Sandcats of Rhyl

by Vardeman, Robert E.

  Pushing the listening device back into its pouch, the Guardian wondered why the humans seemed to have built-in exterior listening devices. The Old Ones said the semi-circular flaps on each side of the head could detect vibrations much like the device furnished by the Scientists. It was ridiculous. Why should any creature have more exterior openings than necessary when the sand would clog them?

  The Guardian wondered about too many things. The Old Ones cautioned again and again, but still it persisted in questioning. Perhaps one day the sandcat would become an Old One. Many claimed the Guardian had the necessary telepathic skill. Others congratulated him for the handling of prior human intrusions.

  To be an Old One! The Guardian gurgled deep in its throat, not even realizing a sound was being made.

  The sandcat knew the best way to such an elevation in rank depended on expeditious handling of the six humans. Or was it six? Was it only five — and something else? The Guardian felt the same nagging tug at its mind that the Watcher had reported sensing.

  Not real telepathic contact, no firm thoughts, just a light mental wind blowing, a zephyr of the mind.

  The Guardian discarded such thoughts. This was out of its realm of expertise. The sandcat was entrusted with preventing unwanted intrusion into the Ancient Place.

  The Guardian was expert. The Guardian would not betray the memory of the Rulers.

  “Well, Rod, what’s left? This place is just too much for me to take in with a single sightseeing tour.” Heuser sat cross-legged in the middle of the golden strip of pavement. He idly stroked back and forth over the velvety surface looking like a small child lost in Wonderland.

  “There’s plenty left to figure out, Heuser. Do you have any idea what the original inhabitants looked like?”

  “No, not with those screwy doors.” He pointed to a triangular door barely tall enough to allow him to enter. “Look at that one. Was it for their kiddies? And is that one for their giants?” He motioned toward another door tall enough for him to climb on Nightwind’s shoulders and still go through without bumping his head.

  “There’s no doubt this is a showplace. As far as I can tell, there is only one thing all the doors have in common — and that makes sense with the furniture in the rooms. The city dwellers couldn’t have been much taller than half a meter.”

  “Huh?”

  “They had an overdeveloped sense of art, maybe, but all the doors up to about three quarters of a meter are the same width. I think they were all about the same height. But no race is built in the diversity indicated by the doors. It had to be for decoration. And remember all the low couches throughout the city.”

  Nightwind sat down beside Heuser and stroked the street’s pavement. “They might even have dragged themselves along on their bellies. Why else have a fuzzy street? Can you think of a more sybaritic delight for a snake?”

  Heuser laughed, a little too loudly. “Don’t tell me you think the people who built this city were snakes. Snakes don’t have arms.”

  “I was speaking figuratively. But don’t forget those snakelike things we came across a couple years ago.” Nightwind still had nightmares about that experience. He didn’t care for snakes; these had been a thousand times worse. Tendrils like a Medusa emanating from the tops of their skulls were used instead of hands. And the snake-creatures were naturally vicious. It took a lot of blasting to burn one of them to the point where it wouldn’t continue attacking.

  “I doubt they were snakelike, Rod. Doors are too broad for them. And the rooms would have been far too huge. The more I think on it, the more I like your idea that the beings who lived here were about a half-meter tall. The huge rooms wouldn’t be that large for them. Merely spacious. And a race used to living outdoors might get attacks of claustrophobia more easily than burrow dwellers. Who can say what goes through an alien’s brain?”

  “Speaking of alien creatures, where’s that tame desert rat of ours? I haven’t seen PR in almost an hour.”

  “Aw, let him run his fingers through all those jewels, Rod. I have to admit it felt good the first time I did it. And Richards has been living a pretty spartan life on Rhyl. I wonder what he’ll do with his cut of the take?”

  “I’ll tell you, little feller. I’m goin’ to get the best clothes money can buy, maybe go out and see some of those wet-worlds and enjoy the hell out of living. Never seen a mud-ball up close. The tri-vids just don’t seem real, you know what I mean?” Richards pockets bulged. Nightwind guessed the man was stuffing the finest of the gems into them until his desert suit looked tumorous.

