by Allen Steele
Then he saw Otho and Joan approaching from the other direction, and he was reminded that they were all prisoners no matter how they were treated. Their bonds had been removed, but four armed Sons accompanied them from the pressurized dome where they’d been held. No one was taking chances with Captain Future and his companions.
Curt had little doubt that Ul Quorn intended to eliminate all four of them. There seemed to be little they could do about that; they were unarmed and outnumbered. The only chance they had was the ring on his left hand.
As he walked, Curt casually kept his hands in his parka pockets, using the concealment to laboriously tap out a new message in Morse code. He had no way of knowing whether it was getting through; all he could do was hope that the carrier-wave signal he’d secretly accessed from the nearby radio tower had sufficient strength to be picked up by the Comet.
He glanced up at the sky above the volcano’s eastern walls, rapidly fading from deep purple to pink with the coming of the new day. If help was on the way, it would come from that direction. And when it arrived, he and the others would have to move fast.
A tarp had been set up above a folding table near the excavation. Otho and Joan got there a couple of seconds before Curt did. “How are you doing?” he asked quietly once he’d joined them. “Are they treating you well?”
“Actually, not too badly,” Otho replied. “We got a chance to take our masks off and rest a bit, and they even offered us some breakfast.” He shrugged. “Could be worse, I suppose.”
Joan gave a disgusted sigh. Curt couldn’t see her expression through her mask, but apparently she was unimpressed by Ul Quorn’s courtesy. “Don’t expect lunch,” she murmured. “And I doubt you’ll get a souvenir to take with you.”
“That’s not entirely true.” UI Quorn was smiling as he ducked to step beneath the tarp. Walking over to the table, he laid a hand on a small metal box. “I may be inclined to give you a small gift, too, just as I have one for Curt.” Looking at Corvo, he added, “Something else we found wandering into camp uninvited.”
Observing Corvo’s presence, Otho raised a querying eyebrow. Curt didn’t notice; he was surreptitiously studying their immediate surroundings. They weren’t far from the gaping mouth of the volcanic vent through which they’d emerged a little while earlier, and the landing pad was about the same distance away in the opposite direction. Details worth remembering; they might make a difference in the next few minutes.
“I came to help you, son,” Corvo growled, causing Joan to stare at him in amazement. “I knew these three were after you, and I was doing my best to stop them before—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Ul Quorn said impatiently. “It cost me the life of one of my best men, and that’s just one more thing I owe you. But that’s not what I wish to talk about, so would you kindly be quiet and let me speak?”
Turning his back to the table, he faced Curt. “Now, then … as I understand matters, the first time you took an interest in the senator, it was at the Straight Wall. So I take it that you’re interested in the Denebian Petroglyphs?”
Puzzled, Curt nodded. “Yes, I am. I’ve been studying the carvings most of my life.”
“Really? What a coincidence. So have I.” A brief smile that faded just as quickly. “But then again, we seem to share a few things in common, don’t we? We both had loved ones killed by the same man, we both were raised in hiding by a surrogate family, and now it seems we both grew up wondering who the Old Ones were and what they were doing here.” Folding his arms across his chest, Ul Quorn cupped his chin in his right hand. “So tell … have you ever figured out the meaning of the Dancing Denebians?”
“No, I haven’t. No one has.”
“Wrong,” the Magician of Mars said. “I have.”
He picked up from the table a photo and held it up for Curt to see. It was a shot of the lunar carvings as taken from inside the new dome. “For years, the assumption that everyone’s been working under is that the Dancing Denebians are petroglyphs in the same sense as those left by ancient cultures on Earth—that is, a hieroglyphic or pictorial form of language. But a few years ago, I began to ask a different question. What if it’s not language the Dancing Denebians are supposed to represent, but rather something more universal—say, mathematics?”
“You think the carvings are numerical?”
