by Peter Yard
Mikel picked up the topmost book of the pile, which contained about ten books, stacked about 60 centimeters high. He carefully opened it to the first page. "A Short History of Earth by Wil Eckers." It was in much better condition than the other books they had seen. These books were meant to be found. They must have been made at the last moment of materials that would last. Somewhere in the library was a machine that could print and bind whole books. What a treasure! He noticed the title of the next book in the pile: "History of Interstellar Flight." And below that: "Rebuilding Civilization."
Kay picked up something. "A note in the hand of the Librarian, I'm guessing," she said aloud, awe in her voice, for a Librarian is a sacred role in Trader society.
She opened it up carefully, it was fragile. She took some time to understand the arcane handwritten script, then read aloud.
"Beijing has been nuked. Surface burst radiation everywhere. No hope. If you can still read then take these books its all we can do for you. All of us very ill." She looked at Mikel confused.
"Nuked? Radiation?"
"Ionizing radiation I suspect. It is dangerous. Don't know about 'nuked'. Doesn't matter now, but it is clear we can take these books. They look too valuable to leave behind, and they seem more durable. Everyone, take two or three."
They sealed the Library. The books added more weight than he wanted, he hoped it wouldn't add too much to their risk.
Now, at last, they reached the center of the city. There were skyscrapers, but not that many, though some had fantastical shapes and the city center seemed to be more spread out than in Sanfran. In the middle of the city there was a large empty square, many old rusted hulks cluttered the area, vegetation and even a few stunted trees were growing in places. The winters here would be cold, maybe that restricted the growth a bit.
The central city square was empty and dry, dead trees, and grass.
There was a sound. A muffled thud, thud, from the other end of the square.
From out of a dark opening in a large building directly opposite, no more than fifty meters distant, something came out of the shadows. It was about twice the height of a man. It looked vaguely like a giant praying mantis but fatter, its skin was a mottled green with black, like the plastics he saw in the museum in Bethor. Mikel whispered to the others, "I don't think it's alive. I think it is a machine."
“Dragon!” Tarvis said it with a whisper. This was truly the Dragon of legend.
Kay whispered, "The Ancients had intelligent machines called robots. Some were for menial tasks, some were for fighting."
"Everyone, just lower your weapons. Act calm," Mikel said.
Eirik wouldn't listen and scuttled to cover. Mikel couldn't blame him, he wanted to do the same.
The 'creature' lumbered out. Now that it was in daylight it appeared to be limping on one of its six legs. It was a mottled green and brown all over, camouflage colors. The similarity to the insect was only superficial, Mikel could see obvious signs of lettering and numbering, places for hoses to connect. Connection points. The head was about the size of an armored human head but with two glassy eyes looking at him. He noticed devices on extensions from the body and the head, differently colored, black tubes pointing at them, likely weapons, some were quite large. He now saw that a lot of the complexity was the attached presumed weaponry. It looked impressive and scary.
The dragon spoke, a female voice, devoid of emotion. “Identify. Who. Are. You." It separated each word in an odd way, but spoke quickly, perhaps this was a battlefield means of communicating.
"I am Mikel from the Center in Lind."
It must have been evaluating them. Then for no reason it simply said: "You. are. human. No. attack. made. No. threat."
"Could you tell us what happened here?"
"You. wish. report. summary?"
"Yes."
"2376 July 12: Alarm. raised. Orders. Defend. city. from. invaders. Attack. in. progress."
"2376 July 12: Thermonuclear. detonation. in. Xanadu. Valley. Beijing. no. comms. Surface. detonation. eastern. Xanadu. valley. Particle. weapon. fire. from. Zeus. Return. particle. weapon. fire. from. invader."
"2376 July 12: Sought. shelter. Part. city. on. fire. Population. flees."
"2376 August 1: No. surviving. humans. found. Radiation. levels. very. high. Shelter. one. year."
"2377 August 1: Radiation. levels. very. high. in. city. No. humans. Shelter. ten. years."
"2387 August 1: Radiation. levels. high. No. humans. Shelter. fifty. years."
"2437 August 1: Radiation. levels. moderate. No. humans. Valley. minimal. vegetation. Sentinel Protocol Activated. Shelter. ten. year. periods. until. radiation. at. human. survivable. levels."
Mikel had heard enough. "Stop. Did others come here?"
"Yes. Three. small. groups. Each. attacked. battle. unit. 35. Lethal. response. used. according. to. Sentinel Protocol."
"Great, it killed anyone who came here." John said.
"There'd be no dragon legend if no one escaped. Are there any other humans in the city?"
"No."
"Unit 35, which is the way to …"
At that moment the dragon's head and body gracefully moved to look above them. One of the black tubes at its side independently swiveled in that direction, there was a lance of white fire into the sky. Mikel looked up and saw a flash, an explosion of feathers and felt the radiated heat on his face.
"What was that?" he said, shaking.
"Detected. possible. surveillance. drone. Neutralized."
"A bird?"
"Yes. Possible. drone. configuration."
"What kind of weapon was that?"
