Cycle of Fire

IV. ARCHAEOLOGY

STRICTLY SPEAKING, there were no people to be seen, but they had rather evidently been there. Cities do not build themselves, and the area between the cones was a city whether seen by human or Abyormenite eyes. None of the buildings seemed very high. Three or four stories, judging by the window arrangement, was the maximum. The windows were apparently quite large — of course, at this distance, small ones would be pretty hard to see — but there was no reflection suggesting that any of them were glazed. This might, of course, be due to chance, but with both suns in the sky and thousands of windows, the chance that none of them would be reflecting light toward the travelers seemed pretty remote.

Kruger realized almost instantly that if his ideas about Dar were correct, such a place would hardly have been made by the pilot’s fellows. However, he waited for an answer. This was several seconds in coming; Dar was expecting a reply to his own question. Kruger gave in first.

“No, that place was not built by my people. I have never seen it or anything much like it before.”

Dar took this statement with some reservations, but in turn denied any knowledge of the place.

“The shelters at the ice cap are below,” he said. “These are built on the surface. My own place, Kwarr, is also on the surface, but the shapes and colors of the buildings are very different. I have never seen a place like this — either.” Dar hoped the last word was not too obviously an after-thought.

“The place looks deserted to me. Let’s look it over, anyway.”

It was here that Dar gave evidence of the friendship he now felt for the human being. Left to himself, of course, he would have avoided the city by as wide a margin as possible. He was not as happy as he might have been about Kruger’s remark concerning the city’s deserted state; the Teachers had been rather mysterious about some phases of this fire matter. In spite of his doubts, which came very close to being fears, Dar Lang Ahn made no objection to Kruger’s proposal, and the two started down the hill toward the city.

There were several more miles of jungle to pass before they reached it. Dar noted with interest that even the usual animal sounds from the vegetation around them seemed to be lacking. If Kruger noticed this he did not mention it. He might not have noticed it, Dar realized; he had long since learned that his own hearing was considerably more acute than that of his friend. A lack of wild animals might just possibly mean that the city was not as deserted as Kruger believed, and Dar kept his crossbow ready.

No reason to use the weapon developed, however. Eventually the two stood with the jungle behind them and only a few hundred yards of relatively open ground between them and the first buildings. They stopped where they were and examined them carefully.

Still nothing moved and no suspicious sound reached even Dar’s ears. After several minutes of waiting Kruger started forward once more. He did not look back or ask whether Dar was following, but the pilot stayed with him — with thoughts quite indescribable to a human being seething in his head. If anything was going to happen — if his illogical trust of Nils Kruger was unjustified — now was the time it would happen. He still held his bow but, to his credit, it was not aimed anywhere near Kruger.

The ground underfoot changed suddenly to firm pavement, on which Dar’s claws scraped faintly. Like the buildings, the pavement was made of lava blocks carefully squared and fitted. The buildings were not as high as Kruger had guessed from a distance — that is, not as high in absolute units; they did have the three or four stories that the window arrangement had suggested. Each story, however, averaged about five feet in height.

The buildings themselves hardly constituted houses, at least from Kruger’s point of view. They were much too open for that. Not only was more than half the wall space taken up by unglazed windows, but the ground level seemed to consist mostly of doorways. They did have solid roofs and would presumably be some protection against rain, but there their usability as dwelling places seemed to stop.

The doors themselves were a little odd, if they could be called doors. Kruger, after examining the outside of half a dozen buildings, found himself unable to decide whether the lower stories could be said to have a bell-shaped door every few feet, or that the outer walls consisted of oddly shaped pillars. The latter seemed a slightly better way to put it, since calling an opening four feet wide at the bottom, three and a half feet high, and shaped like a probability curve a “door” seemed stretching the usual meaning of the word.

Both travelers realized one thing rather quickly; each had been telling the truth in denying any connection with the city. The ceilings were too low for human beings, and while Dar could have moved about inside any one chamber without trouble, the doors had certainly not been built for his species either. This realization almost made Dar uncock his weapon — but not quite.