“Why not?” Ul Quorn placed the photo back on the table. “We’re pretty certain that Denebians passed through our solar system approximately a million years ago—the mid-Calabrian era of the Pleistocene, to be a little more specific. Mars was already biologically dead, having long since lost its atmosphere and surface water, but it was still exhibiting some geological activity, particularly deep beneath the Tharsis Ridge. In the meantime, on Earth, the glaciers had receded for a little while and humankind was in the last transitive stages between hominids and Homo sapiens. No longer beast, not entirely civilized either, but showing great potential nonetheless. That’s what the visitors found when they came here.”
“Why?” Despite himself, Curt was becoming drawn into the conversation. “Why did the Denebians come all this way?”
“Who knows? Perhaps they were explorers and their purposes were entirely scientific. Or maybe they were conquerors who’d discovered that this system was unsuitable for them. In any case, the Old Ones were here for only a short time. Before they left, though, they put in place a couple of markers meant to be found by the indigenous race they knew would eventually come along behind them—namely, us. And since they knew that we’d never learn their language, they decided instead to rely upon a common frame of reference.”
“Math,” Otho said.
“Why, yes, that’s correct. Math.” Ul Quorn seemed surprised that Otho would come up with the answer; apparently he underestimated the android’s intelligence. “They decided to use numbers instead of letters or words as the means of communication with the descendants of the primitive species they’d observed on Earth. To accomplish this, the Denebians carved a series of bipedal figures resembling themselves, with ten major poses representing the digits of a base-ten numerical system. Next to each of these hieroglyphic representations are the actual figures of their numerical system.”
“I think I see,” Curt said. “We’ve been looking for a Rosetta stone that would enable us to interpret their message, not realizing that the message provided its own translation key.”
“Precisely!” Ul Quorn folded his arms across his chest. “All those who preceded me in studying the lunar petroglyphs overlooked the obvious. The Old Ones had deliberately passed along a message meant to be read countless years later by those who’d never understand their native tongue, and therefore resorted to mathematics, not language, as the medium.”
Whenever Ul Quorn referred to the Denebians as the Old Ones, Curt noticed that the Sons standing around them briefly lowered their eyes and touched their foreheads with their fingertips. Apparently it was a ritualistic gesture of respect. Worth remembering. He stole another glance at the sky, as if idly observing the morning sun. “So why leave the message on the Straight Wall? And what’s the connection between there and here?”
“The Straight Wall should be obvious. It’s a natural feature on the lunar surface visible from Earth. The Denebians correctly figured that once the human species evolved sufficiently to be able to venture out into space, one of the first places we’d inevitably visit was our planet’s own satellite, and so we’d eventually explore one of its most prominent landforms. And since there’s practically no erosion on the Moon, the Dancing Denebians would remain undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of millennia.”
“And as for Mars…?”
“Ah!” Ul Quorn raised a finger. “Now there’s the really interesting part!”
He reached around behind him again to pick up a second sheet of paper lying on the table. Passing it to Curt, he quietly waited while Curt studied it.
The page was divided into three horizontal bars: Dancing Denebians on the top r
ow, Denebian geometric figures in the middle, and Arabic numerals on the bottom. The last was divided into two sets that resembled …
“These are coordinates,” Curt said, his voice little more than an awestruck whisper. “Latitude and longitude, just like we ourselves use.”
“Yes, precisely!” Ul Quorn was both delighted and impressed. “And since the topmost image of the Straight Wall petroglyphs is a diagram of our solar system, with a line connecting Earth and Mars, it didn’t take a lot of imagination to deduce that the coordinates were somewhere on Mars. All that remained was figuring the meridian and the degrees of separation, and the rest was easy.”
Joan spoke up. “And the coordinates were for…?”
“The very spot on which we now stand.” Ul Quorn spread his arms apart to encompass the site. “The Old Ones wanted us to come to this place, a location they judged would experience the least amount of surface erosion over a long period of time: the caldera of an extinct volcano, nearly thirty thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. And here is where we found the final piece of the puzzle … the Denebian main base in our solar system.”
