by Payne, Lee
***
On the way back down, Ohan stayed next to the Commodore while the old man and the twins went on ahead. "Is it really true that people came from the stars to build this great city?" he asked.
"You mean ancient astronauts?" The Commodore snorted. "That, my boy, is a view often put forth by our contemporaries to explain the works of their predecessors when they themselves have no clue as to how the work was done. Since they can't imagine that their very own ancestors might have been smarter and more energetic than they, they have to invent extra-terrestrials to blame. That gets them off the hook. They don't have to admit that they aren't nearly as bright as their great, great, great grandfathers."
He stopped to catch his breath. "You see, my boy, I am an ancient astronaut—well, a middle-aged one. And let me assure you, on behalf of all astronauts, space traders and travellers between the stars. The very last thing we would consider doing, on any planet, in any star system, at any time, is building a big rockpile like this. At least not one without an elevator."
Chapter 7
"This is the oldest structure in the city, more than twice the age of all the other buildings. This single pyramid is 1,400 years old." Erol replaced the laser equipment in its case. He, Ohan and the Commodore were standing beside one of the two smaller pyramids.
Elor turned to look at it. "This one was rebuilt time and again over the centuries. It faces the market square which may have been in use since the first farmers moved into the area ten thousand years ago. Excavation would probably reveal an avenue running from here to the market.
"Then, 600 years ago, someone decided to change all that. He built the second small pyramid between this one and the market. That one has none of the evolutionary layers that underlie this one. Then he turned the basic orientation of the entire city by 90 degrees. He built this great mall leading in a completely new direction, ending in the Eye of God pyramid."
The Commodore picked up the case and headed for the end of the mall where Elor and Leahn already had their probes in place on the big pyramid. "It must have been much more than a simple change in direction," he mused. "It may have been the introduction of a whole new religion. He must have been a very persuasive fellow."
"All these changes," Erol said, "appear to have taken place in a relatively short time, one or two lifetimes. Whether we have a new dynasty taking over after the military defeat of the old, or whether it was simply a dynamic new leader revitalizing an established regime can only be determined by excavation. But whoever it was, he probably changed much more than the direction of the mall. The new system of roads that appeared at the same time could indicate the formation of a vast empire from formerly independent states. Whoever this key person was, he or she was an extremely ambitious and apparently successful individual."
Elor, sitting at the computer console, continued his brother's sentence as they drew near, ". . . an individual to whom we may soon be able to introduce you."
The Commodore raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"
Elor set the computer to print out a reconstruction drawing. "The older of the small pyramids has at least one burial chamber. So did one of the other pyramids we examined earlier out in the forest. But that one had partially collapsed and this one appears to have been filled with rock to keep the same thing from happening when a later structure was built on top of it. But here," he indicated the Eye of God pyramid in front of them, "here we have a single structure, built originally as you see it now."
He took the drawing from the computer and handed it to the Commodore. "Here you have an immense mausoleum with its burial chamber intact and the access passage beneath the floor of the temple only partially filled with rubble."
The old man peeking over the Commodore's shoulder cackled with joy. "Look at it. Look at it. It's just like new under there. They're going to be so pleased."
"So they are." The Commodore handed the drawing to the old man. "You have done an admirable job in preserving the outside. But perhaps we should check on the condition of the inside as well."
"Inside?" The old man was admiring his drawing. "The little room on top? I sweep it out every once in a while."
"No, my friend." The Commodore pointed to a shadow at the heart of the drawing. "The room beneath the room at the top. When was the last time you swept that out?"
The old man stared at the drawing. "Beneath? Inside? There's no beneath. Nobody ever said there was." He looked up at the Commodore, his eyes filling with concern. "Oh dear."
The Commodore patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Not to worry, old friend. I'm sure it's in good condition but perhaps we should have a quick look, just to make sure."
"A look? Yes. We should look. But I don't know how . . . "
"Leave that to me. Come, children. I think we should have a peek inside."
Alexander refused to be left behind. It took the combined efforts of Ohan, Leahn, the Commodore and the old man plus a great deal of grunting and squealing on everyone's part to get him up the steep stairs to the top. When they finally arrived, out of breath and sweating, they found the twins had already removed several cut stones from the floor of the temple, revealing a steeply angled passageway and a stone stairway leading down into the dark.
"Nobody ever told me," the old man panted. "Not my daddy, not the Preacher, nobody. If I'd known . . . " He peered into the darkness. "I hope everything's all right down there."
The Commodore had been leaning against the wall of the temple trying to catch his breath. "We're going to need a light," he gasped.
Erol reached into his pack and pulled out a tiny cube which suddenly lit up the room. Alexander, collapsed in a heap in the doorway, gave a snort of surprise. Ohan caught his breath. It was rather like the lanterns they used at school except much smaller and its light seemed a hundred times brighter. Leahn had the curious feeling that she had seen something like it before, long ago.
The Commodore, noting everyone's surprise, struggled to his feet, took the light and turned it down several notches. "Handy little gadget, what? Friend of ours makes them. Not quite ready to go on the market yet so we don't show it around." He knelt beside the opening in the floor, pointed the light inside and turned it up again.
