Day of the Dragonstar (30 page)

“What about this ‘divine’ status which has been bestowed upon us?”

“You know, I don’t believe that Thesaurus subscribes totally to that. He’s a bit in awe, certainly, but he doesn’t think we’ve come down from Olympus. The others are not so sure about that.”

“And where have they gotten all these myths from that made them expect our arrival? That hole in the wall you mentioned?”

“I believe so, Colonel. But then, we’ll just have to have that checked out when we can get those radiation suits, right?”

“How do you know that the saurians might not be looking forward to the arrival of the TWC representatives as well?” Kemp asked.

“I would imagine, Phineas, that
that
depends entirely on how the TWC comports itself in the situation.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “But they don’t have a very good reputation of behaving themselves, do they?”

* * *

The pictographs on the bottom level showed, with remarkable clarity, two saurians in sexual congress.

Mikaela Lindstrom took her magnification lens, adjusted its lights, bent over, and examined the picture. Remarkable! Etched into the stone was a fainter ghost image of the couple rising above their copulating physical forms, detached.

That must mean, she thought, that the next level, with its more abstract images, indicates some higher state.

Of mind? That would certainly jive with what Ian Coopersmith had learned. Different states of consciousness!

Behind her, she heard Jakes shuffling about.

“Pacing again, Doctor?” she asked. “How can you be so antsy when there’s this wonderland of new knowledge around you? You’re a scientist, man! Expand your horizons!”

Jakes moped over, took a look at the wall of the temple Mikaela was poring over, then, went back to his pacing. “What I’d like to know is what is keeping the blasted ornithopter with the supply of specially-rigged LS suits that Kemp promised for me and my men. We’ve been waiting
two days
since we found this temple.
Two days
since we determined that yes, there
is
a dangerous radiation level past that hole. I mean, why couldn’t he have just fixed up one suit, right away? It would have only taken a few hours!”

Mikaela Lindstrom studied the abstract forms. Funny. Some of those shapes
could
be almost human. God-like, bigger than the ethereal representations of the adrift saurians . . .

“And I can’t possibly guess who that suit would be for, Doctor,” she said sardonically.

“Well, can’t you
understand?
You’ve got your heaven. You’ve got your dinosaurs and this saurian culture.” Mikaela turned. Jakes’s long thin face was slightly red with emotion. “You’re a paleontologist. I want to see those starship engines.”

“Yes, I know. You’re an engineer. But surely you can’t restrict yourself to one area of inquiry, Doctor. You have to see the universe as a holistic, enterprise, each segment a microcosm of the macrocosm. Believe me, I’ve faced plenty of bio-engineering problems in trying to understand how dinosaurs were structured from the mere evidence of a few
bones.”

“You don’t understand at all, Doctor.” Jakes said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “We’re talking FTL, my dear. We’re talking impossibility. We’re talking about the dreams of astronomers and astrophysicists and little kids who stare up in the sky and want to go to the stars. How would it work?” He pointed toward the control area. “The answer is just
yards
away of from me, Lindstrom. And the only thing between me and
it
is a little radiation.”

“And look what it did to poor Thesaurus over there.” She pointed to the saurian leader taking a nap on a mat. The poor thing had been
so
tired after all the excitement. She and Thalberg had tried to figure out what kind of medicine or treatment might help it, but so far they were afraid to try anything before they understood more of saurian biology. “Look what the radiation did to him.”

“Over a period of
many
trips inside! And he accepts that, can’t you see? Besides, he can go only so far, apparently. I’m the one who can figure out how to go all the way through, I
know
I can.”

“Come on, Jakes. With all the men that Phineas has lost with this business, he doesn’t want to lose anymore. The special LS suits will be here in due time. He wants a lot of them, anyway, so that anyone who wants to can go inside.”

Jakes sighed and sat down against a wall. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Pardon my unprofessionalism.”

