The Dig

by Alan Dean Foster

  "You go and discuss it with her, Commander. There is something that I must do first."

  Low eyed his companion uncertainly. "Something you must do? I don't follow, Ludger. There's nothing here that 'must' be done. Come and help me find Maggie. If she won't turn her communicator back on, we're just going to have to track her down without them."

  Brink took a step backward. "Later." A faint glaze had come over his eyes. "As I told you, there is something I must attend to first." So saying, he turned to leave.

  "Wait a minute." Low hurried to block the scientist's path. "What's so important that it has to be done now, all of a sudden? What's more important than finding out what's happened to Maggie?"

  The other eyed him in disbelief. "Why, the life crystals, of course. They need to be examined closely, studied in depth. They are the key."

  "The key to what?" Low had grown tense. "The key to finding food? The key to returning home? If it doesn't include either of those, it's not a key I'm interested in and it's not a key we have to worry about right now."

  "Why I ... I'm not sure, exactly." Honest bemusement was writ large across the scientist's face. "I just have this feeling that they're the solution to everything."

  "I thought you never acted on 'feelings.' I had the impression you were a strict empiricist."

  "Which is why it is vital that we study these crystals now, in depth." Brink turned to pleading. "Come with me, Commander. Even though you are a generalist, your input is valuable. You have insight, along with other abilities."

  "I'll be glad to help you study the crystals," Low agreed, "after we've found Maggie and discussed what we're going to do next. What do you intend to study the crystals with? We have no equipment, no appropriate instruments."

  The scientist's confusion visibly deepened, further adding to his unease. "I don't know," he replied crossly. "I will make do with whatever is available."

  Low was watching him carefully. It was an illogical response, uncharacteristic of the methodical, rational Brink that he'd come to know. Something was definitely wrong.

  "Will you, now?"

  "Ya!" Brink's befuddlement had turned to defiance. "I will." He peered down at his pockets, overflowing with softly lambent life crystals. "They need to be attended to."

  "Attended to?" Stepping out of the scientist's path, Low followed alongside, trying to find in the other man's expression some clue as to the source of his irrational behavior. Physically Brink seemed fine, undamaged by his recent brush with death. Were the crystals somehow affecting him adversely? Or was it something else?

  "Where are you going?"

  "Back to the storeroom." Brink's eyes were set resolutely forward.

  "Why? You're carrying around a whole suitcase full of the stuff. What do you need to go back there for?"

  "To ensure those we left behind have not been disturbed. It would be terrible if they disappeared."

  Low skipped forward so that he was a little ahead of his companion and could look back at him. "Ludger, listen to me. They're not going to get up and walk away, and there's nobody else here. Nothing's going to mess with any we might have overlooked. Why this sudden concern? And I still don't know what you're talking about when you say they need to be attended to."

  "I may have put that wrongly," Brink replied slowly, "I need to attend to them. They emit a ... I am not sure how to say it in English ... a resonance, an all-pervasive warmth."

  "Don't the ones you're carrying warm you enough?"

  "You don't understand."

  "That's what I've been saying," replied Low carefully.

  "I need to attend to them."

  "Okay, fine!" Low'd had enough of the scientist and his nascent peculiarities. "You go and attend to your precious crystals. I'll come back for you after I've found Maggie. Suffocate yourself in them if you want. Stick a couple up your nose. You're forgetting what's important here, Ludger."

  Brink turned to look back at him, his eyes misty. "No, Commander. It is you who does not understand what is important here."

  "Is that so? Funny, I thought it was finding Maggie, food and water, and then searching for a way back home. Silly me."

  For a moment Brink seemed himself again. "All laudable ends, Commander. Each will happen in its own good time. But the crystals must be attended to first."

  "I wish time meant as little to me as it does to you, Ludger. The life crystal revived you. It didn't make you immortal."

  "I know that." Brink was walking rapidly backward now. "Though it is an interesting notion to ponder."

