The Game of Stars and Comets (67 page)

So on we went, nor did there appear as yet anything else which that growth concealed. If the wall was guarding a village, or even the buildings of a holding—then where did such stand? The vegetation fell to reveal nothing but a mass of the same beyond.

Witol halted so suddenly that I bumped against his massive shoulder. He did not yield and now I could not push past. His head swung low, and one of his horns caught in the matted stuff which lay dead or dying on the ground. He tossed and the vegetation flew, he pawed and earth glistening with slime appeared. Only that broke also as he deliberately dug one horn down into it, tossed, pawed. Great chunks of tainted soil flew out and away. There arose so putrid and foul a smell from his efforts that I gasped. Illo held one hand to close off her nose.

There was something—under that coating of diseased soil (for all I could think of was that the very earth itself here bore no relation to the clean dirt of the plains). Witol's efforts uncovered a smooth surface, one which was still streaked, it was true, with greasy, evil smelling clay—but one which certainly was not normal ground.

Witol worked industriously, first with one large cloven hoof, and then the other. Wobru shouldered aside his mother and came behind the greater bull, beginning in turn to paw at earth his sire had already disturbed. While Illo and I watched with amazement, the gars, laboring together as if they were teamed, cleared a space which was growing larger by the instant. Now and then Witol turned his head to me to grunt. His meaning was so plain that I, who had always commanded the beasts, now obeyed his orders, sweeping the stunner—killing and then stepping aside to let the gars clear away the debris.

We were no longer in a tunnel of vegetation. Rather we stood in a clearing which was roughly square, swept nearly clean through the efforts of the animals, floored with a metal which I judged to be the same as that of the necklet I wore.

Though the poisonous and foul growths of the Tangle had covered it perhaps for eons of time, the surface showed no sign of rust or erosion. What might be its purpose and what had led the gars to act as they did were both mysteries I did not attempt to solve. Illo stooped but did not quite touch that flooring.

"It is not pavement, I believe—" she studied the expanse carefully. To my eyes there was not a single sign of any break in it—the whole piece was a giant plate.

The gars had finished their cleanup and now stood quiet, the heads of all three hanging low, their noses near touching the plate. Were they in search of a scent? Were they looking for something? I had passed the point of amazement now; I was not sure of anything. Before my eyes the beasts I had always taken for animals, of some intelligence, but still animals, had engaged in action which suggested that all our estimates concerning them were very wrong, that they were far more than prize stock to serve settlers on Voor. It was at that moment I began also to wonder whether they were not, as a species, far older and longer evolved than we had ever guessed. Had their long-ago ancestors indeed known the race who had set this plate they now revealed to us?

Illo cried out, stumbling a step or two towards me. I met her and we clung together. That platform which had appeared so intact, so solid, was sinking, and we were being carried downward with it.

I tried to reach the edge, drawing the girl with me. Witol took a ponderous step or two, setting his large body broadside to cut me off from any escape. Before I could push around him we were already too deep, so that even a leap would not have allowed me to catch the edge of the break.

The gars stirred and I heard Wobru grunt uneasily. I say heard, for, as we sank, there was a darkness closing in about us. That patch of light was still above us—now far above us. Our rate of descent seemed to be more swift than we were aware of—otherwise no light appeared to pierce into the depths into which the platform carried us.

Illo held onto my hand with a grip so tight that her nails cut into my skin, but I made no move to loosen it. Just now it was good to have that touch, to reassure myself that I was not insane or hallucinating, that this was really happening.

I now had to turn my head well up, back on my shoulders, to watch that fast disappearing square of sky which I could not hope to reach. While all about us was a darkness which was heavier and more solid than any moonless night could be. There were no stars here to reassure us with their light.

"Bart!" Illo had turned a little in my hold. I looked down and saw her face. There was a curious bluish light across it. "The necklet—it is afire!"

Afire! I felt no more heat than that subtle warmth which I had been aware of since I first put the chain on. The circlet fit so tightly to my throat that I could not see it, but I could catch a radiance which appeared to stream out across my breast and shoulders.

I loosed my other hand, temporarily thrusting the stunner back into my holster, and in turn worked free the torch from its thongs at my belt. My fingers found the "high" button and a moment later the ray swept out and around.

We were descending into a well, the walls of which were coated by the same alloy as formed the platform on which we stood. That fitted exactly to the walls, sliding down them with no sign of any space between. There were no visible openings, not a seam to be detected along those walls—as if the whole tube had been cast as a single great piece. Nor was there any chance of a hand or foothold on that smooth surface. Unless the trap which was this platform could be controlled in some manner, we were perhaps to be buried alive in an installation which was a total mystery.

I looked to the gars. They stood as quietly as if they were waiting in sedate sequence as they always did to be inspanned before a move-out. Why—and what—and who—?

I did not voice such question. Illo knew no more than did I, and I could expect no answer from Witol. However I kept the torch sweeping about the walls, seeking some opening, some hope of escape. Still we continued to drop smoothly down.

The open patch at the top was now smaller than my hand; I could not even estimate how far beneath the surface we had come. There flashed into my mind scattered bits of the information my father had culled from the Forerunner archives. There had been apparently some races or species among them who had had a liking for undersurface life, building strange and unknowable installations in caves, in burrows they tunneled, as if they were more at home in such places than on the surface of the worlds they chose to visit—or to colonize.

Perhaps this race, if it were not native to Voor (though a vanished native civilization could not be ruled out) had been of that type. There must come an end to our journey soon. This, I had come to believe, was not a trap for prisoners (or at least I hoped that was so), rather an entrance to some place of importance.

The end did come—as the platform suddenly passed the tip of an opening in one wall, pulled on, down and down, until there was a wide door open before us. Then it came to an abrupt halt.

