A Different Light (11 page)

"What did the records at Compcenter say?" asked Ysao. "Of course you checked them."

"Of course I checked them." Russell made the map disappear. "According to Hari Oregon, they said nothing. There was plenty of information about 82 Eridani: stellar class, Hype coordinates, all the information that's easy to find, but nothing about Demea. I checked around town after I spoke to Hari. Everybody drew a blank. Roman de Vala appears to be alone in knowing that 82 Eridani has a system."

Ysao said, very thoughtfully, "But that's impossible. Or ridiculous."

Leiko said, "How could De Vala know about the planet if the X-teams don't?"

Sharply, Ysao said, "Russell, could there be people on this planet? Primitives?"

Russell said, "I hope not." But he avoided the telepath's eyes.

"There were once," said Ysao. "Someone had to make those Masks, and preserve them, and tell Roman De Vala about them. You thought of that."

"I thought of it," said Russell. "Get mad if you like. I went back to De Vala after I talked with Hari and insisted he furnish me with proxies. But if I'd told you there was a chance that the planet is inhabited, you would have refused to come. I know your scruples. I even have some of my own. That's why I got the proxies. And why we've been sitting on our asses here for two days, letting them gather data."

Jimson asked, "What if the air hadn't been breathable?"

"We wouldn't be here," Russell said flatly. "I'm not an X-team. De Vala knows that. I don't go to places where I can't move around."

Ysao was scrutinizing the blank vision screen as if he thought it might start talking to him. "If there are any non-primitives down there," he said, "they must be going flippy trying to figure out what we are."

Leiko laughed. "We're a UFO."

"What's that?" Jimson asked.

"An unidentified flying object," Russell said. Once more, Jimson felt left out.

"Can they see us?' he asked.

"Above the cloud level? Not with their eyes."

Jimson flushed. It's not my fault that I don't know the language, he thought. Hell, I'm not even supposed to be here!

"De Vala was very precise," Russell said. He played with the keyboard, and another map lit the screen. "We are going to the smallest southern continent, to a desert, to a black building in the middle of that desert."

Leiko said, "We're almost exactly above it, Captain. If we take the bubble straight down and eastward, we'll land on the roof. If it has a roof."

"Are there any artificial satellites junking up the space around here?" asked Ysao.

"No," said Leiko. "Not even dead ones."

Ysao frowned—a remarkably frightening sight. "I don't like it."

"I depend on your experience to haul us out of any problems," said Russell. "Get your gear. You, too," he said to Jimson. "Leiko, give him a thermal suit."

"Me?"

"You're coming down with us."

"But—I don't know—"

"Your ass from a hole in the ground," finished Russell. "So what are you planning to do up here? Fight with Leiko, or sleep, or draw bad pictures of tools you can't even name, let alone use. Get your pack out and put this into it."
This
was a small can of quick drying foam. What the hell is that for, Jimson wondered. "And this." A communicator. "And this." A water bottle. "You asked to come, remember?"

Leiko said, "Tell me what you want
me
to do."

"Sit for six hours, local time. I'll call you every hour. After six hours, unless I tell you different, come down. If you can't find us, use the proxies to make a grid pattern search. If we stop calling in, come down early. If someone else contacts you, don't answer. Get up. If we yell for help—"

"I'll be there."

"Do you
know
what the penalty for cultural interference is?" demanded Ysao.

"I've been trying not to think about that—did you have to remind me?" said Russell. "Let's hope De Vala is right, and there are only primitives here, and that we meet no one, not a chicken, not a goat, no one at all."

Jimson went to find his pack.

It was in a small compartment under his bunk. He put into it the communicator, the can of foam, and the water bottle. Leiko came to stand beside him. "Food bars," she suggested gently. "Your pills." He put his pill bottle in the pack, and, walking to the food unit, he punched out four food bars. He put a small sketchbook on top of it all, and threw in a handful of pens.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," he said to her. He wiggled into the thermal suit.

