“Filaments,” said Maggie.

ARCHIVE

“Yes, director?”

“Do you have anything yet on the sample?”

“We’ve just begun.”

“What do you know so far?”

“It’s organic.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. I can give you more details in a few hours. But it looks like a spider’s web.”

Commlog, Ship’s Laboratory, NCK Catherine Perth Dated April 10, 2203

Melanie Truscott, Diary

I have not been able to sleep tonight. We have withdrawn from the immediate neighborhood of that telescope, construct, creature—God help me, I don’t even know how to think of it. Now we begin the business of trying to learn who put it there. And why.

There is no evidence of artificially generated electromagnetic radiation anywhere else in the system. Even the other telescopes are quiet. (I wonder, does that mean that their transmitting equipment has given out? Or that the telescopes are dead?)

The third and fourth worlds are both in the biozone, but only the third has life.

April 10, 2203

21.

Melonie Truscott,Diary

Even the transmitter seems to be organic!

How old is this thing? Allegri says that dating the scrapings will require more elaborate techniques than we have at our disposal. She told me privately that she doubts whether they can be dated at all.

The technology level that produced this is unthinkable. I cannot imagine that, if the builders exist, we could enter this system unobserved. If they are here, they made no effort to assist people who were in desperate trouble. And I find that disquieting.

April 11, 2203

On board NCK Catherine Perth. Monday, April 11; 05JO hours.

Beta Pacifica III floated in the windows and viewscreens of the Catherine Perth. It was a terrestrial world, with a global ocean and broad white clouds. There was a single land mass, a long slender hook, seldom more than two hundred kilometers across. The hook was often broken by channels, and occasionally by substantial patches of ocean, so that it was in fact a series of narrow islands strung together. The coastline was highly irregular: there were thousands of harbors and peninsulas. It extended literally from the top of the planet to the bottom, sliding beneath both icecaps. In the south, it curved back up almost to the equator.

There were ribbons of forest, desert, and jungle, usually stretching from sea to sea. Plains crowded with tall, pulpy stalks dominated the equatorial area. Snowstorms were active in both hemispheres, and it was raining along the flanks of a long mountain range in the south.

Four moons orbited the world. They were airless, cratered rocks, ranging in size from a fifteen-kilometer-wide boulder to a giant a third larger than Luna.

After the discoveries at the Bowl, Truscott had found it easy to persuade her passengers that they were aboard an epochal cruise, and that they would not want to pass up a stop at Beta Pac III. To encourage their cooperation, she broke into the special stores, provided sumptuous meals, and passed out free liquor. Captain Morris objected to all this, and Harvey Sill sternly disapproved, but the passengers were happy enough. And that was all she cared about.

It was dusk over the westernmost arc of the continent. They had approached the world from sunward with a high degree of enthusiasm and were now on their first flyby. Among the members of the Academy team hopes were high, although no one would say precisely what he was hoping for, nor even admit to any degree of optimism. In this sense, Hutch was like the others, playing the hardheaded pessimist, but overwhelmed by the possibilities.

The passengers tried to stay close to them. When history happened, which Truscott’s campaigning had induced everyone to expect, they wanted to be able to say they’d been on the spot. Consequently, Carson and Janet had been pressed into giving seminars, and they’d all signed autographs.

As Perth approached its rendezvous with destiny, the team retreated to their observation lounge, where Beta Pac III floated on the wall screen. Other monitors carried pictures of the moons, the Bowl, a schematic of the planetary system, comparisons between Beta Pac III and Earth, and rows of telemetry from probes.

Telescopes had been trained for days on the expanding world. They had not yet seen indications of intelligent activity: neither engineering works nor signs of environmental management were visible. But it was possible that an advanced society—this was Maggie’s argument—would have learned to live in communion with the natural order. So they watched the continent slide past the terminator. And hoped for lights.

But no soft yellow glow punctuated the gathering darkness. The night swallowed everything.

Collectively, they let out their breath.

“Pity,” said George.

Carson nodded. “Nobody home, I think.”

Hutch had been sitting quietly, contemplating the image, but she was thinking about Richard, who should have been here for this moment, whatever the outcome. “Too soon to know,” she said.

Captain Morris, seated on the bridge at the command console, looked up into the camera, straight into their eyes, and opened a channel. “Still negative EMR,” he said. “If there’s anyone down there, they aren’t generating power.” He smiled condescendingly, pleased (Hutch suspected) at the general disappointment. He was mean-spirited, one of those unfortunate creatures who enjoys seeing others fail. Hutch had eaten dinner with him the previous evening, and his position seemed to be that, yes, highly developed species probably existed in the Milky Way. But here! Where we are? That was too incredible.

The numbers on the atmospheric lower levels appeared: 74% nitrogen, 25% oxygen, a goodly fraction of a percent of argon, a miniscule amount of carbon dioxide, and traces of neon, helium, methane, krypton, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, and xenon. Very Earthlike.

Snacks arrived. Snacks appeared constantly, adding to the generally festive atmosphere aboard ship. Coffee, cheese, pastries, fruit juices, beer, rolled in an unending stream out of the galley. Hutch ate more than she would ordinarily have allowed herself, and refused to give in to disappointment. The fact that they were here at all was cause to celebrate. If there was to be no welcome from the Monument-Makers, they had still achieved much. “What do you think?” she asked Carson.

He smiled encouragingly. “If they’re not there, maybe they left something behind.”

“I’d like to find something” said Truscott, who was standing beside Maggie Tufu, looking out at the darkness. “I truly would.”

“You’ve gone well out of your way for this,” said Hutch. “We appreciate it.”

“You didn’t leave me a lot of choice,” she said. “It was a chance to be on the Santa Maria. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell my grandkids that I could have ridden with Columbus, and passed it up.”

Janet, who had been up all night watching the approach, retired to a corner chair and fell asleep. In a sense, it signaled the death of their wilder hopes.

Monitors displayed planetary characteristics:

ORBIT

SIDEREAL PERIOD: 1.41 Standard Yr

PERIHELION: 1.32AUs

APHELION: 1.35AUs

GLOBE

EQUATORIAL DIAMETER: 15,300 km

OBLATENESS: O.OO4

MASS (EARTH = 1): 1.06

DENSITY (WATER = 1): 5.3

ALBEDO: O.44

AXIS TILT (DEC): 18.7 ROTATIONAL PERIOD (D/H/M):        1/1/17

OTHER

ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION

(ARTIFICIAL): None Noted MEAN EQUATORIAL NOON

TEMPERATURE (EST): 28°C

“Hey!” Carson pointed at one of the moons. The one designated Three-B.

At the same moment, they heard the captain’s voice, raised a notch above his usual monotone: “Director, we have an anomaly on Three-B.”

“We see it,” said Truscott. Three-B was the largest of the satellites. It was heavily scored, covered with lava seas. In the northern hemisphere, they could make out, on the western arm of a broad plain, something. A mark. An eruption. A speck.

“What is it?” said Carson. “Can you give us a better picture?”

The image got bigger. And clearer. “We don’t know yet,” said the Captain. “It’s the same color as the surrounding rock.”

“It looks like a square,” said Janet, awake again.

Morris had become almost frenetic. It was amusing to see him nonplused. “It does appear symmetrical,” he said.

“It’s an Oz,” said Hutch.

“Roughly two hundred kilometers on a side,” continued the captain.”Big.”

“She’s right,” said Carson. “It’s the same damned thing they’ve got at Quraqua.”

Maggie raised a triumphant fist. “Except bigger. A lot bigger.”

Truscott looked at Carson. “Do we want to inspect it up close?”

Carson glanced at each of his people in turn. “No,” he said. “We know what it is.”

Truscott nodded. “Obviously,” she said. “It is Oz, isn’t it? Why do I have the feeling you’ve been holding back on me. What’s the connection with Quraqua?”

Carson shrugged. “No big secret,” he began.

After the continent had drifted into the world’s night, the Academy team reviewed the pictures. They looked for likely city-building sites: harbors, river junctions, mountain passes. And for roads. For any evidence of habitation.

George was looking at a site about 30 degrees north, where the land mass narrowed to less than half a kilometer. Lush red and yellow forest rolled downhill from a promontory and spilled into the ocean on both sides. It was the kind of area that, on Earth, would have been natural high-roller real estate. Good place to spend a weekend with Hutch. His mind drifted and his tides began to rise when he noticed a sharp angle in the trees. A shadow. A wall, maybe.

Or a place where a wall had once existed.

He could find nothing more definite, and was about to show Hutch, when Janet said quietly, “I think I’ve got something.”

They were only dark pocks on a river. But they were regularly spaced.

“I think they’re bridge supports,” said Janet, her voice rising. “Son of a bitch, they are!” She threw up her hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a bridge\”

Well, they didn’t really have a bridge. They had the remnants. But it didn’t matter. Cheers broke out. The assembled passengers surged forward, spilling coffee, pounding one another, calling to others outside to come see. There were handshakes all around and Hutch got squeezed and kissed and squeezed again. But she didn’t mind. Goddam, she did not care.

“Congratulations,” said Truscott.

“How much time,” said Carson, “can you give us?”

“Frank,” she said patiently, “I am already well behind schedule. We had an agreement.”

“But we have found something.”

“Yes, we have. The Academy has a new archeological site to explore.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I even think I know how much it means to you. But we have to get moving. I’m glad we got something out of this, but I’m going to authorize departure. Morris is raising a storm. And he has grounds for complaint. You’ll have to come back with your own people.”

Hutch thought she knew what it would mean. Somebody would figure out that this world had been home to a starfaring society. There’d be a lot at stake, and consequently the mission would be taken away from the Academy. There’d been momentum in that direction before they left home. Carson and his friends might one day return, but it would take a while, and they would be subordinate parts of a much larger operation.

Damn.

Truscott left, and they sat listlessly around the lounge, commiserating with one another, crashed from the emotional high of a half hour before. Hutch stood all she could for fifteen minutes, and got up to go somewhere else. As she did, the commlink chimed, and Sill’s image appeared. “Dr. Carson,” he said, “would you come up to the bridge, please? Bring your colleagues with you.”

“We have an object in orbit.”

Melanie Truscott, with the captain in tow, steered her five passengers to the main navigation display. It was mostly starfield, with a muted planetary arm across the bottom. One of the stars was extremely bright.”That one,” she said.

Hutch felt a ripple of exhilaration. “What kind of object?”

The captain answered. “We don’t know. You’re looking at mag five. But it isn’t a natural satellite. Its RI is way too high for its range.”

“An RI is a reflectivity index,” said Truscott. “It’s big. Bigger than our station at Quraqua.”

Hutch and Carson silently shook hands.

“John.” Truscott was addressing the captain. “Are we prepared to make a quick exit if we have to?”

“Yes, Director.” He motioned to one of his crewmen, a quick jab with his index finger, and the crewman spoke into a mike. Hutch suspected they were warning all passengers to tie down.

“Is there any indication of onboard power?” asked Hutch.

“Negative.” Morris bent over one of the consoles. “Nothing.” He looked sternly at Truscott. “Melanie, we have a ship full of people. I think we should leave the area.”

The bridge was immense by Hutch’s standards. There were four officers on duty, not counting the captain. One, a young woman seated at the navigation console, touched his shoulder and directed his attention to a display. “We’ve got lights down on the surface,” she said. “Low power. Very low. Probably not electrical.”

“Reflections?” asked Truscott.

“Possibly,” she said.

Truscott turned to Carson. “Someone’s made your point for you, Frank. What do you want to look at first?”

When had Hutch ever seen Carson look more pleased? “The orbiter,” he said.

“Very good.” She folded her arms. “I believe we are about to commit history.”

They pursued the white star down the curve of the world.

It took a hauntingly familiar form on the scopes: a double-ring rotating wheel, not unlike the home station, or Kosmik’s orbiter at Quraqua. The architectural style was less utilitarian. This orbiter possessed a degree of elegance and panache, of blurred lines and eclectic curves. It looked fully capable of harboring winding staircases and secret rooms. It was a station with a gothic flavor, maybe the kind of station Poe would have designed.

Windows were everywhere. But they were dark.

Hutch loved it. She watched it drift closer, felt a cool stirring within her, a chill that was simultaneously pleasurable and disquieting.

“Negative EMR,” said one of the officers. “It’s tumbling.” And, moments later: “Wheels not rotating.”

Pity, thought Hutch. We’re too late again.

She knew Carson well enough to read his discouragement. There was no denying the signs: the Bowls in disrepair, no lights on the surface, a collapsed bridge, and a dead orbiter. The Monument-Makers were gone.

“We’ll want to board,” said Truscott.

Carson nodded Yes, as if he had anticipated a struggle.

The captain’s features hardened. “I advise against it, Director.”

There was something wrong about it. More than its strangeness, because strangeness was at the heart of the thing, designed into it, underscored by all those unlighted windows. Something else was wrong.

“I understand, John. But we can’t really sail away and just leave this.” Truscott’s face glowed with excitement. “And I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” She looked at Carson. “I assume you would like to come?”

Hutch saw a shade of disapproval cross Carson’s features. In view of the long history of accidental damage caused to artifacts by untrained personnel, he would have preferred to limit the landing party to the Academy group. But he was prudent enough to hold his tongue. “Of course,” he said.

“Any others from your team?”

“I expect,” said Carson, “everybody.”

“Very good. We can manage it.” She turned to Sill. “How about you, Harvey?”

“If you’re going.”

She swung back to Morris. “Seven for the shuttle, Captain.”

Hutch went to her compartment to change. She was still uneasy. There was something that shouldn’t be there. Or something missing. It was at the edge of vision, a memory that one can’t quite grasp.

She switched on her monitor. The orbiter was coming into sunlight. Its twin wheels would once have rotated counter to each other. Now the entire artifact simply rolled slowly over as she watched.

What might its design reveal about its builders? It was the sort of question Richard would have asked. What do the esthetics tell us? There were symbols on the hull, black, angled strokes and tapered loops. Two groups of characters, she thought. Two words. What had they been?

Details appeared: blisters and antennas and connecting coils and hatches and maintenance pods (at least she assumed that was what the teardrop bulges above and below the rim, distributed at equal intervals, had to be) and loading bays and equipment whose purpose would have to await closer inspection.

A long cable trailed behind the thing. And hatches were open.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared hard at the object, trying to imagine how it might have been when it was active, and exotic ships circled it. And the antennas received signals from the Great Array.

How long ago?

She got up, padded across the floor, and into the washroom. She started the flow of water in the shower, adjusted the temperature of the stream, and stepped in. It was cool and brought a sting of pleasure.

