"Hey, look at this,” Veronica said from across the alcove. “These carvings remind me of those dying rocktopi squirming around after the battle. Who says there's no beauty in their art?"
Connell walked over and stared at the detailed carvings. The artist, probably dead before human civilization ever began, had sculpted details of an alien culture with such skill that even another species could clearly identify rocktopi in the throes of agony. While less than an inch high, each of the rocktopi seemed to vibrate and shudder, captured in a limestone freeze-frame of death. There were hundreds of them. He took a step back, letting his cone of light widen. Some light from the Dense Mass cavern filtered in through the alcove entrance, but only the headlamps let them see proper detail. Dying rocktopi covered the wall.
"What do you think this means, Roni?” Sanji asked.
"Got me, but I wish we could talk the bastards into a repeat performance,” Veronica said.
"This explains quite a lot, I think,” Sanji said, bouncing his finger along the symbols on the wall, like a second grader doing rudimentary arithmetic. “I think this was a plague or disease of some sort. About fifty-eight hundred years ago, if we have their number system correct."
Veronica studied a small, two-frame section of the carving. The first frame showed a living rocktopi with a number on the right-hand side, the second showed an obviously dead rocktopi, also with a number on the right-hand side. “It looks like they lost… twenty-four thousand… three-hundred… and five."
Sanji gasped. “That many died?"
"Looks like about six thousand lived,” Veronica said.
"So they had thirty thousand rocktopi down here?” Connell asked. “There's no way there could be that many."
"Look again at that ship outside, Connell,” Sanji said. “It would hold thirty thousand with ease. And this tunnel system could accommodate ten times that number. What is significant here is that they lost eighty percent of their population. That could explain why they're so primitive. Who knows how much of the leadership and knowledge died in the plague."
"So what?” Connell asked. “Surely if they can move mountains they have computers that store all their knowledge."
"Yes, but you are thinking short term,” Sanji said. “When the plague hit, we estimate they had already been down here for over six thousand years. How long can any computer last, even one from an incredibly advanced civilization? Surely things break down eventually."
"Nothing lasts that long,” Veronica said. “What do you think would happen to America if all of the computers stopped working, you had no means to replace them, and then you lost eighty percent of the population, eighty percent of the knowledge? And it looks like its taboo to enter the ship — where the vast majority of their technology was probably kept. They instantly went from a sophisticated, technological culture to a subsistence existence."
She crouched near the bottom of the curved wall. “Their computers may have shut down, but their little robots were working overtime. Take a look at this."
The carvings showed hundreds of dead rocktopi in one square. The next showed a silverbug, its legs seeming to pull together a pair of smaller rocktopi, and the frame after that illustrated the young rocktopi entwined together in an indefinable mass of tentacles. The last frame showed dozens of tiny rocktopi babies frolicking around the deflated corpses of the former lovers.
"What do you think it means?” Connell asked.
"I think,” Sanji said with reverence, “that the silverbugs matched up rocktopi resistant to the disease."
"You mean they bred them?” Connell asked. “Like cattle? They're fucking machines! How could they breed intelligent creatures?"
"Formerly intelligent,” Veronica said. “They might as well be cattle now."
"Such a disaster would devastate their gene pool,” Sanji said. “They apparently breed in pairs, like us, so we can assume genetic crossover determines their traits. With only six thousand individuals, recessive traits would show very quickly. This explains why they're so barbaric — they have regressed to a primitive state due to thousands of years of inbreeding."
Connell checked his watch. They were six minutes late — he'd gotten lost in discovery and forgot to track the time.
"We're going, and right now,” Connell said. He grabbed both the professors by the arm and pulled them away from the wall. Sanji resisted slightly while Veronica came limply along with all the emotion of a stuffed doll.
Sanji protested. “We need to see more of this!"
Connell pulled them out of the alcove. “We need to get back to the others and get out of here alive. We have to go."
They quickly left of the alcove, Sanji's strong legs supporting Veronica's bum ankle.
Angus walked out of the ship canyon and into the bright light of the artificial suns. He saw O'Doyle crouched over a prone Lybrand. She had clumsy, bloodstained bandages wrapped around her head and forearms.
Dammit, Angus thought. I don't have time for this shit.
Upon seeing Angus coming, O'Doyle hopped up on his good foot. “Thank God you're back. Lybrand's hurt and her KoolSuit is damaged. There are new silverbugs, with knives attached—"
"I know,” Angus interrupted. “I saw. One of them got Randy."
"He's dead? You're sure?"
"I'm sure,” Angus said. “Believe me, Randy's dead."
"I'm sorry,” O'Doyle said. “They almost got Lybrand. Come here, I need you to patch up her suit."
"We already cut up all the gloves. There's nothing left to patch it up with."
O'Doyle's eyes narrowed. “You'll find something.” His voice was thick with threat. “You'll come up with something fast or she'll be wearing your KoolSuit, understand?"
Angus swallowed hard and nodded. O'Doyle was badly hurt, limping around on his one leg. Angus didn't delude himself — O'Doyle could kill in a heartbeat. He had to get out of there. He couldn't outfight this Cro-Magnon, but he could outthink him. Angus scanned the area, finding little but dirt and rocks, the ship, and the river.
"Okay,” Angus said, trying to reassure O'Doyle with a smile. “Just relax, big guy. I'll come up with something. I'm a genius, remember?"
"Just do it quickly. She's running out of coolant."
Angus moved to his pack, which had been shredded by O'Doyle's knife. He set the scrambler down and started rummaging through the pack's contents. “I'm sure I've got something in here,” he said loudly, making a production of digging through the meager supplies. The truth was he had nothing. KoolSuits couldn't be jury-rigged, they had to be repaired with the proper ducting material. Without a good patch, the tiny ducts would continue to bleed coolant until none remained. Without the coolant, Lybrand would soon suffer the consequences of the intense geothermal heat that permeated the caves.
"Here's something,” Angus said. “Tell her to hold tight.” He had something all right. He had the computer map, and he had a vacuum-packed flotation device. The device weighed less than four ounces, but when he pulled the seal air would rush into the spongy material and fill millions of tiny chambers. Within a few seconds after pulling the seal, the floater could support the weight of a two-hundred-pound man. He glanced up at O'Doyle, who stood only a few feet away, hand on the hilt of the knife stuck in his belt.