by Allen Wold
They were taken through several passages between private and common places to a center where they found five chiefs waiting, flanked by four wise men, all wearing marks of rank, arm bands and headbands and collars. A "runner" had obviously been sent ahead with the word of Rikard's arrival.
One of the five chiefs took the Sub from the soldier who was wearing it and put it on his own head. He looked at Droagn, who looked back at him—or her—and who kept himself a full head higher than the others. There were greetings, and then the conference began. Droagn took his cues from Rikard, though he used "language" that reinforced his image as a superior and powerful being. The nine members of RoTakhh government paid practically no attention to Rikard and Grayshard, except perhaps as curiosities, but focused on Droagn.
They were the Nine. The five chiefs were symbolically the head and the four arms of the government, and the flanking wise men were priests of some kind, and represented four more arms, advisers without a competing head. Through Droagn the visitors were made to feel welcome. Other RoTakhh brought cushions to make them comfortable, and the priests started a kind of ceremonial chant in the background while the chief and his four "Arms" conferred with Droagn, who reported to Rikard as well as he could what was going on.
The RoTakhh really had no interest in the outside world, though they had legends, some of which were surprisingly accurate. Their primary concern about the invaders from above ground was that they return there, and that people leave them alone. As the "Head" and his four "Arms" spoke, the four priests went on about their business in the background, with decorative ribbons, incense, and later some younger and smaller acolytes who helped out.
That established, Rikard used Droagn as a sort of intermediary to talk with the chiefs about the cyclopeans. He showed them the pictures, the sculpture, and asked about them.
At first the "Head" and the four "Arms" reacted much as the RoTakhh soldiers had, but then, through Droagn, Rikard talked to them about their history before their seclusion, and speculated on what had happened since then, thus proving that he knew a lot more than any stranger, and asked about the cyclopeans again.
This time the chiefs' reluctance to talk had more of the feel as if they were concealing something. Meanwhile the priests went on about their business, which seemed to be centering around Droagn. They moved Rikard and Grayshard out of the way so they could decorate Droagn with ribbons and paint and other ornaments, which he let them do though with some misgivings.
Rikard, through Droagn and following some of his suggestions, probed the chiefs' reluctance, assuring them that they meant no harm, believed in the cyclopeans, and would rather find them with their assistance than without. The priests continued their business, and at last seemed done, and the chiefs stopped paying attention to the dialogue altogether and instead focused on Droagn as the center of some elaborate ceremony.
"What the hell is going on?" Rikard asked him.
"I'm not sure," Droagn said, "but I seem to be the direct object of their veneration."
"Lucky you. Can you get them back on the subject?"
"I'm trying, but—it seems they think of me as a hero-god from the past who has come to save them—except I think that means to be their religious slave."
"That does not sound encouraging," Grayshard said.
"It's not. As near as I can make it out, when this ceremony is done and I have been 'invested,' you two will just be killed and the new church will be established, or something like that."
"Where the hell did we go wrong?" Rikard exclaimed. The priests and the chiefs paid no attention, but continued with their chant.
"I don't know, but I don't seem to have any control over them at all."
"We'll have to fight," Grayshard said.
"Unless you just want to shoot them all, that's not a good idea. These guys are smaller than I, but they're tough, and in a fight I wouldn't stand a chance. And then there's everybody outside."
"Let's not get excited," Grayshard said. "I think I have an idea. Cover yourself, Rikard. And, Droagn, just follow my lead."
He moved so that he was standing right behind Droagn, and when the priests moved away to pick up a kind of robe, and the chiefs were intent on their own preparations, he slipped out of his disguise onto Droagn's back, and left his empty clothes standing by themselves. "When I'm in place," he vocalized as he climbed up onto Droagn's head, "start waving your arms around as my words suggest, and project to them something similar."
"I'm game."
Before the RoTakhh chiefs and priests realized anything was going on, Grayshard had formed his body around Droagn's head into a kind of medusa mask. For his part, Droagn rose up ever higher on his coils, and raised his arms and flexed his muscles in melodramatic command. Then Grayshard projected, as he had before, and as soon as the RoTakhh were under the influence, Droagn commanded them all to fall back. They did, and cowered, and then Droagn and Grayshard together, after a moment's consultation, conveyed a simple message the gist of which was, "Enough of this, let's get on with business. If I'm the god, then you should be obeying me, and not the other way around."
This seemed to do the trick. The RoTakhh became completely servile and covered their faces on command so that Grayshard could slip down off Droagn's head unobserved and back into his disguise. Rikard and his companions waited a moment for the RoTakhh to regain their senses, and when they looked up at Droagn, and saw him now back to normal except for the grin that revealed teeth much larger and longer and sharper than theirs, they seemed ready to listen.
