Come Back Page 13

  "Look." Marie tugged my shirt, pulling me to the wall under the light. "This is special glass." She rapped on the surface which was dulled and covered in green lichen like growth. "We 'ave this for isolation on Centauri." She whispered. "You see? It is ceramic compound. Last forever."

  "What about this?" Jules had found a peculiar oval pattern behind which an extremely faint green light glowed. All round the opening many hands had cleaned off the slime from the glass and over the top was a depression shaped like a hand. "What 'appens if we press, eh?" He enquired, putting his hand there before anyone could answer. The green light changed to red and a loud click was followed by a sliding sound and out from the opening which suddenly appeared emerged a metal tray as big as my hand with innumerable tiny white pills heaped on it.

  "So," I muttered. "This is what they come for. What the hell do they do?"

  "It does not matter." Marie was peering through the cleared area. "Look, you see the smoke?"

  It was not smoke, it was frost drifting away from that oval opening which had been exposed to the air for a tiny second. "It's freezing in there." I said, feeling my way along the wall.

  Melanee, hitherto silent in front of these wonders, suddenly grabbed my arm where it hurt and pulled me along to where a shelf jutted out from the even smoothness. "Box." She said, waving her fading torch into life.

  "It's a touch panel." Jules peered over my shoulder. "Mon Dieu, but this can open the Sesame, eh?"

  I thought it was time to fish out my survival torch which I had been hoarding against emergencies and switched it on to reveal indeed a touch panel, a computer keyboard encased entirely in that ceramic crystal that Marie liked so much. The symbols, however, were not the normal alpha numeric. "It is French phonetic code." She deduced.

  I cursed briefly, thinking only the French would put something different from the rest of the world on their keyboards. Jules and Marie stood with heavy frowns staring at the thing while Melanee looked round apprehensively. "Let us 'ope there is no entry pass word." Marie said finally, putting a delicate finger on one of the symbols. In deliberate order she continued to touch various keys. Of course, she was only touching the surface of that inches thick glass like crystal but clearly there was a sensitive reception program still running because the keyboard suddenly lit up. "Ah." She said and tapped more confidently, standing back after her efforts and watching.

  "This is not part of the design." Jules decided. "You see? Look at the crystal, it is rough at the edges, yes? This was put 'ere after something 'appened." He looked round at me suddenly and it came to me how clever and brainy these people were. "When it 'appen, they make this so someone, if there is anyone left, they can talk to the computer."

  "What computer?" I asked although I knew the answer. Buried deep under us was one of only three sentient, organic quantum computers on the planet. The other was in California or maybe Montana by now, and the third was up on the ship.

  "What is c-coppeter?" Melanee enquired of me but I was saved from answering that by the touchboard abruptly beginning a sequence of musical tones accompanied by a series of keys lighting up in an ordered procession.

  "It is asking us who we are." Marie explained somewhat breathlessly.

  "What do we say?" Jules muttered. "Will it remember?"

  "Tell it starship Hyperion code Alpha zero nine seven seven gamma." I said. They both gazed at me as if I had sprouted horns. "It's the security code for military identification." I added but the explanation was not well received.

  "You were an army agent, you come to the star to spy on us." Marie said accusingly.

  "Lucky I did, isn't it?" I responded smartly. All the past few days and Linda flashed into my head, but I had no time for any introspective brooding because without any warning the whole of the space behind that glass wall lit up with an intense white glare, the light blinding after the near darkness.

  "It will let us in." Marie breathed. "It is going to tell us what we 'ave down there."

  The misty and smeared glass glowed with lines of symbols scrolling down as if it was a giant terminal which I suppose it was. "Fifteen more levels." Jules said. "There is a temperature converter unit keeping the ambient level down to minus two 'undred degrees."

  "Two hundred degrees of frost?" I repeated. "Hell, we'll be dead in minutes."

  "It will equalise the temperature for each level. We 'ave to wait for this level." Marie turned to me. "When the temperature and the air go in, then decay and oxidisation will begin. This," she waved at the brightness behind the glass. "This 'as been in near vacuum and deep cold for ten thousand years."

