Colin Kapp - The Unorthodox Engineers

“Well?” said Nash.

“Soil erosion led to sand and the sand and wind conspired to form a sandblast which abraded and destroyed the strings of the harps. The failure of the harps meant loss of power— the very power essential to bring in the desalinated sea-water necessary to help combat the soil erosion. The process developed into a vicious circle—more sand, less ‘harps’; less ‘harps’, more sand, and so on ad-infinitum, every day the situation worsening as the sand robbed them of the power they needed to combat its formation.

“When the sand grew deep enough it even prevented ironwood seeds from rooting, so the rest of the forests gradually died also. The Tazoons, faced with a gradual but unalterable loss of power, took the only course open to them—they tried to migrate to the tropical regions where the climate was life-supporting without the need for power. History seems to record that very few of them ever got there, which is not surprising when you consider that the night-wind was certainly capable of blowing a Tazoon clean into the air.”

There was several moments’ silence. “And the ‘harps’?” asked Nash. “That was their sole means of power generation?”

“We’ve found nothing which would indicate otherwise.”

“What a pity! Philip Nevill had just succeeded in persuading me to lend support for a rather ambitious project. Consequent upon your demonstration of both power production and a potential source of transport, Philip was proposing to re-establish the Tazoon city, initially to cater for archaeologists interested in extra-terrestrial work, but later as a permanent colony and as a supply base for ships moving out to the Rim.”

“You mean to re-populate the place—turn it back into a living city?”

“Given time, yes. If possible also irrigate the deserts and reclaim some of the wasteland. It’s a great pity you have such admirable reasons why it can’t be done.”

“But it can be done,” said Fritz. “Given time and sufficient labour to repair the ‘harps’ there’s enough energy out there to power the whole city and a dozen others.”

“But I thought the sandblast…”

“…ruined the strings. Yes, it did—but that was before the advent of Fritz van Noon. The Tazoons probably used a plain metal wire, possibly titanium, which was susceptible to abrasion. Remember they had no organic chemistry to speak of, hence no plastics. We can use a high tensile and extremely tough steel wire with a polysilicone elastomer coating over it, which is a highly abrasion-resistant combination and should give many years’ service without trouble. Unfortunately it will damp the vibrations considerably—but then, we don’t need the degree of either heat or light which the Tazoons found necessary.”

“And you really believe the Tazoons became extinct because of the lack of a suitably coated wire?”

“Yes,” said Fritz, “just that. And let it be a lesson to ourselves. We don’t know what factors in our own technology may be lacking when it comes to meeting some new and unexpected crisis. Our development is probably as one-sided as the Tazoons, but in another direction. Therefore nothing but benefit can come from the complete assimilation of every phase of Tazoon science and technology into our own. If colonization can do that, then I’ll see you have the power to colonize.”

“For the want of a nail…” said Nevill speculatively.

“Fritz,” said Nash. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you about the possibility of permanently establishing U.E. as a branch of the Terran Exploratory task force instead of merely a section of the Engineering Reserve. How would you react to that? Of course, it would mean promotion….”

“I should personally welcome the idea, sir,” said Fritz, “but I fear I’ve already accepted another assignment on Tiberius Two. They’re trying to establish a mono-rail system there.”

“I see,” said Nash. “And just what is there about a monorail system on Tiberius Two that requires your peculiar talents?”

Fritz coughed discreetly. “I understand it’s something to do with their gravity. Apparently it changes direction by seventy degrees every Tuesday and Thursday morning… ”

The scudder slid through candy-floss clouds of cirrus and strato-cumulus so extremely Earthlike in formation that even the scudder’s well-travelled occupants felt a twinge of nostalgia for home. Far below, the green and gilded fields proudly displayed the rich bust of the planet Ithica ripening in the rays of the G-type primary. The occasional sprawl of town or metropolis betrayed the Terran origin of Ithica’s inhabitants and the results of their desire to recreate the image of a far-off homeworld. With a little imagination this could easily have been mistaken for one of the rarer spots on Earth.

But when the scudder cleared the haze of the cloud formation, the black and fearsome thing which reared above them was decidedly not of Earth.

Caught on a sudden and curious downdraught, the scudder dived steeply and then went into a mammoth power-climb that took it soaring into a wide and safe helical orbit around and finally above the livid patch of darkness.

‘So that’s it!’ said Lieutenant Fritz van Noon.

Dr Maxwell Courtney nodded. ‘That’s it. That’s what we call the Dark. What you see now is the mushroom dome. It’s all of twenty-five kilometres across, and as near indestructible as anything we’ve ever encountered. We’ve tried everything short of nukes and nothing happened at all.’

Van Noon raised an eyebrow. ‘Nothing?’

‘The Dark absorbs every erg of energy released. It swallows the whole damn lot without as much as a flicker.’

‘And you say that aliens put it there?’

‘So the records read. About two hundred Terra-years ago—long before we re-established contact with Ithica. It would seem some sort of alien vessel orbited the planet, stayed just over a day and then vanished as abruptly as it had come. It wasn’t tracked in or out. Just appeared and disappeared.

‘But it left behind this pillar of darkness, and nobody has ever found out what it’s for—or what it’s supposed to do. There’s a great many theories about it, but none which completely explains the facts. Some think that it soaks up energy and transmits it elsewhere. Some think it’s antimatter. It’s even suggested that an alien colony lives inside it.’

It can’t be antimatter,’ Fritz pointed out. ‘It’s in contact with the ground, not to mention air molecules, dust etc.’ He looked across and grinned. ‘There would have been a hell of a bang!’

Courtney nodded acknowledgment. Fritz asked: ‘And what’s your own opinion?’

Courtney shrugged. ‘After three years of scientific examination I still don’t know what to think. At some time or another I’ve held most of the current physical theories only to discard them for another.’

‘Is it uniform right the way down?’

‘It’s really shaped something like a bolt,’ said Courtney. ‘The shaft proper is about seven kilometres in diameter and about thirty kilometres high. It’s capped by the mushroom head here which extends out to about twenty-five kilometres in diameter and apparently defines the region of the Pen.’

‘The Pen?’ van Noon looked up from his notes. ‘What’s that?’

Courtney smiled fleetingly. ‘Sorry! That’s local terminology. I mean the apparent penumbral shadow of reduced effects which surrounds the pillar of Dark. It’s a twilight region about nine kilometres average depth, the outer reaches of which are easily penetrable, and the inner regions connect with the Dark. It has an interesting sub-climate too—but you’ll see that for yourself later.’