Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

“What shall we do?” Harri asked worriedly.

For the moment Tomson’s shoulders sagged. He would have wished not to have the responsibility of a decision. Should he call on Gano, head of the Olgarchs, for his orders in this emergency? Then he straightened his frail body. No! This was his province; he must handle it himself.

He tried to keep his voice from quavering as he issued what he thought were crisp commands. “Blast away the outside layers of rock, Harri, then the inner wall of the chamber. But be careful not to harm anything within. We must examine the bodies of these strange beings who have been buried, for who knows how long, under the very foundations of Hispan.”

Harri gave orders. The Workers obediently moved into action. The borers hummed and bit through the hard stone like so much melted butter; the blasters whiffed the surrounding layers into impalpable dust, which was instantly sucked into vacuum conveyors and whirled aloft to the atom crushers for conversion into power.

“That’s enough.” Harri gestured.

The borers stopped, the blasters died, and the last thin layer was gone. The chamber lay exposed to their view.

The thin yellow gas swirled out, dispersed into scattering particles. The air rushed in, laved the silent figures. At a word, a Worker lumbered over to the radium pellet, thrust it into a leaden receptacle, sealed the top. It did not matter if his hand were burned by the deadly radiations in the process.

Harri gulped. His eyes almost bulged out of his head; the skin twitched over his face with rapid jerks. “Look, Tomson,” he gasped feebly. “They’re alive!”

Tomson felt the perspiration start out on his bald brow, in spite of the fact that the temperature was more than a degree below his accustomed normal. The Workers looked uneasy. Alarm gaped on their lowering faces. The chief Technician had sufficient presence of mind to order them sharply to their quarters, though their shift had still some time to go. It was unprecedented, but so was the situation in which he found himself.

The Workers went hastily, shuffled into the conveyor tube, lifted swiftly to empty eating quarters, chattering at what they had seen.

Tomson and Harri were left alone to face those risen from the dead.

Sam Ward was the first to return to the interrupted processes of life. He had been under the retardant influences a lesser period than Kleon. As the preservative gases fled, and fresh, clean air took their place, he opened his eyes. He yawned; he stretched unwittingly. He did not know what had happened. It seemed, for the first few seconds, that he had merely aroused from a particularly deep and healthful sleep.

Then he blinked. Was he dreaming? What the devil was this place? Who were those curious creatures who stared at him as if he were a new species of insect? His eye fell on the outstretched figure of the man in armor. The figure was moving, was sitting up!

With an exclamation, awareness flooded Sam. San Felipe, Juan, the jungle, the pyramid, the Mayas, the stumbling into this cave, the entrapment, then—blankness--

He jerked to his feet swiftly. The gun whipped out of its holster, leveled. “All right,” he said harshly. “What is this masquerade about?” His question was directed to the two outlandish figures before him. This jungle was spewing forth more and more strange things. They were not Mayas, but neither were they members of any human race he had ever come across. And those intricate machines that filled the background of the cavern. He was sufficient of a physicist and engineer to realize that they were far in advance of the year 1937.

Tomson shook his head sagely. This was indeed a matter for Gano. His brain clicked keenly. After all, he was a chief Technician. He knew something of the history of the world in the dim days before it died, and Hispan was isolated in a protective film. These were primitives of those earlier eras, somehow immured in this underground chamber, overlaid with the rocky accretions of centuries. The radium pellet, the gas that had dissipated, had kept life intact, though static.

It did not surprise him either that the stranger spoke an archaic variant of the tongue of Hispan. There had been a universal language on earth before it died. As for the curiously fashioned bit of metal in his hand, that was obviously a weapon. Doubtless solid pellets issued from its orifice. He was not afraid. Fear had been bred out of the Technician class. Besides, one touch of the blaster inset at his side, and stranger, weapon and all, would go to feed the energy units of the atom crushers.

“Masquerade?” he repeated slowly. “That is a word I do not know. But you require much explanation—you, your comrade, and this place in which you have laid as one dead. The questioning I shall leave to Gano.”

Sam Ward lowered his gun. Surprise at the clipped, curious syllables of this little man with the high, bald forehead and single belted garment of lustrous material gaped his jaw. It was English, in a sense, and understandable, but-

At this instant Kleon rose lithely to his feet, caught up his short Macedonian sword. He seemed like a god among mortals—his fair blond hair, his calm blue eyes that took them all in with one sweeping glance. This, then, was the future, ten thousand years ahead. The gymnosophists from the Roof of the World had not lied. He was disappointed, a bit contemptuous. Were these the beings of the future? Could a Greek of Alexander’s day, steeped in Aristotle and Aeschylos, find meet companionship with these spindly, feeble creatures who stood before him?

Then his eyes met those of Sam Ward. Ah, this was a different manner of man. He took in, approvingly, the tall, well-shouldered body, the evidence of power and muscular development, the steady gray of eyes, the level brow. Here was a man who could fight as at a frolic—and judge wisely—a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Sam was bewildered. Quetzal had come to life. These others—It was getting damned confusing, nightmarish even. He whirled on Kleon. “And who the devil are you—Quetzal, Maya, or what?”

Kleon stared quietly. This was a language strange to him, a bit barbarous, if the truth must be told, with its harsh consonants and lack of mellifluous vowels. Yet there were two words—Quetzal, Maya. He understood them. Those copper-colored Cimmerians on whose far shore his trireme had been driven had called themselves Mayas, and they had termed him Quetzal, and bowed down in worship.

“Your tongue is unknown to me, my friend of a future that is now,” he said calmly. “But I recognize the words Quetzal and Maya. The barbarians called me Quetzal; why, I do not know. But I am Kleon of Athens, who had journeyed far with mighty Alexander, and whose ship had been driven to a strange coast. There was no return; Hotep and the Egyptian slaves burned the ship. It was not meet for a Greek to rust out his life with barbarians. I therefore availed myself of certain magic taught me by the gymnosophists and slept into the future, hoping then to meet beings fitter to converse with an Athenian. Ten thousand years should have elapsed. I confess I am taken with your presence, stranger, but these two others are beneath my notice. Are they perchance your slaves?”

Sam Ward did not even know he had slid his gun back into its holster. This was becoming entirely too incredible. First two weakling creatures who spoke a distorted English, yet were obviously of an advanced civilization. Now the god in shining armor, risen from the dead, speaking in ancient Greek, avowing matters beyond all possibility. For Sam had studied Greek at college and recognized the long surges, the mighty flow of that noblest of all languages.