Across a Billion Years
The interruption was just what we needed. We were calm again.
Dr. Schein said quietly, "Dihn Ruuu asks us to follow him to the planet of the High Ones. I'll call for a vote. All in favor—?"
Guess how that vote turned out.
But certain practical difficulties keep us from blasting off at once for Mirt, which is what the home world of the High Ones is called. Such as the fact that Mirt is seventy-eight light-years from McBurney IV, and the only transportation available to us at the moment is Nick Ludwig's ship, which can't travel at ultradrive speeds. If we set out tomorrow for Mirt in Nick's ship, I'd celebrate my hundredth birthday before we got there.
So we have to go through the cumbersome business of waiting for our ultradrive cruiser to come back this way on the prearranged checkup flight. That'll be a month from now. And then to charter a flight to Mirt, if we have the stash to swing it.
Actually, that isn't too bad. It gives us some time to explore McBurney IV before we rush off to the next wonderworld. It's unhealthy to gulp down a surfeit of miracles; gives one indigestion of the imagination. Whole careers could be spent just in this one place. Not archaeological careers, I suppose; the story of the High Ones has exploded out of archaeology now. But McBurney IV holds a million times as much to dazzle us as did the cave on the asteroid in the 1145591 system; and we thought that was a high-spectrum load!
The robots here have been very cooperative. Dihn Ruuu explained to them that we were stranded here until our ultraspace ship picked us up, and they accepted that. Whereupon we became honored guests and tourists, instead of prisoners. For the past week we've been using the ship as our base, and taking off each day on a sightseeing trip through the Mirt Korp Ahm's outpost here.
It's clear now why this place is so different, architecturally, from what we saw in our globe. The cities shown by the globe were a billion years old. McBurney IV was still inhabited by the Mirt Korp Ahm less than a hundred million years ago. Even among so conservative a race as the High Ones, architectural styles do change in hundreds of millions of years. Dangling cities went out of fashion here.
We are only skimming the surface of this world of course. Hairy primitives that we are, we can hardly begin to understand what we see. The power accumulators, draining energy from McBurney's Star and socking it away underground. The master brain centers that run the transit systems. The automatic repair mechanisms that come scuttling out to fix any mechanical difficulty instantly. The great scanners that tirelessly search the sky for a hint of a signal from the Mirt Korp Ahm—a signal that never comes, alas! The robots themselves, the Dihn Ruuu, self-lubricating, self-repairing, seemingly immortal. The aircars: do they run on antigravity engines? Everything dazzles and bewilders.
Fantastic as their cities are, though, the Mirt Korp Ahm aren't really a billion years ahead of us in technological development. Considering the head start they had, the High Ones actually seem a little backward, as though consciously or otherwise they froze their culture at this level long ago. I mean, this super-civilization of theirs is just about what I'd expect Earth to have in, say, the year 10,000, if I projected our technological growth forward on the same curve as it's been following since about A.D. 1700. But it's not what I'd expect Earth to have in the year 1,000,-002,376. Not by plenty.
I don't think I can even imagine what a culture that's been developing steadily for a billion years ought to be like. Disembodied electrical essences, maybe. Ghostly creatures flitting in and out of the eighth, ninth, and tenth dimensions. Cosmic minds that know all, perceive all, understand all.
Maybe I'm being unfair to the Mirt Korp Ahm. Perhaps the growth curve of our technology in the years 1700-2300 was wildly atypical; perhaps the growth curve of any civilization inevitably flattens out once it reaches a certain level. I can't help feeling that the Mirt Korp Ahm should have gone farther than they did, with all the time they had to evolve, but possibly they bucked up against the absolute limits of ingenuity and went static. Possibly the same thing will happen to us, two or three thousand years up the line. I wonder.
In any case, we're having a glorious time, in an unreal and dreamy way. Did any of this seem probable when we set out to grub in the dirt on Higby V?
* * *
Same cube, four days later. Much confusion.
Scene: our ship. Hour: late. Cast of characters: me, Jan, Pilazinool. Everyone else asleep.
