“Okay, okay,” said Thorvald. “We'll get the tire iron."
“You know,” said Thorvald, as they walked the half mile or so back to the car, “it's going to be a little lonely for me when you go home. I've always been a scientist and never bothered with family.” He sighed. “I really should have married and had a family. You make me realize how important that is."
“Why don't you come with us?"
Thorvald chuckled, then patted Roger on the shoulder. “I wish it were that easy."
They walked in silence for a while, and then Roger said, “There's a colony of Earth people on my planet."
“What?” Thorvald froze in surprise for a moment, then lengthened his stride to catch up to the boy. “People from Earth? Really?"
Roger kicked at a flat stone and sent it spinning along their path. “I was taught that when my kind first visited Earth, we had a large study team. The Romans thought we were gods or something.” He kicked at another rock. “Then they thought we were too immature to be gods.” He kicked at yet one more stone. “They should talk; Roman gods act really silly.” Roger looked up at Thorvald. “Anyway, they finally decided we were demons. Our expedition had gotten into so much trouble here that when it left, they had to take a lot of Earth people with them."
“Why?"
“Those people helped us. And if we hadn't taken them with us, they'd have been in really, really deep trouble."
“Yes.” Thorvald nodded. “They probably would have been."
“My home isn't so different from Earth.” Roger jumped to swing on the branch of a tree. “The Earth people are pretty happy there. In fact, there are two of them on the ship. You'll like them. They speak Latin."
“You could have told me this before."
“Yeah. I guess I should have.” Roger lowered his head. He looked contrite. “After the last visit here, my people made it a rule not to interfere."
“So that's why this expedition is a secret,” said Thorvald, “and only consists of one person—a kid, with an invisible ship hovering above."
“The ships of our first expedition couldn't hover.” Roger dropped to the ground. “Back then, we didn't know how to stop gravitational energy from being converted to kinetic energy."
“How do you do that?” Thorvald hoped that finally, after months of asking, he'd learn something about the alien's science.
“I don't know,” said Roger. “I'm not a physicist."
“Well, do you know how come your ship isn't visible to us?"
“No. Something to do with bending the light so light coming in on one side is moved so it comes out the other side."
Thorvald sighed. “Look, I am a physicist. I've got to know. Are black holes actually wormholes? Is the multi-world interpretation of quantum mechanics valid? Is general relativity correct?"
Roger balled his fists. “I told you before,” he said in a quavering voice, “I'm not allowed to talk about that. Even if I knew, I couldn't tell you.” Roger looked down at the ground. “I'm sorry."
“Okay, okay,” said Thorvald. “It's all right."
At the car, Thorvald took the tire iron from the trunk and then he and Roger headed back.
“You know,” said Thorvald, after they'd been walking for a few minutes, “I never quite understood why the codex was so important to you that you'd come all the way back to Earth to find it."
“The main purpose of the trip,” said Roger, kicking now at some scraggly undergrowth, “is observation of your culture. But now that Earth is so advanced, we can do that just by watching your television programs. We didn't have to land."
“But you did."
“The other purpose was archeology—archeology of our culture. We wanted to see if there were any surviving artifacts from our first expedition."
Thorvald chuckled. “As an amateur archeologist, I can understand that."
“And we wanted to know if the codex was real or just a legend."
They walked in silence for a while.
“Sometimes,” said Thorvald as they came in sight of the temple, “you seem considerably more mature than your appearance would suggest."
“Oh?"
* * * *
At the temple, Thorvald noticed that it was not as they'd left it. A slab had fallen from the domed roof and lay, one end buried in the earth, near the entrance door.
“What happened?” Roger circled the fallen block, tracing a finger around its perimeter.
“I'm not sure. Probably with only one support point for the pillar, the center of force shifted off-axis.” Thorvald darted into the temple; it seemed dark after his walk in the sunlight. “We've no choice now. We've got to free the last lintel—to take the stress off the roof.” As Roger ran in behind him, Thorvald added, “But at the first sound of the building shifting, we get out fast. Understand?"
