"Fair enough," Low replied guardedly, "although you look perfectly healthy to me. Better than you did when we arrived here, as a matter of fact."
"I am pleased to hear it." Was he starting to sweat? Low couldn't be sure. "We need to extract these." He moved to go around the pilot, who was standing between him and the case.
Low edged sideways to block the other man's path. "Just a minute, Ludger. Just because these look like the crystal I used on you doesn't mean they have the same function. Shouldn't we proceed with some caution? Maybe one or two of them have other functions. Dangerous ones. What's the rush? It's not good research to be in such a hurry."
But Brink wasn't looking at him anymore. He was staring past him, back in the direction of the entrance. "Perhaps someone else feels similarly."
Low turned. Flashes and sparks filled the center of the storeroom. They were echoes of the ghost-light that they had encountered briefly soon after stepping out of the asteroid-ship. Once more they appeared to be trying to form some sort of solid outline, and once more they remained nothing more than fireflylike glitterings in the air. Low thought he detected urgency in their motion, but decided he was being foolish.
"What are those things, anyway?" he heard himself murmuring.
"A natural phenomenon of some interest." As the lights drifted forward, Brink edged closer to the case.
Low held his ground as they swarmed around him. "I wonder if they carry a charge. Some of them look almost solid."
"I would doubt it." Brink waved at the nearest cluster. His fingers passed easily through them. "I feel nothing. A slight tingling sensation, perhaps. They are lights, that is all. A harmless local atmospheric phenomenon."
Low held out a hand palm upward. Several of the lights settled onto his skin, and he felt the tingling to which the scientist had alluded. It was not painful, more of a persistent tickling. As he stared, the sparks vanished one by one.
"I guess you're right, Ludger. It's an interesting phenomenon, but that's all." Feeling oddly disappointed, he turned hack toward the rear of the room.
"A thousand years' frustration!" A dozen thought-forms whirled precisely about a predetermined axis. "Can we do nothing to stop them, warn them, help them?"
"Why should it be any different with these than with their predecessors?" declared a hundred others, who had clustered together in a unique geometric form that nine out of ten human mathematicians would have said was a theoretical impossibility.
"No matter how hard we try, we cannot affect the physical dimension in any meaningful way." Half a million caucused resignedly. "That was the choice we made."
None present, which meant all, needed to be reminded of that sorrowful fact. Sadly, restatement of the unpleasant obvious was a catechism to which they had long been addicted. Paradise was rife with discontent, and few had the energy to dispute it. They had achieved a most unhappy perfection. All they could do was exist, and observe.
"Beautiful! Wunderbar!" Brink reached for the case, his fingers penetrating with the same ease Low had experienced in the museum spire. His fingertips began to tingle as they neared the cluster of crystals.
"What about possible dangers?" Low hesitated, uncertain how to react.
"Nonsense! Who would make a deadly analogue of something designed to restore life? You are overcautious, Commander. Besides, having no resources for detailed analysis, we must content ourselves with empirical demonstration."
It wasn't as if the scientist had been hypnotized, Low decided. Simply that he was preoccupied with the crystals to the exclusion of nearly everything else, including potential danger. His attitude might border on the irrational, but he had a ways to go before he could be accused of having stepped over. Low determined to keep a close watch on him.
"I admit we don't have the means to do a proper study. What did you have in mind?"
Brink smiled at him. "We cannot imagine the full capabilities of these crystals, hut we have proof of their partial potential. I am it. I wish I could have observed the actual action of the crystal on my body." His smile widened and Brink relaxed a little. "Being dead certainly inhibits one's studies." His fingers closed around the nearest sheath and he inhaled sharply at the contact.
"We must take at least a few of these with us."
"Why? The door's open now and we know where they are. We can come back for them whenever we need one."
"We cannot take that chance!" Struck by the sudden vehemence of his own response, Brink took care to moderate the remainder of his words. "Be reasonable, Commander. We have no way of knowing what devices and mechanisms may return to life in this place at any given time. In our absence, however brief, this room may choose to reseal itself, barring us permanently from its treasures. Additionally, should we encounter future difficulties, it would be useful to have crystals on hand for medicinal purposes."
Low agreed reluctantly. "You argue persuasively, Ludger. All right, I concede your points. Take the crystals. But I'm not going to lug them around. You carry most of them."
"With delight." As Low looked on, the scientist eagerly removed one crystal after another, stuffing them into every available shirt and pants pocket until he resembled someone who'd swallowed a green searchlight. As a precaution, Low pocketed a couple of the crystals himself. Their gentle warmth could be felt through the material of his pants.
"See, Commander." Brink fingered the last crystal, rolling it sensuously back and forth between the palms of both hands. "I am neither dead nor injured, so it does not sink into my fingers."
"Maybe it only operates at specific entry points," Low suggested. "Maybe fingers don't qualify."
His lower lip pushed out, Brink responded approvingly and with only the faintest hint of condescension. "Very good, Commander! A valid observational deduction." His gaze dropped to the crystal. "I hold in my hands the key to the resurrection of the dead. Perhaps I hold also the answer to everything mankind has ever dreamed of."