Mysterious bleeping sounds emerge from ship's audio system. Who calls us here? Local robots tuning in on our channel? Unlikely. Maybe some Earth ship calling. No Earth ships within a dozen light-years, at least. None expected here for several weeks. What spins? Pilazinool says, unworried, "Tom, see what's happening over there."
Tom Rice, Boy Radioman, goes to audio panel, ponders its intricacy a moment, taps buttons and spins dials, meanwhile making official-sounding noises like, "Come in, come in, I'm not reading you, come in." And so forth. Simultaneously does his best to improve reception so that unknown message from space can be detected. Also switches on recorder, in case anything important is arriving, though he knows innate improbability that someone would call us here.
Out of the receptor comes male human voice, reciting the call numbers of our ship. "Confirm," voice says. "Do you read me?" it inquires.
"I read you," I say, feeling like a minor character in a bad tridim film. "Who's calling? What's going on?"
"Ultradrive cruiser Pride of Space, Commander Leon Leonidas, calling Captain Nicholas Ludwig."
"Ludwig's asleep," I reply. "So's just about everybody else. My name's Tom Rice, and I don't really have much authority, but—"
Jan, coming over to listen, nudges me and whispers, "Maybe they're in distress, Tom!"
Thought seems logical. Unscheduled arrival of unknown ultradrive cruiser—emergency landing, maybe— difficulties on board—
I say, "Are you in trouble, Pride of Space?"
"We aren't. You are. We have orders from Galaxy Central to place you under arrest."
It dawns on me that the conversation is not going well.
I boost the gain so Pilazinool can catch what's being said.
"Arrest?" I repeat loudly. "There's some mistake. We're an archaeological expedition conducting research in—"
"Exactly. We have instructions to pick up a team of eleven archaeologists and bring the bunch of you back to Galaxy Central at once. I advise cooperation. We're right upstairs, in orbit around McBurney IV, and we want you to wrap up your work within two hours and get up here into a matching orbit so we can bring you on board. If you don't cooperate, I'm afraid we'll have to come down and get you. Please take down the following orbital coordinates—"
"Wait," I say. "I've got to notify the others. I don't understand anything of what's going on."
Jan is already scurrying toward the cabins to wake people up. Pilazinool has removed several limbs. The voice out of the receptors, sounding terribly calm and very, very military, asks me to find one of my superiors and put him on the line right away. I stammer something apologetic and ask my caller to wait.
Dr. Schein, looking sleepy and grim, stumbles into the room.
"It's a Navy ultradrive ship," I say. "Sent here by Galaxy Central to arrest us. We've got two hours to get off this planet and turn ourselves in."
Dr. Schein makes a face of disgust, squinting eyes, clamping lips. Goes to audio. "Hello," he says. "Schein speaking. What's all this nonsense about?"
Not a good approach. Calm military voice gets icier, explains all over again that our galactic odyssey is at its end. By now everybody else has crowded into the cabin. Nick Ludwig, yawning, demands to know the story. I tell him. Ludwig chews on knuckles and groans. Steen Steen says, "They can't make us do anything. We're safe here. If they try to land without permission, the robots will blow them up."
Jan tells him patiently, "We'd be crazy to defy a Navy ship. Anyway, what good would it do? We're stuck here until we get ultradrive transport out."
Dr. Schein, meanwhile, is speaking i
n low, earnest voice to Pride of Space. Impossible to hear conversation because of general hubbub. When he turns away from audio, he looks old, gray, beaten.
"Somebody go and find Dihn Ruuu," he says. "We've got to leave. Galaxy Central has its clamps on us at last."
"Don't give in!" Steen Steen cries. "We're free agents! The era of slavery is over!"
Dr. Schein ignores him. "Nick," he says, "get the ship ready. We're going upstairs."