  "What have we got down there anyway?"

  "Everything." Jules said grandly. "You see?" He gesticulated energetically at the lines of green print running down the glass, projected, I presumed, by some kind of holographic effect. Naturally, I couldn't read the words, it was in some kind of French shorthand, so Jules, confident in the supremacy of French science, explained kindly to me, a barbarian. "It is 'uge!" He became excited. "We 'ave air cars, remote drones, computer terminals for survey - mobile! We 'ave knowledge, it is what Bradley was saying, there is a record of the whole civilisation." He seemed elated at the survival of French science, obviously better than everyone else's.

  "If it works." I said sourly. "Any ammunition?"

  They gave me a Gallic look of distaste. "There are guns, yes, that is all you want, eh?"

  I certainly had a use for them, but other questions bubbled to the top of my mind as Jules turned back to stare at the read out. "How come the locals didn't get this far?"

  "Your code." Marie said tartly. "It open the door. As soon as we get to a terminal in there, we can find out what the pills do and..."

  "Yeah." I interrupted her, feeling cynical. "Maybe. Can it tell us what the hell happened?"

  Marie smiled, a little sadly. "We 'ope so, David. Do we want to know?"

  "I do." I said shortly.

  "Please." Melanee was becoming frantic with curiosity and begged me to tell her what it all meant, a question that defeated me but Jules, with Latin suavity and practised manner, began to try and educate a stone age woman in the arts of computer science and advanced engineering, an enthusiasm which I was sure was helped by Melanee's habit of leaving her shirt off. Marie smiled a thin smile and stood by me as we waited for the oracle to reveal itself.

  "We will go and get 'er." She said quietly. I looked down at her pretty and animated face, her trim figure outlined by the jump suit which she had contrived to make both smart and elegant. She was attractive and brainy and didn't like me, but she knew we all had to bury our prejudices before they buried us.

  I nodded. "Soon." I confirmed. "I'm hoping we can use some of this stuff buried here, a drone maybe, if any drone is flyable after ten millennia." In the background, Jules had moved close to Melanee, his explanations requiring a hand on her shoulder. Marie smiled again but said nothing as fresh doubts arrived. "Why are there two sorts of people, humans, out there? One lot is Melanee's, yes?" Melanee, hearing her name, turned and gave me a brilliant smile while Marie frowned. "The other lot seems quite separate and they are the ones that come in here and get stone age aspirin."

  Marie shrugged agreement. "And why so few, eh? It is as you say, there should be millions." She pursed her lips. "If we can get a survey drone, we look over most of France, we count the people." She looked at her watch. "The ship is overhead."

  "Daveed!" The cry made me swivel round from watching the entrance to see Melanee starting back with a surprised look and Jules staring. The wall where the oval airlock had been simply divided, a wide, vertical gap opening through which a fiercely cold air emerged.

  "Well, before we go and see the wizard." I said firmly, dragging a pile of damp rubble over. "We make sure the damned thing will let us out again."

  Jules and Marie gave me a lofty look to allow for my primitive mind set and marched through the opening, followed by Melanee, now so entranced by wonder it would have taken explosives to
get her away. Trundling after them, the cold hit me, a dry crackling feeling in my chest. Melanee, whose clothing was extremely sparse, looked puzzled and then alarmed until I fished out the spare shirt and trousers from my pack and made her put them on. The trousers were far too long and large, but she was better equipped after rolling up the legs, looking like a wayward elf. Meanwhile, the French axis had disappeared down a ramp leading to the next level. Squinting up at the lights, I found them simply squares of brilliance, dead white, painful to see.

  "Gas discharge." I muttered, to Melanee's mystification. "Some power somewhere."

  The next level was much wider with recognisable equipment and furniture arranged in orderly fashion. Jules and Marie hurried to terminals while I stood at the entrance and took it all in. This had clearly been some kind of control centre for operating remote mechanisms, the rows of monitor screens, now dark, plus a whole wall covered in display circuitry argued that it was used for working something else. A nuclear core? What would be the half-life of the fuel rods?

