Three days saw him out of the range of hills and onto a fairly level plain. Shortly after dawn of the next day, he approached the site of the archaeological dig.
It consisted chiefly of a long trench into which broad steps had been cut. Constructs moved slowly and carefully in the excavation, looking from a distance like metallic grubs. On the far side rested a large earthmover, and beyond that an air transporter that had brought the team here.
Jasperodus noticed that several craters, seemingly from bomb blasts, dotted the area. He sought out the team leader, a gangling figure by the name of Glyco.
‘Well?’ he demanded without preamble.
‘We shall be unable to remain much longer,’ Glyco informed him in a silvery voice. ‘Yesterday we were attacked by Borgor planes, in spite of our attempting to camouflage the site with a ground sheet. Our missiles drove them off, but they are bound to be back.’
Jasperodus was rueful. His journey had been wasted. ‘Best make preparations to depart. Are there any noteworthy finds?’
Glyco led him to a large awning. Beneath it numerous objects and fragments were laid out. ‘It is hard to say just what this installation once was,’ he said. ‘Not a town, not a single dwelling, not a factory. It seems somehow a mixture of all three. We have turned up many artifacts made of this curious substance.’
He handed Jasperodus an empty casing that was surprisingly light—lighter by far than any metal or wood, except perhaps balsa. Its pale lavender surface was perfectly smooth and shiny.
Jasperodus nodded. ‘The material was used extensively both before and during the Rule of Tergov. It is a hydrocarbon. In the course of manufacture it can be made plastic but quickly hardens, so it could very easily be moulded or pressed.’
‘One more example of Tergov’s technical elegance, then? Still, I had hoped I was showing you something new.’
‘I am afraid not.’ Jasperodus flexed the casing, admiring its strength-to-weight ratio. The material, known generically as ‘plastic’, was derived from a mineral oil once found in widespread natural deposits. Exhaustion of the natural oil reserves had forced manufacturers to revert to the more awkwardly worked metal and wood. Otherwise Jasperodus himself would probably have consisted of this ‘plastic’, as would nearly all robots—for such had been the case a thousand or more years ago.
For once there was something to be said for the cruder technology of recent times. Jasperodus liked his body of weighty steel.
Glyco handed him another object. ‘Is this more informative?’
It was a thin sheet of gold, measuring about one foot by two. Etched on it was what appeared to be a short extract from an oscillograph recording, marked by regular vertical lines that presumably represented time periods. Waves of various frequencies marched across the sheet, superimposed so that troughs and peaks met and diverged at random. Under the graph was a text inscribed in logic symbols, the neat signs of which also littered the graph itself.
Jasperodus examined the sheet closely. He had sent his team here because old maps had led him to think it might be the site of an ancient academic institute for the study of social change. Tergov had not fallen altogether unresistingly; learned men had suspected that collapse might be imminent, and had tried to gather data that might be used to allay the catastrophe.
‘It is a graph of social periodicities,’ he announced. ‘Impossible to interpret, unfortunately, since the parameters are missing. I cannot even say if the variations are economic or psychological… do you have more of these sheets?’
‘Not so far, Jasperodus.’
‘Well, keep looking.’ He studied the graph again. Interesting that it should have been thought worth inscribing on gold… The ancients had set great store on the idea of periodic cycles, applying them to all kinds of phenomena, including history. There had even been an attempt to ascribe social variations to changes in solar activity, by matching the rise and fall of trade levels to sunspot cycles. Superficially there was some merit in the idea: sunspots, like societies, were apt to display regular periodicity for centuries at a time, only to break rhythm suddenly and produce violent flurries, or else disappear altogether for a while. There was no evidence of unusual solar activity to coincide with the onset of the Dark Age, however.
Jasperodus set down the plate as another of the robots entered, speaking in a voice of subdued agitation. ‘Aircraft approach from the north! We have counted fifteen blips!’
Questioningly Glyco turned his head to Jasperodus. ‘This would seem to be a more determined attack than previously.’
‘Quite plainly we will not be left in peace to pursue our researches,’ Jasperodus decided. ‘Give the order to depart. Get everything you can aboard the transporter.’
He stepped from beneath the awning. Some distance beyond the trench two robots were manning the radar set and missile board. Almost immediately there was a WHOOSH and a slim rocket shot from its rack, gathering speed to disappear over the horizon, closely followed by a second.
The small but efficient defence unit would delay the attackers for the extra few minutes needed to make a getaway. Glyco bawled commands, striding hither and thither. Constructs crawled hastily up out of the trench. The huge earthmover, self-directed but of low mentality, caught the sense of urgency and auto-started, trundling to and fro in panic.
While the hoard of artifacts and photographs were being piled aboard the air carrier Glyco returned to Jasperodus. There will be no time to dismantle the earthmover. It will have to be abandoned.’
‘It cannot be helped.’
Loosing off their remaining target-seeking missiles, the defence robots ran for the transporter, which had already ignited its engines. At that moment a Borgor plane came spearing over the horizon: a grey, thruster-driven arrowhead. The last missile released swerved to engage it, and for a while the two performed an aerial dance until the more nimble rocket struck home, knocking the injured attack plane to the ground.
Behind it, streaking close to the landscape, came a second plane, this time to be greeted from the carrier by a fast-firing cannon which zipped out a line of tracers. Shortly another carrier-mounted weapon came into action: a beam gun whose dimly glowing ray wavered about the sky.
Neither succeeded in hitting the plane, but it banked and sped away like a startled bird. Borgor pilots would disdain to risk their lives simply to destroy robots. Just the same, Jasperodus told himself that his long journey to the archaeological site had all been for nothing. Perhaps he should have travelled by air after all… But no, that would only have brought the Borgors down on the team even sooner.
In the moments before the transporter lifted away from the dirt, he swung aboard. The carrier little resembled a conventional aircraft such as would be used to convey humans, but looked more like a winged girder bridge with swivel-mounted engines distributed one at either end and one in the middle. There were no cabins, only a cargo box; windshields welded to the girder-work provided the only protection for the passengers. Behind these, robots clung to girders as the vehicle moved forwards and began to gather speed.
Jasperodus glanced below. The earthmover had tried to join the general rush to board the carrier. It seemed desperate not to be left behind; as the carrier soared away it continued to charge haplessly after it, treads gouging twin tracks across the plain.
2
Crossing the rolling hills, the air transporter flew for some hours over a semi-arid region. Eventually it neared a prominent rubbly hill that protruded out of the middle of a flat plain.