The Engines of God

by Jack McDevitt

  “You have people working now, right?”

  “Yes,” Janet said. “We’ve been operating round the clock since we were ordered off. We used to run a fairly leisurely show. No more.”

  “What specifically are you looking for?”

  “Casumel Linear C,” Janet replied. “We want to read the inscription.” Her liquid eyes watched Hutch. “There’s a military post buried beneath the Lower Temple. The race that operated the post spoke Linear C.”

  “Frank told us about that. You’re hoping to find a Rosetta stone.”

  Several passageways opened off the community room. They exited through one into a tube. The walls were transparent, and the visual effect, enhanced by strategically placed outside lighting, and luminous fish, was striking. Seapoint was a lovely place, although it had a claustrophobic aspect.

  “A Rosetta stone is probably too much to ask for,” Janet said. “Some more samples might be enough.”

  “How much success are you having?”

  “Some. We’ve found a couple of inscriptions. What we really need to do is penetrate the lower sections. But there are engineering problems. We have to cut under the Upper Temple. It’s shaky, and it wouldn’t take much to bring everything down. So it’s slow going. Moreover, the sea bottom is filled with silt. The tides throw it back into the excavations as quickly as we can remove it.” She looked tired. “The answers are here, Hutch. But we won’t have the time to get at them.”

  They crossed into a dome. Janet opened a door, turned on the lights, and revealed a pleasant, and reasonably spacious, apartment. “VIP quarters,” she said. “Breakfast is at seven. If you want to sleep late, that’s fine. The duty officer’s available on the link.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s a dispenser in the community room if you get hungry. Is there anything you need?”

  “I think I’m fine.”

  “Okay. My first name activates my private channel. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.” She hesitated in the doorway. “We’re glad to have you aboard, Hutch. This place has become something of a strain. I think we need some new people.” She smiled. “Good night.”

  Hutch closed the door behind her, and tossed her bag onto a divan. Curtains covered one wall. She opened them and looked into the living sea. Small fish, startled by the sudden movement, darted away. A pseudo-turtle swam slowly past; and a diaphanous creature with large disc eyes, drawn by the light, poked at the plastene. “Hello,” she said, knocking at the barrier. There was a control for outside illumination. She reduced the intensity, but did not turn it off.

  She unpacked and showered and took a book to bed, but was too tired to read.

  There were a host of sounds at Seapoint. In the dark, the walls creaked and groaned, things bumped against the hull, electrical systems came on and went off throughout the night. It occurred to Hutch, as she drifted off, that this entire complex would shortly become part of the wreckage at the Temple of the Winds.

  She woke shortly after six, feeling uneasy. The windows and the sea were illuminated by wide shafts of sunlight.

  Time to get to work. She dressed rapidly, as if she were running behind schedule, and went to the community room. Despite Janet’s assurances, it was empty. She ate a leisurely breakfast and, when she’d finished, opened a channel to the duty officer. Janet was still on duty. “Don’t you ever sleep?” Hutch asked.

  “Good morning, Hutch. I get plenty of sleep; I just don’t get to my room much. How was your night?”

  “Fine. Real good. What do you have for me?”

  “Nothing for the moment. You are going to be busy, because we have a lot of artifacts to move up, as well as people. Frank will be helping with the Temple shuttle, by the way. But we haven’t quite got things organized yet. I’d say your morning’s free. We’ll call you when we need you.”

  It would be nice to see the Knothic Towers in the sunlight.

  “Okay,” she said. She thought about asking whether the sub was available, but decided against any action that would brand her early on as a nuisance. Instead, she retrieved her harness, and found an exit pool. She checked her air supply. It was ample. She looped her commlink around her throat, and activated the field. Then she slipped into the water, opened the outer doors, and swam out of the dome.

  Thirty minutes later, she surfaced a half-kilometer from the floatpier. It was a glorious morning. The sun blazed over silver peaks, broad white beaches, and blue sea. Long breakers rumbled against black rocks. Creatures that bore a close resemblance to pelicans patrolled the surface, occasionally dipping into the water for a squirming meal.

