by Eric Brown
Connor halted him with a smile. “Jeff, I trust implicitly the judgement of the Taoth. Come,” and he led the way from the farmhouse to the makeshift barn door.
He scraped open the starship panel to reveal a yawning dusty chamber. A bulky flier, similar to the burnt-out wreck they had come across on the plain, sat in pride of position.
“I rarely use it these days,” Connor told them. “No need, you see. But it will be taking you on the last leg of the journey. Please, climb aboard.”
Connor slipped into the driver’s seat, caressing the controls with a smile. Rath sat beside him as Das and Vaughan settled themselves in the rear. Connor started the engine, the roar throbbing in the confines of the barn. The vehicle rose, bobbed, and wobbled out into the crystal-light.
Outside, Connor turned the flier on its axis and accelerated towards the mountains. They gained height and Vaughan looked back the way they had come. A pastoral patchwork stretched for kilometres towards the enclosing mountains. He made out Tom’s farm-cart, tiny in the distance.
There was no sign of Chandrasakar and his team.
* * * *
The flier approached the mountains and slipped through a v-shaped notch between two jagged peaks. Vaughan had expected to see another cavern bearing farmland, or perhaps savannah. He was not prepared for the sight that awaited them: a great alien city, perhaps ten times the size of the one they had passed through earlier, extended for as far as the eye could see. Indeed, Vaughan was unable to make out the far side of the cavern. Like the first city, this one was laid out on a radial pattern, and it comprised of identical two- and three-storey khaki-coloured buildings. Again an air of decrepitude hung over the place; it was more a mausoleum than a metropolis where, thousands of years ago, an alien race had made its home.
Connor brought the flier down so that they skimmed at head height along a wide avenue.
Das said, “Why did the Taoth desert their cities, Mr Connor?”
The old starship captain said over his shoulder, “They found a better place.”
Das sighed. “Vluta, right?”
Connor smiled and nodded. Rath touched his arm, and the pair fell into muted conversation.
Vaughan murmured to Das, “How do you hope to keep your side of the bargain? When we know what the colonists found, you’ll get back to your paymasters, right? So much for your good word.”
Das looked at him. “The end justifies the means. I’ll do what I’ll do for the greater good.”
“Hasn’t that been the watchword of dictators and tyrants throughout human history?”
Das chose to ignore him.
Vaughan studied the buildings passing on either side. He had taken them, at first glance, to be no more than simple constructions of mud and timber - similar to the cities of many pre-industrial peoples on Earth. But when he looked closer, he made out evidence to the contrary. In places the brickwork had crumbled, revealing internal structural supports that resembled steel girders. That suggested a degree of technology he had thought beyond the Taoth.
He leaned forward and addressed Connor. “What level of technology did the Taoth possess when they left the cities?”
“They were - they are - an advanced industrial race, Jeff. They mined their planet for ores and metals, and refined oils; they had advanced chemical processes.”
“And yet they choose to keep you mired in the past,” Das snapped. She stared at the passing buildings. “The city appears... basic,” she went on. “I don’t see any signs of industry.”
“This is where they lived,” Connor said. “Their industrial-manufacturing complexes are far deeper than this level of caverns.”
Das said, “How far do the cavern systems extend?” Vaughan could see a calculating light in her eyes.
Connor replied, “They ring the world and extend down for at least five levels.”
“Shiva...” Das breathed.
“And yet the Taoth just up and left,” Vaughan said.
Connor glanced over his shoulder. “But not before exploring the planets of stars in the vicinity of Delta Cephei,” he said with a smile.
“They had spaceflight?” Das said, wide-eyed.
“Sub-light, and they hadn’t discovered the void, but yes, they had achieved spaceflight. You sound shocked.”
“To be honest, I thought the race... primitive... despite their obvious talents. How wrong can you be?”
“You said they explored nearby suns,” Vaughan said. “Did they stay, set up colonies?”
Connor shook his head. “They found no habitable systems, and withdrew back to Kalluta.”
“Strange,” Das said.
Connor smiled. “Yes, that word does go a long way to describing the Taoth.”
Conversation lapsed and Vaughan stared about him at the passing city. He estimated they were still not halfway across the metropolis, though the bulwark of the distant enclosure had resolved itself; not mountains this time, but a wall or rock curving far overhead to form the city’s ‘sky’. Like the last city, this one was illuminated only by the fungal growth.
Vaughan asked Connor about this.
“The Taoth preferred the green light for their cities. The crystal light they reserved for the caverns which they gave over to food production.”
“The crystals are artificial?” he asked.
