Engines Of God

"Venom?" asked Carson.

"Probably. But you're not a local life form. So you got off lucky. Anyway, I want to keep an eye on you until morning. If nothing develops by then, you can go back to your quarters." She checked her lightpad. "You have a visitor. May we show him in?"

"Who is it?" asked Carson.

"Me." Harvey Sill appeared in the doorway. "I've got some information for you."

The doctor excused herself, while Sill asked how they were doing. "Pretty good," Carson said. Truth was, he hadn't slept since they'd brought him aboard. "What've you got?"

"A reading on the syzygy."

"On the whatl"

"The lunar alignment. Remember? You wanted to know how long it had been since the four moons lined up?"

A lot had happened since then, and Carson had forgotten. "Oh, yes," he said. It seemed trivial now.

"It's been a while. We make it 4743 B.C., terrestrial."

He tried to make the numbers fit, and had no luck. "That can't be the one we're looking for."

"Why not?"

"It's too recent. We know they had interstellar travel as early as the twenty-first millenium B.C. The space station is primitive, so it should predate that. Do we have an event that happened more than twenty-three thousand years ago?"

Sill consulted his pad. "One of the moons has an orbit at a steep angle to the others. Which means that they hardly ever line up. Prior to the one in 4743, you have to go back over a hundred thousand years."

"That can't be right."

Sill shrugged. "Let me know if we can do anything else for you." He smiled at Janet, and left the room.

"It was worth a try, I guess," said Carson. "The orbiter may have been up there a long time, but not a hundred thousand years."

"Maybe the photos are simulated."

"Must be." His eyes slid shut. The room was getting sunlight just then. It was warm and sleep-inducing. Something co

"Okay."

"We didn't really get to see much of the harbor city. But did it look to you like the kind of city that a high-tech race of star-travelers would have built?"

"You mean the steel and concrete?"

"Yes. And the evidence we had of extensive water travel. I thought the collapsed bridge looked like something we might have built."

"We're star-travelers."

"We're just starting. These people had been at it for thousands of years. Does it make sense they'd still be using brick walls, for God's sake?"

"Maybe," she said. "What are you trying to say?"

"I don't know." The air was thick. It was hard to think. "Is it possible the interstellar civilization came first! Before the cities and the space station?"

Janet nodded. "The evidence points that way. We tend to assume continual progress. But maybe they slid into a dark age. Or just went downhill." She punched a pillow and finished with a rush of emotion: "That's what it is, Frank. It'll be interesting to see what the excavations show."

"Yes," said Carson. But somebody else will get to do that. I'm sure as hell not going back down there.

His legs were anesthetized, and he felt only a pleasant warmth in them.

While Janet slept, Carson withdrew into the back of his mind. The sense of general well-being that should have accompanied the tranks never arrived. He was left only with a sense of disco

He went over his decisions again and again. He'd failed to take seriously the possibilities of attack. Failed to consider any danger other than a single, dangerous predator. Failed to provide adequate security.

The room grew dark. He watched the moons appear one by one in his view panel. They were cold and white and alive. Maybe everything in this system was alive: the sun, the worlds, the things in solar orbit. Even the continents. The moons aligned themselves, formed up like a military unit, like brachyids.

Syzygy.

He was awake. Drenched with sweat.

Beside him, Janet slept peacefully.

Syzygy.

It had last happened in 4743 B.C. And the era of the Monuments had ended, as far as they knew, around 21,000 B.C.

He picked up a lightpad, and began writing it all down. Assume that the people who had lived in the harbor city had put up the space station. Assume also that the station had ended its useful life shortly thereafter, because it was primitive, and would quickly have become obsolete. But there were no other stations, more advanced ones, so the harbor city and the planetary civilization had ceased activity. Had they perhaps not outlived their orbiter?

The time span between the last syzygy and the (supposed) end of the Age of Monuments was approximately sixteen thousand years.

DISCONTINUITIES

Beta Pac III Quraqua Nok 21.0OOBC 9000 16,OOO BC 4743 BC 1000 400 AD

Again, there were increments of eight thousand years.

He stared at the numbers a long time.

And he thought about the space station. Why had its occupants tied themselves into their chairs and opened the hatches?

Carson remembered the old twentieth-century story of the cosmonaut who was stranded in orbit when the Soviet Union dissolved. He was circling the Earth, and one day the country that put him up just wasn't there anymore. Maybe these people got stranded too. Something happened on the ground. Something that cut off all hope of return. And out of grief, or desperation, they had let in the night.

Maybe the discontinuities weren't gradual events. Maybe they were sudden, overnight disasters. Okay, that seemed ridiculous. But where did it lead? What other evidence did he have? How could it co

Oz was always the final enigma. Understand Oz, he thought, and we understand the whole puzzle.

Clockwork.

Whatever it is, it happens every eight thousand years. Had there been an event on Beta Pac III in 13,000 B.C.? And on Nok around 8000 B.C.? Yes, he thought, knowing Henry would not have approved this sort of logical leap. But it seemed likely.

What kind of mechanism could produce such an effect?

After a while, he slept again, but not well. He woke to find that daylight had returned. Hutch and Janet were talking, and he got the impression from the way their voices dropped that he had been the topic. "How are you doing?" Hutch asked solicitously.

"I'm fine."

Janet pushed her left leg out from under the sheet and flexed it. Tit's coming back," she said.

Carson felt better, but was content to lie still.

"Hutch was saying," said Janet, "that there's a memorial service this evening."

He nodded, and felt a fresh twinge of grief. He knew Hutch had gone back to the surface, and he asked about the trip. She described it briefly, in general terms. Maggie had died in the fall. No predator had got at her afterward. Thank God for that. "It must have been pretty quick," she added. "Sill was all business. He wishes we'd go away, and he blames us for Jake's death. He hasn't said it, but it's obvious." She stopped suddenly, and he realized she was sorry she'd said that.

He changed the subject. "Here's something you might be interested in." He fumbled around in the bed, found his lightpad, and passed it over.

Hutch's eyebrows went up. Then she held it so Janet could see. "We've got the eight-thousand-year factor again. I'd say the coincidence is getting pretty long."

Carson agreed. "I can't even begin to formulate an explanation. Could there be something in the wiring of intelligent creatures that breaks out every eight thousand years? Like Toynbee's notions about the cycles of civilizations? Does that make any sense at all?"

"I don't think so," said Janet.

Hutch was still looking at the pad. "All three places," she said, "have strange artifacts. The artifacts are obviously related, and they tie things together. Something has to be happening. And we have it by the tail."