“Yes, sir."
They went to the pillar.
Thorvald handed the tire iron to Roger and then, already sweating from his hike to the car, hefted the boy to his shoulders.
Holding the iron like a baseball bat, Roger took a swing at the lintel. “The building seems okay,” he said after the reverberation faded.
“I think it is.” Thorvald listened and felt for vibrations in the structure. “Give it a few more whacks."
Roger complied and gradually, accompanied by the low rumble of brickwork grinding against marble, the lintel shifted to its home position. Roger leapt from Thorvald's shoulders to the ground.
A loud crack followed by a moaning sound filled the chamber. Thorvald pushed himself back against the wall. Instinctively, he put a protective arm around the boy.
The pillar slowly, very slowly, sank into the floor. As it did so, the compass figures emitted wailing tones and plumes of ancient dust puffed from their mouths.
“Wow!” said Roger.
“Pneumatics,” said Thorvald. “The Romans were known for it."
The pillar receded until its upper lip became flush with the ground. The rumbling stopped and all was silent.
Thorvald listened hard. “It's okay,” he said after a few moments. “I think the building's safe.” He looked to the center of the temple. It seemed larger now, with no column in the middle. Glancing down, he saw that the top of the pillar outlined a disk of blackness—a hole. The pillar was hollow.
“Wow!” said Roger, rushing forward to peer into the opening
“Careful!” Thorvald approached the hole and switched on his flashlight. Directing the beam into the cylinder, he could make out a series of brass rungs—a narrow ladder built into the inner wall of the pillar. “Wow, indeed!” Then he saw an inscription chiseled in the upper lip of the column:
IANUA QUI NON CLAUDEAT
“'The Door That Does Not Close.'” Thorvald played his light over the two-inch high lettering. “I wonder what it means."
“Maybe it means that we can't raise the pillar again."
“The Romans were a solemn people—at least where inscriptions are concerned. I assume there's a deeper meaning.” Thorvald leaned over the rim and scanned the ladder with the flashlight. “Looks sturdy enough.” He stepped gingerly onto the top rung. “It's firm. Let's go down."
“This is really exciting,” said Roger.
“Yes.” Thorvald chuckled. “It really is."
Thorvald saw that the lower rim of the pillar rested on a lip of stone, and the hole extended farther down. A second ladder stretched another ten or so feet to the bottom. In the beam of the flashlight, he could see the hint of a vaulted passageway at the bottom.
“I'll go first,” said Thorvald. “This might not be safe."
“What are you talking about?” Roger glanced down into the hole. “I'm in a telepresence vat up in my ship. I'm much more safe than you are."
“Still,” said Thorvald, knowing he was being irrational, “I'll go first."
He climbed down and shined his light into the passageway. Then he called for Roger to follow.
Waiting for Roger to descend,
Thorvald shivered in the chill of the cave; his sweat-soaked shirt now bathed him in a clammy coolness.
As Roger hopped from the last rung to the floor, Thorvald pressed forward into the passageway. The tunnel went straight for about fifteen feet and terminated at a chamber cut into the bedrock. The grotto was roughly square. Thorvald estimated the dimensions at about seven feet on a side and, as he had to stoop, just barely over six feet in height. Against the back wall, an unadorned shelf had been carved into the stone. On it, covered in dust, sat a rectangular leather container some seven or eight inches on a side, and about an inch and a half thick. It was secured by a thin leather thong attached to a flap.
Thorvald picked up the case and blew off the ancient dust, coughing as he breathed some of it. Carefully, he untied the thong and eased open the flap. “The leather is amazingly supple, considering its age.” He pulled out a book. The pages were thick and rough—parchment made from a cured animal hide. He returned the volume to the shelf and examined its container. The leather was tooled with engravings of toga-shrouded deities, and also of something that might very well be a spaceship.
“The codex!” Roger took a few small jumps in obvious excitement. “It must be the codex."
“It must be."
