Fire With Fire-eARC

by Charles E Gannon

  —and he was there. His own voice became distant; he fell out of the council chamber and emerged into—

  * * *

  —The glare of Delta Pavonis, low on the horizon, glinted off the semi-rigid body armor of the Marines who, face shields down and weapons in an assault carry, preceded him out of the landing craft. Caine could hear the second fire team milling eagerly behind him, ready to follow him down the ramp. Overhead, a transatmospheric fighter orbited lazily. Caine wasted no time, moving through the swirling dust even as the whine of the landing thrusters was still dying away. Every second counted, now—and would until he got back to Earth. He walked past the right-angled dig pits, clambered over the berm, the first group of Marines hustling to keep in front of him.

  He popped over the rise, side-footed down to the base—where the head archeologist was waiting, pudgy hands on pudgy hips, rounder, dustier, more gnomelike than Caine remembered. “I’m here,” said the Gnome.

  Caine couldn’t decide whether he was more struck by the superfluity or petulance of the utterance. “Thanks for coming.”

  Gnome snorted: Caine’s “request” to meet had been, in reality, merely a polite ultimatum. “What do you want?”

  Caine debated whether he should try to apologize for the ruse he had used to get information out of the Gnome when they first met, but pushed that aside: there was no time. Gnome was never going to like him, so this had to be all business, pure and simple. So he went straight to the heart of the matter: “I have something you want.”

  “Oh? Maybe a time machine, so I can undo the past and not ruin my career by talking to you?”

  “No, better than that.”

  Gnome’s truculence gave way to interest. “How much better? What kind of ‘better’?”

  “The kind you really want: a ticket out of this place. Here’s the offer—and you’ve got one minute to consider it.

  “Someone has to write up the full report on the collective archeological findings from this dig site. That report will be presented at a global summit, sometime next year. That summit will remain a secret until after it has occurred, but I’m offering you the chance to write the report—and be the first to publish on what’s been found here, and its archeological implications. That means a free trip back to Earth, and—I should imagine—the endowed chair you’ve been craving.” Actually, it meant a lot more than that, but Caine hardly needed to explicate: Gnome’s eyes seemed to grow as large as the round glasses that were in front of them. His lower lip flopped about a little.

  “Does that mean you accept?”

  Gnome sputtered and nodded. “Yes, yes—what do you want? How can I help?”

  “When we met last time, you were about to explain something more about this ruin, about to show me something else, and then you stopped yourself.”

  A furtive look returned to Gnome’s face. “I suppose I did.”

  “Show me now.”

  Gnome nodded and beckoned with a crooked finger. He went to the side of the temple, disappearing around the corner from which he had emerged the first time. Caine followed him down into a narrow slit trench that had been dug along the southern, leeward side of the structure, exposing its foundation for at least twenty meters. Five meters in, Gnome stopped, pointed. “Look.”

  Caine looked, saw a hole, about the size of his thumb, maybe a bit narrower. And then he saw the brown, rusty stain rimming it. He reached out, held his hand back, his breath coming short and fast.

  “Go ahead,” said Gnome, “all us researchers do. Those of us with any sense of a larger universe, that is. Go ahead. Put your finger in.”

  Caine did. He felt around. Felt a smooth, cold surface recessed half an inch from the exterior wall, restrained the impulse to either giggle or yell.

  “Rebar,” supplied Gnome. “Eerie, if you ask me. Chemical composition consistent with mid-grade industrial steel. The stereobate—that’s the foundation—is actually risers of dressed stone, alternating with reinforced concrete. Probably the only reason the base held together all this time. The rebar was sunk a meter down, at even intervals all along the side.” He paused. “You know what it means, don’t you?”

