"Yeah," muttered Low. " 'This Way to the Garbage Dump.'"
Brink was not displeased. "I would not mind finding that. Dumps are always full of useful things."
"You know, Ludger, you're an incorrigible. An incorrigible what, I don't know, but an incorrigible."
"I accept the designation with honor, Commander."
"I think you're both wrong." Robbins stepped over a collapsed section of wall. "That was no natural phenomenon. It was trying to show us something."
"Anything is possible, Maggie." Brink worked at not sounding condescending. He didn't always manage it. "This is an entirely new world. Who is to say what natural laws may or may not be obeyed here? Perhaps even flickering lights that give directions."
"There was a face," she insisted. "Just for an instant, but I saw it."
"You are anthropomorphizing. Just as one sees faces in the clouds, or silhouettes in the stars."
"It was a face. Not human, but distinct. My observation's as valid as yours."
Low tried to calm her. "It could have been a face. It wasn't around for very long, so it's hard to say. Remember, Maggie, the first rule of science is to disbelieve everything you see, not to accept it. Extraordinary events require extraordinary proof."
"Maybe it'll come back," she decided. "Watch out. There's a hole here."
"I see it," he replied testily, and was immediately sorry. She was only trying to be helpful.
"See!" Having exhausted itself with the effort, the first discoverer addressed the others. "They are not entirely bereft of perceptual ability. Excuse my dissipation. That was quite a strain." Despite maximal exertion, a brief flicker was as much as any of them could impinge anymore on the real world.
"An admirable effort, but to limited effect." A dozen decriers swirled nearby. "They are reluctant to accept the evidence of their senses."
"That is natural enough," insisted those who supported the first.
"Questioning is a sign of mental strength, not weakness," avowed several who had remained neutral. "They proceed in the direction that was suggested."
"Not a sign of acceptance," the naysayers declared. "Their options were limited in any case."
"Possibly if you tried again." Avid supporters gathered around the first.
"I cannot. The attempt has left me spent. Perhaps later." Any noncorporeal being would be weakened by the effort of trying to impact on the physical world. "They must proceed now on their own. But if another wishes to try..."
None did. Among those so inclined, none had the strength or talent. They could only flow and observe, drifting as easily through the rock beneath the travelers' feet as through the air above their heads.
Low was tiring of ruined walls and crumbling structures. "Look, we're not going to find anything up here. We should've gone the other way."
At which point Robbins halted and pointed. "Is that so? Isn't that another one of those metal plates? The kind that we used on the asteroid?"
The scientist shaded his eyes. "I believe you are right, Maggie." He hurried forward, the others following.
It might have been a little larger than the four plates they had used to activate the asteroid-ship, but there was no mistaking the shape, the way the inscriptions were laid out, or that soft charcoal-gray sheen.
"Let's take it back to the asteroid and see if it fits the dome,"
Low suggested. "Maybe it'll kick the thing into reverse. Maybe it'll do something."
"It's certainly worth a try," Brink agreed.
Spreading out, they dug at the loose dirt and gravel until they could slide their fingers under the plate's curving edge. Despite their best efforts, it would not come free.
Lying prone and squinting, Low continued to scratch dirt from beneath the metal. "It's set in a groove of some kind. Maybe we ought to leave this one alone."
"Nonsense!" Brink moved forward. "Here, let me."
Additional work reduced the height of the surrounding soil until they had room to shove the disk to one side. It shifted reluctantly to its right, sliding on ancient bearings.
They probably shouldn't have been surprised, but were, when a shaft was revealed beneath. It was wider and not as deep as the one that had led them to the asteroid's interior.
"I can see the bottom." Robbins leaned over to peer cautiously downward. "There's a smooth floor and some loose rock." She took a step back from the opening. "It looks like debris that's fallen in."
"The result of natural weathering processes," Brink explained. "There is no vacuum here to preserve structural integrity." He glanced over at Low. "If you would like to be the first to enter, Commander, I will gladly defer."