  “The galaxy’s a wide-open place, once you get off Rhyl, PR. Think you can handle it? There are a lot of sharp operators out there just waiting to take all you’ll give and then some.”

  “Like you two?” he observed shrewdly. “You didn’t just happen to stumble across all this. Did you have to kill to get the secret? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I’ll be satisfied with whatever I can cart off from this place!”

  “We were just trying to figure out a few things about the city,” said Nightwind. “Have you found any statues or paintings or pictures of any kind? I’m curious about the former residents.”

  The man scratched his stubbly chin and shook his head. “Can’t say I was payin’ attention to that kind of thing, but I’d've probably noticed a picture of some kind of bug king. Figure the creatures to be low-slung from the looks of the chairs.”

  Nightwind knew Richards had been doing more than just sating his own greed. He was giving the city a thorough examination, as thorough as Nightwind’s own. The old desert rat might have been born and raised on a backwater planet, but he was nobody’s fool.

  “There’s something I been thinkin’ hard on. You see anything to show that there might be sandcats in the city?” Richards looked hard at both the other men.

  “No,” said Heuser. “I didn’t see anything of the sort. Why?”

  “Maybe it’s nothin'. I got this feeling. Like I get when one of them’s lookin’ over my shoulder.” He paused, looking up and down the deserted street. “Do you think the original inhabitants of this city were the ‘cats?”

  Nightwind shook his head. “From what you tell us, the sandcats couldn’t handle the tools needed to build something like this.” He pointed to a gracefully soaring arch that vanished into the dimness of the vault high above. “There’s a possibility they might have been pets, though. That seems to be one universal trait of civilized beings — the desire to cage other creatures for their own purposes.”

  “Humph,” snorted Richards. “Can’t see a ‘cat ever bein’ a pet for any kind of creature, no matter how alien. Those bastards are too nasty to ever make like a Terran kitty cat.”

  “Maybe they were nastier than the city builders, nasty enough to survive when the planet started to get hot,” observed Heuser. “Maybe they outlived the original citizens of this lovely place.”

  Nightwind thought about the possibilities inherent in what Heuser said. It was conceivable the sandcats were allied in some way with the city builders; perhaps a degenerate or mutated stock. They stood about the right height, and the couches would accommodate their obvious bulk. But the lack of hands, fingers, operational digits, precluded that.

  Another count against this theory was the city’s deserted condition. While it seemed well tended, it possessed the air of an unlived-in place. Show homes had that feeling. Nightwind had once been invited by the Suzerain of Dhorma for a little illicit fun. Her palace was filled with room after room of fine sculpture, carpets from the perimeters of the galaxy, the most expensive of furnishings — and it all had that unlived-in feeling. Her private quarters, where few ever went, were cluttered slightly, pictures almost imperceptibly askew, a myriad things pointing to the room’s occupant living there.

  Nightwind didn’t believe — quite — that a being’s aura was transmitted to its surroundings. But in this city, it seemed to be the case. It was deserted, and the aura had died with its inhabitants. The city simply was not alive
anymore.

  And yet the buildings with their furnishings seemed cared for.

  On impulse, Nightwind asked, “Either of you see anything looking like a mechanism? A robot cleaner, perhaps? Some sort of machine that would tend to the dusting?”

  Heuser shook his head. Richards shrugged.

  “There must be something mechanical still operating in this place. The air is cool and circulating. I can feel a light breeze against my face when I turn in certain directions.”

  “Which way, Rod? That might lead us to a circulating fan. If we could find a system that cooled this efficiently and did it silently — hear any noise? — we’d make millions just off that.”

  Heuser’s voice trailed off. He seemed enthralled by the soft golden strip of pavement. He continued, “Hell, I’d love to know how this stuff is made. I could sit here all day rubbing my hands along it.”