I half expected the gars to take the lead in disembarking, I do not know why. However, the beasts showed signs of uneasiness, snuffling and moving their feet as if they were not quite sure of the stability of the platform, though it no longer moved.

There was nothing to do but to go on, through that doorway which seemed a cup of pure dark, hoping that somewhere beyond there might just lie some means of returning to the surface. I said as much and Illo agreed.

Now that we had reached the bottom of the well, she appeared to have regained her confidence—or at least put on the appearance of doing so. I had to admit to myself that action as represented by the waiting doorway renewed my spirits also. Shoulder to shoulder we stepped from the platform into the waiting corridor or tunnel. Once more the gars fell in behind us as they had when we had broken our path into the Tangle.

I swept the torch from side to side. This appeared much like the shaft we had descended—or its lesser twin—being laid upon its side. The same smooth, seamless walls, no breaching of those, no sign of another doorway, of any exit except the one we followed.

"Switch off the torch a moment," Illo said.

I did not know what she wished to learn, only I did as she bade. Then we discovered that the light I carried was no longer necessary. Though perhaps not as bright as the radiance from the necklet, there was a dim glow to which our eyes adjusted, enough so that we could walk without difficulty seeing ahead. I was glad to save the torch and fastened it back in my belt, taking once more the stunner. Not because I expected to encounter any more of the Tangle's foul mass but because with it in my hand I found a certain reassurance, an illusion perhaps that I might still be in some control of the situation were we to discover—what? Some alien form of life—some mechanical installation—which had been left to run through endless time by its vanished creators? I did not know, nor did I try to speculate, I only knew I felt safer with the stunner in my fist.

The road seemed endless. So much so that once we stopped, drank from our supply of water, sharing that in small measurement with the gars, eating our trail bread. I gave a cake of this to each of the beasts and they chewed noisily, apparently finding it to their taste. At the back of my mind stirred the thought that once our supplies were gone—No—that would I face when the time came. We would be as prudent with both food and water as we could, and I would not say aloud what might be the end of such blind wandering.

At the end of the corridor was a door. This was closed, though I could see the slit which marked it clearly when I once more loosed the torch and had Illo hold it that I might examine the barrier. There was a cup-like pocket to my left but no latch that I could distinguish. I fitted my fingers into that depression and strove to push, but the barricade remained immovable. Was it locked and we prisoners?

There was one other thing to try. Once more I braced myself and used fingers as best I could, this time pushing towards my right instead of inward. For a long moment I thought that my guess was a failure. Then, perhaps as the result of centuries of disuse was overcome, it did slide reluctantly, taking all my strength to force it along. I discovered that a series of sharp jerks were better to stir it a little at a time, accomplishing more in that way than any steady pull. The panel was open at last, and with its opening light spilled through—a light which was almost as bright as day in the upper, outer world.

Light streamed from above,
steady and clear, while between us and its source reached a flight of broad, shallow steps. The surface of each step was inlaid with color, brilliant color. The designs were—faces!

There was nothing inhuman or alien about these representations as there had been in the face of the statue guardian we had passed in the Tangle. These were of people who might have lived in any holding or village. While each varied from the next, possessing such life-like features I could only believe that they had been originally fashioned to resemble once living personalities, still they had been carefully set so that anyone climbing the stair, no matter where he would put his feet as he went, would tread upon one or another of them.

There was something unpleasant in their cast of countenance, a slight exaggeration of this feature or that, the beginning of a sly smirk, a leer of the eyes. On close examination one could well believe that whoever had wrought this stairway had done it in a mood of hatred and vengeance. To tread upon the helpless face of the enemy—that was a conception which in itself was a token of so strong a fury that it shook one.

Illo went down on her knees, put out her hands to touch the nearest of the faces on the bottom step. It was as if her finger had fallen on a coal of living fire, so did she instantly jerk away.

"They—there are skulls—or a skull here, Bart—under the pattern face, a real skull."

As I knelt beside her I could see nothing but the surface. It must have been her fine-tuned healer's touch which had read the horror beneath the covering.

"Their enemies—how great was their rage—!"

"These could not be our people." My mind pictured instantly for me those lines of skeletons at Fors. Those bones had been intact, the skulls all there. This place was old, it had existed, I was certain, long before the coming of the First-In Scout of our kind to discover Voor.

"No—much older. But like us." She looked up at the doorway above, from which that light streamed. "We must go on—but to walk so—" she shivered.

I studied the faces carefully. Yes, they were all unlike, all realistic representations. But still human—as human seeming as I was.

"This happened a long time ago," I assured her. Though what "this" might have been I could not understand, save that the stairway might have been erected to celebrate a final victory, a crushing defeat—for who—the builder, or those they had pictured? Had one race or species been driven from the surface of Voor, taken precautions to exist here, then wreaked its vengeance on visitors in such a monstrous form? Or was the answer just the opposite: the aliens had won and celebrated their victory with an everlasting portrayal of the conquered? In any event the artist who had designed this had shown with merciless accuracy all the meanness, cruelties and evils my species was capable of in those subtle lines on the faces.

"Long ago—" she echoed. "But they tried—to seal them in—their enemies. The skulls—it is evil! Evil!"

I stood up, and, when she did not move, I stopped and drew her to her feet.

"There is nothing to be done now. I do not believe that more than bone was sealed here—"

"We do not know." She turned her head a little so her eyes met mine. There was a deep horror in them. Plainly she was shaken as I had seldom seen her. "How can we understand what happened here once? A tomb is a quiet place in which nothing any longer sleeps—it is but a place of memories for the living, and, as years pass, ceases to be even that. Such a thing as this keeps old hates terribly alive." She shivered. "We do not know what they believed—and belief is a very potent weapon—as well as a guard—"