Gravity was generated on all starships the same way: by rotating the living spaces, whether they were located within a permanent hull, as was the case on Perth, or within the ring-shaped modules of the Winckelmann. Consequently, the shower stream bent slightly counter to the direction of spin. Not enough to be noticeable, but the same crosswise pressure sent the water swirling across her toes and down a drain located at the side of the stall. Hutch enjoyed the sensation; it was one of the many effects of shifting gravities that she relished, that lent her wings and granted a sense of freedom from terrestrial shackles.

And today, while she closed her eyes and let the cool spray wash over her, it occurred to her that the space station had also been designed to spin. To create the same effects.

And that was what was wrong.

She finished quickly, dried off, slipped into a Wink work uniform, and hurried up to the Academy observation lounge. Carson was still there, and Maggie. The others had gone, presumably to prepare for the boarding.

“Everything okay?” Carson asked as she burst into the room.

“Why was it built to rotate?” she demanded.

“Why was what built to rotate?”

“The space station, damn it.”

Maggie stared at her, astonished at the question.

“Why is it so much like our stations, Frank? The Monument-Makers are supposed to have had anti-gravity. So we always assumed they had artificial gravity as well. But then why build rotating wheels?”

“Maybe we were wrong,” said Maggie. “Either we still haven’t found the Monument-Makers, or—”

Frank finished her statement. “—this was built before the Monument-Makers came to Iapetus.”

“That,” said Maggie, “would mean this thing’s been up here more than twenty thousand years. I don’t think that’s possible.”

Carson did not want to talk about more complications. “Maybe it’s a Monument from their early days. So they kept it in place. Let’s not worry about it now.”

“Another Monument?” Hutch didn’t believe that for a minute. She opened a channel to the bridge. The captain was not there, but she spoke to the command duty officer. “I wonder if you would do me a favor?”

“What do you need?” The CDO was a middle-aged, graying, no-nonsense woman.

“The space station,” she said. “How stable is its orbit? How long would you say it’s been here?”

The CDO looked uncomfortable. “We’re navigators, Ms. Hutchins. You’d need a physicist to come up with that. I’d like to help, but we just don’t have the expertise.”

“Do what you can,” said Hutch, using a tone that implied full confidence.

The CDO allowed herself a pleased smile. “We’ll try.”

John F. Morris, was a man with narrow shoulders, narrow tastes, and narrow vision. He had achieved the highest position to which he could aspire, and he had done it by unrelenting loyalty to the company, taking care not to offend the wrong people, and good old nose-to-the-grindstone attention to detail. He was not a man to be overwhelmed by other people’s histrionics, but he could recognize a career danger. His great strength, and his great weakness, was an unblinking, clear view of the downside. He knew that Melanie Truscott was in difficulty, and that she was taking liberties with his ship. The fact that she had every right to do so (within certain specifically-provided-for parameters), that she had full authority to direct his movements, might not help him if someone decided to take offense at the misuse of company property. Or if something went seriously awry. It was for these reasons that the captain had remained aloof and cool during the approach to Beta Pac III. He was not prepared to defy Melanie Truscott, because he knew very well that one did not advance one’s career by offending the powerful, even when the powerful were in trouble. People at her level had a way of resurrecting themselves. But he was not a good enough actor to conceal his displeasure.

He felt compromised, and he resented it. His resentment extended in no small way to the Academy refugees whom he’d pulled from their wreck. Especially Carson, who pretended to know everything.

Satisfied that the shuttle would be ready for its rendezvous with the station when promised, the captain went looking for Truscott. He found her in the forward lounge, deep in conversation with Sill. She looked up when he entered, noted his grave appearance, and smiled in her most reassuring manner.

“I’m not comfortable about going any further with this,” he said.

“Oh?” Truscott’s gaze sharpened. “What is it that bothers you?”

“Several things.” His voice shook. He did not like opposing a superior, even to the extent of adhering to his duty to provide sound advice. But now that he was fairly begun, he would maintain a steady course. “First, the transfer of personnel to a derelict of unknown nature is a violation of the regs. However you try to cut it. And if there’s any kind of emergency, we aren’t well-equipped to deal with it. Our medical department is limited. We have only one shuttle. If you get into trouble over there, we cannot come to your rescue. At least, not very easily. And certainly not quickly. Furthermore, I have collaborated in this fiction about a maintenance stand-down, but that won’t protect us if we have to answer difficult questions. Should a problem arise, should we sustain any sort of major equipment loss, damage to the ship, or, God forbid, lose someone, I think Corporate would be extremely short with both of us.” He paused to let the seriousness of their situation sink in. “There are other potential problems. For example, the artifact is probably priceless. If we damage it, might we not be held liable?”

Truscott nodded, in that infuriating manner that suggested she had already considered all these things. “And what do you suggest we do, John?”

“That’s easy. Set course for home. Report the finding, and let people who are trained in these things, and properly equipped, deal with them.” He straightened his shoulders.

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But I can no more turn away from this than you could walk out the airlock. John, don’t you have any curiosity? Don’t you want to know what’s over there? Or what’s down on the surface?”

“Not when it interferes with my duty.”

“I understand. We’ll have to disagree on this one. Please continue the preparations.”

He bowed. “As you wish. The shuttle is ready.”

“Thank you. And, John?”

He turned, standing in the doorway.

“Log your objections.”

“Thank you, Director.”

He walked back through the quiet passageways of the Catherine Perth, toward the bridge, and he knew that if things went wrong, she would do what she could for him. But it wouldn’t help much: they’d all go down together.

The comm watch officer chimed Carson. “Response to your question, sir.”

Frank was walking with Maggie toward the shuttle bay. “Go ahead.”

“Telescopic examination of the anomaly on Three-B does reveal charring. Over perhaps thirty percent of the structure.”

Carson watched his team file into the shuttle ready room. George looked happy and anxious; Maggie was intense and full of electricity. He had grown close to Maggie during this mission, had found her far more human than he would have believed. And less detached than she would have wanted to reveal. Today, standing on the edge of history, she anticipated photos. And had dressed the part.

Janet was playing her usual casual role, unflappable, talking quietly to Hutch. But she was a little more erect than usual, her eyes brighter, and he sensed her eagerness to get about the day’s business.

And Hutch herself. He’d learned to read her moods. Today she was distracted, preoccupied, thoughtful. He understood that their objective was more personal for her than for the professionals. The archeologists had uncovered their grail, and maybe far more. But Priscilla Hutchins had never learned to let go; she was carrying a lot of baggage with her to the derelict.

“Safety first when we get over there,” he said. “Take care of yourself, and don’t break anything.” They would split into three groups: Janet and himself, George and Maggie, and Hutch with Truscott and Sill. “I’d have preferred that we didn’t have to carry Dr. Truscott and her pet bulldog along, but since they own the shuttle, there’s not much we can do. Hutch, I want you to keep an eye on them. Don’t let them get hurt; don’t let them wander off.

“We’ll keep in contact, check in with each other every ten minutes. Try not to get involved with the details of what we see. We need a map and a general survey. Once we’ve got those, we’ll set up a plan of action and try to go about this systematically.”

“How long will we be staying?” asked Maggie.

“Four hours. That allows us a reasonable safety margin. We’ll carry a couple of extra Flickinger harnesses and air tanks on the shuttle. Just in case. Hutch?”

“Will there be someone with the shuttle throughout the operation?”

“Jake is our pilot. He’ll stand by. We’re going in through an open hatch. It’s one of several. Apparently, when the owners left, they never bothered to close the doors.”

Sill came in. “We’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he said.

George was studying a lightpad. “The station has at least six airlocks,” he said, “or apertures that look like airlocks. The outer hatches on three of them are open.” He looked at the faces around him, inviting an explanation.

“They left in a hurry,” suggested Janet.

“Don’t know,” said Sill.

“I think,” said Maggie, “we’re going to discover the artifact has been stripped of everything valuable. The last visitors were looters. Which would explain why they didn’t bother to close the doors.” She put a finger to her lips. “I wonder why there are no other stations? The later ones? There should be more advanced orbiters.”

“Who can say?” said Carson. “Maybe they all went down.” He looked at each of them. “Okay, what else? What have we missed?”

Hutch looked up. “Pulsers?”

“We’ll have one with each group,” said Carson.

“Why do we need them?” Maggie asked.

“To get through doors that won’t open.”

But Maggie looked uncomfortable. “What’s wrong?” asked Janet. “That’s not unreasonable.”

“Don’t know,” she said. “The place is a little spooky, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be walking around in there with weapons. In case somebody gets nervous.”

“If nothing else,” said Carson, “we might need it to cut through the inner door of the airlock.”

Truscott and Sill arrived. “Sorry to be late,” she said. “Our people have been doing a structural analysis of the station.”

“What have they concluded?” asked Carson.

Truscott passed to Sill. “Primitive,” he said. “It isn’t up to our technology at all. And by the way, we have an answer to Hutchins’s question about the orbit. As far as we can tell, it’s stable. This thing may have been here a long time. Possibly for thousands of years.”

“One other thing,” said Truscott. “We’ve found some more ruins. A lot of them.”

Melonie Truscott,Diary

“As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, ana it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”

—Psalms 103: 15-16 April 11, 2203

22.

Approaching the space station at Beta Pac HI. Monday, April 11; 2140 hours.

They looked through large oval windows at long passageways, and wide sunlit rooms filled with oversized chairs and carved tables and broad carpets.

“They knew how to live,” Hutch told Truscott. The two women had been talking like old school friends. Everyone was a trifle garrulous on this flight, except maybe Sill, who simply stared warily out the window.

Their pilot, Jake Dickenson, was elaborately uneasy, and full of advice. “Don’t assume there’s no power,” he warned. “Be careful what you touch.” And: “Keep in mind there’s always a chance the thing might be booby-trapped. We don’t know what the circumstances were when these people left.”

They drew alongside, and the air in the shuttle thickened. The station was brick-red. It looked like a run-down factory, cluttered with struts and joists and supports and turrets. There was no attempt here to create a smooth outer skin: the hull supported a wide array of pods and antennas and beams. There were also parapets, dormers, crests, and brackets whose only raison d’etre appeared to be decorative. The turrets might have housed living quarters, with wrap-around windows.

“Shuttle bay to port,” said Jake. Two cradles were visible through a pair of windows. A small, blunt-winged craft lay in one of them.

They passed above an antenna field. Sill poked an index finger against the window. “Here’s what I mean about primitive technology. Look at these. These are conical antennas. They are light-years behind the biosystem apparatus they were growing on the Bowl. This station is probably limited to radio. And their technology for that isn’t very good. Look at the antenna booms.”

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Carson.

“Ungodly long. We’ve been doing better than that since the twentieth century. And it uses oversized solar panels. They’re inefficient. This thing wasn’t built by the same people who designed the telescope.”

Hutch described her own conclusion that the shape of the station suggested a technology more primitive than the one associated with the Iapetus visitors.

“How long ago was that?” asked Sill.

“Twenty thousand years.”

“Which means what? That this thing is older than that?” He squinted out the window. “I don’t believe it.”

“Why not?” said Carson. “You’ve already said this thing is old.”

“But not that old,” replied Sill.

Hutch didn’t believe it either. But she was tired thinking about it. They needed to wait until they had more information.

The shuttle glided past long rows of empty windows. She glanced at George, entranced by the view. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

He seemed far away. “How lucky I’ve been,” he said. “I got an assignment with Henry right out of the box. Most of the guys in my class wound up working on reclamation projects in Peru and North Africa. But I got to see the Temple. I was there when most of the major discoveries were made. Now I’m here—”

Jake’s voice broke in: “Coming up on the front door.”

Truscott surveyed her passengers. “Let’s go,” she said.

They’d picked out an open hatch more or less at random. The station’s red skin moved slowly past the viewpanels. Hutch had just begun to check her equipment when Jake gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Sill asked.

“The inner door to the airlock,” he said. “It’s open, too.”

“No seal,” said Maggie. The station was exposed to vacuum.

“Can we get a picture?” demanded Sill. “That doesn’t make sense. Airlocks are always designed to prevent anyone from being able to open both doors at once. Because if you do, you die. Maybe everyone dies.”

“Someone must have overridden the safety mechanism,” said Hutch. She looked toward Carson. “I wonder if all the open hatches are like this?”

The shuttle nosed into lockdown position. Meter-long extensors, equipped with magnetic couplers, had been added for this flight. Now Jake extended them. When he was satisfied both were in contact, he activated the power. A mild jar ran through the craft. “We’re in business,” he said.

He sealed off the cockpit while his passengers buckled on Flickinger harnesses, stepped into magnetic boots, and checked breathers. When they were ready, he depressurized their cabin and the cargo bay. Sill opened the door at the rear of the cabin and led the way into the cargo section, where he distributed portable scanners and collected two pulsers.

He strapped one to his side in an easy, familiar motion, and held the other out to Carson. Carson took it, checked it expertly, and put it on.

Sill produced about thirty meters of cable. “We’ll string a tether out to the station’s hatch. Lock onto it when you go. Everything’s turning, so if you get thrown off, we might not get you back.” He glanced around to assure himself that energy fields were all active. “Director,” he said, “would you like to do the honors?”

Truscott declined, and looked at Carson. “Frank—?”

And Carson, in the spirit of the proceeding, turned it over to Maggie. “She got us here,” he said.

Maggie nodded appreciatively. “Thanks,” she said. They opened the doors, and the derelict’s surface curved past within arm’s length. It was pocked and scarred. Maggie reached out, and touched it. First contact.

“If you like,” Hutch told Carson, “I’ll set up the line.”

He nodded, and she pushed through the door.

“Careful,” whispered Sill.

Hutch’s momentum carried her across to the station’s hull. She put both boots down on its metal skin, and looked for the hatch.

Above. About ten meters.

Sill clipped the cable to a magnetic clamp, secured the clamp to the hull of the shuttle. Then he passed the line and a second clamp to Hutch. She snapped the line to her belt and started toward the hatch. Her perspective shifted: the deck of the cargo hold, which had been “down,” rotated 90 degrees. Her stomach lurched, and she closed her eyes to let the feeling pass. The trick now was to focus on the derelict. Steady it. Make herself believe it was stationary. Forget the shuttle, which was now vertical. The sky moved around her, but she concentrated on the hatch.

The airlock was big enough to accommodate a small truck. The inner door was indeed open, but she could see nothing beyond except metal deck and bulkhead. She attached the clamp and waved to Maggie, who promptly drifted out of the shuttle.

Hutch warned her about keeping her eyes on the hull. She nodded, and tied onto the cable. But she had difficulty from the start, and Hutch had to go get her. When they got back to the airlock, she helped her inside, where the environment was less upsetting. “You okay?” she asked.

