Hidden Empire (72 page)
A
fter weeks of combing through the cliffside Klikiss city, Margaret and Louis Colicos finally made their break-through.
DD diligently strung lights throughout the tunnels. The Friendly compy wired up illumination systems and installed a small
power generator to provide heat and air exchange inside the inner chambers.
Now that the initial archaeological excitement was over, Arcas frequently remained back in camp, tending the now-thriving
treelings. He spent hours summarizing the Klikiss discoveries for the benefit of the worldforest and anyone else who could
tap into it.
The three Klikiss robots often wandered off without reporting their whereabouts. One early morning, Louis pointed out what
he thought were faint changes in the first set of ancient ruins, scuffed caterpillarlike foot treads and subtly rearranged
equipment. From this, he surmised that the black robots must have returned to the abandoned buildings, looking for hints and
trying to reassess their past.
“I guess I’d do the same if I had complete amnesia, dear,” Louis had said. “Exploring one of your old cities, who knows what
tiny thing might trigger a revelation? Maybe they’re getting closer to a memory flash.”
Margaret agreed, though she remained disturbed. “I wish they weren’t so secretive about it. We certainly aren’t hiding anything
from
them.”
She had stored copies of their tangible images and reports. Detail-oriented as usual, Margaret kept files back in her tent
and stashed a duplicate datawafer inside the ghost city. The brutal flash flood that had swept through the canyon demonstrated
how even a seemingly secure location could suffer catastrophic damage.
While Louis was tinkering with the incomprehensible machinery inside the stone-window chamber, he finally discovered a way
to remove the outer casing of the strange geometric generator. “Eureka!” he cried. “To quote another famous scientist.”
Margaret hurried over to see what he had found. Her husband peered into the clean components of the alien device, studying
how the connections engaged other subsystems. “Ah, I see how it fits together now! This… must be a power source, and it’s
been disengaged from the conduit here. Almost as if the system has been put in a standby mode.” He ran his fingers along the
metallic and polymer components, checking linkages, letting his intuition flow.
Inside the discarded casing Margaret spotted a detailed diagram drawn in Klikiss symbols, showing specific connections with
the components of the alien device. To her pleased astonishment, the symbols matched the markings on individual tiles surrounding
the trapezoidal stone window. Each one seemed to correspond to a set of coordinates targeted by the exotic Klikiss machinery.
The linkages ran into the blank stone wall itself, weird organic circuitry lines laid down like insect pheromone trails and
covered over with layers of rock.
“These are …
locations
, old man. It’s a map, or maybe more like a catalog or a directory.”
Her husband tore his attention away from studying the machinery. “Ah, like the pulsar coordinates in the Klikiss Torch plans.”
Hearing their excited shouts, DD moved into the room and absorbed what had changed. “Those are marvelous conclusions, Margaret,”
the compy said. “You can use this as a basis for extrapolating other theories about the Klikiss.”
“Absolutely, DD! We’ve got a handle on this now.” Louis gave Margaret such a vigorous hug that he embarrassed her, even after
so many years of marriage, although no one was there to see it. “This is the best discovery since the Klikiss cadaver.”
“Maybe even better in the long run, old man,” Margaret offered. “Remember that we found similar stone windows in every other
Klikiss ruin we’ve studied, but many of them were damaged, especially on some of the coordinate tiles. Never have we come
this close to understanding the system or the technology. I have faith that you can figure it all out, old man.”
“Have you attempted to engage the power source, Louis?” DD asked.
With a scuffling noise, the black Klikiss robots entered the chamber, their optical sensors bright and curious. DD looked
up and said brightly, “Sirix, Ilkot, Dekyk! You must see what Louis has found.”
The trio of beetlelike machines scuttled forward to hover over the exposed machinery and scan the diagram and components.
Margaret stared at the coordinate symbols imprinted in the machinery, noted identical hieroglyphics repeated on small tiles
around the trapezoidal window … like selector buttons.
“Well, I think the power system is still intact.” Louis squatted and tinkered with the machinery. “Should be able to fix this
without too much trouble.”
“Could this stone window be part of an alien transportation system, old man? Each tile seems to indicate a place—a destination,
perhaps?”
Louis looked skeptically at his wife. “And colleagues say
my
ideas are strange. Do you think the Klikiss could walk through solid rock walls?”
Margaret turned to Sirix. “What do you think?”
“I can offer no input, Margaret Colicos.”
Louis looked up with his crooked grin. “You three robots must be excited! Now we’ve finally got a very real possibility of
learning what happened to your creator race and why all your memories were wiped so long ago.”
“Don’t overestimate what we’ve just found, old man,” Margaret cautioned. “This isn’t the equivalent of a Rosetta stone.” But
if it did offer the key to a Klikiss transportation system, perhaps it would provide all the information they needed.
Louis knelt on the hard stone floor again as he contemplated the maze of mechanical components before him. “Ah, I see what
to do with this now, but the power source is corroded. I’ll need to jump-start it using some of our own equipment back in
camp.” He looked up at Margaret. “Could take hours, dear.”
DD interrupted. “In that case, might I call attention to the time? The sun has gone down, and we are already an hour beyond
our usual mealtime. Perhaps this would be a good point to break for the day? We can begin our labors fresh tomorrow morning.”
