Slowly he became aware that one of the images was not changing radically, but rather in distance and perspective only. It was the dark world of wreckage and the sense of death and gloom, and slowly, ever so slowly, the image was coming to the foreground as the point of view resolved on some sort of eerie cavern.
He felt himself pulled down towards the cavern, and then, just inside in the darkness, there was… another.
He let out a sharp, short cry and dropped the gem, which settled back against Irish O'Brian's cleavage, and he backed away. It took him several seconds to compose himself again, breathe normally, and regain complete control of himself. Captain Murphy was looking at him, curious and puzzled at one and the same time, but Irish O'Brian had a smirk on her face that was almost unbearable.
"So you met dear Tad, didn't you?" she asked with a sense of total satisfaction.
V: OF MEN AND WOMEN AND MACHINES
"All right, lad, so just what did you see in there?" Murphy asked Maslovic when both were again alone in the lounge. "You looked like you saw your own death in that devil's thing."
Maslovic shook his head. "No, no. Not that. Something infinitely more disturbing, I think. The trouble is, I don't really know just what I saw. I can't explain it. You take a look in one next time and we can compare notes."
"No, I think not," the old captain responded. "Maybe I might have just for curiosity's sake, but after watchin' you, I ain't got no yen for that sort of thing. Makes me wonder why in hell them rich bastards pay so damn much for them things. Pay a fortune to be shocked and scared to death? I guess the rich are really different than you and me."
The sergeant nodded. "I can see the appeal, oddly enough. You just have to know where to look and sense when to look away. I don't know. Maybe even that's somebody's thrill. The pet demon in the gemstone. Nobody else would have one."
"Could be. But was it real?"
Maslovic thought a moment. "I've been trying to decide that. It's certainly real to the looker, as an experience, and I think it's possible that part of the experience, if you can call it that, is real. I'm going to have to get my datalink and see if it says anything about these Three Kings. Descriptions, maybe."
"Oh, I can tell you that. One's supposedly a kind of paradise, a Garden of Eden place, and one's a land of fire and water and mineral riches, and the third's a cold, dark place of mountains and caverns. That's all part of the legend and, I suspect, it's from the original scouting report."
"That's certainly close to where I was looking. But how is that possible? I mean, how could I see real worlds so remote we've never rediscovered them? And what of all the stuff superimposed on them? I'd love to get one of those things in the lab. Then at least I'd know if what I was looking at was a real, natural kind of gemstone or some kind of alien device that merely looked that way."
"Well, they say that nobody who looks into 'em sees the same thing, but they all see the Three Kings. Beyond that, the other images, them's personal. Sooner or later, though, everybody backs away with the absolute conviction that even as they're watchin' the show, somehow the show's watchin' them. I saw how you jumped. So did she. The difference is that she's the first one I ever heard of who wasn't scared of whoever or whatever was lookin' back. You get any idea of what the devil the thing looked like?"
"Not a bit. It was only a shadow. It was more like a meeting of minds that caused the reaction. I could sense that whatever was in that shadow could not only see me, it could look straight through me and into the deepest part of my mind. It was a sense of… oh, I don't know. Violation? Being unable to stop anybody from going where only you can go and maybe into parts of yourself you don't want to look at, which is why you put them there. Does that make any sense?"
"Kinda. Look up the term 'rape' sometime and you'll see a lot of the same feelin's and terms used. That's sexual, but there's a lot more to the act than just sex. Congratulations, Sergeant. I think you've just proved you're human after all."
"Perhaps. If nightmares are what make you human, then I guess that counts. But, the point is, we've proven two things. First, those gems are the genuine articles, and that raises as many new questions as it answers. Second, that, natural or artificial, they are some sort of communications medium. A two-way medium at that."
"Are you sure? That would make them machines of some kind in my book. Interesting."
"Not necessarily. You can create a primitive radio using quartz crystals. You can generate a mild current that is still sufficient to run some very small devices using the stored energy in a potato. No, they could still be either, and it really doesn't matter which. I now think that your legendary scout's signals were intercepted and interfered with by someone or something that did not want all the details of their existence known. They probably didn't know enough about us and our technology at that point, considering the sample they had, to react in time to keep all the knowledge from us, but it was enough. Later on, when the second expedition solved where it was somehow and made it there, it was a different story. By that point, whoever is out there had a fair cross section of humans along with their data, both in their minds and in their ship and computers, to learn quite a lot. The second contact, that exploration ship, was sent back. Sent back by whoever it is, with just enough of those gems. They knew what would happen to them, where they would go, how they would be used. Their captives or whatever could tell them that."
"You mean they were spies. Remote control windows to look at us."
Maslovic nodded. "And if they can also transmit using those things, then they could learn an awful lot fast and have unwitting agents tell them all that they needed."
"Witting agents, more like, considerin' not only them girls but also whoever is sendin' ' em to Barnum's World. "
"Now, yes. But how long ago did this legend start? Centuries, you said."
"Seems like. I dunno for sure, but it's been around longer than I have, and that's a fair amount of time. Sounds like our aliens are pretty patient buggers, though. Surely with that mind control stuff, they had enough information on us ages ago to conquer us if they wanted to."
"I don't know. Conquer might not be the right word. Maybe they're just curious. Maybe they're toying with us. The devil worship business indicates that they've achieved a pretty sophisticated sense of humor as well as a sense of how to utilize humans. Maybe there aren't very many of them. Or maybe they don't know anything more about the Great Silence than we do and think that whatever happened to our ancestors will be coming for us and then for them. It would be useful to keep us as a permanently monitored buffer race. We're only guessing, though, and those girls can't tell us. Whoever's behind them, though, is closer to us than to the alien masters, you're right about that much. Whether they're partners or surrogates for the watchers doesn't make much difference. The trouble is, if they're on Barnum's World, they're going to be a lot better positioned than we are, and they'll know us because now one of their remote masters knows me."
"I dunno where you're gettin' that 'us' business, if you include me in that," Murphy said. "I, for one, am willin' to let 'em play their silly games if their money's still good, and I think I'll be long dead before they start doin' whatever it is they're plannin' to do. Still and all, you got to figure that it ain't just you and your pilot that they know. Not now."