Engines Of God

"Now. Pick a target. Anywhere."

"Okay." She zeroed in on a cluster of oblongs forming a letter H. They were approximately two kilometers north.

"Draw a line from the group directly through the central tower. And keep going."

On the opposite side of the screen, the line touched another H. At the same range. "It's a reverse image," she said.

"Surprised?" Richard couldn't suppress a smirk.

Yes. The records she'd examined hadn't mentioned it. "Maybe it all has religious significance. Some high-tech species doing penance. That make sense?"

"Not to me."

Carson's shuttle was almost down.

Hutch turned the short-range sca

Carson had parked close to the edge. Hutch's lights touched the Temple shuttle. It was streamlined, intended for heavy atmospheric use. That meant a sacrifice in payload capacity. It was flashier than Alpha in another way too: the Academy had begun painting its spacecraft and CATs in an effort to shore up morale at remote field sites. The vehicle on the rooftop was a bright blue and gold. The Academy's colors. Probably another one of Adrian Hart's decisions.

She rotated the shuttle to bring the passenger's hatch inboard, toward the center of the roof. Give her preoccupied boss as little opportunity as possible to fall over the side. Carson climbed out and waved. She blinked her lights, and sliced down with easy skill, tread to tread.

Richard released his restraints, and reached back for his Flickinger harness. Hutch struggled into her own, pulled it over her flight jacket. Air tanks were okay. She activated the energy field, and helped Richard with his. When they were ready, she decompressed the cockpit.

Carson's military background showed. He wore crisply pressed khakis and a baseball cap, stenciled Cobra II, with a coiled serpent and lightning-bolt logo. His name was prominently displayed over the left breast of his jacket. He was a big man, broad in the shoulder, waist begi

Pressure went to zero, and both hatches swung open. Richard was not precisely clumsy, but Alpha seemed to have been designed with athletes in mind. To debark, it was necessary to climb out onto a stubby wing, and descend via handholds in the fuselage. Variations in gravity tend to confuse any passenger, but particularly someone like Richard, who was well along in years, and had never been light on his feet to begin with.

Carson appeared below the wing, and stood by, but made no actual move to help the older man. That was prudent: Richard did not like being helped. But he was there if needed. Hutch approved.

When her passenger was safely down, Hutch dropped lightly beside him. She clipped a tether around her left wrist and attached it to the shuttle. Take no chances on a rooftop in this gravity.

Richard was already on one knee, examining the charred stone. "What happened to this place?" he asked Carson. "Does anybody have any idea?"

"None. Nobody has been able to put together even a reasonable hypothesis."

"Maybe the construction ship blew up," Hutch suggested.

Carson frowned. "Doesn't seem like the kind of damage that would come from a single blast."

Richard got up and walked solemnly toward the edge of the roof. Carson moved as quickly to his side as the low gravity would permit. Hutch stayed a step behind.

"Spooky place," she said.

Carson smiled. His expression suggested he could see that someone might think so.

Richard did what people always do in high places. He leaned out and looked down. A plunge into the street, even from this height, wouldn't be fatal, unless you landed on your head. But you would sure as hell develop a limp. "Careful," said Carson, staying close.

"Is there a team currently working here?" Richard asked.

"No. There hasn't been any kind of presence in Oz for months. We pulled everybody out after we got the Temple deadline."

"There's not much traction up here," cautioned Hutch.

Richard stared out over the city. "Did you ever find any wreckage? Any trace of whatever was here?"

Carson shook his head. No.

"Anything at all left behind? Footprints? Marks in the ground—?"

The two spacecraft stood against the endless cubes and oblongs. Their fuselages and wings and pods were all rounded. A red guide lamp mounted between Alpha's treads blinked softly. Cabin lights in both vehicles spilled out onto the seared rock.

"There's nothing. Wish there was, Doctor." Carson glanced at Hutch, and returned his attention to Richard. "Did you want to see the quarries? Where the rock came from?"

"No. Thank you. What else here is worth seeing?"

"There's an inscription."

"Inscription?" Richard's interest soared. "Why didn't you say something before? The Abstracts don't mention it."

"The Abstracts are a year old. We've been a little too busy to monkey with updates."

Richard rubbed his hands together. An expression of beatific pleasure lit his features, and he waved an arm, a gesture which was too sudden and sent him reeling sideways and over the edge. Hutch and Carson both grabbed for him. They weighed so little in the low gravity, which was about one-tenth standard, that they'd all have gone down had Hutch's tether not taken hold. Richard let out a whoop, and they scrambled for balance, but he never missed a beat. "Thanks, Frank," he said. And, after righting himself: "What does it say? Have you been able to read it?"

"Not a word," said Carson, looking apologetic. "But you'll find it worth your time."

Hutch decided Richard was right. She did like Carson. He had not hesitated to risk his neck. That impressed her.

They flew west, using both shuttles.

The height of individual blocks gradually decreased as they proceeded away from the center, although there was no regularity in the process. Near the wall, at the limits of the city (Hutch could not help thinking of it in those terms), single-unit pieces had come to dominate so thoroughly that anything higher stood out.

They passed a section in which a chasm had opened. The land had dropped several meters. Avenues were broken off, blocks tossed about. "There are several craters within the walls," said Carson, speaking over the link. "Most of them came after the construction. In this case, the crater was already here, and they built over it. They filled it in, but the land eventually gave way. There are a few other places where the crust has simply collapsed under the weight of the blocks."

"The meteors that struck the city: have you been able to determine when they hit?"

"No. We can't date them with any degree of accuracy. We know that the craters in and around the anomaly are considerably younger, though, than they are anywhere else." "How much younger?"

"Most of the cratering took place between one and two billion years ago. But the local holes are, at most, fifty thousand years old. Of course, the ones in the city must have fallen after 9000 B.C. Incidentally, we don't understand where the burn marks came from, but we do know that whatever the nature of the fire, it came twice." "Twice?"

"In 9000 B.C., and again around 1000 B.C." Richard's brow crinkled. "This is certainly," he said with relish, "very puzzling."

"There's more," said Carson, "although it would have to be coincidence." "What's that?"