Nonplussed, Dan said, “Huh? They destroyed their own ships?”
“Analyses and dating confirm it.” Kat’s expression was stiff with tension. “Not alien destruction. N’lac explosive residues. They wrecked every vehicle on the planet, as far as we can determine.”
“Got away from Evil Old Ones!” Chuss shrilled.
Dan gazed at the brunette in utter confusion. “Why?”
She shrugged in annoyance. “We don’t know. Cultural madness? Maybe the Evil Old Ones forced them to do it, as they’d forced them to construct robot policemen. Two thousand years before the present, the N’lacs wiped out their entire fleet. Then they vanished, presumably into the holds of the Evil Old Ones’ ships.” Kat gave Dan a rueful smile. “Trust you to ask another question I don’t have any answer for.”
Sensing he’d pushed her into a comer, Dan said lightly, “Well, that’s one of my lines of expertise, as Sheila calls it. Speaking of which, do you think she’ll be back? We sort of had an appointment.”
Kat made a wry face. “I’ll bet. You and she will make a great pair. You think alike—with your gonads. No, I doubt she’ll return to the circle tonight. She’s a champion romper, but she’s also thick-skulled loyal. And Bill Getz needs stroking more than you do.”
Accepting his disappointment with as good a grace as he could manage, Dan asked, “How about you? Would you care for a moonlight stroll on the cold desert sands?”
Chuckling, she said, “The idea is tempting, but I’m too busy. Another time?”
He brightened at that half-promise. Then he recalled something Kat had said earlier and sobered. “Uh... was your father really Colin Saunder, my cousin who lived at Saunderhome?”
Her manner was reserved. “Possibly. My mother’s secret. Are you worrying about consanguinity problems? We’d be remote kin if Colin was my father. It needn’t concern us unless you plan on reproducing. Then we ought to do a genetic check, just in case.” Was she teasing him? Her cool, scientific stance toward such intimate matters jarred. Dan narrowed his eyes, studying her. “No, I wasn’t..
“We’ll talk about it later,” Kat said briskly, concentrating on the taletelling once more.
“Safe! Safe at Home!” Sleeg patted a mud copy of a fluidics element and said, “We make the magic as the many-fathers-ago did. Demons will not follow us and punish. Never never again. No more Evil Old Ones!”
A guarantee? Or a hopeful prayer? Nothing Dan had heard in the legends claimed that the Evil Old Ones had been wiped out. To the contrary, Chuss’ ancestors had escaped—and the enemy might still lurk out there in the stars, waiting, still greedy for humanoid slaves.
The desert air was a knife, slithering against Dan’s bones.
As Praedar had, he looked up at the stars. How fragile humanoid civilizations were! Seen on a stellar time scale, Terra and Whimed and Vahnaj were mere heartbeats. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t survive and thrive indefinitely. But it laid down no laws about a continued existence, either.
There could be an unavoidable astronomical disaster or war, disease... So many things could go wrong. Mankind and its peers must be ever vigilant and willing to defend themselves if they hoped to prevail.
Somewhere out there, unknown species, so alien that their motivations appeared to be abominably evil, could be on the move. Extinction, or as near as made no difference, could lie in the wings. If they struck, Homo sapiens, like the N’lacs, were looking at oblivion. Mankind—dust, less than a memory, and irretrievably lost in its own “forever time”!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Glimpses of the Past
For the next few days, Dan steered cleared of Dr. Getz and those who supported the effigy expert. Even those scientists who were curious about fluidics were discreet; they waited until Getz was elsewhere before they quizzed Dan on the subject. Praedar learned that Dan had some fluidics tech vids in his library on board Fiona and requested copies, which the pilot supplied. But after the Whimed and other team members read the texts, they remained uncommitted. Dan couldn’t tell if that was because the concept was so new for them or because his reliability was still iffy. He didn’t worry about it. There was too much else to keep him occupied.
Excavation around the domes went on at a painstaking pace. The diggers worked with extreme care, constantly consulting Armilly’s subsurface scans of buried structures and materials. And certain areas weren’t touched at all. Future scientists would have better equipment, better methods, and be able to extract more from those sections than the present expedition could. In leaving the sections alone, Praedar’s team served knowledge, though they frustrated their curiosity.
