Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

The next day different sections of the hillside were marked off according to how promising they’d proven the night before. The excavation parties turned up a steady stream of new artifacts. Some were made of familiar materials, wood and bone, but most were various alloys, including several neither September or Williams could identify.

Unexpectedly, the wooden artifacts were what the teacher found most intriguing. When Ethan asked him why, he replied, “Because they mean this region cannot have been deserted very long, in geologic time. While it’s true the cold air would preserve cellulose materials for a while, it is not desert-dry. Nor is the soil devoid of minute organisms and bacterial agents, which would also act to break down the wood—though they are scattered through the soil and nowhere very populous.

“This wood is in far too good condition to have lain buried for any great length of time.”

They decided to remain several days and unearth all they could. But a new discovery soon altered their plans.

The two scout parties sent out to search for a passage through the hills returned. Their crews babbled out an impossible tale, so laden with gestures, expressions and adjectival phrases that Ethan and his friends were hard pressed to make sense of any of it.

While they debated uncertain terms among themselves, Ta-hoding and his crew launched feverish preparations to get underway. At that point, Ethan cornered Hunnar and refused to let him pass until he explained what was happening.

“Suaxus, my squire, was in the first boat,” the knight said, trying to control his obvious excitement. “They found a pass through the mountains. Only, they aren’t mountains.”

“You’re not making sense, friend Hunnar,” September prompted.

“They traversed this pass and emerged on the other side of this range. It seems the wind blows harder, or steadier, or both, on the other side. What is buried here lies revealed there.” He turned, indicated the partly excavated hillside.

“These are not mountains, they are buildings.” And he broke away to perform some important task before Ethan could think to ask anything more.

Only Williams accepted this news calmly. “It makes sense, not to mention explaining the preponderance of artifacts we’ve found.” The icerigger was already racing for the recently discovered pass. “There are similar buried cities on many Commonwealth worlds, Ethan. The same winds which would cover an ancient metropolis could later uncover it.”

“Assuming that’s what we’ve found—who built it?”

The teacher eyed Ethan, pursed his lips. “Who knows? The Tran obviously don’t, nor do the Saia, who are supposed to know so much about this land. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll find out. Perhaps they are people who no longer survive on Tran-ky-ky but who gave the Saia their legends of other worlds.”

The pass turned out to be much wider and smoother than anyone had a right to expect. So straight was the gap between hills that unnatural forces were suspected. Ethan wondered if they excavated straight down, would they eventually strike pavement?

Once through the slopes they turned east, inland and away from the cliffs. They did not have to travel far. Dirt and rock were piled here also, but much stonework could be seen rearing planes and angles toward the sky, reminding Ethan of a partially eroded graveyard. Here it was the bones of dead buildings which stood revealed to the air.

The ground rose skyward not in a smooth slope as on the other side, but in graduated levels. “See?” called Williams, pointing out different stone work and designs on each level. “This is not one building, as the scout parties assumed, but new structures raised atop the old. As each older structure was buried, it formed a foundation for the next building erected on the same spot. One town on the skeleton of the old.” His hand swept eastward.

“We are looking at an ancient series of cities, not a cluster of monumental buildings. We can only guess at how far it extends. Since we’ve been paralleling similar rises nearly all the way from Moulokin, it’s possible similar towns are buried beneath each of them. They may all form part of a single lengthy metropolis at least several hundred kilometers long.”

The crew furled all sail and anchored the icerigger against the wind. Everyone not on watch scrambled over the side to marvel at the colossal architecture.

“One thing I don’t understand.” Williams tried to rub an eye, remembered his mask, raised it slightly to admit a comforting finger. “It would be natural to expect the topmost structures to be the most sophisticated in design and execution. Yet from what I can see the architecture is nearly identical from top to bottom, town to town.”

“I’d like to know who’s responsible for all this.” Ethan scrambled carefully across the fine but slippery talus. “Now I’m even more positive it’s not the Tran. Look at those arches, those wide windows.” He balanced himself on a partly buried rectangular block that must have weighed several tons, pointed upslope and to his right.

“And that building almost exposed over there. The roof’s too flat to resist snow buildup, and it’s lined with what looks like glass to me. A skylight, on Tran-ky-ky? Not with the quality of glass the Tran make. A decent day’s wind would blow it to splinters. Unless, of course, it’s something more than normal glass.”

“Perhaps the Saia did build this after all, and have just forgotten about it, young feller-me-lad,” ventured September. “A selective memory about such matters would keep ’em from gettin’ embarrassed about letting so much knowledge slip away.”

They uncovered one building after another: homes, warehouses, public meeting places, even what seemed to be an open amphitheater. An open stadium, on Tran-ky-ky!

It didn’t take thirty years experience or several scientific degrees for Tran as well as humans to postulate a climate completely different from the present.

Having come to that realization, Williams left the archeology to Eer-Messach and others. Using the primitive Tran navigation instruments and the inadequate but useful ones included in each survival-suit’s kit, he devoted himself to a night-time examination of the stars. Not the most intricately formed metal cup or detailed inscription cut into stone could dissuade him from his sudden fanatic interest in astronomy. Vacuum-clear skies, Tran navigation charts and old tales seemed to reinforce his determination to keep at his lonely cold night studies. Ethan could imagine what the teacher was trying to prove.

He was only partly right.

The teacher was deep in conversation with Ta-hoding when Ethan finally sought confirmation of his suspicions. “I don’t mean to interrupt, Milliken, but I’d like to know for sure—why this sudden interest in local astronomy? I’d think you’d be grubbing away in the cities instead of freezing out on deck at night. “You’re trying to find proof that the climate here was once much warmer, aren’t you?”

“Not just here, on this plateau.” Williams was only stating what to him was obvious and not being in the least insulting. A less sarcastic human being Ethan had never met. “Everywhere on Tran-ky-ky. The physical evidence inherent in the buried metropolis coupled with what little I’ve been able to calculate tells me that this was so. More importantly, it indicates to me who built these successive cities.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Milliken. Who was it? The Tran, the Saia, or some now extinct people? I’ll bet it was the latter, and when the climate turned cold everywhere, the builders died. The Saia were contemporary with them and keep their memory alive in legends.”

“Plausible, but I think, incorrect.” He adjusted the calculator built into his sleeve. “These cities were raised by both the Tran and the Saia.”