by Paul Preuss
The vibration of the steel walls brought her the electric hum, the metallic screech, the hydraulic plunge and suck of the endlessly turning station; her inner ear easily filtered these to retrieve the human coughs and moans and chuckles, the voices raised in complaint or enthusiasm. The life of Port Hesperus was stumbling along normally. Most of the workers who bunked in Sparta’s sector were sound asleep; their day shifts did not begin for three more hours. The rest were working as efficiently as they ever did.
Close overhead, the spacecraft controllers in the traffic control dome kept track of the hundreds of small craft and robot satellites that crowded surrounding space. Only one interplanetary vessel was nearby, a Space Board cutter due to reach the radiation perimeter in six hours. Sparta’s replacement was aboard it, and she herself would be on it when it burned for Earth.
At the other end of the station, two kilometers away—the end that always pointed straight down toward the center of Venus—the Ishtar Mining Corporation and the Azure Dragon Mutual Prosperity Mineral Endeavor were busily conducting business as usual. The rival companies were the station’s economic base, its reason for existence. Twenty-four hours each station day they dispatched and received the big ore shuttles and directed the hives of metal beetles that scoured the surface of Venus for precious metals.
Still Sparta listened…
She heard no one in the corridor near her cabin. Tuning her visual cortex to infrared, she scanned the darkness of the low apartment. She saw nothing but the glowing wall circuits—no living thing had passed this way in the last hour.
Her chemical senses reported nothing out of the ordinary.
She willed herself to relax. She was in no danger. Nothing external had awakened her, nothing external had triggered the falling dream. Another fragment of her wrecked and submerged memory had broken off and floated to the surface.
The signs … the stripes of the dream-tiger were made of signs. Sometime not long ago she had dreamed of signs, but she couldn’t remember where, or what she had dreamed.
She went to the room’s single big window. The heavy steel shutter was the old-fashioned kind, operated by a handcrank. Slowly she cranked it back. As the shutter folded upon itself, Venus light flooded her cabin, and the starside bulge of the green garden sphere swelled before her, ending in an artificial horizon a kilometer away.
As she gazed upon the tiny world of glass and steel, she felt the headache that had been plaguing her in recent weeks coming on again. She set her thumbs into the corners of her jaw and reached behind her neck, massaging the back of her skull with her fingertips. It helped a little. She went to the closet and began to dress.
She pulled on sleek black pants that hugged her legs and gave them the look of machined plastic; she sealed their ankle seams over ribbed black boots. Her top was tight and high, of banded black vinyl. She wore her clothes like armor.
She looked toward her wall screen, fixing it with her dark blue gaze. The screen’s remote-control unit lay on her bedside table, two meters away. She stretched her arms and curved her hands in an ancient symbol of benediction, but this was no blessing: under her heart, the structures built into her diaphragm sparked into life. The odd web of doped ceramic “wires” that looped around her bones coursed with electric current. Her belly burned—
—and the wall screen brightened with an image.
Good trick, making things work at a distance—she was learning to do it more easily. With her arms still raised, she aimed another silent burst of intention at the screen; the image skipped forward, then steadied. Sparta lowered her arms to her sides. The recorded image was one of those Forster and Merck had brought back from the surface, one of the best.
The picture that unscrolled on the wallscreen looked like an aerial reconnaisance film from a low-flying aircraft, an aircraft that was buzzing columns of tanks or maybe rows of factory buildings—intricate structures at a uniform height above the plain. Sparta heard the voice and watched the picture out of the corner of her eye and imagined it playing to an audience of bomber pilots in a Quonset hut, receiving their final mission briefing. It was the lighting of the recorded image—a single strong light from below—that tricked the brain into switching depth for height and misreading the scale. The columns and rows were inscriptions, scanned by a wide-angle lens, lines upon lines of characters deeply incised in metal plate.
These were the signs painted on the dream-tiger’s hide.