The others crowded around and stood speechless as the opening blazed into brilliant color. There were rows of painted glyphs. Around and between them were figures, some of men, others of strange creatures, all rendered in vivid color, mostly tan and black but with splashes of blue and red as clear and bright as if the artist had just stepped away to clean his brush.
The Commodore laughed. "Perseverance, gentlemen. That's the key. I knew this bright little planet would reward us if only we kept to our search. Once again, my willingness to endure toil and hardship has paid off handsomely."
Ohan looked up into the face of one of the twins who rolled his yellow eyes in mock despair. Then he winked.
The Commodore pointed the light down to the bottom of the passage and nudged the old man. "It's a good thing we checked. Your friends from the sky would be a little disappointed in your housekeeping." The old man gasped in horror. The bottom of the beautiful passage was filled with rubble.
"How deep?" the Commodore asked.
"Six meters," Elor replied.
The Commodore sighed. "Nothing is ever simple." He slapped the old man on the back. "But cheer up, old fellow. That's what friends are for. We'll lend a hand and have this mess cleaned up and ship-shape in no time."
The old man was ecstatic. "Would you? Will you? If only I had known. If only someone had told me." He turned and took the Commodore's hand. "Those pictures on the walls. It's them, isn't it? It's pictures of them."
The Commodore patted him reassuringly. "Yes, my friend. I do believe it's them."
***
The rubble consisted of dirt, rocks of all sizes, pot shards which the twins set aside, a number of old tree branches and several large blocks of cut stone. They organized a human chain with the twins at the bottom taking care not
to mar the wall and ceiling paintings, passing the debris from hand to hand until they had it piled outside the temple door. Later in the day they threw it down the back forest-covered side of the pyramid. The largest stones and branches took considerable effort to haul up the steep passageway. It took half the day.
No one stopped for lunch and by late afternoon when the passage was finally cleared, everyone was starving. Leahn and Ohan were sent to fetch the stew pot and they all ate a hearty early supper on top of the pyramid.
"They don't look much like I thought they would," the old man mused. Everyone except the twins were leaning against the side of the temple watching the lengthening evening shadows steal across the forest canopy. "I don't know how I thought they'd look but that ain't it."
"Those are probably scenes of ritual and death," the Commodore explained, "rather than of everyday life. So we have mainly pictures of gods and mythological beasts and priests dressed as gods. Most of them seem to be wearing masks and elaborate headdresses which probably depict their various godly attributes. The whole thing is highly stylized and may have been as incomprehensible to the ordinary people in their own day as it does to us, 500 years later."
"Those gods," the old man asked hesitantly, "do you suppose they're gone too? My daddy never mentioned any except for the Eye of God that watches over us all, and the forest, of course, and the spirits in the trees. But those other gods, don't you suppose they would have said something if they were still around? Or did they take them with them when they left?"
"I suspect they took them. In my experience with gods . . . Did I ever tell you about the time I met a . . . ?" Ohan and Leahn were both nodding their heads vigorously. "I did, eh? Well, gods like these, demanding gods, do all right when things go well. Even when things start to go badly, most people are willing to give a bit more in sacrifice and hope for the best. But if things don't get better, if the crops still fail or they face defeat at the hands of somebody with different gods, then the old gods can find themselves pretty quickly forgotten. A lot of gods have come and gone across the galaxy."
The sun had dropped below the horizon when Elor emerged from the temple. "We're ready to go in."
"In where?" Ohan asked.
The Commodore stood up. "In to meet our host," he said, "the man who built this city or, at least, changed it all around and raised up this great mausoleum in the middle of it in honor, most likely, of himself. The king, the priest, the living god, the empire builder and, according to our friend, here," he helped the old man to his feet, "the ancient astronaut. Whoever he was, we're going to see if he's still at home. We're going to peek inside his tomb."
Ohan gulped. He had been so caught up in the splendor of the passageway and then the work of clearing it, he had completely forgotten that it was little more than a stairwell leading to their real objective, the tomb.
"Careful, lads," the Commodore cautioned. "Not a business to be taken lightly, this opening of tombs. Back on old Earth the Egyptians used to leave curses for the unwary. Go to it, lads, but carefully. I'll stand ready up here in case you need rescuing from trapdoors or deadfalls."
"We appreciate the thought." Elor was standing beside him at the top of the stairs. "But what we really require is a little more muscle to move the stone out of the doorway. I'm afraid it's just your size."
All eyes turned to the Commodore. "Ah." He looked around and sighed. "Well. It just shows how far you boys would get without me." He descended the stairway. "Where do I grab hold?"
The twin at the bottom was holding what Ohan recognized as the sonic insect repeller. He moved it along the floor while the Commodore took hold of a rope they had somehow attached to one side of the stone. He gave several great grunts and the door began to swing slowly outward. As soon as there was enough space between the door and the wall, he wedged himself into the opening and shoved the stone all the way back. Then he stood away from the opening and called for the light.