  "Swell. You go play with your crystals and ponder. I'm going to find Maggie." With that he spun on his heel and stalked off in the opposite direction, leaving the scientist to his inexplicable obsession.

  He sought but did not find. There was no sign of the errant journalist anywhere in the grand chamber. A few small side doors yielded to his entreaties. They revealed storerooms in varying degrees of disarray, but no Maggie.

  His next thought was to ascend the rubble pile and return to the surface. As he debated whether to follow through on the idea, he couldn't help but notice that he was standing before the last of the open four portals. One more island to visit, he told himself. One more spire to check out. Could Maggie have discovered how to use the simple interisland transport system on her own, and gone exploring? If she was somewhere on the fourth islet, it would certainly explain why they hadn't encountered her, and why she had failed to respond to his repeated shouts and calls.

  He considered. Brink was preoccupied with his crystals.

  Why not make a quick visit to the last spire while daylight remained?

  By now he was as comfortable with the transport system as with the BART trains back home. Except, he thought as he mounted the platform and hurriedly entered the sphere, back home hideous unnamed creatures didn't come lurching and listing their way in your direction in search of food and sustenance, intent upon indifferent mayhem and worse.

  Of course that did depend, he mused as the sphere began to roll down its dark track, on which San Francisco or Oakland station you happened to be in at the time.

  At first sight the interior of the fourth tower was no different from the first. It was filled with alien artifacts, many preserved in cases that reminded him strongly of the museum. But this was clearly no archive. Too many containers were stacked high atop one another or crowded too close to their neighbors to pass between. None were equipped with incomprehensible labels or responded with explanatory projections to his questioning touch. There was about the entire vast assemblage an air of long disuse, of a warehouse where last-minute items and forgotten inventory had been haphazardly stowed.

  He recognized nothing. If any of the museum exhibits were duplicated here, they lay buried beyond his range of vision. There were corners and corridors he was hesitant to visit, where the light from the walls and floor hardly penetrated. A number of particularly impressive containers were large enough to hold objects the size of the Atlantis. If only he cold find a way of deciphering the glyphs etched into their flanks, he might be able to descry their contents. Failing that, he could only guess and imagine.

  Directly beneath the cusp of the spire and dominating the room was a massive triangular edifice. There were enough elusive twists to the walls, sufficient bends in the angles, to prove it had been designed by other than human hands. Low searched his memory for a terrestrial reference, gave up in disgust. It was a pyramid, and it wasn't; an obelisk, yet not.

  Erected of the wonderful metallic glass that seemed to have been a favorite building material of the Cocytans, it cast a golden glow over its surroundings. Tiffany had once made glass like that, Low mused. He'd seen examples of it at the Met, of glistening vases and bowls fashioned of what appeared to be spun gold shot through with the most delicate reds and greens, pinks and blues. Except that he knew this stuff would support a train.

  Curious to know what precious artifacts it had been built to hold, he methodically walked around the entire
edifice. His hike took less time than he'd expected and left him midway between the singular structure and the archway that opened onto the tunnel station.

  While circling the structure, he'd kept an eye out for and found not a single window or door. More puzzling was the complete absence on the sloping walls of the familiar glyphs and engravings. Everything else he'd encountered, from the walls in the main chamber to the containers that filled the rest of the spire, was covered with them. Their total omission here posed a conundrum.

  He considered possible explanations. Perhaps it was a solid block of material that the Cocytans considered valuable for some unknown reason. Maybe it was a sculpture, albeit on a vast scale. Or it might be a place of worship, which engravings would only defile, a sort of interstellar menhir or altar.

  He was on his way out when a weight in his pocket gave him pause. His fingers curled around the portable alien mapping device he had borrowed from the second spire. Why not give it a try and see what it could really do?

  Removing it from his pants, he passed his fingers over the engravings as he had done before. A projected globe of Cocytus promptly appeared in front of him. Increasing the magnification and reducing the scale shrank the image until only the six islands and their portion of sea floated in front of him.

