“Another tram.” Brink swore softly. “How exciting. Perhaps this tunnel terminates in Orlando. The Cape or Disney World, I would not care. Heidelberg would be better still. But I think not, I think not.”
“I guess its destination is pretty obvious.” Low sighed tiredly. “The fifth island. The only one we haven’t visited yet.” He frowned. “I wonder why such an elaborate setup to operate this doorway? Why hide it like this? There must be something special on the fifth island. Something even more remarkable than the Creator’s sarcophagus.”
“A used-starship lot, no doubt.” Brink giggled. It was clear his sanity was continuing to slide, the slip no doubt accelerated by yet another failure, another disappointment. “The starships are free, but you have to turn over an important body part in return for a map.”
“Ludger, get a hold of yourself.” Low started toward the other man. “Use one of the crystals if you have to.”
Brink backed away. “Might as well make yourselves comfortable,” he told them derisively, “because we’re going to be here for a long time, I think. Probably just this side of forever. We’re never going to leave this world, you know. Never, never, ever. In a thousand years or so some other cursed, unfortunate visitors will trip over our skeletons and wonder what we were doing here and why we failed to leave. Cocytus, oh yes, how true I named it!
“Now, if you will excuse me”—he executed a mock Prussian bow—”I have to go and find a nice, cozy burial site. Do not ask me to share. Each must find his or her own.”
Babbling in German, he whirled and sprinted madly away from them.
“Ludger!” Low took a couple of steps after the other man before slowing to a halt. It would do no good to run him down and tackle him. As mad as he was at the moment, he might be capable of inflicting serious damage on anyone who tried to restrain him, and that would do none of them any good at all.
“Ludger, please!” Robbins had come up alongside Low. Her entreaties were no more effective than those of the Commander.
“It’s no good, Maggie.” Low put an arm around her. “Let him go.”
“Go where? He could end up hurting himself again, and next time we might not be able to find him.”
Low tracked the running man’s progress. “I think he’s headed back to his crystal sanctuary. If he stays in there, he should be all right. Either he’ll come to his senses or”—Low shrugged—”he won’t.”
She wasn’t satisfied. “But we have to go after him, we have to help him.”
Low eyed her quizzically. “Why? When you stomped out on me, I didn’t go running after you, and you came to your senses.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I never lost my senses.” Angrily, she shrugged his arm off. “I was upset and I needed time to think.” She gestured in the direction the fleeing scientist had taken. “Ludger’s gone over the edge. He’s not responsible for his actions. There’s a difference.”
“Then he’ll climb back up, or he won’t.” Low was insistent, if not obdurate. “I’m not going to waste what time and energy I have left trying to wrestle him back to reality. For one thing, we’re all out of concentrates and we have to find a suitable food source.” He turned. Brink was now out of sight.
“Really, he’ll be okay. He’s carrying a king’s ransom in life crystals. I wonder if they can cure madness? If so, he’ll heal himself. He has a better chance of doing so than we do. Eventually he’ll get tired, or hungry, or both. Then he’ll remember who and where he is and come looking for us, wearing that same sheepish grin he flashed after we saved him the last time.
“Meanwhile, since we’ve nothing better to do, we might as well make a visit to the fifth island. Who knows? Maybe it’s a giant preserved Cocytan supermarket. At this point I think my stomach’s willing to try thousand-year-old dehydrates.” Turning, he headed for the beckoning portal.
“But why the elaborate door key? That’s what I don’t understand.”
She fell into step alongside him. “Maybe we’ll find a key to the key.”
He snorted skeptically. “I’m getting sick and tired of finding keys. I want to go home.”
Her eyebrows arched as she cast him a reproving look. “Now who’s out of patience?”
He didn’t reply. His shirts stank of Brink’s blood, he was hungry and tired as well as depressed, and worst of all, he didn’t have a clue how to tell Maggie how he really felt about her.
The transport sphere behind the fifth arch functioned exactly like the other four, its entrance cycling behind them before it commenced its slow, steady acceleration down the blank tunnel. While he had no means of measuring their velocity precisely, Low did his best to time the duration of their journey. It coincided closely with the previous four, which put it in line with the estimated travel time to the fifth and last island.
When it finally rolled to a halt, they exited and found themselves confronting another spacious, high-ceilinged chamber crammed with unrecognizable instrumentation. The individual devices were larger than anything Low had previously encountered save for the Creator’s pyramidal sarcophagus. That didn’t mean they would be of any use.
From the outside, the machinery appeared simplistic, no doubt in contrast to highly intricate interiors. Dominating everything else and rising toward the peak of the spire was a massive, irregularly shaped console. As big as a house, it took some time to circumnavigate. Low hunted for individual controls while Robbins kept an eye out for circular depressions that might accept metal plates. Neither search was successful.
What they did find sticking out of the far side of the mass was an assortment of projections tipped in glass, crystal or some other translucent material. When they touched these, or attempted to manipulate them, or passed their hands over the ends, nothing happened.
It was Robbins who picked out the image from the wealth of elaborate glyphs and engravings.
“Doesn’t mean anything.” Low made no effort to hide his continued disappointment as he studied the schematic she had found. “It’s just a picture of a bunch of Cocytans.”
“You’re looking at it, Boston, but you’re not seeing it.” She traced the surface of the detailed representation with a fingertip. “See how they start out wholly and perfectly rendered and then gradually fade away to nothingness?”
“So? Part of the image is well preserved and part has worn away.”
“No, no, don’t you see?” Her excitement contrasted sharply with his lassitude. “There’s a steady progression, right to left, from fully rendered forms through transitional stages right down to minimal outlines. Furthermore, the material on the left is as smooth and polished as the material on the right.”
“What’s your point?” he muttered impatiently.
She took a step back and gestured at the massive mechanism. “Don’t you get it? This is it, this is the machine!”
He blinked, his apathy sloughing away. “You mean you think this is the Eye?”
“That’s what the diagram says to me. Believe me, after you’ve spent months staring at thousands of Mayan glyphs, certain ways of illustrating things visually catch your attention.” She stepped back to examine the inscrutable bulk. “The only thing is, the Cocytan spoke of stepping through, and I don’t see anything like a door or portal or screen.” She encompassed the exterior with a speculative wave. “It all looks solid, except for this one slot over here.”
Moving to their right, she pointed out a dark hole in the otherwise unbroken flank of the machine. It displayed the same elaborate starburst design that embellished a number of other devices throughout the chamber.
“What could go in there?” Low bent forward to study the opening. “It’s much too small to take one of the plates. Maybe some kind of key, or card.”
“There’s only one thing we’ve found that might qualify as a universal tool.” When he looked puzzled, she gestured at his pocket.
He felt of the remaining sheathed crystal within. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Why not? They resurrect people, and aliens. Why not machines?”
“From an engineering standpoint that doesn’t make any sense. You use a socket wrench on a car, not on a person.”
She smiled slyly. “Even if that person has an artificial hip joint that needs tightening?”
He considered. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m thinking too much like a human again.” He studied the slot. “If the machine’s well and truly dead, dumping anything in there isn’t going to hurt it. If it’s still capable of activation, well … I left my Eye ignition key in my other pants.” He grinned admiringly. “You’re a pretty observant gal, Robbins, you know that?”
“If I wasn’t,” she replied evenly, “I’d have been dead twenty times over these past ten years.” She stepped aside to give him better access to the slot. “Go on, just do it.”