"Kind of a blanket inference, don't you think?" remarked Low sourly. After the spaciousness of the main chamber and the museum spire, the storeroom was beginning to feel cramped. Also, he was mindful of Brink's comment about doors being permanently and unexpectedly sealed.
"Let's get out of here."
"Nervous, Commander?" Brink followed Low as the other turned and started for the portal.
"Just thinking about what you said earlier. If doors can open here, they can also close." He breathed easier when they stepped back out into the high-domed chamber. It was brighter outside the storeroom. A man could see. And think.
He turned on Brink sharply enough to startle him. "You know, if these crystals are some kind of all-purpose tool, maybe they can open doors?"
The scientist grimaced, then considered, and finally found himself nodding in agreement. "A combination universal health clinic and door-opener? I would think such a thing not only impossible but absurd. However, that would be thinking like a human. We are on an alien world and should strive to employ nontraditional ways of thinking. Nonhuman, one might almost wish. As to your proposal, however, why not? What harm can it do to try?"
The crystals did nothing for the second sealed archway. Low touched one to the barrier, ran it along the line between door and floor, used it to trace the glyphs etched into the wall nearby. Beyond leaving him feeling really stupid, the exercise had no effect.
"What about your little robots?" Brink made the suggestion when Low had finally conceded defeat.
"We tried them, remember? They didn't work."
"You tried one at a time. What if you were to utilize several simultaneously?"
Low was skeptical. "Why should that work? The first time it took one robot to open one door. Why should the second door be any different?"
"Perhaps because it is different." Brink was persistent. "You are thinking like a human."
Low eyed the scientist uncertainly. "That's because I happen to be a human, Ludger. So are you. Don't start forgetting that."
Brink smi
led enigmatically. "I am merely trying to emphasize the fact that the Cocytans may have thought dissimilarly. What strikes us as irrational or even capricious may have made perfect sense to a Cocytan." He put a hand on the pilot's arm. "Come, let us try. Are you now in the business of conserving robotic energy?"
When the second door melted open, Low was too delighted to take umbrage at the scientist's smug smile. As Brink had hypothesized, using different combinations of robots allowed them to open all the remaining archways save one. No combination of imprecations and robots would force the fifth barrier. Perhaps it was broken, Brink thought.
He soon forgot about the stubborn fifth door. They had four other destinations to explore. Beyond each lay another familiar sphere-and-tunnel transport station.
"I wonder if absorbing that crystal did anything to your brain," Low remarked.
"Boost it, for example?" Brink demurred. "I feel no differently, Commander. I have no doubt you would have figured out this solution on your own. Later, perhaps, but eventually for certain." He was gazing through the high portal of the last archway, contemplating the resting, waiting sphere. "We could do worse than explore farther."
"I agree." Low moved forward. "Might as well start with this one."
Brink followed, green light comically radiating from his overstuffed shirt and pants. "Five archways, five outlying islands. No surprises there."
Low entered the sphere. "I wonder if they'll all be like the first? Storerooms or museums."
The transparent door irised shut behind them, and once again Brink marveled at the mechanism. There was nothing so primitive as a bolt or hinge visible.
With a slight jerk the sphere started forward, rolling faster and faster down the tunnel while the passengers within remained level and stable on their bench.
"I have this feeling," Brink commented as he stared at the black tube ahead, "that each island will be different."
"Intuition?" Low was fascinated by the featureless tunnel.
"No. Merely common sense. If I wished to leave behind a museum, I would concentrate it all in one place."
"Sure, but now you're thinking like a human."
Brink chuckled. "Ah, Commander. We may yet find a way off this silent, dead world."
It was neither silent nor dead, of course. Cocytus was in fact occupied by a population of immortal mutes. All-powerful, they were helpless. All-seeing, they could not share their visions. All-knowing, they could not impart knowledge. Dysfunctional angels, they could only observe, debate and hope.
It was Low's turn to smile sagely when they arrived at the second island and entered the welcoming spire. It was filled not with mounds of artifacts or cases of mysterious devices but a grand procession of softly glowing, artfully projected maps, globes and starfields. The second spire was a shrine to topography both terrestrial and galactic.
Many of the diagrams and schematics were unrecognizable. As with many of the artifacts they had encountered, the two humans simply did not possess the necessary referents to facilitate comprehension. They marveled at the confluxes of lines and dots and images, walking not only around but through them, and wondered at their meaning.
"Perhaps these represent the planet's internal landscape, represented in ways we cannot fathom." As he spoke, Low noticed that the scientist was idly caressing a crystal protruding from one shirt pocket. "How do you map the troposphere? This is science beyond ours, my friend."
"Not all of it." Low pointed to an exhibit off to their left.
There was nothing arcane about the softly lambent three-dimensional representation he had pointed out. It showed the central island surrounded by its five smaller neighbors. The shapes of the outlying spires that dominated each individual islet were unmistakable. A few small subsidiary rocks poked their heads above sea level, but they were clearly too insignificant to contain any ruins of significance.
"It's almost as if this archipelago was chosen for its isolation." Low studied the map, which he could walk through at will.
