"Down here—" More rivulets of the soft dust were pouring down now and I wondered how strong the roof was. "Be careful—I don't know how long the roof here will hold."
"Thanks." Markham's voice. "We'll get you out of there. Dominguiz went back for the rig." After a moment's silence Josh Markham asked, "And did you find anything down there, Pete?"
It took me a little time to answer him. "I hope so," I said finally. Then, as I looked around the dark, I didn't want to leave. "Drop me a litepak, will you?"
"Right." And in a moment Markham's litepak in its crashcase thudded to the floor. "Dominguiz will be back any time, Pete. Make it short."
But I knew that. I wrenched the litepak from its case and pressed the switch. The beam stabbed into the darkness, showing me the room for the first time.
It was large, low-ceilinged and shiny save for the place where I had brought in the sand. Two of the walls were a patchwork of designs, intricate embossed patterns on tilelike bricks. The other two walls …
The other two walls were covered with glyphs.
"Get ready, Pete." Markham cut into my discovery like razor into flesh. "I can't get this very steady. You'll have to guide it coming out."
There was a clank of the rig as the saddle hit the floor, then the purposeful clicking of the pulleys set in motion.
Quickly I straddled the saddle, grabbing the upper sling so that I could help control the lift.
"We're under way," Markham called as the rig hoisted me into the air.
I turned the beam of the litepak on the walls as I rose, letting the light linger on the marks for as long as I could.
I got my back scraped coming out of the hole, but I was too preoccupied to notice it until Josh Markham said, "Holy Mama, where did you get that?"
I looked at my arm, saw nothing and shrugged.
"Your back, man, your back."
As soon as he said it, the pain hit like a hammer. "Oh. That." For a moment I concentrated on the damage and decided that it wasn't that much. "Coming out of the hole, I think. Is it bad?"
Relieved, Josh said, "It's messy. Have Sanderson look at it back at the base. He'll want to check you for foreign bugs anyway. What the devil did you find down there?"
"Words," I said quietly. "A whole world of words."
"There are ruins down there?" He asked it incredulously, his big body slewing about in the sand. "A city?"
"I don't know about the city, but there sure as hell are words. Maybe a complete language. I'm going back down tomorrow and find out."
Markham eyed me suspiciously. "What if Wolton says otherwise? What if I say otherwise?"
"It wouldn't matter." As I said it, I knew it could make no difference what they said. Nothing anyone could say or do would keep me out of that hole now that I had seen the wall.
"All right, Pete. But don't push your luck. This place is still terra incognita as far as we're concerned."
I nodded. "That's just it. It won't be unknown if I can get a chance at that wall. There's the whole puzzle, right down there. Complete with solution."
"Hey, won't machines do as well?" Dominguiz put in, having listened to us as he stowed the gear in the crawler. "We got machines for that."
"No." I spoke harshly, but there was no way for me to say it kindly. "No machine wrote that, no machine is going to read it. That is what I'm trained for. That's why I'm part of the crew. And it's what I've wanted to do all my life."
"Sure. Sure. I don't care whether you get yourself ruined. I just want to know. Academics!" He sat down in the driving cockpit. "You two can ride in the back if you want." He didn't wait for an answer, preferring his machines to our company.
Josh Markham and I scrambled aboard as the crawler began its lurching way off through the sand. Only it wasn't sand.
"Josh," I said uncertainly as we clung to the rear platform of the crawler. "I think I know what this stuff is."
"The dirt? Damned persistent, isn't it?"
"It isn't dirt," I told him slowly, avoiding his eyes. "I think it's ash."
"So this is where you disappeared to," Franz Almrid said, wiping his hands in a futile gesture to rid them of the ash.
"Yes." I was beaming with pride. In the morning light the hole was even better than I had thought.
"What is it?" Almrid's voice held open sarcasm as he looked at the figures on the wall. "Looks like spermatozoa in formation with math symbols."
