John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel

by John Maddox Roberts

  "Cross now!" K'Stin commanded. Nervously, the others obeyed, holding weapons high, while the Vivers remained on the bank, scanning the water, beam rifles ready. As soon as the others were across, B'Shant crossed, then K'Stin as B'Shant watched from the opposite bank. Halfway across, K'Stin was yanked abruptly from view. A few seconds later he reappeared, wrapped in the coils of some long serpent, one that seemed to be equipped with tentacles. K'Stin located the thing's head and seized it, yanking it upward over his own. As soon as the ugly head was clear of K'Stin's body, B'Shant put a needlebeam neatly through its eye. Immediately, the beast dropped loose and K'Stin waded ashore without further ado.

  "Homer, you didn't mention these creatures before. Were they here on your last visit, along with the fragrances and flowers?"

  "Possibly so, Ham, but the inhabitants may no longer be keeping them in check. Or, perhaps, this is an area kept deliberately wild. In any case, none of these creatures is dangerous to me, so they may have made no impression. It was long ago and my memory falters at such a span."

  "If it was millennia ago, your memory may be excused for slipping a little," Torwald noted.

  The Vivers resumed their mechanical trail-clearing and the rest followed, sweating and puffing. None of them had had so much planetside activity in months; everyone was out of shape. Another hour passed and they were within sight of the buildings, which the Vivers had spotted earlier. First, the party could make out the tops of the structures through gaps between the trees, then lower levels appeared. Suddenly, they were free of the trees and gawking with wonder. Before them stood a wall built of gigantic stone blocks, twenty meters high and stretching away on either hand as far as the eye could discern. From behind the wall they could see the mammoth buildings, tall towers and massive, stepped, pyramidal structures, all wildly and grotesquely decorated.

  "Primitive-looking, eh, Kelly?"

  "That's primitive? What do you think, Torwald? It looks pretty advanced to me."

  "All it takes is wealth and manpower to build like that, kid. Building on this scale has been done by people not yet out of the Stone Age. Let's save our judgment for later, though. How're we going to get over that wall?"

  "We will climb to the top," said K'Stin. "Then we will lower ropes for you." Suiting actions to words, the Vivers began climbing straight up the wall, their claws finding holds in crevices that were barely visible to those on the ground. Homer simply walked up the wall as easily as if it had been a horizontal surface. From the top, the Vivers dropped their ropes.

  "Don't try to climb, we will pull you up," said K'Stin. Ham and Torwald were first to grasp the ropes at the knotted handholds. Seemingly without effort, the Vivers hauled the two heavy men to the top. The first thing the two realized when they had reached the top was that the "wall" was actually a platform, apparently of solid masonry. The buildings they had seen were constructed atop this cyclopean terrace.

  The stone of the terrace was worn smooth from the passage of centuries, greenish-gray streaked with yellow. The buildings were a riot of noisy color, as garish as the jungle had been, faced with slabs of alabaster, speckled porphyries, colorful marbles in all hues. Every surface was carved with figures, interlaced designs, or abstract patterns. All the edifices were heavily garlanded by jungle growth. Over the centuries, seeds blown by winds or carried by flying creatures had found nooks and crevices where soil had collected, and there they took root. Their roots had widened the cracks, their rotting remains had contributed more humus, and larger plants had replaced them, until, now, full-sized trees were growing on many of the structures, their huge, gnarled roots separating giant blocks as if they had been children's toys.

  "Sergei," Ham asked when the entire party stood atop the platform, "what do you make of this stone?"

  "The platform's made of a fairly soft limestone," the geologist said. "It wouldn't be difficult to cut and polish. I'll have to get a closer look at the colored stuff facing the structures."

  "Let's try that one, then." Ham pointed to the tallest of the pyramidal edifices, the upper part of which was fairly free of growth. "From that high up we might get some idea where Lafayette's been taken." They set out for the building at a weary but eager pace, their curiosity giving them new energy. At the base, they craned their necks upward. Looming above them were vast stone faces, snarling, four-eyecf devil-masks, all of the same type but no two exactly alike, thirty meters from the lowest wattle below their beaky snouts to the top of the finlike crest surmounting their double-domed skulls.