Connor nodded. “They store light and energy during the planet’s short summer transit of Delta Cephei, and it lasts the long winters until summer comes round again. The Taoth that remained promised that they would instruct our engineers on the maintenance of the crystals, though they need servicing only every hundred or so Earth years.”
They flew on for a while in silence, and Vaughan wondered at the mystery of the Taoth.
Connor said, “Imagine our excitement when we discovered these deserted cities.”
“Which did you locate first?” Das asked. “The Taoth, or the cities?”
Connor smiled at the memory. “Oh, the cities,” he said. “I think the Taoth were keeping their distance until they’d worked us out. We came down not far from the planet’s equator and explored the area. We set up surface settlements, domes and such, but the extremes of summer and winter made the surface uninhabitable for much of the time. We needed to look underground if there was any possibility of founding a colony on the planet.”
“How did you find the caverns?” Vaughan asked.
“Simplicity itself. We landed at the end of a winter cycle, with a year to go before summer came round again. When things started hotting up, we simply followed the native fauna - they led us underground to the first of the caverns. After that it was a case of following our noses.”
Vaughan shook his head. “It must have been some day when you came across a Taoth city.”
“You cannot begin to imagine, Jeff. I was leading an exploratory team with Flannery when we came upon the first city, two chambers back. We considered settling there, but decided that the crystal lighted planes were better suited to our purposes. We set up farms in the second cavern - it was already cleared of fungus, you see, by the Taoth, millennia ago. From there we ranged far and wide, up and down.”
“When did you come across the Taoth?” Das asked.
Connor laughed. “When they wanted to be found,” he said. “Or, to be truthful, when they found us. They’d left a skeleton crew, as it were, back here to maintain things. We’d been here perhaps a year when a deputation of Taoth approached us. I think they’d worked out we were relatively peaceable-”
“But the conflict with Flannery...?” Vaughan began.
“Didn’t happen until we came across Vluta,” Connor explained.
“When was this?” Das asked.
“A couple of years ago, Terran. We had a debate amongst our citizens - should we or should we not inform Earth, or rather the FNSA. The vote was overwhelmingly against the idea. Flannery of course was pro-dissemination. He let his anger fester for months, before taking violent action and appropriating the com-rig. That wo
uld be... what, a year ago? We’ve been expecting - dreading - a deputation from Earth ever since.”
Vaughan grunted a humourless laugh. “And now you have it,” he said.
Connor lifted the flier so that they were skimming over the rooftops. Vaughan looked down, imagining a city teeming with a population of aliens.
Why had they left the cities, he wondered, and retreated to Vluta... wherever and whatever that might be?
“How did you discover Vluta?” Das asked. “Did the Taoth show you?”
Connor shook his head. “We discovered it. I... I have the impression that the Taoth might never have let on, but for the fact that one of my foraging teams stumbled upon it by chance. You see, we’d come across so many alien cities occupying the caverns that this one seemed just like all the others.”
“This one?” Vaughan asked.
“My team went through the city, salvaging what they could - metals, a timber-analogue. Then they came to the far cavern wall, and saw... that-” And he pointed ahead to the ramparts of the far cavern wall.
Vaughan stared. The wall must have been two kilometres away, but even so he made out, climbing its slope, the unmistakable sight of a vast sweep of steps, easily a kilometre wide, rising in a fan-shaped sweep towards an arched opening in the vertical wall of the cavern.
Even at this distance it possessed a majesty that merely hinted at the wonders that might lie beyond.
“What the hell...?” Das breathed.
“All will be revealed,” Connor said, and accelerated towards the sweeping steps.
Rath touched Connor’s arm and spoke, and Connor nodded.
He said over his shoulder, “Rath thinks it appropriate that we should alight at the foot of the steps and ascend on foot.”
Vaughan nodded, aware that his heart was thudding in anticipation.
They came to the steps, like the semicircular sweep of an amphitheatre, and Connor settled the flier and sat staring up as if with reverence. Rath was the first to alight; Vaughan followed, then Das. Connor joined them and they stood side by side, staring up the incline in wonder.
Rath took the first step, then turned and gestured for the others to follow.
They climbed.
The stairway was made for smaller feet, and shorter legs, than humans possessed; Vaughan found himself making a series of small, quick steps, which soon tired him. They adjusted their pace to that of Connor, while the alien bobbed ahead, pausing from time to time in order for the laggardly humans to catch up.
“Okay,” Das said to Vaughan at one point. “Three guesses. What will we find?”
Vaughan shook his head. “Beats me.” He smiled. “But whatever it is, something tells me it’ll be a disappointment.”
She nodded. “Me too.”
He paused, then said, “Some industrial process, a technological wonder?”