One itch they did intend to scratch was the newly discovered dome. On the scheduled morning, everyone assigned to the job arrived very early. Dan fine-tuned the dredge to optimum and sucked away a final pile of earth blocking wide access to the door. He shut down the rig as Armilly made a complete survey of the building’s interior and announced it was cleared for entry.
But first the N’lacs’ ancestors—and their ghosts—must be appeased.
All the villagers came to see the show, joining Chuss’ work gang at the site. Joe Hughes hovered anxiously near Chuss’ pregnant mother, monitoring her with hand-held med gear. There were greetings and handshakings for half a local hour. Dan lost track of how many webbed paws he’d held and how many times he responded to “Hello, you fellow.”
Social amenities attended to, the N’lacs used the dirt dump for a grandstand. They gabbled and jostled for the best seats. Sleeg, Chuss, and the top hunters stayed near the small dome’s door. The taleteller laid an object on the ground, fussing over its exact placement. Then Sleeg and the others began marching around the bundle. The N’lac onlookers yelled enthusiastically, getting into the spirit of the occasion. Occasionally Sleeg picked up a pinch of sand and flung it to the breeze, reading omens.
Dan hid his amusement. The N’lacs were so serious about this nonsense!
But none of the scientists were laughing. They were intent on the ceremony. Like the N’lacs, they seemed caught up in the purpose of the ritual. Whimeds and Terrans hummed the marchers’ song. Armilly patted his big feet.
Sleeg’s song was hypnotic and it also set Dan’s teeth on edge. He was relieved when the parade finally stopped. The group waited while an elderly female hobbled into the marchers’ circle. The crone slashed away the vines binding the mysterious package, using a stone knife. She gathered the wrappings and tottered back to her seat on the dirt pile.
Dan stared at the revealed object—a crudely carved wooden ovoid a meter and a half in length. Spindly sticks protruded from one end of the model, forming a radiating pattern. Those sticks were attached to other sticks in a parody of ten jointed legs. A network of painted lines laced across the sticks and the “body.”
Suddenly the shaman screamed. His mouth gaped, a wine-red maw. The entire tribe screamed with him:
“MARAA!"
Dan flinched, stunned by the predatory rage of the cry.
Without further preamble, Chuss, Sleeg, and the hunters attacked the model. Clubs shattered the stick “legs,” obliterated intricate carvings and painted tracery. So much work had gone into the thing. Yet they smashed it with murderous glee. Villagers cheered them on with the N’lae words for “demon” and “kill.” When the marchers lowered their clubs, the model was reduced to a pile of splinters.
Chuss grinned and said, “O-kee! Is durin, Pwaedar. Demon fellow all gone. All safe. O-kee!”
Praedar spread his hands, palms upward, in a Whimed gesture of friendship. “Most thanks. We are grateful.” He repeated the phrases numerous times in N’lac, shaking hands with the demon killers. No Vahnaj could have behaved with more excessive courtesy.
Student scientists passed out gifts, payment for the killers’ services. Sleeg got the largest present. He peeled off its plastic wrapping and licked the lump of fat from the complex’s storehouse. Other N’lacs chattered happily over their shares of the same lardy stuff. D
an understood the logic behind the strange handouts. A desert world made its inhabitants voracious for fat to supplement their diet and lubricate sun-parched skin. N’lacs rubbed their red faces in the presents, slathered them in their mouths, heading back to the village in noisy, lip-smacking celebration.
Joe Hughes stood near Dan, and the black man tipped an imaginary hat to the expedition’s boss. “Nice job, Praedar. Keep ’em happy.” He winked at Dan and said, “Not bad, huh?”
“The fat, sure. But that business about killing a demon?” “Doesn’t hurt to take out insurance. I only hope smashing one ritual object was enough.”
Dan blinked. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” Joe’s face was a dark mask. “You’d better spend a bit more time in primitive cultures before you sneer at their customs. They know things we don’t.”
“Yeah...”
“I mean it. Don’t laugh. This is another trail you aren’t familiar with,” Hughes warned. “When in doubt, get your go-ahead from the local shaman before you dig.” Joe again tipped that nonexistent cap, then followed the departing villagers.
Praedar’s team crowded close to the dedemonized dome. Rosenthal crawled on hands and knees, collecting pieces of the smashed model for analysis. Others pushed on the door, with little result. Armilly’s instruments said there was no obstruction, but the barricade refused to budge.
