The Tar-aiym Krang Read online

  “It opened to let us in, Wolf. I think it will do so to let us out.” The doors closed. “In any case, kwa nini worry? It doesn’t matter now.”

  They got another surprise. Unless they were hollow, which hardly seemed likely with that door, the walls of the pseudoceramic material were a good hundred and fifty meters thick. Far more than was needed merely to support the weight of the building, great as it was. It bespoke much more an attempt at impregnability. Such had been found before in the ruins of Tar-Aiym fortresses, but never approaching this in scale.

  Flinx did not know what he expected of the interior. He’d been scanning consistently ever since the great doors had opened, but had not been able to detect anything thinking inside. And he’d lamented his purely sideways view from the crawler. He didn’t see how the inside could possibly surprise him any more than that unmatched exterior.

  He was wrong.

  Whatever it was he had anticipated in his wildest thoughts, it was nothing like the reality. Malaika’s voice drifted down to him from above. It was oddly muted.

  “Katika here, everyone. Atha, open the lock. There’s air in here and it’s breathable, and light, and no wind, and I don’t know whether to believe it myself or not, even though my majicho tells me . . . but the sooner you see it. . . .”

  They didn’t need further urging. Even Sissiph was excited. Atha scrambled to the small personnel lock and they watched while she cracked the triple seal, cutting the flow of liquid at the three prescribed points. The heavy door swung itself outward. The automatic ramp extended itself to touch ground, buzzed once when it had made firm contact, and turned itself off.

  Flinx was first out, followed closely by Atha and the two scientists, Malaika and Sissiph, and lastly, Wolf. All stood quite silent under the panorama spread before them.

  The interior of the building, at least, was hollow. That was the only way to describe it. Somewhere above Flinx knew those massive walls joined a ceiling, but strain his eyes as he might he couldn’t make it out. The building was so huge that despite excellent circulation, clouds had formed inside. The four gigantic slabs pressed heavy on his mind, if not his body. But claustrophobia was impossible in an open space this large. Compared to the perpetual swirl of air and dust outside the utter calm within was cathedrallike. Perhaps, indeed, that was what it was, although he knew the idea to be more the feeling imparted by this first view than the likely truth.

  The light, being intended for nonhumanx eyes, was wholely artificial and tinged slightly with blue-green. It was also dimmer than they would have preferred. The philosoph’s naturally blue chiton looked good in it, but it made the rest of them appear vaguely fishlike. The dimness did not obstruct their vision as much as it made things seem as though they were being viewed through not-quite-clear glass. The temperature was mild and a bit on the warm side.

  The crawler had been halted because it could proceed no farther. Row upon row of what were indisputably seats or lounges of some sort stretched out from where they stood. The place was a colossal amphitheater. The ranks extended onward, unbroken, to the far side of the structure. There they ended at the base of . . . something.

  He took a glance and risked a brief probe of the others. Malaika was glancing appraisingly about the limits of the auditorium. Wolf, his permanent nonexpression back on his face, was sampling the air with an instrument on his belt. Sissiph clung tightly to Malaika, staring apprehensively about the disquieting silence. Atha wore much the same look of cautious observation as the big trader.

  The two scientists were in a state as close to Nirvana as it was possible for scientists to be. Their thoughts were moving so fast Flinx was hard-pressed even to sample them. They had eyes only for the far end of the great room. For them a search had been vindicated, even if they didn’t know what it was they had found. Tse-Mallory chose that moment to step forward, with Truzenzuzex close behind. The rest of them began to file down the central aisle after the scientists, toward the thing at the far side.

  It was not an exhausting walk, but Flinx was grateful for the opportunity to rest at the end of it. He sat on the edge of the raised platform. He could have taken one of the seat-lounges below, but they were nowhere near contoured for the human physiology and doubtless were as uncomfortable as they looked.

