Hegira
"But the submarine can see us whether there's fog or not."
"I don't see how," Bar-Woten said. "Water's silty."
"It must have some way. These ships don't sound as they sail; they just move."
"The submarine isn't here today anyway, unless it moved in during the night, and nobody heard anything. When the sub moves you can hear it in the hull."
Kiril shook his head dubiously and leaned against the back of a vent. "We won't get away that easily."
"We'll see."
They never had a chance to try their plan. Before the fog lifted the submarine was heard on the surface. When the fog thinned they saw two ships-on-legs moving too slowly to show their foils. Clusters of men in dark uniforms stood on the decks. A bull horn was brought out, and one of the men in black hailed the Trident.
"Captain Prekari!"
The captain came forward and answered the call.
"I am Vice-Admiral Gyorgi Lassfal, in command of Ocean Restoration. I was formerly in command of the Weggismarche Merchant Navy. Do you recognize my voice?"
Prekari, standing on the wing of the bridge, answered that he did not—further identification would be necessary. An exchange of personal pleasantries followed, which left no doubt in Prekari's mind that he was talking to his bureaucratic superior. He passed the word along the deck.
"Captain, I have been invited here to tell you there is no danger. These men wish us no harm. In fact, they want our help in the Restoration. Am I allowed to board your ship and explain these things to you?"
Prekari told him he could come aboard alone.
The vice-admiral was brought to the lowered gangway by a small motor-launch. He came aboard without ceremony and was ushered quickly into Prekari's stateroom. There was nothing left to do on deck but watch the rising fog and examine the near ships more closely.
By midday the vice-admiral left the Trident, and Prekari came back to the quarterdeck. He stood on the boat platform to tell them what had been decided.
"Weggismarche, Pallasta, and Nin are now under control of Northerners," he began. He cleared his throat and leaned on a davit. Bar-Woten thought of the day they had first met him, stomping along the deck to his cabin; now he looked tired and weak, half the man he had been. "That is, they are under the care of these people … who have lived in peace for many hundreds of years. The weapons and ships, they say, are defensive, used only when exploring in dangerous waters. I believe that story is true on the whole. So does Vice-Admiral Lassfal. They've come south to see what aid they can give to our country.
"They are building emergency shelters for the survivors. The factories we passed are for that purpose. The admiral claims they were brought here piece by piece in the last few weeks. They have ships much larger than any of ours. There are only five or six million people left in our country, a few more in the lands south. Most were killed when the Obelisk fell. All of our cities have been destroyed. The weather has changed. The crops are all gone of course, and so is our livelihood. It sounds as if they might be benevolent, but I think they have other motives. Not unreasonable motives, mind you, but ulterior nonetheless. They have come to read the Obelisk. They have requested our help in digging out the buried portions—as much as possible—and reading and deciphering. The admiral tells me this is a monumental task, enough to fill decades, perhaps centuries. In that time the Northerners will support us, help rebuild, reestablish our economy—apparently making the Obelisk the center of all business and trade. They seem to be decent people—strong-willed, but not unreasonable. They have certain moral strictures we are requested to abide by. These will be outlined at a later date. There is nothing that should be repugnant to us.… " He didn't sound completely convinced. Kiril frowned. The captain's message seemed one of defeat—defeat without war, without even preliminary defiance.
"The Obelisk is a thousand kilometers long. Until now, we've never had a chance to read more than a few kilometers of its surface. We've known that the history of the First-born extended far higher, with knowledge we could never hope to attain by ourselves. We are now offered the chance." He added in a lower voice, "But at what a cost!" The crew of the Trident was deathly still. The fog was gone now. They could smell the smoke from the factories.
"We have nothing else to do. We can't trade our cargo, we can't buy necessary materials and parts, we can't leave the Pale Seas and survive for long with our hearts cut out of us. We have to regrow our hearts here, by giving up the sea, if need be, or working in whatever way we can with this ship to help rebuild Weggismarche. Of this I am convinced. Are you convinced with me?"
The crew said nothing. Then, as if by one motion, they looked over the starboard side to the rugged and denuded land and agreed in a low rumble. Kiril spoke with them, and Barthel nodded with a catch in his throat, mixed fear and sorrow.
Bar-Woten stood silent with his one eye fixed on Prekari and his lips set. It would soon be time to begin the third leg of their journey.
| Go to Table of Contents |
Nineteen
From the top of Barometer Mountain, two kilometers above the barren plains that stretched to the Pale Seas, the long, geometric bulk of the Obelisk could be seen for at least four hundred kilometers. At the horizon, half of its bulk was buried in the rock and soil of Hegira. Closer than that, the curve of the planet slacked away from the spire until its end spanned the isthmus of Weggismarche and wedged into another mountain four kilometers from Barometer.
Kiril looked down the southern slope and saw the base camp of the surveying party from the Trident, and in the bay beyond, the Trident herself, tiny as a toy in a puddle. He turned his eyes skyward and shielded them. The light that had replaced the Obelisk's glow was at its noontime peak. Clouds drifted in patches across its concentrated center, casting broad shadows over Barometer and the bay. Bar-Woten climbed slowly and deliberately over the rock pile that edged the northern slope of the peak, and joined Kiril. Barthel wasn't far behind.
