By the time they pulled the raft up onto the
island beach, she was in complete possession of herself. She was
not even daunted by the realization that their uniforms and boots
were much wetter than they had expected and would have to be spread
out on the sand to dry. After they had let themselves dry off a bit
in the hot sun, they started to explore, wearing only damp
underclothes.
They had come ashore a little beyond the spot
where they had seen the white building. However, directly before
them was an opening between the trees, and Tarik headed for this.
Once they were off the sand the ground was covered with thick, soft
moss. Narisa stepped carefully.
“It’s a road,” Tarik said, showing her the
ancient stones set into the ground and disguised by the green-gold
moss. “It looks unused for a long, long time, Narisa.”
They went on, until she estimated they had
reached the center of the island.
“Where is the building?” she asked.
“Right here.” Tarik pulled back a branch that
obscured her vision, and let her walk past him.
They came into a circular clearing. A
knee-high stone wall, broken in places and overgrown, was evidence
that the clearing had been made deliberately. Narisa could see the
entire space had once been paved with smooth white stones. Moss lay
on most of them, while plants had sprung up in cracks between the
stones. In the exact center of the clearing stood a white stone
building. It was round, with a domed roof and a row of columns all
around the outside. Behind the columns the facade of the building
was broken only by a carved double door at the terminus of the road
they had been following.
“This is what you saw from the beach,” Tarik
said. “Look there, the trees are thin enough in that direction to
see through them, but the underbrush is too thick for us to make
our way through it. We came by the right path, the way the builders
intended it should be approached. See how the stones are laid
across the clearing. Their pattern leads directly to the door.”
“Is it a palace, or some kind of religious
temple?” Narisa spoke in a half whisper, awed by the simple beauty
of the building before them.
It was overrun with vines, and wild shrubs
had grown up close to it, but it was obvious that it had been
created by the finest workmanship, and even now the still-smooth
white stone surface gleamed luminously where the sun touched it.
There was a scroll-shaped ornament at the top of each simple
column, but no other decoration on the building save the wooden
doors.
Three wide low steps led up to the colonnade
and to the doors. Tarik climbed them, Narisa close behind him. The
two panels of the door were dark wood, carved with figures of men
and women in gracefully draped robes, apparently all bringing
offerings to the building. Tarik pushed on the doors. They were
locked.
“Perhaps there is another entrance,” Narisa
suggested.
Tarik had gone to his knees to examine the
door more closely, and now he began to laugh.
“There may very well be another way in,” he
said, “but I think I can open this one easily enough. I see you
brought the tool kit.” He put out a hand, and Narisa gave him the
kit. He riffled through the contents for a moment or two before
finding what he wanted. He drew out a long, thin metal rod.
“This may do it,” he told Narisa, flourishing
the rod before her. ‘The simplest means may be the most effective,
precisely because intelligent people always expect important things
to be complicated. If my suspicions are correct, this very simple
lock has held for centuries. And with this equally simple
instrument, I will now unlock it.”
He bent to the door, inserting the rod into a
hole in the carving, which Narisa had not noticed before. He
twisted and turned it, pulled the rod out and put it back in again,
muttering a word Narisa would never have used. She was about to
make a tart comment on his simple solution when there was a loud
click from inside the door.
“Now,” Tarik said triumphantly, replacing the
rod in the tool kit, “behold.” He pushed on the double doors where
their two halves came together, and they swung open.
Narisa caught the scent of dry, imprisoned
air, and of something else, something unpleasant that tugged at her
memory until she recognized it. The smell of death. She stood
hesitantly in the colonnade while Tarik threw the doors wide.
There was an anteroom with a smooth white
stone floor and half columns carved out of the white stone walls.
An ornate lamp of some discolored and corroded metal hung from the
low ceiling. On the other side of the anteroom was another double
door. Tarik strode toward it.
“Be careful,” Narisa said, hanging back
outside the first door.
“I need the rod again. This door is locked,
too.”
She stepped unwillingly into the anteroom and
handed him the rod from the tool kit. It took him only a few
seconds to open this one and push both panels back.
They walked into the central part of the
building, a large circular room with a colonnade around its wall,
exactly matching the columns outside. The dome high above them had
a round window in its very top, and through it came brilliant
light. The room was entirely white, the ceiling where the dome was
set being decorated with a carved frieze. In the center of the room
was a round console, on which a primitive computer-communicator
stood with two chairs beside it.
At one side of the room, on a carved wooden
couch, lay the source of the unpleasant smell. It was the skeleton
of a human, dressed in a simple blue robe and low blue boots. Its
hands were folded upon its chest. On one finger a gold ring with a
triangular purple stone hung loosely. Tarik went to the figure.
“Was it man or woman?” Narisa whispered.
“I can’t tell. There is nothing left but
bones and the clothing. Perhaps if we can get the computer working,
there will be information in it. Before you start that,” Tarik said
quickly, seeing Narisa take a purposeful step toward the console,
“let’s explore the rest of this building.”
There were twelve rooms around the
circumference of the main room, all opening off the inner
colonnade. Beginning at the anteroom through which they had
entered, they turned left and worked their way around the building.
First they found six personal rooms with two couches in each, all
in perfect order with coverlets drawn up on the beds and garments
neatly folded in chests and drawers. There was a bathing room with
a deep tub carved out of stone, basins for washing, and toilet
facilities, but no water. When Tarik manipulated the knobs and
levers, nothing happened. There was a room that plainly had been a
kitchen, though neither of them could find any evidence of a heat
source for cooking. Lastly, they found three rooms just like the
personal rooms, but these had been used for storage. Preserved food
filled one room. Some containers had been damaged, their contents
crumbled to dust in the dry air, like the person in the main hall,
but most of the food was still in tightly wrapped packets.
