The Forge of God (17 page)

"They killed Cook, didn't they?"

"Are you suggesting some sort of resistance movement?" Harry asked.

"We're getting way ahead of ourselves."

"Damn right. Let's stick to basics." Harry folded the book on his lap. "You're wondering about my health."

Arthur nodded. "Can you travel?"

"Not far, not soon. Yesterday they pumped me full of magic bullets. Bullets to restructure my immune system, to strengthen my bone marrow… Thousands of little tame retroviruses doing their thing. I feel like hell most of the time. Still, I've got what's left of my hair. We're not doing radiation or heavy chemicals yet."

"Can you work? Travel around California?"

"Anywhere you want me, within a two-hour emergency hop to UCLA Medical Center. I'm a wreck, Arthur. You shouldn't have chosen me. I shouldn't have agreed."

"You're still thinking clearly, aren't you?" Arthur asked.

"Yes."

"Then you're useful. Necessary."

Harry looked down at the folded book in his lap. "Ithaca's not taking this well."

"She seems cheerful."

"She's a good actress. At night, in her sleep, her face… she cries." Harry's own eyes were moist at the thought, and he seemed much younger, almost a boy, glancing up at Arthur. "Christ. I'm glad I'm the one who might die. If things were the other way around, and she was going through this, I'd be in worse shape than I am now."

"You're not going to die," Arthur said sternly. "We're almost into the twenty-first century. Leukemia isn't the killer it used to be."

"Not for children, Arthur. But for me…", He raised his hands.

"You leave us, and I'm going to be pretty damn inconsolable." Completely against his will, he felt his own eyes grow damp. "Remember that."

Harry said nothing for a moment. "The Forge of God," he finally commented, shaking his head. "If that ever gets into the papers…"

"One nightmare at a time," Arthur said. Harry called Ithaca to prepare a guest bedroom for Arthur. As she did that, Arthur placed a collect call to Oregon, the first he had had a chance to make in two days.

His conversation with Francine was brief. There was nothing he could tell her, except that he was well. She was polite enough, and knew him well enough, not to mention the news reports.

The call was not enough. When it was over, Arthur missed his family more than ever.

October 20, Australia (October 19, USA)

A newsreel preceded the feature film on the Qantas flight to Melbourne, projected over the heads of passengers onto a tiny screen. Arthur looked up from his disk reader and open ring binder. Beside him, an elderly gentleman in a gray herringbone wool suit dozed lightly.

A computer-animated graphic of Australia Associated Press News Network filled the screen, backed by a jaunty jazz score. The rather plain, rugged middle-aged face of AAPN anchor Rachel Vance smiled across the darkened seats and inattentive heads. "Good day. Our lead story today is, of course, still the Centralian extraterrestrials. Yet another conference was held yesterday between Australian scientists and the robots, familiarly known as Shmoos, after comic artist Al Capp's remarkably generous characters, which they resemble in shape. While the information exchanged in the conference has not been released, a government spokesman acknowledged that scientists are still discussing theoretical physics and astronomy, and have not yet begun discussions on biology."

The spokesman appeared, a familiar face already. Arthur half listened. He had heard it all by now. "We have received no information about the density of living things in the galaxy; that is, we still do not know how many planets are inhabited, or what types of creatures inhabit them…"

His picture faded to a shot of the three Shmoos in motion down a dirt path to conference trailers set up in fields of dry spinifex grass near the huge false rock. The robots' floating propulsion was still eerie, deeply disturbing. In that motion could be signs of an immensely advanced technology… or of some sort of visual trick, a show for the primitive natives.

Vance returned, her smile warmly fixed in stone. "The Washington
Post
and
The New York Times
reported today that the remnant of an old volcano near Death Valley, California, has been closed off to the public. The
Post
makes a connection between this closing and the disappearance of three men and a woman, all allegedly held by military authorities in California."

Nothing new, but closer… perilously closer. Arthur leaned back in his seat and stared out of the window at the ocean and clouds passing in review tens of thousands of feet below.
Immense,
he thought.
It seems to be all there is. Ocean and clouds. I could spend my entire life traveling and not see all of it.
This did not necessarily demonstrate the size of the Earth, but it did put his life and brain in perspective.

