Exiled to the Stars (70 page)

"Find what? What are you talking about, Vlad?"

"Numbers. Ordered lists. A periodic table, Ken! A periodic table."

Seeing Ken's baffled expression, Vlad explained, "Look, Ken. Remember back in school, your basic science courses? They always had the periodic table of the elements posted. Usually it was a big poster, hung on a wall somewhere. It's a chart, listing of all the elements in order of their atomic weight. Remember? Hydrogen was 1, iron was 26, and so on. Ask the computer. You'll recognize it as soon as you see it."

"Vlad, that was a
long
time ago. But I do remember some table posted on the wall. I think it was in my textbook, too. But would it be the same here?"

Vlad bobbed his head excitedly. "Of course! Elements are elements. The mine is producing iron. Ask Frank or Jorge. Iron is iron. If you add a proton to an iron atom, or take one away, you don’t have iron anymore, You have something else. Iron is iron, here, on Earth, or on Alpha Centauri.

"The point is that if we can find the spider peoples' version of the periodic table, we'll have their numbering system, and even their written characters, assuming they used characters and not ideograms. It would be like a Rosetta Stone. You remember the Rosetta Stone?"

Ken looked disgusted. "Just because I'm not a scientist doesn't mean I'm
completely
uneducated, Vlad. It let us translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Had the same text in three or four alphabets. We knew one, which gave us keys to learning all the others."

Vlad nodded. "That's the one. Well, science is a language, too! One we have in common with the spider people. If we can find a spider peoples' science classroom, or maybe a science lab, we might be able to find their periodic table, or even just a basic child's text, and learn to read some of their language. I want to put all the available Explorers to searching."

Ken frowned. "I dunno, Vlad. Angel…"

Vlad waved a dismissing hand. "Angel is a fool. The Explorers
discovered
Site One. They didn't damage anything, and they didn't steal anything. The same goes here. When he starts yelling, ask him how many of the tablet things are missing from Site One. That ought to shut him up; he knows that only scientists removed artifacts, and that some of them didn't make it to the labs.

"The Explorers are trained observers, and they're trained to look but not touch. We
need
them on this. There's just too much ground to cover otherwise. Besides, as I said, I've already cleared it with Angel."

Ken sighed. "All right, Vlad. I trust your judgment. I'll call Ron Creding and cancel the order. How's the computer research going?"

Vlad shook his head. "It's not, at the moment. I'm stymied, Ken. I'm grasping at straws here. I'm even dragging Susan along."

"Giving up?"

Vlad shook his head again. "Not a chance." He grinned. "The research is stymied, but the honeymoon is soaring. As long as you keep paying for it, I'll keep at it."

Ken smiled. "Well, just remember, that's a vacation spot, not a retirement home. Keep me posted."

Vlad didn't leave right away. He had a feeling Ron would be calling. He was right.

"I guess Ken called you," Vlad said. "I figured you'd be calling."

Ron smiled. "You really lit a fire under him. I'm to place the Explorers at the city under your authority."

Vlad shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ron. That wasn't what I asked for, or what I wanted. Please, just ask Major Chu to loan me as many Explorers as he can spare, and make it clear that he's still in charge here. I just want people to help me look for a periodic table."

Ron put on a surprised expression. "No, really? A periodic table? Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?"

Vlad sighed, smiling. "All right, Ron. Have your fun. You deserve it. Whether we can figure out their computers or not, if we can find a periodic table, or even a basic math text, we'll have a real start on understanding their language and science. But you know that." He sighed. "Now, I've got people waiting for me."

When they disconnected, Susan was waiting in the doorway, hands on hips. "
Finally
!" she said. "You know you've got me and three Explorers waiting for you."

Vlad grinned as he stood. "It was worth it, honey, I promise."

Denis Chu met them at the entrance to the tunnel. "What did you say to Ron and the Administrator, sire? I gather you're in charge here, now."

Susan started, and glared at Vlad, who raised placating palms in surrender. "No, no! That's what Ken wanted to do, but I told Ron that Major Chu should be the boss, here." He turned to Denis. "I mean that, Major. I'm just a doddering old vacationer who's only been here for a couple of weeks. You're the expert, and you're the Explorer. All I'll need from you will be some volunteer help during off-duty hours."