  Despite the vacuum and the refrigeration, time had been at work. Some of the monitor screens had imploded, the glass having weakened. Fabrics covering the numerous chairs had reduced itself to dust. Breathing out clouds of vapour, we came up with Jules who was busy trying to make a terminal come alive, without success.

  "It say we can access the main frame." Marie said nervously. "It said we go down."

  "Hm." I grunted, strolling further to peer at meaningless keyboards now covered in frost, glistening in the shadeless light. Surely, any access terminal would be well away from any control complex, or so I reasoned, circling the vast space with Melanee following me along holding up her trousers with one hand. In the far corner, where a shut and formidable looking armoured entrance hatch presumably led to the lower levels, a squat but complicated black terminal protruded from the wall beside the hatch. This was much wider than the other keyboards, with a whole mass of function keys spread over the top and sides of a normal looking alpha display. Putting a finger experimentally on one of the keys produced a chiming tone which immediately preceded the whole display lighting up in vivid colours. A screen recessed into the wall, which I had not noticed since it was covered in dust, flickered and came on with a bright yellow background.

  "David!" Marie hastened over, closely followed by Jules, both of them breathing clouds of breath and enthusiasm. "You are clever, non?"

  "We do not know the codes." Jules muttered. "But it will be in French."

  "It would be." I murmured, seeing a small smile from Marie, but Jules was already typing in rapid instructions. The screen, which I had wiped, glowed and changed colour. Lines of incomprehensible data flowed down, both of them gazing at it with rapt expressions.

  "Well?" I demanded. "What does the bloody thing say?"

  "It is telling us what works." Marie said, her lips moving in time to the display. "We 'ave chambers that will be opened. You see, this was not the store for the end of the world, non. It was a 'ow you say? A contingency, an emergency. Earthquake, eh? There are vehicles that this says should still work, they 'ave been kept near absolute zero, the electronics encased in plastic crystal. Guns, you will be pleased, eh?

  "No clothes." Jules said gloomily. "All decayed. The end of the world, Marie? They make ready for it but most of the preparations, they are all gone. The food? All gone, stores of medicines, all gone."

  "Non." Marie tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. "There are medicines, antibiotics, all in deep freeze."

  "OK." I became decisive. "We want a vehicle, medicines, explosives if there are any, weapons." I told Jules. "And what the hell is producing the power? Ask it that. And what the hell happened to five billion people?"

  There was a small silence as they all stared at me. Then Jules glanced at Marie and shrugged. "It does not know. I 'ave already asked it." He sounded depressed.

  "Who you talk to?" Melanee was alternately staring at me and the screen. "Who make this? Your people?"

  "You are so right." I snarled, suddenly becoming impatient with this pedestrian investigation. "We are talking to the dead. Well, Jules?"

  "There is a fusion generator at the lowest level." He said flatly.

  "A fusion generator! Bloody hell!" The things were notoriously dangerous, not because of any explosion but small instabilities gave off furious neutron radiation and this thing had been sitting there without maintenance for ten thousand years.

  "It is safe!" Marie informed me loudly. "The screen say laser controls were multiplied, it was designed to work under remote control." She seemed certain but she was a biologist not a nuclear engineer. "There is a record of what 'appened."

  "I thought you said..." I began when Jules shook his head.

  "It does not know the reason but it records, yes?" He sighed and leaned against the wall. It was noticeably warmer in here now; the sharp cold having given way to pullover temperature. Perceptibly warm air was blowing in from somewhere. "It was a Saturday. At eleven sixteen hours the alarm sirens sound, all the control personnel evacuated the centre 'ere. People from the deep levels, they were taken up to level twenty. Someone turn off the machine function above level thirty-seven. You understand? Above 'ere, everything was switched to manual control. At twelve thirty-seven the same day, the automatic control system started up and the machine, it takes over the functions for which it had been programmed." He gazed down at his feet, while we all listened. "There was a program that allow any person with the entry code to take over and the machine wait for this but someone in the upper level orders all the doors to be opened at eighteen oh six." He looked at each of us. "That is all the machine knows. Nothing else 'appen after that day until we come back ten thousand years later."