  Caine barely heard him, could not remember if he nodded or even waved farewell. He scrabbled up the berm and back toward the Marine lander. He was short of breath when he reached it, but not as a result of the exertion. Rather, he was overcome by a sudden, absolute, even desperate desire to begin his journey: to return home and discharge the burden of this final secret—the one which was the explanatory key to all the others…

  * * *

  Caine once again became aware of the faces ringing the round table. The looks were hard to read for a moment: fragments of many expressions were rippling up through the studied detachment of career diplomats and politicians. He saw shock, doubt, wonder, distrust, maybe even fear: too many threads, too tangled to separate.

  They kept looking at him, as if they were waiting for more.

  Nolan stood. “I think you see why we saved Mr. Riordan’s footnote for last. It is—singularly provocative. I’m sure there are questions: who’d like to start?”

  Visser leaned forward. “You finished by saying that the presence of the rebar explains all the other secrets of what you found. What did you mean by that?”

  Where to begin? “I’m going to jump ahead to the most important conclusion that can be deduced from it.” Caine took a deep breath. “Taken along with the local’s ability to point out the Sun as my place of origin, it means that we have been on Delta Pavonis before.”

  There were sounds of restlessness among the delegates. “How long before?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I’d say at least fifteen thousand years. Probably more like twenty thousand.”

  The first moment of stunned silence spawned its opposite: Gaspard snorted the word “outrageous” through pinched nostrils; Medina laughed; Karagawa smiled; MacGregor raised his eyes toward the ceiling. But Sukhinin, Ching, and Hollingsworth only looked more thoughtful. Durniak’s eyes were wide as if she were already seeing how the logical dominoes inexorably fell toward this conclusion.

  Nolan had his hand raised for order, but Caine was suddenly weary of having to rely on someone else’s authority: “Listen: do you want to hear why this conclusion is inevitable, or not?”

  Sudden stillness. Nolan was hiding a pleased grin behind the hand upon which his jaw was resting.

  Caine leaned forward. “First, the facts: the local’s indication of our star was absolutely unmistakable, once I realized what he was doing and what he was pointing at. And he did so repeatedly. Until I understood. I think it safe to say that there are no grounds for suspecting that I misinterpreted his gestures.”

  “So once we’ve established that he does know where I came from, the question becomes: how could he know? There are two reasonable answers, excluding blind luck and divine inspiration. One: he learned this from us, directly or indirectly, since our arrival on Delta Pavonis in 2113—but neither his behavior nor our records show any possibility that this could have occurred. Two: that he and his people knew of us—and our star system of origin—before we arrived in 2113.”

  Durniak was thoughtful. “Could they have visited us? Were they once a starfaring civilization?”

  Caine nodded, impressed by the rapid flexibility of her mind. “That’s one possible mechanism to explain their prior knowledge of us. But the data argues against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Lack of gross physical evidence. Let’s use ourselves as an example. If Earth reverted to a primeval state, and never rose up from that again, later visitors would still be able to infer some of our contemporary technological capabilities from the alterations we made to the surface of our planet.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as mountain passes and roadways that have been blasted out of solid granite, the plumb-straight line of canals, perfectly level roadbeds, old quarries, tunnels. The probability that the locals on Dee Pee Three could have r
eached Earth via supraluminal travel without having first gone through an industrial era is extremely unlikely. On the other hand, there is strong evidence that we were present on their planet. Long ago.”

  Gaspard scoffed. Sukhinin—eyes narrowed, nodding—asked: “Such as?”

  “Such as the main ruin.” Caine picked up his palmtop, switched it over to remote control mode, called up the first image on the room’s display screen: a view of the stairs leading up to the humble remains of the micro-Acropolis.

  Gaspard sneered. “And how is it that their ruin proves our presence?”

  “Because this is not their ruin; it’s ours.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ODYSSEUS

  Again, absolute silence. Then Ching leaned forward and spoke: “Please continue, Mr. Riordan.”

  Caine wasn’t sure whether his claim, or Ching’s unprecedented decision to participate, made the greater impression on the rest of the delegates. “Thank you, Mr. Ching. Allow me to first suggest something that should be common sense: creatures tend to build what is comfortable and convenient to their own physiognomy. We place our windows at heights convenient to our heads and arms. We shape doorways so that they accommodate our dimensions as we walk.