Denis smiled. "Yes, that's what Ron said; but of course, he couldn't overrule the Administrator."

Vlad shook his head. "Well,
I
can, at least as long as he's 2000 klicks away. But Major, I would appreciate it if you would assemble as many of your people as possible for a short meeting this evening. Perhaps at dinner. I won't take long, I promise."

Denis nodded. "No problem, Doctor. I'll have everyone except a skeleton team of sentries there. So, what's on the agenda today? You're running a bit late, aren't you?"

Vlad nodded. "Yes. I had some reading to do and some calls to make. I'll tell you all about it at the meeting. For now, it's back to the basement. Doctor Susan has agreed to come along to remind me of all the things my senile old brain has forgotten."

Susan snorted, and they headed back into the city. As they were walking down the ramp to the basement, Susan was struck by the feeling that something was wrong. When they reached the bottom, she knew what it was. She stopped so suddenly that Rosa bumped into her.

"Vlad!" she exclaimed in an outraged tone, "How can you expect to get any work done when you're up to your ankles in dust, and have to wear a respirator to avoid coughing your lungs out?"

Vlad just shrugged. "You should have seen my shop in 'Cago. No, on second thought, better you didn't."

Susan rolled her eyes, and spun to confront her escort. "Rosa, would you ask Major Chu if we can get a working party down here, to clean this place up?"

Vito Carelli was struggling to control his laughter. As he heard Susan's request, he put a hand on Rosa's arm. "I'll take care of it, Lieutenant." Rosa, struggling herself, merely nodded.

"Mind you," Susan continued, "It will need to be spotless. Laboratory clean. Vlad might have to work on delicate computer components in here." She spun back to Vlad. "No wonder you couldn't get anything done," she said waspishly.

Vlad turned to face their audience. "And she was so sweet and gentle before I married her," he lamented.

Now Susan was the one struggling to control a grin. "Hmmph," she grunted. "You'd try the patience of a saint."

Vlad stepped forward and took her in his arms. "Then it's a good thing I married one."

Susan pushed him away. "Old goat," she said, but she was pink with embarrassed pleasure. She surveyed the room, its floor covered with tramped-down and footprinted tracks. She sighed and shook her head. "We might as well go back to the dome. We'll only be in the way, here. I have some notes on the puffballs to dictate, anyway. And you, you old goat," she said to Vlad. "I ought to make you
pedal
home for dragging us all the way up here for nothing!"

Vlad's meeting with the Explorers went well. "I know you've been told to stay out of the buildings," he began. "Well, I'm not only going to
let
you inside them, I’m going to ask for volunteers to go door-to-door and check them out."

He explained the plan. "Major Chu has uploaded the story to your tablets. I urge you to read it, even if you don't usually read that type of fiction. It's a short story, not a novel, so it won't take long. But by reading the story, you'll have a grasp of exactly what type of stuff we're looking for.

"We're going to be most interested in anything that looks like a school or a lab," he explained. "The whole point of this is that we're not going to find an English-to-Spider dictionary, so we're going to have to make up our own. Now, this was a technological people, and they spoke 'science'. We just have to figure out their alphabet and number system.

"You all know that Dr. Wen Ho Jackson is here to examine the power plant, but he tells me he doesn't need much help. That gives
me
the chance to recruit you suckers…uh, 'volunteers' for search duty." He shrugged, ignoring the laughter the word 'suckers' had elicited. "Hey, it beats sitting around polishing your blaster all day!"

Assignment to the city had been boring for Explorers forbidden to explore, and with few duties besides patrolling the fence. Vlad had all the volunteers he needed, and all of them had read the story, so they knew what they would be seeking.

Nearly every Explorer not on sentry duty volunteered for the clean-up crew, but even so, it took two days to get it clean enough to meet Susan's standards. A curtain now closed off the ramp, and a collection of home-made slippers awaited visitors inside it. Susan was impressed.

The basement had none of the 'carpeting' disintegrating beneath the Explorers' feet on the higher levels. Here, the floor was revealed to be of the smooth, stonelike material they'd encountered on the ramp at Site One. Here, though, it was highly polished, and Denis cautioned them to watch their steps to avoid slipping.