"Don't worry," she said. "You'll do fine."

The bubble sat inside a section of the hull. Ysao jammed into the back. Russell took the pilot's seat, and Jimson sat next to Russell. The door slid down with a hiss of sound. Leiko closed the inner hull door, sealing them off from the rest of the ship. For half a second they sat motionless. Jimson had just enough time to feel the beginnings of fear. Then the outer hatch opened, and they were kicked out into the sky.

* * *

Blue above, white below, and shards of sunbeam stabbing at their eyes...

Russell swore and touched a button. The skin of the bubble polarized, dimming the glare, but it was still very bright. They angled swiftly down. Through fluffy cloud layers, so solid-looking, so deceptive, Jimson caught a glimpse of land beneath white. Grey mist wreathed them, and then they were through it, falling very fast.

"You don't have to hold on quite that tight," said Russell. Jimson uncurled his fingers from the bar in front of his seat.

"I hate these damn things," he said.

"So do I," said Ysao. "They're too small."

"We'll be down soon," said Russell. "The proxies took; some pictures of this area. They showed little mounds. Probably building clusters. If you look down you might see them."

Jimson declined to look down. Ysao, however, stared between his own feet. "I see something. They could be buildings, Russell. Let's hope they're empty."

"De Vala swore they were."

"I would love to know how he knows."

They were traveling eastward, into the sun. "A big, black building," Russell said, "should show up easily against this countryside."

Because he could not bring himself to look down, Jimson looked up. Even through the polarized surface of the bubble, the sun stabbed at eyes; a small white point, very small in the untrammeled sky, Jimson chanced a look below. Their shadow, a black shapeless beast, ran hunting beneath them. Under the fierce and different light, the shadows of the shifting sand dunes were sharp as blades. The tiniest weed would have cast a cutting edge across the sand. But there were no weeds.

They saw the building soon enough; against the dull brown of the earth it looked like a black stone. Russell plunged the bubble towards it, and it acquired edges, depth, and height. But there were no other buildings near it. "No people," Russell said. "If there were people here, we would see other buildings, or at least tents, animals." He looked to Ysao for confirmation.

"Not necessarily," said the giant.

Russell let the bubble drift to the sand near the black structure. Dunes pushed up against its stone sides. Dust devils whirled frantically on the wind. As far as Jimson could see, there was nothing living; not a bird, not a lizard, not a trace of green. The building was a dark and mournful monument to nothing.

"The Masks are supposed to be inside," Russell said. "Shall we go?"

They climbed from the bubble. The first thing they felt was the wind. It tore at their clothes, howling, and nearly lifted the pack from Jimson's shoulders. He tightened the straps hastily, bracing himself. They slid around to the lee side of the bubble. The wind roared as it searched for them. Russell shouted: "Did either of you notice a door?"

Ysao yelled, "Try the side that's away from the wind!"

They dashed from their shelter. As Ysao had guessed, there was a door, and a path leading up to it. The wind dropped perceptibly as they approached the door. Close to it, a line of grey pavement showed through the sand. Ysao knelt to look at it. "It's made of cut blocks of stone," he said. He stood up and ran his hand along the wall. "Without mortar. They knew what they were doing when they built this."

Jimson felt the pressure of the wind, hunting them. It held menace. He understood why there was no green on this desert; the wind would blow away anything that bloomed. "Where the hell did they go?" he asked.

Russell said, "Ysao, come look at this door."

The door was huge; ten feet wide, twice as high. Yet when Russell pushed on it, it swung inward, easily and noiselessly. Ysao touched it. "High-grade steel," he said. "I don't like to even guess what it weighs. These people could do more than just build with stone."

He pushed the door open the rest of the way. Jimson felt Russell's hand on his shoulder. He was glad of it. He had come expecting the unknown, but not the uncanny, and there was something about the door
      

And the hall.