From the screen a voice boomed in the shadows, Professor Forster’s voice, hearty with menace, reciting facts that had to be faced. “It will be conceded by my colleague Professor Merck, I think, that in every example found at this locus we have now firmly established the run of the writing—not strictly left to right, as Birbor has insisted on the basis of the Martian fragment, nor strictly right to left, as Suali has surmised on grounds known only to himself—nor even, for those of you who have just jumped to the conclusion, boustrophedon, as the ox plows, back and forth. It is none of those. Anyone care to venture a guess as to what it is?”
Offscreen there was nervous rustling; the unseen audience, not of bomber pilots but of media-hounds, had gathered to watch the pictures on wallscreens in the comfort of a Port Hesperus lounge. Sparta had been there, as interested as the others in seeing what she’d helped to salvage. Someone said, “Up and down?”
Forster’s reply was mocking. “If you can find any three marks in either these texts or the Martian plaque which are vertically aligned, young man, you will confound a generation of scholars.” A nervous laugh started, but Forster squelched it. “No other suggestions? Look again, people.”
Sparta glanced at her own screen as she reached for her jacket. The image had been recorded by a remote-control lens operated from inside the archaeologist’s rover; the low-flying camera was wheeling and diving, strafing the columns of signs. Sparta had seen it instantly, the first time she’d watched the recording: the script alternated by column…
“The run of the writing in all these inscriptions alternates by column—the left column invariably reads left to right, the right column invariably reads right to left,” Forster said. “What’s more interesting, the opposing columns bear virtually identical texts. Some of you may see this as unfortunate, in that it cuts in half the amount of unique text we have to work with, but let’s look on the bright side. Redundancy is a hedge against error and will help us fill lacunae.”
Sparta closed the flap of her shiny white jacket, broad in the shoulders and tight at the waist; its high collar protected the back of her neck. She pulled open a drawer and started to push the rest of her clothes into the duffel bag. It would be eight hours until the cutter pulled into the starside docking bay, another few hours of debriefing before she could say goodbye to Venus. She’d be ready and waiting.
Packing should have been easy, but her anxious nature made it hard. She traveled light, carrying only a small polycanvas duffle which made it difficult to fold her clothes. And—because she had eidetic memory of each earlier failure of topological perfection, of each resulting ugly wrinkle—where another finicky person would have spent a minute refolding each garment, she spent five.
Behind her, the scene switched to Forster at the podium of the lecture hall, his bewhiskered face rendered fierce by the yellow light of the lectern’s dim bulb. “Now I should like to outline what statistical analysis of the recent finds has revealed about the sign system of Culture X.”
Sparta concentrated on her packing; she remembered Forster’s speech perfectly. Statistical analysis of undeciphered texts—how many characters and combinations of characters appear how often, and in what context—had been an exact but laborious science since the 19th century. Since the invention of electronic computers in the middle of the 20th century it had become ever more exact and ever less laborious, and now, in that late 21st century, the machinery was so compact, the algorithms so precise and quick, that statistical analysis could be performed even as the texts were unearthed from the rock and sand
in which they had lain hidden for millenniums.
“Whoever inscribed these tablets wrote with forty-two distinct signs—three more than were previously known from the Martian fragment. In a moment Professor Merck will present his interpretation of the data. For now, I will say that I am convinced that twenty-four of these signs are alphabetical letters—representing sounds. Of the remaining eighteen, at least thirteen are simple numerals. Of course it is impossible to know whether any of the alphabetical signs correspond to ‘vowels’ or ‘consonants,’ as we understand these terms, because no one can responsibly guess at the speech-producing anatomy of the beings who made this writing.”
An alphabet? A system of numerals? Statistical analysis could reveal a few things, but it could not by itself reveal the existence of an alphabet. Forster was operating on faith.
