Day of the Dragonstar
Page 22
The huge building was surrounded by a wall. Being used as a door to this was a particularly large Triceratops.
The saurian escort party halted before the dozing Triceratops, chittered at one another. One of their number seemed to draw a figurative straw and was pushed out reluctantly toward the slumbering monster.
Carefully, the saurian approached the behemoth and climbed up the rough fold of skin behind its bony headgear.
The beast’s eyes opened.
The saurians screeched warning.
The climbing saurian speeded his ascent, hopping up the back and jamming his hands underneath the crest. Suddenly, the annoyance in the beast’s eyes faded to dullness. Lethargically it rose and waddled off, allowing Ian, Becky, and company to enter.
“I’ve known a few doormen like that,” Ian said.
“Probably because this culture hasn’t invented tipping.”
They were taken through a more normal door on the building’s side. Trails of incense wound through the hallway. Strange hieroglyphs were scribbled on the walls. They passed through a large chamber where saurians—robed saurians, Becky saw—were sitting in crouched positions in various portions of the room, eyes glassy.
“Ommmmmmm,” said Becky.
“I do believe we are seeing signs of some kind of religion here.”
“I don’t think, though, should we get out of here, that we’re going to need deprogramming.”
In the distance, faint echoes of chants sussurated like the sea surging through a cove. Strange clicks and grunts sounded, an alien symphony. It all gave Becky the shivers.
The saurians guided them to a small room, covered with finely woven tapestries and cushions, all woven from an odd fiber that had a faint sheen. Sconces held phosphorescent globes to light the place. The saurians chittered, gesturing that they should enter.
“Looks more comfortable than the cells they chucked us into,” Ian said.
“At least we get to stay together.”
“Hmm. Quite!” A gleam crept into Ian’s eyes. “Lots more comfortable than jungle floor, too.”
“I’m sorry, Ian,” Becky said. “You’re just going to have to start using a new deodorant soon.”
“Hey, you’re not exactly Princess Sweet Scent, old girl. All the same, we could both use a bath. Reptilian pheromones, civilized or not, aren’t exactly my cup of tea.”
“You take that side, I’ll take the other,” Becky suggested, “if that’s how you feel about things!”
She settled in a corner. The pillows were stuffed with soft foam-like materials. After weeks of using the ground and tree-limbs for beds and pillows, these felt awfully good.
Ian obviously. agreed. No sooner had the door closed than he was sawing logs in his corner. She drifted into a kind of half-awake reverie, the sounds of Ian’s snoring somehow comforting.
Footsteps. Outside the door. Coming this way. Somehow strange and shuffling. Instinct drove fear into Becky Thalberg.
“Ian!” she whispered.
Ian was already up, crouched by the side of the door. He put a finger to his mouth to silence her.
The door opened. Immediately, the saurians saw Coopersmith. They chittered excitedly, motioning him to stand back. Reluctantly, Ian obeyed, arms raising in the classical stance of surrender.
One of the robed saurians entered. He was taller and heavier than the others, but he was bent. His red-and-blue robes were slightly worn and tattered. The skin of his exposed face and arms was an unhealthy, mottled purple, streaked with veins. But his eyes burned with intelligence, curiosity , and life.
The creature hobbled forward, staring at the humans with unbridled wonder and excitement. Then he lost his footing and tumbled to the ground, making squawking noises,
Becky had to laugh at the comical sight.
Immediately two saurians jumped from the door and helped the robed one up. Something like humor shone in the fellow’s face as he looked to the humans, as if in apology.
He shook off assistance and wobbled the rest of the way to Becky. His hands rose. He stroked her long hair. Something like an “Ah!” of appreciation issued from his mouth.
He stepped over and inspected Ian Coopersmith.
Then, eyes brimming with tears and happiness, the robed saurian stepped back and commenced to caper.
Four of his companions—those in robes—began to pipe an alien song as the saurian danced and skittered like a man trying to do the hornpipe on the deck of a storm-wracked ship.
“I think he’s actually happy to see us!” Ian said.
“Do you think he’s King or something?” Becky asked.
“Something special around here, certainly. Clearly he’s the one that’s supposed to figure out who we are. He does seemed pleased.”
The robed saurian cavorted and pirouetted in an ungainly display of awkward moves. Finally, apparently unintentionally, the creature tripped on his robes and fell flat on his face with a squawk of pain. Clicking and hissing in disgust, he raised himself and began to simply stare at Ian and Becky.
“He seems to expect something,” said Becky.
“What?” wondered Ian.
“A dance from us, perhaps.”
“I can’t dance, Becky!”
“Ain’t you got rhythm, boy?” she said. “We don’t have to waltz or anything!” Thereupon she commenced singing her favorite old Motown song, “Dancing in the Streets,” with accompanying jumps, twists, and gyrations.
Ian tried to follow her lead, but he looked more like he was exercising than dancing. Close enough for rock ‘n roll, Becky thought.
Improvising some of the lyrics, Becky finished up. Ian shambled to a halt.
“Well, what did you think?” Becky demanded of the robed saurian, who was, at this point, simply staring blankly at his guests.