"It does at that," I admitted, determined not to fight with Almrid. The very fact that there had been something worth discovering on this planet had made him furious.
"You really think you're going to get sense out of that?" He gave a derisive laugh. "You're kidding yourself, Jhirinki."
I was spared the problem of answering him by Josh Markham, who was lowered into the hole on the new cable rig.
"Looks good, Pete," Josh said, craning his corded neck, trying to see it all without turning around. "What's next?"
"Well, that wall," I told him, pointing to the farthest one, "is probably not worth much. It's too scarred and faded. But this"—I looked at the longer wall with its bright surface and clear markings—"is a treasure."
It was as if I had finally lured a much-sought mistress into my bed. That wall, with its thousands of glyphs in neatly horizontal lines was more than I had ever hoped to have for myself.
"You're a damned romantic, that's what you are," Josh said with a chuckle. "Well, while you're busy down here, we'll just go along and dig up a few square miles of ash, in case there might be a city down there."
I'd told him that there might be, late late last night after I had reported the find. In the morning I wondered if I'd been right, but let it go. The chance was worth a look.
"If you're sure this is a building, where is the door? Or did they all tumble in the way you did?" Almrid's icy tone stopped both Josh and me.
I hated to admit it, but Almrid had a point. If this had been a building there had to be a way in and out of it. And no matter what size or shape the inhabitants a door is a door is a door.
"Maybe in the floor?" Josh suggested. "This is pretty high up, judging from the few readings we can get around here. Maybe this was an attic or sun room." He looked at me hopefully, his big hands rubbing at the ash.
"It's possible." Looking around the room I knew there was an answer. I just had to be left alone to find it with my instincts and my pores.
"There's nothing for us peasants to do but dig," Almrid said acidly. "All right, Professor. We'll do it your way." He went to the sling and was hauled out of the hole.
"Don't let him bother you, Pete," Josh said with all the reassurance he could muster. "He doesn't like the place and can't figure out why."
"I know."
A short silence fell.
"Well, I'll leave you to your work. Call if you need help."
"I will," I promised him as he rose through the hole.
When he was gone I circled the room again, looking at the wall with the glyphs. There was a key somewhere. There had to be. I could find it if I thought about it. Again I came to the bench-like affair. Again I studied the surface of the shoe end. It was smooth and faintly luminous. For a moment it seemed to be the reflection of one of the suns—and then I realized that neither was shining down directly. This made me wonder.
I sat on the half-chair (which was a bit too low and too small for comfort). This might be the clue I wanted. In my annoyance I tapped the cool, faintly glowing sheet of—was it stone? The echo sounded unused. I went on tapping absent-mindedly as I tried to take stock of the wall and the room.
Blink.
I was so startled that I raised my hand. The light, if there had been a light, stopped.
But now I had a hope. Gently I tapped the surface again. Then firmly.
BLINK.
Then I put my hands full and solidly onto the surface of the table, pressing it, willing the light to continue. "Come on, light," I pleaded with it. "Blink."
Almost ridiculously, it did. F
irst there was a flicker, then a wavering opacity and finally a bright glow.
"What the bloody hell is this?" I asked of the air joyously. Since there was no one but me to answer, I shook my head in ignorance.
The light in the table was increasing, growing brilliant. Symbols formed on it:
"I think—" I said to the machine. Then I realized that I would have to stop thinking and be willing to learn. "Machine, you and I have a little mutual understanding to do."
The symbols faded but the light stayed on, full and strong. I hesitated—then, taking my stylus, I made a small circle on the table and put nine dots leading out from it, adding little points for the moons. When this was done, I drew a box around Terra and waited.
The machine buzzed.
On a guess I wiped the marks away.
In a moment the machine showed two circles and a series of dots, putting a box around the fourth one. This was the fourth planet, but the machine showed only three moons. This bothered me, but there was no way to question the machine about it. I would have to wait.
But we were on the right track.