Dihn Ruuu arrived; we explained things; and the robot arranged for our quick exit from McBurney IV. We left as we had come, with our engines cut off, and went eerily whistling upward in the grip of the same powerful force that had drawn us down. The robots who were controlling our ascent inserted us neatly into the orbit of the Pride of Space and let go; we switched to our own power, matched velocities with the big star-ship, and let ourselves be pulled into the custody of the Galaxy Central Navy. The sight of Dihn Ruuu brought the whole crew out to gape, up to and including the commander.
Commander Leonidas turned out to be a crisp, dapper little man of about fifty, with pale blue eyes and a warm, sympathetic nature. He made it very clear as soon as we were on board that he was simply doing his job, nothing personal in it.
"I've never had to arrest archaeologists before. What were you people doing—smuggling on the side?"
"We have done nothing but legitimate research!" snapped Dr. Horkkk, furious as always.
"Well, maybe so," Commander Leonidas said, shrugging. "But somebody at Galaxy Central is upset about you. Pick you up at once, that's what I was told! No delay! Tolerate no opposition! As if I was catching a bunch of sposhing mutineers."
"What you are doing," said Dr. Horkkk in his thinnest and nastiest of voices, "is preventing us from completing one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of the past ten thousand years."
"Really, now? I hadn't realized—"
"By your interference," Dr. Horkkk went on, "you interrupt our journey just as we are about to solve the final mystery of the Mirt Korp Ahm, the High Ones, as you call them. You snatch us away at the moment of greatest accomplishment. The stupidity of the military mind is a universal curse that—"
Commander Leonidas' sunny expression was beginning to darken, and I could see that if Dr. Horkkk kept it up, we'd finish the voyage in irons. Mirrik and Pilazinool saw it too, and tactfully moved in on Dr. Horkkk from opposite sides, pinning him between them and shutting him up.
Absolute dejection was what we all felt. We couldn't understand what Galaxy Central was up to, but it was utterly clear that we were going to be hauled away from our work, forced to defend our actions before the bureaucrats, and probably prevented permanently from seeing the planet of the High Ones. By the time we got everything straightened out, some other expedition would have been assigned to that plum.
The Commander produced a little data viewer and said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to take a personnel inventory. As I call your name, would you kindly acknowledge? Dr. Milton Schein?"
"Yes."
"Pilazinool of Shilamak?"
"Yes."
He went right through the list. Naturally, 408b of Bellatrix XIV did not reply. On the other hand, one robot of alien design had been added to the group but wasn't on Commander Leonidas' roster. Dr. Schein explained impatiently that 408b had been killed in an accident last December, that the robot was a High Ones product that we had picked up at the same time, and that Galaxy Central knew all this anyway, since he had passed it along via TP during our stop at Al-debaran IX.
"Aldebaran IX?" Commander Leonidas repeated blankly. "Your dossier doesn't include any messages sent from Aldebaran IX."
"In early February," said Dr. Schein. "We went there after leaving the asteroid in the 1145591 system where—"
"Hold it," the Navy man cut in. "Galaxy Central asserts that you were last heard from on a planet called Higby V, where you're supposed to be conducting an excavation of some old ruins. You left Higby V without authorization and disappeared. That was in violation of your agreement with Galaxy Central, and therefore—"
Dr. Schein broke in, "We left Higby V to go to 1145591, and from there we went to Aldebaran IX, where I sent a complete TP report to Galaxy Central."
"Not as far as anyone told me, Doctor."
"There's been a mistake," Dr. Schein suggested. "A computer error—a data transposition—a dropped bit. This whole arrest order must be erroneous."
Commander Leonidas looked troubled. Also puzzled.
Pilazinool said quietly, "Commander, precisely how did you trace us to McBurney IV?"
"I didn't trace you anywhere. I was ordered to come here and pick you up. Presumably Galaxy Central knew you were here."
"Galaxy Central did know," said Pilazinool, "because Dr. Schein sent word from Aldebaran that we were coming here. At the same time, he received full authorization from Galaxy Central to make this trip. If Galaxy Central lost track of us after Higby V, as you claim it says, how could Galaxy Central possibly know we had gone to McBurney's Star?"
Commander Leonidas had to admit the logic of that.
