they were going to set down on. There had been no clear, paved stretch of territory nearby. They had had a quick glimpse of the ruins of a monstrous spaceport off to the rear of the city’s last crescent. Malaika had vetoed landing there, wishing to land as close as possible to the ziggurat itself. He felt that the less distance they had to travel on the ground and the closer they could remain to the ship itself, the safer he would feel about roaming around the ruined city. The great spaceport had also no doubt served as a military base, and if any unpleasant automatic devices still remained to greet unauthorized visitors, they also would probably be concentrated there. So their landing was a bit rougher than it might have been. But they were down now, in one piece, and had received another benefit none had thought of. It would have been obvious had anyone reflected on it.

The wind came in a constant wall from behind the building and the bluff below which they had landed. While by no means perpendicular, the bluff proved steep enough to cut off a good portion of the perpetual gale. It would mean easier working conditions around the shuttle itself, in addition to eliminating the possible problem of having to tie the ship down. The ship’s branch meteorology ‘puter registered the outside windage at their resting point at a comfortable forty-five kilometers an hour. Positively sylvan.

“Atha, Wolf, give me a hand getting the crawler out. The rest of you check over your equipment and make sure you’ve got an extra pair of goggles apiece.” He turned to Tse-Mallory. “
Je!
They built their city behind the biggest windbreak they could find. Sort of gives the lie to your ‘caressing wind-bath’ theory,
kweli?”

“Do not abuse my guesses, captain, or I’ll make no more.” His eyes and mind were obviously focused elsewhere.

“Wolf?”

“Here, captain.” The skeleton came out of the fore cabin, looking even more outré than usual in his silver belt and goggles. The expression on his face was odd, because
any
expression on his face was an oddity.

“Captain, there’s an active thermal power source somewhere under this city.”

“Not nuclear?” asked Malaika. A gravitonic power plant was of course impossible on any body with a reasonable field of its own. Still, there were known aspects to Tar-Aiym science that humanx researchers couldn’t even begin to explain.

“No, sir. It’s definitely thermal. Big, too, according to the sensors, although it was a very fast check-through.”

Malaika’s eyebrows did flip-flops. “Interesting. Does that suggest any ‘guesses’ to you, gentlesirs?”

Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex pulled themselves away from their rapt contemplation of the monolith above and considered the question.

“Yes, several,” began the philosoph. “Among which is the confirmation of a fact we were fairly certain of anyway, that this is a young planet in a fairly young GO system. Tapping the core-power of a planet is difficult enough on the youngest, which this is not. But anyone can
tap.
The problem is to keep it under sufficient control to be able to channel it without causing planetwide earthquakes or volcanoes under major Hive-centers. We’re still not so very adept at that ourselves. And only in the most limited sense.”

“And,” continued Tse-Mallory, “it suggests they needed a hell of a lot of power for something, doesn’t it? Now this is a fairly good-sized Tar-Aiym town, but it also seems to be the only one on the planet.” He looked at Malaika for confirmation and the trader nodded, slowly. “So for the mind of me I can’t see what they had to go to all that trouble for, when their quasinuclear plants would have provided more than enough power for this one city. Especially with all the water that’s available.”

“Captain,” said Truzenzuzex impatiently, “We will be happy to hypothesize for you at length—later. But now I wish you would see about removing our surface transportation from the hold.” His head swiveled to a port and the great golden eyes stared outward. “I have little doubt that your unasked questions and, hopefully, most of ours will be answered when we get inside that
Tuarweh
on top of this bluff.”

“
If
we get into it,” added Tse-Mallory. “It is just possible that the owners locked up when they moved, and left no key behind.”

Chapter Sixteen

The crawler was a low, squat vehicle, running on twin duralloy treads. It also had a universal spherical “wheel” at its center of gravity to facilitate turning. Atha had made a few preliminary safety calculations and had come up with the fact that it would remain relatively stable in winds up to two hundred and fifty kilometers per, at which point things would start to get sticky. Flinx, for one, had no desire to put her calculations to a practical test. Nor did Malaika, apparently. He insisted on filling every empty space on the machine with objects of weight. If the winds got
that
bad, all the paraphernalia they could stuff into it wouldn’t help. But it at least provided them with something of a psychological lift.