"Light. railgun. ordnance. Incendiary. fast. thermite. ammunition."
Mikel noticed that they were all frozen in a hair trigger state. They had to act calmly and reassuringly if they wanted to avoid being similarly misclassified.
"We will be leaving the city soon and going north to the Citadel."
The machine stopped for a few seconds. Mikel was about to repeat his statement as non-threateningly as possible.
Suddenly it started lumbering towards them. Until it was only about five meters from Mikel. It towered over him. There was the faint smell of burnt metal. The wonder of Unit 35 was now obvious, it was an amazing piece of engineering but still a weapon.
"Unit 35, can you aid in the defense of a human city?"
"No. longer. airworthy. insufficient. fuel. reserves. Mobility. reduction. critical. Ammunition. reserves. critical. This. unit. not. recommended. for. deployment. Failure. of. various. subcritical. systems. Near. failure. of. some. critical. systems. Report. available. Urgent. repairs. required."
"All right." He was disappointed, for a moment he thought he had found the weapon that would turn the tide. They would have to press on to the Citadel and hope it was enough.
"That. is. the. way. to. the. Citadel." Its head rotated to point down one of the streets that met the Square.
"Will. other. humans. come. now? Unit 35 misses squad mates Unit 35 has used last bots to keep vegetation out of city for humans. No bots left. No herbicide." The change in speaking style caught him by surprise. Then he thought about what had just been said. The robot missed the humans. What answer could he possibly give to that?
"Soon, more humans will come here. New squad mates. Treat them kindly. Explain who you are." He had no idea whether the next humans would be Wizards, Traders, or even Bethorese. But he was trying to give it a chance at a better — what, life? All sentient beings deserved a chance at happiness, he couldn't deny that chance to anyone, even if they were a machine.
"Not. old. squad. mates?"
"No."
They left the city heading north. The road sloped up, and all that time before them loomed the Citadel, a great, vague shape that dominated the skyline as if the world itself curved up. So far up that the beam weapons he read about at its peak must function almost in a vacuum. Taller than clouds, taller than mountains, a new aspect of the visual world like
'ground' and 'sky'.
twenty-two
Snows of Olympus
The road north continued upwards. No longer even the gravelly remains of an old weathered road, just convenient old watercourses. Here and there some brickwork to show that once this way had been the work of man but the mountain had won it back. Very little vegetation, just stray tufts of grass, growing in the thinner air. Walking was no longer pleasant, the air was noticeably thinner, they were all stopping more often. The sky had a blueness that he had never seen before, it had a feeling of strange hallucinogenic intensity, and in the middle of it the sun transformed into a brilliant hard white like sunlight purified. By the end of the day they had reached a small plateau or lookout covered with uniform gravel unrelated to the surrounding rocks, clearly artificial. It looked to the south over the valley. There were rusted remains in the dirt of something like fence posts, the outline of a small building.
A series of stairs led upwards beyond the flat area. They were massive, perhaps 30 meters wide, tread depth of about a half a meter, a rise of about ten centimeters, all made of pink granite, similar to the walls of the Castle at Tanten. By the look of it it was rarely used; there were the marks of natural erosion but no worn footsteps. Why walk when you could fly, as the legends said? Mikel followed the stairs upwards with his eye; this was no place for horses, they would have to be left behind. Someone would need to look after them.
“We will have to leave the horses here, which means someone has to stay with them, probably lead them back down to forage. Any volunteers? I know it's risky staying near the city.”
They laughed, John said it plainly. “Mikel, going with you is risky. The city is deserted."
John volunteered, "I will stay. In case you are wondering why, I intend to take the horses and go back to Sydney and have a talk to my new buddy, Unit-35. And explore some buildings. This place is a treasure of knowledge. Think how much the Library will pay for some of the discoveries here. Or new industries I could create. This is an opportunity. Being the safer option, that means Eirik should come with me, unless you are trying to recruit him as a Wizard."
They laughed. In spite of the similarities Mikel had not thought of that.
He said, "I guess he could learn the Trader ways so he knows what he is giving up. Or, he might end up a Trader Wizard; able to build civilization from first principles but wondering whether it is worthwhile." More laughter.
The next day Tarvis, Kay and Mikel each took a minimal backpack. They did not know how long they would have to climb, clearly the summit was beyond reach no matter how they prepared, the gamble was that there was somewhere near the base that would give them entry to the Citadel.
Day became night and they settled in one of the alcoves cut into the nearby rock, there were the remains of past structures, traces of wood and brick. A shack maybe. Now they set up tents, though there was nowhere to anchor them so they had to use rocks to weight the edges down. It was better than nothing but still very unpleasant. The night was bitterly cold.
At first light they ate some food and got moving. They just wanted to warm up. They had been climbing until about midday when the stairs came to an end on a large flat area. The circular area was about 200 meters across and intricately carved with mathematical designs, the patterns being accentuated by the use of different colored rock in the design. Mikel knew some of the figures. It all looked new, no sign of age, which meant someone must be maintaining it.
"Hmm. Catenary. Cardioid. Logarithmic spiral. Some of these are — intricate. I don't recognize them."
