In the streets of Hau-kai, we wait.
Night comes, winter descends,
The lights of the world grow cold.
And, in this three-hundredth year
From the ascendancy of Bilat,
He will come who treads the dawn.
Tramples the sun beneath his feet,
And judges the souls of men.
He will stride across the rooftops,
And he will fire the engines of God.
She read through it twice. “What are the engines of God?”
Art shrugged.
“Then what’s the point?”
“Bilat. He was a hero. He was used for a time to mark the beginning of the Scrivener era. He seized power somewhere around 1350 B.C., our time. Hau-kai, by the way, was a kind of Jerusalem, a holy city, symbolic of the best that the faithful could hope for in this world.”
Hutch reread the verse. “Three hundred years later would take them close to the Second Discontinuity.” She exited from the screen, and brought Art back. “You’re suggesting somebody predicted the event?”
“We’ve dated the book. It’s one of the oldest we have. Can’t read much of it. What we can read is mostly devotional.”
“Who did the translation?”
“Maggie Tufu. Have you met her? Well, anyway, she converted the time references. The term that reads as men actually refers to all the inhabitants of the planet, male and female, past and present. And the verb that’s rendered as judges seems to imply both judge and executioner.” Art seemed simultaneously amused and perplexed. “And, yes—the prediction is right on the money.”
“Prophecy’s a tricky game,” said Hutch. “It’s common for religious groups to predict catastrophic events. Get enough predictions, and somebody’s bound to hit it right.”
Art nodded. “That would be my guess. But some people here have wondered whether the thing on the moon doesn’t in some way mark this world for periodic destruction.”
By 1900 hours, the Temple shuttle was loaded and ready to follow Alpha. Carson checked everything to ensure that the containers wouldn’t shift, and watched the sub draw away. Eddie sat stiffly in its bubble with his arms folded, staring straight ahead.
Carson powered up, informed the watch officer he was on his way, and lifted off.
The sun had moved behind the peaks, and a cold wind blew across the gathering darkness. The tide was out, and wide stretches of sand glittered in the failing light. Waves broke around the Towers. Carson would be glad to be away, to get to D.C. and to walk in the sun without needing a Flickinger harness.
Still, he was angry. When he had first come here, six years ago, he had thought of the Temple, with its rock walls, as timeless. Long after he passed to a happier existence, it would be here, as it had been here for millennia. It was a symbol, for all of them, of stability. Of the idea that things that really matter live on.
He drew back the yoke. The shuttle sailed through the clouds.
Below, the Knothic Towers were already lost in twilight.
LIBRARY ENTRY
When, in the spring of 2187, Alexander LaPlante completed the first phase of the excavation of Sodom, he concluded that the city had been burned, a fate not uncommon in Biblical times. But he offered two additional opinions which created a storm of controversy:
(1) that the site was far older than had been expected, dating to approximately 5000 B.C.; and
(2) that a computerized reconstruction of the damage suggested the city had been shattered by something akin to modem weapons.
LaPlante’s grant was cut off in 2189. A second expedition, led by Oliver Castle and Arian Adjani, examined both propositions. They confirmed the earlier date, but found no compelling evidence to support what had by then become known as the bomb thesis.
LaPlante lost his tenure at the University of Pennsylvania in 2195, and is now teaching at Radison University in London.
—Marjorie Gold
Dead Sea Excavations
Commonwealth, New York, 2199
9.
Quraqua. Tuesday; 2148 hours. (Twenty-eight minutes before midnight.)
Both shuttles had unloaded their cargo on the Winckelmann, and were on their way back to the surface when the eleven-ton block of supercooled ice that was designated #171 in the Kosmik inventory crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere. With a whisper, it passed over moonlit tundra and pulpy forests, something not quite heard. Shining splinters fell away, and the arid landscape momentarily brightened.
Snow blew against Alpha’s windscreen. Hutch (who had waited for Carson at Wink, and then followed him down) could see the sub and the Temple shuttle, haloed by their lights, docked at the floatpier. The shuttle’s cargo door was open; Carson and Loughery were working to move a stack of containers off the pier into the spacecraft.