“In conclusion, let me note that the nature of the site remains an enigma. We had only a few hours there, enough to see that the cave complex was extensive and artificial. The beings who built it packed it with hundreds of objects. Many were reconstructions—or possibly perfectly preserved specimens, mummies—of animals utterly alien to us, as you have seen. But the collectors left us no representations of themselves—no paintings, no sculptures, no recordings. Certainly none that we have recognized as such.” Forster fussed with his notes, then abruptly turned away. “My distinguished colleague, Professor Merck, will now present his views.”
On the screen Merck’s pleasant face, with its slightly distracted expression, replaced Forster’s in the podium light. Sparta liked Merck; he seemed much less the raging egotist than feisty little Forster. A man as tall as Merck might find it easier to be polite, never having strained to assert himself.
As diffident and even as indecisive as his manner suggested he was, Merck’s ideas about the so-called Culture X texts were fixed: the signs were not alphabetic, they were ideographic, although some probably doubled as syllables. Merck had written extensively on the probable meaning of the signs and had even attempted a partial content analysis—the media had instantly dubbed it a “translation”—of the Martian plaque, which had been the subject of much controversy. But no matter how vociferously the small community of xeno-archaeologists might dispute the merits of Merck’s content analysis, most of them sided with him on the question of the nature of the signs: they were ideographs.
None of these matters were of urgent interest to Sparta. Why had she dreamed of the signs? Because she’d risked her life to recover them, probably. It didn’t have to be more complicated than that.
She frowned at the wallscreen, lifted her arms, and signalled it to go dark, blanking Merck’s image.
She concentrated on her packing for another ten minutes. When she’d convinced herself that she would not get it any better, she sealed the duffle’s fabric seals. Her right eye zoomed in on the micro-mechanical links of the seal, a miniaturized zipper made of microbe-generated polymer chains.
Each hook and eye was a black squiggle: linked, they produced closure, hid meaning. Unlinked, they opened on … what? Laundry archaeology. The evidence of her lifestyle. In this dig the evidence was meager, the lifestyle sparse.
An odd thought came to her then. She believed—she couldn’t be sure—that she had dreamed of the alien signs before she had seen them. Odder yet was the irrational conviction that she knew how to pronounce the letters of that unearthly alphabet, if only she could bring its sounds to consciousness.
Eight hours later the warning siren for launch was hooting as Sparta arrived at the security lock. The cutter’s gleaming prow dominated the view outside the lock’s wide black-glass port.
A mere dozen graceful white ships, bearing the blue band and gold star of the Board of Space Control, were the fragile links in the slim chains of authority from Earth to the isolated settlements of the planets, moons, asteroids, and space stations. Powered by fusion torches, cutters went when and where they had to go, at whatever acceleration they had to pour on to get there. Every Space Board outpost hoarded torch fuel in massive tanks of frozen lithium and deuterium, and a cutter could turn around in the time it took to replenish its own propellant tanks.
The cutter that had brought replacements to Port Hesperus was needed back on Earth. Four hours after it slid gently into the high-security side of Port Hesperus’s docking bay it had loaded the consumables it needed for the return trip.
Sparta had a few minutes more to say goodbye to the one friend she’d made during her assignment. They floated in the lock, weightless in microgravity. “I’m going to miss you, Vik.”
“That’s what you said the last time,” the tall blond Slav said sourly. “Before the commlink caught you.”
“I took out my commlink, in case somebody tried that again. This time I’m really getting out of here.”
“If you should get to Leningrad…”
“I’ll beam you a holo. More likely they’ll send me back to the Newark docks.”
“Save the false modesty.”
“You’re a tough cop, Proboda.’
He thrust out his square hand and she offered her fine strong fingers to his grip. “If you don’t keep in touch, I’ll know you for the running dog lackey of the capitalist-imperialists I always suspected you were,” he grumbled.
Still holding his hand, she pulled him to her and squeezed him gingerly. “I will miss you”—affection and caution balanced neatly—“you atheistic totalitarian commie.” Abruptly, she let go and floated away. “Don’t let Kitamuki get your goat.”
