Engines Of God

"Let's take a break," said Carson. "This is a good place to eat lunch." They broke out sandwiches and fruit juice and got comfortable.

Everyone talked. They talked about what the valley had looked like when the city was here, and what might have happened, and how everything they had gone through had been worth it to get to this hillside.

Carson opened a cha

"I'm here."

"Everything's quiet."

"Here, too."

"Good." Pause. "Jake, this place is spectacular."

"Yeah. I thought you'd think that. It looked pretty good from the air. Are you still coming back at sundown?"

Carson would have liked to stay out overnight, but that would be taking advantage of Truscott. And maybe foolish, as well. Now, with the Ashley Tee within range, he was sure she could be persuaded to wait for the rendezvous. Which meant they had plenty of time to poke around. No need to push. "Yes," he said. "We'll be there."

"I read."

Carson signed off, and turned to Hutch. "How long will the Ashley Tee be able to stay in the neighborhood?"

"Hard to say. They'll have a two-man crew. They stay out for roughly a year at a time. So it depends on how much food and water they have left."

"I'm sure we can scrounge some from Melanie," Carson said. (Hutch did not miss the new familiarity.) "I tell you what I'd like," he continued. "I'd like to be here when the Academy mission arrives, say hello, and shake their hands as they come in. By God, that's the stuff legends are made of. Maybe we can find a way."

Jake could see a white surface, buried in the foliage.

He stopped at the edge of the trees, slid the pulser out of his pocket, and thumbed the safety release. The shuttle waited silently in the middle of the field, its prow pointed toward him. Its green and white colors blended with the forest. He should make it a point to get some pictures of the occasion. Jake's shuttle.

The Perth name and device, an old Athena rocket within a ring of stars, was stenciled on the hull. The ship was named for the early space-age heroine who had elected to stay aboard a shattered vessel rather than doom her comrades by depleting their already-thin air supply. Stuff like that doesn't happen anymore, Jake thought. Life has become mundane.

He poked his head into the foliage. It was marble. He could see that now. It was clean and cold in the daylight. But the shrubbery around it was thick and he could find no path. He used the pulser to make one.

He was careful to keep the weapon away from the structure. But he got tangled among the bushes and almost caught himself with the beam. That threw a scare into him.

It looked like a table.

An altar, maybe.

It was set beneath a parabola. A line of markings was carved across the rim. It looked old.

Damn. He should have brought the camera. He'd have to go back and get one.

He activated the common cha

"Here." Carson was eating.

"There's something out here that looks like an altar," said Jake.

"Where?" He caught an edge in Carson's voice.

"Just south of the clearing." He described what he had seen.

"Damn it. You're supposed to stay with the shuttle."

"I am with the shuttle. I can see it from here."

"Listen, Jake. We'll take a look when we get back. Okay? Meantime, you get inside the cockpit, and stay there."

Jake signed off. "You're welcome," he said.

The altar was not designed for anything of human size. When he stood in front of it, the table-piece was above eye level. The workmanship was good: the stone was beveled and precisely cut.

He was enjoying himself thoroughly. He struck a heroic stance, hands on hips. He looked up at the parabola. He touched the symbols on the front of the altar.

/ wonder what it says?

He walked back into the clearing. Maybe he had actually discovered something. Directly ahead, the shuttle gleamed beneath the bright blue sky.

The grass rippled in the wind.

He felt movement atop his right shoe. Reflexively, he shook his foot, and it exploded in pure agony. He screamed and went down. Something sliced into his ribs, slashed at his face. The last thing he knew was the smell of the grass.

The wall came in from their right off the valley. It was wide enough to accommodate eight people walking side by side, so that after it had plunged through heavy shrubbery into the glade, it came to resemble a roadway. At its point of entry, it was about shoulder high to Hutch. But midway across the clearing, it was broken, and the entire left-hand side had sunk or been removed. Or never existed. It was hard to know which, but the structure dropped in a single vertical step to about the level of their knees, and slipped into the hillside.

They inspected the structure, which was concrete reinforced with iron. Hutch climbed atop the upper section, and pushed through the foliage. The forest floor fell away rapidly.

The stairway lay two-thirds of the way out. "It goes all the way to the bottom," she said. That was not strictly accurate: a lower flight was missing. It picked up again further down and appeared not to stop at ground level, but rather to sink into the earth. How much lay buried in the forest floor? She called for the sca

She returned to the glade. "Later," Carson told her, looking at his watch. "We'll get a better look later."

Overhead, the swaying, sun-filled branches that blocked off the sky looked as if they had been there forever.

They passed beyond the valley, moving at a leisurely pace, and came to a dome. Janet sca

Carson looked at the sun in the trees. "Time to start back."

George opened a cha

Carson switched on his own unit. "Jake, answer up, please."

They looked at one another.

"Jake?" George went to status mode. The lamp blinked yellow. "We're not getting a signal. He's off the air."

Hutch tried calling the shuttle directly. "Still nothing," she said.

"Damn it," Carson muttered, irritated that his pilot would simply ignore his instructions. He missed his military days, when you could count on people to do what they were told.

"Okay, we'll try again in a few minutes." The daylight had reddened.

They took a group picture in front of the dome. Then they began to retrace their steps.

"Mechanical problem," George suggested. But they were uneasy.

Janet moved with her usual strong gait. Alone among her comrades, she was confident everything was okay at the shuttle. Her mind was too crowded with the triumph of the moment to allow any temporary uncertainty to spoil things. She was accustomed to being present at major discoveries (major discoveries were so common during this era), but she knew nevertheless that when she looked back on her career, this would be the defining moment. First-down in the city by the harbor. It was a glorious feeling.

Fifteen minutes later, they had re-entered the valley of the wall, and were headed uphill in single file. Janet had drifted to the rear. She was thinking that she would not live long enough to see this place yield all its secrets, when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, just beyond the beaten grass. She looked, saw nothing, and dismissed it.

Her thoughts switched back to the ruin underfoot—

Almost simultaneously, Hutch shouted Look outl and a hot, sharp needle drove into her ankle. She screamed with pain and went down. Something clung to, scratched at, her boot. She thought she glimpsed a spider and rolled over and tried to get at it. The thing was grass-colored and now it looked like a crab. Maggie ran toward her. Pulsers flared. Around her, the rest of the party were struggling. The agony filled the world.