Maggie crumpled into a ball. In a weak voice she reassured her rescuer.

“I hope this is worth it,” Hutch said.

“It is,” Maggie said feebly.

They came over one by one. The sunlight was strong, and everyone used filters. They climbed rapidly into the lock, anxious to gain the security of an enclosed space.

The inner passageway beckoned. Maggie recovered quickly and claimed her privilege, stepping through into a bare, high-ceilinged chamber. Bilious orange walls were lined with empty bins. One was cluttered with debris, pinned by the motion of the station. There were instruments, and a giant boot, and plastic sheets and semiflexible material that might once have been clothing.

“Maybe they left the airlock open,” said George, “to preserve the interior. If they really wanted to maintain this as a memorial, I don’t know a better way. Let the vacuum in, and nothing will deteriorate.”

Janet was fascinated by the boot. “They were big, weren’t they?”

Carpeting still covered the deck. Passageways that dwarfed even George opened off either end of the chamber. They were lined by windows on one side and closed doors on the other. The doors were quite large, possibly four by two meters.

When Hutch, who was the last one through the airlock, caught up with them, they were examining the equipment. George thought he recognized some of it—”this is a recharger, no question”—and Maggie had already begun to collect symbols. Carson picked a passageway at random and moved into it.

None of the doors yielded to gentle pressure, and they would not of course break in, short of necessity. The outer bulkhead consisted mostly of windows. Outside, they could see the sun and the shuttle. One of the windows had been punctured, and they found a corresponding hole a couple of centimeters wide in the opposite deck. “Meteor,” said George.

They clicked along awkwardly in their magnetic shoes, staying together, not talking much, moving like a troop of children through strange territory. Hutch noted a vibration in the bulkhead. “Something’s going on,” she said.

It was like a slow pulse.

“Power?” asked Truscott.

George shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

More deliberately now, they advanced. The sun moved past the windows and out of sight. The corridor darkened.

Sill produced a lamp and switched it on.

The heartbeat persisted. Grew stronger.

The planet rose and flooded the passageway with reflected light. Its oceans were bright and cool beneath broad clouds.

Ahead, around the curve, something moved.

Rose. And fell.

A door. It was twisted on a lower hinge, but still connected to the jamb. As they watched, it struck the wall in time to the vibration, moved slowly down and bounced off the deck.

They looked through the doorway into another, smaller chamber. A crosspiece set at eye level resolved itself into a rectangular table, surrounded by eight chairs of gargantuan dimensions. The chairs were padded (or had been: everything was rock-hard now). Hutch entered, feeling like a four year old. She stood on tiptoe and directed her lamplight across the tabletop. It was bare.

George had a better angle. “There are insets,” he said. He tried to open one, but it stayed fast. “Don’t know,” he said.

The furniture was locked in place. “It looks like a conference room,” said Janet.

Cabinets lined the bulkheads. The doors would not open. But, more importantly, they were inscribed with symbols. Maggie made for them like a moth to a flame. “If it is the Monument-Makers,” she said, after a few moments, “they aren’t like any of the other characters we’ve seen.” She was wearing a headband TV camera, which was relaying everything back to the shuttle. “God, I love this,” she added.

There was another doorway at the rear of the room, and a second, identical suite beyond.

Hutch turned off the common channel, and retreated into her own thoughts. She watched the shifting shadows thrown by the lamps, and remembered the lonely ridge on Iapetus, and the single set of tracks. Who were these people? What had it been like when they gathered in this room? What had they talked about? What mattered to them?

Later, they found more open doors. They looked into a laboratory, and an area that had provided support functions to the station. There was a kitchen. And a room filled with basins and a long trough that might have had an excretory use. The trough was about as high as the table. They saw what might have been the remains of a showering facility.

Daylight came again. Forty minutes after it had passed out of the windows, the sun was back. At about the same time, they came to an up-ramp which split off the passageway.

“Okay,” said Carson. “Looks like time to divide. Everybody be careful.” He looked at Maggie. “Do you have a preference where you want to go?”

“I’ll stay down here,” she said.

He started up. “We’ll meet back here in an hour. Or sooner, if anybody finds anything interesting.” Truscott and Sill fell in behind him, and the plan to have Hutch watch them collapsed. Carson grinned, and signaled for her to forget it. Hutch, delighted to be rid of what had promised to be onerous duty, rejoined George and Maggie.

They continued along the lower level, and almost immediately found a room filled with displays and consoles half-hidden by lush, high-back chairs. “Computers,” breathed Maggie.

There were photos on the walls. Faded. But maybe still discernible.

Maggie was trying to get a look at a keyboard, but the consoles were too high. She glowed with pleasure. “You don’t think they’d still work, do you—?” she wondered.

“Not after a few thousand years,” said Hutch. “If it’s really been that long.”

“Well, even if they don’t, the keyboard will give us their alphanumerics. That alone is priceless.”

Then George got excited. He’d found a picture of the vehicle they’d seen in the shuttle bay. It was in flight, and the space station was in the background. “Glory days,” he said.

A second photo depicted Beta Pac III, blue and white and very terrestrial.

Eager to have a look at the consoles, Maggie moved in front of a chair and pulled off one of her magnetic shoes, planning to float up onto the equipment. But she became suddenly aware of something in the chair. She half-turned, and screamed. Had she been successful in removing both shoes, she would probably have launched. As it was, one foot remained locked in place, and the rest of her anatomy careened off at a sharp angle. She pitched over, and crashed into the deck.

The chair was occupied.

Carson’s voice erupted from the commlink. “What’s happening? Hutch—?”

Maggie stared up at the thing in the seat, color draining from her face.

“We’ve got a corpse,” Hutch said into the common channel.

“On our way,” said Carson.

The occupant of the chair was a glowering, mummified thing.

“This one, too,” said George, trying to steady his voice, and indicating the next chair.

Two of them.

Maggie, embarrassed, stared up at the corpse. Hutch walked over and stood beside her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It just startled me. I wasn’t expecting it.”

Its eyes were closed. The skin had shriveled to dry parchment. The skull was dust-brown, lean, narrow. Ridged. Long arms ended in large hands that retained a taloned appearance. The gray-black remains of a garment hung around its waist and clung to its legs.

“There must have been air here for a while,” said George. “Or the bodies wouldn’t have decomposed.”

“I don’t think that’s so,” said Maggie. “Organisms are full of chemicals. They’d cause a general breakdown whether the corpse is in a vacuum or not. It would just take longer.”

It was belted into its chair.

Had been belted in when the airlocks were opened.

Its dying agony was still imprinted on its face.

What had happened here?

Maggie gingerly touched its knee.

Hutch stood in front of it, and knew the thing. Recognized it.

Carson and the others filed in.

They spread around the room, moving quietly. “Is it them?” Truscott asked. “The creatures from Iapetus?”

“Yes,” said Carson. He looked around. “Anybody disagree?”

No one did.

“Sad,” Maggie said. “This is not the way we should have met.”

Sill was just tall enough to be able to see the work stations. “It’s their operations center, I think,” he said.

George turned back to the photos. They were encased and mounted within the bulkhead. Most were too blurred to make out. But he saw a cluster of buildings in one. He found another that appeared to be a seascape. “That could be Maine,” said Sill, looking over his shoulder.

Hutch could not look away from the corpses.

Strapped down.

Had they been murdered? Unlikely. The restraining belt did not look capable of holding anyone who didn’t want to be held. Rather, they had stayed here while someone opened the airlocks and let the void in.

The station was a mausoleum.

They found more corpses in spaces that seemed to have been living quarters on the upper level. They counted thirty-six before they stopped. There would undoubtedly be more. The bodies, without exception, were belted down. They understood the implication almost from the start, and it chilled them. It was a mass suicide. They didn’t want to get thrown around or sucked out by decompression, so they overrode whatever safety features they had, tied themselves in, and opened the doors.

“But why!” asked Truscott. Carson knew the director to be tough and unyielding. But she was shaken by this.

Maggie also seemed daunted. “Maybe suicide was implicit in their culture. Maybe they did something wrong on this station, and took the appropriate way out.”

In the aftermath of their discovery, they roamed aimlessly through the station. Adhering to the spirit of Carson’s safety concerns, or maybe for other reasons, no one traveled alone.

Maggie commandeered Sill and stayed close to the operations area. They prowled among the computers, and took some of the hardware apart, with a view to salvaging data banks, if they still existed.

George and Hutch went looking for more photos. They found them in the living quarters. They were faded almost to oblivion, but they could make out figures wearing robes and cloaks. And more structures: exotic upswept buildings that reminded Carson of churches. And there were two photos that might have been scenes from a launch site, a circle that resembled a radio dish and something else that looked like a gantry. And a group photo. “No question about that one,” said George. “They’re posing.”

Carson laughed.

“What’s funny?” asked George.

“I’m not sure.” He had to think about it before he recognized consciously the absurdity of such intimidating creatures lining up for a team picture.

In another photo, two of them stood beside something that might have been a car, and waved.

Carson was moved. “How long ago, do you think?” he asked.

George looked at the picture. “A long time.”

Yet the place did not evoke the weight of centuries, the way the Temple of the Winds had. The operations spaces might have been occupied yesterday. Things were a little dusty, but the station was full of sunlight. It was hard to believe that the sound of footsteps had not echoed recently through the long corridors. But there was an easy explanation for that: the elements had not been able to work their will.

George found a photo of the four moons strung out in a straight line. “Spectacular,” he said.

“Maybe more than that,” said Carson. “It might give us the age of this place.”

Maggie found the central processing unit. It appeared to be intact. “Maybe,” she said.

Sill folded his arms. “Not a chance.”

Well, they would see. Stranger things had happened. She would remove it, if she could figure out how to do it, and send it back to the Academy. They might get lucky.

Three hours after their entry, they regrouped and started back to the shuttle. Maggie had her CPU, and they carried the photo of the four moons. They also had taken a couple of computers.

Hutch was preoccupied. She watched the shifting light and said little as they clicked back through the passageways.

“What’s wrong?” Carson asked at last.

“Why did they kill themselves?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you even imagine how it might happen?”

“Maybe they got stuck up here. Things went to hell planetside.”

“But there’s a shuttle on board.”

“It might not have been working.”

“So you’d have to have a situation in which, simultaneously, your external support broke down, and the onboard shuttle also broke down. That sound likely to you?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

Priscilla Hutchins, Journal

Tonight, I feel as if someone took an axe to the Ice Lady. The Monument-Makers seem to have vanished, to be replaced by pathetic creatures who build primitive space stations and kill themselves when things go wrong. Where are the beings who built the Great Monuments? They are not here.

I wonder if they ever were.

0115, April 12,2203

23.

Beta Pacifica III. Tuesday, April 12; 0830 GMT.

The shuttle glided through the still afternoon above a rolling plain. The windows were drawn halfway back, and fresh air flowed freely through the vehicle. The smell of the prairie and the nearby sea stirred memories of Earth. Strange, really: Carson had spent all those years on Quraqua, on the southern coastline, and he’d never once felt the sting of salt air in his nostrils. This was also the first time he’d ever ridden a shuttle without being sealed off from the outside environment.

First time with my face out the window.

There were occasional signs of former habitation below: crumbling walls, punctured dams, collapsed dock facilities. They were down low, close to the ground, moving at a hundred fifty klicks. The sky was filled with birds.

They came up on a river. It was broad, and mud-colored, with sandy banks, and giant shrubs pushing above the surface close to shore. Lizardlike creatures lay in the sun.

And more ruins: stone buildings in the water, worn smooth; a discolored track through forest, marking an ancient road.

“They’ve been gone a long time,” said George.

“Want to go down and take a closer look?” asked Jake, their pilot.

“No,” Carson said. Hutch could see that he wanted to do precisely that, but Truscott had given them thirty-six hours. “Mark the place so we can find it again.”

The prairie rolled on. They listened to the rush of air against the shuttle, watched the golden grass ripple in the wind.

“Something ahead,” said Maggie.

It was little more than a twisted pile of corroded metal. Carson thought it might once have been a vehicle, or a machine. Impossible to tell from the air.

They left the river and flew over a patch of desert, passing over walls, and occasional storage tanks sinking into the dunes like abandoned ships.

Prairie came again, the land rose and narrowed, and ocean closed in on both sides. In this area, rock walls were everywhere, like pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle.

They picked up another river, and followed it south into forest. Mountains framed the land, and the river disappeared occasionally underground, surfacing again to roll through picturesque valleys.

Carson had a map on his display. “Seems to me,” he said, “that the towns are located in the wrong places.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hutch.

“Look at this one.” He tapped the screen. A set of ruins were well out on the plain, several kilometers from the ocean, and fifteen from a river junction. “It should be here, at the confluence.”

“Probably was, at one time,” said Maggie. “But rivers move. In fact, if we can figure out when the city was on the confluence, we might get a date for all this.”

“They shared the human taste for living by water,” said Hutch.

Carson nodded. “Or they relied heavily on water transportation.” He shook his head. “Not very rational, for a civilization that had anti-gravity thousands of years ago. What happened? Did they have it, and then lose it?”

“Why don’t we go down and look?” suggested Janet.

Ahead, the river drained into a bay. “Up there,” Carson said. “Looks like a city. And a natural harbor. We’ll land there.”

The forest took on a jumbled, confused appearance. Mounds and towers and walls broke through the foliage. It was possible, with a little imagination, to make out the shape of streets and thoroughfares.

Was the entire continent like this? One vast wreck?

Jake touched his earphones. “Ops says the Ashley Tee has arrived. Rendezvous in about forty hours.”

“Marvelous!” said Maggie. Maybe they would be able to stay now, and inspect this world of the Monument-Makers at their leisure.

Jake congratulated them, but Hutch saw that he was not pleased. When she asked, he said that he did not want to get pulled out now.

The forest overflowed a wide, sun-dappled harbor. Great broad-leafed trees crowded the shoreline. The shuttle sailed out over the open sea, and curved back. A narrow, grassy island divided the harbor mouth into twin channels. Both were partially blocked by a collapsed bridge.

Hutch saw truncated squares in the water, massive concrete foundations (she thought), and piles of rubble.

“There used to be big buildings down there,” said Janet. “Maybe something on the order of skyscrapers.”

“There are more in the woods,” said George.

“Anybody got a suggestion,” asked Carson, “where we should set down?”

“Don’t get too close to the shoreline,” advised Hutch. “If there are predators, that’s where they’re most likely to be.”

They picked out a clearing about a half-kilometer from the harbor. Jake took them down and they landed among wet leaves and bright green thickets.

