by David Geary
Truscott laughed. Not her usual measured chuckle. Her heart was in this one. And, when he only looked on in surprise, she reproached him. "Come on, Sill," she said, "where's your sense of humor?"
He reddened. "I don't see what's funny, Melanie. They've created a lot of trouble. People could have been killed."
"Yes." Her eyes fell away from him. "They've paid us in our own coin, haven't they?"
Temple of the Winds. Friday; 0200 hours.
The tunnel resisted their best efforts. The mud was tougher to deal with than the rock. However much they sucked out, it kept coming back in. Carson, on Richard's private channel, confessed that it was useless.
Detonation was eight hours away.
Too close.
The base was quiet. Eddie was gone now, banished to Wink, ostensibly because his services were no longer needed, but really because he kept asking Henry to give it up, and to reassign Carson to help move artifacts. Hutch was off again and would rendezvous with the starship in another hour. When she returned, they were all to be waiting at the inlet, bags packed, ready to go. No matter what.
Richard sat in the operations center. The monitor was a montage of blurred light, slow-moving shadows, tunnel walls. Grunts and epithets and profanity rolled out of the commlink.
The room was damp and chilly. Technically, he was supposed to stay awake, but conditions had changed: the watch officer was no longer coordinating a wide range of operations. And you had to sleep sometime.
On impulse, he called Wink's bridge, where he woke Tommy Loughery. "Is Maggie available?" he asked.
"She's right here."
He'd expected it. They'd sent up the new tablets—there were thirteen of them—on board Alpha. And she would be waiting for their arrival.
"Good morning, Richard," she said. "When are we going to break through down there?"
"You mean to the press?"
"What else? It's getting late."
"It's what I wanted to talk to you about. We may not make it."
"That's not what Henry thinks."
"Henry is optimistic. He wants this one, Maggie."
"So do I."
"You already have a substantial number of samples. With more coming. You've seen the new set. What happens if we have to leave with nothing else? Will it be enough?"
"Maybe." She looked drained. "The analysis will take time. I just don't know." Her dark eyes reflected worry. "It would be a lot easier with the printing press."
"If that's in fact what it is."
"That's what it is."
Richard stared at her. "Can you estimate the odds?" And, when she looked puzzled, he explained. "Of being able to decipher the inscription? With no more samples."
"We are pushy tonight, aren't we?"
"I'm sorry. This may become, in the morning, life and death."
Shadows worked in the corners of her eyes and in the hollows of her temples. "Richard, get the whatever-it-is. Okay? If you really want to help, get it out of there and bring it to me."
0600 hours.
"It's imminent now. We're almost there."
Richard was exasperated. "Call it off, Henry. Let's clear out."
"She won't be back for two hours. What's the point of standing around out on that rock? We've still got time. Let's use it. Have faith."
0711 hours.
Hutch, gliding through the morning light, was not happy. The commlink echoed with the low-powered hum of particle beams, the burble and banging of vacuum pumps. Voices leaked through the clatter:
This is where it was supposed to be.
But it isn't. It's not here.
Neither is the wall. The whole goddam chamber dropped. Or rose.
Why didn't you take a picture?
We did. It was here two days ago.
We thought we could see it. It was the plank. We were looking at the damned plank!
Maybe we just missed it. Is that possible?
No'.
And the words that stung her, enraged her, spoken by Henry: Get the scanner over here. Take another look. Let's find out where it is.
She activated Richard's private channel. "You're out of time."
"I know. Just give us a few minutes. Till we find out where the goddamned thing went."
"Richard, the creek is about to rise."
"Hutch, you have to understand. This isn't my call. These people know the risk. This is just too important to turn around and walk out on. Come on, you can tough it out."
"You're beginning to sound as crazy as they do," she snapped. And she broke the link without letting him reply. She switched to Carson, who was waiting in his shuttle at the inlet. "Frank, you got any control over this?"
"Not much."
"Henry's going to get them all killed."
"No. He won't do that. Whatever else happens, he'll be out in time. You can trust him."
Okay, I recognize this.
You sure, George?
Yeah. Yeah, no question about it.
All right, let's go. Where the hell's the goddam projector?
"Hutch," said Carson. "Another hour here may be worth years of research at home. Be patient."
"Another hourT'
"That's my guess. But it still gets us out of here with time to spare."
"Hutch." George's voice. "Do you have a winch on board?"
"Yes. I can activate a winch."
"Okay. Plan is that after we free the printing press, we'll lift it into the Upper Temple. We've got everything in place to do that. You drop the line. As soon as the press is clear of the shaft, we'll connect it, and you can haul it in. The rest of us should be on board a few minutes after that."
She shook her head. "This is crazy, George. You haven't even found the press yet."
"We're working on it."
Richard came back. "It's okay," he said soothingly. "We'll make it. And we'll have the printing press with us."
She watched the shoreline unroll below. It was a brilliant, sun-washed day, white and cold, filled with icebergs and needle peaks and rocky islands. Long thick waves slid across snow-covered beaches. Beach monkeys walked and played at the edge of the surf.
The inlet came into view, and she started down. The Temple shuttle, resplendently blue and gold in the sunlight, waited on the shelf.