He stopped climbing and looked down the way they had come. They were barely a third of the way up the fanned stairway, but already they were above the level of the city rooftops.
He began walking again, head down, so as not to be daunted by the fact that the distant archway seemed never to draw any closer.
“I recall my first approach,” Connor said a while later. “Just two years ago... but it seems just like yesterday. It is truly one of the wonders of the known universe.”
Das looked at Vaughan. “Still prepared to be disappointed?”
He murmured, “Even more so,” and looked up to see that they had climbed almost two-thirds of the way to the top.
A further ten minutes of measured ascent brought them to the entrance. They rested, sitting on the very highest step and looking down across the city. The flier, parked below, was reduced to the apparent size of a child’s toy.
Behind them, Rath spoke.
Connor translated, “He says it is time to proceed.”
Vaughan nodded and climbed to his feet, his chest tight with anticipation.
Connor followed Rath through the arch. Vaughan gestured Das before him, and he brought up the rear.
They were in a narrow corridor, at the end of which was another arched opening, and through it fell a shaft of bright blue light.
Rath stepped into the light and became a spindly silhouette, followed by Connor. Das hesitated, but only for a second, before she too stepped through. Vaughan took a breath and followed.
He found himself in a chamber perhaps as long and wide as a cathedral, though far taller. The chamber itself was unspectacular, merely a natural feature in the rock... but the wonder of it stood at the chamber’s far end.
It was, he guessed, perhaps twenty metres wide and fifty high.
“What the...?” Das began.
Vaughan stepped forward, then began walking, until he stood before the wonder, his mouth open. He sensed the others beside him.
He turned to Connor, and then looked at Rath. “But what is it?”
Through the natural arch he looked down on a vast city, a series of tall, thin buildings stretching for as far as the eye could see and laid out on a series of canals; air-cars flitted through what looked like a night-time indigo sky - but how could that be, he asked himself - and he saw, disbelievingly, three huge moons hanging in the sky. Then he made out, beyond them, what looked like a spread of packed stars.
Beside him, Rath had dropped into a squat, staring up with its emotionless insect eyes. He wondered what thoughts were passing through its alien mind.
“What is it?” he asked Connor.
“Vluta,” said the oldster.
Rath stood and raised both its hands in the air, as if in alien celebration. “Vluta,” it piped.
“It’s another chamber?” Das said, but she sounded unconvinced.
Connor shook his head. “Vluta is a city on a world circling a star over thirty thousand light years away, towards the hub of the galaxy.”
Das shook her head. “But what...?” She gestured towards the city.
Connor smiled. “This,” he said, gesturing at the great archway, “is a space-time portal, for want of a better word, connecting this world to that one.”
* * * *
TWENTY-FIVE
THROUGH THE PORTAL
Vaughan stepped forward until he was a metre from the membrane of the portal, still struggling to comprehend the consequences of Connor’s statement. This busy metropolis before him - if he reached out, he might touch it - was light years distant, an alien city somehow made reachable by a technology so far in advance of human understanding that it made the science of voidspace travel seem like stone-age tool making.
He made out the tiny figures of aliens going about their business on the distant planet. They promenaded beside canals, crossed squares, and passed down boulevards lined with crimson, shock-haired trees. Three vast moons hung in the sky, and beyond them were the hub stars, an array so compacted it seemed to glow like a chandelier.
Das was beside him. “So this is what Chandrasakar wanted,” she said.
“If he got his hands on this technology...” Vaughan began.
“He’d be invincible, Jeff. No one would stand a chance.”
He looked at her. “You mean, your government wouldn’t stand a chance?”
“I mean no one would. It’d be a disaster-”
He could only smile at that. “And if your paymasters got their grubby communist claws on it, it would be any better?”
She didn’t even deign to glance at him. “We’d use it for the good of humanity,” she said.
“I think I’ve heard that line before.”
Now she did look at him, and her expression shocked him. He saw contempt in her eyes. “The fact is that I’ve got here before Rab.”
“You know something?” he said. “Your attitude strikes me as familiar - like that of the old colonialists your party so despises. They discovered new lands, fabulous wealth, and claimed it as theirs as by God-given decree. Don’t you think the Taoth might have something to say about that?”
“We won’t ta
ke the technology, Vaughan. We’ll negotiate. We’ll put the case for our rights to use the technology for humankind’s benefit.”
Something close to despair opened up in Vaughan, then. He foresaw the fight that would ensue to claim the rights to utilise the alien technology, and there could only be one loser: he wondered if the Taoth were aware of what they had let themselves in for when they revealed their secret to humanity.
