Far Frontiers Part 18

Noise again; the flyer was taking off. The vessel was equipped with out-mounted blasters.

Did the pilot now intend to avenge this disaster with air-to-surface fire?

Yet though the vessel made a circuit of the standing stones, it did not approach closely, nor loose any deadly bolts from its belly. It did not linger long but winged away toward the camp.

He was still alive: Kannar accepted as fact something he would have thought impossible.Yet Death was not far off, for so great was his thirst that the dryness in his throat choked, and hunger gnawed him like a beast. Because there was no more need to make a parade of pride, the boy allowed himself to slide to the ground, facing the opening in the rocks so he could still view the carnage that lay beyond.

What he saw there was as much beyond reason as his own survival, if he could believe what dimming eyes told dulling mind: both the near-consumed corpses and the blasted crawler were sinking steadily into the sand. But even so strange an event meant nothing to him now. The last link with humankind-for the Quasings had to be deemed at least physically human-had been broken. The youth turned his head slowly and stared up at the dense gray-blue clouds that showed Henga's green sun through their drifting ma.s.s like matrix rock revealing a precious jewel.

Time seemed to have stopped for him. His memory had been buried even as had the dead Scouts and their vehicle, and he was being consumed by hunger and thirst. A man could not take long to die thus....

It was as though a hand had been laid on his scaled cheek, moved to touch his lips.

Kannar raised his head to follow, to hold that touch-and then he was crawling toward the stone pillar before which the laser had been entombed. He gasped and coughed rackingly as he dragged himself forward, barely able to breathe or see; but though all other senses were nearly gone now, he could still smell, and there was a scent- His fingers touched the roughness of the rock, and for an instant he hunched his shoulders, waiting for a blast of defensive energy he would be helpless to counter. When no attack came, he looked up again. Then he saw it-a glow welling up from a crevice in the rock between his hands. Those crystals with the radiance of gems-they gave forth not only light but that scent, which promised help ever more strongly.

The boy's painfully swollen tongue touched the bubbling stuff. It gave- No words existed in any galactic language he knew to describe this! Warmth, comradeship, all he bad lost long ago were restored to him in a moment, more richly than before they had been torn away. He licked the feast, which did not cloy, until he was thoroughly sated.

It appeared that Kannar had partaken of a tine banquet. First his body had been tended, and he was not tired anymore but refreshed and avid to enjoy what might be offered next. That was the main course. And for the after-sweet? A gift to mind and spirit: thoughts were what he drank now. This planet was indeed more strange than any he had seen or heard of.What his kind had taken for pillars of lifeless stone were the Old Ones, who stood rooted in the very flesh of their world, who had seen stars be born and die. To them knowledge came, though some of that a human could not understand. With them in partnership lived the skaat, the creatures who served as hands when such aids were needed. And even the winds and the clouds brought messages, for what any thought became a part of all the world.

Old Ones-?

Welcome, star son. The words rang as clear in Kannar 's mind as if he had heard them with his ears. You are now blood of our blood, substance of our substance.

The boy had been minded of a prize awarding when the gray creature had claimed its crystal-feast after burying the laser. He felt so now. Everything that had been Herber in the days before the ending of Gait was here, and he was entering the great Gate of the Victors where all his comrades waited to greet him.

Kannar knew that he had much-oh, so much!-to learn, but those of this place were anxious to share. And he did have something of value to offer in return: his memories of Gait, his knowledge of other worlds, different beings.

A flurry of activity commenced in the s.p.a.ce near the Old One who had made him welcome. The skaat- a number of them-were digging speedily, and a hole of some depth soon appeared. Without hesitation, the youth took two steps forward, then lowered himself into the scooped-out place, which engulfed his body to the knees. Sand was shifted quickly back to cover him.

Rest now, star son, the stone-born voice rang in his mind. When the Change is done, we will have all the time of the stars to learn from one another. A gentle night losed upon Kannar as though curtains had been drawn, and a sudden drop of sweetness dewed his lips. He drew it in eagerly, then slept.