Low considered. He'd been watching and studying Brink as well as Maggie ever since they'd left the asteroid. The scientist seemed as competent on the ground as he'd been in space, if a touch overly eager to leap ahead where Low would have acted cautiously. It was going to be impossible to restrain his enthusiasm forever. Maybe now was the time to let him take the lead for a while. It would be useful to see how he would act when allowed to choose the direction of their advance.
"Ludger, I think archaeology's probably more your line. I'm liable to disturb something when I don't even know what I'm looking at. You go first."
The scientist considered the drop. "It is not that far. Getting out again may pose a problem, however."
"We'll just use the escalator." Low grinned. "Can't find anything useful if we don't look."
Brink nodded. Slipping his legs into the gap, he started to turn, intending to grip the inner edge of the shaft and then lower himself as far as possible by his hands before dropping free.
"It's not bad," he informed them. "If I can just reach—"
There was the sound of rock giving way, and Robbins screamed, "Look out!" as she stumbled backward. Low dove forward, grabbing for the scientist's wrists, but he was too late. Brink lost his grip and fell.
Instead of quieting, the rumbling and grinding grew more intense. "Get back!" Low yelled at Robbins as he scrambled backward. The warning was unnecessary. She was already retreating.
The entire section of ground in which the shaft opening was embedded promptly gave way, collapsing into the chamber below. Dust and echoes rose from the cave-in, accompanied by a single muted curse in German. Then there was silence, broken only by the plastic click of broken rock settling into place.
Low rose and brushed at his coveralls. The opening at his feet was now some twenty feet across. "Maggie, you all right?"
She was standing on the far side of the hole that had opened in the ground, cautiously peering down and waving at the dust, which continued to drift upward.
"Ludger? Ludger!" There was no response.
Treading carefully and testing his footing before putting down his weight, Low walked around the opening to rejoin her. The ceiling collapse had left a pile of rubble that reached nearly to ground level, offering a comparatively easy way down. Of their companion there was no sign.
"Ludger!" Cupping his hands to his mouth, Low leaned over and bellowed into the depths. A couple of eerie echoes were all that responded. He turned to Robbins. "We've got to go down and find him." She nodded assent, her expression stricken.
They searched until they found the point where the pile of collapsed material came closest to ground level. Gritting his teeth, Low took a running start and leaped for the crest of the pile. He landed solidly, slipped backward and found himself tumbling out of control.
The floor was featureless and unmarred by the collapse. Robbins was at his side in seconds as he struggled to sit up.
"You okay?"
He brushed gravel from his sleeves. "Yeah. Lost my balance. Looks like you didn't have any trouble."
She smiled apologetically. "Three years' varsity gymnastics. My mother thought I was wasting my time." She helped him to his feet.
"Stay close," he told her.
She eyed him sardonically. "Why? So I can give you a hand, or so you can give me a hand?"
"Whatever," he snapped. Together they began to circle the base of the collapse. Ancient building material and natural rock and earth mixed to form the high mound.
As they searched, they spared an occasional glance for the underground chamber in which they found themselves. It was enormous, much larger than the interior of the asteroid. As with that vehicle, pale illumination emanated directly from the walls and floor. The ceiling, however, gave off no light. Either that part of the system had failed or this chamber was differently designed. As a result, the illumination was dimmer than it had been aboard the transport.
Low's examination of their new surroundings was interrupted by a cry from Robbins. "Oh my God!" Darting forward, she knelt and began pulling at something sticking out of the pile of detritus. An arm.
The only visible part of the scientist, it was still attached to the rest of him. "Careful." Working frantically, Low moved the larger rocks while Robbins dug away the smaller debris. "We don't want to bring any more of this down on him."
It seemed to take forever before they had enough of the rock shifted to be able to drag Brink's body from the heap. The scientist's eyes were shut, rock dust covered him from head to foot, and he was badly bruised and scraped. The multitude of small cuts, however, paled beside the deep bruise above his temple.
