Artifact

by Gregory Benford

  The last few knots were difficult. The adrenaline surge ebbed away and his muscles stung with pain. The automatic rifle butt swung painfully against his leg as he struggled over the lip, onto sticky mud.

  For a moment he panted, thinking of nothing. He felt chilled, exhausted. His arms and legs trembled, remembering the ascent. The slimy mud reeked in his nostrils. Then he heard the voices.

  Faint whispers, impossible to distinguish the words. Greeks, they must be Greeks guarding the tomb, waiting for Sergeant Petrakos to come back.

  He sat up and slipped the weapon free of his shoulder. Now that he looked at the automatic rifle, he realized that he had never fired anything remotely like it. Here was the breech, with the cartridge clip inserted. It had a green plastic pistol grip, a carrying handle with the rear sight sunk into it, and a conical flash suppressor at the muzzle. In movies people just picked up guns and fired them, never having any trouble loading them or having the breech jam in a misfire. He worked the bolt and saw the brass gleam of a round in the chamber. Good.

  He wondered what he should do. Could he really shoot the men outside? Without warning?

  They must have seen the helicopters, must know that something was up. In fact, he thought he could hear the brrrrr of a chopper in the distance. Would they be jumpy? Maybe he should try to take them prisoner.

  Cautiously he got to his feet in the slippery mud. He was covered with the clammy, smelly stuff. He clicked off his flashlight and inched through the hole into the tomb. There was no light. He felt a soft pressure on his face and realized the sheet was still hanging over the pipes, still hiding the hole where the cube had been.

  Inky blackness lay beyond. He sensed the high entrance, a slightly lighter patch. The voices came from over there.

  He could not make them out. Greek? Maybe.

  He stepped silently into the tomb itself, straightened, and realized he would have to turn on the flashlight and hold the gun at the same time. He grasped the pistol grip and leveled the rifle.

  The red beam clicked on, showing two startled faces: Claire and Kontos.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  Kontos held a submachine gun cradled in his left arm, muzzle pointing at the ground.

  John dropped the flashlight, letting the cord at his belt catch it, and stepped forward quickly. He chopped down with the automatic rifle. It struck Kontos on the arm, loosening his hold on his weapon. Kontos grunted with pain, coming out of his surprise, turning. John raised the muzzle and slammed it into Kontos. He caught the man on the arm and across the chest. The submachine gun thumped into the dirt.

  “Move and I shoot,” John said, backing away so that Kontos could not grab the muzzle. “Claire, come away from him.”

  Kontos swore angrily in Greek. The flashlight swung, making their shadows veer crazily.

  Claire said, “Thank God! Everything’s gone wrong up here.”

  “It hasn’t been a day at the beach down below, either,” John said.

  Kontos began, “Sergeant Petrakos—”

  “Dead.”

  “Your Marines—”

  “No Marines, Kontos. The guys who came with me are dead, though—Petrakos did her job.”

  Kontos asked incredulously, “Then you—?”

  “Nope. A li’l piece of theoretical physics killed her.”

  “You—”

  “Shut up.”

  John edged toward the tomb door, peering out. It was impossible to see anything.

  They stood unmoving in the dim red circle cast by John’s flashlight. Equipment and tools from the archeological work still littered the floor. The crates which John had seen here months ago were gone, shipped to Athens.

  Kontos rubbed his arm and said with steely menace, “I advise you to give yourselves up.”

  John laughed.

  “You cannot hold this position forever, even with aircraft. I guessed you would come, that there was something here you needed.”

  “But you know about the singularity.”

  Kontos’s face became cautious. “I could not understand the tapes—it is a particle? Something in the cube?”

  “Forget it—no time.”

  “Soon more troops will come—”

  “Shut up.” John turned to Claire. “Tell me what it’s like out there. Will somebody shoot at us? How come you’re here?”

  Claire rapidly filled him in, concluding, “After the napalm, I think the ’copter killed most of the rest of Kontos’s men.”

