Kirlian Quest

by Piers Anthony

  "If we did know," she persisted, "would we not then be able to localize their aural families?"

  "Extinct creatures don't have auras," Herald said. "We might type their auras through typical residuals in their artifacts—I could probably do that—but it would only verify what the Kirlian Crest survey has done. Ancients occupied Ancient sites. This is obvious without further research."

  "I mean, in contemporary species," she said.

  "What purpose? No doubt some of our aural families overlap some of theirs, but—"

  "Wait, Herald," Hweeh said. "I believe I follow her reasoning. We believe the Ancients all perished, but suppose some of them survived? The Cluster is a huge geography; there must be much we have yet to discover in it. Could these remnant Ancients not have regressed, lost their technology, forgotten their heritage? Three million years is not much geologically or astronomically, but for civilized sapients it is a very long time—"

  "They may still be with us!" Herald said excitedly. "This supposes that isolated branches of the Ancients did suffer Spherical regression. But how can we say they did not, when their main culture collapsed? Their secret of civilization may have been highly technological, so that without that level they degenerated rapidly. The presence of such remnants would be the easiest thing to verify, if we only knew the aural families we were looking for. If there were not too many. It would certainly be worth a try."

  "The super-auras," Sixteen said. "Like yours. They are very special, and they don't seem to be hereditary. Could they be Ancient auras showing up recessively at long intervals? Suppose the Ancients were nonphysical entities, existing only in aural form, animating a succession of hosts."

  "That one's been thought of before," Herald said. The super-auras are not as distinct as they seem; they are merely the peaks of the distribution curves. For every plus-two-hundred aura, there are several in the one hundred and eighty to one hundred ninety-nine range, and a great many in the one hundred and fifty to one hundred seventy-nine range. A tiny percentage of the total number of entities in the Cluster, but a fair absolute number. If there were some sharp break in the distribution— But nothing significant has been found. Computer analysis indicates that high auras fit a normal probability curve, and that the gradually increasing intensities of the top auras are merely a function of increasing sapient population in the Cluster. For example, two trillion entities are more likely to produce a record aura than one trillion entities. Considered in this context, I am merely the chance high spot of a crowded Cluster."

  "We need more artifacts," Hweeh said. "We are not looking for present-day full-blooded living Ancients, but for some Ancient admixture in a present species. The strength of their auras may have declined, but their aural families should be more stable. If you can analyze the residual auras in undisturbed artifacts, we can run our geographic search for the highest concentration of those families. There must be some more relics somewhere on this planet—"

  "There must be!" Herald agreed. "Come, we must search them out!"

  "But you are injured, drugged," Sixteen protested. "The chances of locating such artifacts are meager, and it is only a theory that may prove to be without foundation. I cannot let you range the planet on such purely speculative—"

  "Give me more drugs," Herald said. "My aura will balance them, so that my host will not expire before the unit comes from Earth. I believe the potential gain is worth the risk."

  "Well, maybe a cautious survey of the local site," she conceded. "If it weren't a matter of Cluster security— You must move slowly and rest often...."

  "No such limit!" Herald said. "This is important. The Amoeba obviously knew about this site, and blasted all collected artifacts. But there must be other sites on this planet, or at least camping remains, whose significance would not be evident. Fragments of personal articles, sealed in vaporproof containers, anything sufficiently imbued with Ancient personal aura, would be valuable. Somewhere on Mars, probably far removed so as to be out of range of the Amoeba ship's pinpoint aural detectors. These fragments are what we must find. If they give us a definite Ancient aural family, and if we can trace that to a specific locale in the Cluster...."

  "It still seems far-fetched to me," she grumbled.

  Herald did not want to admit his private agreement with her. He was stuck on this planet for several more days regardless, and he did not want to sit idle. Even the remotest chance seemed worthwhile. "Give this host your strongest drug."

