by Allen Wold
And once Rikard had communicated directly with one of them. There had been other times when he had helped others learn how to "speak" with these things the natives of Kohltri called "dragons," but it had been on a more superficial level, since to touch a Taarshome was to fry to a cinder immediately.
But that one time, somehow without killing himself, Rikard had shared minds with another in a way even Droagn couldn't imagine. It had changed him in subtle ways, so that now, when he thought about the cyclopeans, and about the Taarshome, and about thinking their thoughts, something clicked inside his head, a memory came back into his mind, and with Grayshard and Droagn along with him, he began to make sense of what had been stored in the cyclopeans' computer.
It took a while. Sometimes they lost track of time. Occasionally Rikard had to load a new set of disks into his helmet recorder. They needed to eat. But mostly they experienced directly the contents of the computer. They examined random documents until they began to understand what they contained, then initiated a three-way search looking for history.
Grayshard found the first clue, a series of concepts and computer constructs that had to do with time. They turned their attention in that direction until they began to feel that they knew how to distinguish past and future in cyclopean terms.
Droagn found the second clue, simply a matter of a further refinement of the computer's indexing system, the form of the data structures, the style of addressing and memory allocation. Even Droagn had to admit that it felt strange doing this from the inside out, and Rikard could see how this one bit of cyclopean technology could revolutionize the information industry. Too bad he had other things to think about, he could get rich that way.
And then it was his turn to find something. It wasn't history, it was biology.
Working together they examined the files, and from these they learned that the cyclopeans could propagate either by laying eggs, or by fission and cloning. And the important part was that cloning did not prolong their lives appreciably. Given a life span of five hundred years, the products of fission or cloning could expect to add only about fifty years overall, and later fissions and clones proportionately less. In time they died.
Only individuals born from eggs could live a full life, and as it worked out the only place where eggs were laid was on their home world, which was the only place where the cyclopeans could exist while not in a symbiotic condition.
A viable colony of egg-layers, long since put by on their moon, had managed to survive the holocaust visited on them for reasons they did not understand. When the destruction was safely over, they left secretly, under the auspices of the Lambeza Ahmear. They came to Trokarion, of course, and built this cone, so it was just under one and a half million years old. It was the only cyclopean colony and had somehow continued to survive down to the time when it had been buried by the same volcanic catastrophe that had destroyed the Ahmear city fifty thousand years ago. But unlike the Ahmear, who had left when the volcano had begun to erupt, the cyclopeans had chosen to remain. Here the documentation ended.
They withdrew their attentions, their minds, from the computer. Rikard made special recordings of this and related files, which he secreted on his person, while the main recorder continued to download the entire library.
They had been working for some two standards days by this time, but it would still be a while before the major recording was completed. After taking a break for rest, refreshment, and a bit of exercise, they plugged in again and looked through the files related to the cyclopeans' biology. Most of them would prove of immense interest to scholars later, but not to Rikard and his friends at the moment.
But that was how they found out that there was something else recorded that didn't show up on the directory. Droagn did some hacking and found a late-coded document that got glitched somehow, and they looked in.
It was a special note, appended to a file on egg maintenance, left as an afterthought, after all other files had been closed during the volcano, as if a message to whoever might come after. Much of it was unintelligible, but the gist of it was that the reason the cyclopeans hadn't left the cone when the volcano threatened was that they wanted to protect a special refuge below the cone. They all three came out of the net. "Only one thing makes sense," Grayshard said. Had his mechanical voice been capable of expressing emotion, it would have done so now.
"Eggs," Droagn said. "What could that special refuge possibly be but a cache of eggs?
"It's the only answer," Rikard said. "You don't suppose they could still be viable?"
"Circumstantial evidence," Grayshard said, "indicates that they might well be."
"You mean the power being on and all?
"I mean the continued attitude of empathy and tolerance as evidenced by the Federation in comparison to all other star nations."
Rikard made a special recording of this file, which he could play back on his helmet set, to which he connected remote outputs so that Droagn and Grayshard could examine the text with him. They had only examined the first few entries of the file, and there were some clues further on as to where this egg cache might be. Logically enough, when they found the information, the cache proved to be deep under the base of the cone.