  "Now, what might those be, Finn? Gods? Demons? Guardian Spirits? Dead Politicians?"

  "Useless to speculate without further data. Anybody see a door?"

  They searched around the base and found that the ugly masks continued at intervals of six meters. Below a truly horrifying face, its four eyes made of a translucent green stone, they found a low arched doorway.

  "That's a true keystone arch," Nancy observed. "From the style of these structures I'd have expected corbels."

  "Whoever these people were," Sergei said, "they had access to offworld materials. The eyes on that mask are made of transparent jadeoid, and that stuff forms only on planets with a high percentage of ammonia in the atmosphere. I can see a few other decorative stones that couldn't have originated on this planet. Of course, the people who built this might have been cannibalizing materials from earlier, spacefaring cultures."

  They filed through the arch, the Vivers having to duck low to clear the keystone. Inside, the sudden switch from bright sunlight to interior dimness left the standard humans blinded for a few seconds. They switched on their torches and found that they were in a large square room, its walls covered with what appeared to be writing. They were also inlaid with gold.

  "Maybe we should take back a few samples," suggested Torwald. "Not much, just a few dozen kilos apiece. What do you think, Finn? It seems a shame to just let the jungle take over."

  "Shame on you, Tor, suggesting such vandalism. Besides, there could be proprietors hereabouts who might object."

  "Let's go on," Ham urged. "Plenty of time later to gather souvenirs, after we figure out what we've found." They proceeded through the lower floor, finding more rooms, mostly small, all decorated with gold-inlaid inscriptions. Eventually, they came upon a ramp leading upward. Their explorations continued as they ascended the pyramid, and they encountered more script-carved rooms, the rooms getting larger as they climbed higher. The party found hallways leading to terraces that overlooked the jungle, but nothing to indicate what the building was. There was no sculpture, no sarcophagus, nothing that appeared to be a throne-room.

  "Maybe it's the national archives," suggested Torwald. "All this writing could just be rules and regs."

  "Or it could be a temple," Nancy offered. "Those walls could be covered with prayers."

  "No figures of gods, though," objected Kelly, "unless that's what those masks outside are."

  "You won't find god-sculptures in synagogues or mosques, Kelly," said Torwald. "Taboos against picturing a diety are fairly common." They were approaching the last ramp. This one led to a spacious, airy room with large doorways opening onto the top of the pyramid. For the first time since entering the structure, there was no writing on the walls. Instead, the room was perfectly featureless except for a cylindrical dais of stone about a meter high in its center. Capping the dais was a disk of what appeared to be solid gold at least fifteen centimeters thick. The disk was engraved with designs of bewildering complexity. They studied this prodigy for a long time before anyone spoke.

  "It looks like a star chart to me," Finn said. "I think that the figures made with straight lines are numbers. It's somewhat stylized, and it's terribly complex, but then, you can see about a thousand times more stars here than you can see from Earth."

  "You think they had an astronomical bias?" Ham asked.

  "If they built this pyramid qnd inlaid it with gold for the purpose of setting this disk here, then they surely had some interest in the
subject. Perhaps Sphere should inspect this thing."

  "I'll relay that suggestion to the skipper," said Ham. "Meanwhile, let's step outside and take a look around while we still have light." The view from the top of the pyramid was breathtaking. The platform upon which the pyramid rested was much larger than they had believed, covering at least ten acres and studded with more of the primitive-sophisticated architecture. Here and there, more of the platforms poked up through the jungle.

  "I see smoke coming from one of those complexes," said Kelley, pointing to a smaller platform about three kilometers away.

  "There's another," said Michelle, indicating a more distant complex. From both, thin columns of gray smoke were rising into the breezeless air. The sun was beginning to lower, turning a lurid red in the process. The color change turned the jungle and the ruins, exotic to begin with, into as bizarre a sight as any they had ever seen. Ham took out his transmitter and made a brief report of their findings.

