by Larry Niven
"Well, their year is shorter ... Five figures. Dating backward from some event; that's a minus sign in front of each of them. Let me see..." He took out his computer and scrawled quick, precise figures. "That number would be seventy-four thousand and some-odd. Jonathon, the plaques are almost new."
"Languages change. They must translate the plaques every so often."
"Yes... yes, I know this sign. ‘Approximately.'" Potter moved swiftly from exhibit to exhibit. "Here it is again. Not here... but here. Jonathon, come look at this one."
It was a, very old machine. Once iron, it must be rust now, all the way through. There was a sketch of what it must have looked like once. A howitzer cannon.
"Here on the plaque. This double-approximation sign means educated guesswork. I wonder how many times that legend has been translated."
Room after room. They found a wide staircase leading up, the steps shallow but broad enough for human feet. Above, more rooms, more exhibits. The ceilings were low. The lighting came from lines of bulbs of incandescent filaments that came on when they entered, went out when they left. The bulbs were mounted carefully so they wouldn't mar the ceiling. The museum itself must be an exhibit.
The plaques were all alike, but the cases were all different. Whitbread did not think it strange. No two Motie artifacts were ever precisely alike. But one... he almost laughed. - -
A bubble of glass several meters long and two meters wide rested on a free-form sculpted frame of almost beach-colored metal. Both, looked brand-new. There was a plaque on the frame. Inside was an ornately carved wooden box, coffin sized, bleached white by age, its lid the remains of a rusted wire grille. It had a plaque. Under the rusted wire, a selection of wonderfully shaped, eggshell-thin pottery, some broken, some whole. Each piece in the set had a dated plaque. "It's like nested exhibits," he said.
Potter did not laugh. "That's what it is. See here? The bubble case is about two thousand years old... that can't be right, can it?"
"Not unless...". Whitbread rubbed his class ring along the glass bubble. "They're both scratched. Artificial sapphire." He tried it on the metal. The metal scratched the stone. "I'll accept two thousand."
"But the box is around twenty-four hundred, and the pottery goes from three thousand up. Look you how the style changes. ‘Tis a depiction of the rise and fall of a particular school of pottery styling."
"Do you think the wooden case came out of another museum?"
"Aye."
Whitbread did laugh then. They moved on. Presently Whitbread pointed and said, "Here, that's the same metal, isn't it?" The small two-handed weapon-it had to be a gun-carried the same date as the sapphire bubble.
Beyond that was a puzzling structure near the wail of the great dome. It was made of a vertical lacework of hexagons, each formed from steel members two meters long. There were thick plastic frames in some of the hexagons, and broken fragments in others.
Potter pointed out the gentle curve of the structure. "'Twas another dome. A spherical dome with geodesic bracing. Not much left of it-and it wouldn't hae covered all of the compound anyway."
"You're right. It didn't weather away, though. Look at how these members near the edge are twisted. Tornadoes? This part of the country seems fiat enough."
It took Potter a moment to understand. There were no tornadoes in the rough terraformed New Scotland. He remembered his meteorology lessons and nodded. "Aye. Maybe. Maybe." Beyond the fragments of the earlier dome Potter found a framework of disintegrating metal within what might have been a plastic shell. The plastic itself looked frayed and moth-eaten. There were two dates on the plaque, both in five figures. The sketch next to the plaque showed a narrow ground car, primitive looking, with three seats in a row. The motor hood was open.
"Internal combustion," said Potter. "I had the idea that Mote Prime was short on fossil fuels."
"Sally had an idea on that too. Their civilization may have gone downhill when they used up all their fossil fuels. I wonder."
But the prize was behind a great glass picture window in one wall. They found themselves looking into the "steeple" past an ancient, ornately carved bronze plaque that had a smaller plaque on it.
Within the "steeple" was a rocket ship. Despite the holes in the sides and the corrosion everywhere, it still held its shape: a long, cylindrical tank, very thin-walled, with a cabin showing behind a smoothly pointed nose.
They made for the stairs. There must be another window on the first floor...
And there was. They knelt to look into the motor.
Potter said, "I don't quite..."