  “God, what a mess.”

  “The ’copter is up there now. Kontos was figuring out some way to use me, when you showed up. Beautiful timing.” She grinned crookedly. Her voice quavered and he saw she was on the verge of breaking down. She was a mass of bruises, her clothes torn and muddied. Her eyes brimmed, damp and wild.

  “Here,” he said, handing her the flashlight and unhooking it from his belt. “Keep it on him.”

  Kontos swore at them both, his body tensing. He wore fatigues, but without the usual pistol at the belt which designated officers. Instead he had a big knife sheathed on his hip. John eyed the man, wondering if Kontos was agitated enough to jump him unarmed.

  “Where’s the ’copter headed?”

  “It’s overhead now.”

  “Damn!”

  “Why, what—”

  “What if we use the flashlight to signal the ’copter?”

  “That might work.”

  “Any Greeks left alive out there to shoot at us?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Let’s get out of here.”

  He gestured at Kontos with the gun. The man was staring intently at the rifle itself. Was he watching for the clenching of John’s hand, a sign that he was going to pull the trigger? The man looked like a glowering lunatic in the red glow. Kontos cast a giant shadow, amplifying his movements. He shifted, setting his feet wider apart, and his shadow raked across the ancient limestone blocks.

  “Come on, Kontos.”

  Still the fixed look, the eyes showing white.

  “Move.”

  Kontos sprang at him.

  Like many people, John had always wondered if he had the resolve to shoot in the split second when hesitation meant death, and now the doubts were resolved. He had been through too much; the last hour had worn away his civilized reservations.

  He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The trigger was stiff and would not give. John realized that he had never checked the safety on the weapon, and now it was locked in the off position.

  Braced to fire, he reached up with his thumb to click the safety over—and Kontos hit him sideways across the chest, sending the rifle flying.

  They struck the floor with Kontos on top. Kontos tried to slam his knee into John’s stomach but he rolled aside. John chopped at Kontos ineffectually with his left hand. They both twisted away and struggled to their knees. Before either could rise Kontos swung, a right cross that landed on John’s cheek, splitting the skin, bringing sharp, shooting pain.

  John slipped the next punch, a wide swing with the left, and jabbed Kontos in the neck. Kontos aimed a hook, missed, lost his balance and rolled away. John got up, trying to see where the rifle had gone. He glanced quickly around the tomb but could not spot it. If he could reach it, get the damned safety off—

  Kontos was scrabbling at his belt. The knife. John backed away, nearly stumbling over some gear. Claire was transfixed, holding the flashlight near the rear of the tomb. Why hadn’t she gotten the rifle? He frantically searched the cluttered mud floor, stepping away from Kontos. Where was it? But there was something else, too, something warning him—

  Kontos got the knife out. The man’s eyes jerked from Claire to John and he went into a low crouch, saying nothing. John saw suddenly that the rifle lay behind Kontos, hidden from him by the man’s shadow. No chance of reaching it.

  John watched Kontos’s fevered eyes, trying to guess what he would do next. Kontos had combat training, knew how to use a knife. He
was in a practiced crouch, feet shuffling forward.

  As John watched, holding his breath, there came at the edge of his perception a sound, a humming that he knew was important.

  Kontos came in with the knife held low, pointing up, its thick blade honed to a gleaming razor edge.

  John backed away farther. No chance of reaching the doorway; though he was ten yards away, Kontos was set, ready to spring in pursuit.

  “Claire!” John took two quick steps and snatched the flashlight from her. Kontos edged closer on the balls of his feet, readying himself.

  John deliberately took aim and smashed the flashlight against the tomb wall, bringing sudden darkness.

  “Through the hole!” he whispered to Claire. “Get through, go down the rope.”

  He reached out and gave her a shove in the right direction. He could feel her hesitate and then crouch down to make her way.