  With careful adjustment he was able to eliminate the other islands to focus on the islet on which he stood. As he'd hoped, the incredible map reduced his point of view still farther until he found himself looking at a projection of the pyramidal structure in front of him. The double view was mildly disconcerting. At least, he mused, the device didn't show him looking at himself. It was a map, not a real-time imager.

  Despite his best efforts he could not realize a view of the pyramid's deep interior. That was apparently asking too much of the marvelous device's powers of resolution. But careful manipulation did reveal a tunnel leading inward. He was pleased both with his intuition and with the mechanism's performance.

  Moving around to one side of the structure, he paused before the tunnel's location. The sloping, gleaming piece of wall before him looked exactly like every other section of wall. There was nothing to indicate it concealed an entrance. Of one thing he was certain: He would never have found it without the mapping device.

  He searched in vain for a door-opening robot similar to those he had utilized so successfully on the main island. In lieu of robots, he found a number of other devices sitting near the concealed entryway. Time passed while he struggled to find the right combination of devices to employ. He was about to give up when his last effort caused a portion of the wall to shimmer as if it had suddenly been doused in running water, and an opening appeared in the surface.

  It was several times his width and about twice his height. Whether that reflected ceremonial proportions or a tight squeeze for the builders he had no way of knowing. He still had no idea what the founders of this lost civilization had looked like. Taking a deep breath, he entered.

  Several paces in he paused to look back and was gratified to see that the portal remained open. He could clearly see out into the spire's main chamber. Thus reassured, he continued on, moving deeper into the heart of the pyramid. As he advanced, light flowed from the floor, ceiling and walls around him, illuminating the way forward even as it dimmed behind him. What hidden automatic implement tracked his progress he didn't know, but he resolved to try to find out.

  Unless they found a way home, he was going to have plenty of time for such diversions.

  The floor of the passageway led down at a slight angle, eventually depositing him in a small chamber filled with other devices. He had to spend more time analyzing their possible purpose, until he recognized several from previous encounters. Combining these opened a second door, allowing him to proceed farther.

  Unlike the exterior of the pyramid, the chamber and doorway were magnificently ornamented with inlaid etchings and glyph work. While they appeared at first glance to be abstract in tone, closer inspection revealed plants and animals, minerals and stars: a splendid panoply of life on Cocytus. A few of the lowlier creatures he recognized from their brief sojourn on the surface of the central island.

  Nowhere in the elaborate renderings, however, did he find anything that might have been a Cocytan.

  "He looks directly at us and does not recognize," declaimed a hundred critics.

  "How is he to distinguish us from the other life-forms?" The first was not at all discouraged. "The mural is an idyllic pastoral.

  We are depicted at natural play, not operating instrumentalities or erecting tall buildings. The necessary reference points are not present."

  "Would he recognize us even if they were?" argued eleven others. They were emphatic to the point where Low turned sharply. Looking over his shoulder, he saw nothing, even though the eleven were hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his collar. He had felt their query without hearing it.

  Having sensed movement, he blinked. There was nothing, only the dimly lit internal chamber and the new passage ahead. Frowning, he started forward.

  Like the chamber, the new tunnel was elaborately embellished. The pyramid seemed larger on the inside than it had appeared to be from without. Some trick of alien optics, he marveled. Given what he had seen already, he was able to accept more distortions of light and space without pausing to wonder how the effect was accomplished.

  Instead of glyphs and engravings, the decoration took the form of projected bas-reliefs that hovered barely a fingernail's thickness above the actual wall. The wealth of material, of potential knowledge, overwhelmed him.

  Brink should be here, he knew. The passageway was an archaeologist's paradise. He studied the decorations as he advanced, trying to memorize what he could. More detailed analysis would have to wait.

