Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

Cort grumbled something I couldn’t make out and walked past me toward the statue.

Three or four lamps were now playing across its face from the guys who stood back at the entrance. They showed no inclination though to come any closer.

The lights gave life to the features. His eyes tracked me, the lips curved into a smile. It gave me chills, I’ll admit that.

His features radiated power. And superiority. Though any guy twenty feet tall is going to look superior. The sculptor, if indeed there had been a sculptor, had given him an aura of the supernatural.

I checked in with the office, let them know what I’d found, and, at their instruction, told my crew they could take the rest of the morning off. Until a decision was made what to do about the discovery.

Cort waited until I got off the circuit. Then he said, “Eddie would be interested in this.”

“Who’s Eddie?” I wished Cort would follow the others outside. Get some fresh air. Do something constructive. Just please don’t hang around and make suggestions.

“Come on, Blinky,” said Cort. “Eddie Trexler. My cousin. You know him.” Since he’d come back from prison, Cort seemed to have trouble breathing. You could always hear it, always knew when he was nearby. He probably shouldn’t have been working down in the subways, but he was on the bishop’s list and we couldn’t get permission to transfer him.

I vaguely remembered once getting introduced to Trexler. A long time ago. But I couldn’t recall anything about him. Or why he would possibly be interested in the chamber.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” said Cort. He was always ready to skate at the edges of the law. It was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You know the rules.”

“All they say is we have to report something like this. You’ve done that. Did they tell you to keep everybody out?”

“No.”

“There you are, then.”

“That’s what they want, though.”

“Hellfire, Andy, if that’s what they want they ought to say it.” He fished a phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to give him a yell.”

Then he was gone. It wasn’t worth a confrontation. Cort thought I got in line too easily, and sometimes I had to rein him in. But this didn’t seem like one of those times. If he got himself and his cousin in trouble, so be it.

The giant gazed down at me. I went over and touched him, touched his thigh, brushed away some of the accumulated dust. He was bronze.

The lights were gone now, save the one I was carrying. I felt alone.

You’d never have known Eddie Trexler was a relative of Cort’s. Where Cort was heavy and unkempt and probably indestructible, the cousin was tall and reedy and pressed. He owned a high-pitched voice and wore thick glasses, and he walked like a duck.

But there was no doubting his enthusiasm when he shook my hand and, without waiting for permission, climbed past me into the space. Trexler was a clerk at the Department of Theological Studies, but his hobby was ancient history. He’d brought one of those large lanterns that will light up a city block. He was two steps inside when he switched it on and put the beam on the statue. “Magnificent,” he said. His voice had gone a notch higher.

Cort chuckled. “He asked me to say thanks for asking him over.”

“Sure,” I said. “My pleasure.” We followed him in.

He stood gawking at the figure, at the wall, at the columns. Even at the concrete blocks. “I never thought I’d live to see anything like this—.” And, “You know what this is, Cort?” And, “Lovely.”

“It’s a statue,” I said. I could have added that it desperately needed to be washed, that it was chipped in more than a few places, that it was half-buried. That it was blasphemous.

Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image.

But I let it go.

“Do you know what it is?” Cort asked him.

“I have an idea.” He plunged into the space, climbed over the debris, studied the statue, touched one of the standing columns, and closed in on the wall. On the inscription. Then he went behind the wall and looked at the blocks. “Nicely fitted,” he said. “Seamless.”

“Yes,” we both replied, though I doubt either of us had noticed.

“This is big news,” he said. “If it’s what I think it is.”

“Why, Ed?” I asked. “What do you think it is?”

“Look at the writing on the walls. This place is prediluvian. Before the flood.”

“Okay. And your point—?”

“Look at the blocks.”

“What about them?”

“Think why they’re there.”

“Why are they there?”

“They tried to save it,” he said, as much to himself as us. “God help them, they tried to save it.”

“Yes,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to.

“It must have sunk during the flooding. Too heavy. It was more than thirty thousand tons. Add all that concrete—.” He shook his head. “And here it is.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“That means—.” His eyes gleamed with a light of their own. “They knew the flood was coming.”

“The Great Flood?”

“Yes. Official doctrine is—.”

“That it happened without warning,” said Cort.

“Correct.” He pressed his palms against the stone, as if to read a message hidden within the cold gray surface. “That’s going to stir the pot a bit.” He pulled a camera from a sweater pocket and began taking pictures.

Cort stayed at his side, fascinated. “Can you read any of it, Ed?”

“Not really. If we can get it clean, we should be able to figure it out.” He turned back to me. “Cort tells me you’ve alerted the authorities.”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s a requirement.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know. Pity.”

I couldn’t miss the implied accusation. “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t have a choice. We’re law-abiding.”

He told me it wasn’t my fault. “How long will it take them to get here?”

“No way to know,” Cort rumbled, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

Trexler began trying to clear the symbols. Cort and I joined in. But it was hard going and we didn’t make much progress. He stepped back and took more pictures. And frowned. “ Publish, ” he said, finally.

“What? Publish what?”

“This word means publish .” It was about nine lines down. And, four lines below that: “ Reliance .”

He shook his head and glanced at me again. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could go out and head them off when they get here.”

“You mean the police?”

“Yes.”

“What would I tell them?”

“Anything you can think of.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I could get away with that.”

He rolled his eyes. And in that moment noticed the overhead inscription. “What’s that?”

“More letters,” said Cort. “I’ll try to slow down the police.”

“Thank you.” He threw a withering glance in my direction. Then he returned his attention to the roof. “That’s in better condition up there,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I was trying to decide what to do. I kept seeing the police hauling off all three of us.

“ …Have sworn… ”

“What?”

He was still looking up. “It says have sworn , and there’s alert off to the right.”

“Okay.”

“No. Wait. It’s altar .”

I watched him change his angle and stand on his toes as if getting an inch closer would help.

“ Mind of man at the end.”

I heard the sound of arriving vehicles.