"NERVA style," said Whitbread. His voice was almost a whisper. "Atomic. Very early type. You send some inert fuel through a core of uranium or plutonium or the like. Fission pile, prefusion..."
"Are you sure?"
Whitbread looked again before he nodded. "I'm sure."
Fission had been developed after internal combustion; but there were still places in the Empire that employed internal combustion engines. Fission power was very nearly a myth, and as they stared the age of the place seemed to fail from the walls like a cloak and wrap them in silence.
The plane landed near the orange rags of a parachute and the remains of a cone. The open doorway was an accusing mouth just beyond.
Whitbread's Motie jumped from the plane and rushed over to the cone. She twittered, and the pilot bounded from the ship to join her. "They opened it," Whitbread's Motie said. "I never thought Jonathon would solve it. It must have been Potter. Horst, is there any chance at all they didn't go inside?"
Staley shook his head.
The Motie twittered to the Brown again. "Watch for aircraft, Horst," Whitbread's Motie said. She spoke to the other Brown-and-white, who left the airplane and stared at the skies.
The Brown picked up Whitbread's empty pressure suit and armor. She worked rapidly, shaping something to take the place of the missing helmet and closing the suit top. Then she worked on the air regenerator, picking at the insides with tools from a belt pouch. The suit inflated and was set upright. Presently the Brown closed the panel and the suit was taut, like a man in vacuum. She tied lengths of line to constrict the shoulders and punched a hole at each wrist.
The empty man raised his arms to the Sound of hissing air blowing out the wrist holes. The pressure dropped and the arms fell. Another spurt of hissing, and the arms rose again...
"That ought to do it," Whitbread's Motie said. "We set your suit up the same way, and raised the temperature to your body normal. With luck they may blast it without checking to see if you're in it."
"Blast it?"
"We sure can't count on it, though. I wish there were some way to make it fire on an aircraft..."
Staley shook the Motie's shoulder. The Brown stood by watching with the tiny half-smile that meant nothing at all. The equatorial sun was high overhead. "Why would anyone want to kill us?" Staley demanded.
"You're all under death sentence, Horst."
"But why? Is it the dome? Is there a taboo?"
"The dome, yes. Taboo, no. What do you take us for primitives? You know too much, that's all. Dead you-name-its tell no tales. Now come on, we've got to find them and get out of here."
Whitbread's Motie stooped to get under the door. Needlessly: but Whitbread would have stooped. The other Brown-and-white followed silently, leaving the Brown standing outside, her face a perpetual gentle smile.
35 Run Rabbit Run
They saw the other midshipmen near the cathedral. Horst Staley's boots clumped hollowly as they approached. Whitbread looked up, noticed the Motie's walk, and said "Fyunch(click) ?"
"Fyunch (click)."
"We've been exploring your-"
"Jonathon, we don't have time," the Motie said. The other Brown-and-white eyed them with an air of impatience.
"We're under a death sentence for trespassing." Staley said flatly. "I don't know why."
There was silence. Whitbread said, "Neither do I. This is nothing but a museum-"
"Yes,
" Whitbread's Motie said. "You would have to land here. It's not even bad luck. Your dumb animal miniatures must have programmed the reentry cones not to hit water or cities or mountain peaks. You were bound to come down in farm lands. Well, that's where we put museums."
"Out here? Why?" Potter asked. He sounded as if he already knew. "There are nae people here-"
"So they won't get bombed."
The silence was part of the age of the place. The Motie said, "Gavin, you aren't showing much surprise."
Potter attempted to rub his jaw. His helmet prevented it. "I don't suppose there's any chance of persuading you that we hae learned nothing?"
"Not really. You've been here three hours."
Whitbread broke in. "More like two. Horst, this place is fantastic! Museums within museums; it goes back incredibly far-is that the secret? That civilization is very old here? I don't see why you'd hide that."
"You've had a lot of wars," Potter said slowly.
The Motie bobbed her head and shoulder. "Yah."
"Big wars."
"Right. Also little wars."
"How many?"
