Asimov's SF, April-May 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Meklos didn't know that. He raised his head a little, and saw the edges of the Spires coming out of the white dirt. He couldn't imagine that sort of painstaking work. He wasn't even sure how the creators had made it. Did they begin at the top and add pieces as they went along, until they had the full-sized Spires? Then did they take them from whatever workshop they'd used and attach them to the mountainside?

  The technology needed to do this seemed beyond the ancients. But the ancients had built and forgotten more technology than he would ever know. After all, geneticists had proved that this sector had been colonized by people from Earth, just like the stories said. The DNA matches were complete. Which meant that everyone in the sector had common ancestors, at least once upon a time. That time was so long ago that civilizations rose and fell, knowledge was lost, knowledge was gained, and wars were fought, then forgotten. Just like the history of colonization had been forgotten.

  “So,” Chavo said, “because they're unusually delicate, don't touch the Spires. We're afraid that the oils from your fingertips could harm the coating.”

  “Why?” someone muttered. “Because of where we've been?”

  “They don't know where we've been,” someone else said. “That's what they're afraid of.”

  “Actually,” Chavo said loudly—since he'd clearly heard that, “none of us are allowed to touch. We've seen them forever and examined them for ten years, and we still can't touch. We can't figure out how to study them without dismantling one, and that would be a crime.” Not to mention that it might undermine the entire Spire system.

  “So we take readings and try to examine the artifact with what equipment we have. Even that we have to be careful with. We don't dare use powerful equipment near the Spires. What we're hoping for is that we'll find some pieces in the city below, and then we can do a proper study, but so far we haven't found anything.”

  It almost sounded like a tourist guide spiel, except that Meklos knew tourists never came here.

  He found it curious that they couldn't figure out anything about the Spires. The lack of knowledge, even after a decade of study, made him realize that all those precautions the academics had presented him with were just that: precautions. They were based on guesses, not actual knowledge.

  He wondered what they all would think if they knew how many weapons he was bringing into their stronghold. He would wager that they would disapprove. They were probably taking so long on this dig because they couldn't use some of the normal tricks of the trade—sonic cleaners set on a level for delicate work and large equipment to carry dirt and debris out of this area.

  “Is this the only path?” Meklos asked.

  “It's the only one we use,” Chavo said.

  “That wasn't my question,” Meklos said. “We're here to protect you and your dig. We need to know if there are other ways to access it.”

  Chavo glanced over his shoulder again, as if someone were watching him. As he turned back, he bit his lower lip.

  “There are lots of paths over the peak and through the Spires. This is the only one that is accessible.”

  “To whom?” Meklos asked. “To your people? Or to machinery? Or to anyone with climbing experience?”

  Chavo shrugged. “Honestly, I don't know. This is the only one I've ever used.”

  “How long have you been here?” Meklos asked.

  “Two years,” Chavo said. “My post-doc focuses on the architecture of the city of Denon as it evolved—”

  “Couldn't you study that from some library somewhere?” Phineas asked, obviously unable to contain his contempt any longer.

  “I'm an archeologist, and an art historian,” Chavo said with no little bit of pride. “This is an area of study that combines both of my disciplines.”

  “Well, you're testing our discipline,” Meklos said. “We're each wearing thirty-five kilograms on our backs and it's hot up here. We'd like to get to that city, find where we're going to camp, and eat a little something.”

  “No kidding,” said one of the voices from the back.

  Chavo looked at the pack on Meklos's back as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You might have to take that off as we cross the peak. The arch beneath this part of the Spires is pretty narrow.”

  Meklos frowned. Obviously, then, the original teams hadn't used this path to lug their equipment in.

  Chavo climbed ahead of them, waiting near the arch, which barely reached the top of his head. When Meklos joined him, Chavo pointed up. “Your pack gonna hit that?”

  “Of course not,” Meklos said, but he paused anyway, not because he was uncertain, but because he wanted to get a good look at the Spires up close.

  The arch wasn't a true arch. Instead, it was part of the weave. Several branches came together at this point. Two twisted above Meklos to form an even larger patten. Two more branched in from the sides, giving the arch itself a four-point base. The trail went below that base.

  “I'm going to make sure the others won't hit it,” Chavo said. “So go ahead.”

  “They'll be fine,” Meklos said.

  Chavo looked nervously at the rest of the team, climbing single-file behind Meklos, then back at Meklos.

  Meklos raised his eyebrows. “After you,” he said.

  Chavo swallowed, then nodded. He clearly didn't want to go first, but he didn't see any choice.

  Meklos smiled to himself. The kid was finally becoming intimidated.

  Chavo walked under the arch, then eased himself down the side of the mountain. The trail had to have gotten steep there. Meklos made a mental note of that. He followed, going slowly, so that he could look at the arch as he passed. Chavo wasn't kidding—the Spires had etchings. So far as Meklos could see, each etching was different. Some appeared to be characters, like letters or numbers, and others were drawings. He noted one as he passed, a woman standing beneath this very arch, or something quite similar to it.

