CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Gollip led them up the side canyon for a hundred yards. The ground was hard stone, impressively free of dirt and spare pebbles, and the canyon was fifty feet wide or narrower. Then he headed up a staircase carved directly into the rock. He walked briskly, bobbing his head with no apparent provocation every few paces and emitting an occasional chuckling sound.
Other Grays passed—François couldn’t make himself think of them as Edu—and looked astonished at the pack of humans. They staggered sideways, their jaws dropped open, their eyes blinked left to right repeatedly.
“I think we’re pioneers,” he murmured to Marty.
“We’re not under the palace in Nesha,” Marty whispered back. “And no one is trying to eat us.”
“Yet,” François said.
The Grays dressed in a uniform manner, in tunics, coats, and trousers of simple linen. François didn’t notice any distinctions of rank or fashion, which he found admirable.
Gollip led them along a wide ledge to a door. All the stone had a plastic quality to it. It was too rounded. François considered why this struck him as unnatural. It just didn’t look like stone as nature would erode it, having neither the horizontal-erosion patterns caused by wind nor the vertical-erosion patterns caused by rain.
But then he realized what had caused the odd-looking rock. The erosion came from millennia of touch by hands and feet. Erosion by contact with walking, leaning, climbing, and scampering Grays had worn the stone to a soft, bulbous appearance that would have been at home on an episode of the old TV show Land of the Lost.
Beyond the walkways and out of reach of hands, the rock had a more pristine look, angular and sharp, like stone that had been sheltered from erosion by being buried under ice ought to have.
Gollip’s door pierced into the upper section of a canyon wall, what would once have been the proud top of a mesa looking down from the sunlit heights over a series of canyons. Now a gray shelf of ice hung low over their heads, and all the windows carved in the canyon wall were in shadow. Gollip worked a long lever beside the entrance and the door parted in the middle, the two halves sliding left and right into the stone with a pneumatic hiss.
François followed Marty through the doorway.
Within, a single massive room contained industrial tooling equipment, laboratory tools, samples, spare parts, and possibly alchemical concoctions, strewn like the rubble left by an explosion across a series of low bronze tables. One wall was dominated by bookcases, all full of scrolls, tablets, and codices. A dozen Grays worked at various stations in the laboratory, and all looked up as the party entered.
A Gray whose skin was thicker and more rugose than average sat with his back turned to the door, working over a wax tablet with a stylus. “This is ingenious, Holipu, but it’s only the first step. What we’re going to have to do now is take this approach and map the machinery in three dimensions. We’re also going to need some sort of input and output analysis. What exactly is generating all the waste?” His voice had the throaty warble of age.
“Engineer,” one of the other Grays said, “you have visitors.”
“If it’s about the vote, I can’t be bothered.” The Gray with his back turned harrumphed, fussed some more with the tablet, but eventually spun about. Looking across the party, he said, “Oh my.”
Gollip bowed deeply. “Engineer, these are extraordinary humans.”
“You know my feelings on politics, Gollip,” the engineer said. “Still, it’s a little sensitive to have them down here right now, and I could have come outside to meet them. In what sense are they extraordinary?”
“They came down to see us, Engineer,” Gollip said. “And they are carrying star-metal.”
François winked internally at the irony. “Star-metal” in many ancient languages and cultures, including Egyptian, meant “meteoric iron,” iron collected from the sites of asteroid impacts. Iron seemed to be what these Grays wanted most, or at any rate what they traded with humans for, but they were still using the phrase “star-metal”—only they used it to talk about the ankhs.
Which meant, he reflected, they apparently knew it as a substance so well that they had a name for it.
“We’re here looking for a portal,” Marty said.
“We would also like to understand you better,” François added. “As fellow children of the stars.”
Marty shot him a surprised look and François smiled.
“You come from the stars?” the engineer asked. “What is your name?”
“I’m François. I come from the future. My people travel among the stars.” He introduced the others by name.
“I’m Yotto,” the engineer said. “We came to this world from the stars. May we see this star-metal that you possess?”
Marty again drew out his ankh and showed it to the engineer, who handled it carefully and looked at it with a critical eye before passing it back.
“I’ve seen such devices,” he said. “They are powerful. I’ve never seen them in the hands of one of the Shnipara. Where did you get it?”
“Its owner attacked me,” Marty said. “I took this as a trophy after I defeated him.”
