Penumbra

13

Bennett touched Mackendrick’s arm and indicated the view through the transporter’s side window. “Another line of markers.”

They passed down an avenue laid with the arrow-like stones to either hand, as if to guide visitors towards the ruin. It had appeared massive enough from a distance; only as they drew into the valley did its true size become apparent. It receded in perspective, a series of tall columns and ornately carved cross-pieces.

When the transporter came to a halt, Bennett climbed from the cab and walked into the shadows of the ruin. Mackendrick followed with a shoulder-mounted camera. Ten Lee came last, even her usually immobile features registering something at her awe.

Bennett gestured to Mackendrick. “How come this wasn’t picked up on the satellite shots?”

“There was only one probe, remember, Josh? It made a single orbit and a lot of the planet was obscured by storms. It was a miracle it picked up what it did.”

Bennett nodded and moved off by himself, walking further into the valley between the columns. There was something about the scale of the ruin that demanded quiet and solitary contemplation. Each fluted column was perhaps a hundred metres high and five broad. Time and the storms had brought a number of columns and cross-pieces tumbling down. Their remains lay on the floor of the valley, claimed and covered by the pervasive purple grass. Bennett scrambled across the overgrown mounds, staring ahead at the columns marching off into the valley.

Ten Lee called from behind him. “Over here!”

He jumped down and joined her. She was examining a carving at the foot of a column. It showed circles within circles, a concentric series of symbols and hieroglyphs.

Ten Lee was shaking her head. “It’s a mandala, Joshua. Look, these are the nine spheres of existence. In here, this garden at the centre, this is the symbolic representation of Nirvana. It is very much like the mandalas of the Mahayana school.” She fell silent, her small fingers tracing the weather-worn grooves.

Mackendrick lowered his camera. “Must be a coincidence, Ten. Humans can’t have built this. It’s made from the same stone as the markers out there. At a rough guess I’d say it’s at least ten thousand years old.”

“Humans had nothing to do with this,” Ten Lee said. “The truth must be even more amazing.”

Bennett looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you see? If aliens built this, then they too must have followed a philosophy similar to Buddhism. Do you understand the implications of this? It means that a second race has developed the same philosophy, arrived at the same universal truth.”

“If,” Bennett pointed out, “this is indeed a mandala; if it meant the same to the aliens as it does to us.”

Ten Lee nodded. “Of course. We must be cautious in ascribing motives and methods.”

They split up. Bennett resumed his walk along the boulevard of columns. Tenebrae was setting, lending a soft opalescent light to the ruinous scene. He noticed movement at the top of a column and froze with involuntary surprise. He relaxed—one of the great birds they had seen earlier, the pteranodon equivalent, was roosting in a messy nest, stretching its awkward sickle wings and cawing from time to time.

Bennett checked the foot of each column, looking for mandalas or other carvings. He came across one or two similar designs, and many more carvings similar to those on the markers on the plain: square tablets covered with the familiar hieroglyphs. He looked back the way he had come. The others were tiny figures lost in the perspective of the receding columns. He should, he knew, be feeling wonder now, a sense of the awe of discovery, and while he did feel something of the intellectual frisson at the consequence of this find, another part of him recalled what he had thought earlier: that no matter what they discovered, it would be an anti-climax. He, the observer, would still be aware of the fact that, at base, he was still himself, flawed and weak and full of self-doubt and worse.

So five minutes later, when he came across the first of the statues, he was thinking of Julia and Ella and still experiencing a residuum of pain, and at the same time he was staring up at the carved image of a being that was not quite humanoid, yet not quite insectoid, but something of an eerie amalgam of the two. There were other statues positioned between the columns, a whole series of them receding further into the valley.

It was a good thirty seconds before he remembered himself and called out. “Ten, Mack! Over here!” Even then he could not stop himself thinking how Ella would have loved hearing about this.

Mackendrick and Ten arrived by his side, breathless. They stared up at the figures, each one perhaps three metres tall. Mackendrick swore to himself and Ten murmured something in her own language.