The cleaners had also cleaned all of the hundreds of cubicles, revealing that the tops of many of the 'shelves' the spiders seemed to use as desks had marks and scratches on them. "We're getting images of all of them," Major Chu told Vlad. "We may be able to match them up to markings elsewhere and find meaning." Vlad was pleased. The two dozen Explorers had become quite excited by the old story, and determined to help. Even now, over a dozen of them had fanned out with cameras, and were invading buildings and happily clicking pictures of anything even vaguely resembling a scratch.

Vlad turned to Susan with a smile, shaking his head. "Damned kids. Always writing on the desks!"

Susan rolled her eyes and shook her head. She was
not
going to remind him again that the spiders probably did not think like humans. Besides, Vlad knew it better than she did. He was teasing her because he knew it irritated her. Her century-old husband was proof that you're only young once, but you can be immature forever. Thank God! She suppressed a smile.

"But this is the really important thing we found," Major Chu continued, leading them to the central octagon. He pulled a small flashlight from his pocket, and played it at an angle on the floor near the octagon.

Vlad dropped to his hands and knees, moving his head from side to side. "Scuff marks," he said, "and even some light scratches."

"Yar," Denis agreed. "But the interesting part is that they point directly away from the octagon, and there are identical marks on the opposite side."

Realization came. "No wonder we couldn't find a door," Vlad cried. "There
is
no door! It slides in half!" A second later. "Those holes! I'll bet they're how they opened it."

Moments later, eight Explorers stood in groups of four facing each other.

"All right," Denis broadcast to the Explorers' mastoid implants, "Doctor Vlad and I will put our fingers in the holes at the bottom of what we hope is the edge. When I give the signal, everyone try to pull the thing apart. If we can get it to move at all, maybe we can get a crack that'll give us a purchase."

Denis' index finger was too large for the hole, and he had to use his middle and ring fingers in the holes, but finally they were ready. "One, two, three, GO!" and ten men pressed as hard as they could against the material of the octagon, while using the friction to push the halves apart.

It moved so easily that four of the men fell, and two others stumbled for several steps before they could stop. Both Vlad and Denis ended on their butts, but quickly scrambled to their feet. The halves of the octagon were now separated by several cems. With a frown, Vlad hooked a single finger over the edge of the octagon half, and could move it easily. He looked up to see Denis looking equally confused.

"Well," Vlad said after a long moment, "the only thing we did differently this time was to put our fingers in those holes on each side at the same time. Could it have been that easy?"

Denis shrugged and spread his hands wide. "I guess so. I'll go around the other side and pull on that side. You pull on this one. I'll bet we can open it."

Vlad grinned. "No bet. But do it anyway. I can't wait to see what's inside." First, though, he had Denis shine his flash into the black interior. The light revealed what looked like a mass of spider web. Vlad was reminded of pictures he'd seen of tent caterpillar webs back on Earth, stretching from tree limb to tree limb. The resemblance was apt; the web of strands sagged between the opened halves. Obviously, when the halves were closed, the strands must nearly touch the floor.

The sliding stopped when there was almost two meters between the octagon halves, and Vlad hurried to get a closer view. The strands were nearly straight, now, and seemed a bit thicker than those inside the tablet things. Millions of black dots adorned the individual strands of the web like drops of dark water.

Vlad turned to Susan, and enveloped her in a mighty hug. "Thank you, dear. If you hadn't made us clean up the place, we wouldn’t have spotted those marks on the floor." He turned to the others, and raised his voice. "And thank you, Explorers, for being sharp enough to spot those tiny marks, and smart enough to figure out what they might mean.

"Now," he continued in a businesslike tone, "We want pictures.
Lots
of pictures. Because in a few minutes we're going to close this thing back up until the scientists back at the colony figure out what to do with it."

"But sire," One of the Explorers said, "I thought
you
were the computer expert."

Vlad chuckled and shook his head. "Just because forty years ago I could read code, and program in some high-level languages, and install premade hardware into robots, the Administrator thinks I'm a computer genius. Since I like having him think I'm
any
kind of genius, I hope to delay the day when he figures out I'm just plain ol' Vlad. So, I'll push the
real
work off on the real brains back at the colony."