Chapter IV

The famous deserts of Earth held rich deposits of history, Roy Auckland was thinking as the crawler, now on treads, its wheels retracted, headed for the scene of operations. Voices cried out in Earth's deserts, exhorting men to turn their thoughts to eternal matters; trumpets blared and men clashed and slew each other for temporary and elusive advantages, often not their own. And the desert grew slowly, eating up once-beautiful cities and gardens. Did these golden sands of Carolus conceal the remains of similar events, and long-forgotten glory, as Dr. Howard James believed?

A strange question, he thought, remembering the events of his first day with the expedition, which he had spent examining the records, while the others went out to the diggings. Just before they left, Dr. Glamis came back into the office and said, "There's some cans of film we've taken here in the closet. Doc didn't want to tell you until they were edited, but you might learn more if you see them as they stand. Don't let on that I told you."

Auckland lost no time in looking the film up, and running it off.

The three-dimensional effect was as good as he had ever seen, and the battery of speakers around him brought every sound from its proper direction, and in correct tonal proportion. After a moment or two, Roy Auckland wasn't sitting in a darkened room watching a screen; he was out in the Carolinian desert.

* * * * *

Calvin Burleigh climbed into the small Bronstien Omnicraft, waved to Dr. James, Kenneth Glamis, and Shirley Mason standing nearby, and closed the hatch. All wore sun helmets and tinted glasses, except for Glamis; his entire protective suit was tinted, and the top of his helmet was white.

An instant later, the Omnicraft rose in a straight vertical line, until it was some fifty feet above the golden sands, which were nearly level at this spot, but took on ripples and hills farther out. The Omnicraft shot off to the west in the cloudless blue of the sky, then began to make a circle, drifting along.

"More pictures?" asked Shirley. "I thought this area had been mapped."

Howard James unrolled the blown-up print he was carrying. "Those were just preliminary photos yesterday, taken from half a mile up." He indicated dark areas in the glittering sands. "See these spots? The Rouse wave catches anything below the surface, but at that distance it's more like an old-time dentist X-raying teeth. At fifty feet, we'll get definite outlines. Saves time to do it this way, because we can see now just what areas are worth more careful examination."

"We can't tell what's there, Shirl," said Glamis. "It's most likely rocks, or even beds of minerals. What we're looking for is some outline which might not be a natural formation by its shape. Buried cities, you know." He sniffed.

"And why not?" James said stiffly. "The Vaec admit being here for many centuries. Ekem-ve said that the desert has expanded since his people first came to Carolus, and that some of them may have lived in this area when it was still fertile. There are many parts of Earth, now desert, which were once fertile land; no reason why it couldn't have happened here."

"The fact that it _could_ have happened is no proof that it did."

James turned away abruptly, and Glamis grinned after him. "The brow is the brow of Shakespeare, but everything else is ham. He's got it all figured out; and if we do find anything, he'll fit it into his neatly-preconceived pattern."

"Why do you hate him so?" Shirley asked.

Glamis shrugged. "I don't hate him; I just find him irritatingly ridiculous. He's no charlatan, but he's too eager to make a solid reputation, so he'll believe what he wants to believe and manipulate the evidence to fit. He wanted me to come along as a balance-wheel, he said. Which shows he has some idea of his weakness, I suppose."

"The loyal opposition is supposed to be loyal," she murmured. "You're just opposing."

"I'm trying to keep him sane. He got a rough deal back in the days of the Marlene scandal. Howard was Jules Marlene's assistant, and while he wasn't prosecuted, there's still a feeling of guilt in him. Maybe they think he did help Marlene pull a _piltdown_, or that he should have known what was up. He's lived just to make some unimpeachable discovery of his own, but his obsession is driving him to ludicrous tricks."

"Then why aren't you helping him?"

"How can I? He says he wants me to keep him in check, but what he really wants is to know as many objections to his theories as possible in advance, so he can work his way around them. Very scientific."

Glamis was looking up at the Omnicraft, and did not see the expression on Shirley Mason's face.

* * * * *

The six of them--Howard James, Amelia, Glamis, Shirley, Burleigh, and Edholm--were standing around a table in the big tent, looking at the photographs that littered it.

"Now here's the pictures of the nearest Vaec village," Dr. James began.

"If you can call it a village," Glamis put in. "The Vaec don't build their dwelling places close enough together so that the term 'village' would apply."

"Oh, stop it, Kenneth!" Amelia James said wearily. "If it helps to think of all their homes in this locale as a village, then let's call it a village."

Glamis bowed slightly. "As madame desires."