"I'm beginning to piece together this stuff about the Wall of the World," Bar-Woten said, regaining his breath with even, deep inhalations. "It's five thousand kilometers from here, to the north, which explains why there are no more Obelisks visible no matter how far north you travel. From what I understand, the Wall itself gives off a glow at the top. There may be smaller Obelisks there or normal ones just beyond it."
"How tall is it?" Kiril asked. Barthel stood beside them and leaned on his climbing pick, his face red and sweaty.
"At least as tall as an Obelisk."
Kiril looked down the northern slope and saw a helicopter landing on a broad rock outcrop, like a bee setting down on a stony gray flower. "Is it true there's writing on the Wall, too?"
"They say so. Because it starts at a forty-two-degree angle, they can climb up its face easier than any of us could scale an Obelisk. That's why they know more than we do. But they can't go higher than a hundred kilometers. The slope increases beyond that, and there's not enough air—not for a man or his machines anyway."
Kiril tried to picture the civilizations along the Wall developing faster, learning faster, trying to spread their culture and knowledge farther south. How long ago had they reached the point where they could learn about submarines, hydrofoils, airplanes, and helicopters in sufficient detail to build them? A few centuries? How long after that before they could build rockets and read even more of the writing higher up? His past few weeks of education still stunned him.
There were huge factories farther north, whose only purpose was to create artificial petroleum products, following a formula on the Wall of the World. There was no natural petroleum on Hegira, as most half-civilized people had learned long ago. Some—such as those in Weggismarche and Pallasta, and even in Mediweva and Ibis—had developed efficient methane engines and made do with that. Those near the Wall, having access to more complicated instructions and designs and the method of making artificial petroleum from waste products, built their factories and developed engines with far more power, and
also far more waste.
They had radio communication and were developing the transmission of moving pictures. They had basic rockets, though nowhere near as large as the one in the chasm south of Ubidharm. They had advanced medical knowledge. In all ways they were ahead of their southern neighbors. Yet they had been blocked by solid bands of ignorance, tribes and cities and countryside populations intent on stopping them from spreading Unholy Knowledge any farther. The People of the Wall had had to pass their information across the cultural interfaces gradually—over three hundred years' time—bringing their neighbors into their own fold. But even the People of the Wall had limitations—which began one hundred kilometers from the surface of Hegira.
Now with the fallen Obelisk there were no limitations. In a few decades they would be able to piece together the entire history, culture, and technology of all the civilizations of the First-born.
Kiril almost wished he could stay and learn. But it was too late to stop. The three had to pass beyond the Wall. It was a dead certainty that what lay beyond the Wall was the Land Where Night Is a River. He ran his hand across his forehead and smiled. It was like being halfway through a stormy day riding a scrittori balloon, with clouds beginning to clear.
But they still had a long way to go.
"If we can't climb the thing, how do we get across?" he asked.
"I've been listening to their stories," Bar-Woten said. "Their legends seem to fit those of my country, end to end, completing the stories and adding more details. But they've also seen them—"
"Seen what?" Kiril asked.
"The holes. Every few kilometers there's a hole, about eight kilometers above the base of the wall." He was ebullient. He clasped his hands together and touched two fingers to his beard, smiling broadly as he looked across the plain. "They say when a man is worthy he can go into the hole and walk as far as he pleases … right across to the Land Where Night Is a River. Usually the holes are blocked—but for the worthy man they'll open right up!"
"And after that?"
"We'll see soon enough."
"Are they going to let us go north?"
"I don't know. We can only ask."
"They won't believe us."
"Probably not," Bar-Woten agreed. "So we don't tell them you're really a prince." He grinned. "We tell them you're a curious scrittori from a land they've never heard of, and we," he pointed to Barthel and himself, "are your humble student assistants. We've come to the ends of the world to see what there is to see and exchange what we have to give."
"You're hopelessly optimistic."
"These people have no reason to fight. No reason to conquer. They have everything already." He grinned. His guard's down, Kiril thought.
"I never thought an old soldier would trust anybody," he said.
"Nor I. That's why I left."
"The Bey trusts these Wall people?" Barthel asked.
"They could have killed us a dozen times over, and instead they ask us to join their work crews and help them to restore a land they've never visited before."
"Maybe they're ambitious to a fault," Kiril suggested.
"What about the ship in Mur-es-Werd that was damaged by a hydrofoil?" Barthel asked.
"Ah!" Bar-Woten raised his hand. "One unanswered question. Maybe they fired first."
"Perhaps there's more than one civilization with technology like this," Kiril said. "What's going to happen when they all meet?"
"I don't know," Bar-Woten said. He stroked his beard, then looked at Kiril as if the Mediwevan had pricked some happy private balloon and brought them all down hard. Kiril was surprised by the look—he'd made the suggestion almost cheerfully. But he sobered and said, "That's the way it always is: two equals meet, and they have to fight."
"There is a reason for everything," Barthel said. "Allah dropped the Obelisk here to stop such squabbles. He dropped it in a land of good people perhaps."