The statue was carved from white stone, and showed a bipedal, thin-legged creature, bent of knee, with a long torso consisting of too many ribs. Its head was attenuated with something of a horse about it, and at the same time a locust, its eyes large and staring. On the plinth beneath its feet was a series of hieroglyphs, as if the being depicted was a famous alien and this was some form of commemoration.

“Do you think they’re life-sized?” Bennett said.

Mackendrick squinted up at the statue. He shook his head. “In this gravity, and as thin as they are? No way, Josh. I’d guess that they’d be not much taller than us.”

“I wonder,” Ten Lee added, “if they still exist.”

Bennett stared into the face of the statue. He was on a Rim planet two thousand light years from home, had just discovered incontrovertible evidence of alien life on Penumbra, and the fact was still to hit him. He wished he could forget himself and feel the sense of wonder Mack and Ten Lee were obviously enjoying.

“We’re just an hour away from the settlement,” Mackendrick was saying. “There’s a couple of hours of daylight left. Should we press on to the settlement, or stay here the night?”

Ten Lee said, “I would like to investigate the settlement, see what is there.”

“Me too,” Bennett said. “Let’s move on.”

They left the statues and made their way back down the avenue of columns to the transporter. Mackendrick drove from the valley and turned to the north, accelerating along the plain of purple grass.

They made the journey in silence, each unwilling to break the mood of expectation—and not a little apprehension—that had settled over them. Bennett considered what lay ahead, if indeed the settlement was a settlement and was inhabited. Would a confrontation with an actual living alien, not just a frozen statue, shake him from his apathy?

“We’ve been lucky,” Mackendrick said at last, breaking the tension. “We haven’t been caught in a storm today.”

“And it was fine during the night,” Ten Lee said.

It was as if they had to fill the silence with small talk in a bid to shut out what lay ahead.

“We’ll probably experience the storm of all storms tonight,” Bennett added.

An uneasy silence followed. The transporter bucketed along at speed, as if it too was impatient to reach the settlement. Tenebrae descended with immense ease towards the mountains in the east. Overhead, in the rarefied dark blue of night, the minor sun beamed weakly among the scatter of distant stars.

“I was wondering…” Mackendrick began. “When we get to the settlement, do we go in armed?” He glanced from Ten Lee to Bennett.

“If they’re Buddhists,” Ten Lee replied, “they’ll be a peaceable people.”

“And if they’re not Buddhists,” Bennett pointed out, “and that mandala of yours was the symbol of a warring clan, they might butcher us first and ask questions later.”

Ten Lee gave him an unreadable look. He sensed her disdain.

“I’m sorry, Ten, but I don’t think we should assume too much from symbols that just happen to look like something we know and understand from Earth.”

“Why don’t we wait until we get there,” Ten Lee compromised, if you wish, I will go in first, alone.”

Mackendrick nodded. “We’ll assess the situation when we arrive—but there’s no going in alone. We’re in this together.”

The plain rose before them and the transporter laboured up the incline. At the crest, Mackendrick slowed and then cut the engine. They stared through the windshield at the revealed panorama.

The land fell away towards a narrowing of the two mountain ranges, and situated in a dipping saddle of land were the structures the probe had filmed on its fly-by. There were perhaps thirty constructions, small square cabins built of timber, in two orderly lines in the centre of the valley. To one side, overlooking the settlement, was a peculiar rise in the plain, an irregular hump like a low earthwork or tumulus.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone at home,” Bennett said. “Unless they retire early.”

“We’ll go in with the transporter,” Mackendrick said. “As a precaution, keep your rifles at the ready.”

Bennett raised his pulser as Mackendrick powered up the transporter. They moved slowly down the incline, passing the earthwork and approaching the first of the cabins at a crawl. Mackendrick cut the engine and, in the sudden silence, they sat without a word and stared down at the settlement of crudely built huts.

It occurred to Bennett that the aliens, if they were also responsible for the settlement, had certainly devolved from the mighty race which had constructed the columned temple or museum.

“Okay,” Mackendrick said in a hushed voice. “We’ll get out and walk in together.”

Bennett jumped from the cab and clutched his rifle, apprehension creating a tightness in his chest. With Ten Lee and Mackendrick he walked slowly towards the first timber cabin. It appeared, he thought, little different from a crude shack in backwoods Oregon.