He tried to nap. They would be in Melbourne in a few hours, and he was already exhausted.

The Rock, still unnamed, stretched for half a mile across the horizon in the early morning light, gloriously colored from the bottom up in layers of purple and red and orange. The sky overhead was a trembling dusty blue-gray, hinting at the heat to come. It was spring here, but there had been little rain. There was hardly a breath of wind. Arthur jumped down from the bulky, big-tired gray Royal Australian Army staff vehicle into red dust and stared across the golden plain at the Rock. The science advisor, David Rotterjack, stepped down behind him. Less than a dozen meters away, the first circle of razor-wire-topped hurricane fence began, curving in broad scallops through silver-gray mulga scrub and spiky spinifex.

Quentin Bent walked with a short-legged, almost eager waddle along the red dirt path to the edge of the road. Bent was in his mid-forties, heavy and florid-faced, with a forward-swept bush of gray hair, an easy smile, and sharp, pessimistic blue eyes. He extended his hand to Rotterjack first. In another Army vehicle, Bent's assistants, Forbes and French, accompanied Charles Warren, the geologist from Kent State.

"Mr. Arthur Gordon," Bent said, shaking Arthur's hand. "I've just finished reading the draft American task force report. Your work, and Dr. Feinman's, largely, am I correct?"

"Yes," Arthur said. "I hope it was clear."

"All too clear," Bent said, lifting his chin as if smelling the air, but keeping his eyes on Arthur. "Very disturbing. Gentlemen, I've received a message from our Shmoos—we all call them that now, they can't really be offended, can they?—and we're scheduled to have a meeting with them at noon today in trailer three." Almost breathlessly, he said, "Each day… they travel from the Rock to our conference trailer. They never leave the vicinity of the Rock. Before then, we will have breakfast in the mess trailer, and then a tour of the site, if you're up to it. Did you get enough sleep, Dr. Gordon, Mr. Rotterjack, Dr. Warren?"

"Sufficient," Rotterjack said, his eyes dark.

Bent flashed a smile and waddled into place ahead of them. "Follow me," he said.

Arthur fell in step beside Warren, a man of middle height and build with wispy, thinning brown hair brushed across a bald spot and large eyes above a long nose. "What does it look like?" he asked.

"A lot like Ayers Rock, only smaller," Warren answered, shaking his head. "It's less convincing than the cinder cone in Death Valley. Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised to find it at Disney World."

The breakfast went smoothly. They were introduced to several of the scientists measuring and analyzing the Rock, including the head of the materials team, Dr. Christine Carmichael. She explained that the minerals making up the Rock were all clearly earthbound—none of the surrounding "camouflage" material had arrived from space. Arthur tried to visualize the construction of the Rock, away from all human witnesses; he could not.

Other discussion was brief. Bent asked only three questions: how they planned to release the news (Rotterjack replied that at present there were no such plans), how they interpreted the Guest's story about planet-eating spacecraft (it seemed straightforward), and whether they believed there was a connection between the Death Valley cinder cone and the Rock. Rotterjack was unwilling to commit himself. Warren did not believe he had spent enough time on the project to render a useful opinion. Arthur nodded once; there was a definite connection.

"Can't have too many interstellar visitors in one year, eh?" Bent asked.

"It seems very unlikely," Arthur said.

"But not impossible?" Bent pursued.

"Not beyond possibility, but difficult to conceive."

"Still, we're all quite ignorant about what's out there, aren't we?" Forbes asked, smoothing back his white-blond hair with one hand.

"There could have been a wave of machine migrations, finally reaching this vicinity," French added. "Perhaps whole civilizations have grown up along an evolutionary timetable, and like rain precipitating out of a cloud, the time has come …"

Bent leaned over his now empty plates of steak, eggs, and fruit. "We're an optimistic bunch, Dr. Gordon. Our nation is younger than yours. Let me say, right out, that we have an interest in this being a good thing. The P.M. and the Cabinet—not to mention the Reverend Mr. Caldecott…" He glanced around, grinning broadly. Forbes and French mimicked his grin. "We
all
believe this could lift us into the forefront of all nations. We could be a center of immense activity, construction, education, research. If the Furnace is something horrible, which it seems to be, we might still cling to the notion that the Rock is different. Whether it serves us ill or not. Am I clear?"