“And sharpened the end to make it a weapon?” the engineer asked.
“A tool,” Marty said. “But yes, also a weapon.”
François didn’t want to spend too much time talking about how they’d come by the ankhs. “You came here hundreds of years ago?” he asked. “Thousands? The erosion on the stone suggests thousands . . . or more.”
“Many years,” Yotto agreed, nodding.
“We saw your vessel outside,” François said. “It still emanates light. Is it functional still in other ways?”
“It does some things,” Yotto said. “It no longer travels among the stars.”
“We heard a story about a fleet,” François said. “A fleet that delivered some of your people to one location, and then maybe came here. We’re uncertain about the details of this story.”
Yotto chuckled, his mouth wrinkling into a W-shape. “Migrations are always more complicated than they seem, with groups that move earlier and others that move later. Some go, some come, some return, some disappear. Some bear the old name, some change names. Some differences are soon forgotten, some similarities form the basis for undying grudges.”
“Some retain civilization,” François said, “and others descend into barbarism.”
“Or madness,” Yotto said.
“Tell us about the migration of your people.”
Yotto sighed, emitting a sound like air hissing from a party balloon. “My people came from the stars. We are workers, we have always been workers—healers and scientists, builders and engineers. We came to build this planet with a fleet of many vessels. Not vessels that sail the terrestrial ocean, you understand. Vessels that travel between stars.”
François nodded. “And your vessel crashed.”
“Not the only one. In a large fleet, it happens. We crashed, and the vessel remained here. Most of its crew and passengers left, to rejoin the main construction project. A few stayed here to protect this site.”
“What needs protecting about this site?” Marty asked.
“We wouldn’t want local humans to simply find our technology,” Yotto said. “We protect the site to protect you.”
“What was the main construction project?” François asked. “Did you work with humans?”
“When our patron encountered this planet, it had a single civilization worthy of the name,” Yotto explained. “All the rest of you Shnipara lived in the trees, eating fruit and rodents. But one mighty state thrived, building engineering works—aqueducts, canals, windmills, sailing ships, printing presses, and so on—and we sought to help it.”
“Was it a seafaring civilization?” François asked.
Yotto nodded.
“Atlantis?”
“I do not know the name,” Yotto said. “But we taught them our arts and gave them our tools. And they built nine daughter cities, nine cities in which to hide . . . something that our patron wanted placed in the cities.”
Marty frowned. “What did your patron want placed in the cities?”
Yotto shrugged. “I’m not sure. Such a thing was rumored to have been placed here as well, but that is not something I know about.”
François shook his head. “So this was one of the nine daughter cities. Humans once lived here.”
Yotto spread his hands, palm up. “Yes! This is what I keep trying to explain to my Herder colleagues! This is a human place, built for men. Look how high the ceilings are.”
“But there are no men here now,” François said. “People stared at us on our way here as if they’d never seen a human within the walls.”
“They haven’t,” Yotto said. “Humans haven’t lived here for a long time.”
“The main city built nine daughters,” François said, “and then the city collapsed. And it sent out fleets of refugees. Terrestrial ships, this time.”
“Yes,” Yotto said. “And there was a fleet that sailed west and then south. And it deposited Shnipara and Edu together in the west, after building them a palace in which they could live together.”
“We’ve seen it,” Marty said.
“Have you?” Yotto’s eyes sparkled. “Is it beautiful?”
“It is,” François admitted. “The dream of Edu and humans living together is also beautiful, even if the dream has not quite been realized.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to refer to humans as two-legged cattle, even in an alien tongue.
“Ah.” Yotto’s voice took on a sad timbre. “The dream is a hard one, no doubt.”
“And then the fleet came here?” Marty asked. “But somehow, you ended up with no humans.”
“Humans and Edu would not live together,” Yotto said. “Despite the best efforts of many people of both races. Eventually, after many years of struggle, the humans left.”
“The thing your patron wanted hidden here . . .” Marty asked. “Did the humans take it with them?”
“And was it a door?” Gunther asked.
Yotto shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to either question.”
“That you don’t know makes me think maybe the great mysterious object isn’t here anymore,” François said. “‘With the humans’ is a good guess as to where it might be instead.”
“If only I knew where they were, I would help you find them.” Yotto shrugged.
“This history is dark,” Surjan said. “This history is a tale of two peoples who fail to live together every time they try.”