  “So, before we turn to the specifics of the two ruins on Dee Pee Three, let’s look at the creatures we think might have built them. Here is a rough anatomical study of the Pavonians.” Caine called up another image, superimposed on the mini-Acropolis: a “Da Vinci’s man” representation of Mr. Local. “In particular, I want to call your attention to the arrangement of the Pavonian legs and feet. They are, as you can see, splay-footed, and while usually plantigrade, they come up into a digitigrade stance when they run. Their foot also has a long, bifurcated back toe, evidently evolved both for stabilization and as a climbing aid, since they remain very arboreal. So the length of an adult Pavonian’s foot, from the tip of their front toes to the end of their rear one, is about forty-five centimeters, or roughly eighteen inches.

  “However, at the main ruin, each riser of the stairs averages about thirty-six centimeters in width, or about fourteen inches. That’s much less than the length of a Pavonian’s foot. So if a Pavonian tried walking up these stairs using his leisurely plantigrade stance, three to four inches of the back of his foot would always be hanging over the edge of each riser, making this design not only stupid, but painful. Each step would be, in human terms, the equivalent of pounding one’s sole down on a narrow, hard transverse bar. The only way for Pavonians to avoid this discomfort would be to rise up on the ball of their foot, but without adopting the long, loping stride for which they employ that stance. In short, that would be like trying to tiptoe up a stone staircase in snow shoes.

  “So, unless the locals are innately masochistic, the stairs on the main ruin were not made for the Pavonian foot. However, consider these stairs.” Caine summoned an image of the hidden amphitheatre.

  “Here, each riser is fifty to fifty-one centimeters wide, but only ten centimeters high. With a width of fifty to fifty-one centimeters, these steps handily accommodate the length of the Pavonian foot. But why only ten centimeters high?”

  He had meant it rhetorically, but Durniak, like an overeager student, supplied the answer: “Because they are reverse-kneed.”

  “Exactly. Watch a dog going up stairs; the reversed-knee design of its leg is optimized for running and springing, but not for the close up-down movement of climbing stairs. The dog’s leg has to bend, pull back a bit, lift up, thrust forward, and then plant on the new surface. The more elevated the new surface is above the prior level, the more awkward this action becomes. It would be even worse for a biped with such legs, lacking the stabilizing contact of the two front limbs—but these problems are all eliminated by the stairs at the amphitheatre. They are, in fact, perfect for the Pavonians’ unusual leg and foot arrangement.”

  The next image was of the alcoves and scalloped risers at the back of the arena. “Observe the tendency to avoid straight lines and right angles; everything is rounded, sweeping. Perhaps that motif reflects how a creature whose limbs are flexible, whose digits are prehensile, and who swings through the trees, experiences and sees the world: not as a rigid grid, but as a seamless dance of curves and arcs.

  “And lastly, let’s consider the nature of the construction: hewn from the rock of the mountain itself. It has no architectural elements that would have necessitated cranes, hoists, pulleys. It is so profoundly preindustrial that it is tempting to call it a highly advanced Paleolithic structure.

  “Now let’s go back to the mini-Acropolis.” He brought its images to the foreground. “The risers here match the dimensions of those we usually provide for the human foot: fourteen to fifteen inches. A bit wide, but we are not talking about a staircase in your house; these steps lead up to the entry of an imposing, columned structure of some kind. Each rises up about eight inches: again, a comfortable human standard.

  “Taken as a whole, this building’s design emphasizes lines over curves, and it is a composite structure built from pre-cut pieces that had to be moved to the point of assembly, lifted or rolled into place, and trimmed to fit. Furthermore—and this is an important point—it only mimics an ancient construct, since its base is actually reinforced concrete.”

  “So you conclude that this ruin—the main ruin—was built by humans?” Demirel’s voice rose to an almost adolescent pitch.

