Empress of Eternity

by L. E. Modesitt

  Red3. Electron probe negative. Fermion beam feedback fused focal assembly. Negative on all laser applications. He follow-frequed his comments with a hint of frustration.

  Equipment requisitions?

  Submitted. Approval pending, likely.

  Account subcategory deficiency?

  Negative this triad. Next triad…???

  Novel approach possible?

  Approach(7) already attempted. Working on approach(8). Eltyn snorted, knowing Faelyna was nanoneedling him. The equipment scheduled for arrival in six days had a special configuration. If it didn’t work…

  Approach(9)…my shadow retrogression? she pulsed.

  More like retro-nonexistent imaginary future tech. He shrugged. She could certainly try if his next discernment attempt failed. He’d have to re-tech radically and take another tack.

  You have a better alternative?

  He didn’t. Not yet. Not if his next effort failed. Yours?

  Shadow polariton retrogression [deep image] one ready to commence setup by fiveday next.

  He projected a nod as she made her way to the antique ramp leading to the upper level and her laboratory and equipment. He watched her, admiring her walk, and her assurance. To have said more, or pulsed more…that would have been improper…most unRuchelike.

  Yet…

  Tick, tick…patter…patter.…

  Outside the all-too-ancient structure, the sand flailed futilely at the smooth unblemished surface of the gray stone, and to the north other granules drifted across the waters of the canal before sinking, their surfaces wetted, into the unchanging depths.

  3

  9 Siebmonat 3123, Vaniran Hegemony

  Kavn Duhyle glanced northward across the canal. His eyes studied the thin line of silvery white that marked the ice less than twenty kays to the north, beyond the swampy green and scattered trees. Nearer, but on the far side of the canal, he noted that the icy runoff from the all-too-brief summer had dwindled to three narrow waterfalls over the blue-gray stone canal wall. The canal was a massive engineering work that stretched two thousand kays, almost precisely. It predated the Old Ones of legend who had survived the second time of Iceberg Earth by close to half a million years. The precision of the canal’s engineering never failed to impress him, day after day. Its permanence emphasized, in his mind, their greatness far more than their scattered records that referenced civilizations yet even older—and much more than the fragmentary and decayed ruins of more recent civilizations.

  At times, strange artifacts washed up on the sandy shores of the Jainoran Ocean south of the canal along the coast, fragments of fossilized animals wearing equally fragmented and fossilized collars. More intriguing were the strangely designed artifacts that appeared to be replacement parts. Most appeared unchanged by age. Some had what passed for circuits on the nanetic level. Some even channeled energy flows, but for what function and at what levels of current and amperage it was impossible to determine without larger assemblies.

  In the late afternoon, Duhyle stood behind the wall that topped the canal near its western end. Ten yards to the east stood the ancient structure that was an integral part of the canal and now served as Helkyria’s laboratory. To his left, beyond the shadows, the summer sun warmed the air above the pale blue-gray stone, but not the stone itself, that anomalous adamantine synthstone that formed the walls of the canal and the building. The material was impervious to weather, and even to nucleonic cutters. The canal walls extended down four point three kays, widening as they did. Duhyle’s own observations confirmed the few studies that suggested it had been engineered on the fermionic level. That technology had vanished with the Old Ones. Over the years, structures had been built on the wide canal walls, but none had lasted. Records stated that more than one light house had been built where the ocean side of the wall met with the canal side. Now there was not a trace of any structure. A solar filament collector, integrated with the landscape over more than five square kays south of the canal, as well as a small tidal pump, provided power to the lab and to the extensive backup battery/capacitors.

  In places, land had formed inside the canal. There were more than a few lakes or swamps behind the canal walls, especially on the north side. Nowhere had the walls broken. In some locales, the walls appeared to curve, but surveys and satellite images had indicated that the canal remained unbowed. The surveys also indicated a semicircular depression—an underwater meteor impact crater one point seven kays across—that extended seaward from the underwater end of the canal. That crater, now mostly filled with sediment, and the fact that the impact had not had any effect on the canal itself, confirmed the canal’s indestructibility.

  To Duhyle’s right appeared Helkyria, also looking out over the canal. He glanced toward her. “What are you thinking?”

  “About the ostensible purpose of the canal.”

  “Ostensible purpose?”

  “It’s obvious that it was designed to stop glaciation from spreading farther south on the continent…or extreme desertification from spreading northward. But why would the Old Ones really have bothered? That couldn’t have been its only purpose.”

  “You’ve said that before. Besides, in full glaciation, the water would freeze the entire way across the canal.”

  “If we had had a recurrence of Iceberg Earth, that would have been true, but for periodic ice ages it should have worked. It apparently did. It also slowed desertification from the south side more than once, and certainly during the time of the Hu-Ruche.” She glanced across the dark gray-blue waters. “The canal walls go down kays and then rejoin. In almost no place is the water in the center less than a kay and a half deep. It’s wide enough that it’s effectively as salty as the Jainoran Ocean and the Great Eastern Sea, and the walls are impervious so that the salt water doesn’t penetrate the water table. It’s almost, but not quite, an ecological barrier. Why just almost? They had to have known that.”

