Seed of the Gods

other floors, but at the center of the star, circled by a wide hall, was a solid core of the enduring plastic used for much of the building on the Planet of Cities. The enclosed space was large, but there were no entrances. «It could have contained a sealed power unit of some sort,» Toby guessed. «Such a large space would not have been wasted,» Jay agreed. «If we had a weapon, we could blast out a section,» Toby said. Jay produced a small hand blaster. Toby had forgotten that Jay had carried an illegal weapon on Orton. Jay stepped back, put the weapon on narrow beam and cut a hole in the wall. Toby led the way into the large, circular room. He'd seen photographs of others like it. Although all of the equipment which had once filled it had been removed in those dim, dark days of the distant past when the worlds were divested of any clue as to the form or achievements of their inhabitants, such rooms did give Ankani scientists reason to suspect that they were once repositories for advanced machinery probably used to develop some type of energy. It was empty. The floor was devoid of the layer of fine dust which was present in other, unsealed, rooms, but it was totally empty. Nothing marred the smoothness of floor, walls and ceiling. And, although she tried and vented all her anger on the unfeeling things which had led them so far on a fruitless mission, Sooly heard nothing. Nor did a repeated search of the star-shaped tower yield anything. «We have time to get to Ankan,» Toby said. «For what? Our executions?» Jay asked in a surly voice. He was hoarding his last troleen, and his heart was reminding him of his age with irregular sharp pains. «It may be too late already,» Toby said, «but maybe they'll believe that Sooly heard something on Orton. Maybe they'll send a message canceling the sterilization order. If the Entil hasn't started—» «We have to try,» Sooly said. God, she felt old. She was nineteen years old and she'd found the man she loved and she lived so long, so very long, all those thousands of years back to Nipari and beyond and now it was all going to end and they'd kill Toby and Jay and it was so damned unfair. But then what had ever been fair about being human? She knew the pain of death and the horror of seeing a city overrun by the barbarians of the hills and the crunch of teeth on bone and the momentary burst of brilliant sun when the skull is crushed and through it all man had lived and died as hopelessly as even the most depraved maniac could ever have imagined and what did it all mean? Nothing, goddamn, nothing. The little scout lifted, blinked. Four short blinks away was Ankan. Chapter Eighteen Once every four-thousand pairings she was allowed by mutual consent to play a certain combination of six keys of a certain sequence against just over seven thousand of his keys in a complicated action which brought a surprisingly simple pleasure, happy nostalgia. She never became bored with it, although he preferred more sophisticated pairings made by random, experimental punches. However, with eternity ahead and eons behind and the punching combinations infinite, he indulged her and wallowed in her teary nostalgia, rather enjoying it, as a matter of fact. Actually, no combination was unenjoyable, some were just more lasting and exciting. Around them the gleaming white asteroid pulsed silently with mechanical activity as undying, self-renewing servos drew needed atoms from the distant sun and remolded them into the necessary elements. Immediately after the departure of the children, the force fields had crackled into place, distorting light to make the asteroid disappear and enclosing it in a cocoon which would have defied almost any force, up to the energies released by a supernova. After a brief, only mildly amusing interlude, pleasure flowed without interruption once again. The interruption was only the second in five hundred thousand years, the first being necessitated by a normal change in a particular star which required a move to the kind, pale sun at a respectable distance from the planetoid. They were so cute She had not, he decided, recovered from the novelty of communication other than through pleasure. Since it did not interfere, being carried on with only a small, insignificant portion of the entity, he did not object. And the small black animal Nine-eight-five-two-oh-six-two paired four-four-one. She had a thing about low numbers and in his random punches he humored her. The massive jolt of pure pleasure existed for an eternity and dimmed not and communication was not worth the effort for it was a happy combination reinforced by the nature of the combined entities massed into two and submerged in the sea of something above sex, above life, above the pleasures of food and drink. But she remembered and, on her combination, she allowed a small part of her to visit the knowledge banks and seek out an unremembered figure. On———, she told him evolution produced two hundred million species of plants and animals and it is estimated that the planet of the dark ones, being younger, has still produced one hundred million species It disturbs you The word has no meaning A new combination. He was fantastically lucky with his random punches. It shattered her with new sensation. Remember the Techcals Of course We could call up their shades To what purpose She chose a known combination, less adventurous than he, reveled in its familiarity. We had never expected them to follow the trail, she told him, and were it not for the vitality of the native species they would not have been able to hear would it not be interesting to watch to see if they can achieve more for we are responsible Meaningless For creating them, the big eyes and the dark ones and the others, in our stumbling way moving toward This, a combination which blasted with pleasure. Once we were like them Laughter. A long time ago When I ———— them I saw the beautiful, large-eyed women. They have managed to continue their numerical superiority. Laughter, feminine, delightful, teasing. An achievement. And the young female was moving into a primitive stage of awareness