"Concussion," Low announced curtly as he studied the wound. "Maybe contusions. Could be internal bleeding. Damn." Removing his shirt, he made a crude pillow for the scientist's head, resting it gently on the compacted garment.
They alternated performing mouth-to-mouth and CPR. Low tried everything he knew, and Robbins added a few first-aid tricks she'd picked up in her travels, but nothing worked. Angry and frustrated, the Commander finally leaned back against the small mountain of debris, running a hand through his dust-speckled hair.
"Well, that's it."
"What do you mean, that's it?" Robbins's professional demeanor was badly shaken. "It can't be! We haven't been here half a day."
"Doesn't matter how long we've been here." Low spoke quietly, evenly. "If we'd been here a week, he'd still be just as dead." It sounded harsher than he intended. He looked away from her. "There's nothing we can do."
Robbins knelt by the scientist's side. She'd seen a great deal of death, altogether more than was reasonable for someone her age. It had been by choice, an unavoidable corollary to several of the dangerous stories she had volunteered to cover. It was the suddenness of Brink's passing that hit her so hard now. The suddenness, and its matter-of-factness. They were not in a war zone, not trying to avoid terrorist fanatics, not dealing with the deadly vacuum of space. The scientist had been doing his job, was all. And now he was dead, victim of the dispassionate collapse of the entrance to still another alien construct. It was so damned impersonal. A lousy rockfall, something that could just as easily have happened back home in Germany.
Here, on the verge of great despair and equally great discovery, it struck her as obscene. She did not cry. It would have been unprofessional, and besides, she was too furious at an indifferent Fate.
CHAPTER 10
"They do not grieve overmuch," postulated a trio of Cocytans hovering in the vicinity of Robbins's hair. Their presence did not disturb a follicle, did not brush suggestively against her skin. But the temperature in the vicinity of her neck rose one-quarter of a degree, too slight to be noticed.
"If anything is to happen, it will take time," declared a hundred others, watching. "Each species has its own time frame."
"If they do not grieve for their dead, then they cannot be counted very intelligent." The trio was confident.
"If only they knew that there was much they could do," remarked a small dozen thought-forms. "So much at their fingertips, so much for them to discover. It is better they do not linger."
"Indeed it is," murmured a cooperative pair, "for they have lost a third of their complement already. We see no hope in these, just as we saw no hope in those who came before them. They are an entertaining diversion, no more."
"Did any think it would be otherwise?" queried the hundred.
The one who had exerted a mighty effort, only to see its presence in the real world disparaged as a ghost of an illusion, remained defiant.
"They will grieve, and then resume looking. I think it is in their nature. They will not give up."
"They will give up, after a while. The isolation and the hopelessness in which they see themselves beats the best of them down." The dozen were merciless. "Another day or two of their time will see them start to go mad. The precedent is there."
"These are different," insisted the first. "They have to be more determined than those who preceded them. They are physically weak and unimposing. Therefore their development must have tended to the mental."
"Intelligence is useless without drive." The dozen split and split again, but their thoughts remained cohesive.
"Have they drive? We will see. A diversion." The hundred were joined by nine, and became a thousand.
"Wasteful expenditure of energy." They became silent, waiting and watching.
Maggie Robbins had flung herself against Low and was pounding her fists into his chest. The startled commander tried to grab her wrists, but she was much stronger than she looked. At least, he reflected, she wasn't hitting him in the face. How much of her anger was directed at him and how much at their latest misfortune he was unable to tell.
She quickly enlightened him. "You son of a bitch! You told him to try that entrance!"
"Now, just a minute, Maggie." He finally succeeded in getting a grip on her forearms and held her off. She had been so completely in control of herself, so utterly professional up till now, that the sudden emotional flare-up had caught him completely by surprise.
