Reign of Fire

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  “There,” said Stavros suddenly.

  Five pairs of eyes swung in the direction of his gaze.

  A ledge far below, bathed in hard amber light; two, three kilometers wide, enough to build a small town on. The eastern wall of the rift rose up sheer from the ledge for at least a kilometer. Stavros pointed toward the southmost narrow end.

  Aguidran gave a harsh cry of surprise and grabbed her brother’s arm.

  “Look!” Susannah exclaimed.

  Black dots broke the bright, smooth rock face, enlarging into perfect round holes as the Sled descended, hundreds, thousands, laid out in even parallel tiers, spaced as neatly as the windows of a skyscraper.

  Danforth swore in delighted disbelief. “Now that’s something I can relate to! Christ, maybe there are people left!”

  “No,” said Stavros.

  Danforth damped the Sled’s forward thrust and steered it closer to the wall to skim the highest level of openings. The holes, so rivetingly precise in curve and placement, dwarfed the Sled, tunnelling straight into the rock and darkness.

  “Look at the size of them!” he marvelled. “I could fly this thing right in there if I could see where I was going.”

  “No,” Stavros insisted hoarsely.

  Danforth eyed him, wonder mixing with lingering doubt. “Sure, sure. Okay.”

  The Sled dropped in a powered glide past tier after tier of circular tunnels, picking up another kilometer in depth before Danforth lifted the nose and revved the fans a final time to settle the craft on the ledge with improving skill. He cut fans, engines and force field, waiting for the weight of the exterior heat to descend like dirt into the grave. But the dustless air was temperate, almost cool. The surface of the ledge was oddly unreflective, dark and as finely granular as emery paper.

  “Well, well, well.” Danforth stretched but made no further move.

  The three Sawls stared into the amber silence with varying degrees of awe. Aguidran studied the towering wall and its precise pattern of holes, then paced to the rear of the hold to unlatch the cargo hatch. Liphar shifted his attention back to Stavros, who seemed to be listening with every ounce of concentration he could muster.

  “It’s like… like a real city,” Susannah murmured. “And look how oddly flat this ledge is, as if someone sanded it smooth.”

  “Perfect landing site,” Danforth commented speculatively. “You could hide one hell of a lot of machinery in there… and the people to run them.”

  “You think someone still lives here?”

  “Isn’t that what we came all this way to find out? Oh, shit!” Danforth snapped his fingers, then cringed at the cascading ricochet of echo. “The charges!” he whispered, and leaned to reconnect the com.

  Stavros tried to stop him but couldn’t manage a simple no. It had not occurred to him that the Sled’s small force field might be damping his own reception. He had not thought of his connection to the Sisters’ dark plane as having any reality in the physical world. But with the dropping of the shield, he was overwhelmed.

  He heard Danforth, then Susannah call his name through a fog of noise, roaring wind and water, their voices fading in and out like a dying radio signal. Only Liphar’s steady touch told him up from down as the waters closed around him once again and he began to tumble.

  Danforth opened a channel to hail CRI in the orbiter.

  “Dr. Danforth!”

  Susannah imagined she heard relief in the computer’s flat voice.

  “You were able to repair the malfunction Mr. Ibiá spoke of?” It was not quite a lie, but it did employ the language of their attempted deception, “Mr. Clausen has been most concerned as to your welfare.”

  “Our whereabouts, more likely.”

  “Make it quick, Tay,” Susannah urged.

  “The charges, CRI. How many has he laid?”

  “Four, Dr. Danforth. Due to detonate in twenty-two seconds.”

  “Tay, cut her off before he can get a good fix on us. Maybe he’ll assume we’re still moving.”

  “CRI can tell him otherwise.” But Danforth shut down the connection and all telltale power in the Sled. “Four charges. You want to know the combined megatonnage?”

  “No.” Susannah stared at her chronometer. Ghirra moved closer, feeling the tension, not understanding it.

  “Susannah, we’re hardly going to feel it this far away. What’s the point of sitting here blind? We should be on the com.”