"But how do we get there?" Rikard said, as they disconnected again.
There were panels in the perimeter of the computer base, which led to passages, all of which were lit. These all connected with a circumferential passage, from which descent tubes in the wall between the museum and the outside corridor went down to a lower level below the museum, and there consolidated in a chamber, at the center of which was one more spiral descent.
At the bottom they came to a large, well-lit chamber with portals going off in eight directions, and a variety of equipment mounted in the walls between. The portals were closed, and the equipment was strange, but Droagn's Prime let him sense within it, and even though the technology was alien and the design was unfamiliar, the function was obvious. This was the control and monitoring station for long-term life-support stasis-sleep chambers.
The portals were sealed but not locked. "If we open them," Grayshard said, "what about the risk of contaminants?"
"There are eight of them," Rikard said. "We'll have to take the chance and open just one."
Beyond was a corridor, its lights dim, along which on either side were short narrow side alcoves, on either side of which were the stasis cabinets.
"No need to worry about contaminants," Droagn said. "Each of these cabinets is perfectly sealed."
Each was separately controlled as well as collectively controlled, and each contained an egg, which looked like a translucent iridescent pearl with a ruby at its center. Telltales adjacent to each cabinet, still operative after all these years, revealed that power was on inside, and the cyclopean version of needle scales showed values of four internally metered things to be in the safe zone.
This corridor was quite extensive, but that was all there was to it, just alcoves and cabinets, each with its own egg. They returned to the central chamber, closed the portal, and tried the next.
They didn't have to enter this time, they could see that it was the same as the first. And so were all the others, when they looked into them. There were no cyclopeans here, only eggs.
"This is utterly fantastic," Rikard said when they had closed the last of the portals, "but it is something far more important than what I think we want to get involved in."
"That's putting it mildly," Droagn said.
"What I propose to do," Rikard went on, "is to get the hell out of here, and let somebody else know about it. Make sure we get proper credit for the discovery, but get out from under it before they decide we're the experts and keep us working on it until retirement age."
"Besides," Grayshard said, "we're not experts, and never will be."
"Exactly. We found it, now somebody else can take over from here. These eggs have been waiting for a long time, and I think we all agree that it is important that something
be done to bring these people back. What other provisions for their cultural and intellectual survival might have been made I don't know, unless it's the contents of the library and database and the museum upstairs."
It would take cautious work on the part of experts to recover what was there. Given the situation in New Darkon above ground, they decided it would be best to look for help in one of the other nations on Trokarion, who would recognize the importance of the find and have sufficient influence over Elsepreth to take care of the find even if the war continued.
They returned to the computer center above but as they approached the elevator, which they had left open, Kelarine soldiers stepped out from behind desks and cabinets and put them all under arrest. They were quickly disarmed and relieved of all equipment, though Rikard retained his recorder, pushed over to one side so he could see with both eyes. And it was still recording.
A Kelarin with silver markings on his harness came up, the equivalent of a lieutenant in the government forces. He appeared to be the commanding officer here.
"What is the charge?" Rikard asked him.
"You are aliens in a war zone," the officer said, "and no charge is needed."
"I appreciate that, but this place is too important to be left to the vagaries of war."
"And I appreciate that," the officer said, "which is why you are under arrest." The soldiers took them down the elevator to the center of the cone.
And there they saw Karyl Toerson and her henchmen, cleaning the place out.
3
"What the hell are you doing," Rikard yelled. He started to stride toward her, but strong Kelarine hands jerked him best, worth far more for the destruction of the rest, and with no one to dispute me."
"What if those were Kelarins in there?" Rikard said, and glanced at the lieutenant beside him.
"Makes no difference." Toerson's henchman came over and spoke a few words to her. She shook her head and went over to the controls. Rikard clenched himself, there were too many weapons drawn. He watched as she worked the controls to open the first set of cabinets. It took a few moments, and Rikard turned silently to the lieutenant, whose huge amber eyes were half-lidded. A tip of tongue protruded from between his lips, and his right hand stroked the leather of his harness. It was apparent that'he was now not so sure that he was doing the right thing.
