"How much worse Spherical regression would be for a single species spreading across the Cluster," Herald said. "The great riddle of the Ancients is not in their species, but in their technology. If we had that level today—"
"We could stand against the Amoeba," Hweeh finished. "We keep returning to that!"
"The Amoeba?" Sixteen inquired.
"I suppose it is no secret now," Herald said. "Our Cluster is threatened by a monster fleet of ships from outer space that we call the Amoeba. We fear they come to conquer us, to harvest the matter of the Cluster for the energy needed to sustain their level of civilization, and that they possess the ability to do so—unless we can muster the complete knowledge of the Ancients against them."
"How can one fleet conquer the whole Cluster?" Sixteen asked. "It would take them two million years merely to traverse it, and in that time Spherical regression would destroy them."
Herald realized that he had been falling into a trap of careless thinking. Sixteen had extremely low aura, but that did not mean she was also low intelligence. There was a lot more to an entity than aura, as he had learned from Psyche. "It seems they mattermit," he said. "The fact that they do this, when there is no apparent source of energy—such as the Lodos' neutron star—in the region, suggests that their technology rivals that of the Ancients. We can hardly expect to stand against them—unless the Ancients stand with us."
Sixteen made a blue flare of acquiescence. "Mattermission uses a lot of energy," she said. "I begin to grow concerned. Isn't the Cluster Council acting on the matter?"
"They are and they aren't," Herald said. "They have set up a committee."
"Then we are lost," she said, quite seriously.
"Whatever the species or conglomeration of the Ancients," Hweeh said, "This site of Mars does seem to be one of their relics, and just might have a hint of the answer to our problem. I presume it has been competently dated?"
"The site as a whole has been dated. There is no doubt it is of the Ancient period," she said. "Also, each level has been dated specifically. We find that the oldest habitations are nearest the surface, the more recent ones progressively below."
"Isn't that backward?" Herald asked. "I'm no archaeologist, but I thought new remains cover the older ones."
"It is in order," Hweeh said. "This is the worm mode. Worms naturally tunnel, and it takes time for them to convert the depths. They are not like the Quadpoints of your galaxy, who fill in their tunnels behind them. Here the tunnels remain open and the matter removed must be disposed of suitably. So the process is slow. They seal off their old passages for their dead, making new ones deeper in the ground. The old air spaces become insulation against the extremes of climate, making each succeeding layer more comfortable. Such fumes as there may be, tend to percolate upward, away from the residential zones. An old worm-metropolis is the very depth of gracious living."
"I think you missed your calling," Herald said. "You belong in archaeology, not astronomy."
"They are much the same," Hweeh said. "I have associates in the field of research archaeology, and portions of our studies overlap. I research in the depth of old holographs and contemplate the layerings of ancient galaxies."
They were still descending through the excavated site, coasting over ramps slanting past layers of tunnels. "This is an exceptional site," Sixteen remarked. "It covers a period of occupation of a thousand years, and the trace evolution of technology is measurable."
Both Herald and Hweeh reacted. "You have traced the actual development of Ancient science?" the Weew asked.
"To a certain extent," she said. "Actually it doesn't get into Kirlian technology; this was a residential section. All the advanced equipment was removed when the city was vacated. All of everything was removed."
"Then how do you measure the progression of their technology?" Herald asked. "By the elegance of the surfacing of their tunnels?"
"No, the passages are organically made," she said. They may have had machines to supplement the work, but the binding cement seems to be from body chemistry. The artifacts are in the tomb-tunnels, evidently burial items. Rings, mainly, with ornate vermiculate designs—"
"Crests!" Herald exclaimed. "Kirlian crests!"
She did not catch the significance. "The Ancients seem to have worn them around their bodies. Perhaps the metal enhanced their Kirlian powers."
"That too," Herald said. "I meant the designs. They could have been identifying symbols, codified—in short, Ancient heraldry."
"Heraldry?" She was prettily perplexed, and for an instant she reminded him of Psyche. There was of course no similarity of body or aura, and he was immediately disgusted with the comparison. Oh, Psyche!