“A Denebian settlement here?” Otho asked. “In a volcano?”
Ul Quorn gave him a patronizing look. “Oh, come now … don’t be so thick. Scientists have been searching Mars for alien artifacts for years, trying to find another trace of the Old Ones.” He looked at Corvo, who stood silently glaring at him. “For this, at least, I’m grateful to you, my father. In return for my running your criminal enterprises while you sought public legitimacy, you honored my request by funding archaeological studies of the Straight Wall and establishing the site as a protected reserve. What you didn’t know was that this wasn’t merely a whim. Behind the scenes, I secretly directed the work being done there by Dr. Winters and Dr. Norton. They didn’t know it, but they were working for me the entire time.”
“Your gratitude is overwhelming.” Corvo wasn’t amused.
“Nothing you’ve done will ever atone for my mother’s death. Try to remember that.” Ul Quorn turned to Curt again. “It’s my belief that the other reason why the Denebians established a base here was that Ascraeus Mons wasn’t entirely extinct, that there was still some geothermal activity occurring deep beneath the planetary crust. The Old Ones were able to tap into this energy for their own purpose, which was … well, perhaps it’s best if I showed you.”
He reached over to the small box that lay on the table and carried it over to them. “At every archaeological site, there’s always an unexpected discovery, an object that no one thought they’d find.” He held the box out to Curt, Otho, and Joan and slowly lifted the cover. “Here’s what we found.”
Nestled within the box was a soft, almost rubbery object, off-white and oval in shape, about sixteen inches in length. At first glance it appeared to be an oversize larva, and indeed, as Ul Quorn opened the lid, a shudder ran down its segmented flanks. The Magician gently pulled it out of the box and it made a quiet, almost contented sound—“Oooog”—as it wrapped itself around his hands, and now they could see that it had six small pseudopods for legs and a pair of small, black eyes above a puckered round mouth.
“What is it?” Otho asked as Joan shrank back in revulsion.
“That is a very good question. Like to hold it?” Ul Quorn offered it to him. Otho hesitated for a moment, then carefully took it from his hands. “We found it wandering around camp shortly after we arrived, and while it’s obviously not an indigenous life form, we’re not certain what purpose it may have served for the Denebians. Perhaps it was a pet who was left behind.” He smiled. “We call it Oog, for the only sound it seems to be able to make.”
“A pet?” Otho was incredulous. Oog was warm and soft, and seemed to be making itself at home in his hands. “But if the Denebians left it behind, that would mean that it’s…”
His voice trailed off in astonishment. “Nearly a million years old,” Ul Quorn finished. “It seems to be a bit like yourself, neither completely organic nor completely mechanical, and appears to subsist on nothing except sunlight and the Martian regolith. Oh, and it has an interesting talent. Close your eyes and concentrate on thinking of something about its same size and mass.”
Wondering what this was about, Otho did as Ul Quorn asked. A few seconds passed, then he felt Oog begin to shift about in his hands. Joan cried out in astonishment, and that caused him to open his eyes again … to find himself holding not the amorphous creature he’d previously had in his grasp, but rather Grag’s moonpup Eek.
“I’ll be damned,” he murmured. “Did it just do what I think it did?”
“Yes, it did. It read your mind and changed shape to match whatever you’d imagined.” Ul Quorn seemed amused. “You adopted my father’s gift to the president, I take it. Just as well. I always thought it was a stupid idea.”
Otho didn’t reply, but instead gently stroked the mimic. It gazed at him in the same loving way Eek did with Grag, and even its fur felt real. Joan overcame her disgust to come closer and pet Oog as well.
Forgotten for the moment, Curt quietly stood off to the side. No one noticed that his hands were back in his pockets, or that his gaze had briefly returned to the sky again.
VI
“Captain, the Comet is entering the atmosphere.”