"God's sake, Potter! Who counts? Thousands of Cycles. Thousands of collapses back to savagery. Crazy Eddie eternally trying to stop it. Well, I've had it. The whole decision-maker caste has turned Crazy Eddie, to my mind. They think they'll stop the pattern of Cycles by moving into space and settling other solar systems."
Horst Staley's tone was flat. As he spoke he looked carefully around the dome and his hand rested on his pistol butt. "Do they? And what is it we know too much on"
"I'm going to tell you. And then I'm going to try to get you to your ship, alive-" She indicated the other Motie, who had stood impassively during the conversation. Whitbread's Motie whistled and hummed. "Best call her Charlie," she said. "You can't pronounce the name. Charlie represents a giver of orders who's willing to help you. Maybe. It's your only chance, anyway-"
"So what do we do now?" Staley demanded.
"We try to get to Charlie's boss. You'll be protected there. (Whistle, click, whistle.) Uh, call him King Peter.
We don't have kings, but he's male now. He's one of the most powerful givers of orders, and after he talks to you he'll probably be willing to get you home."
"Probably," Horst said slowly. "Look, just what is this secret you're so afraid of?"
"Later. We've got to get moving."
Horst Staley drew his pistol. "No. Right now. Potter, is there anything in this museum that could communicate with Lenin? Find something."
"Aye aye-do ye think ye must hae the pistol?"
"Just find us a radio!"
"Horst, listen," Whitbread's Motie insisted: "The decision makers know you landed near here somewhere. If you try to communicate from here, they'll cut you off. And if you do get a message through, they'll destroy Lenin." Staley tried to speak, but the Motie continued insistently. "Oh, yes, they can do it. It wouldn't be easy. That Field of yours is pretty powerful. But you've seen what our Engineers can come up with, and you've never seen what the Warriors can do. We've seen one of your best ships destroyed now. We know how it can be done. Do you think one little battleship can survive against fleets from both here and the asteroid stations?"
"Jesus, Horst she may be right," Whitbread said.
"We've got to let the Admiral know." Staley seemed uncertain, but the pistol never wavered. "Potter, carry out your orders."
"You'll get a chance to call Lenin as soon as it's safe," Whitbread's Mode insisted. Her voice was almost shrill for a moment, then fell to a modulated tone. "Horst, believe me, it's the only way. Besides, you'll never be able to operate a communicator by yourself. You'll need our help, and we aren't going to help you do anything stupid. We've got to get out of here!"
The other Mode trilled. Whitbread's Motie answered, and they twittered back and forth. Whitbread's Mode translated. "If my own Master's troops don't get here, the Museum Keeper's Warriors will. I don't know where the Keeper stands on this. Charlie doesn't know either. Keepers are sterile, and they're not ambitious, but they're very possessive of what they already have."
"Will they bomb us?" Whitbread asked.
"Not as long as we're in here. It would wreck the museum, and museums are important. But the Keeper will send troops-if my own Master's don't get here first."
"Why aren't they here yet?" Staley demanded. "I don't hear anything."
"For God's sake, they may be coming already! Look, my Master-my old Master-won jurisdiction over human studies. She won't, give that up, so she won't invite anybody else in. She'll try to keep the locals out of this, and since her holdings- are around the Castle it'll take a while to get Warriors her& It's about two thousand kilometers."
"That plane of yours was a fast one," Staley said flatly.
"An emergency Mediator's vehicle. Masters forbid each other to use them. Your coming to our system almost started a war over jurisdiction anyway, and putting Warriors in one of those could certainly do it ..
"Don't your decision makers have any military planes at all?" Whitbread asked.
"Sure, but they're slower. They might drive you to cover anyway. There's a subway under this building-"
"Subway?" Staley said carefully. Everything was happening too fast. He was in command here, but he didn't know what to do.
"Of course. People do visit museums sometimes. And it'll take a while to get here by subway from the Castle. Who knows what the Keeper will be doing meantime? He might even forbid my Master's invasion. But if he does, you can be sure he'll kill you, to keep any other Masters from fighting here."
"Find anything, Gavin?" Staley shouted.