  He only had to hunch slightly as he walked under the arch. He had plenty of clearance. Even if he hadn't, his pack would have flattened itself against his back to avoid touching anything. It was a design feature he'd neglected to tell Chavo.

  The kid didn't need to know everything.

  Once Meklos got through the arch, the path turned sharply to the right. That was why Chavo had braced himself as he'd come through. There were more parts to the arch, some actually flattened before Meklos, like a floor.

  The path swerved to avoid all of that.

  The floor had etchings as well, but he couldn't see them clearly from the path.

  What surprised him was that they weren't covered with dust or dirt. Just one day on this mountaintop should have covered that floor in the whitish material that surrounded it.

  He swerved with the path, then walked down four steps. Chavo was waiting for him on a stone platform, one that was not part of the Spires. Meklos stopped beside Chavo, then looked up the mountainside. His team was coming through, one at a time, each examining the Spires as they walked, each showing the same amount of curiosity he had.

  “The city's just down there,” Chavo said, with no small amount of pride.

  Meklos looked. The city sprawled below them as if it had always been exposed to the sun, as if teams of archeologists hadn't uncovered it in the past five years.

  Some of the dirt remained along the edges—more, it seemed to Meklos, to prevent climbers from going through the Spires the wrong way than as any integral part of the dig. But the dirt did show how deeply the city had once been buried.

  It filled the hollow in the mountain. White buildings, some small, and several quite large, scattered before him. They glimmered in the sunlight.

  He realized then that some of the brightness had come from the reflected light off the white substance on the side of the mountain. Add to that the city itself, and his eyes actually hurt.

  “Lovely, isn't it?” Chavo asked.

  “Astonishing,” Meklos said, and meant it. He had seen a lot of amazi
ng things in his career, but never anything like this.

  “Wait until you see it up close,” Chavo said.

  Meklos frowned. He had heard about the ancient city of Denon in school—everyone had. So many of this sector's myths and stories had come from here. The city itself had survived several sieges.

  As he looked at it now, though, the idea of surviving a siege here made him shudder. With a more powerful enemy on the mountainside, the inhabitants of the city would not stand a chance.

  “Ready?” Chavo asked, leading Meklos to yet another set of stairs.

  Meklos nodded. Places usually didn't make him uncomfortable, but this one did. And he wasn't entirely sure why.

  * * * *

  4

  Navi Salvino clasped her hands behind her back and studied the holographic map floating above the table. She had walked around it now a dozen times, zooming in, zooming out, and still she couldn't decide what to do.

  The Naramzin Mountain Range looked formidable all by itself, but the strictures on landing anywhere near the Spires of Denon made this job almost impossible.

  She wouldn't be able to get her people into the city of Denon without being seen. She certainly couldn't use weapons, and the newest strictures, made by the Monuments Protection Arm of the Unified Governments of Amnthra, restricted most forms of scanning equipment as well.

  The Unified Governments had been suing Scholars Exploration for ownership of the mountaintop itself. Scholars Exploration had used a loophole in some of the local laws to claim ownership of the mountaintop. Apparently the Unified Governments had never designated the Spires a protected area, which was a major mistake.

  The Scholars took advantage of major mistakes. They'd become the bully in the sector, at least when it came to research sites.

  In the beginning, the Scholars had simply been a way for sector universities to protect their research. A dozen universities had founded Scholars Exploration to give them some clout with the various sector governments. A variety of donors, many wealthy alumni, had provided startup funding for the company decades ago. That start-up money had become a large fortune, thanks to the funds generated by patents, copyrights, sales of land and items made and/or found by the various scholars.

  Most people saw the Scholars as a boon to knowledge throughout the sector. Navi saw them as a pain in the ass. She walked around the table yet again. The mountaintop rose as if it had been carved there.

  The Spires rose above the white mountaintop, hopelessly delicate. On one of her passes, she had counted sixteen spires, but it was hard to gauge, since they twisted and twined into each other. One branch would rise into a point, while another part of it forked away, wrapping itself around a different spire.

  The highest spire stood alone for several meters, white and shining in the simulation, as if lit from within.

  If this holographic map was even half as impressive as the Spires themselves, then they were something to behold.

  She pressed a button on her wristband, summoning this job's expert. She hated the experts. They were self-important little people who often felt slighted by not being included in some Scholars Exploration expedition.

  This particular expert, Jonas Zeigler, hid his disappointment well, but Navi could still feel it, as if she had caused it.

  The double doors slid open and he stepped inside, stopping as he gazed on the map. His black bangs flopped over the left side of his narrow face. He wore faded jeans and a cotton top, even though Navi kept her ship at regulation temperature—which meant it was cool, even for her.

  Zeigler was a full professor of antiquities and art history at a tiny college at the edge of the sector. His speeches, his dissertation, and his annual works had brought him to Navi's attention. Even though he didn't have a prestige position, he was considered the sector's foremost authority on the Spires—or he had been until Scholars had discovered the City of Denon in the hollow below them.