  "It's crazy!" I yelled. "There must be some bloody record! What about the outside sensors? They had a whole bloody satellite and interstellar control complex up there and all those radar and radio dishes, telemetry receivers, massive antennas. If it was radiation the readings would have gone off the clock."

  "Oui." Marie nodded. "But at eleven sixteen, when the alarm sound, all cable and fibre connection with the upper complex stop and the circuit breakers for the power grid tripped off. Except for level thirty-seven downward, all data is dead." She bit a lip while Melanee glanced from one face to another, desperate to know what the hell we were talking about.

  "But." Jules said after a pause for thought. "Three hours after everyone leave, someone come back and talk to the computer, tell it to set up the terminal we find, tell it to start making things."

  "What things?" I was feeling the need to fire guns and serious repressions were boiling up in me. "Well?

  "Little pills." Marie supplied. "Neuron control capsules."

  I gazed at her with rising astonishment. "Neuron what? What the hell for? And who takes them?"

  Marie seemed intrigued and somehow congratulatory, as if some unknown boffin had done something really clever. "It is intelligent but strange." She told me. "The pills, they are capsules, they are complicated. Down below, there is an automatic biochemical unit with a function for production of genetic mutation molecules." I didn't understand a word and wondered whether her French was mixing up with her English. She wagged her head in admiration of this machine marvel. "The research was for plant and animal mutation, forced mutation for food, forest regeneration, many things."

  "But," Jules interrupted, unable to let anyone speak for long without his input. "This is a special variant, a latent gene instructor, a manufactured enzyme."

  "What the hell does it do?" I growled, feeling the urge to throttle them both approaching. Jules glanced at me nervously.

  "It interferes with the female productive system. No woman treated with this can 'ave more than three children." Marie supplied in a small voice. I stared at her with all my anti-genetic tampering prejudices alive and kicking.

  "The world is destroyed and your toys stop any chance of recovery? A nice trick." I said sardonically. "Now we know why France isn't sw
arming with people." I felt exasperated and depressed. "How come they come and get it?" I demanded before a further thought hit me. "There must have been other survivors, this lot must be people who were underground. What about miners, cave explorers, bank vault guards?"

  "We do not know." Marie said simply. "But taking the pill, it gives protection against virus you see. I think the knowledge would have spread."

  "But why?" I howled, making Melanee jump. "Why did some stupid sod do it?"

  They didn't know that either and as I was coming to the boil, they set to work to produce the wonders we had been promised. I was skeptical. Even if they had buried ammunition and air cars in liquid nitrogen, I thought the damned things would disintegrate as soon as we touched them.

  I was wrong. The armoured hatch emitted a loud clang and a long grinding noise as it opened. There were what I presumed had been workshops, tools still in one piece littering the benches, computer engine monitoring units, rows of sealed, frost covered containers all connected by glass fibre cabling to masses of solid state arrays doing God knew what, but the doors to two swung down, coming to rest on the floor with a decisive thump. Gases swirled out and hissing noises arrived. Marie was busy tapping away at one of the ubiquitous terminals which produced yet another small hatch to open and more monitor lights to come on.

  "Medical stores." She explained. "But I want to see the spiral of that pill, the neuron controller. I want to see what it does."

  The place was wide, a huge area, apparently divided between storage and research. It looked like a mixture of a small oil refinery added to a chemical factory with diesel engine parts scattered all over. Jules was exclaiming over some exciting find and Marie was studying a weird diagram that appeared on her screen looking like spaghetti in the last stages of fright. Melanee came and stood by me as I stared moodily into the depths of the opened container, watching the row of lights over the entrance. They showed ambient temperatures and safety levels, even I could work that out. She had seemingly decided that the other two were far too clever for her to find out and had reverted to me as the most down to earth member of the party, the most brain limited that is.