Potter appeared at the doorway of one of the modernistic glass-and-steel pillars. "Nothing I can operate as a communicator. Nothing I can even be sure is one. And this is all the newer stuff, Horst. Anything in the older buildings may be rusted through."
"Horst, - we've got to get out of here!" Whitbread's Motie insisted again. "There's no time for talk-"
"Those Warriors could come in planes to the next station and then take the subway from there," Whitbread reminded them. "We'd better do something, Horst."
Staley nodded slowly. "All right. How do we leave? In your plane?"
"It won't hold all of-us," Whitbread's Mode said. "But we can send two with Charlie and I could-"
"No." Staley's tone was decisive. "We stay together. Can you call a larger plane?"
"I can't even be sure that one would escape. You're probably right. It would be better to stay together. Well, there's nothing left but the subway." -
"Which might be full of enemies right now." Staley thought for a moment. The dome was a bomb shelter and the mirror was a good defense against lasers. They could hole up here-but for how long? He began to feel the necessary paranoia of a soldier in enemy territory.
"Where do we have to go to get a message through to Lenin?" he demanded. That was obviously the first thing.
"King Peter's territory. It's a thousand kilometers, but that's the only place you could get equipment to send a message that couldn't be detected. Even that might not do it, but there's certainly nowhere else."
"And we can't go by plane-OK. Where's the subway? We'll have to set up an ambush."
"Ambush?" The Motie nodded agreement. "Of course. Horst. I'm not good at tactics. Mediators don't fight. I'm just trying to get you to Charlie's Master. You'll have to worry about them trying to kill us on the way. How good are your weapons?"
"Just hand weapons. Not very powerful."
"There are others in the museum. It's part of what museums are for. I don't know which ones still work."
"It's worth a try. Whitbread. Potter. Get to looking for weapons. Now where's that subway?"
The Modes looked around. Charlie evidently understood what was said, although she attempted no word of Anglic. They twittered for a moment, and Whitbread's Mode pointed. "In there." She indicated the cathedral-like building. Then she pointed at the statues of "demons" along the corni
ces. "Anything you see is harmless except those. They're the Warrior class, soldiers, bodyguards, police. They're killers, and they're good at it. If you see anything like that, run."
"Run, hell," Staley muttered. He clutched his pistol. "Sec you below," he called to the others. "Now what about your Brown?"
"I'll call her," Whitbread's Motie said. She trilled.
The Brown came inside carrying several somethings, which she handed to Charlie. The Modes inspected them I for a moment, and Whitbread's Mode said, "You'll want these. Air filters. You can take off the helmets and wear these masks."
"Our radios-" Horst protested.
"Carry them. The Brown can work on the radios later, too. Do you really want your ears inside those damn helmets? The air bottles and filters can't last anyway."
"Thanks," Horst said. He took the filter and strapped it on. A soft cup covered his nose, and a tube led to a small canister that attached to his belt. It was a relief to get the helmet off, but he didn't know what to do with it. Finally he tied it to his belt, where it bobbled along uncomfortably. "OK, let's get moving." It was easier to speak without the helmet, but he'd have to remember not to breathe through his mouth.
The ramp was a spiral leading down. Far down. Nothing big moved in the shadowless lighting, but Staley pictured himself as a target to anyone below. He wished for grenades and a troop of Marines. Instead there was only himself and his two brother midshipmen. And the Moties. Mediators. "Mediators don't fight," Whitbread's Mode had said. Have to remember that. She acted so like Jonathon Whitbread that he had to count arms to be sure whom he was talking to, but she didn't fight. Browns didn't fight either.
He moved cautiously, leading the aliens down the spiral ramp with his pistol drawn. The ramp ended at a doorway and he paused for a moment. There was silence beyond it. Hell with it, he thought and moved through.
He was alone in a wide cylindrical tunnel with tracks along the bottom and a smoothed ramp to one side. To his left the tunnel ended in a wall of rock, The other end seemed to stretch on forever into darkness. There were scars in the tunnel rock where ribs would have been in a giant whale.
The Motie came up behind him and saw where he was looking. "There was a linear accelerator here; before rising civilization robbed it for metal."