So saying, it raised its feet from the floor, leaned back, and resumed the traditional Cocytan resting position, prone on its back, winglets outspread to both sides.
“I tire of this new life, as I have tired of all that have gone before. I choose not to think. Leave me now, and if you would respect my intelligence as I have respected yours, do not inflict the pain of consciousness on me again. It is time for me to not be.” The slim, magisterial head turned slightly toward them.
“Go now, and I hope you find your way home. My entire species could not.”
“We don’t know how to thank you.” Robbins spoke quickly, conscious of the gravity of the moment.
Eyes full of wisdom flickered as the life force began to wane. The voice was an echo of what it had been earlier. “You are not home yet. When you reach your destination, thank me then.” Eyes closed, the voice silenced and breathing ceased. Once again, the great scientist-engineer was not.
Robbins wiped at her eyes. “I hope we didn’t impose on it too much. I wouldn’t like to go away thinking we’d caused it any pain.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Low was firmly prosaic. “It’s dead now. Again. That’s what it wanted.” He turned to look in the direction of the exit. “Now maybe we can get what we want.”
They left the tomb then—a silent, lifeless, hut somehow not at all tragic place. They were forced to pause for a while in the passageway while the contentious guardians fought their way across the central chamber. As they sprinted across the deserted floor, Low wondered if the two combatants would fight until their internal mechanisms ran down, or if one would finally succeed in overpowering the other. It might happen tomorrow, next week or next year. Or the salutary effect of the life crystals might simply give out. It didn’t matter, since he hoped he would never have to return to this island.
It took less than twenty minutes to find the necessary fourth plate. As soon as they had it safely extracted from the exhibit in which it had been half buried, something deep inside moved him to turn and face the pyramidal sarcophagus. Raising the edge of his stiffened right hand slowly to his forehead, he snapped it down smartly in the first formal salute he had performed in many years. Then he turned to Robbins.
“Right. We can go now.”
Low hefted the precious plate as they made their way back to the transport tunnel. By now he felt as comfortable in the rolling sphere as he did on the subway back home. No, that wasn’t quite true, he corrected himself. He felt more comfortable. There were no aggressive panhandlers, no forlorn students, no gang-bangers and no graffiti.
As they raced silently and comfortably toward the central island, he stared through the transparent wall of the spinning sphere and squinted, half imagining he could see destination signs painted on the dark walls. It was an ephemeral, childish fantasy, but one he was able to enjoy for several minutes.
An unusually pensive Robbins interrupted his reverie. “You know, Boston, we were pretty selfish back there, all wrapped up in trying to figure out a way to get back to Earth. There were so many questions we could have asked the Cocytan. So many things people have wondered about for thousands of years that it probably could have resolved with a shrug or a few words.”
“Like what?” He continued to squint at the tunnel walls.
“Oh, like, what is the meaning of life? How big is the universe?”
“Where are the cookies?” he added, making her smile. “I didn’t know telejournalists pondered such weighty matters. I thought if it wasn’t sexy, or with it or of the moment, then it wasn’t relevant. Reflection isn’t something I associate with modern news coverage.”
If she was hurt by his appraisal, she didn’t show it. “It has nothing to do with modern news coverage. Those are questions I would’ve asked, if I’d thought of them in time.”
Low shook his head dubiously. “I never heard a journalist ask questions like that.”
“Who would you ask them of?” She reminisced. “The people I’m told to interview, the stories I’m assigned to cover, don’t have much in common with the great questions. All I’d have to do is devote one show to a story on ‘the meaning of life’ and I’d find myself back in Topeka reading the morning farm reports so fast, it’d make your head spin. Which is where and how I got my start, by the way.
“The network isn’t interested. They don’t like for their reporters and anchorfolk to appear too much smarter than the individual on the street. You think an audience would watch?” She didn’t wait for him to respond, and he knew that he wasn’t expected to. “That doesn’t mean that I can’t be interested.”
He opened his eyes all the way. The fanciful station signs for Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, the Financial District, Berkeley and points east vanished from his imagination and his inner eyelids at the same time.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I’ve been underestimating you and over-categorizing you ever since the start of the mission.”
“Forget it. Not only am I used to it, I’m guilty of it myself. For example, when we started out, I thought you were a stiff, humorless, dry, emotionless robot. Now I see that you’re not dry at all.” She grinned and he returned the favor.
She had a beautiful smile, he decided. Perfect teeth, as you would expect from an internationally famous telejournalist. Accumulated grime and sweat couldn’t detract from the beauty of her skin. Her hair was a mess, but her eyes glistened like sapphire cabochons. Her lips were…
He turned away. Light had appeared at the end of the tunnel, signifying their approach to the central island.
Among the millions of monitoring thought-forms confusion, surprise and jubilation reigned in equal measure.
“They have spoken with the Creator and have found the fourth plate! They will use it to return to their world, and all will be as it has been.”
“Perhaps,” cautioned the iconoclastic first. “Have patience. We have been patient for hundreds of years. Time yet to see.”
“Truly,” chorused ten million supporters. “Patience we have in infinite quantity. Time still to dream.”
“Let us again discuss the physics of luck,” suggested ten thousand, and that prompted a renewal of an earlier debate.
The keen buzz that unexpectedly filled the sphere confused and startled its passengers, not to mention interrupting Low’s contemplation of Robbins’s features. Then he realized that the sound arose from their pen communicators. They were being called.
Pulling the unit from his belt, he spoke sharply into the pickup. “Ludger?”
“It would have to be, wouldn’t it, Commander?” The scientist’s words were labored and weak. “I regret to report that I am experiencing some difficulty.”
Low exchanged a glance with Robbins before replying. “Take it easy. We’re on our way back to the main island. What’s wrong? Did you misplace one of your precious crystals?”
“No.” Clearly Brink was under too much strain to respond to Low’s sarcasm. “But I was about to, and that is the source of the problem. I find myself unable to move. I am also,” he added tersely, “in considerable pain.”
“Hang on. Our sphere is arriving.”
It took only a moment for the transport to dock at the station. The door cycled open and they exited hurriedly. Brink wasn’t waiting to greet them.
Low raised the communicator. “We’re here. Where are you?”
There was no sign of the scientist. Wind whispered through the gigantic chamber, a querulous intruder from outside.
“I am on the surface,” came Brink’s reply. “Afraid we might be overlooking important external sites in our preoccupation with what we found below, I decided to hike out and survey the area immediately surrounding the opening into the large chamber. I should have been more careful.”
“You still haven’t told us what’s wrong.”
“You will see. Climb out and I will give you directions.”
“We’re on our way.”
Together he and Robbins struggled up the rubble pile and managed to make the jump from its peak to the nearest solid ground. It felt strange to be back in sunlight after being so long underground. After hours spent in the company of mysterious alien artifacts, relentless organic guardians and the resurrected Creator, he experienced the plain wind-swept rocks and low scrub as heartbreakingly normal. Squinting at the sky, he found himself speculating on the length of a Cocytan day.
“All right,” he informed the communicator, “we’re out.” He oriented himself. “We’re facing the setting sun.”
The scientist’s reply was shaky. “Turn forty-five degrees to your right and you will be facing me. I am not far. Please hurry.”
It took a bit of scrambling up a broken slope. Nothing difficult, which they both managed with comparative ease.