"In case you've forgotten," he reminded her coldly, "you voted for me to stay in command. Being in command means telling others what to do." He nodded curtly at the crumpled body of their companion. "Would you feel better if it was me lying over there instead of Brink?"
She hesitated, took one last futile swing at him, and then yanked her arms away. Wiping at her eyes, she discovered that she was annoyed at herself more than at Low. Not only for losing control, but for making an insupportable accusation. She realized suddenly that she'd been putting off the enormity of what had happened to them. Brink's death had shattered the wall she'd erected between her emotions and this strange new reality. She'd allowed one wonder after another to mask an unpleasant inevitability.
Now it had all come crashing down on her at once, clear and sharp in her mind. Brink was dead, they weren't going home, and she'd never see her friends or family again. And in a few days, or if they were lucky, a few weeks, she and Low would be dead too.
"Would you prefer it was me?" she shot back. "I know you think I'm pretty useless. You'd probably trade my life for Brink's in a minute."
"No," he said quietly and without hesitation. "No, I wouldn't. I don't think like that." Again he looked past her. "I'm as sorry as sorry can be for what's happened. I liked Ludger... well, I can't say that I liked him, but I respected the hell out of him. He was the best at what he did. If he was a little too devoted to himself, well, I've been accused of being something of a cold fish myself." He raised his gaze.
"No one could have foreseen that the whole ceiling around the portal was ready to collapse. It looked solid enough to me. It must've looked solid to Ludger too. Remember, he was the one with the degree in geology. If he'd thought it was unstable, I'm sure he would've said something."
She shook her head, wiped the back of her hand across her nose. "Naw, not Ludger. He would've gone ahead anyway. His curiosity would've overridden his common sense. I got to know him well enough to know that, anyway."
"It doesn't matter. At least he went quickly. We're probably both going to end up like him anyway."
She stopped daubing at her eyes. "You really believe that?"
He shrugged. "I'm a realist, Maggie. We'll keep trying, keep looking, but I'm not sanguine." He
swept an arm in a broad circle to encompass the gigantic chamber in which they found themselves. "I don't know what any of this does, and I don't know how to find out. That's assuming any of it is still functional. Maybe Ludger could've done better."
"There has to be a way to reactivate the asteroid-ship, a way to make it take us back to Earth."
He smiled tolerantly. "Does there? Why should it be anything but a one-way trip? Even if the asteroid is capable of making a return journey, what makes you think it carries enough fuel, or whatever it utilizes for propulsion? We could figure out a way to start it back up and still go nowhere."
"Then why did you push to come up this canyon?" Her tone was bitter. "If it's so hopeless, why are we even trying?"
"It's like Ludger said. The first rule of science is to disbelieve everything. So even though I'm convinced we're not going anywhere, least of all home, I can't let it stop me from searching. Science is always frustrating."
"Well, if that's the way science works," she muttered, "then science sucks!"
All he could do was smile. "Only if you're talking hydraulics. Wish I'd had some archaeology, but it wasn't exactly a prerequisite for flight school." He turned to examine their surroundings. "Might as well get started. Which way, Maggie?"
"You expect me to come with you?" She stared at him in disbelief. "So you can tell me to dive into the next hole or stick my head in the guillotine? No thanks, no thank you, Commander." She made it sound like a curse. "If I'm going to die here, then I'm gonna spend my last few hours going my own way. Try acting on your own orders for a change."
With that she whirled and stomped off in the opposite direction, no particular destination in mind, knowing only that she wanted to get away from him. She was thoroughly incensed ... and thoroughly confused.
Low started after her, then halted. She was upset, frustrated, and badly frightened. She had every right to be. There was nothing he could do about it. The boundless energy that had served her so well on this journey as well as on innumerable foreign assignments only compounded her distress. Arguing would do no good, would only waste resources better conserved. In the coming days they were going to need whatever strength remained to them, mental as well as physical. Better to let her go her own way for a while and burn off some of the tension.