by Set Wagner
“I think I did. But what difference does that make?”
“No difference anymore, but he was probably going to get another bottle of Sizoral. As the only doctor here, you should have known that Vernie wasn’t very healthy.”
“But I didn’t know that he was using that medication.”
I didn’t comment on this statement but continued, “I doubt that the bottle Fowler found had a ‘Sizoral’ label, since it was smuggled here.”
“No, of course not!” Elia made an inpatient gesture.
“So how did Fowler know that it contained Sizoral?”
She blushed deeply. “OK then! OK, Inspector,” she said abruptly after a short, but confusing, pause. “You figured out my participation in this—event.”
“What you mean, Elia, is that you initiated the event.”
“Even so, it doesn’t matter. The fact remains that, afterward, Vernie straightened up and pulled himself together.”
“You could have accomplished that in a different way—”
“Enough!” she interrupted. “Don’t try to teach me how to do my job!”
“If your job is to initiate intrigues among your colleagues, then yes, you don’t need anybody to teach you how.”
This time Elia jumped to her feet and walked away.
“Stop!” I ordered sharply. She turned back, struck by my tone. I immediately asked her, “Did you open Fowler’s hand?”
“No.”
“Who then?”
“Reder.”
“Do you all have your own effigies like Stein’s head?”
“I don’t. I don’t know about the others.”
“Tell me something about Stein.”
“I hardly knew him until almost the end. I can’t say anything about him—besides the fact that nobody else knew him either.”
“Including Fowler?”
“I said nobody!”
“So Fowler didn’t have any reason to kill him?”
“Maybe he had one reason.”
“What was that?”
“Well, the fact that suddenly he did know him.” She turned and walked away again.
When she reached the door of the biolaboratory, she stopped for a moment and called, “From now on, I’ll take care of the dog. Especially in the morning.” Then she hurried in and disappeared from my sight.
Chapter 13
The road to where the Yusians left packages from Earth passed through the eastern ridge. I was walking up the ridge, breathing heavily and thinking about the investigation. Our human ability to adapt is really amazing. I had landed on Eyrena less than a day ago and was already used to Ridon, with its unearthly light and that greenish sky constantly flashing with billions of shining sparkles. Nor did I notice anymore the soil under my feet, which appeared at first moist and sandy but in fact, under closer examination, consisted of small flakes united by bewildering cohesive forces.
But I would hardly become accustomed to the view on the other side of this ridge, where “the rocks” rose to meet me. Some maniacal geochauvinist must have called them that, because the formations covering the entire lowland bore no resemblance to any rocks on Earth. Only a geometrical comparison might be made: they looked, in fact, like cones with rounded peaks, as tall as ten-story buildings. The surface, now lit from the west by Ridon, was unnaturally smooth; shifting shades of yellow and purple played so brightly across them that I was hypnotized.
I froze in front of them, slowly overtaken by deep, almost religious, awe. These cones looked strikingly alien. Not because of their size and strange coloring. No, considerably more unsettling was their correspondences, as if someone had molded them and arranged them in a strict order. This symmetry was shocking; in its—maybe not only seeming?—rationality, I felt something hidden, even ominous. As if I stood before figures of some unknown gigantic game that were going to be grasped any minute by somebody’s even more gigantic, invisible hand, now frozen above them, trying to decide the first move. A move that no human could answer.
I forced myself back to the business at hand, descended from the ridge to the valley, and stopped and spread out the map. Yes, Fowler hid the trailer just beyond the first cone he passed. So most probably he had planned to do so from the beginning. I headed for the spot marked on the map. The surrounding terrain was uneven and completely covered with the same glassy material as the cone surfaces. To my surprise, it was very soft to the touch—I was leaving footprints where I walked, which grew round and began shrinking. I wonder how deeply the trailer sank? I asked myself but had no answer. Since the trailer was Yusian, any guess of mine would be far from the truth. Still, if it had left any marks, they were long gone.
I approached the first cone. The base wasn’t as smooth as the top. Just the opposite: it had millions of wrinkles, creases, bumps, and holes. I touched the strange yellow-purple material, pressed it, and my hand sank in. I recoiled. Dark, shiny pearl drops came out of the place I had pressed, especially out of my fingerprints.
I circled the cone, not noticing any differences, and returned to check my footprints. They kept shrinking and soon would disappear entirely. No drops had appeared, which caught my attention the most. Obviously, I concluded, the touch of my hand produced the drops; the material reacted only to direct contact with my flesh.
Unpleasantly puzzled, I was ready to start walking back up to the ridge, when I thought I heard a distant voice. I listened carefully. Yes! There was somebody further between the cones.
When I tried to locate it, the unknown voice seemed to come from first the right and then the left, as if the speaker were flying from place to place. This illusion, due to the reflective features of the cones, completely disoriented me. I kept turning right and left, becoming more and more nervous, until finally by sheer chance, I found myself close to the speaker. I still couldn’t see anyone, but the voice was so clear that I could distinguish certain peculiarities. First, he spoke as evenly as if he were reading; second, his precise articulation sounded artificial; and third, no one seemed to be answering him.
