Resurgence

“I’m afraid we do. What we find inside will probably be unpleasant, but Julian Graves will ask for every scrap of detail that we can give him. Come on. This world is one giant cemetery, and maybe we are desecrating graves. But I think whoever is buried in there would agree that what we’re doing is in a good cause.”

“Good, perhaps, but too late to be useful.” Darya Lang did not argue anymore. They watched in silence as Ben Blesh ordered the digger to dismount from the car, and gave it the instructions needed so that it could perform its task.

* * *

Hans Rebka had visited a hundred worlds and experienced most things that the Orion Arm had to offer. Even so, the digger was like nothing that he had ever seen. Before it started into action he imagined it tunneling its way forward, perhaps extruding a variety of shovels and picks to hold in its multiple jointed limbs, then carving a way through the hard-packed frozen drift.

The machine was smarter than that—smarter it seemed than Hans, at least when it came to its own specialized skills. The digger crept forward, crouched low, and poked thin antennalike sensors deep into the drift. After what seemed like a moment of meditation, it said in a clear female voice, “The material to be cleared is ninety-nine point seven percent solid carbon dioxide, with a little water-ice and trace elements. Beyond it lies stone, baked clay, and a combination of iron and a softer fibrous material. A large working area will be needed. Organic beings, please retreat until you are no closer than sixty meters.”

When Hans hesitated, Ben Blesh said, “We’d better get a move on. The digger knows what it’s talking about, and it won’t start until we’re at a safe distance.”

A large working area sounded like a bad idea to Hans. “Is it proposing to use explosives? That could destroy exactly the things we are hoping to find.”

“It has orders to operate in a non-destructive mode.” For once, Ben apparently didn’t have all the answers. The four of them climbed back onto the car and it retreated on a path at right angles to the saw-tooth line of the wall. Then it was watch and wait for a long while. To Hans Rebka’s eyes nothing at all was happening. But at last Lara Quistner said, “It’s really moving. I didn’t realize it could go so fast.”

Hans realized that a broad tunnel was appearing in the body of the drift. The digger was creeping forward into the cleared space. Hans saw what was perhaps a slight fog in the air above the digger’s broad back, but otherwise there was no sign of cleared materials. After a few more seconds he exclaimed, “It’s applying heat to the solid carbon oxide. Of course. Sublimation, straight to gas with no liquid phase. Does the digger have a fusion engine inside it?”

“A substantial one.” Ben Blesh was measuring the rate of progress. “Don’t worry, the digger will turn the heat off as soon as it is near a wall or a door or anything else that it recognizes. After that it will be up to us. If we want the door to remain intact, we can’t rely on the digger. It knows fabricated objects when it sees them, but it doesn’t know what to do with them.”

The tunnel was deepening, at the same time as the drift above it was vanishing. After twenty more minutes, the digger halted. It extruded its limbs and retreated. The female voice said, “We have reached a boundary. Beyond this we cannot proceed without material damage.”

Hans and the others approached the end of the newly created valley. They scraped at the white surface, gently at first and then more vigorously as their lamps revealed a brown facing. Ben scraped a path in several directions, to determine the outline of the flat surface. “It’s some type of door all right. But it’s tiny. They must have been very small. Do you think we will be able to squeeze through?”

“I hope so.” Hans came close and directed his light onto the right-hand edge. “No kind of hinges. It would waste a lot of time if we tried to go over the wall. I don’t think anyone will object if we do a little breaking-in.”

The entry went easier than expected. If this had once indeed been a fortified gate, age and extreme temperature had rendered the construction materials weak and brittle. The facing caved in at one blow from Hans Rebka’s gloved fist. Within half a minute, the whole door was gone and the way inside clear. Ben Blesh pushed forward eagerly, and Rebka allowed the other man to go first. He could not imagine finding anything pleasant, and at this point he did not expect danger.

The reality was more pathetic than threatening. The tunnel through the thick wall led not back into the open air, but to a large closed chamber. Within it, huddled in some kind of sacking intended to keep in warmth, they found five small bodies. The aliens resembled no species known to Rebka, and he had seen many on many worlds. But all had been in the Orion Arm. It should be no surprise that Sag Arm inhabitants had developed along different physical patterns.