Janet Allegri blinked onto her overhead display. “Hello, Hutch,” she said. Her hair was pressed down by an energy field. She was speaking from the sub. “We seem to have got a little behind with Plan A.” They had intended to pile cases on the floatpier, and have two more complete shipments ready to go when the shuttles arrived. But not very much had made it topside.
“Weather been bad?”
“It’s been wet. But the problem is people. Everybody’s hunting artifacts.”
Well to the south, lightning struck the ocean.
Hutch understood. Under extreme pressure, Henry was willing to risk the artifacts he already possessed—which were after all duly recorded on hologram—to increase his chances of finding what he was really looking for. “Coming down,” she said.
She settled smoothly into the sea, and drifted into the magnetic couplers, which locked the shuttle against the pier. Carson was loading the last container, and his hold was still half-empty.
Loughery smiled shyly. He was loading a dolly into the sub. The snow slid down his energy envelope.
“How can I help?” she asked.
Janet came out of the sub. “Just in time,” she said lightly. “We were running short of peasants.”
The sea was calm, but the peaks along the shore, and the Towers, were lost in murk. Carson, who seemed to wear his feelings close to the surface, looked unhappy. “Good to see you,” he said, cheering up. “Roll up your sleeves.”
Moments later, they submerged and headed at high speed for Seapoint.
If the skies had been clear, and if they’d been six minutes slower to leave, they would have seen a fireball glide silently out of the northeast. They would have seen it arc out to sea, and pass below the horizon. And anyone standing on the pier, even in the thick gloom, would have noticed a sudden brightening of the southern sky.
She had slept during most of the flight down from Wink, so she was ready to work. Since she was too small to be of much assistance lugging containers around, she asked Eddie whether there wasn’t something she could do. He directed her to a storeroom where she found Tommy Loughery.
“Eddie asked me to get you started,” he said. His black hair was in disarray, somewhat in the sloppy style common to graduate students in those times.
“Okay,” she said. “What do I do?”
He pointed at a table loaded with artifacts. There were wedges, pieces of masonry, pottery. “Most of this just came down from Maggie’s operation. They’re all from the Lower Temple. And priceless. They get red-tagged. There’ll be more later. All of this is high-priority, and should go up on the next shuttle. We need to pack it.”
“Show me how,” she said.
He produced a stock of plastic cloth and dragged over two of the barrel-shaped containers, which he loaded onto a motorized cart. He held an artifact up to the light, turned it so she could read the four digits on the red tag. “That’s the catalog number,” he said. “Record it on the packing list.” Then he wrapped the artifact in plastic, taped it, and placed it in the container.
It was simple enough, and she proceeded to clear the table, while Tommy found other things to do. When she’d finished fi
lling both containers, he returned.
“What next?”
“We seal them.” He picked up a spray gun. It was fed by a short hose that connected to a pair of drums, labeled “A” and “B.” He pulled the cart closer, and pointed the gun into one of the containers. “Stand back,” he said. He pulled the trigger. A thick white stream slushed out and rolled over the packages.
“It’s poly-6, a low volume, expanding rigid urethane,” he explained. “Great packing material. It’s biodegradable. And it sets quickly. As you can see.” He snapped off the flow.
“You didn’t put much in,” said Hutch.
“Only needs about five percent of volume.” He threw the gun aside, clamped the lid down and locked it.
“The merchandise is fragile. Won’t it get crunched?”
“No. The poly-6 doesn’t apply pressure. When it meets resistance, it stops.” He handed her the gun. “Just leave the containers on the cart. When you’re finished, call me and we’ll take them over to the sub.”
George Hackett removed the last of the petrified timbers, held his breath, and smiled with satisfaction when nothing happened. This was as deep as they’d penetrated into the Lower Temple. Beyond, a hole in the wall opened into a chamber that was three-quarters filled with silt. “We’ll need to brace the roof, Tri,” he said. “On both sides of the opening.”
“Okay. Hang on. Braces coming.”
