Resurgence

Darya Lang cut open one of the sleeping bags. She worked carefully, afraid that the tiny frozen body would crumble to dust at her touch. The creature resembled a cross between insectoid and reptilian forms. Large compound eyes, clouded in death, stared up from a narrow muzzled face. Thin lips had shrunk back to show teeth like triangular knives. Four limbs, protected at their ends by a shiny chitinous covering, wrapped across the segmented body as though making a final effort to hold in warmth and life.

“How long do think they had?” Lara Quistner asked. “Many generations, or just one or two?”

“Unless someone returns for a thorough investigation, we don’t know and we never will.” Hans Rebka turned away. “You have to wish that it could have been quicker. I’ll take the flash of a supernova any time over long, drawn-out cold.”

Darya Lang stood up. She had been making a visual recording of the corpses and their surroundings. “I think it was fairly quick. I examined the images taken from orbit, too. I didn’t notice these walled towns, but everything went too quickly for glaciation to creep down from the poles.”

“Quick, but not quick enough. Does anyone want to see more?”

“What about the other sites, Captain Rebka?” Ben Blesh was commanding the digger to return to its position on the cargo rack. Having objected to visiting this world, he now seemed reluctant to leave. “Might we learn something there?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see much variation in the towns. It will be the same sad story, repeated a thousand or ten thousand times. Starvation, cold, death.” As Hans Rebka led the way back to the car, he added to Darya Lang, “Even if it lasted only one lifetime, that was much too long. I’m inclined to agree with you, Darya, this isn’t the handiwork of the Builders. Something more inhuman, something more indifferent to organic suffering, has been at work in this system. Let’s get back to the Savior, file our report with Julian Graves—and take a look at Iceworld. It may prove more dangerous, but I can’t imagine anything more depressing than what we found here.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

To Iceworld

The Savior leaving the dead world was not the ship that had arrived two days before. Within an hour of lift-off Darya could feel the change in every person on board. It was not hard to guess the reasons.

Before their arrival, Hans Rebka had been fidgety and preoccupied. He knew that he had his own agenda in going there, but he was reluctant to tell others until he could offer proof. Ben Blesh and Lara Quistner had felt the nervousness of anyone about to undergo a first practical test. Now, Rebka’s dark suspicions had been confirmed, while Ben and Lara had performed well—no, make that brilliantly. Darya could not imagine a more competent performance.

As for Darya herself, her full confidence in Hans Rebka was restored. She was ashamed for doubting him, when he had never in the past acted out of ego or the need to prove that he was in charge.

The result of all this was a great decrease in tension. The cramped quarters of the Savior no longer felt like an overcrowded box, too small for its crew. Rebka, Blesh, and Quistner were off by the communications console, and although she could not hear their conversation, an occasional laugh suggested that it was friendly and relaxed. If some of the laughter was a reaction to the sight of ugly death, that was no more than natural. The fact that they were talking together at all suggested a major adjustment. And it was no huge surprise when Lara Quistner wandered over to Darya and sat down by her side.

“Professor Lang, I’ve been thinking.” She sounded tentative. “I want to bounce an idea off you. We’ve all heard a lot about the Builders, ever since we were kids, but it was always secondhand information. Everybody says that you are the ultimate authority on the Builders.”

“If there is any such thing. And it’s Darya, please, not Professor Lang. When you get right down to it there is no such thing as an authority on the Builders. What we know is simple. Something built and left behind a set of structures that we label as artifacts. All of them were very old—at least three million years—and most of them employed technology that we still do not understand. A few years ago, one new artifact appeared. Soon after that every one of them vanished. That’s it. There you have our complete knowledge of the Builders. Everything else is speculation.”

“But Professor Lang—Darya—surely there must be theories?”