Hutch landed clumsily. As if her haste would change anything. Carson stood on the rock. He was too courteous, or too distracted, to comment on her technique.
0837 hours.
The particle beam cast an eerie blue-white glow through the chamber. Water bubbled and hissed. George was firing blind. He was cutting through that most dangerous of obstacles, loose rock and sand.
The digging strategy was to pick an area that looked stable, if you could find one, divide it into individual targets, and attack each separately. You sliced a hole, and stopped. If nothing happened, you enlarged the hole. Then you braced everything and moved on. "The problem," he told Henry, "is that the tunnel will have to be widened further to get the printing press out."
George was pleased with himself. In the field, engineers tend to exist in a somewhat lower social stratum than pure archeologists. Not that anyone mistreated him. The Temple team had always been a close-knit crew. But he was taken less seriously as a professional. His was a support role, and consequently he was something of a hanger-on. When celebrations broke out, they never drank to George.
But this time, he had made the discovery. George's Printing Press. And he was leading the assault on the Lower Temple. It was a good feeling. A good way to wrap up his efforts here. It was a little scary, maybe. But he felt immortal, as young men invariably do, and he did not believe
that Kosmik would actually pull the trigger if there were still people down here.
Moreover, the timing was perfect. He was entranced by Hutch, infected with her brilliant eyes and her vaguely distant smile. His own tides ran strong when she was nearby, and she was now watching him in action. How could he possibly fail to stay the cours
e? And during those dark, claustrophobic moments when an appreciation of the risk seeped through, he drove it away by imagining the hero's reward that waited.
Maggie's voice cut in. "We have a preliminary reading from the 'sex' tablet." She was referring to the character group that appeared atop the wedge, and in the Oz inscription. "We don't think it's a sexual term."
"What is it?" asked Richard.
"We've located parts of the same cluster of symbols elsewhere. We've got the root, which suggests duration, maybe infinite duration."
"You're right," said Sandy. "That does it for sex."
"There's a positive connotation. It's linked with sunlight, for example. And ships in peaceful circumstances. I would be inclined to translate it along the lines of good fortune rather than pleasure."
"You sure?" That sounded like Tri.
"Of course I'm not sure," she snapped. "But there's a fair degree of probability."
"So," said Richard, "we have good fortune and a mythical beast. What's the connection?"
Ahead, George turned off the projector, and waited for the water to clear. "I think we're through," he said. "We have a tunnel."
Henry and Sandy moved forward to insert the braces. George poked at the roof. Gravel and silt floated down. "No guarantees," he said.
Henry shrugged and plunged ahead. "George," he called back, "do what you can to widen it."
"Not while you're in there."
"Do it," said Henry. "My authority."
Your authority's not worth much if you're dead. Suppose George started cutting and the roof fell in? He shouldn't even allow Henry to proceed before he conducted a safety inspection. But things were happening too fast.
Obediently, he activated the particle beam, and chipped away at the sides of the tunnel.
The chamber had partially collapsed. Henry crawled between broken slabs and decayed timbers. His lamp blurred. "Up ahead somewhere," he told his throat mike. The printing press should have been close enough to show on the sensors. But he was getting no reading.
He came to a wall.
He floated to a stop and laid his head against it. That's it, he thought. He hated this place the way it was now: squeeze past rock, dig through mud, grope in the dark.
Richard moved up behind him, held his lamp up. "Over there," he said. "It's open to your right. Look."
He pointed and Henry saw that it was so. But he knew it was getting desperately late and that he had a responsibility to get his people out. While he hesitated, Richard pushed past. His lamp moved in the dark.
"I think I can see it," he said softly.
Sandy's hand gripped his shoulder. "We ought to wait for George," she said.
"Attaboy, Richard," said Maggie. She was ecstatic.
Henry followed the light, turned a corner, and swam down into the small room that he remembered from his previous visit. "We've got it," Richard was saying. He knelt two meters away, blurred in the smoky light.
The frame was half-buried. They scrounged around, digging with their fingers, trying to work it free. They found a rectangular chase. A gearbox lay beneath loose rock. "It's the press bed," said Maggie.
A second chase was wedged under a cut slab.
Sandy's scanner revealed something in the floor. She dug it up. At one time, it had been a compartmented drawer or case.
Henry poked at the chases. "There is type set in these things," he said.
"Good!" Maggie egged them on. "It's enough. Let's go. Get it out of there."
The frame was stuck tight. "We need the pulser," said Henry.
Richard touched his arm. "I don't think we want a beam anywhere near it."
It was large, almost two meters long, maybe half as wide. Sandy and Richard tried to pry it loose.
It did not give.
"This is not going to work," Sandy said. "Even if we get it out, it's too big to take back up the tunnel." She looked at it in the lamplight. "How about just taking the chases?"
"Why the chases?"
Maggie's voice crackled. "Because that's where the type is set."
Hutch broke in. "It's about to get wet up here. If you're planning on leaving, this would be a good time."
Henry measured the chases with his hands. "We'll still need to widen the exit," he said.
"How about just taking a good set of holos?" George suggested.