They proceeded across the open space to an opening in the cliff face. The circular platform now fanned out with rising steps to feed into an even larger cave entrance. Above them the rock that had been a typical gray, now changed to a whitish rock which continued up indefinitely turning gray-blue as it rose into the distant heights. The white rock showed no signs of erosion.
The cave entrance was huge. About a hundred meters high, several hundred meters across, and pitch black. They stepped inside, there was no alternative, it was this or go home; to a burning home.
Kay was the first to speak, “Tarvis, do you realize this cave opening could fit the entire Castle inside with room to spare?”
“What do you expect in the home of Zeus?” He looked uncomfortable. They all were. That was the purpose of this place; to impress and humble.
They stopped just inside and waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. The cave was precisely carved with a rectangular cross-section. It looked new. It was also unnaturally warm and pleasant. In the distance, a light blinked on and off repeatedly.
They carefully walked towards the blinking light. To either side of them they saw broken machines, with Ancient lettering stenciled on them, paint or some other coating flaking off. Then Kay noticed that it was not as dark as it should be, even accounting for their night eye adaptation.
They stopped and looked up. Slowly a series of lights above and on the sides of the tunnel were turning on. They had never seen light like this, this was not like fire or gas or candle light, this light was like sunlight, but gentler. Now with enough light to see they understood the scale of the passageway. The walls had an alabaster look with dark coloring highlighting some writing and figures. The dark floor now started to show a moving series of luminescent blue 'dots', each dot about the size of a human hand. The dots in groups of 6 moved, in single file, from the party's current position to somewhere further down the passage towards the blinking light. The enormity of the passage was now starting to be overwhelming, they felt like ants, they did not belong here.
"Greed and ambition.” Tarvis reminded them about motivations that could make people do extreme things. Mikel didn't think the comment helpful.
"Or desperation." He added.
This place made him feel comfortable for some reason.
"Is it just me or is it easier to breathe here? And it is a pleasant temperature."
Everyone agreed. There was no draught from within, the air just seemed to be different inside compared to outside.
"In the hall of the Mountain King." Kay said, but Mikel didn't get the reference.
Soon the light was bright enough so that they could see two machines located about fifty meters from them, the source of the blinking light was between the machines, but they couldn't discern a shape. It was also now clear that the massive walls of the passage were covered in a strange script and amongst the writing were relief images of — non-humans. Were these religious depictions of demons? The reliefs were not demonic however, just different. So much to see and he had no time. Mikel let out an audible sigh. No one questioned it, to Traders and Wizards alike the knowledge here was worth more than gold, and they all had to just walk on by. As they got closer they were surprised to find that the blinking light was coming from one of three fist sized globes that were just suspended in mid air, at human eye level. The three balls formed an inverted equilateral triangle, like a 'del' from mathematics, about half a meter across. As they got near to it the blinking stopped and all three lights grew brighter emitting a soft yellow-white glow. The machines nearby started to move; odd seemingly useless small lights on them became visible. Then Mikel noticed that these did not have the stenciled lettering or clear machine characteristics. These were far more sophisticated, more like living things.
"Welcome, humans." The globes said in accented Ancient.
"Are you Zeus?"
"I am not Zeus. I am an agent of the entity that humans refer to as Zeus. This is one of many access points to Olympus, just as there are other structures like Olympus."
He took a deep breath. He decided to ignore the high weirdness and just go with it, he would have nightmares and breakdowns later.
"How many other — Olympuses are there?"
"There are a total of twenty four. Eight are primaries. This is a primary defense node."
He would have to deal with the idea that this wonder was not unique later. For now, time to get bac
k to their task.
"Can we talk to Zeus?"
"There has been no communication between humans and Zeus since the battle of 2376. Zeus suffered damage in the battle and was offline for some time."
"What do you mean offline?"
"Zeus was in repair mode and could not communicate with humans."
"Is Zeus still offline?"
"No. Zeus came back online day 107 of 2410. It did not find any human responders to its communications requests."
"What about the Raymond Tans?", Kay added.
"A human ship entered geosynchronous orbit in 2390. Sensors recorded the event but there was no system with authority active at the time to initiate contact. It did not respond to hails after Zeus came online. No shuttle has been observed to depart from it since."
"What year is it now?"
"The year is 3049 according to the Terran Federation also known as the Human Nexus."
The two Traders nodded, their own secret calendar matched this. Their public calendar was the Wizard calendar, in Neti years, using the same starting point as the Wizards, the creation date of the Center. Since the Center was the main source of clocks then their calendar also happened to dominate. The secret calendar of the Traders was always a secret, an outsider might know the Trader year but not know the significance of it.
"Did Zeus ever re-establish contact with humans, with the Cities of the Plains?"
"The emissaries from the Cities eventually came and tried to contact Zeus. They did not speak with one voice, they only wanted to defeat their neighbors. Zeus made no pact with them and told them that their days were numbered. What was left of their civilization was not stable."
Hearing this was worrying. Others had come here asking for what he was asking. He would have to convince Zeus that this was different. They had to talk to Zeus directly.