I still wish I knew what that rock-vault scene was all about.
Your brother has distinguished himself again, this time by a brainstorm. When I got the idea, it sounded absolutely chimpo to me, but I worked up the courage to try it on Jan, who was thrilled and insisted I tell everybody about it at that evening’s discussion session. Which I did, although as I heard the sound of my own voice uttering the first few words of my wild notion, I began to feel like a tightrope performer with defective antigravs, bravely striding out over nothing at all and about to take a plunge.
There was no turning back, though.
Everybody stared intently at me as I said, “Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that the High Ones left that robot sealed in the vault and never came back for it. On an airless and waterless asteroid, a metal object such as a robot, built with High Ones technology, might very well last a billion years without eroding away or suffering other harm. This globe here is our proof that that’s possible. Therefore it’s at least theoretically conceivable that the robot is still sitting behind that thick door, as good as new.”
People began to frown, to nod, to fidget. I felt myself tumbling into an abyss. Such nonsense I was spouting! In front of Dr. Schein, Dr. Horkkk, all these experienced archaeologists!
Helpless, I went on.
“The question is, can we find the asteroid where the vault is located? I think we can. We have certain clues. The opening shot of the sequence gives us a broad pan shot of at least a thousand parsecs of space. The constellations shown, naturally, are a billion years old and don’t have that configuration any more, nor do we have any idea which sector of space was being photographed. Even so, I think any good observatory could provide us with computer simulations of various regions of our galaxy as they looked a billion years ago. Perhaps we could get a hundred such simulations, spaced two or three million years apart, to cover possible errors in our dating of the globe.
“This may locate the part of the galaxy shown in that opening shot. Next we zero in on our close-up: that little group of stars, the red giant, the binary, the yellow stars, the blue-white ones. Of course, a billion years is a long time even in stellar evolution. I imagine that those hot O-type stars cooled a long time ago, that the red giant may be a white dwarf by now, and that the white dwarf may have burned out altogether. It’s also possible that these stars may have had very different velocities and are no longer anywhere near one another in space. Nevertheless, it’s not all that tricky for an astronomical computer to find some of the key members of that group, track them backward on their paths, and come up with a simulation of where they were a billion years ago. With a certain amount of luck we’ll find the white dwarf still associated with some members of the group. An expedition can go there and hunt for the asteroid, and then it can’t be too much of a problem to find… the vault… the robot…”
I ran out of juice. My idea sounded so absurd to me that I couldn’t go on. I sank limply into my seat and waited for the derisive hooting to begin.
“Brilliant!” Dr. Horkkk cried. Dr. Horkkk, no less.
“A superb scheme, Tom, superb!” said Dr. Schein.
“Tremendous!” “Wild!” “Beautiful!” and other choice adjectives came from the others.
Mirrik snorted and bellowed in enthusiasm.
Jan beamed at me with pride.
Pilazinool stirred in his seat, twiddled with the fastenings of his left leg as though about to unscrew it, then changed his mind and waved a hand for attention. He spoke very slowly, telling us how impressed he was with my idea. In his judgment it was possible to locate the vault, and he thought there was even an excellent chance that it still would contain the robot.
“I recommend that we make contact with an observatory computer at once and learn if the location of the vault is indeed discoverable. If it is, I am of the opinion that we should discontinue work here and seek it out,” Pilazinool said. “Aside from the globe, we have found nothing here that has not been found at all other High Ones sites. We are engaged in a routine and conventional dig. But I see the globe as the first link in a chain of evidence that may reach across the entire galaxy. The vault, perhaps, is the second link. Shall we remain here, drudging away at our little tasks, or shall we reach forth for knowledge elsewhere?”
Instantly we were split into factions again. The conservative people — Saul, Mirrik, Kelly — were in favor of staying here and exhausting the present site before doing anything else. The romantics — Jan, Leroy, Steen, and me — spoke for Pilazinool’s point that we were better off chasing an exciting will-o-the-wisp across the galaxy than digging up another ten thousand inscription nodes here. 408b leaned to our viewpoint, not out of any romantic hunger for adventure but only because it wanted a close look at a High Ones robot. Dr. Schein seemed split between what he saw as our obligation to work the promising Higby V site down to the bottom, and our chance of finding something colossal on that asteroid. Dr. Horkkk, who had earlier advocated quitting here so we could concentrate on studying the globe, seemed now eager to keep on here out of pure contrariness, but I sensed that he too was at least partly fascinated by the possibility of tracing the asteroid vault.
We didn’t try to reach a decision. Why draw conclusions until we know if we can find the asteroid? Tomorrow we’ll call one of the big observatories and see.
But after the meeting broke up, we fissioned into several groups and went right on discussing. Jan and I were talking with Pilazinool, and the Shilamakka was not minded to sponge his syllables. In that smooth lathe-turned mechanical voice of his, Pilazinool said quietly, confidently, “We will find the asteroid, Tom. And the robot will still be there. And it will lead us to other and more astonishing things.”
A Shilamakka doesn’t use the future tense in quite that way unless he’s delivering The Word. If Pilazinool is right, we won’t be on Higby V much longer.
And Pilazinool specializes in being right.
EIGHT
October 1, 2315
Higby V
A very busy few weeks. We have all been working double and triple overtime, which is why I’ve made no entry in these memoirs for you, Lorie. Let’s see if I can bring you up to date in one sizzling blaze of verbiage. The important thing is that we are now committed, kneecaps, collarbones, and medulla, to my totally chimpo project for finding that asteroid vault.
It happened in easy stages, the way cataclysmic events often do. When you sink into quicksand, you don’t get sucked — sploosh! — to the bottom of the swamp in one quick glunk. No, you’re drawn in slowly thinking at first that the quicksand is just ordinary muck, that you can always pull out of it if you want to, that it’s a cinch to get free in case you decide you didn’t really want to cross that particular swamp. Suddenly the stuff is up around your shins and you get a little worried, and you move faster, thinking it’ll do you some good, but it only mires you in deeper, but you remain cool and confident, and gradually, when you’re hip deep and gently sinking, you begin to admit that your struggles are making things worse and that you’re in the sticky for keepses.
Thus I found the globe. Thus we watched the fascinating scenes. Particularly the asteroid-and-rock-vault sequence. Whereupon I suggested finding the vault. Whereafter Pilazinool lent his vast prestige to the quest. Ipso facto we took the idea seriously and went so far as to obtain the computer simulations I talked about. And then — and then-One of the first steps in our ensnarement involved borrowing a telepath from the military base, so we could transmit our astronomical data to the observatory. We did not request Marge Hotchkiss. I made it clear to Dr. Schein that her attitude wasn’t a positive one. Dr. Schein spoke to the base commander and we got one of the other TPs stationed on Higby V. Perhaps you know him: Ron Santangelo.