Part 23 (1/2)
The two scout parties sent out to search for a pas-sage through the hills returned. Their crews babbled out an impossible tale, so laden with gestures, expres-sions and adjectival phrases that Ethan and his friends were hard pressed to make sense of any of it.
While they debated uncertain terms among themselves, Tahoding and his crew launched feverish preparations to get underway. At that point, Ethan cornered Hunnar and refused to let him pa.s.s until he explained what was happening.
”Suaxus, my squire, was in the first boat,” the knight said, trying to control his obvious excitement.
”They found a pa.s.s through the mountains. Only, they aren't mountains.”
”You're not making sense, friend Hunnar,” Septem-ber prompted.
”They traversed this pa.s.s and emerged on the other side of this range. It seems the wind blows harder, or steadier, or both, on the other side. What is buried here lies revealed there.” He turned, indicated the partly excavated hillside.
”These are not mountains, they are buildings.” And he broke away to perform some important task before Ethan could think to ask anything more.
Only Williams accepted this news calmly. ”It makes sense, not to mention explaining the preponderance of artifacts we've found.” The icerigger was already racing for the recently discovered pa.s.s. ”There are similar buried cities on many Commonwealth worlds, Ethan. The same winds which would cover an ancient metropolis could later uncover it.”
”a.s.suming that's what we've found-who built it?” The teacher eyed Ethan, pursed his lips. ”Who knows? The Tran obviously don't, nor do the Saia, who are supposed to know so much about this land.
If we're lucky, maybe we'll find out. Perhaps they are people who no longer survive on Tran-ky-ky but who gave the Saia their legends of other worlds.”
The pa.s.s turned out to be much wider and smoother than anyone had a right to expect. So straight was the gap between hills that unnatural forces were sus-pected. Ethan wondered if they excavated straight down, would they eventually strike pavement?
Once through the slopes they turned east, inland and away from the cliffs. They did not have to travel far. Dirt and rock were piled here also, but much stonework could be seen rearing planes and angles toward the sky, reminding Ethan of a partially eroded graveyard. Here it was the bones of dead buildings which stood revealed to the air.
The ground rose skyward not in a smooth slope as on the other side, but in graduated levels. ”See?”
called Williams, pointing out different stone work and designs on each level. ”This is not one building, as the scout parties a.s.sumed, but new structures raised atop the old. As each older structure was buried, it formed a foundation for the next building erected on the same spot. One town on the skeleton of the old.”
His hand swept eastward.
”We are looking at an ancient series of cities, not a cl.u.s.ter of monumental buildings. We can only guess at how far it extends. Since we've been paralleling similar rises nearly all the way from Moulokin, it's possible similar towns are buried beneath each of them. They may all form part of a single lengthy metropolis at least several hundred kilometers long.”
The crew furled all sail and anch.o.r.ed the icerigger against the wind. Everyone not on watch scrambled over the side to marvel at the colossal architecture.
”One thing I don't understand.” Williams tried to rub an eye, remembered his mask, raised it slightly to admit a comforting finger. ”It would be natural to expect the topmost structures to be the most sophisticated in design and execution. Yet from what I can see the architecture is nearly identical from top to bottom, town to town.”
”I'd like to know who's responsible for all this.” Ethan scrambled carefully across the fine but slippery talus. ”Now I'm even more positive it's not the Tran. Look at those arches, those wide windows.” He bal-anced himself on a partly buried rectangular block that must have weighed several tons, pointed upslope and to his right.
”And that building almost exposed over there. The roof's too flat to resist snow buildup, and it's lined with what looks like gla.s.s to me. A skylight, on Tran-ky-ky? Not with the quality of gla.s.s the Tran make.
A decent day's wind would blow it to splinters. Unless, of course, it's something more than normal gla.s.s.”
”Perhaps the Saia did build this after all, and have just forgotten about it, young feller-me-lad,”
ventured September. ”A selective memory about such matters would keep 'em from gettin' embarra.s.sed about let-ting so much knowledge slip away.”
They uncovered one building after another: homes, warehouses, public meeting places, even what seemed to be an open amphitheater. An open stadium, on Tran-ky-ky!
It didn't take thirty years experience or several scientific degrees for Tran as well as humans to pos-tulate a climate completely different from the present.
Having come to that realization, Williams left the archeology to EerMessach and others. Using the primitive Tran navigation instruments and the inade-quate but useful ones included in each survival-suit's kit, he devoted himself to a nighttime examination of the stars. Not the most intricately formed metal cup or detailed inscription cut into stone could dis-suade him from his sudden fanatic interest in astron-omy.
