Engines Of God к-1

by Джек Макдевитт

  "Yes," she said. "I guess so."

  "Good. I've got some news for you: we've tracked down the horgon."

  She looked up from her plate, delighted. "Good," she said. "What have you got?"

  "Well, it's kind of interesting. You know the thing was a mythical monster. It was all claws and teeth, it had fiery eyes, ti was armored, and it stood on two feet. It had a built-in flame thrower." He paused. "And it could see three hundred sixty degrees."

  Hutch did a double take. "The horgon's eye," she whispered.

  "Yes." Delighted, Carson drew out the aspirate. "That's what we thought. The beast is associated with the child-hero Malinar, and with Urik, who was a kind of Quraquat Hercules. Malinar rescued his sister when she was threatened by the creature by diverting its attention with a plate of food. The thing pitied the child and spared him. And the girl. We know there was a cycle of Malinar myths, but the horgon story is the only one we have.

  "Urik is perhaps the best known of all Quraquat mythical figures. The important point is that he would certainly have been known to the Quraquat of the Linear C era."

  "So we get a fit," said Hutch.

  "Yes." He speared a meatball and tasted it. "Good," he said. "Anyway, Urik lived at the beginning of their civilization, in a world filled with enchantment and dark spells and divine retribution for anyone who got out of line. Only one god in this scenario, the usual male deity, with the standard short temper and no-nonsense code of conduct. Monotheistic systems, by the way, were common on Quraqua during that period. There is residual evidence of polytheistic religions, but over thousands of years the original tales must have been rewritten to reflect correct views. And there's another universal tendency."

  "What's that?"

  "Monotheistic religious systems are usually intolerant." He smiled warmly at her, and his tone softened. "This is actually quite nice," he said. "Having dinner with the loveliest woman in Arlington, Virginia."

  Appreciative, Hutch reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

  Back to business, he said: "Somebody was having trouble with a horgon. It was terrorizing the countryside and generally raising hell. So they called in Urik."

  "Okay."

  "The only way to kill it was to put a sword into its heart."

  "Seems straightforward," said Hutch.

  "It's an old story," he said. "Hermes and Argos."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Greek myth. It's a hunter's tale. You are trying to bring down the ultimate prey, a creature that's exceedingly deadly,

  and you can't hide in the bushes. And you can't take it head-on. So you have to devise a trick.

  "In the Urik story, a series of heroes, over the course of a generation or so, have tried to kill the monster. They used all sorts of imaginative schemes to get close to it. They tried to blind it with sunlight reflected from a polished shield; they tried to sneak up on it disguised as a female horgon; they tried to put it to sleep with a magic trombone."

  Hutch smiled. "A magic trombone?"

  "Well, not really. But it was a mystical instrument, a pipe of some sort. In any case, things always went wrong. The hero put the pipe down to get a good grip on his sword, the horgon woke up, and the hero got barbecued. That was the technique that Hermes used, by the way. It worked for him.

  "There was also an attempt by a female. Her name was Haska, and she brought along an army of pages to keep dousing her with water. The horgon cooked the pages, but Haska was fortunate enough to escape with her life. She was the only hero to do so, until Urik.

  "Now—and here's the point—Urik got involved in all this because his lover, Lisandra, was carried off by demons, and he was advised by a neighborhood sage that he could find her only with the assistance of a horgon's eye."

  "Bingo."

  "Yes. It would seem that whoever carved the inscription was familiar with Quraquat mythology. Incidentally, the various sources aren't consistent as to the number of eyes the creature actually had. Anyhow, Urik's boyhood friend Calipon went with him, and the two planned to distract the horgon by giving it a meal."

  "A cow?"

  "The horgon's diet was apparently limited to people."

  "Oh."

  "Or the hero's imagination was. Calipon volunteered. The strategy they settled on was that he would deliver a frontal attack. Urik was to stay back until the attack failed, and the creature was half-gorged."

  Hutch tilted her head. "Did this seem like strange behavior to the Quraquat? They weren't suicidal, were they?"

