The Crucible of Time

by John Brunner

  And she hurried up a convenient branch to fix another image from the treetops.

  Awb found himself wishing they didn't have to rely on mounts, for it would have been quicker and more pleasurable to swarm along branchways in the ancient fashion instead of padding along on the ground. Away from the water's edge, and away from these discolored cutinates, the overgrowth mostly smelled normal despite its peculiar tint, so—

  His thoughts came to a squeaking halt.

  Why weren't there any people in this valley?

  Where else on the entire globe was there such lush terrain without a city, a town, even a hamlet?

  This is what the world must have looked like before the Age of Multiplication.

  The thought struck him so forcibly that he uttered it aloud. Some of those within hearing responded as though he had chanced on a profound truth.

  But not all. Phrallet was close beside Byra; she had moved in to offer comfort after Lesh made mock of her. Now she turned and said loudly, "Ah, that's my youngest bud making noises again! I wish I'd had another she'un that I could have traded off to benefit Voosla, but who wants a he'un, particularly a useless lazy one like Awb?"

  Clack: Awb's mandibles rattled as he rose in fury to maximum height, heedless of Thilling's gear which he was carrying. There was no case on record of a budling fighting his budder, but after that—I

  Except, amazingly—

  (As the pheromones mingled in the taut still air with what the rotting plants exuded, but far fiercer ...)

  Clackonclackonclackonclack: and abruptly climaxing—

  "SHUT UP!"

  It was Drotninch, fuming with chemical proof of the reason why she had been chosen to lead the university team.

  "I don't want to hear any more arguments until we get to the lake and have something solid to argue about! In the meantime, save your pressure for moving your pads!"

  Phrallet slanted her mantle as though to puff a blast of combat-stink directly at Drotninch, but Lesh, Thilling and even Byra signaled a warning of the consequences. She subsided, still angry, and let the rest of the party go by, falling in right at the end. As Awb sidled past, she glowered with her whole mantle, but said nothing.

  He was indescribably relieved.

  The sun was just at the zenith when they emerged on a flat bare outcrop of rock overlooking the artificial lake. The water-level was a little below maximum, as could be judged from the mud along the banks, some of which was a curious yellow color. There were automatic spillways to cope with the rise due to a spring thaw: a dense mat of small but coarse-stemmed plants along the top of the dam, designed to float upward and lift their root-masses just enough for the surplus to spill over without letting the dam erode.

  At least, there should have been. In fact, the plants were decaying like everything else in the vicinity, and the mud along the banks was actually bare, whereas ordinarily it would have been fledged with shoots sprung from the riverside vegetation.

  "Have you noticed," Byra said after a pause, "that you can tell at a glance which of the trees have taproots long enough to reach the river? They're dying off. Look!"

  In a dull voice Lesh said, "So they must be sucking up the poison, if that's what it actually is."

  "And the state of these cutinates!" Byra went on as she clambered over the edge of the rock and gingerly descended to the waterside. She prodded the nearest, and its rind yielded, soft as rotting funqus. A swarm of startled wingets took to the air, shrilling their complaint at being disturbed. Awb, with the quick reflexes of youth, snatched one as it shot past, and bent his eye to examine it.

  "How long since you sent anyone to check out the cutinates?" Drotninch demanded of Lesh.

  "As soon as the snow melted," was the muttered reply. "I was assured that everything was in order. At any rate the spillways were working properly, and above the water-level the cutinates looked pretty much all right."

  "You didn't haul their ends to the surface and—?" The scholar broke off. "No, I don't imagine you'd have seen the need if they were still pumping normally. Were they?"

  "Oh, they've been functioning fine. Though, now that I've seen the state they're in, I'm surprised they haven't burst at a score of places."

  "So am I ... Well, before we disturb anything else we'd better fix some images. Thilling!"

  "Just a moment," the picturist called back. "Awb, can I take a look at that winget?"

  He surrendered it gladly. "Do you know if it's a regular local species?" he demanded. "I don't recognize it, but then I've never been so far north before."