  Nightwind stroked gently on the paving. A tiny electric tingle surged into his arm and a feeling of bliss and contentment passed through him. In addition to the well-being he felt, the sensation was similar to petting a cat and receiving a purr in return. There was an emotional comfort to even touching the pavement.

  He took his hand away. “I think the inhabitants must have been very low slung to get their kicks out of that. They’d drag bottom or have big feet if we’re right about their height.” Nightwind restrained himself from touching the golden paving again. It seemed addicting, something he should avoid but didn’t want to.

  “I been thinkin’ on that, too,” opined Richards. “How do we know the city builders felt anything like peace and contentment when they scooted or skipped or hopped along the streets? Maybe they were wired up a lot different. It could have been intoxicating for them. Can you picture a city of belly-draggin’ drunks?” He laughed at the thought.

  Nightwind knew he underestimated Richards once again. The man continually made insightful observations. Outwardly interested in nothing but filling his pockets with jewels, he had been producing some less-than-obvious conclusions. Of course there was no way of telling what emotion — if any — was aroused in the original inhabitants of the city. That it was soothing to a human wouldn’t make it soothing to any other creature. Such a thing was apparent — if it was carefully thought out as Richards had done.

  “I haven’t seen any indications of written language, either,” said Heuser. “Do you suppose they were all illiterate?”

  “I doubt it. Building something as elegant as a catenary arch or those cycloid patterns require a fairly advanced engineering skill and some mathematical ability. It must have been written down somewhere. I’d like to find a library or whatever would pass for one in this culture.”

  Nightwind stretched his long legs. He looked at Richards who seemed disinterested in such pedestrian pursuits. Heuser seemed loath to give up his petting of the golden pavement. That posed something of a problem if the cyborg couldn’t control it. Nightwind vowed to watch his companion closely and see if any addicting behavior showed up.

  Pleasure was one thing, addiction another.

  “I can’t figure out any pattern for the streets,” Nightwind continued, “but most beings seem to think in terms of a center and spokes radiating from it. There must be a place dead middle of all this.” He indicated the gleaming substance of the walls forming the rich canyons of exotic gems rising on every side.

  “By my figurin', such a place should be off in this direction,” said Richards. “I checked the usual stuff. Compass, radio, most of the EM stuff. All zero. So, next I decided there might be a pattern in the arches. All the ones coming in from the wall of Devil’s Fang seemed to be perpendicular. I sort of sighted along a couple and about half a klick this way is where the lines crossed. That should be the middle.”

  Nightwind smiled. His faith in the man was growing by leaps and bounds. Such a simple method of finding the center of a cylindrical area should have been immediately apparent to him. But it was the guide who had done the work first.

  “Lead on and we tourists will go for the ten-cent tour.”

  Nightwind became increasingly uneasy as they neared the center of the city. It was nothing he could pinpoint. A sixth sense had always aided him in time of danger. Now it was warning him. No blatant bells-ringing-sirens-howling message, just a vague uneasiness. He made sure his needlegun was resting free in the holster. The small gun fired a microsecond burst of energy that could pierce any flesh. It had no stopping power, but he was good enough a marksman to put in a dozen hits before most targets could move a millimeter.

  “Rod,” whispered Heuser, “I’m feeling spooked again. It’s getting stronger. I keep looking back over my shoulder sure someone’s there. No one has been — so far.”

  “Yeah, so far. I have the same feeling.” It both pleased and bothered him Heuser was experiencing similar feelings. he was glad to have his baseless feelings reinforced. But he was apprehensive that he couldn’t pinpoint the problem.

  As far as he could tell, Richards was content and unaware of the almost electric tension in the air around him. The man blithely plodded on, his tread silent on the strange pavement of the city streets.

  All three stopped dead in their tracks when they saw it. For long seconds, none spoke. Finally, Richards said, “I never imagined anything could be that beautiful, not even when I get twisted on happy dust.” The note of awe in his voice was unmistakable.