"It is an odd system of Cluster nomenclatures," Hweeh explained to her delicately. "Pictures representing location and families are drawn on shields or clothing for ready identification of individuals in person or historically. It amounts to a kind of supplementary visual language that has many aficionados, similar to the Tarot images. This entity is the Cluster's leading exponent of the contemporary art."
To see ourselves as others see us..., Herald thought.
"How nice," Sixteen said. "Maybe he can interpret the designs. I had thought he was only a Kirlian expert."
"Never mind my credits," Herald said. "Here my professions may overlap. I shall indeed examine the designs, as well as the Kirlian properties of the rings. But I had understood—I may misremember, as my itinerary was set up several hosts ago—that you had uncovered some actual Kirlian objects, of the type found in other Ancient sites."
"Yes, the cubes," she said. "They were found in the lowest level, and we believe them to be Kirlian-keyed. They seem to have been left by accident. Perhaps they dropped from a moving load unseen. That is why this site was worth your attention. The cubes may be the most advanced artifacts of this site, perhaps even having part of the secret for which you quest."
How barren that Kirlian Quest seemed now! If he had any way to quest instead for Psyche— But that had to be suppressed. "Perhaps," he agreed. "Let us hope so. Kirlian cubes seem to have been the books of the Ancients, their recordings of things of moment. But I doubt we can master Ancient science from a few cubes; we need a full library." In the library of Kastle Kade, her aura rising, rising, dooming her and him....
"Something perplexes me," Hweeh said. His spacesuit was convenient because he could speak without having to jet forward. He had shaped it into a form approximating that of Herald's host however, perhaps so as not to seem out of place. "You say there is a progression in the artifacts?"
"Yes. The oldest ones are cruder, both in artistry of design and in the alloy of metals employed. The difference is marginal but consistent and, we feel, significant. It shows that slight refinements in conception and technique occurred over the centuries."
"But then this indicates one of two things, each highly significant," Hweeh said. "Either this is the home site of the development of the original Ancient species—"
"Hardly," Sixteen said with a jet of humor. "It is only a fractional record of their history, a thousand years, picking up when they colonized from space and ending when they departed. They originated elsewhere."
"Or it represents," Hweeh continued with that tone Herald recognized as the professional conclusion, "a tangible demonstration that the Ancients suffered from Spherical regression."
Both Herald and Sixteen suffered flameouts of shock. Both dropped and rolled in the dust sputtering to recover propulsion and voice. "Impossible," Sixteen gasped. "Everyone knows the Ancients did not—"
"It must be a misinterpretation," Herald said as his flow returned. "The artifacts could have been labeled in reverse order by mistake—"
"That would still indicate regression," Hweeh said, pursuing his logic. "Either they regressed upon founding the colony, then slowly recovered, or they slowly regressed until their dwindling technology made further residence on this planet unfeasible."
It made unholy sense. Spherical
regression was the effect of reduced civilization at the fringes of individual interstellar empires, owing to the delay entailed by the effective limitation of half-light-speed travel and the inability of reduced populations to maintain high-order technology. Thus a planet like Keep, near the Fringe of the Sador Sphere and not far from the Spheres of Sol and Polaris, had medieval representatives of all three cultures. Only sufficient energy to make full-scale mattermission possible could abate this effect, for then the highest technology of each home planet could be exported. It had always been believed that the Ancients possessed such an energy source, for they had not seemed to regress; their artifacts were of uniformly high technology wherever they appeared.
"But if the Ancients—" Herald said, and stopped, appalled. "That would imply that they lacked—No, they simply could not have expanded across the Cluster if they suffered regression! There must be some other explanation for the discrepancy of artifacts."
