The Trojans, too, had lost to the invaders in their black ships just as the defenders of Helena had lost to the invaders in their shimmering white craft. The Trojans stupidly fell for a simple trick and lost it all; the defenders of Helena dithered until the invaders had already breached the inner walls and they could no longer decide. In both cases, their worlds died by the unwitting duplicity of their defenders. Ancient Troy vanished off the face of the earth for three thousand years, and existed after only in partly excavated ruins. Helena was in a century of darkness which might last as long as Troy’s but for this one second chance.
It was odd, he thought, fighting the pains, that only military men knew any history in this day and age. Nobody else really cared. Nobody else had to repeat the mistakes of the past.
He leaned back into the hole. “Hamille! Do you have them?”
For a moment there was no answer. Then the croaking voice of the Quadulan came back, echoing slightly, “Yes. I see them. Old-fashion memory bubbles, but labels are clear. Need to type in code phrases to unlock case. Very hard with my tentacles. Will do it.”
“Take it slow! No mistakes!”
The three phrases, one from each member of the triumvirate who created this project so long ago, were all in Greek. One was a line from a poem about Helen of Troy, the second a quotation from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, the third a line from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. All had to be typed in on a Greek alphabet manual keyboard embedded in the security casing by a creature for whom the instrument was not designed.
The pains had subsided, almost vanished, but now they seemed to be starting up again as he saw in his mind’s eye the serpentine alien trying hard to hit every last alpha and omega.
It could have been worse, he told himself. It could have been ancient Mandarin.
And if it worked, if Hamille got it all right, if that case popped open and the electronic code keys were in its grasp, could they make it back up? Could he make it back up? It was a very long way, and he was so very, very tired.
Time passed slowly while they could do nothing but sit and wait, hungry and thirsty, and very, very tense. With so much idle time, though, none of them could avoid talking about things most on their minds.
“What happens when and if N’Gana and Hamille come back with the keys?” Kat mused. “I mean, how the hell do we send it up to the others? Whoever does will be the same kind of target that Jastrow was.”
“I will send them from the spaceport security system, which is still operational if I can shift the majority of power to it,” the mentat told them. “The codes are supposed to be on standard data keys, although encrypted. I can’t read them or copy them, but I can transmit the encrypted codes. If, as you say, your people have the station in standby mode, then it will receive the signals. Once it does, then targeting and shooting will be as simple as someone up there in the command and control chair willing it so.”
“The moment you send, they’ll blast you,” Harker pointed out. “Probably send some of their creations down to make sure we’re not hiding any other surprises, then they’ll reduce this whole thing to lava.”
“I know. I do not know how to deal with that, but I must accept it. It is difficult for me to contemplate the end of my conscious existence, but I see no other way. I have understood this ever since Jastrow filled in the blanks, as it were. You must be well away when I transmit. Out of the coastal plain, certainly. We have no way of knowing how long it will take those on Hector between getting the codes and being ready to implement them. I should like to be able to see it in action, even once. If I am to cease to exist, I should like to know that it was for a good cause.”
God, I think we’re building our machines too well, Kat thought, but said nothing. Instead, she asked, rather rhetorically, “And then what happens to us, I wonder? We’re not going to get back to the ship. Not with those monsters in the way and the rafts surely dissolved by now…
“We survive until they come to find us and take us off,” Harker said. “And you get to really do a field study.”
She sighed. “I wonder if they’ll bother to try and find us? How could they anyway? We’ll just be two more savages out there on a world that, even if it’s freed of the Titans, will be a pretty low priority for exploration and rebuilding, I suspect.”
“Well, we have nothing else we can do but settle down and wait for them, no matter when or if they come,” he noted. “Not unless we build and launch a boat that can sail out to the island. It’s a possibility, if we use all natural wood and have the time—and I think we’ll have the time.”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” she asked, genuinely interested.
“I think it’s possible, yes. I know how to do it, although that’s with modem tools and the like. From scratch it’ll take a lot longer, but it’s possible. If the grid’s down and the Titans are run off, at least nobody will want to stop us, and maybe we can have a straw hut and a fire and all the rest. That’s if we survive the next few days, anyway.”
“It’s worth a try. I’d like to try,” she told him. “I keep being afraid that we’ve already been somewhat reprogrammed.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“The general program for all survivors. The one they transmit constantly over the grid, and which transfers itself to us via that nightly special rain. I’ve been thinking about it and about us and how we changed even in so short a time. We should be dead. Instead, we’ve become more like Littlefeet and Spotty. Think about it. After the first couple of days, did any of us think of doing the absolutely normal thing and finding some kind of cover or shelter from that storm? No. Even though we knew that it was ruining our stuff, we started walking right out into it. That’s the first directive. Be sure you can get the message. Maybe even the chemical bath. We’re already part of their experiment. Everything in the world, this world, gets bathed like that. We eat it, drink it, wash in it. Even if the grid collapsed, I think it will continue, at least for a while. And yet I want that boat, Gene. I really do want to ride in that boat.”
It may have been hours, it may have been a day, but suddenly there was a sound from the shaft. Slowly, an exhausted Hamille oozed out onto the rubble and collapsed, breathing very hard. They rushed over to the Quadulan expectantly. “Where’s the colonel?” Kat asked.
“Did you get it?” Harker wanted to know.
“Go down and help the colonel,” the alien croaked, each word a heaving breath. “He is not that far but he is in trouble.”
Harker sprang to the shaft, saw the jump to the ladder, made it, and quickly started down, his old ship’s reflexes giving him total confidence.
He found N’Gana mostly by the moans and gasps, perhaps seventy meters down, sitting on the platform and holding on to the ladder.
“Colonel! Can you make it? Come on! I’ll help you!”
“No,” N’Gana gasped. “I will make it on my own. You can’t carry me up there, you can’t pull me up, and if you follow and I fall, I’ll take you with me.” He fumbled for something, then handed a small box to Harker. “Take them and go back on up! I’ll follow you if and when I can! Go! Without those, it’s all meaningless!”
Gene Harker understood, and grasping the box firmly, he went back up the ladder toward the light above.