Hiero Desteen: 01 - Hiero's Journey

by Sterling E. Lanier

  He flinched visibly when Hiero's thought of a simple "good day" reached his consciousness. Finding it did no harm, he soon rallied and, screwing up his face, tried his hardest to send messages of his own. This proved impossible, though the faces he made had Luchare in stitches. But in a very short time, really, he could "receive" from all four of them. They tested his reception of the bear's thoughts over and over, at Hiero's special insistence.

  "If we encounter, God forbid, the House or anything else down there, then Gorm may be the only one to get through. I would have been dead���-and he also���if he hadn't reached you the last time. His mental channel is so different from a human's, it never seems to occur to an enemy it's there at all."

  All was in readiness at length, and they began to work on the door. It was a sort of white bronze, to all appearances. Iron or steel would not have lasted so long, they knew, but this metal was new to them. Not even the Metz priest had examined the particular Abbey archives which spoke of aluminum alloys.

  Despite their carefully cleaning all the remaining dirt away from the metal frame, the door refused to budge. "Small wonder!" Luchare said. "If I'd stayed shut that long, neither would I."

  Two spearheads were broken in attempts to lever the stubborn portal open. Its faceless slab continued to defy them. It was the little mariner who solved the puzzle, using his common sense. Gimp had been peering ail along the crack between the door and its jamb, his eye glued to the crevice as he followed it.

  "See here," he said suddenly. "That there's a catch of some sort, that is. But it's not on the side near that little knob, but down here on the bottom!"

  A quick glance showed them that the sailor was right. A heavy shadow showed where a bolt had been rammed into the hole in the metal jamb. And better yet, the jamb seemed slightly warped there. Another hastily requisitioned spear was jammed into the slot. The tough ash stem bent and creaked, but slowly, groaning and protesting, the door began to rise in the air! No one spoke as Hiero and Gimp got their hands under it and continued to force it up. As it rose, previously invisible lines formed across it, and it began to buckle. It was a folding door, of a kind none of them had ever seen before; and as it rose, it bent at regular intervals and then slid back into a recess just above its own top. Fortunately, no dirt had sifted into the narrow storage space above, a tribute to its ancient builders.

  A last shove pushed the door up and as far in as it could be made to go. The two men stepped back, perspiring and breathing hard, for the effort required had been a strong one.

  Before them all, as they stood in silence under the hot afternoon sun, a dark opening yawned. From it came a breath of cool air, not unpleasant, but vaguely stale, like that of a suddenly opened and long-unused attic or closet. More to their interest were the broad metal steps which could be seen gently curving down to whatever lay below. One seaman started a halfhearted cheer, but he was hushed by his fellows. Who knew what they had opened? They felt the moment was too solemn for any cheering.

  "What about light?" Luchare said practically. No one had thought of it, of course, and they looked dismayed. But common sense triumphed. Two of the earthenware firepots were produced, which left three more in reserve. Luchare took one unlit, and Brother Aldo the lighted other. The extended wicks gave about as much light as a candle, which was deemed enough. At any rate, it was the best they could do.

  Gorm went first, his small eyes gleaming with excitement for once. Then came the old man, clutching a light and his heavy staff. Hiero, sword ready, followed close. Last came Luchare with the reserve light and her spear ready, the one which Hiero had taken from S'nerg so long before and so many miles distant.

  As they descended, the light from behind grew dim, until it vanished altogether. Soon they were relying entirely on the pottery lamp. Luchare carried a small skin of oil, hopefully to replenish these, but no one knew how long their quest would last.

  The stair wound downward for an apparently interminable distance. Gorm's nose could detect no sign of life, and Hiero's periodic mind sweeps caught nothing either. They paused at intervals to make sure they could still reach Gimp and his men, and each time the contact with the sailor's mind proved easy. He was not alarmed, having been warned they would attempt this.