  Nightwind had to agree with the guide. The opalescent building surpassed all the others in grace, beauty of design and outright class. Thin, strangely shaped columns supported a crenated beam from which the roof rose in a graceful arch. Broad, low steps interspersed with ramps disappeared into the Stygian depths of the interior. The only material used was similar to mother of pearl or fire opal. It was translucent with dancing sparks of color within.

  As they approached, Nightwind felt the level of tension in the air grow exponentially. His hand quivered now, anticipating any sudden movement. And, strangely, he detected a faint odor of cinnamon in the air. Wary, he approached a column and studied the darting sparks trapped in the milky material. The odor he was smelling came from the column. Touching it, he was surprised to find the surface soft — soft and yielding like the golden pavement of the streets. Unlike the pavement, however, there was no sense of well-being.

  Nothing could erase the impression of impending disaster he was experiencing.

  “Well, do we continue?” he asked the others.

  “Sure, Nightwind. We’ve come this far. The only way of telling what is inside is to see for ourselves!” Richards strode off, confident. Nightwind followed, less sure of himself. And he couldn’t help noticing Heuser’s hand resting on the butt of his blaster. The cyborg was prepared for any eventuality.

  The darkness didn’t bother them once they passed through the doorway. In spite of the blackness, Nightwind found it easy to find his way. As if some inner direction finder was at work, his steps unerringly led him to a vast central chamber. He should have been prepared for the sight but wasn’t.

  Ever since entering Devil’s Fang, the remnants of the city builders had amazed him. He vowed each time that nothing new he discovered would excite him as much as the last surprise. The sight of the city, for the first time, was breathtaking. The “feel” of the city was unique, totally different from anything else he had ever discovered in his years of traveling to scores of exotic worlds. The sight of the pearlescent building raised his opinion of the builders even higher.

  But nothing prepared him for the grandeur and total sensory assault of this room — throne room was the only way he could categorize it. The most delicate of tapestries hung on the walls. Each was woven with a different geometrical pattern; some he recognized as Lissajous patterns, some merely fanciful designs, others on which his eyes refused to properly focus were vaguely disquieting. The floor of the giant room seemed insubstantial, flowing back and forth in a never-ending display of pyrotechnic beauty. Every color of the rainbow was proudly displayed for hi
s personal viewing pleasure.

  Nightwind heard Heuser mutter, “All the way! As far into the spectrum as I can see! At least up to 8000 Angstroms! The beauty of it!”

  It didn’t surprise him, somehow, that the designers of this chamber would make sure every wavelength possibly seen by a living creature would be represented. They were that thorough.

  The colors flowed and danced like houris in a hypnotic pattern that wasn’t truly a pattern. Randomness was cunningly combined with plan to form a work of art rivaling anything in the galaxy. And this was only a small portion of the glories contained in the room. The aromas were as intimately mixed as the colors. Cinnamon predominated; that might have been a favorite of the city builders. But other, more arcane, fragrances tantalized his nostrils. In a pattern as intricate as the floor, the perfumes hanging in the still air aroused, soothed, and, curiously, made him feel even more uncomfortable.

  As if the designers intended to play on his every emotion, Nightwind found himself being dragged up and down the entire spectrum of human sensitivity.

  And still there was more to the vast room. In the center was a box of dark black wood. Unbidden, Nightwind found himself drawn toward the structure. He walked and walked and walked over the intermixing colors until he finally arrived in front of a wall of the purest ebony. From the distance, this had appeared small. Up close, Nightwind discovered a room ten meters wide and deep and four meters high. That, more than anything else, put the chamber’s true size into perspective for him.

  This wasn’t large, it was huge!

  A carved door seemed the only way into the room of black wood. Drawn by forces beyond his comprehension, Nightwind unhesitatingly entered. The door opened on silent hinges (there had been no sound at all except the faint lub-dubbing of his own heart) and he found an intricately carved screen of ivorylike material between him and a throne.

  Nightwind walked around the edge of the screen seeing the throne and altar in front of it clearly for the first time. Again, he was assailed by doubt, fear, and intense longing. He had never seen this room before, yet he was returning home.