The Whimeds waved aside the Terrans, then tackled the door with Armilly. Felinoids and Lannon had evolved on planets with a higher gravity than Earth, and genetic factors gave them the muscle to force the door partway open.
That done, the Whimeds and Terrans squeezed through. Armilly shoved his recording gear inside and tried to follow it. He got stuck. Dan helped scientists shove until Armilly popped through, leaving tufts of hair and flecks of blood on the wooden frame.
The remaining Terrans then trooped indoors. Dan waited for an invitation to join the gang. None came. So he returned to the dredge and flopped down in its shadow, mildly irritated. Odds were, if he went to the equipment sheds and started his day’s repair chores, Praedar would need him back here at the site again, and he’d have a hot walk up the hill. Sighing, Dan closed his eyes, intending to take a short nap.
Loud sounds jolted him. Terrans staggered from the dome. Many were coughing desperately, half choking. Others wheezed for breath. Some bent double, retching.
Sheila reeled to the dredge and sat down hard, shaken by paroxyms. Dan knelt beside her anxiously. “Hey! Do you want me to fetch the med kit?”
The blonde gestured voicelessly, ordering him to stay put. When she could finally speak, Sheila said hoarsely, “I’ll... be okay... in a minute.” That was followed by another bad choking spell. She wiped her eyes and complained, “Whole dome is packed solid with dust and fungi. Should have known it. Ran into the same stuff in other enclosed digs here. This one’s awful. Not lethal, but Terrans can’t take those conditions for any length of time..She paused, sucking in air, and wheezed, “Damn! This means Praedar’s cat folks and that fur ball will discover all the goodies while we stay out here and cough ourselves silly.”
Dan marveled at her lack of imagination. “Why don’t you run the dredge on negative pressure and clear the stuff out? Even if the dome isn’t airtight, you can cut down a lot on the junk.”
Sheila glared at him. “It.. .it can’t be that simple. Hell! I know the manual says you can do other things with that rig, but...”
Chuckling, Dan said, “To borrow from you—Kroo-ger! You big brains aren’t so smart. If you can’t figure out what a glass piece is, you call it an effigy. You can’t read tech-ese, you say the dredge won’t work. Do you want the air cleaned up in there or not?”
Still glaring, Sheila nodded grudgingly. Dan cued the machine and guided an intake hose to the dirt-encrusted door. None of the Terrans sitting nearby offered to help. Most of them continued to cough. They all regarded Dan with misery-loves-company expressions, hoping he was on a fool’s errand and would be forced to beat a hasty retreat, as they had.
Getting through the door took some careful maneuvering. Dan lifted the hose over snags and squeezed through the splintery opening. Inside, he faced an abrupt change in lighting. Armilly and the Whimeds had set up lamps, but the interior remained dim. Sheila hadn’t exaggerated; the murky room was thick with drifting crad. Dan’s throat tightened and his nose began to itch.
“Do not step on importants,” Armilly boomed. The Lannon’s warning made dust motes dance, adding to Dan’s growing distress.
He fastened the hose to a ledge above the door and, fighting an urge to cough, cured intake circuits. Imperceptibly at first, an outward flow of air started. Dust and fungus particles diminished, sucked to the dredge’s tanks.
Now Dan could see Armilly’s “importants.” Broken furniture and pottery lay everywhere. The Lannon was rigging strings and pegs, marking pathways through the debris.
Poking his head out the door, Dan said, “Clear breathing.” The Terrans approached warily. But once they were inside, they relaxed a bit, then got busy. All of them except Sheila thanked Dan. He was puzzled by her reaction. Plainly she was mad at him. Why?
Moving with great care, the scientists used hand-held vacuums and tiny brushes, removing ages of soil and grime. Sheila and Chen examined postsherds. Armilly scanned the inward-curving walls with his monitors. Wherever the beams paused, writings and pictures seemed to leap off the ancient surface.
“Probably a reception area,” someone speculated.
“No, it was lived in,” Rosie argued. “Notice the eating utensils, the sleeping furniture.”
Kat pointed to the walls. “A bulletin board? Inscriptions are layered. The lowest strata are very crisp. See how the writing deteriorates with each later stratum? The last entries are mere scribbles. What a wonderful support of Praedar’s theories ...”