  “They didn’t know enough to preserve what they learned.”

  She smiled faintly, and the tips of her short-cut silver-blond curls shimmered golden for a moment above the creamy brown skin of her neck and forehead. Duhyle wondered what he’d said that amused her so. He had enough sense to wait for her to speak again.

  “That’s not necessarily true. All we know is that we haven’t found or recognized any repository of high-tech knowledge, except for the canal itself.”

  “Those of the lost times did?” He shook his head. “We’ve found the artifacts and ruins of two differing cultures on Mars and on some of the asteroids. There’s no hint of the Old Ones, or any technology that could have built the canal.” He glanced skyward, his eyes avoiding the glare of the midday sun and settling momentarily on the Mist Ring, a silver line that arched from horizon to horizon, like a bridge across the sky.

  “That makes my point.”

  Duhyle had no idea what her point even was.

  “Don’t you understand, Kavn? If you were one of the Old Ones, would you have wanted us to know all that now? How many times have technological civilizations arisen and fallen?”

  “All the more reason to leave the knowledge,” he pointed out.

  “With odds at a thousand to one against me, I’d still bet that no preceding civilization, even that of the Old Ones itself, collapsed for lack of technology.” She offered a broad smile.

  “The Tech Paradox?”

  “It makes sense. You can see it at work in our own culture. More technology requires greater interdependence. Greater interdependence creates greater vulnerability, which in turn requires the greater application of technology and more concentrated energy sources—”

  “Now,” he interrupted, “is when we could use help. The ice is advancing an average of four-fifths a kay a year. That rate is projected to increase. We’re losing forests, and the lands that support our biologics. Directed solar energy is too concentrated for effective climatic balance. No one trusts us engineers to deploy green house gases and other large-scale geo-engineerin
g.”

  “Not after the Searing. Besides, I’m not certain knowledge always provides an answer.”

  “Then why are you trying so hard to find it?”

  “Because the alternatives appear worse. The Aesyr are pressing for building breeder reactors and filling the atmosphere with green house gases—anything to stop the glaciation in the short term. We’re here in a desperate attempt to find another alternative before the political unrest turns into chaos and possible revolution.” Her voice held an edged humor. “Even so, I worry. What if the ancients knew their technology wouldn’t be good for us? Technologies don’t always graft to the cultures that didn’t develop them. We don’t even understand some of the biologic records from the Caelaarnan Unity, and they never advanced beyond near-space and a few out-system remote sensing stations.” Her silver irises darkened to almost black, and Duhyle could have sworn that chill radiated from her. “The Hu-Ruche Technocracy rose and almost fell before it rebuilt itself. Along the way they measured everything and left incredible records of those measurements on anomalous permaplate, but almost nothing of their technology, and what little remains is so condensed and cryptic that no one yet has made sense of it, except that after that near fall, there are continuing and puzzling references to what appears to be the rainbow. Neither the Amberian Anarchists or the Saenlyn Federation even attempted colonization or out-system planetary modifications, not so far as we can tell.”

  “You think the Old Ones meant to doom everyone who followed them, unless any successors were bright enough to duplicate what they did? Or did they expect us to find the mysterious technology trove that no one has discovered in millions of years? That assumes it exists.”

  “Then why did they build the canal—the only indestructible canal on Earth?”

  “Maybe that’s all they could do, and the effort wrecked their civilization.”

  “Or maybe the canal itself is the key. Perhaps it’s a bridge.”

  Duhyle laughed. “Don’t you think thousands of other scients have had the same idea over all the millennia? They must have tested every possible approach to determine if there is a key. If it even exists.”

  “Then I’ll have to find another way.” Her curls glittered silver from root to end, if only for a moment.

  “What do you want for dinner?” he asked.

  “Whatever you’re cooking,” she replied, straightening so that her eyes looked down on his. “How long will it be?”

  “Tell me when you want it. Redgrass soup, and fowl with cream pasta and shrooms.”

  “Give me a stan and a half. I’m deep-linked to Vestalte, with a side link to Vaena.”

  He nodded, then watched as she reentered the ancient structure. It now held the most advanced technology that the Vanir had yet developed. His eyes returned to the canal and its deep waters.

  4

  17 Eightmonth 1351, Unity of Caelaarn

  Late into the fall evening Maertyn pored over the results of his latest observations and calculations in his “temporary” laboratory.

  He’d hoped to have been able to report some significant progress to the Ministry of Science when he returned to Caelaarn, but all the measurements he’d taken and all the calculations he’d made had not proven as helpful as he would have hoped.

  He studied the screen before him, and the energy/position/gradients displayed there. They confirmed that, in a real way, the canal and its walls were not built of any discrete material. From what he’d been able to determine, the entire canal was a unit, created/fused/bonded on a subatomic level.

  He paused. That wasn’t necessarily so. Certainly, that finding was true for any part of the canal he had been able to study. But was it the same throughout—or did a thick layer of that adamantine material cover what lay within just to a depth that precluded any energy from reaching through such an outer layer?