“This solves our most immediate problem,”
Tarik declared. “Look, see this sign on the packets. That was used
in early Jurisdiction days. It means the food has been irradiated
and is good indefinitely, for centuries if it’s left unopened. It
was developed for space flight.”
“What is it made of? Can you read the labels
on the packets?” When he studied one package and shook his head,
Narisa added, “We don’t know it’s safe for humans.”
‘Those are human bones out there.” Tarik
inclined his head toward the central room.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “he, or she, tried
some of it. Perhaps that’s what killed him. Or her.”
“You may be right.” Tarik put the food packet
down. “Still, I’m getting awfully hungry on compressed wafers. If I
don’t find something more appetizing soon, I may begin sampling
this.”
Having finished their exploration of all the
rooms, they went back to the main hall to examine the
computer-communicator.
“It’s very old,” Narisa said. “The power
source may be dead. We’ll have to find a way to recharge it. I’m
sure we could get a message out over this. We could be rescued,
Tarik, and soon, too.”
Tarik had been opening doors and pulling out
drawers around the console. The doors simply gave access to the
interior of the computer itself, in case repairs were needed. The
drawers held the usual supplies and additional equipment. One
drawer was locked.
“Use the rod on this lock, too,” Narisa
suggested.
“It’s the wrong kind of lock. It needs a
triangular insertion.” Tarik stared at the lock a moment, then
hurried across the room to the remains lying on the couch. He
gently slid the ring off the skeleton’s finger and brought it to
the console. The triangular purple stone in the gold ring fit the
lock perfectly, and the drawer slid open. Narisa moved forward
quickly.
“A key!” With eager fingers, she picked up
the flat metal artifact lying in the bottom of the drawer. “I
remember about these ancient computer-communicators now. I learned
about them in training. You have to insert the key and turn it, and
then push the right buttons, and the machinery should start working
no matter how long it has been disconnected. I think I can remember
some of the common combinations of buttons, too. I’ll try it.”
“No, you won’t.” He snatched the key out of
her hand.
“Tarik, give that back to me. We have to call
the Capital.”
“Not until I’ve read this.” He held up the
other item the drawer had contained. “Is this the effect the Empty
Sector has on you, to make you reckless? We don’t want any nasty
surprises, Narisa. We are still unarmed, and we don’t know if
anyone else is on this planet. If you start sending out messages,
who knows what may happen, or whether those you contact will be
friendly?”
He was holding a book, the kind of notebook
scientists sometimes used before they were ready to consign new and
uncertain data to a computer’s memory banks. Narisa could see as he
flipped through the pages that they were thickly covered with
writing.
“We could get more information out of the
computer, and much more quickly,” she said.
“No.” He held on to the key.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I have no reason not to,” he told her. “Your
determination to do your duty to the Service is laudable. All the
same, I will keep the key until we mutually decide to turn on the
computer.”
“You don’t want to leave here,” she accused
him.
He did not answer. He was looking at the
book, tracing a line of writing with one finger.
“Since you are the linguistics expert, I hope
it’s in a language you can decipher quickly,” she said acidly.
“I can. It’s quite simple, an earlier version
of our own speech, in fact. Are you hungry?” He closed the book
with a snap.
“Hungry? Tarik, don’t change the subject.
I
want to call the Capital!”
“Later. Let’s go get our uniforms off the
beach. They should be dry by now. I suggest we hide the raft, too,
and smooth over the sand. Let’s leave no trace of our arrival on
this island. Then we’ll come back here, enjoy a midday feast of
compressed wafers and water, and I’ll start translating the book.
I’ll read it to you as I go along. Will that please you?”
“What should we do about him? Or her,
whichever it is?” Narisa indicated the skeleton on the couch.
“We’ll know that after we’ve read the
book.”
They did as Tarik wanted. While they had been
in the building, the sky had grown cloudy. By the time they
returned to the beach, the sky was black, and a fierce wind churned
the surface of the lake into white-capped waves. Narisa retrieved
their uniforms and boots while Tarik used the edge of the raft to
smooth out the sand, eliminating their footprints. Then they ran
through pelting rain, back to the building, Narisa carrying the
clothing, and Tarik the raft.
The storm had raised a childhood memory in
Narisa. She dumped her burden in the anteroom and went back outside
to stand on the moss-covered stones and let the rain wash over her,
rubbing her face and arms and shoulders. Tarik joined her, water
dripping off his hair and rough beard.
“This is not wise,” he shouted at her above
the noise of the storm. “I thought you were always sensible.”
“It feels wonderful,” she called back. “We
used to do it all the time on Belta. It’s a rain-bath.”
There was a powerful clap of thunder, and the
downpour increased. Tarik caught her arm.
“Inside,” he ordered.
When the thunder sounded again, she obeyed
him. She ran laughing into the shelter of the colonnade, pausing
there to watch him as he came up the steps to her.
“I haven’t done that since I was a little
girl,” she said, lifting her sodden hair to twist it and wring out
the water.
She was as wet as she had been when she
walked out of the lake earlier, her thin undergarments plastered to
her skin. Tarik was just as wet, and his manly torso shone with
moisture. The single garment barely covered his stiffening manhood.
Narisa pulled her eyes away and met his intensely focused glance.
The hands she had lifted to her hair were stilled by that look. She
stood waiting, the damp locks twined in her fingers.
He took two steps, closing the distance
between them. His arms slid around her, and hers around him, until
they were locked in a close embrace. He covered her mouth with his,
and she could feel the length of his body, his hardness pushing
against her. She gave herself up to his kiss, her lips opening to
his searching tongue, her hands wandering across his shoulders and
into his wet hair, while her lips returned the pressure of his. The
rain beat down around them, heavier and heavier, and the kiss went
on and on.