  "We do have stronger drugs, but your life-force would be exhausted in hours if you—"

  That, again! "You Jets are low-aura. You do not comprehend the power of aura."

  "I comprehend with envy," Sixteen said. "But the Jet body system, by the same token, differs from that of other sapients in the cluster. You are not accustomed to it. If you ruin your host by misjudging, then have to Transfer out..."

  "Herald would not do that if he had any choice," Hweeh said. "He is a healer. But I will undertake to remain to help the host to the extent of my ability, if such a situation should arise."

  She considered, damping her jet down so as to be virtually unreadable. "I think you males are more interested in touring the planet than in hanging around a blasted site," she said at last, with considerable accuracy. "But I accept your assurance, Hweeh of Weew. I have felt your power, and know your generosity."

  They reported to the medic again. The Jet resisted, but finally gave Herald the drug on condition that the nurse remain with him until its effect abated. "We're short-personneled, since the laser attack," he said. "We can't keep close watch on entities whose inclination is to live dangerously. You will have to take care of yourself."

  They organized the search and set out. Hweeh was to suit-jet to the south and search out what he might in the cratered plane below the volcanic shield of Elysium. Herald and Sixteen moved to the east to check the much larger lava-sheet surrounding Olympus Mons.

  "Take care, friend," Sixteen called as they separated.

  "Acknowledged," Hweeh responded.

  Herald accelerated to twelve meridians per hour, feeling the sheer exhilaration of velocity. The Jets, who worked at sites on various planets, oriented on the geometry of each one. Mars meridians ranged from about thirty-six mites at the equator to zero miles at the poles; at this latitude each meridian was about twenty-four miles. Herald would have used the mileage figures, but the host-mind tended to use its own system and he did not care to fight it. Regardless, it was a good speed. This host felt best when moving most swiftly.

  Sixteen shot after him, catching up. "Don't do it, Healer! You aren't fit!"

  "The faster we complete this survey, the sooner I can rest," Herald pointed out, not slowing.

  "But you will not complete it at all if you over extend yourself!" She was the nurse, all right. Her one mission was to promote his physical welfare.

  "It is a risk I must take. We do not know when the Amoeba will strike, but it is likely to be soon. Dubious as this line of research may seem, it is the only avenue available at the moment and must be tried." But as he spoke, he knew that was only the lesser part of his motive. It was Psyche he sought and discovery of the Ancients was but a means to that end. No endeavor, however unlikely, could be passed by if it offered even the slightest chance for him to reach her.

  "You are a great idealist," she said, and Herald was ashamed for the selfishness of his purpose. "I will help you all I can."

  She might not be so helpful, if she knew! But of course it was no concern of hers. What did she know of love and loss? She seemed unaffected by the disaster that had befallen the site.

  They zoomed side by side across the plain. It was a convoluted landscape, with dunes, dust-filled escarpments, cavities, and scattered rocks. As they drew away from the lava shield, the terrain became rougher, so that they had to correct course constantly to avoid rocky obstructions. But the journey quickly became repetitive and monotonous.

  This was cruising velocity for healthy Jets, and it was no add
itional effort to talk. "Where do you come from, Healer?" Sixteen inquired.

  Now she sought to promote his mental welfare too, by encouraging him to talk! "Sphere Slash, Andromeda," he answered gruffly. "The enemy galaxy."

  "Not to us of Glob Jet," she said. "We were not involved in the Wars of Energy. In fact we didn't even know of the wars until some centuries later. We were pretty isolated."

  "How could you be isolated in these days of Transfer?" Herald asked. "I thought virtually all the Cluster was explored between the wars."

  "There were a number of nonsapient backwaters not worth the expense of exploring," she said ruefully. "It seems the great Sphere detectors picked up no auras in our glob, so they assumed it was barren. Only when a mattermitter geographic survey of all the globular Clusters was made were we discovered. That was six hundred years ago. Then—"

  "Now wait!" he interrupted. "You were discovered a couple of thousand years ago, because of the black hole in the glob that radiated all over the Cluster."