  "Keep in mind, Hutch, that you're talking as if there were only a single culture. The Quraquat, like us, had a wide range of codes of behavior. Some embraced suicide as a reasonable action. But we know almost nothing about the period that gave rise to the Urik tales. For that matter, we don't know much about the later civilization that built the Temple of the Winds. So I can't really answer your question. Calipon, incidentally, was a hero in his own right, but he achieved his immortality through his sacrifice. Eventually, a nation was named for him."

  Her eyebrows rose. "The second-banana hero."

  "Yes. And selfless. Still another universal, Hutch. You see it everywhere. Nok has several variations. So do we. Patroclus, for example."

  "Why didn't the other guy, what's his name, Urik, offer to be the main course? After all, it's his girlfriend they're after."

  "Well, it wouldn't be decent to rescue the lady by throwing her lover to the wolves. No, Calipon is in the narrative for the specific purpose of serving as the sacrifice. And doing it willingly. That's what gives meaning to the tale. It's the point of the story. Everyone has an obligation to the greater good."

  "It worked, of course, right?"

  "Yes, Hutch. It worked. Calipon died, Urik finished off the horgon, and retrieved one of its eyes. Eventually, with the help of a sacred sea bird, a diver, he also retrieved the lovely Lisandra. In celebration of the manner of her freedom, she placed the eye on a gold chain and wore it ever after at her throat. And, in representations, she is said always to have been accompanied by a diver." He propped his chin on his hand and studied her. "So the question is, where does all this leave us?"

  "That's itT she asked.

  "That's it" Carson lifted his glass. The electric candles glittered in the Chianti.

  "He rescued her, and they lived happily ever after," she said.

  "No." He shook his head. "That isn't the end. It never is. Not for epic heroes. There has to be a final validation of the myth, a recognition by a divinity, and by the community, of the significance of the heroic acts. And it has to be set up. The setup is that, while the hero is away on a quest, raiders attack his home. Lisandra dies protecting their son.

  Urik catches up with the bandits, and does them in, although he is mortally wounded in the encounter. And the gods have their opportunity to bestow divine honors. The reward for Urik—Calipon is not mentioned—is to be accepted into the company of God's warriors, a deathless squadron to be called on in time of great need. The members were memorialized by being placed in the sky."

  "That's interesting," said Hutch. "Seek us by the light of the horgon's eye. Are the Monument-Makers showing us where they live?"

  "Maybe."

  "If so, the horgon's eye is a star. Possibly the home star."

  "That's exactly what I thought," said Carson.

  Hutch disposed of some spaghetti. "Could we be looking for a constellation?"

  "I would think so."

  "Which one? Do we know the Quraquat constellations?"

  "Not from that era."

  She sighed. "We're still at sea. How do we find one that looks like a big Quraquat with a spear? And then, how do we narrow it down to an individual star?"

  "I don't think we're looking for Urik. He's not the one who's associated with the horgon's eye. It's Lisandra. She carried it."

  "Whatever," said Hutch. "Did Lisandra get a constellation, too?"

  "Urik and Lisandra were lovers. In mythical systems, lovers, if they are of s
ufficient stature, are never separated beyond the physical realm. These two would be closely associated throughout the mythic cycle, and so we should expect to find them together in the heavens."

  "It's still hopeless." Hutch threw up her hands. "Have you ever been able to make pictures out of the stars? How would we ever recognize her?"

  "Good question. If you have a suggestion, I'd be happy to hear it."

  "I have no idea."

  "Maybe it's not that hopeless. We've got a hole card: the horgon's eye is red."

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  They drink my deeds in the halls of the Ka, And bless their arms with my name. Yet I, riding through deep snow, In the dark of the moon, Do not pause.

  Where, now, is Calipon my comrade?

  The pennants ripple atop Master's outpost,

  Brave colors, gray and blue, rock and sea,

  My colors,

  Bright still in the fading light;

  I nod, but do not stop.

  And where, at last, Lisandra?