“Does that ring false to you?” Lowanna said. “Or does it ring uncomfortably true?”
Surjan looked down and shook his head.
“I reject it,” François said. “Every one of us is the product of different people being willing to live with each other. Most of us are products of triumph happening over and over again. Lowanna, your native language is English. Marty, look at him. He’s a Chinese Jew! And I’m a pure-blooded Frenchman, but what does that mean? Frank? Celtic? Greek? Phoenician? Roman? I’m all of that! And do I have to live with the possibility that Great-grandfather A was the oppressed and Great-grandfather B was the oppressor? Yes I do, and so what? Some conflicts, people work out in their lifetimes. Some, we have to work out over many lifetimes. But we work them out.”
Yotto shook his head. “Not every conflict between peoples gets worked out.”
“So we keep trying,” François said. “We keep trying because we know it can be done, and we keep trying because it’s the moral thing to do. The only alternative is bigotry and genocide.”
The Grays in the room broke into a seallike sound that went hurka-hurka-hurka, snapping their fingers at the same time. François gathered that was how they gave applause, and nodded in satisfaction.
“Your words are more touching to me than you can know,” Yotto said. “I share your sentiments exactly, though not all of my people do.”
“Engineer Yotto has fought for many years in favor of the good treatment of Shnipara,” Gollip said. “He champions the medical services we offer to humans.”
“But I have a problem now,” Yotto said, “and I hope you can help me. In the interest of continuing good relations between our peoples.”
“Who among your people doesn’t share your sentiments?” Marty asked.
Yotto harrumphed. “I hate politics.”
“There are two parties,” Gollip said. “The other party is sometimes called the Herders, as we are sometimes called the Farmers.”
“That sounds so quaint,” Lowanna said. “Old-timey.”
“Herders and Farmers,” François said. “Those who wish to live by farming. And those who wish to live by herding some other species.”
“You are from the future, you say?” Yotto asked. “Yours is a technological civilization?”
“It is,” François confirmed.
“Are any of you technical people?” Yotto asked. “Engineers, mechanics, technologists, craftsmen?”
“Everyone here is very technically competent in their own profession,” François said. “As far as machinery and crafts go, I’m your most likely candidate.” He hitched his thumb in Kareem’s direction and said, “He’s been in some ways my apprentice. What do you need?”
“I’m afraid that, in certain respects, the engineers of my people have become a priesthood,” Yotto said. “We don’t make new machines, we only operate and maintain the old ones. The knowledge we pass down from generation to generation is that of what levers to pull and when, but not the understanding of how the machine does what it does, how it is constructed, or how to repair it when it breaks down.”
“This is a problem guilds can easily run into.” François nodded. “Once they start focusing on their perks and defending the boundaries of their own membership, any guild loses its technical edge. In a society that needs some set of machinery to keep running, but that machinery is generally reliable, and the society doesn’t need innovation in the machinery . . . it’s easy to imagine the engineers forgetting how to fix the machines. What machines are no longer working for you?”
“No longer working as well,” Yotto said. “Starting to break down. Less efficient than they used to be, generating more waste than they once did.”
François nodded as Yotto enumerated the issues. “I’m the right man for the job. I’ve always been a creative thinker.”
“We have depended for years on machinery that generates a dietary supplement that we need to live on this world,” Yotto said.
“Iron,” Marty said. “You don’t metabolize iron well, or you need extra iron.”
Yotto sat back in his chair with his mouth open for a moment. “True. Did the other Edu you met tell you this?”
“We guessed it,” Lowanna said, “based on our experience with other species that came down together to this planet.”
Yotto nodded. “It’s true. And we have depended for many years on machinery that converts raw iron, smelted or in ore form, into a supplement that we can metabolize. Without it, we quickly become ill and weak.”
“You also depend on the devices in those nose rings to help you process our atmosphere,” François said.
“Related problems.” Yotto nodded. “But the rings are still functioning. The food plant is beginning to show signs of breaking down. Can you help us with the machinery?”
“How soon did you have in mind?” François asked.
“As soon as is possible,” Yotto said. He had an edge to his voice that might have been stress.
“I can help,” François said. “What can you do to help us find the portal Marty is looking for?”
Yotto gestured at the shelves against the wall. “Marty, you’re free to access my library and consult with all my people. I don’t know that we have the answer to where the portal is that you seek, or whether it’s the same as the secret thing placed here by our patron, but we can try to find out together.”