"There must be," Sixteen echoed. "We only excavate and catalogue, we do not theorize in depth. Our findings are accurate, but the rationale—"
"I do not perceive the necessity of questioning either the findings or the rationale," Hweeh said after a moment. "It is certainly no shame to suffer from Spherical regression. All the best cultures do. In fact, perhaps only a hopelessly set culture, like that of the—I'm not sure of the equivalent in Solarian, termite-ants?—gregarious insectoids can effectively avoid it, and they do so at the expense of further progress. Progress cannot come without change, and change permits regression as well. So it may be a healthy signal. The point is that though the Ancients may have felt its impact, even as we do today, they were able to overcome it. What is evidenced in this site is minimal, certainly, especially considering that the Ancient home world may have been in another galaxy. We need to ascertain how they minimized their regression, since they surely did not have infinite energy."
"It is good to have at least one clear thinker on this mission," Herald said. "Of course you are correct."
"In fact, you're pretty intelligent," Sixteen added.
"It is of no moment," Hweeh said modestly. "I have long specialized in analyzing data for meaning."
Now they entered the larger tunnel of the excavation. "We did not care to risk collapse of the cutaway section," Sixteen explained. "Our excavation weakens the structure, which already suffers from fossilization from three million years. It is stable enough in itself, but brittle when disturbed. So we are mining for the bottom levels. We are at the lowest now. All that remains is to classify recovered artifacts before we yield the remains to the Lodoform crew." She made a little flirt of motion, indicating the tunnels around them. "It is unfortunate that this must be destroyed, but the bureaucrats insist that the planet be uniform, pristine for the guests."
"Who would much rather explore the Ancient site for themselves," Hweeh said. "Idiocy to destroy it."
"This level differs," Herald said, observing the cross-sectioned passages. "These tunnels are machined."
"Yes," Sixteen agreed. "We conjecture that they were preparing to depart, and knew there would be no further burials, so had to standardize their passages for ready access. They are far more uniform, with fewer residential chambers."
They drew up at last in a nether chamber of considerable size. "This is their chamber, not yours?" Herald inquired.
"Yes. We have not destroyed anything it was possible to retain of the originals. We conjecture that this contained a mattermission unit that transported the individuals directly to their orbiting ship, then either self-destructed or mattermitted itself to the ship."
"Mattermitted itself?" Hweeh asked dubiously.
"We don't know the capabilities of the Ancients," she reminded him. "Their machinery may have had this power. At any rate, the chamber was empty. Possibly it was dismantled by a cleanup crew and carried to the surface for transport to the ship. It was obviously an orderly evacuation. The mystery of their abrupt departure, in the face of no apparent threat, remains."
"That is the mystery of the Ancients everywhere," Hweeh said.
"This cessation on Mars coincided with that of all the other dated Ancient terminations?" Herald inquired, sure that it did.
"Yes. They disappeared all over the Cluster—simultaneously, as far as we can tell."
"So they did not leave Mars to go to another planet," Herald said. "When they left here, they left the Cluster too."
"It is almost as though some Cluster-wide threat drove them out," Hweeh mused.
"Like an Amoeba?" Herald asked. "Then we are surely lost, for even the science of the Ancients cannot save us. Yet there has never been evidence of invasion. Surely the Ancients would have dug in and fought."
"Here are the cubes," Sixteen said, cutting short a dialogue that had no reasonable resolution.
Herald drew up before the platform and contemplated the display. There were only two cubes. They were decorated in relief on the sides in the manner typical of Ancient artifacts of this type. "These are the best-preserved cubes I have encountered," Herald said. "Odd that they should turn up in ruins, instead of in some functioning site."
"These are not ruins," Sixteen said. "They are closed-down residences." But then she made a gust of negation. "The distinction becomes irrelevant; you mean that this is not a technological site. The discovery of these cubes transformed this excavation; prior to that, this was a routine cataloguing mission. If these are functioning Ancient texts...."
Yes, indeed! Prior Ancient cubes had been amenable to evocation only by the application of high aura. Herald had handled several, but they had been music recordings with no apparent meaning beyond that. Mintakan experts had analyzed the sounds and been baffled. What was needed was a definite language that could be deciphered. So far there had been only circumstantial evidence that the Ancients even had a language. Perhaps this was it!