Hutch heard the cockpit hatch open. “Hold it a minute,” said Carson. “We need to talk a little before we go out there.” Good, she thought. For all their experience on the Quraqua mission, these were not people who necessarily understood the potential for danger on a new world. The old fear of contamination by extraterrestrial disease had been discarded: microorganisms tended not to attack creatures evolved from alien biosystems. But that didn’t mean they might not attract local predators. Hutch had gotten an object lesson on that subject.

Carson assumed his best military tone. “We don’t really know anything about this place, so we’ll stay together. Everybody take a pulser. But please make sure you’ve got a clear field of fire if you feel you have to use it.”

They would not need energy shields here; but they would wear heavy clothing and thick boots to afford some protection against bristles, poison plants, stinging insects, and whatever other surprises the forest might have for them. “Which way do we go?” asked Maggie, zipping her jacket.

Carson looked around. “There are heavy ruins to the north. Let’s try that way first.” He turned to Jake. “We’ll be back before sundown.”

“Okay,” said the pilot.

“Stay inside, okay? Let’s play it safe.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’m not interested in going anywhere.”

The air was cool and sweet and smelled of mint. They gathered at the foot of the ladder and looked around in silent appreciation. Bushes swayed in a light breeze off the sea; insects burbled and birds fluttered overhead. To Hutch, it felt like the lost Pennsylvania, the one you read about in old books.

The grass was high. It came almost to her knees. They got out, checked their weapons, and picked out an opening in the trees. Carson moved into the lead, and George drifted to the rear. They crossed the clearing and plunged into the woods.

They immediately faced an uphill climb. The vegetation was thick. They picked their way between trees and spiked bushes, and occasionally used the pulsers to clear obstacles.

They topped a ridge and paused. Tall shrubbery blocked their view. Janet was trying to look back the way they’d come. “I think it’s a mound,” she said. “There’s something buried here.” She tried using her scanner, but she was too close, literally on top of the hill, to make out anything.”Something” she said again. “Part of a structure. It goes deep.”

George produced a lightpad, and started a map.

They worked their way down the other side, past an array of thick walls. They ranged in height up to treetop level, and were often broken, or leveled. “This is not high-tech stuff,” said George. “They’ve used some plastics, and some stuff I don’t recognize, but most of this is just concrete and steel. That fits with the space station, but not with the telescope.”

“It doesn’t follow,” said Janet. “The more advanced stuff should be on the surface. A low-tech city should be long-buried.”

Animals chittered and leaped through the foliage. Insects sang, and green light filtered through the overhead canopy. The trees were predominantly gnarled hardwoods, with branches concentrated at the top. Lower trunks were bare. They were quite tall, topping out at about five stories. The effect was to create a vast leafy cathedral.

They forded a brook, walked beside a buckled stone wall, and started up another mound. The area was thick with flowering bushes. “Thorns,” warned Maggie. “The same defenses evolve everywhere.”

The similarity of life forms on various worlds had been one of the great discoveries that followed the development of FTL. There were exotic creatures, to be sure; but it was now clear, if there had ever been much doubt, that nature takes the simplest way. The wing, the thorn, and the fin could be found wherever there were living creatures.

They explored without real purpose or direction, following whims. They poked into a concrete cylinder that might once have been a storage bin or an elevator shaft. And paused before a complex of plastic beams, too light to have supported anything. “Sculpture,” suggested Maggie.

Carson asked Janet whether she would be able to date the city.

“If we still had Wink,” she said.

“Okay. Good.” He was thinking that they could send the Ashley Tee to find the ship, and recover what she needed.

At the end of the first hour, Carson checked in with Jake. Everything was quiet at the shuttle. “Here too,” he said.

“Glad to hear it. You haven’t gone very far.” Jake seemed intrigued. “What’s out there?”

“Treasure,” said Carson.

Jake signed off. He had never before been first down on an unknown world. It was a little scary. But he was glad he’d come.

Jake had been piloting Kosmik shuttles for the better part of his life. It was a prestigious job, and it paid well. It hadn’t turned out to be as exciting as he’d thought, but all jobs become dull in time. He flew from skydock to ground station to starship. And back. He did it over and over, and he transported people whose interests were limited to their jobs, who never looked out through the shuttle ports. This bunch was different.

He liked them. He’d enjoyed following their trek through the space station, although he’d been careful to keep his interest to himself. It was more his nature to play the hard-headed cynic. And this: he knew about the Monument-Makers, knew they too had roamed the stars. Now he was in one of their cities.

The heavy green foliage at the edge of the clearing gleamed in the bright midday sun. He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. And saw something. A glimmer of light in the trees.

It looked like a reflection.

He poked his head through the hatch and leaned forward and watched it for several minutes. Something white. A piece of marble, maybe. The warm harbor air washed over him.

They stopped by a crystal stream and gazed at the fish. The filtered sunlight lent an air of unreality and innocence to the forest. There were paths, animal trails, but they were narrow and not always passable. Occasionally, they had to back away from a dead end, or a steep descent, or a bristling thicket. Carson wore out his pulser and borrowed Maggie’s.

The stream ran beneath a tapered blue-gray arch. The arch was old, and the elements had had their way with it. Symbols had been carved into the stone, but they were long past deciphering. Maggie tried to read with her fingertips what lay beyond the capability of her eyes.

She was preoccupied, and did not hear a sudden burst of clicking, like the sound of castanets. The others didn’t miss it, however, and looked toward a patch of thick briar in time to see a small crablike creature pull swiftly back out of sight.

Beyond the arch, they found a statue of one of the natives. It was tipped over, and half-buried, but they took time to dig it up. Erect, it would have been twice George’s height. They tried to clean it with water from a nearby stream, and were impressed with the abilities of the sculptor: they thought they could read character in the stone features. Nobility. And intelligence.

They measured and mapped and paced. George seemed more interested in what they couldn’t see. In what lay hidden in the forest floor. He wondered aloud how long it would take to mount a full-scale mission.

There was no easy answer to that question. If it were up to the commissioner, they would be here in a few months. But it would not be that simple. This world, after all, could be settled immediately. And there would be the possibility of technological advantage. Hutch thought it would be years before anyone would be allowed near the place, other than the NAU military.

Jake climbed out onto the shuttle’s wing, dropped to the ground, and peered into the trees. He could still see it. The clearing was lined with flowering bushes, whose lush milky blooms swung rhythmically in a crisp wind off the harbor. They were bright and moist in the sunlight. Jake’s experience with forests was limited to the belt of trees in his suburban Kansas City neighborhood, where he had played as a kid. You could never get in so deep that you couldn’t see out onto Rolway Road on one side, or the Pike on the other.

He understood that despite its peaceful appearance, the woodland was potentially dangerous. But he wore a pulser, and he knew the weapon could bum a hole in anything that tried to get close.

The day was marked by a sky so blue and lovely that it hurt his eyes. White clouds floated over the harbor. And sea birds wheeled overhead, screaming.

He touched the stock of his weapon to reassure himself, and walked toward the edge of the clearing.

They were fairy-tale trees, of the sort often portrayed in children’s books with grimaces and smiles. They looked very old. Some grew out of the mounds, enveloped the mounds in their root systems, as if clutching whatever secrets might be left. The city had been dead a long time.

“Hundreds of years,” said Maggie.

The underbrush now was sparse, and the trees were far apart. It was a forest cast in summer sunlight, a vista that seemed to lose itself far away among the living columns.

They came over the crest of a hill and caught their collective breath.

The land dropped gradually away into a wooded gully, and then rose toward another ridge. Ahead, a wall emerged from the downslope, from thick, tangled brush, and soared out over the ravine. It was wide and heavy, like a dam. Like a rampart. It extended somewhat more than halfway across the valley. And then it stopped. Five stories high, it simply came to an end. Hutch could see metal ribs and cables. A skeletal stairway rose above the wall, ending in midair. There had been crosswalls, but only the connections remained. The top was rocky and covered with vegetation.

“Let’s take a break,” said Carson. “This is a good place to eat lunch.” They broke out sandwiches and fruit juice and got comfortable.

Everyone talked. They talked about what the valley had looked like when the city was here, and what might have happened, and how everything they had gone through had been worth it to get to this hillside.

Carson opened a channel to the shuttle. “Jake?”

“I’m here.”

“Everything’s quiet.”

“Here, too.”

“Good.” Pause. “Jake, this place is spectacular.”

“Yeah. I thought you’d think that. It looked pretty good from the air. Are you still coming back at sundown?”

Carson would have liked to stay out overnight, but that would be taking advantage of Truscott. And maybe foolish, as well. Now, with the Ashley Tee within range, he was sure she could be persuaded to wait for the rendezvous. Which meant they had plenty of time to poke around. No need to push. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll be there.”

“I read.”

Carson signed off, and turned to Hutch. “How long will the Ashley Tee be able to stay in the neighborhood?”

“Hard to say. They’ll have a two-man crew. They stay out for roughly a year at a time. So it depends on how much food and water they have left.”

“I’m sure we can scrounge some from Melanie,” Carson said. (Hutch did not miss the new familiarity.) “I tell you what I’d like,” he continued. “I’d like to be here when the Academy mission arrives, say hello, and shake their hands as they come in. By God, that’s the stuff legends are made of. Maybe we can find a way.”

Jake could see a white surface, buried in the foliage.

He stopped at the edge of the trees, slid the pulser out of his pocket, and thumbed the safety release. The shuttle waited silently in the middle of the field, its prow pointed toward him. Its green and white colors blended with the forest. He should make it a point to get some pictures of the occasion. Jake’s shuttle.

The Perth name and device, an old Athena rocket within a ring of stars, was stenciled on the hull. The ship was named for the early space-age heroine who had elected to stay aboard a shattered vessel rather than doom her comrades by depleting their already-thin air supply. Stuff like that doesn’t happen anymore, Jake thought. Life has become mundane.

He poked his head into the foliage. It was marble. He could see that now. It was clean and cold in the daylight. But the shrubbery around it was thick and he could find no path. He used the pulser to make one.

He was careful to keep the weapon away from the structure. But he got tangled among the bushes and almost caught himself with the beam. That threw a scare into him.

It looked like a table.

An altar, maybe.

It was set beneath a parabola. A line of markings was carved across the rim. It looked old.

Damn. He should have brought the camera. He’d have to go back and get one.

He activated the common channel. “Frank?”

“Here.” Carson was eating.

“There’s something out here that looks like an altar,” said Jake.

“Where?” He caught an edge in Carson’s voice.

“Just south of the clearing.” He described what he had seen.

“Damn it. You’re supposed to stay with the shuttle.”

“I am with the shuttle. I can see it from here.”

“Listen, Jake. We’ll take a look when we get back. Okay? Meantime, you get inside the cockpit, and stay there.”

Jake signed off. “You’re welcome,” he said.

The altar was not designed for anything of human size. When he stood in front of it, the table-piece was above eye level. The workmanship was good: the stone was beveled and precisely cut.

He was enjoying himself thoroughly. He struck a heroic stance, hands on hips. He looked up at the parabola. He touched the symbols on the front of the altar.

I wonder what it says?

He walked back into the clearing. Maybe he had actually discovered something. Directly ahead, the shuttle gleamed beneath the bright blue sky.

The grass rippled in the wind.

He felt movement atop his right shoe. Reflexively, he shook his foot, and it exploded in pure agony. He screamed and went down. Something sliced into his ribs, slashed at his face. The last thing he knew was the smell of the grass.

The wall came in from their right off the valley. It was wide enough to accommodate eight people walking side by side, so that after it had plunged through heavy shrubbery into the glade, it came to resemble a roadway. At its point of entry, it was about shoulder high to Hutch. But midway across the clearing, it was broken, and the entire left-hand side had sunk or been removed. Or never existed. It was hard to know which, but the structure dropped in a single vertical step to about the level of their knees, and slipped into the hillside.

They inspected the structure, which was concrete reinforced with iron. Hutch climbed atop the upper section, and pushed through the foliage. The forest floor fell away rapidly.

The stairway lay two-thirds of the way out. “It goes all the way to the bottom,” she said. That was not strictly accurate: a lower flight was missing. It picked up again further down and appeared not to stop at ground level, but rather to sink into the earth. How much lay buried in the forest floor? She called for the scanner. “There are at least eight stories in the ground,” she said thoughtfully. “It could be a lot more.” They would need an airborne unit to get decent images.

She returned to the glade. “Later,” Carson told her, looking at his watch. “We’ll get a better look later.”

Overhead, the swaying, sun-filled branches that blocked off the sky looked as if they had been there forever.

They passed beyond the valley, moving at a leisurely pace, and came to a dome. Janet scanned it and announced that it was a sphere, and that it was probably a storage tank. “It was painted at one time,” she added. “God knows what color.”

Carson looked at the sun in the trees. “Time to start back.”

George opened a channel to call the shuttle. After a moment, he frowned at his commlink. “I’m not getting an answer,” he said.

Carson switched on his own unit. “Jake, answer up, please.”

They looked at one another.

“Jake?” George went to status mode. The lamp blinked yellow. “We’re not getting a signal. He’s off the air.”

Hutch tried calling the shuttle directly. “Still nothing,” she said.

“Damn it,” Carson muttered, irritated that his pilot would simply ignore his instructions. He missed his military days, when you could count on people to do what they were told.

“Okay, we’ll try again in a few minutes.” The daylight had reddened.

They took a group picture in front of the dome. Then they began to retrace their steps.

“Mechanical problem,” George suggested. But they were uneasy.

Janet moved with her usual strong gait. Alone among her comrades, she was confident everything was okay at the shuttle. Her mind was too crowded with the triumph of the moment to allow any temporary uncertainty to spoil things. She was accustomed to being present at major discoveries (major discoveries were so common during this era), but she knew nevertheless that when she looked back on her career, this would be the defining moment. First-down in the city by the harbor. It was a glorious feeling.

Fifteen minutes later, they had re-entered the valley of the wall, and were headed uphill in single file. Janet had drifted to the rear. She was thinking that she would not live long enough to see this place yield all its secrets, when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, just beyond the beaten grass. She looked, saw nothing, and dismissed it.

Her thoughts switched back to the ruin underfoot—

Almost simultaneously, Hutch shouted Look outl and a hot, sharp needle drove into her ankle. She screamed with pain and went down. Something clung to, scratched at, her boot. She thought she glimpsed a spider and rolled over and tried to get at it. The thing was grass-colored and now it looked like a crab. Maggie ran toward her. Pulsers flared. Around her, the rest of the party were struggling. The agony filled the world.

Carson’s reflexes were still good. Janet’s scream had scarcely begun before he’d sighted and killed one of their attackers: it was a brachyid, a crablike creature not unlike the one they’d seen earlier in the day. But pandemonium was breaking out around him.