The first cabin was clearly derelict. The door hung on one hinge, and likewise the shutters on the glassless window. Purple grass and a form of bind-weed had climbed the outer walls. Bennett kicked open the hanging door and peered into the dim interior. The little light cast by the setting gas giant revealed bare boards and a broken chair; the sound of scurrying suggested that the cabin’s only occupants were small animals.

Bennett backed out, shaking his head. “No one at home, Mack.”

They moved to the next cabin in line, identical in design to the first and, it seemed, all the others. This one was empty even of broken furniture. They conferred outside the door.

“How long do you think they’ve been deserted?” Mackendrick asked. “Fifteen, twenty years?”

“Or fifty, a hundred?” Bennett added. “Much of the timber’s rotting, but we’re on an alien world. How long does wood take to rot on Penumbra? It’s hard to tell how long they’ve been empty.”

“Do you think the same beings built the columned structure and these shacks?” Ten Lee asked.

“If the ruins are at least ten thousand years old,” Bennett said, “a race can go a long way downhill in that time. They entered a dark age, lost their collective ability to design great architecture—or their need to build it—and resorted to these.”

“Okay,” Mackendrick said. “Let’s split up and search each cabin. If you find anything, shout.”

Bennett moved to the third shack, ducking past what remained of the door. He looked around the single room. The skeleton of a bunk bed occupied one corner. There was no sign of personal effects or possessions of any kind, no tools or utensils that might have been left behind when their erstwhile owners moved on.

He walked from cabin to cabin along the row, finding much the same in each: the odd scrap of broken furniture, or nothing at all. In the last cabin he recognised the shape of an infant’s cot, made from the same timber as was used on the huts, rotted through and lying on its side. It spoke to him more eloquently of a lost race than had the statues in the ruin, carved with care and skill for posterity. He considered the similarities in such diverse races. He had travelled thousands of light years to the Rim, and here was something constructed for an alien infant, recognisably a cot.

He was stepping from the cabin, about to find Mackendrick and suggest they pitch camp for the night, when Ten Lee’s muffled voice sounded from the second row of cabins. He walked around the shack and looked up and down the length of what once might have been the main street. Ten Lee was a tiny figure standing outside the last cabin in the row, waving frantically.

“Joshua! In here!”

Mackendrick appeared from a nearby hut and hurried over to Ten Lee. She was leaning against the jamb of the door, wearing an expression of shock.

“Ten?” Bennett took her shoulder. “Ten, are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know.”

“What is it?” Mackendrick snapped.

She indicated over her shoulder. “In there. On the far wall. I don’t think I was seeing things…”

Bennett hurried into the shack, Mackendrick behind him. The last light of Tenebrae sent a pale searchlight through the window and illuminated a square patch on the wall, and in the illuminated square was a picture, an old pix crudely framed with four lengths of the ubiquitous timber.

“I don’t believe it,” Mackendrick whispered.

Bennett reached out, lifted the pix from the wall and carried it outside so that the brighter light might confirm what he was seeing. He sat on the step, Ten Lee and Mackendrick beside him. He understood, now, Ten’s strange reaction. He was experiencing it himself. The pix showed a view, faded with time, of the Eiffel Tower.

“Paris,” Mackendrick said, needlessly. “Paris, France.”

Bennett turned the pix over, as if looking for something to confirm its authenticity. He laughed. What confirmation did he need? He was holding—there was no doubt about it—a pix of the Eiffel Tower.

Even though he knew it was impossible.

Ten Lee, sharper-eyed than Bennett, pointed to a detail in the pix, a tiny automobile beneath the tower. “Look, isn’t that an electric Volvo? That model went out with the ark. It must be a hundred years old.”

Speechless, they stared at the pix of Paris a century old.

“Okay,” Bennett said. “Silly question: how the hell did it get here?”

Mackendrick said, “Let’s go through the cabins again. Check everything. There must be something else that might explain what the hell’s going on here.”

For the second time they searched the deserted settlement.