RUINS OF THE PAST

by Jane Lindskold

Although she has frequently volunteered on archaeological digs, Jane Lindskold has yet to find anything more spectacular than bits of broken pottery and stone. The author of over thirty short stories and several novels-including Changer and Legends Walking-she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore. She is currently at work on another novel.

If the credit line on her tattered plasteel card wasn't already run so far into the red that all that remains is the faintest blush of rosebud pink, nothing would have tempted Lillianara to climb Vorbottan Mountain to the crest where the old ruins stand.

"Stand" is perhaps too strong a word. In all the sprawl of great stone blocks, hardly one stone remains upon another. Those that have not been brought low by gravity's conspiracy with time have been knocked apart by treasure hunters. The ancient civilization which built the mined city had used ample amounts of gold in its circuitry, more than enough to prompt thorough destruction lest a cable or cribox be missed. That the gewgaws and gimcracks sometimes found amid the rock dust and litter would fetch their weight in platmum rather than mere gold had a.s.sured that the veiy sands would be sifted.

That had been more than a century ago. Certainly at this late date there can't be much left to scavenge, but Lillianara can't think what else to try. Next dawn the extension-the thirdextension-her creditors have granted her will end. Unless she can settle her debts, her freedom will be revoked; she will become life-chattel of the Agency.

That's the problem with third extensions, Lillianara muses as she toils upward: there isn't anything left when they end.

She'd been so certain that she would find a way to settle the phenomenal debts left to her upon her late husband's death that she'd gratefully accepted a first extension with its merely financial penalty. When that first extension had ended, she'd had little choice but to accept a second extension. This one permitted her personal inheritance-to that point immune by law from seizure-to be used as collateral. When she failed to settle the debt by the second deadline (and that flood is looking more and more suspicious, never mind that others had been harmed as well), her choices were prison or a third extension. At that time, the third extension had seemed by far the lesser of two evils.

Too late Lillianara had learned that the same forces which had conspired first to ruin their small business, then to prod Jofar into suicide would not be content with Jofar's death. They wanted everything related to him ruined as well and she, Lillianara, is all that is left.

She struggles up the mountainside, glad that the torturous climb in the stinging cold keeps her from thinking about what a life-chattel's existence could be like, but eventually she must stop for breath.

Naive, some have called her, especially those who knew she was taking on the Agency, but Lillianara isn't so naive that she doesn't realize what the first a.s.signment would be for a young, pretty woman. When she is no longer pretty-though thanks to contraband life- prolongation drugs she will be young for a long, long time-then she can look forward to a series of other jobs. Never one specialty for long, however; it is dangerous to give chattel a chance to learn too much. When the Agency personnel office ran out of things for her to do, she'd end her life repairing radiation shielding or riding herd on a hot engine.

With that in her future, maybe she should just jump off the nearest cliff. But Lillianara can't make herself seriously contemplate the option. She's a fighter. Suicide may have been Jofar's way out-the ultimate surrender to something he had fought all his life-but it isn't hers.

But maybe climbing up to the ruins is just an elaborate form of suicide. It has been a long time since anyone found anything of interest at the crest of Vorbottan Mountain. A long time since anyone had come back at all.Alastar has sinews of steel and muscles of iron- not literally; those who had created the android had progressed far beyond such primitive materials-but the effect is much the same.

The fluids pumping through her hydraulic systems resemble liquid gold touched with the iridescent shimmer of oil. Her skeletal structure is made from super-collapsed metals. Her skin is impregnated with hordes of nan.o.bots, prograinmed to restructure her outer appearance within rather wide parameters; those who had created Alastar came from a wide-reaching, intergalactic culture only dreamed of by the humans who had followed.

From her hidden fortress within the ruined installation, Alastar watches with interest as the human female labors her way up the mountainside. The human is swathed in clothing against the cold, but evety so often she pauses and Alastar has an opportunity to estimate her appearance.

Height and build: average. Condition: average to slightly below average; there is an abnormality to her base metabolic line. The climber's lack of training gives Alastar a pause. Most of those who have challenged the mountain called Vorbottan these last hundred years have been supremely fit. They have also come in company. Why is this woman alone? Why is she so poorly equipped?