Vacuumclear skies, Tran navigation charts and old tales seemed to reinforce his determination to keep at his lonely cold night studies. Ethan could imagine what the teacher was trying to prove.
He was only partly right.
The teacher was deep in conversation with Tahoding when Ethan finally sought confirmation of his suspicions. ”I don't mean to interrupt, Milliken, but I'd like to know for sure-why this sudden interest in local astronomy? I'd think you'd be grubbing away in the cities instead of freezing out on deck at night.
”You're trying to find proof that the climate here was once much warmer, aren't you?”
”Not just here, on this plateau.” Williams was only stating what to him was obvious and not being in the least insulting. A less sarcastic human being Ethan had never met. ”Everywhere on Tran-ky-ky. The physical evidence inherent in the buried metropolis coupled with what little I've been able to calculate tells me that this was so. More importantly, it indicates to me who built these successive cities.”
”Don't keep me in suspense, Milliken. Who was it? The Tran, the Saia, or some now extinct people?
I'll bet it was the latter, and when the climate turned cold everywhere, the builders died. The Saia were contemporary with them and keep their memory alive in legends.”
”Plausible, but I think, incorrect.” He adjusted the calculator built into his sleeve. ”These cities were raised by both the Tran and the Saia.”
Ethan couldn't forestall a grin. ”That's crazy, Milliken. It's too cold here for the Saia now and if they built these cities, surely they'd remember. And its too desolate now for the Tran and, a.s.suming the climate was warmer, too hot for them before.”
”That reasoning misses the point. It's because?” Williams paused, took a preparatory breath. ”It's not simply a matter of its once being hot, now being cold here, Ethan. I think Tran-ky-ky has a perturbed orbit of predictable periodicity.”
”I hardly know what to say.”
”I'll try to explain. Any competent astronomer would have noticed it after a week's study, with the proper factual input. But the only astronomer to visit this outpost world was the initial survey drone which first located it. The Commonwealth government would be interested first in the fact that it was an in-habitable planet with a stable climate, flora, and fauna. Relatively long-term alterations will show up in the files on Tran-ky-ky, but there's no reason to act on them until the next period begins.”
”_What_ next period?”
”Of warm weather. I'd estimate, very crudely, so many standard years of cold, followed by a briefer period of warm weather as it pa.s.ses nearer its sun. Say, ten thousand years. The transition from cold weather to hot takes place comparatively rapidly, since as Tran-ky-ky swings close by its star, its...o...b..tal velocity, would increase, slowing as it swings out into the cold zone again. It's a peculiar situation and I'm not certain of the details or mechanics, but that's what I believe takes place.
”Think what that would mean for this planet.” He spoke distantly, his gaze centered on events far away in time and place. ”During the hot period the ice oceans melt, and rapidly. The sea level would rise to submerge island states such as Sofold and much of Arsudun. Sofold is in reality built atop a seamount, while the mountaintops of Poyolavomaar would be-come true islands.” Suddenly he dropped his gaze, looking embarra.s.sed.
”That was what puzzled me so about Moulokin canyon.” Ethan thought back, recalling the teacher's confusion over the canyon's geology and his feeling of half-recognizing its source.
”It's not a river canyon at all, though it resembles one closely. Rather, it's a dry undersea canyon, the kind that slices through a continental shelf down to the edge of the abyssal plain flooring the ocean. The cliffs of the plateau we sailed alongside for so long are actually the old continental shelf. Now,” he said with satisfaction. ”I'm ready to go digging for artifacts. But not in the cities. Right here, beneath the s.h.i.+p.”
”Wait a minute. What do you expect to find under the s.h.i.+p? And what did you mean when you said the Tran and the Saia both built the metropolis?”
”Tell you in a couple of days, young feller-me-lad,” he said, mimicking September.
It was two days, exactly. What the teacher uncovered were far less spectacular and much more important than any objects thus far uncovered in the buried structures.
He spread them out on a table in the central cabin, where human and Tran alike could see. ”Look,” Williams began, ”insect eggs over there.” He pointed to a pile of eddy-shaped, tiny white beads. ”Try opening one. The casings are tough as stelamic. I had to use my beamer to a.s.sure myself of the contents.
”Animal eggs.” He pointed to some similar objects, only they were larger and multicolored. ”Seeds, I think.” He indicated a vast array of black and brown objects, mostly spherical. ”Those I could barely singe with the beamer set for fine cut.