Not the least of these “objects of weight” was a heavy laser rifle, tripod-mounted.

“Just in case,” the merchant had said, “opening the door proves more difficult than it might.”

“For a peaceful trader traveling on his private racer you appear to have stocked quite an arsenal,” Truzenzuzex murmured.

“Philosoph, I could give you a long, involved argument replete with attractive semantic convolutions, but I will put it, so, and leave it. I am in a very competitive business.”

He cocked a challenging eye at the thranx.

“As you say.” Truzenzuzex bowed slightly.

They boarded the crawler, which had been maneuvered close to the cargo port to minimize the initial force of the wind. The big land cruiser held all of them comfortably. It had been designed to transport heavy cargo, and even with Malaika’s “objects of weight” scattered about there was plenty of room in which to move around. If bored, one might take the ladder up to the driver’s compartment, with its two beds and polyplexalloy dome. There was room up there for four, but Malaika, Wolf, and the two scientists occupied it immediately and were disinclined to give it up. So Flinx had to be content with the tiny ports in the main compartment for his view of the outside. He was alone in the quiet spaces with the two women, who sat at extreme opposite ends of the cabin from each other and exchanged deathly thoughts back and forth. A less congenial atmosphere would have been difficult to imagine. Try as he would, they were beginning to give him a headache. He would far rather have been upstairs.

They were making their way up the slope of the bluff now, zigzagging whenever the incline grew too steep for even the crawler’s powerful spiked treads to negotiate. Their progress was slow but steady, the machine after all having been designed to get from point A to point B in one piece, and not to race the clock. It did its job effectively.

As might have been predicted, the ground was crumbly and soft. Still, it was more rock than sand. The treads dug in deeply and the engine groaned. It slowed their advance somewhat but assured them of excellent traction in the teeth of the wind. Still, Flinx would not like to have faced a real blow in the slow device.

They finally topped the last rise. Looking back into the distance Tse-Mallory could make out the crumbled spires and towers of the city, obscured by eternal dust and wind. It was more difficult to see up here. Gravel, dirt, and bits of wood from the hearty ground-hugging plants began to splatter against the front of the dome. For the first time the howl of the wind became audible through the thick shielding, sounding like fabric tearing in an empty room.

Wolf glanced at their anemometer. “A hundred fifteen point five-two kilos an hour . . . sir.”

“
Je!
I’d hoped for better, but it could be worse. Much worse. No one is going to be taking long walks.
Upepokuu!
In a gale we can manage. A hurricane would be awkward.”

As they moved farther in from the edge of the bluff the air began to clear sufficiently for them to catch sight of their objective. Not that they could have missed it. There wasn’t anything else to see, except an occasional clump of what looked like dried seaweed. They rolled on, the wind dying as they moved farther into the lee of the building. Three pairs of eyes leaned back . . . and back, and back, until it seemed certain it would be simpler to lie down and stare upward. Only Wolf, eyes focused on the instrument board of the massive crawler, failed to succumb to the lure of the monolith.

It towered above them, disappearing skyward in swirls of dust and low clouds, unbroken by ledge or window.

“How
huyukubwa?”
Malaika finally managed to whisper.

“How big do I make it? I couldn’t say too well,” answered Tse-Mallory. “Tru? You’ve got the best depth vision among us.”

The philosoph was quiet for a long moment. “In human terms?” He lowered his eyes to look at them. If he could have blinked he would, but thranx eye-shields reacted only in the presence of water or strong sunlight, so he could not. His improvised goggles gave his face an unbalanced look.

“Well over a kilo at the base . . . each way. It looked a perfect square from the air, you know. Perhaps . . .” he took another brief glance upward, “three kilometers high.”

The slight jolting and bumping they had been experiencing abruptly disappeared. They were now traveling on the smooth yellow-white circle on which the structure was centered.

