Part 4 (1/2)
We stood goggling at the old American capital at the other end of the mall, the British Houses of Parliament to its right, and Big Ben tolling the time. The Kremlin adjoined them, gilded onion domes gleaming above the grim redbrick walls. The Parthenon, roofed and new and magnificent as ever, stood beyond them on a rocky hill.
Across the quadrangle I found the splendid domes of the Taj Mahal, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Hagia Sophia from ancient Istanbul. On higher ground in the distance, I recognized the Chrysler Building from old New York, the Eiffel Tower from Paris, a Chinese paG.o.da, the Great Pyramid clad once again in smooth white marble. Farther off, I found a gray mountain ridge that copied the familiar curve of Tycho's rim, topped with the s.h.i.+ne of our own native dome.
”We got here!” Elated, Pepe slapped Casey's back. ”Now what?”
”They owe us.” Casey turned to look again. ”We put them here, whenever it was. This ought to remindthem how they got here and what we've given them.”
”If they care.” Pepe turned back to the door. ”Let's see if we can call Sandor.”
”Facility closed.” We heard the door's toneless robot voice. ”Admission denied by order of Tycho Authority.”
”Let us in!” Casey shouted. ”We want the stuff we left aboard. Clothing, backpacks, canteens. Open the door so we can get them.”
”Admission denied.”
He hit the door with his fist and kissed his bruised knuckles.
”Admission denied.”
”We're here, anyhow.”
Pepe shrugged and started down the landing stair. A strange bellow stopped him, rolling back from the walls around. It took us a moment to see that it came from a locomotive chuffing slowly past the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument, puffing white steam. Hauling a train of open cars filled with seated pa.s.sengers, it crept around the quadrangle, stopping often to let riders off and on.
The Sun was high, and we shaded our eyes to study them. All as lean and trim as Sandor, and often nude, they had the same nutbrown skins. Many carried bags or backpacks. A few scattered across the lawns and gardens, most waited at the corners for signal lights to let them cross the avenue.
”Tourists, maybe?” I guessed. ”Here to see Sandor's recovered history?”
”But I see no children.” Casey shook his head. ”You'd think they'd bring the children.”
”They're people, anyhow.” Pepe grinned hopefully. ”We'll find somebody to tell us more than Sandor did.”
We climbed down the stairs, on down a wide flight of steps to a walk that curved through banks of strange and fragrant blooms. Ahead of us a couple had stopped. The woman looked a little odd, I thought, with her head of short ginger-hued fur instead of hair, yet as lovely as Mona had looked in the holos made when she and El Chino reached the Moon. The man was youthful and handsome as Sandor.
I thought they were in love.
Laughing at something he had said, she ran a little way ahead and turned to pose for his camera, framed between the monument and the Sphinx. She had worn a scarlet shawl around her shoulders. At a word from him, she whipped it off and smiled for his lens. Her daintily nippled b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been pale beneath the shawl, and he waited for the sun to color them.
We watched till he had snapped the camera. Laughing again, she ran back to toss the shawl around his shoulders and throw her arms around him. They clung together for a long kiss. We had stopped a dozen yards away. Casey spoke hopefully when they turned to face us.
”h.e.l.lo?”
They stared blankly at us. Casey managed an uncertain smile, but a nervous sweat had filmed his dark Oriental face.”Forgive us, please. Do you speak English?Francais? Espanol ?”
They frowned at him, and the man answered with a stream of vowels that were almost music and a rattle of consonants I knew I could never learn to imitate. I caught a hint of Sandor's odd accent but nothing like our English. They moved closer. The man pulled the little camera out of his bag, clicked it at Casey, stepped nearer to get his head. Laughing at him, the woman came to pose again beside Casey, slipping a golden arm around him for a final shot.
”We came in that machine. Down from the Moon!” Desperation on his face, he gestured at the s.p.a.ceplane behind us, turned to point toward the Moon's pale disk in the sky above the Parthenon, waved to show our flight from it to the pedestal. ”We've just landed from Tycho Station. If you understand-”
Laughing at him, they caught hands and ran on toward the Sphinx.