While he waited, George thrust his lamp forward. This could be the inner sanctum of the military chapel, the chamber in which priests prepared to conduct services, where they perhaps stored their homilies and their sacred vessels.
“Can you see anything?” Tri called.
Yes. There was something, a piece of furniture probably, to his right, half-buried, just out of reach. It had been metal once. “Something,” George said. “A washstand, maybe. Or a cabinet. Can’t tell.”
Tri moved forward with a pair of braces. “Let’s get these up first,” he said.
“Just a second.” George inched into the space. He was acutely conscious of the weight of the Temple hanging over him. “I think it’s a machine.”
“In here? What kind of machine?”
“I don’t know. But there is a housing. Wait.” The hole was too narrow for him. He pulled back, scraped out silt and loose rock, and tried again.
“That’s enough, George,” said Tri. “Let’s do it right.”
He got his shoulders through the entrance, and pushed forward. “There’s a metal framework here. With, uh—Hell, Tri, I don’t know what to make of this.” He carried a camera on his left forearm. “Maggie, are you there?” he asked through the commlink. “Can you see this?”
“Maggie’s coming,” said Andi, who was watch officer.
He struggled to get closer.
“What do you have, George?” It was Maggie. He knew she’d be straining to see the object on the big screen.
“Don’t know.” He was in now, and stood over the device. Metal bars and plates were connected to a system of springs and pulleys. Everything was heavily corroded.
“Shine the lamp to your left,” Maggie said. “Look, there’s a tray.” There were small objects that looked like stones in the tray. “See if they’re loose,” she said.
He took one out, dabbed at it carefully, and held it close to the camera. There was a dark smudge on it.
Maggie was silent for several moments. Then her voice went very soft. “Goddammit, George, I think you’ve found us a printing press!”
“Well, good,” said George.
“Yes.” Her voice was ecstatic, and he heard her clap. “Show me the frame.”
He did.
“Closer,” she urged. And then: “It’s got some sort of typesetting arrangement. It’s filled with type.”
“What language?” said Andi. “Can you tell?”
“Not yet. But we might be able to restore enough of it.” He listened to her breathe. “It might be the jackpot.”
“How do you mean?”
“Place like this would need multilingual prayer-cards. Or whatever. If there’s a Rosetta stone here, this could be it. George, haul it out.”
Henry was napping in the community room when his commlink chimed. He came immediately awake. Henry lived these days in constant fear of disaster. He knew he was violating safety procedures, risking his people, risking his career. Not good, but he knew that history was watching him. It was not a time for caution. “What is it, Andi?”
“Kosmik on the line. You want to listen? Or take the call?”
“I’m busy,” he said. “You do the talking. If necessary, tell them you’ll check with me and get back. And, Andi?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t give them any trouble. Okay?” He shook the last of the sleep out of his brain, got up, and walked wearily downstairs to Operations.
Henry loved Quraqua. He loved its quiet mountain ranges, and its long wandering rivers; its vast silences and its abandoned cities. The ancient walls and towers rose out of deep forests, bordered great plains, embraced harbors. Many of the more recent ruins remained in good condition: one could not stroll through them without anticipating that the dusty fountains would one day flow again, the lights come on, and the avenues fill with traffic. Quraqua was a place, in Richard Wald’s memorable phrase, “on the shore of time.”
He had been here sixteen years, had married two of his wives here, one of them atop the Golden Stair at Eskiya. He had gone back to Earth only when necessary, to fight with the Second Floor about funding, or to take on those who wanted to rearrange his priorities. He was a blue-collar archeologist, an excavator, a detail man, tough, competent, good to work for. Not brilliant, in the way that Richard was brilliant. But solid. Methodical. If one could say that Richard Wald was curious about the inscription at Oz, it was equally arguable that Henry was driven by it. And not because of some deeper mystery behind the arcane symbols, but because he understood he was locked away from fundamental truth, essential to understanding this thing he loved so much.
Andi was waiting for him. As he arrived, she pressed Transmit. “This is the Temple. Go ahead, Kosmik.”