Janet was on the ground. Maggie bent over her, hammering at the thick grass with a rock.

Carson’s left ankle exploded with pain. He crashed into a tree and went down.

Hutch dropped to a kneeling position beside him, pulser in hand.

Crabs.

He heard shouts and cries for help.

Maggie reached back and called Pulser! and Hutch slapped one into her hand. The brachyid was clamped to Janet’s boot. Carson watched it rock madly back and forth in a sawing motion. Blood ran off into the grass. Maggie shoved the weapon against the shell and pulled the trigger. The thing shrieked.

“Stay out of the grass!” cried George. “They’re in the deep grass!”

A black spot appeared on the carapace, and began to smoke. Short legs thrust out from under the shell and scratched furiously against Janet’s boot. Then it spasmed, shuddered, and let go. Maggie drew it out.

Hutch spotted another brachyid. It was in front of them, watching with stalked eyes. A thin, curved claw scissored rhythmically. She bathed it in the hot white light from her pulser. Legs and eyes blackened and shriveled, and it wheeled off to one side, and set the grass afire. Hutch, taking no chances, sprayed the entire area, burning trees, rocks, bushes, whatever was nearby.

It occurred to her that they might be venomous.

“More coming,” said George. “Ahead of us.”

Hutch moved out in front, saw several of them ranged across the path. More moved in the grass to either side. “Maybe we should go back,” she said.

“No,” said Carson. “That might be the whole point of the maneuver.”

“Maneuver?”George said anxiously. “You don’t think they’re trying to box us in?”

The brachyids charged, churning forward with a frantic sidewise motion that was simultaneously comic and revolting. Their shells reminded Hutch of old-time army helmets. Something like a scalpel flashed and quivered from an organ in the carapace situated near the mouth. Claws twitched as they approached, and the scalpels came erect.

Hutch and Maggie burned them. They hissed, crustacean legs scrabbled wildly, and they turned black and died.

Suddenly they stopped coming and the forest went quiet. They were left with the smell of smoldering meat and burning leaves. Maggie helped Janet up and placed her arm around her shoulder. George lifted Carson. “This way,” he said.

Hutch played her lamplight across the path ahead. Nothing moved.

They limped uphill. When they felt it was reasonably safe, they stopped, and Hutch got out the medikit and dispensed painkillers. Then she cut Janet’s boot away. The wound was just above the anklebone. It was jagged, bleeding freely, and it had begun to swell. “You’ll need stitches,” she said. “Be grateful for the boot.” She gave her an analgesic, applied a local antiseptic, and dressed it with plastex foam. “How do you feel?”

“Okay. It hurts.”

“Yeah. It will. Stay off it.” She turned to Carson. “Your turn.”

“I hope the thing didn’t have rabies,” he said. This time, Hutch had a little more trouble: part of his boot had been driven into the ankle. She cut it out, while Carson paled and tried to make light conversation. “It’ll be fine,” she said.

He nodded. “Thanks,” he said.

When she’d finished, Maggie held up her left hand. “Me too,” she said.

Hutch was horrified to discover she’d lost the little finger of her right hand. “How’d that happen?”

“Not sure,” she said. “I think it got me when I pulled it loose from Janet.”

She closed off the wound as best she could. Son of a bitch. If they’d been able to recover it, it could have been grafted back by the ship’s surgeons. But they weren’t going to go back looking.

“Finished?” asked George nervously. “I think they’re still around.” Hutch could hear them out there, tiny legs scratching against stone, claws clicking. But they seemed to be in the rear now.

Neither Carson nor Janet would be able to walk without help. “We need to make a travois,” said Hutch, looking around for suitable dead limbs.

George frowned. “We don’t have time for construction work.” He found a couple of dead branches and fashioned walking sticks. “Best we can do,” he said, distributing them. “Let’s go.” He directed Maggie to help Janet. And provided a shoulder for Carson. “Hutch, you bring up the rear,” he said. “Be careful.”

They moved out.

It was slow going. Frank was no lightweight, and George was too tall. He had to bend to support Carson’s weight, and Hutch knew they would not make it all the way back to the shuttle. Not like this. Maybe they could find an open spot somewhere. Get Jake to come for them. Use the shuttle to crash through the trees and get them out. If they provided a signal for him to home in on—

George fired his weapon. They heard the familiar crab-shriek. “Damned things are almost invisible,” he said. “That one was ahead of us.”

Where the hell was Jake? Hutch tried again to raise him. But there was still no response. That silence now suggested an ominous possibility.

Hutch looked with frustration at the trees, which could provide no sanctuary since the branches were far beyond their reach.

“This isn’t working,” said Carson finally, disengaging himself from George and sitting down. “If you didn’t have to worry about me, you could carry Janet, and you could move a lot faster. Give me a pulser, and come get me tomorrow.”

“Sure,” George said. “I’ll hold the pass, boys. You go on ahead.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

They were leaving a trail of blood. Hutch traded places with Maggie. Then they started again. Occasionally, Maggie fired her weapon. And it seemed to have gotten personal.”Little bastard” she’d say,”take that.” And:”Right between the eyes, you son of a bitch.”

She exhausted another pulser. They had three left.

Hutch reluctantly gave Maggie her weapon. “What do you think?” asked Carson.

“We need to get off the ground,” said Janet. “We need a tree.”

“Find one our size,” said Maggie. And then: “How about a wall?”

“Yeah,” said George. “That should work. The upper level might be safe. If the bastards can’t climb.” He looked at Hutch. “Can we contact thePerth?”

“Not directly. Somebody would need to activate the shuttle relay.”

“Wouldn’t matter anyhow,” said Carson. “They couldn’t help. Their shuttle’s down here.”

His dressing was soaked with blood. Hutch added more foam.

They’d stopped in a small clearing to do repairs, when George held up a hand. “Heads up,” he said. “They’re here.”

Hutch had to fight down an urge to break and run. “Where?” she said.

They came out of the high grass from all directions, and they came in overwhelming numbers. They moved forward with near-military precision. Hutch, Maggie, and George formed a circle around the others and killed with a will. White beams bathed the advancing horde. The brachyids died. They died in rows, but if the lines wavered, they did not stop. Scorched carapaces littered the area, and the grass and bushes caught fire. Carson and Janet, without weapons, squeezed back and tried to keep out of the way. The air filled with the smell of charred meat. A crab trailing smoke caromed off Hutch’s foot.

George fought with coolness and calculation. Standing at his side, Hutch almost felt she didn’t know him. He was smiling, enjoying himself. The gentle innocence was gone.

Their attackers moved with malice and purpose. Hutch sensed feints and sallies and organization in the attack. Their eyes locked on her and tracked her. No crab on the beaches of her youth had ever seemed so aware of her presence.

Maggie’s pulser was fading, going red.

The things came on relentlessly.

The fear that they were not going to get out was beginning to take hold. Oddly, that suspicion induced a series of conflicting emotions in Hutch, like currents in a quiet lake: she was almost simultaneously calm, terrified, resigned. She joined George in taking pleasure in the killing, wielding her beam with deadly satisfaction. And she began to consider how the end might come, what she should do. She decided she would not allow herself, or anyone else, to be taken down alive. She located Carson and Janet with sidewise glances. Carson was riveted by the battle, but Janet caught her eye and nodded. When the end comes, if it comes, do the right thing.

The dead, smoking shells continued to pile up. Hutch thought she detected some reluctance in the animals trying to breach the rising barrier, but they were incessantly pushed forward by pressure from behind. She found, increasingly, she could expand her field of fire, and attack the rear ranks. The zone of smoldering meat around them began to act as a shield.

She took a moment to reduce power.

Black smoke was getting into her eyes. She killed two more, and spared one that lurched crazily away from her and ran into a tree.

“We’ve got to run for it,” said George. “Before they regroup.”

“I’m in favor,” said Hutch. “How do we manage it?”

“The bushes.” He pointed to the side. He was shouting, to be heard over the din. Most of the creatures were on the trail, front and rear. “Punch a hole through the bushes,” he said.

Hutch nodded.

“Everybody hear that?” called George.

Hutch turned toward Janet and Frank. “Can you guys manage on your own? Until we get clear?”

Carson looked at Janet.

“I can hop,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Hutch wasted no time. She swung her pulser toward the shrubbery George had indicated and burned the hole. Several crabs were moving back there, and she killed one while George held the rear. The bushes were thick, and she feared they might bog down in them. Protecting her eyes, she tried to ease the path for Janet. Once, twice, she stopped and drove off attackers.

But by God they were moving again.

Minutes later, they came out on a grassy hillside.

“Where’s George?” said Maggie, looking behind them.

Hutch opened a channel. “George, where are you?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be right along.”

“What are you doing?”

“Hutch,” he said, in a tone she had never heard him use before, “keep going. Get to the wall. I’ll meet you there.”

“No!” she howled. “No heroes. We need you here.”

“I’ll be there, dammit. Frank, will you talk to her?” And he signed off.

“He’s right,” Carson said.

“I’m going back for him—”

“If you do, we’re all dead. His only chance is for us to get to high ground. Now, come on— “

Charred grass and crab-parts crunched underfoot. George followed Maggie, but the crabs came too quickly. He turned and fired. There was no point in his hurrying, because he could go no faster than the people in front of him.

The attack slowed. A few individuals charged, but for the most part, they seemed to understand where the limits of his field of effective fire lay, and they remained outside that range. He backed through the bushes.

They kept pace. And he could hear them on both sides.

He fought down an urge to break and run. He listened for pulsers ahead, and was encouraged to hear only the sounds of people clumping through forest.

In whatever dim perceptions they had, the brachyids understood and avoided the pulser. They did not charge him, at least not in large numbers. They had learned. He needed to use that fact to buy time.

He didn’t dare move too quickly. Didn’t want to come up on his companions before they’d gained the safety of the wall. So he stopped occasionally, and, when the creatures approached, sometimes singly, sometimes several abreast in their pseudo-military formations, he turned back on them, and drove them off.

Hutch’s frantic call unnerved him. He’d been able to hear her both on the link and on the wind. They were still very close. Damn—

The possibilities for ambush were everywhere. But no sudden rush came, no charge from the flank, no surprises. They merely stayed with him. And that was okay. If they were targeting him, they weren’t chasing the others. And fast as they were, he was quicker. As long as he didn’t have to carry anyone.

He plunged into high grass, too high for him to see them directly, but he could see the stalks moving. He kept going until he came out onto rocky terrain. Where he could see. Where they’d make easy targets.

Let Hutch and the others get as far away as they could.

“Where’s the wall?” asked Carson.

They’d reached the top of the slope. Maybe another half klick. “Ten minutes,” Hutch said. And, to Janet: “You okay?”

Janet and Carson were limping along as best they could, supported by Hutch and Maggie. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Hutch would have kept George on the circuit, but she had her hands full with her injured comrades, and she didn’t want to distract him. But it was hard to keep back the tears.

Carson was quiet. His forehead was cool, and his eyes looked clear. When she tried to talk to him, he only urged her not to stop moving. “I can keep up with you,” he said.

They followed their own trail through cut thickets, watching for the foliage to open on their left and give them a view of the wall. They had to be close now.

Without warning, Janet collapsed. Hutch caught her, lowered her gently to the ground. “Break,” Hutch said. “Take a minute.”

Carson did not sit. He hobbled to a tree, and leaned against it.

Janet was pale and feverish. Drenched with sweat. Hutch activated her commlink. “George?”

“Here, Hutch.”

“Please come. We need you.”

George signed off and committed the misjudgment that cost him his life. He had succeeded in buying adequate time, and might have disengaged and rejoined his friends within a few minutes. But the crustacean army lined up behind him was too tempting a target. He returned to the tactic that had been working so successfully. Thinking to thin out his pursuers, he turned on them, and walked the pulser beam through their ranks. It was red now, failing quickly. But it was enough.

They scattered, making no effort to come after him. And they burned and died as they scuttled away. He pursued with singleminded thoroughness, killing everything that moved. Fires ignited, and the shrieks of the brachyids filled the twilight.

But when he turned back, the ground before him was moving. He played his beam across the new targets. It did not stop them, and he had to concentrate its power on a single animal to kill it.

They advanced deliberately in that sidewise gait, and the scalpels were erect. To his rear, the fire was building. No escape that way.

High on the dark hill, he glimpsed his comrades’ lamp.

It looked very far away.

He plunged through an opening in the shrubbery. And they were waiting for him.

24.

Beta Pacifica III. Tuesday, April 12; one hour after sunset.

They saw the flames below, in the dark.

“He’ll be okay,” said Carson.

Hutch hesitated, looking back. The entire world squeezed down to the flickering light. She wanted to talk to him again, reassure herself. But she remembered Henry’s anger: Where were you when we were trying to get a few answers? All you could contribute was to hang on the other end of that damned commlink and try to panic everybody.

Miserably, supporting Janet, she set off again. How different everything looked now. The beam from her lamp fell across a tree that had been split by lightning. “I remember this,” said Maggie. “We’re close—”

Moments later, a scream ripped through the night. It rang across the trees, vibrated in the still air, erupted into a series of short cries. Hutch called out to him and turned back.

But Janet anticipated the move. “No! You can’t help him.” She grabbed her and held on. “My God, you can’t help him, Hutch—”

Janet was considerably stronger, but she could not have restrained her more than a few seconds had Carson not gotten there quickly. They fell in a pile.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said.

She screamed.

“You’ll make it for nothing.” It was Maggie, looking down at her.

“Easy for you,” said Hutch, hating the woman. “When other people die, you’re always safely away!”

And the tears came.

The wall looked bright and safe in the glow of the lamp.

Get to the upper level. Hutch’s vision had blurred, and she was close to hysteria. “Hold on,” Janet told her. “We need you.”

The lower strip, the portion they had thought of as resembling a roadway, emerged from the hillside to their right. Halfway across the glade, it rose vertically almost two meters. Not much under ordinary circumstances. But tonight was another matter.

It was a difficult climb with only one foot available. But Carson, supported by Maggie from below, and pulled by Hutch, and perhaps encouraged by the whisper of moving grass, negotiated it, although not without losing more blood. Once he was up, however, Janet became an easy proposition.

Hutch did a quick survey out across the top of the wall to assure herself there would be no surprises. Satisfied, she sat down and got out the medikit. “Let’s have another look at everybody,” she said in a flat voice.

Janet appeared to be going into shock. Hutch got her legs up, propping them on a mound of earth, removed her own jacket, and drew it over her. Carson was in better shape. When she had done what she could for both, she looked at Maggie’s mutilated hand.

“How does it feel?”

“I’ll live.”