"Perfectly clear," Rotterjack said. "We'd like to agree with you." He glanced at Arthur.

"We can't, however," Arthur said.

"For the moment, then, amicable disagreement and open minds. Gentlemen, we have a helicopter waiting."

In the late morning light, the Rock's colors had been subdued to a bright russet mixed with streaks of ocher. Arthur, looking through the concentric networks of tiny scratches in the helicopter's Plexiglas windows, shook his head. "The detail is astonishing," he shouted above the whine of the jets and the thumping roar of the blades. Warren nodded, squinting against a sudden glare of sun. "It's granite, all right, but there's no exfoliation. The banding is vertical, which is entirely wrong for this area—more appropriate to Ayers Rock than here. And where are the wind features, the hollows and caves? It's a reasonably convincing imitation—unless you're a geologist. But my question is, why go to all the trouble to disguise the Rock, when they knew they'd be coming out in the open?"

"They haven't explicitly answered several of our questions," Bent admitted. "Directly below us is the opening through which our Shmoos emerge to confer with us. There are two other openings we know of, both quite small—no more than a meter wide. Nothing has emerged from them. We haven't sent anybody in to investigate the openings. We think it best to trust them—not to look gift horses in the mouth, no?"

Arthur nodded dubiously.

"What would you have done?" Bent asked, showing a flash of irritation and perplexity.

"The same, probably," Arthur said.

The helicopter circled the Rock twice and then landed near the conference trailer. The engine noise declined to a rhythmic groaning whine and the blades slowed. Arthur, the Australians, and Rotterjack walked across the red dust and pea gravel to the gray and white trailer. It rose a meter above the ground on heavy iron jacks and concrete blocks, its eight rugged tires dangling sadly.

Bent pulled out a key ring and opened the white-painted aluminum door, ushering Gordon, Rotterjack, and Warren in, but going ahead of Forbes and French. Inside, an air conditioner hummed quietly. Arthur mopped his brow with a handkerchief and reveled in the cool air. Forbes and French pulled seats up to the spare conference table. French switched on a monitor and they sat to watch the opening in the Rock, waiting intently for the Shmoos to emerge.

"Have they ever asked to travel elsewhere?" Arthur asked.

"No," Bent said. "As I said, they don't leave the vicinity."

"And they haven't revealed whether they're going to land others soon?"

"No."

Arthur raised his eyebrows. Three gleaming gourd-shaped objects emerged from the two-meter-wide hole, descending to hover thirty or forty centimeters above the rugged ground. Bobbing and weaving gracefully, the Shmoos traversed the half kilometer between the trailer and the Rock, three abreast, reminding Arthur of gun-slingers approaching a showdown.

His hands trembled. Rotterjack leaned toward Arthur and said matter-of-factly, "I'm scared. Are you?"

Bent looked at them both with a drawn, ambiguous expression.

We've brought him into our nightmare. He was innocent until we arrived. He was in a scientist's heaven.

A wide hatch opened on the opposite side of the trailer, letting in a draft of hot air and the hot, dusty-sweet smell of the mulgas. In the sunlit glare outside, the Shmoos ascended a wide ramp and floated into the trailer, arraying themselves on the opposite side of the conference table. The hatch swung down again. The air-conditioner compressor rattled faintly on the roof.

Arthur surveyed the gleaming robots. Beyond their shape and the bluish-gunmetal gleam of their surfaces, they were featureless; no visible sensor apparatus, no sound-producing grilles or extruding arms. Blank.

Bent leaned forward. "Welcome. This is our fifteenth meeting, and I've invited three guests to attend this time. More will be attending later. Are you well? Is everything satisfactory?"

"Everything is satisfactory," the middle robot replied. Its voice was ambiguously tenor, neither masculine nor feminine. The inflections and assumed Australian accent were perfect. Arthur could easily picture a cultured and prosperous young man behind the voice.

"These gentlemen, David Rotterjack, Charles Warren, and Arthur Gordon, have traveled from our ally nation, the United States of America, to speak with you and ask important questions."

"Greetings to Mr. Rotterjack and Mr. Warren and Mr. Gordon. We welcome all inquiries."