Roger picked up the little book, opened it, and glanced at the text. “Gee. I didn't think I'd need Latin software.” He passed the codex to Thorvald. “The colonists’ Latin sure doesn't look anything like this."
“After eighteen hundred years, I'm not surprised.” Thorvald handed Roger the container, then shined the light onto the text: late imperial dialect, but a Latin he could read. “They knew about you guys,” he said. “They understood your capabilities."
Standing on tiptoes, Roger watched Thorvald pore over the text. “Could you read it to me?"
“Um,” said Thorvald, engrossed in the codex.
“Please."
Thorvald nodded. “'The visitors are not gods.'” He ran a finger lightly over the parchment, translating as he went. “'They are worse than gods. They are a civilization far more advanced than Rome. We are not their equals. We can never be. No longer can we consider ourselves the masters of all peoples. And it is senseless to continue acting as if we were. This knowledge, I have sealed. But once revealed, it can never be called back. The door, once opened, cannot be closed. Because of a sense of history, I feel compelled to chronicle these events. I leave it to whomever finds this document to think well before revealing it. I leave it to your conscience as a Roman. Myself, I can no longer pursue science. To do so would make me feel ... ‘” Thorvald looked up from the manuscript. “I'm not sure of this word. ‘Ridiculous,’ I think."
Thorvald rubbed a hand across his eyes. “That's the beginning of it, anyway.” Carefully, he closed the ancient book. “The rest is mainly a journal.” He aimed his light down the tunnel. “I think we should get out of here. I don't think the flashlight batteries are particularly fresh. And I'm getting cold."
Cradling the codex, Thorvald turned and led the way back to the ladders. “It's sad, really,” he said. “When your people arrived, his belief in the inherent superiority of the Romans was crushed.” Thorvald looked back over his shoulder. “Can you understand how he felt?"
“Our presence destroyed his world.” Roger shook his head, and the weariness of the gesture made him seem ageless—ancient. He stroked the container's leather engravings. “We vowed never to let that happen again."
Thorvald nodded. “That must have been how the Neanderthals felt when the Cro-Magnon arrived.” He glanced at the codex. “There was no turning back that knowledge. The door, once opened, could not be closed."
“Can you go back and pursue science?” asked Roger, when they'd reached the base of the ladder.
“What?” Thorvald, taken aback by the abruptness of the question, spun around.
“Can you be a physicist again?” said Roger.
“What a question. Yes. Of course, I can. Physics has been my life—is my life. And...” Thorvald paused, then looked away into the darkness. He gave a short bark of a laugh. “Who am I trying to fool?” He sighed. “You know,” he said, turning to Roger, “for months now, I've been evading that question.” He balled his free hand into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm. “Yes, I'd like to learn the physics your people know. But the real joy of physics for me is the discovery. Not necessarily my discovery, but just being part of the community of scientists that are in the hunt."
Thorvald smiled. “This sounds like gibberish to you, doesn't it?"
“No."
“Actually,” said Thorvald, “I'm not sure I could return to science now. At least not for a while, and not with the same passion. Your people know physics that I could never hope to discover. And if I did make discoveries, I'd feel as if I were just reinventing the wheel."
“I hate that,” said Roger with vehemence. “I'm really sorry."
Even in the dim reflected light from the flashlight, Thorvald could see the deep sadness in Roger's eyes.
“Roger. It's okay."
Thorvald idly opened the codex and played the light over the pages.
“Oh,” he said, both from the surprise at what he saw, and as a ploy to divert Roger from his melancholy—and perhaps to escape his own sadness as well. “There's a second section."
Concentrating more on the mechanics of translation than on meaning, Thorvald began reading:
“'Section II—The Scientific Knowledge of the ... the Sky-dwellers.
I write not what I understand, for I understand not at all. I write what I've been told. And I write with sadness knowing that once I was a scientist, but now I am merely a scribe.
Subsection I—The Sky-dwellers’ Understanding of Time.
Time is a structure that—’”
“Stop,” shouted Roger. He pushed the flashlight so its beam left the page. “Don't read it! Please, don't read it."