“I hate to stop when I’m so close …” Louis said.
Margaret frowned wryly at him. “Old man, you’re always too optimistic. You’re never as ‘close’ as you think you are.”
They arrived at the tents after a trudge through gathering darkness. Arcas sat by himself near the water pump and the prefabricated
storage sheds, surrounded by glowing light panels. He looked stunned and speechless.
Margaret immediately sensed something deeply wrong. “What is it? What’s happened?” The green priest looked at the palms of
his hands and then stared up at her. “When I linked with the trees, I… I watched the events as they happened on Earth …”
Louis came forward. “Well, tell us, Arcas! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“The deep-core aliens declared war on all of humanity and said it was because of the Klikiss Torch!” His voice sounded strangled.
“By turning Oncier into a sun, we killed millions of their people.”
Louis stammered, “But the Torch was … just an experiment. We only wanted to warm up those moons for new colonies.”
Margaret understood immediately, though. “The aliens
live inside
gas giants, old man. We incinerated their home world.”
Louis dropped to his knees in the dirt beside Arcas. “We didn’t know. How were we to know? The aliens never showed themselves.”
“Now they have,” Arcas said. His breath hitched. “And then … and then there was an explosion. The emissary killed Old King
Frederick and fifty-three others in the Throne Hall.”
“That is indeed terrible news,” DD said.
The three Klikiss robots silently absorbed the green priest’s words. But Sirix and his two companions made no comment at all.
J
ess returned to Golgen, alone, to watch the personal holocaust he had set in motion. He didn’t expect to feel any smugness
or joy, but he hoped for a sense of closure at least… or satisfaction. Accomplishment. Triumph. Release?
Back in his family’s ice-mining facilities, Jess maintained a careful map with programmed dots that displayed the courses
of each plunging comet he and his Roamer engineers had shoved out of a stable orbit. As the celestial missiles careened toward
the gas giant, Jess knew that Golgen would soon become far more than his brother’s grave.
Bram Tamblyn had trained his Plumas foremen well. The pumps that brought water through the ice sheath to the surface wellheads
operated so efficiently that Jess had little to do. His old father had kept himself busy by micromanaging his employees, maintaining
a careful watch on their every activity. Jess preferred to trust the workers and let them do their jobs while he planned his
revenge.
The anxious Roamers had called three more clan gatherings. Jess had attended every one and stayed on the sidelines, knowing
that his comets were on their way. During the inevitable shouting matches, he kept his own counsel, sitting back in the group
and watching the old Speaker struggle to lead the clans.
At least he was
doing
something.
While other family heads discussed politics and emergency measures, Jess observed Cesca, devouring the sight of her like a
starving man, watching her every move, catching a flash of her dark eyes.
Someday, Cesca. Someday we can be together. We will have our time… but right now, these months without you, waiting for you,
seem to last forever
.
Now his small ship hovered close enough to Golgen that he could observe the storms across its churning face. He thought of
the other times he had been here, he and Ross together on the Blue Sky Mine, looking down into the clouds. Back then, his
older brother had thought that his greatest danger was missing a debt payment. But those alien murderers had chosen him, had
destroyed a cloud-harvester that had harmed no one.
And now they would regret it.
With grim fascination, Jess watched the first enormous comet riding downward, caught within Golgen’s gravitational pull. Surrounded
by a grayish white halo of evaporating gases, the largest comet somehow seemed silent and motionless against the stars, but
Jess knew it was hurtling at incredible speed, a bullet already aimed. Unstoppable. According to his calculations, the impact
would occur within hours.
A beginning
.
The changed trajectory and gravitational stresses had fractured the gigantic ball of ice and rock. Mountain-sized shards spread
out in a line of frozen cannonballs, each one with enough force and momentum to deliver a blow equivalent to a thousand atomic
bombs.
With a hardened heart and eager eyes, Jess sat back to watch the show.
The first fragment struck like a cosmic hammer blow, slamming into the clouds of Golgen. The impact was bright, sending slow,
titanic ripples across the atmosphere, fiery shock waves that continued to spread as the icy projectile sped into the deepest
layers.
Jess hoped the impact would be a mortal blow, an extinction event for the aggressor aliens. He set his mouth in a grim line
and enlarged the view.
When others learned of this reckless blow he had struck to avenge his brother, they would be horrified. No doubt the action
would heat up the war between humans and the gas-giant aliens. Jess was convinced, however, that despite any Roamer outrage
or Hansa condemnations, all humans would secretly be pleased at his sudden significant strike against their enemies.
Jess remained in position for three days, watching comet fragments slam into Golgen. The soupy pastel clouds became a turmoil
of glowing bruises, making the bloated world look like a piece of rotting fruit.
As the immense wounded planet continued its daily rotation, Golgen turned a different face toward the oncoming fragments,
exposing more vulnerable areas.
With his jaw set, Jess called up his orbital diagrams again, saw that the second huge comet would strike Golgen within a month.
The string of missiles, one after another after another, would continue to rain mercilessly upon the alien stronghold for
the next two years—and there was nothing he, or anyone else, could do to stop it.
More fragments struck. And struck.