  Large steps led up to the dais he sat on. At its far end a flawless dome of glass or plastic enclosed a single, unadorned couch. A large oval doorway opened in the dome facing the auditorium. It was a good meter higher than their tallest member and far wider than even Malaika’s copious frame would require. The bench itself was tilted slightly to face the amphitheater. A smaller dome, shaped like a brandy glass, fitted partway over its raised end. Thick cables and conduits led from it and the bottom of the couch to the machine.

  The “machine” itself towered a hundred meters above them and ran the length of the auditorium, melting into the curved corners. While the exterior of the structure was remorselessly acute, the interior was considerably rounded off. Much of the machine was closed off, but Flinx could see dials and switches catching the light from behind half-open plates. Those he could make out had obviously not been designed with humanx manipulative members in mind.

  From above the dull metal plating of the machine an uncountable profusion of chromatically colored tubes ran toward the distant roof. Azure, peach, shocking pink, ivory, Tyrolean purple, chartreuse, orange, mutebony, smoke, white-gold, verdanure . . . every imaginable shading and tone, and not a few unimaginable ones. Some were the size of a child’s toy, small enough to fit over his little finger. Others looked big enough to swallow the shuttle with ease. In the corners they merged into the fabric of the structure. He turned a slow circle and saw where bulges in the walls, extending even above the entrance way, indicated the presence of more of the colossal pipes. He reminded himself that he had no way of being certain they were even hollow, but somehow the impression of pipes persisted. Sometimes his talents operated independent of his thoughts.

  “Well,” said Malaika. He said it again. “Well, well!”

  He seemed uncertain of himself, a rare state. Flinx smiled at the merchant’s thoughts. The big man wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or not. He definitely had something, all right. But he didn’t know what it was, let alone how to market it. He stood while everyone else sat.

  “I suggest we obtain whatever supplies we’ll need for our investigations.” Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory were examining everything in minute detail and hardly heard him. “This has passed over my head, and so from my hands. I trust you gentlebeings can find out what this thing does?” He waved a broad hand to encompass what they could see of the machine.

  “I do not know,” said Truzenzuzex. “Offclaw, I would say that our acquaintances the Branner had the right idea when they spoke of this thing as a musical instrument. It certainly looks like one, and the arrangements in here,” he indicated the amphitheater, “would tend to support that assumption. For my wings, though, I can’t see as yet how it operates.”

  “Looks like the ultimate product of a mad organ-builder’s worst nightmares,” added Tse-Mallory. “I wouldn’t say for sure unless we figure out how to operate the thing.”

  “Will you?” asked Malaika.

  “Well, it seems to be still partially powered, at least. Wolf recorded the power source, and something operated the doors, turned on the lights . . . and keeps the air fresh, I hope. It wasn’t designed according to conceptions we’d find familiar, but that thing,” and he gestured at the dome with its enclosed bench, “looks an awful lot like an operator’s station. True, it might also be a resting place for their honored dead. We won’t know till we dig a lot deeper. I suggest that we move everything we’ll need from the shuttle in here. It’ll be a lot simpler than running out in this gale every time we need a spanner or a sandwich.”

  “Mapatano! I agree. Wolf, you and I will start transferring things from the shuttle. It will go quickly enough, once we unload some of that junk I piled into the crawler. It a
ppears we are going to be here for a bit, hata kidogobaya!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was an odd feeling to be constantly within the building. Not confining, for the door worked perfectly even for one person—provided he carried with him at least one item of recognizably metallic artificial construction. It was a peculiarly satisfying sensation to approach the great bulks, comm unit or gun extended in front of one, and have a million tons of impregnable metal slide gently aside to reveal a personalized passageway a meter wide and thirty meters high.

  It was better outside at night, but not much. In spite of the goggles the dust eventually worked its insistent way into eyes. And it was chilly.

  Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex had been pouring over the immense apparatus, prying behind those panels in the slate-gray wall which would open, ignoring those which would not. There was no point in forcing entry and risking breakage to the intricate device. Not when they could spend years on the unresisting portions. And they didn’t have years. So they continued to dig into the exposed guts on the Krang without disturbing a single wire from its proper place, treading with the utmost care lest they nudge some vital circuit from its proper alignment. While the scientists and Malaika labored over the enigma of the machine, Atha and Flinx would sometimes take the crawler into the vast city. Wolf remained behind to help Malaika, and Sissiph to be near him. So Flinx had the crawler’s observation dome practically to himself.

  He found it hard to believe that structures which even in ruin and under a centuries-old coat of dust could remain beautiful had been raised to house the most warlike race the galaxy had known. The thought cast an unshakable pall over the quiet ruins. Little in the way of decoration was visible on the sandblasted exteriors of the structures, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. Anything not integral to the actual support of the edifice would long since have been worn away. And they were cruising far above what had once been a main boulevard. The street itself was somewhere far below, buried under a millenia of shifting sand and soil. They recognized it as such only because of the absence of buildings. Probably this city had been covered and uncovered at least a hundred times, each new cycle grinding away some portion of its original aspect. They had soon discovered that a mild electrostatic field came up regularly every evening and cleared the days’ accumulation of dust and debris from the base of the Krang for the width of the yellow-white circle. But no such care was visible in the city. In the evenings, as the sun set, the sands turned, blood-red and the hulks of hollowed buildings sparkled like topaz and ruby in a setting of carnelian. The constant, unceasing wind spoiled the illusion of beauty, and its rise-and-fall moan seemed an echoing curse of all the vanished races ever subjugated by the Tar-Aiym.

  And they didn’t even know what they had looked like.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A week later they were all gathered in informal conference on the dais. A small, portable cookstove, powered by an aeternacell, had been set up nearby, giving the place an incongruously domesticated look. Next, thought Flinx, they would be hanging out laundry. It had been found more convenient for the scientists to sleep and eat by their work, instead of making the daily hike to the crawler. They could have brought the cruiser right up to the base of the dais, but for all they knew the seats themselves might play some crucial part in the operation of the Krang. Besides, reducing parts of the place to rubble hardly seemed the proper way to go about resurrecting its secrets. It was just as well that they hadn’t, because the sleepy machine would have noted the gesture as hostile and taken immediate and appropriate action.

  The odors of frying bacon and eggs, and juquil for Truzenzuzex, added to the homey atmosphere. At the moment, Atha and Sissiph were managing the cooking for the scientists. This was proved a necessity after all the men had demonstrated a monumental ineptitude with the device, which did 90 percent of the work itself. Knowing full well he could operate it better than any of them, Flinx had pleaded ignorance when offered the chance to try it. He had no desire to be tied down with the job of cook, not when he could spend his time watching the two scientists dissect the amazing innards of the machine.

  “This thing grows more incredible by the day.” Tse-Mallory was talking now. “You know, we found walkways at each corner of the building, where the machine disappears into the walls.”

  “I’d wondered where you two had disappeared to,” said Malaika.

  “They extend I don’t know how far beneath us. To the center of the planet for all I can tell, although I’d think that the heat would make that a prohibitive development even for the Tar-Aiym. Nor do we have any idea how far it extends on the horizontal level, either. To the ocean? Under it? We didn’t have an easy time of it down there, you know. There are steps and ladders and ramps, and none designed for human or thranx hands. But between the two of us, we managed. There must be mechanical lifts somewhere, but we couldn’t find them.”

  “We first went down three days ago . . . apologies for worrying you. I suppose we should have mentioned where we were going, but we didn’t really know ourselves, and certainly didn’t expect to be gone as long as we were. The excitement of the moment overcame our time-sense.

