"Invaluable stuff," Beekman said. His tone gave him away: Even if we lose the people, maybe it will have been worth it.
Lori's voice broke in: "Preliminary maneuvers are complete. We are on course."
They found a portrait in one of the cubicles.
It was mounted on a wall, hidden behind a layer of dust, but when Hutch peeled it away and wiped a cloth over it, the images came clear.
Two of the crickets were pictured on either side of a hawk, which must have been three times their size. It was difficult to be sure about scale because the hawk was visible only from the breast up.
The crickets wore the placid expressions of philosophers. They were draped in cowls, one hooded, one bareheaded. The skulls appeared to be hairless, and she saw no indication of eyebrows. Despite the prejudice induced by her knowledge of the technological limitations of their society, Hutch read intelligence in their faces.
The otherwise fearsome appearance of the hawk was diminished by the staff it carried. Its only concession to clothing was a dark ribbon tied around one shoulder. The chest was broad, and it owned a crest that stood proudly erect. It dwarfed its companions. Yet that they were companions was impossible to doubt.
The thing had a predator's eyes and fangs and fur where Hutch might have expected to see feathers. She was struck by the composure manifested by the crickets, who might easily have been gobbled down by such a creature.
There was something else.
"What?" asked Nightingale.
She couldn't make up her mind about the sex of the two crickets. But the hawk? "I think it's a female," she said.
Nightingale sighed. "How can you possibly tell?"
"I don't know, Randy." She tried to analyze her reaction. "Something in its eyes, maybe."
Nightingale reached for the picture and was pleased to see that it lifted from its mount. It was too big to put in his pack, so he simply carried it.
They had by then mapped much of the ground level of the structure. The elevator to the orbiting station had been located on the eastern side, at the juncture of north-south and east-west concourses. The upper levels, judging by their scale, seemed to have been given over to the hawks. It seemed that the crickets used only the ground floor.
It was getting dark when they got to the north side. Here they were cautious because this was the part of the structure that, according to Marcel, jutted out over the edge of the mountain.
They came to a collapsed ramp and looked down into a lobby at another portrait. Hutch used her vine, against his protests, to descend and retrieve it. It was a full-length image of a hawk.
It had no wings.
"That figures," said Nightingale. "It's too big to fly."
"Even if it had big wings?"
Nightingale laughed, but he kept it down. "Really big wings," he said. "Something as massive as we are, like that thing apparently was, would never be able to get off the ground under its own power."
"Maybe it comes from a world where the gravity is light."
They both spoke consistently in hushed voices, as if anything at normal decibels would be inappropriate. To remind them, when either got too loud, the sound echoed back.
"That's possible," Nightingale said. "But the gravity would have to be very light. And if that were the case, I don't think these creatures would have been at all comfortable on Maleiva III. No, I doubt there's anything avian about these things. I'd bet neither they nor their ancestors ever flew. The hawk resemblance simply gets us thinking that way."
Hutch knew that Kellie would want to take a look at all this, and they'd been inside now for a long time. "Time to start back," she said.
Nightingale looked pained. He would have gone on forever, if he'd been permitted. "Why don't we hold up just for a few seconds?" Off the northern concourse, twin ramps led down one level. "Let's take a quick look downstairs, then we can go back."
"Two minutes," she said.
They descended and found another broad passageway whose walls were covered with inscriptions in the six languages. Sometimes, instead of just a few words, there were whole sections of twenty lines or more devoted to each group of symbols. "This would be just what they need," she said. "We translated one of the languages of Quraqua with a lot less than this." It was an exciting prospect, but the wall would have to be cleaned and restored before it would be of much use. She used the microscan to get as much as she could, knowing that they were losing most of it.
There were other inscriptions. These were short, usually only two-or three-word groups. Hutch recognized the characters from the uppermost line on the artifact they'd found at the site of the hovercraft.
She tried to imagine the concourse when it was alive.
They came to a series of wide doorways, all on the right-hand side. Each opened into a chamber about four meters wide. The rooms were devoid of any kind of furniture.
She poked her head in, saw nothing, and went to the next one.
There were eight of them, of identical dimensions. Hutch looked in each, hoping to be surprised. They had low ceilings. Designed for the crickets.
At last they stood together in the eighth room, at the end of the passageway. There were no artifacts, no inscriptions, nothing. Just bare rooms. "Let's go," she said.
She started out, and the room moved. It was a momentary quiver, as if a pulse had gone through the building.
Quake, she thought.
Something began to grind in the walls. The room lurched.
"Get out, Randy!" She bolted for the exit. A door was already sliding, banging, clanking down out of the overhead. Nightingale froze, and she turned back. And then it was too late. She pulled up, and her chance was gone. The door chunked to a stop, a hand's width off the floor, and then crashed down onto the dirt. It cut off the light, and Hutch found herself crouching in the dark. She turned on her wrist-lamp.
"This is not good," said Nightingale.
The grinding in the walls got louder. The floor inched up. And fell back.
Mira's voke broke over the circuit: "What happened?"
"Don't know. Stand by."
Nightingale aimed his laser at the door and thumbed the switch. A white beam licked out, and the gray surface began to blacken. Then the floor dropped abruptly. Startled, he lost control of the laser and swept the room with it before dropping it. As designed, the thing automatically snapped off.
The room fell. Stopped. Slipped down a few meters.
"My God," said Nightingale. "What's going on?"
"Another elevator. A working one, looks like."
The chamber crunched down again. Marcel was on the circuit now. "What's happening? What's your situation?"
Canyon was still there, but aside from a word of encouragement, he kept mercifully quiet. They continued to bump, vibrate, and drop.
"On my way," said Kellie.
"No. Stay with the lander."
"I can't help from here."
"I don't think there's much you can do over here either."
Nightingale looked panicked. Probably like herself.
Something rattled beneath the floor.
The ceiling was too low for either of them to stand straight. They picked a corner of the room and retreated into it.
The grinding eased off, but the elevator continued its erratic descent. She used her laser to finish the job Nightingale had started, cutting a substantial piece out of the door. It was dark outside, and the fog was thick as ever. But the glow of her lamp revealed no wall. Instead she saw only a gridwork of struts and beams.
"What do we do?" asked Nightingale.
She widened the hole, making it big enough that they could get out if the opportunity offered. "It'll have sharp edges, though," she cautioned him. "Be ready to go if we get the chance."