They stood, the four of them, in the grassy fields, silently staring at the Melphic Ruins.
Angharad: No expression on her smooth classical face. A long red chiffon scarf stirred about her neck in the whispering breeze. Standing there, Todd felt she seemed as far away in time and space as the creators of the wonder of rock and ruin before them.
Philip Amber: Standing beside Blicia, arm around her waist. Wearing Todd’s old expression: perpetual bemusement. Talking to him seemed like carrying on a conversation with himself, gabbing with a reflection. But their beer-drenched conversations had, lately, shown Amber becoming a much more introspective, thoughtful character. Amber had, strangely, become a friend.
Blicia: Her face was almost entirely obscured by a floss of tawny hair. Todd had seen no harm in allowing her to come along with Philip Amber. Blicia was the only one of the three that Todd had no experience with; he’d not seen her since the incident with the Azinatins in the reception room, but Amber had spoken of her often during their sloshy meetings in various Star Fall pubs.
Himself: Todd Spigot. Funny how he’d changed. Instinctively, he’d known when he’d made that fundamental perhaps even monumental decision to abandon Deadrock for these months, it would change his life, But he’d never guessed the nature that change would take.
He felt renewed, refreshed, dozens of possible futures before him, stretched out like gleaming pathways.
He felt good about himself, even for once actually feeling good about the slimmed down body beside him he’d thought of as a prison. No, he wouldn’t mind transferring back to that body on Earth. It would be child’s play to shape it up, now that he knew it could be done. It seemed the proper voicing of his freedom, to reinstate himself back in his true body. He almost longed for it now, as one longs for home after a long journey.
“I’ve seen holos of this,” murmured Angharad. “But this is different isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t go here the first time I visited this planet,” Amber said.
“You’ve been here before?” asked Angharad.
“Oh, yeah. This is where I bought the MacGuffin you wear, Todd—a little over a year back.” He scratched his chin. “Matter of fact I bought it from a retired mercenary, involved with the archeological digs. Come to think of it, old Morgan—guy I bought this body from—could well have done some work on this place.”
They stood there for a while, lapsed into silence. Phaedra had long since winked the last of the light away, allowing night to settle; a night filled with freezing stars and three moons. Their glows lit the marble-like stone of the Crem palace moodily.
“Well,” Blicia said, “We’ve only got a little while, so we should make the best of it.”
The others concurred, and so they struck out across the field for the ruins. The odd-shaped trees on the borders of the field rustled their leaves, and blue-black clouds spirited slowly above the mountains.
“I see that there are lights up there ... but I don’t see any other tourists ... or guards, for that matter,” commented Todd.
“Not too many tourists get here this time of day, anyway it’s off-season,” said Amber. “As for guards, you can be sure they’ve got them. Mechanical monitoring devices most likely.”
“Do you notice an odd feeling?” They had approached the sloping, chipped steps that led to an open square that fronted the five-hundred-meter-long building.
“That’s the first thing humans noticed when they discovered the place. That dance-on-your-backbone sensation you get when you approach the structure. They’ve tried every way possible to measure it, define and qualify it—from highly sensitive neuro-machinery to psychic Talents. But it just exists, unexplainable.”
They mounted the rest of the steps in silence. The structure before them vaulted at its highest point to a hundred meters.
Todd took the advantage of the conversation lull to contact Cog, who he’d avoided while indulging himself in a brief moment of complete fellowship on the planet’s surface.
“Okay. Let’s talk.”
—I was about to anyway.
Todd smiled to himself. “Well, here we are. Your ball game now. What do I do?”
—Take the tour with them. And then excuse yourself to go to the loo.
“They’ve got toilets here?”
—Sure. Where there are tourists, there are toilets.
“What then?”
—You’ll find out.
“We’ll be in time for the shuttle?”
—Certainly.
They had reached the open entranceway. When mankind had discovered the ruins, they were open to the wind and the rain, and so doors had promptly been emplaced. The one before them now was tall, heavy. A mechanical door.
“You’ve got the card?” asked Angharad, referring to the tour fare that would grant them entrance.
“Right here,” said Todd, taking the plastic square from the breast pocket of his blazer. “Where do I stick it?”
“Over here, I think,” said Blicia.
Todd neatly fitted the card into the slot. In a moment the tall door opened.
Once inside the ever-present guide-voice spoke up. “Welcome to the Melphic Ruins, operated under the express jurisdiction of the Felorian Archeological and Touristry Ministry. Please retrieve your entrance voucher and proceed along the paths designated.”
“Bit authoritarian, don’t you think?” said Amber, gazing up, almost nervously.
“I suppose it will explain everything as we go,” observed Blicia.
“A bit spooky, don’t you think?” commented Angharad. “I hear something!”
Todd could discern it too—a subdued tap that would be barely audible outdoors but was resonant in the dark corridor.
“Other tourists or workers,” said Todd. “I daresay archeologists are still at it.”
“Complaining about the tourist trade, but pocketing entrance fees quite happily, no doubt,” Angharad commented wryly. “This is a pretty cavernous place, with these winding labyrinthian passageways. We may never actually stumble across them.”
