I perused more objects in the grid, then moved to the benches, where more items were laid out for inspection.
I moved into one of the adjoining rooms. There was something different about the degree of organization this time. The grid was the same, but the objects in it had been sorted into rough groupings. In one corner cell was a pile of spiky, metallic red pieces that obviously had something in common with the swordlike object I had examined in the other room. In another lay a cluster of dense, curved pieces with fragmented green patterning on each. Each occupied cell held a similar collection of vaguely related objects.
I examined another room, but soon felt that I had seen enough to form a ready opinion. The various categories of relic clearly had little in common. If they had all originated from the phantoms—either wrecked or damaged or attacked as they passed through the Infrastructure—then there was only one conclusion to be drawn. There was more than one type of phantom, which, in turn, meant there was more than one kind of alien.
We were not just dealing with one form of intruder. Judging by the number of filled cells, there were dozens—many dozens—of different alien technologies at play.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. Our probes and instruments had swept the galaxy clean and still we had found no hint of anyone else out there. But these rooms said otherwise. Somehow or other, we had managed to miss the evidence of numerous other galaxy-faring civilizations, all of which were at least as technologically advanced as the Mongol Expansion.
Other empires, somehow coexisting with ours!
I was ready to return to Qilian, but, at the last moment, as I prepared to ascend the ladder, something held me back. It had all been too simple. Anyone with a pair of eyes in their head would have arrived at the same conclusion as I had. Qilian had said it would be a test, and that I must pass it.
It had been too easy so far.
Therefore, I must have missed something.
When we were back on the cable car, nosing down to the geysering surface, Qilian stroked a finger against his chin and watched me with an intense, snakelike fascination.
“You returned to the rooms.”
“Yes.”
“Something made you go back, when it looked as if you’d already finished.”
“It wouldn’t have been in my interests to fail you.”
There was a gleam in his eye. “So what was it, Yellow Dog, that made you hesitate?”
“A feeling that I’d missed something. The obvious inference was that the collection implied the presence of more than one intruding culture, but you didn’t need me to tell you that.”
“No,” he acknowledged.
“So there had to be something else. I didn’t know what. But when I went back into the second room, something flashed through my mind. I knew I had seen something in there before, even if it had been in a completely different context.”
I could not tell if he was pleased or disappointed. “Continue.”
“The green markings on some of the relics. They meant nothing to me at first, but I suppose my subconscious must have picked up on something even then. They were fragments of something larger, which I’d seen before.”
“Which was?”
“Arabic writing,” I told him.
“Many people would be surprised to hear there was such a thing.”
“If they knew their history, they’d know that the Arabs had a written language. An elegant one, too. It’s just that most people outside of academic departments won’t have ever seen it, any more than they know what Japanese or the Roman alphabet looks like.”
“But you, on the other hand—”
“In my work for the khanate, I was obliged to compile dossiers on dissident elements within the empire.
Some of the Islamist factions still use a form of Arabic for internal communications.”
He sniffed through his nostrils, looking at me with his penetrating blue eyes. The cable car creaked and swayed. “It took my analysis experts eight months to recognize that that lettering had a human origin. The test is over; you have passed. But would you care to speculate on the meaning of your observation? Why are we finding Arabic on phantom relics?”
“I don’t know.”
“But indulge me.”
“It can only mean that there’s an Islamist faction out there that we don’t know about. A group with independent space-faring capability, the means to use the Infrastructure despite all the access restrictions already in place.”
“And the other relics? Where do they fit in?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I told you that, in addition to items we consider to be of unambiguously alien origin, we’d also found scraps of other vanished or obscure languages—or at least, scripts and symbols connected to them—what would you say?”
I admitted that I had no explanation for how such a thing might be possible. It was one thing to allow the existence of a secret enclave of technologically advanced Islamists, however improbable that might have been. It was quite another to posit the existence of manysuch enclaves, each preserving some vanished or atrophied branch of human culture.
“Here is what’s going to happen.” He spoke the words as if there could be no possibility of dissent on my behalf. “As has already been made clear, your old life is over, utterly and finally. But there is still much that you can do to serve the will of Heaven. The khanate has only now taken a real interest in the phantoms, whereas we have been alert to the phenomenon for many years. If you care about the security of the empire, you will see the sense in working with Kuchlug.”
“You mean, join the team analyzing those relics?”
“As a matter of fact, I want you to lead it.” He smiled; I could not tell if the idea had just occurred to him, or whether it had always been at the back of his mind. “You’ve already demonstrated the acuteness of your observations. I have no doubt that you will continue to uncover truths that the existing team has overlooked.”
“I can’t just… take over, like that.”
He looked taken aback. “Why ever not?”
“A few days ago, I was your prisoner,” I said. “Not long before that, you were torturing me. They’ve no reason to suddenly start trusting me, just on your say-so.”
“You’re wrong about that,” he said, fingering one of the knives strapped across his chest. “They’ll trust who I tell them to trust, absolutely and unquestioningly.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s how we do things around here.”
So it was. I joined Qilian’s investigative team, immersing myself in the treasure trove of data and relics his people had pieced together in my absence. There was, understandably, a degree of reluctance to accept my authority. But Qilian dealt with that in the expected manner, and slowly, those around me came to a pragmatic understanding that it was either work with me or suffer the consequences.