  "Well, we were and we weren't," she said. "The black hole specialists made note of our presence, but they weren't really interested in us. We were just an unremarkable local species. We helped with local supplies and vortex charts, but were not permitted access to anything important. So we were filed in the geographic archives and ignored for over a thousand years. The more recent survey catalogued auras, and then there was a commotion, because we had the lowest auras in the Cluster—less than half of one percent of the sapient norm. It was a scientific curiosity. Many thousands of us were mattermitted to the Milky Way Galaxy for study. When they finally decided that it was after all possible for there to be minimum aura life, even minimum aura sapient life, they published their studies and forgot about us laboratory specimens. It was too expensive to mattermit us home, so we had to settle in the Galaxy and earn our own living. Officially we're nationals of Sphere Jet, entitled to speak as Equals. But actually we have no connection to our home glob; we know it only historically. So we—"

  "Say something in Equals," Herald encouraged her.

  = Something, = she said.

  /Thanks,/ he replied.

  They laughed together, blowing out humor-turbulences in the thin Martian air. Sixteen was good company!

  "So that's how we came to the archaeological task force," she concluded, reverting to Quote inflection. "We were well constructed for it, and our species has had millions of years experience, questing through the planets of the glob for our own derivations. It is a good profession, and we are well paid."

  Except when they got lasered by a visiting enemy ship, he thought. But then something else twitched his curiosity. "You have been sapient for millions of years?" Herald inquired as they dodged around a jagged ridge of stone. The terrain was becoming increasingly rugged, and that could be dangerous at this velocity.

  "Oh, yes. Right back to the time of the Ancients."

  Herald was electrified. "Your kind knew the Ancients?"

  "Well, yes and no," she said. "We were sapient then—our records show this—but we have no surviving records of them. We do know they isolated us by removing all the tools and materials of mattermission and Transfer—not that we were able to Transfer anyway. So we regressed, and existed in comparative savagery for perhaps a million years, and rose again to atomic-level technology. We still could not muster mattermission because of the absence of strategic substances the Ancients had removed, and we regressed again. For a long time it was easier to forget that there was a Cluster out there, than to recognize the nature of our prison. Those of us who could not face our restriction simply set up orbit around the hole."

  "Around the hole!" he exclaimed. "There is no way out of such a gravitational well, by definition, and even a stable orbit would suffer tides that would tear apart any object that—"

  "Precisely," she said. "You call it suicide. We can't kill ourselves as easily as other creatures can, and there is often a great deal of discomfort in the trying, so we utilize special means. We preferred to think of it as passing through an aperture to another realm. Who can conjecture what lies beyond?"

  Not Psyche! his hope cried, but he kept that quiet. "Who indeed?" he agreed. "If your kind has anything like a Tarot deck, you must have a card with a black blot in the center: the Hole. In lieu of the one we call Death, or Transformation."

  "We do," she agreed. "It is the concept of our philosophy. All that we are, and all that we are not, is governed by that singular concept. The hole in the glob. The ultimate escape from the ultimate confinement."

  "Perhaps one day I will ride a ship directly into that hole," he said. "The notion is appealing."

  "You wish to suicide? You can't go directly into the hole; the vortex forces you into the spiral orbit. The hole has its particular rules about the manner of its utilization."

  Suicide? If Psyche does not live. "You would not understand," he told her gently. "Continue with your history."

  She did not protest. "We regressed—but we would forget even the rationale for that ignorance, and develop again, only to remain corked. Oh, we have a score to settle with the Ancients, who did this to us."

  "But the Ancients are three million years dead," Herald pointed out.

  "Then we have no recourse," she said.

  "It is strange they would do that to you," Herald said. "Many other species, like the Worm colonists of Mars, they exterminated outright."

  "While others, like the Solarians, they left untouched," she said. "What was their rationale?"