  Zeigler had predicted that find in his now-famous dissertation, published nearly a decade before anyone thought to look for the city. But his tiny college couldn't afford to buy into Scholars, and so he wasn't qualified to lead an expedition into the area.

  “You act like you've never seen the Spires.” She had to walk behind him and wave her hand at the door, closing it. He hadn't moved since he'd stepped inside.

  He shook himself, then took a deep breath. “Not like that,” he said. “My school doesn't have the funds for such a sophisticated holounit.”

  “But you've seen them up close,” she said. As a fifteen-year-old, he had hiked up Denon's Secret with his family, long before any archeologists had taken interest in the Spires.

  “Up close you can hardly take in a single branch. The entire thing is impossible to see.” He finally walked toward the map. “Although...”

  “Although?” She hated the way he spoke, as if his thoughts raced ahead and he didn't feel as if he had to articulate all of them.

  “Although they're much brighter in person. They are so white they actually hurt your eyes.” He sounded wistful.

  Sometimes places got a hold on people, made them almost worshipful. She'd seen it countless times—people willing to defend a small patch of ground that looked like nothing to her, because it meant something to them.

  She hadn't suspected Zeigler of such an attitude, although someone else might have. It took her longer than most to recognize worshipful. She had never worshipped anything. Her work was everything to her, had been since she'd left home at thirteen. She hadn't even fallen in love. Someone would mention a new job, and she would take it, for the challenge mostly, since money and perks didn't matter much to her.

  “Last night,” she said to Zeigler, “you mentioned something. You said you didn't think the security team would have been hired to protect the city. What did you mean?”

  The words had echoed in her head since that moment. The security team had triggered her trip to Amnthra. Even though the Scholars had hired the security team, the request for security hadn't originated with the Scholars.

  The request had come directly from the surface itself.

  Navi's computer systems were set up to automatically flag actions like that. She'd been monitoring nearly two hundred Scholars projects and sites all over the sector, and whenever something unusual happened, she got flagged. This one intrigued her, because the city had been discovered so recently and it was hard to reach. Historic places that were hard to reach and relatively new to the academic community were often rich with treasures. Zeigler was still looking at the Spires. His silence exasperated her. She asked, “Do you think the team was hired to protect the Spires?”

  He gave her a look of such panic that she actually regretted the question. “They're too beautiful to cut up,” he said, which wasn't an answer to her question. The fact that he had thought of cutting them up meant someone else probably had as well.

  “Could they be sold in parts?” she asked.

  He let out a heavy sigh. It sounded almost mournful.

  “Anything can be sold in parts,” he said.

  “So that's what you meant,” she said. “You think the team was hired to protect the Spires.”

  He shook his head, but said no more.

  “Then why do you think they hired the team?” she asked.

  “The museum,” he said after a moment. His tone implied that she knew what the museum was.

  She knew of countless museums. Some were attached to the universities. Some were in the wealthier cities throughout the sector. The Scholars had been making noise for years about starting a universal museum, one in the center of the sector, like a space port, complete with restaurants, hotels, and condos. The entire thing could be expanded as the Scholars found more items to put into it.

  “Which museum?” she asked when it became clear he wasn't going to elaborate.

  He whirled toward her, his face more animated than she had ever seen it.

  “I thought you studied my work,” he snapped. “You said you w
ere familiar with it.”

  “I am,” she said. She hadn't studied his work; that would have taken too much time. But she had scanned the precis and listened to his detractors as well as his supporters. She'd learned all she could about him as quickly as she could. She simply hadn't had time to familiarize herself with the work itself.

  “Everything I've done in the past six years has been about the museum,” he said.

  “The last six years, you talked about the history of Denonites,” she said. “I recall nothing about a museum.”

  His face flushed. “You listened to the critics. You didn't listen to me.”

  She sighed, then extended her hands flat, in a gesture of peace. “Guilty,” she said. “I don't have the patience for scholarship.”

  He glared at her, then turned his back on her. He continued to study the Spires.

  “So what did the critics miss?” she asked.

  “A discovery equal to that of the city itself,” he said.

  He answered her quicker than she had expected him to. She had thought he would nurse his anger a bit longer.

  “Why would they ignore that?”

  “Because I'm not on-site,” he said. “But I wasn't on-site when I figured out the city's location either.”

  “So tell me about the museum,” she said.

  He turned, his expression open. She didn't like the mood swing. She kept her back straight, her face impassive. She wasn't going to encourage this kind of emotionalism—although she would remember it.

  He said, “The ancient texts all talked about the spoils of war. The Denonites went to war not for the conquest, but for the spoils.”

  So did many communities, she almost said, but remembered: it was better not to have a dialogue with Zeigler. It would derail him.

  “Most scholars,” he was saying, “believe the spoils are the standard ones—slaves, property, maybe extending the gene pool. But it always seemed to me to be more than that.”

  She frowned.

  Zeigler reached toward the Spires. He touched them. The hologram encased his fingers.

  “I always thought that any people who could create something that beautiful would appreciate beauty. The city bears this out. The new documentation shows that it uses classical designs—ancient Earth designs—in its most prominent buildings.”