The creature jumped about and then began jabbering, making strange gestures.
“No, no, sorry, friend,” said Ian, pointing to his mouth. “We mainly communicate with these—and we don’t know your sign language, I’m afraid, so we’ll just have to get along as well as we can, okay?”
The robed saurian pointed at his mouth and nodded. He then made a gesture that seemed to indicate that he wished for the humans to follow him.
Tail flapping on the floor behind him, he executed a shaky turn and strode from the room.
Ian looked at Becky and shrugged.
They followed.
* * *
“Books,” said Becky. “Piles and stacks of books.”
“Yes, their versions of books. They look more like dino skin than paper.”
They were in a large room stocked with manuscripts, all sprawled in a disconcertingly unkempt fashion on odd shelves which were apparently carved from the same material from which the building was fashioned.
With excitement shining in his eyes, the lizard-man grabbed an armful of the scrolls and dumped them on the ground in front of the human couple.
“An obvious invitation to examine, I’d say,” Ian Coopersmith said. “Shall we?”
They knelt and spread the leathery material.
“Hieroglyphs and drawings, Ian. Quite like what we saw out there on those ruins.”
“Words. Too bad we don’t have some kind of translation device. This stuff is fascinating.”
“Copies of their version of a bible, don’t you think?”
“Most likely. Or some kind of record of what they think their origins are. Every culture has to have that, either in their religion or in folklore.”
“l can’t make heads or tails of it, Ian.”
“We should gaze at it reverently, though—and with interest, to show that we appreciate its importance.”
While they did just that, the saurian bustled into a corner, sorting through the clutter. He muttered enthusiastically as he pulled out what he
needed and carried it back to his guests with an air of urgency.
Carefully, in front of them, he laid out a blank piece of plant-fiber—bluish in tinge—and produced a thin piece of modified charcoal. Carefully, his tongue flickering with concentration, he marked out a couple of hieroglyphs. He pointed to one of these, then indicated that this symbolized himself.
He then put the writing utensil on the paper and took a step back.
“I think he wants us to write something,” Becky said. “Go ahead, Ian. Do your best.”
Pursing his lips, Ian looked at the robed saurian, then picked up the piece of charcoal. Watching the deftness with which Ian manipulated the writing utensil seemed to excite the saurian immensely. When Ian copied the hieroglyphs, then mimicked the pointing ceremony, the saurian was beside himself. He gave a brief spastic dance, then settled down, motioning for Ian to continue.
Ian then commenced to write the word “humans.” With his finger he tapped this, then the appropriate hieroglyphs, then himself and Becky.
He then wrote down “saurian,” tapped it, and pointed to the robed lizard-man.
He drew a map of the solar system, complete with the cylinder. In the diagram’s representation for Artifact One, he lettered in the hieroglyphs that the robed saurian had first written. Then with an expansive gesture, he pointed all around him.
The saurian’s expression seemed puzzled.
Ian tapped his chest, then tapped the circle he had drawn for the planet Earth, then traced a pathway from Earth to the ship.
Understanding leapt suddenly into the saurian’s eye.
For a few moments, he seemed stunned. Then he seemed to faint, sprawling out onto the ground as though this were too much to take.
“Watch out, Ian! He might revert to his primal reptilian behavior and kill us both!”
But the creature, though clearly unconscious, did nothing of the sort. He just lay there.
“As I thought,” said Ian. “We’re dealing here with a more advanced kind of saurian. Part of the ruling class. Philosopher? Scientist?” He paused. “Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know. There’s something wrong with this guy, I’ve noticed. His skin. He seems very sick—while the other robed priests or whatever they are seem perfectly healthy. The sickness is not a sign of their class. Let me just have a look . . .” Rebecca leaned over the fallen saurian. “God. He does look bad. It doesn’t look like he’s . . .” She touched a tentative hand to the creature’s chest, then passed fingers over the mouth. “No! He’s not breathing! He’s dead!” Rebecca Thalberg backed away from the fallen saurian, blood draining from her face. “I hope the others don’t think we killed him!”
“Should we call the others? Maybe they can help.”
“Hello! Hello! Help! We’ve got a dead—”
“Rebecca! I thought you said he was dead?”
“He wasn’t breathing.”
“He seems to be rousing . . . that or advanced rigor mortis!” The saurian twitched and jerked, as though attached to a live wire.
“Some kind of strange catatonia?” Ian suggested.
“Lizardtonia, more like.”
The saurian got up, tottered about for a few moments, getting his bearings, then returned his attention to the humans.
He walked up to the astonished Becky and pronounced a gutteral word, tapping her lightly on her head. Something like “Snashish.” Then Ian: “Zashist.”
Becky and Ian pronounced the names as well as they could. Then the saurian tapped his chest, indicating that they were welcome to name him.
Becky smiled and pointed to the saurian. “Thesaurus!”
And that was the creature’s name from that point onward, though Thesaurus never quite managed to pronounce it properly.
* * *
“You know, I think I’m actually used to it by now,” Ian Coopersmith said.