  "I have, and it's not," Thilling answered grimly. "It's deformed. Its body has tried to—well—double, hasn't it? Byra, I think you should see this right away!"

  As she hastened toward the biologist, Phrallet drew close to Awb.

  "Do anything to get yourself well in with the folk from Chisp, won't you? Eat any sort of dirt they throw at you! I did my best to be friendly, but I'm leaked if I'm going to bother anymore. I never met such a rude, bossy bunch."

  Surprised at his own audacity, Awb said, "Maybe they just reflect your own attitude back at you."

  "Why, you—!" Phrallet swelled with renewed anger.

  "Awb!" The shout was from Thilling. "Bring those leaves we developed last night, will you?"

  "Coming!" Awb responded, mightily flattered.

  And Phrallet, luckily, did not dare to follow, but remained seething by herself.

  Taking the image-pack, Thilling said, "I was just explaining that I don't expect any images I fix here to be of the usual quality. You haven't seen these yet, nor has anyone else, but ... Well, look at this one, for example, which was taken right next to the cutinates where there was a leak most probably caused when the top fell off Fangsharp Peak. Notice all those blurs and streaks?"

  "It's as though the poison can attack your image-fixer too!" Awb exclaimed.

  Passing the picture around, Thilling said dryly, "I shan't argue. I reached the same conclusion. I shall of course try fixing more images here, but like I said I don't expect them to be much good."

  "But how—?" Drotninch began, and interrupted herself. "Now I'm going against my own orders, aren't I? We'll wait until we have something to discuss. Lesh, if you'd..."

  Briskly she issued orders to each of the party, pointedly ignoring Phrallet until, conquering her annoyance, the latter advanced to ask if she could help too. She was sent to fetch samples of the dead plants from the top of the dam, while Byra set up a microscope to examine them with, and Awb followed Thilling to the best points of vantage for general images, before descending to the lake for close-ups of the bare mud and ruined cutinates.

  Very shortly after there was a cry from Phrallet, in her usual bad-tempered tone.

  "That was a foul trick to play on me! You did it deliberately, didn't you?"

  The others stared in astonishment as she fled back from the dam without the samples she had been asked to collect.

  "What in the world is wrong?" Drotninch demanded.

  "It's hot! The top of the dam is hot! Oh, my poor pads! And the water isn't just warm, it's steaming! Look!"

  "Why, so it is! But I promise I hadn't noticed. By dark I would have, but—Well, you didn't notice either, did you?"

  The pressure taken out of her by that awkward fact, Phrallet subsided, grumbling. Regretting his earlier rudeness, for she was bound to seek revenge for it eventually, Awb muttered a word of apology to Thilling and himself hurried to the side of the dam. Cautiously he lowered to minimum height and began to probe the area, reporting in a loud voice.

  "There must be water seeping around the end of the dam here—the subsoil is marshy. But it's definitely warm, and I don't understand why. All the roots are dead but they're still meshed together. And the top of the dam..."

  He moved on, half a padlong at a time. "Yes, it's very warm, and very hard, too. Completely dried out, almost as hard as rock." He rapped it with one claw. "And there's this funny yellow mud; it's building up in layers. A
nd—Ow! That is hot!" He recoiled in surprise.

  "I think you'd better come away," Thilling shouted, and he was just about to comply when there was an unexpected commotion.

  The mount that carried Thilling's equipment, which she had dismissed as an old nag, uttered a noise between a grunt and a scream, lost all her pressure, and measured her length on the ground.

  VII

  That nightfall none of the party had much maw for food. Byra had carried out a cursory examination of the dead mount, and what her microscope revealed exactly matched the description Eupril had given of the way the poison affected cutinates and precipitators at the quarry. The certainty that at least some of it must be at work in their own bodies took away all appetite.