James cleared his throat. "Now look at this picture. You can see that the darkened areas beneath the sand are in the shape of a large diamond, with a smaller square next to it. Then another diamond, another square, and a final diamond. They're all connected into one unit, and just for convenience, until we can think of something more apt, we'll call it a villa. Okay, Ken?"

Glamis shrugged. "So long as no one gets the idea that calling it a villa makes it a villa."

"Are you likely to get that idea, Dr. Glamis?" asked Captain Edholm sharply.

"No."

"Then kindly allow us similar intelligence until and unless you have evidence to the contrary, sir." Edholm looked again at the pictures. "I have noticed that the Vaec dwellings are all perfect squares."

Calvin Burleigh pointed to another photograph. "And you can see that in some places, this pattern of diamond, square, diamond, square, diamond does pop up. The natives tend to create in terms of Euclidean geometry. Consider the decorations on their clothing. You see this sort of pattern there, too.

"Considering the number of dwellings in this area, it would be more unusual if some such pattern couldn't be found somewhere," Glamis observed. He glanced at Amelia, and added, "But that doesn't take anything away from the shape of this area below the sand. It does suggest artifice."

James smiled. "Thank you, Ken. I know you do not think highly of my hypothesis that the Vaec we see here are descendants of a stellar colony. Of course, we cannot call this a theory as yet. But let's keep the possibility in mind."

"There's little danger of our forgetting it, Howard," Burleigh put in, and James smiled as chuckles broke out.

"Well, it's agreed that this is the place we start work?"

Everyone nodded, and James started out of the tent. Glamis caught Amelia's arm and said softly, "You don't have to take it personally."

She didn't answer; she looked at him and her lips parted slightly. Then the half-sensuous expression left her face, and she shook herself free from his grasp and walked away. Shirley followed her, looking as if she considered the two of them beneath contempt.

* * * * *

Shirley Mason painted in the letter _n_ in the legend. It was a red JAMES EXPEDITION on a white banner, containing a blue Earth. She wiped the red paint off the brush. Three similar banners were stretched out on the table in the tent.

* * * * *

Burleigh and Glamis strode along the golden sands, Burleigh carrying a long, thin metal shaft with one of the banners at its top, and Glamis holding a small instrument with two light-buttons. A faint buzzing sound came from it; the sound stopped abruptly, and Glamis said, "You've deviated, Cal. Step to the right a bit."

Burleigh obeyed, and the buzzing started again. A short time later, the left-hand light flashed on. Glamis stopped. "Here. Come left a little more." He waited until the right-hand light also glowed. "Exact spot."

Burleigh pushed the pole down into the sand, and Glamis assisted, after putting the finder into his pocket. They looked around the expanse of desert at the other three poles which were the corners of a rectangle marking the boundaries of the diggings.

Glamis looked up at the banner. "Shirl could have put in a cross behind the Earth," he said.

Calvin Burleigh's eyes narrowed. "That was supposed to be a humorous quip, I presume. From someone else, it would have been amusing, but not from a person who finds everything about religious faith amusing."

"Think I'll be struck down some day in the midst of blasphemy, Cal?"

"If you're looking for a lightning bolt aimed specifically at you, no. But the mocker usually finds himself mocked one way or another. How old are you, Glamis?"

"Sixty-eight or thereabouts."

Burleigh nodded. "You started rejuvenation treatments in your thirties, then. Well, I'm ninety-six. Took the treatments first when I was forty, so I'm almost forty-six physically, if you hold to the rule of aging one year in ten after treatment. Doc James is one hundred and twenty, which would make him relatively forty-eight or maybe fifty. Perhaps if you live to his age, you'll begin to grow up."

He walked away, his pointed beard outthrust, looking as if he should be wearing a burnoose and riding a white horse or camel, leading desert tribes into holy war.

* * * * *

Under the direction of Dr. James, the Vaec set up the excavators. The bodies of the machines looked like huge sausages from a distance; sausages with blisters at top center, and air-holes punctured along the sides.

Burleigh was saying to Amelia, "They're really nothing but glorified vacuum cleaners. Each one has its own power plant, works on the Bending convertor principle."

"I'm not a scientist, Calvin. You might as well say it in Old Martian."

"Oh, you've heard of hydrogen fusion, haven't you?"

She nodded. "I've studied history. But isn't that dangerous? I thought it was always accompanied by tremendous radiation."

"Bending found a way to get around that difficulty. His convertor did the job without emitting any radiation at all--well, no more than is normally present in sunlight--and it draws the hydrogen from the air. Doesn't need too much. Even the moisture-content of desert air like this will suffice."