“She’s going to be a real pain in the zhopa. She certainly thought she was going to make captain.”
“The new guy looks competent. He’ll keep her in line.” Sparta saw him shrug and said, “Sorry. Talking shop.”
The launch siren wailed again.
“Get out of here,” Proboda said.
She nodded, then turned and dived toward the airlock’s tube.
Just before she disappeared into the long passage, Proboda called after her, “And give my very best wishes to our friend Blake.”
She cast a quizzical glance over her shoulder. Were her feelings for Blake really that transparent?
PART
2
SECRETS OF
THE ANCIENTS
5
Paris, four months earlier: behind the beveled plate glass of a brass-framed window, warm light caressed yellowing fragments of papyrus. The Egyptian scroll unrolled upon the brown velvet was much deteriorated, with shredded edges and jagged lacunae, but hieratic script painted in glossy black and wine-red ink flowed across it with calligraphic grace. Its borders were painted with miniatures of musicians and naked dancing girls, at once stylized and animated.
A hand-written card pinned to the velvet identified the scroll as a XIIth-Dynasty variant of the Song of the Harper: “Life is brief, O beautiful Nefer. Do not resist, but let us seize the fleeting hour…” The papyrus was not rare as such things go, not sufficiently unusual for a museum, but certainly special enough to be worth the steep price the dealer was asking.
Odd, then, that the man who studied it so intently through the glass was not one of the richly dressed tourists or silk-suited businessmen strolling this street of galleries and decorators’ salons in the blue summer evening. He was not one of the leaner, hungrier-looking students from the nearby technical schools and outlying classrooms of the Sorbonne; he was hungrier even than these.
His cheeks were hollow below the high bones of what must once have been a handsome Eurasian face. His jaw was darkly fuzzed and his auburn-tinged black hair was greasy-bright, of an odd length, not quite long enough for the pigtail that sprouted from the back of his dirty neck. His shirt was in shreds and his plastic pants were too tight and too short, more badly glued patches than original fabric, with holes in the wrong places. His antic figure—teetering on high-heeled, high-topped shoes, its gaunt waist cinched in by a strip of yellow neoprene tubing—was that of a dilapidated jester.
The proprietor of the Librairie
de l’Egypte did not seem amused. Several times he had looked up from his bits of stone and scroll, his cases of scarabs and amulets, to find the eyes of the starving fellow staring at him, while well-dressed men and women, quite possibly potential customers, looked askance and walked too quickly past the shop’s open door. And this had been going on every night at this time for the past three days. The proprietor decided enough was enough.
“Get along,” he said. “Go, go.”
The bum looked ostentatiously around. “This your sidewalk, mon cher?”
“Want to sit on it? Come on, move. Quick, quick.”
“Trou de balle, toi.” He resumed his calm inspection of the papyrus.
The proprietor’s beefy face reddened; his fists clenched. He had no doubt he could have knocked the fellow off his ridiculous high heels with a swift backhanded slap, but the mockery on the bum’s face gave him pause. Why risk a lawsuit? In five minutes the flics would hustle this type off to work-shelter without wasting breath on him.
He turned abruptly and walked into his shop, closing the door behind him. He put his hand to the commlink in his ear.
The bum watched and grinned; then his dark-eyed glance darted sidelong to the woman who had been watching the show from the corner of the rue Bonaparte. She’d been watching his show for two days now, she and her friend. He was a long-haired guy in a black plastic jacket who looked like he’d be at home in a prize ring.
The evening promenade filled the narrow rue Jacob from sidewalk to sidewalk, a tide of stylish humanity. Aside from the occasional bleat of a superped’s horn no vehicular noise interrupted the soft babble, so it was easy to hear the burp of the police van’s oscillator while it was still around the corner a block away, clearing a path for itself. Inside the Librairie de l’Egypte the proprietor took his hand from his ear and sneered at the bum.