It was lit by sun falling through skylights in the roof, and it was
huge
! Pillars marched through breathtaking emptiness. It took Jimson a little while to realize that it was the pillars that gave the room its tremendous illusion of depth. It was not all that big. It was really an anteroom, leading them forward to another room, glimpsed beyond the columns. Jimson said, "They knew something about perspective, too."

Russell said, "I don't see any Masks." But he spoke very softly, as if they might hear him and hide.

Only Ysao looked right in the oversize hallway. He went striding on ahead of them. Halfway down the hall he waited for Jimson and Russell to catch up with him. They reached the archway into the second room together.

They stood together there, stunned and silenced. This room was
truly
huge. It was round, with a round skylight through which light poured and reflected off the veins in the dark walls. Lit by glancing beams, the Crystal Masks sparkled and glowed, like faces peering through holes in solid black. Jimson felt Russell take a long slow breath. He counted. There were eleven Masks fastened, somehow, to the stone wall.

And Jimson felt the hairs rise and prickle on the back of his neck. A voice was speaking.

Thin and clear, it filled the room, speaking a language he didn't know.

They were not alone. There was a dais along the curve of the room. Diminished by it, facing it, and wholly intent upon it, were people. Faces pressed into their hands, they knelt. On the dais stood another figure, and from this person the voice came. A human figure, a human voice—but the face of the figure was the face of a Mask.

If we can see them, Jimson thought, then we're not too far away to be seen.

"
Don't move.
" Russell's words were a breath in his ear. Ysao was standing like a statue. Russell glided to him. Jimson saw his lips move; saw Ysao nod. Russell straightened up very, very slowly. Oblivious to them, the voice was going on and on.

It stopped. Jimson pressed into the wall. The silence was deafening. His heartbeat sounded like thunder in double-time. The people who had been kneeling were standing now, turning towards the archway. The ritual was over. Only the Masked figure stood still.
It can't see,
Jimson realized.
The Mask has no eyeholes. Behind the Mask it's blind.
He felt a frisson of remembrance.
Who—where—

"Come."

Imitating Russell, Jimson sank slowly to a crouch. Now they were below eye level. A living frieze on the temple wall, they moved around the room, away from the people who walked towards them in stately procession. If only the luck stayed with them; if only the people did not see them—

But someone did. There was a shout of outrage, warning, and surprise. Immediately Russell was up. "Go!" He slammed Jimson's shoulder. Ysao was already running, zig-zagging in monster strides towards the other side of the room. On the dais the Masked figure stood, blind. Jimson followed him. He heard an odd buzzing sound and turned to look. The people had bows and arrows. They were shooting. An arrow went clattering at Jimson's feet. And another.

Ysao gave a cry, and fell.

Jimson ran to him. He was lifting himself with his hands. There was an arrow shaft in his left thigh, and blood was seeping through the material around it. He was cursing. "Let me lean on you." He pushed himself up, one great heavy hand on Jimson's shoulder. He balanced on one leg. "That way. There's a door ajar. I'll hop."

He hopped. Jimson looked back at their pursuers.

Russell was holding a stun pistol that Jimson had not known he had. He lifted his hand, leveled it, and a man went down. He pointed it again, and another man went down. "Go on!" he said. "I'm right behind you. Move!"

Ysao hopped. Jimson could see the door now; it was like the front door, but much smaller. He hoped its hinges were as good. He glanced back again; Russell was walking backwards, his weapon holding back the line of men. Ysao overbalanced and grunted with pain as his leg hit the floor. Suddenly Russell turned and raced, not for the door, but for the dais. He leaped onto it, and with a scythe-like sweep of his arm, he grabbed the Masked one around the neck. Yelling with fury, the people came running at him. He whirled and faced them, arm locked around the Masked one's throat. He tightened the choke until it stopped struggling and its arms went limp. Eyes on the people in front of him, he put the end of the stun pistol to its head.