  He threw the flashlight toward Kontos. It crashed into the wall. The man shouted something but John paid no attention. They were equally blind now and that might delay Kontos. Kontos would come for him slowly in the complete blackness, listening, careful to avoid getting jumped.

  Kontos could have escaped then. For a single stretched instant he could have made for the hole. Instead, he swung wildly, hoping to hit John. Revenge came first. He lunged, but in the wrong direction. Toward a spreading glow.

  A diffuse luminosity spread like an ominous stain across the other side of the tomb.

  The far wall behind Kontos glowed, an ivory radiance. John fumbled after Claire. He bent to slip through the hole and saw that there was enough light now to actually make out Kontos silhouetted. A pearly pattern came from the stones themselves. Sparkling facets of yellow and green played patterns, dancing.

  A humming. A bass vibration coming up through his feet.

  Kontos whirled and faced the tomb wall now, his quarry forgotten, not understanding. John opened his mouth to call out. Abruptly the noise rose, shrill and menacing.

  An orange dot shot out from the tomb wall, dropping, spitting streamers of violet. Shifting blades of prickly light, a cutting wail.

  It struck Kontos in the chest. John felt a wave of heat on his face and ducked, slipping behind the stone blocks of the tomb wall, into the passageway beyond.

  He staggered forward in slippery mud. Blue-white glare streamed through the hole behind him and the awful sucking whine reverberated. Claire was already on the rope, two knots down. She stared upward at him in amazement.

  “Keep going!” He scrambled for the rope, caught it. He slid down, barely holding on, letting the rope burn his hands. The blue brilliance grew. Massive crashes came from above.

  “Go for the bottom! All the way!” he shouted over the gathering roar of collapsing stone.

  They slid quickly, Claire catching herself on the knots at each interval. They reached the first major turn and John looked upward. Still the hot blue glare, but fainter now. A series of heavy, dull booms signaled more of the tomb falling in. The singularity must have dislodged blocks, destroying the precarious balance of the beehive vault.

  His arms stretched, aching with pain. As his feet struck each knot he let them buckle, carrying him down, until he caught the rope again with searing hands and momentarily caught his weight on his arms. Descending seemed to take forever. Streamers of blue and green played on the slick wet walls. He looked down in the fading light. Claire’s feet found the large ledge and she staggered onto it. John landed beside her, and gestured across the tunnel, at the side passage with glassy walls. “Over there! It’s out of the way.”

  She hesitated. He grabbed the rope and swung across, barely catching onto the slippery ledge. “Come on!” He pushed the rope back across and she caught it. She looked doubtful but came a moment later, backing up and taking a running start. He caught her clumsily and lunged away from the edge. They fell heavily onto a level area. A massive lip sheltered them from above.

  “What…I…” Claire gasped for breath.

  Three rattling concussions shook their ledge. A large mass hurtled past them, cracking into the side, shattering into fragments. They cowered back. Another huge chunk of rock fell past, bouncing from the walls in hammer blows.

  The blue-white glare from above ebbed. Another crash, more massive thumps from far up the shaft. Small stones rattled down. Green fingers of light. Another distant smashing. This time nothing fell past, and darkness closed in.

  “Kontos…”

  “Forget him,” he said tersely. “Forget the son of a bitch.”

  They worked their way farther back from the edge in the last faint light.

  He did not tell her what he had seen only in an instant’s glimpse, before fear drove him forward through the hole and to safety. The blue point of light had slammed into Kontos, splitting his chest. The body staggered with the impact but remained erect, arms half-raised, knife still gripped tightly.

  The rest lived in his memory in slow motion. The singularity paused then, tugged by its twin.

  Instantly a swirl of rainbow colors broke out over the body, as if Kontos was being illuminated from within. The arms went limp, the head flew back as the thing ate him. A fluorescent effect sent waves of brilliant red shooting through Kontos’s arms.