Surprised by the level of the outburst, Thorvald looked up from the codex. “Why? Will this get you in trouble?"
“Please, don't read it,” Roger screamed. “Do you want to be merely a scribe?"
“Okay, okay,” said Thorvald, softly. “We'll discuss this outside.” He took the case from Roger. “Look,” he said as he popped the book into its container, “I'm putting the codex away."
Thorvald patted Roger on the shoulder, then urged him to start climbing the lower ladder. After tucking the codex under his shirt, Thorvald followed.
About halfway up, Thorvald heard a rumble like distant thunder. Odd, he thought, because the sky had been cloudless. Then he heard the roar of heavy rocks in motion.
“Jump down!” Thorvald shouted. “Quickly!"
Thorvald sprang off the ladder but fell as he landed. Roger tumbled down on top of him.
Looking up, Thorvald saw the blurred shape of a huge chunk of masonry hurtling through the hollow pillar toward him. He tried to push Roger free and squirm out of the path, but there was no time. He had barely time to close his eyes before the stone struck.
Roger shrieked.
Thorvald felt an instant of shame, knowing that Roger had taken the brunt of the hit. But then, as the jagged piece of brickwork sheared across his own body, he screamed, his cry mixing with Roger's as the huge stone rumbled to rest against the wall of the passageway.
Thorvald fought to keep from passing out from the agony; he was all too aware of his skin being ripped from his flesh. Eyes closed and gritting his teeth, he held his breath as the searing pain subsided and was replaced by a tingling numbness. Forcing open his eyes, he saw the flashlight casting a wedge of yellow-white brightness against the rough, stone floor. He reached for it and, as his arm intersected the beam, saw that he was dripping blood.
With a grunt, he forced himself to a sitting position and, hearing a moan, he grasped the flashlight and examined Roger in its light. He gasped as he saw that Roger's chest was no longer symmetric; ribs on one side were snapped, and one protruded through the skin.
&n
bsp; “Roger,” said Thorvald, more loudly than he'd intended. The sound of his voice reverberated in the otherwise silent passageway.
Roger did not respond.
Thorvald bent in to listen for a heartbeat and the codex fell from his shirt, just missing hitting the boy. Thorvald ignored it. He felt an instant of relief as he saw the rise and fall of breathing—but that breathing was exceedingly shallow. And there was blood. Not much, though. And that was good, since Thorvald couldn't stanch it without putting pressure on the boy's chest.
“Roger,” he said again, aware of the pleading tone in his voice. “Can you hear me?"
Roger opened his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.
“I'll go and get help.” Thorvald lifted the boy's head and slid the codex under as a pillow. “I hate to leave, but I don't think I can safely move you."
“I think I'm dying.” Roger spoke in whispered gasps.
“No. Don't say that. Hold on."
Roger gave an unconvincing smile. “Just the body. Not really me.” He lifted his head, but then let it fall back. “But it hurts so much."
“Can't you disconnect?"
Roger didn't answer for a moment, and then said, “I don't want to leave you."
Thorvald bent and kissed the boy on the forehead, then quickly drew back, uncomfortable with his uncharacteristic display of emotion; he'd always distrusted emotion.
“What about you?” said Roger, weakly. “Shine the light."
“Just lacerations, I think.” Thorvald examined his body with the flashlight. “My god! A lot of lacerations.” He realized he'd been in shock, but now a renewed pain took its place. He struggled to keep his voice from showing it. “And it seems I'm leaking more than I'd like—and from more places than I could bandage with a shirt."
“You'd better go for help,” whispered Roger. “You could die from loss of blood.” He took a few labored breaths. “It would take hours before the ship could get help to us. So go."
“Yes,” said Thorvald, forcing himself to clarity. “I'll get help.” He struggled to his feet and, though shaky, he found he could walk.
At the base of the lower ladder, he looked up through the hollow pillar and saw sunlight. But in that light, he saw that something blocked much of the hole. Even so, there was nothing to do except climb.
Analog SFF, June 2006 Page 15