The Vaec were bringing long, flexible tubes--light, for all of their eight-inch diameter--over to the orifices in the excavator and fitting them in.

"Looks like a many-tentacled monster now, doesn't it," said Burleigh. "Who's going to run them?"

"Howard demonstrated them to Ekem-ve yesterday," she said. "I mean, he just showed him a model and took him into the control turret, and Ekem-ve got the idea at once. He said that any of his people could handle them after a single bit of instruction."

Calvin Burleigh frowned. "I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"There's no doubt about the natives' intelligence. Reminds me of that old jingle, 'The people are bright, and very polite.' Applied to the Japanese at one time, I believe, when the western powers discovered how quickly they learned methods centuries in advance of their own culture, once shown.

"But whenever we've brought advanced technology to so-called primitive or backward peoples on Earth we've destroyed their own ways of living in the process. We've killed the virtues they had and replaced them with our own highly advanced vices. And sometimes they've improved upon our vices and surpassed us in all kinds of evil."

"You think we should avoid the Vaec?"

"I think we should use such decency as we have, and not foist our values upon them. And technology is part of our values and our corruption accompanies it."

He looked in the direction of Howard James, and Burleigh's entire aspect seemed to exude anger.

"You'd like to see this expedition stopped, wouldn't you?" said Amelia. He didn't answer her.

Now Ekem-ve and Phrecle walked up to the excavator, and Phrecle climbed up the notches in the body that led to the control turret. A moment later he was inside and seated at the board.

Burleigh said, with ungrudging admiration, "You'd think that eight fingers would be in the way. Actually, the natives can spread their hands far wider than any of us, and they can handle all the important buttons simultaneously. Their co-ordination is superb. What pianists they would make!"

Amelia gasped as the four tubes lifted simultaneously, like snakes, and moved closer to Burleigh. The excavator moved on its treads over to the boundary pole, then stopped. The foot-wide mouths of the tubes came down to the sand, which seemed to be sucked up, carried through the body of the machine, then expelled in a high golden stream.

"It's hard to remember, when you see that, that a vacuum has no sucking or lifting power," Burleigh said.

"That's one thing I do remember from science," Amelia replied. "Atmospheric pressure, or artificially produced air-pressure, makes the effect. It's like water rushing through a hole in a dam, carrying everything along with it."

"But it still _looks_ as if those snakes are sucking up the sand," said Burleigh, smiling.

"Couldn't larger tubes be used?"

"Of course. At least four times as large, but that would be too dangerous. As it is, don't let yourself get caught within several yards of those openings when the power is on. You could lose an arm or leg or head before you knew what had happened."

Ekem-ve had come up to them as Burleigh was speaking. "Excellent Calvin speaks wisdom," he said. "Must keep respectful distance from excellent tube which cannot tell Vaec or excellent Earth person from sand."

* * * * *

The reel of film came to an end, and Auckland could see that considerable editing would be necessary before it was shown to the general public. The second reel was a more expert job of film-making, he soon found; the work of days compressed into minutes.

* * * * *

Four sizeable pits filled the screen, the excavators at their bottom, the tubes slithering like serpents eating up the golden sand, and the ejection spray higher and farther-carrying. The Vaec were shoring up the sides.

Ekem-ve, his single hair straight as a ramrod, came up to Dr. Howard James. "Erring Vaec misinform excellent Earth people. Storm season over, but latecomer approach." He pointed.

Over toward the east, a black dot had appeared against the blue of the sky, and it grew larger as they watched. James looked startled. "How long before it reaches us?"

"Late-coming storm hurry to make up lost time. Must leave desert right away."

James spoke into his wrist-communicator. "Phrecle, Hcent, Syeltan, drive the excavators out of the pits and head for the bluff." He pressed a button. "Attention, everyone. Pick up as much equipment as you can carry easily, and get to the crawlers. Close the tents, but be sure the finder is set. The pegs are long and deep enough so the tents won't blow away, but we may have to excavate it." He sighed. "Well, at least the shoring should hold; we'll just have to dig around it."

The black dot had now spread until it nearly filled the sky, and a gale was rising. No one was running now; all were walking, leaning against the wind, and the sand was swirling around them. There was still some light as they reached the crawlers. Ekem-ve said, "Do not worry about Vaec, excellent Howard. Vaec not get lost in storm. Pleasant to ride in excellent vehicles but not necessary. Nsenol take pictures as long as possible. Can excellent Earthmen find way?"