Kruger wanted to investigate the interiors of some of the buildings, but at Dar’s suggestion decided to get a better idea of the entire city first. They moved on down the street on which they had found themselves when they first reached pavement.

This led toward the sea but did not appear to reach it. The plan of the city was sufficiently complicated so that no one street appeared to go entirely across it. Kruger kept on toward the sea, believing that the largest and most informative buildings should be at the waterfront.

He was partly right. The city did extend down to the sea, with more imposing structures appearing as they proceeded. However, the largest of these were not at the waterfront. They were well out in the harbor.

It took some little time for Kruger to digest this fact. Dar was even more startled; he had been willing to accept evidence that Kruger had no connection with the builders of this city, but he had been perfectly sure that the builders themselves were fire-lovers — the location as well as the structural materials used seemed to prove that. Such a hypothesis, however, did not square too well with buildings seemingly built under water with complete disregard of the change of environment. Dar knew little about fire, but even he was aware of this inconsistency. He drew a little closer to his large friend.

“I guess this place must be older than I thought,” Kruger remarked slowly. “It must have taken a long time to drop the coast or raise the water level enough to submerge those buildings. It couldn’t have been a sudden shock or the place wouldn’t be standing.”

“What are we going to do, then?”

“Well, I’d still like to go through one of these buildings. There’s no telling what we’ll find that might prove useful, and anyway I’m curious.”

Dar found that he was curious too, in spite of the weight of eight centuries of tradition, and he followed Kruger without objection as the boy walked over to a nearby building, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled through one of the openings in the wall. Inside, Dar was able to stand up with reasonable head clearance; he walked around freely while Kruger remained on his knees for some time looking about him.

The open structure of the outer wall had the advantage of letting in plenty of light, but it also meant that they had seen most of what there was to see from outside. In this case that was very little. A room, or hallway, about fifteen feet wide ran the full length of the building parallel to the street; it was completely devoid of furnishings of any sort. The inner wall of this passage possessed doors similar in size and shape to those leading from the street but not nearly so many of them. Kruger chose one at random and crawled through. Dar followed.

This room was also long and narrow, but its longer dimension was away from the street rather than parallel to it; the door through which they had entered was in one end. It was much smaller than the outer hall. At the far end was a dais raised about a foot from the floor. At four points, seemingly at random, on the floor itself were dome-shaped structures about two feet high and eighteen inches in diameter with fluted sides that made them look like inverted jelly-molds. They were made of some light-colored stone; Kruger was just barely able to slide one along the floor when he got between it and the wall and used his legs. Their purpose was certainly not obvious. Other furniture seemed easier to explain; there was a rectangular metal affair with sliding drawers and a mirror-smooth surface made of highly polished obsidian set into one of the side walls. The mirror, if that was its intended function, was about the same size and shape as the doors.

The drawers of the bureau, or filing cabinet, or whatever it was were fastened by simple latches. The top one was empty. The second was nearly full of metal objects, about half of which had no obvious function, while the others might very well have been drawing instruments. There was a pair of dividers, a straight edge marked off as a scale, a semicircular protractor divided into eighteen major parts by deep engraving in the metal, and several tools apparently for both cutting and engraving. One of these, a scalpel-like affair with a double-edged blade and a handle about three inches long, he pointed out to Dar with the suggestion that he take it along; he had been using Kruger’s knife on his meat ever since he had discovered the advantages of a metal blade. The handle was not of a shape to fit his hand very closely, but neither was that of Kruger’s knife, and this at least was nearer to the proper size.

Further examination of the room disclosed a small pipe emerging from one wall, with what appeared to be a burner nozzle at the tip. Kruger deduced a gas lighting fixture, with the corollary that the builders of the city possessed eyes.

The dais at the rear of the room contained two shallow, bowl-shaped depressions a little under four feet in diameter which might have been flower pots or bathtubs for all Kruger could guess. Approaching it, however, he seemed to feel an increase in temperature. Since he was always soaked with perspiration anyway, he wasn’t sure at first, but when he touched the wall he jerked his hand away again with a startled exclamation; the surface was burning hot.