Herald extended his forward feelers to touch the nearest cube, and tasted the air circulating around it. Normally the Ancient artifacts were evoked by an aura of 180 or stronger, so he expected no difficulty. The only apprehension he felt was over the possible content of the Ancient record. It might be empty or it just might be the one they needed, the one that told the key secrets of Ancient science.
Suddenly he was aware of other Jets. They had been working around the site, so that he had hardly noticed them, but now they were closing in to witness the evocation of the cubes. Well, he could hardly condemn their curiosity and interest. They had found these significant artifacts!
He concentrated his aura on the cube. He felt it begin to respond—then it balked. Hweeh focused on him, concerned, knowing something was wrong.
He could not evoke the cube. Like his healing power, his evocation strength was gone. And Hweeh of Weew could not salvage his reputation this time by doing it for him; his aura was 125, too low for this work. "Dead cubes?" Sixteen asked anxiously. Herald hesitated. They expected so much... could he disappoint them? Yet if he remained Kirlian-impotent—
He would have to try again, harder. Maybe he could break through his own stasis—
"ALARM! ALARM!" the site speaker system clamored. "Strange nexus has materialized in orbit about this planet. Nature unknown."
"Strange nexus?" the Jet super, numbered "1," inquired. "Clarify."
The observer sounded confused. "It registers on our sensor like a meteor-shower—but it's orbiting. And it has some kind of energy shell. Maybe our equipment is malfunctioning, but I think it's a ship."
The Jets hovered on their fibers, amazed. "A ship materialized?" Hweeh demanded. "Could it be the Lodo freezer mattermitting again?"
"Without a mattermission receiver?" Herald asked. Sixteen read the detail code coming in over the speaker. "It is no wormship," she said. "Even allowing for our sensor malfunction, the shape is wrong. This is a Sphere, not a Worm."
"An Atom-ship, perhaps," Herald said. "Maybe it found an old orbiting receiving station. Still, why would anyone waste all that energy mattermitting here? Th
ey could have called us via Transfer-link."
"It is an alien vessel," the lookout said excitedly on the speaker. "No record of this type in the Cluster. Now it is hovering above this site—"
"No ship of the Cluster can mattermit without a specifically identified receiver," Herald said. "If it is an Ancient receiver undiscovered until now, this ship can only be—"
Hweeh started to lose form inside his suit. Grimly he hung on. "It is—" He sagged, then struggled to reform his speaker horn. "It is the Amoeba!" And he sagged into shock.
"The Amoeba!" Sixteen exclaimed. "Here?"
"What is this Amoeba?" One demanded.
"Enemy fleet," Sixteen said tersely.
"Or one ship thereof," Herald amended. "If Hweeh is right—and I think he is—we're in trouble. Find cover—fast."
The Jets nulled around uncertainly. Of course there was no cover. They were already deep in the ground, with nowhere to go but up.
"This is not a battle base," One retorted. "It is an archaeological site. No one would attack—"
She was interrupted by a crack as of thunder. The tunnel shuddered, and dust sifted down.
Herald hooked the unconscious Hweeh with his graspers and jetted for the exit ramp. "Get out before this dig collapses!" he wooshed back at the confused Jets.
Sixteen zoomed up beside him and helped him haul the inert Weew. Herald hoped the suit was maintaining the life processes without assistance. "How can there be thunder?" she asked, seemingly unable to focus on the main issue. "Mars has no water-storms!"
Another crack of thunder sounded. This time part of the ceiling caved in, showing the red Martian sky above a ballooning cloud of dust. "That's no storm!" Herald cried. "That's a laser strike!"
"But the noise—"
Herald realized that the explanation did not come naturally to a nonlaser species, so as they struggled through the throng of panicked Jets on the ramp, he explained: "The laser heats the air it passes through, making it expand explosively. That's the thunder. Mars has very thin atmosphere, but this is evidently a very strong laser, so the effect remains. Lasers are basically space weapons, where no atmosphere gets in the way. Here—"