“I’m sorry,” Hutch said. “I really didn’t mean what I said back there.”

“I know.”

She changed the dressing. But tears continued to roll down her cheeks and she kept getting everything wet. Maggie had to finish the job herself. Carson hobbled over and sat beside her.

Hutch stared into the dark. The fires had burned out, and the night was growing cool. A crescent moon floated in the trees. “He’s gone,” she said.

Carson put an arm around her, but said nothing.

“I don’t—” She stopped, pulled back, and waited until she had control of her voice. “I don’t want to leave him out there.”

“We’ll get him back,” Carson said.

Janet did not look good. We need to keep her warm. Maggie contributed her jacket. Hutch gathered some branches and built a fire. The wind began to pick up, and the temperature was dropping. Carson looked pale, and Hutch feared he might go into shock. “It’s going to get cold,” she said. “We don’t want to spend the night out here.”

Carson gazed wearily into the fire. “I don’t see what choice we have.”

“We can get the shuttle.”

“How do we do that? I can’t walk back there. Neither can Janet, for God’s sake.”

“I don’t mean everybody. I mean me.”

“And what would you do after you got there?”

“Bring it here.”

The treetops were tied together and shut out the sky. “And do what? You can’t get through that.”

“Sure I can. If we remove a tree or two.”

Carson’s eyes found hers.

“It’s all we’ve got,” she added.

“Wait for daylight.”

“We may not have until daylight. Janet’s not in good shape.”

He glanced at Maggie. “What do you think?”

Maggie’s eyes were wide with fatigue and horror. “I think it’s her call,” she said.

She hasn’t forgotten what I said. Hutch felt desperately tired of it all.

It would have been best, of course, if she could start at once. But there were things that had to be done first.

She needed to find the right tree to take down. She thought they could get away with one, and she found it well out along the wall, past the ruined stairway. It was close enough that they could reach it with a pulser; and she judged that it would leave a hole big enough to get through with the shuttle. That latter point was touch and go, but she was hopeful. If it didn’t, they’d deal with it when they had to.

Next, she selected a pickup site, and helped get Janet and Carson to it. Just the use of the term seemed to revive their spirits. Once there, she rebuilt the fire. They were far out over the valley now, and close to the treetops. Branches and leaves reddened in the glow of the flames.

While Hutch got ready to leave, Maggie wandered to the edge, studied the target tree, and looked down. It was about five stories.

“You know what to do now?” Hutch asked.

“Yes. We’ll be waiting when you get back.”

They had only two functional pulsers left. But Maggie’s had gone red. Hutch had the remaining one. She held it out.

Maggie shook her head. “Take it with you. You might need it.”

“You need it to take the tree down. Anyhow, I’m not going to shoot it out with the little bastards.” Janet’s breathing didn’t sound so good. “Got to go.” Their eyes caught and held. “When we get out of here,” she said, “I’d like to buy you dinner.”

Maggie smiled. It was an uninhibited smile, ringed by tears. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“Be careful,” said Carson.

She strapped the lamp to her wrist and started back along the top of the wall. The night closed over her.

The smell of the sea was strong, and the woods below were full of the sound of insects. George’s final cries echoed through her mind, and she was desperately afraid.

Her mind would have conjured up images of his last moments had she allowed it to. But she let the shock effect numb her imagination. She tried to concentrate only on what needed to be done, to push her fears and her loss aside.

She hurried back along the wall, watching the forest floor rise. Ahead, shrubbery blocked her view of the glade.

And she heard them. Directly ahead.

Below, the forest floor was quiet.

Bushes swayed in the wind. She held the lamp up, played its beam across the top of the wall. Everything looked clear. She passed into the screening bushes and emerged in the glade.

They were on the lower level.

She glared down at them.

They were pushing leaves and dirt toward the base of the wall. A chill worked its way up her spine.

Hutch picked up a rock and threw it at them. Incredibly, it missed. But the work stopped momentarily, and eye-stalks swung toward her. Several peeled off and moved into the underbrush on either side of the wall. The others began to back away, and withdrew beyond a distance that George would have recognized.

She opened a channel on her link. “Maggie.”

“Here.”

“They’re out here at the end of the wall. Building a ramp.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath. Heard Maggie relay the warning to Carson. “Maybe we should try going down the staircase,” Maggie said.

“No,” said Hutch. They would never make it. “You’ve got time yet. Just be ready to go when I get back.”

“Okay. Hutch?”

“Yes?”

“I’m looking forward to that dinner.”

“Me, too.”

She retreated back through the shrubbery, and looked down. It was a healthy jump, about five meters. But she saw only one crab.

She sat down, swung round, and hung by her hands. The thing below began to move. She pushed away from the wall, and let go. The fall took an ungodly long time. While she dropped, she held the lamp away from her body, where it was less likely to get broken or cause injury. She was aware of the wind, and the smell of the woods, and of filtered moonlight.

She hit harder than she’d expected, rolled to her feet, and, without wasting time looking for the brachyid, took off.

The route they had blazed was to her right, uphill, but she thought it wise to stay off it for a while. She chose a parallel course, and resolved to cut over when she was safely away from the area. She had decided she would give the little bastards full credit for military capabilities.

There was no sound of pursuit.

“I’m clear, Maggie,” she said into her commlink. “And on my way.”

She did not run all out. Something had happened to Jake. Keep that in mind. But time pressed. She hurried on, and plunged through blinds and into vegetation that she might otherwise have avoided.

Gradually, she angled uphill, expecting to find the trail.

She didn’t. She reached the top of the ridge without knowing where she was. Son of a bitch.

She’d missed it. Gone right past it.

Don’t panic. She called the wall. Pause. Give her a chance to regroup. “Maggie?”

“Here. How’s it going?”

“Still moving. I’m okay.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. How are you doing with the tree?”

“Slow. The range is a little long.”

“Stay with it. I’ll keep you posted.”

Five minutes later, she stumbled across blackened shrubbery. Okay. This was the way they had come. But the trail barely existed, and her notion that she could sprint back to the shuttle vanished. She realized how little attention she’d paid coming out. And they’d made no effort to mark their passage. No one had considered the possibility of a problem getting back; after all, at worst, it would only be necessary to home in on Jake’s signal.

She made several wrong turns. Each time, she retraced her steps and conducted a search. At one point, she came out of the woods and found herself looking across open, moonlit water. The collapsed bridge they’d seen from the air lay in the shallows like a sleeping dinosaur.

The tree did not fall.

Maggie had cut completely through the trunk, but it only leaned to one side, hopelessly tangled in the web of branches. Leaves and broken wood rained down on her, and some went over the side and took the long plunge to the forest floor.

But the canopy was as solid as ever.

“What now?” she asked Carson. She had exhausted her pulser. Only Hutch’s weapon remained. She took it out of her belt.

Carson surveyed the trees. “Over there,” he said. Cut that one. It was the same width, but about four meters farther out. At the extreme limit of the weapon’s range. “Get that one, and they might both come down.”

She looked at him unhappily.

“It’s all we’ve got, Maggie.”

She crept to the edge, and reached out. Get as close as possible. She pulled the trigger.

Hutch had no idea where she was. There were no stars to guide her. No landmarks. Nothing. She saw no sign of their previous passage, no hill or tree that stirred memory-She had triangulated on Maggie’s link, which sent out a continuous signal. That told her where she was in relation to the wall, and allowed her to estimate generally where the shuttle should be. It was in this area somewhere. But where? She worried that she had already passed it, that it lay behind her.

“Look out.”

The trunk tilted toward them. That shouldn’t have happened: Maggie had angled the cut away so it would fall in the other direction. But instead it came down slowly in a cacophony of splintering wood. She scrambled back from the edge. Twigs and leaves and vines came with it. The trunk slammed into the wall, and the entire structure shuddered. The general tangle fell across Maggie, a vast leafy net, knocking her off her feet. Branches cracked and the trunk kept rolling until it slipped clear and started a long, slow descent into the abyss. And Maggie realized with horror that she was going with it.

She was dragged relentlessly toward the edge of the wall. She tried to free herself. Find something to hold onto. But everything seemed to be going over the side.

The world was filled with broad flat leaves and a terrible grinding sound. She heard Carson calling her name. And it occurred to her that she was not going to find out about Oz. Not ever. Nor why the Quraquat had identified the Monument-Makers with death.

Made no sense.

The tangle paused, balanced high over the forest floor, allowing her a final glance at the sliver of moon. Mercifully, it was too dark to see how high she was.

Sorry, Hutch.

“Hutch.” The voice was frantic.

“Go ahead, Frank.”

“Maggie’s dead.”

The words hung on the night air. Her eyes slid shut. She had left the lake front, and was struggling through flowering plants and oversized ferns. Utterly lost.

“Hutch? Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said. “How? What happened?” It did not seem possible. Maggie had been fine. Was too smart—

Carson told her. His voice was thick with sorrow. “I found her pulser,” he added. “She dropped it.”

“You’re sure she couldn’t have survived?”

“Hutch, she went over the side.” Pause. “Did you get to the shuttle yet?”

“No, Frank. God help me, I have no idea where I am.”

“Okay.” Carson’s voice was gentle. “Do what you can. We’ve got a hole now. You can get in when you get here.”

In the dark, she stared straight ahead. “Out,” she said quietly.

Janet had slept through the disaster. Carson looked at her. She seemed unchanged, and her pulse was steady. He sat beside her, grief-stricken. Her eyes fluttered and she touched his wrist. He smiled. “We’re doing fine,” he said to her unspoken question.

“Can I help?” He had to lean close to hear.

“Not now. Later, maybe.” She drifted back to sleep.

Carson buried his head in his hands.

Truscott was listening to several of her passengers outline the future assignments they were expecting when they got home, when Harvey, wearing an irritated frown, asked if he could speak with her in private.

“We’ve lost contact with the landing party,” he said.

That should be no cause for concern. Commlinks failed. “How long?”

“Last check was due forty minutes ago.”

She thought about it. “It’s a little early to push the button. What do you think? Equipment failure?”

“Unlikely. They would have to be aware of it, though. And the shuttle has several communications methods available. Morris is worried.”

“Last status was—?”

“Still on the ground. Carson and the Academy team went off somewhere to look at ruins. They left Jake with the shuttle.”

“When were they expected back?”

“Before sunset. It’s been dark there for over an hour.”

She leaned against the bulkhead. “What options do we have?”

He looked at her. “I hoped you might be able to think of something.”

Hutch was back out on the shoreline, looking at the downed bridge. Here, at least, she had a decent idea which way she wanted to go. But once in the woods, there was no guide. No way to check her course. And she could pass within ten meters of the shuttle and fail to find it.

West. It was toward the west.

She started off, striving to remain within sight of the water.

Earlier, nothing had seemed familiar. Now, she felt as if she’d been everywhere. She moved with frustrated abandon. The brachyids she had feared so much at the beginning of the odyssey had drifted to the back of her mind. Where was the shuttle?

Carson’s voice broke through the stillness. “Any luck, Hutch?”

“No,” she said. “I’m in the neighborhood—”

“Okay. I think we’re out of time up here. I can hear them coming.”

She did not know what to say.

“I’m going to take Janet down the stairway.”

The stairway. It wouldn’t work. Probably wouldn’t even support their weight. “Don’t do it, Frank,” she said.

“I’m open to suggestions. We’ve got maybe ten minutes. At best.”

Her lungs heaved. The forest went on forever, trunks and underbrush and roots pushing up through the soil and deep grass and rocks and cane plants.

“Frank.”

“Yes?”

“Say something to me. Loud.”

“What do you mean?”

“Talk to me.”

“Hello.”

“Louder.”

“Hello.”

“Shout it, damn it.”

“HELLO!”

“It might work.” Jake could not have been attacked unless something got into the shuttle, or he went for a walk. In either case, a hatch, at least, had to be open. Most likely, the cockpit canopy. “Frank, switch to the shuttle’s channel, and make as much noise as you can.”

She broke contact and listened.

Nothing.

But it was somewhere up ahead. Had to be.

Frank Carson understood that once he left the wall they were dead. Even if he made it down that impossible stairway, they would have no chance. Hutch would not be able to get to them with the shuttle.

Consequently, he bellowed into the commlink. Sometimes he called her name. Sometimes, “SHUTTLE, ONE TWO THREE.” Sometimes, “GODDAM, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

He had stationed himself ten meters in front of Janet. There was still life in the pulser, so they could put up a fight. Ahead, he heard the sound of crustacean claws on rock.

“What’s going on?” Janet’s voice. She didn’t try to move.

Carson explained, in as few words as he could.

“No way off?” she asked.

“No.”

“Where’s Maggie?”

There was no way to soften it. “Dead,” he said. He described how it had happened.

He listened to her breathe. “Little bastards,” she said. “Do we have another pulser?”

“No.”

She struggled to her feet. Fresh blood welled out of the packing on her ankle. She sorted among broken branches, and picked up one that she could handle.

Carson began talking to the shuttle again. “WE COULD REALLY USE HELP, HUTCH.”

Janet stationed herself directly below the opening in the overhang. “If they get here before she does,” she said, “I’m going to follow Maggie.”

Hutch was fording a stream when she heard it. A whisper, far off, carried away on the wind. It sounded like: “—Bitch.”She broke into a run.

Carson understood the simple ferocity of a beast looking for its dinner. But there was something else at work here. They had expended too much to get him. He wondered at their singlemindedness. Almost as if they perceived the humans as a threat. Was it possible they had dim recollections of the city’s former inhabitants, and had made some sort of connection?

Whatever this was about, he was pleased to discover that they hesitated when he showed himself. And there was another piece of good fortune: the brachyids were no quicker on this battered surface than he was. He watched them come, climbing over broken concrete, sliding helplessly into cracks and crevices. One fell off the wall.

He stood adjacent to the stairway. Parts of a handrail had survived. He heard wings, and a large dark-green bird settled on it. The handrail trembled. The bird watched the crabs with interest. Its head bobbed, in the manner of terrestrial avians. It had the wingspread of an eagle, and it leaned forward, made several threatening starts, and suddenly plunged among the creatures. It seized one in outstretched claws, holding it at an angle that prevented the scalpel-claw from doing any damage. The brachyid shrieked, and the bird cackled and rose into the night.

“Where are your relatives?” asked Janet.

Moments later they heard a sharp meaty crack from below.

Last hope of retreat down the stairway was about to go by the boards. Janet looked at him. “You sure we want to let ourselves get cut off?”

He didn’t reply.

“We could go sit on it. Climb to the upper level. They couldn’t follow us up there.”

“The damned thing would collapse. Let’s give Hutch more time.”

They waited. And eventually the crabs came.