I duplicated the Sol system diagram and boxed Terra and labeled it.
The machine made the planets again, with the puzzling moons.
"All right. Now that we're introduced, let's get down to languages."
The machine began to hum, making periodic squeaks. I couldn't have it malfunction now. I fumbled over the sides, looking for knobs or dials that might help. The hum and the squeaks merged into a rising wail.
"Wait a bit," I told it.
I moved my hands again, rubbing the sides firmly until a single dot appeared on the screen in front of me and I heard, very clearly the single word: "Gei."
My hands began to shake. I sensed that this was a machine intended to teach, to inform. The concept was not unfamiliar to human archeologists—men of many eras had left time capsules or other record of their passing for future centuries to find. Whoever had left this artifact had known what he was about. The implications took a little time to sink in.
The machine formed another dot directly above the first and called it: "Shy."
It was giving me the elements of language. Those two symbols were part of the name of the planet.
A vertical line connected the two dots and the dots faded out. "Sti," said the machine in its parody of a voice.
I took out my scanner and trained it on the table top. The scanner would give the Nordenskjold a record of all this in case something went wrong down here.
Then I set to work, the machine reciting its language to me, showing it to me, bringing it to life.
"Pete! Pete! Answer me!" The commkit beside me sounded put out. The voice was Sumiko's, high and overcontrolled. I wondered if she had been calling for long. I had been absorbed.
I stood up stiffly from the bench, muscles protesting, and reached for the kit.
"Pete—" it went in my ear.
"Yeo. I'm here. What is it?"
"This is Sumiko. I've finished the tests on the silt from your digs. You're right. It is ash."
"I know. Look," I said, rushing on, "I may be way off, but I think you might find some evidence of volcanic or—I don't know, earthquakes, maybe, a long time ago. There'd be a lot of them, occurring all at once or with little warning. The diagram I've found down here shows only three moons. Either we've got the wrong planet or things have changed upstairs—"
"What diagram?" she interrupted.
"There's a device down here that teaches the language," I admitted reluctantly. "It seems to be programmed to communicate with strangers—I mean beings possibly alien to whoever or whatever made it, which suggests that the culture of which it was a part anticipated being wiped out. The device and I have just begun to come together on basics—I should get the rest in a few days."
"You'll let me know?" This was said too quickly.
"Sure, Sumiko." Right then, I wanted her to find what she was seeking, too. There had to be something here to compensate for the terrible hunger at the back of her eyes.
"You'll need tools," she said decisively.
"Maybe some digging tools. Brushes for the walls. Levers and a couple of files. There's a pack in my shelter."
"Is that all? I'll bring them along."
"Thank you." There was jealousy in me as I spoke. I was not yet ready to share my hole, my wall. Not with anyone. Not even Sumiko, the one person who might understand what I felt.
"I'll be there as soon as the captain is ready to come over."
In some surprise I asked her, "Is he down on the surface? I didn't think he was planning to come."
"He and Wolton have been going over the whole camp for about the last hour. He's had Almrid and Dominguiz in. I gave them my report earlier."
A prickle ran along my spine, a feeling that gravity had shifted, immeasurably, under my feet. The captain had gone to the soil chemist and a biophysicist before the archeologist on a planet with digs. Something wasn't right.
"Pete?"
"What?"
"I'll see you later?"
"Yeah," I said. "It's going to be interesting." And with that I signed off.
Standing there in my hole, with the language of Shy-gei-ath waiting for me, I frowned, wondering what had gone wrong. No one had come in with a negative report. There had been no warnings about the virology level or the functional radiation ratings that usually got the captain on the ground long enough to get everyone back to the ship.
I remembered my scraped back from the evening before, but that couldn't figure in anything. The injury itched unpleasantly under the thin surface suit and there had been some trouble getting it to scab over. But that was hardly enough to worry about. What was Captain Tamoshoe doing down here, anyway? Why had he come?