"No help," said Maggie. "We need the chases. And we need the type. We're going to have to do a major restoration if we're ever going to read those."
Henry was playing his light around the room. "Should be some type trays around somewhere."
"Forget it." Richard tugged at the chases. "Sandy's right. Let's make do with what we've got."
"If there's more type down there," said Maggie, "it would be nice to have it. The type in the chases will be pretty far gone."
"Goddammit, Maggie," Hutch exploded. "You want the type, go down and get it yourself."
The common channel went silent.
"Okay, let's do it," said Henry. "Cut it. We've no time to be particular." The particle beam ignited.
George cut with a will. He broke the press apart and dragged the chases free.
"Sandy," said Henry, "get to the top of the shaft and be ready to haul when we're clear of the tunnel. Richard, why don't you go up and give Hutch a hand? No point in your hanging around."
"You'll need help with these things," he said. "I'll wait."
Henry nodded. "Okay." He checked the time. "We can manage it."
"Hurry up," said Maggie. Henry remembered an incident years before when a football had rolled onto an ice-covered lake and the older boys had sent him out to recover it. Hurry up and throw it in, they'd cried, before you fall through.
0935 hours.
The tide sucked at the Tower. There were a couple of icebergs on the horizon. The coastal peaks glittered in the sunlight.
Hutch, angry, close to tears, swung the winch out, hooked a ten-pound ring weight to the cable, and punched the button. The ring fell into the sea, followed by fifteen meters of line. The shuttles lay side by side in the water. Carson stood on Alpha's wing, rocking gently with the motion of the waves. "This is crazy," he said. "I can't believe this is happening."
It was a gorgeous day, clear and gold. The hour before the end of the world.
Four of Quraqua's flying creatures, animals that resembled manta rays, flowed in formation through the sky, headed north.
"Maybe," he said, "we should talk to Kosmik."
Hutch stared at the cable.
Inside the military chapel, George, Richard, and Henry had completed their work and started down the tunnel at last.
Kosmik Station. 0945 hours.
Truscott stood behind Harvey Sill with her arms folded. Her face was dark with anger. "Any progress yet?" she demanded.
"Negative." Harvey pressed his earphones tight. "They're still on the surface."
"Can you tell what's happening?"
"They're in the tunnels. That pilot, what's-her-name, is pretty upset. She's got something going for her, that one. But I don't know what it's about. It's even possible this stuff is all prerecorded to drive us nuts."
"You've gotten paranoid, Harvey. Have you asked them what their situation is?"
Sill shook his head. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because I thought it would encourage them if they thought we were worried."
Truscott was beginning to feel old. "Harvey, get them on the line."
"Might not have to. Incoming from the Wink shuttle." He put it on visual. "Go ahead, Alpha."
The woman pilot looked down at him. "We've got an emergency, Kosmik. Please let me speak with Dr. Truscott."
The director stepped forward. "I'm here. What's the problem?"
"We still have people in the tunnels. They aren't going to make it out before the deadline."
"Why not?" Truscott bit off the words, like pieces of ice.
"They were trying to finish up. Sorry. I don't have con
trol over this. Can you delay the firing?"
Truscott let her hang a moment. "How long?"
"An hour," Hutch said. She sounded desperate. "One hour."
"You have any idea how much trouble this makes for us? What it costs?"
"Please," said Hutch. Her eyes were wet and red. "If you go ahead, you'll kill them."
She let the pilot see her contempt. "One hour," she said, finally. "And that's it."
Hutch nodded, and looked relieved. "Thanks."
When the link had been broken, Sill said evenly, "That's a mistake."
"We'll argue about it later. Get the word out. Tell everyone to stand down. One hour."
Kosmik Ground Control South, Aloft. Friday; 0954 hours.
The first white lamp lit. The nuclear weapon at Delta Point had just armed.
lan Helm sat in the right-hand seat of his shuttle. No clouds obscured his view. The south polar ice sheet spread out below him, from the ridges along the Koranda Border, which masked the line of the northernmost volcanoes, to Dillman Harbor, where they'd set up the first base camp two years ago. He remembered standing in that great silence, cold even through the Flickinger field because his heating unit had malfunctioned, warmed rather by the exhilaration of the moment, by the knowledge that he would one day annihilate this ice continent, melt its mountains and its foothills, fill its valleys and rills with steam and rain. In a single glorious sequence, he would convert this wasteland into the stuff of regeneration. No one would ever really give him credit, of course. Caseway
and Truscott would take all of that. And they deserved it; he didn't begrudge them their due. He was satisfied that the design was his. And the finger on the detonator.
"lan." A green light flashed on the instrument panel. "Sill's on the circuit. Wants to talk."
The blue and white glare from icecap and ocean hurt his eyes. Helm looked at his pilot. "Jane," he said, "do we have a disconnect?"
She frowned. "Just pull the plug."
He yanked it out. "Let everybody know that we're worried about the possibility of bogus instructions. Set up a code word. No one is to accept a transmission without it."
"What code word?"
He thought briefly. "Fidelity." Jane looked troubled. "I'll put it in writing."
"Truscott won't be happy."