”What the h.e.l.l!” Staring after them, he shook his head. ”What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!”
”They don't know we're real.” Pepe chuckled bitterly. ”They take us for dummies. Part of the show.”
We followed a path that led toward the Parthenon and stopped at the curb to watch the traffic flowing around the quadrangle. Cars, buses, vans, occasional trucks; they reminded me of street scenes in pre-impact videos. A Yellow Cab pulled up beside us. A woman sprang out. Slim and golden-skinned, she was almost a twin of the tourist who had posed with Casey.
The driver, however, might have been an unlikely survivor from the old Earth. Heavy, swarthy, wheezing for his breath, he wore dark gla.s.ses and a grimy leather jacket. Lighting a cigarette, he hauled himself out of the cab, waddled around to open the trunk, handed the woman a folded tripod, and grunted sullenly when she tipped him.
Casey walked up to him as he was climbing back into the cab.
”Sir!” He seemed not to hear, and Casey called louder. ”Sir!”
Ignoring us, he got into the cab and pulled away. Casey turned with a baffled frown to Pepe and me.
”Did you see his face? It was dead! Some stiff plastic. His eyes are blind, behind those gla.s.ses. He's some kind of robot, no more alive than our robots on the Moon.”
Keeping a cautious distance, we followed the woman with the tripod. Ignoring us, she stopped to set it up to support a flat round plate of some black stuff. As she stepped away, a big transparent bubble swelled out of the plate, clouded, turned to silver. She leaned to peer into it.
Venturing closer, I saw that the bubble had become a circular window that framed the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument, the Statue of Liberty, and the Sphinx. They seemed oddly changed, magnified and brighter, suddenly in motion. Everything shook. The monument leaned and toppled, crus.h.i.+ng the statue. The Sphinx looked down across the fragments, intact and forever enigmatic.
I must have come too close. The woman turned with an irritated frown to brush me away as if I had been an annoying fly. Retreating, I looked again. As she bent again to the window, the sky in it changed. The Sun exploded into a huge, dull-red ball that turned the whole scene pink. Close beside it was a tiny, bright-blue star. Our s.p.a.ceplane took shape in the foreground, the motors firing and white flame was.h.i.+ng the pedestal, as if it were taking off to escape catastrophe.Awed into silence, Casey gestured us away.
”An artist!” Pepe whispered. ”An artist at work.”
We walked on past the Parthenon and waited at the corner to cross the avenue. Pepe nodded at the blue-clad cop standing out on the pavement with a whistle and a white baton, directing traffic. ”Watch him. He's mechanical.”
So were most of the drivers. The pa.s.sengers, however, riding in the taxis and buses or arriving on the train, looked entirely human, as live as Sandor himself, eager as the tourists of the pre-impact Earth to see these monumental restorations of their forgotten past.
They flocked the sidewalks, climbed the Capital steps to photograph the quadrangle and one another, wandered around the corner and on down the avenue. We fell in with them. They seldom noticed Pepe or me, but sometimes stopped to stare at Casey or take his picture.
”One more robot!” he muttered. ”That's what they take me for.”
We spent the rest of the day wandering replicated streets, pa.s.sing banks, broker's offices, shops, bars, hairdressers, restaurants, police stations. A robot driver had parked his van in front of a bookstore to unload cartons stampedEncyclopaedia Britannica . A robot beggar was rattling coins in a tin cup. A robot cop was pounding in pursuit of a red-spattered robot fugitive. We saw slim gold-skinned people, gracefully alive, entering restaurants and bars, trooping into shops, emerging with their purchases.
Footsore and hungry before the day was over, we followed a tantalizing aroma that led us to a line of golden folk waiting under a sign that read:
STEAK PLUS!.
PRIME ANGUS BEEF.
DONE TO YOUR ORDER.
Pepe fretted that we had no money for a meal.