“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.”
“I cannot explain it.” Brink rose from the bench. “I just know.”
“Suit yourself.” Low followed him through the exit. “Next maybe you can ‘feel’ a way to reactivate the asteroid. I just ‘know’ you can.”
An uncertain Brink did not return the Commander’s smile.
CHAPTER 13
“They continue to make progress.” The thousand and one perceptions projected positive assurance. “The life crystals have given them no trouble. They have not misused them nor attempted to make invalid applications.”
“Common sense does not equal true intelligence.” Five hundred and two dissenters dismissed doubtful assertion. “An animal that walks into an electric barrier learns not to repeat the experience. This constitutes learning, but in the absence of real intelligence.”
A couple considered. “In addition to the life crystals, they have discovered and made use of the map spire as well as the interisland transportation system. We will bet the scent of a flowering fungus that they will now move on to explore the other towers.”
The doubters were disdainful. “Anyone can bet freely with that which they do not possess, cannot obtain and can hardly remember.” There was a distinct note of wistfulness in the rejoinder. “Would that it were otherwise.”
“Unmoderated curiosity can be detrimental.” The great majority of observers remained noncommittal, genuine emotion being too precious a commodity to waste on misplaced hopes.
“Doing nothing would be more detrimental still.” This exclamation came from a platoon of the purely prosaic. “They must move on in spite of risks they cannot envision, for to stand still is to begin to die.”
“Except for us,” remarked several others. “More’s the pity.”
“How can we die?” They were all philosophers, out of necessity if not desire. “Is this existence we enjoy a kind of life or of death?” It was a question that had been debated for hundreds of years, and for which they had yet to concoct a satisfactory answer.
“Observe. Already they advance toward the next tunnel.”
“Another obstinate door might be enough to defeat them,” theorized three-and-thirty.
“Not these.” It was the first who spoke now, the one who had made the original desperate attempt at contact. Its failure had only inspired fresh thinking. “They are resourceful beyond the bounds of prediction. Did you not see how they dealt with the barrier?”
“Unsophisticated,” remarked an arc of mind-thoughts. “Inelegant.”
“But in the final analysis, effective,” argued the first. “And that is all that matters.” Drifting low, it hovered somewhere between the crest of the central island and Brink’s eyebrows. “If only we could break through and warn them! If only we could provide assistance instead of mild bemusement. Who did not see during the last attempt? Exerting to the utmost, those who strove achieved only futility.”
“Perhaps the occasion will arise in which to try again.” A number of the first’s supporters gathered close. One moment there were three or four of them, and the next, half a million. “Perhaps circumstances we cannot foresee will prove more fortuitous.”
For all their accomplishments and all their learning, for all the time that they had existed in first one dimension and then another, one thing the Cocytans could not do was see into the future. Had they been able to do so, they would not have been in the stultified state in which they found themselves now. For as surely as Cocytus rotated on its axis, they would have chosen a different path into the future. One that would have allowed them to show all that they had left behind to their latest visitors. One that would have allowed them to explain.
For the second time that day the two men spent time calling out to Maggie Robbins, and for the second time there was no response to their shouts.
“Something’s happened to her,” Low muttered uneasily. He started to reach for his pen communicator.
“Not necessarily.” Brink considered the possibilities. “Perhaps she has climbed up the rubble pile and is exploring outside. Seeking familiarity among the unfamiliar, she may have returned to the asteroid. Or possibly she is bathing in the waters of this ocean, seeking temporarily to distance herself from the overwhelming difficulties that face us. If the latter, then I envy her her sense of proportion. I could do with a swim myself.”
“Later,” snapped Low. “We have spires to explore.”
“There, you see?” Brink gently chided his companion. “That is exactly the kind of attitude I mean. If we are not careful, the stress and strain will do us more damage than any uncooperative alien device.”
Low whirled on him. “You want to go swimming?”
The scientist glanced away. “Well, not just now. As you say, there are two other spires to inspect.”
Low grunted his satisfaction. “Thought so. You’re as driven as I am.”
“I regret to say that you are right. But let us not condemn the resourceful Ms. Robbins for possibly believing and acting otherwise. If she is indeed taking time to relax and mentally recuperate, then she is behaving in a more sensible fashion than you or I. Anyone who can survive and thrive in the inhospitable universe of international media can surely keep her wits about her on a mere alien planet.”
Low had to smile. “Glad to see that your sense of humor survived too.”
“I am pleased you find it so. I have, on occasion, been accused of not having one. Perhaps the application of the crystal, which, by the way, I should like to call a life crystal, improved upon it. Nothing like dying to enrich one’s sense of the comic.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Low gestured. “But I still think it’s time we checked in.” So saying, he pulled the pen communicator from his belt and switched it on. The corresponding LED for Brink’s unit glowed brightly, but the third remained blank.
“Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “She’s switched her unit off. I can’t contact her until she turns it back on.” Frustration was evident in his tone. “Dammit, she knows she’s supposed to keep her unit activated at all times.”
“You see, Commander? She wishes to preserve her solitude.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “I can’t order her to turn her unit back on until she turns it back on. So for right now it looks like we’ve no choice but to let her be for a while longer yet. Let’s get going. I don’t fancy getting caught out on one of the smaller islands after dark. Maybe the transport system shuts down at midnight.”
“Or if we do not return here in time, we both turn into pumpkins, perhaps?” Brink chuckled softly. It didn’t sound quite normal, somehow, but Low had other things on his mind besides the nature of the scientist’s laugh.
As they walked toward the third beckoning archway, they continued to call to the absent Maggie. Despite Brink’s sensible reassurances, Low remained concerned.
“Even if she was off resting somewhere, she ought have come back by now, if only to check up on me.”
“Perhaps she has been trying to do just that.” Brink had to break into an occasional jog to keep up with his companion. “She may have circled this chamber a dozen times while you were sifting through the contents of the museum island or the two of us were learning the secrets of the map spire. Not finding you, she may have gone searching elsewhere. Maybe we will find her on the third island, or the fourth, awaiting us with characteristic impatience.