  — from Urik at Sunset (Translated by Philip Marcotti)

  16

  The Academy of Science and Technology, Washington, D.C. Friday, December 10, 2202; 1545 EST

  Professor Emeritus Eric Kofton of Georgetown was visiting the Quraquat display at the Ivers Museum when he noticed a zodiac carved in a three-legged table. It didn't take him long to learn he had made a discovery, but he had no idea of its importance. The Academy awarded him a certificate.

  The images were idealizations, giving no hint what the constellations might look like. But there were inscriptions identifying the figures. "I don't know whether it'll help us," said Carson, unrolling a poster reproduction. "The table is from the same part of the world as the Casumel culture. Unfortunately, it's only a few hundred years old. So maybe it's the same zodiac, and maybe it isn't. But look at this." He pointed at a snouted Quraquat with spear, shield, and war helmet. "It's called the Warrior."

  "Urik, do you think?"

  Carson looked hopeful. "We need to stay objective. But he comes complete with a female."

  "The female's a separate constellation? Or part of the same one?"

  "Separate. Its name doesn't have an English equivalent, but it would translate to the 'Beautiful Woman Virgin-Mother. »

  Hutch grinned. "That's Lisandra. I'd recognize her anywhere."

  He looked down at a notebook. "The constellations are listed by occupation. Or function. There's a woodsman. A fisherman with a net. A soronghilia plant."

  "A what?"

  "The Tree of Life. Symbol of immortality. There's an axe. Even a strider."

  "We could have used a few pictures of the constellations."

  "They would help." They were in Carson's office on the fifth floor. It was filled with memorabilia from both his military and archeological careers. She counted three models of combat aircraft, and the Temple shuttle. Awards and photos covered the walls. A young Carson in Air Force gray posed beside a black Labrador retriever. An older version stood beside a striking brunette.

  "Who is she?" Hutch asked.

  "Just a friend." His face clouded briefly. "Used to be."

  Fearing she had intruded, Hutch retreated to the subject at hand. "What are the other.constellations?"

  "A bucket, a shield, a couple of animals—"

  "No horgon's eye?"

  "No. And something we think was a scales."

  "It's interesting. But it's hard to see that we've made any progress."

  In answer, he handed her a simmy helmet. She put it on, and a starfield blazed into existence. "View from Oz," he said. "Circa 9000 B.C." The stars lay across half a sky, the campfires of a distant army. Beyond lay the black heart of the Void. Two crosshairs appeared left and right. "They represent the two towers, Hutch. You're standing directly in the center of the city. Each crosshair is targeted on a straight line from your position to the corresponding round tower, and angled up parallel to the rooftop."

  The sky rotated, and one of the crosshairs locked on a red star. "That's from the tower with the inscription," Carson said. "The star is Orchinda. The Orchid. It's a red giant, only about nine light years from Quraqua. More violet than red, not that it matters."

  If they had guessed right, when the horgon's eye appeared in one sight, the target sun would appear in the other. The target—she glanced at the other crosshair—was dim.

  "I don't recall its numerical designation. We've never been there. It's a class G. Sixty light-years from Quraqua, a hundred fifteen from here."

  "Is that /7?" Hutch was prepared to respond with an appropriate outburst, but Carson was too reserved. It wasn't going to be this easy.

  "Maybe," he said. "There are seventeen red stars that appear in one or the other of the crosshairs. Sixteen of those give us a star in, or very near, the opposite sight. The problem is that we have to assume the towers have slipped over the millennia, been affected by quakes, meteor strikes, whatever. So we're looking at everything within four degrees of the target area."

  "How did you arrive at that figure?"

  "By throwing darts."

  "How many suspect stars did we wind up with?"

  "About eighty."

  She sighed.

  "Hutch, we need to go back and do a complete survey at Oz. Establish the extent to which there's been ground movement."

  "How long would that take?"

  "Years. Right now, nobody at the Academy wants to hear anything about either Quraqua or Oz. And I don't think there'd be much enthusiasm for sending out eighty expeditions either. Especially when we have no idea whether our margin for error is too conservative. Which it probably is." He looked discouraged. "At least, we've had some movement."

