Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (48 page)

“May we go for a walk?” he asked in a subdued voice.

We ambled here and there on the concourse for awhile, and then almost by default we took an elevator down to the arboretum. It too was deserted. The “birds” were off; the sky above was a deep blue with a few “stars” appearing.

We sat down side by side on a park bench.

“You’ve had quite a wait, my friend”, I began. “But I expect DSI is as curious as we are and will give permission for opening the wall blocks soon. Do you think they contain the aliens’ archives?”

Dariush nodded and said, “It is probable.”

For a moment, I was sure he would launch one of his philological lectures. Instead, he put the palms of his hands to his face and bent over, his head almost touching his knees. He began to sob. I was more shocked by this barely audible weeping than I would have been if he had erupted into loud shouting. To see this most scholarly and quiet man so overcome with emotion left me at a loss for what to say or do.

Without thinking, I pitter-patted him on the back with my hand and made silly consolation noises which I had, I suspect, learned from my mother.

“Oh, oh,
pobrecito
, Dariush,
estás tan triste
”, I murmured. “
Qué te pasa, ahora, qué te pasa? No te pongas triste, no estés triste. Todo va a estar bien
.” (Rough translation: Poor Dariush, you’re so sad. What’s the matter, now, what’s the matter? Don’t be sad, don’t be sad. Everything’s going to be all right.)

When he had composed himself, he told me about new discoveries, which had come to light after closer inspection of the rectangular metal floorplate, situated halfway between the cube and the ship’s nose.

Three days ago, an archaeology team penetrated the rectangle’s end seam and elevated it a few feet, discovering that it was balanced on an unseen axle or bar in its middle. Though the archaeologists did not rotate it fully, they raised it enough to observe that a stone staircase leads down to another level beneath the chamber containing the ship. Their lights did not penetrate far enough to see anything other than the steps disappearing into the darkness below.

Next, the archaeologists, with the aid of engineers, entirely removed the floorplate. Now armed with powerful searchlights, they descended the staircase. Dariush was with them. Arriving at the bottom, they found that the lower chamber was very large. It was filled with skeletal remains. Those who went down there could not proceed far, since stacks of bones blocked their passage. However, they noted that in all directions every space was filled as far as their eyes could see and the lights could penetrate. If, on further exploration, it is confirmed that the heaps of the dead continue uninterrupted to the farthest reaches of the chamber, it would mean that hundreds of thousands of bodies have been interred there, possibly millions.

Examining several dozen skeletons near at hand, the archaeologists learned much about the race that had built this extraordinary monument to their lost civilization.

The aliens were humanoid, with bodies and craniums shaped like ours. However, their skulls were disproportionately larger in relation to their skeletal frames, compared to our human ratio of cranium to frame. They had two eye sockets, not three, and there was nothing in the spinal region to indicate wings. They were much shorter than we are. The tallest of those examined were less than four feet in height. The majority of skeletons were markedly shorter than this, giving rise to speculation that there was more than one sub-race or “breed” (I use this term for lack of a better one) within this alien race. This is indicated by the fact that the taller ones, the minority, had a ratio of cranium size to body size that is closer to ours.

Messages were sent upward to the station and to the
Kosmos
, requesting additional staff to help bring some of the remains out of the crypt. Within the hour, two physicians and a forensic specialist arrived, along with other station staff, carrying body bags. Every effort was made to load the skeletons intact, but their great age proved their undoing. They tended to fall apart into individual bones when they were moved. They are presently being reassembled in the lab at AS-VT, in preparation for further examination.

Now I must write about one of the more disturbing details of what was found. Dariush explained that the archaeologists thought at first that the chamber was a mausoleum, and he had concurred with this, thinking that it may have been a tradition of this race to bury its dead “in community”, not in individual graves. One of the party suggested that it resembled an ossuary such as those found beneath certain ancient monasteries on Earth where burial space had been limited. It was then argued that Nova offered more than ample space for burial. The discussion continued as the archaeologists stepped this way and that through mounds of bones and skulls. Then came a sudden silence.

