Poatas waved one hand impatiently, “Not an actual Involucra; that is unlikely.”
“But not impossible,” Leratiy added.
“Not impossible,” Poatas agreed.
“There could be some sort of stasis mechanism or effect pertaining,” one of the younger experts suggested. “Some loop of time itself.” He shrugged. “We have heard of such things. The Optimae are said to be capable of comparable feats.”
“It scarcely matters whether it is a real Involucra, though I repeat that it is most unlikely to be one,” Poatas exclaimed. “It must be an awoken machine of Optimae sophistication to have survived so long! It has been buried for centiaeons, perhaps deciaeons! Rational, interrogatable entities of that antiquity turn up in the greater galaxy not once in the lifetime of any one of us! We must not hesitate! The Nariscene or the Morthanveld will take it from us if we do. Even if they do not, then the waters will return all too soon and sweep who-knows-what away! Can you not see how important this is?” Poatas looked feverish, his whole body clenched and expression tormented. “We are dabbling about on the fringe of something that will resound throughout all civilised space! We must strike! We must make busy with every possible application, or lose this priceless opportunity! If we act, we live for ever more! Every Optimae will know the name of Sursamen, of the Hyeng-zhar, of this Nameless City, its single Nameless citizen and we here!”
“We keep talking about the Optimae,” Oramen said, hoping to calm Poatas down by seeming sober and practical himself. “Should we not involve them? The Morthanveld would seem the obvious people to ask for help.”
“They will take this for themselves!” Poatas said, anguished. “We will lose it!”
“The Oct have already half taken it,” Droffo said.
“They are here but they do not control,” Poatas said, sounding defensive.
“I think they could control if they wished,” Droffo insisted.
“Well, they do not!” Poatas hissed. “We work with them. They offer us that.”
“They have little choice,” Leratiy told Oramen. “They fear what the Nariscene judgement would be of their actions. Whose judgement would the Morthanveld fear?”
“Their peers among the Optimae, I imagine,” Oramen said.
“Who can do nothing, only register their so-civilised disapproval,” Leratiy said contemptuously. “That is without point.”
“They might at least know what it is we are dealing with,” Oramen suggested.
“We do!” Poatas said, almost wailing.
“We may not have any more time,” Leratiy said. “The Oct have no interest in telling anyone else what’s happening here; however, the news will out soon enough, and then the Nariscene or indeed the Morthanveld may well come calling. Meanwhile,” the senior technician said, glancing at Poatas, who seemed almost to be trying to climb out of his skin, “I agree with my colleague, sir; we must move with all possible speed.”
“We must!” Poatas shouted.
“Calm yourself, Poatas,” Leratiy said. “We can throw no more men at the three other cubes without the extra just getting in the way of those who already know what they’re doing.”
“Three cubes?” Oramen asked.
“Our Nameless one insists that its memories and, perhaps, a few other faculties lie in three specific cubes out of the ten black objects we know about, sir,” Leratiy said. “It has identified them. We are preparing to bring them here, to it.”
“It must be done, and quickly!” Poatas insisted. “While we still have time!”
Oramen looked at the others. “Is this wise?” he asked. There were some concerned looks but nobody seemed prepared to identify such actions as unwise. He looked back at Leratiy. “I was not informed of this.”
“Time, again, sir,” Senior Technician Leratiy said, smiling and sounding both regretful and reasonable. “Of course you will be informed of everything, but this was, in my judgement, a scientific matter which had to be arranged with all possible haste. Also, knowing something of the situation pertaining outside this place — I mean, in effect, between you and Regent tyl Loesp — we did not want to add to your burden of cares before any physical movement of the cubes had actually taken place. You were always, sir — but of course — going to be informed of our intentions once the moves were ready to be made.”
“And when will this happen?” Oramen asked. “When will they be ready?”
Leratiy took out his watch. “The first in about six hours’ time, sir. The second in eighteen to twenty hours, the last one a few hours after that.”
“The Oct press us to do so, sir,” Poatas said, addressing Oramen but glancing sullenly at the senior technician. “They offer to help with the manoeuvring. We might move faster still if we’d only let them.”
“I disagree,” Leratiy said. “We should move the cubes ourselves.”
“If we slip, they will insist,” Poatas said.
Leratiy frowned. “We shall not slip.”
A messenger arrived and passed a note to Droffo, who presented it to Oramen. “Our furthest airborne scouts report an army moving towards us, gentlemen, from Rasselle,” Oramen told them. “They will not be here for another week or more, travelling by road. So, we have that time.”
“Well, army or meltwater, we must have our result before we are inundated,” Poatas said.
“Dubrile,” Oramen said to his guard captain, “would this be a better place to defend than my carriages at the Settlement?” He nodded to indicate the great chamber they stood within.
“Most definitely, sir,” Dubrile replied. He looked at the massed Oct. “However—”
“Then I shall pitch my tent with our allies the Oct,” Oramen said, addressing all. “I stay here.” He smiled at Neguste. “Mr Puibive, see that everything necessary is brought, would you?”
Neguste looked delighted. Probably at being called “Mister”. “Certainly, sir!”
It was a quiet time in the chamber, at the end of another long shift. Most of the lights had been turned off, leaving the whole huge space seeming even greater in extent than it appeared when lit. The Oct were taking turns to return to their ships for whatever reasons occupied them, but still over nine out of ten of them remained in the places they had occupied when Oramen had first seen them, arranged in neat concentric circles of blue bodies and red limbs, all perfectly still, surrounding the scaffolded Sarcophagus.
“You think it will reveal itself and be like you, that it is actually an alive example of your forebears?” Oramen asked Savidius Savide. They were alone on the platform. The others were absent on other duties or sleeping. Oramen had woken in his hurriedly thrown-together tent — fashioned from some of the same material that had shrouded parts of the scaffolding round the Sarcophagus — and come up here to talk with the being that called itself Nameless. He had discovered Savide, just floating there in front of the pale grey patch.
“It is as us. Mere form is irrelevant.”
“Have you asked it whether you truly are its descendants?”
“That is not required.”
Oramen stood up. “I’ll ask it.”
“This cannot be relevant,” Savide said as Oramen went to stand before the Sarcophagus.
“Nameless,” Oramen said, again taking up a position closer than the focal point.
“Oramen,” the voice whispered.
“Are the Oct your descendants?”
“All are our descendants.”
Well, that was a new claim, Oramen thought. “The Oct more than others?” he asked.
“All. Do not ask who is more than who else. As of now, without my memories, my abilities, I cannot even tell. Those who call themselves the Inheritors believe what they believe. I honour them, and that belief. It does them no end of credit. The exactitude of it, that is another matter. I am of the Involucra. If they are as they say, then they are of my kind too, at however great a remove. I cannot pass judgement as I do not know. Only restore me to my proper capacity and I may know. Even then, who can say? I have been in here so long that whole empires, species-types, pan-planetary ecosystems and short-sequence suns have come and gone while I have slept. How should I know who grew in our shadow? You ask me in ignorance. Ask me again in some fit state of knowingness.”