The machine was reciting "co-rel-sti-gei" , "sa-che-sti-gei" , "co-sa-che-sti-gei" when I finally heard the noise above me. I tapped the machine on what I'd come to think of as the HOLD button and waited for visitors.
They took their time. Once I heard Franz Almrid swear, use cold words with venom I had never heard from him before.
At last the sling came down, bearing Captain Nemeu Tamoshoe, black on black.
"Jhirinki," he said, turning his trademark grin on me, a display of large white teeth in a face only slightly lighter than his black captain's uniform. And in that face, which dictated eyes of obsidian, Captain Tamoshoe's smouldered the impossible blue of Aegean waters.
"What's wrong, Captain?"
But he didn't answer me, not right away. He got off the sling and began to walk around the hole. "Have you been able to decipher this?" he asked me, pointing at my wall.
I knew that there was something very wrong then. "That section you're pointing to reads from right to left: 'Thir de-lom-st-gei jhae emh bis lom-de-sti-gei.' Second line: 'Thu shy-ens emh thu lom-qua-fer-de-sti-gei sir-ath-gei.' "
"Which means?"
"That is what the wall says, sir. In fact, right now I can read out loud every word up there and make the symbol for it if I hear it spoken. But I don't know what it means, because this machine does not have a way to tell me until it has explained to me all the elements of its language. But the communications center on the ship will have records of this so I can work from them, if necessary."
Captain Tamoshoe looked at me evenly for about a minute, an eternity. "I am sorry, Jhirinki. The commcenter didn't pick up the relay. Almrid and Wolton were too busy wrangling to center the channel."
"I don't understand—" and as I said it I did understand.
"Radiology reported a variance last night. This place was hot. That little machine of yours has been running along on plutonium and the room was sealed. You fell into a vat of radon gas—" He stopped. Then: "There's isn't much danger on the surface of course, but we don't know how many of these things there are. I am sorry, Jhirinki."
"Wait—" Josh Markham appeared in the hole, hanging onto the sling too tightly, his large face drawn and his eyes heavy. "Captain?"
&nbs
p; "I have told him what I could. You can explain it more thoroughly if necessary. Are we ready to ferry up?"
"Almost."
Again Captain Tamoshoe: "It is a pity. This is surely the find of a lifetime." He turned back to me, blue eyes hooded. "Well, perhaps you will be able to reconstruct much of this from memory, do you think? There's isn't much time and it would be a shame to lose all of it."
"How do you mean, lose it?" I was frightened then, not of the radiation that had slid in through my respirator into my bones, but of leaving Shy-gei-ath. I had come so far. I did not want to leave.
"Looks like this one was more trouble than it was worth, Pete," Markham said, trying to keep his tone light and failing.
"No."
"Pete—"
"No," I told them again, stepping back to the teaching machine. "I've almost got it all. I'm so close to the meaning of it. It won't take too much longer. I'll be out of here in no time."
Josh shook his head. "Can't do it, Pete. You've been exposed. We should have brought you out before now, but I knew this was damned important to you."
"Wait—" I said, licking my lips. "What is the treatment for radon? Can't I take decontamination and then come back? It's gone now—and I'd be safe."
"I am sorry, but we'll have to put the place in quarantine until we know how much potential danger remains," Captain Tamoshoe said apologetically. "You understand the necessity, don't you? When all investigations have been made we can come back."
"But what about that?" I pointed to the wall, already hazing from the dust filtering down. "How much longer will that be here once the ash goes in? The other wall is almost useless. This one will be ruined."
"There may be others."
"And maybe there aren't." I knew I was starting to sweat. "And the machine will be ruined."
Captain Tamoshoe shook his head. "I can recommend speed and claim emergency status on the artifacts. The Navy is aware of the value of this sort of find. We might be able to have full Class Nine suits authorized."
"You've got to leave, Pete." Markham had taken a step toward me. I stepped back.
"Commander Markham," the captain said quietly.
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 1 Page 30