Variations in human coloration fascinate Alastar. The race that had created her had been much more h.o.m.ogeneous-as indeed humanity might become in a few thousand more years.

This woman is of medium complexion. Her eyes are light-gray or pale blue. Her hair, judging from what peeks out from under her hood, is also fair. Alastar considers and makes a few adjustments to her own appearance.

How long has it been since a treasure hunter came to the ruins? Alastar counts and the numbers she uses are strange in shape and in sound.

Twenty years? Thirty years? No. The hunter thirty years ago (thirty years, seven months, four days, six hours, two minutes, seconds counting... ) had turned away on the lower slopes, frightened perhaps by the storm clouds that roiled gray and black and indigo blue above the mountain's crest.

That one had turned away, as had many before him. The woman climbing now keeps coming; she has reached higher than most of those who have attempted the climb since Alastar'ssecond awakening. Most are unable to pa.s.s the ridges that form the lower tiers. A few have ventured higher, but none who have pa.s.sed the final tier have climbed down again. Alastar had polished their skulls and keeps them in her private chamber. She had made a point of learning each of their names and talks to them during the long, lonely watches.

They, of course, have remarkably little to say in reply.

Even thirty years ago, Alastar would have begun the discouragement before the treasure hunter reached the second tier. A lightning bolt, perhaps: brilliant indigo outlined in eye-searing white. A gentle earth tremor. A robotic bird screeching out of the sun, pecking at the climber's eyes or hands.

But it has been a long time since a climber has challenged the mountain. In the pulsing center of her goldsquirting heart, Alastar admits that even an android can grow lonely.

She will talk with this one, hear the rise and fall of the stranger's voice. It will make it easier to imagine the woman's replies when she is dead and her skull has joined the silent entourage in Alastar's parlor.

Lillianara pauses, wiping the sweat from her forehead before it can freeze on her skin.

The fabric of the tattered jumpsuit she wears over long underwear is torn in several places and the cold leaks inside. Her gloves, newly stolen for this very journey, and her barely used boots are holding up somewhat better.

Looking down the mountainside, she realizes that she is so far above the populated lands that the cities of the plains have ceased to look like toys. From this height they are reduced to a faint waver of heat and discoloration against the pale green of the flat river valley. Almighty humanity looks mighty small and insignificant from here.

Winter ice melt flows freely down the sides of the mountain, welcome despite the hazards it adds to her climb. It means that the one small canteen Lillianara had been able to scavenge can be kept full. She wishes that her food could be as easily replenished, but up at this height very little grows. Indeed, the sides of the mountain look as if something has cut them bare of growing things.

Records made by early explorers show a different mountain, one covered with evergreenforests, looking soft and gentle. Those forests had been so thick that no one had even guessed at the presence of the ruins until a chance study of satellite photos had revealed them.

The first treasure hunters had flown directly to the top of the mountain, sliced apart rocks with cutting beam lasers, blasted more stubborn formations with concentrated chemical explosives. The second wave of treasure hunters had done much the same, though they had added screens and shifters and densitometers to their kits, for by then the goodies were harder to locate.

A third wave had never arrived. One afternoon in hot midsummer, a storm had blown up out of nowhere and taken residence on the crest. Its swirling tides crushed expensive skimmers and atmospheric flyers like origami cranes between a child's fingers. Vehicles attempting to speed up the mountain slopes met avalanches and earthquakes.

Would-be treasure hunters rapidly discovered that only small groups of climbers had a chance to gain the summit and then only if they climbed without any electronic or mechanical a.s.sistance. Those who actually reached the top had been carefully watched via remotes. They were seen arriving at the crest itself, giving a c.o.c.ky wave to their distant observers, and then vanishing into the shifting mists that now cloaked the rums.

Not one ever returned.

Lillianara looks down upon the cities of the plains. It is full daylight now. She had begun her climb in darkness, knowing that she had to mount high enough that the Agency goons wouldn't come after her. She is safe now, after a fashion, safe from everything but starvation or death from exposure. Safe, that is, if one forgets whatever strange power now guards the ruins.