Carson stood with legs braced, the pain in his left ankle pushed into a corner of his mind. They covered the ground before him, a dark horde he could not hope to stop. Nevertheless, they slowed, hesitated, somehow knowing what was coming. When the leading edge had drawn to within a meter, he pointed the weapon at them. They stopped.

He watched.

The moment drew itself out. And finally, as if a signal had been given, scalpels came erect and they swept forward.

The pulser’s warning lamp blinked on. He pulled the trigger and played the beam across them, knowing he could not take time to kill them individually. Hurt large numbers, he thought, hoping that would be enough to drive them back. They squealed and blackened and crashed together, like tiny vehicles.

They fell back, and the weapon died.

Janet moved close to the edge of the wall. “Okay,” she said.

“Hey.” Hutch’s voice.

“Go ahead.”

“I need more noise. I can hear you. The shuttle’s right here somewhere.”

Carson grunted. “It’s a little late, Hutch.”

“Talk to me,” she raged. “Come on, Carson.”

He roared her name to the stars.”It’s too late,” he cried.”It’s too goddam late.”

“That’s good,” said Hutch. “Keep at it.”

Carson stayed where he was, hoping to intimidate the creatures. He followed Janet’s example, and found a branch. He broke off the smaller limbs, and hefted it. When he was satisfied, he joined her. They stood close together.

Carson liked to think of himself as a man of the world. He had taken sex where he could find it, had enjoyed his passions, had been honest with his women. He was not given to sentimentality. Nevertheless some of those women lingered in his affections. Two or three, he might even have settled down with, had circumstances been different. But never in his life had he experienced so strong a rush of emotion, of love for another human being, as he did in those desperate moments, with Janet Allegri, atop the wall in the harbor city.

Hutch’s lamplight silhouetted the shuttle, silvered it for all the world to see. Its cold metal hull gleamed, and with desperate joy she thought how it sheltered power she had never appreciated. The cockpit canopy was up, and Carson’s profanity spilled out of it in erratic bursts.

“Okay, Frank,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

“Good. Move your ass.”

It occurred to her that if Jake had been taken inside the ship, it might still be inhabited. But she had no time to monkey with details. She sprinted across the glade, leaped onto the ladder, and was relieved to see that the cockpit, at least, was empty. “On my way,” she said into the commlink.

“Keep giving me a signal, turn on the lamps, and don’t forget where you’re supposed to stand.”

She ignited the engines, drew the canopy down, and slammed the door to the cargo section. Checklist. My God, it was hard to ignore old habits. But she had no time for a checklist.

“Negative,” said Carson. “All bets are off. The crabs are pushing us to the end of the wall. How far away are you?”

She lifted into the air. “I’ll be overhead in two minutes.” She locked the DF on Carson’s signal, swung around, and hit the burners. The landing gear warning lamp blinked at her: the treads were still down. Leave them that way. The shuttle rolled over a sea of silver-tinged foliage. Look for the hole.

Maggie’s hole.

She reached behind her into the supply cabinet for a fresh pulser, and laid it on the seat beside her.

Carson and Janet were defending themselves with sticks. Carson clubbed and jabbed the creatures until the wood shattered. Janet swept large numbers of them over the side. But it seemed hopeless, and they had already exchanged a final questioning glance, looking down the side of the wall, when lights blazed overhead.

The shuttle crashed through the vault of the forest. It was wider than its landing surface. But it came down with treads extended and spotlights flashing.

“I see you,” said Hutch. “Can you disengage?”

One of the creatures stabbed Carson’s good ankle. But he had seen it coming, and he rolled away before the scalpel could penetrate deep.

“Negative,” said Janet.

The black hull, ringed by running lights, was coming in directly on top of them. “Heads up,” said Hutch.

The top of the wall was alive with the creatures. How much of us, wondered Carson, do they think there is to go around? In that frightful moment, the notion of all those crabs after two people struck him as absurd. And he laughed.

“Hit the deck,” said Hutch. “Look out for the treads.”

They went down and one of the brachyids bit Carson’s right thigh. Janet hit it with her stick. The agony was blinding.

The treads came in over his head.

Hutch pushed the stick forward. The top of the wall was ribbon-thin. Alive. The battle disappeared beneath her. The shuttle had visual capabilities below its treads, of course, but Hutch elected not to use them. Just one more distraction. She focused instead on the dimensions of her landing site. Keep level. Keep centered.

Rely on Janet and Frank to get out of the way.

“Stay low,” she said. She released the cockpit canopy, and raised it.

Almost down.

Carson screamed. She cut off his channel. No distractions. Not now.

She looked back along the wall. Keep in the middle.

“I’m here, Janet,” she whispered.

She jounced down, lifted again. With a little luck, the crabs were running for cover. Do it right. No second chance.

The treads settled.

Contact.

She eased off, got a green board, grabbed the pulser, and leaped out onto the wing.

“Let’s go.”

Janet already had hold of the boarding ladder. She was covered with blood and dirt and her eyes were wild. Hutch made no effort to be gentle. She seized her shoulder, yanked her up, and pushed her toward the cockpit. Then she went back for Carson.

He wasn’t visible. But there were crabs down there. Churning, wall-to-wall crabs. Then she heard him, and saw a hand trying to get hold of the port wing, on the other side of the shuttle. “Coming,” she said. She took the shortest route, across the cowling rather than back through the cockpit. The hand was gone when she got there. Carson was on the ground, at the edge, trying to beat back the clicking, jabbing horde.

He called her name.

The wing stuck out over the abyss. “Jump for it, Frank,” she said. She sprawled down flat on her belly and anchored a foot against the hatch to provide purchase. “Do it—”

He threw a glance toward her. One of the things had fastened onto his leg and was cutting him. Without a word, he leaped, throwing both arms across the wing. She tried to grab his trousers to haul him up but she had to settle for his shirt, his ribs, and she couldn’t get a good grip.

He grabbed wildly at the smooth metal. Hutch was dragged half off the wing. Janet—

And she was there. She was taller than Hutch, longer, and she scrambled alongside, leaned down, and snatched him back. Snatched them both back.

For years afterward, I was unable to write, or speak, about that terrible night. This was to have been our shining moment, the peak of all our careers. God knows, I felt safe enough when we started. We were well-armed. And we were in a land that had lately served a great civilization. I did not believe that serious predators could have survived such a period.

Nevertheless, I failed to take adequate precautions. It cost the lives of two of the finest people I have ever known.

—Frank Carson

Quoted in “Overnight on Krakatoa,” by Jane Hildebrand, The Atlantic, Oct 11, 2219

Carson sounds as if he forgot he also managed to lose a shuttle pilot on that trip. His name, for the record, was Jake Dickenson.

—Harvey Sill, Letter published in The Atlantic, Oct 25, 2219

25.

On board NCK Catherine Perth. Wednesday, April 13; 1800 GMT.

They recovered Maggie’s body at about noon, local time. They also found parts of Jake’s clothing and equipment. There was no sign of George, other than a few bumed-out areas. The brachyids, if they were still in the neighborhood, kept out of the way of the heavily armed landing party.

Harvey Sill led the mission. Hutch went along as guide, but she needed tranks to hold herself together.

On their return to the Perth, Maggie’s body was placed in refrigeration, a memorial service was scheduled, and formal notifications were sent to Kosmik and the Academy. To Carson’s knowledge, it was the first time anyone had been killed in field work by a native life form.

Captain Morris directed preparations for the memorial with a mounting sense of outrage mixed with satisfaction that he had failed to make his point with his superiors but been proved right. However, he could expect to be held responsible by Corporate. He had never before lost a crewman or passenger, and he now had three to account for. Worse, the mission had been unauthorized.

“I hope you’re aware,” he told Truscott, “what you’ve got us into.”

She was aware. She’d assumed the professionals knew what they were doing, and had trusted them. It was a mistake she’d made before, but she didn’t know any other way to operate. You have to trust the people who are close to the action. If once in a while things go wrong, you take the heat. “I’m sorry I’ve created a problem for you, John,” she said.

He missed the quiet irony. “A little late for that. The question is, what do we do now?”

They were in the captain’s conference room. Truscott had followed the progress of the recovery party on the command circuit, had watched the body come back, and felt little patience with Morris, enclosed in his own narrow envelope. How do we get people like you in positions of authority? “I told you,” she said, “that if a problem developed, I would see to it that you were absolved of responsibility. And I will.”

“I know you will try.” Morris’s throat trembled. It was unlike him to stand up to anyone who was in a position to damage him. “Nevertheless,” he said righteously, “three people are dead.”

“I understand that.”

“I’m captain here. I expect to be associated with this disaster for the rest of my career. There’ll be no escaping it.”

It’s a terrible thing to listen to a grown man whine. “I rather think,” she said, “that the unofficial culpability, if any, will attach to Dr. Carson.”

Morris was glad to hear that. But he was too smart to show his satisfaction. Instead, he sat for some moments peering sadly off into a corner, as if he were considering the varieties of disaster which can befall even the most capable men.

Truscott suspected that when she was gone, he would call up a coffee and a cinnamon roll. Emotional encounters, she knew, always left him hungry.

“You’ll need some reconstructive surgery when you get home. Meantime, stay off it as much as you can.” The ship’s physician, a grandmotherly type with an easygoing, upbeat bedside manner, irritated Carson. He had never much liked cheerful people. “Neither of you will be able to walk for about twelve hours,” she told him and Janet. “Afterward, I want you both to stay off your feet for several days. I’ll let you know when.”

Janet was sitting up, examining her anesthetized left leg. “When do we get out?” she asked.

“There’s no indication of an infection or complication, but we don’t have much experience with this sort of thing. The brachyids injected you with a protein compound that seems to have no purpose. It might make you a little sick, but that will be the extent of it.”

“Venom?” asked Carson.

“Probably. But you’re not a local life form. So you got off lucky. Anyway, I want to keep an eye on you until morning. If nothing develops by then, you can go back to your quarters.” She checked her lightpad. “You have a visitor. May we show him in?”

“Who is it?” asked Carson.

“Me.” Harvey Sill appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got some information for you.”

The doctor excused herself, while Sill asked how they were doing. “Pretty good,” Carson said. Truth was, he hadn’t slept since they’d brought him aboard. “What’ve you got?”

“A reading on the syzygy.”

“On the whatl”

“The lunar alignment. Remember? You wanted to know how long it had been since the four moons lined up?”

A lot had happened since then, and Carson had forgotten. “Oh, yes,” he said. It seemed trivial now.

“It’s been a while. We make it 4743 B.C., terrestrial.”

He tried to make the numbers fit, and had no luck. “That can’t be the one we’re looking for.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too recent. We know they had interstellar travel as early as the twenty-first millenium B.C. The space station is primitive, so it should predate that. Do we have an event that happened more than twenty-three thousand years ago?”

Sill consulted his pad. “One of the moons has an orbit at a steep angle to the others. Which means that they hardly ever line up. Prior to the one in 4743, you have to go back over a hundred thousand years.”

“That can’t be right.”

Sill shrugged. “Let me know if we can do anything else for you.” He smiled at Janet, and left the room.

“It was worth a try, I guess,” said Carson. “The orbiter may have been up there a long time, but not a hundred thousand years.”

“Maybe the photos are simulated.”

“Must be.” His eyes slid shut. The room was getting sunlight just then. It was warm and sleep-inducing. Something connected with the station had been bothering him when the business with the crabs started. He needed to think about it, to reach back and find it. “Janet,” he said, “think about the ruins for a minute.”

“Okay.”

“We didn’t really get to see much of the harbor city. But did it look to you like the kind of city that a high-tech race of star-travelers would have built?”

“You mean the steel and concrete?”

“Yes. And the evidence we had of extensive water travel. I thought the collapsed bridge looked like something we might have built.”

“We’re star-travelers.”

“We’re just starting. These people had been at it for thousands of years. Does it make sense they’d still be using brick walls, for God’s sake?”

“Maybe,” she said. “What are you trying to say?”

“I don’t know.” The air was thick. It was hard to think. “Is it possible the interstellar civilization came first! Before the cities and the space station?”

Janet nodded. “The evidence points that way. We tend to assume continual progress. But maybe they slid into a dark age. Or just went downhill.” She punched a pillow and finished with a rush of emotion: “That’s what it is, Frank. It’ll be interesting to see what the excavations show.”

“Yes,” said Carson. But somebody else will get to do that. I’m sure as hell not going back down there.

His legs were anesthetized, and he felt only a pleasant warmth in them.

While Janet slept, Carson withdrew into the back of his mind. The sense of general well-being that should have accompanied the tranks never arrived. He was left only with a sense of disconnectedness. Of watching from a distance.

He went over his decisions again and again. He’d failed to take seriously the possibilities of attack. Failed to consider any danger other than a single, dangerous predator. Failed to provide adequate security.

The room grew dark. He watched the moons appear one by one in his view panel. They were cold and white and alive. Maybe everything in this system was alive: the sun, the worlds, the things in solar orbit. Even the continents. The moons aligned themselves, formed up like a military unit, like brachyids.

Syzygy.

He was awake. Drenched with sweat.

Beside him, Janet slept peacefully.

Syzygy.

It had last happened in 4743 B.C. And the era of the Monuments had ended, as far as they knew, around 21,000 B.C.

He picked up a lightpad, and began writing it all down. Assume that the people who had lived in the harbor city had put up the space station. Assume also that the station had ended its useful life shortly thereafter, because it was primitive, and would quickly have become obsolete. But there were no other stations, more advanced ones, so the harbor city and the planetary civilization had ceased activity. Had they perhaps not outlived their orbiter?

The time span between the last syzygy and the (supposed) end of the Age of Monuments was approximately sixteen thousand years.

DISCONTINUITIES

Beta Pac III             Quraqua          Nok

21,000BC             9000                16,000 BC

4743 BC               1000                400 AD

Again, there were increments of eight thousand years.

He stared at the numbers a long time.

And he thought about the space station. Why had its occupants tied themselves into their chairs and opened the hatches?

Carson remembered the old twentieth-century story of the cosmonaut who was stranded in orbit when the Soviet Union dissolved. He was circling the Earth, and one day the country that put him up just wasn’t there anymore. Maybe these people got stranded too. Something happened on the ground. Something that cut off all hope of return. And out of grief, or desperation, they had let in the night.

Maybe the discontinuities weren’t gradual events. Maybe they were sudden, overnight disasters. Okay, that seemed ridiculous. But where did it lead? What other evidence did he have? How could it connect with Oz?

Oz was always the final enigma. Understand Oz, he thought, and we understand the whole puzzle.

Clockwork.