James nodded. "We tune our finders to headquarters, and they will show us the way." The Vaec wiggled his fingers and helped Amelia climb in, then turned away.

The excavators were a bit ahead as the crawlers, completely covered now, started out; then all were but dim shapes vaguely seen in the swirling sands.

* * * * *

The excavators were uncovering the tents, which proved to be intact. Now they were on the floor of still larger pits than those made before the storm. The black edges of a triangular shape were emerging from the golden sands.

The villa stood out, sharp and clear, as if it had been carved and painted a glossy black; the sands around it were level with its base. They were standing before a large triangle outlined in red.

"Whatever it's made of," Edholm said, "will have to be determined by spectroanalysis. You've found that it's harder than diamond, about a quarter of an inch thick, and resistant to every sort of heat we've applied. And you can't scratch it or dent it."

"Those triangles seem to be doorways of some sort," said Burleigh. "There's one on each of these buildings--no windows." He shrugged. "And no indication of how they open."

"Open sesame," Glamis called out. "You know, it might be amenable to some sort of thought-control. Suppose we all just concentrate on wishing it would open."

"Nothing to lose," said Burleigh. The group fell silent. A spot appeared in the eight-foot triangle. It widened rapidly until they could see that the material was sliding into frames.

"Since I'm wearing a protective suit, I'll go in first," said Glamis. He stepped into the opening, and a moment later, the place was filled with light.

Now all were inside the room, which was illuminated by a soft glow, revealing light-toned walls which seemed to change subtly in value as the camera moved around. It was a triangle-shaped room, empty except for objects which could be chair frames.

"Well, we've found out a bit," James said. "The lights go on when anyone comes in; so long as anyone is in, they stay on unless we 'think' them off. As soon as the last person goes out, they go off by themselves. The air in here is perfectly good. What's the measurements of the room, Cal?"

"Fifteen feet to a side, and the partition over there is made of something that looks like children's building blocks. They seem to be a sort of brick."

"And those chair frames," James went on, "are very similar to the ones the Vaec use, though the material is different. These are metal, while the Vaec use a sort of cane and matting material."

"I wonder if they're solid enough to sit in," Amelia said. "My feet hurt."

"You might draw a cultural diffusionist conclusion from those chair frames," said Burleigh. "Since the natives have artifacts similar to these, the natives must have gotten the designs from whatever civilization created this villa. Still, there's no reason for not assuming that the natives arrived at their designs independently."

"There is even less reason," said Glamis, "to postulate that the Vaec are degenerate descendants of the same--"

A cry from Amelia interrupted him. They turned to see her sitting in one of the frames. But the frame was shifting, its contours sliding to conform to her shape. And from the frames, a thin material was issuing, something that resembled web-work.

She struggled out of it; and as soon as she was free, the chair began to revert to its former shape as the webbing retreated back into the frame. Glamis laughed. "Now that is what I call service." He sat down on the frame, and the process repeated itself. "The last word in comfort," he said.

* * * * *

They stood outside the second building in the villa, the square attached to the far diamond, and watched the doorway open. "Obviously," Burleigh said, "there's machinery around here somewhere and it's still working after how many Carolinian centuries? It operates the doors and lights to thought-control, and keeps the air pure and the temperature comfortable."

Dr. James was writing in his notebook. He closed it, looked at his stylus, and said, "Let's see if any object passing that doorway will put the lights on. It might not be thought-control for them, after all." He tossed the stylus through the dark opening.

Nothing happened. "There's your answer," said Glamis. He stepped through the doorway, and they heard him exclaim. The lights came on as they followed him, to see blocks scattered over the floor. "Someone didn't straighten up," he said.

Over in a corner, was a partly-dismantled wall that had cut it off when it was complete. Burleigh went over to it, and pushed against one of the remaining blocks. It moved back easily. He pulled on the block next to it, and it came out just as easily. "Quite light," he said. "Though only about half the length of the one I pushed."

"About six by four inches, wouldn't you say?" asked James, making the entry in his notebook.

"Look at this," called Amelia. She had started to pick up the blocks on the floor, and was piling them up. It was a perfectly straight pile. She put another block on the top, a little less than true, and it seemed to slide into place by itself. They watched until she had a single column as high as she could make it. She stood back and looked at it a moment, then pushed against it. Nothing happened.

The others tried, with similar results; that single column wouldn't topple. Glamis pushed a block partway down and it gave easily, but he couldn't push it entirely free. Burleigh went around to the other side, grasped the recalcitrant block, and pulled. It came out in his hand, and the blocks above it tumbled obligingly.