Lillianara can't forget, but going forward is all that is left to her. Snapping her canteen back into its holster, she sets her boot toes into the crevices in the rock and continues climbing.

The skull of the one who had awakened Alastar sits in the place of honor at the center of her mantelpiece. Faceted sapphires replace eyes that had been much the same color in life. Other sapphires are placed with loving care into the bones r.i.m.m.i.n.g the eye sockets, along the curves of cheek and jaw. Large diamonds alternate with more sapphires to make him a crown.

Alastar bows to the begemmed skull as she hurries through her parlor on the way to the buried chamber where are housed devices for manipulating the immediate weather.Brushing dust from the infrequently used control panels, the android considers the array with glee. First she sets the controls for sleet and freezing rain, then changes the setting when she considers that the climber might fall and so deprive her of conversation. Still, the imperative to protect what remains of the installation is strong. Alastar must take some action.

After careful consideration, she sets a hot, dry wind blowing down the slope. It will stir up dust and make vision difficult, melt ice and turn dirt into mud. That it will also warm limbs cramped and weary from cold the android puts from her mind.

Now that the protective imperative has diminished to bearable levels, Alastar departs, considering what she might serve for tea.

In a deep recess, its ma.s.sive body encrusted with rubble, rock dust, and mold, an ent.i.ty watches Alastar make her choice and disapproves. The watcher is an ancient device, as sophisticated in its own way as the android, though not as refined. For its purposes it does not need to be.

Long ago, on a distant, younger Earth a man named Juvenal had asked: "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

"I will," the watcher would have replied, unaware of the irony contained in its own response. "For when the guards themselves cease to guard, then I take over."

It stirs and the dust shifts, billowing into the cramped s.p.a.ce. The watcher splits its perception from the interior screen on which it has patiently observed Alastar's every motion since she had been awakened. It had listened to her interminable conversations with the skulls, but had never been tempted to alleviate her loneliness. Indeed, it had never even recognized the state, nor that the state was a danger. The watcher is a limited device, but all the more deadly for those limitations.

Now, looking about itself for the first time in centuries, it realizes that it is completely entombed in rubble and settled debris. It feels no surprise, nor does it feel despair or frustration.

Those who had created it had not seen a need to give it the capacity to experience such emotions.

Using shielded probes, the watcher a.n.a.lyzes the situation. Having found a spot where amere three meters of rubble separate it from a buried corridor, the watcher opens its mandibles as far as they can part. A few centimeters of stone shift to fill the new gap. The mandibles close.

Crushed rock drifts down. This time the mandibles can open wider.

With the infinite patience of the machine, the watcher-no longer merely a watcher but now an enforcer-sets about the task of freeing itself. All the while on its internal screen, it observes Alastar and sternly disapproves.

Lillianara is too far gone to either welcome or question the warm wind that blows down the mountainside toward her. Long before its coming her entire universe had been reduced to moving hands and feet, following the simple imperative to climb up without falling down.

She accepts the wind as she accepts the sharp edges of stone that alternately provide her with handholds and tear her clothing. The wind is merely something to contend with, something that adds to the parched sensation in her mouth. (She has forgotten about drinking, though water flows around her).

Occasionally, she talks to Jofar. Her tears for him are long dry. Now what she feels for him is closer to hate.

Previous groups who'd reached this high up the mountainside had trained extensively.

They had carried small bottles of concentrated oxygen to sip as a remedy for the thinness of the atmosphere. Lillianara has neither training nor oxygen, but buried in her subconscious mind is the certainty that down means death while up holds a chance at life. More remarkable things have been done under the pressure of that primal imperative.

Hand up over a rock edge. Grasp. Find nothing. Grope. Flatness. Grope. Nothing. To the left side. Flatness. To the right side. Flatness.

Flatness?

Push up with feet so numb they feel like wood.

Gain a few centimeters. Grope. Flatness. Faint curiosity. Sense it would be good to get onto the flatness.

Knee into small indentation. Push body up. Grope.

