The Depths of Time

by Roger MacBride Allen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

  “Admiral Koffield?” Norla reached out and put her pressure-suited hand on the arm of his suit. “Anton? Anton? What is it?”

  “It’s too much,” he said. “Too much.”

  “Too much what?”

  “It’s the answer,” he said. “It’s the answer, ail right. But the answer to a very different question.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dr. Ashdin demanded.

  Koffield pointed at the string of digits, his arm straight out, his forefinger stabbing at the numbers. “That is not random,” he said. “It is the thirty-digit combination to my personal pack compartment on my cryosleep canister aboard the Dom Pedro IV.”

  “What?” Norla shouted. “It’s what?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Ashdin. “How could that be?”

  Koffield ignored both of them. “Damn the man’s ego. His arrogance.” He spun around and studied the string of letters and numbers there. “It’s got to be,” he muttered to himself. “Backup. He would have needed a backup.” Koffield punched commands into the comm panel set into the arm of his suit. “I’m switching over to the main comm channel. You two do the same. I—we—may need witnesses on this. Koffield to Research Dome comm central. Do you read me?”

  “Research Dome comm central,” a bored-sounding voice replied.

  “Comm central, this is an emergency. More than a life-and-death emergency. Can you receive the signal from my suit’s helmet camera and relay it?”

  “Ah, yeah, I guess.”

  “Then get ready to do it. And locate Captain Felipe Henrique Marquez. He is most likely aboard his ship, the Dow Pedro IV, docked at Shadow-Spine Station. Find him, get him to a comm station, and patch voice comm back and forth from him to me, and patch my helmet camera signal through to him. Make it happen fast. Did you get all that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Whoever was on the other end of that comm channel heard the urgency in Koffield’s voice, heard the tone of command, and had the sense to take both seriously.

  “Then do it, and fast. There’s not a great deal of time.”

  Koffield turned to Ashdin. “Lights,” he said. “SunSpot is setting. There are portable lights in the equipment cart. Get them. Fast.”

  “But what is it?” she demanded. “What do the numbers mean?”

  Koffield shook his head. “Either I’ve gone around the bend just now, or else DeSilvo went mad before you were born. Maybe he and I are both mad.” He gestured with outstretched arms to indicate the tomb. “Unless I’m insane, this entire place is—is a message in a bottle. And DeSilvo addressed it directly, specifically, to me. Damn the man! Go! Lights!”

  Ashdin went.

  Koffield checked his chronometer, then looked at Norla. “They’re going to blow the dome in twenty hours. We have to be done and ready long before then. The heat might get bad enough to damage something.”

  “Done with what?”

  “Taking this place apart and getting whatever we find into shielded, insulated containers. The urn, of course. That’s obvious. We’ll take it, but leave it sealed until we can get it examined.”

  “Sir—Anton—if I’m understanding you right, you’re saying that up there is the combination you used to lock up your travel case? The one with your evidence in it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then DeSilvo is the one who—”

  “Exactly. And that string of numbers on the wall has been there for a hundred years, waiting for me to get to this system and play tourist.”

  Ashdin came back in with the lights. “Did I hear that right?” she said. “You honestly believe this whole tomb was built for your benefit? To send you a message?”

  “Yes, yes,” Koffield said. “I know what it sounds like. Do you think it sounds any saner to me? But there it is, on the wall.”

  “According to you,” Ashdin said. “Your memory could be playing tricks. Or maybe you’re playing tricks.”

  Koffield nodded. “Maybe I am,” he agreed. “I wish I were. But that’s what the call to Marquez is about. Let’s get these lights up and running.”

  The SunSpot was about to set, but they worked fast, and just about had the lights rigged when Marquez’s voice came over their helmet radios. “Admiral? What’s going on? We got some damned-fool call that there was an emergency.”

  Koffield nodded, though of course Marquez couldn’t see it. “And there is. But once again, my friend, I cannot explain what it is, for fear of prejudicing you.”

  “Prejudicing me? About what?” Marquez chuckled. “But it occurs to me you will choose not to answer that question.”

  “Let’s see if you can answer for yourself. Are you getting the feed from my helmet camera?”

  “They are just patching it through now—there we are. You’re inside some sort of stone building, it looks like.”

  “Yes, we are. I am going to give you a look at some letters and numbers that are carved into the wall here. I want you to tell me if they mean anything, anything at all to you.”

  “Very well.”

  Koffield turned carefully, and pointed his helmet, and the camera, straight at the right-side wall. “Can you see clearly?”

  “Yes, I can—I can—meu dens. Koffield. That’s—that’s— devils in chaos, we’ll have to rebuild the whole security system. But how did it—”

  “What is it?” Ashdin demanded.

  “No sense worrying about security,” Koffield told Marquez. “This cat is very much out of the bag. It’s been on public display for about a century or so.”

  “A century? But then—then. Good God. Stars in the sky. So that is how it was done.”

  “Answer me!” Ashdin half shouted. “What is it?”

  “It is my command access code alphanumeric for the Dom Pedro IV. With that access clearance, you could command or reprogram virtually every system on this ship. Admiral. Where are you? What place has this on the wall?”

  “The same place that has my cryocan’s personal storage combination on the opposite wall. The tomb of one Dr. Oskar DeSilvo. And it means that he was the one. He did it. He used one code to sabotage your ship. He marooned us all in the future. But that was just collateral damage that happened because he decided to make sure my warning got here a hundred and twenty-seven years too late to save anyone. Then he used the code on the other wall to steal my data, my evidence, and replace it with a wad of melted plastic and scrap, to try and make my warning not only too late, but too flimsy to be believed.”

  Koffield turned his head from the wall and looked toward the urn that might or might not hold the ashes of a megalomaniac. “Oskar DeSilvo. He did it. And for whatever bizarre reason, he left a coded confession that only you and I could read, on the walls of what is supposed to be his tomb.”

  “But why?” Marquez asked.

  No one spoke. Not even such
an expert in interpreting symbols as Dr. Wandella Ashdin could answer that one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Blowout

  “Damnation!” Koffield swore as he yanked again at the urn. “How in the hell is this thing attached?”

  “Wait a second,” Norla said from the other side of the marble sphere. “Pull it again, the same way.” That time she had definitely seen a crack between the urn and the top of the globe of Solace. Koffield pulled again, harder, and the crack reappeared. She forced her improvised crowbar—which had started the day as the equipment cart’s tow handle—into the narrow gap. “Okay, I’ve got the tip of the bar in under it. Keep up a steady pressure, and I’ll rock the bar up and down, try and force it in farther.”

  “Okay.”

  Norla checked her outside temp gauge. It was showing fifty-five degrees Celsius, more than halfway from freezing to boiling, not quite halfway to the target temperature of one hundred twenty. But Norla was pretty sure fifty-five was already hotter than it ever got on the surface of Earth.

  Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Just get the damned urn off the top of the globe and into one of their cooling bags. Protect it so whatever the hell was in it wouldn’t be destroyed by the max temps.

  And what was in it? There was not a damn way in the world to know. Maybe it actually held nothing but DeSilvo’s ashes, and if so, that would be good enough for Norla. The damned old ghoul had risen from the dead one time too many for her tastes. He had been there, in the background, in the shadow, everywhere, from the moment she had boarded the Dom Pedro IV, DeSilvo’s sabotage programs already preprogrammed into the ship’s control systems. There in the sinfully self-absorbed Gondola, there pushing the refugees, the gluefeet, up off the planet he had built so shoddily, there humiliating Koffield in front of Raenau.

  No, ashes were too good for him. Norla would prefer to see Oskar DeSilvo with a stake through his heart.