Now they were facing the area directly below the cube on the floor above. They could see thin shafts of light from the holes in the ceiling—the holes in the upper floor—to which the cube’s grooves had led. Beneath this corona of light beams, they noticed a dark shape and pointed their lamps at it.

It was a sculpture carved from a massive block of gray stone. More than ten meters high, it was a three-dimensional embodiment of the celestial being or “god” inscribed on the cliff face above the gateway. All the details were there. It had uplifted wings. Its head was horned and had three eyes. Its legs stretched three times longer than the torso, ending in the elongated feet, with the difference that the base of the sculpture was a stone sphere that it gripped in its toe-claws. The arms were extended horizontally, and the claws of one hand held an arrow. The other hand was open with palm upward, though it lacked a carved depiction of flames. Dariush concluded that real fire once burned there.

In another important detail, the sculpture was different from the incised images on the cliff face and the inner wall. The neck and head were tilted back at a 90-degree angle from the body; its mouth was wide open, and into that gaping hole, thirteen light beams fell.

When Dariush had completed describing all this to me, I didn’t know what to make of it. The whole scene was just too weird. We both got up and walked through the park toward the arboretum exit, saying nothing.

As we stood in the concourse, preparing to go to our separate rooms, Dariush said, “I am sick in my heart, Neil.”

“I can understand that”, I said. “All those skeletons and then a nasty shock from a sinister-looking statue.”

“If this idol, and the altar above it, were used for what I suspect, then we have found a memorial of the unthinkable.”

“The unthinkable? You could be misinterpreting the scene.”

“Possibly. But I do not think so.” He shuddered and murmured, “I feel very alone—alone in an ocean of evil.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not alone.”

Without warning, he said, “Will you pray with me?”

“Pray?” I asked, alarmed by his request. “I . . . I’d like to help. Really I would. But I’m no good at praying.”

“It is the intentions of the heart that matter. If you would but trust—”

“Listen, Dariush, I know that what you saw in the cellar seems pretty grotesque, but it may not be what you suspect it is. And even if it is, it happened ages ago. You should get some sleep, and tomorrow you’ll feel better about all this.”

He gazed at me silently for a few moments.

“I must find Dr. Nagakawa”, he whispered.

Day 217
:

This morning, I knocked on his door, because I wanted to tell him that I had reconsidered his request and would try to pray, though a prayer of mine wouldn’t be worth much. Did I believe in the soul, did I believe in a benevolent, overseeing God? I wasn’t sure. Even so, I believed that Dariush was my friend, and this was good enough for me.

But he had gone. He was already back down on Nova.

Day 218
:

The public presentations are short on details, short on imagery too, just plenty of learned commentary by the archaeologists and quick photos of the monster in the cellar and the limitless fields of body remains—info bites, image bites. Attention is being deflected back to the aliens’ ship, and to the mysterious blocks that run along the walls on both sides of it.

Yesterday, one block was surgically removed, and behind that single slab were found ranks of rectangular metal plates standing on end and leaning against each other—hundreds in this chamber alone. The vault was found to be not very big, just over three meters deep, the same in height, and three times wider than the aforementioned dimensions (our now familiar measurements, I will not repeat them again).

Several plates were removed for examination. They are covered in hieroglyphics, finely inscribed. Dariush’s team is making photoscan records of them, and preliminary analysis will begin soon. Though faintly oxidized, the script is not obscured. The metal is like bronze, an alloy constituted of copper, tin, and a third unknown element. One test plate was easily cleaned with a noncorrosive solution.

Today, more blocks were removed from the walls, and they all contained the metal plates inscribed with the indecipherable script. Thousands upon thousands of them. A linguist’s paradise!

