David Brin - The Loom of Thessaly

“Yes, yes. I get the point.” Pavlos was pleased. He had managed to get the information out of Frank without asking for it, and picked up an opportunity to mutter with fatherly impatience at the same time. Such minor stylistic victories helped make a pleasure out of a lazy afternoon.

“So what I can’t figure out is why you thought it so important to show this to me at my apartment, and in such secrecy, hmmm?”

Frank sat down.

“Oh, hell. You know this is low-priority stuff, Pav. Ever since you helped us find that capsule in the Sahara, you’ve known that my main job is to experiment with space-borne antimissile systems. When I started getting strange results in my accessibility studies, I just couldn’t get anybody interested.”

“All right.” Pavlos smiled. “Then I am your informal consultant. Now show me these ‘strange results’ of yours.”

Frank pulled a large envelope from his briefcase. He drew the first of several glossy prints from it.

“This is from the same general region, only about thirty kilometers to the southwest of the corner of that large overlay. I want you to take a close look at this area, in particular, before I show you a bigger blowup.” Pavlos bent to peer at the plateau Frank pointed out, bringing over his magnifying glass.

His smile faded as he studied the photo.

“I cannot say for certain, as your lines of probability get in the way… but it appears that this water course loops back upon itself! It makes almost a natural moat around the hilltop.”

Frank nodded. “I’ve tried to use the newer telescope we have on board. It’s tied in to our experimental beam weapons system…” Almost unconsciously, Frank lowered his voice, although he knew that Pavlos’s apartment was secure.

“I could count the number of black fleas on the backside of a dog with that machine. But it’s a bitch and a half getting the thing tuned properly, at this stage. I’m not at all sure I’d be able to devote that kind of time and effort using it on what’s essentially a side project, especially when NASA’s already paranoid over security. At least I’d like to get some sort of preliminary confirmation before taking the risk.”

Pavlos nodded. As a reserve NATO officer who occasionally helped out in expeditions to desolate regions, he had seen examples of amazing photography from space. And he had the feeling they hadn’t ever shown him all they could do.

“So let us see the best you have.” He waved with his right hand as Frank pulled out the fourth photo. “You have me curious about this mystery of yours.”

It showed a plateau in the middle of a set of concentric, parched creek beds, surrounded by rugged, goat-ravaged hills. At the corners of the photo there were signs of humanity, as one would expect everywhere in a land that had been inhabited at high density for four thousand years. In two places there were the ubiquitous shepherd’s shacks for overnight shelter. Goat tracks lay everywhere.

But in the center, all trace of man and animal disappeared. Puzzled, Pavlos peered closer. “Are those…? No, they cannot be.”

“What are they, Pavlos?”

He rubbed his chin. “I believe those are cedars , very large cedars, of a kind you can only find in the Caucasus these days… or on the estates of old and very wealthy families.”

“There are no estates here, Pavlos. What else do you see?”

“There are cypress, and some other large trees I cannot identify, and…” He peered closely. “There is a building of some kind. A large, rectangular structure, mostly shaded by trees.”

Frank stood up straight and tapped the photo.

“See these faint lines? I had the computer draw them along curves of accessibility . See the gradients? If all roads lead to Rome, then all roads, all trails—hell, all goat tracks —lead away from this place. Now, how the hell could anyone have built a thing that size on top of that plateau?”

Pavlos sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Then he started rummaging through his jacket pocket for a cigarette. Only when he had one lit did he get up and start to pace.

“I see two possibilities,” he began. “The building may be modern, in which case it could have been prefabricated and taken to the peak by helicopter. The question then would be why? And who would do such a thing? How did they keep it secret?”

Pavlos turned to look at Frank. “That is the possibility that interests you, is it not? Things like this make intelligence officers sleep poorly.”

Frank nodded, but said, “I tried to interest my superiors but they didn’t care. They even forbade me to ask the Greek government about it. Our allies are already touchy about the extent we can peer down at them. I’m stuck with following this up on my own.”

Pavlos nodded. “Ah. To be expected from politicians and soldiers, present company excepted. Well, there is a second possibility. If the structure is more than fifty years old, it would have taken fanaticism to build it on that site… a brand of fanaticism that has not been seen in this land for many centuries.”

“And that ’s the possibility that interests you, isn’t it?” Frank suggested. “You’d just love to find an untouched Roman temple, or a pristine Nestorian monastery or hermitage, wouldn’t you?”

Pavlos stopped pacing again, took a deep drag from his cigarette, then waved it at his friend. “I have a feeling I am being persuaded to do something. Is this so?”

Frank had smiled.

Pavlos put away the photos and shouldered his backpack. Pain resumed at once, spreading from chafed shoulders down his spine and arms. For the ten-thousandth time he wondered what masochism could drive a man who wasn’t in the army to put forty pounds on his back and go places a donkey would refuse.

When he reached the chosen site he took out his machete, looped its thong from his right wrist, and began climbing.

No classic ascent, this. None of the clean exhilaration of a challenge with goldline, harness, and carabiners against a bare rock face. The danger here would not be from a single fall—likely to be broken by shrubbery—but from jagged rocks, nasty thorns, poisonous snakes, and plain agony. Cerebration would not help so much as watchfulness and stoicism.

At first the hillside was steep. The foliage was thick enough to bar his path, but too poorly rooted to use for support. It came free of its roots in his hand, leaving him teetering on the crumbling soil. Finally he hit on the technique of tearing the bushes loose on purpose, opening a path to crawl through.

Soon, however, the slope flattened just enough to give the roots leverage. He found himself again and again forced to take detours… every one of which led him inevitably downward. Finally, he had to lay on his stomach to worm among the burrows and insect nests, shoving upward by brute force.

It was neither a time nor a place for finesse.

He hacked at roots with the short machete. The tough, springy bushes bled a gooey yellow sap that soon coated his hands with a cloying, binding stickiness. Perspiration ran in clammy streams along his sides, under the leather jacket. The sun burned down through a muggy haze. The smell of his own sweat mingled with the evil stench of the thorn shrubs.

Repetition soon became automatic. Reach, pull, hack, hack again, and again, until the plant tears free… keep flat, crawl through the gap, ignoring the jutting rocks and jagged root stumps… reach, pull, set your legs, hack… hack… hack…

Shortness of breath made him regret his lost youth.

He kept his mind on only one idea. Take no detours ! Every easier path inevitably led downward. It became easy to tell which way was the right one. Pavlos looked for the worst, most miserable path. It was invariably correct.