The Dig by Alan Dean Foster

She took a moment to translate for Low.

“So as not to alarm, hmmm? Had the opposite effect on us. But if it hadn’t, we sure wouldn’t have responded as quickly. Go on.”

The Cocytan continued. “Only a species sufficiently advanced to leave behind the gravity of its homeworld would have the capability to investigate and trigger a Messenger. Once activated, each was designed to return here with its discoverers. This complex of islands was specially designed to serve as a greeting place, where representatives of other species could be met in surroundings that would intrigue but not overwhelm them.”

“That explains exhibits like the museum and the planetarium,” Low commented when Robbins had translated for him.

She nodded agreement. “Not to mention the language instructor. I see the point. If you’re welcoming people from a primitive tribe, it’s a lot kinder to introduce them first to a simple village instead of taking them off a plane at Kennedy Airport.”

“The map spire. Ask it about the map spire.” She complied.

“A means of showing not only our planet, but our immediate stellar vicinity, as well as the relationship between it and the visitor’s homeworld.”

Low muttered to himself. “Then Earth was in there someplace. Ludger and I just didn’t know where to look.”

“What?” A confused Maggie tried to make sense of his words.

“Nothing. I’ll tell you later. Go on.”

“We had acquired vast knowledge,” the Cocytan continued, “which we were eager to share with others, if they could be found. All intelligences yearn for the company of others. In a boundless cosmos cognitive thought is a precious commodity, to be nurtured and cultivated wherever encountered. Sparks in a void must perforce stand together against the encroaching darkness. But I speak of times long vanished.”

So saying, the Cocytan dropped its head in a gesture that was startlingly humanlike, though whether it meant the same or something completely different, its audience had no way of knowing.

“But something happened.” Maggie’s voice had unconsciously hushed. She was overcome by the Cocytan’s scale of time and place. “Some disaster or cataclysm.”

The alien raised a hand and gestured with surprisingly delicate fingers. “Say rather, a tragedy. Of our own making. A consequence of our drive to achieve, to surpass, to exceed.”

“What happened to everyone else?” she asked. “Yours is the only body we’ve found preserved.”

“‘Preserved.'” The Cocytan ran one hand along the edge of the high platform. “None of this was my doing, nor was it by my choice. I knew nothing of it. I wished nothing more than a traditional departure from the realm of the living. I wanted to die. Instead, this was done to me.”

As the Cocytan spoke and he waited for Maggie’s translation, Low could not help but notice that the flickering lights had increased in both number and intensity. He fancied he heard a voluminous, ghostly moan and had to smile at the strength of his own imagination.

“This is the longest,” observed a dozen thought-forms, “that the creator has spoken with any visitors.”

“It does not matter,” declared sixty-three others. “Nothing will happen. It will end the same as before, and when it is over, these travelers will add their proteins and body fluids to those of their predecessors. Nothing will have changed.”

“Nothing will have changed,” lamented a hundred thousand of the forlorn.

“It happened after the first probes had been sent out to search for intelligent life on other worlds.” The Cocytan stared blankly at the ceiling, recalling. “While they were in transit, a significant development occurred in our society. Not a natural calamity, as you propose. We had progressed beyond being subject to the vagaries of climate and geology. Furthermore, we had acquired control over our bodies. Life spans had been extended to the maximum of which our physical forms were capable.

“Yet for many, even this was not enough. As sometimes happens in science, several profound discoveries in a number of unrelated disciplines took place almost simultaneously.

“First, the life crystals, as you call them, were synthesized. At the time, they were considered to be the ultimate product of high Cocytan technology.”

The Creator’s expression remained unreadable. While Robbins had learned how to interpret Cocytan speech, she remained woefully ignorant of facial contortions and body language. Not that the Creator was especially expressive anyway.

Low found himself glancing frequently over his shoulder, only to find nothing staring back at him. There were only the elaborately decorated walls and the dancing lights. He forced himself to pay attention to the interview. While he couldn’t understand a word of it, it was fascinating to watch Maggie and the Cocytan converse.

“These crystals, what are they?” she asked.

“For one thing, they are not crystals in the usual sense. Their appearance is incidental to their composition. Internally, they are very uncrystallike. The luminous outer sheath and inner crystalline one mask individual organic mechanisms of incredible complexity. Think of them as tiny but complete hospitals, containing everything that is needed to repair another organic life-form. With the development of the crystals it was no longer necessary for the sick or injured to travel in search of medical care. Complete treatment could be inserted into their own bodies.

“Each crystal incorporates the ability to diagnose as well as to perform any necessary medical work. Resurrection of the deceased merely constitutes a more difficult but, as you have seen, not impossible repair. It is simply a matter of rearranging and reinvigorating the appropriate molecules.”

“It works on humans too,” she informed it.

“The crystal’s powers of examination are considerable.”

“I can see something like that working on the recently deceased,” she remarked, “but with someone who’s been dead as long as yourself, I’d think the brain patterns would have faded beyond hope of recovery.”

“What are you asking it now?” Low demanded to know.

She waved him off. “Just the basics, Boston. Hush now, or I won’t be able to understand.” Fuming silently at his inability to follow the conversation, the Commander went silent.

“Learning how to preserve the dead,” the Cocytan explained, “is a necessary prelude to discovering how to revive them. That includes methods for the preservation of brain patterns. Although it was not my field, I believe it has to do with maintaining certain electrical flows in the absence of normal biological activity. As you can see, I was given the finest handling of which our biologists and physicists were capable. I was, as I have already mentioned, not consulted in this.”

“But you’re the only one.” Robbins made it a statement, not a question.

“Not at all. The museum spire is full of such exhibits, if only you knew how to activate them. There are many that can be restored to life.”

“No, I mean, you’re the only Cocytan. The only preserved representative of the dominant species. At least, you’re the only one we’ve found.”

Was that a smile? Low wondered as he stared at the alien. Or did the twitch of beak and eyes signify something else entirely?

His thoughts drifted to Brink. “Ask it how long the benign effect of the crystal lasts.” She proceeded to translate.

“It varies,” the Cocytan explained, “depending on the organism. In your case I could not say. You are warm-blooded and have a closed circulatory system. Beyond that I cannot speculate on the details of your internal anatomy.”

“You still haven’t told us why you were singled out for this special treatment.” Robbins’s interviewing skills came automatically to the fore. “What makes you so unique?”

The Cocytan lingered a moment before replying. “I had the misfortune to be born brilliant.”

“You don’t feel honored by all this?”

“Honored?” The alien leaned forward so sharply that for an instant Robbins considered retreating. Instead, she held her ground. In her career she’d faced down all manner of threats and weapons. The feeling she received from the Cocytan was not one of menace or of friendship. Nor was it complete indifference. It ran deeper, and she determined to identify it.

“You said that your people achieved several scientific breakthroughs at the same time.” Low spoke through Robbins. “You’ve discussed the life crystals. What were the other ones?”

The Cocytan turned to him. “There was a machine. An instrumentality called the Eye. Simple name for something so complex. I did not name it, though I was the one guilty of its evolution.”

“So you were more than an engineer.” Robbins spoke slowly and carefully to make sure there were no misunderstandings. “You were a scientist as well.” She glanced sharply at her companion. “Boston, this one was a scientist as well as an engineer.” Low simply nodded and let her get on with the translating.

“Engineering was my love,” the Cocytan explained. “Science was my reason for existence. Ultimately, it became the reason for my nonexistence, for that of my friends and relations, for—” The creature broke off and began anew.

“Let me tell you about the machine.

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