Jakes probably felt left out because he wasn’t with the second expedition to see this Temple. That had occurred later in the afternoon of the big reunion day. During their tour, Ian Coopersmith had pointed out some of the artifacts and records that had led him to his fantastic set of assumptions. She had been surprised at how many of Coopersmith’s notions seemed valid in light of the saurians’ cultural artifacts, and had asked to be allowed to do more research in the next few days, with the help of Thesaurus.

When they returned to the main hall of the temple by the wall, Kemp summoned Zabriski and her crew by radio, guiding them in to their present location with a homing beacon. Then he reported to Captain Marshall a detailed summary of what he had uncovered. Following a discussion with Ian Coopersmith, Kemp decided to send the ornithopter to pick up Doctor Jakes and some of his men to determine the radiation level that might prove to be a barrier to investigation past the portal.

Marshall replied that the scanners on board the
Goddard
and
Heinlein
had so far detected nothing within range, and that the outrigger engines would presently begin deceleration of the
Dragonstar
as it approached the Earth-moon neighborhood. Estimated arrival in L-5 orbit was still two and a half weeks away, but considering the velocity of the alien ship and the time needed to alter its course, gross course corrections and deceleration were already beginning.

The ornithopter had departed, leaving Kemp, Mikaela, and the two other astronauts with Ian and Rebecca. Later that evening, they were treated to the equivalent of a ‘state dinner,’ which many members of the ruling caste of saurians attended. A fine time was had by all, with Ian’s and Thesaurus’s amusing attempts at communication the showcase.

Mikaela could not help but notice the coolness between Phineas and Becky Thalberg, Indeed, it had interested her tremendously. She could imagine that Thalberg and Coopersmith hadn’t exactly been playing tiddlywinks for amusement in the wild, while they were alone. How long-lasting would the romance be, though?

Oh well, she had thought. Only time would tell. And if there was one quality a paleontologist had to cultivate, it was patience.

The next two days passed quickly as the ornithopter made several flights from the barrier to the base camp and back. The radiation level was quickly ascertained, and adjustments to some space suits were begun. Ian Coopersmith continued to establish a more meaningful system of communication with Thesaurus and his comrades, while Jakes cooled his heels waiting for his suits. Theoretically, normal spacesuits could have been used but not with nearly the protection Kemp desired, or with the optimum degree of maneuverability. No, old uptight Colonel Kemp wanted to make sure that there was no rushing anymore, without absolutely stringent preparation.

The walled-in civilization had been established quite a few centuries back, Mikaela Lindstrom surmised, since it was the only way the saurians’ ancestors could cope with the savage realities of the Mesozoic world. The system of guard towers and maintenance crews which were constantly patrolling the great wall was a revered tradition. Well it should be, since it represented the very survival of their society. This society was largely agrarian, stemming from the obvious habits of their ancestors. There were urban centers evenly spaced about the interior circumference, serving as places of economic and cultural exchange.

Jakes looked around the hall for a moment, then chuckled to himself. “I guess I am champing at the bit, aren’t I? Part of it, I suppose, is that this place, this culture, gives me the creeps.”

Mikaela turned to him, honestly surprised. “Why is that, Doctor?”

“I don’t know. Ancient mammalian response. Somehow I don’t quite trust these fellows. Behind the respect they’re giving us might just be fear, and that’s when you have to be a little nervous, for safety’s sake if nothing else.

“Also, you have to realize that I come from a fundamentalist family.”

“Pardon?”

“Back in my church in South Carolina, they used to teach the Bible as literal truth.”

“You were a creationist?”

“That’s right. Even through much of my college prep for my Ph.D. It took God six days to create the universe and the Earth, and on the seventh day he rested. Amen. No argument, son, or you’ll go to hell. Well, not that bad, I suppose. Still, there was that existential threat inherent in the whole schematic of belief.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Maybe I
didn’t
change my mind, Doctor Lindstrom.” He laughed at Mikaela’s double-take. “No. Just kidding. I think the change was gradual starting when I understood that the whole universe, including myself, was a process. And when I understood, as a physicist, the tricky nature of time itself. My mind just opened up, and I’ve kept it opened stubbornly. Still, old fears seep up occasionally. Like now.”