Dar preserved himself from hysterics only by a major exercise of will. He wanted nothing to do with sources of heat, artificial or not, and he withdrew to the door while Kruger finished his investigations alone. These took some time, for just as he had decided that there was nothing more to see, his eye caught a metal plate set flush with the floor. This was only about an inch square, and almost featureless, but careful examination disclosed a pair of tiny perforations near each of its sides.

Kruger went back to the drawer that held the drawing instruments, secured the dividers, and by inserting their points in two of the holes finally managed to pry up the plate. Its metal took no visible damage from what was presumably unorthodox treatment. This fact, however, did not hold Kruger’s attention at the time.

What caught his eye was simple enough — merely a dull-colored surface with two small holes. After regarding these silently for several seconds Kruger went to work once more with his improvised pry-bar, and in a few minutes the dull plate came out beside its cover. Underneath it was exactly what the boy had expected to see — two silvery wires surrounded and separated by a black, flexible coating and leading to metal cups. With all due respect to the possibilities inherent in different culture backgrounds Kruger felt safe in concluding that he had been dissecting a plug receptacle designed to deliver current to whatever the inhabitant of the room chose. In short, an electric socket.

He looked at the wires, and up to the pipe and jet on the wall, and back to the wires, whistling tunelessly. Then he replaced the covers and relieved Dar’s mind by leaving the room.

Kruger was not frightened but was sorely puzzled by what he had seen. A city, still in good repair although without any present inhabitants, presumably abandoned not long ago — yet running down into the ocean for a distance that implied centuries of land sinking, equipped with gas-lighting and electric wiring in the same building.

Dar was not able to throw light on the question. He recognized the weight of his friend’s arguments in all matters except the gas-electricity question and was willing to accept a qualified opinion there. Kruger explained that situation as well as he could while they rested in the shade of the building’s entrance hall. Theer was practically at his closest, and travel was impractical anyway. Dar understood without any trouble that a gas light was a form of fire and led the conversation hastily on to the question of electricity. Kruger did not expect to get much of this concept across and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Dar appeared to be following quite well. The explanation was long, of course, but by the time Theer had dropped once more behind the hills the boy was as sure as he ever became that he was understood.

The question then arose of just what they should do about it all. Kruger thought it would be best for them to examine at least one or two more buildings to make sure that the one they had seen was typical; then they would have some more or less organized information, which Dar could give to his people. Kruger’s chance to report it to his people seemed a good deal more remote, but perhaps he could use the knowledge himself.

Dar had a more serious problem. His interest had been aroused, of course; he would like, in one way, to bring a group of his people and perhaps some Teachers back to this place so that they could learn more about the electricity that Kruger had described. At the same time there was the fact that he had violated firm and long-standing instructions — not merely orders of the Teachers but written material handed down in books from the time before his people were born — against having anything to do with fire. There could be no doubt that whoever had built this place had never heard of those laws. If Dar made a complete report at the Ice Ramparts would the result be an expedition, or censure? This was his problem, of course; he could not ask Kruger for advice. The human being obviously had never heard of the law either but could hardly be blamed for that; his background was different.

Still, what he was to do with the information made little difference in what he should do now about acquiring more. He followed Kruger’s lead, therefore, and some hours were spent in going through a number of the structures.

These were no more identical than the buildings of a terrestrial city would have been, but none of the variations were particularly startling. The gas pipe-electric wiring anomaly seemed to exist everywhere; Dar pointed out that the pipes were only in inner rooms, whereas electrical outlets frequently appeared in entrance halls and even on outer walls. There seemed to be some prejudice on the part of the city dwellers against the use of electricity for lighting. Kruger refused to credit Dar’s suggestion that they might not have invented electric lights. His opinion was that anyone who could construct a dependable current source, sufficient for a city, could at least strike an arc with it. He may have been right.

Although Theer had not been down very long, several thunder showers had passed over the city while they were investigating. When the two decided that they had seen enough and should probably continue their journey they found that another of the storms was just breaking. It would not have been impossible to travel in the rain — Kruger was usually soaking wet anyway — but visibility was not good and they decided to wait.