  The man began to crumple. For an instant John saw deep into the body—the skeleton, its bones outlined by the scattered radiation. Arms flailing, knees in the act of buckling. Ribs turning, attracted inward, being visibly bent and sucked down toward the source of unbearably intense light.

  And at the center of the chest, a rigid frame rotated slowly. A cube, sparkling and vibrating with a cascade of colors—burnt-orange, electric blue, red, smoky orange.

  The singularity was bloated, gut full with its eating. It spun. Streamers of yellow licked from it, breaking off a rib. The piercing, ruddy glow lit up the entire rib cage. The chest was a lattice of glowing orange bones. Along them danced forking red tongues of licking flame.

  Just as Kontos started to fall, his back swelled and bulged, a blister alive with sulphurous radiance. The singularity was carrying through Kontos, ceaselessly gnawing, ripping apart sinew and bone in its thirst for matter. For a frozen instant in John’s memory he could see the swollen mound of flesh rip open the green fatigues, making Kontos into a grotesque hunchback. Then the festering bulge erupted like a volcano, spraying gobbets of flesh into the air with a sound of liquid explosion.

  John closed his eyes, panting, and saw it again, and knew he would never be able to forget it.

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  Claire pressed back into the wet stone as the bluegreen shafts on the wall ebbed. Reverberating crashes died away. A silent darkness descended and she could hear her heart hammering in her chest.

  She lay like that for a long while, gasping, unable to think of anything other than the wondrous fact that she was alive. Slowly then the pains in her hands, arms and legs diffused, swelling into a general ache that came from every part of her.

  “I don’t think…we got much radiation,” John gasped.

  “Good,” was all she could think to reply.

  “The whole damned tomb…collapsed, sounded like. Prob’ly…sealed us off.”

  “Yes.”

  “No light coming in that I can see.”

  “No.”

  “Here, scrunch over this way.”

  She felt in the clammy blackness and found him. He drew her into an embrace, entwining their legs. His wet suit was chilly but she pressed against him, glad of the contact. For a while they said nothing; she simply let the fevered impulses of her nervous system flicker away, bringing a deep fatigue.

  A long time later she asked, “How about…down there?”

  “We might go down by rope.”

  “Do you suppose the cave-in blocked this shaft?”

  “Could be.”

  “Shouldn’t we explore?”

  “Rest…a minute.”

  They stayed that way for a while. The chill of the ston
e began to seep into her legs. Claire waited and when he did not respond to her efforts to press closer to him she thought he had gone to sleep.

  She shook him and felt the welcome quickening of his breath. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Okay. I’ll see…if I can reach the rope.”

  She could feel him get slowly to his hands and knees. He moved to the lip of the ledge and she reached out to steady him.

  “Nothing here,” he said. “I’m stretched out into the shaft, feeling around. No rope.”

  “Perhaps it’s hanging farther away.”

  “I don’t think so. It was just about in the middle of the shaft. I should be able to touch it.”

  “Do you have anything to probe with? A stick or something?”

  “Nope. Do you?”

  “No.”

  He moved carefully back and put his arms around her.

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  “Your arms aren’t any longer than mine.”

  “Well, it’s got to be there.”

  “No it doesn’t. I think the cave-in ripped it away.”

  “Oh.”

  A long silence.

  “Is there any way to get down without it?”

  “No. It’s ’way too steep. You’d fall and break your neck.”

  “Then…what can we do?”

  “Nothing. Not every problem has a solution.”

  “We’ll—we’ll freeze in here.”

  “Or run out of air.”

  “Carmody will find us.”

  “Prob’ly. But who knows we’re here?”

  “They’ll search.”

  “I don’t know if they have the time or the equipment to pull away those limestone blocks up there.”

  “Time?”

  “The Greeks’ll be back.”

  “Oh.”

  “Could be the second underwater team will come up from below. Unless that way’s blocked by the cave-in. I’d guess it is. Those were big chunks.”

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Stay warm.”

  “You sound like Marcus Aurelius.”

  “Who?”