  And the Towers: they rose out of the boiling sea in magnificent defiance. The last stronghold. They were as black by day as they had been by night.

  Hutch was a good swimmer, and she set off toward the floatpier with a steady stroke. The tide was running against her, but not so swiftly that she couldn’t make headway. She settled into her rhythm. The pelicans wheeled and flapped. Pity it was so cold; she’d have liked to dispense with the energy field. A swim during which you stayed perfectly dry lacked a little something.

  Minutes later, she climbed out onto the planks with a sense of exhilaration, and took a deep breath from her bottled air.

  The field clung to her, soft and warm.

  The sea was calm. She sat down on the pier.

  The lower sections of the Towers were polished by the constant wave action. Like the Temple, they too had been on dry land in the recent past, sacred markers at a crossroads on highways connecting empires. A place for travelers to stop and contemplate the majesty and kindness of the gods. Atop the nearest, she saw movement. Something with white feathers stretched and fluttered.

  Hutch had consulted maps before coming out, and knew where to look for the old imperial road, which was now only a steep defile northbound through the mountains that lined the shore.

  The strategic value of the intersection had been guarded by a fort, as well as by the gods. By a succession of forts, actually, over the millennia. The forts now lay beneath the Temple. And the Temple lay beneath the sea.

  She wondered what might have prompted a meeting between the relatively dormant Quraquat and the star travelers?

  On the beach, something caught her eye. Movement. Something like a man.

  It walked upright toward the water’s edge. Two more followed. They were hard to see clearly against the sand, and only when they passed in front of a cluster of rocks could she make out their white fur and sloped, horned heads. Well down the beach, another of the creatures stooped over a tidal pool.

  She couldn’t see their eyes, but they had large floppy ears, and the one by the tidal pool carried a stick. Others were descending from the pass which had once been the northern road. Several were half-grown.

  They fanned out along the beach, the adults keeping the young firmly in tow. Three or four took up stations well apart, and looked out to sea. Then, as if someone had given a signal, the cubs charged across the sand, whooping and cackling and pursuing each other. Some stopped to poke at objects lying on the beach; others bolted into the waves.

  Behind her, Alpha rose on the tide, and the Temple shuttle nosed gently into the pier.

  The creatures on the beach seemed to be having a pretty good time. Hutch became gradually aware of a thin piping sound, a high-pitched trill almost lost in the brisk wind and the roar of the morning. It was birdlike, and she looked overhead for its source but saw only bright sky and a few snowflakes.

  One of the animals stood quietly by the water’s edge. It seemed to be looking directly at her. Hutch stared back. When finally she grew uncomfortable under its gaze, she drew her knees up tight. It raised both forelimbs in what was unmistakably a greeting.

  The warmth of the gesture startled her, as if she’d met an acquaintance in a distant place. She waved back.

  It turned away, scooped a wriggling sea creature out of the surf, dunked it in a wave, and dropped it into its wide mouth. It looked
again toward Hutch, with evident satisfaction, and threw several handfuls of water into the air.

  She splashed a little water on herself. But I draw the line at the quick lunch.

  A screech shattered the general tranquility. It echoed off the cliffs. The creatures froze. Then a general rush began. Inland, toward the pass. Several herded cubs before them. One adult went down. Hutch couldn’t see what was happening to it; but it was struggling in shallow water, yelping pitiably, its limbs jerking and twitching.

  Hutch raised a hand to block off the sun’s glare. And sensed a presence near her left shoulder.

  An eye.

  Green and expressionless. It was mounted on a stalk.

  Her heart froze. She could not breathe and she could not move. She wanted to throw herself into the sea, hide from this thing that had risen beside her.

  The eye watched her. It was the color of the sea. A section was missing out of the iris, rather like a piece out of a pie. As Hutch tried to get her emotions under control, the piece widened, and the iris narrowed. Slowly, a nictitating membrane closed over it, then opened again.