Malaika peered down at the substance they were traversing, then back at the building. The heavy crawler left no tracks on the solid surface.

“What do you suppose this stuff is, anyway?”

Tse-Mallory had joined him in looking down at the even ground. “I don’t know. When I saw it from the air my natural inclination was to think, stone. Just before we grounded I thought it looked rather ‘wet,’ like certain heavy plastics. Now that we’re down on it I’m not sure of anything. Ceramics, maybe?”

“Metal-reinforced, surely,” added Truzenzuzex. “But as for the surface, at least, a polymer ceramic would be a good guess, certainly. It’s completely different from anything I’ve ever seen before, even on other Tar-Aiym planets. Or for that matter, from anything I could see of the city as we came in.”

“Um. Well, since they built their city in the lee of this bluff, as a windbreak, I don’t doubt, I’d expect any
mlango
to be on this side of the structure.
Je?”

As it turned out shortly enough, there was, and it was.

Unlike the rest of the mysterious building the material used in the construction of the door was readily identifiable. It was metal. It towered a good thirty meters above the cab of the crawler and stretched at least half that distance in either direction. The metal itself was unfamiliar, dull-gray in color, and possessed of an odd glassy luster. Much like the familiar fogs of home, for Flinx. The whole thing was recessed several meters into the body of the building.

“Well, there’s your door, captain,” said Tse-Mallory. “How do we get in? I confess to a singular lack of inspiration, myself.”

Malaika was shaking his head in awe and frustration as he examined the entrance. Nowhere could be seen the sign of a single joint, weld, or seam.

“Drive right up to it, Wolf. The wind is practically dead here. We’ll have to get out and look for a doorbuzz or something. If we don’t find anything that’s recognizably a handle or a keyhole, we’ll have to unlimber the rifle and try a less polite entrance.” He eyed the massive square dubiously. “Although I hope that alternative doesn’t become necessary. I know the stubbornness of Tar-Aiym metals.”

As it turned out, the problem was solved for them.

Somewhere in the bowels of the colossal structure, long dormant but undead machinery sensed the approach of an artificial mechanism containing biological entities. It stirred sleepily, prodding resting memory circuits to wakefulness. The design and composition of the approaching vehicle was unfamiliar, but neither was it recognizably hostile. The entities within were likewise unfamiliar, albeit more obviously primitive. And there was an A-class mind among them. Likewise unfamiliar, not hostile. And it had been
such
a long time! The building debated with itself for the eternity of a second.

“Hold it, Wolf!” The merchant had noticed a movement in front of the crawler.

With a smoothness and silence born of eternal lubrication, the great door separated. Slowly, with the ponderousness of tremendous weight, the two halves slid apart just far enough for the crawler to enter comfortably. Then they stopped.

“
Utamu.
We are expected, perhaps?”

“Automatic machinery,” mumbled Truzenzuzex, entranced.

“My thoughts also, philosoph. Take us in, Wolf.”

The quiet man obediently gunned the engine and the powerful landcraft began to rumble forward. Malaika eyed the sides of the narrow opening warily. The metal was not a reasonably thin sheet. It was not even a moderate one.

“A good nineteen, twenty, meters through,” said Tse-Mallory matter-of-factly. “I wonder what it was designed to keep out.”

“Not us, apparently,” added Truzenzuzex. “You could have played your toy on that for days, Captain, and burned it out before you scratched the entrance. I’d like to try a SCCAM on it, just to see which would come out the winner. I’ve never heard of any artificial structure resisting a SCCAM projectile, but then I’ve never seen a twenty-meter-thick Hive-block of solid Aiymetal before, either. The question will undoubtedly remain forever academic.”

They had rolled perhaps a few meters beyond the door when it began to slide heavily shut behind them. The silence of it was eerie. Wolf glanced questioningly at Malaika, hand on throttle. The merchant, however, was at least outwardly unconcerned.

“It opened to let us in, Wolf. I think it will do so to let us out.” The doors closed. “In any case,
kwa nini
worry? It doesn’t matter now.”