Ezra wondered how Mr. Sturdivent could tell. Then the navigator opened a window on the main screen, and within it appeared a telescopic view of Mars as seen from low orbit. A fireball was beginning to form in the upper atmosphere, leaving behind a thin white tail that grew longer with each passing second.
The Comet itself couldn’t be seen, but the plasma shell created by its passage revealed its whereabouts. Ezra smiled at the irony. The little teardrop-shaped craft had truly come to resemble a comet.
“Position?” E.J. asked.
“Altitude 32.4 kilometers, 10 degrees north by 85.6 west, bearing 5.2 degrees west by northwest. It’s coming in over the Lunae Planum just north of the Valles Marineris and making a beeline for Ascraeus Mons.” Sturdivent looked up and over his shoulder at her. “We’re maintaining line-of-sight contact with her, ma’am. Orders?”
Captain Henniker didn’t respond at once. Absently rubbing a forefinger against her lips, she swiveled her chair about to look at Gurney. “How about it, Ezra?” she asked. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Maybe they expect us to send down an assault team after them, but if that’s the case, why land the Comet at all? It’ll never get off the—”
He was interrupted by a commotion at the control room door. From the direction of the corridor, he heard a voice: “Hey, stop … stop! You can’t come in here without—!”
Then a dog barked, immediately followed by the sound of padded feet running across the deck. Ezra barely had time to recognize the noises for what they were when a small brown-and-white form dashed out of the semidarkness and vaulted into his lap.
Startled, Ezra nearly dropped the dog to the floor, but the little mutt had already wrapped its forepaws around his neck and was slopping his mustache with wet, happy doggie kisses.
“Eek?” The marshal couldn’t have been more astonished. “What are you doing here?”
There was no answer, of course, but in the same instant that Ezra realized what the moonpup’s presence implied, he heard another sound: heavy, stamping footfalls, followed an instant later by the purr of rotary impellors.
He looked around and saw Grag and the Brain walking through the control room, followed by the ensign who’d failed to stop them at the door. The bridge personnel stopped what they were doing to watch. “You,” Ezra muttered, swatting Eek from his lap as he rose from his seat. “How the hell did you—?”
“Ezra, what are these things?” E.J. also stood up. More angry than confused, she was plainly outraged by the intrusion. “Is this Newton’s crew?”
“Captain Henniker, I cannot help but be offended.” The Brain floated to within a few feet of her, his
eyestalks moving until they were level with her face. “I may no longer have a human form, but appearances notwithstanding, I still consider myself a human being. As for my companion, he is much more than the mere automaton he appears to be. Therefore, we are not things.”
“Hello, Captain.” Grag stopped beside the Brain and raised its right hand. “I’m Grag, companion to Curt Newton, sometimes also known as Captain Future. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Eek was running in circles around the robot’s legs, yapping excitedly, and Grag turned its large red eyes toward the little dog. “Be quiet, Eek,” it said quietly. “Sit.”
Obediently, Eek squatted on his hind legs beside Grag, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Apparently the ’bot had been spending quite a bit of time lately training its new pet. Ezra was in no mood to compliment him, though. “Captain, this is Simon Wright and … um, Grag, as it prefers to be known. And, yes, they’re the crew of the Comet”—he glanced at them again—“although it’s now obvious they’re not aboard their ship.”
“Please forgive the unauthorized intrusion, ma’am.” The Brain continued to float before her, but his eyestalks twisted away to inspect the forward wallscreen. “Grag and I disembarked from our vessel shortly before it launched. We then proceeded through service tunnels to your ship’s hangars, where we posed as maintenance ’bots in order to stow away. We’ve been in the cargo hold until just a few minutes ago, waiting until the proper moment to reveal ourselves.”
“The proper—?” E.J. stared at him. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here. You’re supposed to be aboard the Comet … that’s where you said you were!”
“No, ma’am, that’s not true. I said that the Comet had launched and was on its way down to Mars, but I didn’t explicitly state that either Grag or I was aboard.”