  "Are you coming back, Ham?"

  "It's too late to make it back by nightfall, Gertie. Also, I'd like to get a look at those settlements to see if whoever's making the- smoke snatched Lafayette. We'll split up into two parties in the morning and check them out."

  "Achmed thinks he can have the AC back in operation by late tomorrow," the skipper informed them. "Send me your position when you're together again and I'll send it out to pick you up. Now, get some rest." Her transmission clicked off.

  "As if we needed orders for that," muttered Ham. "All right, people, get your sleeping gear and your rations out. We all stand watch tonight; Sergei, you take first watch with me, Tor, you take second with Kelly, Michelle third, and Finn and Nancy get fourth. You Vivers split it up as you like, I'm not familiar with your sleep patterns. Homer, do you sleep at all?"

  "Not after the nesting stage. I think I will go explore the other buildings here. I see quite well in this light."

  "We are not as slothful as you soft persons," said K'Stin. "I shall take the first half of the night, and

  B'Shant shall take the second. We shall watch from the top of this temple or observatory or whatever it is. The roof is too steep for you to stand on, so I suggest that your sentries stay on the terrace. Actually, with such as we standing guard, your feeble senses will be superfluous, anyhow."

  "We'll all stand guard, just the same," said Ham.

  The party inflated their sleeping-cocoons, then turned their attention to supper. Kelly took a packet of freezedrys from his pack, giving it a squeeze to break the water bladder inside and let the food soak while the packet heated the contents. When ready, the packet popped open and he fished out the enclosed spoon. Numbly, without appetite, he began to eat. The others were doing the same. Too exhausted to speak, they were eating as quickly as possible and rolling into their cocoons, except for Ham and Sergei, who slung their rifles and marched out, followed by K'Stin.

  It seemed a mercilessly short time before Kelly was shaken awake. It took several seconds for him to focus on the face above him and recognize it as Torwald's, a few seconds more to remember where he was.

  "Time to be up and about," Torwald said cheerfully. Groggily, Kelly rolled out of his cocoon and lurched to his feet- Torwald thrust a rifle into his hands and herded him outside. Kelly began to waken quickly when he stepped onto the terrace. Even with a filtering atmosphere, the night sky was gorgeous beyond belief, the crowded stars shedding a light of about the same intensity as that of a heavily overcast day on Earth. Through the atmospheric filter, the nebulae flickered and twinkled, and some of the variable stars flashed and dimmed like warning lights.

  Below, the jungle was making a tremendous racket —squeaks, roars, barks, tweets, rattles, squawks, and many other sounds that defied description. It seemed as if the night life of the jungle relied on sound instead of color to make itself known.

  Torwald adjusted Kelly's rifle sling, then added, "It hangs horizontally. The strap goes over your right shoulder and the rifle hangs under your right arm, at about elbow level. You only sling it behind you when you're marching." He looked up. "How's the night, K'Stin?"

  "Very dull," the Viver replied. "Sometimes I can see the light of fires from the direction where we saw smoke earlier, but nothing else of importance. Some big flying predators flew by, but not close enough to be bothersome." The big Viver was standing easily on the steep-pitched roof cradling his heavy forcebeam, his eyes darting restlessly here and there independent of one another.

  Kelly began pacing the terrace, idly counting his circuits, until he realized that it was lulling him into a trancelike sleep. He turned his attention instead to his surroundings. In the distance, he could make out a faint fireglow at one of the other platforms. His eyes traveled beyond, then suddenly jerked back. He had seen something move. He looked carefully, then saw it again. Something reflected the fireglow and it was hovering about fifty meters above the platform. For a moment, lights flashed around the thing, then it settled from view.

  "Torwald, K'Stin! Look over there!" The boy pointed to where he had seen the phenomenon.

  "What do you see?" Torwald asked. Kelly described what he thought he had seen.

  "Might have been one of those flying predators K'Stin was talking about." Torwald shrugged.

  "What about the lights?" Kelly's anger was mounting.