Whatever it is, it happens every eight thousand years. Had there been an event on Beta Pac III in 13,000 B.C.? And on Nok around 8000 B.C.? Yes, he thought, knowing Henry would not have approved this sort of logical leap. But it seemed likely.

What kind of mechanism could produce such an effect?

After a while, he slept again, but not well. He woke to find that daylight had returned. Hutch and Janet were talking, and he got the impression from the way their voices dropped that he had been the topic. “How are you doing?” Hutch asked solicitously.

“I’m fine.”

Janet pushed her left leg out from under the sheet and flexed it. “It’s coming back,” she said.

Carson felt better, but was content to lie still.

“Hutch was saying,” said Janet, “that there’s a memorial service this evening.”

He nodded, and felt a fresh twinge of grief. He knew Hutch had gone back to the surface, and he asked about the trip. She described it briefly, in general terms. Maggie had died in the fall. No predator had got at her afterward. Thank God for that. “It must have been pretty quick,” she added. “Sill was all business. He wishes we’d go away, and he blames us for Jake’s death. He hasn’t said it, but it’s obvious.” She stopped suddenly, and he realized she was sorry she’d said that.

He changed the subject. “Here’s something you might be interested in.” He fumbled around in the bed, found his lightpad, and passed it over.

Hutch’s eyebrows went up. Then she held it so Janet could see. “We’ve got the eight-thousand-year factor again. I’d say the coincidence is getting pretty long.”

Carson agreed. “I can’t even begin to formulate an explanation. Could there be something in the wiring of intelligent creatures that breaks out every eight thousand years? Like Toynbee’s notions about the cycles of civilizations? Does that make any sense at all?”

“I don’t think so,” said Janet.

Hutch was still looking at the pad. “All three places,” she said, “have strange artifacts. The artifacts are obviously related, and they tie things together. Something has to be happening. And we have it by the tail.”

“Tail,” said Janet. “It’s a cosmic horgon that shows up periodically and blows everything away.” She was propped up against three pillows, rapping her fingertips against the tray table that stood by the side of her bed.

“Can I get you,” she asked Hutch, “to do a diagram?”

“Sure.” Hutch picked up the remote and opened the wall to reveal a display. “What do we want?”

“Let’s get a look at the relative positions of Beta Pac, Quraqua, and Nok.”

Hutch put them up. Beta Pac floated directly on the edge of the Void. Quraqua lay more inshore, fifty-five light-years away, in the general direction of Earth. Nok was lower on the arm, a hundred fifteen light years distant.

“Okay,” said Janet. “Let’s add the dates of the discontinuities.”

Carson understood what Janet was looking for: a connection between dates and distances. But he couldn’t see anything. If their guesswork was correct, the earliest known event had happened on Beta Pac III around 21,000 B.C. But there was no discernible order to what happened after that. A second event on Nok five thousand years later. And a third on Quraqua seven thousand years after that. It was chaos.

On a whim, Hutch plotted Earth’s position. It was far out of the picture. They all looked at it, and it seemed to Carson they were missing something.

Janet was already gone from the medical facility when Carson, with some help, dressed and prepared to return to his quarters. They gave him a motorized wheelchair, and he was testing it (and grumbling) when an attendant informed him the captain wanted to see him.

The attendant led Carson to a small examining room. It was furnished with two chairs, a gurney, a basin, and a supply cabinet. “He’ll be right with you,” he said, withdrawing.

It required little to bring Carson’s dislike for Morris to the surface. The symbolic gesture of forcing him to wait, of demonstrating that Carson’s time was of less value than the captain’s, irritated him. He wondered whether there was any reason he should tolerate this, and was about to leave when the captain strode in, told him pontifically to “be at ease,” dropped his hat on the gurney, and pulled up a chair with the air of a man who had important business waiting elsewhere. “Well, Carson,” he said, “I guess we really stuck our ass in it this time.”

“I guess we did, Captain.” Carson’s blood pressure started to rise.

Morris’ gaze had a waxy quality. It slid off Carson’s shoulder. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry about the loss of your colleagues.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. And I’m sorry about Jake.”

The captain nodded. “He’ll be missed.” He looked straight ahead, at nothing in particular. Carson’s impression was that he was striving for an appearance of stricken contemplation. “You know I was against all this from the beginning. If I’d had my way, none of this would have happened.”

I wish you’d been more forceful, Carson thought, but said nothing.

“Tell me, did you learn anything of significance down there?”

Carson was surprised by the question. “Yes,” he said. “I think we did.”

“Thank God for that, Doctor. With three people dead, we can at least be grateful the mission had a point.” He slightly underscored Carson’s title, as if it were something that needed to be stepped on.

“It had a point.” Carson felt old. “That’s not the same as saying it was worth the cost.”

“I understand.” Morris had a slight wheeze. “I would have you know that the loss of a crewman and two passengers is no small matter. There is paperwork to be done, explanations to be made. And regardless of the fact that the command of this ship is in no way culpable, the incident will nevertheless reflect poorly on me. You have certainly made your presence felt, sir.”

“I regret that we have been a problem.”

“No doubt. Unfortunately, prudence sometimes comes late. Well, no matter now. There’s a memorial service this evening at 1900 on the shuttle deck.”

Carson smiled. “Of course.” He shifted his weight, uncomfortable at feeling helpless before this man. “Is there anything else?”

“No.” Morris’ eyes found him again. This time they did not waver. “I’m sorry for you, Doctor.”

There was no question that the crew of the Perth had liked Jake Dickenson.

Oversized photos of Jake, George, and Maggie dominated the walls. Jake sat in his cockpit; George had been photographed against a rocky shore, hatless and thoughtful; and Maggie, a head shot only, intense eyes, dark hair falling over one shoulder.

Approximately ninety people gathered for the ceremony. The crew wore uniforms with black arm patches; the passengers eschewed the colorful clothing which was the fashion of the time.

It was mercifully short. Jake’s friends and shipmates described good times shared, the man’s kindness, favors done but never before revealed. Some also recalled brief moments spent with Maggie or George.

Carson was pleased that no one seemed to be blaming him. We are in it together, they said, in several different ways.

The captain presided, clad in formal dark blue. He noted this was the first time the Catherine Perth had lost anyone. He would miss Jake, and although he hadn’t really had the opportunity to get to know the deceased members of the Academy team, he was assured they were fine people, and he regretted their loss. Here he paused and his gaze swung slowly around the walls, lingering on each photo, coming finally to rest on the needle-nose prow of the shuttle.

“We can take our consolation,” he said somberly, “in knowing they died advancing the cause of human knowledge.” His eyes were half-closed. “They understood the risks, but they never hesitated.” To Carson, it sounded as if he were already planning his defense before the commission that would surely investigate the accident. “We can offer no higher praise for Jake, Maggie, and George.” He glanced toward Carson, and requested the consideration of the Almighty on the assemblage. Carson thought that his friends deserved a better send-off than this hackneyed, dogeared ramble. But Morris rolled on.

When at last he finished, Carson wheeled forward.

He took out his own prepared remarks and glanced at them. They seemed dry and overblown. Too much like the captain’s platitudes. Melanie Truscott, watching silently from a position near the statboard, smiled encouragement.

He slid the pad back into his pocket. “I did not know Jake as long, or as well, as you did. But he died with my people, trying to help us.” Carson looked at Hutch. “When we lose someone, there can never be an adequate reason. But they knew, and it’s important that you know, that they were not lost on some trivial, arbitrary, sightseeing trip. What lies below matters. Jake, George, and Maggie are forever part of it. As are we all.” He paused and looked around the assemblage. “I’m sorry. We’ve paid with our blood. I wish it were otherwise.”

The crowd did not disperse. Bound by common loss, they drifted up to the forward lounge, where the lights were brighter than usual and three white candles had been lit. People collected in small groups.

It was the first time Hutch had experienced death on a starship. She had always realized that the interstellars, hauling their fragile cargoes of environment and people, created intense, if temporary, societies. People felt closer, united against a hostile universe. Antagonisms that might have played out to unhappy conclusions on the broad stage of a planetary surface tended to break down in the observation lounges and on the shuttle decks. And the corollary, she realized, was that disaster hit harder. There were no bystanders between the stars.

Most of the tables were occupied. Hutch wandered among them, exchanging stories, sometimes just listening. She was hurting that night. Occasionally, she got up in the middle of a conversation and walked to a spot where she could be alone. No one took offense.

Truscott drifted in, and filled a wineglass. “The Ashley Tee is alongside,” she told Carson. “They can take your team off when you’re ready. But you’re welcome to stay with us, if you like. Your survey ship won’t have much in the way of medical assistance should you require it.”

“Thanks,” said Carson. “I’m sorry about all the trouble.”

“I’ll survive.” She managed a smile. “Frank, has John spoken to you?”

“Not in any substantive way. I know he’s unhappy.”

“He means well. But he’s frustrated. He’s lost people, and he’s worried about his reputation. This isn’t a good time for him.”

“I know. But considering what others have lost, I have a hard time sympathizing.” Truscott, for one, would be in even more trouble. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Write a book, maybe. There’s a commission forming to see whether we can adapt terraforming techniques to improving things at home. I’d be interested in joining that.”

Carson grimaced. “Can you do much without kicking up tidal waves and earthquakes?”

Her smile illuminated the table. “Yes, we can. We can do quite a lot, as a matter of fact. The problem is that too often the only people who can act don’t want change. Power doesn’t so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism. Keep the status quo.” She shrugged. “Caseway thinks the only solution is to move a small, well-educated, well-trained group to a place like Quraqua, and start over. I’m inclined to agree with him that the home world is a lost cause. But I don’t think human nature will change just because we send out a contingent with sheepskins.”

“You don’t believe the Quraqua experiment will work?”

“No.” She sipped her drink. “I’m not a pessimist by nature. At least, I don’t think I am. But no: I think the nature of the beast is intrinsically selfish. Quraqua is to be the new Earth. And I suspect it will be. But education makes a difference in the short run, at best. Train a jerk all you want; in the end, you’ve still got a jerk.”

Carson leaned forward. “You think we’re that bad?”

“Homo jerkus,”she said. “Just read your history.” She looked at her watch. “Listen, I have to go. When they write about this, make sure they spell my name right. By the way, I have some messages for you.” She fished three envelopes out of a pocket, and handed them to him. Then she turned and walked toward the exit.

The envelopes were standard dispatch holders from the Perth communication center. Two were from Ed Horner. The first said: SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT COLLISION. HOPE ALL IS WELL. FIRST PRIORITY IS CREW SAFETY. TAKE ANY ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PEOPLE.

The second was dated two days later. It authorized Carson to use the Ashley Tee as he saw fit.”Within reason.”

Hutch came up behind him. He showed her the messages. “What do you think?” he asked.

“About what we do now?”

“Yes.”

“Restrict ourselves to aerial survey. And then go home.”

Carson agreed. He had no heart left for the world of the Monument-Makers. “Tell me what you know about the Ashley Tee”

She sat down. “It will have a two-man crew. Their specialty is broad-based survey. They look for terrestrial worlds, and they do some general research on the side. They are not designed for ground work.”

“Will they have a shuttle?”

“Yes,” she said. “But why would you want a shuttle if we’re going to stay off the surface?”

“Hutch, there are whole cities down there. We’ll want to do some flybys. Find out what we can.”

“Okay. The Ashley Tee is a Ranger-class EP. It’s small, and its shuttle is small. The shuttle is not designed for atmospheric flight, by the way. It’s a flying box.”

“Not good for atmospheric flight, you say? Can it be done? Can you do it?”

“I can do it. It’ll be clumsy. And slow. But sure I can do it.”

Hutch had never looked better. Candlelight glittered in her dark eyes and off her black onyx earrings. He sensed a depth, a dimension, that had not been there before. He recalled his first meeting with her, among the monoliths at Oz, when she had seemed a trifle frivolous.

Janet joined them. She’d had a little too much to drink, and she looked disheartened. The shimmering rim of the world rolled across the observation port. They were over the night side, but the ocean and the cloud cover glittered.

Hutch was trying to get a look at the third envelope. “What’s the other one say?”

“It’s from Nok.” He tore it open.

FRANK. HAVE COMMANDEERED PACKET. ON MY WAY. HANG ON. DAVID EMORY.

“Well,” smiled Janet, “we’re getting plenty of help. It would’ve all been a trifle late. But you have to give them credit for trying.”

Carson laughed. “David’s figured out that we’ve got something here. He’s interested.”

Hutch reassured everyone she was fine, and stayed in the forward lounge long after Carson and Janet had gone. She could not bear the thought of being alone that night.

Alcohol had no effect. Occasionally someone drifted over, sat down, tried to start a conversation. But she could not follow any of it. She almost believed she could will George to come through the door. That he was still at the other end of the commlink.

She forced herself to think about other things. About Carson’s idea that the space station was relatively recent. That there had been a dark age.

She cleared the table and took out her lightpad.

Eight-thousand-year cycles.

She drew a line across the top of the field. Void here. Beta Pac III there. On the edge of the arm. Land’s end. And Quraqua? Well back. Fifty-five light-years. Toward Earth. She sketched in Nok, ninety-eight light-years from Quraqua, a hundred fifteen from Beta Pac.

She wrote in the dates of the known events: 21,000 and 5000 B.C. at Beta Pac; 9000 and 1000 B.C. at Quraqua; 16,000 B.C. and a.d. 400 at Nok. Round the 400 date off to zero. Fill out the eight-thousand-year cycle. Assume events on Beta Pac at 13,000 B.C., on Nok at 8000 B.C., and on Quraqua, when? 17,000b.c.

She looked at the result a long time. Looked out the window at the world of the Monument-Makers. Strings of islands. A jade ocean. The continent around the other side.

They had known something. They had built Oz, and cube moons, and a greater Oz here.

Why?

When she looked back at the lightpad, she saw it. And it was so obvious, she wondered how they could have missed it for so long.

She went back to her quarters, generated a map, and checked the numbers. Everything fit.

TO: COMMISSIONER, WORLD ACADEMY OF   SCIENCE   AND   TECHNOLOGY SMTTHSONIAN SQUARE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

FROM:      DIRECTOR, BETA PAC TEAM

SUBJECT: MISSION STATUS

WE’VE LOST MAGGIE AND GEORGE DURING ATTACK BY LOCAL LIFE   FORMS.   PLEASE MAKE APPROPRIATE NOTIFICATIONS. BOTH DIED ATTEMPTING TO PROTECT THEIR COLLEAGUES. MAJOR DISCOVERIES AWAIT ARRIVAL OF FULL-SCALE EXPEDITION. REPORT FOLLOWS. WE WILL REMAIN, AS RESOURCES PERMIT, WITH THE ASHLEY TEE.

CARSON