Amber shrugged. “Wouldn’t bother me much. Let’s get going though. I think our guide is escaping us.”
The voice was drifting away down the halls, seemingly gliding along the ceiling. Naturally, they felt compelled to follow.
Dusky passageways unwound before them, strange meanderings filled with shadow silence that only seemed accentuated by the cold tones poured from above.
Carvings filled the walls in a continual parade of symbols and petrified dance. Although the green-veined off-white marble from which they were carved was certainly stationary enough, the artistry of the flowing lines was such that this endless parade of speechless meaning seemed to play games with light and shadow, shifting here, dancing through reflective surfaces there—rain bowing through an occasional prism, sparkling in large jewels sunk deep in the hard surface. Todd felt almost enfolded in fathomless and unqualified emotion and simultaneously a curious calmness.
“These sculptures exude a harmless radiation which, when light is cast upon them, molds it into what are obviously preplanned patterns, which touch and illuminate odd corners of the human soul,” intoned the voice above. “Although they cannot be thoroughly analyzed here, it has been agreed that they should not be dismantled for fear of upsetting this most exquisite phenomenon.”
“Thank goodness,” Angharad whispered. The convoluted passageway seemed to pluck up her sibilant words and echo them around like the liturgy of a choir.
“By the same token the hallway’s acoustics have not been tampered with,” the voice said as if on cue. “By utilizing the unusual acoustics, my voice may be distinguished above, as I speak now.” The voice died, and then abruptly came alive again down the hall. “Or down here.” And then further, its reverberations drifting like the sight of wraiths. “Or from he
re, in this antechamber.” Again, the alive stillness. The voice pounded on Todd’s ears, omnipresently. “Or from all about. Alone in these halls, one may truly listen to oneself.”
The voice bid them follow further, and the still dance flowed on to its own music and rhythm, again, perfectly expressed in “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” mused Todd, when it spoke of unheard melodies that speak and play spirit ditties of no tone.
Without speaking, merely savoring the experience, they walked through the winding corridors to a small antechamber where there were odd machines—if such a humanistic word could be applied to these devices—embedded in the raw unadorned marble, a garden of sprouting metal and crystal and gems. Here Todd was reminded of the Morapns and their organic use of machinery. There was, even now, a large dichotomy in the human race between itself and its machines—even with the vast accomplishments in cybernetics. These machines seemed incomplete indeed, like exoskeletons without flesh to hold, chitin husks once worn by insects—now nothing. But the sort of creatures they implied—well, thought Todd. That was a bit mind-boggling.
And what were the purposes of such hulking hunks of apparatus? Such twisting lengths of curlicued wire-like stuff? Perhaps Cog might have an idea.
Cog passed on that one, mysteriously, and reminded Todd that he should soon think of using the lavatory.
“Okay, okay,” thought Todd. “But I don’t want to be too obvious about it.”
—I’m not rushing you. Enjoy yourself.
It occurred, briefly, to Todd that Cog had something to do with all this. But how could a sentient machine be involved with a long-dead culture like that of the Crem? Why had the machine insisted they come here, Todd had wondered from time to time what Cog was truly after, but after all, what difference did it make? He had promised Cog he’d do it, and if he broke his word, all Cog had to do was to override Todd’s control of the MacGuffin—he’d done it before, he could do it again.
Nothing to do but wait and see ...
Astonished, he shuffled past the strange contraptions, kicking up whispers that swept into echoes like the susurration of a seashore. Through more hallways they moved, the voice continuing its commentary on the history of scientific analysis and conclusions concerning the meaning of these undulating panoramic murals. Much of the detail was over Todd’s head.
When discovered, much of the Temple was in ruins—yet, for all its age, astoundingly solid ruins. Part of the roof had been gone, and so that had to be refashioned ... but in the main, things within had been in excellent shape.
The snaking corridor finally opened into the domed cathedral sanctuary, rimmed in glimmering Crem versions of stained glass windows. But no, the voice told them, now from high overhead. The top of this dome had been totally worn away when they discovered it—and restored by human builders, directed by an individual with a taste for gothic architecture and modern stained glass—an art form in itself.
The Voice suddenly seemed an integral part of this cavern-mouth room and rotunda. When it ceased the aphonia was striking. Although this surely seemed a tomb to the memory of the long-departed Crem, there were no smells of the sepulcher here, no taste of grave shrouds, but rather a resonant formless life that filled the air with excitement as a transformer charges the air about it with tingling electricity.
“You definitely get the feeling of the numinous, don’t you,” said Angharad, craning her neck, taking the sight in long slow sweeps.
“What?” said Todd.
“Spooky,” explained Angharad. “I could just sit here for hours and absorb it all. Makes you feel small, doesn’t it? Small and yet significant.” She brushed back her reddish flowing hair as though impatient with the material things of which she consisted.
There was an ethereal quality to the atmosphere. Todd recognized it and was reminded of some of the charismatic religious meetings that his mother and father had taken him to on Deadrock.
It was time to excuse himself. “Uh, you wouldn’t have caught sight of any men’s rooms here, did you?” he asked the assembled party.