"Here's something," called out James, and they saw that he had climbed over the remnants of the wall of blocks. He held what looked like a good-size box in his hands. It was covered with intricate geometrical designs, all straight lines. "Do these designs look familiar?"

"They look like the designs on the natives' clothing," said Burleigh. "See if you can think that carton open."

"It's fairly heavy," said James, leaning over the wall and depositing the box on the floor. "Oops, I think I've got it--heard a sort of click."

The top of the box opened. "I'd say it was some sort of books," he announced happily.

* * * * *

They were in a room whose walls were covered with murals, designs, and sections devoted to groups of dots and lines, with occasional diagonals. The murals looked like abstract paintings in every possible color and tone.

"Poetry, perhaps," said Glamis, indicating the groups. "It's the same characters that are in the books."

"And more of these walls of blocks, complete or incomplete," mused James. "More boxes of books in these cellar rooms. I think these murals may tell us something, in relation to the books, perhaps, if we study them. I'm going to spend some time in this cellar. I have a feeling...."

* * * * *

Roy Auckland shook his head, and brought himself back to the present. Those unedited films had given him important background details on the expedition and its members. But now the crawler had reached the edge of the diggings and was going down the ramp that had been constructed for it. He could see Howard James, Amelia, Glamis, and Edholm standing near one of the triangular doorways, and it looked as if they were arguing.

But Auckland had no eyes for them at the moment. Even though he had seen the villa in the films, there was something about it that took his breath away. For size, it couldn't compare with the temple of Karnak, just the first of many remains he had seen on Earth. For durability, it seemed less wonderful than the Roman viaducts still in operation--had it been France or Spain where he'd seen them? For a feeling of alienness, it couldn't compare with Aku-Aku. What was it then?

It was the aura of newness about the villa, he decided. It looked as if it had been built tomorrow, then time-transplanted into yesterday. It looked like a demonstration building--the very latest in architecture--never occupied, perhaps never intended for occupation. Auckland looked around at the golden sands, brighter still against the gleaming black walls of the villa. He found himself thinking of a sandpile dumped in a backyard at night to surprise a child when he awoke in the morning; sand which covered a toy the child had left outside.

Captain Walter Edholm was talking as Auckland neared the group. The spaceman stood there, half an inch shorter than Kenneth Glamis, a shade slenderer than Dr. James, and apparently between their ages. He didn't bark out commands, but their was authority in his manner.

"It's irrelevant whether these attempts were inept," Auckland heard him saying. "Until I am satisfied that there are no more booby traps in the villa, excavation and exploration is suspended. I am responsible for the safety of you all."

He turned to greet the approaching quartet. "Miss Mason, I want you to take Rouse wave photographs of every building in the villa, and of every object which has been removed from it."

"More objects?" asked Auckland.

"Just boxes and chair frames and blocks," said James, seemingly unperturbed. "I hadn't opened some of the boxes."

"Precisely," said Edholm. "Someone else may have done so." He turned to give Ekem-ve the traditional greeting, with a slight grimace. "I think you can see that this is no joke."

The Vaec's hair was perfectly still now, belying the benevolent look on his face. "Mirth departs when harmful desire enters, excellent Walter. Yet sometimes young Vaec unaware of harm--perhaps Earthman unaware?"

The question could not be evaded, for that would leave a worse impression than the truth, Auckland thought. Edholm nodded. "Sometimes Earthmen harm each other and themselves in search of mirth."

Just what did the Vaec include in that word? More than laughter; that was certain. Not folly; the adult Carolinians showed no signs of it, however foolish some of their jests might appear to Earthmen. "Forgive our foolish ways," Auckland thought.

Edholm continued, "Someone has gone too far in mirthful plans, Ekem-ve, and we must look for dangerous sticky traps. Will you and your people help Dr. Auckland look for traps, and anything else he needs assistance in doing?"

"Vaec happy to help excellent Roy," Ekem-ve replied.

"The point I was trying to make--before you arrived, Roy--was that things aren't as they seem, and shouldn't be taken at face value," Glamis put in. "I say this applies to both alleged attempts at murder. They shouldn't be taken seriously."

Edholm looked at him sternly. "On the contrary, Dr. Glamis, they cannot be taken too seriously, Dr. Auckland is in charge of the investigation and is to report solely to me. I expect every one of you to co-operate." He glanced around at each of them. "Except one, of course, and no doubt that person will put up a good show of cooperation."

Here it is, Roy Auckland thought. It's my baby now!