“I don’t think I could ever get used to it!” Becky snapped.
They were riding an Iguanodon, Thesaurus at the bio-controls, Becky and Ian in a saddle arrangement farther down the back. There were no other guards. No need for that. Thesaurus and the saurians quite trusted them by now . . . as far as any saurian trusted anyone.
“Do you think we’re almost there?” Becky said, holding Ian around the midsection, trying to compensate for the jouncing, bouncing ride. Clouds and folds of mist hung from the end of the cylinder, which they were approaching.
“I think I make out something in the mist up there, Becky.”
“Thank God.”
Two “days” and two “nights” had passed since they had met Thesaurus. For several hours after their mutual renamings, they had been immersed in the job of translation. The task had not gone smoothly. Even now, only a few words and a few gestures were truly understood. Nonetheless, there was a bottom-line kind of communication, particularly between Ian and the saurian, perhaps simply because both were straining so very hard at it. The two had developed a strange kind of camaraderie. Becky was almost jealous.
After their first session, they managed to ask for and receive water to bathe with—and the food served to them, fried meats mostly, garnished with fruits and chopped vegetables, was actually edible, if hardly spiced to their tastes. It was a vast improvement on scavenging and Becky figured she had already put on about two pounds.
Even now, as she bounced three meters above the ground, holding onto Ian for dear life, the images of the preceding twenty-four hours flitted through her head.
At Ian’s request, Thesaurus had taken them on a tour of the city, shown them the things that were important. By that point, Ian’s conjecture that Thesaurus was a member of an elite group was borne out-in fact, he was apparently rather like a philosopher-king.
He showed them this, rather than told them this, in context with his tour.
An alien society indeed—and yet, Becky had once read that if the dinosaurs had not died out, they would have been the ancestors of human beings—and what were human beings, anyway? What gave them their unique difference from lower animals? Certainly not social habits or ties, or anything like that. Intelligence. The saurians had that. Self-awareness? Yes, they had that as well.
All this was too much for Becky. She just welcomed the rest and the comforts provided after weeks of harrowing nightmares. She absorbed what Thesaurus showed them docilely, not focusing on the implications of the details as did Ian Coopersmith, but rather trying to understand the race holistically, ecologically.
Apparently, they had already witnessed a telling part of the society’s structure. Although there were no families as such—after all, nuclear families were a mammalian invention—young and old were supported in a rough, communal sense.
The first thing that Thesaurus had taken them to see was a public mating, which seemed to be some kind of spectator sport. Each of the participants—a male and a female—had been selected for various reasons, and were both on the brink of sleep, thus allowing their feral, reptilian natures to take them over fully. The ritual was conducted in a pit, over which ranks of seats were mounted for many saurians who hooted, hollered, and hissed in what Ian at first interpreted as bawdy encouragements. But then, as the male and female tore their shirts off, the sound blended into chants of an unmistakable religious and ritualistic nature.
The actual mating was something to watch indeed.
“Ian! It’s . . . it’s got two—”
“Yes. A hemipenis. Certainly significantly larger proportionally than other reptiles. I say! They do seem to be rather enjoying themselves, don’t they?”
“It doesn’t turn me on, I can tell you that.”
“Thesaurus indicates that the participants “go away.” Transcendental transport, I suppose he means— ‘ outside this universe, with the Gods.’ Pantheists.”
“Well, we know where they lay the results, don’t we?”
Those had been almost beyond Becky’s ability to comprehend. Although these creatures’ technological abilities were of necessity limited, they were geniuses with genetics. Flesh and nerves and blood in breeding looms . . . fascinating.
Now Thesaurus was about to show them something which he considered quite important.
The mists parted before them. There, stretching up and up, was the end of the cylinder—the thing they had been shooting for, hoping to find their way out of the cylinder’s dangerous parts.
At the base of this was a temple,
Thesaurus stopped the Iguanodon in front of the portal and made a bleating yell. Immediately, five priests in flowing robes streamed from the portal, calling welcoming songs.
“Old Thesaurus seems well-known here, I’d say.” Ian commented.
The Iguanodon knelt and the riders dismounted. They went into the temple. The walls were crammed with saurian hieroglyphics, complex tapestries, and altars.
But Thesaurus did not stop here. Rather he led them down the passageways to a room absolutely bare of ornament. Several other priests followed them.
“My God! This wall is—”
“Metal!” Becky finished for Ian.
There were heavy drapes hanging over one section of the wall.
”Ian! It’s an entranceway into the next section of the cylinder!”
“What are we waiting for?” Ian said, stepping forward.
Thesaurus barked an order to the other priests, who gently restrained both Ian and Becky.
“No!” hissed Thesaurus. “No . . . my . . . my Snashish, my Zashist.” He pointed to the entrance. “My Snashish, my Zashist. . . . Thesaurus know you there. Good!” He pointed to himself. “Thesaurus. Bad!”
Slowly he lifted his robe up to his chest.
“Oh, Ian. No wonder he doesn’t look so good,” Becky said.
Ian whistled softly.
On the saurian’s body were a number of faint radiation burns.