Breaking into a jog as he headed toward the rubble pile, he began shouting for Robbins. To his exasperation, the wandering journalist remained out of earshot.
He slowed as he neared the rock heap. Brink lay as they had left him, lying on his back with his hands placed across his chest. Surely there must be scavengers among the local fauna, Low knew, but thus far they had been gratifyingly reluctant to enter the huge chamber through the breach in its roof. The body was undisturbed.
He’d been gone less than an hour and wondered how much brain cell function had been retained. The study of human memory was an ongoing one, and many unknowns remained. He was about to put contemporary research to the test.
What he was about to attempt was impossible. Of course, so was interstellar travel. Since they’d already put one impossibility to rest, why not another? Instead of questioning alien technology, he intended to make use of it.
But what was he expected to do with the crystal? How was he supposed to apply it? Was there only one right way and many wrong ones? What if he did the wrong thing? Of course, with Brink already dead that ought not to be a real concern.
He tried to remember every detail of the demonstration projection he’d viewed back in the museum spire (for that was how he’d come to think of it). Was the crystal still even functional? The green glow might be nothing more than some ancillary residual effect. It shone softly in his palm, exactly as it had appeared in the projection.
Not knowing what else to do, he simply laid it on the scientist’s chest, stepped back and waited.
For a long moment nothing happened. Then the green glow intensified, as if the crystal were reacting to unknown programming, or perhaps to contact with a damaged life-form. Had he done the right thing? He reassured himself with the knowledge that he couldn’t make Brink any deader than he already was.
What happened next made his lower jaw drop, and Boston Low was not noted as a jaw-dropper. The crystal disappeared, not by evaporating into empty air but by sinking into the scientist’s chest. Hurrying forward, Low knelt at the other man’s side and ran his fingers over the place where the crystal had been. It had not turned invisible. It was most definitely gone. Into the scientist, melting through clothing and skin like green ice on a hot plate. A faint greenish aura spread over Brink’s torso, lingered a moment and then was gone. It was like nothing Low had seen in the museum.
Greater miracles were to follow.
Brink coughed.
As the scientist’s body began to twitch, Low stepped back, wondering if there was anything he could do to help, to expedite whatever remarkable process was taking place. Lacking specific knowledge, he could do nothing but watch helplessly… and hope.
As astonishing as the efficacy of the process was the speed with which it worked. Hardly a few minutes had passed when Brink sat up, rubbed his eyes and took several energetic swipes at something unseen in front of his face. Turning slowly, he focused on Low as he struggled to his knees.
“Want a hand?” Low watched intently.
“Not … just yet, thank you.” The scientist blinked, and shook his head as if trying to remember something important. “What happened, Commander?” His gaze finally settled not on Low but on the massive pile of broken rock and other material that towered behind him.
“You fell.” Low was observing him carefully for any signs of lingering trauma, but Brink acted like anyone who’d unexpectedly been roused from a deep sleep.
“Yes. I fell.” The scientist tilted his head back to stare at the greatly enlarged opening in the roof of the chamber. “I remember falling. There was pain….” One hand went to the back of his neck. “Then … nothing. I must have lost consciousness.”
“That’s not all you lost,” Low informed him grimly. “You broke your neck.”
“Broke…?” At a loss for words, Brink looked blank.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m a little lightheaded, I suppose, but that’s all. You know how you start to feel when you’ve had enough good wine? There is no pain. Surely I could not have broken my neck.” As if to demonstrate the state of his health, he climbed easily to his feet. “Could a man with a broken neck do this?”
“No. No, he couldn’t. Excuse me.” Approaching, Low put one hand on the back of the scientist’s neck and pressed. A bemused Brink allowed the exploration. Low stepped back. “The last time I did that, your head moved around like one of those spring-loaded dolls you sometimes see bobbing in the back of people’s cars. It was broken, Ludger. Now it feels as if there was never anything wrong. There’s not even a bruise.” He indicated the rubble.
“You were buried in that when this section of ceiling collapsed. Nothing but one arm was showing. Maggie and I pulled you out.” His voice was flat. “You were dead, Ludger. Stone-cold dead. You’ve been dead for over an hour.”
“Really now, Commander!” The scientist pinwheeled his arms. “I assure you I have never felt better in my life. Assuming for a moment that I accept your evaluation of my previous condition, to what do you attribute my apparent resurrection?”
“I can’t show you,” Low replied promptly.
“Ah!” Brink looked smug.
“I can’t show you because it’s inside you, whether intact or dissolved I don’t know. I found an interisland transportation system. If you remember, we speculated on that possibility soon after our arrival. I can now confirm it. Within view there is only this island and several surrounding smaller islets. I traveled to one of the lesser islands and found what looks like a museum of some kind, though it might just as easily be an old warehouse. There’s a lot of stuff there. Some of it might prove useful.
“One thing that caught my attention was a kind of green crystal. When I touched the case that held it, I got a three-dimensional projected treatise on some of its uses. Among them was the utilization of the crystal to cure badly injured animals.” He shrugged. “I didn’t see any harm in trying it out on you.
Pretty hard to make a corpse worse off.” His eyes locked on the other man’s.
“I extracted it from its case, brought it back here, and put it on your chest. It sank or melted into you, made your upper body glow for a minute, and then you started coughing. Tell me, what’s it like being dead?”
Brink didn’t reply right away as he pondered Low’s words. Finally he murmured, “Like sleeping, Commander. Just like sleeping. I have no memory of being seriously injured, of dying, or of coming back to life. I know only that one moment I was unconscious, and the next I was looking around curiously. Believe me, I am sorry I cannot better analyze what happened to me in the interim. I see that I must believe your story.”
“I wouldn’t make something like that up,” Low assured him. “Wouldn’t know where to start. Maggie would, but she’ll confirm that you were dead too.”
Brink looked around thoughtfully. “And where is the inquisitive and vivacious Ms. Robbins?”
Low made a face. “Your death set her off. I think everything hit her all at once. She stomped off, she said to get away from me, but I think to be alone with her own thoughts. She’s more angry at the situation than she is at me, but she needs time to figure that out.” He peered past the scientist. “Thought she’d be back by now. I’ll leave her be awhile longer yet.” He manufactured a smile.
“You need to see this museum, or storehouse. You’d be like a kid turned loose in a candy store, Ludger. I suspect that if touched, many of the other storage cases will also project explanations of their contents. It’ll be a show. We ought to learn a lot.”
“Such as how to reactivate quiescent starships?” Brink was quietly amused. “One can but hope. You had no difficulty in removing this crystal from its container?”
Low shook his head. “If there was ever any kind of alarm system, it’s dead now. Or maybe it went off in some distant, empty office. An alarm system’s not much use if there’s no one left alive to respond to it.”
“You said that you found a transportation system?”
“One-way, but wait until you see it. It goes around and around, and you come out there.” He grinned anew. “Noiseless and vibrationless, just like the crystal. It’s quite a discovery, Ludger. I’ve seen people take longer to recover from a bad headache.”
“You’re absolutely certain I was dead, Commander?”
“Indisputably. As dead as that rock.” He indicated a basketball-sized boulder that had rolled clear of the rest of the mound. Both men stared at it for a moment. Then their eyes met, and they shared a knowing laugh.