“Everyone has to have some kind of religious system to hang his head on, Doctor. Whether they call it science or politics or whatever, people settle on systems of thought around which they structure their universe. Take these saurians, for example. Thesaurus is not the only saurian leader to have wandered past the portal. Each generation, as far as I can tell,
selects
one member of their number from a large group of volunteers. They call him the ‘Messenger from the Gods.’ As far as I can tell, a lot of what they do, what they believe, hinges on what these Messengers find behind that wall.”

Doctor Jakes smacked his fist into his hand. “And all I need is that suit!”

“Suits, my friend. Others are coming with you. Including yours truly.”

“Coopersmith says that Thesaurus doesn’t have much knowledge of any control section. I just hope that we can get through all the way.”

“I’m sure that you’ll find a way, Doctor Jakes.”

“You have such faith in me, my dear.” The engineer’s eyes twinkled, and he sat down. “Okay. So tell me a little more about our saurian benefactors.”

“Well, as this picture here seems to show”—she pointed up at what she had been examining— “explicit in the belief system—or religion, if you will—is the concept of something
beyond
this world. An outside. The saurians believe that when they are in their R-complex stage of sleep, they somehow mystically drift into this state of being. They don’t remember this—save for abstract dreams, represented
here.
Quite often, during these trips . . . into levels as well labeled as any Hindu pantheon, I assure you . . .
insights will occur to the creatures. Personality shifts.”

“Do they believe in an afterlife?”

“I’m not sure. There’s a hint, though, that they think they get a glimpse of their afterlife during these somnolent periods.”

“The universe in a grain of sand, huh? Eternity in a day.”

“I don’t really think we can begin to totally understand, but it’s something like that. As more biologically aware creatures, they sense their place in the gene-flow of things.”

“I think Thesaurus over there senses we’re talking about him,” commented Jakes. “He’s rousing from his visit to the afterlife.” Jakes stepped over and helped the struggling saurian up from his nap. “Up you go, my friend.”

Thesaurus began to chatter, but Jakes shook his head. “I’m sorry, pal, but we don’t understand that lingo yet.”

Thesaurus pointed down the corridor. “Go? Go?”

“Not yet. We need radiation suits . . . Lindstrom, you think you can make Thesaurus understand?”

“Thesaurus.” She made motions of putting something on.

“Yes! Yessssss!” Thesaurus’s eyes, gleamed with understanding. Apparently, Ian Coopersmith had already filled him in. He lifted his robes and pointed at his skin and said, “Bad.”

“Yes. I dare say you’ve lost a bit of your life to the cause of science, haven’t you?”

Mikaela made good use of the time she had with Thesaurus, requesting him to show her the most important of the pictographs. She was deeply involved with this when the ornithopter flew in, bearing the special LS suits.

Jakes called his two men together. They went through the fifteen suits, looking for their right sizes.

“Hey, Zabriski!” Jakes called. “Where’s that one we requested for Thesaurus?”

“Yeah, well, Morton and his detail—they’re the ones who worked on this stuff,” Zabriski said after a bit of hemming and hawing, “Well, they weren’t too successful. They’re hoping to have it finished by tomorrow.”

“Well, I guess well just have to go in without him,” Jakes said. “You think you can make Thesaurus understand that, Mikaela?”

“Of all the
stupid
—
”
Mikaela said.

“Look, we just didn’t have any LS suits fitted with a
tail,”
Zabriski said, defensively.

Thesaurus was walking out expectantly, excitement in his eyes. “Go! No hurt!” he said in his peculiar hissing voice.

“Get those things on, guys,” Jakes said, beginning to slip his on.

Mikaela turned to the saurian. “Thesaurus go tomorrow. No suit.” It took a bit of doing until Thesaurus was made to understand he had no suit.

The gleam died in his eyes, but finally he nodded.

“Thesaurus no go. Thesaurus show.”

He beckoned them to follow. Mikaela followed after hastily donning her own suit, feeling very bad that the saurian would not be with them when they stepped into the control section of his world. He knew, and they knew, that he couldn’t afford that extra bit of radiation.

* * *