  “We went more or less straight down, pausing only twice, for three hours and sleep-time. These pipes, or whatever,” he indicated the rainbow giants ranked above them, “are continuous below this flooring, and descend to levels we didn’t reach. Not even at the farthest point of our journey. Most of the machinery was completely unfamiliar to us, and I daresay we two are as familiar with Tar-Aiym design as anyone in the Arm. But the majority of this stuff was way past us.”

  “Near the surface the machinery is practically solid. Farther down it thins out to a sufficient degree to become recognizable as to its individual components. All of it looked brand-new. In many places the metal was warm, confirming what we’ve suspected all along. Power is being fed into it continually. And there must be a billion kilometers of wire down there.

  “Still, we have no idea what it does, captain. I am sorrier than you could ever be, but you can console yourself in the knowledge that whatever it is, it is far and away the biggest and best of its kind.”

  This last from a tired-looking Truzenzuzex. The philosoph had been working at an incredible pace the past week, and his age was beginning to show. On the ship he had kept it well masked with his energy and youthful spirits.

  “Couldn’t you discover anything about its function?” pleaded Malaika.

  Tse-Mallory sighed. He had been doing a lot of that, lately. “Not really. We both incline to the musical instrument theory, still. There are many arguments against it that bother us, though.” He looked at Truzenzuzex, who nodded confirmation.

  “Je?” Malaika prompted.

  “For one thing, we can’t quite bring ourselves to believe that in a time of such stress a race as war-oriented as the Tar-Aiym would devote so much effort and material to anything of a nonlethal nature. The metal for that door, for example, must have been required for the construction of warships. Yet it was brought and used here. On the other hand, we know they were artistically inclined in a gruesome sort of way. Their tastes did run strongly to the martial. Possibly they felt the need of a project to stimulate patriotic fervor, and this was their way of doing it. It would also have possible psychological benefits we can’t begin to imagine, if that seems unlikely, consider the lack of evidence we have to go on. I’m not ready to believe any of my explanations myself?”

  “And another thing. Did you happen to notice the unusual silvery-gold tinge to the atmosphere as we were coming down?”

  “No . . . yes!” said Malaika. “I’ve seen it before on other planets, so I didn’t think it too out of the ordinary. These . . . there were mbili layers, if I remember aright . . . seemed thicker than most. And better defined. But I don’t view that as a cause for surprise. I’ve seen quadruple layers, too. And the unusual thickness of these could easily be accounted for by the scouring effects of these wachawi upepo, sorceror’s
winds.”

  “True,” Tse-Mallory continued. “Windglitter, I believe they call it. As you say, there could be natural explanations for the odd thickness of the layers. The reason I bring them up at all is because on one of the levels we reached we found what appeared to be at least a portion of a great meterological monitoring station. Among other things, several of the instruments appeared to be occupied solely with keeping information on those two levels in the atmosphere. We only had time for a fast look at it, as our prime concern was making speed downward. But the only reason we noticed it at all was because the metal was quite warm there, gave off a lot of heat, and seemed to be running at full power. That’s something we observed in only a very few other places. We now think that those layers have something to do with the actual function of the Krang. What, I can’t imagine.”

  “To be more specific,” said Truzenzuzex, “this thing,” and he pointed at the transparent dome and the lounge within, “takes on more and more the aspect of a center control for the operation of the entire apparatus. I know it seems difficult to imagine this monstrosity being operated by a single being lying on that slab, but evidence seems to support it. I am skeptical, myself. There is not a switch, dial, or similar device anywhere near the thing. And yet its location alone, and isolation, seem to support its importance.

  “Close examination of that helmet, or headdress, or whatever it is, shows that it’s lined with what might be some form of sensory pickups. If the machine is indeed still capable of more than partial activation, then theoretically mere proximity to those pickups ought to do it. Actual physical contact with the operator wouldn’t seem to be necessary. So the fact that the size and shape of our heads in no way corresponds to that of the Tar-Aiym . . . in all probability . . . shouldn’t hinder us.”

  “You’re thinking of trying it, then,” said Malaika.