The group at the top of the stairs had come slowly down, one step at a time, until they all stood peering into the darkness beyond the doorstone. The Commodore switched on his light and they all saw it at once. The room was narrow with a high ceiling. At floor level it was almost entirely filled by a large, intricately carved, stone sarcophagus. Its thick stone lid stood to one side against the wall. The sarcophagus was empty. High above it, tied by a foot to a beam in the ceiling so that it hung upside down, its arms over its head pointing into the corners of the tomb, was someone in a white space suit.
"Damn," said the Commodore. "There goes my theory about ancient astronauts."
***
It took them all to lift the stone lid back onto the sarcophagus. Then the Commodore stood on it while Erol scrambled up on his shoulders and cut the rope that held the body. The rope was woven from a monofilament, little deteriorated with time. Whoever was in the sealed pressure suit had become curiously distended over the years as he hung there upside down. Most of his mass had flowed down toward his shoulders and into his closed helmet. Then, apparently over centuries as the bodily fluids had failed to dissipate through the impervious synthetic fabric of the suit, they had turned to a viscous mush. It flowed slowly back toward the feet as the body was laid out on the sarcophagus lid.
No one volunteered to open the faceplate. "Curiosity is a wonderful thing," said the Commodore, "and mine has had an extraordinarily busy day, one that should last it for a good long time. I have no interest whatsoever in looking inside that suit. Anyone planning to unsnap the helmet, kindly notify me beforehand so I may be far away when you look that unfortunate fellow in the face, or whatever's left where his face used to be."
"We agree," said Elor. "Interesting as it might be, we are not equipped to conduct an autopsy and feel that the body would be better left as it is for future examination."
Ohan, the old man and Alexander ventured no opinion. They were already outside the temple in the warm night air, breathing deeply. They had left immediately after the discovery of the fur rug.
It was lying in a corner behind the sarcophagus, apparently thrown casually aside. A tanned skin of some kind, it was still supple and well-preserved. It took a few minutes before the Commodore recognized it. He took it away from Ohan who was examining it curiously. "Put it down and back off, lad. You're not going to like what it is."
Ohan looked at him uncomprehendingly. "It's the skins of some of your people, lad. About a dozen of them, I'd say. All cut and neatly sewed together."
That's when Ohan and the old man decided to get some air.
"What in the world is this all about?" Leahn asked when they were gone. "What happened here?"
"Obviously not what the fellow who built this place had in mind," the Commodore replied. He turned to the twins. "Any thoughts?"
Elor fingered the rug they had laid over the spaceman. "This is not impossible to explain," he said. "A number of primitive societies take and use the skins of their enemies. Such practices are associated in certain religions with seasonal rebirth. The buds of some plants appear to burst through their skins in springtime. Many species of reptile grow new skin and discard the old. A warrior may acquire some of his defeated enemy's strength or essence by wrapping himself in his foe's skin. Whether any of these explanations fit this particular situation is not clear but a rug made of human hide is not completely out of place inside an ancient pyramid.
"The fellow in the spacesuit is, however, a different matter. The suit is old and it is tempting to associate this spaceman with the ancient spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit above the coast but we will need considerably more data before we can hazard a guess. One thing is already clear about this fellow, though."
"Oh?' said the Commodore.
"He was not hung here by his friends."
***
Two days later, they took their leave of Alexander and the old man. Everything had been carefully recorded and the body in the spacesuit left on top of the sarcophagus covered by the fur. The stone door was pushed back into
place and the floor of the temple replaced, sealed and covered again with a layer of dirt.
"You and Alexander know what's under there," the Commodore explained to the old man. "And the people who will return one day from the sky know what's under there. But we don't necessarily want every passerby to know what's under there. Someday people will come . . . "
"The people from the sky?"
"Yes. If they do not come soon, then they will come later. But they will come and they will appreciate what you have done."
For their last night together, Ohan and Leahn rode back out to the half arch and dug up a load of tubers. They also snared a young ground bird as a special treat for the old man. Alexander didn't mind.
After supper they sat for the last time on the broad steps before the old man's door and watched the sunset. Alexander lay in the grass with his head in Leahn's lap while she scratched behind his ears. The Commodore brought out another bottle from the tavern and passed it around. Ohan wondered idly how many he had. He decided not to ask.
"We wish you could stay but we know you have to be moving on," the old man said.
"As a matter of fact," the Commodore replied, "we have to go see Ohan's people."
"Who?" Ohan choked.
"It's only reasonable, lad. You were hired as our guide, right?"
"Yes, but . . . "
"So it's time you earned your pay. My associates feel that a visit with some of your people would be profitable, ethnologically speaking."
"Pay?"
"Don't turn nasty on me, lad. It's time to visit the folks. We heard rumors in the taverns back at the edge of the forest about secret ceremonies, the smoking of strange herbal substances accompanied by hallucinogenic visions of other planes of being. If true, that's the kind of thing that might make the counter on the twins' little machine dance across the scale. It hasn't so much as burped here in this ancient metropolis. But the twins insist, contrary to all reason, that it isn't broken."