  A second stalk-mounted eye appeared beside the first, somewhat higher. And another beyond those. The stalks moved like long grass in an uncertain breeze.

  During those long, dazed moments, she caught only aspects of the thing that had approached her. Four eyes. A broad flat insect head, to which the eyes were attached. A hairy thorax. Segments. The creature was gray-green and chitinous. Hutch saw mandibles and tentacles and jaws.

  The thing stood on the water, stood upright on a set of stick legs. The shuttles and the pier rose and fell in the light chop, but the creature remained motionless. It seemed almost disconnected from the physical world.

  Hutch fought down her panic. And in a voice surprisingly level, she spoke into her throat mike: “This is Hutchins. Anybody there?”

  “Hutch, what’s wrong?” It was Janet.

  “Janet,” she said, softly, as if the creature might hear through the Flickinger field, “I’m looking at a big bug.”

  “How big?”

  “Big. Three meters.” Pause for breath. “Mantis. Squid. Don’t know—”

  “Are you outside?” Janet’s tone turned vaguely accusing.

  “Yes.” Whispered.

  “Where outside?” There was a hint of anger in the voice before it regained its professional calm.

  “The floatpier.”

  “Okay. It’s not dangerous. But don’t move. Okay? Not a muscle. I’m on my way.”

  “You?”

  “You want to hang on while I look around for help?”

  Thick fluid leaked out of the bug’s mouth.

  “No,” she said.

  The goddam thing sure looked dangerous.

  Hutch was acutely aware of the piercing screams from the beach. She had an iron grip on the guardrail, and could not have let go under any conceivable circumstance. Limbs flexed; three of the eyes swiveled away, came back.

  The Flickinger field wouldn’t be much help here, no more likely to protect her against the razor thrust of those jaws than an old pressure suit would. “You may want to hurry,” she said into the mike, detesting the whimper in her voice.

  “It’s only a strider. I’ll be there in a minute. You’re doing fine.”

  If it wasn’t dangerous, why did she have to keep still?

  With her eyes, Hutch measured the distance to the Alpha cockpit. About fifteen meters. She could open the hatch from here by voice control. And she thought she could sprint the distance and get into the spacecraft before the thing could react. But the hatch would need about fifteen seconds to close. Would the beast give her that kind of time?

  The thing touched some deep primal nerve. She would have been frightened of it had it been only a few centimeters tall. “Alpha, open cockpit.”

  She heard the pop of the hatch.

  Three of the eyes turned toward the sound.

  “Hutch.” Janet again. Her voice flat. “Don’t do anything. Wait for me. Just stay put and don’t move. Okay?”

  The creature watched the shuttle.

  The shrieks from the beach had stopped. She wasn’t sure when, but she didn’t dare look away to see what was happening. She was breathing again. Barely. She braced one foot so she could get up.

  She literally saw a quickening of interest in the eyes.

  The jaws twitched. A tentacle unrolled.

  She wanted to look away. But she could not disengage.

  Janet, where are you? In her mind, she traced the steps. The duty officer had probably been at her station, which was less than a minute from the sub bay. Stop to pick up a pulser. Where did they keep the pulsers? The voyage last night from the pier to Seapoint had taken between eight and ten minutes. But Carson had been in no hurry. Surely the sub could make the trip in five or less. Say seven minutes altogether.

  The wind blew, and one of the pelicans flew past.

  How many pictures do you get with four eyes capable of looking in different directions? What is it seeing?

  Why had she come away without a weapon? She knew the drill. But she had never been attacked, anywhere. Dumb.

  One of the eyes rose. Gazed over her shoulder at something behind her.

  “Right with you.” Janet’s voice again. “We’re in good shape.” She heard the whine of the sub, and the hiss of an air exchanger.

  The creature was inside the U, separated from the open sea by the dock. It would be difficult to bring the sub to bear against it directly. But that shouldn’t matter. Hutch waited for the crackle of a pulser.