Find handhold, something smooth and cylindrical.Pull. Pull.

Flatness. Collapse. Darkness.

Pain brings Lillianara to herself. Her feet and hands are thawing and with that thawing comes a throbbing ache. She will never know how close she came to frostbite. Only the synthetic fabrics of her clothing and the toughness of her long underwear had saved her.

Her mouth is like powder. Twisting her neck to one side, she laps water from a muddy puddle, chokes on the sediment. Laps eagerly again. The same drugs that extend her life span beyond the average human four score and ten have granted her a limited capacity for regeneration. That regeneration, however, takes its toll. Lillianara is starving.

She sucks down mud to fill the gap in her stomach, but she cannot digest such slime.

Retching jolts her from her belly onto her hands and knees. Her tortured fingers scream protest.

Pain cuts through the muddle that subst.i.tutes for thought. For the first time she realizes that she has reached the crest of Vorbottan Mountain.

Triumph provides a thin warmth that helps her drag herself to her feet. She leans against a long, slender pole, remnant of some fence or scaffold. This must be what her desperately grasping fingers had found. liiipulsively, she kisses the pole in irreverent salute. Her lips nearly freeze to the metal.

Joy cannot subst.i.tute for food. Lillianara shakes the last crumbs from her provision bag into her mouth, swallows them with the a.s.sistance of a bit more muddy water. She wonders if bacteria can survive in this cold. Realizes that they can and resigns herself to eventual distress.

Blinking frost from her lashes, she looks around. All is like yet unlike her expectations.

Here are the huge blocks of building stone, barely one upon another, but the paths between them have been swept clean by the winds. Rubble sits in tidy piles wherever two or more stones intersect.

Remnants of earlier treasure hunting expeditions are remarkably absent as well. She had counted on finding a broken shifter or a discarded atomic torch or at least a shovel. Nothing of human making remains. Surely it can't all have deteriorated or been blown away?

Lillianara feels a p.r.i.c.kling along her spine, a sense of being watched. She is also amazingly aware of the cold, enough so that she almost longs for her former numbness, even knowing that such heralds death. Stomping her booted feet to warm them, she faces into the area where blocks of stone are most thickly cl.u.s.tered. Surely there she'll find shelter of some sort,maybe an abandoned cache or an old warming stove.

Tottering along on weary legs, Lillianara fights back the thought that coming here had been an elaborate form of suicide after all.

Alastar neatly arranges the human trash as a lure. Her eagerness for companionship wars constantly now against the imperative to protect the ruins. She hides from herself the knowledge that what she has placed as a lure also contains the means for the treasure hunter's survival. She manages only because the traps she has set are so very deadly, so very fatal.

Sitting in her parlor, acutely aware of the faceted gaze from her collection of polished skulls, Alastar balances a tray on her silvered knees and listens for an explosion. Distantly, as from far below, she hears rumbling. She ignores it and all it implies, even as she ignores the nagging sensation that perhaps her trap is not fatal enough.

Or too fatal.

If she'd turned right rather than left, she'd never have found the cache, that's what Lillianara tells herself as she huddles over the heat cast by the compact ceramacrete camp stove.

Such a small thing-left versus right. Right would have been wrong. She hears her own giggle, high and rather hysterical, and feels a trace of disgust, followed almost immediately by indulgent Compa.s.sion.

Stars above, but she's been through enough to warrant a full nervous breakdown let alone a giggle or two.

Impatiently, she kneads the tube of ration concentrate she holds suspended from her teeth over the heat. Her arms had proved too shaky for extended effort, but they are strong enough to tell her that the goo in the tube is still rock hard.

Food must wait a little longer, but heat, though, heat is a sensual pleasure, a decadent delight forgotten hours before. She feels a flush traveling up her cheeks, revels in the warmth soaking her torso. Almost, almost she could do without food at all.Eventually, the concentrate softens enough that she can gulp it down. It tastes rather like very dark mola.s.ses threaded with strong hints of vitamin tablets. Disgusting in any other circ.u.mstances-its creators had meant for the goo to be mixed with flavor packets-absolutely delicious now.