  “If anything bad happens, Stav will know,” she replied, surprised by her own conviction.

  “I’m reopening the line in another six seconds.”

  “Tay, I don’t think…”

  “Four, three…” His hand went for the com switches.

  “One.”

  In the silence, Stavros gasped once and shuddered. Liphar pressed close, whimpering softly.

  Danforth hit the switch. “CRI? Results?”

  Static replied for several seconds. Then, “I am recording surges in the field flux.”

  “The map, CRI! Update the map!”

  The contour map of the magnetic field flashed onto the cockpit monitor, changing the moment it appeared and then again. The numerical values were unable to stabilize at a given figure. The high spike at the geographical center of the field diffused into a neat circle of four hot spots.

  Danforth touched the screen thoughtfully. “Just where I’d have planted my charges if I were Clausen.”

  “The new centers of activity formed almost instantly after ignition of the charges,” supplied CRI, “at precisely the four points of detonation. I lack appropriate information with which to attempt an explanation.”

  The map flickered, mutating again as new data flowed in. The contour shapes shifted amoebalike, drawing up around the four points like a quatrefoil noose. Abruptly, the four points vanished from the graph. The higher values along the upland’s perimeter pulled inward.

  Ghirra watched intently over Susannah’s shoulder. “What does this picture tell?”

  “The field’s withdrawing,” said Danforth, a lilt of astonishment in his deep voice. He offered no further explanation, riveted to the map. The contour lines gained regularity, shrinking into a tightening pattern of concentric circles. “No, wait.” The planetologist let out a low whistle. “Well, the true center of symmetry has just declared itself, and guess what, it’s right on top of us. Or more precisely…” He glanced up at the strangely smooth east wall and its neat diagram of holes. “Somewhere in there.”

  “Ah, no…” whispered Stavros, as if in pain.

  Liphar hunched beside him, no longer calm.

  “No…” Stavros repeated, staring at his empty palms with an expression of profound loss. Slowly, he turned shocked and sorrowing eyes to Ghirra, his mouth working soundlessly as if the words he must say would not come.

  Liphar whimpered softly. Ghirra waited.

  “GuildMaster, he…” Stavros began, then stopped, laying his cheek disconsolately against the seat back. “We.”

  “What is it now, Ibiá?” Danforth rumbled.

  Stavros straightened suddenly. His head swiveled toward the towering rift wall. “Wait! You hear that? Ghirra, Lifa, do you hear it?”

  Alert, confused, Liphar shook his head.

  “He didn’t!” Stavros exclaimed. And then he was tearing at the buckles of his flight harness, throwing off the straps, muttering to himself in rapid Sawlish. Liphar backed out of the way in hopeful astonishment as Stavros bolted from his seat, shoving past Susannah and Ghirra. He rushed to the back of the hold and swung down through the open cargo hatch. Outside, he collided with Aguidran as he ducked up from beneath the wing. She reached to steady him, but he took it for an attempt at restraint and pulled free of her with a shout of warning. Aguidran backed off as if burned. Stavros swerved aside, then broke into an awkward run, favoring his injured left side. He raced across the ledge, bright fleeting white against the sunlit amber of the rock.

  Liphar collected himself and scrambled out of the Sled
and after him across the flat granular ground. Stavros reached the nearest yawning tunnel mouth and swerved past it without hesitation. He ran determinedly along the long line of tunnels, then suddenly, at the eighteenth or twentieth opening, turned in and was swallowed by darkness.

  Aguidran called to her brother, her eyes pursuing Stavros, marking his route. Ghirra stood at a loss in the open cockpit. Danforth levered his stiff legs into the space between the front seats.

  “Better go after him, eh, doc? I’ll stay here and guard the fort.”

  “Watch the Sled,” Susannah translated.

  Danforth patted the laser gun in his belt.

  “Okay, light, food, water… and my kit.” Susannah muttered, retreating into the hold to root among her lashed-down gear. Ghirra hurried to fill the Terran canteens he had appropriated for himself and his sister.