He fumbled through the text of his arrest order, looking for a solution to the inconsistency, and didn't find one. Leave it to the galactic bureaucracy: the right hands know not what the left hands are doing. Or tentacles, as the case may be.
Pilazinool said, "Do you have TP personnel on this ship?"
"Yes," said Commander Leonidas.
"I think," said Pilazinool, "you'd do well to put through a call to someone at Galaxy Central right now and get things straightened out."
"That might be a good idea," the Commander agreed.
Getting anything straightened out with Galaxy Central is a slow business. Everybody important went off to the TP section, and a few frantic hours followed. What finally emerged was the realization that one officious vidj at Galaxy Central, remembering that we had promised to ship the globe there as part of the agreement letting us go on to 1145591, realized the globe hadn't showed up. He called Higby V and found that we were gone, globe and all. If he had bothered to run a routine data-tank recap, he'd have found that we had sent word from Aldebaran that it had been necessary to take the globe with us. Instead, jumping two or three notches in the sequence of events, this particular blenking feeb had cleverly ordered a computer search of all ultraspace transit vouchers for the past six months, in order to find us, and thus turned up the fact that we had gone from 1145591 to Aldebaran and from Aldebaran to McBurney's Star. We had Galaxy Central's permission to do all this, but he didn't check the correspondence tank, just the transit data. Whereupon this dreary zoob erroneously concluded that we were unlawfully running all over space on Galaxy Central's thumb, as well as taking valuable property in defiance of an agreement, and decided to put a stop to this squandering of public stash by arresting us instantly. Hence the order to Commander Leonidas to put the yank on us at McBurney IV.
I repeat all this devious foolishness because it gives a beautiful illustration of how catastrophes can sometimes turn out pretty well. By the time Dr. Schein got finished making TP calls to Galaxy Central, you see, he had accomplished more than getting that dumb arrest order blotted. He had explained, to someone very high in the hierarchy, all about Dihn Ruuu, the Mirt Korp Ahm, and the hidden world of Mirt. And, since Commander Leonidas and his ultraspace cruiser are now conveniently in orbit around McBurney IV, it will not be necessary for us to wait weeks and weeks to arrange our transport to Mirt.
Commander Leonidas will take us there.
We leave tomorrow—for the home planet of the High Ones.
SIXTEEN
May 1, 2376 Mirt.
Now I know that I have been talking only to myself all the time I've been dictating these cubes. Lorie will never play them. What I have been composing over these past nine months, imagining I was writing letters to my sister on Earth, is actually a memoir of my own adventures, a diary for my own amusement.
In that case, I suppose I should complete the record by sett
ing down the outcome of this phase of the story. The story doesn't end here; it's really only beginning. What is yet to come is the real research, the sorting out of the immense treasury of new knowledge that we've acquired. But that promises to be at once more exciting and less dramatic, if I follow what I'm trying to say. I mean, the next phase of discovery won't unfold in such a fantastic rush of events—I hope.
* * *
The Pride of Space brought us to Mirt by early April. Dihn Ruuu, Commander Leonidas, and Nick Ludwig plotted our course together, after sighting the hidden star by infrared. Cautiously the cruiser pulled up ten light-minutes away from the dark shell that houses the High Ones. There was no telling what defensive weapons might go into action against a ship that came closer without permission.
The shell that is Mirt is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. From a distance of ten light-minutes it appears to fill half the sky, a great dark curving shield with a diameter greater than that of Earth's whole orbit. Even while Saul had been explaining Dyson spheres to us, I hadn't really considered in serious practical terms what it means to build a sphere big enough to contain a sun. I know now.
Dihn Ruuu, using High Ones broadcast equipment acquired on McBurney IV, put through a signal to Mirt and requested entry permission for us. The robot needed three and a half hours to get its message across. Because of our distance from the sphere, there had to be a lag of ten minutes between the time any audio signal was transmitted and the time it was received, but this alone couldn't account for Dihn Ruuu's seeming difficulties in persuading Mirt to let us in. The incomprehensible exchanges of alien words went on and on.