  While Thilling occupied herself developing the day's images, not calling on Awb for help, the rest of them lay up on the branches of the nearest healthy trees, as though being clear of the ground could offer them security in the dark, like their remotest ancestors. Of course, if any of the local animals had been as altered as that mutated winget ... But the Freeze, the Thaw, and the greed of the half-starved folk who had exploded across the world during the Age of Multiplication had combined to exterminate almost all large predators, and turned avoidance of animal food among the folk themselves from a moral choice into a necessity. Even fish nowadays was in short supply, more valuable to nourish cities than their citizens.

  Awb thought of having to ingest the flesh of the mount whose stench drifted up to him, and shuddered.

  As though the trembling of the branch he clung to had been a signal, Byra said suddenly, "What I don't understand is how there can be burns without fire."

  "I thought you Jingfired knew all about everything," came the sour riposte from Phrallet.

  "I never said I was Jingfired!" Byra snapped. "If I was, do you think I'd be here? They have too much sense!"

  In the startled pause that followed, Awb found time to wonder why she had chosen this of all moments to disclaim the pose she had—according to Thilling—long adopted, and also whether Thilling herself...

  But there was no time to ponder such matters. Perceptibly desperate to avoid moving the observatory to another site, Lesh was saying, "We've got to isolate this stuff! Once we know precisely what it is—"

  "Isolate it?" countered Drotninch. "When it can kill any concentration-culture it comes up against? You heard what Eupril said, and the folk at the quarry have only been dealing with a trace of it, diluted over and over."

  "Well, there are filters, aren't there?"

  "Filters will trap everything above a certain size. In fact I'm beginning to wonder whether that may account for the dam being so hot."

  "Next you show us how to light a fire underwater," muttered Phrallet.

  "Any moment now," Byra promised, "I'm going to—"

  "Byra!" Drotninch said warningly. But it was too dark and their pressure was too low for combat-stink; the keener note of simple fear predominated, and was compelling them gradually towards cooperation, much as it must have bonded their ancestors into forming tribes and eventually communities.

  Awb shuddered again, but this time with awe and not disgust. It was amazing to be participating in so ancient an experience. Of course, something similar happened now and then at sea, when a storm assailed the city, but then wind and spray carried off the pheromones, and the decision to work together was dictated by reason.

  How much was left of the primitive in modern folk? He must ask Thilling. If she were truly one of the Jingfired, she would certainly be able to answer such a question.

  But the argument was continuing. Sullenly, as though not convinced that the others wanted to hear, Byra was saying, "It was the heat of the water that made me start thinking along these lines. Now I've realized what the tissue-damage in that poor mount reminded me of. I've got a scar where some young fool shone a burning-glass on my mantle when I was a budling. Instead of just comforting me, my budder made me turn even that silly trick to account. She dissected out a tiny scrap of tissue and showed me the way the heat had ruptured the cells. I noticed just the same effect in the mount. Of course, the damage is deep inside, instead of just on the surface."

  "But so are the blemishes on Thilling's leaves!" Awb burst out. "They happen right inside a light-tight pack, or inside the fixer!"

  Once again there was a pause during which he had time to feel dismayed by his own boldness. Byra ended it by saying, "Phrallet, I can't for the life of me understand why you think your budling is unworthy of you. I'd be proud if one of my young'uns had come up with a point like that."

  Set to grow angry again, Phrallet abruptly realized she was being indirectly complimented, and made no answer.

  Drotninch, less tactfully, said, "Going back to where we were just now: you can very well have heat without fire, or at least without flame. Using a burning-glass is something else, because we assume the sun to be made of fire fiercer than what we can imitate down here. But if you rub something long and hard enough, it gets warm, and likewise air if you compress it with a bellower. Don't you know about that sort of thing on Voosla, Phrallet?" She sounded genuinely curious.

  "You should know better than to ask"—unexpectedly from Lesh. "The People of the Sea did study heat and even flame at one time, using substances that protected their junqs and briqs from feeling the effect. But it was hard to keep a fire alight at sea, and eventually they lost interest because they didn't have any ore to melt, or sand for glass, and they could always trade for what they needed."