They got another surprise. Unless they were hollow, which hardly seemed likely with that door, the walls of the pseudoceramic material were a good hundred and fifty meters thick. Far more than was needed merely to support the weight of the building, great as it was. It bespoke much more an attempt at impregnability. Such had been found before in the ruins of Tar-Aiym fortresses, but never approaching this in scale.

Flinx did not know what he expected of the interior. He’d been scanning consistently ever since the great doors had opened, but had not been able to detect anything thinking inside. And he’d lamented his purely sideways view from the crawler. He didn’t see how the inside could possibly surprise him any more than that unmatched exterior.

He was wrong.

Whatever it was he had anticipated in his wildest thoughts, it was nothing like the reality. Malaika’s voice drifted down to him from above. It was oddly muted.

“
Katika
here, everyone. Atha, open the lock. There’s air in here and it’s breathable, and light, and no wind, and I don’t know whether to believe it myself or not, even though my
majicho
tells me . . . but the sooner you see it. . . .”

They didn’t need further urging. Even Sissiph was excited. Atha scrambled to the small personnel lock and they watched while she cracked the triple seal, cutting the flow of liquid at the three prescribed points. The heavy door swung itself outward. The automatic ramp extended itself to touch ground, buzzed once when it had made firm contact, and turned itself off.

Flinx was first out, followed closely by Atha and the two scientists, Malaika and Sissiph, and lastly, Wolf. All stood quite silent under the panorama spread before them.

The interior of the building, at least, was hollow. That was the only way to describe it. Somewhere above Flinx knew those massive walls joined a ceiling, but strain his eyes as he might he couldn’t make it out. The building was so huge that despite excellent circulation, clouds had formed inside. The four gigantic slabs pressed heavy on his mind, if not his body. But claustrophobia was impossible in an open space this large. Compared to the perpetual swirl of air and dust outside the utter calm within was cathedrallike. Perhaps, indeed, that was what it was, although he knew the idea to be more the feeling imparted by this first view than the likely truth.

The light, being intended for nonhumanx eyes, was wholely artificial and tinged slightly with blue-green. It was also dimmer than they would have preferred. The philosoph’s naturally blue chiton looked good in it, but it made the rest of them appear vaguely fishlike. The dimness did not obstruct their vision as much as it made things seem as though they were being viewed through not-quite-clear glass. The temperature was mild and a bit on the warm side.

The crawler had been halted because it could proceed no farther. Row upon row of what were indisputably seats or lounges of some sort stretched out from where they stood. The place was a colossal amphitheater. The ranks extended onward, unbroken, to the far side of the structure. There they ended at the base of . . . something.

He took a glance and risked a brief probe of the others. Malaika was glancing appraisingly about the limits of the auditorium. Wolf, his permanent nonexpression back on his face, was sampling the air with an instrument on his belt. Sissiph clung tightly to Malaika, staring apprehensively about the disquieting silence. Atha wore much the same look of cautious observation as the big trader.

The two scientists were in a state as close to Nirvana as it was possible for scientists to be. Their thoughts were moving so fast Flinx was hard-pressed even to sample them. They had eyes only for the far end of the great room. For them a search had been vindicated, even if they didn’t know what it was they had found. Tse-Mallory chose that moment to step forward, with Truzenzuzex close behind. The rest of them began to file down the central aisle after the scientists, toward the thing at the far side.

It was not an exhausting walk, but Flinx was grateful for the opportunity to rest at the end of it. He sat on the edge of the raised platform. He could have taken one of the seat-lounges below, but they were nowhere near contoured for the human physiology and doubtless were as uncomfortable as they looked.

Large steps led up to the dais he sat on. At its far end a flawless dome of glass or plastic enclosed a single, unadorned couch. A large oval doorway opened in the dome facing the auditorium. It was a good meter higher than their tallest member and far wider than even Malaika’s copious frame would require. The bench itself was tilted slightly to face the amphitheater. A smaller dome, shaped like a brandy glass, fitted partway over its raised end. Thick cables and conduits led from it and the bottom of the couch to the machine.