"This appears to be some sort of console or control board." Brink passed one hand experimentally over a smooth-sided mound projecting from the floor directly alongside the map. Instantly the projection expanded to include undersea features, none of which were as remarkable as the system from which they sprang.
"You take charge of this, Commander." The scientist stepped aside. "I am a reasonably skilled map reader, but not as good as you, I am certain."
Low wasn't quite sure if Brink was being straightforward or condescending again. Shrugging it off, he stepped forward and began experimenting with the control mound. Assorted hand movements called up various functions, from a depiction of the islands' internal structure to overlays showing vegetation and animal populations, both above and below the water.
A certain twist of the hand, no more radical than any other, and the entire projection disappeared.
"It's gone." Low gaped at where the projection had been floating.
"No, not quite." Kneeling, Brink picked something off the floor. It was a miniature version of the control mound. "Try this. Go on." He handed it to Low.
Assorted hand passes allowed one to expand or contract the map, to move around within it, and to access all of the device's numerous functions at whatever scale the operator required. When shut down it rested slick, cool and alien in his palm.
"That's handy." He slipped it into an empty pocket, feeling it nestle against his thigh. "Let's see what else we can find."
Everything they encountered was interesting, especially the maps showing Cocytus's major continents. One placed them a considerable distance from the nearest shore. None hinted at the presence of a viable population. Only the map of the islands, however, was portable.
When they turned to depart, they had a nasty shock. One of Brink's principal fears had been realized.
While they had been deeply engrossed in the contents of the map spire, the door leading back to the transport tunnel had closed silently behind them.
"And me without a door-opening robot in my pocket." A worried Low ran his fingers over the barrier. It was as solid as the floor. "Now we do have a problem."
"Perhaps we can find another robot."
Not knowing what else to do, they performed another circuit of the map chamber. While they encountered wonders aplenty, they found none of the compact door-openers.
This time it was Brink who was ready to give up, but after all they had accomplished, Low wasn't about to be condemned to death by a recalcitrant door. Further searching revealed a small service panel set flush with the floor not far from the side of the door where a robot would normally stand. The line that set it off was so fine that they had walked over it a dozen times without seeing it. Fortunately, Low had exceptionally sharp eyesight.
When they finally succeeded in prying up the cover, a nest of lines and conduits was revealed. In their normalcy of appearance and unambiguousness of function they were almost heart-breakingly familiar.
"Cables," Low muttered. "Plain old ordinary cables."
"Plain perhaps," remarked Brink. "Old certainly. Ordinary? I would not wager so."
"They're cables, that's all. We need to instigate an engineering procedure known as 'messing with.' Give me a hand here, Ludger."
Brink was reluctant. "We could blow ourselves up."
Low grinned at his companion. "That shouldn't worry you. You're packed with crystals. If you blow up, I'll bring you back. You can return the favor. Grab this." He indicated an inch-thick cable.
Together the two men pulled until the cable snapped from its braces. The interior was not metal but some white, waxy material. It did throw off a satisfying shower of sparks, however, substantial enough to knock both men off their feet.
"Ludger!" Low sat up and tried to clear his eyes. "Where are you?"
"Over here, Commander." Brink was rising shakily to his feet. "A shocking experience."
Low winced. "If you're going to pun, stick to German, will you? That way I won't be able
to understand you." After a quick glance he added nonchalantly, "Door's open."
Indeed, the barrier had vanished. Access to the tunnel was once more available, and the sphere rested motionless on its track.
Not waiting to see if the effect was permanent, or if some backup system was even then working to override the interrupt, the two men hurried through the gap. It remained open as they climbed back into the sphere.
"Now, that's what I call a worthwhile experiment." Low sat down on the bench. "Even the most advanced technology is susceptible to the application of brute force."
"The selective application, Commander," Brink corrected him. "I admit I'm gratified by the results. It's nice to know that there are situations where our primitive muscles may actually function to our benefit." The sphere swayed and began to accelerate. "Hopefully there will be no secondary side effects. We forced a door. With luck that will not lead to, say, a clean-out portal opening in the roof of the tunnel to admit the ocean."
Low glanced involuntarily upward, at the curved black ceiling. "Hopefully. I was afraid the sphere might be deactivated and we'd have to walk all the way back to the central island."
"I think our efforts were facilitated by the age of this complex. Any of it could cease working at any moment. We have been lucky thus far."
"If this is luck," Low grumbled, "I'll take vanilla."
"I do not understand," Brink replied. "My mastery of colloquial English is not perfect."
"You do fine, Ludger, just fine."
"In any event, we still have these." The scientist indicated his crystal-filled pockets. "They can help us through any difficulty."
"Is that a fact?" Low stared curiously at his companion as the sphere began to slow, pursuant to its arrival back at the main island. "How do you know that? Have you read something I haven't read, seen something I haven't seen?"
"Not at all." For a moment Brink was self-confused. "I seem simply to feel it."
Brighter light flooded the sphere as it rolled to a halt at the arrival station. "Whoa! I didn't think scientists 'felt' conclusions. I thought they required substantiative proof."