  Yet…from his instruments, the canal walls were a uniform width everywhere, thirty point seven one Caelaarnan yards. And there were only two structures protruding from it along its entire length, both identical in exterior shape—one at the eastern end and the other, where he was, at the western terminus. But the eastern structure remained sealed, with no evidence that it had ever been entered. For the canal and the structures to have endured at least half a million years, and possibly many times that, it would seem that it should be composed of the same material throughout. If that material were neutronium or of a similar nature, it would mass more than the entire Earth, and major gravitational irregularities would be more than obvious. In fact, the earth probably wouldn’t exist except as debris. But what if the canal’s gravitational effects happened to be shielded?

  Maertyn knew of no way that was possible. He also knew of no way that the canal could exist. Which impossible possibility was more likely?

  He smiled. Reality trumped theoretical science on any day of any year. Maarlyna’s presence was more than proof of that.

  The other problem centered on the doors and ducts. No form of scanning or focused energy that he had been able to deploy revealed their presence or triggered their opening. Only a living human touch did that. He’d spent two full days running his hands over every part of every surface in the structure, both inside and outside, and while he’d discovered what appeared to be two lower-level storage closets or rooms that had not been discovered by previous researchers, as well as five unused ducts/conduits, no other doors, even in the “new” storage areas, responded to his fingers.

  Then he’d tried the same method on the top of the canal walls, first between the western end of the structure and the ocean wall, then along the narrow space between the structure walls and the chest-high retaining walls, and finally for a good hundred yards to the east. He’d discovered nothing new. There well might be other entrances to spaces within the canal walls somewhere along its two-thousand-kay length, and, in fact, he had no doubts that such must exist, but who had the time or the manpower to feel every span of a structure that stood a hundred yards above the water and spanned a continent?

  He took a deep breath before, useless as he suspected it to be, he slowly considered, yet once more, the numbers, facts, figures, and equations on the pale green screen.

  He wasn’t even aware that he was no longer alone until a soft voice intruded.

  “Maertyn? Will you be coming to bed soon? You’ve worked so late so many nights, and you do have a long journey ahead of you before long.” Maarlyna stood in the archway that separated the largest main-floor chamber from the slightly smaller room that served as his workroom and laboratory.

  “I’m sorry.” He turned the swivel chair to face her, but did not stand. “I was just trying to see if I could make any sense out of the latest observations. I’d really like to be able to report something new. But the more measurements and observations I take, the more it’s clear that the midcontinent canal is perfectly uniform.”

  “Has anyone else taken that many measurements and observations?” Her smile was warm and indulgent, yet not critical.

  “Not in our history. Perhaps the second dawn cultures did. There aren’t any records. In fact, there’s not much of anything left, except some large holes filled with ash, sand, and the detritus of millennia that is still faintly radioactive.”

  “There are fossilized remnants of the ancients, aren’t there? Is the canal that old? Or is it older yet?”

  He smiled. “I’d judge so, but there’s no way to tell with great accuracy. I don’t know of any way to date the stone of the canal, and the stone and bedrock on and in which it rests doesn’t seem to follow crustal movements, or not in any way that we would think as probable. The rock and soil layers farther away from the canal itself suggest far more than a million years.”

  “Isn’t that new information? For the Ministry?”

  “New? I don’t know. It tends to confirm past incomplete data.” His smile was crooked. “The Ministry is looking for somewhat more than that.”

  “You’ll find it. I know you will.”
<
br />   Maertyn was touched by her faith, uncertain as he was about whether he could live up to it. “That’s what I’m working toward.” If he could only figure out how to discover a means by which he could discern more about the canal. The biologic sciences of the Unity weren’t suited to deal with the subatomic level physics, and the records of older civilizations were too fragmentary…and enigmatic.

  She smiled. “I won’t keep you. I hope you won’t be too long.”

  With her smile, and the clinging gown she wore, Maertyn knew he wouldn’t be looking at his screens for much longer. “I need to save this format of the data to the backup system. Then I’ll join you.”

  Maarlyna turned.

  Maertyn watched her move through the archway and out of sight, taking in the gentle sway of her hips, neither constrained nor exaggerated, but all of a piece with the woman that she was, then swung back to face the paired pale green screens. He had the unshakable feeling that the data revealed something…but he couldn’t put a finger—or his thoughts—on exactly what that might be.

  He shook his head and initiated the backup sequence. He did wish that he had a cable interface to his own system in Caelaarn, or even a private comsat link, but the Ministry saw no reason to lay cable to the end of the canal, and he and his work didn’t have priority enough for a comsat link. Nor did he have the boost-antenna necessary, either.

  Once he finished, he stood and stretched, then flicked off the lamps powered by the turbine-powered unitary system that the Ministry had grudgingly installed for him, since the area was too chill for an efficient biosystem. He frowned, because every time he turned the lamps on or off, the same recurring thought came to mind. What powered the “doors” of the old building, and what power allowed the “windows” to pass light?

  Even his most precise equipment failed to detect any energy flows. That confirmed, unsurprisingly, that the material comprising the canal and the building in which he was living and working was totally opaque to all energy flows. Yet the doors and windows had worked for the hundreds of years that the Caelaarnans had observed them, and doubtless for thousands and thousands of years before that.