  Instead the sub banged into the pier. The stalk-eyes turned away from Hutch. “Okay.” Janet’s tone changed, acquired the weight of command. “Get away from it. Into the shuttle. Move.”

  Hutch broke and ran. In the same moment, she saw Janet leap from the cockpit of the sub, swinging a wrench. The creature turned to face her. Tentacles whipped, jaws opened, and the eyes drew back. Janet, lovely, blond, drawing-room Janet, stepped inside the writhing tangle and brought the wrench down squarely on the thing’s head. Green syrup exploded from the skull, and it staggered. They went down together and fell into the water. The struggling mass slipped beneath the surface.

  Hutch gasped and raced back to help. The water thrashed. They came up. Janet grabbed the pier, and nailed it again across one mandible. The thing collapsed into a pile of broken sticks, and drifted away on the current.

  Hutch went down on her knees and held Janet while she caught her breath. When she did, she demanded whether Hutch was okay.

  Hutch was humiliated. “Why didn’t you bring a weapon?” she demanded.

  “I did. Brought the first one I could find.”

  Now it was Hutch’s turn to be angry. “Don’t you people have any pulsers?”

  Janet grinned. She was bruised and still breathing hard. Her hair hung down in her face and she was bleeding from a couple of cuts. But to Hutch she looked damned good. “Somewhere. But I thought you’d want me out here quick.”

  Hutch tried to check her for damage, but Janet insisted she was okay. The cuts looked minor.

  “Thanks,” said Hutch.

  Janet put an arm around her shoulder. Their energy fields flashed. “You get one on the house,” she said. “But don’t do it again. Okay?”

  “Was it really dangerous?” asked Hutch. “I mean, all it did was stand there.”

  The battle ashore had also ended. Several of the furry creatures watched the sea from a rocky shelf well out of harm’s way. “These things snack on the beach monkeys,” she said, indicating the creatures. “I guess this one didn’t quite know what to make of you.”

  Kosmik Ground Control South. Tuesday; 0900 Temple Time.

  Living worlds were exceedingly rare. The reason seemed to be that Jovian planets were also quite rare. In the solar system, Jupiter’s comet-deflecting capabilities had reduced the number of major terrestrial impacts to a quarter percent of what could otherwise have been expected. And made life
possible on Earth.

  Quraqua, with its functioning ecosystem, its near-terrestrial gravity, its abundance of water, its lack of an owner, was a godsend to the harried human race. It was inevitable that the first full-scale terraforming effort would take place here. This was the Second Chance, an opportunity to apply lessons learned painfully on Earth. It would be home to a new race of humans.

  Idealists had created an abundance of plans to ensure that the children of Quraqua would treat this world, and each other, with respect. There would be no nationalism exported to the stars, no industrial exploitation. Poverty and ignorance would not be permitted to take root. The various races and faiths would live in harmony, and the ideologies that had fostered divisiveness in the bad old days would find rocky soil.

  Ian Helm, like a multitude of others, would believe it when he saw it.

  Quraqua might work, but it would be on its own terms. It would never be the Utopia its proponents promised. He knew that. The fact that so many of the people making the Project’s decisions apparently did not led him to question either their competence or their integrity.

  Project Hope had not reached the brink of this first phase of its existence easily. Environmentalists had decried the diversion of funds from desperately needed efforts at home; the People of Christ had denounced any notions of moving off-world as not in accord with God’s plan and therefore sacrilegious; nationalist and racial activists demanded exclusive rights to the new world. Moralists railed against the annihilation of entire species that would inevitably result from terraforming. There were serious doubts that the political will, or the money, would be available over the long term to ensure even a chance of success.

  Still, Helm was prepared to concede that he had no better idea. Deforestation, pollution, urbanization, had all progressed so far now that various points of no return had been passed. There was reason to believe that if every human being disappeared tomorrow, the Earth would still require millennia to return to what it had been.