Rikard readjusted his helmet so that it was fully in place. Right eye saw the world, left eye saw the monitor, and he could control focus, depth of field, filters, audio. No one stopped him, though he felt the Kelarine lieutenant moving beside him. "Toerson," he said. "You must stop."
"No." From down the corridor they could all hear the subtle sighing and clicking as each of the egg cabinets in each of the alcoves opened. She turned back to him, exultant. She seemed not to notice that his helmet was in place. "I've waited a long time for this. These stupid people have no idea what this is all about"—she waved her hand at the soldiers—"and you can't stop me." She turned to the second set of controls.
Rikard turned again to the lieutenant. "You're being made fools of. When word of this gets out it will be court-martial for everybody. Your officers had no idea of her intentions, their orders cannot stand. This is a Federal crime."
"I have my orders," the lieutenant said, but his voice choked. The other soldiers were not happy either.
"Toerson!" Rikard yelled. What kind of retribution would his grandfather exact? "How are you going to keep your part in this secret? It won't do you any good once word gets out that you killed all these eggs."
"But I didn't. You did." She grinned, and killed another batch.
Then Droagn casually dropped a hand on the lieutenant's shoulder and projected so that Rikard could hear, "You are witness to a falsification of evidence, destruction of a sentient species, piracy of archaeological treasures, kidnapping of a Federally licensed historian. Perhaps you should let someone who knows about this kind of thing handle the situation."
"I swear," the lieutenant muttered, "there's nothing in the training manuals to cover something like this."
Grayshard went quickly to the soldier who was carrying Rikard's equipment, and without his resistance took Rikard's gun and tossed it to him. All other eyes were on Toerson, who was just finishing the opening of the second set of cabinets. Again there came the soft sounds, while from the first corridor they could detect now a faint trace of smell, of something once fresh beginning to spoil.
Rikard strapped on his holster. "You understand," he called, "this is all being recorded."
She turned to him now. "Won't do you any good after I destroy the record." She wasn't seeing the helmet, the holstered gun, the gloves he was pulling on. She was seeing only her own victory. She turned away to start on the third set of controls.
"No," Rikard said, "it wouldn't. But it might do me some good after I destroy you." He gripped his gun. The mesh in the palm of the glove connected with the contact on the gun butt, and the circuit between the gun and the ranging and acceleration devices implanted in his brain was closed. Time seemed to slow by a factor of ten, as all his senses accelerated by the same proportion. She laughed, which to his ears was a low rumbling sound. He didn't even need his ranging device at this distance. He shot her in the back.
She staggered forward, surprised, but she was armored and not badly hurt. She turned and drew a unitron with her right hand.
But Rikard was moving too fast. He called even as she turned, "Don't make me do this," and his voice was strange in his own ears. She raised her gun and started to aim it at him. He fired, the bullet hit the gun and tore off her hand.
Around them, Toerson's henchmen were raising their weapons, but the soldiers were in the line of fire, and without thinking prepared to defend themselves.
Toerson staggered and fell to her knees, turning away from Rikard, but as she turned she drew her other gun with her other hand and turned full around and fired at him.
He could imagine his grandfather's wrath. Recordings would do him no good, when the most powerful individual in the Federation, after the M'Kade, came after him for murdering his mistress. The bullet clipped the side of his neck. Maybe it was time to leave home, he thought, and put a bullet into her left eye.
Her head exploded. He rocked the gun back in his hand and broke the time-accelerating circuits. Around him there were a few shots as the soldiers shot those of Toerson's henchmen who had tried to fight. He looked at the lieutenant, then took off his recording helmet and handed it to the Kelarin.
"You might be needing this," he said. Droagn and Grayshard by this time had recovered their own weapons. The three of them hurried away, leaving the cleanup to the soldiers.
"Your grandfather will have you flayed alive," Droagn said.
"Only if he catches me first. I've always wondered what the Anarchy of Raas was like. Want to come along?"