  Eventually, after what seemed hours, the stair emerged from its tunnel onto a broad surface. The fleeting shadows showed that they were in a large, open space of some kind, and their very footfalls seemed to echo in the distance. Both Hiero and Gorm detected movement at the same time, high up and far away. A ghostly chittering and squeaking came ever so faintly to their ears.

  "Bats!" Brother Aldo said. "This place communicates with the outside air somehow." The implications were disquieting. Where did the other entrance to this buried realm lie? And who or what had access to it?

  Luchare had been examining something she had noticed while the others talked. Now she called them over to see it. On a sheer wall were set a large group of switches, each one numbered in some archaic script.

  "I'm frankly scared to touch these," the priest said. "What do you think?"

  "So am I," the old man said after some debate. "But I think we must. Our oil may not last long, even if we husband it. There must be other sources of light down here, and we desperately need them. I feel we must take a chance. Our whole venture is a terrible risk. This is only another such,"

  Hiero smothered his doubts and pressed the first switch. For a second, nothing happened. Then, to their gasps of wonder, around them grew a dim glow of light. It grew steadily brighter by degrees, until it finally stopped, well short of direct sunlight, but casting an effulgence perhaps equal to that of a very overcast day.

  They were standing on a platform set high on one wall of an immense cavern.

  -

  12 - An End and a Beginning

  The view of the mighty cave of the ancients was one to make a first sight a quiet and reflective one. How far below the earth they were, they could not imagine, but it must be a very long way indeed. Yet this giant's delving was apparently artificial! The long, dimly glowing bars of pale light hanging far above from the invisible roof (reminding Hiero of the blue lights on Manoon) which now illuminated the whole great space showed that clearly, though there were obvious dark gaps where they had failed.

  The walls, stretching out of sight almost, were geometric and regular, sharply cut in the shape of a pentagon from the bedrock of the planet. Above a certain height they were unfinished stone, but below that, to a distance of some thirty feet above the floor, they were smoothed and polished. The glint of metal showed where many of them were actually paneled. A wide circular space ran all around the structures in the center, separating them from the walls.

  "Look at those things, will you!" Hiero's voice was low and reverent. The many great, shrouded shapes, standing about the floor, covered with the dust of countless centuries, were vast, almost beyond the comprehension of men of a later day. There was spiritual fear both in his voice and in his mind. These must be the actual devices of the legendary pre-Death era. Perhaps they themselves had helped loose The Death upon the cowering world above! Ingrained in every reasoning human, save for the Unclean, of course, was such a horror of The Death that gazing upon things such as this was very like a glimpse of Hell itself. Brother Aldo's face was rigidly controlled and might have been carved of jet, but the repulsion in his eyes was clear. Luchare had actually fallen to her knees. At only seventeen, even after all she had been through, an actual glimpse of the titan engines of the legendary and horrific past weakened her legs as perhaps nothing else could.

  Hiero bent and helped her up, and as they moved together to the heavy metal rail of the platform for a better look, he kept an arm about her.

  As they looked up, they also saw a spider's maze of slender catwalks and beams, strung from wires and metal cables, but so far off in the upper gloom that many of them looked suspended on nothingness. The hush of many centuries brooded over them. Above them, higher yet, glowed
the lights, in turn hiding the ceiling from which they hung.

  "You could put a regiment, ten regiments, of Metz Frontier Guards in here and lose them," was Hiero's awed comment, half to himself. His mind was staggered by the immensity of the place. And more than that. He knew what he was supposed to be looking for���the computers, if they still existed. But how to find them? Or anything else, in a place so huge and alien? True, he knew certain names, certain symbols in the dead languages, but would they be obvious, would they even be legible? His task, now that he had actually arrived at one of the ancient sites, suddenly seemed impossible.

  Luchare had left him, and she and the white-bearded Elevener were now examining something on the far side of their platform, where a metallic, boxlike structure thrust itself out on the floor. As he was about to join them, he felt Gorm's sudden thought.