  “Mr. Demirel, we can’t know who built it. But it clearly doesn’t fit the Pavonian physiology. Conversely, it’s clearly a good fit for ours. Now, expand this analysis to include the incident where the Pavonian identified me with our home star. Taken altogether, these facts lead to only one reasonable conclusion: that humans were present on Dee Pee Three long ago. That’s why the Pavonians already know about us. That’s why the main ruin is not only ancient, but perfectly designed for humans.”

  Gaspard’s fuse had burned down. “Yes, but how could this be? Your deduction follows the rules of logic impeccably—but posits an answer that is preposterous: that humanity somehow developed rebar—and interstellar travel—even as our Neolithic ancestors were hunting the last of the wooly mammoths.”

  “No, Mr. Gaspard: that is not the only conclusion that is possible.”

  Gaspard rolled his eyes. “Please, Mr. Riordan: do spare us the idiocies of the Lost Wonders of Atlantis myths, or the equally ludicrous Tenth Planet fabulations.”

  “You won’t hear them from me, Mr. Gaspard”—you snide bastard—“because all the evidence is conclusively against such a theory. Where on Earth are the mines, the cities, the terrain modifications that such a culture would have left behind? Where are their artifacts—advanced or rudimentary—and why would they have had contemporaries who were still trying to master the creation of fire and painting homage to elk spirits in caves?”

  MacGregor’s voice was as dismissive as Gaspard’s had been. “Oh, so you’re going to give us the old von Damien bilgewater about humans being descended from ancient astronauts: that we did not evolve on, but came to, Earth—and now Delta Pavonis—by the Chariots of the Gods?”

  “No, not at all. The evidence, both in terms of the fossil record and genetic conformity, overwhelmingly indicates that we are not interlopers, but are native to Earth.”

  Demirel spread his hands. “Then what are you suggesting?”

  “I am suggesting that another race—which had developed rebar and interstellar travel—transplanted humans from Earth to Delta Pavonis at some point in our prehistory.”

  MacGregor leaned forward. “That’s pretty farfetched.”

  Gaspard leaned away from the table. “It is absurd.”

  Caine held his voice steady. “Really? Why? We’ve relocated species whenever we’ve settled new lands.”

  Visser’s voice was careful, neutral. “So. When were we transplanted, and by whom, and why?”

  Caine turned a smile upon her, received a surprised response-in-kind. “Those are good—and productive—questions, M
s. Visser. And even though we cannot answer them conclusively, simple deduction will help us make a few educated guesses. The main ruin has been authoritatively dated to nineteen thousand years ago, plus or minus three thousand years. This helps us determine when human transplantation occurred.

  “Who transplanted these humans? Impossible to say, but probably not the Pavonians or their forebears—unless, of course, the Pavonians are not from Delta Pavonis either. If they were originally travelers from yet another world, that would explain why we do not see evidence of an earlier civilization on Dee Pee Three. But it seems improbable that even a marooned colony would have become—and remained—as primitive as they are now, so I tend to discount that possibility.”

  Durniak nodded sharply. “So either the Pavonians are a primitive species native to Dee Pee Three, or…”

  “Or, similar to our own forebears, they were imported there.”

  Gaspard’s hands seemed to flutter upward toward the ceiling. “What are you proposing: that Delta Pavonis was a game park where the zookeepers were little green men?”

  “No, but we must explore all possible answers to Ms. Visser’s question of who brought humans to Dee Pee Three. Because that is the truly crucial issue of these Dialogs—not the discovery of the Pavonians.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Ms. Visser, it means that there is not just one, but multiple exosapient species, and that at least one of them already had interstellar capability twenty thousand years ago. From a strategic standpoint, that’s rather daunting information.”

  A dour silence: the practical ramifications were starting to hit home. Visser tapped her finger in cadence with her words. “So, now: why? Why move primitive species from one star to another?”

  “Well, we can observe ourselves for some possible clues.”

  “What do you mean, ‘observe ourselves’?”

  “Ms. Visser, sometimes we extract animals from their native habitats simply to ensure their long-term survival.”