We filed back through the air lock into the starfish, and it rose slowly and hovered. The engine made noise, a barely audible rushing sound. It had been silent, dropping from orbit.
We rose high enough for the horizon to show a slight curve. The humans all gasped at the sight, though it was not surprising. Thousands of the ruined ships stood in precise ranks. It was an impressive display of destruction, though I was more impressed by the idea that they could raise the temperature of an entire planet enough to cause this to happen.
Before we sped away, I counted 4,983 of the relics, though presumably there were more over the horizon.
“These creatures were of course intelligent,” Spy said, “and they knew that aggression against the Others might result in their extinction. So they left a record nearby.” As it spoke, we descended toward a glittering golden dome.
“One index of their mastery over the physical universe is this hemisphere of absolutely pure gold, more than a meter thick and almost five hundred meters in diameter. Its roundness is mathematically perfect to within a millionth of a meter.”
“I wonder why they would bother to do that,” Paul said.
“To show that they could,” Namir said.
“That’s probably true,” Spy said. “It also gives the structure some resistance to certain weapons. What’s inside is more interesting, though.”
The ship floated down to rest next to the dome, the window closing as we approached the ground. The humans had been told not to remove anything but their helmets, so they put them back on, and we were through the air lock in minutes. They left Moonboy resting behind.
We picked our way over an expanse of weathered rubble. Whatever else had been here was made of less durable stuff than gold.
The dome did not have an air lock; just a door. There were unambiguous symbols incised in the metal, lines of dark dots that pointed toward a dark square. When we approached it, the square opened.
I was second to enter, after Spy, so I knew that it had been dark inside, and lights glowed on as we entered. The light was bright and warm, the same spectrum as Wolf 25.
It was a display, like a museum. There were no words, written or spoken. It was obviously designed for any audience capable of getting here and standing at the door.
In the center was a large globe of a planet that resembled Earth—more water than land, with polar caps and clouds.
“This is what the planet used to look like?” I said unnecessarily. Spy nodded and led us to the first display case.
This must have been the race that built the fleet of spaceships. The exhibits showed what they looked like, inside and out, and demonstrated various aspects of their lives.
They looked very much like us, with four legs, but only two arms, which at first made them uncomfortable to look at. They also had tails, which made them morphologically similar to the Other-prime, and presumably all the Others.
The first display was kinetic, disassembling a model of the creature, then reassembling it one organ group at a time, which was also uncomfortable to watch but no doubt educational. Likewise, the next display showed mating and budding, processes almost exactly like ours, but strange to watch.
Then it moved from the strictly biological into social, showing a thing like a playground, or the humans’ creche on Mars. Lots of immature ones living together under the supervision of two adults.
This was followed by six similar play scenes, with different details, like the background scenery or the level of technology in the rooms. In two of them the creatures were colored reddish or blue, rather than black.
Carmen figured it out. “They’re different cultures,” she said. “They’re showing the different ways their young are handled, around the planet.” That interpretation was reinforced by the next seven displays, which showed the same different cultures, or races, having meals. Then there were seven showing what appeared to be social gatherings, or perhaps religious meetings. Then seven that appeared to be athletic competitions. This brought us back around to the door.
“Seven different cultures,” I said, “but one species. They’re Martians, aren’t they? Despite having only two arms.”
There was no doubt in my mind that these creatures were our ancestors. And the Others killed them all.
Spy did not respond directly. “Be ready,” he said. “One of you is about to learn a lot.”
I was suddenly overwhelmed, overloaded with information. My legs buckled, and I collapsed, knowing that this was what I was here for, and not liking it.
12
NO SURVIVORS
I first met Fly-in-Amber back when I was “The Mars Girl,” before we knew, or thought we knew, what the different colors of Martians did. I just observed that they wore different colors and seemed to group together by color.
Five years later, we thought it was all sorted out, and his yellow family seemed to be the one that had the most obvious and easy-to-understand function. Absolute memory freaks, who never forgot anything they saw or heard.
Then, in 2079, we found out they had another job—in fact, the primary job of the entire manufactured Martian race: to serve as intermediaries between the Others and Earth’s human race. The Others couldn’t predict with any certainty when, if ever, the humans would develop spaceflight, so they created the Martians and put them on the planet that came closest to the Earth. When a member of the yellow family was taken to Earth orbit, he went into a trance and recited a complex message in a language he couldn’t understand; a language only comprehensible to the Martians’ leader, whom we called Red. He had been studying the language since childhood, knowing, like all his predecessors, that it might be extremely important but not knowing why.
The Others’ message to Red was ambiguous and disturbing. They had the ability to destroy life on Earth but might not do it. Depending on various factors.
Red was supposed to keep this threat to himself, but wound up passing it on to me, and I told Paul. We were overheard, and everything unraveled.
So here we were again, with Fly-in-Amber speaking in a mysterious tongue, but instead of Red, we had Spy to decipher it for us.
Fly-in-Amber had babbled on for about ten minutes, Spy paying close attention. Then the Martian shook himself all over and groggily got to his feet.
“Did I do it again?” he said. “Talk in the leader language?”
Spy confirmed that he had. It was all recorded, and he could hear it back in the relative comfort of the starfish, whenever Fly-in-Amber felt strong enough to move. “Two minutes,” he said, and did some kind of breathing ritual or exercise routine. Then we made our way across the uneven ground, Snowbird shuffling alongside Fly-in-Amber, supporting him.
The interior of the starfish had been reconfigured. There were enough comfortable couches for all of us and, amazingly, a deep pool of water for the Martians. They stripped with comical haste and slid into it. We helped one another out of our suits, too.
There was a table with pitchers of water and plates of what looked like cubes of cheese. Namir picked one up and sniffed it.
“It is food,” Spy said. “Rather bland, I suppose.”
Namir bit into it and shrugged. “Won’t kill us. How long?”
“That partly depends on the message, and your reaction to it.” It sat on the couch nearest to the Martians. “Sit down if you want.”
I ate a couple of the cubes. They had the texture of tofu but less flavor. I wished for salt. And wine. Maybe a whole bottle of wine, and a big steak.
Spy waited until everyone was seated. “As you may have deduced, this planet is where the Others came from, and the people, or creatures, you saw in the displays are their ancestors, in a manner of speaking.”