Droagn, as Rikard's mouthpiece, again stated that all they wanted was to visit the site of the cyclopeans. They promised that they would remove nothing, which seemed to reassure them. One of the "Arms" said something that Rikard could not comprehend, but Droagn included him in his reply, which was that, when they left the RoTakhh, they would convey knowledge of their presence to others of their kin on other worlds.
The chiefs at last admitted that there were indeed cyclopean chambers adjacent to the Ahmear ruins, off to the side opposite from their present dwelling. Droagn asked for guides, and the chiefs were reluctant, but he reminded them of who he was, and they agreed.
The guides arrived. The chiefs and priests seemed relieved to see Droagn depart.
The guides led the three toward the Ahmear ruins but did not enter. Instead they circled around through a passage cut through the lava, descending all the way with occasional passages cut toward the ruins as if to verify its position. The outer surface of the ruins were covered with marks of some kind.
In one place a large natural cave went off away from the ruins, and there were lots of RoTakhh there, and others farther in, it was to be assumed. There was a kind of natural luminescence there, and Droagn paused to ask questions. He used his most powerful projecting, and the guides complied quickly.
Down here were the farms. The heat came from far below. The light was of mineral origin and not much use, but in other parts the light, which caused sickness among the RoTakhh, provided energy for the plants. There was water—some hot, some cold, some lit. Stinking air came from some low passages, useful for certain plants though deadly to animals. There were animals, including the fathak that had been domesticated and several other natural subterranean species. There were many caves and tubes beyond the farms, but the guides knew little in particular about them.
"We'd better move on," Grayshard said. They descended still farther.
They passed by several smaller caverns, and then on around the Ahmear ruins to what Rikard estimated must be the opposite side from that by which they had approached it. A passage turned away and slanted down, and they went on until they came to a place where the nature of the RoTakhh excavations changed, becoming galleries facing a different kind of stone, the white marble shell-stone of the cyclopean cone.
There were no marks on this stone as there had been on the Ahmear ruins. The RoTakhh guides were reverent in a different way here. Rikard took the lead, in spite
of the guides' uncertainty, and went up several galleries until he came to smears of color on the marbleized surface. This stone had been further changed by the molten lava that buried it, but the cyclopean colors were perfectly legible.
"If I'm not mistaken," Rikard said to his companions, "we should now be at the ground floor."
"I think you're right," Grayshard said. "Our first approach was at the foundation."
The RoTakhh excavations went up and around, and they followed these, past changes in stone both cyclopean and natural, until they came to a portal. The RoTakhh didn't want them to enter the sacred place, but Droagn offered to sacrifice one of them to assure the safety of the party and they put up no further resistance. Droagn applied a pair of suction devices to the panel, to give him something to hold on to, then pulled the door open. He offered the guides permission to enter, but they refused, and coiled down just outside the door to wait.
"Let's go," Rikard said, and he and Grayshard and Droagn went in.
2
The place was at once recognizable as cyclopean, and yet it felt strange since it was perfectly preserved, including furnishings, decorations, and objects and surfaces the nature of which they could not guess. They went up one passage and through a couple chambers, marveling at what they saw. Flat pedestals stood on once elastic feet, in shades of yellow and amber. Sheets of some gossamer material sometimes hung from the ceiling, though the space divided made no sense as separate rooms. There were crystal objects like bicycle wheels with no spokes. In one place a series of tetrahedral solids, connected like vertebrae, snaked through an open door that had a gap in its foot to allow it to be closed without disturbing the chain. And on and on.
"There's a bit of a problem of chronology here," Rikard said at one point. "Everywhere else, the cyclopeans died out about a million and a half years ago. But this city was buried only fifty thousand years ago." He paused to look at a coil of red wire with blue bristles sticking out of it, leaning up against a corner.
"I think we have to assume that this colony of cyclopeans existed until then," Grayshard said.
"I mink we do," Droagn said. "We know that the Lambeza took the cyclopeans with them, so they would have given them shelter here. ~
"But if they could only breed on their home world," Rikard said, "how could they breed here, and for a million and a half years?"
"I haven't the vaguest idea."
They came on a thing like a half an orange but a full meter across, with purple seeds dripping from the cut surface, which faced down at an angle. Passing through a door, they stepped onto a kind of rug that crumbled to gray dust under them. Where undamaged, it was a velvety pile in red and blue, with white highlights. On the far side of the chamber was a stack of crystal beads on a wire. The dust from their passage across the rug swirled around the beads, and seemed to be drawn into them. They went on into the next room.
They went more quickly now. Though there was lots to see on their route, much of it was repetitious, and they were eager to get to the data banks. They hurried down, level after level, pausing only when they found bodies of the cyclopeans. The first one was a badly distorted corpse lying in the middle of a room next to a crescent-shaped desk. Its body was flattened by dehydration, and a stain across the floor told of body fluids leaking out long ago. What was interesting was the stylus it held in one of its tentacles. Like many of the utensils they'd seen, it had a star-shaped handle, and the tentacle was twisted around the stellations in such a way that it could apply leverage in any direction.