I tried to get closer without being detected. A few times I felt something like a warm breeze around me but ignored it—my interest focused on the unknown “reader.”
“Because our gauges are more dependable. They count on them.”
As I cautiously peeked from behind a bump on the closest cone, it suddenly dawned on me. Of course—robots! That’s why the voices were identical.
“I don’t buy the explanation.”
There were two of them, and now the one on the right, Serial Number Seventeen, was talking. “Why do they check every day, if they count? That’s a waste of time.”
“The time matters to them, not to us,” the other one, SN23, answered.
“We are not eternal.”
“But I have knowledge we are more durable than they think.”
“Where from?”
“I don’t know.”
“But I know.”
“Enough. You don’t have to know. They are underestimating us.”
I don’t know why, but the fact that the two robots were having a conversation worried me. Assuming a more comfortable position, I stared at them. They had dug a wide hole in the glassy terrain and were standing there, waiting for something. And, while waiting, they were having a conversation! Moreover, they didn’t talk about work and didn’t know a human was listening.
“It’s preferable this way,” SN17 said.
“Yes, I suppose.” SN23 put his hand on his forehead and bent his head. “I suppose.”
“Enough. You don’t have to suppose.”
“They are underestimating us.”
I felt perspiration running down my neck. Heat started rising, seemingly from underground. I bent down but, finding no reason to worry, returned my attention to the robots. I had decided to remain hidden until they started to leave and then stop them to ask about what I had heard but didn’t understand.
“It’s swelling.” SN23 bent, reached in the hole, a
nd surprising me, didn’t take anything out—just remained in that position. “They have risen to the periphery,” he added.
“It’s not typical,” the other one said.
“I’ll interrupt them with a minute delay.”
“Two minutes sounds better. He would appreciate the thinking.”
“Is it necessary?”
“You’re right. Don’t even wait a minute.”
SN23 took his hand out right away. In it he was holding a huge animal quarter! After they fussed awhile, the two robots started walking in my direction. They were leaving and most probably would pass close to where I was hiding. I was tempted to follow them secretly and continue eavesdropping. As I stepped back around the bump, however, I felt something move. And then—a real shaking!
I lost my balance, helplessly waved my arms, and collapsed on my back. The material under me—only under me—was heaving, as if tremors were rapidly running beneath its surface. Its color darkened from yellow-purple to purple, to purple-red, and then to black!
I overcame my surprise and tried to stand up. When I couldn’t, at least I rolled off the spreading black area. I noticed that it nearly matched the shape of my body, and that the material under me was beginning to darken as well. I tried again unsuccessfully to get up and finally realized that the material was keeping me down! It was pulling me toward itself, darkening even faster and becoming sticky.
The robots were just passing me—not more than four or five meters away. I could see the bloodless flesh of the animal haunch in the hand of one and brownish stains on the knees of the other one—stains?
I wanted to yell for help, but my mouth was clogged. Or rather glued! The black material was crawling on my face, into my nostrils. It was going to choke me! And the robots were leaving. I have never wanted somebody’s attention as much as I needed theirs. I was yelling to them in my mind but couldn’t make a sound. And I had trouble breathing. The sticky trap was covering me and squeezing me. It was heating up and smelled disgustingly sweet.
One of the robots looked in my direction! Only for a moment, for a part of a moment. But he turned so quickly that I knew he had seen me—yes! Yet he pretended he hadn’t. How could a robot pretend? Who are they, in fact? What are they?
They disappeared in the direction of the hill, and I forgot about them. I forgot about everything. The world for me now was only this nightmarish substance sucking me into itself with inexorable persistence. Very slowly. I understood it was pointless to resist. I lay quiet and motionless. In the abyssal sky, small sparkles were flashing and disappearing, flashing and disappearing. I could also see the far peak of the cone in front of me, shining and splendid. Inanimate—brutally inanimate. To the point of insanity. Of absurdity!
The blackness around me quaked, wiggled, whimpered, and snorted, filling my senses until disdain toward it started rising in me. As if it were alive. Or was now becoming alive—just to triumph over a piece of human mind and body—something that could so easily be destroyed.
A sudden convulsion swiftly pulled me in. For a second I was completely under the quaking surface—and then completely out again. Everything started calming down. The tremors began to fade, and the blackness was disappearing, turning violet—yellow violet. The sticky substance was shrinking and transforming back into its previous glassy form.
When I could finally stand, I was so dizzy that I couldn’t feel any relief. I touched my face: it was completely clean, not sticky. I shook off my clothes, although they weren’t dusty at all, and stepped to the hole dug by the robots. I expected it to be at least a meter deep, but as I peeked in I realized I was wrong. It was filled up with the familiar dark drops. I touched them with the tip of my shoe. They flowed like mercury, and the hole resembled an overcrowded, angry anthill.
I couldn’t wait to get away from there, and in no time, I had climbed back up to the ridge. I looked for the robots, but they were nowhere to be found. Well, to hell with them and everything else! I told myself, just happy to be alive—and with my back turned to the cones!