  They helped Danforth down onto the sandpapery ground and set up a quick base camp under the wings. The planetologist accompanied them across the ledge as far as the tunnel mouth. Inside the massive circular opening, the floor turned glossy. Danforth craned his neck at the smooth vault overhead. The hard sun slicing down the sides showed up a delicate pattern of light and shadow, fine parallel grooving like the thread on a screw. He tapped a crutch on the glassy curving floor. A resounding crash of echoes answered him. Every sound was hugely magnified, their careful footsteps, the creak of Aguidran’s leathers, the faint clink of the pack hardware. Intimidated, they whispered, and resorted to gesture whenever possible.

  Susannah showed Aguidran the workings of the searchbeam she had brought, and gave Ghirra the spare. The Master Ranger flashed the piercing ray into the velvet darkness ahead and nodded approvingly, impatient to proceed. She hushed them and they heard Liphar calling after Stavros, further in.

  “Take notes,” said Danforth enviously.

  “Pictures,” Susannah promised.

  “Damn, damn, damn these legs!” Danforth gazed into the tunnel with a grimace of acute longing. “Well, hell. Get going!” He swung fiercely around and stumped back toward the sunlight, chased by a clatter of echoes.

  Aguidran was already a hundred paces ahead, her beam searching the long upward curve of the walls. Ghirra called softly to her to wait while he and Susannah hurried to catch up.

  Running in darkness, Stavros heard Liphar’s tremulous cry behind him and slowed to a breathless walk. The tunnel dove straight as a ruled line into the rock. The curve of its unnaturally smooth surface kept him centered in the huge space like a bearing in a groove. He had no need of light except to ease the imagined terrors of the dark.

  But he sensed no menace. He sensed nothing but the sound, the music that was not music, summoning him as irresistibly as the shriek of a siren.

  Nothing…

  He clenched his fists desperately, willing his guar-fire to respond. A moment after the mining charges had detonated, a deadly cold had invaded his palms, his precious flame snuffed like a mere candle.

  With the guar-fire gone, the pain in his shoulder was once again something to contend with. With the fire gone, he felt weak, dulled, as if he had lost a part of his senses as well.

  At least there was the sound.

  He wondered that the others could not hear it. It vibrated not in his mind but in his ears, like a true sound. It was not really a single sound at all, but complex, like music, with a simple core. It was both high-pitched and low, bell-clear and diffuse, steady as a drone yet intermittent. It evoked images of natural violence: the dry earth tearing, rocks cracking open, tree trunks blasted by lightning, underscored by smaller, gentler tragedies, a fish in mud gasping for air, an orphaned cub digging out of a landslide.

  Stavros heard it as a call for help and followed unquestioningly.

  Danforth struggled to hoist his sturdy weight through the cargo hatch by the strength of his arms alone. He was sweating and nauseous by the time he lay face down on the floor of the hold. He strained awkwardly for his crutches, which he had managed to kick out of reach. He rolled onto his side and pulled himself along the grating until he had them in hand, then hauled himself to his feet, setting the crutches gratefully under his arms.

  He stood a moment, considering. Something felt wrong. He ran a head-to-toe mental check, searched around the hold, then looked down through the open hatch and froze.

  The little laser pistol lay on the sandpaper rock beneath the Sled. His desperate acrobatics had knocked it out of his belt.

  He glanced at the cockpit, his goal, then around at the empty silent ledge slumbering under the vast wall of the rift. He knew he lacked the strength to clamber down, retrieve the gun and haul himself into the Sled again.

  First things first, he decided, and headed forward to the controls. He powered up the com and prepared to call the orbiter. Before he could tap in his code, CRI’s voice blared forth, startling him.

  “Dr. Danforth! I have been attempting to reply to your signal!”

  “Signal? I hadn’t even entered it.” Danforth held to a near whisper, a gesture to the pressing silence rather than any instinctive caution. The utter stillness made him jumpy. A canyon this deep should have winds.

  “The signal you’ve been broadcasting since the detonation?” CRI paused, sounding rather crestfallen. “Or perhaps this is the communications difficulty Mr. Ibiá mentioned that I was unable to detect before?”