  Hutch was looking at the black Lab in the photo.

  "Her name was Spike," he said.

  "Odd name for a female."

  "My nephew named her." He followed her gaze to the picture. "Something wrong?"

  "Animals," she said.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "You said there were animals. How about a divert"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "A diver. The sea bird that was connected with Lisandra."

  "Damn. I never thought of that."

  The sky moved again. "It had a long beak," she said.

  "You think that'll help?"

  "It's the diver's primary characteristic. I looked it up. Like Hercules' club, or the dipper's handle. It would be a row of stars. Three or more. Maybe even prominent, if we're lucky."

  "That's optimistic. More like two stars, I'd think. Maybe one. You know how constellations are."

  "No," she said. "Two won't work. You can draw a straight line between any two stars in the sky. If we don't have three, we're wasting our time."

  "Okay," he said. "What's to lose? The horgon's eye, the diver, and the virgin should all be in the same neighborhood. We'll line up every red star that gets close to either crosshair, and look for the beak."

  This was not the sort of search that was likely to produce a sudden, blinding result. They worked through the afternoon, recording those stars which might possibly have served as the all-seeing eye: Olphinax, forty light-years farther along the shore of the Void; Tulikar, with its dense companion; Kampatta Prime, centerpiece of the Quraquat Pleiades. They added Anapaka to the list, and Hasan and Alpha Qui and three stars whose only designations were their catalog numbers. Each was accompanied by a nearby line of stars that might, by imaginative observers, be classified as a beak. "How do we know," asked Carson, "that it isn't curved?"

  "Beg pardon?" said Hutch.

  "The beak. How do we know it's supposed to be straight? It could look like a pelican."

  "No," said Hutch. "I saw a picture of one. It's straight."

  It was all too inexact. Their margin for error resulted sometimes in multiple hits: a single horgon's eye candidate produced two, three, and in one case six, targets in the other crosshairs.

  The search for the beak proved fruitless. They discovered a basic universal truth
: Almost anywhere one looks in the sky, stars line up in threes and fours. Eventually, they cataloged more than fifty candidates and began the process of elimination. All stars that were not class G or M, or that were not at least three billion years old, were excluded. ("A bit arbitrary there," said Carson. "But Rome wasn't built in a day.") Multiple star systems, which are probably too unstable to permit life to develop, were also disregarded. Stars which had already been surveyed were removed.

  By the end of the afternoon, the number of candidates was down to thirteen.

  "We've done pretty well," she said.

  "We've done a lot of guesswork. I liked the old days when we could just order up a survey. This isn't nearly good enough. We have to pin it down, isolate it. And then we have to persuade Ed Horner."

  Hutch felt desperate.

  "Let's quit," Carson said. "Day's over."

  It turned into a gloomy, rainswept evening. She wondered whether Carson had already given up, whether he was hoping she would see the futility of continuing, of risking their careers for a cause that most of the Academy people considered ludicrous. And that, it suddenly struck her, was the point. From his perspective, she had nothing to lose. She was a pilot, with no professional career at risk. Whatever happened, no one would laugh at her. It was Carson who was taking the risk, his colleagues who smiled tolerantly, his judgment at issue.

  They went to dinner again, in Georgetown. But it was a mistake because they reinforced one another's discouragement. Afterward, Hutch was glad to get home. She climbed into a simmy and sat with it until she fell asleep.

  Somewhere around two, she jerked fully awake. There was another test they could try. The obvious one.

  Carson would have to go to the commissioner, and they'd have to pull some strings. But it could be made to work.

  The Tindle Array, Farside, Luna. Monday, January 24. 2203; 1130 GMT.

  Alexander Coldfield walked into his office, peered through his tinted windows across the vast expanse of Mare Musco-viense, and slid into his seat. Off to his left, a coffee machine perked noisily. The thick columns and spidery dishes of the Tindle Array marched across the lunar plain.