  "Reflections from the fires, or maybe they signal like a lightning bug."

  "Or maybe the little one doesn't see so good." K'Stin snorted. "Sentry duty should be left to those with senses sharp enough for it."

  "No, I think the kid saw something. Anyhow, as long as the thing doesn't get close, there's no sense worrying about it until morning."

  For the rest of his watch, Kelly kept turning his eyes toward that far spectral stone platform, but he saw no more of the hoverer. He knew that he had seen something, though, and that it hadn't been an animal. He was sure that it had been a mechanical device, and that didn't help his peace of mind at all.

  They rose early, wanting to reach the other ruins before the worst heat of the day hit. They were not much refreshed by the night spent in the stifling, bug-ridden humidity. Something had bitten Sergei, swelling one side of his face painfully, and Michelle had injected him with anti-allergens. It was decided that, to save time, they should split into two teams.

  "Tor," said Ham, "you're in charge of the B team. Take Finn, Kelly, Nancy, and B'Shant."

  "We do not separate!" said K'Stin, "Never!" Both Vivers began fingering their weapons truculently and looking very deadly.

  "Well, then, Tor," said Ham, "it looks like you just have to get along without a Viver. Why don't you take Homer instead?"

  "Fine with me. Homer's a better conversationalist, anyway." He looked over his team for a moment, then signaled for them to follow him out onto the terrace. "Now we'll get a chance to see if you really spotted anything last night, Kelly." Torwald turned and recorded a bearing on the platform with a directional indicator.

  They descended the pyramid and crossed the platform in the direction of their goal. A sizable section of the masonry had fallen away at that point, leaving a precipitous but negotiable route to the ground. Without enthusiasm, they headed into the jungle once more. There were more open trails than they had found the day before, but dense areas were frequent, and they had to resort to the machetes. Without the Vivers to wield the big jungle knives, the work was slow and exhausting. First, Tor and Finn chopped away, then Nancy and Kelly took their places. Torwald demonstrated how to use the tools with greatest efficiency, but it was excruciatingly hard toil. At first, all did half-hour stints with the knives. Then they worked for twenty-minute spells. Finally, none of them could work much more than ten minutes at a time.

  Just after midmorning, Torwald called a halt in a small clearing. "We'll break here for an hour. We don't have far to go now, and there's no sense killing ourselves." They flopped to the ground of the small clearing, reaching for their water packets. They drank slowly, swallowing salt tablets, replacing the mo
isture and salt they had lost through excessive perspiration.

  "A fine lot of intrepid explorers we look," Finn commented while eying his bedraggled companions. "Did Columbus have such a crew? Or Amundsen? Was stout Cortez followed by such a ragtag lot? If we ever get back, who'll believe that we've been to the places we've been to, or seen the sights we've seen? There's not a single clean-cut, government-issue explorer among us."

  "They'll have to believe us," Torwald replied. "We're making a visual record. Besides, according to my reading, explorers tend to be a pretty scrubby lot as a rule; misfits who're always looking for a place to fit in."

  "That's us, all right," Nancy said ruefully.

  Homer, who had been resting with his multitude of legs folded beneath him, suddenly shot to his full height of about two-thirds of a meter. Several of his antennae were pointing tov/ard their destination and quivering. "I hear sounds of activity, not animal but organized."

  "Well, we were pretty sure there were intelligent inhabitants there," said Torwald. "We did see smoke and lights from their fires—and somebody has Lafayette."

  "These sounds carry tones of discord," said Homer.

  "A battle?" Kelly volunteered, "Maybe two villages are fighting it out."

  "I think not. There is sorrow, and anguish, and something I cannot place."

  "Well, let's go take a closer look," Tor suggested. "Everybody on your feet and move out, but slowly and very quietly."

  They picked up their packs and their weapons. Back in the jungle, they now tried to edge around tangled spots instead of hacking through them. Soon, they came to cleared land, like paddy fields sprouting tall brown stalks. The exploring party skirted the fields, keeping to the trees. They were almost within sight of the platform city when they saw the first natives.