Like most of the others the shower did not last too long, and presently the sky began to lighten. Dar replaced his pack on his shoulders and they started out while rain was still hissing down. It struck the pavement loudly enough to make conversation difficult, and rivulets of water gurgled down the slope of the gutterless street toward the sea. Probably this was what kept Dar’s ears from warning them. At any rate that was what he claimed later.

Whatever the reason, neither of them knew they were not alone until the company showed itself deliberately. The interruption to their journey involved both word and action; the word was “Stop!” and the action took the form of a crossbow bolt which splintered against the street in front of them. Dar and Kruger, realizing that the projectile must have come from above, rapidly covered with their eyes the roof edges in their vicinity, but nothing moved.

The word had been in Dar’s language, so the pilot took it on himself to answer. He very carefully refrained from raising his own crossbow. “What do you want?”

“You must come with us.”

“Why?” Kruger had understood enough of the foregoing conversation to be able to ask this question.

“You are — — — — — — the city.” The first and last parts of this sentence were all the boy could follow.

“What’s their trouble?” asked Kruger.

“The trouble is ours. We are — we did — coming in the city was bad.”

“Why?”

“They do not say.” Dar did not mention that he thought he knew; this was no time for lengthy explanations.

“Do you have any ideas as to who these are?”

“Ideas, but I don’t know.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“What they say.” Dar, standing in the middle of a bare street, was in no mood for a crossbow duel with an unknown number of antagonists, all under excellent cover. Nevertheless there was one question in his mind.

“What will be done to us for entering your city?”

“Whatever the Teachers say. It is not for us to decide.”

“What has happened in the past?”

“No one has disobeyed a Teacher for many years. At first, when people were young, some did; they suffered, and did not offend again.”

“But suppose we did not know we were offending?”

“You must have known; you are a person. The thing with you may be forgiven. The Teachers will decide.”

“But I never heard of this place; my Teachers never told me of it, and it is not in the books. How could I know?”

“You must have very stupid Teachers. Maybe you will not be blamed for that.” Dar was sufficiently indignant to make a retort which Kruger would have discouraged, had he been able to follow the conversation at all closely.

“Am I from your city?”

“No.”

“Did your Teachers tell you of my city?”

“No.”

“Then there must be two sets of stupid Teachers on Abyormen.” If Kruger had understood this remark he would have confidently expected to see it answered with a volley of crossbow bolts, but nothing of the sort happened. The unseen speaker simply returned to the original question.

“Will you come with us without fighting?”

“We will come.” Dar made the answer without any further consultation with Kruger. After all, the boy had already asked Dar what should be done, and presumably had no opinion of his own.

With Dar Lang Ahn’s words the openings in the surrounding buildings gave forth some fifty beings. Kruger was able to take the revelation without particular surprise, but Dar was shocked beyond measure to find that the attackers were identical physically with himself. He was a well-traveled individual; he had met, on his official trips to the Ice Ramparts and elsewhere, members of his race from several score cities scattered over Abyormen’s globe, and he had never heard of any except the uncaught savages living out of touch with the Teacher-ruled cities. Still, there was no questioning the facts; the beings surrounding him might have come straight from any city he had visited. Even the carrying harness they wore was virtually identical with his own, and the crossbows borne by most of them might have been made by Merr Kra Lar, home in Kwarr.

One who seemed to be in charge spoke as soon as he came up to them.

“You used a word that I never heard a little while ago. What is a book?” This question was not understood by Kruger; Dar had never told him what was in the pack he kept so carefully by him. Dar might not have been surprised at his human companion’s ignorance of such matters, but that a member of his own species should never have heard of a book was quite unthinkable. Life could not go on without a record of the life that had gone before!

When he recovered from the astonishment that the question had caused him he tried to explain, but his listener seemed unable to digest the concept of writing. In an effort to clarify the point Dar removed one of the books from his pack and held it open before him while he tried to explain the significance of the marks, but this produced a result he had not foreseen.

“I do not quite understand why you need such a thing when you can ask Teachers for what you need to know, but perhaps our Teachers can tell why you do. We will show them your books; give them to me.”