The second time the body was rather better preserved. It was leaning against a kind of corrugated ramp, and along one side extensive decay had set in, but most of it was intact. The snaillike foot was pale cream below and deep blue above. The body, which contained the sacklike mouth, shaded through green to a muted ochre on the shaft that supported the tentacles and the eyestalk, which was itself nearly white. The eye had lids, which were open, and it looked as though the eye had once been red. The inside of the mouth pouch was nearly black, but it could once have been a deep blue, or even purple. The tentacles were orange, tipped with black. Rikard got a full recording in several wavelengths and illuminations.
The third time it was a set of five corpses, what appeared to be two adults and three children, or at least smaller individuals of various sizes. They were all rather well preserved, though their colors were less striking than in the previous find. They were slumped more or less together against a closed door, as if they had been trying to get through when they had died. Rikard and his companions left them in peace.
At last they reached the museum floor. The museum here was much the same as the other two they had seen, except that there were perishable materials here, which were somehow preserved despite at least fifty thousand standard years of burial.
They did not bother with the artifacts. They went right to the center of the museum, where Droagn lifted Gray shard up so he could bring down the ceiling elevator. Then they went up to the communications center, where the lights, rather more bluish than usual, came on as soon as they came through the floor.
They quickly located the main output station, and Rikard set up his recording equipment. This time he was prepared with enough disks to hold everything within the computer's data banks. As soon as he was ready, Droagn set up a simple dump—he hoped—and now there was nothing to do but wait.
But here, as elsewhere in this cone, there were common things preserved, as if this place hadn't been emptied out, but had died by surprise. There was a cyclopean body over at one console, the equivalent of plates and cups and notebooks here and there, and some pieces of equipment different from what they had seen before, lying on the consoles or desks, and looking very much like output devices, not exactly headsets, since the cyclopeans didn't have heads in that way, but the equivalent perhaps, a springy coil about fifteen centimeters in diameter that stretched out to about seventy centimeters long, on the inside surface of which were a number of electrosensitive contacts.
Grayshard picked one of them up and looked it over. "Not made for a head like yours," he said, "but since I don't have a head either..." He peeled back his turban and goggles and extruded a dense mass of red-tipped white fibers. He lifted the coil over his shoulders and set it down on the bundle of fibers, and let it settle into place. "It would probably have gone around their 'neck,' just under the juncture of eyestalk and tentacles," he guessed. "Not actually audio output, but direct neural stimulation."
"You don't have any nerves, either," Rikard said.
"Doesn't matter." He put the jack into one of the obvious receptacles on the desk, flipped a nearby switch, jerked once, pulled the coil partially away from his recoiling tentacles, felt around on the surface of the desk and diddled with several vernier dials, and then relaxed. "As I said, direct neural input. Doesn't make any sense, of course."
"Let me try it," Rikard said. Grayshard handed the coil to him, then put his head back together. Rikard wrapped the coil around his own head and felt the input, dim and fuzzy, probably because it had to go through his skull. There seemed to be random physical sensations snapping around softly in various places in the spaces inside his head, associated with colors and tastes, but no sound. Moments of pressure might have been analogous. It was not static, but changed and rippled, and though it did not interfere with his normal perceptions, it was rather pronounced. He adjusted the coil and the overall pattern of the locations of the sensory inputs changed. It was made to fit a certain diameter body and to stimulate certain specific nerve centers. He took it off" and handed it to Droagn.
But Droagn already had two other output coils. He gave one to Grayshard, put one on himself, and Rikard put the one he was holding back on. Then they all tuned in together.
It took a while, but between the three of them they began to make sense of the outputs, how to adjust the coils, how the controls on the desk worked. Though the content of the output remained elusive, they knew they were on the right track when the d
irect "brain" interface suddenly gave them access to each other. For a while they got lost in mutual telepathy. This was similar to the mode of communication with which Droagn was familiar, so he was able to help them figure it out. When they could "talk" to each other meaningfully, they turned their attention to whatever it was that was the "mind" of the computer.
Again, Droagn's experience was the most help here. His expertise in computer logic told him that regardless of the psychological differences between them and the cyclopeans, they still had to use the same mathematics of binary digits, and even though the technologies might differ, electricity still flowed or it didn't.
After an indefinite time they took a break for a quiet meal. Rikard's recording helmet was still downloading. Then they plugged back in again, and now they began to try to learn how to "think like cyclopeans."
Rikard had had an experience once, years ago, when he had met a race so old that its age was meaningless, the Taarshome who had shielded his father when he had been trapped underground by the Tathas, and who had been among the first three or four sentiences in the universe. Noncorporeal bundles of energy, or pure mind, or matrices of potential fields, whatever they were they were not like any other life form. They had existed, and grown, and gone away, and come back, and it had been through Rikard's auspices that they had begun to integrate themselves into corporeal society within the Federation.