Bennett had no idea what made him look up, back towards the transporter and beyond. He stepped from the first cabin, having found nothing other than the broken chair, and glanced at the distant mountains, then the transporter reflecting warped highlights of the gas giant. Behind the vehicle was the long, low rise of the earthwork. His heart hammering, hardly daring to hope that he was right, he set off up the hillside. Mackendrick and Ten Lee were going through the second row, and he didn’t want to alert them in case he was mistaken.

He passed the transporter and ran the last fifty metres. The ground underfoot became soft, waterlogged. The hill rose before him, the purple grass covering the shape of something long and low, and strangely familiar.

He knelt and tore away a handful of purple grass, revealing a section of silver metal.

He stood and walked along the length of the sunken structure. He pulled at the vegetation, which came away easily, and peered down. This section of the upper bodywork had been removed, no doubt in the process of cannibalisation, and only the struts and spars of the framework remained. He climbed down, using the frame of the skeletal ship as a ladder, and found himself in the hold of a colony liner, a vast central chamber like the nave of a cathedral, illuminated by the pale light of Tenebrae falling through the rent he had made high above.

He stepped forward, moving down the length of the ship. He imagined its final descent, the inability of this cumbersome, clumsy craft to negotiate the storms that lashed the planet. He saw it ploughing into the plain, nosing up a bow wave of soil. He considered the terror of the thousands of colonists as they imagined death on an alien world so far from home.

There was very little of the ship left other than its shell and framework, and much of that had been removed, no doubt taken to help with the construction of a more permanent settlement elsewhere. The settlement of cabins had been a temporary measure, makeshift accommodation for colonists while they dismantled and transported parts of the ship to a more viable site. This completed, they had departed the cabins, leaving only broken furniture, and the tantalising pix of the Eiffel Tower. And over the years the starship had slowly submerged into the bog, and the vegetation of Penumbra had gone to work and reclaimed the land ploughed by the starship.

He paused beside a flange of outer panelling that had come loose from the framework of the flank and fallen. On the panel, excoriated by its transit through the void and faded by the storms, he could just make out the red, white and blue logo of the Francois Aeronautics Line.

He wondered how it had found itself so far off course, on the Rim of the galaxy instead of in the safe cone of inhabited space known as the Expansion. Unless, of course, they had set out deliberately to explore this far afield. It would be just like the French, with a gesture combining bravery and bravura, to flout convention and head for the Rim.

He considered the events of the short day, the discovery of the ruins and the wreck of the liner. It was ironic that, of the two finds, it was that of the old liner from Earth which had filled him most with wonder, made him forget for however brief a moment the fact of himself, his cares and concerns. He turned and made his way back along the length of the ship, hurrying to tell Mackendrick and Ten Lee what he had discovered.

He was climbing up towards the rent he had made in the grass when he heard the sound of laser fire burning through the air. His heart kicked. Laser fire… not pulser fire. Which meant that someone other than Mack and Ten Lee was doing the shooting.

He reached the hole in the grass and peered through.

Down below in the settlement a cabin was burning, filling the twilight with its garish illumination. He tried to make sense of the scene. He saw two vehicles bounce to a halt outside the settlement, absurdly spindly contraptions with balloon tyres and next to no bodywork. Perhaps a dozen men—small dark figures at this distance, but obviously human—poured from the vehicles and ran towards where Mackendrick and Ten Lee stood with their arms above their heads. One of the humans fired again, setting to flame a nearby cabin, a display of blatant overkill given that Mack and Ten had already surrendered.

The humans swarmed around their prisoners, old-fashioned laser rifles level led and ready, and gestured for Mackendrick and Ten Lee to move towards the closer balloon-tyred vehicle.

Slowly, arms still in the air, they obliged.

Bennett watched, considering his options. If he attacked now, attempting to free his friends, he would be hopelessly outnumbered. He wouldn’t stand a chance, and his actions would probably get Ten and Mack killed as well as himself. It would be wiser to wait, bide his time. He’d remain in hiding until the humans left the settlement, and then follow at a safe distance in the transporter. At some point he would leave the vehicle and continue on foot. He was armed. He would have the advantage of surprise. He would find where Ten Lee and Mack were being kept and attempt to effect their rescue.