The monitor glowed, and Harvey Sill’s image appeared. “Dr. Jacobi, please. Director Truscott wishes to speak with him.”
“Dr. Jacobi is not available. Director Truscott may speak with me if she wants. I’ll be happy to relay her message. Or if you prefer, I can have Dr. Jacobi return the call.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Melanie Truscott replaced Sill. “We don’t have time for bureaucratic nonsense, young lady.” She paused, and lifted her eyes above Andi, as if she were searching the room. “Henry, I know you’re there. Please talk to me. We have an emergency.”
Henry sighed, and walked around in front of the screen. “Hello, Melanie,” he said wearily. “What seems to be the problem?”
“We’ve had an accident.”
Henry glanced sharply at Andi, a gesture delivered primarily for Truscott’s benefit. “What happened? Do you need help?”
“No. But you might be in some danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“We lost control of one of the snowballs. An orbiting piece of ice. It fell into the Yakata three minutes ago.”
He smothered his anger. “Where?”
“Roughly sixteen hundred kilometers south of you. It impacted at seventy-two point five south, one-fifteen point two west.”
Andi brought up a map of the region, and marked the location.
Truscott’s eyes fastened on Henry. “A tsunami has formed,” she said.
“Melanie, you are a bitch.”
“I’m sorry you think so, Henry. But I hardly think that’s the issue.” She looked guilty. She tried to stare him down, but the fire had gone out of her eyes.
“How big is the wave?”
“We don’t have a measurement yet.”
“Please let me know when you do.”
“I will. And, Henry—I’m sorry about this. If we can help—”
>
“Yes. Of course. Temple out.” He broke the link. “We’ll need to evacuate the Temple. How fast do tidal waves travel?”
Andi was already consulting the data banks:
TSUNAMI. (SEA WAVE, SEISMIC WAVE, TIDAL WAVE.) AN OCEAN WAVE RESULTING PROM AN UNDERSEA EARTHQUAKE, VOLCANIC ERUPTION, OR OTHER SUBMARINE DISTURBANCE. THE TSUNAMI MAY REACH OVERWHELMING DIMENSIONS, AND HAS BEEN KNOWN TO TRAVEL ENTIRELY AROUND THE EARTH. (Cf., THE ARGENTINEAN PLATE SLIPPAGE, 2011.) IT PROCEEDS AS AN ORDINARY GRAVITY WAVE. THE WATER FORMING TSUNAMIS TENDS TO BUNCH UP BEHIND THE WAVE WHILE IT IS TRAVELING THROUGH DEEP WATER. ON APPROACHING SHALLOW AREAS, VELOCITY DECREASES, BUT THE WAVE WILL INCREASE SHARPLY IN HEIGHT. LOW-LYING AREAS MAY BE ENGULFED. TSUNAMIS DO NOT RESULT IN ANY WAY FROM TIDAL ACTION. THE POPULAR TERM “TIDAL WAVE” IS A MISNOMER.
She scanned ahead.
VELOCITY OF THE WAVE EQUALS THE SQUARE ROOT OF GRAVITATIONAL ACCELERATION TIMES THE DEPTH OF THE WATER.
“Do we have the sea depths south of here?” Henry asked.
Andi shook her head. “I don’t think they’ve been measured very exactly.” Her fingers danced across the keyboard. “Best guess is that it will be traveling at five or six hundred kilometers per hour. But it’s only a guess.”
“Son of a bitch.” She listened to Henry’s harsh breathing.
Hutch was riding her cart, carrying six containers toward the sub bay when Henry broke in on the common channel. “We’ve got an emergency,” he said softly.
She turned a comer and saw Eddie Juliana coming out of one of the storerooms. He was scribbling on a lightpad.
Henry outlined the situation briefly. Hutch thought it was probably a false alarm, a maneuver in a war of nerves. But Eddie was staring at her, eyes wide.
“We don’t know yet how fast it’s coming,” Henry continued, “or where it is, or how big it is. But it could be here in a couple of hours. Everyone is to leave the Temple. Return immediately to Seapoint.”
The Engines of God Page 13