Читать онлайн "Omega" - Макдевит Джек - RuLit

There was a similarity in design among all of them. They’d clearly not been planned, in the modern sense, but had grown outward from commercial and shipping districts, which were usually down near the waterfront. But nevertheless the cities were laid out in squares, with considerable space provided for parks and avenues. The buildings were not all of the elegance of the temple, but there was a clean simplicity to the design, in contrast to the decorative accoutrements worn by individuals.

The cities were busy, crowds jostling through the commercial areas, hordes of the creatures doing that curious duck-walk, little ones chasing one another about, individuals relaxing near fountains. And Jack realized with a shock that the natives had running water.

“Can we tell how big they are?” asked Winnie.

“Smaller than they look,” said Bill. “They would on average come up to Jack’s shoulders.”

There were a variety of structures, two-story buildings that might have been private dwellings, others that looked like public buildings, shops, markets, storage facilities. Three ships were tied up at the piers, and a fourth was entering the harbor as they watched. Its sails were billowing in the wind, and sailors scrambled across its decks.

The architecture was similar everywhere. If it lacked the Doric columns of the seaside temple, it possessed the same simple elegance, straight lines, vaulted roofs, uncluttered cornices. Just the thing, Digger thought, that would attract an omega. And he was struck by how much better the cloud’s sensing equipment was than the Jenkins’s.

THE CITIES WERE surrounded by agricultural areas, squares of land given over to one crop or another, orchards, silos, barns. A few rhinos, and other smaller creatures, grazed contentedly.

Gradually the farms gave way to forest.

Beyond the northern cities, the woods grew thick, and broke on the slopes of a mountain range that rivaled the Alps. Beyond the peaks lay jungle, and the jungle, as it approached the equator, became desert. In the south, the cities stood on the edge of more mountains, which proceeded unbroken for thousands of kilometers, all the way to the ice cap.

Where were the other cities?

Digger didn’t realize he’d asked the question aloud until Jack commented that it looked as if the isthmus was the only populated section on the planet. The other continents looked empty. The land above and below the isthmus looked equally empty.

They searched the oceans for ships and found none other than those in the coastal waters near the cities. “Looks,” said Kellie, “as if they stay in sight of land.”

“Look at this.” Digger pointed at two of the rivers that crossed the isthmus. “A lock.”

They zoomed in and saw that it was so. “They have to get ships over the high ground in the middle of the isthmus,” said Jack. “So they use a system of locks to raise them, then get them back down to sea level.”

Kellie raised a congratulatory fist. “The Goompahs are engineers,” she said. “Who would’ve thought?”

Jack was getting ready to make his report. “They’ll want to know about the population.” He looked around at his colleagues. “What do you think?”

Anybody’s guess. Winnie brought the cities up one by one. The northernmost was on the western coast, and it was probably the smallest of the group. It could lay claim to a couple of spectacular buildings. The larger of the two was set in front of a pool and looked very much like the main admin building on the Academy grounds. It was long, low, only three levels, made of white stone. It was probably a bit smaller, but the same architect might have designed both.

The other structure was round, like the temple by the sea, but bigger, with more columns. It appeared to be open to the elements. And something that might have been a sun disk stood at the apex of its roof. It looked out across a park.

Crowds were pressed into the commercial section, which was too narrow. The avenues curved and wandered off in all directions. They were lined with buildings of all sizes and shapes. Minimum twenty thousand, Digger thought. Probably closer to twenty-five. The other cities appeared to be larger. Say an average population fifteen to twenty percent more. Make it thirty thousand for each. That was a conservative estimate. And it gave, what?

“Three to four hundred thousand,” Winnie told Jack.

He nodded. Kellie said the estimate was a bit low, but Digger thought she had it about right. Jack agreed and went across the corridor to record his report.

One of the sailing vessels was making its way northward up the coast on the western sea. It was under full sail, and it looked like an eighteenth-century frigate. No Roman galleys for these guys. Or Viking boats. They clearly had no use for oars.

On the other hand, they hadn’t learned how to make an outboard motor.

“THE QUESTION,” SAID Jack, “is what we do now?”

It was night on the isthmus again, but a clear night this time, and they could see the cities spotted with lights. They were barely discernible, flickering oil lamps probably, but they were there.

“We wait for instructions,” said Jack. “They’ll probably send some contact specialists.”

“I hate to bring this up,” said Digger, “but where are the contact specialists coming from?”

“The Academy, I assume.”

“It’s a nine-month flight.”

“I know.”

“The cloud is only nine months away. When they get here there won’t be anybody to contact.”

Jack looked uncomfortable. “If they get underway without wasting any time, they’ll have a couple of weeks before the cloud hits. In any case, Hutch can get back to us within a couple of weeks and let us know what she intends. Meantime, I don’t think there’s much for us to do except sit tight.”

Kellie frowned. “You don’t think we should go down and say hello?”

“No,” said Jack. “The Protocol requires us to keep hands off. No contact.”

“Nothing anybody can do,” said Winnie.

Digger frowned. “Doesn’t the policy say something about extraordinary circumstances?”

“As a matter of fact, no.”