We crossed the bare rocky plain in single file, Pilazinool leading, Mirrik in the rear. All of us except Dr. Horkkk were armed; I carried a positron gun that was probably capable of blowing the robot up, but I wasn’t sharp on using it.
When we were within twenty meters of the robot we halted and fanned out widely. Dr. Horkkk stepped forward. In his left hands he carried a little blackboard; in one of his right hands he held an inscription node. The robot took no notice of him. It still stood as though a statue, holding the globe aloft, though images no longer came from it.
Dr. Horkkk slowly waved the inscription node from side to side, trying to catch the robot’s attention. That took courage. The robot might be easily annoyed. After a few minutes Dr. Horkkk began to copy the hieroglyphics from the inscription node onto his blackboard, keeping the blackboard turned so that the robot could see what was happening. The idea was to demonstrate to the robot that we are intelligent creatures, capable at least of copying High Ones writing even if unable to understand it.
“Suppose what he’s copying is obscene?” Mirrik murmured. “Or unfriendly? What if it makes the robot angry?”
Dr. Horkkk went on sketching hieroglyphics. Gradually the robot started to show interest in him. It lowered the globe to chest-height. It stared down at the small Thhhian, and the colors of its vision panel darkened; pale greens and yellows gave way to rich maroon, shot through with crimson threads. The equivalent of a frown, maybe? The colors of deep concentration? Dr. Horkkk’s inscription node suddenly went blank, and a new inscription appeared. Calmly Dr. Horkkk erased his blackboard and began to copy the current message. The robot seemed impressed. From somewhere within its cavernous chest there boomed sounds that our suit radios were able to pick up.
“Dihn ahm ruuu dihn korp!”
Who knows what it means? But we assume that it’s in the language of the High Ones.
Dr. Horkkk took another calculated risk. He put down his blackboard, stepped forward three paces, and said in clear tones, “Dihn ahm ruuu dihn korp!”
It was an excellent imitation. But for all Dr. Horkkk knew, he was accepting a challenge to a duel, casting aspersions on the robot’s ancestry, or agreeing that he deserved to be obliterated on the spot. However, the robot’s reaction was mild. It flashed a stream of violet light along its vision panel, extended its leftmost arm in a kind of beckoning gesture, and said, “Mirt ahm dihn ruuu korp.”
“Mirt ahm dihn ruuu korp,” Dr. Horkkk repeated.
“Korp mirt hohm ahm dihn.”
“Korp mirt hohm ahm dihn.”
“Mirt ruuu chlook.”
“Mirt ruuu chlook.”
And so on for several minutes. After a while Dr. Horkkk ventured to mix up the now-familiar words, rearranging them into new patterns to give a pretense at conversation: “Ruuu mirt dihn ahm” and “Korp ruuu chlook korp mirt” and so forth. This had the virtue of showing the robot that Dr. Horkkk was something other than some kind of recording machine, but it must have been puzzling to it to be getting these gibberish responses to its statements.
Then the robot turned on the globe. The scene that took form about us was the sequence of the construction of the vault, beginning as usual with the wide-angle view of the galaxy, then the close-up of the immediate stellar neighborhood. The robot pointed to the pattern of projected stars. Then it switched the globe off and pointed first to the very different pattern of stars in the present-day sky of the asteroid, then to the burned-out dwarf star.
That seemed intelligible enough. The robot was telling us that it realized, from the astronomical changes it observed, that a vast span of time must have elapsed since it had been sealed into the vault.
The robot now made some adjustment on the globe, and the scene of the High Ones’ city appeared. For several minutes we watched once more the High Ones moving solemnly and gracefully through their wonderland of cables and dangling structures. The robot cut it off, pointed again to the stars, pointed to Dr. Horkkk, pointed to itself, pointed to Dr. Horkkk.
Abruptly the robot turned and strode into the vault. It did something at one of the instrument panels in the rear; then it beckoned unmistakably to us. We hesitated. The robot beckoned again.
“Possibly it turned off the lightning field,” Pilazinool said.
“And possibly it didn’t,” said Dr. Horkkk. “This may be a trick designed to make us go to our deaths.”
“If the robot wanted to kill us,” I pointed out, “it wouldn’t need to trick us. It’s got weapon attachments in its arms.”
“Certainly,” said Pilazinool. “Tom’s right!”
Still, none of us went into the vault. The robot made its beckoning gesture a third time.
Dr. Horkkk found another pebble and pitched it across the threshold of the vault. No blast of lightning. That was reassuring.
“Shall we risk it?” Pilazinool asked.
He started forward.
“Wait,” I heard myself saying, as another fit of heroism rushed through my brain. “I’m less important than the rest of you. Let me go, and if I make it—”
Telling myself that at the worst it would be a quick, clean finish, I leaped up on the fallen door, stepped into the vault, and lived to tell the tale. Pilazinool followed me; then, somewhat more cautiously, Dr. Horkkk. Mirrik remained outside at Pilazinool’s suggestion; in case this did turn out to be a trap, we needed a survivor to explain what had happened to the others.
Instinctively we stayed close to the entrance of the vault and made no sudden moves that might alarm our huge host. We still didn’t know if the robot’s intentions were friendly. Much as we wanted a close look at those complex, cluttered instrument panels on the rear walls of the vault, we didn’t dare approach them, for that would have required us to get between the robot and its instruments. The robot might not have liked that.
It turned to the instruments itself and touched one of the controls. Instantly images burst forth: the same sort of screenless projection that came from our globe.
We watched a kind of travelog of the High Ones’ supercivilization. The scenes were different from those out of the globe, but similar in feeling, showing us all the magnificence and splendor of these people. We saw shots of High Ones cities that completely eclipsed the earlier one — cities that seemed to occupy whole planets, with patterns of aerial cables shifting and crossing and interlocking and apparently slipping in and out of dimensions. We saw grandees of the High Ones moving in stately procession through lofty, glittering halls, each being surrounded by dozens of robot servants of all sizes, shapes, and functions, catering to the smallest whim. We looked through tunnels in which vast machines of unfathomable purpose throbbed and revolved. We watched starships in flight, saw High Ones explorers landing on scores of worlds, stepping forth confidently equipped for every sort of environmental condition from dismal airlessness to lush tropical greenery. We received a dazzling view of this most incredible of civilizations, this true master race of the universe’s dawn. The globe had shown us only a fraction of it. Brilliant, vivid scenes poured from the vault wall for more than half an hour.
Temples and libraries, museums, computer halls, auditoriums — who knew the purposes to which those colossal structures had been put? When the High Ones gathered to watch a gyrating point of light, as we saw them do, what kind of beauty did they comprehend? How much information was stored in those glistening data banks, and information of what kind? The star-ships that moved so effortlessly, seemingly without expenditure of fuel — the elegance of the house furnishings — the incomprehensible rituals — the dignity of the people as they went serenely through their day’s activities — all of this conveyed to us a sense of a race so far beyond the attainments of our era that our pride in our own petty accomplishments seemed to be the silly posturing of monkeys.