  "That's right!" Phrallet agreed, and it was plain she was relaxing at long last.

  Drotninch rattled her mandibles. "This gives me an idea. Do you think there's enough burnable material around here to start up a—what do they call it?—a furnace?"

  "What for?" Byra countered.

  "Well, in olden times they used fire to separate metal from ore, didn't they? Even if we can't use a concentration-culture, we might get at this poison using heat."

  "Hmm! I'm inclined to doubt it," Byra said. "We don't yet know whether it's a simple substance, for one thing."

  "If it weren't, and a very rare one, surely we'd have encountered it before?"

  "Maybe we have," Lesh suggested. "Or at any rate its effects. I've never really believed that hot rock—let alone actual volcanoes—can be accounted for by saying that there's a leak from the core of the planet. For one thing the core must be too hot; for another, the magma would have to rise for many padlonglaqs, and I can't envisage channels for so much lava remaining open under the enormous pressures we know must exist down there."

  "What does this have to do with—?" Drotninch had begun to say, when there was a rustle of foliage and Thilling arrived to join them.

  Parting the leaves revealed that the new moon was rising, a narrow crescent, just about to disappear again as it crossed the Arc of Heaven.

  "I wish we'd had time to force some of those special luminants Voosla brought," said the picturist as she settled in a vacant crotch. "Or that the moon were nearer full, or something. I spend too much of my working life in total darkness to be comfortable by mere starlight. It's not so bad if your maw is full, but ... Any of you manage to eat anything tonight?"

  They all signed negative.

  "Me neither. Never mind that, though. What annoys me most is that I can't examine my images properly before dawn. But I'm sure they're going to be full of smears and blurs again, and it isn't my fault. Any explanations?"

  Drotninch summarized the discussion so far.

  "Awb hit on that idea, did he?" Thilling said with approval. "I agree: he's a credit to his budder, and I'm glad I decided to take him on as my apprentice. Sorry I didn't ask you to help out this time, by the way, young'un, but you realize I have to be score-per-score certain that any flaws in the images are due to me, or some outside force. All right?"

  "Yes, of course," Awb answered, trying not to swell with pride, and realizing this was just the kind of attitude he would have expected one of the true Jingfi
red to display.

  "What I'm going to do tomorrow," Thilling resumed, "is a pure gamble, but if I'm right in my guess, then ... But wait a moment. My new apprentice is pretty quick on the uptake, so let's ask him. Awb, in my position, what would you do?"

  Awb's pulsations seemed to come to a complete halt. Here in the dark his mind felt sluggish, and with his maw empty the problem was worse yet. Struggling with all his mental forces, fighting to distinguish what he could rationally justify from what was seeping up from wild imagination or even the utterly logic-free level of dreamness, he reviewed everything he had been told at the observatory site, and what he had seen on the way, and what Thilling had had time to teach him...

  The silence stretched and stretched. Eventually, reverting to her usual mood, Phrallet said, "Not much use asking him, was it? Now if you'd asked me—"

  "But I didn't," said the picturist with point. "Well, young'un?"

  That insult from his budder had been like dawn breaking inside his mind. Awb said explosively, "Take some of your leaves and just lay them around the dam, see what shows on them without being put in a fixer!"

  "Well, well, well!" Thilling said. "You got it! It looks as though that's the only way to detect the effects of the poison short of letting something be killed by it. I like Byra's idea that it's a kind of burning, I like the idea that it may have something to do with hot rocks and volcanoes, and I don't like the idea that it's getting to my insides without my being able to sense it. But that's about all we'll be able to do on this trip, isn't it, Drotninch?"

  "I'm afraid so," the scholar confirmed. "We'll have to bring safe food not only for ourselves but for the mounts on our next visit, and someone is going to have to travel all the way to the headwaters of the warmest stream, and one way and another I'm not sure we can tackle the job properly before next year. And—Lesh—you know what I'm going to have to say next, don't you?"

  "The work we've done at the observatory has gone for nothing," was the bitter answer. "It will have to be sited somewhere else."