The humans boarded their vehicles and drove off, bouncing over the purple grass. They moved quietly, obviously electric-powered, their wide tyres leaving helpful tracks in the vegetation.

Then the transporter started up, and he told himself that he should have known they were hardly likely to leave behind such a valuable resource as a fully equipped transporter.

Okay, a slight change of plan. He would follow on foot, find where Ten Lee and Mackendrick were being held, and get them out.

He watched the transporter and the balloon-tyred vehicles pass into the glare behind the burning cabins. He waited long minutes, aware of the laboured thudding of his heart. There were no signs that the humans had left any of their party. The only movement was the dance of shadows as the cabins burned themselves out.

Heart racing, he climbed from the starship and ran towards the settlement, feeling suddenly vulnerable out in the open. He passed the burning cabins and paused behind the last shack in the row. After the brightness of the flames, it was some time before his vision adjusted to the twilight. The distant minor sun provided meagre illumination, perhaps twice that of a full moon on Earth. He made out the mountains narrowing on either side, the plain sloping off to the left and eventually, a kilometre or so away, ending in a pass between high foothills. In the pale starlight the tracks of the vehicles showed as dark parallel lines of flattened vegetation.

Bennett left the sanctuary of the last cabin and jogged across the plain to the three sets of tracks in the grass. He slowed to a walk, his breath coming with difficulty. He had tried to work out on Redwood Station, using the gym every other day, but he had only maintained a low level of fitness. It was no preparation for a long-distance run.

He peered ahead. Far away, on the pass between the enfolding foothills, he could just make out the three small shapes of the beetling vehicles.

He combined jogging with long stretches of walking, taking deep breaths through his nose. Soon the weight of the rifle became a burden. The absurd notion of ditching it brought to mind the very real fact that soon he might have to use it to free his friends. The thought of killing people, even those who had captured Ten Lee and Mack, filled him with dread. He set the rifle to stun.

Perhaps an hour later the plain narrowed and rose towards the pass high above. He paused, knelt and regained his breath. He looked up at the crest of the incline, wondering what he might find beyond. Christ, but there might be kilometres to go yet, before he came to the humans’ permanent settlement.

Bennett stood and set off, refusing to contemplate the possibility. The climb was enervating after the distance he had already covered. He stopped often, kneeling to rest his legs and fill his lungs. The crest was elusive, an optical illusion that seemed never to get any closer.

At last he slowed and moved to the rugged ground where the hillside rose in a tumble of rocks. He would proceed with caution from here; he had no desire to walk straight into trouble. He crept over the uneven terrain, keeping his gaze fixed ahead, alert to the slightest movement. He came to the highest point of the pass, stood and peered down.

The land fell away acutely from here, forming a vast valley lodged between the converging mountains. On the near slope of the valley, Bennett made out perhaps a hundred dwellings: domes perched on broad bands of terracing, timber lodges, more substantial villas made from stone, all illuminated by the light of the stars and the minor sun. Then he saw, on the distant far terraces, yet more dome habitats and villas. Stationed on the mountainside at strategic positions around the valley he made out the tall, slender shapes of wind turbines—perhaps a hundred in all. No doubt the balloon-tyred vehicles were powered by electricity generated by the turbines.

He wondered at the population of the settlement. Star liners held five thousand citizens, and they had been here for perhaps a century. The vast scatter of dwellings and the proliferating turbines suggested that they had prospered. The growth of the colony also suggested that they had managed to utilise and maintain the manufactory with which all colony ships were equipped.

The pass became a track that extended high above the settlement, following the contours of the mountain. In the distance Bennett made out the last of the vehicles, the transporter, as it disappeared behind the bend. His heart sank. He had kilometres yet to traverse. He was about to set off when he saw, in the distance, the reappearance of one of the balloon-tyred vehicles; the track evidently curved back on itself, following a zig-zag route to negotiate the steep slope of the valley wall. The vehicles carrying Ten Lee and Mackendrick were now coming back towards him.