The voice from above boomed with unexpected response. “Men’s room. Down the corridor to your right. First left and down the steps.”
“Thank you.” Todd looked up sheepishly, feeling like the time he had passed wind in prayer meeting.
“Yah—even MacGuffins gotta go,” Amber remarked wryly. “We’ll be around ...” He pointed down a hallway. “Probably down there. Catch up when you’re finished.”
Todd nodded, ambling off.
* * *
There was a secret passageway right by the urinal.
Dim lights sprang on. Cog directed Todd to descend.
Down and down Todd stepped, feeling as though he were sinking through the floor through countless ages into something he could not define. The smugness was gone, the belief that perhaps he had reached some sort of plateau in life disappeared. Awe and anticipation filled him. Something awaited him at the bottom of these steps that would change his life irrevocably.
Cog was silent. With each step down the curling stairwell, Todd felt more humble.
The downward passageway opened out, finally, into a modest-sized chamber that immediately sprang to glowing life. The semi-spherical walls and ceiling seemed almost wallpapered with odd alien circuitry that pulsed and glittered like the center of a living mind. The floor was entirely bare save for a dais, upon which rested a metal table two meters high, filled in with tiny strands of sparkling wires, tubings, machines. Atop the table were ... mounds. Four mounds of what appeared an alloy of plastic, platinum, and rubbery wires. Each exuded a sort of stately effulgence from their surfaces that wavered, dimming here, brightening there in rippling, dancing patterns. Each of the three seemed fitted directly into the machine-table.
—Our journey ends here, said Cog, whose whisper-voice inside Todd sounded serene. Contented. —Thank you. I shall detach myself now. I won’t be long, I promise. Sit.
“But,” said Todd, something like realization dawning upon him. “You promised you’d explain!”
—I will, my friend. Very soon. But first I must renew myself.
Please be patient.
There being no chairs, Todd settled on the floor. With a muted click, he felt Cog disengage the linkage. He helped the leg slip out from the pants. It grew its own limbs, and its oculars popped. “Be patient, Todd. I’ll be back soon.” Swiveling about sharply, it hobbled over to the dais and the table, scrabbling about momentarily, and then leaping up with one bound to the very top.
“My goodness,” said Cog. “Forgot the shoe and sock. Could you give us a hand? There’s a good fellow.”
Numb with surprise, Todd hopped and crawled over to the table and assisted in slipping the foot apparel off, leaving the leg and foot entirely naked. He backed away, crippled, crablike, to observe whatever would happen.
“Thank you.” With a single movement, it leaned against the mound.
Light first. A blinding spasm of colored beams burst from Cog like a soundless explosion.
The lights abruptly died into a soft coruscation from the mound, the leg lost its animation, it hung over the mound, stiff, lifeless.
Todd felt stunned. He could only sit and stare.
Lying on the floor, he waited, feeling lost and mystified. And then he heard footsteps. The sounds snatched him from his trance. He’d no idea how long he’d been sitting there. Instinctively, he tried to gain his feet—but not in time.
Angharad’s arms were folded over her abdomen. Her face revealed no emotion at all. Her eyes, though, took in the whole scene hungrily.
Blicia seemed unmoved. She stood aloof, like part of an audience to a play scene.
Only Amber betrayed any emotion. Looking down at Todd’s empty pants leg. Todd looked at him quickly and looked away.
Amber put his hand slowly into his pocket.
Suddenly, Todd reali
zed that they, no matter how close he’d gotten to them in the past weeks, were strangers. “I suppose you’re wondering what’s going on,” he said in a small, helpless tone, somehow feeling abandoned. Todd gestured to the table. “We’ll all get our explanations momentarily.”
“No,” murmured Amber tonelessly. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry about this, Todd. I’ve got no choice.” He drew his hand from the pocket. Strapped to his finger was a mini-laser.
AMBER FELT ILL.
Waving the gun at Angharad, he stepped beside Blicia. “I’ll explain later,” he muttered, not looking at her. He was afraid of what he might find in her eyes.
KILLKILLKILLKILL.
He thought he’d given it all up. Fat chance. Not when Ort Eath had the goods on him and was threatening to dump him on a death-penalty planet he was wanted on. Not when Eath had promised to set him up for life for just one more hit: two passengers he’d decided were dangerous to the Star Fall. Not when his curse reared its ugly head. That was the rub, the irony of it all. Before, he realized, he’d killed because of his hate. He’d hated everyone. Now, the last two he would kill were people he actually liked.
Right in front of Blicia. Why in hell had that devil Eath demanded that she come along?
“Okay, Angharad. Get over beside Todd, No tricks, either of you. This beam packs a wallop, even though it’s small. And I’m no amateur.”
Angharad stepped beside Todd. She seemed unsurprised.
“What’s ... what’s going on?” Todd said. Poor Todd. “Philip. I thought…“
“Sorry. I truly am…“ He turned to Blicia halfway. “They’re a threat to the Star Fall. Orders.”
“Yeah,” said Angharad, grimly. “Ort Eath got to you. I see he doesn’t trust me anymore if he sent along three operatives with Spigot, one of which he didn’t want to come back.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Todd said.
Star Fall Page 20