A program on the panorama screens reported the progress in making a new kind of tool that may be able to open the ship. There was a short interview with Xue and other interviews with the designers and engineers, plus a few diagrams and computer simulations of how it will work. The team is a month away from an initial test, which will be performed on the rotating floorplate leading to the crypt, since it appears to be the same substance as the ship’s outer coating.

This was followed by a program about the towers, which have been stripped of all the organic growth. The rubble covering the metal floors has also been removed. An archaeologist gave his analysis of the towers’ construction and his speculations about its purpose—an astronomy center, he thinks. If so, why have no artifacts come to light?

Then came a half-hour program about the skeletons being examined in the AS-VT labs, and the more intensive tests being done on them in the labs on the
Kosmos
. There were interviews with experts, who conjectured at length about the aliens’ habits, appearance, and attitudes on death and the afterlife. An artist had created an imaginative rendition of what they may have looked like. He made them hairless and green-skinned (shades of our myth of the little green men), more or less humanoid, with bulging black eyes that gazed expressionless into the infinite and terrifying cosmos. The whole lot of it was guesswork, dressed up in highly articulate language that told us nothing.

Sadly, there has been another snakebite victim, a technical worker on a research mission to Continent 5—this is one of the lesser continents, situated in the northern hemisphere on the other side of the planet. There will be a media biography of the man later tonight, and burial at our cemetery at Base-main tomorrow. Our fourth death.

I have already watched about eight hours of presentations today, and my eyes are sore. I’ll go for a swim, then maybe tune in to the biography of the deceased.

Day 219
:

I went straight to bed after my swim last night. This morning I woke late and turned on my
max
to watch the funeral, which was already in progress. There weren’t many mourners, I noticed, just a few stiff-looking guys and Elif Larson. The eulogy delivered by the Elf was brief and platitudinous. The obelisk was erected over the plot of soil that covered the deceased’s body. The mournful music began, and the voice-over narrator began his account of the young man’s short life. Disgusted by the expression on Elf’s officially grieving face, and the subtler pomposity lurking behind it, I was about to shut down the
max
when suddenly onto the screen flashed a photo of David Ayne.

The narrator’s summation continued:

William D. Aynes, known as Dave to his friends, came from Sacramento, California. A graduate of Stanford University in computer science, he worked as a technician for a subsidiary company of Raydon Aerospace during the years leading up to the
Kosmos
voyage. He signed on for the expedition to
Mundus Novus
because he had been interested in astronomy from childhood.

   For some years he was a member of the ship’s maintenance department, before his transfer to a special project attached to the Department of Social Infrastructure dealing with metallurgy statistics. It was in this capacity that he had undertaken a one-man flight to Continent 5 three days ago. A pilot and a part-time prospector back on Earth, he told colleagues that he wanted to make a preliminary investigation of C-5 to see if it would prove to be as rich in mineral deposits as C-1. Two days ago, the automatic distress signal was activated, and a rescue team was sent out. It followed the homing beacon and located the AEC flown by Aynes parked near the mouth of a river that flows into the equatorial sea. His body was found on the shore nearby. He was not wearing protective boots and leg gear at the time, nor had he carried antidote with him.

   William Aynes will be missed by his friends. His passing is a loss to the
Kosmos
community. He will long be remembered.

Music, fanfare, mournful trumpet notes, sunlight flashing off the obelisk, end of program.

I groaned, my heart hammering hard.

Then came a one-minute image of the Earth flag rippling in a breeze, accompanied by stirring patriotic music (global version), concluding with a sober voice-over reminding the audience to wear their mandatory protective gear when venturing beyond security perimeters, and to carry snakebite antidote with them at all times.

I stared at the screen, seeing nothing for a few moments as the full impact hit me.

A special presentation began, featuring the scientists who were examining the skeletal remains found in the crypt. There was a sweeping vid of a sea of bones, a few still shots of a reconstructed skeleton, followed by several computer-generated images of what the aliens might have looked like, extrapolated from the anatomical findings. There was a variety of little men—all eerie.