"No, no," Bar-Woten mused. "Barthel, would your Allah sacrifice ninety million people to hand good cards and fair dice to someone else?"
Barthel frowned for a moment, then nodded, yes. "It would not be without precedent," he said. "My Allah is no simple God, Bey."
"I opt for letting the Fall remain a mystery until we hear a better explanation not based on faith," Kiril said. "There are things faith is good for, and this isn't one of them."
They scrambled down the southern slope toward the camp. A work party of fifty men and women was laying tarmac for an airfield a half kilometer from the beach. By the time the three had descended, a whistle blew for dinner, and all work stopped.
A communal dining tent had been erected, and dinner was served inside with kerosene lamps on the tables. Most of the crew of the Trident ate under the canvas, and about thirty People of the Wall, including the camp director. He was a grinning, gray-haired man, tall and slightly stoop-shouldered, who called himself Orshist. After the meal was finished he went to a small platform at one end of the tent and set up a board to outline the plans for the excavation of the Obelisk.
His manner was crisp and brief. He carried a collapsible pointer and used it to emphasize his words like a fencer executing a riposte.
"We have the spire," he said, "and we have Hegira. Hegira in this region has four layers that are familiar to us. They begin with topsoil, which is sparse here, and overburden, which consists of dead dirt and broken rock. Beneath that is the groundwater layer, which extends for at least a kilometer, and beneath that is plastic mantle. The spire has buried itself some four hundred kilometers from here, deep into the groundwater layer. Beyond that, at its midpoint, it has broken through this layer and struck mantle. But of primary interest is where it has lodged in the mountains. The mountains, contrary to what we've learned of geology on Earth, did not form because of drifting continents, of which Hegira has none. The mountains have always been here. Where the spire has fallen across mountains, it has broken through four layers and found a fifth. This fifth is not another extension of mantle, but something quite different. It's porous like a honeycomb, made from what we now think is primary vulcanism—which could only have happened at Hegira's formation. Some of the pores are big enough for a man to step into."
Kiril and Barthel listened attentively, but Bar-Woten was mulling something over, his bearded chin resting in his hand. His eye was closed.
"If we wish to uncover the spire completely we must dig away all these layers where they cover the sides. We may never know all of the text on the underside, but fortunately the spire is unlike the Wall, and each side supports its own text instead of a continuation from side to side."
Bar-Woten opened his eye and thought of the honeycomb material, pores big enough to hold a man. That seemed very important, because it reminded him of the rind of a fruit they had eaten in Golumbine, called sati. It had a thin, tough outer shell under which was an equally tough but spongy and resilient white layer, like tree rubber. The white layer had been porous and dry.
Orshist went into detail about the excavations and produced a chart that showed where the first readings would be made.
"We have a pretty good idea of the history of the First-born to the middle of the twentieth century anno Domini," he said, pointing to the end of the Obelisk. "Information here could already give us a lifetime of study and development, since we come across complicated philosophies, whole new brands of physical science, and vast, important literatures. But now we need to know how we are related to the First-born and what sort of world Hegira is. With this knowledge we might begin to find some meaning in our existence."
Bar-Woten, like a weather vane, showed by the set of his mouth and the angle of his eyelid what he thought of Orshist's words. He didn't move a muscle otherwise. He reminded Kiril of a cat intent on its spring.
"So we'll begin in areas we can interpret. That will put us at this point, two hundred kilometers from the base. We'll also record at the very top of the spire, near the dormant sun source, but we won't begin direct interpretation. The language appears t
o be incomprehensible, even in the standard phonetic script of the spire. Numbers play a large part in the language toward that end. In short, we are about to study the entire history and accomplishment of the First-born, perhaps up to the time they performed that unknown act, or had an unknown act performed upon them, and produced ourselves, the Second-born.
"Work crews will assemble tomorrow morning. Committees and working unions for the distribution of supplies and living quarters will meet and organize at each camp. Factories will be set up along the coast for the construction of roads, the rebuilding of cities, the manufacture of digging machines, and the processing of raw materials. We begin a job worthy of any civilization on Hegira!"
Kiril fidgeted. He could hardly remember what Elena looked like now, and yet he was still obligated—almost against his will—to push on with Bar-Woten and Barthel. He would rather have stayed and helped in the interpretation, in the learning and deciphering and recording, for the spirit of the thing was in his blood, and future adventure in unknown lands seemed far less attractive. His fists clenched, and he couldn't separate the confused strings of thought in his head.
| Go to Table of Contents |
Twenty
"Kiril! Wake up!"
The Mediwevan fought out of his slumber and had the familiar sensation of not remembering where he was. The tent canvas overhead and the thin-padded cot, which had become as unyielding as stone during the night, had been forgotten in sleep, and now he didn't know what they were. Barthel came into the tent through the flap, stumbled over a roll of clothing, and grabbed him by the shoulder. Kiril rubbed his sleep-smeared eyes and asked what was going on.
"They arrested the Bey!"
"Who?" he asked, still foggy.
"The Bey! They've put Bar-Woten in jail!"
"Why would they do that?" he asked peevishly.