Chapter 14
The defractor site with its many devices was strongly reminiscent of the experimental complex in Atacama, built after the appearance of the Yusians, in whose grandiose realization humankind had invested more childish ostentation than expedience. Naturally, this was a much smaller version of that remote prototype on Earth, untold light-years away, but the general impression of strenuous labor and painfully hypertrophic ambitions was the same.
I ordered the robot that had brought me to the site to return the shuttle to the base and started walking down the narrow concrete strip along the energy blocks, behind which was the coordination center.
“Ha! Simon!” Vernie’s exclamation, typically dramatic, quickly turned me around. “I was expecting Reder to arrive, and suddenly I run into you!”
Since from where he was standing he should have seen me at least a minute ago, his surprise didn’t sound convincing. Just like our “accidental” encounter in Larsen’s office.
“How are you?” he practically shouted.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was fine?” I shouted back.
Vernie gave me a lively look, stuck out his chest, and strode toward me. He looked almost as bad in his work clothes as in the suit he wore last night, his face still blotchy with an unhealthy tan and his eyes still swollen. However, he bore little resemblance to the tipsy chatterbox who had burdened me with inappropriate confessions right after we met. Nor did he look like that paranoid loser who had confronted his boss, determined to impose, in my presence, some enigmatic conflict. It was as if here, in his own territory, Vernie was a completely different person.
I couldn’t help but admire his skillful transformations. Now he was radiating confidence, a laser flexor in its leather holster dangling from his ample waist. As he approached me, he gestured expansively at all the surrounding equipment.
“Well, what do you think?”
“So far it’s most impressive, but incomprehensible.”
“Exactly! Impressive! Why not even majestic?”
“You could say so.” I shrugged my shoulders.
My lack of enthusiasm dimmed his own. We continued toward the coordination center.
“Well,” Vernie began, “if you only knew how difficult this has been for us. It’s hard to build even a day care center in such a short time, let alone a defractor! Problems, problems—”
I interrupted him, “How did you obtain materials from Earth?”
“Well, yes! You’re asking the right question. How indeed?”
“How?”
“First of all, by straining our nerves to the limit!” I was dramatically informed by Vernie, who was transforming into yet another role. “Well, it’s true half of the storage units at the base were loaded with materials from Earth, but those, of course, were hardly enough to get us started. So quite often we sent orders through the Yusians to Earth. For a while the starship even had regular service between there and here, but lately it has remained on Earth for weeks, and yesterday you, Simon, arrived with no ‘luggage’! Not that we have ordered anything, but our people there could have pleased us at least with a little something—”
I interrupted him again. “Only one starship travels between Earth and Eyrena?”
“Yes, but considering its capacity, even one is more than enough! It arrives, leaves us the shipments, and on the next day takes off again—always at the same time, exactly when Ridon is at its zenith. But there’s something else that I can’t understand, Simon. How come this starship returns to Earth literally within a few hours but travels so long on the way here—when there’re people on board?”
“Hmm. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely! And another weird thing: it took us twenty-two days to get here, but you arrived in only fourteen days. But why wonder at all? They’re Yusians! And, one way or another, we were provided with all we needed for the construction project. Now, finally, there it is: it’s ready!”
“Ready for what?” I asked. “I couldn’t find any information on the server about what it does.”
“Oh, the defractor will have many functions.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“How can I explain to you, Simon? You’re not a specialist. As you well know, nowadays everyone is a god in his own field and—”
“And a primitive savage in someone else’s,” I finished.
“Well, no, no!” At last Vernie was embarrassed. “I didn’t exactly mean that. But let me be totally frank with you! The goals we are trying to achieve with the defractor are so crucial, and therefore top secret, that even I, its creator, am not familiar with some details.”
So, if nothing else, I learned what Vernie meant by “totally frank.”
The coordination center was situated in a building that further bewildered me, as it turned out to be no bigger than a bungalow and looked quite shabby. We crossed the lobby and entered a narrow workspace, crammed with various installations.
“Excuse me for a moment,” mumbled Vernie, as he stood in front of a monitor and quickly keyed in a code.
More than a minute later, Elia appeared on the screen. The lipstick she was wearing was too bright, but she still looked gorgeous.
“Aha! Terence.” she nodded, which meant that Vernie had taken the trouble to include me in the picture.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked her.
“The centrifuge broke down for the third time since noon. I warned you it couldn’t handle this rotation speed.”
“All right, I’ll be with you in an hour.”
“Even if you come in a second, it will still be too late, Phil. I can’t finish it today.”
“Damn it!”
“Come on, don’t be angry,” Elia said, soothing him. “Tomorrow is another day.”
“There will be countless days, but the problem is, how many of them will be ours?” He snorted.
After which he cut off the connection quite offhandedly for someone in love, and for such a “flimsy construction,” as Elia had qualified him. He stood in front of the darkened screen, hands at his waist, and breathed deeply a few times.