  The bats have all gone. Where did they go? There is something I don't like about this place, Hiero. Bad air is entering far off on the other side. I smell, very faintly again, the sort of deadness which yet moves.

  Hiero used his far-looker while sweeping the area with his mind as well. There was no real sentience in the ether, but the small minds of a few of the bats were revealed, far away and getting further still. They had left by an invisible ceiling hole, some natural crevice perhaps, and were impossible to read for direction. The far-looker showed not one opening indeed, but several, black tunnel entrances, two, perhaps a half mile off, on the opposite, eastern side of the man-made grotto. As he looked, he saw yet another far off to the left, on the south side of the cavern. And around one of those on the west were things which did not appear artificially constructed. There seemed to be dark stains, perhaps pools of moisture, there, as well as he could see from that distance and in the poor light, the upright objects arranged in clumps. He had been in caves and seen stalagmites and stalactites before, but these appeared different somehow. Was there not a dim glow about them? However, he forgot them as Aldo spoke.

  "Hiero, come here," the old man said. "I think we have a way to get down, if we can still trust the incredible mechanics of a long-dead age. I have seen drawings of things like this. This box-thing goes up or down on this track set against the wall. That is why the stairs, which I imagine were only an emergency exit, go no further. Come and look."

  He explained to the three of them, using his mind, how an elevator worked. He and Luchare had been cleaning off the control switchboard of its accumulation of dust, and the three buttons were now easy to see. He next tested them by reaching around and in, while himself remaining on the platform. With a creak, the ancient thing began to move slowly down. He stopped it quickly.

  "I thought so! I know the words. The bottom black button is 'down,' the top 'up.' The red one I don't know, but red was often used for danger, so we will ignore it. Let's get in. Hiero, what are you doing now?"

  "Maintaining communication with the surface. Gimp and his crew are still all right. They're camped now and set up for the night. I wanted a last mind check before we got into that thing."

  Despite the pleased certainty in his voice, Aldo would not have been human if he had not been nervous as they all climbed aboard the elevator. The layers of dust were over six inches thick on its floor, and they had already learned to move slowly to avoid stirring it up any more than was necessary. Fortunately, the dust must have contained much powdered rock, for it both rose slowly and settled quickly.

  The elevator ran on two metal tracks set deep in the cavern's wall, and these had allowed only a little deposit of any kind to adhere. But of course the machine was old, old beyond the concept of even its designers. It creaked and groaned ominously as it started down, and the noises did not decrease as they sank lower. Some long-ruptured circuit made them stop at each level, and it took an almost physical effort on Hiero's part to push the button and restart the contrivance afresh. There were five similar-appearing platform levels, and even the bear, who had been shielding his thoughts, let out an audible "whoof" of relief as they settled at last to the base of the shaft. They all felt the same. But their relief was to be short-lived.

  As they left, farsighted old Aldo, who was the last one out of the metal cage, reached back and touched the "up" button. He had decided to find out if they could return again in a pinch. Now his cry of dismay alerted them all. The elevator would not move. For ten minutes they poked, prodded, and fiddled with the mechanism and tried at least to locate the power source. The latter must have been buried deep under the floor, for they could find nothing. Thus they were five storeys lower now, with no known way back to the surface.

  "I would wager we must be at least half a mile down altogether," Aldo said soberly, putting their common thought into words.

  We will have to find another way out, came Gorm's cool thought. At least we are on our own feet, not in that thing which moves. The alien mechanism had rasped the ursine nerves more than he cared to admit.

  Around them now, in the much dimmer light of the cavern floor, loomed the dust-covered shapes of what had to be the great machines and devices of the past. From the platform far above, many of these things had looked to be of modest size. Now it was seen that all were large and many were absolutely monstrous.

  Hiero walked over to the nearest, intrigued by something puzzling in its shape. He used the shuffling walk, which they had learned stirred up the least floor dust, and he gently brushed the coating of inches-thick grime away from the surface of the shrouded object, while the others waited.