“I wish Ruieb were here,” Rosie said. “The comps can separate this, but it’ll take a top linguist to decrypt it.”
“Well, Ruieb isn't here,” Sheila snapped. “Okay. Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s my fault and McKelvey’s that Ruieb’s up on the mesa sulking in his tent, like our other Achilles.”
“It’s not the same,” Kat said. “Bill Getz’s work is his own project, an adjunct to ours. Ruieb-An’s an integral member of the team.” She and the blonde debated loudly as they went on with their jobs.
Dan gazed at the wall inscriptions curiously. Suddenly a shudder racked him. Startled, he analyzed the reaction. He’d felt no draft. In fact, the temperature in the dome was comfortable. There was no reason at all for him to shiver. He could almost hear his mother quoting a family superstition: “Somebody walked over your grave.”
That thought added to his disquiet. When Kat paused in her arguing and brush wielding, Dan asked, “Did you feel a.. .a breeze in here?” She frowned and shook her head. “Like an air current. Or maybe ... an odd power source. It was the same feeling I get when those big Vahnaj molecular-shifter FTL drives go into gear. Weird.”
Sheila snorted. “You believe in ghosts, too?”
“Just because we didn’t feel it,” Kat said, “doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“There’s nothing on the scanners,” Sheila said flatly.
Dan scowled. Dammit, he wasn’t making this up. Why was the blonde being so doubting?
From deeper in the dome, a Whimed called, “Is McKelvey here?”
“Yo!” Dan brightened. At least someone appreciated his presence!
“Come. Inspect. Tell us what this is.”
He detached a hand lamp from the banks of illuminators and made his way into an alcove at the rear of the big room. Praedar, Yvica, and Drastil stood by an inner door. It was a lot more solid-looking than the entry. Praedar stabbed a bony finger at a patch of crumbling wall beside the frame. Dan wedged himself in among the felinoids, grateful that they, unlike Vahnajes, had no strong, alien body odor.
The light picked out a peculiarly shaped gadget and
dangling glassene fibers. Dan canted the lamp at an angle, peering behind broken elements. The Whimeds hovered, their impatience tangible. Straightening, Dan said, “I’m not sure. It could be a switch. Really a crazy design, if so. Never saw anything to match it.” Praedar nodded. “In all likelihood it is the work of the N’lacs’ ancestors. They had no contact with known civilized sectors.” “Yeah, that would explain why it’s an unfamiliar technology.” Without touching the mud-plaster wall, Dan traced a line. “I’m guessing at function, but it probably provides a linkage about here. Maybe I can tell with the adjustable power identifier in the repair shed. That can be reset to detect glassene and similar substances ..
The Whimeds’ eyes were starry pools. Gooseflesh prickled on Dan’s arms. Felinoids were low-level espers, and their ancestors had been rapacious carnivores. Occasionally Whimeds radiated emotions on wavelengths humans could sense. Praedar and his students were tremendously excited. Was there that much difference, on esp channels, between enthusiasm over a scientific discovery and delight at being close to edible prey? Fight-or-flight alarms raced along Dan’s nerve endings.
“Can you repair it?” Praedar asked, his calm tone mocking the pilot’s fears.
“I don’t know,” Dan said honestly. “I’d be working blind. You got any ideas what it controls? The door?” Yvica and Drastil agreed eagerly. Did they know, or was that wishful thinking? Dan went on. “It could activate other circuits instead, ones we couldn’t begin to guess at.”
Praedar spoke solemnly. “Sleeg tells of a golden era when the N’lacs lived entirely below this world’s surface. Armilly’s scans show another room and a tunnel beyond this door. We must explore them. The N’lacs do not object. The demon has been slain. What lies within may provide the key to this entire story—why their civilization fell, where they were taken, whether the Old Ones truly existed, how the slaves escaped and why their de-scendents have degenerated so seriously...”
The poor lighting prevented Dan from seeing the Whimed’s face clearly. He longed to read the boss’s expression. Did Praedar, like Joe, take every N’lac myth seriously? Apparently so. All these big brains, whatever their species, did that. Only Getz remained skeptical. And Dan wasn’t sure he wanted to be on the same side of anything with Getz. Maybe he, too, should accept the legends and believe.
Juanita Coulson - [Children of the Stars 04] Page 12