He ran along the track, then turned down the incline, moving through a field of some kind of wheat. He passed a dome habitat, the hemisphere darkened, and paused on the edge of the farm above the road. He crouched behind a dry-stone wall, his pulse racing, and peered over. One by one the vehicles passed a matter of metres from where he was concealed. He made out, on the leading truck, the crouched form of Ten Lee. The vehicles turned, easing around a bend on to another stretch of lower track. He saw the first vehicle stop before a big timber lodge, built out over the drop and supported on pillars. As he watched, Ten Lee and Mackendrick were manhandled from the vehicle and marched into the building. The vehicles started up and moved off. Half a kilometre away they turned into an area beside one of the farm buildings.

Bennett climbed over the low wall and ran across the track. He moved through another field, bent double, and stopped beside the retaining wall. Fifty metres away was the lodge in which Ten Lee and Mackendrick were imprisoned. A light showed in one of the long side windows.

He waited. At last the light went out. He jumped over the wall, crossed the track and approached the building, feeling conspicuous with his rifle. If anyone should look out and see him now, in his distinctive flight-suit, carrying a rifle…

He made the building and crouched in its shadow, aware that he was shaking with uncontrollable fear. He tried to work out what to do next, to form some kind of plan. Try to enter the building without alerting the colonists, obviously. Easier said than done. They were unlikely to leave the door obligingly open. So break in, without making a sound. A tall order. He was not a house breaker. Storm the place, then. But nor was he a commando.

The decision, in the event, was taken from him. He stood, intending to move around the building to a window where he might see what was going on inside. He had hardly taken two steps when a voice rang out, challenging him: “Stop!”

He turned in time to receive the full force of a rifle butt on the side of his head. The assault was so sudden that he had no time to dodge the blow or catch sight of his attacker. His head seemed to explode with pain and he fell to the ground. He tried to gather himself, get up and fight, but after the initial anger at being caught, he thought again. The man was armed and there might be more than one of them by now. He should stay down and bide his time.

He felt hands grasp his body, lifting him. He was carried, perhaps by two or three people. He opened his eyes to see where he was being taken, but he was face down and could make out only the shadowy gravel of the pathway. He closed his eyes as his head throbbed painfully.

Bennett heard a door opening, then closing, footsteps on timber. He was dropped without ceremony to the floor. He was aware of people in the room, perhaps two or three others; small movements and whispers gave them away. He kept his eyes shut, feigning unconsciousness.

He heard two people conduct a hurried conversation. He tried to appreciate the melodrama of the situation. If this was not actually happening to him, he would have found it hard to believe. He told himself that things like this only happened in holodramas… then the pain in his head informed him otherwise.

“They’re not terrorists as we first thought, sir, they’re off-worlders.”

A pause, then: “But how did they find out?”

Another voice answered, deep and richly textured. Bennett imagined a silver-haired patriarch. He tried to work out the meaning of their dialogue.

“Perhaps Quineau did reach Earth, after all?”

“But Klien was confident of stopping him.”

“Then perhaps their arrival here is purely accidental. They know nothing—they’re explorers, prospectors.” A pause. “I want them questioned. Subtly, of course.”

A brief silence. Bennett felt himself drifting, the pain in his skull almost too much to bear. He tried to concentrate.

The first colonist said, “We can’t let them go back, sir.”

“What are you suggesting,” the deep-voiced patriarch replied, “that we kill them?”

“Precisely. Then they’re out of the way. Alive, they’re dangerous.”

“If they are scientists and have nothing to do with Quineau, then they might prove a benefit to the colony. They might be just the type of people we need.”

“But if they find out?”

The patriarch replied, “We will have to ensure that they don’t find out—as simple as that.”

“How do we keep them here? What about their ship?”

“Have someone question them as to where they landed. Then send out a team to destroy it. When they find out, we’ll blame it on the terrorists.”

“I don’t know…” The first colonist sounded uneasy. “It would be far easier if we just killed them.”

“You worry too much,” said the patriarch. “Trust me.”

Bennett felt himself losing his grip on consciousness. He tried to concentrate on the voices, but they faded, became no more than background noise.

At last, mercifully floating free of pain, Bennett passed out.