  "I thought it looked odd!" His laugh stirred remote echoes in the dusty aisles and corridors between the silent bulks and rebounded from cornices and projections far above.

  "This is a cover! All these things are protected. Look, you can lift it and see what is underneath." He raised a corner of the heavy plastic wrapping, still moving slowly so as to avoid raising any more dust than was necessary. The soft gleam of a metal base, untouched for thousands of years, met their eyes, which by now were accustomed to the dim light.

  Excited, the soldier-priest ran to the next great object and then the next. All were covered with thick plastic sheeting, a substance which mocked the centuries, and the metal underneath appeared untouched by any corrosion or other of time's ravages. Hiero drew his dagger and began to cut pieces of the plastic away, for the huge sheets were far too large to be pulled off by their puny efforts; many of the devices they covered were as high as a two-storey building and half an acre in. extent.

  "Hiero," came the Elevener's strong voice. "I think we had better be told what we are seeking, don't you think? I have no wish to pry, but ..."

  "Of course. I meant to tell you earlier, honestly. There's been so much on my mind, I simply forgot."

  While they stood about, or leaned on the buttresses of the incredible machines, he gave them a mental, closed-circuit recapitulation of the Abbey mission, describing the lost computers, or at least their purposes, as well as he could and explaining carefully why the Abbeys felt they were so important.

  "If what Demero told me is true, and I believe every word," he concluded, "we need one of these things desperately. The attacks against us are mounting and coordinated. Our defense and any counterattack won't have a prayer unless they are also completely coordinated."

  Aldo had no more questions. Now that he knew what to look for, he began at once to examine the nearest mechanisms, seeking labels or identity marks of any kind. The others joined in, the bear helping him to lift the plastic covers, the girl aiding her lover in the same task.

  An hour later, they paused in their work, looked at one another, and laughed. Sweat and disturbed layers of dust had covered them all with a pale mantle, and even the bear looked a furry ghost of his former self.

  "Let's see," said Brother Aldo, who had been writing in a small book he had produced. "We have found nothing so far about computers, Hiero." The priest wiped a grimy forehead with an even dirtier hand and tried to concentrate. Brother Aldo's knowledge of the ancient languages was vital now, since
Hiero himself had been able to memorize only a few simple words and phrases before setting forth.

  "We have found 'engines,' that is, machines," Aldo continued, "and we have found other things, controls apparently. What these engines ran on, their power source, by the way, baffles me. Unless," and he looked very grave, "it is the lost power of the atom itself, which caused most of The Death when misused. But I prefer not even to think about that." Hiero did not see lit to mention that he felt the Unclean well might have rediscovered that particular power source. It was only a suspicion, but he had never ceased wondering what silent engines drove their dark, sailless ships.

  "We have found 'air-conditioning' and 'thermal control', " Luchare put in.

  "Yes, but these are things, as I said, which occur in other sites I have visited. They mean fresh air and artificial heat, that's all. We have no idea how they did these things, but we know they are neither weapons nor computers."

  "We're poking around out on one edge of this place," Hiero said, after a moment's thought. "How about heading for the middle? If there is an information storage center, it might be there, logically. I am trying to recall how the place looked from up top, and I think there was a circular space, with things set about on it in some regular pattern."

  This plan was adopted, and they began a circuitous approach toward the center. Time and again they found a pathway or aisle blocked by some rearing hulk or other and had to go around or even retrace their steps. Hiero felt they were all minute creatures trapped in some vast and incomprehensible maze.

  Eventually, all coughing and sneezing by now, they emerged from a corridor between two long lines of machinery into the open space which Hiero had glimpsed from far above. For some time they had been moving up a very gentle slope, and it was now apparent that this radial point in the center was set higher than the rest of the cavern. "Probably a system of drains buried under all this dust so they could flush the place down when it needed cleaning," Hiero said.