Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

The best way to stay awake was to get on her feet. She strolled over to a nearby spring and, for the fourth or fifth time, splashed water on her face. Then she checked the horses, which were in a clearing. They’d seen a black bear during the course of the day. The bear had looked at them without interest and rumbled back into the woods. But the creature had frightened the animals and unnerved Chaka. She was thinking about the bear when she heard a sound that did not belong in the forest.

She was uncertain at first what it was, something sharp and precise.

A twig snapping?

She laid one hand on her pistol but left the weapon in the holster.

Where was it coming from? She melted into the trees. It sounded again.

There was something almost rhythmic about it. And metallic.

She needed several minutes to zero in on the source, but she arrived at last in front of a post. It was made of one of the Roadmaker materials that felt like iron but did not corrode. It was three times her height, and was tangled with a sassafras tree.

The post was of a type that was common in Roadmaker ruins. Sometimes it was made of concrete, sometimes of pseudo-metal. But it was usually found near intersections, and it usually contained red, yellow, and green lenses. But this was the first one she’d seen that made noise.

The sounds formed a distinctive predictable pattern. Click. Count to six. Whir. Count to six. Click. Count to thirty and start a new series.

She stood a long time watching it, listening to it. These places are all haunted. At last, she returned to the fireside, where she had no more trouble staying awake.

In the morning, they discovered a brick building buried in the trees. A metal plate identified it as the First Merchants Bank. A cornerstone added:

It was a lovely morning. The woods were damp and the air was filled with the smell of green grass. The First Merchants Bank looked intact.

Flojian, who had an affection for commercial institutions, wanted to look inside. “I’ve never seen one in such good condition,” he said.

The forest overgrew the walls on all sides and pushed in through the main entrance and jammed tight an inner set of revolving glass doors. But they found a window whose frame was loose. Quait almost casually ripped it off.

Flojian looked in, saw a long counter, workstations, writing tables, desks, and chairs. Several rooms and two corridors opened off the lobby. He climbed through and descended onto a dirt-covered floor. He was behind the counter. Each of the workstations had the apparently ubiquitous glass sheet and housing that he had seen at the Devil’s Eye.

Although Illyrians thought of banks purely as money lenders, the concept of a centralized institution coordinating the flow of currency was not completely foreign. Flojian had been in the vanguard arguing for the establishment of a League bank and a common monetary system.

He stood now, visualizing how this bank had worked. Customers lined up at the counter to deposit money, which would be duly credited to their accounts, and interest paid. That same money would be loaned out to other customers, probably in confidence. That meant loan officers would be located in the rooms centering on the lobby. These loans would be used to capitalize individual enterprise, and they would be paid back at a fixed rate from the profits. All very neat, and a much more progressive system than the one he’d been faced with, in which opportunities were often not exploited and growth not achieved simply because funds were not available.

Quait came in behind him.

There were eight positions for cashiers. And there appeared to be a ninth one, facing out, at the point where they’d entered. (He didn’t understand that at all.) Each position was furnished with a workspace and a drawer. He opened one and was delighted to see coins. “Marvelous,” he breathed. “Quait, look at these.”

He picked up one of the larger coins, wiped it off, and held it in the sunlight. It was a quarter-dollar, its name engraved on the reverse, under the likeness of an eagle. He smiled appreciatively at it, slipped it into his pocket, and began to scoop out the others.

“Take as many as you can carry,” he advised Quait. “This place is scary,” said Quait, who seemed not to have heard.

“How do you mean?”

Quait opened another drawer. More coins. And more. Every drawer was filled.

“So what’s your point?” asked Flojian.

“These people left so suddenly, they didn’t even take their money with them. How bad could the Plague have been?”

“Bad, I guess. I really have no idea.”

“Remember what Mike said? They just didn’t come to work one day and he never saw them again. Here, they left their money. If we look in the shops, the merchandise is still there. Or what’s left of it. It’s as if they just walked off the Earth.”

“Listen,” said Flojian, “why don’t we talk about this later? I’m running out of pockets.”

Flojian saw movement. Incredibly, a writing table near the front door rose onto three legs and strode forward into the center of the lobby. His hair rose. It looked like a six-foot-tall drawing board with a tapered head connected to a short pliant neck. Two flexible limbs emerged from beneath the table top, and one of them pointed something that looked like a pipe or nozzle in their direction. “Stop what you are doing,” came a voice from directly overhead. “The police are on their way. Do not move unless directed to do so. Weapons will be used if you do not comply with all instructions.”

Quait swore softly. “Lay down your guns and come around the counter.”

Flojian debated his options and glanced at Quait. Was the nozzle a weapon? A gunfight with a machine that could simply walk over and shoot them did not seem promising. He heard Chaka behind him, in the window, say that she didn’t believe this.

He took his gun cautiously from his holster, laid it on a table, and walked out into the lobby. Where he got the shock of his life.

Several piles of skulls and bones were heaped up on the floor at the base of the counter.

Quait came out behind him and caught his breath.

“We didn’t mean any harm,” Flojian said. “We’re just passing through.”

“Police are en route,” said the overhead voice. “Remain where you are until they arrive.”

“What police?” demanded Quait. “There are no police here.”

“Remain where you are until they arrive or I will use force.”

Flojian looked down at the bones. “Some of these people are still waiting.”

Chaka disappeared from the window.

The table stood about ten feet away, swaying lightly on its tripod frame. But the nozzle, which was pointed at a spot midway between him and Quait, never wavered.

“What do you suggest?” he asked Quait, without taking his eyes off the thing.

“It looks a little rusty. The gun might not work.”

“You want to take the chance?”

“We might have to. It’s going to be a long wait for the police.”

Flojian’s heart was pounding. This was ludicrous. He was being held hostage by a writing table. But he was scared all the same. “How do you know the police are coming?” he asked the ceiling.

No response.

“I’m going to try backing away,” said Quait. He shifted his weight. Moved a foot.

“That’s far enough. Take another step and I will fire on you.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Quait said.

“There won’t be another warning.”

“This is crazy,” said Flojian.

Chaka was back. With a rifle. But before she could begin to

bring it to bear, the nozzle moved past Flojian and he heard a sound like sizzling steak. Chaka screamed and dropped out of sight.