  “CRI, you’ve lost me. Listen, what’s the weather doing out there? Did it show any response at all to the detonations?”

  “I will transfer those figures.” The usual run of satellite data blinked onto the cockpit monitor. Danforth bent close to study them. The computer’s terseness surprised him.

  “No summary observations, CRI?”

  “Not at this time, Dr. Danforth. I would appreciate your input.”

  He read through it rapidly at first, then more carefully, his dark face drawing into a frown. “CRI, is this your machine idea of a joke?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “These figures are accurate?”

  “I have been rechecking them over and over myself, Dr. Danforth.”

  Danforth squeezed his temples between thumb and forefinger. The familiar northeast-to-southwest diagonal movement was gone. “CRI, are you asking me to believe that the entire circulation of the planet has actually come to a standstill?”

  “It would appear to be the case. Heat is rising in the habitable zone in response.”

  “Moving from here to there,” said Danforth faintly. “Heading for equilibrium. Shit, maybe he did blow them up. Maybe Ibiá was right about machines and wrong about the location.”

  “There are some signs that a new circulatory pattern is asserting itself. Did you notice the hints of west-to-east zonal movement? The potential pattern is closer, I might point out, to what your original model had projected for this planet.”

  “Umm. Great. Are they all right, there in the Lander?”

  “They are safe as long as the power link is maintained. The Commander has promised to retreat to the Caves if for some reason the link is broken.”

  “I wonder how long even the Caves’ll be livable,” he muttered.

  My god, what have we done? He lowered himself into the pilot’s seat, stunned, then remembered and asked automatically, “You said something about a signal?”

  “I am picking up an omni-directional, broad-band transmission from the area of your coordinates.”

  Danforth was startled out of his guilty mope. “You are? Take a clear fix, CRI. Exactly my coordinates?”

  “A little to the east, perhaps three kilometers.”

  “CRI, I’m down inside a canyon. Three klicks east of here is solid rock.” But he caught himself staring at the black tunnel openings. “What kind of signal is it? Steady? Pulsed?”

  “Fluctuating is a better description, Dr. Danforth, both in power and frequency.”

  “Any pattern to it?”

  “I am checking now for code, of course. But if I may venture an opinion, the nature o
f the fluctuations are reminiscent of Commander Weng’s music. For this reason, I assumed someone of our party to be the source.”

  Danforth remembered the feeling from childhood reading, that wild surge of last-minute hope, just when you feared that the hero had had it for sure. He swallowed. “Play it for me.”

  “Yes, Dr. Danforth.”

  A low wail floated from the speaker, with a background growl like the rattle of pebbles in an undertow. The wail rose and shattered into squeaks and cracking groans, like rent wood. The growl escalated into the choked roar of falling rock. Danforth’s shoulders hunched. Warily, he eyed the four-kilometer stone rampart between himself and the safety of open sky. He slumped into the padded chair, resisting an impulse he could not make good on anyway, to leap up and rush off into the tunnels as Ibiá had done.

  Right after the charges blew, as if…

  “CRI, this is without doubt an artificially generated signal?”

  “Without doubt, Dr. Danforth. There is a long pattern of repeating with slight changes, not unlike thematic variations in musical composition.”

  He tried to think what Ibiá’s response would be to this information. His own no longer seemed adequate. He was rather proud to have thought of using Weng’s music, but knew it had been a random instinct and not based on a consistent pattern of thought with which he could continue to interpret events that refused to be governed by standard logic.

  Finally, he said, “I think you should try to answer it, CRI. Meanwhile, there seems to be a tunnel complex down here. They may be too deep for your instruments to read, but try for a density mapping. Let’s see if we can get some idea of how extensive they are… and where they go.”

  41

  Aguidran set a stiff pace, dauntless in the fore as they proceeded single file into the dark. Susannah followed close behind her. Ghirra took up the rear. The travel was easy. The air in the tunnel was stale but comfortable. The curved floor was unobstructed, glassy smooth but astonishingly unslippery. No turns or branching corridors forced them to make a choice.