  "If only we knew! There has to be a reason. A foolish, inconsistent species could not have conquered the Cluster. If we could fathom their nature and intent, perhaps we could discover their science. And that is what we have to do."

  She made a sonic shrug. "Here we are talking about Jets and Ancients, when I had asked about you. How come you to this Galaxy?"

  "I am a healer. I Transfer where my commissions take me. I had to exorcise a—" He broke off.

  "I did not catch that," Sixteen said. "What was your mission?"

  "It was a failure," he said shortly.

  She took the hint and was silent. She was very good about things like that. They jetted on toward the great volcano.

  In four hours they reached it. Now they slowed, angling across to achieve the phenomenal, sixty-meridian-wide lava sheet, the residue of the vent's colossal effusions. Near the western edge of it rose Olympus Mons, one of the classic volcanoes of this system. To reach it they had to traverse the rugged mountain range that circled it, rising high to reach the most convenient pass. Then on to the volcano itself, finding a channel through the rim wall that was the abrupt edge of the mighty cone, slanting up toward its lofty half-meridian height. The rise was not steep, but the steady effort was a drain on the diminished resources of Herald's host.

  At last they overlooked the central caldera, pocked by smaller calderas where the surface had collapsed after the hot lava leaked out. It was an impressive but barren scene.

  "Why are we looking here?" Sixteen inquired. "Sapients do not normally camp in volcanoes."

  "That is one reason why," Herald explained. "The Ancients evidently sought to conceal their presence on Mars, at the time of their occupancy, and after. The remains of a site within a volcano are likely to be the first obliterated when the lava flows again. But while in use—what better concealment for a continued flow of creatures and equipment? The kind of heavy construction for which the Ancients were noted would have been obvious to sapient observers. So they needed extensive natural cover."

  "Why?" Sixteen asked. "Hadn't they already destroyed the colony?"

  "The colony of Worms on Mars, perhaps. But observers on nearby Earth...."

  "They were subsapient then, or at least borderline. The humanoid Solarians had no civilization three million years ago. And even if they had, the Ancients could so readily have vanquished them. Why would they hide, then depart without attacking Earth?"

  "I don't know," Herald admitted. "If I find any key art
ifacts here, we may begin to understand this mystery."

  They looked, descending cautiously into the main caldera. Herald kept alert for any trace of aura. It required close contact to heal a living entity, or even to analyze a living aura properly, but be could pick up the whiff of aura in an otherwise aura-free region from a fair distance. His notion seemed far less sensible now that he had submitted it to Sixteen's scrutiny; still he hoped....

  Why, he wondered, had Hweeh agreed so readily? The chances of discovering Ancient artifacts here were not small, they were virtually nonexistent.

  There was nothing. He tried to control his letdown. He needed a positive attitude, or the healing he was performing on his Jet host would be ineffective. He didn't want to become impotent again! After all, there was a whole planet remaining.

  If only he wasn't so certain that the Cluster Council committee would do nothing! The Amoeba must even now be moving its battleships into position, and there was no one to cry the alarm or to attempt effective resistance but Herald the Healer. That was another kind of impotence: to know the threat, and to be unable either to act or to cause others to act. Another kind of hell.

  They started back up the steepening walls of the caldera. The descent into it had been easy, a relief after the long climb, but now there was a problem. Toward the rim the inner wall became almost vertical, and Herald was abruptly tired, in body as well as spirit.

  Extremely tired. He jetted upward determinedly—and flamed out.

  His propulsion gone, he rolled helplessly down the slope.

  =Herald!= Sixteen cried, reverting to her native intonation in her stress. She jetted after him.

  She quickly caught him in her lifting strands and steadied him against her sleek fuselage. "The drug— You overextended, and it betrayed you!"

  No wonder he had gotten disorganized! The warning had been right; he had not comprehended the pitfalls of this medication. But this did not diminish his urgent need. "Give me another dose," Herald told her. "There's work to be done."