  Brink was preoccupied with the life crystals. Low wasn't quite ready to label it an obsession. When the scientist had finished "attending" to them, surely he would be ready to go back to work. Low felt the couple of crystals resting in his own back pocket. Their gentle warmth was comforting, but hardly seemed the stuff of madness.

  An opening loomed ahead and he quickened his pace, making sure to keep a careful eye on the floor. There was no guarantee a gap wouldn't appear unexpectedly in the surface underfoot. Perhaps he also unwittingly touched the wrong section of wall, or passed through an invisible beam. He never knew what had triggered the sequence of events that followed.

  "It is the end," declared a cluster of perceivers. "He is mesmerized by the beauty and mystery that surrounds him. So much so that a necessary portion of his thought-process has been neglected."

  "It would not matter." A thousand flowed back and forth through the solid matter of the pyramid, the air within, the decorations Boston Low found so intriguing. "The end would be the same."

  "A worthy effort," affirmed one million. "The best in a century. Perhaps those who come after will do as well." The presences were already thinking of Low in the past tense, as if he were already dead.

  Unbeknownst to him, his arrival had activated a number of ancient devices. Their complex interaction was actually irrelevant. What mattered was the result.

  He entered a chamber much larger than the one he had just traversed. Expansive and high-ceilinged, it occupied several stories. The instant before his arrival, a life crystal had fallen from its holder onto what at first glance appeared to be a grotesque sculpture.

  But sculptures did not absorb life crystals. Only organics did that. Emitting a deep grinding sound, this one began to move. Powerful articulated limbs jerked and twitched. A skull rose. Organs of sight cleared. Alive again, it shook itself erect and began to survey its surroundings.

  Low had his first glimpse of it as soon as he reached the low railing that marked a sudden drop-off. He was standing on a mezzanine overlooking a lower floor some twenty feet below. At the same time it peered up and saw him. A farrago of legs and mouths were linked by a network of exposed ligaments and tendons. There were no bones, no exoskelton, no visible
eyes, ears or nostrils. Only mouths and clawed legs.

  A guardian didn't need anything else.

  Stretching, it caught sight of him. Eyeless, it focused on the intruder with senses unknown to Low. He took a reflexive step backward.

  Contracting its astonishing network of connecting fibers, the creature sprang the full twenty feet from the floor of the lower level to land behind the Commander. If he hadn't ducked, it would have taken his head off. As he whirled to confront it, eerie moaning sounds arose from the multiplicity of mouths. Gathering its claws beneath it and swaying rhythmically back and forth on innumerable legs, it readied itself to pounce again. It was, he saw now, about the size of a full-grown bull moose.

  With the monstrosity blocking the exit, Low was forced to retreat until he was dangerously close to the edge of the drop. Dashing to his right, he felt a cold shiver run through him as the creature immediately skittered sideways to block his path. It was the same when he darted back to his left. He could see no eyes, but it was clearly aware of his presence. Some kind of infrared sensors, perhaps, or something even more remarkable. Sundry mouths opened and closed. In expectation, no doubt, he told himself. He could turn and chance the jump to the lower level, but he had no doubt that the creature would follow.

  Somehow he had to get around it. Feinting to his right, he dashed left again. The monster didn't go for it, matched him step for step. It was not only faster than he, but quicker.

  It's toying with me, he realized suddenly. This wasn't going to work.

  With each sideways sprint the thing came a little closer. Soon he'd have no choice but to turn and take his chances by jumping. Right into the creature's lair, no doubt. He would only be postponing the inevitable.

  Fighting back was out of the question. He had no weapons, it was much too big and there were too many mouths and limbs to avoid. He'd have to get away from it, somehow.

  But no matter how he darted and feinted, it continued its inexorable advance, always positioning itself between him and the tunnel. While not necessarily intelligent, it was clearly cognizant of the chamber's layout. Did it instinctively know where the exit was, or had that information been programmed into it? If the latter, then the monster had been left here for a purpose. To punish defilers of a temple, Low wondered, or to prevent them from advancing any farther?