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

“Poison,” said Rotifer, his survival instincts at high alert.

The web settled over its victims.

The air grew cloudy and red, and it became hard to see. Blue light tracked up from the ground, the thing chittered and clicked, and everything became confused in a swirl of blood and motion. Then the place went dark.

The sounds of the struggle continued. “The equipment got knocked out,” Wincavan explained. Moments later, the picture was back, and the thing was down, dragging shattered legs, trying to get at Collin with its jaws. She lay on her back, heels dug in to anchor herself, looking for a clear shot past the tangle of fangs and limbs.

The web, which seemed to possess a life of its own, was attacking MacAido. He fought frantically to recover his pistol, which lay a meter or so away. But each movement wrapped the thing more tightly around him. It lurched every few moments, in a reflexive spasm, until his strangled breathing filled the Hall. He’d succeeded in keeping one arm free, but the web was winding strands around his neck.

Then Collin was at his side. She sliced the strands, freed him, and then fried the web with her sidearm. When she finished she walked back toward the downed rikatak, and fired twice more. Wincavan loved the moment.

Esteban finally arrived, but the battle was over.

“Nice weapons,” Rotifer said. “ We could use something like those.”

Wincavan smiled. Memori Collin’s pistol lay upstairs, in a glass case beside Candliss’s shirt.

“Good,” the Councilman said, pulling himself together. “Not quite on the level of some of the stuff Gavandy runs on weekends, but it isn’t bad.”

“Gavandy’s images are stories ,” said Wincavan, barely able to contain his frustration.

“So are these stories!” Rotifer stared hard at the older man. “For God’s sake, Emory, can’t you see that? Listen, if any of this were true, if there really were worlds floating in the sky, what happened? What happened? What are we doing here? Where is everybody?”

Wincavan touched a presspad, the image died, the lights came on, and the sedate amphitheater returned. “I’ve told you I don’t know,” he said.

“Do you have any answers?”

Wincavan walked down onto the apron where the rikatak had stood. “Who built the City?” he asked quietly.

“The Ancients. And I know that they could do quite a lot that we can’t, but that proves nothing.”

“Where did they go?” persisted Wincavan. “They must once have been much more numerous than we! The City is bigger than we can ride across in a day. It could have held many communities like ours.”

“We don’t know that there ever were other communities.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Wincavan said listlessly. “Marc, sometimes I wonder whether we’re all that’s left. Anywhere.”

Rotifer got up. It was cool, and he pulled his jacket around his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Emory,” he said. “But I don’t think this conversation is going anywhere. The Council needs money, and we either have to collect more taxes or run another auction. Probably, we’ll have to do both.”

“Come on, Marc.” Wincavan was on his feet. “Damn it, there are only a dozen left now. They’re records of who we are. They’re priceless.”

Rotifer’s eyes narrowed. “Emory, it really doesn’t matter. Even if you were right, I don’t think anyone would want to be reminded.”

In the courtyard, it was snowing. Rotifer unhitched his mount, patted the wassoon’s head at the base of its horns, swung into the saddle, and shook his cloak free. He glanced at Wincavan, flicked the reins, and rode out through the stone gate. The storm swirled in his track.

Wincavan shut the door.

He wandered through the ancient structure, past the Projector and the Machines and the sleek furniture that relentlessly outlived the generations of men. He climbed the stairs to the second level, stopped to make tea, and crossed to the museum.

Save for the amphitheater, the broad chamber on the second level was the largest room in the Hall. It was filled with uniforms, goblets, patches, statuary, black shining instruments whose use Wincavan could not guess, set in locked display cases, with illumination provided by push button. Faded murals hung on the walls. They were the only things in the room that seemed to have yielded to time. Nevertheless, it was possible to make out their subjects: cylindrical objects floating against backgrounds of stars and worlds; people standing beside machines in bizarre landscapes; a trail of fire drawn across a peaceful evening sky.

Two portraits dominated the rest. In one, a man and a woman wore the uniform of the explorers. They were clear-eyed and handsome, and Wincavan wondered who they might have been. Perhaps they represented all who had gone before. In the other, a gleaming metal ship passed beneath giant planetary rings.

He paused before the blood-spattered shirt of Oliver Candliss. Curiously, the identifying plate carried only the hero’s name, and the notation Saliron , as though its significance were obvious. Wincavan had walked with that bearded giant into dark Kahjadan, had ridden with him through the electrical skies over a black thing that engulfed whole suns, had accompanied him into the unearthly Gray Temple on Willamine which (if he understood the documents correctly, had never after received human visitors).

He stood over a silver urn, from which Abbas Ti and his team had drunk Micondian brandy before starting on their magnificent rescue of the Toller . There was pottery from the Ingundian Mines, and a row of incisors from a dragon. He smiled wickedly: no one else knew that there were such things! What visions he could induce into the smug dreams of the townspeople if he wished.

(As he walked among the gleaming cases, he felt the eyes of the goliats on his back. He knew from long experience that, if he turned quickly, there would again be only the blur of motion, dimly perceived. But in the morning, he often saw their tracks atop the walls and even in the courtyard. He would have liked to believe they were drawn by something other than the light displays.)

Memori Collin’s pistol lay under glass near the window. It was a smaller weapon than one might have guessed from the images. But its tapering snout looked no less deadly than when it had killed the rikatak.

He would have to be careful to keep it away from the auctioneers. He wondered whether he didn’t have a civic responsibility to turn it over to the town for defense against the goliats. It would be a deadly surprise to the barbarians, who were accustomed to facing only spears, arrows, and rocks. Still, he didn’t like to think of Rotifer’s faction with such a weapon. No way to be sure which way it might be pointed.

A framed document was mounted conspicuously on one wall. The stylistic design of the characters prevented his reading much of it. But it looked like a charter. An imprint of the torch that Collin and Candless and all the rest wore on their sleeves was set in the lower left corner. There were about thirty rows of text, followed by eight signatures. At the head of the document, in its title, he could make out one word: ‘SURVEY’.

Wincavan loved the warm familiarity of the room. It was the place to which he had come when his son died, uselessly and long ago, in a skirmish with the goliats. And it was here, long before their marriage, that he’d realized how much he loved Tira.

He remembered the last auction. That had occurred two years before, also as a result of the Council’s reluctance to raise taxes. The items preserved in the museum, plaques and uniforms and goblets, were not understood, and consequently of little value to the townspeople. So they had been spared. Only the crystals, those lovely gems that burned with the light of the stars, commanded substantial prices.